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 OR, 
 
 SUGGESTIVE PASSAGES, INCIDENTS, AND 
 ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 FROM THB WRITINGS OF 
 
 T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D., 
 
 AiitAor of "Cnimbt Swe^t Up," etc. 
 
 Toronto: 
 
 COPP, CLARK, and" CO. 
 
 MOCCCLXXIV. 
 
BX95aS 
 
 BBUOTHEQUK NATIONALK 
 
 UNWIN 
 
 DKOTHEKS, PRINTERS BY WATER POWER. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 X of Dr Talmage contained in this volume need „„ 
 commendat on. A danr» =t .k .„ "" "" 
 
 reader .1,,. ,1, "" "'" "nvince the 
 
 reader that d.ey are m many instances eminently beami 
 ful, and ,n all highly suggestive and full of power Thev 
 are the scintillations of a mind singularly !^ed and 
 ongmal, and shine with a brightness Ihich'g^n s only 
 could .mpart. Each x.act not only presents an 2. 
 ongmal or beautiful, but, in the case of eryThoughtfu 
 reader, w,,l be found stimulating and creative Fr^^h 
 tratns of thought will be suggested, and menal acS 
 
 ad? 'oT he- "" ""' *' '-'^""'^^ °"'- «'-« - 
 Me o the,r power to strike and quicken soon cease 
 
 W,,hout exaggeration, it may be said of them that « lo^ 
 
 ^d thTr'n*'" """ "■"""^ '- •>«« '"ema^in 
 and hose who have tasted them oftenes. will relish them 
 
w 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The appropriateness of the title needs no vindication, 
 for these extracts are incisive thoughts ; they are nails 
 fastened in sure places ; they are literally " points," as 
 they convey vivid ideas fitted to strike and excite 
 attention. 
 
 As readers of these remarkable and brilliant extracts 
 will naturally desire to know something of their author, 
 we add the following brief sketch of Dr. Talmage :— 
 
 Thomas de Witt Talmage was born at Uoundbrook, 
 New Jersey, January 7th, 1832. He was the youngest o"^ 
 twelve children. Three of his brothers preceded him 
 in the ministry. His parents were persons of exalted 
 Christian character. Dr. Talmage was educated at, 
 and graduated from, the New York University and the 
 Theological Seminary of New Brunswick, N. J. He 
 became a Christian when eighteen years old. He 
 entered the ministry at Belleville, N. J. After three 
 years he was called to Syracuse, N. Y. Here also he 
 laboured three years, then went to Philadelphia, where 
 he enjoyed an unusually successful ministry of seven 
 years. His congregations were among the largest in the 
 city, and his preaching was fruitful in spiritual results. 
 During this period he acquired extensive fame as a lec- 
 turer. From Philadelphia he was called to Brooklyn. 
 
 The pulpit of the Central Presbyterian Church in this 
 city was vacant. From various causes the society had 
 declined, until its strength was measured by a list of only 
 nineteen voting members. These nineteen united in 
 signing a call to Mr. Talmage to become their pastor. 
 Almost simultaneously with this call, invitations reached 
 
I'KEl'ACE. , 
 
 hi.n from churrhe, i„ Chicago and San F, mcisco Mr 
 
 It was a capacious buildine biu .h« . '-nurch. 
 
 steadily till it CO..IH ^' congregation grew 
 
 When it bl" "° '°"^'' '^"^ accommodation, 
 
 make b^^^t. '"''"' ^''^^ '' "°"'^ ^e necessary to 
 
 ^t hiTru^sr :r v'^ r'^' ^^- ^^^-^^ '^^^ 
 
 make hi. 2a a ^ ^""^ ^''^ ''^«^^' ^"^ offered to 
 cussL I ' ^^"''"* "P°" '^^ — ». After dis! 
 
 allotted to the heads ^ff , ' "'°"' °^ ^"^^^ ^^« 
 
 .regation in th o^t^'^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^'^ con- 
 
 reference to the a^o t he'^^'lub""^ '"'"''°"^ 
 
 Tabernacle was dedicated^Xt mbe7r * Th^ 
 
 "-ti^r:rrr---^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 enWgedsoastoL::::^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 The Tabernacle was burned on the morning of Decern 
 ber 22, ,872, just before the hour of service L T , 
 and his family had started for church Td « ' ^ ^^' 
 the fire while on their wav aIT '' ^''''''^^ 
 
 he remarked "U-lIr k - ^°' °"* °^ ^'^ '^^"'^^e 
 
 • ^^ ^"' ^"^ ^"'^^'"g never was large enough • 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 now the people throughout the country will help us to 
 build a more roomy structure." On the same day several 
 churches were offered to the people of the Tabernacle 
 for occupancy until their own house could be restored. 
 The Academy of Music was engaged. 
 
 Next to a free church, from which a free Gospel should 
 be preached, Dr. Talmage had at heart the enlistment of 
 laymen in Christian work. He had long been impressed 
 that there was an amount of lay energy lying dormant, 
 which, if aroused and properly directed, might be made a 
 power in evangelising the world. Gradually the scheme 
 for calling it out and training it was unfolded in his mind. 
 He secured the co-operation of eminent ministers and 
 laymen of various denominations. Thus grew up the 
 Tabernacle Free College for training Christian workers. 
 Its classes are thoroughly organised, and are regularly 
 drilled under competent instructors. Lectures are given 
 at stated periods by some of the ablest men in the Chris- 
 tian churches — laymen as well as ministers — who present 
 those departments of Christian or moral activity in which 
 they are best versed. A large force of workers has 
 already been sent out from this institution, the fruits of 
 whose labours are seen in numerous new preaching 
 places, and in congregations organised in places not 
 before provided with church facilities. This institution 
 is in fact, as well as in name, undenominational. 
 
 A great variety of opinion, and much misapprehen- 
 sion, respecting the character of Dr. Talmage and his 
 preaching, exist among those who do not know him. 
 The opinion of those who know him is uniform. A mofc 
 
J'REFACE. 
 
 vu 
 
 ZTl '"'^r ' "°" "»' •- f-^d than .0 charac 
 terse h,s preach.ng as "sensational" in ,1,. 
 
 -"..ch .ha, .e™ is com„,„„,y „3er Itl ^ ^ '" 
 
 -V =aks plainly, points his addres^s 'dii' . ""' "' 
 
 -ncrs feel exceedingly uncomSl ^T^thel ™'=: 
 his preachinp- ic ««i„ ^u . , . ' "' '"^ 'orce of 
 
 ness^f »:4irL*d : rr: r. "'"■^'' "™- 
 
 It depends upon nothingT 2 """ "'"^''^ ^"• 
 preaching is almost exl^rt , f °' "'"'"^- "i^ 
 
 fashioned MethX^ef^HV'^'' '""'^""«'= °'<'- 
 the new settlement „fT "''° '"' =° "-'^'' '" "i" 
 who hears CtXZ Z!'^ 't^'^'^'' '" '^"^ °« 
 to be one of the gr^'est oV 7 **' "'" '™«™ "- 
 His manner is S^ « *'" 7" """ '» "fe again. 
 o"ly believes, but ClZZflC. " '' °'""' ""o "<>' 
 i»K are the ruth and Ta, 1 ^°"""'' "' '^ ^"'™"'^- 
 ProcUim them Heti!, ^I' '™'"'"">- '■"!«'"<■ '<- 
 «-i^ it. With a sfn^pStV,: "■"' '"^""'^ - "■' 
 hold nothing, hedXsL "■°™"«'"'«= 'hat with- 
 he reels the^l^sest^ r;^;^-;«^'-;^ ". .„, 
 
 he possesses descriptive powers "f 7. \".'' ^^^'tX i 
 and great fertility i„ illusL,, " -J^ ""' '"«''«' order, 
 
 the honest old AnWsaZT/r""* ^ ^'^^^ 
 .elical school do ;usti!":";he fe^!^ ch'" °' *^ '^^"- 
 h.s preaching; those find fault Xh h '?" '"'"' °' 
 ■^ n.ixed with f„™ali,y, „, „ho h, "'''°'' ^^''S'"" 
 
 the exptession of unplL ;'; "^^-"-"S "ow, 
 ofthevalueofhisDteachin:, The practical test 
 
 -here, in an unfaC^^.^.r" T *' ^*™*- ' 
 -™»ocietytostartwi;h:.hrr^™t„:d''r; 
 
4''d 
 
 viu 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 congregation of more than three thousand regular attend- 
 ants : men with families ; persons who from indifference 
 or other causes had fallen off from the habit of attending 
 church ; young people ; and people who would never 
 have become attached to a church, or thought religion 
 worthy of serious consideration, had they not fallen under 
 the influence of such a man as Mr, Talmage. 
 
 Personally, Mr. Talmage is one of the most unassuming 
 of men. He is of vivacious temperament, of pleasant 
 addresSf easy to approach, is genial with his associates, 
 and is one of the last men whom a stranger accosting 
 would take to be the world-renowned preacher. 
 
"POINTS." 
 Salvation and WoRK.-While I ^cognise 
 
 God can save our souls, I remember there 
 - something for us to do, just as certainly 
 
 as the Bible declares: "Worlc out „ 
 
 "• vvorK out your own 
 
 "alvafon with fear and trembhng." 
 
 " A J''^'-" "OR EvERV ONE."-Are we ready? 
 I dont say what your field is, but there is 
 some one field for you to cultivate-a field 
 
 head, g,rdle on waist, hand on »«..-. ..-•., 
 
 for vn„r T „.j — ""■' """^ 
 
 your Lord. 
 
 </ 
 
 / 
 
"POINTS." 
 
 I 
 
 Be not Swift to Judge.— When you hear 
 evil of any one, suspend judgment. Do not 
 decide till you have heard the man's defence. 
 Do not run out to meet every heated whelp 
 of malice that runs with its head down and 
 its tongue out. The probability is that it is 
 mad| and will only bite those who attempt 
 to entertain it. 
 
 Different Temptations.— Be lenient with 
 the fallen. You see a brother fall, and say, " I 
 never could have done that ! " Perhaps you 
 could not, because your temptation does not 
 happen to be in that direction, but you have 
 done things in the course of your life that 
 these fallen men could never have done, 
 because their temptation was not Jiin that 
 direction. ^' 
 
 Boasting. — Do not say in boasting, " I 
 never could have done such a thing as 
 that ! " You don't know what you would do 
 if sufficiently tempted. You have an infinite 
 
El infinite S 
 
 "POINTS." 
 soul-fores. If grace direct it, a force for 
 the right; if evil influences seize upon it, 
 a terrific force for the wrong. There are' 
 passions within your soul that have never 
 been unchained. Look out if once they slip 
 their cables. 
 
 Criticisms of OxHERs.-In our criticisms of 
 others, let us remember that we have faults 
 which our friends have excused. How much 
 would be left of us if all those who see 
 inconsistencies in us should clip away from 
 our character and reputation! It is an in- 
 variable rule that those who make the 
 roughest work with the nam^s of others are 
 those who have themselves the most imper- 
 fections. 
 
 Judgment and MERcy.-We ought to be in- 
 duced away from all harshness by the fact 
 that we ourselves are to be brought to a 
 high tribunal at the last, and that he shall 
 have judgment without mercy that has shown 
 
 C 
 
4 ''POINTS." 
 
 no mercy. Yor tc accustomed with rough 
 grip violently to oiiake men for their mis- 
 deeds, waiting for no palliations, and listen- 
 ing to no appeals. What will become of you 
 when at last, with all your imperfections, you 
 appear at the bar of your Maker? 
 
 Christ in Sympathy with Us. — The Divine 
 nature is so vast, and the human so small, 
 that we are apt to think that they do not 
 touch each other at any point. We might 
 have never so many mishaps, the , govern- 
 ment at Washington would not hear of them ; 
 and there are multitudes in Britain whose 
 troubles Victoria never knows; but there is 
 a throne against which strike our most in- 
 significant perplexities. What touches us, 
 touches Christ. What annoys us, annoys 
 Christ. What robs us, robs Christ. He is 
 the great nerve-centre to which thrill all sen- 
 sations which touch us who are His members. 
 
 Praying and Working. — I had a man in my 
 
"POINTS." 
 
 o 
 
 congregation once who used to pray for me 
 by the half-hour that I might be blest in 
 my basket and store, and in my store and 
 basket, and he never gave a cent of salary. 
 I knew a man twenty-five years ago ^ho^ 
 gave three cents to the Foreign Missionaiy 
 Society, and he has sat in blank astonish- 
 ment ever since tha^t th^ world has not been 
 converted. 
 
 Thoughts Wandering m Prayer. -No- 
 thing bothers the Christian more than the im- 
 perfections of his prayers. His getting down' 
 on his knees seems to be the signal for his 
 thoughts to fly every whither. While pray- 
 •ng about one thing he is thinking about 
 another. Could you ever keep your mind 
 ten mmutes on one supplication? I never 
 could. While you are praying, your store 
 comes i«. your kitchen comes, your losses 
 and gains come in. The minister spreads 
 h.s hands for prayer, and you put your head 
 
6 » points:* 
 
 on the back of the pew in front, and travel 
 around the world in five minutes. A brother 
 rises in prayer-meeting to lead in supplica- 
 tion. After he has begun the door slams, 
 and you peep through your fingers to see 
 who is coming in. You say to yourself, 
 " What a finely expressed prayer," or " What 
 a bliindering specimen ! But how long he 
 keeps on ! Wish he would stop ! He prays 
 for the world's conversion. I wonder how 
 much he gives for it ? There ! I don't think 
 I turned the gas down in the parlour^ Wonder 
 if Bridget has got home yet. Wonder if 
 they have thought to take the cake out of 
 the oven!'* or, "What a fool I was to put 
 my name on the back of that note ! Ought 
 to have sold those goods for cash, and not 
 on credit!" And so you go on thinking 
 over one thing after another until the gentle- 
 man says " Amen ! " and you lift up your 
 ncaa saying, xiierci i ucivcii i prayea a 
 
"POINTS." y 
 
 bit. I am not a Christian." Yes, you are, 
 if you have resisted the tendency. Christ 
 knows how much you have resisted, and 
 how thoroughly we are descended of sin, 
 and He will pick out the one earnest peti- 
 tion from the rubbish, and answer it. To the 
 very depth of His nature He sympathises 
 with the infirmity of our prayers. 
 
 Earnestness and WoRK.-Our work does 
 not amount to much. We teach a class, or 
 distribute a bundle of tracts, or preach a ser- 
 mon, and say, " Oh, if I had done it some 
 other way ! " Christ will make no record of 
 our bungling way if we did the best we could. 
 He will make record of our intention and • 
 the earnestness of our attempt. We cannot 
 get the attention of our class, or we break 
 down in our exhortation, or our sermon falls ' 
 dead, and we go home disgusted and sorry : 
 we try to speak, and feel Christ is afar off. 
 
 ■■ Why. He is vteaxpr ^Jior if ".^ »«~j ' ■< 
 
 == - - - * — a^-s. ,..«ii xi we wau succeeaeu, 
 
8 'ypoJNTsr 
 
 for He knows that we need sympathy, and 
 is touched with our infirmity. 
 
 God's Shadow. — It is our misfortune that 
 we mistake God's shadow for the night. If 
 a man come and stand between you and the 
 sun, his shadow falls upon you. So God 
 sometimes comes in and stands between us 
 and wbrldly successes, and His shadow falls 
 upon us, and we wrongly think that it is 
 night. As a father in a garden stoops down 
 to kiss a child, the shadow of His body falls 
 upon it, and so many of the dark misfortunes 
 of our life are not God going away from us, 
 but our heavenly Father stooping down to 
 give us the kiss of His infinite and everlast- 
 
 ing love. 
 
 God no Respecter of Persons. — Thank 
 God there is mercy for the poor! The great 
 Dr. John Mason preached over a hundred times 
 the same sermon, and the text was, "To the 
 poor the gospel is preached."* Lazarus went 
 
"POINTS." 
 up while Dives went down; and there are 
 candidates for imperial splendours in the back 
 alley and by the peat fire of the Irish shanty 
 K.ng Jesus set up His throne in a manger 
 and made a resurrection day for the poor 
 widow of Nain, and threw the gate of heaven 
 w.de open, so that all the beggars and thieves 
 and scoundrels of the universe may come in. 
 If they only repent. 
 
 The Great PHVsiciAN.-Christ is the only 
 refuge. If you were very sick, and there was 
 only one medicine that would cure you, how 
 anx.ous you would be to get that medicine. 
 If you were in a storm at sea, and you found - 
 that the ship could not weather it, and there 
 was only one harbour, how anxious you would 
 "e to get into that harbour. 0, sin-sick. 
 soul, Christ is the only medicine ! O, storm- 
 tossed soul, Christ is the only, harbour! 
 Wrong to C„eat.-A young man goes into 
 
 a Store whpr*> \\y^^^ t 
 
 j„^^^- jj^^. snarpers. He 
 
 is told 
 

 10 
 
 *' points:* 
 
 by the head man in the store that it is very 
 wrong to cheat unless you can do it well; 
 that a lie is very wicked unless it is smart; 
 that all you want to make goods French is 
 to put on a French label. Well, the honest 
 young man from the country stands at the 
 counter and points out all the good qualities 
 of the goods and becomes an excellent sales- 
 man. He says, "There is nothing like 
 those goods in the city;" but he has better 
 on the next shelf. "Those goods," he con- 
 tinues, "we are now selling at less than cost, 
 although we do not like to do it, and they will 
 wash." Yes, they will wash out. The cus- 
 tomer takes the goods and thinks he has got a 
 good bargain; while the del iroes into the 
 counting-room and says, "Vr ;ot rid ^ 
 
 those goods at la-st ; I really thought we never 
 should sell them." The managing man says, 
 " Splendid ! splendid ! Go up and be first 
 clerk/* One day the members of the firm 
 
"POINTS." „ 
 
 come to the store and find that the safe is 
 robbed, and ask, "Where is the head cleric ?" 
 The reply is, "He has not been here this 
 morning." And he never will be there. It 
 is a poor rule that won't work both ways. 
 He has fleeced customers five years, and he 
 has now turned his hand upon his employer. 
 "It is always wrong to cheat, unless you 
 can do it well!" was the motto of that firm. 
 GRACE.—Christ is on a throne of grace. Our 
 case is brought before Him. The question is 
 asked, "Is there any good about this man?" 
 The law says, " None." Justice says, " None." 
 Nevertheless Christ hands over our pardon, 
 and asks us to take it. Oh, the height and 
 depth, the length and breadth of His mercy! 
 Ill-tempered Christians, and why. — 
 Some of the worst-tempered people of the day 
 are religious people, from the fact that they have 
 no rest. Added to the necessary work of the 
 world they Superintend two Sunday-schools, 
 

 19 
 
 ''POINTS: 
 
 listen to two sermons, and every night have 
 i meetings of charitable and Christian institu- 
 tions. They look after the beggars, hold 
 conventions, speak at meetings, wait on min- 
 isters, serve as committee-men, take all the 
 hypercriticisms that inevitably come to earnest 
 ^workers, rush up and down the world, and 
 develop their hearts at the expense of all 
 their other functions. They are the best men 
 on earth, and Satan knows it, and is trying 
 to kill them as fast as possible. They know 
 not that it is as much a duty to take care of 
 their health as to go to the sacrament. It is 
 as much a sin to commit suicide with the 
 sword of truth as with the pistol. 
 
 Trying to do Too Much. — Some of our 
 young people have read till they are crazed of 
 learned blacksmiths who, at the forge, conquered 
 thirty languages, and of shoemakers who, 
 pounding sole-leather, got to be philosophers ; 
 — « .jiii.xix^^xo TTiiv, Willie tiicir customers were 
 
''Points:' 
 
 at the glass trying on their spring hats, wrote 
 a volume of flrst.rate poems. The fact is 
 no blacksmith ought to be troubled with 
 more than iive languages; and instead of 
 shoemakers becoming philosophers, we w^uld 
 l.ke to turn our surplus of philosophers into 
 shoemakers; and the supply of poetry is so 
 much greater than the demand, that we wish 
 milhners would stick to their business. Ex- 
 traordina^r examples of work and endurance 
 may do as much harm as good. Because 
 Napoleon slept only three hours a night 
 hundreds of students have tried the experi-' 
 ment; but instead of Austerlitz and Jena 
 there came of it only a sick headache and a 
 botch of recitation. We are told of how many 
 hooks a man can read in the iive spare 
 mmutes before breakfast, and the ten minutes 
 at noon; but I wish some one could tell us 
 how much rest a man can get in fifteen 
 ...mutes after dinner, or how much health in 
 
 \ 
 

 14 "POINTS," 
 
 an hour's horseback ride, or how much fun 
 in a Saturday afternoon of cricket. He who 
 has such an idea of the value of time that 
 he takes none of it for rest, wastes all his 
 time. '' 
 
 Christ and your Friend. — If we wane 
 Chijjst to come mightily in our presence, we 
 need to clear away all our preconceived notions 
 as to how He shall come. If we invite a 
 friend to our house we don't criticize the way 
 in which he opens the door. We don't care 
 how he bows when he enters the room. We 
 are glad to welcome him by whatever door 
 ^he may come, and in whatever way he may 
 come. I don't know, my brothers and sisters 
 in Christ, in what way Jesus wants to come 
 to us. I don't know whether it is through 
 the prayer meeting, or through the Sabbath- 
 school class, or through the exhortation of 
 some brother in Christ who has never been 
 here before, or through some song Oi Zion, 
 
 awwMww 
 
''POINTS." j- 
 
 or through the heart of some man of the 
 world who may be in this room for the first 
 time, anxious about his soul's salvation. I 
 don't care how He comes, but. Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly! -^ 
 
 Religion a FoRCE.-Our religion has often 
 been, misrepresented as a principle of tears, 
 and mildness and fastidiousness; afraid of 
 crossing people's prejudices; afraid of making 
 somebody mad ; with silken gloves lifting the 
 people up from the church pew into gloiy, 
 as though they were Bohemian glass, so very^ 
 delicate that with one touch it may be de- 
 molished for ever! Men speak of religion as 
 though it were a refined imbecility, as though 
 it were a spiritual chloroform that the people 
 were to take until the sharp cutting of life 
 were over. The Bibfe, so far from this, repre- 
 sents the religion of Christ as robust and 
 brawny-ransacking and upsetting ten thou- 
 sand things that now seem to be settled on 
 

 1 6 :. ''POINTS." 
 
 firm foundations. I hear some man in the 
 house say, "I thought religion was peacer 
 That is the final result. A man's arm is out 
 of place. Two men come, and with great 
 effort put it back to the socket. It. goes 
 back with great pain. Then it gets well. Our 
 wqrld is horribly disordered and out of joint. 
 It must come under an omnipotent surgery, 
 beneath which there will be pain and anguish 
 before there can come perfect health and 
 quiet. ' ' 
 
 Religion and Joy:— As religion comes in at 
 the front door, mirth and laughter will not 
 go out of the back door. It will not hopple 
 the children's feet. John will laugh just as 
 loud, and George will jump higher than he 
 ever did before. It will steal from the little 
 ones neither ball nor bat, nor hoop nor kite. 
 It will establish a family altar. Angels will 
 hover over it. Ladders of light will, reach 
 a^j^ii ^„ ^^, iiic i^iOiy m neaven will stream 
 
"POINTS." ,y 
 
 upon it. The books of remembrance will record 
 it, fnd tides of everlasting blessedness will 
 pour from it. 
 
 On Waiting for the Last TRAiN.-Neyer 
 take the last train when you can help it. Much 
 of the trouble in life is caused by the fact 
 that people, in their engagements, wait till 
 the last minute. The seven o'clock train will 
 take them to the right place if everything 
 goes straight, but in this worid things are 
 very apt to go crooked. So you had better take 
 the train that starts an hour earlier. In every- | 
 thing we undertake lei us leave a little margin. 
 Do not calculate too closely on possibilities. 
 Better have room and time to spare. Do 
 not take the last train. Not heeding. this 
 counsel makes bad work for this world and 
 the next. There are many lines of communi- 
 cation between earth and heaven. Men say 
 they can start any time. After a while, in 
 great excitement, they rush into the d6p6t 
 
i8 "POINTS:' 
 
 of mercy, and find that the final opportunity 
 has left, and behold! it is the last train! 
 
 Mission Chapels. Says some one, "We 
 are establishing a great many missions, and 
 I think they will save the masses." No, they 
 will not! Five hundred thousand of them 
 will not do it ! They are doing a magnificent 
 work ; but every mission chapel is a confession 
 of the disease and weakness of the Church. 
 It is making a dividing line between the 
 cfasses. It is saying to the rich and to the 
 well-conditioned, " If you can pay your pew 
 rents, come to the main audience-room." It 
 is spying to the poor man, ** Your coat is too 
 bad, and your shoes are not good enough. If 
 you want to get to heaven, you will have to 
 go by the way of the mission chapel." The 
 mission chapel has become the kitchen, where 
 the Church does its sloppy work. There are 
 hundreds and thousands of churches in this 
 country — gorgeously built and supported — 
 
"pomrs." 
 
 that, even on bright and sunshiny days, are 
 not half full of worshippers; and yet they are 
 bu.ld.ng mission chapels, because, by some 
 expressed or implied regulation, the great 
 masses of the people are kept out of 'the 
 ma.n audience-room. Mission chapels are a 
 necessity the way churches are now con- 
 <iucted, but may God speed the time when 
 they shall cease to be a necessity 1 
 
 The Pride of the CnuRCH.-The pride 
 of the Church must come down! The exclu 
 siveness of the Church must come down r The 
 financial boastings of the Church must come 
 down ! If monetary success were the chief idea 
 
 '" f^ '^'""•<=''' *«" I ^ay that the present 
 modes of conducting finances were the best. If 
 >t .s to see how many dollars you can gain, then 
 the present mode is the best. But if it is the 
 sav.ng of souls from sin and death, and bring, 
 mg the mighty populations of our cities to the 
 knowledge of God, them CO', ie..<,;w,„„/ 
 
*? "POINTS:* 
 
 The Mission LiFE-BOAT.-The sea is covered 
 with wrecks, and multitudes are drowning. 
 We come out with the Church life-boat, and 
 the people begin to clamber in, and we 
 shout, -Stop! stop! You must think it 
 costs nothing to keep a lifeboat. Those 
 seats at the prow are one dollar apiece, these 
 in th^ nvddle fifty cents, and those seats in 
 the stern two shillings. Please to pay up, 
 or else flounder on a little longer till the 
 mission boat whose work it is to save you 
 penniless wretches shall come along and pick 
 you up. We save only first-class sinners in 
 this boat." 
 
 A Church for the NEEDv.-Rather than 
 be priding myself on a church in front of which 
 there shall halt fifty splendid equipages on 
 the Sabbath-day, I would have a church up 
 to whose gates there shculd come a long pro- 
 cession of the suffering, and the stricken, and 
 the dying, begging for admittance. 
 
at 
 
 iinners in 
 
 ** POINTS:' 
 Jesus ano Pehpbtual YouTH.-Mythology 
 
 tells us of one „ho got aged, and they tried ,0 
 make h,m young again. And so they took 
 
 herbs, and they took fragments of owls and 
 wolves, and put them in a caldron and sffn^d 
 them up, and gave some to the man, and 
 ■nstantly his hair was blackened, his eyes 
 bnghtened, his fo.ehead smoothed, and his 
 foot bounded .ike the roe. But the Gospel 
 ■nt.mates that if a man knows Jesus Chris. 
 '" "'^ "•"'• •"« ^hall never get old, or having 
 got oM before he came to Jesus, he shall be ' 
 made young again. 
 
 Go WHHHB THE F,SHAHE.-The Church of 
 God has been fishing along the shore. We set 
 
 7 "'* '■" '^ ^'^' =«'", place, and in sight 
 of a fine chapel, and we go down eve^ Sun- 
 day to see if .he fish have been wise enough 
 to come into our ne.. We migh. learn some- 
 thmg from tha. boy with his hook and line, 
 rethrows his line from the bridge: no fish. 
 
22 , ''POINTS:' 
 
 He sits down on a log : no fish. He stands 
 in the sunlight and casts the line: but no 
 fish. He goes up by the mill-dam, and 
 stands behind the bank, where thv» fish can- 
 not see him, and he has hardly dropped the 
 hook before the cork goes under. The fish 
 come to him as fast as he can throw them 
 ashore. In other words, in our Christian 
 work, why do we not gf> where the fish are? 
 It is not so easy to catch souls in church, 
 for they know that we are trying to take 
 them. If you can throw your line out iijto 
 the world, where they are not expecting you, 
 they will be captured. 
 
 . Tell God what you want, with the feeling 
 that He is ready to give it, and believe that 
 you will receive, and you shall have it. Shed 
 that old prayer you have been making these 
 ten years. It is high time that you outgrew 
 it. Throw it aside with your old ledgers, 
 and your old hats, and your old shoes. Take 
 
"points:* 3- 
 
 a review of your present wants, of your pre- 
 sent sins, and of your present blessings. 
 
 On Measuring the Grace of God.- Men 
 talk of the grace of God as though it were so 
 many yards long, and so many yards deep. 
 People point to the dying thief as an en- 
 couragement to the sinner. How much better 
 it would be to point to our own case and say, 
 " If God saved us. He can save anybody." 
 
 It is easy to go when the time comes. 
 There are no ropes thrown out to pull us ashore; 
 there are no ladders Jet down to pull us up! 
 Christ comes, and takes us by the hand, and 
 says, "You have had enough of this; come 
 up higher." Do you hurt a lily when you 
 pluck it? Is there any rudeness when Jesus 
 touches the cheek, and the red rose of health 
 whitens into the lily of immortal purity and 
 gladness ? 
 
 God's Table. -The round table of KW 
 -— nu. .,,„ hi=i Knignts had room for only 
 
M '^POINTS.*' 
 
 thirteen banqueters; but the round table of 
 God's supply is large enough for all the present 
 inhabitants of earth and heaven to sit at, and 
 for the still mightier populations that are yet 
 to be. 
 
 No Shore to God's Mercy. — Oh, this 
 mercy of God! I am told it is an ocean. Then 
 I place on it four swift-sailing craft, with com- 
 pass, and charts, and choice rigging, and skil- 
 ful navigators, and I tell them to launch away, 
 and discover for me the extent of this ocean. 
 That craft puts out in one direction, and sails 
 to the north; this to the south; this to the east; 
 this to the west. They crowd on all their 
 canvas, and sail ten thousand years, and one 
 day come up the harbour of heaven, and I 
 shout to them from the beach, "Have you 
 found the shore?" and they answer, "No 
 shore to God's mercy !" Swift angels attempt 
 to go across it. For a million years they fly 
 and fly, and then come back and fold their 
 
''POINTSr 
 
 H 
 
 wings at the foot of the throne, and cry, '« No 
 shore ! no shore to God's mercy ! •' 
 
 Do NOT SAIL COAST-WISE along your old 
 habits and old sins. Keep clear of the shore. 
 Go out where the water is deepest. " Be it 
 known unto you, men and brethren, that 
 through this man is preached unto you forgive- 
 ness of sins." I preach it with as much confi- 
 dence to that eighty-year-old transgressor as to 
 this maiden. Though your sins were blood-red, 
 they shall be snow-white. The more ragged the' 
 prodigal, the more compassionate the father. 
 Do you say that you are too bad ? The high- 
 water mark of God's pardon is higher than all 
 your transgressions. "The blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth from all sins." Do you say 
 that your heart is hard? Suppose it were ten 
 times harder. Do you say that your iniquity is 
 ong-continued? Suppose it were ten times 
 longer. Do you say that your crimes are black ? 
 
 Suppose that tJi*« „. X- .. 
 
 ^J "^"^^^ icn times blacker. 
 
26 "PO/NTS." 
 
 Is there any lion that this Samson cannot 
 slay? Is there any fortress that this Con- 
 queror cannot take ? Is there any sin this 
 Redeemer cannot pardon ? 
 
 The Echoing Voice. -Dr. Prime, in his 
 boolc entitled "Around the World," describes 
 a tomb in India of marvellous architecture. 
 Twenty thousand men were twenty-two years 
 in erecting that and the buildings around it 
 , Standing in that tomb, if you spealc or sing, 
 after you have ceased you hear the echo 
 commg from the height of one hundred and 
 fifty feet. It is not like other echoes. The 
 sound is drawn out in sweet prolongation, as 
 though the angels of God were chanting on 
 the wing. How many souls here to-day in 
 the tomb of sin, will lift up the voice of peni- 
 tence and prayer ? If „ow they would cry 
 unto God, the echo would drop from afar- 
 not struck from the marble cupola of an earthly 
 mausoleum, but sounding back from the warm 
 
cannot 
 is Con- 
 sin this 
 
 in his 
 ascribes 
 ecture. 
 > years 
 jnd it. 
 r sing, 
 
 echo 
 d and 
 
 The 
 on, as 
 ig on 
 ly, in 
 peni- 
 i cry 
 ar — 
 rthly 
 /arm 
 
 "POINTS." 2- 
 
 hearts of angels, flying with the news; for 
 there is joy among the angels of God over 
 one sinner that repenteth 1 
 
 The Christian Old Man.-I think the most 
 beautiful object on earth is an old Christian- 
 the hair white, not with the frosts of winter, 
 but with the blossoms of the tree of life. I 
 never feel sorry for a Christian old man. Why 
 feel sorry for those upon whom the glories of 
 the eternal world are about to burst ? 
 
 How EASY.~It is astonishing how easy it is 
 for a good soul to enter heaven. A prominent 
 business man in Philadelphia went home one 
 afternoon, lay down on the lounge, and said, 
 " It is time for me to go." He was very aged. 
 His daughter said to him, "Are you sick ?" 
 He said, "No; but it is time for me to go. 
 Let John put it in two of the morning papers, 
 that my friends may know that I am gone. 
 Good-bye !" and as quick as that, God had 
 taken him. 
 
28 
 
 ''Points:' • 
 
 \xru \ ^ ^'^"^ °n your street 
 
 r LTV'" '^--'y a" Changed w^: 
 
 nhe^sttwe„.,,ea.P Doe. the pa.i„, 
 ^"'ay of a generation account for it ? oh 
 
 f Wt^en Who go down eve^, ear account 
 ;'' °''"'°- This is tl,e secret. The 
 
 S eet Broadway, Water Street, Fulton Street 
 Atianfc Street; and He has heen adJuZ 
 thmgs according to the principles of ^Z 
 rectude. The ti™e wi„ con,e when, thgl 
 
 he revolutionary power of this Gospel, f If 
 "ood, instead of heing called e^on 
 
 der the ::^"';'" ""'^ ~- ^° 
 
 the head of percentages, and com- 
 ™ s.ons. and tonuses, wi,, he put into tre 
 --•ogue of state.pr.-son offences. Socie y 
 w.n be turned inside out and upside down 
 
"POINTS." 
 and ransacked of God's truth, until businel' 
 d.sho„esties shall come to an end. and all 
 double-dealing; and God will overturn, and 
 overturn, and overtun,; and commercial men 
 >n all circles will throw up their hands, cy- 
 
 >ng out, "These that have turned the world 
 upside down are come hither." 
 
 The Bible the Only Standard op Right 
 -Fmd me fifty merchants, and you find that 
 they have fifty standards of what is right and 
 wrong. You say to some one about a mer- 
 
 chant, " Is he honest ? " " Oh v« " th. 
 
 "n, yes, the man 
 
 says, •' he is honest, but he grinds the faces of 
 h.s clerks. He is honest, but he exaggerates 
 the value of his goods. He is honest, but he 
 loans money on bond and mortgage with the 
 understanding that the mortgage can lie quiet 
 for ten years, but as soon as he gets the mort- 
 gage, he records it and begins a foreclosure 
 suit, and the sheriffs writ comes down, and 
 the day of sale 
 
 „ aixU aw 
 
 «way goes the 
 
30 M ''POINTS:' 
 
 homestead, and the creditor buys it in at half, 
 price." Honest, when he leaned the money 
 he knew that he would g^i the homestead at 
 half-price ? Honest, but he goes to the in- 
 surance office to get a policy on his life, and 
 tells the doctor he is well, when he knows that 
 for ten years he has had but one lung. Honest, 
 though he sells property by the map, forgetting 
 to tell the purchaser that the ground is all 
 under water; but it is generous in him to do 
 that, for he throws the water into the bargain. 
 Ah ! my friends, there is but one standard of 
 the everlastingly right and of the everiastingly 
 wrong, and that is the Bible ; and when that 
 principle shall get its lever under our com- 
 mercial houses, I believe, that one half of them 
 will go over. 
 
 The Grandeur of Old AoE.-Blessed old 
 age, if you let it come naturally. The grandest 
 things in all the universe are old. Old moun- 
 tains, old rivers, old seas, old stars, and an 
 
*' POINTS." 31 
 
 old eternity. Then do not be ashamed to be 
 old, unless you are older than the mountains 
 and older than the stars. 
 
 Glorious old age, if found in the way of 
 righteousness! How beautiful the old age of 
 Jacob, leaning on the top of his staff; of John 
 Quincy Adams, falling with the harness on ; 
 of Washington Irving, sitting, pen in hand, 
 amid the scenes himself had made classical ; 
 of John Angell James, to the last proclaiming 
 the Gospel to the masses of Birmingham ; of 
 Theodore Frelinghuysen, down to feebleness 
 and emaciation devoting his illustrious faculties 
 to the kingdom of God ! 
 
 Anticipation of the End of Evil.—I want 
 to see John Howard when the last prisoner is 
 reformed; I want to see Florence Nightingale 
 when the last sabre- wound has stopped hurting; 
 I want to see William Penn when the last 
 Indian has been civilized; I want to see John 
 Kuss when the last flame of persecution has 
 
3"? *' points:' 
 
 been extinguished; I want to see John Bunyan 
 
 after the last pilgrim has come to the gate of 
 the celestial cit... Above all, I „ant to see 
 Jesus after the last saint has his throne, and 
 has begun to sing Hallelujah/ 
 
 The Evening of the World.-You have 
 ■watched the calmness and the gloiy of the even- 
 .ng hour The labourers have come from the 
 field The heavens are glowing with an in- 
 descnbable effulgence, as though the sun in de- 
 parting had forgotten to shut the gate after it. 
 AH the beauty of cloud and leaf swim in the 
 lake. For a star in the sky, a star i„ the 
 water; heaven above, and heaven beneath. 
 Not a leaf rustling, „r a bee humming, or a 
 grasshopper chirping. Silence in the meadow 
 silence in the orchard, silence among the 
 h.lls. Thus bright and beautiful shall be the 
 evening of the world. The heats of earthly 
 conflict are cooled. The glo,y of heaven fills 
 all the scene with love, and joy, and peace. 
 
" points:' 
 
 I have seen many Christians die. I never saw 
 any of them die in darkness. 
 , A Beautiful Figure of Death.-I saw 
 a beautiful being wandering up and down the 
 earth. She touched the aged, and they became 
 young. She touched the poor, and they became 
 rich. T said, "Who is this beautiful being wan- 
 dering up and down the earth ?" They told me 
 that her name was Death. What a strange 
 thrill of joy when the palsied Cl^ristian begins 
 to use his arm again ! When the blind Chris- 
 tian begins to see again! When the deaf Chris- 
 tian begins to hear again! When the poor 
 pilgrim puts his feet on such pavement, and 
 joins in such company, and has a free seat in 
 such a great temple! Hungry men no more to 
 hungex ; thirsty men no more to thirst; weeping 
 men no more to weep; dying men no more to 
 die. Gather up all sweet words, all jubilant 
 expressions, all rapturous exclamations ; bring 
 them to me, and I will pour upon them this 
 
M 
 
 ''POINTS, 
 
 » 
 
 disenthral- 
 
 stupendoas theme of the sou] 
 menti Oh! the joy of the spin, as it shall 
 mount up toward the throne of God, shouting 
 Pre&l Free! 
 
 There will be a password at the gate 
 OF HEAVEN. A great multitude come up and 
 knock at the gate. The gatekeeper says, " The 
 password." They say, *^ Ve have no password. 
 We were great on earth, and now we come up 
 to be great in heaven." A voice from within 
 answers, "I never knew you." Another group 
 
 come up to the gate of heaven and knock. The 
 gatekeeper says, " The password." They say, 
 " We have no password. We did a great 
 many noble things on earth. We endowed 
 colleges, and took care of the poor." The 
 voice from within says, « I never knew you." 
 Another group come up to the gate of heaven 
 and knock. The gatekeeper says, « The pass- 
 word." They answer, "We were wanderers 
 from God, and deserve to die ; hut we heard 
 
"POINTS.'' 35 
 
 the voice of Jesus.' . . " "Ay! ay! "says 
 the gatekeeper, " that is the password ! " 
 
 Sowing Wild Oats.-Ii is said that the 
 young must be allowed to sow their "wild oats." 
 I have noticed that those who sow their wild 
 oats seldom try to raise any other kin> of ' 
 crop. 
 
 The Dying Girl. — I went through the 
 heaviest snow-storm I have ever known to see 
 a dying girl. Her cheek on the pillow was 
 white as the snow on the casement. Her large 
 round eye had not lost any of its lustre. Loved 
 ones stood all around the bed, trying to hold 
 her back. Her mother could not give her up; 
 her father could not giwQ her up; and one 
 nearer to her than either father or mother 
 was frantic with grief. I said, " Fanny, how 
 do you feel ? " " Oh ! " she said, " happy ! 
 happy! Mr. Talmage, tell all the young 
 folks that religion will make them happy." 
 As I came out of the room, louder than all 
 
36 *' points:' 
 
 the sobs and wailings of grief I heard the 
 clear, sweet, glad voice of the dying girl : 
 "Good-night; we shall meet again on the 
 other side of the river." The next Sabbath 
 we buried her. We brought white flowers 
 and laid them, on the coffin. There was in 
 all that crowded church but one really happy 
 and delighted face, and that was the face of 
 Fanny. h 
 
 Christ's Crown Jewels.— The Lord Jesus 
 Christ, our King, has been gathering up his 
 treasures for a good while, and on the great 
 coronation-day of the judgment He will, in the 
 presence of the assembled universe, show that 
 the good of all ages are His crown jewels. 
 
 Pearls from Great Depths.— I have been 
 told that the deeper the water the larger the 
 peari. I don't know how that is, but I do know 
 that from the greatest depths of sin the Lord 
 Jesus Christ sometimes gathers up His bright- 
 est jewels. Paul was a persecutor^ Bun "an was 
 
' ''POINTS:' 37 
 
 a blasphemer, John Newton was a libertine, 
 the Earl of Rochester was an infidel ; and yet 
 the grace of God went plunging down through 
 the fathoms of their abomination, until it found 
 them and brought them up to the light. 
 
