strike them back howling to the pit. Room in heaven for all the raptures that ever knocked at the gate, but no room for the smallest annoyance, though slight as a summer insect. Doxology but no dirge. Banquetting but no "funeral baked meats." No darkness at all; no grief at all; no sickness at all; no death at all. A soul waking up in that place will say: "Can it be that I am here? Will my head never ache again? Shall I never stumble over a graye again? Will I never say good-bye to loved ones again? Can it be possible that the stream is past, that the bank is gained, that the glory is begun? Show me the temple where I may worship. Show me Jesus that I may kiss His feet.” When the clock of Christian suffering has run down, it will never be wound up again. 66 The Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away the tears from their eyes." Oh, I would like nothing else to do from now to the day of my death but to tell the glad tidings of that rest provided for God's people. I love a carol a great deal better than I do a dirge. I don't even like minor tunes. I like tunes that have plenty of gladness and that are jubilant. I am a disciple of the sunshine. I like he shutters of my house open, and all the shades up. And yet it would be hypocrisy-it would be cowardice-for me to stand here this morning and tell you one half of that text and not tell you the other half.

If there is a heaven, there is just as certainly a hell. Suppose you are going along a road, and you ask me about the way, and I told you on the right side there were flowers and parks, and trees, and beautiful fountains; but I did not tell you on the other side there were sometimes wild beasts in the jungle, and of precipices off which you might fall—would I do that which is fair? Oh, what would I do in the day of judgment if it were found out that I preached half the truth, and only half? The Bible says: "So shall it be at the end of the world. The wicked shall be severed from among the just, and they shall be cast into the furnace of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the smoke of that torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. This shall be the portion of all who do not believe in Christ. Whatever may have been their outward excellencies of character, and whatever may have been their worldly positions, the text declares: "He that believeth not shall be damned." Those who are cast away under this sentence will go away from the presence of the most lovely Being in all this universe. The Lord Jesus Christ they will never see but once, and that on the

Judgment-day-the day which will be their eternal discomfiture. That Jesus who stood pleading year after year for their love and faith will turn His back upon them, and pass out of their sight for ever. They will be cast out from the companionship of glorified kindred and friends. The gulf will be fixed-has been ; fixed. Alas, my dear friends, if you are on one side of it, and father or mother, husband or wife, son or daughter is on the other side. There will be no bridge across that gulf. There will be no swimming across it. Your destinies will be widening -they more and more holy, you more and more sinful. Brighter joys hovering over them, thicker darkness frowning upon you. Then you will think of the time when you sat in the house of God together. You will think of the time when you walked the path of life together, when you mingled in the same joys, when you wept over the same graves, and the same invitation struck the ears of both of you at the same time. Oh, it is an overwhelming thought to me that some who now stand together in the tenderest ties of affection will, unless they repent, or this Bible is a lie, pass their eternity in two different worlds; if these accept of Christ, and those refuse Him, they must inevitably part. The text says so. If you persist in your impenitence, you had better neglect everything, and spend all your time together, for you are hastening on toward the forks of the road at which you must part. So what you have to say, say now, or never say at all. A few more days and nights of companionship, and that communion must be ended. If the Bible can be understood in any place, it must be understood in this place. One moment after death has dropped upon you; the archangel rising on his throne, rallying all the strength of his existence, could not hinder your fall, or change your destiny, or hinder the separation.

"Oh there will be parting, parting, parting,

At the Judgment seat of Christ.'

The old people of the Church remember when they used to sing that in olden times. I heard my father sing it—an old tune gone out of date and an old hymn. They who are cast away will go into the companionship of the worst population that have gone out from this earth. There are only two worlds-heaven and hell. The believers have all gone, or will go, to heaven, and the unbelievers will go to hell. No compromise of destiny-one thing or the other, just as certain as I stand here, and you sit there. Two worlds! I don't think that in the world of the

lost there will be any cell for the thief, or for the unclean one, or for the murderer. I think there will be one vast community of suffering and crime. The most of Sodom will be there; the most of Babylon will be there. The very slums of earth will empty their population into that place. All the vice of the world, let loose there, will riot, and foam, and fight, and blaspheme. It will be the penitentiary of the universe. If you get in there, you will never get out-you will never get out! and, therefore, it is with so much earnestness I stand here pleading for your life. Oh, to be in such company as that for ever! Believing this, as I do, can I address you in anything but words that come from the depths of my soul? I know that the philosopher of the day has tried to reason this thing out, and rejected the idea, and the doctrine makes people actually venomous. I cannot help it. It is not a fight between men and us; it is a fight between men and God.

