THERE was a regiment quartered in the garrison, at______ where were two Christian friends, Gray and Hamilton—the conversion of the former of whom we related in our last number. The regiment had the reputation of being one of the worst, morally speaking, in the service; its officers were a wild, drunken set, given to swearing; and their recklessness maybe imagined from the fact, that a popular amusement after mess was for one of them to hold up a penny as a butt for pistol shooting. On one of these occasions a man's thumb happened to be shot off instead of the penny, but this did not stop the game, which was, of course, a betting one.
Gray and Hamilton knew a young lieutenant in this regiment, whom they longed, with God's help, to lead to Christ. He was what men call "a fine fellow," naturally, and generally liked; frank, upright, and chivalrous. The two friends had often shown him that he was utterly neglecting his never-dying soul, without, apparently, any movement being made in him; but they knew that his satisfaction in his present career was somewhat disturbed.
One day Gray met him, and said, by way of greeting, "Well, how are you getting on, Fairfax?”
“I'm not getting on at all. I am wretched," was the answer.
I am very glad to hear it," replied his friend.
“Glad to hear it! You shouldn't answer me in that sort of way. I tell you I am wretched and miserable.”
“And I say I am very glad to hear it, and I hope you will be worse. I am not wretched and miserable, and why should you be?”
“I wish I was not. I can't get any rest. I don't know what is the matter with me.”
“Whether it is that you feel the burden of your sins, or whatever the source of your unhappiness may be, there is only one permanent remedy," replied his friend." Come to Christ, and you will be as happy as I am." “You are always telling me to come to Christ," said Fairfax, impatiently," and I have not an idea what you mean.”
Then Gray explained that coming to Christ was the heart-belief of His words, the surrendering the heart to Him.
Fairfax only shook his head gloomily, saying, "I don't understand anything about it.”
“Don't try to grapple with the way of peace as with an intellectual problem. God speaks to you. Your responsibility is to believe what God says. If you want to be saved from everlasting death, and to have God for your Father in this world, the first thing necessary is that you should believe His word. And His first word to you is that you are a sinner.”
“I do know that," said Fairfax; "I should think I did.”
But Fairfax only replied with an abrupt "good-bye," and was off, leaving his friend disappointed, but not discouraged.
A few days after this conversation, with a vivid remembrance of his own happy experience of death- beds, Gray asked Fairfax to visit the hospital with him, and Fairfax agreed. The thermometer being below zero at the time, the windows were never opened. Gray read and prayed amidst the sick for about an hour, Fairfax sat down, and behaved himself quietly until they got out; when his anger burst forth. "How could you take me into that den, letting me in for such a dismal, doleful morning?" Gray wished his friend good-bye, and again left him disappointed.
Shortly after this, Fairfax, who had a small farm, saw a sheep straying. The snow had just begun to melt, and the ground was very heavy; he drove the sheep down to a gate, but just as he was getting it through into the enclosure with the flock, it turned and rushed past him. This sort of work went on for some time, when Fairfax, with oaths, cried, "You brute! I wish you were dead!" The sheep instantly fell down. Fairfax went up to it, ascertained that it was dead, and then stood beside it as though turned to stone. He did not try to assign the incident to natural causes, or call it a coincidence. He was impressed by the awfulness of God, who, it seemed to him, had asserted His power in indignation at the sinful appeal made to Him. He felt at once that God might send out His judgments against him next, and cut him off. The words of his friends came back to him, and he wished, in his fear, that he could say the great God was his Father.
An interval of many months, possibly a year, followed this incident. Fairfax had taken the position of a seeker, but could not understand how to come to Christ. He supposed he had not enough faith. 'Theoretically, he received the Bible as the word of God, and agreed that the doctrine of justification by faith was contained therein; but he could not believe for himself.
But God was working in his soul. He felt not only that he was a sinner, but he feared God, and owned His righteousness; thus repentance and turning to God were wrought in his soul, yet without his knowledge of what God was working in him. Up till the time here described the work was the breaking down of his soul's stubbornness, that his heart, broken and subdued, might be ready for the reception of Christ. We shall now see how God used another incident to teach him what faith is.
One day he asked Gray and Hamilton to go out with him for a cruise in a yacht. It was a sunny morning when the friends started, but when they were returning a dense Newfoundland fog came on, and made their position one of considerable peril. Night was setting in, the fog had blotted out sea and sky, making it impossible to steer.
Suddenly Gray exclaimed, "Our motto this morning was, In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.'" (Prov. 3:66In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:6).) "Let us plead the promise," said Hamilton, "and we shall be guided what to do." And they knelt down on the deck while one of them prayed.
In a minute or two Hamilton, who had gone to the bow, cried out, "Look, the fog is clearing!" and as he spoke it divided before the little vessel, making, as it were, a path across the ocean.
“The lighthouse! the lighthouse!" was the next cry as all saw the bright dot, ten miles off, flash out.
One of the sailors produced a compass and lantern, and they took their bearings, but this was no sooner done than the walls of vapor closed up again, and all was dark as before. Nevertheless, the voyagers had seen the light, and received their guidance, and independent now of their surroundings steered straight up to their destination.
Fairfax was much impressed by this answer to prayer, and while his mind was full of it, he related the story to a clergyman, of whose sympathy he felt assured. However, throughout the narrative this Christian friend listened with an expression of countenance calculated to make a speaker regret his confidence, and observed, at the end, with dry emphasis, "A very remarkable story. Now if most people had told me that, I should not have believed it; indeed, as it is, I frankly confess it is a most remarkable story.”
“But I assure you that it's true, every word of it. Perhaps you didn't understand that I was there myself?”
“But, You see, I was not," was the reply.
“I don't understand you"; and Fairfax got vexed. "I tell you I saw it all with my own eves.”
“But I didn't," was the answer, given again, with emphasis on the I.
“What do you mean, sir? You don't venture to tell me to my face that you doubt my word?”
“Oh, you thought you saw all this, of course; but perhaps you dreamed it, or perhaps you have not related it quite as it happened; or it may even be something peculiar in our minds, relatively, which unfits me to take in what you say. You will not think the worse of me, will you?" Then the clergyman, seeing Fairfax's vexation, put his hand on his arm, and said quietly, "Now, my dear Fairfax, you are angry with me for doubting your word-a mere man, while you continue to doubt the word of God. You feel, and rightly, that I insult you when I refuse to accept what you tell me as true; yet you calmly and complacently announce that you do not believe the God of truth. It is written, He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar.'" (1 John 5:1010He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. (1 John 5:10).)
In that instant scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he saw with dismay what his conduct had been towards his God. He expected his fellow-creatures to believe him, yet he had been insulting God.
The consciousness of the sin which his whole life had been towards God, and of the love and patience shown by God towards him, entered his mind at the same moment, his heart was softened at the thought of this wonderful forbearance, contrasted with his own anger at the idea of being doubted. He was enabled to believe the love of Christ, and then and there he received Him. He saw unbelief to be a hideous sin, and he praised God at his deliverance from it, and entered joyfully into the rest of faith.
A few days after this Gray met him near the hospital, the scene of their former "dismal, doleful morning" together, when Fairfax said smilingly, "I am going into the hospital to get my spirits up," for with the newfound joy in Christ new desires had filled his heart. His pleasure now was in the things he formerly hated. G. C. C.