 Jewels of God's Grace. — The geologist 
 tells you that the brightest diamond is only crys- 
 talli:^ed carbon, or, as I might call it, charcoal 
 glorified; and so it is with souls that were 
 coal black in the defilements of sin— by the 
 power of God's grace they are made God's 
 jewels for ever. 
 
 Don't Worry.— Don't worry because God 
 made you different from others. Don't worry 
 because you don't have the faith of that man, 
 or the praying qualities of this, or the singing 
 qualities of another. It were as unwise as for 
 a camelian to blush deeper because it is not 
 a diamond, or a japonica to fret all the colour 
 out of its cheek because it is not a rnsp Cc^a 
 intended you to be different. 
 
3« "POINTS:' 
 
 The Bible in the Last Hour.— In that 
 last hour take from me my pillow, take away 
 all soothing draughts, take away the iaces of 
 family and kindred, take away every helping 
 hand and every consoling voice ; alone let me 
 die on the mountain on a bed of rock, covered 
 only by a sheet of embroidered frost, under 
 the slap of the night-wind, and breathing out 
 my life on the bosom of the wild, wintry 
 blast, rather than in that last hour take from 
 me my Bible. 
 
 The Two Brothers and their. Bible.— 
 I can think of only one right way in which the 
 Bible may be divided. A minister went into 
 a house, and saw a Bible on the stand, and 
 said, « What a pity that this Bible should be 
 so torn ! You do not seem to take much care 
 of it: half the leaves are gone." Said the , 
 man, " This was my mother's Bible, and my 
 brother John wanted it, and I wanted it, and 
 we cuuJd not agree about the matter, and so 
 
''POINTS:' 39 
 
 we each took a half. My half has been blessed 
 to my soul, and his half has been blessed to 
 his soul." That is the only way that I can 
 think of in which the Word of God may be 
 rightfully cut. 
 
 The Light of Nature not Sufficient. 
 —Men strike their knife through this Book be- 
 cause, they say that the light of nature is sufficient. 
 Indeed! Have the fire-worshippers of India, 
 cutting themselves with lancets until the blood 
 spurts at every , .re, found the light of nature 
 sufficient ? Has the Bornesian cannibal, gnaw- 
 ing the roasted flesh from human bones, found 
 the light of nature sufficient ? Has the Chirfese 
 woman, with her foot cramped and deformed 
 into a cow's hoof, found the light of nature 
 sufficient? Could the ancients see heaven 
 from the heights of Ida or Olympus? No I 
 I call upon the pagodas of superstition, the 
 Brahminic tortures, the infanticide of the 
 Ganges, the bloody wheels of the Jugger- 
 
V 
 
 40 ''POINTS.'' 
 
 naut, to prove that the hght of nature is not 
 sufficient. 
 
 He IS THE Lord God Almighty, a truth 
 that is sad or glad, just according to the posi- 
 tion you occupy-just as the castle is grand or 
 terrible, according as you are inside or outside 
 of it. If you are inside of it, it is your defence. 
 If you are outpide of it, it is your destruction. 
 The Beauty of God's Care for Us.-More 
 beautiful than any flower I ever saw are the hues 
 of a bird's plumage. Did you ever examine it ? 
 The blackbird, floating like a flake of darkness 
 through the sunlight ; the meadow-lark, with 
 head of fawn, and throat of velvet, and breast 
 of gold; the red flamingo flying over the 
 Southern swamps, like sparks from the forge 
 of the setting sun ; the pelican white and 
 black -morning and night tangled in its 
 wings-give but a very faint idea of the 
 beauty that comes down over the soul when 
 on it drop jh^ feathers of the Almighty. 
 
''POINTS." 41 
 
 Unexplained Mysteries.— -What ! will you 
 not believe anything you cannot explain ? Have 
 you finger nails ? You say, " Yes." Explain 
 why, on the tip of your finger, there comes a 
 nail. You cannot tell me. You believe in the 
 law of gravitation : explain it, if you can. I 
 can ask you a hundred questions about your 
 eyes, about your ears, about your face, about 
 your feet, that you cannot answer, and yet you 
 find fault that I cannot answer all the questions 
 you may ask about this Bible. I would not 
 give a farthing for the Bible if I could under- 
 stand everything in it. I should know that the 
 heights and depths of God's truth were not 
 very great if, with my poor, finite mind, I 
 could reach everything. 
 
 How THE Farmer Disposed of the Mys- 
 tery.— A, plain farmer said to a sceptic, ** The 
 mysteries of the Bible do not bother me. I 
 read the Bible as I eat fish. In eating fish, 
 when I come across a bone, I do not try to 
 
42 
 
 « 
 
 POINTS." 
 
 swallow it, but I lay it on one side. When, in 
 reading the prophecies, I come across that 
 which is inexplicable, I say, « There, is a bone,' 
 and I lay it on one side. When I find some- 
 thing in a doctrine that staggers my reason, I 
 say, ' That is a bone,' and I lay it on one side," 
 Alas! that men should choke themselves to 
 death with bbnes of mystery, when there is so 
 much meat in this Bible on which the soul 
 may get strong for eternity. 
 
 This book to-day is foremost. In philo- 
 sophy, it is honoured above the works of 
 Descartes, Bacon, Aristotle, and Plato. In ' 
 history, it wins more respect than Herodotus, 
 ThucySides, and Xenophon. In poetry, it out- 
 shines the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," the "In- 
 ferno," the "Divina Commedia," and "Paradise 
 Lost." 
 
 You shall not rob me of a single word, ^ 
 of a single verse, of a single chapter, of a single 
 book of my Bibie. When life, like an ocean, 
 
''POINTS.'' 43 
 
 billows up with trouble, and death comes, and 
 our bark is sea-smitten, with halyards cracked 
 and white sails flying in shreds, like a maniac's 
 gray locks in the wind, then we shall want God's 
 Word to steer us off the rocks, and shine Ulce 
 lighthouses through the dark channels of death, 
 and ' ; i> hands of light beckon our storm-tossed 
 soulc iiAo the harbour. 
 
 The Bible above all Nature's Joys.— A 
 star is beautiful, but 'it pours no light into the 
 midnight of a sinful soul. The flower is sweet, 
 but it exudes no balm for the heart's wound. 
 All the odours that ever floated from royal 
 conservatory or princely hanging-gardens, give 
 not so much sweetness as is found in one 
 waft from this Scripture mountain of myrrh 
 and frankincense. All the waters that ever 
 leaped in torrent, or foamed in cascade, or 
 fell in summer shower, or hung in morning 
 dew, give no such coolness to the fevered 
 soul as the smallest drop that ever flashed 
 
 i 
 
 J 
 
44 "POINTS." 
 
 out from the showering fountains of this divine 
 Book;. 
 
 I SHALL TAKE AlL OF THE BiBLE OR NONE. 
 
 —A man dies, having made a will. The people 
 who expect a part of the inheritance asser ble 
 to hear the will read. The attorney reads it 
 until he comes to a certain passage of the will, 
 when one of the heirs cries out, " I reject that 
 passage." The attorney reads on, and some 
 one else says, "I reject that passage, while I 
 accept all of the rest of the will." The iieirs 
 go before the surrogate, and the judge decides: ' 
 " You must take this will as a whole, or not at 
 all. You cannot break a part of it, and leave 
 the rest intgjct." Now I say in regard to this 
 Will of my Father, in respect to this last Will 
 and Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 if we break any part of the Will we break it all, 
 and we lose our inheritance, and gc '-cggared 
 through eternity. 
 God's Invitation.— Why will the prodigal' 
 
''POINTS." 45 
 
 chew the husks of the swine when the father's 
 robe and ring and banquet are all ready ? Why 
 wander along the great Sahara of sin when 
 all the gardens of God invite you to the trees 
 of life and the fountains of living water ? Wljy 
 be orphan, houseless, and homeless for ever, 
 when the Lord Almighty asks you to come 
 into His family, and be His sons and His 
 daughters for ever ? 
 
 Alas, for those v^^ho refuse the rescue ! 
 They will wither away and fail and die. They 
 will be trodden under foot of life's calamities. 
 Hugest burdens will overtake them. But to 
 those who receive this grace, fountains will 
 break out in the desert, brightest joy will 
 spring up out of blackest misfortune, and 
 the joy of the world to come will surge 
 upon them long before they reach the portals 
 of glory. From strength to strength, they 
 shall pass up, one burden after another fall- 
 ing off, unt;i disenthralled from the last in- 
 
 
 fc^ 
 
 
46 "POINTS.*' 
 
 firmity, they shall mount upward, for ever 
 free. 
 
 PtJT YOUR Bible down on your counters. 
 When you seem to be losing,^^ound, and loss 
 treads upon the heels of 16ss, ^rn over the 
 good Book and read what unfading riches God 
 has in reserve for the righteous. When your 
 business friends fail you and you are betrayed, 
 turn over and read about the frienr'-ship of Him 
 who sticketh closer than a brother. When 
 looking over your ledger and your bank account 
 and your list of uncancelled mortgages, do the 
 best you can, and then turn to your Bible again 
 and read the full-hearted promises in the text, 
 "Cast thy burden on the Lord and He will 
 sustain thee." 
 
 , God is in sympathy with you. Don't you 
 
 think He knows how heavy the hod of bricks 
 
 is that the workman carried up the ladder on 
 
 the wall ? Don't you think He hears the ring 
 
 of the pickaxe of the miner down in the <rnM 
 
 . — — _j — 
 
ever 
 
 47 
 hard 
 
 shaft? Don't you think He knows h. 
 
 the tempest strikes the sailor at mast-head ? 
 
 Don't you think He sees the factory girl amid 
 
 flying spindles, and knows how her arms ache ? 
 
 Don't you think He sees the sewing-worn^ 
 in the fourth story, and knows how few pence 
 she gets for making one garment ? Ay, ay ; I 
 tell you that louder than the roar of the whells 
 and the din of the great cities, the sigh of the 
 over-tasked working men rises into the ear of 
 God. 
 
 Be Steadfast in DuTY.-Budge not in the 
 discharge of your duty though all hell wreak 
 upon you its vengeance, and you become the 
 target for devils to shoot at. Don't think you 
 will have to bear the burden of scorn alone. 
 Was not Christ called a wine-bibber? Was 
 He not called a blasphemer? 
 
 The wings of God are broad wings. They 
 cover up all our wants, all our sorrows, all our 
 
 suffenncfR Ho »m,<-« • 
 
 o- -*- i^uLB uiic wing over our cradle, 
 
 \ 
 
48 "PO/JVTX" 
 
 and He puts the other over our grave. Yes ' 
 my dear friends, it is not a desert in which 
 we are placed ; it is a nest. 
 
 Christ was wonderf-.;. ,„_»,s teach.no. 
 The people had been used io formalities and 
 technicalities, Christ upset all their notions 
 as to how preaching ought to be done. There 
 was this peculiarity about His preaching: the 
 - ••~P'' ■'"^'^ *'"" H« meant. His illustrations 
 were taken from the hen calling her chickens 
 together; from salt; from candles; from fish- 
 ing-tackle; from a hard creditor collaring a 
 debtor. How few pulpits of this day would 
 have allowed Him entrance I He would have 
 been called undignified -and familiar in His 
 style of preaching. And yet the people went 
 to hear Him. Those old Jewish rabbis might 
 have preached on the side of Olivet fifty years 
 and never got an audience. 
 
 The Homeliness of Christ's Preaching. 
 -Suppose you that any woman who ever mixed 
 
"POINTS," 
 bread was ignorant of what He meant whet 
 He compared the kingdom of heaven with 
 leaven or yeast ? Suppose you that the sun- 
 bu^ed fishermen, with the fish scales upon 
 he,r hands, were listless when He spoWof 
 
 the kmgdom of heaven as a net ? 
 Others to take their Pi^ces.-Do not be 
 
 disturbed as you see good and great men die. 
 
 People woro^when some important personage 
 
 passes off the stage, and say, "His place will 
 never be taken." But neither the Church nor 
 the State will suffer for it. There will be others 
 to take their places. When God takes one man 
 away, He has another right back of him 
 : We die in concert. The clock that strikes 
 the hour of our going will sound the going 
 of many thousands. Keeping step with the 
 feet of those who carry us out will be the 
 tramp of hundreds doing the same errand 
 
 The Young to Take our Places.-As we 
 get older, do not let us be affironted if yOung 
 
 S ' . ^ ■ 
 
 J 
 
50 • ' "POINTS. " 
 
 men and women crowd us a little. We shall 
 have had our day, and we must let them have 
 theirs. When our voices get cracked, let us 
 not snarl at those who can ^varbk When our 
 knees are stiffened, let us have 'patience with 
 those who go fleet as the deer. Because our 
 leaf IS fading, do not let us despise the 
 unfrosted. 
 
 The Buthest.and Gavest.-I look back 
 to my childhood days, and remember when 
 >n winter nights, in the sitting-room, the 
 children played, the blithest and the gayest 
 of all the company were father and mother. 
 Although reaching fourscore years of age. 
 they never got old. 
 
 The Grave the Great City. _ London 
 and Pekin are not the great cities of the world 
 The grave is the great city. It hath mightier 
 population, longer streets, brighter lights 
 thicker darknesses. City of kings and paupers i 
 It has swallowed up in its immigrations- 
 
"■Pojjvrs" J, 
 
 Thebes and Tyre and Babylon, and will 
 swallow all our cities. Yet, City of SiUnce. 
 No voice. No hoof. No wheel. No clash. 
 No smiting of hammer. No clack of flying 
 loom. No jar. No whisper. Great City of 
 Silence! Of all its million million hands, not 
 one of them is lifted. Of all its million million 
 eyes, not one of them sparkles. Of all its 
 million million hearts, not one pulsates. 
 
 Wb Fall to Rise. - As the leaves fade 
 and fall, only to rise, so do we. AH this golden 
 shower of the woods is making the ground 
 neher, and in the juice and sap and life of 
 the tree the leaves will come up again. Next 
 May the south wind will blow the resu^ection 
 trumpet, and they will rise. So we fall in 
 the dust only to rise again. 
 
 The Black Frost.- In early antumn the 
 frosts come, but do not seem to damage vege- 
 tation. They are light frosts. But somp 
 morning you look out of the window, and say 
 
fi 
 
 52 "POINTS.'' 
 
 " There was a black frost last night," and you 
 know that from that day everything will wither. 
 So men seem to get along without religion, 
 amid the annoyances and vixa^pns of life that 
 nip them slightly here and nip thtm there. 
 But after a while death comes. It is a black 
 frost, and all is ended. 
 
 Oh ! WHAT "WITHERING and scattering death 
 makes among those not prepared to meet it I 
 They leave everything pleasant behind them, 
 and step out of the sunshine into the shadow. 
 They hang their harps on the willow, and 
 trudge away into everlasting captivity. They 
 quit the presence of bird and bloom and wave, 
 to go unbeckoned and unwelcomed. No funeral 
 bell can toll one half the dolefulness of their 
 condition, 
 
 Christ's Wonderful Magnetism. — Hear 
 me while I tell you of a poor young man who 
 came up from Nazareth to produce a thrill 
 such as has never been excited by anv other. 
 
"POINTS," j^ 
 
 Napoleon had around him the memories of 
 Austerlitz and Jena, but here was a man who 
 had fought no baUles, who wore no epaulettes, 
 who brandished m sworr. He is no titled 
 man of the schools, ,: he never went to school. 
 He had probably never seen a prince, or 
 shaken hands with a nobleman. The only 
 extraordinary person we know of as being in 
 his company was his own mother, and she was 
 so poor that in the most delicate and solemn 
 hour that ever comes to a woman's soul she 
 was obliged to lie down amid camel drivers 
 grooming the beasts of burden. I imagine 
 Christ one day standing in the streets of 
 Jerusalem. A man descended from high lineage 
 stands beside Him, and says, - My father was 
 a merchant prince ; he had a castle on the 
 beach at Galilee. Who was your father ? " 
 Christ answers, "Joseph, the carpenter." A 
 man from Athens is standing- thpr*. „nr.«n;^^ 
 his parchment of graduation, and says to 
 
54 "POINTS." 
 
 Christ, "Where did you go to school?" 
 Christ answers : « I never graduated." Aha ! 
 the idea of such an unheralded young man 
 attempting to command the attention of the 
 worid ! Yet ho sooner does He set His 
 foot in the towns or cities of Judea than 
 everything is in commotion. 
 
 Take care of your health now, and 
 trust God for the future. Be not guilty of the 
 blasphemy of asking Him to take care of you 
 while you sleep with your windows tight down, 
 or eat chicken-salad at eleven o'clock at night,'^ 
 er sit down on a cake of ice to cool off. Some' 
 of the sickliest people have been the most 
 useful. It was so with Payson, who died 
 deaths daily; and Robert Hall, who was often 
 the subject of lutense pain before entering 
 the pulpit. Theodore Frelinghuysen had a 
 great horror of dying till the time came, 
 and then went peacefully. Take care of 
 
 the p.tisent. and \ef fh« a,*.,--. i_-i_ , - 
 — — ...», xuvuic iuuK out for 
 
 I 
 
^'POINTS.'' .55 
 
 itself. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
 thereof." 
 
 A Waste of Strength. — The habit of 
 borrowing misfortms is wrong, because it^ un- 
 fits us for it when it actually does come, "ihey 
 who fight imaginary woes will com6 out of 
 breath into conflict with the armed disasters 
 of the future. Their ammunition will have 
 been wasted long before they come under the 
 guns of rfeal misfortune. 
 
 Borrowing Trouble is Unbelief. —The 
 habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, because 
 it is unbelief. God has promised to take care 
 of us. The Bible blooms with assurances. 
 
 Man's Wicked Discontent. — To slake 
 man's thirst the rock is cleft, and cool waters 
 leap into his brimming cup. To feed his hun- 
 ger, the fields bow down with bending wheat, 
 and the cattle come down with full udders 
 from the clover pastures to give him milk, 
 and the orchards yellow and ripen, casting 
 
56 "POINTS." 
 
 their juicy fruits into his lap. Alas! that 
 amid such exuberance of blessing man should 
 growl as though he ^re^a soldier on half 
 rations, or a sailor on shor^^allowance. 
 
 How POORLY PREPARED for religious duty 
 IS a man who sits down under the gloom of 
 expected misfortune. If he pray, he says, " I 
 do not think I shall be answered." If he gWt 
 he says, « I expect they will steal the money.'' 
 Helen Chalmers told me that her father, 
 Thomas Chalmers, in the darkest hour of the' ' 
 history of the Free Church of Scotland, and 
 when the woes of the land seemed to weigh 
 upon his heart, said to his children, " Come 
 let us go out and play ball or fly kite," and the 
 only difficulty in the play was that the children 
 could not Keep up with their father. 
 
 Don't Watch for Evil.-You will have 
 nothing but misfortune in the future if you 
 sedulously watch for it. How shall a man 
 catch the right kind of fish if he arranges hi.. 
 
''POINTS:' 57 
 
 line and hook and bait to catch lizards an(f ' 
 water-serpents? 
 
 Courage, MY Brother! The father does, 
 not give to his son at school enough ipohey 
 to last him several years, but, as the bills of 
 tuition and board and clothing and books come 
 in, pays them. So God will not give you grace 
 all at once for the future, but will meet all 
 your exigencies as they come. 
 
 Mrs. Cunard's Prayers. - People ascribe 
 the success of the Cunard line of steamers to 
 business skill, and know not the fact that when 
 that line of steamers first started, Mrs. Cunard, 
 the wife of the proprietor, passed the whole 
 of each day when a steamer sailed in prayer 
 td God for its safety and the success of the 
 line. 
 
 The Pulpit a Barrier. - There has been 
 too great a distance between pulpit and pew 
 -a great gulf fixed. The heart of the preacher 
 and the heart of the hearer have not struck 
 
58 "POINTS." 
 
 each other in pulsation. The distance has 
 .been so great that our^arms are not long 
 enough. Nothing could before preposterous 
 than for a preacher to stand at an elevation 
 of five or six fe^t. and behind a barricade four 
 feet through, crying, "Give me thy hand'" 
 Haniel We^-fter said that one of the best 
 evidences of the divinity of our holy religion 
 was the fact that it had lived, notwithstanding 
 the clumsy architecture of the pulpit 
 
 "Come.- "COME!" Ay, that is the most 
 famihar word in the Bible! It seems to be 
 a favourite word. The word "come" occurs 
 SIX hundred and forty-two times in the Bible. 
 It is-" Come to the si-pper;" "Come to the 
 waters;" "The Spirit and the Bride say. 
 Come." Through all sorrows, through all 
 trials, through all nights of darkness, through 
 all calamities, through all temptations, v rings 
 out— "Come! Com! CoMB!" 
 The Gospel Bell. — 1 rememh,, ...t.. 
 
"POINTS.'' . 55, 
 
 I was a boy in the country, of being envious 
 of the old sexton, who used to lay hold of the 
 bell^rope and' start the bell that shook the 
 meeting-house, calling the people for jmiles 
 around to prayer. The poorest man trudgmg 
 along the turnpike-road knew that the bell 
 called him, just as much as it called the rich 
 farmer rising behind his prancing, capering 
 span. And so this Gospel bell calls to palaces 
 and to hunts, to robes and to rags, saying, 
 " Whosoever will, let him come ! " 
 
 Woe for the Unregenerate !— I account 
 it as infinite cowardice and hypocrisy for a 
 man who believes in the Bible to hide from the 
 people that there are appalling disasters com- 
 ing to those who finally reject God. We can 
 plaster the mattec over ; we can philosophize 
 about it; we can explain it away; but the 
 Bible states it, reiterates it, makes as plain as 
 that two and two make four, that there is utter 
 discomfiture for the finally unregenerate. 
 
6o *' POINTS." , 
 
 The False. Flag.-^\ou know that a white 
 flag along a rail tr^ck means safety, ai:>d that 
 a red. flag means da^gen^^ Now hery is coming 
 i;!^ Chicago onress. Here is a bridge swept 
 d{)^^^ i.v th^ freshet. A man goes out with 
 a red flag to stop the approaching train. I 
 go out with a white flag and wav it. The 
 engineer takes my signal, and not that of the 
 other man. The engine rushes v^n. In 
 another moment a hundred and fifty souls 
 are in eternity. Who is responsible? A 
 man standing by my side says, " You are. 
 What did you wave that white flag for?" 
 In the great day of eternity it will be found 
 Who of us, standing in the pulpits, were the 
 kindest and wisest flag-^men. He will be re- 
 sponsible who lets men go on down toward 
 death without giving the warning, waving the 
 white flag of safety when he ought have 
 shaken the red flag of peril. 
 
 Alas 
 
 
 y oDjeet is 
 
«■•. 
 
 ''POINTS." 6i 
 
 not to argue the truthfulness of the Bible, but 
 to make you, wJio believe in it, willing to 
 be laughed at. Surrender nothing! Com- 
 promise nothing ! Trim off nothing to ^ease 
 the sceptics. If you cannot stand the jeer 
 of your business friends, you are not worthy to 
 . be one of Christ's disciples. You can afford 
 to wait. .The tide will turn; God's word will 
 be vindicated; and though it may seem to 
 be against the laws of nature and the rules 
 of reason, to-morrow a measure of fine^ flour 
 will be sold for a shekel ; and then, as the 
 people rush out of the gates to get the bread, 
 alas for the rationalist ! 
 
 BREAD.—Effort has been made to feed those 
 spiritually dying with the poesies of rhetoric, 
 and the sugar-plums of ritualism, and the 
 confectionary of sentiraentalism. Our theo- 
 logy has been sweetened and sweetened and 
 sweetened, until it is as sweet as ipecacuanha, 
 and as nauseating to the regenerated soul.' 
 
6a ''POINTS." 
 
 What the people need is bread— ^M^t as God 
 mixes it — unsweetened, plain, homely, un- 
 pretending, yet |ife-si^!^taining bread. That 
 you must have, oh, dying soul. Better the 
 smallest crumb of this that ever fell from the 
 master's table than everything the world can 
 give you. t j 
 
 No Exceptions. — God makes no special 
 regulation for the graduates of Harvard or 
 Princeton. Rejecting the Bible, they will go 
 down to be companions with the most aban- 
 doned wretches of the universe, and more 
 miserable than they, because of the superior 
 intelligence given. One rule for all— for great 
 brain and little brain,-for high foreheaded 
 Greek professor, and for flat-skulled Esqui- 
 maux. "He that believeth and is baptised 
 shall be saved; and he that beiieveth not shall 
 be damned." By this announcement of God's 
 Word I stand or fall. . , 
 
 (( 
 
 WhOMSQEVRR." — "W/nrrl o 
 
 
' '"POINTS." g 
 
 inteiTdent of a Sabbath-school in New York 
 that he was wanted in a garret in one of the 
 lowest streets. He went there, and found a 
 boy dying in the straw. He said, " Why have 
 you sent for me?" The boy said, " I attended 
 your Sundayschool." The superintendent 
 asked, "Why do you look so happy?" The 
 boy answered, "I heard you, one Sunday, say 
 that whomsoever a fellow cometh to God, He 
 will in no wise cast him out; and I belilved 
 It, and Christ has pardonei? my sins; and I 
 am on the way to heaven, and I want to bid 
 you good-bye."^ 
 
 Love, to jEsus.-What fine flour was in 
 that day to Samaria, Jesus Christ is to all who 
 will take Him in. Dear Jesus ! Loving Jesus ! 
 Faithful Jesus I No wonder the little child, 
 having been told that her playmate was dying' 
 asked tc be lifted up to see her. They lifted • 
 her up :.ad she kissed her dying playmate, and 
 said, - Clara, give my love to Jesus." If Christ 
 
 / 
 
 ] 
 
64 ''POINTS.''^ 
 
 were fully knowu, the whole world would 
 throw its arms around His neck. 
 
 Three Wishes.-— One of the old writers 
 wished he could have seen three things : Rome 
 in its prosperity, Paul preaching, Christ in the 
 body. I have three wishes: First, to see 
 Christ in -glory, surrounded by His reedemed ; 
 Second, to see Christ in glory, surrounded by 
 His redeemed ; Third, to see Christ in glory, 
 surrounded by His redeemed. 
 
 Are you ready to-day to accept Him ? 
 Instead of flounderinr about in darkness, try- 
 ing th" that and t? other ^hing, now taking 
 the gospel of Theodore Parker, and now the 
 go ;el ' )arwin, ? 'd now (he g'^spel of 
 Herbert Spencer, and now the gospel oi Conte, 
 and now the gospel of Jr' uxley, take the g 'spel 
 of the tvo old po« 4e ho had mor religious 
 peace and happiness in one hour than ill these 
 scientists have in a lifetime — the two old 
 people who sat at eithpr pnd ^.f flio ♦oKt^ ;« 
 
#■ 
 
 I 
 
 "points:' es 
 
 your childhood: I mean the old people by 
 whose side you would like to be buried when 
 your work is done. I place the religion of 
 your father's house against the dreajning of 
 all the universities in the world. 
 
 Our Religion.— No elaborate thinking is 
 necessary to understand our religion. You 
 have only to put two ideas together : the one 
 h the saddest idea in the universe, pnd the 
 other the gladdest — / am a sinner, but Ji .us 
 ^d to save me. 
 
 Hal. God been hard with thee, that 
 thou shouldst be foreboding ? Has He stinted 
 thy board ? Has He covered thee w'*\ ra^s ? 
 Has He spread traps for thy feet, and gp. :.d 
 thy cup, and rasped thy soul, and wrecked thee 
 with storm, and thundered upon thee with a 
 life full of calamity ? 
 
 Beware lest, because there are some things 
 about this relirion yo^i cannot understand, 
 you disbelieve, and the fate of the Samaritan 
 
** "Pomrs." 
 
 ratipnalist be yours I " Behold, thou shalt see 
 " """' ">'"* «y«. but shall not eat thereof- 
 and so it fell out unto him, for the people trod' 
 upon him in the gate, and he died." 
 
 The Sin of Borrowing Trouble The 
 
 habit of borrowing trouble is wrong, because 
 the present is sufficiently taxed with trial. 
 God sees that we all need a certain amount 
 of trouble, and so He apportions it for all the 
 days and years of our life. Alas for the policy 
 
 of gathering it all up for one day or year. 
 Cruel thing to put upon the back of one camel 
 all the cargo intended for the entire caravan 
 I never look at my memorandum-book to see 
 what engagements and duties are far ahead 
 Let every week bear its own burdens. 
 
 Gloomy Christians. - Many Christians 
 thmk it a bad sign to be jubilant, and their 
 work of self-examination is a hewing down 
 of their brighter experiences. Like a boy with 
 a new jack-knife, hacking everything he comes 
 
''points:* 
 
 across, so .heir self-examina.ion is a reiigiou! 
 
 'ay the.r hands on. They imagine .he, are 
 
 do.ng God. service when the, are going L„, 
 borrowing trouble. 
 
 Bb Thankful. It ;« i,;„i, »• 
 
 »„ ., , " "'8" *™e you began 
 
 to thank God for nre^^nt ki • 
 hin, f ^ blessing. Thanlc 
 
 h m for your children, happy, buoyant, and 
 funding Praise Hin, for your h„n,e, with 
 ts fountain of song and laughter. Ador Him 
 ^r morning hght and evening shadow. Praise 
 H™ or fresh cool water, bubbling fro. the 
 
 It' T' • " '"^ "^"•'^' ^""'"^ - '"« 
 
 mist, falling .„ ,^^ ^^^^^^^ 
 
 he rock, and clapping its ;,a„ds in the teCs 
 W Hi. for the grass that cushions e 
 
 ant; T • ''^ ""-'^ "'^^ -«^" '"« 4 
 Hr/T''"^""^'"'''^'"-'- Thank 
 H.m for a Bible to read, and a cross to gaz. 
 upon, and a Saviour to deliver. 
 
 Sufficient fob the Ha-- - 
 
 .HE UA».— uo to-morrow 
 
68 ' "Po/JVTS." 
 
 and write on your day-book, on your ledger, 
 on your money-safe, "Sufficient unto the day 
 is the evil thereof." Do not woriy about notes 
 that are far from due. Do not pile up on your 
 counting-desk the financial anxieties of the 
 next twenty years. 
 
 No Right to be Gloomy. — Melancholy is 
 the owl that is perched in many a Christian 
 soul. It is an unclean bird, and needs to be 
 driven away. A man whose sins are pardoned, 
 and who is on the road to heaven, has no right 
 to be gloomy. He says : " I have so many 
 doubts." That is because "you are lazy." 
 Go actively to work in Christ's cause, and 
 your doubts will vanish. You say, " I have 
 lost my property;" but I reply, "You have 
 infinite treasures laid up in heaven." You say, 
 " I am weak and sickly, and going to die." 
 Then be congratulated that you are so near 
 eternal health and perpetual gladness. 
 Cheerfulness.--As a little giri was eating, 
 
 I 
 
"POINTS." 6p 
 
 the sun dashed upon her spoon, and she 
 cried, " O mamma, I have swallowed a spoon- 
 ful of sunshine !" Would God that we might 
 all indulge in the same beverage ! Cheerful- 
 ness : it makes the homeliest face handsome ; 
 it makes the hardest mattress soft; it runs 
 the loom that weaves buttercups and rainbows 
 and auroras. God made the grass black? 
 No; that would be too sombre. God made 
 the grass red ? No ; that would be too gaudy. 
 God made the grass green, that by this parable 
 all the world might be led to a subdued cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 Read your Bible in the sunshine. Re- 
 member that your physical health is closely 
 allied to your spiritual. The heart and the 
 liver are only a few mches apart, and what 
 affects the one affects the other. A historian 
 records that by the sound of great laughter 
 in Rome, Hannibal's assaulting army was 
 frightened away in retreat. And there is in 
 
70 *' POINTS." 
 
 the great outbursting joy of a Christian's soul 
 that which can drive back ai^y^infernal besiege- 
 ment. Rats love dark closes, a'n^ Satan loves 
 to burrovi^ in a gloomy soul. 
 
 The Vulture in the Soul. — There are 
 many professed Christians vi^ho have a vulture 
 in their soul. They prey upon the character 
 and feelings of others. A doubtful reputation 
 is a banquet for them. Some rival in trade 
 or profession falls, and the vulture puts out 
 its head. These people revel in the details 
 of a man's ruin. 
 
 A Momentous Question.— An infidel was 
 called to the bedside of his daughter. The 
 daughter said: "Father, which shall I believe, 
 you or mother? Mother took the religion 
 of Christ, and died in its embrace. You say 
 that religion is a humbug. Now I am going 
 to die, and I am very much perplexed. Shall 
 I believe you, or take the belief of my mother?" 
 *ii^ xamti oaiu, v^uoose lOF yourseil." iShe 
 
"POINTS." 
 
 n 
 
 said, " No ; I am too weak to choose for my- 
 self; I want you to choose for me." "Well," 
 said the father, after much hesitation and em- 
 barrassment, " Mary, I think you had better 
 take the religion of your mother." 
 
 False Prudence. — We have apotheosized 
 Prudence and Caution long enough. Prudence 
 is a beautiful grace, but of all the family of 
 Christian graces I like her the least, for she 
 has been married so often to Laziness, Sloth, 
 and Stupidity. We have a million idlers in 
 the Lord's vineyard who pride themselves on 
 their prudence. "Be prudent," said the dis- 
 ciples to Chirist, " and stay away from Jerusa- 
 lem;" but He went. "Be prudent," said Paul's 
 friends, " and look out for what you say to 
 Felix ;" but he thundered away until the ruler's 
 knees knocked together. In the eyes of the 
 world, the most imprudent men that ever lived 
 were Martin Luther, and John Oldcastle, and 
 Bunyan, and Wesley, and Knox. My opinion 
 
72 ''POINTS." 
 
 is that the most imprudent and reckless thing 
 is to stand still. ^ ^ 
 
 Our Peril.— We are passing on, heedless/bf 
 the most astounding considerations. In a mo- 
 ment the ground may break through and let 
 you fall into the grave. The pulses of life, 
 now so regularly drumming in the march, any 
 moment may cry Halt ! On a hair-hung bridge 
 we walk over bottomless chasms. 
 
 In a MOMxiNT the door of eternity may swing 
 open, and invisible ushers conduct you in for 
 reward, or for retribution. A crown of gloiy 
 is being burnished for your brow, or bolts are 
 being forged for your prison. Angels of light 
 are making ready to shout over your deliver- 
 ance, or fiends of darkness reaching up their 
 skeleton hands to pull you down into ruin 
 consummate. 
 
 The Rock of Ages Turns the Balance. 
 --Get in, ye righteous ! » What, with all my 
 sm ? " No time to discuss the mattsn 
 
 
"POINTS." 73 
 
 bell of judgment is tolling. The balances 
 are adjusted -get in you must. All your 
 opportunities of being better and doing more 
 good are placed on one side of the scales, and 
 you get in on the other. You are too light 
 to budge the balances in your favour. On 
 your side are spread all the kind words you 
 ever spoke, and all the Christian deeds you 
 ever did. Too light yet ! On your side are 
 put all your prayers, all your repentance, all 
 your faith. Too light yet! Come and get on 
 this side-Paul, Luther, Baxter, Payson, and 
 Doddridge— and help the Christian bear down 
 the scale. Too light yet ! Get on this side, 
 all ye martyrs who went through fire and 
 flood -Wickliffe, Ridley, and Latimer. Too 
 light yet ! Come, angels of God, and get on 
 the scales, and see if ye cannot turn the 
 balances in favour of the saints; for the judg- 
 ment is ending, and let not the righteous be 
 banished with ;i.o wicked. Too light yet! Place 
 
74 . ''POINTS." 
 
 on this side all the sceptres of light, and all 
 the palm-branches of triumph, and all the 
 thrones of glory. Too light yet ! But at tl(is^ 
 point Jesus, the Son of God, steps up to the^ 
 balances. He puts one scarred foot on the 
 Christian's side of the scales, and they tremble 
 and quiver from top to bottom. He puts both 
 feet on, and down go the scales on the Chris- 
 tian's side with a stroke that sets all the bells 
 of heaven a-chiming! This Rock of Ages 
 is heavier than any other weight. But, O 
 Christian ! you may not get off so easily. I 
 place on the opposite scale all the sins 
 that you ever committed, and all the envies, 
 and hates, and inconsistencies of a life- 
 time, but altogether they do not budge the 
 scales. Christ, on your side, has settled the 
 balances for ever. There is no condemnation 
 to them that are in Christ Jesus. Go free! 
 go free! Sins all pardoned, shackles all 
 broken, prison doors all opened. Go free! 
 
 ,•! 
 
■« 
 
 y 
 
 si- 
 
 ''POINTS." ;5 
 
 go free ! Weighed in the balance, and nothing 
 wanting ! 
 
 The Gospel Chimes. — I tarried two or 
 three days near the tower of Antwerp. Every 
 fifteen minutes the bells of that tower chime 
 —so sweetly, that it seems as if the angeh 
 of God flying past have alighted in the tower. 
 But when the full hour comes, then the clock, 
 with heavy tongue, strikes the hour, adding 
 impressiveness and solemnity to the chime 
 of bells. So this great Gospel tower chimes 
 every fifteen minutes — nay, every moment. 
 Tones of mercy. Tones of love. Tones of 
 compassion. Tones of pardon. And occa- 
 sionally, to let you know that the weights 
 are running down, and that the time is going 
 past, the heavy tongue of this bell comes down 
 with a.i emphasis, saying, "How shall we 
 escape :f we neglect so great salvation?" 
 "Now is the accepted time— now is the day 
 of salvation." 
 
76 " *' POINTS." 
 
 Gradually we pass away. From day to 
 
 day we hardly see the change. But the frosts 
 
 have touched us. The work of decay is golnff 
 
 on. Now a slight cold. Now a season of 
 
 over-fatigue. Now a fever. Now a stitch in 
 
 the side. Now a neuralgic thrust. Now a 
 
 rheumatic twinge. Now a fall. Little by 
 
 little. Pain by pain. Less steady of limb. 
 
 Sight not so clear. Ear not so alert. After 
 
 a while we take a staff. Then, after much 
 
 resistance, we come to spectacles. Instead 
 
 of bounding into the vehicle, we are willing 
 
 to be helped in. At last the octogenarian falls. 
 
 Forty years of decaying. No sudden change. 
 
 No fierce cannonading of the batteries of life ; 
 
 but a fading away— slowly— gradually— as the 
 leaf! 
 
 " To Make Room for Others."— Like the 
 leaf we fade, to make room for others. Next 
 year's forests will be as grandly foliaged as 
 this. There are other generations of oak 
 
 \ 
 
'i 
 
 *' POINTS.'' 77 
 
 leaves to take the place of those which this 
 autumn perish. 
 
 The Picture of Christ.— In most houses 
 there is a picture of Christ. Sometimes it 
 represents Him with face effeminate; some- 
 times with a face despotic. I have seen 
 West's grand sketch of the rejection of 
 Christ; I have seen the face of Christ as 
 cut on an emerald, said to be by command 
 of Tiberius Caesar ; and yet I am convinced 
 that I shall never know how Jesus looked 
 until, on that sweet Sabbath morning, I shall 
 wash the last sleep from my eyes in the cool 
 river of heaven. 
 
 Your orthodoxy won't save you. Men 
 have gone to hell with a catechism in each 
 pocket. The forms of religion are only the 
 scaffolding for putting up the spiritual house. 
 Alas! if you have mistaken the scaffolding 
 for the temple itself. ♦ 
 
 The Form of Godliness. — " But I cross 
 
 \ 
 
78 '* points:' 
 
 myself ever so many times," you say. /hat 
 will not save you. " But t give liberally to 
 the poor." That will not save you. " fiut^ 
 I read a chapter every night before I go t(p 
 bed." That will not save you. "But I sit 
 at the communion-table." That will not save 
 you. *♦ But my name is down on the Church 
 book." That will not save you. " But I have 
 been a professor of religion for thirty years." 
 That will not save you. I place on your side 
 of the b^a->e<^8 all the edicts, all the religious 
 couni.el'j, all the communion-tables that were 
 ever built, and on the opposite side of the 
 balance I put this hundred - pound weight: 
 " Having the form of godliness, but denying the 
 power thereof. From such turn away.'* 
 
 Scientific Preaching. — We spend three 
 years in college studying ancient mythology, 
 and three years in the theological seminary 
 learning how to make a sermon, and then we 
 go out to save the world; and if we cannot 
 
do it according to Claude's " Sermonizing," or 
 Blair's "Rhetoric," or Kame's "Criticism," 
 we will let the world go to perditi' If we 
 save nothing else, we will save C ie and 
 Blair. We see a wreck in sight. We must 
 go out and save the crew and passengers. 
 We wa?t until we get on our fine cap and 
 coat, and find our shining oars, and then we 
 push out methodically and scientifically, while 
 some plain shoresman, in rough fishing-smack 
 and with broken oar-lock, goes out and gets 
 the crew and passengers, and brings them 
 ashore in safety. We throw down our deli- 
 cate oars and say, " What a ridiculous thing 
 to save men in that way! You ought to 
 have done it scientifically and beautifully." 
 "Ah!" says the shoresman, ".if those suf- 
 ferers had waited until you got out your 
 fine boat, they would have gone to the 
 bottom." 
 
 Nature, CnraST's Servant.— Nature is His 
 
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*> "POINTS.'' 
 
 servant. The flowers-He twisted them into 
 His sermons; the winds— they were His lul-^ 
 laby when He slept in the boat ; the rain-W^ 
 hung glittering on the thick foliage of the 
 parables; the star of Bethlehem— it sang a 
 Christmas carol over His birth; the rocks— 
 they beat a dirge at His death. 
 
 The Work. — The work of a religious 
 teacher is to save men ; and though every law 
 of grammar should be snapped in the under- 
 taking, and there be nothing but awkward- 
 ness and blundering in the mode, all hail to 
 the man who saves a soul from death ! 
 
 The Best Work.— In your last hours there 
 will be no work that will yield you such high 
 satisfaction as that which you do for God. 
 
 Expectancy of repulse is the cause of 
 many secular and religious failures. Fear of 
 bankruptcy has uptorn many a fine business, 
 and sent the man dodging among the note- 
 shavers. Fear of slander and abuse has often 
 
 I 
 
** POINTS." 8 1 
 
 invited all the longwbeaked vultures of scorn and 
 backbiting. Many of the misfortunes of life, 
 like hyenas, flee if you courageously meet them. 
 
