A minister in Edinburgh tells a story of the conversion of a young man
who was working in one of the mining districts. When the meeting at
one of the churches was over on a particular evening, he saw him
standing by a pillar in the church, the rest having gone out, all but
two or three, and they asked this man if he was not going home. He
said, "I have made up my mind that I will not leave this church till I
become a Christian"; so they stopped and talked and prayed with him.
It was the best thing he could do. I would like every man here to do
the same thing. Make up your minds that you won't leave till you have
settled about your soul for eternity. Well, the next day, while this
young man was working in the mine, the coal fell in upon him, and
before he died, he had just strength enough left to say to his
companions, "It's a good thing that I settled it last night--a very
good thing." Young man, I will leave you to answer the question, Was
it not a good thing he settled it that night?
A young man, who was in the army during the Civil war, told me that
when he heard that his brother, from whom he had never been separated,
had joined a certain regiment, he went right away and put his name
down under his brother's. They messed together, marched together, and
fought shoulder to shoulder. At last his brother was struck with a
Minnie ball, and he fell mortally wounded by his side. He saw too
plainly that he must die, and as the battle was raging, and he could
do nothing to save him, he put his brother's knapsack under his head,
and made him as comfortable as he could, and bending over him, kissed
him, bade him good-bye, and left him to die. As he was going away, his
brother said, "Charlie, come back, and let me kiss you upon your
lips." "As I bent over him," said the young soldier who told me the
story, "he kissed me on my lips, and said, 'Take that home to mother,
and tell her that I died praying for her'; and as I turned away from
him, I could hear him say, 'This is glory,' and as he lay weltering in
his blood, and I wondered what he meant, I asked him what was glory.
He said, 'Charlie, it's glorious to die looking up--I see Christ in
heaven.'"