"I am conscious that some here present may think that what I have said has been in poor taste; that it has been an affront to the object of the meeting or an insult to the feelings of those who have called the audience together. In order that the people may know that I am sincere in all I have said, I will say that I have placed in the bank the sum of 10,000 dollars, to be used as the committee may deem wisest and best for the education of children in bereaved homes, or for any other help to those who need it. This money is God's. I have robbed Him and my brother man all these years. Whatever restitution I can make in the next few days I desire to make.

"But the great question with us all, my friends, is not this particular disaster. That will in time take its place as one event out of thousands in the daily life of this world. The great event of existence is not death, it is life. The great question of the world is not the tariff or the silver question, or the labour question, or temperance, or this or that or the other. The great question of the whole world is selfishness in the heart of man. The great command is, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God.' If we had done that in this town, I believe such a physical disaster as the one we lament would never have happened. That is our great need.

"If we go home from this meeting resolved to rebuke our selfishness in whatever form it is displeasing to God, and if we begin to-morrow to act out that resolution in word and deed, we shall revolutionise this town in its business, its politics, its church, its schools, its homes. If we simply allow our emotions to be stirred, our sympathies to be excited to the giving of a little money on this occasion, it will do us and the community little permanent good. God wants a complete transformation in the people of this nation. Nothing less than a complete regeneration can save us from destruction. Unconsecrated, selfish money and selfish education, selfish political power and selfish genius in art, letters, and diplomacy will sink us as a people into a gulf of annihilation. There is no salvation for us except in Jesus Christ. Let us believe in Him and live in Him.

"I have said my message. I trust you have understood it. I would not say otherwise if I knew that I should step off this platform now and stand before the judgment seat of Christ. God help us all to do our duty! Time is short, eternity is long. Death is nothing; life is everything."

Five years after this speech of Robert Hardy to the people of Barton in the town hall, one who was present in the audience described the sensation that passed through it when the speaker sat down to be like a distinct electric shock which passed from seat to seat, and held the people fixed and breathless as if they had been smitten into images of stone. The effect on the chairman of the meeting was the same. He sat motionless. Then a wave of emotion gradually stirred the audience, and without a word of dismission they poured out of the building and scattered to their homes.

Robert found George waiting for him. The father was almost faint with the re-action from his address. George gave his arm, and the two walked home in silence.

Thus ended Robert Hardy's fourth day.

FRIDAY—THE FIFTH DAY

We must pass hastily over the events of the next day in Robert Hardy's life. The whole town was talking about his surprising address of the night before. Some thought he was crazy. Others regarded him as sincere, but after the first effect of his speech had worn off, they criticised him severely for presuming to "preach" on such an occasion. Still others were puzzled to account for the change in the man, for that a change had taken place could not be denied. How slow men are to acknowledge the power of God in the human heart! Mr. Hardy went about his business, very little moved by all this discussion. He realised that only two days more remained.

He spent the afternoon and evening at home, but was interrupted by several calls. After tea the entire family gathered in the room where Clara lay. She was living, but was still unconscious. As Mrs. Hardy was saying something to her husband about his dream and the events of the day before, Clara suddenly opened her eyes, and distinctly called out the words:

"Father! what day is it?"

It was like a voice out of the long-dead past. Mr. Hardy, sitting by the side of the bed, replied quietly, while his heart beat quickly:

"This is Friday night, dear child."

Another question came, uttered in the same strange voice:

"Father, how many more days are left for you?"

"To-morrow and Sunday."

The voice came again:

"I shall go with you then."

The eyes closed and the form became motionless as before.

It was very quiet in the room at the close of Robert Hardy's fifth day.

SATURDAY—THE SIXTH DAY

Those words of Clara, "I shall go with you then," filled the family with dismay. Mr. Hardy bowed his head and groaned. Mrs. Hardy, almost beside herself with grief and terror, flew to the side of the girl, and with beseeching cries and caresses tried to bring back to consciousness the mind that for a moment or two had gleamed with reason and then had relapsed into that mysterious condition in which it had been lying for three days; but all in vain. The eyes were closed; the form was rigid. The others, George and Will and Bess, grew pale, and Bess cried, almost for the first time since the strange week began. Robert was the first to break the grief with a quiet word. He raised his head, saying:

"I do not believe Clara is going to die when I do."

"Why, father, what makes you think that?" cried Alice.

"I don't know; I can't give any exact reason. I only know that I don't believe it will happen."

"God grant that she may be spared to us," said Mrs. Hardy. "O Robert, it is more than I can bear! Only to-day and to-morrow left! It can't be real. I have battled against your dream all the week. It was a dream only; I will not believe it to be anything else. You are not ill; there is no indication that you are going to die. I will not, I cannot, believe it! God is too good. And we need you now, Robert. Let us pray God for mercy."

