p. 13 | WHAT A SONG DID

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 9, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 19.

WHAT A SONG DID.

IN Macao, China, not far from Hongkong, the principal occupation of the inhabitants is gambling. Here on one occasion a traveler found a company of gamblers in a back room on the upper floor of a hotel. At the table nearest him was an American, about twenty-five years old, playing with an old man. They had been betting and drinking. While the gray-haired man was shuffling the cards for a new deal, the young man in a swaggering, careless way, sang a verse of Phoebe Carey's beautiful hymn, "One Sweetly Solemn Thought." Hearing the singing, several gamblers looked up in surprise. The old man who was dealing the cards, put on a look of melancholy, stopped for a moment, gazed stedfastly at his partner in the game, and dashed the pack of cards upon the floor under the table. Then he said, "Where did you learn that tune? But no matter," he continued, "I've played my last game and that's the end of it." The old man, having won money from the young one, about one hundred dollars, took it out of his pocket, and handing it to the latter said, "Here, Harry, is your money, take it and do good with it, I shall with mine." This song may have been heard at his mother's knee. It is to be hoped that it was the beginning of a new life in this man.—Selected.