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The Infidel's Sheep

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 18, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 7.

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The Infidel's Sheep

Among the hills of northern New England were two infidel neighbors who had lived to man's estate, sinning and blaspheming against God. One of them heard the gospel message, and on hearing, believed unto eternal life. A short time afterward the converted man went to the house of this infidel neighbor, and said to him: “I have come to talk to you; I have been converted.”
“Yes, I heard that you had gone forward to be prayed for,” said the skeptic, with a sneer; “and I am surprised, for I thought you were about as sensible a man as any in town.”
“Well,” said the Christian, “I have a duty to do to you, and I want you to stop talking and hear me. I have not slept much for two nights thinking of it. I have four sheep in my flock that belong to you. They came into my field six years ago, and I knew they had your mark on them, but I took them and marked them with my mark, and you inquired all around, and could not hear anything of them. But they are in my field with the increase of them; and now I want to settle this matter. I have lain awake nights and groaned over it, and I have come to get rid of it. And now I am at your option; I will do just what you say. If it is a few years in prison, I will suffer that. If it is money or property you want, say the word. I have a good farm and money at interest, and you can have all you ask. I want to settle this matter up and get rid of it.”
The infidel was amazed; he began to tremble.
“If you have the sheep, you are welcome to them. I don't want anything of you, if you will only go away; a man that will come to me as you have—something must have got hold of you that I don't understand. You may have the sheep if you will only go away.”
We do not know what the after-influence of the professor's life was on the unbelieving infidel, but we do know that when the true religion gets into a man's heart, it works such a change in him that those who have known him before soon decide that “something must have got hold” of him. And when this kind of Christianity gets into a man's heart, it does more to convince the skeptic than a world of sermonizing.—Selected.