(For the Little Ones.)
THE moon seemed to linger for a few moments on the edge of the horizon, throwing her last rays upon the scene as though she were sorry to leave the traveler alone in utter darkness. But amid the deepening shadows he had already quite lost the narrow path, and was wandering on uncertain of his way. He thought of Paul’s “perils in the wilderness,” and he thought too of those “perilous times” of which the young reader cannot yet understand much, but which have already come, and will increase in peril as that solemn hour grows rapidly nearer, when the light of truth, once at the full, but now so mingled with the “shadows” of men’s minds, shall be taken away altogether, and “darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.”
Even the little reader may understand that God has told us in his word, that when the Lord comes, the saints who sleep in Jesus will be raised, and those who believe in him now, and are alive at his coming, will be changed and caught up together with the risen ones to meet him in the air (see vol. 8., page 91). That then, when the Church is gone, the light of the truth which yet lingers in the world will be gone too, and that all those who have been pretending (like the lapwing, you know), and call themselves Christians, but are not — all those who have wandered in the shadows, instead of taking the “narrow way that leadeth unto life,” will be left behind; and instead of being taken home to the “Father’s house,” to be forever with the Lord, will be surrounded by gross darkness. Oh, terrible doom! when the light is “gone out,” when
“Snares and death abound”
on every side; when judgments like a pitiless storm are let loose upon those who “received not the love of the truth that they might be saved;” when the prince of darkness, “having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time,” shall be using all, his power to deceive and afflict. Let the little reader see to it that he is in the narrow way before the light which now shines around his path is gone. He may not be able to understand the nature of the terrible evils that are coming on a Christ-rejecting world, but he can understand this — the time is very near, as near as total darkness was to the traveler when the moonlight, lingering on the very verge of the horizon, threatened every moment to sink in night.
And sink it did at last, and suddenly. The traveler had reached about the middle and widest part of the heath; a dense mist was rising all around him, when, as he hurriedly pursued his way amid the growing gloom, in hope of stumbling at last upon the “narrow path,”he was suddenly arrested by the disappearance of every ray of light. Darkness, like a black pall, had all at once come down upon the entire scene — a darkness so intense that he could not see the faintest outline of his own hand, even when held close to his facer Attempting to walk on, he presently felt (for he could see nothing, not even the earth he trod) that he was going down some declivity. Whether he was descending one of the slopes and hollows that abounded there, or was just then on the shelving side of some deep pit, into which another step might have hurled him, he will never know; but it suddenly occurred to him that it was so, and he stopped and turned to retrace his steps. This, to his surprise, he found very difficult, and it cost him quite a struggle to climb back again to level ground.
He has often thought of it since, because the downward path had been so easy and so natural that he had not at first been even conscious in the darkness that, he was going down at all; nor was it till he tried to return that he found out how far he had descended, and how suddenly the way declined. Ah, little reader, there is a lesson in this for believers, young and old. Neglected counion brings darkness, and “he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.”The downward way begins from the moment that the believer ceases to walk in fellowship with him who bought him with his precious blood; and he who is once on this declining path will find that, while it is most easily taken, and most natural to tread, its downward tendency is as rapid as it is unperceived. Not until awakened to a sense of his condition will he have the most remote idea of the sad rapidity with which he has declined from that walk which alone is “worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called.”
But to return. The traveler was now more bewildered than ever. In struggling up the incline, he had lost the direction he had been pursuing. Moreover, he could not tell how far the declivity extended to the right or left of the spot on which he stood. Which way to turn it was therefore quite impossible to decide.
Now let the young reader recall the description of the heath given at page 4. Could any one be more completely lost than a traveler benighted in such a scene? What a figure of a sinner standing in nature’s darkness, in a benighted world, conscious of his danger, though uncertain of its full extent! seeking safety, yet not knowing which way to turn! the abyss at his very feet, and he, awakened to a knowledge of the fact that he had been unconsciously hurrying down into its gloomy and fathomless depths, yet awakened only to discover that, in his efforts to escape, he knows not whither to go, and that another step may plunge him at once into the very destruction he is struggling to avoid! Yes, little reader, this is the actual state of every unbeliever, whether he is conscious of it or not. His danger is as real when he does not know it, as when he does. Have you yet believed in Jesus, so as to be able to say, “He has put away my sins”? If you have not yet truly come to him, though you may be very content with your condition, and quite unconscious of your danger, you are really in far more peril than the traveler we speak of.
When he was so rapidly going down the steep descent, he knew it not. Another step or two might have carried him too far ever to return, yet he knew it not. Was not his danger as great when he was ignorant of it, as it was afterward? Yes, clearly. Well, dear young reader, it is so with you. And when it suddenly occurred to him that he was perhaps descending a gravel-pit, and he struggled back to level ground, was he out of danger? By no means. For aught he knew, a step in any direction would be bodily injury, perhaps death; while to stand still all night in the damp and darkness of that vast solitude would have destroyed his health permanently. And if you stand stall where you are, your eternal ruin is as certain as it is if you seek to go on in your own strength, and after the dictates of your own heart. Now think of this, for it is most true. Try to picture to yourself the traveler as he stood there in the deep night, blinded by utter darkness, surrounded by perils which he had no means whatever of avoiding; in danger if he stood still — in perhaps even greater danger if he moved on in any direction. If you are an unbeliever, it is a figure of yourself. The word of God declares, “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” How solemn to be under “the wrath of God”! Should the sinner stand still in such a terrible position? Should he go on in such a fearful state? Either must be everlasting death! What, then, should he do? It is written, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” You cannot deliver yourself from the danger you are in; Christ alone can save you; and it is written again, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord SHALL BE SAVED.”
The traveler found this true, even as to his temporal danger. Being one who had long known the Lord, and had learned to trust him, he looked to him for deliverance, and found it. No doubt the little reader is curious to know how the writer was extricated from such a scene of difficulties, but he cannot tell him. All he knows is that, having called upon the Lord, he walked on through the darkness, and finding that sight was not only useless in that impenetrable gloom, but that the effort to see was painful, he closed his eyes, and in this way, being wholly cast upon the Lord, moved on in perfect safety, and with far greater ease and certainty than he had found when trying to keep or discover the narrow path by the waning moon’s pale shadowy light. He neither stumbled into hollows, nor got entangled in the gorse. If pits were in his way, he passed them safely; if water-holes and dells and bogs, he was all unconscious of them. The end of the wild heath was gained at last, and as he descended to the high road by the very path he had in vain tried to find by his own efforts by the fitful light of the waning moon, he learned something more of the practical difference between walking by sight, and not by faith — between self-dependence and simple, entire reliance on the Lord. “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL THINE MART, AND LEAN NOT TO THINE OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS.”