“I’ll go to the theater and enjoy myself in spite of you both. Why should a young fellow be cribbed and hindered from having a night’s fun by two girls?”
These words were spoken in a petulant tone, so unusual in that quiet home, that no sooner had Harry closed the door, leaving his two sisters alone, than they burst into tears. It was the first jarring note that had marred the harmony of the trio, who since the aged and godly mother’s death, had lived happily together in the old home.
The two sisters were happy, earnest Christians, never ashamed to let their light shine, or to tell of the Saviour whom they loved, to others. The younger was a delicate girl, not able to be much about, but she gathered a class of little girls on the Sunday afternoons, and had much joy in telling them the way of life through Jesus.
Harry, their brother, was studying medicine, but came out to their country home at the weekends, to spend the Sunday with his sisters. He “professed” conversion when quite a boy, and during his mother’s lifetime maintained his profession, outwardly at least; indeed, he could scarce do otherwise, for under her ever-watchful eye, he could not go far astray. But now that the prop upon which he had leaned was gone, and new companions had been found in the city, it was becoming painfully evident to his godly sisters that he was either becoming a “backslider,” or that he had never been really “born again.”
His determination to go to the theater that evening, soon after his return from the city, expressing the bitter words I have quoted, after being affectionately besought not to expose himself to the temptations of such a place, finally convinced the girls that Harry was not the Lord’s, that he had never been truly converted—turned to God—else it were impossible he could find satisfaction or enjoyment in the company of such as frequent the playhouse, no matter what religious, worldlings and unconverted preachers say in its favor.
“Let us join in prayer that God may arrest him, Lizzie dear,” said the elder sister. “He is able to do this, and He has said if two of His own agree to ask Him, that He will.”
An earnest, tearful prayer was wafted from that lone room to the eternal throne, and entered the open ear of God the Almighty. Miracles, such as were performed in the early days, exist no more; but the “arm of the Lord is not shortened,” in answer to prayer it is yet made bare.
At the very moment the sisters were praying, Harry was arrested as if by an unseen hand on the street. He cannot describe what he felt, but the words rang in his ear, “Prepare to meet thy God!” as they fell from the lips of a street preacher, and although the speaker may never know it here, they were God’s message to arrest the wanderer and bring him to himself. For a full hour, he wandered to and fro in the dark night, in great mental agony. The twinkling stars above his head reminded him that he had a mother in heaven, and that to her he had promised in his boyhood, that he would never cross the threshold of a theater. Now he was on the way to break that promise, and in all probability to plunge into the vortex of utter ungodliness, for once the restraints of home and godly upbringing are cast aside, it often happens, that such a one sinks deeper into the slough of sin than any other.
Wandering to and fro, uncertain what to do or where to go, ashamed to return to his sisters and confess his faults, goaded by the devil to make the final plunge, yet restrained by an awakened conscience, by the remembrance of his godly mother’s counsels and warnings, by the hand of God put forth in answer to his sisters’ prayers, he wandered into a quiet street and there—not by “chance,” as men would say, but by the appointment of that God who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will—he stood in front of a brightly-lit hall, at the door of which a number of young men were standing, singing the hymn, “Jesus is mighty to save.”
One of the circle seeing a stranger, evidently not “on business bent,” went up to him, and asked if he would come in and spend an hour at their Gospel Meeting, which was to be addressed that evening by a band of converted students.
Harry needed no second invitation: he entered and sat down. To his surprise, a few of the speakers were his own classmates, and as one after another told simply but definitely how he had been awakened, convicted and converted, Harry was fully convinced that his former “profession” had been a sham, and that he had never been truly converted at all. I do not know all that God spoke to him during that meeting, but at the close, he had a long, close, personal talk with two of the students, to whom he opened his mind, expressed his difficulties, and was pointed to a personal and present Savior.
“If you missed the mark before, and did not have Christ, you need not fear to trust Him now. He is able and willing to save. And you will know that you have not a profession, but a possession of eternal life, the moment you cast yourself upon Him.”
Harry did surrender himself as a sinner to the Saviour, and He—as He ever does—received him. He ran without stopping till he reached his home, and opening the door, he hurried to the parlor. He burst into tears, locking his sisters in his arms, with the joyful confession,
“I’m saved now, thank God.”
There was great joy and many thanksgivings, as he told the story of how the Lord met him, and in answer to their cry, arrested and brought him to Himself, in whose service through grace he still remains; telling with his lips, and showing by his life, the virtue of Jesus who is “Mighty to Save.”
There is a vast difference between an empty profession which has to be “kept up” and is always liable to be lost, and a genuine conversion which is the work of the Spirit of God, and is actually and manifestly wrought in all who as lost sinners personally receive Jesus Christ as their only Savior and Lord.
Dear Christians, do not lose heart in asking God to save your dear ones.
“This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and if we know that He hear us, we know that we have the petition that we desired of Him.” (1 John 5:14, 1514And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 15And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (1 John 5:14‑15)).