Chapter 17: Mr. Sprugeon's First Printed Sermon

Chapter 17.
Mr. Spurgeon's First Printed Sermon

National Difficulties—Spurgeon's unwavering Faith—Detractors' false Stories—A Service at New Park Street Chapel—A Harvest Discourse.

Although the summer of the year 1854 appears to have been a trying time in many respects, with unwavering faith in God the pastor of New Park Street Chapel went on his way, apparently unaffected by the public trials which arose from pestilence and war, an oppressively high income-tax, dear bread, and an increase of pauperism. If he had a special mission to accomplish, he would be specially protected while carrying it out. To preach like Spurgeon did at this time, and in the intervals of preaching to devote hours to the visitation of the plague-stricken members of the church, who had a first claim on his regard, had the appearance of genuine heroism. Here, at all events, was a God-called minister of the Gospel. In the meantime, in London itself by day, in the suburbs of an evening after business hours, and in villages and towns of the more distant provinces, what a talk there was concerning this young man's work, and of the daring, original way in which he did it. The present writer was then living in Somersetshire; and he remembers on a certain day the late Mr. Sutton, of Watchet—a veteran who had served with honour in the mission field of India—coming to his father and commencing a conversation about Spurgeon; and, having read the printed sermons, Mr. Sutton added, "But he can never keep on like this!" Mr. Paxton Hood calls attention to the fact that at this time the discourses were very unequal. This was inevitable; for no preacher, public speaker, or writer can at all times maintain one level uniform standard of excellence.

Nothing was more striking than the way in which early detractors had to change their tone. Thus the late Dr. Binney was one who at first regarded his younger neighbour with dislike, and there is reason for thinking that he was the "eminent London minister," mentioned by Mr. Hood, who refused to become associated at a country anniversary with the young man from New Park Street. It was not long, however, before Dr. Binney, while addressing some students, had to confess: "I myself have enjoyed some amount of popularity; I have always been able to draw together a congregation; but in the person of Mr. Spurgeon we see a young man, be he who he may, and come whence he will, who at twenty-four hours' notice can command a congregation of twenty thousand people. Now, I have never been able to do that, and I never knew of anyone else who could do it." The stories which soon began to be circulated about Mr. Spurgeon were, of course, numerous; the majority were more or less amusing; but the drawback was that so many of these personal tit-bits were untrue. Many years ago, a friend of the late pastor showed how these idle tales were circulated and often garnished by those who told them. "I was for a time at a well-known health resort on the south coast. At the table d'hôte I sat next to a young married lady, who was, alas! consumptive, and of that temperament which is so common in such cases, très spirituelle, and very learned and accomplished. You may be sure she never lacked auditors for her lively conversation. At dessert one day she was 'telling stories,' in the juvenile and literal sense of the phrase, about yourself. I let her go on for some time until I thought the fun was getting a little too fast, and then I said: 'I hope, Mrs. ------, you do not believe the stories you are detailing, because I assure you I heard nearly all of them in my childhood before Mr. Spurgeon was born, and that most of them were attributed to Rowland Hill—doubtless with equal lack of authenticity.' She looked me calmly in the face, with a very comical expression, and replied: 'Oh, Mr. ------, we never ask whether such stories are true; it is quite sufficient if we find them amusing.' 'Well,' I said, 'so long as that is understood all round, by all means keep on.'" This was one of the penalties of popularity to which Mr. Spurgeon submitted with as much grace as could have been expected under the circumstances.

