About twenty years ago, while we were doing some evangelistic work at L_, early one morning a little boy with a very sad heart called at our room, saying that his mother was dying and wished to see us. We hurried to Mrs. B_'s home, and as we opened the door we beheld a sorrowful sight -- a woman in despair. The expression on her face and the sad look in her eyes told of great agony. We were at a loss to know just what to say or do. Our heart was full. We said to her, "You are in great pain."
With a wild look she replied, "Yes, I am in great pain; but that is nothing compared with the thought of going to meet God unprepared. What is this physical suffering compared to the remorse of conscience and the dark future before me?” Then she cried out in agony, "All is vanity, all is vanity! I have lived for self and tried to find pleasure at the dance and other places of amusement. I have neglected the salvation of my soul! I am unprepared to meet God! Pray for me, oh, pray for me!"
While we prayed she responded, "Amen, amen! God help me! What shall I do? Is there any hope for a poor sinner like me?" and many other similar expressions. Her ungodly husband cried bitterly while she told of their past sinful life. Her heart was hardened with sin, her ears were dull of hearing and her eyes too blind to see the light of God.
Her friends were coming in from the village and surrounding country to see her die. As they entered the room, she would take each one of them by the hand and plead with them not to follow her example, not to live as she had lived. Holding an uncle by the hand, a man deep in sin and who seemed to be far from God, she said, "Uncle, prepare to meet your God. Don't wait until you come to your dying day, as I have done. When you plow your ground, pray. When you plant your corn, pray. When you cultivate the same, pray. Whatever you do, pray!” (She died in the month of May, the season for corn planting.)
Many of her friends wept and promised to live better lives. Her mental agony was so far beyond her physical pain that she seemed to be unconscious of her intense bodily suffering. Her sins seemed to loom up before her as a great mountain, hiding from her the presence and love of God. As long as she was able to speak, she prayed and requested others to do so. In a few hours the voice, that had been pleading so pitifully for mercy, and warning others by the example of her ungodly life was hushed in the silence of death.
The pastor of the Methodist Church, whom we were helping, preached at her funeral. As we listened to his words of warning, we resolved as never before to further our efforts in warning lost humanity to flee from the wrath to come.
Soon after her death we called on her husband and reminded him of his wife's dying testimony and urged him to attend the revival meetings that we were holding in the town, but he seemed to be full of prejudice against Christianity and gave us no encouragement, and still continued to walk in the same sinful path as heretofore.
We trust that our readers will take warning by the sad experience related in this sketch. God help us all to redeem the time as we see eternity drawing near. Amen.
This shocking testimony is an excerpt from a book that was written and compiled by Solomon B. Shaw in 1898, entitled,"Dying Testimonies of the Saved and Unsaved".
“Not only have millions upon millions of God’s children witnessed in life and death of Jesus’ power to save, but most infidels, skeptics, and sinners of every grade are constrained to acknowledge the truth of the Christian religion before they die.” - S.B. Shaw
“Multitudes, while dying, see and hear things that are not seen or heard by others.” - S.B. Shaw
