Nellie was very fair! I had often watched her with admiration as she rode up and down the promenade; her golden hair floating in the wind, and her sweet face radiant with smiles; she had much natural amiability and sweetness of temper and was loved by many.
Her days passed in a whirl of gaiety, in which she was the center of attraction. Young, lovely, and wealthy, her company was sought after and courted; her silvery voice echoed through many a mansion, and her graceful form was constantly to be seen in the many ballrooms and fashionable circles of the very gay town in which she lived.
To the eye of the inexperienced, Nellie’s fair face was blooming and healthy-looking, but there were some who watched her with anxious care, and knew well that the hectic tinge on her cheeks, and the diamond luster of her brilliant eye, gave warning of an early tomb. Her kind physician had ofttimes warned and pleaded with her to give up a life of gaiety and late hours, which was feeding a disease that human skill had failed to arrest; but she laughingly put away such fears, saying, “Let me have one more ball, and then I shall become religious.” But the one ball was followed by many; and night after night, Nellie, radiant as ever, was in crowded, heated rooms, as if determined to live in a whirl of pleasure as long as she possibly could.
Poor girl! there were few, if any, in the circle in which she moved to speak to her of Christ; few to tell her of the only One who could give her real joy and satisfaction, and who could, in place of the passing pleasures of a poor fleeting world, give her pleasures that would last forever, and would not pass away. To one who did speak to her of an eternity which might not be very far off, she answered: “O, but I’m not so ill as some people think I am, and I do mean to be religious someday.”
It was a night of intense cold; Nellie’s elegant dressing room in L. Crescent was brilliantly lighted, everything in it showing the exquisite taste and refinement of its fair occupant; she lay in her dressing gown on the sofa, resting from the fatigue of her half-finished toilet; she looked pensive and a shade of sadness was over her large eyes, as she repeated again and again to the companion who was going with her, “And this is to be my last ball; I have made up my mind to have only one more, and then I shall retire into private life, and become religious.” “Are you sure you are able to go tonight?” said her friend, “you don’t look quite well.” “Not quite well,” said Nellie; “but I’m only to have one more,” and so saying she rang the bell for her maid.
Soon the lovely one was dressed in her snowy satin with its rich lace; it had been made on purpose for “Nellie’s last ball.” The freshly-gathered hot-house roses were twined through her golden tresses. The white gloves and boots drawn on those tiny hands and feet, and she was ready. The carriage was at the door, Nellie’s friend had taken her place in it, and she, wrapped in her white cloak, was descending the staircase. The keen blast of a severe winter night had to be faced by that fragile form; the little foot was on the carriage step, she shuddered and drew back, quickly retracted her steps into the hall, and fell backward at the foot of the staircase.
Awe-stricken, yet not realizing the fact that this was more than a faint, her friends carried her to her room, and her doctor who lived very near was present in a minute; but no power of man could recall life, and horror-stricken friends gathered round to hear that the heart of that gay worldly one had ceased to beat forever.
She was dead!
This is a true story; many details I refrain from giving. I have told it simply as I got it from one who knew her. I was myself living but a few doors from the house in which she lived, at the time she was thus called to meet God in a moment. And for you who are unsaved, I write it as a word of warning. Take heed lest ye too be cut off in your sins!
Where is Nellie now? Her silvery laugh will never ring again. She had “the pleasures or sin for a season” here without Christ, but let a veil be drawn over her eternity of woe. It is for me now to cry aloud to you, Escape, escape lest ye perish like her! Hearken, ye gay ones! Stop and think! Tomorrow you may be in eternity! Your laughter may be turned into weeping and wailing; your mirth into anguish and woe! I would reason with you, I would plead with you, I would beseech you to come to Jesus now! “He ready stands to bless you.” Flee to Him now! Surely you are not going to wait for “only one ball more.” The risk is too great. Your whole eternity may depend upon it. Cast yourselves into those loving arms now, ere it be too late.
He offered Himself a sacrifice for sin that He might give eternal life without money and without price. Did it cost Him little to purchase salvation for guilty rebels? to leave the brightness of the glory and come down here to die? “Ah,” you say, “but I shall not die like Nellie I am not likely to be cut off in a moment. I shall have time to repent, and turn to God ere I die!”
And who has given you this promise, may I ask? I find none such in God’s Word.
“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:33And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)). There is time, now this moment for you to turn to God. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” I have no promise for tomorrow. There is salvation for every one who believes in Jesus now, but I dare not say, You may have one ball more and then come to Christ: the risk is too great: come now, just as you are, delay not a moment. I was asked lately by one who had heard the gospel, and had been pressed to accept Christ, “but could I not put it off for a year, I am not likely to die?” O horrible thought! Put off the salvation of your precious soul for twelve months more! Thousands of souls go down into hell every year, and Why not yours, ye rejecters of Christ? God is not mocked: if ye live to the world and refuse Christ ye shall die in your sins. You may be very attractive and very amiable in the world’s eyes, and you may even have a profession of being Christ; but if you have never been converted, your mask will be torn off some day and you will have to stand before God an unveiled soul. How, O how, will you stand the gaze of His eyes, who “knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth”?
O reader, that would be an evil day for thee, to be found like one, who when called to die, cried out, “I would give millions for one moment of time.” But too late, too late then! Your season of grace is past, and you have lost Christ forever, for the sake of the shadowy unreality of this world’s fleeting joys.
Reader, it is of the Lord’s mercy you are still alive: do not trifle with the grace that still pleads with you. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sin; be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)).
Do you wish to spend eternity with Christ, with Christ forever? Look unto Him now. Or do you wish to have only one ball more? one more! one more! It matters not what only one more of anything that keeps you away from Christ; one more grain of sand, it may be, from the sirocco of sin, one more breath from the poisoned simoon of pleasure; one more wave from the sea of sunny enjoyments here, bearing you onward, poor victim, upon its deceitful tide to your eternal doom!
“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” Luke 16:23, 2423And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. (Luke 16:23‑24).