Having thus taken notice of so many things connected with the preacher, or with his contemporaries and the times, I will now suppose that the reader is about to accompany me to New Park Street Chapel, where we shall hear the young preacher for ourselves. It is Sunday, August 20, and, despite the summer weather which is tempting people abroad to hear the popular preacher, our minds do not escape the depressing influences of the times. Parliament having just been prorogued, the London season is coming to an end. The scourge, no doubt, chiefly affects what are called the lower orders; but in one instance, at least, when Lord Jocelyn actually died in Lord Palmerston's drawing-room, it has rudely stalked into the world of fashion itself. The armies in the Crimea are also finding it a more destructive foe than the Russians, for thousands of the French and hundreds of the English have died of it. To escape forthwith into the country, instead of seeking out the damp, low-lying back street in Southwark where Mr. Spurgeon will preach, might seem to be the wiser thing to do; but we will, for this once, at least, go with the crowd. The preacher strikes you as being somewhat pale and even younger-looking than you had anticipated, but there is nothing about him which will add to the depression consequent upon the sombre nature of the times. On the contrary, many a troubled soul will on this morning find the New Park Street sanctuary just such a quiet resting-place as they desire. In any case, that appears to be the young pastor's wish; he will endeavour to raise the people to something higher, rather than depress them by talking about dark topics. You notice that the hymns are of the old-fashioned land, and are selected from Dr. Rippon's book; the reading of Scripture is animated, and you are struck with the freshness of the exposition with which it is accompanied. The prayer is remarkable for its fervour and naturalness, reminding you of a truthful child speaking to his father.

Then you are in a state of expectancy for the sermon; and you are pleased to find that the preacher has been studying a seasonable subject, but of the brighter kind. In the country around Colchester and Stambourne the farmers and their labourers have been gathering in the wheat, barley, and oats; and the sweet Essex fields have been such a contrast to the London cholera-stricken streets that the youth in the pulpit has been refreshing his mind by dwelling upon their charms. Turn with him to 1Sa 12:17, and you have the text: "Is it not wheat harvest to-day?" Now listen well, and you will not go away wondering what it is that makes Mr. Spurgeon so popular:—

"I shall not notice the connection, but I shall simply take these words as a motto; and my sermon will be founded upon a harvest-field. I shall rather use the harvest for my text than any passage that I find here. 'Is it not wheat harvest to-day?' I suppose the dwellers in cities think less of times and seasons than dwellers in the country. Men who were born, trained up, nourished, and nurtured among corn-fields, harvests, sowings, and reapings, are more likely to notice such things than you who are always engaged in mercantile pursuits, and think less of these things than rustics do. But I suppose if it is almost necessary that you should less regard the 'harvest' than others, it ought not to be carried to too great an extent. Let us not be forgetful of 'times and seasons.' There is much to be learnt from them, and I would refresh your memories this morning by a harvest-field. What a wondrous temple this world is; for in truth it is a temple of God's building, wherein men ought to worship Him. What a wondrous temple it is to a mind spiritually enlightened, which can bring to bear upon it the resources of intellect and the illuminations of God's Holy Spirit! There is not a single flower in it that does not teach us a lesson, there is not a single wave, or blast of thunder, that has not some lesson to teach to us, the sons of men. This world is a great temple, and as, if you walk in an Egyptian temple, you know that every mark and every figure in the temple has a meaning, so when you walk this world you must believe that everything about you has a meaning. It is no fanciful idea that there are 'sermons in stones,' for there really are sermons in stones; and this world is intended to teach us by everything that we see. Happy is the man who only has the mind and has the spirit to get these lessons from nature. Flowers, what are they? They are but the thoughts of God solidified—God's beautiful thoughts put into shape. Storms, what are they? They are God's terrible thoughts written out that we may read them. Thunders, what are they? They are God's powerful emotions just opened out that man may hear them. The world is just the materialising of God's thoughts; for the world is a thought in God's eye. He made it first from a thought that came from His own mighty mind, and everything in the majestic temple that He has made has a meaning." The preacher then shows that nature is a temple which had its four evangelists, these, of course, being the four seasons. These follow one another, Spring leading the way; and what have these to say to man on the earth?

