She was a great church worker and well-known in her community for her kindness and charity. Her diligence, in distributing quantities of tracts in her neighborhood earned her the title of "The Tract Passer." Surely, God was well pleased with her—so she thought.
One night at a meeting, she was much annoyed by the message given by a visiting preacher of the gospel. He 'had said: "If any are to be saved they must all' be saved in the same way! Tor all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.' The self-righteous, religious person must be saved in the same way as the sinful woman who walks the street. In God's sight, 'there is none that doeth good, no, not one.'" Rom. 3:1212They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3:12).
“The Tract Passer" was so upset that she made it her business to speak to the preacher. During the conversation he assured her that God's Word gave but one way to be saved. She was very angry, and said: "Sir, do you know how much money I spend yearly in giving away tracts? And how much time and trouble I devote to good works? If what you say is true, I'll not spend any more of my time in this way, nor waste my money in buying any more tracts. I have a lot more of them now upstairs, but I'll not give away another tract.”
The preacher assured her that if she was to be saved she must come as a penitent, hell-deserving sinner, and receive God's pardon in the same way as anyone else. He then persuaded her to give the tracts to him, which she did.
“Now your ladder is quite broken down," said the preacher. "How can you get to heaven now? If ever you did, you would be in a strange fix, for you would not know the song. You would hear others singing, 'I've been redeemed and washed in the blood of the Lamb'; but you could not sing that. You would have to sing all alone, 'I came up here by giving away gospel tracts.'”
This bit of plain speaking opened the lady's eyes to her true position. To take her place as a lost sinner and to humble herself before God was most painful to her, but she did at last take God's way of salvation.
Claiming no good in herself and placing all her hope and trust in' the work of Christ, she came as a ruined, contrite sinner, and received God's gift of grace, the Savior of sinners.