A Child of God

 
I knew a poor deluded drunkard, who blasphemed God’s name, and ruined his family, and did everything that was bad. This man went home one night when his wife had been out washing―I think it was ten pence she had for her day’s work―and the man said, “Give me that money.” She said, “I want it to buy my children some bread for tomorrow when I am out washing.” He said he would have it, and they began struggling, and then he beat her; and his little child came in and got between her father and her mother, and looked at the father and said, “Oh, father, don’t beat my mother; beat me, father, but don’t beat my poor mother.” The father looked at his little child, and pushed her out of the way, and struck her till the blood poured out of her little face, and she still cried to her father not to beat her mother, and then she said, “Lord, save my father.” I was sent for while they were quarreling in that way, and when I went into the house the poor man seemed cowed down, and ashamed of the wrong he had done. I knew that poor woman was a child of God, and that God had given her liberty. When I went in the little girl said, “Mr. Weaver, doesn’t it say that whatever we ask in faith, believing, it shall be done”? “Yes, it does, my dear,” said I. “Then let you, and my mother and me ask God to save my father,” she said. “We love him, don’t we, mother?” “Yes, we do,” said the poor mother. “Very well, then, Mr. Weaver,” said the little girl, “let us pray for him.” “That is right,” I said. And the little girl knelt down and prayed, and she said, “My friend, Richard Weaver, and I, and my mother, agree to ask Thee to save my father. Oh Lord, save my father.” She prayed, and then her mother prayed, and while they were praying I got up and talked to him, and while I was talking to him I saw the tear begin to roll down his cheek, and he dropped the money out of his hands on to the floor, and at last he knelt down, too. I told him though he had been a bad and wicked father, the blood could save him. He was there groaning for liberty, and prayed for ten or twenty minutes. At last the poor little girl put up her hands, and she said, “Oh, my God, save my father this moment; save my father now.” And as she prayed it pleased the Lord to set him free, and he jumped up and cried, “Glory be to God, I do believe; I do believe: I do believe.”