Testimony

Won By His Wife’s Faith. — I have read the story of a man who was converted to God by seeing the conduct of his wife in the hour of trouble. They had a lovely child, their only offspring. The father’s heart doted on it perpetually, and the mother’s soul was knit up in the heart of the little one. It lay sick upon its bed, and the parents watched it night and day. At last it died. The father had no God: he rent his hair, he rolled upon the floor in misery, wallowed upon the earth, cursing his being, and defying God in the utter casting down of his agony. There sat his wife, as fond of the child as ever he could be; and though tears would come, she gently said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.” “What,” said he, starting to his feet, “you love that child? I thought that when that child died you would break your heart. Here am I, a strong man; I am mad: here are you, a weak woman, and yet you are strong and bold; tell me what it is possesses you?” Said she, “Christ is my Lord, I trust in him; surely I can give this child to him who gave himself for me.” From that instant the man became a believer. “There must,” said he, “be some truth and some power in the gospel, which could lead you to believe in such a manner, under such a trial.” Tell Your Own Story. — There is never a more interesting story than that which a man tells about himself. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner derives much of its interest because the man who told it was himself a mariner. He sat down, that man whose finger was skinny, like the finger of death, and began to tell that dismal story of the ship at sea in a great calm, when slimy things did crawl with legs over the shiny sea. The wedding guest sat still to listen, for the old man was himself a story. There is always a great deal of interest excited by a personal narrative. Virgil, the poet, knew this, and, therefore, he wisely makes JEneas tell his own story, and makes him begin it by saying, “In which I also had a great part myself.” So if you would interest your friends, tell them what you felt yourself. Tell them how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with you, how you bowed your knees, and poured out your soul before God, and how at last you leaped with joy, for you thought you heard him say within you, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my name’s sake.” Tell your friends a story of your own personal experience.

An Old Saint’s Inspiring Testimony. — I recollect in my younger days hearing a minister, blind with age, speak at the communion table, and bear witness to us young people, who had just joined the church, that it was well for us that we had come to put our trust in a faithful God; and as the good man, with great feebleness and yet with great earnestness, said to us, that he had never regretted that he had given his heart to Christ as a boy, I felt my heart leap within me with delight that I had such a God to be my God. His testimony was such as a younger man could not have borne: he might have spoken more fluently, but the weight of those eighty years at the back of it made the old man eloquent to my young heart. We who are growing gray in our Master’s service ought not to be backward to speak well of his name. Why, my brethren, you will not be able to do so much good in heaven as you can on earth, for they all know about it up there, but men here need our witness to the God whom we have tried and proved.

Value of Testimony. — Often has a new convert written to a worldly friend to tell him of his great change and of his new joy, and that worldly friend has put the letter aside with a sneer or a jest; but after a while he has thought it over, and he has said to himself, “There may be something in it. I am a stranger to this joy of which my friend speaks, and I certainly need all the joy I can get, for I am dull enough.” Let me tell you that all worldlings are not such fools as some would take them for; they are aware of an unrest within their bosoms, and they hunger after something better than this vain world can give them; so that it frequently happens that as soon as they learn where the good is they accept it. Even if they do not hunger, I do not know any better way of making a man long for food than yourself to eat.

Bearing Testimony. — There was a spark once that got into the stubble, and the Angel of Discretion was there, and he said, “Stark, lie still, lie still, lie still; if you begin to consume, the next, and then the next, will get alight, and perhaps the whole threshing-floor will be in a blaze, and then the homestead, and then the village.” But preach as he might, the fire would burn, and the Angel of Discretion had well-nigh burned his wings be fore he had turned to flee. And so there be some in our churches who are very angels of prudence. “Young men,” say they, “don’t speak too soon; don’t attempt to do it till you are duly qualified.” My dear sirs, if God has communicated to any man the secret of salvation by grace he cannot help telling it; and if the Lord has touched a man’s tongue with a live coal, he will burn as well as the coal. If the new life has been given to him, it must find its way out, and be the means of conveying that life to others.

Experience of Aged Christians. — I recollect in a time of great despondency deriving wonderful comfort from the testimony of an aged minister who was blind, and had been so for twenty years. When he addressed us, he spoke of the faithfulness of God, with the weak voice of a tremulous old man, but with the firmness of one who knew what he said, because he had tasted and handled it. T thanked God for what he had said. It was not much in itself. If I had read it in a book, it would not have struck me; but as it came from him, from the very man who knew it and understood it, it came with force and with unction. So you experienced Christians, if any others are silent, you must not be. You must tell the young ones of what the Lord has done for you. Why, some of you good old Christian people are apt to get talking about the difficulties, troubles, and afflictions you have met with more than about the succors, the deliverances, and the joys you have proved; not unlike those persons in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who told poor Pilgrim about the lions, and giants, and dragons, and the sloughs, and hills, and all that could terrify and dishearten him. They might have mentioned all this, but they should also have told of Mr. Greatheart, and they should not have forgotten to speak of the eternal arm that sustains Christian in his pilgrimage. Tell the troubles, that were wise; but tell the strength of God that makes you sufficient, that is wiser still. Empty yourselves. If you have got experience, empty yourselves upon the earth.