A MOST difficult case was to come before the court. A lawyer had written to one of the parties concerned and had offered his services, but she had replied, "No, I am quite capable of pleading my own cause.”
Letter after letter came, but still this foolish lady would not listen to the counsels of one who knew better than she her difficult position. She still persisted in saying, "I know the case is a difficult one, yet I will undertake it myself.”
As the day for the trial drew near she was not quite so boastful. She began to tremble at the thought of that day, when before judge and jury her case would be tried. Would she come off victorious? Now she wished she had taken the counsel of the lawyer and let him undertake the case for her. At length she sat down and wrote a letter asking him to do so.
In due course a reply came. Opening the letter she read: "I am exceedingly sorry I cannot undertake your case, as, since the last time I wrote I have been promoted. I am now on the bench. I am the judge.”
The day for the trial came, her case was gone into, and she lost it. Oh! if she had only let him undertake her case all would have been well. But now the case was lost.
We will turn away from the court of justice with a pointed question for you.
We see people on every hand, some of them butterflies of fashion, others church-goers and sacrament-takers, saying, like the young lady of our story, "We will undertake for ourselves.”
But a wonderful offer comes from the Savior of sinners, "Let Me undertake your case." But, no! they do not know that they are afar off from God, dead in trespasses and sins, and that their case is bound to go against them in the day when they stand before God.
What about you, reader? Jesus offers Himself now as a Savior. By and by He will be the Judge. You had better let Him befriend you now. You had better commit your cause to His able hands, lest the day comes when He will refuse your appeal, and tell you that He is no longer Savior, but Judge.
E. W.