“A vision of the night.”
THE performances at a theater in East London were at their height at Christmas-tide. The house was flashing with lights and decorations, and filled from floor to floor with laughing faces. It was the season of pantomiming; and clowns and pantaloons and their companions were in full activity. Between two and three thousand of the young and the old, the rich and the poor, were congregated in different parts of the house. Among them all, how many were truly converted? bow many ready to die? How many would wish to die in such a place at such a time? Among them all―every one immortal―there was not one thought of God, of Christ, of immortality; all was frivolous and foolish―most unfitting occupation for men and women who had to prepare for eternity and the immediate presence of God. If Christ comes speedily, will He find any of His in such scenes?
For many nights, stretching into months, the same scene was repeated. But as the winter passed away, the pantomime of the season passed with it, and clown and pantaloon had to seek other means of earning bread for themselves and families.
It is only with the former that I have to do.
His occupation at the theater closed with the pantomime; but he had other means of living. He was accustomed to appear at concerts and harmonic meetings, and there sing in character, as it is termed, combining a mixture of singing and speaking which is very popular with the uneducated and the ungodly in East London, and in hundreds of other places beside. He had, however, noted with uneasiness that his popularity was waning, his greatest efforts coldly received, and the proprietor of the music-hall paying his salary grudgingly―before he had left for the pantomime season; and whether he would be engaged again he did not know. He therefore resolved to obtain, if possible, some new highly-spiced entertainment for the multitude, that should make him a greater favorite than ever. Of course he could not pray over the matter, nor ask the guidance and direction of the Father in heaven; indeed he had no belief in Him, never thought of Him or of Jesus: he was willing to labor―in his profitless way―for the bread that perisheth; he knew not of, nor cared for, everlasting living bread.
The recent revival of religion at the east of London was then at its zenith; to the poor and the ignorant the pure Gospel was preached with amazing power, directness, and success. Places of worship were, open every evening in the week; and many earnest and gifted servants of God were found to lift up Christ, holding Him before the sinner as the only but all-sufficient refuge. Many were brought out of darkness into marvelous light, and the meetings were much spoken of in the locality. This gave the clown the idea he was seeking; he resolved to attend some of the meetings, in order to produce a burlesque of them at the music-hall. He neither thought nor cared for the awful wickedness of his purpose; nor of its probable consequences upon the souls of those who would hear him, and would thus be hardened against and inclined to mock at the extraordinary outpouring of the Gospel at that time. He was truly “past feeling,” “dead in trespasses and sins.”
The place he had chosen to visit was a large hall, roughly fitted up for preaching the Gospel among the very poor. There was a great gathering; and he stood unknown and unnoticed. The service commenced with some singing, which he thought could be distorted to serve his purpose, and which he carefully noted. The hymn was followed by reading from the Bible; which he felt, instinctively, he had better let alone, partly from doubt as to how such a burlesque would take, partly from a lingering dread of subjecting “his mother’s book” to such treatment. It was well it was so; for no man ever yet mocked or laughed at that Book without regretting it “in this world or that which is to come.” No man ever despised the Spirit’s teaching and was wise “unto salvation.” The reading was followed by prayer, which was also barren of results for his purpose. The second hymn promised better; and then the first address was given.
The speaker was a short-sighted, dark little man, with a slight impediment of speech and hesitancy of manner, which seemed to promise just what the scoffer had come to seek. But as the preaching went on, the preacher grew earnest; his subject filled his mind, his voice cleared and strengthened, and he held the vast audience with great power. Nor was the clown insensible to the influence there present. The text chosen was “Prepare to meet thy God!” and the theme of discourse the absolute need of fitting preparation on the part of all men before their inevitable and compulsory meeting with God. The address concluded with a stirring appeal to hearts and consciences concerning their personal condition and fitness if called suddenly to appear before God.
The discourse rendered the listener so uncomfortable, that he lost the opportunity of gaining ideas from the hymns between the two addresses, as he felt it necessary to leave the building in order to drown the uneasy feeling within by intoxicating drink. But he returned in time for the second address, to find it quite as unavailable as its predecessor. The second theme was the eternal righteousness of God in His dealings with sinners, founded on the text “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” During this address, the clown was made to feel keenly, that if the speaker was uttering truth, his own personal condition was perilous beyond thought of conception. An after-meeting was announced for those who wished for private direction or special prayer; but the inclination to gather material for mockery had left him, and he quitted the meeting in deep concern of soul. He felt that he could not then return to any of his haunts of dissipation, and he consequently returned home early, to the unspeakable astonishment of his wife and children.
