{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43373/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43373","id":"gutenberg_43373","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43373","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Second Advent"],"text":"HE'S COMING TO-MORROW\n\n\n\n\nIDEAL MESSAGES\n\nA series of booklets for friend to send to friend, having in mind the\nconveying of a special word for a specific occasion. The elegant manner\nof production and the genuine worth of the messages fully justify the\ntitle of the series, for the complete books are assuredly \"ideal.\"\n\n\nOld English paper boards, embossed, each, net, 25 cents.\n\n  1. =Beyond the Marshes.= By Ralph Connor. A Word of\n     Encouragement.\n\n  2. =Across the Continent of the Years.= By Newell Dwight\n     Hillis.\n\n  3. =For Eyes that Weep.= By Samuel G. Smith. A Word of Comfort\n     to Those Bereaved of Little Children.\n\n  4. =He's Coming To-morrow.= By Harriet Beecher Stowe. A Word on\n     the Coming of Christ.\n\n  5. =For Hearts that Hope.= By James G. K. McClure, D. D. A Word\n     about Heaven.\n\n  6. =Unto Him.= By Bishop John H. Vincent. A Simple Word about\n     Coming to Jesus Christ.\n\n\n\n\nHE'S COMING TO-MORROW\n\nBy HARRIET BEECHER STOWE\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n    FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n    CHICAGO      NEW YORK      TORONTO\n    MCMI\n\n\n\n\n\"HE'S COMING TO-MORROW\"\n\n    \"_The night is far spent; the day is at hand._\"\n\n\nMY soul vibrated for a moment like a harp. Was it true? The night, the\nlong night of the world's groping agony and blind desire? _Is_ it almost\nover? _Is_ the day at hand?\n\nAgain: \"THEY SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD, WITH POWER AND\nGREAT GLORY. _And when these things come to pass, look up and rejoice,\nfor your redemption is nigh._\"\n\nComing!--The Son of man really coming into _this_ world again with power\nand great glory?\n\nWill this really ever happen? Will this solid, commonplace earth see it?\nWill these skies brighten and flash? and will upturned faces in this\ncity be watching to see Him coming?\n\nSo our minister preached in a solemn sermon; and for moments, at times,\nI felt a thrill of reality in hearing. But as the well-dressed crowd\npassed down the aisle, my neighbor, Mr. Stockton, whispered to me not to\nforget the meeting of the bank directors on Monday evening, and Mrs.\nGoldthwaite poured into my wife's ear a charge not to forget her party\non Thursday; and my wife, as she came out, asked me if I had observed\nthe extravagant toilet of Mrs. Rennyman.\n\n\"_So_ absurd,\" she said, \"when her income, I know, cannot be half what\nours is! and I _never_ think of sending to Paris for my things; I should\nlook on it as morally wrong.\"\n\nI spoke of the sermon. \"Yes,\" said my wife, \"what a sermon!--so solemn.\nI wonder that all are not drawn to hear our rector. What could be more\npowerful than such discourses? My dear, by the by, _don't_ forget to\nchange Mary's opal ring for a diamond one. Dear me! the Christmas\npresents were all so on my mind that I was thinking of them every now\nand then in church; and that was _so_ wrong of me!\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"sometimes it seems to me as if all our life were\nunreal. We go to church, and the things that we hear are either true or\nfalse. If they are true, what things they are! For instance, these\nAdvent sermons. If we are looking for _that_ coming, we ought to feel\nand live differently from what we do! Do we really believe what we hear\nin church? or is it a dream?\"\n\n\"I _do_ believe,\" said my wife earnestly--she is a good woman, my\nwife--\"yes, I _do_ believe, but it is just as you say. Oh, dear! I feel\nas if I am very worldly--I have so many things to think of!\" and she\nsighed.\n\nSo do I; for I knew that I, too, was very worldly. After a pause I said:\n\"Suppose Christ should really come this Christmas and it should be\nauthoritatively announced that He would be here to-morrow?\"\n\n\"I think,\" said my wife, \"there would be some embarrassment on the part\nof our great men, legislators, and chief councilors, in anticipation of\na personal interview. Fancy a meeting of the city council to arrange a\nreception for the Lord Jesus Christ!\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said I, \"He would refuse all offers of the rich and great.\nPerhaps our fashionable churches would plead for His presence in vain.\nHe would not be in palaces.