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 How to promote & conduct a 
 successful revival 
 
How to Promote & Con- 
 duct a Successful Revival 
 
pf^^ mm^,^ 
 
 How to Promote <£^Con- 
 duct a Successful Revival 
 
 With Suggestive Outlines 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 R. A, TORREY 
 
 Author of "How to Bring Men to Christ" "What the Bible 
 Teaches," etc., etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
COPYRIGHT, I9OI, 
 BY FLEMING H. 
 RKVELL COMPANY 
 
INTRODUCTION TO FOURTH EDITION 
 
 The first edition of this book was published the year 
 before we began our evangelistic tour around the world. 
 For two years or more hundreds of us had been praying 
 together for a world-wide revival and we had reached the 
 point where we were absolutely sure that the revival was 
 coming, and this book was prepared as a preparation for 
 that revival and as a help to it. I had not decided at that 
 time to go around the world. The decision was made 
 shortly afterwards. In looking over the book since my 
 return home, I have been surprised to see how closely we 
 have followed the lines of action suggested in this book, 
 and have been rejoiced to see how God has set His seal 
 upon the principles enunciated in the book. At the time 
 that the book was given to the public, the editor was 
 known more as a Bible teacher and as a pastor than as an 
 evangelist. His evangelistic activity had been largely 
 confined to those churches of which he himself was pastor. 
 Since the publication of the book, God has seen fit to 
 lead him out into the evangelistic field and he has had 
 the privilege of applying on a very wide scale the princi- 
 ples which he enunciates in the book and he has found 
 that these principles work successfully, even beyond his 
 own anticipation. I am more firmly convinced than ever 
 of the truth of the statement found on the eighteenth 
 page of the book : 
 
 " When any church can be brought to the place where 
 they will recognize their need of the Holy Spirit, and 
 
INTRODUCTION TO FOURTH EDITION 
 
 take their eyes off from all men, and surrender absolutely 
 to the Holy Spirit's control, and give themselves to much 
 prayer for His outpouring, and present themselves as His 
 agents, having stored the Word of God in their heads and 
 hearts, and then look to the Holy Spirit to give it power 
 as it falls from their lips, a mighty revival in the power of 
 the Holy Ghost is inevitable." 
 
 R. A. TORREY. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Revival is in the air. Thoughtful ministers and 
 Christians everywhere are talking about a revival, 
 expecting a revival, and, best of all, praying for a 
 revival. There seems to be little doubt that a revival 
 of some kind is coming, but the important question is, 
 What kind of a revival will it be? Will it be a true 
 revival, sent of God because His people have met the 
 conditions that make it possible for God to work with 
 power, or will it be a spurious revival gotten up by 
 the arts and devices of man? A business man who is 
 in touch with religious movements in all parts of the 
 country said to me recently, *' There is little doubt 
 that a revival of some kind is coming, and the revival 
 that is coming will be either the greatest blessing or 
 the greatest curse that has ever visited the church of 
 Christ." 
 
 There are many who are trying to promote a revival 
 by pushing to the front doctrines that have never pro- 
 duced a revival in all the history of the church of 
 Christ. These doctrines are called new, but they are 
 in reality as old as the early heresies that crept into 
 the church. They have never had power in the past 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 to produce conviction of sin, conversion or regenera- 
 tion, so presumably they will not have that power 
 to-day. 
 
 Others are advocating a forward movement along 
 lines utterly untried, and that seem to have little 
 promise in them. Some of the methods described in 
 this book will doubtless appear novel to many, but 
 they are methods that have been tried and proved 
 effective. There is absolutely no mere theorizing in 
 the book. Men whom God has used in winning souls 
 to Christ and building up believers, have been asked 
 to write out of their own experience. No one who has 
 been asked to write has declined. Such a book as this 
 seems to be an absolute necessity of the hour. There 
 are thousands of ministers and other Christian workers 
 in the land longing for a true revival of God's work, 
 but with no experimental or even theoretical knowl- 
 edge of how to go to work to promote such a revival. 
 It is our earnest prayer and confident expectation that 
 this book will prove helpful to all such 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The Holy Spirit in a Revival — R. A. Torrey . 1 1 
 The Place of Prayer in a Revival — R. A. Torrey i 9 
 The Preaching Needed in Revivals — Rev. Louis 
 
 Albert Banks, D.D 32 
 
 The Minister as an Evangelist — Rev. William 
 
 Patterson 3^ 
 
 Organizing for Revival Work — Rev Len. G. 
 
 boughton 55 
 
 The Sunday-School Teacher as a Soul-Winner 
 
 — Marion Lawrance 66 
 
 Decision Day in the Sunday-School — Rev. H. W. 
 
 Pope 76 
 
 The Conversion of Children — Rev. E. P. Ham- 
 mond AND R. a. Torrey 94 
 
 The Importance of Open Air Work — Rev. 
 
 William Evans m 
 
 The Use of Tracts and other Literature to 
 
 Promote a Revival — Rev. H. W. Pope . .125 
 
 Personal Work— R. A. Torrey 145 
 
 Drawing the Net — R. A. Torrey 157 
 
 The After-Meeting — Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D. . 162 
 How TO Make the Work Permanent — Rev. E. P. 
 
 Goodwin, D.D 172 
 
 How TO Make a Success of the Christian Life — 
 
 R. A. Torrey 184 
 
 Music in a Revival — Prof. D. B. Towner . . .191 
 Advertising the Meetings — A. F. Gaylord . . 198 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How TO Win Souls for Christ — C H. Spurgeon. 207 
 The Great Revival of 1857-58 — C. H. Spurgeon. 227 
 
 Miscellaneous 248 
 
 The Work of the Spirit — Rev. Joshua Stans- 
 
 field 248 
 
 Honoring the Holy Spirit— Rev. W. S. Har- 
 rington, D.D 251 
 
 The Revival with a Plan — Rev, Isaac Crook, 
 
 D.D ... 252 
 
 Seven Vital Paragraphs — Charles W. Baldwin 255 
 
 Praying-Bands — B. H. Hart 256 
 
 Getting Under Way — W. P. Macvey . . .257 
 An Important Facter in Revivals — Rev. Louis 
 
 Albert Banks, D.D 258 
 
 Exalt Personal Effort— Rev. Geo. B. Wight, 
 
 D.D. 258 
 
 An Unlooked-for Revival — Rev. Robert Watt, 
 
 D.D 260 
 
 O for a Baptism of Prayer! — Mrs. M. N. Van 
 
 Benschoten . . . , 263 
 
 Suggestive Outlines 264 
 
 Regeneration — D. L. M 264 
 
 The Gospel, I.— D. L. M 265 
 
 The Gospel, II.— D. L. M . 265 
 
 Christ as a Deliverer — D. L. M 266 
 
 Compassion of Christ — D. L. M 266 
 
 Christ's Mission to the World — D. L. M. . .267 
 
 Retribution — D. L. M 267 
 
 Love— D. L. M 268 
 
 Confessing Christ — D. L. M 268 
 
 Seeking the Lord— D. L. M. ...... 268 
 
 Grace, I.— D. L. M 269 
 
 Grace, II.— D. L. M 269 
 
CONTENTS 9 
 
 PAOK 
 
 What Will You Do with Jesus?— D. L. M. . 269 
 On Trusting in the Mercy of God — C. G. F. . 269 
 The Savior Lifted Up, and the Look of Faith 
 
 —C. G. F 271 
 
 The Excuses of Sinners Condemn God — C. G. F. 273 
 The Spirit not Striving Always— C. G. F. .275 
 God's Love Commended to us — C. G. F. . .277 
 
 Salvation of the Lord— C. H. S 278 
 
 Salvation to the Uttermost — C. H. S. . . .279 
 
 The Royal Prerogative— C. H. S 280 
 
 Salvation by Knowing the Truth— C. H. S. .281 
 The Plain Man's Pathway to Peace— C. H. S. 282 
 The Great Arbitration Case— C. H. S. . . . 284 
 Only Trust Him! Only Trust Him!— C. H. S. 285 
 
 Jesus Only— C. H. S 287 
 
 Faith: What is it? How Can it be Obtained? 
 
 — C. H. S 288 
 
 All Things are Ready. Come — C. H. S. . 290 
 Every Man's Need of a Hiding Place — R.A.T. 291 
 
 Refuges of Lies — R. A. T 293 
 
 A Solemn Question — R. A. T 294 
 
 What it Costs not to be a Christian — R. A. T. 295 
 
 How Shall We Escape?— R. A. T 295 
 
 To-day"— R. A. T 296 
 
 David's Sin— R. A. T. 297 
 
 What Shall We Do With Jesus?— R. A. T. .298 
 What Are You Waiting For?— R. A. T. . . 299 
 
 The Price of Power.— R. A. T 300 
 
 The Drama ot Life in Three Acts— R. A. T. 300 
 Infidelity: Its Causes, Consequences and Cure 
 
 — R. A. T 301 
 
 Eternal Life, or the Wrath of God — Which — 
 
 R. A. T 302 
 
lo CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Suggestive Outlines by C. B 303 
 
 The Water of Life— C. 1 309 
 
 Repentance — C. 1 310 
 
 Forgiveness — C. I , .310 
 
 A Sevenfold View of the Love of God— C L 310 
 Ten Steps in the Prodigal's Life — C I ,311 
 
 Justification — C. 1 311 
 
 Redemption — C. I ,?ii 
 
 Mercy — C. I sm 
 
 Sin— C. I , 312 
 
 Jesus, the Friend — H. M 312 
 
 Rules for Evangelists — M. R. .... 313 
 
 Conversion — F. S 314 
 
 He Still Waits— F. S 315 
 
 A Great Conditional Promise — F. S. . . .316 
 
 Christ Our Example — F. S 316 
 
 Christ Our Mighty One — F. S 317 
 
 Christ Our Friend— F. S 317 
 
 Saving the Lost— R. A. T 317 
 
 God-Given Conviction— R. A. T 318 
 
 Saved— R. A. T 319 
 
 How to Become Sons of God — C. N. H. . .320 
 
 * 'God Calling F^/"—C. N. H 321 
 
 ** Convicted, but Not Regenerated"— C. N. H. 322 
 *'Salvation:" A Lawyer's View — C. N. H. 323 
 
 *'Christ or the Robber"— C. N. H 324 
 
 God's Justice and His Mercy — C. N. H. . . 325 
 Topics and Texts for Sermons and Bible Read- 
 ings 326 
 
HOW TO PROMOTE AND CON- 
 DUCT A SUCCESSFUL REVIVAL 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 
 
 BY R. A. TORREY 
 
 Two passages of Scripture might well form the 
 watchwords of every true revival, watchwords that 
 should never for a moment be forgotten. The first is 
 a portion of Zech. 4: 6, '*Not by might nor by power, 
 but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts"; the second 
 is, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth 
 nothing" (John 6:6$). In the conduct of any real 
 revival, the Holy Ghost must occupy the place of 
 supreme and absolute control. Revival is new life, and 
 only the Holy Ghost can impart life. 
 
 I. THE HOLY spirit's PART IN A REVIVAL 
 
 Let us look definitely at the Holy Spirit's part in a 
 revival, or, in other words, at what the Holy Spirit 
 must do if there is to be a true revival, 
 
 I. In the first place ^ the Holy Spirit must inspire us 
 to and guide us in prayer. In regard to the great 
 revival that is to come some day to Israel, God says, 
 "I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the 
 inhabitants ot Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of sup- 
 plication.'' So also, if there is to be a true revival in 
 any church or community or nation, God must pour 
 out upon them the spirit of grace and of supplication. 
 
