IN a continental capital, in which some years ago I carried on my profession, I one day entered my office and found the card of a nobleman who had called during my absence. He desired to see me at his estate on important business. His name only was known to me, and the following summer’s day, as I embarked in a steamboat on one of the loveliest of lakes, I wondered why he should have selected a stranger like myself to visit him. Landing at the private pier, I was met by a servant, who awaited the arrival of the steamer, and conducted me to the mansion, which I had already seen from the lake.
Here I found luncheon prepared, and, after partaking of it, accompanied my host to a distant part of his estate, not returning till the dinner hour.
I was now introduced to her ladyship, who seemed to me extremely gay and quite a lady of fashion, while in her face there was a peculiar softness, and in her manner a gracefulness that attracted my attention. She was very handsome; her luxuriant gray hair, almost perfectly white, gave her a striking resemblance to a French queen, whose portrait I had somewhere seen.
Two languages were used at the table, but as she spoke only French, I decided that she must be of French extraction.
After dinner we retired into the drawing-room, where we found her ladyship alone. She was engaged upon some homely knitting; and her husband being called out of the room, we were left alone. For a few seconds there was silence, then she looked up from her work, and asked if I were not English. I said I came from Scotland, and she told me she too was Scotch. She then proposed that we should converse in English until her husband returned, and explained that as he did not speak her language, and she did not speak his, they always spoke French when together.
We then conversed in our mother tongue about things in which we had common interest, connected with our own dear country, and I felt my heart drawn out towards her, finding her so unlike what I had first imagined.
After a few minutes the nobleman returned, smiling as he heard English, and saying we had had enough of it.
The steamer’s bell soon summoned me away, and I left, wondering if I should ever again meet my countrywoman, but she was moving in circles where I could not reach her, and where, I feared, Christ and His word would have no attraction or savor.
The following summer I saw her again just as she hurried from the portico of an hotel into her carriage, splendidly attired, and leaning on her husband’s arm; doubtless they were going to some scene of gaiety. They were generally traveling, except when the Parliament was assembled, and seeing their names in some newspaper amongst those who had left the capital, I ceased to think of her, although sometimes my heart would rise to God for one who was being hurried along the broad, brilliant, dazzling path leading to destruction. She was the only Scotch lady I then knew as a resident in that city, and this fact seemed to single her out as one for whom I should pray, and whose salvation I should desire.
The summer passed, and it was the depth of the coldest winter that for many a year had been felt even in that cold city. For months we had heard only the bells of sledges ringing in our ears, until the sound was unattractive and wearisome. The snow was deep, the lakes covered with ice about a yard thick, and the cold so intense that traveling was dangerous in the extreme.
Another day of only a few hours’ sunlight was drawing to its close, when the silver bells of a two-horse sledge suddenly stopped, and a ring at the door bell announced a visitor.
It was the nobleman, wrapped in furs. He took both my hands in his, and said, “Pardon me, do not refuse my request, I shall, be forever grateful to you; my dear wife is dying, and she must see you, I do not know why, but I have done everything she desired, and now you must come!”
I needed no beseeching, I could have gone a hundred miles that cold winter night to see her once again, and wrapping what I had round me, I accompanied him to the sledge, where we buried ourselves in our furs, and were soon dashing along the lighted thoroughfares. He scarcely spoke, and I was glad of the silence to pray, or rather to cast myself in entire dependence on God, who alone knew the path in which He was guiding me, and the work He had for me to do.
The family were then living in their town house, so we were soon there, and as we passed through a suite of magnificent rooms the mirrors and curtains, the soft Persian carpets, and dazzling gaseliers seemed to me as the ornaments of a coffin; for death was there, shading, withering everything.
I was shown into a large bedroom, and the attendant and nurse retired.
The dying lady held out her hand as I went up to her bedside. She was as fascinatingly beautiful as ever; her hair was somewhat disheveled, her face a little paler, but her eyes, even in that darkened room, as lustrous and expressive as when in perfect health.
