In a few minutes in came my travelling companion and Mr. C---- with him; Mr. C----’s face indicating great determination and firmness. I immediately began to hunt for a text to begin with, and chose a little girl of three or four years old, whom I called to my side. I began to tell her about Jesus, and what he did to save sinners, and how deeply praying fathers and mothers felt for their dear children, whom they would soon meet at the bar of God. I asked her if father and mother did not pray for her. By this time the mother and the oldest daughter were weeping freely. I asked the mother if she would not rather see her children converted to God than any thing else. “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, “it burdens my heart.” I cast my eye round towards Mr. C---- and Mr. W----, and both were weeping.
“Mr. C----,” said I, “don’t you feel concerned about the souls of this interesting group of children which God has given you to train up for Him?” “Not as much as I ought to do.” His heart was so full he could scarcely utter one word. Said I, “Are you not a professor of religion?” “No, I am not. I have been a very careless man on that subject. When I was a young man I was very much concerned for a while, but I fell in with wicked young men, and read bad books, and I have entirely neglected religion ever since. But I don’t know what has come over me now.”
“I trust,” said I, “it is the Spirit of God that has touched your heart, and I beseech you now to yield to his divine solicitations; not to delay for one moment. If you resist the Holy Ghost now, he may leave you for ever, and then your doom will be sealed; but if you now give up all for Christ, you will find peace, and there may be joy in heaven among the angels this moment.” He cried out in the agony of his soul, “What shall I do to be saved?” I urged him to enter that night on all the duties that God had enjoined on him; to read his Bible, and pray for himself and family. He pledged his word to me to do it. He kept that pledge. I prayed with him, sold him eighteen volumes of good books, and left the whole family in tears. He soon after joined the church; and Mr. W----, I was told, professed religion soon after, and attributed his conversion to a day’s travel with a colporteur.