Twelve Select 
 SERMONS, 
 
 XS B R A ft y^ 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 iCALIFOl 
 
 By D. L. MOODY. 
 
 PREACH THE WORD," 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL, 
 
 CHICAGO : 
 148 and 150 Madison St. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 148 and 150 Nassau St. 
 
 Publisher of Evangelical Literature. 
 
Alls' 
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1884, 
 
 By F. H. REVELL, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 ALL EIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In compliance with the wish of many friends I 
 have consented to the publication of the following 
 
 Addresses. 
 
 I deeply feel how partially and insufficiently the 
 Glorious Gospel of the blessed God is represented 
 in them, but I lay them at the Master's feet, pray- 
 ing, and asking all mv Christian friends to pray, 
 that they rnav ce tne means in their primed form 
 of winning more souls to Christ than they have 
 been when spoken. 
 
 {?)£&**$ 
 
79/4 2- 
 
I. 
 "WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 GENESIS III. 9w 
 
 The very first thing that happened after the news reached heaven 
 of the fall of man, was that God came straight down to s«ek out 
 the lost one. As He walks through the garden in the cool of the 
 day, you can hear Him calling "Adam! Adam! Where art 
 thou ? " It was the voice of grace, of mercy, and of love. Adam 
 ought to have taken the seeker's place, for he was the transgressor. 
 He had fallen, and .he ought to have gone up and down Eden 
 crying, "My God! my God! where art Thou?" But God 
 left heaven to grope through the dark world for the rebel who 
 had fallen — not to hurl him from the face of the earth, but to plan 
 him an escape from the misery of his sin. And He finds him — 
 where ? Hiding from his Creator among the bushes of the garden. 
 The moment a man is out of communion with God, even the 
 professed child of God, he wants to hide away from Him. When 
 God left Adam in the garden, he was in communion with his 
 Creator, and God talked with him j but now that he has fallen, he 
 has no desire to see his Creator, he has lost communion with his 
 God. He cannot bear to see Him, even to think of Him, and he 
 runs to hide from God. But to his hiding-place his Maker follows 
 him. " Where art thou, Adam ? Where art thou ? " 
 
 Six thousand years have passed away, and this text has come 
 rolling down the ages. I doubt whether there has been any one of 
 Adam's sons who has not heard it at some period or other of his 
 life — sometimes in the midnight hour stealing over him — <l Where 
 am I ? Who am I ? Where am I going ? and what is going to 
 
 i 
 
2 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 be the end of this ? " I think it is well for a man to- pause and ask 
 himself that question. I would have you ask it, little boy ; and 
 you, little girl ; and you, old man with locks turning grey, and eyes 
 growing dim, and natural force abating, you who will soon be in 
 another world. I do not ask you where you are in the sight of your 
 neighbours j I do not ask you where you are in the sight of 
 your friends ; I do not ask you where you are in the sight of the 
 community in which you live. It is of very little account where 
 we are in the sight of one another, it is of very little account what 
 men think of us j but it is of vast importance what God thinks of 
 us — it is of vast importance to know where men are in the sight of 
 God ; and that is the question now. Am I in communion with 
 my Creator, or out of communion ? If I am out of communion, 
 there is no peace, no joy, no happiness. No man on the face of 
 the earth, who was out of communion with his Creator, ever knew 
 what peace, and joy, and happiness, and true comfort are. He is 
 a foreigner to it. But when we are in communion with God, 
 there is light all around our path. So ask yourselves this 
 question. Do not think I am preaching to your neighbours, but 
 remember I am trying to speak to you, to every one of you as 
 if you were alone. It was the first question put to man after his 
 fall, and it was a very small audience that God had — Adam and 
 his wife. But God was the preacher ; and although they tried to 
 hide^ the words came home to them. Let them come home to 
 you now. You may think that your life is hid, that God does not 
 know anything about you. But He knows our lives a great deal 
 better than we do ; and his eye has been bent upon us from our 
 earliest childhood until now. 
 
 "Where art thou? " I should like to divide my audience into 
 three classes — the professed Christians, the Backsliders, and the 
 Ungodly. 
 
 First, I would like to ask the professors this question, or 
 rather let God ask it — Where art thou ? What is my position in 
 the church, and among my circle of acquaintance ? Do my friends 
 know me to be, out and out, on the Lord's side ? You may have 
 been a professing Christian for twenty years, perhaps thirty, perhaps 
 forty years. Well, where are you to-night? Are you making 
 
"WHERE ART THOU?" 3 
 
 progress towards heaven ? And can you give a reason for the hope 
 that is within you ? Suppose I were to ask those who are really 
 Christians here to rise, would you be ashamed to stand up ? Sup- 
 pose I should ask every professed child of God here, " If you should 
 be cut down by the hand of death, have you good reason to believe 
 you would be saved ? " Would you be willing to stand up before 
 God and man, and say that you have good reason to believe you 
 are passed from death unto life ? Or would you be ashamed ? 
 Run your mind back over the past years : would it be consistent 
 for you to say, "lama Christian ;" and would your life correspond 
 with your profession ? It is not what we say so much as how we 
 live. Actions speak louder than words. Do your shopmates know 
 that you are a Christian ? Do your family know ? Do they know 
 you to be out and out on the Lord's side ? Let every professed 
 Christian ask, Where am I in the sight of God ? Is my heart 
 loyal to the King of heaven ? Is my life here as it should be in the 
 community I live in ? Am I a light in this dark world ? Christ 
 says, " Ye are My witnesses." Christ was the Light of the world, 
 and the world would not have the true Light ; the world rose up 
 and put out the Light, and now Christ says, " I leave you down 
 here to testify of Me ; I leave you down here as My witnesses." 
 That is what the apostle meant when he said that Christians are to 
 be living epistles, known and read of all men. Then, am I 
 standing up for Jesus as I should in this dark world ? If a man is 
 for God, let him say so. If a man is for God, let him come out 
 and be on God's side ; and if he is for the world, let him be in the 
 world. This serving God and the world at the same time — this 
 being on both sides at the same time — is just the curse of 
 Christianity at the present time. It retards the progress of 
 Christianity more than any other thing. " If any man will come 
 after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and 
 follow Me." 
 
 I have heard of a great many people who think if they are 
 united to the church, and have made one profession, that will 
 do for all the rest of their days. But there is a cross for every 
 one of us daily. Oh, child of God, where are you ? If God should 
 appear to you to-night in your bedroom and put the question, what 
 would be your answer ? Could you say, " Lord, I am serving Thee 
 
4 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 with my whole heart and strength j I am improving my talents 
 and preparing for the kingdom to come " ? When I was in England 
 in 1867, there was a merchant who came over from Dublin, and 
 was talking with a business man in London j and as I happened to 
 look in, he introduced me to the man from Dublin. Alluding to 
 me, the latter said to the former, " Is this young man all O O ? " 
 Said the London man, " What do you mean by O O ? " Replied 
 the Dublin man, " Is he Out-and-Out for Christ?" I tell you it 
 burned down into my soul. It means a good deal to be O O for 
 Christ ; but that is what all Christians ought to be, and their influ- 
 ence would be felt on the world very soon, if men who are on the 
 Lord's side would come out and take their stand, and lift up their 
 voices in season and out of season. As I have said, there are a 
 great many in the church who make one profession, and that is 
 about all you hear of them j and when they come to die you have 
 to go and hunt up some musty old church records, to know whether 
 they were Christian's or not. God won't do that. I have an idea 
 that when Daniel died, all the men in Babylon knew whom he 
 served. There was no need for them to hunt up old books. His 
 life told his story. What we want is men with a little courage to 
 stand up for Christ. When Christianity wakes up, and every child 
 that belongs to the Lord is willing to speak for Him, is willing to 
 work for Him, and, if need be, willing to die for Him, then 
 Christianity will advance, and we shall see the work of the Lord 
 prosper. There is one thing which I fear more than anything else, 
 and that is the dead cold formalism of the Church of God. Talk 
 about the isms ! Put them all together, and I do not fear them so 
 much as dead, cold formalism. Talk about the false isms ! There 
 is none so dangerous as this dead, cold formalism, which has come 
 right into the heart of the Church. There are so many of us just 
 sleeping and slumbering while souls all around are perishing. I 
 believe honestly that we professed Christians are all half-asleep. 
 Some of us are beginning to rub our e^es and to get them half- 
 opened, but as a whole we are asleep. 
 
 There was a little story going the round of the secular press 
 that made a great impression upon me as a father. A father took 
 his little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot 
 day, he lay down under a beautiful shady tree. The little child 
 
WHERE ART THOUf" 
 
 ran about gathering wild flowers and little blades of grass, and 
 coming to its father and saying, " Pretty ! pretty ! " At last the 
 father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little child wan- 
 dered away. When he awoke, his first thought was, " Where is 
 my child ? " He looked all around, but he could not see him. He 
 shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard was the echo of 
 his own voice. Running to a little hill, he looked around and 
 shouted again. No response ! Then going to a precipice at some 
 distance, he looked down, and there, upon the rocks and briars, he 
 saw the mangled form of his loved child. He rushed to the spot, 
 took up the lifeless corpse and hugged it to his bosom, and accused 
 himself of being the murderer of his child. While he was sleeping 
 his child had wandered over the precipice. I thought as I heard 
 that, what a picture of the church of God ! 
 
 How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men, are 
 sleeping now while their children wander over the terrible precipice 
 right into the bottomless pit of hell. Father, where is your boy to- 
 night ? It may be just out there in some public-house ; it may be 
 reeling through the streets, it may be pressing onwards to a 
 drunkard's grave. Mother, where is your son ? Is he in the house 
 of the publican drinking away his soul — everything that is dear and 
 sacred to him ? Do you know where your boy is ? Father, you have 
 been a professed Christian for forty years j where are your children 
 to-night? Have you lived so godly, and so Christ- like, that you 
 can say, Follow me as I followed Christ ? Are those children 
 walking in wisdom ; are they on their way to glory 5 have they 
 been gathered into the fold of Christ ; are their names written in 
 the Lamb's Book of Life ? How many fathers and mothers to-day 
 would be able to answer? Did you ever stop to think that you 
 were to blame ; that you had not been faithful to your children ? 
 Depend upon it, as long as the church is living so much like the 
 world, we cannot expect our children to be brought into the fold. 
 Come, O Lord, and wake up every mother, and may everyone of 
 us who are parents feel the worth of the souls of the children that 
 God has given us. May they never bring our grey hairs with 
 sorrow to the grave, but may they become a blessing to the church 
 and to the world. Not long ago the only daughter of a wealthy 
 friend of mine sickened and died. The father and mother stood bv r 
 
6 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 her dying bed. He had spent all his time in accumulating wealth 
 for her j she had been introduced into gay and fashionable society j 
 but she had been taught nothing of Christ. As she came to the 
 brink of the river of death, she said, "Won't you help me ; it is 
 very dark, and the stream is bitter cold." They wrung their hands 
 in grief, but could do nothing for her ; and the poor girl died in 
 darkness and despair. What was their wealth to them then ? And 
 yet, you mothers and fathers are doing the same thing in London 
 to-day, by ignoring the work God has given you to do. I beseech 
 you, then, each one of you, begin to labour now for the souls of 
 your children ! 
 
 A young man, some time ago, lay dying, and his mother thought 
 he was a Christian. One day, passing his room door, she heard 
 him say, " Lost ! lost ! lost ! " The mother ran into the room and 
 cried, " My boy, is it possible you have lost your hope in Christ, 
 now you are dying?" "No, mother, it is not that; I have a 
 hope beyond the grave, but I have lost my life. I have lived 
 twenty-four years, and done nothing for the Son of God, and now 
 I am dying. My life has been spent for myself j I have lived for 
 this world, and now, while I am dying, I have given myself to 
 Christ j but my life is lost." Would it not be said of many of us, 
 if we should be cut down, that our lives have been almost a failure 
 — perhaps entirely a failure as far as leading any one else to Christ 
 is concerned ? Young lady ! are you working for the Son of God ? 
 Are you trying to win some soul to Christ ? Have you tried to 
 get some friend or companion to have her name written in the 
 book of life ? Or would you say, " Lost, lost ! long years have 
 rolled away since I became a child of God, and I have never had 
 the privilege of leading one soul to Christ ? " If there is one pro- 
 fessed child of God who never had the joy of leading even one 
 soul into the kingdom of God, oh ! let him begin at once. There 
 is no greater privilege on earth. And I believe, my friends, there 
 has never been a time, in our day, at least, when work for Christ 
 was more needed than at present. I do not believe there ever was 
 in your day or mine a time when the Spirit of God was more 
 poured out upon the world. There is not a part of Christendom 
 where the work is not being carried on ; and it looks very much as> 
 if the glad tidings were just going to take, as it were, a fresh start, 
 
" WHERE ART THOU?" 7 
 
 and go round the globe. Is it not time that the Church of God 
 should wake up and come to the help of the Lord as one man, and 
 strive to beat back those dark waves of death that roll through our 
 streets; bearing upon their bosom the noblest and the best we 
 have ? Oh, may God wake up the Church ! And let us trim our 
 lights, and go forth and work for the kingdom of His Son. 
 
 Now, Secondly, let me talk a little while to those who have 
 gone back into the world — to the Backslider. It may be you came 
 to some great city a few years ago a professed Christian. You were 
 member of a church once, and a teacher in the Sabbath-school, 
 perhaps 5 but when you came among strangers you thought you 
 would just wait a little— perhaps take a class by and by. So you 
 gave up teaching in the Sunday-school ; you gave up all work 
 for Christ. Then in your new church you did not receive the 
 attention or the warm welcome that you expected, and you got into 
 the habit of staying away. You have gone so far now, that you 
 are found in the theatre, perhaps, and the companion of blas- 
 phemers and drunkards. Perhaps I am speaking now to some on^ 
 who has been away from his father's house for many years. Come, 
 now, backslider, tell me, are you happy? Have' you had one 
 happy hour since you left Christ r Does the world satisfy you, or 
 those husks that you have got in the far country ? I have travelled 
 a good deal, but I never found a happy backslider in my life. I 
 never knew a man who was really born of God that ever could 
 find the world satisfy him afterwards. Do you think the Prodigal 
 Son was satisfied in that foreign country ? Ask the prodigals in 
 this city if they are truly happy. You know they are not. " There 
 is no peace, saith my GGd to the wicked." TheVe is no joy for 
 the man in rebellion against his Creator. Supposing he has tasted 
 the heavenly gift, and been in communion with God, and had 
 sweet fellowship with the King of Heaven, and had pleasant hours 
 of service for the Master, but has backslidden, is it possible that he 
 can be happy ? If he is, it is good evidence he was never really 
 converted. If a man has been born again, and has received the 
 heavenly nature, this world can never satisfy the cravings of his 
 nature. Oh, backslider, I pity you ! But I want to tell you that 
 the Lord Jesus pities you a good deal more than any one else can. 
 
8 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 He knows how bitter your life is ; He knows how dark your life 
 is 3 He wants you to come home. Oh, backslider, come home 
 to-night ! I have a loving message from your Father. The Lord 
 wants you, and calls you back to-night, " Come home, oh wan- 
 derer, this night : return from the dark mountains of sin.'* Return, 
 and your Father will give you a warm welcome. I know that the 
 devil has told you that God won't have anything to do with you, 
 because you have wandered away. If that is true, there would be 
 very few men in heaven. David backslid j Abraham and Jacob 
 turned away from God ; I do not believe there is a saint in heaven 
 but at some time of his life with his heart has backslidden from 
 God. Perhaps not in his life, but in his heart. The prodigal's 
 heart got into the far country before his body got there. Back- 
 slider ! to-night come home. Your Father does not want you to 
 stay away. Think you the prodigal's father was not anxious for 
 him to come home all those long years he was there ? Every year 
 the father was looking and longing for him to return home. So 
 God wants you to come home. I do not care how far you have 
 wandered away 5 the great Shepherd will receive you back into the 
 fold to-night. Did you ever hear of a backslider coming home, 
 and God not willing to receive him ? I have heard of earthly 
 fathers and mothers not being willing to receive back their sons j 
 but I defy any man to say he ever knew a really honest backslider 
 , want to get home, but God was willing to take him in. 
 i*w*J* A number of years ago, before any railway came into Chicago, 
 
 I tjr*** tne y use d to hring in the grain from the Western prairies in 
 waggons for hundreds of miles, so as to have it shipped off by the 
 Lakes. There was a father who had a large farm out there, and 
 who used to preach the gospel as well as attend to his farm. One 
 day, when church business engaged him, he sent his son to Chicago 
 with grain. He waited and waited for his boy to return, but he did 
 not come home. At last he could wait no longer, so he saddled 
 his horse and rode to the place where his son had sold the grain. 
 He found that he had been there and got the money for the grain ; 
 then he began to fear that his boy had been murdered and robbed. 
 At last, with the aid of a detective, they tracked him to a gambling 
 den, where they found that he had gambled away the whole of his 
 money. In hopes of winning it back again, he then had sold the 
 
" WHERE ART THOU?" 9 
 
 team, and lost that money too. He had fallen among thieves, and 
 like the man who was going to Jericho, they stripped him, and 
 then they cared no more about him. What could he do ? He was 
 ashamed to go home to meet his father, and he fled. The father 
 knew what it all meant. He knew the boy thought he would be 
 very angry with him. He was grieved to think that his boy should 
 have such feelings towards him. That is just exactly like the 
 sinner. He thinks because he has sinned, God will have nothing 
 to do with him. But what did that father do ? Did he say, " Let 
 the boy go " ? No j he went after him. He arranged his busi- 
 ness and started after the boy. That man went from town to town, 
 from city to city. He would get the ministers to let him preach, 
 and at the close he would tell his story. " I have got a boy who 
 is a wanderer on the face of the earth somewhere." He would 
 describe his boy and say, a If you ever hear of him or see him, will 
 you not write to me ?" At last he found that he had gone to Cali- 
 fornia, thousands of miles away. Did that father say, " Let him go ?" 
 No -, off he went to the Pacific coast, seeking the boy. He went to 
 San Francisco, and advertised in the newspapers that he would 
 preach at such a church on such a day. When he had preached 
 he told his story, in hopes that the boy might have seen the adver- 
 tisement and come to the church. When he had done, away under 
 the gallery there was a young man who waited until the audience 
 had gone out ; then he came towards the pulpit. The father 
 looked, and saw it was that boy, and he ran to him, and pressed 
 him to his bosom. The boy wanted to confess what he had done, 
 but not a word would the father hear. He forgave him freely, and 
 took him to his home once more. 
 
 Oh, prodigal, you may be wandering on the dark mountains of 
 sin, but God wants you to come home. The devil has been telling 
 you lies about God ; you think He will not receive you back. I 
 tell you, He will welcome you this minute if you will come. Say, 
 " I will arise and go to my Father." May God incline you to take 
 this step. There is not one whom Jesus has not sought far longer 
 than that father. There has not been a day since you left Him 
 but He has followed you. I do not care what the past has been, 
 or how black your life, He will receive you back. Arise then, O 
 backslider, and come home once more to your Father's house. 
 
io " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 Not long ago, in Edinburgh, a lady who was an earnest 
 Christian worker, found a young woman whose feet had taken 
 hold of hell, and who was pressing onwards to a harlot's grave. 
 The lady begged her to go back to her home, but she said no, her 
 parents would never receive her. This Christian woman knew 
 what a mother's heart was ; so she sat down and wrote a letter to 
 the mother, telling her how she had met her daughter, who was 
 sorry, and wanted to return. The next post brought an answer 
 back, and on the envelope was written, " Immediately — imme- 
 diately ! " That was a mother's heart They .opened the letter. 
 Yes, she was forgiven. They wanted her back, and they sent 
 money for her to come immediately. Sinner, that is the proclama- 
 tion, " Come immediately." That is what the great and lovmg 
 God is saying to every wandering sinner — immediately. Yes, back- 
 slider, come home to-night. He will give you a warm welcome, 
 and there will be joy in heaven over your return. Come now, for 
 everything is ready. 
 
 A friend of mine said to me some time ago, Did you ever notice 
 what the prodigal lost by going into that country ? He lost his 
 food. That is what every poor backslider loses. They get no 
 manna from heaven. The Bible is a closed book to them ; they 
 see no beauty in the Word of God. 
 
 Then the prodigal lost his work. He was a Jew, and they 
 made him take care of swine ; that was all loss for a Jew. So 
 every backslider loses his work. He cannot do anything for God j 
 he cannot work for eternity. He is a stumbling-block to the 
 world. My friend, do not let the world stumble over you into hell. 
 
 The prodigal also lost his testimony. Who believed him ? I 
 can imagine some of these men came along, natives of that country, 
 and they saw this poor prodigal in his rags, barefooted and bare- 
 headed. There he stands among the swine, and some one says to 
 another, u Look at that poor wretch." " What," he says, " do you 
 call me a poor wretch ? My father is a wealthy man ; he has got 
 more clothes in his wardrobe than you ever saw in your life. My 
 father is a man of great wealth and position." Do you suppose 
 these men would believe him ? " That poor wretch the son of a 
 wealthy man! " Not one of them would believe him. "If he 
 had got such a wealthy father he would go to him." So with the 
 
 
" WHERE ART THOU?" II 
 
 backsliders ; the world does not believe that they are the sons of a 
 King. They say, " Why don't they go to Him, if there is bread 
 enough and to spare? Why don't they go home ?" 
 
 Then, another thing the prodigal lost was his home. He had 
 no home in that foreign country. As long as his money lasted, he 
 was quite popular in the saloons and among his acquaint- 
 ances; he had professed friends, but as soon as his money was 
 gone, where were his friends ? That is the condition of every 
 poor backslider in the world. 
 
 But now I can imagine some one saying, " There would be 
 little use of me attempting to come back. In a few days I should 
 just be where I was again. I should like very much to go to my 
 Father's home again, but I'm afraid I wouldn't stay there.'' Well, 
 just picture this scene. The poor prodigal has got home, and the 
 father has killed the fatted calf ; and there they are, sitting at the 
 table eating. I can imagine that was about the sweetest morsel he 
 ever got — perhaps the nicest dinner he ever had in his life. His 
 father sits opposite ; he is full of joy, and his heart is leaping 
 within him. All at once he sees his boy weeping. " My son, 
 what are you weeping for? Are you not glad to have got 
 home ? " " Oh, yes, father j I never was so glad as I am to-day : 
 but I am so afraid I will go back into that foreign country ! " 
 Why, you cannot imagine such a thing ! When you have got one 
 meal in your Father's house, you will never be inclined to wander 
 away again. 
 
 Now let me speak to the Third class. "If the righteous 
 scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" 
 Sinner, what is to become of you ? How shall you escape ? 
 " Where art thou ?" Is it true that you are living without God 
 and without hope in the world ? Did you ever stop to think what 
 would become of your soul if you should be taken away by a sudden 
 stroke of illness — where you would stand in eternity ? I read that 
 the sinner is without God, without hope, and without excuse. If 
 you are not saved, what excuse will you have to give ? You cannot 
 say that it is God's fault. He is only too anxious to save you. I 
 want to tell you to-night that you can be saved if you will. If you 
 really want to pass from death to life, if you want to become an 
 
12 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 heir of eternal life, if you want to become a child of God, make up 
 your mind this night that you will seek the kingdom of God. I 
 tell you, upon the authority of this Word, that if you seek the 
 kingdom of God you will find it. No man ever sought Christ 
 with a heart to find Him who did not find Him. I never knew a 
 man make up his mind to have the question settled, but it was 
 settled soon. This last year there has been a solemn feeling 
 stealing over me. I am what they call in the middle of life, in the 
 prime of life. I look upon life as a man who has reached the top 
 of a hill, and just begins to go down the other side. I have got to 
 the top of the hill, if I should live the full term of life — threescore 
 years and ten — and am just on the other side. I am speaking to 
 many now who are also on the top of the hill, and I ask you, if 
 you are not Christians, just to pause a few minutes, and ask your- 
 selves where you are. Let us look back on the hill that we have 
 been climbing. What do you see? Yonder is the cradle. It 
 is not far away. How short life is ! It all seems but as yes- 
 terday. Look along up the hill, and yonder is a tombstone ; it 
 marks the resting-place of a loved mother. When that mother 
 died, did you not promise God that you would serve Him ? Did 
 you not say that your mother's God should become your God? 
 And did you not take her hand in the stillness of the dying hour, 
 and say, "Yes, mother, I will meet you in heaven!" And have 
 you kept that promise ? Are you trying to keep it ? Ten years 
 have rolled away : fifteen years — but are you any nearer God ? Did 
 the promise work any improvement in you ? No, your heart is 
 getting harder ; the night is getting darker j by and by death will 
 be throwing its shadows round you. My friend, Where art thou ? 
 Look again. A little further up the hill there is another tombstone. 
 It marks the resting-place of a little child. It may have been a 
 little lovely girl — perhaps her name was Mary ; or it may have been 
 a boy — Charley ; and when that child was taken from you, did you 
 not promise God, and did you not promise the child, that you would 
 meet it in heaven ? Is the promise kept ? Think ! Are you still 
 fighting against God ? Are you still hardening your heart ? Ser- 
 mons that would have moved vou five years ago — do they touch 
 you now ? 
 
 Once more look down the hill. Yonder there is a grave ; you 
 
" WHERE ART THOU?" 13 
 
 cannot tell how many days, or weeks, or years it is away ; you arts 
 hastening towards that grave. Even should you live the life allotted 
 to man, many of you are near the end, you are getting very feeble, 
 and your locks are turning grey. It may be the coffin is already 
 made that this body shall be laid in ; it may be that the shroud 
 is already waiting. My friend, is it not the height of madness to 
 put off salvation so long ? Undoubtedly I am speaking to some 
 who will be in eternity a week from now. In a large audience like 
 this, during the next week death will surely come and snatch some 
 away ; it may be the speaker, or it may be some one who is listen- 
 ing. Why put off the question another day ? Why say to the 
 Lord Jesus again to-night, " Go thy way for this time ; when I 
 have a convenient season, I will call for Thee?" Why not let 
 Him come in to-night? Why not open your heart, and say, 
 " King of Glory, come in ? ' 
 
 Will there ever be a better opportunity ? Did not you promise 
 ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years ago that you would serve God? 
 Some of you said you would do it when you got married and 
 settled down j some of you said you would serve Him when you 
 were your own master. Have you attended to it ? 
 
 You know there are three steps to the lost world ; let me give 
 you their names. The first is Neglect. All a man has to do is to 
 neglect salvation, and that will take him to the lost world. Some 
 people say, "What have I done!" Why, if you merely neglect 
 salvation, you will be lost. I am on a swift river, and lying in the 
 bottom of my little boat. Down yonder, ten miles below, is the 
 great cataract. Every one that goes over it perishes. I need not 
 row the boat down 3 I have only to pull in the oars, and fold my 
 arms, and neglect. So all that a man has to do is to fold his arms 
 in the current of life, and he will drift onwards and be lost. 
 
 The second step is Refusal. If I met you at the door and 
 pressed this question on you, you would say, " Not to-night, Mr. 
 Moody, not to-night 5" and if I repeated, " I want you to press into 
 the kingdom of God," you would politely refuse : " I will not 
 become a Christian to-night, thank you j I know I ought, but I 
 wont to-night." 
 
 Then the last step is to Despise it. Some of you have already 
 got on the lower round of the ladder. You despise Christ. You 
 
14 " WHERE ART THOU?" 
 
 hate Christ, you hate Christianity $ you hate the best people on 
 earth and the best friends you have got ; and if I were to offer 
 you the Bible, you would tear it up and put your foot upon it. Oh, 
 despisers ! you will soon be in another world. Make ha^te and 
 repent and turn to God. Now, on which step are you, my friend j 
 neglecting, or refusing, or despising ? Bear in mind that a great 
 many are taken off from the first step : they die in neglect. And 
 a great many are taken away refusing. And a great many are on 
 the last step, despising salvation. 
 
 A few years ago they neglected, then they got to refuse ; and 
 now they despise Christianity and Christ. They hate the sound of 
 the church bell j they hate the Bible and the Christian $ they curse 
 the very ground that we walk on. But one more step and they 
 are gone. Oh ye despisers, I set before you life and death 5 which 
 will you choose ? When Pilate had Christ on his hands, he said, 
 " What shall I do with Him ? " and the multitude cried out, 
 "Away with Him! crucify Him!" Young men, is that your 
 language to-night ? Do you say, u Away with this gospel ! 
 Away with Christianity ! Away with your prayers, your sermons, 
 your gospel sounds! I do not want Christ? " Or will you be 
 wise and say, " Lord Jesus, I want Thee, I need Thee, I will 
 have Thee ? " Oh, may God bring you to that decision ! 
 
II. 
 THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 
 
 ROMANS III. 22. 
 
 That is one of the hardest truths man has to learn. We are apt 
 to think that we are just a little better than our neighbours, and if 
 we find they are a little better than ourselves, we go to work and 
 try to pull them down to our level. If you want to find out who 
 and what man is, go to the third chapter of Romans, and there the 
 whole story is told. "There is none righteous, no, not one.'* 
 " All have sinned and come short." All. Some men like to have 
 their lives written before they die -, if any of you would like to 
 read your biography, turn to this chapter, and you will find it 
 already written. 
 
 I can imagine some one saying, " I wonder if he really pretends 
 to say that ' there is no difference.' " The teetotaller says, " Am 
 I no better than the drunkard ? '' Well, I want to say right here, 
 that it is a good deal better to be temperate than intemperate j a 
 good deal better to be honest than dishonest ; it is better for a man 
 to be upright in all his transactions than to cheat right and left, 
 even in this life. But when it comes to the great question of sal- 
 vation, that does not touch the question at all, because " all have 
 sinned and come short of the glory of God." Men are all bad by 
 nature ; the old Adam-stock is bad, and we cannot bring forth 
 good fruit until we are grafted into the one True Vine. If I have 
 an orchard, and two apple trees in it, which both bear some bitter 
 apples, perfectly worthless, does it make any difference to me that 
 the one tree has got perhaps five hundred apples, all bad, and the 
 other only two, both bad ? There is no difference ; only one tree 
 
16 " THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE:' 
 
 has more fruit than the other. But it is all had. So it is with 
 man. One thinks he has got only one or two very little sins — God 
 won't notice that 5 why, that other man has broken every one of 
 the ten commandments ! No matter, there is no difference ; they 
 are both guilty $ they have both broken the law. The law de- 
 mands complete and perfect fulfilment, and if you cannot do that, 
 you are lost, as far as the law is concerned. " Whosoever shall, keep 
 the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" 
 Suppose you were to hang up a man to' the roof with a chain of 
 ten links -, if one were to break, does it matter that the other nine 
 are all sound and whole ? Not the least. One link breaks, and 
 down comes the man. But is it not rather hard that he should fall 
 when the other nine are perfect, when only one is broken ? Why, 
 of course not 5 if one is broken, it is just the same to the man as if 
 all had been broken : he falls. So the man who breaks one com- 
 mandment is guilty of all. He is a criminal in God's sight. Look 
 at yonder prison, with its thousand victims. Some are there for 
 murder, some for stealing, some for forgery, some for one thing 
 and some for another. You may classify them ; but every man is a 
 criminal. They have all broken the law, and they are all paying 
 the penalty. So the law has brought every man in a criminal in 
 the sight of God. 
 
 If a man should advertise that he could take a correct photo- 
 graph of people's hearts, do you believe he would find a customer ? 
 There is not a man among us whom you could hire to have his 
 photograph taken, if you could photograph the real man. We go 
 to have our faces taken, and carefully arrange our toilet, and if the 
 artist flatters us, we say, "Oh, yes, that's a first-rate likeness," as 
 we pass it round among our friends. But let the real man be 
 brought out, the photograph of the heart, and see if a man will 
 pass that round among his neighbours. Why, you would not 
 want your own wife to see it ! You would be frightened even to 
 look at it yourself. Nobody knows what is in that heart but 
 Christ. We are told that ' ' the heart is deceitful above all things, 
 and desperately wicked ; who can know it ? " We do not know 
 our own hearts ; none of us have any idea how bad they are. Some 
 bitter things are written against me, but I know a good many 
 more things about myself that are bad than any other man. There 
 
" THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE:' 17 
 
 is nothing good in the old Adam nature. We have got a heart in 
 rebellion against God by nature, and we do not even love God 
 unless we are born of the Spirit. I can understand why men do 
 not like this third chapter of Romans— it is too strong for them. 
 It speaks the truth too plainly. But just because we do not like it, 
 we shall be all the better for having a look at it ; very likely we 
 shall rind that it is exactly what we want, after all. It's a truth 
 that men do not at all like, but I have noticed that the medicine we 
 do not like is the medicine that will do us most good. If we do 
 not think we are as bad as the description, we must just take a 
 closer look at ourselves. Here is a man who thinks he is not just 
 so bad as it makes him out to be. He is sure he is a little better 
 than his neighbour next door ; why, he goes to church regularly, 
 and his neighbour never goes to church at all ! " Of course," he 
 congratulates himself, " I'll certainly get saved easier." But there 
 is no use trying to evade it. God has given us the law to measure 
 ourselves by, and by this most perfect rule " we have all sinned 
 and come short," and " there is no difference." 
 
