“DELAY NOT.”

The sun was hanging low in the West; dark and threatening banks of lead-colored clouds were moving slowly across the heavens; the distant muttering of thunder, and quick and piercing flashes of lightning, bade me prepare for the approaching storm. In circumstances like these, I was riding slowly along the banks of a canal, when my attention was attracted by the appearance of a small house, which sat just above my head, on a little eminence. Seeing the storm was rapidly approaching, I thought it would be a good shelter from the rain.

The unhinged shutters, the broken panes of glass whose places were supplied by dirty rags, the large cracks between the logs, all told too plainly that withering poverty had there an abode. After repeated knocks at the door, a woman made her appearance. Such a human being I had never seen. She looked more like a fiend from the regions of the damned, than a living and immortal soul. Her cheek was sunken; her eye dim and staring wildly about; her hair thrown loosely over her shoulders; her feet uncovered; and her person clad in the most filthy and disgusting manner.

She did not seem accustomed to seeing strange faces, and gave me such a wild stare that my very blood chilled in my veins. There we both stood. For some moments not a word was uttered by either. I was waiting to see if she would ask me to take a seat. This she did not do; and feeling that I had a matter of more importance than politeness to attend to—her soul’s welfare—I sat down on the remains of what was once a chair, and commenced the following conversation:

“Are you a Christian?” “No.” “Do you ever expect or hope to be a Christian?” “No.” “Have you ever felt the workings of God’s Spirit upon your heart?” “Never, since a child.” “Have you at any period in your past life ever read your Bible?” “Yes, I read it when a school-girl.” “Did you not see a peculiar beauty and simplicity in it?” “I did not.” “Do you believe in the Bible?” “Yes,” she angrily replied, “I believe it to be a lie from beginning to end.” “Have you ever read any other books besides the Bible?” “I have read Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and believe that he was as complete a liar as ever lived, and never experienced one feeling described in that book, but wrote it only to deceive the foolish common people.” “Are you, in your present situation, willing to die?” “Yes, and willing to go to hell, and stay there forever and ever!”

Giving her several tracts on infidelity, which she contemptuously threw on the floor, I invoked a Father’s blessing on her, and departed—never to meet again till we stand around the judgment-seat of Christ.

The clouds which were wandering over the heavens when I entered the house, had collected in a mass, and produced one of the most awful storms I ever witnessed in my life. The wind blew most furiously; the rain poured in torrents; peal after peal of the most deafening thunder echoed and reëchoed among the mountain crags; and flash after flash of piercing lightning darted across the heavens. But, my dear young friends, this storm did not compare, in its madness and fury, with that still more awful storm of despair and hopeless agony which was raging in the breast of her from whom I had just parted.

Dear young friends, do not put off till to-morrow the eternal interests of your immortal souls. Remember—oh, remember the terrible condition of the woman about whom I have been telling you.

THE DANGER OF DELAY.

Watts.