390. Profit and Loss

Profit and Loss

Mar_8:36 : ’93What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’94

I am accustomed, Sabbath by Sabbath, to stand before an audience of bargain-makers. There may be men in all occupations sitting before me, yet the vast majority of them, I am very well aware, are engaged from Monday morning to Saturday night in the store. In many of the families of my congregation, across the breakfast-table and the tea-table are discussed questions of loss and gain. You are every day asking yourself, ’93What is the value of this? What is the value of that?’94 You would not think of giving something of greater value for that which is of lesser value. You would not think of selling that which cost you ten dollars for five dollars. If you had a property that was worth fifteen thousand dollars, you would not sell it for four thousand dollars. You are intelligent in all matters of bargain-making. Are you as wise in the things that pertain to the matters of the soul? Christ adapted his instructions to the circumstances of those to whom he spoke. When he talked to fishermen, he spoke of the Gospel net. When he talked to the farmers, he said, ’93A sower went forth to sow.’94 When he talked to the shepherds, he told the parable of the lost sheep. And am I not right when speaking to an audience made up of bargain-makers, that I address them in the words of my text, asking, ’93What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’94

I propose, as far as possible, to estimate and compare the value of two properties. First, I have to say that the world is a very grand property. Its flowers are God’92s thoughts in bloom. Its rocks are God’92s thoughts in stone. Its dew-drops are God’92s thoughts in pearl. This world is God’92s child’97a wayward child indeed; it has wandered off through the heavens. But about nineteen hundred years ago, one Christmas night, God sent out a sister world to call that wanderer back, and it hung over Bethlehem only long enough to get the promise of the wanderer’92s return, and now that lost world, with soft feet of light, comes treading back through the heavens. The hills, how beautiful they billow up, the edge of the wave white with the foam of crocuses! How beautiful the rainbow, the arched bridge on which heaven and earth come and talk to each other in tears, after the storm is over! How nimble the feet of the lamp-lighters that in a few minutes set all the dome of the night ablaze with brackets of fire! How bright the oar of the saffron cloud that rows across the deep sea of heaven! How beautiful the spring, with bridal blossoms in her hair! I wonder who it is that beats time on a June morning for the bird orchestra. How gently the harebell tolls its fragrance on the air! There may be grander worlds, swarthier worlds, larger worlds than this; but I think that this is a most exquisite world’97a mignonette on the bosom of immensity! ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93take my soul! give me that world! I am willing to take it in exchange. I am ready now for the bargain. It is so beautiful a world, so sweet a world, so grand a world!’94

But let us look more minutely into the value of this world. You will not buy property unless you can get a good title to it. After you have looked at the property and found out that it suits you, you send an attorney to the public office, and he examines the book of deeds, and the book of mortgages, and the book of judgments, and the book of liens, and he decides whether the title is good before you will have anything to do with it. There might be a splendid property, and in every way exactly suited to your want; but if you cannot get a good title, you will not take it. Now, it is impossible to get a good title to this world. If I settle down upon it, in the very year I so settle down upon it as a permanent possession, I may be driven away from it. Ay, in five minutes after I give up my soul for the world I may have to part with the world; and what kind of a title do you call that? There is only one way in which I can hold an earthly possession, and that is through the senses. All beautiful sights through the eye, but the eye may be blotted out; all captivating sounds through the ear, but my ear may be deafened; all lusciousness of fruits and viands through my taste, but my taste may be destroyed; all appreciation of culture and of art through my mind, but I may lose my mind. What a frail hold, then, I have upon any earthly possession!

In courts of law, if you want to get a man off a property, you must serve upon him a writ of ejectment, giving him a certain time to vacate the premises; but when death comes to us and serves a writ of ejectment, he does not give us one second of forewarning. He says: ’93Off this place! You have no right any longer to the possession.’94 We might cry out: ’93I gave you a hundred thousand dollars for that property;’94 the plea would be of no avail. We might say: ’93We have a warrantee deed for that property;’94 the plea would be of no avail. We might say: ’93We have a lien on that storehouse;’94 that would do us no good. Death is blind, and he cannot see a seal, and cannot read an indenture. So that, first and last, I want to tell you that when you propose that I give up my soul for the world, you cannot give me the first item of title.

