The leader headed the page in her class-book with twopence a week. I ventured to say to her, "This is not required." She replied gently, but firmly, "In that you must not interfere; it is a matter between me and God." Ah, it is this living with God, "alone with God, alone in spirit, in principle, and in practice; this is the secret of every God-like character." Age is a very relative term. My friend, in spite of a happy, beaming face, looked old and worn at fifty, and yet sixteen years of the best part of her life lay before her. It was about that time that the Rev. John Angell James, having heard of her adaptation for evangelistic work, sent for her, after which she was employed as an agent for the distribution of the Bible; the Bible, which she took into the homes of the desolate and the poor, and by which instrumentality they became sons of God and heirs of heaven. Jesus had fulfilled His own promise, that it was better for the children that He should go away, because His communion with them, by the Holy Spirit, was closer and more absolute than by His actual presence. "Be ye filled with the Spirit," was God's command. To those who believingly obey this command it becomes a realised truth. The simple message given in its fulness, with faith in God, together with unwearied and indomitable perseverance, was the secret of that wonderful success in saving souls from death which marks this narrative. ELIZA NIGHTINGALE. A BIBLE-WOMAN'S STORY. CHAPTER I. CONVERSION. "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her."-HOSEA ii. 14. "In the solitude of the heart God speaks to the soul, and is heard by her, warning, reproving, piercing, penetrating through every fold, until He reaches the very inmost heart and dwells there." 'Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; I rose, went forth, and followed Thee." I WAS the only child of my parents, and being deprived of my father whilst young, I was entirely under my mother's care, who trained me in the way which she believed to be right. She knew no other way than that of outward morality, and I became a strict Pharisee. At twenty-two years of age I picked up a tract in which were these words, "What shall I do to be saved?" I then for the first time became conscious that I was a sinner. I read these words over and over again; they sank deeper and deeper, each time I read them, into my heart; I was convinced that morality could not save me. What must I do to be saved? I had no religious friend to whom I could go for instruction. I knelt and asked the Lord what I must do to be saved. That night I had a dream. I thought I was in total darkness, a darkness which might be felt; I put out my hand to lay hold of it, and grasped a hand let down from heaven to save me. It was the hand of Jesus "stretched out to draw me near." I knew not at the time the full import of this and other portions of my dream. I understood them afterwards. We then lived in a country village, and being naturally timid, I shrank from disclosing my mind to strangers, and so these convictions passed away. Nevertheless the good Spirit continued to strive with me until I was forty-one years of age. In 1847 I came to live in Birmingham, but, owing to the partial loss of hearing, I went to no place of worship for two years. One day, being out of temper, a person said to me, "You must have a better spirit than that, or you will never go to heaven." These words were like a dagger to my conscience; I said within myself, "If I die in a passion, I shall be banished from the presence of the Lord." That conviction also, like the morning cloud and early dew, passed away. Again the words, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," were as a nail fastened in a sure place. |