Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 92, Number 121, 22 May 1922 — Page 15

$AGE TWO

UEGLEGTi OF SALVATION INVOLVES LOSS OF i SOUL, FOR GOD OFFERS HIS GRACE THROUGH ! GOSPEL TO ALL YHO WILL ACCEPT MESSAGE

"How Shall We Escape?" was the theme of Rev.. W. A. Sunday's sermon at the tabernacle Sunday afternoon. He said: - . This afternoon my text anumtt the form of a question, and It is unanswerable, although the-statement may appear a paradox. If I should go down town tomorrow morning they might explain to me the principles necessary to pursue, and I'd j tnanK them for the information, and, then I'd ask them the question of my text, but they'd shake their heads and I'd receive no answer. If I should engage -with your lawyers in conversation they might explain to me about the codes and ordinances, and I would thank them for their Information, but if I should ask them the question of my text I'd receive no reply. If I should go to your leading doctors and engage with them in conversation they'd explain to .me many things ) about therapeutics and obstetrics add the advancement of the science of medicine, and I would thank them for their information, and then I would attempt to express the gratitude of the human race for the knowledge they -possess and the good and benefits that have accrued to us, then I'd ask the question of my text, but I'd receive no reply. ' And if a lost soul should leave the lower world and come to this tabernacle and I'd ask the question of my text, it would turn and go back to its eternal imprisonment and I'd stand without an answer. -.. ' ; - If an angel should leave heaven and come down to the tabernacle and honor us by its presence theheavenly messenger . would turn and wing its flight back again, fold its wings, and I'd stand gazing off into the skies, but no answer would, come back,to my ears. Salvation is Only Escape In Hebrews, the second chapter and the third verse, "How shall we escape If we neglect so great salvation?" ' The only way to escape is through this salvation, and if you neglect it there is no escape. Hence, there is no answer to my text. Our first thought about salvation is we are saved from hell and made1 fit for heaven. Nobody is fit to associate with God until he has had the spirit of God, and you are mighty particular about your companions. There are some people, as long as they live the way they live, you wouldn't want them in your home and you won't associate with them, but if they'd brace up and live the way they ought to live you'd be glad to receive them. Don't you think God Almighty is as particular about his company as you are Do you think God Is going to take every old libertine and thief and thug, take him up to heaven and let him have a front seat? Not on your life. But if he will get down and express to God his sorrow for his sins God will forgive that man's sins and he will be born again. God has the right to state the conditions of the terms upon which they can cross the threshold of heaven. Yes, that's true, you are saved from hell, but you are made fit for heaven. Nobody lives until they are a Christian. Christianity 'was extended to produce and 'prompt the. highest; degree: of human' happiness; ancf'Jt is only when I am in harmony and sympathy with God I am receiving the best there is in the world. Future Punishment For Wicked Therefore, whenever I make any reference to future punishment I am always confronted with this difficulty. I find a class of people that want to eliminate from the Bihle that which isn't pleasant for them to receive They imagine if they say they don't believe a thing, of course that settles it and that makes them immune from any punishment for their belief. Well, it doesn't make any difference whether you believe there is a hell or not, you will go to hell any way, and that doesn't shut the gate nor put the fire out. If hell is not everlasting, neither is heaven. God said, "Eternal damnation," and he said, "Eternal joy," and the Word of God is the only source of information which we have regarding the future.- All I know about heaven Is what the Bible says; the Bible says it is eternal- All I know about hell is what the Bible says, and it says it is eternal. I have no information about heaven or hell only as it is in the Bible. Upon what grounds do you say that hell isn't eternal, but heaven is? You are a fool. You can't determine scriptural truth on ethical lines or the opinions of people. You can't determine it on scientific lines. - A friend "of miriawent 16-k seminary . to study.' He said,'' That isn't "what I believe." ... - . ; H .gays,Y"That's: .what.'we:-believe now.' We don't know What we will believe 'a month from now.' Hsays, "That is ; our; scientific- conclusion now." By jinks, when I jump in I want to know where I am coming out, I'll tell you that. None of that for your Uncle Fuller. Voltaire's Great Mistake Old Voltaire propounded 82 scientific principles, every one of which he said proved the Bible full of sophistries, contradictions, errors and falsehoods, and today the French institute, which is infidel, has - discarded every one of Voltaire's original 82 scientific principles as being .unscientific. ...-.:... That's the way with a lot of stuff today which they say proves the Bible full of falsehoods: in two or three years from now they will be proved to be old liars. But the Bible will stand triumphant over all they say or do. The man who steals he doesn't believe in policemen or prison. Bad people disbelieve in hell , so you can't settle spiritual truth on any scientific theory at all.. Whether, or" not there is a hell is a question which the church by virtue of Its existence can answer In but one way: "He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned." Never mind how he will be damned, the Bible says he will be damned. I meet three men journeying toward a cliff. I say to the first fellow: "That is a dangerous road, take my advice and turn." ; - He doesn't even thank me for my warning but looks at "me and goes heedlessly one with ' a sneer on his I meet a second man and I say: "That is a-dangerous road," I warn von, there is a precipice."

