p. 413 | THE AGED PENITENT

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1880

THE AGED PENITENT.

He was seventy years of age when we knew him. The neighbors said that he was wealthy—extremely wealthy; and such was the fact. He generally went by the familiar name of Sammy B——, but his business letters came to the post-office directed, "Samuel B——, Esq." If you were to drive in any direction for miles from his dwelling, accompanied by an old inhabitant of the town, he would say to you, as you asked who was the owner of the farms you passed, "That belongs to Sammy B——," and "that belongs to Sammy B——," until you began to wonder how much land Sammy B—— owned throughout the country. And this was besides mortgages, large sums in savings-banks, and other securities.

But the time came when Sammy B—— felt that he could not keep his possessions much longer, and he sent for us that he might learn how to secure more enduring riches. He had been a great toiler. So devoted had he been to his meadows and broad acres that, when health failed him, and his limbs refused to sustain the old body, he was known to get upon a load of hay, and, upon his knees, pitch it into the barn. Now his strength was gone, and he knew it, and gave up all work, and was disposed to employ his energies in a more spiritual way. We had a long and interesting conversation with him, explained the plan of salvation, and together we knelt in prayer. As we parted, the question was asked, "Can you trust in Jesus?"

"There is something in the way," was the answer given in a tone of great sorrow. After a few days we called again, and urged him to give himself up completely to the Saviour.

"I do so," he replied most emphatically.

"Can you not, then, believe in him, and trust that he receives and blesses you?"

"There is something in the way," he replied in the same tone of sadness. Soon we learned from the neighbors that he was most intensely anxious to obtain salvation, and had gone so far as to spend a whole day in his orchard engaged in prayer. But as we visited him again and again, we found no hope arising in his heart, and received the same reply, "There is something in the way," spoken in the most mournful accents. Surprised at the ill-success of our well-meant efforts, we inquired into the history of his life. We learned that when he was a young man and first married, and living about a mile from the church, he had been in the habit of attending it with his wife, and had had some serious impressions. But he had suddenly ceased to appear among the people of God, and when asked the reason, replied, "I am now commencing life, and I propose to use all my energies in securing a competence for myself and family. When I have done that, then I will go to church and attend to religion."

He continued to live in the same spot all his days, but never, after that remark, was seen in God's sanctuary. When, perhaps, in his old age, at the time we knew him, he might have wished to be there, he was too infirm to go. He never, as far as we knew, paid anything toward the support of the gospel. No religious paper ever entered his door that he paid for. He had made his choice. He had obtained what he labored for, and was now proposing to carry out the rest of his plan, by securing the heavenly riches he had turned away from when he was a young man. But they did not seem to be within his reach. He had fixed upon his own time for God to bless him, and it did not appear to be God's time. He had had the presumption to say to the great Being who rules the universe, "Stand thou aside until I am ready." Now fear and trembling had taken hold of him. His earnest prayers seemed all in vain.

"I pray, and I pray," said he to me, "but I get no answer—no comfort."

The old man continued gradually to fail in health until he was confined to his bed. We visited him frequently, and urged him, with all the earnestness and power we possessed, to commit himself to the Saviour and trust in him, but received the invariable answer, and it was the last sentence we recollect to have heard him speak: "There is something in the way." And he died without seeming to gain one ray of hope. How true it is that, if we postpone the day of salvation, the time may come when God will let us alone, as it was said of Ephraim; and when "He shall laugh at our calamity and mock when our fear cometh!"—Selected.