ETERNITY—how vast the thought! No human mind can scale its height, nor tell its length and breadth and depth. It never ends. It is THE GREAT FOR-EVER.
What is this life of ours when compared to Eternity. It is but the rain-drop in the ocean, it is gone in a moment. Gone, forgotten—and Eternity remains.
Yet, solemn thought, O soul of man, throughout Eternity—so boundless—thou wilt exist, but where?
In thought we take our stand upon some eminence. Beneath we view the unserried ranks of all the sons of men passing onward with steady tread. No step backward is taken, no retreat-ever onward. To what bourne are they pressing? ETERNITY.
But as we gaze upon that solemn scene—upon those multitudes pressing onward to the great For-ever—we see them part, that mighty army is divided, and in two columns now it goes—ever onward. To what bourne do they travel? ETERNITY. But in Eternity will there be division? Shall not men of every clime and faith commingle in one scene of bliss? Shall not the drunkard and the debauchee, the Christ-rejector and the godless, join hand with martyrs and with saints? Nay! not so, for look again at yonder marching crowd.
The steps of one vast company are upward. Upon the way they tread there shines the steady light of heaven; joyously they march, for the end of the way is assured to them.
Look well upon the other company. Their road, alas! is downward. Upon their pathway, between the fitful gleams of pleasure's sunshine, dark shadows fall—the shadows of a lost Eternity. And as we gaze upon these companies we learn the destination of the one is HEAVEN; of the other—HELL.
Reader! on which road do you travel, and where will you spend ETERNITY?
“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matt. 7:13, 14.)
J. T. M.