MOURNING AT THE JUDGMENT-SEAT.
DID you ever think what a fearful day of revealing that last solemn day will be for the hypocrite? There are some professed followers of Christ who have been living on for years outwardly in many respects religious men, who have been conscious all the time that the reputation which they gained from men was a falsehood. That their profession and outside religion were a mere cheat. Though they have succeeded in hoodwinking their fellow-men, they have never deceived God. They seemed all the time to be in the way to Heaven, but they knew all the time they were traveling the road to hell. And now they go up to the Judgment with a lie in their right hand, "Have we not eaten and drunk in thy presence?" But God will take the lie away from them, and announce in fearful tones, "I never knew you!" Oh, impositions, deceits, lies, are fearful things to carry up to the Judgment-bar! In view of that great day of revelation, what manner of persons ought we to be? How carefully should we separate from our conduct all dishonesty, all double-dealing, that we may be here what we shall wish to appear there. But perhaps the saddest among the sad scenes of that day, will be the separations which will take place between those who were united here in the tenderest bonds of affection, as each goes to his own place. Who can witness, unmoved, the eternal farewells between parents saved and children lost. What eye can look on, as inexorable justice tears away perhaps a father, a husband, a wife, a beloved child, from all the loving sympathies and tender offices of those most dear. Oh, will not this consideration quicken our zeal and earnestness to labor, that all our own beloved ones should be brought into the same safe fold with us, that we may rise from our graves and go up together an unbroken household, and together stand acquitted before that dread tribunal, together wend our way to the heavenly mansions? "Oh, there'll be mourning, mourning,
When you see those who have been associated with you all your life long, welcomed with songs of rejoicing into the kingdom of Christ, "and you yourselves shut out." Will you not seek the same Saviour while yet the lamp of life is burning?—Selected."