SAVED BY GRACE.
Agreeably to your wishes, I send you the following account of W. B——, who had lived a dissolute life for nearly forty years.
He was notorious for drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and his general deportment was so abandoned that he was wicked even to a proverb.
On Saturday evening, March 4th, he attended a funeral, and from the place of interment he immediately betook himself to a public house, where he became so intoxicated that it was with some difficulty he reached his own habitation. No sooner was he laid down upon the bed, and composed to sleep, than the words of Eliphaz were verified in his experience—"In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake," for he dreamed a frightful dream. He thought he saw a serpent of the hydra kind, with nine heads, ready to seize him. Whatever way he turned, a head presented itself, nor could he, by all the methods he devised, extricate himself from the baneful monster. He awoke in great distress. Though it was but a dream, it made a strong impression upon his mind, and he was afraid it portended some future evil.
The next morning, one of the members of our meeting, as he was going to the house of God, observed him in a pensive posture, and asked him if he would go with him and hear a sermon upon the old serpent. The sound of the word serpent arrested his attention, and excited his curiosity to hear what I had to say upon such a subject. But for this expression, probably the poor man had remained unmoved. Why the person used it he could not tell, nor why he invited him to accompany him that morning—a thing which he had never done before. But He could tell who, in the days of His flesh, "must needs go through Samaria," and whose providences are always in coincidence with the purposes of His grace.
As soon as prayer was ended, I preached from Genesis iii. 13-15, "And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle," &c.
As I was explaining who that serpent was, and the methods he took to beguile sinners, the Lord opened the poor man's eyes, and the Word had free course and was glorified. From that moment he gave every demonstration of a real change of heart. About four or five months he continued in the pangs of the new birth. The anguish of his soul was great indeed. He perceived the number of his sins, and felt the weight of his guilt. For some time he was tempted to despair—I may say, to put an end to his existence—but while he was musing on his wretched condition, these words were applied as a sovereign remedy to his afflicted soul—"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." This administered all the joy and comfort he stood in need of. Now he was enabled to believe that Christ was as willing to forgive as He was mighty to redeem. The burden of his guilt dropped from his mind, as Pilgrim's did at the sight of the cross, and immediately he "rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory."
I was with him a little while after, and with a heart overflowing with gratitude to God, he showed me the place of his Bethel visit, where the Lord had opened to him His bleeding heart, and manifested His forgiving love. He seems to be, as the Apostle expresses it, "a living epistle of Christ, seen and read of all men."