DEAR reader, your years are fleeing apace. Think of last year. Its pleasures are past like a midnight dream, its sins recorded for a future hearing. Many who commenced it in apparent buoyancy and vigor have ended it in the silent tomb. The restless sea, or the hungry earth, covers their bodies. Their souls—where? Who can say that the eye that follows these lines from side to side will not be closed in death before the dawn of next year? Who can say that the long-looked-for day of the Lord’s return for His saints will not be a thing of the past before then? Are you awake to these tremendous possibilities, or are you as one who walks in his sleep? It will be an appalling moment for you, be sure of it, should you wake up some morning to say, “God has filled heaven and done without me!” May He deliver you from the untold agony of such a moment by saving you even now. It is not a few short years that are at stake only, but an endless eternity.
Years ago a gentlewoman had been spending an afternoon at cards, and the evening at a ball and suchlike amusements. She came home very late, and found that her maidservant, who was sitting up waiting for her, was reading a book. “Ah,” said she, “you are still poring over your dull books. They make you mopish and melancholy.” But she was not in the secret of her servant’s calm joy, and misjudged her completely.
The lady retired to her chamber, but she slept not. In the night she was troubled, and fell a-weeping. Sleep forsook her. She tossed to and fro, and at length she called her maid, who said, “Madam, what ails you? I thought I left you very merry and well.”
“Oh, yes,” said she, “but I looked over your book, and though I only saw one word, THAT WORD STINGS ME. I cannot sleep. I cannot bear it.”
“What word was it, madam?”
“It was that word ‘ETERNITY!’ Oh, maid,” said she, “it is all very well for me to sport, and play, and waste my time as I have done, but oh, ETERNITY! ETERNITY! ETERNITY! HOW CAN I FACE ETERNITY?” And so that night of careless frivolity was turned to weeping and to prayer.
Would that the like might happen to you, my reader; for you will never seek the boon of forgiveness till you feel the burden of sin.
Perhaps you have felt something of that heavy burden, something of the weight of the judgment that rests upon the ungodly. Turn, then, to Christ at once. He is a living Saviour, ready to pardon.
“Thousands have fled to His spear-pierced side,
Welcome they all have been, none are denied;
Weary and laden, they all have been blessed,
Joyfully now in the Saviour they rest.”
Years ago He welcomed the writer. May He this day welcome the reader.