“She taught you to say your little prayers?”
“Yes,” said the great man, as the tears started from his eyes.
“And you never doubted her word?”
“No—never.”
“That was simple faith in mother. Now, in your mind go back to mother, and though she is dead, look up into her face as when you were a child, and trust her as you did then. That will represent the soul looking up to Jesus and trusting him for salvation. That is all Christ requires of a sinner.”
As the preacher finished this little homily on faith, the colonel was weeping like a child. “Jack,” he sobbed, “is that all there is in coming to Christ to be saved?”
“That is all there is,” and before the preacher could continue the discussion further, the light broke in upon the humble and contrite heart. “I’ve got it,” he interrupted with much emotion, at the same time grasping the preacher’s hand with all the strength his six-months’ illness had left him. Thus, the man who all the years of his eventful career, by his own wisdom and logic and learning knew not God, was at the last critical moment melted and transformed by the light from Calvary, and a great life was snatched as a brand from the eternal burning. The lawyer, the statesman, the scholar, the orator received the kingdom of heaven on the Savior’s easy terms, “as a little child,” and two days later his soul passed into the presence of Jehovah.
Rev. Mr. Newgent delivered the funeral oration. Men of prominence from various parts of the country helped to swell the vast throng that was present at the funeral service. The story of the colonel’s conversion from skepticism to simple, saving faith in Christ was related by the speaker, and produced a profound impression.
The paper with which this chapter is concluded refers to the life-long association of the two men, Johnston, the “young cavalryman of Indiana,” and Newgent, the “boy chaplain.” It was read before a special meeting of the Steele Post G. A. R., and auxiliary orders of Rockville shortly after Johnston’s death by Mrs. White, the wife of Judge A. F. White of that city. Judge White was also a soldier and a life-long friend of Johnston and Newgent. The doctor referred to in the paper had served as a physician in the Confederate army, but afterward took up his residence in Rockville, where he built up a large practice. The three men were present with the wife when Colonel Johnston died, and helped to make up the scene in the death chamber so dramatically described in the paper.
“LIGHTS OUT.”