I OFTEN heard my dear old father say, the example of consistent Christianity, in an ordinary working-day life, does many a glorious service for God, unknown to the humble individual used as His means. Certain it is that I felt, my faithful little sister-in-law was mysteriously influencing my life, although I did not know she was praying for my conversion, as she could never muster courage to speak to me. Even in the busy excitement of the life of a London public-house manager, I saw and envied the happiness in what seemed to me a dull and tame routine of existence in my sister-in-law’s very humble sphere. There was a charm in her contentment, while her joyful smiles and laughter were not like the false merriment I was accustomed to witness.
Business took me from London, and I suddenly determined to gain my livelihood in a less pernicious and degrading trade than that of a publican, and returned to town a total abstainer. Although during the twenty years I had kept a public-house, I had not been an unbeliever, still I had never surrendered myself to Christ, but, thank God, I could see even then, that public-house life and Christianity could not be reconciled. I did not know when returning to London that my heart was being prepared for the seed, that has since blossomed forth in the flowers of salvation.
My sister-in-law at last plucked up courage, and asked me to accompany her to a never to-be-equaled mission hall! Would I go and hear her hero among the City missionaries, John F.? She told me afterward that she never thought I would consent. But I said “Yes,” and, thank God, I went.
So the late worldly manager of some of London’s dazzling and popular gin palaces, entered the little dull, dingy-looking mission hall in Kingsland!
There was nothing to arouse the natural feelings in the service, but the Lord Jesus won me by the simplicity and grandeur of His truth!
He spoke through His servant, in tones so beseechingly kind, and so convincing, that away went the influence of twenty years of soul-polluting associations, and in less than an hour I was on the Lord’s side. Ever since I have had Him near to me, in daily toil, and happy leisure, and His love has driven from my heart the old love of the world. I have testified for Him publicly in the open-air meetings, and I have had more joy in one day of His presence than I ever knew in the forty years of my life without Him. God has found me employment in an honest business, where the Lord’s day can be used to His glory, and where, by His grace, I can live soberly and godly.
I trust these few words of gratefully-given testimony may fall into the hands of some who, as I once was, are now engaged in the drink traffic. Cannot God’s wondrous mercy send it as a message to another manager’s heart?
Will not you, who are now doing Satan’s work, helping souls down to hell through drunkenness, make a clean break with it all yourself, take Christ for your Saviour, and in your turn also become a soul-winner? C.