What were great griefs to me then, though they are nothing now. When I just whispered them on my knees into the ear of Him who had loved me with an everlasting love, oh! it was so sweet, none can tell. If I had told them to somebody else, they would have told them again. But He, my blessed Confidante, He knows my secrets and He never tells again. Oh! what can you do, you that have got no Jesus to tell your troubles to? And the worst of it is, you have got more troubles to come. Times may be hard now, but they will be harder one day—they will be harder when they come to an end. They say it is hard to live, but it is very hard to die. When one comes to die and has Jesus with him, even then dying is hard work. But to die without a Savior! Oh! my friends, are you inclined to risk it? Will you face the grim monarch and no Savior with you? Remember, you must do it, you must die soon. The chamber shall soon be hushed in silence. No sound will be heard except the babbling watch that ever tells the flight of time. The physician shall, “Hush!” and hold up his finger and whisper in a suppressed voice, “He cannot last many minutes longer.” And the wife and the children, or the father and the mother, will stand around your bed and look at you, as I have looked at some, with a sad, sad heart. They will look at you a little while, till at last the death-change will pass over your face. “He is gone.” it will be said. And the hand uplifted will be dropped down again and the eye shall be glazed in darkness, and then the mother will turn away and say, “O my child, I could have borne all this if there had been hope in your end!” And when the minister comes in to comfort the family, he will ask the question of the father. “Do you think your son had an interest in the blood of Christ?” The reply will be, “O sir, we must not judge, but I never saw anything like it. I never had any reason to hope—that is my greatest sorrow.” There, there! I could bury every friend without a tear, compared with the burial of an ungodly friend. Oh! it seems such an awful thing to have one allied to you by ties of blood, dead and in hell. We generally speak very softy about the dead. We say, “Well, we hope.” Sometimes we tell great lies, for we know we do not hope at all. We wish it may be so, but we cannot hope it. We never saw any grounds that should lead us to hope. But would it not be an awful thing if we were honest enough to look the dread reality in its face—if the husband were simply to look at it and say. “There was my wife. She was an ungodly, careless woman. I know at least, she never said anything concerning repentance and faith. And if she died so—and I have every reason to fear she did—then she is cast away from God.” It would be unkind to say it. But it is only honest for us to know it—to look dread truth in the face. Oh! my fellow men and brethren, oh! you who are partners with me of an immortal life! We will one day meet again before the throne of God. But before that time comes, we will each of us be separated and go our divers ways down the shelving banks of the river of death. My fellow man, are you prepared to die alone? I ask you this question again—Are you prepared to arise in the day of judgment without a Savior? Are you willing to run all risks and face your Maker when He comes to judge you, without an advocate to plead your cause? Are you prepared to hear Him say, “Depart you cursed!” Are you ready now to endure the everlasting ire of Him who strikes, and strikes once, does strike forever? Oh! if you will make your bed in hell, if you are prepared to be damned, if you are willing to be so, then live in sin and indulge in pleasures—you will get your wish. But if you would not, if you would enter heaven, and you would be saved, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel?” May God the Holy Spirit enable you to repent of sin and to believe on Jesus. And then you will have a portion among them who are sanctified— But unrepentant and unbelieving, if you die so, you must be driven from His presence—never to have life, and joy, and liberty, as long as eternity shall last. The Lord prevent this, for Jesus’ sake.
