I WAS lounging on the deck of a large screw steamer named the P., crossing the Bay of Biscay, homeward bound from Gibraltar, and got into conversation with one of the sailors. "Where are you bound for when we get to London?" I asked.
“Well, I have not quite made up my mind," said he; " my friends are all in New York, and my father sent me a letter the other day, saying I had knocked about quite long enough now, and he would be glad if I would come home to him.”
“Ali, then," I answered, "your father loves you.”
“Yes, I should think he does; he always did, and he always will.”
“Well," I said, "my Father, Who has always loved me, Who loves me, and will love me for eternity, has sent me a letter telling me He will be glad to have me home.”
“Where is your home?" said my companion, looking puzzled.
“Heaven is my home, my eternal home, and God is my Father; and He sent His Son into the world to make the way home clear for me. How are you going to get home to your father in New York?”
“Why," said he, "there is only the one way for me to do that—I must pay my fare, or work my passage.”
“Ah," I said, "there is the difference; I have not got to pay my fare, or work my passage, for the gracious Lord Jesus Christ has done both; He died on Calvary, that the way might be opened for me into the presence of His Father, and He paid the debt I owed for sin; and He says, am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man corneal unto the Father but by Me.' What do you think of that?”
“Of what?" he asked.
“Of what Christ did on Calvary in dying, the just for the unjust,' to bring us to God." "What?" said he; "I have been unjust, and do you mean to tell me that Christ died for unjust men like me?”
“No, I do not tell you such a wonderful truth, but God says it. It is the word of God I have to rest on, and that is a rock which shall never be moved.”
“Died—the Just for the unjust—to bring us to God," he whispered, as if pondering the words; "that sounds strange”
“Yes, it does sound strange, my friend, but it is true as God's throne in heaven. He (Christ) died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God’; —wondrous, but precious truth for the soul, taught by God to believe it." J. G.