 Paul brings in the law to show man that he is lost and ruined. 
 God, being a perfect God, had to give a perfect law, and the law 
 was given not to save men, but to measure them by. I want you 
 to understand this clearly, because I believe hundreds and thou- 
 sands stumble there. They try to save themselves by trying to 
 Keep the law ; but it was never meant for men to save them- 
 selves by. The law has never saved a single man since the world 
 began. Men have been trying to keep it, but they have never suc- 
 ceeded, and never will. Ask Paul what it was given for. Here is 
 his answer, " That every mouth might be stopped, and the whole 
 world become guilty before God." In this third chapter of 
 Romans the world has been put on its trial, and found guilty. The 
 verdict has been brought in against us all — these ministers and 
 elders and church members, just as much as the prodigal and the 
 drunkard — " All have sinned and come short. 
 
 The law stops every man's mouth. God will have a man humble 
 himself down on his face before Him, with not a word to say 
 for himself. Then God will speak to him, when he owns that he 
 is a sinner, and gets rid of all his own righteousness. I can always 
 tell a man who has got near the kingdom of God : his mouth is 
 
1 8 * THERE tS NO DIFFERENCES 
 
 Stopped. If you will allow me the expression, God always shuts 
 up a mac's lips before He saves him. Job was not saved until he 
 stopped talking about himself. Just see how God dealt with him. 
 First of all, He afflicts him, and Job begins to talk about his own 
 goodness. " I delivered the poor," he says, " and the fatherless, 
 and him who had none to help him. I was eyes to the blind, and 
 feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor ! " Why, they 
 would have made Job an elder, if there had been elders in those' 
 days ! He had been a wonderfully good man ! But now God 
 says, "I'll put a few questions to you. Gird up now thy loins 
 like a man ; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou Me." 
 And Job is down directly; he is ashamed of himself ; he cannot 
 speak of his works any more. " Behold," he cries, " I am vile; 
 what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine rrand upon my 
 mouth.'' But he is not low enough yet, perhaps, and God puts a 
 few more questions. " Ah ! " says Job, " I never understood 
 these things before — I never saw it in that light." He is tho- 
 roughly humbled now ; he can't help confessing it. " I have 
 heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear : but now mine eye seeth 
 Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" 
 Now he has found his right position before God, and now God 
 can talk to him. And God helps him, and raises him up, and 
 gives him the double of all that he had before. The clouds, and 
 the mist, and the darkness round his path are driven away, and 
 light from eternity bursts into his soul when he sees his nothing- 
 ness in the sight of a pure and holy God. 
 
 This, then, is what God gives us the law for — to show us our- 
 selves in our true colours. 
 
 I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the 
 Chicago fire, " I am coming home this afternoon to give you a 
 ride." My little boy clapped his hands. u Oh, papa, will you 
 take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park ? " " Yes." You know 
 boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had not been gone long when 
 my little boy said, " Mamma, I wish you would get me ready." 
 " Oh," she said, " it will be a long time before papa comes." " But 
 I want to get ready, mamma." At last he was ready to have the 
 ride, face washed, and clothes all nice and clean. " Now, you 
 must take good care and not get yourself dirty again," said mamma, 
 
THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 19 
 
 Oh, of course he was going to take care ; he wasn't going to get 
 dirty. So off he ran to watch for me. However, it was a long 
 time yet until the afternoon, and after a little he began to play. 
 When I got home, I found him outside, with his face all covered 
 with dirt. " I can't take you to the Park that way, Willie." "Why, 
 papa? you said you would take me." " Ah, but I can't j you're 
 all over mud. I couldn't be seen with such a dirty little boy." 
 "Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me." "Well, you've 
 got dirty since." But he began to cry, and I could not convince 
 him that he was dirty. ' I'se clean ; mamma washed me ! " he 
 cried. Do you think I argued with him? No. I just took him 
 up in my arms, and carried him into the house, and showed him 
 his face in the looking-glass. He had not a werd to say. He could 
 not take my word for it ; but one look at the glass was enough ; 
 he saw it for himself. He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that ! 
 
 Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty 
 — but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. 
 Yet that is just what thousands of people do. The law is the 
 looking-glass to see ourselves in, to show us how vile and worth- 
 less we are in the sight of God ; but they take the law, and try to 
 wash themselves with it ! Man has been trying that for six 
 thousand years, and has miserably failed. By the deeds of the law 
 there shall no Jlesli be justified in his sig/it. Only one Man ever 
 lived on the earth who could say He had kept the law, and that 
 was the Lord Jesus Christ. If He had committed one sin, and 
 came short in the smallest degree, his offering Himself for us 
 would have been useless. But men have tried to do what He did, 
 and have failed. Instead of sheltering under his righteousness, 
 they have offered God their own. And God knew what a 
 miserable failure it would be. "There is none righteous, no 
 not one." 
 
 I don't care where you put man, everywhere he has been tried 
 he has proved a total failure. He was put in Eden on trial ; and 
 some men say they wish they had Adam's chance. If you had, 
 you would go down as quickly as he did. You put five hundred 
 children into this hall, and give them ten thousand toys ; tell them 
 they can run all over the hall, and they can have anything thev 
 want except one thing, placed, let us say, in one of the corners of 
 
20 " THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 
 
 Mr. Sankey's organ. You go out for a little, and do you think 
 that is not the very first place they will go to ? Why, nothing else 
 in the room would have any attraction for them but just the thing 
 they were told not to touch. And so let us not think Adam was 
 any worse than ourselves. Adam was put on trial, and Satan walks 
 into Eden. I do not know how long he was there, but I should 
 think he had not been there twenty minutes before he stripped 
 Adam of everything he had. There he is, fresh from the hands of 
 his Creator ; Satan comes upon the scene, and presents a tempta- 
 tion, and down he goes. He was a failure. 
 
 Then God took man into covenant with Him. He said to 
 Abraham, " Look yonder at the stars in the heavens and the sands 
 on the seashore ; I will make your seed like that. I will bless 
 thee and multiply thee upon the earth." But what a stupendous 
 failure man was under the covenant. Go back and read about it. 
 
 They are brought out of Egypt, see many signs and wonders, 
 and stand at last at the foot of Mount Sinai. Then God's holy 
 law is given them. Did they not promise to keep it? " O yes," 
 they cry, " we'll keep the law j O dear, yes ! " To hear them talk 
 you might think it was going to be all right now. But just wait 
 till Joshua and Moses have turned their backs ! No sooner have 
 their leaders gone up the mountain to have an interview with 
 God than they begin saying, " Wonder what's become of this man 
 Moses ? we don't know where he's got to. Come, let us make 
 unto us another God. Aaron ! make us a golden calf ; here are the 
 golden ornaments we got from the Egyptians, come and make us 
 another god." So when it is made, the people raise a great shout, 
 and fall down and worship it. " Hark ! listen ; what shout is 
 that I hear?" says Moses, as he comes down the mountain side. 
 " Alas," says Joshua, ft there's war in the camp, it is the shout of 
 the victor." " Ah, no," says Moses, " it isn't the shout of victory 
 or of war, Joshua, it is the cry of the idolaters. They have for- 
 gotten the God who delivered them from the Egyptians, who led 
 them through the Red Sea, who fed them with bread from heaven 
 — angels' food. They have forgotten their promises to keep the 
 commandments. Already the first two of them are broken, * no 
 other gods,' 'no graven image.' They've made them another god — 
 a golden god ! " And that's what men have been doing ever since. 
 
" THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE? 21 
 
 There are more men in this city worshipping the golden calf 
 than the God of heaven. Look around you. They bring before 
 it health, and happiness, and peace. " Give me thirty pieces of 
 silver, and I will sell you Christ," is the world's cry to-day. " Give 
 me fashion, and I will sell you Christ ! " "I will sacrifice my wife, 
 my children, my life, my all, for a little drink. I will sell my soul 
 for drink ! " It is easy to blame these men for worshipping the 
 golden calf. But what are we doing ourselves ? Ah, man was 
 a failure then, and he has been a failure ever since. 
 
 Then God put him under the judges, and wonderful judges 
 they were ; but, once more, what a failure he was ! After that 
 came the prophets, and what a failure he was under them ! 
 Then came the Son from heaven Himself, right out of the bosom 
 of the Father. He left the throne and came down here, to teach 
 us how to live. We took Him and murdered Him on Calvary ! 
 Man was a failure in Christ's time. 
 
 And now we are living under the dispensation of grace — a 
 wonderful dispensation. God is showering down blessings from 
 above. But what is man under grace ! A stupendous failure. 
 Look at that man reeling on his way to a drunkard's grave, and 
 his soul to a drunkard's hell. Look at the wretched harlots on 
 your streets. Look at the profligacy, and the pauperism and the 
 loathsome sickness. Look at the vice and crime that festers every- 
 where, and tell me is it not true that man is a failure under grace ? 
 
 Yes, man is a failure. I can see right down the other 
 side of the millennium ; Christ has swayed his sceptre over 
 the earth for a thousand years ; but man is a failure still. 
 For " when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed 
 out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are 
 in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them 
 
 together to battle and they compassed the camp of the saints 
 
 about, and the beloved city : and fire came down from God out of 
 heaven, and devoured them." What man wants is another nature ; 
 he must be born again. What a foolish saying, " Experience 
 teaches." Man has been a long time at that school, and has 
 never learned his lesson yet — his own weakness and inability. He 
 still thinks great things of his own strength. " I am going to 
 stand after this," he says, " I have hit upon the right plan this 
 
22 " THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 
 
 time. I am able to keep the law now." But the first temptation 
 comes, and he is down. Man will not believe in God's strength. 
 Man will not acknowledge himself a failure, and surrender to 
 Christ to save him from his sins. 
 
 But is it not better to find out in this world that we are a 
 failure, and to go to Christ for deliverance, than to sleep on and go 
 down to hell without knowing we are sinners? 
 
 I know this doctrine that we have all failed, that we have all 
 sinned, and come short, is exceedingly objectionable to the natural 
 man. If I had tried to find -out the most disagreeable verse in the 
 whole Bible, perhaps I could not have fastened upon one more 
 universally disliked than " There is no difference." 
 
 I can imagine — and I think I have a right to imagine it — Noah, 
 leaving his ark and going off preaching for once in a while. As the 
 passers-by stop to listen, there is no sound of the hammer or the 
 plane. Noah has stopped work. He has gone off on a preaching 
 tour, to warn his countrymen. Perhaps he was telling them that 
 there was a great deluge coming to sweep away all the workers of 
 iniquity ; perhaps he was warning them that every man who was 
 not in the ark must perish j that there would be no difference. I 
 can imagine one man saying, " You had better go back and finish 
 your work, Noah, rather than come here preaching. You don't 
 think we are going to believe in such nonsense as that. You tell 
 us that all are going to perish alike ! Do you really expect 
 us to believe that the kings and governors, the sheriffs and the 
 princes, the rulers, the beggars and thieves and harlots, are all going 
 to be alike lost ? " " Yes," says Noah j " the deluge that is coming 
 by and by will take you all away — every man that is not in the ark 
 . must die. There will be no difference." Doubtless they thought 
 Noah had gone raving mad. But did not the flood come and take 
 them all away ? Princes and paupers, and knaves and kings— was 
 there any difference ? No difference. 
 
 When the destroying angel was about to pass through Egypt, 
 no doubt the haughty Egyptian laughed at the poor Israelite putting 
 the blood on his door-post and lintel. " What a foolish notion," 
 he would say, derisively ; " the very idea of sprinkling blood on a 
 door-post ! If there were anything coming, that would never keep 
 it away. I don't believe there is any death coming at all j and if 
 
« THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 23 
 
 it did, it might touch these poor people, but it would certainly never 
 come near us/' But when the night came, there was no difference. 
 The king in his palace, the captive in his prison, the beggar by the 
 wayside — they were all alike. Into every house the king of terrors 
 had come, and there was universal mourning in the land. In the 
 home of the poor and the lowly, in the home of the prince and the 
 noble, in the home of the governor and ruler, the eldest son lay 
 dead. Only the poor Israelite escaped who had the blood on the 
 door-post and lintel. And when God comes to us in judgment, if 
 we are not in Christ, all will be alike. Learned or unlearned, high 
 or low, priest or scribe — there will be no difference. 
 
 Once more, I can imagine Abraham going down from the hills 
 to Sodom. He stands up, let us say, at the corners of the streets, 
 before Sodom was destroyed — " Ye men of Sodom, I have a mes- 
 sage from my God to you." The people stand and look at the 
 old man — you can see his white locks as the wind sweeps through 
 them — "I have a warning for you," he cries. " God is going to 
 destroy the five cities of the plain, and every man who does not 
 escape to yonder mountain must perish. When He comes to 
 deal in judgment with you there will be no difference 5 every man 
 must die. The Lord Mayor, the princes, the chief men, the mighty 
 men, the judges, the treasurers — all must perish. The thief and 
 the vagabond, and the drunkard — yes, all must perish alike. There 
 can be ' no difference.' " But these Sodomites answer, "You had 
 better go back to your tent on the hills, Abraham. We don't 
 believe a word of it. Sodom was never so prosperous ; business 
 was never so flourishing as now. The sun never shone any 
 brighter than it does to-day. The lambs are skipping on the hills, 
 and everything moving on as it has done for centuries. Don't 
 preach that stuff to us; we don't believe it." A few hours pass, 
 and Sodom is in ashes ! Did God make any difference among 
 those who would not believe? No, God never utters any opinion; 
 what He says is truth. "All have sinned and come short," He 
 cries ; " and there is no difference." I read of a deluge of fire that 
 is going to roll over this earth, and when God comes to deal in 
 judgment, there will be no difference, and every man who is out of 
 Christ must perish. 
 
 It was my sad lot to be in the Chicago fire. As the flames 
 
24 f THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 
 
 rolled down our streets, destroying everything in their onward 
 march, I saw the great and the honourable, the learned and the 
 wise, fleeing before the fire with the beggar, and the thief, and the 
 harlot. All were alike. As the names swept through the city it 
 was like the judgment day. The mayor, nor the mighty men, 
 nor wise men could stop these flames. They were all on a level 
 then, and many who were worth hundreds of thousands were left 
 paupers that night. When the day of judgment comes, there will 
 be no difference. When the deluge came there was no difference ; 
 Noah's ark was worth more than all the world. The day before, it 
 was the world s laughing-stock, and if it had been put up to auction, 
 you could not have got anybody to buy it except for firewood. But 
 the deluge came, and then it was worth more than all the world 
 together. And when the day of judgment comes, Christ will be 
 worth more than all this world, more than ten thousand worlds. 
 And if it was a terrible thing in the days of Noah to die outside 
 the ark, it will be far more terrible for us to go down in our sins 
 to a Christless grave. 
 
 Now I hope that you have seen what I have been trying to 
 prove — that we are all sinners alike. If I ha\e failed to prove 
 that, then the meeting to-night has been a failure. I should like 
 to use another illustration or two. I should like to make this truth 
 so plain that a child might know it. In the olden times in England, 
 we are told, they used to have a game of firing arrows through a 
 ring on the top of a pole. The man that failed to get all his 
 arrows through the ring was called a "sinner." Now I should 
 like for a moment to take up that illustration. Suppose our pole 
 to be up in the gallery, and on the top of it the ring. I have got 
 ten arrows, let us say, and Mr. Sankey has got other ten. I take 
 up the first arrow, and take a good aim. Alas ! I miss the mark. 
 Therefore I am a " sinner." " But," I say, " I will do the best I 
 can with the other nine ; I have only missed with one." Like 
 some men who try to keep all the commandments but one ! 
 I fire again, and miss the mark a second time. " Ah, but," I say, 
 " I have got eight arrows still," and away goes another arrow — 
 miss ! I fire all the ten arrows and do not get one through the 
 ring. Well, I was a "sinner" after the first miss, and I can only 
 be a " sinner " after the tenth. Now Mr. Sankey comes with his 
 
" THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE: 9 25 
 
 ten arrows. He fires and gets his first arrow through. " Do you 
 see that?" he says. "Well," I reply, " go on j don't boast until 
 you get them all through." He takes the second arrow and gets 
 that through. " Ha ! do you see that ? " " Don't boast," I repeat, 
 "until all ten are through ; " if a man has not broken the law at 
 all then he has got something to boast of ! Away goes the third, 
 and it goes through. Then another and another all right, and 
 another until nine are through. " Now," he says, " one more 
 arrow, and I am not a sinner." He takes up the last arrow, and 
 his hand trembles a little; he just misses the mark. And he is a 
 " sinner " as well as I am. My friend, have you never missed the 
 mark ? Have you not come short ? I should like to see the man 
 who never missed the mark. He never lived. 
 
 Let me give you just one more illustration. When Chicago was 
 a small town, it was incorporated and made a city. When we got 
 our charter for the city, there was one clause in the constitution that 
 allowed the Mayor to appoint all the police. It worked very well 
 when it was a small city ; but when it had three or four hundred 
 thousand inhabitants, it put too much power in the hands of one 
 man. So our leading citizens got a new bill passed that took the 
 power out of the hands of the Mayor, and put it into the hands of 
 Commissioners appointed by Government. There was one clause 
 in the new law that no man should be a policeman who was not a 
 certain height— 5 feet 6 inches, let us say. When the Commis- 
 sioners got into power, they advertised for men as candidates, and 
 in the advertisement they stated that no man need apply who 
 could not bring good credentials to recommend him. I remember 
 going past the office one day, and there was a crowd of them 
 waiting to get in. They quite blocked up the side of the street ; 
 and they were comparing notes as to their chances of success. One 
 says to another, " I have got a good letter of recommendation from 
 the Mayor, and one from the supreme judge." Another says, 
 "And I have got a good letter from Senator So-and-so. I'm sure 
 to get in." The two men come on together, and lay their letters 
 down on the Commissioners' desk. "Well," say the officials, 
 " you have certainly a good many letters, but we won't read them 
 till we measure you." Ah ! they forgot all about that. So the 
 first man is measured, and he is onlv rive feet. " No chance for 
 
26 "THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE?* 
 
 you, sir 5 the law says the men must be 5 feet 6 inches, and you 
 don't come up to the standard." The other says, " Well, my 
 chance is a good deal better than his. I'm a good bit taller than 
 he is'* — he begins to measure himself by the other man. That is 
 what people are always doing, measuring themselves by others. 
 Measure yourselves by the law of God, or by the Son of God Him- 
 self ; and if you do that, you will find you have come short. He 
 goes up to the officers, and they measure him ; he is 5 feet 5 inches 
 and nine-tenths of an inch. "No good," they tell him; "you're 
 not up to the standard." " But I'm only one-tenth of an inch 
 short," he remonstrates. " It's no matter," they say j "there's no 
 difference." He goes with the man who was five feet. One 
 comes short six inches, and the other only one-tenth of an inch, 
 but the law cannot be changed. And the law of God is that no 
 man shall go into the kingdom of heaven with one sin on him. He 
 that has broken the least law is guilty of all. 
 
 " Then, is there any hope for me ?" you say. "What star is there 
 to relieve the midnight darkness and gloom ? What is to become 
 of me ? If all this is true, I am a poor lost soul. I have com- 
 mitted sin from my earliest childhood." Thank God, my friends, 
 this is just where the gospel comes in. " He was made sin for us 
 who knew no sin." " He was wounded for our transgressions j 
 He was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace 
 was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed.*' " We all 
 like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own 
 way, and the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." 
 
 You ask me what my hope is ; it is, that Christ died for my 
 sins, in my stead, in my place, and therefore I can enter into life 
 eternal. You ask Paul what his hope was. " Christ died for our 
 sins according to the Scripture." This is the hope in which died 
 all the glorious martyrs of old, in which all who have entered 
 heaven's gate have found their only comfort. Take that doctrine 
 of substitution out of the Bible, and my hope is lost. With the 
 law, without Christ, we are all undone. The law we have broken, 
 and it can only hang over our head the sharp sword of justice. 
 Even if we could keep it from this moment, there remains the 
 unforgiven past. " Without shedding^ of blood there is no re- 
 mission." 
 
" THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE: 9 27 
 
 He only is safe for eternity who is sheltered behind the finished 
 work of Christ. What the law cannot do for us, He can do. He 
 obeyed it to the very letter, and under His obedience we can take 
 our stand. For us He has suffered all its penalties, and paid all 
 that the law demands. " His own self bare our sins in His own 
 body on the tree." He saw the awful end from the beginning ; 
 He knew what death, what ruin, what misery lay before us if we 
 were left to ourselves. And He came from heaven to teach us the 
 new and living way by which " all that believe are justified from 
 all things from which they could not be justified by the law of 
 Moses." 
 
 There is a well-known story told of Napoleon the First's time. 
 In one of the conscriptions, during one of his many wars, a man 
 was balloted as a conscript who did not want to go, but he had a 
 friend who offered to go in his place. His friend joined the regi- 
 ment in his name, and was sent off to the war. By and by a 
 battle came on, in which be was killed, and they buried him on the 
 battle-field. Some time after the Emperor wanted more men, and 
 by some mistake the first man was balloted a second time. They 
 went to take him, but he remonstrated. " You cannot take me." 
 " Why not ! " " I am dead," was the reply. " You are not dead ; 
 you are alive and well." " But I am dead," he said. " Why, man, 
 you must bemad. Where did you die r" " At such a battle, and 
 you left me buried on such a battle-field." " You talk like a mad- 
 man," they cried j but the man stuck to his point that he had been 
 dead and buried some months. " You look up your books," he 
 said, " and see if it is not so." They looked, and found that he 
 was right. They found the man's name entered as drafted, senf 
 to the war, and marked off as killed. " Look here," they said, 
 "you didn't die ; you must have got some one to go for you ; it 
 must have been your substitute:' " I know that," he said ; " he 
 died in my stead. You cannot touch me : I died in that man, and 
 I go free. The law has no claim against me." They would not 
 recognize the doctrine of substitution, and the case was carried to 
 the Emperor. But he said that the man was right, that he was 
 dead and buried in the eyes of the law, and that France had no 
 claim against him. 
 
 The story may be true, or it may not, but one thing I know to 
 
28 " THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE" 
 
 be true, that the Emperor of heaven recognizes the doctrine of sub- 
 stitution. Christ died for me ; that is my hope of eternal life. 
 "There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." 
 If you ask me what you must do to share this blessing, I answer, 
 go and deal personally with Christ about it. Take the sinner's 
 place at the foot of the cross. Strip yourself of all your own 
 righteousness, and put on Christ's. Wrap yourself up in his per- 
 fect robe, and receive Him by simple trust as your own Saviour. 
 Thus you inherit the priceless treasures that Christ hath purchased 
 with his blood. " As many as received Him, to them gave He 
 power to become the sons of God." Yes, sons of God ; power to 
 overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil ; power to crucify 
 every besetting sin, passion, lust ; power to shout in triumph over 
 every trouble and temptation of your life, " I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
 
 I have been trying to tell you the old, old tale that men are 
 sinners. I may be speaking to some one, perhaps, who thinks it a 
 waste of time. '•" God knows I'm a sinner," he cries ; "you don't need 
 to prove it. Since I could speak, I've done nothing but break every 
 law of earth and heaven." Well, my friend, I have good news for 
 you. It is just as easy for God to save you, who have broken the 
 whole decalogue, as the man who has only broken one of the com- 
 mandments. Both are dead — dead in sins. It is no matter how 
 dead you are, or how long you have been dead ; Christ can bring 
 you to life just the same. There is no difference. When Christ 
 met that poor widow coming out of Nain, following the body of 
 her darling boy to the grave — he was just newly dead— His loving 
 heart could not pass her ; He stopped the funeral, and bade the 
 dead arise. He was obeyed at once, and the mother was clasped 
 once more in the living embrace of her son. And when Jesus 
 stood by the grave of Lazarus, who had been dead Jour days, was 
 it not just as easy for Him to say, " Lazarus, come forth " ? Was 
 it not as easy for Him to bring Lazarus from his tomb, who had 
 been dead four days, as the son of the widow, who had been dead 
 but one? Yes, it was just as easy ; there was no difference. They 
 were both alike dead, and Christ saved the one just as easily, and 
 as willingly, and as lovingly as the other. And therefore, my 
 friend, you need not complain that Christ cannot save you. Why, 
 
" THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE." 29 
 
 Christ died for the ungodly. And if you turn to Him at this 
 moment with an honest heart, and receive Him simply as your 
 Saviour and your God, I have the authority of his Word for telling 
 you that He will in no wise cast out. 
 
 And you who have never felt the burden of your sin — you who 
 think there is a great deal of difference — you who thank God that 
 you are not as other men —beware. God has nothing to say to 
 the self-righteous. And unless you humble yourself before Him 
 in the dust, and confess before Him your iniquities and sins, the 
 gate of heaven, which is open only for sinners, saved by grace, must 
 be shut against you for ever. 
 
III. 
 
 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 "The Gospel." — i Cor. xv. I. 
 
 I do not think there is a word in the English language so little 
 understood as the word "gospel." We hear it every day, and we 
 have heard it from our earliest childhood, yet there are many people, 
 and even many Christians, who do not really know what it means. 
 I believe I was a child of God along time before I really knew. 
 The word u gospel" means "God's spell," or good spell, or, in 
 other words, "good news." The gospel is good tidings of great 
 joy. No better news ever came out of heaven than the gospel- 
 No better news ever fell upon the ears of the family of man than 
 the gospel. When the angels came down to proclaim the tidings, 
 what did they say to those shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem ? 
 " Behold, I bring you sad tidings ? " No ! " Behold, I bring you 
 bad news ? " No ! " Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. 
 which shall be to all people -, for unto you is born this day, in the 
 city of David, a Saviour." If those shepherds had been like a 
 good many people at the present time, they would have said, 
 u We do not believe it is good news. It is all excitement. These 
 angels want to get up a revival. These angels are trying to 
 excite us. Don't you believe them." That is what Satan is 
 saying now. " Don't you believe the gospel is good news ; it will 
 only make you miserable." He knows the moment a man 
 believes good news, he just receives it. And no one who is under 
 the power of the devil really believes that the gospel is good news. 
 But these shepherds believed the message that the angels brought* 
 
GOOD NEWS. 31 
 
 and their hearts were filled with joy. If a boy came with a de- 
 spatch to some one here, could you not tell by the receiver's looks 
 what kind of a message it was ? If it brought good news you 
 would see it in his face in a moment. If it told him that his boy, 
 away in some foreign land, a prodigal son, had come to himself, 
 like the one in the 15th of Luke, do you not think that father's 
 face would light up with joy ? And if his wife were here, he would 
 not wait till they got home, or till she asked for it, he would pass 
 it over to her, and her face would brighten too, as she shared his joy. 
 But the tidings that the gospel brings are more glorious than that. 
 We are dead in trespasses and sins, and the gospel offers life. We 
 are enemies to God, and the gospel offers reconciliation. The 
 world is in darkness, and the gospel offers light. Because man 
 will not believe the gospel that Christ is the light of the world, 
 the world is dark to-day. But the moment a man believes, the 
 light from Calvary crosses his path and he walks in an unclouded 
 sun. 
 
 I want to tell you why I like the gospel. It is because it has 
 been the very best news I have ever heard. That is just why I 
 like to preach it, because it has done me so much good. No man 
 can ever tell what it has done for him, but I think I can tell what 
 it has undone. It has taken out of my path four of the bitterest 
 enemies I ever had. 
 
 There is that terrible enemy mentioned in 1 Cor. xv., the last 
 enemy, Death. The gospel has taken it out of the way. My 
 mind very often rolls back twenty years ago, before I was con- 
 verted, and I think how dark it used to seem, as I thought of the 
 future. I well remember how I used to look on death as a 
 terrible monster, how he used to throw his dark shadow across 
 my path ; how I trembled as I thought of the terrible hour when 
 he should come for me ; how I thought I should like to die of 
 some lingering disease, such as consumption, so that I might 
 know when he was coming. It was the custom in our village to 
 toll from the old church bell the age of any one who died. Death 
 never entered that village and tore away one of the inhabitants 
 but I counted the tolling of the bell. Sometimes it was seventy, 
 sometimes eighty • sometimes it would be away down among the 
 
\J 
 
 52 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 teens, sometimes it would toll out the death of some one of my 
 awn age. It made a solemn impression upon me. I felt a coward 
 then. I thought of the cold hand of death feeling for the cords of 
 life. I thought of being launched forth to spend my eternity in 
 an unknown land. 
 
 As I looked into the grave, and saw the sexton throw 
 the earth on the coffin-lid, " Earth to earth j ashes to ashes j 
 dust to dust," it seemed like the death knell to my soul. But 
 that is all changed now. The grave has lost its terror. As I go 
 on towards heaven I can shout, '* O death ! where is thy sting ? " 
 and I hear the answer rolling down from Calvary — " buried in 
 the bosom of the Son of God." He took the sting right out 
 of death for me, and received it into his own bosom. Take a 
 hornet and pluck the sting out ; you are not afraid of it after that 
 any more than of a fly. So death has lost its sting. That 
 last enemy has been overcome, and I can look on death as a 
 crushed victim. All that death can get now is this old Adam, and 
 I do not care how quickly I get rid of it. I shall get a glorified 
 body, a resurrection body, a body much better than this. Suppose 
 death should come stealing up into this pulpit, and lay his icy hand 
 upon my heart, and it should cease to throb, I should rise to the 
 better world to be present with the King. The gospel 
 has made an enemy a friend. What a glorious thought, 
 that when you die you but sink into the arms of Jesus, to 
 be borne to the land of everlasting rest ! " To die," the 
 apostle says, " is gain." I can imagine when they laid our Lord 
 in Joseph's tomb one might have seen death sitting over that 
 sepulchre, saying, " I have Him j He is my victim. He said He 
 was the resurrection and the life. Now I hold Him in my cold 
 embrace. They thought He was never going to die ; but see Him 
 now. He has had to pay tribute to me." Never ! The glorious 
 morning comes, the Son of man bursts asunder the bands of death, 
 and rises, a Conqueror, from the grave. " Because I live," He 
 shouts, " ye shall live also." Yes, ye shall live also— is it not good 
 news ? Ah, my friends, there is no bad news about a gospel 
 which makes it so sweet to live, so sweet to die. 
 
 Another terrible enemy that troubled me was Sin. What a 
 terrible hour I thought it would be, when my sins from childhood, 
 
GOOD NEWS. 33 
 
 every secret thought, every evil desire, everything done in the dark, 
 should be brought to the light, and spread out before an assembled 
 universe ! Thank God, these thoughts are gone. The gospel 
 tells me my sins are all put away in Christ. Oat of love to me 
 He has taken all my sins and cast them behind his back. That 
 is a safe place for them. God never turns back ; He always 
 marches on. He will never see your sins if they are behind his 
 back — that is one of his own illustrations. Satan has to get behind 
 God to find them. How far away are they, and can they ever come 
 back again ? " As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He 
 removed our transgressions from us." Not some of them; He takes 
 them all away. You may pile up your sins till they rise like a 
 dark mountain, and then multiply them by ten thousand for those 
 you cannot think of j and after you have tried to enumerate all the 
 sins you have ever committed, just let me bring one verse in, and 
 that mountain will melt away : " The blood of Jesus Christ, his 
 Son, cleanseth us from all sin." In Ireland, some time ago, a 
 teacher asked a little boy if there was anything God could not do ; 
 and the little fellow said, " Yes j He cannot see my sins through 
 the blood of Christ." That is ^ust what He cannot do. The blood 
 covers them. Is it not gooa news that you can get rid of sin ? 
 You come to Christ a sinner, and if you receive his gospel your 
 sins are taken away. You are invited to do this ; nay, He entreats 
 you to do it. You are invited to make an exchange j to get rid of 
 all your sins, and to take Christ and his righteousness in the place 
 of them. Is not that good news ? 
 
