“My brother George is dying and afraid to die.” Such words admit of no delay with any heart that knows the value of a precious soul, and knows also the secret which turns the fear of death into joy and praise. The speaker was a young man about twenty-two years of age; intelligent, well educated, and religiously trained, but alas! without Christ.
“Do come at once if you can,” he beseechingly said; “the doctor says my brother can hardly live through the night.”
I accompanied the young man to the house. At the door the sorrowing mother met me; she had been anxiously waiting for us. Her eyes filled with tears as she wailed out, “My poor, dear boy George, only seventeen years of age, and dying! I have besought him when in health, again and again, to give his heart to Jesus. Now I fear it is too late. Oh, he is dying! Come into the bedroom and see him.”
I noiselessly followed her into the half-darkened chamber. Shall I ever forget the sight? There lay the youth, breathing so heavily that the bed actually shook under him. His eyes were partly closed, and he was apparently unconscious of all that was going on around him. His sister sat by his bedside moistening his parched lips. Presently he opened his large eyes and stared wildly round; his lips parted, and he murmured, “Where am I?”
“You are at home with your own mother, George dear,” the mother gently said, taking him tenderly by the hand.
“Am I very ill?”
“Yes, you are very ill indeed,” She replied; and looking enquiringly into his mother’s face, he said―
“Mother, I’m not dying, surely? I cannot, oh, I cannot die!” His head fell on the pillow, and he fainted.
When consciousness returned, his mother said, “Mr. M. is here.”
His eyes fell on me. I eagerly asked, “What shall I ask God for, George?”
In an agony of soul he said, “Oh, pray that I may get one chance more―only one chance more!” and again he swooned away.
They bathed his burning brow, and the mother, son, and daughter joined in asking me to pray the Lord to raise him up again, and that he might have at least one chance more.
We knelt down and besought the Lord for him, and as we prayed, poor George kept murmuring, “Not dying! ―I―cannot―die; one― chance―more, ―only―one―chance―more!”
Days passed on. He hovered between life and death, apparently very anxious to be saved, but he did not cast himself as a helpless sinner upon Christ.
Then there came a change. He began to recover, and as his strength returned, to our grief we saw his anxiety to be saved lessen.
In a few days he was able to sit up. Mother, son, and daughter were indeed glad. The Lord had heard our cry, and had granted his request. George had one chance more.
Now all anxiety was over. He did not want Christ now! He was going to live! He was afraid to die without a Savior, but, as he was going to live, he would rather live without Him. Though grateful for kindness shown, he would heed no more the warning voice. I pleaded with him again to cast himself as a poor sinner on Christ, reminded him of the solemn moment when he had cried on the brink of eternity “for one chance more”; but George turned a deaf ear, and became utterly indifferent to the welfare of his immortal soul.
In a short time he was able to walk about, and (against his mother’s wishes) made up his mind to go to sea. I saw him a day or two before he left, and, while parting, again reminded him of God’s mercy in raising him up from death, and earnestly pleaded with him to come to Christ.
“You are going to sea without God, and against your mother’s wishes. Remember, George, God is not mocked! Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!”
As his eye fell upon his weeping mother and sister, for a moment he seemed to waver, and said, “I have not given up the thought of being a christian, but I must go off to sea.”
What a moment in his history! Eternal life, eternal glory with Christ, set before him in one scale, and the poor, paltry pleasures of this lying, dying world in the other. For a moment the balance quivers. Which is it to be? Christ or Satan? Heaven or hell? Which?
A smile from his lips, a shake of his hand, and we parted.
A few days later a letter reached his mother. It was not from her son, but from the captain of the vessel in which he had sailed.
A storm had raged while they crossed the Bay of Biscay, and George fell from the yardarm, and was drowned.
The ship sailed on; George had fallen into eternity; his last chance was gone forever. No doubt he had meant to be a christian someday.
Oh, how the devil tempts people to put off the salvation of their souls till tomorrow! Alas! Tomorrow is too late, for tomorrow is death―the grave―the judgment―the lake of fire―the eternal wail of the lost in the dark, deep pit of hell! God says now, poor sinner, now, or with you it may be never!
The old year has run its course, but that year with its record will come up again when you stand before the great white throne. The books will be opened. God keeps a book of our individual history, He makes no mistakes; everything is recorded faithfully and with divine accuracy, and each record will condemn you as you stand there and hear its soul damning testimony. The new year will tell its own sad tale; it may be this: ― “Listened to many preaching’s about Christ, and never came to Him; from the first of January to the end of December, he was warned, pleaded with, exhorted to believe, but he died without Christ!”
Friend, delay no longer; this may be your very last year―your last month your last week―your last day―yea, your last hour or moment―your last chance! Whatever your past history may have been, there is before you a most solemn event when that unwelcome visitor, death, shall lay his cold, icy hand upon your heart and stop its throbbing. Vain will be your struggle, your ardent desire for dear life. You will be thrust across the narrow line which separates time from eternity―and then you will be―Where?
Your plans and arrangements will be gone forever, your days of pleasure past, your nights of sin at an end. The world will forget you; it will go on as though you had never been. Your death will be but of trifling moment to the town, village, or even the street in which you pass away: but for you, my friend, for you―oh, what will it be?
You know the gospel well, for you have heard it preached and read it frequently; but you do not know Christ. There are many in hell at this moment who knew the gospel as well as you do. They, like you, read and heard it often; but every one of them heard and read it for the last time. Friend, this may be your last chance. Oh, then, come and be saved! Would you be saved? Why not, this beginning of the new year? Now is the accepted time! Now is the day of salvation! J. MCK.