“On CHRIST the Solid ROCK I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”
FIFTY-THREE years have elapsed since the events I am about to relate took place, but every detail connected with the incident is fresh and vivid in the memory of the writer. There are three important lessons to be learned by the simple narrative: ―
1. The great danger of delay.
2. The abounding grace of God.
3. The power and love that can deliver a soul from rear and make him more than conqueror.
I had occasion to visit my home near O―in the year 1873, as my mother, who first gave me spiritual impressions, was lying on what proved to be her death-bed. She had some soul difficulties, but these were soon cleared up by turning to the Scriptures.
At the same time my brother was seriously ill. This illness was contracted in New York, where he had gone ten years before (1863), and it is wonderful to trace God’s ways in bringing him there, as he met a young man from his own native County Tyrone, who became his firm friend, and gave him a tract entitled, “The Blood of Jesus,” by William Reid, of Edinburgh, which was greatly used in blessing to souls at that time. He then returned home, and some ten years had elapsed when, sitting by the fireside in the old home, he suddenly fell backwards, and as far as one could judge, he seemed to have died. My agony was intense, as I had not seriously spoken to him of vital matters from the time he returned home.
I had been brought to the Lord a few years previously and, as formerly he had been my Sunday School teacher, I was diffident as to speaking to him.
We got him to bed, and as he became anxious I lost no time, and found to my surprise that he was most eager to listen, and where I had anticipated difficulty no difficulty existed. What an important lesson to learn from this!
The doctor arrived and said he could not live twenty-four hours, and every symptom seemed to confirm the doctor’s statement. The big clock stood near, and I assure you he counted every hour with intense interest. He said, “It is all dark―all dark”― “I am going into eternity without Christ.” “I have served the devil all my days, and God will not receive me now.”
I do not desire to dwell upon the agony of those terrible hours, and as he could not bear me to leave him, I remained by his bedside until my friends compelled me to do so.
I must again seek to impress my reader with the seriousness of delaying to come to Christ when the soul comes under the conviction of sin. He lived nearly three weeks after this, so that I had the opportunity of telling him of the full and free salvation that Christ had purchased.
I went to him one morning and asked him if he had any “light,” using his own figure of being “all dark.” His reply was: ―
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”
If the sowing time was sorrow, the reaping time was joy indeed.
I did not know where he got the beautiful stanza, but when he was gone I pulled out from under his pillow the tract that he had kept for ten years.
I must close this short narrative with the last peaceful departure. All was triumph! I repeated a verse of Scripture and he repeated it after me, and in a clear voice said, “I know it, I know it,” and putting his hand on his bosom, fell asleep without a struggle.
Let me beseech the reader, if you have been brought under convictions, do not stifle those convictions; if you have not been brought under convictions, may God in His grace awaken you to the seriousness of your state and of the great blessings that you are missing.
My brother also said to me, “You have done right in coming to the Saviour when you have strength to serve Him.” What an inheritance God has given; it is not merely a deliverance from judgment but the embrace that is never withdrawn―the Father’s kiss, and the feast that begins and never ends.
S. L.