A FAITHFUL pastor of a small flock once met one of the young ladies of his congregation on the street, as she was on the way to her dress-maker’s to have a dress made for a ball. Stopping her, he frankly asked her her mission; she frankly told him.
“I wish,” he said, “you were a Christian woman; that you would forsake all these frivolities, and learn to live nearer to God. Won’t you stay away from this ball, if for nothing else, because I ask it?”
She replied, “I wish you would mind your own business, sir. Good-day.”
This young lady went to the ball and danced all night. She went home, and when her head was at rest upon her pillow, conscience began to do its work. She thought how she had insulted her pastor, the best friend she had perhaps in all the earth. This torment of conscience was kept up for three days, until she could endure it no longer.
Going to her pastor’s study she told him how sorry she was that she had said words that caused his heart to ache. “I have been the most miserable girl in the world for the past three days,” she said, “and now I want to become a Christian; I want to be saved. Oh, what must I do to be saved?”
The old pastor, with his heart full of compassion and sympathy and love for the contrite spirit before him, pointed her to the Lamb of God, and told her how she must give herself to God just as she was. “What! Just as I am, and I one of the most sinful creatures in the world? You surely do not mean to say that God will accept me just as I am?”
“I mean just that,” was the pastor’s reply. “God wants you to come to him just as you are.”
The young lady went home, and retiring to her room, kneeled beside her bed and prayed God to take her, just as she was. Reaching to a chair that stood by the bed, she took a piece of paper and a pencil that were there, and under these holy influences wrote the verses of that hymn so dear to the heart of every true Christian:—
“Just as I am without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bids’t me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
With fears within and foes without,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need, in thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am; Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come!
“Just as I am, thy love unknown,
Has broken every barrier down;
Now, to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come!”