Ride the Wild Horses, P.37: Revell... Wallace Hamilton

The late Samuel Grafflin used to tell of a man who had lived out his life in a small mid-Western town. He was a nobody, a most inconspicuous man, with little education in his youth except the education of a delivery boy in the local grocery store.

Yet, he was easily the town's first citizen. Everybody called him "Joe", and when he prayed at the church or in Sunday school, something happened in people's hearts. In his small house on a back street people turned to him for that intangible something that puts hope into life. I shall never forget the morning Joe died of a fever. The stores did little business, and there was a hush in the streets. The richest man in town had just ordered a new carriage, and he went widow himself to offer it to Joe's widow. The florist denuded the green house of it choicest flowers and banked the little parlor with a wealth of beauty. The county undertaker drove fifteen miles over the hills to offer his services, free. For he said, "I was a drunkard on these roads until one day Joe got hold of me and told me of the saving grace of Christ." And so they came. The old toll-gate keeper said, "I've been keeping this toll-gate for thirty-five years, but never before have I seen twelve hundred carriages come from all over the country to pay tribute to one man".

There is a greatness within the reach of all of us!