IN the summer of 188—, after a long and severe illness, it was thought advisable that I should spend some months out of England; and, as we moved from place to place, we asked the Lord to guide us to the right spots in which to take up our abode, and that while health, in my case, was being restored to the body, we might have the opportunity of presenting Christ, as the Great Physician, to some sin-sick souls—be channels of blessing from the heart of a loving, giving God, to some needy human hearts, whether they felt their need or not.
The Lord, in His abounding grace, gave us many answers to our prayers; but one answer, though long delayed, filled us, when it came, with special thanksgiving.
Early in August we took rooms in an hotel near a village bordering on the Rhine. The view from our windows was lovely; and, as I was then unable to walk, my sofa was placed each day on the broad balcony which faced the hills, and the setting sun, with only gardens, and vineyards, and shady woods, and a rapid stream in between.
It always seemed to us afterward that the hand of our Father placed us in these special rooms, for they were not the ones we had chosen, and in which we passed our first night. Through some mistake, about which the landlord came to us in trouble, those had been promised to some one else, and we willingly offered to change.
Through this change, apparently so accidental, we came to know one who was wandering far off on the dark mountains of unbelief, but over whom the Good Shepherd's heart so yearned, that He did not rest till He had her in His arms, "carried like a child.”
The balcony that adjoined ours was connected with a suite of rooms, evidently only separated from ours by a thin partition, for each evening we heard a musical voice reading aloud, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian, occasionally, but rarely, in German. We could hear the voice distinctly, and sometimes a few words-just enough to know the language that was being read—though never a connected sentence; but the sound of the voice so near, and yet the speaker hidden, kept that speaker in a curious way before us, and we felt interested in her, and often spoke of her, wondering as to her nationality, as to whether we should meet—above all, as to whether she knew our Savior.
After a few days we saw on the next balcony a young and handsome lady. The face was thoughtful; at times there was even a sad look in the clear dark eyes, but the expression of the face was ever varying; now it was lighted with keen intellectual brightness and then again softened and subdued by womanly tenderness. We knew this must be the reader whose voice we had heard, and we felt still more attracted to her. She was accompanied by a gentleman of soldierly bearing, who seemed devoted to her. We learned from the visitors' book they were Austrians of rank.
After a day or two, during which we saw them casually on the balcony, I was ill for a short time, and then a lovely little bouquet of flowers was sent in, with the Baroness von C—'s card, and the courteous offer of the services of her maid, also asking if she herself might call when I was well enough. This threw down, figuratively, the iron palisade between the two balconies. When I was better we met daily. The Baron took long walks with my husband, and the Baroness and I were then left together, during which time she told me much of her history.
Though then only twenty-five she had been married seven years. Her husband was her idol, and she his. She was not strong; and he had given up a distinguished career that he might not be called away from her, and had left his ancestral home because its climate did not suit her. They traveled constantly, now settling for a few weeks, and then again for a few months, according to the effect of the different places on her health. She told me she had not been well during the first few days of our coming to the hotel, which accounted for our not having seen her; but, she said, they had watched us intently, and she had wanted so much to know us, because she thought we always seemed so very happy. We felt the whole circumstances were ordered by the Lord, especially when she told us it was the first time they had ever sought the acquaintance of any strangers who came to the different hotels in which they stayed.
We soon found that, though so attractive naturally, the young Baroness did not know Christ; and that there was an unsatisfied void in her heart, though she had so much for earth-a secret longing, to which she could not give expression, yet which was always there. How plainly it testified that wealth, rank, youth, beauty, intellect, and even the best of human love, all together, cannot fill and satisfy a heart created to know God, and to enjoy God. He alone—God in Christ—can meet and satisfy those deep yearnings which each one of you, my readers, has doubtless felt at some time, even though you have tried your utmost, either to fill the void, or to forget the heartache.
We spoke of Jesus to our new friend as the secret of our joy, as the One who had met the claims of a righteous God against us by dying in our place—the Just One for the unjust—and who had thus acquired the right to put us in His place before God; who had taken our past upon Himself, and made our future secure, and was, all the way along, the dearest to each of us—making bright days brighter by His love, and lighting up otherwise dark ones.
She was interested, attracted. Jesus seemed a Friend she would like to have, a good Example to follow; but as God's Son, Himself God, this she could not accept, it upset her previous thoughts. She could not see the necessity for the atonement, but reasoned about it. The authority of the Bible, as a whole—as God's Word—she disputed, though willing to receive some parts of it. Courted and caressed on all sides, she could not take in, that, in God's sight, she was a lost sinner; and that Jesus must be to her what His name implies, “Jehovah the Savior," or nothing.
The days wore on; her interest deepened, her heart was attracted, but her human reasoning always came in the way. Her anxiety to know the truth increased; she wept often as we spoke of these things; she was “almost persuaded"; she almost accepted God's salvation in Christ—"almost, but not quite.”
