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No. 54. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT CR1. 
 
 THE coming of " the Son of man * is likened by onr Lord 
 to the sudden approach of l*e bridegroom to the ten 
 virgins, when " at midnight there was a cry made, Behold> 
 the bridegroom cometh." It will bo at a time when men look 
 not for him, and in an hour that they are not aware of. 
 
 The cry will not only reach the living, but will awaken the 
 dead also: " All that are in their graves shall hear his voice, 
 and shall oon?e forth 5 they that have done good, untothe 
 resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, untoWhe 
 resurrection of damnation." 
 
 It will be'tbe period when the real character of every one 
 wiW Ue disclo-eeL How many now are taken to be what they 
 really are not !• They have a form of godliness, but are desti- 
 tute of its power ; but then shall be discerned the difference 
 * between the righu-ous and the wicked, between him that 
 serveth God and him that serveth him not." 
 
 It win be the hour of final separation : " One shajl be taken, 
 and the other left." Christ shall set the sheep on his right 
 hand, but the goats on the left. In that day every one will 
 find his own place, and every one will go to the place for which 
 'lis character fU» him. The hypocrite,, the man of pride, of 
 avarice, of pollution, and of falsehood, are not fit for heaven. 
 One design of the judgment of the great day will be to give 
 to every one his own proper place lor eternity. God 'hath 
 appointed a day, in which he will judge the jwld m nghte- 
 ousness by that man whom he hath ordained." t And every 
 one shall receive according to what he hath done m the body, 
 whether it has been good or evil. ' r . . * ;. • , 
 
 But while -the cry, « He cometh," will be made at the ad- 
 
2 M THt MIDNIGHT CRT 
 
 vent of the Lord, the summons of death to an unconverted * 
 man, is similar in many respects, in its immediate results, to 
 those which that cry will produce upon the wicked who shall 
 be alive upon the earth when the Lord shall come, Surprise, 
 confusion, anxiety, useless effort and final exclusion from the 
 presence of the Lord, will be the effects in both cases. " As 
 it was in the days of Lot ; tbey did eat, they drank, they 
 bought, they sold, they planted, they builded : but the same 
 day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained 'fire and brimstone 
 from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in 
 the day when the Son of man is revealed." 
 
 Thetime when the cry is made in the parable is significant, 
 It is at midnight, the hour of forgetftilness and sleep, The 
 seriousness of an event is often increased by the time of its 
 occurrence. * Every one feels that there are seasons which add 
 much to the solemnity of circumstances. The cry of fire is 
 alarming at all times ; but at midnight it thrills the soul. The 
 oceap tempest is always solemn and terrible, when the mighty 
 billows are lifted up, and the mariners " mount up to the 
 heaven, they go down again to the depths ; their soul is melted 
 because of trouble ;" but the cry of the perishing on a sinking 
 wreck at midnight, uttered amidst the flashes of the heavens, 
 and the bellowing. of the storm, is still more terrific 5 the wild 
 scream of anguish seems then uttered with the bitterness of 
 despair. The chamber of the dying is solemn : the realities of 
 trie eternal world are brought near : God is there : " How 
 awful is this place !" but to be alone with the d^ing and the 
 dead at the midnight hour, throws a deeper awe over the mind 3 
 and makes us realize more vividly and intensely the fact of 
 our own mortality. Terrible must have been that hour in the 
 land of Egypt when the " Lord smote all the firstborn in the 
 land, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on the throne 
 tmto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon j 
 and all the first-born of cattle And Pharaoh rose up in the 
 night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians ; and 
 there was a great cry in Egypt; for ihere was not a house 
 where there was not one dead." In such an hour the Son of 
 man will come; and' the alarm and terror that shall fill the 
 hearts of the wicked, " when tho Lord Jesus shall be revealed 
 from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking 
 vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the 
 gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ," shall infinitely exceed what 
 the Egyptians felt. It is " the judgment of the great day." 
 "The revelation of the righteous judgment of God;" and of 
 a the wrath of the Lamb." " Every eye shall see him, and 
 they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRT. 
 
 shall wail because of him." " Every one of us shall give ac- 
 count of himself to God." Upon the account # that shall then 
 be rendered, is suspended everlasting happiness or misery. 
 How affecting will be the situation of an unpardoned sinner in 
 that hour of judgment ! He stands in the presence of God the 
 Judge of all, without a friend to help, without, an advocate to 
 plead his ctuise, while his own state is to be fixed for ever! 
 His course of folly and guilt is ended ; the last prayer has been 
 offered on iiis behalf, the means of escape presented ; and the 
 last earthly sin committed ! 
 
