How Awful the Charge of Souls
Mark 8:36-37
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?…


Ministers have taken even the care of immortal souls, their education for eternity, their discipline for heaven! Have we ever essayed, however vain the effort, to take the dimensions of a soul, to sound its depths, and explore its vast capacities? Look at the infant child that appears but little raised above the level of mere vegetable life. Mark the gigantic strides by which he rises in a few short years to such wonders of intelligence, that he dives into the hidden mysteries of nature, calculates the distance of the stars, and, by the magic of his telescope, sees world ascending above world, and system towering above system, up to the footstool of the throne of God! Into what, then, may a soul expand, when, free from the prison house of flesh, it is let out to expatiate amidst its native heavens! Or, what may such a nature be in its ruins, in a fall corresponding to such a height! These, then, are the mighty concerns with which we have professedly engaged to intermeddle. For the perdition or salvation of beings on so immense a scale, we shall have to render an account.

(H. Woodward, M. A.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

WEB: For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?




Great Loss for Momentary Gratification
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