 Icy Conventionalities.— Oh! the conven- 
 tionalities of the Church are imposing and 
 beautiful, but it is the magnificence of ice. 
 The world, in its want and agony, hangs on 
 to them and cries out for help, but no rescue 
 comes; and they drop off and die while this 
 ceremonial frigidity stands between the moun- 
 tain of the law and the mountain of the cross 
 — an ecclesiastical Mer de Glace. 
 
 The Heavenly Panorama.— When a pano- 
 rama is to pass before an audience, the artist 
 darkens the room in which they sit, so that 
 the picture may be more fully seen; so God 
 darkens our place on earth, puts out this light 
 and that light and the other light, that then 
 He may pass before our souls the splendours 
 and glories of the better land. The darkness 
 
 nprp ancrrrjArifo *!•#» II»»V.4. *1 ,_ 
 
 — "j,««iCiiS.a viiC XXgiXL liicfe. 
 
k 
 
 82 ''POINTS." 
 
 Away, all of you drones! One half of 
 our Churches are stuck in the mud becau^^f 
 three or four professors of rehgion who^ 
 dead, and whose carcasses are laid in the way 
 of all good enterprises. My way is occasion- 
 ally to preach a sermon so hot and heavy that 
 they cannot stand it, and then they go Out to 
 bore somebody else. 
 
 , Let God be .Praised for suck a Gospel. 
 —Weary of sin, the World said to me—" You 
 are not as bad as you might be:" but it was 
 no comfort I Standing with both my feet in 
 the wet gravel of the grave. Human Philosophy 
 took my arm, and mumbled in my ear its 
 inanities. But Religion spoke to me, and my 
 sins perished like tow in the flame, and the 
 grave became only the ploughed ground for an 
 eternal harvest. World without end, let God be 
 praised for such a Gospel ! It is fit to live for ; 
 and if. days of persecution should ever again 
 come, shall we not be willing to die for it ? 
 
*' POINTS." 83 
 
 God does answer prayer. You say, " I 
 don»t believe the Bible; I think that those 
 things were merely coincidences which are often 
 brought as answers to prayer." Do you say 
 that? Was it mere happen-so that Elijah 
 prayed for rain just as the rain was going to 
 come anyhow ? Did Daniel pray in the wild • 
 beasts' den just at the time when all the lions " 
 happene.1 to have the lockjaw? Did Jesus 
 pray at the grave of Lazarus just at the time 
 when Lazurus was going to dress himself and 
 come out anyhow ? Did Jesus lose His place 
 in His sermon, and make a mistake when He 
 said, -Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, 
 ^nd ye shall find; knock, a..d it shall be 
 opened unto you"? And, -For every one 
 that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, 
 findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be 
 opened." 
 
 PRASfER MUST be ACCOMPANIED BY MEANS. 
 
 It is an outrage to ask God to do a thing 
 
 f * 
 / 
 
«4 • "POINTS:' 
 
 while we sit indolent. The prayer, to ^ac- 
 ceptable, must come not only from the heait, 
 but from the hands. Luther came to Mela'nc- 
 thon's bedside and prayed for his recovery, and 
 insisted, at the same time, that he should take 
 some warm soup, the soup being just as im- 
 portant as the prayer. 
 
 The Instinct of Prayer. — Prayer in cer- 
 tain circumstances is as natural to man as the 
 throbbing in the pulse, as the respiration of 
 the lungs. Put a company of men — I don't 
 care how bad they are — in some imminent 
 peril, and they will cry out, " God have mercy 
 on us ! '* 
 
 Young Men who were Prayed For.— In 
 my parish in Philadelphia, one night at a 
 meeting, I asked a young man to go into a 
 room at the side of the church, and talk upon 
 the theme of religion. He grew violently 
 angry, and shook his fists at me. We resolved 
 to pray for that young man, and we prayed 
 
''POINTS.'* 
 
 85 
 
 that he might yield his soul to God. And 
 
 when, next night at the meeting, the side-door 
 
 was flung open, he was the first to step in. 
 
 Prayer captured him. I had a classmate in 
 
 college whose uncle, Dr. John Scudder, of 
 
 India, wrote to him, saying, " I will pray for 
 
 you every day until such a day, and then I 
 
 will give my attention to some other subject." 
 
 The last day of these prayers, when they had 
 
 all gathered up before the throne of God, my 
 
 classmate surrendered his soul to Jesus. This 
 
 is no second-hand story. I saw the letter, and 
 
 I knew the young man. 
 
 Personal Experience.— I have had, in my 
 own experience, and I have had, in the history 
 of my own family, the evidence that God an- 
 swers prayer. My mother, with three Chris- 
 tian women, assembled week after week, and 
 prayed for their children: they kept up that 
 prayer-meeting of four persofis year after year. 
 The world knew nothing of it. God answered 
 
86 ' "POINTl" 
 
 m 
 
 all those prayers. All the group came in ; the 
 eleven sons and daughters of my mother came 
 in, myself the last. 
 
 A Wonderful Recovery.— Sickness came 
 to my household — hopeless sickness, as it 
 seemed to many. At three o'clock on Saturday 
 afternoon the invalid was carried to the steamer 
 for Savannah. At eleven o'clock the next 
 day, being Sunday, standing in this very place, 
 a man of God prayed for the recovery of the 
 sick one. At that time, eleven o'clock, she who 
 had been prostrated three weeks, with some 
 help, walked up on deck. The occurrence is 
 as near to being miraculous as I can imagine. 
 
 Prayer impotent! If I dared to think 
 there was no force in prayer, methinks God, 
 after all He has done for me and mine, would 
 strike me dead. Prayer impotent! Why, it 
 is the mightiest force in the universe ! Light- 
 ning has no speed, the Alpine avalanche has 
 no power, compared with it! 
 
'* POINTS." 87 
 
 Witnesses to Prayer.— Will you let the 
 abstractions and the vagaries of a few sceptics, 
 or a good many sceptics, stand beside the 
 experience of General Havelock, who came 
 out in front of the English army, lifted his 
 hat, and called upon the Lord Almighty? or 
 of George Washington, who at Valley Forge 
 was found upon his knees in prayer? or of 
 William Wilberforce, who went from the 
 British Parliament to the closet of devotion ? 
 or of Latimer, who stood with his hands on 
 fire, in martyrdom, praying for his persecutors ? 
 Was Washington weak? Was Havelock weak? 
 Was Wilberforce weak ? Was Latimer weak ? 
 Bring all the affairs of your store, of your soul, 
 of your body, of your friends, of your church, 
 before Him, and the great day of eternity will 
 show you that the best investments you ever 
 made were your prayers ; and though you may 
 have broken promises you made to God, God 
 never broke His promises to you. 
 
31 
 
 *' POINTS.'* 
 
 A Blank Check. — I have to present you 
 some checks, blank checks, on the bank of 
 heaven, written in blood, and signed by the 
 hand wounded on the cross. It is not safe 
 for you to give a blank check with your name 
 to it. You do not know what might be written 
 above. But here is a blank check which God 
 says lean give, to you; it is signed by the 
 handwriting of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you 
 can fill it up with anything you want to.'' 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and 
 ye shall find." I do not say that your prayer 
 will be answered in just the way that you 
 expect, but I do say that it will be answered 
 in the best way. 
 
 Preaching in the Abstract.— I have heard 
 persons say that ministers ought to deal with 
 things in the abstract, and not be personal, 
 "^hat success would a hunter have if he went 
 out to shoot deer in the abstract ? What if a 
 physician, called into your house, should treat 
 
*' POINTS." 89 
 
 your ailments in the abstract ? How long 
 before the inflammation would heal, or 
 the pain be assuaged? What folly to talk 
 about sin in the abstract, when you and I 
 have in our souls a malady that must be 
 cured, or it will kill us, miserably and for 
 ever! 
 
 God is eVery day estimating churches. 
 He puts a great church into the scales. He 
 puts the minister, and the choir, and the grand 
 structure that cost hundreds of thousands of 
 dollars, on the same side. On the other side 
 of the scales He puts the idea of spiritual life 
 that the church ought to possess, or brotherly 
 love, or faith, or sympathy for the poor. Up 
 goes the grand meeting-house, with its minister 
 and choir. 
 
 The Test of the Church. — God says 
 that a Church is of much worth only as it 
 saves souls; and if, with all your magnificent 
 machinery, you save but a handful of men- 
 
90 
 
 "POINTS.'* 
 
 when you might save a multitude, He will 
 spew you out of His mouth. 
 
 What Ministers Know. — There are a 
 great many people who now say of ministers, 
 " They know nothing about the world. They 
 cannot talk to us !" Ah ! my friends, it is rot 
 necessary to have the Asiatic cholera before 
 you can give it medical treatment in others. 
 It is not necessary to have your own arm 
 broken before you can know how to splinter a 
 fracture. And we who stand in the pulpit, 
 and in the ofBce of a Christian teacher, know 
 that there are certain styles of belief and cer- 
 tain kinds of behaviour that will lead to de- 
 struction, as certainly as Paul knew that if that 
 ship went out of Fair Havens it would go to 
 destruction. ' 
 
 Three Letters. — Ingenious little children 
 sometimes tell you how, with a few letters, 
 they can spell a very large word. With three 
 letters I can spell bereavement. With three 
 
/•' 
 
 "POINTS," 91 
 
 letters I can spell disappointment. With three 
 letters I can spell suffering. With three letters 
 I can spell death. With three letters I can 
 spell perdition. S-i-n — Sin. That is the 
 cause of all our trouble now. That is the 
 cause of our trouble for the future. 
 
 "My Theology." — Some theologians take 
 four or five volumes in which to state their 
 religious belief; I tell you all of my theology 
 in one sentence : Jesus Christ — take Him, and 
 live ; refuse Him, and die. 
 
 Choose ! — Sometimes a regiment will get 
 in between the two opposing hosts and be 
 cut to pieces by both sides. Will you stand 
 half-way between the right side and the 
 wrong side, and take the shot of both hosts, 
 or will you come under our standard ? You 
 will 'finally wish you had, for we shall gain 
 this war. As a recruiting officer of the great 
 army of banners, I blow this blast : Choose 
 this day whom ye will serve. 
 
92 • '* POINTS." 
 
 The Gospel Trumpet. — This Gospel 
 trumpet is great in its power. On a still 
 night you may hear the call of a brazen 
 trumpet two or three miles, but this is so 
 mighty that it is not only heard from heaven 
 to earth, but it is to arrest the attention of 
 all nations. Men with physical hearing all 
 gone, catch thfe first strain of it. Men buried 
 half a century in crimes have heard it. It 
 is the power of God unto salvation. -Amidst 
 the rush of a cavalry troop Saul heard it, 
 braced himself in the stirrups, and reined 
 in his charger on the road to Damascus. In 
 a custom-house, amidst the chink of coin, 
 and the shuffle of feet, and the dispute 
 of merchants at the high tariffs, Matthew 
 answered its mighty call. Men have put 
 their fingers in their ears to keep out the 
 sound, but have been compelled to hear it. 
 At its blast, walls fall, and thrones upset, 
 and nations leap from barbarism to civiliza- 
 
''FOINTSy 93 
 
 tipn. There is no fores in the shock of 
 musketry, or in the boom of cannonade, as 
 compared with the peaHng forth of this great 
 Gospel trumpet. 
 
 Arrayed against thy sins, art thou ready- 
 to storm and trample them down? Fall into 
 line ! Sins of the heart, sins of the ii.c, sins 
 of the tongue, ' sins of thy youth, sins of ma- 
 turity, sins of old age — one black) infernal 
 army of transgression : tliey must go down 
 under thee, or thou shalt go down under 
 them. 
 
 Dangerous Temptations. — There is no 
 need of your trying to face certain tempta- 
 tions. You are foolhardy to try it. Your 
 only safety is in flight. It is as fifty against 
 five thousand. If you be given to appetite, 
 escape the ppesence of decanter and demi- 
 john. If you are given to pride, go not 
 amidst things that flatter it. If your pro- 
 clivity be toward uncleanness, like Job, make 
 

 94 ' ''POINTS:* . 
 
 a covenant with your eyes that you look 
 not upon a maid. 
 
 This Sabbath hour seems to you like all 
 other Sabbath hours; but to some of you 
 it may be the most stupendous hour in all 
 your life of twenty, forty, or sixty years, 
 because now you may refuse your last call 
 of mercy. , , 
 
 The ministry of Christ has fewer trials, 
 larger spiritual emoluments and rewards, 
 brighter inducements, higher development, 
 grander joys, than any other occupation in 
 all the earth. Young men who hear me, 
 if you enter the holy office with the right 
 spirit, loving God and desiring usefulness, you 
 will find this Christian work of the ministry 
 always a satisfaction, often a joy, and some- 
 times a rapture. 
 
 The Bright Side.— To stand before a 
 company of immortal men and women, im- 
 portuning them to such belief and behaviour 
 
''POINTS:' 95 
 
 as shall lead them to high happiness on 
 , earth and open for them the grandeurs of 
 eternity; that is life for the body, that is 
 inspiration for the mind, that is rapture for 
 the soul. 
 
 Besetting Sins. — Every man and womarT 
 has a lion to fight. If you have not fought 
 the lion, it is because you have let the lion 
 eat you up. This very moment the contest 
 goes\ on. The Trajan celebration, where 
 ten thousand gladiators fought, and eleven 
 thousand wild beasts were slain, was not 
 so terrific a struggle as that which at this 
 moment goes on in many a soul. That 
 combat was for the life of the body; this 
 is for the life of the soul. 
 
 Our King Encouraging Us. — On the 
 erection of the ancient amphitheatre, on the 
 day of a celebration, sat Tiberius, or Augustus, 
 or the reigning king. So, in the great arena 
 of spectators that watch our struggles, and 
 
96 
 
 ''POINTS:' 
 
 in the first divine gallery, as I shall call 
 it, sits our King, one Jesus. The Roman 
 emperor sat, with folded arms, indifferent 
 as to .vhether the s\7ordsman or the lion 
 beat ; but our King's sympathies are all with 
 us. Nay, unheard-of condescension ! I see 
 Him come down from the gallery into the 
 arena, to help us in the fight, shouting, until 
 all up and down His voice is heard : " Fear 
 not! I will help thee I " 
 
 Satan has got thousands of men into 
 TROUBLE, but he never got one out. He 
 led them into theft, but he would not hide 
 the goods, or bail out the defendant. ^ The 
 spider shows the fly the way over the gossamer 
 bridge into the cobweb; but it never shows 
 the fly the way out of the cobweb over 
 the gossamer bridge. I think that there were 
 plenty of fast young men to help the pro- 
 digal to spend his money; but when he had 
 wasted his substance in riotous Hving, they 
 
"POINTS." 97 
 
 let him go to the swine-pastures, while they 
 betook themselves to some other new-comer. 
 
 The Communion of Saints. — During my 
 vacation, one summer, 1 was in a Presbyterian 
 audience, and it was sacramental day, and 
 with grateful heart I received the holy com- 
 munion. On the next Sabbath I was in 
 a Methodist church, and sat at a love-feast. 
 On the following Sabbath I was in an 
 Episcopalian church, and knelt at the altar 
 and received the consecrated bread. I do not 
 know which service I enjoyed the most. "I 
 believe in the communion of saints, and in the 
 life everlasting." 
 
 Deliverance in the Last Hour. — Death 
 to many — nay, to all — is a struggle and a 
 wrestle. We have many friends that it will 
 be hard to leave. I care not how bright our 
 future hope is, it is a bitter thing to look upon 
 this fair world and know that we shall never 
 agfain see its blossoming spring, its falling 
 
 8 
 
9« ' "POINTS." 
 
 fruits, its sparkling streams, and t" say fare- 
 well to those with whom we played .w child- 
 hood or counselled in manhood. In that night, 
 like Jacob, we may have to wrestle; but God 
 will not leave us unblessed. It shall not be 
 told in heaven that a dying soul cried unt<r 
 God for help, but was not delivered. 
 
 How SHALL YOU LfiARN TO PREACH? Just 
 
 as the carpenter leams how to be a carpenter. 
 Does he sit down and study books about tools, 
 about hammers and axes ? no I He goes 
 to boring with the bit, and smoothing with 
 the plane, and smiting with the hammer, and 
 striking with the adze; and in this way he 
 gets to be a carpenter. So, the way to learn 
 how to preach the Gospel is to preach it. 
 
 Yonder is a man who ought to be preaching 
 the Gospel. He has not been ordained, and 
 never will be. He could not be, perhaps. 
 It may be that he has not brains enough, oi' 
 
 time enmiorft /%«• rr>'\*<<»* ^ *- •»^ ^ « 
 
 -- Q„, vF uiQuyiy ciiOugn. jLsut he is 
 
''POINTS."* 99 
 
 ordained of God. Let him preach. Here is 
 another. He may not, perhaps, be able to 
 round his sentences, or make elegant allusions 
 or fine quotations; and yet he may be able 
 to save a soul from death, and hide a multitude 
 of sins. 
 
 Theological Seminaries. — I believe in 
 theological seminaries, but they are to the 
 Church just what West Point is to the State. 
 What would you have done in the last war 
 if you had had no soldiers except those who 
 had been at West Point ? The men who came 
 from that institution controlled and marshalled 
 the troops all over the land. The use of a 
 theological seminary in this or in any other 
 country is to send out men more thoroughly 
 drilled, who are able to organise and marshal 
 the great mass of Christian soldiery. Have 
 you been so long under the dehision, and are 
 you now under the delusion, that the few men 
 who are ministers of the Gospel are going to 
 
 8* 
 
11 
 
 loo *' POINTS." 
 
 take this world for Christ ? That the ten or 
 fifteen men who every year come out of New 
 Brunswick Seminary, or the twenty or thirty 
 that every year come out of Princeton, or 
 Andover, or Yale, will do all the work ? No ! 
 No ! You might as well have expected a few 
 quartermasters in thj Northern army to con- 
 quer the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 People who Ought Not to be There.— 
 "Oh!" but some say, *'they get some people 
 in that ought not to be there." I suppose 
 they do. I know that they do. But suppose- 
 that you went out to fish, and you swung the 
 net around, and, when pulling it into the boat, 
 you found that there were a few lamper-eels 
 and snapping-turtles, while the great bulk of 
 the draught that you had made were first- 
 rate shad : would you tlirow everything over- 
 board? No, you would not. You would 
 throw the bad away, and you would keep 
 the good. And yet I hear men talking as 
 
lOI 
 
 "points:* 
 
 though, because there were some coming into 
 the Church of God during revivals who are 
 not fit to be members, they would for this 
 reason throw over the million of souls that 
 have come in, who have been faithful to the 
 last, and hundreds of thousands of whom are 
 already before the throne of God, shouting the 
 praises of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The History of Hymns. — People have 
 be«n trying to write the histories of the 
 tunes and of the hymns. They cannot do it. 
 The history of "Ariel," of "Colchester," of 
 " Dundee," of " Duke-street," of " Coronation" 
 •— virhy it would be the history of the Church 
 of God, with all its joys, and sorrows, and 
 triumphs ! They have been the rounds of the 
 ladder on which souls have mounted into 
 heaven. They have been the chariots that 
 halted not until they stopped at the gate of 
 the eternal King I 
 
 9 
 
 The Welcome Song.— Among the moun- 
 
103 
 
 "POINTS." 
 
 tains of Switzerland they have a very. beautiful 
 custom. At eventide, when the fathers and the 
 brothers and the sons are coming home from 
 the fields, having completed the day's work, 
 the wives and mothers and daughters come 
 out upon the opposite hill, and hail them with 
 song; and the women sing on one hill-top, 
 and the men , sing on the other hill-top, re- 
 sponding to each other. Oh ! may God grant 
 that when the eventime of our life has come, 
 we may hear such a song greeting us into .the 
 better country. 
 
 I AM IN NO HASTE TO BE GONE. I have nO 
 
 grudge against this world. The only fault I 
 have to find with this world is that it treats 
 me too well. But when the time comes to 
 go, I want to be ready — my worldly affairs 
 all settled. If I have wronged others, I want 
 then to be sure of their forgiveness. In that 
 last wrestling, my arm enfeebled with sickness 
 and my head faint, I want Jesus beside me. 
 
''POINTS." 103 
 
 If there be hands on this side of the flood 
 stretched out to hold me back, I want heavenly 
 hands stretched out to draw me forward. 
 • What do we Know about Happiness ? — 
 We are told that heaven is a place of hap- 
 piness, but what do we know about happiness ? 
 Happiness in this world is only a half-fledged 
 thing ; a flowery path, with a serpent hissing 
 across it; a broken pitcher, from which the 
 water has dropped before we could drink it; 
 a thrill of exhilaration, followed by disastrous 
 reactions. 
 
 Work for Each Denomination. — The re- 
 construction of this world for Christ is to be 
 at the hand of all denominations of Christians, 
 each one doing its particular work. It is the 
 business of the Arminians to stir the blaze. 
 It is the business of the Calvinists to hammer 
 the rivets. It is the business of the Epis- 
 copalians to make the exquisite case. It is the 
 business of the Baptists to wash off the works 
 
lO'^ '' points:' 
 
 -until, after awhile, this world, which was 
 disordered, will become a perfect time-piece, 
 ticking away the minutes and hours of one 
 long day of millennial brightness and joy. 
 
 - The Lesser Jewels around the Greater. 
 -If a lapidary has an especial gem whose 
 colour he wishes especially to set forth, he 
 takes the minor gems - those of less value 
 and beauty-garnets, rubies, and so pn-and 
 sets them around the great central wealth 
 of beauty. And so it will be on the last 
 
 day. Christ surrounded by the .redeemed - 
 
 the lesser jewels of earth surrounding the 
 
 Pearl, the Pearl of great price. 
 Sin may open. bright as the morning. It 
 
 ends dark as the night I 
 
 I AM JUST SETTING FORTH A FACT, which 
 
 you have noticed as well as I. Ananias ' 
 comes to -the Apostle. The Apostle says: 
 "Did yo:j sell the land for so much?" He 
 
 says, « Yes, If y,^ ^ i:.^ 
 
 i-'eaai as quick 
 
**• 
 
 "» 
 
 *'POINTS.» ,05 
 
 as that ! Sapphira, his wife, comes in. " Did 
 you sell the lund for so much?" "Yes." 
 It was a lie; and quick as that she was 
 H' a I ! God's judgments are upon those who 
 despise Him and defy Him. They come 
 suddenly. 
 
 The Fulcrum and the Lever. — Archi- 
 medes wanted a fulcrum on which to place 
 his lever, and then he said that he could 
 move the world. Calvary is the fulcrum, and 
 the cross of Christ is the lever ; and by that 
 power all nations shall yet be lifted. 
 
 Christ is Strength. -- The dark cloud 
 may hover over us, but the cross of Christ 
 will be the lightning-rod that will take the 
 bolt out of it. You have seen people invalids, 
 &id after awhile, under some tremendous 
 stroke of disease, their entire temperament 
 seemed to be changed, and they came out 
 of that sudden sickness strong men. So it 
 is with many of those who are going along 
 
io6 •' ''POINTS." 
 
 invalids in the Christian life — very weak in 
 the service of God. After they have passed 
 through some great disaster, that disaster 
 having been sanctified to their souls, they 
 become strong men in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Crystallised Tears.— Nearly all of God's 
 jewels are crystallised tears. You ask me, 
 "Why is it that yonder man does not have 
 trouble — he gets along without any mis- 
 fortunes?" For the same reason that the 
 lapidary does not put the delicate instrument 
 upon a common pebble. It does seem as 
 if God thought some men were not worth 
 a process of tribulation. The Dutch call 
 diamonds that are not fit to be cloven, diveU 
 steene — that is, devil stones. 
 
 The Test of God's Jewel. — There is 
 a way in which the lapidary tells whether a 
 diamond is genuine or not. He breathes on 
 it, and if the breath linger there, it is a false 
 diamond; if the breath immediately vanish, 
 
"jFOJNTS." J07 
 
 it is a real diamond. Then he has the 
 grinding process afterward, if the first fail. 
 So you can tell God's jewel. If the breath 
 of temptation comes on it, and soon vanishes, 
 it is a real diamond; if that breath lingers, 
 and continues to blur it, it is a false diamond. 
 But better than all is the grinding machine 
 of affliction. If a soul can go through that 
 and keep bright, it is one of God's jewels. 
 
 Enduring Brightness. — Egyptian topaz, 
 brought up from the ruins of Herculaneum 
 and- Pompeii, shows the same inextinguishable 
 colour to-day, after it has been buried hundreds 
 and hundreds of years. And so God's chil- 
 dren come up out of the ruins of misfortune 
 and disaster as bright as when they went 
 down. 
 
 I AM NO ALARMIST. When, on the twentieth 
 of September, after the wind has for three 
 days been blowing from the north-east, you 
 prophesy that the equinoctial storm is coming, 
 
io8 ' ^'POINTS.'* 
 
 you simply state a fact not to be disputed. 
 Neither am I an alarmist when I say that 
 a storm is coming, compared with which 
 Noah's deluge was but an April shower; and 
 that it is wisest and safest for you and for 
 me to gQt safely housed for eternity. 
 
 The door into the mercy of God is 
 a large door. We go in, not two and two, 
 but by hundreds, and by thousands, and by 
 millions. Yea, all the nations of the earth 
 may go in, ten millions abreast. 
 
 The Divine Banquet.— If a man is about 
 to give an entertainment, he issues one or 
 two hundred invitations, carefully put up and 
 directed to the particular persons whom he 
 wishes to entertain. But God our Father 
 makes a banquet, and goes out to the front 
 door of heaven, and stretches out His hands 
 over land and sea, and, with a voice that 
 penetrates the Hindoo jungle, and the Green- 
 land ice-castle, and the Brazilian grove, and 
 
''POINTS:' 109 
 
 English factory, and American home, cries 
 out, "Come! for all things are now ready!" 
 The Fear of Derision. — There are hun- 
 dreds kept out by the fear of derision. The 
 young man asks himself, " What would they 
 say at the store to-morrow morning if I should 
 become a Christian?" Is it not the fear of 
 being laughed at that keeps you out of the 
 kingdom of God ? Which of these scorners 
 will help you at the last? When you lie 
 down on a dying pillow, which of them will 
 be there ? In the day of eternity will they 
 bail you out ? Ah ! they can keep you out 
 of heaven ; but can they keep you out of hell ? 
 Draw your Children to Christ.—" Come 
 thou, and all thy house." That means your 
 wife and your children. You cannot drive 
 them in. If Noah had tried to drive the 
 pigeons and the doves into the ark, he would 
 only have scattered them. Some parents are 
 not wise about these things. They make iron 
 
"0 ''POINTS." 
 
 rules about Sabbaths, and they force the cate- 
 chism down the throat, as they would hold 
 the child's nose and force down a dose of 
 rhubarb and calomel. You cannot drive your 
 children into the ark. You can draw your 
 children to Christ, but you cannot coerce them. 
 The Cross was lifted, not to drive, but to draw. 
 "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto 
 Me." As the sun draws up the drops of morn- 
 ing dew, so the Sun of Righteousness exhales 
 the tears of repentance. 
 
 Husband and Wife. — Be sure that you 
 bring your husband and wife with you. How 
 would Noah have felt if, when he heard the 
 rain pattering on the roof of the ark, he knew 
 that his wife was outside in the storm ? No ; 
 she went with him. And yet some of you 
 are on the ship, "outward-bound" for heaven 
 but your companion is unsheltered! 
 
 See to It. — Pray God that you who have 
 been married on earth may be together in 
 
Ill 
 
 ''POINTS," 
 
 heaven. Oh 1 by the quiet bliss of your earthly 
 home; by the babe's cradle; by all the vows of 
 that day when you started life together, I beg 
 you to see to it that you both get into the ark. 
 , Not by Fretting. — Come in, and bring 
 your wife or your husband with you— not by 
 fretting about religion, or ding-donging them 
 about religion, but by a consistent life, and 
 by a compelling prayer that shall bring the 
 throne of God down into your bedroom. 
 
 Ye who have taught your children 
 
 HOW TO LIVE, have you also taught them 
 
 how to die ? Life here is not so important aa 
 
 the great hereafter. It is not so much the 
 
 few furlongs this side the grave as it is the 
 
 unending leagues beyond. Go home to-night 
 
 and erect a family altar. You may break 
 
 down in your prayer. But never mind, God 
 
 will take what you mean, whether you express 
 
 it intelligibly or not. Bring all your house 
 
 into the ark. 
 
112 
 
 "POINTS." ' 
 
 Bring the Children, too. -You are ex- 
 perting your children to grow up in this world. 
 1 it not a question, then, that rings through 
 all the corridors and windings and heights and 
 depths of your soul, what is to become of your 
 sons and daughters for time and for eternity? 
 "Oh!" you say, "I mean to see that they 
 have good manners." Very well. "I mean 
 to dress them well, if I have myself to go 
 shabby." Very good. " I shall give them an 
 education, and 1 shall leave them a fortune." 
 Very well. But is that all ? Don't you mean 
 to take them into the ark? How to get 
 them in? Go in youi^elf! If Noah had 
 stayed out, do you not suppose that his sons 
 — Shem, Ham, and Japhet— would have stayed 
 out? Your sons and daughters will be apt 
 to do just as you do. Reject Christ yourself, 
 and the probability is that your children will 
 reject Him. 
 
 Is THERE ONE SON whom you have given 
 
« 
 
 POINTS." 
 
 "3 
 
 up ? Is he so dissipated that you have stopped 
 counselling and praying ? Give him up ? How 
 dare you give him up? Did God ever give 
 thee up? While thou hast a single articula- 
 tion of speech left, cease not to pray for the 
 return of that prodigal. Give him up ? Never 
 give him up ! Has God promised to hear thy 
 prayer only to mock thee ? It is not too late. 
 
 Would not it be pleasant to spend 
 eternity with our families! Gladder than 
 Christmas or Thanksgiving festival will be 
 the reunion, if we get. all our family into the 
 ark. Which of them can we spare out of 
 heaven ? 
 
 A Whispering-gallery. — In St. Paul's, 
 London, there is a whispering-gallery. A 
 voice utter- d most feebly at one side of the 
 gallery is heard distinctly at the opposite side, 
 a great distance off. So, every word of earnest 
 prayer goes all around the earth, and makes 
 heaven a whispering-gallery. 
 
 9 
 
114 ' "POINTS:' 
 
 However many children we may have, 
 we have none to give up. Which of our 
 famih'es can we afford to spare out of heaven ? 
 Will it be the oldest ? Will it be the youngest ? 
 Will it be that one that was sick some time 
 ago ? Will it be the husband ? Will it be 
 the wife? No! No! We must have them 
 all in. Let us, take the children's hands, and 
 start now. Leave not one behind! Come, 
 father! Come, mother ! Come, son ! Come,' 
 daughter! Come, brother! Come, sister! 
 Only one step, and we are in. Christ, the 
 door, swings cat to admit us; and it is not the 
 hoarseness of a stormy blast that you hear, 
 but the voice of a loving and patient God that 
 addresses you, saying, *' Come thou and aU 
 thy house into the ark." 
 
 Read it as it is.-When God writes any- 
 
 thing on the wall, a man had better read it as 
 
 it is. Daniel did not misinterpret or modify 
 
 dnawx.ang ua ure wan. it is all foolish- 
 
 *S32I:tS33E±Si£ttSSSS: 
 
''POINTS:' 
 
 "5 
 
 ness to expect a minister • of the Gospel to 
 preach always things that the people like, 
 or the people choose. If there is any hand- 
 writing on the wall, it is this lesson: ''Re- 
 pent! Accept of Christ, and be saved!" 
 I might talk to you of a great many other 
 things; but that is the message, and so I 
 declare it. 
 
 Jesus never flattered those to whom He 
 preached. He said to those who did wrong, 
 and who were offensive in His sight, " Ye gene- 
 ration of vipers! ye whited sepulchres! how 
 can ye escape the damnation of hell !" Paul 
 the apostle preached before a man who was 
 not ready to hear him preach. What subject 
 did he take? Did he say, "Oh, you are a 
 good man, a very fine man, a very noble 
 man" ? No ; he preached of righteousness to 
 a man who was unrighteous; of temperance 
 to a man who was the victim of bad appetites ; 
 of the judgment to come to a man who was 
 
ii6 
 
 ''POINTS." 
 
 unfit for it. So we must always declare the 
 message that happens to come to us. 
 
 There is a great difference between 
 the opening of the banquet of sin and its close. 
 Young man, if you had looked in upon the 
 banquet in the first few hours, you would have 
 wished you had been invited there, and could 
 sit at the feast. "Oh, the grandeur of 
 Belshazzar's feast!" you would have said. 
 But you look in at the close of the banquet, 
 and your blood curdles with horror. 
 
 The Struggles of Good Men. — God 
 allows good people sometimes to get into 
 terrible struggles. Jacob was a good man; 
 but he is left alone in the midnight to wrestle 
 with a tremendous influence by the brook 
 Jabbok. For Joseph, a pit; for Daniel, a 
 wild-beast den; for David, dethronement and 
 exile; for John the Baptist, a wilderness diet 
 and the executioner's axe ; for Peter, a prison ; 
 for Paul, shipwreck; for John, desolate Fat- 
 
''POINTS." 
 
 117 
 
 mos; for Vashti, most ''nsulting cruelty; for 
 Josephine, banishment; for Mrs. Sigourney, 
 the agony of a drunkard's wife; for John 
 Wesley, stones hurled by an infuriated mob; 
 for Catharine, the Scotch girl, the drowning 
 surges of the sea ; for Mr. Burns, the buffeting 
 of the Montreal populace ; for John Brown, the 
 pistol-shot of Lord Claverhouse; for Hugh 
 M'Kail, the scaffold; for Latimer, the stake; 
 for Christ, the cross. For whom the racks, 
 the gibbets, the guillotines, the thumb-screws ? 
 For the sons and daughters of the Lord Al- 
 mighty. Some one said to a Christian re- 
 former, " The world is against you." " Then," 
 he replied, " I am against the world." 
 
 The Banquet of Sin.— Sin has made itself 
 a king in the earth. It has crowned itself. 
 It has spread a banquet. It invites all the 
 world to come to it. It has hung in its 
 banqueting - hall the spoils of all kingdoms 
 and the banners of all nations. It has gathered 
 
ii8 "POINTS." 
 
 from all music. It has strewn, from its wealth, 
 the tables, and floors, and arches. And yet 
 how often is that banquet broken up, and 
 how horrible is its end ! Ever and anon there 
 is a handwriting on the wall. A king falls. 
 A great culprit is arrested. The knees of 
 wickedness knock together. God's judgment, 
 like an armed -host, breaks in upon the ban ' 
 quet. 'n 
 
 Wrestling with the Giant Habit.— From 
 a wrestle with habit I have seen men fall back 
 defeated. Calling for no help, but relying on 
 their own resolution, they have come into the 
 struggle; and for a time it seemed as if they 
 were getting the upper hand of their habit. 
 But that habit rallied again its infernal power, 
 and lifted the soul from its standing, and! 
 with a force borrowed from the pit, hurled it 
 into outer darkness. But, thank God, I have 
 often seen a better termination than that. I 
 
 
 en uicn prepare themselves for such 
 
''POINTS." 
 
 119 
 
 a wrestling. They laid hold of God's help as 
 they went into the combat. There were the 
 writhings and distortions of a fearful struggle. 
 But at last, in the midnight, alone, with none 
 but God to witness, by the brook Jabbok, the 
 giant fell, and the triumphant wrestler broke 
 the darkness with the cry, ** Thanks be unto 
 God, who giveth us the victory through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Trials for Preparation. — When David 
 was fleeing through the wilderness, pursued 
 by his own son, he was being prepared to 
 become the sweet singer of Israel. The pit 
 and the dungeon were the best schools at 
 which Joseph ever graduated. The hurricane 
 that upset the tent and killed Job's children 
 prepared the man of Uz to write the magnifi- 
 , cent poem that has astounded the ages. There 
 is no way to get the wheat out of the straw 
 but to thresh it. There i? no way to purify 
 the gold but to burn it. ^ 
 
"° "-POINTS." 
 
 Use of TRULS.-Many a man, at the close 
 of h.s trial, has found out that he has been 
 trying to throw down his own blessing If 
 you are a Christian man, I will go back in 
 your history, and find that the grandest things 
 that have ever happened to you have been 
 your trials. Nothing short of scourging, im- 
 pnsonment, and shipwreck could have made 
 Paul what he was. ■ 
 
 PEOPI.E WHO HAVE HAD IT THEIR OwN 
 
 WAY.-Look at the people who have always 
 had It their own way.^ They are proud, dis- 
 contented, useless, and unhappy. If you want 
 to find cheerful folks, go among those who 
 have been purified by the fire. 
 
 The Mark of the Conflict. -Vou need 
 not be surprised that those who have passed 
 
 through.thefiredonotfeelasgayasonce 
 they did. Do not be out of patience with 
 those who come not out of their despondency. 
 
 Thev mav triittvi^u -,— - .-, . , 
 
 . J ^..MTTi^h uvcr ineir loss, and yet 
 
''POINTS." 
 
 121 
 
 their gait shall tell you that they have been 
 trouble -touched. We may have found the 
 comfort of the cross, and yet ever after show 
 that in the dark night, and by the brook 
 Jabbok, we were trouble-touched. 
 
 God v^^ill clear it -all up. In the light 
 that pours from the throne, no dark mystery 
 can live. Things now utterly inscrutable will 
 be illumined as plainly as though the answer 
 were written on the jasper wall, or sounded 
 in the temple anthem. 
 
 The Hallelujah of Heaven.— You know 
 that in a song different voices carry different 
 parts. The sweet and overwhelming part of 
 the hallelujah of heaven will not be carried 
 by those who rode in high places, and gave 
 sumptuous entertainments; but pauper chil- 
 dren will sing it, beggars will sing it, redeemed 
 hod-carriers will sing it, those who were once 
 the off-scouring of earth will sing it. The 
 hallelujah will be all the grander for earth's 
 
122 
 
 ' ''POINTS." 
 
 weeping eyes, and aching heads, and exhausted 
 hands, and scourged backs, and martyred 
 agonies. 
 
 The Multitudes of the SAVED.-Infidels 
 say, - Your heaven will be a very small place 
 compared with the world of the lost; for, 
 according to your teaching, the majority of 
 men will be destroyed." I deny the charge.' 
 I suppose that the multitude of the finally 
 lost, as compared with the multitude of the 
 finally saved, will be a handful. For we are to 
 remember that we are living in only the begin- 
 ning of the Christian dispensation, and that 
 this whole world is to be populated and re- 
 deemed, and that ages of light and love are 
 to flow on. If this be so, the multitudes of 
 the saved will be in vast majority. ^ 
 
 Our churches need to unlimber. We 
 are putting too much stress upon questions 
 of taste. We are depending too much upon 
 non-essentials. In some churches we act as 
 
''POINTS." ' J 23 
 
 though we had rather hear a Pharisee pray 
 than a publican, because his grammar is better. 
 Now, my friends, the saving of this world is 
 rough work, and men cannot do it in a splendid 
 way. ^■ 
 
 A Man in the Ditch. — Here is a man 
 fallen down into the ditch of sin and crime. 
 How are we going to get him out ? We come 
 up elegantly apparelled, and we look at him, 
 and we say, «* What a pity it is to see a man 
 so deep in the mud ! We wish we could gtt 
 him out. Is it not awful to see thit man 
 suffering there? Get a lever, somebody, and 
 help now ! I wish I had on my other clothes !" 
 While we stand there, looking at the poor 
 man, the Methodist comes along, and says, 
 " Brother, give me your hand," pulls him up, 
 and sets him on the Rock of Ages. 
 
 Lay Hold of the Work.— It is high time 
 that we stopped trying to be so poetic about 
 our religion. There is no poetry in saving 
 
124 "PgiJVTS." 
 
 this world. Sin is filth; Satan is an arch- 
 villain; death is rottenness; and if you are 
 going to tiy to help to save this world, you had 
 better lay hold of the work, forgetting every- 
 thing but the judgment-day. Ah, my friends, 
 it is high time that we stopped putting so 
 much stress on little things, and standing on 
 proprieties. U ^t cannot save the world in 
 the one way, then let us save it in another. 
 Bullets, not RAisms.-When the Scotch 
 Covenanters were at one time in battle, their 
 ammunition gave out, and they were waiting 
 for bullets. They expected a barrel of bullets. 
 A barrel came down, but it was the wrong 
 one, sent by mistake. It was a barrel of 
 raisins. They knocked out the head of the 
 barrel, and sat down in defeat. Oh I sirs, in 
 the Church of God at this day, we want less 
 confectionery and more of the strength and 
 the thrust and the power of the omnipotent 
 Gospel. 
 
"POINTS." 125 
 
 By Storm.— Now, my friends, if this world 
 is ever to be saved for God, it will not be 
 taken by siege. It will be taken by storm. 
 All the time that we have been delaying in 
 this matter the forces of darkness have been.- 
 strengthening. 
 
 Dying of Great Sermons. — I think that 
 our churches are dying of great sermons and 
 splendid rhetoric. 
 
 The gladdest, brightest, happiest thing 
 in all the universe is the Christian religion. 
 There is so much trouble in the world ; busi- 
 ness men have so many anxieties ; toiling men 
 have so many fatigues; orphans have so many 
 desolations — for God's sake, if there be any 
 bright place on earth, show it to them. Let 
 the Church of Jesus Christ be the most cheer- 
 ful spot on earth. 
 
 The happiest Christians are persons from 
 sixty to eighty years of age. By that time 
 people get over the shams and pretences of 
 
126 • ''POINTS." 
 
 society. Christian! how dire ydu be 
 gloomy? Is not God your Father? and Jesus 
 Christ vour Saviour? and life strewn with 
 mercies ? Do not glories await you ? — doxo- 
 logics of celestial worship, eternal chorals, 
 tearless eyes, songs, and hosannas that clap 
 their hands at the foot of the throne ? Is it 
 nothing to you 'that all the hills of heaven' 
 are radiant with the faces of those who are 
 waiting to keep with you eternal holiday ? 
 Is there nothing in hearts that never ache, 
 in splendours that never die? 
 
 How God Helps. — A man, on Saturday, 
 in New York, stands in his store, and says, 
 "How shall I meet these obligations? How 
 can I endure this new disaster?" He goes 
 home. Sabbath finds him in the house of God. 
 Through the song,, the sermon, and prayer, 
 Jesus says to that man, " O man! I have 
 watched thee; seen all thy struggles. It is 
 enough : I will see thee through ; I will stand 
 
 \ 
 
/ -^ 
 
 <( 
 
 POINTS." 
 
