How well I remember one man—I spent more time and more money on the salvation of that man than on any man I ever tried to lead to Christ. It was very discouraging. He came to me one night away down in sin, about fifty years of age. He came of a good family. He had been well educated, but now he was a common day laborer when he was sober—a complete wreck. He came into a meeting. When almost everybody had gone he came up and said, “I want to ask you something alone.” I said, “Come this way.” He leaned over and whispered, “Mr. Torrey” (I had never met him before that night), “do you think Jesus Christ can save me?” I said, “Jesus Christ can save anybody.” He said, “Do you really think He can save a man as far down as I am?” I said, “Jesus Christ can save anybody.” “Well,” he said, “I will take Him.”
For a little while he went on well. One day I was to go to a dinner at a house where he was invited also. My wife and I had nearly reached the house when, at the bottom of the block of houses, we saw a young fellow running out of the house up the street. He came to me and said, “Mr. Torrey, C. is drunk.” My wife thought very much of him, and she turned to me and almost burst into tears and said, “Oh, Archie, whom can we trust?” I replied in one word, “God!” “You cannot trust C. You cannot trust any man, but you can trust God.”
We got to the house and found him raging. He wanted to get out, but they had locked him in a room. I went into the room and stood between him and the door. He was a great, big, burly fellow, and I said to him, “You cannot go out.” He cried, “Let me out.” I said, “You cannot go out. You are not going to get out until you are sober.” He said, “That is not fair. You know I would not strike you. You know I could throw you, and you know I won’t touch you.” I said, “You cannot go out.” At last he lost all control of himself, and he made a rush for me, and there were heads and arms flying around the room for about half a minute. Then there was a sudden crash, and I was sitting on top. He was a much stronger man than I, one of the most powerful men I ever knew. I have heard that man when he was angry, grind his teeth so that you could hear it across this hall. I have seen that man, when under the influence of liquor, strike an iron fence with his bare fist. It was God that gave me the victory. He was subdued for the time being. I held him there until he got calmed down. “Now,” I said, “I have to call and see a dying woman. I cannot leave you here. I cannot very well take you to see a dying woman, but you have got to go along.” I took him along as far as the door of the house where the woman was dying, and I said, “Sit down on that threshold, and wait there until I come.” When I came back he was fast asleep. I got him home all right.
This sort of thing went on for months and years. I moved to Chicago. I sent for him to come to Chicago, where I got a position for him. He did first-rate for a while, and then he got drunk, and he came to see me and he said: “That was not fair at all the time you threw me in Minneapolis. You know you cannot throw me.” I said, “I am not going to.” That sort of thing went on for months and years; but I made up my mind that, by the grace of God, no matter what it cost in money, and no matter what it cost in time and patience, I was going to see that man saved. For some time I lost sight of him. One night I was in my pulpit in Chicago, preaching. I had already begun the service when I saw C. coming into the building. I went down to where he was sitting, and said, “Good evening, C., I am glad to see you.” He stayed to the after meeting. The next day I was going to Minneapolis, and I took him along with me. He said, “Mr. Torrey, there is one thing that has cured me. I thought you would never want to see me again, but I hardly had got into the building, and had sat down away in the back, when you walked down from the platform and came to speak to a miserable tramp like me. That was too much!” Do you know, from that day C. got his feet on the Rock!
Years passed, I was in Minneapolis again. I was in a big restaurant, when I saw C. come in at the farther end, and I went up to him. He said, “I was looking for you. I heard you were in town. Don’t laugh at me.” I said, “I am not going to laugh at you. What’s up?” He said, “I want to ask you something. Don’t laugh at me.” I said, “I am not going to laugh at you. What do you want?” He said, “I want to be married. I am engaged to a right good Christian woman and I want you to marry us.” I said, “I am your man. I’ll do it.” I married him. You say it was pretty risky, but his feet had been on the Rock now for a good while. He married that Christian woman, and they built up a happy Christian home.
The other day my wife wrote to a friend of ours, who had gone to Minneapolis, to know how C. was getting on—I think he is her pet of all the drunkards who have come under our roof. This lady wrote back, “He is doing well. He is leading a Christian life.”
And, friends, the time is coming when poor, wrecked, ruined C. transformed by the power of the returning Christ will be like Him, “For when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”; and when this man that I wept over and worked for and spent money on all these years, when he meets his Christ, and his salvation is indeed complete, he will be so like his Master that we can hardly tell the two apart.