“GOOD morning, Miss —. How are you today?”
“Oh! very tired. I seem always to feel tired." "What a blessed thing it is to know that there remaineth a rest for the people of God," I replied.
“Oh! if I could only know that I should be happy.”
The one to whom I was speaking (a lady in a business house) was at that moment called away. Knowing that I was a child of God, and that there remained a rest for me, I longed that she might know and rejoice in the same blessed Saviour as myself.
I went home, and picking out two books, sent them, hoping that God might be pleased to use them for her blessing, as they pointed to Christ.
The weeks passed on, and one day she returned the books and thanked me, and to my sorrow asked me to buy some tickets for a concert. I could not get her to talk about Christ, and I did not want to talk, about the concert, so we parted.
Shortly after I heard she was gone, had died suddenly; and those words rang in my ears, "Oh! if I could only know!" Had she allowed Satan to rob her for all eternity for the sake of the pleasures of this world?
Reader, have you ever thought, "If I could only know about eternity?" You may, and know this minute, if you will take to yourself, a sinner, the blessed salvation that God is offering through the 'finished work of His Son.
"Will you come and see my sister? The doctor gives us no hope that she will ever get better. She is very ill.”
“Yes," I replied, "I will come gladly"; and the following day found me beside one of the saddest sights I had ever seen. A young woman, almost a skeleton, the disease from which she was suffering having gone very far, and it was evident that her days were numbered.
“It is good of you to come," she said. "I wanted to see someone, and I know you, though I don't expect you remember me. I came to the Meeting Room where you go about nine months ago, and something came over me while listening to the preaching. I never knew what a sinner I was before, and I did enjoy the singing; but I came home and tried to shake it off, and I did. Now I am dying; but I am not ready. Can you tell me xl hat to do?”
My heart went up to God in thanksgiving that through His blessed Son I could tell her that all had been done. I told her the story of the cross, and asked her to look at her own heart to see there all the sin that made her unfit for God's presence, and then at the grace that had brought the Son of God to the cross to put it away.
She saw it all. She believed it and rejoiced in it. A few days after she said to me, "I wish I had come that night in the meeting. I know I am saved; but oh! my wasted life!”
Soon after, she departed to be with Christ.
A third scene. A dear old woman, well known for her love to the Lord by those of His own brought in contact with her, dying. Can I call it dying? Rather, let me say going home. The way home was through great bodily suffering. Seeing she was trying to speak, I put my ear close o her mouth and heard these words: "I have always been fond of that scripture, I have loved thee with an everlasting, love.' Now I am proving it.”
The next day she knew more about it, for she went to be with the One who had so loved her.
Reader, your last moment on this earth will come. Are on prepared to tiled God? What would your death-bed be? Think! If you are in health and strength, remember, it is only for a season. Something will send you into eternity.
If you are trusting in Christ alone, and know on are saved by Him, are you living for Him? Don't let it be "a wasted life," but live for Him who is worthy of our all.
But if you have learned that everything but Christ is nothing, rejoice, for He has loved thee with an everlasting love.
F. C. C.