"One sweetly solemn thought comes to me o'er and o'er:
I'm nearer home today than I've ever been before."
Years ago a Christian tourist was traveling in China. At Macao he was shown a company of gamblers in a back room on the upper floor of a hotel. At the table nearest him was a young American, not more than twenty years old, whose partner was an old man. While the gray-haired man was shuffling the cards and preparing to deal, the young man, in a careless way, sang a verse of "One sweetly solemn thought," to a very touching tune.
Several of the gamblers looked up in surprise on hearing the singing. The old man, as he dealt the cards, gazed steadfastly at his partner in the game. Suddenly he threw the pack of cards under the table. "Where did you learn that song?" he asked.
The young man pretended that he did not know that he had been singing. "Well, no matter," said the old man, "I have played my last game. That's the end of gambling for me. The cards may lie there till doomsday, and I'll never pick them up."
Having won a hundred dollars from his partners, he took the money from his pocket and handed it over to the young man. "Here, Harry," he said. "Here is your money; take it and do some good with it. I hope to do so with mine."
The tourist followed the two men downstairs, and in the lobby he still heard the old man talking about the song which the young man had sung. It had revived memories, he said, of early days when a life devoted to Christ had been his joy. But he had later yielded to worldly allurements and been ensnared with the pleasures of gambling. All thoughts of God, of Christ, and of heaven had been blanked from his mind and heart.
This very day the old man had suffered a sudden illness which had driven him in panic to a doctor. There he had learned that another such seizure might be his last. Seeking forgetfulness of this bad news, he had gone to the company he knew best and tried to drown his gloomy thoughts in concentrating on the game.
"Now," he said, "that song has broken me down. I remember the words and must face the truth. Eternity is just ahead and I have little time to prepare to go HOME. I begin to long for the Father's house, but will He receive me? In those many mansions, is there a place for me?"
The traveler had been listening quietly as the old man laid bare his thoughts to the young man. Now was his opportunity as a Christian to be used by the Spirit to speak peace to this troubled soul. Prayerfully and tenderly he brought before the two men the unfailing, unchanging love of the Father.
From his pocket Testament he read to the two men the story in Luke 15 of the prodigal son and his anxiously waiting father. To the Christian traveler it was a joy to see the face of the older man brighten up as he read the twenty-fifth verse. At the son's confession in the next verse, tears rolled unheeded down the penitent's cheeks, and with broken accents he owned his own guilt and remorse.
Touched by the Scripture story and by the demonstration before him, the young man also expressed his need of the Savior. Before the three parted, they were all rejoicing: the old man, in restoration to the Father's favor; the young man, in the mercy of God that had reached out and saved him; and the traveler, as a participant in the joy of heaven that he that was dead is alive again.