 127 
 
 between thee and thy creditors. I will make 
 up in heavenly treasures what you have lost 
 in earthly treasures. Courage, man ! courage ! 
 Angels of God, I command you to clear the 
 track for that man; put your wings over his 
 head; with your goldca sceptres strike for his 
 defence; throw around him all the defences 
 of eternity ! " < 
 
 A POOR OLD WOMAN is in the church hearing 
 the Gospel. Oh ! how shrunken she is ! She 
 wears the same dress she wore five years ago. 
 How faded and out of date ! Her eyes are so 
 dim ; her ear so imperfect ! Some one sitting 
 next to her gives her a book and finds the place 
 for her. She says, "Thank you, miss, thank 
 you!" She holds the book close up to her 
 eyes, and with a voice rll full of tremors, sings. 
 Jesus says, "Mother, are you weary?" And 
 she says, " Yes, I am very tired." Jesus says, 
 "Mother, are you poor?" And she says, 
 " Yes, I am very poor. I cannot sew or knit 
 
128 
 
 ''POINTS." 
 
 any more." Jesus says, « Would you like to 
 rest ?" She says, " Yes, Lord, that is what I 
 want— rest." " Courage, mother," says Jesus, 
 " I will see thee through." The next morning, 
 some one dwelling on another floor comes to 
 her room and knocks. No answe.% The door 
 is opened. She is dead ! The night before, 
 the chariots of .God halted at that pillow of 
 straw, and took her to rest. 
 
 A Robust Religion.— We keep our religion 
 too much indoors; it ought to be climbing 
 rocks, or hewing forests— a stalwart religion, 
 a robust religion, a religion able to digest the 
 strong meat of the Word, instead of being kept* 
 on the pap and gruel of spiritual invalidism. 
 It is high time that we threw off the Sunday 
 clothes of sickly sentimentality, and put on 
 the work-day dress of an active, earnest Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Cry, Come !^A43oy sees a fine house beauti- 
 -'-^'•y lighted up, and hears music, and he says. 
 
"points:* 129 
 
 " I wish I was in there, but I have not been 
 invited." Here is the church lighted up with 
 festivity and holy mirth, and the world passes 
 outside, hears the music, and sometimes wishes 
 it was inside, but says that it is not invited. 
 Oh! invite the world to come in! Send a 
 ticket of invitation, " Come, for all things are 
 now ready." 
 
 Two HUNDRED MEN Were buried in the 
 Hartley colliery of England. The Queen of 
 England, from her throne, telegraphed, "Is 
 there auy hope for the men?" Answer: "No 
 hope." Here is a whole race buried in sin, 
 and darkness, and woe. The question that 
 thrills up to the throne of God to-day is, " Is 
 there any hope ?" Answer comes back from 
 the throne of God, thrilling through the world's 
 darkness and woe, " Yes ; hope for all !" 
 
 Our Church Principles.— The father and 
 the mother die (a case occurs to my mind); 
 where shall the children go? No money to 
 
 10 
 
130 "POINTS." 
 
 ' pay. The trustees have said, as they have 
 said in all other similar cases, " Keep the seat 
 just as though father and mother were living. 
 It is yours; it is yours always." A man 
 largely prospered in business gave largely to 
 this Tabernacle. Fortunes failed. Gives no- 
 thing. No ban put upon him. Just as wel- 
 come now as when he gave largely. We like 
 the principle. We mean to stand by it. 
 
 A Rich King. — France thought itself rich 
 in palaces-- St. Cloud," "Tuileries," "Ver- 
 sailles," "Palais Royal," and the "Luxem- 
 bourg." Our King has the Universe for His 
 palace— the mountains its picture-gallery; the 
 •ocean its fountain; the sun its chandelier; the 
 heavens its candelabra ; illimitable forests its 
 park; the glories of the sunrise and sunset, 
 the tapestry about the windows; the storms, 
 the lightning-hoofed coursers dashing up and 
 down the heavens; all the glories of the land 
 and sea and sky His wardrobe ; all the flowers 
 
*' POINTS.'* 
 
 131 
 
 His conservatory; all the fish His aquarium; 
 all the birds His orchestra. But better than 
 all, the hearts of His people on earth and in 
 heaven are the palaces in which He delights 
 to reign, 
 
 Providence, or Fate. -- At the door of 
 the grave lies a whole sheaf of sceptres. 
 Death sits in the palace of the sepulchre, 
 and the potentates of earth are his cup- 
 bearers; and, as the old blind monarch stag- 
 gers around his palace, ever and anon he 
 trips on some new fallen coronet. They set 
 up Charlemagne in his grave, and put a 
 crown on his pulseless temples, and a sceptre 
 in his lifeless hand; yet that could not 
 bring back his kingdom. Our King is Im- 
 mortal ! 
 
 Christ's Army and Navy. — Fighting on 
 His side are the hurricanes — as in the break- 
 ing up of the Spanish armada : the volcanoes 
 —as in the burial of infamous Herculaneum ; 
 
 10 * 
 
132 ''POINTS:' 
 
 the fire— as when Sodom was burned; the 
 rocks — as when they crashed their terrors 
 about the crucifixion. The Psalmist counted 
 His flaming artillery, as it came rushing down 
 the sky, "The chariots of God are twenty 
 thousand." Elijah's servant saw in the moun- 
 tains a cavalcade of flame.: the horses had 
 necks of fire, and flaunting manes of fire, 
 and e>es of fire, and nostrils of fire, and feet 
 of fire; and were driven by reins of fire, 
 and horsemen of fire. The cherubim, the 
 seraphim, and the archangels are His. 
 
 The Sultan of Turkey had a rule that, 
 when riding out on horseback, any of his 
 'subjects might approach him, and state their 
 wrongs and sufferings ; and the people pressed 
 so close up to the stirrups, that it was some- 
 times impossible for the Sultan to proceed. 
 Going before other kings, we must have a 
 court dress, but we can go to our King at 
 any time, in any dress, and all at once. He 
 
" points:* 
 
 133 
 
 is a pardoning King ! A condescending King ! 
 A merciful King ! 
 
 The Contrast. — If a man go into some 
 financial operation by which he loses a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, and his estate drops 
 out of his possession, and his failure upaet 
 the next man, and his the next and the next, 
 until the whole land quails under the panic, 
 the disaster is insignificant compared with 
 the ruin of that man who loses his own soul, 
 and by example takes dow another and 
 another, until heaven and earth and hell 
 feel the effects of the eternal defalcation. 
 
 Work of Comfort. — If it is not done 
 speedily, it never will be done. Yonder is 
 a heart breaking. Now is the time to say 
 the healing word. Go next week with your 
 balsam, and it will not touch the case. A 
 man yonder came under your influence, and 
 you might have captured him for God. You 
 will never have another chance at him. To- 
 
134 "POINTS." 
 
 morrow another man will be under your in- 
 fluence. You will have but one opportunity 
 of saving him. He will be lost unless you 
 save him. 
 
 Better Too Early than Too Late. — In 
 the city of Basle, Swit2erland, it was the 
 custom to have all the clocks of the city an 
 hour ahead of .time, for the following reason. 
 Once an enemy was moving upon the city, 
 and their stratagem was to take the city at 
 twelve o'clock; but the cathedral clock, by 
 mistake, struck one instead of twelve, and so 
 the enemy thought they were too late to carry 
 out the stratagem, and gave up the assault, 
 .and the city was saved; and therefore it was 
 arranged that for many years the clock struck 
 one when it was twelve. 
 
 Now!-We meditate about how to save the 
 world. Meanwhile, six millions of people will 
 die this year. You might start the millennium 
 next year; but it would do them np good. 
 
*' POINTS.'' 
 
 135 
 
 What you do for them you will have to do 
 within a twelvemonth— this month — this week 
 — this day! 
 
 Consequences of Delay. — Causes in court 
 are adjourned, sometimes because the wit- 
 nesses are not ready, or because the plaintiff 
 is not ready, or because the defendant is not 
 ready, and sometimes because the judge is not 
 ready, until the bill of costs is ruinous — so 
 there are men and women who have adjourned 
 the cause of the soul's salvation from youth 
 to middle life, from health to sickness, from 
 prosperity to adversity, until death eternal 
 will be the bill of costs to pay. 
 
 Now OR Never. — There is a sea-flower 
 called the "opelet," which spreads abroad its 
 petals beautifully; but it is very poisonous; 
 and the little fish that touches it struggles but 
 a moment and then dies, and other petals of 
 the same flower, floating in the water, wrap 
 around the fish and pull it down into the 
 
i3« "fomrs." 
 
 deadly bosom, of the flower. That is what is 
 the matter ^th some of you. Sin is an 
 attracfve flower, and it glows and waves 
 "eauffuliyhefore the sou.; hut no sooner! 
 
 be swallowed up, unless we may sweep you 
 
 away and sweep you un in ..,• 
 
 Gospel. ^ " "^'^ "^* °f ««> 
 
 B,BLE Iz.LusttuT,oMs.- There is hardly a 
 beast, or bird, or insect wh.-.i, t. 
 call.^ * •„ "^ ''*' "Ot been 
 
 c Ued to .nustrate divine truth. The ox's 
 
 r;"; '''^"*''"''"^'-^' '■'-Peer's sM. 
 he h.nd s sure-footedness, the eagle's speed 
 the dove's gentleness, and even the spar'oW 
 meanness and insignificance; 
 
 ;_Goo™l,„.b.swh...sGkb.tTh,.os. 
 We see a Divine p„T,ose i„ the discovery 
 
 of Amenca, in t.he art Of printing, in the ex 
 
 PO-e of .He Gunpowder Pi„t,i:,hecontr 
 ance of the needie-gun. in the ruin of an 
 
 Austnan or Napoleonic despotism : b-,* -.,- 
 
"POINTS." 137 
 
 hard it is to see God in the minute personal 
 "affairs of our lives. We think of God as 
 making a record of the starry host, but cannot 
 realise the Bible truth that He knows how 
 many hairs are on our head. It seems a 
 grand thing that God provided food for thou- 
 sands of Israelites in the desert, but not how 
 He feeds hungry • - dws. We cannot under- 
 stand how He encamps in the crystal palace 
 of a dewdrop, or finds room to stand, without 
 being crowded, between the alabaster pillars 
 of a pond-lily. Cromwell, Alexander, Wash- 
 ington, were not, nor is an archangel more 
 under Divine inspection than your life or 
 mine. Pompey thought that there must be 
 a mist over the eyes of God because he 
 favoured Caesar. But there is no such mist. 
 God Appoints.-— Hugh Miller says, " I will 
 be a stone-mason." God says, "You will be 
 a geologist." David goes out to tend his 
 father's sheep; God calls him to govern a 
 
^ i' 
 
 *2^ ., "POINTS." 
 
 nation. Saul goes out to find his father's 
 asses, and before he gets back finds the crown 
 of mighty dominion. 
 
 Three circles of friends : Those on the 
 outer circle wishing him well; those in the 
 next circle willing to help him; while close 
 up to his heart are a few who would die for 
 him. 
 
 Two THINGS you ought not to fret about: 
 first, things which you can help; and second, 
 thmgs which you cannot help. If you caj 
 help them, why do you not apply the remedy? 
 If you cannot help them, you might as well 
 surrender first as last. 
 
 ^ Good in WiTHHOLDiNo—Your little child 
 says, " Papa, 1 wish you would let me have 
 that knife." -No; it is a sharp knife, and 
 you will cut yourself." He says, "I must 
 have it." -But you cannot have it," you 
 reply. He gets angry, and says he will have 
 it; but you say he shall not have it. Are you 
 
"POINTS." 139 
 
 not kind in keeping it from him? So God 
 treats His children. 
 
 A Christian Down is Up. — In eternity, 
 when you come to reckon up your mercies, 
 you will point to that affliction as one of your 
 greatest blessings, God has a strange way 
 with us. Joseph found his way to the prime 
 minister's chair by being pushed into a pit. 
 The wheat must be flailed; the quarry must 
 be blasted ; the diamond must be ground ; the 
 Christian must be afflicted; and that single 
 event, which you supposed stood alone, was 
 a connecting link between two great chains — 
 one chain reaching through eternity past, the 
 other through eternity future — so small an 
 event fastening two eternities together. 
 
 A missionary, coming from India, stopped 
 at St. Helena. He had his little child with 
 him. They walked along by an embankment, 
 and a rock at that moment falling, instantly 
 killed the child. Was it an accident? Was 
 
140 " "POINTS." 
 
 it a surprise to God? Had He allowed His 
 servant, after a life of consecration, to come 
 to such a trial without any Divine meaning ? 
 No. 
 
 Talmage.— This summer I started for the 
 Adirondacks, but landed in Liverpool. I 
 studied law, and I got into the ministry. I 
 resolved to go as a missionary to China, and 
 I stayed in the United States. I thought I 
 should like to be in the East, and I went to 
 the West. All the circumstances of my life, 
 all my work, different from that which I ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Jesus in Old Age. — It is dismal to get 
 old without the rejuvenating influence of 
 religion. When we step on the down-grade 
 of life, and see that it dips to the verge of 
 the cold river, we want to behold some one 
 near who will help us across. When the 
 sight loses its power, we need the faith that 
 can illumine. W^hen we feel the failure of 
 
'"POINTS." 
 
 141 
 
 the ear, we need the clear tones of the 
 Divine voice. When the axe-men of death 
 hew down whole forests of strength and 
 beauty around us, and we are left in soli- 
 tude, we need the dove to sing in our branches. 
 Who ? — Jesus can beat back the monster. 
 He can unhorse the sin that would ride you 
 down. He can sharpen the battle-axe with 
 which you split the head of hel meted abomi- 
 nation. Who helped Paul to shake the brazen- 
 gated heart of Felix ? Who acted like a good 
 sailor when all the crew howled in the Medi- 
 terranean shipwreck? Who helped the mar- 
 tyrs when one word of recantation would 
 have unfastened the withes, and put out the 
 fire ? When the night of the soul came on, 
 and all the denizens of darkness came riding 
 up on the wings of perdition — who gave 
 strength to the soul and calmness to the 
 heart ? Who broke the spell of infernal 
 enchantment? 
 
M2 , ''POINTS.'* 
 
 Trouble is an apothecary that mixes 
 a great many draughts, bitter and sour and 
 nauseous, and you must drink some one of 
 them. Trouble puts up a great many heavy 
 packs, and you must carry some of them. 
 There is no sandal so thick and well ad- 
 justed but some thorn will strike through i.. 
 There is no sound so sweet, but the under- 
 taker's screw'-driver grates through it In 
 this swift shuttle of the heart some of the 
 threads must break. 
 
 The Happiest Hour. - With many, the 
 evening is the happiest part of the day 
 You gather about the stand. You tall:, and 
 laugh, and sing. You recount the day. You 
 plan for the morrow. Amidst all the toil 
 of the day, thai is the goal for which you 
 
 run ; and as yo. look at the descending sun 
 you thrill with the thought that it is toward 
 evening. So death comes to the disciple. 
 Water an Emblbm.-A gentleman walked 
 
''POINTS:' 143 
 
 over one of the battle-fields on a hot summer 
 night after a day of carnage. The cry of 
 the wounded was absolutely unbearable. After 
 giving all supply that he could, he put his 
 fingers to his ears, for the cry all over the 
 plain was from hundreds of dying men : 
 "For God's sake give us water!" The Bible 
 is all a-sparkle with fountains and wells, 
 and rivers and oceans. They toss up their 
 brightness from almost every chapter. 
 
 Death to Christians. — Broken hearts 
 bound up. Wounds healed. Tears wiped 
 away. Sorrows terminated. No more sound- 
 ing of the dead march! Sweet as slumber 
 to the eyelids of the babe, as full rations 
 to a starving soldier, as evening hour to the 
 exhausted workman. 
 
 Humble Origins. — They who have been 
 the deliverers of literatures and nations have 
 come from homes without affluence, and bv 
 the discipline of their own privations have 
 
M4 . "POINTS." 
 
 learned how to speak and fight for the igno- 
 rant and oppressed. Poetry and science and 
 laws and constitutions and commerce were 
 born, like Jesus, in a manger. Most of the 
 great thoughts, which have seemed the axle- 
 trees on which the centuries turned, had 
 their start in obscure corners, and had Herods 
 who tried to slay them, and Iscariots who 
 betrayed them, and unjust prelates who con- 
 demned them, and rabbles that crucified them, 
 till they burst out again in glorious resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 The feeling of consanguinity is con- 
 stantly illustrated. A mine in England falls 
 upon the workmen, and all nations feel the 
 suffocation. Prince Albert dies, and Victoria 
 has the sympathy of all Christendom. A 
 plague falls upon London, and all the cities 
 of the world weep at her agonies. An earth- 
 quake rocks down a Mexican city, and both 
 hemispheres feel the shock. Famine stalks 
 
"POINTS:' 145 
 
 through Ireland, and distant nations send their 
 cargoes of bread. 
 
 The Fire at Santiago. — In 1863 a fire 
 occurred in Santiago, Chili, that wrought 
 worse damages than the Chicago fire, so far 
 as the destruction of human life is considered. 
 The Conception of the Virgin Mary was being 
 celebrated in the Roman Catholic church at 
 Santiago. Great preparations had been made 
 for the occasion, and perhaps the most wonder- 
 ful scene ever witnessed in any church was 
 about to be evoked. The wealth, and pomp, 
 and intellect of that Chilian capital poured 
 into the cathedral, and knelt beside the 
 poorest devotee with cross and beads. Images, 
 statues, transparencies, swaying festoons, and 
 twenty thousand lamps, among which swung 
 costly gauze and delicate draperies, like mists 
 staggering, sunstruck, up the mountain. A 
 camphene lamp explodes, and the flame leaps 
 from point to point, and in fifteen minutes 
 .11 
 
'** , "J>omTs." 
 
 twenty.fiv. hundred souls have passed up 
 through the fire to meet their God. What 
 of that? Why need we care about it ? They 
 were of a different nation and of a different 
 religion. Ah ! the groan of that dying multi- 
 tude mounted the Cordilleras, and the sorrow 
 came sobbing across the Caribbean, and all 
 civilized nations felt a thrill of sympathy and 
 an impulse to pMyer. 
 
 ' Let every man have just what he achieves. 
 There ought to be an aristocracy-not one 
 bu.lt upon the accidents of wwlth or cele- 
 brated ancestry, but an aristocacy of industry 
 and of large-hearted deeds. Meanwhile, let 
 « be understood that sceptre and shovel are 
 brothers. 
 
 Cathedral, must not look down upon 
 sailors' Bethel. The whole Gospel tendency 
 IS to bring together what are called the higher 
 and lower classes. Christ came from a throne 
 
 to a mane^er \(\ hr\Ae^c. 4.u_ j? . . 
 
 ^. - — v,..^^^ txic discance between 
 
"POINTS.'' 147 
 
 the two ; and this idea of Ihe nineteenth cen- 
 tury, which would put the rich in churches 
 by themselves, and the poor in churches by 
 themselves, is an erroneous, uri;vangt.L'cal, 
 heathenish, God-defying, and dai mi ig plm, 
 which I shall war against to my d-. ing-day. 
 
 They Step Back too Far, and Fall.— A 
 painter, busy in making the fresco of a build- 
 ing, standing high up on the scaffolding, was 
 entranced with his own work, and stepped 
 back to admire it, and in his excitement forgot 
 that he stood upon a high scaffolding, stepped 
 back too far, and fell—his life dashed out, far 
 beneath, on the marble. So men admire their 
 worldly achievements, and in their enchant- 
 ment step back to look, and step back too far, 
 and fall— ruined for life and lost for eternity I 
 
 Self-denying Heroism. —How grand it is, 
 amid the selfishness of the world, to find such 
 generous deeds! The Moravian missionaries 
 were told that they could not enter the 
 
 II * 
 
148 .* ''POINTS:' 
 
 lazaretto where the lepers were dying unless 
 they stayed there. "Then," they said, "we 
 will go and stay there." They went in to 
 nurse the sick, and perished. You have read 
 the life of pure-hearted Elizabeth Fiy, toihng 
 among the degraded. But the full biographies 
 of the world's martyrs will never be written : 
 the firemen in all our cities who have rescued 
 people from blazing buildings; the sailors who 
 have helped the passeigers off the wreck, 
 themselves perishing; the nurses who have' 
 waited upon the sick in yellow-fever and 
 cholera hospitals, and sunk down to death 
 from exhaustion; the Christian men who, on 
 the battle-field, have administered to the fallen 
 amid rattling canister and bursting shell ; the 
 Christian women who have gone down through 
 haunts of shame on errands of mercy, defended 
 by HO human arm, but looked after by that 
 God who, with His lightnings, would have 
 struck to hell any who dared to do them 
 
"points:* 149 
 
 harm ! Christian heroism has ever been ready 
 to face the fire, and swim the flood, and dare 
 the storm, if good might be done. And in 
 that day when men who sat in places of power 
 shall go down to shame and contempt, these 
 humble ones shall have their names written 
 high on the pillars of heaven. Better than to 
 have been commemorated in poetry or song 
 will it be for them who hear the good cheer 
 from Christ, " I was hun^jry, and ye fed me ; 
 I was sick, and ye visited me. Enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord ! " 
 
 Why more Men are Not Saved. — It is 
 infamous to try with human quackery to cure 
 the cancer of the soul. The reason that more 
 men are not saved is because we do not show 
 their infinite need, their ruin— yea, the rotten- 
 ness of the human heart. If I am very sick, 
 and I call in a doctor, I do not want him to 
 begin telling me that there is nothing special 
 the matter with me, and that all that I need 
 
150 "POINTS," 
 
 is a little panada, or gruel, or catnip tea, when 
 I want the most radical and thorough treat- 
 ment, or in a week I am a dead man. 
 
 There is a dearth in all denominations. 
 Millions of dollars for ministers' salary; mil- 
 lions of dollars for choirs; n^ilHons of dollars 
 for church buildings. Where is the return 
 for the investment ? You say that one soul 
 saved is worth more than all that money. 
 True enough ; but be frank, and confess that, 
 considering the great outlay, the religious ad- 
 vantage reaped has been insignificant. What 
 is the matter? I think, in trying to adapt 
 the Gospel to the age, men have crippled the 
 Gospel. Starting with the idea that the people 
 will not come to church if the old-fashioned 
 doctrines of grace are presented, they have 
 not sufficiently insisted upon the first theoiy 
 of the Gospel, namely, the utter ruin and 
 pollution of the natural heart. 
 Sin is no half-and-half thing. The 
 
"POINTS." 151 
 
 human heart is not in a tolerable condition. 
 The Bible in the most uncomplimentary man- 
 ner says that we are poor and wretched, and 
 blind and naked; and if God should send his 
 Spirit upon us to-night, making revelation of 
 our true state, how many quick-beating hearts ! 
 how many blanched cheeks! 
 
 The Intruding Camel.— The Arabs have 
 a fable that once a camel came to the door 
 of a tent and thrust in his nose; not being 
 resisted, he thrust in his feet; there being 
 no hindrance, he came half way in; after 
 a while he got all the way in. The Arab said 
 to the camel, " This tent is too small for two." 
 Then the camel said to the Arab, ** If that be 
 so, you had better leave." So sin comes into 
 the heart farther and farther, until it takes 
 full possession. 
 
 Oh, how sin has trampled and scarred your 
 soul! It is f. black, a horrible, a damning 
 thing. It is not satisfied until it has pushed 
 
i' 
 
 '52 ■ "POINTS." 
 
 the soul into an eternal prison-house, and 
 slammed the door, and shoved the bolts, and 
 turned the locks of an everlasting incarcera- 
 fon. A heart under such unclean sorcery, how 
 ■t must appear to God's all- searching eye! 
 Ke sees it through and through. The dark- 
 ness cannot hide it. Years cannot erase it. 
 
 The Heart , .Idolatrous. — Because we 
 have here no Juggernauts, or Molochs, or Jos,- 
 ■houses, or heathen temples, do not conclude 
 that there are no idols. Fmm our very nature 
 we must worship something. If we do not 
 worship the God in heaven, we worship some- 
 thing on earth. This man worships pleasure; 
 th.s one, applause; this one, money; this one, 
 h.s family. That to which a man gives his 
 supreme thought and affections is his idol 
 L.ke Dagon, how often it falls down, crush- 
 mg its worshipper! 
 
 We are Indicted.- If -we had any appre- 
 
 ciation of our unrlpan a^^^ --j-t-. 
 
 : — "*" ^""^ iuuiatrous nature, 
 
*' POINTS." , 153 
 
 could we be as unmoved as we are? Would 
 that young man be whispering to his com- 
 rade ? Would that woman be examining the 
 style of her neighbour's hat, and criticising 
 how poorly the colour of the ribbon suits the 
 colour of her shawl? Would this merchant 
 be thinking of how much he lost last week, 
 and how much he probably will gain next 
 week ? No ; this place would be like a court- 
 house when a man is on trial for his life, 
 and the jury rises to render the verdict. That 
 is our position. 
 
 The Heart's Confession. — A company 
 of persons suspected of crime were brought 
 before a judge. Only one of them was guilty, 
 but how to find out which one was the ques- 
 tion. The judge put his ear against the heart 
 of each one and listened. When he came 
 to the guilty one, he heard, in every thump 
 of his heart, the acknowledgment of the 
 crime. And so, although to-night all may 
 
 I 
 
'54 "J'OIJVTIS." 
 
 seem fair in our case, if we could '^ten 
 at the door of our own hearts, every pulsa- 
 tion would confess, Guilty ! Guilty i 
 
 Triumphant M^RTyR.; endured all things 
 for Christ. TlK,- v.«e saw. asunder, and 
 hurled out of life. Th. eighteen thousand 
 Scotch Covenantee, who perished in one 
 persecution; the great battalion of Scotch 
 martyrs : Hugh M'Kail, and James Renwick, 
 and John Knox, and others whose words are 
 a battle-shout for the Church militant,-they 
 went on weary feet through the glens of Scot- 
 land in times of persecution, and crawled 
 "P the crags on their hands and Itnees. 
 Queen Mary thought that by sword and Hre 
 she had driven Protestants down, but she only 
 drove them up. Here they pass : Hooper and 
 Rogers, and Archbishop Cranmer, who got 
 his courage back in time to save his soul • 
 and Anne Askew, who, at twenty-five years 
 
 of age, rather than fnrs=.{. \-. ri„j ,, . . 
 
 - ,*. ic. uou, submitted 
 
''POINTS." 155 
 
 first to the rack without a groan, and then 
 weirc with bones so dislocated she must be 
 carried on a chair to the stake, her last 
 words, rising through flames, being a prayer 
 for her murderers; and a cavalcade of men 
 and women, whom God snatched up from the 
 iron fingers of torture into eternal life ! Those 
 who fell on St. Bartholomew's Day in Paris, 
 in Lyons, in Orleans, in Bordeaux, while the 
 king looked out of the window and cried, 
 " Kill ! kill I " Tossed out of windows, mana- 
 cled, torn, dragged and slain, until it seemed 
 that the cause of God had perished, and the 
 cannon of St. Angelo thundered the triumph 
 of hell !— their gashed and bespattered bodies 
 were thrown into the Seine, but their souls 
 went up out of a nation's shriek into the 
 light of God ; and now they pass along the 
 boulevards of heaven. 
 
 Triumphant Philanthropists.— They went 
 down into the battle-fields to take care of 
 
 I 
 
iS6 ' "PO/JVTS." 
 
 the wounded; they plunged into the damp 
 and moulded prisons, and pleaded before God 
 and human governors in behalf of the incar- 
 cerated; they preached Christ among the 
 besotted populations of the city; they carried 
 - Bibles and bread into the garrets of pain; 
 but in the sweet river of death they washed 
 off the filth and the loathsomeness of those 
 to whom they had administered. There is 
 John Howard, who circumnavigated the globe 
 in visiting dungeons of darkness and la^a- 
 rettos of pain ! Moravian missionaries, who 
 were told that they could not go on a 
 Christian errand to a hospital where the 
 plague was raging unless they would consent 
 to never come out, yet deliberately making 
 all arrangements, and going in to 'take care 
 of the sick, and then lying down beside 
 the dying themselves to die. Eliot, among 
 savages,^ travelling on foot through the wilds, 
 aymg, My feet are always wet, but I pull 
 
 \ ■■ 
 
"POINTS." 
 
 157 
 
 1 
 
 off my boots and wring my stockings, and 
 put them on again and go forward, trying 
 to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ ;" defying the savages who bade him 
 stop preaching, or die, by saying to them, 
 "I am about the work of the great God. 
 Touch me if you dare ! " The maid of Sara- 
 gossa, the angel of the Spanish battle-fields. 
 Elizabeth Fry, followed by those whom she 
 showed the way from Newgate Prison to 
 heaven. Grace Darling, of the strong oar 
 and the sea-bird's wing, with which she once 
 swooped to the drowning from the lighthouse in 
 the Fern Islands. The good Samaritan, and a 
 whole army of Christian workers and sufferers ! 
 Our King and Theirs. •— Henry VIII. 
 brought Anne Boleyn to his palace. The 
 River Thames was the scene of her triumphal 
 entry. Fifty barges followed the Lord Mayor. 
 Officials dressed in scarlet. Choirs chanting 
 along the banks of the rivvC. Flags adorned 
 
iS8 , "/*0/JVTS." 
 
 with bells that rang as the breeze stirred 
 them. Anne Boleyn, in cloth o' ^oxa and 
 wearing a circlet of precious stones, stepped 
 into the br -.e amidst the sound of trumpet* 
 and the sh(.ut of a kingdom. Then enter- 
 ing the street seated on a richly caparisoned 
 palfry, that sometimes walked on cloth of 
 gold and velvet, led between houses adorned 
 with scarlet arid crimson, and defended by 
 guards in coats of beaten gold, and along 
 by fountains that were made on that day to 
 pour out Rhenish wine for the people, until 
 she at last, kneeling in Westminster Abbey, 
 took the crown. But .las for the c aeer of 
 Henry VIII. and Anne boleyn ! They lived 
 in worldliness, and their sp'endid caree- went 
 out in darkness. Not so v^ith those whom 
 our King shall call to the honours of ht^ven. 
 
 I HAVE TWO ALL-ABSORBING t>ES. S one, 
 
 to get to heaven; the ocher, to ...ke c:iese 
 
 people with me. Tt io „^ *.: r- 
 
 -iic. ^^ ^^ no tiiiic lur argument. 
 
'•■'■'r 
 
 *' POINTS." , 159 
 
 It is no time for philosophy. It is no time 
 for poetry. While I stand here the audience 
 vanishes from my vision, and it is the world's 
 great trial -day, and the books are opened. 
 my Saviour ! if I do not speak as I ught, 
 what will become of me ? If these people 
 do not hear as they ought, what will become 
 of them ? 
 
 When L.'.izabeth Fry went into Newgate 
 prison to rec" m the abandoned, she was told 
 to lay aside her nurse and watch lest they be 
 stolen, but relused, '^''ying that confidence in 
 the criminals would one way of touching 
 them. When Christ came to this world's sin 
 he brought all the jewels of heavenly affection 
 upon Him. 
 
 That last hour of Christ was the focus 
 to which the woes of time and of eternity 
 converged. Heaven frowned from above. Hell 
 rode up from beneath. I hear the click of the 
 hoofs of ihe cavalry troop as they ride out 
 
 I f 
 
i6o . ''POIN-^S." ' 
 
 toward the fatal hill. I hear the buzz, and 
 hum, and roar, and blasphemy of a great mob. 
 They have cornered him at last ! Put those 
 women out of the way I It is no place for 
 women! Do not let his mother see this! 
 Take her away I This spectacle will kill her ! 
 Put out all the candles of the sky. The spears 
 are sharp, and they plunge them. The heavens 
 are burdened With woe, and they thunder. 
 Unlifted darkness— save as a flash of lightning 
 -reveals the eye of God peering through the 
 gloom to see what they are doing with His well 
 beloved Son. Methinks the thrones of heaven 
 shiver at the deed. He has been hanging 
 there five hours and fifty minutes. What 
 next? Whom will the Omnipotent Sufferer 
 first consume with His curse ? Will He not 
 take His right hand from the nail and hurl 
 everlasting fury upon His crucifiers ? Wait a 
 moment. Listen ! I am sure He will speak ! 
 Yes, He speaks : " Father, fomiv^ fh^^, » 
 
*' POINTS.'* i6i 
 
 Take the whole Bible. I believe it as 
 I do in my own existence. " Well, then, you 
 cannot have read the arguments on the other 
 side." Yes, I have; read them by the year; 
 read every word that Tom Paine, or Parker, 
 or Renan ever wrote on the subject, all to the 
 last page of the last book; read them until 
 it is only through the mercy of God that I did 
 not kill my soul ; read them until I found out 
 that the land of scepticism is a desert, where 
 the sands are red-hot coals, swept by the 
 smothering simoom of all-consuming wretched- 
 ness; read them until I have found that there 
 are two hells instead of one — the hell of 
 scepticism and the hell spoken of in the 
 Bible. 
 
 There is a Hell. — Fifty-iour passages in 
 the Bible all positively assert that there is 
 such a place, and as many more imply it; 
 Suppose it probable — suppose there is some 
 slight possibility that there may be such a 
 
 12 
 
/ 
 
 i62 , *' POINTS." 
 
 place? If there should be, and you have no^ 
 preparation to escape it, what then ? 
 
 Hell Felt on Earth.-A young woman, 
 dying, said to her father, "Father, why did 
 you not tell me there was a hell?" "Jenny, 
 there is no such place. God is merciful! 
 There will be no future suffering." She said, 
 "I know better! I feel it now I I know there 
 is such a place ! ' My feet are slipping into it 
 this moment! I am lost! Why did you not 
 tell me there was such a place ?" It is the 
 awful, stupendous, consuming, incontrovertible 
 fact of the Universe. 
 
 God NE7ER PUTS A MAN IN PERDITION. He 
 
 puts himself there. If you have a great fire 
 on your farm in which you are consuming 
 rubbish, and I deliberately rush into it and 
 get burned, who is to blame ? Myself. God 
 has told us there is 3 place of burning. He 
 makes for us every possibility of escaping it. ^ 
 If we deliberated dj«li 'n vhn I w - 
 
"points:* 
 
 163 
 
 Great Salvation. — Great in its Author, 
 great in its humiliations, great in its sacrifices, 
 great in its pardon, great in its final deliver- 
 ance, great in its consummations — the question 
 bursts, crackles, and thunders upon our ears: 
 "How shall we escape if we neglect so great 
 salvation ?" 
 
 No Escape. -T- For the man who neglects 
 salvation, there is no rescue. Everything will 
 plead against him. The waters will hiss from 
 the fountains, and say, "We told him of the 
 living stream where he might wash all his 
 sins away, but he would not come." The 
 rocks will say, " We told him of a shelter and 
 defence to which he might run." The sun in 
 the sky will say, "We told him of the day- 
 spring from on high; but he shut his eyes." 
 The star will say, " I pointed to his only hope 
 —the Jesus of Bethlehem." The Bible will 
 say, " I called him by a thousand invitations, 
 and warned him with a thousand alarms." 
 
 i.. 
 
 12 
 
264 ^ "POINTS." 
 
 Calvary will say, " On my bloody branch I 
 bore the fruit that might have fed his starving 
 soul, but he would not pluck it." The angels 
 will say, "We flew to him on errands of 
 mercy, and would have charmed him into life, 
 but he beat us back in our ministry. Escape 
 he must not." The throne of judgment will 
 aay, " I have but two sentences—that to the 
 friends of God, and that to his rejecters. 
 Escape he must not." All the destroyed will 
 say, " We neglected it no more than he. Why 
 should he go free when we are banished?" 
 Jesus will say, "I called to him for many 
 years, but he turned his back on My tears 
 and blood." Then God will speak, and with 
 a voice that shall ring through the heights 
 and depths and lengths and breadths of His 
 universe say, *' Escape he shall not T May 
 the Lord God Almighty, for Jesus' sake, 
 avert such a catastrophe. Come to Jesus! 
 Come now! 
 
''POINTS." 165 
 
 A WEDDING.--If the hard brow ever relaxes 
 it is at the wedding. The nature, cold and 
 unsympathetic, thaws out under the glow, and 
 the tears start as we hear the bride's dress 
 rustling down the stairs, and the company 
 stands back, and we hear in the timid ** I will " 
 of the twain, the sound of a lifetime's hopes 
 and joys and sorrows. We look steadily at 
 them, but thrice at her to once at him, and 
 say, ''God bless her, how well she looks!" 
 We cry at weddings, but not bitter tears j for 
 when the heart is stirred, and smiles are 
 insipid, and laughter is tame, the heart writes 
 out its joy on the cheek in letters of crystal. 
 Put on the ring! Let it ever be bright, and 
 the round finger it encloses never be shrunken 
 by sorrow. 
 
 A PRIZE was once offered to the person 
 who should write the best essay about the 
 miracle in Cana. Long manuscripts were 
 presented in the comp'^'^^ition, but a poet won 
 
'^^ ''POINTS:^ 
 
 the prize hy just this one line descriptive of 
 the miracle : 
 
 ••The unccKolom water saw l„ God, and blushed/' 
 
 If I DO My Best.-A boy asked if he might 
 sweep the snow from the steps of a house. 
 The lady of the household said, " Yes ; you 
 seem very poor." He said, " I am veiy poor." 
 She said, "Don't you sometimes get dis- 
 couraged, and m that God is going to let you 
 starve?" The lad looked up in the woman's 
 face, and said, " Do you think God will let 
 me starve, when I trust Him. and then do 
 the best I can?" 
 
 If you have a microscope, put under it one 
 drop of water, and see the insects iJoating 
 about; and when you see that God makes 
 them, and cares for them, and feeds them 
 come to the conclusion that He will take care 
 of you and feed you, O ye of little faith. 
 Jesus does not shadow our joys with His 
 
 griefs. He might have s.iM at .!,„ ....,,■ 
 
 — _ „v i^j^; vvcuuing 
 
''POINTS:' 167 
 
 of Cana, " I have so much trouble, so much 
 poverty, so much persecution, and the cross is 
 coming; I shall not rejoice, and the gloom of 
 my face and of my sorrows shall ^e cast over 
 a.l this group." So said not Jesus. He said 
 to Himself, ** Here are two persons starting out 
 in married life. Let it be a joyful occasion. I 
 will hide My own griefs. I will kindle their joy." 
 Our Children's Troubles.— Those chil- 
 dren will have trouble enough of their own 
 after a while. Keep back the cup of bitterness 
 from your daughter's lips. When your head 
 is down in the grass of Greenwood, poverty 
 may come to her, betrayal to her, bereavement 
 to her. Keep back the sorrows as long as you 
 can. Do you not know that son may, after 
 a while, have his heart broken ? Stand between 
 him and all harm. You may not fight his 
 battles long; fight them vvhnf you may. 
 Throw not the chill of youi o- / ^ despondency 
 over his soui ; rather be like j.;sus, who came 
 
'"* "POINTS." 
 
 to the wedding hiding hi, „„„ ^^ ^„j ^^^^ 
 Img the joys of others. 
 The L,g„t Will Come.-I have seen the 
 
 T; °" ' '"''' ■'^y- ^'^^g'-'ng amidst clouds, 
 • Wack, ragged, and portentous, but after a while 
 the sun, with golden lever, heaved back the 
 Wackness; and the sun laughed to the lake 
 and the lake laughed to the sun, and from - 
 honzon to horizon, under the crimson-tinted 
 sky, the water was all turned into wine 
 
 Religion Brightens the WoRLp.-When 
 Chnst shall have vanquished all the world 
 suppose every house will be a mansion, and 
 every garment a robe, and eveiy horse an arch- 
 necked courser, and eve^, carriage a glittering 
 vehicle, and eveiy man a king, and every 
 woman a queen, and the whole earth a para- 
 *se,- the glories of the natural world har- 
 monising with the glories of the material 
 -or d, until the veiy bells of the horses shall 
 Jingle the praises of the Lord. 
 
"PO/JVTS." ' 169 
 
 Honesty Rewarded.— In a Christian home 
 in Poland, great poverty had come, and on 
 the week-day the man was obh'ged to move 
 out of the house with his whole family. That 
 night he knelt with his familJ^ and prayed to 
 God. While they were kneeling in prayer, 
 there was a tap on the window-pane. They 
 opened the window, and there was a raven 
 that the family had fed and trained, and it 
 had ill its bill a ring all set with precious 
 stones, which was found but to be a ring 
 belonging to the royal family. It was taken 
 up to the king's residence, and for the honesty 
 of the man in bringing it back he had a house 
 given to him, and a garden, and a farm. 
 
 "Again I say, Rejoice." — There is not 
 a joy denied God's children that is given to 
 any people. Christianity does not clip the 
 wings of the soul. Religion does not frost 
 the flowers. It is a proclamation from God 
 of emancipation for the enslaved; and if a 
 
•?<> •' POINTS." 
 
 man accepts the terms, and becomes free, has 
 he not a right to be mer,y? Suppose a father 
 has an elegant mansion and large grounds. 
 To whom will he give the first privilege of 
 these grounds? Will he say. "My children, 
 
 you must not walk through these paths, or 
 s.t down under these trees, or pluck this fruit. 
 These are for outsiders"? No father would 
 say that. ,, 
 
 The Great Wedding. - There will be 
 gleaming of torches in the sky, and the trum- 
 pets of God will ravish the air with their 
 music; and Jesus will stretch out His hand 
 and the Church, robed in white, will put aside' 
 her veil, and look up into the face of her Lord 
 the Kmg, and the bridegroom will say to the 
 bnde, "Thou hast been faithful through all 
 these years! The mansion is ready I Come 
 home!" And then He shall put upon her 
 brow the crown of dominion, and the table 
 
 TlTlll I- _ _ ^ 
 
 will be spread, and it wiH ve^.^^ -..-. 
 
 wX'woS tilC 
 
"POINTS.'' 171 
 
 skies, and the mighty ones of heaven will 
 come in, garlanded with beauty and striking 
 their cymbals; and the bridegroom and bride 
 will stand at the head of the table, and the 
 banqueters, looking up, will wonder and 
 admire, and say, "That is Jesus the bride- 
 groom ! But the scar on His brow is covered 
 with the coronet, and the stab in his side is 
 covered with a robe !" and " That is the bride ! 
 the weariness of her earthly woe lost in the 
 flush of this wedding triumph !" 
 
 When the Nile overflows its banks, 
 the people throw the seed on the water. As 
 the water subsides, the seed strikes . into the 
 ground and comes up. Hence the allusion, 
 "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and it will 
 come back after many days." 
 
