Why not To-Night?

Words by Eliza freed Music by Ira D. Sankey

"Oh, do not let the Word depart,
And close thine eyes against the light.”

A tram-car man was passing along the broadway at Deptford, England, where some Christians were singing at an open-air meeting.

"Oh, do not let the Word depart,
Nor close thine eyes against the light;
Poor sinner, harden not thy heart,
Thou would'st be saved—Why not to-night?”

He felt the force of the appeal and hastened home to pray. Though he knelt down and plead earnestly, no light, or peace, or rest came. A fortnight passed away in this state of uncertainty, and on the following Sunday he was so miserable that he could not go to his work on the tram-car. In the evening he went to a chapel and remained for the prayer-meeting. The leader of the open-air meeting, in which the hymn was sung a fortnight before, happened to be present, and he saw the young man weeping and covering his face with his handkerchief. Praying the Lord to give him a word for this troubled soul, the leader asked: ”Are you trusting Christ? “No, but I am seeking Him, ”the man replied. And there he found Him, to the joy of his soul. Thus, in the providence of God, the Christian worker who was the cause of producing the anxiety, without knowing at the time any of the circumstances, was also the means of removing it. This is but one of the numerous instances of the usefulness of ”Why not To-night?”in evangelistic meetings.