IN the county of Sussex, near to a straggling village, stands a little cottage built by the aged man who has lived in it some forty-five years. For many years past he has been paralyzed, and is therefore unable to earn his living, his speech also is defective, and growing years have made him very feeble. It was the writer’s privilege to visit this old man and his partner in life, in the summer of 1884, at which time his years numbered fourscore and two. In the little cottage living with them was another old man, whose age was eighty-seven.
The two aged men used, in the evenings, to occupy a seat opposite each other in the old-fashioned chimney corner, and when the sun was warm, they would sit upon the bank that surrounded their little garden, shaded from its rays. On my arrival, if outside, they would come indoors, and draw into their respective corners, while I read to them, and expounded from the Book of Life the story of God’s love to ruined man.
After my first few visits, the old lodger became very abrupt and testy. “I have never heard the likes of that before, and do not believe in that religion,” he said, adding, “I mean to bide in what I was Leached when a boy, and I shall alleys keep in the same ruck.” On another occasion he rose from his seat in the chimney corner in anger; saying, “I never did like religious people like you, and suppose I never shall.”
I had been most careful to introduce no other name to him than the precious Name of Jesus, the Saviour, and to own no title save that of “sinner” for men. But he would have it, I was bringing him some new religion. Once, at the close of my reading, and expounding very simply, a chapter in one of the gospels, the old man declared, “That ‘ere book you’ve got is a new one, and I do not believe in them ‘ere new fashioned books.” Having caught sight of a New Testament of large type, I asked if they would lend it me, and read again the same chapter, referring, as I proceeded, to the aged man and his wife to judge whether the words were the same in their Testament and mine. They replied to each reference, “They be just the same, be just the same.” But the old man remained unconvinced, and as dark as ever.
While feeling hopeful about the aged pair I was very sorry for this poor man; he seemed determined, to refuse God’s way of salvation; they seemed to be slowly taking it into their hearts. The last interview I had with the self-righteous man was on one evening, when he bolstered himself up with the vain consolation of having been in the habit of saying his prayers. I asked him as a favor if he would repeat a prayer for me, and very willingly he went through the old rhyme he had learned when a boy, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless the bed that I lay on.” After listening to this ludicrous language, I asked him if this was all he said, for it was no prayer to God, “Do you not speak to God?” said I. His answer was, “No; sometimes I put a bit on myself, sometimes I say a long un’, sometimes a short un’.” This was our last meeting on earth.
A few days later, the poor old man was conveyed to the infirmary, where soon after he passed away from time to eternity. Where! oh, where, to spend eternity? Friend, you, too, must leave this world and stand before God. Are you ready for that solemn event, or are you trusting to saying prayers, or to your good works? You may have smiled at the ignorance of the aged peasant, but his religion is in substance the same as that of the educated and the instructed, who reject God’s way of salvation, and who trust in themselves.
At the close of this old man’s conversation about his prayers, the other man cried out, “What must I do to get pardon?” He had been listening to the scriptures I had read, showing God’s way of saving our guilty souls, and he felt the burden of fourscore years of a life spent without Christ. And in that humble cottage, God heard the cry of the broken spirit. Neither was God long in sending relief to the poor man’s soul. What he so much needed he received, pardon of all his sins, and he entered into peace with God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. A few more visits, and further explanation of the value of Christ’s finished work on the cross, brought my friend into full liberty of soul, and for nearly three years he has been growing in the grace and knowledge of God.
At his conversion he could not read; now he not only reads for himself from the old Book once laid up in the drawer, but he is able to commit much of it to memory, and his delight is to mark passages that particularly strike him with little strips of paper, se that we may talk over them. He does not want any other book read to him now, he says, His dear old partner, too, always takes her seat in the chimney corner, for her share of the reading, and sometimes in the summer we have the little cottage full of their friends, singing praises to God. At the time I write, both man and wife are rejoicing in God, and are happy in awaiting the call to come up higher.
Dear unsaved reader, you, too, need pardon, but God never forgives a sinner apart from the precious blood of His own dear Son. When do you hope to be pardoned? As you hope to reach heaven, you must, before this life be passed, obtain pardon through Christ’s precious blood, or you will be shut up with the lost in hell forever. R. C.