But the beginning was before that, he showed them. The beginning was when, because of sin, man’s need began—when the first promise was given, and God said “that the woman’s seed should bruise the head of the serpent.” He showed them how, the Divine law being broken, Divine justice required satisfaction, and how One had said, “Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God!” He went on from promise to promise, from prophecy to prophecy, showing how all that went before was but a preparation for the coming of Him who was promised, who was “to save His people from their sins.”
Much that had been mysterious, even meaningless, in the things which they had read—the sacrifices, the ceremonies, the prophecies—became significant and beautiful as types of Him who was both sacrifice and priest, dying that His people might live. The old man did not use many words, and almost all of them were words with which the reading of the Bible had made them familiar, but they came to them with new meaning and power from his lips.
He told them how the ages had been waiting for Him who was called “Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace;” and how, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son;” how “He bare our griefs, and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”
He spoke to them of Him as the son of Mary, as the babe in Bethlehem, and yet the Leader and Commander of His people. He reminded them how He lived and suffered; how He spake wonderful words, and did wonderful works; how He pitied, and taught, and healed the people; how He loved them, and how He died for them at last.
At last? No, that was not the last. He told them how the grave, that had held in bonds all the generations that had passed away, had no power to hold Him; how He had broken the chains of death, nay, had slain death, and how He had ascended up to heaven, to be still the Priest of His people, and their King. He told them that it was His delight to pardon and receive sinners who came to Him; that He would not only pardon and save from the punishment of sin, but take away the power of sin over the heart; so that instead of loving it, and yielding to it, sin would become hateful to the forgiven child of God, because God hated it. He told them how God kept His people safe in the midst of a world at enmity with Him, and how all things were theirs, because they were Christ’s; and how nothing, “neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
He told them that He was preparing a place for those who had loved Him, and that Death—no longer an enemy—was to come as His messenger to take them into His presence, there to dwell for evermore. And most wonderful, all this was God’s free gift. None were too sinful, or weak, or wayward, to be saved by Him, who asked only to be trusted and loved by those to whom He freely offered so much. Wonderful indeed, beyond the power of words to utter.
“Mama,” said Selina, touching her mother’s hand, “I think I see it now.”
The mother turned her eyes from the radiant face of the blind girl to the face of the stranger again.
“Will you trust Him?” asked he gently. “He is able and willing to save.”
“May I?” said she eagerly; “I, who can do nothing? I, who have never in all my life thought about these things? Ah! if it were possible!”