IT was twelve years ago, my dear, when I lost my husband. No, I didn’t lose him, he is not lost, though if I had died an hour before him, I was lost forever. But the Lord spared me. He opened my eyes.
One afternoon my husband and I were sitting together before tea in this little room. He was talking about the Lord, and was grieving over me, as he had often done before.
“Isn’t it a dreadful thing, my dear,” said he, “for me to be in heaven, and you to be in hell?”
“Sure I’m not going to hell,” said I.
“Indeed you are, my dear, indeed you are; there’s nothing in the world to stop you, nothing to prevent it, indeed you’ll surely go there.”
“Sure you’re always threatening the devil on me,” said I; “but he’ll not get hold of me, for he’ll not have me at all.”
“Indeed then, he will my dear, indeed he will, what is there to prevent it?”
“And won’t you go to hell too?” said I.
“No, my dear, for Jesus has died for me—my sins are all gone in His precious blood.”
“And then he began to sing a favorite hymn:—
“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,” &c.
“And isn’t that for me as well as you,” said I, after listening a while.
“Indeed it is,” said he.
“And won’t this blood wash my sins away?”
“It will, my dear.”
“Sure,” said I, “the thief that went slandering and denying the Lord on the cross, when he said, ‘Remember me,’ didn’t the Lord say ‘Today shalt thou be with be in Paradise’?”
“He did.”
“And won’t He take me there too?” said I.
“He will if you trust in Him,” said he.
“Sure then, I do,” said I, “with all my heart.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Quite sure, sartain sure,” said I.
“Praise the Lord,” said he, “then we shan’t be parted after all. Oh! then I’ll be glad when I see you coming after me.”
“Maybe I’ll be there before yourself.”
“Oh no, you won’t,” said he, “I’m going first,”
“My husband was not very well, but there was nothing serious that we knew of. He was standing up by the window, looking across towards the hail, when he said, ‘What is that light, my dear?’”
“What light?” said I, “I see no light.”
“Yes, there’s a great light over there.”
“Maybe it’s the lamps in the hall,” said I,
“I’ll go and see.”
“So I went to the door, but could see nothing, and I began to feel uneasy. When I got back into the room, he turned round, called me by my Christian name, ‘Mary,’ and then died, without another word.
“That’s twelve years ago, and since then, when I first knew the Lord, He has never let me want for anything. I haven’t got to the height of the apostle who could say ‘I know how to suffer need,’ for the Lord hasn’t tried my faith so far as that. Maybe it wouldn’t stand that. He knows what we can bear.”
“All the twelve years I haven’t known twelve minutes’ want, and that’s only a minute for each year. I’ve lost my sight, but as I sit all alone (no I’m never alone), I think of that Blessed One from the manger to the cross, where I see Him, ah no! it isn’t, for He’s off the cross, and it’s in the glory I see Him now.”
A. T. S.