A LADY, walking out one day near a river, saw a man with his coat and hat off, and she thought directly he meant to drown himself. She prayed that the Lord would give her some word to arrest him. Accordingly she walked on until she came up to him, when he turned and said, “A beautiful river, ma’am:” “Yes,” she replied, “but there is another river, a river that makes glad the people of God. Do you know that river?” “No, ma’am,” he said. She tried to speak more, but her tongue was tied, and she left him without another word. She went home to her husband, and told him what she thought, and he sent off some men directly to see if he was still there. No, he was gone, but the coat and hat were in the same place. They dragged the river, but no traces of him could be found. They asked at the police station about him, but no one knew what was become of him.
Twenty years after, that lady was in Baptist Noel’s chapel, and saw a man looking very much at her. She thought, “I know that face; where have I seen him?” Whilst she was trying to remember, he leant over her shoulder and said, “There is another river, do you know that river?” She immediately remembered he was the man she had said those words to twenty years ago. He told her he was going to drown himself, and her words deterred him from it. He had fled to Jesus and found peace through believing.