“I SHOULD be very glad if you would call and see Mr. M—, who lives just across the road there: he has broken a blood vessel, and I am afraid he is not fib to die, for he has been a very wicked man in his time.”
The speaker was a poor, unlettered woman, herself a believer, and evidently very desirous that her poor sick neighbor opposite should receive like precious faith in Christ.
Having crossed the road to his house, my knock was answered by a little girl, who told me I should find uncle upstairs. On entering his room I found him lying on a bed, which latter, with a chair or two and a musical instrument, was, if I remember rightly, the sole furniture the room contained. His appearance and speech at once showed that I was brought face to face with a man of intelligence and culture, who was apparently very poor and very unwell.
After a few questions relative to his state of health were asked and answered, I opened my Bible and said,
“Would you like me to read to you?”
“I am too weak to bear it,” he said.
“Only just a short Psalm,” I replied, and at once began to read the thirty-second Psalm. I had scarcely finished reading when a lady entered the room, and I felt there was no alternative but for me to withdraw.
The second time I called he answered my knock himself, with a loud “It is not convenient for me to see you. this afternoon.”
I turned from his door with a sad heart, and the report that another servant of the Lord had been refused admission did not lessen the discouragement. However, I could not forget that this “very wicked man” needed salvation, and looked to the Lord in his case to set before me an open door.
The request was by the Lord most graciously answered, and for some time afterwards he tolerated my visits, and suffered me to read and to pray with him, but manifested very little concern as to his own soul’s salvation.
On one occasion I fancied I perceived a change in his demeanor, and really began to hope that at last his eyes were opening upon eternal realities. The very next day I happened to be in a shop transacting business, when the shopkeeper suddenly exclaimed,
“There! look at that couple over there, they both deserve to be horse-whipped! That man and his wife are both of them as bad as they can be, yet they cannot give up going to the public-house.”
One glance across the square was sufficient to cause me grief beyond expression, for I observed that the very couple whose actions had so aroused this busy shopkeeper’s indignation were none other than Mr. M—and his wife!
I said to myself, “Whatever is the use of continuing to visit one so evidently enslaved to a loathsome habit, and moreover so indifferent to the things that belong to his peace? Am I not simply wasting time in visiting such an one?” Presently the thought occurred to me, “Was there not a time when you also were careless and gave little heed to the loving and appealing voice of Jesus? If the Spirit of God had not again and again striven with you, would you not have been even now yourself afar off from peace?”
Constrained to visit him once more, the very exercise of soul through which I had passed made me even more earnest in prayer for his conversion, and I felt I must at least endeavor to convince him of his present perilous and lost condition.
“Much as I desire your salvation,” I said, “beyond pointing you as a poor lost sinner to Christ, and praying that God may open your eyes, that you may see and believe, I can do nothing. The tremendous responsibility of receiving Christ, or of rejecting so great salvation, rests solely upon yourself. If you come to Jesus, just as you are, you shall be saved from wrath, even as others, but without a Saviour you will be lost eternally.”
He appeared to be awe stricken at the thought of the coming judgment, but instead of being offended with the vehemence with which I had addressed to him these few words of warning, it soon became evident that I had won his confidence. He told me his relatives were infidels, and these had brought him up from a child in avowed unbelief. Better still, it soon became evident by the grace of God this sceptic’s heart was at last opened to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. Little by little the light dawned upon his once dark soul, and I could not but rejoice when I saw unmistakeable evidences that the Holy Spirit had begun a good work in his heart, while life was ebbing fast away.
Just about an half-hour before his spirit departed, like Hezekiah of old, he turned his face towards the wall and prayed most earnestly unto Him Who was, and is, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.
“Saved so as by fire,” this once dying infidel went into the presence of the Lord without having opportunities offered him of serving the Lord Christ. But if thou, beloved reader, will accept Christ now, while you have health and strength, He will both receive you, and purge your heart from all its uncleanness, and it may be He will give you many golden opportunities of serving Him on earth. A. J.