These verses of Scripture, which I had committed to memory forty years ago in Captain Janes’ Bible class, now flashed into my mind as lightning from heaven, and the whole spiritual world was once more lighted up as in the noonday. Thus I was brought back to my old simple faith by the words of my child. Indeed, “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” Thus began my return.
On another occasion I was brought back to my old religious consciousness thus: Just before my wife died she was talking with me, with a smile on her face. She was weak in body, and had lain in bed for many weeks; but she was perfectly sound in her mind. I found no sign of mental weakness to the very moment of her death. Then suddenly a spasm caught her, as the physician told me afterward, and in a few minutes she was gone. Only a moment ago there she was, and now she is not. Where is she? What has become of her? Her body lies here just as before, a little cold, perhaps, but where is that personality which shone so brightly through those eyes which are now shut? Has she vanished? Has she been destroyed? Is she annihilated? Impossible to think such a thing at such a time. Do you think I could help following her into that world yonder whither she went so suddenly? Yes, I did follow her. I was, as it were, peeping through the portal of death into that eternal world where she had just been translated. There and then I came face to face with the eternal reality of death.
When you face death, either in yourself or in your friend, you face eternity. When you face eternity, all things which are not eternal, which belong to this world alone, temporary things, such as wealth and possessions, houses and clothing, and all other earthly valuables, which have absorbed your attention while you were healthy and strong, now sink into insignificance before the brightness of the eternal realities. What use is there of wealth and possessions to a dying man? He came naked into this world, and now he must go out of it naked again. What comfort can gold and diamonds give to the dying girl? Can the possession of pretty dresses and costly jewels make happy the heart of a dying girl? When a man comes to the last moment of his earthly journey, the sense of the nearness of eternity will overshadow all things earthly and temporal.
When I faced eternity in the death of my dear one, that solemn and awe-inspiring consciousness of the eternal destiny of man which lay so long dormant in my heart now came back to me with overwhelming force and vividness. Then all the clouds of doubt and unbelief raised by my too much speculative thinking, and all the mists and fogs caused by worldly ambition and earthly enjoyment just vanished away, and I was lifted up into the third heaven.
Death is a sad thing. Especially is the death of our dearest one the saddest experience of our life. But when you look at it in the light of heaven, the death of a dear friend is the most precious gift God can ever give in this world. I confess I was revived by the death of my wife. Certainly it can be said that she died in order to rouse me from the slumber of a backsliding and prodigal life. Oh, the wonderful method of God’s dealing, always surpassing our human understanding! Always and everywhere, the good suffer for the bad, the righteous for the unrighteous, and saints for sinners.
As a natural consequence of this death experience, I was brought back once more to that glorious scene on Calvary. I saw plainly why the holy and righteous Son of God, who knew no sin and in whom was found no guile, had to face that terrible death on the cross; why Jesus, the Lamb of God, should have been bruised for our iniquities and wounded for our transgressions; why the chastisement of our peace must be upon him, and why we sinners must be healed by his stripes.
When I look back to those days of sorrow and grief, I almost forget the death of my human wife, and feel always as though I were standing at the foot of the cross on Calvary. Yes, it was Jesus who was with me during those long years of my wanderings, though I was entirely unconscious of his gracious presence. At every turn of my life Jesus was there protecting and keeping, loving and suffering. When I succumbed to temptation and sin, and stumbled, he was there looking at me with sorrowful eyes, as he looked at Peter, who denied him. It was by his unseen hand that I was kept and guarded and lifted up again and again, and was not utterly destroyed, though I was struck down numberless times by my enemies. Though I pierced his heart again and again with my sins, he never forsook me. Though I wilfully ran away from him, he always followed me. It is a terrible thing to think how I pained his heart, how sorrowful I must have made him, and finally how I crucified him. He died for me on account of my sin, taking upon himself all my iniquities and transgressions, and all their penalties and consequences. Oh, what a wonderful Saviour is Jesus, my Lord!
I found once more the joy of my salvation in the cross of Christ. It is not by the work of social reform, or world reconstruction, or moral uplift, that this sin-stricken world may be saved. It is not by the teaching of Jesus, nor by his blessed life even, that we sinners are to be saved, but it is only by the preaching of the cross of Christ that salvation comes to this world.
Then I said, “Now I know the redeeming power of the cross of Christ. Now I will preach this cross to my fellow-sinners. I am determined not to know anything among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
I returned to my old simple faith in Jesus as my Saviour and Lord, after passing for many years through a tempestuous life of doubt and unbelief caused by the study of New Theology. Even after I returned to my old faith I read many books of New Theology, especially of the German authors, in order to see their present situation in the theological world. But this time my mental atmosphere was cleared by light from heaven, and my perception of spiritual truth became so real through my own experiences that no cunningness of mere argument could lead my mind astray from the path of truth. Now I saw plainly enough the fallacies and shallowness in their reasonings, and no amount of plausibleness in what they call the scientific method of treating religious truth could longer shake my conviction, based on the experimental knowledge of my own Christian life.