Why should I stand here and plead, and you sit there?  It is your immortal soul.  It is a soul that shall never die.  It is a soul that must soon appear before God for review.  Why throw away your chance for heaven?  Why plunge off into darkness when all the gates of glory are open?  Why become a castaway from God when you can sit upon the throne?  Why will ye die miserably when eternal life is offered you, and it will cost you nothing but just willingness to accept it?  “Come, for all things are now ready.”  Come, Christ is ready, pardon is ready!  The Church is ready.  Heaven is ready.  You will never find a more convenient season, if you should live fifty years more, than this very one.  Reject this, and you may die in your sins.  Why do I say this?  Is it to frighten your soul?  Oh, no!  It is to persuade you.  I show you the peril.  I show you the escape.  Would I not be a coward beyond all excuse, if, believing that this great audience must soon be launched into the eternal world, and that all who believe in Christ shall be saved, and that all who reject Christ will be lost—­would I not be the veriest coward on earth to hide that truth or to stand before you with a cold, or even a placid manner?  My dear brethren, now is the day of your redemption.

It is very certain that you and I must soon appear before God in judgment.  We can not escape it.  The Bible says:  “Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.”  On that day all our advantages will come up for our glory or for our discomfiture—­every prayer, every sermon, every exhortatory remark, every reproof, every call of grace; and while the heavens are rolling away like a scroll, and the world is being destroyed, your destiny and my destiny will be announced.  Alas! alas! if on that day it is found that we have neglected these matters.  We may throw them off now.  We can not then.  We will all be in earnest then.  But no pardon then.  No offer of salvation then.  No rescue then.  Driven away in our wickedness—­banished, exiled, forever!

Have you ever imagined what will be the soliloquy of the soul on that day unpardoned, as it looks back upon its past life?  “Oh,” says the soul, “I had glorious Sabbaths!  There was one Sabbath in autumn when I was invited to Christ.  There was a Sabbath morning when Jesus stood and spread out His arm and invited me to His holy heart.  I refused Him.  I have destroyed myself.  I have no one else to blame.  Ruin complete!  Darkness unpitying, deep, eternal!  I am lost!  Notwithstanding all the opportunities I have had of being saved, I am lost!  O Thou long-suffering Lord God Almighty, I am lost!  O day of judgment, I am lost!  O father, mother, brother, sister, child in glory, I am lost!” And then as the tide goes out, your soul goes out with it—­further from God, further from happiness, and I hear your voice fainter, and fainter, and fainter:  “Lost!  Lost!  Lost!  Lost!  Lost!” O ye dying, yet immortal men, “seek the Lord while He may be found.”