Charles H. Spurgeon wrote in the album of a friend, evidently when he was feeling a presentiment of the approaching end: —
“When broken, tuneless, still, O Lord,
This voice shall yet Thy blood record,
Its virtue tried so long;
‘Till sinking low with calm decay,
Its feeble accents melt away,
Into a seraph’s song:
And then along the eternal tide
I’ll chant the praise of Him Who died
To all the blood-washed throng.”
And Thomas Spurgeon wrote underneath: —
“Sweet in old age that voice had proved,
Which in its youth the thousands moved
With love from Calvary.
We hoped to hear that bell for years
Ring out the tale of blood and tears,
But it was not to be!
Why mourn we though what might have been —
He chants above the self-same theme
In Heaven’s own happy key!”
Now they chant together “the self-same theme in Heaven’s own happy key.” What a meeting! What a greeting! What music of redeeming grace.
Spurgeon’s Dying Pillow.
When near his end a minister came to visit the dying preacher. He found Charles Spurgeon very weak and low, but he was able to whisper, “Brother, my creed has become very short. Only four words! Not long enough for a sermon, but I can die on them, ‘Jesus died for me.’”