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A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 16, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 3.

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A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH.

(From a leaflet in the American Sunday-School Union.)
MR. E. B. STEVENSON gives the following incident from his experience as a missionary of the American Sunday-School Union.
A friend called my attention to a neighborhood of over eight hundred people without a church or Sunday-school. I asked him if there were any Christians. He said, “No—O, yes; there is one man down there who makes enough profession for a whole township.”
I immediately drove to the community, called upon this man, and asked if they had a Sunday-school. He replied, “No, but if there is a place on earth that needs one, it is right here. See that house over there! One of the worst men you ever met lives in it.” He gave me a free sketch of that man’s life for the past twenty years. He then pointed to the next house, and the next, giving the history of all his neighbors. If one-half of what he said was true, they ought to have been in the penitentiary.
Looking around, I saw a boy on horseback. I asked, “Who is that boy?” The man gave me his name, saying: “He is the meanest boy in all this county. Talk about heathen! They haven’t even got a Bible in their house.”
By this time the boy rode up. I reached out my hand and said: “Hello, Jim! Come up here, I want to shake hands with you.” I gave him a good, hearty shake, told him I was going to have a meeting at the schoolhouse, and asked if he knew where I could get a boy to go around and tell the people.
He said, “Will I do?” “First-rate, if you will go.” “All right, I am the boy you need.” I promised him a nice Bible if he would scatter the notice and not miss a single house.
We had hardly concluded our bargain before the boy put his hands upon his hips, turned to the old man who had been standing by, and said, “I might as well commence now. Going to be a meeting at the schoolhouse next Sunday morning at ten o’clock! Come down; bring the old woman and all the kids along!”
Sunday morning I drove to the schoolhouse a little early. To my surprise it was crowded, and a number of boys standing around the door I said, “Boys, I would like to get in.” One of them spoke up, saying, “So’d we.” “Let me in and you can follow me.” “No, we can’t. It’s chuck full clear up.” “Nothing can be done until I get in.” “Don’t make no difference, you can’t get in here.”
I was obliged to go around and crawl in thru the window. As I reached the desk, I looked down, and there sat my Jim on the front seat. He looked up with a smile, and said, “I fetched ’em.” “I see you did,” and gave him his Bible. After my address, we organized a Sunday-school.
We went to a house near by for dinner. When we were seated the lady began to laugh. I asked her what was the matter. She said she was thinking about Jim. I asked, “What about him?” “Well, he rode into our front yard, never looked to see if any one was around, and began to yell with all his might, ‘Going to be a meeting down to the schoolhouse next Sunday morning at ten o’clock. Funniest fellow you ever see in your life will be thur! If you don’t come you will miss the biggest thing that ever come to this part of the country.’”
In the fall, I went back and held some meetings. There were about a dozen hopeful conversions, among them this boy. We secured a minister, and held protracted services, in which over forty professed faith in Christ. They organized a church and erected a building.
I met Jim at the college he was attending. He had grown so I failed to recognize him. He said, “You remember the meeting you held in our schoolhouse?” “Yes, I remember it, and you, too.” “Well, I gave my heart to Christ at that time, and have come here to make something of myself.” “How would you like to be a Sunday-school missionary?” “I think I would like to do just that kind of work.”
During his summer vacation, we sent him out as a missionary. About the first of August he wrote that he had organized eight Sunday-schools, and in order to put them in better shape, some meetings should be held. I wrote at once, “Go ahead, and may God bless you.”
He commenced holding services in groves, calling out two or three of his schools in a sort of a convention, and continuing meetings at night. At the close of his summer’s work, over two hundred had professed conversion. The next vacation he worked again, also the third summer, having the use of a tent for special services.
During the last summer, which was spent in very hard communities, he was compelled to sleep in his tent at night to protect it from the roughs who threatened to cut the ropes and damage the canvas. At the close of the season he was taken with pneumonia, caused by exposure and overwork. He lingered thru the winter, and on the fourteenth of March he died.
During these three summers he organized thirty-three Sunday-schools, having gathered into them over eleven hundred boys and girls.
Eight churches have already developed from these schools.
Six of these churches have erected buildings of their own.
In special meetings he held, ten hundred and twenty-five persons professed faith in Christ.
Thus early in the Christian warfare the young hero fell! His memory is precious, his example an inspiration, and his labors continue to yield fruit.
The great cause to which he devoted his life still survives. Every year missionaries of the American Sunday-School Union are gathering about eighty thousand destitute children into Sunday-schools. Many of them are careless and heedless. Some are diamonds in the rough. The loving hand of Christian sympathy and the influence of divine truth are polishing these gems for the Master’s crown. Noble and useful characters are being developed.
Put a rollicking, fun-loving boy on the right track, and you have started a powerful agent for good.