 Havelock went from victory to victory. If 
 his army was to march at six o'clock, he 
 would rise at four and spend two hours in 
 prayer. Get out of that man's way who has 
 
»»» •• POINTS." 
 
 been on his knees before God! He is a 
 thunder-bolt swung by the arm of the Lord 
 omnipotent. The figure stands for nothing- 
 . but put 1 beside it. and it becomes consider' 
 able. We are nothing. But when Christ 
 stands beside us, it gives us infinite advantage. 
 Whatever you want, aslc for. Is it for the 
 salvation of your so„_or daughter? Implore 
 >t- Put their v«y name into your prayer- 
 and that son or tha! I ,ghter will begin to 
 feel a shalcing at t,.c gates of the soul. Is 
 It husband or wife you want saved ? Cry to 
 God, and you will kneel together at the same 
 altar. 
 
 Prayer ,s the chalice in which we fetch 
 the water from the rock. It is the ladder 
 on which we climb up to pick the grapes 
 hangmg over the wall of heaven. It is the 
 fire that warms the frigid soul. It is the ship 
 that carries away our wants, and comes back 
 with a return cargo of Divine help. Archim- 
 
''POINTS." 173 
 
 edes said, if he cojld only find a fulcrum for 
 his lever he could move the world. Ah! we 
 have found it ! Prayer is the lever. The 
 Divine promise is the fulcrum. Pushing down 
 on such a lever, we move not only earth, but 
 also heaven. 
 
 The Change of Heart. — It is no insig- 
 nificant process, this change of heart. It is 
 a change from black to white, from down to 
 up, from the highway to hell to the highway 
 to heaven — the whole nature made over again. 
 
 Do NOT WORSHIP YOUR FINE REPUTATION, 
 
 or your wealthy store, or your large house, 
 or your swift ship, but build up in your 
 soul a temple of Christian character. Dis- 
 asters cannot crush it, nor fire consume it, 
 nor iconoclast deface its altars, nor time 
 chisel down its walls. Yet politicians have 
 worshipped their cfffice, and merchants their 
 business, and painters their pictures, and mu- 
 sicians their attainments, and architects their 
 

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''4 .1 "J'OIJfTS." 
 
 buildings, and historians their Lks; and how 
 
 often have they seen their works perish I 
 Extinction op Worlolv GLORiEs.-Audu- 
 
 bon after fifteen years of working i„ „,y„g 
 sketches of birds, leaves the sketches in a 
 tank, goes off, comes back, and finds that 
 tl>e rats have devoured them. Isaac Newton's 
 
 l^l ^^'•" *°- to pieces a manuscript 
 that represented the work of a quarter of 
 a lifetime. A worm has sunk the ship that 
 was the Pride of its builder. A child's hand 
 has spoikd a painting intended to be immor- 
 tal. A horse's hoof dashed out the brain of 
 a most accomplished philosopher. The marble 
 statue that came out, under the stroke of an 
 ■ngemous sculptor, drops on the sidewalk and 
 .s broken by a careless drayman. Time will 
 break down grandest arch, and stanchest 
 pyramid, and mightiest city. 
 
 You WH.. NOT TURN VOUR BACK ON SOK- 
 
 "BHiNo. Your bed to-night will be softer if 
 
** POINTS." 175 
 
 you feel that you have provided some sufferer 
 with a nattress to lie on. Your own food 
 will be sweeter if you make provision for the 
 hunger-struck. Your own children will seem 
 brighter-faced if you provide stockings for the 
 little bare feet. 
 
 No Condemnation. — Dof?s that old sin 
 present its dun at the door of your soul! 
 Can you not pay it? Does it threaten to 
 cany you off to jail ? Does it propose to sell 
 you out ? Better get together all your bonds 
 ard mortgages, and certificates of stocks, and 
 United States securities. Come, let me count 
 them! — not enough. Bring all the clever 
 ^ things you have ever done. Let me count 
 them ! — not enough. Bring all that ycu 
 possess. You say, "I have brought every- 
 thing!" Alas! that you cannot meet the 
 obligation. You must die t " No ( no ! 
 no ! " says a voice from heaven. The blood 
 — J v^axxiui, iHv ivjixi uluuu, tne num4n 
 
 . I 
 
''* . "■POINTS" 
 
 blood, the expiatoo. Wood, cleanseth f^m ,„ 
 -"• "Whatl is that old sin gone?" Ye" 
 I heard it .opp.e over and plash into the 
 depths of the sea. It sinks like lead. There 
 .s no condemnation to them who are in Christ 
 
 Circumstances aoghavate sins. If a chi'^ 
 does wrong, not- wittingly, you excuse it, 
 but When we do wrong, we know it. Eve™ 
 t™e a sin is committed, conscience toils 
 a une.., be,i. We may iaugh, and p„tend 
 not to hear .t. but hear it we must. Our sins 
 are against warnings and reproofs, an.: ,5,y 
 aggravated. ■' 
 
 Blood that will Wash Them Out _ 
 Your common sense teaches you that the 
 man who came to Christ, and heard the full 
 expression of God's love, and then went away 
 to betray the Lord, must drink the bitterest 
 gall, and the thunders that at last drive him 
 away will roll and crash with all the accu- 
 
"POINTS." Ill 
 
 mulated wrath of God omnipotent; and yet 
 to-night my text sweeps a circle of pardon 
 around all these accumulated sins. Fire may 
 not be able to burn them out ; hoofs may not 
 be able to trample them out; hammers may 
 not be able to pound them out; but here is^ 
 blood that will wash them out. 
 
 The Moral Man.— You say, " These things 
 are not appropriate to me, for i am a moral 
 man." How about your thoughts? You see 
 my right hand, anr! you see my left hand, and 
 one just as plainly as the other. So with the 
 sin of the heart ai.i the sin of the life— one 
 is just as plain in God's sight as the other. 
 You have not been guilty of murder, you say. 
 Are you sure about that? Have you ever 
 hated anybody ? You say you have never been 
 guilty of theft. Are you sure about that ? I 
 acknowledge you have never taken anything 
 from your fellow-man ; but have you not taken 
 days and hours that belonged to God for your 
 
 13 
 
'7^ . ^'POINTS." 
 
 own purposes? If it is wrong .o steal from 
 a man, ,t ,s more wicked to rob God 
 
 A Vast Estate.-FoW your arms, and you 
 have w.th those folded arms covered an estate 
 
 vaster than everything that can be represented 
 of matenal treasure, for the reason that you 
 cover the soul. 
 
 The Gospel S.ckle.-A sermon on "Con- 
 
 s.der the Lilies "*ay be very beautiful, but 
 >t must have more than flowers in it to save 
 the people. We might preach the natumi 
 ^cences from our pulpits, but Agassiz could 
 heat us at that. We might. Sabbath by Sab- 
 hath present some philosophic issays. but 
 
 Rap WaMo Emerson could beat us Tt that. 
 But he who by faith and pi^yer takes hold of 
 the Gospel sickle, however weak his natural 
 axm, Shan see deep swaths of golden grain 
 all ready for the angel sheaf-binders. 
 
 EvERVTHZNG :,BPENBs upon our going 
 do™ on our knees. The husbandman in th! 
 
"POINTS.'' jyg 
 
 grain-field, swinging the scythe, does not stand 
 upright, but stoops to his work, and in order 
 to readily bind the sheaf, puts his knee upon 
 it. So in this Gospel harvest we cannot stand 
 straight up in the pride of our rhetoric, and 
 metaphysics, and erudition. We must stoop 
 to our work. We must put our knee upon 
 it, or the harvest will never be tossed into the 
 gamer of the Lord. 
 
 " Go INTO ALL THE WoRLD." — We Stand 
 here two hours each Sabbath, and plead for 
 the world's redemption. But there are one 
 hundred and sixty-eight hours in every week. 
 Can we expect the two hours we spend here 
 on Sunday to overcome the one hundred and 
 sixty-six remaining hours of the week ? No ! 
 You need all to go to preaching in your stores, 
 and in your offices, and in your shops. The 
 command comes to all these business-men, 
 as it came of old : " Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the Gospel to every creature." 
 
 13 * . 
 
i8o . "POINTS." 
 
 Sing It.— We have to learn that one of the 
 most powerful ways of preaching the Gospel 
 is to sing it. No power can stand before 
 Christian song. The time was when " Mear" 
 and "Antioch," and "Windham" and "Dun- 
 dee" stood with the strength of an archangel 
 to marshal the troops of God ; but for the 
 last thirty years our churches have been going 
 back in sacred music. We have been under 
 a servitude to the artistic tastes of the world. 
 In most of our churches, four persons are 
 delegated to do this service. With a whip 
 of scorpions let the nuisance be scourged from 
 the house of God; and, since no one can 
 repent for us, and no one can die for us, let 
 us sing out our sorrow over sin, and our 
 triumphs over the last enemy, and our anti- 
 cipation of glory. When you can die for 
 me, and open the gate of heaven to my de- 
 parting soul, then I will let you do my singing. 
 Oh ! sing, ye who are bousrht bv Iovp r^WAr.^ 
 
"points:* 
 
 i8i 
 
 XV, 
 
 and who are on the way to grandeur immortal 
 — sing! While I stand here and argue about 
 the things of eternity, you may argue back »* 
 and you may be more skilful in your argu- 
 ment against religion than I am skilful in 
 my argument for religion; but who could 
 resist the holy influence when this audience, 
 like the voice of many waters, lifted its una- 
 nimous song: — 
 
 " Show pity, Lord ! O Lord, forgive ; 
 Let a repenting rebel live. 
 Are not Thy mercies large and free? 
 May not a sinner trust in Thee?" 
 
 What does God do with our prayers? 
 Take them up on the battlements of heaven 
 and throw them away! No. What do you 
 do with the presents given you by your 
 friends? You keep them sacred. Will God 
 be less regardful of that which we present to 
 Him in prayer? 
 "There was Some One Praying for 
 . Us." — On the coast of Scotland, one stormy 
 
•8' . . "POINTS." 
 
 night, a woman came to the house of her 
 
 pastor, and said to the minister, "Ri,e. and 
 pray for my husband, for he is on the sea in 
 a storm." The Christian wife and her pastor 
 knelt down and prayed for the salvation of the 
 sea-captain. Sure enough, at that ve,y hour 
 , the vessel ,was tossed upon the ang^ ,,as. 
 The ship plunged into the wave, and it seemed 
 as .f.t would never come up again; but it 
 
 nghted and came to the top of the wave It 
 plunged again, and for a long while the captain 
 thought it would never rise; but it began to 
 shake itself from the wave, and again bounded 
 along the sea. The third time it went down 
 and all hands on board gave up the last 
 hope. But again it mounted. As it came 
 out of the foaming billows, the captain said 
 to h.s crew, "Lads, surely there was some 
 God's soul on the land praying f„r „s to- - 
 night, or we should never have come up out 
 of that." ^ 
 
*' POINTS." 183 
 
 What are you doing, Christian men ? 
 What are you waiting for ? You will be dead 
 very soon. I see Christian men and women 
 going into glory. This soul goes up to the 
 gate of heaven surrounded by a dozen souls 
 whom he has brought with him. Yonder 
 comes a tract distributor, followed by fifty souls. 
 Yonder comes a Sabbath-school teacher, with 
 ten souls following him into the kingdom. I 
 see your soul coming up alone. Why do you 
 come up alone? Have you not brought one 
 soul to Christ? Have you lived thirty or 
 forty years and done nothing? What will 
 God say? What will the angels say? You 
 had better crouch <; vvn in one corner of 
 heaven and never show yourself. 
 
 I WILL TELL YOU WHO I AM. I am a 
 
 sinner: saved, as I hope, by the infinite 
 grace of God. For eighteen years of my 
 life I offered up no believing prayer. From 
 a Christian family altar I flew toward per- 
 
184 . ** POINTS." 
 
 dition. With my back to the cross, and my 
 face toward death, I bounded away toward 
 darkness and woe, and said, "Who is the 
 Lord, that I should serve Him ?" 
 
 "Against the God that rules the sky 
 I fought, with hands uplifted high ; 
 Despised the offers of His grace ; ' 
 Too proud to seek a hiding-place!" 
 But there came a memorable Sabbath night. 
 I retired, thoughtless as ever. About one 
 o'clock in the morning I awoke. Something 
 said, "Are you prepared for eternity? You 
 had better fly." i rose up in bed. I tried 
 to strike a light. I could not get a light. 
 I went downstairs, and asked of one who 
 knew well how to tell me, "What must 
 I do to be saved?" For days, and weeks, 
 and months I wandered in darkness - too • 
 stubborn to submit, too hard-hearted to repent- 
 but at last the day dawned, and at the torn' 
 and bleeding feet of the Son of God I put 
 down the awful burden of my guilt. 
 
"points:' 185 
 
 He Came to Call Sinners.—" But," says 
 a man out yonder, *' I am too bad to come. 
 I am all astray. For thirty years I have been 
 going down hill. I am scalded and blistered 
 with sin. I have gone through the whole 
 catalogue. I cannot come as I am. I must 
 first get things set in order ! " Ah ! my friends, 
 you will never get things set in order until 
 you come to the Cross. You will get worse 
 and worse. Not the righteous : sinners, Jesus 
 came to call. 
 
 Though ye be wounded in the head, and 
 wounded in the heart, and wounded in the 
 hands, and wounded in the feet, and have the 
 gangrene of eternal death upon you, the Great 
 Physician, with one drop of this elixir of 
 eternal life, shall cure your soul. Though 
 you be soaked with sinful indulgences, and 
 your feet have gone in evil places, one touch 
 of God's Almighty grace shall cleanse and 
 
•'8« - "pomrs." 
 
 God with You.-i do not say you will 
 have no more struggles; but your struggles 
 W.U be different. Now, when you fight against 
 
 your evil habits, all the powers of darkness 
 are against you, and you are alone, and you 
 fight weaker and weaker until you fall, and 
 they trample upon your soul; but in the other 
 case you go into the battle with God on 
 your side, and you shall fight stronger and 
 stronger against your evil propensities, until 
 you get the final victory. All hail to the man 
 who fights with God on his side ! 
 
 Scoffers Converted. _ In Callowhill 
 Street, Philadelphia, a revival meeting was 
 bemg held, and many souls were being 
 saved, and among them a member of one 
 of the worst club-houses in the city The 
 leader of the club-room went to the prayer- 
 ■neetmg to make a disturbance, and to get 
 his old comrade to come out. Stopping at 
 
 the door of fVic ry^^ 
 
 -- o. -ftv. i^xa^ci-ineeimg, a song arrested 
 
, ""POINTS." 187 
 
 his attention, and he went in, and before 
 the meeting closed knelt at the altar, asking 
 for prayers; and he became a captive of 
 heavenly grace. Another member of the 
 same club, on another night, started with 
 the same idea of disturbinp; and breaking up 
 the meeting, and decoying away his old 
 comrades who had been converted. But the 
 grace of God also seized him at the door, 
 and his soul was saved. 
 
 Faith. — There is only one door into heaven^ 
 that door is faith. There is only one ship 
 that sails for the skies: her name is Faith. 
 There is only one weapon with which to 
 contend with opposition ; that is faith. Faith 
 is the first step; faith the second step; faith 
 the third step; faith the fourth step; faith 
 the last step. We enter the road by faith; 
 we contend against adversities by faith; We 
 die by faith. Heaven is the reward of faith. 
 A Warwing. — With some here the voice 
 
 /^" 
 
i88 "POINTS." 
 
 of God has been ineffective. Sermons in- 
 numerable; hymns and psalms innumerable; 
 solemn providences innumerable; and yet 
 they have trampled on all these influences, 
 and are no nearer the kingdom now than 
 they would have been had they lived in 
 Ethiopia, and never seen a missionary. I 
 fear they will be lost. They will appear at 
 the last day with none to defend them. All 
 the sermons will plead against them; all the 
 Bibles will plead against them; all their 
 religious advantages will plead against them. 
 God will say, "Because I called, and ye 
 refused, and stretched out My hand, and no 
 man regarded Me, therefore I will laugh at 
 your calamity, and mock when your fear 
 Cometh." The door of mercy will not always 
 stand open. It has begun to close. It moves 
 faster and faster upon its hinges. It swings 
 closer, and soon the announcement will be 
 made that the door is shut I 
 
''POINTS.'* 189 
 
 The Bible the True Rule. — I would 
 that on the desk of every counting-room, and 
 on the bench of every artisan, there were a 
 Bible ; and that by its instruction all business 
 men were regulated, and that they would see 
 that godliness is profitable for the life that" 
 now is, as well as for that which is to come ; 
 and that business dishonour is a spiritual 
 disaster; and that a man may be the leader 
 of a Methodist class, or the trustee of a 
 Baptist church, or an " example " in a Quaker 
 meeting-house, or a vestryman in an Epis- 
 copal parish, or an elder in a Presbyterian 
 church, and yet go to perdition. 
 
 The Worldly Prudent. — Now you may, 
 in worldly affairs, be cautious, true, honour- 
 able, and exemplary ; but am I not right when 
 I say that all those who are speeding toward 
 eternity without preparation — flying with the 
 years, and the months, and the weeks, and 
 the days, and the moments, and the seconds, 
 
190 . _ "porm-s." 
 
 toward an unalterable destiny, yet uncertain 
 
 as to where they speed, are reckless drivers? 
 What would you think of a stage-driver with 
 SIX horses and twenty passengers, in the mid- 
 n.ght, when it is so dark that you cannot see 
 your hand before your face, dashing at full 
 -n over bridges and along by dangerous 
 prec,p,ces? Such a man is prudent compared 
 with one who, amidst the perils of this life 
 dashes on toward an unknown eternity 
 
 o the forks of a road, and one goes to the 
 
 "f; "' *"' """^ '» *"« '««• yo" stop and 
 make mqu.^. as to which road you ought to 
 take. To-night you have come to the forks 
 of a road. One leads to heaven and the 
 other to hell. Which ™ad will y„u take? 
 Sbethe END.-Young man, before you 
 mount the chariot of sin, go and see the end 
 of those reckless drivers. They once had as 
 
 lair a cheek as vou °nrl • 
 
 - ^cu, «na as iiianiy a brow as 
 
''points:* 19J 
 
 you, and as stout a heart. They stepped very 
 gradually anide. They read French novels. 
 They looked at bad pictures. They went into 
 contaminating associations. Out of curiosity, 
 and just to see for themselves, they entered 
 the house of sin. They were caught in snares^ 
 that had captured stronger men than they. 
 Farewell now to all hope of return ! Fare- 
 well to peace I Farewell to heaven! 
 
 Better stop now. Some years ago, near 
 
 Princeton, New Jersey, some young men were 
 
 skating on a pond around an " air-hole," and 
 
 the ice began to break in. Some of them 
 
 stopped; but a young man said, "I am not 
 
 afraid! Give us one round more!" He 
 
 swung nearly round, when the ice broke, and 
 
 not until next day was his lifeless body found. 
 
 So men go on in sin. They are warned. 
 
 They expect soon to stop. But they say, 
 
 "Give us one round more!" They start, but 
 
 with wild crash break through into bottomless 
 
'92 . "POINTS." 
 
 perdition. Do not risk it any longen Stop 
 now. God save us fron. 5 foolhardiness of 
 the one round morel 
 
 Come and get your sins pardoned. I 
 do not ask you to come to a private con- 
 fessional, or to whisper into my ears your 
 offences, but, sitting where you are, to accept 
 this moment the blood-cleansing. 
 
 The World's ' Deadly Power. — When 
 this world gets full power over a man, he 
 might as well be dead. He is dead ! When 
 Sisera came into the house of Jael, she gave 
 him something to drink, and got him asleep 
 on the floor. Then she took a peg from the 
 side of her tent, and a mallet, and drove the 
 peg through the brain of Sisera into the floor. 
 So the worid feeds a man and flatters a man, 
 and when it has him sound asleep, strikes 
 his life out. 
 
 Religion in Business.-You have no right 
 
 to shut the door nf v'^'t nfRr« -r cf — 
 
 --4 — j^vi uixiC^. wF stuic against 
 
*' POINTS.'* 
 
 193 
 
 the principles of our holy religion. The min- 
 ister of Christ does not do his whole duty who 
 does not plainly and unmistakably bring the 
 Gospel face to face with every style of business 
 transaction. 
 
 Sunday Religion No Religion. — Many 
 a man sits in ms pew on Sunday night, and 
 sings " Rock of Ages," and rolls up his eyes 
 very piously, who, on coming out at the close 
 of the service, shuts the pew-door and says, 
 "Good-bye, Religion; I will be back next 
 Sunday ! " A religion that does not work all 
 the week, as well as on Sunday, is no religion 
 at all. 
 
 The Old Scissors.— Yes, I am a pair of 
 old scissors. I cut out many a profile of old-time 
 faces, and the white dimity bed-curtains. I 
 lay on the stand when your grandparents were 
 courting— for thai had to be done then as well as 
 now — and it was the ;same story of chairs wide 
 apart, and chairs coming nearer, and arm over 
 
 14 
 
'94 "POINTS.'' 
 
 the back of the chair, and late hours, and four 
 or five gettings up to go with the determination 
 to stay, protracted interviews on the front steps, 
 blushes and kisses. Your great grandmother,' 
 out of patience at the lateness of the hour, 
 shouted over the banisters to your immediate 
 grandmother, "Mary, come to bed !" Because 
 the old people sit in the corner looking so very 
 grave, do not suppose their eyes were never 
 roguish, nor their lips ruby, nor their hair 
 flaxen, nor their feet spry, nor that they always 
 retired at half-past eight o'clock at night. 
 
 "Cutting Behind "in Politics. -A poli- 
 tical office rolls past. A multitude Spring to 
 their feet, and the race is in. Only one of 
 all the number reaches that for which he runs. 
 No sooner does he gain the prize, and begin to- 
 wipe the sweat from his brow, and think how 
 grand a thing it is to ride in popular prefer- 
 ment, than the disappointed candidates cry 
 
 out: 
 
 Incompetency ! Stupidity ! 
 
 
 audi 
 
"POINTS." ,95 
 
 Now let the newspapers and platforms of the 
 country * cut behind ! ' " 
 
 The Best University.— If a young man 
 starts from a good, honest, industrious Chris- 
 tian mother, he graduates from a university 
 better than that of Berlin or Edinburgh. 
 
 The Beginnings of Distinguished Men. 
 —Columbus was a weaver; Halley a soap- 
 boiler; Arkwright a barber; ^Esop a slave; 
 the learned Bloomfield was a shoemaker; 
 Hogarth was an engraver of pewter-plate; 
 Sixtus the Fifth was a swine-herdsman ; Homer 
 was a beggar ; and Horace Greeley started life 
 in New- York with ten dollars and seventy-five 
 cents in his pocket, as well off as if he had 
 the eleven full round dollars. But there are 
 a great many young men who are waiting 
 for the other twenty-five cents before they 
 begin. 
 
 A Sheaf Fully Ripe.— An aged Christian 
 man in Massachusetts recently died. Instead 
 
 14 * 
 
«9< "POINTS." 
 
 of the flowers usually put upon the bier there 
 was laid upon his coffin a sheaf of wheat 
 fully ripe. Beautifully significant I Oh, that 
 on the remains of this harvest year we might 
 place, to-day, a sheaf of prayer, a sheaf of 
 thanksgiving, a sheaf of joy fully ripe I 
 
 The Sin op Overwork. - God gives to 
 every man a certain amount of work, and 
 He does not want him to do any more than 
 that. "Do thyself no harm," is advice no 
 more appropriate to the jailer when the 
 Pnson is tumbling around his ears than 
 .t .s appropriate to those the wards of whose 
 health and the fastnesses of whose strength 
 begin to tremble with the earthquake. Paul 
 
 r T"" '""'"' °' •"■' "^y- 'o-S before 
 the days of expressage, he sends hundreds 
 of miles for his great-coat to Troas. 
 
 Responsibiutv op Newspaper Men.-Ii 
 Z ' ""'' «^Ponsibili,y that rests upon people 
 that set type or sit m editorial chairs. The 
 
''POINTS.'' ,97 
 
 audience is so large, the influence is so great, 
 the results are so eternal, that I believe, in 
 the day of judgment, amid all the millions 
 of men who will come up to render their 
 account, the largest account will be rendered 
 by newspaper men; and I will tell you why. 
 Here is a paper that has, for instance, fifty 
 thousand circulation. We will suppose that 
 each of those papers is read by three men. 
 There is an audience of one hundred and 
 fifty thousand people. Now, suppose that, 
 ■ in one of the issues of that paper there be 
 a grand truth forcibly put, how magnificent 
 the opportunity! Suppose there be a wrong 
 thing projected in that paper, who can estimate 
 the undoing of that one issue ? Oh ! if there 
 is any man who needs to be a Christian, 
 it is an editor. 
 
 The sharp knife of worldly assault will 
 only trim the vines until they produce better 
 grapes. The more you pound marjoram and 
 
'98 - '^/jvrs- 
 
 foscmao-, the swee'ter they smell. The bloody 
 muzzle of the Papacy hounded fifty million 
 Protestants into glory. No pruning, no 
 grapes; no grinding-mill, no flour; no battle, 
 no victory ; no cross, no crown I 
 
 The Bruised Reed. -The shepherd in 
 olden, times played upon these reeds. They 
 •■vere ve^. easily bruised; but when they 
 were bruised they were never mended. The 
 shepherd could so easily make another one, 
 he would snap the old one and throw it away, 
 and get another. The Bible says it is not 
 so with our Shepherd. When the music has 
 Kone out of a man's soul, God does not snap 
 
 h.m in twain and throw him away. He mends 
 and restores. 
 
 Horace GreeleVs Chance.-I think ■► • 
 
 I'fe of this man ought to kindle hope and 
 
 enthusiasm in all the struggling. There are 
 
 ' ^'t* "^"y y»>">g men who tell me. that 
 
 " *^""^^"'=- T«ey say, "Yonder 
 
"POINTS.'* 
 
 199 
 
 5 bloody 
 million 
 
 ng, no 
 battle, 
 
 erd in 
 They 
 1 they 
 The 
 r one, 
 away, 
 s not 
 c has 
 snap 
 lends 
 
 t i\i 
 and 
 ! are 
 that 
 nder 
 
 is a young man who started with a large 
 fortune, and here is a young man who 
 married a fine estate, and here is another 
 who has been through our best universities, 
 and has finished his education in Edinburgh 
 or Germany; but I have no education; I 
 have no money; I have no chance." You 
 have as good a chance as Horace Greeley, 
 the boy. See him in Vermont, in home- 
 spun dyed with butternut-bark, helping his 
 father get a living for the family out of very 
 poor soil. I tell you that one who has, with 
 bare feet and in a tow shirt, helped a father 
 to get out of pr Dr soil a living for mother 
 and sisters, has a right to publish fifty books 
 concerning "what he knows about farming." 
 See the lad stepping up from the Albany 
 boat on the New York Battery, and then 
 coming and sitting down on the steps of 
 a printing-house, waiting for the boss to 
 come in the morning. Then look at him 
 
;' 1 
 
 200^ ^* POINTS.'' 
 
 sitting in the foremost edit'orial chair of all 
 the world, and then tell me again you have 
 no chance. 
 
 A Working CAPiTAL.-Every sound man 
 starts life with a capital of at least one 
 - hundred thousand dollars-I say eveiy man. 
 You tell me to prove it. I will prove it. 
 Your right arm-will you take five thousand 
 dollars and have it cut off? No, you say. . 
 Then certainly it is worth five thousand 
 dollars, and your left arm is worth as much, 
 and your right foot as much, and your left 
 foot as much. Twenty thousand dollars of 
 capital to start with. Your mind-for how 
 much would you go up and spend your life 
 in Bloomingdale Asylum ? Twenty thousand 
 dollars for your intellect ? You would refuse 
 it. It is worth that, anyhow,-forty thousand 
 dollars of equipment. Then you have an 
 immortal soul; for how much would you 
 sell lU For sixty thousand dollars? No, 
 
 s 
 
*' POINTS.'' 
 
 201 
 
 you say, with indignation. Then certainly 
 it is worth that much. And there are your 
 one hundred thousand dollars — the magnificent 
 outfit with which the Lord God Almighty 
 started every one of you. And yet there are 
 young men who are waiting for others to 
 come and start them — to make them ; waiting 
 for institutions to make them ; waiting for 
 circumstances to make them. Fool! go and 
 make yourself. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day. — Good, grand, old- 
 fashioned Thanksgiving Day has come. No- 
 thing could stop it. It pressed on down 
 through the weeks and months, its way lighted 
 by burning cities, or cleft by cavernous graves ; 
 now strewn with orange-blossoms and then 
 with funeral weeds; amid instruments that 
 piped "the quickstep" and drummed "the 
 dead march." Through the gates of this 
 morning it came, carrying on one shoulder 
 a sheaf of wheat, and on the other a shock 
 
202 
 
 tt 
 
 POINTS: 
 
 of corn. Children in holiday dress hold up 
 their hands to bless it, and old age goes out 
 to bid it welcome, asking that it come in, and 
 by the altars of God rest a while. Come in, 
 day, fragrant with a thousand memories,' 
 and borne down under the weight of innumer- 
 able mercies, and tell to our thankful hearts 
 how great is the goodness of God. 
 
 " Saved as by' Fire."-A vessel at sea is 
 in flames. You go to the stern of the vessel. 
 The boats have shoved off. The flames ad- 
 vance: you can endure the heat no longer 
 on your face. You slide down on the side of 
 the vessel, and hold on with your fingers, 
 until the forked tongue of the fire begins to' 
 lick the back of your hand, and you feel that 
 you must fall, when one of the life-boats comes 
 back, and the passengers say they think they 
 have room for one more. The boat swings 
 under you-you drop into it-you are saved. 
 ^Q some men are pursued by temptation until 
 
''POINTS.'' 203 
 
 they are partially consumed, but after all get 
 , off — "saved as by fire." 
 
 By the Skin of the Teeth. — A very 
 narrow escape, you say,, for Job's body and 
 soul ; but there are thousands of men who 
 make just as narrow escape for their soul. 
 There was a time when the partition between 
 them and ruin was no thicker than a tooth's 
 enamel; but as Job finally escaped, so have 
 they. 
 
 The Spring. — On this, the brightest week 
 of the brightest month of all the year, I sit 
 down to write that which I hope may be 
 pleasant to read when red-armed Autumn 
 smites his anvil, and through all . the woods 
 the sparks are flying, and it needs not a 
 prophetic eye to see the mountains from bass 
 to tip-top filled with horses and chariots of 
 fire. Indeed, June and October, if they could 
 see each other, would soon be married. Not 
 much difference between their ages; the one 
 
204 
 
 "POINTS. 
 
 » 
 
 fa.r and the other ruddy; both beautiful to 
 look upon, and typical; the one holding a 
 
 bunch of flowers, and the other a basket of 
 ": ^^^ ^""'h *inds would harp at the 
 "«pt.als. and against the uplifted chalices 
 
 r'/^^^'^^-'-Oof^'-ber^andgrape. 
 . To that marriage altar Janua,y would bring 
 ^ cuf,s of co^stal, and Apri, it. strung bead! 
 of shower, and JuIJ, its golden crown of wheat 
 
 'astho::or:::::;r- --"-"«■ 
 
 wh,Vh . "*" ' ''f^ "« a poor time in 
 
 wh,ch to prepare for eternity. It is either 
 dehnum or some trouble about property, or it 
 ■ he magnitude of world-changing, or it is 
 b.dd,ng good-bye to friends-making it a verv 
 poor hour to prepare for heaven. The fact is 
 
 that .f a man wants to get ready for eternity 
 he must do it while he is well 
 
 see^;hrrK*^""'°°"'"^^"-'''^- 
 
 see the flambeau of the bridegroom coming 
 •. arKne.o ucfore you begin to trim 
 
'POINTS. 
 
 ao5 
 
 your lamps. You may wait for your last 
 moment, but when your last moment comes, it 
 will not wait for you. There are a great many 
 doors through which you may get out of this 
 world, but there is only one door into heaven. 
 
 Use your Power for Good. — I congra^ 
 
 tulate you newspaper men on the splendour 
 
 of your opportunity, but I charge you before 
 
 God, that you be careful to use your influence 
 
 in the right direction. How grand will be the 
 
 result in the last day for the man who has 
 
 consecrated the printing-press to high and 
 
 holy objects! God will say to such an one, 
 
 "You broke off a mJiJion chains, you opened 
 
 a million blind eyes, you gave resurrection 
 
 to a million of the dead." But what shall 
 
 . become of those who have prostituted their 
 
 press to blackmailing and the advocacy of tnat 
 
 which is wrong, multiplying the numbers of 
 
 their papers by pandering to the tastes of bad 
 
 men and worse women, poisoning the air with 
 
io6 
 
 "PoijfTS: 
 
 a plague that killed a nation ? Why, God will 
 say to such men in the last day, "You were 
 destroying angels, smiting the first-born of 
 man and teast; you made the world horribly 
 worse, when you might have made it gloriously 
 better. Go down and suffer with the millions 
 you have damned. You knew your duty and 
 you did it not." ' 
 
 Kilkenny Cats at Law.-Two men go to 
 law about some insignificant thing. They 
 retain counsel, enter complaints, subpcena 
 witnesses, empanel juries, hear verdicts, make 
 appeals, multiply costs. Adjournment after 
 adjournment, vexation after vexation, business 
 neglected, ...ience exhausted, years wasted, 
 and on both sides the last dollar spent. The 
 cats have interlocked their paws, clashed each 
 other's teeth, opened each other's jaws, and 
 gulped down each other's all 1 Extermination 
 more complete than that of Kilkenny. 
 Ministers' Sunshine— So 
 
 much has bei 
 
 vii 
 
''POINTS." 207 
 
 written of the hardships of clergymen — small 
 salaries, unreasonable churches, mean com- 
 mittees, and impudent parishioners, that 
 parents seeking for their children's happiness 
 are not wont to desire them to enter the sacred 
 calling. Indeed, the story of empty bread-trays 
 and cheerless parsonages has not half been 
 told. But there is another side to the picture. 
 Ministers' wives are not all vixens, nor their 
 children scapegraces. Pastors do not always 
 step on thorns and preach to empty benches. 
 The parish sewing-society does not always 
 roast their pastors over the slow fires of tittle- 
 tattle. There is no inevitable connection 
 between the Gospel and bronchitis. As far as 
 we have observed, the brightest sunshine is 
 ministers' sunshine. 
 
 Mount Washington. — Mountain-ash, and 
 birch, and maple, which we saw soon after 
 starting, cannot climb such steeps as these. 
 Yes, we have come where spruce, and fir, and 
 
'"* "PO/NTS." 
 
 white pine begin to faint by the way: and in 
 every direction you see the star. reLns 
 
 he trees wl,ioh have been bitten to death by 
 the sharp white teeth of the frost. Yet God 
 does not forsake even the highest peaks. The 
 -jesty of forests n,ay be denied then,, but 
 the brow of this stupendous death hath its 
 wreath of aipine p„„,,, ,„, ,^ 
 
 strewed with bluebells and anemones. After 
 passing great reaches of desolation, you 
 suddenly come upon a height garnished with 
 a foam of white flowers dashed up from the 
 «a of D.vme beauty. There, where neither 
 hoof nor wheel can be traced, you find the 
 track of God's foot in the turf; and on the 
 granue, great natural laws written on "tables 
 of stone," hurled down and broken by the 
 wrath of the tempest. Oh ! how easy to see 
 
 ''t'':f^'—^^ ■'ere tending th'e white 
 flocks of flowers which pick out their pasturage 
 among the clefts. . * 
 
^ 
 
 "POINTS." 209 
 
 Children Gone.— Some are from infancy 
 light and happy— they romp, they ily. You 
 can hear their swift feet in the hall. Their 
 loud laughter rings through the house, or in 
 the woods bursts into a score of echoes. At 
 night you can hardly hush their glad hearts- 
 for slumber, and in the morning they wake 
 yo» with their singing. Alas ! if then they 
 leave you, and you no more hear their swift 
 feet in the hall, and their loud laughter ringing' 
 through the house, or in the woods bursting 
 . into a score of echoes ; if they wake you no 
 more in the morning with their sweet songj 
 if the colour go out of the rose and its leaves 
 fall; if angels for once grew jealous, and 
 want what you cannot spare ; if packed away 
 in the trunk or drawer there be silent gar- 
 ments that once fluttered with youthful life, 
 and by mistake you call some other child 
 by the name of the one departed — ah me ! 
 ah me I 
 
 15 ' 
 
2IO 
 
 We Find what we Look For. - You 
 will see in the world chiefly that for which 
 you look. A farmer going through the county 
 chiefly examines the farms, an architect the 
 buildings, a merchant the condition of the 
 markets, a minister the churches; and so 
 a man going through the world will see the 
 most of that for which he especially looks. 
 He who is constantly watching for troubles 
 will find them stretching off into, gloomy 
 wildernesses, while he who is watching for 
 blessings will find them hither and thither 
 - extending in harvests of luxuriance. 
 
 The Right and the Wrong SiDE.-Like 
 most garments, like most carpets, everything 
 m life has a right side and wrong side. You 
 can take any joy, and by turning it around, 
 find troubles on the other side; or you may 
 take the greatest trouble, and by turning it 
 around, find joys on the other side. The 
 gloomiest mountain nev^r ca^-*- - -T--i 
 
"POINTS."* an 
 
 both sides at once, nor does the greatest of 
 life's calamities. The earth in its revolutions 
 manages about right— it never has darkness 
 all over at the same time. Sometimes it 
 has night in America, and sometimes in 
 China, but there is some part of the earth 
 constantly in the bright sunlight. My friends, 
 do as the earth does. When you have trouble, 
 keep turning around, and you will find sun- 
 light somewhere. Amid the thickest gloom 
 through which you are called to pass, carry 
 your own candle. A consummate fret will, 
 in almost every instance, come to nothing. 
 You will not go to such a merchant's store, 
 nor employ such a mechanic, nor call such 
 a minister. Fretfulness will kill anything 
 that is not in its nature immortal. There 
 is a large class of persons in constant trouble 
 about their health, although the same amount 
 of strength in a cheerful man would be taken 
 as healthiness. Their digestion, being con- 
 
 15* 
 
Btantly suspected of unfaithfulness, finally 
 refuses to serve such a master, and says, 
 " """*""■• ""'''« "-ay with your own lob- 
 stersi" and the suspected lungs resign their 
 office, saying, "Hereafter blow your own 
 bellows I" For the last twenty years he has 
 been expecting every moment to faint. His 
 nerves make insurrection, and nse up against 
 his head, saying, "Come, let us seize upon 
 th,s armoury I " His face is perpetually drawn 
 as though he either had a pain or expected 
 one. You fear to accost him with, "How 
 are you to-day?" for that would be the signal 
 for a shower of complaints. He is always 
 gettmg a lump on his side, an enlargement 
 of the heart, or a curve in the spine. If some 
 of these disorders did not actually come he 
 would be sick of disappointment. If 'you 
 should find his memorandum-book, you would 
 discover in it recipes, in elderly female hand- 
 
 writing, for the cure nf q11 c.*,.i r ,. 
 
 ■ •• "'■ji-o ui aiseases, 
 
"POINTS." ai3 
 
 from softening of the brain in a man, down 
 to the hots in a horse. His bedroom-shelf 
 is an apothecary-infantum, where medicines 
 of all kinds may be found, from large bottles 
 full of head-wash for diseased craniums, down 
 to the smallest vial, full of the best prepa- 
 rations for the removing of corns from the 
 feet. 
 
 The Village. — A country village affords 
 no retreat. There everybody knows every- 
 body's business. You cannot raise half-a- 
 dozen goslings without having them stoned 
 for picking off your neighbour's gooseberries. 
 Gossip wants no better heaven than a small 
 village. Miss Glib stands at her gate three 
 times a day talking with old Mrs. Chatterbox, 
 and on rainy days, at the blacksmith's shop, 
 the whole business of the village swims in 
 a tank of tobacco-juice of the worst plug. 
 Everybody knows whether this morning, out 
 of the butcher's cart, you bought mutton or 
 
 
214 '* POINTS." 
 
 calf's liver; and the mason's wife, at the risk 
 of breaking her neck, rushes downstairs to 
 exclaim, "Just think of it! Mrs. Stuckup 
 has bought a sirloin steak, and she is no better 
 than other people!" Your brass kettle is 
 always borrowed. A bandbox was seen going 
 from the millinery - shop to the house of a 
 villager on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday 
 morning a score of people are early at church, 
 head half-turned toward the door, ready to 
 watch the coming-in of the new purchase, hand- 
 kerchief up to mouth, ready to burst out at 
 what they pronounce a perfect fright of a 
 bonnet. They always ask what you gave for 
 a thing, and say you were cheated ; had some- 
 thing of a better quality they could have let 
 you have for half the money. We have at 
 different times lived in a small village, and 
 many of our best friends dwell there, but we 
 give as our opinion that there are other places 
 
 more favniiroKlo f^^ « , »- ... 
 
 „„,, ,^, ^ mij.ii^ ^Qitmg to heaven. 
 
*' POINTS." 
 
 2IS 
 
 Be Cheerful.— Away ! away with all fore- 
 bodings as to the future! Cheer up, discon- 
 solate ones! Go forth among nature. Look 
 up toward the heavens, insufferably bright by 
 day, or at night when the sky is merry with 
 ten thousand stars, joi4iing hands of light; 
 with the earth in the ring, going round and 
 round with gleam and dance and song, making 
 old Night feel young again. Go to the forest, 
 where the woodman's axe rings on the trees, 
 and the solitude is broken by the call of the 
 wood-sparrow, and the chewink starting up 
 from among the huckleberry- bushes. Go 
 where the streams leap down off the rocks, 
 and their crystal heels clatter over the white 
 pebbles. Go where the wild flowers stand 
 drinking out of the mountain-brook, and, scat- 
 tered on the grass, look as if all the oreads 
 had cast their crowns at the foot of the steep. 
 Hark to the fluting of the winds and the long- 
 metre psalm of the thunder! Look at the 
 
2i6 • '^POINTS." 
 
 Morning coming down the mountains, and 
 Evening drawing aside the curtain from 
 heaven's wall of jasper, amethyst, sardonyx, 
 and chalcedony ! Look at all this, and then 
 be happy. 
 
 Morning in the Country. -It is never 
 real morning except in the country. In the 
 city, in the early part of the day, there is a 
 mixed colour that climbs down over the roofs 
 opposite, and through the smoke of the chim- 
 ney, that makes people think it is time to get 
 up and comb their hair. But we have real 
 morning in the country. Morning! descend- 
 ing "from God out of heaven, like a bride 
 adorned for her husband." A few moments 
 ago I looked out, and the army of night- 
 shadows were striking their tents. A red 
 light on the horizon, that does not make me 
 think, as it did Alexander Smith, of "the 
 barren beach of hell," but more like unto the 
 fire HnHlo/1 rt~ 4.u_ _»- . 
 
