down by him and said: "You will be going now to
confess Christ; you'll be going to take your stand for him now?" "Well,"
said he, "Mr. Moody, I promised God on my sick bed that I would; but I
will wait a little. I am going over to Michigan, where I am going to buy
a farm and settle down, and then I'll become a Christian." "If God
cannot make you a Christian here he cannot do it there," I replied. I
tried to get him to make an unconditional surrender, but he wouldn't; he
would put it off till the next spring. "Why," I said, "you may not live
till next spring." "Don't you see I am getting quite well?" "But are you
willing to take the risk till next spring?" "Oh, yes, I'll take it; Mr.
Moody, you needn't trouble yourself any more about my soul; I'll risk
it; you can just attend to your business, and I will to mine, and if I
lose my soul, no one will be to blame but myself--certainly not you, for
you've done all you could." I went away from that house then with a
heavy heart.

I well remember the day of the week, Thursday, about noon, just one week
from that very day, when his wife sent for me. When I went to their home
I found her in great trouble, and learned that he had had a relapse. I
asked if he had expressed a desire to see me. She said "No; he is always
saying 'there is no hope,' and I cannot bear to have him die in that
condition." I went into the room. He did not speak to me, but I went
around to the foot of the bed and looked in his face and said, "Won't
you speak to me?" and at last he fixed that terrible deathly look upon
me and said, "Mr. Moody, you need not talk to me any more. It is too
late; there is no hope for me now. Go talk to my wife and children; pray
for them; but my heart is as hard as the iron in that stove there. When
I was sick He came to the door of my heart, and I promised to serve Him,
but I broke that promise, and now I must die without Him." I got down to
pray. "You needn't pray for me," he said. I prayed, but it seemed as if
my prayer went no higher than my head. He lingered till that night,
repeating, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not
saved." There he lay in agony, every few minutes this lamentation
breaking from him. Just as the sun was going down behind those Western
prairies, his wife leaned over him, and in an almost inaudible voice, he
whispered, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not
saved," and he died. He had lived a Christless life, he died a