Only an old, tattered flower-woman, withered and weather-beaten, ragged and wrinkled! How fair and sweet looked the flowers carried by the brown, horny hands!
A kindly smile lit up the rugged face, and there was a hearty ring in the words she so repeatedly emphasized, for the old body had still a thought for others and their needs.
"Look here, ma'am, you gave me some of them little books the other day. There's a poor old man near me, and he says: `Ask that lady if she hasn't something for a dying man to read.' That's just what he says, lady.”
So I took a little Testament out of my book-case, and turned the leaf down at the third and tenth of St. John's Gospel, and told her to give it to him.
Some days passed away, and then the old body came again.
"O! that blessed book," she exclaimed, directly she saw me, "he's been a-reading it, and he says he's got the peace, and if ever he gets out of his bed he's a-coming to see you.”
The withered old face looked quite radiant, as she nodded and emphasized her words.
"He gets up in his bed to pray for you, he does, and he says that book has told him all he wants.”
Aye! sometimes the Bible tells us more than we want to know. It tells us of the sin so dark, so heinous, that it shuts us out from God's heaven and God's rest.
But, if you will listen, it tells us also of the Days-man, the Substitute, the One whose precious blood blots out all sin, until not a spot remains, and the soul is whiter than the driven snow (see Isa. 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)).
Many question that book, but it is the only book that can show us what we are, and what God is; what we are, and what Christ is. Moses, the law-giver, may fail; Jacob, "My servant," may deceive; Job, "the upright," may vaunt his righteousness; David, the man after God's own heart, may dishonor His name; and the children of Israel may make the golden calf as a sequel to their cry of "All that Thou sayest we will do"; for the heart of man is laid bare, as it is, and only the spotless Son of God could walk in this defiling world, and do "always those things which please Him" (John 8:2929And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. (John 8:29)).
"BY GRACE
ARE YE SAVED
THROUGH FAITH;
AND THAT NOT OF
YOURSELVES;
IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD:
NOT OF WORKS,
LEST ANY MAN
SHOULD BOAST."