tihr<xrp of Che Che^olojical ^etninar^ 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Librajry of 
 Professor Benjamin B. Warfield 
 
 BV 3790 .S7 1895 
 Spurgeon, C. H. 1834-1892. 
 The soul-winner 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 HOW TO LEAD SINNERS 
 TO THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 By C. H. SPURGEON 
 
 'The salvation of oue soul is worth more than the framing of a Magus 
 Charta of a thousand worlds."— AVi/**. 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 Publishers of Evangelical Literature 
 
COPYRIGHTED. 1895. by FLEMING H. REVELL GO. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Prefatory Note 
 
 What is it to Win a Soul . 
 
 Qualifications for Soul-Winning— Godward 
 
 Qualifications for Soul-Winning— Manward 
 
 Sermons Likely to Win Souls . 
 
 Obstacles to Soul-Winning 
 
 How to Induce Our People to Win Souls 
 
 How to Raise the Dead 
 
 How to Win Souls for Christ . 
 
 The Cost of Being a Soul-Winner 
 
 The Soul-Winner's Reward 
 
 The Soul-Winner's Life and Work 
 
 Soul-Winning Explained 
 
 Soul-Saving Our One Business . 
 
 Instruction in Soul-Winning , 
 
 Encouragement to Soul-Winners 
 
 PAGE 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 39 
 
 65 
 83 
 107 
 119 
 139 
 159 
 181 
 191 
 203 
 227 
 249 
 273 
 297 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 This volume is issued in accordance with a plan 
 formed by Mr. Spurgeon ; indeed, he had already pre- 
 pared for the press the greater part of the material here 
 published, and the rest of his manuscripts have been in- 
 serted after only slight revision. It was his intention 
 to deliver to the students of the Pastors' College a 
 short course of Lectures upon what he termed "that 
 most royal employment" — Soul-Winning, — and, hav- 
 ing completed the series, he purposed to collect his 
 previous utterances to other audiences upon the same 
 theme, and to publish the whole for the guidance of 
 all who desired to become soul-winners, and with the 
 hope also of inducing many more professing Chris- 
 tians to engage in this truly blessed service for the 
 Saviour. 
 
 This explanation will account for the form in which 
 the topic is treated in the present book. The first six 
 chapters contain the College Lectures; then follow four 
 Addresses delivered to Sunday-school teachers, open- 
 air preachers, and friends gathered at Monday evening 
 prayer-meetings at the Tabernacle; while the rest of the 
 volume consists of SerrQons in which the work of win- 
 ning souls is earnestly commended to the attention of 
 every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 For more than forty years, Mr. Spurgeon was, b\' 
 his preaching and writing, one of the greatest soul- 
 winners; and by his printed words still continues to be 
 the means of the conversion of many all over the world. 
 It is believed, therefore, that thousands will rejoice to 
 read what he spoke and wrote concerning what he 
 called ''the chief business of the Christian minister." 
 
 ^^ 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 
 
 I purpose, dear brethren, if God shall enable 
 me, to give you a short course of lectures under the 
 general head of "THE SOUL-WINNER." Soul- 
 winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; 
 indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true 
 believer. We should each say with Simon Peter, *T 
 go a fishing," and with Paul our aim should be, "That 
 I might by all means save some." 
 
 We shall commence our discourses upon this subject 
 by considering the question — 
 
 WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 
 
 This may be instructively answered by describing 
 what it is not. We do not regard it to be soul-winning 
 to steal members out of churches already established, 
 and train them to utter our peculiar Shibboleth: we 
 aim rather at bringing souls to Christ than at making 
 converts to our synagogue. There are sheep-stealers 
 abroad, concerning whom I will say nothing except 
 that they are not ''brethren", or, at least, they do not 
 act in a brotherly fashion. To their own Master they 
 must stand or fall. We count it utter meanness to 
 build up our own house with the ruins of our neigh- 
 bours' mansions; we infinitely prefer to quarry for 
 ourselves. I hope we all sympathize in the large- 
 hearted spirit of Dr. Chalmers, who, when it was said 
 
10 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 that such and such an effort would not be beneficial 
 to the special interests of the Free Church of Scotland, 
 although it might promote the general religion of 
 the land, said, "What is the^ Free Church compared 
 with the Christian good of the people of Scotland?" 
 What, indeed, is any church, or what are all the 
 churches put together, as mere organizations, if they 
 stand in conflict with the moral and spiritual advantage 
 of the nation, or if they impede the kingdom of Christ? 
 It is because God blesses men through the churches 
 that we desire to see them prosper, and not merely 
 for the sake of the churches themselves. There is 
 such a thing as selfishness in our eagerness for the 
 aggrandisement of our owm party; and from this evil 
 spirit may grace deliver us! The increase of the king- 
 dom is more to be desired than the growth of a clan. 
 We would do a great deal to make a Paedo-baptist 
 brother into a Baptist, for we value our Lord's ordi- 
 nances ; we would labour* earnestly to raise a believer 
 in salvation by free-will into a believer in salvation 
 by grace, for we long to see all religious teaching 
 built upon the solid rock of truth, and not upon the 
 sand of imagination ; but, at the same time, our grand 
 object is not the revision of opinions, but the regenera- 
 tion of natures. We would bring men to Christ, and 
 not to our own peculiar views of Christianity. Our 
 first care must be that the sheep should be gathered 
 , to the great Shepherd ; there will be time enough after- 
 ward to secure them for our various folds. To make 
 proselytes, is a suitable labour for Pharisees: to beget 
 men unto God, is the honourable aim of ministers 
 of Christ. 
 
 In the next place, we do not consider soul-winning 
 to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more 
 names upon our church-roll, in order to show a good 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 11 
 
 increase at the end of the year. This is easily done, 
 and there are brethren who use great pains, not to say 
 arts, to effect it; but if it be regarded as the Alpha 
 and Omega of a minister's efforts, the result will be 
 deplorable. By all means let us bring true converts 
 into the church, for it is a part of our work to teach 
 them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has com- 
 manded them; but still, this is to be done to disciples, 
 and not to mere professors; and if care be not used, 
 we may do more harm than good at this point. To 
 introduce unconverted persons to the church, is to 
 weaken and degrade it; and therefore an apparent 
 gain may be a real loss. I am not among those who 
 decry statistics, nor do I consider that they are pro- 
 ductive of all manner of evil; for they do much good 
 if they are accurate, and if men use them lawfully. It is 
 a good thing for people to see the nakedness of the 
 land through statistics of decrease, that they may be 
 driven on their knees before the Lord to seek prosper- 
 ity; and, on the other hand, it is by no means an evil 
 thing for workers to be encouraged by having some 
 account of results set before them. I should be very 
 sorry if the practice of adding up, and deducting, and 
 giving in the net result were to be abandoned, for it 
 must be right to know our numerical condition. It 
 has been noticed that those who object to the process 
 are often brethren whose unsatisfactory reports should 
 somewhat humiliate them : this is not always so, but it 
 is suspiciously frequent. I heard of the report of a 
 church, the other day, in which the minister, who was 
 well known to have reduced his congregation to noth- 
 ing, somewhat cleverly wrote, "Our church is looking 
 up." When he was questioned with regard to this 
 statement, he replied, "Everybody knows that the 
 church is on its back, and it cannot do anything else 
 
12 TH4^: SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 but look up." When churches are looking up in that 
 way, their pastors generally say that statistics are very 
 delusive things, and that you cannot tabulate the work 
 of the Spirit, and calculate the prosperity of a church 
 by figures. The fact is, you can reckon very correctly 
 if the figures are honest, and if all circumstances are 
 taken into consideration: if there is no increase, you 
 may calculate with considerable accuracy that there is 
 not much being done; and if there is a clear decrease 
 among a growing population, you may reckon that the 
 prayers of the people and the preaching of the minister 
 are not of the most powerful kind. 
 
 But, still, all hurry to get members into the church 
 is most mischievous, both to the church and to the 
 supposed converts. I remember very well several 
 young men, who were of good moral character, and 
 religiously hopeful; but instead of searching their 
 hearts, and aiming at their real conversion, the pastor 
 never gave them any rest till he had persuaded them 
 to make a profession. He thought that they would be 
 under more bonds to holy things if they professed 
 religion, and he felt quite safe in pressing them, for 
 "they Vv'ere so hopeful." He imagined that to discour- 
 age them by vigilant examination might drive them 
 away, and so, to secure them, he made them hypocrites. 
 These ycnmg men are, at the present time, much fur- 
 ther off from the Church of God than they would have 
 been if they had been affronted by being kept in their 
 proper places, and warned that they were not con- 
 verted to God. It is a serious injury to a person to 
 receive him into the number of the faithful unless there 
 is good reason to believe that he is really regenerate. 
 I am sure it is so, for I speak after careful observation. 
 Some of the most glaring sinners known to me were 
 once members of a church ; and were, as I believe, led 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 13 
 
 to make a profession by undue pressure, well-meant but 
 ill-judged. Do not, therefore, eonsider that soul-win- 
 ning is or can be secured by the multiplication of bap- 
 tisms, and the swelling of the size of your church. 
 What mean these despatches from the battle-field? 
 "Last night fourteen souls were under conviction, fif- 
 teen were justified, and eight received full sanctifica- 
 tion." I am weary of this public bragging, this count- 
 ing of unhatched chickens, this exhibition of doubtful 
 spoils. Lay aside such numberings of the people, such 
 idle pretence of certifying in half a minute that which 
 will need the testing of a lifetime. Hope for the best, 
 but in your highest excitements be reasonable. En- 
 quiry-rooms are all very well; but if they lead to idle 
 boastings, they will grieve the Holy Spirit, and work 
 abounding evil. 
 
 Nor is it soul-winning, dear friends, merely to create 
 excitement. Excitement will accompany every great 
 movement. We might justly question whether the 
 movement w^as earnest and powerful if it was quite as 
 serene as a drawing-room Bible-reading. You cannot 
 very well blast great rocks without the sound of ex- 
 plosions, nor fight a battle and keep everybody as quiet 
 as a mouse. On a dry day, a carriage is not moving 
 much along the roads unless there is some noise and 
 dust; friction and stir are the natural result of force 
 in motion. So, when the Spirit of God is abroad, and 
 men's minds are stirred, there must and will be certain 
 visible signs of movement, although these must never 
 be confounded with the movement itself. If people 
 imagine that to make a dust is the object aimed at by 
 the rolling of a carriage, they can take a broom, and 
 very soon raise as much dust as fifty coaches; but they 
 will be committing a nuisance rather than conferring a 
 benefit. Excitement is as incidental as the dust, but 
 
14 THE SOUL-WINNER, 
 
 it is not for one moment to be aimed at. When the 
 woman swept her house, she did it to find her money, 
 and not for the sake of raising a cloud. 
 
 Do not aim at sensation and "effect." Flowing 
 tears and streaming eyes, sobs and outcries, crowded 
 after-meetings and all kinds of confusion may occur, 
 and may be borne with as concomitants of genuine 
 feeling; but pray do not plan their production. 
 
 It very often happens that the converts that are born 
 in excitement die when the excitement is over. They 
 are like certain insects which are the product of an 
 exceedingly warm day, and die when the sun goes 
 down. Certain converts live like salamanders, in the 
 fire; but they expire at a reasonable temperature. I 
 delight not in the religion which needs or creates a 
 hot head. Give me the Godliness which flourishes 
 upon Calvary rather than upon Vesuvius. The utmost 
 zeal for Christ is consistent with common-sense and 
 reason: raving, ranting, and fanaticism are products 
 of another zeal which is not according to knowledge. 
 We would prepare men for the chamber of communion, 
 and not for the padded room at Bedlam. No one is 
 more sorry than I that such a caution as this should 
 be needful; but remembering the vagaries of certain 
 wild revivalists, I cannot say less, and I might say a 
 great deal more. 
 
 What is the real winning of a soul for God? So far 
 as this is done by instrumentality, what are the proc- 
 esses by which a soul is led to God and to salvation? 
 I take it that one of its main operations consists in 
 mstructing a man that he may know the truth of God. 
 Instruction by the gospel is the commencement of all 
 real work upon men's minds. "Go ye, therefore, and 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teach- 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 15 
 
 ing them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
 manded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world." Teaching begins the work, and 
 crowns it, too. 
 
 The gospel, according to Isaiah, is, "Incline your 
 ear, and come unto Me : hear, and your soul shall live." 
 It is ours, then, to give men something worth their 
 hearing; in fact, to instruct them. We are sent to 
 evangelize, or to preach the gospel to every creature; 
 and that is not done unless we teach them the great 
 truths of revelation. The gospel is good news. To 
 listen to some preachers, you would imagine that the 
 gospel was a pinch of sacred snufif to make them wako 
 up, or a bottle of ardent spirits to excite their brains. 
 It is nothing of the kind; it is news, there is informa- 
 tion in it, there is instruction in it concerning matters 
 which men need to know, and statements in it calcu- 
 lated to bless those who hear it. It is not a magical 
 incantation, or a charm, whose force consists in a col- 
 lection of sounds; it is a revelation of facts and truths 
 which require knowledge and belief. The gospel is a 
 reasonable system, and it appeals to men's understand- 
 ing; it is a matter for thought and consideration, and 
 it appeals to the conscience and the reflecting powers. 
 Hence, if we do not teach men something, we may 
 shout, ''Believe! Believe! Believe!" but what are they to 
 believe? Each exhortation requires a corresponding 
 instruction, or it will mean nothing. "Escape!" 
 From what? This requires for its answer the doctrine 
 of the punishment of sin. "Fly!" But whither? 
 Then must you preach Christ, and His wounds; yea, 
 and the clear doctrine of atonement by sacrifice. "Re- 
 pent!" Of what? Here you must answer such ques- 
 tions as, What is sin? What is the evil of sin? What 
 are the consequences of sin? "Be converted!" But 
 
16 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 what is it to be converted? By what power can we be 
 converted? What from? What to? The field of in- 
 struction is wide if men are to be made to know the 
 truth which saves. "That the soul be without knowl- 
 edge, it is not good," and it is ours as the Lord's instru- 
 ments to make men so to know the truth that they may 
 believe it, and feel its power. We are not to try and 
 save men in the dark, but in the power of the Holy 
 Ghost we are to seek to turn them from darkness to 
 light. 
 
 And, do not believe, dear friends, that when you go 
 into revival meetings, or special evangelistic services, 
 you are to leave out the doctrines of the gospel ; for you 
 ought then to proclaim the doctrines of grace rather 
 more than less. Teach gospel doctrines clearly, affec- 
 tionately, simply, and plainly, and especially those 
 truths which have a present and practical bearing upon 
 man's condition and God's grace. Some enthusiasts 
 would seem to have imbibed the notion that, as soon 
 as a minister addresses the unconverted, he should 
 deliberately contradict his usual doctrinal discourses, 
 because it is supposed that there will be no conversions 
 if he preaches the whole counsel of God. It just 
 comes to this, brethren, it is supposed that we are to 
 conceal truth, and utter a half-falsehood, in order to 
 save souls. We are to speak the truth to God's people 
 because they will not hear anything else; but we are 
 to wheedle sinners into faith by exaggerating one part 
 of truth, and hiding the rest until a more convenient 
 season. This is a strange theory, and yet many en- 
 dorse it. According to them, we may preach the re- 
 demption of a chosen number of God's people, but 
 universal redemption must be our doctrine when we 
 speak with the outside world; we are to tell believers 
 that salvation is all of grace, but sinners are to be 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 17 
 
 spoken with as if they were to save themselves; we are 
 to inform Christians that God the Holy Spirit alone 
 can convert, but when we talk with the unsaved, the 
 Holy Ghost is scarcely to be named. We have not so 
 learned Christ. Thus others have done; let them be 
 our beacons, and not our examples. He who sent us 
 to win souls neither permits us to invent falsehoods, 
 nor to suppress truth. His work can be done without 
 such suspicious methods. 
 
 Perhaps some of you will reply, ''But, still, God has 
 blessed half-statements and wild assertions." Be not 
 quite so sure, I venture to assert that God does not 
 bless falsehood; He may bless the truth which is mixed 
 up with error ; but much more of blessing would have 
 come if the preaching had been more in accordance 
 with His own Word. I cannot admit that the Lord 
 blesses evangelistic Jesuitism, and the suppression of 
 tmth is not too harshly named when I so describe 
 it. The withholding of the doctrine of the total de- 
 pravity of man has wrought serious mischief to many 
 who have listened to a certain kind of preaching. 
 These people do not get a true healing because they do 
 not know the disease under which they are suffering ; 
 they are never truly clothed because nothing is done 
 towards stripping them. In many ministries, there is 
 not enough of probing the heart and arousing the con- 
 science by the revelation of man's alienation from God, 
 and by the declaration of the selfishness and the wicked- 
 ness of such a state. Men need to be told that, except 
 divine grace shall bring them out of their enmity to 
 God, they must eternally perish; and they must be 
 reminded of the sovereignty of God, that He is not 
 obliged to bring them out of this state, that He would 
 be right and just if He left them in such a condition, 
 that they have no merit to plead before Him, and no 
 
18 Ttm SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 claims upon him, but that if they are to be saved, it 
 must be by grace, and by grace alone. The preacher's 
 work is to throw sinners down in utter helplessness, 
 that they may be compelled to look up to Him who 
 alone can help them. 
 
 To try to win a soul for Christ by keeping that soul 
 in ignorance of any truth, is contrary to the mind of 
 the Spirit; and to endeavour to save men by mere 
 claptrap, or excitement, or oratorical display, is as 
 foolish as to hope to hold an angel with bird-lime, or 
 lure a star with music. The best attraction is the 
 gospel in its purity. The weapon with which the Lord 
 conquers men ia the truth as it is in Jesus. The gospel 
 will be found equal to every emergency; an arrow 
 which can pierce the hardest heart, a balm which will 
 heal the deadliest wound. Preach it, and preach noth- 
 ing else. Rely implicitly upon the old, old gospel. 
 You need no other nets when you fish for men; those 
 your Master has given you are strong enough for the 
 great fishes, and have meshes fine enough to hold the 
 little ones. Spread these nets and no others, and you 
 need not fear the fulfilment of His Word, "I will make 
 you fishers of men." 
 
 Secondly, to win a soul, it is necessary, not only to 
 instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth, but 
 U imfress him so that he may feel it. A purely didactic 
 ministry, which should always appeal to the under- 
 standing, and should leave the emotions untouched, 
 would certainly be a limping ministry. "The legs of 
 the lame are not equal," says Solomon ; and the unequal 
 legs of some ministries cripple them. We have seen 
 such an one limping about with a long doctrinal leg, 
 but a very short emotional leg. It is a horrible thing 
 for a man to be so doctrinal that he can speak coolly 
 of the doom of the wicked, so that, if he does not 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 19 
 
 actually praise God for it, it costs him no anguish of 
 heart to think of the ruin of millions of our race. This 
 is horrible! I hate to hear the terrors of the Lord 
 proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, 
 and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desicca- 
 tion: all the milk of human kindness is dried out of 
 them. Having no feeling himself, such a preacher 
 creates none, and the people sit and listen while he 
 keeps to dry, lifeless statements, until they come to 
 value him for being "sound," and they themselves come 
 to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep 
 also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out 
 heresy, and making earnest men offenders for a word. 
 Into this spirit may we never be baptized! Whatever 
 I believe, or do not believe, the command to love my 
 neighbour as myself still retains its claim upon me, and 
 God forbid that any views or opinions should so con- 
 tract my soul, and harden my heart as to make me 
 forget this law of love! The love of God is first, but 
 this by no means lessens the obligation of love to man ; 
 in fact, the first command includes the second. We 
 are to seek our neighbour's conversion because we love 
 him, and we are to speak to him in loving terms God's 
 loving gospel, because our heart desires his eternal 
 good. 
 
 A sinner has a heart as well as a head ; a sinner has 
 emotions as well as thoughts; and we must appeal to 
 both. A sinner will never be converted until his 
 emotions are stirred. Unless he feels sorrow for sin. 
 and unless he has some measure of joy in the reception 
 of the Word, you cannot have much hope of him. The 
 Truth must soak into the soul, and dye it with its own 
 colour. The Word must be like a strong wind sweep- 
 ing through the whole heart, and swaying the whole 
 man, even as a field of ripening corn waves in tlie 
 
20 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 summer breeze. Religion without emotion is religion 
 without life. 
 
 But, still, we must mind how these emotions are 
 caused. Do not play upon the mind by exciting feel- 
 ings which are not spiritual. Some preachers are very 
 fond of introducing funerals and dying children into 
 their discourses, and they make the people weep 
 through sheer natural affection. This may lead up to 
 something better, but in itself what is its value? What 
 is the good of opening up a mother's griefs or a widow's 
 sorrows? I do not believe that our merciful Lord has 
 sent us to make men weep over their departed relatives 
 by digging anew their graves, and rehearsing past 
 scenes of bereavement and woe. Why should He? 
 It is granted that you may profitably employ the death- 
 bed of a departed Christian, or of a dying sinner, for 
 proof of the rest of faith in the one case, and the terror 
 of conscience in the other; but it is out of the fact 
 proved, and not out of the illustration itself, that the 
 good must arise. Natural grief is of no service in itself; 
 indeed, we look upon it as a distraction from higher 
 thoughts, and as a price too great to exact from tender 
 hearts, unless we can repay them by engrafting lasting 
 spiritual impressions upon the stock of natural affec- 
 tion. "It W2is a very splendid oration, full of pathos," 
 says one who heard it. Yes, but what is the practical 
 outcome of this pathos? A young preacher once re- 
 marked, "Were you not greatly struck to see so large 
 a congregation weeping?" "Yes," said his judicious 
 friend, "but I was more struck with the reflection that 
 they would probably have wept more at a play." Ex- 
 actly so; and the weeping in both cases may be equally 
 valueless. I saw a girl on board of a steamboat read- 
 ing a book, and crying as if her heart would break ; but 
 when I glanced at the volume, I saw that it was only 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 21 
 
 one of those silly yellow-covered novels which load our 
 railway bookstalls. Her tears were a sheer waste of 
 moisture, and so are those which are produced by mere 
 pulpit tale-telling and death-bed painting. 
 
 If our hearers will weep over their sins, and after 
 Jesus, let their tears flow in rivers; but if the object of 
 their sorrow is merely natural, and not at all spiritual, 
 what good is done by setting them weeping? There 
 might be some virtue in making people joyful, for 
 there is sorrow enough in the world, and the more we 
 can promote cheerfulness, the better; but what is tlie 
 use of creating needless misery? What right have you 
 to go through the world pricking everybody with your 
 lancet just to show your skill in surgery? A true 
 physician only makes incisions in order to effect cures, 
 and a wise minister only excites painful emotions in 
 men's minds with the distinct object of blessing their 
 souls. You and I must continue to drive at men's 
 hearts till they are broken; and then we must keep on 
 preaching Christ crucified till their hearts are bound up ; 
 and when this is accomplished, we must continue to 
 proclaim the gospel till their whole nature is brought 
 into subjection to the gospel of Christ. Even in these 
 preliminaries you will be made to feel the need of the 
 Holy Ghost to work with you, and by you; but this 
 need will be still more evident when we advance a step 
 further, and speak of the new birth itself in which the 
 Holy Spirit works in a style and manner most divine. 
 
 I have already insisted upon instruction and impres- 
 sion as most needful to soul-winning; but these are not 
 all — they are, indeed, only means to the desired end. 
 A far greater work must be done before a man is 
 saved. A wonder of divine grace must be wrough"^ 
 upon the soul, fcr transcending anything which can be 
 accomplished by the power of man. Of all whom we 
 
22 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 would fain win for Jesus it is true, ''Except a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The 
 Holy Ghost must work regeneration in the objects of 
 our love, or they never can become possessors of eternal 
 happiness. They must be quickened into a new life, 
 and they must become new creatures in Christ Jesus. 
 The same energy which accomplishes resurrection and 
 creation must put forth all its power upon them ; noth- 
 ing short of this can meet the case. They must be 
 born again from above. This might seem at first sight 
 to put human instrumentality altogether out of the 
 'field ; but on turning to the Scriptures we find nothing 
 to justify such an inference, and much of quite an op- 
 posite tendency. There we certainly find the Lord to 
 be all in all, but we find no hint that the use of means 
 must therefore be dispensed with. The Lord's supreme 
 majesty and power are seen all the more gloriously 
 because He works by means. He is so great that He 
 is not afraid to put honour upon the instruments He 
 employs, by speaking of them in high terms, and 
 imputing to them great influence. It is sadly possible 
 to say too little of the Holy Spirit; indeed, I fear this 
 is one of the crying sins of the age; but yet that infal- 
 lible Word, which always rightly balances truth, while 
 it magnifies the Holy Ghost, does not speak lightly of 
 the men by whom He works. God does not think his 
 own honour to be so questionable that it can only be 
 maintained by decr\'ing the human agent. There are 
 two passages in the Epistles which, when put together, 
 have often amazed me. Paul compares himself both to 
 a father and to a mother in the matter of the new birth : 
 lie says of one convert, "Whom I have begotten in my 
 bonds," and of a whole church he says, "My little chil- 
 dren, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be 
 formed in you." This is going very far; indeed, much 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 23 
 
 further than modern orthodoxy would permit the most 
 useful minister to venture, and yet it is language sanc- 
 tioned, yea, dictated, by the Spirit of God Himself, and 
 therefore it is not to be criticised. Such mysterious 
 power doth God infuse into the instrumentality which 
 He ordains that we are called "labourers together with 
 God"; and this is at once the source of our responsi- 
 bility and the ground of our hope. 
 
 Regeneration, or the new birth, works a change in the 
 whole nature of man, and, so far as we can judge, 
 its essence lies in the implantation and creation of a 
 new principle within the man. The Holy Ghost creates 
 in us a new, heavenly, and immortal nature, which is 
 known in Scripture as "the spirit," by way of distinc- 
 tion from the soul. Our theory of regeneration is that, 
 man in his fallen nature consists only of body and soul, 
 and that when he is regenerated there is created in 
 him a new and higher nature — "the spirit" — which is 
 a spark from the everlasting fire of God's life and love; 
 this falls into the heart, and abides there, and makes its 
 receiver "a partaker of the divine nature." Thence- 
 forward, the man consists of three parts, body, soul, 
 and spirit, and the spirit is the reigning power of the 
 three. You will all remember that memorable chapter 
 upon the resurrection, i Corinthians xv., where the dis- 
 tinction is well brought out in the original, and may 
 even be perceived in our version. The passage ren- 
 dered, "It is sown a natural body," etc., might be read, 
 "It is sown a soulish body; it is raised a spiritual 
 body. There is a soulish body, and there is a spiritual 
 body. And so it is written. The first man Adam was 
 made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quicken- 
 ing spirit. Howbeit, that was not first which is 
 spiritual, but that which is soulish; and afterward that 
 which is spiritual." We are first in the natural or soul- 
 
24 THE SOUL-WINMER. 
 
 ish stage of being, like the first Adam, and then in 
 regeneration we enter into a new condition, and we 
 become possessors of the life-giving "spirit." Without 
 this spirit, no man can see or enter the kingdom of 
 heaven. It must therefore be our intense desire that 
 the Holy Spirit should visit our hearers, and create 
 them anew, — that he Vvould come down on these dry 
 bones, and breathe eternal life into the dead in sin. 
 Till this is done, they can never receive the truth, "for 
 the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can 
 he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 
 ''The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not 
 subject to the law of God, .neither indeed can be." A 
 new and heavenly mind must be created by omnipo- 
 tence, or the man must abide in death. You see, then, 
 that we have before us a mighty work, for which w^e are 
 of ourselves totally incapable. No minister living can 
 save a soul; nor can all of us together, nor all the 
 saints on earth or in heaven, w-ork regeneration in a 
 single person. The whole business on our part is the 
 height of absurdity unless w^e regard ourselves as used 
 by the Holy Ghost, and filled with His power. On the 
 other hand, the marvels of regeneration which attend 
 our ministry are the best seals and witnesses of our 
 commission. Whereas the apostles could appeal to 
 the miracles of Christ, and to those w^hich they wrought 
 in His name, we appeal to the miracles of the Holy 
 Ghost, which are as divine and as real as those of our 
 Lord Himself. These miracles are the creation of a 
 new life in the human bosom, and the total change of 
 the whole being of those upon whom the Spirit 
 descends. 
 
 As this God-begotten spiritual life in men is a mys- 
 tery, we shall speak to more practical effect if we dwell 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 25 
 
 upon the signs following and accompanying it, for these 
 are the things we must aim at. First, regeneration will 
 be shown in conviction of sin. This we believe to be 
 an indispensable mark of the Spirit's work; the new 
 life as it enters the heart causes intense inward pain as 
 one of its first effects. Though nowadays w^e hear of 
 persons being healed before they have been wounded, 
 and brought into a certainty of justification without 
 ever having lamented their condemnation, we are very 
 dubious as to the value of such healings and justify- 
 ings. This style of things is not according to the truth. 
 God never clothes men until He has first stripped them, 
 nor does He quicken them by the gospel till first they 
 are slain by the law. When you meet with persons in 
 whom there is no trace of conviction of sin, you may be 
 quite sure that they have not been wrought upon by 
 the Holy Spirit ; for "when He is come. He will reprove 
 the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
 ment." When the Spirit of the Lord breathes on 
 us, He withers all the glory of man, which is but as the 
 flower of grass, and then He reveals a higher and 
 abiding glory. Do not be astonished if you find this 
 conviction of sin to be very acute and alarming; but, on 
 the other hand, do not condemn those in whom it is 
 less intense, for so long as sin is mourned over, con- 
 fessed, forsaken, and abhorred, you have an evident 
 fruit of the Spirit. Much of the horror and unbelief 
 which goes with conviction is not of the Spirit of God, 
 but comes of Satan or corrupt nature; yet there must 
 be true and deep conviction of sin, and this the preacher 
 must labour to produce, for where this is not felt the 
 new birth has not taken place. 
 
 Equally certain is it that true conversion may be 
 kno\vn by the exhibition of a simple faith in Jesus 
 Christ. You need not that I speak unto you of that, for 
 
26 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 you yourselves are fully persuaded of it. The pro- 
 duction of faith is the very centre of the target at which 
 you aim. The proof to you that you have won the 
 man's soul for Jesus is never before you till he has done 
 with himself and his own merits, and has closed in with 
 Christ. Great care must be taken that this faith is 
 exercised upon Christ for a complete salvation, and not 
 for a part of it. Numbers of persons think that the 
 Lord Jesus is available for the pardon of past sin, but 
 they cannot trust Him for their preservation in the 
 future. They trust for years past, but not for years to 
 come ; whereas no such sub-division of salvation is ever 
 spoken of in Scripture as the work of Christ. Either 
 He bore all our sins, or none; and He either saves us 
 once for all, or not at all. His death can never be re- 
 peated, and it must have made expiation for the future 
 sin of believers, or they are lost, since no further atone- 
 ment can be supposed, and future sin is certain to be 
 committed. Blessed be His name, "by Him all that 
 believe are justified from all things." Salvation by 
 grace is eternal salvation. Sinners must commit their 
 souls to the keeping of Christ to all eternity; how else 
 are they saved men? Alas! according to the teaching 
 of some, believers are only saved in part, and for the 
 rest must depend upon their future endeavours. Is 
 this the gospel? I trow not. Genuine faith trusts a 
 whole Christ for the whole of salvation. Is it any won- 
 der that many converts fall away, when, in fact, they 
 were never taught to exercise faith in Jesus for eternal 
 salvation, but only for temporar\^ conversion? A faulty 
 exhibition of Christ begets a faulty faith; and when 
 this pines away in its own imbecility, who is to blame for 
 it? According to their faith so it is unto them: the 
 preacher and professor of a partial faith must unitedly 
 bear the blame of the failure when their poor mutilated 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 27 
 
 trust comes to a break-down. I would the more earn- 
 estly insist upon this because a semi-legal way of believ- 
 ing is so common. We must urge the trembling sinner 
 to trust wholly and alone upon the Lord Jesus for ever, 
 or we shall have him inferring that he is to begin in the 
 Spirit and be made perfect by the flesh : he will surely 
 walk by faith as to the past, and then by works as to the 
 future, and this will be fatal. True faith in Jesus 
 receives eternal life, and sees perfect salvation in Him, 
 whose one sacrifice hath sanctified the people of God 
 once for all. The sense of being saved, completely 
 saved in Christ Jesus, is not, as some suppose, the 
 source of carnal security and the enemy of holy zeal, 
 but the very reverse. Delivered from the fear which 
 makes the salvation of self a more immediate object 
 than salvation /;'(W/ self, and inspired by holy gratitude 
 to his Redeemer, the regenerated man becomes capable 
 of virtue, and is filled with an enthusiasm for God's 
 glory. While trembling under a sense of insecurity, 
 a man gives his chief thought to his owu interests; but 
 planted firmly on the Rock of ages, he has time and 
 heart to utter the new song which the Lord has put 
 into his mouth, and then is his moral salvation com- 
 plete, for self is no longer the lord of his being. Rest 
 not content till you see clear evidence in your converts 
 of a simple, sincere, and decided faith in the Lord Jesus. 
 Together with undivided faith in Jesus Christ there 
 must also be uiifcigned rcpcfitance of sin. Repentance 
 is an old-fashioned word, not much used by modern 
 revivalists. "Oh!"' said a minister to me, one day, 
 "it only means a change of mind." This was thought 
 to be a profound observation. "Only a change of 
 mind"; but what a change! A change of mind with 
 regard to everything! Instead of saying, *Tt is only a 
 change of mind," it seems to me more truthful to say 
 
28 THtrSOUL-WINNER. 
 
 it is a great and deep change — even a change of the 
 mind itself. But whatever the literal Greek word may 
 mean, repentance is no trifle. You will not find a 
 better definition of it than the one given in the children's 
 hymn : — 
 
 'Repentance is to leave 
 
 The sins we loved before; 
 
 And show that we in earnest grieve, 
 By doing so no more." 
 
 True conversion is in all men attended by a sense of 
 sin, which we have spoken of under the head of convic- 
 tion ; by a sorrow for sin, or holy grief at having com- 
 mitted it; by a hatred of sin, which proves that its 
 dominion is ended; and by a practical turning from 
 sin, which shows that the life within the soul is operating 
 upon the life without. True belief and true repentance 
 arc twins: it would be fdle to attempt to say which is 
 born first. All the spokes of a wheel move at once 
 when the wheel moves, and so all the graces commence 
 action when regeneration is wrought by the Holy 
 Ghost. Repentance, however, there must be. No sin- 
 ner looks to the Saviour with a dry eye or a hard heart. 
 Aim, therefore, at heart-breaking, at bringing home 
 condemnation to the conscience, and weaning the mind 
 from sin, and be not content till the whole mind is 
 deeply and vitally changed in reference to sin. 
 
 Another proof of the conquest of a soul for Christ 
 will be found in a real change of life. If the man does 
 not live differently from what he did before, both at 
 home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented 
 of, and his conversion is a fiction. Not only action 
 and language, but spirit and temper must be changed. 
 "But," says someone, "grace is often grafted on a 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 29 
 
 crab-Stock." I know it is; but what is the fruit of the 
 grafting? The fruit will be like the graft, and not after 
 the nature of the original stem. "But," says another, 
 "I have an awful temper, and all of a sudden it over- 
 comes me. My anger is soon over, and I feel very 
 penitent. Though I cannot control myself, I am quite 
 sure I am a Christian." Not so fast, my friend, or I 
 may answer that I am quite as sure the other way. 
 What is the use of your soon cooling if in two or three 
 moments you scald all around you? If a man stabs 
 me in a fury, it will not heal my wound to see him 
 grieving over his madness. Hasty temper must be 
 conquered, and the whole man must be renewed, or con- 
 version will be questionable. We are not to hold up 
 a modified holiness before our people, and say. You 
 will be all right if you reach that standard. The 
 Scripture says, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." 
 Abiding under the power of any known sin is a mark of 
 our being the servants of sin, for "his servants ye are to 
 whom ye obey." Idle are the boasts of a man who 
 harbours within himself the love of any transgression. 
 He may feel what he likes, and believe what he likes, 
 he is still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of 
 iniquity wliile a single sin rules his heart and life. True 
 regeneration implants a hatred of all evil; and where 
 one sin is delighted in, the evidence is fatal to a sound 
 hope. A man need not take a dozen poisons to destroy 
 his life, one is quite sufificient. 
 
 There must be a harmony between the life and the 
 profession. A Christian professes to renounce sin; 
 and if he does not do so, his very name is an imposture. 
 A drunken man came up to Rowland Hill, one day. 
 and said, "I am one of your converts, Mr. Hill." 'T 
 daresay you are," replied that shrewd and sensible 
 preacher; "but vou are none of the Lord's, or you 
 
30 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 would not be drunk." To this practical test we must 
 bring all our work. 
 
 In our converts we must also see iiue prayer, which 
 is the vital breath of godliness. If there is no prayer, 
 you may be quite sure the soul is dead. We are not 
 to urge men to pray as though it were the great gospel 
 duty, and the one prescribed way of salvation; for our 
 chief message is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 It is easy to put prayer into its wrong place, and make 
 it out to be a kind of work by which men are to live ; but 
 this you will, I trust, most carefully avoid. Faith is 
 the great gospel grace ; but still we cannot forget that 
 true faith always prays, and when a man professes faith 
 in the Lord Jesus, and yet does not cry to the Lord 
 daily, we dare not believe in his faith or his conversion. 
 The Holy Ghost's evidence by which He convinced 
 Ananias of Paul's conversion was not, "Behold, he talks 
 loudly of his joys and feelings," but, "Behold, he pray- 
 eth," and that prayer was earnest, heart-broken con- 
 fession and supplication. Oh, to see this sure evidence 
 in all who profess to be our converts! 
 
 There must also be a willingness to obey the Lord 
 in all His commandments. It is a shameful thing for a 
 man to profess discipleship and yet refuse to learn his 
 Lord's will upon certain points, or even dare to decline 
 obedience when that will is known. How can a man be 
 a disciple of Christ when he openly lives in disobedi- 
 ence to Him? 
 
 If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately 
 declares that he knows his Lord's will but does not 
 mean to attend to it, you are not to pamper his pre- 
 sumption, but it is your duty to assure him that he is 
 not saved. Has not the Lord said, "He that taketh not 
 up his cross, and cometh after Me, cannot be My 
 disciple"? Mistakes as to what the Lord's will may 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 31 
 
 be are to be tenderly corrected, but anything like wilful 
 disobedience is fatal ; to tolerate it would be treason to 
 Him that sent us. Jesus must be received as King as 
 well as Priest; and where there is any hesitancy about 
 this, the foundation of godliness is not yet laid. 
 
 "Faith must obey her Maker's will 
 As well as trust His grace; 
 A pardoning God is jealous still 
 For His own holiness." 
 
 Thus, you see, my brethren, the signs which prove 
 that a soul is won are by no means trifling, and the work 
 to be done ere those signs can exist is not to be lightly 
 spoken of. A soul-winner can do nothing without 
 God. He must cast himself on the Invisible, or be a 
 laughing-stock to the devil, who regards with utter 
 disdain all who think to subdue human nature with 
 mere words and arguments. To all who hope to suc- 
 ceed in such a labour by their own strength, we would 
 address the words of the Lord to Job, "Canst thou 
 draw out leviathan with a hook? or his tongue with a 
 cord which thou lettest down? Wilt thou play with 
 him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy 
 maidens? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the 
 battle, do no m.ore. Behold, the hope of him is in 
 vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of 
 him?" Dependence upon God is our strength, and our 
 joy: in that dependence let us go forth, and seek to win 
 souls for Him. 
 
 Now, in the course of our ministry, we shall meet 
 with many failures in this matter of soul-winning. 
 There are many birds that I have thought I had caught; 
 I have even managed to put salt on their tails, but they 
 have gone flying off after all. I remember one man, 
 
32 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 whom I will call Tom Careless. He was the terror of 
 the village in which he lived. There were many in- 
 cendiary fires in the region, and most people attributed 
 them to him. Sometimes, he would be drunk for two 
 or three weeks at a spell, and then he raved and raged 
 like a madman. That man came to hear me; I recol- 
 lect the sensation that went through the little chapel 
 when he came in. He sat there, and fell in love with 
 me; I think that was the only conversion that he ex- 
 perienced, but he professed to be converted. He had, 
 apparently, been the subject of genuine repentance, and 
 he became outwardly quite a changed character, gave 
 up his drinking and swearing, and was in many respects 
 an exemplary individual. I remember seeing him tug- 
 ging a barge, with perhaps a hundred people on board, 
 whom he was drawing up to a place where I was going 
 to preach ; and he was glorying in the work, and sing- 
 ing as gladly and happily as any one of them. If 
 anybody spoke a word against the Lord or His servant, 
 he did not hesitate a moment, but knocked him over. 
 Before I left the district, I was afraid that there was no 
 real work of grace in him; he was a wild Red Indian 
 sort of a man. I have heard of him taking a bird, 
 plucking it, and eating it raw in the field. This is not 
 the act of a Christian man, it is not one of the things 
 that are comely, and of good repute. After I left the 
 neighbourhood, I asked after him, and I could hear 
 nothing good of him; the spirit that kept him out- 
 wardly right was gone, and he became worse than he 
 was before, if that was possible; certainly, he was no 
 better, he was unreachable by any agency. That work 
 of mine did not stand the fire; it would not bear even 
 ordinary temptation, you see, after the person who had 
 influence over the man was gone away. When you 
 move from the village or town where you have been 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 33 
 
 preaching, it is very likely that some, who did run 
 well, will go back. They have an affection for yon, 
 and your words have a kind of mesmeric influence 
 over them ; and when you are gone, the dog will run 
 to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wal- 
 lowing in the mire. Do not be in a hurry to count 
 these supposed converts; do not take them into the 
 church too soon; do not be too proud of their enthu- 
 siasm if it is not accompanied with some degree of 
 softening and tenderness to show that the Holy Spirit 
 has really been at work within them. 
 
 I remember another case of quite a different sort. 
 I will call this person ]\Iiss ^lary Shallow, for she 
 was a young lady who was never blessed with many 
 brains; but living in the same house with several 
 Christian young ladies she also professed to be con- 
 verted. When I conversed with her, there was ap- 
 parently everything that one could wish for. I 
 thought of proposing her to the church; but it was 
 judged best to give her a little trial first. After a 
 while, she left the associations of the place where she 
 had lived, and went where she had nothing much to 
 help her; and I never heard anything more of her 
 except that her whole time was spent in dressing her- 
 self as smartly as she could, and in frequenting gay 
 society. She is a type of those who have not much 
 mental furniture; and if the grace of God does not 
 take possession of the empty space, they very soon go 
 back into the w^orld. 
 
 I have known several like a young man whom I 
 will call Charlie Clever, uncommonly clever young fel- 
 lows at anything and everything, very clever at coun- 
 terfeiting religion when they took up with it. They 
 prayed very fluently; they tried to preach, and did it 
 verv well; whatever thev did, thev did it off-hand, it 
 
34 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 was as easy to them as kissing their hand. Do not 
 be in a hurry to take such people into the church; 
 they have known no humihation on account of sin, no 
 brokenness of heart, no sense of divine grace. They 
 cry, "All serene!" and away they go; but you will 
 find that they will never repay you for your labour and 
 trouble. They will be able to use the language of 
 God's people as well as the best of His saints, they 
 will even talk of their doubts and fears, and they will 
 get up a deep experience in five minutes. They are a 
 little too clever, and they are calculated to do much 
 mischief when they get into the church; so keep them 
 out if you possibly can. 
 
 I remember one who was very saintly in his talk, I 
 will call him John Fairspeech. Oh! how cunningly 
 he could act the hypocrite, getting among our young 
 men, and leading them into all manner of sin and 
 iniquity, and yet he would call and see me, and have 
 half-an-hour's spiritual conversation! An abominable 
 wretch, who was living in open sin at the ver}^ time 
 that he was seeking to come to the Lord's table, and 
 joining our societies, and anxious to be a leading man 
 in every good work. Keep your weather eye open, 
 brethren! They will come to you with money in their 
 hands like Peter's fish with the silver in its mouth; 
 and they will be so helpful in the work. They speak 
 so softly, and they are such perfect gentlemen! Yes, 
 I beUeve Judas was a man exactly of that kind, very 
 clever at deceiving those around him. We must mind 
 that we do not get any of these into the church if we 
 can anyhow keep them out. You may say to your- 
 self, at the close of the service, "Here is a splendid 
 haul of fish!" Wait a bit. Remember our Saviour's 
 words, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, 
 that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind ; 
 
WHAT IS IT TO WIN A SOUL? 35 
 
 which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat 
 down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast 
 the bad away." Do not number your fishes before 
 they are broiled; nor count your converts before you 
 have tested and tried them. This process may make 
 your work somewhat slow; but then, brethren, it will 
 be sure. Do your work steadily and well, so that those 
 who come after you may not have to say that it was 
 far more trouble to them to clear the church of those 
 who ought never to have been admitted than it was 
 to you to admit them. If God enables you to build 
 three thousand ^bricks into His spiritual temple in one 
 day, you may do it; but Peter has been the only 
 bricklayer who has accomplished that feat up to the 
 present. Do not go and paint the wooden wall as if 
 it were solid stone; but let all your building be real, 
 substantial, and true, for only this kind of work is 
 worth the doing. Let all your building for God be 
 like that of the apostle Paul, "According to the grace 
 of God which is given unto me, as a wise master 
 builder, I have laid the foundation, and another build- 
 eth thereon. But let every man take heed how he 
 buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man 
 lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any 
 man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious 
 stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall 
 be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, be- 
 cause it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall 
 try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's 
 work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall 
 receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, 
 he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved; yet 
 so as by fire." 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WlNNlNG 
 GODWAKD. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WIN 
 NING--GODWARD. 
 
 Our main business, brethren, is to win souls. Like 
 the shoeing-smiths, we need to know a great many 
 things; but, just as the smith mt/ si know about horses, 
 and how to make shoes for them, so we 7/ms/ know 
 about souls, and how to win them for God. The part 
 of the subject on which I shall speak to you this' 
 afternoon is — 
 
 QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 
 
 keeping myself to one set of those qualifications, name- 
 ly, the Godward ones, and I shall try to treat the sub- 
 ject in somewhat of a common-sense style, asking you 
 to judge for yourselves what those qualifications would 
 be wliich God would naturally look for in His servants, 
 w^hat qualifications He would be likely to approve, and 
 most likely to use. You must know that every work- 
 man, if he be wise, uses a tool that is likely to accom- 
 plish the purpose he has in view. There are some 
 artists who have never been able to play except upon 
 their own violin, nor to paint except with their own 
 favourite brush and palette; and certainly, the great 
 God, the mightiest of all the workers, in His great ar- 
 tistic work of soul-winning, loves to have His own 
 special tools. In the old creation, He used none but 
 
40 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 His own instruments, "He spake, and it was done;" 
 and in the new creation, the efficient agent is still His 
 powerful Word. He speaks through the ministry of 
 His servants, and therefore they must be fit trumpets 
 for Him to speak through, fit instruments for Him to 
 use for conveying His Word to the ears and hearts 
 of men. Judge ye, then, my brethren, whether God 
 will use you; imagine yourselves in His place, and 
 think what kind of men those would be whom you 
 would be most likely to use if you were in the posi- 
 tion of the Most High God. . 
 \ I am sure ^ou would say, first of all, that« man whol 
 is to be a soiil-wijiner must have holiness of characterA 
 Ah! how few who attempt to preach think sufficiently! 
 of this! If they did, it would strike them at once that 
 the Eternal would never use dirty tools, that the thrice- 
 holy Jehovah would only select holy instruments for 
 the accomplishment of His work. No wise man would 
 pour his wine into foul bottles; no kind and good 
 parent would allow his children to go to see an im- 
 moral play; and God will not go to work with instru- 
 ments which would compromise His own character. 
 Suppose it were well known that, if men were only 
 clever, God would use them, whatever their charac- 
 ter and conduct might be; suppose it were under- 
 stood that you could get on as well in the work of 
 God by chicanery and untruthfulness as by honesty 
 and uprightness, what man in the world, with any right 
 feeling, would not be ashamed of such a state of af- 
 fairs? But, brethren, it is not so. There are many 
 in the present day who tell us that the theatre is a 
 great school for morals. That must be a strange school 
 where the teachers never learn their own lessons. In 
 God's school, the teachers must be masters of the art 
 of holiness.. If we teach one thing by our lips and 
 
QUALIFICATIONS B^OR SOUL-WINNING. 41 
 
 another by our lives, those who Usten to us will say, 
 "Physician, heal thyself." "Thou sayest, 'Repent.' 
 Where is thine own repentance? Thou sayest, 'Serve 
 God, and be obedient to His will' Do you serve 
 Him? Are you obedient to His will?" An unholy 
 ministry would be the derision of the world, and a 
 dishonour to God. "Be ye clean, that bear the ves- 
 sels of the Lord." He will speak through a fool if he be 
 but a holy man. I do not, of course, mean that God 
 chooses fools to be His ministers; but let a man 
 once become really holy, even though he has but the 
 slenderest possible ability, he will be a more fit in- 
 strument in God's hand than the man of gigantic 
 acquirements, who is not obedient to the divine will, 
 nor clean and pure in the sight of the Lord God 
 Almighty. 
 
 Dear brethren, I do beg you to attach the highest 
 importance to your own personal holiness. Do live 
 unto God. If you do not, your Lord will not be with 
 you; He will say of you as He said of the false 
 prophets of old, 'T sent them not, nor commanded 
 them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, 
 saith the Lord." You may preach very fine sermons, 
 but if you are not yourselves holy, there will be no 
 souls saved. The probability is that you will not come 
 to the conclusion that your want of holiness is the 
 reason for your non-success; you will blame the peo- 
 ple, you will blame the age in which you live, you 
 will blame anything except yourself; but there will 
 be the root of the whole mischief. Do I not myself 
 know men of considerable ability and industry, who 
 go on year after year without any increase in their 
 churches? The reason is that they are not living 
 before God as they ought to live. Sometimes the evil 
 is in the family of the minister; his sons and daugh- 
 
42 T|iE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 ters are rebels against God, bad language is allowed 
 even amongst his own children, and his reproofs are 
 simply like Eli's mild question to his wicked sons, 
 "Why do ye such things?" Sometimes, the minister is 
 worldly, greedy after gain, neglectful of his work. 
 That is not according to God's mind, and He will 
 not bless such a man. When I listened to Mr. George 
 Miiller, as he was preaching at Mentone, it was just 
 such an address as might be given to a Sunday-school 
 by an ordinary teacher, yet I never heard a sermon 
 that did me more good, and more richly profited my 
 soul. It was George Miiller in it that made it so use- 
 ful. There was no George Miiller in it in one sense; 
 for he preached not himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord; 
 he was only there in his personality as a witness to 
 the truth, but he bore that witness in such a manner 
 that you could not help saying, "That man not only 
 preaches what he believes, but also what he lives." In 
 every word he uttered his glorious life of faith seemed 
 to fall upon both ear and heart. I was delighted to 
 sit and listen to him; yet, as for novelty or strength 
 of thought, there was not a trace of it in the whole 
 discourse. Holiness was the preacher's force; and 
 you may depend upon it that, if God is to bless us, our 
 strength must lie in the same direction. 
 
 This holiness ought to show itself in communion 
 with God. If a man delivers his own message, it 
 will have such power as his own character gives to it; 
 but if he delivers his Master's message, having heard 
 it from his Master's lips, that will be quite another 
 thing; and if he can acquire something of the Mas- 
 ter's spirit as He looked upon him, and gave him the 
 message, if he can reproduce the expression of his 
 Master's face, and the tone of his Master's voice, that 
 also will be quite another thing. Read McCheyne's 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 43 
 
 Memoir, read the whole of it, I cannot do you a better 
 service than by recommending you to read it; there 
 is no great freshness of thought, there is nothing very 
 novel or striking in it, but as you read it, you must get 
 good out of it, for you are conscious that it is the story 
 of the life of a man who walked with God. Moody 
 would never have spoken with the force he did if he 
 had not lived a life of fellowship with the Father, and 
 with His Son, Jesus Christ. The greatest force of the 
 sermon lies in what has gone before the sermon. You 
 must get ready for the whole service by private fellow- 
 ship with God, and real holiness of character. 
 
 You will all confess that, if a man is to be used; 
 as a winner of souls, he must have spiritual life to «|. 
 high degree. You see, brethren, our work is, under j ' 
 God, to communicate life to others. It would be well 
 to imitate Elisha when he stretched himself upon the 
 dead child, and brought him back to life. The 
 prophet's staff was not sufficient, because it had no 
 life in it: the life must be communicated by a living 
 instrument, and the man who is to communicate the 
 life must have a great deal of it himself. You re- 
 member the words of Christ, "He that believeth on 
 Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall 
 flow rivers of living water," that is, the Holy Spirit, 
 when He dwells within a living child of God, after- 
 wards rises out of the very midst of him as a foun- 
 tain or a river, so that others may come and partici- 
 pate in the Spirit's gracious influences. I do not think 
 there is one of you who would wish to be a dead min- 
 ister. God will not use dead tools for working living 
 miracles; He must have living men, and men that are 
 all alive. There are many who are alive, but they are not 
 altogether alive. I remember once seeing a painting of 
 the resurrection, which was one of the queerest pictures 
 
44 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 I ever saw. The artist had attempted to depict the 
 moment when the work was only half done; there 
 were some who were alive down as far as their waists, 
 some had one arm alive, some had part of their heads 
 alive. The thing is quite possible in our day. There 
 are some men who are only about half alive ; they have 
 a living jaw, but not a living heart; others have a 
 living heart, but not a living brain; others have a 
 living eye, they can see things pretty plainly, but their 
 hearts are not alive, they can give good descriptions 
 of what they see, but there is no warmth of love in 
 them. There are some ministers who are one-half 
 angel, and the other half — well, let us say, maggots. 
 It is an awful contrast; but there are many instances 
 of it. Are there any such here? They preach well, 
 and you say, as you listen to one of them, 'That is a 
 good man." You feel that he is a good man; you 
 hear that he is going to such-and-such a person's house 
 to supper, and you think that you will go in to supper 
 there, too, that you may hear what gracious words 
 will fall from his lips; and as you watch, out they 
 come — maggots! It was an angel in the pulpit; now 
 come the worms ! It is so, often, but it ought never to 
 be so; if we want to be true witnesses for God, we 
 must be all angel and no worms. God deliver us 
 from this state of semi-death! May we be all alive 
 from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot! 
 I know some such ministers; you cannot come into 
 contact with them without feeling the power of the 
 spiritual life which is in them. It is not merely while 
 they are talking upon religious topics, but even in 
 the commonplace things of the world, you are con- 
 scious that there is something about the men which 
 tells you that they are all alive unto God. Such men 
 will be used by God for the quickening of others. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL- WINNING. 45 
 
 Suppose it were possible for you to be exalted into 
 the place of God, do you not think, next, that you 
 would employ a man who thought little of himself, a 
 man of humble spirit? If you saw a very proud man, 
 would you be likely to use him as your servant? Cer- 
 tainly, the great God has a predilection for those who 
 are humble. "For thus saith the high and lofty One 
 that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell 
 in the high and holy place, with him also that is of 
 a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the 
 humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." 
 He loatheth the proud; and whenever He sees the 
 high and mighty, He passes them by; but whenever 
 He finds the lowly in heart, He takes pleasure in ex- 
 alting them. He delights especially in humility 
 amongst His ministers. It is an awful sight to see a 
 proud minister. There are few things that can give 
 the devil more joy than this, whenever he takes his 
 walks abroad. Here is something that delights him, 
 and he says to himself, "Here are all the preparations 
 for a great fall before long." Some ministers show 
 their pride by their style in the pulpit; you can never 
 forget the way in which they announced their text; 
 '*It is /.• be not afraid.*' Others manifest it in their 
 attire, in the silly vanity of their dress ; or else in their 
 common talk, in which they continually magnify the 
 deficiencies of others, and dilate on their own extra- 
 ordinary excellences. There are two sorts of proud 
 people, and it is difficult sometimes to say which of the 
 two is the worse. There is, first of all, the kind that is 
 full of that vanity which talks about itself, and invites 
 other people to talk about it, too, and to pat it on the 
 back, and stroke its feathers the right way. It is all 
 full of its little morsel of a self, and goes strutting 
 about, and saying, "Praise me, please, praise me, I 
 
46 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 want it," like a little child who goes to each one in the 
 room, and says, ''See my new dress; isn't it a beauty?" 
 You may have seen some of these pretty dears ; I have 
 met many of them. The other kind of pride is too 
 big for tiiat sort of thing. It does not care for it; it 
 despises people so much that it does not condescend 
 to wdsh for their praises. It is so supremely satisfied 
 with itself that it does not stoop to consider what 
 others think of it. I have sometimes thought it is the 
 more dangerous kind of pride spiritually, but it is 
 much the more respectable of the two. There is, after 
 all, something very noble in being too proud to be 
 proud. Suppose those great donkeys did bray at you, 
 do not be such a donkey as to notice them. But this 
 other poor little soul says, "Well, everybody's praise 
 is worth something," and so he baits his mousetraps, 
 and tries to catch little mice of praise, that he may 
 cook them for his breakfast. He has a mighty appetite 
 for such things. Brethren, get rid of both kinds of 
 pride if you have anything of either of them about 
 you. The dw^arf pride and the ogre pride are both of 
 them abominations in the sight of the Lord. Never 
 forget that you are disciples o£' Him who said, "Learn 
 of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." 
 
