from the hand of God perfect, upright, pure! Why this circuitous route, the permission of sin just for the purpose of redemption and removal ?" Why? I cannot tell all the whys, but my faith enables me to say, I believe it is better that things should be as they are. Without evil, without sin in the universe, without a personal Redeemer, without the intervention of mercy, without God's wonderful manifestation of himself in relation to sin, and evil, and death, God's creatures could not have known perfectly what God is; there could not have been a complete, perfect development of the Godhead. Therefore I do not ask that question, but I can understand that God tells me that by the Church, through the process of redemption, he is showing to the heavenly intelligence his manifold wisdom, and revealing the attributes of his character, which could be revealed in no other way." Thy judgments are a great deep." Yes; but out of great mystery will come ultimately a great manifestation, and then we shall rejoice and adore in the light, as we now adore in the darkness.

SUDDEN DEATH BY A RAILWAY ACCIDENT. D. L. MOODY

I

ON THE DEATH OF MR. & MRS. P. P. BLISS.

EXPECTED to enjoy, this afternoon, coming around

here and hearing our friend Mr. Bliss sing the gospel and our friend Mr. Whittle preach. I was telling my wife when I got home Friday night that I was really glad I didn't have to work so hard on this Sabbath. I cannot tell you what a disappointment it has been to me. I have looked forward to those two men of God coming to this city. I had arranged, made my plans to

stay over a few days in order to hear and enjoy their services. Ever since I heard that I would have to take their place this afternoon, there has been just one text running in my mind. I cannot keep it out: "Therefore be ye also ready." You who have heard me preach the past three months I think will bear witness to this, that I haven't said much about death. Perhaps I haven't been faithful in this regard. I'd always rather tell about life; perhaps there's not been warning enough in my preaching. But I feel that if I should hold my peace this afternoon and not lift up my voice and warn you to make ready for death, God might lay me aside and put some one else in my place; I must speak and forewarn you.

To-day has been one of the most solemn days in my life. The closing hours of every year, for the past ten or twelve years, have been very solemn to me. I think I never spent such a day as I have to-day. This world never seemed so empty, and men never looked so blind away from God, as they do to-day. It seems as never before that I cannot understand how life can go on in madness, how a man can keep away from Christ, when in just a stroke he is gone to eternity, and there is no hope. Those men I mean that really believe, intellectually, that the Bible is true, that if they die without regeneration, without being born again, they cannot see God's kingdom. How it is they can believe, and how they can still stay away from Christ when such judg ments are brought near to them, is a mystery to me. I hope the words of the Lord Jesus will find their way to your hearts as they have to mine; I hope you will hear Him this afternoon saying: "Therefore be ye also ready." He had been warning them; for in the verse preceding this text he said, "As in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in

marriage, until the flood came and took them all away.” It came suddenly. How often the judgments of God come suddenly upon us. I want to call your attention to a few words we find in the Old Testament in the sixth chapter of Jeremiah at the tenth verse: "To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken; behold the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it." Also in the thirty-third chapter of Ezekiel, fourth, fifth and sixth verses: "Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchmen's hands." Do you ask me now why I am so anxious to warn you? Because, if I don't, the blood of your soul will be required at my hand.

I want to warn you to-day; I want to plead with you to-day. And it is because I love you that I come to plead with you. I am sure there is nothing else that could induce me to speak this afternoon. I felt, rather, like going into my room and locking the door and trying to learn what this providence means. I don't expect to find out yet I'm not sure I'll ever know. But-(the speaker paused in deep motion), I just felt I'd got to come down here this very afternoon and cry out: "therefore be ye also ready!" make ready before the close of this sermon just ask yourselves this question, "am I ready to meet God this moment ?" If not, when will

you be! God would not tell us to be ready, if he did not give us the power,-unless it was something within our reach.

The thought is put into some of your minds that I am trying to take advantage of the death of this good man to frighten you and scare you; and I haven't any doubt Satan is doing this work at this moment. Right here let me notice that some say I'm preaching for effect. That's what I am doing. I want to affect you; I want to rouse your death-sleep, when I warn you to prepare to meet your God; for "in such hour as you think not the Son of Man cometh." It is just from pure love, pure friendship to you that I warn you; the thought that I am trying to frighten you from selfish motives is from the pit of hell. You take a true mother; if she does not warn her child when playing with fire, you say she's not what she professes to be, not a true mother. If a father sees his boy going to ruin and don't warn him, is he a true father? I say it is the single power of love that makes me warn you. Suppose I walk by a house on fire with a man and woman in it, and their seven children. If I don't call out, hammer on the door, smash in the windows if necessary, and cry out, "escape if you can," what would you say? You would say I ought not to live. If souls are going down to death and hell all around me-I verily believe such live to-day, and some are in this building-how can I hold my peace and not cry out at the top of my voice: "therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

There is a legend that I read some time ago of a man who made a covenant with Death; and the covenant was this that Death should not come on him unawares,that Death was to give warning of his approach. Well, years rolled on, and at last, Death stood before his victim.

The old man blanched and faltered out, "why, Death, you have not been true to your promise, you have not kept your covenant. You promised not to come unannounced. You never gave any warning." "How, how!" came the answer, "every one of those gray hairs is a warning; every one of your teeth is a warning; your eyes growing dim are a warning; your natural power and vigor abated-that is a warning. Aha! I've warned you-I've warned you continually." And Death would not delay, but swept his victim into eternity.

That is a legend; but how many the past year have heard these warning voices. Death has come very near to many of us. What warnings have come to us all. The preacher's calls to repentance, how again and again they have rung in our ears. We may have one or two more calls yet, this year, in the next few hours, but I doubt it. Then how many of us in the last twelve months have gone to the bedside of some loved friend, and kneeling in silent anguish unable to help, have whispered a promise to meet that dying one in heaven. Oh why delay any longer! Before these few lingering hours have gone, and the year rolls away into eternity, I beg of you, see to it that you prepare to make that promise good. Some of you have kissed the marble brow of a dead parent this year, and the farewell look of those eyes has been, "make ready to meet thy God." In a few years you will follow, and there may be a reunion in heaven. Are you ready, dear friends?

When visiting the body of my brother just before he was put in the grave, I picked up his Bible, of the size of this in my hand, and there was just one passage of scripture marked. I looked it up and I found it read ; "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." As I read it that night the hand that wrote it was silent in death. It was written in "76. Little did