Gathering Jewels Part 11

Amid all the busy scenes of life, is there no time for a cheerful word?

When the Chief Priests and Pharisees sought to lay hands on Jesus, they feared the mult.i.tude because they took him for a prophet. What rays of celestial sunshine sometimes stream into the soul of the disheartened one when the missionary whispers, "Put all your trust in Jesus, and he will care for you." There is balm in Gilead, and there is a physician there. Look at the power of a kind word uttered by the Master. Are there no tumultuous fears allayed in the breast of those two blind men as they sit by the wayside to Jerusalem? They cry, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David." Is there not a stupendous wealth of kindness and potency portrayed in yon scene when Jesus stood still and called them, and uttered those strange kind words: "What will ye that I should do unto you?" How sad is the sight of a blind person! How intensely dark their surroundings! How they excite our pity! How many, alas! are blinded by sin, sickness, and sorrow. "They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. Jesus had compa.s.sion on them and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight and they followed him." Is there any wonder that the whole city was moved, saying, "Who is this?

This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee." Now the Saviour said, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you into the world."

Kind Christian words contain the rich unction of encouragement and inspiration to the sorrowful, heavy-laden heart. So daughter, be of good cheer, thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee.

CHAPTER IX.

THE STORY OF WILLIAM THE CONSUMPTIVE.

Oh, fill me with Thy fulness, Lord, Until my very heart o'erflow In kindling thought and glowing word, Thy love to tell, Thy praise to show.

_Our Missing Link_, a journal devoted to missionary work, has given many graphic recitals of the good work she accomplished in numerous fields, but none of much livelier interest than the case of

WILLIAM AT ST. LUKE'S

"William" is a young Englishman. He came to this country eight years ago. He is now about twenty-four. I first saw him some time last winter. His sister, who lives with her family in our mission block, had told me that she had a brother in New York, who was out of health and out of employment, and was very unhappy in consequence.

I expressed my sympathy, but not knowing of anything that I could do, asked no questions at the time. A few days after she came to say that the brother referred to was in her room; that it had become evident that he was in consumption. He would like to talk with me. I was alone, and bade her invite him in. He came immediately. A tall, thin young man, with a pleasant face and easy manners. I did not speak to him very directly on religious subjects. I believe that I perceived in this first interview that his views were not very clear. I encouraged him gradually to tell me about his circ.u.mstances. His confidence was easily won, and in the course of this and subsequent interviews I learned that his only home was with an aged father, who was himself out of work and in straitened circ.u.mstances. William's clothing was too thin for the inclement weather we were then encountering, and it was plain he could not have the nourishing food his declining appet.i.te required. The sister who first introduced him to me was anxious about him, but her tenement was too small to accommodate her own family, and her husband's wages hardly equal to the wants of his own household.

William's great desire was to procure employment. He would work to the utmost of his failing strength if only he could get work to do. I obtained from the Sick Relief Fund a few shillings' worth of groceries per week for him; but employment, means to help himself, was his one aspiration. I felt sure he was not able to work, but was anxious, nevertheless, though in vain, to gratify his wish. One evening I communicated to him a slight hope of an opening to some employment. The increased brightness of his eye, the red spot on each cheek, and his sleeplessness that night, proved that he was not able to bear even the excitement of a sudden hope. Poor fellow! it was plain he would never work much more.

I must mention here that William's const.i.tution had received the seeds of disease while at sea during the war. He ran away from home and engaged in the revenue service. He also served in the army. He has never been well since his return. His friends tell me that he has been wild, not that he was immoral, to use their own expression. He had been religiously trained in England, did nothing that the world would call bad; but he was wayward, and the occasion to them of great anxiety and displeasure also.

As I said before, we did not talk much at first about religion, not that he avoided the subject. He was very conscious of his own situation as far as the uncertainty of his life was concerned, but he had apparently no sense of sinfulness before G.o.d. Perhaps the reserve was on my side. I think I never felt so much as in this case the utter powerlessness of human influence to bring the soul to G.o.d. He spoke calmly of death; but when I asked him what was the ground of his hope beyond the grave, he replied:

"I have never done any one harm; I have tried to live right."

I replied earnestly: "Do not trust to any such refuge as that."

I then warned him against any hope not founded on Christ alone. He acknowledged that what I said was true, and seemed for a moment disturbed. I cannot recall another conversation in our earlier acquaintance, in which I was able to speak with any earnestness, or in which he seemed at all impressed. I could only pray: "Lord, open his eyes!" It is very wonderful to me, on looking back, to see how G.o.d was leading him all this time. Once he told me of a sermon which he had heard months before, upon the text: "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live." He had never been so impressed by a sermon; he could not forget it.

