BELIEVING, NOT FEELING.
"ONLY a step to Jesus—
Why not come and say:
Gladly to Thee, my Saviour,
I give myself away '?"
"Have you done that, dearie?"
Bessie was singing the words softly to herself as she sat on the piazza in the twilight of the summer evening.
"Why, that's just what troubles me, auntie," whispered the young girl, as Aunt Margaret came near and asked the question.
"What troubles you, Bessie?" She passed her arm around and drew her closer.
"That about giving yourself away to the Saviour, Aunt Margaret. I've done it a great many times, for I really want to belong to him, but somehow it don't seem to make much difference."
Bessie was shy, little given to showing her feelings or speaking of herself. The quiet beauty of the hour had probably drawn her to express herself, and Aunt Margaret was glad to encourage her. Her mother had died a year before, since which time the sensitive girl had had few to interest themselves in her until this aunt had come to have charge of the house.
"I don't quite understand you, dear. It surely ought to-make a great deal of difference in any one to go to Christ in complete giving up of self.
He promises his love and pardon and peace to all who do this, and the having of all these must mean a great deal."
"But auntie, how can I know if I have all these?"
"Do you believe that Christ tells the truth, dear?"
"Why, to be sure I do, ma'am. What a strange thing to ask me!"
"Well, Bessie, he says: 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,' If you believe in his word, you know he will give you all these if you come to him—you know it because he says it."
"But," Bessie still looked anxious and unsatisfied, "I have tried it, Aunt Margaret, and it must be that I don't do it right, for I feel just the same after it as I did before." Aunt Margaret smiled.
"Ah, you poor little thing, is that where you have been stumbling? Listen, Bessie—there are many, many texts in the Bible, which invite and urge us to come to the Saviour. We are told to come boldly, to come now, to come with all our sins and sorrows upon us. And we are promised that all our needs shall be supplied from out of the riches of his grace. But there is not one word about our feeling as if we were accepted. We are told only to believe we are, and if we believe it, we know it, don't we?"
Bessie looked thoughtful.
"I see, auntie. But if it were only something we could see and take right hold of, it would seem more real, wouldn't it?"
"Bessie, if your father should come home and say to your brother Herbert: I have given to you today a section of western land; the papers are in my safe, and it is legally yours'—would he know whether it was his or not?"
"Oh, yes, he would be sure of it if papa said so."
"But what if Herbert should say: I don't feel as if it were mine, father, because you haven't put it in my hand so I can see it and touch it'?"
"I know what you mean now, Aunt Margaret."
"My darling girl," she went on tenderly, "believe in all the dear Lord says, because he says it.
He loves you, and in return for the gift of your trusting heart he promises you all the blessings,
which come of his loving care and guidance through life, and all the treasures of his kingdom in glory
hereafter. Go to him in full assurance that when you give yourself to him, he accepts you entirely.
Fix your heart on this belief as on a solid rock, and I think you will find ere long in your own
happy experience the truth of his precious promise to keep them in perfect peace whose minds are staid on him."
His Jewels.