NO doubt the sanitary authorities were quite right when they condemned as unfit for human habitation the courts and alleys near which our narrative occurred. But among the condemned buildings—scenes, many of them, of squalor and vice—there was one over which angels had often rejoiced, as sinner after sinner had there heard of a Saviour’s love, and by the goodness of God had been brought to repentance.
But the old place was now to come down, and He whose love still lingered over the needy ones there, provided a site where a neat, and much more commodious, building should be used for His service near the old spot. It was now just completed, and an earnest evangelist from a distance had been invited to hold special meetings in it. But before this, those engaged in the work there had sought unto God, and night after night had gathered—working men just come home from their daily toil, poor women who had been busy all day among their families—many of them unable even to read, but each and all having “heard the voice of the Son of God” speaking to their hearts and consciences in the power of the Holy Ghost, had, through believing, received life through His name.
Thursday came—and with it a half-holiday, and in consequence, freedom for some who, on other nights, were hindered by business ties—and some seventy people, such as those described above, gathered there. Their hearts were full, one desire pervaded all; and from every part of the building they rose, one after another, and cried to God to save their fellow men. As one hoarse rough voice ceased, another began, and, in unconventional, ungrammatical language, poured out the Spirit-given desire that the grace that had met them might reach others, and that God would magnify His name as a Saviour God.
Reader, the power of the Holy Ghost is a reality. Do you know it in your own soul? Has He shown you your guilt in the sight of a holy God? Has He made you conscious that, as you are in yourself, you are unfit for the presence of that God with whom you must have to do? And has He shown you somewhat of the glory and preciousness of Him, the Son, whom the Father sent to be the Saviour of the world—and consequently the Saviour for you—the very one you need, and the only one who can supply that need, but who, in order to do so, went to Calvary’s Cross, and there offered Himself without spot to God, for the bearing of our sins? If by faith you are truly resting on this once offered, once accepted, sacrifice, the same Holy Spirit who first showed you your need, and led you to Christ, becomes the seal of that transaction, marking you as His own, and in-dwelling forever the one purchased at such a cost. Oh, take care such a guest be not grieved, and His power hindered! He is the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind; and such indeed was He proving Himself to be that Thursday evening. “I was never in such a meeting in my life,” said one of experience then present.
The special meetings commenced on the Monday, but nothing particular marked that evening. Tuesday came, and many of the poor creatures from the streets around came in, till nearly two hundred were assembled there. When the meeting was about to begin, the one referred to above, as he stood on the stairs, welcoming one and another in, heard the caretaker at the door refusing admission to some one. Hurrying down, a terrible spectacle presented itself. There stood a woman, with a face so debased and disfigured by sin as scarcely to appear human. Her face, as well as her dress, ragged and untidy, was covered with blood from cuts on her head, and she was even then under the influence of drink.
So repulsive was the poor creature’s condition, one could not wonder that the caretaker was turning her away; but N— remembered it was for such as she the Lord Jesus died, that He had said, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out,” so he called her in, and found her a seat at the back of the hall. The “power of the Lord present to heal” was realized that night, as the preacher told of God’s love in the gift of His Son; but the poor woman at the back sat apparently unmoved until the close, when the speaker asked those present who could to join in singing the Doxology.
Then, instead of praise, her tears broke forth, and while others were singing she wept bitterly. The one who had spoken to her before, again went to her, but her emotion was so great she could not enter into conversation with him. Finding, however, that she was unwilling to leave for what she called “home,” through fear of the drunken fury of her husband, who had threatened to kill her, he got her a bed elsewhere, and the next day called to see her. Then he learned she had only been a week in the town, having come from the west of England, and, to his intense surprise, that she was not ignorant of God’s way of salvation—at least theoretically—and in her old home had been a “member” of a chapel there. But she had gone back from the profession she once made, she had fallen grievously into sin; and now she realized she was an utterly lost sinner, deserving nothing but hell, and standing on the brink of it.
That she was just the one that Jesus died to save she did not realize, nor that she was just in the condition in which alone He could save her, on the ground of free, sovereign grace— “without strength, guilty before God.” She wanted to do something to merit it; but these are not God’s terms, and as the day wore on, she found herself still away from Him—dark and unhappy. Nevertheless, she presented a different figure as she entered the halt again that evening from that on the preceding night; but while the gospel was being proclaimed she yet remained in the same condition. Thought several afterward talked with her, there seemed no effect; and then about ten o’clock, she turned to the one who had been the first to take notice of her, and begged him to pray again. He and another did so; and then she herself broke out in prayer and confession to God. She felt her need; she knew that only He could meet it, and she was determined not to sleep that night until she knew the burden was gone, and herself forgiven.
But, dear soul, she was making a great mistake. All the while God was offering her salvation; He was infinitely more ready to give than she to ask. And the moment she really owned herself in His presence a helpless sinner, and rested, not on her determination to be saved, but on the finished work of Christ—that moment her burden passed away, and she heard from His own lips in the secret of her heart, “Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
Oh, the praise that followed then! There was joy in heaven among the angels of God, there was joy in heaven before the angels—God’s own joy as He welcomed another wanderer home—and there was joy in that room among those to whom the glory of Jesus was precious, as well as in her heart. It was late that night when she returned home, but she could say then, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” And though she had afterward to endure much persecution from her ungodly neighbors, her life thenceforth was spent to the praise of Him who had loved her and given Himself for her.
T.