“WHATEVER have you got there, Mary?” exclaimed a young man gazing at a mysterious looking placard which, on his return home, he found nailed up in his cottage.
“It is only a picture that two ladies brought me this afternoon,” replied his wife; “they told me to fasten it up on the wall here. It is about the two roads in the Bible. Look, Robert! this is the broad way that goes to hell, and this heart, with ‘hopeless’ written on it, is to show that those who tread this path are miserable, because without God and without hope for eternity. And see, this is the narrow way which leads to heaven; it starts at the cross of Jesus, and ends with a crown of glory.”
“I can’t say I like the thing, Mary,” returned her husband, moodily. “You’d better take it down again.”
“No, I can’t do that, Bob, for it was given me on purpose to put here; if you don’t like it you must take it down yourself.”
“Well, put it upstairs, if you must have it somewhere; anywhere but here, where I shall see it every time I come in.”
“You can put it just where you like, Robert; but I dare not move it.”
So the diagram remained, giving its unwelcome message to Robert every time it caught his eye. He would generally try to look the other way, especially when his wife was present; but she often saw a furtive glance cast at it from behind the towel, as he washed his face, or while apparently busy at other things. Once or twice, coming in suddenly, she caught him standing earnestly studying the picture, and her heart was full of hope that it was indeed doing the work for which the ladies had given it. Still, if he spoke at all of the objectionable chart, he only expressed annoyance, and cavilled at it, saying there was no sense in the figure, for, as the narrow way came out of the broad one, they were really all walking on the same road.
“Yes, Bob, so we were at first, for we were all born in sin. Until eighteen months ago you and I were walking on that broad road together; but then, you know, I found out that I was a sinner, and that the path I was treading led to hell; soon after I heard of Jesus and His dying love, and gladly came to Him, and He has saved me. Now I am going on the narrow way to heaven, and I do want you to walk there with me, for, as the picture shows, the two roads will never meet again, though they were one at the beginning.”
“And what do you think of our little Minnie and baby? Which road are they on?”
“Minnie is too small to know much about it yet, and of course baby knows nothing; but Jesus loves little children, and He died to save them, and I know that if either of them were taken now He would have them in heaven with Him. But, dear Bob, you cannot possibly take the same ground that they do before God, for you are old enough to be responsible as to which road you choose to take.”
Weeks passed on, and Mary had the sorrow of seeing her husband still engrossed by the world and its fleeting pleasures. He had great talent for music, which often furnished him with an excuse to refuse his young wife’s pleadings to go with her to hear the gospel preached. It repeatedly happened that he had just at that hour an engagement to perform at a concert, or to join some friends for music practice.
Poor Robert! he was moral and upright, a member of “The Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society,” highly respected by all; he was the kindest of husbands, the most loving of fathers, but he was out of Christ, and he knew it, and was ill at ease. Especially did he feel this when with Christians, and therefore as far as possible he avoided their company. Mary was sorry to see how abruptly he would leave the house when her mother entered; or, if left in charge of the little ones, and unable to escape, would beg her not to speak of the Lord’s things.
However, the diagram, undisturbed still, lifted up its silent testimony, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, a change was working. Robert would sometimes confess to Mary that the hymns he sang pricked his conscience. The opposition of former days was gone; he was so much “won by the conversion” of his gentle wife (1 Peter 3:1) that he now respected her Christianity, and even went so far as to own he wished he had what she possessed. He would often hold her up as an example to others, and though Mary modestly shrank from praise, which she felt was more than she deserved, still it made her heart beat high with hope that her many prayers for her beloved husband’s conversion would soon be answered.
On coming in from chapel one Sunday evening, he seemed much overcome, and remarked that if his heart had not been so hard he would have been quite broken down by the sermon he had heard, for it was almost more than he could bear.
A few days later Robert was busy upstairs at some carpentering for his wife, while she was at her work below, when a sudden cry from him brought her hurriedly to his side. The sharp tool had slipped, making a terrible cut in his thumb, and Robert was white and trembling, and wholly unnerved. Mary hastily summoned her mother, and together they bound up the ugly wound, and gave him restoratives. For a day or two he let himself be nursed at home; but impatient to return to his work, did so as soon as the wound seemed healing, and thought no more of the accident.
So a week passed quietly away, when Mary was made uneasy by her husband repeatedly complaining of a stiff feeling in his face, to which no simple remedy she tried could give relief. She persuaded him to go to the doctor, who told him it was only the effect of a chill, which poultices would soon remove. However, this did not prove to be the case; the stiffness and pain increased to such a degree that he found great difficulty in opening his mouth to take any food. Convulsive spasms also began to shake his whole frame, and Mary, terribly alarmed, sent for further advice. The new doctor, having heard the symptoms, asked if the young man had lately met with any accident.
“Yes,” replied his mother-in-law, who had come in to help to nurse him, “he cut his thumb a fortnight ago, but it is about well now. Look!” and she showed him the nearly-healed wound.
The doctor abruptly left the room, signing to her to follow.
“It is lock-jaw,” said he, as soon as they were alone, “and he must die. Break it as gently as you can to the poor young wife.”