THE

He says to me : "Have you seen the precipice?" "No sir; but I have seen those who 1.11 A it ,1,1,1, n.... .....1.4 i ten mis LU t jr li a auu.iuc; cvl c ncuible witnesses." He says: "You know no more about it than I," and he passes on. ' I meet a third man and he says; "Yes, I have been warned, but I don't expect to continue until I reach It." I meet three men that represent the three classes Journeying from the cradle tp the grave and I warn the first class and say:' "That is a dangerous road, it ends yonder in hell." He doesn't thank me for my warn-1 ing but damns me. Kneers because I proclaimed God's word to him and told him there was danger at the end. I warn the second man and he says to me: "Have you ever seen hell?" No; and wherever hell is and what it is I have no disposition to test its realities, but it must be an awful place. If. God loved me enough to give me Jesus Christ on the cross I don't propose to live a life of defiance and go to hell to find out if the first life is all. God Almighty warns me to keep away. It can't be a very good place; it must be a bad place or the devil wouldn't want me to go there for everything the devil does here is bad.. The devil wants me to go there so it is no good. Never mind. I meet a third and he says: "Yes, I have been warned to believe it but I expect to die a Christian. I don't expect to continue to live a life of indifference and carelessness until I die and it ls;too late." Don't Be a Doubter. ' I haven't as much tfo say to you as a doubteras I have to the man or woman who admits that it is true but up until now you haven't found it convenient to confess Jesus Christ and turn from your sins. You are hoping to find a more convenient time and if this isn't a convenient time, tell me when It is. If you can resist all the influences that God's spirit has brought to bear upon this old city and yet with all the evidences if you can steel your heart, God pity you! Your doom is sealed, in my opinion, If you can resist all this.- There isn't much hope that you will come it under or dinary conditions. I never met a man 'in my life that said he believed he was going to an eternal literal hell. A friend of mine who preached for 25 years said he's never met but two and they were both converted before the meetings were over. Most people believe and expect to die Christians. I can go through this audience tonight;. I think I could go down through the haunts of sin and search this old city and I couldn't find five hundred out of them that believe in an eternal hell and expect to go there. Most people expect to die Chris tians. Every man is making his own future. You are determining that for yourself. God has set before us an open door of blessing and cursing, heaven or hell. He has done all He can, the plan is fixed, the die is cast, it's up to humanity. God has done all He can. I can just simply tell you and leave it to you. A man said to me one time: "Then you believe in an eternal, literal holl?" I Doesn't Try to Outthlnk God. Yes, I have never gotten bo damnable and low down and vile as to have the audacity to put my infinitesimal, pigmy intellect up to the defiance of the Omnipotent and tell Him the spirit of damnation didn't meet with my stupendous, gigantic conception. He is a big idiot. But, wait a minute. There may be other methods of punishment which would be as excruciating to us as burning there may be I don't know! Why, suppose I could look from where I stand out to where my children are. Suppose I could see an tssassin place his ladder to the window and creep in, bend over the bed where the boys are with a long, razorlike knife in his hand ready to sheath that into their heart. I can look upon that scene but I cannot avert the impending calamity. ! You show me the man who loves his children that would not suffer mental agony and distress of mind a thousand fold more excruciating than the mere physical suffering of walking on coals. To have a mental condition like that, to have It prolonged through an eternity with no cessation, great GodI To be turned into shades tike Dante's shadows, to want to go and not be abje to go, to want to do and be unable to do, to want to say and to be unable to say it. I beg of you, in the name of God, don't be a fool and live the life of rebellion to God. Down in a southern city some years ago, a mother, whose three children were ill, sent for the physician. He came, gave them the medicine and they became convalescent. He changed the remedy with the Instruction to give it at 6, 12 and 6. She gave It at 6 In the evening; it was near 2 in the morning when she awakened. She'd given a teaspoonful of It to one, and the second and the third, and they fell asleep. Found Out Mistake. She spoke ' to the children. No response. She touched the cheek of the first, second and third and they were all three dead. She ran shrieking to the doctor's office crying as she ran: "My God! he has given the wrong medicine and my children are dead!" They went to the drug store and found the prescription as he had written it down and that it had been carefully prepared by an expert. They accompanied her to the house, i nere on the shelf they found two fourounce vials, one containing the prescription ; and , the - other containing rat poison: They were dead. 1 For eight flays she reiuseo. iooa ana she burst pvery attempt at the barrier of restraint. She'd throw herself over the mound where the three little ones were sleeping side by side in one grave." She'd moan and groari as they'd lead her away and she'd tear loose and run shrieking and the eighth day she fell dead over the little mound and the post mortem examination revealed the fact that she'd died of a broken heart. The mental agony was more than she could stand. To have a mental agony like that continued through eternity with nothing utfder heaven to release and relax, don't. I beg of you. "How Bhall we escape it we neglect so great salvation?" " Jesus -used three metaphors. . He said, "The fire that is not quenched."

RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND

The very thought ol burning makes us quiver. The -worm that never dies." and I think the worm that never dies is your memory. Your memory will be i as active in the woTld to come as it is; now and then you will know you had the opportunity and you rejected it. Plan of Salavation Is Simple. The other is, "Outer darkness." All these metaphors express what we , The wonderful won der is to me, the plan salvation. It is so wonderful that the greatest!0 mind the world has ever known has 'never been able to grasp ,it It la so plain and simple that a child can understand It. Paul meant to teach the Hebrews. It is possible for a man to know what to do but never do it. It is possible to believe that Jesus was the Christ and yet never accept him as their personal Savior. A steamer was crossing the Atlan tic years ago when they cried out, "Man overboard!" A man cried out, "A thousand dollars to any that will save him." The sailors launched the life boat anxious to save the life and secure the reward. The man was powerful physically. He kept himself afloat but. he was becoming exhausted as the life boat reached him- They brought him back and they threw the rope over the side, fastened it beneath his arms and started to lift him un on deck, when the rope snapped andj his skull was crushed and his brains j dashed out. j Hi3 body was swirled against the prow of the ship and down he went. He came within a hair's breadth of being saved and I have seen men and women come nearer than that to being moved by the power of God. Oh! I have watched them turn pale. I have seen them wipe their eyes. I have seen men and women hurry out lest if they stayed longer they would be saved. I know men in this town that are afraid to come to this tabernacle for fear they'd yield to Jesus Christ , A man told me, "I am afraid if I go up, you'll get me." Imagine it! A business man, a man that you all know, he told me that in his private office. "I am afraid to go up for I am afraid if I do you'll get me." Imagine it! Afraid to be decent, afraid to pray, afraid to live for Jesus ' Christ, it's pitiable! To think anybody would do that way. You Can't Afford To Be Negligent. "How shall we escape?" You can afford to neglect everything better than you can salvation. You can afford to neglect your education and grow up in Ignorance, you can af ford to neglect your health and go to a premature grave, you can af ford to neglect your business and bocome a bankrupt. If a 6hip were sinking and the last lifeboat was putting away, you could better neglect that) opportunity to step into that lifeboat Years ago when the Minneapolis Tribune Building burned, the people hurriedly fled to places of safety. The Associated Press dispatch rooms were on the upper floor and the men sat there, ticking off to the world the progress of the flames, one after another, as the flames grew nearer and hotter, closed their instruments and fled to places of safety. I met the last man of the Associated Press dispatch room. His name was Wells. He was, when I met him, editor of the Revelry, in Red Wood Falls, Minnesota. He ticked off the progress, he shut his instrument, turned to-, his friend and said, "Come on, Jim! Come on!" He laughed him to scorn. The fellow sat there ticking off the progress and said, "All the operators have left, the flames are bursting through the floor," and in the middle of an unfinished sentence he was seen to run to the fire escape it was red hot. Then to the elevator but the flames shot up the elevator shaft like Mount Vesuvius then to the stairway but the flames crep up. There was only one means of escape left and that was to thread his way acros3 the alley to the roof of the building, Flames Burn His Hands. The flames had shot out and swirl ed around the wire and they burned the flesh from his hands and when in the middle of the alley, hl3 strength gave way and with a shriek of agony he swirled and shot until he struck the street below. He had waited too long. There are men In hell that neve expected to be there, they waited too long. They neglected the opportunl ty and means of escape. Neglect Is not contempt it isn't open rebellion and scorn. Neglect Is admission that It Is Tight, but you are not just ready to be decent and Itve the way God wants you to live, If you neglect to take advantage of a thing when you may, you have no rieht to complain if that is re moved beyond your reach when you want it. Let me Illustrate. Suppose you saw a man swimming and you could tell by his struggles that he never could reach the bank alone. So you jump in a boat and row out to the fellow and say; "I have been watching you from the bank and I have hired a boat and come, get in!" "No sir, thank you, I don't need your aid. I will reach it without assistance." "Come on in," pleads the man. "No sir." And he turns and rows back, and after he is gone, the man struggling in the water discovers that he was right and unless he has assistance he will drown and he begs and calls for the man to help him. The man re fuses. Now then, that man has just aa good a right to refuse to help that man when that man wants help as that man had to refuse this man, when this man wanted to help him. God Almighty Can Act. God Almighty has got just as good a right to turn you down and pass you up when you make up your mind you'd like to have His help as you have to turn God down when He wants to help you. Don't you think it is all on your side. Don't you think that God Almighty is like a dog, all you have to do is snap your finger and he will come whinning around any time you like. When you have made up your mind God Almighty may have settled it long before that you are too late. God has got something else to do but to loaf around and wait for you to make up your mind. God is too busy. God Is not going to come down from heaven and spend time arguing with

