WE have before us an old diary. It bears the date 1862, that is 59 years ago. The ink is faded, the writing is delicately formed and the writer, a Christian lady, has long been dead.
It was touching to read the tale it unfolded, a tale old yet new, for human hearts have the same sorrows now as then, and God has got the same remedy for them now as then.
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“Lizzie, early lost her mother, and from her death few kind words fell to her lot. Once her Sunday School teacher told her that there was a Father in heaven who cared for her. This word sank into her heart and its effects remained.
“Lizzie married a worthless man against the wishes of her friends. She became his slave, was led by him into every form of wickedness.
“One day a tract was given her and she was asked what religion there was in her home.
'None,' she replied, but if there were any there would be a mixture. My husband is a Catholic and I am a Protestant, but since my marriage seven years ago I have never been inside a Protestant place of worship.'
“The gentleman spoke to her of her serious condition before God and gave her a card with the address of a mission upon it and urged her to attend.
“A few days after her husband found the card and the tract folded up together. He asked where she had got them and on being told swore that he would make her eat them.
“Things got so unbearable that she left her husband, going to another town to live.
“There Lizzie resolved, come what might, she would attend the mission room she found in that town. She felt that she needed something, she knew not what, but she felt sure it was to be found in attention to the Word of God.
“Her husband followed her to the town where she had gone, and almost killed her, so angry was he at her persistence in going to the meetings. Go she would, and go she did, till he had to give in.
“From the Word of God she soon learned her state before God as a sinner, and came under deep distress of soul. She felt that it was sin that was shutting her out from her heavenly Father, but how to get it removed she knew not.
“She heard the offer of mercy through the Savior's blood and righteousness through His death, but she felt it could not be for her. She continued in this state for ten months, her anxiety deepening as time went on.
“Speaking of this time she said, I would not wish to see anyone in the state I was in; ' and then checking herself added, ' but I should not say that for it had a grand end.'
“Her distress increased to such an extent that if she did not get relief reason would give way. She was asked if she was not seeking to work out a righteousness for herself. ‘I,' she replied, how could one so vile as I am work out a righteousness for myself?’
“One day, after a night of deep distress, she bolted her door, an d went down upon her knees and in the bitterness of her soul she cried, ‘O Lord, help me. I have done all I can, and if Thou dolt not help me, I can do no more. O Lord, help me.'
“It was as if a voice said to her, You have done too much. If you had done less, it would have been better for you.' She rose from her knees, sank upon a chair, and exclaimed to herself, Oh! my, have I been trying to take upon my shoulders what the Lord did for me on the cross.' She saw that redemption was a finished work—finished on Calvary. ‘It is finished' cried the Savior on the cross. She there and then trusted the Lord as her Savior. She said, It was the Lord's own doing, and oh what a change, what a light broke into my mind. How different everything appeared.'”
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The narrative goes on to describe how Lizzie grew in grace, how her husband continued, alas his brutality, how she developed a fatal and painful malady, and finally died full of peace and joy. Her one great desire was to see the face of her Savior.
It is well to notice that Lizzie never entered into peace till she gave up trying and took to simply trusting. Times may alter. Things may change. But one thing remains the same, and that is the gospel of God's grace.
Anyone who lived in the early Victorian age, if he could come back to life, would be astounded at the wonderful changes that have taken place. He would scarcely recognize the world with which he was once so familiar.
Railways, telegraphs, motors, submarines, airplanes, wireless telegraphs, a shrunken Germany, a Bolshevic Russian republic, civilized (?) countries bled nigh to death and staggering under frightful loads of debt, labor seeking by revolutionary methods to get into the saddle, unrest, insecurity on every hand, might well be a contemplation not altogether pleasing or reassuring to a modern Rip Van Winkle.
But, thank God, he would find the same Bible with the same message, the grace of God, free salvation, offered to "whosoever will.”
Thank God for something stable and real, yea, eternal in its duration and happiness.
No wonder the apostle Paul rang out the challenge, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." (Rom. 1:1616For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)).
May God bring each reader to a saving knowledge of the Lord.
THE EDITOR.