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may for a time appear to succeed in serving both God and Mammon, but eventually his duplicity will be exposed. God's angels, good and bad, have continually the freedom of His audience chamber; aye, and virtuous heathens and heretics, as Christ said, shall rise in judgment against us; and you know that such sins as oppression of the poor and defrauding the laborer of his wages cry for vengeance to the Lord God of Sabaoth. Oh! the shame and the misery of the defaulter brought to bay! What wonder that it incites to murder, or impels to madness or self-destruction! But more dreadful still is it to fall unprepared into the hands of the living God. Notice well his master's words to the steward: "What is this I hear of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou canst be steward no longer." He does not demand the account then and there, but bids him go and prepare and then present his statement. Nor is our God less merciful. No man ever yet died without having at some time or other received sufficient warning, and hence the guilt of unpreparedness is all the greater. In the nature of things the lightning should precede the thunder, but the good God has so arranged things that we hear the rumbling of the coming storm before the lightning strikes. The Lord has said, indeed, that He will come as comes a thief in the night, but how many times and in how many ways does He warn us that thieves are constantly abroad, and that His faithful and true servant should be ever on the watch! And oh! the dreadful consequences of allowing the warning to go un-