SUN - TELEGRAM,' RICHMOND,

a fool, take it from me He is too i busy. How shall we escape if we neglect bo great salvation?" a friend of mine stood before a class in an operating clinic in an in-j stitution and the subject was lying I on the table. , They had given it the anaesthetic. He was preparing for an j operation and he said to the students: j "Gentlemen, if this man had chang- j ed his way of living five years ago; this operation would never have been necessary. If he had been willing gubmlt t0 a simple operation two; years ago he would have lived, but: now he is beyond hope. This is the only relief and yet I don t expect he will ever come out from under the knife alive," and he didn't Many Wait Too Long There are lots of people who wait too long before they go to California or Arizona or New Mexico to breathe the rareified air for their lungs, they wait top long and they never come back home, if they do it is by express or baggage. Some of the greatest calamities this wdrld has ever known have come through neglect. Years and years ago on an Island down in the Caribbean Sea, nature was rumbling and grumbling and growling as if mad at the world. They sent for the scientists from Martinque. They came up with their instrument, they put the stethoscope to the heart and lungs of old mother earth, and said, "She is normal, 98 and a fraction," so they looked her all over and they said, "There is no fear, no need for any fear at all." One day there was a great crack in the side of a mountain and melt-; ed lava shot out, consumed a sugar mill, burned 29 men to death, but still they didn't heed. And the blrd3 were seen to leave their fledgings in their nests and fly away from the base of the mountain, and the sheep and cattle would flee. The serpents were seen to wriggle through the grass toward the seashore and safety. You couldn't get a horse within several miles of the foothills, he'd stop, sniff the air and neigh awhile and away he'd run. Even nature wasn't able to warn them, seemingly. On they went. St. Pierre was one of the most beautiful, fascinating, wicked, vile, corrupt, cities on the face of the earth, modeled after Paris but ten times as bad as Paris, in all its thoughtlessness. They worshipped the devil in St. Pierre, and Rome, in the days of bloody Nero, was j a ounaay-scnoi in Jerusalem compared to St. Pierre on the island if Martinique. ' . Suddenly Volcano Lets Go One morning in May, 1902, when the people were idling away their hours, buying, selling, lying, marrying, committing adultery, blaspheming, falling at the shrines of the devil, worshipping lust, drunkeness and everything that would sneer at God, old Mt. Pelee, peaceful as a summer night (for weeks she'd been showing signs of nervousness, and of an abnormal condition), and suddenly with a hoarse cough she blotted St. St. Pierre off from the map. At eight o'clock fifty thousand men and women and children walked her 6treets, lounged under her shade, breathed the air of that Caribbean sea paradise and at seven minutes past eight forty nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them