 II 
 
12 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 
 
 The work must begin with Him. We are living in a 
 day when there are many indications that God is doing 
 His part to do this very thing for us. Prayer is the 
 vital breath of a true revival. Prayerless revivals are 
 a sham. But we know not how to pray as we ought, 
 and if there is to be acceptable and effective prayer, 
 the Holy Spirit must help our infirmity and teach us 
 how to pray (Rom. 8: 26, 27). We need to cry to God 
 that He will not only pour out upon us a spirit of 
 grace and of supplication, but that He will also by His 
 Holy Spirit teach us how to pray. Doubtless He is 
 already doing this in a measure, but we need a larger 
 measure. 
 
 2. The Holy Spirit must have the superintendency and 
 direction of all the revival activities. It was so in the 
 apostolic church, which was a revival church. The 
 Holy Spirit chose the officers (Acts 20: 28), He directed 
 where His chosen servants were to preach and work 
 (Acts 13: 1-2), He oftentimes directed in a most minute 
 way, and in ways that those directed did not altogether 
 understand (Acts 16:6-8). All the plans for the 
 revival, and all the details of the plans should be sub- 
 mitted to the Holy Spirit for His guidance; He 
 should be the recognized chairman of every committee. 
 
 3. The Holy Spirit must give power to the preaching 
 and to the testimony. When Jesus gave to the disciples 
 the great commission to go out and evangelize the 
 world. He said, "Ye shall receive power after that the 
 Holy Ghost is come upon you." Paul in writing to 
 the church at Corinth said, "I was with you in weak- 
 ness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech 
 and my preaching was not with enticing words of 
 man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 13 
 
 of power, that your faith should not stand in the wis- 
 dom of men but in the power of God." Again, in 
 writing to the church in Thessalonica, *'Our Gospel 
 came not unto you in word only, but also in power, 
 and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance." 
 Whoever does the preaching in the revival, whether 
 it be the pastor or the evangelist, the whole depend- 
 ence for results from the preaching must be upon the 
 Holy Spirit. Whoever testifies, we must look to the 
 Holy Spirit to give power to the testimony. Many a 
 preacher of very small gifts has been mightily used of 
 God because he and the people looked to the Holy 
 Spirit, and ,many a man of naturally large gifts has 
 accomplished nothing of real and permanent value 
 because the dependence was upon him and not upon 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 4. The Holy Spirit must convict men of siii. Jesus 
 said in promising the Holy Spirit to the disciples, "and 
 He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect 
 of sin. " A revival without conviction of sin, deep, pun- 
 gent, overwhelming, is not a true revival. It is true that 
 a great many may be converted and born again with- 
 out the deep and overwhelming conviction of sin that 
 others have. They may come in as quietly as Lydia, 
 whose heart the Lord opened, but when there is a deep 
 and true work of grace, there will be a deep and over- 
 whelming conviction of sin on the part of many. It 
 was so on the day of Pentecost ; as Peter preached in 
 the power of the Holy Ghost a loud cry went up from 
 men who were pricked in their heart, "Men and 
 brethren, what must we do to be saved?" There has 
 been similar conviction of sin at every genuine and 
 lasting revival since. This is beginning to be so in 
 
14 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 
 
 the church to-day. From all directions come reports 
 of deep conviction of sin. Now it is the work of the 
 Holy Spirit to convict men of sin, and we must depend 
 upon Him to do it. We must ask Him to do it. We 
 must expect Him to do it. Nothing is more futile 
 than to try to convict men of sin by any unaided 
 powers of reasoning that we may possess. The nat- 
 ural heart is so blind, and especially so blind as to its 
 own condition, that the supernatural grace of the 
 Spirit is necessary to open the eyes of the soul to its 
 real condition. But the Holy Spirit, where depend- 
 ence is placed upon Him, is constantly administering 
 His power to convict even the most careless of sin. 
 
 5. The Holy Spirit must regenerate. Revival is new 
 life, and new life to the unsaved comes through 
 regeneration, and it is the Holy Spirit's work to 
 regenerate. Men are saved not through works of 
 righteousness which they themselves have done, but 
 according to God's mercy, who saves us by the wash- 
 ing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit 
 (Titus 3:5). *' Except a man be born of water and of 
 the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. ' ' 
 If there is to be a mighty revival in any church, min- 
 isters and people must look to the Holy Spirit to 
 regenerate men. He can do it; He is doing it every 
 day where dependence is placed upon Him. He is 
 touching the hearts of men and women, seemingly 
 almost beyond the reach of the grace of God, and quick- 
 ening and transforming them by His almighty power. 
 Let us ask Him and expect Him to do it in our own 
 community. What He did in Saul of Tarsus in 
 Damascus, He can do in many another Saul of Tarsus 
 in Chicago, or in any city or village of the land. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 15 
 
 6. The Holy Spirit must sanctify, consecrate and fill. 
 A revival means not only life for those dead in tres- 
 passes and sins, but, furthermore, new life, life more 
 abundant, for those who already have some life. It 
 means complete surrender to God, a setting apart for 
 God, a filling with God, for Christians; and all this is 
 the Holy Spirit's work. He is the sanctifier and the 
 filler (i Pet. 1:2; Eph. 5: 18). Many are trying to 
 cleanse and fill themselves. No! no! Look to the 
 Spirit to do it for you and for others. 
 
 II. HOW TO SECURE THE HOLY SPIRIT'S WORK WITH 
 
 POWER 
 
 We have seen how much depends in a revival on the 
 Holy Spirit's work, how, in fact, everything depends 
 upon Him. Some one might think, then, that all we 
 have to do is to sit down and wait for the Holy Spirit 
 to work, but this is not so. The Holy Spirit is always 
 willing and anxious to do His work if the proper con- 
 ditions are supplied. It is true that the Holy Spirit, 
 like the wind, bloweth where He willeth, but He 
 always willeth to blow where He can consistently, that 
 is, where certain conditions are supplied. What are 
 these conditions, or, in other words, what must we do 
 to secure the Holy Spirit's work with power? 
 
 I. First of all, we must recognize our need of Him, 
 The Holy Spirit only works with power when men 
 deeply realize their need of Him. In many a so-called 
 revival men feel that they are themselves quite suffi- 
 cient for the work in hand. They think that if they 
 can only have the right plans, and the right machin- 
 ery, and the right advertising, and the right sort of 
 singing and preaching, the desired results will follow. 
 
i6 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 
 
 For <<ome years in our country, we have been trying 
 theviC machine-made revivals, and the result is a sorry 
 and sickening failure. We must feel our utter help- 
 lessness and dependence upon the Holy Ghost. Do 
 we feel that to-day? Much that is said and written 
 about the coming revival would seem to indicate that 
 we do not. 
 
 2. In the next place ^ we must take our eyes off from 
 men. If we get our eyes on any man, or any company 
 of men, the Holy Ghost cannot work. God tells us 
 that He has chosen the foolish things of the world to 
 confound the wise, and the weak things of the world 
 to confound the things that are mighty, and the base 
 things of the world, and things which are despised, 
 and things which are not, to bring to naught things 
 that are. Then God tells us why He has chosen the 
 foolish things ; in order that no flesh should glory in 
 His presence (i Cor. i: 27-29). God will not give His 
 glory to another, and if we get our eyes fixed on any 
 man, God will withhold His power and blessing. 
 **Men of low degree are vanity, and men of high 
 degree are a lie, in the balances they will go up, they 
 are together lighter than vanity." Power belongs 
 unto God and to Him alone, and if our dependence is 
 upon men of low degree or men of high degree, the 
 almighty power of God will not be manifested. 
 
 If we wish the Holy Spirit to do His glorious work, 
 we must keep our eyes fixed upon Him, and Him 
 alone. 
 
 3. We must surrender absolutely to the Holy Spirifs 
 control. We have already said that He must control 
 everything, but we on our part must gladly recognize 
 His right to control, and submit whole-heartedly to it. 
 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 17 
 
 God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey Him 
 (Acts 5:32). If we would see a mighty work of God's 
 grace, the deepest longing of our hearts should be that 
 in all our meetings everything about them should be 
 surrendered absolutely to the control of the Holy 
 Spirit. Then shall we see great things. 
 
 4. We must pray. If there is anything absolutely 
 clear in the Word of God, in Christian history and in 
 individual experience, it is that the Holy Spirit is 
 given in His fullness in answer to definite prayer 
 (Luke 11: 13). The Holy Spirit was given at Pente- 
 cost after a ten days' prayer meeting; and if He is to 
 come in mighty power in these days, there must be 
 much private and much united prayer. 
 
 5. We must furnish some one for the Spirit to work 
 through^ and something for the Spirit to use, 
 
 (i). The Holy Spirit works through men. When 
 Cornelius was to be converted, and there was to be a 
 revival in Caesarea, the Holy Spirit did not go directly 
 to Cornelius; He sent Peter, and Peter presented him- 
 self as an agent for the Holy Spirit's power. So must 
 we do. The Holy Spirit convicts men, but He con- 
 victs them through us. In speaking to His disciples 
 Jesus said, **It is expedient for you that I go away, for 
 if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, 
 but if I depart I will send Him unto you, and when He 
 is come [that is, come unto you] He will convict the 
 world in respect of sin." So it is evident that the 
 Holy Spirit who convicts the world does it through the 
 believer. He comes to the believer and convicts 
 the world through him. Will we now present our- 
 selves to the Holy Spirit as the agent through whom 
 He may do His glorious work any way He chooses? It 
 
i8 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A REVIVAL 
 
 may be in invitation work, in tract distribution, in per- 
 sonal work, in singing, in preaching, in any way He 
 will. There is a great revival coming. The Holy 
 Spirit wants agents for this work. How many of us 
 are willing to be His agents, absolutely at His dis- 
 posal? 
 
 (2). The Holy Spirit not only works through men, 
 but He works through a certain instrumentality, that 
 is, the Word of God (Eph. 6: 17). If the Holy Spirit 
 is to work mightily, we must get the Word of God into 
 our heads and into our hearts and upon our lips. On 
 the day of Pentecost, the Word of God which Peter 
 had been storing in his heart for years, got onto his 
 lips, and a mighty revival followed. In Acts 6 : 4 
 Peter and the rest of the disciples decided to give 
 themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. 
 What the result was we read in verse seven, *'The 
 Word of God increased and the number of disciples 
 multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a g^eat number 
 of priests were obedient to the faith." 
 
 When any church can be brought to the place where 
 they will recognize their need of the Holy Spirit, and 
 take their eyes off from all men, and surrender abso- 
 lutely to the Holy Spirit's control, and give themselves 
 to much prayer for His outpouring, and present them- 
 selves as His agents, having stored the Word of God 
 in their heads and hearts, and then look to the Holy 
 Spirit to give it power as it falls from their lips, a 
 mighty revival in the power of the Holy Ghost is 
 mevitable. 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 BY R. A. TORREY 
 
 The first great revival of Christian history had its 
 origin on the human side in a ten-days* prayer-meet- 
 ing. We read of that handful of disciples, "These 
 all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer." 
 (Acts i: 14, R. V.) The result of that prayer-meeting 
 we read of in the second chapter of the Acts of the 
 Apostles, "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 
 and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit 
 gave them utterance" (v. 4). Further on in the chap- 
 ter we read that "there were added unto them in that 
 day about three thousand souls" (v. 41, R. V.). This 
 revival proved genuine and permanent. The con- 
 verts "continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching 
 and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the 
 prayers" (v. 42, R. V.). "And the Lord added to 
 them day by day those that were being saved" (v. 47, 
 R. v.). 
 
