Your ShelfYour Projects

A City Mission Experience

6%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 3, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 31.

Read the full edition

A City Mission Experience

By Mrs. Luella B. Priddy

MRS. LUELLA B. PRIDDY
A little two-room cottage stood at the end of a city street. It was the home of a family whom I will call Dillon, as I do not feel free to disclose the name.
Mr. Dillon was a man of intelligence and education, the son of wealthy parents, who made a practise of serving light liquors on their table. His father would have scorned the thought of becoming a drunkard, but the son had inherited an insatiable appetite for intoxicants. He would often go away on a drunken carousal, and remain absent from his home for several days, and then perhaps return and pawn some article of furniture out of the house to obtain more money to satisfy his craving for liquor.
The Lord did not forsake the young wife in her sorrow. Although there was not even a Bible in the house and a paper was a forbidden luxury, the thought kept coming to her mind, “The Lord is coming,” and she was watching eagerly for light on that subject. When goods were delivered wrapped in newspaper, she would scan the paper carefully to see if there was anything in it about the Lord’s return, but she could find nothing.
One day while out distributing tracts, I came to this little home. Mrs. Dillon came to the door, and accepted the literature that I offered. She told me afterward that the moment the tracts touched her hand, she knew they were that for which she had been looking. Thus the Lord prepared her heart to receive the seeds of truth.
Mrs. Dillon was a slender little woman, with large, wistful eyes, and the look of patient resignation that one sometimes sees on the faces of those who have borne much sorrow. In her arms was an infant a few weeks old, and by her side were several fair-faced children. A glance about the room revealed the fact that it was clean, but very bare of furniture.
On my next visit I carried a Bible, and a bundle of clothing which had been selected from a capacious box that a neighboring church had been thoughtful enough to send to the mission. I also began holding Bible readings with her.
On a subsequent visit I found Mrs. Dillon in deep trouble. Mr. Dillon had been absent from home for a number of days, and she did not know where he was, but supposed he was drinking. The cupboard door stood open, and there was not a mouthful of food in sight. As I bade her good-by, I slipped a coin into her hand.
But this time Mr. Dillon was not on a drunken carousal. He had met with an accident resulting in the breaking of a limb, and had been carried to a hospital. As soon as he was able to be taken home, he returned to his family. Because of his drinking habits his blood had become impure, and the bone was slow to heal. But he could not obtain liquor now. All he could do through the weary weeks that followed, was to sit in his chair, hold the baby, and read aloud from the Bible and other literature that had been taken to the family, while his wife toiled at the wash-tub to keep the wolf from the door. It was a humiliating experience; but the Lord overruled it for good. As the truth was brought before the husband and wife, point by point, they gladly received it.
One evening a cottage meeting was appointed at Mr. Dillon’s home, and some of the neighbors were invited to attend. The subject of the evening’s lesson was God’s forgiveness of sin. A number of texts were read, showing that the Lord has cast our sins behind his back, and will cast them into the depths of the sea; that he will remove our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, and that he will remember them no more.
Mr. Dillon sat with his face bowed over the head of his little son, and the tears flowed freely down his cheeks. From the depths of his soul he exclaimed, “That’s good enough.” Many times he had struggled in his weak, human strength against the evil appetite, and had failed; but now his faith laid hold on the promises, and he and his wife decided to be obedient to God’s commandments.
As soon as Mr. Dillon was able to do so, the family attended the meeting at the church. At the close of the sermon the minister gave opportunity for a short testimony meeting. Mr. Dillon arose, and with deep emotion said: “I have not been inside a church for twenty years, but the Lord has taken a miserable drunkard, and made a man out of him.” There were many moist eyes in the congregation as he sat down.
More prosperous days came to them. Theirs was a transformed home, that, by the power of the third angel’s message, had been rescued from the galling slavery of sin.
May the messengers hasten; for there are other souls waiting for the light.
Ellesmere, Ontario.