39. Last Invitation
Last Invitation
I LOVE THEE ALWAYS.—A mother, whose daughter had behaved very badly, and at length had run away from home, thought of a singular plan in order to find the wanderer. The mother had her own portrait fixed on a large handbill and posted where she supposed her daughter to be concealed. The portrait, without name, had these words: “I love thee always.” Crowds stopped before the strange handbill, trying to guess its meaning. Days elapsed, when a young girl at last passed by, and in her turn lifted her eyes to the singular notice. “Can it be? Yes, truly it is the picture of my mother. Those eyes, full of tenderness, I know from childhood. Why is it here?” She approaches nearer and reads: “I love thee still.” She understood that this was a message for her. Her mother loved her, pardoned her. Never had she felt her sin and ingratitude so deeply. She set out for home; at last she crosses the threshold and is in her mother’s arms. “My child!” cried the mother, as she presses her repentant daughter to her heart, “I have never ceased to love thee.”
CAMEL RIDER’S CALL.—When the caravans in the desert are in want of water, they are accustomed to send a camel with its rider some distance in advance. Then, after a time, follows another, and then at a short interval another. As soon as the first man finds water, almost before he stoops down to drink, he shouts aloud, “Come!” The next man hearing the call repeats it, “Come!” The nearest man again takes up the call “Come!” until the surrounding desert echoes with the word “Come.”
IT IS WRONG.—Parker gives an incident of his own experience. When four years of age he went with his father to a distant part of the farm, and, in returning home alone, passed a pond. A flower in full bloom attracted his attention and drew him to the water’s side. There he noticed a spotted turtle sunning himself He had never yet killed anything, but he had seen other boys engaged in that cruel sport, and he now felt a disposition to follow their example. He raised the stick which he had in his hand, and was about to strike the turtle, when a voice within him, clear and loud, said: “It is wrong.” He wondered at the new emotion and hastened home to ask his mother what it was that had said, “It is wrong.” She took him up in her arms, wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man.” WILL DO NO GOOD.—A man, over eighty years of age, said that he had been convicted when twenty-one years old, but put off the impressions by promise of future amendment. He said: “I believe that I sinned against the Holy Ghost when I was twenty-one, and that I have lived sixty years since my day of grace was past. I know that I shall not be forgiven.” When asked if he desired the prayer of a Christian, he replied: “It will do no good.” He continued in this state for weeks, and all attempts to urge him to accept salvation were in vain. The burden of his own thoughts, and his answer to others were, “It will do no good,” and thus he died.
SPIRIT’S OFFICE.—To unconverted persons, much of the Bible resembles a letter written in cipher. The Spirit’s office is to act as God’s decipherer, by letting His people into the secret of those sweet mysteries of grace which were before as a garden shut up, or as a fountain sealed, or as a book written in an unknown character. It is the Spirit’s influence that brings men to God, and leads them to yearn for something purer.