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Behind Time

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 2, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 40, No. 3.

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Behind Time.

A RAILROAD train was running along at almost lightning speed. A curve was just ahead and the train was late, very late, still, the conductor hoped to pass the curve safely. Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight. In an instant there was a collision. A shriek, a shock, and fifty persons were slaughtered, and all because an engineer had been behind time.
The battle of Waterloo was being fought. Column after column had been precipitated upon the enemy, the sun was sinking in the west, reinforcements for the defenders were already in sight, and it was necessary to carry the position with one final charge. A powerful corps had been summoned from across the country. The great conqueror, confident of its arrival, formed his reserve into an attacking column and led them down the hill. The whole world knows the result. Napoleon died a prisoner at St. Helena, because one of his marshals was behind time.
A condemned man was being led out for execution. He had taken human life, but under circumstances of the greatest provocation. Thousands had signed a petition for a reprieve; still none had arrived. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, it fell, and a lifeless body swung in the air. Just at this moment a horseman came into sight, his steed covered with foam. He bore a reprieve for the prisoner. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death, because a watch had been five minutes too slow, causing the bearer to arrive behind time.
It is continually so in life. The best-laid plans are daily sacrificed because they are “behind time.” There are others who put off reformation, year by year, till death seizes them, and they perish unrepentant, because forever “behind time.”
It will be so in the Judgment day. When once the master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, men will begin to stand without and beg for admittance, but he will say to them, “I never knew you.” The foolish virgins, having no oil in their vessels, will come at last with breathless haste to find that they that were ready are safe within at the marriage feast, while for them the door is shut—they are behind time!
Reader, ask yourself the question, whether there is not some danger of your being among this class? Thousands of souls will sink into the pit of perdition because they put off the thought of repentance, and refused to be saved to-day. Oh! it is sad to think that some of them were once living amongst us, and that more now living may share their fate. God grant, friend, that it may not be so with you!