WON’T you go up and see mother? I am very uneasy about her." The speaker was a Christian woman whose acquaintance I had recently formed, and gladly assenting to her request, I soon found myself in a quiet back room, occupied by a pleasant-looking old lady, eighty years of age, busily employed as I entered in making a patch-work quilt.
We soon became friendly; and she told me, pointing to a pair of crutches, how some months before she had been knocked down, dislocating the hip joint, and at her age could never expect to walk again.
Sympathizing with her bodily suffering, I spoke of the soul and its needs, only to find, alas! that her daughter's uneasiness was but too well founded; for though a respectable, religious, church-going woman all her long life, Mrs. J—was utterly in the dark as to the condition of her never-dying soul. She had "done her best;" "had brought up all her children to Sunday school and church," though the wife of a publican; "had seen them all at the communion table with her;" but she had never seen herself a lost sinner needing a Savior.
I spoke of Him, but there was no response: she was too occupied with herself to find beauty in Him. Still, as time hung heavily, she gladly accepted the offer of an interesting book to read; and that visit was the first of many, during which God's gospel concerning His Son was told her, and several volumes containing His truth lent her.
“The entrance of thy word giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." When the first ray of the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" penetrated her dark heart I never knew; but it did so, and gradually a deepening interest in hearing of God's love in the gift of His Son told that He was working in that aged heart, and leading her to find in Him a needed, a satisfying, and a glorious Savior.
Her first definite confession of the change was made in the words quoted in the heading. We had been speaking of heaven, and I asked if she was going there. Force of habit led her to answer, "I hope so;" but instantly she recalled the words, saying, "No, I don't hope it; I may say I know it.”
There was not far to search for the ground of her assurance: it was Christ; and from that time her one theme of interest and joy was Christ. It is written, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life."
Nearly five years after my first visit, I entered that little room for the last time. Having removed from the neighborhood some months before, it was long since I had seen her, and her daughter said I was "only just in time." She was passing away, only conscious at intervals, and scarcely able to speak, senile decay having made fearful havoc of that once active form, “Do you know me, dear Mrs. J—?”
It was evident she did, for she tried to say something about "coming so far.”
“And do you know the Lord Jesus?”
A great effort, for articulation was very difficult; but the answer came clear and distinct, "I do." "And you are going to be with Him?”
I am.”
At this moment the daughter addressed me, and I turned to reply, but a movement recalled me to a sight never to be forgotten. The dim eyes were gazing upwards, and an expression of deepest love, adoration, and worship, passed over the withered, altered features, and thrilled through the tones of the feeble voice, as she addressed Him, "Lord Jesus!”
They were the last I heard her utter. Shortly afterward she was with Him.
Reader, "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit," but "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."