The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-03-29
JESUS A SAVIOUR FROM SIN

nor happy.
Even the continued knowledge,
snIougn all my failure, that God loved
%e' ana that for the sake of His dear Son
WAS accepted by Him ,only added to my
puraen' for to feel ones self child and
yerto be unable to act like child, can
NOT out be source Of bitter SORROW At
slmes went through sgonies of conf a t
~ my efforts to bring about different
STATE OF things. I resolved, prayed, I
1testied. l strove; L dashed myself up
AUTO the belief that all I held most dear
IN lie could continue to be mine only As
astained 10 more fatthfulness and de-
voteaness OF walk. When sickness came
upon any one loved. many were the Vows
recorded In she depths OF my soul, that
II dod would but spare their lives,
would hencefofth serve Him with all my
. nears. But all was in vain. and, IL
seemed, even worse than vain. when
1 would do good. evil was present with
me-; and could see no hope of deliver.
ance except in death. which, by destroy
Ing the body OF Gin" to which I was
chained, would thus break tho yoke OF
my bondage.
AT hmes some new discovery OF She
truth OF God In the Bible would seem for
awhile to carry Me above temptation,
ana to make me more than conqueror.
ana my heart would rejoice 81 the
tnoughs that now at last had found the
secret OF living, and that henceforsh m
continued defeats would be turned into
continued victories. But after awhile,
az the aspect Of truth. in which had
been rejoicing, became familiar to me,l
found TO my bitter sorrow that IL eemed
TO lose Its power, and WAS left as help
less as ever; only under deeper conden-
nation, because of the increased respon-
sioilities of Increased knowledge.
There was also another thing that
troubled me. l had been fought, and L
found in the Bible, that 1t was my privi-
lege 20 know the ind yelling of the Holy
Spirit as leader and guide to my soul,
and believed that He was indeed in
dwelling In me, but felt that expert
mentally knew very Ettle about His
tesohing. and had no actual conscious
ness OF HIS presence. That IL would be
an inestimable blessing thus to know
htm. realized more and more SIS dis.
covered the utter powerlessness of my
own wisdom and Judgment to guide me
Alright, and felt increasingly that only
az the Spirit accom- panied and energized
my service was 1t ever OF any avail. But
here too all my efforts seemed worse
than useless, aud I found myself only
involved in continually increasing per-
plexlties and darkness.
At unes the belief forced itself upon
me tnat all Christians we're not like me /;
that the lives of come were full of o de-
gree OF devotedness and depth of COM
munton TO which I wAs stranger; and
wondered what their secret could be.
Bus supposing 1t could consist In MOTH
Ing but their greater watohfulness and
earnestness, knew of no resource but
TO seek to redouble all my efforts, and
to go through the same weary round of
conflict and struggle again, only, Of
cours TO meet with the same bitter de-
feat.
Such WAS my life; and. in spite Of
much outward earnestness and devoted
ness, felt IL to be Q failure. Often 1
said to myself, that II this was all the
gospel of Christ had for me, It waa a
bitterly disappointing thing. For though
never doubted the fact of my being .
child OF CD, justified and forgiven. q
possessor OF eternal life, and an heir of
heavenly inheritance, still, when my
heart condemned me.-snd this was al
most coniinually,-I could not have con-
fdence towards God, and l WAS not
happy. Heaven itself seemed 10 lose it's
charm to the heart that was afar O # from
God.
began to long after holiness. be-
gan to groan under the bondage to Gin in
which l was still held. My whole heart
painted after entire conformity to the
will OF God, and unhindered communion
with Him. But 80 thoroughly convinced
WAS | that no efforts, or resolutions, or
prayers of my own would be of any
avail, and 80 ignorant was 1 of any other
way, that l was almost ready to give up
in despair.
In this time OF sore need, God threw
into my company some whose expert
ence seemed to be very different from
mine. They declared that they b Ad dis.
covered way of holiness, walking in
which they met with neither failure nor
defeat, but where they were made more
than conquerors through Jesus
/ asked them their secret. and they
replied, ut ia simply in ceasing from
all efforts OF our own, and trusting
Jesus"
Never shall 1 forget the establishment
this. answer gave me. "Whst!" said,
"do you really mean that you have
ceased from your own efforts altogether
lin your daily living, and that you do
nothing but trust Jesus? And does He
3scsuslly and truly make you conquer
!ors?"
"Yes," was the reply, "Jesus does 1t
all. We abandon ourselves 30 Him. We
do not even try to live our lives our
selves; but we abide In Him, and He
'lives In us. He works in us to will and
Ito do Of His good pleasure, and we hold
-FOUR peace"
( Like q revelation the glorious possi-
sbilities OF life such as this flashed
Hnpon me, but she idea was too new snd
slwonderful for me to grasp. had never
Thought OF Christ as being such Saw.
Hour as 1 now heard him described to
Ebe. I had known, indeed, that He gave
line life in the 6rst place as free gift
X -.ithonk m uaaif hoipo shra A., IL