ROBERT C— was a quiet-looking man of middle age, who had recently come to live at a large farmhouse in the capacity of shepherd. An earnest Christian, he looked upon his new post simply as a fresh field of service for his Master.
He was deeply impressed with the fact that his fellow-servants and those around him had never-dying souls, with an eternity before them to be spent in heaven or hell.
In the light of this, he lost no opportunity of putting before them their lost condition as sinners, and urging them to turn in repentance to God, and trust in Christ as their Savior.
For those who as yet were not within his reach—his widowed mistress and her family—he prayed earnestly that they, too, might be saved.
Of course, this could not fail to stir up the enmity of some, and many were the scornful looks and jeering words Robert had to bear.
But he had one bitter opponent, and that was the godless family butcher, who did his utmost to injure him in the eyes of others and bring about his dismissal.
“Why, ma'am," he would say in a wheedling, insinuating tone when he called for his weekly order, “Why, ma'am, do you think I would keep a man like that on my place teaching my servants religion?”
The time had been when the man's wily words would have had weight with the mistress, when the knowledge that she was harboring a man on her premises who was teaching her servants religion" would have filled her with consternation; but lately, doubtless in answer to Robert's prayers on her behalf, God had been leading her to see that she was a poor lost sinner needing a Savior, and a few months after Robert was saying to a friend, " Why, even the missus herself is saved.”
A year or two after a member of the same family, who also owed much to Robert's prayers, was standing by the bedside of a dying man, earnestly repeating to him the truths of God's Word on which she herself had rested for salvation: “Christ Jesus came into the world to SAVE SINNERS "(1 Tim. 1:15), and" The blood of Jesus Christ His Son CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN” (1 John 1:7), but the words fell on ears which seemed unable to take in their meaning!
The man was terribly in earnest, for he knew that death was near, “and after this, the judgment.”
Over and over again she put the Gospel before him—the forgiveness God offers to repenting sinners on the ground of the atoning death of Christ; but it was in vain, for though he listened eagerly, he seemed powerless to appropriate the life-giving truths for himself.
Many times she had prayed for others that they might be saved, and God had heard and answered these prayers; but now she had a sense that God was not hearing her—that her prayers did not rise to Him.
It may be that certain memories were busy in the mind of the dying man—the remembrance of a time when he had tried to extinguish the light of the gospel for others, that light which even now seemed to be denied an entrance into his soul; but there was no evidence of repentance towards God for his past life.
And thus, we fear with his sins upon him, the family butcher went to his account. It was a death-bed never to be forgotten, recalling the solemn words: “Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord." (Prov. 1:28-29.)
It is, indeed, solemn to trifle with God. See, then, that you trifle not with eternal realities. Think of God, heaven, hell, eternity. Be in earnest about your soul.
“Time is earnest, gassing by;
Death is earnest, drawing night;
Sinner, wilt thou trifling be?
Time and death appeal to thee.”
F. A.