When I was a child, I became intensely interested in a luxuriant apple tree that was growing on my father’s farm, and I asked to have this little tree given to me for my own. I took great care in cultivating it. My brother also had an apple tree which he got from a nursery. It was so small compared to mine that I scoffed at it. After several years I saw the first blossom on my tree. But it did not amount to anything that year. But the next year there were one or two dozen blossoms, and three or four of them became apples. Oh, how I watched them, trying to keep the birds away and the boys from stealing them. My brother did not have any apples that year, and I laughed. Finally the time for my apples to ripen came. They seemed to stay green and had no color. After the cold weather began I harvested them. I was sure they would do better next year. There were a lot next year, but the same kind, however. They would not ripen. But my brother had a few beautiful large apples, and you should have seen the look of inexpressible triumph on his face as he handed me one. I had the tree, all right, but he had the fruit. My tree could not bring forth good fruit. I never forgot that lesson of my childhood–the wasted years, the wasted hopes upon the thing that was worthless in its essential nature.

When I was a young pastor, I had no acquaintance with sorrow. I was superficial and shallow like all young men; and I used to go to sorrowing mothers and friends with words of sympathy which were honestly meant, and yet which I felt did not touch one responsive chord. I tried to do my duty, but, oh how empty and useless it was. But when sorrow came to my own life, how it changed everything. I could go then with a full heart. I did not speak many words, but a silent grasp of the hand expressed my heartfelt sympathy and I knew there was comfort in it.

I shall never forget the first time death entered my family circle. [Simpson’s first son, Melville, died at the age of four.] I had held the little one in my arms for two nights, his mother having fled in agony and collapse from the room, choking with croup. I saw that little life panting in the arms of death and I felt myself helpless to hold him back or help him. It was our first bereavement. At last we summoned from a distant city our old family physician. I remember as I waited for him at the station, I walked up and down the platform under the cold winter sky as I looked up into the heavens, and shall never forget the thought that came to me; how can I let that spirit that has never gone from my reach, never been trusted alone, how can I let him wander out into that vast immensity; how can he ever find his way, and those heavens seem so cold and infinite? Oh, that I could go with him or keep him longer. Then it seemed to me, and I never lost the vision, that two great arms of love reached down through the sky, and Jesus whispered to me, “Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me.” And I saw Him there taking that little spirit from my arms and guarding and guiding better than I.

I went back with a lightened heart and looked upon his shining face as at last he passed through the gates with one little message, as I asked him where he was going–“To heaven, papa.” And from that hour the passing of these lambs has never been sad to me. I have never had a regret or heart pang, because the Forerunner is there to take care of them. You will have no trials of faith but will fit you to be a blessing if you are obedient. I never had a deep trial, but as soon as I got out of the river, I found some poor pilgrim on the bank whom I was able to help by that very experience.

Never shall I forget, eighteen years ago, I was awakened one night from sleep, trembling with a strange and solemn sense of God’s overshadowing power, and on my soul was burning the remembrance of a strange dream through which I had that moment come. It seemed to me that I was sitting in a vast auditorium, and millions of people were there sitting around me. All the Christians in the world seemed to be there, and on the platform was a great multitude of faces and forms. They seemed to be mostly Chinese. They were not speaking, but in mute anguish were wringing their hands, and their faces wore an expression that I can never forget. I had not been thinking of the Chinese or the heathen world; but as I awoke with that vision on my mind, I did tremble with the Holy Spirit, and I threw myself on my knees and every fiber of my being answered, “Yes, Lord, I will go.”

In the beginning of this life of faith God gave me a vision which to me was a symbol of the kind of life to which He had called me. In this dream a little sail boat was passing down a rapid stream, tossed by the winds and driven by the rapids. Every moment it seemed as if it must be dashed upon the rocks and crushed, yet it was preserved in some mysterious way and carried through all perils. Upon the sails of the little ship was plainly painted the name of the vessel in one Latin word, Angustiae, meaning “Hard Places.” Through this simple dream the Lord seemed to fortify me for the trials and testings that were ahead, and to prepare me for a life’s voyage which was to be far from a smooth one, but through which God’s grace would always carry me in triumph.

