The Second Coming 07 How I Came to Know Him — Stan Ford

Paul’s Testimony and the Grace of Christ

The first chapter of 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, chapter 1, we will commence reading in verse 12. Most of you are aware that this evening, if the Lord will help me and you will permit me, I would like to share with you how I came to know Jesus Christ, speak a little of one's own feelings with the Lord, and what better words could I find than these words?

1 Timothy, chapter 1, we will commence reading in verse 12. Jesus, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious.

But I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundance with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saint, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him through life everlasting. And now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to the honor and glory forever and ever, and his own passion.

Will you join me, please? God and Father, we realize very much, indeed, how much we need thee. We pray that, in a very real way, the Spirit of God may take that which is on our hearts, and use it that Christ might be exalted, and that men and women may see in him the wonder of his salvation.

Would thou then speak to our hearts, for Jesus' sake, and make that I am giving my testimony this evening, because so many of you have been pressing me so to do? I don't find a great joy in giving my testimony.

You see, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to go home tonight where I'm staying, and I'm going to remember things that I thought I'd forgot, and that's not going to be ever true. For if tonight I can speak of the wonders of the Lord Jesus, then I do it, and I do it willingly.

I do it cheerfully, joyfully, to try and tell you how Jesus Christ, in his wondrous grace, met us in faith. The story of the mount was read to us in the morning service this morning, at least a portion of it.

Noah, the Ark, and the One Door of Salvation

We were reminded that Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord, but one of the things that always strikes me about the story of Noah and the ark is the very simple fact that from the forest, from the field, from the mountain, from the valley, from every strata, indeed, that surrounded that place, there poured toward the ark those animals that God had bidden come.

The road they took was different. The road that the lion trod was not the road that, indeed, other animals took. Although they came many roads, all went through the same door. Two doors. There was one door, and your coming to Christ may be different than mine.

My coming to Christ will be very different to most of you here tonight, I'm sure, but this never lets us get away, that if you will enter God's salvation, then the door is Jesus Christ, and to him, and to him alone must you come tonight.

A Childhood Outside Christian Faith

I wasn't caught up in a Christian home. Now, please, please, I don't want any one of you to misunderstand. I was caught up in a good home. I was caught up in a home where my mother loved my father, and my father loved my mother.

We were caught up in a good home, but it wasn't a Christian home. It wasn't a home where the name of the Lord Jesus is spoken of with love. It wasn't a home where the Bible was read. It wasn't a home where the things of God were revered.

I never went to Sunday school, or chapel, or church, and the like. I was a man before ever I darkened the door of a place where the name of God was revered. It won't mean very much to you here in America, but I was brought up in a home where my father was one of the co-founders of the old ILC, the Independent Labour Party, the militant socialist movement of my country.

Not quite communist, but almost there. And if we sang anything when I was a boy at home, it would be international, it would. That's the surrounding that I had. My father was gassed in the First World War, so I just remember him as a boy.

I was born in 1916, so if you're good at some of the higher mathematics, you can work that out, can't you? But nevertheless, I was born in 1916, and I was just a boy at the end of the war when my dad, I remember him.

You only know this, that when I started school, it was just an ordinary English elementary school. I never had any higher education. I left school when I was thirteen and a half. But I went to a school where every day it opened with prayer, and every day the Bible was read, as it always used to be read.

Not now, but it always used to be read in an English school. And so I suppose there was something in the back of my mind. I did, I suppose, as a child, learn something about God and about his word, although what I learned I can't remember.

I only know this, that when my father died, we'd had poverty before we had it then. My little mother, she didn't stand any higher than this, she was just a wee little don of a woman. Up he used to say to her, and up he used to nerf me.

There she was, but nevertheless that little mother of ours had to work harder to keep her born. The school I went to was a school that one of the masters anyway was extremely interested in fighting, and he had on a boxing team, and entered from our school the British Federation Boy Boxing Championships, and at my weight I won the British Federation title, and they told me that I was the boy champion of Great Britain at my weight.

I was not allowed. But this coincided with my father dying, and as I say that I knew that we had poverty before we had it then. And so one day I packed my bag, I left home. I didn't leave home because I didn't have someone to care for me.

