There was a general meeting in progress, in which there was noticed a Jewess several evenings. Her husband, a gay man of the world, was in the habit of passing his evenings with congenial friends at the theater and other places of amusement, leaving her at home alone.
To relieve the monotony of an evening (the nearest church being situated in the same street), she slipped out, and, impelled by curiosity, attended one of the services. The first evening's services left no particular impression. The question simply arose in her mind, just as a cloud floats over the sky, "Suppose that Jesus was the Messiah!”
The next night Jesus again was preached, and before the sermon was over, the question became more than a question; she said to herself, "Jesus was, perhaps, the Messiah," and it greatly distressed her.
On the third night the thought seized her soul and shook it through and through: "Jesus was the Messiah.”
Of course there came with it—inevitable to a Jewess—the conviction, "I am lost forever, for my people slew Him." And in that spirit she went home sobbing and wailing.
Her husband returned at midnight, and she met him in tears and said at once, "Go to some Christian neighbor and borrow for me a New Testament.”
He tried to laugh her out of her impressions, or argue her out of them; but it was of no use, and so for the love he bore her, he went out at half-past twelve in the morning and rang up a Christian neighbor. When he came to the door, the caller said, "I beg your pardon, but will you be so kind as to loan me a New Testament?”
You may be sure the request was most cheerfully granted. The neighbor thought, "There is a work in that house to be done for Jesus tonight;" and as soon as he could properly dress himself he hurried to a Christian brothers, and with him repaired to the Jewish mansion.
The door was instantly opened, and the mistress met them with a smile, saying, "I have found Jesus!”
And then she told the story I have told you, with this addition: she said that when the New Testament was put in her hands she went into her room, and kneeling, lifted up her face toward heaven, and cried, "O Lord God of my fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, give me light, give me light!”
She opened the Testament with closed eyes, and opened it at the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans.
She read slowly, and the verses went tearing through her soul like hot thunderbolts, until she came to the sixteenth verse,—
"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth, to the Jew first"—there she stopped; her bursting tears blinded her. She looked again.
"It is to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
As she read these words she believed them, and she knew it. When the Christian brethren came, she was a Christian.