I remember travelling a thousand miles once to attend Mr. Moody’s conference in Chicago. On the evening I arrived I went to the big tent, and, not making myself known, sat down quietly. It was a testimony meeting. One minister rose, and, with broken voice and tears running down his cheeks, said, “Friends, I came here to get something from the meeting; but God took me out alone with Him, and I have had such a sight of Jesus that I will never need anybody or anything again.” His words smote my heart. I took the train the next morning for home. As I entered my office, the face of Jesus was awaiting me there to receive me; and there came such a flood of His presence and grace and His glory that it seemed I could say, “I have had such a vision of Jesus that it seems as if I could never fear again.” Yes, I have failed many times, but it has been because I took my eyes off Jesus; but we need not fail if we see Him.

Many years ago, the life of the great Hildebrand became an inspiration to me, especially when I learned that he had chosen a patron saint as the guardian of his life, and attributed all his success to the care of Saint Peter to whom he had devoted his life. Blessed be God, there is a greater and a better than he! And when I read the story, I said, “I, too, shall choose a patron saint.” But it was none other than the blessed Son of God. Thanks to His dear name, whatever I have known of strength for soul and body, of blessing in the Master’s service, it has been through His care and friendship.

A dear friend once sent me a picture from Rome, with a prayer that it might be fulfilled in me. It was a photograph of the old painting of John leaning on Jesus’ breast. As I studied it, I noticed that I could not see the face of John at all. The form of his head was visible, but his face was buried in the bosom of Jesus, and the master’s face was beaming over him and covering him with its light and love.

Yes, that was John. He was lost in Christ. His personal consciousness was merged in his Master’s person, and he had found that the true secret of the death of self is the love of Jesus. I go back in memory to the time when He first came to me in this way and taught me to trust His presence and lean in prayer upon Him every moment. I came to realize it quietly, for there was nothing startling about it. Day after day the consciousness became clearer that God was here. I did not have to mount up to the sky to find Him. I never whispered to Him but He answered, “Here am I.” Oh, how precious it is to be overshadowed thus by the cloud of His presence!

Once at Clifton Springs, N.Y., dear George Muller was there. I was broken down in health. I knew George Muller years before, and I went to him and said, “I would like you to pray for me.” He prayed. As I went out from his presence, there came to me this humbling thought: “Why did you not ask Jesus to pray for you? He is better than Muller, and He is nearer. Don’t you think there was a little thought in your mind that that was discrediting to your Master?” I knew there was, and I received such a blessing out of George Muller’s prayer that I never asked him again!

Years ago a friend placed in my hand a little book which became one of the turning points in my life. It was “True Peace.” It was an old medieval message, and it had but one thought–that God was waiting in the depth of my being to talk with me if I would only get still enough to hear Him. I thought this would be a very easy matter, so I began to get still. But I had no sooner commenced than a perfect pandemonium of voices reached my ears, a thousand clamoring notes from without and within, until I could hear nothing but their noise and din. Some of them were my own voice, some of them were my own questions, some of them my own cares, some of them my own prayers. Others were suggestions of the tempter and the voices of the world’s turmoil. Never before did there seem to be so many things to be done, to be said, to be thought; and in every direction I was pulled and pushed and greeted with noisy acclamations and unspeakable unrest. It seemed necessary for me to listen to some of them, but God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Then came the conflict of thoughts for the morrow and its duties and cares; but God said, “Be still.” And then there came the very prayers which my restless heart wanted to press upon Him; but God said, “Be still.”

As I listened and slowly learned to obey, and shut my ears to every sound, I found that after a while when the other voices ceased, or I ceased to hear them, there was a still small voice in the depth of my spirit. As I listened, it became to me the power of prayer, the voice of wisdom, and call of duty; and I did not need to think so hard, or pray so hard, or trust so hard, but that the “still, small voice” of the Holy Spirit in my heart was God’s prayer in my secret soul, and God’s answer to all my questions.

Standing once on the shore of the mighty St. Lawrence River, and watching the rushing current as it flowed rapidly down to the gulf, I was surprised one day to notice that sticks and straw near the shore were moving in the opposite direction. At first I could not account for it but soon perceived that it was only the eddy. And I also saw that the things which seem to be so much against us are only the eddies near the shore. God’s great river of love is carrying, not driftwood that yields to every current, but the precious ship of life on His eternal purposes of love.