“Mother,” called Robert, “come up and tell me what he said.”
Lifting up her heart to God to guide her words, she came slowly and sorrowfully back, and stood in silence by his bed.
“Mother, I know he has told you I am done for; it’s all up with me.”
“He has, my lad.”
“Oh, mother, mother, what shall I do to be saved? I am dying, and I am a great sinner. Jesus would never have such an one as me.”
“Jesus died, my lad, for great sinners, and He says, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast
out.’”
“Jesus died for great sinners,” chimed in little Minnie, who unobserved had followed her grandmother to the bedside; “Jesus will have my daddy, I know He will.”
Sorrowful days and nights followed of painful watching by the dying bed of the beloved husband and son. Great as were the bodily sufferings, they were not to be compared with the terrible agony of soul of the poor young man, who fully realized now, when he feared it was too late, that he had neglected the salvation that is in Christ, and that he was indeed hurrying to the end of that broad road that leadeth to destruction.
His devoted wife lost sight of her own great sorrow in her earnest desire to help him to find peace in believing; and several of the Lord’s people, hearing of his deep distress, came and read to him from the word of God, and earnestly prayed by the bedside that the wandering sheep might be found by the Good Shepherd.
One who in past days had often pleaded with Robert now sat hour after hour with the sufferer, telling him, as he was able to bear it the story of the Saviour’s love, of the full and free salvation He has accomplished for the sinner, and seeking to explain to him that simple faith in Christ would make it all at once his own. As he thus spoke the first gleams of light and peace pierced the dark clouds of doubt and unbelief that shrouded the soul of the tempest-tossed one.
Mary and her mother were full of heartfelt thankfulness that evening, for He who responded long ago to the faith of those who laid their sick one at His feet had now said to their dearly-loved sufferer, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee,” and they felt the sting of death was gone. But the devil would not let his captive go without a struggle, and soon the new-found peace faded before his subtle attacks.
“Oh, Mary, it is all gone!” he cried, “and I am as miserable as ever. I keep fancying I am standing in the market-place, and one and another comes and invites me to this concert or to that pleasure, and I give in to them all; and I have lost Jesus, and they are dragging me to hell.”
“It is the devil who is buffeting you, dear Bob; don’t give in to him; resist him; and he will flee from you; God says so ‘He that is for you is stronger than he that is against you.’”
But Robert could not get the victory; weak in the faith, he could not withstand the tempter. Mary was sorely grieved to find that all she could say brought no comfort; and longed for some Christian friend to come; but feared, as it had already struck ten, that all would have retired for the night.
God, however, knew her need, and even as she cried to Him for help, a knock was heard at the cottage door, which she opened to admit the minister of Robert’s chapel. He apologized for coming so late, but said he had just heard the young man was dying, and felt he could not wait till the morning.
Mary, in a few words, told him of her husband’s deep soul-trouble. He at once knelt by the bedside, and in earnest prayer laid the whole matter before God, with fervent entreaty that the Lord would again lift up the light of His countenance upon the dying man, and restore to him the joy of His salvation. As he prayed, the evil one fled, and peace as a river flowed into Robert’s soul, never to leave it again. Now, in broken sentences, he turned to exhort the one who had come to minister to him:—
“You, who teach the young, do warn them that they don’t come to an end like mine. Tell them what a terrible thing it is to be on a dying bed without Christ. Even if, as I have done, they should find Him at the eleventh hour, still, let them take warning by all the misery of soul that I have passed through. Bid them seek Him while they have a life to give to Him. Do be in earnest in rousing souls to seek Jesus.”
The minister was quite overcome, and said to Mary as he left, “Your husband has been preaching to me, and not me to him.”
Left alone with his wife, Robert tenderly alluded to their soon-coming separation, and implored her forgiveness for anything in which he had pained her in the past, saying how much he regretted that he had not sought the Lord with her in those happy days when the goodness of God should have led him to repentance. His mind reverting to that which had first roused his sleeping conscience, he added earnestly, “I don’t want you to take down The Two Roads’ now; leave it where it is, to speak to everyone who comes into the house. I am no longer afraid of it, for I know I am in the narrow way that leads to life eternal,”
During the three days that Robert still lingered, he gave a bright testimony as to the preciousness of the Saviour to each one who came to him, and had a word of loving exhortation for those who knew Christ, to be more wholly for Him.
The last night his breath came with great difficulty, but his mind was as clear as ever, and his peace unclouded. The words were hardly intelligible through the clenched jaws, but those standing around the bed could distinguish such sentences as “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.” Then later, “Lord Jesus — come —,” failing to utter another word, he looked wistfully at the mother, who, reading his thought, added, “Quickly.”
His expression now became one of intense and rapturous joy; his uplifted eyes were illumined with a bright and glorious light, as though reflecting some vision unseen by others. He waved his hand upwards, while his lips tried to pronounce the precious name of Him who had become all in all to him, “Jesus — Jesus — Jesus.”
So he passed away, to be forever with the Lord, who had loved him, and washed him from his sins in His own blood. D. & A. C.