 Every true revival from that day to this has had its 
 earthly origin in prayer. The great revival under 
 Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century began 
 with his famous call to prayer. The marvelous work 
 of grace among the Indians under Brainerd had its 
 origin in the days and nights that Brainerd spent 
 before God in prayer for an enduement of power from 
 on high for this work. 
 
 A most remarkable and widespread display of God's 
 
 19 
 
20 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 reviving power was that which broke out at Rochester, 
 New York, in 1830, under the labors of Charles G. 
 Finney. It not only spread throughout the State, but 
 ultimately to Great Britain as well. Mr. Finney him- 
 self attributed the power of this work to the spirit of 
 prayer that prevailed. He describes it in his auto- 
 biography in the following words : 
 
 **When I was on my way to Rochester, as we passed 
 through a village, some thirty miles east of Rochester, 
 a brother minister whom I knew, seeing me on the 
 canal-boat, jumped aboard to have a little conversa- 
 tion with me, intending to ride but a little way and 
 return. He, however, became interested in conversa- 
 tion, and upon finding where I was going, he made up 
 his mind to keep on and go with me to Rochester. We 
 had been there but a few days when this minister 
 became so convicted that he could not help weeping 
 aloud at one time as we passed along the street. The 
 Lord gave him a powerful spirit of prayer, and his 
 heart was broken. As he and I prayed together, I 
 was struck with his faith in regard to what the Lord 
 was going to do there. I recollect he would say, 
 * Lord, I do not know how it is ; but I seem to know 
 that Thou art going to do a great work in this city. * 
 The spirit of prayer was poured out powerfully, so 
 much so that some persons stayed away from the pub- 
 lic services to pray, being unable to restrain their feel- 
 ings under preaching. 
 
 **And here I must introduce the name of a man, 
 whom I shall have occasion to mention frequently, Mr. 
 Abel Clary. He was the son of a very excellent man, 
 and an elder of the church where I was converted. He 
 was converted in the same revival in which I was. He 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 2t 
 
 had been licensed to preach ; but his spirit of prayer was 
 such, he was so burdened with the souls of men, that he 
 was not able to preach much, his whole time and 
 strength being given to prayer. The burden of his 
 soul would frequently be so great that he was unable 
 to stand, and he would writhe and groan in agony. I 
 was well acquainted with him, and knew something of 
 the wonderful spirit of prayer that was upon him. He 
 was a very silent man, as almost all are who have that 
 powerful spirit of prayer. 
 
 "The first I knew of his being in Rochester, a gen- 
 tleman who lived about a mile west of the city called 
 on me one day and asked me if I knew a Mr. Abel 
 Clary, a minister. I told him that I knew him well. 
 *Well,' he said, *he is at my house, and has been there 
 for some time, and I don't know what to think of 
 him. ' I said, 'I have not seen him at any of our meet- 
 ings. * 'No,' he replied, *he cannot go to meeting, he 
 says. He prays nearly all the time, day and night, 
 and in such agony of mind that I do not know what to 
 make of it. Sometimes he cannot even stand on his 
 knees, but will lie prostrate on the floor, and groan 
 and pray in a manner that quite astonishes me.* I 
 said to the brother, 'I understand it: please keep still. 
 It will all come out right ; he will surely prevail. ' 
 
 "I knew at the time a considerable number of men 
 who were exercised in the same way. A Deacon 
 
 P , of Camden, Oneida County; a Deacon T , 
 
 of Rodman, Jefferson County; a Deacon B , of 
 
 Adams, in the same county; this Mr. Clary and many 
 others among the men, and a large number of women 
 partook of the same spirit, and spent a great part of 
 their time in prayer. Father Nash, as we called him, 
 
22 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 who in several of my fields of labor came to me and 
 aided me, was another of those men that had such a 
 powerful spirit of prevailing prayer. This Mr. Clary 
 continued in Rochester as long as I did, and did not 
 leave it until after I had left. He never, that I could 
 learn, appeared in public, but gave himself wholly to 
 prayer. 
 
 "I think it was the second Sabbath that I was at 
 Auburn at this time, I observed in the congregation 
 the solemn face of Mr. Clary. He looked as if he was 
 borne down with an agony of prayer. Being well 
 acquainted with him, and knowing the great gift of 
 God that was upon him, the spirit of prayer, I was 
 very glad to see him there. He sat in the pew with 
 his brother, the doctor, who was also a professor of 
 religion, but who had nothing by experience, I should 
 think, of his brother Abel's great power with God. 
 
 **At intermission, as soon as I came down from the 
 pulpit, Mr. Clary, with his brother, met me at the pul- 
 pit stairs, and the doctor invited me to go home with 
 him and spend the intermission and get some refresh- 
 ments. I did so. 
 
 *' After arriving at his house we were soon sum- 
 moned to the dinner-table. We gathered about the 
 table, and Dr. Clary turned to his brother and said, 
 * Brother Abel, will you ask the blessing?' Brother 
 Abel bowed his head and began, audibly, to ask a 
 blessing. He had uttered but a sentence or two when 
 he broke instantly down, moved suddenly back from 
 the table, and fled to his chamber. The doctor sup- 
 posed he had been taken suddenly ill, and rose up and 
 followed him. In a few moments he came down and 
 said, 'Mr. Finney, brother Abel wants to see you.' 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 23 
 
 Said I, 'What ails him?' Said he, 'I do not know, but 
 he says; you know. He appears in great distress, but 
 I think it is the state of his mind.' I understood it in 
 a moment, and went to his room. He lay groaning 
 upon the bed, the Spirit making intercession for him, 
 and in him, with groanings that could not be uttered. 
 I had barely entered the room, when he made out to 
 say, 'Pray, brother Finney.' I knelt down and helped 
 him in prayer, by leading his soul out for the conver- 
 sion of sinners. I continued to pray until his distress 
 passed away, and then I returned to the dinner table. 
 
 "I understood that this was the voice of God. I saw 
 the spirit of prayer was upon him, and I felt his influ- 
 ence upon myself, and took it for granted that the 
 work would move on powerfully. It did so. The 
 pastor told me afterward that he found that in the six 
 weeks that I was there five hundred souls had been 
 converted." 
 
 Mr. Finney in his lectures on revivals tells of other 
 remarkable awakenings in answer to the prayers of 
 God's people. He says in one place, *'A clergyman 
 
 in W n told me of a revival among his people, 
 
 which commenced with a zealous and devoted woman 
 in the church. She became anxious about sinners, 
 and went to praying for them ; she prayed, and her 
 distress increased ; and she finally came to her min- 
 ister, and talked with him, and asked him to appoint 
 an anxious meeting, for she felt that one was needed. 
 The minister put her off, for he felt nothing of it. 
 The next week she came again, and besought him to 
 appoint an anxious meeting ; she knew there would be 
 somebody come, for she felt as if God was going to 
 pour out His Spirit. He put her off again. And 
 
24 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 finally she said to him, ' If you do not appoint an anx- 
 ious meeting I shall die, for there is certainly going 
 to be a revival.' The next Sabbath he appointed a 
 meeting, and said that if there were any who wished 
 to converse with him about the salvation of their 
 souls, he would meet them on such an evening. He 
 did not know of one, but when he went to the place, 
 to his astonishment he found a large number of anx- 
 ious inquirers. * ' 
 
 In still another place he says, **The first ray of light 
 that broke in upon the midnight which rested on the 
 churches in Oneida County, in the fall of 1825, was 
 from a woman in feeble health, who, I believe, had 
 never been in a powerful revival. Her soul was 
 exercised about sinners. She was in agony for the 
 land. She did not know what ailed her, but she kept 
 praying more and more, till it seemed as if her agony 
 would destroy her body. At length she became full of 
 joy and exclaimed, 'God has come! God has come! 
 There is no mistake about it, the work is begun, and is 
 going over all the region!' And sure enough, the 
 work began, and her family were almost all converted, 
 and the work spread all over that part of the country.'* 
 
 The great revival of 1857 in the United States 
 began in prayer and was carried on by prayer more 
 than by anything else. Dr. Cuyler in an article in a 
 religious newspaper some years ago said, "Most reviv- 
 als have humble beginnings, and the fire starts in a 
 few warm hearts. Never despise the day of small 
 things. During all my own long ministry, nearly 
 every work of grace had a similar beginning. One 
 commenced in a meeting gathered at a few hours' 
 notice in a private house. Another commenced in 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 25 
 
 a group gathered for Bible study by Mr. Moody 
 in our mission chapel. Still another — the most 
 powerful of all — was kindled on a bitter January 
 evening at a meeting of young Christians under my 
 roof. Dr. Spencer, in his 'Pastor's Sketches' (the 
 most suggestive book of its kind I have ever read), 
 tells us that a remarkable revival in his church sprang 
 from the fervent prayers of a godly old man who was 
 confined to his room by lameness. That profound 
 Christian, Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, of the Union 
 Theological Seminary, once gave me an account of a 
 remarkable coming together of three earnest men in 
 his study when he was the pastor of the Arch Street 
 Church in Philadelphia. They literally wrestled in 
 prayer. They made a clean breast in confession of 
 sin, and humbled themselves before God. One and 
 another church officer came in and joined them. The 
 heaven-kindled flame soon spread through the whole 
 congregation in one of the most powerful revivals ever 
 known in that city. ' ' 
 
 In the early part of the sixteenth century there was 
 a great religious awakening in Ulster, Ireland. The 
 lands of the rebel chiefs, which had been forfeited to 
 the British crown, were settled up by a class of colo- 
 nists who for the most part were governed by a spirit 
 of wild adventure. Real piety was rare. Seven min- 
 isters, five from Scotland and two from England, 
 settled in that country, the earliest arrivals being in 
 16 1 3. Of one of these ministers named Blair it is 
 recorded by a contemporary, "He spent many days 
 and nights in prayer, alone and with others, and was 
 vouchsafed great intimacy with God." Mr. James 
 Glendenning, a man of very meager natural gifts, was 
 
26 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 a man similarly minded as regards prayer. The work 
 began under this man Glendenning. The historian of 
 the time says, "He was a man who never would have 
 been chosen by a wise assembly of ministers, nor sent 
 to begin a reformation in this land. Yet this was the 
 Lord's choice to begin with him the admirable work 
 of God which I mention on purpose that all may see 
 how the glory is only the Lord's in making a holy 
 nation in this profane land, and that it was *not by 
 might, nor by power, nor by man's wisdom, but by 
 My Spirit, saith the Lord.' " In his preaching at Old- 
 stone multitudes of hearers felt in great anxiety and 
 terror of conscience. They looked on themselves as 
 altogether lost and damned, and cried out, "Men and 
 brethren, what shall we do to be saved?" They were 
 stricken into a swoon by the power of His Word. A 
 dozen in one day were carried out of doors as dead. 
 These were not women, but some of the boldest spirits 
 of the neighborhood; "some who had formerly feared 
 not with their swords to put a whole market town into 
 a fray." Concerning one of them, the historian 
 writes, "I have heard one of them, then a mighty 
 strong man, now a mighty Christian, say that his end 
 in coming into church was to consult with his compan- 
 ions how to work some mischief." 
 
 This work spread throughout the whole country. 
 By the year 1626 a monthly concert of prayer was held 
 in Antrim. The work spread beyond the bounds of 
 Down and Antrim to the churches of the neighboring 
 counties. So great became the religious interest that 
 Christians would come thirty or forty miles to the com- 
 munions, and continue from the time they came until 
 they returned without wearying or making use of 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 27 
 
 sleep. Many of them neither ate nor drank, and yet some 
 of them professed that they "went away most fresh and 
 vigorous, their souls so filled with the sense of God." 
 
