happy, such a jolly world as this.

It is a startling fact, that those men in this world who have most reason
to be distressed by sin are the least troubled by it; and those who have
the least reason to be distressed are the most troubled by it. The child
of God is the one who sorrows most; and the child of Satan is the one who
sorrows least. Remember that we are speaking only of _this_ life. The
text reads: "Thou _in thy lifetime_ receivedst thy good things, and
likewise Lazarus evil things." And it is unquestionably so. The meek and
lowly disciple of Christ, the one who is most entitled by his character
and conduct to be untroubled by religious anxiety, is the very one who
bows his head as a bulrush, and perhaps goes mourning all his days,
fearing that he is not accepted, and that he shall be a cast-a-way; while
the selfish and thoroughly irreligious man, who ought to be stung through
and through by his own conscience, and feel the full energy of the law
which he is continually breaking,--this man, who of all men ought to be
anxious and distressed for sin, goes through a whole lifetime, perchance,
without any convictions or any fears.

And now we ask, if this state of things ought to last forever? Is it
right, is it just, that sin should enjoy in this style forever and
forever, and that holiness should grieve and sorrow in this style
forevermore? Would you have the Almighty pay a bounty upon
unrighteousness, and place goodness under eternal pains and penalties?
Ought not this state of things to be reversed? When Dives comes to the
end of this lifetime; when he has run his round of earthly pleasure,
faring sumptuously every day, clothed in purple and fine linen, without a
thought of his duties and obligations, and without any anxiety and
penitence for his sins,--when this worldly man has received all his "good
things," and is satiated and hardened by them, ought he not then to be
"tormented?" Ought this guilty carnal enjoyment to be perpetuated through
all eternity, under the government of a righteous and just God? And, on
the other hand, ought not the faithful disciple, who, perhaps, has
possessed little or nothing of this world's goods, who has toiled hard,
in poverty, in affliction, in temptation, in tribulation, and sometimes
like Abraham in the horror of a great darkness, to keep his robes white,
and his soul unspotted from the world,--when the poor and weary Lazarus
comes to the end of this lifetime, ought not hi