It was a heavy fall of snow; I had watched it from the window for some time, as it shrouded the earth, and mantled the trees and shrubs in the garden; everything outside seemed to make me thankful for the comforts within, and I gladly drew my chair very close to the dazing fire to enjoy its cheering warmth. My thoughts turned to the many who knew no such comfort, and who could see no attraction in the fast falling snow, or the feathery, fantastic outlines it was giving to everything outside. My reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door, and, “Someone wishes to see you in the kitchen.” I went at once, and found there a girl from the village I had known for some time. She had come to ask my husband to go and see a poor woman who was dying, and refused to let any of her neighbors go in to see her. “And you could not go,” said the girl, “for her room is never cleaned, and never has any air in it. She is a poacher’s wife, and her husband is a drunkard and neglects her.”
“I will see her tomorrow,” I said, “if my husband has not returned home;” and so saying I went back to the fire and my comforts. But I was restless and uneasy; the burden of that soul was upon me, and I repeated again and again, “Tomorrow she might be in hell.”
In a few minutes I had drawn my waterproof closely round me and was making my way through the storm, praying all the way that the Lord would indeed give me a message from Himself, and also that I might be guided to the right door, as it was getting dark, and the snow falling faster each step I took. It was a poor place I had been directed to — a dirty court surrounded by very poor houses. At the last house on the left side I stood before a closed door, and, asking the Lord to open it for me, I gently knocked and waited, and knocked again and waited, and tried the latch, but got no answer. A woman from the next house looked out and said, “Ye needna bide in the cauld, for she’ll no let ye in.” I stood closer to the door for shelter from the drifting snow and prayed in silence, knowing that when God opens a door no man can shut it. Once more I knocked and listened; there was a slight movement inside: I put my mouth to the keyhole and said, “I have a message for you, do let me come in.” Slowly the heavy wooden bolt was drawn back, and I found myself inside, and the bolt replaced. I had to lean upon the wall for a few moments in silence, to recover the overpowering pressure of bad air that met me; and by the feeble light of a small oil cruise, or lamp, I saw the emaciated form of a young woman, crouching on a low wooden stool by a few embers of a fire just dying out, and which she was vainly endeavoring to stir into life with a piece of wet stick she held in her hand. Seldom have I gazed with such compassion upon anyone. She was young, and seemed in the very last stage of disease; a hollow cough shook her fearfully attenuated frame; the black lines under her great dark eyes, and the skin scarce covering her high cheek bones, and the sullen, settled melancholy of her very suffering face, gave her a ghastly appearance. She wore the tweed petticoat and cotton short-gown so well known in the Highlands of Scotland; but both were in tatters, and her skeleton arms and limbs were exposed through the many holes. She gazed at me and said, “What’s brought you here, and what’s your errand?”
“Because I heard you were sick and ill, and I had a message for you from One who loves sick and weary ones.”
“Sit doon then, but dinna tell,” and she raised her feeble hand and pointed to two guns and a shot-belt on the wall, and then to a large black retriever, who showed his head and great glaring eyes from below the bed, and growled at me from time to time, heeding little the voice that tried to hush him with, “Boon, Ranger; doon, Ranger.”
At this moment a knock came to the door, and a child’s voice whimpered, “Mammy, it’s me; let’s in.”
“Shall I open the door?” I said.
“Yes, it’s Johnnie.”
A dripping child of about five years old, capless and barefooted, came in and crouched beside his mother; his scanty and ragged garments dripping on the mud floor. Vainly her feeble hands tried to wring out the wet from his pinafore and petticoats; and, as the little fellow continued to cry, she tried to soothe him by saying, “Dinna greet, Johnnie lad, your Daddy will come soon.”
“But I’m cauld and hungry, Mither, and I canna bide nae langer, and Daddy’s ower lang o’ comin.”
And once more the little fellow sobbed aloud.
The mother’s weary hued sank in her hands; the lines of melancholy on her pale face grew darker and deeper, but her’s was a sorrow too.
deep for tears or words. I broke in upon it by saying, “Tell me, when had this child any food?”
“No syne yester’een, as far as I ken.”
I ran to the cupboard: it was empty, save a few rabbit-skins and some birds’ feathers, and a broken bowl and plate. “Have you no food of any kind in the house?” I said.
“Nane, and my last bawbee went for coals, and they’re done too.” And again the tearless face sank in her hands.
“Don’t lock your door, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said. A shop quite near furnished a few necessary things, and a promise of coals in half-an-hour. I ran back, and O the joy of that starving bairn as he devoured what I had brought! His mother looked on, too, ill to share his meal, and tears rolled down my cheeks.
“You’re tender o’ the heart,” said the poor woman; “it’s lang sync I shed a tear; did greet when my wee bairnie deed, but no syne.”
Poor woman, I longed after her soul; in poverty, and sickness, and sorrow, and without Christ. How terrible! And yet the moment seemed not to have come for me to give God’s message. I drew my stool near her, and taking one of her wasted hands in mine, I asked a few questions as to “How long she had been ill?” &c. And as I pointed to little Johnnie, now in rosy sleep on the floor, I said, “You can trust me, can’t you? Tell me all your troubles, for I want to help you.”
“Weel,” she said, “you’re kind, to face the storm in sic a nicht and sit doon here to speak to me; and there’s no mony cares for Mary B, the poacher’s wife.”
“Your husband is a poacher,” I said; “tell me how you came to marry him.”
