“WOULD you not think it strange,” we said to a man a short time since, as he stood in his garden in front of his house, “if that house were on fire, and someone who was in the top story at the time made no effort to escape?” Suppose all means of exit by the stairs were cut off, the flames were speedily gaining ground, what should we think of someone in a burning dwelling who said to the fire-escape men, as they placed their ladder against the window, “I cannot attend to you now, come some other time”?
The man to whom these remarks were made fully admitted that we would consider such an one must have lost his reason. Strange to say, while assenting to the truths of the gospel, and admitting the all importance of eternal questions, he fully avowed that he himself was still undecided — he had never come to Christ as his own personal Saviour. Is this not an exceedingly common case in the present day? Are there not thousands — possibly the reader of this paper amongst the number — who know that if the God in whose hand their breath is was pleased to withdraw that breath and to say, “Cut the tree down; why cumbereth it the ground?” they would be lost, and lost eternally; and yet who are prepared to treat the whole matter with stolid indifference? Or, it may be, some think they have as good a chance as other men, and so they leave the matter to fate.
There was a certain man who was rich — his fields brought forth plentifully, and everything seemed to prosper. He was prudent and astute in the things of this world; but we never hear that he troubled himself much about the next world. He said, I will build great barns and lay up great stores, and I will take things very quietly and easily for many years to come. Alas! with all his prudence he was indifferent about his soul, and God said,
“Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
Reader, may we not earnestly and affectionately press the question upon you, through the medium of this little paper. If God said to you, “This night” —not next year, or next month, or next week, but This night — yes — “This night thy soul shall be required of thee” —where would you spend your eternity? F. G. B.