Traveling on the Great Northern Railway not long ago, I was glad to find myself in a coach with only one other passenger, as I thought, the Lord might have so ordered it to give me an opportunity of speaking to this man about his soul.
As an introduction, I asked him where he had come from. He told me that he had been to see his aged mother, and had found her very ill, and apparently dying. I then asked if his mother were saved, and happy in the prospect of soon being with Jesus. He said he was sorry to say she was not, and, what was worse, he did not think she was troubled about her sins, or at having soon to meet God in eternity. I then said, "I judge that you are saved, and know that all your sins are forgiven?”
"Yes," he answered, "but I have known it only a short time, though I have 'met in class' for twenty years, and have had a very good class leader. Last winter I had influenza, and thought I was going to die; and then as I looked at death and eternity, I asked myself whether I had done anything in all these twenty years of profession which could enable me to stand before a holy God. I went back over the many years that I had been a church member, and I could not find one thing that I had done which was good enough to give me a ray of hope, in having, perhaps soon, to meet God. I was greatly troubled that all my twenty years had been spent, without having found, what I now wanted in the prospect of entering eternity, peace with God. I said to myself, What can I do? Where can I look? To whom can I turn? And in my distress I cried to God, when a text of Scripture came to my mind, `Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' I immediately answered, `That is enough, for I am a believer in the Lord Jesus; and God's Word says "Thou shalt be saved," so I must be saved.”
"On this single scripture I found rest at once to my weary soul, and have ever since known what it is to be justified by faith, and have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This little incident is written, trusting that God may bless it to some precious soul who, like this man, may be joining with others in class to tell their experience, without having yet found rest by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.