10/31/2025
Unknown Author:
Years ago, a broken, unkempt homeless man found his way into the Marble Collegiate Church, Fifth Avenue at Twenty-ninth Street, New York City. The church would later be made famous by the ministry of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Dr. Burrell was the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church at the time of this story. Dr. Burell welcomed this homeless man, named Billy, into the church.
A life of alcoholism had befuddled Billy, but one thing was clear in his hazy mind. He believed that Dr. Burrell could help him. He had known Dr. Burrell in better days. Now the two men came together under far different circumstances, the pastor of this church and a broken man from the streets. Dr. Burrell knew immediately that Billy needed help. He vowed to do what he could as he heard the story of Billy’s wrecked life.
The next Sunday, Billy sat in a far-away seat in the sanctuary of this church. On later Sundays he came early to get a seat nearer to the pulpit. For six months, Billy sat with upraised face, listening to Dr. Burrell’s every word. At the end of that time, Billy came into Burrell’s study and said: “Dr. Burrell, I want to take communion and join your church.” And within a few weeks that once broken man took part in the communion service and stood before the congregation to be admitted to membership in that famous old church. But immediately afterward without warning, Billy disappeared.
Every pastor has seen this happen. People join the church and then kind of disappear until Christmas or Easter. But this time the story was a little different. Billy disappeared . . . never to be seen in that church again. Two years later Dr. Burrell received a telephone call. The call came from the Hadley Rescue Hall in the Bowery. “Dr. Burrell,” said John Callahan, the head of that mission, “can you come down here this evening and conduct a funeral? The man who is dead said he knew you very well.” When Dr. Burrell entered the mission that evening its seats were filled. Before the platform stood a casket and as Dr. Burrell looked at the face, he knew at once that it was Billy. He turned to John Callahan and asked, “What’s he been up to, John? How did you find him? How did he come down here to the mission?” “He came down here with his face shining,” answered Callahan. “We didn’t find him. He found us. Billy isn’t one of those we picked off the streets. The night after you took him into your church he came here, and he’s been here ever since. He patrolled the waterfront to find down-and-out men. And he found them. They’ll tell us about it themselves, this evening.”
The greater part of Billy’s funeral service consisted of the tributes of people whose paths had crossed his. He seemed to have left a blessing wherever he moved. The landlady in the waterfront boarding-house where Billy had lived stood up with her beaming face covered with tears. “He taught God to me and to every person in the house. My house became full of Christians after Billy came there.” That old boarding-house on the waterfront! It had become one of the happiest places in the big city. Billy had brought God to it, and out of it nightly went Billy, the landlady and the boarders to hunt for broken men and women and show them how they might become whole again.
One after another, people arose in the audience and, with happy but tear-stained faces, they told what Billy, the longshoreman, had done for them. Billy had earned his daily bread beside them. And all around him, as he worked, there had been a circle of song and happiness and prayer; he had held up the cross of Jesus to all he met.
