organic, and the result of association; it poisoned their blood at the
start, and stamped itself on their features from their cradles. Human
law, in dealing with these victims of evil circumstance, can make little
discrimination. Society must protect itself, treating a criminal as a
criminal. But what will God do with them hereafter? Be sure he will do
right. Where little is given, little will be required. It shall be
better for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for Chorazin and
Bethsaida. There is no ruin without remedy, except that which a man
makes for himself by abusing mercy, and throwing away proffered
opportunity. Thoughts like these rushed through the preacher's mind, as
he stood there looking in the tear-bedewed faces of these men of crime.
A fresh tide of pity rose in his heart, that he felt came from the heart
of the all-pitying One.

"I do not try to disguise from you, or from myself the fact that for
this life your outlook is not bright. But I come to you this day with a
message of hope from God our Father. He hath not appointed you to wrath.
He loves all his children. He sent his Son to die for them. Jesus trod
the paths of pain, and drained the cup of sorrow. He died as a
malefactor, for malefactors. He died for me. He died for each one of
you. If I knew the most broken, the most desolate-hearted, despairing
man before me, who feels that he is scorned of men and forsaken of God,
I would go to where he sits and put my hand on his head, and tell him
that God hath not appointed him to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our
Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. I would tell him that his Father in
heaven loves him still, loves him more than the mother that bore him. I
would tell him that all the wrongs and follies of his past life may from
this hour be turned into so much capital of a warning experience, and
that a million of years from today he may be a child of the Heavenly
Father, and an heir of glory, having the freedom of the heavens and the