ll back in everlasting ruin, and the
victory is ours. And on the mound that celebrates the triumph we plant
this day two figures, not in bronze or iron or sculptured marble, but
two figures of living light, the Lion of Judah's tribe and the Lamb
that was slain.

POSTHUMOUS OPPORTUNITY.

"If the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the
place where the tree falleth there it shall be."--ECCLES. xi: 3.

There is a hovering hope in the minds of a vast multitude that there
will be an opportunity in the next world to correct the mistakes of
this; that, if we do make complete shipwreck of our earthly life, it
will be on a shore up which we may walk to a palace; that, as a
defendant may lose his case in the Circuit Court, and carry it up to
the Supreme Court or Court of Chancery and get a reversal of judgment
in his behalf, all the costs being thrown over on the other party, so,
if we fail in the earthly trial, we may in the higher jurisdiction of
eternity have the judgment of the lower court set aside, all the costs
remitted, and we may be victorious defendants forever.

My object in this sermon is to show that common sense, as well as my
text, declares that such an expectation is chimerical. You say that
the impenitent man, having got into the next world and seeing the
disaster, will, as a result of that disaster, turn, the pain the cause
of his reformation. But you can find ten thousand instances in this
world of men who have done wrong and distress overtook them suddenly.
Did the distress heal them? No; they went right on.

That man was flung of dissipations. "You must stop drinking," said
the doctor, "and quit the fast life you are leading, or it will
destroy you.". The patient suffers paroxysm after paroxysm; but, under
skillful medical treatment, he begins to sit up, begins to walk about
the room, begins to go to business. And, lo! he goes back to the same
grog-shops for his morning dram, and his even dram, and the drams
between. Flat down again! Same doctor. Same physical anguish. Same
medical warning.

Now, the illness is more protracted; the liver is more stubborn, the
stomach more irritable, and the digestive organs are more rebellious.
But after awhile he is out again, goes back to the same dram-shops,
and goes the same round of sacrilege against his physical health.

He sees that his downward course is ruining his household, that his
life is a perpetual perjury against his marri