(Letter to an anxious inquirer.)
I AM sorry to hear, through your niece’s letter, that you are still in distress about your soul. One line or two in her letter touched me very much, in which she quotes your words to her, “Oh, Betsy, I am so bad. I must die, and I am not prepared!”
Now, if you could just turn your eye away from yourself to Christ, and say, “Lord Jesus, though I am so bad, yet Thou hast died, and I can trust Thee,” how different it would be with you!
I once saw a little child in its nurse’s arms. I did my best to induce him to come to me. Just as I began to think I should be successful, the little one’s mother came in view, and then, instead of coming to me, his tiny arms were instantly stretched out to their utmost reach toward the mother, although not a word was uttered.
Now here was a picture of simple confidence. There were two persons before the child―one whom he could not trust, the other whom he could―and those stretched-out arms left no question as to what he felt about both.
Now, there are two persons whom you have to do with―self and Christ. To which does your eye turn, your confidence cling? To whom do you stretch forth your hand?
The mother of the little one was busy just then, and did not want to take the child, and this brought forth a cry.
Now, you could not have seen and heard that child, and said, He has no trust in his mother. No. The longing look proved it, the outstretched arms proved it, and if it needed any other proof, the cry of disappointment would have been sufficient.
Yet the child was not thinking of his own trust, nor wondering if it could trust, nor if its trust was of the right sort. It was only thinking of the trustworthy object that had come before it.
I feel I need not speak to you of the work of Christ. You have long known that that work was finished on the cross. What you really need is to have your heart conducted to Christ Himself―to the living Saviour, risen from the dead, and now enthroned in glory. Turn, I beseech you, to Him, and if He is really worthy of your heart’s confidence, do not talk about Him to others as though He were not, for this would only please Satan and dishonor the Lord.
Remember, it is Christ, and not self, you must be engaged with to get comfort; and therefore, for every thought you have of what kind of sinner, or even what kind of believer you are, think a hundred times of what kind of Saviour He is, and I have no doubt as to the happy result.