I WAS lately allowed to see a letter, which touched me by its deep tone of earnest affection, and I feel assured, that the few words which I shall copy from it will not fail to tell their own tale to my reader’s heart. We all know what it is to love, and our sympathies readily respond to the story of affection, sorely tried, but found faithful.
The writer of this letter is a poor working woman—how poor, the letter itself unconsciously tells us, for in the early part of it, as she entreats the long-lost daughter to whom she writes to return at once to her home, she says, “We would send you the money if we could afford it, but we have not got a penny to buy bread” —yet in her deep poverty her heart is overflowing with joy and thankfulness to the Good Shepherd who had gone after her lost one until He had found her.
“It nearly broke my heart,” she says, “when you left home; I have never let anybody take your bed since you have been away, and I have never turned the key since you left home, thinking you might come some night when it got dark. Your little sister often cries about you, and wonders where you are. Do come, do come home; we shall never tell you what you have done in the past, for we know you will never do it again, as you have been washed in the precious blood of Christ, and your sins have been forgiven.”
Those to whom the writing of a letter is an easy task, a thing done every day, can have little idea of the labor which it costs a poor woman, who knows she is “no scholar,” to put her thoughts into words, and then slowly and painfully to transfer them to paper. The letter which you have just read cost its writer much trouble, and if you could see the torn sheet of blue paper which lies before me, with the words traced upon it in large uncertain characters, you would wonder the more at the eloquence of the language. The words are simple, truly, but how touchingly in their simplicity do they tell the deep yearning of the mother’s heart over her wandering child—the faithfulness of the mother’s affection! As the daughter read them she must have seemed to see the little bed kept sacred for her, the door left on the latch, if by any means the lost one should be saying in her heart, “I will arise,” and should be seeking the home of her childhood; and then, as she read on, it may be amid blinding tears, and came to the sweet words which told her that in that home there was no one who would reproach or upbraid her, that what she had done should never be mentioned to her, she must have felt that there was no love on earth for her like that mother’s love which had known neither weariness nor decline; no shelter on earth for her like that poor home, so lightly forsaken, which had been ready for her coming back during all the long days and nights of her absence.
My reader, let this story of human love, so tender and true, speak to you, if as yet you know it not, or that love of which it is but a faint picture, even the kindness of God to you.
It may be you are the light and joy of your earthly home, yet from the true home of the soul you are, perhaps, as far as this poor girl was from her father’s house, nay, infinitely farther— “a great way off,” yet not too far for the eye of God to see you, not too far for the hand of Christ to reach you, not too weary in your long wanderings, for the voice of Christ to say even to you, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.”
Truly “God deviseth means that His banished be not expelled from Him,” and if He allows us thus to look into the secrets of a mother’s heart, and to note the strong yearning of that unconquerable affection, is it not that we may think of His mighty love to His lost creatures, and of the welcome that awaits the wanderer who, like the prodigal in the far country, says, “I will arise, and go to my father”?
You remember that the lost son had a long and pitiful story to tell, and you remember how he told it, at least so much of it as was comprehended, in the “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son!” It was while his father’s arms were around him, and his father’s kisses were upon his face. We, too, have our story to tell; our Father in heaven hears it, filled with a compassion unspeakable, and when we have told it out to Him who “knows all, but loves us better thar He knows,” He gives us the sweet assurance that, as the mother said to her daughter, “what we have clone shall never be mentioned to us again.” None in heaven will speak to the redeemed, as they walk in the light of the golden city, arrayed in the best robe the Father could give, even garments made white in the blood of the Lamb, about those soiled rags in which they came from the far country; none will say of any in that company, which no man can number, “There is a story about that one—a terrible story, which might be told.” No, the forgiveness of God is a perfect forgiveness, and His righteousness in Christ is a perfect righteousness, and heaven is a place where we shall find that all
“Dark memories have vanished
In endless, cloudless day.”
The lost child, to whom the letter of which we have been speaking was written, did return; then, and not till then, did she know how sweet a word is home to the wanderer. When she had read the loving words of entreaty, she knew there was a welcome for her, in spite of all the grief and wrong she had caused; but the deep joy of that welcome she could not know until she had crossed the threshold of the door so long open to receive her, and found herself in her mother’s arms. I think, although she might remember the tender assurance, “We shall never tell you of what you have done,” the lose child’s first words must have been those of the prodigal. She could not fully taste the sweetness of forgiveness until the whole sad story was told, and now that she was indeed at home, and her mother’s arms were around her, what need for reserve or excuse?
“I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am not worthy,” were the prodigal’s words, and such words must be ours dear friend, each having a different story to tell, but all speaking the same language before we can know what the “kindness of God” to the returning one can be, or before we can be clothed with the best robe which alone can fit us for the Father’s house. C.