John, a village blacksmith, was known as a most wicked man. He was saturated with everything blatant and blasphemous in infidelity. He hated everything that is good, and loved everything that is bad. He seemed to study to make himself an irritant to all who believed God, not even sparing his Christian wife, who did the best she could in the patience and kingdom of Jesus.
This man finally was given up by the Christians in the village as altogether beyond moral recovery; and so indeed he seemed. Prayer was made as though he had no existence. Churches were opened and shut, with a reference to him never. The gospel was preached and mercy offered to sin-sick souls, but no one connected him with God's message of love to the world.
A few miles back in the country from the blacksmith's town there lived an old couple, Father and Mother Brown. They were close to ninety years of age. Theirs had been lives of consciously walking with God, and of patient, unremitting devotedness to Him. Without sorrow and without fear, they rejoiced in their Lord's promised home call.
Very early one morning the old man awoke. He was exceedingly agitated, and began to call his wife: "Get up, Mary! Get up!"
"Why? What is the matter?" was her natural query.
He answered: "I can't tell you now what's the matter. I'll just start a fire in the stove. You get breakfast ready as soon as you can. I've got to go to town this morning."
"You go to town this morning!" she exclaimed. "Why, you are out of your head. You can't go to town. You haven't any way of going, and I know you can't walk."
"Don't tell me what I can't do," the old man persisted. "I tell you I've got to go to town! God has told me to go and—well, I'll make the fire. Then I'll tell you about it."
His wife followed him. The breakfast was prepared, and when the meal was over the old man started for town. It was a long and weary walk for one so old to take, but strength from above was supplied him and without stopping to rest he kept on. When he reached the village, he trudged through the main street; then into a narrow cross street and to the shop of "Devil John," the blacksmith, he made his way.
"Father Brown!" he exclaimed, in great amazement. "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"
The old man answered: "That's just what I've come to tell you. Let's go inside, where I can sit down; for I am so tired."
Together, they went into the shop. When seated, the old man said: "John, I had a dream last night, and I've come to tell you about it. I dreamed that the hour I have longed for so much and sought to be ready for so long was come. It was my time to die. And it was just like I have thought it would be, just as the Lord has promised it shall be. I wasn't the least bit afraid. How could I be? For in the arms of an angel host I was borne instantly away.
"Beyond the hills and beyond the clouds we mounted through the skies, and it seemed to me that the morning stars sang together. Oh, how they sang! I never heard anything like it in my life. On we swept, and on, till one of the heavenly host said: 'Look yonder, now; there's heaven.'
"Oh, John, I can't tell you how I felt when I was in sight of heaven. How can I tell you what I saw? I don't believe anyone could. All was so peaceful, so beautiful, so pure, and so glorious!
"As we drew nearer, and even faster than we had come, we entered into the city.
"What a welcome! Welcome from everybody, all so glad; gladness everywhere, because I had come— I, only a poor sinner saved by Jesus' blood. Soon I realized that my Savior was the glorious Center of it all, and that I was there with all the redeemed, to the glory of His grace.
"Oh, what joy to see all His dear ones there, and mine. Then, John, all at once it came to me that I hadn't seen you anywhere. I set out to look for you. I went into the street of gold. I asked everybody, and sought you everywhere, but I could get no trace of you.
"Finally I went to the Lord, my precious Savior, and asked Him where you were. And, O John, that you could have seen the sorrow on His face when He told me that you hadn't come.
“‘Not come!’ I said. 'Why didn't John come?’
“What an answer I got! 'Nobody ever asked John to come.'
"Oh, I fell at His feet. I laid my cheeks upon them, and cried: 'Blessed Lord! Just let me out of here half an hour, and I'll go and ask him to come. I'll give him an invitation.'
"Right then and there I woke up. Day was breaking in the east, and I was so glad that I was alive, so I could come and ask you to go with me to my Savior and your Savior, to the Father's house, to the home of the redeemed."
Thus the old man urged upon him the royal invitation; but the blacksmith stood as one petrified. He could not speak nor move. Father Brown got up, and, saying, "Good-by, John; remember you've got the invitation; remember you are asked to come"; then taking his staff he started home.
At last the blacksmith seemed to come to himself. Like one coming out of a trance, he began the labors of the day. But everything went wrong: the bellows would not work right, the hammers would not strike right, the nails would not go in right, the horses would not stand right. "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" he cried.
He began to sob at last. Leaving the shop, he ran home. He told his wife of Father Brown's visit and of the invitation to heaven.
"Blessed be God!" she said. "We will send and have him come back."
"Yes," he added, "for I mean to accept the invitation and to join him on the road to God."