Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1879 — How Personal Influence Grows. [ARTICLE]

How Personal Influence Grows.

Rev. Dorus Clarke. Sometime in the last century, a poor woman in England,of whom the world knows but little, had a son. and she poured out her prayers and her tears for his conversion. But lie grew up reckless and dissipated and profane. He engaged in the slave trade on the coast of Africa, and was perhaps as hopelessly abandoned as any pirate who ever trod the deck of a slave-trader. But at last, when all hope had nearly expired, his mother’s ceaseless prayers were heard. He was converted to Christ,and finally became one of the most eminent ministers in London. The man was the celebrated John Newton. John Newton in turn was the instrument of opening the eyes and bringing to the foot of the cross that moralist and skeptic, Thomas Scott, afterward the distinguished author oftheoommentary on the Bible. Thomas Scott had in his parish a young man of the most delicate sensibilities, and whose soul was "touched to the finest issues,” but he was dyspeptic, and sore, and despairing. At times he believed there was no hope for him, and that he should go to hell. After long and repeated efforts, Dr. Scott led him trembling to the Great Physician. The darkness broke away, and the 4 ’true light” shone. That man was William Cowper, the household Christian poet, whose sweet, delightful {hymns nave allured hundreds or sinners, and the most polluted, to the

“Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.” Among others whom he conducted to that fountain was William Wilberforce, a distinguished member of the British Parliament, and the great philanthropist who gave the death blow to the slave trade in Great Britian. Wilberforee brought Leigh Richmond to Christ, and he wrote the “Dairyman's daughter, ” jvhich has been read with devoutest gratitude and through blinding tears In many languages all over the earth. All this indescribable amount of good—which will be redoubled and reduplicated through all time—can be traced back to the Christian fidelity of John Newton’s mother —that humble, unheralded woman—whose history is almost unknown.