BY trade a printer's compositor, working in London, John Brooks early proved the severity of the divine sentence passed upon man after his first disobedience and transgression: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it vast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen. 3:19.)
For long hours both by day and night he stood before his "case" (the framework where the various types are arranged) picking up, one by one, with ready fingers, the little metal letters; and so, placing them together in words, produced line by line, pages of reading for the eager eyes of the public.
Not being a strong man, the late hours and the laborious duties of the compositor's calling, together with the indifferent air of the heated workroom, told severely upon his health, and, while he was yet young, the dreadful disease of consumption attacked him, and he began to languish.
Everyone saw that he was sinking; everyone heard his cough; everyone observed him shrink across the shoulders, and wear away; everyone but himself; for he alone was deluded into fancying that he was getting better, and that he should soon be the man again.
But on, on moved the slow disease. Each day gained some fresh victory o‘er its victim, sapping his strength, and pushing on to the very citadel of his life.
“It is only a question of time," persons would say of him; and "it is only a question of time” may be said of us all. (Heb. 9:27.)
The rough winds of trouble set in sharp upon John Brooks. He sought an entrance into the hospital, that he might find a bed whereon to die; but no, its doors were shut against him.
“Full," was the answer, so he had to turn again to his desolate home. In the passing hour of health, he had sown to folly, to sin; and upon his dying pillow he would frequently confess to the tremendous truth, that what a man sows he shall also reap. (Gal. 6:7.)
But we will not pursue this dark theme further, nor add another grief and vexation of spirit to the oft-told tale of this world's vanity. (Eccles 1:14.) The mercy and grace of God visited this region of darkness and the shadow of death with the dayspring from on high. (Matt. 4:16; Luke 1:78.)
The opportunity which God in His wondrous love had chosen to interpose upon Brooks's behalf as, as people say, "man's extremity"; it was the midnight of his trial. His house was destitute of the needful bread; his resources were dried up, and he knew not which way to turn.
In this extremity his wife begged him to go out and try to borrow a sixpence of a friend, just to buy some food. With an effort, and as it proved for the last time, he went out into the street, and, gathering his wasting strength together, managed to walk slowly towards a neighbor's house.
Shortly after he had left his home a lady, a perfect stranger, called and inquired whether there was a sick man there, and whether he was in want; and then, unasked, put five shillings into his wife's hand, and went away. This money, so evidently sent by God, enabled his wife before he returned to spread their table, pay a small debt, and yet have a slight balance in hand.
Reaching home he found to his surprise that the need for "the bread that perishes" was supplied. But more than hunger was working in him. He felt his need of a Saviour; he had begun to see himself a sinner.
It happened that as he dragged himself along the streets, coughing and aching, a young man who was a Christian saw him, and could not refrain from speaking to him. Gently tapping him upon the shoulder he said, "You look very ill.”
“Indeed I am," was the answer.
“And you are not long for this world, I should think, my friend," continued the stranger in a kind voice. "DO YOU KNOW JESUS?”
To this plain question Brooks replied, "No, I do not indeed; I know too little of Him; and I feel I am not long for this life.”
Placing a tract in Brooks's hand and requesting that he might be allowed to call upon him (which request was readily granted), the stranger went his way.
The arrow had been guided by the blessed Spirit of God, and had pierced the sinner's soul. And these words, "Do YOU KNOW JESUS? took fast hold of him; he could not rid himself of them; and, pondering them, he returned to his home.
New thoughts and new feelings occupied his soul. He did not know Jesus! What did this mean? He was a sinner, and he needed a Saviour. Jesus is the Saviour of sinners; and of the Saviour of sinners Brooks, a sinner, was ignorant! Terrible reality! He did not know Jesus!
"This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." The wrath of God abode upon him! Without Jesus, he was lost, lost forever. Without Jesus, hell would be his endless portion, and he did not know Jesus. Death now stared him in the face, not only as that terrible strength which severs man from his fellows, separates husband from wife, and father from child, and closes the door forever upon the world and all that is in it, but as somewhat more awful, even that which seals the sinner's doom, and brings him into the prison of lost spirits to await the judgment; for "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." (Heb. 9:27.)
He took out the tract which had been placed in his hand, and began to read it. He read it, and read it again, until he could read it no longer; and then he asked his wife to read it to him.
It was about the end of a miser who died with a purse of gold clutched in her withered hand, with "Gold, gold, gold," upon her lips.
Poor Brooks saw himself also dying, with "World, world, world," upon his lips. The awful realities of death, judgment, and hell stared him full in the face, and the dying man beheld himself, to his terror, stepping into death, awaiting the judgment, and doomed to hell-fire. The Spirit of God had made him conscious that "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36.)
