THIS war has made me think that there is another world, and ask myself the question whether I am prepared for it.”
So wrote one from the front a few days ago. The solemn realities with which we are faced from day to day are certainly raising the question in the minds of many as to whether they are prepared to face eternity or not. Daily we are receiving tidings of someone we knew having been called out of time into eternity, and daily the number of killed and wounded is being augmented with startling rapidity.
These terrible realities with increasing force compel us to ask the question: Are you prepared to meet God?
Questions like this crowd upon the writer as he sits down, impelled by the words of a passing street preacher to ask you to think seriously of eternity, and the great weight of sin that lies on your conscience and heart, if you are still a stranger to the Lord Jesus and His love.
The hours are gliding quickly by, and, as you hear of those, you once knew and loved, removed from this earth, we ask, Have you never seriously thought of eternity, and how you are going to meet God? Push not aside the question your soul's benefit, and your eternal blessing. If you think not of these things when you are in life and leisure, how shall you be able to face them on the battlefield, or in your dying hour?
A colonel invalided home a few days ago told the writer how some men fainted as they were detrained at the front, and heard the roar of the cannon, the rattle of the musketry, and the bursting of the shells. The deafening, bewildering noise drowned all shouts of the men, so that in mad fury they rushed forward at the command of their officer into the jaws of death, to slay, or to be slain.
Only those, who have been in the thickest of the fight, can understand the horrors of modern warfare, but we turn from the gruesome thoughts of the carnage to the bright and blessed thought that the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners, the Lover of our souls, "was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes," 'the believer can say, "we are healed." (Isa. 53:5.)
In love and tenderness we beseech you, dear reader, to turn to Him, Who has thus suffered for your sins, believe on Him, trust His precious blood alone for pardon and peace, and salvation shall be yours, come what may.
C. S. R.