I didn't leave home because there wasn't someone who watched over me. I left home because Mother had to keep me, and I knew that that was real hard work for her. I had to lift part of the way, and I walked part of the way to the city of Salisbury.

It was paying for a pair, a great sheep pair, and I knew at that sheep pair there would be what you call over here the carnival, the pair ground. And I knew that on the pair ground there would be a boxing group, and as I kept my way there I sort of said to myself, maybe I can get a fight, maybe I can earn a shilling a bit.

And I eventually arrived at that pair ground. I don't know whether you have boxing groups today here in your country. I know you used to years ago, but in our country, of course, years ago we always had a booth in almost every pair.

There were mostly poor or blind fighters, and they'd offer them to the crowd, and if someone could stand three rounds with one of the boys from the pair, then indeed he earned himself five pounds. And away I went, thinking, well, maybe I can have a go at one of these boys.

I looked at them as they were presented to the crowd. I didn't shout for the gloves, but as soon as the show was over, I went to the owner of the booth, Sammy McCowen, and I said, Sammy, is there any chance of a fight?

And he looked at me. Did you fight? Well, I'll have a go at you if you like, and you can see. And I jumped up into the ring. I said, just as a lad, I'd held the Federation Championship, so I could handle myself, although I was only a lad.

He looked at me and said, well, what do you want, a fight, or do you want a job? I said, I want a job. I'll do any work that has to be done about the booth. I'll help you shift, and I'll do anything at all, if you give me a job, sir.

How old are you? I'm sixteen. I wasn't, I was thirteen and a half. But I can fight. Well, he said, do your parents know where you are? I haven't got a dad, and my mum knows where I am. She didn't. Well, he said, look, I'll give you a job, and if ever a boy wants to fight, you'll have to fight him, and make sure you're ahead of me or after me.

I started my first job, just as a boy of thirteen and a half, working about in a boxing booth, doing any jobs in a carnival, selling myself just for a little money. For at the end of the week, and it was a Sunday, it was a good job it was, I had a full-time heavy shop in Salisbury, and on the Sunday they gave me five shillings, which would be the equivalent of a dollar there.

And I started to enjoy life. For ten years I travelled around during the summer months in the boxing booths of the fairgrounds. Please, I wouldn't cross the road... Are you listening now? I wouldn't cross the road to listen to a man tell you how...

Sin, the Cross, and the First Gospel Witness

When God forgave my sin, he forgave it. The Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And I want to say, I only know this, that I didn't live the years I lived, travelling as I travelled, without falling into sin.

It seemed to get worse and worse and worse as the years went on. About twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, don't tie me down to the exact date, please. One Saturday night I went down to a pub where I used to drink.

Sitting against the bar, drinking a pint of beer, when suddenly the door opened, and a little Salvation Army lassie came in. Oh, God bless the Salvation Army. Just a wee bit of a girl, with a puffed bun and a uniform.

She had under her arm a bundle of war prize, the Salvation Army newspaper. They were a penny a time then, so you can tell it's a few years ago. And she went from one to another and she said, will you buy a war bra?

I looked at her and I said, I'll buy a war bra, Missy, if you'll sing us a song. I never thought she would do that. I thought if she did, she would have sung Daisy Bell or something like that. That was part of the plan.

But she about put me on the spot and she said, I'll be very happy to sing a hymn. Will you ask the men to be quiet? I didn't like that. I mean, I didn't mind her singing a hymn, but I didn't want to be the chairman of a religious meeting in the pub where I used to drink.

But she put me on the spot. And I thought, well, there it is, in for a penny, in for a pint. So I turned to the fellas and said, fellas, will you shut up? And a girl's going to sing. And I pulled a hold of her, I lifted her up and stood her on the bar.

And there she stood, unruffled, uncomplaining. She looked to the crowd of drinking men who just a moment before had been casting and telling smutty stories. And she sang, on a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.

And I loved that old cross with its dearest and best. For a world of lost sinners. I can remember it as though forty years and more had passed. I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I stared and looked at her.

I don't know what your reaction was, and you will appreciate that I wasn't by any means aggrieved. But I looked at that girl and I said to myself, why, that girl's got more guts than I've got. I'd have caught anyone in the bar.

I don't say I'd have beaten them. But I'd have caught them and enjoyed every minute of it. But I wouldn't have stood there and sung at him, not me. But here was a girl, standing there, singing about Jesus.

