I was asked one day to go and see a poor old woman, who had for many years lived quite alone; “And now,” said her neighbor, “she is dying alone, and I have my husband and children to mind, and can only see her once a day.”
Circumstances prevented my going just at once to see her, but these two sad words, “dying alone,” rang in my ears, and seemed to haunt me from day to day. To live alone seemed to me sad enough, but to die alone, the very depth of human misery. I was young, but had known sorrow, and had stood by several deathbeds. I had watched the last breath flicker out by the bedside of both rich and poor, but none of them had died alone. My own friends were surrounded by every luxury and comfort; everything that love could plan to make the sick room cheerful, and smooth the dying pillow, was done by gentle hands; and many cherished ones softly glided in and out with words of comfort and sympathy.
I had stood, too, by the dying beds of the poor, and had watched with admiration how every nerve had been strained to provide comforts for the sick one out of the hard-earned wages; and kindly neighbors were ever ready to come in and share the weary night-watch. But now I had heard of something new to me, a phase of suffering unheard of before, and I oft repeated those dismal words, “dying alone!” “dying alone!” Death on the battlefield, amidst the dying and slain, or death in the crowded wards of a hospital, seemed to me comfort compared to this, and I even prayed, “Lord, may I never die alone.”
Nearly a week after this I found myself on the way to see the poor creature I did not even know by name, but whose circumstances called for my very deepest sympathy; “dying alone!” ‘Twas a very low door by which I entered a very small dark room; the window, but one pane of glass, scarcely giving sufficient light to show distinctly the few objects in that chamber; and it was with a feeling somewhat akin to awe I went up to the low bed in the corner, and gazed upon that aged woman dying alone! It was a calm and pleasant face, though much furrowed and wrinkled by care and years; her silvery hair was parted upon her brow, and her white cap and sheets showed no signs of neglect, yet she was dying alone! “Sit down, Miss,” she said, with a kindly smile; “my neighbor told me you would come some day; but I thought likely I would be gone home before you came; but now I hope you have brought me some good word about the Lord.”
“I have His word in my pocket,” I said.
“Ah! that’s well; His own word is better than anything we can say; read for me, please.”
As I turned from passage to passage of the blessed book, her aged eyes beamed, and her whole soul seemed to drink in the precious words, and, as I prayed with her before leaving, she joined with me in every petition. As I parted from her, I expressed my surprise that she could be so full of peace and joy when dying alone!
“Tsh,” she said, “Christ is with me, and when you have known Him as long as I have known Him, and proved His love as long, you will not wonder. I’ve known Him more than twenty years, and I’ve lived much of that time alone with Him, and now I’ve been dying these six months past, alone with Him; for few come to see me, and there’s few I care to see, for I’ve Christ always with me, and there’s no solitude in that.”
I came away from that humble dwelling with very different thoughts from those with which I had entered it; God had a new lesson for me through this aged saint. Her calm face and joyful answer, “Christ is with me,” opened up to me hitherto unknown depths in Him, who, though known as my Saviour and Friend, was not as yet everything to me. I saw this aged servant of Christ, many times after this, and learned from her what I believe I have never forgotten. One day she told me she had asked the Lord, if it was His will, that someone might be with her when she breathed her last.
“Why?” I asked, thinking she was dreading to die alone.
“Because, if no one saw me die, they would not know I was as happy to die as to live; for Christ is with me now, and shall be with me then, and I shall be with Him forever.”
Each day as I left her I saw she was passing, quickly to her desired haven. She had few earthly comforts, save those the Lord privileged me to take her yet she was full of joy and thankfulness, and unclouded peace. One day I knocked as usual at the door, but got no answer. “O,” I said, “has she died alone?” With breathless anxiety I opened the door; her hands were clasped, her lips moved in prayer. I stood in silence, till her eyes opened, and she saw me.
“You’ve come to see me die,” she said, “sit down. If it was not for others I would rather be alone with Christ, but you’ll stay till the end.”
Then, in thoughtfulness for me, she said, “O, but you are young, and you may not like to see any one die.”
“Yes,” I said, “I should like to be with you.”
Pointing to her well-worn Bible, she said, “Read for me once more the last verses of the eighth of Romans.”
“For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As I closed the book I was about to ask her if I should pray. I observed a slight movement of the eyelids, she gazed upwards, a radiant smile lit up her features, and her happy spirit was with the Lord. I knelt and closed her eyes, drew the sheet over the pale face of death, came out, locked the door, and, having made a few arrangements with her neighbor as to her remains, I returned home.
And now, reader, the lessons learned in that little room were precious lessons to me; have you learned anything from reading this simple account of one who was truly satisfied with Christ? Can you say “That is the Christ I have got? Everything to me if called to live alone, everything to me if called to die alone! A Christ who is above, and beyond, and over every earthly circumstance; a Christ who thoroughly satisfies my heart”?
Or, it may be this little paper is in the hands of one who knows nothing of God’s Christ. One, who has “heard of him by the hearing of the ear,” but in whose heart is no loving response to His blessed name. Dear soul, listen to me. You will have to die alone, and meet God alone, if you are unsaved. Alone truly, for if you could not say, like the old woman in this story, “Christ is with me,” your earthly friends would avail you nothing, and most truly you would be alone; and alone throughout eternity? You would not call it company to have the thief, the drunkard, and the harlot, your companions throughout eternity; shut out forever from the presence of the Lord, the only One who could save you now! That would be in the most real and awful sense “to be alone!” Are you living without Christ? If you die without Christ you must spend an endless eternity without Him.
But listen to me. There was One who died alone, that you might never die alone. Look unto Him and live. He walked a lonely path on earth “The world knew him not”; “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” The mean of sorrows walked alone. He agonized in the garden alone. Alone he died on the cross for thee. Yes; Jesus died alone! Was there none with Him? None: “I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters but I found none” (Psa. 69:20). He went through death alone for thee, forsaken of God, in that awful hour when
He took the guilty culprit’s place,
And suffered in his stead,
in order that atonement having been made we might be justified freely by His grace. Alone He suffered, and alone He died! And by the, grace of God He tasted death for every man.
And now, reader, what have you to say to the death of Christ? Is it a light thing that He died alone? That He died for you?
K.