Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service

by Catharine Esther Beecher

and ask what they should do, to be cured of that sickness. A variety of answers would be given. It would be said, you must “turn and repent” of your past neglect—you must “submit” to this physician—you must “believe” in this physician—you must “have faith” in this physician.

All these directions mean the same thing, that is, you must come to the physician for his directions, and then you must obey them. Merely believing that his prescriptions are good, or going to get them, without obeying them, is “faith without works, which is dead, being alone.”

Now this illustrates exactly the state of things in this world. God has created us to be happy, and this is the great aim of all his dealings with us. But the only way for us to be happy is, to form that holy, benevolent, self-denying character which Christ came to exhibit on earth. Such a character as this, none of us have, when we are born. On the contrary, we all form habits of living merely to seek our own selfish enjoyments. Young children find it hard to practise any self-denial, even for

their own good, and we all find it hard to practise self-denial for the good of others. And yet, submission of the will to God, and self-denial in securing our own good, and in doing good to others, are habits that are indispensable to our present and eternal happiness.

Now, Jesus Christ came into the world to save it from that long, lingering disease, which will certainly end in eternal death, if not remedied before we leave this world. And he comes to creatures, who have long been living in entire neglect of his advice and requirements, and in his holy word, he teaches them how to be healed.

You now can understand that all the directions given, mean one and the same thing. We become Christians when we submit to Christ as our Lord, and set out to obey his commands. And the terms “to become pious” and “to become religious,” mean the same thing. We “repent” when we are sorry for past neglect, and show that we are sorry by our future obedience. To be “converted” means to be “turned about,” and this is done when we cease to neglect the directions of Christ and

begin to obey them. To be “born again” means, to come into a new state of being, and this is true of us, when we cease to live for ourselves and begin to live for Christ. We “submit to God” when we take Jesus Christ as our Lord and Master, and submit our will in all things to his. When we are much engaged in any thing, we say we “give our whole heart to it,” and when we cease to give the feelings of our hearts to our own pleasures, and become most interested in pleasing Christ, then we have “a new heart,” that is, our chief interest is entirely changed. We were most interested in pleasing ourselves, but now we are most interested in doing the will of Christ. So we “believe in Christ,” and “have faith” in him, when we not only seek to know his will, but earnestly endeavor to do it.

So you perceive, my friends, there is no real confusion or difficulty in this matter. You can all of you begin, this very day, to be the followers of Jesus Christ, and thus to walk in that path, which secures true peace in this life, and eternal happiness beyond the grave. I hope, therefore, if you have not done it before, that

you will, this very day, take the Bible, which contains the directions of Christ, and go to your room and resolve to begin immediately to serve Christ, and pray to him to help you to persevere. And then every day, go alone and read in this blessed book, and pray for help in trying to conform all your conduct to it. This is the way to begin to be a Christian, and keeping on thus, and improving every day more and more, is the way “to grow in grace.”

But you will ask, perhaps, Can I convert myself? Is it not the Holy Spirit that changes the heart? To this I reply: No, you cannot convert yourselves, and it is the Spirit of God that changes the heart. All your determinations, and good resolutions, and continued efforts would be of no avail, without the help of God’s Spirit. But you have got one part to do, and the Bible teaches us thus, on this point: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do, of his own good pleasure.”