"I enlisted in the army and was soon appointed a first lieutenant. I was not yet eighteen and had never been away from home influences. I had never tasted liquor and did not know one card from another. My regiment was principally officered by young men, but many of them were old in dissipation.
"This new life was attractive to me and I entered upon it with avidity. I was soon a steady drinker and constant cardplayer. I laughed at the caution of older heads and asserted with all the egotism of a boy that I could abandon my bad habits at any time I wanted to.
"But I soon found that my evil desires had complete control over my will. Nine years later, being a physical wreck, I resigned, and determined to begin a new life. Time and again I failed, and at last I gave up all hope.
"I abandoned myself to the wildest debauchery, speculating on how much longer my body could endure the strain. In anticipation of sudden death I destroyed all evidence of my identity, so that my family and friends might never know what a dog's death I had died.
"It was in this condition that I one day wandered into this meeting hall and found a seat in the gallery. There I sat in my drunken, dazed condition, looking down upon well-dressed and happy people.
"I soon concluded that it was no place for me, and was just about to go out, when out of a perfect stillness rose the voice of Mr. Sankey singing the song, 'What Shall the Harvest Be?' The words and the music stirred me with a strange sensation. I listened till the third verse had been sung:
" 'Sowing the seed of a lingering pain,
Sowing the seed of a maddened brain,
Sowing the seed of a tarnished name,
Sowing the seed of eternal shame;
Oh, what shall the harvest be?'
"These words pierced my heart. In desperation I rushed downstairs and out into the snowy streets. I soon found a saloon, where I called for liquor to drown my sorrow.
"On every bottle in the bar-room, in words of burning fire, I could read: "'What shall the harvest be?'
"When I took up my glass to drink I read written on it, " 'What shall the harvest be?'
"I dashed it to the floor and rushed out again into the cold dark night. The song followed me wherever I went, and finally drew me back to this meeting hall two weeks later.
"I found my way to the inquiry room and was spoken to by a kind-hearted, loving brother. With his open Bible he pointed me to the Great Physician who had power to cure me and heal me of my appetite, if I would only receive Him.
"Broken, weak, vile and helpless I came to Jesus, and by His grace I was able to accept Him as my Redeemer. And I have returned here today to bear my testimony to the power of Jesus to save to the uttermost."
Such was the testimony of a man who one Friday afternoon walked into one of Dwight L. Moody's meetings in Chicago. All present were deeply touched; there was scarcely a dry eye in the audience.
A week later the man returned and showed Mr. Sankey the following letter from his little daughter: Dear Papa: Mamma and I saw in the Chicago papers that a man had been saved in the meetings there, who was once a lieutenant in the Army, and I told Mamma that I thought it was my Papa. Please write soon as you can as Mamma cannot believe that it was you."
This letter was received by the man at the General Post Office. The mother and their two children were sent for, and with Mr. Moody's help, a home was secured for them and employment for the man. Afterward he labored for over twenty years in the gospel. His name was W. O. Lattimore, writer of the hymn, "Out of Darkness Into Light."
The author of "What Shall the Harvest Be?" was E. S. Oakey, a frail delicate woman, always an invalid, never having known, as she once said, an hour of health in her life.