It is very difficult to excuse Mr. Rodwell, especially when we remember
that the words that the dying doctor found so captivating, and that he
himself found so perplexing, were originally intended to meet just such
cases as that of Dr. Blund.
'What is it to be _born again_? How can a man be _born again_?' asked
the voice from the bed.
'How can a man _be born_ when he is old?' asked Nicodemus, as he heard
the Saviour's words uttered for the first time.
'When he is old!' To Nicodemus, as to Dr. Blund, there was something
singularly attractive about the thought of babyhood, the thought of
pastlessness, the thought of beginning life all over again. But to the
aged ruler, as to the aged doctor, it was an insoluble enigma, an
inscrutable mystery.
'_How?_' asked Nicodemus of the Saviour. '_How_ can a man _be born_ when
he is old?'
'_How?_' asked Dr. Blund of Mr. Rodwell. '_How_ can a man be _born
again_?'
We all feel that, unless the gospel can meet just such cases as these,
we might almost as well have no gospel at all. And yet we have also felt
the force of that persistent and penetrating _How?_
Dr. Blund is no frolic of Mr. Begbie's imagination. Dr. Blund is the
representative of all those--and their name is legion--who, in the
crisis of the soul's secret history, have turned towards the Saviour's
strange saying with the most intense wistfulness and yearning. Let me
cite three instances--each as unlike the others as it could possibly
be--in order to show that all sorts and conditions of men have at some
time felt as Dr. Blund felt in those last hours of his. John Bunyan, the
tinker of Bedford, was born in the _seventeenth_ century; the Duke of
Wellington, soldier and statesman, was born in the _eighteenth_ century;
Frederick Charrington, the London brewer, was born in the _nineteenth_
century. From a great cloud of available witnesses I select these three.
As to John Bunyan, the story of the beginnings of grace in the dreamer's
soul is familiar to us all, but it will do us no harm to hear it from
his own lips once again. 'Upon a day,' he says, 'the good providence of
God called me to Bedford, to work at my calling; and in one of the
streets of that town I came to where there were three or four poor women
sitting in the sun talking about the things of God; and being now
willing to hear them discourse, I drew near to hear what they said; but
I heard, yet understood not; they were far above, out of my reach; for
their talk was about _a new birth_!'
'_Their talk was about a new birth!_'
'_Ye must be born again!_'
'_I heard_,' says Bunyan, '_but I understood not!_'
'At this,' he goes on to say, 'at this I felt my heart begin to shake,
for I saw that in all my thoughts about salvation, _the new birth_ did
never enter into my mind!'
Thus the soul of the sleeper awoke. He walked the streets of Bedford
asking the old, old question, the question of Nicodemus, the question of
Dr. Blund, the question of us all. 'How can a man be _born again_? How
can a man be _born again_?'
From John Bunyan to the Duke of Wellington seems a far cry. But the
transition may not be as drastic as it appears. Dr. W. H. Fitchett, who
has made a special study of the character and achievements of the great
Duke, recently told the story of a remarkable and voluminous
correspondence that took place between Wellington and a young lady named
Miss Jenkins. To this earnest and devout girl, her faith was the biggest
thing in life. She had but one passionate and quenchless desire: the
desire to share it with others. She sought for converts everywhere. A
murderer awaited execution in the local gaol. Miss Jenkins obtained
permission to visit him. She entered the condemned cell, pleaded with
him, wept over him, won him to repentance, and the man went to the
scaffold blessing her.
Then, from the winning of the lowest, she turned to the winning of the
highest. She fastened her eyes upon the Duke of Wellington, the victor
of Waterloo, the statesman of the hour, the most commanding figure in
the three kingdoms. Wellington was then sixty-five, a man covered with
honor and absorbed in public affairs. But, to Miss Jenkins, he was
simply a great worldly figure, and, in 1834, she wrote a letter--a
letter winged by many prayers--warning him of the peril of living
without a sure, deep consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, through
the redemption of Jesus Christ. Wellington's iron nature was strongly
moved. He replied by return of post, and thus inaugurated a
correspondence in the course of which he wrote to Miss Jenkins no fewer
than three hundred and ninety letters. In the course of this amazing
correspondence, Miss Jenkins begged for an interview, and it was
granted. Miss Jenkins took out her New Testament and read to the old
warrior these very words. '_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a
man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!_' 'Here,' says Dr.
Fitchett, in unfolding the story, 'here was a preacher of quite a new
type! A girl's lips were reciting Christ's tremendous words: "_Ye must
be born again!_" She was addressing them directly to him, and her
uplifted finger was challenging him. Some long-dormant religious
sensibilities awoke within him. The grace of the speaker, and the mystic
quality of the thing spoken, arrested him.' To the end of his days the
Duke firmly believed that, by means of this girl-prophet, God Himself
spoke to his soul that day.
Mr. Frederick Charrington's story has been put on record by Guy Thorne.
He was the son of the great brewer, the heir to more than a million
pounds, and his time was very largely his own. He traveled and formed
friendships. One of his earliest friends was Lord Garvagh. They traveled
together, and, when they parted, Lord Garvagh asked Charrington if he
would grant him one request. 'When you are quite alone,' his lordship
pleaded, 'I should like you to read slowly and carefully the third
chapter of John's Gospel!' Later on, Charrington met William Rainsford,
and the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. 'Do you know what I wish you
would do, Fred?' Rainsford said to him one day. 'I wish, when you are by
yourself, that you would study the third chapter of the Gospel of John!'
'This is a very curious thing,' Charrington said to himself. 'My old
friend, Lord Garvagh, and my new friend, Rainsford, both say exactly the
same thing; and they both profess to be saved.'
Thus doubly challenged, he read the chapter with the closest attention,
and was arrested by the words: '_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except
a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!_' 'As I read,' he
says, 'light came into my soul,' and he ever afterwards regarded that
moment as the turning-point of his whole life.