 There is another enemy which used to trouble me a great deal 
 — Judgment. I used to look forward to the terrible day when I 
 should be summoned before God. I could not tell whether I 
 should hear the voice of Christ saying, " Depart from Me, ye 
 cursed," or whether it would be, " Enter thou into the joy of thy 
 Lord." And I thought that till he stood before the great white 
 throne no man could tell whether he was to be on the right hand 
 or the left. But the gospel tells me that is already settled : " There 
 is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." 
 " Verily, verily " — and when you see that word in Scripture, you 
 may know there is something very important coming — " Verily, 
 
 3 
 
34 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on 
 Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into 
 condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." Well, now, / 
 am not coming into judgment for sin. It is no open question. 
 God's word has settled it. Christ was judged for me, and died in 
 my stead, and I go free. He that believeth hath — h-a-t-h, hath. 
 Is not that good news ? A man prayed for me the other day that 
 I might obtain eternal life at last. I could not have said Amen to 
 that. If he meant it in this sense, I obtained eternal life many 
 years ago, when I was converted. What is the gift of God, if it is 
 not eternal life ? And what makes the gospel such good news ? 
 Is it not that it offers eternal life to every poor sinner who will 
 take it ? If an angel came straight from the throne of God, and 
 proclaimed that God had sent him here to offer us any one. thing 
 we might ask — that each one should have his own petition granted 
 — what would be your cry ? There would be but one response, 
 and the cry would make heaven ring : "Eternal life ! eternal life ! " 
 Everything else would float away into nothingness. It is life men 
 want, men value most. Let a man worth a million dollars be on 
 a wrecked vessel, and if he could just save his life for six months 
 by giving that million, he would give it in an instant. But the 
 gospel is not a six months' gift. " The gift of God is eternal life." 
 And is it not one of the greatest marvels that men have to stand 
 and plead, and pray and beseech their fellow-men to take this pre- 
 cious gift of God ? 
 
 My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, 
 of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe 
 spot on earth where the sinner can stand— Calvary. Out in our 
 western country, in the autumn, when men go hunting, and there 
 has not been any rain for months, sometimes the prairie grass 
 catches fire. Sometimes, when the wind is strong, the flames 
 may be seen rolling along, twenty feet high, destroying man and 
 beast in their onward rush. When the frontiersmen see what 
 is coming, what do they do to escape? They know they can- 
 not run as fast as that fire can run. Not the fleetest horse can 
 escape it. They just take a match and light the grass around 
 them. The flames sweep onwards ; they take their stand in the 
 burnt district, and are safe. They hear the flames roar as they 
 
GOOD NEWS. 35 
 
 come along ; they see death bearing down upon them with resist- 
 less fury, but they do not fear. They do not even tremble as the 
 ocean of flame surges around them, for over the place where they 
 stand the fire has already passed, and there is no danger. There is 
 nothing for the fire to burn. And there is one spot on earth that 
 God has swept over. Eighteen hundred years ago the storm burst 
 on Calvary, and the Son of God took it into his own bosom, and 
 now, if we take our stand by the Cross, we are safe for time and 
 for eternity. 
 
 Sinner, would you be safe to-night ? Would you be free from 
 the condemnation of the sins that are past, from the power of the 
 temptations that are to come ? _Then take your stand on the Rock 
 of Ages. Let death, let the grave, let the judgment come, the 
 victory is Christ's, and yours through Him. Oh, will you not 
 receive this gospel to-night — this wonderful message of his sacrifice 
 for you ? 
 
 Some people, when the gospel is preached, put on a long 
 face, as if they had to attend a funeral or witness an execution, 
 or hear some dry, stupid lecture or sermon. It was my pri- 
 vilege to go into Richmond with General Grant's army. I 
 had not been long there before it was announced that the 
 negroes were going to have a jubilee meeting. These coloured 
 people were just coming into liberty j their chains were falling off, 
 and they were just awakening to the fact that they were free. I 
 thought it would be a great event, and I went down to the African 
 Church, one of the largest in the South, and found it crowded. 
 One of the coloured chaplains of a northern regiment had offered to 
 speak. I have heard many eloquent men in Europe and in America 
 but I do not think I ever heard eloquence such as I heard that day 
 He said, " Mothers ! you rejoice to-day ; you are for ever free ! That 
 little child has been torn from vour embrace, and sold off to some 
 distant state for the last time. Your hearts. are never to be broken 
 again in that way ; you are free/' The women clapped their hands 
 and shouted at the top of their voices, " Glory, glory to God ! " 
 It was good news to them, and they believed it. It filled them full 
 of joy. Then he turned to the young men, and said, u Young 
 men ! you rejoice to-day j you have heard the crack of the slave- 
 driver's whip for the last time -, your posterity shall be free \ young 
 
36 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 men rejoice to-day, you are for ever free !" And they clapped their 
 hands, and shouted, " Glory to God! " They believed the good 
 tidings. " Young maidens ! " he said, " you rejoice to-day. You 
 have been put on the auction-block and sold for the last time ; you 
 are free — for ever free ! " They believed it, and lifting up their 
 voices, shouted, " Glory be to God ! " I never was in such a 
 meeting. They believed that it was good news to them. 
 
 My friends, I bring you better tidings than that. No coloured 
 man or woman ever had such a mean, wicked, cruel master as 
 those that are serving Satan. Do I speak to a man who is a slave 
 to strong drink ? Christ can give you strength to hurl the cup 
 from you, and make you a sober man, a loving husband, a kind 
 father. Yes, poor wife of the drunkard, He gives you good 
 news ; your husband may become a sober man again. And you, 
 poor sinner, you who have been so rebellious and wayward, the 
 gospel brings a message of forgiveness to you. God wants you to 
 be reconciled to Him. " Be ye reconciled unto God." It is his 
 message to you — a message of friendship. Here is a little story 
 of reconciliation which I was told lately j perhaps it mav help you 
 a little :— 
 
 There was an Englishman who had an only son ; and only sons 
 are often petted, and humoured, and ruined. This boy became 
 very headstrong, and very often he and his father had trouble. 
 One day they had a quarrel, and the father was very angry, and so 
 was the son ; and the father said he wished the boy would leave 
 home and never come back. The boy said he would go, and 
 would not come into his father's house again till he sent for him. 
 The father said he would never send for him. Well, away went 
 the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother does not. 
 You mothers will understand that, but the fathers may not. You 
 know there is no love on earth so strong as a mother's love. A 
 great many things may separate a man and his wife j a great many 
 things may separate a father from a son ; but there is nothing in 
 the wide world that can ever separate a true mother from her child. 
 To be sure, there are some mothers that have drunk so much 
 liquor, that they have drunk up all their affection. But I am 
 talking about a true mother j and shewoulu never cast off her boy. 
 
 Well, the mother began to write, and plead with the boy to 
 
GOOD NEWS. 37 
 
 write to his father first, and he would forgive him ; but the boy 
 said, "I will never go home till fame* asks me." Then she 
 pled with the father, but the father sau», " No, I will never ask 
 him." At last the mother came down to her sick-bed, broken- 
 hearted, and when she was given up by the physicians to die, the 
 husband, anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted to know if there 
 was nothing he could do for her before she died. The mother 
 gave him a look j he well knew what it meant. Then she said, 
 " Yes, there is one thing you can do. You can send for my boy. 
 That is the only wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not 
 pity him and love him when I am dead and gone, who will ? " 
 "Well," said the father, "I will send word to him that you want 
 to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will not come for 
 me. If ever I see him you must send for him." At last the 
 father went to his office and wrote a despatch in his own name, 
 asking the boy to come home. As. soon as he got the invitation 
 from his father he started off to see his dying mother. When he 
 opened the door to go in he found his mother dying, and his father 
 by the bedside. The father heard the door open, and saw the boy, 
 but instead of going to meet him he went to another part of the 
 room, and refused to speak to him. His mother seized his hand- 
 how she had longed to press it ! She kissed him, and then said, 
 " Now, my son, just speak to your father. You speak first, and it 
 will all be over." But the boy said, "No, mother, I will not 
 speak to him until he speaks to me." She took her husband's 
 hand in one hand and the boy's in the other, and spent her dying 
 moments in trying to bring about a reconciliation. Then just as 
 she was expiring — she could not speak — so she put the hand of 
 the wayward boy into the hand of the father, and passed away ! 
 The boy looked at the mother, and the father at the wife, and at 
 last the father's heart broke, and he opened his arms, and took 
 that boy to his bosom, and by that body they were reconciled. 
 Sinner, that is only a faint type, a poor illustration, because God is 
 not angry with you. I. bring you to-night to the dead body of 
 Christ. I ask you to look at the wounds in his hands and feet, 
 and the wound in his side. And I ask you, " Will you not be 
 reconciled ? " When He left heaven, He went down into the 
 manger that He might get hold of the vilest sinner, and put the 
 
38 GOOD NEWS, 
 
 Hand of the wayward prodigal into that of the Father, and He died 
 that you and I might be reconciled. If you take my advice you 
 will not sleep to-night until you are reconciled. " Be ye recon- 
 ciled." Oh. this gospel of reconciliation ! My friends, is it not a 
 ^lad gospel ? 
 
 And then it is a free gospel ; any one may have it. You need 
 not ask, " For whom is this good news." It is for yourself. If 
 vou would like Christ's own word for it, come with me to that 
 scene in Jerusalem where the disciples are bidding II im farewell. 
 Calvary with all its horrors is behind Him ; Gethsemane is over, 
 and Pilate's judgment hall. He has passed the grave, and is 
 about to take his place at the right hand of the Father. Around 
 Him stands his little band of disciples, the little church He was 
 to leave behind Him to be his witnesses. The hour of parting has 
 come, and He has some " last words " for them. Is He thinking 
 about Himself in these closing moments ? Is He thinking about 
 the throne that is waiting Him, and the Father's smile that will 
 welcome Him to heaven ? Is He going over in memory the scenes 
 of the past ; or is He thinking of the friends who have followed 
 Him so far, who will miss Him so much when He is gone ? No, 
 He is thinking about you. You imagined He would think of 
 those who loved Him ? No, sinner, He thought of you then. He 
 thought of his enemies, those who shunned Him, those who de- 
 spised Him, those who killed Him — He thought what mote He 
 could do for them. He thought of those who would hate Him, of 
 those who would have none of his gospel, o f those who would say 
 \t was too good to be true, of those who would make excuse that 
 He never died for them. And then turning to his disciples, his 
 heart just bursting with compassion, He gives them his farewell 
 charge, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to 
 every creature." They are almost his last words, "to every 
 creature." 
 
 I can imagine Peter saying, " Lord, do you really mean that we 
 shall preach the gospel to every creature?" "Yes, Peter." 
 " Shall we go back to Jerusalem and preach the gospel to those 
 Terusalem sinners who murdered you ? " "Yes, Peter, go back 
 and tarry there until you are endued with power from on high. 
 
GOOD NEWS. 
 
 Offer the gospel to them first. Go search out that man who spat 
 in my face ; tell him I forgive him j there is nothing in my heart 
 but love for him. Go, search out the man who put that cruel 
 crown of thorns on my brow ; tell him I will have a crown ready 
 for him in my kingdom, if he will accept salvation ; there shall not 
 be a thorn in it, and he shall wear it for ever and ever in the 
 kingdom of his Redeemer. Find out that man who took the reed 
 from my hand, and smote my head, driving the thorns deeper into 
 my brow. If he will accept salvation as a gift, I will give him a 
 sceptre, and he shall sway it over the nations of the earth. Yes, 
 I will give him to sit with Me upon my throne. Go, seek that 
 man who struck Me with the palm of his hand; find him, and 
 preach the gospel to him ; tell him that the blood of Jesus Christ 
 cleanseth from all sin, and my blood was shed for him freely." 
 Yes, I can imagine Him saying, " Go, seek out that poor soldier 
 who drove the spear into my side 3 tell him that there is a nearer 
 way to my heart than that. Tell him that I forgive him freely j 
 and tell him I will make him a soldier of the cross, and my banner 
 over him shall be love." 
 
 I thank God that the gospel is to be preached to every creature. 
 I thank God the commission is so free. There is no man so far 
 gone, but the grace of God can reach him ; no man so desperate or 
 so black, but He can forgive him. Yes, I thank God I can preach 
 the gospel to the man or the woman who is as black as hell itself. 
 I thank God for the " whosoevers " of the invitations of Christ. 
 " God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life," and " IVhosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." 
 
 I heard of a woman once who thought there was no promise in 
 the Bible for her, they were all for other people. One day she got 
 a letter, and when she opened it, found it was not for her at all, 
 but for some other woman of the same name. It led her to ask 
 herself, " If I should find some promise in the Bible directed to 
 me, how should I know that it meant me, and not some other 
 woman ? " And she found out that she must just take God at his 
 word, and include herself among the " whosoevers " and the " every 
 creatures " to whom the gospel is freely preached. I know that 
 word "whosoever" means every man, every woman, every child 
 
40 GOOD NEWS. 
 
 in this wide world. It means that boy down there, that grey- 
 haired man, that maiden in the blush of youth, that young man 
 breaking a mother's heart, that drunkard steeped in misery and sin. 
 Oh, my friends, will you not believe this good news ? Will you 
 not receive this wonderful gospel of Christ ? Will you not believe, 
 poor sinner, that it means you ? Will you say it is too good to be 
 true ? 
 
 I was in Ohio a few years ago, and was invited to preach in the 
 State prison. Eleven hundred convicts were brought into the 
 chapel, and all sat in front of me. After I had got through the 
 preaching, the chaplain said to me : " Mr. Moody, I want to tell 
 you of a scene which occurred in this room. A few years ago, our 
 commissioners went to the governor of the State, and got him to 
 promise that he would pardon five men for good behaviour. The 
 governor consented, with this understanding — that the record was 
 to be kept secret, and that at the end of six months the five men 
 highest on the roll should receive a pardon, regardless of who or 
 what they were. At the end of six months the prisoners were all 
 brought into the chapel j the commissioners came up, and the 
 President stood up on the platform, and putting his hand in his 
 pocket, brought out some papers, and said, ' I hold in my hand* 
 pardons for five men.' " The chaplain told me he never witnessed 
 anything on earth like it. Every man was as still as death j many 
 tvere deadly pele, and the suspense was awful ; it seemed as if 
 every heart had ceased to beat. The commissioner went on to tell 
 them how they had got the pardon j but the chaplain interrupted 
 him. " Before you make your speech, read out the names. This 
 suspense is awful." So he read out the first name, " Reuben 
 Johnson will come and get his pardon j r ' and he held it out, but 
 none came forward. He said to the governor, "Are all the 
 prisoners here?" The governor told him they were all there. 
 Then he said again, " Reuben Johnson will come and get his 
 pardon. It is signed and sealed by the governor. He is a free 
 man." Not one moved. The chaplain told me he looked right 
 down where Reuben was ; he was well known j he had been nine- 
 teen years there, and many were looking round to see him spring • 
 to his feet. But he himself waslooking round to see the fortunate 
 man who had got his pardon. Finally the chaplain caught his eye 
 
GOOD NEWS. 41 
 
 and said, ''Reuben, you are the man." Reuben turned round and 
 looked behind him to see where Reuben was. The chaplain said 
 the second time, " Reuben, you are the man 5" and the second 
 time he looked round, thinking it must be some other Reuben. So 
 men do not believe the gospel is for them. They think it is too 
 good, and pass it over their shoulders to the next man. But you 
 are the man to-night. Well, the chaplain could see where Reuben 
 was, and he had to say three times, " Reuben, come and get your 
 pardon." At last the truth began to steal over the old man ; he 
 got up and came along down the hall, trembling from head to foot, 
 and when he got the pardon he looked at it, and went back to his 
 seat, and buried his face 'in his hands, and wept. When the 
 prisoners got into the ranks to go back to the cells, Reuben got 
 into the ranks too, and the chaplain had to call to him, " Reuben, 
 get out of the ranks j you are a free man, you are no longer a 
 prisoner." And Reuben stepped out of the ranks. He was free! 
 That is the way men make out pardons. They make them out for 
 good character or good behaviour. But God makes out pardons 
 for men who have not got any character, who have been very, very 
 bad. He offers a pardon to every sinner on earth if he will 
 take it. I do not care who he is or what he is like. He may be 
 the greatest libertine that ever walked the streets, or the greatest 
 blackguard who ever lived, or the greatest drunkard, or thief, or 
 vagabond ; but I come to-night with glad tidings, and preach the 
 gospel to every creature. 
 
rv. 
 
 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 " The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which 
 was lost." — Luke xix. io. 
 
 To me this is one of the sweetest verses in the whole Bible. In 
 this one little short sentence we are told what Christ came into 
 this world for. He came for a purpose ; He came to do a work, 
 and in this little verse the whole story is told. He came not to 
 condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be 
 saved. 
 
 A few years ago, the Prince of Wales came to America, and 
 there was great excitement about this Crown Prince coming 
 to our country. The papers took it up, and began to discuss 
 it, and a great many were wondering what he came for. Was 
 it to look into the republican government? Was it for his 
 health ? Was it to see our institutions ? or for this, or for that ? 
 He came, and went, but he never told us what he came for. But 
 when the Prince of Heaven came down into this world, He told 
 us what He came for. God sent Him, and He came to do the 
 will of His Father. What was that ? " To seek and to save that 
 which was lost." And you cannot find any place in Scripture 
 where a man was ever sent by God to do a work in which he 
 failed. God sent Moses to Egypt to bring three millions of bond- 
 men up out of the house of bondage into the promised land. Did 
 he fail ? It looked, at first, as if he were going to. If we had been 
 in the Court when Pharaoh said to Moses, " Who is God, that I 
 should obey Him?" and ordered him out of his presence, we 
 might have thought it meant failure. But did it? God sent 
 Elijah to stand before Ahab, and it was a bold thing when he told 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 43 
 
 him there should be neither dew nor rain ; but didn't he lock up 
 the heavens for three years and six months ? Now here is God 
 sending his own beloved Son from his bosom, from the throne, 
 down into this world. Do you think He is going to fail? Thanks 
 be to God, He can save to the uttermost, and there is not a man in 
 this city who may not rind it so, if he is willing to be saved. 
 
 I rind a great blessing to myself in taking up a passage like 
 this, and looking all round it, to see what brought it out. If you 
 lookback to the close of the eighteenth chapter, you will rind Christ 
 coming near the city of Jericho. And, sitting by the wayside, 
 was a poor, blind beggar. Perhaps he has been there for years, 
 led out, it may be, by one of his children, or perhaps, as we some- 
 times see, he had got a dog to lead him out. There he had sat 
 for years, and his cry had been, " Please give a poor, blind man a 
 .-arming." One day, as he was sitting there, a man came down 
 from Jerusalem, and seeing the poor blind man, took his seat by 
 his side, and said, "Bartimeus, I have good news for you." 
 "What is it? " said the blind beggar. "There is a man in Israel 
 who is able to give you sight." " Oh no," said the blind beggar, 
 " there is no chance of my ever receiving sight. I was born blind, 
 and nobody born blind ever got sight. I shall never see in this 
 world j I may in the world to come, but I must go through this 
 world blind." "But," said the man, "let me tell you, I was at 
 Jerusalem the other day, and the great Galilean prophet was there, 
 and I saw a man who was born blind that had received his sight j 
 and I never saw a man with better sight. He does not need to 
 use glasses 5 he can see quite clear." Then for the first time, hope 
 rises in the poor man's heart, and he asks " How was it done ? " 
 " Why, Jesus spat on the ground and made some clay, and 
 anointed his eyes,'' (why, that is enough to put a man's sight out, 
 even if he can see !) " and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloarm 
 and while he was doing so, he got two good eyes. Yes, it is so. 
 I talked with him, and I didn't see a man in all Jerusalem who 
 had better sight." "What did He charge?" says Bartimeus. 
 " Nothing. There was no fee or doctor's bill j he got his sight 
 for nothing. You just tell Him what you want ; you don't need 
 to have an influential committee to call on Him, or any important 
 deputation. The poor have as much influence with Him as the 
 
44 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 rich; all are alike." "What is his name?" asks Bartimeus. 
 u Jesus of Nazareth. And if He ever comes this way, don't you 
 let Him by, without getting your case laid before Him." And the 
 blind man says "That you may be sure of; He shall never pass 
 this way without my seeking Him." 
 
 A day or two after, he is led out, and takes his seat at the usual 
 place, still crying out for money. All at once, he hears the foot- 
 steps of a coming multitude, and begins to cry, " Who is it ? " 
 "Tell me, who is it? " Some one said it was Jesus ot Nazareth 
 that was passing by. The moment he hears that, he says to him- 
 self, " Why,„that is the man who gives sight to the blind," and he 
 lifted up his cry, " Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon 
 me ! V I don't know who it was — perhaps it was Peter — who 
 said to the man, " Hush ! keep still." He thought the Lord was 
 going up to Jerusalem to be crowned King, and He would not like 
 to be disturbed by a poor blind beggar. Oh they did not know 
 the Son of God when He was here ! He would hush every harp 
 in heaven to hear a sinner pray; no music delights Him so 
 much. But Bartimeus lifted up his* voice louder,' " Thou Son of 
 David, have mercy on me." His prayer reached the ear of the 
 Son of God, as prayer always will> and His footsteps were arrested. 
 He told them to bring the man. " Bartimeus," they said, " be of 
 good cheer, arise, He calleth thee ; " and He never called any one, 
 but He had something good in store for him. Oh, sinner ! remem- 
 ber that to-night. They led the blind man to Jesus. The Lord 
 says, " What shall 1 do for you ? " " Lord, that I may receive my 
 sight." "You shall have it," the Lord said; and straightway his 
 eyes were opened. 
 
 I should have liked to have been there, to see that wonderful scene. 
 The, first object that met his gaze was the Son of God Himself, 
 and now among the shouting multitude, no one shouts louder than 
 the poor blind man that has got his sight. He glorifies God, and 
 I fancy I can hear him shouting " Hosanna to the Son of David," 
 more sweetly than Mr. Sankey can sing. 
 
 Pardon me, if I now draw a little on my imagination. 
 Bartimeus gets into Jericho, and he says, " I will go and see 
 my wife, and tell her about it." A young convert always 
 wants to talk to his friends about salvation. Away he goes 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 45 
 
 down the street, and he meets a man who passes him, goes 
 on a few yards, and then turns round and says, " Bartimeus? 
 is that you?" "Yes." "Well, I thought it was, but I could 
 not believe my eyes. How have you got your sight?" "Oh, 
 I just met Jesus of Nazareth outside the city, and asked Him 
 to have mercy on me." " Jesus of Nazareth ! What, is He in 
 this part of the country ? " "Yes. He is right here in Jericho. 
 He is now going down to the western gate." "I should like to 
 see Him," says the man, and away he runs down the street 5 but 
 he cannot catch a glimpse of Him, even though he stands on tip- 
 toe, being little of stature, and on account of the great throng 
 around Him. "Well," he says, "I am not going to be dis- 
 appointed;" so he runs on, and climbs up into a sycamore tree- 
 " If I can get on to that branch, hanging right over the highway, 
 He cannot pass without my getting a good look at Him." That 
 must have been a very strange sight to see the rich man climbing 
 up a tree like a boy, and hiding among the leaves, where he thought 
 nobody would see him, to get a glimpse of the passing stranger ! 
 There is the crowd bursting out, and he looks for Jesus. He looks at 
 Peter ; " That's not Him." He looks at John ; " That's not Him/' 
 At last his eye rested on One fairer than the sons of men ; " That's 
 Him ! " And Zaccheus, just peeping out from among the 
 branches, looks down upon the wonderful God-man in amaze- 
 ment. At last the crowd comes to the tree ; it looks as if 
 Christ were going by ; but He stops right under the tree, looks up, 
 and says, " Zaccheus, make haste and come down." I can 
 imagine, the first thought in his mind was, "Who told Him my 
 name? I was never introduced to Him." Ah! He knew him. 
 Sinner, Christ knows all about you. He knows your f name and 
 your house. You need not try to hide from Him. He knows 
 where you are, and all about you. 
 
 Some people do not believe in sudden conversion. I should 
 like them to answer me when was Zaccheus converted ? He was 
 certainly in his sins when he went up into that tree ; he certainly 
 was converted when he came down. He must have been con- 
 verted somewhere between the branch and the ground. It didn't 
 take a long while to convert that publican ! " Make haste and 
 come down. I shall never pass this way again ; this is my last 
 
46 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 visit." Zaccheus made haste, and came down and received Him 
 joyfully. Did you ever hear of any one receiving Christ in any 
 other way? He received Him joyfully. Christ brings joy with 
 Him. Sin, gloom, and darkness flee away ; light, peace, and joy 
 burst into the soul. May there be many that shall come down 
 from their high places, and receive Christ to-night ! 
 
 Some one may ask, " How do you know that he was converted ? " 
 I think he gave very good evidence. I would like to see as fruit- 
 ful evidence of conversion here to-night. Let some of you rich 
 men be converted, and give half your goods to feed the poor, and 
 people will believe pretty quickly that it is genuine work ! But 
 there is better evidence even than that. . " If I have taken any- 
 thing from any man falsely, / restore him fourfold." Very good 
 evidence that. You say if people are converted suddenly, they 
 won't hold out. Zaccheus held out long enough to restore four- 
 fold. We should like to have a work that reaches men's pockets. 
 I can imagine one of his servants going to a neighbour next morn' 
 ing, with a check for $100, and handing it over. "What is this 
 for ? " " Oh, my master defrauded you of $25 a few years ago, 
 and this is restitution money." That would give confidence in 
 Zaccheus' conversion ! I wish a few cases like that would happen 
 now, and then neople would stop talking against sudden conver- 
 sions. 
 
 The Lord goes to be the publican's guest, and while He is then? 
 the Pharisees began to murmur and complain. It would have been 
 a good thing if Pharisees had died off with that generation j but, 
 unfortunately, they have left a good many grandchildren, living 
 down here in the afternoon of this nineteenth century, who are 
 ever complaining, " This man receiveth sinners." But while the 
 Pharisees were complaining, the Lord uttered the text I have to- 
 night, "I did not come to Zaccheus' to make him wretched, to 
 condemn him, to torment him ; I came to bless and save him. 
 The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" 
 
 If there is a man or woman in this audience to-night who believe 
 that he or she is lost, I have good news to tell you — Christ is cor 
 after you. I was at the Fulton Street prayer-meeting, a good mai 
 years ago, one Saturday night, and when the meeting was over, a m£ 
 came to me, and said, " I would like to have you go down to tl 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 47 
 
 city prison to-morrow, and preach to the prisoners. I said I would 
 be very glad to go. There was no chapel in connection with that 
 prison, and I was to preach to them in their cells. I had to stand at a 
 little iron railing and talk down a great, long narrow passage way, to 
 some three or four hundred of them, I suppose, all out of sight. It 
 was pretty difficult work -, I never preached to the bare walls before. 
 When it was over I thought I would like to see to whom I had 
 been preaching, and how they had received the gospel. I went to 
 the first door, where the inmates could have heard me best, and 
 looked in at a little window, and there were some men playing cards. 
 I suppose they had been playing all the while. " How is it with 
 you here ? " I said. "Well, stranger, we don't want you to get a 
 bad idea of us. False witnesses swore a lie, and that is how we 
 are here." "Oh," I said, "Christ cannot save anybody here j 
 there is nobody lost." I went to the next cell. " Well, friend, how 
 is it with you ? " " Oh," said the prisoner, " the man that did the 
 deed looked very much like me, so they caught me and I am here/' 
 He was innocent too ! I passed along to the next cell. " How is 
 it with you ? " " Well, we got into bad company, and the man that 
 did it got clear, and we got taken up, but we never did anything." 
 I went along to the next cell. " How is it with you ? " " Our trial 
 comes on next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get 
 free." I went round nearly every cell, but the answer was always the 
 same — they had never done anything. Why, I never saw so many 
 innocent men together in my life ! There was nobody to blame 
 but the magistrates, according to their way of it. These men were 
 wrapping their filthy rags of self-righteousness about them. And 
 that has been the story for six thousand years. I got discouraged 
 as I went through the prison, on, and on, and on, cell after cell, and 
 every man had an excuse. If he hadn't one, the devil helped him 
 to make one. I had got almost through the prison, when I came 
 to a cell and found a man with his elbows on his knees, and his 
 head in his hands. Two little streams of tears were running down 
 his cheeks ; they did not come by drops that time. 
 
 u What's the trouble ? " I said. He looked up the picture of 
 remorse and despair. " Oh, my sins are more than I can bear." 
 " Thank God for that," I replied. " What," said he, " you are the 
 man that has been preaching to us, ain't you?" "Yes." "I 
 
48 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 think you said you were a friend ? " " I am." " And yet you 
 are glad that my sins are more than I can bear ! " " I will 
 explain," I saidj "if your sins are more than you can bear, 
 won't you cast them on One who will bear them for you ? " 
 " Who's that ? " " The Lord Jesus." " He won't bear my sins." 
 "Why not?" "I have sinned against Him all my life." "I 
 don't care if you have; the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Sor^ 
 cleanses from all sin." Then I told him how Christ had come to 
 seek and save that which was lost ; to open the prison doors and 
 set the captives free. It was like a cup of refreshment to find a 
 man who believed he was lost, so I stood there, and held up a 
 crucified Saviour to him. " Christ was delivered for our offences, 
 died for our sins, rose again for our justification." For a long time the 
 man could not believe that such a miserable wretch could be saved. 
 He went on to enumerate his sins, and I told him that the blood 
 of Christ could cover them all. After I had talked with him I said, 
 " Now let us pray." He got down on his knees inside the cell, 
 and I got down outside, and I said, " You pray." " Why," he said, 
 " it would be blasphemy for me to call on God." " You call on 
 God," I said. He knelt down, and, like the poor publican, he 
 lifted up his voice and said, "God be merciful to me, a v vile 
 wretch ! " I put my hand through the window, and as I shook 
 hands with him a tear fell on my hand that burned down into my 
 soul. It was a tear of repentance. He believed he was lost. 
 Then I tried to get him to believe that Christ had come to save 
 him. I left him still in darkness. " I will be at the hotel," I 
 said, " between nine and ten o'clock, and I will pray for you." 
 Next morning, I felt so much interested in him, that I thought 
 I must see him before I went back to Chicago. No sooner had 
 my eye lighted on his face, than I saw that remorse and despair 
 had fled away, and his countenance was beaming with celestial light ; 
 the tears of joy had come into his eyes, and the tears of despair were 
 gone. The Sun of Righteousness had broken out across his path; 
 his soul was leaping within him for joy ; he had received Christ. 
 as Zaccheus did, joyfully. " Tell me about it," I said. (C Well, I 
 do not know what time it was ; I think it was about midnight. I 
 had been in distress a long time, when all at once my great burden 
 fell off, and now, I believe I am the happiest man in New York.'* 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 49 
 
 I think he was the happiest man I saw, from the time I left 
 Chicago till I got back again. His face was lighted up with the 
 light that comes from the celestial hills. I bade him good-bve, 
 and I expect to meet him in another world. 
 
 Can you tell me why the Son of God came down to that prison 
 that night, and, passing cell after cell, went to that one, and set the 
 captive free ? It was because the man believed he was lost. 
 
 But you say, " / do not feel that." Well, never mind your 
 feelings ; believe it. Just ask yourself, '' Am I saved, or am I lost ?" 
 It must be one or the other. There is no neutrality about the matter. 
 A man cannot be saved and lost at the same time ; it is impossible. 
 Every man and woman in this audience must either be saved or 
 lost, if the Bible be true ; and if I thought it was not true, I should 
 not be here preaching, and I would not advise you people to come ; 
 but if the Bible is true, every man and every woman in this room 
 rnust either be in the ark or out of it, either saved or lost. 
 
 I do not believe there would be a dry eye in this city to-night, if 
 we would but wake up to the thought of what it is to be lost. 
 "The world has been rocked to sleep by Satan, who is going up and 
 down and telling people that it doesn't mean anything. I believe 
 in the old-fashioned heaven and hell. Christ came down to save us 
 from a terrible hell, and any man who is cast down to hell from 
 here must go in the full blaze of the gospel, and over the 
 mangled body of the Son of God. 
 
 We hear of a man who has lost his health, and we sympathize 
 with him, and we say it is very sad. Our hearts are drawn out in 
 sympathy. Here is another man who has lost his wealth, and we 
 say, " That is very sad. 1 ' Here is another man who has lost his 
 reputation, his standing among men. u That is sadder still," you 
 say We know what it is to lose health and wealth, and repu- 
 tation, but what is the loss of all these things compared with the 
 loss of the soul ? 
 
 I was in an eye- infirmary in Chicago some time ago, before the 
 great fire. A mother brought a beautiful little babe to the doctor — 
 a babe only a few months old — and wanted the doctor to look at 
 the child's eyes. He did so, and pronounced it blind— blind for 
 life— it will never see again. The moment he said that, the mother 
 seized it, pressed it to her bosom, and gave a terrible scream. It 
 
 4 
 
50 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 pierced my heart, and I could not but weep ; the doctor wept ; we 
 could not help it. "Oh, my darling," she cried, "are you never 
 to see the mother that gave you birth ? Oh, doctor, I cannot stand 
 it. My child, my child !" It was a sight to move any heart. But 
 what is the loss of eyesight to the loss of a soul ? I had a thousand 
 times rather have these eyes taken out of my head and go to the 
 grave blind, than lose my soul. I have a son, and no one but 
 God knows how I love him; but I would see those eyes dug 
 out of his head to-night rather than see him grow up to manhood 
 and go down to the grave without Christ and without hope. The 
 loss of a soul ! Christ knew what it meant. That is what brought 
 Him from the bosom of the Father ; that is what brought Him 
 from the throne j that is what brought Him to Calvary. The Son 
 of God was in earnest. When He died on Calvary it was to save 
 a lost world ; it was to save your soul and mine. 
 