After some time of deep anxiety about his soul, God spoke peace to him. One evening, at half-past eight o'clock, he said to his wife, "Someone is now praying for me. I am sure; I feel it.”
Then he began to think of Jesus dying on the cross for sinners; and all at once it seemed just as if the Saviour hung before him, as it might be, in the corner of his room. He looked upon Him, and believed that Jesus died upon the cross for him; that His blood made atonement for his soul, and he was happy in the Lord. (Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22; Rom. 5:11.)
At the very hour that he felt some one was praying to God for him (as he afterward learned), his friend who net him was so drawn to plead with God for his soul's salvation, that he shut himself up in his room alone, and cried to God on his behalf.
Relating this to the writer, with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks, he said, "I cannot understand it at all; I cannot make it out. Mercy for me! What does it all Mean? Mercy for me! I was living without God in the world, aye, even while I was laid up in this very room, I would read the newspaper all Sunday long; and so I went on until the day in which I met my dear friend. But I don't want the newspaper now, not I; oh! no; I have never wanted it since the day the Lord net me; for I love the Bible now, and my blessed Jesus too.”
A person who had not heard of his conversion, he was unprepared to find him even seeking for mercy, came just at this time with a sorrowful determination to speak to him plainly as to the certain end of every man out of Christ. With a heavy heart he knocked at the door in—Street. Going up-stairs, he found Brooks propped up in an armchair, by the fire-side, worn nearly to a skeleton, and panting for breath.
Seating himself beside him, he mournfully inquired, "How is it with you, Brooks?”
To his unutterable surprise Brooks answered, "HAPPY, HAPPY, OH! SO HAPPY!" and this was said with unmistakable earnestness, while he stretched out his wasted hand to grasp that of his friend. "I am so glad to see you," he went on; "I am so happy; all is changed; I HAVE FOUND JESUS.”
"What! are you indeed saved fur all eternity?" questioned his astonished friend; " just at this last hour! and you who have lived so long without Christ! you who have lived a godless life! is it indeed so that your sins are forgiven?”
So, seeking by every method to test the foundation of Brooks's joy, he laid the long roll of his life's sins before him, unfolding his godless ways, his prayerlessness, his hatred of Christians, and his contempt of the name of Jesus.
But to each charge poor Brooks, while pleading, would only whisper, “HE could not lie.
HE does say, 'Only believe'; ‘I will in no wise cast out.' Yes, there is mercy for me, even for me." (Mark 5:36; John 6:67.)
It was a remarkable instance of divine grace to this sick man, who so heartily disliked gospel tracts, that a tract should have been used in his blessing. Oftentimes in his work at "case" he was obliged to pick up the metal types one by one which spell the name J-E-S-U-S, and thus had been forced through his unwilling fingers, letter by letter, such words as these, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." (1 Tim. 1:15.)
Many a tract had been "set up" by him, indeed tracts similar to the very one which he read so eagerly upon his dying bed, he had been obliged to compose, a task he thoroughly disliked, and he would fling the hated tracts across the room. But now how changed! Now how he loved to say, often and often, "Jesus loves me; Jesus died for me; I am the chief of sinners" And now he loved to read the humble tract which spoke of Jesus.
Before he was converted his home was anything but a happy spot, but it all changed when he became a child of God.
His wife would say of him, "There has been no fretting, no complaining, since his friend first met him in the street; but instead, he has been full of joy. Formerly it was always, ' Oh! that I could get out into the street!' or something or other; but now it is never so.”
At the sound of his wife's words about the street, the corner of the room where he seemed to have seen the Lord hanging on the cross before him, came to his mind, and with heavenly joy beaming upon his face, he said, "I never look towards the street now; never. I have clone with it now.
Once upon a time I used to sit in this chair watching the children playing in the street, and longing to have strength myself to be there again, until I fairly cried. But now I sit in my chair, turn my back to the window, and look up in that corner of the room, and think about my blessed Jesus. No more getting out in the street now for me; no, nor do I want it, since I have Jesus.”
The intense way in which he uttered these words will certainly never be forgotten by the hearer of them, nor will that divinely bright joy which beamed upon his face, and triumphed over its pale, wan features, death-stricken and wasting. In every sense, his back was turned upon the street and the children playing there; for his steady gaze was fixed in faith upon Jesus in the glory, and upon the blissful home of the saints of God.
