The Hero of the Humber | Page 9

is very much like the great coats
which persons of delicate health wear in this changeable climate, and
which they use in foul weather, but lay aside when it is fair. 'Lord,' says
David, 'in trouble they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy

chastening was upon them.'
[Sidenote: ACCOMPANIES MR. JONES.]
Nor would we intimate that none truly repent of their sins and obtain
forgiveness, under such circumstances. Though late repentance is
seldom genuine, yet, as Mr. Jay remarks, genuine repentance is never
too late. God can pardon the sins of a century as easily as those of a day.
Our friend was the means, in the hand of God, of leading many, when
worn by sickness and at the eleventh hour of life, to the Lamb of God.
His carefully kept diary records many such instances. We give one. He
says, 'I remember one Sunday coming from Hessle with the Rev. C.
Jones. Our "hearts burned within us as we talked by the way," and
when we got to Coultam Street, a number of well-dressed young men
overheard our conversation, and began to shout after us and call us
approbrious names. Mr. J. talked with them, but to no purpose. Four
months after, Mr. Jones and myself went, as usual, to visit the inmates
of the infirmary; Mr. J. took one side and I the other, and when I came
to a person who needed special counsel and advice, I used to call my
friend to my aid. Well, we met with a young man who burst into a
flood of tears, and casting an imploring look towards Mr. Jones, he said,
"O sir, do forgive me." "Forgive you what?" said Mr. J. "what have you
done that you should ask me to forgive you?" "Sir," said he, "I am one
of those young men who were so impertinent to you one Sunday when
you were returning from Hessle; do forgive me, sir." "I freely forgive
you," replied my friend, "you must ask God to forgive you, for it is
against him you have sinned." We then prayed with him, and asked
God to forgive him. He was suffering from a broken leg, and I often
used to visit him after our first interview. He obtained pardon, and
rejoiced in Christ as his Saviour. He was a brand plucked from the
burning.'
[Sidenote: SICK-BED REPENTANCE.]
But Mr. Ellerthorpe also tells us that though he visited, during
twenty-five years, hundreds of persons who cried aloud for mercy and
professed to obtain forgiveness, on what was feared would be their
dying beds, yet, he did not remember more than five or six who, on

being restored to health, lived so as to prove their conversion genuine.
The rest returned 'like the dog to its vomit, and the sow that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire.' The Sabbath-breaker forgot his
vows and promises, and returned to his Sunday pleasures. The swearer
allowed his tongue to move as unchecked in insulting his Maker as
before. The drunkard thirsted for his intoxicating cups and returned to
the scenes of his former dissipations; and the profligate, who avowed
himself a 'changed man,' when health was fully restored, laughed at
religion as a fancy, and hastened to wallow in the mire of pollution. He
had scarcely a particle of faith in sick-bed repentances, but believed
that in most instances they are solemn farces.
Deeply affecting and admonitory are some of the instances he records.
He says, 'One night an engineer called me out of bed to visit his wife,
who was attacked with cholera. While I was praying with her, he was
seized with the complaint. I visited them again the next day, when the
woman died, but the husband, after a long affliction, recovered. He
seemed sincerely penitent and made great promises of amendment. But,
alas! like hundreds more whom I visited, he no sooner recovered, than
he sought to shun me. At length he left the part of the town where he
resided when I first visited him, as he said, "to get out of my way." But
at that time, I visited in all parts of the town, and I often met him, and it
used to pain me to see the dodges he had recourse to in order to avoid
meeting me in the street.'
He also records the case of a carter who resided in Collier Street. He
was attacked with small pox, and was horrible to look at and infectious
to come near, but being urged to visit him, 'I went to see him daily for a
long time,' says John. 'One day when I called I found him, his wife, and
child bathed in tears, for the doctor had just told them that the husband
and