ANNIE F. had been a wanderer for several years; drawn, apparently, by circumstances, to leave her mother’s house, in A—, and go to D— a large city. The real cause of her leaving home was a secret longing to escape from the motherly can and tender solicitude, which to her seemed only restraint.
Over the years spent in that city the curtain must be drawn, for the story of her lift there was only known to herself and to God How far she wandered, neither her mother nor I ever asked, or cared to know. Annie afterward admitted that she had lived without God, her only thought and desire being to have her full cup of this world’s pleasure, away from God, and without thought of Him.
Annie was but a fragile and slender girl, and during her long absence from home her mother had almost given up the hope that her daughter yet lived. Indeed, it was partly owing to the mother’s anxiety for her child’s health, and her solicitude and care, that home became wearisome to a girl whose spirit was strong and impetuous.
During those years in D—, before her health failed, Annie glided rapidly and smoothly along the broad way that leads to destruction, listening to Satan, charming her and saying, “Peace, peace,” when there was no peace; she, like the fool, saying in her heart, “There is no God.”
After she had been away from home some time, and as autumn gave place to winter, Annie’s health broke down; a severe cough, which annoyed the people with whom she lodged, set in, and as she was no longer able to earn money, they feared that she would become burdensome to them, and so repeatedly told her to leave.
Her money was gone, and everything that was valuable had been disposed of, so that she found herself in a terrible plight. She would have been glad enough to leave, but where could she go? A grave thought had of late been coming across her mind. Perhaps she was dying! She had heard people say as much, and she began to fear that it might be true.
Another weary day was closing, the prattle of children in the house had ceased, their merry little feet no longer made her head ache; all was quiet, except that some uncertain, heavy steps upon the stair told that men were coming into the house more or less intoxicated.
Annie trembled as she heard one step, heavier than the rest, nearing her door, for she knew it was that of the landlord. Forcing open the door, he reeled into the room, and with an oath demanded money for rent. In vain did the dying girl attempt to appease his fury. She had nothing to give, could promise nothing, and could make no resistance. He roughly seized her, and, almost throwing her down the stairs, thrust her out into the street.
It was bitterly cold, the snow lay thick on the ground, and but half clad, she wandered down the street, helpless and miserable.
Satan, the master whom she had so long served and followed, suggested dark and awful thoughts in this her hour of deepest misery. No longer did the deceiver cheat her heart with his cry of “peace;” sudden destruction had in a moment overtaken her, and there seemed no remedy. Must she die? Must she perish? “Yes,” she thought, “for no one cares for me.”
It would be easy, so her own sad heart whispered, to seek a quiet place where, unseen by the watchman, she could lie down and perish, for she knew the cold would, soon put her to sleep; or if death did not thus come at her bidding, could she not make for the water?
Never before had she stood face to face with the stern realities of sin and death; her course seemed run, she must die and be lost. “Oh,” she said, afterward, “I could have wished to die, but I knew that was not all.” Benumbed with cold, and hardly knowing whither she went, she hurried on, along one street after another, until she found herself at the gate of the railway station, where, in hope and in buoyant spirits, she had arrived years ago.
She rushed into the station, doubtless impelled by an unseen power. The guard had called to the passengers to take their seats, the tickets had been checked, and the last train for A—that night was about to depart, when the engine-driver’s eye caught sight of the fragile girl hurrying forward, as if eager to reach the train. Annie had caught sight of the name of her native place on the doors of the carriages, and new thoughts and desires filled her mind.
The engine-driver stayed his hand, the train stood still, and the guard, observing her, came up and asked whether she wished to go by that train, or was in search of anyone. “I want to go to A—,” she replied; “but I have no ticket, and no money to buy one. I want to go home to my mother, for I am dying. I have been a bad daughter, but I must see her before I die.”
What was to be done? The train could not be delayed longer. The officialise of the guard gave way to the generosity of his warm heart. He opened the door of an unoccupied compartment, and said, “Take your seat; I’ll get a ticket for you.”
As he lifted her into the carriage he saw how thinly she was clad, and muttered something about her dying of cold before she could arrive at A—; but time was up, what could he do?
Hastily crossing to the booking-office, he procured a ticket, and as he buttoned his overcoat closely to shield him from the keen air a thought struck him. “She wants if more than I do,” he said to himself, and in a moment he had wrapped the shivering bewildered girl in his own warm coat; then, handing her the ticket, and scarcely waiting to hear her “God bless you!” he raised his hand as a last signal, and the train was off.
The guard’s kindness, and the knowledge that she was now actually on the way to her home—the thought, too, that that very night she might lay her head on the bosom which she felt sure was unchanged towards her—wrought a great change in Annie’s feelings. She thought that even God might yet be caring for her; yes, that surely it was His hand, which had been put forth to snatch he; from a wretched death, the very thought of which made her shudder.
Left to herself during that night, Annie, with a penitent, broken heart, reviewed her life since she had left her mother’s home, and wept many a bitter tear at the thought of her cruelty to that mother.
It was long past midnight when the train arrived at A—; the snow lay very deep upon he ground, and, in spite of the guard’s coat, and the cup of tea he had brought her at one station, Annie was almost dead with cold, and scarcely able to stand. Her friend had counted on this, and, after sitting by while the warmed herself at the fire in the waiting-room, he insisted on accompanying her to her home.
When he had seen the lost child in her mother’s arms, he slipped away and was gone, or was he seen or heard of again. But when he cups of cold water are all remembered, and the little acts of love and kindness meet their reward, this act of his, if done, as apparently it was, in Christian love, will not be deemed too insignificant in the eye of Him who careth for the sparrows, to be owned as done unto Him. If the guard’s eye should pass along these lines, let them bear to him the oft-repeated blessing of that dying girl, who said that his kindness was as the first ray of light to her soul, and as the love of God to her.
A few days after Annie’s arrival in A—, her mother asked me to visit her, and begged me to speak very faithfully to her; “for,” she said, “she is going just as her father went, and that was very quick at the last.”
Gladly, yet with a heart solemnized by the thought of the responsibility of having such an opportunity, I went to visit her. I found her lying in the bed in which, when a child, she had lain in her mother’s home. Her heart was tender as a little child’s, and she willingly listened while I spoke to her of Christ, the Saviour of sinners.
Love had already done for her more than I could do. As Annie lay and thought over her sad history, the guard’s pity in bringing her home, the mother’s love in welcoming the lost one back, strongly moved her. But what was human love, however true and unwearied, compared with the infinite love of God, who had marked her every step, and rescued her from the very brink of destruction? With such thoughts as these came a deep sense of her own unworthiness. As I sat beside her, and told her of a love greater than all earthly loves, of One who gave His life for sinners—that One the Son of the Highest, yet a Man—her sins rose up before her, and made her heart break with grief that she should have so wounded the loving heart of the blessed Saviour.
I spoke of those hours of deepest darkness when our sins were laid on Him, when His holy soul was made an offering for sin, and when He bowed His head in death beneath our judgment, glorifying God, and thus making it a righteous thing for God to receive, pardon, justify, and glorify all who believe on Jesus, and who confess Him Lord and Saviour. As I left I said to her, “Annie, it has been a great joy for you to be brought back to your mother’s heart and home, but you have only a short time to enjoy it; you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be saved from endless death. ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Remember, these are the words of Him who is the Truth: ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.’”
Though we had many an earnest talk after this, I cannot now recall these conversations; it is enough to say that, to the glory of His grace and to our joy, Annie confessed the Lord, and was assured of having received pardon for all her sins and full salvation through faith in Him. He knew that she was received by the Father and brought to Him in Christ. J. S.