WE will transport ourselves to a lovely road in Herefordshire. As we walk on, four or five cottages hide for a moment the view over valleys and hills of the distant Welsh mountains. The sun has set, and now the moon rises―a lesser light, to rule the more peaceful hours that succeed the day. We rap at the door of one of the humble homes, which a young woman opens.
“I have brought you good news;” and we offer a little paper about the Lord Jesus.
As the door opens, we have a peep into the interior of the cottage, and see an old man sitting in an easy chair. Seventy-eight winters have come and gone over him. On the table rests a Bible, the staff of his infirm days. The old man hears the name of Jesus wafted in by the evening air, as his cottage door is opened, and responds―
“Come in; we like to hear about Him.”
The visitors gladly step inside, in answer to the hearty invitation, and hear the old man’s story, how that in his younger days he had trusted men who had “all failed” him, but how that Jesus never has “Once mine was a religion of fear,” says the old man, “but I read, He loved me, and gave Himself for me,’ and that there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.’ (Gal. 2:2020I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20); 1 John 4:1818There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)) And His love has cast out my fear”; and “now my last days are my best days.”
This great change, this wondrous knowledge given by God, had come to the aged pilgrim since he had passed his threescore years and ten! What a pity―does our reader say―he had not learned the lesson sooner! Have we learned it? Do we fear the Lord who loves, and who has proved His love by dying for sinners? Do we fear God, whose love is perfect, and who gave His Son to die, that “whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”?
“I have walked in the comfort of His love, ever since He made Himself known to me,” says the aged man, “alone with my Bible and my Lord.”
“And what about the daughter here?” “She is a seeker, sir, I trust.”
“Those that seek Me early shall find Me’” (Prov. 8:1717I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. (Proverbs 8:17)), said one of the visitors; and, after a little further conversation, they left.
Three years have passed by. We again find ourselves on the same country road, with a party of Christians, one lovely summer’s afternoon. An old man is coming down the road towards us, feeble, and leaning upon a stick. One of our number takes hold of his arm, and stops him with a friendly salutation. Then suddenly he says to the aged man. “Do you think well of the Lord Jesus?” His reply is, “I’d like to go to Him.”
We do not want to go to those we do not love. Love is a wonderful magnet, and the love of God had drawn the heart of this dear pilgrim upwards and heavenwards.
“If you think well of the Lord Jesus, you are right for the glory-land.”
My reader, if you stood at the very gate of eternity, what would your answer be to the question put to the aged man? Our feeble friend told us how that nearly all his life he had lived a sinner; how that the Spirit of God had made him feel his sins; how that for years he had looked for something, he hardly knew what; and how at last he had found Jesus ten years before.
Thus we recognized in the tottering old man, him whom we had met three years previously in the cottage.
Another year has passed, and two of the same Christian friends are again walking on that beautiful Herefordshire road. At the exact spot where they had met the aged pilgrim a year previously, they found a young man stone-breaking.
“Do you know anything of an old man who lived near here, and who loved the Lord Jesus?” one of them inquired.
“He was my father, sir.”
“And is he still on earth?”
“No, he died last January.”
“And was he happy?
“Very.”
“Did he say anything you particularly remember before he died?”
“He pointed upward, and said Jesus was waiting for him.”
So he found the Heavenly Friend true to the last; men might fail, strength and life might fail, but Jesus, who had died for him, who had led him since He had brought him to Himself, was waiting for him to bring him home.
“And do you believe in your father’s God?”
“I do, sir,” responded the young, man; “he taught us all the way before he died.”
Truly his children were rising up and calling him blessed! After a little prayer with the young man, as they knelt at his stone heap, the strangers passed-on. During the afternoon, they met one of the old man’s daughters, who also was following in her father’s faith. W. L.