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I. MAN HAS A SOUL.. The soul touches the highest part of the universe. Nature ministers to nature; but nature cannot feed the soul. The fruits, and grapes, and animals cannot contribute to the being of the soul. God, who is its Parent, can alone minister to it. This is that difference between the spirit of the beast which goeth downward, and the spirit of man which goeth upward. "We are dust and Deity," says a great poet: most true. This is our original Turn into reality the great fact that you have a soul. Did you ever hear how Fichte awoke the consciousness of his hearers? He pointed to the wall, the white wall. " Gentlemen," said he, "I want you to think the wall. Have you thought the wall? Now, think the man that thought the wall." Ah! to do that is to realize to ourselves our soul.

II. IT IS OF INFINITE VALUE.

1. Think of its power.

(1) It can sin. It is capable of moral wrong. The soul has had power to disturb the universe.

(2) It can suffer. Oh, how it can suffer, remorse, conscience, despair! Nay, we estimate the greatness of the soul by its power to suffer.

(3) It can think. How it can think! Can be even wild with thought, and rend the poor body as the strong wind rends oaks and rocks!

2. Its duration. For ever: no cessation.

III. A SOUL MAY BE LOST. Nay, every soul in the world is, in fact, lost. Do you know it? do you feel it? Lost! For there are but two ways in the universe — God's and man's. To be lost, is to wander into the far country, and to attempt to feed an angel nature with the husks that the swine eat. Picture to yourselves the man on the dark moor at night among the mountains — amidst the mists — lost. I may mention four causes of the loss of the soul.

1. Ignorance.

2. Error.

3. Passion.

4. A perverted will: underlying the whole.These are the marks of human nature in its present state. And to be lost, is to love our natural state, and to persist in it. You may remember an incident in the united lives of two men, with whose labours and lives, it may be, you have on the whole little sympathy. When Francis Xavier, the youthful, the eloquent, the noble, was engaged in the pursuits of his varied and wonderful mind, in Paris, in the university, and its more romantic neighbourhood, as he yielded himself to the fascinations mingling around him, there stepped forth and spoke to him a plainly dressed and powerful preacher of lofty bearing and stern deportment, mighty in the assumption of a voluntary poverty — Ignatius Loyola. "Francis," said he, "'What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" He would not let the youth go. He attended the hall where Xavier delivered his eloquent prelections; he stood and listened before the orator's chair; but when the applause had subsided, and the crowd had retired, then he was by the side of the eloquent scholar. He touched him on the shoulder; "Francis," said he, "'What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" Noble as he was, Xavier was not rich; his affairs became embarrassed; he needed help. The stern apostle of voluntary poverty did not forsake; he came to him with assistance; he produced mysterious aid; but, as he put the bag into the hands of his friend, he was ready with his old question, "Francis, 'What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" They wandered together by the banks of the Seine; they trod together through its groves of trees, and wound their way into its lovely recesses; but even as the enthusiastic and imaginative Xavier paused, enraptured before the spectacle of some astonishing beauty, some enchanting or spell-compelling spot, the voice thrilled through him: "Francis, 'What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" And the reader knows that earnestness subdued the eloquent scholar, and he became the comrade and the disciple of Ignatius Loyola. You have heard of the Mammoth Cave in America — a world under the ground — how many miles no one can tell, rivers, lakes, chambers, immense territories all in darkness, where the light of the sun never penetrated. But nineteen miles within the cave, 450 feet beneath the soil, there was yet a descent called the Bottomless Pit. Down into that no man would go; they had sounded 150 feet, and yet had not reached the depth; no man would go; the guide refused 500 dollars offered him to go. At length a poor man came, a young man, and he determined he would descend. Ropes were procured, and he descended 150 feet. He walked among those galleries of darkness, alone, through those depths and corridors of gloom; he began to ascend, but as he ascended he stayed to throw himself into an interminable cave on the side of the pit; there as he roamed through its fissures, his light went out — no light — and alone in that gloom — lost! And the light was kindled again; but he found, as he began to ascend, the rope was on fire. Ah! what shall he do now? What think you, ascending — looking up to that faint ray, and the fire burning — burning. But it was extinguished, he was saved. But is it not the very picture of a poor soul? In the deep night, the light extinguished. And sometimes those very powers by which he might ascend, — his passions, his intellect, his will, only kindling to ruin him — affections which might unite to God, turning to fire to separate him for ever.

IV. And why? FOR THE SOUL MAY BE SAVED. Surely no person will say, "What shall I do to be saved?" But if so, I have only to say, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And if you say, I cannot believe, in a word, I have only to say — say thou to God, "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me." Pray, and you shall not fail to obtain the knowledge of Christ and Him crucified.

(E. Paxton Hood.)

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KJV: For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?

WEB: For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?