A CHRISTIAN woman wrote thus in reply to a minister’s letter challenging her condemnation of the Higher Criticism: — “Less than three months ago, I was having my morning hour of prayer when there came to me a strong impression that I must go and see a woman who had never been other than the merest acquaintance and whom I had not seen more than two or three times in twenty years. I was disturbed at the idea. If I was mistaken in supposing myself called to make this visit I would be put in a very awkward position, for the disease was cancer of the throat, and it would seem likely under such circumstances that an outsider would be unwelcome. But as I prayed on, the call became clearer, and I went.
“Death was written large on the woman’s ghastly face. The moment the nurse left the room I began to speak of Christ, dealing in general terms, for I knew nothing of her spiritual state. Then she told me that two days before it had come to her, for the first time, that she was going to die. And she realized at once that she was not ready. She had been converted as a young woman at a Methodist altar; had joined the church of which she had always been an attendant, and for years was accounted a faithful Christian. But when Dr. — began to promulgate his views as to a limited inspiration, she accepted them. Then someone else’s teachings as to further deletions from God’s Word were incorporated into her belief. And so it went. It is a toboggan slide for the average church-member, if they at all understand and seriously consider and accept the views of those who believe only in partial inspiration. From one negation to another had she gone till the divinity of Christ was in doubt and the atonement had gone utterly by the board.
“Once roused, this dying woman cast about her for help. She went over the names of half a dozen old-fashioned Christians whom she knew, but each one was ill or away or otherwise hindered from coming. Then she thought of me, but we were so slightly acquainted that she shrank from thus appealing to an almost stranger. But the God to Whom she cried in her deepest need sent me the message. ‘What made you come?’ she asked. And when I told her, a light broke over her skeleton of a face. If God had heard one prayer, He would hear another, she thought, and He surely did!
“But once her soul was saved, the terrible fact that her Life had been lost weighed on her. If only she could be spared to take back the pernicious theories she had rejoiced to scatter carelessly among her friends. It was not to be, and a few weeks later she was taken, trusting alone in the merits and death of her Saviour. This is only one case of the many I personally know.”