How a father’s heart found peace about his son is narrated in the following beautiful incident. May it bring comfort to many who may be sorrowing now over their dead. Be sure of’ this, dear sorrowing heart, God answered your believing prayers for your loved one, and the blessed rest of these answered prayers shall yet be yours, it may be after many days. The writer says: ―
I will give you a remarkable circumstance that lately came under my observation. Coming from a religious meeting some time ago, one of our nobility stepped into a private circle of friends, one of whom said to him, “Your lordship promised you would tell us about your son who died in Africa.” His lordship narrated the following incident. He said: “Our boy was the darling of his mother and his father’s favorite child. We could not but love him. But he left us and went to South Africa. When he left he was unconverted, and this was our chief sorrow. He had not been long in Africa when we received a letter to the following effect: ‘My dear father, ―You will be sorry to hear I have, met with an accident. I am unable to write much. The doctor hopes that in a day or two I shall be better. I will let you know in a day or two if I am able.’
“The father read it with a heavy heart, and scarcely dared to hand it to the mother. ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘if there had only been in it one such expression as “by God’s providence” or “if the Lord will.’” But there was no recognition of God, and the father grieved lest his son should die in the unconverted state in which he left home. Time rolled on, and another letter came. The post-mark was the same, but the handwriting was different. It turned out to be written by the physician. The substance of the letter was as follows:— ‘Your lordship will be grieved to hear that your son died by the accident to which he referred in his last. He lingered but a few days. He suffered greatly.’ The physician added a word or two to the effect that everything that could be done was done, and that respect was paid at the funeral suited to the rank of the deceased.”
Said the nobleman: ― “When I read that letter I took it away with me, and laid it down before the Lord, and said, ‘O Absalom, my son, my son! would God that I had died for thee, my son, my son!’” He said: “I dared not hand the letter to his mother. Broken-hearted, I took it to God, and afterward told it to his mother. But there was not a word of God, or providence, in the letter, and it was bringing my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. I felt as if I should never lift up my head again.”
A few weeks again elapsed, when a third letter was brought, and the nobleman knew the handwriting. It so happened that there had gone from this country a gentleman whom I understand his lordship had assisted—in fact, this gentleman was indebted to him for the position which he now occupies in South Africa. The nobleman opened this letter with trembling, glanced over it, saw its character, read on. It was substantially this: ―
“Your lordship will grieve to learn of the death of your son. The moment I heard of his illness I resorted to his bedside, where I found him in the deepest anxiety about his soul. He was laboring under a sense of guilt — a deep load of sin. I pointed him to the dying Lamb; told him of the one Sacrifice, the one Saviour; and your lordship will be delighted to know that on the day before his departure light broke in upon his mind, and he died rejoicing in’ sin forgiven. His last words were these: ‘Tell my father that I die in Jesus, and that I shall meet him in heaven,’ or words to that effect.”
O fathers and mothers! are you asleep over your children? It may be some of you have a son, a daughter, at the antipodes, or in some distant country. Oh, pray, pray without ceasing that God may touch their hearts, that God may save them, lest they die in that far-off land without God and without Christ.
His lordship, after telling this affecting story, wiped the tears from his aged and noble face, and, turning round to his auditory in that private circle, said: “Can I ever doubt my God again? Can I doubt His promises? I have always believed the Saviour’s promise, ‘If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it’; and ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’”
O mothers, fathers, friends! say we not truly it is time to awake out of sleep, both regarding the solemnities of divine truth, and the condition of those who are around us, and especially those of our own household? Oh, awake, awake!