THERE is wonderful influence sometimes in the simple testimony to the truth, of one who is living in the power of it. Where the most fervid appeals of the evangelist fail to arouse the conscience, the quiet, unobtrusive testimony of a true believer in Jesus often gains an entrance.
This is why I desire to place on record the little account which follows of the death, a few weeks ago, from consumption, of a girl about nineteen. It is a very simple testimony, nothing extraordinary about it; but it is just the quiet, undemonstrative expression of the repose of a soul in the love of Jesus at a trying moment, at a moment when everything is intensely real, when all earthly props must be swept away in the presence of that eternity into which the soul is about to enter. May the Lord use it, not only to the comfort of the believer, but to the awakening of many a one, hitherto careless and indifferent about the things of the future, The following is extracted from a letter, written in all the freshness of the sorrow, by the father of the girl referred to; who, I might just mention, had long known " peace in believing:"—
“When I wrote to you last, I told you how weakly she was, and we thought she could not be here long. She was a long sufferer, but bore it with wonderful patience, and without a murmur. I think I told you she was so weak that she could not bear my voice to read to her. Her life seemed to hang on a thread. She was worn to a skeleton. On the Sunday evening (she died on the Monday) her mother and I were up in the bedroom with her. She began to speak to her mother about the precious promises that God had given, and how they supported and cheered her. She asked her mother for the hymn-book, and her mother gave it her, and she opened it at a particular hymn speaking of the joy of departing and being with Jesus, and said, Mother, this is the hymn! Her mother read it, and gave it to me; and when I saw the first verse, the fountains of my heart opened, and the tears ran down my cheeks like a child. It was some time before I could read the hymn. I prayed with her, and we spent a heavenly evening, talking about our heavenly home.”
What a blessed evening this mast have been, spent in company with one just about to exchange this weary wilderness for a scene of unending delight, talking about the enjoyments so soon to be entered into! Reader, if you were now to be brought into these circumstances, could you thus rejoice in the prospect of the scene immediately before you?
“She had a good night, and did not cough much, and she seemed nicely up to about three o'clock on Monday afternoon, and then she had a bad turn of coughing, and her mother could see a change come over her. I was sent for at about five o'clock, and when I came in she seemed a little better. Shortly after, she changed again, and seemed very ill, and she held up her hands, and said, 'Jesus, come and take me!
She was quite sensible till the last moment. A few minutes before she died, she opened her eyes with such brightness, and looked around, and her mother said to her, ' Do you see Jesus? ' She bowed her head, as much as to say, ' Yes,' and she gradually passed away.”
Dear reader, will you examine yourself in the light of this little scene, this simple exhibition of perfect trust and childlike confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ? Where are you in relation to this One who can thus extract the sting from death, and make it the entrance-gate to a place of everlasting repose and joy? Do not, I ask you, put this question aside. It concerns you, personally and individually. If you are not saved, if you have never yet listened to the voice of Jesus, may this simple testimony of one now in glory melt down your heart, and draw you in submission and obedience to His feet, "the man Christ Jesus," to Him who says in loving tones, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Ah, and such rest! Not a single question left unsettled, every weight removed, and the soul free and happy in the presence of God. He died, " the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” What a contrast to the wretched place of distance we are in by nature! On the one hand, "the husks that the swine did eat;" on the other, "the fatted calf," "the kiss of love,” “the best robe," the sitting at the Father's table in fellowship and communion with Him, self!
Oh! dear reader, pass not on in indifference and forgetfulness, but come to Jesus now, and give up forever your own weary, restless strife after happiness. Without Christ, you will never get it. Millions have tried after it, but in vain; and, blessed be God, millions, too have rested themselves on the perfectness of the Lord Jesus, and found that which they never found, never could find elsewhere. Be among the number of these, I pray you! T. W.