 Humility is not having a mean opinion of yourself. 
 If a man has a low opinion of himself, it is very possible 
 that he is correct in his estimate. I have known some 
 people, whose opinion of themselves, according to what 
 they have said, was very low indeed. They thought 
 so little of their own powers that they never ventured 
 to try to do any good; they said they had no self- 
 reliance. I have known some so wonderfully humble 
 that they have always liked to pick an easy place for 
 themselves; they were too humble to do anything 
 that would bring any blame upon them; they called 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 47 
 
 it humility, but I thought "sinful love of ease" would 
 have been a better name for their conduct. True 
 humility will lead you to think rightly about your- 
 selves, to think the truth about yourselves. 
 
 In the matter of soul-winning, humility makes you 
 feel that you are nothing and nobody, and that, if 
 God gives you success in the work, you will be driven 
 to ascribe to Him all the glory, for none of the credit 
 of it could properly belong to you. If you do not 
 have success, humility will lead you to blame your 
 own, folly and weakness, not God's sovereignty. Why 
 should God give blessing, and then let you run away 
 with the glory of it? The glory of the salvation of 
 souls belongs to Him, and to Him alone. Then why 
 should you try to steal it? You know how many 
 attempt this theft. "When I was preaching at such- 
 and-such a place, fifteen persons came into the vestry 
 at the close of the service, and thanked me for the 
 sermon I had preached." You and your blessed sermon 
 be hanged, — I might have used a stronger word if I 
 had liked, for really you are worthy of condemnation 
 whenever you take to yourself the honour wdiich 
 belongeth unto God only. You remember the story 
 of the young prince, who came into the room where 
 he thought his dying father was sleeping, and put the 
 king's crown on his head to see how it would fit him. 
 The king, who was watching him, said, "Wait a little 
 while, my son, wait till I am dead." So, when you 
 feel any inclination to put the cro^wn of glor\^ on your 
 head, just fancy that you hear God saying to you, 
 "Wait till I am dead, before you try on My crown." 
 As that will never be, you had better leave the crown 
 alone, and let Him wear it to whom it rightfully 
 belongs. Our song must ever be, *'Not unto us, O 
 
48 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for 
 Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake." 
 
 Some men who have not had humihty, have been 
 sent adrift from the ministry, for the Lord will not use 
 those who will not ascribe the honour entirely to 
 Himself. Humility is one of the chief qualifications 
 for usefulness; many have passed away from the roll 
 of useful men because they have been lifted up with 
 pride, and so have fallen into the snare of the devil. 
 Perhaps you feel that, as you are only poor students, 
 there is no fear of your falling into this sin; but it is 
 quite possible that with some of you there is all the 
 more danger, for this very reason, if God should bless 
 you, and put you in a prominent position. A man who 
 is brought up in a good circle of society all his life, 
 does not feel the change so much when he reaches a 
 position which to others would be a great elevation. I 
 always feel that, in the case of certain men whom I 
 could name, a great mistake was made. As soon as 
 they were converted, they were taken right out of 
 their former associations, and put before the public as 
 popular preachers. It was a great pity that many made 
 little kings of them, and so prepared the way for their 
 fall, for they could not bear the sudden change. It 
 would have been a good thing for them, if ever}^body 
 had pitched into them, and abused them, for ten or 
 twenty years; for it would have probably saved them 
 from much after-misery. I am always very grateful 
 for the rough treatment I received in my earlier days 
 from all sorts of people. The moment I ever did any 
 good thing at all, they were at me like a pack of 
 hounds. I had not time to sit down and boast what I 
 had done, for they w^ere raving and roaring at me 
 continually. If I had been picked up all of a sudden. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 49 
 
 and placed where 1 am now, the probabihty is that 
 I should have gone down again just as quickly. When 
 you go out of the College, it will be well for you if 
 you are treated as I was. If you have great success, 
 it will turn your head if God does not permit you to 
 be afflicted in some way or other. If you are ever 
 tempted to say, "Is not this great Babylon, that I 
 have built?" just remember Nebuchadnezzar, when 
 he was "driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, 
 and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till 
 his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his 
 nails like birds' claws." God has many ways of 
 fetching proud Nebuchadnezzars down, and He can 
 very easily humble you too, if you are ever lifted 
 up with conceit. This point of the need of deep 
 humility in a soul-winner does not need any proof; 
 everyone can see, with half an eye, that God is not 
 Hkely to bless any man much unless he is truly 
 humble. 
 
 The next essential qualification for success in the 
 work of the Lord, and it is a vital one, is a living faitJi. 
 You know, brethren, how the Lord Jesus Christ could 
 not do many mighty works in his own country because 
 of the unbelief of the people; and it is equally true that 
 with some men, God can not do many mighty works be- 
 cause of their unbelief. If ye will not believe, neither 
 shall ye be used of God. "According to your faith be 
 it unto you," is one of the unalterable laws of His 
 kingdom. *Tf ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, 
 ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to 
 yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall 
 be impossible unto you ;" but if the question has to be 
 put, "Where is your faith?" the mountains will not move 
 for you, nor will even a poor sycamore tree be stirred 
 from its place. 
 
50 tHE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 You must have faith, brethren, about your call to 
 the ministry; you must believe without question that 
 you are really chosen of God to be ministers of the 
 gospel of Christ. If you firmly believe that God has 
 called you to preach the gospel, you will preach it 
 with courage and confidence; and you will feel that 
 you are going to your work because you have a right 
 to do it. If you have an idea that possibly you are 
 nothing but an interloper, you will do nothing of any 
 account; you will be only a poor, limping, diffident, 
 half-apologetic preacher, for whose message no one 
 will care. You had better not begin to preach until 
 you are quite sure that God has called you to the 
 work. A man once wrote to ask me whether he should 
 preach or not. When I do not know what reply to 
 send to anyone, I always try to give as wise an answer 
 as I possibly can. Accordingly, I wrote to this man, 
 "Dear Friend — If the Lord has opened your mouth, 
 the devil cannot shut it; but if the devil has opened 
 it, may the Lord shut it up!" Six months afterwards, 
 I met the man, and he thanked me for my letter, 
 which, he said, greatly encouraged him to go on 
 preaching. I said, "How was that?'' He replied, 
 "You said, If the Lord has opened your mouth, the 
 devil cannot shut it' " I said, "Yes, I did so ; but I 
 also put the other side of the question." "Oh!" said 
 he, at once, "that part did not relate to me." We can 
 always have oracles to suit our own ideas if we know 
 how to interpret them. If you have genuine faith in 
 your call to the ministry, you wdll be ready, with 
 Luther, to preach the gospel even while standing 
 within the jaws of the leviathan, between his great 
 teeth. 
 
 You must also believe that the message you have 
 to deliver is God's Word. I had sooner that you 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 51 
 
 believed half-a-dozen truths intensely than a hundred 
 only feebly. If your hand is not large enough to hold 
 a great deal, hold firmly what you can; because, if it 
 came to a regular push and shove, and we all of us 
 were allowed to carry away as much gold as we could 
 take from a heap, it might not be much use to have a 
 very big purse, but he would come ofif best in the 
 scuffle who should close his hand tightly on as much 
 as he could conveniently hold, and not let it go. Wc 
 may sometimes do well to imitate the boy mentioned 
 in the ancient fable. When he put his hand into a 
 narrow-necked jar, and grasped as many nuts as lie 
 could hold, he could not get even one of them out; 
 but when he let half of them go, the rest came out 
 with ease. So must we do; we cannot hold every- 
 thing, it is impossible, our hand is not big enough; 
 but when we do get anything in it, let us hold it fast, 
 and grip it tightly. Believe what you do believe, or 
 else you will never persuade anybody else to believe 
 it. If you adopt this style, **I think this is a truth, 
 and as a young man I beg to ask your kind attention 
 to what I am about to say; I am merely suggesting," 
 and so on, if that is your mode of preaching, you will 
 go to work the easiest way to breed doubters. I would 
 rather hear you say, "Young as I am, what I have to 
 say comes from God, and God's Word says so-and-so 
 and so-and-so; there it is, and you must believe what 
 God says, or you will be lost." The people who hear 
 you will say, "That young fellow certainly believes 
 something;" and very likely some of them will be led 
 to believe, too. God uses the faith of His ministers 
 to breed faith in other people. You may depend 
 upon it that souls are not saved by a minister who 
 doubts; and the preaching of your doubts and your 
 questions can never possibly decide a soul for Christ. 
 
52 THE SOUT.-WINNER. 
 
 You must have great faith in the Word of God if you 
 are to be winners of souls to those who hear it. 
 
 You must also believe in the power of that message 
 to save people. You may have heard the story of one 
 of our first students, who came to me, and said, "I 
 have been preaching now for some months, and I do 
 not think I have had a single conversion." I said to 
 him, "And do you expect that the Lord is going to 
 bless vou and save souls every time you open your 
 mouth ?" "No, sir," he replied. "Well, then," I said, 
 "that is why you do not get souls saved. If you had 
 believed, the Lord would have given the blessing." I 
 had caught him very nicely; but many others would 
 have answered me in just the same way as he did. 
 They tremblingly believe that it is possible, by some 
 strange mysterious method, that once in a hundred 
 sermons God might win a quarter of a soul. They 
 have hardly enough faith to keep them standing- 
 upright in their boots; how can they expect God to 
 bless them? I like to go to the pulpit feeling, "This 
 is God's Word that I am going to deliver in His name ; 
 it cannot return to Him void; I have asked His bless- 
 ing upon it, and He is bound to give it, and His pur- 
 poses will be answered, whether my message is a 
 savour of life unto life, or of death unto death to those 
 who hear it." 
 
 Now, if this is how you feel, what will be the result 
 if souls are not saved? Why, you will call special 
 prayer-meetings, to seek to know why the people do 
 not come to Christ; you will have enquirers' meetings 
 for the anxious; you will meet the people with a joy- 
 ful countenance, so that they may see that you are 
 expecting a blessing, but, at the same time, you will 
 let them know that you will be grievously disappointed 
 tinless the Lord gives you conversions. Yet, how is 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 53 
 
 it in many places? Nobody prays much about the 
 matter, there are no meetings for crying to God for 
 a blessing, the minister never encourages the people 
 to come and tell him about the work of grace in their 
 souls; verily, verily, I say unto you, he has his reward; 
 he gets what he asked for, he receives what he expected, 
 his Master gives him his penny, but nothing else. The 
 command is, ''Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill 
 it;" and here we sit, with closed lips, waiting for the 
 blessing. Open your mouth, brother, with a full expec- 
 tation, a firm belief, and according to your faith so 
 shall it be unto you. 
 
 That is the essential point, you must believe in God 
 and in His gospel if you are to be a winner of souls; 
 some other things may be omitted, but this matter of 
 faith must never be. It is true that God does not 
 always measure His mercy by our unbelief, for He has 
 to think of other people as well as of us; but, looking 
 at the matter in a common-sense way, it does seem 
 that the most likely instrument to do the Lord's work 
 is the man who expects that God will use him, and 
 who goes forth to labour in the strength of that con- 
 viction. When success comes, he is not surprised, for 
 he was looking for it. He sowed living seed, and he 
 expected to reap a harvest from it; he cast his bread 
 upon the waters, and he means to search and watch 
 till he finds it again. 
 
 Once more, if a man is to succeed in his ministry, 
 and win many souls, he must be characterized by 
 thorough ea?'7tcstness. Do we not know some men, who 
 preach in such a lifeless manner that it is highly im- 
 probable that anybody will ever be alTected by what 
 they say? I was present when a good man asked the 
 Lord to bless to the conversion of sinners the sermon 
 that he was about to deliver. I do not wish to limit 
 
54 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 omnipotence, but I do not believe that God could 
 bless to any sinner the sermon that was then preached 
 unless He had made the hearer misunderstand what 
 the minister said. It was one of those ''bright poker 
 sermons," as I call them. You know that there are 
 pokers that are kept in drawing-rooms to be looked 
 at, but never used. If you ever tried to poke the fire 
 with them, would not you catch it from the lady of the 
 house? These sermons are just like those pokers, 
 polished up, bright, and cold; they seem as if they 
 might have some relation to the people in the fixed 
 stars, they certainly have no connection with anyone in 
 this world. What good could come of such discourses, 
 no one can tell; but I feel sure there is not power 
 enough in them to kill a cockroach, or a spider; cer- 
 tainly, there is no power in them to bring a dead soul 
 to life. There are some sermons of which it is quite 
 true that, the more you think of them, the less you 
 think of them; and if any poor sinner goes to hear 
 them with the hope of getting saved, you can only say 
 that the minister is more likely to stand in the way of 
 his going to heaven than to point him to the right road. 
 You may depend upon it that you may make men 
 understand the truth if you really want to do so; but 
 if you are not in earnest, it is not likely that they will 
 be. If a man were to knock at my door in the middle 
 of the night, and when I put my head out of the 
 window to see what was the matter, he should say, in 
 a very quiet, unconcerned way, "There is a fire at the 
 back part of your house," I should have very little 
 thought of any fire, and should feel inclined to empty 
 a jug of water over him. If I am walking along, and 
 a man comes up to me, and says, in a cheerful tone of 
 voice, "Good afternoon, sir, do you know that I am 
 starving? I have not tasted food for ever so long, 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 55 
 
 indeed, I have not;" I should reply, "My good fellow, 
 you seem to take it very easy; I do not believe you 
 want for much, or you would not be so unconcerned 
 about it." Some men seem to preach in this fashion: — 
 "My dear friends, this is Sunday, so here I am; I 
 have been spending my time in my study all the week, 
 and now I hope you will listen to what I have to say 
 to you. I do not know that there is anything in it 
 that particularly concerns you, it might have some 
 connection with the man in the moon; but I under- 
 stand that some of you are in danger of going to a 
 certain place which I do not wish to mention, only I 
 hear that it is not a nice place for even a temporary 
 residence. I have especially to preach to you that 
 Jesus Christ did something or other, which, in some 
 way or other, has something to do with salvation, and 
 if you mind what you do" — and so on — *'it is possible 
 that you will" — and so on, and so on. That is, in a 
 nutshell, the full report of many a discourse. There 
 is nothing in that kind of talk that can do anybody 
 any good; and after the man has kept on in that style 
 for three-quarters of an hour, he closes by saying, 
 "Now it is time to go home," and he hopes that the 
 deacons will give him a couple of guineas for his 
 services. Now, brethren, that sort of thing will not 
 do. We did not come into the world to waste our 
 own time, and other people's, in that fashion. 
 
 I hope we were born for something better than to 
 be mere chips in the porridge, like the man I have 
 described. Only fancy God sending a man into the 
 world to try to win souls, and that is the style of his 
 mind, and the whole spirit of his life. There are some 
 ministers who are constantly being knocked up with 
 doing nothing: they preach two sermons, of a sort, on 
 Sunday, and they say the effort almost wears their 
 
56 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 life out; and they go and give little pastoral visitations, 
 which consist in drinking a cup of tea and talking 
 small gossip; but there is no vehement agony for 
 souls, no "Woe! woe!" on their hearts and lips, no 
 perfect consecration, no zeal in God's service. Well, 
 if the Lord sweeps them away, if He cuts them down 
 as cumberers of the ground, it will not be a matter for 
 surprise. The Lord Jesus Christ wept over Jerusalem, 
 and you will have to weep over sinners if they are to 
 be saved through you. Dear brethren, do be earnest, 
 put your whole soul into the work, or else give it up. 
 
 Another qualification that is essential to soul-win- W 
 ning is great simplicity of heart, I do not know 
 whether I can thoroughly explain what I mean by 
 that, but I will try to make it clear by contrasting it 
 with something else. You know some men who are 
 too wise to be just simple believers; they know such 
 a lot that they do not believe anything that is plain 
 and simple. Their souls have been fed so daintily 
 that they cannot live on anything but Chinese birds'- 
 nest, and such luxuries. There is no milk that ever 
 came fresh from a cow that is good enough for them, 
 they are far too superfine to drink such a beverage as 
 that. Everything they have must be incomparable. 
 Now God does not bless these exquisite celestial 
 dandies, these spiritual aristocrats. No, no; as soon 
 as you see them, you feel ready to say, "They may 
 do well enough as Lord So-and-So's servants, but 
 they are not the men to do God's work. He is not 
 likely to employ such grand gentlemen as they are." 
 When they select a text, they never explain its true 
 meaning; but they go round about to find out some- 
 thing that the Holy Ghost never intended to convey 
 by it, and when they get hold of one of their precious 
 '*new thoughts" — oh, dear! what a fuss they make 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SO UL-Vv INNING. 57 
 
 over it! Here is a man who has found a stale herring! 
 What a treat! It is so odoriferous! Now we shall 
 hear of this stale herring for the next six months, when 
 somebody else will find another one. What a shout 
 they set up! ''Glory! Glory! Glory! Here is a new 
 thought!" A new book comes out about it, and all 
 these great men go sniiftng round it to prove what 
 deep thinkers and what wonderful men they are. God 
 does not bless that kind of wisdom. 
 
 By simplicity of heart, I mean, that a man evidently 
 goes into the ministry for the glory of God and the 
 winning of souls, and nothing else. There are some 
 men who would like to win souls and glorify God if it 
 could be done with due regard to their own interests. 
 They would be delighted, oh, yes! certainly, very 
 pleased indeed, to extend the kingdom of Christ, if 
 the kingdom of Christ would give full play to their 
 amazing powders. They would go in for soul-winning 
 if it would induce people to take the horses out of 
 their carriage, and drag them in triumph through the 
 street; they must be somebody, they must be known, 
 they must be talked about, they must hear people say, 
 ''What a splendid man that is!" Of course, they give 
 God the glory after they have sucked the juice out 
 of it, but they must have the orange themselves 
 first. Well, you know, there is that sort of spirit even 
 among ministers, and God cannot endure it. He is 
 not going to have a man's leavings; He will have all 
 the glory, or none at all. If a man seeks to serve 
 himself, to get honour to himself, instead of seeking 
 to serve God and honour Him alone, the Lord Jehovah 
 will not use that man. A man who is to be used by 
 God must just believe that what he is going to do is 
 for the glory of God, and he must work from no other 
 motive. W1ien outsiders go to hear some preachers, 
 
58 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 all that they remember is that they were capital actors ; 
 but here is a very different kind of man. After they 
 have heard him preach, they do not think about how 
 he looked, or how he spoke, but about the solemn 
 truths he uttered. Another man keeps rolling out 
 what he has to tell in such a fashion that those .who 
 listen to him say to one another, "Do you not see 
 that he lives by his preaching? He preaches for his 
 living." I would rather hear it said, "That man said 
 something in his sermon that made many of the 
 people think less of him, he uttered most distasteful 
 sentiments, he did nothing but drive at us with the 
 Word of the Lord all the while that he was preaching, 
 his one aim was to bring us to repentance and faith 
 in Christ." That is the kind of a man whom the Lord 
 delights to bless. 
 
 I like to see men, like some before me here, to 
 whom I have said, "Here you are, earning a good 
 salary, and likely to rise to a position of influence in 
 the world; if you give up your business, and come 
 into the College, you will very likely be a poor Baptist 
 minister all your life;" and they have looked up, and 
 said, "I had sooner starve and win souls than spend 
 my life in any other calling." Most of you are that 
 kind of men, I believe you all are. There must never 
 be an eye to the glory of God and the fat sheep; 
 it must never be God's glory and your own honour 
 and esteem among men. It will not do; no, not 
 even if you preach to please God aiid Jemima; it 
 must be God's glory alone, nothing less and nothing 
 else, not even Jemima. As the limpet to the rock, 
 so is she to the minister; but it will not do for him 
 even to think of pleasing her. With true simplicity 
 of heart, he must seek to please God, whether men 
 and women are pleased or not. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 59 
 
 Lastly, there must be a complete surrender of your- 
 self to God, in this sense, that from this time you wish 
 to think, not your own thoughts, but God's thoughts; 
 and that you determine to preach, not anything of 
 your own invention, but God's Word; and further, 
 that you resolve not even to give out that truth in 
 your own way, but in God's way. Suppose you read 
 your sermons, which is not very likely, you desire not 
 to write anything but what shall be entirely according 
 to the Lord's mind. When you get hold of a fine big 
 word, you ask yourself whether it is likely to be a 
 spiritual blessing to your people; and if you think it 
 woukl not, you leave it out. Then there is that grand 
 bit of poetry that you could not understand, you felt 
 that you could not omit that; but when you asked 
 whether it was likely to be instructive to the rank and 
 file of your people, you were obliged to reject it. You 
 must stick those gems, that you found on a literary 
 dust-heap, into the coronet of your discourse, if you 
 want to show the people how industrious you have 
 been; but if you desire to leave yourself entirely in 
 God's hands, it is probable that you will be led to make 
 some very simple statement, some trite remark, some- 
 thing with which everyone in the congregation is famil- 
 iar. If you feel moved to put that into the sermon, put 
 it in by all means, even if you have to leave out the big 
 words, and the poetry, and the gems, for it may be 
 that the Lord will bless that simple statement of the 
 gospel to some poor sinner who is seeking the Saviour. 
 
 If you yield yourself thus unreservedly to the mind 
 and will of God, by-and-by, when you get out into the 
 ministry, you will sometimes be impelled to use a 
 strange expression or to offer an odd prayer, which at 
 the time may have a queer look even to yourself; but 
 it will be all explained to you afterwards, when some- 
 
60 TliE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 one comes to tell you that he never understood the 
 truth until you put it that day in such an unusual way. 
 You will be more Hkely to feel this influence if you 
 are thoroughl}^ prepared by study and prayer for your 
 work in the pulpit, and I urge you always to make all 
 due preparation, and even to write out in full what 
 you think you ought to say ; but not to go and deliver 
 it 7nej?ioriter, like a poll parrot repeating what it has 
 been taught, for if you do that, you will certainly not 
 be leaving yourself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 
 I have no doubt you will sometimes feel that there 
 is a passage that you must put in, a fine piece by one 
 of the British poets, or a choice extract from some 
 classic author. I do not suppose you would like it to 
 be known; but you did read it to a College friend. 
 Of course, you did not ask him to praise it, because 
 you felt sure that he could not help doing so. There 
 was one particular piece in it that you have very sel- 
 dom heard equalled; you are sure that Mr. Punshon 
 or Dr. Parker could not have done better than that. 
 You are quite certain that, when the people hear that 
 sermon, they will be obliged to feel that there is 
 something in it. It may be, however, that the Lord 
 will consider that it is too good to be blessed, there is 
 too much in it; it is like the host of men that were 
 with Gideon, they were too many for the Lord, He 
 could not give the Midianites into their hands, lest 
 they should vaunt themselves against Him, saying, 
 "Our own might hath gotten us the victory." When 
 twenty-two thousand of them had been sent away, the 
 Lord said to Gideon, "The people are yet too many," 
 and all of them had to be sent home except the three 
 hundred men that lapped, and then the Lord said to 
 Gideon, "Arise, get thee down unto the host; for I 
 have delivered it into thine hand." So the Lord says 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 61 
 
 about some of your sermons, "I cannot do any good 
 with them, they are too big." There is that one with 
 the fourteen subdivisions; leave seven of them out, 
 and then perhaps the Lord will bless it. Some day 
 it may happen, just when you are in the middle of 
 your discourse, that a thought will come across your 
 mind, and you will say to yourself, "Now, if I utter 
 this, that old deacon will make it hot for me; and 
 there is a gentleman just come in who keeps a school, 
 lie is a critic, and will be sure not to be pleased if 
 I say this; and besides, there is here a remnant 
 according to the election of grace, and the 'hyper' 
 up in the gallery will give me one of those heavenly 
 looks that are so full of meaning." Now, brother, 
 feel ready to say just anything that God gives you to 
 say, irrespective of all the consequences, and utterly 
 regardless of what the "hypers" or the lowpers or any- 
 body else will think or do. 
 
 One of the principal qualifications of a great artist's 
 brush must be its yielding itself up to him so that he 
 can do what he likes with it. A harpist will love to 
 play on one particular harp because he knows the 
 instrument, and the instrument almost appears to 
 know him. So, when God puts His hand upon the 
 very strings of your being, and every power within 
 you seems to respond to the movements of His hand, 
 you are an instrument that He can use. It is not easy 
 to keep in that condition, to be in such a sensitive 
 state that you receive the impression that the Holy 
 Spirit desires to convey, and are influenced by Him at 
 once. If there is a great ship out at sea, and there 
 comes a tiny ripple on the waters, it is not moved by 
 it in the least. Here comes a moderate wave, the ves- 
 sel does not feel it, the Great Eastern sits still upon 
 the bosom of the deep. But just look over the bul- 
 
C2 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 warks; see those corks down there, if only a fly drops 
 into the water, they feel the motion, and dance upon 
 the tiny wave. May you be as mobile beneath the 
 power of God as the cork is on the surface of the 
 sea! I am sure this self-surrender is one of the essen- 
 tial qualifications for a preacher who is to be a win- 
 ner of souls. There is something that must be said 
 if you are to be the means of saving that man in 
 the corner; woe unto you if you are not ready to 
 say it, woe unto you if you are afraid to say it, woe 
 unto you if you are ashamed to say it, woe unto you 
 if you do not dare to say it lest somebody up in the 
 gallery should say that you were too earnest, too 
 enthusiastic, too zealous! 
 
 These seven things, I think, are the qualifications, 
 Godward, which would strike the mind of any of you 
 if you tried to put yourself into the position of the 
 Most High, and considered what you would wish to 
 have in those whom you employed in the winning of 
 souls. May God give us all of these qualifications, 
 for Christ's sake! Amen. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING 
 MANWARD. 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WIN- 
 N1NG--MANWARD. 
 
 You remember, brethren, that on the last occa- 
 sion when I gave you a lecture on soul-winning, I 
 spoke of the qualifications, Godward, that would fit a 
 man to be a soul-winner; and I tried to describe to 
 you the kind of a man that the Lord was most likely to 
 use in the winning of souls. This afternoon, I pro- 
 pose to take as my subject — 
 
 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A SOUL-WINNER, 
 MANWARD. 
 
 I might almost mention the very same points that I 
 enumerated before as being those which will best tell 
 manward, for I do think that those qualities that com- 
 mend themselves to the notice of God, as being most 
 adapted to the end He desires, are also likely to be 
 approved by the object acted upon, that is, the soul 
 of man. 
 
 There have been many men in the world who have 
 not been at all adapted for this work; and, first, let , 
 
 me say that anigjio-amus is not likely to he much of a J 
 soul-winner. A man who only knows that he is a 
 sinner, and that Christ is a Saviour, may be very use- 
 ful to others in the same condition as himself, and it 
 is his duty to do the best he can with what little 
 knowledge he possesses; but, on the whole, T should 
 
 \^ 
 
66 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 not expect such a man to be very largely used in the 
 service of God. If he had enjoyed a wider and deeper 
 experience of the things of God, if he had been in the 
 highest sense a learned man because taught of God, 
 he could have used his knowledge for the good of 
 others; but being to a great extent ignorant of the 
 things of God himself, I do not see how he can make 
 them known to other people. Truly, there must be 
 some light in that candle which is to lighten men's 
 darkness, and there must be some information in that 
 man who is to be a teacher of his fellows. The man 
 who is almost or altogether ignorant, whatever will 
 he has to do good, must be left out of the race of great 
 soul-winners; he is disqualified from e-ven entering the 
 lists, and therefore, let us all ask, brethren, that we 
 may be well instructed in the truth of God, that we 
 may be able to teach others also. 
 
 Granted that you are not of the ignorant class to 
 which I have been referring, but supposing that you 
 are well instructed in the best of all wisdom, what are 
 the qualities that you must have towards men if you are 
 to win them for the Lord? I should say, there must 
 be about us afi evident sincerity ; not only sincerity, but 
 such sincerity that it shall be manifest at once to any- 
 one who honestly looks for it. It must be quite clear 
 to your hearers that you have a firm belief in the 
 truths that you are preaching; otherwise, you will never 
 make them believe them. Unless they are convinced, 
 beyond all question, that you do believe these truths 
 yourselves, there will be no ef^ficacy and no force in 
 your preaching. No one must suspect you of proclaim- 
 ing to others what you do not fully beheve in yourself; 
 if it should ever be so, your work will be of no efifect. 
 All who listen to you ought to be conscious that you 
 are exercising one of the noblest crafts, and perform- 
 
 \ 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 67 
 
 ing one of the most sacred functions that ever fell to 
 the lot of man. If you have only a feeble appreciation 
 of the gospel you profess to deliver, it is impossible for 
 those who hear your proclamation of it to be greatlx 
 influenced by it. I heard it asked, the other day, of a 
 certain minister, '*Did he preach a good sermon?" 
 and the reply to the enquiry was, "What he said was 
 very good." "But did you not profit by the sermon?" 
 "No, not in the slightest degree." "Was it not a good 
 sermon?" Again came the first answer, "What he said 
 was very good." "What do you mean? Why did 
 you not profit by the sermon if what the preacher said 
 was very good?" This was the explanation that the 
 listener gave, "I did not profit by the discourse because 
 I did not believe in the man who delivered it; he was 
 simply an actor performing a part; I did not believe 
 that he felt what he preached, nor that he cared 
 w^hether we felt or believed it or not." 
 
 Where such a state of things as that exists, the 
 hearers cannot be expected to profit by the sermon, 
 no matter what the preacher may say; they may try 
 to fancy that the truths he utters are precious, they 
 may resolve that they will feed upon the provision 
 whoever may set the dish before them; but it is no 
 use, they cannot do it, they cannot separate the heart- 
 less speaker from the message he delivers so carelessly. 
 As soon as a man lets his work become a matter of 
 mere form or routine, it sinks into a performance in 
 which the preacher is simply an actor. He is only 
 acting a part, as he might in a play at the theatre; and 
 not speaking from his inmost soul, as a man sent from 
 God. I do beseech you, brethren, speak from your 
 hearts, or else do not speak at all. If you can be 
 silent, be silent; but if you must speak for God, be 
 thoroughly sincere about it. It would be better for 
 
68 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 you to go back to business, and weigh butter or sell 
 reels of cotton, or do anything rather than pretend to 
 be ministers of the gospel unless God has called you 
 to the work. I believe that the most damnable thing 
 a man can do is to preach the gospel merely as an 
 actor, and to turn the worship of God into a kind of 
 theatrical performance. Such a caricature is more 
 worthy of the devil than of God. Divine truth is far 
 too precious to be made the subject of such a mockery. 
 You may depend upon it that, when the people once 
 suspect that you are insincere, they will never listen 
 to you except with disgust, and they will not be at all 
 likely to believe your message if you give them cause 
 to think that you do not believe it yourselves. 
 
 I hope I am not wrong in supposing that all of us 
 are thoroughly sincere in our Master's service; so I 
 will go on to what seems to be to me the next 
 qualification, manward, for soul-winning, and that is, 
 evident earnestness. The command to the man who 
 would be a true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ is, 
 *'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and 
 with all thy mind." If a man is to be a soul-winner, 
 there must be in him intensity of emotion as well as 
 sincerity of heart. You may preach the most solemn 
 warnings, and the most dreadful threatenings, in such 
 an indifferent or careless way that no one will be in 
 the least affected by them; and you may repeat the 
 most affectionate exhortations in such a half-hearted 
 manner that no one will be moved either to love or 
 fear. I believe, brethren, that for soul-winning there 
 is more in this matter of earnestness than in almost any- 
 thing else. I have seen and heard some who were very 
 poor preachers, who yet brought many souls to the 
 Saviour through the earnestness with which they de- 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 69 
 
 livered their message. There was positively nothing 
 in their sermons (until the provision merchant used 
 them to wrap round his butter), yet those feeble ser- 
 mons brought many to Christ. It was not what the 
 preachers said, so much as how they said it, that carried 
 conviction to the hearts of their hearers. The simplest 
 truth was so driven home by the intensity of the utter- 
 ance and emotion of the man from whom it came 
 that it told with surprising effect. If any gentleman 
 here would present me with a cannon-ball, say one 
 weighing fifty or a hundred pounds, and let me roll it 
 across the room; and another would entrust me with 
 a rifle-ball, and a rifle out of which I could fire it, I 
 know which would be the more effective of the two. 
 Let no man despise the little bullet, for very often 
 that is the one that kills the sin, and kills the sinner, 
 too. So, brethren, it is not the bigness of the words 
 you utter: it is the force with which you deliver them 
 that decides what is to come of the utterance. I have 
 heard of a ship that was fired at by the cannon in a fort, 
 but no impression was made upon it until the general 
 in command gave the order for the balls to be made 
 red-hot, and then the vessel was sent to the bottom of 
 the sea in three minutes. That is what you must do with 
 your sermons, make them red-hot; never mind if men 
 do say you are too enthusiastic, or even too fanatical, 
 give them red-hot shot, there is nothing else half as 
 good for the purpose you have in view. We do not 
 go out snow-balling on Sundays, we go fire-balling; 
 we ought to hurl grenades into the enemy's ranks. 
 
 What earnestness our theme deserves! We have to 
 tell of an earnest Saviour, an earnest heaven, and an 
 earnest hell. How earnest we ought to be when we 
 remember that in our work we have to deal with souls 
 that are immortal, wdth sin that is eternal in its effects, 
 
70 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 with pardon that is infinite, and with terrors and joys 
 that are to last for ever and ever! A man who is not 
 in earnest when he has such a theme as this, — can he 
 possess a heart at all? Could one be discovered even 
 with a microscope? If he were dissected, probably 
 all that could be found would be a pebble, a heart of 
 stone, or some other substance equally incapable of 
 emotion. I trust that, when God gave us hearts of 
 flesh for ourselves, He gave us hearts that could feel 
 for other people also. 
 
 These things being taken for granted, I should say, , 
 next, that it is necessary for a man who is to be a soul- I / 
 winner, that he should have an evident love to his \j 
 hearers. I cannot imagine a man being a winner of 
 souls when he spends most of his time in abusing his 
 congregation, and talking as if he hated the very sight 
 of them. Such men seem happy only when they are 
 emptying vials of wrath over those who have the unhap- 
 piness of listening to them. I heard of a brother 
 preaching from the text, "A certain man went down 
 from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves." 
 He began his discourse thus, '1 do not say that this 
 man came to the place where w^e are, but I do know 
 another man who did come to this place, and fell 
 among thieves." You can easily guess what would 
 be the result of such vitriol-throwing. I know of one 
 who preached from the passage, ''And Aaron held 
 his peace," and one who heard him said that the 
 difference between him and Aaron was, that Aaron 
 held his peace, and the preacher did not; but, on the 
 contrary, he raved at the people with all his might. 
 
 You must have a real desire for the good of the 
 people if you are to have much influence over them. 
 Why, even dogs and cats love the people who love 
 them, and human beings are much the same as these 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 71 
 
 dumb animals. Teople very soon get to know when 
 a cold man gets into the pulpit, one of those who seem 
 to have been carved out of a block of marble. There 
 have been one or two of our brethren of that kind, 
 and they have never succeeded anywhere. When 1 
 have asked the cause of their failure, in each case the 
 reply has been, "He is a good man, a very good man ; 
 he preaches w^ell, very well, but still we do not get on 
 wnth him." I have asked, *'Why do you not like him?" 
 The reply has been, "Xobody ever did like him." "Is 
 he quarrelsome?" "Oh! dear no, I wish he would 
 make a row." I try to fish out what the drawback 
 is, for I am very anxious to know, and at last some- 
 one says, "Well, sir, I do not think he has any heart; 
 at least, he does not preach and act as if he had any." 
 It is very sad when the failure of any ministry is 
 caused by want of heart. You ought to have a great 
 big heart, like the harbour at Portsmouth or Plymouth, 
 so that all the people in your congregation could come 
 and cast anchor in it, and feel that they were under 
 the lee of a great rock. Do you not notice that men 
 succeed in the ministry, and win souls for Christ, just in 
 proportion as they are men with large hearts? Think, 
 for instance, of Dr. Brock; there was a mass of a man, 
 one who had bow^els of compassion; and wh^t is the 
 good of a minister who has not? I do not hold up 
 the accumulation of flesh as an object worthy of your 
 attainment; but I do say that you must have big hearts, 
 if you are to win men to Jesus; you must be Great- 
 hearts if you are to lead many pilgrims to the Celestial 
 City. I have seen some very lean men who said that 
 they w^ere perfectly holy, and I could almost believe 
 that they could not sin, for they were like old bits of 
 leather, there did not appear to be anything in them 
 that was capable of sinning. I met one of these "per- 
 
72 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 feet" brethren once, and he was just Hke a piece of 
 sea-weed, there was no humanity in him. I like to 
 see a trace of humanity somewhere or other about a 
 man, and people in general like it, too; they get on 
 better with a man who has some human nature in 
 him. Human nature, in some aspects, is an awful 
 thing; but when the Lord Jesus Christ took it, and 
 joined his own divine nature to it, He made a grand 
 thing of it, and human nature is a noble thing when 
 it is united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Those men 
 who keep themselves to themselves, like hermits, and 
 live a supposed sanctified life of self-absorption, are 
 not likely to have any influence in the world, or to do 
 good to their fellow-creatures. You must love the 
 people, and mix with them, if you are to be of service 
 to them. There are some ministers who really are 
 much better men than others, yet they do not accom- 
 plish so much good as those who are more human, 
 those who go and sit down with the people, and make 
 themselves as much as possible at home with them. 
 You know, brethren, that it is possible for you to 
 appear to be just a wee bit too good, so that people 
 will feel that you are altogether transcendental beings, 
 and fitter to preach to angels, and cherubim, and ser- 
 aphim, than to the fallen sons of Adam. Just be men 
 among men; keeping yourselves clear of all their 
 faults and vices, but mingling with them in perfect 
 love and sympathy, and feeling that you would do 
 anything in your power to bring them to Christ, 
 so that you might even say with the apostle 
 Paul, "Though I be free from all men, yet have I 
 made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the 
 more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I 
 might gain the Jews ; to them that are under the law, 
 as under the law, that I might gain them that are 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 73 
 
 under the law; to them that are without law, as with- 
 out law, (being not without law to God, but under 
 the law of Christ,) that I might gain them that are 
 without law. To the weak became I as weak, that 
 I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all 
 men, that I might by all means save some." 
 
 The next qualification, manward, for soul-winning 
 is evident unselfisJincss. A man ceases to bring men 
 to Christ as soon as he becomes known as a selfish 
 man. Selfishness seems to be ingrained in some peo- 
 ple; you see it at the table at home, in the house of 
 God, everywhere. When such individuals come to 
 deal with a church and congregation, their selfishness 
 soon manifests itself; they mean to get all they can, 
 although in the Baptist ministry they do not often 
 get much. I hope each of you, brethren, will be will- 
 ing to say, ''Well, let me have but food and raiment, 
 and I will be therewith content." If you try to put 
 the thought of money altogether away from you, the 
 money will often come back to you doubled; but if 
 you seek to grab and grasp all, you will very likely find 
 that it will not come to you at all. Those who are 
 selfish in the matter of salary, will be the same in 
 everything else; they will not want their people to 
 know anybody who can preach better than themselves; 
 and they cannot bear to hear of any good work going 
 on anywhere except in their ov/n chapel. If there is 
 a revival at another place, and souls are being saved, 
 they say, with a sneer, "Oh! yes, there are many con- 
 verts, but what are they? Where will they be in a few 
 months' time?" They think far more of their own gain 
 of one new member per year than of their neighbour's 
 hundred at one time. If your people see that kind of 
 selfishness in you, you will soon lose power over them ; 
 if you make up your mind that you will be a great man. 
 
74 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 whoever has to be thrust on one side, you will go to 
 the cats as sure as you are alive. What are you, my 
 dear brother, that people should all bow down and wor- 
 ship you, and think that in all the world there is none 
 beside you? I tell you what it is; the less you think 
 of yourself, the more people will think of you; and 
 the more you think of yourself, the less will people 
 think of you. If any of you have any trace of selfish- 
 ness about you, pray get rid of it at once, or you will 
 never be fit instruments for the winning of souls for 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Then I am sure that another thing that is wanted \j 
 in a soul- winner is holiness of character. It is no use 
 talking about "the higheriife" on Sundays, and then 
 living the lower life on week days. A Christian min- 
 ister must be very careful, not only to be innocent 
 of actual wrong-doing, but not to be a cause of offence 
 to the weak ones of the flock. All things are lawful, 
 but all things are not expedient. We ought never 
 to do anything that we judge to be wrong, but we 
 ought also to be willing to abstain from things which 
 might not be wrong in themselves, but which might 
 be an occasion of stumbling to others. When people 
 see that we not only preach about holiness, but that 
 we are ourselves holy men, they will be drawn towards 
 holy things by our character as well as by our preach- 
 ing. 
 
 I think also that, if we are to be soul-winners, there v 
 must be about us a seriousness of manner. Some 
 brethren are serious by nature. There was a gentle- 
 man in a railway carriage, some time ago, who over- 
 heard a conversation between two of the passengers. 
 One of them said, "Well, now, I think the Church of 
 Rome has great power, and is likely to succeed with 
 the people, because of the evident holiness of her 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 75 
 
 ministers. There is, for instance, Cardinal , he 
 
 is just Hke a skeleton; through his long fasting and 
 prayers, he has reduced himself almost to skin and 
 bone. Whenever I hear him speak, I feel at once the 
 force of the holiness of the man. Now, look at Spur- 
 geon, he eats and drinks like an ordinary mortal; I 
 would not give a pin to hear him preach." His friend 
 heard him very patiently, and then said quite quietly, 
 "Did it ever strike you that the Cardinal's appear- 
 ance was to be accounted for by the fact of his liver 
 being out of order? I do not think it is grace that 
 makes him as lean as he is, I believe it is his liver." 
 So, there are some brethren who are naturally of a 
 melancholy disposition, they are always very serious; 
 but in them it is not a sign of grace, it is only an 
 indication that their livers are out of order. They 
 never laugh, they think it would be wicked to do so; 
 but they go about the world increasing the misery of 
 human kind, which is dreadful enough without the 
 addition of their unnecessary portion. Such people 
 evidently imagine that they were predestinated to pour 
 buckets of cold water upon all human mirth and joy. 
 So, dear brethren, if any of you are very serious, you 
 must not always attribute it to grace, for it may be 
 all owing to the state of your liver. 
 
 The most of us, however, are far more inclined to 
 that laughter which doeth good like medicine, and we 
 shall need all our cheerfulness, if we are to comfort 
 and lift up those who are cast down; but we shall 
 never bring many souls to Christ, if we are full of 
 that levity which characterises some men. People will 
 say, "It is all a joke; just hear how those young fel- 
 lows jest about religion, it is one thing to listen to 
 them when they are in the pulpit, but it is quite another 
 matter to listen to them when thev are sitting round 
 
76 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 the supper table." I have heard of a man who was 
 dying, and he sent for the minister to come and see 
 him. When the minister came in, the dying man said 
 to him, "Do you remember a young man walking 
 with you one evening, some years ago, when you were 
 going out to preach?" He said, he did not. "I recol- 
 lect it very well," replied the other. "Do you not 
 remember preaching at such-and-such a village, from 
 such-and-such a text, and after the service a young 
 man walked home with you?" "Oh, yes, I remember 
 that very well!" "Well, I am the young man who 
 walked home with you that night; I remember your 
 sermon, I shall never forget it." "Thank God for that," 
 said the preacher. "No," answered the dying man, 
 "you will not thank God when you have heard all I 
 have to say. I walked with you to the village, but 
 you did not say much to me on the way there, for you 
 were thinking over your sermon ; you deeply impressed 
 me while you were preaching, and I was led to think 
 about giving my heart to Christ. I wanted to speak 
 to you about my soul on the way home; but the 
 moment you got out you cracked a joke, and all the 
 way back you made such fun upon serious subjects, 
 that I could not say anything about what I felt, and 
 it thoroughly disgusted me with religion, and all who 
 professed it, and now I am going to be damned, and 
 my blood will lie at your door, as sure as you are 
 alive:" and so he passed out of the world. One would 
 not like anything of that sort to happen to himself; 
 therefore, take heed, brethren, that you give no occa- 
 sion for it. There must be a prevailing seriousness 
 about out whole lives, otherwise we cannot hope to 
 lead other men to Christ. 
 
 Finally if we are to be much used of God as soul- 
 winners, there must be in our hearts a great deal o^ 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-WINNING. 77 
 
 tetidnyicss; I like a man to have a due amount of 
 holy boldness, but I do not care to see him brazen- 
 faced and impudent. A young man goes into a pulpit, 
 apologizes for attempting to preach, and hopes the 
 people will bear with him; he does not know that he 
 has anything particular to say, if the Lord had sent 
 him he might have had some message for them, but 
 he feels himself so young and inexperienced that he 
 cannot speak very positively about anything. Such 
 talk as that will never save a mouse, much less an 
 immortal soul. If the Lord has sent you to preach 
 the gospel, why should you make any apologies? 
 Ambassadors do not apologise when they go to a 
 foreign court; they know that their monarch has sent 
 them, and they deliver their message with all the 
 authority of king and country at their back. Nor is 
 it worth while for you to call attention to your youth. 
 You are only a trumpet of ram's horn; and it does 
 not matter whether you were pulled ofif the ram's head 
 yesterday, or five-and-twenty years ago. If God blows 
 through you, there will be noise enough, and something 
 more than noise; if He does not, nothing will come of 
 the blowing. When you preach speak out straight, 
 but be very tender about it; and if there is an unpleas- 
 ant thing to be said, take care that you put it in the 
 kindest possible form. Some of our brethren had a 
 message to deliver to a certain Christian brother, and 
 when they went to him they put it so awkwardly that 
 he was grievously offended. When I spoke to him 
 about the same matter, he said, "I would not have 
 minded your speaking to me; you have a way of put- 
 ting an unpleasant truth so that a man cannot be 
 offended with you however much he may dislike the 
 message you bring to him." "Well, but," I said, "I 
 put the matter just as strongly as the other brethren 
 
78 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 did." "Yes, you did," he replied, "but they said it 
 in such a nasty kind of a way that I would not stand 
 it. Why, sir, I had rather be blown up by you than 
 praised by those other people!" There is a way of 
 doing such things so that the person reproved feels 
 positively grateful to you. One may kick a man down- 
 stairs in such a fashion that he will rather like it; while 
 another may open a door in such an ofTensWe way 
 that you do not want to go througlj till he is out of 
 the way. Now, if I have to tell anyone'-certain unpal- 
 atable truths which it is necessary that he should know 
 if his soul is to be saved, it is a stern necessity for me 
 to be faithful to him; yet I will try so to dell\:fir my 
 message that he shall not be ofifended at it. Then, if 
 he does take ofifence, he must; the probability is that 
 he will not, but that what I say will take effect upon 
 his conscience. 
 
 I know some brethren who preach as if they were 
 prize-fighters. When they are in the pulpit they 
 remind me of the Irishman at Donnybrook Fair; all 
 the way through the sermon they appear to be calling 
 upon someone to come up and fight them, and they 
 are never happy except when they are pitching into 
 somebody or other. There is a man who often 
 preaches on Clapham Common, and he does it so 
 pugnaciously that the infidels whom he assails cannot 
 endure it, and there are frequent fights and row^s. 
 There is a way of preaching so as to set everybody 
 by the ears; if some men were allowed to preach in 
 heaven, I am afraid they would set the angels fighting. 
 I know a number of ministers of this stamp. There 
 is one who, to my certain knowledge, has been at over 
 a dozen places during his not very long ministerial 
 life. You can tell where he has been by the ruin he 
 leaves behind him. He always finds the churches in 
 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR SOUL-V/INNING. 79 
 
 a sad state, and he straightway begins to purify them, 
 that is, to destroy them. As a general rule, the first 
 thing, out goes the principal deacon, and the next, 
 away go all the leading families, and before long, the 
 man has purified the place so effectually that the few 
 people who are left cannot keep him. Ofi he goes to 
 another place, and repeats the process of destruction. 
 He is a kind of spiritual ship-scuttler, and he is never 
 happy except when he is boring a hole through the 
 ])lanks of some good vessel. He says he believes the 
 ship is unsound; so he bores, and bores, until just as 
 she is going down, he slips off, and gets aboard another 
 vessel, which very soon sinks in the same manner. 
 He feels that he is called to the work of separating 
 the precious from the vile, and a preciously vile mess 
 he makes of it. I have no reason to believe it is the 
 condition of the liver with this brother, it is more likely 
 that there is something wrong with his heart; certainly, 
 there is an evil disease upon him that always makes 
 me get into a bad temper with him. It is dangerous 
 to entertain him above three days, for he would quar- 
 rel in that time with the most peaceably disposed man 
 in the world. I never mean to recommend him to a 
 pastorate again; let him find a place for himself if he 
 can, for I believe that, wherever he goes, the place will 
 be like the spot where the foot of the Tartar's horse 
 is put down, the grass will never again grow there. 
 If any of you brethren have even a little bit of this 
 nasty, bitter spirit about you, go to sea that you may 
 get rid of it. I hope it may happen to you according 
 to the legend which is told concerning Mahomet. "In 
 every human being," so the story runs, "there are two 
 black drops of sin. The great prophet himself was not 
 free from the common lot of evil; but an angel was 
 sent to take his heart, and squeeze out of it the two 
 
80 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 black drops of sin." Get those black drops out some- 
 how while yon are in College; if you have any malice, 
 or ill-will, or bad temper in you, pray the Lord to take 
 it out of you while you are here; do not go into the 
 churches to fight as others have done. 
 
 ''Still," says a brother, "I am not going to let the 
 people tread on me. I shall take the bull by the 
 horns." You will be a great fool if you do. I never 
 felt that I was called to do anything of the kind. 
 Why not let the bull alone, to go where he likes? 
 A bull is a very likely creature to project you into 
 space if you get meddling with his horns. "Still," 
 says another, "we must set things right." Yes, but 
 the best way to set things right is not to make them 
 more wrong than they are. Nobody thinks of putting 
 a mad bull into a china shop in order to get the china 
 cleaned, and no one can by a display of evil temper 
 set right anything that is wrong in our churches. 
 Take care always to speak the truth in love, and 
 especially when you are rebuking sin. 
 
 I believe, brethren, that soul-winning is to be done 
 by men of the character I have been describing; and 
 most of all will this be the case when they are 
 surrounded by people of a similar character. You 
 want to get the very atmosphere in which you live 
 and labour permeated with this spirit before you can 
 rightly expect the fullest and richest blessings. There- 
 fore, may you and all your people be all that I have 
 pictured, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake ! Amen. 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN 
 SOULS. 
 
 This afternoon, brethren, I am going to speak to 
 you about — 
 
 THE KIND OF SERMONS THAT ARE MOST LIKELY 
 TO CONVERT PEOPLE, 
 
 the sort of discourses we should deHver if we 
 really want our hearers to believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and to be saved. Of course, we are all perfectly 
 agreed that the Holy Spirit alone can convert a soul; 
 none can enter the kingdom of God except they 
 are born again from above. All the work is done by 
 the Holy Spirit; and we must not take to ourselves 
 any part of the credit for the result of the work, for it 
 is the Spirit who new-creates and works in man 
 according to the eternal purpose of God. 
 
 Still, we may be instruments in His hands, for He 
 chooses to use instruments, and He chooses them 
 for wise reasons. There must be an adaptation 
 of means to the end, as there was with David when 
 he went forth with the sling and stone to slay Goliath 
 of Gath. Goliath was a tall fellow, but a stone from 
 a sling can mount; and, besides, the giant was armed 
 and protected, and scarcely vulnerable except in his 
 forehead, so that was the very place to hit him. Though 
 
84 TkE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 David took a sling, it was not so much because he had 
 no other weapon as that he had practised shnging, as 
 most boys do in some form or other; and then he 
 cliose a smooth stone because he knew it would fit 
 the sling. He took the right kind of stone to enter 
 Goliath's head, so, when he slung it at the giant, it 
 struck him in the forehead, penetrated his brain, and 
 he sank down to the ground. 
 
