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for glory. That exquisite out there gives a twitch to his kid glove, and that lady brings the skirt of her silk dress nearer her, as though she were afraid of having that truth tarnish her. "Why," says some one in the house, "are you going to make heaven such a common place as that?" I do not make it common. God makes it common. It is to be the most common place in the whole universe. By that I mean they are going to come up from all classes and conditions, and from the very lowest depths of society, washed clean by the grace of God, and entering heaven. "But," say some people, "what am I to do?" I will tell you three things, anyhow, you can do. First, avoid putting people in your employ amid too great temptation. You can take a young man in your employ and put him in a position where nine hundred and ninety-nine chances out of a thousand are that he will do wrong. Now, I say you have no right to do that. If you have any mercy on the criminal classes, and if you do not want to multiply their number, look out how you put people under temptation. In the second place, you can do this: you can speak a cheerful word when a man wants to reform. What chance is there for those who have gone astray? Here they are in the lowest depths of society, first of all, with their evil proclivities; then, with their evil associations. But suppose they conquer these evil proclivities, and break away from them. Now, they have come up to the door of society. Who will let them in? Will you? No; you dare not. They will go all around these doors of decent society, and find five hundred, and knock-no admittance; and knock—no admittance; and knock-no admittance. Now, I say it is your duty as a Christian man to help these people when they want to come up and come back. There is a third thing you can do, and that is, be the

stanch friends of prison reform associations, home missionary societies, children's aid societies, and all those beneficent institutions which are trying to save our cities. But perhaps I ought to do my own work now, leaving yours for you to do some other time. I will now do that work. Very probably there is not in all this house one person who is known as a criminal, and yet I sup pose there are scores of persons in this house who have done wrong. Now, perhaps I may meet their case healthfully and encouragingly when I tell them what I said to two young men. One young man said to me: "I have taken from my employer $2,500 in small amounts, but amounting to that. What shall I do?" I said, "Pay it back." He said, "I can't He said, "I can't pay it back." Then I said, "Get your friends to help you pay it." He said, "I have no friends that will help me." Then I said, "I will give you two items of advice: First, go home and kneel down before God and ask his pardon. Then, to-morrow morning, when you go over to the store, get the head men of the firm in the private office, and tell them you have something very important to communicate, and let the door be locked. Then tell the whole story and ask their pardon. If they are decent men-not to say any thing about their being Christians or not Christians-if they are decent men, they will forgive you and help you to start again." "But," he said, "suppose they don't?" "Then," I said, "you have the Lord Almighty to see you through, and no man ever flung himself at Christ's feet but he was helped and delivered." Another young man came to me and said, "I have taken money from my employer. What shall I do?" I said, "Pay it back." "Well," he said, “I took a very large amount-I nearly paid it all back." I said, "Now, how long before you can pay it all back?" "Well,"

he said, "I can in two weeks, but my conscience disturbs me very much, and I want your counsel." It was a delicate case. I said to him, "You are sure you can pay it in two weeks?" "Yes; but," he said, "suppose I die?” I said to him: "If you can pay that all up, every farthing of it, in two weeks, pay it, and God don't ask you to disgrace yourself, or your family, and you won't die in two weeks. I see by the way you have been paying this up that you are going to be delivered. Ask God's pardon for what you have done, and never do so again.”

It is very easy to be hard in making a rule, but I say the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of mercy, and wherever you find anybody in trouble, get him out. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." You see, I am preaching a Very practical sermon this morning. I know what are all the temptations of business life, and I did not come on this platform this morning to discourage anybody. I come to speak a word of good cheer to all the wandering and the lost, and I believe I am speaking it. The fact is, these cities are going to be redeemed. You know there is going to be another deluge. "Why," you say, "I thought the rainbow at the end of the great deluge, and the rainbow after every shower, was a sign that there would never be a deluge again !" But there will be another deluge. It will rain more than forty days and forty nights. The ark that will float that deluge will be immeasurably larger than Noah's ark, for it will hold a quadrillion of passengers. It will be the deluge of mercy, and the ark that floats that deluge will have five doors-one at the north to let in the frozen populations; one at the south to let in the sweltering and the sunburned; one at the east to let all China come in; one at the west, to let America in; one at the top,

to let Christ, with all his flashing train of cherubim and archangel enter. And, as the rainbow of the ancient deluge gave sign that there would never be a deluge of destruction again, so the rainbow of this last deluge will give sign that the deluge will never depart. "For the knowledge of God shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea." Oh! ship of salvation, sail on. With all thy countless freight of immortals, put for the eternal shore. The thunders of the last day shall be the cannonade that will greet you into the harbor. Church triumphant, stretch down your arms of light across the gangway to welcome into port, church militant. "Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." lelujah! Amen!

Hal

CHAPTER VIII.

CLUB-HOUSES-LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE.

Let the young men now arise and play before us.-II. Samuel ii: 14 There are two armies encamped by the pool of Gibcon. The time hangs heavily on their hands. One army proposes a game of sword-fencing. Nothing could be more healthful and innocent. The other army accepts the challenge. Twelve men against twelve men, the sport opens. But something went adversely. Perhaps one of the swordsmen got an unlucky clip, or in some way had his ire aroused, and that which opened in sportfulness ended in violence, each one taking his contestant by the hair, and then with the sword thrusting him in the side; so that that which opened in innocent fun ended in the massacre of all the twenty-four sportsmen. Was there ever a better illustration of what was true then, and is true now, that that which is innocent may be made destructive?

In my explorations of the night side of city life, I have found out that there is a legitimate and an illegitimate use of the club-house. In the one case it may be-1 come a heathful recreation, like the contest of the twentyfour men in the text when they began their play; in the other case it becomes the massacre of body, mind, and soul, as in the case of these contestants of the text when they had gone too far with their sport. All intelligent ages have had their gatherings for political, social, artistic, literary purposes-gatherings characterized by the blunt old Anglo-Saxon designation of "club." If you

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