An Incident by GEO. L. BUTLER.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 20, 1872

An Incident.

By GEO. L. BUTLER.

WHILE changing trains at Cedar Rapids the other day, a circumstance came under my observation which left quite an impression upon my mind. A traveler came down with me on the train from the North, intending to change cars and take the Eastern train at Cedar Rapids. The two trains made a close connection there, and as we came in, the train he desired to take stood on the track just about ready to start. He could have got on it had he hastened immediately and stepped aboard, but he stopped to buy a through ticket, and as it seemed to me was rather slow about it, and when he went out of the depot door to go aboard, the train was just moving off, and there he was left to wait in the depot twelve long weary hours. Of course he was very much disappointed and chagrined, and all the more so because he came so very near getting aboard. He said it was very important that he should be at a certain place that evening, and now this would be impossible, and that he would rather have given twenty-five dollars than to have been left.

I could but sympathize with the poor man, and it set me to thinking of spiritual things. What an immense host will be lost in the day of the Lord. And what a fearful thing to be lost. Not one ray of hope to cheer the heart. All is dark dreary despair. Lost, forever lost. The city of God with all its glories is in view; and Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and perchance friends and neighbors can be seen upon its walls. Immortality and eternal life are secured; not a sorrow or pain to be felt. These could have been enjoyed by them as well as the saved had they made the proper effort.

But who of that immense host will feel the keenest pangs of sorrow, dear reader? I apprehend it will be he who was a professor of religion and cherished a hope of salvation but barely came short. The unbeliever who has no faith or care for God's word, who follows in the ways of sin, living entirely for the world, seeks the gratification of the natural heart alone. He does not expect salvation, he gives it no thought. He is not particularly disappointed. His punishment will be terrible enough. But that man who had no thought but that he should be saved, who expected to see the gates of the golden city swing back and admit him to its joys, who associated always with the people of God in their worship and felt that his salvation was secured, oh! how terrible will be the disappointment to such an one when he finds those gates closed against him and hears the dread words, “I never knew you.” depart from me ye workers of iniquity. He not only has the punishment of the former class to bear, but the most fearful disappointment it was ever the fate of man to experience.

What must be the reflections of such an one as his past life comes up before him and he realizes that had he repented of what he considered some small sins, he might now be sharing the reward of the faithful. Had he faithfully performed some duties, which at the time he considered small, the terrible sentence, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” might have been changed to the precious words, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Yes, the nearer we come to salvation and then lose it, the more poignant will be our grief, and the more acute our distress. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. Let us, therefore, make sure work. GEO. L. BUTLER.

State Center, Iowa, Feb. 9, 1872.