J.B. was a young bricklayer, of a gay and careless disposition, He led a somewhat dissipated life, though happily free from the ensnaring vice of drunkenness.
One day, after working rather harder than usual on a new house, he lay down at noon in a shady corner to rest. He soon fell asleep, and as he slept the sunshine crept on inch by inch around the corner, till at last its full blaze beat upon his bare head. When the other men resumed work after dinner, they looked about for him in vain.
The heat was intense, and they thought, perhaps, he was exhausted and had returned home. At last one of them, walking round the house, found him still asleep, and tried to wake him, but in vain. For three days and nights, like Saul of Tarsus when blinded with a light above the brightness of the sun, he remained without food or drink and lay utterly unconscious. At last he displayed a little consciousness, but could not utter a word. For nine long months he continued thus, unable to move or speak.
But though he could not speak, he could listen, and though he gave no sign of hearing the loving voices around him, all the while his soul was listening to the voice of God. By what means light broke into his soul, of how God had spoken to him, and called him out of darkness into light, we do not know. But God had shed abroad His love in the poor troubled heart, and after the long months the silence was broken, but only to utter these three words, “God is Love.” And this was the first utterance since the laughs and jokes while building, nearly a year before!
His friends tried to make him say more, but in vain. Having had strength to declare but once where his heart was, he could not speak again. All that could be got out of him wen slight sounds. From this time even the sound: he made were only given when the theme of conversation around him was the love and goodness of God. To all other subjects he was apparently absolutely deaf.
After a time, J. B. recovered the use of his partly paralyzed limbs sufficiently to allow him to follow the trade of a book-binder. When once more moving in the world his Christian character was soon owned by others, and to this day he is a witness of the grace of God. A. T. S.