ONE evening the thoughts of the waking hours mirrored themselves in a dream. I seemed to be out walking in the streets, and to be conscious of a strange vague sense of something just declared, of which all were speaking with a suppressed air of mystery. There was a whispering stillness around. Groups of men stood at the corners of the streets and discussed an impending something with awestricken voices. I heard one say to another, " Really coming? What, to-morrow?" And the other said, " Yes, to-morrow, He will come."
It was night. The stars were glittering down, but the same sense of hushed expectancy pervaded everything. There seemed to be nothing doing, and each person looked wistfully on his neighbor, as if to say, " Have you heard? "
Suddenly, as I walked, an angel form was with me, gliding softly by my side. The face was solemn, serene, and calm. Above the forehead was a pale, tremulous radiance of light, purer than any on earth. Yet, though I felt awe, I felt a sort of confiding love as I said, " Tell me, is it true? Is Christ coming? "
" He is," said the angel. " To-morrow He will come."
" What joy! " I cried.
" Is it joy? said the angel. " Alas! to may in this city it is only terror. Come with me."
In a moment I seemed to be standing with him in a parlor of one of the chief palaces of the city. A stout, florid, bald-headed man was seated at a table covered with papers, which he was sorting over with nervous anxiety, muttering to himself as he did so. On a sofa lay a frail, delicate woman, her emaciated hands clasped over a little book. The room was in all its appointments a witness of boundless wealth. Gold, and silver, and gems, and foreign furniture, and costly pictures, and articles of vertu-everything that money could buy-were heaped together. The man seemed nervous and uneasy. He wiped the perspiration from his brow and spoke:-
" I don't know, wife, how you feel, but I don't like this news. I don't understand it. It puts a stop to everything that I know anything about."
" Oh! John," said the woman, turning towards him a face pale and fervent, and clasping her hands, " how can you say so?"
And as she spoke, I could see, breaking out above her head, a tremulous light, like that above the brow of the angel.
“Well, Mary, it's the truth. I don't care if I say it. I don't want to meet-well, I wish He would put it off I What does He want of me? I'd be willing to make over-well, three millions to found a hospital, if He'd be satisfied and let me go on. Yes, I'd give three millions to buy off to-morrow "
" He is my best Friend! "
" Best Friend! " said the man, with a look of half-fright, half-anger. " Mary, you don't know what you are talking about. You know I always hated those things. There's no use in it; I can't see into them. In fact I hate them."
She cast on him a look full of pity. “Cannot I make you see? " she said.
" No, indeed, you can't. Why, look here," he added, pointing to the papers, " here is what stands for millions. How can 1 rejoice? I'd give half; I'd give-yes, the whole, not to have Him come these hundred years."
She stretched out her thin hand towards him, but he pushed it back.
" Do you see? " said the angel to me, solemnly; " between him and her there is a ' great gulf' soon to be ' fixed.' They have lived in one house with that gulf between them for years. Tomorrow she will rise to Christ as a dewdrop to the sun; and he will be left to call to the mountains and rocks to fall on him."
Again the scene was changed. We stood together in a little, low attic, lighted by one small lamp-how poor it was!—a broken chair, a rickety table, a bed in the corner, where the little ones were cuddling close to one another for warmth. Poor things—the air was so frosty that their breath congealed upon the bedclothes as they talked in soft, baby voices. " When mamma comes she will bring us some supper," said one. " But I'm so cold! " said the little outsider. " Get in the middle, then," said the other two, " and we'll warm you. Mamma promised to make a fire when she came in, if that man would pay her." " What a bad man he is," said the oldest boy; " he never pays mother, if he can help it."
Just then the door opened, and a pale, thin woman came in laden with packages.
She laid all down, and came to her children's bed, clasping her hands in rapture.
" Joy! joy children! Oh, joy! joy! Jesus is coming! He will be here to-morrow! "
Every little bird in the nest was up, and the little arms around the mother's neck; the children believed at once. They had heard of the good Jesus; He had been their mother's and their Savior, and their Friend through many a cold and hungry day, and they doubted not but that He was coming.
" Oh! mother, will He take us? He will, won't He? "
" Yes, my little ones," she said, softly smiling to herself; " ' He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom.' "
Suddenly again, as by the slide of a magic lantern, another scene was present.
Again I stood in a brilliant room full of luxuries. Three or four women were standing pensively talking with each other. Their apartment was bestrewn with jewelry, laces, silks, velvets, and every elegance; but they looked troubled.
" This seems to me really awful," said one, with a suppressed sigh; " what troubles me is, I know so little about it."
" Yes," said another, " and it puts a stop so to everything!”
There was a poor seamstress in the corner of the room, who whispered, " Forever WITH THE LORD."
" I'm sure I don't know what that can mean," said the first speaker, with a kind of shudder; " it seems rather fearful."
" Well," said the other, " it seems so sudden-when one never dreamed of any such thing-the change all at once from this to that other life."
" It is bliss to be with Him," said the poor woman. " Oh! I have so longed for it."
" The great gulf," again said the angel-" soon to be fixed."
" Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry " (Heb. 10. 37). Are you ready?
Reader, prepare-" Prepare to meet thy God." Believe and be saved, for " he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16. 16). " THE SON OF MAN COMETH AT AN HOUR WHEN YE THINK NOT" (Luke 12.40).
The state of things in the world shows that we are heading for a great crisis. Scripture tells us of judgments to fall on the earth, and of the final intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He came the first time to atone for sin, to offer salvation to " whosoever will." He will come the second time " without sin unto salvation " (Heb. 9. 28). He may come at any moment. See to it that you are ready. There is only one way, viz., trusting the Savior, accepting Him for your own personal salvation.