In an Hour Ye Think Not
By B.
The farmer folk of San Francisquito Cañon and of the Santa Clara River basin in Southern California lay sleeping. When they retired that fateful night everything about them bespoke peace and security. Their apricot and peach orchards were bursting into bloom. The opening buds from their orange groves wafted sweet odors through the windows. Their dairy cows lowed contentedly in the alfalfa meadows. The great St. Francis dam, which towered high at the head of the cañon, only meant that the millions of tons of winter waters which it held back would quench the thirst of the far-flung orchards and meadows in the parching heat of the summer to come. But suddenly, in the still hours of the early morning, the sleepers were startled into consciousness by the reverberation of a mighty wall of rushing waters. With the cry of terror upon their lips, “The dam has broken!” they leaped from their beds, only to be caught up and flung to their death by the angry flood as it swept homes from their foundations and dashed them along in the tumultuous deluge toward the not-far-distant sea. When the light of morning came, there were no homes, only mute fragments here and there. There were no orchards, only nude uprooted trees. There were no meadows, only sand and rock-strewn wastes. Bereaved parents tearfully searched for the still bodies of their children in the débris. Distracted orphans implored rescue workers to find their fathers and their mothers. One short night had sufficed to shift the scene from prosperity to barrenness; from happiness to tragedy; from life to death. When upon earth the first time, Jesus Christ declared that His second coming would be catastrophic and sudden like this to those who would not be looking for His advent or be prepared for it. He said: “For as in the days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. . . . Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” Matthew 24: 38, 39, 42. The antediluvians were going about in the routine of their everyday lives, and refusing to believe Noah that a deluge was imminent. Christ again urged: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21: 34-36. But there is one point of startling contrast between such a tragedy as the recent one in Southern California and the second coming of Christ. When that dam broke, it swept all before it. It was no respecter of persons. Sinner and saint perished together. But when Christ returns and this earth is swept with the bosom of renovation and re-creation, those who are Christ’s shall not perish. The flames that consume sin and sinners will not so much as harm a hair of the heads of those who have committed their lives to God. Are you to-day refusing to believe that Jesus Christ is soon coming again? If so, you are preparing yourself to be taken unawares by that event. Are the pleasures and foibles of this world eclipsing in your soul the desire for that Christlike character which is necessary to meet Him in peace? If so, with the world you love, you will be destroyed. Are you neglecting to watch and pray for Christ’s coming and the early establishment of His benign and beneficent kingdom on earth? If so, you never will be a citizen of that better land. We urge you, hasten your preparation of mind and soul for His coming, for that event draws on apace? B.