How bitter will the thought be, when you come to die, – “I might have been saved, but I neglected the golden offering of mercy, and therefore must be consigned to a never-ending eternity of misery and suffering!”
If idly spent, no art or care
Time’s blessing can restore;
And God requires a strict account
For every misspent hour.
Short is our longest day of life,
And soon the prospect ends;
Yet on that day’s uncertain date
Eternity depends.
THE ALARM WATCH
But if we should disregard
While this friendly voice doth call,
Conscience soon will grow so hard,
That it will not speak at all.
A young lady, who was very much given to the habit of sleeping late in the morning, purchased a small alarm watch, hoping that it would be the means of breaking her of a practice not only troublesome to those around her, but really a sinful waste of time. At night, on retiring to rest, she so adjusted the watch that it would awaken her at five o’clock the next morning. The watch, with a punctuality worthy to be imitated by all of us, not only at the appointed hour, but at the very minute itself, commenced such a whirring noise, that the sleeper was immediately awakened, arose at once, and prepared herself for the duties of the day.
The day passed away very pleasantly. She was at prayers and breakfast at the appointed hour, and everything moved quietly and pleasantly on throughout the entire day; and when the shadows of evening darkened the face of nature, she felt that it was the most pleasant day she had ever spent.
She retired to rest, the next night, with the same resolutions; but when the morning came and her watch commenced its rattling noise, she thought it was not worth while to get up then, but would lie in bed only fifteen minutes longer. The expiration of the fifteen minutes found her sleeping soundly, and she did not awake till the sun had risen far above the tree-tops, and the laborers were busy at their work.
The next morning she heard her watch at its accustomed noise, but came to the conclusion that getting up ahead of the sun was all a humbug.
The next morning she slept so soundly that she scarcely heard the watch at all; and that night concluded not to wind it up, as she had no idea of having her morning’s nap disturbed by such a disagreeable noise as that. Thus did she return to her former bad habit, and “her last state was worse than the first.”
Each of you, my dear young friends, has an alarm watch in your breast. The moment you disobey your parents, utter an untruth, use a profane expression, or break God’s Holy Day, you hear the busy fluttering of that watch whispering in your ear, “you have done wrong, YOU HAVE DONE WRONG.” The first time you did wrong how loudly did that little watch whir and buzz! You turned pale, and your heart throbbed so violently that you could almost hear it.
The next time its noise was fainter and fainter; and at last it grew so feeble that you could not hear it all.
Then it was that you could swear so boldly, utter an untruth without your cheek coloring, and break the Sabbath without one painful thought.
My young reader, you know too well what that alarm watch is, whose ticking you so frequently hear in your breast. It is your Conscience. And oh, how I tremble when I think of what an awful thing it is to endeavor to drown the voice of that conscience!
Day after day, since your early infancy, your conscience has been begging, entreating you to come to Christ and be saved. Its voice has been unheeded. Beware, O young man or young woman, how you trifle with your conscience! Its voice, once stifled, will be hushed forever.
Like the young lady about whom I have been telling you, if you do not obey its summons at once, but keep on putting it off and off, it will leave you in the awful embrace of that sleep “which knows no waking” in this world, and you will only be aroused by the piercing notes of the Archangel’s trump, – “Come to judgment.”
Conscience, my young friends, is “the fire that is not quenched,” and “the worm that dieth not,” which shall continue to burn, yet not consume, to gnaw and not diminish your immortal soul, if you do not obey its whisperings by coming to your Saviour, now, in the morning of life.
How awful! oh, how awful will it be, to hear the voice of your disregarded conscience ringing throughout the dark, deep caverns of hell: —
“Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as a desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.”
When a foolish thought within
Tries to take us in a snare,
Conscience tells us “It is sin,”
And entreats us to beware.
If in something we transgress,
And are tempted to deny,
Conscience says, “Your faults confess;
Do not dare to tell a lie.”
In the morning, when we rise,
And would fain omit to pray,
“Child, consider,” Conscience cries;
“Should not God be sought to-day?”
When within His holy walls,
Far abroad our thoughts we send,
Conscience often loudly calls,
And entreats us to attend.
When our angry passions rise,
Tempting to revenge an ill,
“Now subdue it,” Conscience cries;
“Do command your temper still.”
Thus, without our will or choice,
This good monitor within,
With a secret, gentle voice,
Warns us to beware of sin.
But if we should disregard
While this friendly voice doth call,
Conscience soon will grow so hard
That it will not speak at all.
“CONDEMNED.”
“Now, despisers, look and wonder;
Hope and sinners here must part:
Louder than a peal of thunder,
Hear the dreadful sound – ‘Depart!’
Lost forever!
Hear the dreadful sound – ‘Depart!’”
I saw, not long since, a man busily engaged in branding, with a red-hot iron, the word
on a large number of barrels of flour.
On asking him what it meant, he informed me that the flour was not sound, and he was instructed to brand all such “Condemned.”
How forcibly, my dear young friends, did it remind me of the situation of sinful persons – those who have no part nor lot in Christ’s kingdom! What a melancholy spectacle would your Sabbath-school present, if your Superintendent were