The Silent Clerk | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1871

The Silent Clerk.

A GENTLEMAN of high position and great wealth in the city of Pittsburg, was converted some years ago. He was a man of much earnestness of character and admirable social qualities. From the moment of his conversion, he took a decided stand for Christ and his cause. He wrote letters to all his impenitent friends, informing them of the change he had experienced, and inviting them, as Moses did Hobab, to join him in journeying to the “good land.”

It was my pleasure to ride with this gentleman in his buggy, soon after his conversion, to Washington, Pa., a distance of twenty-six miles. During that journey, he gave me a full and most interesting account of his religious experience. At the close of it I said to him: “Mr. M——, what, in your judgment, has contributed most to the happy change you have just related to me?” He promptly replied: “The example of one of my clerks.” His answer interested me deeply, and I begged him to explain himself more fully. To this request he responded as follows:—

“When I commenced business some eighteen years ago, I employed a gentleman as book-keeper who was a member of the Associate Reformed church. He was a quiet, but holy man. His religion was his life, rather than on his tongue. He soon won my profound respect, and his example became a power over me.

“I was profane at that time, and uttered oaths at the slightest provocation. My clerk never reproved me for this, but I saw that every profane expression of mine gave him pain. Out of regard to his feelings, I gradually laid aside the habit of profane swearing, until I ceased to utter oaths on any occasion.

“I was also at that time very irascible; and if one of the men employed by me—of whom I had a large number, in any way provoked me, I had no hesitation in letting him instantly feel my foot in my fist. I could not but observe that this also was extremely painful to my book-keeper, though he uttered no word to that effect.

“My respect for him, and my unwillingness to wound his feelings, led me, by degrees, to break myself of this habit, as well as the other. In a word, this man, though he never opened to me on the subject of religion, exercised an influence over me for good wielded by no other human being. He did not preach by words, but his life was a perpetual sermon; and to him, under God, more than to any other, am I indebted for the hope, in which I now rejoice, of eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.”