THE shades of night were falling; a harvest moon shone calmly over the southern horizon, while a somewhat ominous thickness, portending a possible storm, hung away in the east, as I listened to the glad sounds which proclaimed the harvest home.
A long and lovely summer, ending with some days of exceptional heat and beauty, were being numbered with the past, and a harvest of grain, which, though a week of trying weather had done it some injury, was now being safely garnered, through the goodness of a faithful Creator, spoke to me of the closing of another season of temporal mercy.
My thoughts turned to the word of the prophet: “The harvest is past: the summer is ended.” They came with fresh power to my memory; they suited the occasion, and suggested much more to me than the mere events which I heard and saw around me.
The flight of time is bound to raise, ever and anon, serious questions in the mind of every one. We cannot observe the lapse of seasons, or of years, without a variety of thoughts, whether of joy or else of sorrow, of hope or of fears. It is well, now and then, to pause and reflect; to take thought; to stop amid the busy course of life and consider.
The past is gone forever! The future is unknown! The present calls for action! The harvest of 1908 is past its summer is ended. The toil of the husbandman has met its reward; the sun has passed its solstice. The long dark months of winter spread themselves out before us. Never can this harvest be reaped, nor this summer gladden again. Both are passed forever! And we pass on too. The wheels of our little life revolve and carry us on to the end!
What did the prophet add to the words already quoted? Solemn words, indeed, they were: ― “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!”
“NOT SAVED!”
We read of some who were― “Not condemned!”
The difference is infinite. The former class had expected a human deliverance during their summer time and it had not come. The other class had availed themselves of the golden opportunity which God had granted them. They had not allowed their harvest to pass nor their summer to end without obtaining, through faith in the Son of God, deliverance from “wrath to come,” and, along with it, eternal life.
They were saved!
“Saved” or “not saved.” How infinite the difference! To which of these classes, dear reader, do you belong?
Your harvest is not yet past; it is quickly passing! Your summer is not yet ended; it may end very soon! Oh, the golden opportunity that lies at your very hand! Mark, when past, it returns never more!
“Behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Now, will you not pause and consider?
You intend to do so one day; but remember that days and months and years have heard that resolution already, and they have fled!
How long?
Ah, reader, you may not have another year. This may be your very last!
Perhaps not another month! “Boast not thyself of tomorrow.” We would persuade you to turn to the Lord now, the living, loving Saviour, who still pleads with you, but who will soon rise up and shut to the door, and that dread event means that harvest is past, summer ended, and that all who refused to enter are shut out forever.
“And we are not saved,” must be their wail for eternity.
J. W. S.