HOWARD JOHNSTON was led to Christ on the 16th March, 1859. At that time he was about twenty years of age. The means used by God to his awakening was the faithful preaching of C. H. Spurgeon. He had recently attended the services in New Park Street, and it was there the arrows of the Most High had entered his conscience. The broad waters of the Thames that flowed beneath as he stood on Westminster Bridge were as a figure of the stream of Time, which was bearing on its bosom millions of souls—and his amongst them—on to the fathomless ocean of Eternity—on—on to God!
The "happy day" had now dawned upon the young man Howard Johnston, for ere he passed that old bridge at Westminster he had, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, passed from death unto life. All had been made as clear as sunlight to his soul while meditating on the great truth of redeeming love. The sacrifice at Calvary was that perfect atonement in which he saw every claim of Divine righteousness and the deepest need of his soul abundantly satisfied. The words he had often heard and read had a depth of meaning which he had never realized in his soul before—"God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). He saw that God indeed loved the world, and loved him. He could not doubt it, since he had given His only-begotten Son to die for sinners, had given Him up to such a death, "even the death of the Cross," the full benefits of which he saw were for the guiltiest sinner that walked the earth if he would but receive them; and did it not say, that "WHOSOEVER believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? Could he longer doubt that all this was intended for him—his own very self? Impossible! So, without further hesitancy, he boldly cast himself, there and then, by simple faith, upon Christ for salvation, and knew the unspeakable joy of sins forgiven (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1))
He and sin now parted company. The burden of guilt which had weighed upon his soul had now been rolled off like a mighty load, or like a mountain that had been cast into the depth of the sea of God's forgetfulness to be seen no more. His conscience, which had often spoken in thunder tones of present guilt and future judgment, was now purged by the Blood—"the precious Blood of Christ." What mind can conceive—what tongue express—the ecstatic joy of the soul thus brought to God? None indeed! For it is the supreme delight of one that finds himself lost in the boundless ocean of Divine, unutterable love—a love that bled and died for its object, and which has now thrown its golden chain around its willing captive, and pressed to its beating heart the once unlovely and unloving child. Yea, and as many as have, like Howard Johnston, been brought to know and rest in this wondrous redeeming love of Christ, shall verily be saved, satisfied, and "filled unto all the fullness of God." Let us each ask ourselves, Have I experienced the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost? Am I saved?