lay dead. Only one ever got outside the corporate limits and he was so burned by the gases and fire that he died. Not a soul ever escaped from St. Pierre not a soul. They were warned, yes, but they heeded not their warning. Some of the greatest calamities the world has ever known have come through neglect. Years ago, it is said, a civil engineer received an order to build a bridge on the line of the lake shore. The bridge was erected, but it is alleged that in casting the beams for this bridge particles of air crept into the molten metal and it was filled with a preparation and painted and put in place and there it stood with nothing to test it, but ordinary routine of the trains passing back and forth. une aaiK mgm a train or seven coaches drawn by two locomotives dashed around the curve on that bridge headed into a storm. The snow was howling and sweeping along the shores of Lake Erie, and the bridge toppled and down she went. Eightyseven lives lost along the shores of Ashtabula. Oh, neglect! Neglect! Sticks To His Orders Years ago a civil engineer received an order from the Pennsylvr.nia railroad to build on a certain point in their right-of-way the best bridge mechanical skill could produce. He started to dig deep and lay the foundation upon the base of the mountain. Some of the older engineers were jealous of his success and promotion They said to him, "You are spending too much money on the foundation, throw in a little concrete." He said, "This comnanv is increasi ing the number of its trains, my orucio mo iu uuuu me Desi i know how and will." He dug deep and laid the foundation upon the base of the mountain. He erected that bridge. There it stood for years and years with nothing to test it more than the ordinary routine of the trains hurrying back and forth. Years and years ago it drizzled and rained and rained day and night for two weeks. Every little ripple was a raging torent. The Allegheny and Monongahela leaped their banks and the Ohio river- wis one vast expanse of sea and way back on the Allegheny mountains, a hundred miles and more, east of Pittsburgh, was an artificial lake, three miles long and a hundred and fifty feet deep, used for hunting and fishing purposes, and the water had run down and percolated from hillsides into this lake until the water reached an unprecedented height and then the water begun to biop over tne top. Discovers Breaking Dam A man discovered it and leaped upon his horse 'crying as he rode "The dam is breaking!" They'd heard that sound before, Some of them laughed him to scorn, others heedefl his warning and took their children and a few heirlooms and they clamored up the mountain sires to points of safety. On he went through the streets and town crying to the people. Some feared and some sneered. By and by that dam gave way, down the mountain gorge roared that torrent, until you could have dropped thts tabernacle into it. You could have lost the flatiron building In it. On it rushed! It tok gigantic engines ot the Pennsylvania Railroad companv that weighed tons ana tons, used for

IND., MONDAY, MAY 22, 1922.

