PART II.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 299, 15 September 1888, Page 4

PART 11.

And now, dear unsaved reader, we would ask you to consider the question that God has left with you to answer — ' What shall ib profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lo&e his own soul V" Still, it is

a question of profit or lo»s in every human heart, whether our aim be the heaping up of knowledge, or gain, or pleasure. We may excel in all learning beneath the sun, we may gather earth's riches, and chink of its empty joys to the full ; but when we have got ifc all, God's mighty question still remains — ' What shall it profit ?' Even while we taste of it, it is passing from our grasp ; like the sands in the glass of time, growing less and less while we gaze at them, until the last has run out, and left nothing behind. Unsaved reader, we beseech you to remember that you are using up the principal of all that earth can give ; and when you have spent all, and the hour comes to die, what will you have laid up lor the long unknown future ? or if the Lord ahould I come this very day fco gather His own redeemed ones, and you are left behind, un I saved, irhaf shall it, profit v You cannot escape this awful question ; you must meet it now, or ifc will meet you in the outer darkness of a lost eternity. It will haunt you when it shall be too late to repent — too late to consider. When the loving voice that called so long unheeded, shall call no more ; when those that have trusted Him shall have entered into the light and gladness, and the door once open for you shall be shut (Prov. i. 23-28), and shut for ever. Perhaps you too sometimes ask, as> you / join in the search atter pleasure or gain, ' What is the harm .'' Porhaps you think God is a hard master, that he would take from you the little that you have. Have you ever thought of the price He paid for your ransom '! Have you ever laid it to heart that God gave ITis own Son to bear the curse of your sin, that you might enjoy in Hit. presence pleasures for e\ermore, that you might be rich, not with the riches of a day, but with riches that will endure for eternity ? A lifetime spent in the trifles of carth — 'What is the harm?' What is the profit, and ivhat /s (Jtr lo*\ ' The profit, a iew fleeting days of empty pleasure : the loss, your soul— yourself. (Luke ix. 24.) God loved you well enough to spare not His own Son for your redemption. It cost His tears, His agonies, His blood to purchase your release ; but if you neglect so great .salvation, if you reject His invitations, and despire His grace, there is no other way. j If <Jod could have saved sinners without such a mighty sacrifice, He might have spared His Son ; but the debt we owed was infinito- only the blood of God's Holy One could pay it. God gave Him to suffer, because he loved u^ with such unmeasured love, He could not let u.s perish. Therefoi c the waves and billows of his wrath passed over our Surety in Mut awful day of account. Christ has finished His, mighty work of atonement ; yet you may lone yom - ■*/'!/ (Luke ix. 25) : you may miss the way to heaven that He has opened for you at such a cost ; you may neglect the salvation so dearly purchased. When God's beloved Son stood in the sinner's stead a 1 - our substitute, God'ss wrath fell without measure upon Him, because sin must meet its curse ; and if you stand in the day of account without Christ in your sins, w hat then ? Perhaps you cannot bear the thought now. How awful the reality ! Look at it .i-, described by the Loid Jesus in Luke xm. 19-31. Dear unsaved reader, the little moment cf opportunity is passing yuicklv by. We beaeech you, trifle not with yotu °oul'b eternal interests. To linger on the edge ol a precipice, to venture within the deadly current oftl>^ whirlpool — l What /s the harm ?" You rovlit lose but a few passing hours of earthly llf <- • but what if you should be lost for eternity ' 'What shall it profit, a man, if hesh.i'l gain /In' irhod n-oild, and lose his ov isoul ?' A. E. W