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Two Souls for Two Words

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 5, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 10.

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Two Souls for Two Words

By Eugene A. Brown

"Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad." Prov. 12: 25. See also Prov. 15: 23.
Two incidents that bring to the writer's mind the text quoted above will no doubt prove an encouragement to others. They serve to remind us that the word of the Lord will not return to him void. What would have been accomplished today had every believer spoken the "good word" in due season? And what have become of the many discouraged souls to whom we failed to speak at the critical moment?
Several years ago, while eating at a lunch counter, I was impressed to inquire of the waiter as to his spiritual condition, and to offer a few words of friendly counsel. Time passed on, and the incident was forgotten. Recently a visitor at one of our meetings, who proved to be the stranger spoken to, related the experience, with the startling information that at that time he was laboring under a spell of such despondency that he had determined that night to end his life. The word spoken brought the first ray of light to his burdened heart. He followed the light until he found Christ. Today he is rejoicing in the truth.
Three months ago, meetings were begun at El Centro, Cal. I had concluded the discourse of the evening, and was meeting the strangers at the tent door as they passed out. A heavy-set stranger, evidently a man of some influence, approached me, and ridiculed the sermon. He declared that the Bible was worthless, that Christ was inferior to Confucius, who he believed was the nearest to perfection of any being ever on earth. He had had Christian training, but had studied Confucianism. "And don't you read your Bible at all?" I asked. He did not. "Well, good night, come again; the Lord bless you." And he kept coming, and has given his heart to Christ. He has since said that those words were the only ones that could have reached his heart. Every preacher he had before spoken to had so treated him as to drive him farther into darkness. In this case the Lord seems to have given the very words required, and just the manner, too, of offering them. He said, in asking about our effort here, "Did it pay you to come down here?" "Certainly! We should have considered ourselves well repaid if but one soul had been saved." "Well," he replied, "I am that soul."
EUGENE A. BROWN.