While at work one Tuesday about noon, I received a telephone call requesting me to see a dying girl. Feeling the urgency of such a call, I dropped my work, and in a very short time was being ushered into a humble home in the south side of the city. There for the first time, I met Ethel F., yet a young girl, but whose wasted form gave sad evidence that she was not to be long in this world. My heart went out to that poor girl as I saw her struggling hard for each breath – too weak to speak much, and then only with greatest difficulty.
After quietly looking to God that I might have wisdom to know what to say, I drew closer and asked her to listen while I read a few verses from God’s Word. This proposal terrified her so that she screamed, and became so unsettled that it was some time before I could begin to read. At last I read,
I spoke to her of the love of God that sent His only Son to save sinners. She knew she had to leave this world very soon, and dreaded the thought of the judgment of God after death. I sought to show her that if she put her trust in the Lord Jesus who died on the cross, she would never come into judgment. To all this she listened quietly, and her few comments showed the deep anguish of soul through which she was passing. Seeing her strength was giving out, I kneeled down beside her, and prayed that God would open her eyes to see Jesus as her own Saviour. I then left, fearing never again to see her on earth.
About 11 o’clock that same night a brother of Ethel’s knocked on our door. He was much agitated and asked me to hurry with him to see his sister again. At 7 o’clock she had called her father to tell him that she was not ready to die, and asked if he thought I would come back to see her. Mr. F. was reluctant to trouble me, but as her strength permitted, she continued to ask until he agreed to send across the city to get me.
I hurriedly dressed, and together we started for the south side. We arrived shortly after midnight, and were met at the door by Ethel’s folks who reported that she was still living, but in deepest despair. She would cling to her father’s hand saying,
“O, I am dying! Hold me! Don’t let me go! I’m not ready!” She begged them to pray that she might be alive when I arrived, crying, “I’m afraid he’ll be too late!”
As I stood beside her bed this time, she was more composed than before, and asked her folks to get a chair for me. When I began to speak to her, she cried out with all the strength she could muster,
“O, I do want to get my soul saved!”
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” telling her how Jesus wanted her to come, and was inviting her to come and trust in Him. Then quoting
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief,” 1 Timothy 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15), I called her attention to the fact that the very chief of sinners was saved by believing in Jesus; and if the chief could get saved, then surely anyone else could. She assented to this and then cried out, “O, Lord Jesus take me just as I am!”
Soon after that, as the glorious truth dawned upon her soul, she exclaimed, “I see; He paid the debt. I’m saved.”
In answer to a question, she said that it was nothing she had done, but Jesus who did it all, and she was now ready to go whenever He called her.
We then retired to another room and Ethel rested quietly. Now that she had found that peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, she did not call her mother every few minutes as on previous nights.
Some time after daylight, I spoke to Ethel once more before leaving, and found her happy in soul, though quite evidently fast slipping away. With a heart filled with thankfulness to God for having led that lost sheep to Himself, I said,
“Ethel, if we never meet again on this earth, we shall meet above.” A faint smile lighted her face; and with her failing strength she replied, “Yes.”
Wednesday evening I again called at the house, but she was too weak to talk. She had told her father during the day that she was saved and happy and ready to go.
Thursday afternoon Ethel called her folks and putting her arms around her father’s neck said, “I have but a very little while to be here, but it’s all right. I’m ready to go – I’m going to heaven.”
With the words, “great joy” on her lips, her soul left that suffering body to be “with Christ which is far better.” It was indeed a scene that should never be forgotten by that family: less than two days before, she had been in terrible anguish of soul, and then having found peace, and in the midst of much suffering, she had left this world with the words, “great joy.”
Reader, how is it with your soul? Should God call you, would you be ready? You may not be very old, and may be apparently in good health, but you do not know what the morrow may bring. Ethel was only eighteen years old when she died. Only five weeks before, she was in good health. Influenza, complications, and rapid tuberculosis did their deadly work. Please do not wait any longer to go to God about your soul’s salvation. You may not have five weeks of illness, nor even five minutes.