ON two occasions I have written and told you of children who were born into heathen families, now I am to tell you of a girl who was born into a Christian home. I have known her since she was a little child and all that I tell you of her is true. In order to make this letter more interesting I am writing as if the girl herself was speaking.
Different from many children in this land I cannot remember the time that I was not dressed, nor the time when I did not go to school, nor the time when I was not taken to church. My mother was a Christian before I was born and the Missionary often tells children like me how kind the Lord has been to give us Christian parents. And it is true that when I see heathen people and heathen children I feel that I should be thankful indeed. Under the work of the missionaries really heathen people are becoming fewer but still there is the beer-drink which I often hear about, and there are still men here who have many wives; a man near to where I was born has seven wives. And there are still heathen dances, and customs and beliefs and seeing these things and knowing them I should every day thank God that I am not under the influence of them. I am so far from these ways that except in certain customs regarding our ways of living, I live very much like what you do yourselves. I rise at a certain hour and pray, wash myself, comb my hair, clean my teeth, eat at a table with spoon and from a plate, and go to church and all the other things you yourselves do. Now all the difference between me and my heathen sisters is owing to three things—the fact that I was brought up by a Christian mother, what the missionaries have been able to do and last but not least, God’s blessing on these things. My mother was converted when the late Mr. Radasi was minister here and she was a full member of Ingwenya Church before I was born. She was very strong for the Presbyterian Church.
I do not know when your mothers begin to take you to church, but here the Christian mothers take their babies to church when they are only a few months old. If the baby requires food the mother just carries him out for a little. If the baby is sleepy she just spreads a shawl on the floor and lays the child on it. Often we see a child left sound asleep on the floor during the interval between the services. Well I suppose that I too must have often slept on the church floor. When I got older I was sent to school at Ingwenya. It was not the kind of school we have now at Ingwenya. We were in school for two hours a day only and there was only one teacher to 120 pupils, so you can understand that it took me a long time to reach Standard 1. But I learned to read and to write my own language. It is a rule in our school that when a child can read in his own language he is given a copy of the Bible free. My first Bible came to me in this way and was a great treasure. The school here still goes by this good custom. Now in school here nearly everything is changed. Instead of one teacher we have five and instead of two hours we have seven and a half hours daily and we are taught to work with our hands as much as with our heads. But there is one thing which has not changed. We still have much Bible taught to us and we must attend family worship, prayer meeting, church services and learn the Bible at home. I will tell more of our school afterwards.
I am the eldest of the family. Besides my father and mother and brothers and sisters we have our old granny or “great mother” as we call her living with us. She was an old woman when I was young. In my young days she did not go to church but just stayed about the house. If she was given to heathen ways she was prevented largely by a trouble she had. She was paralyzed down one side and could only get along with the aid of a long stick. She could not sit on a chair nor on anything but always had to sit flat on the ground. Well, poor granny could neither read nor write but she had a very clear mind. On a time she desired clothes as she wanted to go to church and my mother got them for her. She now seemed to be very anxious to go to church and to hear the Bible read. Although it was a distance for her to walk she would not miss a single meeting. When she got to church she would lie down between two seats as she could not sit. In this way many people would not know that she was in church until the time to dismiss came. She now began to wait for the Bible-class on the Sabbath and people said that she was seeking repentance. Certainly we all saw a change in her as she began to pray and to love the Bible. Well to be short, dear granny was in due time baptised and came forward to the Lord’s Table. As she went forward hobbling there was a wonderful silence through the whole church. If I should ever feel lazy for church I should think on my poor granny in her trouble making her way to church even in face of a strong wind. I do not know if this had any effect on my father but it was not long after this that he too began to go to church. He could read a bit and so used to read the Bible in the family. He too joined the Church and was very active in all the work of the church. My father was a very loving man naturally and very happy and simple. He would talk about Jesus and the Bible in as natural a way as he would talk of the things of the fields or any thing of the earth. When he prayed to God he spoke very humbly but it appeared as if he was just speaking about his concerns to one who was a very great friend. He was a hard worker too and used to