"We look, and we behold that by the magic touch of Spring, insects which seemed to be dead begin to awaken, and seeds that were buried in the dust begin to lift up their radiant forms. What says Spring? It utters its voice, it says to man, 'Though thou sleepest, thou shalt rise again; there is a world in which, in a more glorious state, thou shalt exist; thou art but a seed now, and thou shalt be buried in the dust, and in a little while thou shalt arise.' Spring utters that part of its evangel. Then comes Summer. Summer says to man, 'Behold the goodness of a merciful Creator; He makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, He sprinkleth the earth with flowers, He scattereth it with those gems of creation, He maketh it blossom like Eden, and bring forth like the garden of the Lord.' Summer utters that; then comes Autumn. We shall hear its message this morning. It passes, and, fourth, comes Winter, crowned with a coronal of ice, and it tells us that there are times of trouble for man; it points to the fruits that we have stored up in autumn, and it says to us, 'Man, take heed that thou store up something for thyself, something against the day of wrath; lay up for thyself the fruits of autumn, that thou mayest be able to feed on them in winter. And when the old year expires its death knell tells us that man must die; and when the year has finished its evangelistic mission, there comes another to preach the same lesson again." The preacher will not enlarge on each of this captivating train; time will only allow of his devoting attention to the golden-tressed Autumn, which had come forth to ask the question, "Is it not wheat harvest to-day?" It was a time to consider the harvest and to learn something from it. There were joyful harvests to be spoken of, and that of the field was one of them:—

"We cannot forget the harvest of the field. It is not meet that these things should be forgotten; we ought not to let the fields be covered with corn, and to have their treasures stored away in the barns, and all the while to remain forgetful of God's mercy. Ingratitude, that worst of ills, is one of those vipers which makes its nest in the heart of man, and the adder never can be slain until Divine grace comes there and sprinkles the blood of the cross upon man's heart. All vipers die when the blood of Christ is upon them. Let us just lead you for a moment to a harvest-field. You shall see there a most luxurious harvest, the heavy ears bending down almost to touch the ground, as much as to say, 'From the ground I came, I owe myself to the ground, to that I bow my head, just as the good Christian does when he is full of years. He holds his head down the more fruit he has upon him.' You see the stalks with their heads hanging down because they are ripe. And it is goodly and precious to see these things. Now just suppose the contrary. If this year the ears had been blighted and withered, if they had been like the second ears that Pharaoh saw, very lean and very scanty, what would have become of us? In peace we might have speculated on large supplies from Russia to make up the deficiency; now, in times of war, when nothing can come, what would become of us? We may conjecture, we may imagine, but I do not know that we are able to come to the truth; we can only say, 'Blessed be God, we have not yet to reckon on what would have been; but God seeing one door closed has opened another.' Seeing that we might not get supplies from those rich fields in the south of Russia, He has opened another door in our own land. 'Thou art My own favoured island,' says He, 'I have loved thee, England, with a special love; thou art My favoured one. and the enemy shall not crush thee; and lest thou should starve, because provisions are cut off, I will give thee thy barns full at home, and thy fields shall be covered, that thou mayest laugh thine enemy to scorn, and say to him, "Thou thoughtest thou couldest starve us and make us afraid; but He who feeds the ravens has fed His people, and has not deserted His favoured land."' There is not one person here who is uninterested in this matter. Some say the poor ought to be thankful that there is abundance of bread. So ought the rich. There is nothing which happens to one member of society which does not affect all. The ranks lean upon one another; if there is scarcity in the lower ranks, it falls upon the next, and the next, and even the Queen upon her throne feels in some degree the scarcity when God is pleased to send it. It affects all men. Let none say, 'Whatever the price of corn may he, I can live'; but rather bless God who has given you more than enough. Tour prayer ought to be, 'Give us this day our daily bread'; and remember whatever wealth you have you must attribute your daily mercies as much to God as if you lived from hand to mouth; and sometimes that is a blessed way of living—when God gives His children the hand-basket portion instead of sending it in a mass. Bless God that He has sent an abundant harvest! Oh, fearful one, lift up thy head, and thou discontented one be abased, and let thy discontent be no more known. The Jews always had a feast of the Tabernacles when the harvest time came. In the country they always have a harvest home, and why should not we? I want you all to have one this day. Rejoice! rejoice! rejoice! for the harvest is come. 'Is it not wheat harvest to-day?' Poor, desponding soul, let all your doubts and fears be gone. 'Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.' That is one joyful harvest."