I am reminded of a woman whom I once met in the course of a pastoral visit, and to whom I tried to tell of the love of God to poor sinners. She met me with the blank and amazing statement that she did not comprehend what love meant. She had never seen nor felt any such thing. Her life had been a fight for existence, her hand against everyone, everyone else against her. She was perfectly sincere and responsive but utterly helpless to understand the gospel. I ceased preaching to her and invited one or two of the tactful women of my church to institute a school of love for her benefit, by showing her such delicate attentions as won her heart, and awakened the lost sense of love. One day she said to me with considerable feeling, “I think I understand now what love means, and I will be glad to have you tell me something about the love of God.” She became a humble and devoted Christian, but she had to receive first the new faculty of love. The reason that many do not enter into the blessed ministry of the cross and the atonement is because our hearts and lives are too selfish to comprehend that sacrifice. If we would live out more fully the spirit of atonement, we would have fewer doubts about the doctrine.

One night I was called to see a colored woman who was dying close by where we were holding tent meetings. Entering her room and kneeling by her bedside, I talked to her a while about Christ, and then learned from her lips that she had been a terrible sinner, living a life of shame herself and dragging others down with her. At first she could scarcely believe that Christ would save such a sinner as she, but I told her about the Lamb of God and begged her to lay her hand upon His head and just roll over on Him all her burden of sin. The vivid picture seemed to appeal to the strong imagination which is peculiar to this race, and after a while she reached out her hand as though to put it on some invisible head. Then she began to confess and confess and confess until it seemed as if she would never end. Year after year she went over her sinful life telling it all out as though I were not there, rolling the burden over on Jesus as though it was an infinite relief.

As she rolled it out, her bosom heaved and sighed like the rolling of the sea, and her voice rose and fell in strange cadences of agony and comfort. Several times I tried to stop her and finish with a word of prayer for my meeting was waiting for me. But she said, “No, hold on; I’m not through yet.” So I let the meeting go as the burdened soul unloaded its burden at the cross. It must have been more than an hour before she seemed at last to be emptied of her awful load, and began to shout her gratitude and thanks to the Saviour who had taken it all away. As we softly sang, “There is a fountain filled with blood,” it seemed as though a white and spotless Lamb was standing by that bed, and a black hand was passing over to Him a still blacker stream of lifelong sin; and it seemed as though that precious blood had washed it all away, and that the once guilty woman was whiter than the driven snow.

And let me tell you now of another experience I had ministering to one on his deathbed. This time it was a lad raised in a good home, but with no religious teaching. His life was wasting away and no spiritual comforter had ministered beside his bedside. A friend of the family asked me to come. A few questions were asked, and it was soon apparent that the lad had no conception of the Bible or the Saviour, but felt that he was all right because he had tried to live a good life. How could I explain to him his need of Jesus Christ? Suddenly there flashed into my mind a simple illustration. By the bed was a beautiful canary which had such an attractive song, and I said, “What a pretty bird, and what a sweet song!” “Oh yes,” he said, “I love to hear it; it is my constant companion.” “But you cannot talk to it,” I continued, “nor can you make it understand your thoughts.” “Of course not,” he replied, “it is only a bird.” Then I made my application. I told him if he were to die and pass into the presence of God in heaven, he would be unable to understand the conversation, the songs, or the joy. He would be a stranger and out of place. He would not be happy because he was not a member of God’s family.

This seemed to bring a flash of light to the mind of the lad, and he saw eternity with a new understanding. Even if he had not done anything wrong, he did not have a spiritual nature and would not be at home in heaven. “What shall I do? They tell me I cannot live,” he cried, “and I see that I am not prepared to die. How shall I receive this new nature that I have never known?” Then we told him that Jesus Christ came into this world just for the purpose of giving us a new birth, a new heart, a new nature that could know Him, love Him, enjoy Him, and enable us to become His very own children. We further encouraged him to pray asking God to give him this new life in Christ. And never shall we forget that simple prayer, the tears slowly trickling down that wan face. A new light “that never shone on earth or sky” came over his face and we know that God had met him, and that the miracle of grace had been performed. It was all so simple and brief, but it was real. The next morning he was gone.

And now a missionary story. Some years ago I went to the Far East on an important missionary commission to arrange many matters of importance in connection with the work of evangelization. After a few weeks in India, in which God signally blessed and helped me in all my plans, something happened which called for a very different kind of testimony. Through the carelessness of some friends who had failed to send on my baggage I had to go on without it. There were many valuable papers in those trunks and most of my personal effects. Far from home and among strangers, perhaps it was only natural that I should for a moment feel utterly depressed and be tempted to be tried with the careless friends who were responsible for this serious disappointment.

