The transforming power of the gospel was plainly seen within a week in his face, in his clothing, in his bearing at every meeting. After a few Sundays I was called out of town for six weeks. When I came home, I went to the Breakfast Association and there, from the gallery, Mr. Gneiss looked down on me. At his side was a Quaker woman in the plain dress of her Church, and with them was a manly boy of seventeen. After the services, they all came to me (I motioned to others to come), and they told us the story of their reunion. Tears stood in her eyes as she said, “We have family prayers now, and we pray for you every day. God is blessing us in every way. Pray for us.”
After that they came to see me, either at the Breakfast Association or at my home, as often as three or four times a year as long as I remained in Philadelphia.
After telling about those two incidents connected with my small share of rescue work in Philadelphia, it is time now to resume the story of our Gospel Mission. It is only because we see souls converted almost every night that makes it possible for us to bear the sight and the foul smell of unclean bodies, of dead whisky and tobacco, and the revolting drunkenness, then the remonstrances of one's own kindred and church people are trying, unless God gave great recompense, first in one's own enlarged spiritual life, in order to fit us for the work, and almost daily gave us the joy of seeing souls converted, it would be an impossible work.
Conversion seems to me to be largely man's share in the greater fact of regeneration, which is entirely God's work in a human soul.
At a Rescue Mission the theologian could get a new and practical knowledge of the gospel he preaches; the professor of psychology sees how spiritual powers, unseen to mortal eye, can grip the entire machinery of the mind, and by a supernatural application of God's Spirit and the word of God make a man over again.
Hundreds of times have I seen the alchemy of God make men who steal to do God's service; feet that have been in the way of the transgressor to walk in the paths of righteousness, and tongues accustomed to blaspheme to sing God's praises.
Professor James defines conversion thus: “To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on religious realities.”