“I WISH you would come and see my husband, sir,” said a young woman to one who had grown old in his Master’s service, and was ever ready to carry the word of life to the bedside of the sick and dying. “The doctor says he has not a week to live, sir,” she repeated, earnestly, “and I want to know that his soul is saved.”
“Are you saved?” he asked, gently.
“No, sir,” she replied, “I cannot say I am; but God may give me time; there is no time for him, sir, no time, and he never had any religion.”
The old man felt deeply interested in the young wife, who in her unselfish love was so full of concern for her dying husband; he promised to visit the sick man, and soon found himself beside him. As his wife had said he had “no religion,” there was nothing to unlearn, and day by day as the aged Christian sat by his bed and spoke of the Saviour, once dead, a spotless victim for sins not His own, now alive for evermore at God’s right hand in heaven, the eyes of the dying man were fixed upon him, and his ears, soon to be closed to all earthly sounds, were attentive to catch each word. Thus three or four days passed; the sufferer became weaker, but he said little, until one morning, when his visitor had been again reading to him, he said suddenly, pointing to some pictures which hung against the wall at the foot of his bed, “Do you think, sir, such things as those are fit for a dying man’s eyes to look upon?”
“I do not,” replied his friend. “Those pictures of proud beauties, decked in all the glittering pomp of this world’s glory, may have pleased you once, but now you are learning that the fashion of this world passeth away.”
“You are right,” he murmured, “‘passeth away;’ yes, that is the word. I cannot bear to see them hang there. Will you take them down?”
After vainly attempting to remove the pictures, the visitor succeeded in turning their faces to the wall.
“Will that do?” he asked.
“No,” replied the invalid. “I will tell you what to do. Take a piece of chalk, and write on the backs of those three pictures what I tell you to write. On the one to the left write, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’” The text was written. “Now, on the middle one, ‘Lord, save me, I perish’ and on the last, ‘Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.’”
With a smile of satisfaction, the sick man lay back upon his pillows, ever and anon opening his eyes to look upon the words which had just been written. They were words of life, and peace, and victory to him. In the last moments of his life on earth the words, “Lord, I believe!” were upon his lips; then “faith was lost in sight,” and he passed into the presence of his Saviour. His widow, now the happy possessor of the same precious faith, still keeps the three pictures with their chalked inscriptions.
C. C. S.