"'Well,' said I, 'what do you think I ought to do about it?'
"'Why,' said he, 'stop him, of course.'
"I said, 'Stop him? Never! He is the only sign of life I have seen in this town. I feel like paying him to go around with me to worry old conservative deacons. Talk about that boy! Why, he is the only spark of hope the church has in this town so far as I have been able to see. I would not think of putting that light out.'
"'Well,' said the deacon, 'he has thrown a damper on your meetings.'
"I said, 'No, brother, you can not throw a damper on an icehouse, and this old thing has been frozen over for twenty years.'
"'All right, said he, 'let the boy go on.'
"So it went on for the rest of the week. Now and then some other simple soul would stand for prayer, but very seldom.
"At the close of the sermon the next Sunday morning, when I gave out the invitation for those who wished to join the church to come forward, that boy walked up to the front. I asked the usual questions and took the vote and he was received.
"That night as I came into the church a man arose and said: 'Brother Broughton, I want to ask a prayer for a man who is in this house, one of the honored citizens of our town and a man of eighty-five years of age, who has not been in a church for twenty-five years until tonight. He has been known as a skeptic, but I see him here tonight, and I think he will pardon me for making this request. I feel so deeply the weight of his soul.'
"As soon he sat down the old man arose and said: 'Friends and neighbors, I am the man you are about to pray for. I want to tell you why I am here tonight. This little boy who sits here by my side is my grandson. You know that he is an unfortunate lad. It is because of that we have loved him so. This morning he came home and threw his arms around my neck and said, "Oh, grandpa, I have got religion, and have joined the church. And grandpa, I am so happy that I don't know what to do. I wish grandma was here. Oh, grandpa, you know she went to heaven three months ago and I have nobody to talk to about Jesus."' The old man said, 'Just as the child said that, something struck my heart that had not struck it before since I was a boy and left home to go to college. You can call it what you please, but if you can, by your prayers, bring the grace of God into my heart, I will be thankful.' Before we left that night he was converted.