IN 1815 Hugh Miller, as he tells us in his I "First Impressions of England," visited Olney, the home of the poet Cowper. It was then a Babel of blackguards. He thought that all the bad-looking fellows in England had been drawn together there.
Two prize-fighters, named Bendigo and Caunt, were about to fight for the championship and three hundred guineas.
After ninety-three rounds Bendigo beat. Hugh Miller saw him after the fight standing at the door of a whiskey shop, with his face all bruised. What would Hugh have said if anyone had prophesied that that battered pugilist should be "born again" in his old age, and become an earnest student of the Bible, and worker for Christ?
The idea of that man taking to the Bible! Not very likely!
The scene changes. Thirty years have passed, and Bendigo is now about sixty years of age, and jail for the twenty-seventh time. One Sunday, he hears in prison an address on David and Goliath. (1 Sam. 17) I will give you the result as t read it in the printed report.
Bendigo listened, as the subject was just his line. He understood it all: Goliath was just another Caunt.
He forgot where he was, so interested was he; and at the close bawled out, "Bravo, I’m glad the little 'un won.”
He kept thinking about it in his cell, and decided that somebody must have helped the little one to kill the big giant.
Next Sunday, the sermon was on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. (Dan. 3) He fancied that the name of the third was Bendigo, and said to himself, "If one Bendigo may be saved, why not another?”
The subject for the following day was "the in twelve fishermen." (Matt. 4:18-2218And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. 19And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 20And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. 21And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them. 22And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him. (Matthew 4:18‑22).) Again he was thoroughly interested, as he was a keen fisher himself.
The next sermon was about the seven hundred left-handed men in the twentieth chapter of Judges. Once more he is all ear, being himself a left-handed man.
The Bible seemed to him a very strange book: it was all written for himself!
Upon getting out of jail he found his old companions waiting for him; but he declared that he would never enter another public house went to a mission meeting; and that very night, on his way home, he fell on his knees in the snow! and yielded himself to the Saviour. (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37))
He had been in twenty-one matched fights; and had not been beaten in one; butt, said he, "When I came to the cross of Christ, I was quite beat at the first round.”
He was then doing his desperate utmost master the A B C, that he might be able to read God's blessed Book; and he wound up, the reporter said, by declaring, If God could save Bendy, He could save anybody.”