s set before his face,
he stays away from church, and passes his Sundays like a heathen, because
he has no mind to repent and mend, and be a good Christian.

Foolish fellow! As if he could escape God's judgment by shutting his
ears to it. As well try to stop the thunder from rolling in the sky, by
stopping his ears to that! The thunder is there, whether he choose to
hear it or not. And whether he comes to church or not, God's law stands
sure, that the wages of sin is death. Does the man fancy that God's law
is shut up within the church walls, and that so he can keep clear of it
by staying away from church? My friends, God's law is over the whole
country, and over every cottage and field in it--about our path and about
our bed, and spying out all our ways. The darkness is no darkness to
God. God's judgments are in all the earth; and whether or not we choose
to find them out, they will find us out just the same, as they found out
Ahab, when his cup was full, and his time was come.

How many a poor lad, too, who has got into trouble, thinks he shall
escape God's judgments by going across the sea; but he finds himself
mistaken! He finds that the wages of sin are misery and shame and ruin,
in Australia just as much as in England, and that all the gold in the
diggings cannot redeem his soul, or prevent his being an unhappy self-
condemned man if he does wrong.

How many a poor lad, too, who has got into trouble, has fancied that he
could escape God's judgments by going for a soldier, and has found out
that he too was mistaken! Perhaps God's judgment has found him out, as
it found out Ahab, on the field of battle, and a chance shot has taught
him, as it taught Ahab, that there is no hiding-place from the Lord who
made him. Or perhaps God's judgments have come in fever, and hunger, and
cold, and weariness, and miserable lonely labour; and with that hunger of
body has come a hunger of his soul--a hunger after the bread of life, and
the word of God! Ah! how many a poor fellow in his pain and misery has
longed for the crumbs which used to fall from God's table, when he was a
boy at home! for a word of good advice, though it were never so sharp and
plain spoken--or a lesson such as he used to hear at school, or a tract,
or a bit of a book, or anybody or anything which will put his poor
wandering soul in the right way. He used to hate such things when he was
at home, because they warned him of his bad ways; but now he