Come, you scoffers; behold the light of heaven shining into the humble room of this working man! Inquire, ye reasoners, whence it is that death is to him a longed-for hour, and find your answer in his FAITH; faith, not only in the blessed work of the Son of God, but faith also in Him who is in the glory at the right hand of God. (Heb. 1:3.)
And come, you anxious soul, stand beside his arm-chair; look at the dying countenance, watch the sunken eye, the distended nostril, the matted hair; see the thin pale hands, with the bones piercing his skin; and hear his words: "They till me I am going to die; the) say they must see me off, they want to watch me go; but I tell them” (and this he said with triumphant smiles), "I shan't die. Oh! no, I shan't die; I shall just fall asleep. There is no death for me, for I am going to Jesus." (1 Cor. 15:6; Acts 7:60.)
One night Satan was permitted to trouble poor Brooks, but God dealt very tenderly with His feeble child, and restrained the malice of the evil one. It was a fearful night, but God delivered him from all his fears. In the morning he said, “I shall know another time what to do when Satan comes to trouble me. I won't listen to him, but I will look up to my blessed Jesus.”
Often would he weep for joy at the grace of God in saving him from the pit. "To think that, alter sinning against Him all my life, He should have met me with His mercy the last time that I was able to walk out. Oh! it is wonderful. There! I cannot make it out," he exclaimed, turning his head away, overcome with emotion.
As death drew, near, he looked straight over the narrow stream to the glory beyond. Often and often he would say, "So happy! oh! so happy! How I wonder that I could have lived so long without Jesus. What will it be to dwell with Him forever, and to be just like Him. The sooner I am off the better for me.”
“Look," said he, to a fellow workman, who rubbed the tear from his eve as he saw his wasted arm, "I can laugh at it, though it makes you grieve to see it; for it show, s me that I am going soon to be with Jesus. It does not make me feel sad, oh! no." We will now turn to that deeply solemn moment, the loosing of the silver cord, and the freeing of the spirit for its flight to God who gave it. (Eccl. 12:6, 7.)
One who had watched with him through the night related how he would awake from his dozings, exclaiming, "Oh! how beautiful! how lovely! and other such exclamations, as if there were bright glories and sweet visions of heaven passing before his eves.
He felt much the blessing of the prayers of his brethren. Grasping both the hands of a Christian friend who had come to bid him farewell, he said, with a beaming face, "I know that you have been praying for me; I FEEL it.”
“Well, John, and how is it with you?" asked his friend.
Happy, happy in the Lord," was the cheerful reply.
Gazing upon his wife who sat near him weeping, he said first, "Look at me, dear, see how happy I am. I am all right." And then, after a pause, "My dear, oh! that I might know before I die that you are in Christ as well as I; but I do believe I shall find it out hereafter.”
There was one among his unconverted friends whom he was particularly anxious to see and who at his request came to his bedside.
“Well, John," said his friend, "how are you getting on?”
Smiling, and taking both the strong man's hands into his wasted ones, he said, "I am so happy; I am so happy. I am going to heaven, Teddy; and you can tell my friends so. Oh! that I had known what I now know before this! Oh! that I had known Jesus earlier, and had not spent my life as, alas! I have done. What is all this world worth when compared to my present peace and joy? Ah! Ted," he continued, still grasping his hand, and still gazing fixedly upon him, "You WILL HAVE TO COME TO THIS! Are you ready? are you ready?”
It was too much for his friend, and he left the room weeping.
Longing for the salvation of sinners came over him, and he begged some of the Christians present to leave him, and preach Christ to others. "Leave me here," he said, “I am right for heaven. Go forth into the streets and tell others of Christ; go, brothers; tell them all of Jesus.”
Just then some other of his brethren in the Lord came into the room, and he asked them to join in singing a hymn of praise.
They began the hymn, "I believe I shall be there.”
“I KNOW I shall," interrupted he; there is no doubt about it; none. I know I shall, for Jesus loves me, and I love Him.”
Then, asking for a hymn-book, he said with a smile, "I can sing too"; and so he did, his voice rising above the sound of the others present.
As his last moment came, he turned his eyes toward the friend who stood by his pillow, and saying, "When we meet again we shall know each other perfectly, and be like Jesus" he felt asleep. (1 John 3:2.)
Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep!!
From which none ever wake to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose;
Where powerless is the last of foes.
Asleep in Jesus: oh! how sweet
To be for such a slumber meet!
With holy confidence to sing
That death has lost its venomed sting.
Asleep in Jesus, peaceful rest!
Whence waking we're supremely blest;
No fear, no woe shall dim that hour
That manifests the Saviour's power.