ed it with
visions of glory, and ministers of religion have sounded it through
the lanes, and the highways, and the chapels, and the cathedrals. It
has been cut into stone with chisel, and spread on the canvas with
pencil; and it has been recited in the doxology of great
congregations. And yet when a man first comes to look on the palace of
God's mercy, and to see the royalty of Christ, and the wealth of this
banquet, and the luxuriance of His attendants, and the loveliness of
His face, and the joy of His service, he exclaims with prayers, with
tears, with sighs, with triumphs: "The half--the half was not told
me!"

I appeal to those in this house who are Christians. Compare the idea
you had of the joy of the Christian life before you became a Christian
with the appreciation of that joy you have now since you have become a
Christian, and you are willing to attest before angels and men that
you never in the days of your spiritual bondage had any appreciation
of what was to come. You are ready to-day to answer, and if I gave you
an opportunity in the midst of this assemblage, you would speak out
and say in regard to the discoveries you have made of the mercy and
the grace and the goodness of God: "The half--the half was not told
me!"

Well, we hear a great deal about the good time that is coming to this
world, when it is to be girded with salvation. Holiness on the bells
of the horses. The lion's mane patted by the hand of a babe. Ships of
Tarshish bringing cargoes for Jesus, and the hard, dry, barren,
winter-bleached, storm-scarred, thunder-split rock breaking into
floods of bright water. Deserts into which dromedaries thrust their
nostrils, because they were afraid of the simoom--deserts blooming
into carnation roses and silver-tipped lilies.

It is the old story. Everybody tells it. Isaiah told it, John told it,
Paul told it, Ezekiel told it, Luther told it, Calvin told it, John
Milton told it--everybody tells it; and yet--and yet when the midnight
shall fly the hills, and Christ shall marshal His great army, and
China, dashing her idols into the dust, shall hear the voice of God
and wheel into line; and India, destroying her Juggernaut and
snatching up her little children from the Ganges, shall hear the
voice of God and wheel into line; and vine-covered Italy, and
wheat-crowned Russia, and all the nations of the earth shall hear the
voice of God and fall into line; then the Church, which has been
toiling and stru