The simple folk at the railway mission made as a special object of their prayers a man named Williams. He was a drunkard and a very bad vicious man who openly defied God and despised His people. No one had as yet gained admittance to his house, and it took some courage to make the attempt.
“Would you be willing to go, Tim?” I was asked. I hesitated, for I was only a babe in Christ. But I loved my Master and was very eager to win a soul for Him. So after a pause I answered, “I’ll go if you will all pray for me.”
It was not without some inward trembling that I stood the next day at Mr. Williams’ door. I knocked rather loudly, and almost immediately the door swung open and a huge unwieldly form blocked up the entrance. Mr. Williams was very tall and stout, and his angry crimson face spoke only too plainly of a life spent in the devil’s service.
“Well, what do you want?” he shouted.
“I want to see Mr. Williams,” I said mildly.
“Well, you’ve seen him,” and in another moment the door was slammed in my face.
Nothing daunted, and I knocked again. Once more the door opened, and a very angry voice said, “Now what do you want?”
“I just wanted to speak to you.”
“Well, you’ve spoken to me, haven’t you?” and again the door was banged.
It took some courage to knock again, but I remembered the little praying band, and made another attempt.
For the third time the door was opened, and I won’t try to repeat the language that greeted me. When it was over I said: “I wish you would let me come in. I have something I especially want to say to you.”
To my surprise he stood back. “Come on in then,” he said sullenly. No sooner was I inside than he burst out again: “It’s those mission people that have sent you! I know them praying for me, are they?”
“Well, and why shouldn’t they pray for you?” I said.
He stared at me without answering and then said, “Well, come on,” and he almost pushed me into a barely-furnished room where he stood and faced me. “Now then, what is it you want to say to me?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” I said.
This seemed to tickle him intensely. He burst out with a roar of laughter.
“Well, that beats me,” he cried.
“Look here,” I ventured, “there’s a good meeting within a stone’s throw. There’s sure to be plenty of singing, will you come?”
Those praying must have been hard at it, for he said suddenly: “Wait a minute,” and he dashed out of the room shutting the door behind him.
I heard his voice behind the partition saying to his wife, “There’s a young fellow wants me to go to a meeting; what do you think of that?”
“And why shouldn’t you? It can’t do you no harm anyhow, but you must clean up a bit first.”
The door opened again. “I’m your man, and I’ve had a wash and brush up.”
In a remarkably short time we were trudging along arm in arm. I thought I must have looked like David walking alongside of Goliath. He was so huge and I was so small. We reached the hall and I steered my man up near the front as far as I could get him, and he fell into a chair which protested quite loudly.
I cannot remember much about the service, but the message was given by a whole-hearted evangelist, delivered in the power of the Spirit of God. We were deeply moved; many were broken down and brought to a sense of their sin, but none more so than the man at my side. When the speaker asked any who would like to receive Christ as their Saviour to remain, he rose, and with tears running down his cheeks he staggered up the aisle. Supported by two stalwart brothers, he knelt down, crying out loud for mercy. He was so convicted of sin that it was an easy task to point him to the Saviour, and before long he was a rejoicing soul, a “new creature” in Christ Jesus.
He went on well. The once drunken blasphemer became a kind husband and father and a worker for God in the little band of Christians whose prayers had by God’s grace brought him from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
ML-01/01/1978