Are You Ready?

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 5
 
SHE was a fine, bonny young woman—a hospital nurse. At 7.30 p.m. she parted from her fellow nurses in high spirits to take up her night duty.
At midnight awful shrieks, and cries of "Matron! Matron!" were heard ringing through the dormitories. On hurriedly getting up and opening the doors, the day nurses saw the poor girl running down the corridor enveloped in flames, Seizing rugs, &c., they rushed to her assistance, and managed to put out the flames, but not before every garment she wore, and all her hair, had been burned to a cinder.
The scene was heart-rending. There she lay, bleeding and charred from head to foot. Between her moans she said, "I have been very wicked, but surely I don't deserve this." She lingered on in this terrible state, and died a few hours after.
Reader, suppose you were hurried out of time into eternity in as short a time? How would it be with you? This poor girl's sufferings were too great to allow her to fix her mind on the question, alas! too long neglected by her, of her soul's salvation. Let me beg of you! Seek Him now, before it is too late, Do not put off the question of your soul's salvation to some future time, for you do not know that you may have any future time.
This poor girl had many plans for the future. "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." (Prov. 27:1.) The present time only is yours. Before to-morrow dawn you may be gone. Gone to meet the God you have sought to forget all these years. The God, who has been so kind to you in blessing you with health and strength and all the necessities of life, who has knocked at the door of your heart in various ways, and yet you are still refusing Him, and turning your back upon Him.
Oh! dear reader, refuse Him no longer. Let this poor girl's sad end be a voice to you. Come to the One who suffered and bled and died for you. He is waiting to receive you and bless you and pardon you. Come before it is too late, for soon—very soon—the last gospel message will have gone forth, and the last sinner be saved, for God is not always going to beseech men to come. If you still persist in refusing, and probably mocking at the gospel message, listen to what scripture says of such: "Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; ... I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." (Prov. 1:24-26.)
Thank God for your sake, my unsaved reader, that time has not yet come. God is still calling in grace to you. Won't you come, just now, just as you are? May God lead you to repentance while it is still the day of grace. Give the best of your days to God, and you will never have cause to regret it. In Christ is all we need for time and for eternity. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31.) G.