Occasionally, I observed that his mind was well stored with the Prayer Book version of the Psalms. Sometimes he would quote a pet.i.tion, telling me it had been specially upon his mind. Upon inquiry, I found that at home in England, he had been a chorister boy at church. He has since told me he used to sing the Psalms without any sense of their meaning. Probably the words were never explained to him, or impressed upon him in any way. It was a mere form of a church which confirmed its members at fifteen years old, with very little cognizance of their spiritual life. William, however, had not been confirmed. It would seem from his subsequent life that the words he had chanted, from Sunday to Sunday, had no effect on him, but now, in his last days, G.o.d was bringing them home to his heart, over all the years of his carelessness, and accomplishing that which he pleased. It has helped me to believe that it is not in vain to store the mind of thoughtless Sunday-school scholars with the Word of G.o.d, and that in the most formal Christian Church the words of Scripture are not lost.

But all this time William's temporal wants were increasingly pressing.

His father had been obliged to sell their little stock of furniture, and the house was broken up. One night his sister told me that William had not so much as a place to sleep in. She took him in with her own children for a few days. I recommended that he should go into St.

Luke's Hospital for a month. Perhaps the rest and nourishment he would find there would enable him to get through the trying spring weather, and in the summer he might be better. While this plan was under consideration, William found that he could stay in the room that his father had just quitted until the end of the month, which was half gone. Still clinging to the hope of finding employment, he gave up the hospital plan, while in his almost empty room was neither food nor fuel. His sister did what she could. I applied to the Sick Relief Society for some coal, which was immediately granted. All this time I had not applied to my Superintendent, whose kind and ready sympathy never fails me. The reason was, I have constantly on my heart and hands so many cases of suffering that I cannot represent them all, and am anxious to get through difficulties, as far as possible, without unusual a.s.sistance. But in this case G.o.d's plans were above my reach.

One day Mrs. Knowles called at my room. While we were talking about some mission business, there was a knock. It was William. I had an instant sense that he had providentially called.

"Come in," I said, "and tell your story to my Superintendent." This interview was the beginning of better times for poor William. Mrs.

Knowles immediately provided him with better clothing. I had only succeeded in getting some flannel from the Society. Her kindness did not stop here. In a few days she procured him a job of cutting wood.

_A Difficulty._--William did his first day's work with all the energy his feeble strength would allow, but on being summoned to the same place again, an unfortunate circ.u.mstance occurred. I think it right to state the facts, because it shows how wonderfully G.o.d's grace can overrule. He commenced his work as before, but his strength giving out, he accepted an invitation from a lady in an adjoining house to come in and rest. His delicate appearance enlisted sympathy. She had had some conversation with him in his previous day's work, and was now prepared to express the kindest feelings, especially as she herself had lost a brother with consumption. Observing his exhausted state, she brought forward a gla.s.s of whiskey, which she made him swallow, strongly advising him to procure more and use it as a stimulant. The lady's intention was only kind, but, unfortunately, William acted indiscreetly upon the advice. Encouraged by the momentary relief afforded by the exhilarating beverage, he did procure more. Whether it was the same day or the next, I am not quite sure, but he went to his sister's at last, sadly under the influence of liquor. His weak state, the uncomfortable condition of his affairs, acting with the liquor upon his brain, caused him for a day or two to behave in a very inconsistent and unnatural manner. He seemed even to vary from his habitual truthfulness. Much disgusted, his sister rebuked him sharply, declared that she would tell me, and of course, the inference was that I should tell Mrs. Knowles. But that good woman knew about it as soon as I did. She was grieved and disappointed at what had occurred, but her uniform kindness did not fail. It was evident he was no longer able to make any exertion for himself, and she procured him admission into St. Luke's Hospital.

He went, in the midst of these trying circ.u.mstances, not coming to bid me good-by, and knowing that his sister was seriously displeased. Poor William! disgraced, unhappy, and sick, he went to that bed which was about to become to him as the gate of heaven. I went to see him as soon as possible. I went, intending to talk over with him what had pa.s.sed, but found him so humble and so suffering that I had no heart to make any allusion to it. We neither of us spoke directly upon the subject.

In fact, I said very little upon any subject, for as he lay there with the tears upon his thin face, expressing brokenly his pain and his penitence, I felt that G.o.d was teaching him, and taking hold of the very lesson to show him his true character. He was now coming upon a new ground never understood before.

