Conversion In Childhood

1900

The evangelist of the Free Churches of England, perhaps the greatest living evangelist of the world, Gipsy Smith, is a firm believer in the conversion of children. In an address made by him at a noon prayer meeting in London, and reported in The Christian, he pointed out that many Christian workers testify to having found salvation in the days of youth.

Mr. Smith went on to say that we need a deeper realization of the importance of evangelistic work among the young. We can scarcely begin too early, but we can easily postpone dealing with the question until it is too late, and the child has become a worldling. The late Mrs. Booth once said, "I believe it is possible to be ten minutes ahead of the devil." Save an adult and you save a unit; save a child and you save a multiplication table.

Mr. Smith told of an evangelistic mission in the North of England, at the conclusion of which a critical member grumbled about the only visible fruit being "only a boy." Yet that lad-convert is known today as Rev. Thomas Cook, the esteemed Wesleyan evangelist. At another mission a similar incident occurred, and the people said, "It's only a gipsy boy." That "gipsy boy" is now known as Gipsy Smith.

Mr. Smith added a story — told with a human interest and pathetic touch that moved many to tears — of his own little son. The lad was convicted of his need of Christ under his father's preaching in a meeting at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Many pressed forward to seek the Saviour. The boy stood for a time anxious and weeping, but timid, "the tears running down his face like bubbles in a mountain spring;" but ultimately he walked down the aisle, and entered the inquiry room. Nothing was said until the next morning, when, before daylight had broken, the little fellow crept into his father's room, taking with him a Bible which was a parental birthday gift. He had written, on the title-page, below the name: "Converted July 17, and the Lord added to the Church."

Concluding his appeal, Mr. Smith said that "Christ put heaven's richest diadem on the cradle of every homestead in the land when he said of the little ones, 'of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' "

—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 20.