get some work making simple houses for the people. You will see that we were a happy family and on the upward way in things of God as well as things of this world. But there were troubles too. One great trouble came to my father. You know that all the cattle here have to be dipped because of a disease called the East Coast Fever which is carried from place to place by ticks which the dip kills. Well my father came home one night very tired and thirsty and it being dark he saw the outline of a water tin in the hut. He shook it and without thinking put it to his mouth and drank some of it. It was dip and soon my poor father was rolling on the ground in pain. The people soon gathered but they did not know what to do. As he began to lie still people thought that he was to die. Then someone said “Run for the Mfundisi” (missionary), and the missionary came and made my father drink much flour and water. After a time my father felt better. We had to keep him very warm and in a few weeks he was on his feet again. But he was never very strong after this. Not long after this we had another trouble. My mother got a little baby and we were all so fond of it. It took ill and was like death. Now many of my people can use leaves and roots to cure some kinds of sickness and as there was a man nearby who knew a medicine which would cure baby so my father went to him and offered him a goat. But the man spoke roughly to my father and chased him away saying that as he had become a Christian and left the ways of the fathers he must get medicine from his new religion. My father did not know what to do but he again thought of the missionary and said: “Perhaps he can help me.” So he went to the mission. At first the missionary did not know what to do, but he read in a book and prayed and gave my father medicine. By next day the baby was better. He is now a big boy.
When I was about 14 years, God took my father away from us. He never was very strong after the trouble with the dip. He got thinner and thinner and although we tried all kinds of medicine we saw that he must die. On the night on which he died he asked my mother to send for Mfundisi (the missionary). On his arrival he took the missionary’s hand and told him that he was now to die. He repeated part of the 23rd Psalm laying great stress on the last verse, especially the words, “And in God’s house for evermore my dwelling place shall be.” “That is the place I am now going to,” he said. The missionary replied that this was the hope of believers and that he believed that he was one of them. “But, James,” said the missionary, “it is a solemn thing to thus hope, what are you building it on?” My father gripped the missionary’s hand hard and turning his face to him said: “As surely as I see you with my bodily eyes so surely do I see Christ in heaven with the eyes of my soul. He is there and He has let down a ladder to me, one end of it where He is and another end reaches just here (pointing to his breast) and I hear Him say quite distinctly, put your foot on the first rung James and trust me for the rest. And to-night sometime I know that I will put my foot on that rung, I will die as He commands and I am willing to die and that first step will take me out of this world; for the rest, He will keep His word.” He then thanked the missionary for his kindness to him and then said: “good-bye, I leave my wife and children on your care.” My father died before morning and my mother was now a widow. When heathen women become widows they must go and join themselves to some man and become one of his wives but my mother, being a Christian, would not do this. Her life was now very hard having no man to do anything for her. She tried to plough one year and got but little for all her labour. We plough with oxen and it takes two men to yoke them and work with them. My mother is small and not strong and after the first year of this work she had to give it up as she got nothing out of it. It was arranged that she would go and stay with a relative and so all the family went. When we were getting ready to go, to my delight, the missionary came and said that if my mother was willing he would keep me on at the mission until (D.V.) I should be able to work for myself. So I came to stay at Ingwenya. I have already told you that there is a great difference now at Ingwenya since I was a child. We have now seven and a half hours daily here instead of two hours, we have five teachers instead of one. I much prefer hand work to the other school work although I have gone through to Standard VI. Some of you, kind friends at home, gave a special prize for sewing. When the Lady Inspector came round she was asked to place this prize and how happy I was when out of the sewing of over 100 girls she chose mine as best. This year too I have taken high place in basketry, sewing and pottery. Now that I have passed Standard VI, I will be able to work for myself; and the missionary has promised me work at an out-school as teacher. An out-school is a school away at a distance from Ingwenya where the people are much more backward and where there are many more heathen than at Ingwenya. The building will be just a large hut made of poles, mud, and straw roof. There we try to teach as we have been taught ourselves at Ingwenya. It is hard work and it has very many temptations which are not at Ingwenya. The main thing is to teach the children the Bible, after that to teach them habits of cleanliness and of helping themselves to make their lives better and more orderly.
