I can neither think nor pray, if praying would do any good. I
can only suffer, suffer, suffer!"
The painful interview soon ended. To every cheerful or hopeful
suggestion which I made he gave but the one reply:
"Too late!"
The unspeakable anguish of his look, as his eyes followed me to the
door, haunted me for many a day, and the echo of his words, "Too late!"
lingered sadly upon my ear. When I saw the announcement of his death, a
few days afterward, I asked myself the solemn question, Whether I had
dealt faithfully with this lighthearted, gifted man when he was within
my reach. His last rook is before me now, as I pencil these lines.
"John A--is dying over on the Portrero, and his family wants you to go
over and see him."
It was while I was pastor in San Francisco. A--was a member of my
Church, and lived on what was called the Portrero, in the southern part
of the city, beyond the Long Bridge. It was after night when I reached
the little cottage on the slope above the bay.
"He is dying and delirious," said a member of the family, as I entered
the room where the sick man lay. His wife, a woman of peculiar traits
and great religious fervor, and a large number of children and
grandchildren, were gathered in the dying man's chamber and the
adjoining rooms.
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