Some further conversation followed, when the woman had occasion to leave the room for a few minutes, the visitor turned to the daughter and said:
"I am glad at what you told me a few weeks ago, that you were always praying to God to make you His child and to keep you from the evil to which you are exposed. Now tell me if you have decided to serve the Lord?"
"That I have, sir," she replied, her eyes filling with tears. "Mother won't let me out of her sight; but for two Sundays I have been to the chapel down the mews, where I understand everything, and keep on praying; and the gent spoke so beautiful last night that I want to serve Jesus altogether."
She was encouraged in the wise choice she had made, and the friend left, rejoicing that her heart, like Lydia's, had been opened to receive the truth.
The coiners were not met with again; but quite a year after, the governor of Norwich Castle, at the suggestion of a magistrate who assisted him in many works of mercy, wrote, asking the help of the Missionary in finding a home for a girl who, with her parents, had been apprehended for passing base money. It appeared that they left the girl in the distance, and each taking a piece of bad money passed it upon shopkeepers. They were stopped several times, but as a second piece could not be found upon them they were not detained. They were traced from London to Norwich, by the bad money they had passed, and were apprehended at a lodging-house, with the bags in their possession. The parents were sentenced to nine months' hard labour each, and the girl detained until a home could be found for her. This was done, and she was passed up to London. She was some time in the home, and then absconded; but several years after she called upon the matron, and invited her to come and see her husband, as she was comfortably married.
Several years passed, during which time "Teddie's Den" was visited with varying success, until the night upon which the International Exhibition was closed. The Missionary had arranged a tea in the building for a thousand persons, and returned home very weary, to find a thief in the house,—for there in the hall sat a man who had been frequently convicted. He, with evident feeling, said, "The 'missus,' sir, has bin bad all the week, and she's wery bad now, and is a mumbling your name; and the doctor has bin agin, and says as you ought to be sent for, so I has come." He was told to fetch a cab; but it was midnight before they arrived at the night-house.
An anxious group of depraved persons were standing at the door, but the visitor passed them in silence and entered the back room. The scene which presented itself was solemn indeed, for there, dressed, upon her couch, in the pains of dissolution, lay the woman who used to boast that she had kept dens for twenty-one years, and had not slept at night during that time. She appeared to be dying, but rallied when she heard the voice of her friend, and whispered, "Mercy! mercy!—Pray, pray!"
"I tell you again, that as a guilty sinner, you must pray for yourself," he replied, in a slow, quiet, tone. "The blood of Jesus can save you now: ask God in His name to pardon you." And then the dying woman, after him, repeated short prayers. After a pause he took her cold hand in his, and kneeling down, implored pardon for her from the God of all grace. His voice was, however, stopped by the sobbing of several women and young thieves who had entered from the shop. The death-expression upon the face of their old acquaintance in guilt, with the solemn attitude and words of prayer, overcame them, and they seemed to kneel as in contrition before their offended Maker.
There were intervals of consciousness, during which words of hope were read from the Book of Life; and at her request, expressed by movements of her hands, prayer was again offered. She soon became unconscious, and expired at three o'clock.
A few comforting words were spoken to the weeping daughter and the women who remained in the room; and the night-visitor then passed into the street. A large crowd of the criminal and depraved had assembled from other night-houses, and as he left they made a passage for him to pass through, while the two policemen turned on their bull's eyes to light him on his way. He, however, stepped back, and standing upon the threshold of the den, held out his Bible, and said, "She is dead, and her eternal state is fixed: you, however, are upon the side of the grave where mercy can be sought and found. Look up, now, to where the Saviour is seated, at God's right hand, beyond those dark clouds. Be in earnest in seeking salvation, and then live for the hour of death and the day of judgment." He then passed down the street in silence, not a word reached his ear from that gathering of the wicked.