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Copyright 1Q03 
 M. T. LAMB 
 
 Published August, 1903 
 
 Ifrom tbc prcee of tbe 
 Bmertcan JBaptist publication Society 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The aim of this book is to awaken in the mind of 
 the reader the consciousness that he is called person- 
 ally to attempt the evangelization of men through his 
 own personal contact and influence. It lays upon the 
 individual himself what he has laid upon the ministry 
 and the church as a whole, the obligation to have the 
 one near him know of Christ. Generalization, and 
 not specific, individual work, duty, obligation, char- 
 acterizes the most of Christian activity. Those who 
 know of that marvelous soul-winner. Uncle John 
 Vassar, and his methods, find in him the exemplifi- 
 cation of the truths herein suggested ; namely, hand 
 to hand, heart to heart, personal interest and prayer 
 and solicitation. He never lost the one in the many. 
 
 Compliance with the spirit and suggestions of 
 this book will do three things : 
 
 1. Fix individual responsibility. 
 
 2. Increase the number of active church-members. 
 
 3. Give constant testimony to the power of con- 
 secrated, individual, Christian life. 
 
 Beyond question, many in our churches are 
 without joy and a sense of usefulness because of 
 mistaken notions of service. Let them comply 
 with the suggestions of this book, and church life 
 will take on a new meaning, and they will read 
 anew and aright the " Great Commission." 
 
 Trenton, N.J. J. K, MANNING. 
 
 ill 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE Command 5 
 
 II. Reaching Men 13 
 
 III. A Mischievous Error 24 
 
 iV. A Second Error 39 
 
 V. Sent to Save 55 
 
 VI. Incentives to action 73 
 
 Appendix 87 
 
EVERY CREATURE 
 
 THE COMMAND 
 
 '* Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
 creature" (Mark i6 : 15). 
 
 ACCORDING to the census of 1890 there 
 were, in round numbers, fourteen million 
 church-members in our country, exclusive 
 of the Roman Catholics, or about one Protestant 
 church-member to every four and one-half of the 
 population. The census of 1900 shows a very 
 gratifying increase, namely, that the membership 
 in the Protestant churches has increased more rap- 
 idly than the population. So that to-day about one 
 to every four is enrolled in Christian churches. 
 
 Another gratifying fact is that the Christian ele- 
 ment is becoming more and more the dominating 
 element. That is, it is absorbing more and more 
 the wealthy and educated classes — the two classes 
 that largely control society. 
 
 If, however, we carefully investigate the situa- 
 tion regarding the thirty-eight to forty millions — 
 exclusive of the Roman Catholics — who are still 
 
 5 
 
6 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 outside of the ciuirches and are old enough to be 
 led to Christ, two alarming facts will appear : 
 
 1. That the large majority of them are men. 
 Probably three-fourths of the entire number are 
 males, ranging in age from ten years and upward 
 to mature life and old age. It is one of the sad 
 facts that so few of the men are reached. And 
 this is especially true of the young men. We are 
 told that not over five per cent, of the young men 
 in our country are enrolled in our churches or iden- 
 tified in any form with Christian work. 
 
 2. The second unfortunate fact is that of these 
 thirty-eight or forty million unsaved persons, but a 
 very small per cent, attend church services, or are 
 brought under any direct religious agencies, not 
 even the special religious awakenings, street preach- 
 ing. Salvation Army work, etc. There must be in 
 the neighborhood of thirty million people who re- 
 main outside and are apparently untouched by all 
 present methods of Christian work. That is to 
 say, present methods of Christian work reach not 
 more than one-fourth of the unconverted people of 
 our country. And this one-fourth is made up largely 
 of the easy cases, if such a term is permissible — 
 persons who are regular attendants upon religious 
 service, of some kind, or who are willing to come 
 on special occasions. The three-fourths who are 
 left out because they do not, and, in most cases, 
 will not come to any religious service, may be 
 termed the hard cases — not hard to overcoming faith 
 or in the plan of God, but apparently hard cases 
 
THE COMMAND 7 
 
 because we do not know how to reach them, or if 
 we know, have not been willing to put forth the 
 needed effort. 
 
 But we are certainly waking up to the necessity 
 and the vast importance of reaching all these out- 
 lying masses — that is, a few are waking up. In 
 the city of Trenton, N. J., four years ago, there 
 was a very systematic and thorough canvass of the 
 city. Volunteers were found who visited every 
 home, with a card of invitation to the religious 
 services which were being held every night in 
 three different churches, situated so as to be con- 
 venient of access to the outside masses that it 
 was desired to reach. These services were con- 
 tinued for a month. The pastors preached most 
 earnest sermons, and were aided a portion of the 
 time by a wise, consecrated, and successful evan- 
 gelist. Similar efforts were made in a large num- 
 ber of places all over the country, and are repeated 
 year after year, in many places with great persist- 
 ence and expense. But a most unfortunate fact is 
 that the results of these methods are becoming 
 more and more disappointing. The throngs who 
 attend these special services are almost exclusively 
 church-members. The people we want to reach 
 will not come. An earnest invitation to come will 
 not bring them. 
 
 The writer was present some time ago at an even- 
 ing service conducted by a very earnest and godly 
 man (an evangelist). There were present probably 
 one hundred and fifty persons. About twenty of 
 
8 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 tliese were young converts, young people converted 
 during the previous evenings. The services were 
 very impressive throughout. Earnest appeals were 
 made to the unconverted, appeals that it would 
 seem could hardly be resisted. But when the 
 leader asked the unconverted present to show 
 their interest, there was no response. When a 
 little later he invited all who indulged a hope in 
 Christ to rise, every person in the house arose. 
 There were no unconverted persons present. The 
 good brethren were nonplussed at this unexpected 
 development, and the conclusion finally reached 
 was that should this condition of things continue for 
 two more evenings, they would close the meetings. 
 
 Could they, just at this interesting point, have 
 introduced a new preacher of world-wide repute, 
 or an eccentric man who knew how to attract the 
 outsiders ; or could they have had as a drawing 
 card some gifted singer, a few of the great mass 
 of the unsaved in that town might have been at- 
 tracted, and very likely benefited by the warm and 
 earnest services. But not being able to command 
 these extra attractions, they found themselves ap- 
 parently helpless. 
 
 And this is no exceptional case by any means. 
 A large majority of the best-planned and best-con- 
 ducted revival efforts to-day close after a few days 
 or weeks without special results, and chiefly be- 
 cause they are not able to attract the unconverted 
 to the services ; while the revival efforts that are 
 accounted successful are usually brought to a pre- 
 
THE COMMAND 9 
 
 mature close because they have exhausted the 
 material. The few cases, easy cases, that can be 
 attracted into the meeting, are converted, or appar- 
 ently so, and then the meetings close because no 
 others are willing to come. Over one-half of all the 
 adults in that community — more than three-fourths 
 of these being men — are as yet unreached ; but 
 the meetings must close because the leader and 
 the workers in the church do not seem to know 
 any alternative. At the very point too of largest 
 promise, when the Holy Spirit has begun to move 
 upon the community and the church has reached a 
 measure of consecration that fits its individual 
 members for an aggressive movement upon the 
 largest scale, the meetings close, the harvest ends, 
 and the great multitude remains unsaved. 
 
 In our judgment, the most important and practi- 
 cal question of to-day is the question, "How to 
 reach these unreached throngs." Is it God's plan 
 and purpose that only those shall be reached who 
 can be with comparative ease ? Or is the fault in 
 our present methods ? Certainly the command is, 
 "Preach the gospel to every creature"; but by 
 present methods this command is practically impos- 
 sible. If we preach the gospel only to those who 
 will come and hear us, and one-half of the people 
 for various reasons will not come, then either this 
 command of our Lord is a farce, or impracticable, 
 or our present methods of obeying it are at fault ; 
 and if the fault lies at our door, what is it ? 
 
 The fact that we are not obeying our Lord's com- 
 
10 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 mand, " Preach the gospel to every creature," cer- 
 tainly ought to awaken some anxiety and lead to 
 profound questionings. For really such a religious 
 effort as was made in Trenton and has become the 
 fashion all over the country, is not obeying this last 
 command of our Lord. It is a very important and 
 valuable movement, if not over-estimated. That is, 
 it is getting ready to obey, but it is not obedience. 
 
 The farmer who, in cultivating his field of corn, 
 should secure his team of horses and carefully feed 
 and fit them for the summer's work, and make 
 ready his cultivator, sharpen its teeth, etc., then 
 go over his entire field, counting the hills of corn, 
 noting the progress of the weeds, discovering the 
 stumps and large boulders and other difficulties that 
 must be met — and then sit down for the summer, 
 would be counted a fool, and if an employee, would 
 certainly be discharged. All this is simply getting 
 ready for work ; it does not cultivate one hill of corn. 
 
 So a thorough canvass of the city, counting the 
 number of unsaved, inviting every one of them as 
 politely and earnestly as we may to attend a relig- 
 ious service and become interested in the subject of 
 religion, is not preaching the gospel to these unsaved 
 ones, it may be getting ready to obey the Great 
 Commission, but is not obedience, and if offered to 
 our great Commander as such, is an insult to his 
 intelligence, as well as to ours ; and is very likely 
 a sufficient reason why he seems to be growing 
 weary of such efforts and fails to crown them with 
 former successes. 
 
THE COMMAND II 
 
 In Luke 5 : 4-10 is recorded an exceedingly sug- 
 gestive incident. Those Galilean disciples were 
 skillful fishermen ; fishing had been their life-work 
 and study. They knew the little Sea of Galilee 
 from shore to shore ; knew the haunts of the fish 
 and all the best methods of beguiling them into 
 their nets. And yet this day they had been un- 
 successful. "We have toiled all the night and 
 have taken nothing." No sooner, however, does 
 Jesus get into the boat than the command comes, 
 " Launch out into the deep and let down your nets 
 for a draught." And when they had done this, 
 " They enclosed a great multitude of fishes and 
 their net brake. And they beckoned unto their part- 
 ners, which were in the other ship, that they should 
 come and help them. And they came, and filled 
 both the ships so that they began to sink." The 
 scene closes with the significant words, "Fear not, 
 from henceforth thou shalt catch men." 
 
 The scene suggests that this may have been a 
 designed object-lesson on the successful method of 
 catching men. These disciples were unsuccessful 
 all that previous night, apparently for two reasons : 
 
 I. They seem to have been fishing all the time 
 in shallow water. At least the sequel showed that 
 there was a great multitude of unreached fish out 
 in the deep water, fish that could not be induced to 
 leave their wonted haunts that night by all the arts 
 and tempting bait of the fishermen ; and if caught 
 at all must be caught right where they were con- 
 gregated. 
 
12 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 2. They did not have the Master with them. It 
 is true they had fished all their lives without him ; 
 but now conditions had changed ; they had yielded 
 themselves to a new Master, and he would teach 
 them thoroughly, at the very beginning of their new 
 life with him, "Without me ye can do nothing." 
 
 Have we as churches been fishing in the shallow 
 water thus far, content to reach the fish that may 
 be induced to come where we are and failed to 
 hear the explicit command, "Launch out into the 
 deep and let down your nets for a draught " ? Or 
 have our efforts to reach these multitudes out in 
 the "deep" been made without the Master's 
 presence and direction, trusting to our wisdom of 
 words, or eloquent speech, or power of logic to 
 reach men instead of an indwelling Christ ? 
 
 In any event this is an unspeakably important 
 discussion. I firmly believe it lies at the basis of 
 successful Christian work during the twentieth 
 century. Present methods have grown up out of 
 false conceptions of important, central truths. Mis- 
 chievous errors have been playing the mischief. 
 Let us see what we can discover. 
 
REACHING MEN 
 
 " For there went virtue out of him and healed them all " 
 (Luke 6 : 19). 
 
 FOR years past it has been a fond hope of the 
 author to prepare a small treatise upon the 
 subject, " Our privilege to come to Christ in 
 behalf of others, especially those whom we cannot 
 persuade to come for themselves," the discussion 
 being founded upon the lesson from the miracles. 
 This chapter will contain a few points briefly pre- 
 sented from the above contemplated discussion. 
 
 1. Out of nearly forty specific cases of healing 
 recorded in the four Gospels, only six came for them- 
 selves, and were healed because of their own indi- 
 vidual faith. Such were blind Bartimeus, the leper, 
 the woman with the issue of blood, etc. 
 
 2. About twenty cases were brought to Christ by 
 others, and were healed, not primarily because of 
 their own faith or their own asking, but because of 
 the faith and the asking of the persons who brought 
 them. To the Syro-Phoenician mother Jesus said : 
 " O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even 
 as thou wilt." And her daughter was healed in 
 that very hour. To the nobleman from Caper- 
 naum, who came in behalf of his son, Jesus said : 
 
 13 
 
14 EVERY CREATURE. 
 
 " Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not be- 
 lieve." To the father of the boy with the dumb 
 spirit he said : " if thou canst believe, all things 
 are possible to him that believeth," And while it 
 seems evident that the man sick of the palsy had 
 the faith needed to secure his own healing, yet as 
 if on purpose to emphasize Christ's interest in the 
 ministry of others the record says : " And Jesus 
 seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy," 
 not the sick man's faith, but the faith of the four 
 men who at so much pains and effort let him down 
 before Jesus through the roof of the house. 
 
 3. These twenty cases that were brought by 
 others were hard cases — persons who could not or 
 would not come for themselves. They were per- 
 sons already dead, who could not come for them- 
 selves, or possessed with demons and would not 
 come for themselves, or they had the palsy, or 
 were so crippled, or were so low with disease that 
 they were physically unable to come for themselves. 
 
 4. These hard cases were apparently not only 
 just as easily cured, but just as willingly cured as 
 the six persons who appealed to Jesus in their own 
 behalf. That is, whether it was the individual's 
 own faith or the faith of another did not seem to 
 affect the result, if it was real genuine faith. Those 
 who came in behalf of others were as certain of a 
 hearing, and as uniformly successful, as those who 
 came in their own behalf. 
 
 Now, as I read the word, the object of Jesus' life 
 here was to reveal God the Father through the 
 
REACHING MEN I 5 
 
 person of his Son. The object of the miracles was 
 to bear witness not only to his power but espe- 
 cially to his great love, his tender sympathy for 
 our race. And as the greater includes the less, we 
 reach the conclusion that all that he was willing to 
 do for the body while he was here in the flesh he 
 is now far more willing to do for the soul, hi fact 
 we cannot conceive him refusing for the spiritual 
 nature what he so readily did for the physical. Do 
 we not all believe and teach without hesitation that 
 Jesus is able and willing to save every one who 
 comes to him and asks for himself with faith ? We 
 point the sinner whose spiritual eyes are blinded to 
 blind Bartimeus. To the one who finds himself 
 full of the leprosy of sin, we preach the gospel of 
 healing with the poor leper as our text. These 
 spiritual lessons from the physical miracles in our 
 Lord's ministry have been drawn by all the lead- 
 ing preachers and teachers of New Testament the- 
 ology from the apostles' day until the present, so 
 far as I am aware. 
 
 But if we are justified in saying to the anxious 
 sinner, " Jesus while here on earth never turned 
 one away who came for himself with believing 
 faith, and therefore will not, cannot turn you 
 away," shall we not say with the same assurance 
 to the earnest Christian who becomes anxious for 
 a lost soul : 
 
 Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ; and as 
 he never turned one away who came to him in behalf of a 
 friend or a neighbor who was sick or crippled or palsied or 
 
l6 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 possessed with demons or was dead, so he will not, cannot 
 turn you away, if you with the same confidence and faith 
 come to him in behalf of one whose soul is palsied or pos- 
 sessed with demons or Is dead. 
 
