IT was eleven o’clock on Saturday night, in the town of B —, in the west of England, 1878, when I heard of a young woman who was very ill.
I went early the next morning to find her out, and never did I look upon a more pitiable object. She was only eighteen, and the mother of a babe a month old. Her mother and her husband were in the room.
On nearing the bed I said, “My dear young woman, you are very ill.”
“Yes,” she said, “but the doctor says he will pull me through.”
“Oh, don’t be deceived,” said I; “you are on the borders of eternity. Do you know yourself to be a lost sinner?”
“Yes, indeed I do,” and she shook her head despairingly, while the tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Well now, I am come to tell you that you have a Friend in heaven, Jesus the Friend of sinners, and He is looking down very pitifully upon you now, and He will in no wise cast out any that come to God by Him” (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)). We prayed, and I left her to the Lord until the morning.
The old, old story of the grace of Jesus and His love was repeated day by day to the poor sinking one, and on the Thursday of the next week the doctor said he must give her up, as he could do no more for her.
She looked straight in his face, and said, “I knew that before; and if I had died last week I should have been lost, but now I am going straight up from this bed to be with Jesus forever.”
All that night she was singing: ―
“Rock of Ages! cleft for me,
Grace hath hid me safe in Thee!
Where the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flow’d,
Are of sin the double cure,
Cleansing from its grace and power.”
At twelve o’clock the next day she called her mother to her, and said, “Give me the last kiss; I am going to Jesus now, and that babe will be with me in three months; ask the old gentleman to bury it in my grave.” She then laid her head back, and peacefully passed away.
The gospel was preached at her grave to a weeping company; and three months after we laid the body of the babe by her side, and spoke again to the people of the grace of Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:1010For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)).
C. C. S.