If a thunderbolt from a clear sky, at twelve o'clock, had struck my congregation, I do not believe they would have been more startled. It threw perfect consternation among the people; but I could not keep it back. I felt that I must speak, though I did not know why. As soon as the people settled down I went on. At the close of that address an aged mother, a widow, arose and walked up the aisle and said to me, "Sir, will you pray for my dear son?" He was a young man of 24 years of age, the only dependence of a widowed mother.
I stepped right from the desk and took him by the hand, and said," Will you attend to your soul now?" He replied, "I thank you for you kindness, but there is time enough yet." I pressed it upon him. Said I, "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." He put me off. That young man was the one whose funeral sermon I preached that night.
Just thirty-six hours from that time, I heard a noise from my window. I looked out and saw six men bearing the body of a seventh toward the depot. I ran out as quickly as I could to the depot. They had just laid him down upon the floor. He looked anxiously from his dying eyes. As I stood over him--for I recognized at once it was the same young man--he acted as if he wanted to speak. I dropped on my knees and put my ear down by his lips, and he said in a dying tone. "Oh! Mr. Graves, I wish I was a Christian."
These were the last words he ever uttered, and he is now in eternity. Young men! "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Oh that this night you would surrender your hearts to Jesus; lay up you treasure in heaven; become a noble, Christian young man. Then you are ready to live or to die. --Albert P. Graves