AT the age of fourteen, life opened very brightly before the young Janet, the petted, loved child of parents whose one desire was her happiness. But, sad to say, they sought it for her in a world which could never satisfy her soul. With their approval Janet joined heartily in all the gaieties of Gibraltar, where her parents resided, though her Christian governess vainly protested that so much dissipation unfitted her pupil for study.
Happily, amid the whirl of pleasure-seeking, there was one good counteracting influence for Janet, in the ministry, on Sundays, of the pious Dr. R., whose weekday classes for young ladies she also attended. This true servant of the Lord had suffered persecution for his Master’s sake, having been driven from the Spanish dominions by the cruel queen of that country. Armed soldiers had been sent by her with orders to expel him at the point of the bayonet, while preaching in the church at Cadiz. However, through God’s over-ruling mercy, they were restrained from any act of violence, and quietly waited until the conclusion of the service, when the preacher walked out unmolested. He found refuge and safety at Gibraltar, whither his numerous converts followed him later, being also banished from Spain.
Though Dr. R. sought to praise God in the trial, yet he could not but leave the scene of his labors with sorrow, and his heart as a father suffered an additional pang at the same time in the death of his youngest child, whom he had every reason to believe was poisoned. “Vengeance belongeth unto Me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.” Dr. R. lived to see this persecuting queen herself turned out of Spain for her wickedness, by her irritated subjects, at the point of the bayonet!
As Janet heard of the sufferings of these persecuted Christians for the Lord’s sake, she much wondered what unseen power could sustain them. Though they had endured the loss of all things, she saw that they had a joy of which she herself knew nothing, while surrounded by all that this world could give of comfort and pleasure. It was evident to her that these people had in inheritance beyond this passing scene; and, as she, longed to share their portion, she trembled, mowing that for her, after death, here was but the judgment.
One night a fearful storm broke over the Rock. When it was at its height, Janet’s father came to her room, and tenderly soothed his frightened child. He covered her bamboo got round with a blanket, and nailed another in front of the window to prevent her seeing the vivid lightning. But no sleep came to the young girl’s eyes that night. A stern view of the reality of eternity, contrasted with the hollowness of her present life, overpowered her, and filled her mind with far more terror than did the storm which raged without.
In the morning Janet’s governess asked her whether she had been afraid during the storm. On receiving “Yes” for a reply, Miss C. put her hands together in the form of a cup, and said―
“Why should you fear? you were in the hollow of God’s hand, and with His right hand He covered you―see how safe you were!”
But the poor girl, who felt her distance from God, only replied, “I was not there.”
About this time Janet’s young soldier-brother said to her, “I can never say that prayer in which we thank God for creating us; I consider it better not to have been born than not to be saved!”
Through God’s tender mercy this young man was brought to the saving knowledge of His Son, during the revival of 1859. Being persuaded by his friends to attend a gospel meeting, held by a well-known evangelist, he very reluctantly followed the rest of the party into a carpenter’s shed, where the service took place, and seated himself near the door. Janet feared he would leave as soon as the text was given out: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24).) He stayed, however, and listened with the deepest interest; and there and then, he passed from death unto life, and returned home rejoicing, repeating the glad tidings to a friend, who had not received the Saviour.
But to return to our story. The ruler of the darkness of this world, used often to suggest hard thoughts of God to Janet, and would ask her why it was that God required the suffering of Christ to reconcile Him to men. She knew not the scripture, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, nor did she know that God beseeches man to be reconciled to Himself (2 Cor. 5:1919To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)), nor that “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).) How frequently is it the case, that Satan works on our ignorance of the Bible to present thoughts to our minds, which are utterly opposed to the word of God!
With the closest scrutiny did Janet now watch the words and actions of her elders, and, not being satisfied with what she saw in several, she came to the conclusion that only her mother, her governess, and Dr. R. were really in the narrow path. The multitude around her, she felt sure, must be in the broad road to eternal ruin. Here again her own thoughts helped to shut her soul up in bitterness.
Having heard that there were several translations of the Bible, it struck her that, as her mother and Miss C. were so different from other people, their Bibles must be different too. So one day she slipped away with Miss C.’s Bible in her hand, determining to read it for herself, while the rest of the family were at luncheon.
