A LADY of considerable wealth and good social position — one who had paid particular attention to works of charity and benevolence — was laid upon her dying bed.
Knowing this, she called for her maids and other domestics, to bid them a last “Farewell.” Amongst these was her coachman, who was a sincere believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Impressed with the solemnity and tremendous importance of the moment, the coachman nervously ventured to inquire of the lady if she were “saved.” Astonished at the query, and reminding him of her kindness in general, as well as to him in particular, she asked what he meant by such a question.
“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he replied, “but are you saved? — saved like the thief on the cross?”
Amazed, and indignant, the dying lady exclaimed: “What! saved like the thief? No, I’d rather be damned first, than be saved like the thief!”
Apparently in this state of mind, alas! she shortly passed into the unseen and eternal world.
“Absent from the body, present with the Lord,” — suddenly, through a fit of apoplexy, she was called away from earth to heaven, from the presence of sin and sorrow, to that of the Lord she so truly loved.
We knew her well. Indeed she was the first that ever spake to us of “JESUS.”
A lady, of good social position likewise, she too at one time “walked according to the course of this world,” and was a very real despiser of Jesus of Nazareth.
But “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.” So it happened that her only daughter was brought to a knowledge of Christ as her Saviour and Lord, and she soon became instrumental in the conversion of her two younger brothers.
Vexed and annoyed, the indignant mother insisted on continuing to accept, in her daughter’s behalf, invitations to parties, balls, and other engagements of a purely worldly character, seeking by these means to nullify the testimony raised by the conversion of her child.
It was soon evident, however, that God, who is rich in mercy, and is the God of all grace, was about to claim her as a brand snatched from the burning.
She was taken very, very ill, and for a considerable time confined to her room and bed. There, with opportunity for reflection, she passed through deep exercise of soul; and it pleased God, during those moments of sickness, to allow her to become possessed of a copy of that well-known hymn commencing with―
“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee,
“All the fitness He desireth
O Lamb of God, I come!”
Precious hymn! Over and over again she read it, until at length, claiming the language of the hymn as exactly expressive of the deep need of her soul, she came to Jesus just as she was — “poor, wretched, blind,” — and, like the thief on the cross, proved Him to be the Friend of sinners, the Saviour of the lost.
From this illness she recovered, and, to the day of her death, was a most earnest and devoted follower of the Lamb; particularly rejoicing in that scripture, “THE BLOOD of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from ALL sin,” and earnestly desirous of hearing from the Saviour’s lips, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Very few have we met who so truly exemplified those words written by the Apostle Paul in the first chapter of his First Epistle to the Thessalonians: — “Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
“Delivered us from the wrath to come.”
How is it with my reader?
N. L. N.