 This revival changed the whole character of northern 
 Ireland. 
 
 Another great awakening in Ireland in 1859 had a 
 somewhat similar origin. By many who did not know, 
 it was thought that this marvelous work came without 
 warning and preparation, but Rev. William Gibson, 
 the moderator of the General Assembly of the Presby- 
 terian Church in Ireland in i860, in his very interest- 
 ing and valuable history of the work, tells how there 
 had been preparation for two years. There had been 
 constant discussion in the General Assembly of the low 
 estate of religion, and of the need of a revival. There 
 had been special sessions for prayer. Finally four 
 young men, who became leaders in the origin of the 
 great work, began to meet together in an old school- 
 house in the neighborhood of Kells. About the spring 
 of 1858 a work of power began to manifest itself. It 
 spread from town to town, and from county to county. 
 The congregations became too large for the buildings, 
 and the meetings were held in the open air, oftentimes 
 attended by many thousands of people. Many hun- 
 dreds of persons were frequently convicted of sin in a 
 single meeting. In some places the criminal courts 
 and jails were closed for lack of occupation. There 
 were manifestations of the Holy Spirit's power of a 
 most remarkable character, clearly proving that the 
 Holy Spirit is as ready to work to-day as in apostolic 
 days, when ministers and Christians really believe in 
 Him and begin to prepare the way by prayer. 
 
 Mr. Moody's wonderful work in England and Scot- 
 
28 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 land and Ireland that afterwards spread to America 
 had its origin on the manward side in prayer. Mr. 
 Moody made little impression until men and women 
 began to cry to God. Indeed, his going to England at 
 all was in answer to the importunate cries to God of a 
 bed-ridden saint. While the spirit of prayer continued 
 the revival abode in strength, but in the course of time 
 less and less was made of prayer, and the work fell off 
 very perceptibly in power. Doubtless one of the great 
 secrets of the unsatisfactoriness and superficiality and 
 unreality of many of our modern so-called revivals, is 
 that more dependence is put upon man's machinery 
 than upon God's power, sought and obtained by 
 earnest, persistent, believing prayer. We live in a 
 day characterized by the multiplication of man's 
 machinery and the diminution of God's power. The 
 great cry of our day is work, work, work, new organi- 
 zations, new methods, new machinery; the great need 
 of our day is prayer. It was a master stroke of the 
 devil when he got the church so generally to lay aside 
 this mighty weapon of prayer. The devil is perfectly 
 willing that the church should multiply its organiza- 
 tions, and deftly contrive machinery for the conquest 
 of the world for Christ if it will only give up praying. 
 He laughs as he looks at the church to-day and says to 
 himself : 
 
 ** You can have your Sunday Schools and your Young 
 People's Societies, your Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciations and your Women's Christian Temperance 
 Unions, your Institutional Churches and your Indus- 
 trial Schools, and your Boys* Brigades, your grand 
 choirs and your fine organs, your brilliant preachers 
 and your revival efforts too, if you don't bring the 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 29 
 
 power of Almighty God into them by earnest, persist- 
 ent, believing, mighty prayer. ' ' 
 
 Prayer could work as marvelous results to-day as it 
 ever could, if the church would only betake itself to it. 
 
 There seems to be increasing signs that the church 
 is awaking to this fact. Here and there God is laying 
 upon individual ministers and churches a burden of 
 prayer that they have never known before. Less 
 dependence is being put upon machinery and more 
 dependence upon God. Ministers are crying to God 
 day and night for power. Churches and portions of 
 churches are meeting together in the early morning 
 hours and the late night hours crying to God for the 
 latter rain. There is every indication of the coming 
 of a mighty and widespread revival. There is every 
 reason why, if a revival should come in any country at 
 this time, it should be more widespread in its extent 
 than any revival of history. There is the closest and 
 swiftest communication by travel, by letter, and by 
 cable between all parts of the world. A true fire of 
 God kindled in America would soon spread to the 
 uttermost parts of the earth. The only thing needed 
 to bring this fire is prayer. 
 
 It is not necessary that the whole church get to 
 praying to begin with. Great revivals always begin 
 first in the hearts of a few men and women whom God 
 arouses by His Spirit to believe in Him as a living 
 God, as a God who answers prayer, and upon whose 
 heart He lays a burden from which no rest can be 
 found except in importunate crying unto God. 
 
 HOW CAN WE GET OUR PEOPLE TO PRAYING ? 
 
 First of all, we as ministers should begin praying 
 ourselves. Those who read this book who are not 
 
30 THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 
 
 ministers should also begin praying themselves. It is 
 recorded of a young minister that there came to him 
 such a burden for the salvation of the lost that he offered 
 this prayer to God, *'0 God send us a revival or let me 
 die." This seems extravagant, but is it any more 
 extravagant than Moses' prayer in the mount? **Yet 
 now if Thou wilt, forgive their sin ; if not, blot me, I 
 pray thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written. ' * 
 Is it any more extravagant that Paul's expression of 
 love for his unsaved brethren? '*! could wish that I 
 myself were Anathema from Christ for my brethren's 
 sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Extrav- 
 agant or not, God answered this young minister with 
 a mighty outpouring of His Holy Spirit. When we 
 as ministers have something of a similar burden of 
 prayer for the perishing, revivals will soon appear. 
 
 Having been brought by God's Spirit into such a 
 place of earnest prayer ourselves, we should seek out 
 the more spiritual members of our flock, and gather 
 them around us for prayer, then, in due time, the 
 whole church can be gathered for prayer. There 
 should be prayer meetings at the church, but not only 
 at the church ; there should be prayer meetings in the 
 homes. Cottage meetings should be instituted, where 
 neighbors gather together to pray for a revival. In 
 country districts neighborhood meetings should be held 
 in the school houses, or wherever the farmers and 
 their families can be gotten together. The godly 
 ones, who are sick and shut in, and the very aged ones, 
 who may not be able to get out, should be especially 
 enlisted in this ministry of prayer. Others at a dis- 
 tance can also be enlisted by correspondence. Not a 
 little of the marvelous results of Mr. Newell's great 
 
THE PLACE OF PRAYER IN A REVIVAL 31 
 
 Bible classes in Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis is due 
 to the fact that he secured from all his friends the 
 names of the godliest people they knew, far and wide, 
 and began writing to them and thus enlisting them in 
 a work of prayer in behalf of these classes. 
 
 Let each one get to praying, and get as many others 
 as possible to praying for his own community, and 
 then for the world at large. 
 
THE PREACHING NEEDED IN 
 REVIVALS 
 
 Firsts Revival preaching to be effective must be posi- 
 tive. The doubter never has revivals. The man who 
 finds it necessary to be all the while hedging and ex- 
 plaining and apologizing for the Gospel message which 
 he brings, will never arouse revivals under his preaching. 
 A revival is a revolution in many important respects, 
 and revolutions are never brought about by timid, 
 fearful or deprecatory addresses. They are awakened 
 by men who are cocksure of their ground, and who 
 speak with authority. So the men who arouse reviv- 
 als by their preaching are men who believe the Bible, 
 and who hold its great message to not only be true but 
 infinitely important. And they preach it with the 
 positive force of a man who is certain that he stands 
 on solid rock. The message is true. The man who 
 believes it shall be saved; the man who does not 
 believe it will be damned. Eternal destiny hangs 
 upon it. Christ is able to save the sinner. No one 
 else can save him. The sinner can be saved now. 
 These great facts must be central and positive in the 
 preacher's mind and heart, and he must utter them 
 with positive emphasis. 
 
 Second^ revival preaching must be direct. It must 
 be addressed to the people right then and there before 
 
 32 
 
PREACHING NEEDED IN REVIVALS 33 
 
 the preacher. He is not giving out a message to be 
 diffused around through the community. He is a 
 messenger from heaven with a free pardon in his hand 
 for a man condemned to die, and that man sits right 
 there in the pew before him. He must get the man to 
 see the pardon, to feel his need of it and to accept it 
 before he leaves the house. He must get on to some 
 basis by which he can make that man feel as well as 
 understand the message. 
 
 Thirds revival preaching must be sympathetic. If it 
 is not it may arouse men and yet fail to win them. It 
 must get at men from their human side. The preacher 
 must find a man's heart and warm it to himself, as 
 well as to the Christ whom he preaches. There are 
 many people who can be won largely through personal 
 reasons. They are just as certainly won as though 
 they were won in another way. But they come to 
 know Christ through the preacher who proclaims Him. 
 The sympathy and tenderness and love of the preach- 
 er's heart, which show forth in his sympathetic words 
 and manner, attract them like a magnet, and they are 
 drawn away from their sins and drawn toward Christ. 
 
 Fourth^ revival preaching must be directed toward 
 the heart and not the head. In spite of all that is said 
 about agnosticism and infidelity there are very few 
 who, down at the heart, are really unbelievers in the 
 divine power of Jesus Christ to forgive sins and save 
 the soul. Where there is one such, there are a 
 hundred who are believers, so far as a wicked man is 
 ever a believer, but whose heart -lusts and sinful pas- 
 sions hold them away from Christ and righteousness. 
 The conviction of the head wiU never v/in them to 
 Christ. The heart must be aroused ; they must feel 
 
34 PREACHING NEEDED IN REVIVALS 
 
 the baseness of their ingratitude ; they must see the 
 heinousness of their sins; they must appreciate the 
 certainty of punishment and feel that, hanging over 
 their guilty heads, even now, is the weight of condem- 
 nation of guilt. Get hold of the heart and the head 
 yields easily. Men continue in sin because their hearts 
 are evil. Make the heart feel its guilt, let the heart 
 see Christ as the "one altogether lovely," and as the 
 helm turns the course of the ship in the hands of the 
 pilot, who has just been taken on from the pilot-boat, 
 so the life will change just as suddenly from the 
 changed heart to which you have made your appeal. 
 
 Fifth, revival preaching must be simple and clear. 
 There is no time to let a man study about it for a week 
 and reason out what you have told him. You are like 
 a lawyer before a jury, on the last day of the trial, 
 when he knows that the jury is to go out to make its 
 decision immediately on the close of his speech. All 
 his desires to make a great impression on the jury, that 
 may help him in some future case, are thrust aside. 
 What he must do is to make the jury understand the 
 case now, and look at it from his standpoint. He will 
 not use a word, if he knows it, that is not compre- 
 hended at a glance by the jury. What he says must 
 be absolutely clear and simple and stand out distinct 
 in their minds if he is to win his verdict. Revival 
 preaching is like that. No man who wants immediate 
 effect in the conversion of sinners ought ever to say 
 anything in a sermon that a boy ten years old, brought 
 up in a Christian family, would not easily comprehend. 
 There is perhaps as great a weakness at this point as at 
 any other among preachers who try to have revivals. 
 They want to preach too big sermons. I had a man 
 
PREACHING NEEDED IN REVIVALS 35 
 
 come to me once who was very serious and deeply 
 anxious to have results in the conversion of sinners 
 under his ministry. During the conversation he made 
 this remark : * * I cannot get the consent of my mind to 
 so lower the literary and philosophical standard which 
 I have set for myself, to do the kind of preaching 
 which seems to win men to decision for Christ. * * That 
 was a real confession. He had hit the root of the 
 matter. He always reminded me of that moral, rich 
 young man who came to Christ, and who was such a 
 good young fellow that Christ loved him, and yet he 
 went sadly away with a frown on his brow from the 
 very door of the kingdom. This man of whom I have 
 spoken has never got the consent of his mind to do the 
 right kind of preaching, and as a result has never had 
 a revival. And he never will have until he surrenders 
 to Christ to do the kind of preaching that will accom- 
 plish the result he desires. 
 
