Long years have rolled past since the events recorded in these chapters were living realities, but even now, many a heart can re-echo the truth spoken by Solomon, and say, “The memory of the just is blessed.” Yes, blessed, eternally blessed! for God forgets none of His, and never will; “God is faithful.”
Souls may have clung to a doctrine, and died rather than give it up, and yet have had no intimate acquaintance with a living Saviour. Many may have had scruples about things which affected the conscience before men, while in their hearts they knew not peace with God. But the presence of persecution and death often strengthened the weak and gave courage to the faint. God knew whether there was that which would endure when death lay in the path, and He gives the faith before He tries it. The Holy Ghost has said, “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.”
It is marvelously beautiful to see the value the Lord sets upon that which is His own gift, yet which He graciously puts down to the credit of the faithful believer. “That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” Gold is valued, treasured, and even loved by the heart of man, but God looks upon it as that which perisheth. Faith is often misunderstood, misjudged, ridiculed, and despised, but God esteems it, when proved, as much more precious than gold.
As faith accepts the divine word, so conscience seeks to obey that which it understands of the will of God. It is only as regulated according to scripture, however, that its obedience is truly acceptable, though God respects the desire to be true to Him. Hence, the dying testimony derived its character from that which the martyr understood of God’s revelation to man. The suffering body was only the vehicle of bearing witness to the truth held in the soul, according to the measure possessed.
Political difficulties were frequently mixed with religious scruples, and then conscience seemed the most prominent thing. For example, one man in the days of the Commonwealth in England, accepted his death with the words, “Ten thousand deaths, rather than defile my conscience!” As he looked in his wife’s face for the last time, he stood up in the cart which was conveying him to death, and waving his hat, touchingly exclaimed, “To heaven, my love! to heaven! and leave you in the storm.” A spectator called out, “This is the most glorious seat you ever sat on!” and was answered with joy, “It is so, indeed!”
Such souls thought of heaven as a divine place and their future home. They would not be disappointed, but happier still, and more assuring it was to know that a living, loving Saviour was waiting to receive the departing spirit. Heaven and the Father’s house are splendid realities, but a living Person is more comforting to the heart, bringing “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”
Heaven is the present home of the believer whose affections are already there. In proportion as this is known, the hear gratifies or denies itself, while absent from the sphere to which it belongs.
I read lately of one who said he had met many going to heaven, but few coming from it. Which are you, my young reader? Is it your home at present, or only in the future?
We have reason to be thankful for the absence of such forms of persecution as would imprison, maltreat, or kill, those who endeavor to obey God in our land. Let us therefore use, to the glory of God, the peace and the quiet we at present enjoy, for the enemy who persecutes is as active as ever. He only changes the form of evil to suit his own purpose, yet cannot go farther in those cruel efforts than God permits for some wise end.
“What will it be to dwell above,
And with the Lord of glory reign,
Since the blest knowledge of His love
So brightens all this dreary plain?
No heart can think, no tongue can tell,
What joy ‘twill be with Christ to dwell!”