ZECHARIAH. 4:6.
IT is related that a celebrated minister in America once prepared and preached a course of sermons against infidelity, especially for the purpose of convincing and bringing over to Christianity an intelligent infidel neighbor who was a regular attendant on his ministry.
Just after the close of the said series of sermons, the infidel professed to be awakened, and the preacher was anxious to know which of his sermons did the execution.
Soon after, the new convert, in relating his experience, said, “The instrument God was pleased to use for my awakening and conversion was not the preaching of those sermons against infidelity, but the simple remark of a poor old colored woman. In going down the steps of the church one night, seeing that the poor old woman was lame, I gave her my hand, and assisted her. She looked up at me with a peculiar expression of grateful pleasure, saying, Thank you, sir. Do you love Jesus, my blessed Saviour?
“I was dumb. I could not answer that question.
“She said, Jesus, my blessed Saviour,' with so much earnest confidence, that I could not deny that she had a blessed Saviour, and felt ashamed to confess that I did not love Him. I could not dismiss this subject from my mind, and the more I thought of it the clearer my convictions became that the old colored sister had a Jesus, a blessed Saviour; and I thought of how kind a Saviour He must be to impart such joy and comfort to such poor, neglected creatures as she was; and I soon began to weep over my base ingratitude in denying and rejecting such a Saviour. I earnestly sought that Saviour, and found Him; and now I can say, I do love Jesus, my blessed Saviour.' “In the simple remark of the old colored woman there was clearness of faith, a joyous confidence that shook the foundation of the infidel's refuge of lies. It had earnestness in it. The old sister was very grateful for a small favor, and very solicitous about the soul of the kind stranger. The Holy Spirit gave the whole an appropriateness of application which knocked the underpinning out of his infidel fort, and the walls that withstood the "great guns" of the preacher, tumbled down as suddenly as the walls of Jericho at the blast of the rams' horns.