Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

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BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
easily subject to temptation. At last he fell under the awful
power of drink, and died of delirium tremens. Just a short
time before his death he became calm and rational. To his pastor
he said : 'You know how it has been with me. I have tried to
be sober and to live a Christian life. I have failed; my appetite
was too strong, and the temptation was too great. There is no
help for me now. I am dying, and going to hell, but I have
one request to make of you. I want you to get a copy of the
names of those members of our church who signed a petition
for a license to be given to that traffic which has been my
destroyer, and place it on my breast when I am put into my
coffin, for I wish to offer it at the judgment-seat as one reason
why I am lost.'
930. "I was once," said Sam Jones, "called into the home of
a widow, presumably upon her death-bed. I went up to her
room, talked and prayed with her. She told me her story. 'My
husband, dying, left me with five small children—boys. God
knows of my struggle to rear them, and keep want from the
door. God knows they grew up innocent and full of promise
until they fell victims of the temptation to drink. Now they
are hopeless. They love me, and yet, dying as I am, night after
night they stagger home and carouse in the room below ! O God
I cannot die happy, and leave them thus.' Then," said Jones, "I
knew that mother was dying of heart trouble—of a broken
heart. I went out to a near-by hardware store and secured five
new revolvers. I called the boys about the dying mother's bed.
We knelt and I prayed, in my prayer touching the tender memories
of innocent youth until their eyes rained tears. As we
arose from our knees, I said : 'Now, men, stand around this
bed : two
on either side, you at the foot. Each of you take a
revolver, and when I give you the command, fire straight at
the heart of your old mother.' 'My God, no !' they cried in
chorus ; 'we won't murder mother !' Then," said Jones, "I
enforced my lesson. I said: 'This would be infinite kindness
compared with your prolonged debauch, as night after night
you five sons tramp again and again over this already crushed
and bleeding heart.' The lesson went home. Reformation came.
Hope flickered and beamed, and the mother's health slowly but
surely crept back again."