 Sixthy revival preaching must be illustrative. It 
 must be in pictures. It must seize hold of the imag- 
 ination. The Master used pictures. His sermons are 
 full of stories and parables. He made men see His 
 message as well as hear it. His message lived again 
 in the imagination. We can bring men to action in 
 the same way. No man has ever been a great revival- 
 ist who scorned a generous use of illustrations. It is 
 a common thing for the great evangelists, and the pas- 
 tors who have great success in winning men to Christ, 
 to be criticised by the so-called eloquent and profound 
 preachers who nevei have any revivals of their own, 
 as being only story-tellers, and not being "strong" 
 preachers. This is all nonsense. A sermon is strong 
 only when it is powerful to produce the effect for 
 
S6 PREACHING NEEDED IN REVIVALS 
 
 which a sermon is made. If the great end of a ser- 
 mon is to arouse a man to hate his sins, and see in 
 Christ a divine Savior, and so awaken him as to cause 
 him to immediately accept Christ and find forgiveness, 
 then that sermon is a strong sermon which brings 
 about that result ; and the man who attempts to do it 
 in any other way, and fails, has preached a weak ser- 
 mon, no matter how scholarly nor how splendid its 
 rhetoric, nor how profound its thought, nor how dig- 
 nified its delivery. Sermons are strong that pull down 
 the works of the devil and capture sinners for Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Seventh, revival preaching must be intense. It 
 must be more than earnest; it must be charged with 
 suppressed moral electricity. A man must be excited 
 in his emotions, and yet hold them in restraint. He 
 must so feel his message that he could cry aloud on the 
 street-corner, and yet must hold himself in leash, as a 
 hunter holds back his dog, that quivers with excite- 
 ment and yet keeps silent until the proper moment. 
 So the man who is seeking to win souls by his message 
 must hold his emotions in leash, but they must be 
 there, and if they are not there the sermon will fail of 
 its highest effectiveness. If there is any lack of this 
 feeling it can only be brought about by putting him- 
 self in the place of the man to whom he is preaching 
 until he feels like Paul — that he is in prison with him, 
 bound with him in like chains — and thus his message 
 will become real. 
 
 Eighth, to preach effectively in revivals the preacher 
 must absorb a great deal of the Bible. The sermon 
 must be saturated with the Bible. God has promised 
 to bless his own Word, and the people to whom we 
 
PREACHING NEEDED IN REVIVALS 37 
 
 preach must feel that we are loyal to the Word of God. 
 Illustrations drawn from the Bible are peculiarly 
 effective in times of revival. 
 
 Ninths the preacher must be conscious that he is 
 God's man. He must feel like Elijah did when he 
 strode into the presence of Ahab and his wicked queen, 
 and said: "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before 
 whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these 
 years, but according to my word." He must feel as 
 Nathan did when he stood before David, and told him 
 the story of the ewe lamb until David has committed 
 himself, and then, with whitened cheek and flashing 
 eye and accusing finger, says to the startled and 
 astounded king: "Thou art the man!" If the 
 preacher feels sure that God is with him, that he 
 stands in the presence of the living God, there will be 
 a glorious independence of speech, mingled with a 
 deep and tender love for the people to whom he 
 speaks, that will be marvelously effective. 
 
 Tenth^ he must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He 
 must be in the frame of mind and heart that Philip 
 knew when he was caught away from the city into the 
 desert, and which he felt and yielded to when he 
 climbed into the chariot of the Ethiopian treasurer, 
 and preached to him Christ. The presence of the 
 Spirit of the living God in our hearts, giving holy 
 unction to the message, is the crowning glory of the 
 revival preacher. I have not time to speak of many 
 other things, but must not fail to say that here, as 
 everywhere else, true manhood, unspotted life and 
 genuine character, frank and open and read of all 
 men, is tremendously powerful. 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 REV, WILLIAM PATTERSON, PASTOR OF BETHANY CHURCH, 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 The work of the Minister, according to the teaching 
 of the New Testament, is threefold. 
 
 First, he is to feed the church of God — the babes, 
 with the sincere milk of the Word ; and those who are 
 more advanced with the strong meat of its doctrines. 
 
 Second, he is to care for those over whom he has 
 been placed as an overseer or under-shepherd. This 
 twofold aspect of the work was very clearly brought 
 out by our Savior, on that early morning when He 
 stood by the Lake of Gennesaret and commanded 
 Peter to feed the sheep and the lambs and to shepherd 
 them. We are all agreed as to the importance of these 
 two departments in connection with the minister's 
 work ; in fact, we can hardly overestimate the impor- 
 tance of building up Christian people in faith and in 
 knowledge, and also in caring for them as the shepherd 
 cares for the sheep, by leading them to the green pas- 
 tures and the quiet waters. 
 
 Third, he is commanded to do the work of an 
 Evangelist; in other words, to reach out after the 
 unsaved and to bring into the fold those who are out- 
 side. This part of the work was surely referred to 
 when Christ called the disciples and told them that, if 
 they would follow Him, He would make them **fishers 
 
 38 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 39 
 
 of men;" that as they had in the past drawn the fish 
 out of the sea by the net, they would in the future 
 draw men from the sea of iniquity to the rock of safety. 
 
 If we look at our Lord as the great example, we will 
 see that while He was the greatest of all teachers and 
 the one who was preparing His disciples for their life 
 work, yet His great mission to this world was the sav- 
 ing of the lost. His very name meant Savior, and 
 He Himself said that the Father sent Him into the 
 world that the world might be saved through Him, 
 and He informed the murmuring Pharisees that the 
 Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was 
 lost. Paul, speaking of the Savior's work in after 
 years, said that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
 save sinners; but it is not necessary to multiply pas- 
 sages of scripture, in order to prove that the great mis- 
 sion of the Master was to save the lost. 
 
 In commanding the disciples, He told them that as 
 the Father had sent Him into the world, in like man- 
 ner He was sending them. They were to be the sav- 
 iors of men — not in the sense in which He was, by 
 making an atonement for sin, but by telling to the lost 
 ones that an atonement had been made ; that God was 
 reconciled and that for them there was redemption if 
 they would turn to the Savior. Again, before He 
 ascended on high after His reurrection. He com- 
 manded His followers to go into all the world and to 
 preach the Gospel to every creature; to preach 
 repentance and the remission of sins in His name, 
 beginning at Jerusalem. 
 
 The great work of the church is the evangelizing of 
 the nations and the saving of the lost, through pro- 
 claiming the Gospel of the Son of God. We are not 
 
40 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 discussing the question of evangelists. Some say they 
 have a place in the New Testament and some say they 
 have not. We know that many of them have been 
 instrumental in accomplishing great good; that God 
 has set His approval on their work and that, to-day, 
 there are multitudes rejoicing in the salvation of Christ 
 through the labors of evangelists. We know on the 
 other hand that some of them, through lack of grace 
 or lack of wisdom, have been the means of breaking 
 up congregations; but what has been said of evan- 
 gelists could be said of ministers with equal truth. 
 Many of them have been wonderfully blessed in 
 advancing the cause of God, but is it not true that 
 some of them have broken up congregations and 
 injured the cause they were representing? The question 
 we are discussing is ''The Minister as an Evangelist." 
 At the very beginning we are met with the asser- 
 tion that many ministers have not the evangelistic gifts. 
 It is true that some ministers are better adapted for 
 preaching the deep things of God and for edifying the 
 church of God than they are for reaching the unsaved; 
 while others are better adapted for evangelistic work 
 than for the work of teaching and edifying the church; 
 but while this is true, every minister should be able to 
 show the unsaved the way of salvation. If we expect 
 our Sabbath School teachers to bring their scholars to 
 Christ through their teaching, we should expect the 
 ministers to be able to bring sinners to a knowledge 
 of Christ as their Savior through their preaching. It 
 will not do for a minister to say: **I have not the evan- 
 gelistic gift, and therefore the lost are not being saved 
 in my congregation.** If a minister is not qualified to 
 preach to sinners, he is not qualified to be a minister, 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 41 
 
 and he should never be set apart for that work by a 
 Presbytery, a Council or a Bishop. 
 
 What is evangelistic preaching, or what does it mean 
 to do the work of an evangelist? It is not being able 
 to tell anecdotes in an interesting manner, or to clothe 
 stories with beautiful language, but it is the present- 
 ing of the truth to men in such a way that they will 
 see themselves as sinners, and then presenting Christ 
 to them as the Savior of sinners in such a way that 
 they will receive Him as their personal Savior, and 
 thus be saved. 
 
 If we glance back at the history of the church we 
 shall see that this has been done by men who are not 
 designated as evangelists. John the Baptist, for 
 example, was an evangelistic preacher, for he was 
 calling men to repentance ; and on the Day of Pente- 
 cost Peter's sermon was evangelistic. He did two 
 things in that sermon — he convinced the multitudes 
 that they were sinners, that they had with wicked 
 hands crucified the Son of God; and when they came 
 to see themselves as sinners, lost and condemned, 
 Peter presented unto them the way of salvation 
 through Christ. Three thousand of them believed his 
 words and were baptized. Surely this was an evan- 
 gelistic sermon, and, if we follow through the Acts of 
 the Apostles, we will discover that not only Philip, 
 who was called an evangelist, but that the Apostles 
 and teachers as well were evangelistic preachers and 
 were instrumental in bringing men into the Kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 If we come down to the days of the reformers we 
 will find that men like Luther and Knox were evan- 
 gelistic in their preaching, for they preached justifica- 
 
42 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 tion by faith. Coming down further in the history of 
 *^he Church, we see men like Rutherford and Mc- 
 Cheyne, who were wonderfully gifted for edifying 
 Christians ; yet these men were great evangelists, for 
 through them many were brought to a saving knowl- 
 edge of the truth. Again, Chahners, while he was a 
 great philosopher and wonderful theologian, was also 
 an evangelistic preacher, and the same could be said 
 of Jonathan Edwards, under whose preaching men 
 trembled and cried out: "What must we do to be 
 saved?" then, if we turn to Spurgeon, we will meet a 
 man who was a preacher to preachers, and yet one of 
 the greatest evangelists of the century ; for his taber- 
 nacle was spoken of as a "soul trap," a place where so 
 many sinners were caught and brought out of the 
 darkness of sin into the light of God. 
 
 Dr. John Hall, of New York, was also evangelistic, 
 and presented the truth in as forcible and clear a man- 
 ner as any evangelist ever did. On one occasion, when 
 the audience were going out of the church on Fifth 
 Avenue, a man was heard to say, "The old man gives 
 a fellow no chance to dodge" — in other words. Dr. 
 Hall closed up every false way of escape with such 
 thoroughness that the sinner could see no way of 
 refuge save in Christ. 
 
 The question now comes, are the ministers of this 
 country and of this age doing the work of evangelists, 
 and, if they are, how shall we account for over fifteen 
 hundred congregations in one denomination reporting 
 no additions to the church by profession of faith dur- 
 ing the year, and over nineteen hundred in another 
 denomination who could not say they had been instru- 
 mental in saving any during the twelve months of the 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 43 
 
 year? This is a terrible state of affairs. Can it be 
 that ministers are leaving the work of soul-saving to 
 those who are called evangelists? The evangelist 
 should be to the minister and congregation what the 
 Sabbath School is to the home — or what it should be to 
 the home. But if the Sabbath School takes the place of 
 the home, it fails to accomplish its mission, and that is 
 not the fault of the Sabbath School. If the evangelist 
 is taking the place of the minister in his work as a 
 soul-winner, he is not fulfilling his mission, and the 
 fault is not his, but the minister's. 
 
