“WILL you mind going to see Mrs. L.?” I was asked one day; “she is very ill, and has asked to see you, saying that she has often had little talks with you about Jesus.”
I was quite willing to go, though I was positive that I had never exchanged a word with Mrs. L., whom I recognized from the description given in the course of conversation. On calling, I found her in bed and very ill, yet wonderfully happy at the prospect of going to be with Christ. She speedily discovered that we had never spoken to each other, but as we had in common one Lord, one faith, we were very soon most excellent friends.
Mrs. L. was well advanced in years, and she was in very poor circumstances, being almost entirely dependent upon others. At the time I first visited her, she had just had a severe paralytic stroke, which made her speech so strange and uncouth that it almost needed translating, but the ear became accustomed to it at last, and, after a time, with recovery and returning strength, her words became more intelligible. As is often the case, the sufferer became the means of much Christian joy to her visitor, who had sought to comfort her. No other word so well describes her state as “joyous.” Unlettered, and unable to spell out even the text, “God so loved the world,” she knew the words, and those of many other texts by heart. She was exceedingly bright in soul, and longed to be gone to see Jesus. “My Saviour” was the title by which she so often lovingly spoke of Him, and she would chide her daughter, who was weeping lest she should die, gently saying, “I’m going to glory to see my Saviour; why would you have me stay?”
But Mrs. L. did not die, and, when she was recovering, she told me of her early days and her conversion. When a young married woman she was accustomed to make the Sunday dinner a great feature in the week: probably it was the only good “square” meal that she and her husband had. As to any thought of God, or of attendance at a place of worship, that never entered her mind. But she had a converted brother, who often tried to entice her to a little cottage meeting held on Sunday afternoons. She always resisted his entreaties, and would promise to go only on a condition she knew he would refuse—namely, that he should come and have a hot dinner in her cottage on Sunday! For he, good man, was scandalized at the extensive labor involved in the “Sabbath” dinner. But, as she would not give way, he did at last, and the compact was entered into: he was to come and have a nice dinner of hot mutton, and she was to go with him in the afternoon to the cottage meeting.
He came, and she went; and, as she sat and listened to the simple, faithful words of the speaker, her anger arose within her, and she would fain have left the room, but for the fear of making herself conspicuous. At last the meeting was over. As they were leaving, her brother stumbled over the old-fashioned scraper at the door, and fell to the ground.
“There, Tom, that just serves you right!” she cried.
“Why, Sally, whatever for?” was Tom’s astonished reply.
“You’ve been and told Mr. M. all about me.”
In vain did Tom protest that he had done nothing of the kind. She knew better. She had sat in the cottage, and had heard the preacher talk about her. He had exposed her before all the people, and where could he have known all about her, but from her brother, who had been so anxious to get her to the preaching? Vexed, indignant, and sin-stricken, she vehemently vowed that she would not go near the place again.
But she could not keep away. She had been wounded, and the same gracious Spirit, who had caused her to hear convicting words, broke down her angry resolution. She went again and again, till she rested her soul on Christ [“my Saviour,” as ever after she called Him], and learned, if not the actual words, at least the truth, “that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The words themselves belong now to her little stock of verses, and with wonderful energy does she repeat these words of God to her soul, upon which she can rest and be at peace.
With the true longings of a newborn child of God, Mrs. L. thought of her unsaved husband. There was a simple eloquence in her words as she told me that when in the harvest field, as the ripened corn fell before her, she incessantly prayed that her dear husband, who was ill at the time, might be as ready for the heavenly garner as the wheat was for the swift stroke of her sickle.
Many years have passed since then, but she still retains that distinguishing mark—care for the souls of others! One day, after she had recovered from the illness first mentioned, I overtook her plodding down to the town. She had heard that a man was locked up—an infrequent occurrence in the quiet little country town—and having put a few gospel books in her basket, she was taking them to him. “I’m going to speak to him about my Saviour. Oh, I do want to tell him about my Saviour!”
It seems that it was her custom to keep an eye upon the police station, and to perform the part of honorary chaplain to the unfortunate people that got into trouble, the kindly police giving the good old woman ready access to the prisoners.
Mrs. L. still lives, a lesson to those about her, and to us all, of simple dependence upon Christ for all things, temporal as well as spiritual. When she rose from her bed, after recovering from paralysis, her feebleness was so great that she could not stoop without danger of falling; then she would say, “I just ask Jesus to help me to do whatever I want; He helps me, then I have to thank Him, so it keeps me speaking to Him all day long, and, oh, I am so happy!”
We cannot think of this worthy woman without remembering that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Poor in the things of this life, untrained, untutored, Mrs. L. is yet rich in faith, and therefore happy in soul. The spiritual blessings she enjoys, are in no way hers through a mere intellectual grasp of various truths. Christ is hers, and she is Christ’s, and it is the knowledge of this that makes her so happy. And, dear reader, with a like faith the like happiness may be yours.
J. R.