Secret sins, laid upon an enlightened, active conscience, unforgiven, are a source of great pain and suffering. David said, "My sin is ever before me."
An incident occurred in one of our meetings, that strikingly illustrates this truth.
A gentleman in high standing in the community where he lived, belonging in a family in high social position, not a blot on his reputation, strictly honest before men as far as was known, yet one thing greatly troubled him. He asked the privilege of seeing me alone.
When alone, he said: "I desire to become a Christian, but I have a thousand dollars that don't belong to me, which I took from a man two years ago. I cannot keep it. I will come out with a public confession, or anything else you advise me to do.
I asked him if any one charged him with it or mistrusted him. He replied: "No, sir, I don't suppose any one has the least idea that I am mean enough to do such a thing. But I did it, and can't live so. The man who lost it is a personal friend of mine. None but God and myself know anything about it."
I asked him if he was able to return it to the man. "I am," he said, "but I have had it two years, and that is worth eight per cent."
"Well, that would be eleven hundred and sixty dollars. Can you pay that amount?"
"I can," he said.
That day the man who had lost the money received eleven hundred and
sixty dollars. This man who had taken the money, then gave himself to
Christ, and the last I knew of him he was an active Christian.
Memory is just as active now as before, but the sting is gone, so that it is no longer a guilty memory. Christ's blood put out the fire in his bosom, and he has peace. There must be an application of the justifying righteousness of Christ to the soul, or his sin, in all its guilt, weighing him down, would be ever before him.
A. B. Earle, From: Incidents Used… In His Meetings, published in 1888.
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