Now before I close I must tell you the best news of all. A friend of mine, Janet Dube, and I went through school together. Well, in 1931, Janet and I went through a great change. We were enabled to see our great need of Jesus and enabled to put our trust in Him. I was taught that everything I thought and said was sin and for a time I could not get happiness in anything. But now when I saw that the whole reason why the Native people got the Bible and why missionaries were sent by God was to teach us that His Son died to take away sin and that God cares for us although He hated our sins how happy I became. I saw everything in a different light and for a time I kept this to myself. Janet, too, went through this; as we were great friends so we often spoke to each other about these things. After a time a voice began to speak to me and to say that I must confess that I am now a true Christian by becoming a member. I held back from this as I was afraid that I might do things that would be against Christ and also I was afraid of going to be examined by the elders. But the voice gave me no rest and so we appeared before the session. We were asked many questions and the elders were satisfied but said that only we were too young. So we were put back for a time. Last year we came forward again and were received. Now is that not the best news I have kept to the end. The missionary often tells us that there is no difference between our hearts and yours and as that is true your hearts must be wicked too. But you live in different surroundings for ours are all temptation especially when we step out of the Mission grounds. So be praying not only for the Heathen who are not converted but for people like myself who have to keep our robes clean in midst of the filth of heathenism. But there is such joy doing any thing for Jesus. To be able to tell another the right thing and to be able to read that out of God’s Word is a great witness. Last year Mfundisi (the missionary) wanted someone on the Sabbath evenings between services to read the Pilgrim’s Progress out to the girls in their own language and he gave it to me to do. We did not get the book finished but it gave me great happiness to do this and to try and explain the meanings to the girls.
Now I must stop. All the girls want to thank you all for the kindnesses you show us each year by collecting money for us. I am afraid we are not so thankful as we should be. But where I go to teach next year I will tell the little heathen children to be kind to each other and make your kindness a lesson for them. Thanks very much or as we say: “Ngi ya bonga kakulu.” (I am thanking you much). May the Lord bless you all, your affectionate friend, Rachel.
*This is Mr. Tallach’s annual letter to the children of the Sabbath Schools who have been sending money to the Foreign Mission Fund. We are sure our people who are keenly interested in Foreign Missions, will enjoy Mr. Tallach’s simple and touching narrative as put into the lips of the young converted girl.—Editor.
Sermon.
BY REV. JOHN TALLACH, INGWENYA, SOUTH AFRICA.
I.
Hebs. xiii. 8.
THE first impulse of the early church was to think of and to plan for Christ; He was the centre round which its thoughts and words were constantly drawn, and this too is the impulse of the soul but newly born into His kingdom. To us belongs shame indeed if, as believers, we have removed from this; for truly our Redeemer has not changed in any respect. As He is the “same yesterday, and to-day and forever,” in His Person so is He unchangeable in His worth and glory relative to His Church, and that for all time and eternity. May the Holy Spirit so lead us that we shall find our thoughts, feelings, words, and hands drawn round and more firmly fixed in the Lord our “Unchangeable.” While as God absolute He is unchangeable we note that it is His position relative to the Covenant of Grace that is referred to here. The names, “Jesus Christ,” denote this.
