teeper, and the man gets frightened and says, "Oh,
let me get off!" "No," says the conductor, "this is an express train,
and it does not stop until it gets to the Grand Central Depot at
Smashupton." Ah, "look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it
giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last
it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." And if any young
man in my congregation should get astray this summer in this direction
it will not be because I have not given him fair warning.

My friends, whether you tarry at home--which will be quite as safe and
perhaps quite as comfortable--or go into the country, arm yourself
against temptation. The grace of God is the only safe shelter, whether
in town or country. There are watering-places accessible to all of us.
You can not open a book of the Bible without finding out some such
watering-place. Fountains open for sin and uncleanliness; wells of
salvation; streams from Lebanon; a flood struck out of the rock by
Moses; fountains in the wilderness discovered by Hagar; water to
drink and water to bathe in; the river of God, which is full of water;
water of which if a man drink he shall never thirst; wells of water in
the Valley of Baca; living fountains of water; a pure river of water
as clear as crystal from under the throne of God.

These are watering-places accessible to all of us. We do not have a
laborious packing up before we start--only the throwing away of our
transgressions. No expensive hotel bills to pay; it is "without money
and without price." No long and dirty travel before we get there; it
is only one step away. California in five minutes. I walked around and
saw ten fountains, all bubbling up, and they were all different. And
in five minutes I can get through this Bible _parterre_ and find you
fifty bright, sparkling fountains bubbling up into eternal life.

A chemist will go to one of these summer watering-places and take the
water and analyze it and tell you that it contains so much of iron,
and so much of soda, and so much of lime, and so much of magnesia. I
come to this Gospel well, this living fountain and analyze the water,
and I find that its ingredients are peace, pardon, forgiveness, hope,
comfort, life, heaven. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye" to this
watering-place!

Crowd around this Bethesda this morning! Oh, you sick, you lame, you
troubled, you dying--crowd around this Bethesda! Step in it! Oh, step