GOSPEL TRANSFORMATIONS.
BY A MOUNTAIN PREACHER.
This autumn has been for me a season of hard labor, and, at the same time, one of great rejoicing. For more than a month I have been laboring night and day almost incessantly striving to lead souls to Jesus, and the dear Lord has blessed me to see more than thirty happy conversions. Tired, almost exhausted, still I must press on, for there is yet much to be done.
In the meetings held this fall I have realized more fully than ever before in my life the mighty power of the Spirit, and the blessedness of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At a place in Scott County, Tenn., where I held a ten days' meeting, this fact of the Holy Spirit's power and the blessedness of the Christian religion was most beautifully illustrated, as the following incident will show.
When I began preaching there the neighborhood was in a universal state of ferment. Fussings, fightings, hard feelings between neighbors were everywhere; and between denominations most bitter prejudice and cruel jealousies. There were men there, close neighbors and kinsfolk, who had not spoken to each other for three years. Some were so angry with each other that they were fighting occasionally and trying to kill each other. They came to church with their pistols in their pockets to shoot each other, and I expected that we might have war in the church yard at any time and men killed. But while they held their thumbs on their pistol hammers I wielded the hammer of God's word with unrelenting force. While they were getting ready to fire revolvers I was firing red hot gospel shot into them with deadly effect. Their hard hearts softened, they weakened, they fell before the sword of the Spirit. Strong men broke down and wept like children. Grasping each other by the hand, embracing each other in their arms amidst a flood of tears, they confessed to each other their faults, and begged pardon and prayed and shouted as I never saw men do before in my life. Hostile enemies were made happy friends, would-be murderers were converted to God, hard feelings among neighbors were swept away, denominational prejudice was forgotten, and brotherly love and Christian peace reigned supreme. And besides this some twenty-five precious souls were saved; among them an old grandmother was brought to Jesus. And still the good work goes on.
Praise the Lord for His wonderful love and for His mighty power which He has manifested in the salvation of precious souls.