Robert shook his head sadly but firmly.

"No, Mary; I cannot resist an impression so strong that it has become conviction, that in some way I shall be called from you Sunday night. I have struggled against it, but it grows upon me. God is merciful. I do not question His goodness. How much did I deserve even this week of preparation after the life I have lived? And the time will not be long before we shall all meet there. God grant that it may be an unbroken company!"

Mr. Hardy spoke as anyone in his condition would. The children drew about him lovingly. Bess climbed into his lap and laid her face against her father's, while the strong man sobbed as he thought of all the years of neglected affection in that family circle. The rest of the evening was spent in talking over the probable future.

George, who seemed thoroughly humbled now, listened respectfully and even tearfully to his father's counsel concerning the direction of business and family matters. The boy was going through a struggle with himself which was apparent to all in the house. Ever since his mother had seen him kneeling down in the night watch, he had shown a new spirit. It remained to be seen whether he had really changed, or whether he had been merely frightened for the time being into good behaviour.

Saturday morning found the Hardys weary with the agitation of the week, but bearing up under a strange excitement which only the prospect of the father's approaching death or removal could have produced.

Robert could not realise that his week was almost at an end. Why, it seemed but yesterday that he had dreamed after the Sunday evening service! As on every other day, he asked himself the question, "What shall I do?" Only when he had prayed could he answer the question. Then the light came. Who says prayer is merely a form? It is going to God for wisdom and getting it. It is crying out for light, and lo! the darkness flees. It is spreading out our troubles and our joys and our perplexities and our needs, and finding God Himself the best possible answer to them all. Robert Hardy had been learning this of late, and it was the one thing that made possible to him the calmness of the last two days allotted him.

The day was spent in much the same way that the other days had been spent. He went down to his office about ten o'clock, and after coming home to lunch went down again, with the intention of getting through all the business and returning home to spend the rest of the time with the family. Along towards three o'clock, when the routine work of the shops was disposed of, the manager felt an irresistible desire to speak to the men in his employ. Those in his department numbered about eight hundred, and he knew how impossible it would be for him to speak to them individually. He thought a minute and then called Burns in and gave an order that made the foreman stare in the most undisguised wonder.

"Shut down the works for a little while and ask the men to get together in the big machine shop, I want to speak to them."

Burns had been astonished so often this week that, although he opened his mouth to say something, he was able to repress his wonder. After staring blankly at his employer for a minute, he turned and went out to execute the order.

The great engine was stopped. The men from the casting rooms and the carpenters' shops, and the store-rooms, and the repairing departments, came trooping into the big machine shop, and sat or leaned on the great, grim pieces of machinery. As the shop filled, the place began to take on a strange aspect never seen there before.

Mr. Hardy crossed the yard from the office, followed by the clerks and minor officers of the road, all curious to hear what was coming. Mr. Hardy mounted one of the planers and looked about him. The air was still full of gas, smoke, and that mixture of fine iron filings and oil, which is characteristic of such places. The men were quiet and respectful. Many of them had heard the manager's speech of Thursday night at the town hall. Most of them were aware that some change had taken place in him. It had been whispered about that he had arranged matters for the men injured in the Sunday accident so that they would not suffer for anything.

The grimy, hard-muscled, hard-featured crowd of eight hundred men all turned their eyes upon the figure standing erect and pale-faced on the great planer, and he in turn looked out through the blue murky atmosphere at them with an intensity of expression which none in that audience understood. As Mr. Hardy went on with his speech they began to understand what that look meant.

"My brothers," began the manager, with a slight tremble in the words so new to him, "as this may be the last time I shall ever speak to you, I want to say what I feel I owe to you. For twenty-five years I have carried on the work in this place without any thought of the eight hundred men in these shops, except as their names were on the pay roll of the company. It never made any difference to me when your wives and children grew sick and died; I never knew what sort of houses you lived in, except that in comparison with mine they must have been very crowded and uncomfortable. For all these twenty-five years I have been as indifferent to you as a man possibly could be to men who work for him. It has not occurred to me during this time that I could be anything else. I have been too selfish to see my relation to you and act upon it.

"Now I do not call you in here to-day to apologise for twenty-five years of selfishness—not that alone; but I do want you to know that I have been touched by the hand of God in such a way that before it is too late I want to call you all 'brothers.' I ask that when you think of me hereafter it may be as I am now, to-day, not as I have been in all the past years.

