I'm glad I am converted before my dying day, Before my dying day, before my dying day; I'm glad I am converted before my dying day. "Many of you are saying, 'I wish I was as happy as you.' Well, I wish you were; and I'll tell you what makes me happy, and what will make you happy too. If you had seen me ten years ago, you would have seen a man with blood And you may be converted, and you may be shot eyes and bloated face; a drunkard and converted, &c. blasphemer a man with brutish passions and bloody hands a man too bad for earth, and I feel His blood convert me, I feel His blood almost too bad for hell, but not too bad for the convert me, &c. arms of Christ. If anything was needed from us, what had I to bring ?-nothing but dice, I've glory, glory in my soul, I've glory, glory and boxing-gloves, and game-cocks, and fightin my soul," &c. Yet Richard Weaver, whose taste in hymns upon this showing is so questionable, is in himself a person very far above contempt, and in prose has now and then a knack in expressing himself that a good many of us might envy. The title in which he glories, and by which he is known in his religious world, is the "Converted Collier;" and what he was, as well as what he is, is his perpetually recurring theme, and one which evidently costs him no effort. For what we have said of reverence applies in a great measure also to repentance with this class. Shame, properly speaking, there is none, in the lavish confessions of these stalwart sinners; and for the reason that the preacher gains rather than loses in the estimation of his hearers by the magnitude of his errors. Wonder is the especial delight of the valgar, and grace attracts them most by what they regard as its crowning miracles. A lady asked one of her maids why she would walk four miles to hear a rousing preacher, when the parish clergyman was so good; the reply was, "They say he was an awfu' bad man once." There is, we cannot doubt, a secret sense of power in Richard Weaver, in that he capped the companions of his sinful days as much in oaths, fighting, and general blackguardism as he now rises above them as a man sought after and wondered at by pious crowds. And, moreover, he cannot but feel that his training in the coal-pit, and the furious relish with which he threw himself into such pleasures and enjoyments as come in the way of ing-dogs.' " "Richard had a blaspheming father," and endurance of this good woman are a "praying mother," and the trials, courage of this strange history. amongst the edifying and pathetic pictures used to brutality, the sufferers from it in Where society is each case are clearly not as crushed by circumstances as where there is disgrace attached. His "leaflets" are full of the trials of poor ill-used women, amongst whom his mother, "the old woman in Shropshire," stands conspicuous. He "I was at a meeting some time ago, and I heard a young man tell his experience. said, 'I was brought up by a praying mother, but I took no notice of that praying mother; when she has been reading the Bible I have seen my father stand over her with a weapon in his hand, and threaten to split her head in two. At the age of about fifteen I began to get into company with other bad boys of my own age, and I neglected the advice of my praying mother. drinking and dancing, and at seventeen I went At sixteen years of age I took to home one night after I had been fighting, and my mother saw me with two black eyes. Her poor heart seemed almost broken, and she began to pray for the Lord to bless me; like a wild beast, and I said I would murder her if she did not give over praying. felt "After I had gone to bed, she came to my room; she knelt at the bedside, and I jumped out of bed, and, seizing her by her grey hairs, swore I would murder her if she prayed any more for me. She exclaimed, "Lord, though Thou slay me, yet will I trust in Thee. It is hard work, my child raising up his hand against his mother; but, Lord, though Thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." My mother's prayers and dancing, ball-hopping, and race-running followed me into the public house, and I began merely precipitate their devotees on with to fight, but my mother still kept praying for headlong speed the way to perdition. In God to bless me, and those prayers hurt me fact, he allows no other relaxations than more than the man's fists. I came home drunk those sufficient for himself— preaching, one day, and when I got up-stairs took a razor and took off my neckerchief to get at my throat, hymn-singing, and autobiography. In this but my mother's prayers came between me and perhaps, he only follows high precedent. suicide. Another time I went into a harlot's Nor does learning come off much better than dwelling, and while there nearly murdered her. accomplishments under his handling. GranI fastened a rope round her neck, and threw it mar he clearly considers an unauthorised over a beam and strung her up to it, and if it medium between God and the soul. It is had not been for a young man who heard her thus classed with system as a weapon of the cries, and rushed in and cut her down, she adversary:— would have been killed.' [Then follows in brief a history of the young man's conversion.] That young man was Richard Weaver, and he is in the pulpit of Union Street Chapel, in Rochdale, to-night.". Voice from the Coal-pit, p. 16. It is clear that nothing in his own class could surprise Mr. Weaver, that there is no mob, no assemblage of waifs and strays into whose component parts experience would not give him a very fair insight, and that in the first accost of a dozen idle lads at a street corner, he would have that advantage over the curate which acquaintance with his audience gives. From his showing, the youth of his own calling have a jolly life of it. Such a world as they know and care for is all their own; and if conscience does not hinder, nothing else hinders a career of wild dissipation and expense. "I have sung," he says, "as much as £14 out of my pocket at one spree." He describes a pair of twin-brothers so pugnacious that if they could find nobody else to fight with, they fought with one another, one of whom