IN the month of March, 1866, suffering severely in body, and with baffled and disappointed hopes, I returned to the Island of Kitts, my birthplace, after an absence of a little over four years, spent faraway from the restraining influences of home. An incident in connection with my return to the island― hardened in heart though I was―struck me at the time as strange and inexplicable.
Rejecting the advice to return home, given me by some among whom I had been, I obtained at Barbados a passage in a mail steamer to a distant and, personally, unknown land. Thus was I borne swiftly along to, seemingly, another series of miserable and humiliating experiences. The steamer only stopped long enough at the various island-ports on the route to land the mails. As the time drew near when the island, so well known to me, would be reached, I became unaccountably unsettled in mind. So incessant and overwhelming were my sensations, that, when we arrived at the roadstead during the night, and the mail bags were being passed over the side for conveyance ashore, I, timidly, and with pain, valise in hand, made my way to the boat along with some others, and, before quite realizing what I had almost involuntarily done, was set down on my native shore.
The remainder of the year was spent, for the most part, in solitude. To have come back at all in such a disastrous plight was galling to my proud spirit, and I would seldom be seen by anyone. The quiet and the good sustenance, so requisite in my enfeebled state, was once more, under my kind father’s roof, partaken of, without a thought of the mercy of God, who was seeking to draw my heart from the pursuit of the delusive objects of this world to Himself.
Among the very few acquaintances, whom I saw at times, was Frederick T., a young fellow about my own age, living in the neighborhood. We had known each other in childhood, but for some time before I went abroad, intercourse had almost ceased between us. Evening talks with Frederick T. (who seemed quite ready to renew the intimacy of early days) soon revealed to me that I not only had in him a companion in “blighted hopes,” as I called it, but one whose physical condition was distressing beyond comparison. A ruthless disease was slowly wasting his life away; and my loud complaints were sometimes hushed, when in the presence of an affliction greater than my own.
Astonishing, however, as it may seem to those who have not learned the wantonness and folly of the human heart, our time together was not always spent in mournful communing’s. If my companion had obscene tales and local gossip to repeat, I regaled him with ribald songs and anecdotes picked up among sailors. After a time, when I was sufficiently recovered to venture to do it, we sought together a spot on the beach near at hand, or at the breezy old fort overlooking the harbor on the west. Here we often sat far into the night, occupied as before mentioned.
One day, near the close of the year, desiring something to relieve the monotony within doors, I took down from a shelf a dust-covered old volume. It proved to be a work on the immortality of the soul, consisting chiefly of prose and poetic extracts, from ancient and modern authors. With little interest I read a page or two, and then began to write marginal criticisms in pencil as I proceeded. In this way I occupied myself at intervals for some days, with feelings the while of mingled unbelief and ridicule. Nevertheless, thoughts on this momentous subject would recur to my mind, as I lay awake at nights, and at times this question was suggested: “Suppose the soul does not become extinct at death―what then?” Up to this time so convinced had I been that the grave was the eternal and much to be desired end of one’s troubles and sorrows, that, to reach this bourne quickly, I had often contemplated committing suicide.
It was at this point, I believe, that the God of all compassion, “who doth not willingly afflict the children of men,” began His gracious work in my soul, and, shortly afterward in that of dear Frederick T.
From discussing the immortality of the soul with various members of the household, at first as a tentative subject, it at length displaced nearly every other consideration in my mind, and I took up the volume for a second and more careful perusal. Soon, it was like reading for my life! I had before passed over Scripture references; now I got a Bible, and turned to them with tremulous hand and feelings akin to dread. Conviction seized me. Not only was the soul seen to be distinct from the body―the immortal center of thought and being―but that the originator thereof was the eternal God, who would cast the wicked into hell! Extinction in the grave? No! Hell awaited me; and I seemed to see, with bodily eyes, its lurid flames darting up behind the horizon, and to hear the cries of the damned.
Ah! those agonizing days! Suddenly seeing myself to be the vilest one that breathed, I wondered how it was that He whom I had despised did not hurl me into the abyss! One fearful day of grief and despair, I had tasted little of anything―crying to God many times, prostrate on the floor, and the night found me faint and distressed. I sat at my bedside, now glancing through the window up into the sky, now at the flickering lamp slowly going out―afraid to lie down lest, as I thought, I should in my sleep fall into hell. But tired nature betrayed me; I did fall asleep, and―such a dream I had!
I was dying; faintly I prayed. Though I had a gleam of hope, it was amid much anxiety. Should I be received? would not I, unworthy as I was, be rejected? I was just passing away when, oh, joy! the angels ... A stream of light encompassed me!.... Such singing! Lovingly they beckoned me!
... .I awoke; and whilst not yet knowing deliverance through the death of Christ, my soul could thenceforth, in a measure, look to the Saviour.
Nevertheless, assurance of salvation is only to be obtained through faith in that work which the Lord Jesus came into the world to accomplish, but this I did not as yet see. I tried a round of religious observances, but they only proved a weariness, and no cure to the corrupt tendencies within. Protracted and sorrowful were my secret struggles, until two gospel pamphlets came into my possession. In reading these I was led to see that not only were my sins atoned for, when Christ was made a sacrifice on the cross, but that my evil nature―the corrupt tree, like its fruit―was condemned, and, to faith, put to death there. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” What solemn joy was now mine! for the God of all grace had given me to see His great salvation.
I now return to the days when, through sore exercise of heart, my communications with dear Frederick T. became blessedly changed. I can still recall the incredulous and searching glances he took at my countenance, as I poured out my fear of the just wrath of that God I at last knew to exist. This sudden transition from the old ways was received by him coldly, and with perceptible disrelish. But the “word of God is quick and powerful”; and, as full of despondency―during succeeding interviews―I mentioned passages of the Bible that seemed to seal my own condemnation, and that of every sinner, Frederick T. grew manifestly uneasy, and presently acknowledged to have been all his life like one of those described as asleep on the brink of a precipice, regardless of the gulf beneath. The arrow of conviction had sunk into his heart! Our nightly occupation at the old fort was now new and strange. Side by side we would kneel on the green sward, our covering the sky, and with tears and uplifted hands, by turns pray to the God we had ignored so long.
It was at this juncture that, in the ways of God, Frederick T. and myself were once more separated. A few short extracts from two or three of his letters I received abroad shall conclude this narration of the dealings of the Lord with us. In his first, June, 1867, he said, ―
“O God, be praised! the cloud of darkness is clearing off, the light is breaking in. I am more able to resist the enemy―to see my way more clearly to Jesus. When in great distress I applied to Mr. —, and he has been a great help to me ... . Our favorite solitude is endeared by recollections. I like to be there, to meditate and pray for myself and you.”
In another, a little later, he said, ―
“I bless God. His chastening rod has been sanctified to me. I have seen the necessity of it ... .
At another time he wrote thus: ―
“I have been thinking much lately of the wonderful dealings of the Lord towards us. What cause for thankfulness have we that He has turned us away from our doings and feelings for salvation, to rest wholly on the finished work of Christ!”
In August, 1870, Frederick T. fell asleep in Jesus. We never met again, but I look to meet him in the presence of the Lord, when He comes. Reader, will you, too, be there? J. R. C.