But Christ did not speak with any uncertain sound about the future punishment of the impenitent. He is authority. Take your Bible and read such passages as Matt. xxv, 41, 46; Matt. viii, 12; Luke xvi, 23; John v, 29.
In the light of these words, we must see that the death of a soul means eternal separation from God, from mercy, and from heaven.
And yet how indifferent we are concerning the unsaved multitudes all about us who are drifting into a hopeless eternity. The Church needs a vision like that of the little lad in Olive Schreiner's "Story of a South African Farm," who, waking at midnight, sees multitudes drifting over the precipice into eternal night, and throws himself on his face on the floor, crying out in the agony of his burdened heart to God to have mercy.
Some one tells of a shepherd in the Far West who, on a dark, stormy night, found three sheep missing. Going to the kennel where the faithful shepherd-dog lay with her little family, he bade her go to find the sheep. An hour afterwards she returned with two. When these had been put in the fold, he said, "One sheep is yet missing. Go!" The faithful dog took one mute look of despair at her little family, then was off in the dark and the storm. In two hours she had returned with the lost sheep, but was torn and bleeding, and, as she staggered toward the kennel, fell dead at the door. But if a poor, dumb brute, with no immortal hope, be obedient, even unto death, what shall we say of men and women who know the destiny of the soul, and whom the King of kings has bidden seek the lost, yet are disobedient, indifferent, and thoughtless as to the dying multitudes about them?
STUDY VII.
THE SUPREME MOTIVE.
Memory Verse: "For the love of Christ constraineth us."—(2 Cor. v, 14.)
Scripture for Meditation: 1 Cor. xiii, R.V.