SELECTIONS by Rev. Dr. Humphrey

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 1, 1858

SELECTIONS.

By Rev. Dr. Humphrey

It is Too Late.

ON the day that Louis Philippe abdicated the throne of France in favor of his grandson, the Dutchess of Orleans, mother of the infant Prince, entered the Chamber of Deputies, leading him by the hand, that as the heir apparent he might be proclaimed King of the French, by the representatives of that great nation, in the room of the repudiated monarch. It was an awful moment, big not only with the destinies of the reigning family, but

of thirty-five millions of people. All eyes were fixed upon Odillon Barrot as he rose slowly from his seat, ascended the tribune, and moved that the young Count of Paris, then and there present, be proclaimed King, in the room of his grandfather. Every sound was hushed. Men held their breath. It was as if the heart of an empire had ceased to beat. The question was about to be put, when a single voice from the gallery broke the silence—"It is too late!"

Never did a more thrilling and potent exclamation burst from mortal lips. It smote the ear of the Dutchess as the death-knell of her house. Great confusion ensued, and she was glad to escape with her son through one of the back doors of the Chamber. It was too late. Had the motion in favor of the heir apparent been made a day, or even a few hours earlier, it might have prevailed. But the time was gone by. It was too late! The throne was irrecoverably lost. This is but a single example among a thousand of delay. Many a throne has in like manner been lost.

But our purpose is not to dilate upon examples like these. Those ominous words in the French Chamber, "It is too late," apply to losses continually incurred, which are infinitely greater than those of any dethroned or expectant monarch. The value of a thousand earthly kingdoms bears no proportion to the worth of the human soul. For the soul, there is a day of grace, and there is a day of final retribution. While mercy pleads and waits, the sinner may repent and be saved; but by and by, perhaps the next hour, "it will be too late." On this point the Bible abounds with examples and illustrations, which were "written for our learning on whom the ends of the world are come." One of the most striking of these is in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. "Looking diligently," warns the Apostle, "lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." "It was too late." And as it was too late for Esau, so would it soon be for them, if they continued to "reject the great salvation." To the same purpose is that awful communication in the first chapter of Proverbs. We have room for only a part of it. "Because I have called and ye refused. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own ways, they shall be filled with their own devices." They might have hearkened, they might have been saved, but now "it was too late." They had heard and slighted the last call of mercy, and nothing remained to them but "a certain fearful looking for of wrath and fiery indignation."

We often hear it said, that while life lasts it is never too late for a sinner to repent, and in one sense it is true. If he would truly repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in the last mortal hour, he would be saved. But will he? How small, have we reason to fear, is the number of such? The day of grace may close even before the wicked man dies; it certainly does where the unpardonable sin is committed, and who can tell how long before? Be it a few years, or but a few days, "it is then too late." And if the Saviour were to speak by an audible voice from heaven in a thousand dying chambers, who can tell in how many of them he would say, "These all might have been saved, but it is too late. When I called, they refused, and now there is no place of repentance." The rich voluptuary, who had a little before spurned Lazarus from his presence, would have given all his banquets, and purple, and fine linen, for "a drop of water to cool his tongue," but "it was too late." The horrors of a guilty conscience drove Judas back to the temple with his thirty pieces of silver, crying, "I have betrayed the innocent blood," but "it was too late." The Saviour had said, Good were it for that man if he had never been born, and he went away in black despair and hanged himself. Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, and other blasphemers

would, some, or all of them, have given kingdoms in their last hours for the Christian's hope, but "it was too late." They had treasured up wrath against "the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." How many such, according to the most authentic testimony, have gone shuddering and shrieking out of the world, to meet their final doom?

The king of the Sandwich Islands, who promised the missionaries that in five years he would break off from his debaucheries and attend to their instructions, died in less than two; and what hope could they have of him? He had fixed his time, but before it half expired, he was in eternity. "It was too late." And so it will be with all impenitent hearers of the gospel who put off their preparation to a "more convenient season," and do not live to see it. They will bewail their stupid procrastination when it is too late. The young Duke of Bordeaux lost only a temporary crown. They will lose that "crown of glory that fadeth not away."

Reader, reader, whosoever thou art, yet in thy sins, there is no time to be lost. The arrows of death are flying thick. The young, as well as the old, are falling. If thou dost not repent, a voice from the other world, It is too late! TOO LATE! TOO LATE! will ere long seal thine everlasting doom.

[N. Y. Evangelist.