Lost! lost! and lost forever! You shrink from the words and say, Ο but can it be? Is it a reality? Did you see that soul go down into hell before your eyes, and you had no power to save her? Did you hear her death-cries of agony, and still could do nothing for her? Yes! yes! it was a terrible reality never to be forgotten by me; and though it is years since, I seldom can think of it without weeping, and the remembrance of it has often sent me with a word of warning to others; and this terrible death scene of which I was an eye witness has often brought from me the cry “Escape for thy life.”
The story of Α., the rejecter of Christ, is no phantom of some fevered imagination; it is no wrought up story to work upon your feelings and fill you with horror; but may the Lord use it to show you that death is a reality that hell is a reality! and you, sinner, have to meet both if you reject Christ.
It was in the autumn of 18—, we went to reside in a little villa near—. It was one of a cluster of villas looking upon the distant hills. Sometime after we had come there, a gay young couple came to live next door, and we had watched with some little interest the preparations for their arrival.
A few days after this, I saw the lady walking along the footpath near our windows; she was young, and her dress and bearing marked her as one of the world’s chosen ones. As her graceful form passed up and down the shrubbery, I was struck with the delicacy of her appearance and a look of unrest upon her fair young face that told its own tale, No peace! no peace! My heart rose in silent prayer to God, that He might send me with a message to her soul. Next day I called. On asking for Mrs.—, the servant told me she was ill, but she thought she would see me. I went in and soon found myself in earnest conversation with Mrs.—. Her tale was soon told, for she was unreserved and very communicative; finding it, as she said, a great comfort to have any one to speak to, to break the monotony of a country life in the absence of her husband, who was all day engaged with business.
During my visit she frankly told me, that though only a few months married, and her heart thoroughly occupied with the world in every form, its ball-rooms, its concerts, its parties, yet she was very unhappy; and, in a simple child-like way, she said, “We have been watching you and your husband pass up and down, and we think you look so happy!” The moment had come: I thanked God for the opportunity to speak, and said, “You are right, we are happy; and the secret of our happiness is, we know Christ; we have peace with God, through believing in the finished work of Christ; and we have in Him what the world has never given you, and never can give you, for the end of all its joys is eternal misery.”
As I pressed upon her the necessity of conversion, tears rolled down her cheeks, and she said, “But no one ever told me that before: is it all true?” “Yes,” I answered, “for God’s word declares to us ‘Ye must be born again,’ and, ‘Except ye be converted......ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.’” I pressed upon her the necessity of accepting Christ now, and rose to leave; slowly and solemnly she said, “Well, I would like to have your Christ, but I love the world; and though I am often unhappy. Yet I could never give up my dancing; and you know,” she said, as a hollow smile played upon her lips, “I sing at private concerts, and they say, A’s voice is the best voice there.” I shuddered! A little of the world’s praise is more to thee, fair Α., than the unsearchable riches of Christ. I said, “Remember, they that reject Christ here, will have to spend eternity in hell.”
A few days after this, on returning from a walk, I found Mrs.—had called. I hastened to return her visit, and found her more miserable than before. Struggling to assume a gaiety she did not feel, she met me by saying, “Ο let me tell you about the concert I am to sing at next week.” “Stop,” I said, “there will be no singing in hell!” “O,” she said, “don’t speak in that way, I cannot bear it; speak of your Jesus if you like, but not of hell!” Again I told her of His love for sinners, but her mind was full of her coming concert, her dress, her songs, &c. And as I parted from her, very sad, she said, “When the concert is over I will come and talk to you:” but weeks passed and she came not.
We were leaving our country home for a time, so I called to say good-bye, and pressed once more upon her the salvation of her precious soul; but she was swamped in a whirlpool of coming gaiety, and had no time for Christ.
It was months ere we returned home, and almost immediately I was laid upon a bed of sickness, from which I was just recovering when a message came to me one morning from Mrs.—, whom I had not seen since my return.
