FURTHER, still further into an Indian jungle wandered a solitary soldier. Was he a deserter that he thus shunned his comrades?
No. Did the fierce glare of the sun give him that look of disquietude and unrest. Nay, a light above the brightness of the sun had shone upon him, and showed him the darkness and degradation of a heart at enmity with God. The spirit of God had wrought conviction of sin in his conscience, and with his face bowed he cried out, “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.”
Previous to this he had been living contentedly, with the regiment to which he belonged, at a military station in the Punjab, sharing their toils and privations, leading in their sports and recreations, and on the whole very well satisfied with himself. A sharp attack of illness necessitated his removal to the barracks hospital. Into the ward where he lay a lady came one day. He watched her move softly, about from patient to patient, and presently she sat down beside him. After inquiring kindly as to his health, she asked, “Are you a Christian?” “Yes, I am a Christian,” he answered, in a somewhat surprised tone; and then added, “I am not a black man.”
The lady looked grave as she said: “By a Christian, I mean a follower of Christ, one who has trusted in Jesus for salvation, and who seeks to live for Him. I fear, if you do not know Jesus as your Saviour, your Christianity is only skin-deep. God hath made of one blood all nations, and fashioned their hearts alike. ‘Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart;’ and the soul that has been washed in the blood of Jesus, is a Christian though his skin be black, or yellow, or brown.”
It is seldom a whole book or a long talk arrests a soul, but often some striking thought in book, or address, or conversation is used by God to the pulling down of strongholds. That little word skin-deep came winged with the electric touch of God’s power to the sick man’s soul. It set him thinking.
He had looked sometimes with pity, more often with contempt, on the worshippers of Siva, and felt himself their superior because of his enlightenment. Now, as there reached his ears the sound of the bell from the neighboring pagoda, which called the Buddhists to their rites, he asked himself: “What better am I than they? What do I worship? Who do I worship? Have I ever worshipped God at all?”
He had bivouacked with soldiers who had seen deluded devotees seek to acquire instant heaven by a fatal immersion in the river Ganges. He had heard of Indian mothers consigning their infants to death from exposure on the public highway, in the vain belief that the sacrifice of the fruit of their body would expunge the sin of their soul. He knew well that only the presence of the British magistrate with a sufficient number of soldiers at his command prevented many Hindoos prostrating themselves before the car of Juggernaut, to be crushed to death by its wheels. How ignorant and superstitious he had thought them; but was not his case worse than theirs? “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” The knowledge that there is one true God had been his birthright; the open Bible, with its plain message of salvation from sin by faith in the sacrificial death of the Son of God, had ever been within his reach. How had he responded to that knowledge? How had he treated that sacrifice? He had made light of it. Now the word came to him: “That servant which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
On leaving the hospital he endeavored to dispel such thoughts by an untiring application to his duties. Again heart and soul were flung into the task of providing amusement for himself and comrades, but at every turn conscience, like a Nemesis dogged his footsteps, and his solitary rambles into the jungle became more and more frequent.
On this occasion he had stretched his weary frame on the rank vegetation, but in spirit he was back again in an upland Fifeshire village. He was a boy again, and in the kitchen of a farmhouse he sat with other children, and the farmer’s daughter was leading their young voices in a little hymn: ―
“Jesus loves me! this I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak, but He is strong.”
The vision was lost in the next minute’s pang: “Jesus does not, cannot love me now, with all those years of carelessness and indifference between. Oh! to have died when a child.”
One night he went by request to the house of the lady who had visited him in the hospital. Outside the gateway he lingered, busy thinking. Dainty hanging lamps lit up the compound, happy forms moved to and fro among the guests. The scene seemed emblematic of his state. Around him the darkness of the eastern night, within him the darkness of distance from God; before him a bright, happy Christian home; and as he fingered his invitation to spend an evening, sharing its joys, he thought on the broad God-given command, “Go out into the highways and hedges and, compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” He knew he was an invited guest to God’s great gospel feast, why then did he linger by the hedge? Ah! Why?
Louder and still louder grew the whisperings of Satan: “It would be very nice to join that Christian band, but you would need to break off with all your old friends. Think of the way they would laugh at you when you said you were no longer one of them. How could you stand their ribald jests? It will be much better, seeing your time is nearly up in the army, to wait till it expires, and when you go back to Scotland, just turn over a new leaf, and you will have nobody to part company with.” This seemed such a feasible plan that it drowned the strivings of the Spirit of God, and with a muttered resolve to resume civilian life a brand new man, William turned and walked rapidly along the dark road leading to the barracks.
Is he the only one who has been almost persuaded to become a Christian and then been deterred by the thought of a more convenient season? Are you one of those over whom Jesus has mourned, “How often would I have gathered you, even as a lien gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not”? Has Jesus had to say of you, “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life”?
Time passed. William exchanged his military uniform for civilian garb, and Indian jungles for Scottish moors, but his heart remained unchanged, he was still a procrastinator. Yet the untiring grace of God pursued him, and often the still small voice within recalled his thoughts to things beyond the reach of time. One Lord’s Day evening he found himself in a large gospel meeting to which a fellow workman had asked him. The earnestness of the preacher at once secured his fixed attention. The subject was Luke 19:1-10,1And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 2And, behold, there was a man named Zaccheus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. 3And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. 4And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. 5And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. 6And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. 7And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. 8And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. 9And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:1‑10) the story of the meeting of the Saviour with Zaccheus. The speaker exhorted his hearers to make haste, to come down from whatever tree of sin, or unbelief, or indecision, they had climbed, and receive Jesus joyfully. Jesus had come to this earth to seek and to save that which was lost. He had given his life a ransom for all, and every sin-burdened soul who trusted in His atoning death and resurrection would find pardon, peace, and joy.
William was greatly moved as he listened, and he thought if he could be under the sound of such words always, he would believe in Jesus and love Him too. The meeting ended, as meetings must do, and— “Then cometh the devil and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.” No sooner did the company begin to leave than William was seized with an overpowering desire to get out of the place, but the passages were crowded, and quick movements were impossible. Then, to his consternation, the preacher appeared to have mysteriously transported himself to the doorway, and was busy giving tracts to the passers-out.
“Are you a Christian?” asked the preacher of William.
This time he answered the important question, not with evasions about his birth and color, but with a rugged Scotch “No.”
As he told us afterward: “The preacher looked at me so kindly, I felt I could unburden my heart to him; so I told him what a great sinner I was, and I had had the opportunity to be saved and neglected it so often that I did not deserve to get another chance, but richly deserved to be punished. He read to me John 3:16,16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ What a comfort it was when I found I was among God’s ‘whosoevers.’ I was very happy for a little while, then I began to wonder how I would get on at my work. Another Christian read to me Romans 10:9, 10: ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’ I knew if I told even one of our workmen of my conversion, the news would soon spread. Next day I managed to blurt it out to my neighbor. He looked at me as if he thought I had taken leave of my senses, then he said, ‘I’ll give you a fortnight to work off the feeling.’ It is now five years since that time, and the ‘feeling’ instead of being ‘worked off,’ continues to get deeper into my heart and life.”
Reader, is your Christianity only “skin-deep”?
“When you own your sin and guilt,
Vain the hopes which you have built;
When you see your depth of shame,
Naught to offer, naught to claim―
Then, and not till then, you’ll know
What the grace God can bestow.”