Sitting upon the brick floor, on the top of the flat-roofed Spanish house, she began her search for truth. She opened the Book at Genesis, and read through chapter after chapter, and was deep in its perusal when the bell, calling her to her studies, rang, and the step of her governess was heard. At that very moment her eyes rested on a marked passage in Miss C.’s Bible. It happened to be the only one that was marked. It was this: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.” (1 John 5:1919And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. (1 John 5:19).)
Hastily shutting the Book, Janet returned it to its place, thinking within herself, “Yes, they are of God, and I am of the wicked one.”
Yet, even by this bitter experience, new light had entered into her soul: she saw that there is a distinction between the saved and the unsaved.
That same week Dr. R. gave the young girls of his Monday class this subject for their study— “All are sinners;” and he told them to bring from the Bible some texts proving that such is the case. This much displeased Janet, for, notwithstanding her misery of mind, she did not think she came under the same condemnation as open and profligate sinners. She set to work to prove that she was not so very bad, after all, and hunted the Bible up and down to discover a text to sustain her. At last she lighted on 1 Tim. 4:44For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: (1 Timothy 4:4)
“Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.”
She had found many texts which declared that all have sinned, but she was not willing to produce one of them. When the afternoon class assembled, Dr. R. asked for her scriptures, as well as the rest: she replied that she could prove that all were good.
“Then we will keep your proof for the last,” said the doctor, kindly. When Janet gave in her misapplied text, which had nothing whatever to do with man’s goodness or badness, he said, “Surely you might find one text to prove we are sinners.” Feeling obliged to give him one, she selected this: “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” (Eccl. 7:2020For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. (Ecclesiastes 7:20).)
During the time that Janet attended Dr. R.’s class, she learned by heart the epistles to the Galatians and to the Ephesians. Her teacher took some pains to instruct her as to the doctrine of the believer being sealed with the Spirit; but she felt that this truth was not for her, as she could not yet say that she was a child of God. Her great difficulty now was as to the forgiveness of present and future sins, even if she could grasp the thought that the past were pardoned.
Years fled away. Janet had grown to early womanhood, and was still trying to propitiate, by her works, the One whom she regarded at an angry God. She was ever turning to mar for light, and all the time the question before her was, “How shall my soul escape judgment?” Thus it continued with her until the year 1859, when she accompanied her widowed mother to the town of W―to welcome home her soldier-brother from. African service. The Spirit of God was richly blessing the word in the town at that time. An earnest evangelist, who had just returned from scenes of remarkable blessing in Ireland, was preaching to the soldiers, in whose good he was warmly interested. The general in command encouraged every effort for the spiritual good of his men, and, as Janet was a soldier’s daughter, her interest in the men led her to attend these meetings. Very remarkable were they for the power of God’s Spirit accompanying the word. Many were saved, and amongst others Janet’s, brother, whose conversion has been already recorded. The Christians attending these meetings seemed very earnest in speaking to anxious souls, but no one gave Janet even a tract, or said one word to her about her salvation. How disappointed she was, night after night, at the apparent want of interest in her! But, though no one ever said a wore to her, God spoke, for two texts, read during one of the services, never left her: first, “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field” (Isa. 40:66The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: (Isaiah 40:6)); the other, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jer. 8:2020The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. (Jeremiah 8:20).
One day Janet heard an officer, who had a bundle of tracts in his hand, say he had divided them into two parcels, one for be believers, and the other for unbelievers; she longed for one of each, but received none, though two of her brother’s men-servants who were present, did so. One of these went home rejoicing in the Saviour, saying, “Having Christ we have everything.” He had been brought up in a religion which looks for salvation by works, and had therefore never before been taught that Jesus is the Way, and tin Truth, and the Life. Janet watched this man carry off his tracts to an attic, and longed to read them, so as to solve the difficulty which so painfully exercised her mind: the difference between a believer and an unbeliever.
Though without the knowledge of God’s love to herself, all this time Janet was teaching others—teaching what she did not know! She had a large Sunday-class, at some little distance from her residence, and as she wended her way to the school, through the quiet lane, she would mark the hawthorn blooming in the hedges. Often on week days, when riding with her brother and the groom down the same sheltered road, they would pause and pick the pretty blossoms, and place them in their horses’ head-straps. Then tears would fill poor Janet’s eyes, for the remainder of the ride, as she thought the hawthorn had bloomed, and might fade away―the summer come and pass into winter―and yet she remain unsaved. The text she had heard at the soldiers’ meeting would ring in her ears. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” “Not saved, not saved,” would re-echo in her anguished heart.