 The last sin ! — Oh! the last sin of a wicked life seems to 
 bavo in it a peculiar awfulness. It completes the number and 
 fills up the measure of iniquity: then hope is lost, and the . 
 dread result of despair and misery is reached. O sinner! the 
 next sin which you commit may be that last to you — that which. 
 «hall complete the amount of your iniquity on earth, with 
 which you will go into the presence of God ? You have been 
 spending your life in adding sin to sin, and filling up the cup 
 of your iniquity ; that cup may now be full, and thenext drop 
 may cause it to run over. It will then be to late, for ever too 
 late, to seek forgiveness and eternal life; Mbr there is no 
 work, nor device, nor kn wledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, 
 whither thou goest." Stay your hand, then, and turn your 
 steps from iniquity. Seek pardon at once through the Lord 
 Jesus Christy while there is tiVne. u Behold, "now is the ac- 
 cepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Neglect 
 it not, lest the day of the Lord should overtake you as a thief, 
 and the midnight cry be heard by you,' when you are entirely 
 unprepared for it. In your present state, if you love not God, 
 and are living in sin, were that cry to be raised to night, where 
 God is you never could go; it would be the knell of your^ 
 hope, and the signal for your eternal exclusion from the king- 
 dom of Jieaven. 
 
 '•Thrmo holy gfltefl for evor bar 
 
 Pollution, iir., and shame . 
 None shall ob at a admittance there 
 
 But followers of the Lamb." 
 
 The strong desire of your heart, as an unrenewed sinner, 
 has been, to get away from God. The thought of God has 
 been repulsive to you ; and this dislike to your Maker has 
 shown itself in your neglect of prayer, and in the absence of 
 all desire to please him. Where there should .have been love 
 and obedience, there have been, aud it may be still are, enmi- 
 ty and rebellion. Yet you hope to go to heaven notwithstand- 
 ing; but heaven is full of God ; and if you have such a dislike 
 
4 THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 to God in this world, that you had no pleasure in thinking of 
 him,' or of reading his word, or in praying to him, how can you 
 expect to bo happy in heaven, where the glorious holiness of 
 the Lord fills the place ? A change of worlds will not produce 
 a change of nature ; but a change of nature and of heart is 
 necessary, or you cannot be saved ; you must have a nature 
 that shall be like that of the holy God, and tastes and habits 
 that shall agree with the employments and the society of 
 heaven. 
 
 These are to be acquired by faith in Christ. This grace of 
 feit.h is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It elevates and purifies 
 the soul. !By it we are justified, and made meet for the inheri- 
 tance of the saints in light; and without faith it is impossible 
 to please God. Where it exists, there will be sincere repent- 
 ance on account of sin, and-an earnest desire to pleasa God ; a 
 firm trust and hearty confidence in all that God has revealed, 
 and promised ; and a steady looking to Jesus Christ alone for 
 acceptance with God. 
 
 To neglect these things now, with the vague promise of at- 
 tending to them at some convenient season, shows a state of 
 awful insensibility to the claims of God, and the value of the 
 soul. But, alas ! how many during the season of health care 
 for none of these things ! Yet wilt the truth sometimes flash 
 upon the mind, and the feeling arise in the heart, that this in- 
 difference will not do always; ihat a time will come when it 
 must give way. When the soul hears of righteousness, tens- 
 perance, judgment to come, it trembles ; though it may say to 
 conscience, " Go thy way for this time; when I have a conve- 
 nient season, I will call for thee." 
 