hauling freight over the Allegheny mountains, and twisted them as you would a string.1 On it rushed in its mad, wild dash to death and destruction and it seized the beautiful city of Johnstown and hurled that against the brldgte. It never moved a stone out of that bridge. She stood there like a thing of life and the waters striking the bridge shot back, oh, it wrought destruction and the waters piled higher and higher and by and by it shot over the top of that bridge but never moved a stone. it struck the Cambria Iron works and leveled them. They took twentythree hundred and eighty bodies out of the wreck. They had heard the sound of the trumpet, but they took not the warning and on the hill at Johnstown tonight in unknown graves by the side of which I have stood with uncovered head, sleep eight hundred and twenty unknown dead. They heard the sound of the trumpet. Some of the greatest calamities the world has ever registered have come through neglect. No wonder men ne gleet salvation and it causes the ruin ation and the wreckage of their souls No wonder God is deperately In earn est to try and get us to flee from the wrath to come. It is a great salvation for three reasons. First, because it is the only salvation. And the reason men are not saved is not because of God's desire to punish them and the bitterest drug you will ever find In the cup will be that you have nobody to blame but yourself. Got Caught In Current Years ago four men up at Niagara rented a boat, hired fishing tackle and bought bait. They went to fish and had several quarts of whiskey with them They rowed over to the Canadian side and drank whiskey. Lying down in the boat they fell asleep and in some unaccountable way the rope became untied and the boat started down until it was caught in the water where she runs twenty miles an hour and over the falls three of them shot on the American side. One of them, a man named Avery, seized a rock some fifty feet above the yawning abyss on the America! side. Soon the word spread: "Man on the rock," ana in a little while ten thousand men and women and children lined the banks, eyes wet with tears, and some of his friends, looking through a telescope, discovered who he was and they raised it up and said "Cheer up,. Avery, we will save you." But they never fulfilled that prom ise. For twenty-six hours Avery clung to that rock, when by and by, weakened by long exposure, an extra large wave struck the rock and evidently strangled him. He threw his hands to his head and with shrieks of agony, heard above the roar and plunge of the cataract, he shot over the tails to death. Poor Avery was not in one mil Month part the danger you are, with hell yawning just in front of you and nothing but the power of God that can ever pull you back away from it, and yet men sit. now snan we escape u we neglect so great salvation?" and It is a great salvation because God saves us from great sin. All Sins Are Great ah sins are great. I don t care how little your sin, it will keep you out of heaven if you don't repent. They don't go to hell because they are sinners but because they won't accept of salvation. It isn't a question with God of what you have been, the question is, are you sorry that you have been what you are? If so, salvation is yours. God offers salvation for your soul if you will do His will. Using the worst terms, what for? Just to show what men and women' do for other things. What God did! fnw "I! ... til J r 11 j for one, God will do for all. For God is no respecter of person. Years ago a young fellow lived in Boston. This is one of the saddest stories that has come under my observation. He lived in Boston. His father died and the will was probated, each received their portion. He took his and started off on a wild debauchery. He reached Denver and his money was gone. When his mother, through some inenas, learned of his whereabouts, she would write him and when he saw his mother's writing he'd throw the letters into the fire. One day, he, opened the letter, although he knew it was from his mother. It said something like this: "Dear Son Frank: You must need a mother's aid and advice and I am just dying to see you or hear from you. If you don't answer this in a reasonable time, I am coming to Denver to see you. I can't stand it." And he said to me: "What do you think I did? I should have answered it but I threw it in the firebox. About two weeks later I looked down the railroad track. I saw a woman and I said to the engineer: 'That looks like my mother.' She came nearer and I said, 'Yes, that is mother.' " He said, "That's what I should have done, but I didn't do it." He said, "She followed me up and down the switchyards the rest of the day; she followed me to the boarding house at night. I came down and she said, "Frank, stay and talk with me. I've come all the way from Boston." Decides To Leave And he said, "Do you know, I pushed by her and went out and spent the night in sin, came back, changed my clothes and went to work. She followed me down to the switchyards for three days. I wouldn't speak to her either there or at my Doaraing nouse. She said to me, Frank, you've broken my heart. I dont know that I will ever reach home alive. I am going away tomorrow on the Burlington train." "I happened to be down near the depot and my mother got in the train.! She raised the window and she said, 'Frank, come and kiss me goodbye.' I stood with my back to her and a fellow took me by the shoulder and turned me around and he said, 'Frank, ycu big fool, rjo kiss your mother goodbye.' " He said, "I jerked from him and doubled my fist and wTuld have hit him but I heard the conductor cry, 'All aboard!' I heard the bell on the engine ringing, I saw the train start out. I heard my mother cry, 'O, Frank, if you won't kiss me goodbye, for God's sake turn and look at me.' " He said. "When the train on the Burlington tore out of the Union depot in Jjenver I stood with my back to my mother." He said. "That has been nine years ago and I have never seen nor heard from her since." I think it was ten or fifteen minutes before he could control himself. I led him to Jesus Christ, got him a position in the old exposition that

stood on the lake front at Adams ! street. He went on for months and he was regular in his service and testimony. Finally he said to me one day, "Bill, give me my money." I dismissed him from my mind and

