"Come in!" This was the response to my knock at the door of a house in the poorest part of the city. The voice that had bidden me "come in" belonged to a woman who sat huddled over a tiny fire burning in an almost empty grate. She looked near to death. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes were sunk deep in her head, her whole frame was wasted and emaciated. A rasping cough which troubled her constantly showed all too plainly the near approach of her earthly end.
Death, that dread enemy, was already known in that room. As I glanced around I was startled by the presence there of two objects very different from each other—a coffin and a cradle. Resting upon an old turned-up packing case was a tiny coffin—just a small, plain wooden box; and within it was the lifeless form of an infant. Close to the packing case and its sorrowful burden was an old cradle. In this lay a sleeping child. The two children were so much alike as they lay motionless in their separate resting places that, if one had been put in the place of the other, a stranger who did not know of the exchange would have been likely to have mistaken the living for the dead.
That scene I have never forgotten. And what a lesson it was! I often wonder, as I look in the faces of those I meet on the street, or whom I see at religious services—"Is it coffin or cradle?”
Do you know what I mean? Well, just this. Those two children looked alike. There was a semblance of peace upon both, yet how different their state! With one it was the blessed oblivion of healthful sleep: with the other it was cold insensibility of death. And now when I see people with a peaceful expression on their faces, I frequently ask myself, is this the careless, awful composure of death in sin, or is it the tranquil evidence of a beautiful, living faith in Jesus?
"There is all the difference in the world between a cleansed soul and a dead soul," someone has said. Without Christ—that is to say, without the pardon received by believing God's Word and accepting Christ's work for us—we are "dead in trespasses and sins." Content with that state, the soul is without LIFE in God's sight. He is dead toward God. The coffin pictures his resting place.
But there is another peace, "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." That is living peace, true peace. Does your face reflect that? It does, if you know the blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has "made peace through the blood of His cross." Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20).
The chastisement of your peace was upon Him. God accepted that chastisement as if it had been upon you. He asks you now to believe it, and tells you that "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36). I pray you to accept the gift of God's Son, and you shall have life.
"There is nothing to do, for being born 'dead,'
You must have another to work in your stead;
Christ Jesus in Calvary's terrible hour
Has done all the work in such marvelous power,
That, raised from the dead, He now offers to you
Life, pardon, salvation, and nothing to do!
`No, nothing to do, till you're saved from your sins';
Then the power of doing good only begins.”