I know that I have your deepest sympathy in the longing which I now
express for this great gathering--namely, that God would give to us a
vision.
First: As to what the Bible really is. One of my friends told me the
other day of a blind girl who could not read because she had been too
busy and somehow had not thought that she could use the raised letters
which have been such a boon to God's blind children. I am told she
learned that she might read while on these grounds last summer. It was
made possible later on for her to have a teacher and she began to study
little books until she could read quite fluently. One day unknown to
her there was brought into her home a Bible with raised letters and
without telling what the book was it was opened at the fourteenth
chapter of John and she was bidden to read in it. She had no sooner
touched the page, her fingers enabling her to read, "Let not your heart
be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," than with radiant
face she exclaimed, "Why this is God's Word; the very touch of it is
different." I would that we might have this vision.
Second: I wish that we might have a vision of Christ. He is the
chiefest among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. He is a
mighty Savior and a mighty helper. I cannot bring him a burden too
great, nor talk to him about a trial too insignificant. Oh, that we
might see him as he is!
And finally, I wish that we might know what service is, for knowing
this we would be instant in season and out of season. Some years ago
Fannie Crosby, the blind hymn writer, was speaking in one of the
missions in New York City. Suddenly she stopped and said, "I wonder if
there is not some wandering boy in this audience this evening who would
have the courage to step out from this audience and come up and stand
by my side so that I might put my arms around him and kiss him for his
mother?" There was a hush upon the audience; then a boy from the rear
seat started and came to the platform, and with her arms around about
him and her lips against his cheek for his mother's sake, Fannie Crosby
said, "Oh, my friends, let us rescue the perishing." From this meeting
she went to her home, and sitting in her room wrote:
"Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave,
Weep o'er the erring one,
Lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save."
Years afterward she spoke in St. Louis at a great meeting and related
this incident. Before she had finished a man in the audience sprang to
his feet and said, "Miss Crosby, listen to me. I am a prosperous
merchant in this city, a husband and a father, a Christian and an
officer in the church. I was that boy around whom you threw your
arms." Such an experience as that is worth a lifetime of service. I
wish to put myself on record. I know that many of you are with me. I
stand for nothing in these days that would in the least obscure men's
vision of the power of God, or their vision of the glorious majesty of
the Son of God, and I count nothing worth while except to do that thing
which would mean the winning of a soul to Jesus Christ.
I believe God is giving to some men in these days a vision as to what
may be accomplished if only a mighty work of grace should be given to
us. He certainly is ready to pour out his Spirit upon his own people,
and it is only necessary that we should first of all realize our
weakness, then understand his power, realize that souls are lost and
dying and then know that he is able to save to the uttermost; and above
all to realize that in all ages he has used human instruments for the
accomplishment of his purposes, and realizing these things to see that
our lives are right in his sight, to have such a victory for God as the
world has never seen. For this day we hope and pray and cry aloud, "O
Lord, how long, how long?"