A young wife brought up in a truly Christian home had been professedly religious. The test came when she suddenly developed a most serious illness. Doctor after doctor was consulted, and none seemed to understand her case.
At last one doctor diagnosed her malady, and urged immediate surgery. Yet this operation, imperative if her life was to be spared, was of such a nature that ninety-nine out of every hundred died under it. The risk must be taken and she might be the hundredth who would come through.
Upon this slender chance, humanly speaking, she decided to hang her hopes. The operation was arranged for, and the next day it was performed.
The rest of the story she shall tell herself. "As I lay upon my bed, waiting to be taken to the operating room, for the first time in my life I seriously took my bearings. What will it mean for me to wake up in eternity? Where shall I spend it? How can I meet God?
"These were questions that demanded an answer, and promptly too. All I had rested upon in the way of religious profession was giving way under me. I realized that the question of my sins was unsettled. I was going into the presence of God possibly, and my sins unforgiven! What stern realities these!
"Oh, how I longed for some little bit of the bare Word of God upon which I could rest for peace and assured salvation; but who could give it at that moment?
"I gripped it with `all the eagerness that a drowning man would grip a life buoy that had been thrown to him, knowing well that there was no time to lose. I said to myself, 'I will meet God with that!' As I hung by simple faith upon God's testimony to the virtues of that precious blood, a sudden peace filled my troubled soul, such peace as I had never known before. I presently left my bed to go to the operating table with perfect confidence and calmness, trusting in that precious blood.
"I was, through God's mercy, the hundredth case, for I was brought safely through. Now I have come back from the very gates of death, able to say that trusting in the precious blood of Jesus, the vilest sinner can meet God without a quiver of the conscience or a doubt in the heart.”
Soul out of Christ, you too, are dying; you are under short notice. This night thy soul may be required of thee! Lose no time about this matter. There may be but a moment between you and a lost eternity. Is this not true?
Dying sinner, nothing can meet your need but the precious blood of Christ. Despise it, and you despise that which alone can cleanse a sinner in the sight of God. Trust it, and you trust that which satisfies God, silences Satan, and saves the sinner.
"Precious, precious blood of Jesus,
Let it make thee whole;
Let it flow in mighty cleansing
O'er thy soul.”