The Self-Doomed
Not many years since an eminent London clergyman observed among his regular auditors a young man whose appearance excited in him an unwonted interest. He took pains to learn the young strangers history; and found that he was the son of pious parents, and had been trained to respect the ordinances of religion, A devout mother had added to her prayers the fervent precept, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.”
At length the young man was missed from his accustomed place in the sanctuary. The watchful eye of the pastor
.’O STRAY ARROWS.
sought for him in vain. He had met with a company of witty and engaging skeptics, who had persuaded him to abandon the house of Grod for the more “manly” entertainments of their infidel club-room, where the ribaldries of Paine were rendered more palatable by the lively jest, and the exhilarating glass. His conscience stung him, but their merry laugh soon drowned the troublesome remonstrance. He proved to be an apt scholar in the ways of sin. His sabbath instructions among the skeptics soon prepared him for the haunts of revelry and for those chambers which lie hard by the door of hell. — A short career of reckless dissipation did its work of ruin upon his slight and delicate frame.
His former pastor, who had well nigh forgotten him, was one day surprised by an invitation to visit the unhappy youth on his dying bed. He found Mm sinking rapidly, and sinking without hope. As the man of God approached the bedside the young man hid his face in the clothes, and refused to speak to him. Finding it impossible to draw a word from the wretched victim of remorse who was just about entering eternity in such a state of sullen despair, the pastor offered a fervent prayer, and turned away. He reached the door. His hand was upon the latch; when the young man suddenly rose in the bed, and beckoned him to return. He went back and leaned his head over the bed to receive the message. The young man threw his arms about him, and drawing his head close to his lips, whispered in convulsive accents, “I’m damned,” and then sunk back silent on his pillow. No farther eflPorts, or entreaties could rouse him. The heart- wrung pastor plead with him, but in vain. Having pronounced Ms own awful doom, his lips refused to speak again; and before the clock struck the hour of midnight, his unhappy soul was in another world.
Young man! as you read the appalling narrative of that poor profligate’s doom, you may be reading your own! His history may be yours. If your feet have forsaken the house of God, if you have been seen on the seat of the scorn er, if you have returned home at the midnight hour from the card-table or the drinkingcircle, you have good cause to tremble. Persist in your course of self-destruction, and you may meet that young man in the world of despair. Partners in misery, you may, to all eternity, curse yourselves as the authors of your own ruin.