By Dr. A. T. Schofield.
(This writer was a remarkable man. In addition to his professional abilities as a Harley Street physician, an author of repute, and an extensive traveler, he was one of the best known Christian workers in London. This striking experience of the miracle of conversion speaks in its very unexpectedness to its being all of God, yet given in answer to prevailing prayer.)
IT is now many years since my friend Kilner was one of the shining lights of London as he had just been the leading counsel in a well-known society law case concerning a certain celebrated pearl necklace.
I remember it was about this time that his mother came to me in great distress. She and her only daughter were devoted and prayerful Christians, and had succeeded in persuading my brilliant friend, who was far from the fold, to go one night to the Metropolitan Tabernacle to hear Mr. Moody who was then holding services in it. He had gone, and thence he went on to his club, and at midnight he returned home and knocked at his mother’s bedroom door and told her, with great emphasis, and in strong language, that it was the last religious service he would attend. “Mother,” he said, “I love you and Dora, and never hope to do anything else; but I beg of you never again to ask me to go to a service. I cannot stand the stuff.
The world is good enough for me.”
So the next day, stunned with her disastrous failure, she hurried off to me and implored me to help.
“But what can I do?” I urged. “I feel quite powerless.” So we knelt down and prayed for wisdom, and I said I would see if I could help in any way.
“Dora and I,” said the poor woman, are always prang for George; but so far he seems to turn his back on everything.”
After thinking over the matter, it suddenly struck me he had a lovely tenor voice. Though afflicted myself with what “a collier’s bass,” I am devoted to part singing, and have trained more than one choir. I was not therefore altogether out of my place when I nightly took my seat high up in the gallery behind Mr. Moody, and did my best to avoid singing flat.
At that time the great choir sang some very well-arranged pieces, and, as usual, our weakest part was the tenor. It was thus I got a ray of light. Again I prayed that the slender cord might draw my friend.
Next day, near the abbey, I met Kilner. I put up a silent prayer. “Hullo,” I said, “where are you off to, old man?” “I’m off to meet a client,” he said; “anything I can do for you?” “Well, it just happens there is.” I replied; “for I’m in a bit of a fix. There is a nasty tenor part coming on in my choir, and for the life of me I can’t sing it.” “I didn’t know you sang tenor?” he remarked, looking me over from head to foot. “Well, no more I do,” I said, “but we’re so desperately short of voices, I was wondering if you’d come round and give us a help.” (I knew he was rightly rather proud of his voice.)
“Certainly, certainly,” he said. “I’ll come with pleasure if I can be of any help, and if it’s not too difficult.”
“Oh, you’ll rattle it off easily enough,” I answered.
“Well, when is it?”
“Tuesday night at eight,” I said.
“Bit early,” he replied, as he got out his notebook.
“And the address?” But that was exactly what I could not give him.
“It’s not so far,” I said, lamely; “best plan is to meet me at this end of the bridge at a quarter to eight and we’ll go together.”
“All right, I am with you; and you must come round to the club after for a bit of supper.”
“Don’t be late,” I shouted, as he turned away.
So there it was. I had given
the first tan to the nail.
but it remained to be seen if it were fastened “IN A SURE PLACE.”
I waited in some anxiety for Tuesday night, wondering whether my friend would turn up, and if he did, whatever on earth was I to do with him. However, prayer was my resource, and off I went on the appointed evening, and there, sure enough, on Westminster Bridge, my friend was waiting for me.
“Hullo,” he said, “bit late, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered; “it’s only just struck the quarter to.”
“Well, come along, where is it?”
“Just a short way over the bridge,” I replied. So off we went. When we had gone some distance, and were drawing near to the Elephant and Castle, he began to get curious.
“Where is this choir?” he said. “What choir is it?” “Oh, it’s a special choir,” I said. “There are, I dare-say, a couple of hundred voices in it.”
“But where is it?” he urged. “Is it much farther?” Oh, no,” I said. “It’s just across the way.”
“Well, I don’t know much about these parts,” he said, suspiciously, “but it seems to me I’ve been this way before.”
At last we got to the Tabernacle. “We turn in here,” I said, in fear and trembling, and praying all the time.
“Why, that is that― place I was in to hear that American― he said. “I’m not going in there again; not if I know it.”
“Certainly not,” I replied, “come away,” and I led him away from the entrance, where the crowds were pouring in, round to the back of the building. “This is our door,” I. said.
“But that leads into the place,” he said, angrily.
“What’s the matter?” I cried.
“Don’t show the white feather!
You’re surely not afraid of the preacher! Besides, you don’t need to listen to him. All you’ve to do is to help me, and sing like a bird.”
