glass of beer so I could have the free lunch that went with it. I lived
that way for about two months.

During the late winter I got a job at night work, which consisted of
pushing loads of stone in a wheelbarrow for the building of the Stone Arch
Bridge over the St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River for the Great
Northern Railway Company. The planks upon which we had to walk became very
slippery and on one trip the man ahead of me slipped back in the wheel of
my wheelbarrow upon which I had a large stone. The force of his fall threw
both stone and wheelbarrow into the river. The man behind me, seeing what
was happening, flung himself face down over his wheelbarrow, and in the
dark, grabbed me as I was going over the plank into the river. He caught me
by one of my arms and held me until help came and I was pulled out. I was
hanging from his hands about fifty to seventy-five feet above the river.

After that experience I could not make myself walk those planks anymore, so
I was again out of work and so terribly discouraged. A few nights later I
walked onto the Tenth Avenue bridge intending to jump off into the river to
end it all. As I took hold of the railing someone from behind me called out
and said, "When you jump, your troubles will begin." I looked, to see the
man who had spoken but there was no one on the bridge. The way he spoke had
sent a chill through me. It was after eleven o'clock at night and I seemed
to realize that it was the Lord who had spoken to me.

After sometime in America I found that I was still the the same young man
as before in Norway. It seemed that I was unable to do better. Thinking to
improve matters, I decided to go to school and study for the ministry.
After two semesters in the college certain things happened which turned me
into an infidel. I quit school, went into business and got married. Soon
after I contracted tuberculosis of the lungs, and the doctor said there was