Help and Good Cheer

Morning begins with the swing of the earth into the first glimmering rays of light from the sun. Spiritual light begins with the first approaches of the soul to Jesus Christ. All true converts are alike in two respects; they were once in the darkness of depravity and unbelief; their day-dawn began with the penitent turning of the heart to the Saviour. The Holy Spirit drew them and they moved Christ ward. Conversions have been very numerous lately, but no two persons have had exactly the same experience. With one person the first step was into an inquiry room. With another person it was the reopening of a long-neglected Bible, or a betaking himself to honest prayer. A third began with a resolution of total abstinence from the decanter, for Jesus Christ cannot dwell in a soul that is drowned in drink. With thousands the first step is the banishment of some besetting sin; and as the sin went out the light broke in. No seeker after salvation ever finds peace until he has renounced his favorite sins, and done it in order to obey Christ. Obedience to Jesus Christ is the test of conversion.

Some people are consciously converted suddenly. They can fix the hour and the place and all the attendant circumstances of their new birth. They can point to the very arrow of truth that pierced the heart, and to the precise sermon, or prayer, or conscientious act that brought the healing balm. With the majority of Christians I feel quite confident that their experience in conversion is literally like the daybreak. A faint gleam of thoughtfulness grew into earnestness, grew into penitence, and enlarged into a fuller, deeper sense of the soul’s need of Christ; then as the soul came on toward Jesus, the ruddier hues of hope appeared, and some flushes of joy kindled up; and the soul discovers that the night of unbelief has ended and the day-dawn has begun. “I have come to the conclusion,” said a very intelligent Christian lady to her pastor, “that it is best for me that I have never yet been able to fix the exact time of my conversion; I am afraid that I should trust too much to it if 1 could. Now I trust to nothing but to continued faith and to live in happy fellowship with my Saviour.”

Too many new converts are apt to think that the dawn is enough, that they have reached a certain desired point and need only to remain there. As well might our globe pause in its diurnal motion when a faint streak of morning light is reached, instead of rolling on into the perfect day. Conversion is not a point of termination; it is a point of new departure. It is a start, not a journey. No one has a right to say, “Now I trust that I am converted; the work is done; I am saved; and I need only join 3 the church and ride on toward heaven.” This wretched mistake has dwarfed many a church member for life. They never outgrow their babyhood. Infancy is very beautiful in its place; but it must not last too long. I am charmed with the bright prattle of our little two-year-old grandson, who is playing with his toys and “choo-choo railroad cars” in yonder nursery; but that same lively prattle ten years hence would not be so pleasant. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child,” said the great apostle, “but now I have put away childish things.” The first timid, brief, and rather incoherent prayer of a new convert in a social meeting is very delightful. It is music to a pastor’s ears, and perhaps to the ears of angels likewise. Yet we should not be satisfied to hear the same prayer from him after ten years of sound Christian experience. Even Paul, a quarter of a century after his new birth into Christ, declares that he was still reaching forth unto the things that were before, and pressing toward the gaol. The path of the Christian 4 is like unto a shining light “that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

Progress is the law of true piety. The “convert” who never grows an inch in grace may well doubt whether he was ever really converted. And let the genuine convert never forget that as the germ of his spiritual life came from Christ, so his advance into g-odly, useful ‘living will depend on his drawing closer and closer unto Christ. No amount of gaslight or electric burners can create a morning in this city; we must swing on toward the sun. So it is in the nearer approach to and closer conformity unto the Divine Saviour that a convert advances into a robust Christian. We only shine, at best, by reflected light. AD brightness and beauty come from our sun of Righteousness; the plants of grace thrive only under His warmth. My young brother or sister, remember that Christ’s love to you was an orb that beamed and burned before you ever beheld it. Christ’s love turned your darkness into dawn. Christ’s love to you is the unfailing shaft 5 of light that shall stream into the valley of death-shade when you are passing over that river that hath no bridge. At evening-time it shall be light.

A rough old fisherman, who stammered in his speech, used to pray often in the weekly meeting, and one expression was always introduced into his homely, fervent prayers; “Oh, Lord — lead us — more and more — into the love of Jesus — for never was love like that.” The nearer the old fisherman drew toward it the brighter and warmer it became; and now he stands — with certain other fishermen from Galilee — in the noonday glory of his everlasting King!

“Love here is but a faint desire, But there the spark’s a flaming fire; Joys here are drops that passing flee. But there an overflowing sea.

“Here shadows often cloud my day,
But there the shadows flee away.
My Lord will break the dimming glass,
And show His glory face to face.”

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