SOME months ago, an Italian servant of Christ was visiting among his fellow-countrymen in Holborn, when he came to a room in which a number of them were gathered together after their usual sociable fashion. He began to speak to them about their souls, and some would have listened but a young man, who was seated at a table in rather an intoxicated state, called out: “Let us eat, let us drink. Don’t let us talk of these things!”
It was vain for the Christian to go on speaking. The young man by his uproarious conduct prevented all serious conversation, and at last the visitor had to take his leave, sad at heart that his blessed message was rejected.
A few months after, the servant of God was again in the same neighborhood, seeking for wandering sheep of his own nation. It was Sunday afternoon, and as he walked on, he saw. Neapolitan standing at his barrow selling ice-creams. He spoke to him a few words about God: the Neapolitan grasped a bag of money which hung at his side, and, holding it up before the Christian, said, “This is my God.”
He was asked whether it was possible that his money was his hope in the hour of death―in view of judgment?
“Yes,” was the decided answer, and all the evangelist could do was to leave him a few printed tracts, in the hope that the hammer of God’s word might yet break the stony heart.
The words of another Neapolitan; who had listened to the gospel of Christ, form a bright contrast to those of his two fellow-countrymen.
Giovanni A. had been for some time a constant attendant at the preaching of the Christen mentioned above, and his interest in what was said, and great love for his Bible led us to believe that God was working in his soul. But he was a shy, unintelligent man, and never made any direct profession of conversion„ until one day, about five months ago, the evangelist asked him a question about the judgment. He answered to this effect: “I am not afraid of the judgment.”
“Why not?”
“I shall not come into judgment, because I am sheltered by the blood of Christ.”
And to this certainty he still holds fast. Dull and ignorant as Giovanni is, and weighed down by domestic trouble, his whole face lights up when he is spoken to about God.
Reader! are you like either of these three Italians? Perhaps you would shrink, from uttering the sensual words of the first, but are you sure that they are very far from representing your feelings? Have you never turned away from God’s message to your own earthly pleasures, saying with your heart, if not with your lips, “Don’t let us talk of these things?”
“Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” Careless pleasure-seeker, beware! Pleasure is your god alas! it is a god that will fail you in the day of judgment.
But perhaps you do not care for what are generally called pleasures you think they involve a waste of money, and therefore rigorously abstain from them.
You are diligent in making money, and when you have made it, you hoard it up: shilling is added to shilling, pound to pound, and you survey your glittering store with a smile of satisfaction, and yet―must the truth be told? ―with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction at your heart.
Oh, money-grasper! your money is your god. Yes, you had better confess the awful truth, as did the poor Italian― “This is my god.”
But what of the future? will your golden god avail you when you stand before the “great white throne?” Will it purchase your acquittal then? Will money bribe the Judge of quick and dead?
Oh! if hitherto you have been like either of the first two Italians, don’t let it be so an hour longer. Turn to the God of Giovanni A. Let the false gods drop; and take shelter beneath the precious blood of Christ; then you will be able to say as he did: “I am not afraid of the judgment;” then your triumphant cry will be, “Come sorrow, come peril, come death: this God is my God forever and ever.”
But perhaps some one reading this little paper is already a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ. If so, is there nothing you can do to help to carry the gospel to these poor foreigners, hundreds of whom are living in our midst still sunk in the darkness of popery? Is there not one who will answer to the Master’s call― “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”― “Here am I, send me.”
C. H. P