There are many cases of extreme and critical illness when the presence of even the most loving pastor may be an unwise intrusion.  An excellent Christian lady who had been twice apparently on the brink of death said to me:  “Never enter the room of a person who is extremely low, unless the person urgently requests you to, or unless spiritual necessity absolutely compels it.  You have no idea how the sight of a new face agitates the sufferer, and how you may unconsciously and unintentionally rob that sufferer of the little life that is fluttering in the feeble frame,” I felt grateful to the good woman for her advice, and have often acted upon it, when the family have unwisely importuned me to do what would have been more harmful than beneficial.  On some occasions, when I have found a sick room crowded by well-meaning but needless intruders, I have taken the liberty to “put them all forth,” as our Master did in that chamber in which the daughter of Jairus was in the death slumber.

A great portion of the time and attention which I bestowed upon the sick was spent on chronic sufferers, who had been confined to their beds of weariness for months or years.  I visited them as often as possible.  Some of those bedridden sufferers were prisoners of Jesus Christ, who did me quite as much good as I could possibly do them.  What eloquent sermons they preached to me on the beauty of submissive patience and on the supporting power of the “Everlasting arms!” Such interviews strengthened my faith, softened my heart, and infused into it something of the spirit of Him who “Took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”  McCheyne, of Dundee, said that before preaching on the Sabbath he sometimes visited some parishioner, who might be lying extremely low, for he found it good “to take a look over the verge.”

In my pastoral rounds I sometimes had an opportunity to do more execution in a single talk than in a score of sermons.  I once spent an evening in a vain endeavor to bring a man to a decision for Christ.  Before I left, he took me up-stairs to the nursery, and showed me his beautiful children in their cribs.  I said to him tenderly:  “Do you mean that these sweet children shall never have any help from their father to get to Heaven?” He was deeply moved, and in a month that man became an active member of my church.  He was glued to me in affection for all the remainder of his useful life.  On a cold winter evening I made a call on a wealthy merchant in New York.  As I left his door, and the piercing gale swept in I said, “What an awful night for the poor!” He went back, and bringing to me a roll of bank bills, he said:  “Please hand these, for me, to the poorest people you know of.”  After a few days I wrote to him, sending him the grateful thanks of the poor whom his bounty had relieved, and added:  “How is it that a man who is so kind to his fellow creatures has always been so unkind to his Saviour as to refuse Him his heart?” That sentence touched him in the core.  He sent for me immediately to come and converse with him.  He speedily gave his heart to Christ, united with, and became a most useful member of our church.  But he told me I was the first person who had ever spoken to him about his spiritual welfare in nearly twenty years.  In the case of this eminently effective and influential Christian, one hour of pastoral work did more than the pulpit efforts of almost a lifetime.