“I cried to God, 'This poor man cried, and God heard him.' I rose to my feet, sobered and in my right mind. I gave the bottle to Brother Bratz, and when I got out on the street I threw away my cigarettes and tobacco, and from that day to this I have not touched or tasted either liquor or tobacco. The next morning my hand was as steady as it is this minute. While I was wondering what to do, a rap came to the door. It was the saloon man's messenger, telling me to come and finish my job. I was weak, but I was praying. In the meantime Satan was giving me the battle of my life. The devil is a hard loser. He said, 'Well, if God could keep Daniel in the lions' den, and the Hebrews in the fiery furnace, He could surely keep you in the saloon.'
“But God has done better than that for me. He has kept me out of the saloon. In my distress of mind as to whether I should finish that job or go for my tools, I picked up my wife's Bible and I opened at these words, 'Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.' It was a message straight from heaven to my soul. I so accepted it.
“I never finished the job. I never went after my tools, and from that day to this I have not entered a saloon. Satan has camped on my trail many times. I have had trials and temptations, but God has delivered me from the sins of the flesh, whisky, tobacco and their accompanying sins. No man who has been a drunkard can ever again safely use tobacco. An experience of ten years in mission work, where I have seen thousands of souls born into the kingdom, convinces me that the convert who retains tobacco will surely slip back. Christ's redeeming blood cleanses from all sin.
“I was a good workman and I soon had permanent work. I never failed to make the arrangement before I entered into a contract that I was not to be expected to enter a saloon or any other disreputable place.”
That was Mr. Kline's testimony, and I would like to say for him that God greatly uses him and his testimony to bring fallen men back to God. He is an acceptable preacher of righteousness in almost any pulpit in this city, and he has done acceptable evangelistic work in many large eastern cities. His presence in the Gospel Mission, we believe, is helpful to all the men who come under its roof. He is an honored member of the Luther Memorial Church.
I reaffirm, as long as one man dead in sin can be transformed into a living, active, aggressive Christian, the words of the Scripture are as true to-day as when the angel said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Nothing now known to science can accomplish what happened to Mr. H. W. Kline that night; that is, as Prof. James so pertinently says, “Conversion is the only means by which a radically bad person can be changed into a radically good person.”
Harold Begbie, as a psychologist, says: “Whatever we may think of the phenomenon itself, the fact stands clear and unassailable that by this thing called conversion, men consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, become consciously right, superior and happy. It produces not a change but a revolution. It creates a new personality.” We would say a new creature in Christ Jesus.
The religion of Christ differs from all other religions. They take the rich, the happy, the successful, as their expositors, but Christ takes the broken, the sorrowful, the beaten in the race, and makes them the rich, the successful and the happy expositors of His religion.
EMOTION IN RELIGION
Prof. H. W. Wynn, D.D., one of the great writers of the Lutheran Observer, has these wise words concerning the elements of emotion in religion: