One hot day in July I left that part of the city given up to business and pleasure. Through the heat I walked toward the residential section. On a back street I finally stopped before a small tavern. I went in and asked a waitress who was there if a man named Barron lived in the house.
"Yes, sir," she said; "you will find him in a room upstairs, but he is very sick.”
"I have been sent here by one of his friends who thought he would like me to see him and have a little visit with him. I have been a sailor too.”
She showed me the way upstairs and into a large room. As I entered I was much struck with the appearance of the poor sailor. He was a young man, attractive in features, but greatly wasted, and his prominent cheek bones were red with fever. He was lying on a bed where he had been for two long years, unable to move because of a severe and continued attack of rheumatism. Near his bed on a table was a dirty pipe; and on his bedspread was a weekly paper of the lowest sort. His appearance was such that it was painful to see him. Not a smile greeted me—only a dark, despairing look which made me think of these words: "As others which have no hope.”
"You are a sufferer, my friend," I said, as I seated myself near him. Then after some kind words I asked him to tell me something of his past life. His confidence was gained, and he told me that he had served on board a man-of-war. When he was off the coast of Newfoundland he had caught a cold which he had neglected. Severe pains followed; and from the hospital where he had been taken, he had come home a few years before crippled and helpless with his health completely gone. "And here I am, sir, always getting worse, and without any hope of getting better.”
"Now, my friend," I said unto him; "where, are you as to eternity? Are you ready to meet God?”
At this question he was greatly upset. A cloud passed over his face and he turned his head away without an answer.
"What about all your sins," I continued; "the innumerable sins which you have committed?”
"I have done my best," he said; "I have done my best." And then he stopped.
"But you are afraid to meet God as you are, and eternity is before you. You are traveling thither at a rapid pace.”
His face became flushed. He breathed heavily, and, unable to control himself, he gave way to sighs and groans, saying: "I need to be reconciled with God. Oh! I need to be reconciled with God!”
"Blessed be God for that!" I exclaimed. "It is a cry of need. It is your sins which trouble you; those frightful sins which are weighing upon you and dragging you down to hell. You feel that you cannot meet God as you are, and that there is a barrier between you and Him.
"Well, listen, and I will tell you how God, who is light, has manifested His love. That is to say, how God, who is pure and holy, makes known His love to a miserable sinner. Let us go back over nineteen hundred years, and consider a scene which took place at Jerusalem.
"You see there three crosses. Look at those on each side of the center one. To each of these is nailed a malefactor, men who deserve their punishment. Look at the cross in the middle. Who is nailed there? It is One who has done nothing wrong. Who is He? He is the Son of God, His well-beloved, become a man. But He is a man without sin; yes, a man without a stain. He lived as a man here upon earth. He walked among men. The path He took here below, blessing and doing good to every needy one along the way, led on to the cross. To that He was nailed; upon Him our sins were laid; the punishment that we deserved fell upon Him. There, by the sacrifice of Himself, He has taken away our sins, removed them forever from before God and from His remembrance. Yes, those sins which trouble you now, and which are a barrier between you and God, Christ has completely put away the moment you believe in Him. Don't you see that to accomplish this, God could not spare His Son?”
After prayer I left him, promising to send him a text to put on the wall of his room, and that I would return in two days.
I came as I promised, but what a change! No pipe, no trashy paper! Instead, there was a text on the wall, and on his bed were an open Bible and a hymn book. And his face! All care and all fear had disappeared, giving place to an expression of profound peace.
"Oh, sir," he cried, "I am reconciled, completely reconciled with God. Christ has done it all. He is my Savior. And now I am not afraid to die, for He sees me in His dear Son, and has put all my sins away.”
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)." Eph. 2:4, 54But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:4‑5).