One fine summer's day I was told that a youth in a neighboring town was dying of consumption. I visited him and found him seated by a table. On my entrance he looked up. Disease had made sad inroads in a countenance once handsome and intelligent. My attention was arrested by an expression about the eyes—there was a bold, self-willed character before me.
I addressed him somewhat abruptly:
"You are very ill, and with little prospect of ever getting better. Do you know, in the event of your death, where you will go?”
"I expect to go to heaven," he answered immediately.
I asked him the grounds of his confidence. He gave them readily.
"I never injured anybody; I have always done right between man and man.”
His eyes, as he spoke, looked a sort of defiance. He had neither stolen nor lied, and therefore why should he fear?
In his features was unbending decision of purpose. I rose from my seat, as if taking my leave, and said to him, "I am very sorry for you, for though there is unspeakable comfort in the gospel, blessed joy for those interested in it, yet it is not for such as you.”
"What do you mean?”
"The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. He came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance; and, from your own account, you are not one. You are seeking to stand before God in the strength of your own character, and it will utterly fail you. If you were honest and true-hearted, you would admit that your conscience accuses you; and that, to stifle its cries, you are seeking to prop up a character for goodness, which will shut you out of the blessing the gospel propounds. As a sinner, God presents mercy and forgiveness to you through faith in Christ. As having nothing to fear, what want you with the Savior? Hide not your necessity from yourself. Be open and honest; unburden your heart; seek to tell the worst you know about yourself; spread it all out before Him; and plead that for such as you Christ died.”
He understood my meaning and stretching out his hand, exclaimed with some energy,— "I've been a rare fool! You have let light into me. Now leave me alone a bit and be sure and come again soon.”
I left him with confidence and hope. His case then called for sympathy and prayer ere long, for thankfulness and praise. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God was revealed to him in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:66For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)). His conscience was purged through faith, in the blood, shed upon the cross (Rom. 3:2525Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:25)). He saw himself a lost sinner. God gave him to see that Jesus died for such. He spoke of his Savior with raptures—of his great need of Him, and of the grace that found him.
"I know," he said, "Jesus died for me.”
"I've Been a Rare Fool" Sequel
"Have you a tract in store like that?" said a middle-aged gentleman, as he put down on the counter a gospel tract, entitled,
"I've Been a Rare Fool.”
"Yes, sir," replied the owner of the store.
"Have you five hundred?”
"Yes.”
"Have you a thousand?”
"Yes.”
"Let me have a thousand. Ah! that's what finished it!”
"Finished what, sir?"
"It's a long story.”
"I'd like to hear it, especially if it is in connection with this tract you have ordered.”
"Well, for years I've been engaged in church work, have taken an interest in many religious organizations and societies so that a good share of my time has been spent in trying to do good.
"At last, I began to get uneasy about myself, as I awoke to the fact that while I was concerning myself about others, it was not all right with my own soul.
"This made me feel very unhappy and night and day I was greatly concerned about myself. 'Am I pardoned?' I asked myself. Could I say, 'I am ready to meet God?' No, I could not. So great was my trouble of mind, that my health began to give way and altogether my distress was more than I could well bear.
"I went to hear preacher after preacher—even some of the best, but nothing that I heard met my case; no relief could I find.
"The other night, however, I was coming down a road toward the city, when I saw a few people standing around a preacher under a lamp-post in the open air. I drew near, and there I heard what did meet my case, and gave me instant peace. As near as I can recollect, the preacher said, `The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, had done such a wonderful work on the cross—He had so perfectly met all the righteous claims of a holy God—so glorified God about sin, and had so completely put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, that God had in almighty power raised Him up from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in heaven, to show to all men what satisfaction He had found in the work done, and in the One who had done it. And now,' said the preacher, `on the ground of that finished work, God is free to welcome every sinner who feels the burden of his sins, and waits to clear him from all his guilt, and put upon him the best robe—God's own righteousness, which is unto all and upon all who believe. Thus the sinner who believes in the Lord Jesus is fitted to stand in God's holy presence in peace and perfect acceptance in Christ Jesus.”
"At once," said the dear man, "I saw the whole thing had been done outside of myself, and apart from me altogether, though all had been done for me. Joy filled my whole being as I believed it all, and clearly saw it all, and took it all in.
"I then walked a few steps away when a young man came up to me and put that tract in my hands. I took it to my hotel, and read it, and that finished it, and I saw that I too had been 'a rare fool.'”
Reader, are you also a religious worker, and yet without any assurance of salvation, and therefore a stranger to peace? You are working, it may be, to obtain this. Like the subject of our narrative, you may be troubled in soul; but peace does not come to a man by working, nor even by praying, but by believing.
Think over what the traveler heard the street-preacher say, and like him understand and believe that the work that saves the soul, and fits a man for heaven, has been done long, long ago; and God is satisfied with that atoning work, and why not you?