THE next Sunday at breakfast, Lacy said, “Will you go to prayers, Susan?”
“Yes,” said Susan, “I think I will.”
“So will I,” replied Lacy, “but don’t it look like rain?”
“To be sure the clouds are blackish,” answered Susan; “but perhaps it may
clear up.”
Lacy yawned, stretched himself, lighted his pipe, and fell into a fit of
thinking. An hour after, he said, looking out at the door, “’Tis too
late now.”
“That is your fault,” said Susan, “I was willing to go.”
Lacy was about making a sharp reply, but recollecting what the clergyman
had said about provoking one another to anger, he held his tongue; and
when Susan went out of the room he felt as proud as if he had killed a
lion; for nothing is so pleasant as thinking we have been enabled to
overcome a bad inclination. “I think,” said he, “I shall get very good
now, after this, by myself.”
Susan now came back with her gown, and hung it before the fire, for the
weather had been damp.
“Keep your nasty pipe out of the way,” said she to her husband, “or my
gown will be spoiled.”
“What a fuss you make about your gown,” replied he; “it would be well if
you thought as much of washing my shirt.”
“No matter,” said she, “I say you shan’t smoke my gown.”
“And I say I’ll do as I like, wife,” replied he. “Tobacco won’t hurt
your gown—look here,” and he was so mischievous as to let some of the
ashes fall on it.
Susan cried out, snatched his pipe, broke it, and threw the pieces at
him.
This was too much for Lacy’s patience, though he was not often
passionate: he seized the gown, and running to the door, tossed it into
the mud that lay in the front of the house.
Much altercation here ensued—Lacy ran out of the house. “Ah!” thought
he, “if we had gone to prayers this would not have happened.” He felt
ashamed of having taken such a revenge on his wife, after provoking her
as he did; but he was too stubborn to go back and be friends with her.
He walked on towards Connor’s cabin, and as he passed the door he plainly
heard the sobs of a woman within.
Such a sound was very strange in that happy and quiet place—he stopped at
the door, and heard Mary sob out—“I know, I know, he will protect
them:—preserve them—but my life—my husband!” She could say no more, and
Lacy entered.
There, on his humble bed, lay poor Connor! death was pictured in his
face; his cheeks were pale, his lips blue, his eyes hollow: he looked now
on his wife and children, and seemed full of grief, but then he looked up
to heaven, and was comforted.
Mary sat beside him: her apron was drenched in her tears; she tried to
hide her sorrow and to quiet her sobs, but she could not: her eyes were
searching about every where, as if for some comfort; but when she saw the
altered face of her husband, she almost went distracted, and could only,
like him, look up to God in humble submission.
William sat on his low stool with his little sister on his lap, Peter was
crying by his mother’s knee, and the baby was asleep in the cradle.
William was the first who saw Lacy, and trying to speak he burst into
sobs and cries.
His father turned slowly his eyes towards him, and saw Lacy; a look of
satisfaction appeared on his countenance, and then Mary saw him too.
Her grief broke out again, “Oh, neighbour, neighbour, he is dying!” she
exclaimed. Lacy could not speak a word, but he shook her by the hand,
and then leaned over Connor. “Lacy,” said the poor man, in a weak voice,
“you wonder to see me thus—you left me well and hearty lost night, but a
carriage was run away with, and the horses went over me; I am dying.”
“Let me go for a doctor,” cried Lacy.
“He has been here—there is no hope.” Connor spoke these words calmly,
but they seemed to cut Mary to the heart.
“No hope, no hope,” she repeated; “he must die.”
“Don’t die, father,” said little Peter, in a piteous voice. “Oh, father,
father, surely you are not going to leave us!” sobbed William; “who will
teach us the Bible, or show us the way to heaven any more?”
“I wish I could, O Lord teach me!” exclaimed Lacy, and he groaned.
“God grant that prayer!” cried the pious Connor. “I know he hears it,
and I trust his Holy Spirit will lead you to Jesus, my friend, and teach
you to lead others there.”
“He cannot,” said Lacy, in an agony, “I am too vile, too sinful, too
wicked, he cannot.”
“He will,” replied Connor fervently, “if you are now sensible of sin, and
feel the need of a Saviour, you will find him; and your dying hour will
be as peaceful as mine.”
Lacy was quite overcome: he sat down, covered his face, and wept. Even
Mary spared a look of kindness from her dying husband to the awakened
sinner.
The clergyman had been sent for, and now came in: he looked with concern
on poor Connor, who forgot his own sufferings, and pointing to Lacy,
said, “Comfort him,” then whispered Mary to send for Susan.
The clergyman touched Lacy’s shoulder, and said, “My friend, raise
yourself, and behold the instructive scene—the death-bed of a Christian.”
He obeyed, and came near the bed with those who had arrived to visit
their dying neighbour; for Connor was loved, or at least respected by all
who knew him.
“Sir,” said Connor to the clergyman, “I trust that my sins, which are
many and great, are forgiven.”
“The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin,” replied the clergyman,
“only believe, and thou shalt see the glory of God.”
“It is so,” cried Connor, “I feel it, I leave my wife and children; but
my Saviour I cannot leave; to him I cling.”
“And he will support you,” replied the clergyman, “through the dark
valley of the shadow of death. This is no late death-bed repentance;
you, my brother, sought the Lord and he was found of you: you came to
Jesus for help, when health and strength were your own, and he will not
leave nor forsake you now in your distress.”
“Yet I cannot help feeling some anxiety,” said Connor, “when I remember
that the years I passed in sinful blindness of heart, are far more than
the days in which I strove to walk with God.”
“It is the gracious promise of our God,” replied the Clergyman, “to his
believing people, that their sins and iniquities he will remember no
more.”
Susan now came in, but was too much shocked to speak. “My dear,” said
Connor to Mary, “cherish that poor couple, and with God’s help strive to
assist them in their way to heaven.”
He was now going apace: they all kneeled down and joined the clergyman in
prayers for the dying man.
Connor uttered some faint sounds—Mary bent to hear them; his words were,
“I know that my Redeemer liveth,” and they were his last.
The poor widow arose: dreadful was the struggle between the repinings of
nature and pious resignation, but the latter prevailed: she raised her
clasped hands and said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,
blessed be the name of the Lord!”
Susan looked at her: she recollected her own sinful passion and
resentment on her late trifling loss; she condemned herself, she knew
that she could never make her own peace with God, and for the first time
in her life she felt the want of a Mediator.
The good clergyman pointed to the corpse, and said, “There is a lesson
never to be forgotten: he was of the world: he was in darkness, until it
pleased God by the light of his Holy Spirit to take away that darkness,
and direct him to the only sure refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. From that
first dawn it has shone more and more unto the perfect day. He grew in
grace, and prayed to be strengthened and confirmed in it.
“For him death had no terrors, but appeared the gate of life: the grave
only seemed to him like a dark passage, and he looked beyond it to
everlasting light and glory in heaven.
“Who can behold the mild countenance of our departed brother, and not
exclaim, ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be
like his!’”
Oh, Reader, may you thus live—thus die!!!
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London: Printed for The RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY; and
sold at their Depository, 56, Paternoster-row; by J. NISBET,
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