ut through the darkness of our prison gloom and
through the storm there comes a voice from heaven, saying, "I will
abundantly pardon."

Then think of His restraining mercy. I do not believe that it is possible
for any man to tell his capacity for crime until he has been tested. There
have been men who denounced all kinds of frauds, who scorned all mean
transactions, who would have had you believe that it was impossible for
them ever to be tempted to dishonesty, and yet they may be owning to-day
the chief part of the stock in the Credit Mobilier.

There are men who once said they never could be tempted to intemperance.
They had no mercy on the drunkard. They despised any man who became a
victim of strong drink. Time passed on, and now they are the victims of the
bottle, so far gone in their dissipation that it is almost impossible that
they ever should be rescued.

So there have been those who were very hard on all kinds of impurity, and
who scoffed at unchastity, and who said that it was impossible that they
should ever be led astray; but to-night they are in the house whose gates
are the gates of hell! It is a very dangerous thing for a man to make a
boast and say, "Such and such a sin I never could be tempted to commit."

There are ten thousand hands of mercy holding us up; there are ten thousand
hands of mercy holding us back, or we would long ago have gone over the
precipice, and instead of sitting to-night in a Christian sanctuary, amid
the respected and the good, our song would have been that of the drunkard,
or we would be "hail fellows well met" with the renegade and the
profligate. Oh, the restraining mercy of God! Have you never celebrated it?
Have you never rejoiced in it?

Think also of His guiding mercy. You have sometimes been on a journey, and
come to where there were three roads--one ahead of you, one to the right
and one to the left. It was a lonely place, and you had no one of whom to
ask advice. You took the left-hand road, thinking that was the right one,
but before night you found out your mistake, and yet your horse was too
exhausted and you were too tired to retrace your steps, and the mistake you
made was an irretrievable mistake.

You come on in life, many a time, and find there are three or four or fifty
roads, and which one of the fifty to take you do not know. Let me say that
there are forty-nine chances out of fifty that you will take the wrong one,
unless God directs you, since it is a