 O the loss of the soul — how terrible it is! If you are lost to-night, 
 I beseech you do not rest until you have found peace in Christ. 
 Fathers and mothers, if you have children out of the Ark, do not 
 rest until they are brought into it. Do not discourage your children 
 from coming to Christ. I am glad to see those little boys and 
 girls here. Dear children, remember the sermon is for you. The 
 Son of Man came for you as much as for that old grey-haired man, 
 yonder. He came for all, rich and poor, young and old. Young 
 man, if you are lost may God show it to you, and may you press 
 into the kingdom. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save 
 you. 
 
 There is a story told of Rowland Hill. He was once preaching 
 in the open air to a vast audience. Lady Anne Erskine was riding 
 by, and she asked who it was that was addressing the vast assembly. 
 She was told it was the celebrated Rowland Hill Says she, " I 
 have heard of him j drive me near the platform, that I may listei 
 to him." The eye of Rowland Hill rested on her ; he saw that 
 she belonged to royalty, and turning to some one, he inquired wh( 
 she was. He went on preaching, and all at once, he stopped 
 " My friends," he said, " I have got something here for sale." 
 Everybody was startled to think that a minister was going to sel 
 something in his sermon. " I am going to sell it by auction, anc 
 it is worth more than the crown of all Europe : it is the soul 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 51 
 
 Lady Anne Erskine. Will any one bid for her soul ? Hark \ 
 methinks I hear a bid. Who bids ? Satan bids. What will you 
 give ? I will give riches, honour, and pleasure ; yea, I will give 
 the whole world for her soul. Hark ! I hear another bid for this 
 soul. Who bids ? The Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, what will you 
 give for this soul ? I will give peace, and joy, and comfort that 
 the world kuows not of; yea, I will give eternal life for her soul." 
 Turning to Lady Anne Erskine, he said, " You have heard the two 
 bidders for your soul — which shall have it ? " She ordered the 
 footman to open the door, and pushing her way through the crowd, 
 she says, " The Lord Jesus shall have my soul, if He will accept 
 it." That may be true, or it may not ; but there is one thing I 
 know to be true — there are two bidders for your soul to-night. It 
 is for you to decide which shall have it. Satan offers you what he 
 cannot give; he is a liar, and has been from the foundation of the 
 world. I pity the man who is living on the devil's promises. He 
 lied to Adam, and deceived him, stripped him of all he had, and 
 then left him in his lost, ruined condition. And all the men since 
 Adam, living on the devil's lies, the devil's promises, have been 
 disappointed, and will be, down to the end of the chapter. But 
 the Lord Jesus Christ is able to give all He offers, and He offers 
 eternal life to every lost soul here. "The gift of God is eternal 
 life. Who will have it ? Will any one flash it over the wires, 
 and let it go up to the throne of God, that you want to be saved ? 
 As Mr. Sankey sang of that shout around the throne, my heart 
 went up to God, that there might be a great shout for lost ones 
 brought home to-night. 
 
 Some time since a man told me he was anxious to be saved, 
 but Christ had never sought for him. I said, " What are you 
 waiting for } "' " Why,' he said, " I am waiting for Christ to call 
 me ; as soon as He calls me, 1 am coming." There may be others 
 here who have got the same notion. Now, I do not believe there 
 is a man in this land that the Spirit of God has not striven with at 
 some period of his life. I do not believe there is a person in this 
 audience but Christ has sought after him. Bear in mind, He takes 
 the place of the seeker. Every man who has ever been saved 
 through these six thousand years was first sought after by 
 God. No sooner did Adam fall, than God sought him. He 
 
52 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 had gone away frightened, and hid himself away among the 
 bushes in the garden, but God took the place of the Seeker j 
 and from that day to this God has always had the place of the 
 Seeker. No man or woman in this audience has been saved but 
 that He sought them first. 
 
 What do we read in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke ? There 
 is a shepherd bringing home his sheep into the fold. As they pass 
 in, he stands and numbers them. I can see him counting one, 
 two, three, up to ninety- nine. " But," says he, " I ought to have a 
 hundred ; I must have made a mistake ;" and he counts them over 
 again. " There are only ninety-nine here ; I must have lost one." 
 He does not say, "I will let him find his own way back." No! 
 He takes the place of the Seeker ; he goes out into the mountain, and 
 hunts until he finds the lost one, and then he lays it on his shoulder 
 and brings it home. Is it the sheep that finds the shepherd ? No, 
 it is the shepherd that finds and brings back the sheep. He re- 
 joiced to find it. Undoubtedly the sheep was very glad to get back 
 to the fold, but it was the shepherd who rejoiced, and who called 
 his friends and said, " Rejoice with me." 
 
 Then there is that woman who lost the piece of money. Some 
 one perhaps had paid her a bill that day, giving her ten pieces of 
 silver. As she retires at night, she takes the money out of her 
 pocket and counts it. u Why," she says, " I have only got nine 
 pieces ; I ought to have ten." She counts it over again. " Only 
 nine pieces! Where have I been," she says, " since I got that 
 money ? I am sure I have not been out of the house." She turns 
 her pocket wrong side out, and there she finds a hole in it. Does 
 she wait until the money gets back into her pocket ? No. She takes 
 a broom, and lights a candle, and sweeps diligently. She moves the 
 sofa and the table and the chairs, and all the rest of the furniture, 
 and sweeps in every corner until she finds it. And when she has 
 found it, who rejoices ? The piece of money ? No ; the woman 
 who finds it. In these parables, Christ brings out the great truth 
 that God takes the place of Seeker. People talk of finding Christ, 
 but it is Christ who first finds them. 
 
 Another young man told me one night that he was too great a 
 sinner to be saved. Why, they are the very men Christ came after. 
 "This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." The only 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 53 
 
 charge they could bring against Christ down here was, that He was 
 receiving bad men. They are the very kind of men He is willing 
 to receive. All you have got to do is, to prove that you are a 
 sinner, and I will prove that you have got a Saviour. And the 
 greater the sinner, the greater need you have of a Saviour. You 
 say your heart is hard j well, then, of course, you want Christ to 
 soften it. You cannot do it yourself. The harder your heart, the 
 more need you have of Christ ; the blacker you are, the more need 
 you have of a Saviour. If your sins rise up before you like a dark 
 mountain, bear in mind that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses 
 from all sin. There is no sin so big, or so black, or so corrupt and 
 vile, but the blood of Christ can cover it. So I preach the old 
 gospel again, " The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost." 
 
 It was Adam's fall, his loss, that brought out God's love. 
 God never told Adam when He put him into Eden, that He loved 
 him. It was his fall, his sin, that brought it out. A friend of mine 
 from Manchester was in Chicago a few years ago, and he was very 
 much interested in the city — a great city, with its 300,000 or 400,000 
 inhabitants, with its great railway centres, its lumber market, its pork 
 market, and its grain market. He said he went back to Manchester 
 and told his friends about Chicago. But he could not get anybody 
 very much interested in it. It was a great many hundreds of miles 
 away ; and the people did not seem to care for hearing about it. 
 But one day there came flashing along the wire the sad tidings that 
 it was on fire ; and, my friend said, the Manchester people became 
 suddenly interested in Chicago ! Every despatch that came they 
 read ; they bought up the papers, and devoured every particle of news. 
 And at last, when the despatch came that Chicago was burning up, 
 that 100,000 people were turned out of house and home, then every 
 one became so interested that they began to weep for us. They 
 came forward and laid down their money — some gave hundreds of 
 dollars for the relief of the poor sufferers. It was the calamity of 
 Chicago that brought out the love of Manchester, and of London, 
 and of Liverpool. I was in that terrible fire, and I saw men that 
 were wealthy stripped of all they had. That Sunday night, when 
 they retired, they were the richest men in Chicago. Next morning 
 they were paupers. But I did not see a man weep. But when the 
 
54 CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 
 
 news came flashing along the wire, " Liverpool gives ten thous- 
 and dollars ; Manchester sends five thousand dollars ; London 
 is giving money to aid the city ;" and as the news kept flashing 
 that help was coming, our city was broken-hearted. I saw men 
 weep then. The love that was shown us broke our hearts. So the 
 love of God ought to break every heart in this city. It was love 
 that brought Christ down here to die for us. It was love that made 
 Him leave His place by the Father's throne and come down here 
 to seek and to save that which was lost. 
 
 But now for the sake of these men who believe Christ never 
 sought them, perhaps it would be well to say how He seeks. There 
 are a great many ways in which He does so. One night I found 
 a man in the inquiry-room, and the Lord had been speaking to 
 him by the prayers of a godly sister who died a little while ago. 
 Her prayers were answered. He came into the inquiry-room 
 trembling from head to foot. I talked to him about the plan of 
 salvation, and the tears trickled down his cheeks, and at last he took 
 Christ as his Saviour. The Son of Man sought out that young 
 man through the prayers of his sister, and then through her death. 
 
 Some of you have godly, praying mothers, who have prayed whole 
 nights for your soul, and who have now gone to heaven. Did not 
 you take their hand and promise that you would meet them there ? 
 That was the Son of God seeking you by your mother's prayers 
 and your mother's death. Some of you have got faithful, godly 
 ministers who weep for you in the pulpit, and plead with you to 
 come to Christ. You have heard heart-searching sermons, and the 
 truth has gone down deep into your heart, and tears have come 
 down your cheeks. That was the Son of God seeking you. 
 Some of you have had godly, praying Sabbath- school teachers and 
 superintendents, urging you to come to Christ. Some of you, 
 perhaps, have got young men converted round you, and they have 
 talked with you and pleaded with you to come to Christ. That 
 was the Son of God seeking after your soul. Some of you have 
 had a tract put in your hand with a startling title, " Eternity j 
 Where will You Spend It ? " and the arrow has gone home. That 
 was the Son of God seeking after you. Many of you have been 
 laid on a bed of sickness, when you had time to think and meditate. 
 And in the silent watches of the night, when everybody was asleep 
 
CHRIST SEEKING SINNERS. 55 
 
 the Spirit of God has come into your chamber, has come to your 
 bedside, and the thought came stealing through your mind that you 
 ought to be a child of God and an heir of heaven. That was the 
 Son of God seeking after your lost soul. Some of you have had 
 little children, and you have laid them yonder in the cemetery. 
 When that little child was dying you promised to love and serve 
 God (ah, Have you kept your promise ?) That was the Son of God 
 seeking you. He took that little child yonder to draw vour 
 affections heavenwards. 
 
 It would take me all night to tell the different ways in which 
 the Lord seeks. Can you rise in this hall to-night and say that the 
 Son of God never sought for you? I do not believe there is a man 
 or woman in this audience or in the whole city who could do it. 
 My friend, He has been calling for you from your earliest childhood, 
 and He has put it into the hearts of God's own people just to call 
 you together in this hall. Prayer is going up all over the Christian 
 world for you. Perhaps there never has been a time in the history of 
 your life when so many were praying for you as at the present time. 
 That is the Son of God seeking for your soul through the prayers 
 of the Church, through the prayers of ministers, through the 
 prayers of the saints not only about you but throughout the 
 world. I am receiving letters almost daily from both sides of 
 the ocean saying continual prayer is going up to God for this 
 work. What does it mean ? God has laid it upon the heart of 
 the Church throughout the world to pray for the work. It must 
 be that God has something good in store for this city; the Son of 
 of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost ; 
 and I pray that the Good Shepherd may enter this hall to-night 
 and may come to many a heart, and that you may hear the still 
 small voice : " Behold, I stand at the door and knock -, if any man 
 hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and 
 will sup with him, and he with Me." O friends, open the door 
 to-night, and let the heavenly Visitor in. Do not turn Him away 
 any longer. Do not say with Felix, " Go thy way this time, and 
 when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." Make this 
 a convenient season; make this the night of your salvation. Re- 
 ceive the gift of God to-night, and open the door of your heart, 
 and say, " Welcome, thrice welcome into this heart of mine." 
 
V. 
 
 ' SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 Seek the Lord while He may be found ; call ye upon 
 Him while He is near," — Isai h lv. 6. 
 
 I have been speaking about the Son of Man seeking the lost; 
 but now I want to take up the other side of the case — man's side. 
 I have learned this, that when any one becomes in earnest about his 
 soul's salvation he begins to seek God, and it does not take* a great 
 while for them to meet ; it does not take long for an anxious sinner 
 to meet -an anxious Saviour. What do we read in the 29th chapter 
 of Jeremiah, 13th verse? "Ye shall seek Me and find Me when 
 ye shall search for Me with all your heart." These are the men 
 who find Christ — those who seek for Him with all their heart. I 
 am tired and sick of half-heartedness. You don't- like a half- 
 hearted man ; you don't care for any one to love you with a half 
 heart, and the Lord won't have it. If we are going to seek for 
 Him and find Him, we must do it with all our heart. I believe 
 the reason why so few people find Christ is because they do not 
 search for Him with all their heart j they are not terribly in earnest 
 about their soul's salvation. God is in earnest j everything God 
 has done proves that He is in earnest about the salvation of men's 
 souls. He has proved it by giving his only Son to die for us. The 
 Son of God was in earnest when He died. What is Calvary but a 
 proof of that ? And the Lord wants us to be in earnest when it 
 comes to this great question of the soul's salvation. I never saw 
 men seeking Him with all their hearts but they soon found Him. 
 
 It was quite refreshing, one night, to find in the inquiry-room a 
 young man who thought he was not worth saving, he was so vile 
 and wicked. There was hope for him because he was so des- 
 
SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 57 
 
 perately in earnest about his soul. He thought he was worthless. 
 He had got a sight of himself in God's looking-glass, and when a 
 man does that he has a very poor opinion of himself. You can 
 always tell when a man is a great way from God — he is always 
 talking about himself, and how good he is. But the moment he 
 sees God by the eye of faith he is down on his knees, and, like 
 Job, he cries, "Behold, I am vile." All his goodness flees away. 
 What men want is to be in earnest about their salvation, and they 
 will soon find Christ. You do not neea to go up to the heights to 
 bring Him down, or down to the depths to bring Him up, or to go 
 off to some distant city to find Him. This day He is near to every 
 one of us. I heard some one in the inquiry-room telling a young 
 person to go home and seek Christ in his closet. I would not dare 
 to tell any one to do that. You might be dead before you got home. 
 If I read my Bible correctly, the man who preaches the gospel is not 
 the man who tells me to seek Christ to-morrow or an hour hence, 
 but now. He is near to every one of us this minute to save. If 
 the world would just come to God for salvation, and be in earnest 
 about it, they would find the Son of God right at the door of their 
 heart. 
 
 Suppose I should say I lost a very valuable diamond here last 
 night — I have not, but suppose it — worth $106,000. I had it in my 
 pocket when I came into the hall, and when I had done 
 preaching 1 found it was not in my pocket, but was in the 
 hall somewhere. And suppose I was to say that any one who 
 found it could have it. How earnest you would all become ! You 
 would not get very much of my sermon ; you would all be thinking 
 of the diamond. I do not believe* the police could get you out of 
 this hall. The idea of finding a diamond worth $100,000 ! If you 
 could only find it, it would lift you out of poverty at once, and you 
 would be independent for the rest of your days. Oh, how soon 
 everybody would become terribly in earnest then ! I would to God 
 I could get men to seek for Christ in the sanie way. I have got 
 something. worth more than a diamond to offer you. Is not salva- 
 tion — eternal life— worth more than all the diamonds in the world ? 
 Suppose Gabriel should wing his way from the throne of God and 
 come down here, and say he had been commissioned by Jehovah to 
 come and offer to this assembly any one gift you might choose. 
 
58 SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 You could have just what you chose, tut only one thing. What 
 would it be ? The wealth of this city, or of the world ? "Would 
 that be your choice ? Ten thousand times, no ! Your one cry 
 would be, " Life ! eternal life ! *' 
 
 There is nothing that men value as they do life. Let a man be 
 out on a wreck that is fast going down. He is worth a million 
 dollars, and his only chance is to give up that million dollars, just 
 to save jthe life of the body. He would give it up in a moment. 
 " Skin for skin ; all that a man hath will he give for his life." I 
 understand some people have been afraid to come to. this hall be- 
 cause there might be a cry of " Fire ! tire ! " and a panic, and they 
 might lose their life. Yet there are twenty doors to the building ; 
 I do not know that I ever saw a building that you could get 
 out of easier. Yet people seem to sleep, and to forget that there is 
 no door out of hell. If they enter there they must remain, age after 
 age. Millions on millions of years will roll on, but there will be no 
 door, no escape out of hell. May God wake up this slumbering 
 congregation and make you anxious about your souls. People talk 
 about our being earnest and fanatical — about our being on fire. 
 Would to God the Church was on fire 3 this world would soon shake 
 to its foundation. May God wake up a slumbering Church ! What 
 we want men to do is not to shout" Amen/' and clasp their hands. 
 The deepest and quietest waters very often run swiftest. We want 
 men to go right to work ; there will be a chance for you to shout 
 by-and-by. Go and speak to your neighbour, and tell him of Christ 
 and heaven. You need not go a few yards down these streets 
 before you find some one who is passing down to the darkness of 
 eternal death. Let us haste to the rescue ! 
 
 What we want to see is men really wishing to become Christians 
 men who are in dead earnest about it. The idea of hearing a man 
 say in answer to the question, " Do you want to become a Christian ? '' 
 "Well, 1 would not mind." My friend, I do not think you will 
 ever get into the kingdom of God until you change your language. 
 We want men crying from the depths of their heart, " I want to be 
 saved." On the day of Pentecost the cry was, "Men and 
 brethren, what shall we do ? " These men were in earnest, and 
 they found Christ right there ; three thousand found Him, when 
 they sought with all their hearts. When men seek Christ as they 
 
SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. S9 
 
 do wealth, they will soon find Him. To be sure, the wo^SW *»»U 
 raise a cry that they are excited. Let cotton go up ten 01 fifteen per 
 cent, before to-morrow morning, and you will see how quickly the 
 merchants will get excited ! And the papers don't cry it down 
 either. They say it is healthy excitement ; commerce is getting on. 
 But when you begin to get excited about your soul's salvation, and 
 are in earnest, then they raise the cry, " Oh, they are getting 
 excited ; most unhealthy state of things." Yet they don't talk 
 about men hastening down to death by thousands. There is the 
 poor drunkard, look at him ! Hear the piercing cry going up to 
 heaven ! Yet the Church of God slumbers and sleeps. Here and 
 there there is an inquirer, and yet they go into the inquiry-room as 
 if they were half asleep. When will men seek for Christ as they 
 seek for wealth, or as they seek for honour ? 
 
 I am told that when the war broke out on the Gold Coast, 
 though it was known that the climate was a very unhealthy one, 
 and a great many who went there would never return, yet hundreds 
 and thousands of men wanted to go. Why ? They wanted to get 
 wealth, and from wealth honour. And if there is a chance of going 
 to India, no end of men are willing to go. To get a little honour 
 they will sacrifice comfort, pleasure, health, and everything. What 
 we want, is to have men seeking the kingdom of God, as thev 
 seek for honour and wealth. 
 
 As I said, if life is in danger, how terribly in earnest men 
 become. That is right ; there is no doubt about that. But why 
 should not men be as much in earnest about their soul's salvation ? 
 Why should not every man and woman here wake up and seek 
 the Lord with all their heart ? Then, the Lord says, you shall 
 rind Him. 
 
 There is a story told of a vessel that was wrecked, and was 
 going down at sea. There were not enough lifeboats to take all 
 on board. When the vessel went down, some of the lifeboats 
 were near the vessel. ' A man swam from the wreck just as it was 
 going down, to one of the boats ; but they had no room to take 
 him, and they refused. When they refused, he seized hold of the 
 boat with his right hand, but they took a sword and cut off his 
 ringers. When he had lost the ringers of his right hand, the man was 
 so earnest to save his life that he seized the boat with his left hand 5 
 
6o SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 they cut off the fingers of that hand too. Then the man swam 
 up and seized the boat with his teeth, and they had compassion on 
 him and relented. They could not cut off his head, so they took 
 him in, and the man saved his life. Why ? Because he was in 
 earnest. Why not seek your soul's salvation as that man sought 
 to save his life ? 
 
 Will there ever be a better time ? Will there ever be a better 
 time for that old man whose locks are growing grey, whose eyes 
 are growing dim, and who is hastening to the grave ? Is not this 
 the very best time for him ? " Seek the Lord while He may be 
 found." There is a man in the middle of life. Is this not the 
 best time for him to seek the kingdom of God ! Will he ever 
 have a better opportunity ? Will Christ ever be more willing 
 to save than now ? He says, " Come, for all things are now 
 ready.'* Not, going to be, but are now ready. There is a young 
 man. My friend, is it not the best time for you to seek the king- 
 dom of God ? Seek the Lord, you can find Him here to-night. 
 Can you say that you will find Him here to-morrow ? Will anv 
 one rise up in this hall and say that ? Young man, you know 
 not what to-morrow may bring forth. Do you know that since 
 we met here last night 43,000 souls have passed from time to 
 eternity ? Do you know that every time the clock ticks a soul 
 passes away ? Is not this the best time for you to seek the king- 
 dom of God ? 
 
 My boy, the Lord wants you. Seek ye first the kingdom o2 
 God, and seek Him while He may be found. About thirty 
 years ago, a great revival swept over this land. A great many 
 men stood and shook their heads ; they could not believe it was a 
 healthy state of things. The Church was not in its normal state ! 
 The Church from Maine to Minnesota, and on to California, was 
 astir. And as you passed over this great republic, over its western 
 prairies and mountains, and through its valleys, as you went on by 
 train, and as you passed through its cities and villages, you could see 
 the churches lit up j and men were flocking into the kingdom of 
 God by hundreds. And in a year and a half or two years there 
 were more than half a million souls brought in. Men said it was 
 false excitement, wildfire, and it would pass away. But, my 
 friends, it was grace preceding judgment. Little did we know that 
 
SJJVJVAA'^ ^±LK~U\(jr CAtAlS/. 01 
 
 our nation was soon to be baptized in blood, and that we would 
 soon hear the tramp of a million men, that hundreds and thousands 
 of our young men, the flower of our nation, would soon be lying 
 in a soldier's grave. But, oh, my friends, it was God calling his 
 people in. He was preparing our nation for a terrible struggle. 
 
 And now, it seems to me that there is another wave of blessing 
 passing over this earth. Tidings are coming from all parts of the 
 world, telling us of the great work God is doing. The last tidings 
 from India, told us of a blessed work going on there. The last tidings 
 from Japan and from other places — we have the same good news 
 of God pouring out his Spirit. It was only the other day that two 
 men came up here from a town of 50,000 inhabitants, and wanted 
 us to go there j but we could not, and we told them to go home 
 and get to work themselves. To-day one of them told us that they 
 had sixteen last night in the inquiry-room. God is pouring out his 
 Spirit everywhere. Everywhere men are putting in the sickle and 
 bringing their sheaves and laying them at the feet of the Master. I 
 believe we are living in the days that our fathers prayed for. The 
 heavens are opened, and the Spirit of God is descending upon the 
 sons of men. 
 
 Now, this time of revival is a good time to seek the Lord. 
 Will you ever have a better time? The tidings from every 
 city is this — the people are praying. It is a question in my 
 mind if there was ever so much prayer going up to God as 
 at the present. Not only here, but all round the world, we 
 have God's people making their hearts burdened for the salvation 
 of souls. And is it not God working? Will there ever be a 
 better time for you to seek the kingdom of God than the present, 
 when there is such a great awakening, when there is such a spirit 
 of expectation ; when the Church of God is coming up as one 
 man, and the spirit of unity prevails ? Think of the praying ones 
 here. Do you believe there were ever so many men and women 
 praying for your soul as there are here to-night ? Look over this 
 audience — what are these Christians doing now ! They are silently 
 graying to God. I can see they are praying. There is a young 
 man with his mother sitting by his side. That mother is pleading, 
 " God save my boy to night ! " May it go down deep into his 
 soul ! " Seek ye the Lord while He may be found." 
 
62 SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 Now, let me ask you a question. Do you believe, that the 
 Lord can be found here to-night ? I appeal to these ministers 
 present at my side ; do you believe He can ? They answer" Yes." 
 My friends, do you believe it ? Another Yes comes from the 
 audience. Well, if He can, is it not the height of madness for any 
 man or woman to go out of this hall without seeking Him ? If 
 He can be found, why not seek Him? Young lady, why not 
 seek Him with all your heart ? Young man, why not seek 
 Christ to-night with all your heart ? Why not say, " I must be 
 saved " ? There is nothing so important as this great question of 
 salvation. 
 
 Supposing you could win the world, what would you do with 
 it ? Would it be worth as much as Christ ? Let everything else 
 be laid aside, and make up your minds that you will not rest until 
 you have sought and found the Lord Jesus. I never knew any one 
 make up his mind to seek Him but he soon found Him. At 
 Dublin a young man found Christ. He went home and lived so 
 godly and so Christ-like, that two of his brothers could not under- 
 stand what had wrought the change in him. They left Dublin 
 and followed us to Sheffield, and found Christ there. They 
 were in earnest. But, thanks be to God, you have not go* 
 to go out of this hall. Christ can be found here to-night. I 
 firmly believe every one here can find Christ to-night if you will 
 seek for Him with all your heart. He says, u Call upon Me." 
 Did you ever hear of any one calling on Christ with the whole 
 heart, that Christ didn't answer ? Look at that thief on the cross ! 
 It may have been that he had a praying mother, and that his 
 mother taught him the fifty- third chapter of Isaiah. He hac 1 
 heard Christ pray that wonderful prayer, " Father, forgive them." 
 And as he was hanging on the cross that text of Scripture came to 
 his mind, " Seek the Lord while He may be found ; call ye upon 
 Him while He is near." The truth came flashing into his soul, 
 and he says, " He is near me. now ; I will call on Him. Lord, 
 remember me when Thou comest into thy kingdom." No sooner 
 had he called than the Lord said, " This day shalt thou be with Me 
 in paradise." That was his seeking opportunity, his day. My 
 friends, this is your day now. I believe that every man has his 
 day. You have it just now j why not call upon Him just now ? 
 
SINNERS SEEKING CHRIS 1. 63 
 
 Say, as the poor thief did, " Lord, remember me." That was his 
 golden opportunity, and the Lord heard and answered and saved 
 him. Did not Bartimeus call on Him while He was near? Christ 
 was passing by Jericho for the last time, and he cried out, " Thou 
 Son of David, have mercy on me." And did not the Lord hear 
 his prayer, and give him his sight ? It was a good thing Zaccheus 
 called — or rather the Lord called him, but when the Lord called 
 he came. May the Lord call many here, and may you respond, 
 " Lord, here am 1 5 you have called and I come." Do you believe 
 the Lord will call a poor sinner, and then cast him out ? No ! his 
 word stands for ever, " Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise 
 cast out." 
 
 I was glad when that man I told you of, said he felt as if he 
 was too bad. Men are pretty near the kingdom of God when they 
 do not see anything good in themselves. At the Fulton Street 
 prayer-meeting a man came in, and this was his story. He said 
 he had a mother who prayed for him ; he was a wild, reckless 
 prodigal. Some time after his mother's death he began to be 
 troubled. He thought he ought to get into new company, and 
 leave his old companions. So he said he would go and join a 
 secret society 5 he thought he would join the Odd Fellows. They 
 went and made inquiry about him, and they found he was a 
 drunken sailor, so they black-balled him. They would not have 
 him. He went to the Freemasons ; he had nobody to recommend 
 him, so they inquired and found there was no good in his character, 
 and they too black-balled him. They didn't want him. One day, 
 some one handed him a little notice in the street about the prayer- 
 meeting, and he went in. He heard that Christ had come to save 
 sinners. He believed Him ; he took Him at his word ; and, in 
 reporting the matter, he said he "came to Christ without a 
 character, and Christ hadrCt black-hailed him, 1 
 
 My friends, that is Christ's way. Is there a man here with- 
 out a character, with nobody to say a good word for him ? I bring 
 you good news. Call on the Son of „ God, and He will hear you. 
 Call on Him to-night. 
 
 I was at a meeting for ministers the other day. Up in the 
 gallery there was one solitary woman -, she sat there alone. When 
 the meeting was over and I was passing out, she came and said, 
 
64 SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 "Mr. Moody, do you remember me?" "Oh yes," I said, "I 
 remember you." Where had I met her ? Mr. Sankey and myself 
 were leaving Dundee for the north of Scotland. There was a lady 
 who had come from London and brought her two boys all the way to 
 get blessed ; they must have been about eighteen or nineteen — twins. 
 That mother's heart was burdened for their salvation. The last 
 night we had a meeting there, one of the sons yielded himself up 
 to Christ, and the mother went back next morning with her two 
 boys, rejoicing that they had asked and found peace in believing. 
 Some people may say that she was a great fanatic for going all the 
 way from London to Dundee with her boys to get a blessing. 
 But last Friday she says, "My boy, who found the Lord in 
 Dundee, died three weeks ago." And as she pressed my hand 
 as I left the meeting, I said to myself, "Was it not a good 
 thing that mother took her boy to Dundee?" My friends, let 
 us be in earnest about the salvation of our children, and of our 
 friends. Warn that young lady. Yes, mother, speak to that 
 daughter of yours. Father, speak to that child of yours. Wife, 
 speak to your unconverted husband ; husband, speak to your un- 
 converted wife. Do not let a man go out of this house saying, 
 " Nobody cared for my soul." I never saw a mother burdened for 
 her children but they soon became anxious. Oh may there be 
 many a sinner seeking the kingdom of God with all their heart ! 
 
 Before I close, I want to ask you once more, " What are you 
 going to do ? If the Lord is near, won't you call upon Him ? 
 Don't let that scoffing man next you keep you out of the kingdom 
 of God. There is a scornful look upon that man's face -, perhaps 
 he is making light of what I am saying. Don't mind him ; don't 
 look to him j but just look right up to God, and ask Him to save 
 you. Now, every true friend — and you all have friends — every 
 true friend, if you could get his advice to-night, would tell you to 
 be saved now. Ask that minister sitting next you, " Had I better 
 seek the kingdom of God to-night ?" What does he tell you ? " By 
 all means, don't put it off another minute." Ask that godly praying 
 mother by your side, " Is it best to seek the kingdom of God to- 
 night ? " Does she say, Put it off one week, or put it off one 
 month ? Do you think that mother would say that ? There is not 
 a Christian mother in this hall who would say it. I doubt if there 
 
SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 65 
 
 is an unconverted mother even here whose advice would be to 
 put off becoming a Christian. Ask that praying sister of yours, 
 ask that praying brother, ask any friend you have here — if you are 
 sitting near one — whether it is not the very best thing you can do. 
 And then cry up to heaven and ask Him who is sitting at the right 
 hand of God, and who loves you more than your father or your 
 mother, or any one on earth — who loves you so much that He gave 
 Himself for you ; ask Him what he will have you do, and hear 
 his voice from the throne, et Seek ye first the kingdom of God." 
 And then shout down to the infernal regions, and ask those down 
 there, and what will they say ? " Send some one to my father's 
 house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest 
 they also come into this place." Heaven, earth, and hell unite in 
 this one thing, " Seek first the kingdom of God." Don't put it 
 off. Call upon Him while He is near. And if you call upon Him 
 in real earnest He will hear that call. 
 
 You may call too late. I have no doubt that those who would 
 not pray when the ark was building prayed when the flood came, 
 but their prayer was not answered. I have no doubt that when 
 Lot went out of Sodom, Sodom cried to God, but it was too late, 
 and God's judgment swept them from the earth. My friends, it is 
 not too late now, but it may be at twelve o'clock to-night. I 
 cannot find any place in this Bible where I can say you may call 
 to-morrow. I am not justified in saying that. " Behold, now is 
 the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Those men of 
 Jerusalem, what a golden opportunity they had, with Christ in 
 their midst. We see the Son of God weeping over Jerusalem, his 
 heart bursting with grief for the city, as He cried, " O Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem ! thou that stonest the prophets, how often would I 
 have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood, but ye would not." 
 He could look down forty years, and see Titus coming with his 
 army, and besieging that city. They called upon God then, 
 but it was too late, and eleven hundred thousand people perished. 
 To-night -is a time of mercy. It may be I am talking to 
 some one to-night whose days of grace may be few, to some one 
 who may be snatched away very soon. There may be some one 
 here to-night who may never hear another gospel sermon ; some 
 one who may be hearing the last call. My friend, be wise to 
 
 5 
 
66 SINNERS SEEKING CHRIST. 
 
 night. Make up your mind that you will seek the kingdom 
 of God now. " Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is 
 the day of salvation." Christ is inviting you to come — c< Come unto 
 Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest/' 
 Oh, may we all find rest in Christ to-night ! Do not let anything 
 divert your minds, but this night, this hour, make up your mind 
 that you will not leave this hali until the great question of eternity 
 has been settled. 
 
