“Good afternoon! and how do you feel today?” asked the visitor of a sick man who lay in bed with an apparently just vacated chair facing him. “Oh! I see I am not your first caller; you have already had a visitor.”
“No, sir, I have not — that is, not exactly — not a caller — no.”
“Oh! I beg your pardon. I thought that someone had just been sitting in that chair. It looks like it, does it not?”
“Yes; it does. And so Someone has. Sit down, sir, and I will explain.
“When I was first ill and had to be left alone up here a good bit, after the nurse had gone, and my daughter was busy downstairs, I used to try to pray straight on for a good while, and not being accustomed to it I found my thoughts wander sadly.
“I told my sister about it and she said, ‘Put a chair near your bedside and consider that the Lord Jesus is seated in it, ready to listen and to reply.’
“So I have done that for a week now and I would not give it up for anything. It is strange how it has helped and comforted me. He has taken away my fear of the dark valley.”
“Well! well! how beautiful!” exclaimed the visitor, as he gazed almost with awe at the empty chair upon which nothing in the world would have induced him to seat himself. “By all means keep it up, friend. Our Father has many was of ministering comfort to His children.”
A month had passed by — a month in which the sick man and daily grown weaker; but one night he seemed better.
“Go and lie down, Bessie my dear,” he said, as he handed her back the emptied cup of nourishment. “You must be tired out with all this nursing of me, I know. The Lord will reward you for all you have done for your poor old father. I am quite comfortable and shall do for a long while now.”
“Well then, I will lie down for a bit. See, here is the bell on the table and I will leave my door and yours wide open.”
“Thank you, my dear. Good night! and God bless you! Put the chair a little bit nearer.”
She did so, kissed him, retired to her room and in a few minutes was lost in the deep sleep of the exhausted nurse.
The clock downstairs struck three and Bessie awoke with a start.
“Dear me! I have been asleep since twelve. I wonder how father is?”
She hurried to his bedside. He did not look up to greet her. He smiled in his peaceful sleep. She knew that it was a sleep from which his weary frame would never waken more.
“He was lying just as I left him,” said Bessie to the minister, “I do not believe he had moved at all, except that his right hand was lying out on the chair.”
The meaning was plain. He had found himself slipping over the brink of the dark river, and had grasped the hand of the only One who could cross it with him.
K. S.