 It may be that this is true to a certain extent, and 
 that ministers do not look for or expect conversions 
 except when they are having what are called "special 
 meetings." The minister should expect conversions 
 at every service where the unsaved are present. Do 
 not let us blame the evangelists unless we are sure 
 that they are to blame, and that we, as ministers, have 
 done our duty in this respect. There is still a little bit 
 of the old Adam left in us which leads us to roll the 
 blame over on others, or try, like the young lawyer, to 
 justify ourselves. 
 
 I hear a great deal of discussion in this country 
 about the evening service. The question is, how are 
 we to reach the people, and how are we to get them 
 to come out to the evening service? I do not wonder 
 that the evening congregations in many churches are 
 very small when I see advertised the subjects upon 
 which the ministers preach. So many of these sub- 
 jects are sensational trash or semi-religious topics. 
 Some ministers seem to think that if they are to draw 
 a congregation, they must discuss some political or 
 scientific subject, but they never made a greater mis- 
 
44 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 take, for there is nothing that will draw an audience 
 and interest an audience like the evangelistic truth 
 contained in the Scriptures. A woman who was 
 speaking to a minister concerning the crowds of 
 people who went to hear him, said: "It must be the 
 Lord who is bringing them, for it is not the singing, 
 and I am sure it is not the preaching." It was rather 
 a strange way of putting the case, and yet it was true, 
 for singing will not fill an empty church; that is, the 
 classic singing we hear so much about will not. It has 
 been tried in this country and it has failed. There 
 are churches which pay a great deal of money for sing- 
 ing, and yet the pews are not crowded ; neither is it the 
 preaching which will draw, apart from the truth of 
 God, for we have many preachers who are bright 
 scholars, cultured men, gifted and fluent speakers, and 
 yet their churches are far from full. 
 
 On the other hand, there are churches where the 
 ministers could not be called scholarly, or eloquent, 
 and where the singing is not by any means classic, and 
 yet they have large congregations; and men are being 
 saved week after week because the Gospel is preached 
 in sincerity, in simplicity, and with power. 
 
 I take it for granted that those who shall read these 
 pages are anxious to be instrumental in bringing sin- 
 ners to a knowledge of the Savior, and I shall now 
 refer to what I consider a few essentials in the accom- 
 plishing of this. First of all, we must have power 
 with men if we are to reach and win them, and in 
 order to have this power we must be right with God. 
 I believe that there are many ministers and Christian 
 workers whose names are in the Book of Life, and yet 
 who have no power because there is something wrong 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 45 
 
 in their lives. It is probable that Jacob was a child of 
 God from the night when he first met the Lord at 
 Bethel ; yet for twenty years, as far as we can gather, 
 his life was powerless and fruitless. But when he met 
 with the angel who changed his name from Jacob to 
 Israel, he was informed that he would have power with 
 men because he had power with God ; and that power 
 made itself manifest on the following day, when the 
 wrath of his brother, Esau, was turned away. 
 
 David was a man who had power with God and 
 power with men; yet he lost that power through 
 sin and, in Psalm 51, he is praying for a restoration of 
 the joy of salvation for cleansing; and he adds that, as 
 a result, sinners will be converted unto God. It has 
 pleased God to save sinners by what may be called the 
 foolishness of preaching. God is reaching the unsaved 
 through those already redeemed — through His Church, 
 which is the one and only divine institution in the 
 world. Men and women who have put their confi- 
 dence in Him are the channels through which His sal- 
 vation is to reach all who are outside the Kingdom of 
 God, and, if there is anything wrong with that channel, 
 to that extent the work of saving the world will be 
 affected. 
 
 We may take an illustration to make this more plain. 
 Suppose we have a great reservoir full of water, on 
 a hill, and a city in the valley, and pipes connecting 
 the reservoir with the homes of the people. The 
 water which they receive from the reservoir will come 
 through these pipes as the channels. Something may 
 happen to the pipes — they may be frozen by the cold 
 atmosphere surrounding them or they may become 
 choked with sand or earth getting into them ; in either 
 
46 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 case the water will cease to flow and the inhabitants 
 will suffer. The same may happen to those who are 
 the channels conveying the love and forgiveness of 
 God to the sinners who are unsaved. Christians may 
 become so cold and so indifferent or they may become 
 so engrossed with science or philosophy or the things 
 of the world that they may cease to be the channels 
 through which God's forgiveness will reach men; and 
 as the water-pipes to which we have referred cannot 
 thaw themselves nor cleanse themselves, neither can 
 men who have got into this state restore themselves to 
 a state of usefulness. The power to do this must come 
 from without; and so we find David calling upon God 
 to cleanse him and to stay him with His free spirit so 
 that sinners might be converted. 
 
 The first essential, then, is to see that we are right 
 with God — that we are in perfect fellowship with Him 
 — and then we can be the channels through which He 
 can reach the ungodly and the sinful. 
 
 Another essential in this work is love. In speaking 
 of the gifts which were given to men in i Cor., chapter 
 12, Paul exhorted them to choose the best gifts; and 
 then he went on, in chapter 13, to show them the more 
 excellent way. There he speaks of love as the great- 
 est and most enduring of all the gifts; and without it, 
 he says, a man is as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. 
 We will never reach men nor be instrumental in saving 
 them unless we love them ; and the more of Christ we 
 have in our hearts, the more compassion we will have 
 for the lost. 
 
 How many wonderful pictures of Christ are pre- 
 sented to us in the Gospels. At one time we see Him 
 looking with compassion upon the multitudes because 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 47 
 
 they are as sheep without a shepherd ; at another time 
 we see Him beholding the great city through His 
 tears, and hear Him cry out, "O Jerusalem, Jerusa- 
 lem, how oft would I have gathered thee, but ye would 
 not." If we look at Paul, His greatest Apostle, we 
 will see this same truth made manifest. Before his 
 conversion he hated men and consented to the stoning 
 of Stephen; after his conversion, he said that his 
 heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel was that 
 they might be saved. Though these very people were 
 persecuting him. He could say with all his soul: 
 ** Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ 
 in sincerity and truth." But, in addition to this love 
 for the saints, he had a passion for the souls of the 
 lost. When our hearts become full of love to Christ, 
 they will go out in compassion and in love to the lost 
 sheep who have wandered from the fold and, like the 
 faithful shepherd, we will be anxious to go after them, 
 though the night be dark and though difficulties lie in 
 the way. The work will be a pleasure if our hearts are 
 in it, and we will be anxious to bring back those who 
 have gone astray ; but without this love the work of the 
 minister is the greatest drudgery and the fruits will 
 never be made manifest. 
 
 Another essential to success is obedience, and it is a 
 proof of love, for Christ said: '*If ye love me keep my 
 commandments." Now, I believe that some of us are 
 failing in the work because we have not obeyed the 
 voice of God in all things, and there is nothing that 
 will take the place of obedience. If we go back to the 
 history of the Old Testament, we shall discover that the 
 failure of Saul was due to his disobeying the voice of 
 the Lord. He had everything in his favor at the start, 
 
48 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 yet he made shipwreck of himself and of the nation, 
 and we know, from Samuel's message to him, that all 
 his failure was brought about through his disobeying 
 the voice of the Lord. On the other hand, if we look 
 at David, who seemingly had everything against him 
 at the start, we see that he overcame all dfficulties, 
 gathered together the scattered fragments of the nation, 
 established a throne so great and so glorious that the 
 Son of God was spoken of as the Son of David, and 
 the key to David's success we find in the prayer, "Show 
 me Thy way, O Lord." He had his failings, and some 
 of his sins were great and grievous, but all his strength 
 and all the success he ever attained lay in his obedi- 
 ence to the voice of God. 
 
 Take as another example the prophet Jonah. He was 
 commanded to go to Nineveh and preach to the people, 
 but for reasons known to himself and only guessed at 
 by us, he turned his back upon the great city and made 
 for Tarshish. While in the path of disobedience he 
 was unhappy himself and brought sorrow to the sailors 
 and great loss to those who had sent their merchandise 
 on the vessel in which he took passage ; but just as 
 soon as he got into the path of obedience and went to 
 the city as he was commanded, he was instrumental 
 in bringing the whole city to repentance and in turn- 
 ing away the wrath of an angry God. 
 
 If we turn to Saul or Paul, the greatest Apostle of 
 New Testament times, we get the key to his wonder- 
 ful success in the second question which he asked the 
 Lord, when he said: ''What wilt Thou have me to 
 do?" If we follow him all through his missionary 
 journeys, we will see that his desire to obey the divine 
 will makes itself manifest continually. If God tells 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 49 
 
 him to leave Asia he will go, no matter what the result 
 may be ; if God tells him to enter into Europe he will 
 go, no matter what the difficulties may be which stand 
 in the way. Like a faithful soldier, he was continually 
 awaiting the command of his captain, and his delight 
 was to obey. 
 
 If God sends any of us to a certain field, and if, for 
 reasons known to ourselves, we refuse to go, we need 
 not expect to be instrumental in saving the lost. God 
 has a plan for every man and a field for every worker; 
 if we are where He wants us to be, and are doing the 
 work that He wants us to do, success will surely crown 
 our efforts. To obey is better than sacrifice and, if 
 we commit our ways to Him, He surely will direct our 
 steps. If we are anxious to do His will, we will hear 
 a voice saying: '*This is the way; walk ye in it." 
 Whether the field be large or small, whether the work 
 be popular or obscure, if we are in the place where He 
 has put us we can look to Him for the power and the 
 help without which our efforts would be in vain. 
 
 Another essential for soul-saving is wisdom, or tact. 
 When the Savior was sending His disciples out He 
 told them to be wise as serpents. In trying to reach 
 men we must know how to deal with them. Looking 
 at some of the figures which our Savior used will help 
 us to understand it more fully. He spoke of Himself 
 as the physician and, in a certain sense. His disciples 
 and followers are physicians for the healing of the 
 souls of men. Now, it is not only necessary for a phy- 
 sican to understand the remedy, but he must also 
 understand the patients and diseases for which these 
 remedies are intended ; because what would give heal- 
 ing to one might bring death to another; so he must 
 
50 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 make a diagnosis of the cases, and treat the man 
 accordingly. It is so in dealing with men spiritually ; 
 it is not enough for us to know the Word of God and to 
 be thoroughly acquainted with its doctrines, but we 
 must know something of the spiritual condition of the 
 people with whom we are dealing. Understand, there 
 is no use talking to a man who has had no sense of sin 
 about the salvation from sin. He does not want a 
 Savior because he has never felt his need. We often 
 err by bringing men to Mt. Calvary who have never 
 seen Mt. Sinai. The first thing to do with a man who 
 has never seen himself as a sinner is to convince him, 
 by the use of God's Word, that he is lost, and then 
 salvation will have some meaning for him ; or, when 
 we have a man who is being crushed through a sense 
 of his sins and who is almost in despair, it would not do 
 to bring that man the passages of scripture that speak 
 about the wrath of God. We must reveal to him the 
 remedy, and show him God as a refuge for those who 
 are in trouble. 
 
