ONE morning in January, as I looked out of the window, I saw that there had been a heavy fall of snow during the night. I had intended going to a place about two miles off, to see a young married woman, who was sick, but I thought that because of the weather I would give it up. However, in the course of the forenoon, the verse, "He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," was brought so forcibly before my mind, that I was constrained to go and see her.
Mary was not only in deep distress of mind, but in great grief at the prospect of leaving her little children. This gave me the opportunity of telling her that she was the very one who needed the comfort of having Jesus for her friend, that if she came to Him He would not only pardon her sins, and give her eternal life, but would love and care for the children in a far better way than anyone on earth could do.
“But," said she, "I am so young, and the children are so young—it's hard to be taken away from them so soon.”
“We read in the gospel by Matthew that ' the Lord said, 'Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.' (Chapter 10:29.) Will not He, who cares for the sparrows, care for your little ones?”
“Come now," I continued, "I have a special invitation for you. Jesus says, Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' That REST is to be found in the forgiveness of your sins.”
“But how am I to come to Him?" she said, at length; "must I not feel a change before I can believe?”
“If you search the whole word of God," I replied, "you will find nothing about feeling a change in order to be saved. You are not saved by feeling, but by grace; all you have to do is to believe. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.' It is neither by seeing anything, nor by feeling anything, that you are saved. Now," I continued, "you see this bed: that is sight. I don't need to tell you there is a bed here. If you were carrying a heavy ' load, you would not require to be told that you were heavily burdened: you would feel it.
But suppose you said to me you had some very valuable things in your chest, I should need to have faith in your word about it. Faith is believing in what we neither see nor feel. God speaks and tells us of pardon and peace, and what we have to do is to believe God. We don't feel we have eternal life, we know we have it, for God's word tells us so.”
Tears fell down her pale face as she spoke of the past, and how she had set up one idol after another, and lived without God, and she trembled lest He would not receive her—wreck as she was— at the end of her wasted life.
“The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin," was my only answer to her troubled heart, and I had the joy of seeing her lose the burden of her sins. Mary seemed to find rest in its fullest sense almost at once, and was enabled to take her children and leave them with the Lord, neither did she ever again take up the burden herself.
One day, when a friend was speaking to her of her sufferings, she said, with a beautiful smile, "I don't want anything but patience to wait; I don't want to get better. I just want Christ, nothing but Christ!”
Dear Mary had great faith in the power of prayer. One day, when I was uniting with her in prayer, I forgot one of her friends. She touched me before I rose from kneeling, and said, "You have forgotten I—." We then joined in prayer again, and she seemed quite satisfied. One of her relatives having spoken to her about the children, she told me afterward that it only grieved her, "for," she said, "I gave them to Jesus long ago, and it seemed like taking up the care again to be speaking and planning about them.”
Her conscience was most tender, and during her last week on earth she was more tempted than at any previous time. This was partly caused by her extreme weakness of body. The last time she complained of this was four days before she was taken home, and then she said, "But Jesus will never leave me, for He has promised, ' I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.'”
Two days after she was very bright, and seemed better. She said to me, "Do you know, I asked the Lord to let me live for a day or two longer." I asked her why she had done so, as she generally longed to go. "Because I wanted to know more of Christ before I went," and for nearly two hours she was just hungering and thirsting after the word. As I read verse after verse, she made me mark them for her; and as I was leaving her, she said, "I have been wondering what kind of robes we shall wear in heaven." Then with a bright, beautiful smile, she added, "One thing I know, — there will be no spots on them." I had told her some time before of a little child who had come to Jesus, and whose daily prayer was, "that Jesus would keep her from spots," which was her childish way of expressing falling into sins.
When next I called to see her, she had gone to be forever with the Lord. I felt that words failed to express my sympathy with the bereaved husband; I could only point him to the one never-failing source of comfort and rest, even in the darkest hours.
Dear reader, are you ready? Only those washed in the blood of the Lamb are ready, —only they shall enter in through the gates into the holy city. Will you be found in that blood-washed company? Will you join in the great anthem of the redeemed, " Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, unto Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." J. D.