Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-06-18

but that the second would decide every
thing, for which trial would you make
the most preparation, for which retain
the ablest attorneys, for which be most
anxious about the attendance of wit
nessesP You would put all the stress
upon the second trial, all the anxiety,
all the expenditure, saying, 1.-The first
is nothing; the last is everything "
I Give the race assurance of a second and
more important trial in the subsequent
life, and all the preparation for eternity
would be "post mortem," post funeral,
post sepulchral, and the world with
one jerk be pitched off into impiety and
/ godlessness.
Furthermore, let me ask why chance
should be given in the next world if we
have refused innumerable chances in
this? Suppose you give banquet, and
| you invite vast number Of friends, but
one man declines to come or treats
your invitation with indifference. You
in the course of 20 years give 30 ban
quets, and the same man is invited to
them all and treats them all in the same
obnoxious way. After awhile you re-
| move to another house, larger and bet
ter, and you again invite your friends,
but send no invitation to the man who
declined or neglected the other invita-
tions. Are you to blame? Has he a
right to expect to be invited after all
the indignities he has done you? God
in this world has invited us all to the
banquet of his grace. He invited us by
his providence and his spirit 365 days
Of every year since we knew our right
hand from our left. If we declined it
every time or treated the invitation
with indifference and gave 20 or 40 or so
years of indignity on our part toward
the banquetor, and at last he spreads
the banquet in more luxurious and
kingly place, amid the heavenly gar
dens, have we right to expect him to
invite us again, and have we right to
blame him if he does not invite us?
Only One Offer.
If 10 gates of salvation stood open 20
years or so years for our admission, and
at the end of that time they are closed,
can we complain of it and say: 'These
gates ought to be open again. Give us
another chance?" If the steamer is to sail
for Hamburg, and we want to get to
Germany by that line, and we read in
every evening and every morning news
paper that it will sail on certain day,
for two weeks we have that advertise
ment before our eyes, and then we go
down to the docks 10 minutes after it
has showed off into the stream and say:
Come back! Give me another chanoei
1t is not fair to treat me in this wayi
Swing up to the dock again and throw
out planks and let me come ON boardl"
Such behavior would invite arrest as
mailman
And if, after the gospel ship has lain
at anchor before our eyes for years and
years, and all the benign voices of earth
and heaven have urged us to get op
board, as she might sail away at any
moment, and after awhile she sails
without us, is it common sense to ex-
pect her to come back? You might as
we'll go out ON the highlands at Nave
sink and call to the Majestic after she
has been three days out and expect her
to return as to call back an opportunity
for heaven when it once has sped away.
All heaven offered us as gratuity, and
for lifetime we refuse to take it, and
then rush on the bosses of Jehovah's 3
buckler demanding another chance.
There ought to be, there can be, there
will be, no such thing as posthumous
opportunity. Thus our common sense
agrees with my text, "If the tree fall
toward the south or toward the north,
i'll the place where the tree falleth there
it shall be. "
You see that this idea lifts this world
up fron an unimportant way station to
platform of stupendous issues and
makes all eternity whirl around this
hour. But one trial for which all the
preparation must be made in this world
or never made at all That piles up all
the emphases and all the climaxes and
all the destinies into life here. No 9TH
or chance! Oh, how that augments the
value and the Importance OF this chancel
Alexander with his army used to sur
round a city and then would lift
great light in token to the people that
if they SURRENDERED before that light
went out all would be we'll, but if once
the light went out then the battering
rams would swing against the wall, and
demolition and disaster would follow.
Well, all we need do for our present
and everlasting safety is to make sur
render to Christ, the king and con-
queror-surrender Of our hearts, surren-
der of our lives, surrender Of everything.
And he keeps great light burning light
of gospel invitation, light kindled with
the wood of the cross and flaming up
against the dark night of our sin and
sorrow. Surrender while that great light
continues to burn, for after it goes out
there will be no other opportunity Of
making peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Talk of another
caancel Why, this is supernal chance!
No Chance In the Next World.
In the time of Edward vi, at the
battle of Musselburg, a private sol
dier, seeing that the Earl of Huntley
had lost his helmet, took of his own
helmet and put it upon the head Of the
o.-l a,.d fha baad ~ tho xnrivafa aoldiar