In a train sat two sailors in eager conversation. The talk between them was not evil, but through a bad, inherited custom, they continually misused the name of God, till an unknown fellow-traveler, an old man, turned to one of them with the words, "Please, my friend, do not insult my Father any longer!”
"Insult your father!" said the astonished sailor, "I don't know him and have never spoken of him. Perhaps you know him, Johnny?”
"No" replied his comrade.
"All the sadder for you!" said the unknown man. "If you knew my Father, you would love Him; I ask you kindly not to misuse His name any longer.”
Thereupon the old man took the sailor's hand and began to tell him of God's love and mercy. That went to the sailor's heart, and he told that six months before, he had stood at his mother's death-bed. She had put her hands on his head and prayed God to bless him. With this remembrance came suddenly the question from the lips of the sailor, "Do you believe that God will still save me, a poor sinner?”
Then followed a long and blessed conversation. Through the faithful witness of this servant of God, the two sailors found peace with God through Christ that day—peace, forgiveness, eternal life. They turned from darkness to light. Their life before had been towards the sun setting—towards eternal destruction; now, it had altered—it was towards the sun rising, and they were on their way to the Father's house.
The man who spoke for the honor of the name of God, whose heart could not bear to hear that name spoken "in vain," is a simple man of the people. His hands are hard from using the pick and shovel but God has equipped him to work on the heart, and to break through the hard stones of unbelief, indifference and enmity to God that lodge there.