"I don't blame you one bit," he said to one of his tormentors, "for I was once exactly the same—only I hope some day you'll be different too. In the meantime, comrade, I'll be praying for you."
"You must admit I'm a changed man, anyway," he said one day to a group who made sport of him.
"That's true, right enough," said one of them.
"Well, who changed me?"
Various opinions were offered to this question.
"Well, I'll tell you!" he thundered, and that stentorian voice which always used to dominate every assembly in which he mingled, held them spellbound!
"It was the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for me—yes, and He died for every one of you. He shed His blood on Calvary's cross to keep every man from hell who surrenders to Him in true repentance. Then He does another thing! His Holy Spirit takes away the bad habits of every man who surrenders to Him. He said once, 'If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed!' Now you look well at me! You know what a terrible temper I had. You've tried your best in these past weeks to make me angry but you haven't succeeded. That's a miracle in itself. You can say what you like to me now but you won't make me lose my temper. That's not to my credit, let me tell you! It's God Himself who's done something that I don't yet clearly understand. The money I earn, I dump it all in the wife's lap, for I know she can handle it better than I can! Then there's another thing! When I get up in the morning now, I ask God to help, and He does it. When I go to bed at night, I pray again. Let me tell you, if I should die I'll go to heaven, and there I'll meet my dear old mother, for it's not what I've done, it's what He's done! It isn't that I'm any better than any of you. No! There isn't one of you as bad as I was," he continued, "but if God was able to change and pardon a beast like me, He can surely do the same with all of you. So what I say is, why don't you all do just the same as I've done? Surrender yourselves into Christ's hands!"
Little by little, seeing it was useless to try to bring the Breton back into his old ways, his tormentors were silenced at least, and a life of new activities commenced for the former drunkard.
"You certainly appear to be quite happy," said Paula, as we passed the
Breton's garden one evening where he was whistling merrily at his work.
"I certainly am that," said he, raising his head. "There's just one weight on my heart yet, however."