gape and stare; how they prick their ears to hear the name! The paper is opened and the crier calls out the prize: “four thousand pounds!” How excited all are to know who is the lucky man! The paper with the name is then drawn; who is it? A poor servant-maid, so you are to imagine, who has with great difficulty saved enough out of her small salary to pay for her lottery ticket; she is the recipient of that large sum. Poor girl! what are your feelings on hearing the good news? I believe that it makes you almost beside yourself, and that you can hardly understand the shouts and congratulations of the people at seeing you thus raised from poverty to a condition of affluence. Let us go still farther in our efforts to picture that great joy to our minds; and this time I descend to mere child’s play. How great the joy and exultation of the student when at the end of the year he is called on to mount the stage before all the people, there to receive the first golden book at the end of the play! This prize, small as it is, for often the book is not worth more than a few shillings, is yet much coveted, for it is a mark of honor and a proof of diligence, and being given before the public causes such satisfaction as can hardly be realized except by the student himself who receives it; his parents, if they are present, are frequently unable to restrain their tears, so great is the consolation and joy they experience, especially when there are friends and acquaintances to add to the festive occasion by their congratulations. Ask one of them what they value that honor and joy at. I am sure they would not give it for a hundred pounds.
Every word of the invitation shall cause great joy.
Now a little higher with your thoughts, my dear brethren. I have said that I descend to child’s play; but all these instances of good fortune that I have adduced are in reality mere trifles compared to the bliss to which the servants of God shall be called and invited on that great day of the Lord. Then there shall not be question of selecting a bride for a mortal king, or of being called to a perishable crown; for the elect shall be chosen and invited by the eternal Son of God to the everlasting joys of heaven. There is question, not of a hundred or a thousand pounds, but of an inexhaustible treasure of riches, that are to be possessed for all eternity. There is question of a prize of honor that consists, not in a book covered with gilding, but in a reward so valuable that the whole world could not purchase it; because this prize is the infinite God Himself, who is given as it