 Then we are spoken of as ** fishers of men," and, if 
 the figure means anything, it means that wisdom and 
 skill are necessary to accomplish this work. A fisher- 
 man must in some way come in contact with the fish 
 before he can catch them. He must go to where they 
 are, or else get them to come where he is. He must 
 study their ways so as to know how best to catch them. 
 There are two kinds of fishermen who never catch any 
 fish — one class take nothing with them but the hook, 
 and the fish look at it and pass on ; another class take no 
 hook, but a considerable amount of bait. As a general 
 thing the latter have a large following. The fish enjoy 
 and appreciate such men ; they swallow their bait and 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 51 
 
 go their way, and the fisherman congratulates himself 
 upon seeing so many fish in the clear stream that go 
 after his bait, but he has not made a catch. How 
 often this is done by ministers! Some present the 
 truth in such a bald bare way that men keep clear of 
 them. Others give the people nothing but bait, 
 stories, anecdotes and a lot of stuff that people seem 
 to be pleased with, but there is no divine hook, and 
 the preacher fails to save men. The true method is 
 to have the hook and the bait, to be all things to all 
 men, like the Apostle Paul, that we may gain some. 
 It is true that the wise fisherman, having everything 
 that is necessary, may fail to catch all the fish in the 
 stream ; and it is just as true that the wise or faithful 
 minister may fail to reach all the unsaved in the com- 
 munity, but surely it is equally true that as the fisher- 
 man cannot catch any fish without complying with 
 certain laws and fulfilling certain conditions, neither 
 can the minister reach men if he violates the laws 
 according to which the Spirit of God works in the con- 
 viction and salvation of men. God has promised wis- 
 dom to those who ask, and if we are wise to win souls 
 the reward will be glorious; for *'we shall shine as the 
 stars forever and ever." 
 
 Another essential in this work is realizing the value 
 of a soul and what it means for a soul to be saved or to 
 be lost. Our Savior informed us that there is joy in 
 the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who 
 repents. This joy is not among the angels, but in their 
 presence; and it must mean that the joy is in the 
 Father's heart, as the joy was in the shepherd's heart 
 when he found the sheep and in the woman's heart 
 when she found the coin and in the father's heart 
 
52 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 when the lost son was found. God doesn't rejoice 
 over trifles, and we see the other side of this when we 
 look at the tears of Christ over the doomed city ; and 
 we may rest assured that Christ never wept over trifles. 
 We have God the Father rejoicing over a sinner being 
 saved ; we have God the Son weeping over sinners who 
 are perishing; we have God giving His Son to save sin- 
 ners ; we have Christ bearing the agony of Gethsemane 
 and the shame of Calvary that the lost might be saved. 
 Surely this ought to convince us of the value of a soul 
 in the sight of God, and, if once we realize this, we shall 
 then have a passion for souls, but we shall never be 
 satisfied with our efforts so long as the unsaved are 
 around us or in our congregations. This thought will 
 help us in preparing our sermons; it will help us in 
 delivering the sermons ; it will give us a goal to strive 
 after ; it will enable us to reach the highest and truest 
 result — the bringing of these men to the feet of the 
 Savior. 
 
 Now, a word about methods. I have tried as a pas- 
 tor to do the work of an evangelist for fourteen years 
 in one congregation. As a general rule, the morning 
 sermons were more for building up Christians, and the 
 evening sermons were intended to reach sinners. Of 
 course there were exceptions, because there are the 
 unsaved who come to the morning services, and there 
 are many Christians who come to the evening services, 
 and this has to be taken into account; but, as a 
 general rule, I think it is well to have most of the 
 preaching in the morning for the Christians, and 
 most of the preaching in the evening with a view 
 to reaching the unsaved. I have never resorted to 
 any sensational methods, never advertised subjects, 
 
THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 53 
 
 but preached the Gospel in its simplicity as I knew 
 it and as I believed it, and those in connection 
 with the church to which I refer would bear me 
 testimony that during the fourteenth year of my 
 ministry the audiences were larger, and more people 
 were unable to gain admittance to the evening serv- 
 ices during that winter than ever before. During 
 these years 2,750 people united with that congrega- 
 tion, of which number 1,449 "united by profession of 
 faith, and a large number, during these years, who 
 were converted at the regular services, united with 
 other churches. This was the regular work of a min- 
 ister who at the same time was trying to do the work 
 of an evangelist. 
 
 I have been frequently told that methods which are 
 successful in Toronto might not be successful in 
 other cities ; but I have tried the same style of preach- 
 ing in the city of Boston in the month of August and 
 in the month of January with the same results which I 
 had in Toronto, and at the present time I am trying 
 the same methods in the city of Philadelphia, with the 
 same results which I had in Toronto. I make this 
 personal reference for the purpose of showing that I 
 am not talking theory, but in this article speaking of 
 things of which I know. 
 
 When a student at college, I believed in the power 
 of the Gospel to attract men and to save men. I went 
 out of college more than fourteen years ago into the 
 ministry, and I am now more thoroughly convinced 
 than ever that the Gospel is the power of God unto 
 salvation. If it is presented in sincerity and in sim- 
 plicity it will interest the people ; and it is our business 
 as ministers not only to study the Word of God, but to 
 
54 THE MINISTER AS AN EVANGELIST 
 
 prepare and to deliver our sermons in such a way that 
 people will be interested and that sinners will be 
 saved. I fully realize the meaning of what our Lord 
 said to the disciples in the fifteenth chapter of John, 
 *' Without me ye can do nothing," but I am sure that 
 if we are doing our best in His name and in His cause 
 that He will own our efforts. 
 
 The question now comes, are we doing our best, or 
 are we offering to Him our second best? Are we rest- 
 ing satisfied if the finances and other things in con- 
 nection with the congregation are satisfactory, while 
 all around us the souls of men are dying and the Mas- 
 ter is calling for us, not only to build up His people in 
 faith, but to do the work of an evangelist? Surely, if 
 He died that men might be saved, we should put forth 
 every effort to make known unto men the way of life 
 through the crucified, the risen and the exalted 
 Redeemer. 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL V^ORK 
 
 BY REV. LEN G. BROUGHTON 
 
 To have a "successful revival in any community, 
 whether city, village, or country, there is needed a 
 certain amount of organization. The fact is, nothing 
 goes well to-day without organization. I know a mar. 
 who represented his district in Congress four consecu 
 live sessions, and never had any kind of organization 
 and never made a speech in the district. He simple- 
 would announce himself a candidate, and that was the 
 end of it so far as his work was concerned. But this was 
 a long time ago. In that same district to-day, if that 
 man desired to go to Congress he would have to organ- 
 ize his forces into one large club, and it would be 
 divided into smaller clubs, and they would split up 
 into still smaller bands, and these divide up into per- 
 sonal workers. This would be necessary to find every 
 voter in the district. I saw a statement some years 
 ago to the effect that during one presidential campaign 
 there could not be found a single doubtful voter who 
 had not been seen by somebody with reference to his 
 vote. What thorough organization these politicians 
 have ! And what a lesson the church to-day ought to 
 get from studying their methods. Jesus Christ him- 
 self was a man of organization. He had His disciples 
 and then divided them up and sent them out two by 
 two. 
 
 Not long after I entered the ministry I went to a 
 
 55 
 
56 ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 
 
 certain town to hold a series of meetings. It was one 
 of those good Southern towns, the inhabitants of 
 which banked on aristocracy and fed their souls upon 
 the glory of departed days. They had never known 
 what it was to be spiritually warm. The first night I 
 was there I preached to a great audience. That was 
 in my early ministry, when I made many propositions. 
 The first one I made that night was for anyone to 
 stand who wanted prayers offered for his friends. 
 As soon as I made it a little boy got up and walked out 
 into the aisle, where he stood looking me square in the 
 face. I said: *'God bless you, little man!" and he sat 
 down. I then asked anyone who wanted the prayers 
 of God's people to rise. That boy got up in the aisle 
 again and looked me in the face, and again I said: 
 •'God bless you!" I asked if there was anybody pres- 
 ent who was willing to accept Jesus. That boy stood 
 up again and looked me in the face, and again I said: 
 " God bless you!" Nobody else stood up that night, 
 and I began to think I had struck the hardest and cold- 
 est crowd I had ever run up against. 
 
 The next night I preached as hard as I knew how to 
 sinners and, when I finished, I asked anybody who 
 wanted to be prayed for to stand up. That same little 
 rascal popped out into the aisle as he had done the 
 night before and stood looking at me till I saw him, 
 and said, "God bless you!" I thought I'd vary the 
 thing a little, so I asked if anybody present was will- 
 ing to come forward and give me his hand as an indi- 
 cation that he would accept Jesus. That same boy 
 came shuffling out of his seat, straight down the aisle, 
 and gave me his hand. I saw smiles on the faces of 
 some in the congregation. Nobody but the boy 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 57 
 
 showed any interest, and I went off somewhat dis- 
 heartened. The third night I preached, and when I 
 asked all who wanted prayer to rise, that boy popped 
 out into the aisle. The people had begun to regard it as 
 a joke, and they nudged each other with their elbows, 
 while a broad smile flared from one side of the house 
 to the other. When I asked anybody who was willing 
 to accept Jesus to come and give me his hand, that 
 boy came, and the congregation smiled broader than 
 before, and some actually tittered. After the meeting 
 the deacons came to me and told me that the boy must 
 be stopped, as he was a half-idiot, and was throwing a 
 damper on the meeting. I said "Stop nothing! How 
 are you going to throw a damper on an ice-house?" 
 
 For the whole of that week the boy was the only per- 
 son in the house who showed any interest in the meet- 
 ing. Then he wanted to join the church. The pastor 
 was absent, and I was to open the doors of the church. 
 I said: "Look here, brethren, I want to take this 
 responsibility on my hands. I'm going to put that 
 boy on you, and if you choose to reject him, his blood 
 be on your hands. ' ' At the conclusion of the morning 
 service, I invited all who desired to unite with the 
 church to come forward. That boy came. I asked 
 him if he had accepted Christ for his personal Savior. 
 That's all I ever ask. He said he had. "Brethren," 
 said I, "you hear what this boy has to say. What will 
 you do with him?" An ominous silence fell on the 
 congregation. After a time, from way back by the 
 door, I heard a muffled and rather surly, "I move he 
 be received." Another painful silence followed, and 
 then from the middle of the church I heard a muffled, 
 "I second the motion. " When I put the motion about 
 
S8 ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 
 
 half a dozen members voted "Aye" in a tone so low 
 that it seemed as if they were scared. I gave the boy 
 the right hand of Christian welcome awaiting baptism, 
 and then dismissed the congregation. 
 
 The next day the boy went out to see his old grand- 
 father, a man whose whitened head was blossoming 
 for the grave, and whose feet were taking hold upon 
 the shifting sands of eternity. "Grandfather," said 
 he, "won't you go to church with me to-night and hear 
 that preacher?" We always feel kindly towards those 
 who are afflicted, you know, and we are willing to 
 please them ; so the old man agreed to go. 
 
 That night I saw the boy and the old man sitting 
 away back near the door. When the sermon was fin- 
 ished one of the members of the church arose and 
 said: "I have a request to make. We have with us 
 to-night Mr. Blank, one of the oldest and most 
 respected citizens, but he is out of Christ. I want 
 special prayer offered for this, my special friend." 
 With that he laid his hand upon the head of the old 
 man, down whose furrowed cheeks the tears were 
 streaming. The next night I saw the old man sitting 
 half way down the aisle. When all who wanted to 
 accept Jesus were invited to come forward and give 
 me their hand, I saw the half-idiotic boy coming down 
 the aisle leading the old man by the hand. 
 
 That little boy's father kept a saloon. The follow- 
 ing day the child went there, and climbing up over the 
 high counter, he peeped down upon his father and 
 said: "Papa, won't you go to church with me to-night 
 to hear that preacher?" "You get out of here, child, 
 go out of here," said the father; "don't you know you 
 mustn't come in here?" 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 59 
 
 Strange, strange, how fathers will keep places into 
 which their children cannot go ! 
 
 **But, papa," continued the boy, "won't you go to 
 church with me to-night?" *'Yes, I'll go, but you get 
 out of here." 
 