 You will find that this principle of adaptation runs 
 through the whole work of the Holy Spirit. If a man 
 is wanted to be the apostle of the Gentiles, the Holy 
 Spirit selects the large-minded, well-trained, highly- 
 educated Paul, for he was more fit for such work than 
 was the somewhat narrow though strong-minded Peter, 
 who was better suited for preaching to the Jews, and 
 who was of far more use to the circumcision than he 
 ever could have been among the uncircumcision. Paul 
 in his place is the right man, and Peter in his place 
 is the right man. You may see in this principle a les- 
 son for yourselves, and seek to adapt your means to 
 your end. God the Holy Spirit can convert a soul 
 by any text of Scripture apart from your paraphrase, 
 your comment, your exposition ; but there are certain 
 Scripture passages, as you know, that are the best to 
 bring before the minds of sinners, and if this is true 
 about your texts, much more is it so in your discourses 
 to your hearers. As to which sermons are most likely 
 to be blessed to the conversion of those to whom they 
 are preached, I should say: I 
 
 First, they are those sei-mons wJiich are distiuctlx \ 
 aimed at the cofiversion of the hearers. I heard a 
 prayer, some time ago, from a minister who asked 
 the Lord to save souls by the sermon he was about 
 to deliver. I do not hesitate to say that God Him- 
 self could not bless the sermon to that end unless He 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 85 
 
 made tlic people misunderstand all that the preacher 
 said to them, because the whole discourse was rather 
 calculated to harden the sinner in his sin than to lead 
 liim to renounce it, and to seek the Saviour. There 
 was nothing in it that could be blessed to any hearer 
 unless he turned it inside out or bottom upwards. The 
 sermon did me good on the principle that was applied 
 by a good old lady to the minister she was obliged 
 to hear. When asked, "Why do you go to such a 
 place?" she replied, "Well, there is no other place of 
 worship to which I can go." ''But it must be better 
 to stay at home tlian to hear such stuff," said her 
 friend. "Perhaps so," she answered, "but I like to go 
 out to worship even if I get nothing by going. You 
 see a hen sometimes scratching all over a heap of rub- 
 bish to try to find some corn; she does not get any, 
 but it shows that she is looking for it, and using the 
 means to get it, and then, too, the exercise warms 
 her." So the old lady said that scratching over the 
 poor sermons she heard was a blessing to her because 
 it exercised her spiritual faculties, and warmed her 
 spirit. 
 
 There are sermons of such a kind that, unless God 
 takes to ripening wheat by means of snow and ice, and 
 begins to illuminate the world by means of fogs and 
 clouds, He cannot save souls under them. Why, the 
 preacher himself evidently does not think that any- 
 body will be converted by them! If a hundred per- 
 sons or if half a dozen were converted by them, no- 
 body would be so astonished as the preacher him- 
 self; in fact, T know a man who was converted, or at 
 least convicted, under the preaching of a minister of 
 that kind. In a certain parish church, as the result 
 of the clergyman's preaching, there was a man who 
 was under d^ep conviction of sin. He went down to 
 
86 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 see his minister, but the poor man did not know wdiat 
 to make of him, and said to him, *'I am very sorry if 
 there was anything in my sermon to make you un- 
 comfortable; I did not mean it to be so." ' "Well, sir,'' 
 answered the troubled man, "you said that we must 
 be born again." "Oh!" replied the clergyman, ''that 
 was all done in baptism.'' "But, sir,'' said the man, 
 who was not to be put off, "you did not say so in your 
 sermon; you spoke of the necessity of regeneration." 
 "Well, I am very sorry I said anything to make you 
 uncomfortable, for really I think all- is right with you. 
 You are a good sort of a fellow; you w^ere never a 
 poacher, or anything else that is bad.'' "That may 
 be, sir, but I have a sense of sin, and you said we 
 must be new creatures.'' "Well, w^ell, my good man," 
 at last said the perplexed parson, "I do not understand 
 such things; I never was born again." He sent him 
 to the Baptist minister, and the man is now himself a 
 Baptist minister, partly as the result of wdiat he learned 
 from the preacher who did not himself understand the 
 truth he had declared to others. 
 
 Of course, God can convert a soul by such a sermon 
 as that, and by such a minister as that, but it is not 
 likely; it is more probable that, in His infinite sov- 
 ereignty, He will work in a place where a w^arm-heart- 
 ed man is preaching to men the truth that he has him- 
 self received, all the while earnestly desiring their salva- 
 tion, and ready to guide them further in the ways of 
 the Lord as soon as ever they are saved. God does 
 not usually lay His new^-born children down amongst 
 people where the new life will not be understood, or 
 where it will be left without any proper nurture or care ; 
 so, brethren, If you want your hearers to be converted, 
 you must just see that your preaching aims directly at 
 conversion, and that it is such as God will be likely 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 87 
 
 to bless to that end. When that is the case, then look 
 for souls to be saved, and look for a great number of 
 them, too. Do not be satisfied when a single soul is 
 converted. Remember that the rule of the kingdom 
 is, "According to your faith be it unto you." I said 
 last night, in my sermon in the Tabernacle, that I 
 was glad it was not written, ^'According to thine un- 
 belief, so be it unto thee." If there be in us a great 
 faith, God will give us blessing according to our faith. 
 Oh, that we were altogether rid of unbelief, that w^e 
 believed great things of God, and with heart and soul 
 so preached that men were likely to be converted by 
 such discourses, proclaiming truths likely to convert 
 them, and declaring them in a manner that would be 
 likely to be blessed to the conversion of our hearers! 
 Of course, all the wdiile we must be trusting to the 
 Holy Spirit to make the work effectual, for we are 
 but the instruments in His hands. 
 
 But coming a little closer to our subject, if the peo- : / 
 pie are to be saved, it must be by sermons that inter- ^ 
 est them. You have first to get them to come under the 
 sound of the gospel, for there is, at all events in Lon- 
 don, a great aversion to a place of worship, and I am 
 not much surprised that it is so concerning many 
 churches and chapels. I think, in many instances, the 
 common people do not attend such services because 
 they do not understand the theological "lingo" that 
 is used in the pulpit; it is neither English, nor Greek, 
 but Double-dutch ; and when a working man goes once 
 and listens to these fine words, he says to his w4fe, "I 
 do not go there again, Sal; there is nothing there for 
 me, nor yet for you; there may be a good deal for a 
 gentleman that's been to College, but there is nothing 
 for the likes of us." No, brethren, we must preach in 
 what Whitcfield used to call ''market language" if we 
 
88 TiiE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 would have all classes of the community listening to 
 our message. 
 
 Then, when they do come in, we must preach in- 
 terestingly. The people will not be converted while 
 they are asleep; and if they go to sleep, they had bet- 
 ter have been at home in bed, where they would sleep 
 much more comfortably. We must have the minds 
 of our hearers awake and active if we are to do them 
 real good. You will not shoot your birds unless you 
 get them to fly, you must get them started up from 
 the long grass in which they are hiding. I would 
 sooner use a little of what some very proper preachers 
 regard as a dreadful thing, that wicked thing called- 
 humour — I would sooner wake the congregation up 
 that way than have it said that I droned away at them 
 until we air went to sleep together. Sometimes, it may 
 be quite right to have it said of us as it was said of 
 Rowland Hill, "What does that man mean? He actual- 
 ly made the people laugh while he was preaching." 
 "Yes," was the wise answer, "but did you not see that 
 he made them cry direptly after?" That was good 
 work, and it was well done. I sometimes tickle my 
 oyster until he opens his shell, and then I slip the knife 
 in. He would not have opened for my knife, but he 
 did for something else ; and that is the way to do with 
 people. They must be made to open their eyes, and 
 ears, and souls, somehow; and when you get them 
 open, you must feel, "Now is my opportunity; in with 
 the knife." There is one vulnerable spot in the hides 
 of those rhinoceros sinners that come to hear you; 
 but take care that, if you do get a shot through that 
 weak spot, it shall be a thorough gospel bullet, for 
 nothing else will accomplish the w'ork that needs to 
 be done. 
 
 INforeover, the people must be interested to make 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 89 
 
 them remember what is saitl. They will not reeolleet 
 what they hear unless the subject interests them. They 
 forget our fine perorations, they cannot recall our very 
 pretty pieces of poetry — I do not know that they woulcl 
 do them any good if they did remember them; but 
 we must tell our hearers something they will not be 
 likely to forget. I believe in what Father Taylor calls 
 "the surprise power of a sermon;" that is, something 
 that is not expected by those who are listening to it. 
 Just when they reckon that you are sure to say some- 
 thing very precise and straight, say something awk- 
 ward and crooked, because they wall remember that, 
 and you will have tied a gospel knot where it is likely 
 to remain. I remember reading of a tailor who had 
 made his fortune, and he promised to tell his brother- 
 tailors how he had done it. They gathered around his 
 bed when he was dying, and lie said, as they all listened 
 very attentively, "Now I am to tell you how^ you tailors 
 are to make your fortunes; this is the way, always 
 put a knot in your thread." I give that same 
 advice to you preachers, ahvays put a knot in your 
 thread ; if there is a knot in the thread, it does not come 
 out of the material. Some preachers put in the needle 
 all right, but there is no knot in their thread, so it 
 passes through and they have really done nothing after 
 all. Put a good many knots in your discourses, breth- 
 ren, so that there may be all the greater probability 
 that they will remain in your people's memories. You 
 do not want your preaching to be like the sewing done 
 by some machines, for, if one stitch breaks, the whole 
 will come undone. There ought to be plenty of "burrs" 
 in a sermon — ]\Ir. Fergusson will tell you what "burrs" 
 are; I'll warrant you that he has often found them 
 clinging to his coat in his bonnie Scotland. Put these 
 "burrs" all over the people; say something that \v\\\ 
 
90 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 strike them, something that will stick to them for many 
 a clay, and that will be likely to bless them. I believe 
 that a sermon, under God's smile, is likely to be t^e 
 means of conversion if it has this peculiarity about it, 
 that it is interesting to the hearers as well as directly 
 aimed at their salvation. 
 
 The third thing in a sermon that is likely to winW 
 souls to Christ is, // miist be instructive. If people are V 
 to be saved by a discourse, it must contain at least some 
 measure of knowledge. There must be hght as well 
 as fire. Some preachers are all light and no fire, and 
 others are all fire and no light; what we want is both 
 fire and light. I do not judge those brethren who are 
 all fire and fury; but I wish they had a little more 
 knowledge of what they talk about, and I think it 
 would be well if they did not begin quite so soon to 
 preach what they hardly understand themselves. It is 
 a fine thing to stand up in the street, and cry, "Be- 
 lieve! Beheve! Believe! BeHeve! BeHeve! Believe!" 
 Yes, my dear soul, but what have we to believe? What 
 is all this noise about? Preachers of this sort are 
 like a little boy who had been crying, and some- 
 thing happened that stopped him in the middle of his 
 cry, and presently he said, "Ma, please what was I oxy- 
 ing about?" Emotion, doubtless, is a very proper 
 thing in the pulpit, and the feeling, the pathos, the 
 power of heart, are good and grand things in the right 
 place; but do also use your brains a little, do tell us 
 something when you stand up to preach the everlast- 
 ing gospel. 
 
 The sermons that are most likely to convert people 
 seem to me to be those that are full of truth, truth 
 about the fall, truth about the law, truth about human 
 nature, and its alienation from God, truth about Jesus 
 Christ, truth about the Holy Spirit, truth about the 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 5)1 
 
 Everlasting Father, truth about the new birth, truth 
 about obedience to God, and how we learn it, and all 
 such great verities. Tell your hearers something, dear 
 brethren, whenever you preach, tell them something, 
 tell them something! 
 
 Of course, some good may come, even if your hearers 
 do not understand you. I suppose it might be so, for 
 there was a very esteemed lady speaking to the Friends 
 gathered at the Devonshire House meeting. She 
 was a most gracious woman, and was addressing the 
 English Friends in Dutch, and she asked one of the 
 brethren to translate for her, but the hearers said there 
 was so much power and spirit about her speaking, 
 though it was in Dutch, that they did not want it trans- 
 lated, for they were getting as much good out of it as 
 was possible. Now, these hearers were Friends, and 
 they are men of different mould from me, for I do not 
 mind how good a woman the esteemed lady w^as, I 
 should have liked to know what she was talking about, 
 and I am sure I should not have been in the least de- 
 gree profited unless it had been translated; and I like 
 ministers always to know what they are talking about, 
 and to be sure that there is something in it worth say- 
 ing. Do try, therefore, dear brethren, to give your 
 hearers something beside a string of pathetic anec- 
 dotes that will set them crying. Tell the people some- 
 thing: you are to teach them, to preach the gospel to 
 your hearers, to make them understand as far as you 
 can things which should make for their peace. We 
 cannot expect people to be saved by our sermons, un- 
 less we try really to instruct them by what we say to 
 them. 
 
 Fourthly, the people 7nust be impressed by our ser-'\ 
 mofts, if they are to be converted. They must not ^ 
 only be interested and instructed, but they must be 
 
92 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 impressed; and, I believe, dear friends, there is a great 
 deal more in impressive sermons than some people 
 think. In order that you may impress the Word upon 
 those to whom you preach, remember that it must be 
 impressed upon yourself first. You must feel it your- 
 self, and speak as a man who feels it, not as if you 
 feel it, but because you feel it, otherwise you will not 
 make it felt by others. I wonder what it must be to 
 go up into the pulpit, and read somebody else's sermon 
 to the congregation. We read in the Bible of one thing 
 that was borrowed, and the head of that came off; and 
 I am afraid that the same thing often happens with 
 borrowed sermons — the heads come ofif. Men who 
 read borrowed sermons positively do not know any- 
 thing about our troubles of mind in preparing for the 
 pulpit, or our joy in preaching with the aid of only 
 brief notes. A dear friend of mine, who reads his own 
 sermons, was talking to me about preaching, and I was 
 telling him how my very soul is moved, and my very 
 heart is stirred within me, when I think of what I shall 
 say to my people, and afterward when I am delivering 
 my message; but he said that he never felt anything 
 of the kind when he was preaching. He reminded 
 me of the little girl who was crying because her teeth 
 ached, and her grandmother said to her, ''Lilly, I 
 wonder you are not ashamed to cry about such a small 
 matter." "Well, grandmother," answered the little 
 maid, "it is all very well for you to say that, for, when 
 your teeth ache, you can take them out, but mine are 
 fixed." Some brethren, when the sermon they have 
 selected will not run smoothly, can go to their box, 
 and take out another; but when I have a sermon full 
 of joy, and I myself feel heavy and sad, I am utterly 
 miserable; when I want to beg and persuade men to 
 believe, and my spirit is dull and cold, I feel wretched 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. i)3 
 
 to the last degree. My teeth ache, and I cannot take 
 them out, for they are my own; as my sermons are 
 my own, and therefore I may expect to find a good 
 deal of trouble, both in the getting of them, and in the 
 using of them. 
 
 I remember the answer I received when I once said 
 to my venerable grandfather, "I never have to preach, 
 but that I feel terribly sick, literally sick, I mean, so 
 that I might as well be crossing the Channel," and 
 I asked the dear old man whether he thought I should 
 ever get over that feeling. His answer was, ''Your 
 power will be gone if you do." So, my brethren, when 
 it is not so much that you have got a hold of your 
 subject, but that it has got a hold of you, and you feel 
 its grip with a terrible reality yourself, that is the kind 
 of sermon that is most likely to make others feel. If 
 you are not impressed with it yourself, you cannot 
 expect to impress others with it; so mind that your 
 sermons always have something in them which shall 
 really impress both yourself and the hearers whom you 
 are addressing. 
 
 I think also that there should be an impressive de- 
 livery of our discourses. The delivery of some preach- 
 ers is very bad; if yours is so, try and improve it in all 
 possible ways. One young man wanted to learn sing- 
 ing, but he was told by the teacher, "Ypu have only 
 one tone to your voice, and that is outside the scale." 
 So, there are some ministers' voices that have only 
 one tone, and there is no music in that one. Do try. 
 as far as you can, to make the verv' way in which you 
 speak to minister to the great end you have in view. 
 Preach, for instance, as you would plead if you were 
 standing before a judge, and begging for the life of a 
 friend, or as if you were appealing to the Queen her- 
 self on behalf of someone ver\^ dear to vou. Use such 
 
94 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 a tone in pleading- witli sinners as yon would use if a 
 gibbet were erected in this room, and you were to be 
 hanged on it unless you could persuade the person in 
 HAithority to release you. That is the sort of earnest- 
 ness you need in pleading with men as ambassadors 
 for God. Try and make every sermon such that the 
 most flippant shall see without any doubt that, if it be 
 an amusement for them to hear you, it is no amuse- 
 ment for you to speak to them, but that you are plead- 
 ing with them in downright solemn earnest about eter- 
 nal matters. I have often felt just like this when I 
 have been preaching — I have known what it is to use 
 up all my ammunition, and then I have, as it were, 
 rammed myself into the great gospel gun, and I have 
 fired myself at my hearers, all my experience of God's 
 goodness, all my consciousness of sin, and all my sense 
 of the power of the gospel ; and there are some people 
 upon whom that kind of preaching tells where noth- 
 ing else would have done, for they see that then you 
 communicate to them not only the gospel, but your- 
 self also. The kind of sermon which is likely to break 
 the hearer's heart is that which has first broken the 
 preacher's heart, and the sermon which is likely to 
 reach the heart of the hearer is the one which has come 
 straight from the heart of the preacher : therefore, dear 
 brethren, always seek to preach so that the people 
 shall be impressed as well as interested and instructed. 
 
 Fifthty, I think that we should try to take ovt of 07/r\j 
 serjjions everything that is likely to divert the hearers^ V 
 mind from the object we have in view. 
 
 The best style of preaching in the world, like the 
 best style of dressing, is that which nobody notices. 
 Somebody went to spend the evening with Hannah 
 ^Tore, and when he came home his wife asked him, 
 "How was Miss More dressed? She must have been 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 93 
 
 dressed very splendidly." The gentleman answered: 
 "Really she was — why, dear me, how was she dressed? 
 I did not notice at all how she was dressed; anyway, 
 there was nothing particularly noticeable in her dress, 
 she was herself the object of interest." That is the way 
 that a true lady is dressed, so that we notice her, and 
 not her garments; she is so well dressed that we do 
 not know how she is dressed, and that is the best way 
 of dressing a sermon. Let it never be said of you, as 
 it is sometimes said of certain popular preachers, "He 
 did the thing so majestically, he spoke with such lofty 
 diction, etc., etc., etc." 
 
 Never introduce anything into your discourse that 
 would be likely to distract the attention of the hearer 
 from the great object you have in view. If you take 
 the sinner's mind ofif the main subject — speaking after 
 the manner of men, there is so much less likelihood 
 of his receiving the impression you desire to convey, 
 and, consequently, the smaller pri^bability of his being 
 converted. I remember once reading what Mr. Fin- 
 ney said in his book on "Revivals." He said that there 
 was a person on the point of being converted, and 
 just then an old woman, with pattens on, came 
 shuffling up the aisle, making a great noise, and that 
 soul was lost! I know what the evangelist meant, 
 though I do not like the form in which the matter 
 was put by him. The noise of the old lady's pattens 
 probably did take off the person's mind from the thing 
 he should have been thinking upon, and it is quite 
 possible that he could not be brought back to exactly 
 the same position again. We are to look to all these 
 little things as if everything depended upon us, at the 
 same time remembering that it is the Holy Spirit alone 
 who can make the work effectual. 
 
 Your sermon should not take of¥ the people's at- 
 
96 THE3 SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 tention through its being only very distantly related 
 to the text. There are many hearers still left who 
 believe that there should be some sort of connection 
 between the sermon and the text, and if they begin ask- 
 ing themselves, "How ever did the minister get right 
 over there? What has his talk to do with the text?" — 
 you will have lost their attention, and that wandering 
 habit of yours may be a very destructive one to them ; 
 therefore, keep to your texts, brethren. If you do not, 
 you will be like the little boy wbo went out fishing, and 
 iiis uncle said to him: "Have you caught many fish, 
 vSamuel?" The boy answered, "I have been fishing 
 for three hours, uncle, and I have not caught any fish, 
 but I have lost a lot of worms." I hope you will never 
 have to say, *T did not win any souls for the Saviour, 
 but I spoiled a lot of precious texts; I confused and 
 confounded many passages of Scripture, but I did no 
 good with them. I was not supremely anxious to 
 learn the mind of the Spirit as revealed in the text so 
 as to get its meaning into my own mind, although it 
 took a deal of squeezing and packing to get my mind 
 into the text." That is not a good thing to do; stick 
 to your texts, brethren, as the cobbler is bidden to 
 stick to his last, and seek to get out of the Scriptures 
 what the Holy Spirit has put into them. Never let 
 your hearers have to ask the question, "What has this 
 sermon to do with the text?" If you do, the people 
 will not be profited, and it may be that they will not 
 be saved. 
 
 I would say to you brethren, you of these two Col- 
 leges,''' get all the education that you can, drink in 
 everything that your tutors can possibly impart to you. 
 
 *This lecture was delivered on a Friday afternoon, when 
 the tutors and students from Harley House came to meet 
 their brethren at the Pastors' College. 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 97 
 
 It will take you all your time to get out of them all 
 that is in them: but you should endeavour to learn 
 all that you can, because, believe me, a want of educa- 
 tion may hinder the work of soul-winning. That \yrri- 
 b!v' omission of the letter '*h" from places where it 
 ought to be, that aspiration of the "h" till you exasper- 
 ate it altogether — you cannot tell what mischiefs such 
 mistakes may cause. There was a young friend who 
 might have been converted, for she did seem greatly 
 impressed by your discourse; but she was so disgust- 
 ed by the dreadful way in which you put in "h's" where 
 they ought not to be, or left them out where they ought 
 to be in, that she could not listen to you with any pleas- 
 ure, and her attention was distracted from the truth by 
 your errors of pronunciation. That letter "h'' has done 
 vast mischief, it is "the letter that killeth" in the case 
 of a great many, and all sorts of grammatical blunders 
 may do more harm than you can imagine. You may 
 think, perhaps, that I am speaking of trifling matters 
 that are hardly worthy of consideration ; but I am not, 
 for these things may cause most serious results; and as 
 it is easy to learn to speak and write correct English, 
 do tr\' and know all you can of it. 
 
 Perhaps someone says, ''Well, I know such-and- 
 such a successful brother, and he was not an educated 
 man." That is true; but mark you this, the times 
 are altering. One young woman said to another, 'T 
 do not see why we girls need learn so many lessons. 
 The young women before us did not know much, and 
 yet they got married." "Yes," said her companion, 
 "but then, you know, there were no Board Schools in 
 them days; but now the young men will be educated, 
 and it will be a poor look-out for us as ain't." A young 
 man might say, "Such-and-such a minister was un- 
 grammatical, and yet he did well"; but the people 
 
98 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 of his day were imgrammatical, too, so it did not mat- 
 ter so much ; but now, when they have all been to the 
 Board Schools, if they come and listen to you, it will 
 be a pity if their mind is taken off the solemn things 
 which you wish them to think upon because they can- 
 not help noticing your deficiencies of education. Even 
 if you are not an educated man, God may bless you; 
 but wisdom tells us that we should not let our want of 
 education hinder the gospel from blessing men. 
 
 "But," possibly you say, "they must be very hyper- 
 critical to find fault like that." But, then, do not hyper- 
 critical people need saving just as much as other peo- 
 ple? I would not have a hypercritical person who 
 could truthfully say that my preaching so jarred upon 
 his ear, and disturbed his mind, that he could not pos- 
 sibly receive the doctrine which I was trying to set 
 before him. Did you ever hear how it was that Charles 
 Dickens would not become a spiritualist? At a seance 
 he asked to see the spirit of Lindley Murray.- There 
 came in what professed to be the spirit of Lindley Mur- 
 ray, and Dickens asked, "Are you Lindley Murray?" 
 The repty came, ^'lare.'' There was no hope of Dick- 
 ens' conversion to spiritualism after that ungrammati- 
 cal answer. You may well laugh at the story, but mind 
 that you recollect the moral of it. You can easily see 
 that, by forgetting when to use the nominative or ac- 
 cusative case of a noun or pronoun, or by using the 
 wrong tense of a verb, you might take off the mind 
 of your hearer from what you are trying to bring be- 
 fore him, and so prevent the truth from reaching his 
 heart and conscience. Therefore, divest your sermons 
 as much as ever you can of ever}^thing that is at all 
 likely to take away the mind of your hearers from the 
 one object before you. The whole attention and 
 thought of the people must be concentrated on the 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 99 
 
 truth we are setting before them if we are so to preach 
 as to save those who come within sound of our voice. 
 Sixthly, I believe that tJiose sermons which are full- 
 est of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the 
 conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full 
 of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the 
 gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach any- 
 thing else but Christ and his cross, for I know noth- 
 ing else, and long ago, Hke the apostle Paul, I de- 
 termined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified. People have often asked me, "What 
 is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I 
 have no other secret but this, that I have preached 
 the gospel — not about the gospel, but the gospel — 
 the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who 
 is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus 
 Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every 
 time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ 
 in the sermon. You remember the story of the old 
 minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and 
 when he was asked by the preacher what he thought 
 of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, 
 "If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was 
 no Christ in your sermon." "No," answered the young 
 man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the 
 text." "Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not 
 know tliat from every little town and village and tiny 
 hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? 
 Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There 
 is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep 
 on His track till I get to Him.'" "Well," said the 
 young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a 
 text that says nothing about Christ?" "Then I will go 
 over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So 
 must we do, brethren ; we must have Christ in all our 
 
 \ 
 
100 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There 
 ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to 
 save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called 
 to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you 
 have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always 
 take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon. 
 
 I have heard of a young m.an asking, when he was 
 going to preach in a certain place, ''What kind of 
 church is it? What do the people believe? What is 
 their doctrinal view?" I will tell you how to avoid the 
 necessity of such a question as that; preach Jesus Christ 
 to them, and if that does not suit their doctrinal views 
 then preach Jesus Christ the next Sunday you go; and 
 do the same thing the next Sabbath, and the next, and 
 the next, and never preach anything else. Those who 
 do not like Jesus Christ must have Him preached to 
 them till they do like Him ; for they are the very people 
 who need Him most. Recollect that all the trades- 
 men in the world say that they can sell their goods 
 when there is a demand for them, but our goods create 
 as well as supply the demand. We preach Jesus Christ 
 to those who want Him, and we also preach Him to 
 those who do not want Him, and we keep on preach- 
 ing Christ until we make them feel that they do want 
 Him, and cannot do without Him. 
 
 Seventhly, brethren, it is my firm conviction that 
 those sermons are most likely to co7ivert 7neji tJiat real- 
 ly appeal to their hearts, not those that are fired over 
 their heads, or that are aimed only at their intellects. 
 I am sorry to say that I know some preachers who 
 will never do much good in the world; they are good 
 men, they have plenty of ability, they can speak well, 
 and they have a good deal of shrewdness; but, some- 
 how or other, there is a very sad omission in their 
 nature, for to anyone who knows them, it is quite 
 
 V 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 101 
 
 evident that they have not any heart. I know one or 
 two men who are as dry as leather. If you were to 
 hang them up on the wall, as you do a piece of sea- 
 weed, to tell what kind of weather it is to be, they 
 would be no guide to you, for scarcely any weather 
 would afifect them. 
 
 But I also know some men who are the very reversa 
 of these brethren. They are not likely to win souls, for 
 they are themselves so flippant, and frivolous, and 
 foolish, there is nothing serious about them, nothing 
 to show that they are living in earnest. I cannot find 
 any traces of a soul in them; they are too shallow to 
 contain one, it could not live in the inch or two of 
 water that is all that they hold, they appear to have 
 been made without any soul, so they cannot do any 
 good in preaching the gospel. You must have souls, 
 brothers, if you are to look after your brothers' souls, 
 depend upon that; as you must have a heart if you are 
 to reach your brother's heart. 
 
 Here is another kind of man, — one who cannot weep 
 over sinners — what is the good of him in the ministry i^ 
 He never did weep over men in his life; he never 
 agonized before God on their behalf; he never said 
 with Jeremiah, "Oh that my head were waters, and 
 mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day 
 and night for the slain of the daughter of my people !" 
 I know a brother like this. In a meeting of ministers, 
 after we had been confessing our shortcomings, he said 
 that he was very much ashamed of us all. Well, no 
 doubt, we ought to have been more ashamed of our- 
 selves than we were; but he told us that, if we had truly 
 meant what we had said in our confessions to God, we 
 were a disgrace to the ministry; perhaps we were. He 
 said he was not like that; so far as he knew, he never 
 preached a sermon without feeling that it was the best 
 
102 TliE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 he could preach, and he did not know that he could 
 do any better than he had done. He was a man who 
 always studied just so many hours every day, always 
 prayed exactly so many minutes, always preached a 
 certain length of time, in fact, he was the most regular 
 man I ever knew. When I heard him talk as he had 
 done to us, I asked myself, "What does his ministry 
 show as the result of this perfect way of doing things?" 
 Why, it did not show anything at all that was satisfac- 
 tory. He has great gifts of dispersion ; for, if he goes 
 to a full chapel, he soon empties it; yet he is, I believe, 
 a good man in his way. I could wish that his clock 
 would sometimes stop, or strike in the middle of the 
 half-hour, or that something extraordinary might hap- 
 pen to him, because some good might come of it; but 
 he is so regular and orderly, that there is no hope of his 
 doing anything, the fault with him is that he has not 
 any fault. You will notice, brethren, that preachers 
 who have no faults have no excellences either; so try 
 to avoid that flat, dead level and everything else that 
 makes people less likely to be converted. 
 
 Coming back to that matter of the possession of a 
 heart, of which I was speaking, I asked a young girl, 
 who came lately to join the church, "Have you a good 
 heart?" She replied, "Yes, sir." I said, "Have you 
 thought over that question? Have you not an evil 
 heart?" "Oh, yes!" she answered. "Well," I said, 
 "how do your two answers agree?" "Why," responded 
 the girl, "I know that I have a good heart, because 
 God has given me a new heart and a right spirit; and 
 I also know that I have an evil heart, for I often find 
 it fighting against my new heart." She was right, and 
 I had sooner feel that a minister had two hearts than 
 that he had none at all. It must be heart-work with 
 you, brethren, far more than head-work, if you are to 
 
SERMONS LIKELY TO WIN SOULS. 103 
 
 will many souls. Amidst all your studies, mind that 
 you never let your spiritual life get dry. There is no 
 necessity that it should, although with many study has 
 had that effect. My dear brethren, the tutors, wnll 1)car 
 me witness that there is a very drying influence about 
 Latin, and Greek, and Hebrew. That couplet is true — 
 
 "Hebrew roots, as known to most, 
 Do flourish best on barren ground." 
 
 There is a very drying influence in the classics, and 
 there is a very drying influence in mathematics, and 
 you may get absorbed in any science till your heart 
 is gone. Do not let that be the case wath any of you, 
 so that people should have to say of you, "He knows 
 much more than he did when he first came amongst us, 
 but he has not as much spirituality as he used to have." 
 Take care that it never is so. Do not be satisfied with 
 merely polishing up your grates, but stir the fire in 
 your heart, and get your ow^n soul all aflame with love 
 to Christ, or else you will not be likely to be greatly 
 used in the winning of souls of others. 
 
 Lastly, brethren, I think that those sermons which 
 have been prayed over are the most likely to convert 
 people. I mean those discourses that have had much 
 real prayer offered over them, both in the preparation 
 and the delivery, for there is much so-called prayer that 
 is only playing at praying. I rode, some time ago, 
 with a man who professes to work wonderful cures 
 by the acids of a certain wood. After he had told me 
 about his marvelous remedy, I asked him, "What is 
 there in that to effect such cures as you profess to have 
 wTought?" "Oh!" he answered, "it is the way in which 
 I prepare it, much more than the stuff itself; that is the 
 secret of its curative properties. I rub it as hard as 
 
 \j 
 
104 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 ever I can for a long while, and I have so much vital 
 electricity in me that I put my very life into it." Well, 
 well, he was only a quack, yet we may learn a lesson 
 even from him, for the way to make sermons is to work 
 vital electricity into them, putting your own life and the 
 very life of God into them by earnest prayer. The dif- 
 ference between a sermon that has been prayed over 
 and one that has been prepared and preached by a 
 prayerless man is like the difference that Mr. Fergusson 
 suggested in his prayer when he referred to the high 
 priest before and after his anointing. You must anoint 
 your sermons, brethren, and you cannot do it except by 
 much private communion with God. May the Holy 
 Spirit anoint every one of you, and richly bless you 
 in winning souls, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! 
 Amen. 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL WINNING. 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL-WINNING 
 
 I have spoken to you, brethren, at different times, 
 about soul-winning — that most royal employment. 
 May you all become, in this sense, mighty hunters be- 
 fore the Lord, and bring many sinners to the Saviour! 
 I want, at this time, to say a few words upon — 
 
 THE OBSTACLES THAT LIE IN OUR PATH AS WE 
 SEEK TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 
 
 They are very many, and I cannot attempt to make 
 a complete catalogue of them; but the first, and one 
 of the most difficult is, doubtless, the i7idifference and 
 lethargy of sitiners. All men are not alike indifferent; 
 in fact, there are some persons who seem to have a 
 sort of religious instinct, which influences them for 
 good, long before they have any real love to spiritual 
 things. But there are districts, especially rural dis- 
 tricts, where indifference prevails; and the same state 
 of things exists in various parts of London. It is not 
 infidelity ; the people do not care enough about religion 
 even to oppose it. They are not concerned as to what 
 you preach, or where you preach, for they have no 
 interest whatever in the matter. They have no thought 
 of God; they care nothing about Him, or His service, 
 they only use His name in profanity. I have often 
 noticed that any place where there is little business 
 doing is bad for religious effort. Among the negroes 
 of Jamaica, whenever they had not much work, there 
 
108 THE iSOUL-WINNER. 
 
 was little prosperity in the churches. I could indicate 
 districts, not far from here, where business is slack; 
 and there you w-ill find that there is very little good 
 being done. All along the valley of the Thames, there 
 are places wdiere a man might preach his heart out, 
 and kill himself; but there is little or nothing of good 
 being accomplished in those regions, just as there is 
 no active business life there. 
 
 Now, whenever you meet with indif¥erence, as you 
 may do, my dear brother, in the place wdiere you go 
 to preach, — indifiference affecting your own people, 
 and even your own deacons seeming to be tinged 
 with it, — what are you to do? Well, your only hope 
 of overcoming it is, to be doubly in earnest yourself. 
 Keep your own zeal all alive, let it be even vehement, 
 burning, blazing, all-consuming. Stir the people up 
 somehow; and if all your earnestness seems to be in 
 vain, still blaze and burn; and if that has no effect 
 upon your hearers, go elsewhere as the Lord may 
 direct you. This indifference or lethargy, that pos- 
 sesses the minds of some men, is very likely to have 
 an evil influence upon our preaching; but we must 
 strive and struggle against it, and try to wake both 
 ourselves and our hearers up. I would far rather 
 have a man an earnest, intense opposer of the gospel 
 than have him careless and indifferent. You cannot 
 do much with a man if he will not speak about reli- 
 gion, or will not come to hear what you have to say 
 concerning the things of God. You might as well have 
 him a downright infidel, like a very leviathan covered 
 with scales of blasphemy, as to have him a mere earth- 
 worm wriggling away out of reach. 
 
 Another very great obstacle to soul-winning is U7i- 
 belief. You know that it is written of the Lord Jesus 
 when in ''His own country" that "He did not many 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL-WINNING. 109 
 
 mighty works there because of their iinbehef." This 
 evil exists in all nnregenerate hearts, but in some men 
 it takes a very pronounced form. They do think about 
 religion, but they do not believe in the truth of God 
 which we preach to them. Their opinion is to them 
 more weighty, more worthy of belief, than God's 
 inspired declarations; they will not accept anything 
 that is revealed in the Scriptures. These people are 
 very hard to influence; but I would warn you not to 
 fight them with their own w^eapons. I do not believe 
 that infidels ever are won by argument; or, if so, it 
 very seldom happens. The argument that convinces 
 men of the reality of religion, is that which they gather 
 from the holiness and earnestness of those who profess 
 to be Christ's followers. As a rule, they barricade 
 their minds against the assaults of reason; and if we 
 give our pulpits over to arguing with them, we shall 
 often be doing more harm than good. In all probabil- 
 ity, only a very small portion of our audience will 
 understand what w^e are talking about; and while we 
 are trying to do them good, most likely we shall be 
 teaching infidelity to others who do not know any- 
 thing about such things, and the first knowledge they 
 ever have of certain heresies will have come to them 
 from our lips. Possibly our refutation of the error 
 may not have been perfect, and many a young mind 
 may have been tinctured with unbelief through listen- 
 ing to our attempted exposure of it. I believe that 
 you will rout unbelief by your faith rather than by your 
 reason; by your belief, and your acting up to your 
 conviction of the truth, you will do more good than 
 by any argument, however strong it may be. There 
 is a friend who sits to hear me generally every Sab- 
 bath. ''What do you think?" he said to me, one day, 
 "you are my only link with better things; but you 
 
110 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 are an awful man in my estimation, for you have not 
 the sHghtest sympathy with me." I repHed, "No, I 
 have not; or, rather, I have not the least sympathy 
 with your unbelief." 'That makes me cling to you, 
 for I fear that I shall always remain as I am; but 
 when I see your calm faith, and perceive how God 
 blesses you in exercising it, and know what you accom- 
 plish through the power of that faith, I say to myself, 
 'Jack, you are a fool.' " I said to him, "You are quite 
 right in that verdict, and the sooner you come to my 
 way of thinking, the better, for nobody can be a big- 
 ger fool than the man who does not believe in God." 
 One of these days I expect to see him converted ; there 
 is a continual battle between us, but I never answer 
 one of his arguments. I said to him once, "If you 
 believe that I am a liar, you are free to think so if you 
 like; but I testify what I do know, and state what I 
 have seen, and tasted, and handled, and felt, and you 
 ought to believe my testimony, for I have no possible 
 object to serve in deceiving you." That man would 
 have beaten me long ago if I had fired at him with the 
 paper pellets of reason. So, I advise you to fight 
 unbelief wath belief, falsehood with the truth, and never 
 to cut and pare down the gospel to try to make it fit 
 in with the follies and fancies of men. 
 
 A third obstacle in the way of winning souls is that 
 fatal delay which men so often make. I do not know 
 whether this evil is not on the whole more widespread 
 and mischievous than the indiiTerence and lethargy and 
 unbelief of which I have spoken. Many a man says 
 to us what Felix said to Paul, "Go thy way for this 
 time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for 
 thee." Such an individual gets into the border country, 
 he seems to be within a few steps of Emmanuel's land, 
 and yet he parries our home-thrusts, and puts us of¥ 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL-WINNING. Ill 
 
 by saying, '*Yes, I will think the matter over, it shall 
 not be long before I decide." There is nothing like 
 pressing men for a speedy decision, and getting them to 
 settle at once this all-important question. Never mind 
 if they do find fault with your teaching; it is always 
 right to preach what God says, and His word is, "Be- 
 hold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the 
 day of salvation." 
 
 This leads me to mention another obstacle to soul- 
 winning, which is the same thing in another form, 
 viz., carnal security. Many men fancy that they are 
 quite safe; they have not really tested the foundation 
 on which they are building, to see that it is sound and 
 firm, but they suppose that all is w^ell. If they are 
 not good Christians, they can at least say that they 
 are rather better than some who are Christians, or who 
 call themselves by that name; and if there is anything 
 lacking in them, they can at any time put on the finish- 
 ing touch, and make themselves fit for God's presence. 
 Thus they have no fear; or, if they do fear at all, they 
 do not live in constant dread of that eternal destruc- 
 tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory 
 of His power, which will certainly be their portion 
 unless they repent, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Against these people we ought to thunder day and 
 night. Let us plainly proclaim to them that the unbe- 
 lieving sinner is ''condemned already," and that he is 
 certain to perish everlastingly if he does not trust in 
 Christ. We ought so to preach as to make every sinner 
 tremble in his seat; and if he will not come to the 
 Saviour, he ought at least to have a hard time of it 
 while he stops away from Him. I am afraid that we 
 sometimes preach smooth things, too soothing and 
 agreeable, and that we do not set before men their real 
 danger as we should. If we shun in this respect to 
 
112 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 declare all the counsel of God, part at least of the 
 responsibility of their ruin will lie at our door. 
 
 Another obstacle to soul-winning is despair. The 
 pendulum swings first one way and then the other; 
 and the man who yesterday had no fear, to-day has 
 no hope. There are thousands who have heard the 
 gospel, and yet live in a kind of despair of its power 
 being ever exerted upon them. Perhaps they have 
 been brought up among people who taught them that 
 the work of salvation was something of God altogether 
 apart from the sinner; and so they say that, if they 
 are to be saved, they will be saved. You know that 
 this teaching contains a great truth, and yet, if it is 
 left by itself, without qualification, it is a horrible false- 
 hood. It is fatalism, not predestination, that makes 
 men talk as if there is nothing whatever for them to 
 do, or that there is nothing that they can do. There 
 is no likelihood of anyone being saved while he gives 
 you this as his only hope, *Tf salvation is for me, it 
 will come to me in due time." You may meet with 
 people who talk thus; and when you have said all you 
 can, they will remain as if they were cased in steel, 
 with no sense of responsibility, because there is no 
 hope awakened in their spirit. Oh, if they would but 
 hope that they might receive mercy by asking for it, 
 and so be led to cast their guilty souls on Christ, what 
 a blessing it would be! Let us preach full and free 
 salvation to all who trust in Jesus, so that we may, if 
 possible, reach these people. If the carnally secure 
 should be tempted to presume, some who are quietly 
 despairing may pluck up heart, and hope, and may 
 venture to come to Christ. 
 
 No doubt a great obstacle to soul-winning is the love 
 of sin. *'Sin lieth at the door." There are many men 
 who never get saved because of some secret lust; it 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL-WINNING. 11:; 
 
 may be that they arc Hving- in fornication. I remem- 
 ber well the case of a man, of whom I thought that 
 he would certainly come to Christ. He was fully aware 
 of the power of the j^ospel, and seemed to be impressed 
 under the preaching of the Word; but I found out 
 that he had become entangled with a woman who was 
 not his wife, and that he was still living in sin while 
 ])rofessing to be seeking the Saviour. When I heard 
 that, I could easily understand how it was that he could 
 not obtain peace; wdiatever tenderness of heart he may 
 have felt, there was this woman always holding him 
 in the bondage of sin. 
 
 There are some men who are guilty of dishonest 
 transactions in business; you will not see them saved 
 all the while they continue to act so. If they will not 
 give up that trickery, they cannot be saved. There 
 are others who are drinking to excess. People who 
 drink, you know, are often very easily affected under 
 our preaching; they have a watery eye, their drinking 
 has made them soft-headed, and there is a maudlin kind 
 of sensitiveness in them; but as long as a man clings 
 to "the cup of devils" he will not be likely to come to 
 Christ. With others it is some secret sin, or some 
 hidden lust that is the great difficulty. One says 
 that he cannot help flying into a passion, another de- 
 clares that he cannot give up getting drunk, while 
 another laments that he cannot find peace, whereas 
 the root of the mischief is that there is a harlot who 
 stands in his way. In all these cases, we have only 
 to keep on preaching the truth, and God will help us 
 to aim the arrow at the joint in the sinner's harness. 
 
 Another obstacle is put in our way by vicji's self- 
 righteousness. They have not committed any of these 
 sins I have mentioned, they have kept all the com- 
 man.dments from their youth up; what lack they yet? 
 
114 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 There is no room for Christ in a full heart; and when 
 a man is clothed from head to foot with his own right- 
 eousness, he has no need of the righteousness of Christ ; 
 at least, he is not conscious of his need, and if the 
 gospel does not convince him of it, Moses must come 
 with the law, and show him what his true state is. 
 That is the real difficulty in many, many cases; the 
 man does not come to Christ because he is not con- 
 scious that he is lost, he does not ask to be lifted up 
 because he does not know that he is a fallen creature, 
 he does not feel that he has any need of divine mercy 
 or forgiveness, and therefore he does not seek it. 
 
 Once more, there are some with whom all we say 
 has no effect because of their titter ttwrldliness. This 
 worldliness takes two shapes; in the poor, it is the 
 result of grinding poverty. When a man has scarcely 
 enough bread to eat, and hardly knows how to get 
 clothes to put on, when at home he hears the cries of 
 his little children, and looks into the face of his over- 
 worked wife, we must preach very wonderfully if we 
 are to secure his attention, and make him think about 
 the world to come. "What shall we eat? what shall we 
 drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" are ques- 
 tions that press very heavily upon the poor. To a 
 hungry man, Christ is ver\^ lovely when He has a loaf 
 of bread in His hand. Our Lord so appeared whefi 
 He was breaking the bread and fish for the multitude, 
 for even He did not disdain to feed the hungry; ami 
 when we can relieve the wants of the destitute, we 
 may be doing a necessary thing to them, and placing 
 them where they may be capable of listening with profit 
 to the gospel of Christ. The other kind of worldliness 
 comes of having too much of this world, or at least 
 of making too much of this world. The gentleman 
 must be fashionable, his daughters must be dressed in 
 
OBSTACLES TO SOUL- WINNING. 115 
 
 the best sy\e, his sons must learn to dance, and so on. 
 This sort of worldHncss has been the great curse of 
 our Nonconformist churches. 
 
 Then there is another kind of man who is from 
 morning" to night grinding away at the shop; his one 
 business seems to be to put up the shutters, and take 
 them down again; he will rise early, and sit up late, 
 and eat the bread of carefulness, so as to make money. 
 What can we do for these covetous persons? How 
 can we ever hope to touch the hearts of these men 
 whose one aim is to be rich, the people who scrape 
 up the halfpennies and farthings? Economy is good, 
 but there is an economy that becomes parsimony, and 
 that parsimony becomes the habit of these miserly folk. 
 Some will even go to chapel because it is the proper 
 and respectable tiling, and they hope to gain custom- 
 ers by going. Jndas remained unconverted even in 
 the company of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have 
 some people still among us in whose ears the thirty 
 pieces of silver chink so loudly that the soiind of the 
 gospel cannot be heard by them. 
 
 I may mention one more obstacle to soul-winning, 
 that is, the obstacle there is with some men througii 
 f/ieir liabits, and resorts, and company. How can we 
 expect a working-man to go home, and sit all the 
 evening in the one room that he has to live in, and 
 sleep in? Perhaps there are two or three children cry- 
 ing, and linen drying, and all sorts of things to pro- 
 duce discomfort. The man comes in, and his wife is 
 scolding, his children are crying, and the linen is dry- 
 ing; what would you do if you were in his place? 
 Suppose you were not Christian men, would you not 
 go somewhere or other? You cannot walk the streets, 
 and you know that there is a cosy room at the public- 
 house, with its flashing gaslight, or there is the gin- 
 
116 THEJ SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 palace at the corner, where everything is bright and 
 cheerful, and where there are plenty of jolly compan- 
 ions. Well, now, you cannot hope to be the means of 
 saving men while they go to such places, and while 
 they meet with the company that is found there. All 
 the good that they receive from the hymns they 
 heard on the Sabbath is driven away as they listen to the 
 comic songs in the drink-shop, and all remembrance 
 of the services of the sanctuary is obliterated by the 
 very questionable tales that are told in the bar-parlour. 
 Hence the great mercy of having a place where work- 
 ing-men can come and sit in safety, or of having a 
 Blue Ribbon meeting, a gathering wdiere it may not 
 be all singing, nor all preaching, nor all praying, but 
 where there is something of all these things. Here 
 the man is enabled to get out of the former habits 
 which seemed to hold him fast, and by-and-by he does 
 not go to the public-house at all, but he has two rooms, 
 or perhaps a little cottage, so that his wife can dry 
 the linen in the backyard, and now he finds that the 
 baby does not cry so much as he used to do, probably 
 because his mother has more to give him; and every- 
 thing gets better and brighter now that the man has 
 forsaken his former resorts. I think a Christian min- 
 ister is quite justified in using all right and lawful means 
 to wean the people from their evil associations, and 
 it may be well sometimes to do that which seems to 
 be extraordinary if thereby we can by any means win 
 men to the Lord Jesus Christ. That must be our one 
 aim in all that we do; and whatever obstacles may be 
 in our pathway, we must seek the aid of the Holy 
 Spirit that they may be removed, and that thus souls 
 may be saved, and God may be glorified. 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN 
 SOULS 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE 
 TO WIN SOULS. 
 
 I have spoken to you at different times, brethren, 
 about the great work of our hves, which is that 
 of winning souls. I have tried to show you various 
 ways in which we win souls, the qualifications both 
 towards God and towards man of those who are likely 
 to be used in winning souls, the kind of sermons that 
 are most likely to win souls, and also the obstacles in 
 the way of soul-winners. Now I should like, this after- 
 noon, to talk to you upon another part of the subject; 
 that is, — 
 
 HOW CAN WE INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO BECOME 
 SOUL-WINNERS? 
 
 You are aspiring, each of you, in due time, to be- 
 come pastors of churches, unless the Lord should call 
 you to be evangelists, or missionaries to the heathen. 
 Well, you commence at first as single sowers of the 
 good seed of the kingdom, and you go forth scattering 
 from your own basket your own handfuls. You desire, 
 however, to become spiritual farmers, and to have a 
 certain acreage which you will not sow entirely your- 
 self, but you will have servants who will aid you in the 
 work. Then, to one you will say, "Go," and he will 
 
 \^ 
 
120 THE SOUL-WINNEH. 
 
 go forthwilli; or, "Come," and he will come at once; 
 and you will seek to lead them into the art and mystery 
 of seed-sowing, so that, after a while, you may have 
 large numbers of persons round about you doing this 
 good work, and thus a far greater acreage may be 
 brought into cultivation for the great Husbandman. 
 There are some of us who have, by God's grace, been 
 so richly blessed that we have all around us a large 
 number of persons w4io have been spiritually quick- 
 ened through our instrumentality, people who have 
 been aroused under our ministry, who have been in- 
 structed and strengthened by us, and who are all doing 
 good service for God. 
 
 Let me warn you not to look for all this at the first, 
 for // is the w ork of time. Do not expect to get, in 
 the first year of your pastorate, that result which is 
 the reward of twenty years' continuous toil in one place. 
 Young men sometimes make a very great mistake in 
 the way they talk to those who never saw them until 
 about six weeks ago. They cannot speak w^th the 
 authority of one who has been as a father among his 
 people, having been with them for twenty or thirty 
 years; or if they do, it becomes a sort of foolish affecta- 
 tion on their part, and it is equally foolish to expect 
 the people to be all at once the same as they might 
 be after they have been trained by a godly minister 
 for a quarter of a century. It is true that you may go 
 to a church where somebody else has faithfully laboured 
 for many years, and long sown the good seed, and you 
 may find your sphere of labour in a most blessed and 
 prosperous state, and happy will you be if you can 
 thus jump into a good man's shoes, and follow the 
 path he has been treading. It is always a good sign 
 when the horses do not know that they have a new 
 driver; and you, my brother, inexperienced as you 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN yoULo. 121 
 
 are, will be a very happy man if that should be your 
 lot; but the probability is that you will go to a place 
 that has been allowed to run almost to ruin, possibly 
 to one that has been altogether neglected. 
 
 Perhaps you will try to get the principal deacon to 
 imitate your earnestness; you are at a white heat, and 
 when you find him as cold as steel, yoiv will be like a 
 piece of hot iron dipped into a pail of water. He may 
 tell you that he recollects others who were at first 
 just as hot as you are, but they soon cooled down, 
 and he will not be surprised if you do the same. He 
 is a very good man, but then he is old, and you are 
 young, and we cannot put young heads on old shoul- 
 ders even if we were to attempt to do it. Perhaps next 
 you will resolve to try some of the young people ; pos- 
 sibly you can get on better with them; but they do 
 not understand you, they are backward and retiring, 
 and they soon fiy off at a tangent. You must not be 
 surprised if this is your experience. Very likely you 
 will have almost everything to do in connection with 
 the work; at all events, expect that it may be so, and 
 then you will not be disappointed if it so turns out. 
 It may be otherwise; but you will be wise if you go 
 into the ministry expecting not to find any very great 
 assistance from the people in the work of soul-win- 
 ning. Anticipate that you will have to do it yourself, 
 and to do it alone; and begin doing it alone, sow the 
 seed, tramp up and down the field, always looking 
 to the Lord of the harvest to bless your labour, and 
 also looking forward to the time when through your 
 efforts, under the divine blessing, instead of a plot of 
 land that is apparently covered with nettles, or full of 
 stones, or weeds, or thorns, or partly trodden down, 
 you shall have a well-tilled farm in which you may sow 
 the seed to the best advantage, and on which you shall 
 
122 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 have a little army of fellow-labourers to aid you in the 
 
 service. Yet all that is the work of time. 
 
 I should certainly say to you, do not expect all 
 this at least for some months after you settle down to 
 work. Revivals, if they are genuine, do not always 
 come the moment we whistle for them. Try and whistle 
 for the wind, and see if it will come. The great rain 
 was given in answer to Elijah's prayers; but not even 
 then the first time he prayed, and we must pray again, 
 and again, and again, and at last the cloud will appear, 
 and the showers out of the cloud. Wait a while, work 
 on, plod on, plead on, and in due time the blessing 
 will be given, and you shall find that you have the 
 church after your own ideal, but it will not come to 
 you all at once. I do not think Mr. John Angell James, 
 of Birmingham, saw much fruit to his ministry for 
 many years. As far as I remember, Carr's Lane Chapel 
 was not the place of any great notoriety before he 
 preached there; but he kept on steadily preaching the 
 gospel, and at last he drew around him a company of 
 godly people who helped to make him the greatest 
 power for good that Birmingham had at that time. Try 
 to do just the same, and do not expect to see all at 
 once what he and other faithful ministers have only 
 been able to accomplish in many years. 
 
 In order to secure this end of gathering around you 
 a band of Christians who will themselves be soul-win- 
 ners, I should recommend you not to go to work 
 according to atiy set rule, for what would be right at 
 one time might not be wise at another, and that which 
 would be best for one place would not be so good 
 elsewhere. Sometimes, the very best plan would be 
 to call all the members of the church together, tell 
 them what you would like to see, and plead earnestly 
 with them that each one should become for God a 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 123 
 
 soul-winner. Say to them, "I do not want to be your 
 pastor simply that I may preach to you; but I long 
 to see souls saved, and to see those who are saved 
 seeking to win others for the Lord Jesus Christ. You 
 know how the Pentecostal blessing was given ; when 
 the whole church met, with one accord in one place, 
 and continued in prayer and supplication, the Holy 
 Spirit was poured out, and thousands were converted. 
 Cannot we get together in like manner, and all of us 
 cry mightily to God for a blessing?" That might suc- 
 ceed in arousing them. Calling them together, and 
 earnestly pleading with them about the matter, point- 
 ing out what you wish them specially to do, and to 
 ask of God, may be like setting a light to dry fuel; 
 but, on the other hand, nothing may come of it because 
 of their lack of sympathy in the work of soul-saving. 
 They may say, "It is a very nice meeting, and our 
 pastor expects a good deal of us, and we all wish he 
 may get it," and there it will end so far as they are 
 concerned. 
 
