Chapter 4.13 – The Subject of My Call to Preach Renewed

I visited a woman who was laying sick upon her death-bed. She told me “she had once enjoyed religion, but the enemy had cheated her out of it.” She knew that she must die in a very little while, and could not get well, and her agony of soul, in view of its unprepared state for a judgment to come, awoke every feeling of sympathy within me. Oh! how loud such a scene calls upon us to be “faithful unto death”—then shall we “receive a crown of life.” Also visited Mrs. Miller, who once “tasted that the Lord was good,” but had ceased now to follow him. She had been a Methodist for many years—got her feelings injured through some untoward circumstance—had fallen from grace, and now was sick. A good sister accompanied me; we conversed with Mrs. M., sung an appropriate hymn, and my friend supplicated the throne of grace in her behalf. She had frequently felt the need of a returning Saviour, and during prayer her heart became melted into tenderness. She cried aloud for mercy, wrestled like Jacob for the witness, and the Lord, faithful and true, “healed her backslidings,” and we left her happy in his father. Praise the Lord for his matchless grace. I entertained no doubt of her well-grounded hope; and on seeing such a display of God’s power, I was lost in wonder, love and praise. Let the backslider hear and take courage. Let all who are out of Christ hear the invitation—“Repent ye and be converted, for God hath called all men everywhere to repent.”