These passages undoubtedly show the young preacher at his best at this period in his history. He next goes on to describe that joyful harvest which it is within the power of every Christian to gather in:—

"In one sense he is a seed sown by God which is to grow, and ripen, and germinate till the great harvest time. In another sense, every Christian is a sower sent into the world to sow good seed, and to sow good seed only. I do not say that Christian men never sow any other seed than good seed. Sometimes, in unguarded moments, they take garlic into their hands instead of wheat; and we may sow tares instead of corn. Christians sometimes make mistakes, and God sometimes suffers His people to fall so that they sow sins; but the Christian never reaps his sins; Christ reaps them for him. He often has to have a decoction made of the bitter leaves of sin, but he never reaps the fruit of it. Christ has borne the punishment. Yet bear in mind, my brethren, if you and I sin against God, God will take our sin, and He will get an essence from it that will be bitter to our taste: though He does not make us eat the fruits, yet still He will make us grieve and sorrow over our crimes. But the Christian, as I have said, should be employed in sowing good seed, and as such he shall have a glorious harvest. In some sense or other the Christian must be sowing good seed. If God calls him to the ministry, he is a seed-sower; if God calls him to the Sabbath-school, he is a seed-sower; whatever his office, he is a sower of seed. Here I stand, Sabbath after Sabbath, and on week-days, too, and sow seed broadcast all over this immense field; I cannot tell where my seed goes. Some are like barren ground, and they object to the seed that I sow. Let them—I have no objection that any man should do so. I am only responsible to God, whose servant I am. There are others, and my seed falls upon them and brings forth a little fruit; but by-and-by, when the sun is up, because of persecution, they wither away and they die. But I hope there are many here who are like the good ground that God has prepared, and when I scatter the seed abroad it falls on good ground and brings forth fruit to an abundant harvest. Ah! the minister has a joyful harvest, even in this world, when he sees souls converted. I have had a harvest time when I have led the sheep down to the washing of baptism, when I have seen God's people coming out from the mass of the world, and telling what the Lord has done for their souls—when God's children are edified and built up it is worth living for, and worth dying ten thousand deaths for to be the means of saving one soul. What a joyous harvest it is when God gives us converted ones by tens and hundreds, and adds to His Church abundantly such as shall be saved! Now, I am like a farmer just at this season of the year. I have got a good deal of wheat down, and I want to get it into the barn, for fear the rain comes and spoils it. I believe I have got a great many here—good, pious, Christian persons—but they will persist in standing out in the field. I want to get them into the barns. They are good people, but they do not like to make a profession and join the church. I want to get them into my Master's granary, and to see Christians added to the church. I see some holding down their heads and saying, 'He means me.' So I do. You ought before this to have joined Christ's Church! and unless you are fit to be gathered into Christ's little garner here on earth, you have no right to anticipate being gathered into that great garner which is in heaven.

"Every Christian has his harvest. The Sabbath-school teacher has his harvest. He goes and he toils and ploughs very stony ground often, but he shall have his harvest. Oh, poor labouring Sabbath-school teacher, hast thou seen no fruit yet? Dost thou say, 'Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' Cheer up, my brother, thou dost labour in a good cause, there must be some to do thy work. Hast thou seen no children converted? Well, fear not, you cannot expect to see the seed spring up very early, but remember—

"'Though seed lie buried long in dust, It shan't deceive your hope; The precious grain can ne'er be lost, For God insures the crop.'

