Southern Christian Advocate

RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY.

APATHY AND ZEAL.

"While travelling," says the Rev. C. H. Roe,
in a speech delivered at the Anniversary of the
Sunday-school Union, in May last, "I called at
the house of an old lady, who had been a member
of a Christian church for fifty years. I inquired
if she could recollect how many she had been the
instrument of bringing into the Christian church.
She looked at me with astonishment, as if she
thought I had placed her in the situation of a
minister of the Gospel, and declared that she could
not remember of introducing a single individual. I
approached another house, and met with a young
lady who had been a member of the church only a
few years. I proposed the same question, and she,
with great modesty replied, that she hoped the Lord
had made her useful in bringing many to a knowledge
of the truth. She stated, that she had in her class
four children, two boys and two girls. One Sabbath
morning, she missed them from her class; they were
not present in the afternoon, and on the Monday
morning she went in pursuit of the fugitives. On
arriving at their home, she found that their mother
had been ill, and had died during the past week,
which had prevented the children from attending the
school on the Sabbath-day. She also found the father
sitting beside the fire, and when he heard she was
the instructress of his children, he arose and thanked
her for having imparted to them the lessons which
they had brought home, and taught to their departed
mother, and which had been the means of supporting
her dying moments. The young lady then said to the
father, "How is it that I never see you at a place of
worship?" To which he replied, he was very deaf, and
therefore could not hear. The fact was, the man's
heart was wrong,--he did not like the truth. She
promised him, if he would come the following Sabbath,
she would get the minister to speak loud, and place
him in a situation where he would be sure to hear.
The man promised that he would come the following
Sabbath. He, however, did not fulfil his promise, and
on the following morning, the young lady went in
pursuit of her aged scholar. The same excuse would
not do, she told him that she had at home a hearing
trumpet, which she would lend him, if he would come
to listen to the Gospel. The old man caught at the
idea, because he thought that if he had the trumpet
he could hear other things as well as the Gospel; he
adjusted the instrument till it exactly fitted his ear;
and blessed be the Lord, the Gospel through it exactly
fitted the old man's heart. He afterwards joined the
church, and died in the faith. The young lady further
said, speaking of the children, that the two girls
were members of the church: that one of the boys
was also a member, and the other a preacher of the
Gospel. Thus that female had given to her, as a reward
for her labor of faith, and her effort in the extension
of the Redeemer's cause--a whole family.