The Personal TouchChapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Religion
The Personal Touch
Chapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Evangelistic work; Salvation -- Christianity
"It is a cross for me to come here and relate my experience, but I am
glad to be here inasmuch as something I say may gladden someone who is
discouraged. I was brought up in a Christian home. My mother was a good
woman and my father was a clergyman. I went through college and the
lower school before I took a single drop of strong drink. But when I
took my first drink--I remember it well--it seemed to be something I
had been looking for all my life and had never found before. From that
time on I drank periodically. I had a lovely family and an honoured
name, but I dragged it and my family into the dust. I struggled through
my own strength to redeem myself, but I could not, nor can any man. I
took cures, but they availed me not. I was in the hospital fourteen
times, struggling up all the time, but falling down again. I seemed too
hopeless. The light seemed to be fading for ever from the horizon, and
darkness was coming over me. I was without hope. I would rather have
fallen asleep in death, away from my companions, away from my loved
ones, and never have been seen again, than to have lived the way I was.
But through the providence of God, and through a kind wife and sister,
I am able to stand here to-day. God bless the wives of the drunkards
and drinking men, for if any will have a crown in heaven, it will be
the wife of the drunkard who stands by him through thick and thin and
who never gives him up.
"I went away to a certain town and while there I noticed the title of a
book called 'Twice Born Men.' It aroused my curiosity, and I picked it
up and commenced to read it. I came to the story of the puncher, a man
who was formerly a prize fighter, and who had descended to the lowest
scale of humanity. He had become a drunkard of the worst type and had
gone one night into a saloon with murder in his heart. He was going
home to kill his wife, when there flashed in upon him some strange
influence, some mighty influence, some compelling influence--the power
of the Almighty--and drove him into the Salvation Army barracks, and
there he knelt at the Penitent form and God took the load from his
back. When he rose up there was a new light in his eyes, a new heart in
his breast, and he arose a new born man. He began to work for Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account