Go on sowing still, and thou shalt have a harvest when thou shalt see children converted. I have known some Sabbath-school teachers who could count a dozen, or twenty, or thirty children who have one after another come to join the church and know the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you should not live to see it on earth, remember you are only accountable for your labour and not for your success. Sow still, toil on! 'Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it again after many days,' for God will not allow His word to be wasted; 'It shall not return unto Him void, it shall accomplish that which He pleases.' But there is a poor mother who has been often sad. She has got a son or a daughter, and she has been always praying that God might convert their souls. Mother, thy son is an ungainly boy still; he grieves thy heart; still the hot tears scald thy cheeks on account of him. And thou, father, thou hast reproved him often; he is a wayward son, and he is still running the downward road. Cease not to pray! Oh, my brethren and sisters who are parents, you shall have a harvest. There was a boy once—a very sinful child—who hearkened not to the counsel of his parents; but his mother prayed for him, and now he stands to preach to this congregation every Sabbath. And when his mother thinks of her first-born preaching the gospel, she reaps a glorious harvest that makes her a glad woman. Now, fathers and mothers, such may be your case. However bad your children are at present, still press toward the throne of grace and you shall have a harvest. What thinkest thou, mother? Wouldest thou not rejoice to see thy son a minister of the Gospel? thy daughter teaching and assisting in the cause of God? God will not suffer thee to pray and thy prayers be unheeded. Young man, thy mother has been wrestling for thee a long time, and she has not won thy soul yet. What thinkest thou? thou defraudest thy mother of her harvest! If she had a little patch of ground hard by her cottage, where she had sown some wheat, wouldest thou go and burn it? If she had a choice flower in her garden, wouldest thou go and trample it under foot? Thou art going in the ways of the reprobate, thou art defrauding thy mother and father of their harvest. Perhaps there are some parents who are weeping over their sons and daughters who are hardened and unconverted. God turn their hearts! for bitter is the doom of that man who goes to hell over the road that is washed by his mother's tears, stumbles over his father's reproofs, and tramples on those tilings which God has put in his way—his mother's prayers and his father's sighs. God help that man who dares to do such a thing as that! And it is wondrous grace if He does help him.

"You shall have a harvest, whatever you are doing. I trust you are all doing something. If I cannot mention what your peculiar engagement is, I trust you are all serving God in some way; and you shall assuredly have a harvest wherever you are scattering your seed. But suppose the worst—if you should never live to see the harvest in this world, you shall have a harvest when you get to heaven. If you live and die a disappointed man, you shall not be disappointed in the next world. I think how surprised some of God's people will be when they get to heaven. They will see their Master, and He will give them a crown. 'Lord, what is that crown for?' 'That crown is because thou didst give a cup of cold water to one of My disciples.' 'What! a crown for a cup of cold water?' 'Yes,' says the Master, 'that is how I pay My servants. First 1 give them grace to give that cup of water, and then having given them grace, I will give them a crown.' 'Wonders of grace to God belong.' He that soweth liberally shall reap liberally, and he that soweth grudgingly shall reap sparingly. Ah, if there could be grief in heaven, I think it would be the grief of some Christians who had sown so very little. After all, how very little the most of us ever sow? I sow but very little compared with what I might. How little any of yon sow. Just add up how much you give to God in the year. I am afraid it would not come to a farthing per cent. Remember, you reap according to what you sow. Oh, my friends, what surprise some of you will feel when God pays you for sowing one single grain. The soil of heaven is rich in the extreme. If a farmer had such ground as there is in heaven, he would say, 'I must sow a great many acres of land,' and so let us strive; for the more we sow the more we shall reap in heaven. Yet remember it is all of grace, and not of debt."

Having noticed these happy harvests—that of the field and that of the Christian—the preacher had another of a joyful kind to dwell upon—that of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:—

"Christ had His sowing times. What bitter sowing times were they! Christ was one who went out bearing precious seed. Oh, I picture Christ sowing the world. He sowed it with tears; He sowed it with drops of blood; He sowed it with sighs; He sowed it with agony of heart; and at last He sowed Himself in the ground, to be the seed of a glorious crop. What a sowing-time His was! He sowed in tears, in poverty, in sympathy, in grief, in agony, in woes, in suffering, and in death. He shall have a harvest, too. Blessings on His name, Jehovah swears it; the everlasting predestination of the Almighty has settled that Christ shall have a harvest. He has sown, and He shall reap; He has scattered, and He shall win His prize. 'He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.' My friends, Christ has begun to reap His harvest. Tea, every soul that is converted is part of His reward; everyone that comes to the Lord is a part of it. Every soul that is brought out of the miry clay and set on the King's highway is a part of Christ's crop. But He is going to reap more yet. There is another harvest coming in the latter day, when He shall reap armsful at a time, and gather the sheaves into His garner. Now, men, come to Christ in ones and twos and threes; but then they shall come in flocks, so that the Church shall say, 'Who are these that come in as doves to their windows?'

