THE words were spoken by a young Chinese student, who was residing in England under the auspices of his own Government, and who favored me with a visit of two or three days. During one of our conversations, having appealed to the Scriptures and turned to the portions referred to, I made the remark, “This was my dear father’s Bible.” He immediately said, with evident sincerity, “Then that is your true heirloom.” I believe he was genuinely desiring to know more of these things, and after he had left my house he wrote to explain a part of his conduct, in not conforming to the act of kneeling during family prayer, giving as his reason that, “not having yet accepted the Christianity,” he felt it would be an act of inconsistency to do so. As a result of enquiries I subsequently made respecting him, I believe he shortly afterwards returned to the land of his birth. God grant that he has known the blessedness of being the subject of the second birth (John 3:3-183Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 9Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? 10Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? 11Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. 12If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? 13And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:3‑18)).
How much there is in the words he said, and the circumstances under which he said them, that is fitted for profitable reflection. Does not the fact that the speaker, who by his own confession was enquiring into these things, lend a peculiar force to the declaration, “Then that is your true heirloom”? Here was a stranger, who had been brought up amid the schools of Confucius and the shrines of Buddha and Laou-tsz, making acquaintance with those who accept the scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments as the word of the living God; apart from every consideration of his own estimate thereof, saying to one who acknowledged them to be such, and especially of that copy which had been the daily counsellor of a departed parent, gone to the presence of that Saviour to whom those Scriptures bear witness, “Then this is your true heirloom.”
What an exhortation do these words convey to the one to whom they were addressed and to all in like circumstances, to study more carefully and prize more highly the words and teaching of that book. They were uttered in a room containing numerous other relics of that departed parent, several of which would be regarded, in the light of the ordinary, estimate of values, as being worth much more; yet how justly did this stranger appraise as of transcending value that one treasure, the word of God. How often we find ourselves in danger of being engrossed with the things which are seen and temporal, and thereby neglecting those things which are unseen and eternal. At such times how well fitted to recall us to the scriptural view of the one and the other are the words of my Eastern visitor when he said of the Bible, formerly sot regularly and lovingly read by my departed parent, “Then that is your true heirloom.”
In his Chinese home he had been accustomed to see the memorial wooden tablets. with their carved recesses for the visitation of the souls of departed parents, before which, on certain days, votive gifts and offerings, with priestly incantations, would be presented. These ancestral memorials would be treasured heirlooms, and in contrast with such there appears to be a special fitness in the use of the word “true” — “Then this is your true heirloom.” I do not expect again to meet the speaker, but I trust that many of the readers of this simple narrative will with me realize somewhat the profit of their application in our daily exercises and conversation, and so the truth of what the poet has written:—
“Oh, blest be the goodness and love of the Lord,
For the gift of His holy, His heavenly word!
‘Tis the ground of my hope and the shield of my faith,
A lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
“How sweet is the hope which the Bible supplies
In the day when the billows of trouble arise!
How happy the soul who in Jesus believes,
When the Father of spirits the spirit receives!
“A mother may leave the dear child of her love,
The hills may depart and the mountains remove;
But, blest be the gift, and adored be the Giver!
The word of the Lord endureth for ever.”
T. J.