From: The Christian Agnostic
Vauxhall Station on a murky November Saturday evening is not the setting one would choose for a revelation of God. I was a young theological student, aged 19, being sent from Richmond Theological College to take the services somewhere, I can't remember where, for some minister in a Greater London church who had fallen ill. The third-class compartment was full. I can't remember any particular thought process which may have led up to the great moment. It's just possible that I was ruminating over the sermons I had prepared and feeling what I have always felt, how inadequate they were to get over to others, what I really felt about the Christian religion and its glorious message.
But at that moment came, and when years later I read CS Lewis is surprised by Joy, I thought, yes, I know exactly how he felt. I felt like that. For a few seconds only. I suppose, the whole compartment was filled with light. This is the only way I know in which to describe the moment, for there was nothing to see at all.
I felt caught up into some tremendous sense of being within a loving, triumphant and shining purpose. I never felt more humble. I never felt more exalted. A most curious but overwhelming sense possessed me and filled me with ecstasy. I felt that all was well for all mankind - how poor the words seem! The word “well” is so poverty stricken. All men were shining and glorious beings who in the end would enter incredible joy.
Beauty, music, joy, love, immeasurable and a glory unspeakable. All this they would inherit. Of this they were heirs. My puny message, if I passed my exams and qualified as a minister, would contribute only an infinitesimal drop to the ocean of love and truth, which God wanted men to enjoy. But my message was of the same nature as that ocean. I was right to want to be a minister….An indescribable joy possessed me….
All this happened over 50 years ago, but even now I can see myself in the corner of that dingy third-class compartment with the feeble lights of inverted glass gas mantels overhead, and the Vauxhall platforms outside with milk cans standing there.
In a few moments, the glory had departed. All but one curious, lingering feeling. I loved everybody in that compartment. It sounds silly now, and indeed I blush to write it. But at that moment I think I would have died for any one of the people in that compartment. They seemed - all of them - immensely lovable and valuable. I seem to sense the golden worth in them all. I knew then - and believe now - that God would not allow any one of His children finally to miss the ecstatic happiness and joy towards which every human life, in spite of a million deviations, hindrances, wrong choices and the following of false signposts, is moving.
I knew then that I had to move along that road and that my life was to be spent in helping men and women to find the way to God, and in finding it in greater and greater measure myself.
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