§ 4. Its Reality and Importance.
And the experience of the whole Church, the biographies of the saints in every denomination, assure us of the substantial truth of this description. Even in churches which are not Orthodox,—churches like our own, which insist more upon development than upon crisis,—observation verifies this description. Even those who do not expect such a change, nor believe in it, often come to it unexpectedly. In the course of each one's experience as a Christian minister, though he may never have insisted on the importance of sudden changes, and though he may be no revival preacher, he must have known numerous instances of those who seem to have passed from death to life in the course of a day or an hour. And is not this change, either sudden or gradual, that which makes Christianity a gospel? It is the good news, not of a future and distant heaven, but of a present heaven,—a heaven not outward, but inward; a present salvation from the power of sin; a present relief from the sense of guilt; a present joy [pg 178] and peace in believing; happiness in serving God; sympathy and good-will to man, instead of envy and uncharitableness; peace with God, with man, with ourselves, with our condition and circumstances.
That such a state is possible for every human being who desires it, is the good news which Christ brings; and the experience of ten thousand times ten thousand grateful hearts declares that it is a reality.