Wonderful Conversion Of A Roman Catholic.

A frame dwelling in an alley, two rooms on the first floor, in the

smaller one a bed-ridden old colored man, who had fought the battle of

life for ninety years, fifteen of them on his bed, with eyes so dimmed

by age that he could not even read; and a wife who was eye, ear and

solace to him, are the salient points of our first picture.



They were both earnest, exultant Christians, around whom the angels of

od encamped day and night. The wife was brought up in the West Indies,

as a Catholic, but her ideas of religion consisted mostly in counting

beads on a rosary. After coming to Brooklyn, she became a servant in the

family of a well-known naval officer, and was always a favorite on

account of her vivacity. One day, a young painter who was working there,

and proved to be one of the Christians whose light shines for all in the

house, spoke to her, and invited her to a prayer-meeting in a Protestant

chapel. She refused, laughing; but the painter's assurance next day,

that she had been prayed for in that meeting, made her restless, uneasy

and sick. In a few days, she was confined to her bed and pronounced by

some doctors, a victim to consumption. One, more sagacious than the

rest, said her trouble was of the mind, not the body, and a minister

would be better than a doctor.



It proved to be the case; she was soon led into a glimmering hope,

though feeling that she literally carried a burden on her back. Starting

out, one night, to look for a place of worship, she turned her feet to a

Methodist meeting from whence the sound of singing had reached her. In

the prayer and exhortation, however, there were words which revealed to

her the secret of faith and salvation. She felt the burden loosen and

fall from her shoulders, so sensibly, that involuntarily, she turned and

looked for it on the floor. In a few moments she began to realize the

freedom she had gained, and started to her feet in joy and wonder.



Her work then began in her own home, and through her prayers of faith,

five members of the Commodore's own family and an Irish Catholic servant

girl, were brought to "Christ, the living way." For years her faith was

proved by her works; her daily example in the household, her watchings

and waitings by the bedside of her helpless husband--poverty, sickness,

perplexities of every sort, but made her hope the brighter, her hold the

firmer. With no dependence for their daily bread but the benefactions of

one and another person, sometimes entire strangers, they never knew what

it was to suffer actual want, nor did Frances ever believe that her

friend would forget her.