Saved in a Railway Train.

IT was a dull and cheerless winter morning. I had been up North for a ten days’ mission and was returning to London by train. The work had been done under difficulties. All the week, I had been really too ill to conduct the meetings. Worn out and tired, I just longed to be alone, and when my only fellow-passenger got out at Doncaster, a great desire filled me to have the carriage to myself the rest of the way to London. But I was disappointed. The train was on the point of starting, when a young railway man in uniform handed his wife—scarcely more than a girl—into the carriage.
The fast-melting snow was flooding the meadows, and the air was bitterly cold, so l said, “Wouldn’t you like the window shut? It’s very raw this morning.”
The girl-wife started. ‘Oh yes, please; I forgot, I wasn’t cold. I came away in such a hurry—I only had two hours’ notice.”
I closed the window and retreated to my corner, while the young woman leant back and gazed steadily out on the flooded fields; but a glance told that her eyes saw not, and her thoughts were far away. Suddenly an idea struck me, and I said:
“I expect you have had no lunch if you came away so hurriedly; will you accept some of my sandwiches?”’
A rush of unshed tears came to the young woman’s eyes, as she thanked me gratefully. The ice was broken, and she told me her story.
“My father is dying—they’ve just telegraphed for me—I am summoned home to see him die—It’s hard, so hard!”
A few words of sympathy brought the ready tears, and they were falling quickly when I ventured a pointed question—tremblingly, it is true: “And your father; is he ready to die?”
“Oh yes!” the words came brokenly, “he is one of the best of men—as good a man as one could meet.”   “But goodness is not enough,” I ventured; “is he really trusting in the Lord Jesus as his personal Saviour?”
“Yes, he is,’’ she said, emphatically, ‘‘and he has been a Christian and a preacher of the Gospel for many years.”
“Then you cannot regret his being called, if he is old and full of years; it only means going home to the Lord Jesus in glory, and you will meet him some day again—will you not?”
Another rush of tears, and she burst out: “Oh, I am not a Christian—I do wish I were! I have wanted to be saved for years, but somehow, I could never understand the way!”
“Suppose God has sent you to meet me, in order that from His Word, He may show you the way here and now! Are you willing to accept Christ as your Saviour?”
“Yes,” she answered, ‘‘l am—that is exactly what I want.”
Taking out my pocket Bible, I opened it at Isa. i. 18, and asked her to read it—‘‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”  “There, you see, is the Lord’s invitation; are you willing to accept it?”
“Yes, l am!”   “Then let us tell Him so!”
The train was rushing on at forty or fifty miles an hour, but there, in the carriage of the express, we had a little prayer-meeting, and the Lord drew very near. From her lips came a sentence of earnest prayer, as in simple fashion she gave herself to the Lord Jesus, yielding heart and life and soul to Him, just as she was, for ever!
Then she read for herself those words in John vi. 37, “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out,’’ and I asked:—
“You have come here in this railway train, and given yourself to Him?”   “Yes, I have.”
‘‘Then has He cast you out?”   “Oh, no. “He said he wouldn’t.”   “Then what has He done?”   ‘‘Why, He’s received me!’’ and the light of sudden joy broke over her face. Then I asked:—
“Since He has received you, who has to deal with the question of your sin—you or the Lord Jesus?”   “Why, He has.”
“Yes; see what His Word says about it: ‘He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities.’  “Whose transgressions was the Lord Jesus wounded for?”
“Mine!”
“Then you are free!” and together we read the verse in the first person, “He was wounded for my transgressions; He was bruised for my iniquities—the chastisement of my peace was upon Him, and with His stripes I am healed!” Then together we thanked and praised Him for so great salvation.
The train slowed down at a big junction, and my companion changed to a branch line for her home. But oh, the change in her face! Despite the fact that she was on the way to her father’s dying bed, the light of a holy joy shone in her face, and God had stamped His own peace upon her brow.
A few days later, I had a letter from the railway porter’s young wife—a sweet little note, full of joy and assurance in God. “Perhaps,” she said in closing, “I may never meet you again on earth, but I shall see you in Heaven, where I shall be one star in your crown!”
So far we have not met—our paths never crossed again; but through a long eternity, we shall praise Him who is able to save anyhow and anywhere, even in a flying express or a dashing railway train!
Grace Pettman.
“The Christian” September 11, 1902.