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Several
incidents of this mission are, I think, worthy of record. On the morning
after the first meeting I was aroused from sleep very early. I was told that there
was at the door a man in a very excited state who wished to see me. I
requested that he should be brought to my room. He rushed in, waving wildly a
copy of the Protestant Standard, which had devoted half a page to our
meeting. "What have you come to Boston
for?" he demanded angrily. "Can you not leave me alone?" I
perceived that my visitor was an old Pottery man, who years before had heard
me preach many times. He had deserted his wife and children, and was now
living a very sinful life. In the interval, during moments of acute shame and
remorse, he had written to his wife in the hope of finding her, but his
efforts had been unsuccessful. Either he received no reply, or his letters
were returned, and he did not know whether she was dead or alive. His conscience
seemed to tell him that I had come to Boston to
discover and accuse him. "Why can you not leave me alone?" he
asked. "Can you not stay at home?" This man had not been at the
meeting. But as he was returning from night duty at a large restaurant, he
had come across a copy of the Protestant Standard, and had learned that I was
in the city. I spoke to him faithfully about the old days, his present
condition, his sin and want, and he promised to come to the next meeting. To
my joy I observed him amongst the first who came forward to give themselves
to Christ. It was a sincere, absolute surrender, a real conversion. He gave
me the name of his wife's parents and the address of the house where he knew
her to be living last. I wrote to my brother-in-law, Councillor Ball, of
Hanley, giving him all the particulars I could gather. He published an
announcement in the local papers and set the police at work, with the result
that the wife and family were found. After years of separation she and her
children crossed the Atlantic
to find the husband and father. She was welcomed with all the old love and
the new love that had come to him from the Lord. They are now living happily
together, doing a noble work for the Christ who saved them.
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