 I have taken this position for years past, and 
 taught it in public and private. 
 
 The twenty-six cases above noted from the four 
 Gospels we suppose were selected for record simply 
 as specimens of the hundreds and thousands of 
 miracles performed by our Lord during his three 
 and a half years of public ministry. And these 
 are recorded to teach us all the lessons we need as 
 to Jesus' sympathy and love and the conditions 
 and the acceptable methods of approaching him 
 either for ourselves or for others. 
 
 Is it therefore an unimportant fact that there were 
 recorded at least three times as many persons who 
 were brought to Christ by others as came in their 
 own' behalf ? For this proportion of three to one, 
 or thereabouts, is evidently not accidental. The 
 careful reader of the Gospel narrative will easily 
 discover that the ministry of others is made the 
 prominent feature in the history of the miracles. 
 Not only were there twenty cases brought by 
 others, as against six who came for themselves, 
 but in every record of wholesale miracle-working, 
 that is, where a multitude is gathered together, 
 and a large number are healed in a single evening 
 or in a day, the statements are so worded as to 
 make prominent only the ministry of others, as for 
 instance Matt. 8 : i6, "And when the even was 
 
REACHING MEN \j 
 
 come they brought unto him many that were pos- 
 sessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with 
 his word and healed all that were sick." 
 
 In Matt. 14 : 35, 36, the statement is : 
 
 "And when the men of that place had knowl- 
 edge of him they sent out into all that country 
 round about, and brought unto him all that were 
 diseased : 
 
 "And besought him that they might only touch 
 the hem of his garment ; and as many as touched 
 were made perfectly whole." 
 
 In the next chapter we are told that Jesus re- 
 tired into a mountain of Galilee, and when his 
 whereabouts became known : 
 
 "Great multitudes came unto him, having with 
 them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, 
 and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' 
 feet ; and he healed them." 
 
 It is quite probable that some of these sick people, 
 as soon as Jesus' presence was announced and ex- 
 plained to them, readily comprehended the situa- 
 tion, and at once appealed to him in their own 
 behalf. All this is possible and even quite probable. 
 Yet the record says nothing of these personal ap- 
 peals, but it does make exceedingly prominent the 
 ministry of others. 
 
 So then it cannot be accidental that three times 
 as many cases are recorded of persons healed 
 through the personal efforts and the faith of inter- 
 ested friends or neighbors, as came in their own 
 behalf. 
 
 B 
 
l8 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 And this proportion of three to one becomes ex- 
 ceedingly suggestive and practical to us to-day in 
 view of the facts stated in Chapter 1., that our 
 efforts and our faith are largely limited to the easy 
 cases, embracing possibly one-fourth of the unsaved 
 persons in our country, while the three-fourths, the 
 harder cases, remain unreached. We spend vast 
 sums of money and make prodigious efforts to per- 
 suade one person to come to our gospel feast, while 
 the three persons who will not be persuaded to come 
 for themselves are counted out, and our consciences 
 are easily relieved of responsibility in their behalf. 
 
 If, however, we have rightly read the lesson from 
 the miracles, this great outside throng is within 
 reach of earnest Christian effort, and within the 
 all-embracing compassion of our Lord. 
 
 The limits of this treatise will not permit a full 
 discussion of this unspeakably momentous subject, 
 but we will endeavor very briefly to outline what 
 we conceive to be the Bible teaching. 
 
 Briefly, then, we believe the Bible teaches : 
 
 1. That the word of God, backed up by the 
 divine Spirit, is so " sharp " and so " quick " (life- 
 giving) and so "powerful" that it becomes prac- 
 tically irresistible when properly presented and 
 clearly apprehended. 
 
 2. That the divine Spirit is able, and in answer 
 to earnest believing prayer is willing, to take the 
 word of God which we in our helplessness have 
 attempted to present to the hardened sinner, and 
 so clarify it and hold it up so persistently and ex- 
 
REACHING MEN I9 
 
 hibit its meaning so unmistakably that tiiis hardened 
 sinner will yield to it. 
 
 Two brief incidents will sufficiently explain what 
 we mean to teach : 
 
 I. An earnest colporter met an unusually rough 
 and ungodly captain of a canal boat and handed him 
 a gospel tract. To show his contempt of things 
 divine the captain uttered a horrid oath, tore the 
 tract in pieces, and threw it out into the water in 
 the presence of the colporter. A small bit of the 
 tract stuck to one of his dirty fuigers. He hap- 
 pened to glance at it and saw the word "God." 
 He picked it from his finger, and in doing so 
 saw on the other side the word "eternity." He 
 threw it out into the water and went his way full 
 of blasphemy and hatred of everything pertaining 
 to God. But strangely enough those two words, 
 "God," "eternity," kept coming up in his mind. 
 He thought to brush them away with a laugh and 
 a jeer, but for some reason they would not down. 
 All day long they bothered him. Do what he would 
 they kept intruding themselves. At night he imag- 
 ined he could easily close his eyes upon the un- 
 pleasant picture, but for the first time in years he 
 found himself unable to sleep. Those two words, 
 most potent and most portentous, kept staring him in 
 the face and gave him no rest or slumber. They grew 
 more potent and more portentous every hour. The 
 next day matters became still worse, and the final 
 outcome was that tliose two words, " God " and 
 "eternity," were held up before the mind and 
 
20 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 thought of that wicked man until he saw their 
 meaning, and saw it so clearly that he was led to 
 yield himself to God and prepare for eternity. 
 
 Now our claim is that it was the Holy Spirit who 
 did this. It is his province to take of the "things 
 of Christ" and "show them unto us." It belongs 
 to him, by the use of the word of God as his sharp 
 sword, to "convince men of sin and of righteous- 
 ness and of judgment." And our belief is that the 
 Holy Spirit is willing to do this in any given case in 
 answer to earnest prayer, if such earnest prayer is 
 supplemented by the right kind of effort on our part. 
 
 2. A second incident coming under my own ob- 
 servation will bring out into a clearer light the 
 human agency, or the part God's people may play. 
 
 While assisting a pastor in a special meeting in 
 
 an intelligent lady was converted, who had 
 
 been greatly troubled with skepticism. She had a 
 very dear friend, a Mrs. Skinner, equally intelli- 
 gent, but an open and avowed infidel, a skeptic of 
 a very pronounced type. The very first meeting 
 she attended after her own conversion this good 
 lady asked us all to pray for her friend. The next 
 time she came she repeated the request more ear- 
 nestly than before. She persevered in repeating this 
 request until we all became deeply interested in 
 this case and began earnest prayer for her. In a 
 few days Mrs. Skinner consented to come with her 
 friend to one of our meetings, but became so angry 
 at what she heard that she declared she would never 
 come again. Prayer, however, was continued, and 
 
REACHING MEN 21 
 
 a week later she came again and was still more 
 angry, asserting with increased decision that she 
 would not darken that church door again. This 
 was repeated for several weeks, as the meetings 
 were continued, with no relaxation of earnest prayer 
 for this troubled woman, for it soon became evi- 
 dent that she was passing through a very severe 
 mental and spiritual conflict. She reached a point 
 where she could not stay away from the meetings 
 but a night or two at a timej and yet every time 
 she came she would profess to be displeased. 
 
 I shall never forget the night when the answer 
 came. The church was filled with people. Mrs. 
 Skinner was seated with others on a seat under the 
 window by the side of the pulpit, and when an in- 
 vitation was given for persons in the congregation 
 who desired the prayers of God's people to come 
 forward and occupy the two front seats, instead of 
 stepping out to the seat in front of the pulpit Mrs. 
 Skinner arose and with great deliberation and de- 
 cision said : " Friends, I have decided to be a bur- 
 den on your hearts no longer. Your Jesus I receive 
 as my Jesus." 
 
 The next day she came to the afternoon meeting 
 and very promptly offered herself as a candidate 
 for baptism. The pastor, after examining several 
 other candidates, came to her and began by saying : 
 " Sister Skinner, do you think you have found the 
 Saviour ? " She was puzzled for a moment over 
 the form of the question, but presently answered : 
 " Mr. F , I think the Saviour has found me." 
 
22 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 Mr. F asked no further questions. Tears of 
 
 joy and gratitude came to all our eyes. In a won- 
 derful way God had heard prayer, and in answer a 
 mind poisoned by error, and one of the hardest and 
 most stubborn wills I have ever met, had been 
 sweetly forced to yield to Christ. 
 
 hi this case God's three agents are very plainly 
 seen, and their place and specific work given and 
 clearly defined — the word, the Holy Spirit, and 
 God's people. God's people held aloft the word of 
 life, and it being refused and stubbornly resisted, 
 the aid of the mighty Spirit was more and more 
 invoked by persistent prayer. He took this word, 
 the things of Christ, and so showed them to this 
 stubborn soul that at length she yielded to their 
 influence and was saved. 
 
 Of course, a thorough discussion of this subject 
 would involve a presentation of several important 
 Bible truths, as, for instance, why is the word of 
 God irresistible when properly presented and at- 
 tended by the divine Spirit 1 our duty and privilege 
 to faithfully present God's word, and the ability 
 and the willingness of the Holy Spirit to make 
 effectual use of the word which we present to 
 such hardened sinners in answer to earnest, believ- 
 ing prayer. 
 
 This last would also involve a discussion of the 
 subject of prevailing prayer, what it is, and why 
 the Holy Spirit can do or will do in answer to such 
 praying what he is unwilling to do in the absence 
 of such praying, and also the place that " fasting " 
 
REACHING MEN 23 
 
 and " all-night praying " may sometimes occupy as 
 a natural adjunct of very earnest praying. 
 
 All these considerations, while exceedingly im- 
 portant and vital to the subject under discussion, 
 yet have to be omitted for brevity's sake, and per- 
 haps may suggest themselves to the earnest reader 
 who shall heartily accept the conclusions and the 
 reasonings found in this brief treatment. 
 
Ill 
 
 A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 
 
 " And he gave some . . . pastors and teachers, for the per- 
 fecting of the sanits unto the work of ministering, unto the 
 building up of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:11, 12). 
 
 THERE are certain mischievous errors that have 
 come down to us from the past, and are 
 therefore thoroughly rooted and grounded in 
 the thought and the life of the Christian church to- 
 day, that stand directly in the way of God's plan of 
 reaching the great mass of unsaved ones by persist- 
 ent, informal, individual effort, rather than by the 
 more public and formal presentation of the gospel. 
 
 And the first and perhaps most dangerous of 
 these is the prevalent error regarding the work of 
 the ministry ; the pastor's relation to his people and 
 their relation to him. 
 
 Many seem to believe that the chief business of 
 the ministry is to preach, and the chief business of 
 the laity to support said preachers. We are called 
 "preachers" by way of distinction. 
 
 One of our best thinkers thus plainly states his 
 position : 
 
 The Great Commission was given to the apostles primarily, 
 but as trustees. Now 1 think the work of preaching and bap- 
 tizing is, ordinarily, ministerial work, and that the part of the 
 24 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 2$ 
 
 church at large in that commission is to see that it is done by 
 pastors, missionaries, etc., looldng them out, sending them, 
 praying for and supporting tiiem. 
 
 And this is evidently a very generally received 
 view as to the church's relation to the Great Com- 
 mission. That her obligation as to its claims is 
 chiefly, if not entirely canceled when she has 
 sought out from her own ranl<s men divinely called, 
 and has set them apart to the wori< of the ministry, 
 and sent them forth, and supported them with her 
 money and her prayers. That is, that the church's 
 way to reach the masses is chiefly t/irough the clergy, 
 through her own pastor and his assistants, for tlie 
 work at home ; and through missionaries for the 
 work abroad. 
 
 The author, however, frankly avows his convic- 
 tion that this view instead of being scriptural, is 
 the offspring of Rome, one of the unfortunate heir- 
 looms of the great apostasy which the Reformation 
 failed to kill, and that has entailed more of disaster 
 and spiritual death upon the church as a body than 
 almost any other heresy, its saddest outcome being 
 that the great body of our laymen have never felt 
 the responsibility of personal effort. They pay 
 their money to secure a man to do this work ; and 
 this, together with the feeling that they are not 
 personally adapted to such work, have not the gifts 
 or ability, as they imagine, to do it successfully, 
 has had the effect to quiet their consciences and 
 throw off any feeling of responsibility. And when 
 the appalling destitution around them and all over 
 
26 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 the world is clearly presented, the value of the soul 
 and the superior claims of the future life, and they 
 are aroused to do more than they have been doing, 
 their fust and chief thought is to secure an evangelist, 
 a singer, a lay missionary, or some other attraction, 
 to assist the pastor. It never occurs to them that 
 this is a work they ought to do and must do them- 
 selves ; and that no proxies, however well qualified, 
 can shift the responsibility from their own shoulders, 
 or please God, or successfully accomplish the work. 
 
 We ask the reader's attention to a single passage 
 that presents in one sentence the pastor's relation 
 to his people as well as their relation to him and 
 their great mission on earth : "And he gave some 
 to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evan- 
 gelists, and some pastors and teachers. For the 
 perfecting of the saints unto the work of minister- 
 ing, unto the building up of the body of Christ" 
 (Eph.4: II, 12). 
 
 The old version is misleading. Those good old 
 bishops in King James' day were evidently so com- 
 pletely saturated with the universal sentiment of 
 their day that the clergy was a specially privileged 
 class, with sacred functions beyond the reach of 
 the "laity," that they were unable to understand 
 this very simple, straightforward statement of the 
 apostle, and so practically garbled the passage by 
 putting in three " fors " where the apostle put in 
 only one. They made it read : " For the perfecting 
 of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
 edifying of the body of Christ." 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 2^ 
 
 This would seem to say tliat the pastor had three 
 things to do, perfect the saints, do the work of the 
 ministry, and edify the body of Christ. Paul said 
 nothing of the kind. What he did say would work 
 a complete revolution in present-day methods, for 
 he makes the pastor's chief business, his greatest 
 work to be to reach the unsaved through Ids people. 
 
 The passage intimates quite as plainly that the 
 business of the church is not mainly to support its 
 pastor and build him an audience room and furnish 
 it with various attractions, but to do the work of 
 ministering ; that is, every form of service that will 
 ** build up " the body of Christ. 
 
 But let us focus the light from other passages 
 upon these words of Paul, and see if we can get a 
 still clearer view of their meaning. 
 
 There are at least five words descriptive of five 
 well-known occupations in life that are in various 
 places in the Bible used to describe or illustrate the 
 position of the pastor in his relation to his people. 
 They are "husbandman," "shepherd," "watch- 
 man," " captain," and " overseer," and every one 
 of these is squarely against the prevalent heresy 
 we are combating. 
 
 I. " Husbandman." God's people are his vine- 
 yard and the pastor is the keeper of the vineyard, 
 the husbandman. But the husbandman produces 
 no fruit. All the fruit is gathered from the vine- 
 yard. To-day the pastor is expected to do the pro- 
 ducing, while God's vineyard, the church, care- 
 fully nourishes and encourages him. 
 
28 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 2. The pastor is a "shepherd " ; his people are 
 the flock of sheep. His business is to feed and 
 care for the flock. But all the outcome of his toil 
 must come from the flock. The shepherd produces 
 no fleece ; he brings forth no lambs. His study 
 and care is not how he himself may produce, but 
 how he can so feed and care for his flock that they 
 may produce the largest results. 
 
