p. 170 | The Soul Neglected

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 25, 1864

The Soul Neglected.

Impenitent friend! you are in danger from an unexpected quarter. If you are finally condemned by the righteous Judge, it will not probably be on account of the sins that have swept multitudes into perdition. You are not likely to be condemned as a blasphemer, or as a slave-driver, or a highway-robber, or a drunkard, or a scoffing skeptic. Of none of these shameless outrages against sense and decency are you likely to be guilty. Nor is it necessary for you to be a scoffer, or a sensualist, or a sot, or a swindler, in order to be shut out of Heaven. The abodes of despair are not reached alone by the impious and the reckless devotees of vice. You need not break openly every law of God in order to reach perdition.

You will simply have to persist in your present course. Simply go on as you have begun—simply "neglect the great salvation"—and you will make your everlasting ruin sure. Many foolish, faithless parents have stood by the grave of a child which they dug with their own hands. How? Did they administer slow poison, or strike an assassin-knife through the young heart? No; but they killed their child just as surely, by simple neglect of the first laws of health. Many a father, too, has wrung his hands in agony before the prison-cell which held a ruined son, or over the letter which told him of a son's disgrace, and on those very hands rested the guilt of that boy's ruin. Why? Had they led that son into Sabbath-breaking or theft, or profligacy? No; but they had let the youth alone, and left him to rush into them unrestrained. Neglect was the boy's ruin. There is no need that the man in a skiff amid Niagara's rapids should row toward the cataract; resting on his oars is quite enough to send him over the awful verge.

It is the neglected wheel that capsizes the vehicle and maims for life the passengers. It is the neglected leak that sinks the ship. It is the neglected field that yields briars instead of bread. It is the neglected spark kindling near the magazine whose tremendous explosion sends its hundreds of mangled wretches into eternity. The neglect of an officer to throw up a rocket on a certain night caused the fall of Antwerp, and postponed the deliverance of Holland for twenty or more years. The neglect of a sentinel to give an alarm hindered the fall of Sebastopol, and resulted in the loss of many thousand lives.

And, my friend, it will be the stupendous aggregation of all your fatal neglects—of all the neglected Sabbaths, joined to the neglected offers of grace, and added to the neglected duties, and multiplied by the neglected drawings of God's Spirit—that will sink you (if you die impenitent) into perdition. When you neglect a Sabbath, you bar up an open door into the pathway to Heaven. When you neglect an inward call of God's Spirit, you extinguish the flame on which as much may depend as on the last match or tinder in the possession of an Arctic traveler amid the icebergs. The Spirit gives last knocks at sinners' hearts; the neglect to open leaves "the house desolate." When you neglect the offers of Christ's atoning love, you cast away your only hope. You insult the long-suffering mercy of God. You put the crucified Saviour to an open shame. You voluntarily put yourself into the complete power of the Adversary. You waste your only life of probation, and fling away all the good that a godly life might accomplish for truth and humanity. You damn your own soul! All these are the simple, inevitable consequences of "neglecting so great a salvation!"

It matters not that, while neglecting your soul you are engaged in other and honorable pursuits—in merchandise, in literature, in agriculture, in science, or in statesmanship. Right in their proper place, all these high callings become wrong when they crowd out all thought of God and eternity. Even they are infinitely more dignified and ennobled by true religion. But they cannot save the soul.

If the victorious Kearsarge were to spring a leak from striking on a sunken rock, what matters it that the captain should take to studying his charts, or the pilot to noting his compass, or the sailing-master to making up the log, or the marines to their accustomed drill? These are all proper occupations at the proper time. But they don't save the ship! How can they escape, if they neglect to stop that leak? Oh! unforgiven, unconverted reader, what shall it profit thee to enjoy all art, and all polite letters, and revel amid wealth uncounted, if at the last thou awake amid the agonies of the lost?

The only remedy for neglect is immediate devotion to your eternal welfare. The past is gone. The future may be but a handbreadth. The present is in thy hand. Use it. Let no sin, no Satan, no selfish interest hinder thee. If business press, say, "Now it is my business to seek God." If pleasure beckon, set your heart on the loftier pleasure—of pleasing God. Let your soul-cry be, "Oh, neglected, forbearing Jesus! I neglect thee no longer! Give me that sacred hand, so long refused. I am ready to grasp it in faith, and trust thee to save me, and to guide me to the pathway of eternal life. Be merciful to me a sinner! "Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress; Helpless, look to thee for grace; Vile, I to this fountain fly; Wash me, Saviour, or I die!"—Cuyler.