demented, and
I had no responsibility," God will say: "Yes, you were demented; but
there were long years when you were not demented. That was your chance
for heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch say, a
little "daft," nevertheless having grace in the heart; better be like
poor Richard Hampson, the Cornish fool, whose biography has just
appeared in England--a silly man he was, yet bringing souls to Jesus
Christ by scores and scores--giving an account of his own conversion,
when he said: "The mob got after me, and I lost my hat, and climbed
up by a meat-stand, in order that I might not be trampled under foot,
and while I was there, my heart got on fire with love toward those who
were chasing me, and, springing to my feet, I began to exhort and to
pray." Oh, my God, let me be in the last, last day the Cornish fool,
rather than have the best intellect God ever created unillumined by
the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Consider what an uncertain possession you have in your intellect, when
there are so many things around to destroy it; and beware, lest before
you use it in making the religious choice, God takes it away with a
stroke. I know a good many of my friends who are putting off religion
until the last hour. They say when they get sick they will attend to
it, but generally the intellect is beclouded; and oh; what a doleful
thing it is to stand by a dying bed, and talk to a man about his soul,
and feel, from what you see of the motion of his head, and the glare
of his eye, and from what you hear of the jargon of his lips, that he
does not understand what you are saying to him. I have stood beside
the death-bed of a man who had lived a sinful life, and was as
unprepared for eternity as it is possible for a man to be, and I tried
to make him understand my pastoral errand; but all in vain. He could
not understand it, and so he died.

Oh! ye who are putting off until the sick hour preparation for
eternity, let me tell you that in all probability, you will not be
able in your last hour to attend to it at all. There are a great many
people who say they will repent on the death-bed.

I have no doubt there are many who have repented on the death-bed, but
I think it is the exception. Albert Barnes, who was one of the coolest
of men, and gave no rash statistics, said thus: that in a ministry of
nearly half a century--he was over seventy when he went up to
glory--he had known a great many people who said they repen