VI. 
 
 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 Matt. xxii. 42. 
 
 I suppose there is no one here who has not thought, more or less, 
 about Christ. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, 
 and heard men preach about Him. For eighteen hundred years 
 men have been talking about Him, and thinking about Him ; and 
 some have their minds made up about who He is, and doubtless 
 some have not. And although all these years have rolled away, 
 this question comes up, addressed to each of us, to-day, u What 
 think ye of Christ ? " 
 
 I do not know why it should not be thougnt a proper question 
 for one man to put to another. If I were to ask you what you 
 think of any of your prominent men, you would already have your 
 mind made up about him. If I were to ask you what you think 
 of your noble Queen, you would speak right out and tell me your 
 opinion in a minute. If I were to ask about your prime minister, 
 you would tell me freely what you had for or against him. And 
 why should not people make up their minds about the Lord Jesus 
 Christy and take their stand for or against Him ? If you think 
 well of Him, why not speak well of Him, and range yourselves on 
 his side ? And if you think ill of Him, and believe Him to be an 
 impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, why not lift 
 up your voice, and say you are against Him ? It would be a happy 
 day for Christianity if men would just take sides — if we could 
 know positively who was really for Him, and who was against 
 Him. 
 
 It is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one 
 else. The Queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes* 
 
68 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 must soon be gone. Yes ; it matters little, comparatively, what 
 we think of them. Their lives can only interest a few ; bat every 
 living soul on the face of the earth is concerned with this Man. 
 The question for the world is, " What think ye of Christ ? " I do 
 not ask you what you think of the Episcopal Church, or of the 
 Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics j I do not 
 ask you what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or 
 that ; but I want to ask you what you think of the living person 
 of Christ ? 
 
 I should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God — the great 
 God-man ? Did He leave heaven and come down to this world for 
 a purpose ? Was it really to seek and to save ? I should like to 
 begin with the manger, and follow Him up through the thirty- 
 three years He was here upon earth. I should ask you what you 
 think of his coming into this world, and being born in a manger 
 when it might have been a palace ; why He left the grandeur and 
 the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of angels ; why He 
 passed by palaces and crowns and dominion, and came down here 
 alone ? 
 
 I should like to ask what you think of Him as a teacher. He 
 spake as never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a 
 preacher. I should like to bring you to that mountain side, that 
 we might listen to the words as they fall from his gentle lips. 
 Talk about the preachers of the present day ! I would rather a 
 thousand times be rive minutes at the feet of Christ, than listen a 
 lifetime to all the wise men in the world. He used just to hang 
 truth upon anything. Yonder is a sower, a fox, a bird, and He 
 just gathers the truth round them, so that you cannot see a fox, a 
 sower, or a bird, without thinking what Jesus said. Yonder is a 
 lily of the valley, you cannot see it without thinking of his words, 
 " They toil not, neither do they spin.'' He makes the little 
 sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How fresh those won- 
 derful sermons are, how they live to-day ! How we love to tell 
 them to our children, how the children love to hear ! " Tell me a 
 story about Jesus," how often we hear itj how the little ones 
 love his sermons ! No story-book in the world will ever interest 
 them like the stories that He told. And yet how profound He 
 was j how He puzzled the wise men 5 how the scribes and the 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 69 
 
 Pharisees could never fathom Him ! Oh, do you not think He 
 was a wonderful preacher ? 
 
 I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. 
 A man would soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure 
 as Christ did. No case was ever brought to Him but what He 
 was a match for. He had but to speak the word, and disease fled 
 before Him. Here comes a man covered with leprosy. " Lord, if 
 Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean," he cries. " I will/' says the 
 Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is gone. The world 
 has hospitals for incurable diseases j but there were no incurable 
 diseases with Him. 
 
 Now see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the 
 wounded hearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think 
 of Him as a comforter. He is a husband to the widow, and a 
 father to the fatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon 
 that breast, and the friendless may reckon Him their friend. He 
 never varies, He never fails, He never dies. His sympathy is- 
 ever fresh, His love is ever free. O widow and orphans, O 
 sorrowing and mourning, will you not thank God for Christ the 
 comforter ? 
 
 But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to 
 those who knew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If 
 you want to find out what a man is now-a-days, you inquire about 
 him from those who know him best. I do not wish to be partial ; 
 we will go to his enemies, and to his friends. We will ask 
 them, What think ye of Christ ? We will ask his friends and 
 his enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him, you 
 would say, " Oh, he is so blind ; he thinks so much of the man 
 that he can't see his faults. You can't get anything out of him, 
 unless it be in his favour ; it is a one-sided affair altogether." So 
 we shall go in the first place to his enemies, to those who hated 
 Him, persecuted Him, cursed and slew Him. I shall put you in the 
 jury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him. 
 
 First, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. 
 We know how they hated him. Let us put a few questions to 
 them. Come, Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of 
 God. What do you think of Christ? Hear what they say ! This 
 
70 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 man receiveth sinners. What an argument to bring against Him ! 
 Why, it is the very thing that makes us love Him. It is the glory 
 of the gospel. He receives sinners. If He had not, what would 
 have become of us ? Have you nothing more to bring against 
 Him than this ? Why, it is one of the greatest compliments that 
 was ever paid Him. Once more ; when He was hanging on the 
 tr^e, you had this to say of Him, " He saved others, Himself He 
 cannot save." And so He did save others, but He could not 
 save Himself and save us too. So He laid down his own life for 
 yours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once 
 in your lives ! He saved others. He died for others. He was a 
 ransom for many ; so it is quite true what you think of Him — He 
 saved others, Himself He cannot save. 
 
 Now, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his 
 flowing robes ; let us ask him for his evidence. " Caiaphas, you 
 were chief priest when Christ was tried ; you were president of the 
 Sanhedrim ; you were in the council- chamber when they found 
 Him guilty ; you yourself condemned Him. Tell us ; what did 
 the witnesses say ? On what grounds did you judge Him ? What 
 testimony was brought against Him ? 
 
 " He hath spoken blasphemy," says Caiaphas. " He said, 
 ' Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand 
 of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.' When I heard 
 that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy j I rent my mantle, and 
 condemned Him to death." Yes, all that they had against Him 
 was that He was the Son of God j and they slew Him for the 
 promise of his coming for his bride. 
 
 Now, let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box. 
 Pilate, this man was brought before you ; you examined Him $ you 
 talked with Him face to face, w hat think ye of Christ ? " I find 
 no fault in Him," says Pilate. " He said He was the King of the 
 Jews " (just as he wrote it over the cross) ; "but I find no fault 
 in Him." Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him ! 
 And, as he stands there, the centre of a Jewish mob, there comes 
 along a man, elbowing his way, in haste. He rushes up to Pilate 
 and, thrusting out his hand, gives him a message. He tears it 
 open ; his face turns pale as he reads — " Have thou nothing to do 
 with this just man 3 for I have suffered many things this day in a 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 dream because of Him." Jt is from Pilate's wife — her testimony 
 to Christ. You want to know what his enemies thought of Him ? 
 You want to know what a heathen thought ? Well, here it is, 
 "no fault in Him 5" and the wife of a heathen, " this just 
 man ! " 
 
 And now, look — in comes Judas. He ought to make a good 
 witness. Let us address him. " Come, tell us, Judas, what think 
 ye of Christ. You knew the Master well j you sold Him for thirty 
 pieces of silver 5 you betrayed Him with a kiss 5 you saw Him 
 perform those miracles 5 you were with Him in Jerusalem. In 
 Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, you were there. What 
 think ye of Him ? " I can see him as he comes into the presence 
 of the chief priests ; I can hear the money ring as he dashes it 
 upon the table — " I have betrayed innocent blood!" Here is the 
 man who betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him ! Yes, 
 my friends, God has made every man who had anything to do with 
 the death of his Son put their testimony on record that He was 
 an innocent Man. 
 
 Let us take the Centurion, who was present at the execution. 
 He had charge of the Roman soldiers. He had told them to 
 make Him carry his cross j he had given orders for the nails to be 
 driven into his feet and hands, for the spear to be thrust in his side. 
 Let the Centurion come forward. " Centurion, you had charge of 
 the executioners ; you saw that the order for his death was carried 
 out ; you saw Him die ; you heard Him speak upon the cross. Tell 
 us, what think you of Christ?" Hark! Look at him; he is 
 smiting his breast as he cries, " Truly, this was the Son of God ! " 
 
 I might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought 
 of Him. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But 
 then he thought better of it. "This man hath done nothing 
 amiss," he says. I might go further. I might summon the very 
 devils themselves and ask them for their testimony. Have they 
 anything to say of Him ? Why, the very devils called Him the 
 Son of God ! In Mark we have the unclean spirit crying, " Jesus, 
 Thou Son of the most High God." Men say, " Oh, I believe 
 Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe it intellectually, 
 I shall be saved." I tell you the devils did that. And they did 
 more than that, they trembled. 
 
72 WHA T THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 
 
 Let us bring in his friends. We want you to hear theii 
 evidence. Let us call that prince of preachers. Let us heat 
 the forerunner, the wilderness preacher, John. Save the Master 
 Himself, none ever preached like this man — this man who drew 
 all Jerusalem and all Judea into the wilderness to hear him-, 
 this man who burst upon the nations like the flash of a 
 meteor. Let John the Baptist come with his leathern girdle 
 and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinks d 
 Christ. His words, though they were echoed in the wilderness 
 of Palestine, are written in the Book for ever, " Behold the Lamb 
 of God which taketh away the sin of the world." This is what 
 John the Baptist thought of Him. " I bare record that He is the 
 Son of God." No wonder he drew all Jerusalem and Judea to 
 him, because he preached Christ. \And whenever men preach 
 Christ, they are sure to have plenty of followers; 
 
 Let us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount of 
 transfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. 
 u Come, Peter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in 
 this witness-box and testify of Him. You denied Him once. 
 You said, with a curse, you did not know Him. Was it 
 true, Peter? Don't you know Him?" <f Know Him ! " lean 
 imagine Peter saying j " It was a lie I told them. I did know 
 Him." Afterwards I can hear him charging home their guilt 
 upon these Jerusalem sinners. He calls Him " both Lord and 
 Christ." Such was the testimony on the day of Pentecost. 
 " God hath made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ." And 
 tradition tells us that when they came to execute Peter, he felt 
 he was not worthy to die in the way his Master died, and he 
 requested to be crucified with his head downwards. So much did 
 Peter think of Him ! 
 
 Now let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew 
 more about Christ than any other man. He had laid his head on 
 his Saviour's bosom. He had heard the throbbing of that loving 
 heart. Look into his gospel if you wish to know what he thought 
 of Him. 
 
 Matthew writes of Him as the Royal King come from his 
 throne. Mark writes of Him as the servant, and Luke as the Son of" 
 Man. John takes up his pen, and, with one stroke, for ever settles 
 
WHA T THINK YE OF CHRIST f 73 
 
 the question of Unitarianism. He goes right back before the 
 time of Adam. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
 was with God, and the Word was God." Look into Revelation. 
 He calls Him "the bright and the Morning Star." So John 
 thought well of Him — because he knew him well. 
 
 We might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. "You 
 doubted Him, Thomas ? You would not believe He had risen, and 
 you put your fingers into the wound in his side. What do you 
 think of Him ? " " My Lord and my God ! " says Thomas. 
 
 Then go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been 
 there casting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and 
 ask what they tKink of Him. " He hath done all things well " they 
 say. 
 
 But we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the perse- 
 cuting Saul, once one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing 
 out threatenings, he meets Him. " Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
 thou Me?" says Christ} and He might have added, "What 
 have I done to you ? Have I injured you in any way ? Did I 
 not come to bless you ? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul ? " 
 And then Saul asks, " Who art Thou, Lord ? " "I am Jesus of 
 Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." You see, He was not ashamed 
 of his name ; although He had been in heaven, " I am Jesus oj 
 Nazareth." What a change did that one interview make to Paul ! 
 A few years after we hear him say, " I have suffered the loss of all 
 things, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ." 
 Such a testimony to the Saviour ! 
 
 But I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into 
 the other world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they 
 think of Christ. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father 
 before the world was. Before the dawn of creation ; before the 
 morning stars sang together, He was there. They saw Him 
 leave the throne and come down to the manger. What a scene 
 for them to witness ! Ask these heavenly beings what they 
 thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak 5 for 
 once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on the 
 plains of Bethlehem, " Behold, I bring you. good tidings of great 
 joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is bom this day, 111 
 the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." He leaves 
 
74 WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 
 
 the throne to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought 
 well of Him ? 
 
 Then there are the redeemed saints — they that see Him face to 
 face. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really 
 to be acquainted with Him 5 but He was known in that world 
 where He had been from the foundation. What do they think of 
 Him there ? If we could hear from heaven, we should hear a 
 shout which would glorify and magnify his name. We are told 
 that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's-day, and being 
 caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand times ten 
 thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, " Worthy is the 
 Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, 
 and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing ! " Yes, He is 
 worthy of all this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, 
 that earth would take up the echo, and join with heaven in sing- 
 ing, "Worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
 strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing ! ' 
 
 But there is yet another witness, a higher still. Some think 
 that the God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. 
 But when Jesus came out of Jordan, baptized by John, there 
 came a voice from heaven. God the Father spoke. It was his 
 testimony to Christ : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
 well pleased." Ah, yes ! God the Father thinks well of the Son. 
 And if God is well pleased with Him, so ought we. If the sinner 
 and God are well pleased with Christ, then the sinner and God 
 can meet. The moment you say as the Father said, " I am well 
 pleased with Him," and accept Him, you are wedded to God. 
 Will you not believe the testimony ? Will you not believe this 
 witness, this last of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings 
 Himself ? Once more He repeats it, so that all may know it. 
 With Peter and James and John, on the mount of transfiguration, 
 He cries again, "This is my beloved Son -, hear Him." And that 
 voice went echoing and re-echoing through Palestine, through all 
 the earth from sea to sea j yes, that voice is echoing still, Hear 
 Him I Hear Him ! 
 
 My friend, will you hear Him to-day ? Hark ! what is He 
 saying to you ? u Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and 
 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST? 75 
 
 learn of Me j for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find 
 rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is 
 light." Will you not think well of such a Saviour ? Will you 
 not believe in Him ? Will you not trust in Him with all your 
 heart and mind ? Will you not live for Him ? If He laid down 
 his life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for 
 Him ? If He bore the Cross and died on it for me, ought I not 
 to be willing to take it up for Him ? Oh, have we not reason to 
 think well of Him. Do you think it is right and noble to lift up 
 your voice against such a Saviour ? Do you think it is just to cry, 
 '* Crucify Him ! crucify Him ! " Oh, may God help all of us to 
 glorify the Father, by thinking well of his only-begotten Son 
 
VII. 
 
 EXCUSES. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 " And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said 
 unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go 
 and see it : I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I 
 have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them : I pray 
 thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, 
 and therefore I cannot come." — Luke xiv. 18—20. 
 
 No sooner does any one begin to preach the Gospel than men and 
 women begin " to make excuse." It is the old story. There is 
 not an unsaved person here but has got some excuse. If I were 
 to go to each of you and ask why you do not accept God's invi- 
 tation to the Gospel feast, you would have an excuse ready on the 
 end of your tongue ; and if you had not one ready, the devil 
 would be there to help you to make one. And if they could 
 be answered he is ready to make new ones. He has had six 
 thousand years' experience, and he is very good at it j he can give 
 you as many as you want. 
 
 Do you know the origin of excuses ? You will find it away 
 back in Eden. When Adam had sinned, he tried to excuse him- 
 self. " The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave 
 me of the tree, and I did eat." He tried to lay the blame on God, 
 Eve tried to lay it on the serpent ; and down to the present time, 
 men and women, with one consent, begin to make excuse. 
 
 Remember that these men Luke tells us about were not invited 
 to a funeral, or to hear some dry, stupid lecture or sermon j they 
 were not invited to visit an hospital, or a prison, or a madhouse j 
 to witness some terrible scene or execution — something that would 
 have pained them. It was to go to a feast. The Gospel is 
 
excuses: 77 
 
 represented in the Bible as a feast. In the evening of this dispen- 
 sation there is going to be the marriage supper of God's Son. 
 Blessed is he that shall be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. If 
 I know my own heart, I would rather be torn limb from limb, or 
 have my heart taken from my body this moment, and be present on 
 that glorious day, than have the wealth of the world rolled at my 
 feet, and miss that wonderful banquet at the marriage of the Lamb. 
 
 Not only was this a feast, but it was a royal feast. If you had 
 the honour of an invitation from Windsor Castle — if Her Majesty 
 the Queen invited you to some great banquet got up in honour 
 of her son, there is not a man or "woman here but would accept the 
 invitation. You would all want it to be put into the papers, to 
 show how you had been honoured. But here is something worth 
 more than that. Here is an invitation from the King of kings, 
 the Lord of lords, God's only Son. By and by He will take his 
 bride into the bridal chamber. The marriage supper of the Lamb 
 is hastening on. He has gone to prepare new mansions for his 
 bride ; the old mansions are not good enough j and He will come 
 by and by to take her to Himself. It is an invitation to this feast 
 that I bring you. The invitations are going out now to every 
 corner of the earth. There is not one here who is not invited. 
 For eighteen hundred years God's messengers have been crossing 
 over valley and mountain, over desert and sea, from end to end 
 of the earth, inviting men and women to the Gospel feast. 
 What an honour for worms of the dust ! When man prepares a 
 feast, there is a great rush to see who will get the best place. 
 But God prepares his feast, and the chairs would all be empty 
 if his disciples did not go out and compel them to come in. 
 
 Then, when man prepares a feast, he invites his friends, those 
 who love him j but God invites his bitterest enemies, those who 
 are in rebellion against Him. And yet men make excuse ! No 
 sooner is the invitation given by God than the excuses begin to 
 rain in. 
 
 Did you ever stop to think what would take place if God should 
 take, at his word, every one who makes excuse ? — if He were to 
 say, " Yes, if you want to be excused from this feast, I will 
 excuse you/' and with the next stroke should sweep them all from 
 the face of the earth ? Supposing every one in this land should be 
 
78 EXCUSES. 
 
 taken at their word, and laid in the arms of death, how many of your 
 shops would be closed to-morrow j how many homes would be rilled 
 with mourning and tears? Not a saloon-keeper would be left to carry 
 on his traffic j every rum-seller wants to be excused. He knows that 
 if he accepts of this invitation, he would have to give up his hellish 
 trade. He could not go on making all those fatherless children, and 
 taking the bread out of the mouth of the orphan and the widow, and 
 be going on his way to the marriage supper of the Lamb at the same 
 time. Every publican and every drunkard wants to be excused. If 
 God did excuse them and take them away with a stroke, you would 
 have no drunkards reeling through your streets. There would be 
 no harlots then, for every harlot wants to be excused ; she knows 
 she has to give up her sins if she wants to be present at the 
 supper of the Lamb. And your princely merchants, many of 
 them, would be gone. They do not want to accept the invita- 
 tion, because they think if they do they cannot make money so 
 fast. They are carrying on some business which would then have 
 to be stopped, and, with one consent, they begin to make excuse. 
 But oh, my friends, it would be a solemn time if God should take 
 men at their word. The grass would soon be growing in the 
 streets, and the living would be occupied in burying the dead. 
 
 Now, be honest with God to-day. God is honest 5 He means 
 what He says. This is an honest invitation, and He wants us to 
 be honest. If you do not want to be at this supper, why not 
 say so ? Why make excuses ? They are nothing but lies. Is 
 there any one of you can rise up and give a reasonable excuse — 
 if so, tell us what it is — why you don't accept this invitation? 
 Think for a minute. What valid reason can you give ? You have 
 none. It is not often we get an invitation to attend a royal feast, 
 but here comes one to be present at the marriage supper of God's 
 only Son. Is it not downright folly for any one to refuse ? Just 
 think what you are asking to be excused from. From heaven j 
 from the society of the pure j from those who have washed their 
 robes in the blood of the Lamb. Man asks to be excused from 
 the mansions which Christ has prepared j from the society of the 
 angels ; from God the Father, and Christ the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost. All the really great men of the world are not down here, 
 they are in heaven. You talk of the great men in England, but I 
 
EXCUSES. 79 
 
 tell you the best this earth has ever had are there, and the best that 
 ever lived will be gathered at that feast. For six thousand years 
 they have been gathering there — all the pure of the earth — Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob. Yes, we shall sit down with the patriarchs 
 and prophets, and apostles and martyrs, and with the best that 
 have lived upon this earth. I would rather die to-night and be sure 
 of meeting the bliss of the purified in yon world of light, than 
 live for centuries with the wealth of this world at my feet, and 
 miss the marriage supper of the Lamb. I have missed many 
 appointments in my life, but, by the grace of God, I mean to make 
 sure of that one. Why, the blessed privilege of sitting down at the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb, to see the King in his beauty, to be 
 for ever with the Lord, who would miss it ? 
 
 Let us take up these three men who, " with one consent, began 
 to make excuse." 
 
 What did the first one say ? " I have bought a piece of ground, 
 and I must needs go and see it." Some one has said, Why did he 
 not look at the ground before he bought it ? If he had been a good 
 business man, he would have seen his ground first, he couldn't make 
 the bargain any better by going to look at it now. And now that he 
 has got it, he can go and look at it at any time ; the land could not 
 run away ! It was not that he had made a partial bargain and might 
 withdraw, or that some one might step in ahead of him and get 
 the ground from him. He did not even have that excuse. He 
 had bought the land j there was no fear that he should lose his 
 title to it. Yet he must needs go and see it. Strange time to go 
 and see ground just at supper-time ! On the face of it it was a 
 downright lie. He did not want to go to the feast, and so he manu- 
 factured this excuse to ease his conscience. That is what people 
 make excuses for. The devil gets men into that cradle and rocks 
 them to sleep in it. 
 
 What did the second man say ? "I have bought five yoke of 
 oxen, and I go to prove them. I pray thee have me excused." 
 Why not prove them before, he bought them ? It was no time to 
 prove oxen after they were bought. And now that the bargain 
 was closed he could prove them any time. Why not let them 
 stand in the stall till he had accepted this invitation ? Don't you 
 see that was another lie ? 
 
80 EXCUSES. 
 
 The third man's excuse was the most ridiculous of them all. 
 " I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come." Why did he 
 not take his wife along with him ? Who likes to go to a feast 
 better than a young bride ? He might have asked her to go too j 
 and if she were not willing, then let her stay at home. The fact 
 was, he did not want to go. 
 
 Eighteen hundred years have rolled away, and they tell us 
 the world has grown wiser ; they say it has improved wonderfully 
 during these years ; but tell me, have men got any better excuses ? 
 Young lady ! can you give a better excuse ? Have you got an 
 excuse that will stand the light of eternity, have you got an excuse 
 that will even satisfy yourself ? Men try every kind of excuse, but 
 the man does not live who can give a good one. Let some terrible 
 disease lay hold of a man, let death come and look him in the face, 
 and his excuses are gone m a moment. My friends, your excuses 
 will look altogether different when you come to stand before the 
 great tribunal of your Judge. 
 
 I would just like to take up some of the popular excuses of the 
 present day. There is one very common one, " I do not like this 
 minister or that preacher." Well, what has that to do with it ? 
 What have you to do with the messenger ? Suppose a boy comes and 
 gives me a despatch, some good news from my wife. I don't turn 
 round to see who brings it. He may be black or white, that is 
 nothing to me. It is the message I care for. Is it not the fact 
 that God invites you to a feast ? What are you looking at the 
 messenger for? I have heard this excuse till I am tired, " I don't 
 like this minister or that minister, this person or that one who calls 
 himself a Christian." Never mind about the messenger. The 
 question is, are you willing to receive the message from God ? Do 
 you believe the Word of God is true, and that God invites you to 
 this feast? Do you believe that the invitation is to u every crea- 
 ture " in the world ? You have nothing to do with the preacher 
 who brings the message. If the message is from God, I ask you, 
 why not accept it ? If you are going to wait until you find some 
 perfect man or woman to bring you the invitation, you will never 
 accept it. There was never but one perfect Man. You will find 
 a good .many flaws in our character, a good many things you 
 may not like in the followers of Christ, but I challenge you to find 
 
EXCUSES. 8 1 
 
 a flaw in the character of our Master. He bids you come. And 
 any one who accepts the invitation He will receive. 
 
 Another excuse. Only the other night, a lady came to me 
 in the inquiry-room and said, " There are so many things in the 
 Bible I cannot understand." No doubt about that. God says, 
 the carnal man cannot understand spiritual things, and the Bible is 
 a spiritual book. How can the unregenerate heart understand the 
 Bible ? Well, you say, if it is a sealed book, how am I going to be 
 saved ? Well, when God put salvation before the world, He put 
 that very plain. The Word of God may be darkened to the natural 
 man, but the way of salvation is written so plain, that the little 
 child of six years old can understand it if she will. Take this 
 passage and see if you do not understand it : — " The Spirit and the 
 Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come ; and let him 
 that is athirst come." Are not many of you thirsty ? God says 
 come. " And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." 
 Then you know what it is to take a gift ? God puts salvation 
 before you as a gift. " He came unto his own, and his own 
 received Him not ; but as many as received Him, to them gave He 
 power to become the sons of God." You can understand that ? 
 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." 
 You know what it is to believe ? At any rate, you know what it 
 is to trust, to commit your soul to the Lord Jesus Christ — 
 that is all. There are dark and mysterious things in the Bible 
 now, but when you begin to trust Christ your eyes will be opened, 
 and the Bible will be a new book to you. Many things that are 
 dark and mysterious to-day, to-morrow will have a new beauty. 
 It will become the Book of books to you. To-day Christ may be 
 a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness ; but He will 
 become to you the chiefest among ten thousand, the altogether 
 lovely, the bright, and the morning star, if you take Him as your 
 Saviour. Then you will understand the Bible. 
 
 No book in the world has been so misjudged as the Bible. 
 Men judge it without reading it. Or perhaps they read a bit 
 here and a bit there, and then close it saying, " It is so dark 
 and mysterious ! " You take a book, now-a-days, and read it. 
 Some one asks you what you think about it. " Well," you say, " I 
 have only read it through once, not very carefully, and I should not 
 
 6 
 
82 EXCUSES. 
 
 like to give an opinion." Yet people take up God's book, read a 
 few pages, and condemn the whole of it. Of all the sceptics and 
 infidels I have ever met speaking against the Bible, I have never met 
 one who read it through. There may be such men, but I have never 
 met them. It is simply an excuse. There is no man living who will 
 stand up before God and say that kept him out of the kingdom. 
 It is the devil's work trying to make us believe it is not true, and 
 that it is dark and mysterious. The only way to overcome the great 
 enemy of souls is by the written Word of God. He knows that, 
 and so tries to make men disbelieve it. As soon as a man is a 
 true believer in the Word of God, he is a conqueror over Satan. 
 Young man ! the Bible is true. What have these infidels to give 
 you in its place? What has made England but the open Bible ? 
 Every nation that exalteth the Word of God is exalted, and every 
 nation that casteth it down is cast down. Oh, let us cling close to 
 the Bible. Of course, we shall not understand it all at once. 
 But men are not to condemn it on that account. Suppose I should 
 send my little boy, five years old, to school to-morrow morning, 
 and when he came home in the afternoon I say to him, " Willie, 
 can you read ? can you write ? can you spell ? Do you understand 
 all about algebra, geometry, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek ? " " Why, 
 papa," the little fellow would say, " how funny you talk ; I have 
 been all day trying to learn the ABC!" Well, suppose I should 
 reply, " If you have not finished your education, you need not go 
 any more." What would you say ? Why, you would say, I had 
 gone mad. There would be just about as much reason in that, as 
 in the way that people talk about the Bible. My friends, the men 
 who have studied the Bible for fifty years— the wise men and the 
 scholars, the great theologians — have never got down to the depths 
 of it yet. There are truths there that the Church of God has been 
 searching out for the last eighteen hundred years but no man has 
 fathomed the depths of that ever-living stream. 
 
 There is another class here, who say, " That's not my diffi- 
 culty. I believe the Word of God. But if I could speak alone 
 to you, I would tell you my excuse. The fact is, I love 
 the world very much, and if I become a Christian, I shall have to 
 give up all pleasure and go through the world with a long face 
 and never smile again. My joy will be for ever gone ! " Well, 
 
EXCUSES. 83 
 
 I want to say here, that no greater lie was ever forged than that. 
 The devil started it away back in Eden ; but there is not one word 
 of truth in it j it is a libel upon Christianity. It does not make a 
 man gloomy to become a child of God. See ! there is a man going 
 to execution. In a few moments he will be launched into eternity. 
 But, flashing over the wires, comes a message from the Queen. 
 She sends a reprieve. I run in haste to the man. I shout, " Good 
 news ! good news ! You are not to die ! " Does that make him 
 gloomy ? No ! no ! no ! Young men, young women, old and 
 young, don't believe Satan's lies any longer. It is the want of 
 Christ that makes men gloomy. Take a man who is really thirsty, 
 dying for want of water, and you go and give him water. Is that 
 going to make him gloomy ? That is what Christ is — water to 
 the thirsty soul. If a man is dying for want of bread, and you 
 give him bread, is that to make him gloomy ? That is what 
 Christ is to the soul — the bread of life. You will never have 
 true pleasure or peace or joy or comfort until you have found 
 Christ. 
 
 The idea that a man cannot have peace and joy in this world, 
 if he is a Christian, is all folly. That used to be my difficulty. 
 But I want to tell you I had more joy and solid comfort and peaoe 
 the first year after I was converted, than I had all my previous life 
 put together, and I never heard of any young convert who would 
 not testify the same thing. 
 
 Another excuse— how thick they are ! The air is full of them. 
 I hear some one say, " Well, I should like to be a Christian, but it 
 is a very hard thing. I have tried it a good many times. I 
 would not like to speak right out, but that is just the honest truth.*' 
 I will tell you what you have been doing, you have been trying to 
 serve God with the old carnal mind. You might as well try to 
 walk to the moon ! It is utterly impossible. The Ethiopian 
 cannot change his skin ; the leopard cannot change its spots. It 
 is impossible to serve God with the old carnal heart ; but with the 
 new heart God will give you the power, and you will not then be 
 talking about its being hard to serve Him. That is just another 
 lie. Let us look at it. Do you mean to say that God is a hard 
 Master ? Do you say it is a hard thing to serve God, and do you 
 say that Satan is an easy master, and that it is easier to serve him 
 
84 EXCUSES. 
 
 than God ? Is it honest — is it true ? God a hard master ! If I 
 read my Bible right, I read that the way of the transgressor is hard. 
 Let me tell you it is the devil who is the hard master. Yes. " The 
 way of the transgressor is hard." The Word of God cannot be 
 changed. If you doubt it, young man, look at the convict in the 
 prison, right in the bloom of manhood, right in the prime of life. 
 He has been there for ten years, and must remain for ten years 
 more — twenty years taken out of his life, and when he comes out 
 of that miserable cell, he comes out a branded felon ! Do you 
 think that man will tell you " The way of the transgressor has been 
 easy ? " Go ask the poor drunkard, the man who is bound hand 
 and foot, the slave of the infernal cup, who is hastening onwards to 
 a drunkard's hell. Ask him if he has found the way of the trans- 
 gressor easy. " Easy ? " he will cry — " Easy ? " The way of 
 the transgressor is hard, and gets harder and harder every day!" 
 Go, ask the libertine and the worldling j go ask the gambler and 
 the blasphemer — with one voice they will tell you, that the service 
 has been hard. Take the most faithful follower of the devil and 
 put him upon this platform to-night, and let us put questions to 
 him. The best way to settle this question is to find out by the 
 testimony of those that have served both masters. I do not think 
 a man has any right to judge until he has served both. If I heard 
 a man condemn a master, I should be very apt to ask if he had 
 served him 5 and if he had not, he could not very well testify. 
 Now, if you have served two masters then you are very good 
 judges. I want to stand here to-night as a- witness for Christ. 
 I have been in this school for twenty years, and I want to testify 
 to-night that I have found him an easy master. I used to say, 
 as you do, " It is a hard thing to be a Christian," and I thought it 
 was ; but now I tell you that the yoke is easy and the burden 
 light. And I am speaking to many more to-night who have 
 served both masters. Many of you have served Christ 5 and many 
 of ycu before you were brought into his fold, served the devil. I 
 would like to ask you, you that are Christ's, you who have served 
 Him — some five, some ten, some twenty years— is Jesus a hard 
 master ? (" No ! No ! ") I thought you would say No. I knew 
 you would. I never heard a man say, " I have served Christ 
 for five years, or for ten, and found him a hard master." And 
 
EXCUSES. 85 
 
 now let me put you into the witness-box again. For many years 
 you served Satan, some of you are serving him still, " Do you not 
 find him a hard master." (" Yes ! Yes i ") Oh yes ! my friends,, 
 you cannot help admitting it, you know it is true, the way of the 
 transgressor is hard. 
 
