Bible just as much as you do, but I am waiting till I have enjoyed the
"I believe there is a God;" he did not affirm or deny that, and I began just where he was "I believe there is an absolute difference between right and wrong, and I hereby take my stand on the right to follow it wherever it carries me. I promise to make an earnest search to find if Jesus Christ is the Son of God; and if I find that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I promise to accept Him as my Saviour and confess Him before the world." When I had written that, I said, "Mr. H., read that." He read it. "Now," I said, "will you sign that?" "Why, anybody ought to be willing to sign that," he replied. "Well, will you sign it?" I said. "All you ask me to sign is what my own conscience tells me I ought to do. Anybody ought to be willing to sign that." "Yes I said, "but will you sign it?" And he said again, "Anybody ought to be willing to sign that." "Will you sign it?" "I will think about it." He never signed it, and he died as he had lived, without God and without hope. He went out into the darkness of a Christless eternity, and I ask you, "whose fault was it?" Away out in the darkness a light had been shown to him, and he confessed that his own conscience told him that he ought to be willing to follow it, and he would not follow it. Will you follow it? You say you are skeptics and agnostics; so I used to be, but I was an honest man, and when a way was pointed out I tried to see where it led, and thank God, it led out of the barrenness and desolation and darkness of utter nihilism into a clear faith that cannot be shaken, that that blessed Book is God's Word, and that the Christ of that Book is the Son of God. 2. Well, some one else may say, "My case is different. I believe in the Bible just as much as you do, but I am waiting till I have enjoyed the world enough." There are a great many people of that kind in London. Some of them have grown old and gray in that condition. They make the mistake of thinking that when they grow tired of the world, they can turn to Christ without any sacrifice; they think that after a while a man will grow tired of the world and give it up without an effort. What a great mistake! The longer you live for the world the less enjoyment you get out of it, but the tighter its grip becomes upon your shriveling soul. There will never be another night when it is so easy to give up the world as it is tonight. You know that is true in the case of the drinking man, When a man begins to drink, there is pleasure in it; the first glass of beer or of wine or of champagne has joy in it, and exhilaration in it a man feels like two men; but as a man goes on drinking there is less and less joy, but the more complete his slavery becomes, until at last a man reaches a place, which thousands of men and women in London have already reached, where they hate alcohol as much as any prohibitionist, but are utterly unable to give it up. They know it is robbing t hem of their brains, they know it is robbing them of their manhood, of the respect of the community, of the affection of their wives, and the confidence of their children. They know it is taking the bread out of
their children's mouths, and the clothes from their wives' backs; yet, hating it as they do, they will take up their glass filled with liquid damnation, and drink it to the dregs. You say, "That is true." It is just as true of the love of money. The slavery of money is as complete and as degrading as the slavery of strong drink. I would rather undertake to save ten drunkards than one money fiend, any day. When a man begins, there is pleasure in it; the first ten pounds, or the first hundred pounds, or perhaps the first thousand pounds that he lays by gives him joy; but as a man goes on accumulating, there is less and less pleasure, and at last there is no pleasure at all, but the man is the slave of the degrading lust for gold. I was visiting a man in the State of Ohio when I was living in Minneapolis, in the Boom days, when men were making fortunes in a day. The man to whom I refer had a comfortable fortune of about L100,000, and was now upwards of seventy years of age. One foot was in the grave, and the other foot almost over the edge. Only a few weeks before I came to see him, they had to send posthaste for the doctor to come and pull the man's other foot away from the edge of the grave. After everybody else had gone to bed, he said to me in a low tone of voice what do you think? "Oh," you say, "something about Heaven, something about eternity; a man with one foot in the grave and the other almost over would wish to talk about the future and what it meant for him." But no, he leaned over and said: "To you know any place up in Minneapolis where I could invest my money where it would bring big interest?" Oh, some of you men are going ,very fast that same road selling your souls for damning gold. It is just the same way with the love for pleasure. The first dance, the first card party, the first theatre, all the excitement of it and the pleasure of it and the exhilaration of it; but as one goes on the pleasure of these things becomes less and less, and more and more complete does the slavery to them become. The time will never Come when you have enjoyed the world enough. Furthermore, there is more joy in Jesus Christ in twentyfour hours than there is in the world in 365 days. I have tried them both. Further, suppose while you are waiting until you have enjoyed the world enough you are called out of the world. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" One night I went down the aisle almost to the far end of it, and the people were standing up singing, and I turned to a young lady and I said to her, "Why don't you become a Christian?" "Oh," she said, "I enjoy the world too much.", I simply quoted God's word to her, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' and passed on. The meetings went on and the last night came. The last meeting had finished, and, after I had returned to the house where I was staying, my hostess came to me and said, "Two young ladies want to see you; they are waiting in the other room." I went in, and one of them was the young lady of whom I am speaking. I said to her, "Why do you want to see me?" "Oh," she
