I had been anxious about my clerk for some time; he was a good man in his way, and most attentive to his work in and out of church; he was also a regular communicant, and exemplary in his life; but with all this, he was unconverted.  I often warned him of his danger; and one day it came to my mind to tell him of the man who went in to the marriage supper without the wedding garment.  I said, no doubt he thought himself as good as others, but when the King came in to see the guests, he was speechless; and because he was so, and had not on the wedding garment, the King commanded that he should be bound hand and foot, and put into outer darkness.  Now, I continued, the King has often come in to see us, and we have rejoiced before Him; but you have never spoken to Him, or asked for mercy.  It is a very hardening thing to hear so much as you do and remain unsaved; and a very deadening thing to come to the Lord’s table as you do, going through the form without any real meaning.  You receive the bread and wine in remembrance that Christ died for you, and yet you do not believe enough to thank Him.  I was led to say, “I must forbid your coming to the Lord’s table till you have given your heart to God.  You know it is right to do it, and that you ought to be converted.  I will not have you come here again till you are.”

The man looked at me as if to see whether I meant it, and then appeared so sorrowful that I nearly relented.  All through the service he was low and dejected, and went away at the time of the administration of the ordinance, and sat at the other end of the church.  My heart ached for him, for I had never seen him so touched about anything.  Afterwards, when he came into the vestry, I could see that he had been crying.  “Ah, friend,” I said, “it is bad to be left out from the Lord’s table here; what will it be to be left out of heaven?”

In the evening he was more miserable than ever, and at the close of the service came into the school-room, where he broke down, and asked the people to pray for him, for he was a hard-hearted, miserable sinner.  “Pray the Lord to melt my heart.”  We did so:  and soon the poor broken-hearted man sobbed and cried aloud for mercy; and it was not long before, to our great joy, he found peace.  He afterwards told us that he had been getting hardened by forms ever since he had been clerk, reading solemn words without any meaning, which at first he trembled at doing.  He was right; it is good to hear the Gospel, good to attend the means of grace, good to assemble in the company of God’s people; but to rest in the habit of doing these good things, without conversion, is most dangerous, and calculated to deaden the heart.  He said that he felt it very much when ‘master’ was converted (meaning myself), and was also dreadfully condemned; for he had believed in the necessity of conversion all his life; and though he knew that I was unconverted, yet he never told me, but rather encouraged me to go on as I was.  He said that he had had many sleepless nights about it; “but now, thank God” he added, “it is all right; my feet are on the Rock, my soul is saved.  I can praise the Lord in the congregation.”