I was returning late one Lord's Day evening from a town where I had been preaching the gospel. After the train had left the station I pulled out a bundle of tracts from my pocket and handed one to each of the passengers in the coach.
An old gentleman sitting opposite to me gave me a rather peculiar glance as he accepted the booklet and began to turn over its pages, examining them with a critical eye. I felt interested in his cautious manner, and was surprised when his sober mien gave place to a look of pleasure. Then he leaned over and whispered in my ear: "Have you been away somewhere telling the story?”
"Yes, sir," I replied, delighted thus to have the ice broken. "And may I ask you, do you know my Savior Jesus?”
"Aye, that I do, many a year," said he.
"Well, sir, I am a young man, and I do love to hear of the Lord's goodness to those who have known Him in all the trials and vicissitudes of life. Would you mind telling me how He found you?”
"That I will. Do you see those fields and lanes?" he asked as he pointed out of the train window. "Well, years ago when I was a young man you might have found me lying drunk all night in the middle of a field or in a ditch, a hopeless drunken prodigal. Many a time I lay all night in the cold and wet, unable to make my way to what I called home. That's how the devil serves his children.
"But that could not last, strong as I was. Debauchery, exposure, and continual drunkenness at last wrecked what had once been a fine, husky body, and I was laid low by disease. My old companions, alarmed, sent for a doctor. He told us all plainly that I was so far gone that there was positively no hope. They sent for another doctor and he repeated the verdict. As a last hope they took me to a hospital. There I was refused admittance on the basis of incurability.
"Alarmed now for my soul, they sent for the religious people. They came to my room and prayed and pleaded; but I angrily pushed aside all their entreaties and told them to be gone. I had served the devil all my life, and I would serve him in death, too.
"But, sir, after all the doctors had gone, and after the praying people had gone too, there came to me the Great Physician and He began right away to mend my poor body in spite of the doctors and their opinions. In a few days I was feeling like a new man, but was still unfit to leave the house.
"Well, I sat there in my weakness and thought of God's goodness and mercy to me, a hell-deserving sinner. But He had thought it worthwhile to heal me up a bit and give me strength to live a little longer here. Then I thought, 'Well, He has a right to me altogether, and I think it worthwhile to trust Him.' This I did, and He took me as I was, there and then. I got rapidly better, and all these years He has kept me. I have seen many sorrows and gone through deep waters, but He has been my refuge and has upheld me by His grace." Here the old man's eyes filled with tears of gratitude as he leaned back in his seat exhausted. Gazing upon the quiet calm of his face, I felt that I was beholding a remarkable trophy of God's goodness and mercy.
Dear one on the brink of hell, this same Jesus is ready to take you up and do as much for you. Will you let Him? He is "rich unto all that call upon Him.”
Come, 'tis Jesus gently calling:
Ye with care and toil oppressed,
With your guilt, howe'er appalling,
Come, and I will give you rest.