Three months later "the little preacher" received a letter from a British Columbia miner. One paragraph may be quoted here: "Poor Old Ken was burned to death in a hotel fire in S—— three weeks ago. He was the kindest old man I ever met, and as long as I live I shall thank God for the night he rounded us up and brought us to your meeting in the dance-hall."
CHARL
When Charlie Rayson passed out of the dance-hall in the little mountain mining town a few nights after Old Ken's round-up, he was on the border-line between despair and hope. Was there any chance? For years he had apparently worked with the logging gang only that he might give full rein to the lusts that devoured him; and if he remained in the bush the whole winter it was with an impatience for the days to pass so that the spring might bring him to the bar-rooms and dens of vice, where the awful monotony might be relieved in a spring-long spree. Nobody had any particular interest in Charlie, and no one knew from whence he came.
And yet there seemed to be some slight ray of hope to-night. He had listened for the first time since boyhood to the pearl of the parables, and then Old Ken had asked the preacher to "sing that there Wandering Boy piece." Charlie knew not if his mother still lived, but the words, "Oh! could I see you now, my boy, as fair as in olden times," came like his mother's call through the sin-stained past. For thirteen years he had cut himself entirely off, so far as his whereabouts was concerned, from that one who had never ceased to love him.
In a few minutes after the close of the service Charlie and the preacher were alone on the mountain trail. Suddenly Charlie stopped and said, "Good God, preacher, you can't, you don't understand what I'm up against. For nineteen years I've been in the hands of the doctor or the policeman—my passions rip me to pieces—men can't help me; I wonder if God can? I want to believe what you said to-night is true, but I've always wanted to do the thing that damns me, worse than I have wanted to do anything else, and yet I never do it without something saying 'don't.'"
In the silence of the lonely hills the two men stood, while one asked Him who is the Help of the helpless to be the Refuge of the passion-pursued man. Poor Charlie could utter but few words: "God, oh, God," he sobbed, "I'm like that prodigal, and I'm sick of it all. Oh, God, can you help me? I want to see my old mother." With the mention of the word mother the man burst into a passion of weeping. For several minutes no word was uttered, as the preacher steadied the trembling man. It was no easy task for Charlie to do what he was counselled to do after he had made the Great Decision. But that night he read, from the Testament given him, a portion of the third chapter of St. John's Gospel, and knelt by his bunk and asked for strength sufficient. To kneel down and pray in certain Western mining camp bunk-houses is a man's job, but Charlie had realized that only One was able to deliver from the passions that rend, and to that One he appealed.
A fortnight later an old woman in a far-away Ontario village received a letter bearing a British Columbia postmark. She was a poor, lonely, half-crippled individual, but the message of that letter enriched and cheered her and quickened her footsteps as nothing had done in years. To everybody she knew, and to a good many people she did not know, she told of her new joy. In her trembling old hands she held the precious letter. "Do you know, I've got a letter from my Charl. I thought he was dead. I haven't heard from him in thirteen years, but he's in British Columbia, and he says he's a Christian man now, and he wants to see his mother—and he's going to save up so's he can come home, and till he comes he's going to write every week—and he sent me some money. Oh, how good God is to give me back my Charl!" The poor old soul seemed raised as if by a miracle from her invalidism.
Charlie toiled on in the logging gang, and when pay-day came the hotel-keeper reaped the usual harvest from most of the men, and was hoping that Charlie and Bill Davis, two of his best customers, would be coaxed back to their old habits. Bill had been known as the "little devil" of Primeau's gang, and his professed change of heart was a thing incredible to the entire community. But Charlie and Bill had been a good deal together of late, and the latter had told Charlie all he purposed to do and be with God's help, and so the two men became mutually helpful.
Five months passed, and besides having purchased new clothes, Charlie Rayson had one hundred and fifty dollars in the savings bank at Brandon Falls.