There is not a soul-wreck on the streets, not a prisoner serving out a sentence behind iron bars, not a debased, fallen one anywhere, in whose soul there were not once visions of beauty, bright hopes, holy thoughts and purposes, and high resolves--an ideal of something lovely and noble.

But alas! the visions, the hopes, the purposes, the resolves, never grew into more than beginnings.

God's angels bend down and see a great wilderness of unfinished fabrics, splendid possibilities unfulfilled, noble might-have-beens abandoned, ghastly ruins now, sad memorials only of failure.
The lesson from all this is, that we should finish our work, that we should allow nothing to draw us away from our duty, that we should never weary in following Christ, that we should hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

We should not falter under any burden, in the face of any danger, before any demand of cost and sacrifice.

No discouragement, no sorrow, no worldly attraction, no hardship, should weaken for one moment our determination to be faithful unto death.