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THE KING’S BUSINESS
science than be walking up and down Bos ton with my conscience lashing me all the while. I may be speaking tonight to some dishonest clerk. Perhaps your employer knows nothing about it. It may be all be tween yourself and God, but don’t rest to night until you have confessed and made all restitution in your power, and you will get relief for your aching heart. I pity the man whose conscience is lashing him all the while. Some of you may say, “Oh, but my conscience don’t trouble me.” Well, it did at first, didn’t it? When you took the first dollar and went to the theatre with it, you didn’t enjoy it much, did you? The next time you took $2 to have a ride on the Sab bath, and that troubled you too, though probably not so much. Conscience is like a ■bell that rings the loudest the first timé it is rung, and fainter the more it is rung. You have now gone on for months and you no longer hear the bell, but bear in mind God will wake you up some time; the reaping time is coming. Some say I don’t preach against sin. Don’t preach against sin ! Don’t preach righteous ness ! Why my friends, if we don’t have righteousness in any community, we don’t have Christianity. God forgive me if I don’t warn you against sin. The judgment day is coming on. I may be speaking to some one who has gone into a home and ruined it, you have enticed a mother’s only son away and made him a drunkard, and you say the law cannot touch you. A h! but the God of Heaven sits yonder. God will bring you into judgment by and by. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment.” God has set a day to judge the world. Young man, be sure your sins will find you out. AFTER TWENTY YEARS When I was in London L went into what they call the Chamber of Horrors, and there was one figure there of a murderer, who murdered his wife, escaped the law, married another woman and had seven chil dren around him. Twenty years rolled away, but he could not rest by day or by night. He could always hear the voice of
that dead wife pleading for mercy and it drove him almost mad; and at last he had to go to the officers and give himself up. His own conscience bore witness against him. And he was taken out and hung, con victed by his own conscience. So you may think that your conscience will never trouble you for your sins, but it will. It is only a question of time. God has decreed that whatever a man sows, that shall he also rèap. Oh! may the Spirit of God burn this down deep into your hearts tonight, and may we be ready to cry to God for mercy like the publican of old. Oh ! may there not be one in this assembly who shall hasten to the bar of God with all his sins upon him. Some tell you that there is no punishment for sin; that the harlots and drunkards and these vagabonds that demoralize society, are going to rush into heaven without being converted. No greater lie ever came out of the pit of hell. The sword of justice is raised against sin and God will smite. He found sin on Christ and the sword of jus tice came down upon Him, and if He spared not His own Son will He spare you unless you cry for salvation? If you sow tares you will reap disappoint ment, you'will reap despair, you will reap death and hell. If you sow to the Spirit you shall reap peace and joy and happiness and eternal life. The reaping time is coming. What is the harvest going to be?' If you confess your sin tonight God will have mercy; He delights in mercy. But if you won’t turn from your sin and ask His mercy, how can He forgive you? Just ask yourself that question. , If you have no desire, sinner, to be saved, how is God going to save you? You take that blessed salvation of His and trample it under your feet and say, “I hate that sal vation; I hate Christ; I don’t want it.” May God waken your guilty conscience to night, and may there be a cry going up, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” THE LAST CALL Let us take*thé text again to close with: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for
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