«Believe and Be Saved: Or, Around the Wicket Gate» by Charles H. Spurgeon

He who does not take the step of faith and enter upon the road to heaven will perish. It will be an awful thing to die close to, but yet outside the gate of life. Almost saved, but altogether lost! This is the most terrible of positions. A man just outside Noah’s ark would have drowned; a murderer close to the wall of the city of refuge, but outside of it, would be slain; and the man who is within a yard of Christ but has not trusted him will be lost.

Therefore, I am in terrible earnest to get my hesitating friends over the threshold. Come in! Come in! is my pressing plea. Why dost thou stand outside? is my solemn inquiry (Genesis 24:31). May the Holy Spirit render my pleadings effective with many who read these pages! May he cause his own almighty power to create faith in the soul at once.

My reader, if God blesses this book to you, do the writer this favor – either lend your own copy to someone who is lingering at the gate or buy another and give it away, for his great desire is that this little volume should be of service to many thousands of souls.

To God this book is commended, for without his grace nothing will come of all that is written.
– C. H. Spurgeon