Mrs. Abigail Luffe, the "Sister Abigail" of the exceedingly interesting book, "Little is Much," was an earnest and devoted Christian worker, living in Buffalo, New York. Some years ago a woman asked her to come to see her husband, a victim of cancer of the throat.
On a visit to the sick man, Mrs. Luffe found him evidently much annoyed and fearful that she would speak to him about his soul. After a brief conversation with him, she expressed her heartfelt sympathy in his illness and left without having felt led of the Lord to speak to him about his truest and best interests.
But this was a Christian who was not easily discouraged, and she returned to the bedside of the sick man several times. He did not, however, allow the subject of his personal relationship to God to be mentioned, although his visitor often referred to the peace and joy to be found in dependence on Christ. Mrs. Luffe found her opportunity when he asked her: "Do you know what is the nature of my trouble?”
"Yes," was Mrs. Luffe's reply, "you are dying of cancer. Are you not afraid?”
"Afraid of what?" was his quick reply. Without giving his visitor time to answer his question, he began to speak of what he had been and done. "I have lived a good life," he boasted. "I have my life insured for a considerable sum, and have made things right for my wife.”
Mrs. Luffe quietly repeated the scripture: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'”
She later said: "All the time my heart was longing to give him some words of love and comfort, but I could only give him that message, and that alone.”
God by the Holy Spirit carried the Word home in power to the conscience and heart of the sufferer. He was led to ponder the vital "profit and loss" problem, and came to see that he was guilty, helpless, and hell-deserving in God's sight. He realized that, if he died as he was, he would spend eternity in hopeless, helpless misery.
After a day or two had passed, Mrs. Luffe received an urgent request from the sick man to come and tell him how his soul could be saved! Thankfully and prayerfully she went; and on arriving at the house she found an "anxious inquirer," a convicted soul, longing to know God's way of salvation. Gladly she pointed him to Calvary's cross, and told him what Christ's death had there accomplished for him. He rested his weary, sin-burdened soul on the blessed Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him. With humble gratitude he could then say from the heart:
"In peace let me resign my breath
And His salvation see;
My sins deserved eternal death,
But Jesus died for me.”
Three years later a woman knocked at the door of Mrs. Luffe's house and asked to talk to her. She announced that she was the daughter of the man whom Mrs. Luffe had led to Christ.
"I have come," said the daughter, "to tell you something, and to ask you a question. You remember my father saying that he had made ample provision for my mother? All that you said to him was: 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'
"Before father died he gave me two hundred dollars to pass on to you as a thank offering to God for sending you to him with such a message. I intended to bring you the money at once, but every time I decided to bring it I thought: 'Two hundred dollars is too much money.'
"Each time I put off bringing it to you the question, 'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' came before me. At last I can keep that money no longer, and have brought it to you" and, looking Mrs. Luffe in the face, she added, "now, then, am I saved?”
"Saved!" replied Mrs. Luffe, "what do you mean? Do you mean is your soul saved? No, indeed! You are saved from being a thief; you are saved from stealing two hundred dollars. That is all! If you die as you are you will be lost eternally.”
But the Christian worker did not leave the woman in the dark. She told her of the remedy as well as the disease. She showed her that, though she was a sinner, God loved her and had proved it in a marvelous way in giving His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, and that by believing on Him who loved her and gave Himself for her, she would obtain eternal life as a free gift and a present possession.
Pointing to a tablet on the wall, with the name of the house engraved on it, "El Nathan," Mrs. Luffe said, "That means 'God's gift.' God's great 'gift' to sinners cannot be bought. I could not buy your father's gift to me. No more can you purchase the gift of God.
`The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.'”
This conversation resulted in the woman accepting God's gift by simple faith in the cleansing blood of Christ. Before she left Mrs. Luffe's house she could say from the heart: "God loved, God gave, I believe, and I'm saved.”
What will it profit the reader if he becomes a millionaire, having all his heart desires, and dies in his sins?
Friend, weigh it well. Is your decision for or against? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31).