TO make money and increase his stock was all that he lived for. True, he went occasionally to “hear a sermon” on Sunday, but that was more from habit than because he had any desire for the things of God, or care for his own soul. He was utterly indifferent in regard to eternal things; wholly unconcerned about his sin and its consequences, a man of the world, no worse than his neighbors, but without God, unconverted and unprepared to meet Him.
Many a laugh he had at his neighbor, whom he nicknamed “Revival Jamie,”— not a bad name; and, indeed, he was worthy of it, for Jamie was a born-again man, alive in Christ, revived from his sleep of worldliness, and living for God as a Christian ought.
Frequent prayer meetings and preaching’s were held in the Christian farmer’s kitchen, to which his neighbor had been often invited, but always found an excuse.
It was a Monday morning. One of the careless farmer’s dairymaids had been at the meeting in the barn on Sunday night, and God saved her there. She came home to the farm singing―
“I’ve found a Friend, oh, such a Friend,
He loved me ere I knew Him;
He drew me with the cords of love,
And thus He bound me to Him.”
The folks at the farm made a great ado over Jennie’s conversion, and the farmer said with a sneer, “It’ll no’ last long; the Feeing Fair will knock it out of her.” But Jennie went on her way rejoicing, and some of the others, seeing the reality of her conversion, went to the meetings, and were saved also.
It began to get too hot for the ungodly man, when two of his maids and one of his men were saved, and singing the new song. He threatened to throw the preacher into the “burn” if he “converted” any others of his servants. Sunday night came, and, while the meeting was being held in the farm kitchen, only a few hundred yards across the fields, he could not rest in the house. Curiosity, and probably anxiety—for when men are most opposed to God and His work, they are sometimes ill at ease—he went to the back window to listen.
In the closing prayer, the preacher prayed for “the ungodly farmer who had no other God than his cows.” That word went as an arrow to his conscience. It was meant for him, and it proved a message to awaken, as well as a prayer to God. He went home in deep distress. A cow “lowed” as he passed the byre, and a voice within said, “That’s your God.” He threw himself upon his bed, but could not sleep. Thoughts of God, eternity, and his sins kept him company all night. He rose more miserable than ever, and was glad when in the milk-house, getting the morning’s milk ready for the city, to ask his dairymaid how she knew that her sins were forgiven. “Because Christ died for them, and God for His sake has blotted them out,” was the answer. That was the first ray of heaven’s light to reach his dark mind. He saw that it was not by works or reformation, but “for Christ’s sake,” in virtue of His shed blood, that he, a guilty sinner, could be saved. He cast himself on the Saviour, and God saved him.
Great was the joy amongst the servants and amongst all the saved people in that district, when they heard from his own lips that he had been born of God, and that he had turned to Him, the living and true God, to obey Him as his Father, and serve Him as his God.
Reader, who is your God? Is the God of holiness and heaven your God, or do you still grovel amid the vanities of earth unsaved?
ANON.