PASSING near an encampment of Gypsies, I went in among them. After buying some of the skewers they were making, I learned one of their number was ill, and begged to be allowed to see him. The father asked: “Did you want to talk about religion to him?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“About Christ.”
“Oh, then, you may go; only if you talk religion, I’ll set the dog on you!”
In the caravan I found a lad alone, and in bed, evidently at the far end of the last stage of consumption. His eyes were closed, and he looked as one already dead. Very slowly, in his ear, I repeated the scripture, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I repeated it five times without any apparent response; he did not seem to hear even with the outward ear. On repeating it the sixth time, he opened his eyes and smiled. To my delight he whispered, “And I never thanked Him! But NOBODY EVER TOLD ME! I ‘turn Him many thanks. Only a poor Gypsy chap! I see! I see! I thank Him kindly!”
He closed his eyes with an expression of intense satisfaction. As I knelt beside him, I thanked God. The lips moved again. I caught, “That’s it.” There were more words but I could not hear them.
On going the next day, I found the dear lad had died, (or rather had fallen asleep in Christ) eleven hours after I left. His father said he had been very “peaceable” and had a “tidy death.”
There was no Bible or Testament in the encampment. I left one of each. The poor man wished me “good luck,” and gave me a little bundle of skewers the boy “Jemmy” had made.
Reader, it was apparently the first time this dear boy ever heard of God’s salvation, and with unquestioning faith he took God at His word, and with his dying lips thanked Him that He so loved the world as to give His Son for him, “a poor Gypsy chap.” God is satisfied with the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This poor lad was also satisfied, and this mutual satisfaction was instant and everlasting salvation. In eleven short hours he exchanged that forlorn, rickety caravan for the paradise of God, where he is tasting that God is as true as His word.
If you have not with your heart said “Amen” to God’s way of saving lost sinners, you are on the extreme verge of that death which God calls “eternal,” and He alone has the keys of hell and death. But the “grace of God that bringeth salvation” is brought down to you—to your very level—to-day. Oh, will you walk past it to “the great white throne” lying ahead of you, and thence to the fire that “never can be quenched?” or will you pause and take it and “turn Him many thanks”?
My fellow-believer, may none within your reach or mine have occasion to say, with regard to these everlasting realities, “Nobody ever told me.”—Glad Tidings.
ML 09/10/1899