COME | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 20, 1907

"COME."

It is wonderful what a word or two can accomplish. I realized this as I heard of an old man, recently, who had a special liking for the word "Come." The reason was that this little word had led him to Christ.

It happened on this wise: He was but a child when he lost his parents. A kindly aunt adopted the little fellow, to bring him up, but she did not find the right way. On the Sabbath she would say to him, "John, go to meeting;" or when a missionary came and lectured about his work among the heathen, she said, "Go, and hear him."

But John usually felt no great desire to do so, and then she called him a wicked boy. Thus he grew up to manhood without any taste for the word of God.

But there came a change, when a faithful, godly wife—his Mary—stood by his side. How did it come about? In a very simple manner: When Sabbath came, Mary said to her John, "John, come, I would like to hear a sermon to-day; come along, I am sure you, too, will like it."

On Wednesday evening, she often said, "John, I see you are very tired, but to-night is prayer-meeting, how nice it would be for us to attend. Come, let us go; you will come back so refreshed." Or, at night, after the table had been cleared off, and John was sitting in his comfortable chair, she said, "Come, John, I have a very interesting book; if you would read to me out of it, I could sew while you read."

Occasionally she would hand him her Bible, which, at their wedding, they had received as a gift to be a friend upon their life's journey, saying to him, "Come, read a chapter." John usually could not resist the wishes of his Mary, and willingly did her the favor. One night, when John read in the Gospels the text, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor," etc., he called out: "Mary, the Bible is just like you, and you are like the Bible, and now I see it all, and feel that I can believe, and that I can love it from the heart."

"John, John, this makes me unspeakably happy," said Mary, arising, and throwing her arms about his neck. "But what do you mean when you say that I am like the Book, and that you see it all?"

"You see, Mary, you are not like my aunt who raised me. She always said, 'Go.' But you say, 'Come,' and the Bible says the same. Now I see it all. You have learned your 'Come' from the Bible. This is the reason I love it now."

"John," said Mary, with shining eyes, "this is not the only 'Come' in the Bible. Everywhere you will find 'Come.'"

Taking the Bible from his hand, she opened to Isaiah 1, and read, "Come now, and let us reason together." Further she read: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."

In the Gospel, the Lord tells those that are bidden: "Come, for all things are now ready." From the last chapter of Revelation she read: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come." "But, John," she said, turning over the leaves, "here is the best 'Come' yet, which I like best of all; may it one day be said to us both: 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom.'"

Mary has long since been sleeping in the grave. As often as John reads in his beloved Bible the little word "Come," it seems to him as if he hears his Mary saying, "John, come," and to his child he does not say, "Go," but, "Come." Does not the cause of many a failure in Christian training lie in the fact that too much of the training has been with "Go," and too little with "Come"?—Christlicher Hausfreund.