“All right, old man. Now I’m here, I’ll come. But I wish I had known where it was; for I told my mother I’d never come again.”
But I had told his mother that, please God, I’d bring him there that night. And here he was, and in we went, and away we climbed, stair after stair, to the top of the gallery, and took our seats.
The great building was crammed to the roof, and I knew well that somewhere two women were sitting crying to God in their agony for their only son and brother; and here he was sitting by my side. So once more I looked to God.
Of course, when the singing began, the neighboring members of the choir, who hitherto had rather despised me, all turned round at the sound of the magnificent tenor voice I had so suddenly developed. Alas! they soon discovered it was my friend.
Kilner sang magnificently. Nothing is more easy to divorce, alas, than the heart and the voice. To hear that lovely tenor uttering those sacred words was a proof to me of such divorce, and a great grief. Moreover, it was contrary to rule, for this was a Christian choir; and technically I had no right whatever to introduce Kilner. But it was with an agony of prayer for his soul that I did so; Copenhagen, there are moments when one has to, turn a blind eye to orders.
When the singing was over Kilner naturally wanted to, go. He was glad to have helped me, but he had an appointment, etc., etc.
“Look here, Kilner,” I said, “I know all about that appointment. What you are really afraid of is the sermon. Well, you needn’t be. Don’t listen to it. Go to sleep if you like. The fact is, we’ve another piece coming on at the end, and I’d dearly like you to stay for that,”
“All right, old man,” he said, with a wry face; “you’ve got me here and intend to keep me. Anyhow, I’ll see you through.” And so he stayed, and Moody began.
No words can ever describe my despair. No length of time can ever make me forget my agony when Moody began
his one imposing and hopeless sermon,
which I always disliked intensely.
It hardly contained a word of Scripture, and consisted of a purely imaginary conversation between John the Baptist and Herod the Great, on the topics of the day. Of course, the plan of salvation and the work of Christ were all introduced, but, oh! for the direct Gospel message which none could deliver like D. L. Moody!
I cried once more to God. I had done all I could. Now it must all be left to Him. I retired from the fray, and resigned all into His Hands. It seemed dreadful to have got Kilner there with such a result!
At last the sermon came to an end, (I don’t think my friend listened to a word), and then his glorious voice was heard once more, and the service was over.
“Come along now,” he said; “we’ll have supper at my club. I wonder if we could get a hansom here?”
“All right,” I said, putting on my coat, and not knowing what to do next.
“Hullo,” he whispered, looking down on the crowd; ‘where are all those people going to” pointing to hundreds streaming out by a side door.
“Oh,” I said, in a careless voice, being now depressed and hopeless; “they’re going to the after-meeting, I suppose.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Oh, it’s just a short wind-up,” I said.
“Are you going?” he asked.
“Well, I was,” I said. “At any rate, if you don’t mind you go on and I’ll follow you in half an hour.”
“Not you,” he said, to my intense surprise. “I’ll see it through now I am here. And what’s more, I won’t lose sight of you.” In perfect amazement I walked with him into the crowded hall, and he took a front seat opposite to Mr. Moody, by whose side I got another. Away in a corner I caught sight of the pale faces of the mother and sister.
And now at last, thank God, the real Moody shone forth. “Well,” said he, leaning his arms on the desk, “you’ve heard all about it. Won’t you come? Won’t you come? We’re here for business, and want to know which of you will close with the offer of salvation and take Jesus Christ for his Saviour. Don’t be afraid; He is waiting for you. Now, what man has courage to rise and take the Lord Jesus as his Saviour? “This, and much more, in the most earnest and winning way, the great evangelist said, while every Christian in the hall was in earnest, silent prayer.
Up got Kilner, the first of any one, and walked across the room to the evangelist. He held out his hand, and said, “I’ll take Him. Mr. Moody!”
I was incapable of thought,
speech, or feeling at that supreme moment. All my faculties were in my eyes, gazing at the wondrous sight of the sudden surrender of a determined enemy of the Gospel to his crucified Redeemer. In vain do we speak of any earthly or natural agencies (hypnosis, telepathy, etc.), in such a scene, for its depth, and reality, and Divine power were afterward demonstrated for many years by the Christian life of the society clubman, George Kilner.
His rejoicing mother and sister soon joined us, and I was awestruck to see the transfiguration of the man before my eyes. The revolution of thought and feeling which had taken place was complete. Not that he could speak, but his grasp and his eyes were enough.
It was one of the most remarkable cases of conversion I ever met with. It fills the soul with praise; but to this day I have no idea as to what actually caused the miracle, nor could Kilner ever really tell me, for I don’t think he knew. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou Nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). (With acknowledgment, to “Living Links.”)