ALICE was the only child of very wealthy parents and she was their idol. Scarcely a desire of hers went unsatisfied.
But an unexpected visitor arrived. A flush appeared on her face and soon it was evident that Alice was a very sick girl. By degrees her health failed. How sad it was to leave her loving friends and to go — where? WHERE? So she sent for the clergyman. He came and had a service for the sick girl, and having administered the sacrament he pronounced her a good child.
But was Alice satisfied? No!
“Father!” she said, “I am going to die, but where am I going?”
The father gave no reply.
“Mother dear, can you tell me what I am to do to get to heaven?”
There was no reply save tears.
Then said Alice, “I am lost, lost! Is there no one who can tell me what I must do to be saved?”
Then her father spoke up: “My dear girl, you have been a good daughter. You have regularly attended church. You are all right.”
“Oh Father, I feel that is not enough. Oh, the blackness of darkness!”
Now there was a little servant girl who waited on Alice, and she loved to go to a meeting in the village where the simple gospel was preached. The little maid longed to tell her mistress that she might (like Naaman of old) “wash and be clean” At last she took courage and told Alice of a preacher in the village who would speak to her.
“Oh, that I could see him,” exclaimed the dying girl! The preacher came, and Alice, raising herself, said: “Can you tell me what I must do to obtain peace for my soul?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” he replied.
Alice fell back. “Alas! and is it so? Is there no hope?”
“Wait a minute,” said the preacher. “Though I cannot tell you what you can do to be saved, I can tell you of what has been DONE for you. The Lord Jesus has completely finished the work by which lost and helpless sinners may be righteously saved. He shed His precious blood on Calvary’s cross that sinners might be forgiven. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”
“And have I nothing to do?”
“Nothing, but believe.”
Believing, not doing, is God’s way.
The awakened girl listened, with breathless interest. She received the Word of God. Her face was lit up with heaven’s sunlight. Looking upward, she exclaimed, “Oh, what love!” In a few days she departed to be with Christ.
“Nothing either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no.
Jesus did it, did it all,
Long, long ago.
Cast your deadly doings down
Down at Jesus’ feet,
Stand in Him, in Him alone,
Gloriously complete!”
ML-08/09/1970