A LADY asked me to visit a boy, who was dying in the hospital. I found him very sick. He beckoned me to draw my chair close to his bedside, for he could scarcely speak above a whisper.
After a few words of inquiry as to his illness, I asked if he knew whether his sins were forgiven. His pale, worn face brightened up, beaming with heavenly joy, as he told me he blessed God he ever came into that hospital, for this kind lady had visited him and told him about Jesus.
“Ah!” said he, “if Jesus were not the Saviour of the chief of sinners, He never would have saved me. I had no friend on earth. My mother died when I was only four years old; then there was no one left to train me right, so that from my youth I had none but evil companions, who sought only to make me still more wicked than themselves. From the time my father died, about eighteen months ago, I have lived a course of unchecked sin and profligacy, stopping short of nothing that my heart desired, and here I am as the result. Drink and sin ran away with me, and then I was friendless, and many a night had to sleep on a door-step, and six weeks ago was brought here to die, but I feared to die. The terrible prospect of meeting God in my sins glared before my mind as an awful reality, and I could get no relief or peace day or night, until that lady told me what Christ had suffered on the cross for sinners just such as I am—even for the vilest—so that I might be pardoned and go to heaven. She told me that God laid on Him the iniquity of us all; so that, guilty as I was, I might find a full salvation, in Him.”
Here I interrupted him, asking if he were sure that what the Lord suffered was quite sufficient.
“O, yes!” he said (looking me well in the face, wondering at such a question). “O, yes! He has done the work perfectly, and He has done it all. He has done ‘what I never could do—He has perfectly and for ever put away my sins, and perfectly satisfied God. If I had to do anything, what could I do, lying on a death-bed, even to help save myself?”
“Then you can die happy,” said I, “and you do not now fear meeting God?”
“No; no fear now,” he replied. “The doctor told me yesterday I could not live more than three weeks. But I would not mind if it were only three hours; for it is all bright before me, though I have nothing to trust in of my own, for it is all darkness and sin as I look back on my past life, but it is all bright before me. Here I am dying so young, but I would not change places with you, for I am going home. I have but one regret; my life has been wasted in sin, instead of being spent for Jesus, who I now know loved me, and gave Himself for me. I would like to point everybody I am acquainted with to a verse in the Book of Revelation that gave me such rest.”
ML 08/31/1924