_The Blessed Change._--Mrs. Knowles saw William before I went to him a second time. She, too, forbore alluding to the unpleasant circ.u.mstances, but she talked to him of our human sinfulness before G.o.d, and our need of a Saviour. Some of his most interesting conversations have since been with her. The second time I visited William his bodily strength had greatly failed, but his face was beautiful with a new light I had never seen there before.

"I feel very differently now," he said, "G.o.d has forgiven all my sins."

He then went on to express his sense of his own unworthiness; not that he had led a vicious life, but he felt he was a great sinner before G.o.d. In the course of conversation I told him his sister had inquired kindly about him; his eyes filled with tears, and he said:

"Tell her I have been converted; I am very happy." The week before Easter, when the Bishop visited the hospital to administer confirmation, William was placed in a chair to receive the rite, and on Easter Day partook of his first communion. It was a glorious day for him. Mrs. Knowles visited him on that day.

A few days after, as I sat by his bedside, he was speaking, as he always did now, of his sense of sinfulness, and his sense of pardon, when I reminded him of the early conversation, before alluded to, in which he had rested on his own moral character for acceptance with G.o.d.

"Yes," he replied, "I used to think so, but I have been all wrong. Now I have no dependence but upon Jesus Christ."

A little before this, he had said to Mrs. Knowles: "I never knew that just trusting in Christ would give me such peace."

He has said repeatedly: "This sickness is the best thing that has ever happened to me. If it had not been for this, I should have gone on in worldliness."

William has never been accustomed to the common religious phraseology.

He is such a babe in such things, that his expressions are sometimes strikingly artless. At one time I was speaking of his sufferings, he looked up with a smile, and hesitating how to express the thought in his mind, said:

"I think it is out of his affections G.o.d afflicts us."

His sister had wept much when I delivered his message. As I returned a kind reply from her, he said:

"Tell her I pray for her and her family every day." Then, when after a little conversation I had bidden him good-by, he called me back, and said:

"Be sure and tell my sister I pray for her." He frequently said to me:

"I pray for you everyday;" and on saying this to Mrs. Knowles, he added, at one time:

"I speak your name to G.o.d when I pray."

When he says this with so much earnestness, we always feel that his prayers are a rare treasure, since the helpless, self-renouncing prayers are most prevalent in Christ. The tenderness with which William speaks of his sister's family has sometimes touched me. There is nothing like the peace of G.o.d to beget good will to man. Knowing that the family had many trials with his sister's ill health and scanty means, he often sends by me messages of sympathy. A few days since it was suddenly discovered that their youngest child, two years old, and a little pet of William's, was in danger of being crippled for life. This new and unexpected sorrow filled the family with great distress. I accompanied the father when the child was brought to St. Luke's for examination. After the physician's opinion had been given, and arrangements made for placing it in the Children's Ward, we went to see William. The unexpected appearance of his brother-in-law, whom he had not seen since coming to the hospital, affected him much. Indeed, the interview was trying to both. I left them alone, and on my return shortly afterward, found William still in tears. He was not so well that morning, and grief for the child, and the sight of the brother reviving the painful memory of their late alienation, was too much for him; yet his peace was not greatly disturbed, for all alienation from man, as from G.o.d, had been healed for him.

_The Tried Word._--I went to see the little child the next morning, and then reported him to his uncle, whose first words were a question, rather anxiously put, concerning the little one. Wishing to set his mind at ease, I said:

"Oh, it is all well with him. I just met him coming down, stairs with a flock of children, and his hands full of bread and b.u.t.ter."

He gave a smile of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, which showed the playfulness of other days might yet be touched. I then went on to tell him the case was not likely to prove as serious as we had feared, and suggested he should get the nurse, when convenient, to bring the child in her arms to his bedside. He was pleased with the idea; but presently the conversation fell off from the subject. William's eyes wandered to the texts of the "Silent Comforter" at the foot of his bed. With the air of one who caught the sight of unutterable things, and has not much more to do with the world:

"See," said he, "I have a good verse for this morning." He began to read: "Fear not, I am with thee."

Beginning to cough, I went on: "When thou walkest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee; and through the fire, thou shalt not be burned. That is just right for you, William."

"Yes," he replied, with his own peculiarly beautiful smile.

"I notice," said I, "that the very words of G.o.d are best for you. You love the hymns, but, after all, G.o.d's own words are the safest to rest upon."

"Yes," he replied, "I live upon those texts. When the nurse comes in, in the morning, to turn the leaf over, _I am eager_."

I did not speak, but watched him as he lay, his longing eyes fixed upon the words before him, with an absorbed and admiring gaze, as if all else were forgotten. His soul was hanging its eternal destiny on the words of G.o.d. A few days before this he had said to Mrs. Knowles: