Mrs. Lawson,
MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,
With grief of heart I have to inform you, that poor Dean is appointed to die on Thursday morning. This is a most distressing circumstance, as I know the poor fellow entertained a hope that it would be proved an act of insanity. My feelings will be sorely distressed, as I shall have the pain to hear his poor trembling footsteps on the scaffold. May God prepare his soul, and assure him of his interest in Christ. May he feel the pardoning love of God—this will be as pillars of marble, to support his sinking heart. Oh that he may be washed in the dear Redeemer’s blood, and clothed with his righteousness, that he may be accepted of the Father the moment the soul quits the body. Glad should I be to visit him, and pray with him, but that is not allowed. Last night I was very low about him, and suddenly opened upon the 37th Psalm, The Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged. If his last letter to me was genuine, he is saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation. His soul is every thing now, the body will soon be lifeless. Solemn thought, affecting idea—to be cut off by an untimely death, in the height of health and manhood! How truly awful; what has sin done, and Oh how great is the power of Satan. The Lord will put an end to the empire of Satan, and confine him down to darkness, fire, and chains, and we shall say Amen to Satan’s sentence. I trust poor Dean has found mercy at the hands of God. Various letters I have sent him, and glad I am the Lord enabled me to point him to the bleeding cross. His first letter to me, was a proof his mind was very dark, and his last letter proves his increase in light and faith; if the Lord has thus blessed my poor letters to him, you and I can see that I was not sent here in vain. It is well, the Lord has many means to bring his children to the knowledge of the truth. What God did to Pharaoh, and his host, reached the ear of Rahab the harlot, in Jericho, and she was converted. The fame of Solomon’s wisdom was heard in the country of the Sabeans, and proved the conversion of the queen of Sheba. The wonderful destruction of the Assyrian army, reached to Babylon, from thence came the wise men to worship Christ, and a church was formed there. A famine drove Naomi from Bethlehem, and she carried the knowledge of the true God to the country of Moab, which proved the conversion of Ruth. The Syrians invaded Israel, and took a little maid captive, which terminated in the conversion of Namaan. A famine drove Elijah to a widow at Zidon, and Elisha’s passing by a house at Shunem, proved their conversion. Paul and Silas were taken up, and put in prison, and Onesimus was confined in the same place for felony, and Paul was the means of his conversion there. A person swore that against me which I knew nothing about, and I was doomed to this place for a time. I dread the approach of Thursday, the shock will be great, but it will be soon over; and then, O what a transition—what bliss will his spirit feel, and what gratitude to God for bringing him home from an ignominious death, to eternal life. I have been informed Mr. Hyat, of the Tabernacle, visited him several times, and those visits have been blessed to his soul. I find faith and patience wants strengthening, but all fullness is in Christ. I am glad prayer is making in the Church for Mr. D.
Ever your’s,
Ruhamah.
LETTER XXXV.
Valley of Achor, May 8th, 1819.
Mrs. O,
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I well know your concern about the state of poor Mr. D. Yourself and your dear sister—dear indeed by a three-fold cord of nature, grace and trials, have expressed much anxiety for some information on the subject of his conversion and end. I have but few materials to furnish you with that account, as my situation precluded all intercourse with him, except by letter and a distant view of each other. This was no small matter of sorrow to me, for many weeks, nor could I often help exclaiming in the pathetic language of Jeremiah, “Truly this is a grief, but must I bear it.”
Some time ago, I wrote a few lines to your dear sister, giving her an account of the death of three unhappy men (see Letter 19) but as I could gain no satisfaction about them, sufficient to call your attention to admire that grace, which I was informed they were favored with, I left the subject. God forbid that I should exercise more charity to dying men, than the Lord has manifested. I am well convinced that the Judge of all the earth will do right; and although he giveth not account of his matters, yet the day will declare his righteousness, and every dark and mysterious providence will be unfolded; let us therefore wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore. I am not enraptured with the various accounts of the closing scene of many, nor am I moved with the darkness to which God’s dear people may be liable at the end of their warfare; all was darkness when the eternal Son of God was dying, yet, he was the Son of God, and Satan may be permitted to harrass a believer to the very gates of heaven; yet thousands are deluded to the last moment, whose hopes are built upon the sand, and whose religion sinks with their lives, when their false refuges and lying confidences give way. Many profane graceless characters die like lambs, but Oh, could we see what terrors surround them upon its approach to an angry God, in the world of spirits, it would harrow up our very souls. Many proud pharisees, who are trusting in themselves that they are righteous, that they are better than others, die in the same state. Many flaming, professors, who boast they have done much for God, and his cause, find in death that God has done nothing for them; and those who only have received the system of truth in the notion, and yet destitute of its power, are in the same awful state. Many who have come to an ignominious end, have been left to die with a lie in their mouths, declaring their innocence of their crimes; and others have patched up a peace with God, as they call it, by a little sorrow for sin, the receiving the sacrament, by forgiving their enemies, and dying in peace with all the world. These are some of the various delusions, in which many of our poor fallen race leave this world for eternity; but I am happy to say, that I believe many have gone from the fatal drop to endless bliss, who have been convinced of sin, cried for mercy in God’s way, and obtained a sense of pardoning mercy through the doing and dying of the adorable Mediator. This has inspired a holy confidence in the mind, that maketh not ashamed, a hope that cannot fail, as it centers in the person and finished work of Christ. Great indeed has been the false confidence of many. Mary, queen of Scots, a rigid papist, went to the block to be beheaded, in a strong confidence. Rosseau, the infidel philosopher, died as calm as a summer’s evening breeze, and the celebrated Addison said in death, “See in what tranquility a christian can die;” and yet, alas! what was the ground of their hopes? But the person who is the subject of this letter, was indeed better taught, and we must appeal to the church and the world on his behalf, and say, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire.”