SOME three years ago a dear lad interested me very much. I had many conversations with him, being deeply concerned as to his welfare, and rejoiced to find that he was amongst the number of those who believe to the salvation of their souls. He had heard the word of truth from the lips of his teacher in the Sunday-school, and his bright testimony proved that he had received it into his heart.
On one occasion a group of men stood talking together of some coming event of worldly interest, and my little friend was looking on eagerly, as if much interested in their conversation. Observing his apparent interest in the discussion, one of the men asked him, “Well, Alf, and which are you for?” To the surprise of his companions, the boy quietly replied, “Neither; I’m for heaven.”
No more was said at the time, but the words were not without their effect―for the following day one of these men expressed his surprise to Alfred’s father thus: “I shall never forget those words, coming from the lips of a lad ten years of age.”
Two years passed away, during which time Alfred’s serious attention to the Scriptures was often noticed in the Sunday-school and at home. Often, after retiring for rest, he would listen with the deepest interest as his elder brother, who was a christian, spoke to him of the love of Jesus. More than once, after the conversation had ceased, Alfred would ask, “Are you asleep?” and when the answer came, “Almost, Alfred―why?” he would say, “Tell me some more about Jesus.”
One day Alfred met with a serious accident. Upon his brother―to whom we have referred―entering the room, Alfred, though in much pain, begged to have his favorite hymn―
“There is a happy land.”
For a few days after the accident, Alfred seemed to be getting over the injury nicely, but early one morning he called his mother to the bedside. She raised him tenderly, asking him what was the matter. “I am dying, mother,” he replied; “I am going to be with Jesus in that happy land.” And, in a most joyful tone, he sang two lines of the hymn; and then his voice failed.
Intense suffering set in, during which the doctor told us that our Alfred could not live beyond a certain hour on the morrow. When some time had elapsed, Alfred asked what o’clock it was and being told five, exclaimed, “Only two more hours, and then with Jesus.” By this we learned that he had heard the remark made on the previous day, and had evidently concluded that he was to depart when the twenty-four hours mentioned had expired.
Soon afterward, with a happy smile on his face, and on trying to lift his hand to point upward, he exclaimed, “I am going up there to be with Jesus!” Several friends stood around dear Alfred’s bed. Tears fell down their cheeks, and one was heard to say, “Oh, that I might die like that boy!”
What would be your thoughts, if you knew that in a few hours you had to depart Would you be afraid to stand before God, or would the thought fill your heart with joy as it did my dear Alfred? J. H. B.