nd placing the tiny
vessel upon the waters, lets it go. "And away it went," he, said,
"rocking upon the waves as it swept beyond the gaze of the mother's
straining eyes. The monsters of the deep were there, the serpent of the
Nile was there, behemoth was there, but the child slept as sweetly and
as safely upon the rocking waters as if it were nestled upon its
mother's breast--for God was there!" The effect was electric. The
concluding words, "for God was there!" were uttered with upturned face
and lifted hands, and in a tone of voice that thrilled the hearers like
a sudden clap of thunder from a cloud over whose bosom the lightnings
had rippled in gentle flashes. It was true eloquence.
In a revival meeting, on another occasion, he said, in a sermon of
terrific power: "O the hardness of the human heart! Yonder is a man in
hell. He is told that there is one condition on which he may be
delivered, and that is that lie must get the consent of every good being
in the universe. A ray of hope enters his soul, and he sets out to
comply with the condition. He visits heaven and earth, and finds
sympathy and consent from all. All the holy angels consent to his
pardon; all the pure and holy on earth consent; God himself repeats the
assurance of his willingness that he maybe saved. Even in hell, the
devils do not object, knowing that his misery only heightens theirs. All
are willing, all are ready--all but one man. He refuses; he will not
consent. A monster of cruelty and wickedness, he refuses his simple
consent to save a soul from an eternal hell! Surely a good God and all
good beings in the universe would turn in horror from such a monster.
Sinner, you are that man! The blessed God, the Holy Trinity, every angel
in heaven, every good man and woman on earth, are not only willing but
anxious that you shall be saved. But you will not consent. You refuse to
come to Jesus that you may have life. You are the murderer of your own
immortal soul. You drag yourself down to hell. You lock the door of your
own dungeon of eternal despair, and throw the key into the bottomless
pit, by rejecting the Lord that bought you with his blood! You will be
lost! you must be lost! you ought to be lost."
The words were something like these, but the energy, the passion, the
frenzy of the speaker must be imagined. Hard and stubborn hearts were
moved under that thrilling appeal. They were made to feel that the
preacher's picture of a self doomed soul desc
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