WE heard the other day the last words of a faithful, old Christian, who had suffered both from pain and poverty, but who was ever brave and of good courage, and never complained. “O death! where is thy sting?” she whispered, and then passed out of time into eternity.
What a grand triumph through Christ, the Lord, was here!
“I never knew grace until I learned that ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,’” exclaimed an aged Christian, upon his dying bed. “Grace, grace, grace, it is all of grace; and when we get to heaven we shall know and value His grace far more than we can do on earth.” “I must be laid low before I can be taken up,” said he, cheerily, referring to his sleepless nights and his days spent without rest or food, for he was too ill to receive nourishment. Then he extolled the sacrifice of Christ, and His blood, rejoicing in the atonement with all his heart, and soul and strength. This, his confidence, he wished should be known, as a testimony to God, at the close of a life of eighty-three years.
As we sat by the bedside of this aged saint, and noted his courage and his joy, we could but feel how miserable is infidelity, and how worthless are the proud, godless thoughts of the unbelieving man upon a dying bed!
An elderly Christian upon being sympathized with over his weakness, responded, “How many of God’s children are suffering with acute pain, incurable afflictions, and worse still, trials of mind! My weakness and sickness are light. Now, what I desire is to be a good confessor of my Lord; a possessor of His grace I am, and of the glory I soon shall be; but I desire to confess His name in my ways, and by my words, before I am called home.”
The cheery way in which these words were spoken told upon his friend’s heart; and we commend the words and the spirit of them to our readers.
Two aged men, strangers to each other, met upon a path one winter’s day; the hair of each was white as snow, and the steps of both were very feeble. One leaned upon his stick, the other upon the arm of an attendant. “We are both alike, sir,” said the former, as he rested himself upon his staff; “we are both near our journey’s end, and oh, what a joy it is to know there are but a few more steps, and then it is rest with Christ above!”
The other old man made no reply, but looked strangely into the face of his attendant, upon whose arm he leaned, as though his heart were saying, “What strange doctrine is this?”
The two aged ones separated, each on his way; both had trodden life’s pathway more than threescore years and ten; with one the winter’s day seemed to say, “Everlasting spring is near”; with the other it was but winter, the cold and cheerless end of life, and then death, and after this—
Oh! traveler to eternity, consider these solemn words, “And after this—the judgment.”