A SERVANT of Christ, while traveling in the lumber district of Michigan a short time ago, was waiting in a station house for a train, and while there, fell into conversation with a man who was sick, and had come in to the settlement to consult a physician. The doctor had told him he could do nothing for him, and that he could live but a few months. The one to whom he told this, asked him how he felt about dying; had he thought of what was coming after death? "Oh,” said the sick man, "I do not fear death." And in reply to the question, "Why?" told the following touching story of the simplicity of faith in believing God's word.
He had lived all his life among the pines; neither he nor his wife could read, they had seldom heard a sermon, and though they knew what the Bible was, did not own one. Their little boy had gone to school one winter and learned to read, and one day had met a man on the road who had spoken to him and given him a Testament, and at night, while they all sat round the fire when the day's work was done, the boy read to his father and mother.
One night he read from 1 Tim. 1.; until he came to the fifteenth verse, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”
“Stop," said the father; "wife, listen to that! we are sinners, and Christ Jesus came into the world to save us. Isn't that good?" "Yes," said the wife, "that is good. Let us thank God for it." And in their humble cabin, on their knees before God, they thanked Him for His great gift, which in simple faith they had just accepted. "And," said he, in telling the story, "why should I be afraid to die, when Christ Jesus has saved me?”
Oh that precious souls out in the darkness of unbelief might so accept this "faithful saying I" c.
“IF the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" This is a most important question. How do you answer it, unsaved reader?