THE knell of another year is sounding; its sands are sinking; its curtain falls; and with plaintive earnestness do its echoes play upon the ear. Hearken, reader, to its dying note! You may recall many a golden opportunity, many a rich and rare privilege. You have, perhaps, stood by the side of death. You have heard, it may be, of one you loved as having been savingly blessed. You have witnessed sorrow and joy; you have read of disaster on sea and land; you may have felt the pinch of poverty; or you may have enjoyed the smile of favor. The parting year carries away a thousand diverse memories; and, by its close, reminds you of a multitude of mercies.
You are alive today! Others have been cut off, but you remain. Their day of grace is over; yours lingers still! One moment of weal or woe is forever beyond their recall; and, alas! crowds there doubtless are who would give countless worlds could they only buy back an hour of time!
That hour is yours!
They have crossed the bourne; they have entered eternity; their tree lies unalterable; their state is fixed forever Yours is not yet so!
Time, unknown and irrevocable to them, is still with you. They had their share, you have yours! Oh! the value of time! Present now, past in a moment. Its march is silent and imperceptible, but awfully sure and fleet; and its very silence, renders us unconscious of the rapidity of its flight! How suicidal to allow its days and years to glide on while the soul’s salvation is persistently neglected! How long?
Eyes of sorrow, and dimmed by tears, are resting on Jerusalem, and behind those tender eyes is a heart of love! He who could have crushed that rebel city, stands outside it a mourner, a friend, a lover! “He beheld the city, and wept over it” (Luke 19:4141And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, (Luke 19:41)).
Alas! its favored hour was past, for the things that belonged to its peace had been madly thrust aside—a hand stretched out in mercy had been coldly spurned! “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,” said that royal but rejected Weeper, “the things that belong to thy peace, but now are they hid from thine eyes.”
“Hidden now”! Yes, all is over! A Messiah deliberately and definitely rejected means a Jerusalem as certainly doomed. A Christ—a loving, living Saviour—refused and neglected means a sinner finally damned!
Awful fact! but such is the judgment written and naught but woe eternal awaits the impenitent trifler with a Saviour’s proffered grace!
“This thy day,” if not taken advantage of, must give place to a place hidden from thine eyes! One or other. A golden day of salvation, or that salvation hidden in everlasting night. Favored reader, pause and think!
This is thy day, it lingers still; but thy night is coming. Oh, haste thee! Ten thousand voices chide thy delay, and beckon thee onward, homeward, heavenward!
Thy soul is precious; thy time is passing; thy little day will soon be over; thy present opportunity gone; the Master rises to shut to the door. Now, Now, NOW is the accepted time, and now the day (thy day) of salvation!
Reader, come to Jesus now. His blood can cleanse from all sin, and He declares that “him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”
Only come to Him now!
J. W. S.