THE village stands pretty high up on the hills in the midst of a manufacturing district of Yorkshire. It bears the somewhat curious name of Stone Chair, which it derives from the fact that a seat of stone, formed like a chair, stands in its midst.
The chair is ancient. Whether there are legends connected with it we are unable to say, not being familiar with the district, but a casual glance while passing it by moonlight enabled us to notice two things:―First, that it looked the very essence of discomfort; and second, that it stood so closely facing certain buildings that the unfortunate occupant would have to not merely suffer discomfort, but submit also to having his view bounded by a dismal stone wall!
Comfort in this life, and a bright outlook beyond, are things that all of us desire. Yes, but do you possess them? Not if you have seated yourself in that “stone chair” called THE WORLD. When first you flung yourself down into it you imagined perhaps that it was an arm-chair of the most soft and luxurious type, or if not quite that, that at least it was a kind of wishing-chair, that would eventually yield you all that you desired. Have you lived long enough to be undeceived?
Undeceived you will be. The world is hard, and cold, and stony enough. A blank wall of death, entailing the dissolution of all earthly hopes and joys, lies before you, and yet you must not suppose that this means that there is nothing beyond it.
Proceeding only a little further that evening, we passed at a cross-roads an ancient pair of stocks, carefully preserved as a memento of the old days. They had a grim look under the pale light of the moon. It seemed to us as if they must have been well within sight of any occupant of the stone chair, had the dismal wall obscuring the view been demolished.
There are moments, depend upon it, when the man of the world, be he never so stubbornly indifferent, gets glimpses of what lies beyond death, and finds that judgment, on account of sin, and penal retribution are there!
The scenes above related struck us as peculiarly forbidding, but then we viewed them by the reflected light of the waning moon. Had we visited them in a blaze of summer sunshine we might have thought differently.
We might have, but this much is quite certain―that to view the hard facts of life and the world, of death and judgment to come, in the warm and blessed sunshine of the Gospel makes a very vast change. To face the awful facts of one’s own sins, and the death and punishment they deserve, in the light of God’s grace, which has brought salvation within the reach of all men, and the blood of Christ which cleanses from all sin, puts an altogether different complexion on matters. It enables one to rejoice.
What is your attitude to these things? Have you yet received the “forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified” (Acts 26:1818To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. (Acts 26:18)) by faith in Christ? Or do you still sit in the world’s “stone chair,” facing the “blank wall” of death, with “the stocks” of judgment beyond?
“Count the myriad blades that glitter
Early in the morning dew;
Count the desert sand that stretches
Under noontide’s vault of blue.
“When thy counting all is done,
Scarce ETRRNITY’S begun;
Pause and know― ‘Where wilt thou be,
During God’s ETERNITY?’”
Y. B. R.