amid the
fishing-smacks, and amid all the boats, and it was almost impossible
to get anything launched. But after awhile they did, and they pulled
away for the wreck, and came almost up, when suddenly the distressed
bark in the offing capsized, and they all went down. Oh, if the
lifeboats had only been ten minutes quicker! And how many a life-boat
has been launched from the Gospel shore! It has come almost up to the
drowning, and yet, after all, they were not rescued. Somehow they did
not get into it!

I suppose there are people who have asked for our prayers, and I
suppose there were some in the side room, last Sabbath night, talking
about their souls, who will miss heaven. They do not take the last
step, and all the other steps go for nothing until you have taken the
last step, for I have here, in the presence of God and this people, to
announce the solemn truth, that to be almost saved is to be lost
forever. That is all I have to say to the second division.

III. I come now to speak to the careless. You look indifferent, and I
suppose you are indifferent. You say: "I came in here because a friend
invited me to see what is going on, but with no serious intentions
about my soul. I have so much work, and so much pleasure on hand,
don't bother me about religion." And yet you are gentlemanly, and you
are lady-like, in your behavior, and, therefore, I know that you will
listen respectfully if I talk courteously. Christian people are
sometimes afraid to talk to men and women of the world lest they be
insulted. If they talk courteously to people of the world, they will
listen courteously. So now I try to come in that way, and in that
spirit, and talk to those of you who tell me that you are careless
about your soul.

Then you have a soul, have you? Yes, precious, with infinite capacity
for joy or suffering, winged for flight somewhere. Beckoned upward,
beckoned downward. Fought after by angels and by fiends. Immortal!

"The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky:
The soul, immortal as its Sire,
Can never die."

Your body will soon be taken down, the castle will be destroyed, the
tower will be in the dust, the windows will be broken out, and the
place where your body sleeps will be forgotten; but your soul, after
that, will be living, acting, feeling, thinking--where? where? Oh,
there must be something of incomputable worth in that for which heaven
gave up its best inhabitant, a