AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE.
Dear Reader,—The following account being "an authenticated fact," it is put before you with the hope that you may be thereby led to solemnly consider the subject of a future state. God's truth does not require fiction to make it effectual; therefore, the net of truth should only be weighted with words of truth.
The awful, but true, narrative now put before you takes us back for something like a century, to the city of Glasgow, where, at that time, was a club of gentlemen of the first rank in that city. They met professedly for card-playing; but the members were distinguished by such a fearless excess of profligacy as to obtain for it the name of "The Hell Club."
Besides their nightly or weekly meetings, they held a grand annual festival, at which each member endeavoured to "outdo all his former outdoings" in drunkenness, blasphemy, and licentiousness. Of all who shone on these occasions, none shone half so brilliantly as Archibald Boyle. Educated by a fond and foolishly indulgent mother, he was early allowed to meet in society with members of "The Hell Club."
One night, on retiring to sleep, after returning from one of the annual meetings of the club, Boyle dreamt that he was still riding, as usual, upon his famous black horse, towards his own house—then a country seat embowered by ancient trees, and situated upon a hill now built over by the most fashionable part of Glasgow—and that he was suddenly accosted by some one, whose personal appearance he could not, in the gloom of night, distinctly discern, but who, seizing the reins, said, in a voice apparently accustomed to command, "You must go with me." "And who are you?" exclaimed Boyle, with a volley of blasphemous execrations, while he struggled to disengage his reins from the intruder's grasp. "That you will see by-and-bye," replied the same voice, in a cold, sneering tone, that thrilled through his very heart. Boyle plunged his spurs into the panting sides of his steed. The noble animal reared, and then darted forward with a speed which nearly deprived his rider of breath. But in vain—in vain! Fleeter than the wind he flew, the mysterious, half-seen guide still in front of him! Agonized by he knew not what of indescribable horror and awe, Boyle again furiously spurred the gallant horse. It fiercely reared and plunged. He lost his seat, and expected at the moment to feel himself dashed to the earth. But not so, for he continued to fall—fall—fall—it appeared to himself with an ever-increasing velocity. At length this terrific rapidity of motion abated, and, to his amazement and horror, he perceived that this mysterious attendant was close by his side. "Where," he exclaimed, in the frantic energy of despair, "where are you taking me? Where am I? Where am I going?" "To hell!" replied the same iron voice, and from the depths below the sound so familiar to his lips was suddenly re-echoed—"To hell!"
Onward, onward they hurried in darkness, rendered more horrible still by the conscious presence of his spectral conductor. At length a glimmering light appeared in the distance, and soon increased to a blaze. But, as they approached it, in addition to the hideously discordant groans and yells of agony and despair, his ears were assailed with what seemed to be the echoes of frantic revelry.
Boyle at length perceived that he was surrounded by those whom he had known on earth, but were some time dead, each one of them betraying his agony at the bitter recollections of the vain pursuits that had engrossed his time here.
Suddenly observing that his unearthly conductor had disappeared, he felt so relieved by his absence that he ventured to address his former friend, Mrs. D——, whom he saw sitting with eyes fixed in intense earnestness, as she was wont on earth, apparently absorbed at her favourite game of loo. "Ha! Mrs. D——! Delighted to see you! D'ye know a fellow told me to-night he was bringing me to hell! Ha! ha! If this be hell," said he, scoffingly, "what a —— pleasant place it must be! Ha! ha! Come now, my good Mrs. D——, for auld lang syne, do just stop for a moment, rest, and"—"show me through the pleasures of hell," he was going, with reckless profanity, to add; but, with a shriek that seemed to cleave through his very soul, she exclaimed, "Rest! There is no rest in hell!" and from the interminable vaults, voices, as loud as thunder, repeated the awful, the heart-withering sound, "There is no rest in hell!" and he who, in his vision, walked among them in a mortal frame of flesh and blood, felt how inexpressibly more horrible such sounds could be than ever was the wildest shriek of agony on earth.
