MY STAGE-COACH COMPANION.
It was on a dull, chilly morning, I remember, that I left my country home by the coach which was to convey me to London. I was then about twenty years of age. I had never before been very far, or very long absent from my father's house; and my young mind was filled with thoughts of the pleasures in store for me in a long visit I was about to pay to my London relations.
Among the enjoyments I most reckoned on, apart from the society of my aunt and cousins, were those of the theatre, balls, and evening parties. Very different engagements these, from the domestic duties and rural recreations to which I had been accustomed in a retired country residence.
Thoughts like these had softened the pain of separation from my kind and indulgent parents; but there were tears in my eyes on bidding them farewell, and I was glad to let fall my veil, to hide them from the only passenger in the coach.
This passenger was a gentleman of middle age, well wrapped up in a greatcoat of rather formal cut, and with a clerical-looking hat on his head. He had a pleasant, though a rather serious expression of countenance, as he lifted his eyes from the book he was reading. It was not long before he shut up the book, and made some remarks about the weather and the scenery. A short silence followed, which was broken by my fellow-traveller saying that he had just been passing a few weeks in a watering-place which I knew to be a fashionable one.
"I have never been there," I said. "I suppose it is a very gay place, sir?"
"It is a fine town, and the country around it is very beautiful," said the gentleman.
This was not the answer I expected, and I varied my question by referring to the visitors and places of amusement, particularly mentioning the theatre and the public assemblies.
The stranger smiled pleasantly, and said, "I saw only the outside of the theatre; but during my stay there I was present at several public assemblies."
"How very enchanting they must be!" I remarked, with youthful ardour.
"I am not sure that 'enchanting' is quite the right word," he said, looking thoughtful; "but they were very delightful, certainly."
"They were crowded, I suppose, sir?"
"Yes, generally," he said, and added that, at the last of these public assemblies, there were present more than a thousand people.
This seemed to me to be a great number, and to need a large assembly room to hold them. I made some remark which led him to say that no doubt there were many varieties of character present, and of different degrees in life. "But," he added, "I have reason to know that many honourable personages were to be met with there, and even the King Himself was there."
"The King, sir? I did not know that the King ever visited ——"; and I began to feel incredulous. I was not so ignorant as not to know that King George the Fourth, in whose reign we were then living, had for some time almost secluded himself from his subjects, and resided generally at Windsor.
"I see," continued the stranger, speaking more earnestly and seriously than before, "that you do not quite understand me; and I apprehend that we have each been using the same words to express a different set of ideas on which our minds have been fixed."
"I do not understand you, sir," I said, rather coldly.
"Permit me, madam, to explain. I am a minister of the Gospel. The public assemblies of which I have been speaking are the assembling together of those who meet for God's worship and service; the honourable persons to whom I referred are those whom the Bible calls the children of God; and the King whom I believe to have been present at these assemblies is He who is 'King of kings and Lord of lords,' who Himself has told us that, where two or three are gathered together in His name, there He is in the midst of them."
There was such kindness and courtesy and respect in the gentleman's manner, that I could not feel vexed at his having spoken in a sort of parable, so I smiled, and said, "I had no idea that you were a minister, sir."
"I am glad that you are not angry with me, young lady," said he, "for having wilfully misinterpreted your questions. You know it is 'out of the abundance of the heart' that 'the mouth speaketh'; and when you got into the coach I was engaged in thought, studying a subject which I hope to speak about next Sunday; and, singularly, this subject is so far like that which has engaged a few minutes of our conversation, as that it refers to an assembly, though one of a very superior character to any the world has ever seen or known."
"May I ask, sir, what assembly it is you mean?"
"Certainly," replied he; and taking from his pocket a New Testament, he opened it and read, "Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
Having read this, my fellow-traveller again put up his Book, and there was a short silence between us, until he said, "That is the text, madam. Do you think it possible for any preacher to do justice to it?"
"I do not know indeed, sir," I said; and I added (what I truly thought) that the words struck me as being very beautiful.
"They are indeed beautiful, and magnificent, and solemn," he said; and he continued to remark that they were highly calculated to arouse in the mind emotions of no ordinary nature. Did I not think so?
I hesitated what to reply, for I shrank from expressing sentiments which I did not really feel. Doubtless he saw my embarrassment, and, instead of pressing for an answer, he asked me if he might mention a few of the thoughts which had passed through his mind, as he had pondered over the passage. I said, if he pleased to do so, I should be glad to hear him, and accordingly he went on—
"I suppose that the words I have read referred not so much to the future, as to the present position or condition of those to whom they were addressed, and that they may be applied also to certain characters at the present time. I have no doubt, madam, that you understand of what characters I speak?"
"I could not misunderstand you," I said. "Of course you mean Christians?"