had paid £50 in fines for drunkenness. He counts up the dogs, cocks, pigeons, &c. &c., kept by his unconverted companions; and tells of a young friend, a good dancer, who was withheld from chapel, to which he invited him, by an engagement to dance for £5 a side, to be spent afterwards in one spree. We are left with an impression of wild exulting pleasure in mere health and strength, which the discipline of education certainly keeps under. The physical advantages of wealth and training are found in the autumn of our age. In life, as in gardens, they fill the autumn with flowers. In spring the cottage garden often flaunts gayer colours than the lady's parterre. It follows, after the manner of all reformers, that every pleasure which this desperate young sinner once recklessly engaged in, is summarily denounced, and with very little classification. The adulterer and the pigeon-fancier are warned in one sentence; in "Not many people can endure the truth at the present time; the systematical grammarspeaker is most admired; and if he talks about the beauties of nature, the green fields, and the stars, people say, 'O what a good preacher he is. I was quite lost while listening to his wellarranged sentences. How fine are his ideas! I was so much taken up with the preacher, that when I got home I had entirely forgotten his subject. If he had told you something about yourselves, you would not have forgot what he said. If we begin to talk about hell and say, He that believeth not shall be damned,' you will know something about that.” In these passages, taken down as exactly as a rapid utterance allows, a friend has clearly taken the liberty to correct those solecisms the speaker regards as a mark of grace. As he puts it, there is perhaps something in his charge. The approved preaching of many a modern pulpit dwells very little on the invitations and promises which represent the gospel to the poor. A preacher is not the less fitted for most congregations, whose feeling towards unbelief is simple contempt, who sets down the sceptic without affecting the smallest sympathy with his difficulties. "The very first cry of a collier, when in danger, is, Lord, have mercy upon me.' I've seen lots of sceptics in the coal-pit, and all their infidelity knocked out of them by a clod falling on their back from the roof of their working. You might deny God's Word, but what can we get better if you take that away? Give me something to comfort me better, and I'll burn my Bible.' " Take again a power of realizing the nar "Suppose I could be privileged to go to heaven | But 'God commendeth His love toward us, in to-night, and tell them I wanted to know what that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the love of Christ is, that I might come back us.' Ah, glory be to God, that is it! May the and tell poor sinners in St. Martin's Hall about Lord help us to think about it. "The love of it. Suppose I asked Abel, Abel, thou hast Christ passeth knowledge.' been here thousands of years, canst thou tell me what the love of Christ is?' He would say, No, Richard Weaver, thou poor bloodwashed sinner, I cannot tell thee what this love rative of Scripture unborrowed from Stanis.' But God commendeth His love toward ley or Rénan, and guiltless of local colourus, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christing: died for us.' Then if I turn and say, 'Noah, thou wert saved in the ark, canst thou tell me what "I imagine I see a little boy tripping up the the love of Christ is ? No,' he would reply, street of a certain town, singing, Hosanna 'I cannot tell thee; but it is deeper than the to the Son of David!' A poor afflicted wowaters that carried me upon their bosom.' And man stands on her doorstep and hears the child. God commendeth His love toward us, in What is that you say yet, 2 she asks, as he is that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for passing by her house. Oh,' says he, haven't us.' I go to David, and say, Thou sweet you heard about Jesus of Nazareth? He's Psalmist of Israel, canst thou tell me the meas- cured blind Bartimeus that used to sit at the ure of the love of God?' 'No,' says David, wayside begging; and He has raised a young His loving-kindness is better than life, my man to life that was being carried to his grave; lips shall praise Him; but I cannot fathom the and healed ten lepers all at once; and the peolove of God.' And then I go to Solomon, Ople that have sick relations bring them and lay Solomon, who spakest of trees from the cedar them at His feet, and He cures them all. And of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, thou those who have no friends to bring them, if couldst show thy wisdom to the queen of Sheba, they can only just touch Him, are made percanst thou tell me what the love of Christ is?' fectly whole. Oh,' cried the poor woman, 'if 'No, I cannot tell thee; it is beyond all my that's true, He can cure my bloody issue that wisdom.' And then my guardian angel says, I've been tormented with these twelve years. See, here is Ezekiel; maybe he can tell thee.' When will He be here, my little man?' And I say, 'Well, Ezekiel, thou didst see vis-Why,' says the child, He'll be here directly. ions, and dreams, and the Spirit lifted thee up to behold the glory of God; tell me how I can make these sin-blighted people in St. Martin's Hall understand the love of God?? 'Come along with me, I'll show thee something about it,' and he brings me to a river-side; the water just covers my ankles, but it rises higher and higher. Stop, Ezekiel; the water is up to my knees.' 'Come along,' says the old prophet, 'don't be afraid.' Oh, but, Ezekiel, it's a river up to my loins.' On we go a few steps farther. Hold, stop, Ezekiel; I've lost my footing; I'm altogether out of my depth.' Yes, Richard Weaver, it's waters to swim in; a river that cannot be passed over.' But here comes the loving disciple. Now, John, thou who didst lean on the bosom of thy Lord, thou man whom Jesus loved, what hast thou to say about the love of God? I cannot tell thee how great it is, but "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." But no doubt, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who was caught up into the third heaven, and heard 'unspeakable words, which it is not possible for a man to utter,' can tell us something about the love of Christ. Now, Paul, what have you to say about this love?' 