WHEN a boy at school we had a writing teacher for whom we did not care very much. It was no unusual thing for boys to play truant during his hour. Of course that meant that unless a note was brought, written by parent or guardian, explaining the cause of absence, we were in for it. "It" meant a good sound leathering with the hated master's strap.
On one occasion, I am ashamed to say, I played truant. I dared not return without a note or I would "catch it." As I did not want to "catch it," and as I could not ask friends at home to write one for me, I wrote it myself, and signed my mother's name. Then I, unblushingly presented it on my return next day.
Whether the teacher thought my mother was a very bad writer or not, I did not know; but on reading the note he dismissed me to my seat, and there was an end of it. No, the end had not come yet. I had lied to him in that note, and forged my mother's name.
As the days passed by, that lie burdened my heart. I was miserable. When he came round the benches and looked over my shoulder at my copy book, I felt terribly depressed. My unconfessed sin oppressed me. The weight became intolerable.
At last, one day as he stood behind me watching my writing, I could bear it no longer, and blurted out,
"O, sir, I wrote that note, I wrote that note."
Whether he knew what I spoke about or not, I do not know, but this I do know, the instant the words were out of my lips I felt happier, my burden had gone, my conscience was eased, I could have danced for joy.
Some years after leaving school I had another and a heavier burden. It was the burden of unconfessed and therefore unforgiven sin against a holy and loving God—home-sins and school-sins, eye-sins, ear-sins, tongue-sins, a n d hand-sins; heart-sins and mind-sins; Sunday-sins and week-day sins. How they all pressed upon me and crushed me. What an awful sense of sin and fear of wrath oppressed me. For a time "I kept silence." Then I cried out in confession. I made a clean breast of everything. What then? Well then, God led me to Calvary, and showed me that Jesus, my sin-bearer, had put them all away there, making a full and adequate atonement for them. Then God the Father said,
"For My Son's sake I forgive you all your sins."
O, it was sweet. It was like heavenly music in my poor crushed soul. In a moment my burden had gone, and with Bunyan's pilgrim I could sing,
My burden gone, my soul set free,
My grateful heart now urges me
To give the glory all to Thee,
O, Lamb of God, to Thee.
Messages of God’s Love 1/15/1928