ONE winter’s night, in a remote hamlet in Lincolnshire, a man might have been seen walking stealthily up the pathway of a cottage garden, until he reached the window of a room where he knew something was going on which excited his curiosity. His wife had left home shortly before, and he expected she was inside this very room. Nothing could he see, but he could distinctly hear all that was being said. Strange to say, though no one knew he was there, he could not get rid of the feeling that the speaker inside was directly addressing him! For a few minutes he must have been more than spell-bound, for what made the whole thing still more remarkable and unaccountable was the fact that the speaker and his stealthy listener were as yet total strangers to each other. But there was One present at that meeting who knew them both; and there can be no doubt that it was He who had arranged that night’s audience, and used it to turn the whole current of the man’s life.
The truth is that a gospel-preaching was going on that night in the above-mentioned cottage. This man’s wife had been to a similar meeting the previous evening, and having herself found peace with God, had tried her utmost to persuade her husband to accompany her. But he was a hardened, careless, godless man, and her entreaties proved utterly fruitless. Indeed, to show her how determined he was not to go, he pulled off his boots, and was sitting beside the fire when she left the house. Shortly after she had gone, however, he suddenly came to the resolution that he would go too―not that he would venture inside. No, he would stand and listen at the window, and form his own judgment as to the character of the unusual “stir” which these meetings were making in the village.
Just as he came up to the cottage window the preacher was reading Eccl. 8:1010And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity. (Ecclesiastes 8:10), “So I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done.” He drew the attention of his unconverted hearers to the four words in the text, by which God briefly sums up the history of the wicked―
“COME”― “GONE” — “BURIED” — “FORGOTTEN.”
He said: “Though only one of those words is as yet fulfilled in your case, yet how soon the second may be true also; how soon they will be saying at your cottage door that solemn word ‘GONE!’ And when they do, what then?”
This simple word went straight home to his soul like an arrow. Yes, indeed, “what then?” He knew what then; knew how thoroughly unfit he was to die, for to die would be to meet God.
Conscience-stricken, he hastened home to await the return of his happy wife. When she came in, she found him to all appearance pretty much as she had left him, with his boots off, sitting beside the fire as though he had never been out of doors; for he was very unwilling to let her know where he had been spending the evening, and still more unwilling to give her the slightest clue to that which was going on in his soul.
However, he found it harder to hide his troubled feelings than he imagined, as we shall see.
In the middle of the night he awoke his wife, and told her he “couldn’t sleep.”
“Don’t you feel well?” she inquired; for it was unusual for her husband to be so wakeful.
“Yes, I’m well enough, but somehow I can’t get off to sleep.”
After a few words more the wife was fast asleep again. She had no conception what it was that was disturbing his mind. Once more he awoke her, and once more poured the same complaint into her astonished ear. She now expostulated with him about it, reminded him how the night was wearing away, that it would soon be time for him to rise and go to work, and that he ought to try and get some sleep; and being still ignorant of the secret of this restlessness, she once more turned herself round, and was soon again in peaceful slumber.
A third time he awoke her; but this time she was determined to know what was disturbing him in such an extraordinary way. After some hesitation he at last groaned out, “I’m so wicked! I’m so wicked!” And with this out came his secret about the meeting. No more sleep for her now. What blessed news! and it seemed all the sweeter because so unexpected.
Next night found him seated inside, that crowded cottage. No difficulty this time to get him to the meeting! Put no peace could he find; and another restless, tossing night followed. The succeeding night found him again in the same place, but, if anything, more miserable. No peace for his smitten conscience. This night they both determined not to go to bed at all till the matter was really settled. A little past midnight his soul was able to rest its all upon the work of Christ, and for the first time he was able to rejoice in Him as his own Savior, and to praise Him for His great salvation.
Death has been more than usually busy of late. He has unexpectedly entered many of the mansions of the great, and made wide gaps in the households of the poor. Many of these could badly be spared, but they have “gone.” Prepared or unprepared they have “GONE.”
“Fixed in an eternal state,
They have done with all below;
We a little longer wait,
Yet how little none can know.”
Thank God, dear unsaved reader, you have not yet “gone,” though, ere another month shall have run its course, that word may have dimmed with tears the eyes of those you love most and best.. Is it not high time to consider these weighty questions, Whither am I bound? Where shall I land? What is to be my eternal destiny? Depend up it, if you die unconverted, while your friends are bending over your lifeless frame, and with heartbreaking sobs whispering “gone,” aunt her word of four letters will be engaging your thoughts. For, mark it well; “GONE” for time, means “LOST” for eternity, for every unforgiven sinner.
Oh; the remorse of such an awakening! Oh, the madness of risking your priceless soul, even for a single hour! Will you not be entreated? Will you not consider your serious peril in the light of the Savior’s own question, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:3636For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (Mark 8:36).)
Thank God, you may yet be saved. But time flies, and eternity may be upon you ere you are aware of it. Haste, then, to the refuge. “Escape for thy life.” “He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:11He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. (Proverbs 29:1)).