THE SILVER TRUMPET.

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem."-Isaiah xxvii. 13.

AS when the front and back doors of a barn are open, a gust

of wind scatters the dust and chaff, so the Jews had been swept every whither-some wandering in Assyria, and some exiled in Egypt; but their coming back, as by the call of a trumpet, is here predicted.

The passage is strongly descriptive of the exiled and perishing condition of sinful men, and of their return at the trumpet-call of the Gospel.

Need I stop to prove that out of God we are in exile? Who here is at home in his sins? Does he not wander about looking for a home? Within the walls of his house, does he find entire rest for his spirit? No; he sees those walls are crumbling. His family must, by the nature of things, after awhile be scattered. Sickness can not be kept out, nor death. How many men have lived in the same house for twenty years? Not many. Your office or store makes a poor home. Are things all right at the store? Do things go on there as if they might go on for ever? Would you be satisfied to spend an eternity amidst that hardware, and those ribbons, and yonder kegs and hogsheads? Your pleasures are not lasting. You get tired of laughing, and tired of card-playing, and tired of fast riding; and all the peace you ever had was not very deep nor very lasting. You wander about, and wander about-exiled. That is the suggestive idea of the text. You have been expatriated. You are in worse than Siberian exile. The chains are harder. The mine is darker. The climate is colder. The gloom is ghastlier. "Lost in the land of Assyria!" That is, you do not know how you got in, and you cannot find your way out. If a man has missed his way, the more he walks the more he is lost. He starts off and goes ten miles in the wrong direction. Nor can you find your way out of this spiritual confusion. Lost, and without food. Lost, and without water. St. Bernard dogs pick up the worn traveller from Alpine gulches; but nothing has picked you out

from your freezing exhaustion. Strong-armed sailors have put out from a steamer and saved a shipwrecked crew; but no craft has borne down for your rescue. "Ready to perish! says the text. Not floating on down into peril, but in the last stages of it-the work of sin almost completed-the day of grace almost gone-your feet on the crumbling brink. Perhaps the last call made. Ready to perish! Ready to perish! Not the first symptoms of disease, but the ninth day has passed; all remedies have failed; and there has been a relapse. What a dim prospect of recovery! Almost hopeless! Ready to perish! Ready to perish! Not the first reefing of the sail, and "the making of things snug;" but the mast shivered, the helm gone, the leak sprung, the timbers parting-the crash come! Ready to perish! Ready to perish!

Am I right in supposing that there are two thousand persons in this house unprepared to meet God? If a fishing-smack, with three or four persons on board, goes to pieces on Newfoundland banks, we say, "Poor fellows! what a sad thing it is that they were lost!" but if an ocean steamer goes down with three hundred passengers, the catastrophe is more overwhelming. If I thought that in this house there were only two or three persons in eternal peril, I would bemoan the fact; but when perhaps they may be counted by thousands, shall I not shriek out the horror-Ready to perish! Ready to Perish!

Ingenious little children sometimes tell you how, with a few letters, they can spell a very large word. With three letters I can spell bereavement. With three letters I can spell disappointment. With three letters I can spell suffering. With three letters I can spell death. With three letters I can spell perdition. S-I-N-SIN. That is the cause of all our trouble now. That is the cause of our trouble for the future.

In 1665, in Derbyshire, England, there was a great plague. So many died, that it was decreed that none of the inhabitants should leave the villiage, and thus extend the distemper. A circle of stone was built all round about the city, beyond which no citizen could pass. Outsiders who had medicine or food to bring, brought it and threw it over the stone wall, and fled for their life.

To-night I mark the circle of a plague. The circle begins back of this pulpit, goes along the wall to the right, along the wall in front, along the wall to the left, coming back to the same point behind the the pulpit, thus including all within this house.

That circle is marked with these words: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. There is none that doeth good -no, not one. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." A PLAGUE! A PLAGUE! And hundreds ready to perish!

But upon this dark background of the text a light falls. Amidst the harsh discords of which I speak, there sound the sweet and thrilling notes of a great trumpet. My text says, "The great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish." This Gospel trumpet is not, in its material, like other trumpets. It is not made from horn of ram or ox, nor has it been shaped in an earthly foundry. God furnished the material for this trumpet, twisted it, attuned it, bestowed it. He made two trumpets-one for heaven, and John heard its blast about Patmos. He made the other for the earth, and he hung it in the Church. Simon Peter put that trumpet to his lips, and all the docks and shipping of Galilee heard it. Luke took it, and, forgetting the medicines of his apothecary shop, he went everywhere to blow it. Paul took it, and made Phillippian dungeons ring, and Corinthian palaces echo, and Christendom resound with the harmonies of the resurrection. A trumpet, God-made, heaven-manufactured, yet needing no giants to use it, but suited to faint lips, and trembling hand, and feeble lungs; so that sick Edward Payson, leaning against the pulpit, might hold it, and Frederick Robertson, worn out with ulcers and spinal complaints, might breathe through it, until the fashionable hearers at Brighton watering-place trembled and believed.

