WHAT is the matter?” I asked of a young woman whom I saw weeping, as she stood on the side-walk, near the door of the hall, where “the Word” had just been preached.
She had been one of the audience.
“My sins! Oh, my sins!” was her sad reply.
The light of a lovely summer evening still lingered, and many a passer-by might thus have witnessed those fast-falling tears. But she seemed wholly unconscious of their gaze. One thing absorbed her thoughts, one fact commanded her very being.
What a terrible thing it is to be convicted of sin―to feel its leaden load―to find yourself before God, guilty, and utterly unable to answer for one of a thousand of your transgressions! The experience is indescribable; and yet there is not one soul but will go through it.
Many will go through conviction of sin when they hear the verdict of the Great White Throne. Then, for the first time, the fact of their personal guilt will seize upon them with overwhelming horror. That which they had admitted in theory in time will assert its dread reality in their consciences in eternity. But then conviction cannot result in happy conversion, nor can the consciousness of guilt be purged by the cleansing blood of Jesus. No, no! conviction on that day is certain condemnation. Ah! the floods of tears that then will unavailingly flow―the piteous wailing and the gnashing of teeth, dire witness of hopeless gloom―the light of summer gone, the glee of harvest over, and the fruit of a misspent life now to be reaped.
Reader, look ahead, and be warned. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
Yet the life of this young woman had not been misspent; that is, she had not been guilty of such sins as would have warranted so public an avowal as that which I saw and heard. On the contrary, it would have been difficult to have found fault with her outward conduct, But then all have sinned―some more, some less―and she amongst them; and this truth, carried home in the power of God to her conscience, made her condition intolerable. Welcome tears! happy contrition! Forgiveness is near at hand. Grace lingers; love wins. The Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation. It was so in her case.
“Yes; but I don’t feel that it does me any good.”
“Never mind feelings. Do you believe the fact that the blood of Jesus was shed for you, a sinner, and that it could cleanse you from sin?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then change the word ‘us’ into ‘me,’ and see how the verse reads.”
She wiped the clouding tears away, and slowly read, “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth―” Here she paused. The next word was to be changed from “us” to “me”―from the plural to the singular―from the general to the particular―from mere doctrine to happy appropriation, by simple faith.
“You need not fear to make the change, if you feel yourself a sinner, and wish to be pardoned. That blood was shed for sinners, and therefore shed for you.”
All true; but alas that there should be such distrust of the Word of God as to make souls halt for a moment. However, again looking at the verse, she read its precious words slowly till she reached the crucible. Then, as the Spirit of God opened her heart to appropriate the truth, to my joy did I hear the word “me” clear as a note of music.... “Cleanseth me from all sin.”
The question was settled. God had explained the blessed truth to her soul; and now tears gave place to smiles, and deep anguish to peace and joy in believing. And so sudden; but yet so reasonable. When the criminal hears the royal reprieve, that moment his chains are snapped. When the sinner learns the value of the blood of Jesus, as shed for and as cleansing him, then, that moment, all dread of judgment is gone. He is like Israel in the blood-sprinkled house. When God sees the blood He passes by.
This was the first stage in her spiritual history. She had begun life by faith in the blood of Jesus as meeting her sins. That evening she returned to her cottage with the glad heart of a believer; and
“What tongue can express
The sweet comfort and peace
Of a soul in its earliest love?”
Such a love filled her young heart that night.
On the following evening the meeting was held, not in the hall, but in the open air, and many attended―some curious, others anxious, and others happy in the truth. I hoped to have seen our friend amongst the last; but I was disappointed. True, she came, but her face wore signs of sorrow.
At the close I asked her the cause of this; but she was dumb. “Have all the sins come back,” said I. “Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Well, I don’t believe that; but please tell me the story,” said I.
“Last night, after having trusted the Lord, I felt so happy that I could hardly sleep. I was happy in the morning too; and when I went to the mill I told them that I was converted, but they began to laugh at me and tease me, until I lost my temper, and then I felt as bad as I was before.”
“It is a serious thing for a Christian to lose his temper, or to grieve the Spirit of God in any way,” I replied.
But, perceiving that she had not yet learned the distinction between an evil nature that exists in the believer till the end, and those sins that spring from it, all of which are washed away by the blood of Jesus when there is faith in Him―or which, in the case of a believer, being confessed, are then forgiven governmentally (that is, as a father forgives a child), a distinction of primary importance for the settled peace of every Christian―I asked her what made her happy the previous night.
“I just believed that the blood of Jesus had cleansed me from all sin,” said she.
“And what made you unhappy this morning?” “I lost my temper, and felt as bad as ever.”
“That is, faith made you happy, and feeling made you unhappy? Eh?”
“Yes.”
Then I showed her that the flesh, ever prone to break out, dwells still in the Christian, who must “reckon himself dead to sin,” and live in the power of the Spirit; but that, if our happiness depended on our feelings, it would be a sorry case.
“What made you happy?”
“Believing.”
“What made you unhappy?”
“Feeling.”
“Of course,” said I. “Then, will you live henceforth by feeling or by faith?”
She paused. At last she said, “I’ll trust Him.” Grand confession! “Blessed” are all such.
On the previous night the blood of Christ had sufficed for her sins; this night, Himself, His grace, His truth, became the stay and the object of her life. And what a stay! The blood of Christ for the conscience, the person of Christ for the heart.
Years passed away; changes came. Health broke down; faith was often tested. Trials of various kinds, some unusually severe, pressed upon her; but through all Christ proved her stay. He never fails those who trust Him.
I went to see her on her dying bed. She reminded me of the word “us” being changed to “me” on that fair summer evening sixteen years ago. It was clear in her memory still; conversion is never forgotten. “On going to the mill one morning, soon after that day, I saw,” said she, “a piece of paper on the ground. I picked it up, and saw the verse,’ God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ I took it with me, and pinned it on my loom, where I could always see it; I found it such a comfort.”
Never was loom better ornamented, thought I. Would that every factory girl had such a picture! What a rich and blessed train of thoughts fills the mind from these three words, “God so loved!” With such words constantly in view is to have a bright contrast to the sin and sorrow around. And what was the result of all? I asked her what she could now say for that Lord whom she had so long trusted?
“My blessed Lord!” she replied, with much difficulty of speech. “It’s all grace. I would not change places with anybody.”
What a victory! thought I. Could you, dear reader, say the same were you lying on your dying bed? Perhaps death is the thing you fear the most. But here was one who had lost that fear, from whom death’s sting had been taken, and who would rather “depart and be with Christ” than live in health or wealth. It is victory.
Thus the end came, her last words being an appeal to a loved one to “come to Jesus.”
“It is Jesus who can give
Sweetest pleasure while we live;
It is Jesus can supply
Solid comfort should we die.”
J. W. S.