A WARM September sun was absorbing the dew from lea and hedgerow, and dispersing the mist that floated ‘above the winding river. From various directions workers were converging on a field of yellow grain, and soon the swish, swish of the scythe told that the harvest had begun.
At this time a decade had still to elapse ere the reaping-machine banished very largely the rural laborer with his scythe from the healthful harvest field. All day mowers, lifters, bandsters, binders, and stookers toiled, while many a snatch of song or pleasant jest enlivened the long day’s work.
“What has gone wrong with you today, John?” said one of the workers to the farmer’s son. “You are generally the liveliest on the harvest rig. One might think that you had lost the price of the colt at the market yesterday, so dull are you.”
On the previous day when John had taken a colt to be sold at the market town, an unusual thing had happened. As he passed to the auction mart he halted on the outskirts of a crowd of people, who were listening to a street preacher. No one had ever heard of such a thing happening before, that an unordained man should preach on the streets.
Evidently he was uncultured too, for in rugged Scottish accents he reasoned of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” and as he finished he pronounced upon his hearers this solemn judgment: ― “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you” (Isa. 59:22But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)).
As a huntsman wounds fatally his quarry, so did this solemn word of God pierce the young man’s conscience. Day by day, as he worked in the harvest field, his mind was seeking after God, if haply he might feel after Him, and find Him (see Acts 17:2727That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: (Acts 17:27)). Sometimes he would try to shake off the impression made by the preacher, but this he found to be impossible, forever and anon there came to his mind the accusing word: ― “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you.”
“Try and get John in to see the doctor, I am sore afraid he is going into a decline,” said John’s mother to his father come weeks later, as the farmer and his eon were preparing for market. As the two passed up the High Street of the market town, they encountered the genial old doctor standing at his surgery door.
“Take this lad of mine in, and overhaul him,” said the fanner to the doctor. “He has been so dull all through the harvest that the women out our way say his shroud is breast high on him.”
“I don’t want to see the doctor,” protested the youth; “I cannot tell him what is wrong with me.”
“Come away, lad,” said the doctor, as he shouldered his unwilling patient into his consulting room. “It is my business to find out what is wrong with you. If sick folk would only come sooner to see me, it would be much easier to cure them.”
The doctor’s brusque but kindly manner exactly suited the unpolished country people among whom he practiced.
The medical examination proceeded. Never perhaps was stethoscope placed over sounder lungs, or more regularly beating heart; and the other organs proved to be alike healthy. The doctor was a little puzzled. He had ushered his patient into the world, and had piloted him, and the others of his line, safely through the full tale of childhood’s ills. As no organic disease was apparent, he was forced to conclude that the trouble must be mental.
“What do you think about all day?” he asked.
“My sins,” said the lad, taken unawares.
“Your sins,” exclaimed the doctor. “Well, I am the wrong doctor altogether for you. I can do nothing for anybody’s sins, I only cure the body. I don’t know how the scales may dip with my own sins when it comes to the Judgment Seat, but I certainly see no need for you to trouble yourself about yours. But since you are worrying yourself about religion, I will tell you the very person to go to. There is a patient of mine, a bed-ridden woman, who lives in the next parish, and she has got a better grip of theology than anyone I ever spoke to. Now, instead of going to the church next Sunday, you walk up the water-side and see Janet W―. She’ll expound doctrine to you, I’ll warrant.”
The invalid referred to was well known in the district as a woman of faith and prayer. While still a girl she had been employed in domestic service in Edinburgh. There she took fever, and this was followed by various other disorders, for which she was treated in the Old Infirmary. The physician in charge of the ward in which she lay was a man of God, who not only cured the body, but was ever zealous in ministering to the more serious troubles of the soul. Through his conversation Janet was awakened to see her guilt as a sinner before God, and joyfully accepted Christ as her Saviour. Her disease proving not to be amenable to treatment, she returned to her native village in a paralyzed condition.
For years she had lain thus in a little cottage by the wayside. The thatch roof, the sanded floor, the box bed, and the meagre appointments told of poverty, but the life and conversation of the invalid was that of one, who realized herself to be chosen of God in Christ Jesus (see Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)), to be an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ (see Rom. 8:1717And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:17)).
Her spirit rose above the infirmity of the flesh, and through time there gravitated to her the bereaved, the burdened, and the sin-sick, and she administered to them the comfort wherewith she herself had been comforted of God (see 2 Cor. 1:44Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (2 Corinthians 1:4)).
The next Sunday found John wending his way to this place. He took with him for the invalid a print of butter wrapped, in a cool cabbage leaf, for that was the way in the district. The fields were bare and cheerless, the river flowed with a sullen undertone, and the soughing wind seemed to sigh a requiem for the departed summer. To his depressed mind there came a verse, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jer. 8:2020The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. (Jeremiah 8:20)). With an effort he put this from him, saying, “The summer is not quite gone, the harvest is not all passed, and I am going to be saved.”
The village lay in silence, for the people were at church. He reached the cottage, and stood by its open door. He heard a voice reading, yet more in reverie than reading: “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (Psa. 5:33My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. (Psalm 5:3)). “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God” (Psa. 14:22The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. (Psalm 14:2)).
He knocked at the door, and at her request he entered. There was no one to give an introduction, but there was no awkwardness. He felt no diffidence in speaking to her, but told his errand simply. He was an honest seeker after truth, and to her fell the happy task of proclaiming to the needy, seeking soul God’s joyous evangel.
“When the people cried to the Lord in their distress,” she said, “ ‘he sent his word and healed them’ (Psa. 107:2020He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. (Psalm 107:20)). We will look at God’s Word, and you will get blessing through it. You remember the Lord Jesus said: ‘He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised’” (Luke 4:1818The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, (Luke 4:18)).
“What about my sins?” he asked, and he repeated the Scripture that had troubled him for weeks: ‘Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you.’”
“You have thought long enough on that verse,” she said, “we will read the one before it now: ‘Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear’ (Isa. 59:11Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: (Isaiah 59:1)). Think on the love of God, who gave His only Son to die for you, and think on the work of Christ. Hear what God says to the believer: ‘Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed’ (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)). And again what He says to the sinner: ‘Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool’” (Isa. 1:1818Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)). Thus did Janet talk to the young man.
There was a meeting that day between a seeking sinner and a seeking Saviour; the sick soul found the healing touch of the Great Physician—the right physician this time, the soul physician—and that lowly cottage became a Bethel over which even the angels could rejoice.
The very face of nature seemed joyous as John retraced his steps. The river no longer moaned sullenly, but rippled merrily over its shingly bed; the leaves danced in gay eddies round his feet, and the wind seemed to re-echo the grand redemption chorus: “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:2424For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. (Luke 15:24)).
We would point burdened hearts to Christ, and entreat such to trust simply in the Lord Jesus, and they will find out the truth of the following lines:—
“Ye shall find in Him the filling of the aching void within;
In Him the instant antidote for anguish and for sin;
In Him the conscious meeting of the soul’s unuttered need;
In Him the All that ye have sought, the goal of life indeed.
“As the key is to the lock, when it enters quick and true,
Fitting all the complex wards that are hidden from the view,
Moving all the secret springs that no other finds or moves,
So is Jesus to the soul, when His saving power it proves.”
M. M.