NINE years ago, the 21St of last January, God graciously used Vol. 1. of The Messenger of Peace to bring peace and salvation to my soul, in the city of St Louis, U.S.A. I was then engaged in the practice of medicine there. My dear old mother (now with the Lord only a few months) was a good Baptist, given to much prayer for me, her godless, careless, infidel boy. My bedroom at home opened into hers, and at night the door always stood open, and many, many times I was wakened up by her crying to God for mercy and salvation for her poor unsaved boy.
My early education was received at home, under a private tutor, amidst the quiet blessed influences of a Christian home in the country. When I went away to University and Medical School, these vanished, and I drifted rapidly into sin and infidelity (they go well together), and my mother’s prayers seemed very likely never would be answered. But they stuck like an arrow in my heart, and I could not efface them from my memory—try as I would, they would come back fresh when I least wanted them.
I graduated from the St Louis Medical College, Medical Department of the Washington University, in 1892, and began the practice of my profession in the same city. My success was immediate, but I used it for the gratification of my own lust and will, “living in pleasure,” until one Saturday evening in November 1893 I met a Christian gentleman in a drug store near my office and the University, engaged in preaching Christ in an informal way to a few students sitting around the stove. It was near 10 P.M. when I entered, to leave a prescription with the druggist to be sent to a patient I had just left. I made it interesting for him and his audience, and the meeting lasted till half-past eleven.
But he (the Christian gentleman) had a new method for me―his constant appeal to the Word of God (as he insisted on calling the Bible) as a final court of appeal to settle all questions. His confidence in the Bible as the Word of God deeply impressed me. He pressed its testimony on me, and answered my arguments from the Book. I admired his consistency and confidence in it. Before, I had seen ministers, who above all should defend it, not only admit my questions, but suggest others that I never had thought of, and I spoke of this to him. I said these men ought to know its merit and demerit, and they had no confidence in the Bible. To my astonishment he answered this from the Scriptures in a most astonishing way. He read Acts 20:30,30Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:30) “Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,” and from 1 Timothy 4:22Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; (1 Timothy 4:2) how that in the latter times such were to” speak lies in hypocrisy,” and in 2 Timothy 2:2323But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. (2 Timothy 2:23) they would engage in the discussion of “foolish and unlearned questions” instead of the truth of God, and showed in chapter 3. how they would become “boasters, proud, blasphemers, traitors, heady, high-minded,” and in chapter 4:4 that they would at last” turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables. “That in chapter 3:13 they would become” evil men awl juggling impostors, advanced in evil (not in godliness), deceiving and being deceived.”
I was dumbfounded. This is what I had seen with my very eyes, and heard with my own ears. The thought rushed into my mind, “I am deceived and mistaken—blind myself and being led by the blind―and if I am mistaken, oh, how fatal to me it will be He pressed on me the fact that I was a sinner, and for that reason nothing awaited me but judgment if I rejected Christ―that I was hopelessly bad, and that there was no hope for me here nor refuge but Christ, whose precious blood would cleanse me from all sin. I could not sleep nor rest, and I was deeply stirred.
Night after night we had our unwritten appointment at the drug store, about 10 P.M., with others. I was broken down and broken up, but said nothing to―I will call him Mr. H —, but told it out to God both day and night. He told me of John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) and verse 24, &c., but they were meaningless formula for me. No, they did not belong to me. This trouble went on until just before Christmas, when Mr. H — came into the drug store and told me he was going away for a week to study the Word of God with two or three hundred other Christians in a neighboring city, and, slipping Vol. 1. of your Messenger of Peace into my overcoat pocket, said there was a book he wanted me to read while he was away.
This was Saturday night. I was busy, and thought no more of the book for a week, when on Sunday morning, at breakfast at the hotel, I discovered it in the coat again, as I was looking in the pockets for a handkerchief. I took it out, saying to myself, “There’s H―’s book―I wonder what it is.” I soon put it to one side for the great American Bible―the Sunday morning newspaper. I was in the habit now of going to hear a Presbyterian minister, but being busy that Sunday morning until after the hour of service, didn’t go. At my office between 12 and 1 P.M. I sat in misery. I couldn’t read the newspaper. I needed sleep, but couldn’t. Obstetric work had kept me up for two nights, and, contrary to my habit, I could not sleep during the day. I thought of my sins, of meeting God in my sins; I sat in my chair, I walked the floor, my head ached dreadfully. Then I saw your Messenger of Peace, and took it up, and began to read. I forgot myself, and Christ was revealed to my soul in those wonderful words in John 6:37,37All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37) “Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out.”
Like the prodigal in Luke 15, I had said, “I have sinned”― “There is bread enough”― “I am perishing”― “I will arise,” but these were only words, very promising to be sure, but then there was more, there was action. I arose, like the prodigal, and found my soul saved, and I blessed beyond conception. I took my Bible, and it had a new meaning—its words were no more empty formula but living verities.
By God’s grace I have been going on these nearly ten years with His Word and work, trying to minister to saint and sinner. I came here soon after I was saved, and have been devoting my time to preaching and my professional work.
I naturally often think of you, and sometimes a petition goes up to our Father to bless you in far away Edinburgh. I also look forward to a time when I may have the pleasure of seeing you, and rejoicing with you over God’s mercy in saving me. But the time has passed rapidly, and I now take this means of telling you, and thanking you. Maybe some time I may have the pleasure of meeting you face to face. My wife joins me with love in Christ for you and yours.
I trust I have not wearied you with my long story. ―Yours in the Lord Jesus,
P. V. W.