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PEN PICTURES

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 6, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 10.

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PEN PICTURES.

By William P. Pearce

WILLIAM P. PEARCE.
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36.
Several years ago, in my first pastorate after leaving the theological seminary, I was holding a series of evangelistic services. One evening a tall, elderly, and fairly well-to-do farmer arose as the invitation was given for all who desired to be Christians to rise. He would not commit himself, however, by going to the front, engaging in prayer, or making an acknowledgment as to his lost condition. Last summer the writer visited that same community, preached in that same church, but my farmer friend was not there. He was dead. How did he die?—Ah, he died, like most people, as he lived; and that life was nothing to boast of. From a deacon’s wife I learned that when all terrestrial things were receding from his vision, he called his son to his side, and said: “My son, several winters ago, when the little preacher asked all who wished to be Christians to stand up, I stood up. I should have gone further, but I did not, nor have I since. I’m lost! I’m lost!” and with these words breaking from his lips he passed away.
Lost! What an awful word! What scenes are portrayed in our minds when we read of the “Central America” going down into the sea, and all on board perishing; and poor Mungo Park lost in the wilds of Africa; and Sir John Franklin and his men lost in the arctic regions; but can finite minds conceive what it means for a soul to be lost—lost to God, lost to friends, lost to happiness, lost in hell? lost! lost! lost!
It may be that this incident will be read by one who is a stranger to God. If so, please read the selection of Scripture with which this article begins: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Which means the most, the gain or the loss? Better—
“Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul; Each thought and each motive beneath His control: Thus led by his Spirit to fountains of love, Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.”