I left my pint on the bar and I walked out. I didn't even lift her down from the bar. I'd never seen her from that day to this. I walked out of that bar and I walked up over the hill and I said to myself, man, what a fool we are.

But do you know what it's like when you hear a song that you enjoy, a melody that stays with you? It keeps coming back. You can't remember it all. You remember a bit of it. That's how it was with me. I'd never heard the hymn before, but I couldn't get away from this, that wherever I went, I used to hear these words, for a world of lost sinners was played.

For a world of lost sinners was played. Not even the beginning of the hymn. For a world of lost sinners was played. And it followed me wherever I went. I couldn't get away from it. I realized that if I was going to make any money fighting, I'd have to do a little bit more than boot fighting.

I was unified in an open air show in Crystal Palace in London. I was sparring with a sparring partner who gave me rather a nasty knot on the jaw, not to toothache. He could do that because he became the light heavyweight champion of the world, Franny Mills, my great friend.

He gave me a knot that was a pretty hard one. I went along to see the dentist to have the scrut pulled out and I said, listen, at the beginning of July I've got a fight on August Bank holiday. Will I be all right?

Oh, you'll be all right, he said, but you better not have a blow. You better just lay off in a bit. I was like a fish out of water. I'd done the ground work and the road work and the usual things that you did, but when it came to getting up between the ropes, I couldn't do it.

And so I'd go for a walk, mostly down towards the pub where I used to drink. I walked over the hill one day and as I came towards the Pye Great Hotel where I'd heard this girl sing, right opposite the hotel, right opposite, there was a great march.

It was a great march, there were no caravans. It wasn't quite large enough for the circuses, and I knew where all the travelling boys were and I knew they weren't queuing up there. So I went across the fence and I said, hey, what's going on?

All said to the young fellow, we're going out on a gospel mission. We've got Victor Searle from Cardiff coming here to preach. Will you come? What, me? But, you know, they put this tent right opposite the pub where I used to drink, and I'd walk down over at the hill, and I'd hear them singing, it was a tent, so you could hear it all outside, and I'd listen as I'd lean against the fence, because it was good, bright singing, and there were big crowds there.

But I never went in. So, in the evening, I'd walk down towards the Pipe Rains, and as I did, I noticed that the service hadn't started. I was a bit early. So, I walked up over the other hill, Challenger Road Hill, and as I was going up the other hill, coming down the hill was a young lady.

With costumes, she saw, she stopped, and gave them something. I didn't know what it was. It might have been £5 notes. I'd go and get one of those, a night costume, and this young lady stood in front of me, and she said, we're just going to start some gospel services in the big tent.

Will you come down? But this young lady could keep on. Now, I know what I'm talking about, because I've been married to her for nearly 40 years, but nevertheless, she could keep on. Eventually, you'll see her.

She's coming over on Thursday. Eventually, she got me into the tent services, took me to the door, and in I went. I spent a most enjoyable evening. I did. I sat down in the tent, and I spent the whole evening looking around to see who was there.

You know, I knew everyone almost in the district. Oh, he's here. Oh, should we do? There's something about her. Well, there was. Oh, you're not the sort of remark you make. No, I make. I spent the evening.

A most enjoyable evening. The singing was good. There were no collections. And no one asked for a penny. And out I went. The next evening, nothing else to do. I went down again. The next evening, and the next evening.

And it wasn't long before I was sitting right at the front. All the while, something was happening. I didn't know what was happening. I'm hoping it's happening in your life. All the while, I was listening to the Word of God being preached.

And although I didn't know, and although I tried not to listen, it was making an effect. Somehow or the other, I got as miserable, as miserable as this. I began to realize that there was something wrong with me.

I didn't know what it was, but there was something wrong with me. So one evening, I went down to that tent. I was determined when I went down there, I was going to have it out to the preacher. When the service was over, I went straight up to him, and I looked at him, and I said, Mr. Carroll, you don't believe all that nonsense you've been preaching, do you?".

He looked at me and said, Well, young man, it's not nonsense, and I do believe it. Go on, said I. You've got a jolly good job. What did he say? I found a way. That was good wages before the war, you know.

I found a way. He looked at me, and I had the wings completely taken out of myself. Completely taken out of myself. For he looked at me, and he said, Well, young man, I don't know what it's to do with you.

