The joy of the knowledge of Christ

Ever were the seductions of the world more attractive than today, yet their emptiness is as manifest as ever. True joy is still only to be found in CHRIST and His service. This has been proved and illustrated times without number, yet we will relate two scenes by way of contrast. Both are perfectly true and occurred almost at the same time, and within the knowledge of the writer.

SCENE ONE.

One brilliant summer day in a delightful part of England, was seated a young lady in her room. It was a most luxurious apartment, every comfort and convenience lay ready to her hand. It would have been difficult to suggest anything that could have added to her requirements.

Her house was splendidly equipped, she had pictures, jewels, gardens, motor cars, friends. Servants waited on her slightest wishes, and a devoted husband sought to gratify her latest whim.

On this delightful day as she lounged listlessly, she was heard to say, or rather to moan, “What a bore it is to live, I wish I had never been born.”

She was thus in the twentieth century finding that the experience of king Solomon, centuries ago, was true of her. “All is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Eccl. 1:14).

SCENE TWO.

A poor and feeble man, with snowy hair and beard, aged by privation and poverty beyond his years, stood hesitatingly in the midst of a small company of Christians in a manufacturing town in the North. In a faltering voice he told how he had known but little of the comforts and pleasures of the world, that sickness and hardship and trial had been his lot, and that his scanty wages had not been sufficient to provide for the barest needs of his family.

But he then added in a rising voice, and in an increasing tone of confidence and strength so that his hearers were startled and thrilled, “I am deeply thankful to the Lord that I was ever born, even in such circumstances. I consider it to be the greatest honour and my greatest joy to have learned in this life that Christ Jesus is my Saviour. I cannot rejoice in my circumstances but I can in my God. I know my sins forgiven, I have peace with God. I know the peace that passeth understanding and the love of God fills my soul. I know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and have had my soul ravished with the joys of heaven. Even now as I speak I feel introduced into the happy atmosphere of the Father’s house.”

Then as if altogether unconscious of the presence of his hearers, he poured out a flood of praise and adoration to the God he knew so well. As he sat down exhausted by the effort of this sustained speaking he said, “Oh, what a privilege to have been born so as to be able to share such bliss and to know such a God.”

This was almost the last scene in the dear old man’s life. Soon after, his frail body broke down under the load of years and he departed to be with his Lord, there to realize to the full the blessedness that had cheered him through his sad life here.

We ask our readers to consider which of the two they have been pursuing and which they will henceforth pursue — the knowledge of the world or the knowledge of Christ.

S.S.