world even would not justify your risking the danger of continuance in deadly sin, what shall we say of a vile momentary pleasure, a handful of filthy lucre or an inhuman revenge? To risk your soul for such worse than trifles is like fishing for frogs with a golden hook, or braving a tempestuous voyage for a cargo of manure. Tell me not that though you sin to-day you will repent to-morrow; for you there may be no tomorrow. Take example from the Ninivites who, when they heard from Jonas that after forty days destruction was to come upon them for their sins, donned immediately sackcloth and ashes and so averted the wrath of God. You, no doubt, would have deferred repentance until the evening of the fortieth day. Repent you now, now, more promptly even than the Ninivites. No forty days of grace are promised you. You know not the day nor the hour of the Lord's coming; of your death you know not the day nor the hour.
Brethren, as a motive urging to repentance not less potent than the nearness of death, is the host of miseries resulting from a life of sin. I speak not here of bodily infirmities, though they, too, count for much, but far more painful are the tortures of a guilty conscience. Between the birth of life and the birth of death there is a striking contrast. A woman in labor when delivered forgets her anguish, rejoicing that a man is born into the world, but the soul begetting sin, though it feel a momentary pleasure, is presently convulsed in an agony of remorse. " Sin," says Scripture, " sin when completed begetteth death,"
