A BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE FIRE.
While occasionally serving a destitute Church, between three and four months ago, I was requested to visit a dying woman. I found her in the most distracting agony of bodily pain, but rejoicing at the same time in the consolations of the Gospel. My visits afforded me much pleasure and edification. Being informed that she had been once a most abandoned character, I solicited a friend to collect from her own mouth the history of her life, and since her death have been favoured with a very interesting and circumstantial account of this monument of mercy.
When young she was deprived of both father and mother, but by friends was introduced into a genteel family, where after some time she fell into shameful sin. Her friends abandoned her in her disgrace, but after she had endured much suffering, privation, and want, they were persuaded to receive her once more, and at length provided another eligible situation for her. Thus restored, she might have lived in respect, but a particular circumstance which should operate as a warning, especially to servants, led her into a more dreadful course of iniquity than ever she had been guilty of before.[12] On the Lord's Day, instead of going to any place of worship, she contracted the habit of spending those sacred hours at the house of an acquaintance. Here she formed her most fatal connections, and to this sin of Sabbath-breaking she especially attributed her ruin. A bad man persuaded her to accompany him to London. Here for some years she lived a most profligate life, the circumstances of which cannot be detailed here, further than that sin which brings its own reward found her deserted, and in the Lock Hospital. After a dreadful operation she somewhat recovered, and went out, but only to follow her old sinful course. She was scarcely known to be sober for six years together. Her wretched course of life was a continual burden to her. She often prayed, if such an one could be said to pray, that God would deliver her from it, and accompanied her prayers with resolves to forsake it; but all her resolutions were ineffectual till God's time of deliverance was come. At length she determined to return into the country again. She met with many distressing circumstances by the way, and upon her arrival, her friends would not receive her. She was therefore obliged to apply to the parish, being incapable of getting her living through her disordered state of body. The overseers provided her a room in a house with another woman, where, soon after she arrived, her complaint assumed an alarming nature, and threatened speedy dissolution. In the awful prospect of death she was seized with the most distracting horrors. Calling to the woman with whom she lived, she cried, "I shall soon be gone, and hell will be my doom!" The woman told her she was mad, but she replied, with earnestness, "I am not. I know it will, for I am not prepared to die"; and immediately asked her if she knew where any minister lived? She had heard some whom they called "Methodists" while in the hospital at London. Even then she could not laugh at them as many of her unfortunate companions did, but was often much affected by their prayers and sermons, and looked upon them as men living in the fear of God. The recollection of this suggested the eager inquiry after them now. But the woman said, "They cannot save your soul."
"SHE PROCURED A LODGING WITH A SERIOUS FEMALE." (See page 230.)
"I know they cannot," she replied, "but they can pray with me and for me to One who can. Go instantly and fetch one, for I am going to hell."
The woman still continued to laugh at her, and told the neighbours she was deranged. One of them, however, more compassionate than the rest, coming in, said she knew a good man who lived near. He was not a minister, but she would go and fetch him.
"Make him promise to come," said the poor creature, "before you leave him, and then, if he be a good man, he will come." While the person was gone, she cried to the Lord to send him.
He came and found her in the greatest agonies of mind. She told him that she was the vilest sinner that ever lived, described the course of life she had led, and concluded by saying she saw hell before her eyes, and that she should be lost for ever. He pointed out the way of salvation by Christ, told her it was free for the vilest, spoke of the encouragement there was for the chief of sinners who came to Him, prayed with her, and left her a little more composed. She made him promise to come the next day, which he did twice. In a short time after, her sorrow was turned into gladness, and she was enabled to rejoice in Christ as her Saviour, whilst the young man who visited her was reading the verse—
"Look as when Thy grace beheld
The harlot in distress;
Dried her tears, her pardon sealed,
And bade her go in peace.
Foul like her, and self-abhorred,
I at Thy feet for mercy groan;
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And break my heart of stone."
Soon after this, God removed the violence of her complaint, and thereby gave her an opportunity of proving the reality of her conversion. As soon as possible she went to the meeting, but oh, the persecution she now met with from her former companions! She was obliged to remove from place to place to escape their violence. They pelted her with stones, broke her windows, &c., because, as they said, she was a hypocrite. But she was enabled to endure it with patience, and after a time procured a lodging with a serious female. Now she seemed almost in heaven. She could now go in and out, none daring to make her afraid, and could meditate in peace on the gracious dealings of God with her soul. She became a member of the Church in which she continued as long as she lived. She seemed to grow daily in an affecting discovery of the evil of sin and of her own vileness, and was often quite overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God, both with respect to her temporal and spiritual concerns. She was frequently enabled to rejoice in the Lord with exceeding joy, though labouring under the most dreadful pain, being literally full of wounds, the sad fruit of her former life. She occasionally experienced great conflicts with Satan, but the Lord graciously interposed, and brought her off more than conqueror. Several months before her death she was grievously afflicted, but in general very comfortable. On the Saturday preceding her dissolution, a friend called to see her, and inquired after the state of her mind. She said she was happy in God, longed to depart, and could scarcely contain herself. She was so filled with love to her blessed Lord, for His unbounded goodness to her. On the Monday, the person with whom she lodged said she was very comfortable in her mind. Her spirit soared beyond the fear of death; but through extreme weakness she could not speak much, and on Tuesday she departed, we trust, to sing the praises of that miraculous grace which snatched her as a brand from the burning.
Conduct is the great profession. What a man does tells us what he is.