From a Lion to a Lamb

In a French seaport town, on a hot summer day, going on the shady side of the road, I went for my daily round of visits, where lived sailors, porters, rough people, but intelligent and industrious. Some of them attended our meetings, and I was not a stranger amongst them. I had not gone far when I heard someone calling me. I turned and saw a man standing at the door of his house. He was poorly clad, and his hard features and brutal aspect told he was a man of evil life.
“Aren’t you going to stop,”, he said in a rough tone. Then, pointing to our place of meeting, he added, “You are the captain of that ship over there, aren’t you?”
I answered, “Do you wish to speak to me, my friend?”
“Not exactly,” he replied in an indifferent manner. “It is the old woman in here who wants to see you. She is about to ship and would like to know if her passport is all right.”
“Do you mean your wife?” I said as I looked at him in pity.
“As you like. She was annoying me to go after you, but you see, it was too hot for a Christian to put his head out of doors, and I saw you passing.”
“A Christian! And are you a Christian?” I asked him, with a look which seemed to intimidate him.
“Oh, well, I am not ambitious to pass for such,” he replied. “What are Christians? tiresome sermon makers; the less of them the better.”
I did not answer, but walked into the house. The sick woman lay in a bed in the wall, ship fashion. She looked at me with a smiling face, and held out her hand and said, “God be praised for this favor.” It was evident that her end was near. Seeing such a rough husband I had expected to meet a woman somewhat similar, and I was greatly surprised. About thirty years of age, there was in her an expression of intelligence and gentleness, and even of refinement, which contrasted strangely with her surroundings. I wondered how she ever became the wife of such a man.
She said: “Sir, it was a strong wish of mine to see you before dying. I desire you to pray for my husband”; as her eyes saw him leaning against the door, listening to what was being said within, while he seemed to be only watching the vessels in the harbor.
“Marguerite,” he called out as he looked in, “if you called the minister to make prayers for me you are giving yourself unnecessary trouble.” Then looking at me in an insolent manner he added: “Mister, if any prayers are to be made for me they may as well be addressed to the devil.” The poor woman closed her eyes, and seemed to be in silent prayer. There was graved on her face an expression of patience and resignation which showed to what extent her unworthy husband had been an exercise of heart and piety in her life.
“I don’t want any of your religion,” he added with an oath.
“Are you a man?” I asked.
Well—well—I suppose I am not a dog,” he replied with a silly laugh.
“‘Then you need the Christian religion with all that it brings to men. There are in the universe two kinds of creatures which can do without it. Angels who have not sinned and have no need of a Saviour, and the brutes which have no soul to save. But man having sinned needs the salvation that Christianity proclaims. Since you say you need none of it you must be either an angel or a brute.”
He looked at me with a fierce look and said: “Mister, these are hard words for a man to hear.”
“Then you own you are a man,” I replied calmly. “God commands every man to repent of his evil life. The language which seems hard to you is that of the Word of God. It says that man without God is like the beasts that perish (Psa. 49:1212Nevertheless man being in honor abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. (Psalm 49:12)). I saw his fists clenching as if about to give way to his anger; and his wife said, “Jacques, do not strike.”
He replied: “No, no, Marguerite, do not fear. I would certainly not fight for a passage of the Bible, but it is not pleasant to be called a beast.”
“Pardon me, sir, I have not called you that. You have drawn that conclusion yourself. I only said that a man needs salvation, whilst angels and brutes do not.”
He turned his back and walked up and down in the room as if absorbed in thought. His wife’s eyes followed him for a while, then turning to me she said: “I thank you sir for your faithfulness to him. Once he was kind and gentle, but he is no more what he was when we were married. Drink and bad company have made the change. Oh, sir, when I am gone think of him, pray for him, come and see him and talk to him sometimes. He has a soul to save. His sins are not too great for the sacrifice of Christ that he may obtain pardon.”
I promised to do as she desired, and she thanked me. Then the flush that my coming in had produced passed off, and I saw the shadow of death creeping over her pale face. Kneeling by her side I prayed fervently, and as I arose she opened her eyes and said with a smile: “I know that my Redeemer liveth. Jacques, husband, come near to me, I am about to go; let me say good-bye.”
During prayer he had stopped walking, and now came near the bed, but he stood there with his arms folded, affecting unconcern.
“Jacques, come nearer. Look at me. Give me your hand.”
