! I am so helpless,
So very full of sin;
For I am ever wandering,
And coming back again.

Oh, each time draw me nearer,
That soon the 'Come!' may be
Nought but a gentle whisper
To one close, close to Thee;
Then, over sea and mountain,
Far from, or near, my home,
I'll take Thy hand and follow,
At that sweet whisper, 'Come!'"

There was a man in one of the meetings who had been brought there
against his will; he had come through some personal influence
brought to bear upon him. When he got to the meeting, they were
singing the chorus of this hymn--

"Come! come! come!"

He said afterwards he thought he never saw so many fools together in
his life before. The idea of a number of men standing there singing,
"Come! come! come!" When he started home he could not get this
little word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. He
went into a saloon, and ordered some whiskey, thinking to drown it.
But he could not; it still kept coming back. He went into another
saloon, and drank some more whiskey; but the words kept ringing in
his ears: "Come! come! come!" He said to himself, "What a fool I am
for allowing myself to be troubled in this way!" He went to a third
saloon; had another glass, and finally got home.

He went off to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as if the very
pillow kept whispering the word, "Come! Come!" He began to be angry
with himself: "What a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at
all!" When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the hymn,
and read it over. "What nonsense!" he said to himself; "the idea of
a rational man being disturbed by that hymn." He set fire to the
hymn book; but he could not burn up the little word "Come!" "Heaven
and earth shall pass away: but My word shall not pass away."

He declared he would never go to another of the meetings; but the
next night he came again. When he got there, strange to say, they
were singing the same hymn. "There is that miserable old hymn
again," he said; "what a fool I am for coming!" I tell you, when the
Spirit of God lays hold of a man, he does a good many things he did
not intend to do. To make a long story short, that man rose in a
meeting of young converts, and told the story that I have now told
you. Pulling out the little hymn book for he had bought another copy
and opening it at this hymn, he said: "I think this hymn is the
sweetest and the best in the Englis