d let it burn and burn as I myself shall soon burn." And
then, with the foam on his lip and his hands tossing wildly in the
air, he cried out: "Blackness of darkness! Oh, my God, too late!" And
the spirits of darkness whistled up from the depth, and wheeled around
and around him, stripping the slain.

Sin is a luxury now; it is exhilaration now; it is victory now. But
after awhile it is collision; it is defeat; it is extermination; it is
jackalism; it is robbing the dead; it is stripping the slain. Give it
up to-day--give it up! Oh, how you have been cheated on, my brother,
from one thing to another! All these years you have been under an evil
mastery that you understood not. What have your companions done for
you? What have they done for your health? Nearly ruined it by
carousal. What have they done for your fortune? Almost scattered it by
spendthrift behavior. What have they done for your reputation? Almost
ruined it with good men. What have they done for your immortal soul?
Almost insured its overthrow.

You are hastening on toward the consummation of all that is sad.
To-day you stop and think, but it is only for a moment, and then you
will tramp on, and at the close of this service you will go out, and
the question will be: "How did you like the sermon?" And one man will
say: "I liked it very well," and another man will say: "I didn't like
it at all;" but neither of the answers will touch the tremendous fact
that, if impenitent, you are going at eighteen knots an hour toward
shipwreck! Yea, you are in a battle where you will fall; and while
your surviving relatives will take your remaining estate, and the
cemetery will take your body, the messengers of darkness will take
your soul, and come and go about you for the next ten million years,
stripping the slain.

Many are crying out: "I admit I am slain, I admit it!" On what
battle-field, my brothers? By what weapon? "Polluted imagination,"
says one man; "Intoxicating liquor," says another man; "My own hard
heart," says another man. Do you realize this? Then I come to tell you
that the omnipotent Christ is ready to walk across this battle-field,
and revive, and resuscitate, and resurrect your dead soul. Let Him
take your hand and rub away the numbness; your head, and bathe off the
aching; your heart, and stop its wild throb. He brought Lazarus to
life; He brought Jairus' daughter to life; He brought the young man of
Nain to life, and these are three proofs anyhow th