oes he keep Time under lock and key in his
storehouse, that he may at pleasure draw as much as he requires? Many
years! These years lie in the future,--that is, in the unseen eternity.
They are at God's right hand--they are not within your reach. Why do you
permit an uncertain element to go into the foundation of your hope?

There is, indeed, nothing strange here. It is according to law: those
who are taught of the Spirit understand it well. The god of this world
hath blinded the minds of them that believe not. "Thou hast goods laid
up for many years! take thine ease, soul; eat, drink, and be merry!"
What simplicity is here! The case is in degree extreme; the letters are
written large that even indifferent scholars may be able to read the
lesson; but the same spiritual malady, in some of its forms and degrees,
is still epidemic in the world: those are least exposed to infection who
have their treasures laid up at God's right hand.

It is a useful though a trite remark, that there is great stupidity in
the proposal to lay up in a barn the portion of a soul. The soul, when
it is hungry, cannot feed on musty grain. Material treasures cannot save
a soul from death. The representation in the parable, however, is true
to nature and fact: it would be a mistake to attribute to a miser a high
appreciation of the dignity of man. Covetousness, in its more advanced
stages, eats the pith out of the understanding, and leaves its victim
almost fatuous.

This man, in a dialogue with his own soul, had settled matters according
to his own mind. The two had agreed together that they would have a
royal time on earth, and a long one. The whole business was comfortably
arranged. But at this stage another interlocutor, whom they had not
invited, breaks in upon the colloquy: "God said unto him, Thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then, whose shall those
things be which thou hast provided?" This is the writing on the wall
that puts an end to Belshazzar's feast, and turns his mirth into terror.

The terms run literally, "Unwise, this night they demand from thee thy
soul." Those ministering angels and providential laws, represented by
the drawers of the net in another parable, to whom the Supreme Governor
has committed the task of gathering gradually the generations of men
from this sea of time, and casting them for judgment on the borders of
eternity--those ministering spirits, and principles pervading nature,
arrive in