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Ye men of business tact! ye skillful traders! ye careful accountants! it comports not well with your vigilance your wisdom in secular matters, to delay attention to your spiritual interests, to rest so easy when so much is at stake. It must be once more faithfully said to you, that you may one day, and that may not be distant, regret, when it will be too late to do aught but regret, that you did not exercise a better judgment in regard to your salvation. To-day listen with profit to the words of Infinite Wisdom: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are."

Ye thoughtless young men! ye slumbering virgins! ye consecrated children of the church! listen to-day to the voice of wisdom as addressed to you in this subject. Remember, "ye must be born again." You must repent-there is no room in Heaven for your sins. Do it at once, for the sooner the easier. Every neglected opportunity removes you farther from your salvation. This sermon will be to you a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. Dear youth!

"Thou think'st it folly to be wise too soon,
Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor:
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth;

And what its worth,—ASK DEATH-BEDS; they can tell."

SERMON DCC.

BY REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER,

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

CHRIST KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF THE SOUL.

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."-Rev. iii. 20.

THIS, in the highly figurative language of the Apocalypse, is a representation of the Human Soul, and of Christ's endeavor in its behalf. It is a favorite method of Scripture to represent man by the figure of a mansion, or building. Sometimes it is a temple. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" And as nothing was more criminal than to desecrate temples by

bringing into them evil things, so it is criminal in the sight of God to desecrate that temple which He has made of man, by bringing into the mind thoughts and feelings that are corrupt and depraved. Sometimes it is a tabernacle, or a tent. Man is represented as a tenant, or a dweller in a tabernacle; and Death is the striking of the tent, the taking down of the tabernacle, that the occupant may go free. Christ employed the same representation when he said: "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him:"—which is, to take rooms in the soul, and to become a dweller therein, as people take rooms in a house and abide in it. All those passages of Scripture which speak of indwelling, represent the same idea; and a modification of it is found in the Apostle's figure of building, and of the master-builder. This way of regarding man pervades the Bible, and the figure is appropriate and instructive.

The condition of the soul is well represented in this way. The soul is a dwelling of many apartments. Every sense, every affection, every sentiment, every faculty, may be regarded as a separate room, and in this regard all men are alike;-they have the same number of rooms. No one has a single room less or more than another. In an outward building, one man may have one room, another two, and another a score; but, in the soulhouse, all men have just exactly the same number of apartments. Yet there is a great difference between one man and another, in the size and furnishing, or in other words, in the contents, of these apartments. Some men are built like pyramids, exceeding broad at the base, or on the earthy side, and narrow and tapering as they go up, or heavenward. Their rooms are very large at the bottom on the ground, but very small at the top. Other men are built substantially alike, from bottom to top, like a tower that is just as broad at its summit as at its foundation.

But there is, in general, a great part of the structure of every man, that is not used, and remains locked up. And they are, usually the best apartments that are so neglected. Those that have a glorious outlook, that stand up to sun and air, from whose windows one may look clean across Jordan, and see the fields and hills of the Promised Land,-these men seldom go into. They choose rather to live in that part of the soul-house that looks into the back-yard, where nothing but rubbish is gathered and kept. Many men live in one or two rooms, out of thirty or forty in the soul, all their lives.

If you should take a candle-that is, God's Word, which is as a lighted candle and go into these soul-houses, and explore them, you would find them, generally, very dark. The halls and passage-ways, the stairs of ascent, the vast and noble ranges of apartments-all are stumbling dark. There, for example, is the apartment, or faculty, called Benevolence. You can tell by

the way the door grates, that it is seldom opened. But if you were to thrust in a light, you would see that the room is a most stately place. The ceilings are frescoed with angels. The sides and panels are filled with most exquisite adornments. The whole saloon is most inviting to every sense. Seats there are, delightful to press; and the nitches are filled with things enticing to the eye. But spiders cover over with their webs the angels of the ceiling. Dust blackens the ornaments. The hall is silent, the chambers are neglected. No man in this house lives there!

Turn to another room: it is called Conscience. It is an apartment wonderfully constructed. It seems to be central. It is connected with every other apartment in the dwelling. On examination, however, it will be found that, for the most part, the doors are all locked. The room is thick with dust. The dust is its carpet. The room is very dark. The windows are glazed over with webbed dirt. The light is shut out, and the whole apartment is dismal. The man who owns the house does not frequent this room!

There is another chamber called Hope-if haply you can see the inscription over the door. It has two sides to it, and two windows. From one of these you may see the stars, the heaven beyond, the Holy City, the Angels of God, the General Assembly and Church of the First-born, and most wonderful things beside. This is shut. The other window looks out into the World's Highway, and sees men, caravans, artificers, miners, artizans, engineers, builders, bankers, brokers, pleasure-mongers. That window stands wide open, and is much used!

The room called Faith is shut, and the lock rusted. The chamber named Worship is silent, unused, unvisited, and is dark and cheerless.