 - _.^„ „n wic snore Dy fiim whom the 
 
''POINTS: 
 
 217 
 
 disciples saw at daybreak stirring the blaze on 
 the beach of Gennesareth. Just now the dew 
 woke up in the hammock of the tree-branches, 
 and the light kissed it. Yonder, leaning 
 against the sky, two great uprights of flame, 
 crossed by many rundles of fire ! Some Jacob 
 must have been dreaming. Through those 
 burnished gates a flaming chariot rolls. Some 
 Elijah must be ascending. Morning! I wish 
 I had a rousing bell to wake the whole world 
 up to see it. Every leaf a psalm. Every 
 flower a censer. Every bird a chorister. 
 Every sight beauty. Every sound music. 
 Trees transfigured. The skies in conflagra- 
 tion. The air as if sweeping down from 
 hanging -gardens of heaven. The foam of 
 celestial seas plashed on the white tops of the 
 spiraea. The honeysuckle on one side my 
 porch challenges the sweet-brier on the other. 
 The odours of heliotrope overflow the urns 
 and flood the garden. Syringas with bridal 
 
I 
 
 2i8 J " "POINTS." 
 
 blossoms in their hair, and roses bleeding with 
 a very carnage of colour. Oh, the glories of 
 day-dawn in the country ! My pen trembles, 
 and my eyes moisten. Unlike the flaming 
 sword that drove out the first pair from Eden 
 these fiery splendours seem like swords un- 
 sheathed by angel hands to drive us in. 
 
 Th^ Quiet .Country Air.— There is some- 
 thing in this country air to put one in blandest 
 mood. Yesterday we allowed a snake to 
 cross our path without any disposition on our 
 part to kill it. We are at peace with all the 
 world. We would not hurt a spider. We 
 could take our bitterest foe and givQ him a 
 camp-stool on the piazza. We would not 
 blame him for not liking us if he liked our 
 strawberries. We would walk with him arm^ 
 in-arm through water-melon-patch and peach- 
 orchard. He should be persuaded that if we 
 could not write good sermons and vivacious 
 lectures, we can nevertheless raise great pump- 
 
kins, and long orange-carrots, and drumhead- 
 cabbages. We would take him in our carriage, 
 going at consistent ministerial gait, as though 
 on the way to Old School Presbytery, never 
 racing with any one, if there were danger of 
 our being beaten. We hereby proclaim peace 
 for ever with any man who likes our hens. 
 We fear we should have been tempted to 
 sign Jeff Davis's bail-bond if he had praised 
 our early scarlet radishes. 
 
 The Hoe Healthy. — A sharp hoe will 
 hack to pieces all your dyspepsia. A pruning- 
 knife will cut off th& excrescences of your 
 disposijtion. The dash of the shower that 
 wets you to the skin will cool your spirit for 
 ecclesiastical strife. Daily swinging of the 
 axe will tone up your nerves. Trampling 
 down the hay as it is tossed into the mow 
 will tread into forgetfulness your little per- 
 plexities. In the wake of the plough you may 
 pick up strength with which to battle public 
 
220 
 
 {-«:. 
 
 ''POINTS:' 
 
 iniquity. Neighbours looking over the fence 
 may think we are only weeding cantaloupes, 
 or splitting rails, or husking com, when we 
 are rebuilding our strength, enkindling our 
 spirits, quickening our brain, purifying our 
 theology, and blessing our souls. 
 
 Country Life for Ministers. — Con- 
 gregations would be advantaged by it if for 
 a few weeks of every year they would allow 
 their pastors a little farm-life. Three weeks 
 at a fashionable watering-place will not do the 
 work. There is not enough salts and sulphur 
 in all the springs to overcome the tight shoes, 
 and the uncomfortable gloves, and tl^ late 
 hours, and the high living, £nd the dresses 
 economical at the neck. Rather turn us out 
 to physical work. 
 
 iHROUGH THE HEART.-Some of you, in 
 coming to God, will have to run against 
 sceptical notions. It is useless for people 
 to say sharp and cutting things to those who 
 
*'POINTS:' 221 
 
 reject J the Christian religion. I cannot say 
 such things. By what process of temptation, 
 or trial, or betrayal, you have come to your 
 present state, I know not. There are two 
 gates to your nature: the gate of the head 
 and th gate of the heart. The gate of your 
 head is locked with bolts and bars that an 
 archangel could not break, but the gate of 
 your heart swings easily on its hinges. If I 
 assaulted your body with weapons you would 
 meet me with weapons, and it would be 
 sword-stroke for sword-stroke, and wound for 
 wound, and blood for blood; but' if I come 
 and knock at the door of your house, you 
 open it, and give me the best seat in your 
 parlour. If I should come at you to-night 
 with an argument, you would answer me 
 with an argument; if with sarcasm, you 
 would answer me with sarcasm; blow for 
 blow, stroke for stroke. But when I come 
 and knock at the door of your heart, you 
 
"' ' ■ "POIJfTS.- ■ .' 
 
 open it, and say, "Come in, my broker, 
 ■and tell me all you know about Christ and 
 heaven." 
 
 The Sweet FLOWERS.-The aroma of the 
 garden almost bewilders my senses. Flowers 
 seem to me the d:vidir.g.Iine between the 
 physical and the spiritual. The stamen of 
 the honeysuckle is the alabaster pillar at 
 which the terrestrial and the celestial part 
 and meet. Out of the cup of the water-lily 
 earth and heaven drink. May the blessing 
 of larkspur and sweet-william fall upon aU ' 
 the dwellers in country and town ! Let there 
 be some one to set a tuft of mignonette by 
 every sick man's pillow, and plant a fuschia 
 m every working-man's yard, and place a 
 geramum in every sewing-girl's window, and 
 twme a cypress about every poor man's grave 
 And above all, may there come upon us the 
 blessing of Him whose footsteps the mosses 
 mark, and whose breath '» ♦h ^ - 
 
*' POINTS." ' 223 
 
 flowers ! Between these leaves I press thee— 
 O** Lily of the Valley!" 
 
 To THE Sceptic— Scepticism is a dark and ' 
 doleful land. Let me say that this Bible is 
 either true or false. If it be false, we are 
 as well off as you: if it be true, then which 
 of us is safer ? 
 
 Listen to two or three questions : Are 
 you as happy as you used to be when you 
 believed in the truth of the Christian religion ? 
 Would you like to have your children travel 
 on in the road in which you are now travelling? 
 You had a relative who professed to be a 
 Christian, and was thoroughly consistent, 
 living and dying in the faith of the Gospel. 
 Would you not like to live the same quiet 
 life, and die the same peaceful death? 
 
 Christianity and its Inconsistent Pro- 
 PE^soRS.— Let me ask whether your trouble 
 has not been that you confounded Christianity 
 with the inconsistent character of some who 
 
"4 '' *' POINTS." 
 
 profess it. You are a lawyer. In your pro- 
 fession there are mean and dishonest men. 
 Is that anything against the law! You 
 are a doctor. There are unskilled and 
 contemptible men in your profession. Is 
 that anything against medicine? You are a 
 merchant. There are thieves and defrauders 
 in your business. Is that anything against 
 merchandise? Behold, then, the unfairness 
 of charging upon Christianity the wickedness 
 of its disciples. 
 
 Inconsistent Christians.— We admit some 
 of the charges against those who profess 
 religion. Some of the most gigantic swindles 
 of the present day have been carried on by 
 members of the Church. There are men 
 standing in the front rank in the Churches 
 who would not be trusted for five dollars 
 without good collateral security. They leave 
 their business dishonesties in the vestibule 
 — _ne church as they go in and 
 
 icj gi 
 
 sii at the 
 
** POINTS." 
 
 »2$ 
 
 communion. Having concluded the sacra- 
 ment, they get up, wipe the wine from their 
 lips, go out, and take up their sins where 
 they left off. To serve the devil is their 
 regular work ; to serve God a sort of play- 
 spell. With a Sunday sponge they expect 
 to wipe off from their business slate all the 
 past week's inconsistencies. You have no 
 more right to take such a man's life as a 
 specimen of religion, than you have to takb 
 the twisted irons and split timbers that lie 
 on the beach at Coney Island as a specimen 
 of an American ship. It is time that we 
 drew a line between religion and the frailties 
 of those who profess it. 
 
 The Bible the Best Book.— Do you not 
 feel that the Bible, take it all in all, is about 
 the best book that the world has ever seen ? 
 Do you know any book that has as much 
 in it? Do you not think, upon the whole, 
 that its influence has been beneficent? I 
 
 i6 
 
226 "POINTS." 
 
 come to you with both hands extended toward 
 you. In one hand I have the Bible, and in 
 the other I have nothing. This Bible in one 
 hand I will surrender for ever just as soon 
 as in my other hand you can put a book thai 
 is better. 
 
 Come Back.— I invite you back into the 
 good old-fashioned religion of your fathers— 
 to the God whom they worshipped, to the 
 Bible they read, to the promises on which 
 they leaned, to the Cross on which they hung 
 their eternal expectations. You have not 
 been happy a day since you swung off; you 
 will not be happy a minute until you swing 
 back. 
 
 Death in Night-work. — Work is good, 
 but too much work is death. Brethren of 
 literary toil, you had better hold up. If you 
 are going at the rate of sixty miles an hour, 
 you had better stop and go no more than 
 tnirty. The temptations to over-work for 
 
*' POINTS." • 327 
 
 literary men are multiplying all the time in 
 increased newspapers and magazines and lec- 
 turing platforms. The temptation to night- 
 work is especially great— that kind of work 
 which is most exhausting and ruinous. When 
 the sun goes down, God puts His candle out, 
 and says to the world, " My child, you had 
 better go to sleep; I have put the candle 
 out." The brass-headed nails of coffins are 
 made out of gaslip^ht ' The money that a 
 man makes by ...anight toil he pays toward 
 the expenses of his own funeral. 
 
 With Bridled Passions.— Perhaps it is a 
 disposition to anger that you have to contend 
 against; and perhaps, while in a very- serious 
 mood, you hear of something that mak.s you 
 feel that you must swear or die. I know 
 of a Christian man who was once so exas- 
 perated that he said to a mean customer, 
 "I cannot swear at you myself, for I am 
 a member of the church; but if you will 
 
 16* 
 
7ii "POINTS." 
 
 go downstairs, my partner in business will 
 swear at you." All your good resolutions 
 heretofore have been torn to tatters by ex- 
 plosions of temper. You need to bridle and 
 saddle these hot-breathed passions, and with 
 them ride down injustice and wrong. There 
 is no harm in getting red-hot if you only bring 
 to the forge that which needs hammering. 
 
 Righteous Indignation. — A man who has 
 
 no power of rightepus indignation is an imbe- 
 
 > eile. But be sure it is a righteous indignation, 
 
 and not a petulancy, that blurs, and unravels, 
 
 and depletes the soul. 
 
 God will Help You.— Some of you are 
 trying to escape, and you will — yet very 
 narrowly, " as with the skin of your teeth." 
 God and your own soul only know what the 
 struggle is. Omnipotent grace has pulled out 
 many a soul that was deeper in the mire 
 than you are. They Hne the beach of heaven 
 •i-the multitude whom God has rescued from 
 
''POINTS," 
 
 229 
 
 the thrall of suicidal habits. If you this day 
 turn your back on the back of the wrong, and 
 start anew, God will help you. 
 
 The weakness of human help ! Men will 
 sympathise for a while, and then turn you 
 off. If you ask for their pardon, they will 
 give it, and say they will try you again; 
 but, falling away again under the power of 
 temptation, they cast you off for ever. But 
 God forgives seventy times seven ; yea, seven 
 hundred times; yea, though this be the ten 
 thousandth time. He is more earnest, more 
 sympathetic, more helpful this last time than 
 when you took your first misstep. 
 
 The Struggle with Appetite.-^K, with 
 all the influences favourable for a right life, 
 men make so many mistakes, how much 
 harder it is when, for instance, some appetite 
 thrusts its iron grapple into the roots of the 
 tonguej and pulls a man down with hands 
 of destruction! If, under such circumstances, 
 
23© 
 
 "POINTS." 
 
 he' break away, there will be no sport in the 
 undertaking, no holiday enjoyment, but a 
 struggle in which the wrestlers move from 
 side to side, and bend and twist and watch 
 for an opportunity to get in a heavier stroke, 
 until with one final effort, in which the muscles 
 are distended, and the veins stand out, and 
 the blood starts, the swarthy habit falls under 
 the knee of the victor. 
 
 The Capsized Boat. —The ship Emma, 
 bound from Gottenburg to Harwich, was 
 sailing on, when the man on the lookout saw 
 something that he pronounced a vessel bottom 
 up. There was something on it that looked 
 like a sea-gull, but was afterwards found to 
 be a waving handkerchief. In the small boat 
 the crew pushed out to the wreck, and found 
 that it was a capsized vessel, and that three 
 men had been digging their way out through 
 the bottom of the ship. When the vessel 
 capsized they had no means of escape. The 
 
** POINTS" 
 
 2Zl 
 
 captain took his penknife and dug away 
 through the planks until his knife broke. 
 Then an old nail was found, with which they 
 attempted to scrape their way up out of 
 the darkness, each one working until his hand 
 was well-nigh paralyzed, and he sank back 
 faint . -.?. sick. After long and tedious work, 
 the -ij^fit broke through the bottom of the 
 ship. A handkerchief was hoisted. Help 
 came. They were taken on board the vessel 
 and saved. There are men who have been 
 capsized of evil passions, and capsized mid 
 ocean, and they are a thousand miles away 
 from any shore of help. They have for years 
 been trying to dig their way out. They have 
 been digging away, and digging away, but 
 they can never be delivered unless to-night 
 they will hoist some signal of distress. How- 
 ever weak and feeble it may be, Christ will 
 see it, and bear down upon the helpless craft, 
 and take them on board. 
 
*. '.J»'|j^,y 
 
 232 ''POINTS.^* 
 
 . Christian :Heroes. — In the last day ^ it 
 will be found that Hugh Latimer, and John 
 Knox, and Huss, and Ridley, were not the 
 greatest martyrs, but Christian men who 
 went up incorrupt from the contamina ions 
 and perplexities of Wall-street, Water-street, 
 Pearl-street, Broad-street, State-street, and 
 Third-street. "On earth they were called 
 brokers, or stock-jobbers, or retailers, or 
 importers; but in heaven. Christian heroes. 
 No fagots were heaped about their feet ; no 
 Inquisition demanded from them recantation;, 
 no soldier aimed a pike at their heart ; but 
 they had mental tortures, compared with 
 which all physical consuming is as the breath 
 of a spring morning. 
 
 Do NOT LET Satan, with cotton-bales, and 
 kegs, and hogsheads, and counters, and stocks 
 of unsaleable goods, block up yoi!- way to 
 heaven. Gather up all your energies. Tighten 
 the girdle about your loins. Take an agonizing 
 
''points:* 
 
 233 
 
 Wk into the face of God, and then say, 
 "Here goes one grand effort for life eternal," 
 and then bound away for heaven. 
 
 Try this God, ye who have had the blood- 
 hounds after you, and who have thought that 
 God had forgotten you. Try Him, and see 
 if He will not help. Try Him, and see if He 
 will not pardon. Try Him, and see if He will 
 not save. The flowers of spring have no 
 bloom so sweet as the flowering of Christ'^ 
 affections. The sun hath no warmth compared 
 with the glow of His heart. The waters have 
 no refreshment like the fountain that will slake 
 the thirst of thy soul. 
 
 This world is a poor portion for your 
 soul, oh, business man! An Eastern king 
 had graven upon his tomb two fingers, repre- 
 sented as sounding upon each other with a 
 snap, and under them the motto, " All is not 
 worth that.'* 
 
 All of this world's riches make but a 
 
234 ' "POINTS." 
 
 ?mall inheritance for a soul. Robespierre 
 attemptcJ to win the applause of the world ; 
 but when he was dying, a woman cami 
 rushing through the crowd, crying to him, 
 "Murderer of my kindred, desceiid to hell,' 
 covered with the curses of every mother in 
 France!" Many who have expected the 
 plaudits of the world have died under its 
 Anathema Maranatha. 
 
 Find your peace in God. Make one 
 strong pull for heaven. No half-way work 
 will do it. There sometimes comes a time 
 on shipboard when everything must be sacri- 
 ficed to save the passengers. The cargo is 
 nothing, the rigging nothing. The captain 
 puts the trumpet to his lip and shouts, " Cut 
 away the mast !" Some of you have been 
 tossed and driven, and you have, in your 
 effort to keep the world, well-nigh lost your 
 soul. Until you have decided this matter, 
 let everything else go. Overboard with all 
 
"POINTS." 235 
 
 those other anxieties and burdens! You will 
 have to drop the sails of your pride, and cut 
 away the mast. 
 
 God's Goodness to Animals.— We shall 
 enlarge our ideas of God's goodness if, before 
 we come to look at the cup of our blessing, 
 we look at the goodness of God to the irra- 
 tional creation. 
 
 HAPPINEiii, OF THE AnIMAL CREATION. 
 
 I am surprised to find the almost universal 
 Jjappiness of the animal creation. On a sum- 
 mer day, when the air and the grass are most 
 populous with life, you will not hear a sound 
 of distress, unless perchance a heartless school- 
 boy has robbed a bird's nest, or a hunter has 
 broken a bitd's wing, or a pasture has been 
 robbed of a lamb, and there goes up a bleating 
 from the flocks. The whole earth is filled 
 with animal delight— joy feathered, and scaled, 
 and homed, and hoofed. The bee hums it ; 
 the frog croaks it; the squirrel chatters it; 
 
'fmm 
 
 936 "POINTS," 
 
 the quail whistles it; the lark carols it; the 
 whale spouts it. The snail, the rhinoceros, 
 the grizzly bear, the toad, the wasp, the 
 spider, the shell-fish, have their, homely de- 
 lights—joy as great to them as our joy is to 
 us. Goat climbing rocks; anaconda crawling 
 through the jungle; buffalo plunging across 
 the broad prairie; crocodile basking in tro- 
 pical sun; seal puffing on the ice; ostrich 
 striding across the desert, are so many bundles 
 of joy. They do not go moping or melancholy ; 
 they are not only half supplied; God says they 
 are filled with good. 
 
 Glad Nature. — The worm squirming 
 through the sod upturned of ploughshare, and 
 the ants racing up and down the hillock, are 
 happy by day and happy by night. Take up 
 a drop of water under the microscope, and 
 you find that within it there are millions of 
 creatures that swim in a hallelujah of glad- 
 ness. The sounds in nature that are repulsive 
 
"POINTS" 237 
 
 to our ears are often only utterances of joy 
 
 the growl, the croak, the bark, the howl. 
 
 God's Provident Care for His Crea- 
 tures. —God's hand feeds all these broods, 
 and shepherds all these flocks, and tends all 
 these herds. He sweetens the clover-top for 
 the oxen's taste; and pours out crystalline 
 waters, in mossed cups of rock, for the hind 
 to drink out of on his way down the crags; 
 and pours nectar into the cup of the honey- 
 suckle, to refresh the humming-bird; and 
 spreads a banquet of a hundred fields of 
 buckwheat, and lets the honey-bee put his 
 mouth to any cup of all the banquet; and 
 tells the grasshopper to go anywhere he likes ; 
 and gives the flocks of heaven the choice of 
 all the grain-fields. The sea -anemone, half 
 animal, half flower, clinging to the rock in 
 mid-ocean, with its tentacles spread to catch 
 its food, has the Owner of the universe to 
 provide for it. We are repulsed at the hide- 
 
238 
 
 ''POINTS." 
 
 ousness of the elephant, but God, for the 
 comfort and convenience of the monster, puts 
 forty thousand distinct muscles in its proboscis. 
 Life in "Waste Places."— I go down on 
 the barren sea-shore and say, "No animal 
 can live in this place of desolation ;" but all 
 through the sands are myriads of little insects 
 that leap with happy life. I go down by the 
 marsh and say, " In this damp place, and in 
 these loathsome pools of stagnant water, there 
 will be the quietness of death;" but, lo! I see 
 the turtles on the rotten log sunning them- 
 selves, and hear the bogs quake with multi- 
 tudinous life. 
 
 God, the Helper of all Beings. — God 
 shows the hungry ichneumon where it may 
 find the crocodile's eggs ; and in arctic climes 
 there are animals that God so lavishly clothes 
 that they can afford to walk through snow- 
 storms in the finest sable and ermine and 
 chinchilla, and no sooner is one set of furs 
 
 # 
 
''points:* 
 
 239 
 
 worn out than God gives them a new one. 
 He helps the spider in the architecture of its 
 gossamer bridge, and takes care of the colour 
 of the butterfly's wing, and tinges the cochi- 
 neal, and helps the moth out of the chrysalis. 
 The animal creation also has its army and 
 navy. The most insignificant has its means 
 of defence : the wasp its sting ; the reptile its 
 tooth ; the bear its paw ; the dog its muzzle ; 
 the elephant its tusk; the fish its scale; the 
 bird its swift wing; the reindeer its antlers; 
 the roe its fleet foot. We are repelled at the 
 thought of sting, and tusk, and hoof, but God's 
 goodness provides them for the defence of the 
 animal's rights. 
 
 The Rights of Animals.— Amid the thun- 
 ders of Sinai God uttered the rights of cattle, 
 and said that they should have a Sabbath. 
 "Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy 
 cattle." He declared with infinite emphasis 
 that the ox on the threshing-floor should have 
 
 % 
 
a40 "points:' 
 
 ' the privilege of eating some of the grain as 
 he trod it out, and muzzling was forbidden. 
 If young birds were taken from the nest for 
 food, the despoiler's life depended on the 
 mother going free. God would not let the 
 mother-bird suffer in one day the loss of her 
 young and her own liberty. And He who 
 regarded in olden time the conduct of man 
 toward the brutes, to-day looks down from 
 heaven, and is interested in every minnow that 
 swims the stream, and every rook that cleaves 
 the air, and every herd that bleats, or neighs, 
 or lows in the pasture. 
 
 " Full of the Goodness of the Lord." 
 
 Why did God make all these, and why make 
 them so happy? How account for all this 
 singing, and dancing, and frisking amid the 
 irrational creation? Why this heaven for 
 the animalcule in a dew-drop ? Why for 
 the condor a throne on Chimborazo ? Why 
 
 -i:j 
 
 iiic giuici oi ine pnospnorus in the ship's 
 
 ^. 
 
"* points:' a4t 
 
 wake on the sea, which is said to be only 
 the frolic of millions of insects? Why the 
 perpetual chanting ka bv many voices from 
 the irrational crea ion in arth and air and 
 ocean — beasts, and iv^J catrie, creeping things 
 and flying fowl, permitted to join in the praise 
 that goes up from seraph and archangel? 
 Only one solution, one explanation, one answer 
 —God is good. "The earth is full of the 
 goodness of the Lord." 
 
 The Human Body.— The Christian anato- 
 mist, gazing upon the conformation of the 
 human body, exclaims, "Fearfully and wonder- 
 fully made!" No embroidery so elaborate, no 
 gauze so delicate, no colour so exquisite, 
 no mechanism so graceful, no handiwork so 
 Divine. So quietly and mysteriously does the 
 human body perform its functions, that it was 
 not until five thousand years after the creation 
 of the race that the circulation of the blood 
 was discovered; and though anatomists of 
 
 17 
 
 % 
 
242 - "POINTS:* 
 
 all countries and ages have been so long ex- 
 ploring this castle of life, they have only begun 
 to understand it. 
 
 The Hand. — Wondrous instrument! With 
 it we give friendly recognition, and grasp the 
 sword, and climb the rock, and write, and 
 carve, and build. It constructed the Pyramids 
 and reared the- Parthenon. It made the harp, 
 and then struck out of it all the worid's 
 minstrelsy. It reins in the swift engine; it 
 holds the steamer to its path in the sea ; 
 it feels the pulse of the sick child with its " 
 delicate touch, and makes the nations quake 
 with its stupendous achievements. What 
 power brought down the forests, and made 
 the marshes blosrom, and burdened the earth 
 with all cities that thunder on with enterprise , 
 and power? Four fingers and a thumb. 
 Mighty hand ! In all its bones, and muscles, 
 and joints, I learn that God is good. 
 
 OrTR WONDROTTS Phvctoat Or,^.., 
 
" POINTS » 243 
 
 Behold the eye, which, in its Daguerrean 
 gallery, in an instant catches the mc:mtain 
 and the sea. This perpetual telegraphing of 
 the nerves; these joints, that are the only 
 hinges that do not wear out; the e bones 
 and muscles of the body, with fourteen 
 thousand different adaptations ; these one 
 hundred thousand glands ; these two hundred 
 million pores; this mysterious heart, con- 
 tracting four thousand times eveiy hour— two 
 hundred and fifty pounds of blood rushing 
 through it every sixty seconds ; this chemical 
 process of digestion; this laboratory, beyond 
 the understanding of the most skilful philo- 
 sophy; this furnace, whose heat is kept up 
 from cradle to grave; this factory of life, 
 whose wheels and spindles and bands are 
 God-directed; this human voice, capable, as 
 has been estimated, of producing seventeen 
 trillions, five hundred and ninety-two billions, 
 one hundred and eighty-six millions, forty- 
 
 17 * 
 
244 "POINTS." 
 
 four thousand four hundred and fifteen sounds. 
 If we could realize the wonders of our physi- 
 cal organization we should be hypochondriacs, 
 fearing every moment that some part of the 
 machine would break down. But there are 
 men here who have lived through seventy 
 years, and not a nerve has ceased to thrill, 
 or a muscle to contract, or a lung to breathe, 
 or a hand to manipulate. 
 
 D^. Talmage's Life-purpose and Woe.;. 
 — I consecrate my life to the conversion of 
 souls— by repentance for sin, and faith in the 
 Lord Jesus. I vi^ill preach nothing else. I 
 will work for nothing else. I shall take no 
 food, no sleep, no recreation, except such as 
 will make me stronger for this work. Every 
 faculty ot my mind I marshal for this assault, 
 and every passion of my soul I enlist in the 
 cause. I want to care nothing for the flowers 
 of the field, save so far as I may twist them 
 into a garland for my Lord ; or for music, 
 
"POINTS." 245 
 
 save as it may lift me up into sympathy with 
 high Gospel themes; or for friendship, save 
 as it may give me a better opportunity of 
 finding my way to the hearts of men. 
 
 Model Exhortation.— What meanest thou^ 
 O sleeper! Arise and call upon thy God. 
 The judgment is coming. Eternity is coming. 
 Your last hour for repentance is coming— nay, 
 it may have already come. Why not listen, 
 and live? The heart of the eternal God 
 yearns for you. You have brought your money, 
 now bring your heart. Celebrate our deliver- 
 ance as a Church from financial embarrass- 
 ment by having your soul's debt to Christ 
 settled. God has been calling many a long 
 day for your soul. When your child died, 
 He called; when you were sick. He called. 
 Through every bright day, and every dark 
 night, and every harvest-home, and every 
 tpring morning, and every autumnal withering, 
 He called, and called, and called. Hear Him. 
 
246 ' 'f POINTS." 
 
 Now forsake your sin. Fly for refuge. What 
 is that I hear ? Tramp ! Tramp ! It is, the 
 coming on of your eternal destiny. What 
 you mean to do, do now. What crash is that 
 I hear ? It is the jarring shut of the door 
 of mercy against a soul that may never be 
 saved. The alarm-bell of the Gospel strikes, 
 ^ly! Fly while you may. 
 
 How David and other Shepherd Boys 
 BECAME Poets. — The Ettrick Shepherd of 
 Scotland, who took his seat in the brilliant 
 circle with Wilson and Lockhart, got his 
 wonderful poetic inspiration in the ten years 
 in which he was watching the flocks. David, 
 the shepherd-boy, was beautiful, brave, musical, 
 and poetic. I think often he forgot the sheep 
 in his reveries. There in the solitude he 
 struck the harp-string that is thrilling through 
 all ages. David, the boy, was gathering the 
 material for David the poet and D?vi6 i:^t 
 man. David was fond of usinfr hi^ irn.Y^ 
 
''POINTS." 
 
 947 
 
 among the saplings, and he had noticed the 
 exuding of the juice of the tree; and when 
 he became a man he said, " The trees of the 
 Lord are , full of sap." David, the boy, had 
 been fond of hunting the birds'-nests, and 
 he had driven the old stork off the nest to 
 find how many eggs were under her; and 
 when he became a man he said, "As for 
 the stork, the fir-trees are her house." In 
 boyhood he had heard the terrific thunder- 
 storm that frightened the red deer into pre- 
 mature sickness ; and ' when he became a man 
 he said, " The voice of the Lord maketh the 
 hinds to calve." David, the boy, had lain 
 upon his back, looking up at the stars and 
 examining the sky, and to his boyish imagina- 
 tion the sky seemed like a piece of Divine 
 embroidery, the Divine fingers working in the 
 threads of light and the beads of sta s ; and 
 he became a man and wrote, " When I con- 
 
 SlUwi 
 
 T^U— 1 At-. 
 
 i-ay iicuvciiEi, iiic 
 
 01 iny nngers. 
 
/. 
 
 248 ' "POINTS." 
 
 When he became an old man, thmlring of the 
 goodness of God, he stemed -to hear the 
 - bleating of his father's sh-ep across many 
 years, and to think of the time whei he tended 
 ^ym on \ht Bethlehem hills; and he cries 
 out in the text, "The Lord is my shep- 
 herd.*' 
 
 Carelessness is Ruin. — When Moscow 
 ^as burning a party was dancing in the 
 palace over a gunpowder magazine. They 
 knew not it was there. The flames came on, 
 and Carnot said, "Let us have one dance 
 more;" and they shouted all through the 
 palace, "One dance more!" The music 
 played, the feet bounded, the laughter rang. 
 But suddenly, through the smoke and fire 
 and thunder of the explosion, death and 
 eternity broke in. Alas ! if any of my readers 
 keep on in the dance of worldliness and sin, 
 heedless of the warning, until the i. - t of 
 eternitv crr^ode imnn th^iV cr -ic — ? xu- 
 
"points:* 249 
 
 foundations give way, and they drop into the 
 burning ! 
 
 The smallest dewdrop on the meadow 
 at night has a star sleeping in its bosom, and 
 the most insignificant passage of Scripture 
 has in it a shining truth. 
 
 Christian Stratagem. — You know very 
 
 well that the greatest victories ever gained by 
 
 Washington or Napoleon were gained through 
 
 the fact that they came when, and in a way, 
 
 they were not expected. It is in spiritual 
 
 affairs as in military, that success depends in 
 
 attacking that part of the castle which is not 
 
 armed and intrenched. For instance, here is 
 
 a' man all armed on the doctrine of election ; 
 
 all his troops of argument and prejudice are 
 
 at that particular gate. You may batter away 
 
 at that side of the castle for fifty years, and 
 
 you will not take it ; but just wheel your troops 
 
 to the side gate of the heart's affections, and 
 
 in five minutes you capture him. I never 
 
'50 V ''Points:' 
 
 knew a man to be saved through a brilh'ant 
 > argument. You cannot hook men into the 
 kingdom of God by the horns of a dilemma. 
 There is no grace in syllogisms. You never 
 can capture a man's soul at the point at 
 which he is especially intrenched. But there 
 is in every man's heart a bolt that can be 
 easily drawn. A little child four years old 
 may touch that bolt, and it will spring back, 
 and the door will swing open, and Christ will 
 come in. 
 
 If we had had the writing of the 
 Bible, we would have said, "Let on^ man 
 write it. If. you have thirty men to write a 
 poem, or make a statue, or write a history, 
 or make an argument, there will be flaws 
 and contradictions." But God says, "Let 
 not one man do it, but forty men shall do 
 it." And they did, differing enough to show 
 there had been no collusion between them, 
 but not contradicting each other on any jm- 
 
"POINTS.'' 251 
 
 portant point, while they all wrote from their 
 own standpoint and temperament; so that 
 the matter-of-fact man has his Moses; the 
 romantic nature, his Ezekiel; the epigram- 
 matic, his Solomon ; the warrior, his Joshua ; 
 the sailor, his Jonah; the loving, his John; 
 the logician, his Paul. Instead of this Bible 
 —instead of the Bible that the child can carry 
 to school— instead of the little Bible the sailor 
 can put in his jacket when he goes to sea— 
 if it had been left to men to write, it would 
 have been a thousand volumes, judging from 
 the amount of ecclesiastical controversy which 
 has arisen. God's way is infinitely best. 
 
 Young Souls the Most Valuable. — A 
 soul that comes early to Christ is worth more 
 to itself and to the world than a sou/ that 
 comes late to Christ, and not so much, per- 
 haps, because it wants to serve God, as be- 
 cause it is afraid it will go to hell. 
 Sow Sel- Early. — The world comes to. 
 
35 2 ' "POINTS." 
 
 the child when it is in the April of life, and 
 sows tares. Th. ^orla comts along again 
 when the child is in the May of life, and 
 sows thistles. Again in the fair June it comes, 
 and sows nux-vomica. The Church meanwhile 
 folds its hands and waits until the April has 
 gone, and May has gone, and June and July 
 have gone, and then at the close of August 
 gets in earnest and says: "Now, now, we 
 have got a bag of good wheat here, and we 
 must sow it in this fresh young soil, and 
 we shall have a glorious harvest ! " Will it ? 
 ^o, no I It^ is too late. Everlastingly too 
 late ! Vou should Y ive sowed in April and 
 in May the good seed of the Kingdom. 
 
 A Pal/o: for CHPisT.-For my Lord the 
 King let us build an ivory palace. Let its 
 steps be of Parian marble, and its floors of 
 mosaic, and its . A, apestried from rarest 
 loom, and the ca.dlesticks of gold, and the 
 cups impearled, and the couch Kav*. oii *he 
 
"POINTS." ' 253 
 
 softness of eagle's down and the splendours 
 of sunset, and the air sweet with frankincense 
 and music. Come in, my Lord the King! 
 "Nay," says Christ, "I will not come into 
 such a palace. My garments torn of the 
 mountain and faded of the storm, my feet 
 bedusted of the highway, my heart broken 
 with the world's woes-I turn back from the 
 fi^aieties of the palace. What do they want of 
 u poor wayfarer there ? I choose a different 
 ^'^..se and a different entertainment. A praying 
 soul sh be the dwelling ; the wine of repent-' 
 ance shall be the banquet. To that man 
 will I look, even to him who is of an humble 
 and contrite heart, and who trembleth at m 
 word." 
 
 Whosoever Slanders the World, Slan- 
 ders GoD.-It is a grand world, a splendid 
 world-so beautiful, that a(ter the painter has 
 r^one his best there is an autumnal colour that 
 flies his touch, and there is a stag's anuer that 
 
\ 
 
 n 
 
 254 ''POINTS,'' 
 
 he cannot reach. Grand old mountains ! scarred 
 with battle-gash of tempest, and forehead tur- 
 baned with folds of white cloud, and feet slip- 
 pered in green grass diamonded with dew. 
 Grand old seas! through which God rides in 
 the chariot of His Omnipotence — the phosphor- 
 escence of the night dripping from the wheels, 
 the shout of the storm but the halloo of the 
 charioteers. But the world will die. The hills 
 will stagger in death and fall into their graves. 
 The pulses of the mountain-brook will cease to 
 throb; the main artery of the river will stop. 
 Over the bright eyes of the stars will come the 
 film of the last hour, and the thunders heave 
 the dying groan of the world. 
 
 The Well of Christian Comfort.— There 
 are a good many new ways of comforting. 
 Your father dies. Your neighbour comes in, 
 and he says, "It is only a natural law that 
 your father should . die. The machinery is 
 nearly worn out ; " and before he leaves you 
 
ns ! scarred 
 rehead tur- 
 d feet slip- 
 with dew. 
 Dd rides in 
 ; phosphor- 
 the wheels, 
 lloo of the 
 The hills 
 leir graves, 
 dll cease to 
 * will stop. 
 II come the 
 iders heave 
 
 IT. — There 
 :omforting. 
 comes in, 
 1 law that 
 Lchinery is 
 leaves you 
 
 " POINTS," 255 
 
 he makes some other excellent remarks about 
 the coagulation of blood, and the difference be- 
 tween respiratory and nitrogenized food. Your 
 child dies, and your philosophic neighbour 
 comes, and for your soothing tells you that it 
 was impossible the child should live with such 
 a state of mucous membrane ! Out with your 
 chemistry and physiology when I have trouble, 
 and give me a plain New Testament ! I would 
 rather have an illiterate man from the back- 
 woods who knows Christ talk with me when I 
 am in trouble than the profoundest worldling 
 who does not know Him. The Gospel, without 
 telling you anything about mucous membrane 
 or gastric juice or hydrochloric acid, comes and 
 says, "All things* together work for good to 
 those who love God," and that if your child is 
 gone, it is only because Jesus has folded it in 
 His arms, and that the judgment-day will ex- 
 plain thiflgs that are now inexplicable. Oh ! 
 let us dig out this Gospel-well of comfort. Take 
 
2S6 
 
 "POINTS^ 
 
 away the stoicism and fatality with which you 
 have been trying to fill it. Drive up the great 
 herd of your cares and anxieties, and stop their 
 bleating in this cool fountain. 
 
 Unending Rest.— Oh, ye whose locks are 
 wet with the dews of the night of grief; ye 
 whose hearts are heavy, because those well- 
 known footsteps sound no more at the door- 
 way, yonder is your rest! There is David 
 triumphant; but once he bemoaned Absalom. 
 There is Abraham enthroned; but once he 
 wept for Sarah. There is Paul exultant ; but 
 he once sat with his feet in the stocks. Thfere 
 is Payson radiant with immortal health; but 
 on earth he was always sick. No toil, no 
 tears, no partings, no strife, no agonising 
 cough, no night. No storm to ruffle the 
 crystal sea. No alarm to strike from the 
 cathedral towers. No dirge throbbing fro^n 
 seraphic harps. No tremor in the everlasting 
 
"POINTS.'* 257 
 
 Join some CHURCH.—Look over the whole' 
 list of churches and clergymen, gnd I think 
 you will find one good enough for your soul. 
 Keep, if you will, your prejudice against all 
 other institutions, but love that one. To some 
 of you I commend the Episcopalian liturgy as 
 the best; to others, the informal worship of 
 the Methodist. Some of you had better be 
 sprinkled, and others had better go down to 
 be dipped in the flood. To some of you I com- 
 mend a church where the music is led by a pre- 
 centor, and all the people join in the singing; 
 -to others, a church where four persons stand 
 in the loft and conduct the music, and during 
 the dull passages in prayer and sermon write 
 sentimental notes or eat philopenas. Amid 
 all the denominations there must be one place 
 where your soul will be blessed. 
 
 *'He Died for Me."— I was reading, a 
 day or two ago, about a farmer who was found 
 kneeling at a soldiers grave near Nashville. 
 
 18 
 
2S« "POINTS." ' ' 
 
 Some one came to him and said, " Why do 
 you pay so much attention to this grave ? 
 Was your son buried here ? " " No," he said. 
 "During the war, my family were all sick. 
 I knew not how to leave them. I was drafted. 
 One of my neighbours came over and said, * I 
 will go for you ; I have no family.' He went 
 off. He was wounded at Chickamauga. He 
 was carried to the hospital, and died. And, sir, 
 I have come a great many miles that I might 
 write over his grave these words : * He died for 
 me:'* Christ was our substitute. He went 
 forth to fight our battles. He died. Oh, that 
 we might write over His grave, each one of us, 
 "He died for me I** 
 
 The Last Business Day. — You move in 
 routine. You rise at seven o'clock, breakfast, 
 start for the store, enter your counting-room, 
 read your letters, and give consequent orders. 
 You look at the prices current, and talk with 
 customers. You sell and you buy. You run 
 
''POINTS." 259 
 
 over to the bank pr insurance company. You 
 come back and look into tne cash- drawer, 
 and see by the book how much money your 
 partner has drawn out. You run out to lunch. 
 You come back. You drive out the street- 
 pedlars, who have razors, or apples, or books 
 to sell. At five or six o'clock you start for 
 Fulton, Wall, or South Ferry. That order 
 goes on day after day, and year after year. 
 Yet a day is not far distant which may 
 seem to be like all the others, but shall be 
 entirely different. It will have two twilights— 
 that of the morning and that of the evening. 
 There will be a meridian. You willgo to 
 business— you will come back. Yet it will be, 
 in the calendar of eternity, as marked a day 
 as though it had no twilight ; as though eveiy 
 hour the sky rang a fire-bell ; as though faces " 
 looked out from all the clouds ; as though the 
 wind had voices; as though every hour an 
 
 antrpl sKrvf nnc^t- ..^.._ _A_ .- 4 _ - 
 
 *''" " f^'"- j^ui siure aooi. ic wiii be 
 
 18* 
 
26o "POINTS." 
 
 your last business day. Unknown and unex- 
 pected by yourself, you will terminate all your 
 business engagements. You will shut your 
 cash-drawer, will close your portfolio, will slam 
 shut the money-safe, will take your hat and 
 go out. Nothing that ever happens in the 
 store can take you back again. After ten, 
 twenty, or thirty years being seen in business 
 places, or the exchange, or at the broker's, 
 you will not appear. Men will ask about you, 
 and say, "Where is So-and-so?" and your 
 friend will say, "Have you not heard the 
 news?" and will then take a paper from his 
 pocket, and point to your name on the death- 
 list. 
 
 The Fogs of Doubt shall be Cleared 
 Away.— I stood on the top of the Catskills 
 one bright morning. On the top of the moun- 
 tain was a crown of flashing gold, while all 
 beneath was rolling, Writhing, contorted cloud. 
 But after a while the arrows of light, shot 
 
"POINTS." 861 
 
 from heaven, began to make the glooms of the 
 valley strike tent. The mists went skurrying 
 up and down like horsemen in wild retreat. 
 The fogs were lifted, and dashed, and whirled. 
 Then the whole valley became one grand illu- 
 mination. Gradually, they moved off. The 
 green valleys looked up. Then the long flash 
 of the Hudson unsheathed itself, and there 
 were the white flocks of villages lying amid 
 the rich pastures, golden grain-fields, and the 
 soft, radiant cradle of the valley, in which a, 
 young empire might sleep. So there hangs 
 over all the graves, and sepulchres, and mau- 
 spleums of the ages a darkness that no earthly 
 lamp can lift ; but from above the Sun of 
 Righteousness shines, and the dense fogs of 
 scepticism having lifted, the valleys of the 
 dead stand tt. Hh.; full gush of the morning 
 of the resurrectieri. 
 