 Suppose we could go beyond this life ; suppose we could go 
 down to the bottomless pit and summon up Judas, who has been 
 there for the last eighteen hundred years. Suppose we put the 
 question to him, " Judas, you betrayed the Son of God, sold Him 
 for thirty pieces of silver. You have served the devil faithfully 3 
 have you found his service an easy one ? " What a wail would 
 rise from these lips! Do you think Judas found it easy? Do 
 you think he found Satan a kind master ? See him throwing down 
 the thirty pieces of silver ! Why, he got so tired of the devil's 
 service that he hanged himself twenty-four hours after publicly 
 entering it. 
 
 Now let us call upon Paul who, you may say, took the place 
 that Judas once filled ; let him come down from the hill-tops of 
 glory. Do you think he would say it was a hard thing to serve 
 God, and an easy thing to serve tne devii ? " I served the devil 
 well," he says, " I breathed out threatenings, I persecuted the 
 Church. Bat it was hard for me to kick against the pricks." 
 
 And now let us see what God says about it. I would like to 
 ask those who think Him a hard master, what they would do 
 with a passage like this, " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon 
 you and learn of Me 5 for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye 
 shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden 
 is light ? " Yes, it is an easy thing to serve any one we love. If 
 you love a person how you delight to please them. 
 
 Oh, my friends, do not dishonour God by calling Him a hard 
 master. Speak to the young disciple of the Lord Jesus. Look at 
 his very face. See how his eye is lit up with a light from heaven 5 
 how the glow from Calvary is shed around his path. Let him tell 
 of the peace and the joy he has found in the service of Christ. 
 Let him tell, till language fails him, how the way grows lighter 
 and lighter as he journeys on, how his hopes, grow brighter and 
 brighter as he nears his eternal home. Oh yes, there is a vast 
 
86 EXCUSES. 
 
 difference in the yoke of Satan and the yoke of Christ. The yoke 
 of the Christian is easy and light ; the yoke of the devil is heavy 
 and hard. I beg of you do not listen to Satan's lies. He has 
 deceived the whole human race. Oh, will you not just change 
 masters to-night, and accept of the invitation to be present at the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb ? 
 
EXCUSES. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 Thf next excuse I want to take up is "election." I meet a great 
 many in the inquiry-room who tell me they are very anxious to be 
 saved, but they do not know if they are elected. a If I were only 
 sure that I were elected," they say, "I would soon be in earnest 
 about salvation. But then I don't know that I'm one of the elect, 
 so I have a very good excuse." Now I want to give no uncertain 
 sound upon this point. I want to say that an unconverted person 
 has nothing whatever to do with the doctrine of election. After 
 you have become children of God, then we can talk about election 
 — then we can talk about how sweet and beautiful the doctrine 
 is. But those who are not God's children have nothing at all to 
 do with it. You do not like any one to read your private letters, 
 do you ? Well, the doctrine of election was written, in a private 
 letter, to the children of God. No wonder the world puzzles over 
 it. No wonder they cannot understand it. It was never meant 
 for them. What they have to do with is the " Whosoever " 
 and the " Him that cometh," of the free invitations of Christ. 
 
 Suppose I am taking a walk near this hall to-night, and 
 say to the policeman at the door, " Who is invited to this 
 meeting?" "Those who have tickets," he replies. I have no 
 ticket, so,fit is not for me. I walk on further, and come to another 
 
 meeting. " This is only for those belonging to the 
 
 Society," I am told, so I know it is not for me. I go on further, 
 and come to a large public building — a club. " Only members 
 admitted," I read at the door. It is not for me either. I go 
 
88 EXCUSES. 
 
 further still and come to another building, and over the door this 
 is written: "Whosoever will, let him come in." Ah! it is for 
 me this time. Whosoever — that means me — and in I go. My 
 friends, God puts it just like that. All are invited to come to 
 Christ. What have you to do with Paul's epistle about election ? 
 Why, you have nothing to do with it — not till you become a 
 Christian. You have no business with the private letters of other 
 people, and the " whosoever " comes before election. If you learn 
 to read, you commence with the alphabet, don't you ? You don't 
 learn to read all at once. And if you come to Christ you 
 must come in God's way ; and then you can talk about how you 
 came. 
 
 Yes, but, you say, there is another side to that. Christ said, 
 " No man can come to Me except the Father, which hath sent Me, 
 draw him." Well, I say Christ is drawing men. " I, if I be lifted 
 up, will draw all men unto Me." He is drawing men, but they will 
 not come. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Him- 
 self, and drawing men unto Him. That drawing is going on now, 
 but many a heart is fighting against the strivings of the Spirit. 
 God is drawing men heavenward, and the devil is drawing them 
 hellward. 
 
 Supposing a man, wishing to go to London, should say, u I 
 don't know if God has decreed it. If I am to be there, I will be 
 there. Anyhow, it is no use my taking the train. What is the 
 use of my paying the fare and taking trouble about it ? If I am 
 elected to get there, I will get there somehow." Who would 
 use such language as that ? Or suppose a farmer were to 
 say, " I am not going to plant ; if God has decreed that I am to 
 nave a crop, I shall have it. I am not going to trouble myself 
 tilling the ground or working hard ; if God has decreed that I 
 will have a good harvest, why, I shall have it without any tilling.'-' 
 Or suppose you are sick, and do not send for the doctor. Suppose 
 you say, " If God has decreed it, I shall get well," so you refuse 
 to take the medicines. You say, " There is no use in it ; if God 
 has decreed that I am to get well, I will get well without it." 
 Whoever talks in that way ? Yet a good many people carry out 
 that very doctrine with regard to spiritual things. 
 
 I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going 
 
EXCUSES. 89 
 
 to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty 
 years in heaven, He came down and spoke to John. One Lord's 
 day in Patmos, He said to him, " Write these things to the 
 churches." John kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And 
 then the Lord, when it was nearly finished, said, ** John, before 
 you close the book, put this in : ' The Spirit and the Bride say, 
 Come j and let him that heareth say, Come/ But there will be 
 some that are deaf, and they cannot hear, so add, ' Let him that is 
 athirst, Come 5 ' and in case there should be any that do not thirst, 
 put it still broader, ' Whosoever will, let him take of the water of 
 life freely.'" What more can you have than that? And the 
 Book is sealed, as it were, with that. It is the last invitation in 
 the Bible. " Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life 
 freely." You are thirsty. You want water. I hold out this glass 
 to you, and say, " Take it." You say, " If I am decreed to have 
 it, I am not going to put myself to the trouble of taking it." Well, 
 you will never get it. And if you are ever to have salvation, you 
 must reach out the hand and take it. " I w ; ll take the cup of 
 Salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord." Will you take it 
 to-night ? It is simple enough j it is a gift. " The wages of sin 
 is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." My dear friends, do 
 not stumble over the doctrine of election any longer. You will 
 not be able to stand up before God and say, " I did not accept the 
 invitation because I was not one of the elect." That excuse will 
 fade away in his presence. God invites every man and woman to 
 the gospel feast when He writes, "Whosoever will, let him 
 take." 
 
 I can imagine there is a man down there who says, ft That is 
 not my difficulty. I know a man who belongs to the professing 
 Church of Christ, and he cheated me out of five dollars some years 
 ago. There are hypocrites in the Church, and I am not going to 
 have anything to do with it. No ! you don't catch me going into 
 company with hypocrites." 
 
 Well, I will find you two hypocrites in the world for every one 
 you will find in the Church. Besides, I am not asking you to 
 come to the Church — not but that I believe in churches — but I 
 am asking you to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Come to 
 Christ first, and then we can talk to you about the Church. There 
 
90 EXCUSES. 
 
 always have been hypocrites in the Church and always will be. 
 One of the twelve apostles turned out to be a hypocrite, and there 
 will be hypocrites in the Church to the 'end of time. But there 
 will not be one hypocrite at this feast, and if you want to get out 
 of the company of hypocrites you had better make haste and come 
 to Christ. If you do not accept the invitation you will have to 
 spend eternity with them. Suppose every one here were a black- 
 hearted hypocrite, what has that to do with you ? " Follow thou 
 me/' says Christ. You are not to be looking to John, or Peter, or 
 Paul, this man or that, but straight to Christ. You may find many 
 flaws in our characters, but you will find none in Christ's. We find a 
 good many in ourselves, and you may too. But we do not ask 
 you to follow us, but Christ. There will be no hypocrites at the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb ; they will all be in the lost world. 
 And if you do not accept the invitation you will have to spend 
 eternity with hypocrites. So if you really object to them, you had 
 better make sure of a place at the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 
 But there is a self-righteous Pharisee here who says, " Well, I 
 don't understand all this talk about conversion ; I'm good enough 
 as I am. My excuse will stand, if the others won't. I am not 
 going into that inquiry-room to talk with these people, and beg 
 them to pray for me ; I don't need it." And he draws his filthy 
 rags of self-righteousness about him and thinks he is pure in the 
 sight of God and man. My friend, the Word of God says, " There 
 is none righteous, no not one." If you are found with your own 
 garment on, you will be cast out from this feast. He will furnish 
 you with a robe of spotless white if you will accept it, but you need 
 not think you can stand in the presence of the King with these 
 miserable rags of self-righteousness about you. Oh, may the Holy 
 Spirit show you how vile you are in the sight of a holy God. The 
 nearer a man gets to God, the more he abhors himself. You 
 know when a man is getting near to God ; he begins to loathe 
 himself. Like Job, he says, " I abhor myself." Like Isaiah, 
 when he saw the holy God, he cries out, " Woe is me, I am un- 
 done." Like that holy man Daniel, his comeliness is turned to 
 corruption. May God strip you of your self-righteousness to- 
 day ! 
 
 But here is another excuse. If the devil cannot make a man 
 
EXCUSES. 91 
 
 believe he is good enough without being saved, then he will tell 
 him he is so bad the Lord will have nothing to do with him. A 
 great many in the inquiry-room have that excuse. " I would like 
 to be saved," they say, " but I am too bad." That is another lie. 
 Why, what does the Scripture say ? " Christ died for the un- 
 godly." Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. What 
 did Christ say to his disciples ? " Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature." " That repentance and 
 remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, 
 beginning at Jerusalem." The very men whose hands were 
 dripping with the blood of the Son of God, had salvation offered 
 to them ! Paul said he was the chief of sinners, and if he was 
 saved, surely there is hope for every man on the face of the earth. 
 If you are so bad, you are the very one He wants to save. During 
 our war, I remember the doctor used to go after a battle to look at 
 the wounded men, and he would find out the most desperate cases 
 and attend to them first. That is the way the great Physician does 
 now. He saves the worst men He can get. I know a great many 
 people who are anxious to come, but they are waiting until they 
 grow a little better. They think God will not take them till 
 then. 
 
 Now, notice, my friends, the Lord invites you to come just as 
 you are, and if you could make yourself better you would not be 
 any more acceptable to Him. Do not put these filthy rags of self- 
 righteousness about you. God will strip every rag from you when 
 you come to Him, and clothe you with glorious garments. When 
 the war was going on, we would sometimes go to the recruiting 
 office and see a man come in with a silk hat, broadcloth coat, calf- 
 skin boots — his suit might be worth $1005 and another man 
 would come in whose clothes were not worth a dollar; but they 
 both had to strip and put on the uniform of the country. And so 
 when we go into Christ's vineyard we must put on the livery of 
 heaven and be stripped of every rag. So, however bad you are, 
 come just as you are, and the Lord will receive you. 
 
 I have read of an artist who wanted to paint a picture of the 
 Prodigal Son. He searched through the madhouses, and the poor- 
 houses, and the prisons, to find a man wretched enough to repre- 
 sent the prodigal, but he could not find one. One day he was walk- 
 
92 EXCUSES. 
 
 ing down the streets and met a man whom he thought would do. 
 He told the poor beggar he would pay him well if he came to his 
 room and sat for his portrait. The beggar agreed, and the day 
 was appointed for him to come. The day came, and a man put in 
 his appearance at the artist's room. " You made an appoint- 
 ment with me," he said, when he was shown into the studio. 
 The artist looked at him, " I never saw you before," he said ; 
 "you cannot have an appointment with me." ft Yes," he said, " I 
 agreed to meet you to-day at ten o'clock." " You must be mis- 
 taken 3 it must have been some other artist ; I was to see a l:eggar 
 here at this hour." "Well," says the beggar, "I am he." 
 "You?" "Yes." "Why, what have you been doing?" 
 "Well, I thought I would dress myself up a bit before T got 
 painted." " Then," said the artist, " I do not want you ; I wanted 
 you as you were ; now, you are no use to me." That is the way 
 Christ wants every poor sinner, just as he is. I think I can hear 
 some one say, "Oh, but my heart is so hard." Well, that is just 
 the very reason you ought to come. If you had not a hard heart you 
 would not need a Saviour. Do you think you can soften your heart ? 
 Can you break your heart ? Did not God invite the hard-hearted ? 
 Did not Christ come to seek and to save that which was lost ? It 
 is just because men's hearts are hard that they need a Saviour. 
 So that is no excuse at all. God invites you, and you cannot 
 stand up and say to the Great King you did not accept the invita- 
 tion because you had a hard heart. He invites "whosoever," and 
 you can come along with your hard heart just as it is. 
 
 In the North a minister was talking to a man in the inquiry_ 
 room. " My heart is so hard, it seems as if it was chained, and I 
 cannot come," said the inquirer. The minister said to him, "Come 
 along, chain and all ; " and he just came to Christ, hard-hearted, 
 chain and all, and Christ snapped the fetters, and set him free just 
 there. If you are bound hands and feet by Satan, it is the work 
 of God to break the fetters ; you cannot break them. But, thank 
 God, He can snap the fetters of every sin-bound soul to-night, and 
 set each captive free. 
 
 Then comes another excuse. " I should like to come, but 
 somehow or other I do not know that I feel just right." That is 
 a very common excuse, — Feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling ! I 
 
EXCUSES 93 
 
 have heard that cry till I am sick of it. Suppose a friend invites 
 me to dinner to-day, and I say, " Well, I would like very much to 
 take dinner with you. There is no man I would rather dine with 
 than yourself 3 but I do not know that I feel just right." "Are 
 you sick ? " he might ask. " No, I never felt better in my life." 
 "Well, what do. you mean?" "1 don't know that 1 feel just 
 right. I do not know that I will be in a right state of mind." " I 
 do not understand you," he would say. " What do you mean ? " 
 ''' Well, T would like to go very much, but I don't feel right." 
 And that is the way men are talking now. " I would like to go 
 to heaven, but I don't know that I have got the right kind of 
 feeling." But, my friends, if you realiy want to, God invites you, 
 and that is all about it. My friend urges me to come, but I keep 
 on saying, " I do not know that I am in the right state of mind." 
 " Why," he would say, " I think Mr. Moody must have gone out 
 of his mind. I invited him to dinner, and instead of giving me a 
 plain answer he kept talking about feeling all the time ! " You 
 may smile at it, but that is just the way people talk in the inquiry- 
 room — hundreds of them. My friends, does God invite you ? If 
 He does, why don't you accept the invitation ? If you want to 
 come, just come along, and don't be talking about feeling. Do 
 you think Lazarus had any feeling when Christ called him out of 
 the sepulchre ? 
 
 My friends, God is above feeling. Do you think you can 
 control your feelings ? I am sure if I could control my feelings 
 1 never would have any bad feelings, I would always have good 
 feelings. But bear in mind Satan may change our feelings fifty 
 times a day, but he cannot change the Word of God ; and what 
 we want is to build our hopes of heaven upon the Word of God. 
 When a poor sinner is coming up out of the pit, and just ready 
 to get his feet upon the Rock of Ages, the devil sticks out a 
 plank of feeling, and says, " Get on that," and when he puts his 
 feet on that, down he goes again. Take one of these texts — 
 " Verily I say unto you, he that heareth My word and believeth on 
 Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into 
 condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." My friend, 
 that is worth more than all the feelings that you can have in a 
 whole lifetime. I would a thousand times rather stand on that 
 
94 EXCUSES. 
 
 verse than on all the frames and feelings I ever had. I took my 
 stand there twenty years ago. Since then the dark waves of hell 
 have come dashing up against me ; the waves of persecution have 
 broken all around me ; doubts, fears, and unbelief in turn have 
 assailed me -, but I have been able to stand firm on this short 
 word of God. It is a sure footing for eternity. It was true 1800 
 years ago, and it is true to-night. That rock is higher than my 
 feeling. And what we need is to get our feet upon the rock, and 
 the Lord will put a new song in our mouths. 
 
 But I hear some one in the gallery say, "He has not 
 touched my case at all. None of these things ever trouble 
 me j but the fact is, / cannot believe. I would like to come, but 
 I cannot believe." Not long ago a man said to me, " I cannot 
 believe." " Whom ? " I asked. He stammered and said again, " I 
 cannot believe." I said, " Whom?" "Well/; he said, "I can't 
 believe." " Whom ? " I asked again. At last he said, " I cannot 
 believe myself." "Well, you don't need to. You do not need 
 to put any confidence in yourself. The less you believe in your- 
 self the better. But if yon tell me you can't believe God, that is 
 another thing 5 and I would like to ask you why ! " If a man 
 says to me, " I have a great respect for you j I have a great 
 admiration for you j but I do not believe a word you say," I say 
 to myself, "I certainly do not think much of your admiration." 
 But that is the way a good many people talk about God. They 
 say, " I have a profound reverence for God j the very name of 
 God strikes awe to my heart; but I do not believe Him." Why 
 don't you be honest and say at once you won't believe ? There is 
 no real reason why men cannot believe God. I challenge any 
 infidel on the face of the earth to put his finger on one promise 
 God has ever made that He has not kept. The idea of a man 
 standing up in the afternoon of the nineteenth century and saying 
 he cannot believe God ! My friend, you have no reason for not 
 believing Him. If you say you cannot believe man- there would 
 be some reason in that, because men very uiten say what is not 
 true. But God never makes any mistakes. u Has He said it and 
 shall He not make it good ? " Believe in God and say as Job 
 says : " Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him/' Some men 
 talk as if it were a great misfortune that they do not believe* 
 
EXCUSES. 95 
 
 They seem to look upon it as a kind of infirmity, and think they 
 owght to be sympathized with and pitied. But bear in mind that 
 it is the most damning sin of the world. " When He, the Holy 
 Ghost is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteous- 
 ness, and of judgment ; of sin, because they believe not on Me." 
 That is the sin of the world — " because they believe not on Me." 
 That is the very root of sin : and the fruit is bad, for the tree is 
 bad. May God open our eyes to see that He is true, and may we 
 all be led to put our fullest trust in Christ. 
 
 But you say, " / do not know what it is to believe." That is 
 another excuse. Well, let me put it differently. Suppose I say 
 trust Him — just take Him at his word. Believe that He really 
 invites you — that He wants you to come. If you do not know 
 what it is to believe, will you not just trust God? 
 
 But here is another one who says, " I would like to come very 
 much, but / am afraid I would not hold out." Now, I have had 
 a rule for a number of years that has been a great help to me — 
 never to cross a mountain until you come to it. You trust 
 Christ to save you to-night. The devil throws a little straw 
 across your path, and then tries to magnify it and makes you think 
 it is a great mountain. Never mind the mountains ; trust Him 
 to-night to save you. If He can save you to-night, He can keep 
 you to-morrow. When you have sat down at the banquet and 
 had one good feast — when you have had one interview with 
 Christ, you will not want to leave Him. I accepted this invitation 
 twenty years ago, and I have never wanted to go back. I have 
 not had to keep myself all these years. I would have been 
 back in twenty-four hours if I had. But thank God, we do not 
 have to keep ourselves. The Lord is my Keeper — my Shepherd, 
 I shall not want. He keeps us. It takes the same grace to keep 
 us that it does to save us. And God has told us that " My grace 
 is sufficient for you.*' 
 
 But some people are not at all afraid of falling away. They 
 are sure that God is quite able to save them, and quite strong 
 enough to keep them. But when you ask them if they are 
 Christians, they say, " Well, you know, / would like to be, but J 
 have no time." If I were to go to the door to-night, and take 
 you by the hand and say, "My friend, why not accept of the 
 
9» EXCUSES. 
 
 invitation to-night ? " some oi you would say, Please just excuse 
 me to-night. I have really no time. I have got some very 
 pressing business to attend to to-morrow morning, and I have to 
 go home as fast as possible to get my night's rest. You must 
 really excuse me." And the mothers would say, " We have to run 
 home and put the children to bed j you must excuse us for this 
 time." So thousands and thousands say they have no time to be 
 religious. But, my friends, what have you done with all the time 
 that God has given you ? What have you been doing all these 
 months and years that have rolled away since He gave you birth ? 
 Is it true you have no time ? What did you do with the 36$ days 
 of last year ? Had you no time during all these twelve months to 
 seek the Kingdom of God ? You spend twenty years getting an 
 education to enable you to earn a living for this poor frail body, 
 So soon to be eaten up of worms. You spend seven or eight years 
 in learning a trade, that you may earn your daily bread j and yet 
 you have not Jive minutes to accept of this invitation of Christ's ! 
 My friend, bear in mind you have yet to find time to die -, to stand 
 in the presence of the Judge. And when He calls you to stand 
 before that bar, will you dare to tell Him that you had no time 
 to prepare for the marriage supper of his Son ? You have no 
 time ? Take time ! Let everything else be laid aside until you 
 have accepted of this invitation. Do you not know that it is a lie ? 
 If you have not time, take it. " Seek first the Kingdom of God." 
 Let the children sit up a little late to-night. Let your business 
 be suspended to-morrow. Suppose you do not get so much 
 money to-morrow. What matter it if you get Christ ? Better for 
 a man to be sure of salvation than to "gain the whole -world and 
 lose his owft soul." 
 
 But you say " I would like to become a Christian, but / have a 
 prejudice against these special meetings, and against evangelists, and 
 against a layman too. If it was a regular ministry, and it was our 
 regular minister, I would accept the invitation." If that is your 
 difficulty, I can help you out of it. You can just get right up, 
 and go out of the hall, and walk straight over to your minister, and 
 have a talk with him. And if you say you do not want to be con- 
 verted in a special meeting, there are regular meetings in all the 
 churches throughout the town, and your minister would be heartily 
 
EXCUSES. 97 
 
 glad to talk with you about your soul. But if you say, "There 
 is a great awakening here in this city, and I do not like to be con- 
 verted in the time of a revival," you can step into a train, and go 
 to some town where there is no revival. We can find you 
 some place where there is no revival, and some church where 
 there is not much of the revival spirit, without very much difficulty. 
 If you really want to go, pray don't give that for an excuse. How 
 wise the devil is ! When the church is cold, and everything is 
 dead, men say, " Oh, well, if there was only some life in the 
 church I might become a Christian 3 if we could only just have a 
 wave of blessing from heaven, it would be so easy then." Then 
 when the wave does come they say, " Oh, no, we are afraid of ex- 
 citement, and afraid of these special meetings. We are afraid 
 something will be done that won't be just in accordance with 
 our ideas of propriety." Oh, my friends, do not listen to these 
 subtle lies. Just come as you are to Christ, and accept the offer 
 which He makes you now. 
 
 I wish I had time to go on with these excuses, but they are as 
 numerous as the hairs of my head. And if I could go on, and 
 tried to exhaust them all, the devil would just help you to make 
 more. The best thing you can do is to tie them all into one 
 bundle, and stamp them as a pack of lies ; not a single one of 
 them is true. And God will sweep them all away some day if 
 you do not do it now. It is a very solemn thought that God will 
 excuse you if you want to be excused. He does not wish to do it, 
 but He will do it. " As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure 
 in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his 
 way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will 
 ye die, O house of Israel." Look at the Jewish nation. They 
 wanted to be excused from the feast. They despised the grace of 
 God and trampled it under foot, and look at them to-day ! Yes, 
 it is easy enough to say, " I pray Thee have me excused," but by- 
 and-by God may take yoa at your word, and say, " Yes, I will 
 excuse you." And in that lost world, while others who have 
 accepted the invitation sit down to the marriage supper of the 
 Lamb, amid shouts and hallelujahs in heaven, you will be crying 
 m the company of the lost, "The harvest is past; the summer is 
 euded, and we are not saved." 
 
 7 
 
9$ EXCUSES. 
 
 And remember, it is the King of kings, the Lord of 
 glory, who invites you to this feast. Come just as you are, and 
 accept the invitation. Let the plough stand in the furrow until 
 you have accepted it. Let the shop be closed till then ; let busi- 
 ness be suspended until you have accepted it. Let the land rest ; 
 yes, let the ox stand in the stall, until you have accepted that invi- 
 tation. Make sure, whatever you do, that you will not be missing 
 from the marriage supper of the Lamb. That sainted mother of 
 yours will be there. That little child who died a few months ago 
 will be there. Young lady ! do you want to be excused ? He win 
 excuse you. Do you want to be excused, young man ? He will 
 excuse you. You may make light of it to-night, if you choose. " Oh 
 no,'* you say, " I never do that ; whatever I have been guilty of, 
 I have never done that ! " Have you not ? Suppose I get an in- 
 vitation to dinner to-morrow ; I take it and tear it up ; I do not 
 answer it ; I pay no attention to it. Is.not that making light of it ? 
 How many of you will go away to-night paying no attention to 
 this invitation ? Every one who goes home in a careless spirit, 
 won't he be making light of it ? The Lord has invited you to the 
 gospel feast. Are you going to spend this evening in accepting 
 or in making light of the invitation ? God does not want you 
 to die 5 He wants you to accept this invitation and 'live. If 
 you have a good excuse, one that will stand the light of eternity, 
 hold on to it. Do not give it up for anything. Take it down 
 with you into the grave. Hold it firm, take it to the bar 
 of God, and tell it out to Him. But if you have got one that 
 won't stand the test of eternity, give it up. If you have an excuse 
 that will not stand the piercing eye of God, I beg of you as a 
 friend, give it up to-night. Let it go to the four winds of heaven, 
 and accept the invitation to beat the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 Do not let the laughing, scoffing, mocking world laugh your soul 
 into eternal death. Do as the pilgrim, whom John Bunyan 
 describes, who started out from the City of Destruction, crying, 
 " Life, life, eternal life ! " Set your face like a flint towards that 
 blessed land and say, "By the grace of God, I will be at the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb.' 
 
 Supposing we should write out here to-night this excuse. How 
 would it sound ? u To the King of Heaven. While sitting in the 
 
EXCUSES. 99 
 
 — — - Hall, City of , July — , 1885, / received a very 
 
 pressing invitation from one oj your servants to be present at the 
 marriage supper of your only -begotten Son. I pray Thee have 
 me excused." Would you sign that, young man ? Would you, 
 mother ? Would you come up to the reporters' table, take up a 
 pen and put your name down to such an excuse ? You would say, 
 * Let my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave to 
 the roof of my mouth if I sign that." I doubt if there is one here 
 who would sign it. Will you then pay no attention to God's 
 invitation ? I beg of you do not make light of it. It is a loving 
 God inviting you to a feast, and God is not to be mocked. Go 
 play with the forked lightning, go trifle with pestilence and disease, 
 but trine not with God. 
 
 Just let me write out another answer. " To the King of Heaven. 
 
 While sitting in the Hall, July — , 1885, ^ received a 
 
 pressing invitation from one of your messengers to be present at the 
 marriage supper of your only -begotten Son. 1 hasten to reply. 
 By the grace of God I will be present." Who will sign 
 that ? Is there one who will put his name to it ? Is there no one 
 who will say, " By the grace of God I will accept the invitation 
 now"? May God bring you to a decision just now. If you 
 would ever see the kingdom of God, you must decide this ques- 
 tion one way or the other. What will you do with the invitation ? 
 I bring it to you in the name of my Master 3 will you accept or 
 reject it ? Be wise to-night, and accept of the invitation. Make 
 up your mind you will not go away till the question of eternity 
 is settled. May God bring hundreds to a decision to-night is the 
 prayer of my heart. 
 
THE BLOOD. 
 
 Part I. — The Old Testament 
 
 "It is the Blood that maketh an atonement for 
 the Soul/' — Lev. xvii. ii. 
 
 Every man should be able to give a reason for the hope that is 
 in him j and I do not believe the man lives who can give a reason 
 for his hope beyond the grave, who is a stranger to the Blood. 
 I am often told that I make the plan of salvation too easy, and 
 that it is folly to say that men can be saved by trusting simply 
 to the atoning blood of Christ. Now I do not wish any one to 
 believe what I say, if it is not according to Scripture ; and the 
 best way is just to turn up the Bible and see what the Word of 
 God says about it. 
 
 The first portion of Scripture I would call your attention to 
 is from the very first book of the Bible. If you turn to Genesis 
 iii. 21, you find, " Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord 
 God make coats of skins, and clothed them." In this verse we 
 get the first glimpse of the blood. Certainly God could not have 
 clothed Adam and Eve with the skins of beasts unless He had 
 shed blood. And to me it is a very sweet thought that sin was 
 covered before Adam was driven out of Eden — that God dealt in 
 grace with him before He dealt in judgment. It may be that this 
 was a type, away back in Eden, of Christ the coming One, of the 
 Sacrifice to be slain j and Adam might have said to his wife, 
 " Well, even though God has driven us out of Eden He loves us, 
 and this coat is a token of his love." Some one has said God put 
 a lamp of promise into his hand before He drove him out. " The 
 seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." Did you 
 ever think what a terrible state of things it would be if man in his 
 lost and ruined state were allowed to live for ever ? It was from 
 
THE BLOOD. 101 
 
 love to Adam that God drove him out of Eden, that he should not 
 live for ever. God put the cherubim there with the flaming 
 sword. But now Christ has come and taken the sword into his 
 own bosom, and opened wide the gates, so that man can come in 
 and eat. Adam might have been in Eden ten thousand years and 
 then be led astray by Satan j but now " our life is hid with Christ 
 in God." Yes, man is safer with the second Adam out of Eden 
 than with the first Adam in Eden. 
 
 Then let us turn to Gen. iv. 4 : " And Abel, he also brought 
 of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord 
 had respect unto Abel and to his offering 5 but unto Cain and to 
 his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth and his 
 countenance fell." Now here were two boys who were born and 
 brought up outside of Eden. They were children of the same 
 parents, and brought up under precisely similar circumstances 
 and under the same influences, and there is no account of any 
 difference between these two boys until they go to offer sacri- 
 fice. Abel brings the blood, and is accepted j Cain comes in his 
 own way, and is rejected. Undoubtedly, when our first parents 
 fell, God marked out the way by which man might come to 
 Him ; Abel walked in God's way, but Cain in his own. You 
 may have wondered why Cain's offering was not just as accept- 
 able to Him as Abel's ; but one took God's way and the other 
 took his own Perhaps Cain said he could not bear the sight 
 of blood, and took that which God had cursed, and laid it on the 
 altar. Perhaps he said to himself, " I shall certainly not bring a 
 bleeding lamb. I don't like that doctrine at all. Here is the 
 grain and the beautiful fruit which I have raised by my industry, 
 and I'm sure it looks better than blood." And there are a great 
 manv Cainites in the church to-day. They are trying to get into 
 heaven their own way. They bring their own good deeds to God. 
 They prefer what is agreeable to the eye, as Cain did his beautiful 
 corn and fruit ; but they do not like the doctrine of the Blood of 
 the Atonement. From the time Adam left Eden there have been 
 Abelites and Cainites. The Abelites come by way of the blood — 
 the Cainites come in a way of their own. They wish to get rid 
 of the doctrine of the blood. But be assured that any religion 
 which makes light of the blood is of the devil. No matter how 
 
102 THE BLOOD 
 
 eloquent a man is, if he preaches against tne blood he is doing the 
 devil's work. Do not listen to him. Do not believe him. If an 
 angel from heaven should preach any other gospel I would not 
 believe it. " Christ died for our sins," — that is the gospel that 
 Paul preached, and Peter preached, and that God has always 
 honoured in the salvation of men's souls. 
 
 The next glimpse we get of the blood is in Gen. viii. 2o« 
 " And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord ; and took . of every 
 clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on 
 the altar." We have passed out of the first dispensation and now 
 have come to the second ; and the very first thing Noah does, is to 
 put blood between him and his sins. The second dispensation is 
 founded upon blood. Thus Noah walked by the highway of the 
 blood j for this the animals were taken through the flood ; and all 
 God's people have been walking that way since, for it is the blood 
 that atones for sin. 
 
