break every tie, and to live in eternal desolation. Is it hard to bear the remarks of companions? But how will you bear the taunts and jeers of the devil and his angels? And those very companions who have led you to hell will taunt you for your base compliance to them. Let nothing, then, keep you back. * * * (Peroration. according to the circumstances.) ---------------- Sermon II. Mortal Sin. (Mission Sermon.) "Know thou, and see, that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God." --Jer. II. 19. In the book of the prophet Ezechiel it is related that God showed to the prophet in a vision the city of Jerusalem. It was all stretched out before him in its greatness and in its beauty. The magnificent temple was there, with its stones and spires glittering in the sun; its streets were full of people, prosperous and happy; a people who were in possession of the true religion, who had been adopted by God as His children, and over whom He had exercised a special protection. It was a beautiful sight; beautiful to the eye, and well fitted to excite the most religious emotions in the mind. But there was something that checked these feelings of pleasure and delight. God permitted the prophet to see the interior of that city. He unfolded before him the secret abominations that were practised there. {227} He showed him the idolatries and impurities to which his chosen people the Jews had delivered themselves up, and then in wrath and indignation God complained of the people and said: "_The iniquity of the house of Israel and of Juda is exceeding great; and the land is filled with blood; and the city is filled with perverseness, for they have said: The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not_." [Footnote 16] Then the joy of the prophet was turned in to sorrow. [Footnote 16: Ezechiel ix. 9.]