there two destinies?
and must all this audience share one or the other? Shall I give an
account for what I have told you to-night? Have I held back any truth,
though it were plain, though it were unpalatable? Must I meet you
there, oh, you dying but immortal auditory? I wish that my text, with
all its uplifted hands of warning, could come upon your souls: "Beware
lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not
deliver thee."

Glory be to God, there is a ransom that can now deliver you, braver
than Grace Darling putting out in a life-boat from Eddystone
Light-house for the rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire
steamer--Christ the Lord launched from heaven, amid the shouting of
the angels. Thirty-three years afterward, Christ the Lord launched
from earth to heaven, amid human and infernal execration; yet staying
here long enough to save all who will believe in Him. Do you hear
that? To save all who will believe in Him. Oh, that pierced side! Oh,
that bleeding brow! Oh, that crushed foot! Oh, that broken heart! That
is your hope, sinner. That is your ransom from sin, and death, and
hell.

Why have I told you all these things to-night, plainly and frankly? It
is because I know there is redemption for you, and I would have you
now come and get it. Oh, men and women long prayed for, and striven
with, and coaxed of the mercy of God--have you concentrated all your
physical, mental, and spiritual energies in one awful determination to
be lost? Is there nothing in the value of your soul, in the
graciousness of Christ, in the thunders of the last day, in the
blazing glories of heaven, and the surging wrath of an undone eternity
to start you out of your indifference, and make you pray? Oh, must God
come upon you in some other way? Must He take another darling child
from your household? Must He take another installment from your
worldly estate? Must life come upon you with sorrow after sorrow, and
smite you down with sickness before you will be moved, and before you
will feel?

Oh, weep now, while Jesus will count the tears! Sigh, now in
repentance, while Jesus will hear the grief. Now clutch the cross of
the Son of God before it be swept away. Beware, lest the Holy Spirit
leave thy heart. Beware, lest this night thy soul be required of thee.
"Beware, lest he take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom
can not deliver thee." Oh, Lord God of Israel, see these impenitent
souls on the verge of death rea