PLEADED FOR HER MOTHER’S GOD.
At a fashionable party a young physician present spoke of one of his patients, whose case he considered a very critical one. He said he was “very sorry to lose him, for he was a noble young man, but very unnecessarily concerned about his soul, and Christians increased his agitation by talking with him, and praying for him. He wished Christians would let his patients alone. Death was but one endless sleep, the religion of Christ a delusion, and its followers were not persons of the highest culture or intelligence.” A young lady sitting near, and one of the gayest of the company, said: “Pardon me, doctor, but I can not hear you talk thus and remain silent. I am not a professor of religion, I never knew anything about it experimentally, but my mother was a Christian. Times without number she has taken me with her to her room, and with her hand upon my head she has prayed that God would give her grace to train me for the skies. Two years ago my precious mother died, and the religion she loved through life sustained her in her dying hour. She called us to her bedside, and, with her face shining with glory, asked us to meet her in heaven, and I promised to do so. ‘And now,’ said the young lady, displaying deep emotion, ‘can I believe that this is all a delusion, that my mother sleeps an eternal sleep, that she will never waken again in the resurrection, and that I shall see her no more? No, I can not, I will not, believe it.’” The young lady’s brother tried to quiet her, for by this time she had the attention of all present. “No,” said she, “brother, I must defend my mother’s God, my mother’s religion.” The physician made no reply, and soon left the room. He was found shortly afterward pacing the floor of an adjoining room, in great agitation and distress of spirit. “What is the matter?” a friend inquired. “O,” said he, “that young lady is right. Her words have pierced my soul like an arrow. I too, must have the religion I have despised, or I am lost forever.” The result was that both the young lady and the physician accepted Christ.—The Soul-Winner.