But I come now to the last part of my text.  It tells us when we are to seek the Lord.  “While He may be found.”  When is that?  Old age?  You may not see old age.  To-morrow?  You may not see to-morrow.  To-night?  You may not see to-night.  Now!  O if I could only write on every heart in three capital letters, that word N-O-W—­Now!

Sin is an awful disease.  I hear people say with a toss of the head and with a trivial manner:  “Oh, yes, I’m a sinner.”  Sin is an awful disease.  It is leprosy.  It is dropsy.  It is consumption.  It is all moral disorders in one.  Now you know there is a crisis in a disease.  Perhaps you have had some illustration of it in your family.  Sometimes the physician has called, and he has looked at the patient and said:  “That case was simple enough; but the crisis has passed.  If you had called me yesterday, or this morning, I could have cured the patient.  It is too late now; the crisis has passed.”  Just so it is in the spiritual treatment of the soul—­there is a crisis.  Before that, life!  After that, death!  O my dear brother, as you love your soul do not let the crisis pass unattended to!

There are some here who can remember instances in life when, if they had bought a certain property, they would have become very rich.  A few acres that would have cost them almost nothing were offered them.  They refused them.  Afterward a large village or city sprung up on those acres of ground, and they see what a mistake they made in not buying the property.  There was an opportunity of getting it.  It never came back again.  And so it is in regard to a man’s spiritual and eternal fortune.  There is a chance; if you let that go, perhaps it never comes back.  Certainly, that one never comes back.

A gentleman told me that at the battle of Gettysburg he stood upon a height looking off upon the conflicting armies.  He said it was the most exciting moment of his life; now one army seeming to triumph, and now the other.  After awhile the host wheeled in such a way that he knew in five minutes the whole question would be decided.  He said the emotion was almost unbearable.  There is just such a time to-day with you, O impenitent soul!—­the forces of light on the one side, and the siege-guns of hell on the other side, and in a few moments the matter will be settled for eternity.

There is a time which mercy has set for leaving port.  If you are on board before that, you will get a passage for heaven.  If you are not on board, you miss your passage for heaven.  As in law courts a case is sometimes adjourned from term to term, and from year to year till the bill of costs eats up the entire estate, so there are men who are adjourning the matter of religion from time to time, and from year to year, until heavenly bliss is the bill of costs the man will have to pay for it.