I LOOK out upon the night. The sky is serene—one uniform deep gray-blue—but oh! so dark, so heavy, so lowering! The moon is away. Its beautiful light might never have shined in the heavens, so utterly cheerless is the vast expanse above me—so destitute of one ray of brightness.
The stars are hidden; oh! it is black, hopeless—and yet so calm, as though it had never known another aspect—as though it needed nothing to throw beauty and warmth into its cold darkness. It knows not its own lack, and so is content to abide unchanged. Only the on-looker who has felt the gladness of a sky ablaze with light is saddened and depressed to find it gone, leaving behind such gloom.
Even as I looked my mind descried a type—a picture. I saw my own heart (only twelve months younger than it is to-day) in that dark sky. I saw it imaged; for oh! my heart was dark, heavy, dead when last spring's sun was shining. And like this firmament it was calm and undisturbed, for it knew not its own hopelessness—knew not it was shutting out the Light of Life—that Light "which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Truly the darkness comprehended it not—knew not even that it was shining!
I remember being examined by a phrenologist some years ago. Among other marks of character, I was pronounced to have a strong religious propensity, and I wondered within myself, "Shall I verify the prophecy?" I used to have fits of earnestness at long intervals, excited by hearing a good sermon or reading some record of a nobly-spent life. At such seasons I felt that I ought to be better, more sincere—and yet I knew not how to become so. I used to SAY my prayers: I asked that I might be forgiven all my sins, and that I might be enabled to overcome my temper (a terrible fire in this poor heart!). It was the one evil I had discovered-the only thing I knew within as sin—the only thing that prevented my acceptance with God.
I prayed, but I always rose from my knees feeling that I had not prayed earnestly enough, and so could not expect to be answered; for, Satan whispered, "God would of course hear none but a very earnest prayer." I thought, "Shall I ever be able so to pray as to compel a hearing?" Seeing God would not help me, I sought to conquer in my own strength; but though I tried hard, oh! so hard sometimes, I only failed miserably, and at last I gave it up in despair, feeling it was hopeless. My burden had been made too heavy for my strength; I had never been meant to bear it entirely!
But all this was the effect not of grief for offending a loving Father, but of a faintly-disturbed conscience, a self-condemned heart. I had never sat under a Gospel ministry. I had not a thought or a suspicion of existing rebellion and hatred against God—of innate, indwelling sin. Truly darkness was on the depths of my soul—the Spirit of God had never moved upon those waters!
I read my Bible nightly AS A DUTY, but I read with blind eyes-seeing I saw not, and hearing, I did not understand; and yet the while suspected not my own lack. Nay, was I not better than so-and-so? I generally went to church three times on Sundays; I gave most of my pocket-money to the offertory; I taught in the Sunday-school, and was not an unfrequent communicant! In fact I was well enough, were it not for that unfortunate temper! I was doing my best; surely God would consider my temptations, and have mercy on me at the last! Unconsciously I whispered to my heart—"Thou art rich and have need of nothing," and knew not all the while that I was "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." My eyes had never lighted on the "gold tried in the fire; and the "white raiment" of Another's righteousness I envied not, for was I not already clothed? Ah! it was truly a dark land I groped in—the blackness of darkness!
But He had marked me—the Great God of Heaven—in whose sight every creature that moveth is manifest. He had watched the prodigal’s wanderings further and further into the far country, had yearned over him and gone swiftly out to meet him "while he was yet a great way off!”
I had spent the winter abroad. Oh, such husks of worldly joys I had fed on! And yet the Deceiver had made them very sweet to my taste. I only hungered a very little sometimes, for—I knew not what; but this sense of want only made me taste more abundantly of the one supply I knew. Oh, my Father! my Father! I did not even think on Thine house of plenty, and yet Thou wert never for a moment unmindful of Thy long-missing child!
I spent some weeks in London before returning, and one Lord's Day had a tract put into my hand. Strangely enough, I had never had one given me before, and looked with astonishment at the donor. I put it carelessly into my pocket and forgot it till the evening, when I took it up and glanced at the heading—"Faith.”
