Pearce knelt in true shoeblack fashion near the passenger entrance to a railway station, waiting for customers from the morning “Express.” Bright as Pearce usually was, his heart overflowed that morning, and he sang in the joy of his soul,
“I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad.”
The stream of passengers pushed past the humble shoeblack, and it seemed as if his services were not to be required that morning, but this did not discourage Pearce nor cause his song of praise to cease.
At last a gentleman carrying a handbag came up and asked Pearce to shine his shoes, remarking as he placed his foot on Pearce’s box, “You seem happy this morning, boy; I think I heard you singing.”
“Yes, sir,” was the prompt reply, “I was singing my favorite hymn, the one I like best of all.”
The traveler’s curiosity was aroused. Here was a humble shoeblack, with few of this world’s comforts, yet happy, while he himself was possessed of wealth but carried on his mind a constant load of care.
“Can you let me hear a line or two of it?” asked the traveler. And Pearce struck up, in a sweet low tone, his brushes keeping time to the melody,
“I heard the voice of Jesus say—
‘Behold, I freely give
The living water, thirsty one,
Stoop down, and drink and live.’
“I came to Jesus and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in Him.”
Dropping some money into the boy’s hand, the stranger hurried along, but the words he had heard from Pearce’s lips, had entered his soul, there to speak for many days to come.
Here I may say—as you will already have guessed—Pearce was a converted boy. Christ was his Saviour; to Him he had come as a sinner and found rest, and in his own humble sphere he longed to tell others of that glorious resting place for the weary sinner.
At the close of a crowded service in a large hall where a gifted evangelist had been preaching Christ, a man walked up to the speaker, and in a voice choked by emotion, said, “Thank God, I have come to Him, and He has given me rest. It has been a long strule, for I was unwilling to give up all my own efforts; but He has stripped me at last, and brought me to Himself.”
The speaker was the traveler who heard Pearce sing, and although he had journeyed far since that day, he had never forgotten the boy’s words. Now he had found his soul’s rest in Christ, and his first work the following morning was to go to the railway station and greet the faithful shoeblack, whose simple testimony was used of God to first arouse him to think of God and eternity. It was a great joy to Pearce.
ML 02/05/1956