TWICE-BORN MEN
REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE
Compiled by HY. PICKERING
A Member of the Peerage
LORD ADALBERT PERCY CECIL, son of the Second LORD of Exeter, had a remarkable conversion. An officer in the Royal Rifle Brigade, he was on leave from Canada, where his regiment was quartered. He visited his mother, the Marchioness of Exeter, and his sister, Lady Victoria Cecil, at Brighton, where they were staying on a visit.
At that time Lord Adalbert was a man of the world, very headstrong and determined. His sister, Lady Victoria, was going to take Holy Communion, and invited her brother to join her. He replied brusquely, “I won’t.” His mother interposed the remark to this effect, that he was right to decline, as he was not in a fit state to partake of the Sacrament. To his mother’s distress, he then said as brusquely, “Then I just will.”
He accompanied his sister in this defiant state of mind. The unexpected happened. As he partook of the Lord’s Supper he testified that he had a vivid vision of the Saviour on the Cross. His heart was softened, and he was converted there and then. However, he had not peace with God as yet. With great energy and determination he threw himself into the Christian life. He was out-and -out .
He took to reading the Scriptures with zest. This was to stand him in good stead. One day in winter, the snow lying thick on the ground, riding at the head of his troops, his soul in exercise, longing to be clear of fears and doubts, a passage he had lately read came into his mind, surely by the power of God’s Holy Spirit: “Thy righteousness, also, 0 God, is very high, who hath done great things: 0 God, who is like unto Thee” (Psa. 71. 19). In a moment he was in all the liberty and joy of the Gospel. He said to himself, “If God’s righteousness is very high, then I am as high as His righteousness.” He was lifted in a moment out of the valley of doubts and fears to the mountain top of assurance, peace, and joy.
Determined henceforth to give himself to the work of the Lord, he resigned his position in the army. A godchild of Queen Victoria, she was so distressed at the step he took, that it is said she sent for him, and that she heard the Gospel from his lips. Doubtless she would not understand why an officer in her army should turn into an unordained lay preacher. Unordained! did we say! Ordained surely by the only ordination that counts, the ordination of Heaven, the ordination of the pierced hands, as a very fruitful afterlife demonstrated.
When only 38, he was drowned in a boating accident in the Bay of Quinte, in 1889, when aiming at rescuing a young man who was with him, he lost his own life.