“Nothing.”
“Oh, Frank—darling Frank,” appealed his mother, in a whisper of agonised entreaty, “let me have one word—one look to tell me you know me.”
The weary eyes opened, and a faint smile seemed to speak of consciousness.
“Hear me—hear me, my beloved child,” she said again. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Jesus died for you. Jesus loves you still. Look to him—believe in him. He is able to save you even now.”
Again the eyes slowly opened. But the dying glaze was over them. A troubled look came across the brow, and then a faint smile. The lips opened, but could frame no words for a while. Lady Oldfield put her ear close to those parted lips. They spoke now, but only three short words, very slowly and feebly, “Jesus—Mother—Mary.” Then all was over.
So died Frank Oldfield. Was there hope in his death? Who shall say? That heart-broken mother clung, through years of wearing sorrow, to the faint hope that flickered in those few last words and in that feeble smile. He smiled when she spoke of Jesus. Yes; she clung to these as the drowning man clings to the handful of water-reeds which he clutches in his despair. But where was the happy evidence of genuine repentance and saving faith? Ah, miserable death-bed! No bright light shone from it. No glow, caught from a coming glory, rested on those marble features. Yet how beautiful was that youthful form, even though defaced by the brand of sin! How gloriously beautiful it might have been as the body of humiliation, hereafter to be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, had a holy, loving soul dwelt therein in its tabernacle days on earth? Then an early death would have been an early glory, and the house of clay, beautiful with God’s adornments, would only have been taken down in life’s morning to be rebuilt on a nobler model in the paradise of God.