Death―Resurrection―Ascension.
E. D. LIVED a quiet life in a little country village. She was fond of reading and other occupations; which, for a time, gave her that sort, of imperfect satisfaction which, perhaps, most people think is all that we can attain to in this world. She had just that little amount of religion which the world thinks the right medium― “not going too far,” as they say. She went to church on Sundays, taught in the Sunday-school, and once a week went through her district to leave the tracts supplied by the clergyman. It must be owned that this last occupation was undertaken somewhat against her will. She disliked tracts, and had a fellow-feeling with some of the people in the district who refused them, or spoke contemptuously of them. The religious books which E. D. liked to read, were those which told how people should make themselves pleasing to God by their good works. It seems strange that, as she approved of these books, she did not devote herself to doing good works; but with the exception of leaving the tracts (which in her heart she did not think a good work), her time was employed; in any occupation, such as reading, work, gardening, &c., which was pleasant to herself.
A lady was once arguing with a minister of the gospel, who had said in his sermon that we are saved by faith only: “After all,” said the lady, “you know we are told to Work out our own salvation.” The minister, who knew this lady as one leading a fashionable London life of pleasure and gaiety, replied, “Why don’t you do it then?” a question to which he received no answer E. D. much resembled this lady, except perhaps in the fact, that the worldliness of an intellectual life in country village is of a different sort from the worldliness df a frivolous life in London. But the one is as much apart from God as the other.
It can scarcely be said that E. D. was awakened to a sense of sin by the books she read, but rather that she was saddened by a feeling of disappointment in finding they did not give her peace; for without having any real and deep sense of sin, she yet knew she was not safe for eternity, and the thought of what was to come filled her with horror. At times she had a longing desire to escape from this feeling of condemnation, and she envied the Roman Catholics, whom she heard that they confessed their sins to a priest, and got absolution. She longed to do something of this sort. She thought it would be an easy and sure way of getting peace about the future.
I would ask you for a moment to consider how very extraordinary it is, that anybody could ever imagine for a moment that they could get a peace worth having by such means. In the first place, if the confession were of use at all, it is plain that it could only avail for the sins confessed, otherwise why confess them? Then we must be well aware that the immense mass of sins committed, have been utterly forgotten by us. We cannot remember distinctly the events of a year ago, except the more remarkable of them. Our sinful thoughts and words make too little impression upon us, to be remembered for more than a very short time. And if he who offends in one point is guilty of all, one forgotten and unconfessed sin would therefore be to the utter condemnation of the sinner. Nor could we escape this difficulty by constant and daily confession, for this reason, that we not only forget sins, but also we are by nature under an entire delusion as to what is sin, and what is not. E. D. who would have confessed as sin that she had perhaps spoken too loudly in some consecrated building, was perfectly ignorant of the fact that to look for salvation by our own doings or feelings in any even the smallest degree, is sin in God’s sight. More than this, it is gross and heinous wickedness. But E. D. felt, on the contrary, a great deal of satisfaction in the thought that she did not believe herself saved. She thought she was more humble and less presumptuous than people who knew that their sins were forgiven. She was most proud, therefore, of her greatest sin, and would certainly never have confessed it if she had had the opportunity. She said, in a loud voice, twice every Sunday in church, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” meaning thereby only that she believed there was such a thing as sin being forgiven, a belief which she possessed in common with the devils. Not having, however, any opportunity for confession, she thought there might perhaps be some other means of relief for the conscience, by fasting, repeating prayers, and observing those days mentioned in the Prayer-book as feasts and fasts. To begin with Lent. How could it be spent in a manner specially displeasing to the flesh? It would not be enough to abstain from unnecessary food and pleasant occupations. It would be a painful, and perhaps profitable employment to devote the time to looking back over past sins, to write lists of them, to begin as far back as memory could reach. And in God’s great mercy, a further thought came into the mind of E. D. that it would be well to look out and copy all that God has said about the guilt and punishment of sin.