The following winter, Janet attended three special evening prayer-meetings at her church; but still no blessing reached her. Her distress of soul but deepened as the months passed by; and often as she walked through the lanes she would weep bitterly, and then try to remove the marks of tears, and cool her fevered eyes with a handful of snow.
The returning spring brought flowers and sunshine, and Janet again could pluck the hawthorn blossoms as she walked to the Sunday-school; but the text kept still sadly re-echoing in her heart, “Not saved, not saved!”
One afternoon, while sorrowfully going home from the Sunday-class, a voice, as it were from heaven, suddenly said to her, “How do you know that you are your mother’s child?”
She stood still, and answered, “Because she tells me so, and all her actions prove it.”
Then the voice said again, “And do not Mine?”
At once, and aloud, Janet answered, “They do, Lord; Thou art my Father and my God.”
Thus in the quiet country lane, where she had had so much sorrow of heart, God spoke rest to her; and that lane still seems to her a hallowed spot. Jehovah— Jesus, the Lord whose mighty arm had dried up the sea, had, in His tender love to a poor anxious soul, dried up her tears. The joy of her deliverance, after the years of bondage, was such, that she was enabled at once to make a stand for her loving Saviour.
Since that bright day on which God spoke peace to her soul, Janet’s faith has not wavered, for she rests on the Saviour according to the authority of God’s word. All who knew her soon saw the change in her; from having been intensely reserved and timid, she now came boldly out on the Lord’s side. Her great delight was to tell to others what He had done for her―how that He had set her feet on a Rock, and put a new song in her mouth, even praise to her God.
Janet was strangely tempted, after her conversion, to give up her class of twenty-eight girls in the Sunday-school, but took courage from the words in Matt. 5:1919Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19), “Whosoever shall do and teach them the Lord’s commandments, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” From that time she had much blessing among her girls, and was also much used of the Lord in visits to the sick in the hospital. Soon after she had found peace, she had the joy of bringing two dying ones there to the Saviour.
Years have passed since Janet first rejoiced in the Lord’s power to save, and she still proves His love and graciousness this day. She can add her testimony with that of other children of God, to His faithfulness in answering prayer.
Once she pleaded much with God for the life of a soldier, who was condemned to be executed in Winchester jail. Upon the text, “Unto God the Lord belong the issues from death” (Psa.48:20.), she rested, and her faith was rewarded by a reprieve being sent.
At the soldiers’ prayer-meetings the supplication often went up to heaven from the men, “God, save our officers!” and Janet’s heart-cry was, “And my brother among them,” which prayer was graciously heard and answered. On another occasion Janet was much interested in the soul of a locksmith, who had been sent for to mend a lock. She noticed the man’s difficulty in breathing, as he mounted the staircase, and followed him to press God’s claims on him. He was most unwilling to listen, and continued hammering loudly to drown her voice, only pausing at intervals to inform her how respectable he was, and how well he had brought up his family.
A few days later, as Janet was walking alone, a voice seemed to say to her, “Go to see the locksmith, and this will be a happy day for you.” On reaching his cottage the wife said how glad she was to see her, as her husband had met with an accident, and was dying, adding that nearly the whole of the last night he had spent on his knees, crying out for mercy, As Janet stood by the sick man’s bed, she asked, “Are you calling for mercy now, my poor friend, when God has had mercy on sinners more than 1800 years ago? His Son suffered on the cross the penalty due for your sins: the debt was all paid by Jesus.”
After some further conversation, the light burst upon the dying man’s soul, and he broke out into praise and thanksgiving to God for such a sacrifice.
The last days of his life were bright ones, rejoicing in the Lord and in His finished salvation. He used to say of her whom God had blessed to his soul, “I shall know her again in heaven.”
Dear reader, if you are yet out of Christ, Janet would invite you, at the end of this simple record, to accept God’s blessed gift, that you may be set free from the bondage of sin and self, and be devoted body and soul to the service of Him, who paid such a price for your redemption, and who claims you wholly for Himself. J. McC.