“Do come at once, I wish to see you.” I rose quickly and dressed, and soon found myself at her door. It was opened by a sister, who said, “Ο come in; A. is very ill, and is very anxious to see you.” With noiseless footsteps I went upstairs to her room; gently I opened the door of that half-darkened chamber, and, Ο shall I ever forget the sight! There, on the bed, lay Α., in the ravings of fever; her infant son, a few weeks old, on a little bed by her side. Her graceful form was racked by pain, her masses of dark tangled hair lay on the pillow, the dew of death was on her brow; and, as her large dark eyes opened and saw me, her parched and blackened lips parted, and she almost screamed, “Ο you have come at last; now do not leave me.” And sitting up in bed, she grasped me with a strength that only fever gives. “Have you sent for the doctor?” I whispered to her sister. “No,” said Α., wildly, hearing me, “he will only tell me I am very ill, and you know I must be at the choral meeting next week. I am to sing at the concert;” and so saying, she fell back on her pillow in a swoon. I pointed to her sister to take my place, and hurried from the room.
In a few minutes my husband was off for the doctor. It seemed long till he came; never shall I forget that hour, while anxiously listening for his footsteps. I bathed the burning brow, and pleaded with her to let me cut off the tangled web of her once lovely hair; and as she again half swooned, I did so, hearing her murmur all the time, “But the concert! how can I go to the concert without my hair? and it was so beautiful! Ο they said A.’s hair was so beautiful!” At last I heard the doctor’s hurried footsteps on the stair, and I left the room. As he came out I met him; his anxious face told all. “Doctor, is she dying?” “Yes, dying fast; but don’t tell her! I am going for another doctor, but I know it’s too late.” And giving me a few hurried orders about his patient, he left me, with his words ringing in my ears, “Dying fast! don’t tell her!” Yes, I must tell her, was my resolve, for she is unsaved and does not know it. I could only look up in agony and say, “Ο God, help me to speak to her!” The doctor had told me to give her champagne and brandy every quarter of an hour, till he returned; she heard the order and asked for it whenever I entered the room; drinking it down she exclaimed, “O I can live a quarter of an hour upon that, surely I am not dying?” “Yes, Α.,” I said, “you are dying; but I can tell you of One who died to save just such as you.” Gently I told her in very simple words of that One who met the prodigal in the far off land; and the dying thief upon the cross; but she almost threw me from her, and said, “I cannot hear it now; when I get better I’ll come and sit with you and hear about your Jesus, but not now,” and again she swooned.
I prayed, Ο as I had never prayed before, and as I rose from my knees I found her large dark eyes, already glazed by the hand of death, fixed upon me. “O,” she said, “pray to your Jesus, He will hear you; but I don’t know Him, and I cannot hear about Him now.” Eagerly I asked, “What shall I pray to Him for, A.?” Horror filled me as I heard her answer, “Pray to Him that I may get well, and go to the concert.”
Again I pleaded with her about her soul; but it was no use. She had rejected Christ all her life, and she would not have Him now. Hours passed and the doctors came, only to say; “Sinking fast!” Her husband and friends arrived to see the end of the fair Α., and I would fain have left a scene so terrible; but she held me in her grasp.
Every quarter of an hour as I gave her her draft she said, “Ο, I can live upon that—it must make me live—I cannot die!” And then in plaintive accents she wailed out, “I’m too young to die, yes, I’m only twenty-one: yes, too young to die!”
“Father,” she said, as her father drew near the bed, “ will you take me to the concert next week?” “Yes,” said her father, “I will.” I was a stranger to her friends, and seeing she was sinking fast, I passed away from a scene so awful. In a few moments all was over, and the soul of Α., the rejecter of Christ, had passed from the world and its pleasures, its balls, and its concerts, into the realities of an endless eternity. “Woe unto you, ye despisers!” “ye will not come to me that ye might have life.”
The night is looming far, the hanging shadows spread,
The wand’rers stray on life’s wild way, no starbeam’s light is shed.
I hold the heaven-lit lamp, lit by my Savior’s hand;
Its rays might light their path as mine, and guide to heaven’s bright land.
Ο lamp, shine brightly round; Ο voice, be strong to call;
Ο hand, stretch far where the dying are with life’s rich draft for all!
Be strong, thou ransom’d soul, rest on thy Savior’s love,
Clasp His hand in the desert land, point to the home above.