“Till then I shall His love proclaim
With every fleeting breath;
And may the music of His NAME
Refresh my soul in death.”
Having told you of one recently “fallen asleep in Jesus,” who had early repaired to the shelter of the Gospel Refuge, I shall now tell you of an aged servant of Jesus who has, more recently still, entered on her glorious rest.
She was a former parishioner of mine. Her home was a lowly cottage in one of the loveliest villages of Scotland. Poor in this world, and an almost constant sufferer, she was rich in faith,—one of “Christ's jewels;”—her life was “hid with Christ in God.” If I could venture to name two peculiarities in her spiritual being which distinguished her more than others, it would be these: Love for the NAME of Jesus, and a Life of PRAYER. “His name,” to her, was “like ointment poured forth.”[69] Often have I delighted to sit with her in her cottage, with her Bible on her knee, and hear her speak of “the name which is above every name;” walking about these six Refuge-Cities, “telling all the towers, marking the bulwarks, and considering the palaces.” She had herself long before, in early life, fled to the Gospel stronghold. I think her favourite city would have been Golan, “Joy.” Her heart seemed ever to be filled with “peace and joy in believing.”
Doubtless much of this calm serenity and joy she derived from her life of prayer. It is no small matter for the writer of these pages to know, that there was not a day for upwards of sixteen years in which he was not personally and specially remembered by this lowly saint at a throne of grace.
One forenoon during this past year, she had entered her cottage, carrying a pitcher of water down from the well in her garden. It was the last time she crossed her threshold. When her door was opened, she was found alone on her knees; BUT her spirit had fled! Prayer, as it had been her ever fond delight in life, had been her solace and comfort in death. Her last act was drawing water out of the better “wells of salvation.” She began with prayer, but ended in praise! She began her prayer on earth, and “finished it with the angels!”
Reader! when you come to die, could you be equally happy, equally safe? Would you be able thus to rejoice and triumph in the name of Jesus? Could you declare, with either of these two glorified spirits, before God “took” them, “We HAVE a strong city; salvation hath God appointed for walls and for bulwarks?”[70] Has the Holy Spirit taught you, as it taught them, that you are sinners by nature, and in a state of condemnation? Have you heard God's voice behind you, declaring that “He can by no means clear the guilty?”[71] And are you able now joyfully to say, “I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself?”
Are you, like them, really “hid” within the gates? The manslayer of old required to be within the refuge-city. Even if he were but one footstep without, the avenger of blood could cut him down. It did not matter how near he was, if he was not inside the portals!
And so it will avail you nothing to know about Christ, and hear about Christ;—to survey the strength of the city's walls, the glory of its battlements, and the beauty of its palaces. It is “the righteous who RUNNETH into it,” who alone is “safe.”
What more, in closing, have I to say, but to repeat the solemn word, “Haste thee, flee for thy life!” Every hour you put off, the time is shorter; the avenger is nearer; the chances of escape are fewer. There is no time for delay. I say this to the very youngest. I say more. As young feet can run fastest, so it is with young souls. You will never go to Jesus so easily as now. Let nothing keep you back. It is said that on digging up the ruins of Herculaneum, (the city that was buried under the lava of Mount Vesuvius,) the body of a man was found in an upright posture, in the act of running out of the door of his house to escape destruction. He had a bag of gold in his hand. Others had escaped in safety. But this miser loved his gold more than his life. He had returned to fetch it, thinking he would have time enough to escape the terrible doom; but the burning stream overtook him. He was encased in a living sepulchre.
It was one, too, of the saddest incidents connected with these Cities of Refuge of old, when some poor, breathless, panting fugitive—just when he was in sight of the city—when he had almost reached the gate, sank exhausted. Or perhaps the case of some other who had lain down weary to sleep, but who had been startled by the avenger at his side, and the drawn sword gleaming before his eyes;—years after, the pile of stones marking the spot where his blood had been shed.