From this first remark I pass to the immediate subject of my discourse--the obligation of securing our salvation. As we can save our souls, so we ought to do it. Nay, this is our only, our all-engrossing duty; and I shall found my proof of it, my brethren, on this plain rule of common sense and reason, that one ought to bestow that degree of attention and care on any affair which it deserves and requires. Everyone feels that it would be an occupation unworthy of a man to spend his time in writing letters in the sand, or in chasing butterflies from flower to flower; because these occupations are in themselves vain and profitless. Again, anyone would feel it unreasonable, in the father of a family, to set out on a party of pleasure at the very moment that his presence was necessary to arrest some disaster that threatened his family: not because it was wrong in itself for him to seek recreation, but because a higher obligation was then urging. Now, applying these principles, on which everyone acts in matters of daily life, to the matter in question; I say that you are bound to give to the work of your salvation your utmost care and attention, because the care of your souls supremely deserves and urgently requires it. {213} Take in, my brethren, the whole scope of my proposition. There is a work of great consequence before you. I do not speak as the world speaks. The world tells you that your business here is to get gain, to build a house, to rear a family, to leave a name, to enjoy yourself. I say, no. Your business is to seek the grace of God, and to keep it. The world says: seek friends, fall in with the stream, court popularity, do as others do, act on the principles which receive the sanction of the multitude, and a little religion in addition to this will be no bad thing. I say, no. Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, masters, servants, ye great ones and ye humble ones of the earth, you are all engaged in the same enterprise. God has intrusted to each one of you a soul. He has intrusted it to _you_, not to another. You cannot devolve the responsibility of it on another. That is your care on the earth. Whatever cares of other things you may have, you cannot neglect that one work, you cannot interrupt or postpone it, you cannot put any thing in competition with it. If there is a question between any temporal advantages, however great, or suffering, however severe, on one side, and the salvation of your soul on the other; you must renounce these benefits, embrace those tortures. If you must consent to see your family die by inches of starvation, or put your salvation in proximate and certain jeopardy, you must see them starve first. I do not say the case is likely to happen. God rarely allows men to be reduced to such straits. But if the case should occur in the line of duty, nay, if the alternative was presented, of converting the whole world on one side, and avoiding a mortal sin on the other,