By F. W. Krummacher
Several years ago there lived not far from us a very gifted preacher who had, at this period of which we speak, for a considerable time announced with great energy and success the word from the cross; and who, as we may suppose, had his share of enemies.
One of his opponents, a man of information, from a distaste for the truth had long ceased to frequent the church. One Sabbath morning he thought he would once more hear the stern man preach. He went to the church. The preacher treated of the narrow way, which he made neither smaller nor wider than it is made in the Word of God. During the sermon the visitor thinks within himself; “How is this? If what the man is saying be the truth, O my God, what will be the consequence?” This thought cleaved to him. Wherever he went he heard the whisper in his heart: “Is it truth or falsehood?”
At last he thought of going to the preacher to ask him, upon his conscience: was he convinced of the truth of what he had asserted? “Sir,” he accosts the preacher, “I was one of your hearers a short time since, when you preached of the only way of salvation. You have disturbed my inward peace; and I cannot refrain from asking you solemnly, before God, and upon your conscience, whether you can prove your assertions.” The minister replies with decisive assurance, that he had spoken God's Word, and consequently infallible truth. “O my God!” exclaimed his visitor, “is it thus? Dear sir, what will become of us?” “Of us,” thinks the minister, rather startled; and, repulsing the strange “us” from his heart, he commences expounding to the enquirer the doctrine of redemption, and exhorts him to repentance and faith. But the latter, as if he had not heard a single syllable the preacher was saying interrupts him, and, with increasing warmth, repeats the anxious exclamation: “if it is the truth, dear sir, I pray you, what shall we do?”
Terrified, the preacher staggers back. “We” he thinks, “What means this 'we'?” and, striving to conceal the uneasiness and confusion of his heart, he begins anew to explain and exhort. Tears start to the eyes of his visitor, and, clasping his hands like one in despair, he exclaims with a voice that might have moved the very stones: “dear sir, if it is the truth, then we are lost!” The preacher stands pale, trembling; his voice fails him. He cast his eyes to the ground, and then embracing his visitor, amid sobs he says, “My friend, down into the dust, and let us pray and wrestle.” they bend their knees, they pray, they embrace each other, and the stranger departs.
The preacher locks himself up in his room, and on the Sabbath following he is indisposed, and unable to appear in the pulpit. The next Sabbath is the same. On the third he appears before the congregation grief-worn and pale, yet with looks of joy, and commences his sermon with the affecting declaration that it was only now that he also had made his way through the narrow gate.