I HAD been suffering for some months (off and on) the agonies of gall-stone, and on August 9th, 1909, the doctor said I must have an operation as soon as possible. I had always had a sort of dread of such an eventuality, but the moment he said it, all fear was gone. On the morning of August 16th the operation was to take place, and knowing how likely it was that I should not survive it, I wrote my obituary notice as follows: ―
“On August 16th, underwent an operation, which, through God’s infinite grace, has been made the means of his departure to be with Christ, by whose precious blood he was redeemed.
“A sinner greater e’en than Saul,
But should there ever be
An even greater sinner still
Be sure the Saviour can and will
My soul set free.”
I handed the above to the matron, who promised to see that it was used if needful. I went into the operating-room, and lay down on the table; and as I began to inhale the anæsthetic, calmly committed everything to God; and then―no! it was not the glory of His presence, but the gray wall of my room.
Thus it pleased God to raise me up, and I now record the experience of a believer in view of death, to the praise of the One who has forever taken away the sting.
On the morning of August 16th a friend sent me, among other quotations, the first line of Psalms 62, “Only in God is my soul silent,” and as I lay awake at 2 a.m. on August 23rd, after being very ill for a week, those words came home to me with such sweetness that I put together the following verses, and got the nurse to come in and write them down.
Psalms 62:1.
My soul has reached the secret source
Of praise and joy and perfect rest,
For in the everlasting God
I’m fully and forever blest—
In God is my soul silent.
What wonders has He made me prove
Of love and joy and perfect light,
Of grace and mercy infinite!
For God is Love, and God is Light―
In God is my soul silent.
I have no care, or wish, or prayer,
Rejoicing that His will is best;
And in the bosom of my
God As babe on mother’s arm, I rest—
In God is my soul silent.
I shall not always silent be:
He’ll open yet my lips in praise:
Here (as I trust) and soon in heaven
The everlasting song I’ll raise—
In God is my soul silent.
Unto him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
G. M.