Why defer this matter, oh, my dear hearer?  Have you any idea that sin will wear out? that it will evaporate? that it will relax its grasp? that you may find religion as a man accidentally finds a lost pocket-book?  Ah, no!  No man ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relaxing of sin.  The embarrassments are all the time increasing.  The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer you postpone this matter the steeper the path will become.  I ask those men who are before me this morning, whether, in the ten or fifteen years they have passed in the postponement of these matters, they have come any nearer God or heaven?

I would not be afraid to challenge this whole audience, so far as they may not have found the peace of the Gospel, in regard to the matter.  Your hearts, you are willing frankly to tell me, are becoming harder and harder, and that if you come to Christ it will be more of an undertaking now than it ever would have been before.  Oh, fly for refuge!  The avenger of blood is on the track!  The throne of judgment will soon be set; and, if you have anything to do toward your eternal salvation, you had better do it now, for the redemption of your soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever!

Oh, if men could only catch just one glimpse of Christ, I know they would love Him!  Your heart leaps at the sight of a glorious sunrise or sunset.  Can you be without emotion as the Sun of Righteousness rises behind Calvary, and sets behind Joseph’s sepulcher?  He is a blessed Saviour!  Every nation has its type of beauty.  There is German beauty, and Swiss beauty, and Italian beauty, and English beauty; but I care not in what land a man first looks at Christ, he pronounces Him “chief among ten thousand, and the One altogether lovely.”  O my blessed Jesus!  Light in darkness!  The Rock on which I build!  The Captain of Salvation!  My joy!  My strength!  How strange it is that men can not love Thee!

The diamond districts of Brazil are carefully guarded, and a man does not get in there except by a pass from the government; but the love of Christ is a diamond district we may all enter, and pick up treasures for eternity.  Oh, cry for mercy!  “To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”  There is a way of opposing the mercy of God too long, and then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary.  My friends, my neighbors, what can I say to induce you to attend to this matter—­to attend to it now?  Time is flying, flying—­the city clock joining my voice this moment, seeming to say to you, “Now is the time!  Now is the time!” Oh, put it not off!