When John Dean first came under my notice he was evidently far gone with tuberculosis. Becoming interested in him and learning that he was unsaved and of pronounced infidel views, prayer was made for him, and for opportunity to speak to him of Jesus, the Savior of sinners.
His wife and daughter, being Christians, had suffered much because of his hatred of religion in any shape or form, and dreaded anyone introducing the subject of death and judgment to him.
But a dying man on the brink of eternity provokes an earnestness in the heart of a lover of souls that is not to be denied. Failing permission to visit him, someone suggested that I write a letter to him.
I accordingly wrote; but before sending the letter I spread it out before the Lord and prayed that it might prove to be a message from God to arouse this unbelieving soul to a sense of his awful danger.
The letter was placed on the breakfast table for him; and when he came down, he opened and read it. His bitter hatred of the name of Jesus aroused his passions, and tossing the letter into the fireplace, he cursed the writer and Christians generally. His wife left him alone until his anger had somewhat subsided, and the incident dropped out of her notice. She surmised that the letter had been burned.
But God's word, penned in simple faith, was destined to accomplish that for which it was sent.
A few weeks passed away, and the sick man had become so weak that he could barely get downstairs and lie on the couch. One day he asked his daughter if she remembered a letter coming to him which annoyed and upset him. On her replying in the affirmative, he asked her whether she knew the writer, and whether she thought he would come to see him. She replied that he would be very glad of an opportunity to have an interview; and the father further added, "Perhaps you had a hand in sending that letter as well."
That same evening I went to see the invalid. His daughter took me into the room where her father was lying, and after introducing us, she retired and left us alone together. The following dialog took place: "Are you the Henry Scott who wrote a letter to me a few weeks ago?"
"Yes."
"Is this the letter you wrote to me?" at the same time unfolding a well-soiled, tattered letter and holding it toward me. The letter was worn through where it was folded, and gave evidence of having been constantly handled.
"Yes, this is the letter I wrote you."
"Tell me, please, why you wrote it?"
"I wrote to you, Mr. Dean, because I knew you were dying, and if you died as you were you would be eternally lost. I was anxious to warn you to 'flee from the wrath to come.' "
"Do you know anything of my past life?"
"Yes; I know that you have been everything that a man should not be. You have caused sorrow in your home and persecuted your wife and daughter because they are Christians."
"Knowing all this, do you think that God will save such a sinner as me at the eleventh hour? I have never done anything to merit any favor from Him."
"It is not what I think, Mr. Dean, that matters. Let us see what God says in His word."
I read him several passages of Scripture bearing upon the Savior and the sinner and his sins. He drank in the words of life as only a dying sinner aroused to a sense of his lost condition can. Then he said, "That will do. I cannot bear any more; pray for me."
I prayed, and left, leaving my Bible with some verses marked, and promising, on his invitation, to go again.
The following evening I was called to see him. On my inquiring how he was, he replied, somewhat to my astonishment, "I am saved."
Looking earnestly and intently at me, and taking my Bible in his hands, he opened at a marked passage and said, "Does it not say here, 'He that believeth hath everlasting life'? I do believe, and God says I have eternal life."
No words of mine could shake his faith in God's promise, and for the few days he lingered he literally hungered and thirsted for the living words of life, and told all who came to see him what God had done for him.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).