“SURE enough the burden could not be on two backs. Sir, I see you smile; but when I saw that, it brought peace to my soul. It was only a year ago, and I am seventy-one years old this summer; I was nigh seventy then; the threescore and ten years were spent in the service of the devil, when God let me see what Christ had borne for me; and that’s how I got it!”
The speaker was an elderly little woman, living in a fishing village where I had occasion to spend a couple of nights; and, unwilling to go to the inn, I asked if there was any Christian who could put me up, and was directed to this woman’s house. She had just given me a homely supper, and I had asked how she had obtained peace with God, and this was the strange reply.
I felt interested, and, seeing that she was communicative on this subject, I asked her to explain how the Lord had dealt with her. She readily did so.
“You see,” she said, “I was seventy years old in sin. I thought I was pleasing myself, but I never knew peace in my soul all those seventy years. God often spoke to me, but I wouldn’t listen. He gave me good parents and good opportunities too, when I was young, but I thought I could get happiness without bothering about religion, and I sought it in companionships, and in the world. When I got married I expected a long time of happiness, but God came in, and, as I thought, spoiled all for me. He took away my children, this made me angry and disappointed; then he took my husband away, and this blighted every prospect I had on earth; but my heart was hard. I thought God was against me, and I tried to keep Him out of my thoughts.
“Well, sir, as the threescore and ten years were running out, and I knew my sands were sinking, I got alarmed, and grew cross; but I did not tell what ailed me, and when I got a quiet hour I looked into the Book; just slyly, at first, for I was afraid they would think that I was pretending to be religious; but the truth was, I had a notion that I would get comfort in the Book, but it only deepened my trouble, for I saw what a sinner I had been, and I could take no comfort out of the Book; there was none in it for me.
“Before this,” the old woman continued, “I had condemned myself, but now I found that God’s Word condemned me too, and showed up all that I was: my trouble was deep, but I hid it, for I was ashamed to speak of it. I could get no comfort at the kirk either, for what had failed to trouble my soul before, failed to help me then. Things went on like this, sir, when I heard that a stranger was to preach at the hall here, and you’ll think I was a sad coward when I tell you I was ashamed to go. I daresay it was only pride that made me refuse, for I was determined to keep out from what they call the revivals here.
“The night of the preaching came, and I sat still at my fireside, but a heavy enough heart I had, for I would have liked to hear what the man had to say. At last my anxiety got so strong, that, taking my shawl over my head, I slipped out, and went softly to the door of the hall. There was only a thin wooden wall between the stairs and the room, and the door stood open, so that I could hear every word clearly and distinctly. I took my stand on the top of the stair, and listened. It was all new to me, what he said. I was afraid it might be wrong doctrine, for it was not like anything I had ever heard before. It was about God’s love he was preaching, and he made it all so clear that God loved a world of perishing sinners, and had no pleasure in the death of those who died, but would have them turn and live, and he proved God’s love by telling us of Jesus having come into the world to save sinners, and of God’s joy over a returning sinner; and that it was “whosoever will,” I knew I had read all that in the Book, but I never put it together as he did. Then he told us how God bad laid the sins of His people on the spotless holy Lamb, His own dear Son, while He hung on the cross; and I saw it all so real, passing before my mind: the Son of God loving me, a worthless old sinner, and bearing my sins, and suffering the hiding of God’s face, and bowing His head in death for me.
“I stood there and cried for sorrow that I had despised such an One as that but the preacher said― ‘Do you see He bore our sins in His own body on that tree; God laid On Him the iniquities of us all, and all the waves and billows of Jehovah’s righteous judgment against sin passed over Him; beneath the heavy burden He died, and what God laid on Christ He will not, and, as a righteous, holy God, He cannot lay on the sinner that believes, for the burden cannot be on both; if Christ bore it for me, it was that I should never bear. The burden could not be on the two backs.’
“That was enough for me, sir, I heard no more, I saw my burden was on Christ, and in that moment my heart became light as a feather; all the fears about the consequences of my sins were gone, for I saw that Christ had died for me, and I had peace from that night to my soul, and I could rest in the love of God.”
As she ended the story which I have given, as nearly as my memory enables me in her own words, her wrinkled face was as bright as sunshine, and her eyes sparkled through the tears that filled them. We knelt down while I blessed the Lord for His love and grace to this aged one who had been seventy years dead, but was alive again. J. S.