Editorial October 31, 1908 Issue

INTERESTING NARRATIVE

Lew Myers

Carroll, Ia., Sept. 18, 1908. Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, Boston, Mass.

Dearly Beloved Leader and Teacher:—"Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ." On the last day of August, 1908, a tramp got off a freight train in this town. He spent the night in a barn, and early Monday morning begged his breakfast from a workman living nearby. The history of this tramp was plainly written in his face, and might be summed up in two words, viz., vice and debauchery. At thirty-eight this man (?) was a fair sample of a very coarse, common, and degraded type—a "wreck." When this man looked behind him he hung his head, when he looked ahead he shuddered. All the companions of his youth were gone, even hope had at last left him. Health had been gone for years. Yet he was not alone; O God, that was it! If he had been alone he would have gone back to God's country. But they would not let him; he had tried how many times to get away from them, to outwit them, outrun them. How many terrible fights had he had with them. There was a time when there were not so many of them, and youth, hope, health, and strength were with him, and they hadn't yet chained him with chains. If he had known, and if his friends had urged him to turn back!

When people gave this tramp food he would go, if necessary, a mile, hide himself and devour it. Not often, some one would let him come in the house and eat at the table with them, and on some of these tables he found and drank "living water." When this occurred a curious thing always happened. This man—vanquished in a thousand fights—would again face his foes; if he could, this tramp would go to work.

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