said, "I do not enjoy the world any more; since you spoke to me your words have been ringing in my ears: `What shall it profit a man if be gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' And I have come tonight, and have brought my friend with me, so that you may tell us what to do to be saved." Oh, that those words would ring in the ears of some of you men and women until you cannot rest, until you come to the Son of God for rest and joy, which is rest and joy indeed. 3. "I am waiting for my friend," says another. That is true of a great many persons. Young men are waiting for their friends, and young ladies are waiting for their lady friends, women are waiting for their husbands, lovers are waiting for their sweethearts one is waiting for another. What I say to you is, You come to Christ first, and bring your friends along. If your friends love you as much as you love them, when you come to Christ they will come too. It is better that you should take them to Heaven with you than that they should take you to hell with them. I was staying at one time with a minister, and he told me this story. He said: "After my wife and I had been married for fourteen and a half years she turned to me one night and said, `Husband, I have made up my mind to be a Christian and to unite with the Church.'" He said, "I was very angry; I was the principal of the schools in that town and held a prominent position, and I said to her, `Why, you must not do it; you and I have lived very happily together for fourteen and a half years, but if you become a Christian, I have no intention of becoming one, and that will just separate us for ever.' But she said to me, `I must be a Christian. I love you, and would do almost anything to please you, but I feel I must first please God.' `Well,' I said, `you become a Christian, if you feel that you want to, but you must not unite with the Church.' "She regarded my wishes in this respect, and so we went on for six months, she a Christian, and I not. Then she said to me, `Husband, I must become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.'" (Of course, if a person is converted they will never be happy out of the Church.) "Then" her husband said, "I was very angry, and said to her, `If you do join the Church, I want you to I understand that you are nothing more to me. We have lived happily together now for fifteen years, but if you unite yourself with the Church from this time on you go your way, and I shall go mine, and you will be nothing more to me! She said, `Husband, I love you, and I would do all I could to please you, but I must first of all please God, and I have made up my mind to unite with the Church tomorrow.' She went to her room, and I went to mine. I was very angry with her. I was getting angrier all the time. I could not sleep. I heard eleven o'clock strike, and I was very angry; I heard twelve O'clock strike, and I was more angry still; I heard one o'clock, and I was angrier still; but when two o'clock came, I called out to my wife, `Wife, I am converted.'" The husband and wife went into the Church together. He became a minister of the Gospel, and today he
is in Heaven. If that wife had waited for him, they would have gone down to a Christless grave and a Christless eternity together. Oh, men and women, come to Christ and bring your friends with you. Even if they do not come, you come to Christ. I would start for Heaven tonight, even if I had to start alone. I would rather go to heaven alone than go to hell in company. I believe that one of the darkest experiences of that dark world will be when a husband that goes there is met by the wife whom he dragged there. In one, of my pastorates a solemn thing occurred; before I had gone there, in the neighbouring township there had been a great awakening, and many people had come out on the side of Christ, and one night, when the preacher extended an invitation for all those who would accept Christ to come to the front, a lady rose from her place to do so. But her husband, sitting back of her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and forced her back into her seat. She yielded to him, and she drifted away from her conviction into skepticism and blank infidelity. That is the way people become infidels, by resisting the Spirit of God. Show me a hundred infidels, and I will show you in ninetynine cases men who were under conviction of sin at some time or other, but who have resisted the Spirit of God. This lady became an utter atheist. Some time afterwards there was a revival in the town. It caused the infidels of the town to be greatly stirred up. When we get a revival, it stirs up the infidels wonderfully. They said, "This cannot go on. We will send off and get one of our infidel lecturers;" and they got their lecturer, a follower of Ingersoll. Thank God, they did have that lecturer. People went to