“PRAISE the Lord, He is so good to me,” said an old Christian.
His wife was dead, and he lived alone, but he often said, “I’m never alone,” and he was always full of praise and thanksgiving. “Sometimes,” he said, “I feel a bit low, and I says to myself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Hope thou in God.’ You’ve got a good fire to set by, and a nice armchair to set in, and a bit o’ dinner to eat; what do yer want more? Oh, but the Lord is good to me;” and then he would start one of his favorite hymns:
“How good is the God we adore,
Our faithful unchangeable Friend,
Whose love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end.”
The old man’s joy was catching, and one left him feeling how good it was to know that precious Saviour, who could satisfy the poor, lone, old pilgrim’s heart, and keep it singing.
I carried his words, “God is so good to me,” to another poor suffering man, and presently he said thoughtfully, “He’s just as good to me!”
Again I carried this back to the old man, and he laughed aloud for joy, and taking my hand in both of his, he shook it heartily, and said: “Thank the Lord, that’s beautiful.”
The last time I saw him he was full of gratitude at the way God had provided for him.
“I was just a-setting by my fire, thankin’ the Lord for giving me half a ton o’ coal, for I do feel the coud so, and ‘tis all paid for, when I heard a knock at the door, and a man says, ‘I’ve brought yer half a ton o’ coal.’ ‘Me!’ I says, who sent it?” I dunno the gentleman’s name,’ he says. ‘I can tell yer,’ says I; ‘ ’twas the Lord!’”
He took me to look at his little cellar heaped up with coals. “Why, it will last you all the winter,” I said. “Thank the Lord, I feel as if I could cry for joy,” he replied.
He looked pale and fragile as he stood and watched us out of sight that day, but I did not think we should see him no more till we meet around the throne. The last words he said to us that day were, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Only four weeks, and I heard he was gone “Home.”
He broke a blood-vessel one night as he lay on his lonely couch. His neighbor, who was always kind and attentive, found him the next morning, and he said, “I’ve broke a blood-vessel.” “Oh, no,” she said, thinking it was one of the attacks of bleeding from the nose to which he was subject. “I have,” he quietly repeated; and to another woman who came in he said, “I shall be in heaven tomorrow!”
A brother in Christ visited him, and again he said, ‘I’m going to heaven, and you’ll come too.”
He was too weak to speak much, but when his friend sang some of his favorite hymns, he raised his hand and kept time to the words.
When “tomorrow” came, true enough, without a sigh or struggle he passed out of all his earthly surroundings and entered into the presence of his Lord and Saviour.
“If here on earth the thoughts of Jesus’ love
Lift our poor hearts this weary world above;
If even here the taste of heavenly springs
So cheers the spirit that the pilgrim sings;
What will the sunshine of His glory prove!
What the unmingled fullness of His love!
What hallelujahs will His presence raise!
What but one loud eternal burst of praise?”
Many will miss the old man’s cheery face and voice; and perhaps some who have scorned his loving entreaties and warnings will say, “I should like to be as ready to go as he was.”
Well then, dear friend, come to his Saviour, the Saviour who made him ready.
You are ready to perish. He is “ready to save.” “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” J. W. B.