“Secure your seat early;” but not for the play,
Where pleasure and folly and vanity meet,
With the gildings of vice turning night into day,
And winging the hours with fraud and deceit;
Where modesty loses her signal of pain,
And chastity waxes licentious and bold;
And the ear grows familiar with language profane,
And the heart, with false sympathy, callous and cold. “Secure your seat early;” but not for the ball,
Where fashion supreme in her tyranny reigns,
And the dupes of her blandishments answer the call,
To kneel to the scepter and welcome her chains;
For the visor of tinsel which folly may wear
Conceals but the skeleton features of death;
And the mirror of purity, spotless and fair,
May be marred by a whisper, or dimmed with a breath. “Secure your seat early;” but not for the feast,
Where the song, and the jest, and the revel abound;
Where appetite wantons, by plenty increased,
And the cup of Bacchante is worshipped and crowned;
For that board is no shrine to the Godhead above,
That song is no pean of glory divine,
That libation no sacrifice offered by love
To the Saviour, whose life was once offered for thine. There's a drama preparing, oh, awful and grand!
And a stage where all Heaven, with God, will appear!
And an audience summoned from every land
At the sound of the “trump” will be gathered to hear.
There's a place on the “left” where the wicked shall meet,
With demons for ushers, no seats to procure;
There's a place on the “right” where angels will greet,
And provide for the righteous—secure your seats there. There's a feast which the Lord for his people provides,
Abundant and rich, in his palace on high.
Where seraphs attend, where the Father presides,
And Jesus will welcome the guests of the sky.
With their crowns, and their harps, and their “banners of palm,”
Shall saints in the revels celestial share;
With the anthem of “glory to God and the Lamb,”
And the song of redemption—secure your seat there. The programmes are ready, the tickets are out,
An angel is waiting your name to record;
Secure your seat early—delay not or doubt—
For the drama of Judgment—the feast of the Lord!
God's heralds are calling from valley and plain,
And mountains are sending the tidings abroad—
It'll echo to echo repeats it again;
Secure your seat early—secure it with God. And it must be secured—O, secure it in time;
For no tickets are sold at eternity's door,
Nor the janitor bribed, were the universe thine,
To purchase a seat thou hast failed to secure.
Oh, no! when death closes the record of grace,
The soul whose address is not registered there
Must turn from the portal of Heaven; to trace
Its name on the page of eternal despair.
—Selected.