Some years ago there lived in a town of Northern Germany, a young man who had long cast off all thoughts of God, and lived in sin so open and terrible that he was remarkable amongst the ungodly and the depraved as one who outdid them all. How wonderful are the ways of God! God made use of the exceeding sinfulness of this young man to awaken in him the first desire after salvation. He became alarmed at his own wickedness. “I am worse than any other,” he thought. “If it is true that the wicked go to hell, and only the good to heaven, it is plain where I am going. If ever a man is lost eternally, I must be that man!” Night and day did this thought haunt the wretched sinner; his peace was gone, and he found no pleasure, even in sin. “It only,” he thought, “it were possible to be saved!” What could he do? He had been told of penances and prayers, of convents where monks spent their days in works that might at last atone, for sin; and he felt that no labor could be too great, no torture too severe, if he only might have the faint hope of pardon at last. He resolved to become a monk, but he wished first to know in what convent in the whole world the rule was the strictest, and the penances the most terrible. If it were at the other end of the earth he would go to it, and then he would spend the rest of his days in penance and in prayer. He was told in answer to his inquiries that the convent under the strictest rule was a monastery of La Trappe, distant about fifteen hundred miles from his home. He could not afford to pay the expense of his journey, and he therefore resolved to walk the whole way, begging as he went. This alone would be the beginning of a penance, and might gain him one step towards heaven.
It was a long, weary journey, each day beneath a hotter sun and through strange lands. He felt scarcely alive by the time he came in sight of the old building where he hoped to gain rest for his soul—for his body it mattered not. Having rung at the gate, he waited till it was slowly opened by an aged monk, so feeble and infirm that he seemed scarcely able to walk.
“What is it you want?” asked the old man.
“I want to be saved,” replied the German; “I thought that here I might find salvation.”
The old monk invited him to come in, and led him into a room where they were alone together. “Tell me now what you mean,” said the old man.
“I am a lost sinner,” began the German. “I have lived a life more wicked than I can tell you. It seems to me impossible that I can be saved, but all that can be done I am ready to do. I will submit to every penance, I will complain of nothing, if only I may be received into the order. The harder the work, the worse the torture, the better it will be for me. You have only to tell me what to do, and whatever it may be, I will do it.”
I would ask you who read this story, have you known what it is thus to feel yourself a lost sinner? To know that you are on the road at the end of which there is but one place, and that place the eternal lake of fire? To feel that all toil, all suffering, all torture here, would be but an exchange too welcome, could you but gain by it the faintest hope of escaping from everlasting despair? If you are still without Christ, you are whether you know it or not, in this dark road with its one terrible end; and should God in His great mercy have awakened you, so that you know the danger and the hopelessness of your position, you will be in a state to welcome as a voice from God the wonderful words which were spoken in answer to the trembling sinner—spoken by the old monk of La Trappe— “If you tell me to do the most fearful penance, I am ready to do it,” the German had said; and the old monk replied, “If you are ready to do what I tell you, you will go straight home again, for the whole work has been done for you before you came, and there is nothing left for you to do. Another has done the work instead, and it is finished.” “It is finished?”
“Yes, it is finished. Do you not know that God sent down His own Son to be the Saviour of, the world? Did He not come? Did He not finish the work the Father gave Him to do? Did He not say on the cross, ‘It is finished?’”
“What was finished?”
“He undertook to bear the full punishment of sin, and He did bear it, and God is satisfied with the work done by His Son. And do you know this—Where is Jesus now?”
“He is in heaven.”
“He is in heaven. But why is He there? Because He has finished the work. He would not be there otherwise. He would still be here, for He undertook to do it all, and He would not go back to His Father till all was done. He is there because God is satisfied with His work. And dear friend, why should you and I try to do that work which the Son of God has done? If God had lest it for us to do, we could never do it; were we to perform all the penances that ever have been or could be performed, they would be utterly useless to us. In doing them, instead of gaining anything, you would be but adding the crowning sin to your life. It would be as much as to say, Christ has not done enough. It would be to cast contempt upon the perfect work of the Son of God, and to dare to attempt to add to that which He has said is finished. Yes; Christ would be insulted and God made a liar; and were it not that I am so old that I can scarcely walk to the gate, my escape should testify against the place. I would not remain here another day. As it is, I must wait till the Lord comes to fetch me; but you can go, and I beseech you to go, thanking God His Son has done all for you, and that the punishment of your sins is forever past. And remember always that Christ is in heaven!”
What astonishing tidings for the poor weary sinner! Did he believe them? He did; and after a short time of rest, during which he learnt more of the blessed gospel from the lips of the old monk, he returned to his own land, there to make known amongst sinners, lost as he had been, the news of that love and grace of which he had first heard in the monastery of La Trappe.
Instead of walking 1,500 miles to hear of the One who has completed the work of redemption on the cross, may the voice from La Trappe reach your heart and bring peace and joy to you, also.
ML 12/20/1903