An Extract.
EARLY one morning, in the middle of last year, (writes a friend who witnessed what he describes,) a fire broke out in one of the houses in a narrow street in London. The alarm was given by a policeman on duty, and speedily the engines were heard rattling along to the scene of action; but ere they could get to work, the flames began to issue forth, and rise high into the air. Presently a young man was seen to appear at one of the upper windows of the house, in his night clothes. The fire escape, which had also arrived, was placed against the house, when a fireman ascended the ladder, and called the young man to make all haste, and escape for his life. But to his surprise the young man refused to come away just then, saying he wished to dress first. The fireman repeated his warning with increasing earnestness, “Come as you are! Come as you are!” but to no purpose, for he still said he would come when he got dressed.
When one below in the street heard this, he broke open the front door, and tried to ascend by the stairs: but the wind admitted by the open door soon fanned the flames into redoubled fury, and compelled the man to retreat. The youth within had gone from his bedroom to dress, and the fireman was unable to enter through the window in consequence of the heat and smoke. Meanwhile the flames rose higher and higher, when suddenly the stairs gave way, and the roof fell in with a terrible crash, burying the unfortunate young man beneath the ruins, and rendering escape no longer possible. A day or two thereafter, when search had been made for his body, it was found amid the wreck and rubbish all charred and blackened, and otherwise terribly disfigured.
A sad and awful death surely! and rendered all the sadder when we reflect that but for his own infatuated refusal to avail himself immediately of the means of rescue which had been placed within his reach, the young man might have escaped, if with naught else, at least with his life.
Reader, may not this suggest, and even picture forth to you, the still greater infatuation of those who, from youth to manhood, and from manhood to old age, and on to death itself, refuse to “flee from the wrath to come?” And if so, beware lest such should have been your practice up to the present hour. Many loud warnings may have been unheeded by you in the past, because the “convenient season” to which you have been looking forward has not yet come. Remember, “the time is short;” and you know not what a day may bring forth. Then escape for your life; look not behind you; an almighty Saviour stands ready to receive you, and His word is, “COME AS YOU ARE!”