The Testimony of Earl Cairns
The newspapers teem with advertisements of remedies for ailments of every kind. And none are so attractive as those which .record special cases that have been cured of the treatment. What an endless record of triumphant successes the gospel story of the past unfolds. Right down the centuries, and in all conceivable circumstances of life, in homes of luxury and in scenes of want, in times of prosperity and ease and in dark days of trial and suffering and agony, men — keen, strong-minded men delicate women, and even little children have proved the truth and power of the gospel of Christ. With how great a cloud of witnesses we are compassed round! One special witness I will cite, albeit it involves a departure from the scope of these pages; one who, though no longer with us, has left a name that will not be soon forgotten — a great statesman, a great lawyer, a great judge, one of the greatest Lord Chancellors of modern times. I refer to the late Earl Cairns. Here are words addressed by him to a company of working men, that included agnostics and infidels who deprecated any reference to “religion” on the occasion : —
“As I am a stranger among you, I do not know that I have any right to intrude my opinion. All I can do is to tell you how this question affects me personally. If I could take you to my home you would think it a luxurious one, and the food on my table is abundant. You would say, ‘With all this you ought to be a happy man.’ I am indeed a happy man; but I do not think my furniture and food have much to do with it. Every day I rise with a sweet consciousness that God loves me and cares for me. He has pardoned all my sins for Christ’s sake, and I look forward to the future with no dread. His Spirit reveals to me that all this peace is only the beginning of joy which is to last throughout eternity. Suppose it were possible for some one to convince me that this happiness was altogether a delusion on my part, my home would give me little repose, and food would often remain upon the table untasted. I should wake in the morning with the feeling that it was scarcely worth while to get up, so little would there be to live for. The sun might rise, or it might not, all would be dark to me.
“You see, my friends, I could not honestly advise you to do what some of you say you wish to do — to live without God in the world — when all the time, for myself, my heart is erying out, ‘For without Thee I cannot live!’ It is a pleasure to me to know that the costly things in my house, which you cannot possibly share with me, are not the things out of which my happiness is made. Were they necessary to happiness I should often look round with a sigh, and wonder why they are given to so few. Had I to leave them all tomorrow, and to take to the humblest of homes, I should carry all my joy with me. I rejoice that in my own life what exceeds in value all other things is what I can share with you, for it is within your reach as well as mine. My most earnest desire and prayer for you is that Christ may reveal Himself to you, satisfying, as I know He only can, every desire of your hungry hearts.”