It's really none of your business. But, as a matter of fact, I don't have anything for you. If you're talking about a wage, I don't get it. Years ago, I stepped out, believing that the Lord who sent his disciples without script and without curse was still alive, and the Lord who, when they came back, asked them, Did you lack anything?

They said, We lack not a thing. And I believe that God's alive, and I've been looking to him to supply my needs. And no one's ever asked you for a penny, have they? So my heart went down in my boots. I didn't know what to say.

For this was the strange thing. No one had asked anyone for anything. I'd always been Christianity, and especially the church. Their one purpose was to take from people. They never gave anything. They just brought.

I was told, indeed, that Christianity was just an opium for the workers. My dad used to say, First tax-payer teacher is be content with much things as you have. Then if the boss takes your money from you and doesn't pay any wages, you mustn't strike because you're going to be content with much things as you have.

I was told. And that's what I believed. Suddenly I find a man who wasn't interested in the financial side of the thing at all. He said, You know, they tell me that you don't believe the Bible's true. What, me?

Of course, I knew they told him that, you know. The first night I walked into the text, they gave me a hymn book. And then the man that gave me a hymn book almost ran right up the front of the tent and got hold of the preacher.

Well, I know what he was saying. He said, They tell me you don't believe the Bible's true. What? It's not a contradiction. Oh, he said, Can you show me one? Aye, I'll show you a hundred and one. Oh, that's interesting.

Come on over. We went and sat down. Now, he said, Where's the first one? Well, you know what I did? I did what every ignorant youth does. I looked at him and I said, Well, in the beginning there was Adam and Eve.

Now I've got him, haven't I? Oh, he's finished forever. I just as well give in. Oh, he said, In the beginning, I said, there was Adam and Eve. They had two sons. One of them killed the other. And then the Bible says he went off and married someone.

Who did he marry if he only had two sons? Well, I just as well put the tent down. Do you know what that rascal of a preacher did? Do you know what he did? He looked at me and he said, Now, just a moment.

You said you'd show me. And he handed me his Bible. Well, I didn't know where the story of Adam and Eve was. I mean, I don't know, but I expect I looked in Revelation for Genesis. I don't know. Oh, he said, Is this what you mean?

And he opened his Bible. And he read it as a letter called Seth. You know, I'd never heard of him. He said, Here's Adam's son, Seth. I said, That's not his name. It was Cain and Abel. Well, no, he said, Here it is.

Seth, look. Oh, by the way, what do you do with it? He said, He forgets sons and daughters. What do you mean he only had two sons? Well, what sort of Bible have you got there? I said, Oh. Well, he said, A Bible, Bible.

But that's not. Well, there it is, look. That's one. We've got a hundred more to go. What's the next one? Well, you know, the next one, the next one. Every ignoramus throws up. I don't know about that little thing about Adam and Eve.

I'll have to think about that. That's always a good way to answer a question. I said, Brother, there was a teller by the name of Joseph. And Joseph was told by his brothers. And he was told by his brothers.

One part of the Bible says he was told to the Ishmaelites. And another part says he was told to the Midianites. If that's not a contradiction, what is one? Who was he told to? The Midianites or the Ishmaelites?

You know what he did, don't you? He said, You show me. You show me. Well, if I didn't know where the story of Adam and Eve was, I didn't know where the story of Joseph was. I want to say something to you young Christians here tonight.

Hearing the Word and Conviction of Sin

Will you listen, please? On Pentecost that day, I not only met a man who knew his God, but I met a man who knew his Bible. And he took his Bible. And he opened it. And he said, What do you mean? And he read it to me.

I said, Here we are. Not Ishmaelites. Midianites. Now I brought him all the text down. He looked at me and he said, Could I ask you what nationality are you? Pause. You know what I am. I'm an Englishman.

Well, he said, That's funny. I thought you were British. Well, I am. But he said, You're just hoping you're English. Yeah, but I'm British. You're a Welshman, but you're British. Suddenly it dawned on me what he was getting at.

And he just looked at me and said, Rightly you could say you're English. Rightly you could say you're British. No contradiction. Absolute truth. Rightly they could say they were Ishmaelites. Rightly they could say they were Midianites.

