He was a "preacher of the old school," and when asked to tell of his conversion the dear old man readily grasped the opportunity to tell of the grace of God toward him. This is his story: I left my home on the western frontier in my boyhood to prepare for college at Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. Having finished my course there, I set out for Harvard, where I remained only three weeks. Then because most of my former classmates had gone to New Haven, I followed them to Yale. There I found myself caught up in conflicting streams of so-called higher criticism. Yielding little by little, my own faith in the old-time religion soon entirely passed from me.
I knew that my Christian mother had dedicated me to the Christian ministry at my birth, but this fact dropped out of my memory. My plan for the future was to enter the Law Department of Columbia University in New York City.
On graduating from Yale, I returned to my prairie home for the second time in six years. There my dear mother threw her arms about me, kissed me on both cheeks, and said, "Now, my boy, my dream is coming true. You are going to be a minister of Christ.”
Her words were like a blow in the face. I loved my mother devotedly, but my plans were made. What could I do? For three days I wrestled with the problem. I dreaded to disappoint this one so dear to me, but how could I enter the ministry when my faith was gone? I had lost even the desire to pray, and was determined not to become a preacher unless I could honestly assume all the solemn obligations.
I tried most earnestly to recover my faith. Failing in this, I decided to try an experiment: I would take a year's course in theology and abide by the result. Pursuing this decision, I entered a "Liberal" institution in Chicago where, by a kind providence, I roomed in old Farwell Hall, Mr. Moody's headquarters. I cannot thank God sufficiently for my association with that devoted man. But the lectures in the seminary gave me no help. I returned to my room after each hour in the classroom, and the only prayer I could make was: "Lord, I believe! Help Thou mine unbelief.”
Still I did not abandon my purpose. A second year in Union Theological Seminary served me no better. In order to pay my expenses for the third year, I undertook superintendence of a Newsboy's Mission; and when the boys asked me to hold evening meetings, I consented, and spoke to them on such subjects as "Telling the Truth," "Keeping Clean," and "Living an Honest Life.”
One day as I sat in my room there was a knock at my door, and one of my newsboys entered with his heart in his throat and his hair on end. He begged me to come quickly, for his father was dying. The frightened boy knew no minister but me, and I must go.
I followed him down a shabby street and climbed the rickety stairs to an attic room. There his father lay dying, an old man who had wasted his life in drink and dissolute living.
As I approached his bed he looked at me and said, "You are pretty young to tell an old man like me how to die." How true! But I did my best to help him.
I shall never forget that night. The old man began by asking me if I thought God would have mercy on an old sinner like him. I answered by quoting Wesley's lines:
"Betwixt the saddle and the ground,
Mercy sought is mercy found.”
"How do you know that?" he questioned.
I replied that Christ had said so.
"How do you know Christ said so?"
I referred to the Bible as my authority.
He said, "Do you believe the Bible?" What could I answer? I lied to him, saying that I did.
He asked me, "Do you believe Jesus died for a low-down sinner like me?" I lied again and said that I did.
"How do you know that?" Again I referred to the Bible as authority.
"How do you know the Bible is true?" I did my best to explain—insincerely. But what else could I do.
The dying man shot questions at me all night, thrusting me, metaphorically, from one corner of the room to another, and keeping his dimming eyes on me as I sought to answer him. Oh, that dreary, momentous night! I had never seen a man die before.
The old man had been bred in a Highland home by Christian parents, and at last his failing mind began to remember. Soon he was murmuring to himself the Scottish version of the Shepherd's Psalm. The past was coming up before him! When he said, "Pray with me," I fell upon my knees by his bedside, and poured out my soul in the first real prayer I had offered in years.
When I rose from my knees, the old Scotchman's spirit had left his poor body. The morning was dawning; and I had reason to thank God that in trying to help a sinner to die, I had myself learned how to live. My faith in God my Savior had come back, and I knew that henceforth there was no middle-of-the-road for me; I must believe or disbelieve. I recognized that God knew only two classes: believers and unbelievers; saved and lost. Since then, thank God, I have never wavered.
Now I am entering on my eighty-second year. For nearly half a century I have tried to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and the memory of that night in a tenement house on Eleventh Avenue abides with me. Surely the Lord who has helped me thus far will keep me to the end.