I read a line or two. It put before me very plainly that salvation was full and free by grace through faith. "Salvation by faith alone," I inwardly cried; "what nonsense!" and taking up a Bible, I found the references given, and read again from the Word itself what I had seen and totally disbelieved in the tract. I could hardly believe my eyes, and thinking I was misunderstanding the verses, I went down to the friend whose guest I was, and asked, had she ever heard of this way of salvation? "Of course I have! As if every one had not!" I was astonished; but my self-love was wounded at having shown my ignorance of an evidently universally-known fact, and I soon changed the subject, and forgot, in the excitement of making plans for the day, what had before interested me. Ah! Satan was ready to pluck away the good seed, but the ground had been thereby prepared for the sowing-time so blessedly near.
I left my friends and returned home. The season was just beginning, and I plunged into all its excitement and gaiety, enjoying it thoroughly. Those poor, paltry, meaningless pleasures! How soon they were to fade into nothingness by reason of the great joy so soon to fill my empty heart!
Quite by—CHANCE I had almost written—chance! can we thus speak and yet know that the same God who knows the falling of a sparrow, who gives to the winds a decree and to the waves a commandment, is also He who marks out the way we must tread, making all things work together for good to them that love God? Chance! when it is written—"He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. 1:1111In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: (Ephesians 1:11)), nay, rather would I say—by His grace His love-He let my path cross that of one of His servants who was to be to me the bearer of the "glad tidings," and when all things were ready, bid me to the banquet-house, and spread before me His rich, rare feast of love! Happy, happy day.
Oh! the first breaking up of the darkness within! The mixture of astonishment, and joy, and despair. Was I misunderstanding the King's message—offering me a free, full, complete salvation now—that night, that hour? Surely my ears deceived me. How could it be a present salvation for me when I had done so few good works? Ah! the Spirit's work was already begun; and before I left the meeting that night, I saw myself a sinner, undone, condemned; and yet my eyes were too bedimmed with tears of sorrow to behold Jesus, the Deliverer, waiting to whisper "Peace.”
I was left in this bitterness of spirit for I think three days. Oh, those long, weary clays of weeping! What a cheerless time it was, for Satan had blinded my eyes so that I could not see the Sun of Righteousness arising with the healing in His wings my wounded heart so needed. I was occupied only with self. I was struggling to make myself believe—to give myself faith—God's gift, which His royal Hand only could bestow; truly I had read blindly, "saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
At last in an agony of despair I felt I must give it all up, and with heart and brain alike bursting, I lay there and felt I was lost—lost—unless Jesus would help me. Then it was that He who had so long stood knocking at the door of my heart, discerning the thought before it came forth, entered in conqueror. I had a sense of a strange calm on the surging waves of condemnation rolling over my soul, but I hardly understood it; it was not yet "perfect peace." Oh! my loving Father! He was very, very tender with His faithless, trembling child!
Again He gave the word to His servant to speak in season to me, being weary; and coming out from the Master's presence, he brought His Word to me, and opening John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24), spoke out the message— "Verily, verily, (surely, surely) I, Jesus, say unto YOU, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, HATH everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but IS passed from death unto life." That message opened the flood-gates, and a mighty ocean of peace and joy and rejoicing swept into my long-divided heart, and I was at rest, at rest!
And He has kept me rejoicing before Him with the joy of His salvation up to this hour, and will keep me till the fruition of that thrice-blessed hope of His appearing; when, caught up in rapture to meet Him in the air, I shall learn the new song, and sing through endless ages the praises of Him who "loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
Reader, the same Jesus who sent His messenger to testify to me these things is this moment speaking: "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life." Do you believe on Him? Then you have eternal life, for it is written (1 John 5:1111And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:11)): "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." And again (1 John 5:1313These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13)): "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life." Are you still out of Christ? Oh then hear His voice today: "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is unto the sons of men;" "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest," for "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.”
A. DE C.