Some time ago I was asked to visit a sick woman in the City Hospital. Unknown to me, a change had been made in the visiting hours, and I found myself in the ward before the house-doctor had finished his afternoon rounds. As I was about to withdraw, I was invited by the patient in the bed nearest the door to sit down by her and wait for a little while. As I accepted her kindness she said, "Maybe you will be able to tell me words I am trying to remember rightly.”
Her story was this: She had entered the hospital very ignorant of the things of God and was totally careless about her soul. A few days before I saw her, she told me that a lady came into the ward and brought each patient some flowers. "I felt ill and tired," she said, "and did not want to talk; so when she came near me I turned my face to the wall as if asleep. Then she laid the flowers upon my pillow, and passed on. When I heard her go down stairs I took the flowers up. It seemed to do me good to look at them; but I soon saw the flowers were not all—there was a card, and some writing on it. I read the words over and over again, and wondered what they could mean. Soon I began to care more for the card than I did for the flowers. As I read the words I could not help weeping—it seemed as if all my life came back to my mind, and I felt I was a great sinner. When night came I put the card away. In the morning I could not find it, and the words seemed to have gone out of my mind. How I would like to know what they were!”
"Try to remember one word, and I will ask the Lord, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to bring the right verse to my mind," I said.
"There was the word 'sin' in it, and that seems about all I can think of," she answered.
"Were these the words, Tor the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord'?" Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23).
The look of disappointment that clouded the face of the poor woman was sad to witness. "No," she answered. "Those are not the ones I wanted to hear.”
"The very words— the very words! Oh, how thankful I am!" she cried. "And you are quite sure they are in the Holy Scriptures?”
I read the words to her from the Bible. For some time we talked of the wonderful love of God to the perishing and lost. I do not know—perhaps I never shall know on earth— the result of that afternoon's conversation; but I do know that I left her that day with an expression on her face of joy and contentment which had not been there before.