OVER the wall! It is a wicked place. Fighting, drinking, cursing, swearing — every form of wickedness goes on from morning to night, and night to morning, in that degraded quarter of the great black city of L —. A young Catholic priest who attempted to distribute religious leaflets there was driven away.
See that man pass every Friday morning! He is a wretched-looking object, and he carries a large sack full of rabbits and game, the results of his night’s poaching. Week in; week out, regularly as the clock, he plies his dishonest trade.
But God sees that man. God loves those wicked people. And He sent one of His children to live within sight of them.
One Friday morning she missed the rabbit-bag man. She was troubled to think of his soul.
“Mr. B —,” she said to her master, “can you tell me where that man that passes every Friday morning lives?”
No, he could not tell exactly; he lived somewhere behind the ale-house — what did she want to know for? “But at any rate, my son J — can tell you.”
So she went to J— ‘s, and in less than half an hour was at the man’s door. His wife opened it.
“I hear your husband’s poorly, so I thought I should like just to come along and ask after him. Mr. B— ‘s son told me he was not well, and so did Mr. B—.”
This was sufficient introduction for the wife, who said, “Oh well, come in,” and she entered the wretched dwelling. The bed, such as it was, was in the “house,” as in the north they call the living-room and kitchen combined. She spoke a few words to the sick man about the Lord Jesus, who was willing to save a sinner like him, though he had worn himself out with his nearly sixty years’ unsteady life. She gave him a tract; he could not read — “But my missus can, she’ll read it to me. Come and see me again, lass.”
She went again the next day, and as she says, “God had given him light already through the tract.” She asked if they had a Bible or Testament. “No, they had never had such a book.”
So she went and got a large-print Testament.
The bookseller inquired, “Do you give those Testaments away? for you have bought seven or eight — you have bought nearly all I have.” Christian reader, ask God’s blessing on those Testaments.
The Testament was bought, and some verses marked in it, and taken to the house behind the ale-house — “over the wall.” “See, I have not time to stay now, but read these verses to him, and I’ll come again.” One verse pointed out was, “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out;” and when this child of God went the next day, she was greeted with, “Aye, that is a grand book you brought, we never see’d a book like it. But see, ‘Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out’ — do you think He’d have a chap like me?”
“Yes, He will; you’re just the one He died for. You see, it would be a bad job for you and me, had He not died for all.”
“I’ve been a bad lad. I never was in a chapel or church except when I was wed.”
“Well, it’s nothing to do with church or chapel; it’s just to go to God and give yourself up entirely to Him and He’ll save you.”
“Yes — I’m dee-ing, I know,” said the rabbit-bag man, “but I’m not afraid now. The Lord Jesus has forgiven me all my sins. That is a grand book, my missus has been reading me out of it ever since you brought it.”
The poor man lived five or six days after, and every day happier in the new-found knowledge of Him who loves to save sinners. His wife and son, too, simply believed the Word of God which had been put into their hands, and find it their greatest treasure. The son says, “Aye, it’s a grand light for us — it’s far grander than t’ electric light” They have moved away from “over the wall” —and the language of their hearts is―
“And in that light of life I’ll walk
Till traveling days are done.”
Christians, let us awake! “Is it time for you, oh ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?” This is not a tale of years ago, but of the last few months; —not of far-off lands, but of a place like those near us all. Let us follow Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Unsaved reader! except the poor poacher’s Saviour become your Saviour, you are lost forever, for “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)).
T. T.