For years my husband and I led a godless life. He had become such a drunkard that I never was sure how he’d come home. Though he got a good salary, nearly all his money went to the pub, and I was almost driven mad. I was not much better than he, but I felt more than he did the misery of our life.
At last I grew desperate with all I had to bear, and one morning, as he was leaving home almost unfit from the night’s drunkenness, I said, “Now remember, if you come home drunk tonight, it will be the last time you ever come home drunk to me.”
I shudder to think of what I had determined to do, and the devil seemed to stand by me to strengthen my resolution. I would kill him as soon as he returned, and I had selected the spot where immediately after I would drown myself. I thought I could bear my life no longer.
My husband said nothing but went on to work as usual. In his absence I could not rest. I went again to look at the place where I meant to destroy myself and put an end to my wretchedness.
Coming back to our miserable home, I found a tract lying on my table. I had no idea where it could have come from, and I always used to refuse tracts, but the title caught my eye: “The Greater the Sinner, the Greater the Saviour!”
I can’t tell you all that I felt, but I thought, Well, I am sure this is for me, for I am a great sinner! In my misery I then and there cried to that Saviour for mercy. My terrible purpose was at once broken—almost forgotten.
To my surprise my husband came home sober that night for the first time in months. He asked me, “What made you say that if I came home drunk tonight, it should be the last time?” I could not tell him the truth!
Well, to my astonishment my husband seemed different, and I told him of the tract. The next day was Sunday. Just think of my surprise when he asked me if I would go with him to hear the gospel in the evening! So we went together.
In a little time I had another surprise—my husband brought home all his pay at the end of the week, and the following Sunday we went again to hear the gospel. From that time we have been seeking instruction from the Bible, and I now both believe and know that we are saved from God’s wrath (which we surely deserved) by that great Saviour whose wonderful mercy the tract pointed out.
I never knew who left that tract at my house, but I hope it will encourage the tract distributors, for they don’t know what good a tract may do.