We read that when one of the most famous of the victors of the Great Indian Mutiny—Sir Henry Havelock—was felled by an attack of malignant cholera, and was told that he could not survive, he calmly replied:
"I have been prepared for this for forty years.”
Wise man he!
In early days of health, strength, vigor, and opportunity, he did what every man, soldier, sailor, or civilian, should do. He did not wait till he had reached the fag-end of life, or the dull, feeble, powerless evening of his days to achieve, by the grace of God, the one all-important act of existence.
He turned to God! He accepted Christ as his Savior.
Yes, and so genuine was the turn that the long period of forty full years of constant and severe testing, in the awkward conditions of army life, witnessed no cowardly retreat, nor disavowal of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Here, then, is one well-known witness to the saving power and grace of God; one, but there are thousands on all hands, not confined to civilians who may retire into the shelter of their sweet family circle and thus escape the banter and scorn of the godless, but who could face the storm of opposition, and keep the flag flying right on to the end. Let this fact be noted.
None dare say, with these witnesses on all hands, that such a life is impossible. It is not impossible. It is incumbent!
When I was a young soldier of hardly twenty I asked my soul this question: "Soul! shall it be forty years of sin and an eternal hell; or forty years of salvation and an eternal heaven?”
Answer I must—definitely and finally.
Well, which? There I stood before God, a sinner in need of pardon, faced by eternal consequences of weal or woe, unable to save myself by any act of mine, however meritorious, the only question being would, could God save me?
All I can say, and that to His praise, is that He could and did.
Call this my preparation for death and eternity if you like. Anyhow, more than fifty years can witness, amid all their changes, that the blessed God can pardon, reconcile, and keep any and every man who only turns in faith and repentance to Him.
Let me (as I surely may) recommend to you, my reader, this glorious salvation—to be secured now, so freely; but on the other side of death not to be obtained by the price of ten thousand worlds, and then when most wanted!