AFTER our first Sunday evening’s preaching in the Royal Public Rooms, Exeter, December, 1884, a young girl was seen weeping outside when everyone had left the hall. She was anxious about her soul and unwilling to leave until she had found salvation. She did find it, and went home to tell the story of her new found joy. Her father saw her crying when she came home, and asked her why she cried, and where she had been. She said, “You would cry too if you had been where I have been, and heard what I have heard.”
The father, of whom I wish to speak now, was the slave of drink. Night after night he would come home from the public house intoxicated. His saved daughter prayed for him earnestly and continually. One day he said to her, “Lucy, pray, for me.” She would often say to her mother, “Mother, he will be different.” The wife used often to answer in her despair, “He never will.”
I used to speak to him, but the wife would say to me, “It is no good, Mr. W— for you to speak to him, he is too hard.”
The daughter said, “I am sure he will be saved.” I could but reply, “Go on praying, the Lord honors faith, and answers prayer.”
In his endeavors after better things, he would sometimes sign the pledge and bring it home, and nail it over the fireplace, proud of it—but in a day or two he was as bad as ever.
But God was going to save his soul in His own way and time, and so give him a power over sin by the knowledge of its forgiveness. He was converted about six months after his daughter’s conversion at the Royal Public Rooms. All his companions said he would never stick to it, he had signed the pledge so often before, etc., but he replied, “Yes, I shall stick to it, for I have the grace of God in my heart now. Satan comes and tempts me, but the Lord helps me.” He was always speaking about Christ to his mates—for twenty-five years he served the Lord and never turned back. He always had his Bible and hymn book by his bedside, and the Bible was soiled with the marks of his fingers when he read it in his work. His Bible was the voice of God to him.
Ah! those dear old Public Rooms days, when God was with us in such power and blessing! When, week after week, men like the one of whom I am writing came to Christ. Hundreds of them have gone to be with Christ who found the Lord in those grand happy days of fruitful service. Yes, well do I remember how my faith was often tried about dear W. —, of whom I am writing. After many a loving appeal to him to come to Christ, I have been disheartened at his answer, and have said to his wife―
“Oh! Mrs. W―, I’m afraid it’s no good speaking to your husband. I have just met him, and talked to him, and he tells me he must have one more pint and then he will give it up.”
The one more pint was often repeated, but many were praying for him, and the daughter still prayed and said, “Mother, he will be different, I am sure he will be saved.”
God honors faith and answers prayer. The testimony of his mates, unconverted men, was that he was a different man altogether.
So he lived among us his quiet, happy life for Christ. Five years ago he had an affection of the brain, which kept him a prisoner in his bed, and drew a veil of silence over his life. He would often smile as he lay, as if happy thoughts were passing through his mind. Sometimes when the word of God was read to him, his face would brighten, as if the poor numbed brain responded to the voice of God.
And when he passed away from earth to heaven to be with Christ, and we buried him in the Higher Cemetery, it was meet to recall the old days, twenty-five years ago, when Thomas Western came to Christ. We could look from his open grave to the open heaven, and realize a little what the power of that salvation must be that could change a slave of Satan into a servant of God. Yes, one by one they are leaving us to be with Christ, but what a glad reunion that will be, when we, too, pass into the presence of our Lord to meet the ones that have gone before. May the Lord bless the reader of this article, as he ‘blessed the subject of it, for Christ’s sake. H. W.