wrought upon by a father's frown that the little one shrank beneath it and slunk away in sorrowful wretchedness? Its happiness came or went as the light of its father's countenance or the darkness thereof was lifted upon it.

And if this be so in the human how much more so in the divine relation. The abiding consciousness of the soul in the future that, for it, the face of God is forever darkened-ah, as one whipped with scorpions, will it slink, and be slinking away from God farther and still farther into the hopeless hidings of the darkness and the abysses. And all this while thinking of what "might have been,” what "might have been."

Seek the world over for the vilest, the most repulsive, the most dangerous, the most hellish of social conditions. Then seek through all past time for the same. And when you conclude to award the crown somewhere and sometime for this bad eminence then reflect that even were the whole earth to be converted into a uniformity of badness like unto it-that even then it would be a comfortable, endurable and pleasant place in which to abide as compared to the condition to be realized in perdition.

Amid all the manifestations of the evil propensities of fallen men in this life the fact still remains that the Holy Spirit is everywhere present,

exercising such restraint, the world over, that men are not what they would be but for this Presence. But as Louis XIV said regarding the social and political possibilities imminent upon his demise, "After me the deluge," so might you say regarding the condition of men upon the final withdrawal of the Holy Spirit-then the deluge. And a deluge compared to which the worst effects of sin ever realized here might be endured with comfortable complacency.

And, in addition to all these results and conditions, which are the natural attendants and issues of sin, there are intimations that there will be visited upon the lost, measures of positive penalty on account of it which will be a further mixture in the cup of misery which they are to drink.

Composed, as they still will be, of body, as well as soul, both of these elements of their personality will endure, each after its kind, the measure of this ministry of punitive pain which is its due.

This is not only suggested by all those figures referring in a concrete manner to punitive visitation but also by those which are not figurative.

As to the former, passages affirming that the wicked shall be "cast into fire," "beaten with stripes," "visited with torment," and that upon them he "shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest" may be taken as in

dicative of the visitation of positive suffering upon the wicked over and above the natural results of sin.

And, as to the latter, the Apostle's declaration that "indignation and wrath" are to be visited upon "every soul of man that doeth evil" is an intimation of the relation of divine justice to the wicked other than that of merely leaving them to the natural and inevitable issues of their sins.

And as to what may be involved for each in this positive visitation of God for sin-who can tell? What heart can endure? "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" as a subject of wrath. In view of all the considerations of this chapter does not the import of the way of life grow exceedingly? As also of the question "what shall I do?"

CHAPTER VI.

PENAL RESULTS (INTENSITY).

In addition to the certainty and nature of future punishment the fact of its intensity is not to be overlooked. Whether you suffer much or little is surely an important element in the consideration of the question. You are especially interested in this because of certain advantages and privileges with which, above many, you are and have been favored. Should they pass unimproved they will make you peculiarily amenable, not only to future torment of the nature attempted to be described in the preceding chapter, but also characterized by an added intensity, because of and in proportion to, such favoring present conditions. That differences in this regard exist in the future world the Scriptures plainly affirm as, for example, the Lord's words in reference to the many or few stripes with which each will be visited.

And this difference in the future lot of lost souls is made to hinge on variations of unimproved advantages here. "That servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself

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neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."

"But he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

On this basis, while the condition of the heathen may be less desirable than yours, so far as this life is concerned, yet, as to that of the life to come, it will be much more preferable. If I were to pass hence alienated from God, a stranger to the way of life, it were better for me to do so from pagan rather than from Christian environments. Better to go as a heathen, encumbered with the blindness engendered by the idolatrous traditions of ages, than to go from amid surroundings illuminated by the Sun of Righteousness.

It is true none are excused, as the Apostle so vividly, forcibly, and conclusively shows in his epistle to the Romans, chapters 1, 2 and 3.

The Jew had his special advantages, as the Apostle admitted and enumerated in reply to the query of a representative of that nationality. And so have you. But those advantages did not prevent the Apostle from bringing him in as "guilty before God" with the rest of mankind.

The latter, without the law of God, as the Jew