Jessie R. was a gay and thoughtless girl the first time I met her. She was visiting for a few weeks with her relatives during the holidays. Her cousin, who was a Christian, was very sorry to see Jessie growing up to be a young woman, caring only for the pleasures of the world. She had often spoken to her about Jesus, and told her of the blessedness of being His; but Jessie had always put her off with a laugh and a sneer. Like many young people, Jessie thought that if she became a Christian she would lose all her joy, and have to become very grave and sad.
No doubt many of the young get frightened at conversion, by the miserable-looking faces that some religious people wear. They give one the impression that Christ makes people miserable, and they frighten others away from Him. But, my dear young friends, you must not take your ideas of being saved from such people, for very often it turns out that they are not true Christians at all, but mere religious professors, expecting to get to heaven because they are melancholy, and don’t smile and laugh as other people do. Jesus never made anybody sad and gloomy. He has made thousands of hearts to bound with perfect joy, and filled their tongues with sinng. None are so truly happy as the people whose sins are forgiven.
But I must tell you about Jessie. Meetings for preaching the Gospel were being held in the place where Jessie was spending her holidays, and after much persuasion, Jessie’s cousin got her to promise to go. It was not that she cared a bit for the preaching, but she did not like to be continually refusing her cousin. She went, and was astonished to see everybody so happy. It was entirely different from what she expected. Girls of her own age were there, singing the praises of the Lamb; their very faces beaming with joy. Some of them were her companions in childhood. She knew them long ago, and now they were saved and on the way to heaven. First one, then another of them went up to Jessie, and told her what the Lord had done for their souls. She felt uneasy, and deep down in her heart she wished that their joy was her own. She left that night with her ideas of being saved completely changed. Next night she offered to come of her own accord, and sat deeply ierested. At the close she hung her head, and the tears were glistening in her eyes. She wanted to be happy, but she was not. The world had failed to give her the happiness she sought; and she saw that others had a peace and joy, of which she knew nothing. The hymn was given out and sung by a company of new-born souls with great power and sweetness—
“O, I have got good news for you;
A story wonderful and true:
‘Twill make you happy, that I know;
It made me glad, and now I go
To sing my great Redeemer’s song
With the happy saints above.”
Jessie could not restrain herself. The tears began to course down her cheeks, and she made no effort to hide them. Sitting down by her side, I told her of the One Jesus who came down from God to die that she might be saved, and how He had finished the work, and gone back to sit on the Father’s throne, and was waiting there to gladden the heart of every one who by faith coit their souls to Him.
I pressed upon her the necessity of immediate decision for Christ, and urged upon her to make Him the Saviour and portion of her soul. I was not very sure whether she did so then or not, but we were all anxious to see her the following evening.
As I was passing on my way to the meeting, she came out of her father’s house with her Bible in her hand. There was no need for asking Jessie if she was saved. The beam of joy in her countenance told its own story. She came up and warmly shook hands with me, saying—
“JESUS IS MINE.”
She has gone back to the busy city, with its temptations and sins; but the “everlasting arms” of her Saviour-God are underneath, to uphold and keep her. She wrote some time ago, to tell us that her joy is still in the Lord, and she does not regret having made Him the portion of her soul.
My dear young friend, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” For the pleasures of the world are false and unsatisfying; they give no real peace.
ML 12/23/1945