GOOD evening, my friend; how is your wife?” inquired a lady of an aged man who was leaning against a gate in a country lane.
“Ah, miss, she’s very low,” he replied, “and her sufferings seem to increase. It is a sad trial―only the Lord Himself knows. But there! ―there’s a need be for it; and we don’t always reckon on the ‘eternal weight of glory’ that is coming by-and-by, do we?”
“No, indeed,” answered the lady, “we are too apt to forget that. But you do know the Lord Jesus?”
“Know Him!” exclaimed old John, looking up with a beaming face, “I should hope I do, miss; and what’s more, I know He love me, and I love Him!”
“Tell me how it was that He revealed Himself to you,” inquired his friend.
The old man raised his arm, and pointed with his stick to a distant valley, over which, the sun was shedding his last rays. “Have you ever noticed that little church, down there, beyond the marshes?
“Well, I’ll tell you all about it. I was brought up there by an excellent mother. There were four of us, and though I am now in my eighty-seventh year, I can still remember her teachings. She used to make us read to her at nights, verse by verse, out of the Bible, ant then kneel, one by one, at her knees and pray and in our little beds she used to come and kiss us before we went to sleep. Ah! I would to God that there were more mothers like her!
“It was when I was nine years of age that the Spirit of God convicted me of sin, and showed me my sinfulness. This is how it was. I was in church one Sunday morning singing that psalm in the Old Version,” In Thy wrath, Lord, remember me,” when a strange, solemn feeling came over me, and as I looked up my eyes fell on a tablet on the other side of the gallery which had this text written at the end, ‘Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” Ah! I thought, ‘that’s what my mother wants me to do.’ Well, when service was over, I felt too unhappy to remain with the other boys playing in the village; I just went straight home, and hid myself in the chimney-corner. I suppose mother noticed how silent I was, for after a bit she said, ‘What’s the matter with you, my boy? Are you ill?’ Then I told her of that strange feeling that had come over me, and my seeing the text, and said I was not happy, for I was so sinful. I remember her laying her hand upon my shoulder, saying, ‘John, I do believe that the Lord is going to make you one of His!’
“When I was ten years old my dear mother died, and I was taken from school, and sent to work with my father. I continued to be unhappy, but I told no one. And after that I went from one situation to another till I was about twenty-five; and then I began to consider my ways. ‘Now I will turn over a new leaf; I will give my heart to God, and I will resist the strivings of His Spirit no longer,’ said I; but I couldn’t give my heart to Him, miss―the world was too strong upon me.
“Some time after I went to hear a sermon, which I never can forget. The preacher read this verse: And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commendeth all men everywhere to repent: because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained.” He will judge the world! He will judge you, sinner!’ exclaimed the preacher, and as he said these awful words he fixed his eyes on me. I trembled, and thought of the coming judgment; the arrows of conviction stuck fast in me, but yet I found no peace.
“When I was about twenty-nine I was in country service, and one day my master being in town, I took his horse out for an airing. As I was riding I was thinking about my soul, and my increasing unhappiness, and I looked up to heaven, and said, ‘Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst set my soul at liberty!’ At that moment it seemed as if He did it, and sent His own peace into my heart. It was peace, miss, perfect peace; and, though I have had hard trials since then, I have never lost that peace. I owe my all to the precious blood of Chris; and those last blessed words that dropped from His lips on Calvary, ‘It is finished.’” G. A. A.