Many a sinner quaked under his
stern logic and fiery appeals, and some repented.
I shall never forget a sermon he preached at San Jose. He was in bad
health, and his mind was morbid and gloomy. His text was, Who hath
hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? (Job ix. 4.) The
thought that ran through the discourse was the certainty that
retribution would overtake the guilty. God's law will be upheld. It
protects the righteous, but must crush the disobedient. He swept away
the sophisms by which men persuade themselves that they can escape the
penalty of violated law; and it seemed as if we could almost hear the
crash of the tumbling wrecks of hopes built on false foundations. God
Almighty was visible on the throne of his power, armed with the even
thunders of his wrath.
"Who hath defied God and escaped?" he demanded, with flashing eyes and
trumpet voice. And then he recited the histories of nations and men that
had made the fatal experiment, and the doom that had whelmed them in
utter ruin.
"And yet you hope to escape!" he thundered to the silent and awestruck
men and women before him. "You expect that God will abrogate his law to
please you; that he will tear down the pillars of his moral government
that you may be saved in your sins! O fools, fools, fools! there is no
place but hell for such a folly as this!"
His haggard face, the stern solemnity of his voice, the sweep of his
long arms, the gleam of his deep-set eyes, and the vigor of his
inexorable logic, drove that sermon home to the listeners.
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