One day, after weary months of suffering, she said:  “O Vida dear, I would pray to die, if I were not afraid.”

“Why afraid, mother?  I’m sure you’ve been a member of a church these many years, and a faithful attendant on its services, and you have been kind to the poor and such a dear mother,” said Vida, caressing her.  “I don’t think you need be afraid.”

“O child, that will not stand in the great day.  Don’t mention anything I’ve done or been, I beg you,” moaned the poor mother.  “I’ve been nothing but a miserable worldling.  Now I’m almost through with it all, and I’ve no peace or comfort.  It’s all dark, dark.  O what shall I do?”

“Let me send for Dr. Hines,” said Vida.

“O I cannot talk to him.  He’s a stranger; and I’m so weak.  What must I do, O what?”

Vida had been a member of the same church.  But now she sat wrapped in gloom, feeling powerless to help, yet longing to comfort her dying mother.  In the midst of her sad thoughts as she sat watching, while gentle slumber had stolen for a moment over the mother, she remembered the words of a text she had heard her husband preach from, “What must I do to be saved?” The sermon was all gone.

“If it asks that question in the Bible, it must answer it,” she thought.  So finding a Bible, she sat down to search for the old answer to the old question.

“Reading the Bible, dear?” said her mother, opening her eyes.

“Oh, mother, mother, I’ve found the answer.”

The plain short direction was read; the mother repeated it over feebly.  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

“Read about Him, O do,” and she seemed to summon soul and body to listen, as Vida, led doubtless by the Spirit, read here and there of Him who died for us.  Day after day the reading went on; and while the mother slept, the daughter pondered the wonderful words she had read; preached to her for years, apprehended by her only just now.  Her heart was filled with horror and fear at her treatment of such a Saviour; at her daring to number herself among his people; then that heart melted as she read of his love and pity, and casting away her robe of self-righteousness for the first time in her life, she knelt before Him a heart-broken, contrite sinner.  He took the burden from her heart and gave her “peace.”

While she still bowed at the bedside, praying her whispered prayer that her dear mother might “see Jesus,” that mother put out her thin hand and laid it on the golden head, murmuring: 

“Dear daughter, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; He has forgiven me.  It is all peace, peace.  Thank Him.”

And Vida’s clear, low tones of thanksgiving came to her dying mother sweet as the voice of angels, whose song soon burst upon her ear.

How clear an “evidence of Christianity” is this.  A soul exchanging pride, haughtiness, and rebellion for humility and submission.  Vida, meekly bowing to the storm that burst over her head, and filled with joy and peace that had not been hers in the brightest hour of worldly pleasure.  It was not so hard, with this new-born love and trust, to see the grave close over that dear mother.  It was gilded with the light of that day when “we shall rise again.”