It was by this means that God Himself now began to speak to her soul. Day after day she looked out the awful words from the mouth of God. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” “Upon the wicked He shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup.” “Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of Thine anger, the Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them.”
It was a terrible employment. An awful reality was in these words which made it at last almost impossible to go on copying them. But E. D. silenced every thought of ceasing her penance, by assuring herself that the more painful and gloomy the occupation, the more it would be a suitable observance of those long forty days. Each day, too, was one nearer to the end of that time of self-mortification! How she would rejoice when Easter morning dawned, and she could dismiss for a while the thoughts of sin and of judgment, and think only of what was bright and cheerful! And so the days passed on. Just at this time two books were given to her. The one was the account of the conversion of a lady, who, like herself, had been seeking peace through ritual observances, and was brought to Christ at last by a foreigner, who was not a member of what she would have called “the holy Catholic Church,” but only a simple believer in Jesus. E. D. disliked this book intensely. The other book was lent her by a friend who admired the poetry in it. It was an old German book, containing the hymns and sermons of a German ribbon-weaver, who lived 200 years ago. This book E. D. read, and thought she liked. The strange, old-fashioned expressions gave her pleasure, and there was something in it besides which possessed a mysterious power, although she did not understand it. It was very simple, almost childish, and yet the meaning of the words was as much hidden from her as if it had been Chinese.
At last Easter morning dawned―a dark, drizzling day. Her first thought was one of relief. The time of penance was over. She need no longer think of sin and of judgment„ But the second thought was one of despair. She found, to her unspeakable horror, that thoughts are not so easily portioned out by rules and calendars. Sin, sin only, was the one black object before her eyes. It was useless to attempt for a moment to think of anything besides. And what would be the use of it if she could? for the sin would still be there. Whether she thought of it or not, it was an awful reality; and the terrible judgment of God was as awful a reality on that Easter morning as during the forty days of Lent.
She little knew what she had been doing in looking at Goes view of sin. Now that she had seen the terrible sight she was utterly incapable of any thought besides. It was the first time that she knew what reality was! She could not observe Easter. She could not even think of the resurrection. She felt that she was now entirely powerless; and the very thought of attempting anything more was out of the question. She was nothing but a lost, helpless, dead sinner!
And still, like a machine, she went to the Sunday-school. “So,” she remembered, “Mary went out early on the first-day morning, and she thought ‘Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulcher?’ Happy Mary, her stone could be rolled away, and she could see Christ; but the greater stone, the mass of sin which hides Christ from me, who shall roll that away?” And feeling how impossible that must be, she sat in the school, unable to teach, and therefore made the children repeat the catechism all through, and when they had done, begin it again, till church time. In church she could not pray, nor did she attempt it; nor could she listen to the sermon. Sin, sin was the one thought. She could not, and did not, ask for mercy.
But on the way home, suddenly, as a flash of lightning, came to her soul the wondrous revelation, “God sees my sin no more, for Christ has died! He sees me white as snow.” The stone was rolled away, for it was very great―so great, none could move it but God only. And His hand had done it!
From that day for 26 years sin never again rested upon E.D., and never will it rest on her, for “the worshipper once purged has no more conscience of sins.” What does that mean? Simply that no condemnation can ever rest for a moment upon the one whose condemnation has been borne by Christ. Fully, perfectly borne. God’s awful judgments spent upon the head of Christ, and nothing left for the believer but love only. Christ died in the place of the sinner. He bore the curse, and drank to the last drop the cup of wrath. Now all is gone, and washed, sanctified, justified forever, does the redeemed one stand in the light of God. The light can only show that he is whiter than snow! Oh, that every heart might know what is the wondrous meaning of the Death of Christ!
E. D. had to learn another lesson later, for we need more than to know that sin is put away. But that first lesson was indeed a blessed one. What Resurrection means is a further step in the knowledge of God, and this second lesson shall be told another time.
F. B.