nd blasphemy." He said, "Come in; come in." I went in. "Now,"
he said, "what you said out there is true. If any man has a fine wife
I am the man, and I have a lovely family of children, and God has been
good to me. But do you know, we had company here the other night, and
I cursed my wife at the table, and did not know it till after the
company had gone. I never felt so mean and contemptible in my life as
when my wife told me of it. She said she wanted the floor to open and
let her down out of her seat. If I have tried once, I have tried a
hundred times to stop swearing. You preachers don't know anything
about it." "Yes," I said, "I know all about it; I have been a
drummer." "But," he said, "you don't know anything about a
business-man's troubles. When he is harassed and tormented the whole
time, he can't help swearing." "Oh, yes," I said, "he can. I know
something about it. I used to swear myself." "What! You used to
swear?" he asked; "how did you stop?" "I never stopped." "Why, you
don't swear now, do you?" "No; I have not sworn for years." "How did
you stop?" "I never stopped. It stopped itself." He said, "I don't
understand this." "No," I said, "I know you don't. But I came up to
talk to you, so that you will never want to swear again as long as you
live."

I began to tell him about Christ in the heart; how that would take the
temptation to swear out of a man,

"Well," he said, "how am I to get Christ?" "Get right down here and
tell Him what you want." "But," he said, "I was never on my knees in
my life. I have been cursing all the day, and I don't know how to pray
or what to pray for." "Well," I said, "it is mortifying to have to
call on God for mercy when you have never used His name except in
oaths; but He will not turn you away. Ask God to forgive you if you
want to be forgiven."

Then the man got down and prayed--only a few sentences, but thank God,
it is the short prayers, after all, which bring the quickest answers.
After he prayed he got up and said: "What shall I do now?" I said, "Go
down to the church and tell the people there that you want to be an
out-and-out Christian." "I cannot do that," he said; "I never go to
church except to some funeral." "Then it is high time for you to go
for something else," I said.

After a while he promised to go, but did not know what the people
would say. At the next church prayer-meeting, the man was there, and I
sat right in front of him. He stood up and put his hand