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fierce invader growing louder and louder, it seems to thunder in your ears the word-Despair! It casts its lurid, dancing light upon the walls which it has not yet clutched within its hot embrace, and in the reddening gleam you read-Despair! The splitting beams and rocking chimneys, in their incessant noise, seem to take up the sound, and groan an echo to the word Despair. At length when the flames have hemmed you round, and seem to be capering in mad glee about you, and licking their red lips as if in prospect of a dainty morsel, a cry arises from without, above the clamour of the crowd-a cry of Help and Succour ;and at the window you can see the fire-ladder waiting for your safe descent. With bounding heart you rush to the refuge; but even then, amidst some transient lull in the clamour without, and the roar within, you think yourself of some costly treasure you have left behind: it is but in the next room, and a moment's pause will secure it. O madman! save your life, and let your treasure go. See! the flames are close upon you; they are hissing in your very ears, and even now their blistering grasp is almost laid upon you. Hark to the eddying roar, deepening and deepening like the mockery of a legion of infernal spirits. Listen to the earnest cry of "Help" which a thousand voices raise below. See the very bed on which you have been reposing bathed in one dreadful flame: look backward at the hell behind you, and forward at the refuge before you,-the asylum that invites you, and the safety that awaits you, and let go your treasure, let it burn with every other idol you have worshipped, and fly for your life, for "how shall ye escape, if you neglect so great salvation?"

You are in a vessel out at sea. The cloud which by the morning light looked no bigger then a man's hand, has almost overspread the sky. The sun is setting suddenly and redly down behind the piles of vapour which hang on the horizon--and from amongst the clouds-fringed with an angry glare, there plays the zigzag lightning flash, and the thunder murmurs hoarsely in the distance. The air is hot and sultry-and the sea is restless and disturbed-the surf hangs round the lurking breakers, like the deadly foam around the jaws of some fierce and rabid

beast. The rain begins to plash sluggishly in heavy beads into the sea, and seems like the big sweat-drops falling from the brow of Æolus with the effort of holding back the pent-up wind. At last, as though old Neptune had just waved his trident, the billows lash themselves into a raving fury, and Boreas breaks his chain, and bursts the door which closed his cavern mouth, and rushes to the sport. He capers madly round the ship-first ripping up a sail into tattered and fluttering shreds-then snapping off a mast, or starting some bolted plank-now leaping hand-in-hand with some great wave o'er the deck, dancing a deadly reel amongst the affrighted seamen, and then away, to revel with the mermaids and the sea-nymphs-sisters of the storm. Again he comes back in redoubled ecstasy, leading a squadron of grey-headed billows, who dash their hundred fists against the fated vessel, and come sweeping in endless files against its yielding bulwarks, till masts, and planks, and spars, and sailors, are strewed a common wreck upon the main. Yours is a fearful plight, but still there's hope. Don't cling to those drifting timbers: let go your hold; for see, from yonder beaconlight the life-boat launches forth it is buffetting the adverse waves, and fighting with the tempest. Fight YOU as well. Swim strongly towards the succour,-meet it half way lest it fail to reach you; for "how shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation?"

O, my friends, let us look facts in the face, and not mince matters with ourselves, or with one another. The truth is, we are dying. We are all born hell-babes, journeying to our common doom. A Deliverer comes-He dies, He suffers for us. We despise Him, we spurn Him, we trample under foot His blood. I fancy I hear some one say, it is false, we do not trample on the Saviour's blood. I say we do, and every sin we perpetrate drives a fresh nail into His hands-plunges back the spear into His side-puts back the thorns upon His brow, and puts Him to an open shame.

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For "how will you escape if you neglect so great salvation?" Flee from the wrath to come then, for there is a wrath to come, even the wrath of the Lamb, a wrath which shall hurl your naked soul down from the seats of bliss to the eternal flame,-a wrath which, like some deadly spectre, shall haunt you through the everlasting cycles of infernal woe, -a wrath which, kindled once, shall never be extinguished, but which a glance at Calvary now may quite avert and change to love and welcome. Flee from the wrath to come. Flee to the Rock of your salvation, and exult that you are not come to the mount that might be touched and burneth with fire but are come unto Mount Zion. Flee to the everlasting doors thrown open to admit you, and rejoice that you are come to the city of the living GodFlee to the anxious shining ones who watch with baited breath the motions of your heart, and triumph that you are come to an innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in Heaven. Flee to the mercy-seat with a contrite heart your only offering, and a Saviour's death your only plea, and be glad that you have come to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Flee to the cross, and glory that you have come to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. Flee to the fountain open for sin and for uncleanness, and exult that you have come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.

My friends, I can fancy I see the great I AM rising from His seat with a majesty that hushes the angels into silence, and holds the harp-strings mute beneath its awful spell. One finger points to the tablets of His broken law, above which righteous code of violated claims is written "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." The other hand is laid upon the head of His wellbeloved Son, and, while the sinner trembles at the frowning sentence on the left, the Father has respect to the man of His right hand; and, as he looks upon the face of His anointed, He exclaims "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than snow."

Now sinner, here is your doom, and here your salvation. Out of Christ, a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation; in Him, a mansion in the skies, and a crown of life that fadeth not away. My friends, behold I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. If you would escape death, come to Christ. You have neglected Him long enough; the fields are white already to the harvest, the sun has reached its zenith, and "hastes now to his setting," and soon" the harvest will be passed, and the summer ended."

"O thou, my soul, neglect no more
The friend who all thy misery bore;
Let every idol be forgot,

But, O my soul, neglect him not!"

O my brother, don't despise eternal fate, don't force your passage to the flames, but take the hand your Saviour stretches out to help you, for "behold, now is the accepted time, to-day is the day of Salvation."

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Or all the varied weaknesses of our nature, there is not one, perhaps, which more frequently developes itself than that love of approbation and thirst for distinction which induces men to set up under different pretentions, as leaders and directors of their brethren. And, along with this, there is a spirit of man-worship which generally secures for these self-elected apostles, in proportion as they back up their pretensions by insolence and pride, a numerous train of followers.

"Follow Me" is, in our time, and seems to have been from time immemorial, the audible invitation of many teachers. Our Lord had to warn His disciples against the "FALSE CHRISTS" who were to come to delude the people by their unjust assumptions. This invitation has sounded from many mouths from the earliest times. It was heard from the hidden oracles of the old mythology: it sounded from among the minarets and gilded temples of the East: and in later times it broke upon us from amidst the flinty mountains of the far-west. From all these quarters has the call "Follow Me" come as a summons to follow, as a worshipper follows his God. And as often as the call has been made, so often has it been obeyed by thousands of eager devotees.

The same spirit was at work even among the churches in the times of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, insomuch that he rebuked their divisions, charging them with ranging themselves under different leaders, professing "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ."

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