CHAPTER VIII SALVATION BY GRACE BY REV. THOMAS SPURGEON,
LONDON, ENGLAND WHAT IS “ GRACE” ?
Once upon a time, I met, on board an Australian liner, an aged man of genial temperament, and of sound and ex tensive learning. He managed to dwell in well-nigh per petual sunshine, for he followed the sun round the globe year after year, and he was himself so sunny that the passengers made friends with him, and sought information from him. It fell out that a discussion having arisen as to what “Grace” was, someone said, “Let us ask ‘The Walking Encyclopedia’; he will be sure to know.” So to him they went with their inquiry as to the meaning of the theological term, “Grace.” They returned woefully disappointed, for all he could say was, “I confess that I don’t understand it.” At the same time he volunteered the following extraordinary statement: “I don’t think that they understand it either who so often speak of it.” Like the medical man of whom the Rev. T. Phillips told in his Baptist World Congress sermon who said of Grace, “It is utterly meaningless to me,” this well-read traveller compre hended it not. Some among us were hardly astonished at this, but it did occur to us that he might have allowed that it was just possible that on this particular theme, at all events, some less learned folk might be more enlightened than himself. Now, it chanced that on that same vessel there was a Christian seaman, who, if he could not have given a concise and ade quate definition of “Grace,” nevertheless knew perfectly well its significance, and would have said, “Ay, ay, sir; that’s it,” 110
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