WHAT a wonderful thing is memory! How quickly it recalls past scenes, and makes them to appear present realities Thus it is that events and circumstances of bygone days are ever and anon rising to our view, and looking us in the face. Whether the remembrance of such things be pleasing or painful, it is the same; we cannot forget them, even if we would.
I was never more forcibly reminded of the truth of the foregoing remarks than a few weeks ago. While staying with a friend, the spire of a church in a market town caught my eye, and brought to my recollection the following story: —
Nearly forty years ago my father’s eldest brother lived in that town, and I was invited to visit him. During my stay, a contested cricket match took place, and I went with my uncle and his sons to witness it. Before the game commenced, they committed me to the care of my cousins, and for some time we kept together. But being younger than they, I could not move among the numerous spectators so easily as themselves, and the consequence was that I became lost to them in the crowd. Getting out of it as quickly as I could, and bending my steps towards the town, I soon reached it, but being unable to find the street in which my uncle lived, wandered to and fro until thoroughly wearied. In consequence of the cricket match, there were but few persons to be seen in the streets, and, being naturally very timid and reserved, I could not muster courage to speak to an occasional passer-by. Finding at length that all my efforts to reach the place I sought were useless, and being very hungry as well as weary, I began to cry bitterly. My sobs and tears attracted the notice of a poor woman, who, coming to me, kindly inquired the cause of my distress. I told her my simple tale, and though she knew nothing of the name I mentioned, she took me by the hand, and, obtaining the necessary information from another person, led me to the house I had so long sought for in vain.
My aunt was rejoiced to see me, for my cousins, having missed me, had been home to inquire if I had returned, and, learning that such was not the case, had hastened back to the cricket field, hoping to find me with their father. But when he assured them that he had not seen me since he committed me to their care, they became alarmed, and at once commenced a diligent search for me. However, as I could not be found, my uncle had just gone to the town crier to describe my person and appearance, when the kind-hearted old lady took me into the house. One of the shopmen was dispatched to fetch him back, and to stop the bellman, and in a few moments my tears were dried, and all were rejoicing that I had returned safe and sound. Even the poor woman who received a shilling for her trouble, seemed to share the joy; and an aged retired sea captain who lived with my aunt, his niece, almost loaded me with sweetmeats. My cousins received a severe scolding for having neglected me, but as soon as we were alone, they laughed heartily at my ignorance in not being able to find their father’s house, and for some time afterward, they were accustomed to call me “the lost boy.”
Simple as is the above, it contains a moral, from which much instruction may be drawn. Learn, then, in the first place, what a short-lived thing is earthly joy. When I entered the cricket-field in the morning, full of boyish glee and mirth, I thought no more of the sorrow that awaited me before the day was over than Belshazzar understood his approaching doom while drinking wine with his lords and praising his false gods. If you, clear reader, are one of the “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God” —one of the thousands who delight in concerts and exhibitions, in ballrooms and theaters, in picnics and excursions, be entreated to remember that you are spending your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not,” and that, sooner or later, you will find that all these things are but “vanity, and vexation of spirit.” Nor is this all; for, while the world’s gilded joys end in heaviness, “even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.” Have you not found it so again and again? While seeking to quench your feverish thirst at earth’s muddy streams and shallow waters — while pressing its poisoned cups to your parched lips, has not conscience stung you to the quick, and made you unhappy, miserable, WRETCHED? And though you may have tried, in every possible way, to hush its voice, to still its cries, to quiet its remonstrances, and to silence its accusations, you have not been able to succeed. Like the handwriting upon the wall, which so troubled “the king of the Chaldeans,” “that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another,” the remembrance, it may be, of a godly parent who sleeps in Jesus, and whose departing moments were not only peaceful, but marked by the possession of “joy unspeakable, and full of glory;” or the recollection of a fond brother or sister who longs for the salvation of your soul; or the thought of a letter once read in haste, and as hastily thrown aside, because the writer pressed upon you the importance and necessity of conversion, makes you either turn pale or blush crimson, and, in spite of yourself, causes you to tremble from head to foot. Oh, it is a terrible thing to feel the bitter pangs of remorse, and to have your own conscience, with its many stings, for your enemy and accuser! And yet, if grace prevent not, this will be your everlasting portion, only to a more fearful extent, and in a more awful degree, than it is possible to realize now. Poor restless, unhappy one, you have tried man’s “broken cisterns,” and still are dissatisfied — you have an aching void within — you “thirst again;” no longer join the cry of the “many that say, who will show us any good?” but listen to the sweet invitation of him who said in days of old, and still says by his word, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” Yes, the Lord himself is “the fountain of living waters,” and “every one that thirsteth” may “drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.” God give you, dear reader, to know the value of “that living water” which has gladdened the hearts of millions, and so satisfied them, that they have turned their backs upon the “fleeting joys of earth” without the slightest wish to return thereto, knowing for themselves that Christ is their abiding portion, and that they “have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”
The next important truth which I desire to put before my readers, as drawn from the moral of my story, is the solemn fact that they, both by nature and practice, are “LOST” sinners. It is in this character that man is addressed in the word of God; and though this truth is denied on every hand, and men are found who dare assert that there is something good in man — that he possesses some latent principle which can be acted upon — that he simply needs, as it were, a graft upon the tree in order to call forth the dormant life within, it is well to remember that the opinions of men, however great or learned they may be, are not to be listened to for a moment, when opposed to the plain teaching of the Bible. “What saith the Scriptures?” must be our motto; and that blessed book not only declares that man, as man, is hopelessly “lost,” but it proves him to be so, inasmuch as he has been tried again and again, and always with the same result. Look at Adam and Eve in Paradise. Surrounded by every blessing, the first attack of the enemy was too much for them, and they failed death it. Between their fall and the flood, man was left uncontrolled; and so vile did he become, “that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” and God destroyed him “from the face of the earth.” After the flood, mankind fell into idolatry, and Abraham was separated from his kindred and his country to be God’s witness upon the earth. To his posterity, the twelve tribes of Israel, the law was given, with what result is well known. Their history is one of entire failure, from beginning to end. Last of all, God sent his well-beloved Son; and how was he received? “By wicked, hands he was crucified and slain.” This crowning act of daring wickedness brought the world’s probation to a dose, proved its guilt, and left it under judgment. “How is the judgment of this world,” said the blessed Lord in the contemplation of his death; and though God, in grace, still bears with it, and is even gathering out of it “a people for his name,” it lies under the condemnation of having “crucified the Lord of glory,” and of still rejecting “his unspeakable gift.”
