LITTLE readers are not very likely to be interested in what are called “railway accidents,” as they take place so often, and are mostly so very shocking. But sometimes their very suddenness teaches a solemn lesson. And such is the case with one I am about to tell you of. About eight o’clock one Monday evening in November, a train was moving off from the station of S—, on the Great “Western Railway. As usual, the passengers, in getting in or out of the carriages, had left the doors open, and, as is too commonly done, the train began to start before they were all closed. A young porter was busily engaged in shutting them, when something attracted his attention for a moment, and in the next an open door, swung against him by the passing train, swept him off the platform down on to the rails beneath. In an instant the ponderous wheels passed over him, crushing him to death. He was just heard to exclaim, “I shall die!” and before another word could be spoken, he who five minutes before was in youth and health was gone into eternity―his mangled, lifeless body alone remaining to tell what had been!
Was not this a sudden and shocking death? And then the worst of it was that there is no reason to believe that he knew anything of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. Gone in a moment into eternity, without so much as one cry to Jesus, or one word to show that he had ever believed in Him, where is he now? Ah, dear young reader, it is a solemn thing indeed to live without Christ for a single day. Does not this, does not every fatal railway accident tell you so? Those that live without Jesus may be called upon to die without Him at any instant of time, and then, “gone in a moment,” they have no opportunity of believing in Him forever and ever!
There is only one ray of brightness in this sad story, and that is, that the death of the young porter was made, through. God’s grace, a means of life to another. Yes, God glorified Himself even in this sad accident, for it seems that one of the men at the same station, who helped to remove the mangled body of his fellow-porter, was deeply affected by the awfully sudden death he had witnessed, and led by it to ask himself solemnly “If this had happened to you, where would you have gone―to heaven or to hell?” Conscience answered, “To hell!” for he was “without Christ,” and, therefore, unsaved―a LOST SINNER before God!
Dear reader, are you in this condition? Either you have believed in Jesus as your own Saviour, or you have not; which is it? If you have not, you are as yet unsaved. Can you be content to go on for a single day in this state? The porter was not; he could not rest till he had found peace through faith in the precious blood of Christ. Convicted of sin by the Spirit of God, he was led by the same blessed Spirit to see that “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” and, believing in Him, he had “peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Thus you see that, while one porter passed from time into eternity, the other “passed from death unto life.” Perhaps the first had had many warnings, many opportunities, of which we know nothing now. Only we do know that “the Judge of all the earth shall do right.”
And have not you had many opportunities? If you are a reader of GOOD NEWS, you surely have. Who shall tell how long they may last? Another year has but just begun, are you sure to see the end of it? How little did that young porter on New Year’s Day, 1874, suppose that ere that year had closed he, “gone in a moment,” should be in eternity! The sad and solemn event was, you see, made a blessing to one man; may it be also made a blessing to you, and then the object of the narrator will be attained. He has since witnessed another sudden death at the same station, that of an old man knocked down and run over by a passing train, at nearly the same hour, just one month after the death of the young porter. Thus young and old have with equal suddenness been snatched away, both alike and unexpectedly “gone in a moment.” May the Spirit of God apply this sad story to your heart and conscience, so that you may be constrained to go at once to Jesus, whose precious “blood cleanseth from all sin.”