hear him; and when they had heard him, they said, "If that is infidelity, we do not want any of it." While waiting for this professor, this lady said, "I can hardly wait for Professor to get here." She did not wait. There was a little card party being held on the Saturday night, and this lady and her friends were among the party. Eleven o'clock on Saturday night came, and they were still playing cards; at twelve o'clock they were still playing; and at one o'clock on Sunday morningon the Lord's Daythey were still playing cards. Sabbathbreaking and cardplaying go hand in hand, you know. About one o'clock in the morning this woman sprang to her feet, clapped her hand on her head, and cried, "Oh!" and dropped dead beside the table. I shall never forget my meeting with her husband after that awful day. I had never spoken to him before; but I happened to walk into the postoffice, and this man came in at the same time, and he came across the postoffice and held out his hand, and, with a grip of despair, he took my hand in his. He knew he had sent his wife into a Christless eternity. Oh, don't wait for others; come yourself, and bring the others with you. 4. "Well," some one else says, "that is not what I am waiting for; I am waiting for feeling. I believe that is true of a great many. There is many an earnest soul that would really like to be a Christian, but they
think they have not got the right kind of feeling. Some are waiting for the joy and peace that Christians talk about. I went to a young lady once in a meeting like this, and said to her, "Why are you not a Christian ?" She replied, "I have not the right kind of feeling. These people have been talking about the joy and peace that they have; I have not any joy like that, and I cannot come to Christ until I get it." I said, "But that is the result of coming. You don't expect the result, do you, before you take the step?" Suppose I should go and see a very sick man, and I said to him, "What is the matter with you?" and he said, "`Influenza." Then I might say., "I had the influenza some time ago, and I took such and such a remedy, and it cured me completely." Then he would say, "What is that remedy?" Then, when I tell him what it is, he calls for his man, and tells him to run down to the chemist's at once and buy it; and when he brings the bottle back, the sick man hands it to me and says, "Is that it?" and I say, "Yes, that is the medicine." And he says to me, "You say you took it, and it made you better right off?" and I say, "Yes." Then he says, "Thank you for telling me of it; I am so much obliged." Then a few days afterwards I go to see that man, and expect to find him up and well; but instead of that, I find him still in bed and sicker than ever. I say to him, "I don't understand this. Are you not any better?" "No," he says, "I am worse." "Why, how is that?" I ask; "did you not get that medicine which cured me?" "Yes, of course I got it" he says; "were you not in the room when my man brought it to me from the chemists?" "Well, did you take it?" I ask. "Oh, no, I didn't take it," he says; "you said it made you a great deal better right off. But I did not feel any better, so I did not take it!" You would say, "What a foolish man." Is he any more foolish than you? You cannot expect to have the result of accepting Christ until you take the step; take Christ and confess Him, and you will get all the joy you need. A woman once came to me in one of our missions and said, "I want to be a Christian." I said, "Become one now." She said, "How?" I said, "It is just as simple as it is to walk home." "Oh, but" she said, "I don't feel any better." I said, "Of course you don't. You haven't done the thing to make you feel better." "But all the other folks talk about their joy," she said. I said, "Yes, because they have taken the step that leads to joy. Don't you know you are a sinner, and that Christ died for your sins, and that He is your rightful Lord and Master?" She said, "Yes, I know that" "Well"' I said, "will you take Him for your Saviour, and yield to Him as your Lord and Master now?" She said, "I will." "Then let us get down and pray," I said. When we had prayed, I said, "Now it is too late to confess Christ publicly in the meeting, for the people have nearly all gone, but you confess Christ the first chance you get." "But I don't feel any better," she said. "I did not suppose you would," I said; "You have not gone far enough yet. You must confess Christ before the world, and then the joy and peace will come
to you." The next day, when I went to the town hall, before I went on to the platform to address the business men's meeting, I received a note from this lady, which said: "Oh, Dr. Torrey, I feel so grateful to you; I am sohappy. Fifteen minutes after leaving the hall last might I had all the joy I could contain. When I got outside I met my brother, and went home with him: and on the way I told him that I had given myself to Christ; and as I told him, the joy came into my heart, and has been there ever since." Other people are waiting for conviction of sin. They feel that they cannot come to Christ, because they have not shed tears, and are not overwhelmed with the burden of sin. I like to see conviction of sin, but there is no passage in the whole Bible that says you have got to feel sorry before you are saved. In Isaiah lv. 7 we read, "Let the wicked forsake his way" (not be sorry about it) "and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." It does not say "feel sorry for your sin;" it says, "quit your sin and turn to God." I have seen