Ellen G. White’s Experience and Methods as a Personal Worker 391
visited with him, taking with me a few of my large books. I talked with
him just as though he were with us. I talked of his responsibilities.
I said, “You have great responsibilities, my brother. Here are your
neighbors all around you. You are accountable for every one of them.
You have a knowledge of the truth, and if you love the truth, and stand
in your integrity, you will win souls for Christ.”
He looked at me in a queer way, as much as to say, “I do not think
you know that I have given up the truth, that I have allowed my girls
to go to dances, and to the Sunday school, that we do not keep the
Sabbath.” But I did know it. However, I talked to him just as though
he were with us. “Now,” I said, “we are going to help you to begin to
work for your neighbors. I want to make you a present of some books.”
He said, “We have a library, from which we draw books.” I said, “I do
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not see any books here. Perhaps you feel delicate about drawing from
the library. I have come to give you these books, so that your children
can read them, and this will be a strength to you.” I knelt down and
prayed with him, and when we rose, the tears were rolling down his
face, as he said, “I am glad that you came to see me. I thank you for
the books.”
The next time I visited him, he told me that he had read part of
Patriarchs and Prophets. He said, “There is not one syllable I could
change. Every paragraph speaks right to the soul.”
I asked Brother _____ which of my large books he considered the
most important. He said, “I lend them all to my neighbors, and the
hotelkeeper thinks that Great Controversy is the best. But,” he said,
while his lips quivered, “I think that Patriarchs and Prophets is the
best. It is that which pulled me out of the mire.”
But suffice it to say, he took his position firmly for the truth. His
whole family united with him, and they have been the means of saving
other families.—.
The General Conference Bulletin, April 5, 1901
.
Chatting With a New Believer About the Work—A woman
about forty years of age was introduced to me, who has just decided to
obey the truth, in Canterbury. Her husband is in full sympathy with
his wife and does everything he can to get her to the meetings. They
have a nice little cottage, which they own and which is paid for. She
came out to the carriage and talked with us. She said the people in
Canterbury are not a churchgoing people, but the tent at _____ has
been an advertisement, and they are curious to know what it all means.