“I hope hell will open wide, and swallow me up!” The utterer of this awful wish was a woman living in a certain town. The day previous a shocking accident had happened. Some steeplechases had been held, and as the people were dispersing a runaway horse had dashed into the crowd. Two men were knocked down and terribly injured. I had just been to see them. One lay in the stillness of death, the other was insensible. After lingering in this condition for some time, the latter also crossed the narrow boundary that divides Time from Eternity.
As I looked at the pale face of the dead man, the question that flashed across my mind was: “Where is his soul?” I turned to look at the still living man. I thought, “What if his last opportunity is gone, and he wakes up in a lost eternity!”
Proceeding to the market to do my business, I saw the woman mentioned above walking down the street. As she passed me she trod exactly on the spot where the accident occurred. How little she thought then that her wicked desire of the morning was about to be fulfilled. But so it was, for three hours later she was a corpse. At the time she used the awful saying quoted above, she said, speaking of her son, who had warned her of her evil ways, “If he follows me to my grave, I hope it will thunder and lighten.”
The funeral service was being read, when suddenly a flash of lightning darted down, and enveloped the coffin in a sheet of living fire; a peal of thunder followed. One flash, one peal, no more. The terrified mourners hurriedly left the cemetery; the clergyman, shocked and upset beyond measure at the occurrence, proceeded no further with the service.
“A coincidence,” you say.
Of course, any sign that God might give would be but a coincidence to the skeptical.
I offer no explanation. I present the facts as they happened. But I would ask you a question: “Where is that woman’s soul?” If it is in hell (and who dare doubt it?) do you know how she reached it? I will tell you. She had to go right past the love of God. Do you ask what I mean?
This; that for seventy years she had lived in a town where the gospel was constantly preached, and yet she deliberately rejected every offer of God’s love, preferring a life of open sin with hell at the end.
Extracted.