100 Sermon Illustrations on Judgment

As there is a parity of guilt between the thief and the receiver, so there seems to be the like between the teller and the hearer of a malicious report; and that upon very great reason. For who would knock where he despaired of entrance? Or what husbandman would cast his seed but into an open and a prepared furrow? So it is most certain, that ill tongues would be idle, if ill ears were not open. And therefore it was an apposite saying of one of the ancients, that both the teller and hearer of false stories ought equally to be hanged; but one by the tongue, the other by the ears: and, were every one of them so served, I suppose nobody would be so fond of those many mischiefs brought by such persons upon the peace of the world, as to be concerned to cut them down, unless, perhaps, by cutting off the forementioned parts by which they hung. Dr. South.

He has his fears; they are realized: he has his hopes; they are frustrated and lost. The fears are well founded, the hopes delusive and vain. They are based and built on false and deceitful views of himself and God. They have no foundation in truth. They are like the house built on the sand, which may stand in the summer's sunshine and calm, but gives way with tremendous and utter downfall before the storm and the flood of winter. "His expectation shall perish." He flattered himself with its stability; but it was while it was untried: in the end, he is buried in its ruins. "His hope is as the giving-up of the ghost." The vision that has deceived him, the unreal phantom that has cheated his eyes, and allured his wandering steps onward and upward to the gates of hell, shall vanish then in "the blackness of darkness forever:" all his fears fulfilled, all his hopes blasted. Dr. R. Wardlaw.

As a guilty man whose conscience doth accuse him would never see the judge, and a traitor would never willingly be copied of his prince, nor a disloyal person of one that knoweth him, and, on the other side, a true and faithful subject that hath done dutiful service, desireth the presence of the prince in hope to be well rewarded: so the wicked and ungodly ones of the world are grieved to hear of Christ's coming to judge the quick and the dead; but they that have lived with good consciences do groan for his coming. Caudray.

Archibald Boyle was a resident of Glasgow, and the leading member of a wicked and infidel association called "The Hell Club." The efforts of its members were to outdo each other in blasphemy and debauchery. At their meetings, Boyle, by his culture, boldness, and brilliant talents, outshone all; while, outside of the club, he was a favorite in female society. One night, after returning from his carousals in the club, he dreamed, that as he was riding home on his black horse, in the darkness, some one seized the reins, and said, "You must go with me!"—"And who are you?" cried Boyle, struggling to free the reins from the intruder's grasp. "That you will see by and by," was the cold reply. Boyle spurred his horse cruelly; and the steed flew forward with a speed that nearly deprived his rider of breath. The mysterious guide still kept his hold of the reins. Boyle made one more desperate effort to disengage his reins from the iron grasp of his guide. His horse reared and plunged: Boyle was thrown, and fell down, down, down, with ever-increasing velocity. Discovering his resistless attendant at his side, he exclaimed, "Where are you taking me? where am I? where am I going?"—"To hell," replied the unrelenting voice. They hurried forward till the echoes of the groans and yells of frantic revelry saluted their ears. They entered a grand arched way, and stood within the precincts of hell. There Boyle beheld the inmates, chasing the same phantoms they had pursued in life. He soon perceived that he was surrounded by those whom he had known on earth, and ventured to address his former friend Mrs. D., whom he saw sitting, as she was wont on earth, apparently absorbed in her favorite game of loo. "Ha, Mrs. D.! delighted to see you: d'ye know a fellow told me to-night he was bringing me to hell? Ha, ha! if this be hell, what a devilish pleasant place it must be! Ha, ha! Come now, Mrs. D., for auld lang syne, do just stop for a moment, rest, and," he was about to add, "show me through the pleasures of hell;" when she answered, with a shriek that awoke awful echoes as loud as thunder, "THERE IS NO BEST IN HELL!" The lady unclasped the vest of her gorgeous robe, and displayed to his shuddering gaze a coil of living snakes writhing, stinging, darting, in her bosom. Others followed her example. In some, he saw throbbing hearts, on which distilled drops of molten metal, under which they writhed in hopeless agony. In every bosom, he saw that which we cannot conceive or describe, so horrible was the vision. They laughed and sang and blasphemed, as they had done on earth. Then he heard an unearthly voice proclaim, "These are the pleasures of hell," which echoed mockingly like distant thunder. He saw those who had been dead thousands of years, still engaged in the sinful pleasures they loved in life. He saw a companion of his boyish profligacy rushing on, as if in the heat of the chase, and called after him, "Stop, speak to me! Oh, rest one moment!" Scarcely had he uttered the words, before the wild yell of ten thousand voices stunned his terror-stricken ear, "There is no rest in hell." Boyle tried to shut his eyes, but could not: he tried to rest upon the pavement, but was by it instantly thrown upon his feet. He was compelled to gaze upon the steady torrent of woe and horror. His conductor stood again by his side. Boyle addressed him, "Take me from this place! by the living God, whose name I have so often outraged, I adjure thee, take me from this place!" — "Canst thou still name his name?" replied his guide, "Go, then; but, in a year and a day, we meet to part no more." At this, Boyle awoke, feeling that these last words were as letters of fire burned into his very heart. He was unable to leave his bed for several days. The impression was so deep, that he resolved never again to attend the club. His old companions flocked around him, and used every artifice to draw him back to his old ways. At last, one of them won upon his confidence by feigning similar disgust with his former life. To him, Boyle related his dream. The decoy then turned upon him with great power of ridicule, and gained his purpose. At the club, he found no relief. He grew haggard and gray under the lash of conscience and fear of the future. He shrank from the annual meeting, when the time allotted him by his guide in his dream would expire; but his companions forced him to attend. Every nerve of his body writhed in agony at the first sentence of the president's opening address: "Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore it is a year and a day since our last annual meeting." Boyle would have rushed from the room, had he dared. He could bear the wrath of the Almighty easier than the sneers of his fellows. They plied him with wine; but his wit was gloomy, and his laugh fiendish. At the close, he mounted his horse to ride home. In the morning, his horse was discovered grazing quietly by the roadside, and a few yards distant lay the stiffened corpse of Archibald Boyle. The dream was fulfilled. The strange guide claimed him at the appointed time.

