I SUPPOSE that I was like the great majority of boys in most ways. I am sure, however, that I sought gaiety and pleasure more than most. Religion appealed to me from its sentimental aspect, but when my dear grandmother, a sweet venerable Christian, used to come and pray beside my bed, I felt uneasy and anxious for the last “amen.”
I was brought up with a foot in both worlds, so to speak; for I read a scripture portion daily, and esteemed it a sin to give up Sunday church. But during the week I sought to live in a ceaseless round of amusement. Years came and went. From private school I was sent to one of our great public schools, and there again, pleasure was foremost in my thoughts. I think it was at my public school that religious thoughts were first awakened in my mind, but you may judge of their value when I tell you that a few outward observances which had no practical effect upon my daily life, were all the fruit they bore.
Indeed not long after this, I began to question in my mind whether I believed in aught but in one God. I think that the utter deadness of the ceremonial religion, of which I was the constant witness, conduced in a great measure toward this incipient skepticism. Our housemaster, for instance, laid down the Bible and instead read Cardinal Newman's Dream of Gerontius to us at evening prayers, during a considerable portion of one term. Our school supported a mission in the slums of a southern port, and this mission was run upon ultra-ritualistic lines. Our missionary, Father D—, frequently visited the college and the various houses, and by his winning way captivated many hearts. Then, when we emerged from the state of juniority, we were encouraged to spend an occasional week-end at the mission house. Naturally enough, the change from school was looked upon as a sort of holiday, and we were not slow to avail ourselves of the invitation.
I remember well my great surprise upon visiting the mission for the first time. The service was purely ritualistic. The spraying of holy water; the tensing operations; the gorgeous vestments; the acolytes; the perpetual genuflexions; all these things were new and strange to me.
I am grateful to God that He kept my heart away from all these idolatrous observances, for I never ceased to protest against them, even though I could not base my arguments upon His word. My mind was easily swayed; faith I had none, yet all the time I never failed in what I deemed a sacred duty,—the reading of a few verses of my Bible every day, and the repetition of my prayers.
Years came and went, and at last I had to leave the dear old school with all its hoary memories. Sin had made its power very manifest to me, and, though I abhorred it, I felt powerless to resist its influence.
I then went to a technical college where the observance of religious exercises was less strictly enforced; and it was there that God first spoke to me, laid His hand upon me, and bade me repent from my sins. For some time I was very ill, but health coming to me again, I turned my back upon God, and plunged into greater worldliness.
Then suddenly, the season of boyhood with its irresponsibility came to a close, and the sterner side of life appeared. Duty made its voice heard, and it called me across 8000 miles of sea to far South America. In the city of my destination, I found gaieties undreamt of hitherto, and when the hours of work were over, the theater embraced me with its glamorous attractions. God grew further and further from my thoughts, and sin more precious in the due proportion. My heart was ever with the stage; and my spare time was spent in writing plays and songs. Indeed, I looked forward to the time when I should be able to give up my work and take wholly to play-acting for my profession. Yet I had my serious moments; moments given by God for reflection upon the emptiness of life and the vanity of sin. In these moments, I would sit and write verses upon solemn themes; verses that surprise me now. But sin and pleasure, Satan's messengers, conquered; and thus life ebbed and flowed, and the months sped by.
This life told at last, and from the dress rehearsal of an opera in which I was taking a leading part, I went to a hospital bed for six weary weeks. But even this did not affect me, for when at last was well enough to recommence my duties, I plunged again, deaf to the still small voice, into the giddy whirl, and again became a puppet in the hands of Satan. But God's love never changed. I was rehearsing two other plays, when, for the second time, sickness made itself felt, and once again I had to seek my bed. There I lay for several weeks, and beside me lay my Bible. I often read its pages during that memorable illness, but never a word struck home. I was nevertheless more interested in my life than ever before. Thus God began to speak, and I, dimly enough, to hear. To me, nature had ever told of God. Never had I doubted, even in my heart, His existence. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." “In his heart," for even this fool was wise enough not to make his folly known.
