The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-05

and ten thousand opportunities for usefulness,
and a million chances of being made better, but
comes to the gate of eternity a pauper in Chris
tian experience, and with but one sheaf, though
all his life he was walking in golden harvest
fields. You have postponed your higher life I'm
til God tells me you will not come to it If you
postpone it any longer. The Kings business re-
quires haste.
There is a great work Of comfort to be dene.
Ii it is not done speedily, it will never be done.
Yonder Is a heart breaking. Now is the time to
say the healing word. Go next week with your
halsann, and it will not touch the case. A man
yonder came under your influence, and Tou
might have captured him for God. You will
never have another chance at him. Tomorrow
another man will be under your influence You
will have but one opportunity of saving him. 1t
may be at 10 o'clock. at IL o'clock or at 8 o'clock;
miss that, and you miss it forever. Do not say:
wait until the next time Next time will
never come. Be prompt and Immediate. The
Kings business requires haste.
In the city of Basic, Switzerland, it was the
custom to have all the clocks of the city an hour
ahead of time. for the following reason: Once
an enemy was moving upon the city and their
stratagem was to take the city at IL o'clock,
noon; but the Cathedral clock, by mistake,
struck / instead of IL: and so the enemy thought
that they were too late to carry out the strata
gem and gave up the assault, and the city was
saved; and, therefore, it was arranged that for
many years the clock struck l when 1T was II
and IL when it was ii. 0, man and woman of
SOO ASHeN III - WA ~ Jo0A
on If you want to save the city! Better get to
your work too early than come too late. The
Kings business requires haste.
We are exercising a fatal elaboration. We
sit calmly in church, meditating about how to
save the world. Meanwhile six millions Of
people will die this year. You might start the
millennium next year, but it would do them no
good. What you do for them you will have to
do within a Twelve month. What you to do for
them you will have to do this morth-aye. this
week! Aye, this day! Have you never heard
that a %neighbor was sick and said to yourself:
y must go and talk with him about his soul,
for l know that he is not prepared to leave the
world2" But that day you were busy, and the
next you were busy, and the third day you went
to see him. You pulled his door-bell; a servant
came out and you said: How is he to dayN
cannot be possible; how long has he been deadp
She answers: "Five minutes" God have mercy
upon that Christian man who comes to do his
work five minutes too late. The Kings business
requires haste.
DANGER IN PRoCRAsTINATION.
1 pray God that my text may be brought home
with special power to those in this audience who
have never yet sought Christ. AS many of the
causes that come up in court are adjourned,
sometimes because the witnesses are not ready,
and sometimes because the plaintiff is not ready,
and sometimes because the judge is not ready,
until the bill OF costs is ruinous and hard to pay
so there are men and women who have al
journed the cause of the souls salvation from
youth to middle life. and adjourned it from
health to sickness, and adjourned it from pros
perity to adversely, until there will be an infinite
bill of costs to pay. 0, procrastinating, deliber
ating, halting soul! Let me tell you that the
Kings business requires hastel Before you at
tend to it, your mental faculties may fail. Your
intellect works admirably now; but in this coun-
try the ratio of intellects that are giving out is
larger every year. Something in the climate
urges men on to such extremes ard the pressure
on active men is so great, that before they are
aware, of it the brain ~softens, or, more suddenly,
the mind drops dead from its throne.
Pythagoras, studying philosophy, was go anx-
ious to keep awake and improve all his time that
with a string he tied the hair of his head to a
beam above, so that the very moment he nodded
III sleep the pain would awake him. So there
are men now who have such morbid and un-
healthy notions about how much work it is nee
essary to do, that they never take any rest. They
cannot stand the stress. The most brilliant are
In the most peril. What If the mind that God.
has given you for high and holy uses should per-
ish before you have found Christ? A heavy fall,
an accidental stroke on the head, a sudden af-
Fiction for which you are not ready, may kill
your intellect and so your last chance for heaven
pass away, though you should live on for many
a year.
In the great populations that occupy the asy-
lums OF the country or are carefully guarded in
private dwellings. are hundreds of men and
women who expected some day to be Christians.
They had abundance of time, they thought; but
mental disorders dropped upon them before they
had decided the matter, and although now they
are irresponsible and shall not be brought to a-
count for anything they do under this mental
eclipse, yet they shall at last be called into
judgment for the long years of mental health
when they neglected the gospel. What will be-
come Of them [ leave you TO judge. While your
reason acts, put it to the grandest use. Look
out how you carry the magnificent torch of your
intellect. lest God put it out in darkness forever.
TIE Kings business requires haste.
l would have you regard the text because you
may have come near to the end of Gods patience.
There can be no doubt that some men in youth,
or mid-life, or old age, so aggravatingly reject
the gospel that God lets them alone. They slam
the door Of their soul in Gods face and tell Him
to be gone; then when they call after Him to
come back He will not come. Eternal afront
has been given, and in that book where no eras-
ures are made, the mans name is put down
among the doomed. Cross the line that divides
Gods mercy from His wrath-step but one inch
over, and you are as badly off as if you went TO-
600 furlongs. Before the iron bolt fastens the
door against YOU. you had better go in. Before
tie last boat sails for heaven, you had better get
on board. Haste thee out of thy sin into the
pardon of God. The Kings business requires
haste.
Have regard to the suggestion Of the text. be-
cause your life may unexpectedly terminate.
We are trading on a borrowed capital of years
that may in q moment be called in. There is no
map of the great future into which we are trav-
cling. No explorer has been ahead and come
back to tell us how it is. Each one feels his
way along the path, not knowing what moment
a deyouring lion may come from the jungle.
There are SO many ways of getting out of life;
by fall, by slips. by assassination, by malaria,
by over e%xertion, by insidious disease. by mis-
placed railroad switch, by rotten bridge, by
fractions horse, by falling wall. No man goes
when he expected, nor as he expected. Sudden
ly the pulses stop drumming the life march.
Suddenly the curtain falls, and the lights are
put out. We change worlds quicker than / can
drop a handkerchief from one hand into the
other. At one tick of the watch we are in time;
the next we are in eternity. What if we die be-
fore we are ready! What If, with all our sins