It is hard to imagine a life more unworthy of an immortal creature than such a life as I have just described, for it reduces a man to the level of a beast. But it is literally and truly the life of multitudes in England; and as they pass away their place is taken by multitudes like them. The picture, no doubt, is horrible, distressing, and revolting: but, unhappily, it is only too true. In every large town, in every market, on every stock-exchange, in every club, you may see specimens of this class by scores,--men who think of everything under the sun except the one thing needful,--the salvation of their souls. Like the Jews of old they do not "consider their ways," they do not "consider their latter end;" they do not "consider that they do evil." (Isa. i. 3; Hag. i. 7; Deut. xxxii. 29; Eccles. v. i.) Like Gallio they "care for none of these things:" they are not in their way. (Acts xviii. 17.) If they prosper in the world, and get rich, and succeed in their line of life, they are praised, and admired by their contemporaries. Nothing succeeds in England like success! But for all this they cannot live for ever. They will have to die and appear before the bar of God, and be judged; and then what will the end be? When a large class of this kind exists in our country, no reader need wonder that I ask whether he belongs to it. If you do, you ought to have a mark set on your door, as there used to be a mark on a plague-stricken house two centuries ago, with the words, "Lord have mercy on us," written on it. Look at the class I have been describing, and then look at your own soul.
(2) Let me ask, in the second place, _whether we ever do anything about our souls?_? There are multitudes in England who think occasionally about religion, but unhappily never get beyond thinking. After a stirring sermon,--or after a funeral,--or under the pressure of illness,--or on Sunday evening,--or when things are going on badly in their families,--or when they meet some bright example of a Christian,--or when they fall in with some striking religious book or tract,--they will at the time think a good deal, and even talk a little about religion in a vague way. But they stop short, as if thinking and talking were enough to save them. They are always meaning, and intending, and purposing, and resolving, and wishing, and telling us that they "know" what is right, and "hope" to be found right at last, but they never attain to any _action_. There is no actual separation from the service of the world and sin, no real taking up the cross and following Christ, no positive _doing_ in their Christianity. Their life is spent in playing the part of the son in our Lord's parable, to whom the father said, "Go, work in my vineyard: and he answered, I go, sir, and went not." (Matt. xxi. 30.) They are like those whom Ezekiel describes, who liked his preaching, but never practised what he preached:--"They come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them.... And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not." (Ezek. xxxiii. 31, 32.) In a day like this, when hearing and thinking, without _doing_, is so common, no one can justly wonder that I press upon men the absolute need of self-examination. Once more, then, I ask my readers to consider the question of my text,--"How do we do about our souls?"