IN the north of Belgium, only a few short I weeks ago, there stood a pretty cottage, with a well-stocked vegetable garden surrounding it on three sides, and a low, stable-like shed on the fourth, in which a couple of cows were kept.
In this cottage there lived a young couple, with their baby daughter, a few months old. The husband and father was a blacksmith by trade, and owned a few roods of land, the produce of which he sold, week by week, at the market in the neighboring town.
This was before the iron hand of war had devastated that fair land, watering Belgium's soil with the blood of her children. But the hour came when the tide of slaughter rolled over the district where stood that happy and peaceful home. Hardly a house escaped damage. Most of the inhabitants were slain by German bayonets.
A day later the horrible scene was visited by a Dutch newspaper correspondent. He describes how that as he was passing along the street of the stricken village he heard the crying of a little child. It seemed to come from amid the ruins of the cottage of which we have spoken.
Across the threshold lay the husband and father, with a gaping bayonet wound in his chest. The newspaper man stepped over the body, and turned in the direction of the child's cry. He pushed open a door, and saw lying huddled up in a corner the wife and mother. A bullet had entered her brain. And on the floor, not far from her side, lay the baby girl, uninjured, but crying from hunger and fear. It was a new experience for that poor child to find its cry unheard.
Why did not her father fly to pick her up in his arms and soothe her, as he had always done? Mark the answer: His hand was shortened. It could not save. Death had made it impossible for him to succor his child.
Why did not the mother clasp her poor, crying babe to her heart, and kiss its tears away? Listen! Her ear was heavy. It could not hear. She, too, lay cold and stiff in death.
Oh! thank God! thank God! that these words have not to be used of HIM. We read:
His hand is as mighty to save as ever; His ear is as ready to hear the groan of the penitent sinner to-day as in ages past.
Then why are you not saved, my reader? The fault does not rest with God. He is able to save. His hand is not shortened. He is willing to save. His ear is not heavy. No; the fault is yours, AND YOURS ALONE.
In the verse which follows that which I have quoted above, we read: "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God.”
From this we learn that as a result of your sins there exists a very serious breach between God and you. He is holy, and cannot tolerate sin. You are the very opposite: you have loved sin.
Now if you are to be saved that wide breach, that yawning chasm, has to be bridged.
How can it be done? Well, you cannot bridge it, nor can you even help to do so. But it was for this very purpose that the Savior suffered and bled on the cross. He shed His blood to atone for sins; He bore the judgment due to them, and in this way He has made it possible for a guilty sinner to be saved. Your sins have separated you from God, but they have not shortened His hand. Through the atoning merits of Christ's precious blood He can save you.
Your iniquities are a grievous offense to Him, but they have not closed His ear against you. He has regard to the finished work of His beloved Son, and on the ground of that work He will hear you if you cry to Him in faith.
Every hand but His is shortened; He only can save. Every other ear is heavy; He only can listen to the groans of a sinner, and respond to his contrite cry.
Then will you not betake yourself to Him, and prove, as many a sinner has done, that He is "able and willing to save"? H. P. B.