 Then, if that should not succeed, God may lead you 
 to begin with one or two. There is usually some 
 "choice young man" in each congregation; and as 
 you notice deeper spirituality in him than in the rest 
 of the members, you might say to him, "Will you come 
 down to my house on such-and-such an evening that 
 we may have a little prayer together?" You can grad- 
 ually increase the number to two or three, godly young 
 men if possible, or you may begin with some gracious 
 matron, who perhaps lives nearer to God than any 
 of the men, and whose prayers would help you more 
 than theirs. Having secured their sympathy, you 
 might say to them, "Now we will try if we cannot influ- 
 ence the whole church ; we will begin with our fellow- 
 members before we go to the outsiders. Let us try 
 
124 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 and be ourselves always at the prayer-meetings, to set 
 an example to the rest, and let us also arrange to have 
 gatherings for prayer in our own houses, and seek to 
 get our brethren and sisters to them. You, good sis- 
 ter, can get half-a-dozen sisters together into your 
 house for a little meeting; and you, brother, can say 
 to a few friends, 'Could we not meet together to pray 
 for our pastor?'" Sometimes, the most effectual way 
 to burn a house is to do it by pouring petroleum down 
 the middle of it, and setting fire to it, as the ladies and 
 gentlemen ( !) did in Paris in the days of the Commune ; 
 and, sometimes, the shortest method is to light it at 
 the four corners. I have never tried either plan; but 
 that is what I think. I like to burn churches rather 
 than houses, because they do not burn down, they 
 burn up, and keep on burning when the fire is of the 
 right sort. When a bush is nothing but a bush, it is 
 soon consumed when it is set on fire; but when it is 
 a bush that burns on and is not consumed, w^e may 
 know that God is there. So is it with a church that 
 is flaming with holy zeal. Your work, brethren, is to 
 set your church on fire somehow. You may do it by 
 speaking to the whole of the members, or you may 
 do it by speaking to the few choice spirits, but you 
 must do it somehow. Have a secret society for this 
 sacred purpose, turn yourselves into a band of celestial 
 Fenians whose aim it is to set the whole church on 
 fire. If you do so, the devil will not like it, and you 
 will cause him such disquiet that he will seek the utter 
 break up of the union, and that is just what we want; 
 w^e do not desire anything but war to the knife betw^een 
 the church and the v^orld and all its habits and cus- 
 toms. But again I say, all this will take time. I have 
 seen some fellows run so fast at first that they have 
 soon become like broken-winded horses, and truly 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 125 
 
 that is a pitiable sight; so take time, brethren, and do 
 not look for everything you desire to be secured all 
 at once. 
 
 I suppose that, in most places, there is a prayer- 
 meeting on Monday night. If you want your people \ 
 as well as yourself to be soul-winners, try_ and keep up \J 
 the prayer-ntcctings all you can. Do not be like cer- 
 tain ministers in the suburbs of London, who say that 
 they cannot get the people out to a prayer-meeting 
 and a lecture, too, so they have one week-night meet- 
 ing for prayer, at which they give a short address. 
 One lazy man said, the other day, that the week-night 
 address was almost as bad as delivering a sermon, so 
 he has a prayer-meeting and a lecture combined in one, 
 and it is neither a prayer-meeting nor a lecture, it is 
 neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring; and 
 soon he will give it up because he says it is no good, 
 and I am sure the people think so, too. And after 
 that, why should he not give up one of the Sunday 
 services? The same reasoning might apply to that 
 as to the week-night meeting. I saw, in an American 
 paper to-day, the following paragraph: — "The well- 
 known fact is again going the rounds that, in Mr. 
 Spurgeon's church in London, the regular hearers 
 absent themselves one Sunday evening every three 
 months, and the house is given up to strangers. Eng- 
 lish 'boasting is excluded' in this matter. Our Amer- 
 ican Christianity is of so noble a type that hosts of our 
 people give up their pews to strangers every Sunday 
 night in the year." I hope it will not be so with your 
 people, brethren, either with respect to the Sabbath 
 services or the prayer-meetings. 
 
 If I were you, I would make that prayer-meeting a 
 special feature of my ministry; let it be such a prayer- 
 meeting that there is not the like of it within seven 
 
126 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 thousand miles. Do not go walking into the prayer- 
 meeting, as so many do, to say anything or nothing 
 that may occur to you at the moment; but do your 
 best to make the meeting interesting to all who are 
 there; and do not hesitate to tell good Mr. Snooks 
 that, God helping you, he shall not pray for five-and- 
 twenty minutes. Earnestly entreat him to cut it short, 
 and if he does not, then stop him. If a man came 
 into my house intending to cut my wife's throat, I 
 would reason with him as to the wrong of it, and then 
 I would ef¥ectually prevent him from doing her any 
 harm ; and I love the church almost as much as I love 
 my dear wife. So, if a nian will pray long, he may 
 pray long somewhere else, but not at the meeting 
 over which* I am presiding. Tell him to finish it up 
 at home if he cannot pray in public for a reasonable 
 length of time. If the people seem dull and heavy, 
 get them to sing Moody and Sankey hymns; and then, 
 when they can sing them all by heart, do not have 
 any more "Moody and Sankey" for a time, but go back 
 to your own hymn book. 
 
 Keep up the prayer meeting, whatever else flags; 
 it is the great business evening of the week, the best 
 service between Sabbaths; be you sure to make it 
 so. If you find that your people cannot come in the 
 evening, try and have a prayer meeting when they 
 can come. You might get a good meeting in the 
 country at half-past four in the morning. Why not? 
 You would get more people at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing than you would at five o'clock at the other end 
 of the day. I believe that a prayer-meeting at six 
 o'clock in the morning among agricultural people 
 would attract many; they would drop in, and just have 
 a few words of prayer, and be glad of the opportunity. 
 Or you might have it at twelve o'clock at night; you 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 127 
 
 would find some people out then whom you could 
 not get at any other time. Try one o'clock, or two 
 o'clock, or three o'clock, or any hour of the day or 
 night, so as somehow or other to get the people out 
 to pray ; and if they cannot be induced to come to the 
 meetings, go to their house, and say, "I am going to 
 have a prayer meeting in your parlour." *'Oh, dear! 
 my wife will be in a state." "Oh, no! tell her not to 
 trouble, for we can go into the coach-house, or garden, 
 or anywhere, but we must have a prayer meeting here." 
 If they will not come to the prayer meeting, we must 
 go to them; suppose that fifty of us go trudging down 
 the street, and hold a meeting in the open air; well, 
 there might be many worse things than that. Remem- 
 ber how the women fought the liquor sellers in Amer- 
 ica when they prayed them out of the traffic. If we 
 cannot stir the people without doing extraordinary 
 things, in the name of all that is good and great let us 
 do extraordinary things, but somehow we must keep 
 up the prayer meetings, for they are at the very secret 
 source of power with God and with men. 
 
 We must al7i'a};j set an ear7iest example ourselves\ \ 
 A slow-coach minister will not have a lively, zealous \j 
 church, I am sure. A man who is indifferent, or who 
 does his work as if he took it as easily as he could 
 ought not to expect to have a people around him who 
 are in earnest about the salvation of souls. I know 
 that you, brethren, desire to have about you a band 
 of Christians who long for the salvation of their friends 
 and neighbours, a set of people who will be always 
 expecting that God will bless the preaching of your 
 sermons, who will watch the countenances of your 
 hearers to see if they are getting impressed, and who 
 will be sorely distressed if there are no conversions, 
 and greatly troubled if souls are not saved. Perhaps 
 
128 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 they would not complain to you if that were the case, 
 but they would cry to God on your behalf. Possibly, 
 they would also speak to you about the matter. 1 
 remember one of my deacons saying to me, as we were 
 going down to the communion, one Sabbath evening, 
 when we had only fourteen to receive into the church, 
 ''Governor, this won't pay." We had been accustomed 
 to have forty or fifty every month, and the good man 
 was not satisfied with a smaller number. I agreed 
 with him that we must have more than that in the 
 future if it was possible. I suppose some brethren would 
 have felt annoyed to have had anything like that re- 
 mark made to them; but I was delighted with what 
 mv good deacon said; for it was just what I mvself 
 felt. 
 
 Then, next, 7i'e waiii around us Christians who ar^ j 
 willing to do all they can to help in the work of win\l 
 ning souls. There are numbers of people who can- 
 not be reached by the pastor. You must tr}' to get 
 some Christian workers who will "buttton-hole" peo- 
 ple, you know what I mean. It is pretty close work 
 when you hold a friend by a lock of his hair, or by his 
 coat-button. Absalom did not find it easy to get away 
 when he was caught in the oak by the hair of his 
 head. So, try to get at close quarters with sinners; 
 talk gently to them till you have whispered them into 
 the kingdom of heaven, till you have told into their 
 ears the blessed story that will bring peace and joy 
 to their heart. We want in the Church of Christ a 
 band of well-trained sharpshooters, who will pick the 
 people out individually, and be always on the watch 
 for all who come into the place, not annoying them, 
 but making sure that they do not go away without 
 having had a personal warning, a personal invitation, 
 and a personal exhortation to come to Christ. We 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOUI^S. 120 
 
 want to train all our people for this service, so as to 
 make Salvation Armies out of them. Every man, 
 woman or child who is in our churches should be set 
 to work for tlie Lord. Then they will not relish the 
 fine sermons that the Americans seem to delight in 
 so much; but they will say, "Pooh! Flummery! We 
 don't want that kind of thing." What do people who 
 are at work in the harvest field want with thunder and 
 lightning? They want just to rest a while under a tree, 
 to wipe the sweat from their foreheads, to refresh them- 
 selves after their toil, and then to get to work again. 
 Our preaching ought to be like the address of a com- 
 mander-in-chief to his army, "There are the enemy; 
 do not let me know where they are to-morrow." Some- 
 thing short, something sweet, something that stirs and 
 impresses them, is what our people need. 
 
 We are sure to get the blessing we are seeking when \ 
 the whole afmosphere in which we are living is favour- 
 able to soul-winning, I remember one of our friends 
 saying to me one evening, "There will be sure to be 
 a blessing to-night, there is such a lot of dew about.'' 
 May you often know what it is to preach where there 
 is plenty of dew! The Irishman said that it was no 
 use to irrigate while the sun was shining, for he had 
 noticed that, whenever it rained, there were clouds 
 about, so that the sun was hidden. There was a great 
 deal of sense in that observation, more than appears 
 at first sight, as there usually is in Hibernian state- 
 ments. The shower benefits the plants because every- 
 thing is suitable for the rain to come down, the shaded 
 sky, the humidity of the atmosphere, the general feel- 
 ing of everything is damp all around; but if you were 
 to pour the same quantity of water down while the 
 sun was shining brightly, the leaves would probably 
 be turned yellow, and in the heat they would shrivel 
 
130 THE SOUL-\VINNER. 
 
 and die. Any gardener would tell you that he is always 
 careful to water the flowers in the evening when the 
 sun is off them. This is the reason why irrigation, 
 however well it is done, is not so beneficial as the rain ; 
 there must be a favourable influence in the whole at- 
 mosphere if the plants and flowers are to derive benefit 
 from the moistening. It is just so in spiritual things. 
 I have often noticed that, when God blesses my min- 
 istry to an unusual extent, the people in general are in 
 a praying mood. It is a grand thing to preach in 
 an atmosphere full of the dew of the Spirit. I know 
 what it is to preach with it; and, alas! I know what 
 it is to preach without it. Then is it like Gilboa, when 
 there was no dew nor rain. You may preach, and 
 you may hope that God will bless your message; but 
 it is no use. I hope it will not be so with you, brethren. 
 Perhaps your lot will be cast where some dear brother 
 has long been toiling, and prajing, and labouring for 
 the Lord, and you will find all the people just ready 
 for the blessing. 
 
 I often feel, when I go out to preach, that there is 
 no credit due to me, for everything is in my favour. 
 There sit the good folk, with their mouths open, wait- 
 ing for the blessing; almost everybody there is ex- 
 pecting me to say something good, and because they 
 are all looking for it, it does them good, and when I 
 am gone they keep on praying for the blessing, and 
 they get it. When a man is put on a horse that runs 
 away with him, he must ride; that is just how it has 
 frequently been with me, the blessing has been given 
 because all the surroundings were favourable. You 
 may often trace the happy results not only to the preach- 
 er's discourse, but to all the circumstances connected 
 with Its delivery. It was so with Peter's sermon that 
 brought three thousand souls to Christ on the day of 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOUI^. 131 
 
 Pentecost; there never was a better sermon preached, 
 it was a plain, personal message likely to convince 
 people of the sin of their treatment of the Saviour in 
 putting Him to death; but I do not attribute the con- 
 versions to the apostle's words alone, for there were 
 clouds about, the whole atmosphere was damp; as my 
 -friend said to me, there was "plenty of dew about." 
 Had not the disciples been long continuing in prayer 
 and supplication for the descent of the Spirit, and had 
 not the Holy Ghost descended upon every one of them 
 as well as upon Peter? In the fulness of time, the 
 Pentecostal blessing was poured out most copiously. 
 Whenever a church gets into the same state as that of 
 the apostles and disciples at that memorable period, 
 the whole heavenly electricity is concentrated at that 
 particular spot. Yet you remember that even Christ 
 Himself could not do many mighty works in some 
 places because of the people's unbelief, and I am sure 
 that all His servants who are thoroughly in earnest are 
 at times hampered in the same way. Some of our 
 brethren who are here have, I fear, a worldly, Christ- 
 less people; still, I am not sure that they ought to run 
 away from them ; I think that, if possible, they should 
 stop, and try to make them more Christlike. 
 
 It is true that I have had the other sort of experi- 
 ence, as well as the joyous one I have been describ- 
 ing. I remember preaching one night in a place where 
 they had not had a minister for some time. When I 
 reached the chapel I did not have any kind of wel- 
 come ; the authorities were to receive pecuniary benefit 
 if nothing else from my visit, but they did not welcome 
 mei at all; they said, in fact, that there had been a 
 maiority at the church meetinpf in favour of invitinc: 
 me, but the deacons did not approve of it because they 
 did not think I -vvas "sound." There were some breth- 
 
132 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 ren and sisters froii) other churches there; they seemed 
 pleased and profited, but the people who belonged to 
 the place did not gxt a blessing; they had not expected 
 one, so of course they did not receive it. When the 
 service was over I went into the vestry, and there 
 stood the two deacons, one on each side of the man- 
 telpiece. I said to them, ''Are you the deacons?" ^ 
 "Yes," they answered. "The churcli does not prosper, 
 does it?" I asked. "No," they replied. "I should not 
 think it would with such deacons," I said. ''Did I 
 know anything against them?" they asked. "No," I 
 said, "but I did not know anything in their favour." 
 I thought that, if I could not get at them in the mass, 
 I would try what I could do with one or two. I was 
 glad to know that my sermon or my remarks after- 
 wards led to an improvement, and there is one of 
 our brethren there, and doing well to this day. One 
 of the deacons was so irritated by what I said that he 
 left the place, but the other deacon was irritated the 
 right way, so that he remained there, and laboured 
 and prayed until better days came. It is hard when 
 you are rowing against wind and tide, but it is worse 
 even than that if you have a horse on the bank pull- 
 ing a rope, and dragging your boat the other way. 
 Well, never mind, brethren, if that is your case, but 
 work away all the harder, and pull the horse into the 
 water. Still, remember tliat when once a favourable 
 atmosphere is created, then the difficulty is to main- 
 tain it. You notice that I said, "When the atmosphere 
 is created," and tliat expression reminds us how little 
 we can do, or rather that we can do nothing without 
 God, for it is He who has to do with atmospheres. He 
 alone can create them and maintain them; therefore, 
 our eyes must be continually lifted up to Him, whence 
 Cometh all our help. 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 133 
 
 It may happen that sonic of you do preach very 
 earnestly and well, and sermons that are likely to be 
 blessed, and yet you do not see sinners saved. Well, 
 do not leave off preaching; but say to yourself, "I 
 must try to gather around me a number of people 
 who will be all praying with me and for me, and who 
 will talk to their friends about the things of God, and 
 who will so live and labour that the Lord will give a 
 blessed shower of grace because all the surroundings 
 are suitable thereto, and help to make the blessing 
 come. I have heard ministers say that when they have 
 preached in the Tabernacle, there has been something 
 in the congregation that has had a wonderfully pow^- 
 erful effect upon them. I think it is because we have 
 good prayer meetings, because there is an earnest 
 spirit of prayer among the people, and because so many 
 of them are on the watch for souls. There is one broth- 
 er especially who is always looking after any hearers 
 who have been impressed ; I call him my hunting dog, 
 and he is ever ready to pick up the birds I have shot and 
 bring them to me. I have known him waylay them one 
 after another, that he might bring them to Jesus; and 
 I rejoice that I have other friends of this kind. When 
 our brethren, Fullerton and Smith, had been conduct- 
 ing some special services for a very eminent preacher 
 who is in the habit of using rather long words, he said 
 that the evangelists had the faculty for "the precipita- 
 tion of decision." He meant that the Lord blessed them 
 in bringing men to decision for Christ. It is a grand 
 thing when a man has the faculty for the precipitation 
 of decision; but it is an equally grand thing when he 
 has a number of people around him who say to each 
 hearer after every service, "Well, friend, did you enjoy 
 that discourse? Was there something in it for you? 
 Are vou saved? Do vou know^ the w-ay to salvation?" 
 
134 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 Always have your own Bible ready, and turn to the 
 passages you want to quote to the enquirers. I often 
 noticed that friend of mine, of whom I spoke just now, 
 and he seemed to me to open his Bible at most appro- 
 pi iate passages, he appeared to have them all ready 
 land handy, so that he would be sure to hit on the righ^ 
 texts. You know the sort of texts I mean, just those 
 that a seeking soul wants: 'The Son of man is come 
 to seek and to save that which was lost." "He that 
 believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." "The blood 
 of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 
 "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." 
 ''Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
 be saved." Well, this brother has a number of such 
 passages printed in bold type, and fastened inside his 
 Bible, so that he can refer to the right one in a moment, 
 and many troubled souls has he thus led to the Saviour. 
 You will not be unwise if you adopt some such method 
 as he has found so exceedingly helpful. 
 
 Now lastly, brethren, do not be afraid when you go 
 to a place, and find it in a very bad condition. It is 
 a fine thing for a young man to begin with a real 
 downright bad prospect, for, with the right kind of 
 work, there must come an improvement some time or 
 other. If the chapel is all but empty when you go to 
 it, it cannot well be in a much worse state than that; 
 and the probability is that you will be the means of 
 bringing some into the church, and so making matters- 
 better. If there is any place where I would choose 
 to labour, it would be just on the borders of the in- 
 fernal lake, for I really believe that it would bring more 
 glory to God to work among those who are accounted 
 the worst of sinners. If your ministry Is blessed to 
 such people as these, they will be likely to cling to you 
 through your whole life; but the very worst sort of 
 
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 135 
 
 people are those who have long been professing Chris- 
 tians, but who are destitute of grace, having a name to 
 live, and yet being dead. Alas! there are people like 
 that among our deacons, and among our church mem- 
 bers, and we cannot get them out; and, as long as 
 they remain they exert a most baneful influence. It 
 is dreadful to have dead members w^here every single 
 part of the body should be instinct with divine life; yet 
 in many cases it is so, and we are powerless to cure the 
 evil. We must let the tares grow until the harvest; but 
 the best thing to do, when you cannot root up the tares, 
 is to water the wheat, for there is nothing that will keep 
 back the tares like good strong wheat. I have known 
 ungodly men who have had the place made so hot for 
 them that they have been glad to clear right out of 
 the church. They have said, 'The preaching is too 
 strong for us, and these people are too Puritanical 
 and too strict to suit us." What a blessing it is when 
 that is the case ! We did not wash to drive them away 
 by preaching the truth ; but as they went of their own 
 accord, we certainly do not want them back, and we 
 will leave them where they are praying the Lord, in 
 the greatness of His grace, to turn them from the 
 error of their ways, and to bring them to Himself, and 
 then we shall be glad to have them back with us to 
 live and labour for the Lord. 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 
 
AN ADDRESS TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS. 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD, 
 
 Fellow-labourers in the vineyard of the Lord, let 
 me call your attention to a most instructive miracle 
 wrought by the prophet Elisha, as recorded in the 
 fourth chapter of the Second Book of Kings. The hos- 
 pitality of the Shunammite woman had been rewarded 
 by the gift of a son; but, alas! all earthly mercies are 
 of uncertain tenure, and after certain days the child fell 
 sick and died. 
 
 The distressed but believing mother hastened at once 
 to the man of God ; through him God had spoken the 
 promise which fulfilled her heart's desire, and she re- 
 solved to plead her case with him, that he might lay 
 it before his Divine Master, and obtain for her an an- 
 swer of peace. Elisha's action is recorded in the fol- 
 lowing verses: 
 
 "Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take 
 my stafif in thine hand, and go thy way; if thou meet 
 any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer 
 him not again: and lay my stafY upon the face of the 
 child. And the mother of the child said. As the Lord 
 liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. 
 And he arose, and followed her. And Gehazi passed 
 on before them, and laid the stafif upon the face of the 
 child; but there was neither voice, nor hearing. Where- 
 fore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, 
 The child is not awaked. And when Elisha was come 
 
140 THE SOUL WINNER. 
 
 into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid 
 upon his bed. He went in therefore, and shut the door 
 upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And 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. Then 
 he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and 
 went up, and stretched himself upon him ; and the child 
 sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 
 And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. 
 So he called her. And when she was come in unto 
 him, he said, Take up thy son. Then she went in, and 
 fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and 
 took up her son, and went out." — 2 Kings iv., 29-37. 
 
 The position of Elisha in this case is exactly your 
 position, brethren, in relation to your work for Christ. 
 Elisha had to deal with a dead child. It is true that, 
 in his instance, it was natural death; but the death 
 with which you have to come in contact is not the 
 less real death because it is spiritual. The boys and 
 girls in your classes are, as surely as grown-up people, 
 "dead in trespasses and sins." May none of you fail 
 fully to realise the state in which all human beings are 
 naturally found! Unless you have a very clear sense 
 of the utter ruin and spiritual death of your children, 
 you will be incapable of being made a blessing to 
 them. Go to them, I pray you, not as to sleepers whom 
 you can by your own power awaken from their slum- 
 ber, but as to spiritual corpses who can only be quick- 
 ened by a power divine. Elisha's great object was 
 not to cleanse the dead body, or embalm it with spices, 
 or wrap it in fine linen, or place it in an appropriate 
 posture, and then leave it still a corpse: he aimed at 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 141 
 
 nothing less than the restoration of the child to life. 
 Beloved teachers, may you never be content with aim- 
 ing at secondary benefits, or even with realising 
 them; may you strive for the grandest of all ends, 
 the salvation of immortal souls! Your business is not 
 merely to teach the children in your classes to read the 
 Bible, not barely to inculcate the duties of morality, nor 
 even to instruct them in the mere letter of the gospel, 
 but your high calling is to be the means, in the hands 
 of God, of bringing life from heaven to dead souls. 
 Your teaching on the Lord's Day will have been a fail- 
 ure if your children remain dead in sin. In the case 
 of the secular teacher, the child's fair proficiency in 
 knowledge will prove that the instructor has not lost 
 his pains; but in your case, even though your youth- 
 ful charges should grow up to be respectable members 
 of society, though they should become regular at- 
 tendants upon the means of grace, you will not feel that 
 your petitions to heaven have been answered, nor your 
 desires granted to you, nor your highest ends attained, 
 unless something more is done — unless, in fact, it can 
 be said of your children, "The Lord hath quickened 
 them together with Christ." 
 
 Resurrection, then, is our aim! To raise the dead is 
 our mission/ We are Hke Peter at Joppa, or Paul at 
 Troas, we have a young Dorcas or Eutychus to bring 
 to life. How is so strange a work to be achieved? If 
 we yield to unbelief, we shall be staggered by the evi- 
 dent fact that the work to which the Lord has called 
 us is quite beyond our own personal power. We can- 
 not raise the dead. If asked to do so, we might each 
 one of us, like the king of Israel, rend our clothes, and 
 say, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive?" We are, 
 however, no more powerless than Elislia, for he him- 
 self could not restore the Shunammite's son. It is true 
 
142 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 that we by ourselves cannot bring the dead hearts of 
 our scholars to palpitate with spiritual life, but a Paul 
 or an Apollos would have been equally as poweriess. 
 Need this fact discourage us? Does it not rather direct 
 us to our true power by shutting us out from our own 
 fancied might? I trust we are all of us already aware 
 that the man who lives in the region of faith dwells in 
 the realm of miracles. Faith trades in marvels, and her 
 merchandise is with wonders. 
 
 "Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees. 
 And looks to that alone; 
 Laughs at impossibilities, 
 And cries, 'It shall be done.' '* 
 
 Elisha was no comijwn mafi now that God's Spirit 
 was upon him, calling him to God's work, and aiding 
 him in it. And you, devoted, anxious, prayerful teach- 
 er, remain no longer a common being; you have be- 
 come, in a special manner, the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost, God dwelleth in you, and you by faith have 
 entered upon the career of a wonder-worker. You 
 are sent into the world not to do the things which are 
 possible to man, but those impossibilities which God 
 worketh by His Spirit, by the means of His believing 
 people. You are to work miracles, to do marvels. 
 You are not, therefore, to look upon the restoration 
 of these dead children, which in God's name you are 
 called to bring about, as being a thing unlikely or 
 difficult when you remember who it is that works by 
 your feeble instrumentality. ''Why should it be thought 
 a thing incredible with you that God should raise the 
 dead?" Unbelief will whisper to you, as you mark 
 the wicked giddiness and early obstinacy of your chil- 
 dren, "Can these dry bones live?" But your answer 
 must be, "O, Lord, Thou knowest." Committing all 
 cases to the almighty hand, it is yours to prophesy to 
 
. HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 14S 
 
 the dry bones and to the heavenly wind, and ere long 
 you, too, shall see in the valley of your vision the signal 
 triumph of life over death. Let us take up at this mo- 
 ment our true position and let us realise it. We 
 have dead children before us, and our souls yearn 
 to bring them to life. We confess that all quickening 
 must be wrought by the Lord alone, and our humble 
 petition is that, if the Lord will use us in connection 
 with His miracles of grace, He would now show us 
 what He would have us to do. 
 
 // would have been well if E lis ha had recollected that 
 he was once the servant of Elijah, and had so studied 
 his Master^s example as to have i^nitated it. If so, he 
 would not have sent Gehazi with a stafY, but have done 
 at once what at last he was constrained to do. In the 
 First Book of Kings, at the seventeenth chapter, you 
 will find the story of Elijah's raising a dead child, and 
 you will there see that Elijah, the master, had left a com- 
 plete example to his servant; and it was not until 
 Elisha followed it in all respects that the miraculous 
 power was manifested. It had been wise, I say, if 
 Elisha had, at the outset, imitated the example of the 
 master whose mantle he wore. With far more force 
 may I say to you, my fellow-servants, that it will be well 
 for us if, as teachers, we imitate our Master — if we 
 study the modes and methods of our glorified Master, 
 and learn at His feet the art of winning souls. Just 
 as He came in deepest sympathy into the nearest con- 
 tact with our wretched humanity, and condescended 
 to stoop to our sorrowful condition, so must we come 
 near to the souls with whom we have to deal, yearn over 
 them with His yearning, and weep over them with His 
 tears, if we would see them raised from the state of 
 sin. Only by imitating the spirit and manner of the 
 Lord Jesus shall we become wise to win souls. 
 
114 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 Forgetting this, however, EHsha would fain strike 
 out a course for himself, which would more clearly 
 display his own prophetic dignity. He gave his staff 
 into the hand of Gehazi, his servant, and bade him 
 lay it upon the child, as if he felt that the divine power 
 was so plenteously upon him that it would work in 
 any way, and consequently his own personal presence 
 and efforts might be dispensed with. The Lord's 
 thoughts were not so. I am afraid that very often 
 the truth which we deliver from the pulpit — and doubt- 
 less it is much the same in your classes — is a thing 
 which is extraneous and out of ourselves; like a staff 
 which we hold in our hand, but which is not a part 
 of ourselves. We take doctrinal or practical truth as 
 Gehazi did the staff, and we lay it upon the face of the 
 child, but we ourselves do not agonise for its soul. We 
 try this doctrine and that truth, this anecdote and the 
 other illustration, this way of teaching a lesson and 
 that manner of delivering an address; but so long as 
 ever the truth which we deliver is a matter apart from 
 ourselves, and unconnected with our innermost being, 
 so long it will have no more effect upon a dead soul 
 than Elisha's staff had upon the dead child. Alas! I 
 fear I have frequently preached the gospel in this place, 
 I have been sure that it was my Master's gospel, the 
 true prophetic staff, and yet it has had no result, be- 
 cause I fear I have not preached it with the vehemence 
 and earnestness and heartiness which ought to have 
 gone with it! And will you not make the same con- 
 fession, that sometimes you have taught the truth — 
 it was the truth, you know it was — the very truth which 
 you found in the Bible, and which has at times been 
 precious to your own soul, and yet no good result 
 has followed from It, because while you taught the 
 truth you did not feel the truth, nor feel for the child 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. . 145 
 
 to whom the truth was addressed, but were just like 
 Gehazi placing with indifferent hand the prophetic staff 
 upon the face of the child? It was no wonder that you 
 had to say with Gehazi, "The child is not awaked," for 
 the true awakening power found no appropriate me- 
 dium in your lifeless teaching. We are not sure that 
 Gehazi was convinced that the child was really dead; 
 he spoke as if it were only asleep, and needed waking. 
 God will not bless those teachers who do not grasp in 
 their hearts the really fallen estate of their children. 
 If you think the child is not really depraved, if \ou 
 indulge foolish notions about the innocence of child- 
 hood and the dignity of human nature, it should not 
 surprise you if you remain barren and unfruitful. How 
 can God bless you to work a resurrection when, if He 
 did work it by you, you are incapable of perceiving its 
 glorious nature? If the lad had awaked, it would not 
 have surprised Gehazi; he would have thought that 
 he was only startled from an unusually sound sleep. 
 If God were to bless to the conversion of souls the 
 testimony of those who do not believe in the total 
 depravity of man, they would merely say, "The gospel 
 is very moralising, and exerts a most beneficial influ- 
 ence." but they would never bless and magnify the re- 
 generating grace by which He who sitteth on the 
 tlirone maketh all things new. 
 
 Observe carefully what Elisha did when thus foiled 
 in his first effort. IVheti we fail m one attempt, we 
 must not therefore give up our work. If you have 
 been unsuccessful, my dear brother or sister, until 
 now, you must not infer that you are not called to 
 the work, any more than Elisha might have concluded 
 that the child could not be restored. The lesson of 
 your non-success is not — cease the work, but — change 
 the method. It is not the person who is out of place, 
 
146 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 it is the plan which is unwise. If you have not been 
 able to accomplish what you wished, remember the 
 schoolboy's song: 
 
 "If at first you don't succeed, 
 Try, try, try again." 
 
 Do not, however, try in the same way unless you are 
 sure that it is the best one. If your first method has 
 been unsuccessful, you must improve upon it. Exam- 
 ine wherein you have failed, and then, by changing 
 your mode, or your spirit, the Lord may prepare you 
 for a degree of usefulness far beyond your expectation. 
 Elisha, instead of being dispirited when he found that 
 the child was not awake, girded up his loins, and hast- 
 ened wdth greater vigour to the work before him. 
 
 Notice where the dead child was placed: "And 
 when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child 
 was dead, and laid upon his bed." This w'as the bed 
 which the hospitality of the Shunammite had prepared 
 for Elisha, the famous bed w^hich, with the table, the 
 stool and the candlestick, will never be forgotten in 
 the Church of God. That famous bed had to be used 
 for a purpose which the good woman little thought 
 of when, out of love to the prophet's God, she pre- 
 pared it for the prophet's rest. I like to think of the 
 dead child lying on that bed, because it symbolises the 
 place where our unconverted children must lie if we 
 would have them saved. If we are to be a blessing 
 to them, they must lie in our hearts — they must be our 
 daily and nightly charge. We must take the cases of 
 our children to our silent couch with us: we must think 
 of them in the watches of the night, and w^ien w^e can- 
 not sleep because of care, they must share in those 
 midnight anxieties. Our beds must witness to our 
 cries: "Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee! Oh, 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 147 
 
 that the dear boys and girls in my class might become 
 the children of the living God!" Elijah and Elisha 
 both teach us that we must not place the child far from 
 us, out of doors, or down below us in a vault of cold 
 forgetfulncss, but, if we would have him raised to life, 
 we must place him in the warmest sympathies of our 
 hearts. 
 
 In reading on we find, "he went in, therefore, and 
 shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the 
 Lord." Now the prophet is at his work in right earn- 
 est, and we have a noble opportunity of learning from 
 him the secret of raising children from the dead. If 
 you turn to the narrative of Elijah, you will find that 
 Elisha adopted the orthodox method of proceeding, 
 the method of his master Elijah. You will read there, 
 "And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took 
 him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, 
 where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And 
 he cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God, 
 hast Thou also brought evil upon the woman with 
 whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched 
 himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the 
 Lord, and said, O Lord, my, God, I pray Thee, let this 
 child's soul come into him again. And the Lord heard 
 the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into 
 him again, and he revived." The great secret lies, in 
 a large measure, in powerful supplication. "He shut 
 the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord." 
 The old proverb is, "Every true pulpit is set up in 
 heaven," by which is meant that the true preacher 
 is much with God. If we do not pray to God for a 
 blessing, if the foundation of the pulpit be not laid 
 in private prayer, our open ministry will not be a 
 success. So it is with you; every real teacher's power 
 must come from on high. If you never enter your 
 
148 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 closet, and shut to the door, if you never plead at the 
 mercy-seat for your child, how can you expect that 
 God will honour you in its conversion? It is a very 
 excellent method, I think, actually to take the chil- 
 dren one by one into your room alone, and pray with 
 them. You will see your children converted when God 
 gives you to individualise their cases, to agonise for 
 them, and to take them one by one, and with the door 
 closed, to pray both with them and for them. There 
 is much more influence in prayer privately offered with 
 one than in p'Vayer publicly uttered in the class — not 
 more influence with God, of course, but more influ- 
 ence wdth the child. Such prayer will often be made its 
 own answer; for God may, while you are pouring out 
 your soul, make your prayer to be a hammer to break 
 the heart which mere addresses had never touched. 
 Pray with your children separatel}', and it will surely 
 be the means of a great blessing. If this cannot be 
 done, at any rate there must be prayer, much prayer, 
 constant prayer, vehement prayer, the kind of prayer 
 which will not take a denial, like Luther's prayer, which 
 he called the bombarding of heaven; that is to say, 
 the planting a cannon at heaven's gates to blow them 
 open, for after this fashion fervent men prevail in 
 prayer; they will not come from the mercy-seat until 
 they can cry with Luther, "T/V/," ^'I have conquered, 
 I have gained the blessing for which I strove." *'The 
 kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
 take it by force." May we offer such violent, God- 
 constraining, heaven-compelling prayers, and the Lord 
 will not permit us to seek His face in vain! 
 
 After praying, Elisha adopted the means. Prayer 
 and means must go together. Means without prayer 
 — presumption! Prayer without means — hypocrisy! 
 There lav the child, and there stood the venerable 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 149 
 
 man of God ! Watch his singular proceeding, he stoops 
 over the corpse, and puts his mouth upon the child's 
 mouth. The cold, dead mouth of the child was touched 
 by the warm, living lips of the prophet, and a vital 
 stream of fresh, hot breath was sent down into the chill, 
 stone-like passages of the dead mouth, and throat, and 
 lungs. Next, the holy man, with loving ardour of 
 hopefulness, placed his eyes upon the child's eyes, and 
 his hands upon the child's hands; the warm hands of 
 the old man covered the cold palms of the departed 
 child. Then he stretched himself upon the child, and 
 covered him with his whole body, as though he would 
 transfer his own life into the lifeless frame, and would 
 either die wdth him, or would make him live. We have 
 heard of the chamois hunter acting as guide to a fearful 
 traveller, who, when they came to a very dangerous 
 part of the road, strapped the traveller firmly to himself 
 and said, "Both of us or neither," that is to say, ''Both of 
 us shall live, or neither of us; we are one." So did 
 the prophet effect a mysterious union between himself 
 and the lad, and in his own mind it was resolved that 
 he would either be chilled with the child's death, or 
 warm the child with his life. What does this teach us? 
 The lessons are many and obvious. We see here, 
 as in a picture, that if we would bring spiritual life to 
 a child, we must most vividly realise that child's state. 
 It is dead, dead. God will have you feel that the child 
 is as dead in trespasses and sins as you once were. 
 God would have you, dear teacher, come into contact 
 with that death by painful, crushing, humbling sym- 
 pathy. I told you that, in soul-winning, we should 
 observe how our Master worked; now how did He 
 work? When He would raise us from death, what 
 did it behoove Him to do? He must needs die Him- 
 self: there was no other way. So is it with you. If 
 
150 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 you would raise that dead child, you must feel the chill 
 and horror of that child's death yourself. A dying 
 man is needed to raise dying men. I cannot believe 
 that you will ever pluck a brand from the burning with- 
 out putting your hand near enough to feel the heat of 
 the fire. You must have, more or less, a distinct sense 
 of the dreadful wrath of God and of the terrors of the 
 judgment to come, or you will lack energy in your 
 work, and so lack one of the essentials of success. 
 I do not think the preacher ever speaks well upon such 
 topics until he feels them pressing upon him as a per- 
 sonal burden from the Lord. ''I did preach in chains," 
 said John Bunyan, "to men in chains." Depend upon 
 it, when the death that is in your children alarms, de- 
 presses and overwhelms you, then it is that God is 
 about to bless you. 
 
 Thus realising the child's state, and putting your 
 mouth upon the child's mouth, and your hands upon 
 its hands, you must next strive to adapt yourself as far 
 as possible to the nature, and habits, and temperament 
 of the child. Your mouth must find out the child's 
 words, so that the child may know what you mean; 
 you must see things with a child's eyes; your heart 
 must feel a child's feelings, so as to be his companion 
 and friend; you must be a'student of juvenile sin; you 
 must be a sympathiser in juvenile trials; you must 
 so far as possible, enter into childhood's joys and griefs. 
 You must not fret at the difficulty of this matter, or feel 
 it to be humiliating; for if you count anything to be 
 a hardship, or a condescension, you have no business 
 in the Sunday school. If anything difficult be required 
 of you, you must do it, and not think it difficult. God 
 will not raise a dead child by you, if you are not willing 
 to become all things to that child, if by any possibility 
 you may win its soul. 
 
liOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 151 
 
 The prophet, it is written, "stretched himself upon 
 the child." One would have thought it should be writ- 
 ten, **he contracted himself!" He was a full-grown 
 man, and the other a mere lad. Should it not be ''he 
 contracted himself?" No, "he stretched himself;" and, 
 mark you, no stretching is harder than for a man to 
 stretch himself to a child. He is no fool who can talk 
 to children ; a simpleton is much mistaken if he thinks 
 that his folly can interest boys and girls. It needs our 
 best wits, our most industrious studies, our most earn- 
 est thoughts, our ripest powers, to teach our little ones. 
 You will not quicken the child until you have stretched 
 yourself; and, though it seems a strange thing, yet 
 it is so. The wisest man will need to exercise all his 
 abilities if he would become a successful teacher of the 
 young. 
 
 We see, then, in Elisha, a sense of the child's death 
 and an adaptation of himself to his work; but, above 
 all, we see sympatJiy. While Elisha himself felt the 
 chill of the corpse, his personal warmth was entering 
 into the dead body. This of itself did not raise the 
 child ; but God worked through it — ^the old man's heat 
 of body passed into the child, and became the medium 
 of quickening. Let every teacher weigh these words 
 of Paul, ''But we were gentle among you, even as a 
 nurse cherisheth her children; so, being affectionately 
 desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto 
 you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, 
 because ye were dear unto us." The genuine soul-win- 
 ner knows what this means. For my own part, when 
 the Lord helps me to preach, after I have delivered 
 all my matter, and have fired of¥ my shot so fast that 
 my gun has grown hot, I have often rammed my soul 
 into the gun, and fired my heart at the congregation, 
 and this discharge has, under God, won the victory. 
 
152 THE GOUL- WINNER. 
 
 God will bless by His Spirit our hearty sympathy with 
 His own truth, and make it do that which the truth 
 alone, coldly spoken, would not accomplish. Here, 
 then, is the secret. You must, dear teacher, impart 
 to the young your own soul; you must feel as if the 
 ruin of that child would be your own ruin. You 
 must feel that, if the child remains under the wrath 
 of God, it is to you as true a grief as if you were 
 under that wrath yourself. You must confess the child's 
 sins before God as if they were your own, and stand 
 as a priest before the Lord pleading on its behalf. 
 The child was covered by Elisha's body, and you must 
 cover your class with your comj>assion, with the agon- 
 ising stretching forth of yourself before the Lord on 
 its behaif. Behold in this miracle the modus operandi 
 of raising the dead; the Holy Spirit remains mysteri- 
 ous in His operations, but the way of the outward 
 means is here clearly revealed. 
 
 The result of the prophet's work soon appeared: 
 "the flesh of the child waxed warm." How pleased 
 Elisha must have been; but I do not find that his 
 pleasure and satisfaction caused him to relax his ex- 
 ertions. Never be satisfied, dear friends, with finding 
 your children in a barely hopeful state. Did a girl 
 come to you and cry, "Teacher, pray for me?" Be glad, 
 for this is a fair token; but look for more. Did you 
 observe tears in a boy's eyes when you were speaking 
 of the love of Christ? Be thankful for it that the flesh 
 is waxing warm, but do not stop there. Can you relax 
 your exertions now? Bethink you, you have not yet 
 gained your end! It is life you want, not warmth alone. 
 What you want, dear teacher, in your beloved charge, 
 is not mere conviction, but conversion ; you desire not 
 only impression, but regeneration — life, life from God, 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 153 
 
 the life of Jesus. This your scholars need, and nothing 
 less imist content you. 
 
 Again I must bid you watch Elisha. There was now 
 a little pause. "Then he returned, and walked in the 
 house to and fro." Notice the restlessness of the man 
 of God; he cannot be easy. The child waxes warm 
 (blessed be God for that, but he does not live yet); 
 so, instead of sitting down in his chair by the table, 
 the prophet walks to and fro with restless foot, dis- 
 quieted, groaning, panting, longing, and ill at ease. 
 He could not bear to look upon the disconsolate 
 mother, or to hear her ask, "Is the child restored?" 
 but he continued pacing the house as if his body could 
 not rest because his soul was not satisfied. Imitate 
 this consecrated restlessness. When you see a boy 
 getting somewhat afifected, do not sit down and say, 
 "The child is very hopeful, thank God; I am perfectly 
 satisfied." You will never win the priceless gem of a 
 saved soul in that way; you must feel sad, restless, 
 troubled, if you ever become a parent in the Church. 
 Paul's expression is not to be explained in words, but 
 you must know its meaning in your hearts; "I travail 
 in birth again until Christ be formed in you." Oh, 
 may the Holy Ghost give you such inward travail, such 
 unrest, disquietude, and sacred uneasiness, until you see 
 your hopeful scholars savingly converted! 
 
 After a short period of walking to and fro, the prophet 
 again "went up, and stretched himself upon the child." 
 What it is well to do once, it is proper to do a second 
 time. What is good twice, is good seven times. There 
 must be perseverance and patience. You were very 
 earnest last Sabbath; do not be slothful next Sab- 
 bath. How easy it is to pull down, on any one day, 
 what we have built up the day before ! If by one Sab- 
 bath's work God enables me to convince a child that 
 
154 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 I was in earnest, let me not convince the child next 
 Sunday that I am not in earnest. If my past warmth 
 has made the child's flesh wax warm, God forbid that 
 my future chilliness should make the child's heart cold 
 again! As surely as warmth went from Elisha to the 
 child, so may cold go from you to your class unless 
 you are in an earnest state of mind. 
 
 Elisha stretched himself on the bed again, with many 
 a prayer, and many a sigh, and much believing, and 
 at last his desire was granted him: "The child sneezed 
 seven times, and the child opened his eyes." Any form 
 of action would indicate life, and content the prophet. 
 The child "sneezed," some say because he died with a 
 'disease of the head, for he said to his father, "My head ! 
 my head!" and the sneeze cleared the passages of life 
 which had been blocked up. This we do not know. 
 The fresh air entering afresh into the lungs might well 
 compel a sneeze. The sound was nothing very articu- 
 late or musical, but it betokened life. This is all we 
 should expect from young children when God gives 
 them spiritual life. Some church members expect a 
 great deal more, but for my part I am satisfied if the 
 children sneeze — if they give any true sign of grace, 
 however feeble or indistinct. If the dear child does 
 but feel its lost estate, and rest upon the finished work 
 of Jesus, though we only find out the fact by a very in- 
 distinct statement, not such as we should accept from 
 a doctor of divinity, or expect from a grown-up per- 
 son, should we not thank God, and receive the child, 
 and nurse it for the Lord? 
 
 Perhaps, if Gehazi had been there, he would not have 
 thought much of this sneezing, because he had never 
 stretched himself upon the child, but Elisha was con- 
 tent with it. Even so, if you and I have really agon- 
 ised in prayer for souls, we shall be very quick of eye 
 
HOW TO RAISE THE DEAD. 155 
 
 to catch the first sign of grace, and shall be thankful to 
 God if the token be but a sneeze. 
 
 Then the child opened his eyes, and we will venture 
 to say Elisha thought he had never seen such lovely 
 eyes before. I know not what kind of eyes they were, 
 the hazel or the blue, but this I know, that any eye 
 which God helps you to open will be a beautiful eye 
 to you. I heard a teacher talking the other day about 
 a "fine lad" who had been saved in his class, and an- 
 other spoke of a "dear girl" in her class who loved the 
 Lord. No doubt of it; it would be a wonder if they 
 were not "fine" and "dear" in the eyes of you who have 
 brought them to Jesus, for to Jesus Christ they are 
 finer and dearer still. Beloved friends, may you often 
 gaze into opened eyes which, but for divine grace own- 
 ing your teaching, w^ould have been dark with the film 
 of spiritual death! Then will you be favoured indeed. 
 
 One word of caution. In this meeting is there a 
 Gehazi? If there be among this host of Sunday-school 
 teachers one who can do no more than carry the staff, 
 I pity him. Ah! my friend, may God in His mercy 
 give you life, for how else can you expect to be the 
 means of quickening others? If Elisha had been a 
 corpse himself, it would have been a hopeless task to 
 expect life to be communicated thr(nigh placing one 
 corpse upon another. It is vain for that little class of 
 dead souls to gather round another dead soul such as 
 you are. A dead mother, frost-bitten and cold, cannot 
 cherish her little one. What warmth, what comfort, 
 can come to those who shiver before an empty grate? 
 And such are you. May you have a work of grace in 
 your soul first, and then may the blessed and Eternal 
 Spirit, who alone can quicken souls, make you to be 
 the means of quickening many to the glory of His 
 grace! 
 
156 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 Accept, dear friends, my fraternal salutations, and 
 believe that my fervent prayers are with you that you 
 may be blessed, and be made a blessing. 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 
 
AN ADDRESS TO OPEN-AIR PREACHERS. 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 
 
 It is a great privilege to have to speak to so noble 
 a band of preachers; I wish that I were more fit for 
 the task. Silver of eloquent speech and gold of deep 
 thought have I none; but such as I have, give I unto 
 you. 
 
 Concerning the winning of souls. JVIta/ is it to win 
 a soul/ I hope you believe in the old-fashioned way 
 of saving souls. Everything appears to be shaken 
 nowadays, and shifted from the old foundations. It 
 seems that we are to evolve out of men the good that 
 is already in them: much good may you get if you 
 attempt the process! T am afraid that in the process 
 of evolution you will develop devils. 1 do not know 
 much else that will come out of liuman nature, for man- 
 hood is as full of sin as an tgg is full of meat; and the 
 evolution of sin must be everlasting mischief. We all 
 believe that we must go to soul-winning, desiring in 
 God's name to see all things made new. This old 
 creature is dead and corrupt, and must be buried ; and 
 the sooner the better. Jesus has come that there may 
 be a passing away of the old things, and a making of 
 all things new. In the process of our work, we en- 
 deavor to bless men by trying to make them temperate ; 
 may God bless all work of that sort! But we should 
 think ourselves to have failed if we had produced a 
 world of total abstainers, and had left them all unbe- 
 lievers. We drive at something more than temper- 
 ance; for we believe that men must be born again. It 
 
160 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 is good that even a corpse should be clean, and there- 
 fore that the unregenerate should be moral. It would 
 be a great blessing if they were cleansed of the vices 
 which make this city to reek in the nostrils of God and 
 good men. But that is not so much our work as this: 
 that the dead in sin should live, that spiritual life should 
 quicken them, and that Christ should reign where the 
 prince of the power of the air now hath sway. You 
 preach, brethren, with this object, that men may quit 
 their sins, and fly to Christ for pardon, that by His 
 blessed Spirit they may be renovated, and become as 
 much in love with everything that is holy as they are 
 now in love with everything that is sinful. You aim 
 at a radical cure; the axe is laid at the root of the trees; 
 the amendment of the old nature would not content 
 you, but you seek for the imparting, by a divine power, 
 of a new nature, that those who gather round you in the 
 streets may live unto God. 
 
 Our object is to turn the world upside down; or, in 
 other words, that where sin abounded grace may much 
 more abound. We are aiming at a miracle: it is well 
 to settle that at the commencement. Some brethren 
 think that they ought to lower their note to the spiritual 
 ability of the hearer ; but this is a mistake. According 
 to these brethren, you ought not to exhort a man to 
 repent and believe unless you believe that he can, of 
 himself, repent and believe. My reply is a confession: 
 I command men in the name of Jesus to repent and 
 believe the gospel, though I know they can do nothing 
 of the kind apart from the grace of God ; for I am not 
 sent to work according to what my private reason 
 might suggest, but according to the orders of my Lord 
 and Master. Ours is the miraculous method which 
 comes of the endowment of the Spirit of God, who bids 
 His ministers perform wonders in the name of the holy 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. KU 
 
 child Jesus. We are sent to say to blind eyes, "See," 
 to deaf ears, "Hear," to dead hearts, ''Live," and even 
 to Lazarus rotting in that grave, wherein, by this time, 
 he stinketh, — "Lazarus, come forth." Dare we do 
 this? We shall be wise to begin with the conviction 
 that we are utterly powerless for this unless our Master 
 has sent us, and is with us. But if He that sent us is 
 with us, all things are possible to him that believeth. 
 O preacher, if thou art about to stand up to see what 
 thou canst do, it will be thy wisdom to sit down 
 speedily; but if thou standest up to prove what thine 
 almighty Lord and Master can do through thee, then 
 infinite possibiHties lie about thee! There is no bound 
 to what God can accomplish if He works by thy heart 
 and voice. The other Sabbath morning, before I en- 
 tered the pulpit, when my dear brethren, the deacons 
 and elders of this church, gathered about me for 
 prayer, as they are wont to do, one of them said, "Lord, 
 take him as a man takes a tool in his hand when he 
 gets a firm hold of it, and then uses it to work his own 
 will with it." That is what all workers need ; that God 
 may be the worker by them. You are to be instru- 
 ments in the hands of God; yourselves, of course, 
 actively putting forth all your faculties and forces which 
 the Lord has lent to you; but still never depending 
 upon your personal power, but resting alone upon that 
 sacred, mysterious, divine energy which worketh in 
 us, and by us, and with us, upon the hearts and minds 
 of men. 
 
 Brethren, we have been greatly disappointed, have 
 we not, with some of our converts? We shall always 
 be disappointed with them so far as they are our con- 
 verts. We shall greatly rejoice over them when they 
 prove to be the Lord's work. When the power of 
 grace works in them, ("Glory! ") then it will be, as my 
 
162 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 brother says, "Glory!" and nothing else but glory; for 
 grace brings glory, but mere oratory will only create 
 sham and shame in the long run. When we are preach- 
 ing, and we think of a very pretty, flowery passage, a 
 very neat, poetical paragraph, I wish we could be 
 restrained by that fear which acted upon Paul when he 
 said that he would not use the wisdom of words, "lest 
 the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." It 
 is the duty of the gospel preacher, indoors or outdoors, 
 to say, "I can say that very prettily, but then they 
 might notice how I said it; I will, therefore, so say it 
 that they will only observe the intrinsic value of the 
 truth which I would teach them." It is not our way 
 of putting the gospel, nor our method of illustrating 
 it, which wins souls, but the gospel itself does the work 
 in the hands of the Holy Ghost, and to Him we must 
 look for the thorough conversion of men. A miracle 
 is to be wrought by which our hearers shall become the 
 products of that mighty power which God wrought in 
 Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him 
 at His own right hand in the heavenly place far above 
 all principality and power; and for this we must look 
 out of ourselves to the living God. Must we not? We 
 go in, then, for thorough downright conversion; and 
 therefore we fall back upon the power of the Holy 
 Spirit. If it be a miracle, God must work it, that is 
 clear; it is not to be accomplished by our reasoning, 
 or persuasion, or threatening, it can only come from 
 the Lord. 
 
 In what way, since the winning of souls lies here, can 
 we hopefully expect to be eiidowed with the Spirit of 
 God, and to go forth in His power? I reply, that a 
 great deal depends upon the condition of the man 
 himself. I am persuaded we have never laid enough 
 stress on the work of God within our own selves in its 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 163 
 
 relation to our service of God. A consecrated man 
 may be charged with the divine energy to the full, so 
 that everybody round about him must perceive it. 
 They cannot tell what it is, nor whence it comes, nor, 
 perhaps, whither it goes ; but there is something about 
 that man which is far beyond the common order of 
 things. At another time that same person may be 
 feeble and dull, and be conscious to himself that he is 
 so. See! he shakes himself as at other times, but he 
 can do no mighty deed. It is clear that Samson him- 
 self must be in a right condition, or he can win no 
 victories. If the champion's locks be shorn, the Philis- 
 tines will laugh at him; if the Lord be gone from a 
 man, he has no power left for useful service. Dear 
 brethren, look carefully to your own condition before 
 God. Take care of the home farm; look well to your 
 own flocks and herds. Unless your walk be close with 
 God, unless you dw^ll in that clear light which sur- 
 rounds the throne of God, and which is only known 
 to those who are in fellowship with the Eternal, you 
 wall go forth from your chamber, and hasten to your 
 work, but nothing will come of it. The vessel, it is 
 true, is but an earthen one; yet it has its place in the 
 divine arrangement, but it will not be filled wnth the 
 divine treasure unless it is a clean vessel, and unless in 
 other respects it is a vessel fit for the Master's use. 
 Let me show you some ways in which much must 
 depend in soul-winning upon the man himself. 
 
 We win some sou/s to Christ by acting as witnesses. 
 We stand up and testify for the Lord Jesus Christ 
 concerning certain truths. Now, I have never had 
 the great privilege of being bamboozled by a barrister. 
 I have sometimes wondered what I should do if I were 
 put into the witness-box to be examined and cross- 
 examined. I think I should simply stand up, and 
 
164 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 tell the truth as far as I knew it, and should not make 
 an attempt to display my wit, or my language, or my 
 judgment. If I simply gave straightforward answers 
 to his questions, I should beat any lawyer under 
 heaven. But the difficulty is, that so often when a 
 witness is put into the box, he is more conscious of 
 himself than of what he has to say; therefore, he is 
 soon worried, teased, and bored, and, by losing 'his 
 temper, he fails to be a good witness for the cause. 
 Now, you men in the open-air are often bamboozled; 
 the devil's barristers are sure to come to you, he has 
 a great number of them constantly retained in his 
 service. The one thing you have to do is to bear 
 witness to the truth. If you enquire in your own mind, 
 "How shall I answer this man cleverly, so as to get 
 a victory over him?" you will not be wise. A witty 
 answer is often a very proper thing; at the same 
 time, a gracious answer is better. Try to say to your- 
 self: "It does not, after all, matter whether that man 
 proves me to be a fool or not, for I know that already. 
 I am content to be thought a fool for Christ's sake, and 
 not to care about my reputation. I have to bear 
 witness to what I know, and by the help of God I will 
 do so right boldly. If the interrupter questions me 
 about other things, I shall tell him that I do not come 
 to bear witness about other matters, but this one thing 
 I do. To one point I will speak, and to no other." 
 