"It is not for me to say how far or in what manner I have trampled on the brotherhood of the race. I have called myself a Christian. I have been a member of a church. Yet I confess here to-day that under the authority granted me by the company I have more than once dismissed good, honest, faithful workmen in large bodies, and cut down wages unnecessarily to increase dividends, and have thought of the human flesh and blood in these shops as I have thought of the iron and steel here. I confess all that and more. Whatever has been un-Christian I hope will be forgiven.

"There are many things we do to our fellow-men in this world which abide—the sting of them, I mean. The impress of my selfishness is stamped on this place. It will take years to remove it. I might have been far more to you. I might have raised my voice, as a Christian and an influential director of this road, against the Sunday work and traffic; I never did. I might have relieved unnecessary discomfort in different departments; I refused to do it. I might have helped the cause of temperance in this town by trying to banish the saloon; instead of that I voted to license an establishment of crime and poverty and disease. I might have used my influence and my wealth to build healthy, comfortable homes for the men who work on this road; I never raised my finger in the matter. I might have helped to make life a happier, sweeter thing to the nearly one thousand souls in this building; but I went my selfish way, content with my own luxurious home and the ambition for self-culture and the pride of self-accomplishments. Yet there is not a man here to-day who isn't happier than I am.

"In the name of the good God, who forgives our sins for Jesus' sake, I wish you the wish of a man who looks into the other world and sees things as they really are. I do not desire you to think of my life as a Christian life. It has not been such; but as you hope to be forgiven at last, forgive all wrongs at my hands.

"You are living in the dawn of a happier day for labour. There are Christian men in business, and some few connected with railroads, who are trying to apply the principles of Christianity to the business and frame of the world. My probable successor in these shops is such a man.

"God is love. I have forgotten that myself. I have walked through life forgetful of Him. But I know that He is drawing the nations and the world together to-day in true sympathy. The nations that are persistently defiant and disobedient to God shall perish. The rulers who haughtily take God's place and oppress the people shall be destroyed. The men of power and intelligence and money who use these three great advantages merely to bless themselves and add to their own selfish pleasure and ease, shall very soon be overthrown. I would give all I possess to be able to live and see a part of it come to pass. Men, brothers, some of you younger ones will live to see that day.

"Love God and obey Him. Envy not the rich. They are often more miserable than you imagine. True happiness consists in a conscience at peace with God and a heart free from selfish desires and habits. I thank you for your attention. You will know better why I have said all this to you when you come in here again to work next Monday. My brothers, God bless you. God bless us all!"

When Robert stepped down from the planer and started towards the door, more than one black hand was thrust into his with the words, "God bless you, sir!" He felt a strange desire to weep. Never before had he felt that thrill shoot through him at the grasp of the hand of his brother man. His speech had made a profound impression on the men. Many of them did not understand the meaning of certain sentences; but the spirit of Mr. Hardy was unmistakable, and the men responded in a manner that touched him deeply.

He finally went into his office; the big engine started up again, and the whirr and dust and clamour of the shops went on. But men bent over their work there, in the gathering dusk of the winter day, who felt a new heart-throb at the recollection of the pale face and sincere word of the man who had broken a selfish silence of a quarter of a century to call them brothers. O Robert Hardy, what glorious opportunities you missed to love and be loved! With all your wealth you have been a very poor man all your life until now, the next to the last day of it!

There is little need to describe the rest of this day. Robert went home. Everyone greeted him tenderly. His first inquiry was for Clara. Still in that trance-like sleep; would she never wake? Mrs. Hardy shuddered with fear. She had spent much of the day in prayer and tears. The evening sped by without special incident.

James Caxton came and joined the family circle. His presence reminded Mr. Hardy of the old quarrel with the young man's father. He said to James that if anything should prevent him from seeing his father the next day, James might tell him how completely and sincerely he wished the foolish quarrel forgotten, and his own share in it forgiven.

So that day came to a close in family conference, in tears, in fear and hope and anxiety and prayer. But Mrs. Hardy would not lose all hope. It did not seem to her possible that her husband could be called away the next night.

SUNDAY—THE SEVENTH DAY

Alice, with the quickness of thought that always characterised her, planned that all the rest should go to church while she remained with Clara. Will was able to go out now. So, for the first time in months, Robert and his wife and Bess and the two boys sat together in the same seat. George had not been to church for a year, and Will was very irregular in his attendance.

The opening services seemed especially impressive and beautiful to Mr. Hardy. He wondered how he had ever dared sit and criticise Mr. Jones' preaching and his reading of the hymns. To be sure, he was not a perfect speaker; but his love for his people and for all men and his rarely good everyday life were so remarkable, that they ought to have counted for more than they ever did. It is astonishing how many good deeds and good men pass through this world unnoticed and unappreciated; while every evil deed is caught up and magnified and criticised by press and people, until it seems as if the world must be a very wicked place indeed, and the good people very scarce.

