ONE afternoon in summer, I was met by a respectable middle-aged woman, who requested me to go and see her husband, who was lying very ill. As I paused at the threshold of the house, I caught sight of the invalid, and marked the sad havoc which disease had made in him. I afterward learned that for eight years he had been an acute sufferer, and during the last two had been entirely confined to bed.
“Edward, dear,” said his wife, “would you like to see a visitor?”
“None but Christ—none but Christ,” was his reply.
“But, would you not like to see one who belongs to Him?” she said.
“O yes! anybody, anything, that belongs to Him,” he replied with fervor.
I immediately went to his bedside and said, “My friend, you have been a great sufferer, but are evidently awaiting that home which is prepared for you; and how delightful the prospect of home, after all this pain?”
“O yes, but it is not on account of suffering I want to go home, but to see Jesus; I want to fall at His feet, and bless Him for all he has done for me,” he said. And then with clasped hands, and with upraised face repeated “I do so long to see Him. Yes, to go home this night if it were His blessed will,” adding, “I do not want to be impatient, but do you think I shall go home tonight?”
I knew not what to reply, for although I had life in Christ, and knew Him as my Saviour, I was a stranger to the still more blessed knowledge of Himself as the absorbing object of the heart’s affection, which this dear sufferer so richly knew.
After a short interval I asked Edward whether he would like me to read a portion of God’s word to him.
“Anything about Christ,” was his reply; so I opened my Bible at John 14, which he knew by heart, and read “I go to prepare a place for you.”
“What a glorious and blessed promise,” I said; when Edward raised his face with a bright smile as he replied, “O yes, but it is not the ‘I go to prepare a place for you,’ that I love so much, but the ‘will come again and receive you unto Myself.’”
As I finished the chapter, I again asked Edward if there was any other portion of God’s word in which he took peculiar delight; he mentioned Rev. 7;13-17. When I had concluded, he exclaimed, “Oh! I have washed my robe and made it white in the blood of the Lamb;” while an indescribable expression of joy and peace beamed upon his suffering face, which made me feel that God had set His stamp upon him.
I gazed upon this trophy of redeeming grace, and then kneeling down, could only thank and praise the Lord Jesus, who had bestowed upon Edward the highest good, even the consciousness of His own immediate presence.
When about to go I asked him if he often thus enjoyed the Saviour’s countenance; he replied “Sometimes I am troubled by seeing shadows flitting before me, but they vanish away and then the Saviour comes, and sits down beside my pillow, and talks with me.” He said his sufferings at night were very intense, but added “I would not do without these sufferings, for the Saviour comes and sits down on that chair and talks with me; Oh! I could suffer years longer, if it were His holy blessed will, but I long to see Him, to fall at His feet, and bless Him for what He has done for me!” After a pause he said earnestly, “Oh, do you think I shall go home tonight?”
Not far from this poor man had lived a lady, in a stately mansion, surrounded by every luxury. When she was dying, she first offered the doctor half her property, if he would only grant her life for a few days longer; he faithfully told her that she had only a few hours to live. She then turned to a clergyman, and offered him the whole of her property, if he would only go with her through the dark valley. He too was faithful, and replied, “I cannot, Jesus only can be with you there.” She immediately exclaimed “Oh, I do not know Him,” and passed away.
I repeated this sad story to Edward. He replied “Oh, I am rich, ’tis she who is poor; for I have Christ, and in having Him I possess all things.” And, as I bade him goodbye, he again asked eagerly, “Do you think I shall go home tonight?”
When leaving the room so sanctified by the presence of the Son of God, I longed for the same realization of His blessed presence who alone “Can make a dying bed feel soft as downy pillows are.”
The next day was the Lord’s Day, and I went again to see Edward, accompanied by a friend and a young evangelist. The day was lovely, but we were permitted to witness a grander sight than any which nature can afford. On arriving at the house, we found Edward had passed a trying night of pain; and from sheer exhaustion was unable to say much, but the impress of the peace of God was upon his countenance, and he at once began to speak of his favorite theme, the anticipation of home; dwelling on the words of our Lord “I will come again and receive you unto Myself.” And as we sang to him,
“I’m a pilgrim bound for glory,
I’m a pilgrim going home,
Come and hear me tell my story
All that love the Saviour come,”
his countenance beamed with glory; and with upraised hands and feeble voice he tried to join, and never shall I forget his expression as he burst forth with what was truly for him a song of victory—
“I shall soon with joy behold Him,
Face to face my Saviour see;
Fall in rapture and adore Him
For His love to me.
“Nothing then shall e’er be wanted
In the land of full repose,
Jesus stands engaged to bless me;
This my Father knows.”
In the happy appropriation of his faith he laid especial emphasis on the “Him” and “me.”
Knowing that the small weekly sum allowed by the parish, and the little his daughter could earn by dressmaking, must be very insufficient to meet the wants of such a sufferer, we asked his wife, who was standing close by, if there was any little delicacy Edward might Fancy. “You must ask him yourself,” she replied, “for he would not tell me.” He replied “Oh, do not talk to me of earth and, earthly things: I have Christ, and in having him I possess all things.”
“Yes,” we answered, “but what if it came from Him?” upon which he said, and so emphatically that I could scarcely refrain from smiling, “Yes, if I was quite sure it came from Him.”
We rose to go; he clasped our hands, and again inquired, “Do you think I shall go home tonight? I do not want to be impatient, but if it were His blessed will I would wish to go tonight!”
I longed to see him go home; he believed the Lord would not send any messenger, but come for him Himself; and fully the Lord granted the desire of His servant’s heart. I asked his wife to send for me when she believed the time was due for his release; however, it was not the Lord’s will for me that I should be present. His wife told me that a priest who had come in to inquire after him, seeing his holy joy in the Lord, remarked, “Well, if this is infatuation, it is the happiest infatuation I have ever beheld;” and then, addressing the sufferer, said, “I would give anything to be in your place, cancer and all.” Once, when I referred to his suffering, which, as the end approached, increased greatly, he said, “I would not do without these pains, which bring Jesus so very near. I enjoy more of His presence at night: He then comes and stays with me.”
As I rose to go, after commending him to the Lord, he remarked how delightful it was to see one of the Lord’s people, and then again asked earnestly, “Do you think I shall go home tonight?”
We parted, never to meet again, until the dead in Christ are raised, and we who are alive and remain are caught up together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.
For a fortnight before Edward was taken, his sight and hearing failed entirely, and his frame had become so shattered by disease that it was impossible to move him in bed, but he said, “I do not suffer more than God enables me to bear.” On the Saturday before he went home, he was much distressed on finding his daughter in tears, and entreated her not to cry, because he was going home; again repeating the old saying, “If it were His will to call me tonight!” She replied, “The Lord is worth waiting for, father,” and he gladly acquiesced.
During his last two days on earth, his sight and hearing were quite restored to him, and late in the afternoon of the day on which he was taken he said, “I am going to a new situation, and the Lord Jesus is to be my Master.” His wife thought his mind wandered, but not so; it was only the conscious joy of his Lord’s approach. He then turned to his little grandchild and bade her love Jesus best of all, and to his wife he said, “I love you, but I love Jesus more!” and then bade her and his daughter goodbye, saying they must part for a little while.
For two hours after this he gazed upward, entranced by a glorious sight, and then, stretching out his arms, he raised himself and exclaimed, “O, Lord, Lord Jesus!” and fell back, and was present with the Lord.
“‘Tis not so much as e’en the lifting of a latch—
Only a step into the open air;
Out of a tent already luminous,
With Light that shines through its transparent walls.”
H.