Burke, Moody, and Redemption
BURKE THE BURGLAR, AND MOODY THE EVANGELIST.
[Condensed from Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., in the Epworth Herald.] VALENTINE BURKE was his name. He was an old-time burglar, with kit and gun always ready for use. His picture adorned many a rogues' gallery; for Burke was a real burglar, and none of your cheap amateurs. He had a courage born of many desperate "jobs." Twenty years of his life Burke had spent in prison, here and there. He was a big, strong fellow, with a hard face, and a terrible tongue for swearing, especially at sheriffs and jailers, who were his natural-born enemies. There must have been a streak of manhood or a tender spot somewhere about him, you will say, or this story could hardly have happened. I for one have yet to find the man who is wholly gone to the bad, and is beyond the reach of man or God. If you have, skip this story, for it is a true one, just as Mr. Moody told it to me in October up in Brattleboro, Vt. And now that dear Moody is dead, I remember how the big tears fell from his eyes as he told it. It was twenty-five years or more ago that it happened. Moody was young then, and not long in his ministry. He came down to St. Louis, to lead a union revival meeting, and the Globe-Democrat announced that it was going to print every word he said, sermon, prayer, and exhortation. Moody said it made him quake inwardly when he read this, but he made up his mind that he "would weave in a lot of Scripture for the Globe-Democrat to print, and that might count, if his own poor words should fail." He did it, and his printed sermons from day to day were sprinkled with Bible texts. The reporters tried their cunning at putting big, blazing head-lines at the top of the columns. Everybody was either hearing or reading the sermons. Burke was in the St. Louis jail waiting trial for some piece of daring. Solitary confinement was wearing on him, and he put in his time railing at the guards, or damning the sheriff on his daily rounds. It was meat and drink to Burke to curse a sheriff. Somebody threw a Globe-Democrat into his cell, and the first thing that caught his eye was a big head-line like this: "How the Jailer at Philippi Got Caught." It was just what Burke wanted, and he sat down with a chuckle to read the story of the jailer's discomfiture. "Philippi!" he said, "that's up in Illinois. I've been in that town." Somehow the reading had a strange look, out of the usual newspaper way. It was Moody's sermon of the night before. "What rot is this?" asked Burke. "Paul and Silas—A Great Earthquake—What Must I Do to be Saved?" Has the Globe-Democrat got to printing such stuff?" He looked at the date. Yes, it was Friday morning's paper, fresh from the press. Burke threw it down with an oath, and walked about his cell like a caged lion. By and by he took up the paper, and read the sermon through. The restless fit grew on him. Again and again he picked up the paper, and read its strange story. It was then that a something, from whence he did not then know, came into the burglar's heart, and cut its way to the quick. "What does it mean?" he began asking. "Twenty years and more I've been burglar and jail-bird, but I never felt like this. What is it to be saved, anyway? I've lived a dog's life, and I'm getting tired of it. If there is such a God as that preacher is telling about, I believe I'll find it out if it kills me to do it." He found it out. Away toward midnight, after hours of bitter remorse over his wasted life, and lonely and broken prayers, the first time since he was a child at his mother's knee, Burke learned that there is a God who is able and willing to blot out the darkest and bloodiest record at a single stroke. Then he waited for day, a new creature, crying and laughing by turns. Next morning, when the guard came round, Burke had a pleasant word for him, and the guard eyed him in wonder. When the sheriff came, Burke greeted him as a friend, and told him how he had found God, after reading Moody's sermon. "Jim," said the sheriff to the guard, "you better keep an eye on Burke. He's playing the pious dodge, and, first chance he gets, he will be out of here." In a few weeks Burke came to trial, but the case, through some legal entanglement, failed, and he was released. Friendless, in a big city, an ex-burglar, known only as a daring criminal, he had a hard time for months of shame and sorrow. Men looked at his face when he asked for work, and upon its evidence turned him away. But poor Burke was as brave as a Christian as he had been as a burglar, and struggled on. Moody told how the poor fellow, seeing that his sin-blurred features were making against him, asked the Lord in prayer "to make him a better-looking man, so that he could get an honest job." You will smile at this, I know, but something or somebody really answered the prayer, for Moody said a year from that time, when he met Burke in Chicago, he was as fine a looking man as he knew. I can not help thinking it was the Lord who did it for him in answer to his child-like faith. Shifting to and fro, wanting much to find steady work, Burke went to New York, hoping far from his old haunts to find peace and honest labor. He did not succeed, and, after six months, came back to St. Louis, much discouraged, but still holding fast to the God he had found in his prison cell. One day there came a message from the sheriff that he was wanted at the court-house, and Burke obeyed with a heavy heart. "Some old case they've got against me," he said; "but if I'm guilty I'll tell them so. I've done lying." The sheriff greeted him kindly. "Where have you been, Burke?" "In New York." "What have you been doing there?" "Trying to find a decent job," said Burke. "Have you kept a good grip on the religion you told me about?" inquired the sheriff. "Yes," answered Burke, looking him steadily in the eye. "I've had a hard time, sheriff, but I haven't lost my religion." It was then the tide began to turn. "Burke," said the sheriff, "I have had you shadowed every day you were in New York. I suspected that your religion was a fraud. But I want to say to you that I know you've lived an honest Christian life, and I have sent for you to offer you a deputyship under me. You can begin at once." He began. He set his face like a flint. Steadily, and with dogged faithfulness, the old burglar went about his duties until men high in business began to tip their hats to him and to talk of him at their clubs. Moody was passing through the city, and stopped off an hour to meet Burke, who loved nobody as he did the man who converted him. Moody told how he found him in a close room upstairs in the courthouse, serving as trusted guard over a bag of diamonds. Burke sat with a sack of the gems in his lap and a gun on the table. There were $60,000 worth of diamonds in the sack. "Moody," he said, "see what the grace of God can do for a burglar. Look at this. The sheriff picked me out of his force to guard it."
Then he cried like a child as he held up the glittering stones for Moody to see.
Years afterward the churches of St. Louis had made ready, and were waiting for the coming of an evangelist who was to lead the meeting, but something happened, and he did not come. The pastors were in sore trouble, until one of them suggested that they send for Valentine Burke to lead the meetings for them. Burke led night after night, and many hard men of the city came to see him, and many hearts were turned, as Burke's had been, from13lives of crime and shame to clean Christian living. There is no more beautiful or pathetic story than that of Burke's gentle and faithful life and service in the city where he had been chief of sinners. How long he lived I do not recall, but Moody told me of his funeral, and how the rich and the poor, the saints and the sinners came to it, and how the big men of the city could not say enough over the coffin of Valentine Burke. And to this day there are not a few in that city whose hearts soften with a strange tenderness when the name of the burglar is recalled. When I was a boy, an old black "mammy" that I greatly loved used to sing for me a song with words like these:—
"Through all depths of sin and loss
Sinks the plummet of Thy cross."