Beware, says Mr. Wesley, of forming a hasty judgment concerning the fortune of others. There may be secrets in the situation of a person, which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since I told a gentleman, "Sir, I am afraid you are covetous." He asked me, "What is the reason of your fears?" I answered, "A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year you subscribed only half a guinea." He made no reply, but after a time asked, "Pray, sir, answer me a question: Why do you live upon potatoes?" (I did so between three and four years.) I replied, "It has much

### CHILI

### 79. Moral and Religious Influence of Children.

YARD AND THE DISTILLERY.—An elder of the church in ——, New-York, owned a distillery, and manufactured ardent spirits. The elder was an active Christian, and seemed quite awake to the benevolent efforts of the day. His pastor was grieved that so worthy a man should be engaged in a business which brought ruin temporal and eternal upon his fellow-men: and resolved to give him faithful warning. While visiting the elder at his house, the elder looked to the grave-yard, and said, "I love to look there—it seems to be the way to

### 145. DOUBTS AND FEARS

By one of the laws of Pittacus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, every fault committed by a person when intoxicated, was deemed worthy of a double punishment.

# EWS.

ty years' captivity and then brought home again: but now there is no end of our calamities, nor do the prophets promise any."

"If," says Bishop Patrick, "this argument was hard to be answered then, in his days, it is much harder in ours, who still see them pursued by God's vengeance; which can be for nothing else but rejecting and crucifying the Messiah, the Savior of the world."

The Rev. John Cooke, of Maidenhead, once, when traveling, fell in with a rich farmer, who was very unwilling to listen to any serious remarks which he was disposed to make, and at length said, with a sneer, "I don't like religion; and I told you so." "You are not a singular farmer, sir," replied Mr. Cooke. "I have read of one whom you greatly resemble. The farmer to whom I allude, finding his ground very productive, and his barns too small, resolved on building larger barns and filling them; and said to his soul, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?' Luke xii. 19, 20. Now, sir, I think you must see yourself in this picture. Here is a farmer, very rich, living to himself in health, ease, and pleasure, 'without God in the world.' No doubt his neighbors envied and flattered him; but no one dared to reprove so rich a man. And if no one reproved his sins, and many flattered them as virtues, he never heard the truth. This accounts for our Lord's words, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! But although he thought himself wise, and others wished to be like him, God addresses him differently,—' Thou fool!'

"Why, sir, do you suppose the only wise God called him a fool?" He was silent.

"But, candidly, do not you think he was a fool?"

"I shall not say, sir."

"Well, sir, if you will allow me to hazard an opinion, he appears a fool,—

"1. Because he preferred his body to his soul.

"2. Because he preferred the world to God: 'Eat, drink, and be merry,' was the extent of his aim.

"3. Because he preferred time to eternity: 'Thou hast goods laid up for many years.'

4. "Because he lived as if he should never die; and, whilst presuming on many years, exposed his soul to all the horrors of sudden death, without repentance, without forgiveness, without holiness, and without hope."