Mr. Hardy joined in the service with a joy unknown to him for years. He had come to it from the reading of his Bible instead of the reading of the morning paper, and from prayer instead of from thoughts of his business or a yawning stroll through his library. His mind was receptive of the best things in the service. He entered into it with the solemn feeling that it was his last.

When the minister gave out the text, "For 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," Mr. Hardy started, and leaned forward intently, feeling that the message of the preacher was peculiarly for him and strangely appropriate to his condition. The first statement of the sermon arrested his attention and held him irresistibly to the end of the argument:

"The judgment seat of Christ will not be a dreadful place to a man whose sins have been forgiven in this world; but if he comes up to it seamed and scarred and stained with sins unrepented of and unforgiven because he has not asked God to forgive him, it will be a place of awful fear to his soul. There are men here in this audience who are as ready to die now as they ever will be; they have made their peace with God; they have no quarrel with their neighbours; their accounts are all square in business; they are living in loving relations with the home circle; they have no great burdens of remorse or regret weighing them down; if God should call them this minute to step up to the judgment seat, they would be ready.

"But there are other men here who are not at all ready for such a tremendous event. They may think they are, but they are mistaken. How can they stand before the greatest Being in all the universe and have no fear, when they are unprepared to answer His questions: 'Why did you not confess Me before men? Why did you not do as I commanded and bear the burdens of the weak instead of pleasing yourself?' What will they say then?

"It is true that Christ is all-merciful, all-loving. But will it make no difference with a soul whether it comes up to His judgment seat out of a life of selfish ease and indulgence or out of a life of self-sacrifice and restraint? When every possible offer of mercy is held out to men on earth and they will not accept it, will it be all the same as if they had availed themselves of it, when they come before the judgment seat of Christ? Why, that would be to mock at the meaning of the Incarnation and the Atonement. It would be to cast scorn and contempt on the agony in the Garden and the Crucifixion. It would make unnecessary all the prayer and preaching. What possible need is there for men to preach a gospel of salvation unless there is danger of condemnation? If we are all going to be saved anyway, no matter whether we accept God's love in Christ or not, of what use is the Church? Why should we be anxious any more about our children? What difference does it make whether they go to the bad here in this world, if in the world to come they will all be saved? For eternity will be so much grander and sweeter and more enduring than time, that we might as well take it easy here and not pay much attention to the message, 'God so loved the world'—that is, if we are going to be saved anyway.

"Why should we care very much if it does say in the revelation of God's Word that the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, if we don't believe it? Why, the wicked will stand just as good a chance of eternal glory as the good, if the judgment seat of Christ does not mean a separation of the good from the bad. Let us close our churches and go home. Let us eat and drink and dance and be merry, for to-morrow we die; and after death the judgment, and after the judgment glory and joy and power and peace and life eternal in the presence of God. It is true we scorned Him on earth, but that will make no difference; He will receive us just the same. It is true we refused to believe in His only begotten Son after all He suffered of shame and agony for us; but that makes no difference; He will say, 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' It is true we made fun of Christians, and mocked at prayer and sneered at faith; but that is not much to be afraid of. It is true we hated our neighbour, and would not forgive an insult; but that is a little thing. It is true when the Holy Spirit pleaded with us a year or six months ago to confess Christ in public we told Him to leave us; we were ashamed to do it in the presence of men, to confess Him who spread out His arms on a cross of bitterest agony for us; but for all that we feel sure that when we march up to the judgment seat of Christ He will treat us just the same as He treats the disciples who have laid down their lives for the Master.

"Then let us tear out of the Bible every line that speaks of retribution or punishment or judgment—for we don't like those passages: they hurt our feelings,—and let us leave only those words that speak of love and mercy and forgiveness: for those words are the only ones that can be true; for those words don't make us feel uncomfortable.

