The boys were enjoying themselves playing with their favorite dog Rover, when one of them received a letter from his mother. When Horace received it, he read a few lines and then threw it down, exclaiming,
“O, it is only another of these preaching letters from my mother: I don’t want to read it.”
Charlie picked it up and said: “I wish I had a mother to write letters to me, but she is dead; would you mind me reading your mother’s letter?”
“You are quite welcome to it, Charlie.”
So Charlie took it away, and read it carefully, and it was the means of leang him to decide for Christ.
Then he went and thanked Horace warmly, and spoke earnestly to him about becoming a Christian, too, but could only get for answer, “Don’t bother, it’s too soon!”
Many a time in the months and years that followed. Charlie pled with his friend, but it was always “Too soon! TOO SOON!”
Years passed away, and Charlie had lost sight of his friend, when, in going to stay the night at a hotel, the landlord, seeing he was a preacher, asked him to see a dying man who was there, and took him up to the sick man’s room. As soon as he entered, the dying man turned away his face to the wall, and groaned out,
“It is too late! It is too late!”
The Christian spoke to him of the love of God, and the redeeming work of Christ, but was interrupted by the awful cry,
“It is too late!”
He knelt to pray, but while he prayed, the poor dying man passed away. What was his distress to find that the name was Horace, his schoolfellow of former days.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaks to each reader once again through this solemn story; make a wise choice now for,
ML 12/10/1944