'_The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say,
Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely._'
'_Let him that is athirst come!_'
'_Let him that heareth say, Come!_'
I have somewhere read that, out in the solitudes of the great dusty
desert, when a caravan is in peril of perishing for want of water, they
give one camel its head and let him go. The fine instincts of the animal
will lead him unerringly to the refreshing spring. As soon as he is but
a speck on the horizon, one of the Arabs mounts his camel and sets off
in the direction that the liberated animal has taken. When, in his turn,
he is scarcely distinguishable, another Arab mounts and follows. When
the loose camel discovers water, the first Arab turns and waves to the
second; the second to the third, and so on, until all the members of the
party are gathered at the satisfying spring. As each man sees the
beckoning hand, he turns and beckons to the man behind him. He that
sees, signals; he that hears, utters. It is the law of the life
everlasting; it is the fundamental principle of James Chalmers' text and
of James Chalmers' life.
'_Let him that is athirst come!_' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'so I
came!'
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
'Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink, and live.'
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.
'_And now I live in Him._' The life that James Chalmers lived in his
Lord was a life so winsome that he charmed all hearts, a life so
contagious that savages became saints beneath his magnetic influence. He
had heard, at Inverary, the Spirit and the Bride say, _Come!_ And he
esteemed it a privilege beyond all price to be permitted to make the
abodes of barbarism and the habitations of cruelty re-echo the matchless
music of that mighty monosyllable.