The thunders of God's justice shook his soul, while he offered her the infinite mercy of Christ.

But he did not shrink from acknowledging that that mercy was only for those who would accept it, nor presume to dictate to God that all sinners should be saved, forced into salvation, without accepting his conditions.
"What right," he said, "have we to expect that mercy should exist at all?
What madness, then, to think He will depart from the course He has laid out for himself, and save without condition those who are justly condemned?
Yet justice is satisfied, for Christ has died.

O Soul, accept that sacrifice!" He had come to the edge of the pulpit, one pale hand clinched upon the heavy cover of the Bible, and the other stretched tremblingly out; his anxious, grieving eyes looked over the solemn, upturned faces of his listeners, and sought Helen, sitting in the dusky shadow by the open window, her face a little averted, and her firm, sweet lips set in a line which was almost stern.
Some of the women were crying: an exaltation purely hysterical made them feel themselves lost sinners; they thrilled at John's voice, as though his words touched some strained chord in their placid and virtuous lives.
"Come," he said, "stand with me to-day under the pierced hands and bleeding side of Infinite Mercy; look up into that face of divine compassion and ineffable tenderness, and know that this blood-stained cross proclaims to all the centuries death suffered for the sin of the world,--for your sin and mine.

Can you turn and go away to outer darkness, to wander through the shadows of eternity, away from God, away from hope, away from love?
Oh, come, while still those arms are open to you; come, before the day of grace has darkened into night; come, before relentless Justice bars the way with a flaming sword.

O Soul, Christ waits!" He stood a moment, leaning forward, his hands clasped upon the big Bible, and his face full of trembling and passionate pleading.