CHAPTER XXXIII.

Bible Readings.

1858-9.

HE church (so-called) in which I now ministered had been built by persons who intended to accommodate the largest number of people for the smallest amount of money. It was scantily built, and almost square, with galleries on three sides. On the remaining one there used to be a pulpit, conspicuously placed in the middle of the wall. This important portion of the edifice was now removed to one side, to make room for a Communion table, the seats in front being arranged chancel-wise, facing one another, for the choir. This place was quite a damper to my ecclesiastical tastes; besides being ugly in the extreme.

I tried by putting ornamental scrolls over the windows, and by staining the glass in them, to make some improvement. I also painted a diaper pattern round the side walls; and upon the high blank wall behind the Communion table exercised all the skill I possessed, but fear it was somewhat in vain, though I laboured hard. The designs looked very well on paper, but when displayed on the wall gave no satisfaction; so one after another they disappeared,

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till my dissolving views, as they were called, ended in a large floriated cross of gold, with a monogram intertwined in it, on a dark background.

When once, however, the Lord began to bless the Word, and souls were awakened, despite all anti-ecclesiastical appearances, my heart was drawn towards the ugly place, and I loved it greatly. I could never have believed that my former tastes and tendencies could have been so completely changed as they were.

In those days it was a strange thing to hold an aftermeeting in a church; it was never done, even by the few who had such meetings. Therefore, I took the anxious ones and others to my own house for the inquiry meeting, after the evening service. Having taken up the carpet in the drawing room, we fitted it up with chairs and forms to accommodate ninety people, while half as many more occupied the hall, and often numbers stood outside the windows. In this house it pleased God to give us very many souls, who were brought in week by week for several months. I believe every room in that house, like the rooms at Baldhu Parsonage, was consecrated as the birthplace of one or more of God's children.

The number of those who attended the after-meeting became so great, that we found it necessary to go to the large schoolroom. This place will also be remembered in eternity, and many a soul will say of it, "I was born there!"

One night, when I returned home from a distant meeting, I was called to see a person in great distress of soul. As I went down the street at eleven o'clock, I was surprised to see lights in almost all the houses, and what was more, to hear voices in urgent and importunate prayer, as also the voice of thanksgiving. The whole street was alive, and indeed there was a most "joyful noise" on every side. I

was praying or rejoicing in one house or another all through the night, which was one never to be forgotten.

A glorious work of salvation was going on without the extravagant noise and excitement we used to have in former years. I was exceedingly thankful for this also, and began next to consider what was to be done with these new converts. Besides inviting them to the church services, for which they needed no pressing, I urged them to read their Bibles at home, bidding them to mark any passages where they wished for explanation, that I might have something good and profitable to speak about when I visited them. Then I invited them to Bible-classes; instead of to experience meetings, which Cornish people rely upon so much. On these occasions I endeavoured to instruct the people from God's Word, and put Christ before them as the object of faith, hope, and love. After prayer I encouraged them to ask questions, which made these gatherings interesting and also instructive on the very points upon which they required information.

I found that these Bible-classes were a great blessing to those who attended them, but more than all, perhaps, to myself; watering other souls with the water of life I was more abundantly watered. The questions of the people drew my attention to distinctions and differences I had not noticed before, and helped to take off the coloured glasses through which I had hitherto read the Word.

I observed that the third, sixth, and twentieth chapters of St. John's Gospel had been held and interpreted by me in a way that I now saw to be altogether wrong. I had taken the first of these as bearing on Baptism, the second on the Holy Communion, and the third on Priestly Absolution.

I pondered much over these chapters, and marvelled how they could have been so diverted from their original and obvious meaning; and, more wonderful still, that count

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less millions in Christendom had so received them for many generations. It was a bold thing, and seemingly presumptuous to suppose that I was right and all Christendom wrong; but I soon found that mine was no new discovery, and that if millions who followed traditions without comparing them with the Bible, thought on one side, there were also millions who did read their Bibles, and thought on the other.

It was perfectly clear, moreover, that one obvious motive or policy had dictated the false application of the three chapters. It will be observed that priest rule is established in them; for, according to this teaching, no one can enter the kingdom of God without priestly operation in baptism; no one abide or be fed in it without the same in Holy Communion; nor any one receive absolution from sin, and final release from hell to heaven, apart from sacerdotal action.

On the other hand, I saw spiritual men, as sure as they were of their own existence that their new birth took place, not at baptism, but at their conversion. Therefore they were convinced that the third chapter of St. John, in which our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus is recorded, refers to that spiritual change which takes place at conversion, and not to baptism, which was not even instituted for two or three years afterwards (Matt. xxviii. 19).

Again, as to the sixth chapter. A spiritual man knows that he feeds continually on the body and blood of Christ, it is the "Bread which came down from heaven" for him. The Lord said, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me" (John vi. 57). They know how they received spiritual life, and also how it is continually maintained; therefore they could not allow themselves to be carried away with such a palpable fiction as transubstantiation, or any other doctrine kindred to it. The sixth chapter does not refer to

the Lord's Supper, but the Lord's Supper refers to the reality which is mentioned in it.

Lastly, as to the twentieth chapter of St. John, on the authority of which it is supposed and asserted that Christ left power with His Church and priests to forgive sins. Of this we may say, He has not delegated any such powers at all. When He gave commission to His disciples (not exclusively to the apostles), He said, "Lo, I am with you." Our power is not imparted to us from Him, but is in Him. We have no power at all, but in Him, and no grace but that which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. ii. 1). It is His presence, His real, promised presence by the Holy Ghost, which is spiritual power; and this is given directly to individuals by God Himself, and is not transmitted through

other channels.

The Lord Jesus, on His resurrection day, said to His disciples, in the upper room-and, be it remembered, that all the eleven were not there (and some women may have been) "Peace be unto you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John xx. 23).

Is it possible or reasonable to suppose that our Lord intended by these words to constitute all that assembly absolving priests? The apostles and early Christians (both men and women) never thought so, either before or even after the day of Pentecost, when they were taught and led by the Holy Ghost. The apostles did not exercise any socalled priestly functions; they all preached the Gospel, and as ministers and witnesses, declared, through Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins. Their testimony was then, as such testimony ever will be, the savour of life or the savour of death. It was thus they remitted and retained sins; and yet not they, but God by them.