Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/74

70 exchange for his soul?" Nothing can be compared to it in value. Lose that, and you lose your all. I beseech you therefore to attend earnestly to its high concerns. Beware of unbelief, pride, prejudice, envy and malice. These are the briers that render the soul barren, and prevent the word of divine truth from being so ingrafted into the heart as to bring forth fruit to the honor and glory of God. Seek diligently the influences of that Spirit who alone can cause the native desert of the heart to bud and blossom as the rose; and having the heavenly graces implanted therein by his own right hand, and abounding in the same when this painful life shall end, you may look forward in hope of being conveyed to that bright world where the soul no longer clogged in her devotional exercises by frail humanity, shall expand and grow more and more like God through everlasting ages.