He was a well-known preacher who years ago told this story of himself: One wet, stormy night as he was about to retire there came a knock at his door. Opening it he found a poor, wretched little girl, dripping wet. She had come through the storm, and she said,
"Are you the preacher?"
"Yes, I am."
"Well, won't you come and get my mother in?"
"Why, I was just about to retire," the preacher said, "and besides it is hardly seemly for me to go out and get your mother in. If she is drunk, you can get a policeman to get her in. He is prepared for the storm."
"Oh, you don't understand!" she said. "My mother is not out in the storm and she is not drunk. She is at home and is dying, and she is afraid to die. She is afraid she is going to be lost forever, and she wants to go to heaven and doesn't know how. I told her I would get a minister to get her in."
He asked where she lived, and she told him of a district so vile that even in daytime respectable people did not go there without a policeman accompanying them.
"Why," he said, "I cannot go down there tonight and then subconsciously to himself he said, "It would be all my reputation is worth to be seen with a girl like this in that district in the middle of the night. No, I cannot go." Then to the girl he said, "I will tell you what to do. You go down and get the man who is running the Rescue Mission; he will be glad to help you."
"He may be a good man," she said, "but I don't know him. I told my mother I would get a minister, and I want you to come and get her in. Come quickly; she's dying."
"I couldn't stand the challenge in those eyes," the preacher said, "I felt so ashamed, and so I said, 'Very well, I will come.'"
He went upstairs and dressed and put on his overcoat, and then followed the girl. She led him down through the city and into the slum district, into an old house, up a rickety stairway, then along a long, dark hall into a little room. There lay the poor woman.
"I have got the preacher," said the little girl; "he will get you in. He didn't want to come, but he's come. You tell him what you want, and do just what he tells you."
"Oh, sir, can you do anything for a poor sinner?" she cried. "All my life I have been a wicked woman, and I am going to hell. But I don't want to go there; I want to go to heaven. Tell me what I can do."
The preacher, relating the incident, said, "I stood there looking down at that poor anxious face, and thought, whatever will I tell her? I had been preaching in my own church on salvation by character, by ethical culture, and by reformation, I thought, I can't tell her about salvation by character, for she hasn't any. I can't tell her about salvation by ethical culture, for there's no time for culture, and besides, she most likely wouldn't know what I meant. I can't tell her about salvation by reformation, for she has gone too far to reform.
"Why not tell her what your mother used to tell you? She's dying, and it can't hurt her, even though it does her no good." And so I said: "My poor woman, God is very gracious, and the Bible says, 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' John three, sixteen." She said: "Does it say that in the Bible? My! This ought to help get me in. But sir, my sins! What about my sins?"
"It was amazing the way the verses came to me, verses I had learned years ago and never used, and I said: " 'The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.' First John, one and seven."
"All sin?" She said, "does it really say that the blood will cleanse me from all sin? That ought to get me in."
"I then quoted First Timothy, one and fifteen: " 'This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.' "
"Well," she said, "if the chief got in, I can come. Pray for me!"
"I knelt down and prayed with that poor woman and 'got her in' as she put it. And while I was getting her in, I got myself in, too. We two poor sinners, the one a minister and the other a dying woman of the street, were saved together in that little room...."