IT WAS early closing day and one of the salesgirls left the store thinking she would visit an aunt who lived in a cottage not far away. This aunt was one of Queen Victoria’s pensioners, and her cottage was on the Queen’s estate at Osborne.
That same afternoon who should visit the old lady but Queen Victoria herself. She stayed sometime chatting, and also had tea with them.
After tea the Queen said, “Now, I will read a few verses from John 14: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me...” and so on. When she had finished reading she looked up at the young salesgirl, and said in a kind way, “I wonder if you are a Christian, my dear?”
“Oh, yes, your Majesty,” was the prompt reply.
“How do you know you are?” asked Queen Victoria.
“Because I have been christened and confirmed,” she answered at once.
The Queen did not reply to her directly but simply said, “Now before I go we will have a few words of prayer. You kneel down, but we old ladies will just bow our heads, for our rheumatism will not allow us to kneel.” Then she prayed simply for them all, and in her prayer she said, “Lord, open the eyes of this dear girl and show her that without a change of heart she can never be a true Christian. Show her that no outward observances can save her soul. And this I ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Not long after that prayer of the Queen was answered. The young girl had a change of heart. She realized that she needed a Saviour and she “came to Jesus” and simply put her trust in Him. Her bright witness was effective in bringing others to the Saviour too in the same store where she worked. Afterward, when speaking of that afternoon at her aunt’s, she would say, “Well, I’ve often sung, ‘God Save the Queen,’ but I never dreamed I would ever hear the Queen pray for me.”
Dear young friends, the Queen was surely right. Where there is true conversion, there will be a change of heart. The Spirit of God shines into our hearts and shows us what great sinners we are in God’s sight, but then He also points us to a Saviour who has died — God’s remedy for sin. The Bible teaches us “repentance tard God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 20:2121Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21).
Salvation is entirely of God’s grace and our doing doesn’t enter into it at all. It is not any works that you might do, but faith alone in a work Christ has done, that will save your precious soul.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
ML-12/29/1963