THE learned Rabbi H., living on the border of France, was one day carefully turning over the leaves of his Hebrew Bible. He was looking for a passage to be learned and recited by his little son, whom we will call David.
David was now just turned twelve. As soon as his thirteenth birthday should come, he must be confirmed, as are all the Jewish boys at that age. On that occasion he would have to repeat in the synagogue a passage from the law or the prophets. David was an intelligent boy, and his father considered him quite capable of reciting several chapters correctly. But it was necessary that he should begin to learn them at once, so as to go over them frequently during the corning year.
The Rabbi decided at last upon a passage―the first few chapters of Leviticus. He called in his son, and gave him his task.
This part of the Bible was new to David. He therefore bestowed more pains upon it, so as to master the unfamiliar words. As he read and re-read them, he remarked that all the sacrifices described in these chapters were to be offered by the commandment of God, and that they were to be offered in order to make atonement for sin. He read again and again, “The priest shall make atonement for his or their sin, and it shall be forgiven.” David was perplexed. All this was new to him, and very hard to understand. He knew that he was a sinner, but no sacrifice had ever been offered for his sins, as far as he knew.
One evening, as he sat with his father, he suddenly said, “Father, why are there no sacrifices now?”
“They cannot be offered now,” his father said. “God commanded that they should be offered in His holy temple at Jerusalem. And now the holy city is in the hands of the Gentiles, and the holy temple is destroyed, and the city is profaned, and we are exiled from our land.”
“How then,” said David, “can our sins be atoned for? How can we be forgiven if we have no sacrifices?”
“God is merciful and gracious,” said his father, “and if we pray earnestly to Him for forgiveness, and repent and amend our ways, we may trust to Him to pardon our sins.”
“But, father,” replied David, “was not God always merciful and gracious? And did not the people who offered sacrifices at Jerusalem pray to Him just as we do? And did they not repent and amend their ways, when they knew they had done wrong? If so, why did not God forgive them as He forgives us? Why need they have had sacrifices besides? What were the sacrifices for?”
Rabbi H. gave a short answer to this question. He said, “David, it is your bedtime—good-night.” He said this in such a decided way that David saw it was no use to ask any further questions. He also saw that, for some reason or other, his questions were very unwelcome. He determined to ask his father no more. But he was from that time restless and unhappy. What were the sacrifices for? If they had anything to do with the putting away of sin, was it really true that his sins could be put away without them?
However, he said nothing, but learned his chapters, and on his thirteenth birthday he repeated them well and correctly, and was praised and congratulated for his performance. Soon after this birthday celebration, David made the acquaintance of a Christian schoolmaster, who was a kind and friendly man. He thought he might tell him of his perplexity, for he had never ceased to think of the mysterious sacrifices. The schoolmaster listened kindly, but he seems to have been a man of few words. He gave David two books. One was a volume written two hundred years ago by Jean de Labadie. It was called “Treatise on the Truth of the Christian Religion;” the other was “Keith on the Prophecies,” translated into French.
David read these books eagerly. They did not explain his difficulties, but they filled him with astonishment. It seemed to him when he read them, that perhaps after all Jesus, whom the Christians worshipped, Jesus of Nazareth, was the Messiah promised to his people Israel. Could it be true? He dared not ask the question of anyone.
Just after reading these works, he was one day alone in his father’s library. He noticed amongst the piles of books, a small brown volume that he had never seen before. He opened it, and saw these words before his eyes, “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?” He read on. He read that Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many—that, whilst it was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to put away sins, “this man,” Christ Jesus, “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins” (even His own body) “forever, sat down on the right hand of God.” And all this David saw was written to the Hebrews, to him therefore; he had a right to read it. He took the little book to his room, and began at the beginning: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
He read on, straight on, and would have read it to the end, but a day or two afterward his father observed, “There was a little book on my table, which is missing. Have you seen it, David? A little brown book.”
“I have it in my room,” David answered, and he brought it sorrowfully back.
“Why did you take it?” asked the Rabbi, fixing his eyes upon him sternly; “it is a detestable book.”
“I did not know it was detestable,” replied David. “I never imagined that any book found in my father’s library could be detestable.”
The Rabbi only answered, “I forbid you to take it, or read it.” David was silent. He felt that he must read that book. He, therefore, went to his friend, the schoolmaster, and asked him where he could get a New Testament. The schoolmaster gave him one, and told him that he did well in reading it, for it was the Word of God.
David read on, and when he had finished it, he was firmly and fully convinced that Jesus, the despised Jesus of Nazareth, was not only the Messiah of Israel, but God Himself, the Lord, Jehovah. He knew also, now that he had read of the death of Jesus, why there were no more sacrifices for sin; he knew that there could be no more.
All was now plain to David as the sun in the noonday sky―all was plain to him―and yet, such was his heart, such were your hearts and mine, he hated Christ the more.
For he said to himself, “If He is God, I must submit myself to Him. I must own Him, and obey Him, and worship Him, and bear His reproach, and be hated and despised.” And David laid aside his Testament, and determined to cast away the thought of Christ, and if he could not alter the fact that He was God Himself; he would at least, if possible, forget Him.
But it was not possible. “Christ,” he said, when he related to me his history, “was always there. He would not leave me. He haunted me. I was angry, enraged with myself, because I had read that book, and had taken such trouble to find out the terrible truth, that made me miserable.”
As David grew older he gave himself up to the business and the pleasures of the world, and resolved to allow himself no time to think of aught besides. But still, in the theater or the music hall, it was always the same, it was as though Christ was forever at his side, always, and everywhere, Christ. He spent most of his leisure time in Paris, for the sake of the amusements, which he hoped, as many others hope, would be to him as the chloroform to dull the ceaseless torment. But all was in vain.