 " Nothing to Me Now." — Among the 
 Sierra K-ivada Mountains I was walking with 
 
262 "POINTS.'* 
 
 some of the passengers to relieve the over- 
 laden stage, and one of them gave me his 
 history. He said, "With my wife I came 
 to California twenty y^^ars ago. We suffered 
 every hardship. I went to the mines, but 
 had no luck. I afterwards worked at a trade, 
 but had no luck. Then I went to farming, 
 but had no luck. We suffered almost starva- 
 tion. Everything seemed to go against us. 
 While we were in complete poverty, my wife 
 died. After her death I went again to the 
 mines. I struck a vein of gold which yielded 
 me forty thousand dollars. I am now on my 
 way to San Francisco to transfer the mine, 
 for which I am to receive one hundred 
 thousand dollars." "Then," said I, "you 
 are worth one hundred and forty thousand 
 dollars." He said, "Yes; but it comes too 
 late. My wife is gone. The money is no- 
 thing to me now." 
 
 '■-^=^- LAST aiOMENT OF LIFE: that IS often 
 
"POINTS." 263 
 
 the most cheerful moment. John Howard 
 talked of it with exhilaration, and selected 
 his own burial-place, saying to his friend, " A 
 spot near the village of Dauphiny would suit 
 me nicely." When John Doule was dying 
 in the triumph of the Gospel, some one said, 
 "Let us pray." "No," said another Chris- 
 tian, "let us sing him over the Jordan!" 
 But it will be a dark moment if we are 
 unfitted for it. When we get in the last two 
 minutes of our lives, there will be no time 
 left for anything. You, might as well try to 
 strike a match and get a light on a ship's 
 deck 'in the midst of a hurricane as to prepare 
 for eternity when the winds of death are in 
 full blast. It is a poor time to start to get 
 your house insured when the flames are , 
 bursting out of all the windows, and it is 
 a poor time to attempt to prepare for death 
 when the realities of eternity are taking hold 
 of us ! 
 
»64 "POINTS." 
 
 God's Revealed Word. - Scientific men 
 are trying to show us, through the newspapers 
 and through philosophic papers, that our race 
 is descended from the monkey. But we, who 
 believe in God's Word, read there that God 
 made man in His own image, and not in the 
 image of a monkey. Get out of my way 
 with your theories! Scientific men cannot 
 understand the origin of this world. We 
 open our Bibles, and we feel like the Chris- 
 tian Arab, who said to the sceptic, when 
 asked by him why he believed that there 
 was a God, « How do I know that it was 
 a man and not a camel that went past my 
 tent last night ? Why, I know him by the 
 tracks." Then, looking over at the setting 
 sun, the Arab said to the sceptic, "Look 
 there ! that is not the work of a man ; that 
 is the track of a God." We have all these 
 things revealed in God's Word. It is a very 
 different book from what it 
 
 
 iw Hie. 
 
"POINTS.*' 265 
 
 I used to take it as a splendid poem, and 
 read it as I read John Milton. I took it 
 up sometimes as a treatise on law, and read 
 it as I did Blackstone. I took it as a fine 
 history, and read it as I did Josephus. Ah ! 
 now it is not the poem ; it is not the treatise 
 of law; it is not the history. It is simply 
 a family album that I open, and see before 
 me the face of God, my Father; of Christ, 
 my Saviour; of heaven, my eternal home. 
 
 Worldly Honours HoLLOv^r. — The very 
 world that now applauds will soon hiss. That 
 world said of the great Webster: "What a 
 statesman I What wonderful exposition of the 
 Constitution ! A man fit for any position." 
 That same world said, after a while, " Down 
 with him ! He is an office-seeker. He is a 
 sot. He is a libertine. Away with him!" 
 And there is no peace for the man until he 
 lays down his broken heart in the grave at 
 Marshfield. While Charles Mathews was per- 
 
266 "POINTS." 
 
 forming in London, before immense audiences, 
 one day a worn-out and gloomy man came 
 into a doctor's shop, saying, "Doctor, what 
 can you do for me ? " The doctor examined 
 his case and said, " My advice is that you go 
 and see Charles Mathews." "Alas! alas!" 
 said the man, "I myself am Charles Mathews." 
 Jeffrey thought if he could only be judge, that 
 woij]^ be the making of him; got to be judge, 
 ' ' irsed the day on which he was born. 
 Alexander wanted to submerge the world with 
 his greatness ; submerged it, and then drank 
 himself to^death because he could not stand the 
 trouble. Burns thought he would give every- 
 thing if he could win the favour of courts and 
 princes; won it, and amid the shouts of a 
 great entertainment, when poets and orators 
 were adoring his genius, wished that he 
 could creep back into the obscurity in which 
 he dwelt on the day when he wrote of the daisy, 
 
''POINTS," 267 
 
 Napoleon wanted to make all Europe tremble 
 at his power; made it tremble, then 1, his 
 entire military achievements dwindhi.j, down 
 to a pair of military boots, which he insisted 
 on having on his feet when dying. 
 
 Good or Evil. — Every man has a thousand 
 roots and a thousand branches. His roots 
 reach down through all the earth ; his branches 
 spread through all the heavens. He speaks 
 with voice, with eye, with hand, with foot. 
 His silence often is thunder, and his life is an 
 anthem or a doxology. There is no such thing 
 as negative influence. We are all positive in 
 the place we occupy, making the world better 
 or worse, on the Lord's side or on the devil's, 
 making up reasons for our blessedness or 
 banishment; and we have already done a 
 mighty work in peopling heaven or hell. I 
 hear people tell of what they are going to do. 
 A man who has burned down a city might as 
 well talk of some evil that he expects to do, 
 
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268 "POINTS."* 
 
 or he who saved an empire talk of some good^ 
 that he expects to do. By the force of your 
 evil influence you have already consumed in- 
 finite values, or you have, by the power of a 
 right influence, won whole kingdoms for God. 
 The Aged Christian. —"A hoary head is 
 a crown of glory, if it be found in the way 
 of righteouiriess." There may be no colour in 
 the cheek, no lustre in the eye, no spring in the 
 step, no firmness in the voice, and yet around 
 the head of every old man whose life has been 
 that of a Christian there hovers a glory brighter 
 than ever shook in the white tops of the almond 
 tree. If the voice quiver, it is because God 
 is changing it into a tone fit for the celestial 
 choral. If the back sloop, it is only because 
 the body is just about to lie down in peace- 
 ful sleep. If the hand tremble, it is because 
 God is unloosing it from worldly disappoint- 
 ments to clasp it on ringing harp and wav- 
 
 ing palm. If the haii has t 
 
 
 ua li\.\i 
 
 IS 
 
"POINTS." 
 
 26g 
 
 the gray light of heaven's dawn streaming 
 through the scant locks. If the brow, once 
 adorned by a luxuriance of auburn or raven, 
 is smitten with baldness, it is only because 
 God is preparing a place to set the everlast- 
 ing crown. The falling of this aged Christian's 
 staff will be the signal for the heavenly gate 
 to swing open. The scattering of the almond 
 blossoms will only discover the setting of the 
 fruit. 
 
 Power of Forgiveness.— A soldier in Eng- 
 land was brought by a sergeant to the colonel. 
 "What," says the colonel, "bringing the man 
 here again ! We have tried everything with 
 him." "Oh, no," says the sergeant; "there 
 is one thing yo^ have not tried. J would like 
 you to try that." "What is that?" said the 
 colonel. Said the man, "Forgiveness." The 
 dase had not gone so far but that it might 
 take that turn, and so the colonel said, " Well, 
 
 VOUnC man. VAU JiavA Anna, c>/>^«mJ _- XTTt-_x 
 
*7o •_ ** POINTS." 
 
 is your excuse ? " "I have no excuse*, but I 
 am very sony," said the man. "We have 
 made up our minds to forgive you," said the 
 colonel. The tears started. He had never 
 been accosted in that way before. His life 
 was reformed, and vhat was the starting-point 
 for a positively Ch-istian life. 
 
 An Aged Minister Sold.— General Fisk 
 says that he once stood at a slave-block where 
 an old Christian minister was being sold. 
 The auctioneer said of him, « What bid do 
 I hear for this man? He is a very good 
 kind of a r ; he is a minister." Some- 
 body said • .wenty dollars ;" somebody else 
 
 "twenty.five"-«thirty"-thirty.five"~"forty.» 
 The aged Christian minister began to tremble : 
 he had expected to be able to buy his own 
 freedom ; and he had just seventy dollars, and 
 expected with the seventy dollars to gtt free. 
 As the bids ran up the old man trembled 
 more and more. "Forty"-"forty.five"— "fifty" 
 
"POINTS." 271 
 
 — " fifty.five" — " sixty" — " sixty-five." The 
 old man cried out " seventy." He was afraid 
 they would outbid him. The men around 
 were transfixed. Nobody dared bid, and the 
 auctioneer struck him down to himself— « done 
 — done 1 " 
 
 A Christian is not afraid of Sinai. The 
 thunders do not frighten him. You have seen 
 two thunder-showers meet. One cloud from 
 this mountain, and another cloud from that 
 mountain, coming together, and responding 
 to each other, crash to crash, thunder to 
 ihunder, boom I boom ! And then the clouds 
 break and the torrents pour, and they are 
 emptied perhaps into the very same stneam 
 that comes down so red at your feet, that it 
 seems as if all the carnage of the storm-battle 
 has been emptied into it. So in this Bible I 
 see two storms gather, one above Sinai, it. 
 other above Calvary; and they respond one to 
 
 the other— flaeh ♦« fl»«U t.\ J-.- . .t 
 
^0 
 
 Vi' 
 
 'T ' "PO/NTS." 
 
 boom! boom! Sinai thunders, " The soul 
 that sinneth, it shall diet" Calvaiy responds. 
 Save them from going down to the pit, for 
 I have found a ransom." Sinai says, "Woe I 
 woe I" Calvaiy answers, "Mercy! mercy i" 
 And then the clouds burst, and empty their 
 treasures into one torrent, and it comes 
 flowing to our feet, «d with the carnage of 
 our Lord-i„ which, if thy soul be plunged. 
 It shall go forth >«—/„,/ 
 
 Your Last Sabbath. -If y„„ ^re forty 
 ■ears of age. two thousand and eighty of 
 your Sabbaths are gone. Indeed, the whole 
 flock of them is started, and the last of them 
 will soon spread wing. It ,vill break from 
 the east. The bells will ring. There will 
 be the shuffle of young feet and old on the 
 way to church. The baptismal waters will 
 be shed, the sacramental wine poured, the 
 evening service will pass, the Amen will finish 
 the benediction, the lights will be lowered 
 
"POINTS.** ay^ 
 
 the gates will be shut, and the sexton will 
 turn the key in the lock. Nothing peculiar 
 in the looks of the wall that night, or in the 
 sound of the music. But that will be the 
 ending of your Sabbaths. Can you not have 
 one more ? Not one more. It will come for 
 others, but not for you. The last hymn. The 
 last sermon. The last benediction. The last 
 Sabbath. The last time I 
 
 God's Provision for our Comfort.—You 
 see that God has adapted everything to our 
 comfort and advantage. Pleasant things for 
 the palate; music for the ear; beauty for the 
 eye; aroma for the nostril; kindred for our 
 affections; poetry 'for our taste; religion for 
 our soul. He giVes the sun to shine on us, 
 and the waters to refresh us, and food to 
 strengthen is ; and the herbs yield medicine 
 when we are sick, and the forests timber 
 when we would build a house or cross the 
 
 water in a shir* Tu- - — i— __- . . , 
 
 - _ — ^,. ^nv, iw».&a arc transported 
 
 19 
 
374 ''POINTS,'' 
 
 for our foundation, and metals upturned for 
 our currency; and wild beasts must give us 
 covering; and the mountains must be tun- 
 nelled to let us pass; and the fish of the sea 
 come up in our net ; and the birds of the air 
 drop at the flash of our guns ; and the cattle 
 on a thousand hills come down to give us 
 meat. For us the pec :h-orchards bend down 
 their fruit, and the vineyards their purple 
 clusters. To feed and refresh our intellect, 
 ten thousand wonders in Nature and Provi- 
 dence—wonders of mind and body ; wonders of 
 earth, and air, and deep; analogies and anti- 
 theses; all colours and sounds; lyrics in the 
 air; idyls in the field; conflagrations in the 
 sunset ; robes of mist on the mountains ; and 
 the " Grand March" of God in the 6torm. 
 
 The People's Ordination. — There are 
 hundreds of thousands of men who will never 
 come to church. The only kind of pulpit 
 that will reach them is a diy- goods box or 
 
''POINTS,'* 275 
 
 a drayman's cart at the street corner. We 
 want hundreds of men every Sabbath to be 
 preaching the Gospel in our great city parks. 
 "What!" you ask, "would you let them 
 preach without ordination?" I answer: If 
 Conferences and Presbyteries will not put 
 their hands upon your head, then I would 
 have you ordained in another way. I would 
 take you down into the haunts of suf- 
 fering and crime within ten minutes* walk of 
 our best churches, and there have you tell 
 the story of Christ, until men, redeemed from 
 their cups, and women, elevated from a life 
 of pollution, and childrtij. whose bare, bleed- 
 ing feet are on the road to death, should be 
 by your instrumentality saved. Then I would 
 have these converted suffering ones put their 
 hands of ordination on your head, setting you 
 apart for the holy ministry in the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
 Ghost. Ah! that would be an ordination as 
 
 19 * 
 
I 
 
 376^ *^ POINTS." 
 
 good as the laying on of hands by Conferences 
 and Synods — an ordination that would be 
 most bright in the day when, 
 
 "Shrivelled like a parched scroll, 
 The flaming heavens together roll." 
 
 <« 
 
 'As Little Children." - Zaccheus had 
 ^ mounted the sycamore tree out of mere in- 
 quisitiveness. He wanted to see how this 
 Stranger looked-the colour of His eyes, the 
 length of His hair, the contour of His features, 
 the height of His stature. " Come down," said 
 Christ. So many people, in this day, get 
 up into the tree of curiosity or speculation 
 to see Christ. They ask a thousand queer 
 questions about His divinity, about God's 
 sovereignty, and the eternal decrees. They 
 speculate and criticise, and hang on to the 
 outside limb of a great sycamore. But they 
 must come down from that if they want to 
 be saved. We cannot be saved as philoso- 
 phers, but as little children. 
 
"POINTS.*' til 
 
 The Avalanche op Sin. — It is high timp 
 to get out of your sins. You say, " I h' e 
 committed no great transgressions." But are 
 you not aware that your life has been sinful ? 
 The snow comes down on the Alps flake 
 by flake, and it is so light that you may 
 hold it on the tip of your finger without 
 feeling any weight; but the flakes gather; 
 they compact, until some day a traveller's 
 foot starts the mass, and it goes down in an 
 avalanche, crushing to death the villagers. 
 So the sins of your youth, and the sins of 
 •your manhood, and the sins of your woman- 
 hood, may have seemed only slight inac- 
 ;i.racies or trifling divergences from the right 
 — so slight that they are hardly worth men- 
 tioning; but they have been piling up and 
 piling up, packing together and packing 
 together, until they make a mountain of 
 sin, and one more step of your foot in 
 the wrong direction may slide down upon 
 
V 
 
 »r8 "j'O/jvrs" 
 
 you an avalanche of ruin and of conden,. 
 nation. 
 
 Glorv after the Rain. -The chief glory 
 of God comes after the rain. No shower, 
 no rainbow; no trouble, no brightness of 
 Christian consolation. Weavers are some- 
 times, by reason of their work, dusty and 
 rough in their apparel; and so it is the 
 coarse- clad tempest whose hand and foot 
 swmg the shuttle that weaves the rain- 
 bow. 
 
 Storms Necessary. _ Many Christians are 
 dun, and stupad. and useless, because they 
 . have not had disaster enough to wake them 
 "P. You cannot malie a thorough Christian 
 life out of sunshine alone. There ,are some 
 veo^ dark hues in the ribbon of the rainbow 
 you must have in life the blue as well as 
 the orange. Mingling all the colours of the 
 former makes a white light; and it takes 
 all the shades and sadnessss =„a „:.;...-x..j. 
 
"POINTS." jy^ 
 
 of life to make .he white lustre of a pure 
 Christian character. 
 
 Give to the Lord. -There are hundreds 
 of business men, Christian men, in New York 
 City, who have gone down, for he simple 
 reason, as I believe, that they did not give 
 to God that which belonged to Him. They 
 did not give Him any percent:ige at all, 
 or such a very small percentage that the 
 Lord God collected His own bills by fire, 
 by storm, or by death. Two men I knew' 
 very well, some years ago, on the streets 
 of New York. They were talking about the 
 matter of benevolence. One said to the 
 other, "You give too much. I will wait 
 until I get a large pile of money, knd then 
 I will give." « No," said the other, " I will 
 give as God prospers me." Hear the sequel. 
 The former lives in New York City to-day, 
 dqllarless ; the latter gathered two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
a8o "POINTS." 
 
 Give Enough. - 1 believe that the reason 
 Why many people are kept poor is because 
 they do not give enough. If a man give, 
 m the right spirit to the Lorf Jesus Christ 
 and to the Church, he is insured for time 
 «<i for eternity. The Bank of England 
 >s a weak institution compared with the bank 
 that any Christian man can dmw upon. 
 That man who stands by Christ, Christ will 
 stand by him. 
 
 RESTiTOTiON.-There is no need of our try- 
 ■ng to come to Christ as long as we keep 
 fraudulently a dollar or a farthing in our pos^ 
 session that belongs to another. You have 
 committed a fraud, and there is no mercy for 
 you unril you have made restitution. You 
 say, "I cannot make restitution. The parties 
 w^om I swindled are gone." Then I say 
 Take the money up to the American Bible 
 Society, and consecrate it to God." 
 Homely Earnestness. - i hav. ^.,..A 
 
28l 
 
 "POINTS." 
 
 finely educated men in prayer- meeting talk 
 in sentences" of Miltonic affluence, yet their 
 words fell dead upon the meeting; but when 
 some poor, uneducated man arose, and said, 
 "I suppose you fellers think that because I 
 don't . .iow nothing, I haven't no right to 
 speak. But Christ has converted my soul, 
 and you know I was the miserablest chap 
 in town; and if God witl pardon me. He will 
 pardon you. Come to Jesus! Come now!" 
 -the prayer-meeting broke down with re- 
 ligious emotion. 
 
 Where will' you spend eternity ? Oh 
 prepare for it. Leave it not until the last 
 hour. Leave it not until you get sick : you 
 may never be sick. Leave it not until you 
 get more time : you may never ge^ more time. 
 Leave it not until you get old : you may never 
 E^t old. Leave it not. until the Spirit strives 
 more powerfully: it may never strive again. 
 Uave it not until to-morrow. This night 
 
28a *' POINTS." 
 
 — this very night— ihy soul may be required 
 of thee. 
 
 Christ the Only Shelter.— -Christ is the 
 only shelter of the soul in trouble. What can 
 you do without Him when sorrow comes ? This 
 worid has no balsam for a wounded soul, no 
 shelter for ,^ bruised spirit. The dove, in the 
 time of the Deluge, flew north, and it was all 
 water; and south and east and west, and it was 
 all water, in which were tossed the carcases 
 of the dead world ; and the first solid thing the 
 dove's feet touched was the window of the 
 ark. So the soul in trouble goes out in one 
 direction, and finds nothing substantial to rest 
 upon; and in another direction, and every 
 whither, but there is no rest for the dove 
 save the Ark. 
 
 Workers Educated and Not Educated. 
 — We want men who have had opportunity of 
 thorough and elaborate culture in theological 
 seminaries, and who have been set apart by 
 
"points:* 
 
 283 
 
 the laying on of hands, for special work which 
 they, and onl/they, are competent to do. But 
 until the right and the duty of all private 
 Christian men and women to work for Christ, 
 in any way they think they can serve Him 
 best, is acknowledged, the Church of God will 
 fail to perform its mission, and the forces of 
 sin will discomfit the forces of righteousness. 
 God has promised victory to the Church of 
 God, but not as long as out of five hundred 
 troops four hundred and ninety -nine refuse 
 to shoulder the musket, and fill the canteen. 
 
 "Atonement." — The word itself means 
 at-one-ment. Man is a sinner and deserves 
 to die. Jesus comes in and bears his punish- 
 ments and weeps his griefs. I was lost once, 
 but now I am found. I deserve to die, but 
 Jesus took the lances into His own heart 
 until His face grew pale, His chin dropped 
 on His chest, and He had strength only 
 to say, "It is finished." The boat swung 
 
*^4 , ^ ''points:* 
 
 round into the trough of the sea, and would 
 have been swamped, but Jesus took hold of 
 the oar. That which must have been the 
 Waterloo of my defeat now becomes the 
 Waterloo of my triumph, because Blucher 
 has come up to save. Expiation! expiation! 
 The law tried me for high treason against 
 God, and found me guilty. I was asked 
 what I had to say why sentence of eternal 
 death should not be pronounced upon me, 
 and I had nothing to say. I stood on the' 
 scaffold of God's justice; the black cap of 
 eternal death was about to be drawn over 
 my eyes, when from the hill of Calvary One 
 came. He dPshed through the ranks of 
 earth and heaven and hell. He rode swiftly. 
 His garments were dyed with blood. His face 
 was bleeding. His feet were dabbled with 
 gore, and He cried out, "Save that man 
 from going down to the pit! I am the 
 ransom f" Ar./i rj-> ^i t . , 
 
"POINTS." 285 
 
 His heart, and that heart burst into a crim- 
 son fountain, and He dropped dead at my 
 feet: and I felt His hands, and they were 
 stiff; and I felt His feet, and they were 
 cold; and I felt His heart, and it was 
 pulseless; and I cried, "Dead!" Around 
 this great well of the Atonement the chief 
 battles of Christianity are to be fought. 
 
 The Foremost Agent. — The great ma- 
 jority of women have not come to the useful- 
 ness for which Christ intended them. While 
 we leave to the politician the discussion of the 
 question as to whether she shall have any 
 political rights, we will not leave to the 
 politician the discussion of the question that 
 belongs to the ministry: What shall be her 
 work in the Church of God ? Much of the 
 work that she has done has' been under the 
 bans and prejudices and superstitions that 
 have reached over from the dark ages. And 
 yet I believe that she who, in the Bethlehem 
 
iS6 "POINTS." 
 
 manger, gave Jesus to the world, will yet 
 ^e the foremost agent in carrying Jesus to 
 all the nations, ' 
 
 Woman among the Heathen, and among 
 Christians. - Now, what is the difference 
 between the condition of women there and 
 here, then and now? The only difference 
 is that which is made by the Gospel of the 
 Son of God. O woman I to-day you would 
 have been hitched to the plough, or you 
 would have been leaping upon the funeral- 
 pyre, or you would have been ground under 
 the heel of man's cruelty and insolence, 
 were it not for the fact that in this land and 
 in this age the Lord Jesus Christ appeared, 
 with love in ,His voice and omnipotence' 
 in His arm, and stood jibove this grave of 
 womanhood, and said. Come forth; and she 
 has come forth in the dignity of a Christian 
 hope. 
 
 Woman's Sphere. — if there be a family 
 
"■Po/jvrs" ,g 
 
 of four, five, or six children, after the mother 
 
 has trained them for God and heaven, pro- 
 v.ded for their wants, cultured them, cor- 
 rected their evil habits, and looked after their 
 manner, and morals, she will not have much 
 t.me for anything else, and, in most cases 
 "0 time at all left f„r outside fields of ,vori- 
 
 Mark then, the fact that home is to man; 
 the ch,ef sphere, to many the only sphere, 
 of usefulness. I consider it the curse of this 
 day that so many mothers have resigned 
 he responsibilities of the household-turning, 
 through the week-day, their children over 
 to the day-school, and, on the Sabbath, to 
 the Sabbath -school, and in all the evenings 
 of the week giving over their children to 
 h.red servants. The day - school has its work- 
 the Sabbath. school '.as its work; hired ser- 
 vants have their work; but they can never 
 take the place of the mother. It is the finest 
 
288 "POINTS." 
 
 The Glories of NioHT.-What a solemn 
 and glorious thing is night in the wilderness I 
 Night among the mountains I Night on the 
 ocean ! Fragrant night among tropical groves ! 
 Flashing night amid arctic severities I Calm 
 night on Roman Campagna! Awful night 
 among the Cordilleras I Glorious night 'mid 
 sea after a tempest I Thank God for the night I 
 The moon and the stars which rule it are 
 lighthouses on the coast, towards which I 
 hope we all are sailing; and blind mariners 
 are we if, with so many beaming, burning, 
 flaming glories to guide us, we cannot find 
 our way into the harbour. 
 
 Woman on the Battle - field. — There 
 never was a better illustration given of how 
 well women can help in the camp, if she tries 
 to, than during our late war. Men forged the 
 cannon. Men fashioned the musketry. Men 
 manned the guns. Men unlimbered the bat- 
 teries. Men lifted the wounded into the am- 
 
''POINTS." a89 
 
 bulances. But women scraped the lint. Women 
 administered the cordials. Women watched 
 the dying pillow. Women wrote the last mes- 
 sages of love to the home circles. A woman 
 was the mourner, the only mourner, at many 
 a burial where there were besides herself four 
 men with a spade. 
 
 Preaching in the Abstract.— Religious 
 address in this day, for the most part, has 
 gone into the abstract and essayic. The word 
 "sinner "is almost dropped out of the Chris- 
 tian vocabulary; it is not thought polite to 
 use that word now. It is methodistic or old- 
 fashioned. If you want to tell men they are 
 sinners, you must say they are spiritually 
 erratic, or have moral deficits, or they have 
 not had a proper spiritual development; and 
 I have not heard in twenty years that old 
 hymn, 
 
 " Come, ye sinners, poor and needy." 
 In the first olace. thpv of" n«* •"*? - j 
 
 20 " / 
 
»90 ' "POINTS." 
 
 in the second place, they are neither poor 
 
 nor needy I I have heard Christian men in 
 prayer-meetings and elsewhere talk as though 
 there were no ve,y great radical change before 
 a man becomes a Christian : all he has got 
 
 o do ,s to stop swearing, clear his throat a 
 
 few .,mes, take a good wash, and he is ready 
 
 /or heave„,„My friends, if eve,y man has 
 not gone astray, and if the whole race is not 
 
 plunged in sin and ruin, then that Bible is 
 the greatest fraud ever enacted, for from be- 
 g'nning to end it sets forth that they are ' 
 
 Keep YocRP^CE.-Ut the young be sure 
 to beg,„ right. Not once in a thousand times 
 does a man successfully change occupations. 
 The sea of life is so rough that you cannot 
 cross over from one vessel to another except 
 at great peril of falling between. Many have 
 fallen down to nothing between the mason's 
 trowel and the carpenter's saw ; between 
 the lawyer's brief and the author's jen- 
 
*' POINTS." 
 
 between the .n,edicine.chest and the pujr 
 ' "' '"' ^^'^ """'^^ 'o switch off on another 
 track this thundering express-train of life. A 
 Oaffodil and a buttercup resolved to change 
 places with each other, but in erossing over 
 from stem to stem they fel, at the feet of 
 a -artVease. " Just as I expected !" said 
 Hearfs-ease. " You might better have stayed 
 in your places I " 
 
 A QUEENI.V WoMAN.-What is your model 
 of a queenly woman? Maria Theresa of 
 Germany? No! Catharine of Russia ? No! 
 Mary Queen of Scots? No! Your idea of 
 a queenly woman is the plain woman who 
 presided over your father's household. Sitting 
 oppo^te to him at the table. Arm in arm 
 with h.m going down the path of life. Some- 
 times to the thanksgiving banquet. Some- 
 times to the grave. Always side by side 
 Soothing your little griefs. Correcting vo,,^ 
 i'ttie follies. Joining i„ your Uttle sp;rts! 
 
 20 * 
 

 *9a ** POINTS." 
 
 Hearing your little prayer. Toiling wiHi you, 
 and for you, at the needle and at the spin- 
 ning wheel. On cold nights --utting you to 
 slumber, and wrapping you up snug and 
 warm. Caring for you until that dark day 
 when she folded her hands in her dying 
 prayer, and comr.iended you to the God in 
 whom she had taught you to trust. 
 
 Home.— There are houses in this city, two 
 stories high, four plain unpapered rooms, in a 
 most desirable neighbourhood; but there is 
 a man who would die on the threshold rather 
 than surrender it. Why? It is home I When 
 he thinks of it, angels encamp about it. 
 Ladders are let down from heaven to every 
 pillow in thfv hr u;e. Over the child's rough 
 crib there ar; a.-, Jngs as sweet as those 
 that broke above Bethlehem. It is home ! 
 home ! The children of the family will- grow 
 up, and though they may get splendid resi- 
 dences of their own. thev w'^I n*.ir*t. f«r.««+ 
 
that homely place — the place where their 
 father rested, and their mother sang, and 
 their sisters played. If you wanted to gather 
 up all tender memories, all lights and shadows 
 of the heart, all banquetings and reunions, all 
 filial, fraternal, paternal, conjugal affections, 
 and had only just four letters with which to 
 spell out that height and 'epth apd length 
 and breadth and magnitude and eternity of 
 meaning, you would write it all out with 
 these four capital letters: H-C-M-E, 
 
 Woman at Home.— Thank God, woman ! 
 
 for the quietude of your home, and that you 
 
 are queen in it. Men come ai eventide to 
 
 the home; but all day long yc u are there, 
 
 beautifying it, sanctifying it, doming it, 
 
 blessing it. Better be there than wear 
 
 Victoria's coronet. Better be there than 
 
 carry the purse of a princess. It may be a 
 
 very humble home. There may be no carpet 
 
 vii tiic noor. . mere may be no pictures on 
 
294 ''POINTS." 
 
 the wall. There may be no silks in the ward- 
 robe. But, by your faith in God and your 
 cheerful demeanour, you may. garniture that 
 place with more splendour than the uphol- 
 sterer's hand ever kindled. 
 
 In the Right PLAcfe.— How may we know 
 if we are in our right place-not an inch above, 
 not an inch bdow? If you can perform your 
 work easily, without being cramped or ex- 
 hausted, that is the right place. That man 
 is in a horrible condition who is ever making 
 prodigious effort to do more than he can do. 
 It is just as easy for a star to swim in its 
 orbit as for a mote to float in a sunbeam. 
 Nature never sweats. The great law of 
 gravitation holds the universe on its back 
 as easily as a miUer swings over his shoulder 
 a bag of Genesee wheat. The, winds never 
 run themselves out of breath. The rivers 
 do not weary in their course. The Missis- 
 
 sipoi anA ffi* a«» - 
 
 f^ ...^ ^i.i«tt6uii are no more tired 
 
''POINTS." 295 
 
 than the meadow - brook. Himalaya is not 
 dizzy. 
 
 Work for Women.— There are thousands 
 and tens of thousands of women who do not 
 seem to be called to wifehood and mother- 
 hood; and there must be a sphere of use- 
 fulness somewhere for them. I proceed, in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to point 
 out to such some spheres of work. I point 
 you to thti hospital of suffering and to the 
 couch of pain. Ah! no one can fill that 
 sphere of usefulness but a woman. Man's 
 hand is too hard. His foot is too heavy. 
 His voice is too loud. He does not know 
 where to set the candle. He cannot pour 
 the drops. He is upsetting something in the 
 sick-room. He cannot do it ! But the Lord, 
 who sent Miss Dix to the Virginia hospitals; 
 the Lord, who sent Florence Nightingale to 
 the Crimea; the Lord, who sent the maid 
 of Saragossa into the reeking hospitals of 
 
296 "POINTS," 
 
 Europe -sends you to the couch of pain 
 and to the hospital of distress. Have you 
 accepted the mission ? 
 
 The first thing to do with a lamb is to 
 put it in the arms of the Great Shepherd. 
 Of course we must observe natural laws. 
 Give a child excessive meat diet, and it will 
 grow up sensual, and catechism three times 
 a day and sixty grains in each dose won't 
 prevent it. Talk much in your child's pre- 
 sence about the fashions, and it will be fond 
 of dress, notwithstanding all your lectures on 
 humility. Fill your house with gossip, and 
 your children will tattle. Culture them as 
 much as you will, but give them plenty of 
 money to spend, and they will go to destruc 
 tion. But while we are to use common sense 
 in every direction respecting a child, the first 
 thing is to strive for his conversion ; and there 
 is nothing more potent than family prayers. 
 Influence of Family Pravrpc _m^ .u.m j 
 
^'POINTS.'' 
 
 297 
 
 ever gets over having heard parents praying 
 for him. I had many sound thrashings when 
 I was a boy; but the most memorable scene 
 in my childhood was father and mother at 
 morning and evening prayers. Your son may- 
 go to the ends of the earth, and run through 
 the whole catalogue of transgression, but he 
 will remember the family altar, and it will 
 be a check, and a call, and, perhaps, his 
 redemption. 
 
 Family prayer should be appropriate. 
 Family prayers often fail in adaptedness. Do 
 not read for the morning lesson a genealogical 
 chapter, or about Samson's setting the foxes' 
 tails on fire, or the prophecy about the horses, 
 black and red and speckled, unless you explain 
 why they were speckled. For all the good 
 your children get from such reading you might 
 as well have read a Chinese almanac. Rather 
 give the story of Jesus, and the children climb- 
 ing into His arms, or the lad with the loaves and 
 
298 "POINTS." 
 
 fishes, or the sea of Galilee dropping to sleep 
 under Christ's lullaby. Stop and ask qu^s- 
 tions ; make the exercise so interesting that 
 little Johnnie will stop playing with his shoe- 
 strings, and Jenny will quit rubbing the cat's 
 ,fur the wrong way. Let the prayer be pointed 
 and made up of small wordsi and no wise in- 
 formation to the Lord about things He knows 
 without your telling Him. Let the children 
 feel they are prayed for. Have a hymn, if any 
 of you can sing. Let the season be spirited, 
 appropriate, and gladly solemn. 
 
 Prayer for our children will be 
 ANSWERED. My grandmother was a praying 
 woman. My father's name was David. One day 
 he and other members of the family started for a 
 gay party. Grandmother said, " Go, David, and 
 enjoy yourself; but all the time you and your 
 brothers and sisters are there I will be praying 
 for you." They went, but did not have a very 
 
 good time, knnwinor ♦Ko* *u^.'_ _ .. 
 
 ' o »"=*«• "icu momer was 
 
Il:''i 
 
 ''POINTS:* 29P 
 
 praying for them. The next morning grand- 
 mother heard loud weeping in the room below: 
 She went down and found her daughter cry- 
 ing violently. What was the matter? She 
 was in anxiety about her soul-an anxiety that 
 found no relief short of the Cross. Word came 
 that David was at the barn in great agony. 
 Grandmother went, and found him on the bam 
 floor praying for the life of his soul. The 
 news spread to the neighbouring houses, and 
 other parents became anxious abDut their 
 children; the influence spread to the village 
 of Somsn-ille, and there was a great turning 
 unto God, and over two hundred souls in 
 one day stood up in the village church to 
 profess faith in Christ. It all originated from 
 my grandmother's prayer for her sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 Good Religious LiTERATURE.-Oh ! for 
 a religious literature that shall take for its 
 model of excellence a boy that loves God, and 
 
300 "POINTS" ' 
 
 can digest his dinner in two hours after he 
 eats it I Be not afraid to say, in your account 
 of his decease, that the day before you lost 
 him he caught two rabbits in his trap down 
 on the meadow, or soundly thrashed a street- 
 ruffian who was trying to upset a little girl's 
 basket of cold victuals. I do not think that 
 heaven is ko near to an ill-ventilated nursery 
 as to a good gymnasium. If the Church of 
 God could trade off three thousand hogsheads 
 of religious cant for three thousand hogsheads 
 of fresh air and stout health, we should be 
 the gainers, but the feHow with whom we 
 traded would be cheated mercilessly and for 
 ever. 
 
 . Excessive fashion' makes people unnatural 
 and untrue. It is a factory from which has 
 come forth more hollow pretences, and unmean- 
 ing flatteries, and hypocrisies, than the Lowell 
 Mills ever turned out shawls and garments. 
 Fashion is tfiA o-roof^^c^- «r _ii i; -r. « 
 
**PomTs." 30, 
 
 made Society insincere. When people ask 
 you to come, you do not know whether or 
 not they want you to. When they send 
 their regards, you do not know whether it 
 is an expression of their heart or an external 
 civility. We have learned to take almost 
 everything at a discount. Word is sent " Not 
 at home," when they are only too lazy to 
 dress themselves. They say, "The furnace 
 has just gone out," when in truth they have 
 no, fire in it all the winter. 
 
 Intellect and Fashion. -The endless 
 
 study of proprieties and etiquette, patterns 
 
 and styles, is bedwarfing to the intellect. 
 
 How belittling the ^tudy of the cut of a coat, 
 
 or the tie of a cravat, or the wrinkle in a 
 
 shoe, or the colour of a ribbon! How they 
 
 are worried if something gets untied, or hangs 
 
 awry, or is not nicely adjusted ! With a mind 
 
 capable of measuring the height and depth of 
 
 gr^at subjects; able to unravel mysteries; to 
 
302 "Points:' 
 
 walk through the universe ; to soar up in to the 
 infinity of God's attributes — hovering per- 
 petually over a new style of mantilla ! I have 
 known men, reckless as to their character, and 
 regardless of interests momentous and eternal, 
 exasperated oy the shape of a vest-button ! 
 
 Five Acts of the Rum Tragedy.— Act I. 
 Young maw starting from home. Parents and 
 sisters weeping to have him go. Waggon 
 passing over the hills. Farewell kiss thrown 
 back. Ring the bell, and let the curtain drop. 
 ^ Act II. Marriage altar. Bright lights. 
 Full organ. White veil trailing through the 
 aisle. Prayer and congratulation, and ex- 
 clamations of " How well she looks ! " Ring 
 the bell, and let the curtain drop.— Act III. 
 Midnight. Woman waiting for staggering 
 steps. Old garments stuck into the broken 
 window - pane. Many marks of hardship; on 
 the face. Biting of the nails of bloodless 
 fingers. Neerlect. cruelty AU 
 
 icorro/»ja 
 
 d: 
 
"POINTS." 2^,, 
 
 bell, and let the curtain drop.—Act IV. Three 
 graves in a very dark place. Grave of child 
 who died from lack of medicine. Grave of 
 wife who died of a broken heart. Grave of 
 husband and father who died of dissipation. 
 Plenty of weeds, but no flowers. O what a 
 blasted heath with three graves ! Ring the 
 bell, and let the curtain drop.-Act V. A de- 
 stroyed soul's eternity. No light; no music; 
 no hope f Despair coiling around the heart 
 with unutterable anguish. Blackness of dark- 
 ness for ever! 
 
 Encouragement for CniLDREN.—When a 
 child earns parental applause he ought to have 
 it. If he get up head at school, give him a book 
 or an apple. If he saw a bully on the play- 
 ground trampling on a sickly boy, and your son 
 took the bully by the throat so tighly that he 
 became a little^ variegated in colour, praise 
 your boy, and let him know that you love to 
 „xi_ „,m ..xc wiainpion 01 ihe weak. Perhaps 
 
 i\ 
 
 t2 
 
304 "POINTS:' 
 
 you would not do right a day, if you had no 
 more prospect of reward than that which you 
 have given him. If on commencement - day 
 he make the best speech or read the best 
 essay, tell him of it. Truth is always harm- 
 less, and the more you use of it the better. If 
 your daughter at the conservatory take the 
 palm, give, .her a new piece of music, a ring, 
 a kiss, or a blessing. 
 
 Good Hearers.— We hear a great deal about 
 good speakers and poor speakers, but I think 
 that we have yet* to recognise in the Church 
 of God that it requires just as much skill, 
 just as much grace, aright to hear as aright 
 to speak. When we stand at last before the 
 Throne of Judgment, and I shall give an 
 account of the manner in which I have talked 
 of Jesus Christ and of the things of eternity, 
 I do not suppose that my account will be any 
 more serious than, will be yours who have 
 listened. 
 
''POINTS:' 305 
 
 Children in the MoRNiNG.-Children will 
 wake up early »n the morning. Perhaps you 
 have been disturbed in the night, and gone 
 wandering around the room in your somnolent 
 state, as much confused as ourselves on one 
 occasion when, at midnight, we heard a croupy 
 cough in the nursery, and gave the ipecac to 
 the wrong baby. Just as you begin your last 
 morning nap, you hear a stir in the adjoining 
 room. The trundle bed is evidently discharg- 
 ing a lot of bare feet on the floor. You hear 
 suppressed laughter at the door, slipping out 
 into an occasional shout as one of them applies 
 the force of a tickle to the bottom of the other's 
 feet. You are provoked to be interrupted 
 at such unreasonable hours, and proclaim 
 children a nuisance. You are glad that the 
 door is locked. But they rattle the knob. 
 They blow through the keyhole. They push 
 slips of paper under the door, and, getting 
 more and more bold,, they knock. Ten fingers, 
 
 21 
 
3o6 "POINTS." 
 
 tipped with the rosy tints of the morn, are 
 running races up and down the panel. Your 
 indignation begins to cool, and your deter- 
 mination not to admit is giving way. T/ie 
 noise of fingers is intermingled with the stroke 
 of dimpled fists. At last you open the door, 
 and there bursts in a snow-flurry of night- 
 gowns, andMthey bound along, brunette and 
 blonde, wild as young Arabs. The lock that 
 would have confounded burglar, and the bolt 
 that strongest hand could not have broken, 
 flew open at the touch of the tip-end of a 
 baby's fingers. 
 
