ONE Sunday morning, more than twenty years ago, a young girl, who had been brought up in strict attendance upon the means of grace, was just walking into the chapel, when the words of the opening hymn―
“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,”
fell upon her ears.
The maiden had heard the same words many times without more than a passing thought, but now she listened with unusual solemnity of soul. The preacher’s words also fell upon ground which had already been prepared by the Spirit of God, for the girl felt herself to be a rebel against a kind and loving Father.
Many a time during the sermon the maiden said to herself, “Oh, that I were a real christian! But now God will not hear me. I have resisted so many times the strivings of His Spirit; I have shut my eyes to the requirements of His word, and now the Lord also shall ‘laugh at my calamity, and mock when my fear cometh.’” “It is mean and underhand,” thought the girl, “to come to God now in the trouble I am feeling about my dear father, when so many times my heart would not seek Him in prosperity; but, oh! if God were really my Father, and I knew myself to be His child, how it would help me to tell Him of my sorrow, and pray that He would restore my dear father.”
Fanny Fennell was the daughter of pious parents, and the subject of many strivings of the Holy Spirit, which had followed her almost from infancy; yet Fanny had lived to be more than fourteen years of age without actually accepting Christ as her Saviour.
Upon this particular morning, Fanny’s father lay ill in bed, and the doctor gave little hopes of his recovery. This was the grief that burdened her soul. It was the first Lord’s day of a new year, and the text announced by the minister shot through her soul like an arrow sent from God — “The fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?” Fanny was not very old, but she could recollect many who had died much younger than herself, and many more fathers who had not lived forever.
“Oh!” mused the broken-hearted girl, “What if God is angry with me for not loving and serving Him? What if the Lord is about to take my dear father away? I dare not pray, because I am not a christian, and have loved sin; and the Bible says, ‘If I regard iniquity in mine heart, the Lord will not hear me.’ It must, indeed, be blessed to be a christian, for ‘All things work together for good to them who love God.’ Oh! if only God would make me His real child, He would comfort and take care of me, even although my earthly tether were taken from me! Thus burdened, Fanny went home miserable. Never before had she realized, as now, how utterly guilty and unworthy she was in herself.
Fanny felt quite ashamed that so many years of her life had passed, and yet the great loving and living Redeemer had only been to her as a Root out of a dry ground, haying to her no beauty that she should desire Him, The pastor had been representing our long Saviour in heaven as the “Shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” as a “Refuge from the storm,” and as a “Covert from the tempest,” but Fanny had not brought her trouble to this Refuge.
Poor Fanny was miserable for three long, weary months, not because there was any necessity to wait for pardon or salvation but because the foolish girl was trying to do what was impossible — make herself better, or more worthy of the notice and mercy of God. She frequently rose at five o’clock in the morning to pray, and to read a small Testament which never left her pocket except to be carefully read. Yet all this time the girl was too proud to come to Christ just as she was.
Oh, how she tried to make herself sorry for sin, and to give up some of her naughty ways! But all in vain; too frequently would the quick, impetuous temper break out with sudden power, or the girl be plunged into despair by finding herself guilty of some other of the many faults which she had been dreaming were all destroyed.
Alas for the hope of any who think themselves clever enough to cure the fever of sin! Sin is such a dreadful disease that there is but one Physician who can cure it.
With a loving and pious mother, and a God-fearing father, one would have thought that the poor child might have unburdened her mind, but always shy and sensitive, we are sorry to say Fanny neglected to do this.
One Sunday afternoon Fanny took her Testament and a tract entitled, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” into her own room. Having made herself secure from interruption by barricading the door, she proceeded to read the tract, and the Spirit of God blessed the reading; so that she saw clearly that she must believe first, and look for the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace — afterward. For she read in the tract, “It is quite as sensible to expect fruit from a tree before that tree be planted as to expect joy, or peace in the soul until the soul be first rooted in Christ; or in other words, has become a believer in Jesus.”
So resolved Fanny: “I will find some promise to believe — some word of the Lord Himself — and then I will just trust my soul upon it for all eternity.” Kneeling down, with her open Testament before her, the girl exclaimed, “Oh! here is just the word I want in the sixth chapter of the Gospel by John, and the thirty-seventh verse. Jesus says, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.’ This will do,” said the girl.
So, putting her finger upon the passage of Scripture, she quietly, but reverently and earnestly, addressed God in words to this effect: ―
“O Thou great God, I am a sinner, and want to be saved from my sins! Many times I have offended Thee — that I remember — and my heart is hard, and many times sin has been in me when I did not even know it. O God, in the name and for the sake of Thy Son Jesus, I come now to Thee! O God, when Thy Son was in the world He said, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.’ Jesus, here I come to Thee, and will and do believe that Thou wilt not cast me out. My heart is cold, and dark, and ignorant!
I have tried to make my heart warmer and better, but cannot do it! Lord, I trust this soul of mine to Thee; I give it to Thee to be saved from the guilt and punishment of my sins, which have been atoned for by Thy death! I give my soul to be washed and cleansed by Thy blood. Thou hast said, ‘Him that cometh Thou wilt in no wise cast out.’ Lord, I come! I take Thee at Thy word. Lord, I believe that Thy blood cleanses from all sin, and that Thou hast saved even me!”
Having trusted her soul to Jesus, and given herself to Him, it seemed to the girl as if she could not leave off praising, and blessing, and talking to her new-found Saviour. Tears coursed down her cheeks unheeded, for they were tears of happiness, and even of rapture, as the girl found herself thanking God for pardon, for peace, and for heaven!
Love and joy sprang up in the softened heart, which was dissolved and meld by the wonderful love and compassion of the blessed Redeemer!
“Oh!” thought Fanny, “how I love the dear Lord Jesus. His word is true. He will not, He has not cast me out. And now He is mine, for time and for eternity.”
Fanny could now enter into the language of Madame Guyon when she wrote,
“I love Thee, Lord!
but with no love
of mine,
For I have naught
to give;
I love Thee, Lord!
but all the love
is Thine;
For by Thy love I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in Thee.”
In the trials and changes which have fallen to her lot in the more than twenty years which have since passed, she has found that the peace of God which passeth understanding, and the knowledge of the truth of the promise which came to her first in that little room, have never left her.
R. C. C.