This was found in a scrapbook given to me by Nancy Green, compiled by her mother and grandmother. Nancy thought I might find something useful and interesting in it to share with everyone. Here is an example of how music can sometimes do what mere words can’t.
More than a hundred years ago, a young man in England, who belonged to a pious family but was himself far from God, was to find God by strange means. He had been the child of many prayers, but to all the entreaties of his pious mother and others, he answered by inwardly resolving not to become a Christian. When he and his mother were on a visit to Ireland, on the Lord’s day they went to a place where a good man was going to preach. He was very earnest in his sermon, and put the question to the unsaved present, would they give themselves to Christ or remain rebels? Every time, the young man said in his own heart, “I will not yield, I will not yield.” His heart was hardened against God’s grace. And at the close of the sermon it seemed to be harder than ever it had been. When the sermon was finished, the minister gave out a hymn. It begins,
Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready waits to save you,
Full of pity, love and pow’r:
He is able, He is able,
He is willing, doubt no more.
The congregation, stirred by the earnest sermon, sung the hymn with their whole hearts. And what the sermon could not do, the singing of the hymn did. It broke the hard, unyielding heart. He found God and gave himself to Him. He lived to be an honoured preacher of the gospel. He was Augustus Toplady, the author of the great hymn Rock of Ages.