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said my wife earnestly, \"if I thought our money separated us from\nHim, I would give it _all_--yes, _all_--might I only see Him.\"\n\nShe spoke from the bottom of her heart, and for a moment her face was\nglorified.\n\n\"You _will_ see Him some day,\" said I, \"and the money we are willing to\ngive up at a word from Him will not keep Him from us.\"\n\nThat evening the thoughts of the waking hours mirrored themselves in a\ndream.\n\nI seemed to be out walking in the streets, and to be conscious of a\nstrange, vague sense of _something_ just declared, of which all were\nspeaking with a suppressed air of mysterious voices.\n\nThere was a whispering stillness around. Groups of men stood at the\ncorners of the street, and discussed an impending something with\nsuppressed voices.\n\nI heard one say to another: \"_Really_ coming! What? to-morrow?\" And the\nothers said: \"Yes, to-morrow; on Christmas Day He will be here.\"\n\nIt was night. The stars were glittering with a keen and frosty light;\nthe shops glistened in their Christmas array; but the same sense of\nhushed expectancy pervaded every thing. There seemed to be nothing\ndoing; and each person looked wistfully upon his neighbor as if to say,\nHave you heard?\n\nSuddenly, as I walked, an angel-form was with me, gliding softly by my\nside. The face was solemn, serene, and calm. Above the forehead was a\npale, tremulous, phosphorous, radiance of light, purer than any on\nearth--a light of a quality so different from that of the street-lamps,\nthat my celestial attendant seemed to move in a sphere alone.\n\nYet, though I felt awe, I felt a sort of confiding love as I said: \"Tell\nme, is it really true? _Is_ Christ coming?\"\n\n\"HE IS,\" said the angel. \"To-morrow He will be here!\"\n\n\"What joy!\" I cried.\n\n\"Is it joy?\" said the angel. \"Alas, to many in this city it is only\nterror! Come with me.\"\n\nIn a moment I seemed to be standing with him in a parlor of one of the\nchief palaces of the city. A stout, florid, bald-headed man was seated\nat a table covered with papers, which he was sorting over with nervous\nanxiety, muttering to himself as he did so. On a sofa lay a sad-looking,\ndelicate woman, her emaciated hands clasped over a little book. The room\nwas, in all its appointments, a witness of boundless wealth. Gold and\nsilver, and gems, and foreign furniture, and costly pictures, and\narticles of _virtu_--everything that money could buy--were heaped\ntogether; and yet the man himself seemed to me to have been neither\nelevated nor refined by the confluence of all these treasures. He seemed\nnervous and uneasy. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and spoke:\n\n\"I don't know, wife, how _you_ feel; but _I_ don't like this news. I\ndon't understand it. It puts a stop to everything _I_ know anything\nabout.\"\n\n\"Oh, John!\" said the woman, turning towards him a face pale and fervent,\nand clasping her hands, \"how can you say so?\"\n\nAnd as she spoke, I could see breaking out above her head a tremulous\nlight, like that above the brow of an angel.\n\n\"Well, Mary, it's the truth. I don't care if I say it. I don't want to\nmeet--well I wish He would put it off! What does He want of me? I'd be\nwilling to make over--well, three millions to found an hospital, if He'd\nbe satisfied and let me go on. Yes, I'd give three millions--to buy off\nfrom to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Is He not our best friend?\"\n\n\"Best friend!\" said the man, with a look half fright, half anger. \"Mary,\nyou don't know what you are talking about! You know I always hated those\nthings. There's no use in it; I can't see into them. In fact, I _hate_\nthem.\"\n\nShe cast on him a look full of pity. \"_Cannot_ I make you see?\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"No, indeed, you can't. Why, look here,\" he added, pointing to the\npapers. \"Here is what stands for millions! To-night it's mine; and\nto-morrow it will be all so much waste paper; and then what have I left?\nDo you think I can rejoice? I'd give half; I'd give--yes, _the whole_,\nnot to have Him come these hundred years.\" She stretched out her thin\nhand towards him; but he pushed it back.\n\n\"Do you see?\" said the angel to me solemnly. \"Between him and her there\nis a \"GREAT GULF _fixed_.\" They have lived in one house with that gulf\nbetween them for years! She cannot go to him; he cannot go to her.