The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Sermons
But perhaps the commonest way to become a tempter is through
thoughtlessness. I protest, we have no pity for each other's souls.
We trample about among these most brittle and infinitely precious
things, as if they were common ware, and we tempt one another and
ruin one another without even being aware of it. Perhaps, indeed, no
one who goes to the place of wo goes there alone; perhaps every one
takes at least one with him. I hear it said nowadays that the fear
of hell no longer moves men's minds; and that preachers ought no
longer to make use of it as a motive in religion. Well, I confess,
I fear it myself; it is a motive still to me. But I will tell you
what I fear ten times more. What! is there anything which a man can
fear ten times more than the fire that never shall be quenched? Yes!
it is to meet there any one who will say, You have brought me here;
you were my tempter; and but for you I might never have come to this
place of torment. God forbid that this should ever be said to me by
any one. Will it be said to any of you?
But now let us turn away from this side of our subject and look at
the bright side--at the three groups on the right.
IV. The group of the right center, or those who are successfully
resisting temptation.
Not very long ago a letter chanced to come under my eye. It was by a
young man attending one of the great English universities. One day
two or three fellow students had come into his rooms and asked him
to join them in some amusement of a questionable kind, which they
were contemplating. On the spur of the moment he promised; but, when
they had gone, he thought what his parents would say if they knew.
It was a godly home he belonged to and a very happy one, in which
the children were bound to the parents in such a way that they kept
no secrets from them. He thought of his home, and he had doubts
whether what he had promised to do might not cause pain there. He
was afraid it would; and he promptly and frankly went and told his
companions that his engagement was off till he should inquire. The
letter I saw was the inquiry. It affected me deeply to read it; for
it was easy to understand how much manliness was required to do that
which might be interpreted as unmanly.
The memory of that man's home came to him in the hour of temptation
and made him strong to resist. I wonder this influence does not
prove a rescuing power oftener than it does. Young men, when
you are tempted, think of home. I have been a minister away in a
provincial town; and, I think, if you could realize the mother's
terror, and the father's stricken frame, and the silent tearful
circle, as I have seen them--it would make you fling the cup of
temptation from your lips, however persuasive was the hand that
proffered it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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