Life in the Eagle's Nest

by A. L. O. E.

Walter spoke with the enthusiasm of one who has devoted seven of the best years of his life to the evangelisation of a despised race, and who sees of what that race is capable.

"You must have encountered immense difficulties," observed Mr. Coldstream, after a break in the conversation, caused by the extreme steepness of the rocky way, which at this part necessitated actual climbing.

"I could never have surmounted them in my own strength," said Walter. "When I look back, it is as I see that you are now doing, on the path which we have traversed,—wondering how I ever was enabled to gain the point which I have reached. God has led me step by step."

"And are your robbers actually transformed into anything like Christians?" inquired Mr. Coldstream.

"I own that some of the converts remind me of Lazarus, when called from the grave; they are living, but with their grave-clothes clinging around them. It is difficult to persuade men to whom theft has been a profession, and revenge a virtue, that these are sins to be repented of and forsaken. I have been under a great disadvantage; I have only had the New Testament with me; for whatever related to the older Scriptures I have had to trust my memory."

"This has been a serious disadvantage, indeed," said the missionary. "The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; both Jew and Christian have had its teachings from childhood, and even where conversion has not followed, it has raised the moral tone. To the heathen and Moslem we preach Christ crucified, and we do well, for the very sum and substance of the Gospel is contained in these two blessed words. But this seed of Truth, when received by those previously ignorant of the requirements of God's holy law, often springs up as I have seen an early crocus in England, when called forth by the beams of the sun, from ground on which snow still lingers. There is the bright blossom, and its very existence proves that it has a root; but it is destitute of leaves or stalk. Thus its beauty is often marred, and its purity soiled by earth."

"I see your meaning," said Walter, "and my own small experience confirms it. There is the flower of love, the root of faith; but the strong upright stem of conscientiousness appears to be wanting."

"It is on account of this," observed Mr. Coldstream, "that amongst converts from heathenism there is often conversion without any deep conviction of sin,—without the knowledge of the law we know not what sin is. In England, when the drunkard, the blasphemer, or the thief is brought to the light, his first feeling is usually horror at the blackness of his own sins. He abhors himself, and pours out his soul in penitent sorrow; he regards himself as a brand plucked from the burning, and dreads the flames of sin in which he so nearly has perished. As far as my experience goes, this deep sense of guilt is rare in our converts. The heart is touched, but not the conscience. They who have never listened to the thunders of Sinai have the love of Christ, but the fear of God is wanting. The missionary can no more leave such converts to themselves, than a mother can leave her babe. He rejoices at first in their simple faith, he thanks God for a new-born soul—till startled by some strange inconsistency which makes him, perhaps, doubt that faith, and fear that spiritual life itself is wanting. The pendulum of his feelings then may sway from the one extreme of excessive hope, into the opposite—and more dangerous one—of discouragement, if not despair."

"And what should the missionary learn from this painful experience?" asked Walter.

"Much patience, much watchfulness, and much prayer. Patience with those who never in childhood had the clear outlines which divide right and wrong marked out before their eyes—those who have breathed, as it were, a polluted atmosphere from their earliest days, and are therefore scarcely sensible of its evil. Watchfulness, to guard the weak ones as far as possible from temptation, and, by careful teaching, try to supply the want of early training. With these, earnest prayer for the Holy Spirit, who alone can purify the human heart—that long desecrated and polluted temple."