“He found me, the lost and the wandering,
The sinful, the sad, and the lone;
He said, ' I have bought thee, beloved,
Forever thou art mine own.”
—From the German.
SERVICE, short and simple, was over, but Lizzie did not go away. She had heard—in a way that seemed quite new and altogether different from the preaching she had been used to—of the Lord Jesus as One who loved, who wanted her for His very own. Hers had long been a weary heart. No earthly friend, not even her sister, knew how weary. She had tried her very hardest to be what she would have called “good." But all her trying had only ended, as such efforts always must, in failure and disappointment.
So, when an invitation for any who wished to be spoken to about their souls to remain was given, Lizzie gladly availed herself of it. I am not going to try to tell you all that passed on that, to her, never to-be-forgotten Sunday evening. I could not even if I wished to do so, for whenever a soul really has to do with God, much that passes is and must ever remain a secret known only to that soul and its God. “The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." (Prov. 14:1010The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy. (Proverbs 14:10)) But more than forty years after Lizzie spoke of it as the night of her conversion, the time when, as a poor lost sinner, she trusted herself to a mighty Savior, resting her whole soul upon His word. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).) Why have I copied the whole verse? Because among my readers there are, I know, many dear young believers, and it would be a great joy to me to be allowed to awake a thrill of gladness in the heart of one, even though it may be only one of His little ones.
Have you never had a love gift? Perhaps some very tiny thing of no great value in itself. No one understands why you keep it so carefully, do they? But you know. It was a present, you say, from some one you love dearly, and that is why you value it. Yes, dear ones, and so a strange new joy springs up in the heart of a young Christian when spirit-taught it sees itself, it may be for the first time, as the Father's gift to Christ, in itself poor, weak and worthless, but yet "loved with an everlasting love," and not only loved, but given to Him by the Father, and so dear and precious to the heart of Christ.
But we must go back to Lizzie and her story. She had received two things— forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is too much to suppose that on the Sunday evening of which I write she would have been able to tell any one exactly what her new possessions were. She knew that she was saved by the work of another, by the work the Lord had done upon the cross, though she had still to learn that the One who did the work and was risen from the dead has gone to a new place, and that only new things can suit that new place.
A great longing filled her heart that her own loved home circle might share her joy. The One who had saved her was, she felt sure, able and willing to save them too. She must tell them of her Savior, of the joy that filled her own soul. The time fixed for her return home seemed far too long to wait, so she wrote to her father, telling him of the One who had sought and found her, and asking his permission to attend the little mission room that had already grown so dear to her.
How was the letter received? If a bombshell had fallen in the middle of the family sitting-room it could hardly have caused greater surprise or displeasure.
Her father's brow darkened as he read the letter. He then, without speaking, handed it to his wife. Soon both parents began to talk it over, and, after a little while, it was decided that what they called "this sort of thing" must be put a stop to; that during the remainder of her stay at Reading she must attend Church, or remain indoors if her aunt was not able to go with her, and that on her return home she must not expect to be allowed to say much of her new-found treasure.
And so the letter from home received by Lizzie a few days later must have been a great disappointment, costing her, I have no doubt, many bitter tears. But it did her good in the end by casting her more simply on the Lord, by helping to form the habit of turning every difficulty and trial into prayer.