When I first began to work for the Lord there was a businessman who was converted and who stayed in Boston for three months. When it was time for him to leave, the man said to me that there was a fellow living on such a street in whom he was very much interested, and whose boy was in the High School. The boy had said that he had two brothers and a little sister who didn't go to Sunday School because their parents would not let them. This gentleman said: "I wish you would go round and see them."
Well, I went and I found that the parents lived in a drinking saloon. The father was behind the bar and so I stepped up and told him what I wanted. He said he would rather have his sons become drunkards and his daughter a wicked woman, than have them go to our schools.
I thought that it looked pretty dark and that he was fairly bitter towards me, but I went a second time thinking that I might catch him in a better humor. He ordered me out again but I went a third time and found him in a better mood. He said: "You are talking too much about the Bible. Well, I will tell you what I will do. If you teach them something reasonable, like Taine's Age of Reason,' they may go."
I talked further to him and finally he said, "If you will read Paine's book, I will read the New Testament."
Well, to get hold of him, I promised, and he got the best of the bargain. We exchanged books and that gave me a chance to call again and talk with his family.
One day the saloon keeper said: "Young man, you have talked so much about church, now you can have a church down here."
'What do you mean?"
"Why, I will invite some friends, and you can come here and preach to them; not that I believe a word you say, but let's see if it will do us chaps any good."
"Very well," I said; "now let us have it distinctly understood that we are to have a certain definite time."
He told me to come at 11 o'clock, saying, "I want you to understand that you are not to do all the preaching."
"How is that?"
"I shall want to talk, and so will my friends."
I said, "Supposing we have it understood that you are to have forty minutes and I fifteen: is that fair?"
Well, he thought it was fair—he was to have the first forty and I the last fifteen minutes. I went to the saloon, and took a little boy with me, thinking that he might aid me, but the saloon-keeper wasn't there. I thought perhaps he had backed out, but I then learned that his saloon was too small to hold all his friends, and he had gone to a neighbor's. We went there and found two rooms filled.
There were atheists and scoffers there, and the moment I got in they plied me with all sorts of questions. I said I hadn't come to hold any discussion; that they had been discussing for years and had reached no conclusion.
They took up forty-five minutes of time talking, and there were no two who could agree. Then came my turn. I said: "We always open our meetings with prayer; let us pray."
I prayed and thought perhaps someone else would pray before I got through. After I finished, the little boy prayed. I wish you could have heard him. He prayed to God to have mercy upon those men who were talking so against His beloved Son. His voice sounded more like an angel's than a human voice.
After we got up, I was going to speak, but there was not a dry eye in the assembly. One after another went out, and the old man I had been after for months came to me. Placing his hands on my shoulder, and with tears streaming down his face, he said: "Mr. Moody, my children can go to your Sunday School."
They came the next Sunday, and after a few months the oldest boy, a promising young man then in the High School, came upon the platform, and with his chin quivering and the tears in his eyes, said: "I wish to ask these people to pray for me; I want to become a Christian."
God heard and answered our prayers for him.
In all my acquaintances, I don't know of a man whom it seemed more hopeless to reach. I believe if we lay ourselves out for the work there is, any man or woman can be reached and saved. I don't care who he or she is, we can go in the name of our Master and persevere until we succeed. It will not be long before Christ blesses us, no matter how hard their heart is. "We shall reap if we faint not."