For one was but a tribe of the nation. You've got ninety-nine more to go. Oh, please, I'd learnt them like a parrot from the father. Please, I'd picked them up as I'd moved around in the carnival. Every bloody story and every bloody joke that could be told against the Bible.

And I'd learned them all and I'd threw them all at him. Every time he'd look at me and say, You said you'd show me. You'd show me. You'd show me. How shall I get ahead of you? We went along. Suddenly it dawned on me that while I wouldn't accept every answer, that he gave, it dawned on me that it was an answer.

If I thought it was the correct one or not, that's a different matter. It was an answer. Suddenly I became silent and I didn't get anywhere near a hundred. Then he looked at me and said, Now, I've listened to you.

I want you to listen to me. He started to tell me that I was a sinner. He started to remind me of the wickedness of my own heart. He showed me what the Bible said about me. And the strange thing was this, that as he opened the Word of God and showed me what the Bible said about me, my heart said, Yes, that's true.

That's true. I was speaking to a young man this morning who trusted the Lord Jesus. We opened our Bible to the third chapter of Romans and we read, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's the first verse I read with him.

And I said this to him. And here tonight I said this to him. I can't explain it to you. Madam, I can't explain it. I only know that as I sat there in that chair, I knew there was a God. I couldn't have given you one good answer for why I knew.

I could now, but I couldn't then. But I knew there was a God. I knew that I wasn't petrified. That unless God did something, I was helpless. I slumped on my knees and I cried, God, I'm a sinner. Save me.

And I didn't know what it meant. But I knew this. That God had to do something if something probably doesn't put my life. You know, I hear folks tell you when they get saved that they can jump over the moon.

You know, everything in the garden would be lovely. I was more miserable and wretched after I asked God to save me than I'd ever been in my life. As a matter of fact, I nearly knocked the pillow on his back the moment I was saved.

That's the way to get saved, isn't it? You see, unknown to me, in the tent at the back where they had a little canvas curtain, there'd been two paddlers on their knees praying all the while Mr. Cyril was talking to me.

And then they heard me being in a tent. They heard me say, God, I'm a sinner, save me. And one of them jumped to his feet. Hallelujah. I didn't even know what it meant. I thought someone had broken into the tent.

They were trying to rot the tent. I jumped to my feet. I was going to knock him down. The preacher put his arm on the shoulder and said, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right. That's the way to get saved.

I rose from the knees and after a while speaking with me and counseling me, I said, well, sir, I'd better get home. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, he said, son, I'll walk up with you. And up on Charminster Avenue Hill he came with me.

All the while talking to me about the Lord Jesus. He didn't spend one minute telling me how you ought to do this, and you ought to do that, and you ought to do the other. He didn't spend one minute saying you shouldn't do this, and you shouldn't do that, and you shouldn't do the other.

He spent the whole time speaking about Jesus, telling me how he found the Lord Jesus with a very present heart in trouble. I got to my home and I said, well, good night, sir. Oh, he said, I'm coming in.

Ever asked why you're leaving? Didn't knock the door. I opened the door and walked in. And there was my little mother waiting for me. He never gave me a chance. He looked at my mother and he said, little poor child's got something to tell you.

Well, I didn't know what to tell her. I looked at her and I said, my, I got myself a bit religious tonight. The only way I knew how to put it was something strange happened. Something strange happened.

Suddenly that little mother of mine burst into tears. She started to cry. That wasn't my mother. You know, I was 21 years of age when she broke the last sticker off my back. That was my mother. 21 years of age and now I was an Asiatic waitress.

I'll show you who's ahead of this house. I just stood and grinned at her. But this night, I stood there and looked at her. She cried with me. And I'll tell you why she cried. She cried because she'd known where I'd been going.

And in her way, she'd been longing for something that happened to her at home. She cried over me many a time when I rolled home from it. Cried over me many a time when I'd come in having been fighting and I was black and blue and wondered whether I could even walk the next day.

Cried over me many a time then. Now I came in and she wept because she knew if it was true there was going to be a change in our house. And hallelujah, it was true. Praise God it wasn't. As a matter of fact, my mother was the first person I led to the Lord Jesus.

It wasn't long after before she was aged. And then my brother got back. Oh, God did wonderful things. But that was at last. I trusted Christ. Three years ago. Did I say this to you? I look back over these 40 years.

