J. D., a gay, careless young man, possessed rare mental powers, but he was an infidel. At the age of twenty-four a fatal sickness laid its relentless grasp upon him, and it was but too evident that his days were numbered.
Christian friends tried to bring to bear upon his mind the great realities of eternity, but he only turned a deaf ear, or by his subtle arguments gained a seeming victory. But God’s ways are not as our ways, and He who gave up His only Son to die for sinners was about to draw this young man to Himself in a most marvelous way.
After a day of severe suffering he fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that he was standing on the top of a mountain which he had often climbed when a boy. All around, the well-known scene presented itself to his view, but he seemed to be hemmed in on every side; what the barrier was he could not tell, he only knew that there seemed no way of escape. Instinctively glancing upwards, he saw the form of One wearing a crown of thorns on His brow, and carrying in His hand a scroll, on which was written in letters of red, “Escape for thy life.”
“Where, Lord, where?” the young man asked, in eager haste.
“Yonder,” He answered, pointing to a cross―and the dreamer awoke.
Sitting upright in his bed, he cried, “Where is He?”
“Who?” said the nurse.
“The Savior; I have seen Him―give me a Bible.”
The exertion brought on a violent paroxysm of coughing, and he lay for some time exhausted. The nurse advised him to try and sleep again.
“I cannot,” he said; “I may awake in hell.”
Big drops of perspiration stood upon his brow, and the expression of his face told of the agony within, as he requested the nurse to read about the death of Christ. The nurse read from the Gospel by St. John, and, as she came to those wondrous words, “It is finished,” the listener stopped her. “Read that again, please,” he said, and, as the words were repeated, he whispered, slowly and distinctly, “Yes, it is finished; I am a guilty sinner, but Jesus has done it all for me.”
The light shone like a lightning flash into his soul, and enabled him to venture his all, for time and for eternity, at once upon Christ, who had finished the work of salvation for sinners upon the cross. He desired that his mother, who had long prayed for him, should be called, and, as she knelt by the bedside, mother and son mingled their tears of joy.
James D. rallied a little after this, and lived for some weeks, bearing a bright testimony to the grace of God. He gathered all his old companions around him, and declared what the Lord had done for his soul.
“Nonsense,” said one, “I thought as you do once, but I have found it was all a delusion!”
“It is no delusion, but a reality,” replied James; “like me, you must meet God, and nothing but Christ will avail you then.”
James entreated them to come, and prayed earnestly for them. That prayer was answered for two of his friends, and but a short time ago they also departed to be with the Lord.
In the few short weeks during which J. D. lingered, his growth in the knowledge of divine things was rapid. His one theme was Jesus. He never tired of speaking of the Lord who had done so much for him.
The day before his death he said to a friend, “I have now my greatest joy and deepest sorrow; my joy is that Christ has done so much for me, and my sorrow that I have nothing but a wasted life to give Him.”
But nothing was suffered to cloud his bright spirit; as one who was permitted to see the end said, “death was not the name for it; it was a triumphant victory.”
Reader, the living Savior addresses you to His cross and death. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:3232And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)), were His words before He suffered, and now He lives in the glory, and whoever believes on Him who died and rose again shall, like J. D., go where Christ is. K.R.