 3. "Watchman." When a watchman sees an 
 enemy coming it is not his business to get down 
 from his watch-tower, buckle on his armor, and 
 chase the enemy away. His duty is simply to 
 arouse the garrison of soldiers stationed within. It 
 is their business to buckle on the armor and re- 
 pulse the enemy. 
 
 4. The word " captain " is frequently used in the 
 Old Testament to designate the business of the 
 leaders of God's hosts. A captain never says to 
 his men in the presence of an advancing foe : 
 " Boys, do you see the enemy yonder ? Now, you 
 be good fellows ; you shout and encourage, and 
 support, and pray for me, and I'll march there 
 among them and fight and disperse them," The 
 very statement of such a conception destroys it. 
 But evidently this is the conception of many in our 
 churches to-day, who suppose that their main duty 
 is performed when they stand by, holding up the 
 hands of the pastor, and support him, while he 
 marches into the thickest of the fight, and does his 
 best as a champion soldier. The successful captain 
 is not the man who can do the best fighting by 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 29 
 
 himself, or who has the most powerful and the most 
 dextrous right arm ; but the man who can make 
 the best soldiers out of his hundred men. For 
 each of his men has a right arm that may be made 
 as strong and as skillful as his own. 
 
 5. The word "overseer" is, however, the com- 
 pletest word, and most frequently used in the New 
 Testament to describe the work of the pastor. 
 " Over whom the Holy Ghost hath made you over- 
 seers " (Acts 20 : 28). What is the business of 
 an overseer in a shop where a hundred men are 
 employed ? 
 
 Manifestly not to do the work of that shop. The 
 hundred men are employed for that purpose. Man- 
 ifestly too, his business is not to call his hundred 
 men together once a week and deliver to them a 
 carefully prepared address upon their duties to their 
 employers, etc., and then dismiss them to their 
 homes until he can prepare another address. Nor 
 is it the business of those employees to get out 
 once or twice a week to hear their overseer's elo- 
 quent address, pat him on the shoulder and say, 
 " That was a very encouraging and helpful ad- 
 dress," and then make a contribution toward his 
 salary and the expense of lighting and warming the 
 shop. No, no, each one of these hundred men is 
 employed to do an honest day's work every day in 
 the week, and this overseer is put there to see that 
 he does it. He is to find a place for each one, and 
 look after his work, to help the new beginners, and 
 so have general charge of the work of that shop. 
 
30 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 And his success as an overseer will be determined, 
 not at all by his own ability to turn off a large 
 amount of work, but by his ability to get the largest 
 amount of work and the best work from each one 
 of his hundred men. 
 
 How plain and simple, then, these words of the 
 apostle become. God gave apostles, prophets, 
 evangelists, pastors (overseers), and teachers, a 
 large array of helpers, all for one grand purpose, 
 " for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of 
 ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ; 
 till we all come," apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
 overseers, teachers, and people together, "in the 
 unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the 
 Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
 of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Every 
 individual member grown into manhood. In this 
 way only will there be developed skilled workmen 
 enough to do easily and well all the work required 
 in bringing a revolted world back to Jesus Christ. 
 
 The writer desires to relate how his eyes were 
 first opened to a clear understanding of the meaning 
 of the Great Commission in its relation to the neg- 
 lected ones immediately around us. 
 
 Over thirty years ago he was pastor of a small 
 Baptist church in the city of Valparaiso, hid. The 
 membership was about one hundred. The Meth- 
 odist and Presbyterian churches were much stronger, 
 each having two hundred and fifty or over, both 
 also sustaining a flourishing academy that brought 
 into their congregations a large number of young 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 31 
 
 people. These three and a little Christian church, 
 with a score of members, constituted the religious 
 furnishings of the city and the adjacent country, 
 containing, all told, a population of about four 
 thousand. The Baptist church was in very great 
 need of a revival ; there had been no conversions 
 for years, the spiritual state was low, the Sunday- 
 school small, congregations meagre, and scarcely 
 any unconverted at either Sabbath service. The 
 pastor had frequently prepared sermons for the un- 
 converted, and had been obliged to preach them to 
 professing Christians only. By some careful figur- 
 ing he had ascertained that there were at least fifteen 
 hundred people old enough to be Christians, who 
 never went inside of a church door. He had also 
 come into possession of two other facts that began 
 to trouble him. The first was that the Methodist 
 and Presbyterian churches were not likely to look 
 after those fifteen hundred people. Having a 
 large number of unconverted already in their con- 
 gregations, they found plenty of material to work 
 upon without seeking new. If, therefore, these 
 fifteen hundred were to be looked after, the Bap- 
 tists must do it. 
 
 But a second fact, still more perplexing, was that 
 neither the Baptist pastor, nor the membership, nor 
 the choir, nor the church edifice was sufficiently 
 attractive to draw any one of these fifteen hundred 
 people. How to reach them was therefore a most 
 perplexing problem. 
 
 They thought they had a solution. Good Brother 
 
32 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 Ash, pastor at Laporte, twenty-five miles east, was 
 very popular in Valparaiso. Whenever he came a 
 full house greeted him ; and he had given encour- 
 agement that he would help when needed. So after 
 the week of prayer, special meetings were begun, 
 and Brother Ash was invited. But for some reason 
 lie would not come. Two deacons were sent, but 
 failed to bring him ; then the pastor went, but he 
 would not come. We felt indignant, for there 
 seemed no good reason ; but the Lord had shut him 
 up, and he just would not come. 
 
 Meanwhile the meetings were continued without 
 a particle of interest, only a growing anxiety on the 
 part of a few members to have a revival. The pas- 
 tor could not preach extemporaneously, and had 
 used up all his old preparations before the meeting 
 began, and of course could not prepare a written 
 sermon every day that had any drawing power in 
 it. When he had a whole week for preparation 
 he was unable to draw the unconverted on the 
 Sabbath, much less on a week night. He felt the 
 humiliation of his position very keenly, but not a 
 bit more so than his good brethren did. But what 
 could be done ? A little handful of anxious ones 
 meeting every night, praying for a revival, and yet 
 completely beaten when Brother Ash obstinately 
 said " no." 
 
 As a next best thing the pastor wrote to every 
 Baptist minister within reach of Valparaiso, but 
 was unsuccessful everywhere. 
 
 Three weeks thus passed, when as a last resort 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 33 
 
 he went to Chicago to secure Brother Hunt, then a ' 
 very successful Sunday-school man, a lay worker, 
 and a warm personal friend. Brother Hunt " wanted 
 to come very much, but was so situated," etc. 
 He fmally said: "Go and get Brother Brace." 
 Brother Brace was a young man, a convert of only 
 three years, without education, a foreigner, with a 
 brogue that almost made it difficult to understand 
 him at first acquaintance, uncouth in his appearance, 
 and witho-ut a particle of polish in his manners, but 
 a warm-hearted, genial young Christian, full of love 
 for Jesus, and willing to do all he could for him. 
 He was a mason by trade, with a mother and two 
 sisters depending upon him for their support. How- 
 ever, by our becoming personally responsible for 
 his wages as a mason, Brother Brace was secured. 
 He brought with him a satchel full of tracts and 
 papers, and proposed to visit every family in the 
 city, and speak an earnest word to every individual 
 in each family ; but he wanted somebody to go with 
 him. "Two by two," he said, "was the gospel 
 plan." It was with considerable difficulty that a 
 partner was secured. Several of our best brethren 
 and sisters had nothing specially important on hand 
 just then ; but the very idea of doing such a work 
 almost took their breath away. Finally good Brother 
 Wallace consented to go with Brother Brace, on 
 condition that he " shouldn't be expected to take 
 any part during the day ! " They began in the 
 morning, starting en the street next to the church. 
 They stopped at every house, Methodists, Presby- 
 
 C 
 
34 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 terians, everybody. Brother Brace was very per- 
 sistent, yet without offense, in seeing every person 
 in the house — the hired girl, the man sawing wood 
 out in the back shed, every child, large and small. 
 A few, earnest, tender words, a prayer where found 
 desirable, and a warm invitation to attend the 
 meeting at night, these were the means used. 
 
 The very first night we had some new faces in 
 our congregation and a new interest. In fact, 
 Brother Wallace had found his heart and his mouth 
 opened long before the evening service ! Within a 
 week the house was full, and nearly a dozen had 
 asked for prayer. The Methodists who had been 
 conducting a meeting during all these weeks with 
 indifferent interest, began to wake up, and very 
 soon their house was full. We sent for the Pres- 
 byterian pastor who was helping somewhere in a 
 meeting ; he came home, opened his church, and 
 it was soon crowded. And thus for weeks, the 
 work developed more and more power, until salva- 
 tion almost literally "ran down our streets like a 
 river." It was by far the most extended and 
 powerful work of grace Valparaiso had ever en- 
 joyed. I do not know the number of professed 
 conversions, several hundred, but I know that 
 every person in Valparaiso had the message of sal- 
 vation earnestly presented to him two or three 
 times, at least, before that meeting closed. For 
 Brother Brace and partner had been at work but 
 three or four days, when several other parties were 
 ready to fall into line, and ere the meetings closed 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 35 
 
 a large number of the converts had also undertaken 
 the same good work. 
 
 This was my first real lesson on the Great Com- 
 mission. It proved a most effectual commentary, es- 
 pecially in two directions : it gave a new and a very 
 real meaning to the one word " every creature," 
 and it quite unsettled me as to the exalted position 
 and the exclusive heritage of the clergy. 
 
 Will the pastors who read these pages suffer this 
 word of exhortation, that you attempt as rapidly as 
 possible to get into the position of "overseers " ? 
 I mean by this that you come to regard the work 
 of developing the individual members of your church 
 into soul winners as your first work, rather than 
 the preparation and delivery of sermons. And 
 further, that you convince yourself thoroughly that 
 the true way, in fact the only effectual way, of 
 doing this is not primarily through sermons and 
 prayer meeting talks, but by actually doing it. That 
 is, taking one and another and another of your 
 members right out into the field, the "highways 
 and hedges " and showing them how to do personal 
 work, just as an "overseer" would initiate a 
 beginner in the shop. If you have not been doing 
 this in the past, your work, from an overseer's 
 standpoint, has largely been a failure, has it not ? 
 You have had one hundred, two hundred, five hun- 
 dred of the Lord's employees under your charge for 
 the past five, ten, twenty, or possibly thirty years, 
 and how many of these employees have become 
 skilled workmen under your direction ^ The num- 
 
36 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 ber of developed soul winners in your church must 
 be the test of your success as an overseer. 
 
 The ordinary overseer whose men were as 
 "raw " after five or ten years of his oversight as 
 when they began work under him, v^%uld certainly 
 be counted a complete failure. Should he reply, 
 "Nay, but I have delivered the most earnest ad- 
 dresses to these workmen. 1 have reasoned with 
 them and pleaded with them as earnestly as I am 
 capable, and they have responded in the most 
 hearty 'amens,' have said, oh, so many times, 
 ' What a splendid address,' ' How practical,' ' How 
 plain,' * How inspiring,' * Bound to do good.' Cer- 
 tainly I have had every evidence of my men's 
 appreciation." 
 
 Our answer would have to be : " All this may be 
 true, but you were employed in that shop to set 
 those men to work and keep them at work, sliow- 
 ing them how, etc. Instead of this, you have been 
 addressing them, talking eloquently to tliem, and 
 finding gratification in their clieers and their hearty 
 appreciation of your ability as a speaker, your 
 many manly qualities, etc., while the real work of 
 that shop and the great interests of your employer 
 have been sacrificed. As a matter of fact, under 
 your manipulation, or at least by your tacit con- 
 sent as their overseer, those employees have reached 
 the conclusion that they can stay at home six days 
 in tlie week and run business of their own and yet 
 expect wages as employees." 
 
 Of course the illustration of a shop and its over- 
 
A MISCHIEVOUS ERROR 37 
 
 seer cannot be pushed in all directions. God is not 
 running a shop for the pay he can get out of it ; 
 nor will he go into bankruptcy if his employees re- 
 fuse or fail to do their work. And yet, as we have 
 already learned, more than one-half of the adults 
 in our favored land, and ninety-eight out of every 
 one hundred, taking all the rest of the world to- 
 gether, are as yet untouched by the saving influ- 
 ences of the gospel. And though God himself can- 
 not become bankrupt, or ultimately fail of accom- 
 plishing his great purposes of grace and love, yet 
 more than a thousand million souls are to-day going 
 into eternal bankruptcy because God's people have 
 failed to hear his trumpet call, " Go ye into all the 
 world and preacii the gospel to every creature." 
 God is not willing that any one of these thousand 
 millions should perish ; but, as we have found, is 
 depending upon his people as his body to go out 
 into the highways and hedges and compel them 
 to come in. And beloved brethren, because God 
 thought he could trust you with so important a 
 mission, he has put you into the ministry, and 
 given you the charge of his workmen. Did he 
 make a mistake in the selection of his leaders ^ 
 
 If Paul told the truth as to the object, the great 
 business of the Christian ministry (Eph. 4 : 12), to 
 develop the saints until they shall be able to do all 
 kinds of service and to build up the body of Christ, 
 then I fear that the large proportion of us have been 
 pitiable failures ! Ten years, perhaps twenty or 
 thirty years of oversight and drilling, and the most 
 
38 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 of our men not a whit better than when we began ! 
 No more skillful as workmen, no larger as Chris- 
 tians, almost as completely babes as the day they 
 were born ! Many of them, in fact, smaller and 
 weaker than on the day of their birth ! A very 
 good proof this that our methods must be at fault. 
 
 Rev. Doctor Manning, in his hitroduction, speaks 
 of Uncle John Vassar, who is known and revered 
 by thousands of souls whom he was permitted to 
 lead to Christ, and is loved and admired by a 
 great host of God's people who were helped and 
 inspired by his thorough consecration to God and 
 his great love for lost men. Only a humble lay- 
 man, with little education and no large brain cali- 
 ber ; yet what a wondrous power for good ! Every- 
 where he went he was "a burning and a shining 
 light," waking up sleeping Christians and setting 
 whole communities on fire ! My brother pastor, 
 are you sure there are not a score of Uncle John 
 Vassars among the men and women of your church, 
 only awaiting your molding hand, and subject to 
 your call ? 
 
IV 
 
 A SECOND ERROR 
 " Without me ye can do nothing " (John 15:5). 
 
 THERE is a second mischievous error, closely 
 related to the one just considered, quite as 
 prevalent, and quite as unfortunate in its 
 ability to paralyze effort. It is the very common 
 error as to the kind of effort required in winning a 
 soul to Christ. The very general conception seems 
 to be that it is largely a mental struggle, a sharp 
 contest between mind and mind, the weaker finally 
 yielding to the superior logic, the impassioned ap- 
 peal, the irresistible eloquence, or the hypnotic in- 
 fluences of the stronger. 
 
 The following excuses will suggest the prevalent 
 drift of thought : 
 
 " I can't talk with people so as to make any impression 
 upon them." 
 
 " That neighbor over there can talk all around me, there 
 is not a particle of use of my visiting there." 
 
 " 1 am not sufficiently posted on the evidences to reply to 
 
 Mr. H 's objections to the Bible, so what is the use of my 
 
 calling upon him? " 
 
 " If I had the learning, or the knowledge of human nature, 
 or such ability to get at people as my pastor possesses, I 
 would not hesitate a moment." 
 
