“I went to hear the ‘Messiah’ last night,” said a lady, “and it was most beautifully performed; and all the ladies were dressed charmingly! But there’s one part which I can never hear without shuddering. I wish they did not bring it in; I think I’ll never go and hear it again.”
“I suppose you mean ‘and the trumpet shall sound?’” I asked.
“Oh! no,” she said, “at least, I don’t mind the words so much, but when those horrible trumpets begin, I feel as if I should die with fright, and nearly always scream out!”
“Why, what are you afraid of?” I asked, though I guessed the true cause of her terror.
“Well,” she said, “it makes me think of the ‘last day’ and the ‘judgment,’ and all sorts of dreadful things. Oh! I’ll never go and hear it anymore,” said she, burying her fair face in her hands.
“But, my dear Mrs. R.,” said I, “the trumpet really will sound one day; and who knows how soon? Are you ready to answer it? Do you not want to hear it?”
“Oh, stop, for pity’s sake! do stop talking like that; it is very late, and I could not go to my room this night—much less go to sleep, if we went on with such talking.”
This poor lady was an inmate of my house at the time of this conversation, only a year ago. She was a fair young widow, holding “extreme views,” quite a devotee, but not, so far as I could see, a saved soul. Sometimes she was very anxious, as it seemed, about her salvation, and often confessed that she was lost, and should she be called upon that night to die must perish. Many a time I implored her to consider her eternal happiness—just to give to the solemn future a little of the time and thought that she lavished upon earthly amusements. My husband, too, had some earnest conversations with her, and endeavored to lead her to Christ. But all our entreaties that she would but pause, and hear Christ’s invitation to such as she acknowledged herself to be, fell on ears too full already of Satan’s deadly whispers, and his deceitful wiles. This world lay before her, too smiling, too alluring to be so lightly given up. Alas! she lent her ears only too readily to be charmed by the intoxicating strains of earthly music, to care for, or even to perceive anything of melody and beauty in that which is divine. How true it is that the natural heart has no taste for, no delight in the things of, God! But the terror of death, and the thought of dying. haunted my friend’s soul day and night; that I could plainly see, and I told her it was so. However, she would not admit it.
External religion was everything to her; Christ was nothing. There were in her breviary many prayers beginning, “Sweet Jesus,” or “Adorable Jesus”; but she said she only “used” them in “church” —not in her own room.
“Oh!” I said, “dear Mrs. R., do stay and listen a little longer, you may not have another opportunity. God says, ‘Now is the accepted time’; you are going away from us in a day or two, we may never meet on this earth again; how glad I should be to know from your own lips that you are saved!”
“I can’t talk tonight, Mrs. S.,” she answered, “not tonight; you don’t know what a day I’ve had! In the cemetery all the morning with Miss M., who would go to see the stone they have put over young R.’s grave: well, while she was enjoying herself among the tombs, there were a great many funerals coming in, and of course a great many of the coffins were brought past me. Of all things I hate the sight of a coffin! It is such a horrid, repulsive looking object! I said to Miss M., ‘I can’t think, when there are so many changes and improvements in everything now, why people do not try and improve on the shape they make the coffins.’ Miss M. said they were going to introduce a new shape; they were to be made like a pretty basket, of wickerwork, all covered with flowers; don’t you think that would be much nicer than the old-fashioned shape?”
“Ah! dear Mrs. R., death will be all the same! They may alter the shape of the coffins, but they cannot alter the fact that death will come in and spoil all man’s fairest hopes. To the natural man death is the most awful thought. Man may hide, or beautify and adorn the dead, putting the flowers of a sin-spoiled earth over the sad consequence of man’s sin, but still death goes on, unaltered, during all the ages: still, ever the same, and able to turn all our thoughts to nothing, with the reality of its presence. But to the soul that knows Christ, the sting and the terror of death are gone. I wonder that you, who have so much natural shrinking from the very thought of death, do not at once seek the only remedy—the only Saviour; who has abolished death, of Whom you have heard so often.”
“Well, of course I do know He is the Saviour; but you have such very peculiar views on religious subjects, no one can talk to you.”
“I don’t want you to listen to me—listen to what God says in His word, of everlasting life in His Son, and of pardon and peace through His death for sinners.”
“Oh! I daresay I shall be all right in the end. I’ll pull through somehow,” was Mrs. R.’s light answer, and so we parted, at least for a time.
A short time after this conversation my friend married again, and went to live in “the bush,” as the country in Australia is called; strange to say her husband was a Christian. She did not have much of earth’s happiness, however, for within the space of a very few months she returned to Melbourne, as it proved, to die.
I saw her two or three times, and she did not hide the state of her health, or the doctor’s opinions concerning it. But though well knowing that the end was not far off, still the poor lady would shut her eyes to its reality—its terrible reality to her. She told me, as she had done before, that, “she was not at all afraid to die,” she would “take her chance,” “she would pull through somehow or other.” I felt sick at heart at hearing her speak thus. I said all I could say, but literally with her dying breath she talked everything down.
Then, at the last, her reason went; sometimes partially returning. No one knows after this what may have passed between her soul and God; what cry may not have gone up to His ever open ear; what prayer, in lucid moments, may not have been sent up; or, whether the Lord may not have seen the turning of the poor weak heart to Himself. This is now only known to Him, and must remain hidden from us till that day when the secrets of all men’s hearts shall be made bare in the light of His glorious presence. Her husband was obliged to be away in the bush, her mother was living two doors from my house, when, one morning, as the nurse was in the act of raising her up, in order to dress her, she sank back, with a single moan, and died.
When I looked upon her face in death, I felt I never could forget it. I could only hope that the Lord had had mercy upon her. And so I turned to go away, feeling sad at heart, knowing I should one day see her again as I often told her; but, ah! “where,” and “when”?
Oh! dear reader, what an ending to a life of this world’s delights, and religion, fashion, and pleasure! This poor lady’s religion consisted of prayers offered up in a church odorous with incense, and decorated with fresh flowers daily; but her prayers were never “used” at “home,” nor “in secret.” Let me entreat you to ask your heart whether Christ is indeed your Saviour. J. S.