. The Profligate's Doom, Theodore
Coyler. He who is often reproved and
hardens his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without
remedy. Proverbs 29.1. Not many years
ago, an eminent London clergyman observed among his regular hearers
A young man whose appearance excited in him an unusual interest. He took pains to learn the young
stranger's history, and found that he was a son of pious parents,
and had been trained to respect the gospel of Christ. A devout
mother had added to her prayers the fervent precept, My son,
if sinners entice you, do not consent. The young man at length
was missed from his place in the church. The watchful eye
of the minister sought for him in vain. He had met with a company
of witty and engaging sceptics, who had persuaded him to abandon
the house of prayer for the more manly entertainments of their
infidel club. where the ribaldries of atheists
were rendered more palatable by the lively jest and the exhilarating
glass. His conscience stung him, but
their merry laugh soon drowned the troublesome remonstrance.
He proved to be an apt scholar in the ways of sin. His Sunday
instructions among the sceptics soon prepared him for the haunts
of revelry, and for those chambers which lie nearby the door of
hell. A short career of reckless dissipation
did its work of ruin upon his slight and delicate frame. His
former pastor, who had well near forgotten him, was one day surprised
by an invitation to visit the unhappy youth on his dying bed. He found him sinking rapidly
and sinking without hope. As the man of God approached
the bedside, the young man hid his face and refused to speak
to him. Finding it impossible to draw
a word from the wretched victim of remorse, who was just about
entering eternity in such a state of sullen despair, the minister
offered a fervent prayer and turned away. He reached the door,
his hand was upon the latch, when the young man suddenly rose
in the bed and beckoned him to return. He went back, and leaned
his head over the bed to receive the message. The young man threw
his arms about him, and drawing his head close to his lips, whispered
in convulsive accents, I am damned, and then sank back silent on
his pillow. No further efforts or entreaties
could rouse him. The heart-wrung pastor pleaded
with him, but in vain. Having pronounced his own awful
doom, his lips refused to speak again, and before the clock struck
the hour of midnight, his unhappy soul was in the eternal world. Young man, as you read the appalling
narrative of the poor profligate's doom, you may be reading your
own. If your feet have forsaken the
house of God, if you have been seen on the seat of the scorner,
if you have returned home at the midnight hour from the card
table or the drinking circle, you have good cause to tremble.
Persist in your course of self-destruction, and you may meet that young man
in the world of eternal despair. Partners in misery, you may to
all eternity curse yourselves as the authors of your own damnation.