“KNEEL down and praise Him for me.”
The words were spoken by a man in great bodily suffering, who lay on a bed in a large ward in the Benevolent Asylum, Melbourne, Australia. He was near his end. His former life had been spent in sin. He had been a professed infidel, and his conversion was a marvelous manifestation of the sovereign grace of God to him.
He had now for some years been rejoicing in the Lord Jesus who had sought and found him, but on this particular day he said to the writer, who visited him frequently — “I have long wanted to tell you of the Lord’s wondrous dealings with me. I am drawing near the end of my journey, and I cannot, must not die and leave the tale untold. It is due to the praise of the glory of the grace of Him who has saved me. I have left it, I fear, almost too long, for I speak with difficulty now, but you will bear with me and listen, and tell others again what God has done for me.
“I was left an orphan when four years old, and consigned to the care of an aged aunt, a true Christian, whose godliness I could never disprove to my own satisfaction in all my after-life of wickedness. I remember her Bible. It had pictures in it, and she used to take me on her knee and show them to me with the tears trickling down her cheeks. She would tell me of the Lord Jesus dying to save sinners.
“I grew up, left my aunt, got into bad company, became utterly careless, read bad books, and came at last to say in my heart, ‘There is no God’ — fool that I was; and so I lived until I was more than forty years old. Then God took me in hand and afflicted me. He stripped me of everything, took away my dear ones, took away my property, took away my health, and I came to this place to be indebted to charity for my support. Still I continued morose and hardened, until one day I was arrested in the following way.
“A Christian lady came to see a man in the next bed to mine, and I could not help overhearing her conversation with him. Before she left, she kneeled down and prayed. Oh! that prayer. I felt it was a reality, I was sure it was. Then there was a God, and she had been speaking to Him 1 I had heard nothing like it since the days when I lived with my old aunt. She used to pray like that. Yes, I could not deny it, my aunt was a true Christian, and now here was another. Then the Bible must be true after all, and I! oh! what was to become of me?
“The lady came to speak to me presently, and I was glad to hear her talk. She came often to see me after that day. I told her of my miserable condition, and she pitied me and prayed for me. She said she would ask God to teach me of the Lord Jesus by His Holy Spirit, and He did help me wonderfully. Then Mr. — came, and you came, and by degrees divine light broke in upon me and the terrible darkness was past. The Lord Jesus revealed Himself to me, the vilest and the worst, revealed Himself as the Saviour of sinners, both able and willing to save even me! Well may I love Him and rejoice in Him. What has He not been to me since that day? In what bodily anguish has He sustained me? How has He answered my requests, and at times has filled me with such unspeakable joy in Himself that I have felt I could ask Him nothing, it was so good to leave all TO HIM? And now I shall soon see Him face to face, and I shall stay with Him forever!”
Here he failed, exhausted by the efforts of speaking so much, and overpowered by emotion. Then he whispered, “Kneel down and praise Him for me,” and indeed only praise was possible, for he seemed to have come in spirit already to the heavenly glory where prayer is past. He lingered a few days longer in the same joyful condition of soul, and then peacefully slept in Jesus. Some months before his death a visitor, who was a stranger to him, observing the look of suffering on his face, said, “My friend, you seem very ill―I trust you have a hope in Christ? “With a bright smile he answered, “He has brought me beyond a hope: I KNOW WHOM I HAVE BELIEVED” (2 Tim. 1:1212For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)).
Was not this a brand plucked from the burning? Was not the Son of God manifested to destroy the works of the devil? Are not the fields around us white unto the harvest? Have we not encouragement to be always abounding in the work of the Lord?
“Sound the high praises of Jesus the King!
He came and He conquered, His victory sing!
Sing, for the power of the tyrant is broken,
The triumph’s complete over death and the grave!
Vain is their boasting, Jehovah hath spoken,
And Jesus proclaimed as the mighty to save.
Sound the high praises of Jesus the King!
He came and He conquered, His victory sing!
His victory sing! His victory sing!
“Praise to the Conqueror I praise to the Lord!
The enemy quailed at the might of His word.
In heaven He ascends, and unfolds the glad story:
The hosts of the blessed exult in His fame!
In love He looks down from the throne of His glory,
And rescues the ruined who trust in His name.”
C. E. G.