(b) Two other well - known and strongly con- trasted types are those of sudden and gradual or, as it is sometimes called, nurtural conversion. Of the former the NT afibrds numerous examples ; indeed, nearly all the NT conversions are evidently sudden in their mode. It does not follow, however, that we should take this to be the ordinary, much less the only legitimate type. In NT times it lay in the nature of the case that conversion should be sudden. The gospel made its appeal at first to those who had grown up in a world ruled by principles the very opposite of those of the Divine Kingdom, and the transition from either Judaism or paganism to Christianity was bound to be of the nature of an absolute and sudden break. And such conversions, of course, are common still, in Christian lands as well as in the mission field, — in the case of those who find themselves standing face to face at last with the ChrLst of Avhom they have never heard before, or of whom they have never rightly thought, or whose grace, though long familiar enough, they have hitherto deliberately resisted. Then constantly there takes place, as Henry Drummond said, ' an experience which words are not allowed to utter — a something like the sudden snapping of a chain, the waking from a dream ' ( Nat. Law in the Spir. World, 94).
It is different in the case of those who from infancy have been brought up under the nurturing care of the Christian Church and a Christian home, and who iiave almost unconsciously been respond- ing to tliis n^^rtura! treatment. Timothy suggests to us an example in NT times of gradual or nurtural conversion (Ac 16\ 1 Ti P) ; though it was through St. Paul's teaching, no doubt, that his early training blossomed into the flower of a rich personal faith (I Co 4"). In later times nurtural conversions become (-ommon ; and under ideal conditions of Christian education they may be regarded as the normal type. When one has been born in a Christian home, dedicated to Christ in infancy, surrounded continually by a Christian atmosphere, and so lias learned ' from a child ' to know and love and follow Jesus, a sudden and startling conversion is not to be looked for. Christians with such a history (;an seldom tell the day and hour of their conversion. And yet the name of ' conversion ' is not to be withheld from certain experiences that have usually come into such lives. For the un-
74
TURNING
TYRE
conscious Christianity of childhood needs to be transformed into the conscious Christianity of developed character. There may be no day and hour that can be named, but there is generally a pretty Avell-defined period when the hrst instinctive love anil faith and obedience pass into the deliberate attitude of the surrendered will.
Modern students of the psychology of religious experience have proved to how large an extent what we call ' conversion ' is associated with those physiological and psychological changes that belong to the transition from childhood to dawning man- hood or womanhood. This transition is not a sudilen process, not a thing of a day or an hour. It covers a considerable period, but in that period a momentous work is going on. And in those days there comes to every young soul that has been well nurtured a new feeling of the beauty and mystery of life, and a fresh sense also of the possibilities that life offers of good as well as of evil. The old Greek stories about the parting of the ways and the choice of youth are not only perennially true, but have a special Christian application. Even those who have learned from their earliest child- hood to love and honour Christ as their Saviour and Lord do not escape the need for a critical decision. When the time conies for taking up the free development of character, Jesus Christ stands at the parting of the ways ; and though He knows of very many that they have been following Him hitherto. He asks whether they are going to forsake Him now or follow Him still. When a young heart replies, like Simon Peter of old (Jn 6^^'-), 'Lord, to whom shall we go ? thou hast the words of eternal life,' that heart has turned consciously and deliber- ately to Christ. Of such conversions there are nmltitudes ; for in order to conversion a soul does not need to be violently plucked up by the roots and transplanted to another soil. It is enough if, knowing what it does, it turns joyfully to Christ, as the flower turns to follow the pathway of the sun.
(c) The question is sometimes raised whether it is possible for a man to be converted more than once ; and point is given to the inquiry by the fact that in the night in which He was betrayed the Lord said to Peter, ' When once thou has turned again (AV ' when thou art converted '), stablish thy brethren ' (Lk 22^2). It is impossible, however, to suppose that that process of conversion which is the full equivalent on the human side for the Divine act of regeneration is an experience that can be repeated. And in the case of St. Peter, it is evident from the Gospels that the definite yielding of his will to Christ took place at the beginning of the Lord's ministry, and not after the ministry was ended. But these words of Jesus to His Apostle suggest that while conversion in the express and primary sense can be experienced only once, there are secondary conversions, of one kind or another, that may fall within the compass of a true Christian life. One such is when a Christian man, as in Peter's case, has fallen into grievous sin, but repents and turns to Christ again, not only ' with grief and hatred of his sin,' but with a fuller pur- pose of new obedience than he ever cherished before. This is that repentance of a Christian man which St. Paul describes in 2 Co 7"— a repent- ance which may work in him such indignation against himself, such vehement desire to make amends for his backsliding, and as it were to be ' avenged ' upon it, that he may become in many respects a stronger Christian than he was before, and thus better able to stablish and strengthen his brethren. Another type of secondary conversion is when a man, without the quickening spur of repent- ance for some great backsliding, comes to a fuller realization of Christ's claim upon him for the