‎ One December night, during a severe windstorm, a passenger train traveling from ‎Edinburgh to Dundee, Scotland, sped down the tracks. At 7:14 pm it passed the railroad ‎station near the great Tay Bridge. This bridge crossed a large inlet of the ocean called the ‎Firth of Tay. The station master watched the train pass. He saw the red sparks shoot out ‎of the smokestack only to be swiftly blown away by the wind. He saw the lurid red glow ‎of light from the back of the locomotive as the stroker shoveled coal into the firebox of ‎the engine. He watched each of the six passenger cars pass in quick succession. The ‎interiors of the passenger cars were illuminated by oil lamps. In the blur of the rushing ‎train he could see the silhouettes of the many passengers. He could make out the men in ‎their bowler hats and also several women in their wider brim hats tied down by scarves.

The Tay Bridge was the longest bridge in the world during its day. It was nearly two ‎miles long. It had a total of 85 cast iron spans that sat on as many columns made out of ‎masonry and concrete. Some of the spans were almost 250 feet long. Sections of the ‎bridge were 80 feet above the water to allow large ocean going ships to pass under it. ‎Thomas Boucher was the celebrated engineer who built the bridge. He was later knighted ‎for this service to his country.

Little did anyone on the train know they would pass into eternity before they crossed ‎the bridge. Have you ever stopped to think how short life is? For what is your life? It ‎is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. Surely eternity ‎which is at the exit terminal of this life is not far from any one of us. God has given us ‎the single span of a lifetime to cross before we are there. In the span he has given us, we ‎must come to Christ as Lord and Savior if we are ever going to enter into heaven. Those ‎who fail to do so will be swallowed up into a horrible eternity of darkness. These shall ‎be cast into outer darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.‎

What must you do to pass into the outer darkness when you die? Nothing, just continue ‎to travel through life never caring that the Lord Jesus loves you and went all the way to ‎the cross that you might be saved.‎

What must you do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be ‎saved. He will save you the moment you put your faith in him. Even now he is watching ‎you to see what you will do with the gospel message.

The station master was also watching as the train pulled on to the bridge. He watched as ‎it traveled across the many spans of the bridge, and soon in the distant darkness he could ‎no longer see the form of the train or the outline of the bridge. All he could see was the ‎faint glow of the lights of the train as it moved along. When the train was on the middle ‎of the bridge all of its lights abruptly went out and the whole scene was swallowed up in ‎darkness. Alarmed by the sudden disappearance of the lights the station master tried to ‎telegraph the station at the other end of the bridge to find out what had happened.