one beautiful morning in June, 1893, during the World's Fair he walked into the Y. M. C. A., dressed in the height of fashion. I almost Jumped over the counter, I grabbed him by the hand and I said, "Frank, how are you?" "How did you recognize me?" "I haven't forgotten your face," I said; "By the way, Frank, did you ever find your mother?" He smiled and he said, "Yes, she's across the street in the Brevort house," the name of a hotel on Madison street. And he says, "She's sick with consumption. I am taking her to California." Can Die Happy Sir, three months later in Pasadena she called him to her bedside, she slipped her transparent arms around bis neck, she . whispered, "Goodbye, my boy, I can die happy now because I know you are a Christian." He came back to Chicago on his way to Boston to bury her in the family lot. It is a great salvation, to stoop down in the quagmires of filth, take a man out and put a new song in his mouth, send him up and down the land to fill the last days of mother with the sunshine and glory. It is a great salvation, for it saves us from great sin. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" The way to heaven is a bloodstained way; it is not by Cornell or Columbia or Yale or Harvard or Princeton, the way to heaven is a blood-stained way, by faith in Jesus Christ. The way to heaven is not by the bath tub, by a cooky, a clean shirt or a cup of coffee or a sinker. The way to heaven is a blood-stained way, by repentance and faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Your education, your culture, your wealth, your morality, they all fail. One time a gambler put his thumbs into the arm holes of his vest and he walked back and forth and he said to me, "Bill, I'll tell you what I will do, old pal." I said, "What" He said, "I'll quit gambling." I said, "Good!" He said, "When a gambler does that it's just like asking a duck to keep out of water." I said, "Anything else you will cut out?" "Yes," he said, "I am a booze hoister, I'll get on the water wagon." I said, "Good. What else?" Tells of Other Sins. He said, "I cuss and damn and I am not always telling the truth." He said, "I'll quit that." "What else? Anything else?" "Yes," he said, "I don't live right; am going to 1 be pure and on the : square." "Good, anything else?" "No," he said, "I think I've summed it all up in that." I said, "Give ne your honor and tell me you will accept Jesus as your Savior." He said, "I should say not. If I quit all that I won't need Jesus Christ or anybody else. I am saved." There are a lot of people that have the same opinion. I will help to show you that he is a fool and you are a fool, if you ve got. the same opinion. Here's a man or a woman born here, you were born here. You reach the age of accountability here. The law of some states is that if a boy or girl is 10 years old and then breaks the law they are old enough to know right or wrong to the extent that they can take them out of your arms and put them in a reformatory. Born here, reach the age of ac countability here, say yoj are ten or twelve years of age. Now, then, you A. II I I A start and you live and you are here to night, maybe you are twenty years of age. Thirty, forty or fifty or sixty, never mind how old you are here tonight. You say, "I am going to stop now doing the things that I have been doing from here back until here where I knew right from wrong." You say, "I am going to stop." You start to stop doing the things you did from here to there, you reach this point and you die and you are lost What you do from here to there is reformation, that won't undo and blot out what you did from here to there. What you did from here to there has to do- with the future, what you do from here to there has nothing to do with the past You've got to go to God and ask God for Christ's sake to forgive the sins that you committed from here to there. Cannot Atone for Sin. You break into a bank, you crack the safe, you go away and live somewhere for ten years a law-abiding citizen and the officers come and arrest you. You have been living an honest life for ten years, that won't atone for the fact that back there ten years ago you cracked a safe. You've got to go back and answer for that. By what you did from here to there don't atone and do away with what you started there. So your sins are against you. You can't blot them out. God can. God laid on him the iniquity of us all, so when I accept Jesus as my Savior, all the sins I ever committed from here back to here, they are blotted out and my record is clean from there clear up to the coffin. Then I will sum it all up in one and then I am through. It is great in its pardon, in its forgiveness, and in its justification. God says: "I will Temember your transgres- ' sions against you no more forever.1 Halleluiah, God passes an act of oblivion. "I will remember your transgressions against you no more forever." If there is any man or woman this side of hell or in my opinion that ought to be in hell, it is the man or the woman that throws into the face of some man or woman things he or she used to do when that man or woman is not doing those things now, and is living good, upright, honest lives. God doesn't care what you have done, God never throws it into your teeth, God never reminds you of your past, that is blotted out. God says: "I will remember your transgressions against you no more forever." Effect of Pardon. Halleluiah! I will be shouting and when you get a Presbyterian shouting, there is something doing. If you get a Presbyterian and an Episcopalian shouting, look out. And so, now, when a criminal is sentenced to the penitentiary and the governor Pardons that criminal, that justi fies that criminal and the law can

