plead for and with his friend James. I know not what passed between
them; but that same evening he brought him to me with a heart prepared
to receive Christ. We had only to point him to Jesus, and encourage him
to thank God, when he realized the truth in his own experience.

So that Monday I rejoiced over five people brought to the Lord; and then
the work began in real earnest. Every week after that, remarkable
conversions took place, besides many ordinary ones. Some of these,
including the one just mentioned, are described at length in tracts, and
are also published in a volume entitled "Building from the Top, and
other Stories;" but, notwithstanding this, a brief allusion to them in
this narrative may not be out of place, being so particularly connected
with the work here.

A woman called me into her cottage one morning as I was passing by, and
told me of her son, a steady young man, though still unconverted, for
whom she had prayed continually ever since his birth. She said, when he
was a very little child, she heard him one night sobbing and praying in
his room--"O Lord, save me up for a good boy!" She thought this was in
answer to her supplication; but as he grew up he became thoughtless and
careless, like too many others of his age.

"Some five or six months ago," she said, "he had a dream or vision, and
saw you so plainly that he pointed you out to me, among other clergymen,
and said, 'Mother, that man is to be our minister one I saw him a little
time ago, in a dream, as plainly as I see him now; I know that is the
man.' We did not know who you were then, or where you came from, and
never saw you again till you came lately to this parish to be our
minister.