A Sunday-school was soon started in the neighborhood and John was chosen to be the teacher of the infant class.  At first he tried to plead his inability, but no one would listen to his excuses.  He was glad afterward; for he learned to love the little ones very dearly.  While he was meeting with the children Sunday after Sunday, he often thought of many of the hard places through which he had passed when he was a child and remembered that it was because he had not been warned that he had, one step at a time, gone down until he was in misery and on the verge of despair.  So John sought to throw light on each one of these dangerous places and to point out the dangers so clearly that the children could plainly see and understand the wrong for themselves before they were beguiled and then bound by Satan’s chain of evil habits.  In this way he helped the children to escape many a snare by which they might otherwise have been caught unawares.

As the weeks sped by into months and John continued to unfold to the tender questioning minds the hidden mysteries of the Bible, the adult class became interested; and it was not long until they decided that they needed him for their class more than the children did for theirs.  While he was teaching the advanced Bible class, his own understanding of spiritual things was greatly broadened and strengthened, and he became one on whom the entire congregation could lean and in whom they could confide.

On one occasion when the lesson was in the epistle of James, John found by reading the fifth chapter of that book that Jesus is just as able and ready to heal those who are sick as He was to relieve sufferers in days gone by and that any who are afflicted may pray expecting to be healed.  He quickly applied the Scripture to himself, and began to pray thus: 

“Lord, thou seest how I am afflicted because of the sinful habits that I formed in my childhood.  Thou hast now taken from me the desire for these things, but the suffering in my back and lungs is so intense.  Lord Jesus, heal me!  Make me well, and I will work for Thee all the days of my life!”

God answered that prayer and made him strong and well; then he could say with the Psalmist, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:  who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.”  Oh, the goodness of the Lord to John!  He felt that he never could cease praising Him.

The sad and lonely past, the days of his vain struggles to become the man that his earthly father had desired him to be, could never be compared to these days of happiness, the days when his desires to attain to true manhood were being realized.  His heart was lonely no longer.  He had a Friend who was dearer than a mother could have been.  And he felt that it is a wonderful privilege to be a member in Christ’s body, the church.

CHAPTER XI

How John Became a Man