“And did he really escape, and did his merciful Friend really stay and die for him?” cried young Browne.
“You may turn to your Bibles for an answer to that question, and there see who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities; who came to us when we lay in deep condemnation, and saved us by giving his life for us!”
“I begin to understand your meaning,” said Nayland, thoughtfully; “but I never dreamed before that I was a rebel, that I was in danger of punishment, or needed such a Friend to suffer what my sins had deserved.”
“And the white robe is the garment of the Lord’s righteousness?” murmured Seth.
“Yes,” said Thorn; “that which we must wear if we would quit the prison, or pass safely the executioner, Justice. And this brings me to the point which I wished to explain, that salvation is only from the Lord, and that yet we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Who can deny that the prisoner owed his escape wholly and entirely to the mercy of his Friend?”
“No one,” exclaimed several voices; “he had no power to help himself at all.”
“But now, suppose that the prisoner, while yet beneath the shadow of his dungeon, should throw away his disguise as something quite unneeded, should forget his watchword, turn away from his guide, and, notwithstanding the last earnest warning from his Deliverer, hasten to join the rebels again?”
“He would be ungrateful, wicked, mad to do so!” cried the boys; and Nayland added, “He would deserve to be dragged back to his dungeon, and suffer a worse fate than if he never had left it.”
“It is so,” said Thorn; “and so it will be when the Lord comes to judge the earth. Those who, having tasted of the Saviour’s mercy, still persist in joining His foes—who put aside His perfect righteousness, and choose the ways that He has condemned, not repenting of or forsaking those sins which cost His precious life, will be more severely judged than the heathen who have never known Him or His laws.”
“There is one thing which I should like to know,” lisped the youngest child in the school: “What was put in the paper which the kind Friend gave to the poor prisoner just as he set him free?”