Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/110

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
94
WOMEN WORTH EMULATING.

the Bible especially. Many young people are indifferent, or mere formalists in the matter of religion; but I think very few indeed can charge themselves with so strong a feeling as dislike.

At the time when Sarah Martin was a school-girl, the Bible was often made a lesson or a punishment book; and bat little was done to make its truths attractive or clear to the minds of the young. Pictorial aids, sweet narratives, poetic elucidations, and interesting questions were rarely used—never, I may say, in the ordinary schools of the time; so that the Scriptures seemed like a sandy desert, and young feet soon grew weary in traversing it. But our gracious Lord does not leave Himself without a witness, where there is a thinking mind. Frivolity and the love of pleasure are the thorns that most frequently choke the good seed of wisdom and truth.

At the age of nineteen, Sarah heard a sermon that impressed her, from the words: "Knowing the terrors of the law, we persuade men." This was a ray of light to her, but the dawn came slowly. It was however a great matter that, with the growing light, she was able to see herself as she was—a sinner. She began to read the Bible and examine for herself; but with at first no other result than great self-condemnation, and some confusion of mind from theological books. But as she beautifully says in her simple memoir,[1] "Seeing salvation, not in

  1. Life of Sarah Martin, p. 9. Beligious Tract Society.