WHEN I was a child my dear mother, who was a Christian, took me to a place of worship a mile off, morning and evening on a Lord’s Day. I did not like this, as when I got home at dinner-time I was not allowed to go out and mix with worldly companions, but was kept in until the evening meeting, my father, who was not a Christian, objecting to my going so far to a Sunday school. When I got older, I began to have my own way, and gave over going altogether; and the bad habits I acquired, and sin and wickedness I got into, nearly overwhelmed me. This went on until I was eighteen years of age. My mother gave me tracts to read; evangelists visited her at times, and they spoke to me; and I began to make resolutions every new year until I was twenty-three years of age.
In the meantime I had three companions as bad as myself, and we spent our Sunday evenings in public-houses. How my mother’s heart must have ached when I went home the worse for drink on Sunday nights. My father found it out, but said nothing for six weeks, which ended the old year again; then he told me about it; so I made another resolution, and thank God He gave me strength to act accordingly this time. I gave up my companions, for a twelvemonth or more, and tried in my own power to give up my bad habits, and really meant to live a godly life. I was going away one day to the other side of London to some mission services on a well-known racecourse; my intentions were good, but I made a mistake; my old companions, who lived close by, said they would go with me. They saw the races, and I saw nothing, as I fell asleep in a tent on the racecourse under the influence of drink. How horrible the thought of it! This was through the companions.
When the races were over and my companions had lost their money, they came and waked me up, and we returned home. I began to reflect upon the money I had wasted and the mistake I had made. At that time I was convicted of being a sinner of the blackest dye; and I knew what I deserved at the hand of God, the farthest corner of hell, and I asked my mother what I must do to be saved. She told me there was salvation for me; and what a comfort it must have been to her, but she said nothing to me, but left the Lord to finish the work He had begun.
Conviction and fear made me ill for three weeks. I lost flesh, which every one noticed but myself. I had saved money, and was going to give it to the poor, that my good deeds might secure for me salvation, and everyone in the neighborhood thought I was a good young man; but “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” I loved my mother, and did my best to ease her in her work, and my father as well: we were in the grocery business. I got well again, and the fear and conviction passed away; I thought I had been a bit foolish, yielding to these impressions, and as my mother was alive and a Christian I should come out all right, and as long as she lived I need not trouble myself.
But the dear Lord was not going to allow me to fall asleep again; He took away my earthly stay, the only one I loved, after three days’ illness. I was then alone in the world, as my father and I disagreed about Sunday trading, which I had often assisted in before, but felt I could not continue in; I then made up my mind that I would count all things loss that I might win Christ; and I sought the Lord again, and found Him, and could not any longer walk hand in hand with the world. So I left my father and lost all, but won Christ, and the spiritual blessing and revelation of God’s present purposes in this world are worth more to me than all I lost financially.
The Lord often strips a man of all that his heart is set upon here, both wife, children, wealth and position, that his affections may be set on Christ, who gave up all to redeem us, and break our stony hearts. We think how hard it is to lose all, but we are so absorbed with things in this world that the Lord Jesus, in divine love, takes away the object of our attention, that we might look up at Him; and when we once see what He has in store for us, our hearts are ready to leave all here, to be occupied with things where He is. If the Lord did not take these steps with us we should be forever lost; if the unconverted could only see all this before their earthly loss is irreparable, how often would they regret having ridiculed many an evangelist and Christian, even in their own families.
Unconverted reader, allow me to warn you while it is yet the day of grace. This world is under judgment, waiting for the wrath and divine justice of God; honor, wealth, political excitement, and national honors are all vanity and vexation of spirit, as one of this world’s wisest monarchs said and experienced. This scene is but a wilderness through which we are passing; what else can it be to a Christian true to Christ? What would heaven be to a sinner used to earthly amusements? Would he be happy in the presence of a holy and righteous God? Will the good works of a poor sinner avail anything there? No! Salvation is not of works lest any man should boast, but of faith, as it says in Romans 10:9,9That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9) “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Salvation is a free gift to all who believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to be an offering for sin, the Lamb without blemish, who shed His precious blood. “Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)).
H. C.