'I cannot tell the height, and length, and depth, and breadth of the love of Christ.' 'But I want to go and tell the sinners in St. Martin's Hall what the redeemed in glory know about the love of God.' Tell them we cannot tell what it is.' 'I will go and tell them-Stop,' cries Paul, 'tell them the love of Christ passeth knowledge. He's coming this way. There! don't you hear she isn't near enough. Another step- yes, now she touches-it is but the hem of His garment; but it is all she needs. Glory to Jesus! her issue of blood is dried, and immediately she feels in her body that she is healed. Glory to Jesus! she touched, and was made perfectly whole. And if there was virtue in His garment, isn't there efficacy in His blood? May God help you to come to Christ to-night." This is better than the poetry that would precede and follow our passage in its first delivery. But perhaps the best hymn marked by the characteristics of revivalism in these collections may follow here. It is called Richard Weaver's favourite: "My heart is fixed, eternal God, fixed on Thee, And my immortal choice is made, Christ for With furrowed cheeks and silvery hair, Can you, young men and maidens say, Christ Him will I love, and Him obey, Christ for me! And shout aloud throughout the land, Christ One common method for attracting attention is the spiritualizing of sights and employments most familiar to the audience. Soldiers, sailors, volunteers, find their callings all turned into parables. One writer tries his hand at the railroad with but indifferent success. It belongs to few to keep their parallels straight in such an undertaking. It will be observed that repentance a state of mind never thoroughly realized Christ-has to perform two different offices. In Him I see the Godhead shine, Christ for He is the Majesty Divine, Christ for me, Who did for human guilt atone, Christ for me. To-day as yesterday the same, Christ for me. Christ a mere man may answer you Let others boast of heaps of gold, Christ for In pining sickness or in health, Christ for me. When I the summons must obey And pass from this dark world away, Christ At home, abroad, by night and day, Christ Now who can sing my song and say, Christ "The line to heaven by Christ was made, The Lamb, the Lamb, the bleeding Lamb; Repentance is the station then The Bible is the engineer; In first, and second, and third class Come then, poor sinner, now's the time, If you'll repent and turn from sin, There is energy in Richard Weaver's parable founded on the same theme: "Come and stand with me at the Bluepits station. The engine is whistling, and the steam flying. You see a man waving a red flag, and you ask, 'What is the matter?? You are told that there are two trains approaching on the same line. 'What must be done?' Every stroke of the engine cries, 'Death! death! death!' The signalman runs with the red flag this way and that way, and every moment brings the two trains nearer together. There is coming death in every stroke. The pointsman rushes forward to see if he can change the position of the two trains. You cry out to him, Run! RUN! RUN!' He reaches the points, pulls the handle, the nearest train is turned on the other line of rails, the danger is averted, and the lives of those in the trains are preserved. But as the engine dashes by the pointsman, he is caught and cut to pieces. He has saved those lives at the expense of his own. The decree has gone forth that the wages of sin is death; but, thank God, Jesus Christ, the pointsman of heaven, rushed forward, and, by the sacrifice of His own life, has redeemed us. "I could not help then telling him what a Father mine was. It was just like Him. I asked Him for a pound, and He gave me fiveand-twenty shillings.' Yet we can understand his mistrust and jealousy of a well-dressed congregation. He does not like to see the women among his audience in silks and ribbons, but with "shawls drawn over their heads." In fact, none will do for him who associate religion with ideas of awe, solitude, and quiet. As the people he preaches to live, work, amuse themselves in crowds and droves, so must they gain their religion. Nothing is more demonstrative than a collier under conviction. Even if, impelled by conscience, one rushes alone to a "sand-pit" or the solitude of the upper room by day, his cries and roarings must attract a large assemblage of anxious and impressed hearers at the foot of the stairs or somewhere within hearing. Where noise and loud utterance is a mark of conversion, we may take for granted that witnesses are essential. Nobody halloes for his own solitary edification. The drunken blasphemer, suddenly awakened, upon opening a hymn-book, bawls out, "I've found it! I've found it!" with an energy that might wake the dead. Everybody sings, everybody shouts, everybody assembles all his friends. They are converted in company. The larger the number - of whomsoever composed - the great er the proportion of converts. Richard Weaver, sincere though we believe him, has no better test than noise of effectual conversion. Until people shout they are doubtful. To die "shouting" expresses in brief, all there is. to be said. A good woman, who had borne a trying illness under trying circumstances with pious but quiet resignation, was considered unsatisfactory by her friends of this school; till, worked upon by their exciting language, at the moment of death she yielded to pressure. This put the seal of assurance upon her state. All was right. "She had hollered a deal." Repugnant as all this is to ourselves, we are forced to draw distinctions. Take colliers, for instance. They live in noise; their work passes in it; their pleasures are riotous; silence and self-restraint are things they do not understand, and very much akin in the minds of most of them to deadness. Whether this is over-tolerance or not, let us listen to some of the strains, through which sound is sustained at a max imum |