It was not a set or formal prayer by any means. It sounded strangely like a man asking a friend, in commonplace terms, but very earnestly, to give him what he stood in great need of; and what Jim asked for was the salvation of his friend’s soul and his restoration to health. The petition, therefore, was remarkably brief, yet full of reverence, for Jim, though naturally blunt and straightforward, felt that he was addressing the great and blessed God and Saviour, who had so recently rescued his own soul.
After saying “Amen!” which the sick man echoed, Slagg pulled out his Bible and read through the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel, commenting quietly as he went along, while his comrade listened with intense earnestness. At the first verse Jim paused and said, “This wasn’t written to holy and sinless men. ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ was said to the disciples, one o’ them bein’ Peter, the man who was to deny Jesus three times with oaths and curses, and then forsake Him. The Lord came to save sinners. It would be a poor look-out for you, Stumps, if you thought yourself a good man.”
“But I don’t—oh! I don’t, and you know I don’t!” exclaimed the sick man vehemently.
“Then the Lord says, ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ and tells you to believe in God and Himself.”
At the second verse Slagg remarked that it would be a sad, sad thing if the mansion prepared, among the many mansions, for his friend were to be left empty.
“But how am I to get to it, Jim; how am I ever to find the way?”
“Just what the disciple named Thomas asked—an’ he was a very doubting follower of Jesus, like too many of us. The Master said to him what He says to you and me, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life; no one cometh unto the Father but by me.’”
At the ninth verse the sailor-missionary said, “Jesus is God, you see, so we’re safe to trust Him,” and, at the thirteenth verse, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do,” he said. “Now, we have asked Jesus to save you, and He will do it, by His Holy Spirit, as He has saved me—has saved millions in time past, and will save millions more in time to come. Why, you see, in the sixteenth verse He tells you He will pray the Father to send you a Comforter, who will stay with you for ever. Has He not reason then for beginnin’ with ‘let not your heart be troubled’? And that same Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is to ‘teach us all things,’ so, you see, every difficulty is taken out of our way. ‘Arise, let us go hence.’ Now, my old messmate, I have arisen. Will you not arise and go with me, both of us looking unto Jesus?”
“I will—God helping me!” cried the sick man, literally arising from his couch and raising both arms to heaven.
“There, now—thank the Lord; but you must lie down again and keep quiet,” said Jim, gently and kindly forcing his friend backward.