He saw Maxwell, the former companion of his own boyish profligacy, and said, "Stop, Harry! stop! Speak to me! Oh, rest one moment!" Scarce had the words been breathed from his faltering lips, when again his terror-stricken ear was stunned with the same wild yell of agony, re-echoed by ten thousand thousand voices—"There is no rest in hell!"
All at once he perceived that his unearthly conductor was once more by his side. "Take me," shrieked Boyle, "take me from this place! By the living God, whose name I have so often outraged, I adjure thee! Take me from this place!"
"Canst thou still name His name?" said the fiend, with a hideous sneer. "Go, then; but, in a year and a day, we meet, to part no more!"
Boyle awoke; and he felt as if the last words of the fiend were traced in letters of living fire upon his heart and brain. Unable, from actual bodily ailment, to leave his bed for several days, the horrid vision had full time to take effect upon his mind; and many were the pangs of tardy remorse and ill-defined terror that beset his vice-stained soul, as he lay in darkness and seclusion—to him so very unusual. He resolved, utterly and for ever, to forsake "The Hell Club." Above all, he determined that nothing on earth should tempt him to join the next annual festival.
The companions of his licentiousness bound themselves by an oath never to desist till they had discovered what was the matter with him, and had cured him of playing the Methodist; for their alarm as to losing "the life of the Club" had been wrought up to the highest pitch by one of their number declaring that, on unexpectedly entering Boyle's room, he detected him in the act of hastily hiding a Book, which he actually believed was the Bible.
Alas! alas! poor Boyle! Like many a youth, he was ashamed to avow his convictions, and his endless ruin followed.
From the annual meeting he shrank with an instinctive horror, and made up his mind utterly to avoid it. Well aware of this resolve, his tempters determined he should have no choice. How potent, how active, is the spirit of evil! How feeble is unassisted, Christless, unprayerful man! Boyle found himself, he could not tell how, seated at that table on that very day, where he had sworn to himself a thousand and a thousand times nothing on earth should make him sit.
His ears tingled, and his eyes swam, as he listened to the opening sentence of the president's address—"Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore, it is a year and a day since our last annual meeting."
Every nerve in Boyle's body twanged in agony at the ominous, the well-remembered words. His first impulse was to rise and fly; but then—the sneers! the sneers!
How many in this world, as well as poor Boyle, have dreaded a sneer, and dared the wrath of an almighty and eternal God, rather than encounter the sarcastic curl of a fellow-creature's lip!
The night was gloomy, with frequent and fitful gusts of chill and howling wind, as Boyle, with fevered nerves and a reeling brain, mounted his horse to return home.
The following morning, the well-known black steed was found, with saddle and bridle on, quietly grazing on the road-side, about half-way to Boyle's country-house, and a few yards from it lay the stiffened corpse of its master.
Reader, the dream is horrible—truly horrible—yet not half so horrible as the reality. Ah! no. No dream can picture the full, long misery of "the worm that dieth not," "the fire that is never quenched," the woe that never ends.
Oh, reader, if, under the poison of infidelity, you have been led to doubt the existence of hell, I pray God you may believe the awful reality ere you are in it!
If God did not punish sin, His indifference to it would encourage it. If God did not punish sin, where were His holy abhorrence of it? If God did not punish sin, His kingdom would be a moral chaos. But His Word declares that "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. v. 10).
Reader, as in the days of Noah, so now. Death threatens all who are out of Christ, and, therefore, in their sins. There was then only one place of safety; there is only one place of safety now—that is, in the Ark, Christ. "Ye must be born again." The horror you have felt in reading this dream will be no benefit to you if it is not made, in the hands of the Spirit, the means of your flying to Christ for refuge.
Oh, that in some hearts, the reading of this sad narrative may prove the means of producing the earnest cry, "Deliver me from going down to the pit!" and "What must I do to be saved?" To such God's free invitation to the heavy-laden sinner to come to Christ for rest is given, and Jesus Himself declares, "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out" (John vi. 37).