"There shall be a greater harvest-time when time shall be no more. Turn to the fourteenth chapter of Revelation, and the thirteenth verse—'And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.' They do not go before them and win them heaven. 'And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 'And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.' That was Christ's harvest. Observe but one particular. When Christ comes to reap His field, He comes with a crown on. Oh! see that Crowned Reaper on His throne! There are nations gathered together—

"'They come, they come, the ransom'd tribes, Where'er they rest or roam;

They heard His voice in distant lands, And hastened to their home.'

There they stand, one great army before God. Then comes the Crowned Reaper from His throne; He takes His sharp sickle, and see Him reap sheaf after sheaf, and He carries them up to the heavenly garner. Let us ask the question of ourselves, whether we shall be among the reaped ones—the wheat of the Lord. Notice, again, that there was first a harvest, and then a vintage. The harvest is the righteous; the vintage is the wicked. When the wicked are gathered, an angel gathers them; but Christ will not trust an angel to reap the righteous. 'He that sat on the throne thrust in His sickle.' Oh, my soul, when thou comest to die, Christ will Himself come after thee; when thou art to be cut down, He that sits upon the throne will cut thee down with a very sharp sickle, in order that He may do it as easily as possible. He will be the reaper Himself; no reaper will be allowed to gather Christ's saints in, but Christ the King of saints. Oh, will it not be a joyful harvest when all the chosen race, every one of them, shall be gathered in? There is a little shrivelled grain of wheat there that has been growing somewhere on the headland, and that will be there. There are a great many who have been hanging down their heads, heavy with grain, and they will be there, too. They will be all gathered in.

"'His honour is engaged to save The meanest of His sheep;

All that His heavenly Father gave His hands securely keep.'

"But now we are obliged to turn to the three sad harvests. Alas! alas! the world was once like an Eolian harp; every wind that blew upon it gave forth melody; now the strings are all unstrung, and they are full of discord, so that when we have the strains of joy we must have the deep loss of grief to come after it."

Then follow references to what the preacher calls three sad harvests—the harvest of death, the harvest that will have to he reaped by the wicked, and the harvest of the wrath of God. It is probable that some things are put in a way different from what would have been the case twenty or thirty years later; but the mode of expression is eminently characteristic of Mr. Spurgeon's youth, and of the first year of his ministry in London:—

"The first sad harvest is the harvest of death. We are all living, and what for? For the grave. I have sometimes sat me down and had a reverie like this: I have thought—Man, what is he? He grows, he grows, till he comes to his prime, and when he is forty-five, if God spare him, perhaps he has then gained the prime of life. What does he do then? He continues where he is a little while, and then he goes down the hill; and if he keeps on living, what is it for? To die. But there are many chances to one, as the world has it, that he will not live to be seventy. He dies very early. Do not we all live to die? But none shall die till they are ripe. Death never reaps his corn green; he never cuts his corn till it is ripe. The wicked die, but they are always ripe for hell when they die; the righteous die, but they are always ripe for heaven when they die. That poor thief there, who had not believed in Jesus perhaps an hour before he died, he was as ripe as a seventy years' saint. The saint is always ready for glory whenever death, the reaper, comes, and the wicked are always ripe for hell whenever God pleases to send for them. Oh, that great reaper! he sweeps through the earth, and mows his hundreds and thousands down. It is all still; death makes no noise about his movements, and he treads with velvet footfall over the earth—that ceaseless mower, none can resist him. He is irresistible, and he mows, and mows, and cuts them down. Sometimes he stops and whets his scythe; he dips his scythe in blood, and then he mows us down with war; then he takes his whetstone of cholera, and mows down more than ever. Still he cries, 'More! more! more!' Ceaseless that work keeps on! Wondrous mower! Wondrous reaper! Oh, when thou comest to reap me I cannot resist thee, for I must fall like others; when thou comest I shall have nothing to say to thee. Like a blade of corn I must stand motionless, and thou must cut me down! But, oh! may I be prepared for thy scythe! May the Lord stand by me, and comfort me and cheer me; and may I find that death is an angel of life—that death is the portal of heaven; that it is the outward porch of the great temple of eternity; that it is the vestibule of glory!