 39 
 
40 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 " There is Mrs. S , she is not especially gifted in speech 
 
 but she is wealthy, her husband is the mayor of the city, or a 
 senator. People respect her, and will listen attentively to 
 whatever she says. My husband is not so fortunate ; no one 
 cares particularly for me ; so what is the use?" 
 
 " Oh, 1 suppose if 1 were thoroughly consecrated, like Sister 
 
 E , if my heart were brimming full of love for the Master 
 
 and of tender interest for souls, so that whenever 1 spoke to 
 them the tears would come unbidden, and 1 could just over- 
 whelm them by my emotion — why, then I might accomplish 
 something. But somehow 1 never could get hold of people." 
 
 And thus in one way and another there is con- 
 stantly cropping out the mischievous idea that to 
 be a successful soul-winner I must in some way 
 have the ability to overmaster the one whom I 
 would reach, either by my superior conversational 
 powers, my acute logic, my learning, my position 
 in society, my impassioned earnestness, my mas- 
 tery of the emotions, or ability to control other 
 natural forces or elements of power. And because 
 the rank and file of our members do not possess 
 these desirable qualifications in so large a measure 
 as they suppose needful, they consider themselves 
 quite excusable, and may leave the work to the 
 preachers, or to a possible few in the church who 
 are favored with the requisite qualifications. 
 
 Now, it would be a sufficient answer to all this 
 to quote the plain, unequivocal language of the 
 Master himself, "Without me ye can do nothing." 
 Or the positive side of the same truth as uttered 
 by the apostle, " I can do all things through Christ 
 that strengtheneth me." Or put in still more defi- 
 
A SECOND ERROR 41 
 
 nite terms, " He that abideth in me and I in liim, 
 the same bringeth forth much fruit." This tells us 
 absolutely that the qualifications for large useful- 
 ness or fruit-bearing are not dependent upon the 
 natural elements of power or influence over men, 
 but rather upon our close relations with the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 The true source of power over men is most con- 
 clusively revealed in Gen. 32 : 28. After an all- 
 night wrestling, God said to Jacob : " Thy name 
 shall no more be called Jacob but Israel (/. e., prince 
 of God), for as a prince hast thou power with God 
 and with men and hast prevailed." 
 
 Jacob had not as yet met his brother, but God 
 says, "thou hast prevailed." The wicked Esau is 
 conquered. How conquered } By logic ? Elo- 
 quent speech ? An appeal to the emotions ? The 
 skillful manipulation of magnetic forces ? No, no, 
 none of these. Jacob had met God and prevailed 
 with him ; he had taken hold of omnipotent forces, 
 had moved the arm that moves the world. 
 
 And as God's true people have ever since borne 
 this wonderful name, " Israel," "princes of God," 
 so it has ever been true that they have had power 
 and influence over men, not at all in proportion to 
 their natural resources, but in proportion to their 
 close relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, for 
 he said : " If ye abide in me and my words abide in 
 you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done 
 unto you." And th's, whether you can talk fast or 
 slow, reason logically or otherwise, have magnetic 
 
42 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 powers at your command, have the influence which 
 the possession of wealth or position in society 
 brings or belong to the poorest and the most 
 obscure. As a matter of fact, God reveals a 
 reason why not many "wise men after the flesh," 
 not many "mighty," not many "noble" should 
 be put forward in his kingdom. 
 
 " But God hath chosen the foolish things of the 
 world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen 
 the weak things of the world to confound the things 
 which are mighty ; and base things of the world, 
 and things which are despised, hath God chosen, 
 yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought 
 things that are ; that no flesh should glory in his 
 presence " (i Cor. i : 26-29). 
 
 And it is not difficult to understand why an en- 
 throned Christ rather than an eloquent tongue 
 should be most successful in reaching lost men. 
 
 I. What does that lost soul need in order to obtain 
 salvation .-' He needs to become acquainted with the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. "And this is life eternal that 
 they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus 
 Christ whom thou hast sent " (John 17 : 3). 
 
 To know Christ is to trust him ; to know him is 
 to be captured by him. " When it pleased God . . . 
 to reveal his Son in me immediately I conferred not 
 with flesh and blood " (Gal. i : 16). At once cap- 
 tured when the Son was revealed to him ! The 
 reason men do not love the Lord Jesus Christ and 
 trust all their interests for time and eternity to 
 him, is simply because they do not know him. 
 
A SECOND ERROR 43 
 
 2. But there is no way of imparting tiiis infor- 
 mation, and introducing a soul to the Lord Jesus 
 Christ so directly and effectively as by bringing that 
 soul into personal contact with Jesus as he lives 
 enthroned in the person of a consecrated Christian. 
 Actions always speak louder than words. A " living 
 epistle" will be "known and read of all men" 
 where words are empty and lifeless. 
 
 Many of my readers are perhaps familiar with 
 Rev. A. B. Earles' account of a skeptical judge 
 near Boston, who was first made a skeptic and 
 afterward converted, by a philosophical study of 
 his own wife. He had listened to eloquent, clear, 
 powerful preaching all his life without avail. His 
 wife was a noble specimen of a woman, all that 
 could be desired as a wife, and a prominent mem- 
 ber of a fashionable church, a gifted leader in 
 church society. But the most careful scrutiny on 
 the part of the husband revealed no divine element 
 in her life. Her noble womanly qualities came to 
 her not through her religion, but through a ricii 
 natural inheritance. So far as he could see, her 
 religion was doing nothing for her beyond what a 
 well-endowed nature furnished. And so he became 
 skeptical, concluding there was nothing in religion 
 except an outward form, since his wife was ac- 
 counted more than an average specimen. 
 
 But there came a time of refreshing in that com- 
 munity, and this good wife experienced a wonder- 
 ful spiritual uplift that brought her close to the 
 Saviour, and so filled her with his gracious presence 
 
44 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 that her entire outward Hfe was changed. Her 
 very face became radiant with a new-found joy 
 and peace. Her whole conduct revealed the pres- 
 ence of a new-found Friend, dearer than life, and 
 yet whose presence sweetened every part of life, 
 made her husband dearer to her, and gave an added 
 charm and interest to everything about her. 
 
 A few days of this new life in Christ furnished 
 the evidence that thirty years of nominal church- 
 membership and thousands of eloquent sermons 
 had failed to do. The judge was converted. An 
 enthroned Christ proved a stronger appeal than 
 eloquence, or logic, or magnetic currents, or Chris- 
 tian atmospheres ! 
 
 We are told of two brothers, alike educated, keen 
 of intellect, powerful in speech — the one a promi- 
 nent minister of the gospel, the other equally 
 prominent as an expounder of the law, but a con- 
 firmed skeptic. The lawyer sent word that he 
 would visit his brother, remain over Sabbath, and 
 hear him preach. The brother considered this the 
 providential opportunity of his life, and so for three 
 weeks the midnight oil was burned and his library 
 ransacked in the earnest effort to prepare a sermon 
 whose logic should be invincible and whose reason- 
 ing exhaustive. The lawyer came, listened to the 
 able sermon and returned home. A few weeks 
 later he asked his brother's prayers, and told of 
 skepticism vanished. 
 
 With inexpressible delight the brother replied, 
 giving suitable counsel and help, and closed his let- 
 
A SECOND ERROR 45 
 
 ter with the inquiry, " What particular thought in 
 the sermon was made such a blessing to you, my 
 brotiier ? It might be of value to the cause of 
 truth if put into tract form, or otherwise given to a 
 wider public." 
 
 The brother replied that the sermon, though very 
 able, had no special effect upon him. He had an- 
 swered satisfactorily to himself each different argu- 
 ment as it had been presented. But after the 
 sermon, when that old colored brother got up and in 
 a stammering way told of his love for Jesus, there 
 was something in his manner, in his glowing face, 
 in his moistened eyes, that said to that practical 
 lawyer so used to reading men — "Real," "gen- 
 uine," and somehow furnished an argument that 
 he did not know how to answer. 
 
 But incidents of this kind are familiar to us all, 
 and yet how slow to learn the important truth, that 
 it is "not by might, nor by power, but by my 
 Spirit." That an enthroned Christ is the real 
 power. " He that abideth in me and 1 in him, the 
 same bringeth forth much fruit." Not a little fruit, 
 but much fruit, much ! much ! ! much I 1 ! 
 
 It is the omnipotence behind the arrow and not the 
 character or quality of the arrow itself,' that deter- 
 
 1 I presume it is hardly necessary for me to explain, that I am not foolish 
 enough to believe or teach that natural gifts or special mental training 
 makes no difference, and is no aid in winning a man to Christ. While the 
 omnipotence behind the arrow is the most important, the essential factor, 
 yet even an omnipotent hand can use a straight, well-shaped., smooth, and 
 toughened arrow with far more effectiveness than a crooked, unwieldy, ill- 
 shaped, and brittle affair. 
 
 When David would slay the giant Goliath with stones from his sling, he 
 selected smooth, round stones from a brook, stones that would go straight to 
 the mark when slung from his sling, instead of rough or flat or three-cornered 
 stones that might easily be deflected from their course. 
 
46 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 mines chiefly how far it shall be projected, and with 
 what irresistible effect (see Zech. 9 : 14), and it is a 
 living Christ enthroned in the heart and life, actually 
 living in a human body, looking through human 
 eyes, adding an expressible charm to the counte- 
 nance, making the heart larger and the mouth wiser 
 and the feet more beautiful ; an every-day presence, 
 filling the heart with gladness and the lips with 
 laughter and praise, making unpleasant duties a 
 pleasure and sacrifices a joy, that preaches the 
 loudest sermon and the best. 
 
 A remarkably suggestive scene is that recorded 
 in 2 Kings 4 : 34-36, the restoration of the dead 
 boy to life. The prophet went alone into the room 
 where the dead child lay, and after shutting the 
 door and praying, " He went up and lay upon the 
 child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his 
 eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands : 
 and he stretched himself upon the child, and the 
 flesh of the child waxed warm." 
 
 And this process was repeated until " the child 
 opened his eyes " and life was restored. Whether 
 a designed type or not, there is in this strange scene 
 a beautiful suggestion of God's method of bringing 
 dead souls to life, by having a live soul, one full of 
 the Christ life, come into such close and persistent 
 contact with a dead soul, as that the warmth and 
 heat of the one shall become contagious, and by 
 and by impart itself to the other. Or to express it 
 in another way — this man whom I wish to reach 
 and save has ears, but he does not hear God's 
 
A SECOND ERROR 47 
 
 warnings or his gracious promises, and so 1 put my 
 ears into his ears' place ; 1 hear for him. He has 
 eyes, but they do not see the dangers that beset 
 him, or the glorious things that are offered him ; 
 but 1 see these things clearly, and so I become eyes 
 to him. He has a mouth, but it has never been 
 opened in prayer to God, and so I talk to God in 
 his behalf, as he ought to talk for himself. His 
 heart is cold and dead, and so I put my heart in his 
 heart's place and attempt to feel for him the burden 
 of soul and the agony of interest that he ought to 
 feel for himself. 
 
 And thus I put my soul in that soul's place so 
 closely, so persistently, that he cannot help but 
 catch my fire and become warm from my heat. 
 
 is not this the central thought in the command 
 " Go out into the highways and hedges and compel 
 them to come hi " ? No man can be forced to be a 
 Christian. And yet, if 1 lay siege to my neighbor, 
 get close to him, and hold on tenaciously and per- 
 sistently, will not be shaken off or turned aside by 
 any consideration of self-interest or ease — naturally 
 enough, my great interest in him will by and by 
 awaken interest in himself. 
 
 The word leaven is a very expressive word. As 
 a Bible type, it represents sin. But it has a won- 
 derful power of assimilation ; it is able to get close 
 to and take hold of every particle of meal with 
 which it comes in contact, and hold on until it has 
 diffused itself, imparted its own nature to those 
 particles. In this particular, it becomes a remark- 
 
48 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 ably practical illustration of what Christ's people 
 ought to be and may be as they come in contact 
 with those around them — an active, vigorous, re- 
 generating force, 
 
 1. Leaven or yeast is of no value or force so long 
 as it is kept apart from the meal. In cakes covered 
 with tin-foil, it is utterly useless. It is only when 
 dissolved in water and mixed through the entire mass 
 of meal so thoroughly that its particles come in con- 
 tact, close and direct, with every separate particle 
 of the meal, and remain in such close contact until 
 time enough has elapsed for a chemical change to 
 take place, that it can accomplish its work. 
 
 2. But with these conditions, the results follow 
 with mathematical certainty. It always accom- 
 plishes its mission, if the yeast is good. 
 
 Many a church is like a gross of yeast cakes cov- 
 ered with tin-foil, boxed up, and packed away on 
 ice. Good yeast it may be, but in cold cakes yet. 
 If we would see the power of God displayed, and 
 the entire community permeated with the truth, let 
 those yeast cakes be melted up somehow, get them 
 warm until fermentation begins, then start them 
 out into the streets and lanes of the city, out into 
 the highways and hedges, out into the slums, the 
 " deeps " of sin and depravity, and we will discover 
 that the old gospel has lost none of its power. 
 
 "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5 : 13). 
 This is a boy's definition of salt : " Salt is that kind 
 of stuff that makes your potatoes taste bad when 
 you don't put it in." 
 
A SECOND ERROR 49 
 
 We can readily imagine a thousand barrels of tlie 
 best and purest salt crowded into a warehouse, and 
 the warehouse surrounded by great piles of meat 
 and fish and vegetables of various kinds souring 
 and spoiling and rotting until the very atmosphere 
 becomes polluted and death-dealing. What is the 
 matter ? Only this : The salt has been kept in 
 those barrels instead of being distributed all through 
 that outlying mass. 
 
 The Christian world to-day presents the strange 
 phenomenon of a vast amount of apparently good 
 salt "barreled up" in our churches. At least, all 
 around these churches and living next door per- 
 haps, to its individual members are multitudes of 
 people who are spoiling and filling the moral at- 
 mosphere with malarial poisons, becoming worse 
 and worse ; for drunkenness, lewdness, debauch- 
 ery, anarchism, thieving, robbing, murder,' all are 
 said to be on the increase in our country, breath- 
 ing out pestilence and death. What is the matter ? 
 The salt has not been put in. It is barreled up 
 in our churches, brought out for exhibition on the 
 Lord's Day, or displayed at the week evening 
 prayer meeting, but is not brought into close living 
 contact with this reeking, seething mass that 
 crowds the saloons and gambling hells and brothels 
 every night, and fills our jails. 
 
 Do you note how that farmer occupies his field 
 of corn ? He begins at one corner of the field and 
 runs his cultivator alongside of each separate row 
 of corn, touching every hill as he passes, and then 
 
 D 
 
50 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 back on the other side of the same row touching 
 every hill on that side. And then, if the corn is 
 planted in rows both ways, he turns about and 
 runs his cultivator crosswise over the entire field ; 
 so that when the field is completed, he has touched 
 each separate hill of corn on all four sides. He has 
 not simply touched these separate hills ; he has 
 pressed his cultivator right down into the soil and 
 thoroughly stirred it clear to the very roots of these 
 hills, and all around them on all four sides; so that 
 the entire soil has been moved and made mellow. 
 And frequently he has had to stop his team and 
 reach down and with his own hand pluck out from 
 between the stocks of corn some wild vine that has 
 secured a foothold there, and which, if unmolested 
 would ruin the entire hill. 
 
