“Mr. Iwata was one of the six candidates baptized at Maebashi on November 1St last. His story is an interesting one. When he was a very young child his father failed in business, and he was adopted by another family. He became a dutiful son to his adopted parents, and they became so fond of him that, when he was about eighteen, they decided to make him their heir, and arranged that he should marry their eldest daughter. Soon after this, however, his foster-father failed in business, and poor Iwata soon found himself bereft at one stroke of his position, his prospects and his bride, and thrown penniless upon the world. His intended, in her sorrow and distress, heard somehow of Christianity, and began to occasionally attend our services. Feeling that the message was just what her former fiance needed, she recommended him to go to the evening meetings, which her father would not allow her to attend. He became an earnest seeker, but was still without definite assurance of salvation.
“One day, as he walked along the road, he saw a pamphlet lying on the ground in front of him, and picked it up. It was a Bolshevist one, and, of course, bitterly hostile to Christianity. In it the words of our Lord, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ were quoted to be held up to ridicule. As he read them, however, the Holy Spirit applied them to his soul with power. He grasped the truth, which, so far, he had missed, that the assurance that he possessed eternal life could only be his as he believed the promises of God contained in His words. From that moment onwards he knew that he was saved”
T. E. Ashford.