“WE were traveling over the prairie once," says an American writer," a small company of us, on a beautiful autumn day, entertaining one another with jest and story and song. The stretch of prairie seemed boundless. There was not a tree or shrub in the entire vision, not a living creature except a few birds, ourselves, and our team.
“Suddenly one of the party caught at the reins, and called on the driver to stop.
“' I believe we are lost! ' he said gravely, as he faced his companion, who was still smiling over some repartee.
“We stopped the horses and began to take account of our surroundings. After deliberate consultation we were forced to agree that we were off the stage road, which was the track to our destination, and that probably, while occupied with our story-telling, we had let the horses take some abandoned wagon trail that branched off from it.
“We gazed helplessly about us. The sun was just going down. There was absolutely no sign of a house or of any mark of human habitation. We retraced our way in an effort to find the stage road, and after going back over fifteen miles, we found. it, and reached our destination the next morning.
“More than once during those fifteen miles, as we trudged at the head of the horses in order to keep to the faint outline of the old wagon road, one of our party repeated the words, We were lost all the time, and didn't know it.'”
The italics are mine. It is these last words of the narrative that I wish to emphasize, for they accurately describe the spiritual condition of many who will read these lines.
There is the young lady, for instance, who moves in a lively social circle, and whose life seems filled to the brim with pleasure. Her face always seems rippling with smiles. She would be shocked if you called her a sinner. She thinks no more of her soul than if she were a butterfly. Eternity is a mere word of four syllables to her. It conjures up before her mind no vision of never-ending weal or woe. Merrily she trips along life's pathway, never pausing to ask herself the question, "Whither am I bound?" She is lost all the time, but she doesn't know it.
What a different type of person is represented by that religiously-inclined lady! She is rarely, if ever, absent from the services at the ritualistic church that she attends. Her whole soul is thrown into an ecstasy as she kneels, listening to the solemn notes of the organ and the sweet voices of the youthful choir, and witnessing the elaborate ritual gone through by the vestment-clad priest. Whisper in her ear: "Lady, you are a lost sinner!" and she will turn upon you a glance full of concentrated indignation. Yet if she has never been saved, your words would assuredly be true. She does not know it, but all the time she is lost.
Not far off there lives a man of the most exemplary moral life. If he does not profess to believe in Christianity his works and ways compare favorably with those of many who do. His watchword is: "Do to others as you would that they should do to you." He orders his life by the golden rule. Is there a case of need brought to his notice? He is ready at once to lend a helping hand. But how does he stand with regard to Christ? Has he bowed at His feet in repentance, and accepted His proffered salvation? If not, in spite of his kindness to the poor, and his exemplary moral life he is lost, lost without knowing it.
Is it possible, reader, that You are in this condition? Whether you know it or not, unless you are saved, you are lost. Are you aware of it?
It may sound paradoxical, but let me assure you that the first step towards being saved is to discover, and to own that you are lost.
I do not, of course, mean by this that you are eternally doomed. I use the word "lost" as Scripture uses it, in the sense of perishing, utterly undone, altogether without strength, ruined, treading the road to everlasting destruction. This is the true condition of everyone who is not saved.
"If our gospel be hid," says the inspired page, "it is hid to them that are LOST." (2 Cor. 4:3.)
Do you take the place of a lost sinner? Do you own that you have no hope save in the mercy of God? Then listen "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was LOST." (Luke 19:10.)
If Jesus came to save, you may be sure that salvation is to be had. Does not this fact awaken within yam any desire to be saved.?
If you have been indifferent as to your lost condition, God has not been indifferent as to it. Rather than let you perish without hope, He gave His own Son to be the Sin-Bearer upon the cross. The death of Jesus was no mere martyr's death. There was atonement in it. He bore the judgment and wrath of God, and poured out His soul unto death to make expiation for sin.
On this ground, and on this alone, God can hold out the hand of forgiveness towards guilty sinners. Because of what Jesus did at Calvary He can save the lost.
And He delights to do it. Will you not let Him save you?
Remember: if you die in your sins you will be lost forever. If you are to be saved forever it is NOW and HERE you must be saved.
After reading this paper, you will have no excuse for continuing as a lost sinner. You will never be able to plead ignorance. Will you not face the matter at once? H. P. B.