Again, Christ is the only refuge.  If you were very sick, and there was only one medicine that would cure you, how anxious you would be to get that medicine.  If you were in a storm at sea, and you found that the ship could not weather it, and there was only one harbor, how anxious you would be to get into that harbor.  Oh, sin-sick soul, Christ is the only medicine; oh, storm-tossed soul, Christ is the only harbor.  Need I tell a cultured audience like this that there is no other name given among men by which ye can be saved?  That if you want the handcuffs knocked from your wrists, and the hopples from your feet, and the icy bands from your heart, there is just one Almighty arm in all the universe to do everything?  There are other fortresses to which you might fly, and other ramparts behind which you might hide, but God will cut to pieces, with the hail of His vengeance, all these refuges of lies.

Some of you are foundering in terrible Euroclydon.  Hark to the howling of the gale, and the splintering of the spars, and the starting of the timbers, and the breaking of the billow, clear across the hurricane deck.  Down she goes!  Into the life-boat!  Quick!  One boat!  One shore!  One oarsman!  One salvation!  You are polluted; there is but one well at which you can wash clean.  You are enslaved; there is but one proclamation that can emancipate.  You are blind; there is but one salve that can kindle your vision.  You are dead; there is but one trumpet that can burst the grave.

I have seen men come near the refuge but not make entrance.  They came up, and fronted the gate, and looked in, but passed on, and passed down; and they will curse their folly through all eternity, that they despised the only refuge.  Oh! forget everything else I have said, if you will but remember that there is but one atonement, one sacrifice, one justification, one faith, one hope, one Jesus, one refuge.  There is that old Christian.  Many a scar on his face tells where trouble lacerated him.  He has fought with wild beasts at Ephesus.  He has had enough misfortune to shadow his countenance with perpetual despair.  Yet he is full of hope.  Has he found any new elixir?  “No,” he says; “I have found Jesus the refuge.”

Christ is our only defense at the last.  John Holland, in his concluding moment, swept his hand over the Bible, and said:  “Come, let us gather a few flowers from this garden.”  As it was even-time he said to his wife:  “Have you lighted the candles?” “No,” she said; “we have not lighted the candles.”  “Then,” said he, “it must be the brightness of the face of Jesus that I see.”

Ask that dying Christian woman the source of her comfort.  Why that supernatural glow on the curtains of the death-chamber; and the tossing out of one hand, as if to wave the triumph, and the reaching up of the other, as if to take a crown?  Hosanna on the tongue.  Glory beaming from the forehead.  Heaven in the eyes.  Spirit departing.  Wings to bear it.  Anthems to charm it.  Open the gates to receive it.  Hallelujah!  Speak, dying Christian—­what light do you see?  What sounds do you hear?  The thin lips part.  The pale hand is lifted.  She says:  “Jesus the refuge!” Let all in the death-chamber stop weeping now.  Celebrate the triumph.  Take up a song.  Clap your hands.  Shout it.  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!