 Brethren, the witnessing man, then, must himself 
 be saved, and he should be sure of it. I do not know 
 whether you doubt your own salvation. Perhaps I 
 should recommend you to preach even when that is 
 the case; since, if you are not saved yourself, you yet 
 wish others to be. You do not doubt that you once 
 enjoyed full assurance; and now, if you have sorrow- 
 fully to confess, "Alas! I do not feel the full power of 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 165 
 
 the gospel on my own heart," you can truly add, "Yet 
 I know that it is true, for I have seen it save others, 
 and I know that no other power can save wt'." Per- 
 haps even that faltering testimony, so truly honest, 
 might bring a tear into your opponent's eye, and make 
 him feel sympathy for you. "I preached," said John 
 Bunyan, "sometimes without hope, like a man in chains 
 to men in chains, and when I heard my own fetters 
 rattle, yet I told others that there was deliverance for 
 them, and I bade them look to the great Deliverer." 
 I w^ould not have stopped Mr. Bunyan in preaching so. 
 At the same time, it is a great thing to be able to declare 
 from your own personal experience that the Lord hath 
 broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron 
 in sunder. Those who hear our witness say, "Are you 
 sure of it?" Sure of it? I am as sure of it as I am sure 
 that I am a living man. They call this dogmatism. 
 Never mind about that. A man ought to know what 
 he is preaching about, or else let him sit down. If I had 
 any doubt about the matters I preach from this pulpit, 
 I should be ashamed to remain the pastor of this 
 church ; but I preach wdiat I do know, and testify what 
 I have seen. If I am mistaken I am heartily and 
 intensely mistaken; and I risk my soul and all its eter- 
 nal interests upon the truth of what I preach. If the 
 gospel of what I preach does not save me, I shall never 
 be saved, for what I proclaim to others is my own per- 
 sonal ground of trust. I have no private lifeboat; the 
 ark to which I invite others holds myself and all that 
 I have. 
 
 A good witness ought himself to know all that he is 
 going to say; he should feel himself at home in his 
 subject. He is brought up as a witness, say, in ^r 
 a certain case of robbery; he knows wdiat he saw, and 
 has to make a declaration of that only. They begin 
 
166 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 to question him about a picture in the house, or the 
 colour of a dress which was hanging in the wardrobe. 
 He answers, "You are going beyond my record; I 
 can only witness to that which I saw." What we do 
 know, and what we do not know, would make two 
 very large books, and we may safely ask to be let alone 
 as to the second volume. 
 
 Brother, say what you know, and sit down. But be 
 calm and composed while speaking of that with which 
 you have personal acquaintance. You will never 
 properly indulge your emotions in preaching, so as to 
 feel at home with the people, until you are at home 
 with your subject. When you know what you are at, 
 you will have your mind free for earnestness. Unless 
 you open-air preachers know the gospel from begin- 
 ning to end, and know where you are in preaching it, 
 you cannot preach with due emotion; but when you 
 feel at home with your doctrine, stand up and be as 
 bold, and earnest, and importunate as you please. Face 
 the people feeling that you are going to tell them 
 something worth hearing, about which you are quite 
 sure, which to you is your very life. There are honest 
 hearts in every outdoor assembly, and every indoor 
 assembly, too, that only want to hear honest beliefs, 
 and they will accept them and be led to believe in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 But you are not oiily ivitnesses, you are pleaders for 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, in a pleader, much 
 depends upon the man. It seems as if the sign and 
 token of Christianity in some preachers was not a 
 tongue of fire, but a block of ice. You would not like 
 to have a barrister stand up and plead your cause in 
 a cool, deliberate way, never showing the slightest 
 care about whether you were found guilty of murder 
 or acquitted. How could you endure his indifference 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 167 
 
 when you yourself were likely to be hanged? Oh, no! 
 you wish to silence such a false advocate. So, when 
 a man has to speak for Christ, if he is not in earnest, 
 let him go to bed. You smile; but is it not better 
 that he should go to bed than send a whole congre- 
 gation to sleep without their going to bed? Yes, we 
 must be in downright earnest. If we are to prevail 
 with men, we must love them. There is a genuine 
 love to men that some have, and there is a genuine dis- 
 like to men that others have. I know gentlemen, whom 
 I esteem in a way, who seem to think that the working 
 classes are a shockingly bad lot, to be kept in check, 
 and governed with vigour. With such views they will 
 never convert workingmen. To win men, you must 
 feel: 'T am one of them. If they are a sad lot, I am 
 one of them : if they are lost sinners, I am one of them ; 
 if they need a Saviour, I am one of them." To the 
 very chief of sinners you should preach with this text 
 before you, "Such were some of you." Grace alone 
 makes us to differ, and that grace we preach. Genuine 
 love to God and fervent love to man make up the great 
 qualifications for a pleader. 
 
 I further believe, although certain persons deny it, 
 that the influence of fear is to be exercised over the 
 minds of men, and that it ought to operate upon the 
 mind of the preacher himself. "Noah, moved with 
 fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." There 
 was salvation for this world from perishing in the flood 
 in the fears of Xoah; and when a man gets to fear 
 for others, so that his heart cries out, "They will perish, 
 they will perish, they will sink to hell, they will be for 
 ever banished from the presence of the Lord," and 
 when this fear oppresses his soul, and weighs him 
 down, and then drives him to go out and preach with 
 tears, oh, then he will plead with men so as to prevail! 
 
168 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 Knowing the terror of the Lord, he will persuade men. 
 To know the terror of the Lord is the means of teach- 
 ing us to persuade^ and not to speak harshly. Some 
 have used the terrors of the Lord to terrify; but Paul 
 used them to persuade. Let us copy him. Say, "We 
 have come out to tell you, men and brethren, that the 
 world is on fire, and you must flee for your lives, and 
 escape to the mountain, lest ye be consumed." We 
 must give this warning with the full conviction that 
 it is true, or else we shall be but as the boy who in fool- 
 ishness cried, "Wolf!" Something of the shadow of the 
 last tremendous day must fall upon our spirit to give the 
 accent of conviction to our message of mercy, or we 
 shall miss the pleader's true power. Brethren, we must 
 tell men that there is pressing need of a Saviour, and 
 show them that we ourselves perceive their need and 
 feel for them, or else we are not likely to turn them 
 to the Saviour. 
 
 He that pleads for Christ should himself be moved 
 with the prospect of the judgment day. When I come 
 in at yonder door at the back of the pulpit, and the sight 
 of that vast crowd bursts upon me, I frequently feel 
 appalled. Think of these thousands of immortal souls 
 gazing through the windows of those wistful eyes, and 
 I am to preach to them all, and be responsible for their 
 blood if I be not faithful to them. I tell you, it makes 
 me feel ready to start back. But then fear is not alone. 
 I am borne up by the hope and belief that God intends 
 to bless these people through the Word which He will 
 enable me to deliver. I believe that everybody in that 
 throng is sent there by God for some purpose, and 
 that I am sent to effect that purpose. I often think to 
 myself, when I am preaching, "Who is being convert- 
 ed now?" It never occurs to me that the Word of 
 the Lord will fail. No, that can never be. I often feel 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 169 
 
 sure that men are being converted, and at all times that 
 God is glorified by the testimony of His truth. You 
 may depend upon it that your hopeful conviction that 
 God's Word cannot return to Him void is a great en- 
 couragement to your hearers as well as to yourself. 
 Your enthusiastic confidence that they will be con- 
 verted may be like the little finger of a mother held out 
 to her babe, to help it to make its way to her. The fire 
 within }our hearts may dart a spark into their souls 
 by which the flame of spiritual life shall be kindled in 
 them. Do let us all learn the art of pleading with the 
 souls of men. 
 
 Still, dear open-air preachers, and all of you Christian 
 people here, we have not only to be witnesses and plead- 
 ers, but we have also to be examples. One of the most 
 successful ways of taking wild ducks is the use of the 
 decoy bird. The decoy duck enters the net itself, and 
 the others follow it. We need to use more, in the Chris- 
 tian Church, the holy art of decoy; that is to say, our 
 example, in ourselves coming to Christ, in ourselves 
 living godly lives in the midst of a perverse genera- 
 tion, our example of joy and sorrow, our example of 
 holy submission to the divine will in the time of trouble, 
 our example in all manner of gracious ways, will be the 
 means of inducing others to enter the way of life. 
 You cannot, of course, stand up in the street, and tell 
 of your example; but there is no street-preacher who 
 Is not known better than he thinks. Some one in that 
 crowd may be in the secret of the speaker's private life. 
 I once heard of an out-of-doors preacher, to whom a 
 hearer cried out, "Ah, Jack, you dare not preach like 
 that at your own door!" It so happened, unfortunately, 
 
 that ]\Ir. John had offered to fight one of his 
 
 neighbours a little while before, and therefore it was 
 not likely that he would have done much preaching 
 
170 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 very near home. This made the interruption an awk- 
 ward one. If any man's Hfe at home is unworthy, he 
 should go several miles away before he stands up to 
 preach, and then, when he stands up, he should say 
 nothing. They know us, brethren ; they know far more 
 about us than we imagine, and what they do not know 
 they make up. At the same time, our walk and con- 
 versation should be the most powerful part of our min- 
 istry. This is what is called being consistent^ when 
 lips and life agree. 
 
 My time is short; but 1 must say a word upon 
 another point. I have said that the working of the 
 Holy Spirit depends largely upon the man himself, 
 but I am bound to add that much will also depend 
 upon the ki7id of people that are round about the 
 preacher. An open-air preacher, who has to go out 
 quite alone, must be in a very unfortunate position. It 
 is extremely helpful to be connected with an earnest 
 living church which will pray for you ; and if you can- 
 not find such a church where you labour, the next best 
 thing is to get half-a-dozen brothers or sisters who will 
 back you up, and go out with you, and, especially, 
 will pray with you. Some preachers are so independ- 
 ent that they can do without helpers, but they will be 
 wise if they do not affect solitude. May they not look 
 at the matter in this way : by bringing in half-a-dozen 
 men to go out with me I shall be doing good to these 
 young men, and shall be training them to be workers? 
 If you can associate with yourself half-a-dozen who 
 are not all very young men, but somewhat advanced 
 in their knowledge of divine truth, the association will 
 be greatly to your mutual advantage. I confess to you 
 all that, although God has largely blessed me in His 
 work, yet none of the credit is due to me at all, but to 
 those dear friends at the Tabernacle, and, indeed, all 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 171 
 
 over the world, who make me the special subject of 
 their prayers. A man ought to do well with such 
 a people around him as 1 have. My dear friend and 
 deacon, ]Mr. William Olney, once said, "Our minister 
 has hitherto led us forward, and we have followed 
 heartily. Everything has been a success; do you not 
 believe in his leadership?" The people cried, "Yes." 
 Then said my dear friend, "If our pastor has brought 
 us up to a ditch which looks as if it could not be passed, 
 let us fill it up with our bodies, and carry him across." 
 This was grand talk: the ditch was filled, nay, it 
 seemed to fill itself up at once. If you have a true 
 comrade, your strength is more than doubled. What 
 a blessing is a good wife! You women, who would 
 not be in your right place if you began to preach in 
 the streets, you can make your husbands happy and 
 comfortable when they come home, and that will make 
 them preach all the better! Some of you can even help 
 in another way if you are prudent and gentle. You can 
 tenderly hint that your spouse was a little out of line in 
 certain small matters, and he may take your hint, and 
 put himself right. A good brother once asked me 
 to give him some instruction, and he pleaded thus: 
 "The only instructor I have had was my wife, who had 
 a better schooling than fell to my lot. I used to say, 
 'We was,' and 'Us did it,' and she quietly hinted that 
 people might laugh at me if 1 did not attend to gram- 
 mar." His wife thus became to him a professor of — 
 of English language, and was worth her weight in gold 
 to him, and he knew it. You who have such helpers 
 ought to thank God daily for them. 
 
 Next to this, it is a very great assistance to join in 
 brotherly league with some warm-hearted Christian 
 who knows more than we do, and will benefit us by 
 prudent hints. God may bless us for the sake of others 
 
172 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 when He might not bless us for our own. You have 
 heard, I daresay, the monkish story of the man who 
 had preached, and had won many souls to Christ, and 
 congratulated himself upon it. One night, it was re- 
 vealed to him that he should have none of the honour 
 of it at the last great day; and he asked the angel in his 
 dream who then would have the credit of it, and the 
 angel replied, "That deaf old man who sits on the pulpit 
 stairs and prays for you was the means of the bless- 
 ing." Let us be thankful for that deaf man, or that 
 old woman, or those poor praying friends who bring 
 down a blessing upon us by their intercessions. The 
 Spirit of God will bless two when He might not bless 
 one. Abraham alone did not get one of the five cities 
 saved, although his prayer was like a ton weight in 
 the scale; but yonder was his nephew Lot, who was 
 about the poorest lot that could be found. He had 
 not more than half-an-ounce of prayer in him; but that 
 tiny fragment turned the scale, and Zoar was pre- 
 served. Add then your odd half-ounce to the mightier 
 weight of the pleadings of eminent saints, for they 
 may need it. 
 
 Dear brother open-air preachers, I am not trying to 
 instruct you; some of you could far better instruct 
 me; and yet I do not know, for I suspect I must be 
 getting rather old from what I hear. A woman, at 
 the beginning of this year (1887), was trying to get 
 something out of me, and she said, "I remember hear- 
 ing your dear voice more than forty years ago." I 
 said, "Heard my voice forty years ago! where was 
 that?" She said, "You were preaching at the bottom 
 of Pentonville Hill, near where Mr. Sawday's chapel 
 is." "Well," I said, "was it not more than forty years 
 ago?" "Yes," she said, "It might be fifty." "Oh," 
 I said, L suppose I was quite young then?" "Oh, 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 173 
 
 yes!" she said, "you were such a dear young man." 
 That, of course, was a needless assurance; but I do 
 not think she was quite so sure of my dearness when 
 I told her that I never preached at the bottom of Pen- 
 tonvillc Hill, and that fifty years ago I was only three 
 years old, and that I thought it shameful for her to 
 suppose that I should give her money for telling false- 
 hoods. However, I shall presume upon the woman's 
 statement to-night, and suppose myself to be that ven- 
 erable person she described me as being, and I shall 
 make bold to say to you: Dear brethren, if we are 
 going to 10 in souls, we must go in for downright labour 
 and hard work. 
 
 And, first, we must work at our preaching. You are 
 not getting distrustful of the use of preaching, are 
 you? C'No.") I hope you do not weary of it, though 
 you certainly sometimes must weary in it. Go on 
 with your preaching. Cobbler, stick to your last; 
 preacher, stick to your preaching. In the great day, 
 when the muster-roll shall be read, of all those who 
 are converted through fine music, and church decora- 
 tion, and religious exhibitions and entertainments, they 
 will amount to the tenth part of nothing; but it will 
 always please God by the foolishness of preaching to 
 save them that believe. Keep to your preaching; and 
 if you do anything beside, do not let it throw your 
 preaching into the background. In the first place 
 preach, and in the second place preach, and in the 
 third place preach. 
 
 Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in 
 preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching 
 the new birth, believe in preaching the whole coun- 
 sel of God. The old hammer of the gospel will still 
 break the rock in pieces; the ancient fire of Pentecost 
 will still burn among the multitude. Try nothing new. 
 
174 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with 
 the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results 
 of preaching will astound us. Why, there is no end 
 after all to the power of the tongue! Look at the 
 power of a bad tongue, what great mischief it can do ; 
 and shall not God put more power into a good tongue, 
 if we will but use it aright? Look at the power of 
 fire, a single spark might give a city to the flames; 
 even so, the Spirit of God being with us, we need 
 not calculate how much, or what we can do: there 
 is no calculating the potentialities of a flame, and there 
 is no end to the possibilities of divine truth spoken 
 with the enthusiasm which is born of the Spirit of God. 
 Have great hope yet, brothers, have great hope yet, 
 despite yon shameless midnight streets, despite yon 
 flaming gin-palaces at the corner of every street, de- 
 spite the wickedness of the rich, despite the ignorance 
 of the poor. Go on; go on; go on; in God's name, 
 go on, for if the preaching of the gospel does not 
 save men, nothing will. If the Lord's own way of 
 mercy fails, then hang the skies in mourning, and blot 
 out the sun in everlasting midnight, for there re- 
 maineth nothing before our race but the blackness 
 of darkness. Salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus is the 
 ultimatum of God. Rejoice that it cannot fail. Let us 
 believe without reserve, and then go straight ahead 
 with the preaching of the Word. 
 
 True-hearted open-air preachers will be sure to join 
 with their preaching very much earnest private talk. 
 What numbers of persons have been converted in this 
 Tabernacle by the personal conversation of certain 
 brothers here, whom I will not further indicate! They 
 are all about this place while I am preaching! I recol- 
 lect that a brother was speaking to me one Monday 
 night, and suddenly he vanished before he finished the 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 175 
 
 sentence which he was whispering. I never quite knew 
 what he was going to say; but I speedily saw him in 
 that left-hand gallery, sitting in the pew with a lady 
 unknown to me. After the service, I said to him, 
 "Where did you go?" and he said, "A gleam of sun- 
 light came in at the window, and made me see a face 
 which looked so sad that I hurried upstairs, and took 
 my seat in the pew close to the woman of a sorrowful 
 countenance." "Did you cheer her?" "Oh, yes! she re- 
 ceived the Lord Jesus very readily; and just as she 
 did so, I noticed another eager face, and I asked her 
 to wait in the pew till after the service, and I went after 
 the other — a young man." He prayed with both of 
 these, and would not be satisfied until they had given 
 their hearts to the Lord. That is the way to be on the 
 alert. We need a body of sharpshooters to pick out 
 their men one by one. When we fire great guns from 
 the pulpit execution is done, but many are missed. We 
 want loving spirits to go round, and deal with indi- 
 vidual cases in the singular by pointed personal warn- 
 ings and encouragements. Every open-air preacher 
 should not only address the hundreds, but he should 
 be ready to pounce upon the ones, and he should have 
 others with him w^ho have the same happy art. How 
 much more good would come of preaching in the 
 streets if every open-air preacher were accompanied 
 by a batch of persons who would drive his nails home 
 for him by personal conversation! 
 
 Last Sunday night, my dear brother told us a little 
 ?tory which I shall never forget. He was at Croydon 
 Hospital one night, as one of those appointed to visit 
 it. All the porters had gone home, and it was time 
 to shut up for the night. He was the only person in 
 the hospital, with the exception of the physician, when 
 a boy came running in, saying that there was a rail- 
 
176 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 way accident, and someone must go round to the sta- 
 tion with a stretcher. The doctor said to my brother, 
 "Will you take one end of the stretcher if I take the 
 other?" "Oh, yes!" was the cheerful reply; and so 
 away went the doctor and the pastor with the stretcher. 
 They brought a sick man back with them. My 
 brother said, "I went often to the hospital during 
 the next week or two, because I felt so much interest in 
 the man w^hom I had helped to carry." I believe he will 
 always take an interest in that man, because he once 
 felt the weight of him. When you know how to carry 
 a man on your heart, and have felt the burden of his 
 case, you will have his name engraven upon your soul. 
 So you that privately talk to people, you are feeling 
 the w^eight of souls; and I believe that this is what 
 many regular preachers need to know more of, and 
 then they will preach better. 
 
 When preaching and private talk are not available, 
 you have a tract ready, and this is often an effectual 
 method. Some tracts would not convert a beetle : there 
 is not enough in them to interest a fly. Get good 
 striking tracts, or none at all. But a telling, touching 
 gospel tract may often be the seed of eternal life; there- 
 fore, do not go out without your tracts. 
 
 I suppose, beside giving a tract, if you can, you try 
 and find out where a person lives who frequently hears 
 you, that you may give him a call. What a fine thing 
 is a visit from an open-air preacher! *'Why," says the 
 woman, "there is that man come to see you. Bill; that 
 gentleman who preaches at the corner of the street. 
 Shall I tell him to come in?" "Oh, yes!" is the reply; 
 "I have heard him many times; he is a good fellows" 
 Visit as much as you can, for it will be of use to your- 
 selves as wtII as to the people. 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST. 177 
 
 What power there is also in a letter to an individual! 
 Some people still have a kind of superstitious rever- 
 ence for a letter; and when they get an earnest epistle 
 from one of you reverend gentlemen, they think a great 
 deal of it; and who knows? — a note by post may hit 
 the man your sermon missed. Young people who are 
 not able to preach might do much good if they would 
 write letters to their young friends about their souls; 
 they could speak very plainly with their pens, though 
 they might be diffident in speaking with their tongues. 
 Let us save men by all the means under heaven; let 
 us prevent men going down to hell. We are not half 
 as earnest as we ought to be. Do you not remember 
 the young man, who, when he was dying, said to 
 his brother, "My brother, how could you have been 
 so indifferent to my soul as you have been?" He 
 answered, "I have not been indifferent to your soul, 
 for I have frequently spoken to you about it." *'Oh, 
 yes!" he said, "you spoke; but somehow, I think, if you 
 had remembered that I was going down to hell, you 
 would have been more earnest wdth me; you would 
 have wept over me, and, as my brother, you would not 
 have allowed me to be lost." Let no one say this of you. 
 
 But I hear it observed that most fellows, when they 
 grow earnest, do such odd things, and say such strange 
 things. Let them say strange things, and let them do 
 strange things, if these come out of genuine earnest- 
 ness. We do not want pranks and performances which 
 are the mere sham of earnestness; but real white-heat 
 earnestness is the want of the times, and where you 
 see that J it is a pit}^ to be too critical. You must let 
 a great storm rage in its own way. You must let a 
 living heart speak as it can. If you are zealous, and yet 
 cannot speak, your earnestness will invent its own 
 
178 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 method of working out its purpose. As Hannibal is 
 said to have mehed the rocks with vinegar, so earnest- 
 ness will one way or another dissolve the rocky hearts 
 of men. May the Spirit of God rest upon you, one and 
 all, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen. 
 
THE COST OF BEING A SOUL-WINNER. 
 
AN ADDRESS AT A TABERNACLE PRAYER- 
 MEETING. 
 
THE COST OF BEING A SOUL- 
 WINNER. 
 
 I want to say a word to you who are trying to bring 
 souls to Jesus. You long and pray to be useful : do you 
 know what this involves? Are you sure that you do? 
 Prepare yourselves, then, to see and suffer many things 
 with which you would rather be unacquainted. Ex- 
 periences which would be unnecessary to you person- 
 ally will become your portion if the Lord uses you for 
 the salvation of others. An ordinary person may rest 
 in his bed all night, but a surgeon will be called up 
 at all hours; a farming man may take his ease at his 
 fireside, but if he becomes a shepherd he must be out 
 among the lambs, and bear all weathers for them ; even 
 so doth Paul say, "Therefore I endure all things for the 
 elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation 
 which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." For this 
 cause we shall be made to undergo experiences which 
 will surprise us. 
 
 Some years ago, I was the subject of fearful depres- 
 sion of spirit. Certain troublous events had happened 
 to me; I was also unwell, and my heart sank within 
 me. Out of the depths I was forced to cry unto the 
 Lord. Just before I went away to Mentone for rest, 
 I suffered greatly in body, but far more in soul, for 
 my spirit was overwhelmed. Under this pressure, I 
 preached a sermon from the words, *'My God, My God, 
 
182 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 why hast Thou forsaken me?" I was as much quaU- 
 fied to preach from that text as ever I expect to be; in- 
 deed, I hope that few of my brethren could have en- 
 tered so deeply into those heart-breaking words. I 
 felt to the full of my measure the horror of a soul for- 
 saken of God. Now, that was not a desirable experi- 
 ence. I tremble at the bare idea of passing again 
 through that eclipse of soul; I pray that I may never 
 suffer in that fashion again unless the same result 
 should hang upon it. 
 
 That night, after sermon, there came into the vestry 
 a man who was as nearly insane as he could be to be 
 out of an asylum. His eyes seemed ready to start 
 from his head, and he said that he should utterly have 
 despaired if he had not heard that discourse, which 
 had made him feel that there was one man alive who 
 understood his feeling, and could describe his experi- 
 ence. I talked with him, and tried to encourage him, 
 and asked him to come again on Monday night, 
 when I should have a little more time to talk with 
 him. I saw the brother again, and I told him that I 
 thought he was a hopeful patient, and I was glad that 
 the word had been so suited to his case. Apparently, 
 he put aside the comfort which I presented for his ac- 
 ceptance, and yet I had the consciousness upon me 
 that the precious truth which he had heard was at 
 work upon his mind, and that the storm of his soul 
 would soon subside into a deep calm. 
 
 Now hear the sequel. Last night, of all the times 
 in the year, when, strange to say, I was preaching from 
 the words, "The Almighty hath vexed my soul," after 
 the service, in walked this self-same brother who had 
 called on me five years before. This time he looked as 
 dififerent as noonday from midnight, or as life from 
 death. I said to him, "I am glad to see you, for I have 
 
THE COST OF BEING A SOUL-WINNER. 183 
 
 often thought about you, and wondered whether you 
 were brought into perfect peace." I told you that I 
 went to Alentone, and my patient also went into the 
 country, so that we had not met for five years. To 
 my enquiries, this brother replied, "Yes, you said I 
 was a hopeful patient, and I am sure you will be glad 
 to know that I have walked in the sunlight from that 
 day till now. Everything is changed and altered with 
 me." Dear friends, as soon as I saw my poor despair- 
 ing patient the first time, I blessed God that my fear- 
 ful experience had prepared me to sympathise with 
 him and guide him; but last night, when I saw him 
 perfectly restored, my heart overflowed with gratitude 
 to God for my former sorrowful feelings. I w^ould go 
 into the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast 
 spirit: it is good for me to have been afflicted that I 
 might know how to speak a word in season to one that 
 is weary. 
 
 Suppose that, by some painful operation, you could 
 have your right arm made a little longer, I do not 
 suppose you would care to undergo the operation ; but 
 if you foresaw that, by undergoing the pain, you would ' 
 be enabled to reach and save drowning men who else 
 would sink before your eyes, I think you would will- 
 ingly bear the agony, and pay a heavy fee to the sur- 
 geon to be thus qualified for the rescue of your fel- 
 lows. Reckon, then, that to acquire soul-winning 
 power you will have to go through fire and water, 
 through doubt and despair, through mental torment 
 and soul distress. It will not, of course, be the same 
 with you all, nor perhaps with any two of you, but 
 according to the work allotted you, will be your prep- 
 aration. You must go into the fire if you are to pull 
 others out of it, and you will have to dive into the floods 
 if vou are to draw others out of the water. You can- 
 
184 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 not work a fire-escape without feeling the scorch of 
 the conflagration, nor man a Hfeboat without being 
 covered with the waves. If Joseph is to preserve his 
 brethren aHve, he must himself go down into Egypt; 
 if Moses is to lead the people through the wilderness, 
 he must first himself spend forty years there with his 
 flock. Payson truly said, "If anyone asks to be made 
 a successful minister, he knows not what he asks; and 
 it becomes him to consider whether he can drink deep- 
 ly of Christ's bitter cup and be baptized with His bap- 
 tism." 
 
 I was led to think of this by the prayer which has 
 just been offered by our esteemed brother, Mr. Levin- 
 sohn. He is, as you perceive, of the seed of Abraham, 
 and he owed his conversion to a city missionary of 
 his own nation. If that city missionary had not himself 
 been a Jew, he would not have known the heart of 
 the young stranger, nor have won his ear for the gos- 
 pel message. Men are usually won to Christ by suit- 
 able instruments, and this suitability often lies in the 
 power to sympathize. A key opens a door because it 
 fits the wards of the lock ; an earnest address touches 
 the heart because it meets the state of that heart. You 
 and I have to be made into all sorts of shapes to 
 suit all forms of mind and heart; just as Paul says, 
 ''And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might 
 gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, 
 as under the law, that I might gain them that 
 are under the law; to them that are without law, 
 as without law (being not without law to God, 
 but under the law to Christ), that I might gain 
 tliem that are without law. To the weak became I as 
 weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all 
 things to all men, that I might by all means save some." 
 These processes must be wrought out upon us also. 
 
THE COST OF BEING A SOUL-WINNER. 185 
 
 Let us cheerfully bear whatever the Holy Spirit shall 
 work within our spirits that we may thus be the more 
 largely blest to our fellow-men. Come, brethren, arid 
 lay your all on the altar! Give yourselves up, you work- 
 ers, into the Lord's hand. You who have delicacy and 
 refinement, may have to be shocked into the power to 
 benefit the coarse and ignorant. You who are wise 
 and educated may have to be made fools of, that you 
 may win fools to Jesus; for fools need saving, and 
 many of them will not be saved except by means which 
 men of culture cannot admire. 
 
 How finely some people go to work when the thing 
 needed may not be daintiness, but energ}^! On the 
 other hand, how violent some are when the desired 
 thing is tact and gentleness, and not force! This has 
 to be learned; we must be trained to it as dogs to 
 follow game. Here is one form of experience: The 
 brother is elegant; he wishes to speak earnestly, but 
 he must be elaborate, too. He has written out a nice- 
 ly-prepared address, his notes are carefully arranged. 
 Alas! he has left the priceless document at home! What 
 will he do? He is too gracious to give up: he will try 
 to speak. He begins nicely, and gets through firsdy. 
 "Fair and softly, good sir." What comes next? See, 
 he is gazing aloft for secondly. What should be said? 
 What can be said? The good man flounders about, 
 but he cannot swim; he struggles to land, and as he 
 rises from the flood you can hear him mentally saying, 
 "That's my last attempt." Yet it is not so. He speaks 
 again. He gathers confidence; he grows into an im- 
 pressive speaker. By such humiliations as these the 
 Lord prepares him to do his work efificicntly. In our 
 beginnings we are too fine to be fit, or too great to 
 be good. We must serve an apprenticeship, and thus 
 learn our trade. A blacklead pencil is of no use at all 
 
186 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 till it is cut; the fine cedar wood must be cut away; 
 and then the inward metal which marks and writes will 
 have fair play. Brethren, the knife of affliction is sharp, 
 but salutary; you cannot delight in it, but faith may 
 teach you to value it. Are you not willing to pass 
 through every ordeal if by any means you may save 
 some? If this be not your spirit, you had better keep 
 to your farm and to your merchandise, for no man 
 will ever win a soul who is not prepared to suffer 
 everything within the compass of possibility for that 
 soul's sake. 
 
 A good deal may have to be suffered through fear, 
 and yet that fear may assist in stirring the soul, and 
 putting it into fit posture for work; at least, it may 
 drive the heart to prayer, and that alone is a great part 
 of the necessary preparation. A good man thus de- 
 scribes one of his early attempts at visiting, with the 
 view of speaking to individuals upon their spiritual 
 condition: '1 was thinking, on the way to the resi- 
 dence of the party, how I would introduce the sub- 
 ject, and all that I would say. And all the while I was 
 trembling and agitated. Reaching the door, it seemed 
 as if I should sink through the stones; my courage 
 was gone, and, lifting my hand to the knocker, it 
 dropped at my side without touching it. I went partly 
 down the steps from sheer fear; a moment's reflection 
 sent me again to the knocker, and I entered the house. 
 The sentences I uttered and the prayer offered were 
 very broken; but thankful, very thankful, I am that 
 my fears and cowardice did not prevail. The 'ice was 
 broken.' " That process of ice-breaking must be gone 
 through, and its result is highly beneficial. 
 
 O, poor souls, you that wish to find the Saviour, 
 Jesus has died for you; and now His people live for 
 you! We cannot offer any atoning sacrifice for you; 
 
THE COST OF BEING A SOUL-WINNER. 187 
 
 there is no need that we should; but still we would 
 gladly make sacrifices for your soul's sake. Did you 
 not hear what our brother said just now in his prayer: 
 We would do anything, be anything, give anything, 
 and suffer anything if we might but bring you to Christ? 
 I assure you that many of us feel even so. Will you 
 not care for yourselves? Shall we be earnest about 
 your souls, and will you trifle them away? Be wiser, 
 1 beseech you, and may infinite wisdom at once lead 
 you to our dear Saviour's feet. Amen. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S REWARD, 
 
ADDRESS AT A TABERNACLE PRAYER-MEETING. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S REWARD. 
 
 On my way to this meeting- I observed upon the 
 notice-board of the police station a striking placard, 
 offering' a large 
 
 REWARD 
 
 to anyone who can discover and bring to justice the 
 perpetrators of a great crime. No doubt our legisla- 
 tors know that the hope of a huge reward is the only 
 motive which will have power with the comrades of 
 assassins. The common informer earns so much scorn 
 and hate that few can be induced to stand in his place, 
 even when piles of gold are offered. It is a poor busi- 
 ness at best. 
 
 It is far more pleasant to remember that there is a 
 reward for bringing men to mercy, and that it is of a 
 higher order than the premium for bringing men to 
 justice; it is, moreover, much more within our reach, 
 and that is a practical point worthy of our notice. We 
 cannot all hunt down criminals, but we may all rescue 
 the perishing. God be thanked that assassins and bur- 
 glars are comparatively few, but sinners who need to 
 be sought and saved swarm around us in every place. 
 Here is scope for you all ; and none need think himself 
 shut out from the rewards which love bestows on all 
 who do her service. 
 
 At the mention of the word REWARD, some will 
 
192 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 prick up their ears, and mutter 'legality." Yet the 
 reward we speak of is not of debt, but of grace; and 
 it is enjoyed, not with the proud conceit of merit, but 
 with the grateful delight of humility. 
 
 Other friends will whisper, "Is not this a low and 
 mercenary motive?" We reply that it is as mercenary 
 as the spirit of Moses, who "had respect unto the recom- 
 pense of the reward." In this matter, all depends upon 
 what the reward is; and if that happens to be the joy 
 of doing good, the comfort of having glorified God, 
 and the bliss of pleasing the Lord Jesus — then the as- 
 piration to be allowed to endeavour to save our fellow- 
 men from going down into the pit is in itself a grace 
 from the Lord ; and if we did not succeed in it, yet the 
 Lord would say of it, as He did of David's intent to 
 build a temple, "It was well that it was in thine heart." 
 Even if the souls we seek should all persist in unbelief, 
 if they all despise and reject and ridicule us, yet still 
 it will be a divine work to have at least made the at- 
 tempt. If there comes no rain out of the cloud, yet it 
 has screened of¥ the fierce heat of the sun; all is not 
 lost even if the greater design be not accomplished. 
 What if we only learn how to join the Saviour in His 
 tears, and cry, "How often would I have gathered you, 
 but ye would not!" It is sublimity itself to be allowed 
 to stand on the same platform with Jesus, and weep 
 with him. We are the better for such sorrows, if no 
 others are. 
 
 But, thank God, our labours are not in vain in the 
 Lord. I believe that the most of you, who have really 
 tried, in the power of the Holy Spirit, by Scriptural 
 teaching and by prayer, to bring others to Jesus, have 
 been successful. I may be speaking to a few who have 
 not succeeded; if so, I would recommend them to look 
 steadily over their motive, their spirit, their work, and 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S REWARD. 193 
 
 their prayer, and then begin again. Perhaps they may 
 get to work more wisely, more behevingly, more hum- 
 bly, and more in the power of the Holy Spirit. They 
 must act as farmers do who, after a p<:»or harvest, plough 
 again in hope. They ought not to be dispirited, but 
 they ought to be aroused. We should be anxious to 
 find out the reason of failure, if there be any, and we 
 should be ready to learn from all our fellow-labourers; 
 but we must steadfastly set our faces, if by any means 
 we may save some, resolving that whatever happens 
 we will leave no stone unturned to effect the salva- 
 tion of those around us. How can we bear to go out 
 of the world without sheaves to bear with us rejoicing- 
 ly? I believe that the most of us who are now assem- 
 bled to pray have been successful beyond our expecta- 
 tions. God has blessed us, not beyond our desires, but 
 yet beyond our hopes. 
 
 I have often been surprised at the mercy of God to 
 myself. Poor sermons of mine, that I could cry over 
 when I get home, have led scores to the cross; and, 
 more wonderful still, words that I have spoken in 
 ordinary conversation, mere chance sentences, as men 
 call them, have nevertheless been as winged arrows 
 from God, and have pierced men's hearts, and laid them 
 wounded at Jesus' feet. I have often lifted up my hands 
 in astonishment, and said, "How can God bless such a 
 feeble instnmientality?" This is the feeling of most 
 who addict themselves to the blessed craft of fishing 
 for men, and the desire of such success furnishes as 
 pure a motive as could move an angel's heart, as pure, 
 indeed, as that which swayed the Saviour when, for the 
 joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, 
 despising the shame. "Doth Job serve God for 
 nought?" said Satan. If he could have answered 
 the question in the af^rmative, if it could have 
 
194 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 been proved that the perfect and upright man 
 found no reward in his holy Hving, then Satan 
 would have cavilled at the justice- of God, and 
 urged men to renounce a service so unprofitable. 
 Verily there is a reward to the righteous, and 
 in the lofty pursuits of grace there are recompenses 
 of infinite value. When we endeavour to lead men to 
 God, we pursue a business far more profitable than the 
 pearl-fisher's diving or the diamond-hunter's searching. 
 No pursuit of mortal men is to be compared with that 
 of soul-winning. I know what I say when I bid you 
 think of it as men think of entering the cabinet of the 
 nation, or occupying a throne; it is a royal business, 
 and they are true kings who follow it successfully. 
 
 The harvest of godly service is not yet: ''we do 
 with patience wait for it;" but we have earnests of 
 our wage, refreshing pledges of that which is laid up 
 in heaven for us. Partly, this reward lies in the work 
 itself. Men go hunting and shooting for mere love of 
 the sport; surely, in an infinitely higher sphere, we 
 may hunt for men's souls for the pleasing indulgence 
 of our benevolence. To some of us, it would be an 
 unendurable misery to see men sink to hell, and to be 
 making no efifort for their salvation. It is a reward 
 to us to have a vent for our inward fires. It is woe and 
 weariness to us to be shut up from those sacred activi- 
 ties which aim at plucking fire-brands from the flame. 
 We are in deep sympathy with our fellows, and feel 
 that, in a measure, their sin is our sin, their peril our 
 peril. 
 
 If another lose the way, 
 My feet also go astray; 
 If another downward go. 
 In my heart is also woe. 
 
 It IS therefore a relief to set forth the gospel, that we 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S REWARD. 195 
 
 may save ourselves from that sympathetic misery which 
 echoes in our hearts the crash of soul-ruin. 
 
 Soul- winning /s a scn'/cc wliicJi brings great benefit 
 to the indiviiiuat who consecrates himself to it. Tho 
 man who has watched for a soul, prayed for it, laid 
 his plans for it, spoken with much trembling, and en- 
 deavoured to make an impression, has been educating 
 himself by the effort. Having been disappointed, he 
 has cried to God more earnestly, has tried again, has 
 looked up the promise to meet the case of the con- 
 victed one, has turned to that point of the divine char- 
 acter which seems most likely to encourage trembling- 
 faith — he has in every step been benefiting himself. 
 When he has gone over the old, old story of the cross 
 to the weeping penitent, and has at last gripped the 
 hand of one who could say: ''I do believe, I will be- 
 lieve, that Jesus died for me"; I say, he has had a re- 
 ward in the process through which his own mind has 
 gone. 
 
 It has reminded him of his own lost estate; it has 
 shown him the struggles that the Spirit had in bring- 
 ing him to repentance; it has reminded him of that 
 precious moment when he first looked to Jesus; and 
 it has strengthened him in his firm confidence that 
 Christ will save men. When we see Jesus save an- 
 other, and see that marvellous transfiguration which 
 passes over the face of the saved one, our own faith is 
 greatly confirmed. Sceptics and modern-thought men 
 have little to do with converts: those who labour for 
 conversions believe in conversions; those who behold 
 the processes of regeneration see a miracle wrought, and 
 are certain that "this is the finger of God." It is the 
 most blessed exercise for a soul, it is the divinest en- 
 nobling of the heart, to spend yourself in seeking to 
 bring: another to the dear Redeemer's feet. If it ended 
 
196 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 there, you might thank God that ever He called you to 
 a service so comforting, so strengthening, so elevating, 
 so confirming, as that of converting others from their 
 evil ways. 
 
 Another precious recompense is found in the grati- 
 tude and affection of those you bri?ig to Christ. This 
 is a choice boon — the blessedness of joying in another's 
 joy, the bliss of hearing that you have led a soul to 
 Jesus. Measure the sweetness of this recompense by 
 the bitterness of its opposite. Men of God have brought 
 many to Jesus, and all things have gone well in the 
 church till declining years or change of fashions have 
 thrown the good man into the shade, and then the 
 minister's own spiritual children have been eager to 
 turn him out of doors. The unkindest cut of all has 
 come from those who owed their souls to him. His 
 heart was broken while he has sighed, 'T could have 
 borne it, had not the persons that I brought to the 
 Saviour have turned against me." The pang is not 
 unknown to me. I can never forget a certain house- 
 hold, in which the Lord gave me the great joy to 
 bring four employers and several persons engaged by 
 them to Jesus' feet. Snatched from the utmost care- 
 lessness of worldliness, these who had previously known 
 nothing of the grace of God were joyful confessors of 
 the faith. After a while, they imbibed certain opin- 
 ions differing from ours, and from that moment some 
 of them had nothing but hard words for me and my 
 preaching. I had done my best to teach them all the 
 truth I knew, and if they had found out more than I 
 had discovered, they might at least have remembered 
 where they learned the elements of the faith. It is years 
 ago now, and I have never said as much as this before; 
 but I feel the wound much. I only mention these 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S REWARD, 11,7 
 
 sharp pricks to show how very sweet it is to have those 
 about you whom you have brought to the Saviour. 
 
 A mother feels great delight in her children, for an 
 intense love comes with natural relationships; but 
 there is a still deeper love connected with spiritual 
 kinship, a love which lasts through life, and will con- 
 tinue in eternity, for even in heaven each servant of the 
 Lord shall say, "Here am I, and the children whom 
 Thou hast given me." They neither marry nor are 
 given in marriage in the city of our God, but father- 
 hood and brotherhood in Christ shall still survive. 
 Those sweet and blessed bonds which grace has formed 
 continue for ever, and spiritual relationships are rather 
 developed than dissolved by translation to the better 
 land. If you are eager for real joy, such as you may 
 think over and sleep upon, I am persuaded that no 
 joy of growing wealthy, no joy of increasing knowl- 
 edge, no joy of influence over your fellow-creatures, 
 no joy of any other sort, can ever be compared with 
 the rapture of saving a soul from death, and helping 
 to restore our lost brethren to our great Father's house. 
 Talk of ten thousand pounds reward! It is nothing 
 at all, one might easily spend that amount; but one 
 cannot exhaust the unutterable delights which come 
 from the gratitude of souls converted from the error 
 of their ways. 
 
 But the richest reward lies in p/easing God, and 
 causing the Redeemer to see of the travail of His soul. 
 That Jesus should have His reward, is worthy of the 
 Eternal Father; but it is marvellous that we should 
 be employed by the Father to give to Christ the pur- 
 chase of His agonies. This is a wonder of wonders! 
 O my soul, this is an honour too great for thee! A 
 bliss too deep for words! Listen, dear friends, and an- 
 swer me. What would you give to cause a thrill of 
 
198 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 pleasure in the heart of the Well-beloved? Recollect 
 the grief you cost Him, and the pangs that shot through 
 Him that He might deliver you from your sin and its 
 consequences; do you not long to make Him glad? 
 When you bring others to His feet, you give him joy, 
 and no small joy either. Is not that a wonderful text: 
 'There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over 
 one sinner that repenteth?" What does that mean? 
 Does it mean that the angels have joy? We generally 
 read it so, but it is not the intent of the verse. It says, 
 ''There is joy in the presence of the angels of God" — 
 that is, joy in the heart of God, around whose throne 
 the angels stand. It is a joy which angels delight to be- 
 hold, — what is it? Is the blessed God capable of greater 
 joy than His own boundless happiness? Wondrous 
 language this! The infinite bliss of God is more emi- 
 nently displayed, if it cannot be increased. Can we be 
 the instruments of this? Can we do anything which 
 will make the Ever-blessed glad? Yes, for we are told 
 that the great Father rejoices above measure when His 
 prodigal son that was dead is alive again, and the lost 
 one is found. 
 
 If I could say this as I ought to say it, it would 
 make every Christian cry out, "Then I will labour to 
 bring souls to the Saviour;" and it would make those 
 of us who have brought many to Jesus instant, in 
 season and out of season, to bring more to Him. It 
 is a great pleasure to be doing a kindness to an 
 earthly friend, but to be doing something distinctly 
 for Jesus, something which will be of all things in the 
 world most pleasing to Him, is a great delight! It is 
 a good work to build a meeting house, and give it 
 outright to the cause of God, if it is done with a right 
 and proper motive; but one living stone, built upon 
 the sure foundation by our instrumentality, will give 
 
THE SOUL-WINNERS REWARD. 199 
 
 the Alaster mure pleasure than if vvc erected a vast 
 pile of natural stones, whieli might only cumber the 
 ground. Then go, dear friends, and seek to bring your 
 children and your neighbours, your friends and your 
 kinsfolk, to the Saviour's feet, for nothing will give him 
 so much pleasure as to see them turn unto Him and 
 live. By your love to Jesus, I beseech you, become fish- 
 ers of men. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK, 
 
'The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that 
 winneth souls is wise." — Proverbs xi. 30. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND 
 WORK. 
 
 It seems to me that there is a higher joy in looking 
 at a body of believers than that which arises from mere- 
 ly regarding them as saved. Not but what there is a 
 great joy in salvation, a joy worthy to stir the angelic 
 harps. Think of the Saviour's agony in the ransom 
 of every one of His redeemed, think of the work of the 
 Holy Spirit in every renewed heart, think of the love 
 of the Father as resting upon every one of the regen- 
 erate: I could not, if I took up my parable for a month, 
 set forth all the mass of joy that is to be seen in a mul- 
 titude of believers if we only look at what God has 
 done for them, and promised to them, and will fulfil 
 in them. But there is yet a wider field of thought, and 
 my mind has been traversing it all this day—the thought 
 of the capacities of service contained in a numerous 
 band of believers, the possibilities of blessing others 
 which lie within the bosoms of regenerate persons. We 
 must not think so much of what we already are as to 
 forget what the Lord may accomplish by us for others. 
 Here are the coals of fire, but who shall describe the 
 conflagration which they may cause? 
 
 We ought to regard the Christian Church, not a.^ a 
 luxurious hostelry where Christian gentlemen may 
 each one dwell at his ease in his own inn, but as a 
 barracks in which soldiers are gathered together to be 
 
204 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 drilled and trained for war. We should regard the 
 Christian Church, not as an association for mutual ad- 
 miration and comfort, but as an army with banners, 
 marching to the fray, to achieve victories for Christ, to 
 storm the strongholds of the foe, and to add province 
 after province to the Redeemer's kingdom. We may 
 view converted persons gathered into church member- 
 ship as so much wheat in the granary. God be thanked 
 that it is there, and that so far the harvest has rewarded 
 the sower; but far more soul-inspiring is the view when 
 we regard those believers as each one likely to be made 
 a living centre for the extension of the kingdom of 
 Jesus, for then Ave see them sowing the fertile valleys of 
 our land, and promising ere long to bring forth some 
 thirty, some forty, some fifty, and some a hundredfold. 
 The capacities of life are enormous, one becomes a 
 thousand in a marvellously brief space: Within a 
 short time a few grains of wheat would suffice to seed 
 the whole world, and a few true saints might suffice for 
 the conversion of all nations. Only take that which 
 comes of one year, store it well, sow it all, again store it 
 next year, and then sow it all again, and the multiplica- 
 tion almost exceeds the power of computation. Oh, 
 that every Christian were thus year by year the Lord's 
 seed corn! If all the wheat in the world had perished 
 except a single grain, it w^ould not take many years to 
 replenish all the earth, and sow her fields and plains; 
 but in a far shorter time, in the power of the Holy 
 Spirit, one Paul or one Peter would have evangelised 
 all lands. View yourselves as grains of wheat predes- 
 tinated to seed the world. That man lives grandly who 
 is as earnest as if the very existence of Christianity de- 
 pended upon himself, and is determined that to all 
 men within his reach shall be made known the un- 
 searchable riches of Christ. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 205 
 
 If we whom Christ is pleased to use as His seed 
 com were only all scattered and sown as we ought to 
 be, and were all to sprout and bring forth the green 
 blade and the corn in the ear, what a harvest there 
 would be! Again would it be fulfilled, "There shall 
 be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of th^ 
 mountains" — a very bad position for it — "the fruit 
 thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city 
 shall flourish like grass of the earth." May God grant 
 us to feel some degree of the Holy Spirit's quickening 
 power while we talk together, not so much about what 
 God has done for us as about what God may do dy 
 us, and how far we may put ourselves into a right posi- 
 tion to be used by Him! 
 
 There are two things in the text, and these are found 
 laid out with much distinctness in its two sentences. 
 The first is, the life of the believer is, or ought to be, 
 full of soul-blessing: ''The fruit of the righteous is a 
 tree of life." In the second place, the pursuit of the 
 believer ought always to be soul-winning. The second 
 is much the same as the first, only the first head sets 
 forth our unconscious influence, and the second our 
 efforts which we put forth with the avowed object of 
 winning souls for Christ. 
 
 Let us begin at the beginning, because the second 
 cannot be carried out without the first : without fulness 
 of life within there cannot be an overflow of life to 
 others. It is of no use for any of you to try to be 
 soul-winners if you are not bearing fruit in your own 
 lives. How^ can you serve the Lord with your lips if you 
 do not serve Him wdth your lives? How can you preach 
 His gospel with your tongues, when with hands, 
 feet and hearts you are preaching the devil's gospel, 
 and setting up antichrist by your practical unholi- 
 ness? We must first have life and bear personal fruit 
 
20G THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 to the divine glory, and then out of our example will 
 spring the conversion of others. Let us go to the 
 fountain-head, and see how the believer's own life is es- 
 sential to his being useful to others. 
 
 I. THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER IS FULL 
 OF SOUL-BLESSING. 
 
 This fact we shall consider by means of a few ob- 
 servations growing out of the text; and, first, let us 
 remark that the believer's outward life comes as a 
 matter of fruit from him. This is prominent to notice. 
 "The fruit of the righteous" — that is to say, his life — 
 is not a thing fastened upon him, but it grows out of 
 him. It is not a garment which he puts off and on, but 
 it is inseparable from himself. The sincere man's re- 
 ligion is the man himself, and not a cloak for his con- 
 cealment. True godliness is the natural outgrowth of 
 a renewed nature, not the forced growth of pious hot- 
 house excitement. Is it not natural for a vine to bear 
 clusters of grapes? natural for a palm tree to bear dates? 
 Certainly, as natural as it is for the apples of Sodom 
 to be found on the trees of Sodom, and for noxious 
 plants to produce poisonous berries. When God gives 
 a new nature to His people, the life which comes out of 
 that new nature springs spontaneously from it. The 
 man Vv^ho has a religion which is not part and parcel of 
 himself will by-and-by discover that it is worse than 
 useless to him. The man who wears his piety like a 
 mask at a carnival, so that, when he gets home, he 
 changes from a saint to a savage, from an angel to a 
 devil, from John to Judas, from a benefactor to a bully 
 — such a man, I say, knows very well what formalism 
 and hypocrisy can do for him, but he has no vestige 
 of true religion. Fig trees do not bear figs on certain 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 207 
 
 days, and thorns at other times; but they are true to 
 their nature at all seasons. 
 
 Those who think that godliness is a matter of vest- 
 ment, and has an intimate relation with blue, and 
 scarlet, and fine linen, are consistent if they keep their 
 religion to the proper time for the wearing of their 
 sacred pomposities; but he who has discovered what 
 Christianity is knows that it is much more a life than 
 an act, a form, or a profession. Much as I love the 
 creed of Christendom, I am ready to say that true Chris- 
 tianity is far more a life than a creed. It is a creed, and 
 it has its ceremonies, but it is mainly a life; it is a divine 
 spark of heaven's own flame which falls into the human 
 bosom and burns within, consuming much that lies 
 hidden in the soul, and then at last, as a heavenly life, 
 flaming forth, so as to be seen and felt by those around. 
 Under the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, a re- 
 generate person becomes like that bush in Horeb, 
 which was all aglow with Deity. The God within him 
 makes him shine so that the place around him is holy 
 ground, and those who look at him feel the power of his 
 hallowed life. 
 
 Dear brethren, we must take care that our religion 
 is more and more a matter of outgrowth from our 
 souls. Many professors are hedged about with, "You 
 must not do this, or that," and are driven onward with, 
 "You must do this, and you must do that." But there 
 is a doctrine, too often perverted, which is, neverthe- 
 less, a blessed truth, and ought to dwell in your hearts. 
 "Ye are not under the law, but under grace;" hence 
 you do not obey the will of God because you hope to 
 earn heaven thereby, or dream of escaping from divine 
 wrath by your own doings, but because there is a life 
 in you which seeks after that which is holy, pure, right 
 and true, and cannot endure that which is evil. You are 
 
208 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 careful to maintain good works, not from either legal 
 hopes or legal fears, but because there is a holy thing 
 within you, born of God, which seeks, according to its 
 nature, to do that which is pleasing to God. Look to 
 it more and more that your religion is real, true, nat- 
 ural, vital — not artificial, constrained, superficial, a 
 thing of times, days, places, a fungus produced by ex- 
 citement, a fermentation generated by meetings and 
 stirred by oratory. We all need a religion which can 
 live either in a wilderness or in a crowd; a religion 
 which will show itself in every walk of life, and in 
 every company. Give me the godliness which is seen 
 at home, especially around the fireside, for it is never 
 more beautiful than there; that is seen in the battle and 
 tussle of ordinary business among scoffers and gain- 
 sayers as well as among Christian men. Show me the 
 faith which can defy the lynx eyes of the world, and 
 walk fearlessly where all scowl with the fierce eyes of 
 hate, as w^ell as -where there are observers to sympa- 
 thise, and friends to judge leniently. May you be filled 
 with the life of the Spirit, and your whole conduct and 
 conversation be the natural and blessed outgrowth of 
 that Spirit's indw^elling! 
 