In one of the Middle States, a Universalist preacher made great efforts to establish a society of his own faith. A few persons, of little character and influence, were deeply anxious that such a society should be formed amongst them, but knew not how to effect their object and build a house. It was finally agreed, that the preacher and one of his followers should wait on a distinguished judge who resided in the village, and solicit his patronage. The judge heard the loquacious preacher with great patience for almost half an hour, when he closed by asking the judge's aid in establishing the society.

"No," says the judge: "I shall not be disposed, sir, to lend you any assistance in forming such a society. For in the first place, it seems to me he trusted that he had confessed his sins, he died, hoping for pardon, through the boundless mercy of God in the Redeemer.

## SALISM.

that your system of faith is not supported by the holy Scriptures. I confess I am not so thoroughly versed in those writings as I ought to be; yet I should hardly know how to express the eternity of future punishment more clearly than I often see it there described. But this, sir, I do believe, (let the Scriptures say what they may,) that were all clergymen to preach this doctrine which you preach, there would soon be a hell in this world, if not in the next." The judge then added with seriousness, that, if all who profess to preach the gospel were to adopt and inculcate such sentiments, he did not believe it would be possible to hold civil society together. Human laws would be trampled under foot, and their penalties, if not backed by Divine threatenings, would be but a subject of mockery. With these views, he must be excused from making any efforts to establish a Universalist society in that place or any other.

Lord Clarendon, illustrious in the annals of England, is very explicit in his denunciations of this custom. "Of all the punishments and judgments which the provoked anger of divine Providence can pour out upon a nation full of transgressions, there is none so terrible and destroying as war. A whole city on fire is a spectacle replete with horror; but a whole kingdom on fire must be a prospect much more terrible. And such is every kingdom in war, where nothing flourishes but rapine, blood, and murder. We cannot make a more lively representation and emblem to ourselves of hell, than by the view of a kingdom in war."

The injustice of arguing that merely because one is in deep affliction, he is therefore a hypocrite. A day is coming when the secrets of God's dealings with His saints will be solved to universal satisfaction

Sinners outside of Christ will be conscious of nakedness before God in judgment and will cry for rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from God's presence. Only hope of standing before God is to be clothed in righteousness of Christ

There is an old story of a prisoner in a cell with contractile walls. Day by day his space lessens; he saw the whole of that window yesterday, he sees only half of it today. Nearer and nearer the walls are drawn together, till at last they meet and crush him.

When the Catholic persecutors brought Latimer up for examination, he was not at first particular in the expressions he used, but he soon heard the recorder’s pen going and found that all he said was being written; then he gave more heed to his words.

Many years aero there were bloody times in France. So many were killed that in some places the streets ran with blood. In one village the soldiers bade all the people come out of their houses and stand on the green, that they might look at them and decide who were to be shot and who were to be saved. A path ran across the green; and as the soldiers decided what to do with each, they put those who were to be saved on the right side of the path, and those they meant to kill were sent to the left. When all were thus parted the soldiers made those on the left side stand in rows, ten abreast; and loading their guns, stood a little way off from their unhappy victims, and fired till all were killed. A day is coming when we shall all be parted on two sides by God.

I have been twice at the point of death. I was drowning once, and just as I was going down the third time I was rescued. In the twinkling of an eye my whole life came flashing across my mind. I cannot tell you how it was. I cannot tell you how a whole life can be crowded into a second of time; but everything I had done from my earliest childhood — it all came flashing across my mind. And I believe that when God touches the secret spring of memory, every one of an unbeliever’s sins will come back, and they will haunt him as eternal ages roll on.

We talk about our forgetting, but we cannot forget if God says “Remember.” We talk about the recording angel keeping the record of our life. I have an idea that when we get to heaven, or into eternity, we will find that recording angel has been ourselves. God will make every one of us keep our own record; these memories will keep the record, and when God shall say, “Son, remember,” it will all flash across our mind. We shall condemn ourselves, and we shall stand before God speechless.

There is a man in prison. He has been there five years. Ask that man what makes the prison so terrible to him. Ask him if it is the walls and the iron gates — ask him if it is his hard work, and he will tell you no; he will tell you what makes the prison so terrible to him is memory; and I have an idea that if we got down into the lost world, we would find that is what makes hell so terrible — the remembrance that they once heard the Gospel, that they once had Christ offered to them, that they once had the privilege of being saved, but they made light of the Gospel, they neglected salvation, they rejected the offer of mercy, and now if they would accept it they could not.

When a traveller is newly among the Alps, he is constantly deceived in his reckoning. One Englishman declared that he could climb the Righi in half-an-hour, but after several panting hours the summit was still a-head of him; yet when he made the boast, some of us who stood by were much of his mind—the ascent seemed so easy. This partly accounts for the mistakes men make in estimating eternal things: they have been too much used to molehills to be at home with mountains. Only familiarity with the sublimities of revelation can educate us to a comprehension of their heights and depths.

