"That happened eighteen years ago, and I've been pretty near all over the world since then, sometimes hungry, sometimes in pretty good shape, but I'll never forget that saloon-keeper. I'll see him again, and he will pay for what he did!"
I gave that man a ticket for lodging and a couple of meals. We talked about his early life, and I asked why he didn't start out and be a Christian and not harbor a grudge; to let God punish that saloon-keeper. I told him I'd been through something like the same experience, a man whose word I trusted selling me some Harbor Chart stock and making me think he was doing me a good turn, and I lost several hundred dollars. That was in the years when I first started to be a Christian. I had the hardest time to forgive this man, but thank God I did!
I reasoned with that man day after day and saw that the light was breaking in his heart. Weeks went on, and he came to a point where he took Jesus as his guide and friend, and to-day he is a fine Christian gentleman. I have had him testifying in the church to the power of Christ to save a man. He tells me he has forgiven that saloon-man for Christ's sake.
SAVED ON THE THRESHOLD OF VICE
One afternoon about 5 o'clock I was sitting at my desk at the Mission Room when I noticed among the men who came there to read and rest and perhaps take a nap, a young man, a boy rather, clean and wearing good clothes. I looked at him a moment and thought, "He has got into the wrong place." I spoke to him, as is my habit, and asked him what he was doing there. I brought him over and got him to sit down in that old chair where so many confessions are made to me and said kindly, "Well, what's your story?" I thought of my own boy, and my heart went out to this young fellow.
He said, "You are Mr. Ranney. I've often heard about you, and I'm glad to see you now." He told me how he had given up his job on Eighth Avenue around 125th Street the day before. He had had a "run in," as he called it, at home, and had determined to get out. His mother had married a second time, and his stepfather and he could not agree on a single thing. He loved his mother, but could not stand the stepfather. He had drawn his pay at the jewelry store where he was working and had spent the night before at a hotel uptown, intending to look for a job the next day.
He had risen at 8 A. M. intending to get work before his eight dollars was all gone. Well, the money was burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to see a show and he came down on the Bowery and got into a cheap vaudeville show, and quite enjoyed himself. "I came out of that show," he said, "and went into a restaurant to eat, and when I went to pay the cashier I did not have a cent in my pocket. The boss of the place said that was an old story. He was not there to feed people for nothing. I said I had been robbed or lost my money somehow, but he wouldn't believe me. He wanted his twenty cents, or he would have me arrested. Oh, he was mad for fair, Mr. Ranney. He got me by my coat-collar and shook me and said I was a thief, and he finished up by kicking me through the door, and here I am down on the Bowery homeless."
Another young fellow gone wrong! Could I help him? I urged him to go back home, but he didn't want to. The night before was pay-night, and he was always expected to give in his share towards the home expenses, and now here was his money all gone. What could he do?
I took him around the room and pointed out the hard cases there, wretched, miserable specimens of men, and asked him if he wanted to be like them, as he surely would if he went on in the course he was starting. He said, "Indeed I don't!" "Well, then," I said, "take my advice and go home. Be a man and face the music. It will mean a scolding from your father, but take it. Tell them both that you will make up the money as soon as you get work, and that you are going to be obedient and good from now on."
At last he said he would go if I would go with him, but I couldn't that night, for I had a meeting to address. I told him I would give him a lodging for the night, and we would go up to Washington Heights the next day. I put him in about as tough a lodging as I could get, for I wanted him to realize the life he would drift into, told him to meet me at one o'clock the next day, and said good-night to him.