one
wrong. Now is the time for you to go to that man and say: "Thousands
of people have been as far astray as you are, and got back." Now is
the time for you to go to that man and tell him of the omnipotent
grace of God, that is sufficient for any poor soul. Now is the time to
go to tell him how swearing John Bunyan, through the grace of God,
afterward came to the celestial city. Now is the time to go to that
man and tell him how profligate Newton came, through conversion, to be
a world-renowned preacher of righteousness. Now is the time to tell
that man that multitudes who have been pounded with all the flails of
sin and dragged through all the sewers of pollution at last have risen
to positive dominion of moral power.

You do not tell him that, do you? No. You say to him: "Loan you money?
No. You are down. You will have to go to the dogs. Lend you a
shilling? I would not lend you five cents to keep you from the
gallows. You are debauched! Get out of my sight, now! Down; you will
have to stay down!" And thus those bruised and battered men are
sometimes accosted by those who ought to lift them up. Thus the last
vestige of hope is taken from them. Thus those who ought to go and
lift and save them are guilty of stripping the slain.

The point I want to make is this: sin is hard, cruel, and merciless.
Instead of helping a man up it helps him down; and when, like Saul and
his comrades, you lie on the field, it will come and steal your sword
and helmet and shield, leaving you to the jackal and the crow.

But the world and Satan do not do all their work with the outcast and
abandoned. A respectable, impenitent man comes to die. He is flat on
his back. He could not get up if the house were on fire. Adroitest
medical skill and gentlest nursing have been a failure. He has come to
his last hour. What does Satan do for such a man? Why, he fetches up
all the inapt, disagreeable, and harrowing things in his life. He
says: "Do you remember those chances you had for heaven, and missed
them? Do you remember all those lapses in conduct? Do you remember all
those opprobrious words and thoughts and actions? Don't remember them,
eh? I'll make you remember them." And then he takes all the past and
empties it on that death-bed, as the mail-bags are emptied on the
post-office floor. The man is sick. He can not get away from them.

Then the man says to Satan: "You have deceived me. You told me that
all would be well. You said there would b