"Well, my friend, you have not much longer to serve! What will you do when you leave here?" The speaker was a tall broad-shouldered policeman, with a pleasant, open face and a winning, though somewhat authoritative, manner.
A very striking contrast was presented by the person addressed. It would be very difficult to find a more unsightly face, or a more repellent manner. He wore the unmistakable dress of a convict, and the experienced eye of the policeman could see by his worn clothes that his term of imprisonment had nearly expired. The convict was standing by the edge of the water, preparing the boat which was to take his fellow convicts to their toil on the other side of the harbor.
The sea rippled and sparkled in the early morning sunshine, gently rocking the boat to and fro; and as the policeman stood and watched the hard, set face of the man bending doggedly over his work, his heart was moved with a tender, yearning pity. If this old man knew the love of God, how it would alter that hard, unyielding face! Perhaps something of his feeling found expression in his voice as he repeated his question, for the old man looked up and gruffly asked, "What?”
“You are getting to be an old man now, and it is not everyone who would employ you. What do you think of doing when you leave here?”
The old man straightened himself up, and his face took on, if possible, a more defiant expression as he answered, looking his questioner full in the face: "The first thing I shall do when I leave here will be to murder a policeman.”
“Oh! The first thing you will do when you leave here will be to murder a policeman?”
The man's own words were repeated slowly and questioningly.
“Yes," replied the convict, "that will be my first work. He gave false evidence against me; that is, he told more than the truth, and he will pay for it with his life.”
“Well, and after you have murdered the policeman, what then?”
“Then I shall be caught and locked up. You know I can't get far away from the bars." He spoke recklessly and with a bitter half laugh.
“Yes; and after you are tried and sentenced, what then?”
“Then I shall be tried and sentenced.”
“Yes; and after you are tried and sentenced, what then?”
“Then I shall be hanged.”
“Yes; and after you are hanged, what then?”
There was no answer. The man's thoughts had apparently never traveled beyond death. He was evidently startled.
“Have you a Bible in your cell?" the policeman asked presently.
“Yes, and I have read it through hundreds of times to kill time.”
“Well, have you ever read, 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? The living words were spoken slowly.
“No, that ain't in my Bible! I have read it through over and over, and that ain't there. 'God so loved the world'"—the man was thoughtful—"no, that ain't in my Bible.”
There was no time for more conversation now; but the good seed had been sown, and the policeman prayed earnestly that it might take root in the hard, unlikely soil.
There was an indescribable difference in the appearance of the old man as he walked down to the side of the water the next morning, where the policeman was watching anxiously for him.
“Aye! I've read it," he answered, "and I didn't know it was there, although I've read it over and over. But do you mean to tell me," he continued with intense earnestness, "that it means ME? Me! A convict of fifty years standing?”
The heart of the policeman burned within him as he answered: "Yes; oh, yes; it means YOU. It is God's Word, you know, and God always means what He says. You are one of the world, aren't you? And `God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'”
The old man stood up in the boat and stretched out his arms. "Sir," he said, "they might have burned my finger joints off, they might have burned my hands off; and I would not have given in. But such love as this breaks my heart." And he sank down in the boat and sobbed aloud.
The policeman stood silently by. His heart was filled with exceeding joy. He had asked that this soul might be saved, but that he should see it was more than he had asked or thought.
Presently the old man looked up. "Oh sir," he said, while the tears still ran down his cheeks, "if you knew my past life you would not be surprised that this wonderful love of God breaks my heart. I have never known what love is since my mother died. I was only five years old then, and my father kicked me out of doors, telling me to go and get my own living—he had kept me long enough. And since then I've knocked about in the world, and every man's hand has been against me. Sometimes I begged—at least, when I was a little chap—and when I couldn't get enough, I stole. Fifty years of my life I've spent in jail, so you may guess I was not long out at a time. Ten years ago I was charged with setting fire to a farm, but the policeman told much more than the truth about it; and yesterday when you spoke to me, I had murder in my heart. But oh sir, I chant murder the policeman now; God, in His great and wonderful love, has stopped me.”
The policeman was deeply touched. God, who knoweth the end from the beginning, had given him a message from His own never changing Word for the convict; and the Holy Spirit, true to His office, used that Word to convict him of sin. Here he was now, a believer in that One, "clothed, and in his right mind," sitting at the feet of Jesus. What a marvelous work of grace! As a brand snatched from the burning, the once wicked, vindictive old convict had been utterly broken down when confronted with the mighty love of God for lost, ruined souls such as he. Now that precious love was shed abroad in his own enlightened soul by the Holy Ghost. Cleansed from all iniquity in the precious blood of Christ, and bubbling over with the joy of salvation, the discharged convict found his days filled with the satisfying portion of telling others what "great things the Lord had done" for him.