The Shepherd's Dog
John Vassar
"No, Matthew, I won't go," John Vassar told his cousin, adding a curse for emphasis.
His cousin turned to walk away, then on a second thought, turned around. A glittering gold piece was in his hand.
"It's worth this to me for you to hear the gospel."
John Vassar had recently married. He could use the money. "Sure. Why not?"
That night John fell under deep conviction. On his job at the brewery the next day, he sulked, moodily struggling to curb his profanity and temper.
A few evenings later, he arrived home to find his wife already asleep. Shaking her bed, he cried, "How can you rest when your husband is going to hell?"
No one had to pay him to return to church. He went at every opportunity. Then, one night in March 1842, he was sitting in a rear pew of the Lafayette Street Church in Poughkeepsie, New York. The service closed, and the people began filing out. "Stay and pray with me," John Vassar pleaded.
A group huddled around him and prayed. Reverend Rufus Babock, the pastor, laid a hand on his quivering shoulder. "John, look to Christ. It's faith that saves you, man, not feeling."
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"I will," John Vassar murmured. "He is my only hope."
By the next evening, it was plain that he had trusted Christ. His face shone. "I've found peace at last," he told a prayer meeting group.
Afterward, he walked home singing hymns with some friends. On the way one remarked, "We'd better be quiet. People will think us crazy."
"Let them," John Vassar spoke up happily. "They said Jesus had a devil."
The statement was a portent of his future. For the next thirty-seven years "Uncle" John Vassar, as he was best known, spoke up for Jesus — sometimes with such zeal and frankness that less earnest Christians called him crazy.
He was thrust forth into his work when his wife and two children were taken by disease. Never ordained, he called himself the Shepherd's Dog, trekking from church to church praying for and winning the lost sheep. The American Tract Society gave him a small salary for colporteur work.
During the Civil War, he witnessed to the Union soldiers on the front lines. In one brigade where he worked as an unofficial chaplain, an estimated one tenth of the men were converted.
His power in prayer was widely publicized. Once he was captured by the Confederates. Put on trial before General Stuart for being a spy, he turned the tables by asking, "General, sir, do you love Jesus?"
General Stuart was relieved when an aide took him aside to whisper, "Get rid of that man, or we'll have a prayer meeting from here to Richmond."
When Uncle John grappled with a soul, he began
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by striking home with the most direct question possible. When there was no chance for a long conversation, he left a single piercing verse of Scripture.
Once a student returning home met him on the road and inquired his business. "I'm looking for some lost sheep," Uncle John replied. When he arrived at home, the youth told his parents about the crazy man searching for sheep.
"Why that's Uncle John Vassar, the tract missionary," they responded smiling. "He's searching for people to win to Christ."
When Uncle John died in 1878, he was accounted the most skillful personal soul-winner in America. No one doubted that the price his cousin paid to get him to church was worthwhile.
