I returned home with a heavy heart, feeling as a humane person feels, on coming out of the prison, where he has had the last agonizing interview with an old friend, whom he has left under the sentence of death. Having requested Mr. Gordon's housekeeper to let me know if any change took place in his health, I received a note from her a few weeks afterwards, saying, the crisis was past, and that he was so far restored, that he was now at Maidenhead, trying the effect of a change of air and scene. This gave me pleasure—as a respite sometimes issues in a rescue. His form was ever before me. Many a petition did I offer up to the Hearer of prayer in his behalf; and more than once, on rising from my knees, I felt a strong persuasion that the prayer of faith would prevail. It was after a very remarkable season of special devotion, when I pleaded with the Lord with intense and hallowed earnestness, that I received from him the following letter, which was an ample recompense for all my labours and anxieties:—
"Rev. and dear Sir,—I yield at last. My only hope for pardon and peace is in the precious blood of Christ. My heart is too full to write much. It is full to overflowing. Do come and see me, and I will tell you all. I can secure you a spare room not far from my own lodgings.—Yours truly,
Arthur Gordon."
I set off immediately, and spent several days with him; and had from him and his housekeeper a detailed statement of the occurrences which had taken place, and which I will now reduce to continuous order, for the gratification of the reader. He had taken lodgings in a cottage occupied by a poor but pious family, and which was pleasantly situated near the banks of the Thames. Though he had no regard for the exercises of family devotion, yet he had no very strong antipathy to them. He therefore felt no annoyance by hearing the good man read and pray with his family morning and evening, though no one knew that he was in the habit of listening. The simple, yet earnest petitions (as Mr. Gordon afterwards confessed) which were offered up to the Hearer of prayer, in behalf of the stranger, for his restoration to the enjoyment of perfect health, and that his affliction might be sanctified to his spiritual benefit, often made a deep impression on his heart, but it passed away without any appearance of a beneficial result.
An incident now occurred which had nearly proved fatal to him, but it was overruled for good. He went with a party of friends to spend the day at Marlow; and as they calculated on the probability of seeing some wild ducks, one gentleman took his gun with him. On their return down the river in the evening, they resolved, as it felt rather cold, to walk the last two or three miles. In stepping out of the boat, one of the party slipped, and at that moment the loaded gun, which he carried in his hand, went off; Mr. Gordon, who was a little in advance, and stooping down to fasten his shoe, fell, and his hat was blown to shivers. All were terror-struck, under the impression that he was killed; but it was soon discovered that he had sustained no injury, beyond a slight wound on the right side of his forehead, and the tip of his ear, which were slightly grazed. They pressed around him with their congratulations; one facetiously remarking, that he must have been born under a lucky star, to dodge death so dexterously, when it was so near him. The accident, and the escape, naturally engaged more of their conversation than any of the other occurrences of the day; but there was no reference to the special providence of God, except in the usual strain of sceptical derision. "A pious believer," said the facetious man, "would be for kneeling down, and offering up a tribute of thanksgiving for your lucky escape, Gordon; and so should I, if I believed in a special Providence."
"I don't believe," said another, "that God ever interferes in such little matters; if he did, he could easily have prevented the slip of the foot, which was the first moving cause of the explosion; and had he done that, Gordon would have saved his hat, and gone home without his scars."
These remarks, which at any other time would have been in harmony with his opinions and sentiments, by his own admission, now grated harshly on his ears; he felt his spirit recoil from them, and for the first time in his life wished himself out of such company. He was somewhat astonished, as he confessed to me, by the suddenly awakened antipathies, which beat so strongly in his heart. On arriving at his lodgings, he related to the family the particulars of his narrow escape from death; when the good man exclaimed, in a subdued tone of pious reverence, "The Lord be praised for protecting you in such an hour of danger. This, Sir, is an instance of what the Psalmist calls preventing mercy, for which you should be truly grateful to the Lord."
Mr. Gordon knew that his servant united with the family in their evening devotions; and thinking that this accident and escape would form a subject of reference in the prayers of the pious cottager, he kept his door ajar, and sat and listened. He heard his servant say, "My master is as kind a man as walks on the earth, and is thankful for any attentions which are paid to him by any one; but he has no gratitude in his heart to the God of his mercies. He lives, as the apostle says, without God in the world."
"Well, then," replied the good man, "if he offer up no thanksgivings to the Lord for his miraculous escape from death, we will do it for him; and pray that he may be brought to feel as a child of our heavenly Father ought to feel." He then read the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, remarking, at the conclusion, that it was a great privilege to be able to believe the consolatory and soul-sustaining truths which they had been reading. One sentence in his prayer was uttered with emphatic earnestness—"We thank thee, O Lord, for preserving the life of the stranger now sojourning with us, when it was so near death; and we pray that he may feel towards thee as a child ought to feel towards his heavenly Father." This touched his heart.
"I never," he said to me, "felt such an emotion as I experienced when that simple prayer was uttered. It was as thrilling and as powerful as it was sudden and unexpected. I immediately arose and seated myself on the sofa, and was soon absorbed in a train of deep thought. Yes, death came very near me to-night. He has marked the signs of his nearness in the scar wounds on my forehead and my ear. Was it mere chance which gave me a hair-breadth escape from a sudden death? Yes, says infidelity; God never interferes in little matters. But would it have been to me a little matter if I had had an arm blown off, or a leg broken, or been sent out of life into another world; and probably to ——. No. It would have been a great matter then. Is my preservation from death to be regarded as a little matter? Was God away from the spot where my friend's foot slipped? Yes, says infidelity; and I should have responded to this saying before the event occurred; but I cannot now. I doubt my own faith; I renounce it. It may do at a club, or a convivial party; but it won't do for the spot where death was coming, but where the victim has been miraculously rescued from his power. 'As a child ought to feel towards his heavenly Father!' Beautiful expression! Yes, I ought to feel grateful to God; but I have never considered him as standing in the relation of a father to me. But has he not on this occasion acted like one?"