The Nine Outside by Gipsy Smith

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1907

The Nine Outside

By Gipsy Smith

I was conducting a mission in the city of Manchester, where I had lived for fourteen years, and where I still hold my church connection; and, by the way, I belong to a church that has never known a Sunday in twenty-one years without a conversion. I had just finished with a great midnight meeting, when a little, frail woman, who had been brought up in a lovely home in the west of England, and who had just become a sister, giving her life to the work of soul-saving, came up to me, and said, “I’ll try to hold a midnight meeting to-night of my own.” She engaged a little chapel or small church building just on the suburbs of Manchester, and gathered the people to her, and they filled that little place. Among them was a prize-fighter. He came, he said, to take care of the little woman, for he did not know what those drunken fellows would do to her. He watched her as she moved around, and said, “I did not know what would happen.” In the middle of the meeting he said, “Don’t be afraid; I’m here.” But she did not need his help. Those drunkards in that midnight service were quieted as she told the story of Jesus and his love, and when she invited them to kneel to seek Jesus, the place was crowded. Among them was a woman, a drunkard, who came forward. When she got on her knees, she was sober enough to say to the sister, “Sister, my husband is in jail, and he is there through me. I helped to make him drunk.” And then she said, “We got to fighting, and he is in jail because he thrashed me. He is coming out on Tuesday, and I wish you would meet him, and O, if we could only get hold of him and make him sober! I have given my heart to God, and I would like him to do the same.” (One of the surest evidences of the new birth is a desire for some one else to come to Jesus.) Sister Marion said, “I’ll go and see him.” The woman told her that nine of his companions said they were going to meet him and make him drunk before they got home.

Sister Marion was at the prison gates at six o’clock on Tuesday morning. She happened to know the governor, and so got through the little gate. She found the nine men outside, and as she went through the little door within the big door, the governor said, “Whom are you wanting to see?” She said, “I have come to meet So-and-so.” “Well,” he said, “there are nine men out there waiting for him.” She said, “Yes, I know it; but those who are with me are more than all that can be against me.” He said, “You are only one, visibly, and I am just wondering what you are going to do with those nine men.” He advised her to go away for a while, and he would do what he could with the men.

She went away, and came again to the gates. Those nine men said, “Let’s hand out the beer, sister. We have given up a day’s work to come and get him.” She said, “Well, that was very kind of you, but you declare he shall go home drunk, and I declare he shall go home sober.” They stared at her. The thought came to Sister Marion, “Why not try to save these nine as well as the one inside?” and so she said, “Men, if I go and get him out, will you come, all of you, and have breakfast with me?”

They looked at one another. Breakfast on a cold morning for nine fellows who had been sleeping as they had, meant a great deal. They said they would come. She got the man out of jail, and away they marched, and when they had their breakfast, she said, “Now, men, come; may I read to you?” They could not say no. So she opened to that wonderful story, the prodigal son, and she read to them; and they listened with bowed heads. Then she asked if they might not sing, and they said, “Well, Miss, we are not much at singing.” She said she would sing if they would join her. And she sang:—

“When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.”

At the end of the song every man was on his knees, and every man signed the pledge before she left them. Every man, in less than three weeks, was brought to Jesus Christ by the act of that one frail little woman.

That’s the way to fish, and that’s the way to catch. That’s angling.—Gipsy Smith.