TWENTY MILES from camp, and night coming on. A young missionary, working for his Master in one of the mining areas of Colorado, found himself in this situation one day; he was beginning to look about for a place to spend the night, when a little way ahead he saw an old cabin.
As he got nearer, he saw that it was one of the poorest and roughest of places. Much of the chinking between the logs had fallen out, so that the cold, the wind and the rain could come through without hindrance.
“Surely this place is deserted,” said the young evangelist to himself. “I think I would rather sleep outside tonight than inside that shell, even if someone did live there and made me welcome.”
At that moment the sound of singing floated out through the openings between the logs, and the traveler stopped to listen to a man’s weak voice singing that dear old home song, “The Home of the Soul.”
“O, that home of the soul! in my visions and dreams It’s bright jasper walls I can see, Till I fancy but dimly the veil intervenes Between that fair city and me.
Refrain:
Home, home of the soul!
While the years of eternity roll;
Where no storms ever beat on those glittering sands
While the years of eternity roll.
(Sung to the tune, “Home on the Range.”)
These were the words that reached the ear of the listener outside.
“I must see the man who can sing like that in such a place as this,” thought the missionary, coming up to the cabin.
A feeble “Come in!” came from within in answer to his knock; and entering, he found himself in what was the one small room of the cabin, which was almost without any furniture.
In one corner was a rude bedstead made of boards and pieces of timber on which some old blankets were spread; and on this hard bed lay a man evidently near death.
But death held no terrors for him. The dear fellow had found Christ, and the Saviour who loved him and died to put his sins away was his comfort and stay in his dying hour. Underneath were those everlasting arms of love ready to carry him to those mansions of rest, to be in His presence forever. Has He not said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Heb. 13:55Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5).
“Dying alone, in this situation, twenty miles from the nearest camp, still his look into the great beyond seemed so clear, so real, that the language of the hymn he feebly sung was indeed the language of his heart,” said the missionary, as he told the story afterward.
“He died that night, and I never ceased to feel a thrill of thankfulness whenever I think of him, that I was late that day and so was through grace able to be with that man when his end came.”
Surely that which satisfied one when dying in the midst of such surroundings is not a thing to be lightly rejected. When a young man leaves the home of his boyhood, he cannot afford to leave his Christian faith too!
ML-05/09/1971