 Fashion.— For thousands of years she hath 
 sat queen over all the earth, and the revolu- 
 tions that rock down all other thrones have 
 not affected her domination. Other constitu- 
 tions have been torn, and other laws trampled ; 
 but lords, dukes, kings, and queens have been 
 the subjects of her realm. She arranged the 
 
 mantle of the natriaroli <-Vi« *« — ^t XL- 
 
" POINTS.'* ^oy 
 
 Roman, the shoe of the Chinese, the turban 
 of the Turk, and the furs of the Laplander. 
 Her laws are written on parchment and palm- 
 leaf, on broken arch and cathedral tracery. 
 She arranged the Egyptian mummy, Cesar's 
 ride, and how the Athenians should speak. 
 Her voice is heard in the gold mart, in the 
 roar of the street, in the shuffle of the crowded 
 bazaars, in the rattle of the steam-presses, and 
 in the songs of the churches. It -Tiakes the 
 rules of behaviour; helps to make up religious 
 belief; decides to what church we shall go, 
 the style of the gown in the pulpit, and the' 
 style of the rhetoric. Fashion has been one 
 of the most potent reformers, and one of the 
 vilest usurpers; sometimes an angel from 
 heaven, and at others the mother of harlots. 
 ; Workers' Wit. -It is the earnest man, 
 With an earnest work to do, who in unex- 
 pected moment puts the lever of his witti- 
 cism under your soul, and sends you roaring 
 
 21 * 
 
 w 
 
 
3o8 "POINTS.'* 
 
 with a laughter that shuts your eyes, and 
 rends your sides, and makes you thankful for 
 a stout waistcoat, which seems to be the only 
 thing that keeps you from explosion. Work- 
 ing-men have a right to be facetious. We 
 have no objection to a hen's cackle, if it has 
 first laid a large round Qgg for the breakfast- 
 table. But We had on our farm a hen that 
 never did anything but cackle. The most 
 rousing wit ever uttered was by stalwart 
 men like Robert South and Jean Paul Rich- 
 ter. With them wit was only the foaming 
 flake on the wave that carried into port 
 a magnificent cargo. It was only the bell 
 that rang you to a banquet of stalled ox 
 and muscovy. But, lackaday ! if, at the 
 ringing of the bell, we went to find nothing 
 but a cold slice of chuckle, a hash of 
 drollery, jokes stewed, and jokes stuffed, and 
 jokes panned, and jokes roasted, and jokes 
 w„„ o^avj, auu juKcs witnout gravy. Pro- 
 
"POINTS." , 309 
 
 fessor Wilson, the peerless essayist, could 
 afford to put on "Sporting Jacket," and 
 mould the snowball for the " Bicker of Ped- 
 mount," and go a-picnicing at Windermere, 
 and shake up into rollicking glee, Lockhart, 
 Hamilton, Gillies, and his other Blackwood 
 cronies, if, in that way refreshed for toil, 
 he could come into the University of Edin- 
 burgh, to mould and shape the heart and 
 intellect of Scotland with a magic touch 
 that will be felt a thousand years. He is 
 the most entertaining man who mixes in 
 proper proportion work and play. 
 
 Gloom in the Family. — Boys and girls 
 are often spoiled by parental gloom. The 
 father never unbends. The mother's rheuma- 
 tism hurts so, she does not see how little 
 Maggie can ever laugh. Childish curiosity 
 is denounced as impertinence. The parlour 
 is a parliament, and everything in everlasting 
 order. Balls and tops in that house are 
 
 a 
 
. Jjo ''POINTS." 
 
 a nuisance, and the pap that the boy is 
 expected most to relish is geometry, a little 
 sweetened with the chalk of blackboards. For 
 cheerful reading the father would recommend 
 Young's "Night Thoughts" and Hervey's 
 "Meditations among the Tombs." At the 
 first chance the boy will break loose. With 
 one grand \t^ he will clear the catechisms. 
 He will burst away into all riotous living. 
 He will be so glad to get out of Egypt that 
 he will jump into the Red Sea. The hardest 
 colts to catch are those that have a long 
 while been locked up. Restraints are neces- 
 sary, but there must be some outlet. Too 
 high a dam will overflow all the meadows. 
 
 Life and a Masquerade Ball. — At 
 masquerade balls gentlemen and ladies appear 
 in the dress of kings or queens, mountain 
 bandits or clowns, and at the close of the 
 dance throw off their disguises. So in this 
 
 dissinateH Iifi» oil .,.,^1 I . 
 
 , — ..„^ uiiwicuii passions move in 
 
''POINTS." 3„ 
 
 mask. Across the floor they trip merrily. 
 The lights sparkle along the wall, or drop 
 from the ceiling—a very cohort of fire ! The 
 music charms. The diamonds glitter. The 
 feet bound. Gemmed hands, stretched out, 
 clasp gemmed hands. Dancing feet respond 
 to dancing feet. Gleaming brow bends low 
 to gleaming brow. On with the dance! 
 Flash, and rustle, and laughter, and im- 
 measurable merry-making. But the languor 
 of death comes over the limbs, and blurs 
 the sight. Lights lower ! Floor hollow with 
 sepulchral echo. Music saddens into a wail. . 
 Lights lower ! The maskers can hardly now 
 be seen. Flowers exchange their fragrance 
 for a sickening odour, such as comes from 
 gariands that have lain in vaults of cemeteries. 
 Lights lower! Mists fill the room. Glasses 
 rattle as though shaken by sullen thunder. 
 Sighs seem caught among the curtains. Scarf 
 falls from the shoulder of beauty,— a shroud ! 
 
3ia "POINTS." 
 
 Lights lower! Over the sh'ppeiy boards, in 
 the dance of death, glide jealousies, disap- 
 pointments, lust, despair. Torn leaves and 
 withered garlands only half hide the ulcered 
 feet. The stench of smoking lamp-wicks 
 almost quenched. Choking damps. Chilliness. 
 Feet still. Hands folded. Eyes shut. 
 Voices hush^il. Lights ^out! 
 
 Honourable for Women to Toil.— -It 
 was considered honourable for women to toil 
 in olden time. Alexander the Great stood in 
 his palace showing garments made by his own 
 mother. The finest tapestries at Bayeux were 
 made by the queen of William the Conqueror. 
 Augustus the emperor would not wear any 
 garments except those that were fashioned 
 by some member of his royal family. So l^t 
 the toiler everywhere be respected ! 
 
 Sewing Women. - There are thirty-five 
 thousand sewing girls in New York and Brook- 
 lyn. Across the darkness of this ni^hf T k.o. 
 
"POINTS." 313 
 
 their death- groan. It is not such a cry as 
 comes from those who are suddenly hurled 
 out of life, but a slow, grinding, horrible 
 wasting away. Gather them before you and 
 look into their faces, pinched, ghastly, hunger- 
 struck! Look at their fingers, needle-pricked 
 and blood-tipped! See that premature stoop 
 in the shoulders ! Hear that dry, hacking, 
 merciless cough ! At a large meeting of these 
 women, held in a hall in Philadelphia, grand 
 speeches were delivered; but a needlewoman 
 took the stand, threw aside her faded shawl, 
 and, with her shrivelled arm, huried a very 
 thunderbolt of eloquence, speaking out of the 
 horrors of her own experience. 
 
 How TO Spoil a Child.— It is easy enough 
 to spoil a child. No great art is demanded. 
 Only three or four things are requisite to 
 complete the work. Make all the nurses wait 
 on him and fly at his bidding. Let him learn 
 never to go for a drink, but always have it 
 
314 "POINTS." 
 
 brought to him. At ten years of age have 
 Bridget tie his shoe-strings. Let him strike 
 auntie because she will not get him a sugar- 
 plum. He will soon learn that the house is his 
 realm, and he is to rule it. He will come up 
 into manhood one of those precious spirits that 
 demand obeisance and service, and with the 
 theoiy that ' the world is his oyster, which 
 with knife he will proceed to open. If that 
 does not spoil him, buy him a horse. We 
 congratulate any man who can afford to own 
 a horse; but if a boy own one, he will pro- 
 bably ride on it to destruction. He will stop 
 at the tavern for drinks. He will bet at the 
 races. There will be room enough in the same 
 saddle for idleness and dissipation to ride, 
 one of. them before and one of them behind! 
 But if the child be insensible to all such 
 efforts to spoil him, try the plan of never 
 saying anything encouraging to him. If he 
 do wrong, thrash him sonnHKr. k.,* :* i..^. 
 
"points:' ^ 315 
 
 well, keep on reading the newspaper, pretend- 
 ing not to see him. But if you have a child 
 invulnerable to all other influences, and he 
 cannot be spoiled by any means already recom- 
 mended, give him plenty of money, without 
 any questions as to what he does with it. 
 
 Stock Swindle and Sewing Women.— 
 There are scores of men to-day on the streets 
 whose costly family wardrobes, whose rose- 
 wood furniture, whose splendid turn-outs, 
 whose stately mansions, are made out of the 
 distresses of sewing women, whose money they 
 gathered up in a stock swindle. There is 
 human sweat in the golden tankards. There 
 is human blood in the crimson plush. There 
 are the bones of unrequited toil in the pearly 
 keys of the piano. There is the curse, of an 
 incensed God hovering over all their magnifi- 
 cence. Some night the man will not be able 
 to rest. He will rise up in bewilderment 
 and look about him, crying: " Who is there ?" 
 
$16 "PO/JVTS." 
 
 Those whom he has wronged will thrust their 
 skinny arms under the tapestiy, and touch 
 his brow, ^nd feel for his heart, and blow their 
 sepulchral breath into his face, crying, 
 "Come to judgment!" 
 
 Injustice to Woman.— Last Sabbath night, 
 in the vestibule of my church, after service, 
 a woman f^il in convulsions. The doctor said 
 she needed medicine not so much as something 
 to eat. As she began to revive, in her delirium 
 she said, gaspingly : « Eight cents ! Eight 
 cents ! Eight cents ! I wish I could get it 
 done ! I am so tired I I wish I could get 
 some sleep; but I must get it done ! Eight 
 cents ! Eight cents I " We found afterwards 
 that she was making garments for eight cents 
 apiece, and that she could make but three 
 of them a day I Hear it ! Three times eight 
 are twenty-four ! Hear it, men and women 
 who have comfortable homes I Some of the 
 
 worst villain*! nf +^'» "•<— ^'- 
 
 -*- — aii.„ ui t^i^ ^^^^, ^^^ j^^j^, employers 
 
''POINTS." 317 
 
 of these women. They beat them down to 
 the last penny, and try to cheat them out of 
 that. The woman must deposit a dollar or 
 two before she gets the garments to work on. 
 When the work is done it is sharply inspected, 
 the most insignilBcant flaws picked out, and 
 the wages refused, and sometimes the dollar 
 deposited not given back. 
 
 Redemption of the Outcast.— I have so 
 much faith in the advancement of our race 
 under the Gospel, that I suppose the rising 
 generations are to have in their number more 
 noblemen than their predecessors. I suppose 
 that every day we are walking unconsciously 
 among Enochs, and Augustines, and Wilber- 
 forces, and Clarksons, and Moffats, and 
 Robert Halls. There they are ! on the back- 
 seat in the mission-school. There they are! 
 playing marbles in the low alley, their knees 
 out, their elbows out, their toes out, their hats 
 rimless, and their souls Christless; and in 
 
3i8 ** POINTS." 
 
 double columns there is printed on their coun- 
 tenances a tragedy of unutterable pain. But 
 they shall be gathered in. Sabbath - schools 
 will do their work. Tract and Bible Societies 
 will do their work. A Christian printing- 
 press will do its work. And they who are 
 now scoffed at as ragamuffins will pass on 
 to be the rtbn of might and the men of God 
 in future years. 
 
 Let us all go to preaching. Send 
 polished Paul up to Athens, and plain Bar- 
 tholomew down among the fishing-smacks by 
 the sea. Do not look so anxiously into your 
 pockets for your diploma from Yale, or your 
 license from Presbytery. If the Lord does not 
 send you into the ministry, no canon .of the 
 Church can shoot you into it. But if He has 
 put His hand on your head, you are ordained, 
 and your working apron shall be the robe, 
 and the anvil your pulpit; and while you are 
 Q i.L.^ .loii, txic Mauiincr oi God s truth 
 
"POINTS" 3x9 
 
 will break the flinty heart in pieces. Peter 
 was never a sophomore, nor John a freshman. 
 Harlan Page never heard that a tangent to 
 the parabola bisects the angle formed at the 
 point of contact by a perpendicular to the 
 directrix and a line drawn to the focus. If 
 George Muller should attempt chemical ex. 
 periments in a philosopher's laboratory, he 
 would soon blow himself up. And liundreds 
 of men, grandly useful, were never struck on 
 commencement stage by a bouquet flung from 
 the ladies' gallery. Quick I Let us find our 
 work. You preach a sermon— you give a 
 tract— you hand a flower— you sing a song— 
 you give a crutch to a lame man— you teach 
 the Sabbath -class their A, B, C— you knit 
 a pair of socks for a foundling— you pick a 
 splinter from a child's finger. Do something I 
 Do it now! We shall be dead soon! 
 
 All the invitations of the Gospel amount 
 to nothing unless we accept them. We may 
 
 
330 
 
 "POINTS." 
 
 • have medicines in the house when we are sick, 
 but if we do not take them we shall not be 
 cured. We may have a very good musket, 
 but if we do not carry it with us in the conflict 
 we shall be driven back in defeat. We must 
 take the great truths of the Gospel, and apply 
 them to our hearts and consciences ; aijd when 
 a brother risits to speak, let us take the truths 
 he so utters to our hearts, and not be disturbed 
 by any imperfect utterance. 
 
 Grandmother's Spectacles. Grand- 
 mother's pair had done good work in their 
 day. They were large and round, so that 
 when Sue saw a thing she saw it. There 
 was a jrack across the uppex part of the glass, 
 for many a baby had made them a plaything, 
 and all the grandchildren had at sOme time 
 tried them on. They had sometimes been so 
 dimmed with tears that she had to take them 
 off and wipe them on her apron before she could 
 see throup'h them at all* Her ^^ p-^rcwA eitrKf " 
 
''POINTS:' 3ai 
 
 had now come, and she would often let her 
 glasses slip down, and then look over the 
 top of them while she read. Grandmother 
 was pleased at this return of her vision. Get- 
 ting along so well without them, she often lost 
 her spectacles. Sometimes they would lie for 
 weeks untouched on the shelf in the red morocco 
 case, the. flap unlifted. She could no ^^ look 
 off upon the hills, which for thirty years she 
 had not been able to see from the piazza. 
 Ihuse were mistaken who thought she had 
 no poetry in her soul. You could see it in 
 the way she put her hand under the chin of 
 a primrose, or cultured the geranium. Sitting 
 in the piazza one evenmg, in her rocking- 
 chair, she saw a ladder of cloud set up against 
 the sky, and thought how easy it would be for a 
 spirit to climb it. She saw in the deep glow of 
 the sunset a chariot cf fire, drawn by horses of 
 fire, and wondered who rode in it. She saw 
 - r«^-^«x xivsiiiig luiiiiy ttwa}', as inough it were 
 
 22 
 
332 ''POINTS:' 
 
 a wing ascending, and grandmother muttered 
 in a low tone: "A vapour that appeareth for 
 a little season, and then vanisheth away.'* 
 She saw a hill higher than any she had ever 
 seen before on the hori2on, and on the top 
 of it a King's palace. The motion of the 
 rocking-chair became slighter and slighter, 
 until it stopped. The spectacles fell out of 
 her lap. A child, hearing it, ran to pick 
 them up, and cried: "Grandmother, what 
 is the matter?" She answered not. She 
 never spake again. Second-sight had come! 
 Her vision had grown better and better. 
 What she could not see now was not worth 
 seeing. Not now through a glass darkly ! 
 Grandmother had no more need of spectacles! 
 
 All Scripture is to be expounded as - 
 far as possible ; but one part is not to absorb 
 attention, to the neglect of others. Let us 
 not be so pleased with the lily that Christ 
 
 DOints ou* in Wio -« xi . 
 
 - - -'"- -•« ii»a sGxxiiuii inai we cannot 
 
"POINTS.'* 323 
 
 see the raven that flies past; nor, while we 
 examine the salt to find if it has lost its savour, 
 forget to take the candle from under the bushel. 
 The song of the morning stars at the creation 
 must have response in the doxology of the 
 hundred and forty and four thousand. David's 
 harp and the resurrection trumpet are accor- 
 dant. The pennon swung from the cedar 
 masts of ships of Tarshish must be answered 
 by the sail of fishing-boat on Gennesareth. 
 Into this great battle for God we are to take 
 Gideon's sword, and David's sling, and the 
 white horse of Victory on which Immanuel 
 triumphs. Hiddeket and Jordan must be con- 
 fluent. Pisgah and Moriah, Sinai and Calvary, 
 must all stand in the great scriptural ranges. 
 No solo or quartette in this Bible music, but 
 the battle-chorus of all the patriarchs, pro- 
 phets, evangelists, and apostles. In the wall 
 of heaven are beautifully blended jasper and 
 emerald, beryl and sardonyx, amethyst and 
 
324 , ** POINTS.'* 
 
 chrysoprasus. No one doctrine, however excel- 
 lent, must be ridden constantly. 
 
 Evenings at the Club-house.— I describe 
 the history of thousands of households when 
 I say that the tea is rapidly taken, and while 
 yet the family linger the father shoves back 
 his chair, has "an engagement," lights hv\ 
 cigar, and starts out, not returning until afte* 
 midnight. That is the history of three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five days in the year, except 
 when he is sick, and cannot get out. How 
 about home duties? Have you fulfilled all 
 your vows? Would your wife ever have 
 married you with such a prospect? Wait 
 until your sons get to be sixteen or seventeen 
 years of age, and they too will shove back 
 from the tea-table, have an "engagement," 
 light their cigars, go over to their club- 
 houses, their night-key rattling in your door 
 after midnight — the effect of your example. 
 And as your son's constitution may not be 
 
''POINTS." 
 
 325 
 
 as strong as yours, and the liquor he drinks 
 more terribly drugged, he will catch up with 
 you on the road to death, although you got 
 the start of him. 
 
 Two Houses.— I sketch two houses. The 
 first is bright as home can be. The father 
 comes at, nightfall, and the children run out to 
 meet him. Luxuriant evening meal, gratula- 
 tion, and sympathy, and laughter. Music in 
 the parlour. Fine pictures on the wall. 
 Costly books on the stand. Well-clad house- 
 hold. Plenty of everything to make home 
 happy. — House the second. Pilno sold yes- 
 terday by the sheriff. Wife's furs at 
 pawnbroker's shop. Clock gone. Daughter's 
 jewelry sold to get flour. Carpets gone off 
 the floor. Daughters in faded and patched 
 dresses. Wife sewing for the stores. Little 
 child with an ugly wound on her face, struck 
 in an angry blow. Deep shadow of wretched- 
 ness falling in every room. Door-bell rings. 
 
3a6 *' POINTS,'' 
 
 Little children hide. Daughters turn pale. 
 Wife holds her breath. Blundering steps in 
 the hall. Door opens. Fiend, brandishing 
 his fist, cries—" Out ! Out ! What are you 
 doing herel" Did I call this house the 
 second? No; it is the same house. Rum 
 transformed it. Rum imbruted the man. 
 Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the car- 
 pets. Rum shook its fist. Rum desolated the 
 hearth. Rum changed that paradise into a 
 hell ! 
 
 If you would shun an impure life, avoid 
 those who indulge in impure conversation. 
 There are many people whose chief mirthful- 
 ness is in that line. They are full of inuendo 
 and phrases of double meaning, and are always 
 picking out of the conversation of decent meil 
 something vilely significant. It is astonishing, 
 in company, huw many, professing to be 
 Christians, will tell vile stories; and that some 
 „,«, TTw«ic«, III ineiF own Circles, have 
 
** POINTS.'* 32y 
 
 no hesitation at the same style of talking. 
 You take a step down hill when, without 
 resistance, you allow any one to put into your 
 ear a vile inuendo. If, forgetting who yoji 
 are, any man attempts to say such things in 
 your presence, let your better nature assert 
 itself; look the offender full in the face, and 
 ask—" What do you mean by saying such a 
 thing in my presence ?" Better allow a man 
 to smite you in the face than to utter such con- 
 versatibn before you* 
 
 Two Men. -I sketch two men that you 
 know very well. The first graduated from 
 ^one of our literary institutions. His father, 
 mother, brothers, and sisters, were present to 
 see him graduate. They heard the applauding 
 thunders that greeted his speech. They saw 
 the bouquets tossed to his feet. They saw the 
 degree conferred and the diploma given. He 
 never looked so well. t?„».^.»,^j„ _._.j 
 "What a noble brow! What a fine eye I 
 
328 ''POINTS." 
 
 What graceful manners ! What brilliant pro- 
 spepts!" All the world opens before him and 
 cries, "Hurrah! hurrah ! "~ Man the Second. 
 Lies in the station-house to-night. The doctor 
 has just been sent for, to bind up the gashes 
 received in a fight. His hair is matted, and 
 makes him lodk like a wild beast. His lip 
 is bloody, aad cut. Wl>o is the battered and 
 bruised wretch that was picked up by the 
 police, and carried in drunk, and foul, and 
 bleeding? Did I call him man the second? 
 He is man the first! Rum transformed him. 
 Rum destroyed his prospects. Rum disap- 
 pointed parental expectation. Rum withered 
 those garlands of commencement-day. Rum 
 cut his lip. Rum dashed out his manhood! 
 
"Again I say. Rejoice" ... 
 
 Agent, the foremost 
 
 Alas for the rationalist ... 
 Alas for those who refuse 
 
 the rescue 
 
 All of this world's riches ... 
 
 All the invitations 
 
 Are you ready to accept 
 
 Him? 
 
 Arrayed against thy sins . . 
 
 "As little children" 
 
 "Atonement" 
 
 Avalanche, the, of sin 
 Away, all of you drones ... 
 
 Banquet, the Divine 
 
 Banquet, the, of sin 
 
 Beauty, the, of God's care 
 for us ... 
 
 Be cheerful 
 
 B^nnings, the, of distin- 
 guished men 
 
 Beii, the gospel 
 
 Be not swift to judge 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 
 \ 
 PAGB 
 
 N 
 
 PAGB 
 
 169 
 
 Besetting sins ;.. 
 
 95 
 
 a85 
 
 Be steadfast in duty 
 
 47 
 
 60 
 
 Be thankful 
 
 67 
 
 
 Better stop now 
 
 191 
 
 45 
 
 Better too early than too 
 
 
 333 
 
 late 
 
 134 
 
 319 
 
 Beware ... 
 
 65 
 
 
 Be ye also ready ... ... 
 
 ao4 
 
 64 
 
 Bible illustration 
 
 136 
 
 93 
 
 Bible, the, above all nature's 
 
 
 376 
 
 joys 
 
 43 
 
 283 
 
 Bible, the, in the last hour 
 
 38 
 
 277 
 
 Bible, the, the best book .. 
 
 225 
 
 8a 
 
 Bible, the, the only standard 
 
 
 
 of right 
 
 39 
 
 T08 
 
 Bible, the, the true rule .. 
 
 189 
 
 "7 
 
 Black frost, the 
 
 Blood that will wash them 
 
 SI 
 
 40 
 
 out 
 
 176 
 
 aiS 
 
 Boasting 
 
 2 
 
 
 Boat, the capsized 
 
 230 
 
 19s 
 
 Body, the human 
 
 341 
 
 SO 
 
 a 
 
 Borrowing trouble is unbe- 
 Uef " 
 
 1:1; 
 
330 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Borrowing trouble, the 
 of 
 
 Bi^ad .. ... 
 , Bright side, the ... .1 
 Bring the children too 
 Bullets, not raisins ... 
 By storm ... 
 By the skin of the tt?th . 
 
 Camel, the intruding 
 
 Capital, a working ... 
 
 Carelessness is ruin :j. 
 
 Cathedral must not 
 
 Change, the. of heart 
 
 Check, a blank 
 
 .Children gone 
 
 Children in the morning . 
 
 Chimes, the gospel 
 
 Choose .. 
 
 • 
 
 Chnst and your friend ... 
 
 Christian, a 
 
 Christian heroes 
 
 Christianity and its inconi^ 
 
 sistent professors 
 Christians, the happiest ... 
 Christian stratagr n 
 
 Christian, the aged 
 
 Christ in sympathy with us 
 
 Christ's strength .. , 
 
 Christ's army and navy 
 Christ's crown jewels 
 
 ' Christ's wonderful magnetism 
 Christ the only shelter 
 Christ, the picture of 
 Christ was wonderful in His 
 
 teaching 
 Church, a, for the needy ... 
 
 sin 
 
 PACK 
 
 66 
 6i 
 
 • 94 
 
 112 
 
 . 184 
 
 • 135 
 
 • 303 
 151 
 
 aoo 
 
 348 
 146 
 
 173 
 88 
 
 ao9 
 30s 
 
 is 
 
 91 
 
 14 
 
 071 
 
 333 
 
 333 
 
 349 
 s68 
 4 
 »oS 
 131 
 36 
 
 52 
 
 382 
 77 
 
 48 
 
 30| 
 
 193 
 336 
 
 S8 
 
 97 
 
 153 
 
 144 
 13s 
 133 
 
 330 
 
 57 
 3 
 
 138 
 
 X06 
 194 
 
 Circumstances aggravate sins 176 
 Come and get your sins par- 
 doned , ... 
 _ ... 
 
 Come back 
 
 Come! come! , "[ 
 
 Communion, the, of saints 
 
 Confession, the heart's 
 
 Consanguinity, the feeling 
 of * 
 
 Consequences of delay. ' ... 
 
 Contrast, the 
 
 Country life for ministers .. 
 Courage, my brother 
 
 Criticisms of others 
 
 Cry, Come! 
 
 Crystallised tears ...... 
 
 "Cutting behind "in politics 
 
 Dangerous temptations ... 
 Day, the last business 
 Death, a beautiful figure of 
 
 Death in nightwork 
 
 Death to Christians ... 
 Deliverance in the last hour 
 Dewdrop, the smallest ... 
 Different temptations 
 Dishonesty, the doom of ... 
 Do not let Satan 
 
 Do not sail coast-wise 
 
 Do not worship your fine 
 reputation 
 
 Don't watch for evil 
 
 Don't wor^ 
 
 Door, the, into the merc^ 
 of God 
 
 Down, a Christian is up .. 
 
 Draw your chUdren to Christ 
 
 93 
 as8 
 
 33 
 336 
 
 '43 
 
 97 
 349 
 
 3 
 
 98 
 
 333 
 as 
 
 173 
 56 
 
 37 
 Z08 
 
 109 
 
,MK 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dr. Talmage's lifc-purtwse 
 
 and work 
 
 Dying girl, the 
 
 Dying of great sermons 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Earnestness and work 
 Easy to go when the time 
 
 comes, it is 
 
 Encouragement for children 
 
 Estate, a vast 
 
 Evenings at the club-house . 
 Evening of the world, the . 
 
 Everything depends 
 
 Excessive fashion 
 
 Expectancy of repulse 
 Extinction of worldly glories 
 
 Faith 
 
 ••• ••• ••• ••• ••• 
 
 False prudence 
 
 Family prayer should be ap- 
 propriate 
 
 Fashion 
 
 Fear, the, of derision 
 
 Field, a, for every one ... 
 
 Find your peace in God ... 
 
 Flag, the false 
 
 Flowers, the sweet 
 
 Fogs, the, of doubt shall be 
 cleared away 
 
 Fulcrum, the, and the lever 
 
 " Full of the goodness of the 
 LoKl" 
 
 Give enough 
 
 Give to the Lord 
 
 ■SJIttUUCSl, 
 
 happiest... 
 
 tnc, brightest. 
 
 Glad nature 
 
 844 Gloom in the family 
 
 35 Gloomy Christians 
 
 las Glory after the rain 
 
 God appoints 
 
 God does answer prayer ... 
 God in little as well as great 
 
 93 things 
 
 303 God is every day estimating 
 
 178 churches 
 
 324 God is in sympathy with 
 
 33 you 
 
 178 Godliness, the form of ... 
 300 God no respecter of per- 
 
 80 sons 
 
 174 God's goodness to animals 
 
 God's invitation ... 
 
 187 God's provident care for His 
 
 7' creatures 
 
 God's provision for our com- 
 
 897 fort 
 
 306 God's revealed word 
 
 109 God's shadow ... , 
 
 I God's table 
 
 234 God the helper of all beings 
 60 God will clear it all up \.. 
 
 aaa God will help you 
 
 God with you 
 
 afio "Go into all the worid" ... 
 105 Good hearers ... ... 
 
 Good in withholding 
 
 340 Good or evil 
 
 Go where the fish are ... 
 
 a8o Grace 
 
 379 Gradually we pass away ... 
 
 (Grandmother's spectacles 
 ^ Grave, the, the great city 
 
 331 
 
 PACK 
 336 
 309 
 
 66 
 
 378 
 
 H 
 136 
 
 89 
 
 46 
 77 
 
 8 
 
 335 
 44 
 
 337 
 
 373 
 364, 
 
 8 
 
 33 
 
 338 
 
 laz 
 
 z86 
 179 
 
 3P4 
 
 138 
 
 267 
 
 at 
 
 IX 
 
 76 
 
 330 
 
 SO 
 
333 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hallelujah, the, of heaven.. 
 
 Hand, the 
 
 Happiness of the animal 
 
 creation 
 
 Has God been hard with 
 
 thee? 
 
 Havelock 
 
 Heart, the idolatrous... ... 
 
 He came to call sinners ... 
 
 " He died for me" 
 
 He is the Lord q^od Al- 
 mighty ' 
 
 Hoe, the healthy 
 
 Home 
 
 Homeliness, the, of Christ's 
 
 preaching 
 
 Homely earnestness, 
 
 Honesty rewarded ... ... 
 
 Honourable for women to 
 
 toa 
 
 Horace Greeley's chance ... 
 
 Hour, the happiest 
 
 How David and other shep- 
 herd boys became poets 
 However many children ... 
 
 How God helps 
 
 How poorly prepared 
 How shall ^ou learn to 
 
 preach? 
 
 How the fanner disposed of 
 
 the mystery 
 
 How to spoil a child 
 
 Husband and wife 
 
 Hymns, the history of 
 
 I am in no haste to be 
 
 PAOH 
 
 lai 
 343 
 
 93s 
 
 6S 
 171 
 
 257 
 
 40 
 ai9 
 393 
 
 48 
 a8o 
 169 
 
 31a 
 198 
 14a 
 
 346 
 
 114 
 
 zaS 
 
 S6 
 
 98 
 
 41 
 
 313 
 ixo 
 
 lOZ 
 
 I am just setting forth a 
 
 fact 
 
 I am no alarmist 
 
 Icy conventionalities 
 
 If I do my best 
 
 If we had had the writing 
 
 of the Bible 
 
 If you have a microscoi^... 
 If you would shun an im- 
 pure life 
 
 I have two all-absorbing 
 
 desires 
 
 Ill-tempered Christians, and 
 
 why 
 
 In a moment 
 
 Inconsistent Christians ... 
 Influence of family prayers 
 
 Injustice to woman 
 
 Instinct, the, of prayer 
 Intellect and fashion ... , ... 
 I shall take all the Bible or 
 
 none 
 
 Is thfere one son 
 
 I will tell you who I am ... 
 
 Jesus and perpetual youth . 
 Jesus does not shadow ... 
 
 Jesus in old age 
 
 Jesus never flattered 
 
 Jewels of God's grace 
 Jewels, the lesser, around 
 
 the greater 
 
 Join some church 
 Judgment and mercy... 
 
 Keep your place...- .„ 
 Kilkeoiiy cats ai law... 
 
 PACK 
 
 104 
 
 107 
 
 8t 
 x66 
 
 aso 
 166 
 
 336 
 158 
 
 II 
 
 7« 
 334 
 396 
 316 
 
 84 
 301 
 
 44 
 
 113 
 183 
 
 31 
 166 
 
 140 
 
 "S 
 37 
 
 104 
 
 3 
 
 390 
 ao6 
 
INDEX. 
 
 King, la rich 
 
 rAGK 
 
 ' -. 130 
 
 Lay hold of the work 
 
 Let every man 
 
 Let God be praised for such 
 
 a gospel 
 
 Let us all go to preaching... 
 Life and a masquerade ball 
 Life-boat, the mission 
 Life in "waste places" ... 
 Life, the last moment of... 
 Light, the, of nature not 
 
 sufficient 
 
 Light, the, will come 
 Listen to two or three ques- 
 tions : 
 
 Love to Jesus 
 
 Man, a, in the ditch 
 
 Man's wicked discontent ... 
 
 Man, the moral 
 
 Mark, the, of the conflict 
 Measuring the gr, ce of 
 
 God, on 
 
 Minister, an aged, sold ... 
 Ministers' sunshine ... ... 
 
 Ministry, the, of Christ ... 
 
 Missionary, a 
 
 Missioh chapels 
 
 Model exhortation 
 
 Morning in the country ... 
 Mount Washington ... ... 
 
 Mrs. Cunard's prayers 
 Multitudes, the, of the saved 
 "My th<tology" 
 
 "3 
 146 
 
 83 
 
 318 
 310 
 so 
 338 
 363 
 
 39 
 168 
 
 333 
 
 63 
 
 123 
 
 55 
 177 
 
 120 
 
 23 
 270 
 
 306 
 
 94 
 
 *I39 
 
 18 
 
 345 
 
 3X6 
 
 207 
 57 
 
 132 
 91' 
 
 Nature, Christ's servant ... 79 
 
 Night, the glories of. 
 
 No condemnation 
 
 No exceptions 
 
 No right to be gloomy ... 
 No shore to God's mercy 
 Not by fretting 
 
 " Nothing to me now" ... 
 Npw I 
 
 Now or never 
 
 Oh ! how sin 
 
 Oh I what withering 
 
 Ordination, the people's ... 
 
 Origins, humble 
 
 Others to take their places 
 
 Our children's troubles ... 
 
 Our cF; arches need to un- 
 limber 
 
 Our church principles 
 
 Our king and theirs 
 
 Our king encouraging us , 
 
 Our peril 
 
 Our religion 
 
 Our wondrous physical or- 
 ganisation 
 
 Overwork, the sin of 
 
 Palace, a, for Christ 
 
 Panorama, the heavenly ... 
 Password at the gate of 
 
 heaven, there will be a 
 Pearls from great depths ... 
 People who have had it 
 
 their own way ... ... 
 
 People who ought not to' 
 
 be there 
 
 Personal experience ... 
 
 333 
 
 PAGB 
 388 
 
 ^n 
 63 
 
 68 
 
 24 
 
 III 
 
 .361 
 
 134 
 
 13s 
 
 sa 
 374 
 
 143 
 
 49 
 
 167 
 
 133 
 139 
 
 157 
 
 95 
 7a 
 
 65 
 
 34a 
 196 
 
 25a 
 81 
 
 34 
 36 
 
 lao 
 
 100 
 
 85 
 
334 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Physician, the gi'eat 
 
 Power of folgiveness 
 
 Power, the world's deadly., 
 
 Prayer impotent 
 
 Prayer is the chahce 
 
 Prayer must be oompa- 
 
 nied by means 
 
 Praying and working 
 
 Preaching in the abstract 8i 
 Pride of the church, the ... 
 
 Prize, a .. , 
 
 Providence, or fate " 
 
 Prudent, the worldly 
 
 Pulpit, the. a barrier.. ... 
 
 Put your Bible down on 
 
 your counters 
 
 Question, a momentous ... 
 Quiet, the, country air .. 
 
 Read it as ft is ... 
 
 Read your Bible in the sun- 
 shine 
 
 Recovery, a wonderful ... 
 
 Redemptioh of the out- 
 cast 
 
 Reed, the bruised 
 
 Religion and joy 
 
 Religion, a robust 
 
 Religion a force 
 
 Religion brightens the world 
 
 Religion in business 
 
 Restitution 
 
 Righteous indignation 
 Right, the, and the wrong 
 side 
 
 Rights, the, of nntiwoU 
 
 I Rock of ages, 
 the balance 
 
 the, turns 
 
 46 
 
 ai8 
 
 Sabbath hour, this 
 
 Sabbath, your last 
 Salvation and wprk 
 
 Santiago, the fire at 
 
 Satan has got thousands of 
 I men into trouble... ... 
 
 '"Saved as by fire" 
 
 Scientific preaching 
 
 Scissors, the old 
 
 , Scoffers, converted 
 57 Scripture, all, is to be ex- 
 pounded 
 
 See the end 
 
 Self-denying heroism 
 
 Sewing women ... ..." 
 
 Sheaf, a, fiilly ripe 
 Sickle, the gospel ... 
 
 "4 I Sing it \ 
 
 I Sin is no half - and 
 ^ thing ... 
 
 86 Sin may open 
 
 Sceptic, to the 
 
 Song, the welcome 
 
 Sowing wild oats 
 
 Sow seed early 
 
 Spring, the 
 
 Stock swindle and sewing 
 
 women 
 
 Storms necessary 
 Struggles, the, of go<id 
 
 men 
 
 Struggle,^ the, with appetite 
 Sufficient' for the day 
 Sund^ reiigion no religion 
 
 -half 
 
 317 
 
 198 
 
 16 
 
 128 
 
 IS 
 168 
 19a 
 a8o 
 aa8 
 
 94 
 273 
 
 I 
 »4S 
 
 96 
 aoa 
 
 78 
 
 193 
 
 186 
 
 333 
 190 
 
 147 
 313 
 
 I9S 
 178 
 180 
 
 ISO 
 104 
 
 323 
 lOI 
 
 3S 
 asi 
 303 
 
 31S 
 378 
 
 3IO 
 
 9" 
 339 
 
 67 
 193 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Take care of your health now 
 Tiike the whole Bible 
 
 i eU Gt ■; what you want 
 Tsst. the. «■ God's jewels 
 "J^^ t »he, f the chureh ...' 
 •.'"iHf.ksjBri'. ,.j; day 
 
 Ti, ijtsif hour of Christ ... 
 
 The blithest and gay t 
 
 Theological seminaries 
 
 There is a dearth 
 
 There is a great difference 
 
 There is a hell .. 
 
 "There was some one prayl 
 ing for us" 
 
 They step back too far, and * 
 
 _,^ k. 
 
 Thing, the first 
 
 This book to - day is foi^ 
 
 most 
 
 This world is a poor por- 
 tion 
 
 Thoughts wandering iii 
 
 prayer 
 
 Though you be wounded. . 
 Three circles of friends 
 
 Three letters 
 
 Three wishes 
 
 Through the heart 
 
 Time, a poor 
 
 " To make room for others" 
 Trials for preparation 
 
 Triumphant martyrs 154 
 
 Triumphant philanthropists 155 
 Trouble is an apothecaiy... 143 
 
 Trumpet, the gospel ' ^ 
 
 - v2~=S 'w -as too much ... 12 
 
 PAOB 
 
 54 
 
 161 
 
 140 
 aa I 
 106 
 
 89 
 aoi 
 
 IS9 
 
 SO 
 
 99 
 ISO 
 116 
 161 
 
 Try this God 
 
 Turkey, the sultan of ... 
 
 Two brothers, the, and their 
 
 Bible 
 
 Two houses 
 
 Two hundred men ' 
 
 Two men 
 
 Two things .. 
 
 ** ••• ... 
 
 181 
 
 »47 
 
 396 I 
 
 Unending rest 
 Unexplained mysteries 
 University, the best ... 
 Use of trials 
 Use your power for good , 
 
 Village, the ... 
 
 Vulture, the, in the soul ... 
 
 335 
 
 PACK 
 
 333 
 13a 
 
 38 
 
 325 
 
 lay 
 
 337 
 138 
 
 356 
 
 41 
 
 I9S 
 
 I30 
 
 aos 
 
 ai3 
 
 70 
 
 4a 
 233 
 
 5 
 
 139 
 90 
 64 
 
 aao 
 
 304 
 76 
 
 119 
 
 IS4 
 
 Waiting for the last train, 
 
 on 
 
 Warning 
 
 Waste, a, of strength 
 Water an emblem 
 Weakness, the. of hlunaii 
 
 •'eip... ; 
 
 We are indicted 
 
 We die in concert ... ,." 
 
 Wedding, a 
 
 Wedding, the great ... 
 
 We fall to rise 
 
 We find what we look for 
 Well, the. of Christian com- 
 fort 
 
 What are you doing, Q 
 
 Christian men? 
 
 What does God do wiiii 
 our prayers? 
 
 17 
 
 187 
 
 SS 
 X4a 
 
 339 
 iSa 
 49 
 i6S 
 170 
 
 SI 
 
 3IO 
 
 aS4 
 183 
 i8z 
 
336 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 What do we know about 
 happiness? 
 
 What ministers know 
 When Ehzabeth Fiy 
 
 When the Nile overflows... 
 
 Where will you spend eter- 
 nity? 
 
 Which road? 
 
 Whispering gallery, a 
 
 Who? 
 
 "Whomsoever" 
 
 Whosoever slandeW the 
 world slanders God ... 
 
 Why more men are not saved 
 
 Wings, the, of God are 
 broad wings 
 
 Witnesses to prayer 
 
 With bridled passions 
 
 Woe for the unregenerate.. 
 
 Women among heathen and 
 among Christians 
 
 Woman, a poor old 
 
 Woman, a queenly 
 
 Woman at home 
 
 Woman on the battle-field 
 
 Woman's sphere 
 
 Workers educated and not 
 educated 
 
 PAGE 
 
 103 
 90 
 
 171 
 
 281 
 190 
 
 "3 
 
 141 
 
 62 
 
 253 
 149 
 
 47 
 
 87 
 
 227 
 
 S9 
 
 286 
 127 
 291 
 
 293 
 288 
 286 
 
 282 
 
 Workers' wit 
 
 Work for each denomina<> 
 
 tion 
 
 Work of comfort 
 
 Work, the 
 
 Work, the best 
 
 Worldly honours hollow ... 
 Would not it be pleasant.. 
 Wrestling with the giant 
 
 habit 
 
 Wrong to cheat 
 
 Ye who have taught your 
 children how to live ... 
 
 Yonder is a man 
 
 Young men who are prayed 
 for 
 
 Young souls the most valu- 
 able 
 
 Young, the, to take our 
 places ... 
 
 Your orthodoxy won't save 
 you 
 
 You shall not rob me of a 
 single word 
 
 You will not turn your back 
 on suffering 
 
 PACK 
 307 
 
 103 
 
 133 
 80 
 80 
 
 26s 
 
 "3 
 
 118 
 9 
 
 III 
 
 98 
 
 84 
 
 251 
 
 49 
 
 17 
 
 '42 
 174 
 
 ONWIK BROTHERS, PRINTERS BV WATER FOWER, CHILWORTH,, SURREY. 
 
 / I ^ 
 

 PAGE 
 
 . ... 
 
 307 
 
 mina- 
 
 
 . ... 
 
 103 
 
 • — 
 
 133 
 
 . ... 
 
 80 
 
 ... 
 
 80 
 
 \Y\.. 
 
 265 
 
 ant.. 
 
 "3 
 
 gpant 
 
 
 . 
 
 118 
 
 ■ — 
 
 9 
 
 your 
 
 
 re ... 
 
 III 
 
 ... 
 
 98 
 
 ayed 
 
 
 ... 
 
 84 
 
 ralu- 
 
 
 ... 
 
 251 
 
 our 
 
 
 ... 
 
 49 
 
 save 
 
 
 ... 
 
 77 
 
 of a 
 
 
 ... 
 
 '42 
 
 back 
 
 
 ... 
 
 174 
 
 lURRBV.