“Ah, weel, I was but a bairn when I married, and. I thought as trade was as quid as anither, and he promised I should want for naething; but he and his mither drink all he makes by the game; and it’s seldom a feather o’ it I see, or a penny that it brings me. And then I daurna let as body into the house, for fear they take the dog and guns, or catch himself; and mony a day the bairn and me never sees food or fire, and I’m that weak that I’m ill―ill at getting ayont the bed; and its cauld when I’m in it.”
I saw by the dim lamplight it was a bed of shavings, with nothing over it but a cotton patch quilt and a piece of old carpet. “Well,” I said, “and what of your child who died?” I had touched a chord in that Weary mother’s tearless heart; a few great tears rolled down her sallow cheeks, and she tried to steady her feeble voice and answer my question.
“It is five month syne she was born; I was very ill. After the doctor and women that was with me had left, nane came to see after me, and John was out all day, and often all nicht, after the game; and I lo’ed the wain, but I’d naething to gie her, and I saw her dwine and dwine by my side, till as day she geed a wee, short breath and deed; and sync I could’na look, after or care for onything, for my bairn deed o’ want, and I bent it weel, and it gid se sair to my heart that I didna greet, and I didna sleep, and I didna eat; and then the cough came, and I John brought the doctor, and he said it was the decline, and I would’na mend; and it was true, for every day I seem waur and waur, and some days I canna rise ava.”
And then the fragile form was racked by a terrible fit of coughing. I silently prayed that the Lord would now give me the right word. As the paroxysm of coughing a little subsided I took her hand and said: “Mary, the message I bring you tonight is from the Son of God, the One who died to save sinners like you and me; and His message to you is this, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ Dear soul, you are in great need of rest. Will you come to Him tonight?”
“I would fain have the rest,” she said, “but I’m no fit to come; and I’ve no strength left to gae to the kirk or the meeting, so I canna come.”
“Well, Mary, you’re very weak and very sinful, but Christ has made provision for just such as you! Have you strength to look at me, Mary?”
“Yes,” she said, raising her heavy sad eyes to mine.
“Well Mary,” I said, “the Lord bids you look unto Him and live.”
“Does He? O, but I’m a poor, weak thing; and I know I’m a sinner, for I was taught that years ago at the schule, and I feel it every day. But there’s none to care for me now, and I’m dying and going I don’t know where! O, what will become of poor Mary B―, the poacher’s wife?” And in an agony of soul she rocked herself to and fro, and tears, long pent up, rolled down those worn cheeks.
I wept too; for I saw she had judged herself a sinner, and that the Lord’s time for blessing had come.
I opened my Bible, and read from Numbers 21:55And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. (Numbers 21:5) to 9. “And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt, to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee; pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a, pole: and it came to pass, if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”
After reading this I said nothing, but waited upon God to apply His own word to that sin-stricken one, so near the end of her wilderness journey. A faint smile stole over her lips, and she whispered, “I’m just like one o’ them. I’ve spoken against God, and said hard things of Him mony a day when I was starving here, and when my baby deed; but there’s nae serpent o’ brass for one to look to now, and there’s naething but hell for me;” and again she wept.
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
“O!” she said, clasping her hands together in intense relief, “Is it true, is it true? Then I can dee happy. He gave His Son for me, and I shall never perish! I know I am a sinner, but Jesus deed just for the like o’ me! O thank ye, thank ye, for coming to me wi’ sic a message;” and she clasped my hand and kissed it again and again.
“Shall we thank God together?” I said.
“Yes, yes!” and, kneeling on the mud floor, we thanked Him who so loved Mary B―, the poacher’s wife, that He gave His only Son for her, that she might live through Him.
It was getting late; I helped poor Mary into her bed of shavings, lifted her sleeping boy by her side, lighted a fire and made some tea. Once more I looked at Mary, and felt reproved for the faithlessness of my heart which had doubted for a moment the reality of all this. So quietly had her soul passed from death into life before my eyes, and accepted Christ so simply, that I could scarcely believe it. But a look at that calm face, as she rested on the bosom of the Lord, was enough to put away every doubt, and I could only praise Him as I said, “Good night, Mary; I shall see you tomorrow, if the Lord will.”
She gave me such a look, I shall never forget it, and said, “O, it is rest! ‘Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”
I left her full of thankful joy, and made my way home through the snow. Next day I saw her early, and found her sinking, but full of joy.
Through the kindness of a Christian friend, a comfortable bed was provided for her; and I had her room cleaned, and the window, which had been nailed down for years, opened, and a little fresh air let into the sickroom. For all this she seemed grateful, but her heart was occupied with the Lord, and she desired to be with Him.
Each day I saw her for the two or three weeks she remained on earth, and we read and prayed together; and several of the Lord’s people visited her, and were satisfied that she was resting in unclouded peace on the finished work of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost.
I saw her a short time before she fell asleep in Jesus she pointed for me to come near her.
Her husband was in the room; and I saw she had some last words for me, and I drew near.
“I’ll maybe no see ye again, but we’ll meet aboon;” and, kissing my hand several times, she said, “I lo’e ye weel, for ye carried the message from God to me.” And so we parted here, never to meet again till in the presence of, Him who died for sinners.
Reader! I know not who you are, old or young, rich or poor; but this I know;—if you have not accepted Christ you are a lost sinner going to hell! There is salvation for you now, if you will have it, and, like poor Mary, take God at His word. You, too, can be saved this moment, if you rest upon the finished work of Him who gave His life for you. K.