IT is a solemn thing to stand at the bedside of a dying sinner, to mark the feeble frame, the dimmed eye, and to think of the living soul about to be launched into eternity. To bend over that precious, immortal being, and present the name of Jesus as the one sure foundation, and yet to see scarce a movement of the lips in answer to the words of earnest appeal and faithful warning ― unwilling, even if able, to respond to that name of life and healing ― oh, this is a solemn reality indeed.
Mrs. M― had been long trained to nurse and care for others, and though her education was small, not so her natural tact and confidence in her own powers, along with which her real practical ability rendered her worthy of esteem in her calling; but now, in her declining years, a severe attack of bronchitis had brought her very low. Her natural energy was all vain to grapple with such a disease, and she looked indeed like a dying woman. And oh, how hard, how apparently encased in indifference, spite of many appeals from some of those who had proved her care and skill in times of weakness! Yet it was for them in united desire to bring this helpless one to Jesus, and still to wait on Him for the answer to their prayers.
A servant of Christ, who had come over to preach the Gospel in the city of B―, was requested to visit Mrs. M― on the afternoon of the Lord’s-day. With unhesitating earnestness he addressed her as a dying woman. He spoke of the Pharisee and the publican, urging on her that there were but these two classes, and to one or other she must belong. There was little response from the proud, hard, worldly-minded sinner; but faith was given about her to the man of God, and he advised that she should be visited daily. “Is not my word like as a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” Day after day was the Scripture read by one or another to Mrs. M―, Psalm 53., and so forth, and parts of Romans. Before the week ended the confession came that she had hitherto “cast his words behind her” (Psalm 1:17); but it was reserved for the following Lord’s-day, when she was visited by the same dear servant of Christ, to witness the breaking down, the taking her true place with the publican, owning at the same time that she had rejected Christ thirty years before, and that (under a cold exterior) she had been going through much for some months past.
Oh, what a history is that of the soul ere it is constrained to accept the salvation of God Brought much in contact with the world through her calling, Mrs. M―evidently valued the things of the world; but God takes His own gracious way of breaking from every prop the one He will have to be with Himself forever.
Mrs. M―had lost her husband and both her children, and now her hardly-earned savings had been partly taken from her. But self was the most difficult prop to abandon, proving how it is by the power of God alone that such an one, as indeed any, can be brought to cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” How many a woman is pursuing her quiet round of domestic duties, amiable and self-complacent, whether her fair form be clothed in the height of fashion, or she be less attractive in person and apparel, but “without Christ” written on all that pertains to her. Let such an one be stripped, and brought into the presence of God, what is man, what is woman there?
“I never was in darkness,” was the cool rejoinder of a lady to one who had in vain offered a tract for her acceptance, which she had refused, saying, “I don’t annoy myself with these things.” Surely of such it is written, “Now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”
But God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, had shined into dear Mrs.
M―’s heart as she lay on that sick-bed. Contrary to the fears of those who had thought her dying and unsaved, she was raised up in measure; and during the few months that remained of her mortal life, there was sweet evidence of her being a new creature. Able at times to go to hear the Gospel, her earnest countenance has been marked as she listened to the Word of life; and though there was not at first the full assurance of faith, the sweet, subdued expression on her face as she was spoken with of Jesus, and the answers given to another servant of Christ who questioned her as to her faith, showed the reality of the change in her.
When others of her friends had been removed from her neighborhood, it was given to the Lord’s servant last spoken of to visit Mrs. M―, when she was again brought low through a recurrence of her former malady, and to testify his satisfaction as to her faith in Christ. And her own message to another Christian friend who, was with her not long before the end, was that she should “die very happy.”
Dear reader! if yet a stranger to God’s way of salvation, do you not wish from your heart that these words may one day be true of you? Da you wish to die very happy? Then come to Jesus now. In His presence you will learn what you are as a sinner, and how your every need is met in Him, the unspeakable gift of God. And may the faith of those who have long waited and watched over what seems a hard and desperate ease be encouraged by that of Mrs. M―, who, though after so many years’ deliberate rejection of Christ, “found mercy.” And let us magnify the grace of Him who goeth “after that which is lost until He find it.”
“Is there a thing too hard for Thee,
Almighty Lord of all?
Whose threatening look dries up the sea,
And makes the mountains fall.
Lo! to ‘Thyself I lift robe eye
Thy promised aid I claim;
Father of mercies, glorify
The risen Jesus’ name.
Salvation in that Name is
Cure for my grief and care;
A healing balm for every wound,
And all I want is there.”