"Do you remember any particular passage in the sermon which impressed and affected you?"
"O yes, Sir; one, which is fixed on my memory. It was this: 'Should you like to go from the theatre to the judgment-seat of Christ?'"
"To pass abruptly from such a scene of gay amusement into the eternal world would indeed be awful, but God in mercy has interposed to prevent it; and your present anxiety on the subject may be regarded as a favourable sign that he is dealing graciously with you. But as many are alarmed in the immediate prospect of death, and pray for mercy when they cannot continue longer in a course of folly and of sin, you will permit me to warn you against grasping at a premature hope, which may prove more fatal, because more deceptive, than the keenest feelings of anguish."
"O, Sir, I have no hope. My soul is deeply depressed; I cannot look back on the scenes of my past life without being amazed at my folly. Had I taken the warning which Amelia Stubbs gave me when she was dying, I had not gone to the theatre or the ball-room again; and then I had not been dying now."
"You knew her?"
"Yes, Sir; and I saw her when she was dying; and she told me she would rather die than live. And she besought me with tears, and in the sweetest tones of solicitude, to flee from the wrath to come. But I was infatuated, and I saw not my danger, nor did I understand the full import of her warning as I do now. I continued to follow the multitude, because custom led the way, and now I must die alone. But I am not fit to die."
"Why do you suppose that you are not fit to die?"
"Because I am a sinner; I always thought I was, when I ever thought on the subject, but now I feel that I am."
"And how long have you felt yourself a sinner?"
"O, Sir," and she wept as she spoke, "not till after I was informed of my danger; and this aggravates my misery, because I fear that it is a dread of punishment which disquiets my soul, rather than a true sorrow for my sins."