The following striking and true incident was the last piece written by J. H.A., a patient of mine. He wrote it very shortly before he passed away. This is the incident, which I have called “Conscience Stricken,” told in his own words: “Just after my conversion, over thirty years, ago, the peace of which I have never lost, I was asked to go with a friend to visit a laborer who was ill, and not likely to get better much anxiety was shown about this man’s soul by my friend, but lie could make no impression on him― he seemed quite hardened. My friend did not visit him for a day or two―then he asked me to go and see him, which I did two or three times. But apparently no impression could be made upon him. At last feeling sure that something was hindering, all. I could do was to ask the Lord to show what it could be. I called to see him again with greater hopes―I tried to gently win his heart, but I found it was still as, hard as ever. While I was anxiously waiting for the power of the Lord to manifest itself, suddenly the woman of the house spoke out and said, ‘Why, sir, it was not him you were sent for. God surely meant you to see me. I am the great sinner. I have been taking in all that you have said to him, and I am sure the message was for me. I have lived with several men, and was never married. I have lived with this man a long time. Do you believe really what you say that I can get pardon this very night?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Then by God’s help, you shall not go out of the house until I have got salvation.’
“So saying, she locked the door, and put the key in her pocket. Then gazing earnestly on me she said, ‘Get on your knees, and cry mightily to God for me.’ We knelt together, entreating God to turn her eves to Calvary and see the dying Saviour there, then, while entreating for her in prayer, she burst out in these words, ‘Lord Jesus, Thou art my dear Saviour. I am a great sinner. I do believe Thou Nast died for me.’ With tears streaming down her happy face, she took the key out of her pocket and unlocking the door she said to me, ‘Now you may go, and the angels will take care of you on that awful highway.’ [It was a dark night into which he was going, and the road was rather lonely and dangerous.]
“Then turning to the man she was living with, who had been in the room all the time, she said, “I shall live no longer with you, I won’t be known any longer as such a vile one.” He made no reply. She turned to me and said, ‘I shall try and arrange for him to go to the workhouse, because I am too poor, and so is he, to get a home for himself.’
“This she did, and they separated in this way. He proved to be a backslider, and had told her he once knew the pardon of his sins, but he had wandered far from the Lord and His people, and he said he did not care.
“However, soon after he was taken very ill, and while on his sick bed God convicted him of the sin of his backsliding, and he, was happily restored in his soul, and was very peaceful when he passed away.
“The woman herself came into the town. There she lived a very godly life in company with her sister, many bearing witness to her humble and sincere life.”
“P.S.―Kindly omit my name in full. I am but a poor sinner saved by grace.
J.H.A.”