Dr. Walter Kempster, of Milwaukee, Wis., suggests that as all the nations will probably soon agree to exclude anarchists from their territory, an island should be purchased in some healthy climate, to which they should all be exiled. Vessels should patrol the coast to prevent any leaving, but no attempt should be made to govern the colony. The anarchists would then have precisely what they demand--a colony free from government. They could then practise their heartless methods on one another and throw bombs with impunity. A better scheme to disgust them with anarchy could not be devised.

It is on the same principle that the Bible tells us God will act, to extirpate evil from His universe by giving the evildoer opportunity to act out his nature. (Text.)

When the strata of the earth forms, the heaviest elements work down to the bottom, the next heaviest fall on these, and so on to the top, where the lightest will be found.

The same is true of men. You do not have to do anything to men to put them down or lift them up. Every man sooner or later goes “to his own place.”

We must not judge any act without knowing the facts of the case. “See that man! He has sat on the bank all the morning throwing pebble after pebble into the water. How lazy he must be!” “Is this a fair judgment?” I inquire. And at the end of a warm discussion, I tell my pupils how Turner, the artist, did that to watch the surface of the water in motion and learn how to paint its sheen and color. “A child is walking quietly along the sidewalk. Suddenly a rough looking man seizes her and pushes her into the gutter. Is he cruel?” Of course every one answers yes, at first. But no--a mass of ice is about to fall from the roof above the child’s head. Her assaulter turns out to be her protector.

In teaching, of course, every good teacher passes from examples to principles. Through such examples as these we elicit the fact that we can judge no act on sight, for every act is open to a good or a bad interpretation. The eager energy members of my class show in pointing out possible good motives for acts that at first sight look selfish makes me feel sure that they will not in later life condemn unheard. “The special part of this ethics course which stands out in my mind as important,” writes one of my pupils, “is that on right and wrong judgments. It makes me realize how little right we have to judge people from appearances. There are so many sides of people’s characters that we don’t half consider or appreciate.”--ELLA LYMAN CABOT, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,” 1909.

Gibbon wrote and we speak of the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Maspero has written a magnificent volume on “The Passing of the Ancient Empires.” Gradual degeneracy is the cause and precursor of final collapse.

After a violent gale one night a great tree was found lying across the pathway in the park where through long years it had been developing a noble growth. Nothing but a splintered stump remained standing. Examination showed there had been another development besides that of its stately beauty. For it was rotten to the core, because of the secret workings of a multitude of little insects which for generations had lived and multiplied. Judgment was not passed on that tree by the sudden gale, but went forth from the very moment that the first insect nested within its bark.

It is to be feared that many verdicts against our fellow men are as indiscriminate as that of the juryman in the following extract:

A lawyer once asked a man who had at various times sat on several juries, “Who influenced you most--the lawyers, the witnesses, or the judge?” He expected to get some useful and interesting information from so experienced a juryman.

This was the man’s reply: “I tell yer, sir, ’ow I makes up my mind. I’m a plain man, and a reasonin’ man, and I ain’t influenced by anything the lawyers say, nor by what the witnesses say--no, nor by what the judge says. I just looks at the man in the dock, and I says, ‘If he ain’t done nothing, why’s he there?’ And I brings ’em all in guilty.”

* * * * *

We are all writing our lives’ histories here, as if with one of these “manifold writers,” a black blank page beneath the flimsy sheet on which we write; but presently the black page will be taken away, and the writing will stand out plain on the page behind that we did not see. Life is the filmy unsubstantial page on which our pen rests; the black page is death; and the page beneath is that indelible transcript of our earthly actions, which we shall find waiting for us to read, with shame and confusion of face, or with humble joy, in another world

— ALEXANDER MCLAREN

It was a sound reply of an English captain at the loss of Calais, when a proud Frenchman scornfully demanded, "When will you fetch Calais again?"—"When your sins shall weigh down ours."

— Brooks

One day, the master of Lukman, an Eastern fabulist, said to him, "Go into such a field, and sow barley." Lukman sowed oats instead. At the time of harvest, his master went to the place, and, seeing the green oats springing up, asked him, "Did I not tell you to sow barley here? Why, then, have you sown oats?" He answered, "I sowed oats in the hope that barley would grow up." His master said, "What foolish idea is this? Have you ever heard of the like?" Lukman replied, "You yourself are constantly sowing in the field of the world the seeds of evil, and yet expect to reap in the resurrection-day the fruits of virtue. Therefore I thought, also, I might get barley by sowing oats." The master was abashed at the reply, and set Lukman free.