JOHN HAMBLEDON, actor, gold-miner, lecturer,
etc.,
had many narrow escapes. In speaking of his
periences on the Pacific Coast at the time of the discovery
of gold in California, he says: "Once I was delivered from
drowning when the long reeds were entwined around my
body in deep water and prevented me from swimming;
another time I well-nigh perished in crossing a vast
desert; another time pistols were loaded, and blood-
thirsty men sought my life; another time Mexican bayo-
nets were pointed at my breast; yet another time a terrible
disease laid hold of me, and so hopeless did my case
appear that my comrades put me down under the shelter of
a tree, and felt so sure that my hours were numbered that
they began to prepare my grave near by, into which it was
their purpose to cast my poor emaciated body when the
spark of life had fled. I shall never forget the horrors of
that situation as I seemed to feel life ebbing away, and the
dread hereafter, even eternity, looming upon my benighted
soul. There I lay without one
ray of Gospel hope to cheer
my guilty soul, but only a certain
looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation. There I lay a wreck in the prime
of life, and to all appearances drifting fast from the shores
of Time toward the vast ocean known as Eternity, for whose
dark expanse I had no chart or pilot to guide me."
Thank God, John
Hambledon's life was saved; and
better than that, he obtained the forgiveness of sins and
became the happy possessor of eternal life as a free gift
from God (Rom. 6. 23). By faith
he saw Christ dying in
his room and stead, and found joy and peace in believing.
He immediately commenced to preach
Christ and Him
crucified, and God greatly owned
his ministry in the con-
version of sinners throughout
Britain and Australia,
where he died in 1889, aged 69.