Eternity

“T NEVER can forget that word which was once whispered to me in an inquiry-meeting.” “What word was it?” “It was the word Eternity. A young Christian friend, who was yearning for my salvation, came up to me as I sat in my pew, and simply whispered, ‘Eternity’ in my ear with great solemnity and tenderness, and then left me. That word made me think, and I found no peace till I came to the cross of Christ for salvation.”

It is enough to make any one think. My friend, have you ever taken the measure of that word? Have you ever weighed it? You are wearing out life, perhaps, in the desperate endeavor to grow rich; have you ever asked yourself how much you will be “worth” in eternity? Some men will be millionaires in heaven: men like Paul, and Oberlin, and Luther, and Wilberforce; how rich will you be when death has reduced your form to a house of six feet by two? You are anxious, perhaps, about your society on earth; have you thought, With whom shall I spend my eternity? and where?

Eternity! Dwell on that portentous word. Revolve it. Study it. Hang over its infinite depths; fathom it, if you can. Gaze upward, and scale its heights-, if you can. Stretch away over its illimitable breadth; measure it, if you can. Grive wings to your imagination and speed onward; find its e?id, if you can.

Think of as many centuries as there are drops in yonder Atlantic. When these have all passed away, begin a new series of as many centuries as there are sands on the Atlantic shores. Multiply all these centuries by the number of the stars in the sky, and then remember that eternity has but begun! The music of heaven just opened! The remorseful agonies of the pit still in their first pangs of wretchedness; the death of the lost soul ever undying! Let but the lost soul be left to itself — let it only grow worse and worse by the natural law of growth in iniquity — let all grace be totally withdrawn and the soul be given up to upbraid itself, and torture itself, and sting itself with hateful memories forever, and you need to conceive of no material hell. You need no accessories. We are not obliged to conceive of a sulphurous lake foaming in crests of fire, nor of undying worms shooting their fangs into writhing forms; the simple withdrawal of God’s love forever from a wicked soul, and the imprisonment of that soul forever in a dungeon of depravity without a ray of hope, this will be a “death everlasting” too fearful to think of without a shudder.

At the end of myriads of centuries, these pangs will have just begun! The worm yet undying — the fires of remorse yet un quenched! The damnation unslumbering! On every wall of this vast prison-house of despair the self- tortured soul will read, as in letters of fire,” Ye knew your duty, and ye did it notP

Heaven will be as endless in its joys as hell is endless in its remorseful agonies of soul. So I read, for one, the revelations of God’s Word. In heaven new joys must open every moment. New recognitions of the Lord; new discoveries of God’s unexhausted truth. New strains of rapture will fill the ear; new banquets of God’s beauty and glory fill the soul. And yet newer, fresher, sublimer, more magnificent revelations ever bursting upon the glorified spirit!

“How long art thou, Eternity?
As long as God is God — so long
Endure the pangs of sin and wrong:
So long the joys of Heaven remain;
Oh! endless joy! oh! endless pain!
Ponder, oh man! Eternity!”

This eternity is just at the door. You and I may be launched into it before to-morrow’s sun goes down. What is time to us but the brief hour for preparing to meet the destinies of that eternal state? What have we to do but to save our souls, and to save others, too, with the utmost alacrity of Christian love? Every moment spent for God and our fellow-men now will yield its centuries of bliss. Let us live — as earth’s best and holiest have lived — in the light of eternity.

“Here, take this watch, my friend,” said the noble Lord Russell, when he mounted the scaffold to die as a patriot-martyr; “take this watch, I have no more to do with time. My thoughts are now about eternity.”

So would I say to many a reader with whom I have grown intimate in these columns — take your Bible, my friend; learn from it how to live and how to die. You will soon have done with time. Let your thoughts be about Eternity. 18*

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