His Opportunity

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 18, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 28.

A YOUNG preacher in a wild mountain region, several years ago, improved what he counted a favorable opportunity for the delivery of a temperance sermon, which he preached in several of the log schoolhouses in his circuit.

It was the midst of a heated political campaign, with candidates riding about with saddle-bags filled with flasks of moonshine whisky, and many men who were ordinarily sober had accepted the free hospitality of the politicians. Against this practise the young preacher's words were unsparing, and he angered both the candidates and the men who had partaken of their liquor.

As he mounted his horse at the close of the service, he saw about him angry faces, some of them still bloated with the liquor he had been denouncing, for one or two candidates had seized upon the meeting as a good time to be present and to see a number of men together.

A few days afterward he received a message in the roundabout manner of the region—a message emanating from no one and delivered by no one—informing him that if he ever preached again on Brimstone Creek he would be tied to a tree and whipped.

Once a month, on the third Sabbath, was the time of his Brimstone appointment, and there was time for some quiet inquiry, which confirmed the young preacher's suspicion as to the leader of the gang that intended to whip him.

Somewhat earlier than usual on the morning of the third Sabbath of the next month, he rode up the Brimstone, and made a detour to take him past the house of his leading enemy.

"Hello!" he shouted at the fence.

The master of the house came to the door, called off the dogs, and made a surly response.

"Are you going to meeting to-day?" asked the preacher.

"Don't know. Like as not I will, and like as not I won't."

"Well, I rode round this way to say that I will stop in and take dinner with you today. I hope you will come. I'll ride back with you."

"I don't hardly reckon I'll get thar," said the mountaineer. "One of the chaps was sick all night, and he's mighty triflin' this mornin'."

"Let me see him," said the minister, who carried with him a few simple remedies.

After an examination of the sick child, he said to the mother, "Here, give him this once an hour, and I think he will be better by the time we get back to dinner."

The anxious mother was instantly grateful, and even the father was mollified a little.

"If you'll wait till I get my saddle on, I'll ride to meetin' with you," said he.

The sermon that day gave better satisfaction. There was a certain prejudice to overcome, but partly it was overcome already in admiration of the young man's courage, and in astonishment that he rode in under protection of his recent enemy.

Of course, there was no attempt at whipping, and at the close of the service many greeted the young man with sheepish cordiality.

When they returned to the house, the little boy had improved, and the preacher sat down to a good dinner of hot biscuit and fried chicken, the food of preachers in that region, and at the close of the meal he rode off in safety.

There was a meeting in the schoolhouse a few days afterward, and a letter was written, not without great labor, and sent to the young preacher. Not very long ago, in an overhauling of old papers, that letter came to light:

"We want you to keep on preaching on brimstone, and as peter sed to Christ though all forsake you yet will not wee, but we think it would be well to preach the gospel insted of temperance and for the presint give us something mor cimple."

The spelling was not quite beyond reproach, but the Brimstone appointment continued.—Exchange.