"When I first became a Christian the devil said to me, 'You cannot stay there with those people, there is a whisky bill you have not yet paid. Suppose you are out in one of those open air meetings and the saloon keeper should see you and say, 'Why, he owes me six dollars,' what could you say then?' I went to that saloon keeper and said to him, 'How much do I owe you?' And he said, 'Six dollars.' 'Well,' I said, 'I want to pay it.' I did pay it then and there, and glory to God He has kept me from then to this day."
The next testimony was that of a former anarchist. Before he was converted he did not have a shirt to his back. He is now a business man in New York City, and prosperous.
"It was about eighteen years ago that I was with a group of men in a back street attending a meeting of anarchists, when the police came along and broke up the meeting. I made off as fast as I could, but I did not get away fast enough, for the police officer caught me by the arm and took me away to prison. While I was there the Salvation Army came to preach to us. Thank God for that night! It was the first time I had heard salvation preached, for I come from the stock of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When I got out of goal I went to the Salvation Army. There stood on the platform that night two girls. They told me about Jesus. They spoke of salvation for the drunkard, but that did not appeal to me; they spoke of salvation for the unbeliever, but that did not appeal to me; and when they spoke of salvation for the thief, neither did that appeal to me. Then one night they said salvation is for the Jew. I said to myself, 'That means me.' I came forward that night and got rid of my wretchedness and my misery; I came for salvation, and the Jew got salvation.'
"I moved away from the Bowery, for that was where I spent most of my time. I have walked down the Bowery many a night with not a place to lie down in, with not fifteen cents to pay for a bed, and not a shirt to my back. Thank God, I moved away from the Bowery. I started in business myself. To-day I have a splendid business connected with twenty houses on Broadway. Hallelujah! Godlessness, sin, vice, takes a man off Broadway and puts him on the Bowery; salvation takes a man from the Bowery and puts him on Broadway."
In the year 1880, the second convert in the Salvation Army in the United States was made, and after years of testing he came before us to speak as follows: "I started to drink when about thirteen years of age, and I kept drinking till the Salvation Army came to New York in 1880. I read in the papers about seven sisters coming over to open up the forces in the United States. There used to be an old lady who came to our house to see my mother. She was a Methodist, and my mother was also a Methodist. She used to come there like an old grandmother and darn stockings. One day she said she would like to go to the Salvation Army, and asked me to take her. I was leading such a dissipated and drunken life, that I had no money to pay the car fare, but she slipped ten cents into my hand and we went to the Salvation Army that night. She was very deaf and got me away up to the front. The Spirit of God took hold of me, and the Salvation Army people, in the way they have, got after me. One of the officers came up and said, 'Are you saved?' I said, 'No, I could not be saved.' I managed to get out of the meeting that night without giving my heart to God. But all the time there was something taking hold of me. I tried to drown it in drink. On Sunday night with the old lady I was back at the Army again. On Monday night I was drunk again. On Tuesday night I knelt down and gave my heart to Jesus, and a Salvationist said, 'Now brother, if you want the Lord to do anything, you just tell Him.'
"Before that time I had served two terms in the penitentiary. Sometimes twice a week I would be brought into the Police Court for drunkenness. Every time I went out and got drunk I would get arrested. I tried to get away from this life and went out West. I thought if I got out there and got into new surroundings things would be different. I got as far as Hornsville, New York, and got arrested there. I got a little further West and was arrested again. But I never got rid of the kind of life I used to live until I came to the Lord Jesus Christ. That was thirty years ago. The Lord is not only able to save a man but, thank God, He is able to keep him."
This is the story of an English baronet. He went wrong in England, came to America as a cow boy, was wild and reckless, but was soundly converted. He said: "I will not say much about myself. Perhaps you already know something about me. You may have seen my picture in the papers, telling of my past life, but I want to try to tell you, to the glory of God, how I was born again.
"When I succeeded my father to one of the oldest titles in England, in the year 1907, I was wild and reckless. I came over to America. To escape from a wild scrape I beat the sheriff in Colorado into Utah. Then I went home to England in 1908 and took over the title of the estate, and I made the occasion simply one drunken spree. I was out for all the devilment I could get into. I hated the Church. I hated religion. I hated anything good. When I went down to the old church which is in the grounds of the estate, they said to me, 'What will you do about the minister?' I said, 'I would kick the fool out, but the law would make me put in another.' If anybody mentioned the Salvation Army to me, I would refer to them as thieves and liars.
"I came back to America and immediately got involved in some more sprees, such as driving horses into saloons, and other devilment. Then I crossed again to London and started a wild-west show of my own in the London Hippodrome. I came back to America deeper in sin than ever. One day I was sitting in a saloon planning a fresh escapade when a Salvation Army sister came in with her tambourine and some 'War Cries.' She looked at me and said, 'Are you a Christian?' I said, 'No.' She gave me the address of the Headquarters and asked me to come up. The bar-tender turned round and said, 'Go up and rope somebody.' I said, 'I will go up.' There was something different about me. I did not know what was wrong with myself I went up to the open-air meeting and was as quiet as a mouse. For five or six days I could not keep away from the Headquarters. I did not know what was wrong. I went out to see some moving pictures to see if I could see myself amongst them; then I went and had another drink; but back to the Salvation Army Headquarters I had to go. I was getting almost crazy. I reached the point when I had either to give in or kill myself.
"I locked the door of my room and then got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me. Do you know, it seemed as if hell was turned loose around me. Everything said, 'You have gone too far; you are too big a sinner,' I said, 'But Jesus died for me.' I prayed and prayed, and I heard that voice come and say, 'Go and sin no more,' It was just as if a finger had touched my soul. My prayer turned from one of supplication to one of thankfulness for what God had done for me. I was born again. I rose up with the old life gone, and my two greatest blessings are that all that old life is blotted out for ever, and that I have the knowledge that the Spirit of Jesus my Saviour is in me, and I dwell in Him. The union between us is perfect. I thank God for that."