He stepped upon the low platform and looked in. On a table sat a negro boy. About the room were hard-faced young men, and those older, on whose bloated features intemperance had set its livid brand. But they were all listening. The singer finished the last verse, and then began again. This time he sang, "Jesus, lover of my soul." My own eyes were dimmed, said the gentleman, as he came to the lines, "Vile and full of sin I am; Thou art full of truth and grace." It seemed as if for a moment an angel's wing brushed away the shadow from those darkened hearts, and tears moistened cheeks long unused to heart-rain. The singing stopped. "Go on, go on, we will pay you more," said one and another. "I cannot now," answered the boy; "it is time for Sunday-school, but I will sing again next Sunday, if you'll come." And as he put into his pocket the coppers that were handed him, he said, "I wouldn't take these, only I am going to send them to the heathen. I'll sing you the hymn--it's beautiful--about 'Greenland's icy mountains;'" and humming it to himself, "Bill Jones" left the bar-room. Reader, should it ever be your good fortune to walk down this thickly-shaded village street on a Sabbath morn, you might within those very halls, now pure and white, hear the rich baritone voice of "Bill Jones" leading in some song of Zion, and with him many others, "plucked as brands from the burning." XXIII. THE CONVERSION AND CULTURE OF CHILDREN. Immediate conversion ought to be the aim and expectation of every faithful Sabbath-school teacher. It is indeed a poor excuse to suffer a child to drown because we have but _one_ opportunity of saving it. When a child is in danger of perishing, we do not first try to educate it, but to _save_ it. The fact evidently is, that the great mass of children ought to be led directly to Christ and become child-Christians without delay; and multitudes would so become, methinks, if parents and teachers and pastors had sufficient confidence in the power of God's Word and Spirit, and had faith for the early conversion of children to God. Nearly one and a third centuries ago that great divine, Jonathan Edwards, of Northampton, wrote the account of the conversion, as he thought, of little _Phebe Bartlett_, at the early age of four years, together with her Christian life for one year thereafter, and the evidences of a gracious change of her heart. The little book has been published since in many of the languages of Europe. Little Phebe Bartlett lived for sixty years after this, and neither herself nor her friends ever doubted that she truly met with a saving change of heart at the early age named by President Edwards. Many of our most learned divines and most devoted and useful Christian ladies date their conversion to the early age of three, four, five, and six years.