The word spread quickly down the hollows and up the ridges, and into the town of Stoney Gap: “ Old Ezra Phipps has got religion. He’s giving up the moonshine business.” But the revenue men either didn’t believe the story or didn’t care. They also figured, no doubt, that Ezra never had been apprehended for his past illegal activities. So when he left the Hollow, he was placed under arrest. Before the trial, the missionary wrote a letter to the judge, telling him of Ezra Phipp’s conversion, and pleading for leniency for him. As Ezra stood before the stern judge and listened to the charges laid against him, his face turned deathly pale. He could visualize a big fine he couldn’t pay and years in jail. But soon Ezra was amazed to see the judge’s face soften and a smile appear on his face as he lifted a letter from his desk and read it verbatim. Then he looked at Ezra over his steel-rimmed glasses and said, “ Now Ezra, I am going to dismiss charges. I believe you can do more good free than in jail. Step up here, Mr. Phipps, here’s a deputy sheriff’s badge. Take this official pistol. Go back to Dry Branch Hollow and clean it up in the name of the law. You’re on the County’s payroll, starting today.” The converted moonshiner was a sight to behold! His face flushed a tomato-red, and he stammered something. When he got control of himself, he said to the beaming judge, “ Your Honor, thank you very much. I will go back as deputy sheriff, and in the name of the law I think I can clean up my district. But, your Honor, I won’t need this gun, because I will also go back in the name of the Lord who has set me free from the devil, and has now set me free from prison, too. He’ll help me!” Inside of two months, Ezra had made such a difference in Dry Branch Hollow that it seemed like a little bit of Heaven in that Cum berland Mountain district. Stranger than fiction? Yes, but every word of it is true, for such is the power of the Gospel of the grace of God!
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THE KING’S BUSINESS
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