morning newspaper that it will sail on a certain day, for two weeks we
have that advertisement before our eyes, and then we go down to the
docks fifteen minutes after it has shoved off into the stream and say:
"Come back. Give me another chance. It is not fair to treat me in this
way. Swing up to the dock again, and throw out planks, and let me come
on board." Such behavior would invite arrest as a madman.

And if, after the Gospel ship has lain at anchor before our eyes for
years and years, and all the benign voices of earth and heaven have
urged us to get on board, as she might sail away at any moment, and
after awhile she sails without us, is it common sense to expect her to
come back? You might as well go out on the Highlands at Neversink and
call to the "Aurania" after she has been three days out, and expect
her to return, as to call back an opportunity for heaven when it once
has sped away. All heaven offered us as a gratuity, and for a
life-time we refuse to take it, and then rush on the bosses of
Jehovah's buckler demanding another chance. There ought to be, there
can be, there will be no such thing as posthumous opportunity. Thus,
our common sense agrees with my text--"If the tree fall toward the
south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there
it shall be."

You see that this idea lifts this world up from an unimportant
way-station to a platform of stupendous issues, and makes all eternity
whirl around this hour. But one trial for which all the preparation
must be made in this world, or never made at all. That piles up all
the emphases and all the climaxes and all the destinies into life
here. No other chance! Oh, how that augments the value and the
importance of this chance!