ONE Sunday afternoon a group of people was gathered round a street preacher, some apparently listening, while two or three seemed bent on drowning his voice, or frightening him into silence. The ringleader of these, in a thick, unsteady voice, which told that he was by no means sober, shouted just as I came up, and evidently in answer to the preacher's remarks, "I've always done without Him." And then, as the evangelist still went on speaking, his antagonist in yet louder, more defiant tones shouted again, "I've always done without Him."
That was all I heard—I had to hurry on, but that unhappy man's words have often rung in my ears since. If he has not yet seen what a terrible confession he was making in his vaunt of independence, may God open his eyes to the truth before, it is too late!
From one point of view those boastful words of his were a lie, for in the very God whose Name he despised, he and you and I “live and move and have our being." Still, looked at in another light, they were but too true, and true not only of the poor drunkard, but of everyone who has not yet had to do with God about his sins. Yes, the Name of Jesus may be on the lips twenty times a day, but if the utterer of that Name has not come into Christ's presence as a lost, helpless sinner, and by faith looked to Him as his Savior, he, too, “has always done without Him."
It will be a terrible thing in the ages to come to look back upon the past, and to have to say, “I have always done without Him," for you will then have to look on into the unending future and cry, “I shall always have to do without Him!”
C. H. P.