b to the top step by step
to be in the grand position he fills, that of Lodging House Missionary
to the Bowery under the New York City Mission and Tract Society.

"One day we were going up the Bowery and passing a Mission went in. We
heard the testimonies, and I turned to Ranney and said, 'Are you a
Christian?' He said, 'I am.' I said, 'Get up, then, and tell the men
what God has done for you.' Now here I was a gambler telling this man to
acknowledge God, and I did not do it myself! Ranney rose and turned all
colors. He finally settled down to that style of talking which he alone
possesses. He told his story for the first time. I have heard him
hundreds of times since, but to me that night fifteen years ago was the
greatest talk he ever gave, telling how God saved him from a crooked and
drunken life. It had the ring! I loved him from that night on. When he
got through I said, 'Dave, God met you face to face to-night. You will
be a different man from now on. God spoke to-night, not you. It was the
best talk I ever heard. It took you a long time to start, but nothing
can stop you now. One word of advice, pal, I'll give you: Don't get
stuck on yourself. God will use you when He won't others among your own
kind. He will make a preacher of you to men of your own stamp.' And
Ranney is to-day what I said and thought he would be.

"You would think that a man who had been the pal of Ranney for three
years would never say an unkind word to one that he loved, but that is
what I did. We had a misunderstanding, and I said things to Dave Ranney
that he never will forget. I called him every name on the calendar. He
was speechless and I thought afraid of me. He never said a word. I left
him standing there as if petrified--his friend and pal talking to him
like that, his pal that sang with him, and joked with him!

"I went home and swore that never again would I have anything to do
with a Christian. I had forgotten for the moment all the little
kindnesses he had done and how after I had been on a drunk he had been
at my bedside, how he had spoken words of cheer and comfort and said,
'Dan, old man, cheer up. Some day you are going to cut out drink'; and I
want to say right now that I have not drank in over twelve years. I'd
forgotten all that. I only thought of how I might hang the best fellow
on this earth. I came to myself ten minutes after I left him, but the
work had been done, and I made up my mind I'd never see or speak to him
ag