“COME along; we will go and hear this humbug preach,” said William to his wife one Sunday evening. The young man was the son of Christian parents, and the child of many prayers. He had had every inducement to grow up in the fear of God, and in the knowledge of a Saviour’s love; but he had no heart for the things of God, and, finding his Christian home a check on his desires to enjoy the world, he left it, choosing the life of a sailor, where he had his full fling. Getting tired of a sailor’s life, he enlisted in the Royal Artillery, and, being an intelligent and smart man, rapidly rose to a non-commissioned officer. After the lapse of eight years, his eyesight failing, he was invalided, and came to reside in the island of G—, to use his subsequently oft-repeated words, “as one of the devil’s best servants.”
When discharged from the service he was still a young man, very powerful, over six feet in height. Having a few pounds in his pocket, he soon found friends kind enough to help him to spend it; but when his money was gone, his friends went too, and it was in this condition we found him one Sunday afternoon, nineteen months ago.
William had turned to his wife, and asked her where they should go, as they had no money. She, poor woman, tired and sad at heart, ventured to suggest that they should go to church, when suddenly William remembered that a few days before a young lady had put a tract in his hands with the following announcement on its cover:—
“God is light.”
—will preach the gospel at the Sailors’ Bethel
on Sunday night, at 6:30 o’clock.
“God is love.”
From the depths of his pocket he pulled out the tract, which was about the “Parable of the Sower,” and, having read it, made the remark we have already quoted, and the pair went to the Bethel.
On reaching the building they found it nearly full, and were placed right in front of the preacher.
The hymn, “Sowing the seed by the daylight fair,” had just commenced.
“Hum,” muttered William to himself, “strange, after my reading that tract on sowing the seed”; but more astonished was he when the preacher besought God that some poor prodigal before him that night, the child of many prayers, might be brought home to God. William began to wonder who had told the preacher about him, and he was greatly relieved when the prayer came to an end. Then, to his surprise, the preacher, looking straight at him, gave out the hymn, “Where is my wandering boy tonight?” This had such an effect on William that he was unable to stand up to sing, and he and his wife remained seated. The visible agitation of both encouraged the preacher to speak further on the prodigal.
To William’s great surprise the subject of the address was “The parable of the Sower”; his first impulse was to flee from the room, feeling that he was again singled out; but God, who had begun a good work, was able also to carry it on, and he was constrained to retain his seat. At the close of the meeting he and his wife were found weeping over their sins, and seeking mercy at the feet of Jesus.
William called at the preacher’s house the next night, to ask him to pray to God to strengthen him, and to keep his feet in the narrow way. At that time William was warder in a prison, and, being a man of a violent temper, was often very rough in his conduct towards the prisoners; but when God forgave him his sins he began reading and praying with those under his custody.
On one occasion, a man noted for fighting, who was continually in prison for short terms, again made his appearance in jail, and was overheard asking the other prisoners whilst at the mill, “What’s come over William? has he turned religious? When I was here before, he was continually swearing, and one day knocked me clean over a form; but now he seems kind to everybody.”
This testimony cheered him much, for all his thought was to adorn the doctrine of Christ his Saviour, who had so graciously had mercy on him.
Thus, after thirty years of prayer, were the petitions of the godly parents answered on behalf of their “wandering boy.” Fathers and mothers, pray on, for our God is abundantly able to save.
T. H.