Today I received the following letter from a good man in Leeds:

"Dear Sir: In the month of August, previous to your last visit to Leeds, I was sick in the Leeds Hospital, and an unconverted sinner. As I lay delirious of typhus fever, I dreamt that a stranger from a far country stood before me. He was in the act of preaching salvation to poor sinners, urging me and all of us to flee from the wrath to come, and warned us against false prophets that would come -- yea, and had already come.

"He approached me and asked if I was willing to be saved. I said I was. Then, laying his hand upon my shoulder, he said: 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Instantly I saw Jesus Christ upon the cross, between the two thieves. He was bleeding. I saw his five wounds plain to my eye as ever the Roman soldiers who crucified him did.

"I asked, 'What is to become of my wife and child?' The stranger replied, 'They shall be saved, too.'

"I recovered, and told my wife my vision; but she treated it as dreams are treated; but soon after our child died. Thus was one saved out of the three.

"Well, sir, on the Sabbath night you preached at Oxford-place Chapel, my wife was there, got awakened, and converted to God. Home she came, a new woman, with the news about a strange minister who had arrived in town; telling me of the cries for mercy among sinners stricken down by the word of God. Two out of the three were now saved, -- one in heaven, the other on earth.

"My soul was seized with a strange emotion. I said, 'I'll go and hear him, too.' I went; but the moment I saw you in the pulpit, I exclaimed, 'That is the very man I saw in my dream in the hospital.' True as eternity, sir, is what I am telling you. The sermon troubled me. After sermon, you came down and made your way through the crowd, and came to me and paused, and laid your hand upon my shoulder, -- you did, sir, -- just where I felt it in my hospital dream. I left the chapel; but heard you again and again; seeing nothing before me but eternity, with its blackness of darkness.

"Well, sir, one night, in prayer at my house, when I was pleading for mercy, light sprang up in my heart bright as noonday; but I did not understand it. The following Sabbath I was freely justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

"Now, the three were saved; and my wife and self are on our way to heaven. I hope, sir, you will see in these things tokens of the providence of God. We have one favor to ask, -- a copy of those lines you repeated from a German poet; and tell us how the work is advancing in Huddersfield; -- and yet another favor, that you will visit us in Leeds before you leave England. J. S."

 

From: SIGNIFICANT DREAMS By Duane V. Maxey

 

 

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