“TAKE the cows out to the grass, Jessie, it’s far past their time,” said a middle-aged woman, busy preparing her husband’s dinner, to her daughter, a blithe lass of sweet seventeen, who usually needed no such reminder of her duties, for she was a diligent worker, her mother’s chief helper on the little farm with its ten cows, which had been their home since Jessie’s babyhood.
Jessie’s slowness that morning was not due to sickness, nor unwillingness to work, but to distress of mind. By means of the faithful words spoken to her the previous Sunday at the Bible Class which she attended, she had found out that she was not converted. All night she had been kept awake thinking on the subject, and all through the morning she had been snatching moments now and again to read her Bible, which only seemed to increase her distress.
Do you wonder at this? You need not; for the Word of God, when it comes in power to the conscience of a sinner unsaved, has always the effect of causing uneasiness, by bringing God and eternal realities near, and causing sin long forgotten to be remembered.
Jessie led the cows to the pasture, and for hours was missing. Her mother searched all about the farm to find her, but in vain, until at last, unable to rest in the house, she hurried along the ‘footpath leading toward the village. Imagine her surprise to see her daughter coming, skipping like a schoolgirl and singing as she hastened home. When she saw her mother she broke into a run, and reaching out her arms, she threw them round her mother’s neck, as through her tears of joy, she cried,
“O, mother, I’m saved, Jesus has taken me just as I am.”
Her mother was astonished beyond measure, but being herself a Christian, she clasped her daughter to her bosom, saying,
“Thank God for that, my daughter.”
The story was soon told, as they walked together toward the little farm. Jessie had tried to hide her trouble, but when alone in the field it became unbearable. She knew of one aged godly man, her Bible Class teacher, who would willingly help her, and just as she was, in her simple country garb, she hastened to his dwelling and told him her errand. He willingly, gladly told her the way of life, and prayed that God would open her eyes to see it.
“But I’m not good enough.”
“Never mind that, Jessie, Christ will take you as you are,” said the aged soul-winner, and as he told me when relating the story, “The light then dawned on her and she exclaimed,
‘I see it all now; He’ll take me as I am.’”
Just as I am—without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come.
ML 05/23/1937