“On a cold night in the fall of 1885, a scant­i­ly clad man wan­dered into Bleeck­er Street,” writes a New York evan­gel­ist un­der whose per­son­al ob­ser­va­tion the in­ci­dent came. “He was footsore and weary with much wan­der­ing, worn out for want of sleep, and faint from lack of food. The long, cold night was be­fore him, and he knew he must walk the street un­til morn­ing. He stepped in­to a door­way for a lit­tle rest. As he sat there he fell to pon­der­ing. He was sol­i­tary and sad-heart­ed. Drink had wrought fear­ful ha­voc with him, and had left him a home­less, friend­less man. Home and loved ones, friends, mo­ney and po­si­tion had all been sac­ri­ficed to this ap­pe­tite. He felt that he was lost, and that no ef­fort could save him. As he thus mused his re­ver­ie was brok­en by the sound of song. Sur­prised, he looked up in the di­rect­ion from which the sound came, and saw across the way an il­lum­in­at­ed sign on which were the words, ‘Florence Mis­sion.’ Glad to get away from the chill and gloom of the street, he went into the mis­sion. As he en­tered a la­dy was sing­ing [this hymn.]

If there was one thing on earth that the man need­ed it was rest. Rest for the tired, fam­ished body; rest for the tor­tured heart. ‘These things are not for me,’ he thought, ‘I am too far gone.’ He wan­dered the cold streets un­til morn­ing, but ne­ver once did the words of this hymn leave him. The re­frain con­stant­ly rang in his ears, ‘Come unto me and rest.’ He vi­sit­ed the mis­sion ma­ny nights, and fi­nal­ly gave his heart to God.”

The evan­gel­ist adds that this man has been his as­sist­ant for ma­ny years, and has won hun­dreds to Christ.