TWICE-BORN MEN

REMARKABLE CONVERSIONS OF WELL-KNOWN MEN
IN DIFFERENT AGES AND IN VARIED RANKS OF LIFE

Compiled by HY. PICKERING

A Famous Temperance Orator

JOHN B. GOUGH, known world-wide as an orator and temperance reformer, thus writes concerning his early days and the brightest day:

“Oh, that mother of mine! She was one of Christ’s nobility, and she possessed a patent signed and sealed with His redeeming Blood! She was poor in purse, but rich in piety; a brave, godly woman! She died a pauper and was buried without a shroud and without a prayer, but she left her children a legacy that has made them wealthier than peers and princes! I remember one night, towards the close of her life, sitting with her in the garret, and we had no candle.

“She said to me, ‘ John, I am growing blind; I don’t feel it much; but you are young, and it is hard for you to have a poor, blind mother. But never mind, John; there is no night in Heaven and no need of any candle there; the Lamb is the light thereof!’

“All at once it seemed as if the very light she left as she passed had spanned the dark chasm of those seven dreadful years, struck the heart, and opened it. The passages of Scripture that she had taught me, and that had been buried in my memory, came to me as if they were being whispered in my ear by the loving lips of my mother herself. ‘He is able: to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him” (Heb. 7. 25). It is the very thing I need! I want to be saved—I cannot save myself—He is able to save to the uttermost!—Then He is the Saviour for me!”