Extract From Dr. Payson.
By Dr. Payson
“PAUSE, then, for a moment, and contemplate with the eye of faith, or if you have no faith, with the eye of imagination, this tremendous scene:— Look at that point, far away in the ethereal regions, where the gradually lessening form of our Saviour disappeared from the gaze of his disciples, when he ascended to heaven. In that point, see an uncommon, but faint and undefined brightness just beginning to appear. It has caught the roving eye of yon careless gazer, and excited his curiosity. He points it out to a second, and a third. A little circle soon collects, and various are the conjectures which they form respecting it; similar circles are formed, and similar conjectures made in a thousand different parts of the world. But conjecture is soon to give place to certainty—awful, appalling, overwhelming certainty.—While they gaze, the appearance which has excited their curiosity, rapidly approaches, and still more rapidly brightens. Some begin to suspect what it may prove, but no one dares to give utterance to his suspicions. Meanwhile, the light of the sun begins to fade before a brightness superior to its own. Thou135sands see their shadows cast in a new direction, and thousands of hitherto careless eyes look up at once to discover the cause. Full clearly they see it; and now new hopes and fears begin to agitate their breasts.—The afflicted and persecuted servants of Christ begin to hope that the predicted, long-expected day of deliverance is arrived. The wicked, the careless, the unbelieving begin to fear that the Bible is about to prove no idle tale. And now fiery shapes moving like streams of lightning, begin to appear indistinctly amidst the bright dazzling cloud, which comes rushing down as on the wings of a whirlwind. At length it reaches its destined place. Meanwhile, legions of angels are seen, darting from pole to pole, gathering together the faithful servants of Christ from the four winds of heaven, and bearing them aloft to meet the Lord in the air, where he causes them to be placed at his own right hand, preparatory to the sentence which is to award to them everlasting life. Christian, if you would gain more and greater victories over the world than you ever have done, bring this scene often before the eye of your mind and gaze upon it, till you become blind to all earthly glory. He who gazes long at the sun, becomes unsusceptible of impressions from inferior luminaries; and he who looks much at the Sun of Righteousness, will be little affected by any alluring object which the world can exhibit.”