“O Thou bleeding Lamb! The true morality is love of Thee.”
Miss Graham’s love to her Saviour was one of her most prominent characteristics. Those parts of Scripture that brought her into closer contact with the subject nearest her heart. Every evening she devoted an hour to intercessory prayer. She also set apart special times for secret dedication and communion with God. The sacred book was her constant food and study. Her love for the ordinances of God deserves special remark. Messengers of the gospel she loved for their work’s sake, and for their Master’s sake. “Pray before, as well as after your visit” was her solemn entreaty to her own beloved minister.
“Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, And so make life, death, and that vast For-ever, One grand, sweet song.”
“In the structure and working of her whole nature, she seemed to me the nearest approach I ever saw, in man or woman, to my ideal of our blessed Saviour as He appeared on the earth.”
The peculiarities of Christianity form a most important and powerful argument in favour at once of its truth and of its Divine origin. A comparison of Christianity with other religions not only proclaims it to be the only religion worthy of God and suitable for human nature; but proclaims at the same time, and with equal power and effect, the utter futility of the infidel maxim,—that all religions are alike. A false religion, whether recorded in the pages of the Koran or the Shaster, may contain many important truths; but the fact that it is a _human_ instead of a _Divine_, a _false_ instead of a _true_ religion, indelibly stamps it as unacceptable in the sight of Him who is “Holy in all in His works;” and unadapted to meet the wants of sinful creatures. There is only one religion in entire accord with all the phases, aspects, and transitions of the human mind; and that is the religion of the Bible. Christianity is adapted to you as an intellectual being—it records a history—it reveals a theology—it unfolds a philosophy—it affords scope for reasoning—it appeals to the imagination. Christianity is in harmony with your moral nature. Truly and beautifully has Sir Thomas Browne said, “There is no felicity in what the world adores—that wherein God Himself is happy, the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy—that dare I call happiness.” Your character is entirely sinful and depraved. Christianity presents to you the ideal of your original rectitude, and would win you to the love of holiness, as a thing of beauty and majesty. Christianity is adapted to you as an emotional being. The facility in shedding tears at the remembrance of sin, or at the cross, is no evidence of repentance; joy in the belief that sins are forgiven is no proof of conversion. Yet weeping is a mighty thing. Our Saviour never fell into sentimentalism or affectation, but His great soul ran over His eyes when on earth; and it would do the same if He dwelt with us now. Christianity excites the deepest emotion, and wakes up all the tumultuous feelings of the soul. Christianity is in harmony with your social nature. It takes your state under its auspices; and its tendency is, by its laws and influences, directly or indirectly, to etherealize the affections of the family, to ennoble the love of country, and to inflame all the enthusiasms which point to the good and glory of the race. Christianity is adapted to you as a suffering being. Trials are ill to bear. They are not “joyous, but grievous.” Yet he who believes that all things work together for good, will thank God for medicine as well as for food; and for the winter that kills the weeds, as well as for the summer that ripens the fields. Christianity is in harmony with your immortal nature. You are full of “thoughts that wander through eternity;” and Christianity establishes the truth of a future state—secures its glory—prepares for its enjoyment. It makes the hope of heaven a guiding principle in life, adapting its disclosures and descriptions of the future inheritance to the varied circumstances of the present. What a religion this!—it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”