“I am glad that you are so well interested in these great and beautiful works of God’s wisdom and power, but I hope that you do not forget that the crucified Christ is pre-eminently the power of God and the wisdom of God. These natural works are but the husk of which salvation from sin by Christ is the kernel. These outward things are wonderful and beautiful for the setting, but the gem, the royal precious stone, the Koh-i-noor, the ‘mountain of light,’ for which the setting was made, is the true knowledge of the true God and of his Son Jesus Christ. During the past few weeks you have heard others asking, ‘What shall we do to be saved?’ I should be greatly guilty if I allowed you to think earth, air, and sea, with all their silent and solemn movements, more important than our spiritual attitude toward God the Father and Christ the Saviour. Are you, Samuel, in your interest in studying Nature, forgetting Christ and the souls of men?”
“I hope not, and I think not. During the three years since my baptism I have never felt so much my obligation to Christ as now. I never felt before so deep a desire that my friends should repent and believe in Jesus. I think the love of Christ constrains me. I have not felt before that my work was very important; I have been expecting to work more earnestly by and by; but lately I have felt that Christ gives me something to do now for which he holds me responsible.”
“What have you tried to do for Christ?”
“I have been praying for some of my young friends, and especially for Ansel and Peter. And then I felt that I must talk with them as well as pray for them.”
“And can you, my young friends, be careless about your own salvation while Samuel is so anxious for you? Are you contented to live ‘having no hope and without God in the world’? Is your happiness here and hereafter more important to Samuel than to yourselves?”
“We are interested,” said Ansel. “We have been talking together about being Christians, but we don’t know what to do.”
“They said,” broke in Samuel, “that they wished I would ask you to preach a sermon and tell them what they must do to be saved. They wished to go on with these lessons, but they thought that perhaps you would be willing to preach a sermon just upon that subject.”
“You know that I often speak of that subject, and when persons have come to the inquiry-meeting I have told them what they must do. But I know that there must needs be ‘line upon line.’ If Ansel and Peter wish it, I will devote a sermon to the subject, and make it as plain as I can. Hardly anything gives me more pleasure than to explain the way of salvation when I know that my hearers are interested.”
“We do wish to have you preach upon that subject, and I am sure that you will have a great many interested hearers besides Ansel and myself.”
“But, Samuel, did you not pray for Mr. Hume also, and talk with him?”