He shared their evening meal with them for the first time for several years, and then retired to rest without one thought of petition or of thankfulness, and was soon in troubled sleep, and dreaming.
His “vision of the night” commenced with a confused mingling of the scenes of his nightly life, rapidly changing without order or design, but gradually deepening and settling into order and plan, and so forming an abiding impression on his memory. He saw houses, theaters, and music-halls, within and without, at the same time. But the usual foundations had no place in his dream: in their stead, theater and music-hall seemed to stand upon a sea of clear coruscating wine; and as he gazed in wonder on this new foundation, he saw that the crimson wine was a fierce fire of unutterable brightness, a deep-red wine of fire, on which was standing every theater, and music-hall, and supper-room he had ever entered. He saw further the faces of his former companions who had been dead for years, just as they were when living; and, as they stood singing and acting as of old, they seemed to sink slowly but certainly into the wine of fire beneath. As they sank, he saw the faces change from laughter and mockery into an expression of hopeless and awful suffering, and the despairing eyes gleamed with terrible consciousness as they sank slowly and were lost to view in the unfathomable deeps of the wine of fire.
The vision continued; and he saw himself appear upon the mimic scene, and heard the roar of laughter that always greeted his appearance on the stage; but he knew, also, that even while performing his part, he was uneasily conscious of the fire-wine upon which he was standing, and while frantically gibbering for the amusement of the audience he was in awful fear of the fiery unfathomable gulf beneath. He dreamed he began to sink into it, while the laughter of the unconscious audience was still ringing. As he sank, he still attempted to sustain his part, though his tongue was almost cleaving to the roof of his mouth, and every limb trembling and quivering with mortal fear. Then a horrible dread came upon him; his mocking song changed to a wild shriek of agonizing pain; the first touch of the fierce fire was upon him, and the anguish was unbearable. A hopeless awful scene of utter abandonment took entire possession of all his being; and as he sank deeper and deeper into the everlasting burning, he knew that he was lost―soul and body; ―that the fire wine into which he was sinking was “the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God!”
The awful mental suffering induced by his “vision” awoke him from his slumber, and he lay trembling so violently that the bed shook beneath him. Through the window the gray dawn was faintly visible; and with every limb quivering he rose, to fall upon his knees by the bedside, ―his first sensation one of overpowering thankfulness that he was not yet cast irrevocably into the red wine of fire. The deep breathing of his still slumbering wife and children sounded like the sweetest music in his ears, seeming to assure him of present safety, and of opportunity for repentance and escape. He had no doubt of the truth of the vision; no question of the awful reality it represented crossed his mind. He saw how awfully and repeatedly he had sinned; and if he were cast into the wine of fire, he had no defense to make, no plea to urge, nothing to complain of; he knew that he was guilty, as he knelt, self-condemned, before the holy Almighty God.
He wandered hither and thither, through the day; miserable beyond words to express, but unknowing where relief and help were to be found. But at night-fall he was again at the place of meeting; where, after singing and prayer as before―no attempt at mockery now―an address was commenced from the words, “This man receiveth, sinners.” The speaker began with a graphic portraiture of the modern types of those whom our Lord received in the old time; and then proceeded to show how, by a life of spotless holiness on earth, joined to such personally unmerited suffering as the world never witnessed before or since, the Redeemer acquired the right to redeem and “save, even unto the uttermost, all that come unto God by him;” that He has exercised the right thus acquired through all the intervening years and centuries; that His arm was not shortened that it could not save, nor His ear heavy that it could not hear. If they who were present were willing to repent of their sins and believe on Him, their iniquities need no longer separate between them and their God, nor their sins turn away His face from them; because it was as true now as ever it was, that “this man receiveth sinners.”
The actor saw it all―for the Lord opened the eyes of his inner man. He saw that the portraiture of the life of a guilty sinner was an exact reproduction of his own life; and, as the preacher proceeded, he saw also with inexpressible astonishment and delight that “Christ died for the ungodly,” and that he, therefore, was included among those the Redeemer came to save. When the preacher asked who among them was willing to receive freely offered pardon and peace, he felt that he was willing― “made willing” in the day of Christ’s power; and tears streamed freely down his face, as he sank upon his knees in unfeigned penitence and earnest believing prayer.
So he found peace in believing; and from his own lips I received the story of his being brought up from “among the dead” by his awful “vision of the night.”
C. J. W.