 Reader, has it never been, thus with you ? Have you never 
 lightly dismissed, or evaded a solemn and alarming reflection ? 
 Remember, it goes away but to return again with greater 
 power. In being shut out of your minds, it may be suppdsed 
 to say. "We shall meet again!" The next meeting may 
 be in your. dy;ng chamber, or at the judgment seat of Christ. 
 And. Oh! what "a meeting that will be, when those serious 
 thoughts and feelings which were dismissed on earth shall con- 
 front you ; and your conscience, which had been trifled with — 
 its voice drowned, and its warnings neglected — -shall be 
 thoroughly awakened in you ! If you neglect them now, it 
 would be better for you in that day if you had never been 
 born ! 
 
 Tl'e midnight cry may be heard when many are not only 
 least prepared, but also least disposed to attend . to it. " Trou- 
 ble me not,'' is the language of their hearts, who not only 
 live, but die in a state of indifference to the value of their 
 
THE MIDNIGHT CRV. § 
 
 souls. Thus it was before the flood, and before the cities of 
 the plain were destroyed, and thus it is wim many at death, 
 and \ ill be with the wicked when the Lord shall come to 
 judge T.he world in righteousness. A reckless a.nd a guilty in- 
 difference pervades the mind of many, which, disposes them to 
 say, -'Where is the promise of Lis coming? for since the 
 fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
 beginning. of the creation." 
 
 In ofhers, the love of the world, or the dcceitfulness of 
 riches, or the lust of other things, has destroyed all spiritual 
 sensibility ; the heart, hard and dead by nature, becomes by 
 sinful indulgence, twice dead to all tfiat is holy and heavenly ; 
 and ilie sinner dies, as the fool dieth, without any concern 
 about the realities beyond the grave, or in hopeless despair. 
 
 Such was the death of the unhappy man mentioned in the 
 following account given by a minister of the gospel. 
 
 " I went,'' lie writes, "some years ago to visit one who was 
 so far gone, that his physician pronounced him to be, in his 
 opinion, beyond recovery. On offering him my hand, he shook 
 his Yci.erable head, covered with the silvery hairs of age, and 
 said, with a tremulous voice, 'It is to late now, sir!' I en- 
 dcavoted to shake his confidence in the impossibility of his 
 salvation, by arguments drawn from the designs of our Lord's 
 mission and death, and from his power and willingness to save 
 the cl ief of sinners. He listened with profound attention to 
 all I said, but to- every argument ho replied, ' It is too late 
 now, sir ! I have loved my monej T , and neglected my soul ; 
 yes, sir, it is too late H I varied nry method of appeal, and 
 multiplied my arguments of encouragement, but the monoto- 
 nous reply came with still stronger force of utterance, 'It is 
 too late now, sir ! I proposed praying with him ; he objected, 
 saying, ' It is too late now, sir ! : After a kind and lengthened 
 remonstrance he consented : we kneeled together at the throne 
 of grace; and when we arose he said with a look and with an 
 accent I shall never forget, ' I r is too late now, sir !' With 
 this horrifying sentence vibrating in my ears, L descended from 
 bis bedroom, and walked away ; sighing as I went, and occa- 
 sionally turning as I passed onwards to look on the dwelling 
 in which still lived a sinner, who could only utter one sentence, 
 and thst one sentence proclaiming his fixed belief that it was 
 'too late' for hi in to hope for • salvation. He survived this 
 heart- rending interview only a few hours, and then expired — 
 
 1 Without one. cheerful beam of hope, 
 Or spark of glimmering day.' " 
 
G THE MIDNIGHT CRY. 
 
 Reader, thank God with all your heart, that it is not yet 
 too late for you to seek salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. 
 Seek it ndw, lest you should be hardened through the deceit- 
 fulness of sin. Every hour you neglect it, your heai t becomes 
 harder and harder ; and religion postponed generally ends in 
 the loss of the soul. The dour is open now, but soon it will 
 be " shut." The language of the Redeemer now is, " Come ;"' 
 but, in the great day of account, it will be to the impenitent, 
 " I never knew you, depart from me." As you are at death, 
 so will you be for ever. Your character, your memory and 
 conscience, will remain ^ith you in eternity. And if your 
 sius are not pardoned on earth, the ever-enduring sentence 
 will be, " He that is unjust, 1st him be unjust still ; and he 
 which is filthy, let him be filthy still." 
 
