While doing personal work
in a community known here as Cane Creek, going from home to home leaving
religious tracts, Gospels of John, and pleading the cause of Christ, after
following the little winding trail for many miles, I came to a section
of beautiful level land, completely surrounded by great high mountains
excepting the valley through which I had come. Following the trail a little
farther, I came to a little community store, across the road from which
there was another small building. Around this building was a group of young
men telling vulgar jokes, swearing, smoking cigarettes, and one could smell
the faint odor of alcohol.
I went over to these men
and started telling the story of Jesus and the plan of salvation. One by
one they began to leave until after awhile there was only one young man
left. He was rather a nice looking young man. Going over and putting my
arm about his shoulder, I plead with him to take Christ as his Savior.
He turned his face to me with tears in his eyes and said, "No one has ever
talked to me like this. Why, I am the meanest man in this valley. I have
just been on a drunk, had a fight and tried to run some folks from their
home." I asked him if he was satisfied to go on living in this manner;
would he like to ask God to help him be a better man, to surrender his
all to Him and be a real Christian.
So we knelt there on the
side of the road. The eyes of many curious people were turned our way as
we went to God in prayer. He was not perfectly satisfied, so we went to
an old field under some trees where we again went to the Throne of Grace.
This time I got him to ask God to forgive him his sins and save his soul.
After much prayer, when we arose, he was weeping and praising God for victory.
I asked him if he had a Bible
and if his mother was saved. He said he did not have a Bible and that none
of his family were saved. He also added, "I was recently released from
the state prison and I have served more than one sentence on the chain
gang." But read this man's life story as told to me:
"I was born in May 1908 in
South Carolina, in a home that did not know God. My father was a drunkard
and bootlegger who spent lots of his time cursing and kicking mother and
beating my brother, sister, and myself. He kept his liquor hid at the house.
One day while playing, we children found it and were attracted to it by
some pretty flowers and fruit pictured on the bottles, but it did not make
us drunk. but we went one day for another bottle, and as there were no
small ones, we decided to drink out of a larger one, the contents of which
made us dog drunk. We were soundly beaten for this, not so much for being
drunk, but for taking the liquor which my father drank and sold.
"We never attended Sunday
School
or any church services and I do not remember any preacher of Christian
worker coming to our house. At the age of 12 years, I was sentenced from
one to five years in the reformatory. Part of this sentence was commuted.
At the age of 15 years, I was given a year's sentence for stealing. Shortly
after being released, when I was about 16 years of age, I was again sentenced,
this time for 18 months on the chain gang. At the age of 18 years I was
sentenced to the state penitentiary from 18 months to three years—again
for breaking and stealing. At the age of 21 I was sentenced to serve 6
months on the chain gang. When I was 24 years of age I was sent back to
the state prison for 3 years, and again at the age of 29, from 1 to 2 years.
I am now 31 years of age.
"Our home was a regular hell
hole. All we knew or heard was being beaten like dogs or hearing vulgar
language or vilest profanity and seeing drunken men and women in our home."
I returned to the community
a few days later, gave him a Bible and encouraged him in his stand for
the Lord. When I left he was sitting on the store porch reading his Bible.
On the following Sunday I went to his home and had prayer with his mother
who made a definite stand for God. I will never forget that scene of this
old gray haired mother and her son, with their arms about each other, praising
God for salvation.
In contrast to his former
life as a sinner, this young man has really been trying to live for God's
glory. Not long after his conversion he came to a meeting in which we were
helping to conduct, and gave a clear cut testimony of God's grace in saving
him. He has also witnessed for Christ in his own home and community as
well as led in prayer and church services. When we went to his home recently,
we found him reading his Bible. When we started to leave, he gave me his
hand and said he was going all the way with God.
We are truly thankful for
another home which has taken a definite stand for God. Though we may sink
beneath human sympathy or hope, we are never out of reach of God's great
love. |