6. Religion makes a good father, a good mother, a good husband, a good wife, good children, it makes the family happy, and the home bright, cheerful, joyous. 7. It makes a man a good citizen. So he can get along in peace with his neighbors and even become a peace-maker among them when they quarrel. Thus have I tried to show you that, regardless of the future, godliness is profitable for this life. But if this were not so, if the life of a Christian were an uninterrupted experience of pains and disappointments and sorrows, yet, in view of the interests of the soul, and the possibilities of the future, and the length of eternity, it would be the highest wisdom to cheerfully accept all these and endure them to the bitter end, in order to depart out of this world with a peaceful and unaccusing conscience and a sure preparation for heaven. O man, what will you do with eternity, _eternity_, if you go thither unprepared? Did you ever try to think of eternity? As John Wesley says, "If a bird were to come once in a million of years and take away one grain of the earth, when it had taken the whole earth away, that would not be eternity, nor the beginning of eternity." And it is certain that eternity is the period of the desolation and confusion and remorse and suffering of the lost. 8. But even if we had to live in misery all this life, it would be better to do it and have religion; for it alone fits us for happiness in the life to come. Take away property, comforts, friends, family, reputation, health, but give me religion, and I shall have a passport into the kingdom of heaven and an eternity of rest and blessedness. O then, come to Jesus Christ and have all these things and heaven beside. PROVERBS XII: 15. "The way of transgressors is hard." Our friend's career affords a striking example of the truth of the text. Most people do not think the text is true. But the Bible reverses nearly all of our notions about things, and when, in the light of experience and honest thought, we come to examine the Bible, we find it contains the truth on all subjects. The natural effects of a life of sin are injurious and destructive in every particular. 1. In the first place, vice destroys health. If a man indulges in gluttony, he brings on dyspepsia with its accompanying pains and distress and torture. All this is increased by a life of idleness, laziness and inactivity. If he indulges in intemperance, he soon becomes a wretched slave, and is consumed by inward fires till delirium tremens ends the miserable career. If he indulges in sensuality, he is likely to contract loathsome and painful diseases--diseases which make life a burden that can hardly be borne; diseases which poison the blood and can not, by any art or remedy, be expelled from the system, but which are transmitted to the innocent offspring, if there be any.