WHEN I was a boy at school, I saw a sight I never can forget—a man tied to a cart, and dragged, before the people’s eyes, through the streets of my native town, his back torn and bleeding from the lash. It was a shameful punishment. For many offenses? No, for one offense. Did any of the townsmen offer to divide the lashes with him? No, he who committed the offense bore the penalty all alone. It was the penalty of a changing human law; for it was the last instance of its infliction.
When I was a student at the university, I saw another sight I never can forget—a man brought out to die. His arms were pinioned, his face was already pale as death—thousands of eager eyes were on him as he came up from the jail. Did any man ask to die in his room? Did any friend come and loose the rope, and say, “Put it around my neck, I die instead”? No, he underwent the sentence of the law. For many offenses? No, for one offense. He had stolen a money parcel from a stage-coach. He broke the law at one point, and died for it. It was the penalty of a changing human law in this case also; it was the last sentence of capital punishment being inflicted for that offense.
I saw another sight—it matters not when—myself a sinner, standing on the brink of ruin, deserving naught but hell. For one sin? No, for many, many sins committed against the unchanging laws of God. But again I looked, and saw Jesus, my substitute, scourged in my stead and dying on the cross for me. I looked and cried, and was forgiven. And it seemed to me to be my duty to some here to tell you of that Saviour, to see if you will not also LOOK, AND LIVE.
And how simple it all becomes, when God opens the eye! A friend who lately came from Paris told me of an English groom there, a very careless old man, who during a severe illness, had been made to feel that he was a sinner. He dared not die as he was. The clergyman for whom he sent, got tired of visiting him, having told him all he himself then knew of the way of salvation. But one Sunday afternoon, the groom’s daughter waited in the vestry after church, saying, “You must come once more, sir; I cannot see my father again without you.” “I can tell him nothing new,” said the preacher; “but I may take the sermon I have been preaching, and read it to him.” The dying man lay, as before, in anguish, thinking of his sins, and whither they must carry him. “My friend, I have come to read you the sermon I have just preached. First, I shall tell you the text: ‘He was wounded for our transgressions.’ Now I shall read—”. “Hold!” said the dying man, “I have it! read no more; He was wounded for MY transgressions.” Soon after he died, rejoicing in Christ.
When I heard the story, I remembered Archimedes running through the streets of Syracuse straight from the bath, where he had found out, in bathing, the secret of testing whether the king’s crown had, or had not, been alloyed by the goldsmith in making it, and as he ran, he cried, “I have found it!” I have found it!”
Poor philosopher! you had only found out a new principle in science. Happy groom! you had found in Jesus Christ a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
The clergyman who visited the dying groom was thus led to seek and find salvation.
By the late James Simpson of Edinburgh.