IN my early days I was acquainted with one a few years my senior. He was of an intellectual turn of mind, and of great determination of character. He lost his father when quite young: his mother knew the Lord, and was anxious for her son’s conversion. At the time I now speak of he was nearing manhood. His mother showed signs of consumption, and thinking her time here would be short, her anxiety about him increased, and she spoke frequently to him about his soul, which he resented.
One day, as she was urging him to yield to Jesus, he said, “Mother, I’ll never yield.” He told me this himself at the time, and judging by his manner, he evidently meant what he said. I was passing through exercise of soul then, which he knew, and he strongly advised me not to give way to it, but put on a bold front. Not long after he removed to a distant town, where he spent the remainder of his life. His mother soon after died. I saw him once more a few years later, being on a visit to the town where he lived, but there seemed to be no change in him then.
More than thirty years elapsed before I heard anything definite about him, and I had often wondered whether he had repented of those words uttered in rashness so long ago.
Many a time during that long interval I had shuddered to think of them, oh! if God should leave him to his own choice! But God had purposes of mercy towards him.
A few years ago I was delighted to hear that the Lord had dealt with him ere He called him hence. For some time previous he had been earnestly seeking the Lord. A severe attack of influenza prostrated him, but he recovered a little strength.
One day he said to his wife, “I want to go to C―,” naming the place he came from.
“Oh, no, dear,” she said, “you are not able to go.” So the matter dropped for a day or two, when he again broached the subject, expressing a strong desire to go. She told him again it was out of the question, as he had not sufficient strength for such a long journey.
With great emphasis he said, “I must go, or else I shall go mad.” The poor wife was alarmed, and consulted his doctor, who said, “Well, you must let him go.”
His son and daughter accompanied him, but he was very exhausted when he reached the house, where his two sisters lived, and the very house, I believe, where he spoke so “unadvisedly with his lips.”
He was glad to go to bed at once, and seemed to think he was in the right place, being quite contented in spirit.
After he had lain there a few days, he suddenly called out to one of his sisters to come upstairs at once. She thought he was taken worse. The moment she entered the room, he joyfully said, “It’s all settled!”
“What do you mean, D―?” she said. Instinctively guessing his meaning, she then asked, “Do you mean―
“‘Tis done! the great transaction’s done!
I am my Lord’s, and He is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on,
Glad to confess the voice divine’?”
“Yes, that’s it,” he responded.
Thank God, he had at last yielded himself to his Saviour and Lord, and on the very spot where he said he never would, and after such a long lapse of time too.
How true it is that the Lord is “long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
“He might have left us to endure,
The wrath we seemed to brave,
Our case would then admit no cure,
For who but He could save?”
Truly this was a brand plucked from the burning. Had God said Amen to those reckless words of his, how awfully solemn it would have been! But the Lord spared him, that He might bring him to Himself and make him a trophy of divine grace to His own eternal praise. A few days after he passed away to be with the Lord.
And now, dear reader, I would fain ask you, How is it with you? Have you yielded? Had my friend been left to himself and his own choice, eternal perdition would have been his portion. You would hesitate perhaps, yea, be afraid to use such defiant language as he used, but if up to the present moment you have refused to come to the Saviour, you have been practically telling Him you will not yield.
Oh! beware, lest He take you at your word! Should He one of these days do so, could you reasonably blame Him? You perhaps have sometimes felt almost disposed to give in, to give up your puny contest with God, whose Spirit has so long striven with you. Do not forget that there are myriads now finally lost, whose last chance they sinned away, and who once were in a similar condition to you, on the very verge of decision, but the world’s charms were too much for them, and they have now lost both the world and their own precious souls. Oh, what would they give could they have one more chance such as you now possess! Do you think they would misuse it? No, no. They would utilize the brief moment granted, lest another should be denied them.
Will you then madly throw away these golden opportunities at your disposal, of being saved? saved from the guilt of your sins, from the coming wrath, and the pit of woe? Oh, if you do, it will be a deliberate act of soul-suicide! You may not think so now, but the time is fast coming when you will see it all in the light of a lost eternity, and your grief will know no bounds. May you be led to say―
“Lord, Thou hast won, at length I yield;
My heart, by mighty grace compelled,
Surrenders all to Thee;
Against Thy terrors long I strove,
But who can stand against Thy love?
Love conquers even me.
All that a wretch could do I tried,
Thy patience scorned, Thy power defied,
And trampled on Thy laws;
Scarcely Thy martyrs at the stake
Could stand more steadfast for Thy sake
Than I in Satan’s cause.
But since Thou hast Thy love revealed,
And shown my soul a pardon sealed,
I can resist no more;
Couldst Thou for such a sinner bleed?
Canst Thou for such a rebel plead?
I wonder and adore.
If Thou hadst bid Thy thunders roll
And lightnings’ flash to blast my soul,
I still had stubborn been;
But mercy has my heart subdued,
A bleeding Saviour I have viewed,
And now I hate my sin.
Now, Lord, I would he Thine alone;
Come, take possession of Thine own,
For Thou hast set me free;
My hands, my eyes, my ears, my tongue,
Have Satan’s servants been too long,
But now they shall be Thine.”
W. B. C.