^ A young girl of twelve years decided to become a Christian. She was one of a large family of children. The new purpose went down into the vitals of her sensitive nature, and became the over-mastering passion. She had less opportunity of schooling than some of the others. But in strong, gripping life-purpose, in mental keenness, in deep, tender sympathy, and in the achievement of her life, she has so far outstripped all the others of the family, parents and children alike, that there seems to be no second.*
* T. T. Hunger, Horace Bushnell, 27. ' Phillips Brooks, Seekiiig Life^ 198.
■ S. D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Home Ideals^ 248.
ST. JOHN III. 5 1^7
If A friend in America told me that in one of his after- meetings, a man came to him with a long list of questions written out for him to answer. He said : "If you can answer these questions satisfactorily, I have made up my mind to be a Christian." " Do you not think," said my friend, " that you had better come to Christ first ? Then you can look into these questions." The man thought that perhaps he had better do so. After he had received Christ, he looked again at his list of questions; but then it seemed to him as if they had all been answered. Nicodemus came with his troubled mind, and Christ said to him, " Ye must be born again." He was treated altogether differently from what he expected ; but I venture to say that was the most blessed night in all his life. To be " born again " is the greatest blessing that will ever come to us in this world.^
(5) Love. — We have now a new motive in life. Hitherto it has been only for ourselves that we have cared to live, and not even for our better selves, but just to gratify what our own fancies have dictated. And now this is changed. "Not your own " is our watchword ; to show forth the praises of Him who hath called us " out of darkness into his marvellous light " is our aim, so that, as it were, a new spirit is infused into us, and a new object set before us. This is the direct consequence of our acceptance of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, for " he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."
]f Love is the infallible mark of possessing eternal life in Christ. "We know," says the Apostle John, "that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren" — the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ; those that do the will of Jesus; we feel at home with them, and learn to love them, because they have the same Father, the same Elder Brother as ourselves.2
^ He that is born of the Spirit loves his neighbour as himself ; he knows nothing of the selfishness and uncharitableness and ill-nature of this world ; he loves his neighbour's property as bis own ; he would not injure it, nor stand by and see it injured ; he loves his neighbour's person as his own, and he would count no trouble ill bestowed if he could help or assist him ; he loves his neighbour's character as his own, and you will not hear him
1 D. L. Moody, The Wcnj to God, 39.
2 G. C. Grubb, Unsearchable Riches^ 32. ST. JOHN — 12
178 A NEW BEGINNING
speak a word against it, or allow it to be blackened by falsehoods if he can defend it ; and tlien he loves his neighbour's soul as his own, and he will not suffer him to turn his back on God without endeavouring to stop him by saying, " Oh, do not so!"i
^ I no longer stood aloof from men, and found pleasure in intellectual superiority ; I was willing to " become a fool for Christ's sake " if by any means I might save some. I issued a card of invitation to the services of my church with this motto of St. Paul's upon it, which I now felt was mine. I had had for years feelings of resentment towards one who, I thought, had wronged me; those feelings were now dead. In another case I had been harsh and unforgiving under great provocation; but when I met after a long interval of time the one who had injured me, my heart had only love and pity for him. I sought out the drunkard and the harlot, and, when I found them, all repulsion perished in the flow of infinite compassion which I felt. I prayed with fallen women, sought them in their miserable abodes, fought with them for their own souls, and 0 exquisite moment ! — I saw the soul awake in them, I saw in their tear-filled eyes the look that Jesus saw in the eyes of Magdalene. On my last Sabbath in London before leaving for America, one of these rescued girls, now as pure of look and manner as those most sweetly nurtured, called at my house to give my daughter a little present bought with the first money she had earned by honest toil in many years. On the day we sailed another said a special mass for us, and held the day sacred for prayer, in the convent where her bruised life had been nursed back to moral beauty. Love had triumphed in them, and I had brought them that love.2