A young lady, who had left the hall at the close of an afternoon Bible reading, came back to ask how she could be saved. Her earnest, yet trembling, inquiry was as sweet music to our ears. Only two days before, we had ventured to ask her as to her spiritual state, but had failed to obtain a single word in reply. How gladdening, therefore, it was to hear now the inquiry as to her salvation, springing spontaneously from her lips! Opening the New Testament, we pointed out that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, reading also other kindred Scriptures. She listened, as only those listen who are awakened to concern about their souls by the Spirit of God, and, as we read, light from above broke in upon her. Every word was as a ray of sunshine, every text as a well of comfort, and sorrow and sighing fled away.
“Should I continue to teach in the Sunday school?” she suddenly asked, now that the way of salvation had been made clear to her. The question was quite an unexpected one, and somewhat surprised us.
“Teach in the Sunday school?” we questioningly replied. “Yes, to be sure, if you have a mind to. It seems to us as if you were only now fitted to teach others of Christ. What makes you put such a question?”
“O!” she said, in a quiet, subdued manner, “I feel so conscious of my own sinfulness that I do not see how I could teach the children.”
We simply repeated our former statement, that it was only now, in knowing Jesus as her Saviour, that she was in a fit condition to be a Sunday school teacher.
“Then you really think I should go on teaching?” she asked in a most eager way.
“Most assuredly.” we answered.
To help her, if possible, by way of illustration, we told her of a maid who was sweeping a room; the sun’s rays meanwhile revealing the dust she was raising. Being rebuked for, making such a dust, she replied, “O! it is not me, it is the sun that is doing it.” “Thus,” I added “the light of God’s truth by shining into your heart, now reveals what was always there, though unseen because of the darkness that covered it.” She smiled when she saw the point.
“Now that you know Jesus as the Saviour from sin, go and teach the little children about Him,” we said, “and you will be sure to teach them as you never did before.”
“I will,” she replied.
We then prayed for God’s blessing on her, and on her labors for the Saviour whom she had found, and bid her farewell.