The Sermon to a Solitary Auditor.
In 18—, then but a youth, I was sent to C. E. My colleague was a most worthy and excellent man. Our field of labor extensive and laborious. In making the entire round of the circuit once in four weeks, we had to travel on horse-back, between 500 and 600 miles, and preach 33 sermons. The country was new, the roads extremely bad—the streams unbridged—and our accommodations not always the most comfortable or desirable. It was the middle of a cold Canadian winter, that one stormy evening I had an appointment to preach in a distant neighborhood, which owing to the severity of the storm, I was unable to reach until after the hour of meeting had arrived. On dismounting and entering the school house, I found a good fire, but no one present. A young man soon came in. I waited some time for others to assemble. As no one came, thinking it useless to preach—I arose to depart, when the young man inquired if I was not going to preach; I replied, I think not. “Yes you are, I am not out in such a storm as this for nothing;” and said with an oath, “you cannot leave the house, unless you preach me a sermon.” Seeing his determination, I replied, if I preach you must sing a hymn, and give me a text, To this he readily assented, and commenced singing those impressive lines, “A charge to keep I have.” In prayer I was led by an almost irresistible impulse to pray most fervently for the speedy conversion of this wicked young man. He took my Bible and readily turned to Rev. vi, 17, and said, “Here, preach from this.” While describing the day—the great day—and the great day of his wrath; he sat apparently unmoved, looking me full in the face, but when I began to give a scriptural solution of the interrogation in the text, I felt the Spirit of God resting upon me in an unusual degree. And as I made an appeal to the young man himself, he began to tremble and weep; falling upon his knees, with emotion he cried, “pray for me! I am sinking into hell.” His feelings were intense, his agony extreme. Seldom have I ever witnessed such a scene. Some time was spent in fervent prayer, when all of a sudden, as by an electric shock, a heavenly expression came over his countenance, and rising, he praised God with a loud voice. At his request I accompanied him home, and O, what a scene transpired. On entering his house, he threw his arms around the neck of his pious widowed mother, confessing his sins, asking her forgiveness, and proclaiming with a loud voice to all in the house “the great things God had done for his soul.” If the sound of music and dancing was not heard rising above the storm without, the shout of joy, and the song of rejoicing and praise was heard. Uniting with the church, in due time he was licensed to preach and recommended for the Itinerancy. He was received by — conference, and passed with honor the graduating process, with great acceptability and usefulness, spending several years as a traveling minister, till it pleased God to call him, in the prime of life, from “labor to repose.” He died in great peace, “at his post with his armor on.” Perhaps I ought to add, the motive, as subsequently confessed, influencing the young man in insisting on my preaching, under the circumstances, on that evening was merely the satisfaction of witnessing the embarrassment and confusion of, (as he expressed it) “the boy preacher.” He meant it for evil—God over-ruled it for good. If the publication of this incident in the early life of an Itinerant should stimulate one young minister “to be instant in season and out of season,” let God have all the glory.—Sel