About a century ago, there lived in Paris a pleasure-loving devotee of fashion. She was a woman of the world, living for it, and giving herself up to it entirely. One day she was slightly unwell and lying in bed, when her sisters visited her, full of merriment and laughter.
“Have you heard,” they said, “the latest joke?”
“No; what is it?”
“Oh! there is a mad fellow come over from Britain, preaching what he calls 'the gospel'. He preaches in English, and one of the French ministers translates for him. It is the most ridiculous thing around. We are going to hear him.”
Soon they were gone. As the unwell young lady was lying alone in her bed, there came into her heart (she did not know why) an indescribable desire to go too. So she rang her bell for her maid, and said, “I want you to dress me.”
The servant looked surprised, and said, “You are not fit to get up, Madame.”
“Never mind; send for a carriage.”
The young lady was driven to the building where the British preacher was booked to speak. There was only one vacant seat, just in front of the platform, and she was shown into it.
There was a dead silence as the strange preacher came to the front of the platform, and looked her full in the face. He paused for a moment, and as she looked up wondering, her eyes met his. Gazing at her, as though he would read the secrets of her heart, he suddenly exclaimed:
“Poor sinner ! God loves thee.”
“I do not know,” she afterwards stated, “what more he said. I sat there sobbing as if my heart was broken. As I sat there, it seemed as though my whole life passed before me –? a loveless, unspiritual life. I had lived entirely for the glitter of this world, lived for pleasure, lived in sin. That voice kept ringing in my ears over and over again. I could hear nothing else: Poor sinner! God loves thee. How I got out of the room I do not know. I found myself by-and-by kneeling at my own bedside. At last, conscious of my own utter unworthiness, I dared to look up, and I cried out, 'O my God, if Thou lovest me, I have never loved Thee before; but now, from this time, I take Thee at Thy word; I trust Thy love; I cast myself on Thy love.'”
Immediately the world faded away from her. Its attractions lost their charm. The empty pleasures of life in which she had been living passed away like a dream in the morning. She went on her way a new woman, born again, not from a perishable life-source, but from an imperishable one, by the love of God received into the heart.
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“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” 1 John 4:9
“God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved).” Ephesians 2:4-5
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