Oh, what a picture! (Gleanings from the Inner Life of Ruth Bryan --written at the age of seventeen)
I seem to have some feeling about Divine things; but, alas! this afternoon am as stupid as usual. Nothing, nothing will break this hard heart! Oh, that I may be directed by the Spirit of truth to the right way of happiness!
I fear that I am not affected as I ought, and have only a faint desire to become a Christian--and that merely to escape hell. Lord, have mercy upon me! Lead aright! Break this hard, hard heart! You, Lord, know what I would have--even the forgiveness of my sins.
During service I was as cold as a stone! Oh, when will this vile heart be melted and subdued by divine grace? I have no faith, no humility, no sense of sin, no confidence in the promises, no fear of the threatened punishments; nor anything that I ought to have!
Oh, what a picture!
O Lord, break this heart into ten thousand pieces! Oh! I would sooner suffer all horrors and terrors imaginable, and be saved at last--than be in my present dreadful and stupid state. Break--break, oh, break my heart, and make me give it entirely to You, O blessed Savior!
_________________ CHRISTIAN
|