 Thus each hill in that field receives his careful 
 attention according to its needs. And he does this, 
 not once or twice, but he keeps at it all summer. 
 Over and over again he stirs the soil around these 
 hills, and removes the obstructions to their growth, 
 until every separate stock in each hill has devel- 
 oped all its strength, and is ready to produce a 
 golden harvest. 
 
 God's hills are all souls, precious souls of incon- 
 ceivable value, each separate soul of inconceivable 
 value, and God wants each one saved. He wants 
 this particular neighbor saved who lives in the 
 same block with me and upon whom I have never 
 yet called. God has called upon that neighbor ten 
 thousand times and been deeply, intensely inter- 
 
A SECOND ERROR 51 
 
 ested in his salvation. He has spared his life all 
 these years, restored him from grievous sicknesses, 
 averted dangers, thrown around him a thousand 
 kindly providences. In fact, he has done all that 
 God himself can do except to force me as his co- 
 laborer to do my part, not willing that any should 
 perish. But he is crippled in this instance and 
 handicapped by my unbelief or want of consecra- 
 tion or of clear views of duty and responsibility. 
 For how can that neighbor "hear without a 
 preacher" ? And the preacher who lives nearest 
 to him, I myself, has never yet called upon him. 
 The main reason, therefore, so far as I may know, 
 why that neighbor is not yet saved is simply my- 
 self. Possibly I have imagined the reason to be 
 because that neighbor is so depraved that he will 
 not come to our attractive meeting-house and listen 
 to our able pastor or the delightful music which we 
 have so liberally helped to procure. Perhaps so, 
 and yet it remains true that God loves that soul so 
 intensely that he had him directly in mind when 
 he said to me, "Occupy this field for me." And 
 when he found that this neighbor would not be 
 attracted by the fine music or the eloquent preach- 
 ing, then he said to me still more directly and posi- 
 tively, " Go over there and compel him to come 
 in," or, keeping in thought the figure of the corn- 
 field and this neighbor as one of the hills, God asks 
 me to go over there and get right down by the side 
 of this particular hill and dig all around it, stirring 
 the soil of his heart to its very depths with God's 
 
52 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 plowshare, his irresistible word, and keep doing 
 this persistently, if need be, with tears, giving him 
 no rest nor God rest until by the aid of the Holy 
 Spirit, who always accompanies such effort, this 
 hill has been won for Christ and transformed into 
 a fruit-producing plant. 
 
 This sort of individual, personal work has some- 
 how never seemed to enter into the thought of the 
 great body of our Christian laymen as a personal 
 obligation. But suppose we put the matter squarely 
 and earnestly in this way : 
 
 (i) If present methods have so far failed to reach 
 that neighbor ; (2) if present methods crowded to 
 their utmost tension would probably be equally 
 unsuccessful in reaching this particular case ; (3) 
 but if a personal effort made by myself after the 
 fashion just suggested would probably be success- 
 ful — then the conclusion seems absolutely un- 
 avoidable, God wants me to make that effort. The 
 interests of that precious soul are specially com- 
 mitted to me, in such a sense too, fearful thought ! 
 that if I fail and that soul perishes his blood will be 
 required at my hands. 
 
 As a matter of fact, if the great revivals of mod- 
 ern times, the really deep, powerful ones, could be 
 carefully investigated, the personal element would be 
 seen to be the predominating feature. The author's 
 experience while doing the work of an evangelist 
 has been uniformly this. If he succeeded in arous- 
 ing the church-members so that they became deeply 
 interested and anxious for a revival, that interest 
 
A SECOND ERROR 53 
 
 would invariably manifest itself in the individual 
 members of the church singling out specific cases 
 for prayer. A wife will become intensely anxious 
 for her husband and ask the church to pray for 
 him. And she herself will hold right on, becoming 
 every day more and more anxious, pleading with 
 constantly increasing intensity for the church's aid, 
 and combining such appeals to the church with her 
 own individual efforts to interest her husband. A 
 parent will in the same way become interested in 
 a child, a Sunday-school teacher for her class or 
 for individuals in her class, another one for some 
 hardened sinner. 
 
 I shall never forget how a pastor once singled 
 out the three leading men of the place, all rough, 
 swearing, ungodly men. He asked us all to pray 
 for them ; did not mention their names, only said, 
 " those three men," and kept on saying it at every 
 meeting for prayer until every member of the 
 church became interested in "those three men," 
 and prayer ascended to God every day and almost 
 continually for over six weeks until the trio were 
 one after the other converted. 
 
 My conviction is that no real deep work of grace 
 is possible that does not develop this element of 
 individual work for individual souls. No matter 
 how powerful the preaching or how noted the evan- 
 gelist, that preaching is the most powerful and se- 
 cures largest results which first reaches and arouses 
 God's people to personal effort and to mighty wres- 
 tling prayer for individual sinners. 
 
54 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 When Elder Jacob Knapp was in his prime as an 
 evangelist he went to Utica, New York, and spent 
 eleven weeks there. Beginning in a small Baptist 
 church, his congregations rapidly grew. Larger 
 churches were offered him and still larger until the 
 largest room in the city was occupied and packed 
 to the doors day after day. 
 
 For nine weeks this eccentric man of God 
 preached to professing Christians only, not a ser- 
 mon to the unconverted. But at the end of the 
 nine weeks the whole Christian population of the 
 city apparently were upon their knees in bitter re- 
 pentance for their sins, especially the sin of neglect- 
 ing their neighbors' souls. And they started out 
 two by two to visit every unsaved person in the 
 city. They met their unconverted neighbors, the 
 ungodly business men of the city, as well as their 
 own husbands and wives and brothers and sons 
 with tears and pleaded for forgiveness for years of 
 neglect, and then with great tenderness and intense 
 earnestness besought them to be reconciled to God. 
 
 This was going out into the "deep." It was 
 real obedience to the Great Commission, an earnest 
 attempt to " preach the gospel to every creature." 
 And the results were simply marvelous. In two 
 weeks eleven hundred persons were converted. 
 
 Many imagine such old-fashioned revivals are 
 things of the past and cannot be expected in these 
 days. 'But try this method and see. 
 
SENT TO SAVE 
 
 " As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also 
 sent them into the world" (John 17 : 18). 
 
 THE picture forming the frontispiece presents a 
 robust-looking man out on a wide, deep sea, 
 leisurely rowing along in a large lifeboat, 
 looking skyward, and singing lustily as he rows, 
 "I'm bound for the kingdom, glory, hallelujah," 
 while all around him are hundreds of drowning men 
 and women struggling vainly for life amid the angry 
 billows. But in his selfish joy he moves leisurely 
 on, singing his psalms, and shouting his hallelujahs, 
 apparently unmoved by the fearful catastrophes 
 that are almost momentarily taking place around 
 him—the look of despair, the piteous cry for help, 
 the sinking to rise no more, of one and another and 
 another— but on he rows, and on he sings, and the 
 lifeboat remains empty ! 
 
 Now, this man in the lifeboat is designed to 
 represent many a professing Christian who sup- 
 poses he has a good hope and can " read his title 
 clear. to mansions in the skies," but can look on 
 with apparent indifference at the awful peril of the 
 great mass of people about him, and make no effort 
 to rescue them. The picture, however, is an un- 
 
 55 
 
56 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 natural caricature. In the first place, these drown- 
 ing men and women know that they are drowning, 
 and make frantic efforts to save themselves, crying 
 piteously for aid ; whereas the lost men around the 
 average Christian are doing nothing of the kind ; 
 are neither appealing piteously for help, nor even 
 embracing the multitude of opportunities that are 
 offered them for rescue, if the average Christian 
 to-day were confronted with such a scene as is 
 described in the picture, he would undoubtedly at 
 once interest himself in the rescue of such anxious 
 ones. The problem we have to face is a very dif- 
 ferent one. Men have become the enemies of God, 
 are poisoned by sin, deceived by the arch-enemy, 
 until sin has become "a sweet morsel," and they 
 do not want to part company with it. They are 
 drowning, it is true, but are enjoying their drown- 
 ing as a pleasant pastime ! They will not be per- 
 suaded to get into the lifeboat, even though it 
 stops at their side and offers rescue. 
 
 Nevertheless, the picture is full of suggestiveness 
 to the average Christian ; for the very fact that the 
 great mass of the unsaved are deceived and blinded 
 and poisoned so that they do not want to be saved, 
 only adds to the terribleness of the situation. Be- 
 cause a man is determined to be lost is a reason 
 why heaven and earth should be moved to rescue 
 him, if there is any possibility of rescue. 
 
 Not long since a woman threw herself from a 
 ferryboat, while crossing the Delaware River be- 
 tween Philadelphia and Camden. She was suffer- 
 
SENT TO SAVE 57 
 
 ing from mental derangement and had previously 
 made several attempts to destroy herself, but that 
 fact made no difference. Immediately the engine 
 was reversed, and passengers and crew made every 
 effort possible to rescue her. She fought with her 
 rescuers and was determined to die, but they finally 
 succeeded in saving her ; and no passenger on board 
 that boat was cold-blooded enough to find fault be- 
 cause of the delay ! 
 
 If God's word points out the effectual method of 
 making those unwilling ones willing, in the day of 
 God's power, and these multitudes around me who 
 are so joined to their idols that they do not want to 
 be saved, and who often resent my earnest efforts 
 in this direction — if these may still be rescued, and 
 I, after knowing this fact, remain indifferent, then 
 this picture should be my sharp rebuke. If there 
 is a possibility of rescue, then such rescue becomes 
 the great business of my life. 
 
 HUMAN SYMPATHIES DEMAND IT 
 
 Human sympathies would require just this kind 
 of earnest personal effort for the perishing around 
 us, were there no such command as the " Great 
 Commission " in the Bible. 
 
 Human sympathies are very strong. When 
 thoroughly aroused they master us completely. 
 Sordid, selfish men forget their selfishness, and in 
 the presence of helplessness or danger will risk 
 their lives. A whole community will become ex- 
 
58 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 cited to a white heat over a single child lost. Busy 
 men will forget their business and by the hundreds 
 spend days and nights in the most careful search, 
 until the lost one is found. 
 
 I shall never forget a sad incident connected with 
 a large fire in the city of Amboy, 111., in 1871. The 
 north side of Main Street caught fire in the middle 
 of the night, and nearly the entire business portion 
 of the city was burned to the ground. An old one- 
 story brick building, on the south side of the street, 
 with walls thick, strong and old-fashioned, was used 
 as a lock-up, our local jail. Late in the evening 
 the sheriff had locked up in it a poor drunken man, 
 and had the key in his pocket. The old building 
 was usually empty. No one outside of the sheriff 
 knew anything of the occurrence. The fire which 
 started two or three hours later was on the north 
 side, and everybody thought could be easily con- 
 fined there. But when the north side had become 
 one vast sheet of flame, the heat became so intense 
 that suddenly fire broke out in half a dozen places 
 on the south side, and in an incredibly short time 
 our old jail was surrounded by devouring flames. 
 The poor prisoner, awakened by the heat from his 
 drunken slumber, suddenly filled the air with frantic 
 screams — the first intimation we had that the old 
 jail was occupied. And instantly faces were 
 blanched ; the terrible news quickly spread ; the 
 burning houses were forgotten in the fearful con- 
 sciousness that a man was exposed to a cruel fate. 
 A thousand were ready to help ; but alas ! we were 
 
SENT TO SAVE 59 
 
 all helpless, the door was locked. The sheriff was 
 valiantly fighting the fire away in the rear of the 
 burning buildings on the north side, and knew 
 nothing of the situation at the jail until it was too 
 late ! A large log was found and a score or more 
 of strong men picked it up and rushed around in 
 the rear of the building, and though dangerously 
 exposed to the terrible heat, made a battering-ram 
 of the log, and worked like tigers to break a hole 
 into the wall. But in vain ! The poor man per- 
 ished, and the whole community felt the humilia- 
 tion of a sad blunder. And though the sheriff was 
 not at fault, save as forgetfulness was fault, yet he 
 found it expedient to leave the city and did not 
 venture to return for several months. 
 
 All this intense interest, an agony of interest, over 
 one poor, worthless life ! And is a precious soul, lost 
 in the mazes of sin, of less interest than a child that 
 has wandered into yonder wild wood ? or an eternal 
 death less horrible than a temporal one ? 
 
 Jesus could weep over Jerusalem, and Paul could 
 have "a great heaviness and continual sorrow of 
 heart" over the blindness of his own people, and 
 could be "pressed beyond measure" so as to be 
 called " beside himself," and feel such a weight of 
 responsibility that he counted himself a "debtor" 
 to all men, and wherever he went, as for three 
 years at Ephesus, " ceased not to warn every man 
 night and day with tears." But not so the most of 
 us to-day. A mother will bend with intense inter- 
 est over the cradle of her darling little one brought 
 
6o EVERY CREATURE 
 
 to death's door by a dangerous illness. How she 
 watches every variation of its beating pulse ! In 
 her agony she forgets to eat, forgets to sleep. She 
 would almost give her own life to save that precious 
 one. Such is a mother's love. But that little one 
 lives, grows into manhood, a sinner. The devil 
 gets the advantage of him, wraps his chains around 
 him, and rapidly is fitting that child for the unspeak- 
 able sorrows of an endless night ; but does that fond 
 mother in her agony of interest over the lost soul 
 forget to eat or forget to sleep ? 
 
 If I were standing near a high bridge, and should 
 see a blind man approach with a view of passing 
 over, and should happen to know that some work- 
 men had just gone to their dinner, leaving a dan- 
 gerous gap in the center of the bridge uncovered, 
 but say nothing at all to my blind neighbor, simply 
 look on while he merrily presses forward, reaches 
 the fatal gap, steps over, and is dashed in pieces 
 one hundred feet below, am I guilty of his blood ? 
 The law of Moses says " Yes " ; the common sense 
 of manhood the world over would say "Yes." 
 Providence had made me just then a watchman for 
 that blind man. I saw the danger but raised no cry 
 of alarm. His blood would be required at my hands. 
 
 And so the very relations we sustain as Chris- 
 tians to the blinded souls all around us, and the 
 blinded ones everywhere ; our ability to see, our 
 knowledge of their danger and of God's wondrous 
 provision for their escape, providentially constitute 
 us watchmen ; and we cannot shirk the respon- 
 
SENT TO SAVE 6 1 
 
 sibility. So the people of Gennesaret evidently 
 reasoned : 
 
 " And when the men of that place had knowledge 
 of him, they sent out into all that country round 
 about, and brought unto him all that were diseased ; 
 
 " And besought him that they might only touch 
 the hem of his garment : and as many as touched 
 were made perfectly whole " (Matt. 14 : 35, 36). 
 
 Two important facts put together, aroused all 
 their natural sympathies, and led them to organize 
 a systematic effort to reach every needy one in 
 their country — first, the knowledge that there 
 were diseased ones all around them ; and second, 
 that now Jesus had come into their country who 
 was both able and willing to heal every one who 
 could be brought to him. They reasoned at once, 
 " Now is our opportunity ; here is a man able and 
 willing to heal every person we can bring to him. 
 It would be a burning shame under such circum- 
 stances, to allow any suffering one in our neighbor- 
 hood to be deprived of so marvelous a favor." And 
 so they quit their business for the time being. 
 Every sick person, or blind, or lame, or palsied, or 
 leprous is visited and by some means induced to go 
 with the committee, or allow the committee to carry 
 them to Jesus, and every one of them is healed. 
 It did not require any special command from the 
 lips of Jesus to induce the strong, healthy men and 
 women of Gennesaret to engage in such a humane 
 mission. Had one poor unfortunate anywhere in 
 that country been left out, shame would have cov- 
 
62 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 eied the face of every healthy person. They 
 could never have forgiven themselves for such an 
 inhuman oversight, especially if said unfortunate 
 had remained for years a sufferer. 
 