I. Let us notice the unchanging nature of His position in the Covenant of Grace.
(a) In adopting human nature to Himself there never was and there never shall be any breach in the union between these two natures. He is “God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever.” The birth at Bethlehem signalized a union so complete and so close that nothing can break and yet at no point and at no moment in His earthly life was this union beyond a constant and tremendous test. His whole life here was His work and His work at each step raised the questions “Is He wholly man? Is He wholly God? Is He indeed one Person?” He often appears as something less or lower than man in ordinary, “a worm and no man” and yet, He as constantly appears as “God over all blessed forever.” We see Him asleep in the boat; as He rises we see a form truly human, as He speaks we hear words of a language as truly human and uttered by a human voice and “There was a great calm.” This is a result pointing back to the words spoken points still further, to the speaker, to almighty power, to a divine fiat. This Person, awake or asleep is the God-man. And is not this union equally manifest in every incident in His life? The limitation which belongs to the flesh and the almightiness that alone belongs to God blend together in thought, word, and life and in such a way as that neither Divinity nor Humanity is at any point obscured, both are apparent, both are equally emphasized. So too His death. In appearance it is but a mere man whom they seek to kill and they meet to consider “when,” but “My hour is not yet come” is written across their plans and they can proceed no further. To stone Him for blasphemy seems an easy way of getting rid of Him but He charges the stones with a “nay.” Human words are uttered by a human voice, but they can take direction towards ultimate fulfilment because they are spoken by God only. On the hillside yesterday He fed thousands as only God can do it, to-day with every symbol of shame and weakness He is the same person on the cross. That nature which to our eyes staggers to its very foundations as it goes down to death is His still as with sovereign authority He dismisses His spirit very much with the same authority as He shall summon all spirits before His throne one day. Harassed and broken bathed in blood and sweat, humiliated by condemned human beings and lost spirits He speaks, and in words so human that a child can understand them and yet their contents are instinct with divine prerogative “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” A soul foul and black is bespoken clean; forgiveness, regeneration, and adoption are authorised. He is not prayed for, but, he is assured a place in glory and that to happen on that very day. His command over His own destiny and death, and over all the things so that all are fulfilled, His command over the justification, adoption and sanctification of a lost soul and numbers of things of a like nature mark Him off from an ordinary man merely dying. High and clear over the confusion of Calvary one thing emerges. Full and unlimited control over every item and person that night lay in the hands of Him who was “a worm and no man.” Two natures and one person “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” Death was commanded, and death entered but corruption never; for this lifeless body is still united to the uncorruptible God. Yesterday He stood at Lazarus’ tomb and commanded the dead to rise; to-day He commands the angels to wait on Him as He arises with not as much of death about Him as its special clothing for it is not possible that He should be kept under the pains of death seeing that He hath all life in Himself. The “yesterday” of the resurrection becomes the “to-day” of the ascension and our blessed One is still the same. In praise the angels wrapped Mary’s babe with “glory in the highest”—the glory that alone is God’s; to-day they take up the refrain—The Lord of hosts; the King of glory and the human hand that in the “yesterdays” of His earthly life did divine acts and was nailed to the cross still held power omnipotent now reaches forward to take the sceptre of universal power and forever “everything that being hath His kingdom doth command.” The union mysteriously gone into, mysteriously completed, mysteriously tested, mysteriously maintained is the unity of our Lord, the God-man, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day and forever.”
(b) As head and mediator of the New covenant He is “Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever.” He took this position in a past eternity and in anticipating fully all that was required of Him He found a sufficiency in Himself to meet all. Thinking in the terms of the infinite in connection with such matters as guilt, heaven, hell, sword of justice, and cup of cursing, He measured, He tested, He estimated and always in the mind of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit the return was infinitely sufficient. So the “yesterday” of eternity becomes the “to-day” of the Old Testament times and the sufficiency of eternity is put to the test at such places as Bethel, Jerusalem and numbers of other places but never found wanting. Abraham’s “to-day” becomes Moses’ “yesterday” and in turn his day becomes David’s “yesterday” but in and through and over all His sufficiency remains unchanged. The types were patterns not only of heavenly things to come but of heavenly things which were there and then in heaven. Very numerous were the confessions of sin, of failure, of disappointment and every such confession and more—the great mass unrecorded—proclaim the unchangeableness of our Lord. “Yesterday” the eternal assurance was, “I with my chosen one have made a covenant