AN INTERESTING EXPERIENCE.
By Dr. Ashley
[From a talk by Dr. Ashley, a former surgeon in the British navy, at a missionary meeting, held in the Sanitarium at Battle Creek, Mich., August 14, 1897.] JUST about forty years ago, while I was sailing in a ship off the Cape of Good Hope, I gave my heart to the Lord and decided to be his faithful soldier and servant. My father was an officer in the English navy, and my mother was the last descendant of an old French family. My father, while engaged in the suppression of slave trade off the east coast of Africa, was wounded. He was carried to Cape Town, where he died. When the sad news reached my mother, it was such a blow to her that the shock killed her. I was but three months old, and was left in Paris with scarcely a relative on the face of the earth, but the Lord took care of me. When I was about five years old, the lord chancellor of England took me into his home, and cared for me until I was thirteen years of age, when I was sent to a university in England. I came to this country first in 1871. It was a little over seven years ago when, in San Francisco, the Lord called me to do some personal work for him. In going about among the poor, and attending my patients, I had endeavored to bear witness of the great salvation, but I never made special effort in the missionary work. One evening I was called to a notorious house of ill-fame, to see a young woman who, in sheer remorse and shame, had taken a dose of poison, and, by God's mercy, I was enabled to give her the proper remedies, and she was restored to health, and finally became converted, and to-day is a good Christian woman. This led me into the rescue work among the suffering women of San Francisco, and also among the utter outcasts—those whom others had tried to help, but had given up as hopeless cases. The poor fellows that sleep around the walls, and on the walks, and in dens and caves in our large cities, these poor outcasts are men whom the Lord has laid especially on my heart, and for the last seven years the Lord has greatly blessed me in my work. I have been the means of getting over a dozen women out of these dens, and restoring them to their friends, or else placing them with respectable, God-fearing people. The Lord has also helped me to assist a large number of men, whom he came to deliver from the thralldom and tyranny of drink, and opium, morphine, and kindred drugs. Last year, while in New York, I was taken with typhoid fever, and was confined to my bed from November until March. One of the first things I took into my hands to read, when I was able to read, was the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and it seemed like an old friend come back to me, for I used to see it in India nearly thirty years ago. I was specially interested in those articles relating to the coming of the Lord, but I never could understand the Sabbath question. I used to think that if I kept one day out of seven that was all that was necessary; but since I became convalescent, and made the acquaintance of the dear brethren in the Chicago mission, my attention was more directly called to the subject. No one spoke to me on the subject of the Sabbath, but my attention was called to the Sunday question. A week ago last Thursday I had a talk with some of the laundry workers. Later, while in my room, I knelt down and asked the Lord to guide me in this matter; that if he wished me to keep the seventh day, he would show me, and that he would give me grace to enable me to accept his words. I opened my Bible to the first chapter of Acts, where the Lord, after his resurrection, was among his disciples, speaking and teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God; but there was not a word mentioned in them about the Sabbath day. Now the plain inference of this to my mind was that there was nothing more to be said about it, and that last word had been said on this subject, and I decided accordingly, and accepted the truth about the Sabbath, and the Lord has greatly blessed my soul ever since. Every day it seems that the Lord has given me some new blessings, some new views of his truths, or some old truth presented in a new light, and this is joy and refreshment to my soul. I heard of the Workingmen's Home when I was in Denver, Colorado, a year ago. I was walking along the street one day, and the ladies were out shopping. I met a tall man, and of all "weary walkers" and "dusty road-ers" that I ever met, he was the most dilapidated looking. His clothing was tied onto him, and he had an old rusty tin pail tied to his back. He looked as tho he had never been washed since he was born. His feet were out through his shoes, and he was so filthy that the patrol men would not let him stay on the sidewalk, and the ladies shrank from him. Well, when I saw one made in the image of God, and one whom our Lord Jesus was content to suffer for on the cross, my heart turned toward him, and I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to hell. I told him I was glad to hear that he had been led to see the termination of his road, for that was the place he was sure to arrive at if he persisted in his course; but God opened his heart. I found that he was a graduate from one of our universities; that he had been an eminent lawyer, had been district attorney for the State, and had been offered, but refused, the nomination for State senate, as he was getting a large amount of money from his practise. I took him to where I was staying, gave him some hot milk, washed him up, put him to bed, and cared for him for several weeks. He is now restored to society, is a polished, cultured gentleman, and is occupying a position of trust and responsibility, since being restored to his wife and little ones. He told me that his first impulse to turn away from drink and from his evil ways was from the talks he had heard in the Workingmen's Home in Chicago, and he gave me the address of the home. It was there that his mind seems to have been impressed to such a degree that he could not rest. He was determined to turn, but feared his friends would not help him if he presented himself before them. This incident illustrates very well the truth that seed sown may spring up at some distant place, and at some remote time.