 And so if any soul plunges headlong into eternal 
 night, within our reach, unwarned by us who know 
 the two great facts, his danger and God's remedy, 
 he will perish in his sins, but his blood will be re- 
 quired at our hands. (See Ezek, 33 : 8, 9.) So long, 
 then, as so great a proportion of the earth's popula- 
 tion are still perishing in their sins in total igno- 
 rance of Jesus Christ as the world's Saviour ; and 
 so long as it remains true, as it is true now, that the 
 Christian people of the world have the time and 
 the men and the money in abundance to reach 
 speedily every one of earth's teeming millions with 
 the gospel message — so long the blood of every per- 
 ishing one wiH be required at our hands. And 
 therefore, until this obligation has been fully met, 
 the Great Commission is and must be our life's 
 business, whether Jesus has said so or not. 
 
 Common human sympathies, the natural relations 
 we sustain to each other, make the Great Commis- 
 sion obligatory. 
 
 I wish to tell a little incident of our Western college life. 
 The Northwestern University, situated at Evanston, twelve 
 miles north of Chicago, has organized among its students a 
 volunteer life-saving crew, which has become famous for its 
 services. Some years ago in the early morning, there came 
 the word that a steamer was in distress. The students hurried 
 down to the shore. There they saw the " Lady Elgin," not 
 only in distress, but going to pieces, and men and women in 
 
SENT TO SAVE 63 
 
 Imminent peril of being lost. Among the students were two 
 brothers from Iowa. One of these brothers stripped off ail 
 surplus trappings and swam out and brouglit one to the shore, 
 and another, and another, and another, and another, until he 
 had, what seems incredible, some eight or nine rescued on the 
 shore of Lake Michigan. They had built a fire of logs and 
 he was blue with cold. As he stood there trembling before 
 the fire, and looked out over the lake again, he saw another 
 man in peril. He said, " 1 must go again." They gathered 
 around him and said, " It does not mean rescue for him for 
 you to go ; it means death to you." He broke from the crowd 
 and plunged out, and he brought a tenth, an eleventh and 
 twelfth, and again he stood, strength apparently all gone. 
 And as they looked at him there, so blue and chilled, they 
 thought that death had put its finger upon him. He looked 
 out and again he saw others in peril, and again he struck out 
 through the storm, and he brought the thirteenth, and four- 
 teenth, and fifteenth to the shore. And now he stood there by 
 the fire once more. Again he looked out and saw a beam 
 drifting In, and clinging to that beam a man. And as he looked 
 again he saw the man's wife, apparently, and the man was 
 making almost superhuman efforts to save his wife, and as he 
 looked he saw that beam was drifting around a point of land 
 that meant death. He broke out from the crowd again. 
 He plunged into the water, grasped hold of that beam. He 
 swung it round the perilous corners of that lake, and brought 
 man and wife safely to land. 
 
 That afternoon as he stood in his room with his room-mate, 
 shivering and white and exhausted, he said, " Did I do my 
 best? Did I do my very best? Oh, I am afraid I did not do 
 my best." And that night they say he tossed in delirium all 
 night, and they tried to calm him, and his brother sat beside 
 his bed as he tossed through the night. The only thing he 
 thought of were those that were lost. His brother said, 
 " Why, you saved seventeen." " Oh," he said, " If I could 
 only have saved one more! " 
 
 Gentlemen, look out to-day. Don't you see the storm- 
 tossed sea? Don't you see the people in your home? Don't 
 
64 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 you see the millions of heathen going down? Oh, in the 
 strength of God, men, in the strength of God to-day let us 
 plunge in again and again and again, until every last ounce 
 of strength is gone, and when at last utterly exhausted in the 
 service of Jesus Christ, we sink upon the sand, in the inten- 
 sity of our longing to save some, let us cry, " Oh, if 1 could 
 only have saved just one more ! " ^ 
 
 THE VALUE OF THE SOUL DEMANDS IT 
 
 The unspeakable value of the soul requires just 
 such a mission for life from every individual. 
 
 This thought has of course been taken for 
 granted, as it lies at the basis of the previous argu- 
 ment. But 1 wish to make the thought prominent 
 by bringing it directly to the surface. If every soul 
 on earth is of unspeakable value, then no possible 
 press of business, or any considerations of an 
 eal'thly character can constitute a sufficient excuse 
 for neglecting any one of them. Let me present 
 clearly and sharply two thoughts. 
 
 I. I have sometimes allowed my imagination to 
 run somewhat after this fasliion. Suppose we had 
 no souls, no future existence. Fifteen hundred 
 millions of people on the earth's surface to-day, 
 each living his allotted time, taking his share of joy 
 and sorrow, and then passing out of existence to be 
 no more. The average of human life, taking the 
 world together, is estimated at about thirty-three 
 years. And so if we could add all the lives upon 
 earth together, there would be a grand total of 
 fifty billions of years. A monster aggregate ! What 
 
 ^ Rev. R. A. Torrey, in "The Evangel and Sabbath Outlook." 
 
SENT TO SAVE 65 
 
 an inconceivable amount of joy and of sorrow, 
 of pleasure and of pain, of developing character, 
 and of besotted beastliness is crowded into that 
 fifty billions of years, the sum total of all the lives 
 of this generation ! 
 
 But now suppose that somewhere in our own 
 country, or possibly in China, or in the wilds of 
 Africa, one person should be found who had a soul, 
 and was surely destined to an eternal existence. 
 There would instantly gather about that one indi- 
 vidual, more of interest and of value, than about all 
 the balance of the world's population put together. 
 For that one soul will live longer than all the lives 
 of all the rest of earth's inhabitants added one to 
 another. In fact, after that one soul has been in ex- 
 istence fifty billions of years, eternity will only have 
 begun : he will have just as long to live after that 
 as he had at the beginning. If he is happy, the sum 
 total of his happiness will infinitely outmeasure the 
 sum total of all the happiness to be enjoyed by all 
 the balance of earth's inhabitants during their brief 
 existence here. Or if he is miserable for eternity, 
 the sum total of his misery will be immeasurably 
 more than all the miseries and all the sorrows, and 
 all the heartaches, and heartburns of earth added 
 one to another. To secure that one soul's happi- 
 ness for eternity, or to leave it in a hopeless and 
 eternal night, must therefore be an unspeakably 
 greater work than all the other interests in this 
 world combined. 
 
 If I had it in my power, by earnest effort and 
 E 
 
66 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 large sacrifice to make one million men happy, real 
 happy, continuously happy, each for thirty years, 
 my name would be handed down through all the 
 coming generations as one of earth's noblest bene- 
 factors. But if I should refuse to make the sacrifice, 
 and leave a million men to untold hardships and 
 sufferings, each for the thirty years, I would rightly 
 be branded as a fiend and a traitor to humanity, and 
 all the coming generations would unite in cursing me. 
 And yet to rescue one single soul from the outer 
 darkness, and secure for it the unending bliss of the 
 saved, is a work ten thousand times more valuable, 
 and its neglect unspeakably more terrible. And 
 hence all other merely earthly interests must in- 
 stantly yield whenever they come in conflict, even 
 remotely, with this one all-absorbing interest. 
 
 2. The second thought will therefore be immedi- 
 ately accepted, with no possible chance of avoiding 
 the conclusions reached. 
 
 Suppose two courses or paths in life are offered 
 to each one of us. The one is a very pleasant and 
 in every way a desirable course, filled with beauty 
 and joy, with the best of companionships, all that 
 heart could wish ; accompanied too, with the con- 
 stant consciousness of accomplishing a grand work 
 for the world, for God, and for eternity — for suppose 
 the results of so desirable a life's work could be the 
 salvation of one hundred souls. Magnificent results 
 of a delightful pathway, strewn all the way with 
 fragrant flowers. 
 
 The other course is the very opposite. It leads 
 
SENT TO SAVE (yj 
 
 through a path filled only with briars and thorns ; 
 no deUcioLis flowers, no delightful companionships, 
 a hard, rough road full of self-denials and crosses 
 and hot furnaces all the way through. But this 
 hard, undesirable, cross-bearing life finally results 
 in the salvation of one hundred and one souls, one 
 soul more than the other course. 
 
 Now, which of these two courses would we choose ? 
 Which would you choose, my brother 1 Which one 
 shall I choose ? Let us take our souls to task over 
 this question, for it cuts to the quick, does it not ? 
 And yet to choose the easy, pleasant, self-indul- 
 gent path which every one of us is prone to do, 
 and very likely would do with very few exceptions, 
 would be to place one life of pleasure here against 
 a soul's happiness forever. It would say, " I am 
 unwilling to suffer a few brief years here in the 
 flesh to save one soul from suffering during the eter- 
 nal ages. I am unwilling to deny myself a few brief 
 years of pleasure and joy that a soul may be lifted 
 up to the unspeakable joys and glories of heaven 
 forever." The rankest, meanest selfishness this ! 
 The very opposite of the spirit of my Master who 
 chose to sacrifice everything that 1 might enjoy the 
 bliss and glory of heaven ! 
 
 Surely the unspeakable value of the soul would 
 require just such a mission for life. 
 
 THE UNCONVERTED WORLD DEMANDS IT 
 
 The way indicated is the only possible way of 
 proving to the unconverted world the supreme im- 
 
68 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 portaiice of religion, and the exceeding value of the 
 soul. When the Christian people in any community 
 become so thoroughly in earnest for souls that they 
 are impelled to go right out after them in earnest, 
 personal conversation, neglecting their business to 
 do it, making sometimes great personal sacrifices to 
 do it, it does not take long for the unconverted to 
 get the thought that the soul must be of value and 
 religion a personal matter to them. 
 
 On the contrary, when Christians of any com- 
 munity club together and employ a man to do their 
 preaching and their house-to-house visiting for them, 
 while they go on about their worldly business, the 
 impression is unavoidable that, while religion may 
 be of great importance, it is not quite so important 
 as our regular business, and should never interfere 
 with it. Human nature is such that we do not do 
 things in that way ; we cannot when we become in- 
 tensely interested in any matter. 
 
 A little child is lost in a neighboring wood. You 
 do not employ a skillful scout at good wages to 
 hunt up the child — yes, you might do that, but you 
 would not wait on him alone. Everybody turns 
 out and the woods are thoroughly scoured, until the 
 little one is found. Before one man could get over 
 all that ground the little one might perish. 
 
 If your friend has fallen into the water and is 
 drowning you will hardly wait to circulate a sub- 
 scription and send abroad for a skillful swimmer. 
 The first man at the water's edge who can swim at 
 all would be implored to hasten to the rescue. 
 
SENT TO SAVE 69 
 
 A loved one has taken poison. You will of course 
 hasten to the nearest physician. But he may be 
 absent or a long way off. You will not wait a 
 moment, even for him, if you know what to do 
 yourself or if any of your neighbors can tell you. 
 And when the physician comes you will not then 
 coolly go about your business, not if you care very 
 much about the outcome ; you will undoubtedly 
 stay right by, till the crisis is over at least, business 
 or no business. 
 
 So if I believe that my neighbor's soul is worth 
 inconceivably more than any possible earthly thing, 
 and that it is in immediate danger of eternal loss, 
 how can 1 go quietly about my worldly business 
 and leave that soul's eternal destiny to the uncer- 
 tainties of a proxy, who has so much work thrust 
 upon him that he may never reach that neighbor of 
 mine until it is too late ? And especially if I know 
 that all the proxies that have been employed for 
 years past in my community have so far failed to 
 reach even the one-half of the perishing ones im- 
 mediately around me } 
 
 1 believe the soul vastly more valuable than any- 
 thing else on earth. And yet I have left over one- 
 half of my own neighbors and friends without a 
 persistent effort to rescue them. Surely there must 
 be some mistake about my conception of the soul's 
 value. My whole past life would indicate that 
 there are many things of more value in my eye 
 than the souls of my neighbors. 
 
 But if there are serious questions as to my ortho- 
 
70 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 doxy, how about those neighbors of mine who have 
 so far been neglected ? How can they find by any- 
 thing they have ever seen that the soul has any 
 special value ? If they carefully study my past 
 life, for instance, to find out the soul's value, will 
 they not conclude that a good horse or a comfort- 
 able home or possibly a new suit of clothes has 
 occupied more of my thoughts and of my heart 
 than the interests of their lost souls ? 
 
 I may reply that " I pay twenty-five, fifty, or 
 one hundred dollars a year to support the gospel 
 and help save my neighbors, that I have five hun- 
 dred dollars invested in the church building, that I 
 attend every night, and sometimes twice a day for 
 a month, or even two months, during the protracted 
 meeting, and almost always take part while there. 
 Is not all this proof enough of deep interest ? 
 
 Yes, proof enough of deep interest in something. 
 But suppose I subject myself to a little sharp cross- 
 questioning for a moment. How much, for instance, 
 have I put into tobacco during the past year ? Or 
 into fancy horses, or into my summer outing, or 
 into that additional eighty acres that I purchased in 
 the spring, or into that palatial residence recently 
 built, or into the furnishing of some of its rooms, 
 or into a more stylish wardrobe, or the enlarging of 
 my business ? If the money I have put into the 
 cause of Christ, and the time given to it are offered 
 in evidence of a deep heart interest, I must not 
 wince when the light is turned on or when my heart 
 is probed to the bottom. As a matter of fact the 
 
SENT TO SAVE 7 1 
 
 time that I put into that protracted meeting was not 
 very valuable time. 1 did not sacrifice business 
 interests or crowd my farm work very much. The 
 meeting was held at a season of the year and at an 
 hour of the day when I was not specially crowded. 
 And the amount of money I have put into the 
 Lord's cause, all told, is perhaps one-twentieth or 
 possibly scarcely one-fiftieth part as much as 1 have 
 invested in worldly interests ; and so if contribu- 
 tions of time and money are the gauge of real in- 
 terest, they will prove me about one-twentieth or 
 one-fiftieth as much interested in souls and in heav- 
 enly treasures as in the body and in earthly things. 
 
 Perhaps, however, this sort of probing is too 
 sharp ; it may not be applicable to the case in hand. 
 Suppose, on the contrary, that 1 am a thoroughly 
 earnest and devoted Christian, and have given my 
 money and time from the purest love to God and 
 the most earnest desire to save souls ; that in fact 
 this is the uppermost desire of my heart. Yet 1 
 ought to know that, however thoroughly I have 
 proved to myself and to the church and to a por- 
 tion of the unconverted around me a deep interest 
 in souls, yet my money and my efforts have failed 
 to touch in any efficient way that vast number 
 around me, that unfortunate one-half of our popu- 
 lation whom existing methods have not reached. 
 So that all my gifts and efforts have failed to fur- 
 nish clear evidence to these persons that I have a 
 special care for souls. 
 
 They look on and say, " Yes, that man is evi- 
 
72 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 dently interested in something. He spends a good 
 deal of time and money in religious matters. Prob- 
 ably that is his way of getting enjoyment out of 
 life. As to his interest in souls, well, we don't know 
 about that. He has worked hard to get his relations 
 into the church and a few of his neighbors. Perhaps 
 he thinks them saved from a deal of misery in the 
 next world. But he evidently cares very little for 
 us. Been living right here for thirty, fifty years 
 past, and had a thousand chances to talk his religion 
 to us. But never a word. His love for particular, 
 favorite souls may be strong, but his love for average 
 souls like ours isn't very much, to say the least." 
 