graciously” and to-day it comes to David with the same glorious assurance “He hath made with me an everlasting covenant,” and an abundant entrance before the God of the living is vouchsafed to him and all like him. And now the “yesterday” of the Old gives place to the “to-day” of the New Testament and the same fulness of blessing is bound up with the infant who to us is the “Child born, the Son given.” The anticipated sufficiency of the yesterdays of eternity and of the Old Testament is now to-day to realize itself through the human nature and human life and death of Jehovah Jesus the unchangeable. The glorious Person remains the same—He is the righteous God in human nature and the righteousness of His life is the righteousness of covenant possession—all in the covenant are clothed with it. Mark you not merely covered with it but clothed with it as God is said to be clothed about with light as a garment. No mere acknowledgment to the law this—it is magnified, made glorious, as God is glorious, filled out with His own personality until every command is clothed upon with limitless honour. Rightly we distinguish between the essential and the imputed righteousness of Christ but beauty is shining out of the holy place—come let us believe and adore. The holiness of light unapproachable, the untarnished purity of the eternal God comes to earth in this Person and pours itself through the nature, the disposition, the attitude, the thought, the feeling, the life, the death of Christ until each commandment throbs with a life that is the life of God; yes, until the law in every direction reflects perfectly the light of that light which is unapproachable and full of glory; and your covenant righteousness, believer, is the righteousness of God. We are to sing of justification but not that only; a glorious Jesus fills your “yesterday, to-day, and forever” with a glorified law and your ultimate song of praise reaches the key of glorification. While one side of the law is weighted down with everlasting honour the other is lifted up and all the elect with it; up, up until all are given an everlasting residence in the presence of a Holy God. His presence is the only fit place for a law so glorified as this is and the only fit place for all those glorified through Him who magnified this law. Christ was under law while above it, walking in its path while it was in Him. He lives in a constant to-day in the law and to us He is the “same, yesterday, to-day, and forever” in it. It never loses any of all the honour He put on it or glory wherewith He filled it; in it and it in Him are always the same pleasant, soul-rejoicing, soul-satisfying fulness to the Father and His covenant ones. As the sun sends its light out to measureless reaches and so clothes itself and all else with light as with a garment so our blessed Mediator clothes His people in time and in eternity with His own righteousness. Full and unchangeable as He who is the same yesterday and forever, it pronounces all in the covenant irrevocably justified and glorified, their state thus being “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” And all this enters into His work as Mediator in atonement. Fixed for eternity is the same boundless efficacy, “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever” in quality and abundance. In His death His heart holds His loved ones bound up within it and He pours out on their “yesterday, to-day, and forever” all that God knows is sufficient for their salvation and glorification. He holds the efficacy and He holds them in Himself and both the efficacy and the state of His people partake of His glorious immutability both being “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” God over all, blessed forever, without beginning of days or end of years, Immanuel, Jesus Christ “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever” poured out His blood on Calvary for them, and they are fixed for eternity, sitting in heavenly places because the basis of the transaction is the blood of God who is eternally unchangeable.
II. We now notice that this doctrine is fitted to comfort the Lord’s people.
(a) First then, to all His people of all generations. The “yesterday” of the Old Testament gives place to the “to-day” of the New; the woman of Samaria and David are loved by the same love, washed in the same blood and brought into the same Heaven. And the “yesterday” of the Apostles’ time gives place to the “to-day” of our own times and always with the same unchanged Saviour. Now do not most of us feel guilty of the thought that there is some kind of difference between Paul’s Saviour and He who is our hope? We may not express this in words nor are we always able to define exactly wherein this difference exists but the feeling is there and often it is a strong one too. As we look at our text we find that it anticipates this thought and feeling; for, in its light, we can not only say that the same Saviour presents Himself to us as was presented to Paul but we can say more. Our text tells us that we have, as believers, the same right to claim covenant blessings as Paul had but it tells even more than that. The apostles knew Christ in a measure we do not but then they too stressed that they did not know Him fully—that He was beyond their understanding. We may not be as consciously surrounded with His love sufficiency, and security as they were but in point of fact we are for His is the “same yesterday, and to-day, and forever”; Corinth, Scotland, Rome, Africa, in point of time and place He is the same. If a man is forgiven his sins at all he is as freely and fully and completely forgiven as Paul was; if a man has any right in the New Covenant he has the right to all the privileges possessed by Paul in it. In the annals of