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VOL. LXXXVII. R1CHMON
From Gypsy
Jin address delivered by special request
1 have been requested to tell liow grace found me
111 my gypsy tent and 1 will try to do so, but at
the bauie tune i shall speak concerning the Master
whom 1 serve and who has done such great things
lor me, and can and has done so much for you and
all the world. L shall close by giving u personal inflation,
and 1 hope many of those who have not
accepted the {Saviour will do so before they leave
this building tonight.
In spite of the skepticism of some of you 1 am a
ieal gypsy. We gypsies are of real blood, we are
the real tiling,, not the counterfeits that sometimes
go around in wagons from place to place. We have
manners and customs all our own. We are so old,
1 do not know how old. There are from two and
a hall to four and a half millions of gypsies in the
world. The question is frequently asked what a
gypsy is. There is all sorts of answers: 4' One
who tells fortunes." "A fellow who swipes kids."
It is not true. The gypsies have so many children
of their own that they do not need to steal any.
Of some of their characteristics 1 shall not speak,
Init in view of the fact that they have no Bible, no
schools, no education, no religious surroundings,
they are the most moral people in the world. I
never knew of a gypsy who was divorced, and yet
they have no Bible. I never knew a fallen woman
in a tent. And yet they have no Bible. A gypsy
boy is early taught to honor woman. I never heard
of a gypsy breaking into a bank or reorganizing
one. And yet they have no Bible. When you read
cheap dime novels, go to picture shows, say this to
yourselves, "What would we do without a Bible or
without churches and religious influences?"
There is no vice in my veins, no alcohol in my
blood; I do not know the taste of the stuff. Jesus
saved me in my gypsy tent before I contracted any
evil habits. I believe it is better to have a fence
on the edge of a precipice than to have a hospital
at the bottom. If any one here has any evil habits
1 1m>(T ftf VA11 +A ? " * rn
? ru w give jourseii to unrist now and be
treed from them. The 6ins of the gypsies are not
"o Mack as they are painted. My uncle, converted
when he was 99, lived a beautiful life for two years
and died at 101, and he was the father of thirtyone
children.
Some of the sins of my people are drink, pilfering,
nothing big, and swearing, but the biggest sin
is lying. The women nrn VinWl +?-.
_UI... v 1U?&u iaj ui nig iu vjiinsi
and will not come to Him because of their fortune
telling. That is lying. A woman knows it, but
*he continues the practice as a means of making
money for her sustenance. My father is still living
at the age of 82, tall, straight and weighs about
-40 pounds. He is one of the saints of the world.
()n July 16th, \vhen I left him for a world tour, he
tame in for prayers?he lives next door to me in
Camlw.}? tj. . - - - - -
?i!iiigianci, and with him were the man
servant, the maid and all the household. The
Ninety-first Psalm was read and then I asked
father to present me to the throne of grace while I
was away. lie said: "No. You are where I pr%
V Ji?C?NT/x
The ?ou>
D, NEW ORLEANS, ATLANTA, SEP!
r T ent to Pul]
at the Slnntt "B rnrtb (I I \ U:LJ- /~ r '
v v^,.?vV v*-" < / *-Jtvic x^unjci c/icc, ana rep
seated you when I found Christ, my blessed
Saviour."
Some people are careful of what they never
possessed, therefore they are anxious about the
reputation of others. The gypsies traveled the
country without llible, without church, and the
church people left us there, never coming near us
and inquiring about our souls, probably considering
that we did not have any. God saw something,
however, in that gypsy tent, for out of it
cam^6i^preaaiere. One time the oldest child, a
daughter, was taken sick. A doctor was called
from the nearest village. He examined the
daughter over the door and then told father and
mother that she had smallpox. He told us to take
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the wagon into a secluded lane near by. We did
so, and then my father pitched a tent under a
hawthorne tree. Father was the faithful nurse,
mother remaining in the wagon to take care of the
children. One after another the girls were taken
to the tent, where father faithfully watched over
them. Mother used to come as near as was safe
to bring food, but one day she went too near. She
was a woman and she had a woman's heart for her
sick children. She came nearer and nearer, and,
as I have said, one day she came too near, and she
took the smallpox. There were mother, sister,
brother, all sick with it, and a little babe was born
in a few days. There was no Christian to help.
'ri.crr/vfrrczoar ictflttN,
>al Presbyter/an <?
thern Presbyter/an'
"EMBER 10. 1913. NO. % C>~]
By
pit Gypsy (Rodney) Smith
oduced from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
One day. mother?she was inv atp.nmnt.her hut.
dear to us all?called lather to her and said: "Cornelius,
I am dying. Promise me to stop drinking
and lying. Promise." Father went and sobbed
out his tears on the grass, lie was in agony,
and I shall never forget how he listened when
mother sang:
1 have a Father in the promised land.
"Polly, where did you learn that song ? 1 never
heard you sing it before ?" asked father, and mother
replied that she had heard it when a child, and she
believed it and knew that liod would take her
home. Father's tents were pitched on a village
green, and he pondered those words in his heart,
upon which there came a great burden, which was
evident to even the children about him. Jesus,
speaking of the Holy Spirit, said: "When the
spirit is come he will bring all things to your remembrance,"
and the Spirit had come to mother
even in the little heard through that hymn.
Fatliei was weeping, and mother said: "Do not
weep. I aux not afraid to die. 1 am ready. I could
not go to iny Father without I waa ready. You
will come, too, Cornelius," and then she passed to
her saintly rest.
Then 1 heard these words: "fioaney, mother's
dead." I shall never forget them. They ring in
my ears now, and I shall remember the agony they
brought into the soul of that little gypsy boy until
I too pass on. When you hear those words you,
too, will know what they mean. Oh, if you have a
mother take care of her. Don't kill her by inches
J 11- *? l *
luia imnK you can wipe out a slow, disgusting
murder. God has a column where He writes the
names of the boys and girls who honor their fathers
and mothers.
Father was a changed man from that time-amorally
changed, and if there had been a Christian
there to point the way and help him he would have
been converted. He was convicted of sin. He did
not swear. He did not drink. The children never
swore, and I have never known ivnato nf linnm.
Father, I say, was changed. He was not the same '
man. He could not be. But he wasn't a Christian,
although he would put some of you church members
to shame. You are not a Christian until you
are born again, and you have no right to call yourself
one until you are. Father would have been a
converted man years before he was if there had
been a Christian to help him. I remember the
scene of two tents, two wagons, two horses, a crroun
of men and women meeting two wagons and men
and women, who proved to be relatives?uncle and
wife. My father spoke to his brother' of his burden,
of his hunger for the Light that lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. There is a problem for
you to solve. These men hungering for something
they could not find. Can you explain it ?
Father determined he would go to London, go to
a church, and try to find that which he sought?
peace in the Lord. He declared that he would go,