MY CONVERSION
When I was a boy of about thirteen, my father said to me one evening at the setting of the sun, "Water the stock." Soon some boys arrived, and, being a real boy, I forgot my work and played.
A little later my father asked, "Have you done what I told you?"
"Yes, father," I replied.
He knew I had not, and I even now recall that he said not a word but walked away in the twilight so burdened and bowed because of hearing a falsehood from his own boy that it suddenly gave him the appearance of an old man. The boys left, and I watered the stock. Then, boy like, I forgot, went to bed and slept. During the next forenoon Mother called me to her and said:
"Do you know your father neither went to bed nor slept all last night?"
I replied, "No, Mother, I do not know. Why didn't he sleep?"
Mother's answer was, "Your father spent all last night praying for you."
My saintly mother's words and tears went through my heart like an arrow and rang like a bell in my ears, and I became powerfully convicted of sin. Just following that a series of revival meetings were held which continued for several weeks. I became a seeker and had no rest until I found it in penitence and a consciousness of pardoned sin. I was the only convert during the meetings, and critics said, "He will backslide in a few weeks. The revival is a failure." But I am here to tell the story that I am still saved by grace.