(J. A. James, "The Sunday School Teacher's Guide")

"For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole
 world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man
 give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)

The globe weighed against the value of one human soul,
is less than the small dust of the balance. Convert . . .
  the sun into one blazing diamond,
  the moon into an exquisite pearl, and
  every star that decks the skies into a gemstone
--all this bears no proportion to the value of a soul!
Arithmetic, with all its powers, is here of no use--it
cannot aid our conceptions. Think of the immortality
of the soul, and this raises it above all calculation!

The salvation of a soul amounts to a greater sum of
happiness, than the temporal deliverance of an empire
for a thousand ages--for the empire will come to an
end, but not the soul.

The loss of one soul is a greater catastrophe than
the sum total of all the temporal misery endured upon
the face of the globe from the period of the fall--to the
final and universal conflagration!

"For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole
 world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man
 give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)