This Gospel trumpet is great in its power. On a still night you may hear the call of a brazen trumpet two or three miles; but this is so mighty that it is not only heard from heaven to earth, but it is to arrest the attention of all nations. Men with physical hearing all gone catch the first strain of it. Men buried half a century in crimes have heard it. It is the power of God unto salvation. Amidst the rush of a cavalry troop, going perhaps a mile in three minutes, Saul heard it, braced himself in the stirrups, and reined in his charger on the road to Damascus. In a custom house, amidst the chink of coin, and the shuffle of feet, and the dispute of merchants at the high tariffs. Matthew answered its mighty call. Men have put their fingers in their ears to keep out the sound, but have been compelled to hear it. At its blast, walls fall, and thrones upset, and nations leap from barbarism to civilisation. There is no force in the shock of musketry, or in

the boom of cannonade, as compared with the pealing forth of this great Gospel trumpet. Oh! that the Eternal God might speak through it now! That all these people might rise up into the freedom of the Gospel!

This trumpet is great in its sweetness. In some musical instruments there is noise, and crash, and power, but no fineness of sound. Others can not only thunder but weep, and whisper and woo. Like that is the Gospel trumpet! In all tenderness and sweetness, and sympathy, it excels.

"How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

In a believer's ear:

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fears."

A patient may be so weak that the fall of a door-latch or the rattle of a spoon in the tea-cup disturbs; but this sound quiets the nerves and stills the fears. The gentlest step that ever entered a sick-room is that of the Great Physician. Take some favourite word and utter it among the rocks, and there come back half a dozen echoes. So there is one word that, uttered here to-night will echo back from five hundred wounded but comforted hearts. That word is JESUS. That is the name that makes you weep. That is the name that makes you smile. That is the name that arouses your courage. That is the name that kindles your faith. That is the name that helps you to live. will help you to die.

That is the name that

But I make a more determined advance into my subject and say that the Gospel trumpet is a trumpet of alarm. The sentinel on the wall sees the enemy coming, and puts the trumpet to his lips; and the soldier grasps his musket, and the trooper springs into his saddle, and the gates ajar shut at the cry "Beware!" Listening not to trumpet-call, the palace is taken, the treasures despoiled, the city burned. So the Gospel is a trumpet of alarm. It says, "Be armed, or die!" Satan assaults. The world tempts. Death advances. Judgment bursts upon thee, and an eternity from which thou shalt not escape. One strain of that trumpet is this, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment." Another strain, "Who of us can dwell amidst devouring flames? Who of us can lie down in everlasting burnings?" "Beware, beware!"

The Gospel trumpet is one of recruit. During the late war you heard the trumpet calling from the recruiting-stations; and at its call the people flocked to the standard of the Government

and went out to battle. In a spiritual sense, war is declared. Who is on the Lord's side? Are you ready to answer the call of the trumpet? There is no neutral ground. You are for God or for Satan, for light or for darkness, for heaven or for hell. Some theologians take four or five volumes in which to state their religious belief; I tell you all my theology in one sentence, Jesus Christ-take him and live; refuse him and die.

Sometimes, by mismanagement, a regiment will get in between the two opposing hosts and be cut to pieces by both sides. Will you stand half-way between the right side and the wrong side, and take shot of both hosts, or will you come under our standard? You will finally wish you had, for we shall gain this war. As a recruiting officer of the great army of banners, I blow this blast, Choose this day whom ye will serve. Why halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow him; if Baal, then follow him. Come, for all things are now ready. The banquet is ready. The heart of Christ is ready. The house of many mansions is ready. The temple is ready. The angels are ready. Everything is ready. With such a Leader, with such a flag, with such a cause, with such a result, with such a crownto-night put down your names on the muster roll. This Gospel trumpet is one of assault. The besieging army prepares to storm the wall. They wheel round the guns. They march by platoons. The swords gleam. The guns are loaded. The men are anxious for the affray. Then there comes the ruffle of the drums, and all are ready for the charge. But they waitnot moving hand, or foot, or chin, to right or left-until the trumpet peals, when instantly the wave of valor dashes npon the casement. At every new roll of the drum the courage rises, until the castle is taken.

Arrayed against thy sins to-night, art thou ready to storm and trample them down? Fall into line! Attention! The trumpet sounds, and down go the mailed hosts, biting the dust.

Sins

of the heart, sins of the life, sins of the tongue, sins of thy youth, sins of maturity, sins of old age-one black, infernal army of transgression: they must go down under thee, or thou shalt go down under cm. Hearken to the trumpet of assault: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." "Those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell-think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in