ON a bitter cold night in mid-winter, I was called from my bed to go ten miles over a bleak and drifted road, to see a young man who was sinking in the deep waters of death. He was but twenty years of age. He had been a Sunday-school scholar and a church-goer. He knew all about the way of salvation. But he had broken away from all these hallowed influences of earlier years—he had yielded to the enticements of evil companions, and now he was dying without hope. The messenger who came for me in haste was one of those who had helped him on the way of darkness, but he could not lead him back to the light. I bade the dying youth look to Jesus—plead with him, to look, but his wild and wandering’ eye could see no Saviour in the darkness that was gathering around him. His despairing look and heavy groan only answered “Too late, too late!” He kept sinking till the billows of death passed over him, and no word or sign of hope came from his dying lips.
As I went back to my home in the cold starlight of that winter morning, it seemed to me as if the icy north wind what swept the frozen earth and swayed the naked branches of the trees by the roadside, took up the refrain of those sad and despairing words, “Too late, too late!”
Again, in the same city, on a summer’s afternoon, I was called to visit a dying man. I walked hastily down by the river’s side, where his humble dwelling stood in the midst of noisy workshops, and surrounded with all the sounds and activities of busy life. I entered his lowly room and approached his bedside with awe as well as compassion, for I felt myself to be in the company of heavenly messengers, who were waiting to conduct an emancipated soul from the bed of death to the throne of glory. I felt that I must speak fit words for a redeemed and immortal spirit to remember as the last accents of human lips in this world, and I spoke of Him who is the light of heaven and the hope of earth. The man was dying in great agony, but he could still signify, by the pressure of his hand and the glance of his eye, that in Christ was all his hope, and that beneath him were the everlasting arms. He had lost the power of speech, but he wrote upon a slate with a wavering hand words that he wished to have read. I looked earnestly at the irregular lines, but could see no meaning. One word in the middle of the sentence was larger than the rest, and he pointed to that as if it contained the meaning of the whole. Still I could not spell it out. With dying energy he seized the pencil and slowly printed, “VITORY.” It was his last effort and it was enough. I could now read the whole sentence: “Thanks be unto God who giveth us the VICTORY through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
And as I went from that bedside to my home, it seemed to me as if the roar of the waterfall in the river, and all the sounds of busy life around me took up the word and echoed—VICTORY. And for many a year my fainting heart has acquired new strength at the remembrance of that word written with a dying hand in the chamber of death—VICTORY.—D.M. Glad Tidings.
ML 08/13/1899