Christie Redfern's Troubles

by Margaret M. Robertson

And she did go, after all, though the weather was so forbidding.

Christie’s first thought, when she entered the church, was that their hall-clock had gone wrong and made her late; for already there was scarcely a vacant seat, and it was not without difficulty that she found her way to the place she was accustomed to occupy. There were strangers in the pew, and strangers before her and around her; and with a shy and wondering feeling Christie took up her hymn-book.

The great multitude that filled the seats and thronged the aisles were waiting impatiently to hear the sound of a voice hitherto unheard among them. Christie sent now and then a curious glance over the crowded seats and aisles, and up to the galleries, from which so many grave, attentive faces looked down; but even when the stillness which followed the hum and buzz of the coming in of the congregation was broken by the clear, grave tones of a stranger’s voice, it never occurred to her that it was the voice of one whose eloquence had gathered and held many a multitude before. In a little while she forgot the crowd and everything else. At first she strained her short-sighted eyes in the direction of the voice, eagerly but vainly. But this soon ceased; and by the time the singing and the prayers were over, she only listened.

To many in the house that day, the word spoken by God’s servant was as “a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument.” To many it was a stumbling-block, and to many more foolishness. But to the weary child, who sat there with her head bowed down, and her face hidden in her hands, it was “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.” She forgot the time, the place, and the gathered multitude. She forgot her own weakness and weariness. She forgot even the speaker in the words he spoke. In a little while she grew unconscious of the tears she had tried to hide, and her hands fell down on her lap, and her wet cheeks and smiling lips were turned towards the face that her dim eyes failed to see.

I cannot tell what were the words that so moved her. It was not that the thoughts were new or clothed in loftier language than she was wont to hear. It was the old but ever new theme, set forth in the old true way, reverently and simply, by lips which—long ago touched by a coal from the altar—had answered to the heavenly voice, “Here am I; send me.” It was God’s love, intimated by many a sign and made visible by many a token, but first and best of all by this, that “He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up to die for us all.”

No, the words were neither new nor strange; and yet they seemed to be both to her. It was not as though she were listening to spoken words. There seemed to be revealed to her, as in a vision, a glimpse of mysteries into which the angels desire to look. Her eyes were open to see God’s plan of salvation in its glorious completeness, Christ’s finished work in all its suitableness and sufficiency, His grace in all its fullness and freeness. Oh, that wondrous grace! Angels gaze from afar, while ascribing to its Author greatness and power and glory. But the redeemed have a higher and more thrilling song put into their mouths.

“Unto Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us!” they sing; and then and there this child had a foretaste of their unspeakable blessedness. It was as “the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely,” that she saw Him now; and love supreme, and entire trust and peacefulness, took possession of her heart. Very sinful, and weak and unworthy she saw herself to be; but she saw also that the grace that can pardon, justify, purify, and save is the more glorious on that very account. Her sins no longer rose between her and God. They were removed from her “as far as the east is from the west.” They were cast altogether behind His back, to be remembered against her no more for ever.

If before to-day Christie had been one of Christ’s little ones—if she had had a place in the fold, and had now and then caught a glimpse of the green pastures and the still waters where the “Good Shepherd” leads His flock—it was to-day for the first time that she realised the blessedness of her calling. Her little Bible, and her murmured prayer night and morning, amid the sleeping children, had more than any other thing, more than all other things together, helped her quietly and cheerfully through the weary winter. Clinging now to one promise, and now to another, she had never been quite without the light and help that seemed to come from above. But to-day it was not a solitary promise. It was not even the sense that all the promises to God’s people from generation to generation were hers to rely upon. It was the blessedness of the knowledge that began to dawn, like heaven’s own light, upon her, the knowledge that she was no longer her own, but His who had bought her with a price—His to have and to hold, in sorrow and joy, through life and in death, henceforth and for ever. Now, “neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, could separate her from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Silently, with the thoughtful or thoughtless multitude, she passed from the house of prayer. Yet her soul was sending up a song of praise that reached the heaven of heavens. A forlorn little figure she must have seemed to any chance eye that rested on her as she picked her way among the pools that had settled here and there on the pavement. It was only by a great effort that she held her own against the wind and rain, that threatened to carry away her shawl, and rendered vain her attempts to shield her faded crape bonnet with a still more faded umbrella. If one among the crowd who met or passed her on her way took any notice of her at all, it must have been to smile at or to pity her. Yet over her angels in the high heavens were rejoicing. In her heart was the peace that passeth understanding, soon to blossom forth into joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Heedless alike of smiles and pity, she hastened along, unconscious of discomfort. Even the near approach to the house, and the thought of the peevish children and the dim attic-nursery, had no power to silence the song that her grateful soul was singing. She went up the stone steps without her accustomed sigh of weariness; and the face that greeted Mrs Greenly as she opened the door, though pale enough, and wet with rain-drops, was a very pleasant face for any one to see.