people very sorry over their sins; they just weep and weep, and then go right out and do the same thing again for which they have professed to be sorry. I have known people just as stolid as a man could be, but they turned from their sin and took Christ in cold blood, as it were, and God kept His word and saved them. And He will keep His promise tonight. On one occasion in Chicago I went to preach for a Baptist minister. In the second meeting I sat down by a man and his wife, aged about forty years, and I said to him, "Why are you not a Christian?" He said, "I would like to be; I hope to be a Christian some day. My father was a Baptist minister, and my mother is one of the best women that ever lived on earth." "Well," I said, "come right now." He said, "I want to." I said, "Then why don't you?" He said, "I have not got the right kind of feeling." I said, "What do you think is the right kind of feeling?" He said, "I don't feel sorry for my sins. Don't you think a man ought to have conviction of sin?" I said, "I think you ought, but I do not read in my Bible anything that says a man has to feel sorry to be saved. My Bible says, `Turn from sin and take Christ'; my Bible says, `Receive Christ.' `As many as received Him not to as many as wept over their sins `as many as received Him to them gave He power to become sons of God.' Don't you know you are a sinner?" I said. "I know I am a sinner.," he said, "but I don't feel it." I said, "Don't you know that Jesus Christ is your Saviour?" "Yes," he said. "Don't you know it would be the best thing you could do to take Him as your Saviour?" "Yes, I do." Then I said, "Take Him as your Saviour now." He said, "Without feeling sorry?" I said, "Never mind the feeling. Will you take Him?" He said, "I have not any feeling." I said, "See here, what business are you in?" He said, "I am in the real estate business." I said, "Suppose that I should come down to your office tomorrow
morning and offer to sell you a corner lot for five thousand dollars, and you knew it was a lot that you could sell in twentyfour hours for ten thousand dollars, but, for some reason or other, you didn't feel like buying it Would you buy it?" He said, "I would buy it quick, feeling or no feeling." "My friend," I said, "show the same commonsense in religion that you do in business. Don't you know it would be the best paying investment you could make to take Jesus Christ as your Saviour?" He said, "Yes, I do." "Will you do it, then, feeling or no feeling?" He said, "Is that all?" I said, "That is all to start with." "Then," he said, "I will do it." I said, "Will you kneel down and seal the bargain right now?" and we knelt, and he and his wife took Christ. I went back to that church in a few months, and that man had come along so finely that they had made him a trustee of the church. Men and women., Christ is a Saviour. God offers Him to you; you take Him and it is done. Feeling or no feeling, will you take Him tonight? No one has a good reason for not coming to Christ. There are a thousand reasons why you ought to come. Every year that you have lived has brought you one year nearer to eternity, and is a reason for coming to Christ tonight; every year that you have still to live and that might be a year of service is a reason for coming to Christ tonight. Every saved friend you have is a reason for coming to Christ tonight, that you may spend eternity with him in Heaven. Every unsaved friend that you have is a reason why you should come to Christ tonight, that you may bring him with you. Every thorn in the Saviour's crown, every nail in the Saviour's hands and feet, every stroke laid upon the Saviour's back, when He was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities, and the chastisement of your peace was laid upon Him, is a reason for accepting Christ tonight. Will you do it? Oh, there is an awful risk in delay. A quaint old preacher of the olden days in our country, the Rev. Dan Baker, puts it in the way of a story. He tells of a man who was crossing the ocean. He was leaning over the side of the vessel; it was a bright sunny day, and not a wave broke the surface of the water, just a little ripple here and there kissed by the rays of the sun. And the man, as he leaned over the rail of the vessel, was tossing something in the air, something which, when it fell through the sunlight, sparkled with singular radiance and glory; and he watched it so eagerly as he tossed it up and caught it as it fell. He tossed it up again and again and again, and it threw out its marvelous light as it fell. At last an onlooker came and said, "May I ask what that is that you are tossing up so carelessly?" He replied, "Certainly; look at it, it is a diamond." "Is it of much value?" asked the onlooker. "Yes, of very great value. See the colour of it, see the size of it. In fact, all I have in the world is in that diamond. I am going to a new country to seek my fortune, and I have sold everything I have, and have put it into that diamond, so as to get it into a portable shape." "Then if it is so
