Julia and Emilia E. were the daughters of refined and educated parents, who had trained them carefully for the social circle in which they hoped to see them shine. Yet there was a blight hanging over this prospect, for Emilia’s health—the younger one—was giving them much anxiety. She was tall and graceful and had a sweet expression of countenance, but consumption seemed already to have marked her for its victim.
A relative visiting the neighborhood and hearing of the delicate health of Emilia, asked permission for the sisters to visit his home in the country. He was one who knew the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, and delighted in making known His love to others. The parents hesitated. The religious influence of the relative was much to be dreaded; on the other hand, the pure country air was most desirable for their child, and they yielded consent. “The Word of God is quick and powerful,” and this was their relative’s confidence—he counted on God to use His own Word in blessing to their souls.
The next morning after their arrival the Gospel by John was begun at family reading. The sisters listened attentively to the precious unfolding of Him who was “from the beginning,” who made all things, who was “the Word,” “the Light of the world,” and “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” To “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” This was the One by whom grace and truth came. The law by Moses had demanded righteousness and had brought out man’s utter ruin as a sinner (Rom. 3:1919Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (Romans 3:19)), but now God had sent His beloved Son to reveal the Father and to be the Savior of all that come unto God by Him. It was not until the reading of the 3rd chapter that her personal need of salvation was felt by Emilia. She knew it was written, “Ye must be born again;” but why this necessity she could not tell. For the first man’s irreparable ruin was told out in her ears. His fall in Adam had forfeited everything as to innocence in which God had created him. Now possessed of nothing but an Adam nature, God’s testimony is, that man is lost. All human reforms and patching up of man in his state by nature will not do for God. Hence the need of the solemn “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.” As the chapter went on to tell how the Son of Man must be lifted up, and how God so loved the World that He gave His Son “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” dear Emilia took God at His word and believed in Christ as her Savior. Some days later she wrote in her bedroom the following little poem,