a four-in-hand on the highway. Everybody said he was getting along nicely. If a friend came to see him he would take him all around, and show him his land and his barns, and point to this and that part that he was going to pull down and make larger ; business was increasing. He would show him all through his grand house, and tell how he was once a poor boy, how his father died, and how the creditors came and took everything— how he had commenced life with nothing, and he had made all his friend saw. Just like a great many men here. They will tell how they came to Chicago poor boys, how by hard work, by incessant toiling, they have gained what they have now, taking all the glory to themselves instead of giving it to God. Look at him! If a man cheated him out of $5 how he would resent it. Shrewd, practical, business man; and yet the devil was cheating him out of his soul. That is the way to-day. They are just living for time. The great trouble with this man was he was blind-he was just living from the cradle to the grave. didn't want to take death into his plans. "In every man's garden there is a sepulchre." My friends, in every man's home there is a sepulchre. Death is inevitable, and is not a man mad who does not take it into his plans?

He

Look at him. One night he is in the drawing-room of this beautiful palatial home, and he stands with an architect looking over plans. He is going to have a new barn built. It is going to be the best that money can erect. He don't want any of his neighbours to approach him. It is going to be the very best. The architect has gone away, and he stands there looking over the plans. His family have retired, and all the servants have gone to bed. The doors and windows are all double-locked, double-barred, sealed, chained-fastened securely, but a stranger comes in slowly and lays a cold hand upon him, and says, "Come! I must take thee away." "Who art thou, stranger ?" "I am Death." He should not have been any stranger to him. The idea of Death being a stranger to any of us. Why, death is all around us. No doubt he had attended many funerals, and perhaps acted as pall-bearer. Perhaps he was like some people in Chicago; he never heard a sermon except when he attended a funeral. He had heard a sermon then and had seen the body laid in the ground, and now his time has come. He wants to bribe Death, and offers him thousands of dollars to give him a little more time; but he cannot bribe Death. You can bribe politicians, you may bribe these business men, but there is an officer that never can be bought, never can be bribed, and when he comes we have to obey his summons. When Death says,

Come, you must go with me," we have to obey him. When Death entered that chamber and said, "Come, I want thee," he

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might have cried, "Let me live a little longer; let me have these places finished; just a few years longer." "Come," says Death, "come. 'Why, what are you going to do with me? Where are you going to take me?" "You have had time enough to see to that; you must come now." The man weeps and cries, "I've got a loving wite, I have loving children, I have got a perfect palace-a beautiful home, which I have been all my life preparing: I've just got it fixed up now; don't summon me away now; oh, Death, spare me a little longer." Like that queen he cries, "O for an inch of time!" But says Death, "Come!" and lays his cold hand upon that heart and it ceases to beat. Perhaps when the servants come in they find him sitting at his desk dead. The news spreads through the house, and that wife learns she is a widow. I see that widow and those children gathering around the body of that father. The family physician comes. He looks at that body and puts his hand on that pulse, but the pulse that told the man how fast he was travelling toward eternity had ceased to beat. There is a stir in that community next morning-"Squire so-and-so is dead; he was a shrewd man; practical, successful man." Perhaps at the funeral the whole community turned out, and probably got a minister, as they get them in our day, to come to the funeral and deliver a eulogy over him, who said he was very benevolent to the poor, he was very philanthropic, and held him up as an example. It appears to me there is more lying at funerals than anywhere else. Men stand up and pronounce a eulogy over men who have lived a churchless, godless life-who who have gone down to a Christless, godless grave, and say because they have been wise and good to the poor they have gone to a better world. God sees differently. You and I may try to make out this man as a shrewd man, a wise man, a man to be held up as an example, but just see what the Son of Man says about him. He says such a man is an abomination to God. The Son of Man says: "Thou fool." He wrote his epitaph, and it had been handed down to us as a warning-handed down for 1,Soo years.

I can imagine some of you saying, "If I had known that he would have talked about death to-night, I would not have come. Why don't he talk about life, about happiness; why don't he tell us about how to get on in business-how to get through the battle of life? Why does he speak about death only ?" I will tell you why it is. It is because nine out of every ten die unexpectedly; it is because nine out of every ten die wholly unprepared. They may have been warned, death may have come very near. It might have entered their house and taken away a loved wife, loved children, a loved father or mother-death

may have come into their homes four, five, six, seven, ten times, and taken away relatives from their midst. Yet they are unprepared. Do you know that six millions of people die annually in the world? Since I came here and began preaching in this Tabernacle death has thrown its mantle around many a one. Do you remember that death in this cold, dark, bleak night is doing its work? I am speaking to some who may be in eternity to-morrow. I come to tell you to be prepared. Is not it downright folly to spend your lives in piling up wealth and to die as this man died, without hope, without Christ, without eternal life. Let me call your attention to this. The sin of this man was simply neglect. It is clear. We cannot condemn his business. It was honest, legitimate. But the thing we do condemn is, that he neglected to secure his soul's salvation. A great many say: "Am I not kind to the poor, am I not honourable in all my transactions, do I not pay a hundred cents on a dollar always?" But are you honest to your soul's salvation? You may fold your arms and depend upon your deeds, but if you do not seek salvation in this world you will be lost. You know that there are three steps down the hill, and they are to neglect, to refuse, and to despise. Now all in this audience are standing on some of the steps of this ladder. You can see how if a man neglects his salvation he will be lost. All you men, if you neglect your business, leave it to itself, you know you will soon become bankrupt. And if man wants to die all he has to do is to call in a doctor. Look at a general of an army of 10,000

men.

