THE short winter’s day was over, and round a cheerful are we formed a happy family circle. The younger children learned the morrow’s lessons, the elder deftly handled crochet or knitting needles, my mother busied herself with her household sewing, while my father read aloud, from some standard book, words well calculated to build up youthful minds.
“Old Annie B―is lying ill,” said one.
A little while afterward my mother rose and went to the pantry. She returned and handed me a small basket into which she had put some edibles, and a jug of milk.
“You might take these to old Annie,” she said; “she must be feeling lonely, and may not have much in her cupboard. Sit beside her a little, and do anything you can for her.”
To be my mother’s almoner was at all times a most agreeable occupation to me. I put on a wrap, and went cheerfully out into the moonless night. Subsequent years of city life make it appear strange that a young girl should go out alone on an unlit road. Outside lamps were unknown in our village, and when occasion took any of us abroad after nightfall my father told us to be brave. “Only cowards and evil-doers fear the darkness,” he used to say. I did not wish to be included in either category, but, on reaching a point where a thorn-hedge separated the roadway from a clump of trees, I quickened my steps to an abnormal pace. I found Annie lying much-written-against box-beds, and after talking a little to her, set myself to do the needful in her little home. I replenished the fire, tidied the hearth, swept the floor, and made her a cup of tea. Her somewhat hard features relaxed as she sipped the tea, and she said she was grateful to my mother for sending me, as she had been alone all day, only occasionally getting out of bed to put some fuel on the fire. I noticed, as I sat, the corner of a book peeping out below her pillow. Seeing my look, she drew it out. It was a large old-fashioned Bible. “I was reading it,” said Annie, “as long as I could see, but somehow I don’t seem to get the good out of it I would like.”
I longed to tell her how I loved the precious book, but I seemed to have become dumb, and helplessly turned over the leaves. She handed me her empty cup, and looking straight in my face in a manner that frightened me, she asked, “Are you converted?” Then was my tongue loosed, and I told her that two years before the Lord sent a messenger to me, one among a thousand, who called on me to repent and be converted, that my sins might be blotted out. I believed the message. I owned myself a lost guilty sinner, and cried to God for pardon. I found the Lord did not deal with me after my sins, but was merciful and gracious, and plenteous in mercy. The stern visage softened as I talked, and when I finished, she said, “I am glad to hear how you got converted, but it was easy for you to be saved, your sins were not so bad as mine.”
I knew that rumor spoke of dark smirches on her maiden fame, that she had drunk of the murky waters of earth’s pleasures, and instead of satisfying her, they had left her worn out and desolate, shunned by her neighbors, and unloved by her friends. Great sighs came from the bottom of her heart, as I read to her of Jesus winning the heart, and reaching the conscience of the outcast woman at the well of Samaria (John 4:1-42). I prayed with her, and left her.
Often afterward did we talk together on this all-important subject, and my faith became more firmly established as I sought to enlighten her.
“Wait until you are old,” she said one day, “and you will not think sins can be blotted out so easily.”
For answer I read the wonderful entreaty in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
“But my sins are black,” she said. It was true. She had sinned with a cart rope, and the odor of her offenses, committed in her youth, still lingered in the neighborhood. I turned to Romans 3: “There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” God did not own degrees in sin. None had attained to His standard, therefore all were alike guilty, all were included in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.
Annie liked me to read those passages in the gospels that told of the Lord’s gracious way with the outcasts; how the publicans and sinners drew near Him to hear Him. His spotless presence did not repel them, but attracted them to Himself, He “frankly forgave” alike the fifty-pence, and the five-hundred-pence debtors, and allowed a woman that was a sinner to kiss His feet.
Much did Annie grieve over the iniquities of bygone days, nor do we think that anyone can ever feel too deeply the exceeding sinfulness of sin. The only righteous plummet by which sin can be measured is the cross of Christ. If you can fathom the depths of ignominy and shame the blessed Son of God endured while hanging on the accursed tree—suffering the Just for the unjust—bearing the judgment of God for sin—then you will know what sin is. But no finite mind can grasp that which could only be accomplished by the infinite; yet may we, in our feeble capacities, set to our seal that God is true, by accepting with unwavering faith the testimony He has given us of the atoning death of His Son, and rest, as did Annie, on this glorious truth “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
On what do you trust, dear reader? Any bed of your own construction on which you may rest for salvation will be found shorter than that you can stretch yourself on it, and the covering narrower than that you can wrap yourself in. Confusion of face must be yours when the Lord stretches His plumb-line over you, when He wipes you as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. Will you not rather accept the righteous basis by which God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus?
M. M.