 Note, next, that the fruit which comes from a Chris- 
 iian is fruit worthy of his character: *'The fruit of the 
 righteous is a tree of life." Each tree bears its own 
 fruit, and is known by it. The righteous man bears 
 righteous fruit; and do not let us be at all deceived, 
 brethren, or fall into any error about this, "he that 
 doeth righteousness is righteous," and "he that doeth 
 not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth 
 not his brother. We are prepared, I hope, to die for 
 the doctrine of justification by faith, and to assert be- 
 fore all adversaries that salvation is not of works; but 
 we also confess that we are justified by a faith which 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 209 
 
 produces works, and if any man has a faith which 
 does not produce g^ood works, it is the faith of devils. 
 Saving faith appropriates the finished work of the 
 Lord Jesus, and so saves by itself alone, for we are 
 justified by faith without works; but the faith which 
 is without works cannot bring salvation to any man. 
 We are saved by faith without works, but not by a faith 
 that is without works, for the real faith that saves the 
 soul works by love and purifies the character. If you 
 can cheat across the counter, your hope of heaven is a 
 cheat, too; though you can pray as prettily as any- 
 body, and practise acts of outward piety as well as any 
 other hypocrite, you are deceived if you expect to be 
 right at last. If as a servant you are lazy, lying and 
 loitering, or if as a master you are hard, tyrannical and 
 unchristianlike towards your men, your fruit shows 
 that you are a tree of Satan's own orchard, and bear 
 apples which will suit his tooth. If you can practise 
 tricks of trade, and if you can lie — and how many do 
 lie every day about their neighbour or about their 
 goods! — you may talk as you like about being justified 
 by faith, but all liars will have their portion in the lake 
 that burneth with fire and brimstone, and amongst the 
 biggest liars you will be, for you are guilty of the lie of 
 saying, "I am a Christian," whereas you are not. A 
 false profession is one of the worst of lies, since it 
 brings the utmost dishonour upon Christ and His peo- 
 ple. The fruit of the righteous is righteousness: the 
 fig tree will not bring forth thorns, neither shall we 
 gather grapes from thistles. The tree is known by 
 its fruit, and if we cannot judge men's hearts, and must 
 not try to do so, we can judge their lives; and I pray 
 God we may all be ready to judge our own lives, and 
 see if we are bringing forth righteous fruit, for if not, we 
 are not risfhteous men. 
 
210 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 Let it. however, never be forgotten that the fruit of 
 the righteous, though it comes from him naturally, for 
 his new-born nature yields the sweet fruit of obedi- 
 ence, yet it is always the i-csiilt of grace, and the gift 
 of God. No truth ought to be remembered more than 
 this, "From Me is thy fruit found." We can bring 
 forth no fruit except as we abide in Christ. The right- 
 eous shall flourish as a branch, and only as a branch. 
 How does a branch flourish? By its connection with 
 the stem, and the consequent inflowing of the sap ; and 
 so, though the righteous man's righteous actions are 
 his own, yet they are always produced by the grace 
 which is imparted to him, and he never dares to take 
 any credit for them, but he sings, "Not unto us, O 
 Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give praise." 
 If he fails, he blame? himself; if he succeeds, he glori- 
 fies God. Imitate his example. Lay every fault, every 
 weakness, every infirmity at your own door; and if 
 you fall in any respect short of perfection — and I am 
 sure you do — take all that to yourself, and do not excuse 
 yourself; but if there be any virtue, any praise, any true 
 desire, any real prayer, anything that is good, ascribe it 
 all to the Spirit of God. Remember, the righteous man 
 would not be righteous unless God had made him 
 righteous, and the fruit of righteousness would never 
 come from him unless the divine sap within him had 
 produced that acceptable fruit. To God alone be all 
 honour and glory. 
 
 The main lesson of the passage is that this outbur=t 
 of life from the Christian, this consequence of life with - 
 in him, this fruit of his soul, hecojnes a blessing to 
 others. Like a tree, it yields shade and sustenance to 
 all around. It is a tree of life, an expression which I 
 cannot fully work out as I would wish, for there is a 
 world of instruction compressed into the illustration. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 211 
 
 That which to the beUever himself is fruit becomes to 
 others a tree: it is a singular metaphor, but by no 
 means a lame one. From the child ot God there falls 
 the fruit of holy living, even as an acorn drops from 
 the oak; this holy living becomes influential and pro- 
 duces the best results in others, even as the acorn 
 becomes itself an oak and lends its shade to the birds 
 of the air. The Christian's holiness becomes a tree 
 of life. I suppose it means a living tree, a tree calcu- 
 Jated to give life and sustain it in others. A fruit 
 becomes a tree! A tree of life! Wonderful result 
 this! Christ in the Christian produces a character 
 which becomes a tree of life. The outward character 
 is the fruit of the inner life; this outer life itself grows 
 from a fruit into a tree, and as a tree it bears fruit in 
 others to the praise and glory of God. Dear brothers 
 and sisters, I know some of God's saints who live very 
 near to him, and they are evidently a tree of life, for 
 their very shadow is comforting, cooling, and refresh- 
 ing to many weary souls. I have known the young, 
 the tried, the downcast, go to them, sit beneath their 
 shade, and pour out the tale of their troubles, and they 
 have felt it a rich blessing to receive their sympathy, 
 to be told of the faithfulness of the Lord, and to be 
 guided in the way of wisdom. There are a few good 
 men in this world whom to know is to be rich. Such 
 men are libraries of gospel truth; but they are better 
 than books, for the truth in them is written on living 
 pages. Their character is a true and living tree; it is 
 not a mere post of the dead wood of doctrine, bearing 
 an inscription, and rotting while it does so, but it is a 
 vital, organized, fruit-producing thing, a plant of the 
 Lord's right-hand planting. 
 
 Not only do some saints give comfort to others, but 
 they also yield them spiritual nourishment. Well- 
 
213 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 trained Christians become nursing fathers and nursmg 
 mothers, strengthening the weak, and binding up the 
 wounds of the broken-hearted. So, too, the strong, 
 bokl, generous deeds of large-hearted Christians are 
 of great service to their fellow-Christians, and tend to 
 raise them to a higher level. You feel refreshed by 
 observing how they act; their patience in sufifering, 
 their courage in danger, their holy faith in God, their 
 happy faces under trial, — all these nerve you for your 
 own conflicts. In a thousand ways, the sanctified 
 believer's example acts in a healing and comforting 
 way to his brethren, and assists in raising them above 
 anxiety and unbelief. Even as the leaves of the tree 
 of life are for the healing of the nations, so the words 
 and deeds of saints are medicine for a thousand 
 maladies. 
 
 And then what fruit, sweet to the taste of the godly, 
 instructed believers bear! We can never trust in men 
 as we trust in the Lord, but the Lord can cause the 
 members to bless us in their measure, even as their 
 Head is ever ready to do. Jesus alone is the Tree of 
 Life, but He makes some of his servants to be instru- 
 mentally to us little trees of life, by whom He gives 
 us fruit of the same sort that He bears Himself, for he 
 puts it there, and it is Himself in His saints causing 
 them to bring forth golden apples, with which our 
 souls are gladdened. May we every one of us be made 
 like our Lorcl, and may His fruit be found upon our 
 boughs ! 
 
 We have put into the tomb many of the saints who 
 have fallen asleep, and among them there were some 
 of whom I will not at this moment speak particularly, 
 whose lives as I look back upon them are still a tree 
 of life to me. I pray God that I may be like them. 
 ]\Iany of you knew them, and if you will only recall 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 213 
 
 their holy, devoted Hvcs, the influence they have left 
 behind will still be a tree of life to you. They beini^ 
 dead yet speak; hear ye their eloquent exhortations! 
 Even in their ashes live their wonted fires; kindle 
 your souls at their warmth. Their noble examples 
 are the endowments of the church, her children are 
 ennobled and enriched as they remember their walk 
 of faith and labour of love. Beloved, may we every 
 one of us be true benedictions to the churches in 
 whose gardens we are planted! "Oh!" says one, "I 
 am afraid I am not much like a tree, for I feel so 
 weak and insignificant." If you have faith as a grain 
 of mustard seed, you have the commencement of the 
 tree beneath whose branches the birds of the air will 
 yet find a lodging. The very birds that w^ould have 
 eaten the tiny seed come and find lodgment in the 
 tree which grows out of it; and people who despise 
 and mock at you, now that you arc a young beginner, 
 will one of these days, if God blesses you, be glad to 
 borrow comfort from your example and experience. 
 
 But one other thought on this point. Remember 
 that the conipIrtc7iess and dcvclopmcjit of the holy life 
 will be seen above. There is a city of which it is 
 written, "In the midst of the street of it, and on eitlier 
 side of the river, was there the tree of life." The tree 
 of life is a heavenly plant, and so the fruit of the 
 Christian is a thing of heaven; though not trans- 
 planted to the glory land, it is getting fit for its final 
 abode. What is holiness but heaven on earth? 
 What is living unto God but the essence of heaven? 
 What arc uprightness, integrity, Christ-likeness? 
 I lave not these even more to do with heaven than 
 harps and palms and streets of purest gold? Holiness, 
 purity, loveliness of character, — these make a heaven 
 within a man's own bosom; and even if there were 
 
214 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 no place called heaven, that heart would have a 
 heavenly happiness which is set free from sin, and 
 made like the Lord Jesus. See, then, dear brethren, 
 what an important thing it is for us to be indeed 
 righteous before God, for then the outcome of that 
 righteousness shall be fruit which will be a tree of life 
 to others, and a tree of life in heaven above, world 
 without end. O blessed Spirit, make it so, and Thou 
 shalt have all the praise ! 
 
 II. This brings us to our second head. THE 
 PURSUIT OF THE BELIEVER SHOULD BE 
 SOUL-WINNING. For "he that winneth souls is 
 wise." The two things are put together — the life first, 
 the efifort next: what God hath joined together, let no 
 man put asunder. 
 
 It is implied in our text that tJici'e ai-e souls wJiich 
 need winning. Ah, me! all souls of men are lost by 
 nature. You might walk through the streets of Lon- 
 don, and say, with sighs and tears, of the masses of 
 men you meet upon those crowded pavements, "Lost, 
 lost, lost!" Wherever Christ is not trusted, and the 
 Spirit has not created a new heart, and the soul has 
 not come to the great Father, there is a lost soul. But 
 here is the mercy — these lost souls can be won. They 
 are not hopelessly lost; not yet has God determined 
 that they shall forever abide as they are. It is not 
 yet said, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still;" 
 but they are in the land of hope where mercy may 
 reach them, for they are spoken of as capable of being 
 won. They may yet be delivered, but the phrase hints 
 that it will need all our efforts: *'He that 7oinncth 
 souls." 
 
 What do we mean by that word win? We use it 
 in love-making. We speak of the bridegroom who 
 wins his bride ; and sometimes there is a large expense 
 
THE SOUL-WINNERS LIFE AND WORK. 215 
 
 of love, many a pleading word, and many a wooing 
 act, ere yet the valned heart is all the suitor's own. I 
 use this explanation because in some respects it is the 
 very best, for souls will have to be won for Christ in 
 this fashion, that they may be espoused unto Him. 
 We must make love to the sinner for Christ; that is 
 how hearts are to be won for him. Jesus is the Bride- 
 groom, and we must speak for Him, and tell of His 
 beauty, as Abraham's servant, when he went to seek a 
 wife for Isaac, acted as a wooer in his stead. Have 
 you never read the story? Then turn to it v'hcn you 
 get home, and see how he talked about his master, what 
 possessions he had, and how Isaac was to be heir of 
 it all, and so on, and then he finished his address by 
 urging Rebecca to go with him. The question was 
 put home to her, "Wilt thou go with this man?" So 
 the minister's business is to commend his blaster and 
 his Master's riches, and then to say to souls, "Will you 
 be wedded to Christ?" He who can succeed in this 
 very delicate business is a wise man. 
 
 We also use the term in a military fashion. We 
 speak of winning a city, a castle, or a battle. We do 
 not win victories by going to sleep. Believe me, 
 castles are not captured by men who are only half 
 awake. To win a battle, needs the best skill, the 
 greatest endurance, and the utmost courage. To 
 storm fortresses, which are regarded as almost im- 
 pregnable, men need to burn the midnight oil, and 
 study well the arts of attack; and, when the time 
 comes for the assault, not a soldier must be a laggard. 
 but all force of artiller\- and manhood must be brought 
 to bear on the point assailed. To carry man's heart 
 by main force of grace, to capture it, to break down 
 the bars of brass and dash the gates of iron in pieces, 
 requires the exercise of a skill which only Christ can 
 
216 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 give. To bring up the big battering-rams, and shake 
 every stone in the sinner's conscience, to make his heart 
 rock and reel within him for fear of the wrath to come, 
 — in a word, to assail a soul with all the artillery of the 
 gospel, needs a wise man, and one fully aroused to his 
 work. To hold up the white flag of mercy, and, if that 
 be despised, to use the battering-ram of threatening 
 until a breach is made, and then, with the sword of the 
 Spirit in his hand, to capture the city, to tear down 
 the black flag of sin, and run up the banner of the 
 cross, needs all the force the choicest preacher can 
 command, and a great deal more. Those whose souls 
 are as cold as the Arctic regions, and whose energy 
 is reduced to the vanishing point, are not likely to 
 take the city of Mansoul for Prince Emmanuel. If 
 you think you are going to win souls, you must throw 
 your soul into your work, just as a warrior must throw 
 his soul into a battle, or victory will not be yours. 
 
 We use the words "to win'' in reference to making 
 a fortune, and we all know that the man who becomes 
 a millionaire has to rise up early, and sit up late, and 
 eat the bread of carefulness, and it takes a deal of 
 toiling and saving, and I know not what besides, to 
 amass immense wealth. We have to go in for winning 
 souls with the same ardour and concentration of our 
 faculties as old Astor of New York went in to build 
 up that fortune of so many millions which he has now 
 left behind him. It is, indeed, a race, and you knov; 
 that, in a race, nobody wins unless he strains every 
 muscle and sinew. 'They that run in a race run all 
 but one receiveth the prize;" and that one is generally 
 he wlio had more strength than the rest; certainly, 
 v/hether he had more strength or not, he put out all he 
 liad, and we shall not win souls unless we imitate him 
 in this. 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 21/ 
 
 Solomon in the text declares that, ''He that winneth 
 souls is wise," and such a declaration is all the more 
 valuable as coming from so wise a man. Let me show 
 you why a soul-winner is wise. First, he viust be 
 taught of God before he will attempt it. The man 
 who does not know that, whereas he was once blind, 
 now he sees, had better think of his own blindness 
 before he attempts to lead his friends in the right way. 
 If not saved yourself, you cannot be the means of sav- 
 ing others. He that winneth souls must be wise unto 
 salvation first for himself. 
 
 That being taken for granted, he is a wise man to 
 select such a pursuit. Young man, are you choosing 
 an object worthy to be the great aim of your life? I 
 do hope you will judge wisely, and select a noble 
 ambition. If God has given you great gifts, I hope 
 they will not be wasted on any low, sordid, or selfish 
 design. Suppose I am now addressing one who has " 
 great talents, and has an opportunity of being what he 
 likes, of going into Parliament, and helping to pass 
 great measures, or of going into business, and making 
 himself a man of importance; I hope he will weigh 
 the claims of Jesus and immortal souls as well as other 
 claims. Shall I addict myself to study? Shall I sur- 
 render myself to business? Shall I travel? Shall I 
 spend my time in pleasure? Shall I become the prin- 
 cipal fox-hunter of the county? Shall I lay out my 
 time in promoting political and social reforms? Think 
 them all over; but if you are a Christian man, my dear 
 friend, nothing will equal in enjoyment, in usefulness, 
 in honour, and in lasting recompense the giving your- 
 self up to the winning of souls. Oh, it is grand hunt- 
 ing, I can tell you, and beats all the fox-hunting in the 
 world in excitement and exhilaration! Have I not 
 sometimes gone with a cry over hedge and ditch after 
 
218 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 some poor sinner, and kept well up with him in every 
 twist and turn he took, till I have overtaken him by 
 God's grace, and been in at the death, and rejoiced 
 exceedingly when I have seen him captured by my 
 Master? Our Lord Jesus calls His ministers fisher- 
 men, and no other fishermen have such labour, such 
 sorrow, and such delight as we have. What a happy 
 thing it is that you may win souls for Jesus, and may 
 do this though you abide in your secular callings! 
 Some of you would never win souls in pulpits; it 
 would be a great pity if you tried, but you can win 
 souls in the workshop, and in the laundry, in the 
 nursery, and in the drawing-room. Our hunting 
 grounds are everywhere: by the wayside, by the fire- 
 side, in the corner, and in the crowd. Among the 
 common people Jesus is our theme, and among the 
 great ones we have no other. You will be wise, my 
 brother, if for you the one absorbing desire is that you 
 may turn the ungodly from the error of their ways. 
 For you there will be a crown glittering with many 
 stars, which you shall cast at Jesus' feet in the day of 
 His appearing. 
 
 Further, it is not only wise to make this your aim, 
 but you will have to be very wise if yon succeed in it, 
 because the souls to be won are so different in their 
 constitutions, feelings, and conditions, and you will 
 have to adapt yourselves to them all. The trappers 
 of North America have to find out the habits of the 
 animals they wish to catch, and so you will have to 
 learn how to deal with each class of cases. Some are 
 very depressed, you will have to comfort them. Per- 
 haps you will comfort them too much, and make them 
 unbelieving; and, therefore, possibly, instead of com- 
 forting them, you will need sometimes to administer 
 a sharp word to cure the sulkiness into which they have 
 
THE SOUL-WINNERS LIFE AND WORK. 2UJ 
 
 fallen. Another person may be frivolous, and if you put 
 on a serious face you will frighten your bird away ; you 
 will have to be cheerful, and drop a word of admoni- 
 tion as if by accident. Some people, again, will not 
 let you speak to them, but will talk to you; you must 
 know^ the art of putting a w'ord in edgeways. You will 
 have to be very wise, and become all things to all men, 
 and your success will prove your wisdom. Theories 
 of dealing wath souls may look very wise, but they 
 often prove to be useless when actually tried: he who 
 by God's grace accomplishes the work is a wise man, 
 though perhaps he knows no theory whatever. This 
 work will need all your wdt, and far more, and you will 
 have to cry to the great Winner of souls above to give 
 you of His Holy Spirit. 
 
 But, mark you, he that wdns souls is wise, because 
 he is engaged in a business which makes men wiser 
 as they proceed with it. You will bungle at first, and 
 very likely drive sinners off from Christ by your 
 attempts to draw them to Him. I have tried to 
 move some souls with all my might with a certain 
 passage of Scripture, but they have taken it in an 
 opposite light to what it was intended, and have started 
 off in the wrong direction. It is very dif^cult to know 
 how to act with bewildered enquirers. If you want 
 some people to go forward, you must pull them back- 
 wards. If you want them to go to the right, you must 
 insist upon their going to the left, and then they go 
 to the right directly. You must be ready for these 
 follies of poor human nature. I knew a poor aged 
 Christian woman who had been a child of God 
 fifty years, but she was in a state of melan- 
 choly and distress, from which nobody could arouse 
 her. I called several times, and endeavoured to 
 cheer her up, but generall}' when I left she was 
 
220 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 worse than before. So, the next time I called to see 
 her, I did not say anything to her about Christ or 
 religion. She soon introduced those topics herself, 
 and then I remarked that I was not going to talk to 
 her about such holy things, for she did not know any- 
 thing about them, for she was not a believer in Christ, 
 and had been, no doubt, a hypocrite for many years. 
 She could not stand that, and asserted, in self-defense, 
 that the Lord above knew her better than I did, and He 
 was her witness that she did love the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. She scarcely forgave herself afterwards for 
 that admission, but she could never talk to me quite 
 so despairingl}^ any more. True lovers of men's souls 
 learn the art of dealing with them, and the Holy Spirit 
 makes them expert soul-surgeons for Jesus. It is not 
 because a man has more abilities, nor altogether 
 because he has more grace, but the Lord makes him 
 to love the souls of men intensely, and this imparts 
 a secret skill, since, for the most part, the way to get 
 sinners to Christ is to love them to Christ. 
 
 Beloved brethren, I will say, once more, he who 
 I'eally wins souls for Jestts, however he wins them, is a 
 tvise man. Some of you are slow to admit this. You 
 say, — "Well, So-and-so, I daresay, has been very 
 useful, but he is very rough." What does his rough- 
 ness matter if he wins souls? "Ah!" says another, 
 "but I am not built up under him." Why do you go 
 to hear him to get built up? If the Lord has sent 
 him to pull down, let him pull down, and do you go 
 elsewhere for edification; but do not grumble at a 
 man who does one work because he cannot do an- 
 other. We are also too apt to pit one minister against 
 another, and say, "You should hear my minister." 
 Perhaps we should, but it would be better for you to 
 hear the man who edifies you, and let others go where 
 
THE SOUL-WINNER'S LIFE AND WORK. 221 
 
 they also are instructed. *'He that winneth souls is 
 wise." I do not ask you how he did it. He sang the 
 gospel, and you did not like it; but if he won souls, 
 he was wise. Soul-winners have all their own ways; 
 and if they do but win souls, they are wise. I will tell 
 you what is not wise, and will not be thought so at 
 the last, namely, to go about the churches, doing 
 nothing yourself, and railing at all the Lord's useful 
 servants. 
 
 Here is a dear brother on his dying bed, he has the 
 sweet thought that the Lord enabled him to bring 
 many souls to Jesus, and the expectation when he 
 comes to the gates that many spirits will come to meet 
 h-m. They will throng the ascent to the New Jerusa- 
 lem, and welcome the man who brought them to Jesus. 
 They are immortal monuments to his labours. He is 
 wise. Here is another who has spent all his time in 
 interpreting the prophecies, so that everything he read 
 of in the newspapers he could see in Daniel or the 
 Revelation. He is wise, so some say, but I had rather 
 spend my time in winning souls. I would sooner 
 bring one sinner to Jesus Christ than unpick all the 
 mysteries of the divine Word, for salvation is the thing 
 we are to live for. I would to God that I understood 
 all mysteries, yet chief of all would I proclaim the 
 mystery of soul-saving by faith in the blood of the 
 Lamb. It is comparatively a small matter for a min- 
 ister to have been a staunch upholder of orthodoxy 
 all his days, and to have spent himself in keeping u]) 
 the hedges of his church; soul-winning is the main 
 concern. It is a very good thing to contend earnestly 
 for the faith once delivered to the saints; but I do not 
 think I should like to say in my last account, "Lord, 
 I have lived to fight the Romanists and the State 
 Church, and to put down the various erroneous sects. 
 
222 - THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 but I never led a sinner to the cross." No, we will 
 fight the good fight of faith, but the winning of souls 
 is the greater matter, and he who attends to it is wise. 
 Another brother has preached the truth, but he did so 
 polish up his sermons that the gospel was hidden. 
 Never a sermon was fit to preach, he thought, until 
 he had written it out a dozen times to see whether every 
 sentence would be according to the canons of Cicero 
 and Quintillian, and then he went and delivered the 
 gospel as a grand oration. Is that wise? Well, it 
 takes a wise man to be a thorough orator; but it is 
 better not to be an orator if fine speech prevents your 
 being understood. Let eloquence be flung to the dogs 
 rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win 
 souls, and they are not to be won by flowery speeches. 
 We must have the winning of souls at heart, and be red 
 hot with zeal for their salvation; and then, however 
 much we blunder, according to the critics, we shall be 
 numbered among those whom the Lord calls wise. 
 
 Now, Christian men and women, I want you to take 
 this matter up practically, and to determine that you 
 will try this very night to win a soul. Try the one 
 next to you in the seat if you cannot think of anybody 
 else. Try on the way home; try with your own chil- 
 dren. Have I not told you of what happened one 
 Sunday evening? In my sermon I said, "Now, you 
 mothers, have you ever prayed with each of your 
 children, one by one, and urged them to lay hold on 
 Christ? Perhaps dear Jane is now in bed, and you 
 have never yet pleaded with her about eternal things. 
 Go hom.e to-night, wake her up, and say, ']a.ne, I am 
 sorry I have never told you about the Saviour person- 
 ally, and prayed with you, but I mean to do it now.' 
 Wake her up, and put your arms round her neck, and 
 pour out your heart to God with her." Well, there 
 
THE SOUL- WINNER'S LIFE AND WOTRK. 223 
 
 was a good sister here who had a daughter named 
 fane. What do you think? She came on ?^Ionday to 
 bring her daughter Jane to see me in tlie vestry, for 
 when she woke her up, and began, "I have not spoken 
 to you about Jesus," or something to that effect, "Oh, 
 dear mother!" said Jane, "I have loved the Saviour 
 these six months, and wondered you had not spoken to 
 me about Him;" and then there was great kissing and 
 rejoicing. Perhaps you may find that to be the case 
 with a dear child at home ; and, if you do not, so much 
 the more reason why you should begin at once to 
 speak. Did you never win a soul for Jesus "i* You 
 shall have a crown in heaven, but no jewels in it. You 
 will go to heaven childless; and you know how it was 
 in the old times, how the women dreaded lest they 
 should be childless. Let it be so with Christian people ; 
 let them dread being spiritually childless. We must 
 hear the cries of those wliom God has given to be bom 
 unto himself by our means. We must hear them 
 or else cry out in anguish, "Give me converts, or I die." 
 Young men and old men, and sisters of all ages, if 
 you love the Lord, get a passion for souls. Do you 
 not see them? They arc going down to hell by thou- 
 sands; as often as the hand upon the dial completes 
 its circuit, hell devours multitudes, some of them igno- 
 rant of Christ and others wilfully rejecting Him. The 
 world lies in darkness: this great city still pines for 
 the light: your own friends and kinsfolk are unsaved, 
 and they may be dead ere this week is over. Oh, if you 
 have any humanity, let alone Christianity, if you have 
 found the remedy, tell the diseased about it! If you 
 have found life, proclaim it to the dead; if you have 
 found liberty, publish it to the captives; if you have 
 found Christ, tell of Him to others. ^ly brethren in 
 the College, let this be your choice work while study- 
 
224 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 ing, and let it be the one object of your lives when 
 you go forth from us. Do not be content when you 
 gGt a congregation, but labour to win souls; and as 
 you do this, God will bless you. As for us, we hope 
 during the rest of our lives to follow Him who is T/ie 
 Soul-Winner, and to put ourselves in His hands who 
 maketh us soul-winners, so that our life may not be 
 a long folly, but may be proved by results to have been 
 directed by wisdom. 
 
 O you souls not won to Jesus, remember that faith 
 in Christ saves you! Trust in Him. May you be led 
 to trust in Him, for His name's sake! Amen. 
 
SOUL WINNING EXPLAINED. 
 
'He that winneth souls is wise."— Proverbs xi. 30. 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 
 
 The text does not say, "He that winneth sovereigns 
 is wise," though no doubt he thinks himself wise, and 
 perhaps, in a certain grovelHng- sense, in these days 
 of competition, he must be so; but such wisdom is of 
 the earth, and ends with the earth; and there is an- 
 other world where the currencies of Europe will not 
 be accepted, nor their past possession be any sign of 
 wealth or wisdom. Solomon, in the text before us, 
 awards no crown for wisdom to crafty statesmen, or 
 even to the ablest of rulers; he issues no diplomas even 
 to philosophers, poets or men of wit; he crowns with 
 laurel only those who win souls. He does not declare 
 that he who preaches is necessarily wise; and alas! 
 there are multitudes who preach, and gain much ap- 
 plause and eminence, who win no souls, and who shall 
 find it go hard with them at the last, because in all 
 probability they have nm and the Master has never 
 sent them. Solomon does not say that he who talks 
 about winning souls is wise, since to lay down rules 
 for others is a very simple thing, but to carry them out 
 one's self is far more difificult. He w^ho actually, really 
 and truly turns men from the error of their ways to 
 God, and so is made the means of saving them from 
 going down to hell, is a wise man ; and that is true of 
 him whatever his style of soul-winning may be: He 
 may be a Paul, deeply logical, profound in doctrine, 
 able to conmiand all candid judgments; and if he thus 
 
228 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 wins souls, he is wise. He may be an Apollos, grand- 
 ly rhetorical, whose lofty genius soars into the very 
 heaven of eloquence ; and if he wins souls in that way 
 he is wise, but not otherwise. Or he may be a Cephas, 
 rough and rugged, using uncouth metaphor and stern 
 declamation; but, if he wins souls, he is no less wise 
 than his polished brother or his argumentative friend, 
 but not else. The great wisdom of soul-winners, ac- 
 cording to the text, is proven only by their actual suc- 
 cess in really winning souls. To their own Master they 
 are accountable for the ways in which they go to work, 
 not to us. Do not let us be comparing and contrasting 
 this minister and that. Who art thou that judges an- 
 other man's servants? Wisdom is justified in all her 
 children. Only children wrangle about incidental 
 methods: men look at sublime results. Do these work- 
 ers of many sorts and divers manners win souls? Then 
 they are wise ; and you who criticise them, being your- 
 selves unfruitful, cannot be wise, even though you 
 afifect to be their judges. God proclaims soul-winners 
 to be wise, dispute it who dare. This degree from the 
 College of Heaven may surely stand them in good 
 stead, let their fellow-mortals say what they will of 
 them. 
 
 *'He that winneth souls is wise," and this can be 
 seen very clearly. He must be a wise man in even 
 ordinary respects who can by grace achieve so divine 
 a marvel. Great soul-winners never have been fools. 
 A man whom God qualifies to win souls could prob- 
 ably do anything else which providence might allot 
 him. Take Martin Luther, for instance. Why, sirs, 
 the man was not only fit to work a Reformation, but 
 he could have ruled a nation or have commanded an 
 army! Think of Whiteiield, and remember that the 
 thundering eloquence which stirred all England was 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 229 
 
 not associated with a weak judgment, or an absence 
 of brain-power; the man was a master-orator, and if 
 he had addicted himself to commerce, would have 
 taken a chief place amongst the merchants, or had he 
 been a politician, amid admiring- senates would have 
 commanded the listening ear. He that winneth souls 
 is usually a man who could have done anything else if 
 God had called him to it. I know the Lord uses wdiat 
 means He wills, but He always uses means suitable 
 to the end; and if you tell me that David slew Goliath 
 with a sling, I answer — it was the best w^eapon in the 
 world to reach so tall a giant, and the very fittest 
 weapon that David could have used, for he had been 
 skilled in it from his youth up. There is always an 
 adaptation in the instruments which God uses to pro- 
 duce the ordained result; and though the glory is not 
 to them, nor the excellence in them, but all is to be 
 ascribed to God, yet is there a fitness and preparedness 
 which God seeth, even if we do not. It is assuredly 
 true that soul-winners are by no means idiots or sim- 
 pletons, but such as God maketh wise for Himself, 
 though vain-glorious wise-acres may dub them fools. 
 "He that winneth souls is wise," because he has select- 
 ed a wise object. I think it was Michael Angelo who 
 once carved certain magnificent statues in snow. They 
 are gone; the material readily compacted by the frost 
 as readily melted in the heat. Far wiser was he when 
 he fashioned the enduring marble, and produced works 
 which will last all down the ages. But even marble it- 
 self is consumed and fretted by the tooth of time ; and 
 he is wise who selects for his raw material immortal 
 souls, w^hose existence shall outlast the stars. If God 
 shall bless us to the winning of souls, our w^ork shall re- 
 main when the wood, and hay, and stubble of earth's 
 art and science shall have gone to the dust from which 
 
230 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 they sprang. In heaven itself, the soul-winner, blessed 
 of God, shall have memorials of his work preserved 
 for ever in the galleries of the skies. He has selected a 
 w'ise object, for w^hat can be wiser than to glorify God, 
 and what, next to that, can be wiser than in the highest 
 sense to bless our fellowmen; to snatch a soul from 
 the gulf that yawns, to lift it up to the heaven that 
 glorifies ; to deliver an immortal from the thraldom of 
 Satan, and to bring him into the liberty of Christ? 
 What more excellent than this? I say, that such an aim 
 would commend itself to all right minds, and that 
 angels themselves may envy us poor sons of men that 
 we are permitted to make this our life-object, to win 
 souls for Jesus Christ. Wisdom herself assents to the 
 excellence of the design. 
 
 To accomplish such a work, a man must be wise, 
 for to win a soul requires infinite wdsdoni. God Him- 
 self wins not souls without wisdom, for the eternal 
 plan of salvation was dictated by an infallible judg- 
 ment, and in every line of it infinite skill is apparent. 
 Christ, God's great Soul-Winner, is "the wisdom of 
 God" as well as "the power of God." There is as 
 much wasdom to be seen in the new creation as in the 
 old. In a sinner saved, there is as much of God to be 
 beheld as in a universe rising out of nothing; and we, 
 then, w-ho are to be workers together with God, pro- 
 ceeding side by side with Him to the great work of 
 soul-winning, must be wise, too. It is a work which 
 filled the Saviour's heart, a work which moved the mind 
 of the Eternal Jehovah or ever the earth was. It is 
 no child's play, nor a thing to be achieved while we are 
 half asleep, nor to be attempted without deep consid- 
 eration, nor to be carried on without gracious help from 
 the only-wise God, our Saviour. The pursuit is wise. 
 
 Mark ye well, my brethren, that he who is success- 
 
SOUL-WlNNlNG EXPLAINED. 231 
 
 fill ill soul-winning, will prove to have been a wise man 
 in the judgment of those who see the end as well as 
 the beginning. Even if 1 were utterly selfish, and had 
 no care for anything l)ut my own happiness, I would 
 choose, if I might, under God, to be a soul-winner, 
 for never did 1 know perfect, overflow^ing, unutter- 
 able happiness of the purest and most ennobling order 
 till I first heard of one who had sought and found a 
 Saviour through my means. I recollect the thrill of 
 joy whicii went through me! No young mother ever 
 rejoiced so much over her first-born child, no warrior 
 was so exultant over a hard-won victory. Oh! the joy 
 of knowing that a sinner once at enmity has been recon- 
 ciled to God by the Holy Spirit, through the words 
 spoken by our feeble lips. Since then, by grace given 
 to me, the thought of which prostrates me in self- 
 abasement, I have seen and heard of, not hundreds 
 only, but even thousands of sinners turned from the 
 error of their ways by the testimony of God in me. Let 
 alTflictions come, let trials be multiplied as God willeth, 
 still this joy preponderates above all others, the joy 
 that we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in every 
 place, and that as often as we preach the Word, hearts 
 are unlocked, bosoms heave with a new life, eyes weep 
 for sin, and their tears are wiped aw^ay as they see the 
 great Substitute for sin, and live. 
 
 Beyond all controversy, it is a joy worth worlds to 
 win souls, and, thank God, it is a joy that does not 
 cease with this mortal life. It must be no small bliss 
 to hear, as one wings his flight up to the eternal throne, 
 the wings of others fluttering at one's side towards the 
 same glory, and turning round and questioning them, 
 to hear them say, "We are entering with you through 
 the gates of pearl, you brought us to the Saviour," 
 and to be w^elcomed to the skies bv those who call us 
 
232 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 father in God — father in better bonds than those of 
 earth, father through grace and sire for immortaUty. 
 it will be bliss beyond compare, to meet in yon eternal 
 seats with those begotton of us in Christ Jesus, for 
 whom we travailed in birth, till Christ was formed in 
 them the hope of glory. This is to have many heavens 
 — a heaven in every one won for Christ, according to 
 the Master's promise, "they that turn many to right- 
 eousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever." 
 
 I have said enough, brethren, I trust, to make some 
 of you desire to occupy the position of soul-winners; 
 but before I further address myself to my text, I should 
 like to remind you that the honour does not belong 
 to ministers only; they may take their full share of it, 
 but it belongs to every one of you who have devoted 
 yourselves to Christ: such honour have all the saints. 
 Every man here, every women here, every child here, 
 whose heart is right with God, may be a soul-winner. 
 There is no man placed by God's providence where he 
 cannot do some good. There is not a glow-worm 
 under a hedge but gives a needed light; and there is 
 not a labouring man, a suffering woman, a servant- 
 girl, a chimney-sweeper, or a crossing-sweeper, but 
 has some opportunities for serving God; and what I 
 have said of soul-winners, belongs not to the learned 
 doctor of divinity, or to the eloquent preacher alone, 
 but to you all who are in Christ Jesus. You can each 
 of you, if grace enables you, be thus wise, and win the 
 happiness of turning souls to Christ through the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 I am about to dwell upon my text in this way — 
 *'He that winneth souls is wise;" I shall, first, make 
 that fact stand out a little clearer by explaini?ig the 
 metaphor used ift the text — winning souls; and then, 
 secondly; by giving you some lessons in the matter of 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 233 
 
 sou/-7ainning, through which I trust the conviction 
 will be forced upon each believing mind that the work 
 needs the highest wisdom. 
 
 I. First, LET US CONSIDER THE META- 
 PHOR USED IX THE TEXT: "He that winneth 
 souls is wise." 
 
 We use the word "win" in many ways. It is some- 
 times found in very bad company, in those games of 
 chance, juggling tricks and sleight-of-hand, or thimble- 
 rigging (to use a plain word), by which sharpers are 
 so fond of winning. I am sorry to say that much of 
 legerdemain and trickery are to be met with in the 
 religious world. Why, there are those who pretend to 
 save souls by curious tricks, intricate manoeuvres, and 
 dexterous posture-making! A basin of water, half-a- 
 dozen drops, certain syllables — heigh, presto! — the in- 
 fant is made a child of God, a member of Christ, and 
 an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ! This aqueous 
 regeneration surpasses my belief; it is a trick which I 
 do not understand: the initiated only can perform the 
 beautiful piece of magic, which excels anything ever 
 attempted by the Wizard of the North. There is a 
 way, too, of winning souls by laying hands upon heads, 
 only the elbows of the aforesaid hands must be en- 
 cased in lawn, and then the machinery acts, and there 
 is grace conferred by blessed fingers! I must confess 
 I do not understand the occult science, but at this 
 I need not wonder, for the profession of saving souls 
 by such juggling can only be carried out by certain 
 favoured persons who have received apostolical suc- 
 cession direct from Judas Iscariot. This episcopal 
 confirmation, when men pretend that it confers grace, 
 is an infamous piece of juggling. The whole thing is 
 
234 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 an abomination. Only to think that, in this nineteenth 
 century, there should be men who preach up salva- 
 tion by sacraments, and salvation by themselves, for- 
 sooth! Why, sirs, it is surely too late in the day to 
 come to us with this drivel! Priestcraft, let us hope, 
 is an anachronism, and the sacramental theory out of 
 date. These things might have done for those who 
 could not read, and in the days when books were 
 scarce ; but ever since the day when the glorious Luther 
 was helped by God to proclaim with thunder-claps the 
 emancipating truth, *'By grace are ye saved through 
 faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of 
 God," there has been too much light for these Popish 
 owls. Let them go back to their ivy-mantled towers, 
 and complain to the moon of those who spoiled of old 
 their kingdom of darkness. Let shaven crowns go to 
 Bedlam and scarlet hats to the scarlet harlot, but let 
 not Englishmen yield them respect, ^lodern Tractar- 
 ianism is a bastard Poper};, too mean, too shifty, too 
 double-dealing to delude men of honest minds. If 
 we win souls, it shall be by other arts than Jesuits and 
 shavelings can teach us. Trust not in any man who 
 pretends to priesthood. Priests are liars by trade, and 
 deceivers by profession. \\'e cannot save souls in their 
 theatrical way. and do not want to do so, for we know 
 that with such juggler}^ as that Satan will hold the best 
 hand, and laugh at priests as he turns the cards against 
 them at the last. 
 
 How do we win souls, then? Why, the word '*win" 
 has a better meaning far. It is used in warfare. War- 
 riors win cities and provinces. Now, to win a soul 
 is a much more difficult thing than to win a city. Ob- 
 ser\^e the earnest soul-winner at his work; how cau- 
 tiously he seeks his great Captain's directions to know 
 when to hang^ out the white flag to invite the heart to 
 
SOUL-WlNNlNG EXPLAINED. 235 
 
 surrender to the sweet love of a dying Saviour; when, 
 at the proper time, to hang out the black flag of threat- 
 ening, showing that, if grace be not received, judg- 
 ment will surely follow; and when to unfurl, with dread 
 reluctance, the red flag of the terrors of God against 
 stubborn, impenitent souls. The soul-winner has to sit 
 down before a soul as a great captain before a walled 
 town; to draw his lines of circumvallation, to cast up 
 his entrenchments, and fix his batteries. He must not 
 advance too fast, or he may overdo the fighting; he 
 must not move too slowly, or he may seem not to be in 
 earnest, and may do mischief. Then he must know 
 which gate to attack — how to plant his guns at Ear- 
 gate, and how to discharge them; how, sometimes, to 
 keep the batteries going day and night with red-hot 
 shot, if perhaps he may make a breach in the walls; at 
 other times, to lie by and cease firing, and then, on a 
 sudden, to open all the batteries with terrific violence, 
 if peradventure he may take the soul by surprise, or cast 
 in a truth when it was not expected, to burst like a 
 shell in the soul, and do damage to the dominions of 
 sin. The Christian soldier must know how to advance 
 by little and little — to sap that prejudice, to undermine 
 that old enmity, to blow into the air that lust, and at 
 the last, to storm the citadel. It is his to throw the scal- 
 ing ladder up,, and to have his ears gladdened as he 
 hears a clicking on the wall of the heart, telling that the 
 scaling ladder has grasped and has gained firm hold: 
 and then, with his sabre between his teeth, to climb 
 up, spring on the man. slay his unbelief in the name 
 of God, capture the city, run up the blood-red flag of 
 the cross of Christ, and say, "The heart is won, won 
 for Christ at last." This needs a warrior well-trained, 
 a master in his art. After many days' attack, man\ 
 weeks of waiting, many an hour of storming by pray- 
 
236 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 er and battering by entreaty, to carry the Malakoff of 
 depravity, this is the work, this is the difficulty. It 
 takes no fool to do this. God's grace must make a man 
 wise thus to capture Mansoul, to lead its captivity, 
 captive, and open wide the heart's gates that the Prince 
 Immanuel may come in. This is winning a soul. 
 
 The word "win" was commonly used among the 
 ancients, to signify winning in the wrestling ?naich. 
 When the Greek sought to win the laurel, or the ivy 
 crown, he was compelled a long time before to put 
 himself through a course of training; and when he 
 came forth at last stripped for the encounter, he had 
 no sooner exercised himself in the first few efforts 
 than you saw how every muscle and every nerve had 
 been developed in him. He had a stern opponent, and 
 he knew it, and therefore left none of his energy un- 
 used. While the wrestling was going on, you could see 
 the man's eye, how he watched every motion, every 
 feint of his antagonist, and how his hand, his foot, and 
 his whole body were thrown into the encounter. He 
 feared to meet with a fall: he hoped to give one to his 
 foe. Now, a true soul-winner has often to come to 
 close quarters with the devil within men. He has to 
 struggle with their prejudice, with their love of sin, 
 with their unbelief, with their pride, and then again, 
 all of a sudden, to grapple with their despair; at one 
 moment he strives with their self-righteousness, at the 
 next moment with their unbelief in God. Ten thou- 
 sand arts are used to prevent the soul-winner from be- 
 ing conqueror in the encounter; but if God has sent 
 him, he will never renounce his hold of the soul he 
 seeks till he has given a throw to the power of sin, and 
 won another soul for Christ. 
 
 Besides that, there is another meaning to the word 
 "win" upon which I cannot expatiate here. We use 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 237 
 
 the word, you know, in a softer sense than these which 
 have been mentioned, when we come to deal with 
 hearts. There are secret and mysterious ways by which 
 those who love win the object of their affection, whicli 
 are wise in their fitness to the purpose. I cannot tell 
 you how the lover wins his fond one, but experience 
 has probably taught you. The weapon of this warfare 
 is not always the same, yet where that victory is won 
 the wisdom of the means becomes clear to every eye. 
 The weapon of love is sometimes a look, or a soft 
 word whispered and eagerly listened to; sometimes it 
 is a tear; but this I know, that we have, most of us 
 in our turn, cast around another heart a chain which 
 that other would not care to break, and which has 
 linked us twain in a blessed captivity which has cheered 
 our life. Yes, and that is very nearly the way in which 
 we have to save souls. That illustration is nearer the 
 mark than any of the others. Love is the true way 
 of soul-winning, for when I spoke of storming the 
 walls, and when I spoke of wrestling, those were but 
 metaphors, but this is near the tact. We win by love. 
 We win hearts for Jesus by love, by sympathy with their 
 sorrow, by anxiety lest they should perish, by plead- 
 ing with God for them with all our hearts that they 
 should not be left to die unsaved, by pleading with 
 them for God that, for tlieir own sake, they would seek 
 mercy and find grace. Yes, sirs, there is a spiritual 
 wooing and wining of hearts for the Lord Jesus; and 
 if you would learn the way, you must ask God to give 
 you a tender heart and sympathising soul. I believe 
 that much of the secret of soul-winning lies in having 
 bowels of compassion, in having spirits that can be 
 touched with the feeling of human infirmities. Carve 
 a preacher out of granite, and even if you give him 
 an angel's tongue, he will convert nobody. Put him 
 
238 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 into the most fashionable pulpit, make his elocution 
 faultless, and his matter profoundly orthodox, but so 
 long as he bears within his bosom a hard heart he can 
 never win a soul. Soul-saving requires a heart that 
 beats hard against the ribs. It requires a soul full of the 
 miik of human kindness; this is the sine ijua 71071 of 
 success. This is the chief natural qualification for a 
 soul-winner, which, under God, and blessed of Him, 
 will accomplish wonders. 
 
 I have not looked at the Hebrew of the text, but I 
 find — and you who have marginal references to your 
 Bibles will find — that it is, "He that /^^^M souls is 
 wise," which word refers to fishing, or to bird-catching. 
 Every Sunday, when I leave my house, as I come 
 along, I cannot help seeing men, with their cages and 
 their captive birds, tr^-ing all around the common, and 
 in the fields, to catch poor little warblers. They under- 
 stand the method of alluring and entrapping their vic- 
 tims. Soul-winners might learn much from them. We 
 must have our lures for souls, adapted to attract, to fas- 
 cinate, to grasp. We must go forth with our bird-lime, 
 our decoys, our nets, our baits, so that we may but 
 catch the souls of men. Their enemy is a fowler pos- 
 sessed of the basest and most astounding cunning; 
 we must outwit him with the guile of honesty, the craft 
 of grace. But the art is to be learned only by divine 
 teaching, and herein we must be wise and willing to 
 learn. 
 
 The man who takes fish must also have some art 
 in him. Washington Irving, I think it is, tells us of 
 some three gentlemen who had read in Izaak Walton 
 all about the delights of fishing. So they must needs 
 enter upon the same amusement, and accordingly they 
 became disciples of the gentle art. They went into New 
 York and bought the best rods and lines that could be 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 239 
 
 purchased, and they found out the exact fly for the par- 
 ticular day or month, so that the fish might bite at 
 once, and, as it were, fly into the basket with alacrity. 
 They fished, and fished, and fished the live-long day; 
 but the basket was empty. They were getting disgusted 
 with a sport that had no sport in it, when a ragged boy 
 came down from tlie hills, without shoes or stockings, 
 and humiliated them to the last degree. He had a bit 
 of a bough pulled of? a tree, and a piece of string, and 
 a bent pin ; he put a worm on it, threw it in, and out 
 came a fish directly, as if it were a needle drawn to a 
 magnet. In again went the line, and out came an- 
 other fish, and so on, till his 'basket was quite full. 
 They asked him how he did it. Ah! he said, he could 
 not tell them that, but it w-as easy enough when you 
 had the way of it. 
 
 Much the same is it in fishing for men. Some 
 preachers who have silk lines and fine rods, preach 
 very eloquently and exceedingly gracefully, but they 
 never win souls. I know not how it is, but another 
 man comes, with ver>' simple language, but with a 
 warm heart, and, straightway, men are converted to 
 God. Surely there must be a sympathy between the 
 minister and the souls he would win. God gives to 
 those whom He makes soul-winners a natural love to 
 their work and a spiritual fitness for it. There is a sym- 
 pathy between those who are to be blessed and those 
 who are to be the means of blessing, and very much 
 by this sympathy, under God, souls are taken; but 
 it is as clear as noonday that, to be a fisher of men a 
 man must be wise, "He that winneth souls is wise." 
 
 n. And now, brethren and sisters, you who are 
 engaged in the Lord's work from week to week, and 
 who seek to win men's souls to Christ. I am. in the 
 second place, to illustrate this by telling you of 
 
240 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 SOME OF THE WAYS BY WHICH SOULS 
 ARE TO BE WON. 
 
 The preacher himself wins souls best, I believe, when 
 he believes in the reality of his work — when he believes 
 in instantaneous conversions. How can he expect God 
 to do what he does not believe God will do? He suc- 
 ceeds best who expects conversion every time he 
 preaches. According to his faith so shall it be done 
 unto him. To be content without conversions, is the 
 surest way never to have them ; to drive with a single 
 aim entirely at the saving of souls, is the surest method 
 of usefulness. If we sigh and cry till men are saved, 
 saved they will be. 
 
 He will succeed best who keeps closest to soul- saving 
 truth. Now, all truth is not soul-saving, though all 
 truth may be edifying. He that keeps to the simple 
 story of the cross, tells men over and over again that 
 whosoever believeth in Christ is not condemned, that 
 to be saved, nothing is wanted but a simple trust in 
 the crucified Redeemer; he whose ministry is much 
 made up of the glorious story of the cross, the suffer- 
 ings of the dying Lamb, the mercy of God, the will- 
 ingness of the great Father to receive returning prodi- 
 gals; he who cries, in fact, from day to day, ''Behold 
 the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
 world," he is likely to be a soul-winner, especially if 
 he adds to this much prayer for souls, much anxious 
 desire that men may be brought to Jesus, and then in 
 his private life seeks as much as in his public minis- 
 try to be telling out to others of the love of the dear 
 Saviour of men. 
 
 But I am not talking to ministers, but to you who 
 sit in the pew, and therefore to you let me turn myself 
 more directly. Brothers and sisters, you have different 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 241 
 
 gifts. 1 hope you use them ah. Perhaps some of you. 
 though members of the church, think you have none; 
 but every believer has his gift, and his portion of work. 
 What can you do to win souls? 
 
 Let me recommend to those who think they can do 
 nothing, the brhiging of others to hear the lVor(f. 
 That is a duty much neglected. I can hardly ask you 
 to bring anybody here, but many of you attend other 
 places which are not perhaps half filled. Fill them. 
 Do not grumble at the small congregation, but make 
 it larger. Take somebody with you to the very next 
 sermon, and at once the congregation will be increased. 
 Go up with the prayer that your minister's sermon 
 may be blessed, and if you cannot yourselves preach, 
 yet, by bringing others under the sound of the Word, 
 you may be doing what is next best. This is a very 
 common-place and simple remark, but let me press it 
 upon you, for it is of great practical value. Many 
 churches and chapels, which are almost empty, might 
 soon have large audiences if those who profit by the 
 Word would tell others about the blessing they have 
 received, and induce them to attend the same ministry. 
 Especially in this London of ours, where so many 
 will not go up to the house of God, persuade your 
 neighbours to come forth to the place of worship; 
 look after them, make them feel that it is a wrong 
 thing to stop at home on the Sunday from morning 
 till night. I do not say upbraid them, that does little 
 good ; but I do say entice them, persuade them. Let 
 them have your tickets for the Tabernacle, for instance, 
 sometimes, or stand in the aisles yourself, and let them 
 have your seat. Get them under the Word, and who 
 knoweth what may be the result? Oh, what a bless- 
 ing it would be to you if you heard that what you 
 could not do — for you could scarcely speak for Christ 
 
242 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 — was done by your pastor, by the power of the Holy 
 Spirit, through your inducing one to come within gun- 
 shot of the gospel ! 
 
 Next to that, soul-winners, try after sermon to talk 
 to strangers. The preacher may. have missed the mark, 
 but you need not miss it; or the preacher may have 
 struck the mark, and you can help to make the im- 
 pression deeper by a kind word. I recollect several 
 persons joining the church who traced their conver- 
 sion to the ministry in the Surrey Music Hall, but who 
 said it was not that alone, but another agency co-oper- 
 ating therewith. They were fresh from the country, 
 and some good man — I knew him well, I think he is irl 
 heaven now — met them at the gate, spoke to them, said 
 he hoped they had enjoyed what they had heard, heard 
 their answer, asked them if they were coming in the 
 evening, said he would be glad if they would drop into 
 his house to tea; they did, and he had a word with 
 them about the Master. The next Sunday it was the 
 same, and at last, those whom the sermons had not 
 much impressed, were brought to hear with other ears, 
 till by-and-by, through the good old man's persuasive 
 words, and the good Lord's gracious work, they were 
 converted to God. There is a fine hunting ground here, 
 and indeed in every large congregation, for you who 
 really want to do good. How many come into this 
 house every morning and evening with no thought 
 about receiving Christ! Oh, if you would all help me, 
 you who love the Master, if you would all help me 
 by speaking to your neighbours who sit near to you, 
 how much might be accomplished! Never let any- 
 body say, "I came to the Tabernacle three months, 
 and nobody spoke to me;" but do, by a sweet famil- 
 iarity, which ought always to be allowable in the house 
 of God, seek with your whole heart to impress upon 
 
SOUL-WINNING EXPLAINED. 243 
 
 your friends the truth which I can only put into the 
 ear, but which God may help you to put into the heart. 
 Further, let me commend to you, dear friends; the 
 art of button-holing acquaintances and relatives. If 
 you cannot preach to a hundred, preach to one. Get 
 a hold of the man alone, and in love, quietly and pray- 
 erfully, talk to him. "One!" say you. Well, is not 
 one enough? I know your ambition, young man; you 
 want to preach here, to these thousands; be content, 
 and begin with the ones. Your Master was not 
 ashamed to sit on the well and preach to one; and 
 when He had finished His sermon. He had really done 
 good work to the whole city of Sychar, for that one 
 woman became a missionary to her friends. Timidity 
 often prevents our being useful in this direction, but 
 we must not give way to it; it must not be tolerated 
 that Christ should be unknown through our silence, and 
 sinners unwarned through our negligence. We must 
 school and train ourselves to deal personally with the 
 unconverted. We must not excuse ourselves, but force 
 ourselves to the irksome task till it becomes easy. This 
 is one of the most honourable modes of soul-winning; 
 and if it requires more than ordinary zeal and courage, 
 so much the more reason for our resolving to master 
 it. Beloved, we must win souls, we cannot live and 
 see men damned; we must have them brought to Jesus. 
 Oh ! then, be up and doing, and let none around you die 
 unwarned, unwept, uncared-for. A tract is a useful 
 thing, but a living word is better. Your eye, and face, 
 and voice will all help. Do not be so cowardly as to 
 give a piece of paper where your own speech would 
 be so much better. I charge you, attend to this, for 
 Jesus' sake. 
 
