It was well towards midnight when our friend Bruce left the prayer-room at the mission hall. From the street entrance he glanced quickly but cautiously up and down the cluttered sidewalks. Not many of the denizens of Skid Row were in evidence, and Bruce walked confidently towards the corner street light.
Arriving in the full flow of its artificial beam, Bruce stood for a moment in deep thought. Gone were the lines of doubt and suspicion that had furrowed his face and clouded his brow when he had entered the mission hall a few hours ago. Now any passerby would have seen the alert expression of his eyes and the joyous smile that had so lately transformed his face.
What could have wrought this change? When Bruce had that evening entered Skid Row Mission Hall, his one desire in life was to be able "to turn a quick buck," as he called his adroitness in "games of chance." He was a gambler, and "come easy, go easy" was his creed.
Lately he had heard that a one-time friend, a noted sports editor for a daily paper, had professed conversion. Furthermore, Bruce had been told that this new convert to Christianity was employing all his spare time and skill in trying to win others to his way of thinking. From his warped point of view, the gambler was convinced that his old friend had found a way to make easy money. When told that the sports writer was to speak at the Skid Row Mission that night, curiosity and greed had drawn Bruce there too. Maybe he could learn "the trick," and thus increase his own always too scanty income.
But "the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Prov. 15:33The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Proverbs 15:3). In the course of the gospel message heard that night for the first time by our friend Bruce, the Spirit of God had worked mightily on his worldly heart. In the after-meeting in the prayer room he had been further enlightened; and his heart, hitherto dead toward God, without hope, without Christ, in the world, had been opened to receive the blessed Savior of sinners. Now, in the glow of "first love" to Him who had so loved him as to die for him, Bruce had a brand new purpose in life: he longed to tell others of His Savior.
As he stood within the circle of light on the street corner of Skid Row, Bruce's thoughts traveled miles away to a dearly loved younger brother. Oh, to be able to share with Tim the "joy unspeakable" that now was his! Could Tim understand this great blessing of salvation, the gift of God through faith in His Son?
Hurrying to his lodgings, Bruce wrote a short note to his brother. In it he told as clearly as he could the sweet story that he had heard this night. When he had signed it, he enclosed it in a stamped, addressed envelope already prepared on his writing table. Then, for the first time in his life, Bruce knelt to pray for the salvation of another. Little did he know that, like Andrew, "he first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto Him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." John 1:41, 4241He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 42And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone. (John 1:41‑42).
On that same night, in a faraway city, a similar scene was taking place. Another man, broken in health, destitute, and certainly without hope for time or eternity, had followed the sound of singing. It had led him into a mission hall where, after a bowl of hot soup and bread, he too had heard and believed "that sweet story of old." This man was Tim, the brother of our friend Bruce; and now he also was led of the Spirit of God to tell his brother Bruce how great things the Lord had done for him.
A few days later, at almost the same hour, each of these two men received a letter from the other. Each letter told the glad tidings of salvation; one letter was written on stationery of a second rate hotel in the South, the other was scribbled in pencil on an old inside-out envelope and bore the postmark of a northern city.
Friend, wherever you are, the blessed Spirit of God is seeking to bring you into a saving knowledge of His love and grace. Are you still in your sins and wandering far from God? I beg you to listen to His pleading.