But remember that one inch outside the door of pardon, and you are in as much peril as though you were a thousand miles away.  Many a shipwrecked sailor has got almost to the beach, but did not get on it.  There are thousands in the world of the lost who came very near being saved—­perhaps as near as you are to-night—­but were not saved.

On the eastern coast of England, a few weeks ago, in a fishing-village, there was a good deal of excitement.  While people were in church, the sailors and fishermen hearing the Gospel on the Sabbath, there was a cry:  “To the beach!” and the minister closed the Bible, and with his congregation went out to help, and they saw in the offing a ship in trouble; but there was some disorder amid the fishing-smacks, and amid all the boats, and it was almost impossible to get anything launched.  But after awhile they did, and they pulled away for the wreck, and came almost up, when suddenly the distressed bark in the offing capsized, and they all went down.  Oh, if the lifeboats had only been ten minutes quicker!  And how many a life-boat has been launched from the Gospel shore!  It has come almost up to the drowning, and yet, after all, they were not rescued.  Somehow they did not get into it!

I suppose there are people who have asked for our prayers, and I suppose there were some in the side room, last Sabbath night, talking about their souls, who will miss heaven.  They do not take the last step, and all the other steps go for nothing until you have taken the last step, for I have here, in the presence of God and this people, to announce the solemn truth, that to be almost saved is to be lost forever.  That is all I have to say to the second division.

III.  I come now to speak to the careless.  You look indifferent, and I suppose you are indifferent.  You say:  “I came in here because a friend invited me to see what is going on, but with no serious intentions about my soul.  I have so much work, and so much pleasure on hand, don’t bother me about religion.”  And yet you are gentlemanly, and you are lady-like, in your behavior, and, therefore, I know that you will listen respectfully if I talk courteously.  Christian people are sometimes afraid to talk to men and women of the world lest they be insulted.  If they talk courteously to people of the world, they will listen courteously.  So now I try to come in that way, and in that spirit, and talk to those of you who tell me that you are careless about your soul.

Then you have a soul, have you?  Yes, precious, with infinite capacity for joy or suffering, winged for flight somewhere.  Beckoned upward, beckoned downward.  Fought after by angels and by fiends.  Immortal!

    “The sun is but a spark of fire,
      A transient meteor in the sky: 
    The soul, immortal as its Sire,
      Can never die.”