When I was a small boy on my father's farm a large china swan was given me as a toy. How proudly I carried it into the farmyard! There, ducks, geese, turkeys and hens, all eager to get into touch with their painted "brother," followed me. But my swan had no life! Pretty as it was, it was dead and could not answer them.
As a schoolboy I saw the wax figure of a great soldier, life-sized, dressed in all the uniform of a general. It was very striking and many said "lifelike"; but it was dead. It had all the parts and outward show of a great warrior, but it lacked life.
Later in life I visited a fine cathedral in which a most imposing service was in progress. Music, choir, and robed preacher were there. The whole program was enacted without a hitch or jar. Ears and eyes responded to its magnificence. The audience said "impressive," but the "effect" passed away at the door. It appealed to the senses, but never reached conscience or heart. There was no spiritual life or power in it. It was "religion," but not a living Christ.
Years later, in a humble cottage where lived an old woman, gray-haired and alone, I rested one summer day. She gave me a hearty welcome and brought me a drink of cold spring water. As she handed it to me she said: "It is as free and refreshing as the water of life.”
I heard from her lips the story of her conversion as a girl; her happy life as a working man's wife; and the peaceful evening of life as a widow. Her story went to my heart; there was life in it. It came from her heart as the simple, living testimony to the power of Christ to save, to sustain and to satisfy. It convinced me of the reality of Christianity, and became the turning point of my life. I had been brought up religiously: taught to read and revere the Scriptures, "keep the Sabbath," and go to church; but I do not remember ever having heard of the need of being saved, or of having eternal life from a living Christ.
The life of that aged Christian turned my thought into a new channel. I was convinced of the reality of a living Christianity and I determined not to rest until I had a personal knowledge of it in my own soul.
While listening to an address on "Christ the Life-giver," I was converted. I learned then that by looking to Jesus, the uplifted Savior, by believing His Word and receiving Him, I too could have ETERNAL LIFE.
"He that hath the Son hath life." 1 John 5:12.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24.