New Tabernacle SermonsTalmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Religion
New Tabernacle Sermons
Talmage, T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt)
Presbyterian Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
"Oh," says some man, "as long as I keep my mind I can afford to
adjourn religion." But suppose you do not keep it? A fever, the
hurling of a missile, the falling of a brick from a scaffolding, the
accidental discharge of a gun--and your mind is gone. If you have ever
been in an anatomical room, and have examined the human brain, you
know what a delicate organ it is. And can it be possible that our
eternity is dependent upon the healthy action of that which can be so
easily destroyed?
"Oh," says some one, "you don't know how strong a mind I have." I
reply: Losses, accident, bereavement, and sickness may shipwreck the
best physical or mental condition. There are those who have been ten
years in lunatic asylums who had as good a mind as you. While they had
their minds they neglected God, and when their intellect went, with it
went their last opportunity for heaven. Now they are not responsible
for what they do, or for what they say; but in the last day they will
be held responsible for what they did when they were mentally well;
and if, on that day, a soul should say: "Oh, God, I was demented, and
I had no responsibility," God will say: "Yes, you were demented; but
there were long years when you were not demented. That was your chance
for heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch say, a
little "daft," nevertheless having grace in the heart; better be like
poor Richard Hampson, the Cornish fool, whose biography has just
appeared in England--a silly man he was, yet bringing souls to Jesus
Christ by scores and scores--giving an account of his own conversion,
when he said: "The mob got after me, and I lost my hat, and climbed
up by a meat-stand, in order that I might not be trampled under foot,
and while I was there, my heart got on fire with love toward those who
were chasing me, and, springing to my feet, I began to exhort and to
pray." Oh, my God, let me be in the last, last day the Cornish fool,
rather than have the best intellect God ever created unillumined by
the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Consider what an uncertain possession you have in your intellect, when
there are so many things around to destroy it; and beware, lest before
you use it in making the religious choice, God takes it away with a
stroke. I know a good many of my friends who are putting off religion
until the last hour. They say when they get sick they will attend to
it, but generally the intellect is beclouded; and oh; what a doleful
thing it is to stand by a dying bed, and talk to a man about his soul,
and feel, from what you see of the motion of his head, and the glare
of his eye, and from what you hear of the jargon of his lips, that he
does not understand what you are saying to him. I have stood beside
the death-bed of a man who had lived a sinful life, and was as
unprepared for eternity as it is possible for a man to be, and I tried
to make him understand my pastoral errand; but all in vain. He could
not understand it, and so he died.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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