Almost immediately after my conversion, another man was laid on my heart, and I began to pray every day for his conversion. After I had been praying for some time for his conversion, the thought came into my mind that I would spend the night in prayer for him. I did not succeed in praying the whole night. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. I was on my knees almost the entire night, but part of the time I was asleep, but the best I could I spent the whole night in prayer for him.
When the morning came, I thought, “Now you have prayed for him all night, write him a letter beseeching him to accept Christ.” In a very short time I received a reply making fun of me and ridiculing me for my attempts to bring him to Christ. The devil came to me and mocked me and said, “That is all your prayers amount to. What is the good of praying? Here you spent the whole night praying for him and have written him a letter and this is all you get for your pains.” But the devil did not succeed in deceiving me this time. I continued praying for him every day. I kept it up for about fifteen years, never letting a day pass without praying definitely for his conversion.
In the meantime he had moved to Chicago and so had I. I visited him in Chicago, but could get no opportunity to speak to him about his soul. Indeed, he seemed to put himself out to be particularly blasphemous when I was around in order to hurt my feelings, but still I kept on praying.
One morning, after having prayed about fifteen years, as I was on my knees before God, it seemed as if God said to me, “You need not ask for that anymore. I have heard your prayer. He will be converted.” I never prayed again for his conversion but every morning I would look up and say, “Heavenly Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard my prayer, and now I am waiting to see it.”
About two weeks from that morning he came to my house to dinner. After dinner I said to him, “Don’t you think you had better stay here all night?” He replied, “I don’t know but I had. I am just up from inflammatory rheumatism and it is damp outside and I am really afraid to go home lest the rheumatism come back.” When he awoke the next morning the inflammatory rheumatism had come back to that extent that his feet were so swollen he could not put on his shoes. For two weeks he was laid up in my house. My opportunity had come. I had him. Every morning we held family prayers in his room. My friends coming in and out of the house seeing him there took it for granted that he was a Christian and seemed to talk more about religion than usual. My children running in and out of his room seemed to talk more about Christ than they usually did, though they always loved to talk about their Saviour.
After breakfast when the two weeks were up, we started down La Salle Avenue together. We had not gone half a block when he turned to me and said, “Archie, I am thinking of going into temperance work. How do you begin?” If there was ever any one on earth that needed to go into temperance work, it was he. I replied, “The only way I know to begin temperance work right is by first of all becoming a Christian yourself.” He said, “I always thought I was a Christian.” “You have the strangest way of showing it of any man I ever knew.” “How do you become a Christian?” he next asked bluntly. “Come over to my office and I will tell you.” I took him over to my office and as Mr. Moody was away I took him to Mr. Moody’s office and though he was seven years older than I, I explained to him the Way of Life as I would have explained it to a little child. He listened eagerly and when I had finished, he knelt down and accepted Christ as his Saviour just like a little child. Those who had known him in the olden time could hardly believe that he was converted. Some in the east would not believe it until they came out and saw him for themselves. Within a year he was preaching the Gospel. He preached it up to the end.
I had been down east visiting old friends of his and mine, and returned to Chicago. Hearing that he was ill at the place where he was preaching, forty miles out of Chicago, I went out to see him, and spent the day with him. I started to tell him about the old friends I met down in the east but he said, “Never mind that. Let’s have a time of prayer.” We passed the whole day in prayer and conversation and a happy day it was.
At evening I returned to Chicago, as I was to go south the next day, I spent the night in the Institute. About six o’clock in the morning there was a rap on my door. When I went to the door and opened it, one of the students stood there with a telegram in his hand. I opened it and read, “Your brother passed away this morning at two o’clock.” I jumped on a train and hurried out to the place. When I entered the room where his body lay, and turned back that white sheet and looked into the face of my eldest brother as he lay there at peace at last, I thanked God that for fifteen years I had believed in a God that answers prayer.
Have you those that you love who are wandering far from God? There is a way to reach them. That way is by the Throne of God.