An evangelist writes, I was invited on one occasion to conduct a mission at a fashionable watering place. As the invitation came altogether unsolicited by me, I had but one answer―this was in the affirmative; there was no reason why it should be otherwise, but I confess I had a dread, for report said the pastor, who had invited me, was not much in sympathy with my kind of work, and the people of the place were quite aristocratic. I prayed that I might be guided aright so as not to give unnecessary offense, but to do all I could to win the people.
On my arrival at the place, my fears were realized. I found the pastor cold and unsympathetic, the congregation exceedingly well satisfied with themselves, and the atmosphere of the church as dead and cold as a garden in winter.
My first appeal on Sunday morning fell very flat upon me, if it did not on my hearers. In the evening the atmosphere was spiritually warmer. The after-meeting was a failure.
The pastor said to me next morning, “Did you notice a tall woman in the congregation yesterday?”
I said, “Yes, I noticed her; she appeared very attentive.”
He said, “She is a most ignorant woman. I do not think she can read a word. I cannot imagine why she came to church. I have known about her for a long time as a notorious character. She drinks and swears, and has been known to knock a person down who disputed with her. She goes about the town selling fish and vegetables.”
At the afternoon meeting she was present again, and paid great attention, and was also at the evening service. At the conclusion of the opening hymn, the pastor prayed in a quiet way, anything but exciting. The tall woman, immediately after, rose to her feet, and uttering a loud piercing shriek, she cried out “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!” And then shaking her clothes violently, she shrieked louder and louder.
The pastor was dumb with amazement, and the respectable people were thoroughly scared. I walked slowly toward the woman, giving out the words of the hymn, “How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds,” and commenced to sing it. It was taken up and carried on by a few of the audience.
The poor affrighted woman, after stamping with her feet, and shaking her clothes again and again, bounded out into the aisle, and continued shaking her clothes as if to extinguish the flames.
I said to her, “Come with me to the end of the room. We will see about putting out the fire.”
Oh! “she cried, with a louder shriek than before,” I’m sinking into hell. Oh, save me! save me!”
“Come with me, and we will see about that too,” I said.
I persuaded her to kneel down, and I knelt by her side and prayed, until she became calm. Then I told her the way of salvation.
She said, “Oh, but it is a sinner I am; yes, that I am, that I am!”
I said, “I am glad you feel your sins. Christ died to save such sinners as you. He can save you now. Ask Him for yourself. Say, God be merciful to me a sinner.’ Only believe on Him.”
The poor woman was still trembling with the fright she had been in. I said, “The Lord Jesus has taught us sinners to make that prayer, and He has told us in His love the answer to it. You shall go home justified, saved. He loves you―He died to save you.”
She found peace and pardon, and in a little while she returned quietly to her seat.
The woman grew in intelligence in a marvelous way, and in the after meetings talked to anxious people of her acquaintance. There was no mistake about the wonderful change that was wrought in her.
W. H.