One Sunday night several years ago two servants of the Lord were holding gospel meetings. The hall was very crowded, and it being a hot summer evening all the windows were wide open.
The preacher was speaking from John 6, and was seeking to impress upon his hearers the truth of that verse: "He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.”
The audience was very attentive, but apparently no further effect was produced.
The following day, the speaker of the evening before went to visit a poor woman who lived in a little cottage in a lane close to where the service had been held. She was bedridden and very old—ninety-eight years of age.
He went up to her bedside, and after greeting her, said: "You are very old, and cannot have many more years to live. How is it with you? Are you saved?”
"Yes," she replied, "for I have everlasting life.”
"How long have you known that?" he asked.
"Since last night," she answered. "I was lying here in bed as usual, and it was very hot. I had the window wide open. A service was being held close by, and I could hear a voice shouting out several times over, 'He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.'
The voice seemed to come right through my window and drop down onto my bed. I just took those words home to myself, for I do believe on the Son of God. But," she added, "I cannot find the verse. Will you show it to me?”
The preacher took the Testament she held out to him, and turned over the leaves to the sixth chapter of John. He showed her the text (verse 47), marked it plainly underneath so that she might always be able to find it easily. Some who visited her afterward, and who knew her past life—for in her younger days she had been rather a frivolous person, and had never shown interest in the things of Christ—were disposed to doubt the reality of her salvation. She always answered them by pointing to the Testament lying beside her on the bed, open at that marked verse and would say: "It is written there, and it's quite true, for He has said it: 'He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.' He would never deceive a poor old woman like me.”