I came across a story the other day of a courtier who had passed his life in the service of his prince. He had fallen dangerously ill, and now lay dying. The prince went to see his faithful servant, and was touched with the sad spectacle of suffering. "Is there anything," he asked, "that I can do for you? Ask it, and you shall not be refused." "Prince," said the dying man, "give me a quarter of an hour of life." "Alas," said the prince, "what you have asked is not in my power to give; ask something else if you wish me to help you." And the story runs that the dying man cried out in the agony of his soul, "I have served you for fifty years, and you cannot give me one quarter of an hour of life! Ah! if I had served the Lord thus faithfully, he would have given me not a quarter of an hour of life, but an eternity of happiness." Very soon after he died. Happy for him if he himself profited by the lesson which he gave to others on the nothingness of human life, and the need of working out one’s own salvation. Reader, the day perhaps will come when you too will wish to ask for a quarter of an hour’s life. It may be you will rise to-morrow morning, and God’s sun will be shining bright, and everything will look peaceful and happy as you leave home, but the angel of death may have started on his errand; and instead of your walking in, gaily whistling, in the evening when your work is over, there may come down the village a mournful company bearing a wounded man upon a hurdle. That man may be yourself; and as you reach your own door the films of death may be gathering over your eyes, and the one request you would like to make would be, "Oh! that I might have but a quarter of an hour to make my peace with God." It has been the prayer, ere now, of many a one more hardened in sin than yourself. The richest men have felt the longing, and they would have given half of all their hard-earned gold to get that quarter of an hour. The poorest men have felt it too; and if they could begin life again they felt that they would live very differently, and Christ and not Satan should be Master of their hearts. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God[#]." It is a fearful thing to live a life of wickedness, and to die with unforgiven sin upon the soul. But the remedy is in your own hands. The Lord Jesus waits to be gracious; He loves you, He toils for you, He weeps for you, as He wept for Jerusalem of old, and all He asks of you is to give Him your heart now, and then there will be no such thing as fear in death; for the perfect love wherewith He will teach you to love Him, will cast out all fear and all terror, and in your case there will be no pain in death, but the spirit will pass away from earth to meet Him at last on the shore of heaven. [#] Heb. x. 31. *SORROW AND SUFFERING.*