Mrs. Ware was blind. She had been brought up in the church, but at the age of sixteen she had ceased to attend. She married, and her family were all grown. Mrs. Ware was influenced by a neighbor to return to her former church.
Subsequently, three of her sons and a daughter were soundly converted to God, and, of course, their beloved mother became a continual subject of their prayers. She was also remembered in prayer before the Lord by a number of Christians gathered to His name in the city of Ottawa, though her home was outside the city.
God heard, and answered the prayers in a most remarkable manner. Mrs. Ware was now quite old over eighty— and blind. She was ill and in bed some years ago, when members of the family heard her talking to herself, as they supposed. One of the girls, a granddaughter named Maggie, going in heard her exclaim, as she clapped her hands together: "Yes, Lord, I believe You, for You never told a lie."
Maggie inquired, "Oh, Granny, what's the matter?"
Granny answered: "Maggie, don't you see that beautiful text? "Come unto Me, come unto Me; though your sins be as scarlet I will make them whiter than snow: though they be crimson I will make them as wool.' Don't you see it? It is as plain as A, B, C. I haven't read it for years, but I can read that as plain as A, B, C."
Maggie, quite frightened, ran to her father. "Father," she said, "Granny's crazy. She thinks she can see things on the wall, and there's nothing there at all."
Her son ran in and the old lady put her arms around his neck, and cried, "Oh, John, I'm saved now and I know it. I need no minister anymore."
Imagine with what joy John told the good news to his brother, who returned with him. Together they sat with their mother, talking and praising God until midnight.
The following Lord's day her daughter came to see her. "Oh, Mary Ann," she said, "I'm saved now, and I know it."
"Before this," said this very daughter, "she would say it was presumption for anyone to think they were saved until after judgment."
Dear reader, this is a plain, simple account of God's peculiar and special way in bringing that aged one to Himself. Have you never heard Him say to you, "Come unto Me, come unto Me"?
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isa. 1:18.
"I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." John 10:9.