valuable, is it not an awful risk you are running in tossing it up so carelessly?" was the next question. "No risk at all. I have been doing this for the last halfhour," said the man. "But there might come a last time," said the onlooker; but the man laughed and threw it up again, and caught it as it fell, and again and again, and once more, and it flashed and blazed, and looked like a burning coal in the sunlight, and he watches it so eagerly as it falls the last time. Ah, but this time it is too far out. He reaches as far as he can over the rail of the vessel, but he cannot reach far enough. There is a little plash in the ocean. For a moment he stands aghast, and then he cries, '"Lost! lost! lost! All I have in the world, lost!" You say, "No man would be so great a fool as that; that story is not true." That story is true, and the man is here tonight. Thou art the man in that ocean is eternity; that vessel you are on is life; that diamond is your soul, of priceless value, that soul that Christ put great enough value upon to die for it, to save it. And you have been trifling with it! I come to you tonight and say, "My friend, what is that in your hand which you are playing with so carelessly?" You say, "It is my soul." "Is it worth much?" "More than the whole round earth, `for what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'" "But don't you think you are taking an awful risk?" "Oh, no," you say, "I have been doing this for the last five years, for the last ten, fifteen, or twenty years." "Yes, but you might do it once too often." "Oh, no," you say, and tonight once more you throw it up. But you may throw it up once too often; it will fall too far out, beyond your reach; there will be a plash, and you will try to look after it; not in the impenetrable depths of the blue ocean, but in the unfathomable depths of the bottomless pit it sinks and sinks and sinks, and you cry, "Lost! lost! lost! my soul is lost!" That may be your cry some day. Come tonight, before it is too late, and put your soul where it will be everlastingly safe, in the keeping of the Son of God. *************************************************************** XV. EXCUSES "And they all with one consent began to make excuses."Luke xiv. 18. In these words our Lord Jesus Christ sets forth the manner in which God's invitation of love and grace and mercy would be received, and that is precisely the way in which God's invitation of mercy is being received by the people of London tonight. When you come to men and extend to them God's wonderful invitation of grace to His royal banquet, one and all, instead of accepting it with glad alacrity, begin to make excuses for not coming. In the parable from which the text is taken our Lord Jesus Christ represents that the Gospel invitation is an invitation to a banquet. So it is. Never was there such a glorious banquet spread on earth as this which God spreads for you and me in the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ. God's table is just groaning with good things. Now, when men are invited to a royal banquet they begin to cast
about for some way to get to it. But when the great King of Kings spreads His table and invites His guests, so great is the blindness and madness of the human heart that men try to find some excuse for not going. If at the coronation, a few months ago, King Edward had given a great banquet in this city, and sent out invitations to his guests, every person who was honoured by an invitation would have moved Heaven and earth to get to that banquet, because they were so honoured that the king had sent them an invitation. But when the great King, the Lord God Almighty, sends out His invitation by His Gospel messengers to His royal banquet, in the desperate wickedness of the human heart, and in your stubborn rebellion against the Lord who loves you and gave His Son to die for you, instead of trying to come to the banquet, you try to find some excuse for not coming. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the parable, gives us three illustrative excuses, and each one of these excuses is perfectly absurd; and that is the point of it. Our Lord Jesus wants us to see how utterly irrational and absurd are all the excuses that men make for not coming to Christ. The first excuse was this: "I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it." How utterly absurd! It sounds rational at the first hearing, and looks rational at the first glance, but when you look at it, how absurd it is. If the man had already bought the ground, where was the need of hurry in going to see it? He could have waited until the banquet was over. Furthermore, who ever heard of going out at suppertime, after dark, to see land. He was just making up an excuse, and his excuse, like most of yours, was a lie. If the man had been a real sensible business man he would have gone and seen the ground before he bought it. The idea of a man buying a piece of ground and then going to see it! I know of a man in America who did that once. It was up in Minneapolis. The man bought some real estate in that city, and instead of going to see it first, or sending some one to see it, he had bought it, and months after he thought he would go and see it. He went up there and found his land was at the bottom of Lake Harriet. Very good soil, but too wet! The second excuse was equally absurd. The man said: "I have bought five yolk of oxen and I go to prove them." How absurd! There is no hurry; the oxen were already purchased; he might go to the banquet first and try the oxen afterwards, and if he had been a real sensible business man he would have tried the oxen first, and bought them afterwards. Anyway, daytime is far better than nighttime to try oxen. The third man's excuse was the most absurd of all. He said, "I have married a wife, and therefore 1 cannot come." I would like to know why not? If it had been a funeral there would have been some sense in his excuse, but it was a feast. Who ever saw a bride that was not willing to go to a feast? Why did he not bring her with him? There was plenty of room at the feast.