Having examined the title of a property, your next question is about insurance. You would not be silly enough to buy a large warehouse that could not possibly be insured. You would not have anything to do with such a property. Now, I ask you what assurance can you give me that this world is not going to be burned up? Absolutely none. Geologists tell us that it is already on fire; that the heart of the world is one great living coal; that it is just like a ship on fire at sea, the flames not bursting out because the hatches are kept down. And yet you propose to palm off on me, in return for my soul, a world for which, in the first place, you give no title, and in the second place, for which you can give no insurance. ’93Oh,’94 you say, ’93the water of the oceans will wash over all the land and put out the fire.’94 Oh, no. There are inflammable elements in the water, hydrogen and oxygen. Call off the hydrogen, and then the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans would blaze like heaps of shavings. You want me to take this world, for which you can give no possible insurance.

Astronomers have swept their telescopes through the sky, and have found out that there have been thirteen worlds, in the last two centuries, that have disappeared. At first, they looked just like other worlds. Then they got deeply red’97they were on fire. Then they got ashen, showing they were burned down. Then they disappeared, showing that even the ashes were scattered. And if the geologists be right in his prophecy, then our world is to go in the same way. And yet you want me to exchange my soul for it. Ah, no; it is a world that is burning now. Suppose you brought an insurance agent to look at your property for the purpose of giving you a policy upon it, and while he stood in front of the house, he should say: ’93That house is on fire now in the basement,’94 you could not get any insurance upon it. Yet you talk about this world as though it were a safe investment, as though you could get some insurance upon it, when down in the basement it is on fire.

I remark, also, that this world is a property, with which everybody who has taken it as a possession has had trouble. Now, between my house and my church in Brooklyn, there was a reach of land which was not built on. I asked what was the matter, and they replied that everybody who had anything to do with that property got into trouble about it. It is just so with this world; everybody that has had anything to do with it, as a possession has been in perplexity. How was it with Lord Byron? Did he not sell his immortal soul for the purpose of getting the world? Was he satisfied with the possession? Alas! alas! the poem graphically describes his case when it says:

Drank every cup of joy,

Heard every trump of fame;

Drank early, deeply drank,

Drank draughts which common millions might have quenched

Then died of thirst, because there was no more to drink

Oh, yes; he had trouble with it; and so did Napoleon. After conquering nations by the force of the sword, the victor lies down to die, his entire possession the military boots that he insisted on having upon his feet while he was dying. So it has been with men who had better ambition. Thackeray, one of the most genial and lovable souls, after he had won- the applause of all intelligent lands through his wonderful genius, sits down in a restaurant in Paris, looks to the other end of the room, and wonders whose that forlorn and wretched face is; rising up after a while, he finds that it is Thackeray in the mirror. Oh, yes; this world is a cheat. Talk about a man gaining the world! Who ever gained half of the world? Who ever owned a hemisphere? Who ever gained a continent? Who ever owned Asia? Who ever gained a city? Talk about gaining the world! No man ever gained it, or the hundred-thousandth part of it. You are demanding that I sell my soul, not for the world, but for a fragment of it.

Here is a man who has had a large estate for forty or fifty years. He lies down to die. You say: ’93That man is worth millions and millions of dollars.’94 Is he? You call up a surveyor, with his compass and chains, and you say: ’93There is a property extending three miles in one direction, and three miles in another direction.’94 Is that the way to measure that man’92s property? No! You do not want any surveyor, with compass and chains. That is not the way to measure that man’92s property now. It is an undertaker you need, who will come and put his finger in his vest-pocket, and take out a tape-line, and he will measure five feet nine inches one way, and two feet and a half the other way. That is the man’92s property. Oh, no; I forgot; not so much as that, for he does not own even the place in which he lies in the cemetery. The deed to that belongs to the executors and the heirs. Oh, what a property you propose to give me for my soul! If you sell a bill of goods, you go into the counting-room, and say to your partner: ’93Do you think that man is good for this bill? Can he give proper security? Will he meet this payment?’94 Now, when you are offered this world as a possession, I want you to test the matter. I do not want you to go into this bargain blindly. I want you to ask about the title, about the insurance, about whether men have ever had any trouble with it, about whether you can keep it, about whether you can get all, or the ten-thousandth, or one-hundred-thousandth part of it.

There is the world now. I shall say no more about it. Make up your mind for yourself, as I shall, before God, have to make up my mind for myself, about the value of this world. I cannot afford to make a mistake for my soul, and you cannot afford to make a mistake for your soul.