He surrendered and gave her his hand, but with bad grace. Yet he seemed touched. That dying face upturned into his affected him. He gazed at her with a fixed look.
She said softly: “I am going―I have been sustained through the valley of tears. I am going to be with, Jesus who loved me and died to open the gates of heaven to me. There no sin, no tears, no pains, no death for me any more—eternal bliss will be mine—it is eternal life with God. At this solemn moment what sustains and fills me with peace is the glorious hope of the gospel—the reading of which has so often irritated you against me. But forgive me, I did not mean to reproach you. Jacques, kiss me.’’
To my surprise he kneeled down and kissed her brow. She smiled, and putting her hand on his head she prayed, “Father, glorify Thyself in making my husband a real Christian. Nothing is impossible with Thee.” In spite of his efforts to hide his emotion it was evident that that hard man was softening. Meanwhile his gentle wife turned to me and said: “Good-bye, sir, we will meet up there. I thank you for all your kindness to me, and especially for this visit.” Then, with that loving persuasive tenderness which marked her to the end, she said once more: “Dear. Jacques, good-bye. I will not return to you, but you can come where I will be. Good-bye—not forever, I trust.”
At these words Jacques’ chest rose convulsively, and as a pent-up spring suddenly bursts out of the rock under a stroke of the steel, so his tears flowed from beneath that hardheartedness which had been pierced. Hiding his face in the pillow on which his dying wife’s head lay, he gave way to his anguish and sobbed as a child. How can I describe the expression which came over that dying woman’s face? The smile which lighted it up could only be from heaven. Drawing him closer to her, she kissed him fondly and said “Your tears give me joy. They show me that you love me, Oh, may God show you mercy that you may come where I go. Can you promise me you will seek the way?”
“Marguerite; with the help of God I will,” he replied, with a voice broken by emotion.
For a few moments she gave not a sign of life, but again she rallied, and turning to her husband kissed him lovingly several times. Then came strange words from his lips. Softly they came as he said to her; “I am a wretch―I am a brute—I am not fit to be so near a creature who is so near to God. Marguerite, forgive me—forgive all my wrongs toward you. I did not know there was reality in your piety—now I see it was what enabled you to bear with me. May God forgive me too. I abhor myself.”
All at once another wave of that celestial smile I had seen before passed over her face, and, opening wide her eyes, she exclaimed: “Do you hear that music? Listen to the heavenly choir!” and as if joining in with them she repeated one of our hymns. Her voice failing I took up the verse. Again she broke in, “Oh, yes, Lamb of God, Jesus, my Saviour, I follow Thee; there ever with Thee!”
The end had come, and we saw that there was nothing left us but the mortal remains. She had gore to be with her Saviour and Lord. All the suffering and the sorrow were passed. For a while her husband remained on his knees. Then he looked at her with a look of tenderness and respect, and having risen to his feet, he kissed her icy brow.
I said, “My friend, you have seen how a Christian dies.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, making an effort to keep calm, “and I have seen how a Christian lives. That woman was an angel of God sent to me. I see it now. What enabled her to bear my brutalities I called weakness. I understand it all now. Sir, I am a brute. My treatment of her has been a shame; yet those lips of hers have spoken only words of love, of kindness and of truth. I hated her because of her goodness. The holiness of her life was a constant accusation to my conscience, and a living witness against me and my evil life.”
Having said this he went out the back door and walked up and down the open space there. I called in a neighbor, and left her in care of the body, and then attended to matters about the burial. At the funeral service the husband was serious and attentive. At the grave his sorrow and remorse overcame him again. Hiding his face in his hands and leaning upon a tombstone, he gave way to his grief in a way that drew the sympathy of all hearts. Jacques D. was well known among the port population as the most wicked man among them, and as they did not know what I had seen at his wife’s deathbed they were greatly surprised at his tears and his respectful and serious behavior.
From that moment a real work of grace was begun in his soul. His eyes were opened to the awfulness of sin, and he saw the just condemnation of the sinner. He felt the misery of bondage to sin, and the awful danger of being unsaved, without the assurance from God’s Word that his sins were forgiven. He had seen in his wife that there is real grace for the soul through the atoning work finished by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. He believed in the Lord Jesus, and the same grace that then ministered salvation to him was effective in his daily life, for he lived, “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world” (Titus 2:1212Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; (Titus 2:12)).
A. E.