"Away with everything that hurts our feelings, that makes us anxious, that sends us to our knees in prayer, that makes us confess Christ and live a life of self-denial and service! for when the judgment seat is prepared and Christ sits down there and we appear before Him, He will receive us just as we come before Him—the pure and the impure; the self-sacrificing and the selfish; the humble and the proud; the believer and the unbeliever; infidels and scoffers and cowards and despisers of God's love on the earth; all the class of men who point to weak and imperfect Christians as an excuse for their own weak lives; the drunkards and the liars and the oppressors of the poor; the people who heard a thousand sermons full of Gospel truth and despised them because of some imperfection in delivery or elocution; all those men who went through life the betrayers of the home; the selfish politicians, who betrayed their country; the men who read the Bible and believed only the parts that didn't hurt their sensitive feelings; the young men who lived fast lives and sowed wild oats because a wicked and false public sentiment made them think it was excusable and perhaps necessary; and all other men and women who lived as they pleased, regardless of God and eternity—when all these shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ He will look upon them all alike, and with a smile of gracious pardon will reach out His almighty arm and sweep them all together into a heaven of eternal bliss, there to reign with Him in glory and power, world without end!

"But is this what Christ taught the world? Suppose what we have said is true: it turns His whole life into a splendid mockery. Foolishness and absurdity could go no further than to create a life like His and to put into His mouth such teachings as we have received, if at the judgment seat all souls, regardless of their acts in this world, are received on an equal footing into eternal life. And where is there any room in the teaching of Christ for a purgatory? Do we believe that there is one? Is it not the plain teaching that after the judgment the destiny of souls is fixed for ever?

"But what could man wish more? Will he not have opportunity enough to accept the mercy of God before that time? Does he not have opportunity? If any soul appears at the judgment and complains that he did not have a fair chance, will that gracious Judge condemn him if his complaint be true? We know He will not. But the facts of the judgment are these: at that time, whenever it is, upon the souls of men will be passed for their acts in the earthly life a verdict that will determine their everlasting destiny; and that verdict will be both just and merciful. For the Crucified One could not pronounce otherwise. Those who have despised and neglected and disbelieved and refused to confess Him, shall be separated from Him for ever; but those who have confessed and believed and tried to live like Him, shall be in His presence continually. There will be a division of souls. It will not be based on wealth or position, or birth or education, or genius, but on Christlikeness—on that divine and eternal thing we call character. Everything else shall go away into destruction, into death, into punishment, into banishment from God. Banishment from God will be hell—a hell not made by God, but by man himself, who had an opportunity—nay, a thousand opportunities—every day of his life to accept the bliss of heaven, but of his own selfish choice rejected every one of them and went to his own place.

"But some soul starts up and says, 'You are not preaching the Gospel; you are preaching fear, hell, torments. Is this your boasted love of God?' Yes; for what am I preaching, if not the love of God, when I say, 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life?' Is there no danger of perishing? Why did Christ come then? Why did He say the things He did? Why did He speak of the condemnation of the wicked and unbelieving if that were not a part of the Gospel? The Gospel is glad tidings; but what makes it glad tidings? The danger we are in. What is salvation? It is the opposite of being lost. We cannot have one without the other. So I am preaching the Gospel here to-day when I say, 'We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.' There will be no fear to us then if we believe in Him, if we have lived His life here, if the things done in the body are good. And more than that: as long as this earth life continues, God's mercy is with us every moment.

"It is possible some soul is here who for years has lived selfishly within his own little round of pleasure. He looks back on a life of uselessness, of neglect of all that Christ did for him. He this day hears the voice of God. He listens; he repents; he cries out, smiting on his breast, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' What then will God do? Will He reject him because he is old in sin? because he has wasted beautiful years? When he appears before the judgment seat will Christ say, 'You repented too late on earth! You cannot be saved now'? No! even if after a hundred years of shame and sin a soul with its outgoing breath, in genuine repentance and faith in the Son of God, cries out for mercy, that cry will be answered and he will be saved. What less of glory and power such a soul may experience in the realms of glory, we may not be able to tell. But he himself will be saved.

"Is not God merciful, then? Let no man depart from this house of God fearful or despairing. The earthly life is full from beginning to end with the love of an Almighty Father. Shall men complain because they cannot have all of this life and all of the other too in which to repent and be forgiven? 'Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.' 'To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.'

"Men of Barton, you have heard the word of God proclaimed from this desk to-day. Young men, will you wait until you are old in sin and shame before you will repent and be saved? How do you know you will live to be old men? And what a life to live, even if you were sure of a hundred years, to pour out the dregs at last as an offering to Christ just to escape hell! O all men, hear ye this day the message of Christ! He is a Saviour of sinners. It is not necessary that any man go away from this service unsaved. You may believe here and now. Won't you do it? 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Then go home and pray, rejoicing. And if the Almighty call you out and away from this prison of clay into His resplendent presence this very night, what will you have to fear? Not one thing. You have put your trust in Him. Your sins are all forgiven. You can appear before His judgment seat and await your verdict with a calm and joyful soul. For you know as you gaze into the loving countenance of your Redeemer and Judge that when He turns and speaks to you He will say, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' Truly God is love!"