HIGH in a large tenement of the city of Edinburgh, above its din and bustle, sat a poor lone widow. The house was one of the larger kind, which had seen better days, but which in course of time had become divided amongst a number of tenants, all the doors opening upon one common passage. The widow’s little room was dismal enough, yet not devoid of a few comforts, saved from the wreck of former years. She had few friends, and little earthly hope to cheer her. Both sight and hearing were failing, but her faith and hope were strong in God. She sat alone that night, during the quiet hours of the fast-closing year, reading from the Epistles of Paul, gathering comfort from the words which the Holy Ghost speaks concerning the believer’s blessed place in Christ Jesus, and the certainty of being forever with Himself.
There was no sound to be heard but that of a piano played in a room below. Young, skillful fingers, touched the keys, and tune after tune followed in rapid succession. But who was the player? Let us look downstairs and see.
The room whence the music came, formed in many respects a contrast to the attic above, being large, airy, and well furnished; at the piano sat a young woman of about twenty summers, with dark hair, and pale but pleasant features. Music was her passion, her one employment, and, as she said to the widow when they had met on the stairs a few days before, “All her consolation.” Poor thing! she little knew as she spoke the words gaily, that eternity, with all its great realities of weal or woe, was so near; still less did she ponder the solemn words spoken by Him who is the truth, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
E. was the only child of her parents, loved, indulged, and prized; alas, she had no love for Jesus Christ, His name had no charm for her ears, and her heart and lips were not consecrated to sing His praise. A lover of pleasure more than a lover of God. That old year’s night she sat with her fingers nimbly passing over the keys of the instrument, at times singing merrily to the strain. The sound of the music reached the widow’s ears, and she thought “Surely E. is merry tonight.” But in one moment the music suddenly ceased, never to be heard again. The musician lay stretched upon the floor. She spoke no more, and could only give her poor parents one look of recognition.
All was consternation, and hurrying to and fro. The alarmed father rushed for a physician, but too late, as every remedy proved unavailing. As the old year finished its course and the newborn year began, the soul of the gay young minstrel had passed from the bounds of time into the awful realities of a far-reaching eternity.
Let this brief, sad history carry to you, my reader, a word of earnest warning, yet of loving entreaty. You live in a world of which the word of God says that “the fashion of it passeth away.” You have a choice to make. Let it be Christ. He is worthy of your choice. He suffered for sinners, tasted death; He is risen from the grave, and God declares that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Will you have the Son? Do be persuaded; that word tells you that “he that hath the Son hath life, but he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Satan, your enemy, will use a thousand things to hinder you from being saved—the fear of man, love of dress, a novel, a pleasant companion, music, dancing, pleasure, a form of godliness, and last but not least, procrastination, the thief of souls. Perhaps you say, “I am young, strong, full of hope, the world lies smilingly before me, I have bright prospects for many years—mar not my peace with your dark forebodings”; or perhaps you seek to reassure yourself by the thought, “I intend to be a Christian before I die. I mean to think seriously some day; by-and-bye I will decide.”
Alas! my friend, do you thus slight God’s great salvation and the Saviour, and for the present choose the world? Be warned, I pray you, by the solemn history I have related.
T. R. D.