HE was a desperate character, deeply sunk in sin, altogether too bad to be made any better. But vile though he was, one Eye pitied, and one Heart yearned for him; and God, who is “rich in mercy,” was about to display those riches in a vessel of mercy “which He had afore prepared for glory.” If ever “vessel of wrath fitted for destruction” was made anew even as it seemed good to the Potter to make it, this man was he. A sudden stroke of paralysis laid him helpless on his miserable bed, in the wretched hovel he called “home”; and thither came a messenger of mercy, who had often tried in vain to reach his ear and conscience.
“Who told you to come?” fiercely demanded the poor man, as his visitor entered.
“No one told me to come. I heard you were and so I came to see you,” was the kind rejoinder.
“Then you can go again,” he most ungraciously replied, and but that he was helpless, he would have compelled his visitor to do so.
“I am not going till I have told you what I think of you,” the latter responded, who felt this might be his only chance of delivering his message; and amid the man’s oaths and curses he stayed long enough to say, “I don’t wonder you are paralyzed, after the life you have led,” pointing out God’s mercy in not taking him away with a stroke, as He might have done. And then rapidly he told him of another paralyzed man who was brought into the presence of Jesus when He lived on earth, — “and you need what he got, his sins forgiven.” No response but oaths greeted him, and he left—thankful, however, for that one opportunity of telling the fast-bound slave of sin of a Deliverer, although it fell on closed ears.
But God is “long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” He lingered over this poor wretch, and raised him up again to a measure of health. He has lingered over you my reader, how long? The very date of this magazine, “December, 1913,” tells that He has lingered to the last month of another year, but He will not always wait. You may never see 1914; your last chance, your last offer of mercy, may be this now before your eyes.
Oh, as you read of the marvels of His grace lo another slave of Satan (albeit the chains wherewith he binds you, my reader, may not be as loathsome as those wherewith he bound the rat-catcher, yet, if the Son has not yet made you free, you are still a slave, bound by the golden fetters of this world’s pomp, and wealth, and glory, or the silken meshes of pleasure, and hurrying down to destruction) may your heart respond to His love, and may you know that “the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins,” and has forgiven, even yours!
Time passed, and one day the same messenger of God’s grace had occasion to visit a dying publican. The only entrance was through the bar, and there he espied the rat-catcher, drinking with a boon companion. Side by side, then, equally low in circumstances as in sin—but that companion, reader, had been the trusted representative of a respectable commercial house! The building was old, and as the missionary read and talked to the dying man, words uttered in the bar reached his ear, and he soon became conscious that the two men there were plotting against his life. What a picture! Death rapidly approaching to claim its victim in the room above, and murder plotted and planned in the bar below! Having delivered his message, commending himself to the care of His God, the missionary faced his would-be murderers, and eventually got safely into the street, though for nearly an hour he had had to stand with his back to the counter, not daring to take his eye off those who, refusing his Master, hated himself.
Again time slipped by, and walking in the street, the missionary was suddenly accosted by the rat-catcher.
“Mr. —, speaking straight, as one man to another, will you do me a kindness? Will you lend me twopence?”
“And speaking straight to you, as one man to another, what do you want twopence for? A pint of beer? If so, you have come to the wrong man.”
“No, Mr. —, I don’t. I am starving; I want to buy some bread.” Ah! the prodigal had “spent all” now. His drinking companions were gone, his occupation was gone; he had come to an end of all his resources.
Assuring himself by a few kindly, well-chosen words that the man was speaking the truth, his friend entered the nearest baker’s shop, and buying a loaf presented it to him. Taking it, the man poised it on the palm of his hand, and looked earnestly, first at it, then at the donor.
“Do I understand, sir,” he said at length, “that you lend me this loaf?”
“No, I give it to you.”
“Do you remember coming to see me when I was laid up?”
“Perfectly.”
“Do you remember what happened in the bar, when you went to see—, when he was dying.”
“Yes. I don’t muddle my brains with liquor, and have a very good memory.”
“And, remembering all that, you will lend me this loaf?”
“No, I give it to you,” again repeated the missionary.
“Then don’t be surprised if you see me at the Mission Hall on Sunday!”
“I’m not surprised at anything that happens there!” —and they parted.
Sunday night came, and the rat-catcher was true to his word. Attentively he listened to the news of salvation waiting for and offered to him, the door of his heart being opened by the kindly act of a few days before. That loaf freely given in his dire need by the man whom he had tried to murder, made him willing to accept God’s free gift, the “Bread of God, come down from heaven” ; and as simply as he had taken the loaf did he accept God’s gift, when the Holy Spirit made him under: stand how freely it was offered. The rat-catcher was caught!—caught by the chains of love, and a new life showed itself out in the old surroundings, as this “brand plucked from the fire” witnessed throughout his remaining days of the gift given and accepted, until he was takes from his dreary hovel to the presence of the Lord, testifying, to the end, of His grace, and full of gratitude too to the one who had brought him such good news.
T.
“Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”