nd Christ went into martyrdom, and at
the coming of which angels chant an eternal litany and devils rush to
the gate. When everything above you, and beneath you, and around you,
is intent upon that soul, you can not afford to be careless,
especially when I think, this moment while I speak, there are
thousands of souls in heaven rejoicing that they attended to this
matter in time, while at this very instant there are souls in the lost
world mourning that they did not attend to it in time. Hark to the
howling of the damned!

Oh, if this room could be vacated of this audience, and you were all
gone, and the wan spirits of the lost could come up and occupy this
place, and I could stand before them with offers of pardon through
Jesus Christ, and then ask them if they would accept it, there would
come up an instantaneous, multitudinous, overwhelming cry: "Yes! yes!
yes! yes!" No such fortune for them. They had their day of grace, and
sacrificed it. You have yours; will you sacrifice it? I wish that I
could have you see these things as you will one day see them.

Suppose, on your way home, a runaway horse should dash across the
street, or between the dock and the boat you should accidentally slip,
where would you be at twelve o'clock to-night or seven o'clock
to-morrow morning? Or for all eternity where would you be? I do not
answer the question. I just leave it to you to answer.

But suppose you escape fatal accident. Suppose you go out by the
ordinary process of sickness. I will just suppose now that your last
hour has come. The doctor says, as he goes out of the room: "Can't get
well." There is something in the faces of those who stand around you
that prophesies that you can not get well. You say within yourself: "I
can't get well." Where are your comrades now? Oh, they are off to the
gay party that very night! They dance as well as they ever did. They
drink as much wine. They laugh as loud as though you were not dying.
They destroyed your soul, but do not come to help you die.

Well, there are father and mother in the room. They are very quiet,
but occasionally they go out into the next room and weep bitterly. The
bed is very much disheveled. They have not been able to make it up
for two or three days. There are four or five pillows lying around,
because they have been trying to make you as easy as they could. On
the one side of your bed are all the past years of your life--the
Bibles, the sermons, the communion-tables