ACCOMPANIES MR. JONES.
Nor would we intimate that none truly repent of their sins and obtain forgiveness, under such circumstances. Though late repentance is seldom genuine, yet, as Mr. Jay remarks, genuine repentance is never too late. God can pardon the sins of a century as easily as those of a day. Our friend was the means, in the hand of God, of leading many, when worn by sickness and at the eleventh hour of life, to the Lamb of God. His carefully kept diary records many such instances. We give one. He says, 'I remember one Sunday coming from Hessle with the Rev. C. Jones. Our "hearts burned within us as we talked by the way," and when we got to Coultam Street, a number of well-dressed young men overheard our conversation, and began to shout after us and call us approbrious names. Mr. J. talked with them, but to no purpose. Four months after, Mr. Jones and myself went, as usual, to visit the inmates of the infirmary; Mr. J. took one side and I the other, and when I came to a person who needed special counsel and advice, I used to call my friend to my aid. Well, we met with a young man who burst into a flood of tears, and casting an imploring look towards Mr. Jones, he said, "O sir, do forgive me." "Forgive you what?" said Mr. J. "what have you done that you should ask me to forgive you?" "Sir," said he, "I am one of those young men who were so impertinent to you one Sunday when you were returning from Hessle; do forgive me, sir." "I freely forgive you," replied my friend, "you must ask God to forgive you, for it is against him you have sinned." We then prayed with him, and asked God to forgive him. He was suffering from a broken leg, and I often used to visit him after our first interview. He obtained pardon, and rejoiced in Christ as his Saviour. He was a brand plucked from the burning.'
SICK-BED REPENTANCE.
But Mr. Ellerthorpe also tells us that though he visited, during twenty-five years, hundreds of persons who cried aloud for mercy and professed to obtain forgiveness, on what was feared would be their dying beds, yet, he did not remember more than five or six who, on being restored to health, lived so as to prove their conversion genuine. The rest returned 'like the dog to its vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' The Sabbath-breaker forgot his vows and promises, and returned to his Sunday pleasures. The swearer allowed his tongue to move as unchecked in insulting his Maker as before. The drunkard thirsted for his intoxicating cups and returned to the scenes of his former dissipations; and the profligate, who avowed himself a 'changed man,' when health was fully restored, laughed at religion as a fancy, and hastened to wallow in the mire of pollution. He had scarcely a particle of faith in sick-bed repentances, but believed that in most instances they are solemn farces.
Deeply affecting and admonitory are some of the instances he records. He says, 'One night an engineer called me out of bed to visit his wife, who was attacked with cholera. While I was praying with her, he was seized with the complaint. I visited them again the next day, when the woman died, but the husband, after a long affliction, recovered. He seemed sincerely penitent and made great promises of amendment. But, alas! like hundreds more whom I visited, he no sooner recovered, than he sought to shun me. At length he left the part of the town where he resided when I first visited him, as he said, "to get out of my way." But at that time, I visited in all parts of the town, and I often met him, and it used to pain me to see the dodges he had recourse to in order to avoid meeting me in the street.'
He also records the case of a carter who resided in Collier Street. He was attacked with small pox, and was horrible to look at and infectious to come near, but being urged to visit him, 'I went to see him daily for a long time,' says John. 'One day when I called I found him, his wife, and child bathed in tears, for the doctor had just told them that the husband and father would be dead in a few hours. We all prayed that God would spare him, and spared he was. I continued to visit him thrice a day, and he promised that he would accompany me to class when he got better. At that time he seemed as though he would have had me ever with him. One day, as I entered his room, he said, "O Mr. Ellerthorpe, how I love to hear your foot coming into my house." I replied, 'Do you think it possible that there will come a time when you will rather see any one's face and hear any one's voice than mine?' "Never, no never," was his reply. I answered, 'Well, I wish and hope it may never happen as I have supposed.' Now, what followed? He went once to class, but I could not attend that night, having to watch the tide, and he never went again. I have seen him in the streets when he would go anywhere, or turn down any passage, rather than meet me; and when compelled to meet me he would look up at the sky or survey the chimney tops rather than see me.'
ADMONITORY INSTANCES.
'On one occasion, when visiting at the Infirmary, going from ward to ward, and from bed to bed, I met with a young man, S. B——. He was very bad, and was afraid he was going to die. I talked with him often and long, pointing him to the Saviour, and prayed with him. With penitential tears and earnest cries he sought mercy, and at length professed to obtain salvation. He recovered. One Sunday, when at Hessle, visiting my dying mother, I met this young man, and I shall never forget his agitated frame, and terrified appearance, when he saw me. He looked this way and that way; I said, 'Well, B——, are you all right? Have you kept the promises you made to the Lord?' A blush of shame covered his face. I said 'Why do you look so sad? Have I injured you?' 'No, Sir.' 'Have you injured me?' 'I hope not,' was his reply. 'Then look me in the face; are you beyond God's reach, or do you think that because he has restored your health once, he will not afflict you again? Ah! my boy, the next time may be much worse than the last. And do you think God will believe you if you again promise to serve him? He looked round him and seemed as though he would have leaped over a drain that was close by.'
HIS CHARITY.
Conscience is a busy power within the breast of the most desperate, and when roused by the prospect of death and judgment, it speaks in terrible tones. The notorious Muller denied the murder of Mr. Briggs, until, with cap on his face and the rope round his neck, he submitted to the final appeal and acknowledged, as he launched into eternity, 'Yes, I have done it.' But the cries of these persons seem to have arisen, not from an abhorrence of sin, but from a dread of punishment; they feared hell, and hence they wished for heaven; they desired to be saved from the consequences of sin, but were not delivered from the love of it. Need we wonder that our friend had but little faith in a sick-bed repentance? Scripture and reason alike warn us against trusting to such repentance, 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.'