the Covenant all persons of all generations in the covenant have all blessings held in trust by the Head for them. The outstretched arms go back to Abel and forward to the end of time with Calvary as their centre and over the Church as a whole and over each member of it He rejoices with singing, He rests in His love as freely He bestows that fulness that lifts each from the pit to an abundant entrance above. Changes in time cannot enter in on Him who is “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever;” He is all that He is for each and all that He is for all. Paul knew more than you but he had not a better Saviour nor was he more securely saved than you are. With many a limp and many a halt I take my painful way through the sun-lit, fruit-laden gardens of apostolic assurances, and glad am I when I find a little fruit here and there wherewith to feed my hope upon. Yet at what do I halt? Does not my unbelief look very much as if it were spelling out a cancellation of our text? To seek assurance amidst any number of revealed assurances yet without Christ is a vain thing; to seek a Christ who is changeable is to seek what is not in existence and either of these propositions is at the root of my heaviness. This will not do! Come, my soul, and first seek Him in the garden and having found Him give ear while He expostulates with you “I am the beginning and the end; all the promises are yea and amen in me; I am the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, open thy mouth and I will fill it abundantly; assurances without me are vain things but every assurance in me includes you in me, I and you unchangeably live in them all.” Oh! my soul do thou return to thy quiet rest for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
(b) To the individual believer. I think that I see you, believer, and the steps in your experience have been something like this. “Oh, for a city of refuge; I see it in Christ; He is the door, I am enabled to enter in; I am safe.” And now having entered in tell me will you again venture out on the plain? No, not to a foot’s showing! In plain words, have you in the process of time and change outgrown your need of Christ? In this sense He is not to you “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” Day after day finds you in the attitude of yesterday; one hand on the head of the Lamb, one raised to Heaven, and with increasing emphasis and with deeper understanding your unchanging protestation is, “This is all my hope all my salvation.” His unchangeableness grows on you as lesson after lesson teaches you that all outside Him has changed, does, and shall change. It was so good to get inside the gate but you soon found that there were needs other than that of bare entry. Home, companionship, citizen rights, and privileges were all sought for and found in Christ. He is not changing but you are and in the process you are learning more and more that He remains the same. You hear a sermon on the law and your bruised heart looks to where it has looked hundreds of times before—to His unchanging righteousness. When justice speaks you make a straight road to the Cross—you cannot now count how often you have gone over this same road before. Sanctification with your need of it as often in your mind and as often you begin all over again to turn over such promises as, “He who hath begun a good work will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” You have been acting thus for years now, and always with a measure of success towards comfort and security. Now examine this and you will find that the whole of this your comfort with the Covenant of Grace is based on the constant witness in the Word and from the Word to your heart that He is unchangeable—a witness that is so constant and powerful that the conclusion almost habitually reached is “Wherever I am, whatever I am, He is always the same.” When David’s enemies were slain he sang “God lives; blessed be my rock” as if he alone had emerged from the experience. He was there in the “yesterday” of your darkness as He is there in the “to-day” of your search, there in the “yesterday” of your felt guilt as “to-day” in the light of forgiveness. I say that so sure is He the only fixed point in your experience that it now is almost a habit with you to conclude; “Well whatever I am at any given place or hour He is always the same, always just there, just beyond that shadow caused by my ignorance and unbelief and when it pleases Him even that is a very thin shadow.” Now what is at the foundation of this fixed point amidst the ebb and flow of your experience? You may be sure that it is something very much more than mere experience; something big and vast beyond yourself. And so it is, for the foundation lies on the wide bosom of the words we are considering. “He changes not” is an eternal truth regarding Him and it embraces all relating to you for time and eternity. “The same yesterday, to-day, and forever” is written large across the throne of grace and what you see and feel in this connection is a faint, but true, copy of this truth. Do not therefore, be surprised if by stroke or caress He keeps you round His feet learning the simple and profound lesson, “I am unchangeable.” And do not be surprised if He should choose your most humiliating fickleness, weakness, and instability as books from which to teach you this.
Our lot is filled with changes but He who so fills them is Himself unchangeable and our lives here are largely taken up with working through these changes in order to find the unchangeable beyond. So too, with us when time shall be no longer. We work through the changes of time and arrive at the feet of the eternally unchangeable “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
(To be continued).