Indeed, in those upper and nobler apartments, on which the sun rests all the day long, from which all sweet and pleasant prospects rise, to which are wafted the sweetest sounds that ever charm the ear, and the sweetest odors that ever fall from celestial gardens, around about which angels are hovering,-these are, in most soul-houses, all shut and desolate! But if you go into the lower ranges, you shall find occupancy there, yet with various degrees of inconvenience and misery. If you listen, you shall hear in some rioting and wassail. The passions never hold lent; they always celebrate carnival! In others, you shall hear sighs and murmurs. The dwellers therein are disappointed, restless desires, crippled and suffering wishes, bedridden ambitions! In others you shall hear weepings and repinings; in others, storms and scolding; in others sleep and stupidity; in others toil and trouble; in others weariness and disgust of life.

You would be apt, from these sights and sounds, to think that you were in an ill-kept hospital. The wards hold sad cases. And here and there, if you enter unadvisedly, you shall find aw

ful filth. You shall even come upon stark corpses-for there is not a soul that does not number, among its many chambers, at least one for a charnel-house, in which Darkness and Death abide! It is a dreadful thing for a man to be enlightened so as to see his feelings, passions, sins, crimes, thoughts and desires, motives and imaginations, as God sees them! It is a dreadful thing to go about from room to room, and see what a place the soul is! How unlighted and gloomy! How waste and unused! How shut and locked! And where it is open and used, how desecrated and filthy!

Now, it is to the door of such a house-to the human soul with such passages and chambers-that Christ comes! To such a dwelling, he comes and knocks for entrance! We can imagine the steps of a good man, coming to houses that are nothing but habitations of wretchedness, to places of misery and infamy, to jails and houses of correction. But none of these can convey a lively impression of the grace and condescension of God, in coming to the doors of the soul-houses of men, and knocking to be admitted into their darkness, squalidness, and misery! For it is not because they are beautiful, that God comes, or because He is mistaken about their condition, and thinks them better than they are. It is because He knows the darkness and the emptiness of some; the abuses and misery in others; the rioting and desecration in others. And to all He comes to bring light for darkness, cleansing for foulness, furniture for emptiness, and order for confusion! He comes to turn the rusted locks, and to open the closed doors of every chamber-to let men up into every part of themselves-and to fill the whole dwelling of the soul, from foundation to dome, with light and gladness, with music and singing, with joy and rejoicing.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock." Christ comes to the soul-house, and stands there and knocks. On getting no answer, he goes away only to come and knock again." He waits at the door, and listens for a voice within, and goes away. He comes again, and waits, and goes away! He knocks, not at one door, but goes round to every door, and waits for an answer. As one who returns to his dwelling in the night, after a journey, and finding it locked, knocks at the accustomed door of entrance in the front, and getting no answer then goes to the door in the rear, then to the side-door-if there be one-and then to every other door, in order, if possible, to get into his house,-so Christ, who longs to enter into the soul, goes to every door in succession and knocks and listens for an invitation to come in, and leaves not one chamber in the soul-house unsought, or one door untried! He knocks at the door of Reason; at the door of Fear; at the door of Hope; at the door of Imagination and Taste, of Benevolence and Love, of Conscience, of Memory and Gratitude! He does not neglect a single one.

Beginning at the upper and the noblest, where He ought to come in as a King of Glory, through gates of triumph, He comes round and down to the last and lowest, and retreats wistfully and reluctantly, returning often-morning, noon, and night— continually seeking entrance with marvelous patience, accepting no refusal, and repulsed by no indifference to His presence, or no neglect of His message!

If he be admitted, joy unspeakable is in the house, and shall be henceforth. The dreary dwelling is filled with light from the brightness of his countenance, and every chamber is perfumed from the fragrance of his garments. Peace and hope, love and joy, abide together the house-for Christ himself takes up his abode therein. But if, after his long knocking at the door and patient waiting for entrance, his solicitation be refused or neglected, by-and-by there shall come a time when you, who have denied him, shall be denied of him. For when you shall knock at the gate of heaven for admittance into the mansions which he has prepared from the foundation of the world, he will say unto you, as you said unto him, Depart! But that dreadful day has not yet come, and he still stands at the door-his locks wet with the dews of the morning-and waits to be invited into the chamber of your soul. Hear His voice once more, and yield to its gentle persuasion, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me!"—The Independent.

PREACHING.

BY REV. N. L. RICE, D.D.

THE Word should be preached in faith. I do not mean simply, that ministers of Christ must believe the truths they proclaim, but that they should preach with the expectation of success. How soon, and to what extent, decided results are to be expected, must depend, to some extent, upon circumstances; but most certainly, amongst those familiar with Christianity, many of whom are children of the covenant, the faithful minister has the right to expect success under the ordinary ministrations of the Word.

The preaching of the Gospel is designed to accomplish two principal objects-the conversion of the impenitent and the edification of believers. Both these objects each minister should expect to see attained under his ordinary and regular ministrations. I desire to call attention specially to this point, because there is reason to fear that many ministers and churches do not expect success, to any considerable extent, under the weekly ministrations of the Word. The conversion of sinners, especially, is sup

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