 Turn ye then to the Saviour. He waits to receive you ; and 
 there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth. He knows your heart arid your wan- 
 derings. He has marked your sins ; not one of them is for- 
 gotten before him ; yet may you look to him, by repentance 
 and faith, for solvation and eternal life: "The blood of Jesus 
 Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." " Wash and be 
 clean." Delay not, lest the space given yoj for repentance 
 expire, and you perish in your sins. " Strive to enter in at 
 the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter 
 in and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house 
 is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand 
 without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open 
 unto us ; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not 
 whence ye are : then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and 
 drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught imour streets. 
 But he will say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are ; 
 depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." " Watch, there- 
 fore :" — " for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man 
 cometh/' 
 
1 fiOPE TO BE A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 You do ? Why, then, do you not seek to be a Christian 7 
 "Ask, and il shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you." '• Ye shall seek 
 me, and find me, when ye search for me with all your 
 heart." 
 
 Arc you seeking for God with all your hearts? No man 
 ever yet escaped from the thraldom of sin and Satan, who 
 did riot eame?tl) T struggle to be free ; no man ever entered 
 the strait gate who did not strive to accomplish that glorious 
 end. Carelessnes and inattention -afford no foundation for a 
 hope that you are to become a child of God. 
 
 You hope to be a Christian. Why, then, do you not give 
 tip your sins, renounce the world as your portion, and cheer- 
 fully surrender yourself to Him who is the way, the truth, 
 and the life? He is ready ancl willing to receive you. He 
 gave his life a ransom for sinners. He freely gives his Spirit to 
 all who earnestly nsk him : he has filled his revealed word 
 with invitations and encouragements to those who desire 
 his grace : he has long been knocking at the door of your 
 heart for admission. How then can you ever hope to be a 
 Christian? 
 
 You hope to be a Christian. When ? Not now. You are 
 too busy, or have something in view which must first be ac- 
 complished, or are so. indisposed to give yourself to the workj 
 that this is not felt to be the "convenient season." After a 
 while, when you have accumulated a .fortune, or passed the 
 period when you can partake in the world's pleasures, or when 
 there is a revival of religion, or, at furthest, on a dying bed, 
 you hope to be a Christian. But God's commands and pro- 
 mises are for the present. He gives no encouragement to 
 wait for a future season. You have no assurance that there 
 shall be any season beyond the pre-ent. Before the expected 
 time comes you may be in eternity. 
 
 You hope to be a Christian. So multitudes of others like 
 yourself, who were living in sin, have hoped; but where are 
 they now? Long ago have they been cot down as cumberers 
 of the ground. * Their day of grace and day of life have 
 closed. They lived without Christ, and they died without 
 him: they trifled away their precious time on earth, in the 
 delusive hope that some day or other they would be Chris- 
 tians. That day never came to them, and never will come. 
 " The harvest is past, the summer is ended ;" and they are 
 not saved. 
 
 CD. 
 
THfc MIDMGKT CRY 
 H Y M N , 
 
 STOP, poor sinners, stop and think* 
 Before you further go ; 
 "Will you sport upon the brink 
 
 Of everlasting woe ? 
 On the verge of ruin stop — 
 
 Now the friendly warning take — 
 Stay your footsteps: — ere you drop 
 Into the burning lake. 
 
 Say, have you an arm like God, 
 
 That you his will oppose ? 
 Fear ye not that iron rod 
 
 With which he breaks his foes? 
 Can you stand in tlfat dread day, 
 
 Which his justice shall proclaim, 
 When the earth shall melt away 
 
 Like wax before the flame ? 
 
 Ghastly death will quickly come, 
 
 And drag you to his bar ; 
 Then to hear your awful doom, 
 
 Will fill you with despair ! 
 All your sins will round you crowd ; 
 
 You shall mark their crimson dye ; 
 Each for vengeance crying loud, 
 
 And what can you reply? 
 
 Though your heart were made of steel. 
 
 Your forehead lined with brass; 
 God at length will make you feel, 
 
 He will not let you pass; 
 Sinners then in vain will call, 
 
 Those who now despise his grace, 
 "Kocks and mountains on us fall, 
 
 And hide us from. his facer" 
 
 RICHMOND, V A : 
 PRESBYTEJRIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION, 
 
Hollinger Corp. 
 pHB.5