NOT long ago I met a poor crippled woman, who all day long is obliged to sit still, and while others are busy around can never stir from her chair. I noticed that she was very cheerful, and that there was a look of great peace upon her face.
One day, as I sat by her fire, talking with her, I asked her if she knew the Lord Jesus Christ as her Saviour? Her ready reply, “Yes, indeed I do,” confirmed me in the thought that He was the source of her quietness of spirit and rest of heart.
It would take too long to tell in her own words the story of her conversion, the substance of which is as follows:—
One day an aged Christian neighbor came in to see Mary the cripple, and sought to win her to Christ. At her request Mary read the tenth of John, and her old friend explained it to her. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, the Good Shepherd—the old Christian lingered over the words, for they were very real and sweet to her, as one of His blood-bought sheep, safe in His care, and sheltered by Him. The aged Christian could truly say, “Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me;” and though death might soon come, she knew that the sheep of Christ “never perish;” theirs is eternal life, and on them “the second death hath no power.”
Mary listened, surprised at the happy, confident tone in which her aged friend spoke. She could not understand it. “How very comfortable you seem to be!” she exclaimed at last. Ah, the happiness of others is of no use to us; we must seek Christ for Himself. Many talk of “the Saviour,” but it is a different thing when we personally know Him as “our own Saviour.” So the old woman doubtless was thinking, for she turned and answered the girl’s exclamation rather abruptly. “I can’t save you,” she said, and then took leave of her.
“What can she mean?” pondered the girl when she had gone. “Can’t save me!” Mary did not understand it at all. She did not know that she was really, as a child of a fallen race, lost. Reader, do you understand? When a man knows where he is going, he does not need to be told the way; but if he has lost his way, and knows it, then he is glad enough to be set upon the right track. Unhappily, there are many thousands who think they are on the right road, and would be displeased and astonished if they were told that they were all wrong; for you know “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man.” Such would not understand the old Christian’s remark, “I can’t save you.” But though Mary was one of this class, the words sank deep into her soul, and troubled her so much, that when her old friend came again, she said, “You have made me very unhappy—your words have worried me.” Her friend pointed her to the Lord Jesus, who is mighty to save; but she could take no comfort. “From that moment,” she said, “my sins weighed upon my soul; I saw they stood between me and God, and I felt I should sink under them.”
Time went on, but brought no rest for this troubled heart. She was naturally reserved, and it was a painful effort to her to speak of the subject that concerned her so deeply; but at last she said to herself, “I must either sink under this weight of misery, or speak to someone who may be able to help me.”
About this time a young man, who had known her from childhood, came to see her. “Well, Mary,” he said, “how are you?”
She assured him she was well; but he had noticed the look of trouble on her face, and had attributed it to ill health.
“The truth is,” Mary’s mother said, “she is very unhappy; she is afraid to die.”
“Afraid to die!” repeated the young man; “why?”
“My sins make me tremble at the thought of death. What can I do to get rid of my sins?”
“What do you think about your sins?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she replied; “I only know I must sink under them.”
Her friend spoke much to her of sin, and its solemn consequences, and of her state as a sinner before God.
“I quite longed,” continued the cripple, “to hear something different. I wanted to do something, and he wanted to show me that, as a lost sinner, I could do nothing. At last he said, ‘Mary, press forward; forget your sins; it is into Christ, and out of your sins.’”
“As he spoke,” said Mary, “I felt the very presence of the blessed Saviour near me, and His own words came into my mind: ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.’ I rested in Him, and the peace which He then gave me I have never once lost.”
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:11There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1)). “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 5:17, 1817Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 18And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; (2 Corinthians 5:17‑18))
S. C. M. A.