You laugh at those excuses, but I want to ask if there is any one here tonight with a better excuse? I am going to take up the excuses men bring forward today for not coming to Christ, and show you the utter absurdity and unreasonableness of every one of them. The first excuse is this: there is too much to give up. That is absolutely unreasonable. You say, "Do you mean to say there is nothing to give up if one comes to Christ?" No. I say nothing of the kind. I never knew any one to come to Christ yet that did not have to give up something. The drunkard has to give up his drunkenness, the gambler his gambling; people who are following the frivolities of the world have to give them up. I am not saying there is nothing to give up, but still that excuse is absurd. You say, "Why?" For three reasons. In the first place, the only things God asks you to give up are the things that are doing you harm. We read in Psalm lxxxiv. 11: "The Lord God is a Sun and Shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." God has given to each one of us a guarantee that He will never ask us to give up anything that is for our good, and that guarantee is His own Son. As we read in Romans viii. 32:. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" I do not think if God has given His Son to die for us, He is going to ask us to give up anything that is good for us. I remember once in an aftermeeting, I was talking to a young lady about coming to Christ. She said, "Well, I would like to be a Christian." "Then become one now." "Oh, no," she replied. "Why not?" "There is too much to give up." I said, "See here, do you think God loves you?" "Why, I know He does." "How much do you think God loves you?" "God loved me enough to give His Son to die for me." "Well," I said, "do you think that God, if He loved you enough to give his Son to die for you, will ask you to give up anything that is for your good to keep?" She said, "No, He will not." I said, "Do you want to keep anything that is not for your highest good?" She replied, "No." "Then do you not think you would better come to Christ right now?" She said, "I will," and she did. The second reason why the excuse is absurd is this: what you give up is nothing to what you get. It is very easy to give up tin when you get gold, and it is very easy to give up sin when you get God. It is very easy to give up painted glass when you get diamonds and rubies and emeralds and pearls instead. And it is very easy to give up the baubles of the world when you get the real jewels of Heaven in exchange. I do not think that anybody ever gave up more for Christ than did Paul, and yet, when he was sore tried and in prison, writing about what he gave up, he said, "What things were gain to me those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." He said, "What I gave up is nothing to what I gained." You
cannot find a Christian on the face of the earth that will not tell you that what he gave up for Christ was nothing to what he got. Suppose there was some young woman in this town with a pretty face; a bright girl, but without very good sense after all, with a good deal of vanity, and being poor and unable therefore to buy real jewelry, she bought imitation. She had a brass ring, which she thought people would think was gold, but no one ever thought so. Then she had another ring, with two bits of green glass and a bit of white glass in the middle, and thought people believed it was a diamond and emeralds, but they did not. Then she had a string of white beads round her neck, and thought people believed they were real pearls, but no one ever dreamed it. Then she had a pair of earrings made of brass, with two bits of white glass, and wished people to believe that they were real diamonds; nobody ever thought of such a thing. After a while a fine, intelligent, bright, sensible young fellow falls in love with her. You say that no sensible fellow would fall in love with a girl like that. But you cannot tell what a man will do when he falls in love. One night, after they have become well acquainted, he says to her, "Mary, I wish you would throw away that brass ring, and that ring with the bits of glass in it, and that white bead necklace, and those pieces of brass and glass in your ears. To tell you the truth, I am ashamed of them when I go out with you, and I wish you would throw them away." She says, "Oh, John, I think ever so much of you, and would do a good many things for you, but I cannot do that. They are the best I have, and I really think people believe they are genuine." "No, no, Mary, they do not; they make you a laughing stock, and I wish you would throw them away." But she says, "Well, John, I love you, but I really cannot do it." A few nights after John comes again. He has a big Russian leather box; he presses a spring, the cover falls back, and inside it is lined with the very best of satin, and there is a real gold ring with two beautiful emeralds, and a beautiful diamond, there is a necklace of real pearls, and there is also a pair of real diamond earrings. "Look there, Mary;" and, oh, how her eyes sparkle! "Why, John, are they not beautiful! Who are they for?" "Well, Mary, they are for you if you will throw away that brass and glass of yours." How long do you think it would take Mary to throw away her imitation jewels? Oh, men and women, Cast all the baubles of this world's pleasures into the fire, and receive the gold and emeralds and rubies and diamonds and pearls of Heaven. In the third place, the excuse is absurd, because what we give up for Christ is nothing to what Jesus Christ gave up for us. Oh, friends, when we stop to think what Jesus Christ gave up for us, how Heaven and its glories and came down to earth and its shame, how He left the songs of praise of angels, and the archangel, and cherubim, and seraphim, and came down here to be despised and rejected of men, to be spat upon and buffeted, to wear a crown of thorns, and to bear the nails in His hands and feet for you and me, how ungrateful, how unreasonable, how base,