Old Louie! What a dirty, drunken old character he was, filthy in person and thought and speech. He was as griping, selfish and unbelieving an old wretch as ever lived. I used to hate the very sight of him reeling about the streets.
I saw him hanging around the mission one Sunday morning when they were having a breakfast and service afterwards. I didn’t want the breakfast, but I thought I would go and hear the preaching. Then I saw the preacher meet the old man and speak kindly to him and offer him a ticket to the breakfast. I heard Old Louie curse him for the offer, and I thought he was foolish to waste his time over such an old reprobate. I heard him try and try again, till he got him to take the ticket and promise to come in, and I thought him more foolish than ever. He was wasting his breakfast as well as his time.
I decided to watch the old man, and I went into the breakfast hall and sat down near him. I saw him receive a mug of coffee and some food, and I saw the old man needed it badly by the way he ate and drank. I pitied him, while I scorned his dirty, drunken habits. Then the service was announced, and I expected to see him get up and go out laughing at their softness, but he sat still and listened to the singing and reading and praying that followed.
Then a middle-aged man with a pleasant face came forward and began to speak, and I forgot Old Louie for a while. It was good to hear him talk of peace and comfort, of good hope and good cheer, of our loving Father and the Saviour that gave Himself for us.
When he was done, I looked at Old Louie, and he was a sight to see. Big tears were washing two clean lines down his dirty face and were dropping from the end of his fiery nose. I could hardly believe that it was in the old man, but there he was before my eyes. And there he sat all through the service with the big tears cleaning his face as he wiped them with the back of his hand.
I saw him again on Sunday evening creeping into the mission, and I said to him, “Hello, old chap! Come to the wrong shop?”
He looked up and growled, “No! No! Come to the right at last!” and slunk into a corner.
I watched him the next day hanging about - no drink, no tobacco, no swearing, but with a clean face and looking for a job. I thought him an old hypocrite, and I determined to find him out and expose him. All that week I watched, but he lived so quietly and seemed so true and humble that I could not but feel that his conversion was real and that he was changed from darkness to light.
On Saturday he had a job and fell down with a stroke while doing it. He never regained consciousness and died the following Thursday.
When I heard he was dead, I was stunned. What a narrow escape, and how important! Just a few days to make such a difference. Then I remembered how I thought the preacher a fool for trying to get him to come and how he had brought him to Jesus and that he died safe in Jesus through that perseverance.
I was miserable and lonely because I knew that I had never “come in.” I had never accepted God’s offer of salvation for myself. I was more of a hypocrite than old Louie, smug in my own self-righteousness, but when I turned to the Lord just as I was, He received me too!