"Did I ever tell you," said the Colonel to me in course of conversation, "how I was converted to God?”
"Well, you may have done so," I replied, "but, if so, I have quite forgotten it, and should be charmed to hear it once more.”
What a mercy that "God is love!”
"Thirty-five years ago," went on my friend, "I was coming home from India on leave, an utterly careless fellow, thinking only of fun and folly. I noticed on board our ship a certain young officer, who was likewise returning on leave, and who always carried about with him a Bible. This seemed to me a most extraordinary thing. What could he want with a Bible at all hours of the day? It is certainly not just the book that young men in general hug in that kind of way. Well, on a certain occasion he and I happened to be sitting together on a seat on deck. He held out the Bible and said to me rather abruptly, `Do you know what book that is?'
" 'A Bible,' I replied.
" 'It is the Word of God,' he answered, and added no more.
"'The Word of God'— `the Word of God,' I repeated to myself, 'then, if so, it is the truth, and all it says must be true.'”
Yes and how could it be otherwise, my reader? How could "God, who cannot lie," declare in His Word that which is false? Impossible!
Believe me, it is an immense thing to give God His proper place as true, and also to take ours as guilty and sinful.
The Bible is the Word of God, written by Him, through inspired human instruments, for the very object of reaching us, alienated as we are from Him by wicked works and evil hearts.
Thank God for the Bible! It is the Word of God! Now, this fact was the first arrow of conviction that ever reached the soul of that careless young man.
"All that the Bible says must be true!" Several days passed without further conversation, and then they met again.
" 'Do you believe the Word of God?' was the next query of the young officer.
"said I.
"'All of it?'" 'Yes.'
" 'The fifty-third of Isaiah?'
" 'Yes.'
" 'The sixth verse?'
" 'Yes—but what is it exactly?'
" "All we like sheep have gone astray—" Do you believe that?'
" 'I do, and I own it, too. I know that I have gone astray.'
" "We have turned every one to his own way—" And that?'
"Yes indeed! I have, alas, turned to my own way!”
" "And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Observe it says, "hath laid," "HATH LAID," not "shall lay" at some future time! The work is done! Christ is dead and risen! Atonement was wrought in the shedding of His precious blood! God asks for nothing more from the repentant sinner! Do you believe that?'”
"I rose from my seat, and went straight down to my cabin, and there, alone, on my knees, I poured out my heart to God and blessed Him for having laid my sins on Jesus and for having saved me.”
How simple, how perfect! Such was the story of that colonel's conversion to God.
Thirty-five years were surely long enough to test the genuineness of his conversion to God. Had it been mere excitement, or aught else of the kind, the wear and tear of over a quarter of a century would have swept it away. But no! the Bible was still, and more than ever, the Word of God in his soul; the force of its truth, and the solidity of its foundation, being only the more fully realized! He was safe and ready.