“Only by the strength that God gives in proportion to our needs, dear little wife,” Edward answered, holding her close and caressing her with great tenderness. “He is ever faithful to his promise to his people. ‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be.’”
“But I cannot claim that promise,” she sobbed, laying her head on his shoulder, while he clasped her close. “But I want to be a Christian. My heart goes out in love and gratitude to him for sparing to me my life, my dear babies, and most of all my best and dearest of husbands.”
“And I should be very, very desolate without you and yours, love,” he returned with emotion; “I cannot feel that I could do without you even in another world. Ah, dearest, why delay any longer? why not come now—at this moment—and give yourself to God? Surely you cannot refuse, cannot hesitate when you think of all his loving-kindness to you and yours.”
“I do want to be his,” she said, “but the way does not seem quite clear to me; can you not tell me just how?”
“It is very simple. Just tell him that you are a lost, helpless sinner, ask him to forgive your sins and save you from them. David’s prayer was, ‘Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.... Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me’—petitions that he is both able and willing to grant. He says, ‘him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’ Delay is very dangerous, dearest, as the experience of this evening may well convince us; we are sure of no time but the present. ‘Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.’”
A moment of silence followed, broken at length by a few low-toned words from Zoe: “I want to do it, dear Ned. Let us kneel down together, and you say the words for me. I will follow you in my heart, for I do want to belong to the dear Lord Jesus from this time forever.”
They knelt down with their arms about each other, and in a few earnest words he expressed for her her sense of sin, her desire to be delivered from it, and to consecrate herself with all her powers and possessions to God’s service, for time and for eternity.
Zoe followed with a fervent “Amen! Dear Lord Jesus, take me for thy very own, and let me be thine, wholly thine, forever and forevermore.”