A SLIP on the pavement! What a trifling thing: Not one of the readers of this little paper, but has slipped on the pavement often, I daresay, all I thought nothing of it. And yet, within one hundred yards of where. I write this, a slip on the pavement has just sent a soul in one moment of time into eternity.
One or the other it must be; and now the poor woman of whom I write knows the solemn reality of what it is to have begun an eternity which will never end. She had only left her home close by on some little errand, slipped on the pavement as she was waling along in full life and health, and in a moment she was in the road, the wheels of a passing omnibus went over her head, and she was in eternity All that was left of what had been but one minute before a human being, full of life and activity, was a mutilated immoveable mass of flesh and bones and the soul, where? Who knows but God and herself? As I looked on the crowd that stood around that solemn. sight, I saw a few faces pale and awe-stricken with what had just passed before them; but by far the larger number passed away with, perhaps, an expression of sorrow upon their lips, but alas, without a thought of the solemn reality that, for that poor woman, the slip that had closed the short span of her life in this world had ushered her into a life in another world that would never end at all. I cold but lift up a silent prayer to God, as I said a word to one and another, that He would speak, as He alone can, to those grouped round that mass of lifeless clay, and from that every scene of death bring life to poor dead souls.
A moment more and all was over. A coffin was brought (no need for a doctor there), and she, who but twenty minutes before had. left her home a living active woman, was not only dead, but in her coffin, to wait for that voice from heaven which shall either summons her to be forever with the Saviour who died for her, if she knew Him as such, and had bowed to the grace of Him who came to seek and save the lost; or to take her stand before that " great, white throne " and, Him that will sit on it,' from whose face the heaven and the earth will flee away (Rev. 21), to find that her name is not written in the book of life, and to be " cast into the lake of fire " (v. 15).
And now, dear reader, does not God speak to you in this solemn incident? Does He not say to you as He said to Adam in the garden, “Where art thou?" Where art thou? thou little child, thou young man or young woman, thou poor sinner of riper years? saved, or unsaved? A slip on the pavement and you, 'too, may be in eternity, and are you yet unsaved; and going on calmly and quietly with the world as if eternity were but a name; content to read this and put it down; obliged to own yourself, unsaved and yet satisfied? If God asks; you now in grace that question, “Where art thou?” remember that, if you leave it unanswered and unsettled, the time will come when He will ask you another, “What hast thou done?” (Gen. 4:1010And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. (Genesis 4:10)). And that will be asked when the door of grace will be shut, and you will be standing before that “great white throne," where grace is unknown, to be judged "according to your works;" and what those works have been God knows even better than you do; and not one bad work, not one sinful thought of all those years you will have to look back upon, but will be brought before you then in all its blackness, to sink you deeper and deeper in that pit from which there is no 'escape. The heavens and the earth will flee away from His presence—but there will be no fleeing away for you, poor sinner, who have rejected Christ, the Saviour of the lost.
But perhaps you will say, I do not reject Him; I should be sorry to do anything of the sort." Dear reader, do not be deceived. If you lay down this little book which tells you of "God's glad tidings;" the glad tidings that HE has sent a Saviour, His Son, to come between poor, lost, ruined sinners and a God, who cannot look upon sin, to take their place upon the cross, where lie was forsaken of God, because He was bearing sin, that they might not have the forsaken place forever—I say, if you lay down this little book unsaved, yet are practically rejecting Christ; yes, however moral, religious, educated, charitable you way be if you, are still unsaved, and have not got eternal life, you are practically rejecting Christ.
Does it seem hard to say this? It is the word of God that says it, not I. What does the Lord Himself say in John 6:4747Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47),—" verily, verily (how emphatic), I say unto you, He that believeth on me halt everlasting his." Look again at Col. 1:1414In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: (Colossians 1:14),—" In whom (Christ) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins:" And if you are unsaved, it is because you have not got eternal life nor forgiveness, of sins, and therefore you are really an unbeliever, whatever you may profess to be, or think you are yourself. God's gift to poor lost sinners is worthy, of Himself.
He gave His Son; He gave the best thing in heaven for the worst thing on earth, a poor Sinner like you and me. He gives a free salvation, a full salvation, a present salvation, nothing Jess. It is not, and never could be a question of God's love passing over sin. That is what man would like, because he would like to think that God estimates sin as lightly as he does; but it is a blessed fact that God can righteously forgive and blot out the sins of a man that owns his condition, because His Son has borne the judgment, and paid the debt to the very last farthing. It is no till I know the righteousness of God satisfied, the righteous claims of God against sin perfectly met at the cross of His Son (where "righteousness and peace kissed each other") that I can understand, or enter into the love of God that has done such wondrous things for poor, lost, ruined man.
Oh, dear reader, I entreat you "to-day, while it is called to-day," flee for refuge to the hope set before you." Remember. God gives you this moment, He does not give you the next.
A slip on the pavement, and you, too, may be in eternity.
A. P. G.