Such is God’s description of man, without any reference to the castes and distinctions which abound among men. It is true of young and old, of rich and poor, of prince and peasant, of king and beggar, of the moral and the immoral, of the total abstainer and the most confirmed drunkard, of the most attractive and the most repulsive, of the one who prides himself upon his morality, and the one who glories in his shame, and, to narrow the circle, it is true, my unsaved reader, of you. You have gone astray from the womb, you have had your back upon God all your life, and every day you are wandering further and further from him. Satisfied with the world, in love with sin, and urged on by Satan, you are in the broad “way that leadeth to destruction.” Do you believe this, and are you willing to take your true place before the Lord as a “LOST” one? If you are too proud to own this humbling truth, you are unprepared to receive “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” There is, blessed be God, full and free, present and eternal salvation in him for the “lost;” but as long as you trust in yourself that you are righteous, you will know no more of the Saviour, than the scribes and pharisees knew of him in days of old. Who needs the physician but the sick one? Who values the lifeboat but the drowning one? So none but the “lost” sinner welcomes Jesus, and rejoices in his “great salvation.” But know this, that your refusal to acknowledge your real condition does not alter it in the least, nor make it one whit less dangerous. It is true, because God says so in his word, and if you still persist in your obstinacy, refuse to hearken, pull away the shoulder, stop your ears that you should not hear, and make your heart as an adamant stone, you will, ere long, experience what it is, not only to be “lost,” but LOST forever. The Lord grant that you may yet be awakened to a sense of your guilt and danger, that you may rightly value him who came “to seek and to save that which was lost.”
But I would fain hope that some of my readers have bowed to the truth of their “lost” estate and to such I would say, My artless tale speaks to you. It bids you cease from fruitless toil and useless labor, and to welcomes the One who know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary, and to lead him to the place of rest and joy. It was after I had spent much time in trying to find my uncle’s house, and had begun to despair of doing so, that I stood still to see the stranger approaching me who so kindly took me to my temporary home and thus,
“Weary, working, plodding one,”
it must be with you. Perhaps, in ignorance of the fact that salvation is not “to him that worketh,” “nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” you have been going about to establish your own righteousness, or in seeking to find out God and feel after him, or in attempting to improve your condition; or, if you have been so far taught as to understand the uselessness of all your works, and consequently have ceased to rest in them, you may have become so occupied with your sighs, and prayers, and mental anguish, as to suppose that there is something good in them, and that, if they were but of a deeper nature, you would have a better title to Christ than that which you now possess. But this is a sad mistake, and one which even my simple story might correct. Hy cries and tears left me as far from my friends as my pacing’s up and down the streets of the town in which they resided; and you can be no more be brought to God by your feelings than you can by your doings, by your tears than by your works.
“Could your zeal no respite know,
Could your tears forever flow,
Naught for sin could e’er atone,
But Christ’s blood, and his alone!”
Yes, dear reader, it is the blood of Jesus Christ that is the only foundation of salvation and peace, and till you are clear and sound on this point, you will have nothing better to rest on than the quaggy ground of your own experience. Do not then, I entreat you, put your prayers or your tears in the place of Christ; but as a “lost” one “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord,” and you will realize something of the love of “the good Shepherd” who goes “after that which is lost, until he find it,” and who, when he hath found it, lays it on his shoulders, and carries it home rejoicing. Oh, the blessed portion of the sinner! The very moment he believes the testimony of God about the work of his dear Son, he finds himself, as it were, in the Father’s arms, receives the kiss of forgiveness, and, with “the best robe,” the ring, and the shoes upon him, feasts upon the fatted calf, without a single doubt or suspicion.
It was in this manner that the Gospel was received in the days of the apostles; and you have but to read the book of the Acts, in order to prove the truth of this statement. At Pentecost three thousand persons “were pricked in their heart,” and before the day was over, they had “gladly received the word.” When Philip preached Christ to the people of Samaria, the result was, “there was great joy in that city;” and as soon as the Ethiopian eunuch heard of Jesus, he believed with all his heart, was baptized, and “went on his way rejoicing.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house,” was the Apostle’s reply to the jailor who had asked, “What must I do to be saved?” and at once, he “rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.” Alas! that in this day of boasted light and knowledge, the Gospel should be so little understood, that it takes really anxious souls days and weeks, months and years, to learn what was once apprehended the moment it was preached. Without, however, stopping to inquire into the cause of this, let me assure you, my reader, that the Gospel itself is unchanged, and when you believe it as simply as I believed the one who promised to see me safe with those to whom I was “LOST,” the gloom and distress which now fill your soul will give place to peace — and instant peace too; there will be joy over you above, in the presence of the angels of God, and you will rejoice in the thought that he who sought, and found, and saved you, will lead you through the wilderness, and afterward receive you to glory.
May every weary, heavy laden reader of these pages be blessed with the spirit of a little child — a spirit which neither hesitates nor reasons, but which accepts immediately whatever is presented to it and put before it, and the Lord alone shall have all the praise.
N.