"I Suppose I Must Go, Sir?"

THESE words were uttered in my hearing by a man of seventy-two, who lay very ill, and whom all knew to be near his end. I had been speaking to him of the Saviour, and asking him if he were ready for eternity, and these were his first words to me in answer, “I suppose I must go, Sir?”
Did he cling to life, still? His hair was grey, and his cheeks were furrowed by the plough of time. Around his bed stood his weeping children, all anxious that he should leave a testimony behind him of faith in Jesus.
He owned he was a sinner, and that Christ had died for him, and we have every reason to believe that he did trust in Jesus.
But it was his question that struck me, and I dare say my reader if brought face to face with the realities of eternity would say, “I suppose I must go.” Yes, you will have to go. Pleasure seeker! you will have to go. Miser! you will have to go. Man of ambition! you will have to go. Man of learning! you will have to go. Religious man or woman! you will have to go. Drunkard, blasphemer, whoever you are! you will have to go. These passing years tell us we have to go. Where is 1887 now? Gone into the eternity of the past. We have begun another year, and it will move on with its hours, and days, and weeks, and months, and you, if you are spared, will move on with it to eternity.
But by and bye, your last year will come, and then time will go on without you, and you will be in eternity. Are you ready for eternity? Reader, stop and think; you have to go, you know; WHERE ARE YOU GOING? Put your foot down and face the question now; say as you think it over, “I have to go; where am I going?” And then, if you do not know the way to heaven, come to Jesus, and He will take you, for He is the Way.