I said I was sorry to see her so ill; she replied, at once, “I am dying, I have at most only a few days to live, and I am so unhappy!”
I told her I had often felt for her, carried along in the whirl of the world, having no opportunity and no way of knowing the Lord, whom I knew and loved as my Saviour.
“Oh!” she said, “you do not know, or you would not pity me; for I had a godly mother, and I was with her when she died; she often prayed for me, and her last words urged me to seek the Lord; and I nursed a dear sister who lived and died as an angel of God, and I know my friends in Scotland are praying for me; they chose Christ, but I chose the world, and would not listen to them. I have had it, and now I am leaving it, dying—unsaved. They will be forever with the Lord, my mother, my sisters, all but me, and I am going to be the companion of devils. Do not pity me, I deserve it; I loved the world, despised Christ, and all my opportunities, and now I am lost!”
I heard it out, for there was no use in checking the utterance of her wretched, burdened, miserable heart, and it was all true, I felt sure.
I knew now why she had sent for me, she was in deep trouble, but I felt so powerless so unable to give a word of comfort; she would not have my pity, she knew she was condemned; she condemned herself, too and I was silenced. She had put herself a God’s bar, had poured in evidence of her guilt, had justified God in condemning her and I stood like an onlooker to see the end My only hope and hers must be, Was there mercy from the bench? Would the Judge be the Saviour?
An English Bible lay near, and I took it up; it lies beside me now, her Bible, the gift of one who cared for her soul. I turned over its leaves at random, for I knew not where to look; it opened at Luke 15.
I read of the shepherd leaving the ninety and nine to seek the one lost sheep, and hove he took it on his shoulder and carried home, rejoicing over it. Then of the lost piece of silver and the eager search for it the lighted candle, the sweeping of the house, the finding, and the joy. Then I read of the prodigal who went so far away, and who when his substance was wasted, and he in misery and nakedness, said, “I perish with hunger.”
I looked round, and saw that she way deeply moved; the big tears were following each other and falling on the pillow; she did not care to wipe them away; she only said—
“That is Me.”
I continued reading of his coming to himself, and the return, the father’s love, the embrace, the kiss, the robe, the ring, the feast, and the joy of the father over his lost son, and said—
“That is God.”
I knelt down, and, with her, just confessed that God’s justice must punish sin, and that our only deserving was the outer darkness and the lake of fire, but thanked Him for His love in sending His Son to bear the wrath and save the lost, and bring us back to God through faith in Him.
Then I felt that I should go, that the Father and the prodigal were together. It was His time to embrace, and hers to confess to His grace. And I could come again to rejoice with them.
I know now that there were hearts in Scotland breaking for that dying lady; prayers were going up to God day and night for her, from those who would have given anything to have been at that bedside. But there was no means of communication—only the telegraph. Letters were written by her relatives, that came after she was in the grave, beseeching her to look to Jesus; but the mail-boats were stopped by the severity of the weather, and she was dying surrounded by the world she had chosen, and no one to care for her soul.
More than once I saw her, in life, still beautiful, and the calm of heaven on her brow, answering to the peace of God in her heart. She had nothing but a misspent life behind, and nothing but Paradise before, and He, with her, who had done all, and forgiven all.
Her peace was like a great deep river flowing into eternity, and she passed away without a fear. She had her head rested upon the bosom that beat with the tenderest love to her. She could trust the One, who had borne with her rejection and hatred, and who loved her notwithstanding all. J. S.
Once as prodigals we wandered
In our folly far from Thee;
But Thy grace, o’er sin abounding,
Rescued us from misery.
Thou the prodigal halt pardoned,
“Kissed us” with a Father’s love;
“Killed the fatted calf” and called us
E’er to dwell with Thee above.
“Abba, Father!” we adore Thee,
While the hosts in heaven above
E’en in us now learn the wonders
Of Thy wisdom, grace, and low,
Soon before Thy throne assembled
All Thy children shall proclaim,
Abba’s love as shown in Jesus,
And how full is Abba’s name!