When the last day of our stay arrived, she parted from us with much affection, and with tears. We promised to write, and exchanged addresses—for they also were leaving that place the following week.
The Baron had none of his wife's doubts and difficulties; but, also, he had none of her interest. He accepted the whole thing as quite true; but, alas! it was nothing to him. Religion, he thought, was only for women and priests.
After our return to England we wrote, as we had promised, and sent some books which we hoped might help the young Baroness; but no answer came. We spoke of her often to each other, and to the Lord; she had seemed so near to safety, and yet not safe.
Four years rolled away, during which our paths did not again cross, and we had heard no tidings of her. It was summer time once more, and we were preparing to leave England, when, in our own city, my husband one day met the Baron. The meeting seemed accidental, but the circumstances that led to it were so unusual, that we felt sure at once the Lord had arranged it.
“How glad my wife will be when I go back and tell her that I have seen you," were the Baron's first words; "she has so much wished to meet you again; and, by mistake, your cards were packed in a desk left behind in—, so we could not tell where to find you.”
“We will come and see her this afternoon,"was the answer, and we did. “Oh!" she said, “I am so glad to see you; I have not forgotten one word you both said to me, and I have prayed that, if it were all true, and all for me, I might meet you again. It did not seem likely in this large city; but, ever since I knew we were coming to England, I have been praying about it, and specially since we came here. I thought no answer could be coming, for we leave in three days; and to-day, when my husband came in, I could scarcely believe the answer had come. It seems as if God must be thinking of me!”
Before we left that day the Baroness told us how she had written once and again, but had never sent the letters. She could not tell us she believed, and she thought we should grieve to know she was just where we had left her. The world, in various ways, and Satan, had been busy with her, trying to uproot the seed sown; but it remained in the soil, though, as yet, it had not brought forth fruit.
It was arranged that the Baron and Baroness should come to us on the following day, and we besought the Lord earnestly Himself to open their eyes that they might see Jesus. In her case He answered. She saw that God had either left us without a revelation of Himself, or that the Bible was that revelation; and that to accept part, and not the whole, was not to accept it as God's Word at all. Page after page we looked together at God's testimony concerning His Son. Faith took the place of reason in her soul, and peace and rest followed. Her own words, written afterward, best describe the change:—
“I had asked the Lord to let me know the truth about Jesus, and when I heard your husband speak last week, that was the Lord's answer to me. I never can thank you for all your patience with me, —it is like the Lord's. I used to wonder why it was so difficult to believe, but I see now the greatest difficulty was in my own want of humility. When I reasoned about Him and His Word, in my own foolish pride, I could understand nothing; but when I came to Him simply, letting my own thoughts go, and asking Him humbly to give me His thoughts, He made everything so clear. I feel so unworthy; but when I think of all the agony, and the death Jesus had to endure for my sin, and that just my sin was the cause of my not finding Him sooner, it draws out my heart so to Him, that I want to find all my joy in Him.”
The entrance of the love of Christ into her heart made the young Baroness very touchingly humble. Referring to a very dear relative, she wrote, “Do you think I may venture to tell her what the Lord has done for me? I am so afraid of hindering her by not putting the truth quite clearly. I send her on all your letters to read.”
I gave her in reply one verse: “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee.”
In her answer she says: "I have written to—, and begged her to ask the Lord Himself to show her His truth; and I told her that, if she wanted it, He would as surely answer her as He answered me. I used to think you must understand in order to believe, but I found that faith must come first, and then we begin to understand. I see how very stupid it was of me to think that we—weak, and sinful, and finite creatures—ever, of ourselves, could understand the infinite and holy God. I ask Him to keep me, and to teach me more and more about Himself; and, above everything, to draw to Him my dear husband.”
Later on, she tells us, in a letter, of one or two near relatives having found the Lord also; but still she waits for the joy of knowing her husband is one with her—not merely for time, but for eternity. From the first he never opposed her; she was so the center of all his thoughts, that he seemed glad that she had one great joy more, even though he did not share it. But this does not satisfy her; it could not satisfy a heart that had found out what the love of Christ is, and that had realized something of what eternity without Christ would be; she cannot be content till he shares her joy.
Reader, have you faced what eternity without Christ will be—eternity with the devil and his angels—and that it is only your own pride and unbelief that will make you share Satan's portion for eternity? “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts."This moment is the only time that belongs to you; to-morrow your doom may be irrevocably fixed. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
“Faith is a very simple thing,
Though little understood;
It frees the soul from death's dread sting,
By resting on the blood.
It looks not on the things around,
Nor on the things within;
It takes its flight to scenes above,
Beyond the spheres of sin.
It sees upon the throne of God
A Victim that was slain;
It rests its all on His shed blood,
And says, ‘I'm born again.'
Faith is not what we see or feel;
It is a simple trust
In what the God of love has said
Of Jesus as the Just.
The perfect One who died for me,
Now on His Father's throne,
Presents our names before our God,
And pleads His blood alone.”