And if this be so with, the negligent professor of religion, is it not applicable also to the openly careless, who never acknowledged Christ’s claims to the heart and the life?

With an evil nature, and a mortal body, and a brittle and brief tenure of earth, you are traversing perilous paths.  Had you God for your friend, your case would be far other than it is.  Peril and snare might still beset you; but you would confront and traverse them, as the Hebrews of old did the weedy bed of the Red Sea, its watery walls guarding their dread way, the pillar of light the vanguard, and the pillar of cloud the rearguard of their mysterious progress, the ark and the God of the ark piloting and defending them....  You are like a presumptuous and unskilful traveller, passing under the arch of the waters of Niagara.  The falling cataract thundering above you; a slippery, slimy rock beneath your gliding feet; the smoking, roaring abyss yawning beside you; the imprisoned winds beating back your breath; the struggling daylight coming but mistily to the bewildered eyes,—­what is the terror of your condition if your guide, in whose grasp your fingers tremble, be malignant, and treacherous, and suicidal, determined on destroying your life at the sacrifice of his own?  He assures you that he will bring you safely through upon the other side of the fall.  And SUCH is SATAN.  Lost himself, and desperate, he is set on swelling the number of his compeers in shame, and woe, and ruin.

[Footnote 15:  A Baptist divine, born in New York city, where he has long been settled over a church; eminent for general scholarship and literary ability.]

* * * * *

=_George B. Cheever, 1807-_=(Manual, pp. 480, 490.)

From “The Wanderings of a Pilgrim.”

=_41._= MONT BLANC.

It is like those heights of ambition so much coveted in the world, and so glittering in the distance, where, if men live to reach them, they cannot live upon them.  They may have all the appliances and means of life, as these French savants carried their tents to pitch upon the summit of Mont Blanc; but the peak that looked so warm and glittering in the sunshine, and of such a rosy hue in the evening rays, was too deadly cold, and swept by blasts too fierce and cutting; they were glad to relinquish the attempt, and come down.  The view of the party a few hours below the summit, was a sight of deep interest.  So was the spectacle of the immeasurable ridges and fields, gulfs and avalanches, heights and depths, unfathomable chasms and impassable precipices, of ice and snow, of such dazzling whiteness, of such endless extent, in such gigantic masses.

* * * * *

From “Lectures on the Pilgrim’s Progress.”

=_42._=.  SIN DISTORTS THE JUDGMENT.