WRECKED FOR TWO WORLDS.

"Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."-1 Corinthians ix., 27.

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INISTERS of religion may finally be lost. tle, in the text, indicates that possibility. surplice and cardinal's red hat are no security. Cardinal Wolsey, after having been petted by kings, and having entertained foreign embassadors at Hampton Court, died in darkness. One of the most eminent ministers of religion that this country has ever known, plunged into sin and died, his heart, in post-mortem examination, found to have been, not figuratively, but literally, broken. O ministers of Christ! because we have diplomas of graduation, and hands of ordination on the head, and address consecrated assemblages, that is no reason why we shall necessarily reach the realm celestial. The clergyman must go through the same gate of pardon as the layman. The preacher may get his audience into heaven, and he himself miss it. There have been cases of shipwreck where all on board escaped excepting the captain. Alas! if, having "preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." God forbid it.

I have examined some of the commentaries to see what they thought about this word "castaway," and I find that they differ in regard to the figure used, while they agree in regard to the meaning. So I shall make my own selection, and take it in a nautical and sea-faring sense, and show you

that men may become spiritual castaways, and how finally they drift into that calamity.

We are a sea-board town. You have all stood on the beach. Many of you have crossed the ocean. Some of you have managed vessels in great stress of weather. There is a sea-captain; and there is another; and yonder is another; and there are a goodly number of you who, though once you did not know the difference between a brig and a bark, and between a diamond knot and a sprit-sheet-sail knot, and although you could not point out the weather-cross jack-brace, and though you could not man the fore cluegarnets, now you are as familiar with a ship as you are with your right hand, and, if it were necessary, you could take a vessel clear across to the mouth of the Mersey without the loss of a single sail. Well, there is a dark night in your memory of the sea. The vessel became unmanageable. You saw it was scudding toward the shore. You heard the cry, "Breakers ahead! Land on the lee bow!" The vessel struck the rock, and you felt the deck breaking up under your feet, and you were a castaway, as when the Hercules drove on the coast of Caffraria, as when the Portuguese brig went staving, splitting, grinding, crashing on the Goodwins. But whether you have followed the sea or not, you all understand the figure when I tell you that there are men who by their sins and temptations are thrown helpless! Driven before the gale! Wrecked for two worlds! Cast away! cast away!

By talking with some sailors, I have found out that there are three or four causes for such a calamity to a vessel. I have been told that it sometimes comes from creating false lights on the beach. This was often so in olden times. It is not many years ago, indeed, that vagabonds used to wander

All kinds

up and down the beach, getting vessels ashore in the night,
throwing up false lights in their presence and deceiving
them, that they might despoil and ransack them.
of infernal arts were used to accomplish this. And one
night, on the Cornish coast, when the sea was coming in
fearfully, some villains took a lantern and tied it to a horse,
and led the horse up and down the beach, the lantern sway-
ing to the motion of the horse, and a sea-captain in the off-
ing saw it, and made up his mind that he was not anywhere
near the shore, for he said, "There's a vessel; that must be
a vessel, for it has a movable light," and he had no appre-
hension until he heard the rocks grating on the ship's bot-
tom, and it went to pieces, and the villains on shore gath-
ered up the packages and the treasures that were washed
to the land. And I have to tell you that there are a
multitude of souls ruined by false lights on the beach. In
the dark night of man's danger, Universalism goes up and
down the shore, shaking its lantern, and men look off and
take that flickering and expiring wick as the signal of safe-
ty, and the cry is, "Heave the main-topsail to the mast!
All is well!" when sudden destruction cometh upon them,
and they shall not escape. So there are all kinds of lan-
terns swung on the beach-philosophical lanterns, educa-
tional lanterns, humanitarian lanterns. Men look at them,
and are deceived, when there is nothing but God's eternal
light-house of the Gospel that can keep them from becom-
ing castaways. Once, on Wolf Crag Light-house, they tried
to build a copper figure of a wolf with its mouth open, so
that, the storms beating into it, the wolf would howl forth
the danger to mariners that might be coming anywhere
near the coast. Of course it was a failure. And so all
new inventions for the saving of man's soul are unavailing

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What the human race wants is a light bursting forth from the cross standing on the great headlands-the light of pardon, the light of comfort, the light of heaven. You might 'better go to-night, and destroy all the great light-houses on the dangerous coasts-the Barnegat Light-house, the Fastnet Rock Light-house, the Skerry vore Light-house, the Longship's Light-house, the Hollyhead Light-house—than to put out God's great ocean lamp-the Gospel. Woe to those who swing false lanterns on the beach till men crash in and perish! Cast away! cast away!

By talking with sailors, I have heard also that sometimes ships come to this calamity by the sudden swoop of a tempest. For instance, a vessel is sailing along in the East Indies, and there is not a single cloud on the sky; but suddenly the breeze freshens, and there are swift feet on the ratlines, and the cry is, "'Way! haul away there!" but, before they can square the booms and tarpaulin the hatchways, the vessel is groaning and creaking in the grip of a tornado, and falls over into the trough of the sea, and, broadside-on, rolls on to the beach and keels over, leaving the crew to struggle in the merciless surf. Cast away cast away! And so I have to tell you that there are thousands of men destroyed through the sudden swoop of temptations. Some great inducement to worldliness, or to sen suality, or to high temper, or to some form of dissipation, comes upon them. If they had time to examine their Bible, if they had time to consult with their friends, if they had time to deliberate, they could stand it; but the temptation came so suddenly-a euroclydon on the Mediterranean, a whirlwind of the Caribbean. One awful surge of temptation, and they perish. And so we often hear the old story, "I hadn't seen my friend in a great many years.

We were very glad to meet. He said I must drink, and he took me by the arm and pressed me along, and filled the cup until the bubbles ran over the edge, and in an evil moment all my good resolutions were swept away, and, to the outraging of God and my own soul, I fell." Or the story is, "I had hard work to support my family. I knew that by one false entry, by one deception, by one embez zlement, I might spring out free from all my trouble; but the temptation came upon me so fiercely I could not think. I did wrong, and having done wrong once, I could not stop." Oh, it is the first step that costs; the second is easier, and the third, and on to the last. Once having broken loose from the anchor, it is not so easy to tie the parted strands. How often it is that men perish for the reason that the temptation comes from some unexpected quarter! as vessels lie in Margate Roads, safe from southwest winds; but the wind changing to the north-east, they are driven helpless, and go down. Oh that God would have mercy upon those upon whom there comes the sudden swoop of temptation, that they perish not, becoming, for this world and the world to come, cast away! cast away!

By talking with sailors, I have found out also that some vessels come to this calamity through sheer recklessness. There are three million men who follow the sea for a living. It is a simple fact that the average of human life on the sea is less than twelve years. This comes from the fact that men by familiarity with danger sometimes become reckless-the captain, the helmsman, the stoker, the man on the lookout, become reckless, and in nine out of ten shipwrecks it is found out that some one was awfully to blame. So I have to tell you that men lose their souls through sheer recklessness. There are thousands of my