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He then sank back, like his son, smiled, and
expired!
(Extracted from the journal of Julian Young, 1840)
During this year I lost one of my best parishioners.
His death was very striking.
He was one of the poorest of the poor.
He had been disabled from all work by illness for years.
Severely afflicted as he was, he bore his heavy burden
with a patience I never saw equaled. I never went to
him that I did not carry away from him more good than
I left behind me. It was impossible to be in his company
without feeling one's immeasurable inferiority to him
in all the essentials of vital religion.
The last time I saw him was under circumstances not
easily forgotten. During the four years I had known him
he was never entirely free from pain. From the crown of
his head to the sole of his feet he was a mass of putrefying
scrofulous sores—and yet his face always shone with an
inward peace, which no amount of bodily anguish was
able to disturb. In a crude upper chamber—with a flooring
so rickety and full of holes as to be dangerous—with a roof
so dismantled and rotten that the rain dropped through it—
stretched on a scanty pallet—lay this brave martyr—along
with his only son, a youth of fifteen years—their hands
clasped together, their countenances reflecting back on
each other the mutual love that glowed within their hearts
—fellow sufferers from the same hereditary malady—fellow
believers in the same Jesus—rejoicing in their common
sufferings—and dying almost together.
They were alone when I entered. I had not been there
half an hour, when I heard a gulp, a gurgle, a gasp! Then
I saw the son clutch the father's hand and heard him say,
"Come, father—come quickly! I'm going—don't be long
behind me!" and then he sank back and breathed his last!
The father smiled, raised himself in bed, looked on his
son, kissed him, clasped together his emaciated hands,
lifted them high, and in tones of heavenly rapture,
uttered these lines:
"My sins are countless as the stars,
Or sands upon the shore;
But yet the mercies of my God
Are infinitely more.
Manasseh, Paul, and Magdalene
Were pardoned all by thee;
I read it, and believe it, Lord,
For You have pardoned me."
He then sank back, like his son, smiled, and expired!
"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth
comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."
Romans 8:18
"Let me die the death of the righteous, and may
my end be like theirs!" Numbers 23:10
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