I saw, in some of the picture-galleries of Europe, that before many of the great works of the masters—the old masters—there would be sometimes four or five artists taking copies of the pictures. These copies they were going to carry with them, perhaps to distant lands; and I have thought that your life and character are a masterpiece, and it is being copied, and long after you are gone it will bloom or blast in the homes of those who knew you, and be a Gorgon or a Madonna. Look out what you say. Look out what you do. Eternity will hear the echo. The best sermon ever preached is a holy life. The best music ever chanted is a consistent walk.
I saw, near the beach, a wrecker's machine. It was a cylinder with some holes at the side, made for the thrusting in of some long poles with strong leverage; and when there is a vessel in trouble or going to pieces out in the offing, the wreckers shoot a rope out to the suffering men. They grasp it, and the wreckers turn the cylinder, and the rope winds around the cylinder, and those who are shipwrecked are saved. So at your feet to-day there is an influence with a tremendous leverage. The rope attached to it swings far out into the billowy future. Your children, your children's children, and all the generations that are to follow, will grip that influence and feel the long-reaching pull long after the figures on your tombstone are so near worn out that the visitor can not tell whether it was in 1885, or 1775, or 1675 that you died.
Still further, I learn from this subject the advantages of concerted action. If Abimelech had merely gone out with a tree-branch the work would not have been accomplished, or if ten, twenty, or thirty men had gone; but when all the axes are lifted, and all the sharp edges fall, and all these men carry each his tree-branch down and throw it about the temple, the victory is gained—the temple falls. My friends, where there is one man in the Church of God at this day shouldering his whole duty there are a great many who never lift an ax or swing a blow.
Oh, we all want our boat to get over to the golden sands, but the most of us are seated either in the prow or in the stern, wrapped in our striped shawl, holding a big-handled sunshade, while others are blistered in the heat, and pull until the oar-locks groan, and the blades bend till they snap. Oh, religious sleepy-heads, wake up! While we have in our church a great many who are toiling for God, there are some too lazy to brush the flies off their heavy eyelids.
Suppose, in military circles, on the morning of battle the roll is called, and out of a thousand men only a hundred men in the regiment answered. What excitement there would be in the camp! What would the colonel say? What high talking there would be among the captains, and majors, and the adjutants! Suppose word came to head-quarters that these delinquents excused themselves on the ground that they had overslept themselves, or that the morning was damp and they were afraid of getting their feet wet, or that they were busy cooking rations. My friends, this is the morning of the day of God Almighty's battle! Do you not see the troops? Hear you not all the trumpets of heaven and all the drums of hell? Which side are you on? If you are on the right side, to what cavalry troop, to what artillery service, to what garrison duty do you belong? In other words, in what Sabbath-school do you teach? in what prayer-meeting do you exhort? to what penitentiary do you declare eternal liberty? to what almshouse do you announce the riches of heaven? What broken bone of sorrow have you ever set? Are you doing nothing? Is it possible that a man or woman sworn to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ is doing nothing? Then hide the horrible secret from the angels. Keep it away from the book of judgment. If you are doing nothing do not let the world find it out, lest they charge your religion with being a false-face. Do not let your cowardice and treason be heard among the martyrs about the throne, lest they forget the sanctity of the place and curse your betrayal of that cause for which they agonized and died.
May the eternal God rouse us all to action! As for myself, I feel I would be ashamed to die now and enter heaven until I have accomplished something more decisive for the Lord that bought me. I would like to join with you in an oath, with hand high uplifted to heaven, swearing new allegiance to Jesus Christ, and to work more for His kingdom. Are you ready to join with me in some new work for Christ? I feel that there is such a thing as claustral piety, that there is such a thing as insular work; but it seems to me that what we want now is concerted action. The temple of Berith is very broad, and it is very high. It has been going up by the hands of men and devils, and no human enginery can demolish it; but if the fifty thousand ministers of Christ in this country should each take a branch of the tree of life, and all their congregations should do the same, and we should march on and throw these branches around the great temples of sin, and worldliness and folly, it would need no match, or coal, or torch of ours to touch off the pile; for, as in the days of Elijah, fire would fall from heaven and kindle the bonfire of Christian victory over demolished sin. It is kindling now! Huzzah! The day is ours!
Still further, I learn from this subject the danger of false refuges. As soon as these Shechemites got into the temple they thought they were safe. They said: "Berith will take care of us. Abimelech may batter down everything else; he can not batter down this temple where we are now hid." But very soon they heard the timbers crackling, and they were smothered with smoke, and they miserably died. And you and I are just as much tempted to false refuges. The mirror this morning may have persuaded you that you have a comely cheek; your best friends may have persuaded you that you have elegant manners. Satan may have told you that you are all right; but bear with me if I tell you that, if unpardoned, you are all wrong. I have no clinometer by which to measure how steep is the inclined plane you are descending, but I know it is very steep. "Well," you say, "if the Bible is true I am a sinner. Show me some refuge; I will step right into it."
I suppose every person in this audience this moment is stepping into some kind of refuge. Here you step in the tower of good works. You say: "I shall be safe here in this refuge." The battlements are adorned; the steps are varnished; on the wall are pictures of all the suffering you have alleviated, and all the schools you have established, and all the fine things you have ever done. Up in that tower you feel you are safe. But hear you not the tramp of your unpardoned sins all around the tower? They each have a match. They are kindling the combustible material. You feel the heat and the suffocation. Oh, may you leap in time, the Gospel declaring: "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified."
"Well," you say, "I have been driven out of that tower; where shall I go?" Step into this tower of indifference. You say: "If this tower is attacked, it will be a great while before it is taken." You feel at ease. But there is an Abimelech, with ruthless assaults, coming on. Death and his forces are gathering around, and they demand that you surrender everything, and they clamor for your immortal overthrow, and they throw their skeleton arms in the windows, and with their iron fists they beat against the door; and while you are trying to keep them out you see the torches of judgment kindling, and every forest is a torch, and every mountain a torch, and every sea a torch; and while the Alps, the Pyrenees, and Himalayas turn into a live coal, blown redder and redder by the whirlwind breath of a God omnipotent, what will become of your refuge of lies?
"But," says some one, "you are engaged in a very mean business, driving us from tower to tower." Oh, no. I want to tell you of a Gibraltar that never has been and never will be taken; of a wall that no satanic assault can scale; of a bulwark that the judgment earthquakes can not budge. The Bible refers to it when it says: "In God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms." Oh, fling yourself into it! Tread down unceremoniously everything that intercepts you. Wedge your way there. There are enough hounds of death and peril after you to make you hurry. Many a man has perished just outside the tower, with his foot on the step, with his hand on the latch. Oh, get inside! Not one surplus second have you to spare. Quick, quick, quick!