This was on Thursday. I did not meet him again until Saturday morning, as he had many things to call him outside the range in which my work constantly led me. But as I was sitting on the piazza of the hotel for a few moments on Saturday, he passed with one of the other temperance workers. He glanced my way and dropped the arm of the gentleman with whom he was walking, came toward me, and greeted me. I was struck by his appearance. His face was haggard, his eyes heavy, his whole expression troubled.
“Are you ill?” was my startled inquiry.
He hesitated a moment and then said, “I have not slept,” and turned hastily away.
That day he was obliged to go down to the city near which the assembly was held, as he was to speak on Sunday in several of the churches. Consequently we did not meet again until Monday night, when he was announced to speak on prohibition in the great pavilion on the assembly ground. But when he began to speak, he seemed to have forgotten himself and his subject, and instead of prohibition he gave us the most eloquent and beautiful address on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as manifested in the temperance reform, to which I have ever listened. My heart was thrilled; yet I did not understand it; for his face was haggard and wan, as tho he had just arisen from a long illness. His manner was very earnest, but there was something peculiar in it which impressed me and many others painfully.
At the close he came directly to me, and said, “Do you think I spoke the truth to-night?”
“That depends,” was my reply.
“Well, I must see you before I leave,” he said. I leave in the morning on the 9:15 train. Can you meet me at the same place at 8 o’clock. I have many things to say to you.”
At the hour mentioned I found him waiting, in the same rustic seat on the lawn. He began at once, saying:—
“The time is short for all I have to say. I kept the promise which I made to you. I intended to keep it when I made it. I got my answer I know, and now if I do not become a Christian, it will not be because I have any doubts to fall back upon.”
“If you do not become a Christian! Is it, then, an open question, after that?”
“Yes, it is still a question to be settled. I must tell you all about it. It has been very strange. I went up to my room that first night, and knelt as I promised. I could not form any words of prayer. I tried to think a prayer. I tried to say the words which you gave me, but I could not seem to get hold of them, and I remained silent on my knees. The suggestion came to me: T. B. Z., you are a fool! I knew that, judged by any standard which I recognized, I was a fool; but I repudiated the suggestion, and said, I am not a fool; I am a sincere inquirer after truth. Then how, I can not tell, it was very strange, but I found my whole heart drawn out in a most earnest cry after a revelation of that God of whom you had told me as your Father and my Father, and for the message which He had for me. I did not utter any vocal prayer; it was just an inward cry. “How long I remained on my knees I do not know, but until away into the night. When I arose, I was no longer in doubt. I had received a demonstration of the being and authority of God, which I could not controvert. And, as I told you in the beginning—granted that there is a God, the only way out is the Christian scheme; and this came back to me with new force. Therefore I had to accept the authority of the Bible and the doctrine concerning Christ—there was no help for it, and the doubts under which I used to hide were swept away. I have no such refuge any longer. The only question now is, What shall I do with the truth as it has been revealed to me?”
“I would like to know what kind of a man you are,” I said, with a feeling of indignant amazement. “You threw down a challenge to Jehovah. He accepted it, because you are His child, and revealed Himself to you in the greatness of His truth. And now are you the man to say, ‘You have satisfied my curiosity; You have made me acquainted with You; now go Your way, and I will go mine; we part company at this cross-roads?’ I want you to understand that truth, once seen, and rejected, becomes an enemy, the angel with a drawn sword, who will follow you through all the days and years of your conscious existence. As long as you live you will know that you are pursued by truth, whom you have made your enemy. Can you afford it?”
Again he settled himself back into the arm of his seat; and there began a struggle which was written upon every feature of his expressive face. Once he roused himself, and, turning to me, said: “But I must tell you more about it. You must be able to understand. I must tell you things which I could not let the world know.” He then revealed the difficulties which surrounded him on every hand, if he should become a Christian. He had determined to leave the temperance platform and go into other lines of activity. He had already taken steps which to retrace would not only bring him embarrassment financially, but as regarded his good name. His reputation would suffer. He would make bitter enemies, who would be capable of pursuing him, with disastrous results. He said, “How can I, in the face of these things, become a Christian?”
“How can you,” I asked, “in the face of the revelation which has come to you, refuse to accept the truth which has been made known. Remember that it is a question of enmity on one side or the other. Which will you have for your enemy, TRUTH, God’s truth, or the world, the flesh, and the devil?”
The Spirit of God make him realize the situation in all its solemnity, but he was not ready yet to yield. And again the controversy began. It was a bitter struggle. During the time that it was going on, as he sat with closed eyes, the carriage came to take him to the train; the hotel proprietor came with his grip and traveling coat upon his arm; friends gathered to see him off; but, checked by his evident absorption, some of them comprehending the situation, they stood off and waited. At last he, straightening himself, lifted his head, spread his shoulders, and exclaimed, “No, I am not that kind of a man; I surrender!”
A flash of light came into his face, and tears like rain flowed down his cheeks. He noticed the carriage, the waiting porter, and friends, looked at his watch, and saw that he had no time to lose. He reached out and took my10hand, and led me along with him to the carriage, talking all the way, bowing occasionally and giving his hand to friends who came up to greet him; but the one burden which was on his mind, and which he expressed, was the desire that he should pass safely through the trial which was before him. He said: “I do not know what is before me—but it will not be easy. In a few days you will hear from me. The question is settled. Do not have any anxiety; but remember that I shall need your prayers.”
It was not long until I received a letter, in which he told me that he had made known the whole situation to those with whom he was to have been associated in the new enterprise that would have taken him out of the temperance reform; that by this act he had made bitter enemies; he saw nothing before him but conflict; but he was determined by the grace of God to fight it out, and stand true.
It would be another story to tell how he went on grandly to the end: how he met contumely and contempt—suffice it to say that he became a greater power than ever before, going from strength to strength, until one day in the heat of the battle, he fell by the way, and was gathered to his fathers, in the hope of a blessed resurrection.
