The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"Carpenter, Minnie Lindsay Rowell
Religion
The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"
Carpenter, Minnie Lindsay Rowell
Lee, Kate; Salvation Army
A Salvation Army woman wanted to come up to his bedroom and see him lying
drunk in bed! The impudence! He would show her out of this British
workman's home quicker than she had come in. Lunging into his rough
clothes, and staggering down the stairs, with muttering lips and angry
eyes, came Parrot. He found Kate Lee talking with his children. She
looked up at him with a smile and said, 'They told me I was coming to a
drunkard's home, but these don't look like a drunkard's children. The
dears!'
Parrot was struck dumb and stood with a strangely-working face and a
peculiar tearing at his throat staring at this fair, fragile woman. 'I
want you to come to our meeting to-night,' continued the Adjutant. 'Mrs.
Parrot tells me you haven't any good clothes; but I'll have a full suit
ready for you in time, and shall expect you there.' She prayed and was
gone.
This was the first vision of Divine love that Parrot had ever seen. Born
in a beer shop, fighting and quarrelling from childhood, his life had
been a hideous, hopeless failure. Hell he understood--felt; but such
words as God, Heaven, Love, had meant nothing to him at all. Now they
did. Love seemed to shine all over that woman. Angels' wings never looked
lovelier to human eyes than the Army blue of Adjutant Kate's uniform
looked to Parrot.
By-and-by a parcel arrived. It contained shirt, trousers, coat and vest,
socks and boots, collar, tie, and even a handkerchief. Parrot handled
them with wonder. He had never worn such clothes--the Adjutant had begged
them from a gentleman. He put them on, and walked up and down the back
yard. How good it felt to be well dressed--to look respectable.
Meeting time arrived and, piloted by his wondering wife, Parrot went to
the hall. 'Let's go up out of the draught,' diplomatized Mrs. Parrot, and
edged her man as near to the front as possible. Kate Lee gloried in God
that night. She told of His boundless love, His seeking--seeking to find,
and make good and happy, every soul of man. Parrot and his wife knelt at
the penitent-form.
Next morning Parrot felt desperately ill, but the craving for strong
drink had gone. He must face life in earnest and see about providing for
the family. He must have something to sell. Mrs. Parrot remembered a
kind-hearted man who had promised, that if ever her husband tried to do
better, that he would help him. Parrot walked several miles to find this
man, who trusted him with a dollar's worth of fish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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