 Some of you could write letters for your Lord and 
 Master. To far-ofif friends, a few loving lines may be 
 
244 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 iiKJst influential for good. Be like the men of Issa- 
 char, who handled the pen. Paper and ink are never 
 better used than in soul-winning. Much has been done 
 by this method. Could not you do it? Will you not 
 try? Some of you, at any rate, if you could not speak 
 or write much, .could live much. That is a fine way 
 of preaching, that of preaching with your feet — I mean 
 preaching by your life, and conduct, and conversation. 
 That loving wife, who weeps in secret over an infidel 
 husband, but is always so kind to him ; that dear child, 
 whose heart is broken by his father's blasphemy, but 
 is so much more obedient than he used to be before 
 conversion; that servant, at whom the master swears, 
 but whom he could trust with his purse, and the gold 
 uncounted in it; that man in trade, who is sneered at 
 as a Presbyterian, but who, nevertheless, is straight as 
 a line, and would not be compelled to do a dirty action, 
 no, not for all the mint; these are the men and women 
 who preach the best sermons; these are your practi- 
 cal preachers. Give us your holy living, and with your 
 holy living as the leverage, we will move the world. 
 Under God's blessing, we will find tongues if we can, 
 but we greatly need the lives of our people to illus- 
 trate what our tongues have to say. The gospel is 
 something like an illustrated paper. The preacher's 
 words are the letterpress, but the pictures are the liv- 
 ing men and women who form our churches; and 
 as when people take up such a newspaper, they very 
 often do not read the letterpress, but they always look 
 at the pictures, so in a church, outsiders may not come 
 to hear the preacher, but they always consider, observe 
 and criticise the lives of the members. If you would be 
 soul-winners, then, dear brethren and sisters, see that 
 you live the gospel. I have no greater joy than this, 
 that mv children walk in the truth. 
 
SOL'L-WINNING EXPLAINED. 245 
 
 One thing more, the soul-winner must be a master of 
 the art of prayer. You cannot bring souls to God if 
 you go not to God yourself. You must get your bat- 
 tle-axe, and your weapons of war, from the armoury 
 of sacred communication with Christ. If you are mucli 
 alone with Jesus, you will catch His Spirit; you will 
 be fired with the flame that burned in His breast, and 
 consumed His life. You will weep with the tears that 
 fell upon Jerusalem when He saw it perishing; and 
 if you cannot speak so eloquently as He did, yet shall 
 there be about what you say somewhat of the same 
 power which in Him thrilled the hearts and awoke the 
 consciences of men. My dear hearers, especially you 
 members of the church, I am always so anxious lest 
 any of you should begin to lie upon your oars, and 
 take things easy in the matters of God's kingdom. 
 There are some of you — I bless you, and I bless God 
 at the remembrance of you — who are in season, and 
 out of season, in earnest for winning souls, and you 
 are the truly wise; but I fear there are others whose 
 hands are slack, who are satisfied to let me preach, but 
 do not themselves preach; who take these seats, and 
 occupy these pews, and hope the cause goes well, but 
 that is all they do. Oh, do let me see you all in earn- 
 est! A great host of nearly five thousand members, 
 what ought we not to do if we are all alive, and all 
 in earnest? But such a host, without the spirit of en- 
 thusiasm, becomes a mere mob, an unwieldy mass, out 
 of which mischief grows, and no good results arise. 
 If you were all firebrands for Chnst, you might set the 
 nation on a blaze. If you were all wells of living water, 
 how many thirsty souls might drink and be refreshed! 
 
 Beloved, there is one question I will ask, and I have 
 done, and that is, Are your own souls won? You can- 
 not win others else. Are you yourselves saved? My 
 
246 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 hearers, every one of you, under that gallery there, and 
 you behind here, are you yourselves saved? What if 
 this night you should have to answer that question 
 to another and greater than I am? What if the bony 
 finger of the last great orator should be uplifted in- 
 stead of mine? What if his unconquerable eloquence 
 should turn those bones to stone, and glaze those eyes, 
 and make the blood chill in your veins? Could you 
 hope, in your last extremity, that you were saved? If 
 not saved, how will you ever be? When will you be 
 saved if not now? Will any time be better than now? 
 The way to be saved is simply to trust in what the Son 
 of man did when He became man, and suffered pun- 
 ishment for all those who trust Him. For all His peo- 
 ple, Christ was a Substitute. His people are those who 
 trust Him. If you trust Him, He was punished for 
 your sins; and you cannot be punished for them, for 
 God cannot punish sin twice, first in Christ, and then 
 in you. If you trust Jesus, who now liveth at the right 
 hand of God, you are this moment pardoned, and you 
 shall for ever be saved. Oh, that you would trust Him 
 now! Perhaps it may be now or never with you. May 
 it be now, even now, and then, trusting in Jesus, dear 
 friends, you will have no need to hesitate when the 
 question is asked, "Are you saved?'' for you can an- 
 swer, "Ay, that I am, for it is written, 'He that be- 
 lieveth in Him is not condemned.' " Trust Him, then, 
 trust Him now; and then God help you to be a soul- 
 winner, and you shall be wise, and God shall be glori- 
 fied! 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 
 
'I am made all things to all men,, that I might by all means 
 save some." — I Corinthians ix. 22. 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUS- 
 INESS. 
 
 It is a grand thing to sec a man thoroughly pos- 
 sessed with one master-passion. Such a man is sure 
 to be strong, and if the master-principle be excellent, 
 he is sure to be excellent, too. The man of one object 
 is a man indeed. Lives with many aims are like watei' 
 trickling through innumerable streams, none of which 
 are wide enough or deep enough to float the merest 
 cockleshell of a boat; but a life with one object is like 
 a mighty river flowing between its banks, bearing to 
 the ocean a multitude of ships, and spreading fertility 
 on either side. Give me a man not only with a great 
 object in his soul, but thoroughly possessed by it, his 
 powers all concentrated, and himself on fire with vehe- 
 ment zeal for his supreme object, and you have put 
 before me one of the greatest sources of power wliich 
 the world can produce. Give me a man engrossed with 
 holy love as to his heart, and filled with some master- 
 ly celestial thought as to his brain, and such a man 
 will be known wherever his lot may be cast, and I 
 venture to prophesy that his name will be remembered 
 long after the place of his sepulchre shall be forgotten. 
 
 Such a man was Paul. I am not about to set him 
 upon a pedestal, that you may look at him and wonder, 
 much less that you may kneel down and worship him 
 as a saint. I mention Paul, because what he was we 
 ought every one of us to be; and though we cannot 
 
250 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 share in his office, not being apostles ; though we can- 
 not share in his talents or in his inspiration, yet we 
 ought to be possessed by the same spirit which actu- 
 ated him, and let me also add we ought to be pos- 
 sessed by it in the same degree. Do you demur to 
 that? I ask you what there was in Paul, by the grace 
 of God, which may not be in you, and what had Jesus 
 done for Paul more than for you? He was divinely 
 changed; and so have you been if you have passed 
 from darkness into marvellous light. He had much 
 forgiven; and so have you also been freely pardoned. 
 He was redeemed by the blood of the Son of God; and 
 so have you been — at least, so you profess to have 
 been. He was filled with the Spirit of God ; and so are 
 you, if you are truly such as your Christian profession 
 makes you out to be. Owing, then, your salvation to 
 Christ, being debtors to the precious blood of Jesus, 
 and being quickened by the Holy Spirit, I ask you why 
 there should not be the same fruit from the same sow- 
 ing? Why not the same efifect from the same cause? 
 Do not tell me that the apostle was an exception, and 
 cannot be set up as a rule or model for commoner folk, 
 for I shall have to tell you that we must be such as 
 Paul was if we hope to be where Paul is. Paul did not 
 think that he had attained, neither that he was already 
 perfect. Shall we think him to be so — so think him 
 to be so as to regard him as inimitable, and so be 
 content to fall short of what he was? Nay, verily, but 
 let it be our incessant prayer, as believers in Christ, 
 that we may be followers of him so far as he followed 
 Christ, and wherein he failed to set his feet in his Lord's 
 footprints may we even outstrip him, and be more zeal- 
 ous, more devoted to Christ than even the apostle of 
 the Gentiles was. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would bring 
 us to be like our Lord Jesus Himself! 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 251 
 
 At this time, I shall have to speak to you upon 
 VdiuVs great odjcif in life; he tells us it was to *'save 
 some"; we will then look into Paul's heart and show 
 you a few of the great reasons which made him think it 
 so important that some at least should be saved; then, 
 thirdly, we will indicate certain of the means 7uhich 
 the apostle used to that end; and all with this view, that 
 you, my dear hearers, may seek to "save some;" that 
 you may seek this because of potent reasons which 
 you cannot withstand, and that you may seek it with 
 wise methods such as shall in the end succeed. 
 
 I. First, then, brethren, WHAT WAS PAUL'S 
 GREAT OBJECT IN HIS DAILY LIFE AXD 
 MINISTRY? He says it was, to save some. 
 
 There are ministers of Christ present at this hour, 
 together with City missionaries, Bible-women, Sunday- 
 school teachers, and other workers in my Master's 
 vineyard, and I make bold to enquire of each one of 
 them — Is this your object in all your Christian service? 
 Do you above all things aim at saving souls? I am 
 afraid that some have forgotten this grand object; 
 but, dear friends, anything short of this is unworthy 
 to be the great end of a Christian's life. I fear there 
 are some who preach with the view of amusing men; 
 and as long as people can be gathered in crowds, and 
 their ears can be tickled, and they can retire pleased 
 with what they have heard, the orator is content, and 
 folds his hands and goes back self-satisfied. But Paul 
 did not lay himself out to please the public, and col- 
 lect the crowd. If he did not save them, he felt that 
 it was of no avail to interest them. Unless the truth 
 had pierced their hearts, affected their lives, and made 
 new men of them, Paul would have gone home crying, 
 "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the 
 arm of the Lord revealed?" 
 
 V 
 
252 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 It seems to be the opinion of a large party in the 
 present day that the object of Christian efifort should 
 be to educate men. I grant you that education is in 
 itself an exceedingly valuable thing, so valuable that I 
 am sure the whole Christian Church rejoices greatly 
 that at last we have a national system of education, 
 which only needs to be carefully carried out and every 
 child in this land will have the keys of knowledge in 
 his hand. Whatever other price others may set upon 
 ignorance, we are promoters of knowledge, and the 
 more it can be spread the better shall we be pleased. 
 But if the Church of God thinks that it is sent into the 
 world merely to train the mental faculties, it has made 
 a very serious mistake, for the object of Christianity 
 is not to educate men for their secular callings, or even 
 to train them in the politer arts, or the more elegant 
 professions, or to enable them to enjoy the beauties of 
 nature or the charms of poetry. Jesus Christ came 
 not into the world for any of these things, but He 
 came to seek and to save that which was lost; and on 
 the same errand has He sent His Church, and she is 
 a traitor to the Master who sent her if she is beguiled 
 by the beauties of taste and art to forget that to preach 
 Christ and Him crucified is the only object for which 
 she exists among the sons of men. The business of 
 the church is salvation. The minister is to use all means 
 to save some ; he is no minister of Christ if this be not 
 the one desire of his heart. Missionaries sink far be- 
 low their level when they are content to civilize ; their 
 first object is to save. The same is true of the Sunday- 
 school teacher, and of all other workers among chil- 
 dren ; if they have merely taught the child to read, to 
 repeat hymns, and so forth, they have not yet touched 
 their true vocation. We must have the children saved. 
 At this nail we must drive, and the hammer must come 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 253 
 
 down upon this head always — that we might by all 
 means save some, for we have done nothing unless 
 some are saved. 
 
 Paul does not even say that he tried to moralize 
 men. The best promoter of morality is the gospel. 
 When a man is saved, he becomes moral; he becomes 
 more, he becomes holy. But to aim first at morality 
 is altogether to miss the mark ; and if we did attain it — 
 as we shall not — yet we should not have attained that 
 for which we were sent into the world. Dr. Chalmers' 
 experience is a very valuable one to those who think 
 that the Christian ministry ought to preach up mere 
 morality, for he says that in his first parish he 
 preached morality, and saw no good whatever arising 
 out of his exhortations. But, as soon as he began to 
 preach Christ crucified, then there was a buzz, and a 
 stir, and much opposition, but grace prevailed. He 
 who wishes for perfumes must grow the flowers; he 
 who desires to promote morality must have men saved. 
 He who wants motion in a corpse should first seek 
 life for it, and he who desires to see a rightly-ordered 
 life should first desire an inward renewal by the Holy 
 Spirit. We are not to be satisfied when we have taught 
 men their duties towards their neighbours, or even 
 their duties towards God ; this would suffice for Moses, 
 but not for Christ. The law came by Moses, but grace 
 and truth came by Jesus Christ. We teach men what 
 they ought to be, but we do far more; by the power 
 of the gospel, applied by the Holy Ghost, we make 
 them what they ought to be by the power of God's 
 Spirit. We put not before the blind the things that 
 they ought to see, but w^e open their eyes in the name 
 of Jesus. We tell not the captive how free he ought 
 to be, but we open the door and take away his 
 fetters. We are not content to tell men what they 
 
254 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 must be, but we show them how this character can be 
 obtained, and how Jesus Christ freely presents all that 
 is essential to eternal life to all those who come and put 
 their trust in Him. 
 
 Now observe, brethren, if I, or you, or any of us, 
 or all of us, shall have spent our lives merely in amus- 
 ing men, or educating men, or moralizing men, when 
 we shall come to give in our account at the last great 
 day, we shall be in a very sorry condition, and we shall 
 have but a very sorry record to render; for of what 
 avail will it be to a man to be educated when he comes 
 to be damned? Of what service will it be to him to 
 have been amused when the trumpet sounds, and 
 heaven and earth are shaking, and the pit opens wide 
 her jaws of fire, and swallows up the soul unsaved? 
 Of what avail even to have moralized a man if still he 
 is on the left hand of the Judge, and if still, ''Depart, 
 ye cursed," shall be his portion? Blood-red with the 
 murder of men's souls will be the skirts of professing 
 Christians, unless the drift, and end, and aim of all 
 their work has been to "save some." Oh! I beseech 
 you, especially you, dear friends, who are working in 
 Sunday and Ragged Schools, and elsewhere, do not 
 think that you have done anything unless the chil- 
 dren's souls are saved. Settle it that this is the top and 
 bottom of the business, and throw your whole strength 
 in the name of Christ, and by the power of the Eternal 
 Spirit, into this object — if by any means you may save 
 some and bring some to Jesus that they may be deliv- 
 ered from the wrath to come. 
 
 What did Paul mean by saying that he desired to 
 save some? What is it to be saved? Paul meant by 
 that nothing less than that some should be born again; 
 for no man is saved until he is made a new creature in 
 Christ Jesus. The old nature cannot be saved; it is 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 255 
 
 (lead and corrupt; the best thing that can be done with 
 it is to let it be crucified, and buried in the sepulchre 
 of Christ. There must be a new nature implanted in us 
 by the power of the Holy Ghost, or we cannot be saved. 
 We must be as much new creations as if wt had never 
 been; we must come a second time as fresh from the 
 hand of the Eternal God as if we had been to-day 
 moulded by divine wisdom as Adam was in Paradise. 
 The great Teacher's words are, 'The wind bloweth 
 where it listeth. and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
 canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it gcjeth: 
 so is every one that is born of the Spirit." "Except a 
 man be born again (from above), he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God." This, then, Paul meant, that men 
 must be new creatures in Christ Jesus, that we may 
 never rest till we see such a change wrought upon them. 
 This must be the object of our teaching, and of our 
 praying, indeed, the object of our lives, that "some" 
 may be regenerated. 
 
 He meant, beside that, tluit soiiw //lix/it be cleansed 
 from their past ifiiquity t/irt'itj^/i inc merit of the ato?i- 
 ing sacrifice of the Son of God. No man can be saved 
 from his sin except by the atonement. Under the Jew- 
 ish law it was written, "Cursed is every one that con- 
 tinueth not in all things that are written in the book 
 of the law to do them." That curse has never been 
 reversed, and the only way to escape from it is this: 
 Jesus Christ was made a curse for us, as it is written. 
 "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Xow, 
 he who believes in Jesus, who puts his hand upon the 
 head of Jesus of Nazareth, the Scapegoat of His peo- 
 ple, has lost his sins. His faith is sure evidence that 
 his iniquities were of old laid upon the head of the great 
 Substitute. The Lord Jesus Christ was punished in our 
 room, and we are no longer obnoxious to the wrath 
 
256 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 of God. Behold, the sin-atoning sacrifice is slain, and 
 ofifered on tlie altar, and the Lord has accepted it, and 
 is so well pleased that he has declared that whosoever 
 believeth in Jesus is fully and eternally forgiven. Now, 
 we long to see men thus forgiven. We pine to bring 
 the prodigal's head into the Father's bosom, the wan- 
 dering sheep to the good Shepherd's shoulder, the lost 
 piece of money into the Owner's hands ; and until this 
 is done, nothing is done, I mean, brethren, nothing 
 spiritually, nothing eternally, nothing that is worthy of 
 the agony of a Christian's life, nothing that can be 
 looked upon as deserving of an immortal spirit's spend- 
 ing all its fires upon it. O Lord, our soul yearns to see 
 Jesus rewarded by the salvation of the blood-bought! 
 Aid us by Thine efifectual grace to lead souls to Him. 
 
 Once more, when the apostle wished that he might 
 save some, he meant that, being regenerated, and be- 
 ing pardoned, they might also be purified a?id made 
 holy, for a man is not saved while he lives in sin. Let 
 a man say what he will, he cannot be saved from sin 
 whilst he is the slave of it. How is a drunkard saved 
 from drunkenness whilst he still riots as before? How 
 can you say that the swearer is saved from blasphemy 
 while he is still profane? Words must be used in their 
 true meaning. Now, the great object of the Christian's 
 work should be that some might be saved from their 
 sins, purified, and made white, and made examples of 
 integrity, chastity, honesty and righteousness, as the 
 fruit of the Spirit of God; and where this is not the 
 case, we have laboured in vain, and spent our strength 
 for nought. 
 
 Now, I do protest before you all that I have in this 
 house of prayer never sought anything but the con- 
 version of souls, and I call heaven and earth to witness, 
 and your consciences, too, that I have never laboured 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 2r.7 
 
 for anything except this, the bringing of you to Christ, 
 that I might present you at last unto God "accepted 
 in the Beloved." I have not sought to gratify depraved 
 appetites either by novelty of doctrine or ceremonial, 
 but I have kept up the simplicity of the gospel. I have 
 kept back no part of the price of God's Word from 
 you, but I have endeavoured to give you the whole 
 counsel of God. I have sought out no fineries of speech, 
 but have spoken plainly, and right straight at your 
 hearts and consciences; and if you be not saved, I 
 mourn and lament before God that up to this day, 
 though I have preached hundreds of times to you, yet 
 I have preached in vain. If you have not closed in with 
 Christ, if you have not been washed in the fountain 
 filled with blood, you are waste pieces of soil from 
 which no harvest has yet come. 
 
 You tell me, perhaps, that you have been kept from 
 a great many sins, that you have learned a great many 
 truths by coming here. So far, so good; but could I 
 af¥ord to live for this, merely to teach you certain 
 truths, or keep you back from open sins? How could 
 this cont'ent me if I knew all the while that you were 
 still unsaved, and must, therefore, after death, be cast 
 into the flames of hell? Nay, beloved, before the Lord, 
 I count nothing to be worthy of your pastor's life, and 
 soul, and energy, but the winning of you to Christ. 
 Nothing but your salvation can ever make me feel that 
 my heart's desire is granted. I ask every worker here 
 to see to this, that he never turns aside from shooting at 
 this target, and at the centre of this target, too, namely, 
 that he may win souls for Christ, and see them born to 
 God, and washed in the fountain filled with blood. Let 
 the workers' hearts ache and yearn, and their voices 
 cry till their throats are hoarse; but let them judge 
 that they have accomplished nothing whatever until, at 
 
258 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 least, in some cases, men are really saved. As the fish- 
 erman longs to take the fish in his net, as the hunter 
 pants to bear home his spoil, as the mother pines to 
 clasp her lost child to her bosom, so do we faint for 
 the salvation of souls; and we must have them, or we 
 are ready to die. Save them, O Lord, save them for 
 Christ's sake! 
 
 But now we must leave that point for another. 
 
 II. THE APOSTLE HAD GREAT REASONS 
 FOR ELECTING SUCH AN OBJECT IN LIFE. 
 
 Were he here, I think he would tell you that his 
 reasons were something of this kind. To save souls! 
 If they be not saved, hjw is God dishonoured! Did 
 you ever think over the amount of dishonour that is 
 done to the Lord our God in London in any one hour 
 of the day? Take, if you will, this prayer-hour, when 
 we are gathered here ostensibly to pray. If the 
 thoughts of this great assembly could all be read, how 
 many of them would be dishonouring to the Most 
 High! But outside of every house of prayer, outside 
 of every place of worship of every kind, think of the 
 thousands, and tens of thousands, the hundreds of thou- 
 sands, who have all this day neglected the very sem- 
 blance of the worship of the God who has made them, 
 and who keeps them in being! Think of how many 
 times the door of the gin-palace has swung on its 
 hinges during this holy hour, how many times God's 
 name has been blasphemed at the drinking-bar ! There 
 are worse things than these, if worse can "be, but I shall 
 not lift the veil. Transfer your thoughts to an hour or 
 so later, when the veil of darkness has descended. 
 Shame will not permit us even to think of how God's 
 name is dishonoured in the persons of those whose first 
 father was made after the image of God, but who pol* 
 lute themselves to be the slaves of Satan and the prey 
 
SOUT.-SAVINCi OTTR ONE BUSINESS. 2r>9 
 
 of bestial lusts! Alas! alas! for this city, it is full of 
 abominations, of which the apostle said, "It is a shame 
 even to speak of those things which are done of Urmu 
 in secret." 
 
 Christian men and women, nothing but the gospel 
 can sweep away the social evil. Vices are like vipers, 
 and only the voice of Jesus can drive them out of the 
 land. The gospel is the great besom with which to 
 cleanse the filthiness of this city, and nothing else will 
 avail. Will you not, for God's sake, whose name is 
 every day profaned, seek to save some? If you will 
 enlarge your thoughts, and take in all the great cities 
 of the Continent ; ay, further still, take all the idolaters 
 of China and Hindostan, the worshippers of the false 
 prophet and antichrist, what a mass of provocation 
 have we here! What a smoke in Jehovah's nose must 
 this false worship be! How He must often put His 
 hand to the hilt of His sword as though He would 
 say, "Ah! I will ease Me of Mine adversaries." But 
 He bears it patiently. Let us not become indifferent 
 to His long suffering, but day and night let us cry unto 
 Him, and daily let us labour for Him, if by any means 
 we may save some for His glory's sake. 
 
 Think, dear friends, also, of the extreme misery of 
 this our hwnati raee. It would be a very dreadful thing 
 if you could get any idea of the aggregate of the misery 
 of London at the present moment in the hospitals and 
 workhouses. Now, I would not say half a word against 
 poverty, wherever it comes it is a bitter ill; but you 
 will mark as you notice carefully that, while a few 
 are poor because of unavoidable circumstances, a very 
 large mass of the poverty of London is the sheer and 
 clear result of wastefulness, want of forethought, idle- 
 ness, and, worst of all, of drunkenness. Ah. that 
 drunkenness! That is the master-evil. If drink could 
 
260 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 but be got rid of, we might be sure of conquering the 
 very devil himself. The drunkenness created by the 
 infernal liquor-dens which plague-spot the whole of this 
 huge city is appalling. No, I did not speak in haste, or 
 let slip a hasty word: many of the drink-houses are 
 nothing less than infernal: in some respects they are 
 worse, for hell has its uses as the divine protest against 
 sin, but as for the gin-palace, there is nothing to be 
 said in its favour. The vices of the age cause three- 
 fourths of all the poverty. If you could look at the 
 homes — the wretched homes where women will tremble 
 at the sound of their husband's foot as he comes home, 
 where little children will crouch down with fear upon 
 their little heap of straw because the human brute who 
 calls himself "a man" will come reeling home from the 
 place where he has been indulging his appetites — if 
 you could look at such a sight, and remember that it 
 will be seen ten thousand times over to-night, I think 
 you would say, "God help us by all means to save 
 some!'' Since the great axe to lay at the root of the 
 deadly upas tree is the gospel of Christ, may God help 
 us to hold that axe there, and to work constantly with 
 it till the huge trunk of the poison tree begins to rock 
 to and fro, and we get it down, and London is saved, k 
 and the world is saved from the wretchedness and the 
 misery which now drip from every bough! 
 
 Again, dear friends, the Christian has other reasons 
 for seeking to save some; and chiefly because of the 
 terrible future of impenitent souls. That veil which 
 hangs before me is not penetrated by every glance; but 
 he who has his eye touched with heavenly eye-salve 
 sees through it, and what does he see? Myriads upon 
 myriads of spirits in dread procession passing from 
 their bodies, and passing — whither? Unsaved, unre- 
 generate, unwashed in precious blood, we see them 
 
SOUL-isAVlNG OUR ONE BUSINESS. 201 
 
 go up to the solemn bar whence in silence the sentence* 
 comes forth, and they are banished from the presence 
 of God, banished to horrors which are not to be de- 
 scribed nor even to be imagined. This alone is enough 
 to cause us distress day and night. This decision of 
 dest'ny has about it a terribly solemnity. But the resur- 
 rection trumpet sounds. Those spirits come forth from 
 their prison-house. I see them returning to earth, rising 
 from the pit to the bodies in which they lived : and now 
 I see them stand — multitudes, multitudes, multitudes, 
 multitudes — in the Valley of Decision. And He comes, 
 sitting on a great white throne, with the crown upon 
 His head, and the books before Him; and there they 
 stand as prisoners at the bar. My vision now perceives 
 them — how they tremble! How^ they quiver, like aspen 
 leaves in the gale! Whither can they flee? Rocks can- 
 not hide them, mountains will not open their bowels 
 to conceal them! What shall become of them? The 
 dread angel takes the sickle, reaps them as the reaper 
 cuts up the tares for the oven; and as he gathers 
 them, he casts them down where despair shall be their 
 everlasting torment. Woe is me, my heart sinks as 
 I see their doom, and hear the terrible cries of their 
 too-late awaking. Save some, O Christians! By all 
 means, save some. By yonder flames, and outer dark- 
 ness, and the weeping, and the wailing, and the gnash- 
 ing of teeth, seek to save some! Let this, as in the case 
 of the apostle, be your great, your ruling object in life, 
 that by all means you may save some. 
 
 For, oh: if they be saved, observe the eonirast. Their 
 spirits mount to heaven, and after the resurrection their 
 bodies ascend also, and there they praise redeeming 
 love. No fingers more nimble on the harp-strings than 
 theirs! No notes more sweet than theirs, as they sing, 
 "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
 
262 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests 
 unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and do- 
 minion for ever and ever." What bliss to see the once 
 rebellious brought home to God, and heirs of wrath 
 made possessors of heaven! All this is involved in sal- 
 vation. Oh, that myriads may come to this blessed 
 state! "Save some" — oh! save some, at least. Seek 
 that some may be there in glory. Behold your Master. 
 He is your pattern. He left heaven to save some. He 
 went to the cross, to the grave, to "save some;" this 
 was the great object of His life, to lay down His life 
 for His sheep. He loved His Church, and gave Him- 
 self for her, that He might redeem her unto Himself. 
 Imitate your Master. Learn His self-denial and His 
 blessed consecration, if by any means you may save 
 some. 
 
 Aly soul yearneth that I personally may ''save some," 
 but broader is my desire than that. I would have e'z-^/^ 
 one of you, my beloved friends, associated here in 
 church fellowship, to become spiritual parents of chil- 
 dren for God. Oh, that every one of you might "save 
 some!" Yes, my venerable Brethren, you are not too 
 old for service. Yes, my young friends, ye young men 
 and maidens, ye are not too young to be recruits in 
 the King's service. If the kingdom is ever to come to 
 our Lord — and come it will — it never will come through 
 a few ministers, missionaries, or evangelists preaching 
 the gospel. It must come through every one of you 
 preaching it — in the shop and by the fireside, when 
 walking abroad and when sitting in the chamber. You 
 must all of you be always endeavouring to "save some." 
 I would enlist you all afresh to-night, and bind anew 
 the Kings' colours upon you. I would that you would 
 fall in love with my Master over anew, and enter a sec- 
 
SOUL-SAVINC; OUR ONE BUSINESS. 263 
 
 Olid time upon the love of your espousals. There is a 
 hymn of Cowper's which we sometimes sing: 
 
 "Oh, for a closer walk with God!" 
 
 May we get to have a closer walk with Him; and if 
 we do so, we shall also feel a more vehement desire to 
 magnify Christ in the salvation of sinners. 
 
 I would like to press the enquiry upon you who are 
 saved — How many others have you brought to Christ? 
 You cannot do it by yourself, I know; but I mean, 
 how many has the Spirit of God brought by you? 
 How many, did I say? Is it quite certain that you 
 have led any to Jesus? Can you not recollect one? 
 I pity you, then! The Lord said to Jeremiah, con- 
 cerning Coniah, "Write ye this man childless." That 
 was considered to be a fearful curse. Shall I write 
 you childless, my beloved friends? Your children are 
 not saved, your wife is not saved, and you are spirit- 
 ually childless. Can you bear this thought? I pray 
 you, wake from your slumbering, and ask the Master 
 to make you useful. "I wish the saints cared for us 
 sinners," said a young man. "They do care for you," 
 answered one, "they care very much for you." "Why 
 don't they show it, then?" said he, "I have often wished 
 to have a talk about good things, but my friend, who 
 is a member of the church, never broaches the subject, 
 and seems to study how to keep clear of it when I am 
 with him." Do not let them say so. Do tell them about 
 Christ and things divine and make this your resolve, 
 every one of you, that if men perish they shall not perish 
 for want of your prayers, nor for want of your earnest 
 and loving instructions. God give you grace, each one 
 of you, to resolve by all means to save some, and then 
 to carrv out vour resolution! 
 
264 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 III. But my time is almost gone, and therefore I 
 have to mention, in the last place, THE GREAT 
 METHODS WHICH THE APOSTLE USED. 
 
 How did he who so longed to "save some" set 
 about it? Why, first of all, by simply preaching the 
 gospel of Christ. He did not attempt to create a sen- 
 sation by startling statements, neither did he preach 
 erroneous doctrine in order to obtain the assent of 
 the multitude. I fear that some evangelists preach 
 what in their own minds they must know to be un- 
 true. They keep back certain doctrines, not because 
 they are untrue, but because they do not give scope 
 enough for their ravings, and they make loose state- 
 ments because they hope to reach more minds. How- 
 ever earnest a man may be for the salvation of sin- 
 ners, I do not believe that he has the right to make any 
 statement which his sober judgment will not justify. 
 I think I have heard of things said and done at revival 
 meetings which were not according to sound doctrine, 
 but which were always excused by "the excitement of 
 the occasion." I hold that I have no right to state 
 false doctrine, even if I knew it would save a soul. The 
 supposition is, of course, absurd; but it makes you 
 see what I mean. My business is to bring to bear upon 
 men, not falsehood, but truth; and I shall not be 
 excused if, under any pretence, I palm a lie upon the 
 people. Rest assured that, to keep back any part of 
 the gospel, is not the right, nor the true method for 
 paving men. Tell the sinner all the doctrines. If you 
 liold Calvinistic doctrine, as I hope you do, do not 
 stutter about it, nor stammer over it, but speak it out. 
 "Depend upon it, many revivals have been evanescent 
 because a full-orbed gospel was not proclaimed. Give 
 the people every truth, every truth baptized in holy 
 
S0UL-i3AVlNG OUR ONE BUSINESS. 265 
 
 tire, and each truth will have its own useful effect upon 
 the mind. 
 
 But the great truth is the cross, the truth that "God 
 so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not per- 
 ish, but have everlasting life." Brother, keep to that. 
 That is the bell for you to ring. Ring it, man! Ring 
 it! Keep on ringing it. Sound forth that note upon 
 your silver trumpet, or if you are only a ram's horn, 
 sound it forth, and the walls of Jericho will come down. 
 Alas, for the fineries of our "cultured" modern divines ! 
 I hear them crying out, and denouncing my old- 
 fashioned advice. This talking about Christ crucified 
 is said to be archaic, conventional, and antique, and 
 not at all suitable to the refinement of this wonderful 
 age. It is astonishing how learned we have all grown 
 lately. We are getting so very wise, I am afraid we 
 shall ripen into fools before long, even if we have not 
 arrived at it already. People want ^HJiinking'^ nowa- 
 days, so it is said ; and the working-men will go where 
 science is deified, and profound "thought" is enshrined. 
 I have noticed that, as a general rule, wdierever the new 
 "thinking" drives out the old gospel, there are more 
 spiders than people, but where there is the simple 
 preaching of Jesus Christ, the place is crow^ded to the 
 doors. Nothing else will crowd a meeting-house, after 
 all, for any length of time, but the preaching of Christ 
 crucified. But as to this matter, whether it be popular 
 or unpopular, our mind is made up, and our foot is 
 put down. Question we have none as to our own 
 course. If it be foolish to preach up atonement by 
 blood, we will be fools; and if it be madness to stick 
 to the old truth, just as Paul delivered it, in all its 
 simplicity, without any refinement, or improvement, 
 we mean to stick to it, even if we be pilloried as being 
 
266 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 incapable of progressing with the age, for we are per- 
 suaded that this "fooHshness of preaching" is a divine 
 ordinance, and that the cross of Christ, which stum- 
 bles so many, and is ridiculed by so many more, is still 
 the power of God and the wisdom of God. Yes, just 
 the old-fashioned truth — if thou believest, thou shalt 
 be saved, — that will we stick to, and may God send 
 His blessing upon it according to His own eternal 
 purpose! We do not expect this preaching to be pop- 
 ular, but we know that God will justify it ere long. 
 Meanwhile, we are not staggered because — 
 
 As childish dotage, and delirious dreams; 
 The truths we love a sightless world blasphemes 
 The danger they discern not they deny; 
 Laugh at their only remedy, and die." 
 
 Next to this, Paul used much prayer. The gospel 
 alone will not be blessed; we must pray over ouc 
 preaching. A great painter was asked what he mixed 
 his colours with, and he replied that he mixed them 
 with brains. Twas well for a painter, but if anyone 
 should ask a preacher what he mixes truth with, he 
 ought to be able to answer — v/ith prayer, much prayer. 
 When a poor man was breaking granite by the road- 
 side, he was down on his knees while he gave his blows, 
 and a minister passing by said, ''Ah, my friend, here 
 you are at your hard work; your work is just like mine; 
 you have to break stones, and so do I." "Yes," said the 
 man, "and if you manage to break stony hearts, you 
 will have to do it as I do, down on your knees." The 
 man was right, no one can use the gospel hammer well 
 except he is much on his knees, but the gospel hammer 
 soon splits flinty hearts when a man knows how to 
 pray. Prevail with God, and you will prevail with men. 
 Straight from the closet to the pulpit let us come, with 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 207 
 
 the anointing oil of God's Spirit fresh upon us. What 
 we receive in secrecy we are cheerfully to dispense in 
 public. Let us never venture to speak for God to men, 
 until we have spoken for men to God. Yes, dear hear- 
 ers, if you want a blessing- on your Sunday-school 
 teaching, or any other form of Christian labour, mix 
 it up with fervent intercession. 
 
 And then observe one other thing. Paul went to 
 his work aliuays with an intense sympatJiy for those he 
 dealt with, a sympatiiy zcJiich made hi/n atiapt tiiiiisrlf 
 to each case. If he talked to a Jew, he did not begin 
 at once blurting out that he was the apostle of the 
 Gentiles, but he said he was a Jew, as Jew he was. He 
 raised no questions about nationalities or ceremonies. 
 He wanted to tell the Jew of Him of whom Isaiah 
 said, **He is despised and rejected of men, a i\Ian of 
 sorrows, and acquainted with grief," in order that he 
 might believe in Jesus and so be saved. If he met a 
 Gentile, the apostle of the Gentiles never showed any 
 of the squeamishness which might have been expected 
 to cling to him on account of his Jewish education. 
 He ate as the Gentile ate, and drank as he did, sat 
 with him, and talked with him; was, as it were, a Gen- 
 tile with him; never raising any question about cir- 
 cumcision or uncircumcision, but solely wishing to tell 
 him of Christ, who came into the world to save both 
 Jew and Gentile, and to make them one. If Paul met 
 with a Scythian, he spoke to him in the Barbarian 
 tongue, and not in classic Greek. If he met a Greek, 
 he spoke to him as he did at the Areopagus, with 
 language that was fitted for the polished Athenian. 
 He was all things to all men, that he might by all 
 means save some. 
 
 So let it be with you. Christian people: your one 
 business in life is to lead men to believe in Jesus Christ 
 
268 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 by the power of the Holy Spirit, and every other thing 
 should be made subservient to this one object; if you 
 can but get them saved, everything else will come right 
 in due time. jMr. Hudson Taylor, a dear man of God, 
 who has laboured much in Inland China, finds it help- 
 ful to dress as a Chinaman, and wear a pigtail. He 
 always mingles with the people, and as far as possible 
 lives as they do. This seems to me to be a truly wise 
 policy. I can understand that we shall win upon a 
 congregation of Chinese by becoming as Chinese as 
 possible; and if this be the case, we are bound to be 
 Chinese to the Chinese to save the Chinese. It would 
 not be amiss to become a Zulu to save the Zulus, 
 though we must mind that we do it in another sense 
 than Colenso did. If we can put ourselves on a level 
 with those whose good we seek, we shall be more likely 
 to effect our purpose than if we remain aliens and for- 
 eigners, and then talk of love and unity. To sink my- 
 self to save others is the idea of the apostle. To throw 
 overboard all peculiarities, and yield a thousand in- 
 different points, in order to bring men to Jesus, is our 
 wisdom if we would extend our Master's kingdom. 
 Never may any whim or conventionality of ours keep 
 a soul from considering the gospel — that were horrible 
 indeed. Better far to be personally inconvenienced by 
 compliance with things indifferen^t, than to retard a 
 sinner's coming by quarrelling about trifles. 
 
 If Jesus Christ were here to-day, 'I am sure he would 
 not put on any of those gaudy rags in which the 
 Puseyite delights himself. I cannot imagine our Lord 
 Jesus Christ dressed out In that style. Why, the apos- 
 tle tells our women that they are to dress themselves 
 modestly, and I do not think Christ would have His 
 ministers set an example of tomfoolery: but yet even 
 in dress something may be done on the principle of 
 
SOUL-SAVING OUR ONE BUSINESS. 2G9 
 
 our text. When Jesus Christ was here, what did He 
 wear? To put it in plain Enghsh, He wore a smock 
 frock. He wore the common dress of the country- 
 men, a garment woven from the top throughout, with- 
 out seam; and I think he would have His ministers 
 wear that costume which is most like the dress which 
 their hearers wear in common, and so even in dress 
 associate with their hearers, and be one among them. 
 He would have you teachers, if you want to save your 
 children, talk to them like children, and make your- 
 selves children if you can. You who want to get at 
 young peoples' hearts must try to be young. You who 
 wish to visit the sick must sympathise w'ith them in their 
 sickness. Get to speak as you would like to be spoken 
 to if you were sick. Come down to those who can- 
 not come up to you. You cannot pull people out of 
 the water without stooping down and getting hold of 
 them. If you have to deal with l^ad characters, you must 
 come down to them, not in their sin, but in their rough- 
 ness and in their style of language, so as to get a hold 
 of them. I pray God that we may learn the sacred art 
 of soul-winning by adaptation. They called Mr. White- 
 field's chapel at Moorfields 'The Soul-Trap." White- 
 field was delighted, and said he hoped it would always 
 he a soul-trap. Oh, that all our places of worship were 
 soul-traps, and every Christian a fisher of men. each one 
 doing his best, as the fisherman does, by every art and 
 artifice, to catch those he fishes for! Well may we 
 use all means to win so great a prize as a spirit destined 
 for eternal weal or woe. The diver plunges deep to 
 find pearls, and we may accept any labour or hazard 
 to win a soul. Rouse yourselves, my brethren, for this 
 God-like work, and mav the Lord bless you in it! 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 
 
"And he saith unto them, Follow Me, and I will make 
 you fishers of men."— Matthew iv. 19. 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 
 
 When Christ calls us by His grace, we ought not 
 only to remember what we are, but we ought also to 
 think of what He can make us. It is, "Follow Me, 
 and I will make you." We should repent of what we 
 liave been, but rejoice in what we may be. It is not, 
 "Follow ]\Ie, because of what you are already." It is 
 not, "Follow Me, because you may make something 
 of yourselves;" but ''Follow Me, because of what I 
 will make you." Verily, I might say of each one of us* 
 as soon as we are converted, "It doth not yet appear 
 v.diat we shall be." It did not seem a likely thing that 
 lowly fishermen would develop into apostles, that men 
 so handy with the net would be quite as much at home 
 in preaching sermons and in instructing converts. One 
 would have said, "How can these things be? You can- 
 not make founders of churches out of peasants of Gal- 
 ilee." That is exactly what Christ did; and when we 
 are brought low in the sight of God by a sense of our 
 own unworthiness, we may feel encouraged to follow 
 Jesus because of what He can make us. What said the 
 woman of a sorrowful spirit when she lifted up her 
 song? "He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and 
 lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them 
 among princes." We cannot tell what God may make 
 of us in the new creation, since it would have been 
 quite impossible to have foretold what He made of 
 chaos in the old creation. Who could have imagined 
 
274 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 all the beautiful things that came forth from darkness 
 and disorder by that one fiat, "Let there be light"? 
 And who can tell what lovely displays of everything 
 that is divinely fair may yet appear in a man's formerly 
 dark life, when God's grace has said to him, *'Let there 
 be light"? O, you who see in yourselves at present 
 nothing that is desirable, come you and follow Christ 
 for the sake of what He can make out of you ! Do you 
 not hear His sweet voice calling to you, and saying, 
 "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men?" 
 
 Note, next, that ive are not made all that we shall 
 be, nor all that we ought to desire to be, when we are 
 ourselves fished for and caught. This is what the grace 
 of God does for us at first; but it is not all. We are 
 like the fishes, making sin to be our element, as they 
 live in the sea ; and the good Lord comes, and with the 
 gospel net He takes us, and He delivers us from the 
 life and love of sin. But He has not wrought for us 
 all that He can do, nor all that we should wish Him 
 to do, when He has done this; for it is another and a 
 higher miracle to make us who were fish to become 
 fishers — to make the saved ones saviours — to make the 
 convert into a converter — the receiver of the gospel 
 into an imparter of that same gospel to other people. 
 I think I may say to every person whom I am address- 
 ing — If you are yourself saved, the work is but half 
 done until you are employed to bring others to Christ. 
 You are as yet but half formed in the image of your 
 Lord. You have not attained to the full development 
 of the Christ-life in you unless you'have commenced in 
 some feeble way to tell others of the grace of God; and 
 I trust that you will find no rest to the sole of your 
 foot till you have been the means of leading many 
 to that blessed Saviour who is your confidence and 
 your hope. His word is, "Follow Ale, not merely that 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 275 
 
 you may l^e saved, iior even that you may be sancti- 
 fied; but 'Follow Me, and 1 will make you fishers of 
 men.' " Be following Christ with that intent and aim ; 
 and fear that you are not perfectly following Him un- 
 less in some degree lie is making use of you to be 
 fishers of men. The fact is, that every one of us must 
 take to the business of a man-catcher. If Christ has 
 caught us, we must catch others. If we have been ap- 
 prehended of Him, we must be His constables, to 
 apprehend rebels for Him. Let us ask Him to give 
 us grace to go a-fishing, and so to cast our nets that 
 we may take a great multitude of fishes. Oh, that the 
 Holy Ghost may raise up from among us some mas- 
 ter-fishers, who shall sail their boats in many a sea, 
 and surround great shoals of fish! 
 
 My teaching at this time will be very simple, but I 
 hope it will be eminently practical; for my longing is 
 that not one of you that love the Lord may be back- 
 ward in His service. What says the Song of Solomon 
 concerning certain sheep that come up from the wash- 
 ing? It says, "Every one bareth twins, and there is 
 not one barren among them." May that be so with 
 all the members of this church, and all the Christian 
 people wdio hear or read this sermon! The fact is, 
 the day is very dark. The heavens are lowering with 
 heavy thunder clouds. Men little dream of what tem- 
 pests may soon shake this city, and the whole social 
 fabric of this land, even to a general breaking up of 
 society. So dark may the night become that the stars 
 may seem to fall like blighted fruit from the tree. The 
 times are evil. Now, if never before, every glow-worm 
 must show its spark. You with the tiniest farthing 
 candle must take it from under the bushel, and set it 
 on a candlestick. There is need of you all. Lot was 
 a poor creature. He w\as a very, very wretched kind 
 
276 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 of believer; but still he might have been a great bless- 
 ing to Sodom had he but pleaded for it as he should 
 have done. And poor, poor Christians, as I fear many 
 are, one begins to value very truly every converted 
 soul in these evil days, and to pray that each one may 
 glorify the Lord. I pray that every righteous man, 
 vexed as he is with the conversation of the wicked, 
 may be more importunate in prayer than he has ever 
 been, and return unto his God, and get more spiritual 
 life, that he may be a blessing to the perishing people 
 around him. I address you, therefore, at this time, 
 first of all upon this thought. Oh, that the Spirit of 
 God may make each one of you feel his personal re- 
 sponsibility! 
 
 Here is for believers in Christ, in order to their use- 
 fulness, something for them to do: ''Follow Me." 
 But, secondly, here is something to be done by their 
 great Lord and Master: "Follow Me, and I will make 
 you fishers of men." You will not of yourselves grow 
 into fishers, but that is what Jesus will do for you if 
 you will but follow Him. And then, lastly, here is a 
 good illustration, used according to our great blaster's 
 wont; for scarcely without a parable did He speak 
 unto the people. He presents us with an illustration 
 of what Christian men should be — fishers of men. We 
 may get some useful hints out of it, and I pray the 
 Holy Spirit to bless them to us. 
 
 L First, then, I will take it for granted that every 
 believer here wants to be useful. If he does not, I 
 take leave to question whether he can be a true be- 
 liever in Christ. Well, then, if vou want to be really 
 useful, here is SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO TO 
 THAT END: "Follow Me, and I will make you fish- 
 ers of men." 
 
 What is the way to become an efificient preacher? 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 277 
 
 "Young man," says one, "go to college." "Young 
 man," says Christ, "follow Me, and I will make you 
 a fisher of men." How is a person to be useful? "At- 
 tend a training class," says one. Quite right; but there 
 is a surer answer than that — Follow Jesus, and He 
 will make you fishers of men. The great training 
 school for Christian workers has Christ at its head; 
 and He is at its head, not only as a Tutor, but as a 
 Leader: we are not only to learn of Him in study, but 
 to follow Him in action. "Follow Me, and I will make 
 you fishers of men." The direction is very distinct and 
 plain, and I believe that it is exclusive, so that no man 
 can become a fisherman by any other process. This 
 process may appear to be very simple; but assuredly 
 it is most efficient. The Lord Jesus Christ, who knew 
 all about fishing for men, was Himself the Dictator of 
 the rule, "Follow Me, if you want to be fishers of men. 
 If you would be useful, keep in My track." 
 
 I understand this, first, in this sense: d^ separate 
 unto Christ. These men were lo leave their pursuits; 
 they were to leave their companions; they were, in 
 fact, to c^uit the world, that their one business might 
 be, in their Master's name, to be fishers of men. We 
 are not called to leave our daily business, or to quit 
 our families. That might be rather running away from 
 the fishery than working at it in God's name; but we 
 are called most distinctly to come out from among the 
 ungodly, and to be separate, and not to toucli^the un- 
 clean thing. We cannot be fishers of men if we re- 
 main among men in the same element with them. Fish 
 will not be fishers. The sinner will not convert the 
 sinner. The ungodly man will not convert the un- 
 godly man; and, what is more to the point, the world- 
 ly Christian will not convert the world. If you are of 
 the world, no doubt the world will love its own: but 
 
278 THE SOUL-WliNNER. 
 
 you cannot save the world. If you are dark, and be- 
 long to the kingdom of darkness, you cannot remove 
 the darkness. If you march with the armies of the 
 wicked one, you cannot defeat them. I believe that 
 one reason wliy the Church of God at this present mo- 
 ment has^ so little influence over the world is because 
 the world has so much influence over the Church. 
 Nowadays, we hear Nonconformists pleading that they 
 may do this, and they may do that — things which their 
 Puritan forefathers would rather have died at the stake 
 than have tolerated. They plead that they may live 
 like worldlings, and my sad answer to them, when 
 they crave for this liberty, is, ''Do it if you dare. It 
 may not do you much hurt, ioryou are so bad already. 
 Your cravings show how rotten your hearts are. If 
 you have a hungering after such dog's meat, go, dogs, 
 and eat the garbage ! Worldly amusements are fit food 
 for mere pretenders and hypocrites. If you were God's 
 children, you would loathe the very thought of the 
 world's evil joys, and your question would not be, 
 'How far may we be like the world?' but your one 
 cry would be, 'How far can we get away from the 
 world? How much can we come out from it?' Your 
 temptation would be rather to become sternly severe, 
 and ultra-Puritanical in your separation from sin, in 
 such a time as this, than to ask, 'How can I make 
 myself like other men, and act as they do?' " 
 
 Brethren, the use of the Church in the world is that 
 it should be like salt in the midst of putrefaction ; but if 
 the salt has lost its savour, what is the good of it? If 
 it were possible for salt itself to putrefy, it could but 
 be an increase and a heightening of the general putrid- 
 ity. The worst day the world ever saw was when the 
 sons of God were joined with the daughters of men. 
 Then came the flood; for the only barrier against a 
 
liNirillU'C'ilON IN iSOlL-WlNNING. 279 
 
 flood of vengeance on this world is the separation 
 of the saint from the sinner. Your duty as a Christian 
 is to stand fast in your own place, and to stand out for 
 God, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, re- 
 solving like one of old that, let others do as they will, 
 as for you and your house, you will serve the Lord. 
 
 Come, ye children of God, you must stand with your 
 Lord outside the camp. Jesus calls you to-day, and 
 says, "Follow ]\le." Was Jesus found at the theatre? 
 Did He frequent the sports of the race-course? Was 
 Jesus seen, think you, in any of the amusements of the 
 Herodian court? Not He. He was "holy, harmless, 
 undefiled, and separate from sinners.'' In one sense, 
 no one mixed with sinners so completely as He did 
 when, like a physician. He -went among them healing 
 His patients; but, in another sense, there was a gulf 
 fixed between the men of the world and the Saviour, 
 W'hich He never essayed to cross, and which they could 
 not cross to defile Him. 
 
 The first lesson which the Church has to learn is 
 this: Follow Jesus into the separated state, and He 
 will make you fishers of men. Unless you take up 
 your cross, and protest against an ungodly w^orld, you 
 cannot hope that the holy Jesus will make you fishers 
 of men. 
 
 A second meaning of our text is very obviously 
 this: abide with Christy and then you will be made 
 fishers of men. These disciples whom Christ called 
 were to come and live with him. They were every 
 day to be associated with him. They were to hear 
 Flim teach publicly the everlasting gospel, and in ad- 
 dition they were to receive choice explanations in pri- 
 vate of the Word which He had spoken. They were 
 to be His body-servants and His familiar friends. They 
 w-ere to see His miracles and hear His prayers; and. 
 
280 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 better still, they were to be with Himself, and become 
 one with Him in His holy labour. It was given to 
 them to sit at the table with Him, and even to have 
 their feet washed by Him. Many of them fulfilled that 
 word, "Where thou dwellest, I will dwell": they were 
 with Him in His afHictions and persecutions. They 
 witnessed His secret agonies, they saw His many tears, 
 they marked the passion and the compassion of His 
 soul, and thus, after their measure, they caught His 
 spirit, and so they learned to be fishers of men 
 
 At Jesus' feet we must learn the art and mystery 
 of soul-winning: to live with Christ is the best educa- 
 tion for usefulness. It is a great boon to any man 
 to be associated with a Christian minister whose heart 
 is on fire. The best training for a young man is that 
 which the Vaudois pastors were wont to give, when 
 each old man had a young man with him who walked 
 with him whenever he went up the mountain-side to 
 preach, and lived in the house with him, and marked 
 his prayers, and saw his daily piety. This was a fine 
 course of instruction, was it not? But it will not com- 
 pare with that of the apostles who lived with Jesus 
 Himself, and were His daily companions. Matchless 
 was the training of the twelve. No wonder that they 
 became what they were with such a heavenly Tutor to 
 saturate them with His own spirit. His bodily pres- 
 ence is not now among us; but His spiritual power is 
 perhaps more fully known to us than it was to the 
 apostles in those two or three years of the Lord's cor- 
 poreal presence. There be some of us to whom He is 
 intimately near. We know more about Him than 
 we do about our dearest earthly friend. We have 
 never been able (julte to read our friend's heart in all 
 its twistings and windings, but we know the heart of 
 the Well-beloved. We have leaned our head upon His 
 
INSTRUCTION IN 80UL-WINNIN0. 281 
 
 bosom, and have enjoyed fellowship with liini sueh 
 as we could not have with any of our own kith and kin. 
 This is the surest method of learning how to do good. 
 Live with Jesus, follow Jesus, and He will make you 
 fishers of men. See how He does the work, and so 
 learn how to do it yourself. A Christian man should 
 be bound apprentice to Jesus to learn the trade of a 
 Saviour. We can never save men by offering a re- 
 demption, for we have none to present; but we can 
 learn how to save men by warning them to flee from 
 the wrath to come, and setting before them the one 
 great eiTectual remedy. See how^ Jesus saves, and you 
 will learn how the thing is done: there is no learning 
 it anyhow else. Live in fellowship with Christ, and 
 there shall be about you an air and a manner as of one 
 who has been made in heart and mind apt to teach, and 
 wnse to win souls. 
 
 A third meaning, however, must be given to this 
 "Follow Me," and it is this: ^' Obey Me, and then you 
 shall know what to do to save men." We nmst not 
 talk about our fellowship with Christ, or our being 
 separated from the world unto Him, unless we make 
 Him our Master and Lord in everything. Some pub- 
 lic teachers are not true at all points to their convic- 
 tions; how can they look for a blessing? A Christian 
 man, anxious to be useful, ought to be very particular 
 as to every point of obedience to his Master. I have 
 no doubt whatever that God blesses our churches even 
 when they are very faulty, for His mercy endureth for 
 ever. When there is a measure of error in the teach- 
 ing, and a measure of mistake in the practice. He ma\- 
 still vouchsafe to use the ministry, for He is very gra- 
 cious; but a large measure of blessing nuist neces- 
 sarily be withheld from all teaching which is knowing- 
 ly or glaringly faulty. God can set His seal upon 
 
282 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 the truth that is in it, but He cannot set His seal upon 
 the error that is in it. Out of mistakes about Christian 
 ordinances and other things, especially errors in heart 
 and spirit, there may come evils which we never looked 
 for. Such evils may even now be telling upon the pres- 
 ent age, and may work worse mischief upon future gen- 
 erations. 
 