 Dear brethren in Christ, this is a fearfully serious 
 charge, that it is impossible to teach the uncon- 
 verted world the superlative value of the soul by 
 our present methods of church work or by any 
 proxy attempts to reach them while the principals 
 in the case, the employers, that is, the great body 
 of professing Christians, are pressing every energy 
 in the acquisition of wealth or other worldly treas- 
 ures and for worldly ends. 
 
 Intense personal effort pressed incessantly "night 
 and day with tears," disclosing a great burden, a 
 deep heart current that is deeper and stronger than 
 any other heart longing — oh, this is the great need 
 of the hour. And such as this can only be born, 
 and, after it is born, only developed by direct obe- 
 dience to this Great Commission, a personal at- 
 tempt, so far as in us lies, to " preach the gospel to 
 every creature." 
 
VI 
 INCENTIVES rO ACTION 
 
 " Who for the joy that was set before him endured the 
 cross, despising the shame" (Heb. 12 : 2). 
 
 " He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satis- 
 fied" (Isa. 53 : II). 
 
 A CLEAR view of the future life such as the 
 Bible unfolds would affect us as it affected 
 Jesus and so constrain us to make his life's 
 mission ours. 
 
 Jesus saw something ahead that satisfied him, 
 some picture of the future that so completely cap- 
 tured him that it lifted him over the cross and 
 made him willing to despise the shame. 
 
 A skillful artist will select a rough piece of mar- 
 ble and discover an angel in it, and upon this dis- 
 covery will proceed to expend upon that uncouth 
 piece of marble an immense amount of labor and 
 patience and skill. For days and weeks and montiis 
 and even years, if he be working for immortality, 
 he chisels and measures and scrapes and rubs and 
 polishes until he has brought the angel out. Now 
 it is very evident that the artist had the angel in 
 his mind and upon his heart during this whole 
 period of hard, persistent labor. The vision of the 
 angel furnished him the motive and gave him the 
 
 73 
 
74 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 inspiration all the time. It lifted him over all the 
 hard places, furnishing him the balm alike for 
 weary brain and aching muscles. He could not 
 have been induced to put in all this toil and thought 
 and artistic effort, in fact, would never have begun 
 the work at all had he not discovered the angel at 
 the very beginning. 
 
 I sometimes say, when presenting the work of 
 the Children's Home Society, that if it could be 
 proven that one of the bright little boys we fre- 
 quently have for placement in a Christian family 
 would certainly become a president of the United 
 States almost every second family in the country 
 would be willing to take that boy. Though many 
 of them had boys of their own, they would want 
 this boy, and simply because they had discovered 
 a president in him. This important discovery 
 would tone and color all their relations to that boy, 
 their method of discipline and training, the kind of 
 work both physical and mental. Everything they 
 did for that boy or required him to do would be 
 done because they had discovered a president. 
 
 Very much depends upon what we discover as 
 the outcome of our labor and sacrifices. We need 
 to see an angel or a president or some large result 
 if we persist in well-doing in the midst of great sac- 
 rifices or severe afflictions. 
 
 God understands perfectly this peculiarity of our 
 nature, for it is just like his own, and hence has 
 placed before us as inducement to a life of constant 
 sacrifice and persevering toil in the one direction 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 75 
 
 the largest possible promises and the most glorious 
 anticipations. 
 
 In a little book entitled " The Value of a Child " 
 this astounding proposition is made and we think 
 clearly proven : 
 
 "Among all created beings in the universe God 
 has chosen to lift redeemed man up to the very 
 highest place." 
 
 This statement is wild and exaggerated beyond 
 conception if not true. But if it is true or any- 
 where near the truth every intelligent person on 
 earth ought to know it well. 
 
 After showing briefly that the scheme of human 
 redemption seems to be central in God's plans for 
 the entire universe, the author then points out defi- 
 nitely and clearly that in at least seven important 
 particulars the redeemed from this world will ap- 
 parently have the advantage of the highest angels 
 or archangels. 
 
 1. They are to be the bride, the recognized wife 
 of the great King (Isa. 54 : 5 ; Rev. 19 : 7, 9 ; 21 : 9). 
 
 2. They are counted as brothers and sisters and 
 therefore on a social equality with Jesus (John 
 15 : 15 ; Mark 3 : 35 ; Heb. 2:11; Rom. 8 : 29). 
 
 3. They are to have bodies like his glorious body 
 (Phil. 3 : 21 ; i Cor. 15 : 47, 49). 
 
 4. They will bear his image and appear like him 
 in every respect (2 Peter 1:4;! John 5:1; 3:2). 
 
 5. They will share with him all his infinite wealth 
 as to material possessions (Rev. 21:7; Gal. 4:1,7; 
 I Cor. 3 : 21, 22 ; Rom. 8 : 17). 
 
76 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 6. They will share with him his royal preroga- 
 tives, sit with him upon his throne, reign with him, 
 etc. (Rev. 3 : 21 ; i : 6 ; 22 : 5). 
 
 7. They will forever enjoy the distinction of 
 priests, men who stand nearest to God and become 
 his represeotatives to the people, teachers, God's 
 ambassadors, ministers plenipotentiary, in a certain 
 sense revealers of God (i Peter 2 : 5, 9 ; Rev. 
 20 : 6; 1:6). 
 
 In connection with this carefully study the mean- 
 ing of the two following statements : 
 
 "And his name shall be in their foreheads" 
 (Rev. 22 : 4) ; " his body, the fulness of him that 
 filleth all in all" (Eph. i : 23). 
 
 Do these passages intimate that Christ's people 
 through the ages of eternity are to be his body and 
 so divinely furnished that through them he can 
 reveal himself in all his infinite fullness to all the 
 intelligent beings in the universe ? Can this be 
 the thought of this wonderful passage ? Surely, 
 
 Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
 Zion, city of our God. 
 
 And it is at least safe to affirm that not one of all 
 these royal prerogatives is enjoyed by the angels. 
 They do not have material bodies like unto his glo- 
 rious body. They were not begotten in his image, 
 hence they are not reckoned as children, for " he 
 took not upon him the nature of angels." They 
 do not belong to the private family of the great 
 King — high lords, mighty princes they may be, but 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 'j'j 
 
 not blood relatives, members of the royal family. 
 Neither do they sit with the King upon the throne, 
 they stand around the throne as waiting servants. 
 They do not wear crowns, nor reign as kings, nor 
 perform the office of priests ; nor are they counted 
 as the bride of the great King, heaven's queen ; 
 neither are they heirs of the material universe, nor 
 counted as sharing with the Lord of lords and King 
 of kings his honor and glory and an equal place 
 with him in the tender love of the Father. 
 
 Well, now our thought is that we ought as Chris- 
 tian workers to have clear views upon this subject, 
 the future of the saved — not simply or chiefly my 
 future, but the future of the one I am permitted to 
 rescue ; or otherwise I can have neither the right 
 nor a sufficient motive and inspiration to effort. 
 Evidently Jesus gladly endured the cross. One of 
 our poets says : 
 
 He saw, and O amazing love ! \\t flew to our relief. 
 
 Down from the shining courts above, with joyful haste he sped. 
 
 And it was all because he loved ! And he loved 
 because he saw two things, our present condition as 
 lost, and what we might become if saved. " For 
 the joy that was set before him he endured the 
 cross." A glowing, glorious picture of the future — 
 that great company of redeemed ones, as happy as 
 they can be, and constantly growing happier ; the 
 noblest beings in the universe, all patterned after 
 the great King himself, and constantly becoming 
 more like him ; the most useful beings in the uni- 
 
78 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 verse, because most resembling their Lord, and 
 therefore best qualified to do good, and growing 
 more and more valuable as the ages of eternity 
 pass on. 
 
 Oh, what a picture ! How inspiring to a lofty 
 soul that has forgotten self and finds supremest 
 joy and pleasure in the joy and in the advancing 
 glory of others. And to think that all this company 
 of magnificent ones, so supremely happy and so in- 
 calculably valuable to the whole universe, have 
 been rescued from a horrible pit, were slaves of sin, 
 hopelessly poisoned and wrecked by it, led captive 
 by the devil at his will, and were snatched out of 
 their fearful destiny and lifted up into such exceed- 
 ing joy and glory by reason of his own sacrifices 
 and supreme self-surrender ! 
 
 Was not such a picture enough to satisfy Jesus ? 
 And ought not and would not such a picture satisfy 
 us, and make us willing to endure any cross, or de- 
 spise any shame ? Can I look over into that neigh- 
 bor's house, the fourth door from mine, and see 
 that soul under the power of sin and Satan, rapidly 
 getting ripe for the "outer darkness," and then look 
 forward into the future and see a face " shining as 
 the sun," see a "king and a priest unto God " — 
 yea, not one such only, but the children of this 
 saved one, and his children's children, and all the 
 others, perhaps a mighty throng of redeemed ones 
 who have been led to Christ by this neighbor of 
 mine, or by his children, or by his children's chil- 
 dren — can I or can any one see these two pictures 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 79 
 
 plainly and then hesitate for one moment to hasten 
 to the rescue ? And will not the few hours or the 
 days of effort required in reaching such a soul, if 
 the Holy Spirit guides and the Master is with me, 
 be the sweetest hours of my life ? 
 
 Suppose it does prove a very difficult case to 
 reach and may require "some deed of kindness 
 done " to win a place and open the heart for the re- 
 ception of the truth, or require valuable time from 
 my business, or the emptying of my pocket-book, 
 or even the still harder cross, a frank and open 
 confession of years of sinful neglect, is there any 
 cross of sacrifice or burden that I will find myself 
 unwilling to bear or endure if only so wondrous a 
 prize can be secured ? 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ said of one of earth's 
 honored ones, " Among them that are born of 
 women there hath not arisen a greater prophet than 
 John the Baptist " ; but added with wondrous em- 
 phasis : " Notwithstanding, he that is least in the 
 kingdom of heaven is greater than he." That 
 little child in your care, now such a " trouble- 
 somie comfort," as one mother puts it, such a per- 
 plexing problem, if received in his dear name, and 
 trained for him, will become a greater than John 
 the Baptist. That neighbor over there at the fourth 
 door, if captured for Jesus will become a greater 
 than John the Baptist. Yonder miserable outcast 
 in the slums or in that gutter, if rescued and saved 
 will become a greater than John the Baptist. 
 How so ? 
 
8o EVERY CREATURE 
 
 John the Baptist was the "forerunner" of the 
 world's Messiah, this rescued one will become an 
 owfi brother! John the Baptist was a "prophet" 
 of the Highest, this one will become not only a 
 "prophet," but a " priest " and " king " as well. 
 John the Baptist enjoyed a brief ministry of a 
 few months, a brilliant meteor flashing for a day 
 and then going out, but this one whom you have 
 rescued will shine as a star forever and ever; 
 not exerting a brief influence in one small nation, 
 but sitting by the side of the great King upon his 
 throne of universal dominion. With face shining as 
 the sun, he shall become known to every intelligent 
 being in God's universe, and every world that rolls 
 in space shall sometime during the countless ages 
 of eternity feel the inspiration of his presence and 
 receive some blessing from his existence. 
 
 John the Baptist was highly honored in that the 
 angel Gabriel appeared to his father and announced 
 his birth, but this rescued one has more than one 
 angel ("angels") for his own personal bodyguard 
 from his birth to his death. (See Matt. i8 : lo ; Heb. 
 1:14; Ps. 91 : 10-12, etc.) It is true, we are not 
 permitted, as Zacharias was, to see any of these 
 angels or hear their voices, or have any of their 
 words recorded in God's written Book where all the 
 generations of men are permitted to read them. 
 But we should not forget there is another Bible be- 
 ing written now, the book of God's Providences, 
 the History of Redemption, God's central plan for 
 the entire universe — and in this larger book that 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 8l 
 
 will be read in the ages to come by every intelligent 
 being in the universe, will probably be found an 
 intensely interesting record of the birth of this out- 
 cast one whom you have rescued, the delegation of 
 angels that attended his birth, the announcement 
 of the important event in heaven, the selection and 
 designation of his bodyguard, the history of their 
 ministries to him, his chequered history during 
 childhood and youth, how he was abandoned, it 
 may be by his parents, or at least neglected by 
 them and by all the Christian neighbors around 
 him while in his youth and when easily reached, 
 because they knew nothing of his value ; how God 
 discovered a priceless jewel in him, and laid his 
 rescue upon your heart, as a great burden — honored 
 you instead of the angel Gabriel with a message to 
 him ; how with hesitation and trembling you finally 
 delivered the message ; how your message was at 
 first rejected, but with patience and love and the 
 girdings of the Holy Spirit you persisted in your 
 efforts, asking others to help you, until at last the 
 soul was won ! 
 
 All this is being recorded in God's great book ; 
 and as well his after history as a child of God, his 
 feeble beginnings, his gradual unfolding, his increas- 
 ing influence upon other lives about him until in 
 the "harvest home" he shall appear with his 
 bundle of sheaves, saying to the Master: "Here 
 am I and the children whom thou hast given me." 
 And then will come your meeting with that re- 
 deemed soul and his retinue of saved ones, and 
 
 F 
 
82 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 your discovery of all the golden fruitage that has 
 developed out of your little sacrifice and effort. 
 And then ! Oh, then an eternity of blessedness, 
 and of unceasing praise and thanksgiving that God 
 gave you the grace while here to resist the mighty 
 current of worldliness that is sweeping all before it, 
 and the temptation of the world and the flesh and 
 the devil to keep away from that fourth door neigh- 
 bor until he perished ; and that you were unwilling 
 to quiet your conscience with the plea, " I pay my 
 money for the pastor and his assistants and the 
 Sunday-school teachers, let them do this work ; I 
 will hold on to my worldly pleasures and attend to 
 my business, even though I enter upon the eternal 
 ages a — blank ! 
 
 We will close this discussion with two suggestive 
 incidents : 
 
 Over thirty years ago the giving of only one dollar and 
 fifty cents to a very poor family, at a tune of severe trial, 
 bought their hearts, as it were, gave me the freedom of their 
 home, made them interested in me, and willing to attend our 
 church services. First the prayer meeting where the mother 
 was converted and baptized. Then the fatlier, a very rough, 
 swearing man followed. Six children were brought into the 
 Sunday-school. A second and a third family, poor outcasts 
 like themselves, who never attended church, and whom pov- 
 erty and cheap clothing had kept out of church society, were, 
 through their efforts brought to our services, and after a while 
 to Christ! And all this the outcome of a small money con- 
 tribution, which proved, not, of course, the immediate means 
 of conversion, but an entering wedge, opening the heart, so 
 that the truth could be dropped into it. It was a time of finan- 
 cial stringency with myself, in fact all 1 had, and no pledge, 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 83 
 
 except the word of God, that I should have anything in the 
 future. On this account perhaps, did the dear Lord so sweetly 
 and gloriously turn my little brass into gold. For the end is 
 not yet. I expect to meet that man and his wife in yon har- 
 vest land, followed perhaps, by their children, and their chil- 
 dren's children, and who can tell how many others in their 
 train? And I have a sort of presentiment somehow, that the 
 very first greeting they will give me will be a hearty thanks- 
 giving to God for that one dollar and fifty cents. And so dur- 
 ing all the ages of eternity, as I behold their happiness, and 
 share in their bliss, and watch their developing characters 
 into loftier and still grander proportions, will not every penny 
 in that one dollar and fifty cents become a pearl ? And shall I 
 ever cease to thank God for the golden opportunity of putting 
 that little bit of money into his treasury.? 
 
