David Steven
1Reprinted from The Free Presbyterian Magazine for September 1926. Steven was a godly Caithness worthy of the nineteenth century.
I used to think that the love of God was procured by the work of Christ, but to the view I got that day2 of the love of the Father from eternity, and that it was because of that love that the Saviour was sent into the world. My heart was filled and melted with a sense of God’s love to lost and guilty sinners in giving His only begotten Son for their salvation.
How I longed, when the congregation broke up, to get home that I might find a secret place in which to give vent to my feelings; and when I did reach my own dwelling, I could not well contain myself, but felt as if my bodily frame could not hold such a measure as I had received, and went stumbling over what lay in my way into the barn, and there poured out my heart in adoration of the Lord’s love and mercy, and I had there a sweet word of promise given me: “Behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it” (Rev 3:8). Many a miserable and perplexing time has gone over my head since then, but that was a time I can never forget.
2As Steven listened to a sermon by Alexander Gunn, minister of Watten, on John 3:16.