"Safe!"

By:
AN aged Christian, who had been for some time wearing away, lay on her deathbed; her family were gathered around her, eagerly watching every change betokening the last and greatest. She had been silent for many hours, excepting when roused to answer a question; they saw the end was close at hand now, and they longed much for a word, were it only one, that might assure them of the triumph of faith in this her final conflict. They knew death would only open to her the entrance into glory; but they felt it would be an unspeakable comfort to have some assurance from her own lips that in passing “through the valley of the shadow of death she feared no evil”; especially would it be precious, as she had often said, with a solemn anxiety, “If I may be right and safe at last! “At length she opened her eyes, raised them upwards, a radiant look came over her face, and she exclaimed, with the emphasis of triumph, “Safe!” and then calmly passed away.
Thus their earnest wish was granted — the dying lips gave forth one word, and that the word of all others most welcome to their ears; it was only a word, but, oh, the full and glorious meaning it contained! “Safe!” then her former trembling fears were all at rest; Jesus had indeed spoken blessed words to her soul, and crowned the long struggle of her faith with victory; death and the grave were vanquished, and had no power to harm or separate her from Him whom she had long loved.
“Safe!” All that word implies we cannot realize till the last wave of life lands us upon the eternal shore. Great is the joy of the soldier, after the dangers of the battle-field, where the arrows of death flew thickly around, and himself was liable every moment to fall like his fellows, when he is “safe” in his peaceful home again, and past horrors exist only in memory; great is the joy of the mariner, after a long, stormy voyage, and frequent fear of shipwreck, when he nears his native shores, all perils past, all fears at rest, “safe” in the quiet harbor; but these are only faint images of the bliss that must be felt by the dying believer when, as earth recedes, and the glorious scenes of the invisible world open to his view, he realizes he is “safe” in that home of perfect peace and purity, from which he will never more go out. It is well worth a lifetime of earnest seeking, to attain such blessedness at its close!