When I was holding meetings a little time ago at Wharnecliff, a coal district in England, a burly miner came up to me and said in his Yorkshire dialect, "Dost know what was at meetin' t'night?" (Do you know who was at the meeting tonight?)
"No," I answered.
He mentioned a familiar name—a very bad man, one of the wildest, wickedest men in Yorkshire.
'Well," said the man, "he came into meetin' an' said you didn't preach right; he said you preach nothin' but the love o' Christ, an' that won't do for drunken miners; you must shake 'em over a pit, and he says he'll ne'er come again."
What this man meant was that he thought I didn't preach about hell. Mark you, my friends, I believe in hell, the pit that burns, and the fire that's never quenched but I believe that the magnet that goes down to the bottom of the pit is the love of Jesus.
I didn't expect to see this wild man again, but he came straight from the coal mine the next night, without washing his face, and with all his working clothes upon him. He sat down, drunk, on one of the seats that were used for the children, and got I as near to me as possible.
The sermon was all about the love of Jesus Christ. He listened at first attentively, but by-and-by I saw him using the sleeve of his rough coat to wipe his eyes. Soon after we had an inquiry meeting, when some of those praying miners got around him, and it wasn't long before he was crying, "Oh, Lord, save me; I am lost; Jesus have mercy upon me," and he left that meeting a new creature.
His wife told me herself; what occurred when he came home. His little children heard him coming along—they knew the step of his heavy dogs—and ran to their mother in terror, clinging to her skirts. He had had a habit of banging the door, but this time he opened it as gently as could be. When he came into the house and saw the children clinging to their mother, frightened, he just stooped down, picked up the youngest girl in his arms, and looked at her with the tears rolling down his cheeks.
"Mary, God has sent your father home to you," he said, and kissed her. He picked up another, "God has sent your father home;" and from one to another he went, and kissed them all. Then he came to his wife and put his arms around her neck, "Don't cry, lass; don't cry. God has sent your husband home at last; don't cry," and all she could do was to put her arms around his neck and sob. The miner said: "Have you got a Bible in the house, lass?" They hadn't such a thing.
'Well, lass, if we haven't we must pray."
They got down on their knees, and all he could say was: "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child; Pity my simplicity—for Jesus Christ's sake, amen."
It was a simple prayer, but God answered it. While I was at Barnet some time after that, a friend came to me and said: "I've got good news for you." and he went on to tell us that this miner, so recently converted to Christ, was preaching the gospel everywhere he went—in the coal mine, and out of the coal mine. "He is trying to win everybody to the Lord Jesus Christ."