One day, in Paris, he passed a chapel, the door of which stood open. He does not know why he went in, but he did so, just as the sermon began. It was the chapel of a Protestant pastor, M. de L. The sermon was about peace. “There are some of you,” the preacher said, “who know all that I could tell you of Christ, and His great salvation; but you have no peace nor rest. Do you know why? It is because you refuse your hearts to Him. You know Him, and you reject Him.” David left the chapel more miserable than before. It was not M. de L. who had preached, but a stranger. Whoever it was, he had seemed to David to know him to the depths of his heart, and to have spoken only to him.
But, strange to say, when soon afterward he had to pass near the chapel, he felt an irresistible impulse to go in again. He fought with this impulse, and stood in the street, unable to go further.
He then remarked that it was not yet quite the time for service, and he also observed a man who looked like a verger, who stood at the door giving tracts to the passersby. David looked at this man with a sudden feeling of glee. “He is a poor man, no doubt uneducated,” he said to himself. “I should be sorry to have an argument with the pastor, but I could convince that man that Christianity is a lie.”
And, in the face of his own certainty of the truth of the Gospel, he went up to the man, and took him to task for his belief in Christ. Little was said in reply, and David brought forth a host of what he considered would be, to so ignorant a person, unanswerable arguments. The man looked steadfastly in his face, and said, “Young man, you are nearer to being a Christian than you like to think, you know it is true.”
David turned away, for he felt that God had spoken. But he still felt compelled to go to that chapel.
The next time M. de L. himself preached the sermon. David could hold out no longer. He was conquered. In the deepest penitence he gave himself up, heart and soul, to Jesus, his God and Saviour, and heard Him say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace.” He determined to go and tell M. de L. that he was now a believer in Jesus, and to ask him to baptize him.
It so happened that M. de L. had been lately taken in more than once by persons pretending to be converted Jews. He looked at David very suspiciously, and spoke so coldly, and was so stiff and distant, that he dared not proceed to the subject of his baptism, and went away discouraged. He determined to go back to Alsace, whence he had come, and ask a pastor there, whom he knew by name, to baptize him.
This pastor received him cordially, and seemed to be a kind and friendly man. But when David told him he was converted, and desired to be baptized, the pastor looked at him in dismay. “You don’t mean,” he said, “to ruin your prospects in life, and displease your family, and bring the house about your ears! No, indeed! be as good as you like, but for your own sake I advise you to remain a Jew. I will not baptize you, I assure you.”
David was utterly confounded. “This is what it is to be a Christian!” he said. “I at least consider that Christ is worth all I can give up for Him. No, sir, I would not be baptized by you.”
The pastor told him he had a friend in Strasburg, also a pastor. “You may go to him,” he said; “perhaps that will suit you.”
David betook himself to Strasburg. This second pastor also received him cordially. Yes, he was quite ready to baptize him. “But I ought to tell you,” he added, “that I do not believe Jesus is God. You are welcome to your own opinions, but they are not mine.”
Let us try to realize what this first experience of Christendom must have been to David. “Do you think,” he said, “I would be baptized by a man who denies my God and Saviour? No, I at least am a Christian, if I can find none besides.”
As David went away in grief and astonishment, he met in the street his old friend, the schoolmaster. To him he related his history and his manifold disappointments. “I know of a godly old pastor,” said the schoolmaster, “and will give you his address. I advise you to go to him. He is a Lutheran.”
David went at once to the Lutheran pastor’s house. The venerable old man listened to his story, and having understood thus much, that David was a converted Jew, and desired baptism, he said to him, “Do you believe in the sacraments of the church? in the efficacy of baptism, and the Lord’s supper?”
“Sir,” replied David, once more lost in amazement, “I believe in Jesus. Why do you ask me whether I believe in sacraments? You never asked me whether I had been saved by the blood of Jesus. Would you be satisfied with my believing this or that about outward ordinances?”
The old man hid his face in his hands, and wept bitterly. “My son,” he said, “you have taught me a lesson. Yes; I ought to have said, ‘Do you believe in Jesus as your own Saviour; has He saved you?’ And I ought to have been satisfied with that. Let us pray together, and ask the Lord to forgive me.”
So together they knelt and prayed, and the old man said, “Are you willing that I should baptize you, in spite of my having so stumbled you?”
David said yes, for he felt sure that the old man, despite his formalism, was a true believer in Jesus. “But you understand,” he said; “that I do not wish to be baptized into the Lutheran Church, for I own but the one Church of God. There is only one, and I can own no other.”
“You are right,” said the old man. So David was baptized, and has now for eight years been a faithful and earnest preacher of the Gospel of Christ.
Some years after he went back for a visit to Strasburg. The good old Lutheran pastor was dead, and was succeeded by his son, who welcomed David as a Lutheran, “for,” he said, “you were baptized, you know, into our church.”
“I am not a Lutheran, “replied David,” I am a Christian.” Whereupon the young pastor was grieved and displeased. “Do you know that it is schism,” he said, “to leave the church?”
“If I had left the one true Church of God,” said David,” I could imagine your making lamentations over me, but since I have never left it, and by God’s grace never will, you have nothing to lament over.”
And now let me ask for the prayers of God’s children for a blessing on the work for which He has called out His servant, the work of carrying the Gospel to the dark towns and villages of Roman Catholic and, alas! Protestant France, “spots as dark,” said David, “as the heart of Africa, where God is utterly forgotten. Little did I know, when I became a Christian, what is the Christianity of Christendom, but God be praised that He is raising up in this country of France (where so many thousands have died for Him, in this land of martyrs) witnesses for Christ in these last days, to preach Him far and wide, and to show that the Gospel is a living power, the power of God to salvation to everyone who believeth.” F.B.