Tom was a young farmer, and one day in an open air meeting he stood up to speak. The story of his conversion can best be told in his own words.
“I’m just a poor farmhand,” said he, “and never been no scholar; so you’ll excuse my simple way, and let me tell you how the Lord saved my soul.
“I was plowing in a field, and had stopped and was sitting down by the fence to eat my lunch, when I see a gentleman leaning over the gate. Presently he spies me, and comes over to where I was sitting. He said it was a fine day, and I said it was so, with the blessing of God, as we always says down in them parts, not thinking nothing about God all the time. However, he pulls me up sharp, though in a kindly voice and says, ‘Do you know the blessing of God in saving your soul?’
“It took me by surprise, and I says, ‘We all wants to be saved and hopes we shall afore we comes to die.’ Then he spoke a great deal to me, as I never heard the likes in my life; about being ‘born again,’ and all to that away.
“Before he goes, he takes out a book and says, ‘I should like to give you this, and would you read this chapter where I turn the leaf down?’
“I thanked him, but told him I was no scholar, never having had no book learnin'.
" ‘Well,’ says he, ‘never mind that; you get the first person you see that can read, to read this chapter to you.’
“So he left the book, and I never seen him from that time.
“After a bit, I hears a boy coming along home from school, whistling a tune. Thinks I, ‘He’ll do!’ So I calls, ‘Hey boy! come here!’
“He comes over. So I tells him to sit down just there beside me, and read me out of a book a gentleman gave me. I asked, Tan you read?’
" ‘Sure I can, and write my own name too.’
“He reads away, and I sits listenin’ with all my might. He reads about a man what came to Jesus by night, and I never knew anything take such hold on me as them words did. I had often heard sermons with fine big words, but these came right home to me; and I was real perplexed when he read about being ‘born again,’ for that was what the gentleman was saying to me before. ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’
“Now I wanted to go to heaven, and I always thought if a man did the best he could, and paid his way, and loved his neighbor, what more could he do? And he would surely go to heaven at the end; but this floored me — this being ‘born again.’ I was sure I wasn’t this. Though I didn’t know what it meant, I knew I ought to be different to what I was; but this seemed beyond me, and didn’t mean my being different in myself, but out of myself altogether, something straight from heaven.
“I kept thinking of these thoughts, and wondering, when I again caught up with the boy reading, and the words he read so made my heart jump with a strange feeling that I had got it at last, and yet hadn’t got it, and was frightened of losing it. I called out to him, ‘Stop, and read that last over again.’ As he read what he told me was verse 16, the light began to shine in on my heart, and I thought, ‘This is what being born again means — this explains it.’ I know now it was the Holy Spirit of God, through them words.
" ‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’
“I couldn’t half think it was for me, and there was one word that I couldn’t understand so I asked the boy, ‘Can you tell me what that there word whosoever means?’ But he didn’t seem to know any more than I did and says, ‘I can’t for the life of me tell you what it means.’
“But I wasn’t to be put off — I was too anxious, so I urged him to think again. I said, ‘You’re such a good scholar and can write your own name, surely you know what this word means!’
" ‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t know what it means, unless it means you, me, or anybody else.’
" ‘Well,’ says I, ‘why didn’t you say that at first? I can understand that easy enough. Now read that verse over again, please, and put them words in instead of the long one.’ So he read over again, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that you, me, or anybody else, believing in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
“I lifted up my heart and thanked God there and then for such mercy to a sinner like me. His love was so wonderful, and those words made it all plain that it was for me.
“I got the boy to say the verse over and over again, until I knew them myself as well. The rest of that afternoon my heart was singing for joy; and as I went up and down the field plowing, I kept repeating the words over to myself, getting fresh understanding of them every time.
“Then when I went home at night the first thing I says to my wife was, ‘Jeannie, my fortune’s made! With this day I have received everlasting life.’
“She said, ‘Thank God then! my prayers are answered.’ She had been a Christian for some time and often I had given her sorrow through my ways.
" ‘But how did you come by it?’ she asked. Then I read to her or rather said it to her, though I opened the book, John 3, verse 16.
(To be continued)
ML-07/31/1977