“Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job?  And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?”

“I remember it now.  I hope you have kept your promise.”

The man laughed savagely.  Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood.

“Kept it!  I was drunk inside of a week!  I’ve been drinking ever since.  But I’ve never forgotten you nor your prayer.  Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest?  That got me!  But my mother used to pray!  I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad.  Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me.  But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning.  You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn’t seem to take ’count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell.  Oh, what a life I’ve lived!  The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me.  But that prayer stuck to me all the time.  My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer.  I don’t know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it.  And I won’t do any harm to you nor let any one else.  So you’re free to go.  That’s why.”

The Bishop did not stir.  Somewhere a church clock struck one.  The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone.  The Bishop was thinking hard.

“How long is it since you had work?” he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other.

“More’n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count ‘holding up’ work.  I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don’t make nothin’.”

“Suppose I found good jobs for both of you?  Would you quit this and begin all over?”

“What’s the use?” the man on the stone spoke sullenly.  “I’ve reformed a hundred times.  Every time I go down deeper.  The devil’s begun to foreclose on me already.  It’s too late.”

“No!” said the Bishop.  And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly.  All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, “O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee!  I am hungry for them.  Give them to me!”

“No!” the Bishop repeated.  “What does God want of you two men?  It doesn’t so much matter what I want.  But He wants just what I do in this case.  You two men are of infinite value to Him.”  And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances.  He had remembered the man’s name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment.