A missionary who preached once a month in a wild region, and gave part of his time to colporteur work, often told me of a family that lived just beside his little mountain church, but never entered it. When he began the colporteur work he made them a visit. The man told him he did not wish him to say any thing to him on the subject of religion; that if he wanted to hear him, he could go to the church. All the time he talked and prayed, the man was muttering, and his wife increased the speed of her wheel to drown his voice. Finding all his efforts to get their attention in vain, he laid down a copy of Baxter’s Call and a few tracts, and left them. On his return to fill his next appointment at the little church, to his surprise this man and his wife were in the church near the pulpit. During service they were deeply exercised. At the close he spoke to them about their souls. They told him that after he left their house they began to think about the way they had treated him, and had read his little books, and found they were great sinners. At his next communion they both joined his church, and they were among the most consistent and useful of its members.
One morning I took the stage to go to the railroad, some sixteen miles distant. There were two gentlemen in the stage. Both knew me, but I did not know them. One was a preacher, with whom I talked all the way to the dépôt. While waiting for the cars, the other passenger, a fine-looking young man, said, “I can’t let this opportunity pass without making myself known to you. Do you remember laying your hand on the shoulder of a youth in the town of B---- six years ago, and urging him to seek the favor of God, and handing him a little book?” I said I had no recollection of it, as I was doing something of that sort almost every day. “Well,” said he, “that talk and book were the means, I trust, of my salvation. I have since that time gone through college, and hope soon to preach the gospel.” He was the son of a poor widow. He is now an able minister of the New Testament.
One day while on a journey, I came to a very small cabin on the top of a high mountain. A poor widow was by the door in very homely apparel. I asked her if she had a Bible. “No,” said she, “but I have a part of a Testament, and a number of little tracts.” Seeing a number of clean but poorly clad children, I began to ask them questions. The answers they gave would have done credit to most of our Sunday-school children. I asked her if she had a church or Sunday-school near. “No; there is no church or Sunday-school anywhere in reach. My children have never been in either, and I have not been at church for eight years.” “Why,” said I, “madam, how have you got your children so well instructed?” She ran into her cabin and brought her whole library, which consisted of a part of a Testament, and several little books and tracts sewed together, which I learned had been given her by colporteurs in their visits. Said she, “I read these to my children every Sunday, and teach them to read them, till they know all that is in them.” I added to her supply little books till the countenances of herself and her children were radiant with joy, and I felt it was truly “more blessed to give than to receive.”