"Yes; of all true Christians it may be said that they are come to Mount Sion. All who truly believe in Christ live under a dispensation of mercy. They are even now 'fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.' Their names are enrolled in the Lamb's book of life; angels are their invisible attendants; they are united in spirit to 'Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant'; they are admitted into the gracious presence of the Father, 'the Judge of all,' so as to find access at every hour to God within the veil; and they have even now received the atonement, 'the blood of sprinkling,' by which their polluted consciences are cleansed and purified. These are great and exalted privileges, are they not?"
"Yes, sir," I said, feeling as I said it how incapable I was of appreciating them. The stranger did not notice my hesitation, however, but went on with still more animation—
"I cannot help thinking that more than I have mentioned is implied in the words which you justly think so beautiful, and that the writer had in his mind the future as well as the present life. The final and everlasting residence of all believers, after all the cares and toils of their earthly pilgrimage are past, is to be Mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; part of their employment will be holy and devout adoration; their society, myriads of angels and a vast assembly of the perfected spirits of the just; the chief source of their happiness will be the presence of 'the Judge of all,' in 'Jesus the Mediator'; and the cause of all this blessedness is indicated in the closing words—'the blood of sprinkling,' or the atonement of Jesus."
I was interested, and wished he would continue. Probably he could see that I was not unwilling to listen, for, after the pause of a minute or two, he began to expatiate a little on some of the ideas he had already expressed. He spoke of the unbroken repose and perfect security of the city of God, and then of the happy employments of the great assembly in heaven. Here he drew a contrast between the amusements of the world and the enjoyments of the heavenly state, and added that, to worldly and unsanctified minds, these enjoyments had no attractions.
"Those who live only for this life," he said, "cannot conceive of any pleasure to be found in heavenly adoration and praise. Accustomed to account the Sabbath of the Lord a weariness, and devotional services irksome and tedious, it cannot appear to them desirable to enter upon a state of existence in which the worship of the Almighty is one of the choicest occupations of its inhabitants. Nor can we wonder," continued my companion, "that it should be thus, so long as the heart remains at enmity with God, while the affections are earthly and sensual, and where there is no fear of God, no love to God, no delight in God, no earnest desire to serve and honour Him. Am I not right?" the stranger asked, fixing his eyes upon me.
"Yes, sir, I think you are," I replied, faintly; and, after some further conversation on the same subjects, my fellow-traveller told me that he was going only to the end of the present stage. "There we shall part," he said, "and possibly we shall not meet again in this world; but if, by divine grace, we should be fellow-heirs of the same glorious inheritance, we shall meet in that general assembly."
These were almost the last words he spoke, for, in a few minutes, the coach stopped, and the stranger, alighting and bidding me farewell, disappeared.
Many years passed away, and I was a happy wife and mother. My husband was a true and earnest Christian; and I—yes (and therein was my happiness), I, too, was a believer in Christ. My Christian life had been, in some respects, an eventful one. My first steps in it had been beset with difficulties and no ordinary opposition; but patience was given me to endure; strength, to overcome; and, blessed be God, my heart's desire and prayer to Him on behalf of some very dear to me had, I trust, been heard and answered.
My conversion was in part, at least, the result of the stage-coach conversation I have recorded. God, in His infinite mercy, by means of the words of a stranger, called me to consideration. The Holy Spirit showed me my miserable condition, as being "a lover of pleasures more than a lover of God." Through a long, dark passage of soul-distress and great conflict I was led into the light and faith of the glorious Gospel—from the thunders of Sinai to "Mount Sion, the city of the living God; to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."
One thing troubled me—or, if not troubled exactly, left within me an unsatisfied desire. For years I had longed to see, to meet once more, the stranger who had so kindly and so wisely invited my attention to religion. I wished to hear his voice again, and to tell him what the Lord had done for my soul. Sometimes, indeed, I recalled his parting words with something like awe, though yet with a thrill of pleasurable assurance—"Possibly we shall not meet again in this world; but if, by divine grace, we should be fellow-heirs of the same glorious inheritance, we shall meet in that general assembly."
"Annie," said my husband one day—he had an open letter in his hand—"a visitor is coming, whom I shall be very glad for you to know—my old friend and pastor, Mr. J——"; and he put the letter into my hands. It was a short note, merely stating that, finding he should be at a certain time within easy reach of my husband's home, the writer would, if he might, avail himself of the opportunity of renewing the personal intercourse which time and distance had so long interrupted.
A few days later, a chaise drove to our door, and my husband, eager to welcome his old friend, met him in the hall, where I also was waiting to receive him. He was an elderly man, but with a firm step, a strong frame, a pleasant smile, a kindly voice, and a benevolent countenance.
"Annie, my dear, this is——"
I cannot go on to describe a scene in which I became all at once and unexpectedly so personally interested. In my husband's friend I recognized, at a single glance, my stage-coach companion, though he had no recollection of me.
It was a happy meeting—the faint foreshadowing, it may be, of such meetings innumerable in that general assembly in the heavenly Jerusalem above, when they who have sown, and those who have reaped, shall rejoice together with "joy unspeakable and full of glory."—A Tract issued by the Religious Tract Society.