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THE INNER DOOR

“Sir, we would see Jesus.”—John xii. 21.

IN his book entitled “Fragments of Prose and Poetry,” Mr. F. W. H. Myers has the following vital passage: “I had never as yet realised faith in its emotional fullness; I had been converted by the Phædo and not by the Gospel. Christian conversion now came to me in a potent form, through the agency of Josephine Butler, whose name will not be forgotten in the annals of English philanthropy. She introduced me to Christianity, so to say, by an inner door.” Blessed are pilgrims who come upon guides who are familiar with the inner door, and who know the direct way to the central heart of fire! They are not impeded or imprisoned by the outer courts of forms. They do not lose themselves in the labyrinthine windings of complicated dogma. They discover the simplicity 174that is in Christ Jesus, and the door opens into infinite love and grace.

Never was there more urgent need of ministers of the inner door, men and women of spiritual directness who lead the soul immediately to Christ. Henry Drummond was a great apostle of the inner door. Those Edinburgh students were not conducted to some outer vestibule and made to believe they were now in the palace of the King. They were taken straight to the inner door by an intimate friend of the King, and were brought into the immediate presence of the Lord. They were not left in the anteroom of any —ology, they were introduced to a friend, the great Saviour and companion of the soul. Drummond knew the way home!

It was not an official minister who found the inner door for Myers. It was a saintly woman who knew the ways of the Lord, and who especially knew the way of His salvation. And this is the sacred priesthood to which every believer is called, and which every believer can exercise. That man is a priest unto the Lord who finds the inner door for other men. All who know the Lord may be priests of this order. The only ordination 175we need is to have found Him ourselves. The little child of the house may know his way home even though he might be sorely puzzled by a map of the estate. We need not be experts in the theological map to be apostles of the inner door. “Sir, we would see Jesus!” To be able to introduce them is to be a minister of the life indeed.