severe," I admit: "The stub disorderlies in nature, they show considerable sensibility, and make a great crackling in the flames-like the thorns under a pot, of which Solomon speaks. God and such sinners must one day meet. The remark was ble is more able to resist the flames, or a fly to conquer the world, than a daring, walking lump of clay to conquer God, or escape his vengeance." Was it more severe than those figures which God himself employs in Isaiah? "Who would set the briars and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Woe unto him that striveth with his Master! Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth." "Who has hardened himself against him and prospered?" saith Job. 4. If you are so profoundly asleep to spiritual things as you would have us believe-though it seems something like a contradiction, seeing you are so fidgety under truth as to exclaim, "Let us alone "—it might, perhaps, disturb your slumbers a little more if I whisper in your ear the observation of a shrewd divine, "If you are asleep, the devil is awake, and rocking your cradle; and busy, too, keeping off ministers, conscience, anything that would awake you. None of your enemies are asleep. Asleep! and in the midst of your foes! Is the battle a sleeping time? Is the race a sleeping time?" Be assured of this, there is a terrible awakening before you! "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson." As the Philistines rushed on Samson, shorn of his strength, so shall your old convictions, by and by, and in tremendous force!-convictions which you shall be as unable to conceal as to suppress-like the river Tigris, and other rivers, of which Sir Matthew Hale speaks, which sink into the ground, and keep a subterranean course more miles than you number years, and breaking out again above-ground, a new river to some observers, but to others a continuation of the old. Well would it be for you, and some others among my hearers, if such might be the case in regard to old convictions of sin and danger, even before you leave this house of God, rather than on the death-bed, or in eternity. For then, alas! they will, most likely, run on for ever and ever, parallel with your being and eternity. Should such be the case with any of you, you may remember where and when and by whom you were foretold of it. Precious sinner! think, oh! think, ere it is eternally too late! My soul would wail over you in the language of a German hymn: "Sinner, oh! why so thoughtless grown Why in such dreadful haste to die? Heedless against thy God to fly. "Wilt thou despise eternal fate, Urged on by sin's fantastic dreams, Madly attempt th' infernal gate, And force thy passage to the flames? "Stay, sinner, on the Gospel plains! As you value your eternal interests then, ponder what I am going to say; but allow me the use of an illustration. Yonder is a rapid river, and within the bosom of that immense volume of waters is a large fish; and it is floating or swimming (as you please) down with that powerful current. How little is that silly fish aware, surrounded as it is by the easy pressure of the softly gliding waters, with what a tremendous element it is encompassed! How unconsciously it moves along with scarcely any perceptible effort; till, lo! it comes for a moment above a terrific cataract; over it goes, and the river comes down upon it in "thundering tons." To apply this: Sin is the sinner's element; and hell is the centre of his gravity. It is in this deceptive and perilous element he is swimming; nay, he need make no effort as to the active work of swimming; even a dead fish may move with the stream. Let him set himself against the deep current of his corruptions, and endeavor to oppose the swift stream of infernal influence down which he is gliding; then shall he know to his sorrow the force of those "fearful elements" which are bearing him downward to the gulf of eternal destruction. But, ah! when he shall approach the falls of death, he will then feel, to his sorrow, the oppressive tribulation of that dangerous mass. And when he shall have been carried over the cataract, into the whirlpool of hell, and his past sins the current in which he has been gliding so quietly for many years, and which has been as essential to his enjoyment as water to a fish-shall follow his terrified soul in thundering masses into the bottomless pit; then, and not till then, shall he know how tremendous was that element, the power of which he never knew, because he never opposed any effectual resistance to its fatal tendencies, on his passage to eternity. You would do well to reconsider that notion regarding "small sins." Query: Is it possible that any sin can be small? If you can prove you have a small soul to lose, and a small God to sin against, and that there is any such thing as a small damnation, or a small hell; the other may be proved easy enough. There are degrees of sin, we allow; but if hell be the drift or tendency of every sin, alas! there can be really no such thing in the universe as a small sin. Drops of rain are small things, but then the river is made up of drops, and raindrops supply the river. A single sin appears small, but that, and others joining it, may swell into a torrent that will drown the soul in destruction and perdition. CHAPTER LII. SEEING THINGS IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT. FEW more hints for "Let us alone." So! so! You are not, after all, so insensible as you fancied yourself! -not so fast asleep as you imagined? How could it be, seeing that both God and Satan have work for you? He that is not doing somewhat for God, must be for Satan. Not to work out one's salvation, is to work out one's perdition. Pythagoras spoke well when he insisted that "ability and necessity lie near each other." And so did the German, when he exclaimed, "our wants develop our faculties." The one originates or necessitates the other. Samuel Drew, the celebrated mathematician, and author of a fine work on the immortality of the soul, in giving account of his sinful life when a youth, in connection with his shoemaking life, observes, "When I was a young man, I was expert at follies, acute in trifles, and ingenious about nonsense." That was the use Satan found for his great talents! 2. In the eyes of the world, this waste of time and talent may seem but of little account, except so far as it may prevent the attainment of worldly advancement. But when we look into the Scriptures we find it a serious matter-that parable of the talents, for instance, to which we referred last night. (Matt. XXV. 14-30.) Principal and interest will be required, remem |