A few years ago as I was reposing in my tent in California, about twelve o’clock at night, a man came to the door of an adjoining tent and called out―
“Are there any Christians here, gentlemen?”
One man sprang from his bed: “I love my Saviour,” said he.
“Come with me, then,” said the stranger, “there’s a man dying out here, just beyond the walls of Captain―’s fort; he says he wants to talk with a Christian.”
They ran out together, although the rain was pouring down in torrents, until they came to where the dying man lay. He was stretched on a couch, I was going to say, but I hardly know what to call it, for it was made up of broken benches. On these he lay, while a few bedspreads were thrown over him. He was dying. Let us hear his testimony. He said to my Christian friends who gathered around him: “I have now reached a point at which the whole scene of my life seems to lie visibly before me. Every action that I have committed, every sin, every crime that I have perpetrated before God, seem to stare me in the face. I can see my way clear back to my youth, and as I look, the scenes of guilt in which I have engaged pass one and another before me in terrible review.”
They sang with him, prayed with him, and endeavored to console him and point him to Jesus; but said he: “It’s all over now; all over! I have rejected Christ, and there is no salvation for me.”
He ceased speaking. They sung and prayed with him again, and whilst thus engaged he closed his eyes in death. His immortal spirit passed into the presence of God, whom he acknowledged to have sinned against and rejected all his life.