Sin, Hardening Nature of – Charles Spurgeon

I HAVE heard that the men who make the big boilers in Southwark, when they are first put inside the boiler, are nearly stunned by the horrible noise made by those who are hammering on the outside, but after a while they get so used to the sound that they can almost go to sleep, and let the men hammer away as long as they please. Or, as Rowland Hill has said, “Men become like the blacksmith’s dog, which goes to sleep while the sparks are flying about its ears,” so there are many who, after awhile, will go to sleep under the most startling sermons. They used to hear a minister who spoke very plain English to them, and they were greatly startled, and they said, “I cannot hear him and go on in sin;” but they can hear him quietly now, and not only go on in their old sins, but wax worse and worse.