The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.4

344

The Fundamentals a great need, but ignorant of its nature, and having no one to tell them! I have given this description of my unhappy state at some length in the belief that among those who may read it, many will recognize it as a description of the main features of their own condition. To such I can say with the utmost assurance that there is deliverance for you, full and complete, and that it is not far off, but it is close by. “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:8, 9). So completely has that old condition of mental distress and unrest passed away that I would not now be able to even recall and describe it, but for a record which I made within six months of my conversion. “Who shall deliver met I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Rom. 7 :24, 25). One never-to-be-forgotten evening in New York City I strolled out in my usual unhappy frame of mind, intending to seek diversion at the theater. This purpose carried me as far as the lobby of a theater on Broadway, and caused me to take my place in the line of ticket purchasers. But an unseen hand turned me aside, and the next thing that I remember I had wandered far from the theater and my atten­ tion was arrested by a very faint sound of singing which came to my ears amid the noises on Eighth Avenue, near Forty-fourth Street. There is no natural explanation of my being attracted by, and of my following up, that sound. Nevertheless, I pushed my way into the building (a very plain, unattractive affair, bearing the sign “Gospel Taber­ nacle,”) whence the sound emanated, and found myself in a prayer meeting. I was not much impressed by the exercises, and in fact was not at all in sympathy with what transpired. What did, however, make an impression upon me was the

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