SOME time ago a sad colliery explosion occurred in the Rhonda Valley. The physicians found plenty of work as the mutilated remains of many a poor fellow was brought to the surface. It was a sight never to be forgotten; on every hand cries and groans were to be heard, and many a kindly hand was there to seek to relieve, if possible, the poor sufferers. How true is the Word of God, “Ye know not what shall be on the morrow.” How many that day left their homes, little thinking that they would never re-enter them alive. Maybe many a Christ rejecter was there, and now their last chance is gone, their last opportunity past.
Eternity is begun―but where? If unsaved, my reader, where would you spend it, should death summon you at this moment?
One poor fellow was brought up fearfully wounded, his moments on earth were numbered, and as the cage neared the surface he was heard singing a verse of that well-known hymn―
“When peace like a river attended my way,
When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well with my soul.”
They laid him out, but he was past all human skill―he was dying. With his dying breath he was heard giving warning to his unsaved comrades around him. Oh, that men would be wise and heed the warning, but “everyone turneth to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle.”
With his last breath he sent the following message to his widowed mother, “It is well with my soul.”
Reader is it well with you? well, with eternity before you, and a lifetime of sins behind you? well, with the wrath of God hanging over your guilty head? and well with the judgment of God just near? Oh, be wise! come now, and trust in Jesus and His precious blood, and it shall be “well with thy soul.”
“What cheering words are these!
Their sweetness who can tell!
In time and to eternal days,
‘Tis with believers well.”
E. E. N.