I want to say to young ladies, perhaps you have a godless father or
mother, or a skeptical brother, who is going down through drink, and
perhaps there is no one who can reach them but you. How many times a
godly, pure young lady has taken the light into some darkened home!
Many a home might be lit up with the Gospel if the mothers and
daughters would only speak the word.
The last time Mr. Sankey and myself were in Edinburgh, there were a
father, two sisters, and a brother, who used every morning to take the
morning paper and pick my sermon to pieces. They were indignant to
think that the Edinburgh people should be carried away with such
preaching. One day one of the sisters was going by the hall, and she
thought she would drop in and see what class of people went there. She
happened to take a seat by a godly lady, who said to her:
"I hope you are interested in this work,"
She tossed her head and said: "Indeed I am not. I am disgusted with
everything I have seen and heard."
"Well," said the lady, "perhaps you came prejudiced."
"Yes, and the meeting has not removed any of it, but has rather
increased it."
"I have received a great deal of good from them."
"There is nothing here for me. I don't see how an intellectual person
can be interested."
To make a long story short, she got the young lady to promise to come
back. When the meeting broke up, just a little of the prejudice had
worn away. She promised to come back again the next day, and then she
attended three or four more meetings, and became quite interested. She
said nothing to her family, until finally the burden became too heavy,
and she told them. They laughed at her, and made her the butt of their
ridicule.
One day the two sisters were together, and the other said, "Now what
have you got at those meetings that you didn't have in the first
place?"
"I have a peace that I never knew of before. I am at peace with God,
myself, and all the world." Did you ever have a little war of your own
with your neighbors, in your own family? And she said: "I have
self-control. You know, sister, if you had said half the mean things
before I was converted that you have said since, I would have been
angry and answered back, but if you remember correctly, I haven't
answered once since I have been converted."