He knows that there is an army of 10,000 coming to meet him, but he goes and takes his glass and sees in the distance another army of 10,000 men who are coming up to reinforce his enemy. He knows he cannot delay; if he does he will soon be overwhelmed by the 20,000 men ahead of him. A man who neglects his soul's salvation does not look at what is ahead of him, and the enemy comes up and overwhelms him. Death comes, as it probably came to this man, at the midnight hour, unexpectedly and unbidden. You know more men die at night than in the day-from 12 to three o'clock in the morning. How many men die unexpectedly. Look at the millions and millions who die unexpectedly. Although we live an allotted timethree score and ten-when death comes it comes unexpectedly. This man had provided for his family; he had built up a great business, had provided for his own wants, but he made no provision for his own soul. You might have gone to his house and taken up a pencil and written on everything he possessed "Thou fool." He spent all his life in accumulating money, and then he had to leave it all. A sailor was telling a man that his father and his grandfather, and his great grandfather were all drowned

at sea, and the man said, “Why don't you get prepared to die, then, you may be drowned any day, too?" "Where did your father die ?" inquired the sailor. "On land." "And your grandfather?" "On land." "And your great grandfather?" "On land too." "Are you prepared to die?" “Well, no.” ። "Why don't you get prepared ?" asked the sailor. He didn't think he was in danger continually himself, but that the sailor

was.

I think the great text that is given to us is "Prepare to meet thy God." Are you ready? Why do you neglect any longer to accept salvation? All the children of Israel had to do to be cured was to look on that brazen serpent; they were healed instantly. If they neglected to look upon that serpent they died. All you have got to do is to look upon Christ and receive life. Look at the Indian who is in his canoe. He has gone to sleep. Perhaps he may be dreaming about hunting-grounds, perhaps he may be dreaming of his friends in the Indian village, Yet he is in the rapids which are taking him over the cataract. He is not rowing toward it; he is sound asleep, the paddle lies in the bottom of that canoe. Without any effect of his own the current is taking him toward the fall. By and by the poor man wakes up, and he sees he is on the brink of the cataract. In a few moments he will plunge over. He gives an unearthly cry, and down he goes into the jaws of death. All here to-night, are in the current that is carrying them to the cataract-rushing on to judgment. A great many things in this world are not sure. You may buy grain, you may buy land, you are not sure whether the value will go up or down, but there is one thing that you are sure of, and that is death. "For it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." After that the judgment. You can be sure of that.

Now the question is, are you ready? I can imagine some of you saying: "I've got time enough, I don't propose to settle this question just yet: there's a good many years before me." Is there a man who can say this? Is there a man who can say, "To-morrow is mine ?" We are on the journey toward the judgment. Have you got a hope in the future, have you that which will take you over the grave-have you that power which will carry you through death and judgment. You go to Graceland and summon up the dead. Bring them into this hall in the midst of this audience, with their ghastly winding-sheets, and see how many of them died old. You will find that more of them died young than old. Why, whole populations are swept into eternity before they reach their allotted age. Instead of three score and ten the allotted age now-a-days is about 30 years.

My friends, we will soon be in eternity. What are you doing? Are you reflecting?

Some of you are on the second round of the ladder. You are refusing. I was talking to a lady last night, and she said calmly, cooly, and deliberately, "I don't want Him; I don't want Christ." "Do you really mean this ?" I asked. "Yes, I don't want Him." I presume a few years ago she would not have said this, but she had got on the second round of the ladder ;and some now despise it. If you get a tract upon the streets you just tear it up. You mock and make light of the God of your father and your mother. You have got on the bottom round of the ladder, and you despise the gift of God. My friends, that is the last round. A man has sunk pretty low when he despises the gift of God-when he hurls it back to God and says: "I will not have it."

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Now, I want to ask you this question. What are you going to do? Will you think a few minutes, young men? Will you stop for a few minutes and just think? I wish I could wake this audience up for five minutes. Just ask yourselves where you are; or, to make it more personal, "Where am I? Where am I going?" A dying man called a Hindoo priest to his bedside, and asked him where he was going. The priest said he was going into an animal. "Well, after that where am I going?” Going into another animal." "Where next?" "Into another animal;" and he went on telling the man he would enter into this and that animal until he stopped. Then the man asked: "Where shall I go after that?" the poor heathen priest could not tell him. Ah, won't you settle this question to-night. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Suppose a man has the whole wealth of Chicago rolled at his feet, and then he dies, what has he gained?

A father was on his death-bed lately, and he called in his son. The boy was careless; he would not take death into account. He wanted to enjoy the pleasures of this life, and he took no heed of the future. The old man said: "My son, I want to ask you one favor, and that is, when I am dead promise me you will come into this room for five minutes every day for thirty days. You are to come alone, not to bring a book with you; and sit here." The thoughtless young man promised to do it. The father died.

The first thing when he went into that room that he thought of was his father's prayer-his father's words, and his father's God, and before the five minutes expired he was crying out, "God be merciful to me." It seems to me if I could get men to always ask themselves, "What is going to be my end?"