ONE of the earliest things I can remember is, when quite a little girl, learning the third chapter of St John’s Gospel for my father. How my little mind wondered when I came to the eighth verse, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” To my childish imagination these words of Jesus about the wind and the Spirit seemed marvelous and incomprehensible.
I grew up like other girls, brought up under Christian influences, religious after a fashion, moral and amiable. But God was not in all my thoughts; I desired not the knowledge of His ways; self, and not Christ, being the center around which my thoughts and interests revolved. When about seventeen years of age I left home, and went to reside in a remote secluded part of the country. Here in a remarkable and most unexpected way I was awakened by the Spirit of God to a deep sense of being unsaved. I had very little conviction of sin; but I had discovered, to my utter dismay, that I knew not and loved not the blessed Son of God, and that if I died as I then was I should certainly perish.
Eternal things then became great realities to me, and I longed to be a true Christian. I remember particularly one night reading the forty-ninth Psalm. Oh! how I wept over these verses, “For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue forever, and their dwelling-places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man being in honor abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me.” Oh, how I envied the sweet Psalmist his assurance that God would redeem him from the power of the grave; how I longed to be able to say the same.
I remained in this state quite two years, most miserable and anxious about my soul, yet outwardly gay and unconcerned, and going on with the world. But God knew all about me, and at last His time came to speak peace to my troubled soul. In the autumn of last year a dear servant of Christ visited Dublin, and preached the glorious gospel of the grace of God. I attended his meetings, and through the ministry of the Word light broke into my dark soul. It seemed now all new to me, and as though I had never heard it before, that “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”
I got thereafter in a general way to know Jesus as the Saviour of sinners, but I had not yet become personally acquainted with Him as my own precious Saviour, consequently I was at times very unhappy, and had not settled peace with God. One evening―never shall I forget it―I knelt at my bedside and besought God, for Jesus’ sake, to fill my soul with joy and peace in believing―the joy and peace that I knew were the portion of the soul that rests in Jesus alone for salvation. How shall I praise Him for the abundant and wondrous way He answered my prayer! In the course of the next two days the Spirit of God filled my soul with floods of light, and love, and joy, and peace, to overflowing. I saw Jesus hanging on that cross of shame and agony, taking my place there, and making a full atonement for all my individual sins, as though I were the only sinner in the world to be saved. “He loved me, and gave himself for me,” was the language of my heart and lips.
Oh, how I now repented of my past life of sin and forgetfulness of God, in the presence of such matchless grace and compassion. Jesus became infinitely precious to me as my now risen glorified Saviour, and I rejoiced in the thought of knowing Him thenceforth, during my pilgrim journey through this world, as my Friend, my Advocate with the Father, and my great High Priest, ever living to make intercession for me. I got the blessed sense of being sealed by the Spirit of God, and the consequent assurance that I should never perish. The early part of the second of Ephesians was the joyful experience of my soul; and now, abiding in Christ, I longed to walk even as He walked when here on earth. What can be compared to the rest, joy, and infinite satisfaction of “first love” to Christ? Would to God it was not so often “left,” as it frequently is, by the child of God!
And now, dear reader, that I have told you in a few brief words the story of my conversion, let me, in all love and faithfulness, ask you this solemn question, Have you ever yet passed from death unto life through believing in the precious Saviour, the Son of God? “Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again,” are the words of Jesus. Remember that sinful and far from God though you be, He yearns over you with infinite love and compassion, for He willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather that he should “turn from his way and live.” He is “rich unto all that call upon him.” Come now to Jesus, for He waiteth to be gracious. He alone can give you what you need, pardon, peace, and rest. “Unto you therefore which believe he is precious.”
ANON.