"The gospel speaks nothing of our works or of the works of the law, but
of the inestimable mercy and love of God towards most wretched and
miserable sinners. Our most merciful Father, seeing us overwhelmed and
oppressed with the curse of the law, and so to be holden under the same,
that we could never be delivered from it by our own power, sent his only
Son into the world, and laid upon him the sins of all men, saying, 'Be
thou Peter, that denier; Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel
oppressor; David, that adulterer; that sinner that did eat the apple in
Paradise; that thief that hanged upon the cross; and briefly, be thou
the person that hath committed the sins of all men, and pay and satisfy
for them.' For God trifleth not with us, but speaketh earnestly and of
great love, that Christ is the Lamb of God who beareth the sins of us
all. He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus."
I could answer nothing to this, but walked along pondering these words.
Neither did he say any more at that time.
The sun was sinking low, and the long shadows of the pine trunks were
thrown athwart our green forest-path, so that we were glad to find a
charcoal-burner's hut, and to take shelter for the night beside his
fires.
But that night I could not sleep; and when all were sleeping around me,
I rose and went out into the forest.
Brother Martin is not a man to parade his inmost conflicts before the
eyes of others, to call forth their sympathy or their idle wonder. He
has suffered too deeply and too recently for that. It is not lightly
that he has unlocked the dungeons and torture-chambers of his past life
for me. It is as a fellow-sufferer and a fellow-soldier, to show me how
I also may escape and overcome.
It is surely because he is to be a hero and a leader of men that God has
caused him to tread these bitter ways alone.
A new meaning dawns on old words for me. There is nothing new in what he
says, but it seems new to me, as if God had spoken it first to-day; and
all things seem made new in its light.
God, then, is more earnest for me to be saved than I am to be saved!
"He so loved the world, that he gave his Son."
He loved not saints, not penitents, not the religious, not those who
love him; but "the _world_," secular men, profane men, hardened rebels,
hopeless wanderers and sinners!
He gave not a mere promise, not an angel to teach us, not a world to
ransom us, but his Son--his Only-begotten!
So much did God love the world, sinners, me! I believe this; I must
believe it; I believe in him who says it. How can I then do otherwise
than rejoice?
Two glorious visions rise before me and begin to fill the world and all
my heart with joy.
I see the Holiest, the Perfect, the Son made the victim, the lamb, the
curse, willingly yielding himself up to death on the cross for me.
I see the Father--inflexible in justice yet delighting in
mercy--accepting him, the spotless Lamb whom he had given; raising him
from the dead; setting him on his right hand. Just, beyond all my
terrified conscience could picture him, he justifies me the sinner.
Hating sin as love must abhor selfishness, and life death, and purity
corruption, he loves me--the selfish, the corrupt, the dead in sins. He
gives his Son, the Only-begotten, for me; he accepts his Son, the
spotless Lamb, for me; he forgives me; he acquits me; he will make me
pure.
The thought overpowered me. I knelt among the pines and spoke to Him who
hears when we have no words, for words failed me altogether then.
MUNICH, _May_ 18.
All the next day and the next that joy lasted. Every twig, and bird, and
dew-drop spoke in parables to me; sang to me the parable of the son who
had returned from the far country, and as he went towards his father's
house prepared his confession; but never finished the journey, for the
father met him when he was yet a great way off; and never finished the
confession, for the father stopped his self-reproaches with embraces.
And on the father's heart what child could say, "Make me as one of thy
hired servants?"
I saw His love shining in every dew-drop on the grassy forest glades; I
heard it in the song of every bird; I felt it in every pulse.
I do not know that we spoke much during those days, Brother Martin and
I.
I have known something of love; but I have never felt a love that so
fills, overwhelms, satisfies, as this love of God. And when first it is
"thou and I" between God and the soul, for a time, at least, the heart
has little room for other fellowship.
But then came doubts and questionings. Whence came they! Brother Martin
said from Satan.
"The devil is a wretched, unhappy spirit," said he, "and he loves to
make us wretched."
One thing that began to trouble me was, whether I had the right kind of
faith. Old definitions of faith recurred to me, by which faith is said
to be nothing unless it is informed with charity and developed into good
works, so that when it saith we are justified by faith, the part is
taken for the whole--and it means by faith, also hope, charity, all the
graces, and all good works.