WE were staying at a retired watering place in the west of Ireland, where one of the bold headlands still bears the name which tells that some of the goodly ships of the Spanish Armada were there “cast away.” And the stranger is still shown “the grave of the dark man.”
Though mercifully preserved from the rule of Rome in Ireland, one still feels its presence, yet never had I encountered such an instance as this.
At the door of our house stood an aged man, with head uncovered and feet bare, his long silvery hair and beard floating in the breeze. His was a face of uncommon beauty, with an eye of high resolve. A. wallet on his back, a girdle round his waist, and a staff in his hand completed the picture. I shall never forget his figure as it stood before me. To our inquiry he replied—
“I am a pilgrim, a pilgrim. I have swopped this life for the next. I am come to the holy well to rest, to help to make my soul.”
“Oh! take heed, take heed,” earnestly exclaimed a friend who had listened to him. “You are making a mistake, a ruinous mistake. Salvation is the gift of God. The Lord Jesus died upon the cross and there bore in His own body the sins of those who believe on Him. He won salvation for sinners. It is His gift, and neither to be got by our works, nor fastings, nor visiting holy wells, nor anything else.”
At these words a cloud gathered on the old man’s brow. What! doing away with all he had done! all he had suffered. And like Naaman of old, he went away in a rage.
He turned from the gift of God to continue his fatal pilgrimage.
If men and women are to work for salvation, then surely Christ’s work is not done.
But some one may say, “All this is very true, but the man of whom you speak was a Roman Catholic. I am nothing of the kind. I am a member of a Protestant church.”
Listen for one moment. I was visiting lately at the house of a lady of rank; she is a member of a family which boasts of its loyalty through thick and thin to Reformation doctrine. And yet what did that lady say to me? “I am not afraid to die, for I never did anybody any harm!”
In what differed the doctrine of the Catholic peasant and the Protestant peeress? “I have swopped earth for heaven; I have made my soul,” cried one. “I have never done any harm,” said the other.
Each, though under different colors, possessed the same religion—Self—self! In both Christ was left out.
Take heed, we may be shipwrecked in sight of land; we may be lost, though reader, of the Bible. Will you not, while there is yet time, receive that salvation as a free gift (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23).)
May God by His Spirit lead you to see in the death of the Lord Jesus the “way of salvation.” “Not of works, lest any man should boast.” A. E. B.