 Would you turn to Gen. xxii. 13. "And Abraham lifted up 
 his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in a 
 thicket by his horns. And Abraham, went and took the ram and 
 offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son." God 
 loved Abraham so much that He spared his son, but He so loved 
 the world that He did not spare his own Son, but delivered Him 
 up for us all. Now we are told that Abraham saw Christ's day 
 and was glad. I do not know when he saw it, but I have an idea 
 that it was from this very place that God drew back the curtain of 
 time and showed him Christ as the Bearer of sin. Just .look at 
 that scene. There is the altar, built at the command of Jehoval . 
 God had told him to take his son, his only son whom he loved, 
 and bind and slay him. He has bound the boy 5 everything is 
 ready, and now he takes the knife to slay his son. He does not 
 know what it means, but God said it and he obeys. I wish we 
 had men like Abraham, now-a-days, willing to obey God in the 
 dark, not asking the reason why. I can see him put his arms 
 round his boy as he takes him to his bosom and weeps over him. 
 I can hear him telling him the secret he had hidden from him so 
 long. What a scene ! What a struggle it must have been ! 
 Now he is ready to plunge the knife into the heart of his son. But 
 hark ! there comes a voice from heaven, " Abraham ! Abraham ! 
 
THE BLOOD. 103 
 
 spare thy son." Ah ! there was no voice at Calvary, no cry from 
 heaven then, " Spare thy Son." He gave Him up freely for us all, 
 the Innocent for the guilty, the Just for the unjust. 
 
 Turn now to Exodus xii. — one of the most important chapters 
 in the Old Testament. At the thirteenth verse we read, " And the 
 blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are ; 
 and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall 
 not be upon you to destroy you." God did not say, "• When I see 
 your good deeds — how you have prayed, and wept, and groaned, 
 I will pass over you," but ''''when I see the blood." It was not 
 their good resolutions, their tears, their prayers, their works, their 
 faith, that saved those men in Egypt ; it was the blood. What 
 were they to do to be saved ? They were to put the blood on the 
 door-posts and lintel. They were not to put it on the threshold. 
 God would not have them trample upon the blood. But that is 
 what the world is doing to-day. Men say it is not the death of 
 Christ j it is his life. But God did not say, " Take a white, spot- 
 less lamb, and put it there at the front of the door, and when I 
 see the lamb I will pass over you." Had an Israelite done that, 
 the angel of death would have passed by the lamb j would have 
 entered that house j would have laid his cold hand on the eldest 
 born. A live lamb could not have kept death out that night j he 
 would have fallen a victim like the Egyptian. Very likely, when 
 some of the lords and dukes and great men rode through Goshen, 
 and saw the Israelites sprinkling their dwellings, they said they 
 never saw such foolishness. Very likely they thought they were 
 just spoiling their houses. Every house had blood on it. No 
 Egyptian could understand it. But on that memorable night when 
 Death entered every house from the palace of the king to the hovel 
 of the poor, when the wail of sorrow went up from that stricken 
 land, it was the blood that kept him from the homes of Goshen. 
 Yes, it is the blood that must cover our sins. I beg of you, do 
 not let the world move you on this point. Let it go on mocking, 
 and laughing, and making light of the precious blood of the Son 
 of God. It is our only refuge, our only hope. We cannot 
 cover sin by any good deeds of our own. It is a very common 
 saying, " If 1 were only as good as that man who has preached the 
 gospel for fifty years, or that mother in Israel who has visited the 
 
104 THE BLOOD. 
 
 sick and been so kind to the poor, I would feel safe for heaven." 
 But I want to say that if you are sheltered behind the blood of the 
 Son of God, you are as safe as any saint that ever walked this earth. 
 It is not a long life of good deeds that is going to save us. It is not 
 our Christian usefulness that will ever commend us to God. Cer- 
 tainly we must work for Christ 5 certainly it will be better for you 
 in the future if you do. But that is not salvation. Certainly you 
 must follow Christ 5 certainly you must imitate his pure and holy 
 life. I would go further, and say it is an absolute necessity you 
 should do so -, but the life of Christ may be preached for ever, 
 and if his death be left out, it will never save a soul. People say 
 you must work, work, work, in order to get salvation. Ten thou- 
 sand times no ! You get it as a gift 5 "Whosoever will, let him 
 take." You can work as much as you like after you have taken 
 it. " Work out your own salvation." Yes, but that was spoken 
 to Christians, people who had taken it. So we must first take it, 
 and then we can work it out. We take salvation as a gift and 
 then begin to work because we cannot help it. All work done 
 before that must go for nothing. When the angel of death swept 
 through the land that night, the good and the bad were destroyed 
 together. Into every house where the blood was not sprinkled, 
 the destroying angel came. But wherever the blood was on door- 
 post and lintel, whether they had worked much, or whether they 
 had worked none, God passed them over. 
 
 The little child in the humblest tent was just as safe as Moses 
 or Aaron, as Joshua or Caleb, as safe as any in the land. God did 
 not say, " When I see your gilded palace, or your beautiful home ; 
 when I see your goodness, your life of service, or your faith," but, 
 "when I see the blood, it shall be a token." Not for their own sakes, 
 but for Christ's, did He pass them by that night. Some one has 
 said, that the little fly in Noah's ark was just as safe as the great 
 elephant. It was the ark that saved them both. So Christ saves 
 the weak disciple just as well as the strong one. 
 
 When you go to a railway station you find all classes of people 
 wishing to travel. They have their tickets and take their places in 
 the carriages. When the conductor comes to ask for the tickets, he 
 does not look to see what or who you are. You may be rich or 
 poor, learned or unlearned, this or that j he looks for the tickets, 
 
THE BLOOD, 105 
 
 and if you have your ticket you pass. The ticket is the token. So 
 if you are sheltered behind the blood of Christ, you may be very 
 ignorant or poor in this world, but you are as safe as the wisest or 
 wealthiest. 
 
 A great many people are wondering why they are so weak j 
 why they fall so often when temptation comes, why so little 
 spiritual power is given them. I think you will rind a lesson 
 in that same chapter, in the nth verse: "Thus shall ye eat it; 
 with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in 
 your hand ; and ye shall eat it in haste : it is the Lord's Passover." 
 They were not only to kill the lamb and take the blood and 
 sprinkle it on the door-posts, but they were to eat of it. That is 
 the way to get spiritual strength. The reason why we are such 
 sickly Christians, is because we do not feed on the Lamb. We 
 have a wilderness journey before us as the children of Israel had, 
 and if we do not feed upon Christ we must starve by the way. 
 We have not only to look to the blood for safety, but we must feed 
 on Christ for strength. How much the soul needs to be fed ! 
 Day by day our souls must be fed with the heavenly manna. The 
 Lord has given Him up for us ; He calls Himself the Bread of Life. 
 Feeding upon Christ is feeding on his Word. There is no book 
 that will feed the soul but the Bible. If I feed on the Word of 
 God, I get spiritual strength and power. Some people think if 
 they get one glimpse at Christ it is enough. We must live by 
 faith as well as be saved by faith. The just shall live by faith. 
 Each day we must gather the manna afresh. A good many people 
 seem to be living on stale manna — manna that they got months or 
 years ago when they were converted. We should no more think 
 of laying in spiritual food to last for ten years than we should of 
 bodily food. 
 
 In verse 2 we read, "This month shall be unto you the 
 beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to 
 you." For 400 years they had been serving the king of the 
 Egyptians, but God would not let them count those years. 
 They must make a fresh start, as it were. So all the years that 
 we spend in the service of the devil' go for nought. Life never 
 really begins until we have been sprinkled with the blood of 
 Christ. Everything dates from the blood, and even the Jew 
 
io6 THE BLUOD. 
 
 has to own that the death upon the cross was the beginning of 
 days. 
 
 Turn now to Exodus xxix. 16 : " And thou shalt slay the ram, 
 and thou shalt take his blood and sprinkle it round about upon the 
 altar." I used to read these words and these books of the Old 
 Testament, wondering what they meant. They were to take the 
 blood and sprinkle it u round about upon the altar." Now I think ' 
 I understand it. It teaches that there is no way of approaching 
 God without coming by the blood. It has been so in all ages. 
 Even Aaron, the high priest, had to take blood and sprinkle it 
 round about upon the altar, before he could have an interview 
 with God — teaching us the great lesson that approach to God 
 never has been, never will be, never can be, except through the 
 blood of the Lamb. 
 
 We have the same thing brought before us again in the 
 thirtieth verse of the tenth chapter. " And Aaron shall make an 
 atonement upon the horns of the altar, once in a year, with the 
 blood of the sin-offering of atonements ; once in the year shall he 
 make atonement upon it throughout your generations': it is most 
 holy unto the Lord." Atonement means at-one-ment ; the blood 
 of Christ makes the sinner and God at one. Before Adam fell 
 God had bound him to the throne with a golden chain, which 
 was broken by the fall. But Christ came down and linked man 
 back to God again. At-one-ment — that is what the blood of 
 Christ does, makes atonement. We talk about sins being for- 
 given -j they are forgiven, but no sin ever committed in this 
 world was forgiven without being punished. They were punished 
 in Christ ; He made expiation — " Who his own self bare our sins 
 in his own body on the tree." Think what it cost Christ to make 
 expiation. Think what it cost God when He had to give up 
 his only-begotten Son, to give Him up to die ! 
 
 Turn for a moment to Leviticus viii. 23 : " And he slew it, 
 and Moses took of the blood of it and put it upon the tip of 
 Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon 
 the great toe of his right foot." That is another verse I used to 
 stumble over. What did it mean ? blood on the ear, blood on the 
 hand, blood on the foot ? I think I understand it now. Blood 
 en the ear — without it man cannot hear the voice of God. No 
 
THE BLOOD. 107 
 
 uncircumcised car can hear his voice. Men heard the voice of 
 God and they said it thundered ; they did not know the difference. 
 But when the blood is applied, men know the voice of God — 
 we know that it is the voice of our loving Father in heaven. 
 
 Blood on the hand — that a man may work for God. Those men 
 that think they are working for God, and yet ignore the blood, 
 are deceiving their own souls. One day they will wake up to find 
 that their labour is in vain. Salvation is " to him that worketh not 
 but believeth." No man can work his way into the kingdom of 
 God. They said to Christ, " What shall we do that we may work 
 the works of God ? " Perhaps these men had got their pockets 
 full of money, and were ready and willing to build churches. 
 " This is the work of God,'* said Christ, " that ye believe on Him 
 whom He hath sent." No man or woman can do anything to 
 olease God until they have believed on his Son. 
 
 Suppose I say to my boy, " Willie, I want you to go out and 
 get me a glass of water." He says he doesn't want to go. " I 
 didn't ask you whether you wanted to go or not, Willie ; I told 
 you to go." " But I don't want to go," he says. " I tell you, 
 you must go and get me a glass of water." He does not like to 
 go. But he knows I am very fond of grapes, and he is very fond 
 of them himself, so he goes out, and some one gives him a beau- 
 tiful cluster of grapes. He comes in and says, " Here, papa, here 
 is a beautiful cluster of grapes for you." " But what about the 
 water? " "Won't the grapes be acceptable, papa? " " No, my 
 boy, the grapes are not acceptable ; I won't take them; I want 
 you to get me a glass of water." The little fellow doesn't want 
 to get the water, but he goes out, and this time some one gives 
 him an orange. He brings it in and places it before me. " Is 
 that acceptable?" he asks. "No, no, no!" I say; "I want 
 nothing but water ; you cannot do anything to please me until 
 you get the water." And so, my friends, to please God you must 
 first obey Him ; and th^ first thing He asks us to do is to believe 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ. " Without faith it is impossible to 
 please Him." He has given us an unspeakable Gift — the Son of 
 his bosom— and if we reject that Son, and refuse to follow Him, 
 do you think anything else we can do can please Him ? 
 
 Blood upon the foot — to walk with God. God never walked 
 
108 THE BLOOD. 
 
 with the Israelites until the blood was sprinkled in Goshen. 
 Then nothing could stand before them. When they came to the 
 Red Sea, it fled at their approach. In the wilderness He' opened 
 his hand and gave them manna to eat. When they came to Jordan 
 they walked dryshod through the bed of the river, because the 
 Almighty God was walking beside them. Yes, it was a blood- 
 bought people that God brought into Canaan, the promised land. 
 And God will walk with every blood-washed sinner, and no man 
 shall stand before Him. 
 
 I can imagine some of you saying, " I do not understand yet 
 why God demands blood." A person said to me, " I hate your 
 God ; your God demands blood. I don't believe in such a God — 
 my God is merciful to all j I do not know your God." But if you 
 will turn to Lev. xvii. 11, you will find why God demands blood. 
 " For the life of the flesh is in the blood ; and I have given it to 
 you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls ; for it is 
 the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." 
 
 Now, suppose Queen Victoria did not like any man to be 
 deprived of his liberty, and threw all her prisons open, and 
 was so merciful that she could not bear any one to suffer for 
 guilt, how long would she hold the sceptre ? How long would she 
 rule her empire ? Not twenty-four hours. Those very, men who 
 cry out about God being merciful would say, " We don't want 
 such a Queen." Well, God is merciful, but He is not going to 
 take an unpardoned sinner into heaven. 
 
 God demands blood, because He said to Adam, " In the day that 
 thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Then sin came into the 
 - world, and brought death in. God's word must be kept. How 
 could God do this and spare the sinner? How could God be just, 
 and justify the ungodly ? Man has sinned, and man must die. But 
 what if some one should die instead of him ? His own life has 
 been forfeited — the wages of sin is death — but what if some one 
 should buy it hack for him, should redeem him ? What if one 
 should come forward and lay down his own life a ransom for 
 many — one who had no sins of his own to condemn him to death ? 
 Glory to God in the highest ! " God so loved the world, that He 
 gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
 not perish, but have everlasting life." Glory to God in the 
 
THE BLOOD. 
 
 highest ! He sent his Son, born of a woman, to take our nature 
 and die in our stead, tasting death for every man. Glory to God 
 in the highest ! " the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us 
 from all sin." If you read your Bibles carefully, you will see 
 the scarlet thread running right through every page of them. 
 The blood commences to flow in Genesis, and runs on To Reve* 
 lation. That is what God's book is written for. Take out the 
 scarlet thread, and it would not be worth carrying home. 
 
 Three times in this chapter it is repeated, that the life of the 
 flesh is in the blood. And when God demands blood, in other 
 words, He demands life. It has been forfeited. We have sinned, 
 and come short of the glory of God. I must die for my sins, or 
 find some substitute to die in my stead. I cannot get this man or 
 that man to die for me, because they have sinned themselves, and 
 have to die for their own sins. But Christ was without sin, and 
 therefore He could be my substitute. Here comes in the glorious 
 doctrine of substitution. Christ died for our sins, for mine ; and 
 because He died for me, I love Him. Because He died for me I 
 will serve Him. I will work for Him j I will give Him my very 
 life. He robbed death of its sting, and the grave of its victory. 
 Oh ! is it not the least we can do to give our poor lives to Him ? 
 
 When the Californian gold fever broke out, a man went there, 
 leaving his wife in New England with his boy. As soon as he 
 got on and was successful he was to send for them. It was a 
 long time before he succeeded, but at last he got money enough to 
 send for them. The wife's heart leaped for joy. She took her 
 boy to New York, got on board a Pacific steamer, and sailed away 
 to San Francisco. They had not been long at sea before the cry 
 of " Fire ! fire ! " rang through the ship, and rapidly it gained on 
 them. There was a powder magazine on board, and the captain 
 knew the moment the fire reached the powder, every man, woman, 
 and child must perish. They got out the life-boats, but they were 
 too small ! In a minute they were overcrowded. The last one was 
 just pushing away, when the mother pled with them to take her 
 and her boy. u No," they said, " we have got as many as we can 
 hold." She entreated them so earnestly, that at last they said 
 they would take one more. Do you think she leaped into that boat 
 and left her boy to die ? No ! She seized her boy, gave him one, 
 
no THE BLOOD. 
 
 last hug, kissed him, and dropped him over into the boat. " My 
 boy," she said, " if you live to see your father, tell him that I died in 
 your place." That is a faint type of what Christ, has done for us. 
 He laid down his life for us, He died that we might live. Now 
 will you not love Him ? What would you say of that young man 
 if he should speak contemptuously of such a mother ? She went 
 down to a watery grave to save her son. Well, shall we speak 
 contemptuously of such a Saviour ? Oh, may God make us loyal 
 to Christ ! My friends, you will need Him one day. You will 
 need Him when you come to cross the swellings of Jordan. You 
 will need Hi.m when you stand at the bar of God. May God 
 forbid that when death draws nigh it should find you making light 
 of the precious blood of Christ ! 
 
THE BLOOD. 
 
 Part II. — The New Testament. 
 
 "Without shedding of blood is no remission.*' — Heb. ix. 22. 
 
 We have seen what the Old Testament says about the blood 3 now 
 let us turn to the New. 
 
 In 1 Pet. i. 18, we read : " Forasmuch as ye know that ye were 
 not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your 
 vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with 
 the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and 
 without spot." Silver and gold could not redeem our souls. As 
 I have tried to show, life had been forfeited. Death had come 
 into the world by sin, and nothing but blood could atone for the 
 soul. Therefore, says Peter, "you are not redeemed with silver 
 and gold." If gold and silver could have redeemed us, do you 
 not think that God would have created millions of worlds full of 
 gold? It would have been an easy matter for Him. But we are 
 not redeemed by such corruptible things, but by the precious blood 
 of Christ. Redemption means " buying back ;" we had sold 
 ourselves for nought, and Christ redeemed us and bought us back. 
 
 A friend in Ireland once met a little Irish boy who had caught 
 a sparrow. The poor little bird was trembling in his hand, and 
 seemed very anxious to escape. The gentleman begged the boy 
 to let it go, as the bird could not do him any good j but the boy 
 said he would not, for he had chased it three hours before he could 
 catch it. He tried to reason it out with the boy, but in vain. At 
 last he offered to buy the bird 5 the boy agreed to the price, and it 
 was paid. Then the gentleman took the poor little thing and held 
 it out on his hand. The boy had been holding it very fast, for 
 
112 THE BLOOD. 
 
 the boy was stronger than the bird, just as Satan is stronger than 
 we, and there it sat for a time scarcely able to realize the fact that 
 it had got liberty $ but, in a little, it flew away chirping, as if to say 
 to the gentleman, " Thank you ! thank you ! you have redeemed 
 me." That is what redemption is — buying back and setting 
 free. So Christ came to break the fetters of sin, to open the 
 prison doors and set the sinner free. This is the good news, the 
 Gospel of Christ — u Ye are not redeemed with corruptible things, 
 as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." 
 
 " How can I be saved to-night," do you ask ? Accept of the 
 Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, and rest on his finished work. 
 When Christ on Calvary said, " It is finished," it was the shout of 
 the Conqueror. He had come to redeem the world, and now He 
 had done it — done it without money ! And his cry to the world 
 comes ringing down the ages to-day — " Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
 come ye to the waters 5 yea, come, buy wine and milk without 
 money and without price." 
 
 A few years ago, I was going away to preach one Sunday 
 morning, when a young man drove up in front of us. He had an 
 aged woman with him. " Who is that young man ? " I asked. 
 " Do you see that beautiful meadow ? " said my friend, " and that 
 land there with the house upon it ? " fl Yes." " His father drank 
 that all up," he said. Then he went on to tell me all about him. 
 His father was a great drunkard, squandered his property, died, 
 and left his wife in the poor-house. " And that young man," he 
 said, " is one of the finest young men I ever knew. He has 
 toiled hard and earned money, and bought back the land ; he has 
 taken his mother out of the poor-house, and now he is taking her 
 to church." I thought, that is an illustration for me. The first 
 Adam, in Eden, sold us for nought, but the Messiah, the Second 
 Adam, came and bought us back again. The first Adam brought 
 us to the poor-house, as it were 5 the Second Adam makes us 
 kings and priests unto God. That is redemption. We get in 
 Christ all that Adam lost, and more. Men look on the blood of 
 Christ with scorn and contempt, but the time is coming when the 
 blood of Christ will be worth more than all the kingdoms of the 
 world. Suppose you were going down to death's gates to-night, 
 going down to the brink of the Jordan, without any hope in Christ. 
 
THE BLOOD. 113 
 
 Suppose you were a millionnaire, what would your millions be worth 
 then ? The blood of Christ would be worth more to you than all 
 the silver and gold of the world. 
 
 The blood has two cries : it cries either for my condemnation, 
 or if you will allow me to use a stronger word, for my damnation ; 
 or it cries for my salvation. If I reject the blood of Christ, it cries 
 out for my condemnation j if I accept it, it cries out for pardon and 
 peace. The blood of Abel cried out against his brother Cain. So 
 it was in the days of Christ. When Pilate had Christ on his 
 hands, he said to the Jews, " What shall I do with Him ? " They 
 cried out, " Away with Him ! crucify Him !" And when he asked 
 which one he should release, Barabbas or Christ, they cried out, 
 " Barabbas ! " Then when he asked again, " What shall I then do 
 with Him ? " a universal shout went up from Jerusalem, " Let 
 Him be crucified ! Away with Him ! We do not want Him." 
 Pilate turned and washed his hands, and said, " I am innocent of 
 this just Man's blood, ,, and they cried, " His blood be on us and 
 on our children 5 We shall take the responsibility of it 5 we shall 
 endorse the act ; you crucify Him, and let his blood be on ur> and 
 on our children." Would to God that there might be a cry going 
 up, " Let his blood be on us to save, not to condemn." 
 
 Turn now to Col. i. 20 : u Having made peace through the 
 blood of his cross." I can tell you there is no peace in the world. 
 There are many rich men, many great men in the world, who have 
 got no peace. No ; I have never seen a man who knew what 
 peace was until he got it at Calvary. 
 
 " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ " (Romans v. 1). Sin covered — that brings 
 peace. There is no peace for the wicked -, they are like the 
 troubled sea that cannot rest. Calvary is the place to find peace — 
 peace for the past and grace for the present. But there is some- 
 thing better still. "And rejoice in hope of the glory of God." 
 Some people think that when they get to Calvary they have got 
 the best, but there is something better in store — glory. I do not 
 know how near it may be to us ; it may be that some of us will 
 be ushered very soon into the presence of the King. One gaze 
 at Him will be enough to reward us for all we have had to bear. 
 Yes, there is peace for the past, grace for the present, and glory 
 
 * 
 
U4 THE BLOOD. 
 
 for the future. These are three things that every child of God 
 ought to have. When the angels came bringing the gospel, they 
 proclaimed, " Glory to God, peace on earth, and good-will towards 
 men." That is what the blood brings — sin covered and taken 
 away, peace for the past, grace for the present, and glory for the 
 future. r 
 
 Would you now turn to John xix. 34: "But one of the 
 soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there- 
 out blood and water." You know that in Zechariah it was foretold 
 that there should be opened in the house of David a fountain for 
 sin and for uncleanness. And now we have it opened. The Son 
 of God has been pierced by that Roman soldier's spear. It 
 seems to me that that was the crowning act of earth and hell — the 
 crowning act of sin. Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed 
 his spear into the very heart of the God-man. What a hellish 
 deed ! But what was the next thing that took place ? Blood 
 covered the spear! Oh ! thank God, the blood covers sin. 
 There was the blood covering that spear- — the very point of it. 
 The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of 
 love j the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning act 
 of grace. 
 
 A usurper has got this world now; but Christ will have it 
 soon. The time of your redemption draweth nigh. A little more 
 suffering, and He returns to set up his kingdom and reign upon 
 the earth. He will rend the heavens, and his voice will be heard 
 again. He shall descend from heaven with a shout. He will 
 sway his sceptre from the river to the ends of the earth. The 
 thorn and the brier shall be swept away and the wilderness shall 
 rejoice. Let us rejoice; we shall see better days; the dreary 
 darkness and sin that sweep along our earth shall be done away 
 with. These dark waves of death and hell shall be beaten back. 
 Oh, let us pray to the Lord to hasten his coming, that the Son of 
 God may not tarry. 
 
 Would you now turn to Rom. iii. 24 : "Being justified freely 
 by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 
 What God does He does freely, because He loves to do it. Mark 
 these words, " Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 
 Then in the fifth chapter, ninth verse, we read, (t Much more then, 
 
THE BLOOD. 115 
 
 being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath 
 through Him." The sinner is justified with God by his match- 
 less grace through the blood of his Son. Justified, that means, as 
 just as if he had never committed sin. What a wonderful thing ; 
 not one sin against him ! It is as if he owed some one a debt, and 
 when he went to pay it, was told, " There is nothing against you 5 
 it is all settled." " Why," he would say, "how is that? I got 
 some things from you not long ago, and I want to pay the bill." 
 " There is nothing against you." "But I am sure I got something 
 here." " There is nothing against you in my ledger ; some one 
 else has come and paid it." That is substitution. Now I know 
 who paid my spiritual debts. It was the Lord Jesus Christ. And 
 God looks at his ledger and there is nothing against us. Christ 
 was raised up for our justification. It is a good deal better to be 
 justified than pardoned. Suppose I was arrested for stealing 
 $1000, tried and found guilty, but suppose the judge had mercy 
 on me and pardoned me. I would come out of prison, but it would 
 be with my head down. I had been found guilty, I could never 
 face the world again. But suppose I was accused of stealing it, 
 but it could not be proven, and when the case came on, it was 
 found I had not done anything of the kind j then I would be 
 justified. It would make all the difference in the world. Now 
 God justifies us by the blood of his Son. That is what the blood 
 does — sin covered, put out of the way, and nothing against us. Is 
 not that good news ? 
 
 Rev. i. 5 : " Unto Him that loved us and washed us from 
 our sins in his own blood." There are a great many people 
 who wish to be saved, but who think they cannot be saved until 
 they get a little better. I met a young man in the inquiry-room 
 last night who was anxious to be saved, but he thought he could 
 not be, because he was not good enough. Jf you are going to 
 wait till you get rid of your sins, you will never be saved. You 
 cannot get rid of one sin. Instead of getting better you will get 
 worse. But thanks be to God, He loves us even in our sins, 
 even before He saves us from our sins. '* He hath loved us and 
 washed us from our sins in his own blood." Loved us first, then 
 washed us. But if we attempt to wash ourselves we will make 
 wretched work of it. The blood will cover it all up if we only trust 
 
u6 THE BLOOD. 
 
 ourselves to Christ. Who shall lay anything to the charge of 
 God's elect? If He has justified me it is enough. Why do we 
 like to sing that old hymn — 
 
 " There is a fountain filled with blood 
 Drawn from ImmanueFs veins?" 
 
 Why will it live as long as the church lives on earth ? Why 
 will it never die ? Why do you hear it sung all over Christendom ? 
 I remember how it used to thrill my soul even before I was con- 
 verted. I could not tell why. Thank God, every sin is lost in 
 that fountain. You will find that all these hymns with the scarlet 
 thread in them will live. There is that grand old hymn : — 
 
 " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ; 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 From Thy riven side that flowed, 
 Be of sin the double cure, 
 Cleanse me from its guilt and power." 
 
 That speaks of the crucified Christ j it will never get worn out. 
 Then there is — 
 
 " Just as I am, without one plea, 
 But that Thy blood was shed for me, 
 And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, 
 O Lamb of God, I come." 
 
 That is another hymn that will live ; you never tire of it. It 
 will be sung on and on, as long as the church is on earth. I tell 
 you why these hymns are so precious ; it is because they tell us 
 about the blood. 
 
 Look at Matt. xxvi. 28, — it is Christ's own testimony — " For 
 this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for 
 the remission of sins." Look at this verse, " I declare unto you 
 the gospel, how that Christ died for our sins according to the 
 Scriptures." Look at Heb. ix. 22, " And without shedding of 
 blood is no remission." I would like to ask those men who do 
 not believe in the blood, " What are you going to do with your 
 sins ? " Would you insult the Almighty by offering Him the 
 fruit of your body to atone for them ? Can a man atone for sin ? 
 if there is a scoffer here, a man who makes light of the blood, I 
 
THE BLOOD. 1 17 
 
 want to know what he is going to do ? When I was m one of 
 your cities, a gentleman came to me and said, " If you are right, I 
 am wrong 5 and if I am right, you are wrong." I saw he was 
 a minister, and I said, "Well, I never heard you preach j if you 
 have heard me you can tell what the difference is. Where 
 do we differ? " " Well, you preach that it is the death of Christ ; 
 I preach his life. I tell people his death has nothing to do with 
 it ; you tell them his life has nothing to do with their salvation, 
 and that his death only will save them. I do not believe a word 
 of it." "Well," I said, "what do you do with this passage, 
 'Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree ' ? " 
 "Well, I never preached on that text." "What do you do with 
 this, then, ' Ye are not redeemed with corruptible things as 
 silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ '? " I never 
 preached on that text either," was the reply. "Well, what do you 
 do with this, ' Without shedding of blood there is no remis- 
 sion '? " " I never spoke on that," he said. "What do you do 
 with this, * He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised 
 for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon 
 Him'?" "I never preached on that either." "What do you 
 preach, then ? " I asked. He hesitated for a little, and then said, 
 "I preach moral essays." "You leave out the atonement?" 
 "Yes." "Well," I said, "it would all be a sham to me if I did 
 that 5 I could not understand it. I would be away home to- 
 morrow. I would not know what to preach. Moral essays on 
 Christ without his death!" The young man said, "Well, it 
 does seem a sham sometimes." He was honest enough to con- 
 fess that. Why, the whole thing is a myth without the at-one- 
 ment. The crucifixion of Christ is the foundation of the whole 
 matter. If a man is unsound on the blood, he is unsound in 
 everything. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." 
 
 Turn now to Heb. x. 1 1. Hebrews is full of the blood. " And 
 every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the 
 same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man " 
 — what man? — the man Christ Jesus, " after He had offered one 
 sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God." One 
 sacrifice for sins for ever ! He has offered as a sacrifice Himself. 
 You need no lambs now, no bullocks now. The High Priest 
 
n8 THE BLOOD. 
 
 has offered Himself. The high priest of old could not take his 
 seat; his work was never done. But our great High Priest went 
 up on high, and took his seat on the right hand of the Father's 
 throne: the work was done. "It is finished,' ' He said. All 
 those types and shadows are fulfilled in Him, and now they have 
 vanished away. 
 
 Look at Mark xiv. 24 • " This is my blood of the new testa- 
 ment which is shed for many." These are Christ's own words. 
 Take that in connection with the passage I read from Hebrews, 
 " Without shedding of blood is no remission." I" believe if a 
 man could get to heaven without the blood of Christ, he would 
 not be happy there. He could not join in the great song that is 
 sung around the throne; he could not sing the song of Moses 
 and the Lamb ; he could not say he was redeemed by the blood 
 of the Lamb. You would see him away in some corner; he 
 would be out of tune with the rest ; he would not be in harmony 
 with them, and he would not wish to stay there. But he could 
 not get there. The only way is by the new and living way that 
 Christ has opened. 
 
 Turn back again for a minute to Heb. x. 19 : " Having, 
 therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood 
 of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for 
 us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." Those Jews, before 
 Christ died, had to have the high priest intercede for them. He 
 used to go in once a year into the holy of holies with blood to 
 make intercession ; but since Christ, our great High Priest, came, 
 we do not need any Aaron to intercede for us. When Christ died, 
 He opened a new and living way. He made us all kings and priests. 
 It is said that the veil that was rent was his flesh. When He cried 
 on the cross, " It is finished," the veil of the temple was rent in 
 twain. God seized it with his right hand and tore it away. No veil 
 between God and man now ! We need no bishop, no pope, no 
 priest to intercede for us now. Christ has died, yea, is risen again. 
 Yes, we are all kings and priests now ; we can go straight to the 
 holy of holies ourselves. We need no man to intercede for our 
 souls. The moment a man is saved by the blood, he becomes a 
 king and a priest. God calls him a My son." He is an heir of 
 heaven and of glory. He is redeemed by the blood 3 he is made 
 
THE BLOOD. 119 
 
 nigh by the blood. He gets victory over the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil, by the blood. 
 
 There is a very solemn verse in Heb. x. 28 : " He that despised 
 Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of 
 bow much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
 worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
 counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an 
 unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of grace ? " 
 If a man despised Moses' law, they led him out and stoned him 
 to death. Sinner, let me ask you, what are you going to do with 
 the blood of God's only Son ? I tell you it is a terrible thing to 
 make light of the blood, to laugh and ridicule the doctrine of the 
 blood. I would rather fall dead on this platform than do such 
 a thing. It makes my heart shudder when I hear men speak 
 lightly of it. Some time ago a very solemn thought came stealing 
 over me, and made a deep impression on my mind. The only 
 thing that Christ left of his body on the earth was his blood. His 
 flesh and bones He took away. But when He went up on high, 
 He left his blood down here. What are you going to do with 
 the blood ? Are you going to make light of this blood, to trample 
 on it ? May God give us all a glimpse of Christ crucified to-night. 
 
