ncouragement."

IF THIS WERE YOUR SON.

Among the hundreds of repentant men and youths who have knelt in the
dust of Chicago's most infamous streets, in the open air meetings of The
Midnight Mission, is one whom we will call Joe.

One Saturday night Joe came to our meeting and told us that he was a
gambler, a pickpocket, a drunkard, a libertine and worse--enticing girls
from their homes and placing them in houses of infamy. He asked us to
pray for him, which of course we did. Joe disappeared for an hour or so,
but returned at midnight to our meeting, and at half-past twelve knelt
in the street, with another repentant young man, confessing his ruinous
and shameful sin.

For four years since that night we have kept in touch with Joe. We were
obliged to advise his father--living in another state, an elder in the
Presbyterian church, who never suspected anything wrong in his son--to
take more interest in Joe, and not to take less interest in the class
of other men's sons that he was teaching in Sunday School. On his own
motion Joe told his father the whole heart-breaking truth. Unspeakably
humiliated, the father proved himself a father indeed, and did
everything in his power to restore the young man to a right life, at
great cost to himself.

Joe now has his own home and his own business. He is a respected
citizen, instead of--God knows what--most likely a despicable white
slave trader in Chicago or Detroit or New York. He is one of hundreds
who have heeded our midnight protest against terrible sin, our midnight
testimony for the Lamb of God, who takes away sin.

ANTAGONISM--PROTECTION--TRIUMPH.

At the beginning of our work the keepers of evil resorts were respectful
and to a degree friendly. During the second summer, 1905, the meetings
increased very greatly in power. Sometimes we continued preaching from
ten o'clock at night till three in the morning. Workers reached their
homes after daylight, with hearts almost bursting for gladness because
many sinners had repented. As many as fifty workers were engaged in the
same block at once, holding four simultaneous meetings. All were working
voluntarily and without pay. I myself was earning my expenses with my
pen.

Thousands of misguided men had their attention called to the cross of
Christ and the holy life every week. The revenues of the resorts were
seriously diminished. One manager, who had been misled in his boyhood
and genuinely regretted the loathsome life