Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1876 — Selling His Soul. [ARTICLE]

Selling His Soul.

A preacher was once down in a part of England where the greatest ignorance prevailed along with a belief in witchcraft. One morning he got up early and met a laborer going to his work, and, after a variety of questions, he asked him if he had ever prayed to God. The man said not as he knowed of; he never troubled his head about such things as them. You’re just the man I want, said the preacher, and ultimately got him to promise that he never would pray if he gave him half a crown. The man promised and took the money, and the stranger vanished. When the mah got to work he turned the thingover and over again, and growing more and more troubled with dark suspicions about the stranger, he finally left his work, went home and told his wife. The good dame, who was very superstitious, was more troubled than Hodge himself, and amongst other significant questions, asked if he noticed the stranger’s head and feet. “ No,” said Hodge; “he had a hat and boots on.” V* Ah!” said the woman, “I see it all now; you don’t know what they might cover. I shouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t —I am Sure it was. You’ve sold yourself body and soul to the devil. John—‘l know you have. That settled the matter, and John was knocked over altogether, and he fell ill both in body And mind. His wife persuaded him to go and heir a man Who was to preach in Mr. Piper’s barn, and who might possibly do him some good, u The man preached from tha words: “ What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose hid own soul?” And when he told his hearers that he knew a man who sold his soul for half a crown, adding “ souls are evidently cheaper now than they were in those days,” Hodges saw It all then, and when the sermon was over, be went tp the man, and, with tears in his eyes, besought hhn to take back the half crown, and after shme ado the man consented, and then knelt down and prayed with tfle penitent peasant. One can scarcely commend the preacher for using this stratagem, but perhaps he saw further down into that poor man’s heart than we can imagine who only read the story.—JT. T- Observer.