I'm 54 years of age now. No more. I'm no longer a boy. But I look back over this last 40 years. And I want to say this and God is my judge. I am answerable to every word before Him and I'm very aware of that.

But never once have I ever regretted taking Jesus Christ in the faith. Never once. I've regretted not serving Him well enough. I've regretted not doing all I should. I've regretted not being the sort of Christian I ought to have been.

But I've never regretted that. I went along to a little gospel. A little company of Christians similar to those Christians that are responsible here. It was maybe a slightly different meeting. Lord's Day morning when we gathered around the table to remember the Lord.

Christian Discipline and the Cost of Discipleship

There was a table there at the back and a board on it. And the board said those in fellowship sit in front. I had to sit behind. They wouldn't receive me into the fellowship. They wouldn't baptize me.

They wouldn't do it for a very obvious reason. And please I want to say I thank God and will be eternally thankful they didn't. They didn't because I still carried on praying. I still earned a living.

Quite. And they couldn't understand how any Christian could do that. There was a line of separation between those who loved the Lord and those who didn't. We had a dear brother in our meeting who was a dentist, you know, like my friend Mr. Love here.

And oh dear, every time I went to the chapel and I was there whenever it was open, he'd take me on one side, you know, give me a lecture. And dear, do you think that's right? Do you think the Lord would have done it?

Do you think? Until I got so fed up I said, how do you get your living? He said, I get teeth out of a dentist. Well, I'll try and get them out another way, thank you. That's all there was. But all the time I was facing this.

It wasn't that I saw anything wrong with it, but there came a time a little while after. In our own fellowship we always had a crowd of young men. We used to go late to the New Forest near where we lived, camping, right through the winter.

We'll camp, you know, camp. None of these wooden huts you have over here can say you go camping. But we went in the tent. One evening along the meeting they said, Sam, Mr. Searle, the man that led me to the Lord, he's coming up for a young men's Bible camp.

Just a weekend, can you come? When is it? They told me the date. I said, sorry. I've got to fight a fellow by the name of George Martin in Harrison's Isles. Can't wait. I can't come. When are you fighting?

Monday night. Well, it'll be over by then. Try and come. So I spoke to my brother who managed me, and I said, Searle, I'd like to go to this camp if I could. What do you say you'll be all right? Just one day.

Well, there's a Saturday and a Sunday, and then Monday you go for lunch. And be sure you're there on time. I'll be on the certain train. You pick it up at Clarehampton. So off I went. Now, you'll appreciate that it was a Bible camp.

It was a Bible class camp. There were a crowd of young fellows. When I say a crowd, you'll have to understand me. Maybe thirty-five, thirty-eight of them. Young fellows, late teens, up to their thirties.

We had a wonderful time. Monday came, and I had to go up to Clarehampton to catch the train. Just as I was leaving the camp, I said to Mr. Searle, the man that led me to the Lord, I said, Walter, I'm on the way.

He looked at me and said, well, we'd better have a word of prayer, hadn't we? Well, I'd prayed about lots of things, but I hadn't prayed about fighting. He said, come on. We went into a bell tent, you know, old army bell tent.

And he knelt down on the train, and he started to pray. Now, I've heard people pray all over the world. I've never heard such a bloodthirsty prayer in my life. Do you know this man of God? I mean, he was a man of God.

He's home to the Lord now, so he's more a man of God. But this man, crunk on his knees, and he said, Lord, this young fellow's going up London, fighting. You give him all the power in his country. You let him hit the other fellow about so he won't be recognized.

You give him such. I opened my eyes and looked at him, and he was praying like an angel. When he finished, I said, Amen. I mean, what else could you say? And up I got. I walked out of the tent, and he came after me.

And I looked at him, and he was a dead concern. I hadn't him any longer. I had not put my hand on his shoulder. I said, Mr. Stone, do you think you were right praying like that? Well, that's just why he prayed like that.

He looked right at me and said, Son, if you're doing something you can't pray about, it's about time you gave it up. My heart went right down in the boot. I got on the train. We went up for the rain. And that evening, in the past, that was the past.

I was waiting to go up. We were climbing the hill, and I was waiting to go up the climb. Now, I've been to a religious boy's camp, you understand. I don't know how many of you have done anything like this.