These moments may be very brief. The crisis of the battle between God and self, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, may be concentrated into a few minutes. But time sufficient is, nevertheless, given wherein to test our _truthfulness_, the soil in which truth grows, the mirror that reflects its beams; time sufficient is given to say Yes or No to that God who claims our faith and love. Truth comes with authority and majesty as an ambassador from the living God, and with clear voice, pure eye, and an arm omnipotent to save, offers to give light, life, and liberty to the captive spirit. But we may evade his bright glance, and close our ears to his voice, and refuse to consider his claims, and deal falsely with his arguments; we may reject his offers, and, shrinking back from his touch and his helping hand, retire into the gloom of self-satisfied pride, preferring the darkness to the light; or we may make merry with Heaven's ambassador, and mock him as they did the prophet of old; or cry out, "Away with him!" as the world cried to the Lord of light and life. And what if the second ambassador never comes again with such pressing earnestness, but passes by the door once so rudely closed against him, and will knock no more? Or, though he may in mercy return again and again, what if the eye gets blinded by the very light which it rejects? and the ear becomes so familiar with the voice, that it attracts attention no more than the winds that beat upon the wall; and the heart becomes so hardened as to be unimpressible, until the dread sentence is at last passed,--"Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: for that they _hated_ knowledge, and _did not choose_ the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices." A young man came to Jesus seeking eternal life. "Jesus, looking on him, loved him," and answered his prayers by teaching him how eternal life could alone be attained. But the young man went away sorrowful, because he had much riches. What a history was contained in that brief moment of his life!