MAN'S GREAT FAILURE.

I WANT now to call your attention to a clause in that chapter I have just read, a part of the 22d verse: “For there is no diference.” Now that is one of the verses, one of the portions of Scripture, that the natural man don't like. I have had many a quarrel with men on this verse, because we are just apt to think we are a little better than our friends and our neighbors, and men don't like to believe there is no difference. It is one of the greatest lessons a man has to learn that he is a sinner. If you don't believe that you are sick you won't call in a physician. It is just because the natural man don't like this text I have taken it to-night. I have found out long ago that the lessons we don't like are the best medicine for us. I can imagine there is some one here who says, "I don't believe that statement, that there is no difference." I can imagine there is some one here who says "Isn't it better for a man to be a sober man than it is to be a drunkard? Isn't it better for a man to be honest than it is for a man to be dishonest?" Yes, we will admit all that; but that don't apply when it comes to the great question of salvation. If a man has not been saved from his sin, he must perish like the rest of the world. Now if a man wants to find out what be is, let him turn to the 3d chapter of Romans. He can read his life there. If you want to read your own biography, you need not write it yourself. Turn to the third chapter of Romans, and it is

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all there, written by a man who knows a good deal more about us than we do about ourselves. Christ was the only one that ever trod this earth that saw everything in the heart of man. We read that He didn't commit himself, because He knew their hearts. The heart is deceitful. Who can know it? It is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately wicked. Now, Satan either tries to make men believe that they are good enough without salvation, or if he can't make them believe that, he tries to tell them that they are so bad God won't have anything to do with them.

The law isn't to save men, but the law is brought in just to show man that he is lost and ruined under the law. These people that are trying to save themselves by the law are making the worst mistakes of their lives. Some people

say if they try to do right they think that is all that is required of them. They say, "I try to keep the law." Well, did you ever know a man to keep the law except the Son of God himself? The law was never given to save men by. "And what was the law then given for?" It was given to show man his lost and ruined condition. It was given to measure men by their fruits.

Before God saves a man he

first stops his mouth. I meet some people in the inquiry room who talk a good deal. When I meet those people I say to myself, "They are very far from the Kingdom of God." A perfect God couldn't give an imperfect standard; a perfect God sees that the law is pure and good; but we are not good if we don't come up to the standard. Now if a man should come into New York City and advertise that he could take a photograph of people's hearts and give a perfect likeness, do you think he would get a customer in New York? If we go to have a photograph taken we brush ourselves up, and we have it taken sitting, and standing, and sitting in this position and sitting in that position, and standing in this position and standing in that position, and if the artist flatters us and makes us look better than we

do, we send it around to our friends, and we say, “Yes, that is a good likeness." Suppose the artist could get a photograph of the heart of the true man, do you think he would get many customers? A good many of you would say: “I wouldn't like to have the wife of my bosom see my heart. I wouldn't like to have her read my secret throughts.” The heart of man is a fountain of corruption, vileness, and pollution, and there is no hope for a man being saved until he finds out he is bad.

And so the law is a looking-glass just to show a man how foul he is in the sight of God. A little while before the Chicago fire I went home one afternoon to my family, and I thought I would take them out riding. My little boy, about two years old, clapped his hands, wanted to know if I wouldn't take him up to Lincoln Park to see the bears. I said that I would, and I went out. I hadn't been gone a great while when the little fellow wanted his mother to wash him up, and then he wanted to go out and play. Well, he got playing in the dirt, and he got all covered with dirt, and when I drove up he wanted to get into the carriage. I said, “No, Willie, you are not ready, I must take you in and get you washed." The little fellow said, “O, papa, I'se ready." I told him he wasn't ready, he was all over dirt. "But papa, mamma washed me; I'se clean." I could not make him believe that his face was all dirt. He could not believe it: his mamma washed him, and he was clean. So I took him up and let the little fellow see himself in the looking-glass in the carriage. He saw the dirt, and it stopped his mouth. I held him up to the lookingglass so that he saw the dirt, but I did not take the looking-glass to wash his face with. That is what people do The law was not given to save man. It was given to show him his lost and ruined condition. It wasn't given to save men-the Son of God came to do that work-but the law is the schoolmaster that came to show us what to do

when we are saved. Stop all this idle doing, and just come to the fountain that has just been opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanliness. I can imagine some of you may say, "I am sure I am not as some people. I am not a publican. I never got drunk in my life. I don't like to have Mr. Moody say I am as bad as other people." I don't know but pharisaism is as bad as drunkenness, and I find you can just sum up the whole human race into about two heads-the publican and the pharisee. Yonder is an orchard, and in that orchard there are two apple treesmiserable, sour, bitter. Stop, one of them is bare; they are worthless. Why are they good for nothing? Well, one tree has got five hundred apples, and the other has got five. There is no difference. The fact is the tree is bad. One man may have more fruit than another; but the fruit is bad from the old Adam's stock. God didn't look for good fruit from Adam's stock. Make the fountain good, and the stream will be good. Make men's hearts good, and their lives will be good. You might as well tell a man to jump over the moon as to be moral, if he hasn't got God in his heart. The way to improve the soul of a man is to strike at the root of the tree, and if the heart is right and in sympathy with God there will be no trouble about the life. You need not be cultivating a crab-apple tree. That is what some people do.

Now, in the law it is written that a man that breaks the least of the law is guilty of all. Some people say, “I have not broken the ten commandments." They seem to think that the ten commandments are ten different laws. But a man who breaks the least of the commandments has broken all, and if you have broken one of the commandments you have broken the law of God. Some people think that if they only fail in one commandment they are not so bad; but if a man is guilty of breaking one, he breaks all. And where can we find one man who does not break

more than one commandment?

How many people here in New York worship idols! Measure your heart by the law of God, my friends, and you'll find yourself guilty. The reason why people sin so much is because they don't believe they do sin. Unbelief is the root of all evil. Adam sinned through unbelief, and we must get out of the pit at the same place he fell in. He fell by unbelief, and we must believe to be saved. You go to a prison and you will

find there a good many criminals; one is there for one offense and one for another, but they are all criminals. So here to-night, some of us are guilty of one offense and some of another, but we are all sinners.

A few years ago we had a law in our city requiring all the policemen to be of a certain height, five feet and ten inches, I think it was, and of a good moral character, and to be well recommended. One day as I was going down the street with a friend, I saw a crowd of men standing in front of the Commissioners' office, waiting to be examined. Now suppose my friend had gone with me into the Commissioner's office, and we had presented certificates of good moral character coming from persons high in place. When I came to present my recommendations the Commissioner I would have said, "Well, Mr. Moody, before we look at your papers we will proceed to measure you ;" and lo, I am found to be but about five feet high! So I am rejected. And my friend might say, " O, well, I am taller than you are, so I need have no fear on that score ;" but when they come to measure him he is found to be just one-tenth of an inch too short, and they throw him out too. My father once told me that in England the archers used to shoot at a ring, and if any archer failed to shoot all his arrows through the ring he was called a sinner. Now suppose I should take ten arrows and try to send them through a ring at the other side of the building and should only get one through, I should be called a sinner. And suppose