WHAT IS YOUR TESTIMONY?
By H. B.
If you profess to be a Christian you are understood to be one of those to whom God says, "Ye are my witnesses." You are therefore under obligation to give your testimony for God. When a witness is placed on the stand, if he is unwilling to answer, or answers with hesitancy or doubt, or contradicts himself, he does damage to the cause for which he appears. Bear in mind, also, that a witness is not called up to tell what he thinks, hopes, or supposes; but what he knows. Furthermore, you can give no testimony but your own; i. e., what you know. It is no testimony for you to state what you believe to be the views, feelings, or experiences of other Christians, or what are the teachings of the Bible. Your testimony is the declaration of your own experience. It cannot be anything else, for this is all that you know. You believe the Bible, but you can give no testimony respecting it but that you experience the fulfillment of its promises in your own soul. You believe that Jesus is the friend of sinners. To testify of this you must have known yourself a sinner, and then have known the love of Christ in your own soul. The scripture says that the love of Christ revealed in the soul gives peace and joy. When you have experienced this, you can testify that it is so—not before. It is a very different thing to believe it on the testimony of the Bible, or of other Christians, from what it is to know it from experience. You are before the world as a witness. What is your testimony?—H. B.—[Golden Rule.