IN the town of Stonehaven, Scotland, there I existed nigh forty years ago an infidel club consisting of nine members, who for audacity in ungodly words and ways were notorious. The members usually met in a blacksmith's shop, to discuss their infidel principles. Here they imagined they had quite disposed of Christianity. For years they went on with their blasphemies and tall talk. Nothing happened; apparently, in their circumstances, they were unaffected by their ungodliness. Was there no reaping, then? Did God not take account of all this? In patience He bore with them; but listen to the sad sequel.
Eventually the nine dropped off one by one, not one of them ending with a natural death.
One, named Brown, for murder on the high seas, was hanged in the town of Montrose; and we had the melancholy privilege of preaching Christ under the shadow of the gallows to thousands, who had congregated to see him executed.
A second drowned himself in the sea, near Bervie, distant twelve miles from the scene of his ungodly influence and efforts. Conscious of his wicked and blasphemous life, he sought rest for his unhappy soul, vainly imagining death to be a relief, compared with the intolerable expectation and continual dread of the hell he denied.
The third, under a similar condition, and loathing himself because of his terrible misdeeds, committed suicide by hanging himself in his back garden one Sunday morning.
A fourth hanged himself, after a protracted "spree," while in delirium tremens, in his stable.
The fifth, while raving mad with despair, and crying night and day, "I'm lost, I'm lost!" drowned himself in a deep pool, called "Cowie Pot," close inshore near the sea.
A cooper by trade was the sixth. He was crossing a creek, on a narrow plank, one Saturday evening while drunk, carrying two newly-made wooden pails to the person who had ordered them. At the time the wind was blowing hard, and a strong gust blew him off the plank into the water, which was not more than two feet deep. The pails filled with water, and he in his stupidity, keeping hold of them, was drowned where a six-year-old child could have waded.
The seventh, while drunk, fell into the sea off the pier, and was drowned. His body was recovered the next day.
A barber was the eighth. He was a most wicked man. Often when we were preaching in the street he would come and place his mouth as close as possible to the preacher's ear, and sing at the top of his voice “Martyrdom," or some such psalm tune, to annoy us. He knew we would do him no harm, and therefore took the advantage to secure the applause of a gaping crowd, who approved of his conduct, and afterward treated him to strong drink for his courage.
Alas! alas! one Christmas night he was so drunk that he could not sit on his chair in his room; he evidently fell off, his head coming in contact with the red-hot bars of the grate, which burnt his face to the bone. Next day, when his neighbors missed him, they burst open the door of his room, and in this condition they found him.
We can only tell of the ninth having been found dead on the sea beach, as we left that part of the world before his decease.
Reader, socialism may appear attractive, and be pleasing to the rebellious mind of fallen humanity; but will the vaporing talk of wicked men, think you, blot God out of His universe, or sin out of the world, or remove your responsibility individually to Him? Nay! Nay!
God is. SIN IS. Personal and individual responsibility is. Heaven is and hell is.
You may by your reasonings try to banish hell to ease your own trouble; but hell is, and escape from it is only by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only through His dying in love for you on the cross can mercy be offered.
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16.) Do not be blinded any longer.
Trifle not with God, His Christ, His Spirit, His Word, nor with your precious soul. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37.)
Does not the true story of the Infidel Club of Nine prove the truth of the word of God that “they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, read the same"? (Job 4:8.)