Page:Anecdotes of singular and remarkable conversions.pdf/15

This page has been validated.
15

them to acknowledge a glorious truth and reality in the grace of God.— (Evangelical Magazine.)

The Conversion of a Libertine.

A certain libertine, of a most abandoned character, happened accidentally to stroll into a church, where he heard the fifth chapter of Genesis read; importing that so long lived such persons, and yet the conclusion was “they died.”

Enos lived 905 years and he died— Seth, 912 and he died— Methuselah, 969 and he died. The frequent repetitions of the words he died, notwithstanding the great length of years they had lived, struck him so deeply with the thought of death and eternity, that through divine grace, he became a most exemplary christian.

Conversion of a father by means of a child.

The father of the Rev. John Baily, an eminent divine, who died in New England, 1697, was a man of a very licentious conversation. His wife a serious christian, one day called the family together, and engaged young Baily, then a child, but remarkable for piety, to pray with them. The father being informed in what a wonderful way his son had prayed, was struck with a deep conviction, which proved the beginning of his conversion to God: so that he became one of the most eminent ehristians in the neighbourhood where he lived— (Lancashire.) He would sometimes retire with his child in his hand to the scenes of his former wickedness, and there pour out floods of tears in prayer before the Lord.