 I wish I had time to go on and talk about the blood in Reve- 
 lation ; it is full of it. " They overcame by the blood of the 
 Lamb and the word of their testimony." That is the only way to 
 overcome the devil, the lion of hell — by the blood of the Lamb. 
 He knows that the moment a poor sinner flees to the blood he is 
 beyond his reach. 
 
 As I have travelled up and down Christendom I have foui d 
 out that a minister who gives a clear sound upon this doctrine is 
 successful. A man who covers up the cross, though he may be 
 an intellectual man, and draw large crowds, will have no life there, 
 and his church will be but a gilded sepulchre. Those men who 
 preach the doctrine of the cross, and hold up Christ as the sinner's 
 only hope of heaven, and as the sinner's only substitute, who make 
 much of the blood, God honours, and souls are always saved in the 
 church where the blood of Christ is preached. May God help us 
 to make much of the blood of his Son. It cost God so much to 
 give us His Son, and shall we try to keep Him from the world 
 
120 THE BLOOD. 
 
 which is perishing from the want of Him ? The world can get 
 along without us, but not without Christ. Let us preach Christ in 
 season and out of season. Let us go to the sick and dying, and 
 hold up the Saviour who came to seek and save them — who died 
 to redeem them. "They overcame by the blood of the Lamb 
 and the word of their testimony." 
 
 Once more, in Revelation vii. 14 : " These are they which 
 came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Sinner, how are 
 you going to get your robes clean if you do not get them washed 
 in the blood of the Lamb ? How are you going to wash them ? 
 Can you make them clean ? I pray that at last we may all get 
 back to the paradise above. There they are singing the sweet 
 song of redemption. May it be the happy lot of each of us to 
 join them. It will be a few years at the longest before we 
 shall be there to sing the sweet song of Moses and the Lamb. 
 But if you die without Christ, without hope, and without God, 
 where will you be ? O sinner, be wise j do not make light of the 
 blood. An aged minister of the gospel, on his dying bed, said, 
 " Bring me the Bible." Putting his finger upon the verse, "The 
 blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin," he said, 
 tf I die in the hope of this verse." It was not his fifty years' 
 preaching, but the blood of Christ. May God grant that when 
 we come at last to stand before the great white throne, our robes 
 may be washed in the cleansing blood of Christ i 
 
HEAVEN, 
 
 Part I. 
 
 Some time ago, on my way to a meeting, a friend asked what was 
 to be my subject. I told him I thought I would preach about 
 Heaven. He seemed much disappointed, and replied that he was 
 in hopes I should talk about something practical, and that there 
 would be time enough to talk about heaven when we got there. 
 
 Now, I think if God did not want us to know anything about 
 heaven, He would not have written so much about it. And if 
 heaven is to be our future home, we should try to learn all we can 
 about it, so that we may be living more for it. If we were about 
 to emigrate to a distant land, we should never tire hearing about 
 it. We should wish to know all about its people, its climate and 
 resources, its schools and institutions, its advantages for chil- 
 dren, and its prospects for business. There would be nothing re- 
 lating to the country that would not interest us. And when we are 
 going to spend eternity in another world, can we know or hear 
 too much about it ? 
 
 Christians are often asked why they address their prayers 
 upwards, as if God's dwelling-place were any more above than 
 around them. But I think it is right to locate heaven, and to 
 locate it above. In the twenty-sixth chapter of Deuteronomy we 
 read, "Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and 
 bless thy people Israel. ,, Look down from heaven. Then in 
 Genesis we are told that God "went up" from talking with 
 Abraham— went up. And Christ himself, the only One who can 
 really tell us about heaven, for He has been there, what does He 
 
122 HEAVEN. 
 
 say ? In the third chapter of John you find the words, " No 
 man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from 
 heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." In the 
 seventh chapter of Mark, again we are told that, " looking up to 
 heaven, He sighed." And when his work was over here, and He 
 was just returning to the many mansions of his Father's house, 
 standing in the midst of the loved ones for whom He was going to 
 prepare a place, " Behold, He was taken up, and a cloud received 
 Him out of their sight." 
 
 Heaven is the dwelling-place of God. This, after all, is the 
 great point. It matters little how far away it is. God is there, 
 and that is enough. And we may be sure that it is not so far 
 away but that He can hear the humblest sigh of prayer or watch 
 the gathering tears of penitence trembling on the sinner's cheek. 
 And man, too, can look from earth to heaven. When God opens 
 his eyes, and draws aside the veil, like Stephen, He can see right 
 into it. et He being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly 
 into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the 
 right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, 
 and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Stephen 
 found out the secret of the attractiveness of heaven. He saw 
 Christ at the right hand of God. The King in his beauty was 
 there, and that makes heaven heaven. 
 
 Some one being asked what he expected to do when he got to 
 heaven, replied that he thought he would take one good look at 
 Christ for about five hundred years, and then he might look round 
 and see the apostles, and saints, and martyrs. And it seems to me 
 that one glimpse of Him who loved us, and washed us in his 
 blood, will repay us for all we can suffer here in this dark world. 
 
 A little child, whose mother was dying, was taken away to live 
 with some friends because it was thought she did not understand 
 what death is. All the while the child wanted to go home and 
 see her mother. At last, when the funeral was over, and she was 
 taken home, she ran all over the house, searching the sitting- 
 room, the parlour, the library, and the bedrooms. She went from 
 one end of the house to the other, and when she could not find 
 her mother, she wished to be taken back to where they brought 
 her from. Home had lost its attractions for the child when her 
 
HEAVEN. 123 
 
 mother was not there. My friends, the great attraction in heaven 
 will not be its pearly gates, its golden streets, nor its choir of 
 angels, but it will be Christ. Heaven would be no heaven if 
 Christ were not there. But we know that He is at the right hand 
 of the Father, and those eyes shall gaze on Him by-and-by -, and 
 we shall be satisfied when we awake with his likeness. 
 
 But the company of heaven is more varied still — our friends 
 are there. God the Father is there, Christ the Son is there, angels 
 are there, and in Rev. vii. we read of fi a great multitude, which 
 no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
 tongues." We read of the redeemed who stand " before the throne, 
 and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their 
 hands." Yes, we have friends in heaven. 
 
 A. bereaved father asked me the other day if I thought the little 
 one he had lost had gone to be with Jesus. I could only tell him 
 what David said when he lost his son, " I shall go to him, but he 
 shall not return to me." It is a very sweet thought to me, and it 
 must be to you also who have lost little ones, that the King can 
 take better care of them than we can. If we could look into the 
 eternal city we should see the Shepherd leading them by the green 
 pastures and the still waters. He will care for each little lost 
 lamb Himself far better than its own fond mother 5 and is it not 
 sweeter for them to be for ever with the Lord than down in this 
 sad land of suffering and sin ? Our friends are not lost, just gone 
 before. They have had "the desire to depart and to be with 
 Christ, which is far better," and He has gratified it. Although to 
 live was to live for Christ, yet to be with Him, was, even with Paul, 
 " far better." 
 
 But there is more in heaven still. Once the disciples had been 
 out preaching and met with wonderful success. * They had great 
 power, had cast out devils, and worked many miracles. They 
 came back greatly elated. Like workers in a great revival, they 
 say to one another, " Is not this glorious ? " But Christ says, " Do 
 not rejoice at that. I will tell you what to rejoice about. In 
 this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice 
 that your names are written in heaven." What a glorious thought 
 is this ! Our names are written in heaven. We may be sure of 
 it. If the children of God are not to know that their names are 
 
124 HEAVEN. 
 
 written in heaven how are they to rejoice ? If there had been any 
 doubt about it, how could the disciples have rejoiced when Christ 
 told them to rejoice ? It is our privilege, if we are Christians, not 
 only to know it, to be quite sure of it, but to rejoice in it. 
 
 The grand question of life is, Is my name written in heaven ? 
 Is my name in the Book of Life ? Not, Is it in the Church record ? 
 That record may not be kept in the same way that the record in 
 heaven is kept. And there may be names in the Church record 
 which have never been written in heaven. But it is God's record 
 we are talking about. God keeps a record, a book of the lost and 
 a book of the saved, a book of the living and a book of the dead. 
 Which book is your name in ? Can you rejoice this moment that 
 your name is written in the Book of Life ? Weigh the question 
 well. It is very important. For " Whosoever was not found 
 written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." * And 
 there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth it, neither 
 whatsoever worketh an abomination or maketh a lie $ but they 
 which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." 
 
 Some friends, lately, in travelling, arrived at an English hotel, 
 but found that it had been full for days. They were turning 
 away to seek accommodation elsewhere, when a lady of the party 
 bade the others adieu, and expressed her intention to remain. 
 "How can that be," they asked, "when you hear the hotel is 
 full ? " "Oh," she replied, " I telegraphed on ahead a number of 
 days ago, and my room has been secured." My friend, send on 
 your name ahead, and the door of heaven can never be shut against 
 you. Be sure it is a wise precaution. Then everything will be 
 ready for you. And when the journey of life is over, you will 
 mount up as with angel wings, and inherit the kingdom prepared 
 from the foundation of the world. Many are spending their time 
 and strength for a home down here, with its shallow luxuries and 
 fleeting joys. But what will all the mansions of earth do for you, 
 c you have secured no title to a mansion in the sky ? 
 
 A soldier, wounded during our last war, lay dying in his cot. 
 Suddenly the deathlike stillness of the room was broken by the 
 cry, "Here! Here!" which burst from the lips of the dying 
 man. Friends rushed to the spot and asked what he wanted. 
 " Hark," he said, " they are calling the roll of heaven, and I am 
 
HEAVEN. 125 
 
 answering to my name." In a few moments once more he 
 whispered, " Here ! " and passed into the presence of the King. 
 
 If we have made sure that our own names are written in 
 heaven, the next most important thing is to be sure that our 
 children's names are there. The promise is not unto you only but 
 unto your children. Mother, is the name of that boy of yours 
 written in the Lamb's Book of life ? Is it not better that your 
 children's names should be written there, than that you should 
 secure for them great possessions on this dark earth ? Oh, I pity 
 the son who has never had an interest beyond the grave ; but more 
 the mother who has never told him of the rest that remaineth for 
 the people of God. May God make fathers and mothers more 
 faithful and true to their solemn charge, that their children may 
 grow up to be a blessing to the world, and that they meet at last, 
 an unbroken circle, in heaven ! 
 
 Whenever I think about this subject, two fathers come before 
 me. One lived on the Mississippi River. He was a man of great 
 wealth. Yet he would have freely given it all could he have 
 brought back his eldest boy from his early grave. One day that 
 b >y had been borne home unconscious. They did everything that 
 man could do to restore him, but in vain. " He must die," said 
 the doctor. " But, doctor," said the agonized father, " can you do 
 nothing to bring him to consciousness, even for a moment ? " 
 " That may be," said the doctor ; " but he can never live." Time 
 passed, and after a terrible suspense the father's wish was gratified. 
 "My son," he whispered, "the doctor tells me you are dying." 
 'Well," said the boy, "you never prayed for me, father j won't 
 you pray for my lost soul now ? '' The father wept. It was true 
 he had never prayed. .He was a stranger to God. And in a little 
 while that soul, unprayed for, passed into its dark eternity. Oh. 
 father ! if your boy was dying, and called on you to pray, could you 
 lift your burdened heart to heaven ? Have you learned this sweetest 
 lesson of heaven or earth, to know and hold communion with your 
 God ? And before this evil world has marked your dearest trea- 
 sures for its prey, have you learned to lead your little ones to a 
 children's Christ? 
 
 What a contrast is the other father ! He, too, had a lovely 
 boy, and one day he came home to find him at the gates of death. 
 
126 HEAVEN. 
 
 " A great change has come over our boy," said the weeping mother ; 
 " he has only been a little ill before, but it seems now as if he were 
 dying fast." The father went into the room, and placed his hand on 
 the forehead of the little boy. He could see the boy was dying. He 
 could feel the cold damp of death. " My son, do you know you 
 are dying?" "No; am I?" "Yes; you are dying." "And 
 shall I die to-day? " "Yes, my boy, you cannot live till night." 
 " Well, then, I shall be with Jesus to-night, won't I, father ? " 
 " Yes, my son, you will spend to-night with the Saviour." As he 
 turned away, the little fellow saw the tears trickling over his father's 
 cheeks. " Don't weep for me, father," he said ; " when I get to 
 heaven I will go right straight to Jesus, and tell Him that ever 
 since I can remember you have tried to lead me to Him." God 
 has given me one little boy, and if God should take him, I would 
 rather have him carry such a testimony as that to my Master, than 
 have all the wealth of the world rolled at his feet. 
 
 Mothers and fathers, the little ones may begin early 5 be in 
 earnest with them now. You know not how soon you may be 
 taken from them, or they may be taken from you. Therefore let 
 this impression be made upon their minds that you care for their 
 souls a million times more than for their worldly prospects. And 
 if you yourself have never thought how little it would profit you 
 to gain the whole world and lose your own soul, I beseech you 
 not to let another sun go down before you are able to say that your 
 nar»« has been written in heaven. 
 
HEAVEN. 
 
 Part II. 
 
 We have seen how God is in heaven, for it is his dwelling-place } 
 how Christ is there, for He is at the right hand of the Father ; 
 how the redeemed saints are there ; how our names are there ; and 
 now, if we are true Christians, we ought to have our treasure there. 
 We are commanded to " Lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven." 
 M Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and 
 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; but 
 lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor 
 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor 
 steal." 
 
 If our treasure were in heaven we should not have to be urging 
 men to live for heaven, or pleading with them to lift their hearts 
 heavenward. Their hearts would be there already 5 " where your 
 treasure is there will your heart be also." 
 
 It does not take long to find out where a man's treasure is, you 
 have only to watch where his heart is. The man who makes 
 politics his god, see how his face lights up the moment you talk 
 about it ! Here is a man whose heart is set upon business ; put 
 him in the way of making a few thousands even at the risk of 
 losing a few more, and you have done him the greatest favour 
 in the world. Here is another whose god is pleasure j his eye 
 sparkles when you even mention it. One would think from such 
 men that there is nothing worth living for but politics, and business, 
 and pleasure. But talk to a child of God whose treasures are in 
 heaven j the world scarce interests him. He will tell you how 
 he has here no continuing city, how he is but a stranger and 
 
128 HEAVEN. 
 
 a pilgrim, how heaven is his home- And as he talks of Christ, 
 and the promises, and the hope beyond the grave, you see that he 
 enjoys the heavenly calm which the world knows not of. 
 
 When I was on the Pacific Coast I spent my first Sunday in 
 San Francisco. I went to the Sunday-school, but it was a very 
 wet, stormy day, and so few teachers or scholars made their appear- 
 ance, that the superintendent was in doubt whether he should not 
 send them home again. However, as they had come through the 
 rain, it was decided to go on with the lesson, and I was asked to 
 undertake the task. The subject happened to be, " Our Treasures 
 in Heaven." The blackboard was got ready, and being a poor 
 writer myself, I handed the chalk to one of the teachers, and said to 
 the children, " Now, I want you to tell me some earthly treasures j 
 what do you suppose men think most of?" Some one cried, 
 " Money." " Put that down," I said. «* Anything else ?" " Lands." 
 " Put that down." Many strange things were said $ one little boy 
 said fl Rum," and perhaps he was nearer the truth than any of them, 
 for many a man will sell soul and body, and business and family, and 
 home and everything else for drink 5 and when the catalogue was 
 finished, I asked them next to give me a list of heavenly treasures. 
 The first answer was a Jesus ; " and as we went on from one to 
 another, we found that the treasures of heaven were far more 
 numerous and very much more precious than all the treasures which 
 the earth could give. The young man who was writing down the 
 answers was an unconverted teacher. As he scanned the lists and 
 compared the earthly with the heavenly, he stood transfixed with 
 shame. "What a fool have I been ! " he says to himself} " I have 
 come to this Pacific Coast, and spent my substance for such things 
 of earth ! " And there at that blackboard he vowed to God that 
 for the rest of his life his heart should be set alone upon the things 
 which are above. 
 
 Think with me for a moment what earthly treasures are. 
 Suppose we set our hearts on money ; misfortune darts across our 
 path ; there is the short-lived resistance, the brief struggle soon 
 over, which the world knows so well, and we are beggars ! Try 
 reputation. In an evil moment we may lose the little we have 
 ever gained 5 or those who have never had any of their own may 
 steal ours away with the tongue of slander. If to our children we 
 
HEAVEN. 129 
 
 are looking for our chiefest joys, alas for our hopes ! for death may 
 carry them away 5 or, worse than death, disgrace may count them 
 with the living dead. Yes, and even grant us money, and our fill 
 of it, or reputation, and the best the world has, or children, the 
 loveliest and beloved of all ; — is it not true that we have but pro- 
 vided for a few brief years, while the great eternity has been 
 uncared for or forgotten ? 
 
 " Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth" It looks a little 
 stern, perhaps, but it must be right. After all, all that a man is 
 really worth is what he has got in heaven. We bring nothing 
 into this world, and it is certain we shall carry nothing out. 
 Therefore God says, Lay not. The Christian who does, suffers. 
 There is no gain in it. It is done at a terrible expense, the 
 heart's desire in exchange for the soul's leanness. Here are two 
 ships coming up a river. The first, full sail, cuts bravely through 
 the water ; the second creeps along towed by another. She 
 appears to be on the point of sinking, but still she floats. Why ? 
 Because she has a cargo of timber, and has become waterlogged. 
 Lot was all right while he kept with his uncle Abraham, but when 
 he left him, and got down into Sodom, he got a good deal of this 
 world's goods, and grew waterlogged. So it is with many 
 Christians. They have got waterlogged. They have got so 
 much money that they cannot get into the harbour themselves, 
 and they require others to help them in. The religious life gets 
 sluggish. The spiritual pulse begins to beat slow. " Why is it ? " 
 they say, " that we do not have more spiritual power, and more 
 joy in the Lord ? " The secret is easily found out. People who 
 ask these questions have got their treasure here. 
 
 When men go up in balloons they take with them bags of sand 
 for ballast, and when they want to rise higher they throw out some 
 of the sand. Now there are some Christians who, before they 
 rise higher will have to throw out some ballast. It may be money, 
 or any other worldly consideration, but if they wish to rise, they 
 must get rid of it. If you have got overloaded, just throw out a 
 little money, and you will mount up as on eagle's wings. Any 
 minister will tell you what to do with it. I never saw any depart- 
 ment of the Lord's work that did not want some money. 
 
 A friend of mine called on a wealthy Illinois farmer, to get him 
 
 9 
 
i 3 o HEAVEN. 
 
 interested in a soldiers' mission. He took him up on the cupola 
 of his house, and said, " Look yonder, over that beautiful rolling 
 prairie, that is all mine, as far as the eye can reach. He took him 
 to another view, and pointing over the rich farms of the Mississippi 
 Valley, showed him pasture land for thirty miles round, with large 
 herds of cattle, and horses, and sheep feeding. " They are all 
 mine," he said j " I have made it all myself." Then he pointed 
 proudly towards the town, and showed him streets, and piles of 
 buildings, and a great hall named after himself, and said once 
 more, " They are all mine j I came here a poor man, but my own 
 industry has done it all." 
 
 My friend said nothing ; but when he had seen all, raising his 
 finger, and pointing solemnly to the sky, " What," he said, " have 
 you got up there ?" The rich man's countenance fell. <l Where ?" 
 he asked. u In heaven." " I have got nothing there." Alas ! he 
 had lived his threescore years and ten, and must soon enter eternity, 
 yet he had no treasure there. " Is it not strange," said my friend, 
 u a man of your judgment and forethought, making such a wreck 
 of life, living for the moment, on borrowed time, to die a beggar, 
 and enter eternity a pauper ! " But a few months after that he 
 died as he had lived, and his property went to others. 
 
 Oh ! my friends, if there are any of you living for this world 
 alone, remember that death will part you and your treasures for 
 ever. Ask yourself, I beseech you, what provision you have made 
 for the other life ? Is it on that little boy' that your heart is set, is 
 he your god, the idol of your life? Or is it your money, or a 
 name, or dress, or a position in society ? Then are you disobeying 
 the law of Him who will one day be your Judge. " Lay not up for 
 yourselves treasures on earth.' 
 
 There is another thought I would like you to look at. Our 
 rest is to be in heaven. In Heb. iv. 9, we read, " There remaineth 
 therefore a rest to the people of God." That is another treasure 
 we are to have in heaven. Let us not talk of rest down here, we 
 have all eternity to rest in. What we want is to be faithful in the 
 few months or years that we are here, and then we shall rest as 
 eternal ages roll on. This is the place for work, " Blessed are 
 the dead which die in the Lord, for they do rest from their labours, 
 and their works do follow them." Our works shall follow us. 
 
HEAVEN. 131 
 
 We shall leave a record behind us, if we are only faithful, ere the 
 night comes. We can set streams running here in this dark world 
 that shall flow on after we have gone to heaven. 
 
 Twenty-five hundred years have passed since Daniel lived, but 
 he lives to-day. His light shines out, how brightly, all over Chris- 
 tendom ! We love to read his life. How it fires and cheer us as 
 we read of him standing up for God in Babylon. His works do 
 follow him. 
 
 A good many people have made a sad mistake. They think 
 the church is a sort of resting-place. They unite with a church, 
 and that is about the last we hear of them. They think that a 
 good Christian has nothing more to do than get a good pew in a 
 respectable place of worship, and all the work after that is to hear 
 two sermons a week. 
 
 But, my friends, let us not think of rest and pleasure down 
 here. We shall rest when Christ comes, but not until then. The 
 time will come when the wicked shall cease from troubling, and 
 the weary be at rest. 
 
 I heard of a Christian who did not succeed in his work so well 
 as he used to, and he got Home-sick and wished himself dead. 
 One night he dreamed that he had died, and was carried by the 
 angels to the eternal city. As he went along the crystal pavement 
 of heaven, he met a man he used to know, and they went walking 
 down the golden streets together. All at once he noticed every 
 one looking in the same direction, and saw One coming up who 
 was fairer than the sons of men. It was his blessed Redeemer. 
 As the chariot came opposite, He came forth, and beckoning the 
 one friend, placed him in His own chariot-seat, but himself He led 
 aside, and pointing over the battlements of heaven, " Look over 
 yonder," He said, " what do you see ? " " It seems as if I see the 
 dark earth I have come from." " What else ?." "I see men as 
 if they were blindfolded, going over a terrible precipice into a 
 bottomless pit." " Well," said He, " will you remain up here, 
 and enjoy those mansions that I have prepared, or go back to yon 
 dark earth, and warn these men, and tell them about Me and my 
 kingdom, and the rest that remaineth for the people of God ? " 
 That man never wished himself dead again. He yearned to live 
 as long as ever he could, to tell men of heaven and of Christ. And 
 
132 HEAVEN. 
 
 that is what God wants us to do. We shall rest by-and-by ; we 
 shall have all eternity to rest in. But the Church is the place for 
 work, and as soon as our work is done there will be the voice calling 
 Us, " Come up hither." 
 
 And then — for there is still something else in heaven — we shall 
 get our crown. In second Timothy fourth and eight, " Henceforth 
 there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
 the righteous Judge shall give me at that day." There is a crown 
 laid up for every one of His children. God has promised it. rt Be 
 thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." 
 What did Paul run for ? Salvation ? Ten thousand times no ; he 
 got that at the cross. That was settled long ago. Paul ran for a 
 crown. There will be a great many who will get into heaven, but 
 they will have no crown — crownless Christians. I never touch 
 that life of Paul, and I never hear his name mentioned, but it 
 makes me feel ashamed of myself. If I may be allowed the 
 expression, Satan got hold of his match when he got hold of Paul. 
 He never got him off the right track. He kept his eye right on 
 Christ, and now he wears his crown. Paul ! what are you so 
 ambitious for — to make a name ? Why are you so desperately in 
 earnest ? " I am for my crown," says Paul. Do you hear what 
 they say about you, " A mere babbler attempting to turn the world 
 upside down ? " They have made up their minds to kill you. The 
 Jews say all manner of things against you. u I know it," says 
 Paul, " but none of these things move me." 
 
 Take your stand by his side again. He has received thirty- 
 nine stripes j four times has he been beaten, and now he is to be 
 beaten again. " Now, if you get out of this difficulty, what will 
 you do, Paul?" "Do," says Paul, "I do but one thing — press 
 towards the mark for the prize of the high calling." What did he 
 care for stripes ? "You don't think," he says, ** that these light 
 afflictions are going to stop me? " Why, if we received one stripe 
 on our backs, what a whining ! I do not know how many volumes 
 of books would be written about it. We would be called martyrs. 
 Yet Paul calls them " these light afflictions." 
 
 Take your stand there again. This time they have stoned him. 
 He is all bruised and bleeding. But the great warrior rises up and 
 buckles on his armour again. What is he going to do ? " You 
 
HEAVEN 133 
 
 have got out of this, Paul, what are you going to do next ? " 
 "Do!" he cries once more; "I do but one thing — press 
 towards the mark for the prize. I do not want to lose my crown." 
 Therefore he never turns to the right hand or to the left. He 
 fixes his eye right on the crown.' " Henceforth there is laid up for 
 me a crown which cannot fade." 
 
 Look at him again. He goes to Macedonia, and the first thing 
 he gets in Philippi is the jail. If that happened to any Christian 
 in the nineteenth century what an outcry there would be ! What 
 lamentation there would be inside the prison ! What scheming to 
 get out, what claims for damages ! But that is not the way this 
 old warrior looks at it. " Silas ! " he says at midnight j " it is 
 time to have our evening worship." And there, in that prison 
 cell, with bleeding backs and feet fast in the stocks, they sing their 
 psalm of praise. It would be about the last place we should 
 think of singing praises in, and if we did sing it would be some 
 melancholy hymn ! But not so Paul. " If God wants me to go 
 to heaven by way of the Philippian prison," he says, " it is all the 
 same to me j rejoice and be exceeding glad, Silas. I thank God 
 that I am accounted worthy to suffer for Jesus' sake." And as 
 they sang their praises to God, the other prisoners heard them ; but, 
 what was far more important, the Lord heard them, and the old 
 prison shook, their chains fell off, and they were free men ! Talk 
 about Alexander the Great making the world tremble with his 
 armies. Here is a little tent-maker who makes the world tremble 
 without any army ! 
 
 And then look at the end of his glorious life. He was in 
 Rome and about to be executed. He takes up his pen and writes 
 to Timothy, " The time of my departure is at hand, I have fought 
 a good fight, I have kept the faith." Thank God he kept the 
 faith ! He did not break away and teach false doctrine. He 
 believed in the good old gospel that Christ died, and that men 
 must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if they would be saved. 
 " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown." I should like to 
 have been in Rome when Paul was there, there was something 
 there worth seeing then. I should like to have seen him walking 
 down those streets. Rome never saw such a conqueror as that 
 man. "Paul! you are going to execution 5 are you not sorry 
 
134 HEAVEN 
 
 you gave your*life to the Lord Jesus ? You have had to suffer so 
 much, stoned, persecuted, beaten with many stripes, in many 
 dangers in the wilderness, in perils by sea and land — are you not 
 sorry ? Would you give your life to Christ if you had it to live 
 over again?" "Yes," he replies, '"if I had ten thousand lives 
 I would willingly give them all for His dear sake." He has 
 nothing to regret, nothing to be sorry for. " Sorry ! " he cries y 
 " I thank God a thousand times a day that I ever gave myself to 
 Him!" 
 
 Look at him as he marches along to execution like a conqueror. 
 If you had taken your stand by his side you might have heard him 
 whisper, (t I shall be absent from the body and present with the 
 Lord to-night." He has no worldly wealth to trouble him — per- 
 haps a few tools that he used in tent-making — but in heaven he 
 has treasures untold, and he makes ready to go for his crown. 
 You can see a smile on his face as he lays his head on the guil- 
 lotine, and his soul leaps into the chariot of fire that stands by its 
 side. I can imagine them watching for him from the battlements 
 of heaven, and there is a cry " Hallelujah ! " as he sweeps away up 
 to the throne. And I can hear the shout of the Master as he 
 enters the pearly gates, " Well done, Paul ; you have fought a good 
 fight, you have kept the faith, you have finished the work that was 
 given you to do ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! " And the 
 Master rises and plants the crown upon his brow, but he takes 
 it and casts it at the feet of his Lord. 
 
 Paul got his reward at last. Down here it was tribulation, but 
 I have an idea that he thanks God more to-day for his afflictions 
 than for his prosperity. John Bunyan thanked God more for 
 Bedford Jail than for anything that ever happened to him. And 
 Paul, in prison, takes out his pen and writes these epistles which 
 have come down as a blessing through the ages. The streams of 
 grace that Paul set running are running still. Eighteen hundred 
 years have passed since He wrote these epistles to the churches, 
 but their fruits are still going up from every clime and nation. 
 And so if things go against us, let us thank God. Our reward is 
 yonder. I do not believe a man will be much used of God until 
 he is above the thought of receiving reward from men. " Rejoice 
 and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heave*-" If 
 
HEAVEN, 135 
 
 God calls it "great" it must be something worth having, therefore 
 let us not spoil it by seeking the world's honours. 
 
 Not long ago there lived an old bed-ridden saint, and a 
 Christian lady who visited her found her always very cheerful. 
 This visitor had a lady friend of wealth who constantly looked on 
 :he dark side of things, and was always cast down although she was 
 a professed Christian. She thought it would do this lady good to 
 see the bed-ridden saint, so she took her down to the house. She 
 lived up in the garret, five stories up, and when they had got to the 
 first story the lady drew up her dress and said, " How dark and 
 filthy it is ! " " It's better higher up," said her friend. They got 
 to the next story, and it was no better ; the lady complained again, 
 but her friend replied, " It's better higher up." At the third floor 
 it seemed still worse, and the lady kept complaining, but her 
 friend kept saying, "It's better higher up." At last they got to 
 the fifth story, and when they went into the sick-room, there was 
 a nice carpet on the floor, there were flowering plants in the 
 window, and little birds singing. And there they found this bed- 
 ridden saint — one of those ..saints whom God is polishing for his 
 own temple — just beaming with joy. The lady said to her " It 
 must be very hard for you to lie here." She smiled, and said, 
 "It's better higher up." Yes! And if things go against us, my 
 friends, let us remember that " it's better higher up." 
 
 I was going to New Orleans from Chicago a few years ago, 
 and there were two ladies in the train with me. They got well 
 acquainted with one another by the time they reached Cairo, where 
 one lived, the other was going on to New Orleans. The one who 
 had to get out at Cairo said to the other, " I wish you would stay 
 here with me for a few days, I like your company so much." " I 
 should like to stay," replied the other, " but my things are all packed 
 up and have gone on before ; I have no clothes but those I am 
 wearing. They are good enough to travel in, but I would not like 
 to be seen in company with them." Now that is the way with 
 the Christian. He is away from home here, his treasure has gone 
 on before, and anything is good enough to travel in. If things don't go 
 on smoothly down here we need not be too particular, they're good 
 enough to travel in. If our treasures are in heaven our hearts will be 
 there,, and we shall be living as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. 
 
136 HEAVEN. 
 
 One thought more. What occasions joy in heaven ? If Queen 
 Victoria should leave her throne to-day, what intense excitement 
 '" e would be ! Queen Victoria leaving the throne ! It would 
 Sc the nations of the earth. The whole world would know about 
 it. But I do not know that it would be noticed in heaven. But 
 if there was one little boy down here converted to-day, it would 
 be noticed in heaven. Jesus Christ said, "There is joy in heaven 
 over one sinner that repenteth." 
 
 My little boy, don't you want to become a lamb, for the 
 Shepherd to watch over and care for ? My little girl, don't you 
 want to become a daughter of heaven, a follower of Christ ? 
 
 It may be that at this moment every battlement of heaven is 
 alive with the redeemed. There is a sainted mother watching for 
 her daughter. Daughter ! can yoa not see her ? She is beckon- 
 ing you now to the better land. Have you no response to that 
 long-hushed voice which has prayed for you so often ? And for 
 you, young man, are there no voices there which prayed for you ? 
 and are there none whom you promised once to meet again, if not 
 on earth, in heaven ? And which of you, fathers and mothers, but 
 can hear in the angels' chorus the music of the little ones you loved, 
 and who have winged their way to be in glory for ever with the 
 Lord ? Oh ! shall we not all just turn our backs upon the world, 
 and fall on our knees, and ask God for Christ's sake to write down 
 our name in the Lamb's Book of Life, so that we and those we love 
 may live for ever with the Lord ! 
 
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