No other audience a thousandth part as large.  No other audience a millionth part as large.  No human eye could look across it.  Wing of albatross and falcon and eagle not strong enough to fly over it.  A congregation, I verily believe, not assembled on any continent, because no continent would be large enough to hold it.  But, as the Bible intimates, in the air.  The law of gravitation unanchored, the world moved out of its place.  As now sometimes on earth a great tent is spread for some great convention, so over that great audience of the judgment shall be lifted the blue canopy of the sky, and underneath it for floor the air made buoyant by the hand of Almighty God.  An architecture of atmospheric galleries strong enough to hold up worlds.  Surely the two arms of God’s almightiness are two pillars strong enough to hold up any auditorium.

But that audience is not to remain in session long.  Most audiences on earth after an hour or two adjourn.  Sometimes in court-rooms an audience will tarry four or five hours, but then it adjourns.  So this audience spoken of in the text will adjourn.  My text says, “He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats.”

“No,” says my Universalist friend, “let them all stay together.”  But the text says, “He shall separate them.”  “No,” say the kings of this world, “let men have their choice, and if they prefer monarchical institutions, let them go together, and if they prefer republican institutions, let them go together.”  “No,” say the conventionalities of this world, “let all those who moved in what are called high circles go together, and all those who on earth moved in low circles go together.  The rich together, the poor together, the wise together, the ignorant together.”  Ah! no.  Do you not notice in that assembly the king is without his scepter, and the soldier without his uniform, and the bishop without his pontifical ring, and the millionaire without his certificates of stock, and the convict without his chain, and the beggar without his rags, and the illiterate without his bad orthography, and all of us without any distinction of earthly inequality?  So I take it from that as well as from my text that the mere accident of position in this world will do nothing toward deciding the questions of that very great day.

“He will separate them as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats.”  The sheep, the cleanliest of creatures, here made a symbol of those who have all their sins washed away in the fountain of redeeming mercy.  The goat, one of the filthiest of creatures, here a type of those who in the last judgment will be found never to have had any divine ablution.  Division according to character.  Not only character outside, but character inside.  Character of heart, character of choice, character of allegiance, character of affection, character inside as well as character outside.