Then the Lord spoke. Never will I forget how the Spirit met me with this question, “Are you going to fail in that which is more important than all your work, your own personal victory? Or are you going to trust Me and triumph through My grace and take all this from My hand?” It was a keen but decisive struggle, and in a few minutes the Holy Spirit gave me strength to commit it all to God and to go on my way in peace. Hastily purchasing a few necessary articles of apparel in Calcutta, I sailed away to Burma and left the trunks with God. A strange peace filled my heart, even though I was told I would never see those trunks again, and presently I finished my visit and left for Rangoon with a happy heart.

In a meeting with thirty or forty missionaries, I was led to tell them among other things of the peculiar test which had come to me, and how much it meant to hold my victory through Christ. At the close of that meeting missionaries came to me privately and told how much harder they had found it in a heathen land to keep sweet before the natives under trial than even to learn a foreign language and preach the gospel to the heathen. With tears they asked for prayer and took the Lord Jesus for victory.

I sailed away from Rangoon, and as my ship left the harbor another ship came in with my trunks aboard–but too late for me to get them. The same thing happened in Singapore a little later, and still later in Canton; and it was not until I had been in Shanghai for two weeks that another ship brought the belated trunks to my hands at last. My friends said, “You will be fortunate if you find anything but the leather.” But the Lord had travelled with those trunks every mile of the way and been captain and baggage master, and everything was beautifully right. There was not an ant to be seen inside, and every old familiar article seemed to look into my face and say, “Praise the Lord!” It may seem a trifle to some, but that incident, like others since, meant to me quite as much real service as the writing of tracts on the life of victory and the preaching of sermons about entire consecration.

And speaking of losing things, I remember once having lost a ten dollar gold piece which I had in my pocket. I was going along one night in a hurry toward my home; and as I got to the corner of the street, I took out my keys to find the right one before reaching the door, to save time, and out dropped the gold piece. I discovered my loss, and knowing about where I lost it, I returned to look for it. I looked hard, but it was gone. Then I trusted it to the Lord and asked Him to bring it back in His own way.

Just the next week a dear friend called on me and told me how marvelously God was caring for her home. She said her husband had been out of work, and that on the last Saturday night he was walking along the street, and at a certain corner found a ten dollar gold piece. I did not tell her who lost it, but I thanked Him for letting her husband find it. Now every time I lose a little money, I just say, “Lord, pass it on to the right one and make it a blessing to some needy heart.” God is in these little things, and we may trust His providence and care and know that He is always thinking of us.

I recall on one occasion how our steamer arrived in New York towards evening, and all hearts were beating high with the thought of soon being at home when suddenly our steamer grounded on the bar off Sandy Hook. The engines toiled and strained to lift her off, and the crew tugged with all their might; but at last they had to give up all thought of getting in that night, and anchored where they were.

The next morning I rose early and was looking across the bay towards home when I felt the vessel give a little movement as she rose from off the bar and floated upon the water. What had lifted her? God had done her, and we were free. This is how God works, when we cease our toilings and rest solely in Him. And it certainly worked this way with my brother. Let me tell you of him.

He was very rigid and conservative in his ideas of religious experience, and looked upon all demonstrations of feeling as sentimental and unscriptural. He was much disgusted with many of the manifestations of spiritual power and earnestness connected with the early days of our own work. At length his health broke down, and he was manifestly drawing near to a crisis. The writer endeavored in vain to bring him to that place of tender spiritual feeling where he could take Christ as his Healer or even as his Comforter. My efforts only met with recoil. Then the case was committed to God in believing prayer, and I waited.

Several months later a letter came from that brother telling of a marvelous change. The day before, while reading a verse in his Bible, a flood of light had burst upon his soul. For hours he could only pray and praise and wonder. Yes, he too had become a fanatic–if this were fanaticism–and God had done exceeding abundantly above all that he could ask or think. His cold, intellectual nature was submerged in a baptism of love, which never ceased to pour its fulness through his being until when, a few weeks later, he swept through the gates of glory shouting the praises of his Redeemer.

Source of Information: https://online.ambrose.edu/alliancestudies/ahtreadings/ahtr_s1.html#r1.1