A SHORT time since, I heard that a young girl, who, for nearly five years, had been a member of my former Bible class, was dead. Nellie was always a quiet, attentive girl. On several occasions when she was alone with me, she listened with great interest to what I said about Christ, yet scarcely spoke herself. However, I had three letters from her, which convinced me that Nellie really loved the Lord Jesus. This is how she wrote: “Dearest teacher, I promise you that I will always ask Jesus to help me ... I am sure God has answered all my prayers. I could not get on without my Heavenly Father’s care.” Having this testimony, when I heard of Nellie’s death, I felt sure she had gone to be with her Saviour in heaven.
Soon after Nellie’s mother wrote the following touching account of her daughter’s last days: “Dear Lady, I should like you to have heard the dear child, all her thoughts were for others, not for herself, no, not to the last. I asked her several times if she was afraid, but she said she was not; on Sunday morning she prayed most beautifully for all of us. Then she held her finger up and looked up to heaven, and said she could see Jesus. ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ she said, and added she hoped to see Him a little clearer. She was so bright and smiling, we could not think she was going from us so soon.”
Dear young friends, Nellie was only nineteen when the solemn call came to her, but she was not afraid to die. Why? Because she had taken Jesus to be her own Saviour and Friend, when she was in health, and she knew that death would only bring her into the immediate presence of Him whom she had loved and quietly striven to follow. She once told me she wished to be a Christian whilst she was young, and now, she being dead, yet speaks to all who read this paper; and I am sure Nellie would wish me, in her name, to entreat each of you to come to Christ too, whilst you are young. May this simple account of Nellie’s last days on earth lead you to the same Saviour whom she loved?
“Oh, won’t you be a Christian,
While you’re young,
Don’t think it will be better
To delay it until later,
But remember your Creator,
While you’re young.
Remember, death may find you
While you’re young.
For friends are often weeping,
And the stars their watch are keeping
O’er the grassy graves where sleeping
Lie the young!”
A.M.T