As to the Israelites of old, the thunder was to me "the voice of the Lord." I remember vividly a terrific thunder storm, when the black night was lit up by the flaming heavens, and the stillness put to rout by the awful roar and crash of God's artillery, and how cowed I was by a sense of His majestic power. Yet, when the storm was lulled to rest, my conscience fell asleep.
During those days of dreary convalescence however, God spoke, but not in thunder. To the house where I lived, there came a guest to whom I took a deep dislike. His Bible, of which he was never in the least ashamed, bore the evidence of years of use. I remember repeatedly arguing against carrying a Bible openly, and this argument is to me one of the clearest proofs that the book is the word of God. "The darkness comprehended it not,"—would have none of it. To me, the Bible was a book for the secret chamber, and to carry it publicly was to stamp oneself a Pharisee. This unwelcome guest, however, knew more than his Bible. I never met a man to whom the Bible was more precious or by whom it was more deeply studied, but at the same time, I have rarely known one better versed in general literature than he. It was this characteristic that first dispelled the feelings of dislike. I myself was ever scribbling, and here was one who manifested a keen interest in my literary efforts as none had hitherto. I did not know that God had so set a trap for me, and that the stranger guest was becoming all things to me that he might win me to Christ. Yet so it was. My dislike gave place to interest. The critical ability of this messenger of God appealed to me above all things, and whenever opportunity offered I sought his presence.
One night, when I was well enough to walk about, I heard that he was to lecture in a hall close by upon some Bible subject, and knowing his ability in literary things, I went. Nor was I disappointed. I heard a masterly discourse upon the Tabernacle, and the analysis of type and symbol were to me quite new, and a fresh interest was awakened within me.
The next night, impelled I doubt not now by the Spirit of God, I sought the speaker in his room, my Bible in my hand, to ask him to elucidate some point upon which he had touched in his address. He felt that his time was come, and, after scanning over the passage, he closed the book, looked into my face and asked me if I believed that the Bible was the word of God. I was taken wholly aback. Answers refused to come. I felt that a crisis had arrived. Slowly he quoted to me, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life;" repeating his question time after time. The struggle of the next two hours is too solemn to record. Never was man more torn about than I was. I could not get away from the awful fact of sin, nor could I deny that Jesus had come to die for such as me. Upon my knees, eight thousand miles from home, I owned myself a sinner and threw myself upon the mercy of my God.
The travail was very bitter and full of agony, and when I went to bed, I feared the morrow's dawn. And good cause had I to fear it. When I awoke I could scarcely realize that but a few hours before I had committed myself to God. Just as the Amalekites met Israel and fought against them in Rephidim as soon as they had slaked their thirst from that spiritual rock that followed them, so did Satan beset me upon that memorable morn. He was a man of war, and I but just liberated from the bondage of a life-long slavery. He with all the artifice of centuries of cunning; I with all the weakness of a new born babe. I had a revolver in my drawer with just one bullet left. If ever man was tempted to end his days it was I. In an agony of mind I ran downstairs and awakened the only one who had heard my cry to God. He saw at once the conflict that raged within, and knew full well that One who had died for me upon the cross was lifting His hands in intercession to the Father, higher than Horeb's height. He called me to my knees, and together we sought the throne of grace, where God in His infinite mercy heard our cries for help, and sent down His ministering angels to put to flight the hosts of evil.
Ten years have gone since then. Old things have passed away. All things have become new. If I have failed repeatedly, if I am full of failure still, He at least has never failed me once. It is only when the eye is off Christ that failure comes. There is no satisfaction away from Him. The glamor of the world is to me completely vain. Gaiety drives away dull care for a few hours at most, and then it comes back with redoubled weight. Religion is often sought as a means of rest, but there is no rest in this world for a single soul who does not know Christ Jesus as his Saviour and his Lord. Flow few, who go through the form of Christian worship, know the meaning of His words, "I will give you rest." How few understand the meaning of the cross, whereon He suffered, "the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God." L.L.