SOME years ago a lady had occasion to go into a shop in the north of London, the article she required not being immediately obtainable, she was requested to call on her return. She did so, and was met, not, as before, by the mistress, but by a strikingly noble-looking man, who at once attracted her attention and moved her pity by his evident feebleness, for his tall figure was bowed by illness, and his face bore the marks of suffering.
Mrs. S. was unwilling to let slip any occasion of speaking of Christ to those in sickness or sorrow, but about this sufferer there was an undefinable something that might have prevented, had he not himself opened the way. He apologized for the absence of his wife, and for his own inability to serve, by reason of his extreme weakness, as he was only just recovering from a very severe illness.
“I can see that you have been very ill," replied Mrs. S. " Pain and sickness are sad, indeed, but how greatly are our sufferings lightened when we have a bright prospect before us—the blessed certainty of soon going to a place where there will be no more pain or sorrow; all that grieves us now will have been left behind forever."
Steadying himself into a more upright position, and fixing his large, lustrous eyes upon the lady, as though reading her through and through, he replied, after a short pause, “Do you believe that?”
"Yes," said Mrs. S., earnestly, “indeed I do; do not you?”
“No."
As that dread “No “fell slowly from his lips, the eyes of Mrs. S. filled with tears, and she could only repeat, " Oh, I am sorry—I am sorry for you."
"Are you?" he replied. "Well, I believe that you are the first person who has ever said that. You are sorry for me! Well, I am sure I have had pain enough here. But what do you know of trouble? You don't look as though you had seen much of it."
“Oh, how greatly you mistake," replied Mrs. S. “My life has been one of most painful trial—of such sorrow that only one thing has helped me through it."
“And what is that? “he asked.
“Ah, it is that very thing which you tell me you do not believe," said she, sadly.
“Well, if you can look so bright because of that," replied the invalid,” I should not be sorry if I believed it too, if it would make me as happy as you seem to be." And as Mrs. S. rose to leave the shop he begged her to come and see him again.
Mrs. S. thought much of this meeting with the stranger, and at last determined to take a little New Testament with her on her next visit, and, if possible, to induce him to read it. She soon called again at the shop, and after some conversation, taking out her Testament, she offered it to him, begging him to read it for himself.
"You don't know what I am," said he, "or what I have done. If you did, you would never ask me to do that."
Upon her repeating her desire, and telling him it could matter little to her what he had been or done, he said, “I am an infidel, and have been an infidel lecturer. Do you ask me to read and believe what I have spent my life in refuting”
Terrible as this discovery was, it only increased Mrs. S.'s desire that one who had gone so far astray should be brought to the Lord before it was too late. With intense eagerness she entreated him to read the book which she had brought him. At last he gave an unwilling consent, moved, as it seemed, by the earnestness of her manner. Then, with a simple confidence that the Lord would surely use His own word, she left. She knew that “God is His own interpreter," and that in His precious book is to be found the answer to all the infidel thoughts of the human mind, the antidote to all the poison which Satan can instill into the poor human heart, so ready to listen to his lie.
Some little time passed before Mrs. S. again saw the one in whom she took so deep an interest, but the day when she met him once more was a day never to be forgotten by her.
Speaking of it afterward, she said, " His face, as he stood at the door and saw me come towards him, seemed to light up with unearthly brightness; it was just as though a gleam of glory irradiated every feature, and shone in the deep eyes, which sparkled with joy. He burst forth in words of welcome and thanks to me for bringing him the wonderful book of God that by His Spirit's power had led him to cast away all his evil theories and opinions, and to find in their stead a living, loving Saviour and Friend. Yes; he had found a reality now, not only a Saviour from all his sins, not only peace through the precious blood of Jesus, but a mighty arm to lean upon, a tender, pitiful heart into which to pour all his burden of cares, and abundance of mercy to forgive and cleanse, even the poor infidel."
“All you told me is true," said he. “I have been trusting in a lie all my life, but now I believe this book; I bow to Christ, and I rest in Him."
Language fails to express the joy of such a meeting. He, who all his life had been a bond slave of Satan, was now brought into the liberty of a child of God. He who had been a son of disobedience, was now a son of God by faith in Christ. Jesus.
Every time Mrs. S. met the former infidel, the love of God in Christ was the theme, and happy were the moments they thus passed together. Circumstances fora long time prevented her from seeing her friend, and at last the news reached her that he had gone home to learn still more of the blessed Lord. When she heard from his son an account of his father's last hours, she could but repeat to herself as she listened, "Death is swallowed up in victory."
“This little book was always with him," said the young man, taking from his pocket the well-worn little Testament, "and just before he passed away he gave it to me, begging me to keep it."
May that living word, by the blessed operation of the Holy Spirit of God, reach the heart and conscience of the songs it reached his father's, and not his only, but yours, too, beloved reader. L. T.