News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1896-01-02

stone will never be lifted from your
heart until Christ lifts it, Was it not
the loss of you friends, or the persecu-
ton of your enemies, or the overthrow
of your worldly estate-was it not an
earthquake that started you out to ask
this stupendous question of my text?
Make 1t an Urgent Question.
But l remark again, 1 characterize
this question of the agitated Jail keeper
as hasty, urgent and immediate. He put
it on the run. By the light of his torch
as he goes to look for the apostles, be-
hold his face, see the startled look and
see the earnestness. No one can doubt
by that look that the man is in earnest.
He must have that question answered be-
fore the earth stops rocking, or perhaps
he will never have it answered at all Is
that the way, my brother, my sister, you
are putting this question? Is it on the
run? Is it hasty? Is it urgent? Is it i'm
mediate? If it is not, it will not be an
swered. That is the only kind of ques-
tion that is answered. 1t is the urgent
and immediate question Of the gospel
Christ answers A great many are ask
ing this question, but they drawl it out,
and there is Indifference i'll their man
ner, as If they donot mean it. Make it an
urgent question and then you will have
it answered before an hour passes, before
minute passes. When man with all
the earnestnoss of his soul cries out for
God, he finds him, and finds him right
away.
Oh, are there not in this house today
those who are postponing until the last
hour of living the attending to the
things of the soul? l give it as my
opinion that ninety-nine out of the one
hundred deathbed repentances amount
to nothing, OF all the scores Of persons
mentioned as dying in the Bible, of how
many do you read that they successfully
repented in the last hour? OF so? No
| OF 40? No. OF 80? No Of 20? No. OF
10? No. Of Is? No. Of /? Only one,
barely one, as if to demonstrate the fact
that there is bare possibility of repent
| ing i'll the last hour. But that is i'm
probable, awfully improbable, terrif-
ically improbable. One hundred to
one against the man. If, my brother,
my sister, you have ever seen man
try to repent in the last hour, you
have seen something very sad. do not
know anything on earth so sad as to see
a man try to repent on a deathbed
There is not from the moment that life
begins to breathe in infancy to the
last gasp such an unfavorable, COM
pletely unfavorabIe hour for repentance
! as the death hour, the last hour. There
are the doctors standing with the
medicines. There is the lawyer stand
ing with the half written will. There is
the family in CONSERVATION as to what
is to become Of them. All the bells Of
eternity ringing the soul out of the
body. All the past rising before us and
all the future. Oh, that man is an inf
mite fool who prOcrastinates to the
deathbed his repentance
This May BE Your Last Chance.
My text does not answer the question.
It only asks it, with deep and importu-
nate earnestness asks it, and according
to the rules Of sermonizing you would
say, Adjourn that to some other time, ;"
but I dare not. What are the rules of
sermonizing to me when l am after
souls? What other time could l have
when perhaps this is the only time?
This might be my last time for preach
ing; this might be your last time for
hearing.
After my friend in Philadelphia died,
his children gave his church Bible to
me, and l read it, looked over it with
much interest. I saw i'll the margin,
written in lead pencil, "Mr. Talmage
said this morning that the most useless
thing in Gods universe is that any sin
ner should perish. " did not remember
saying it, but it is true, and | say it
now whether I said it then or not-the
most useless thing in all God S universe
is that any sinner should perish. Twelve
gates wide open. Have you not heard
how Christ bore our sorrows, and how
sympathetic he is with all our woes |
Have you not heard how that with all
the sorrows Of heart and all the agonies
of hell upon him, he cried, FEATHER,
forgive them, they know not what they
do?" By his feet blistered Of the noun
tain way, by his back whipped until
the skin came off, by his death couch of
four spikes, two for the hands and two
for the feet; by his sepulcher, i'll which
for the first time for 33 years the cruel
world let him alone, and by the heavens
from which he now bends in compass
sion, offering pardon and peace and
life eternal to all your souls, l beg of
you put down your all at his. feet.
saw one hanging on tree
In agony and blood,
Who fixed his languid eyes on me
| AS near his cross stood.
Oh, never till my latest breath
| VIII forget that look.
| 1t seemed to charge me with his death,
| Though not word he spoke.
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