Never shall I forget the last night of painful and protracted suffering. The miserable woman who pretended to assist me in watching, had taken some stupefying potion, and I watched alone, as David expressed it, longing for the first ray of the morning. At length, the day dawned, and I was relieved by good old Mr. Moore. As he entered, I said to him, "Poor Juda is still living, and is a great sufferer; will you not pray for her?" He replied, "I come purpose pray with Juda." Then kneeling, prayed, "Oh Lord, Oh Lord God Almighty, we come to thee for this poor dying creature. Have mercy on her precious soul—Lord God, it will never die. Forgive her sins; oh, Lord God, take the lead of her thoughts to-day, TO-DAY, TO-DAY; Lord God, take the lead of her thoughts to-day, for Christ's sake. Amen."
This was indeed her dying day, and I could not but hope that this humble but pertinent prayer was prevalent with God.
Very many times since then, as I have caught the first glimpse of day, have I said, This may prove my dying day, and prayed, Oh Lord, take the lead of my thoughts to-day.
Original.
GOD IS FAITHFUL.
"The fruits of maternal influence, well directed," said a good minister, "are peace, improvement, and often piety, in the nursery; but if the children of faithful mothers are not converted in early life, God is true to his promise and will remember his covenant, perhaps after those mothers sleep with the generations of their ancestors."
"Several years since," that same minister stated, "he was in the Alms-house in Philadelphia, and was attracted to the bedside of a sick man, whom he found to be a happy Christian, having embraced the Gospel after he was brought, a stranger in a strange land, to that infirmary. Though religiously educated by a pious mother, he clandestinely left home at the age of ten years, and since that period—he was now forty, or more—had been wandering over the earth, regardless of the claims of God or the worth of his own soul.
"In Philadelphia he was taken with a dangerous fever, and was brought to the place where I met him. There, on that bed of languishing, the scenes of his early childhood clustered around him, and among them the image of his mother was fairest and brightest, and in memory's vision she seemed to stand, as in former days, exhorting him to become the friend and disciple of the blessed Savior. The honeyed accents were irresistible.
"Through the long lapse of thirty years—though she was now sleeping in the grave—her appeal came with force to break his flinty heart.