SIR GEORGE
WILLIAMS, of the famous firm of Hitch-
cock, Williams, & Co., St. Paul's Churchyard,
founder of the Y.M.C.A., was
saved when serving his
apprenticeship in a drapery establishment at Bridgwater,
Somerset. His testimony in after years was as follows:
"I entered Bridgwater a careless, thoughtless,
godless,
swearing young fellow," and, we would add, left it an
earnest whole-hearted
Christian. In writing to a
friend
of these early days, he said: "There were two other
apprentices whom I soon found were different from myself.
I was much given to swearing, and I saw increasingly that
they were going to Heaven, but
that I was on the down-
ward road to Hell. I now
began to pray, but even on my
knees oaths would come to my lips." The consistent
Christian lives of fellow-apprentices greatly influenced him.
At the age of 16 he was saved through a
Gospel sermon
preached by the minister of the Congregational Church.
Little information can be obtained as to the text of the
discourse delivered, but it was the means in the hand of
God in leading him to know
Christ as his
Saviour. Many
years afterwards when visiting Bridgwater at the opening
of the new Young Men's Christian Association building he
said: "It is not easy to forget one's first love.
I first
learned in Bridgwater to love my dear
Lord and Saviour
for what He had done for me; I saw in this town two roads,
the downward and the upward road; I began to reason,
and said to myself, 'What if I continue along this down-
ward road, where shall I get on? where is the end of it?
what will become of me?' Thank God I had kept in the
clean path; nevertheless I was on the downward road; I
saw that this road would certainly lead me to spend my
eternity with the devil and his angels, and I said, 'Cannot
I escape? Is there no escape?' They told me in this very
town of Bridgwater how to escape--confess your sins,
accept Christ, trust in Him, yield your heart to the
Saviour. God helped me to yield myself wholly to Him.
I cannot describe to you the joy and peace which flowed
into my soul when I saw that the Lord
Jesus had DIED FOR
MY SINS, AND THAT THEY WERE ALL FORGIVEN."