If there is a heaven, there is a hell. Those who under that sentence are cast away, will go into pain; I don't say mental, or bodily, or both. I am not now discussing it, but it will be unmitigated torture. There can be no other meaning to these chapters about the never-dying worm, and the endless fire; that must mean torture. Fire is torture. There will be pain-infinite pain. The English language is full of words expressive of suffering-such words as "wretchedness," "heart-break," "pang," "torment," "convulsion," "agony," "despair," "woe." I will make a ladder of these words, each word a rung, and let it down into this subject to see if I can measure the depth of sorrow which those will have who reject Christ. I let down the ladder, but it does not touch the bottom. I have stood on cliffs, and I have pushed a rock off, and it has gone tumbling down, and after awhile I have heard, when it struck beneath, the echo come to my ear. At other times, I have stood on a precipice so great, that throwing over a stone, I have listened, but there came back no sound. I could not hear when it struck. So I take these words of which I have just spoken, and I throw them over this precipice, and I listen to hear when they strike the bottom. No echo! No echo! Bottomless! Bottomless! Oh, the remorse and chagrin of one who has had ten thousand opportunities of being saved, and yet feels he is lost. Oh, the weariness of one who has been ten million years in anguish, and yet feels it is only just begun! Agony, with its face scarred with ages of suffering, lifting up both hands towards the fiery horizon, crying: "The wrath to come! to come! to come!" After millions of

ages, some soul says: 'Isn't it most gone? Isn't it nearly ended? I can't longer endure it. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved. When will it end." And a finger of lightning will write on the sky: "For ever!" and the following thunder-peal echo among the crags of death, "For ever!" Oh, those fire-bells will never stop ringing, because the conflagration will never be done. They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. i. 9). Put it down in your. memorandum-books, so that you will see that it is not I, but God that says it. Ah, my strength gives way, and my words break down. I can only, my dear hearers, call God to witness that I have this morning told what I think to be the whole truth. I want to save myself, and to save all who hear me. I can't bear the thought that one to whom I have administered the Gospel shall at last miss heaven. If I thought there was one here determined on such ruin, I would come down from this platform, and would seize hold of you and say: "Don't you do it. Jesus wants to be gracious to you. Why will you die when there are so many opportunities for salvation?"

Upon one or the other of these two worlds, I, De Witt Talmage, must soon enter. And you, as certainly. Which shall it be? I am deciding it for myself this morning. My dear brother and sister, I can't decide it for you; you will have to decide it for yourselves. Which shall it be? Lord Jesus, which shall it be? Holy Spirit, which shall it be? Oh, you great throng of dying men and women, which shall it be? I take hold of the rope in God's bell-tower, and I ring this alarm of warning, and this wedding-bell of love. I run my eye over all these seats, and I can say you may be saved, every one of you. "Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else."

Don't go away this morning, and say I announced destruction to any one except to the man that went without Christ. If you have not understood before, now, in this closing moment of my discourse, understand me: "Whosoever will," whatever his sin, if he has gone through the whole catalogue-" whosoever will". -I care not what his age may be, if for eighty years he has been steeped in crime-" whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely." Mark this: if you are lost, it is your own fault. Pardon and heaven are offered to all. 'He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved: and he that believeth not shall be damned."

1

CHRIST EVERYTHING

"Christ is all and in all."-Col. iii. 11.

EVERY age of the world has had its historians, its philoso

phers, its artists, its thinkers, and its teachers. Were there histories to be written? there has always been a Moses, or a Herodotus, or a Xenophon, or a Josephus, to write them. Were there poems to be constructed? there has always been a Job, or a Homer, to construct them. Were there thrones lustrous and powerful to be lifted? there has always been a David or a Cæsar to raise them. Were there teachers demanded for the intellect and the heart? there has been a Socrates, and a Zeno, and a Cleanthes, and a Marcus Antoninus coming forth on the grand and glorious mission. Every age of the world has had its triumphs of reason and morality. There has not been a single age of the world which has not had some decided system of religion; the Platonism, Orientalism, Stoicism, Brahminism, and Buddhism, considering the ages in which they were established, were not lacking in ingenuity and force. Now, in this line of benificent institutions and of noble men, there appeared a personage more wonderful than any predecessor. He came from a family without any royal or aristocratic pretensions. He became a Galilean mechanic. He had no advantage from the schools. There were people beside Him, day after day, who had no idea that He was going to be anything remarkable, or do anything remarkable. Yet, notwithstanding all this, and without any title or scholarly pretension, or flaming rhetoric, He startled the world with the strangest announcements, ran in collision with solemn priests and proud rulers, and with a voice that run through temple and palace, and over ship's deck and mountain top, exclaimed: "I am the light of the world!" Men were taken all aback at the idea that that hand, yet hard from the use of the axe, and saw, and adze, and hatchet, should wave the sceptre of authority; and that upon that brow, from which they had so often seen him wipe the sweat of toil, there would yet come the crown of unparalleled splendor and of universal dominion. We all know how difficult it is to think, that