\nTo-morrow she will rise to Christ as a dewdrop to the sun; and he will\ncall to the mountains and rocks to fall on him--not because Christ\nhates _him_, but because _he_ hates Christ.\"\n\nAgain the scene was changed. We stood together in a little low attic,\nlighted by one small lamp--how poor it was!--a broken chair, a rickety\ntable, a bed in the corner where the little ones were cuddling close to\none another for warmth. Poor things! the air was so frosty that their\nbreath congealed upon the bedclothes, as they talked in soft, baby\nvoices. \"When mother comes, she will bring us some supper,\" said they.\n\"But I'm so cold!\" said the little outsider. \"Get in the middle, then,\"\nsaid the other two, \"and we'll warm you. Mother promised she would make\na fire when she came in, if that man would pay her.\" \"What a bad man he\nis!\" said the oldest boy; \"he never pays mother if he can help it.\"\n\nJust then the door opened, and a pale, thin woman came in, laden with\npackages.\n\nShe laid all down, and came to her children's bed, clasping her hands in\nrapture.\n\n\"Joy, joy, children! Oh, joy, joy! Christ is coming! He will be here\nto-morrow.\"\n\nEvery little bird in the nest was up, and the little arms around the\nmother's neck; the children believed at once. They had heard of the good\nJesus. He had been their mother's only friend through many a cold and\nhungry day, and they doubted not He was coming.\n\n\"Oh, mother! will He take us? He will, won't He?\"\n\n\"Yes, my little ones,\" she said softly, smiling to herself; \"He shall\ngather the lambs with His arms, and carry them in His bosom.\"\n\nSuddenly again, as by the slide of a magic lantern, another scene was\npresent.\n\nWe stood in a lonely room, where a woman was sitting with her head bowed\nforward upon her hands. Alone, forsaken, slandered, she was in\nbitterness of spirit. Hard, cruel tongues had spoken her name with vile\nassertions, and a thoughtless world had believed. There had been a\nbabble of accusations, a crowd to rejoice in iniquity, and few to pity.\nShe thought herself alone, and she spoke: \"Judge me, O Lord! for I have\nwalked in my integrity. I am as a monster unto many; but thou art my\nstrong refuge.\"\n\nIn a moment the angel touched her. \"My sister,\" he said, \"be of good\ncheer. Christ will be here _to-morrow_.\"\n\nShe started up, with her hands clasped, her eyes bright, her whole form\ndilated, as she seemed to look into the heavens, and said with rapture:\n\n\"Come, Lord, and judge me; for Thou knowest me altogether. Come, Son of\nman; in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded. Oh, for the\njudgment-seat of Christ!\"\n\nAgain I stood in a brilliant room, full of luxuries. Three or four fair\nwomen were standing pensively talking with each other. Their apartment\nwas bestrewn with jewelry, laces, silks, velvets, and every fanciful\nelegance of fashion; but they looked troubled.\n\n\"This seems to me really awful,\" said one, with a suppressed sigh. \"What\ntroubles me is, I know so little about it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said another, \"and it puts a stop to everything! Of what use will\nall these be to-morrow?\"\n\nThere was a poor seamstress in the corner of the room, who now spoke.\n\"We shall be ever with the Lord,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm sure I don't know what that can mean,\" said the first speaker, with\na kind of shudder; \"it seems rather fearful.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the other, \"it seems so sudden--when one never dreamed of\nany such thing--to change all at once from this to that other life.\"\n\n\"It is enough to _be with Him_,\" said the poor woman. \"Oh, I have so\nlonged for it!\"\n\n\"_The great gulf_,\" again said the angel.\n\nThen again we stood on the steps of a church. A band of clergymen were\ntogether. Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Old School and\nNew School, all stood hand in hand.\n\n\"It's no matter now about these old issues,\" they said. \"_He_ is coming;\nHe will settle all. Ordinations and ordinances, sacraments, creeds, are\nbut the scaffolding of the edifice. They are the shadow; the substance\nis CHRIST!\" And hand in hand they turned their faces when the Christmas\nmorning light began faintly glowing; and I heard them saying together,\nwith one heart and voice:\n\n\"Come, LORD JESUS! come quickly!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\nPage 8, \"wordly\" changed to \"worldly\" (am very worldly)","title":"He's Coming To-Morrow","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2260}