never demand that he be punished for

that crime again. The pardon justifies him before the law, he is no longer guilty, he has paid the penalty, he is , tree. Ana wnen I accept of Jesus as my Savior, I am Justified before God. God looks upon me as though I never have sinned, I am free, the law has no claim on me. I am free through faith in Jesus Christ Some people think they'd be happy if they were In heaven. You wouldn't. If God Almighty would reach down now and take you out of your seat and take you to heaven your attitude wouldn't be any different from what it is right now. If you are an old devil here you'd be a devil up in heaven. You would yes, God Almighty's got to get into your heart by your repentance and faith in Jesus Christ you must be born again. Death won't make any difference in your character. The character you have when you die will be the kind you will have forever. If you die a Christian, you will be that all through eternity. Death won't affect you at all, not at all. Some years ago In Pittsburgh fellow stopped In the old Monongahela. I used to play baseball, and a fellow was stopping at the old Monongahela house and a boat was backing away from her dock and he wanted to catch that boat and he ran down and hollered: "Wait, wait!" and he thought he could jump from the dock to the boat and he made a leap and fell Into the water. People Begin To Sing. They threw a rope in and the peo ple on deck commenced to sing: Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross." He went up and said to the cap tain: "Where is this boat going, up to the race track?" He said: "No, this is a Sunday-school picnic going up here to McKeesport." He said: "This i3 hell to me, and if you will run her close enough to shore for me iu ira. it, i nui give juu a lea uonar " , . - . .. T . . a J.I, gum piec;. If God had reached down and taken that whiskey-soaked gambler and taken him to heaven, heaven would have been as much hell to him as the Sunday-school picnic was. So God's got to get into your heart and change it. What you are here you will be through an unending eternity. So, therefore, you will be happy in heaven only by faith in Jesus Christ. Suppose you'd committed a crime. Suppose you were lying yonder in prison ready to be executed and suppose my friend and your friend, the governor, should say: "I want to see the evidence. The circumstances in that case were somewhat extenuating enough in my opinion to justify executive clemency to the extent I am going to pardon that fellow." And he sends word down to theLwarden. The warden goes into the death house, and he goes in and says: "Cheer up, I have good news for you. Here's a pardon from the government, and your wife and children are in an auto waiting out in front and you can walk out from behind these walls in sight of the commonwealth and no man can lay hands on you. You are free." It would seem that man would ba happy now, wouldn't he? And he'd say to his wife about midnight: "Wife, I've got to leave you. Just now I heard the voice of the man whose life I took, just now I saw his face pleading and I must go." "Eut husband, the governor ha3 pardoned you. "Yes, the governor has pardoned, but the governor hasn't justified." Cannot Escape His Crime. Where will he go to get away from the fact that he committed that crime? Where' will he journey? To the uttermost corners of the earth? You go to a man and say: "Did you ever swear" "Yes". "Lie? or drink?" "Yes, but I was never happier in my life than I am now." God hasn't only pardoned that man but has justified him and made him as though he never did it. That i.i the gospel of Jesus Christ. When God pardons, God justifies and makes it as though you never did it po therefore you are free through faith In Jesus Christ the Son of God. Byfaith in Him we are saved. I say death will make no change in your character. Let me illustrate. In the 16th chapter of Luke, we arctold of a certain beggar who fed from the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. And it came to pass that they both died and the rich man, we are told, went to hell. "And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment and looking, he could see Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham." He cried out and said. "Send someone with water to moisten my parched lips." They cried back and said, "There is a great gulf between me and thee fixed so that I cannot get to thee, neither canst thou get to me." And he said, "Send someone back from the dead. I have a brother on parth ' Listen God. They shouted back, "They nave Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." "Now I am here and . when I left the earth my brothers were living the same kind of a life I lived and I know if they do not repent they will come where I am and if you will send somebody back from the dead, I think they will believe and they will listen to them.' In hell that man's mind was active. All we know about the future the Bible has revealed. In hell that man remembers the kind of a life

he'd lived on earth; he remembered that kind of a life brought him there and in hell he remembered he left five brothers back on earth and they were all living the same kind of a life he lived and they were coming to where he was. There isnt a man or woman In hell that wouldn't warn you to keep out if they could only come up here to talk to you. If God Almighty would let me go down to hell and preach one sermon and give the invitation I coul (depopulate hell In 15 minutes. While they that are in there want to get out, you poor fools are breaking your necks to get in. That's what I can't understand. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Death will make no change in yout character and you will remember all through an unending eternity. Years ago a man got on board ol a ship in New York harbor. Sht (Continued on Next Page)