Views of Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... holy example of pious parents; the instructions of Sunday School teachers;--these are gone. Some of you can look back on thirty, forty, fifty years of lost opportunities. What a dismal sight A desolate swamp, instead of a blooming garden of the Lord There was not an hour in all those years when you might not have returned to God, and obtained His forgiveness, and secured your soul's salvation; and yet all this remains neglected to the present day. This neglect of opportunity is Satan's most successful device to ruin men. He is willing that you should believe all that God teaches in the Bible, if you will but neglect attending to it. Suffer not yourselves, I pray you, to be deluded any longer by this 'master-stroke of the devil's policy. You are now in the midst of present opportunities. But they are gliding away every moment. Sabbaths and sermons become fewer. Days, and weeks, and months, and even years, pass quickly; and we who are permitted to know them once soon know them no more. "Lo here hath been dawning another blue day; Think wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of Eternity this new day is born; Into Eternity, at night, will return. "Behold it aforetime no eye ever did; So soon it for ever from all eyes is hid: Here hath been dawning another blue day; Think wilt thou let it slip useless away?" Every day our life is contracting into a smaller compass. John Foster, with his usual originality and force, likens our case to that of a man shut up in a garrison, with only a hidden reservoir of water, never replenished, to draw from. The water is daily decreasing; every drop which runs makes the supply less; all will soon be exhausted; yet the man knows not how soon. What a striking illustration of the exhaustion of...