The citizen., 1914-02-12


innocent man. These are the guilty
men. They have prosecuted me
from city TO city and have sworn TO
kill me-" The Apostle Paul did not
want any guilty man TO wear that
chain which he wore as an innocent
man. Oh, for such love, let rocks
and hills their lasting silence break"
The contrast between these two
men is remarkable. Let us see for
a moment how they compared with
each other. King Agrippa has
thought Of the Apostle Paul as
criminal. When he was coming in
TO the room he may have thought
even his life was in danger, for with
his manacled hands he might be in
duced to brain someone; but as soon
as he begins TO speak his true char
acter is seen and King Agrippa be-
gins to see him, not as a criminal,
but as a man, and then as a Chris
tian man, and then as a noble, self
denying man whose home should be
in Heaven. He sees him transformed
from a criminal to a saint, ready,
according to the Jewish ideas TO
take his place in Abraham's bosom.
A Dead Politician.
Thought is always rehexive. No
matter how far you may throw a
thought, as soon as il has reached
its limit and its force has expended
itself, it is reflexive and comes back
TO the one who thinks il. SO with
King Agrippa. As he has considered
the Apostle Paul, now he comes back
to himself. Who am I? I am the
great King Agrippa, but what will I
be in a few years? He knows very
well the fickleness of the Roman
government and he may even have
an intimation that in a few years
will (such as he really did become
a cast-off from the Roman govern
ment, a cast-Off politician, and then
still later going down he finds him
self trembling on the threshold of
eternity, nothing but a miserable
sinner, ready to die and to be bur
led. As in his mind the Apostle
Paul has gone up, he in his own
mind has gone down.
The Tragedy of The Almost"
King Agrippa was almost persu-
AIDED but not entirely. To be almost
persuaded is to be lost. It is ter
rible condition. II is better never
to have known the nearness of our
relation to God than after we know
it to be lost. Some Of you have read
of that remarkable poem, Lost in
Sight of Home" A young man
from New England goes to Austria
liza to seek his fortune and there
in the wilds of Australia, beset with
hunger and cold and danger from
the natives and every form of de-
privation, at last he obtains his for
tune and starts for home. He has
heard in his native New England of
an estate that is for sale. He has
the money to buy it. He is going to
get it and spend the last of his days
in his native place. AS he approach
es his home he sees dimly the green
of his New England home. In few
days he will be there. But that
night the vessel goes down with all
on board and he is lost in sight of
home. How much easier it would
have been to have died in Australia
by starvation or by violence than
after escaping all this and so near
the end of his ambition to be lost.
| say here to you this morning, and
say it to you frankly, that I would
prefer to go to the judgment as a
heather man rather than to go TO the
judgment out of this Christian con-
gregation, unsaved and unrepentant.
II you, who have been brought up in
Christian families with Christian
parents, who have been brought
up in Sabbath schools, who have
heard the gospel from your youth,
and have all the while lived in the
expectation that you will be a
Christian and go to Heaven, for
you now to be lost is almost un-
thinkable. A terrible calamity to
come on man,-gOing to the judg-
ment unsaved after all the oppOr-
tunities of a life in this Christian
land.
Let il be today not almost persuad-
ed but altogether persuaded for ev-
cry one of you!