I don't think I have yet mentioned one of my great heroes, Charles Simeon. Charles Simeon was the senior pastor, or vicar, as we call it in the Episcopal church, at Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge for fifty-four years at the beginning of the last century. He had an enormous influence upon generations of students in Cambridge University, and he really changed the face of the Church of England.

When he began his ministry, he was a very angular gentleman by nature and disposition--hot tempered, proud, and impetuous. One of his biographers writes that on his first visit to Henry Ven, Ven's oldest daughter Nellie wrote, "It is impossible to conceive anything more ridiculous than Mr. Simeon's look and manner. His grimaces, the faces he pulls, were beyond anything you could imagine. So, as soon as he left, we all got together in the study and set up an amazing laugh."

But their father summoned his daughters into the garden. And although it was early summer, he asked them to pick one of the green peaches. When they showed surprise, he said, "Well my dears, it is green now, and we must wait. But a little more sun and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. And so it is with Mr. Simeon." As the Holy Spirit got to work within him, his character and conduct were beautifully refined and changed.