TO one can read the sorrowful lament of the blessed Lord over the city of Jerusalem without feeling how deeply His affections were engaged with that great salvation He was the first to proclaim. “He beheld the city, and wept over it.” Let us challenge our hearts. Does our knowledge of the peril of souls move us to any concern for them?
A young man imbibed infidel principles. His sister was a devoted Christian and earnestly desired his salvation. She got a Christian friend to come and reason with her brother. Reason and arguments failed to move him. When he sought to argue with his sister she was silent. He stormed, spoke ill of her God, her Saviour, her Bible. Still she was silent. At length her distress at the awful condition of her brother opened the floodgates—she burst into tears. She had often spoken to him before. Now her heart was breaking over him. This proved too much for his infidelity. In speaking of it afterward, he said, “I then saw myself a sinner and fled to Christ.” That young man lived to preach the Gospel he once despised, and under God he attributed his salvation to his sister’s deep concern for his soul’s salvation.
The serious question for each saved reader of this magazine is: “Are we concerned about the eternal welfare of souls?” nay more, “Are we deeply concerned?”
Let me relate another instance of how God met an infidel. He, too, was clever, and well versed in all their stock arguments. He had erected a battery that human reason could not overcome. He had entrenched himself in a fortress which he believed was impregnable. His Christian wife prayed on, lived Christ before him, adorned the doctrine of God her Saviour in all things. A preacher of the Gospel, growing old in his Master’s service, was deeply imbued with the love of souls. He had often prayed for and spoken to the infidel, but without result. One night he was so intensely anxious about him that he spent nearly the whole night in prayer. Next morning he mounted his horse, rode down to his house, went into the infidel’s place of business, took him by the hand, and with profound emotion said, “I am deeply concerned for your soul.” Not another word could he get out, and mounting his horse rode home.
The infidel could not go on with his occupation. He went into the house and said to his wife, “Here is old Mr. —come down to me to tell me he is deeply concerned for my soul.”
An hour afterward that very man started for the house where the old preacher lived. What for, do you think? Why, just to say, “You came down to see me, to tell me that you were deeply concerned for my soul. I am now come to tell you that I am deeply concerned for my own soul.”
That man turned to the Saviour, became an earnest and devoted follower of Christ, humanly speaking, through the deep compassionate anxiety of another for his soul’s welfare.
We may not be preachers, we may not even be able to speak to others, but we can pray for them—agonize, pity, and care for them.
Shall we who have had such grace shown to us, such compassion and goodness, not seek to share it with others? Shall it be said by any whom you know, “No man cares for my soul”?
Let me give you an instance of the effect of indifference and unconcern for the salvation of others. A young man sent for a preacher of the Gospel. He said, “Do you remember preaching some months since on the words, ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve’? You spoke of the value of the immortal soul, the uncertainty of life, and urged immediate decision. I resolved there and then, do what others might, I would serve God. A Christian man whom I knew was sitting by my side. I turned to him the moment the meeting was finished, to ask him to pray for me, to bring his Bible and teach me the way of salvation. To my surprise he was laughing and joking. Before I could recover my astonishment he made some ludicrous remark to me about the coat of an old man sitting before us. I was carried away by it, and from that moment all serious impressions departed and have never returned. I am now dying, my prison-house is hell forever, and devils my companions. Would to God I had never seen J. W. Tell him all this.” What a message! uttered, as it was, with the fearful energy of despair.
Is it possible that you, my Christian reader, are utterly indifferent about the everlasting welfare of precious souls? Is the language of your heart, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Alas, when you come to render an account of your stewardship, if you have said, “God saved me, cared for me, watched over me, brought me safely to heaven, but I never cared for, watched over, or sought another one to share that home with me.”
May the deep compassion of the heart of the blessed Lord so fill us that we may be “greatly concerned for the souls of our fellow-men.” H. N.