 If we desire, as fishers of men, to be largely used of 
 God, we must copy our Lord Jesus in everything and 
 obey Him in every point. Failure in obedience may 
 lead to failure in success. Each one of us, if he would 
 wish to see his child saved, or his Sunday-school class 
 blessed, or his congregation converted, must take care 
 that, bearing the vessels of the Lord, he is himself clean. 
 Anything we do that grieves the Spirit of God must 
 take away from us some part of our power for good. 
 The Lord is very gracious and pitiful; but yet He is a 
 jealous God. He is sometimes sternly jealous towards 
 His people who are living in neglect of known duty, or 
 in associations which are not clean in His sight. He 
 will wither their work, weaken their strength, and hum- 
 ble them until at last they each one say, *'My Lord, I 
 will take Thy way after all. I will do what Thou bid- 
 dest me to do, for else Thou wilt not accept me." The 
 Lord said to His disciples, "Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach the gospel to every creature: he that be- 
 lieveth and is baptized shall be saved" ; and He prom- 
 ised them that signs should follow, and so they did fol- 
 low, and so they will. But we must get back to apos- 
 tolic practice and to apostolic teaching; we must lay 
 aside the commandments of men and the whimseys of 
 our own brains, and we must do what Christ tells us, 
 as Christ tells us, and because Christ tells us. Definite- 
 ly and distinctly, we must take the place of servants; 
 and if we will not do that, we cannot expect our Lord 
 
INSTRUCTION IN iSOUL-WlNNlNG. 2»3 
 
 to work with us and by us. Let us bo determined that, 
 as true as the needle is to the pole, so true will we be, 
 as far as our light goes, to the command of our Lord 
 and Master. Jesus says, 'ToUow ]\le, and 1 will make 
 you fishers of men." By this teaching He seems to 
 say, "Go beyond Me, or fall back away from Me, 
 and you may cast the net; but it shall be night with 
 you, and that night you shall take nothing. When you 
 shall do as I bid you, you shall cast your net on the 
 right side of the ship, and you shall find." 
 
 Again, I think that there is a great lesson in my 
 text to those who preach their own thoughts instead 
 of preaching the thoughts of Christ. These disciples 
 were to follow Christ that they might listen to Him, 
 hear what He had to say, drink in His teaching, and 
 then go and teach what He had taught them. Their 
 Lord said, "What I tell you in darkness, that speak 
 ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye 
 upon the housetops." If they will be faithful reporters 
 of Christ's message, He will make them "fishers of 
 men." But you know the boastful method, nowadays, 
 is this: "I am not going to preach this old, old gospel, 
 this musty Puritan doctrine. I will sit down in my 
 study, and burn the midnight oil, and invent a new 
 theory: then I will come out with my brand-new 
 thought, and blaze away with it." Many are not fol- 
 lowing Christ, but following themselves, and of them 
 the Lord may well say. "Thou shalt see whose word 
 shall stand, Mine or theirs." Others are wickedly pru- 
 dent, and judge that certain truths which are evident- 
 ly God's Word, had better be kept back. You must 
 not be rough, but must prophesy smooth things. To 
 talk about the punishment of sin, to speak of eternal 
 punishment, why, these are unfashionable doctrines. 
 It may be that they are taught in the Word of God, 
 
284 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 but they do not suit the genius of the age; we must 
 pare them down! Brothers in Christ, I will have no 
 share in this. Will you? O my soul, come not thou 
 into their secret! Certain things not taught in the 
 Bible our enlightened age has discovered. Evolution 
 may be clean contrary to the teaching of Genesis, but 
 that does not matter. We are not going to be believers 
 of Scripture, but original thinkers. This is the vain- 
 glorious ambition of the period. 
 
 Mark you, in proportion as the modern theology is 
 preached, the vice of this generation increases. To a 
 great degree, I attribute the looseness of the age to 
 the laxity of the doctrine preached by its teachers. From 
 the pulpit they have taught the people that sin is a 
 trifle. From the pulpit these traitors to God and to 
 His Christ have taught the people that there is no hell 
 to be feared. A little, little hell, perhaps, there may 
 be; but just punishment for sin is made nothing of. 
 The precious atoning sacrifice of Christ has been de- 
 rided and misrepresented by those who were pledged 
 to preach it. They have given the people the name of 
 the gospel, but the gospel itself has evaporated in their 
 hands. From hundreds of pulpits the gospel is as clean 
 gone as the dodo from its old haunts; and still the 
 preachers take the position and name of Christ's min- 
 isters. Well, and what comes of it? Why, their congre- 
 gations grow thinner and thinner; and so it must be. 
 Jesus says, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of 
 men ;" but if you go in your own way, with your own 
 net, you will make nothing of it, and the Lord promises 
 you no help in it. The Lord's directions make Himself 
 our Leader and Example. It is "Follow Me; follow Me. 
 Preach My gospel. Preach what I preached. Teach 
 what I taught, and keep to that." With that blessed 
 servility which becomes one whose ambition it is to be 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 285 
 
 a copyist, and never to be an original, copy Christ even 
 in jots and tittles. Do this, and He will make you 
 fishers of men; but if you do not do this, you shall fish 
 in vain. 
 
 I close this head of my discourse by saying that we 
 shall not be fishers of men unless we follow Christ in 
 one other respect; and that is, by endeavouring, in 
 all points to imitate His holiiiess. Holiness is the 
 most real power that can be possessed by men or 
 women. We may preach orthodoxy, but we must 
 also live orthodoxy. God forbid that we should preach 
 anything else; but it will be all in vain, unless there 
 is a life at the back of the testimony. An unholy 
 preacher may even render truth contemptible. In pro- 
 portion as any of us draw back from a living and zeal- 
 ous sanctification, we shall draw back from the place 
 of pow-er. Our power lies in this word, "Follow Me." 
 Be Jesus-like. In all things endeavour to think, and 
 speak, and act as Jesus did, and He will make you fish- 
 ers of men. This will require self-denial. We must 
 daily take up the cross. This may require willingness 
 to give up our reputation — readiness to be thought 
 fools, idiots, and the like, as men are apt to call those 
 wdio are keeping close to their Alaster. There must be 
 the cheerful resigning of everything that looks like 
 honour and personal glory, in order that we may be 
 wholly Christ's, and glorify His name. We must live 
 His life, and be ready to die His death, if need be. O 
 brothers, sisters, if we do this, and follow Jesus, putting 
 our feet into the footprints of His pierced feet. He will 
 make us fishers of men ! If it should so please Him that 
 we should even die without having gathered many 
 souls to the cross, we shall speak from our graves. In 
 some way or other, the Lord will make a holy life to be 
 an influential life. It is not possible that a life which 
 
286 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 can be described as a following of Christ should be an 
 unsuccessful one in the sight of the Most High. "Fol- 
 low Me," and there is an "I will" such as God can 
 never draw back from: "Follow Me, and I will make 
 you fishers of men." 
 
 Thus much on the first point. There is something 
 for us to do: we are graciously called to follow Jesus. 
 Holy Spirit, lead us to do it! 
 
 H. But, secondly, and brieflv, there is SOME- 
 THING FOR THE LORD TO DO. When His dear 
 servants are following Him, He says, *T will make you 
 fishers of men;" and be it never forgotten that it is He 
 that makes us follow Him; so that, if the following of 
 Him be the step to being made a fisher of men, yet this 
 He gives us. 'Tis all of His Spirit. I have talked 
 about catching His spirit, and abiding in Him, and 
 obeying Him, and hearkening to Him, and copying 
 Him; but none of these things are we capable of apart 
 from His working them all in us. "From Me is thy fruit 
 found," is a text which we must not for a moment for- 
 get. So, then, if we do follow Him; it is He that 
 makes us follow Him; and so He makes us fishers of 
 men. 
 
 But, further, if we follow Christ, He will make us 
 fishers of men by all our experiefice. I am sure that 
 the man who is really consecrated to bless others will 
 be helped in this by all that he feels, especially by his 
 afiflictions. I often feel very grateful to God that I have 
 undergone fearful depression of spirits. I know the 
 borders of despair, and the horrible brink of that gulf 
 of darkness into which my feet have almost gone ; but 
 hundreds of times I have been able to give a helpful 
 grip to brethren and sisters who have come into that 
 same condition, which grip I could never have given if 
 I had not known their deep despondency. So I be- 
 
rNFITRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 287 
 
 li.jVL- that the darkest and most dreadful experience of 
 a child (^f Ciod will helj) him to be a fisher of men if he 
 will but follow Christ. Keep close to your Lord, 
 and He will make every step a blessing to you. If 
 God in providence should make you rich, He will fit 
 you to speak to those ignorant and wicked rich who 
 so much abound in this city, and so often are the cause 
 of its worst sin. And if the Lord is pleased to let you 
 be poor, you can go down and talk to those wicked 
 and ignorant poor people w^ho so often are the cause 
 of sin in this city, and so greatly need the gospel. The 
 winds of providence will waft you where you can fish 
 for men. The wdieels of providence are full of eyes, 
 and all those eyes wall look this way to help us to be 
 winners of souls. You wall often be surprised to find 
 how^ God has been in a house that you visit: before you 
 get there. His hand has been at work in its chambers. 
 When you wish to speak to some particular individual, 
 God's providence has been dealing with that individual 
 to make him ready for just that word which you could 
 say, but which nobody else but you could say. Oh, 
 be you following Christ, and you will find that He will, 
 by every experience througli which you are passing, 
 make you fishers of men! 
 
 Further than that, if you will follow Him, He will 
 make you fishers of men by distiuit motiitions in your 
 heart. There are many monitions from God's Spirit 
 which are not noticed by Christians when they are in 
 a callous condition; but when the heart is right with 
 God, and living in communion with God, we feel a 
 sacred sensitiveness, so that we do not need the Lord 
 to shout, but His faintest whisper is heard. Nay, he 
 need not even whisper. He will guide us with His 
 eye. Oh, how many mulish Christians there are, who 
 must be held in with bit and bridle, and receive a cut 
 
288 THE SOITT. -WINNER. 
 
 c)f the wliip every now and then! But the Christian 
 who follows his Lord shall be tenderly guided. I do 
 not say that the Spirit of God will say to you, "Go 
 near, and join thyself to this chariot," or that you will 
 hear a word in your ear; but yet in your soul, as dis- 
 tinctly as the Spirit said to Philip, "Go near, and join 
 thyself to this chariot," you shall hear the Lord's will. 
 As soon as you see an individual, the thought shall 
 cross your mind, "Go and speak to that person." Every 
 opportunity of usefulness shall be. a call to you. If 
 you are ready, the door shall open before you, and you 
 shall hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way; 
 walk ye in it." If you have the grace to run in the 
 right way, you shall never be long without an intima- 
 tion as to what the right way is. That right way shall 
 lead you to river or sea, where you can cast your net, 
 and be a fisher of men. 
 
 Then, too, I believe that the Lord meant by this 
 that He would give His followers the Holy Ghost. 
 They were to follow Him, and then, when they had 
 seen Him ascend into the holy place of the Most High, 
 they were to tarry at Jerusalem for a little while, and 
 the Spirit would come upon them, and clothe them with 
 a mysterious power. This Word was spoken to Peter 
 and Andrew; and you know how it was fulfilled to 
 Peter. What a host of fish he brought to land the 
 first time he cast the net in the power of the Holy 
 Ghost! "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of 
 men." 
 
 Brethren, we have no conception of what God could 
 do by this company of believers gathered in the Taber- 
 nacle to-night. If now we were to be filled with the 
 Holy Ghost, there are enough of us to evangelize Lon- 
 don. There are enough here to be the means of the 
 salvation of the world. God saveth not by many nor 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 289 
 
 by few. Let us seek to be made a benediction to our 
 fellow-creatures; and if we seek it, let us hear this 
 directing voice, "Follow Me, and I will make you 
 fishers of men." You men and women that sit before 
 me, you are by the shore of a great sea of human life 
 swarming with the souls of men. You live in the midst 
 of millions; but if you will follow Jesus, and be faith- 
 ful to Him, and true to Him, and do what He bids 
 you, He will make you fishers of men. Do not say, 
 "Who shall save this city?" The weakest shall Se 
 strong enough. Gideon's barley cake shall smite the 
 tent, and make it lie along the ground. Samson, with 
 the jawbone, taken up from the earth where it was lying 
 bleaching in the sun, shall smite the Philistines. Fear 
 not, neither be dismayed. Let your responsibilities 
 drive you closer to your Master. Let horror of pre- 
 vailing sin make you look into His dear face who long 
 ago wept over Jerusalem, and now weeps over Lon- 
 don. Clasp Him, and never let go your hold. By the 
 strong and mighty impulses of the divine life within 
 you, quickened and brought to maturity by the Spirit 
 of God, learn this lesson from your Lord's owii mouth : 
 ''Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 
 You are not fit for it, but He will make you fit. You 
 cannot do it of yourselves, but He will make you do 
 it. You do not know how to spread nets and draw 
 shoals of fish to shore, but He will teach you. Only 
 follow Him, and He will make you fishers of men. 
 
 I wish that I could somehow say this as with a 
 voice of thunder, that the whole Church of God might 
 hear it. I wish I could write it in stars athwart the 
 sky, "J^sus saith. Follow Me, and I will make you 
 fishers of men." If you forget the precept, the prom- 
 ise shall never be yours. If you follow some other 
 track, or imitate some other leader, vou shall fi^li in 
 
290 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 vain. God grant us to believe fully that Jesus can do 
 great things in us, and then do great things by us for 
 the good of our fellows ! 
 
 III. The last point you might work out in full for 
 yourselves in vour private meditations with much profit. 
 We have here A FIGURE FULL OF INSTRUC- 
 TION. I will give you but two or three thoughts 
 which you can use. **I will make yon fo/iers of men.''* 
 You have been fishers of fish : if you follow Me, I will 
 make you fishers of men. 
 
 A fisher is a person who is very dependent and needs 
 to be trustful. He cannot see the fish. One who fishes 
 in the sea must go and cast in the net, as it were, at 
 a peradventure. Fishing is an act of faith. I have often 
 seen, in the Mediterranean, men go with their boats, 
 and enclose acres of sea with vast nets; and yet, when 
 they have drawn the net to shore, they have not had 
 as much result as I could put in my hand. A few 
 wretched silvery nothings have made up the whole 
 take. Yet they have gone again, and cast the great 
 net several times a day, hopefully expecting something 
 to come of it. Nobody is so dependent upon God as 
 the minister of God. Oh, this fishing from the Taber- 
 nacle pulpit! What a work of faith! I cannot tell that 
 a soul will be brought to God by it. I cannot judge 
 whether my sermon will be suitable to the persons who 
 are here, except that I do believe that God will guide 
 me in the casting of the net. I expect Him to work 
 salvation, and I depend upon Him for it. I love this 
 complete dependence, and if I could be offered a cer- 
 tain amount of preaching power, VN^hich should be en- 
 tirely at my own disposal, and by which I could save 
 sinners, I w^ould beg the Lord not to let me have it, 
 for it is far more delightful to be entirely dependent 
 upon Him at all times. It is good to be a fool when 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 201 
 
 Christ is made unto you wisdom. It is a blessed tiling; 
 to be weak if Christ becomes more fully your strength. 
 Go to work, you who would be fishers of men, and yet 
 feel your insuflficiency. You that have no strenglli, at- 
 tempt this (Hvine work. Your Master's strength will be 
 seen when your own has all gone. A fisherman is a de- 
 pendent person, he must look up for success every 
 time he puts the net down; but still he is a trustful 
 person, and therefore he casts in the net joyfully, 
 
 A fisherman who gets his living by it is a dilii^ejit 
 and persevering man. The fishers are up at dawn. 
 At day-break our fishermen of¥ the Dogger-bank are 
 fishing, and they continue fishing till late in the after- 
 noon. As long as hands can w^ork, men will fish. May 
 the Lord Jesus make us hard-working, persevering, 
 unwearied fishers of men! "In the morning sow thy 
 seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for 
 thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or 
 that." 
 
 The fisherman in his o\vn craft is intcUigcnt and 
 watchful. It looks very easy, I dare say, to be a fisher- 
 man, but you would find that it was no child's play 
 if you were to take a real part in it. There is an 
 art in it, from the mending of the net right on to the 
 pulling it to shore. How diligent the fisherman is to 
 prevent the fish leaping out of the net! I heard a 
 great noise one night in the sea, as if some huge drum 
 were being beaten by a giant; and I looked out, and 
 I saw that the fishermen of Mentone were beating the 
 water to drive the fish into the net, or to keep them 
 from leaping out when they had once encompassed 
 them with it. Ah, yes! and you and I will often 
 have to be watching the corners of the gospel net lest 
 sinners who are almost caught should make their es- 
 cape. Thev are very crafty, these fish, and they use 
 
292 THE SCUL-WINNER. 
 
 this craftiness in endeavouring to avoid salvation. We 
 shall have to be always at our business, and to exercise 
 all our wits, and more than our own wits, if we are to 
 be successful fishers of men. 
 
 The fisherman is a very laborious person. It is not 
 at all an easy calling. He does not sit in an armchair 
 and catch fish. He has to go out in rough weathers. 
 If he that regardeth the clouds will not sow, I am sure 
 that he that regardeth the clouds will never fish. If 
 we never do any work for Christ except when we feel 
 up to the mark, we shall not do much. If we feel that 
 we will not pray because we cannot pray, we shall never 
 pray; and if we say, "I will not preach to-day because 
 I do not feel that I could preach," we shall never preach 
 any preaching that is worth the preaching. We must 
 be always at it, until we wear ourselves out, throwing 
 our whole soul into the work in all weathers, for 
 Christ's sake. 
 
 The fisherman is a daringvian. He tempts the bois- 
 terous sea. A little brine in his face does not hurt him; 
 he has been wet through a thousand times, it is noth- 
 ing to him. He never expected, when he became a 
 deep-sea fisherman, that he was going to sleep in the 
 lap of ease. So the true minister of Christ, who fishes 
 for souls, will never mind a little risk. He will be 
 bound to do or say many a thing that is very unpopu- 
 lar; and some Christian people may even judge his 
 utterances to be too severe. He must do and say that 
 which is for the good of souls. It is not his to enter- 
 tain a question as to what others will think of his doc- 
 trine, or of him ; but in the name of the Almighty God 
 he must feel, "If the sea roar and the fulness thereof, 
 still at my Master's command I will let down the net." 
 
 Now, in the last place, the man whom Christ makes 
 2i^'&\iQtoivci^x\ is successful. ''But, "says one, *'Ihave 
 
INSTRUCTION IN SOUL-WINNING. 293 
 
 always heard that Christ's ministers are to be faithful, 
 but that they cannot be sure of being successful," Yes, 
 I have heard that saying, and one way I know it is true, 
 but another way I have my doubts about it. He that 
 is faithful is, in God's way and in God's judgment, suc- 
 cetesful, more or less. For instance, here is a brother 
 who says that he is faithful. Of course, I must believe 
 him, yet I never heard of a sinner being saved under 
 him. Indeed, I should think that the safest place for 
 a person to be in if he did not want to be saved would 
 l)e under this gentleman's ministry, because he does not 
 preach anything that is likely to arouse, impress, or 
 convince anybody. This brother is "faithful;" so he 
 says. Well, if any person in the world said to you, 
 *T am a fisherman, but I have never caught anything," 
 you would wonder how he could be called a fisherman. 
 A farmer who never grew any wheat, or any other 
 crop — is he a farmer? When Jesus Christ says, "Fol- 
 low ^le, and I will make you fishers of men," He means 
 that you shall really catch men, that you really shall 
 save some; for he that never did get any fish is not a 
 fisherman. He that never saved a sinner after years 
 of work is not a minister of Christ. If the result of 
 his life-work is ////, he made a mistake when he under- 
 took it. Go thou with the fire of God in thy hand, and 
 fling it among the stubble, and the stubble will burn. 
 Be thou sure of that. Go thou and scatter the good 
 seed; it may not all fall in fruitful places, but some of 
 it will. Be thou sure of that. Do but shine, and some 
 eye or other will be lightened thereby. Thou must, 
 thou shalt succeed. But remember this is the Lord's 
 word, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." 
 Keep close to Jesus, and do as Jesus did, in His spirit, 
 and He will make you fishers of men. 
 
 Perhaps I speak to an attentive hearer who is not 
 
294 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 converted at all. Friend, 1 have the same thing to 
 say to you. You also may follow Christ, and then 
 He can use you, even you. I do not know but that He 
 has brought you to this place that you may be saved, 
 and that in after years He may make you speak for 
 His name and glory. Remember how He called S^ul 
 of Tarsus, and made him the apostle of the Gentiles. 
 Reclaimed poachers make the best game-keepers; and 
 saved sinners make the ablest preachers. Oh, that you 
 would run away from your old master to-night, with- 
 out giving him a minute's notice; for if you give him 
 any notice, he will hold you. Hasten to Jesus, and say, 
 "Here is a poor runaway slave! My Lord, I bear the 
 fetters still upon my wrists. Wilt Thou set me free, 
 and make me Thine own?" Remember, it is written, 
 "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." 
 Never runaway slave came to Christ in the middle of 
 the night without His taking him in! and He never 
 gave one up to his old master. If Jesus make you free, 
 you shall be free indeed. Flee away to Jesus, then, 
 on a sudden. May His good Spirit help you, and He 
 will by-and-by make you a winner of others to His 
 praise ! God bless you ! Amen. 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 
 
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one 
 convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the 
 sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
 death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." — James v. 19, 20. 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL- 
 WINNERS. 
 
 James is pre-eminently practical. If he were, in- 
 deed, the James who was called "The Just," I can un- 
 derstand how he earned the title, for that distinguish- 
 ing trait in his character shows itself in his Epistle; 
 and if he were *'the Lord's brother," he did well to 
 show so close a resemblance to his great Relative and 
 Master, who commenced His Ministry with the prac- 
 tical Sermon on the i\lount. We ought to be very 
 grateful that, in the Holy Scriptures, we have food for 
 all classes of believers, and employment for all the 
 faculties of the saints. It was meet that the contem- 
 plative should be furnished with abundant sul)jects for 
 thought — Paul has supplied them; he has given to us 
 sound doctrine, arranged in the symmetry of exact 
 order; he has given us deep thoughts and profound 
 teachings; he has opened up the deep things of God. 
 No man who is inclined to reflection and thoughtful- 
 ness will be without food so long as the Epistles of Paul 
 are extant, for he feeds the soul with sacred manna. 
 For those whose predominating affections and imagina- 
 tion incline them to more mystic themes, John has writ- 
 ten sentences aglow with devotion, and blazing with 
 love. We have his simple but sublime Epistles — Epis- 
 tles which, when you glance at them, seem in their 
 wording to be fit for children, but when examined, their 
 
298 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 sense is seen to be too sublime to be fully grasped by 
 the most advanced of men. You have from that same 
 eagle-eyed and eagle-winged apostle the wondrous 
 visions of the Revelation, where awe, devotion and 
 imagination may enlarge their flight, and find scope 
 for the fullest exercise. 
 
 There will always be, however, a class of persons who 
 are more practical than contemplative, more active 
 than imaginative, and it was wise that there should be a 
 James, whose main point should be to stir up their 
 pure minds by way of remembrance, and help them 
 to persevere in the practical graces of the Holy Spirit. 
 The text before me is perhaps the most practical utter- 
 ance of the whole Epistle. The whole Epistle burns, 
 but this ascends in flames to heaven ; it is the culmina- 
 tion as it is the conclusion of the letter. There is not 
 a word to spare in it. It is like a naked sword, stripped 
 of its jewelled scabbard, and presented to us with noth- 
 ing to note but its keen edge. I wish I could preach 
 after the fashion of the text ; and if I cannot, I will at 
 least pray that you may act after the fashion of it. Down- 
 right living for the Lord Jesus is sadly wanted in many 
 quarters ; we have enough of Christian garnishing, but 
 solid, every-day, actual work for God is what we need. 
 If our lives, however unornamented they may be by 
 leaves of literary or polite attainments, shall neverthe- 
 less bring forth fruit unto God in the form of souls 
 converted by our efforts, it will be well ; they will then 
 stand forth before the Lord with the beauty of the 
 olive tree, which consists in its frultfulness. 
 
 I call your attention very earnestly to three matters. 
 First, here is a special case dealt with: **If any of you 
 do err from the truth, and one convert him." While 
 speaking of that special case, the apostle declares a 
 ge fie ral fact: * 'he which converteth the sinner from the 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 299 
 
 error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall 
 hide a multitude of sins." When I have spoken of 
 these two points, I mean, thirdly, to make a particular 
 application of the text — not at all intended by the 
 apostle, but I believe abundantly justified — an applica- 
 tion of the text to increased effort for the conversion 
 of children. 
 
 I. First, then, here is A SPECIAL CASE DEALT 
 WITH. Read the verse, and you will see that it must 
 relate to a backslider from the visible Church of God. 
 The words, *Tf any of you," must refer to a professed 
 Christian. The erring one had been named by the 
 name of Jesus, and for a while had followed the truth ; 
 but in an evil hour he had been betrayed into doctrinal 
 error, and had erred from the truth. It was not mere- 
 ly that he fell into a mistake upon some lesser mat- 
 ter, which might be compared to the fringe of the 
 gospel, but he erred in some vital doctrine, he departed 
 from the faith in its fundamentals. There are some 
 truths which must be believed; they are essential to 
 salvation, and if not heartily accepted, the soul will 
 be ruined. This man had been professedly orthodox, 
 but he turned aside from the truth on an essential 
 point. Now, in those days, the saints did not say, as 
 the sham saints do now, "We must be largely charit- 
 able, and leave this brother to his own opinion; he 
 sees truth from a different standpoint, and has a rather 
 different way of putting it, but his opinions are as 
 good as our own, and we must not say that he is in 
 error." That is at present the fashionable way of 
 trifling with divine truth, and making things pleasant 
 all round. Thus the gospel is debased, and "another 
 gospel" propagated. 
 
 I should like to ask modern broad churchmen 
 whether there is any doctrine of any sort for which 
 
300 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 it would be worth a man's while to burn or to lie in 
 prison. I do not beUeve they could give me an an- 
 swer, for if their latitudinarianism be correct, the mar- 
 tyrs were fools of the first magnitude. From what I 
 see of their writings and their teachings, it appears to 
 me that the modern thinkers treat the whole compass 
 of revealed truth with entire indifference ; and, though 
 perhaps they may feel sorry that wilder spirits should go 
 too far in free thinking, and though they had rather 
 they would be more moderate, yet, upon the whole, 
 so large is their liberality that they are not sure enough 
 of anything to be able to condemn the reverse of it 
 as a deadly error. To them black and white are terms 
 which may be applied to the same colour, as you view it 
 from different standpoints. Yea and nay are equally 
 true in their esteem. Their theology shifts like the 
 Goodwin Sands, and they regard all firmness as so 
 much bigotry. Errors and truths are equally com- 
 prehensible within the circle of their charity. It was 
 not in this way that the apostles regarded error. They 
 did not prescribe large-hearted charity towards false- 
 hood, or hold up the errorist as a man of deep thought, 
 whose views were "refreshingly original"; far less did 
 they utter some wicked nonsense about the probability 
 of there living more faith in honest doubt than in half 
 the creeds. They did not believe In justification by 
 doubting, as our neologians do; they set about the 
 conversion of the erring brother; they treated him 
 as a person who needed conversion; and viewed him 
 as a man who, if he were not converted, would suffer 
 the death of his soul, and be covered with a multitude 
 of sins. They were not such easy-going people as our 
 cultured friends of the school of "modern thought," 
 who have learned at last that the Deity of Christ may 
 be denied, the work of the Holy Spirit ignored, the 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 301 
 
 inspiration of Scripture rejected, tlie atonement disbe- 
 lieved, and regeneration dir^pensed with, and yet the 
 man who does all this may be as good a Christian as 
 the most devout believer! O God, deliver us from this 
 deceitful infidelity, which, while it does damage to the 
 erring man, and often prevents his being reclaimed, 
 does yet more mischief to our own hearts by teaching 
 us that truth is unimportant, and falsehood a trifle, and 
 so destroys our allegiance to the God of truth, and 
 makes us traitors instead of loyal subjects to the King 
 of kings! 
 
 It appears from our text that this man, having erred 
 from the truth, followed the natural logical conse- 
 quence of doctrinal error, and he erreth in his life os 
 well; for the twentieth verse, which must of coursj 
 be read in connection with the nineteenth, speaks of 
 him as "a sinner converted from the error of his way." 
 His way went wrong after his thought had gone wrong. 
 You cannot deviate from truth without, ere long, in 
 some measure, at any rate, deviating from practical 
 righteousness. This man had erred from right acting 
 because he had erred from right believing. Suppose 
 a man shall imbibe a doctrine which leads him to think 
 little of Christ, he will soon have little faith in Him, 
 and become litde obedient to Him, and so will wander 
 into self-righteousness or licentiousness. Let him think 
 lightly of the punishment of sin, it is natural that he 
 will commit sin with less compunction, and burst 
 through all restraints. Let him deny the need of the 
 atonement, and the same result will follow if he acts out 
 his belief. Every error has its own outgrowth, as all 
 decay has its appropriate fungus. It is in vain for us 
 to imagine that holiness will be as readily produced 
 from erroneous as from truthful doctrine. Do men gath- 
 er grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? The facts of 
 
302 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 history prove the contrar}^ When truth is dominant, 
 morahty and hoHness are abundant; but when error 
 comes to the front, godly living retreats in shame. 
 
 The point aimed at with regard to this sinner in 
 thought and deed was his co7iversion — the turning of 
 him round, the bringing him to right thinking and to 
 right acting. Alas! I fear many professed Christians 
 do not look upon backsHders in this light, neither do 
 they regard them as hopeful subjects for conversion. I 
 have known a person who has erred, hunted down like 
 a wolf. He was wrong to some degree, but that wrong 
 has been aggravated and dwelt upon until the man has 
 been worried into defiance; the fault has been ex- 
 aggerated into a double wrong by ferocious attacks 
 upon it. The manhood of the man has taken sides with 
 his error because he has been so severely handled. The 
 man has been compelled, sinfully I admit, to take up an 
 extreme position, and to go further into mischief, be- 
 cause he could not brook being denounced instead of 
 being reasoned with. And when a man has been blame- 
 worthy in his life, it will often happen that his fault has 
 been blazed abroad, retailed from mouth to mouth, and 
 magnified, until the poor erring one has felt degraded, 
 and having lost all self-respect, has given way to far 
 more dreadful sins. The object of some professors 
 seems to be to amputate the limb rather than to heal 
 it. Justice has reigned instead of mercy. Away with 
 him! He is too foul to be washed, too diseased to 
 be restored. This is not according to the mind of 
 Christ, nor after the model of apostolic churches. 
 
 In the days of James, if any erred from the truth 
 and from holiness, there were brethren found who 
 sought their recovery, and whose joy it was thus to 
 save a soul from death, and to hide a multitude of 
 sins. There is something very significant in that ex- 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 303 
 
 pression, * 'Brethren, if any of you do err from the 
 truth." It is akin to that other word, "Considering 
 thygelf, lest thou also be tempted," and that other ex- 
 hortation, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take 
 heed lest he fall." He who has erred was one of your- 
 selves, one who sat with you at the communion table, 
 one with whom you took sweet counsel; he has been 
 deceived, and by the subtlety of Satan he has been 
 decoyed; but do not judge him harshly; above all, do 
 not leave him to perish unpitied. If he ever was a 
 saved man, he is your brother still, and it should be 
 your business to bring back the prodigal, and so to 
 make glad your Father's heart. Still, for all slips of 
 his, he is one of God's children; follow him up, and 
 do not rest till you lead him home again. And if he 
 'be not a child of God, if his professed conversion was a 
 mistake, or a pretence, if he only made a profession, 
 but had not the possession of vital godliness, yet still 
 follow him wnth sacred importunity of love, remem- 
 bering how^ terrible will be his doom for daring to play 
 the hypocrite, and to profane holy things with his un- 
 hallowed hands. Weep over him the more if you feel 
 compelled to suspect that he has been a wilful deceiver, 
 for there is sevenfold cause for weeping. If you can- 
 not resist the feeling that he never was sincere, but 
 crept into the church under cover of a false profession, 
 I say, sorrow over him the more, for his doom must 
 be the more terrible, and therefore the greater should 
 be your commiseration for him. Seek his conversion 
 still. 
 
 The text gives us clear indications as to the persons 
 who are to aim at the conversio?i of erring brethren. 
 It says, "If any of you do err from the truth, and one 
 convert him." One what? One minister? No, any 
 one among the brethren. If the minister shall be the 
 
304 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 means of the restoration of a backslider, he is a happy- 
 man, and a good deed has been done; but there is 
 nothing said here concerning preachers or pastors, 
 not even a hint is given — it is left open to any one 
 member of the church; and the plain inference, I 
 think, is this — that every church member, seeing his 
 brother err from the truth, or err in practice, should 
 set himself, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to this 
 business of converting this special sinner from the 
 error of his way. Look after strangers by all means, 
 but neglect not your brethren. It is the business, not 
 of certain officers appointed by the vote of the church 
 thereunto, but of every member of the body of Jesus 
 Christ, to seek the good of all the other members. 
 Still, there are certain members upon whom in any one 
 case this may be more imperative. For instance, in 
 the case of a young believer, his father and his mother, 
 if they be believers, are called upon by a sevenfold 
 obligation to seek the conversion of their backsliding 
 child. In the case of a husband, none should be so 
 earnest for his restoration as his wife, and the same 
 rule holds good with regard to the wife. So also if the 
 connection be that of friendship, he with whom you 
 have had the most acquaintance should lie nearest to 
 your heart; and when you perceive that he has gone 
 aside, you should, above all others, act the shepherd 
 towards him with kindly zeal. You are bound to do 
 this to all your fellow-Christians, but doubly bound to 
 do it to those over whom you possess an influence, 
 which has been gained by former intimacy, by rela- 
 tionship, or by any other means. I beseech you, there- 
 fore, watch over one another in the Lord, and when 
 ye see a brother overtaken in a fault, "ye which are 
 spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meek- 
 ness." Ye see your duty ; do not neglect it. " 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 305 
 
 Brethren, it ought to cheer us to know that the 
 attempt to convert a man who has erred from the truth 
 is a hopeful one, it is one in which success may be 
 looked for, and when the success comes, it will be of 
 the most joyful character. Verily, it is a great joy to 
 capture the wild, w^andering sinner; but the joy of 
 joys is to find the lost sheep which was once really in 
 the fold, and has sadly gone astray. It is a great thing 
 to transmute a piece of brass into silver, but to the 
 poor woman it was joy enough to find the piece of 
 silver which was silver already, and had the king's 
 stamp on it, though for a while it was lost. To bring 
 in a stranger and an alien, and to adopt him as a son, 
 suggests a festival; but the most joyous feasting and 
 the loudest music are for the son who was always a 
 son, but had played the prodigal, and yet after being 
 lost was found, and after being dead was made alive 
 again. I say, ring the bells twice for the reclaimed 
 backslider; ring them till the steeple rocks and reels. 
 Rejoice doubly over that which had gone astray, and 
 was ready to perish, but has now been restored. John 
 was glad when he found poor backsliding but weep- 
 ing Peter, who had denied his ^Master; he cheered and 
 comforted him, and consorted with him, till the Lord 
 Himself had said, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 
 Me?" It may not appear so brilliant a thing to bring 
 back a backslider as to reclaim a harlot or a drunkard, 
 but in the sight of God it is no small miracle of grace, 
 and to the instrument who has performed it it shall 
 yield no small comfort. Seek ye, then, my brethren, 
 those who were of us but have gone from us; seek yc 
 those who linger still in the congregation, but have 
 disgraced the church, and are put away from us, and 
 rightlv so, because we cannot countenance their un- 
 clcanness; seek them with prayers, and tears, and en- 
 
30G THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 treaties, if peradventiirc God may grant them repent- 
 ance that they may be saved. 
 
 Here I would say to any backsHders who are present, 
 let this text cheer you if you have a desire to turn to 
 God. Return, ye backsliding children, for the Lord 
 has bidden His people seek you. If He had not cared 
 for you. He would not have spoken of our search after 
 you; but having put it so, and made it the duty of all 
 His people to seek those who err from the faith, there 
 is an open door before you, and there are hundreds who 
 sit waiting like porters at the gate to welcome you. 
 Come back to the God whom you have forsaken; or 
 if you never did know Him, oh, that this day His 
 Spirit may break your hearts, and lead you to true 
 repentance, that you may in real truth be saved ! God 
 bless you, poor backsliders! If He do not save you, a 
 multitude of sins will be upon you, and you must die 
 eternally. God have mercy upon you, for Christ's sake. 
 
 II. We have opened up the special case, and we 
 have now to dwell upon a GENERAL FACT. 
 
 This general fact is important, and we are bound to 
 give it special attention, since it is prefaced with the 
 words, "Let him know." If any one of you has been 
 the means of bringing back a backslider, it is said, 
 "Let him know." That is, let him think of it, be sure 
 of it, be comforted by it, be inspirited by it. "Let him 
 know" it, and never doubt it. Do not merely hear it, 
 beloved fellow-labourer, but let it sink deep into your 
 heart. When an apostle inspired of the Holy Ghost 
 says, "Let him know," I conjure you, do not let any 
 indolence of spirit forbid your ascertaining the full 
 weight of the truth. 
 
 What is it that you are to know? To know that he 
 who converteth a sinner from the error of his way 
 shall save a soul from death. This is something worth 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 307 
 
 knowing, is it not? To save a soul from death is 
 no small matter. Why, we have men among us 
 whom we honour every time we cast our eyes upon 
 them, for they have saved many precious lives; they 
 have manned the lifeboat, or they have plunged into 
 the river to rescue the drowning; they have been ready 
 to risk their own lives amid burning timbers that they 
 might snatch the perishing from the devouring flames. 
 True heroes these, far worthier of renown than your 
 blood-stained men of war. God bless the brave hearts! 
 May England never lack a body of worthy men to 
 make her shores illustrious for humanity! When we 
 see a fellow-creature exposed to danger, our pulse beats 
 quickly, and we are agitated with desire to save him. 
 Is it not so? 
 
 But the saving of a soul from death is a far greater 
 matter. Let us think what that death is. It is not 
 non-existence; I do not know that I would lift a fin- 
 ger to save my fellow-creature from mere non-exist- 
 ence. I see no great hurt in annihilation; certainly 
 nothing that would alarm me as a punishment for sin. 
 Just as I see no great joy in mere eternal existence if 
 that is all that is meant by eternal life, so I discern no 
 terror in ceasing to be; I would as soon not be as be, 
 so far as mere colourless being or not being is con- 
 cerned. But "eternal life" means in Scripture a very 
 different thing from eternal existence; it means exist- 
 ing with all the faculties developed in fulness of joy; 
 existing not as the dried herb in the hay, but as the 
 flower in all its beauty. "To die," in Scripture, and 
 indeed in common language, is not to cease to exist. 
 Very wide is the difference between the two words to 
 die and to be annihilated. To die, as to the first death, 
 is the separation of the body from the soul; it is the 
 resolution of our nature into its component elements; 
 
308 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 and to die the second death, is to separate the man, 
 soul and body, from his God, who is the hfe and joy 
 of our manhood. This is eternal destruction from the 
 presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power; 
 this is to have the palace of manhood destroyed, and 
 turned into a desolate ruin, for the howling dragon of 
 remorse, and the hooting owl of despair, to inherit 
 for ever. 
 
 The descriptions which Holy Scripture gives of the 
 second death are terrible to the last degree. It speaks 
 of a ''worm that never dies," and a "fire that never can 
 be quenched," of ''the terror of the Lord," and "tear- 
 ing in pieces," of "the smoke of their torment which 
 goeth up for ever and ever," and of "the pit which hath 
 no bottom." I am not about to bring all these terrible 
 things together, but there are words in Scripture which, 
 if pondered, might make the flesh to creep, and the 
 hair to stand on end, at the very thought of the judg- 
 ment to come. Our joy is that if any one us are made, 
 in God's hands, the means of converting a man from 
 the error of his way, we shall have saved a soul from 
 this eternal death. That dreadful hell the saved one 
 will not know, that wrath he will not feel, that being 
 banished from the presence of God will never hap- 
 pen to him. Is there not a joy worth worlds in all this? 
 Remember the addition to the picture. If you have 
 saved a soul from death, you have introduced it into 
 eternal life; by God's good grace, there will be an- 
 other chorister amongst the white-robed host to sing 
 Jehovah's praise, another hand to smite eternally the 
 harp-strings of adoring gratitude, another sinner saved 
 to reward the Redeemer for his Passion. Oh, the hap- 
 piness of having saved a soul from death! 
 
 And it is added that, in such a case, you will have 
 covered a multitude of sins. We understand this to 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 309 
 
 mean that the result of the conversion of any sinner 
 will be the covering up of all his sins by the atoning 
 blood of Jesus. How many those sins are, in any 
 case, none of us can tell; but if any man be converted 
 from the error of his way, the whole mass of his sins will 
 be drowned in the Red Sea of Jesus' blood, and washed 
 away for ever. Now remember that your Saviour came 
 to this world with two objects: He came to destroy 
 death, and to put away sin. If you convert a sinner 
 from the error of his way, you are made like to Him 
 in both these works; after your manner, in the power 
 of the Spirit of God, you overcome death, by snatching 
 a soul from the second death, and you also put away 
 sin from the sight of God by hiding a multitude of sins 
 beneath the propitiation of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Do observe here that the apostle offers no other 
 inducement to soul-winners: he does not say, "If you 
 convert a sinner from the error of his way, you will 
 have honour." True philanthropy scorns such a mo- 
 tive. He does not say, "If you convert a sinner from 
 the error of his way, you will have the respect of the 
 church, and the love of the individual." Such will be 
 the- case, but we are moved by far nobler motives. The 
 joy of doing good is found in the good itself; the 
 reward of a deed of love is found in its own result. If 
 we have saved a soul from death, and hidden a mul- 
 titude of sins, that is payment enough, though no ear 
 should ever hear of the deed, and no pen should ever 
 record it. Let it be forgotten that we were the instru- 
 ments if good be but effected; it shall give us joy even 
 if we be not appreciated, and are left in the cold shade 
 of forgetfulness. Yea, if others wear the honours of 
 the good deed which the Lord has wrought by us, we 
 will not murmur, it shall be joy enough to know that 
 a soul has been saved from death, and a multitude of 
 sins has been covered. 
 
310 THE SOUL- WINNER. 
 
 And, dear brethren, let us recollect that the saving 
 of souls from death honours Jesus, for there is no 
 saving souls except through His blood. As for you 
 and for me, what can we do in saving a soul from 
 death? Of ourselves nothing, any more than that pen 
 which lies upon the table could write ''The Pilgrim's 
 Progress;" yet let a Bunyan grasp the pen, and the 
 matchless work is written. So you and I can do noth- 
 ing to convert souls till God's eternal Spirit takes us 
 in hand; but then He can do wonders by us, and get 
 to Himself glory by us, while it shall be joy enough 
 for us to know that Jesus is honoured, and the Spirit 
 magnified. Nobody talks of Homer's pen, no one has 
 encased it in gold, or published its illustrious achieve- 
 ments; nor do we wish for honour among men: it 
 will be enough for us to have been the pen in the 
 Saviour's hand with which He has written the covenant 
 of His grace upon the fleshy tablets of human hearts. 
 This is golden wages for a man who really loves his 
 Master; Jesus is glorified, sinners are saved. 
 
 Now I want you to notice particularly that all that 
 is said by the apostle here is about the conversion of 
 one person. "If any of you do err from the truth, and 
 one convert him, let him know that he which con- 
 verteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save 
 a soul from death. " Have you never wished you were 
 a Whitefield? Have you never felt, young man, in 
 your inmost soul, great aspirations to be another 
 ]\IcCheyne, or Brainerd, or MofYat? Cultivate the aspi- 
 ration, but at the same time be happy to bring one 
 sinner to Jesus Christ, for he who converts only one 
 is bidden to know that no mean thing has been done ; 
 for he has saved a soul from death, and covered a mul- 
 titude of sins. 
 
 And it does not say anything about the person who 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 311 
 
 is the means of this work. It is not said, "If a min- 
 ister shall convert a man, or if some noted elocjuent 
 divine shall have wrought it." If this deed shall be 
 performed by the least babe in our Israel, if a little 
 child shall tell the tale of Jesus to its father, if a ser- 
 vant girl shall drop a tract where some one poor soul 
 shall find it and receive salvation, if the humblest 
 preacher at the street corner shall have spoken to the 
 thief or to the harlot, and such shall be saved, let him 
 know that he that turncth any sinner from the error of 
 his way, whoever he may be, hath saved a soul from 
 death, and covered a multitude of sins. 
 
 Now, beloved, what comes out of this but these 
 suggestions? Let us long to be used in the conversion 
 of sinners. James does not speak concerning the Holy 
 Ghost in this passage, nor of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 for he w-as writing to those who would not fail to 
 remember the important truths which concern both 
 the Spirit and the Son of God ; but yet it may be meet 
 here to remind you that we cannot do spiritual good 
 to our fellow-creatures apart from the Spirit of God, 
 neither can we be blessed to them if we do not preach 
 to them "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." God must 
 use us; but, oh, let us long to be used, pray to be 
 used, and pine to be used! Dear brethren and sis- 
 ters, let us purge ourselves of everything that would 
 prevent our being employed by the Lord. If there is 
 anything we are doing, or leaving undone, any evil 
 we are harbouring, or any grace we are neglecting, 
 which may make us unfit to be used of God, let us 
 pray the Lord to cleanse, and mend, and scour us, till 
 we are vessels fit for the blaster's use. Then let us 
 be on the watch for opportunities of usefulness; let 
 us go about the world with our ears and our eyes 
 open, ready to avail ourselves of every occasion for 
 
312 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 doing good; let us not be content till we are useful, 
 but make this the main desire and ambition of our 
 lives. Somehow or other, we must and will bring souls 
 to Jesus Christ. As Rachel cried, "Give me children, 
 or I die," so may none of you be content to be bar- 
 ren in the household of God. Cry and sigh until you 
 have snatched some brand from the burning, and have 
 brought at least one sinner to Jesus Christ, that so you 
 also may have saved a soul from death, and covered 
 a multitude of sins. 
 
 III. And, now, let us turn for a few minutes only 
 to the point which is not in the text. I want to make 
 A PARTICULAR APPLICATION of this whole 
 subject to the conversion of children. 
 
 Beloved friends, I hope you do not altogether forget 
 the Sabbath-school, and yet I am afraid a great many 
 Christians are scarcely aware that there are such things 
 as Sabbath-schools at all; they know it by hearsay, 
 but not by observation. Probably, in the course of 
 twenty years, they have never visited the school, nor 
 concerned themselves about it. They would be grati- 
 fied to hear of any success accomplished, but though 
 they may not have heard anything about the matter 
 one way or the other, they are well content. In most 
 churches, you will find a band of young and ardent 
 spirits giving themselves to Sunday-school work; but 
 there are numbers of others who might greatly 
 strengthen the school who never attempt anything of 
 the sort. In this they might be excused if they had 
 other work to do; but, unfortunately, they have no 
 godly occupation, but are mere killers of time, while 
 this work which lies ready to hand, and is accessible, 
 and demands their assistance, is entirely neglected. I 
 will not say there are any such sluggards here, but I 
 am not able to believe that we are quite free from them. 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 313 
 
 aiid therefore I will ask conscience to do its work 
 with the guilty parties. 
 
 Children need to be saved; children may be saved; 
 children are to be saved by instrumentality. Children 
 may be saved while they are children. He who said, 
 "Suffer the litde children to come unto Me, and for- 
 bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," 
 never intended that His Church should say, "We will 
 look after tlie children by-and-by when they have grown 
 up to be young men and v/omen." He intended that 
 it should be a subject of prayer and earnest endeavour 
 that children as children should be converted to God. 
 
 The conversion of a child involves tlie same work 
 of divine grace, and results in the same blessed con- 
 sequences as the conversion of the adult. There is 
 the saving of the soul from death in the child's case, 
 and the hiding of a multitude of sins, but there is this 
 additional matter for joy, that a great preventive work 
 is done when the young are converted. Conversion 
 saves a child from a multitude of sins. If God's eternal 
 mercy shall bless your teaching to a little prattler, how 
 happy that boy's life will be compared with what it 
 might have been if he had grown up in folly, sin, 
 and shame, and had only been converted after many 
 days! It is the highest wisdom and the truest prudence 
 to pray for our children that, w'hile they are yet young, 
 their hearts may be given to the Saviour. 
 
 " 'Twill save them from a thousand snares, 
 To mind religion young; 
 Grace will preserve their following years. 
 And make their virtues strong." 
 
 To reclaim the prodigal is well, but to save him from 
 ever being a prodigal is better. To bring back the 
 thief and the drunkard is a praiseworthy action, but 
 
314 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 SO to act that the boy shall never become a thief or a 
 drunkard is far better; hence Sabbath-school instruc- 
 tion stands very high in the list of philanthropic enter- 
 prises, and Christians ought to be most earnest in it. 
 He who converts a child from the error of his way, 
 prevents as well as covers a multitude of sins. 
 
 Moreover, this gives the Church the hope of being 
 furnished with the best of men and women. The 
 Church's Samuels and Solomons are made wise in 
 their youth; David and Josiah were tender of heart 
 when they were tender in years. Read the lives of 
 the most eminent ministers, and you shall usually find 
 that their Christian history began early. Though it is 
 not absolutely needful, yet it is highly propitious to 
 the growth of a well-developed Christian character, 
 that its foundation should be laid on the basis of youth- 
 ful piety. I do not expect to see the Churches of Jesus 
 Christ ordinarily built up by those who have through 
 life lived in sin, but by the bringing up in their midst, 
 in the fear and admonition of the Lord, young men 
 and women who become pillars in the house of our 
 God. If we want strong Christians, we must look to 
 those who were Christians in their youth. Trees must 
 be planted in the courts of the Lord while they are 
 yet young if they are to live long and to flourish well. 
 
 And, brethren, I feel that the work of teaching the 
 young has at this time an importance superior to any 
 which it ever had before, for at this time there are 
 abroad those who are creeping into our houses, and 
 deluding men and women with their false doctrine. 
 Let the Sunday-school teachers of England teach the 
 children well. Let them not merely occupy their time 
 with pious phrases, but teach them the whole gospel 
 and the doctrines of grace intelligently, and let them 
 pray over the children, and never be satisfied unless 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 315 
 
 the children are turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 added to the Church, and then 1 shall not be afraid of 
 Popery. Popish priests said of old that they could 
 have won England back again to Rome, if it had not 
 been for the catechising of the children. Wc have laid 
 aside catechisms, I think with too little reason; but, 
 at any rate, if we do not use godly catechisms, we 
 must bring back decided, plain, simple teaching, and 
 there must be pleading and praying for the immediate 
 conversion of the children unto the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The Spirit of God waits to help us in this effort. He is 
 with us if w^e be with Plim. He is ready to bless the 
 humblest teacher, and even the infant classes shall not 
 be without a benediction. He can give us words and 
 thoughts suitable to our little auditory. He can so 
 bless us that we shall know how to speak a word in 
 season to the youthful ear. And oh, if it be not so, 
 if teachers are not found, or, being found, are unfaith- 
 ful, we shall see the children that have been in our 
 schools go back into the w^orld, like their parents, hat- 
 ing religion because of the tedium of the hours spent 
 in the Sunday-school, and we shall produce a race of 
 infidels, or a generation of superstitious persons: the 
 golden opportunity will be lost, and most solenni re- 
 sponsibility will rest upon us! I pray the Church of 
 God to think much of the Sunday-school. I beseech 
 all lovers of the nation to pray for Sunday-schools: 
 I entreat all who love Jesus Christ, and would see His 
 kingdom come, to be very tender towards all youthful 
 people, and to pray that their hearts may be won to 
 Jesus. 
 
 I have not spoken as I should like to speak ; but the 
 theme lies very near my heart. It is one which ought 
 to press heavily upon all our consciences; but I must 
 leave it. God must lead your thoughts fully into it; 
 
316 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 I leave it, but not till I have asked these questions: — 
 What have you been doing for the conversion of chil- 
 dren, each one of you? What have you done for the 
 conversion of your own children? Are you quite clear 
 upon that matter? Do you ever put your arms around 
 your boy's neck, and pray for him, and with him? 
 Father, you will find that such an act will exercise 
 great influence over your lad. Mother, do you ever 
 talk to your little daughter about Christ, and Him cru- 
 cified? Under God's hands, you may be a spiritual as 
 well as a natural mother to that well-beloved child of 
 yours. What are you doing, you who are guardians 
 and teachers of youth? Are you clear about their 
 souls? You week-day schoolmasters, as well as you 
 who labour on the Sabbath, are you doing all you 
 should that your boys and girls may be brought early 
 to confess the Lord? I leave it with yourselves. 
 
 You shall receive a great reward if, when you enter 
 heaven, as I trust you will, you shall find many dear 
 children there to welcome you into eternal habitations ; 
 it will add another heaven to your own heaven, to 
 meet with heavenly beings who shall salute you as 
 their teacher who brought them to Jesus. I would not 
 wish to go to heaven alone;— would you? I would 
 not wish to have a crown in heaven without a star in 
 it, because no soul was ever saved by my means; — 
 would you? There they go, the sacred flock of blood- 
 bought sheep, the great Shepherd leads them; many 
 of them are followed by twins," and others have, each 
 one, their lamb; would you like to be a barren sheep 
 of the great Shepherd's flock? The scene changes. 
 Hearken to the trampings of a great host. I hear 
 their war music, my ears are filled with their songs 
 of victory. The warriors are coming home, and each one 
 is bringing his trophy on his shoulder, to the honour 
 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO SOUL-WINNERS. 317 
 
 of the great Captain. They stream througli the giiw 
 of pearl, they march in triumph to the celestial Capitol, 
 along the golden streets, and each soldier bears with 
 him his own portion of the spoil. Will you be there? 
 And being there, will you march without a trophy, 
 and add nothing to the pomp of the triumph? Will 
 you bear nothing that you have won in battle, nothing 
 which you have ever taken for Jesus with your sword 
 and with your bow? Again, another scene is before me. 
 I hear them shout the "harvest home," and I see the 
 reapers bearing every one his sheaf. Some of them 
 are bowed down with the heaps of sheaves which load 
 their happy shoulders: they went forth weeping, but 
 they have come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves 
 with them. Yonder comes one who bears but a little 
 handful, but it is rich grain; he had only a tiny plot, 
 and a little seed corn entrusted to him, yet it has mul- 
 tiplied well according to the rule of proportion. 
 
 Will you be there without so much as a solitary ear? 
 Xever having ploughed nor sown, and therefore never 
 having reaped? If so, every shout of every reaper 
 might well strike a fresh pang into your heart as you 
 remember that you did not sow, and therefore could 
 not reap. If you do not love my Master, do not pro- 
 fess to do so. If He never bought you with His blood, 
 do not lie unto Him, and come unto His table, and 
 sav that you are His servant; but if His dear wounds 
 bouglit you, give yourself to Him; and if you love 
 Him, feed His sheep and feed His lambs. He stands 
 here unseen by my sight, but recognised by my faith, 
 He exhibits to you the marks of the wounds upon 
 His hands and His feet, and He says to you, "Peace 
 be unto you! As :My Father hath sent Me. even so 
 send I you. Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
 gospel to every creature ; and this know, that he who 
 
318 THE SOUL-WINNER. 
 
 converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall 
 save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude- of 
 sins." Good Master, help us to serve Thee! Amen. 
 
Charles H. Spurgeon. 
 
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