Lutheran Rose Burning Bright

"Closed."

The above word in big, black, and ominous letters stared the writer in the face the other day when he arrived at the entrance to a down-town office where he had business to transact. He had been busy in his study in an effort to get the items for the MESSENGER ready in due season, and hat not noted the flight of time. He hastily snatched up his watch and read from its dial "half past two o'clock." "We will get there in time if we hurry, for they do not close until three." Hat and coat were donned in a minute, and the first car boarded for down town. But upon arriving at the destination, he was only confronted by the uncompromising sign. "Closed." He looked at the watch again, in surprise, and it was ten minutes of four, and he realized that it had really been half past three when he read half past two.

But that mistake had been discovered too late; the trip had been in vain.

And yet, perhaps not all in vain, for a wholesome lesson had been learned. And the incident had also brought to mind the similar mistakes that thousands are making in regard to the more important spiritual things.

How may there are who seem too busy with material things, the all-engrossing affairs of this life, to note the flight of time, and to realize that the day of grace is swiftly passing to its close! At the eleventh hour they wake up and bethink themselves of the "important business" of their soul's salvation. A rush is made, so to say, for the "gate that has stood ajar" so long, waiting for them to enter in. But when they come, alas! The gate is "closed"! Like the writer, in the incident mentioned above, they have arrived too late. The time of grace is past, and there is little solace in the discovery that they have miscalculated their time and opportunity, or perhaps, still worse, knowingly procrastinated until it was too late. It shall profit them nothing to cry as did the foolish virgins: "Lord, Lord, open to us!" "The door is shut," irrevocably shut. "Closed" is the superscription above the entrance to the place they have sought, but sought too late.

Dear reader, are you making this fatal mistake? Then take heed before it is too late! The gate is yet ajar; now you may enter in, for this is the accepted time; this is the day of salvation.

A Modern Lutheran Rose