 In how many ways I might have used it upon myself ! It 
 might have gone into smoke in a few cigars. It might have 
 furnished a momentary pleasure at a theatre or dancing party. 
 It might have added a pleasant ornament or a richer fibre to 
 my wearing apparel ; or furnished my palate with additional 
 dainties for a day or week ; and then the curtain would have 
 dropped and the scene ended. 
 
 A sad consciousness comes to me now, however, and a 
 humiliating confession ; that after such an experience of the 
 Lord's strange chemistry, I have failed to embrace a hundred 
 golden opportunities since afforded. Opportunities of saving 
 by sacrificing, of accumulating treasure up there by self-de- 
 nial here, of investing in souls by crucifying the flesh ; and 
 while writing this, there comes over me a feeling of regret 
 that no words can describe ; for if one dollar and fifty cents 
 invested for God has given me so much of joy already, and 
 was made the means by which several precious souls were 
 won to Christ, who will welcome me in heaven and be " my 
 joy and crown of rejo'cing," how many such glad welcomes 
 I have lost ! Heaven is poorer, and I shall be poorer forever 
 for my selfish folly here ! ^ 
 
 1 Selected. 
 
84 EVERY CREATURE 
 
 But sometimes it costs more than a small money 
 contribution. 
 
 Two slum sisters crept up a rickety and dirty stairway five 
 or six stories high to an attic, and there, in a desolate room fit 
 for a pigsty, they found an old man crippled by rheumatism 
 and asthma until entirely helpless. He was sitting in an old 
 chair, the only article of furniture in the room. He could not 
 stand up ; he could not lie down ; he could not even bend 
 down and reach his feet. There he sat night and day alone, 
 save that twice a day a miserable drunken daughter, who 
 lived in the story below, brought him something to eat. 
 
 His person and clothes were filthy beyond description. His 
 naked feet had in some way become covered with sores ; and 
 some charitable person, weeks before, had come in and kindly 
 bound them with lint saturated with ointment, but had for- 
 gotten to return and replace the bandages ; and the lint had 
 imbedded itself into the flesh until both feet were a mass of 
 corruption, covered by dirt and vermin more terrible than I 
 can describe to you to-night. 
 
 What did those two slum sisters, God's noble women, do? 
 First of all they secured a pail of warm water and got down 
 on their hands and knees and scrubbed that filthy floor until 
 they had made it clean. Then with another pail of water 
 they got down in front of that old man, put his feet into it, 
 and tenderly bathed and soaked them until the old bandages 
 and the corruption were removed. Then they dressed them 
 over again with clean lint and ointment, and did not forget to 
 return the next day, and the next, and so every day for weeks 
 they washed those feet and dressed them until they healed. 
 
 Meanwhile, those sisters began to tell him the story of the 
 cross. His mind was as dark as a heathen's. He swore at 
 them when they first intruded into his den. But such un- 
 heard-of love and tenderness conquered him. It could not 
 have been otherwise. He was sweetly forced to listen to the 
 truth ; they compelled him. And so, by the time his feet were 
 healed, his soul had been healed. And now it was their turn 
 
INCENTIVES TO ACTION 85 
 
 to be blessed ; for he became so happy in Christ that every 
 time tliey visited him they received an inspiration and uplift. 
 A few months passed, and the time came that the old man 
 must die. The sisters came in, and he says to them : " O sis- 
 ters, I have been a big, black, vile sinner, and I hated yer 
 when yer first came ; but when yer touched my feet 1 won- 
 dered at the love that could make yer do that. And I thought 
 there must be something in it, and I listened to yer, and my 
 hard old heart was melted by the love of God as yer told me 
 the story, and 1 found salvation. Now, I am dying, I am 
 going straight to heaven, 1 am going to Jesus, and I'm going 
 to tell him what yer did fer me, how yer washed my feet. 
 And I'm going to watch for yer when ye come, and I'm going 
 to meet yer at the gate and lead yer through heaven and take 
 yer straight to Jesus, and say, ' Lord, here are the sisters that 
 washed my feet.' " ' 
 
 A hard, unpleasant service, do you say ? But 
 oil, the compensation ! A priceless sou! saved ! A 
 source of satisfaction and joy here and a very crown 
 of rejoicing during an endless eternity ! 
 
 1 From an address by Captain Blanche B. Cox, of the Salvation Army. 
 
APPENDIX 
 THE SECRET OF BUILDING UP A CHURCH 
 
 BY JAMES CHALMERS 
 
 ON Sunday, March 3, Dr. James Chalmers re- 
 ceived one hundred and thirty-six new 
 members into his church at Elgin, 111. At 
 the previous communion, which was his first in 
 Elgin, he received seventy-seven new members. 
 His record last year at the Second Church, of To- 
 ledo, O., was as follows for the five communion 
 periods, not counting the summer vacation : first, 
 forty-one ; second, fifty-four ; third, fifty-eight ; 
 fourth, sixty-four ; fifth, eighty-four, making over 
 three hundred new members in one year. He ac- 
 cepted a call to Elgin, beginning work there last 
 December, and has already received two hundred 
 and thirteen new members into the Elgin church. 
 
 Such an unusual record as this is an evidence of 
 God's favor and guidance. It denotes not alone 
 aggressiveness and adaptability, but a gift of com- 
 mon sense and organization such as few possess. 
 " The Advance " wrote to Doctor Chalmers to learn 
 the secret of his success for the benefit of other 
 pastors in the denomination. His reply is so full 
 of valuable suggestions to every Christian man, 
 woman, and child that we are gratified to be per- 
 mitted to publisii it for the benefit of readers of 
 "The Ram's Horn " : ^ 
 
 1 This article, which found its way into the " Ram's Horn " of April 20, as 
 explained above, is so complete an illustration of the teaching of this book- 
 let that the author takes great pleasure in transcribing it entire. 
 
 87 
 
88 APPENDIX 
 
 There is nothing in my method of church work 
 but that may be easily applied, with perhaps slight 
 modifications, to any field. In the first place, I try 
 to simplify the matter of church organization ; and 
 in the second place, I try to set every one to work. 
 
 Most churches are over-organized. There are 
 too many societies, too many meetings, too many 
 different things to be attended to, too much effort 
 spent in trying to keep life in the skeletons of a 
 dozen different church societies, too much energy 
 wasted in trying to drum people out to all the dif- 
 ferent meetings of all these different church organ- 
 izations. Consequently there is too little time and 
 energy left to be expended in the real, legitimate 
 work of the church, namely, the conversion of men 
 and women and the salvation of souls. Just as in 
 these days, every little town has its score of lodges 
 and societies of every different name and plan, 
 until the people are taxed to their utmost to sustain 
 them all, just so the modern church finds itself bur- 
 dened with a dozen or a score of different subor- 
 dinate organizations which are multiplied in number 
 as time goes on, until all of the church energy is 
 expended in an effort to keep up interest and main- 
 tain life in all of these church societies, and none 
 is left for the legitimate work of the church — the 
 evangelization of the community. 
 
 Thoroughly believing this, I try to simplify the 
 church organizations, eliminating some societies 
 entirely, and merging others together until there 
 should be but two general church organizations : 
 
APPENDIX 89 
 
 a " woman's union " (or " guild ") and a " men's 
 club " (or " league "). Every male member of the 
 church is, by virtue of that fact, a member of the 
 men's league, and every female member of the 
 church is a member of the woman's guild. 
 
 Then we divide the entire territory of the parish 
 into ten or a dozen sections or neighborhoods, thus 
 grouping the membership of both the men's league 
 and the woman's guild into about a dozen different 
 neighborhood sections, with a chairman and secre- 
 tary for each section. These neighborhood sec- 
 tions of the general societies look after the neigh- 
 borhood sick and poor, conduct cottage prayer meet- 
 ings, visit strangers and new-comers and invite them 
 to church, make a canvass of the neighborhood, 
 and look after those who have no church home, and 
 perform a score, of useful services. 
 
 Moreover, with such a skeleton organization as 
 this, covering the entire membership of the church, 
 the pastor can put his hand at any time upon any 
 part of the organization in any corner of the parish 
 and have things done — the thought all along being 
 that the organization is a mere outline or skeleton, 
 that no time is to be wasted upon it, but that the 
 energies of all are to be expended in charities, in 
 evangelism, in increasing the membership of the 
 church, and in other legitimate church work. 
 
 This is undoubtedly the great desideratum — the 
 very acme of church success. What is wanted 
 everywhere is a working church — a church where 
 the entire membership is at work. This activity of 
 
QO APPENDIX 
 
 the entire membership of a church moves the com- 
 munity miglitily, the results are simply marvelous. 
 And this activity is likewise transforming upon the 
 Christian life and character of the members who 
 do the work. 
 
 Now it is not so hard to set a church to work as 
 many imagine. Most people are willing to do a 
 reasonable amount of church work, or at least a 
 very small amount of church work each. I tell 
 them that I do not want so-called " working bands," 
 but that I want the whole church to be a working 
 band. I show them by blackboard demonstration, 
 as of a mathematical problem, how that four hun- 
 dred members, each working two hours a week for 
 the eight weeks between one communion and an- 
 other, would do an amount of work equal to that 
 which would be done by a public school teacher in 
 the regular school hours of five years. I get each 
 member to devote two hours a week (i) to increas- 
 ing the church attendance and (2) to increasing 
 the church-membership. They do not consider 
 this an unreasonable request ; they are willing to 
 respond to such a moderate requirement, and the 
 results upon the life and activities of the church 
 are tremendous. 
 
 1 tell them that 1 do not want so-called " leading 
 members " and " officers and pastor " to do the work 
 of the church ; that 1 want each member to do a part 
 of the work — not all, not much, but a little. That 
 it is to be a church " of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people," and that each member is a 
 
APPENDIX 91 
 
 necessary part of the plan of the work and cannot 
 be spared. 
 
 As an illustration of what I mean I ask them to 
 go with me (in imagination) to the Elgin Watch 
 Factory near-by, where nearly three thousand 
 operatives are working. We go together into one 
 workroom after another and find most of the opera- 
 tives asleep. We arouse them only to hear them 
 say, "Oh, the manager of this factory is busy, 
 and some leading workers over in that other room 
 are active, they will attend to the work of the 
 establishment." It is readily seen that every op- 
 erative must be awake and at work, each doing 
 his part, no one making a whole watch, but each 
 making his little portion which is necessary to the 
 perfect whole. 
 
 So I try to show them that each member of a 
 live church must be awake and at work, no " lead- 
 ing members " doing it all, but each doing his own 
 little part so necessary to the whole. And I actu- 
 ally demonstrate to each that his individual portion 
 of work is essential, and that to him, be his posi- 
 tion never so humble and modest, is due the credit 
 for the marvelous results. 
 
 And this is the truth and no flattery. I liken it 
 to the nomination of my friend, the Methodist min- 
 ister, who is serving at the present time as Con- 
 gressman from Michigan. He required one hun- 
 dred and forty-one votes to secure his nomination 
 in his party convention. By tremendous effort we 
 secured the bare one hundred and forty-one votes. 
 
92 APPENDIX 
 
 and we could not have controlled another vote by 
 possible effort. Had we fallen one vote short of 
 the one hundred and forty-one a combination would 
 have been made that would have defeated my friend. 
 After the convention adjourned ojie of the one hun- 
 hundred and forty-one came to me and said, "It 
 was my vote that nominated your friend." " Yes," 
 1 said, "you did it." Then a second crowded up 
 to me and whispered, " I gave him the majority 
 vote." "Yes," I replied, "yours is the credit 
 and the glory for the good work done this day." 
 A third man came to me and said, " I did not have 
 a vote to-day, but I controlled one, and if I had not 
 secured that vote for your friend he would have 
 fallen short." " Yes, sir," 1 answered, '* you were 
 the only man that could have won that vote, and 
 without that vote the day was lost. To you be- 
 longs the credit of this victory." And so on around. 
 Did I prevaricate ? Did I flatter ? By no means. 
 It was the gospel truth. 
 
 And so 1 show each of my people that his one 
 little vote, his modest work, his quiet influence, is 
 not only important, but that it is absolutely essen- 
 tial ; that the great work cannot be done without 
 him, and that to him belongs the credit and the 
 glory of the noble results. And the beauty of it 
 is that this is all true. They see that it is true, 
 that it is perfectly logical and thoroughly sound, 
 and they proceed to act upon it with confidence. 
 
 Nor is this a mere experiment. I had tested it 
 in other work before applying it to the church. 
 
APPENDIX 93 
 
 Years ago, wliile principal of a village high school 
 in Michigan, which had never previously graduated 
 more than four students at any one commence- 
 ment, I applied this principle of personal work by 
 every student, until the fourth and last year that 
 I was principal we graduated a class of twenty- 
 seven. Later, when I was at the head of the de- 
 partment of English literature in the Ohio State 
 University, by similar methods we increased the 
 number of students in the literature department 
 from two hundred and sixteen to six hundred and 
 eighty-three in five years. Still later, while I was 
 the president of the Wisconsin State Normal School, 
 by similar methods we increased the attendance of 
 students from two hundred and seventy-six to six 
 hundred and twelve in three years. I always be- 
 lieved that the same practical, organized effort of 
 united individual work that wins so certainly else- 
 where will win in the church work also, and now I 
 am sure of it. 
 
 In answering your request I have spoken in the 
 first person, using the personal pronoun freely. If 
 I had actually done this work myself, perhaps mod- 
 esty would forbid this free use of the first person. 
 But I feel like one who has been a spectator, stand- 
 ing near-by as the work has gone on. Others have 
 done the actual work, to them belongs the credit, 
 and I am recording for you the results. It reminds 
 me of a barn-raising which I witnessed in the coun- 
 try when a boy. The great framework of the barn 
 having been previously mortised and fitted, was to 
 
94 APPENDIX 
 
 be put up in a day by a "barn-raising bee.'' It 
 required some seventy-five men of the neighbor- 
 hood far and near, with pike and peavey and pole 
 and handspike to lift the huge framework into place. 
 1 observed that this was not accomplished by one 
 man stepping forward and giving a lift to a piece of 
 timber, and then another lifting, and then another, 
 but that all took hold together, all prepared to work 
 in harmony — to lift in unison. One of the number 
 stood aside and said, " All ready men — Yo-hee ! " 
 By every man helping and all lifting together, foot 
 by foot the huge framework went up until it stood 
 erect with every timber in its place. 
 
 There was no great credit to the man who said, 
 "Yo-hee." Any other man could have said it as 
 well — but it was necessary that some one should 
 say it. So I have not done this work. The 
 church has actually done it. The members have 
 been doing the real lifting. Mine has been the 
 modest task of standing by and saying, " Yo-hee." 
 Some one else can say it just as well, but in the 
 raising of the great spiritual framework of a com- 
 munity it is necessary that some one stand by and 
 say, "All together now, ready, * Yo-hee.' " 
 
 Perhaps I ought to add that all our work is done 
 quietly, reverently, and with constant prayer to 
 God for guidance and inspiration, and to the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Spirit is ascribed all praise and all 
 glory for whatever may be accomplished in Jesus' 
 name. 
 
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