HOW C. A. MCCONNELL WAS SAVED OUT OF ATHEISM

HOW C. A. MCCONNELL WAS SAVED OUT OF ATHEISM

Carrie had been reared as a High Church Episcopalian, and I was a confirmed atheist. We lived respectable, so-called moral lives, enjoying the pleasures of the world, having no contact with God. My nearly fourscore and ten years have dimmed my memory, and, too, the days about which I shall write were so filled with dark confusion, that possibly I may "fill in" to complete the story; but the essential truth will be told.

I do not remember, if ever I knew, how Carrie became a Christian; but that high courage she showed during our pioneer days was hers as she faced her atheist husband and confessed that she had become a follower of Jesus. Then she said, "Charlie, do you want your children to grow up to be atheists like you and your old father?" I had not been thinking of my children in relation to religion, and something struck me. "No," I replied, "There is no joy in atheism, no hope. I wish there were something else, but there is nothing else true." She said, "I want my children to become Christians." That was a blow to my attitude of years, but I managed to say, "Well, if that is what you want, I'll not put anything in your way." But Carrie had won only the first skirmish. "If the children are to become Christians, they must have a Christian home." "What do you mean," I replied, "by a Christian home?" "A Christian home has a family altar," she replied. That was the first time I had ever heard that expression. "I mean," she continued "the family gathers together everyday to read the Bible and pray." My anger (and perhaps fear) was stirred. "I don't believe in your Bible, and as far as what you call praying-talking up into the air to someone who isn't there that's all bunk." "You can read, can't you?" "Sure I can read." "Then you read, and I'll pray." She put the little ones on their chairs and brought me the Book, opened at the chapter I should read. Somehow that was the most difficult reading I had ever done. Then the mother had the little ones kneel at her side, with closed eyes, while she prayed-for the first time, so far as I had ever known. She prayed that the children might become real Christians, and she prayed for her husband-not at him; there is a difference. By the time the children were on their feet, I had grabbed my hat and was out of the house. That was that! She had her family altar, and her children were Christians. No more bother for me! But the next day there was the same procedure, and the next day and the next. I got sick, though the doctor could find nothing the matter with me. I know now what was the trouble. I know what David meant when he said, "The sorrows of hell gat hold upon me." The Holy Spirit was striving to break through the granite hardness of my wicked heart. I do not know the number of days, or weeks, I struggled in that horrible darkness. But one day I said to myself, "This thing has got to end. If there be a God, and the Bible is His book, it will reveal itself as true. I will search through it honestly and come to my own conclusion."

I believe that no one who will study the Book as faithfully as I did at that time will fail, finally, to acknowledge as I did, "There is a God. He created me. I am responsible to Him, and I am a rebel against His holy law. I can in no wise free myself; but a Saviour is revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, who made ample proof of himself, as not only the Son of Man, but also as the Son of God." My reason was convinced, but I knew not the way of salvation. Finally, I said that I would take the Bible as my guide, and do everything a Christian should do, even if I should never find salvation. Of course it was not long before the light broke through, and I knew myself accepted with God. -- "The Potter's Vessel," hdm0191, by C. A. McConnell