Now, let us look at the other property’97the soul. We cannot make a bargain without seeing the comparative value. The soul! How shall I estimate the value of it? Well, by its exquisite organization. It is the most wonderful piece of mechanism ever put together. Machinery is of value in proportion as it is mighty and silent at the same time. You look at the engine and the machinery in the Philadelphia Mint, and, as you see it performing its wonderful work, you will be surprised to find how silently it goes. Machinery that roars and tears soon destroys itself; but silent machinery is often most effective. Now, so it is with the soul of man, with all its tremendous faculties’97it moves in silence. Judgment, without any racket, lifting its scales; memory, without any noise, bringing down all its treasures; conscience taking its judgment-seat without any excitement; the understanding and the will all doing their work. Velocity, majesty, might, but silence’97silence. You listen at the door of your heart. You can hear no sound. The soul is all quiet. It is so delicate an instrument that no human hand can touch it. You break a bone, and with splinters and bandages the surgeon sets it; the eye becomes inflamed, the apothecary’92s wash cools it; but a soul off the track, unbalanced, no human power can readjust it. With one sweep of its wing it circles the universe, and overvaults the throne of God. Why, in the hour of death the soul is so mighty, it throws aside the body as though it were a toy. It drives back medical skill as impotent. It breaks through the circle of loved ones who stand around the dying couch. With one leap, it springs beyond star and moon and sun and chasms of immensity. It is superior to all material things! No fire can consume it; no floods can drown it; no rocks can crush it; no walls can impede it; no time can exhaust it. It wants no bridge on which to cross a chasm. It wants no plummet with which to sound a depth. A soul so mighty, so swift, so silent, must be a priceless soul.

I calculate the value of the soul, also, by its capacity for happiness. How much joy it can get in this world, out of friendships, out of books, out of clouds, out of the sea, out of flowers, out of ten thousand things; and yet all the joy it has here does not test its capacity. You are in a concert before the curtain hoists, and you hear the instruments preparing’97the sharp snap of the broken string, the scraping of the bow across the viol. ’93There is no music in that,’94 you say. It is only getting ready for the music. And all the enjoyment of the soul in this world, the enjoyment we think is real enjoyment, is only preparative; it is only anticipative; it is only the first stages of the thing; it is only the entrance, the beginning of that which shall be the orchestral harmonies and splendors of the redeemed.

You cannot test the full power of the soul for happiness in this world. How much power the soul has here to find enjoyment in friendships! but oh, the grander friendships for the soul in the skies! How sweet the flowers here! but how much sweeter they will be there! I do not think that when flowers die on earth, they die forever. In the sunny valleys of heaven, shall not the marigold creep? On the hills of heaven, will not the amaranth bloom? On the amethystine walls of heaven, will not the jasmine climb? ’93My beloved is come down into his garden to gather lilies.’94 No flowers in heaven? Where, then, do they get their garlands for the brows of the righteous?

Christ is glorious to our souls now, but how much grander our appreciation after a while! A conqueror comes back after the battle. He has been fighting for us. He comes upon the platform. He has one arm in a sling and the other arm holds a crutch. As he mounts the platform, oh, the enthusiasm of the audience! They say, ’93That man fought for us, and imperiled his life for us’94; and how wild the huzza that follows huzza! When the Lord Jesus Christ shall at last stand out before the multitudes of the redeemed of heaven and we meet him face to face and feel that he was wounded in the head and wounded in the hands and wounded in the feet and wounded in the side for us, methinks we will be overwhelmed. We will sit some time gazing in silence, until some leader amidst the white-robed choir shall lift the baton of light, and give the signal that it is time to wake the song of jubilee; and all heaven then will break forth into, ’93Hosanna! hosanna! Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.’94

I calculate further the value of the soul by the price that has been paid for it. In St. Petersburg there is a diamond that the government paid two hundred thousand dollars for. ’93Well,’94 you say, ’93it must have been very valuable, or the government would not have paid two hundred thousand dollars for it.’94 I want to see what my soul is worth, and what your soul is worth, by seeing what has been paid for it. For that immortal soul, the richest blood that was ever shed, the deepest groan that was ever uttered, all the griefs of earth compressed into one tear, all the sufferings of earth gathered into one rapier of pain and struck through his holy heart. Does it not imply tremendous value?

