I felt the difficulty of suiting such an audience, and as I turned over the pages of the book, had to encourage myself by the thought, “Never mind; it is God’s Word, and not yours.” I began by saying that amongst the many different characters who came to Jesus, when He was upon earth, there was one in particular, mentioned in the 3d chapter of St John, whose history would interest us. He differed from others in this respect, that he was not a poor man. He was a Ruler among the Jews,—a master of Israel; but that did not much signify, since we need in our smaller affairs the same wisdom that he was seeking to enable him to be a better Ruler.
Now, though this man wished to be wiser and better, he thought it would never do for the people, who looked up to him as their Ruler and Guide, to see him going to Jesus to be taught just like any common man; so at last he thought of the plan of seeing Jesus by night. In this way, he hoped he should get what he wanted, without making his visit known to other people. Many teachers would have said, “Well, as you are ashamed to be seen coming to me, you had better not come at all.” But Jesus did not think of the affront put upon Himself; He only saw before Him a man whose heart was not right with God, who was not safe for heaven. I dare say, too, that as Jesus knew all that was passing in the mind of this Ruler, He knew that he had not come to Him for heavenly knowledge only. He rather perhaps wished to learn from Jesus some arts of government, by which he could obtain a greater influence over the people. He would have liked to have known how long the Jews were to be in subjection to the Romans, and many other things of that kind. But Jesus had made this man’s soul, and knew its worth; knew it as a fact that it must live for ever, and that, if He helped him now to gain or to govern the whole world, it would be of some little use to him for a few prosperous years, and then would come the blackness of darkness for ever. Therefore, without taking any notice of Nicodemus’s compliments, whatever they may have meant, He lost not a moment in announcing to His wondering disciple the great and solemn truth, “Ye must be born again.”
After explaining this to them as well as I could, together with a few of the following verses, we came to the words,—“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” I turned to the chapter in Numbers, giving the account of this. From the intense interest with which these men listened to this simply as a narrative, I was led to suppose that to some of them it might be new. I told them I once saw a picture of this extraordinary story. In one corner of the picture was the pole with the serpent lifted upon it. Strong men, women, and little children were there; some in great agony, as if just bitten; others perfectly prostrate, with the hue of death upon their faces. Mothers were standing with little children in their arms, trying to raise the head that seemed to have drooped in death, and to rouse it just for one look. But that which struck me most was the figure of a man standing before an apparently dying woman. He had something in his hand, to which he endeavoured to draw her attention; and his figure was placed exactly between her and the brazen serpent, so that without stretching her head either to the one side or the other, she could not see the object from which alone she was to derive life. The artist had made it appear that, with the little dying strength which remained, she was trying to move herself out of the way of this hindrance; and as I continued to look at the picture, so strongly was I impressed, that I felt myself saying, “This man must be got out of the way, or she will die.”
“In thinking over this afterwards,” I continued, “it occurred to me that there were many now acting the part of this cruel man. All teachers of error resemble him. Those lecturers, whom some of you men hear occasionally, and who tell you to believe in nothing you cannot see,—that as to your being bitten with the old serpent, sin, it is all a fiction, although, even whilst you are listening, you can hardly be still for the agony which the bites have inflicted; the Roman Catholic priest, too, who comes and tells us we need not look for ourselves, that his looking for us, or the intercession of the Virgin Mary, will do equally well—that at any rate we need not trouble ourselves,—are like this man in the picture. Then you yourselves sometimes stand in one another’s way; and when you see any eye directed aright, instead of removing all impediments, you rather, by your jesting, ridicule, and banter, cause the eye to be turned away. And what is it turned to? It just goes back to the old dreary state of ‘seeking rest, and finding none.’ Nothing ever strikes me so much in false teaching as its cruelty. These self-constituted leaders will see you suffer without relief, knowing, too, that bad as it is, this is only the beginning of suffering, they will still interpose themselves and their false doctrines between you and the look that would bring such healing and joy as you have never known before. It is something like this:—Suppose there was but one large fountain of water in the street from which the inhabitants could obtain their supplies, and that this fountain was in the keeping of one person, whose duty it was to open it to all who applied, and to allow them to help themselves as freely as they pleased; suppose, then, that instead of aiding you to fill your pitcher, he exercised a great deal of ingenuity in persuading you that if you carried it to the top of Notting Hill, or over to Kensington, perhaps you would get water which would answer your purpose much better—that the wells there had been more recently dug—that the water there would suit your particular constitution better; that he said anything, rather than allow you to supply your wants in the most simple and direct way—in the way intended and provided by one who really did know exactly what was adapted for you.
“I should be sorry to undertake to persuade any of you to go this round-about way to supply your wants. Your own good sense would be stronger than any arguments I could possibly use. You would say, ‘It has answered the purpose for years past, and those who have gone before us have done very well upon it; why should I change?’
“Whenever your worldly interests are concerned, I do not consider you men are easily to be taken in; it is only about the salvation of your souls—your eternal interests—that which will be living on still when the heavens and the earth have passed away,—it is only on these points that you allow yourselves to be—to be—I must use one of your own words—to be ‘humbugged.’
“Then, again, if it were some difficult thing which God asked us to do, we might make many excuses—we might plead the want of learning, the want of capacity, the want of strength; but we have only to ‘Look, and live.’”
“Ma’am,” said one of the men, “will you pray for us?”
We all kneeled together, and prayed that whatever prevented our looking to the “Crucified One” might be removed; and that, instead of going to earthly fountains to quench our thirst, we might drink of the water of everlasting life, and thirst no more.
Just as we were separating, one of the men said—“Ma’am, if you will come here to meet us every Wednesday evening, we’ll all come, and bring about a hundred more with us.” I replied that I was much obliged to them, but I really had not the time to spare. If my help was the only help they could get, I would make any sacrifice and come; but if they would only take the trouble to walk about half a mile, to Mr Lewis’s school-room, at Westbourne Grove, he would be very glad to see them in their working clothes, and would explain everything to them much better than I could.