"There is a second sad harvest, and that is the harvest that the wicked man has to reap. Thus saith the voice of inspiration, 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' Now, there is a harvest that every wicked man has to reap in this world. No man ever sins against his body without reaping a harvest for it. The young man says, 'I have sinned with impunity.' Stay, thou young man; go thou to that hospital and see the beings writhing in their disease. See that staggering, bloated wretch, and I tell thee stay thy hand, lest thou become like him. Wisdom bids thee stop, for thy steps lead down to hell. If thou 'enterest into the house of the strange woman' thou shall reap a harvest. There is a harvest that every man reaps if he sins against his fellows. The man who sins against his fellow-creatures shall reap a harvest. Some men walk through the world like knights with spurs on their heels, and think they may tread on whom they please; but they shall find their mistake. He who sins against others sins against himself; that is nature. It is a law in nature that a man cannot hurt his fellows without hurting himself. Now you, who cause grief to other minds, do not think the grief will end there; you will have to reap a harvest even here. Again, a man cannot sin against his estate without reaping the effects of it. The miserly wretch who hoards up his gold, he sins against his gold. It becomes cankered, and from those golden sovereigns he will have to reap a harvest; yes, that miserly wretch, sitting up at night and straining his weary eyes to count his gold, that man reaps his harvest. And so does the young spendthrift. He will reap his harvest when all his treasure is exhausted. It is said of the prodigal that 'no man gave unto him'—none of those that he used to entertain—and so the prodigal shall find it. No man shall give anything unto him. Ah! but the worst harvest will be that of those who sin against the Church of Christ. I would not that a man should sin against his body; I would not that a man should sin against his estate; I would not that a man should sin against his fellows; but, most of all, I would not have him touch Christ's Church. He that touches one of God's people touches the apple of His eye. When I have read of some people finding fault with the servants of the Lord, I have thought within myself, 'I would not do so. It is the greatest insult to a man to speak ill of his children.' You speak ill of God's children, and you will be rewarded for it in everlasting punishment. There is not a single one of God's family that God does not love, and if you touch one of them He will have vengeance on you. Nothing puts a man on his mettle like touching his children; and if you touch God's Church you will have the direst revenge of all. The hottest flames of hell are for those who touch God's children. Go on, sinner, laugh at religion if thou pleasest; but know that it is the blackest of sin in all the catalogue of crime. God will forgive anything sooner than that; and though that is not unpardonable, yet if unrepented of, it will meet the greatest punishment. God cannot bear that His elect should be touched, and if you do so it is the greatest crime you can commit.

"Now we must conclude the third sad harvest; and that is the harvest of Almighty wrath, when the wicked at last are gathered in. In the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation you will see that God commanded the angel to gather the grapes, and they were all put in the winepress together, and after that the angel came and trod them down until the blood ran out, so that it was up to the horses' bridles for the space of one hundred and twenty miles. Wonderful figure to express the wrath of God! Suppose, then, some great winepress in which our bodies are put like grapes; and suppose some mighty giant comes and treads us all under foot until the blood runs out; that is the idea—that the wicked shall be cast together, and an angel shall crush them under foot until the blood runs out up to the horses' bridles. May God grant of His sovereign mercy that you and I may never reap such a harvest as that; that God may never reap us in that fearful harvest; but rather that we may be written amongst the saints of the Lord!" In finishing up his subject, the preacher gave a word to those genuine Christians who would be sure to reap such a harvest as they desired if they fainted not:—

"Sow on, brother; sow on, sister; and in due time thou shalt reap an abundant harvest. Let me tell you one thing before you go away, if the seed thou hast sown a long while has never come up. I was told once, 'When you sow seeds in your garden, put them in a little water over-night; they will grow all the better for it.' So, my brother, if thou hast been sowing thy seeds, put them in tears, and it will make thy seed germinate the better. 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.' Steep your seed in tears, and then put it into the ground, and you shall reap in joy. No bird can devour that seed; no bird can hold it in its mouth, no worm can eat it, for worms never eat seeds that are sown in tears. Go thy way, and when thou weepest most, then it is that thou sowest best. When most cast down, thou art doing best. If thou comest to the prayer-meeting, and hast not a word to say, keep on praying, do not give it up; for thou often prayest best when thou thinkest thou prayest worst. Go on, and in due season, by God's mighty grace, you shall reap if you faint not."