r
his claims, and deal falsely with his arguments; we may reject his
offers, and, shrinking back from his touch and his helping hand,
retire into the gloom of self-satisfied pride, preferring the darkness
to the light; or we may make merry with Heaven's ambassador, and mock
him as they did the prophet of old; or cry out, "Away with him!" as
the world cried to the Lord of light and life. And what if the second
ambassador never comes again with such pressing earnestness, but
passes by the door once so rudely closed against him, and will knock
no more? Or, though he may in mercy return again and again, what if
the eye gets blinded by the very light which it rejects? and the ear
becomes so familiar with the voice, that it attracts attention no
more than the winds that beat upon the wall; and the heart becomes so
hardened as to be unimpressible, until the dread sentence is at last
passed,--"Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched
out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my
counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your
calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as
desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress
and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will
not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for
that they _hated_ knowledge, and _did not choose_ the fear of the
Lord: they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled
with their own devices."

A young man came to Jesus seeking eternal life. "Jesus, looking on
him, loved him," and answered his prayers by teaching him how eternal
life could alone be attained. But the young man went away sorrowful,
because he had much riches. What a history was contained in that brief
moment of his life!

Again, young King Agrippa, along with the young Bernice, hear a sermon
from Paul the prisoner. The outward picture presented to the eye on
that day had nothing more remarkable or peculiar about it than
has been witnessed a thousand times before and since. Those royal
personages entered "the place of hearing" with "great pomp,"
accompanied by "the chief captains and principal men of the city." And
before them appeared an almost unknown prisoner, upon whom his own
nation, including "the chief priests and elders from Jerusalem,"
demanded the judgment of death to