If I Had Only
Listened
In a gloomy cell of an Indian jail, a number of prisoners were attentively listening to a gentleman who was earnestly entreating them to study the Scriptures. Wishing to ascertain if they possessed the precious volume, he put the question, “Have any of you a Bible?” “No,” was the reply. “Have any of you ever possessed a Bible?”
After a considerable pause, a solider, who was under sentence of death for murdering a black man, broke the silence, and amid sobs and tears confessed that he once had a Bible.
“But oh!” said he, “I sold it for drink! It was the companion of my youth. I brought it with me from my native land. Oh! If I had listened to my Bible, I should not now be here!”
The tens of thousands who crowd our prisons and penitentiaries, the drunkard in the kennel, the wailing suicide, the incarcerated felon, the executed criminal, with myriads of the lost of hell, might in tones tremulous with lamentations and woe, howl the strain around the universe.
“If I had listened to my bible, I should never be here!”
Friend, have you a Bible? How often do you read it? Use it alright, and it will guide you to Glory. Neglect it, and it will condemn you at the last day.
A scientist was dying. In that hour he felt that there was no anchor for his soul but the Bible, which he had thrown aside when he became skeptic. But n his last moments he was eagerly searching for something among the bed clothes. On being asked what he was looking for, he begged for the “Old Bible,” which he had used among the cottages of the poor; and he died with it in his arms. But better will it be for you, O reader, to have it in your heart when living, then, in your arms when dying!- Selected.
“Christ died for our sins and rose again, according to the Scriptures.” He invites every sinner to receive Him now.
“Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cense us from all unrighteousness.” He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Mark 16:16.