“IT is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." No doubt these words have a wider meaning than that our actual steps, when we take a walk, are directed by a will and power not our own. Yet the higher and wider meaning does not make it less true that our daily goings out and comings in are ordered by God. "Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways."
The two following examples were related to me by the persons concerned in the stories. Let an unbeliever explain them as he can.
It was on a Sunday, some years ago, that a young man left his lodging, not to saunter about, but with a fixed determinate purpose in his mind to go to a lonely glen behind the churchyard of the village church on the hills, and there to put an end to his life. He had left his home and his Christian father years before. Drink, gambling, and vice of all sorts had brought him to utter ruin. He was ashamed and afraid to go home; he was tired of his life, he had no belief in God, and he looked upon death as the end of his troubles. The only way to reach the glen was by a path which crossed the churchyard, and led to a gate in the stone wall behind the church.
The young man walked on resolutely till he reached the churchyard. He now had but a few yards more to walk, and then all would be over. He hurried on, his eyes fixed upon the narrow path. He felt that he had taken his last look of the world around, and had now to face death. After all, it was a dreadful thought! He walked on faster, when he suddenly remarked that a pavement was beneath his feet. He looked up, and found himself, not in the glen, but inside the church! He had taken the wrong turn where the path branched off to the gate. He was fairly inside the church door, and the village people were looking hard at him with wonder and curiosity, for the service was half over-the sermon, in fact, had just begun-and the young man looked wild and startled. But he looked still more startled when the first sentence from the pulpit reached his ears.
"Self-murder," cried the preacher, "is the most daring act of unbelief and sin with which a man can pollute himself at the very moment when he has to stand face to face with God. To escape from misery here, he gives himself over to everlasting condemnation, with no hope of escape."
The preacher went on to describe the one way of escape, not only from eternal punishment hereafter, but from sin and misery now. He preached the glad tidings of the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus, but, strange to say, he preached it on this occasion specially to any soul too miserable, and guilty, and wretched, to bear his burden any longer-to any soul tempted by Satan to commit the awful sin of self-murder, in order to find relief from suffering of body and agony of mind. “Jesus, the Saviour, not Satan, the destroyer," said he, “is the One who gives rest and peace now and forever."
After the sermon the young man went into the vestry and told his sad tale. "And now I see," he said, "that there is hope even for me."
The good minister listened to him with joy and -thankfulness. He told him that he had been asked to preach on the sin of suicide. A young officer in the neighboring barracks had threatened to shoot himself. Officers and men all alike attended this little church, and one amongst them, who was a believer, had called upon the clergyman, and entreated him to preach that Sunday specially for the young Officer; He avoided everyone who could speak to him about his soul, and it was hoped that by this Means he might be made to hear without being able to escape.
It was a perplexity to the clergyman to observe that, when the soldiers took their places, this young officer was absent. He had prayed much about this message, and he felt that God had given him the words he was to speak. He dared not, therefore, withhold them, though the man to whom he had meant to give the message was not there to hear it. And now he knew why the Lord had put the words into his mouth. It was in love and pity for this stranger, the son of a praying father, the lost sheep which the Shepherd had followed and had found.
The young man was truly converted. He returned to his father, and had been, when I heard the story, living for the service of the Lord for some years. He had married happily, and had prospered in business, but he rejoiced in knowing that he was but as one alive from the dead, himself and all that he had the Lord's wholly, to be at His disposal, to be directed in all things by the Hand that had led him across the churchyard by a way that he knew not, and had brought him to the spring of living water instead of to the valley of death.
It was on another Sunday, some years later, that a man sauntered forth, his pipe in his mouth, to take a Sunday stroll in the fine summer weather. He looked just like one of those people of whom many would say and think, “He has no care for his soul." Such words are sometimes true, but are often too lightly spoken after a short acquaintance, or even a passing glance. In this ease, could anyone have looked into the heart of that careless-looking man, he would have found there a deep, desperate longing after peace and rest, and yet more after the knowledge of the God of whom he had heard by the hearing of the ear, after whom he was seeking, but in almost utter hopelessness. Is it not written, “There is none that seeketh after God?” Yes. These words are the true and faithful description of every man, woman, and child, until God, in His grace, has begun to draw him to Himself. And God had already begun to draw this poor sinner to Christ. This is how it came to pass that he was now seeking God.
You may say that to saunter about on Sunday with a pipe did not look like seeking God. It certainly did not. But I must tell you his story. It may lead you to feel after and find some spark of divine life in those who appear most hard and hopeless. This man had, not many months before, been persuaded to go to a little Bible-reading, much against his will. He was not very attentive, found it dull, and never meant to go again. But, in spite of all, one sentence which he heard there sounded perpetually in his ears, and made him utterly wretched.
The words were these—" Which things the angels desire to look into." Our friend had I lived all his life in utter disregard of the things of God—he was as ignorant as he was careless and indifferent. But he had now learned from this little Bible-reading that there was something made known by God, so great, so glorious, and so wonderful that even the angels desired to look into it. Moreover, he had gathered from some of the remarks made that there were people, common ordinary men and women down here, who knew this wonderful something.
What was it? “I, at least, know nothing about it," he said to himself; "I know about nothing but poor, wretched, common every day things; I am only a poor groveling creature, and so are all the rest of us. It is quite certain I don't know the shadow of a thing that would give the smallest pleasure to an angel. No, I know nothing that even a wise man would care to know about. What can it be? And how can I know it? "
Could he not go again to the Bible-reading, or ask some Christian friend? No. He would not have it known that that little reading had made a revolution in his mind, which had never been made before by anything that had happened to him. He was determined to find out the mystery, but not to let anyone know that he was anxious or miserable. He, therefore, walked about, as before, with his pipe in his mouth, and kept away from all places where he was likely to hear the word of God.
The more anxious he became to know the great secret, the more anxious did he also become to hide the work that was going on in his soul. One day he observed at a bookstall a huge volume called ".The Life of Christ." He bought it at once, and kept it hidden in his room. At all spare moments he devoured this book. He read it straight through, hoping, as he turned over each page, that he should find the answer to his longing. But when he had finished the book he knew no more about the mysterious secret than when he began. Moreover, he had found the book dull and dry, and he had gained nothing but a bitter disappointment. He would have liked to forget the whole matter, and, therefore, that Sunday he had sallied forth, as we have seen, to try if the green fields and the blue sky could make him a little less miserable. Still the words sounded in his ears, and he could not forget them—" Which things the angels desire to look into."
In the course of his walk he observed, standing back in a field, a little iron room, which had been put up not long before by an acquaintance of his in the town. This acquaintance, Mr. Y., had sometimes said to him, "When you go that way, do have a look at the iron room."
“Now," thought our friend, "is my opportunity. I will have a look at it." He walked round it, and finished by making a survey of the door, which stood half open in that warm weather. It was easy to have a look inside without being seen by the people who sat on the benches. But, as if struck by a flash of lighting, he started back as the words reached his ears, spoken in a loud and solemn voice" Which things the angels desire to look into."
The preacher had just gone into the raised desk opposite the door, and this was his text. God had spoken—" Is not My word, saith the Lord, as a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rocks in pieces?"
The poor man threw down his pipe; he went in and sat down, and listened for his life. When he came away he said, “I know now that which the angels desire to look into, I know Jesus." F. B.