AUGUST A. was a Swedish sailor, who had been ill for several years; sometimes he was able to get about a little, at other times he was confined to his bed. His protracted illness had been the means of bringing him to Christ.
“Before I was ill," he once said to me, "I thought I was my own master." But when I first saw him in a London hospital he had already spent two or three years in the service of another and a better Master—not His active service (for from that his-ill-health shut him out), but in that equally acceptable service of which Milton wrote: "They also serve who only stand and wait.”
He was rather a slow, quiet man, but greatly appreciated any kindness shown him. I remember how earnestly he once spoke to me about a Swedish lady who was in the habit of visiting him: “If I were to live five hundred years I should never forget that lady!
The quiet, simple-hearted Swede was quite a friend and confidant for me in my visits to the hospital. He did not say much, and was not always as bright and happy as one would have liked to see him, but I always knew had his heartfelt interest and sympathy in anything of which I told him, or for which I asked his prayers.
One summer afternoon last year I was greatly startled on going into his ward to see the change in his appearance. His strangely altered features and unnaturally high-pitched voice told of the near approach of death. I sat down by his side and told him how sorry I was to see him so ill.
August gathered his little remaining strength together, and cried: "Don't be sorry! don't be sorry! The Lord's got my soul.”
Oh, the joy of hearing such a testimony from dying lips! Then, raising his right arm as high as he could stretch it, and pointing heavenwards, he said: “I’m going home—there—home!
As I prayed for him he clasped his hands together, and the dying lips sought to join in the petition. "God bless you" he said, earnestly, as we shook hands on parting, and then he put up his wasted hand and patted my cheek just like a little child. It was dear August A.'s last farewell. A few days later I found his bed empty—he had gone to be with his Savior.
Dear reader, if you, like the Swedish sailor, were lying on your deathbed, would you be able joyfully to say, "The Lord has got my soul"? Or would you leave this world in the awful consciousness that, as Satan had been your master through life, so in death your lost soul was in his grasp, instead of in the hand of the Good Shepherd? Oh, I plead with you, in simple faith take refuge in the One who died and rose again. May He be your Savior, your Lord, your all; and then His home will be yours too, and, whether you fall asleep, or are still living when He comes, you will be able to say with happy assurance, “I'm going home—there—home.”