"Years ago I was in charge of the Cleveland's largest mission for the "down-and-outs." We had been holding an open-air meeting near the mission one Sunday evening, with a large crowd in attendance. In the midst of my appeal I discovered that something was distracting the attention of the people. The object of their interest was soon discovered, as the wreck of a once beautiful woman came staggering up the alley. Many of the audience knew her, for she was a notorious character. She had just been kicked out of a low alley saloon, so drunk that she could not stand; and she was breathing out curses upon the saloonkeeper who had dared to treat her so.

Praying that this might be the night when God would give us a signal victory, we promptly closed the meeting and invited all who desired to turn away from their sins to come inside the chapel, where Christian workers would help them. On entering the chapel we sang a hymn as the people continued to come in. I then called for testimonies from those who had already accepted Christ. Suddenly the door was flung open, and in staggered this very woman. Screaming at the top of her voice, and waving her long, gaunt arms above her head, she shouted, "There’s no salvation for the likes of me; and you needn't say there is!"

  I immediately started a hymn, and leaving the platform, went to where the wretched creature had thrown herself into a seat. I called one of our loyal Christian women, and she on one side and I on the other, we knelt there by the outcast and poured out our hearts to God. The woman was so overcome that she offered no resistance. As we prayed, it seemed that the very house was filled with the power of God; and from that moment we felt assured that God had given us the victory.

  I had given instructions that the poor creature be taken upstairs, that her filthy rags be removed, and that she have a hot bath and be put to bed. The next morning, when she awoke and found herself in a clean, comfortable bed, the first she had been in for many months, she looked up into the face of the woman attending her and said, "God did save me after all!"

  Week by week I saw the outcast grow into a wonderful Christian character. She was a woman of fine intellect and high breeding; and much of her former beauty and stateliness of carriage returned. It was not long before she was going into the haunts of sin, telling of God's power to save.

When, at the end of a most remarkable summers work, I bade farewell to the workers and some of the converts, no face was more radiant with joy than that of the woman who, on that Sunday night, had cried out in her drunken frenzy, "There is no salvation for the likes of me; and you needn't say there is!"  Donald Grant. Is. 1:18.