few chairs and a bed, and a few cups and
knives; but in this awful vendue in which you have been engaged the
auctioneer's mallet has come down upon body, mind, and soul: Going!
Gone! "Ye have sold yourselves for nought."

How could you do so? Did you think that your soul was a mere trinket
which for a few pennies you could buy in a toy shop? Did you think
that your soul, if once lost, might be found again if you went out
with torches and lanterns? Did you think that your soul was
short-lived, and that, panting, it would soon lie down for extinction?
Or had you no idea what your soul was worth? Did you ever put your
forefingers on its eternal pulses? Have you never felt the quiver of
its peerless wing? Have you not known that, after leaving the body,
the first step of your soul reaches to the stars, and the next step to
the furthest outposts of God's universe, and that it will not die
until the day when the everlasting Jehovah expires? Oh, my brother,
what possessed you that you should part with your soul so cheap? "Ye
have sold yourselves for nought."

But I have some good news to tell you. I want to engage in a
litigation for the recovery of that soul of yours. I want to show that
you have been cheated out of it. I want to prove, as I will, that you
were crazy on that subject, and that the world, under such
circumstances, has no right to take the title-deed from you; and if
you will join me I shall get a decree from the High Chancery Court of
Heaven reinstating you into the possession of your soul. "Oh," you
say, "I am afraid of lawsuits; they are so expensive, and I can not
pay the cost." Then have you forgotten the last half of my text? "Ye
have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without
money."

Money is good for a great many things, but it can not do anything in
this matter of the soul. You can not buy your way through. Dollars and
pounds sterling mean nothing at the gate of mercy. If you could buy
your salvation, heaven would be a great speculation, an extension of
Wall Street. Bad men would go up and buy out the place, and leave us
to shift for ourselves. But as money is not a lawful tender, what is?
I will answer: Blood! Whose? Are we to go through the slaughter? Oh,
no; it wants richer blood than ours. It wants a king's blood. It must
be poured from royal arteries. It must be a sinless torrent. But where
is the king? I see a great many thrones and a great many occupants,
yet none seem to b