I sat down to read the little book in an utterly unconcerned state of mind, believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation it was not for me, and with a distinct intention to put away the tract as soon as it should seem prosy. I may say that it was not uncommon in those days to call conversion "becoming serious"; and judging by the faces of some of its professors, it appeared to be a very serious matter indeed. Would it not be well if the people of GOD had always tell-tale faces, evincing the blessings and gladness of salvation so clearly that unconverted people might have to call conversion "becoming joyful" instead of "becoming serious"? Little did I know at the time what was going on in the heart of my dear mother, seventy or eighty miles away. She rose from the dinner-table that afternoon with an intense yearning for the conversion of her boy, and feeling that--absent from home, and having more leisure than she could otherwise secure--a special opportunity was afforded her of pleading with GOD on my behalf. She went to her room and turned the key in the door, resolved not to leave that spot until her prayers were answered. Hour after hour did that dear mother plead for me, until at length she could pray no longer, but was constrained to praise GOD for that which His SPIRIT taught her had already been accomplished--the conversion of her only son. I in the meantime had been led in the way I have mentioned to take up this little tract, and while reading it was struck with the sentence, "The finished work of CHRIST." The thought passed through my mind, "Why does the author use this expression? why not say the atoning or propitiatory work of CHRIST?" Immediately the words "It is finished" suggested themselves to my mind. What was finished? And I at once replied, "A full and perfect atonement and satisfaction for sin: the debt was paid by the Substitute; CHRIST died for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." Then came the thought, "If the whole work was finished and the whole debt paid, what is there left for me to do?" And with this dawned the joyful conviction, as light was flashed into my soul by the HOLY SPIRIT, that there was nothing in the world to be done but to fall down on one's knees, and accepting this SAVIOUR and His salvation, to praise Him for evermore. Thus while my dear mother was praising GOD on her knees in her chamber, I was praising Him in the old warehouse to which I had gone alone to read at my leisure this little book.