Personal Testimony 221 (cited in Practical Christianity April 1963, p681 published by the Officers’ Christian Union (now the Armed Forces’ Christian Union)).
I was born in a poor home in Bethnal Green, East London. It was not what a home ought to be. Drunkenness brought sorrow and made life very difficult for my mother – as well as for us children – and I saw many youngsters spoilt by the evil influences at work.
I was sent to Sunday school, but at the age of 13 I decided to leave and to exchange helpful companionship for the friendship of a gang of hooligans. A first step towards gangsterism.
I was taken to a public house and made hopelessly drunk, and from then on, I went from bad to worse. At the age of sixteen I was charged in north London with being drunk and for fighting a policeman. So began a series of offences against law and order. One magistrate warned me that he would send me to reformatory institution if I appeared before him again. This frightened me and I decided to escape from the gang.
So, I went to Whitehall and although I was underage, I joined the Grenadier Guards and was sent to the Guards depot at Caterham where training began. But the discipline was too severe for me, and I soon deserted my regiment and joined a coasting steamer. Returning from one trip, I visited my dying mother but before I left the house, the police arrived to arrest me. I was returned to my regiment and subsequently sentenced to six months in the ‘glass house’.
On discharge, my old companions welcomed me back – robberies were planned and carried through, and then we wasted the money in drinking and gambling. One night when we left the pub, we began fighting, and during the night my face was slashed with a razor. I ran to a house nearby and the occupants rushed me to Mildmay Mission Hospital.
God graciously spared my life, but I was most unhappy in the Christian atmosphere of that hospital. There painted on the wall of my ward were the words ‘This is a faithful saying… that Christ came into the world to save sinners’. I did not want to be reminded of my sins. But things came to a head on the day when I was to leave the hospital. The nurse who had wrestled with me on the night I was admitted was conducting morning prayers. She prayed that the Lord would reveal Himself to me. God answered her prayers and in simple faith I trusted the Lord Jesus. In that hour I became a new man in Christ.
I thank God for that nurse then and now. You see, she is my wife and together now for many years in Christian service with the London City Mission, we have seen many wonderful works of God in some of London’s darkest areas. *Photo credit: https://www.pexels.com/@pixabay