“Our king is a merciful sovereign; he has ever shown a readiness to forgive when his sense of justice will allow him,” answered Arthur. “But oh! how much more merciful is our Father in heaven; and His justice having been amply satisfied by the willing sacrifice of His dear Son, who died for sinners, He is abundantly ready to forgive the sinner who trusts to that full atonement made for his sins! I speak thus, dear Gilbert, for I fear your time on earth is short.”
“I know it is,” answered Gilbert. “Oh! continue to speak as you have begun. I knew myself to be a guilty, outcast sinner before I left the prison. What you had said to me sunk into my heart. It was for your sake and for Hugh’s more than my own that I escaped; and I came back in the lugger resolved not to participate in the profits of the enterprise.”
Arthur sighed.
“Those who associate with evil-doers share in their doings,” he was compelled to remark, but he dwelt not on that subject.
“My dear brother,” he continued, “we are all sinners in the sight of a pure and holy God, who cannot look upon iniquity; but He in His love and mercy has provided a fountain in which all our sins, however black, however foul, can be washed away; and He tells us in His Word that though they be red like crimson, they shall become as white as snow, and though they be as scarlet, they become as wool—that He will put them as far from us as the east is from the west. To that fountain which flowed from the side of Jesus when He hung on the cross, offering himself up as a full and sufficient sacrifice in God’s sight for the sins of all who trust in Him, let me urge you to turn your eyes; believe in that loving Saviour that He died for you, as well as for other sinners; that His heart yearns toward you; that He desires you to come to Him and be saved.”
“I remember, Arthur, that you said this to me in prison; but I hardened my heart. I was strong and well, and feared not death,” answered Gilbert, with a deep sigh. “I can do nothing to merit heaven—it’s too late now, it’s too late.”
“It is never too late,” exclaimed Arthur. “The arms of Jesus are ever ready to receive all who come to Him in simple faith, trusting to His merits alone, and not to any merits of their own, or anything they ever can do to deserve His favour; banish such a thought from your mind. By His free grace He gives us salvation: remember the thief on the cross; he simply turned his dying eye on his crucified Lord, acknowledging that He was the Son of God, and the same answer Jesus gave to him He will give to you if you believe on Him. Remember, too, how the Israelites in the wilderness, bitten by the fiery serpents, were told to look on the serpent of brass, the emblem of healing held up by Moses, and no sooner did they look than they were healed. How merciful, how loving, how gracious, is our Father in heaven, who, knowing the frailty of poor human beings, has thus provided so simple, so easy, and yet so all-sufficient a means by which they may be saved.”
Arthur, animated by love for his brother’s soul, continued thus to plead with him, for he dreaded lest he might die in the attempt to move him. He would have pleaded, however, in the same way with any other sufferer, for he knew the value of human souls.
At length several of the people assembled round him, and charitably offered to convey the injured man to a cottage at some little distance from the beach.
“Let me be taken there,” whispered Gilbert; “there is another I should wish to see, to ask her forgiveness for all the pain and sorrow I have caused her, but do not leave me.”