I argue, also, the value of the soul from the home that has been fitted up for it in the future. One would have thought that a street of adamant would have done. No; it is a street of gold. One would have thought that a wall of granite would have done. No; it is the flame of sardonyx mingling with the green of emerald. One would have thought that an occasional doxology would have done. No; it is a perpetual song. If the ages of heaven marched in a straight line, some day the last regiment, perhaps, might pass out of sight; but no, the ages of heaven do not march in a straight line, but in a circle around about the throne of God; forever, forever, tramp, tramp! A soul so bought, so equipped, so provided for must be a priceless soul, a majestic soul, a tremendous soul.

Now, you have seen the two properties’97the world, the soul. One perishable, the other immortal. One unsatisfying, the other capable of ever-increasing felicity. Will you trade? Will you trade even? Remember, it is the only investment you can make. If a man sell a bill of goods worth five thousand dollars, and he is cheated out of it, he may get five thousand dollars somewhere else; but a man who invests his soul, invests all. Losing that, he loses all. Saving that, he saves all. In the light of my text, it seems to me as if you were offering your soul to the highest bidder; and I hear you say, ’93What is bid for it, my deathless spirit? What is bid for it?’94 Satan says, ’93I will bid the world.’94 You say, ’93Begone! that is no equivalent. Sell my soul for the world? No! Begone!’94 But there is some one else in the audience not so wise as that. He says, ’93What is bid for my immortal soul?’94 Satan says, ’93I will bid the world.’94 ’93The world? Going at that, going at that, going! Gone!’94 Gone forever!

What is the thing of greatest price,

The whole creation round?

That which was lost in Paradise,

That which in Christ is found.

Then let us gather round the cross,

That knowledge to obtain;

Not by the soul’92s eternal loss,

But everlasting gain.

Well, there are a great many people who say, ’93I will not sell my soul for the world. I find the world is an unsatisfying portion.’94 What, then, will you do with your soul? Some one whispers here, ’93I will give my soul to Christ.’94 Will you? That is the wisest resolution you ever made. Will you give it to Christ? When? To-morrow? No; now. I congratulate you if you have come to such a decision. Oh, if the eternal Spirit of God would now come down upon you and show you the vanity of this world and the immense importance of Christ’92s religion and the infinite value of your own immortal souls, what an hour this would be! what a moment this would be! Do you know that Christ has bought your soul? Do you know that he has paid an infinite price for it? Do you know that he is worthy of it? Will you give it to him now?

I was reading lately of a sailor who had just got ashore, and was telling about his last experience at sea. He said: ’93The last time I crossed the ocean we had a terrific time. After we had been out three or four days, the machinery got disarranged and the steam began to escape, and the captain, gathering the people and the crew on deck, said, ’91Unless some one will go down and shut off that steam, and arrange that machinery at the peril of his life, we must all be destroyed.’92 He was not willing to go down himself. No one seemed willing to go. The passengers gathered at one end of the steamer waiting for their fate. The captain said, ’91I give you a last warning. If there is no one here willing to imperil his life and go down and fix that machinery, we must all be lost.’92 A plain sailor said, ’91I’92ll go, sir’92; and he wrapped himself in a coarse piece of canvas and went down, and was gone but a few moments when the escaping steam stopped, and the machinery was adjusted. The captain cried out to the passengers, ’91All saved! Let us go down below and see what has become of the poor fellow.’92 They went down. There he lay dead.’94 Vicarious suffering! Died for all! Oh! do you suppose that those people on the ship ever forgot, ever can forget that poor fellow? ’93No!’94 they say; ’93it was through his sacrifice that I got ashore.’94 The time came when our whole race must die unless some one should endure torture and sorrow and shame. Who shall come to the rescue? Shall it be one of the seraphim? Not one. Shall it be one of the cherubim? Not one. Shall it be an inhabitant of some pure and unfallen world? Not one. Then Christ said, ’93Lo! I come to do thy will, O God’94; and he went down the dark stairs of our sin and wretchedness and misery and woe and he stopped the peril and he died, that you and I might be free. Oh, the love! oh, the endurance! oh, the horrors of the sacrifice! Shall not our souls go out toward him, saying, ’93Lord Jesus Christ, take my soul. Thou art worthy to have it. Thou hast died to save it.’94

God help you rightly to cipher out this sum in Gospel arithmetic: ’93What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage