A company of men were one night carousing in a saloon on the outskirts of D., when the sound of voices was heard singing a spiritual song. It was a little band of Christian young women on their way home from a religious meeting, and they were giving expression to their joy in the Lord by singing,
“One there is above all others,
O, how He loves!”
The words of the hymn fell with a strange power upon the ear of a young man sitting at the tavern table. The others seemed not to hear the voices of the singers as they passed; to him it was the voice of God. He was arrested by the Holy Spirit, and became dumb with silence. His companions were astonished. They thought that he had suddenly gone mad. In vain they questioned him, in vain they jeered. He rose and left the saloon.
As he paced the street in the darkness of the night, the words of the hymn kept ringing in his ears. He thought of the love of that Savior whom he had hitherto rejected.
The thought pierced his heart and he burst into tears.
Thus stricken on account of his sins, he made his way to the house of a minister, and there, with subdued manner and a grieved look, he told how God had smitten his heart in the saloon, and turned his pleasures into wormwood and gall. He seemed to see his sins in the light of Christ’s love, and eagerly he inquired the way of salvation.
The faithful minister preached Christ to the awakened young man, and seemingly not in vain, for from that time the course of his life was changed.
Dear reader, do you speak of Jesus? Do you sing of Him? Is your heart so full, that Jesus is your theme?