 That night the man came with the half-idiot boy and 
 sat about where the old man had sat the night before. 
 When I asked all who would accept Christ to come for- 
 ward, he walked down the aisle and gave me his hand. 
 He asked if he could make a statement, and when I 
 said "Yes," he faced the congregation and said: "My 
 friends, you all know me, and I want to say that so 
 long as I live I will never sell another drop of whisky, 
 for I have given my heart to God to-night, and from 
 this day forward I propose to serve Him." The meet- 
 ing warmed up at last, the town was set on fire for 
 God, every saloon-keeper was converted, and every 
 saloon for seven miles in the country was closed and the 
 keeper was converted to God. This experience taught 
 me a valuable lesson at the very beginning of my min- 
 istry, and I thank God for every blessing that has come 
 to me through the exercise of it till this day. 
 
 HOW SHALL WE ORGANIZE? 
 
 Of course, every man has his method and every 
 community will have to vary according to the local 
 conditions. But, generally speaking, I would insist 
 first of all upon at least a week of united prayer on the 
 part of the church or the general movement which 
 may be made up of any number of churches. Let the 
 burden of the prayer be for the enduement of power 
 for the workers, and guidance of the Holy Spirit in 
 
6o ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 
 
 the details of the work. I would suggest at these 
 meetings of prayer that special Bible studies directed 
 to the deepening of the spiritual life of the Christians, 
 and the salvation of the souls of the unsaved, and the 
 Holy Spirit's work, be given. 
 
 After this week of prayer on the part of the church 
 or the group of churches, let the church or general 
 movemeHt appoint a general committee, making it 
 large enough to meet the emergency and yet not so 
 large as to be cumbersome. This committee is to 
 carry on for a week a series of cottage prayer-meet- 
 ings. This can be done in country districts as easily 
 almost as in cities or villages. By this committee 
 the territory is to be divided and a superintendent 
 appointed for each division. Then he will group 
 around him a certain number of men and women who 
 will agree to stand by the meetings, from house to 
 house, rain or shine. The homes of the rich as well as 
 of the poor are to be taken in and every section at all 
 in touch with the church or churches should be cov- 
 ered in this way. At these cottage meetings not only 
 should there be Bible-study along the lines already 
 suggested for the week of prayer by the church or 
 churches, and not only have prayer for the work and 
 the workers, but a carefully prepared list of the 
 unsaved and the backsliders and all lukewarm Chris- 
 tians should be taken. At the close of this week of 
 prayer, which will be seen to have been also a week of 
 the very best advertisement and of gathering statistics 
 concerning the very matter that is desired in the meet- 
 ing which is to be held, these names, taken by these 
 workers in their respective meetings throughout the 
 various sections of the community, are to be turned 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 61 
 
 over to the chairman of the cottage meetings, who will 
 carefully arrange them to be used by the workers when 
 the meeting proper has begun. 
 
 THE REVIVAL STARTS 
 
 Now, then, when this preparation has been made, we 
 will suppose the meeting to begin on Sunday. At the 
 first general service of the meeting the preacher or 
 evangelist in charge would find it greatly to the 
 advantage of the meeting to have an after meeting for 
 the purpose of conferring with and further organizing 
 the workers. The pastor or pastors connected with 
 the work should then appoint as many special personal 
 workers, both men and women, as will be needed to 
 thoroughly look after the work in the church or place 
 where the meeting is held. Of course, those who 
 have already been in the organization would do good 
 work in this capacity. What he wants is workers 
 whose sympathies are thoroughly enlisted and who are 
 filled with the Spirit. 
 
 I would say in an ordinary church meeting there 
 should be from fifty to a hundred men, and the same 
 number of women, appointed to do this work. A 
 chairman is to be selected for each group. They are 
 then to be assigned to their places throughout the 
 audience. Try as far as possible to put them within 
 ten feet of each other. - The chairmen of these groups 
 will of course be expected to keep the number up to 
 the point of necessity. If more are needed, they must 
 find more. If some drop out others must take their 
 places. These men and women are expected to bring 
 their Bibles, and are to be given instructions as to how 
 
62 ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 
 
 to use them in pointing the unsaved to Christ. After 
 the sermon, when an effort is made to reach the 
 unsaved, these workers thus arranged are able to begin 
 at once doing personal work. When someone stands 
 up or comes forward confessing Jesus, they are in close 
 enough touch to reach him and give him a handshake 
 and a hearty, "God bless you!'* furnish him with a 
 card, obtain his name and address and perhaps his 
 church preference. 
 
 Thus organized, the meeting will always move with 
 smoothness from start to finish. Meanwhile, the list 
 of names of the unsaved and lukewarm is being 
 looked after by the chairman of the cottage committee 
 and these cottage workers, who obtained them, are of 
 course expected to see to it that those obtained by 
 them come to church and are reached if possible. 
 
 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 
 
 Now, in this connection, it seems to me to be proper 
 to give the workers a list of objections that they will 
 most assuredly have to meet in doing their personal 
 work. The following arrangement, which I invariably 
 use in meetings, will be found very helpful. 
 
 I. Not such a sinner. 
 
 Rom. 3 : 23 — "For all have sinned, and come short of 
 the glory of God." 
 
 I John 1:8 — "If we say that we have no sin, we 
 deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 
 
 John 3: 18 — "He that believeth on Him is not con- 
 demned: but he that believeth not is condemned 
 already, because he hath not believed in the name of 
 the only begotten Son of God.'* 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 63 
 
 2. Not good enough. 
 
 Mark 2: 17 — "When Jesus heard it, He saith unto 
 them, They that are whole have no need of the phy- 
 sician, but they that are sick : I came not to call the 
 righteous, but sinners, to repentance." 
 
 3. Got too much to give up. 
 
 Matt. 16:25-28 — "For whosoever will save his life 
 shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my 
 sake shall find it." 
 
 ^. Inconsistency of others. 
 
 Luke 13: 3 — "I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, 
 ye shall all likewise perish. ' ' 
 
 Rom. 14: 12 — "So then everyone of us shall give 
 account of himself to God." 
 
 5. Can't hold out. 
 
 "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, 
 nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
 present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
 any other creature, shall be able to separate us from 
 the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 6. Afraid He won't save me. 
 
 Rev. 22:17 — "And the Spirit and the bride say. 
 Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And 
 let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let 
 him take the water of life freely." 
 
 7. Time enough yet. 
 
 Prov. 27: I — "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for 
 thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." 
 
 CLOSING UP THE MEETING 
 
 In closing up the meeting there is nothing that I 
 know of that will be so helpful to Christian workers, 
 and, indeed, to all concerned, as a sort of spiritual love- 
 
64 ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 
 
 feast, a meeting of testimony. The workers who have 
 been blessed in the meeting will readily respond, and 
 many who have been saved will be glad to testify, and 
 the church or group of churches conducting the work 
 will find themselves greatly uplifted and all ready to 
 settle down to the business of training and developing 
 themselves into still further usefulness. 
 
 SINGING 
 
 I have said nothing about the music. This is no 
 small part of a revival. There is nothing that equals 
 spiritual, devotional singing. I would always have if 
 possible a chorus choir, and secure the very best leader 
 possible. If I could not get a good soloist and congre- 
 gational leader combined, I would do without the solo, 
 although where this combination can be found a good 
 devotional solo now and then will be found very, very 
 helpful. There should always be plenty of song-books 
 or card-slips, which can easily be prepared for the 
 occasion, and everybody should be urged to take part 
 in the singing. 
 
 SACRED LITERATURE 
 
 I have also found that it works well in a meeting of 
 this character for the church or churches engaging in 
 the work to provide a good selection of sacred liter- 
 ature. Such books as are furnished by the Colportage 
 Library Association will be found exceedingly helpful, 
 not only to the meeting while it is in progress, but to 
 the good of the work when the meeting is over. 
 These books are very cheap, and people can easily be 
 
ORGANIZING FOR REVIVAL WORK 65 
 
 induced to buy them. Let them be sold practically at 
 cost, or make the usual profit and let the money go to 
 some definite work of charity in the community, or to 
 the general expenses of the revival movement. It is 
 not the money that we are trying to make, it is the 
 good we want to establish in a permanent way by 
 sacred literature. 
 
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER AS 
 A SOUL-WINNER 
 
 MARION LAWRANCE 
 
 I am very sure, dear friends, that with me you have 
 been singing the doxology in your hearts as we have 
 been listening to these wonderful testimonies of Mr. 
 Hadley and Mr. Monroe and Mr. Reed, and I have a 
 fear that what I shall say may sound somewhat tame 
 after these words to-night; but it is just for the pur- 
 pose of making that sort of testimony less frequent 
 that we are so interested in the Sunday School. 
 
 The government has two ways of saving life on the 
 ocean. It takes a number of men and plants them 
 in this place and says: "You are to conduct a live-sav- 
 ing station." They have all the apparatus for that 
 sort of work, but they must wait imtil the ships are on 
 the rocks, until the men are struggling in the water for 
 their lives before they can send men out to save them. 
 Then the government has another way — the light- 
 house. It plants this house and says: *'You live in 
 this house, and before the ships get onto the rocks 
 you warn them off, and show them from the place of 
 danger into a place of safety." The rescue-mission 
 work that these dear brothers are giving their lives for 
 is the life-saving station, but the Sunday School is try- 
 ing to save life by the light-house plan rather than the 
 
 66 
 
THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 67 
 
 life-boat plan. We are trying to keep these boys and 
 girls off the rocks, 
 
 I was in Pacific Garden Mission not long ago, and 
 saw a blear-eyed, drunken man come staggering in, 
 and I knew that that man had once been an innocent 
 little boy ; in the Jerry McAuley Mission, where I spent 
 an evening a while ago, I saw a woman in the same 
 condition. I knew she had once been an innocent 
 little girl. Our work is for the boys and girls, and 
 your hearts are all interested in these. I was sitting 
 one day with Mr. Wannamaker, and he said: "We have 
 the best end of it. When you save a man or a woman, 
 you save a unit; but when you save a boy or a girl you 
 save a whole multiplication table. " It is a great thing 
 to save a soul at any age, but it is the greatest thing to 
 save a soul plus a life. The child is the center of the 
 world. That little child Jesus put in the midst has 
 been in the midst ever since, and the world revolves 
 around it. The little child is king and queen. We 
 are glad to do the bidding of the baby. I have known 
 of people walking the floor all night because the baby 
 wanted it that way. Some time ago there was a little 
 child lost in New York City in Central Park, and the 
 papers were full of it. A short time after that the child 
 was found, and the papers came out in great headlines 
 announcing the finding. In a few months there was a 
 great battle, the battle of Santiago, where many precious 
 lives were lost, and the papers again came out in great 
 headlines announcing that; but there were more 
 newspapers sold in New York because they announced 
 the finding of that child than there were at the time 
 of the battle of Santiago. Everyone is not interested 
 m war, but everyone is interested in a little child. 
 
6S THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 
 
 There are 25,000,000 in the Sunday School army, and 
 it is a wonderful power. Out of all the people that 
 join our churches by conversion, S^ percent come out 
 of the Sunday School. Dr. John Watson was being 
 dined in this country once, and was asked: **What is 
 it, in your judgment as a foreigner, that does most to 
 make America great among the nations of the earth?" 
 He said: *'It is the Sunday School." 
 
 I am to talk to you about the teacher. I know you 
 are all either teachers or interested in Sunday School 
 work. I want to talk practically along the line of the 
 teacher's work. The office of teacher is a divine 
 office. Jesus chose to be a teacher because He thought 
 it the most important business in the world. His last 
 command, in Mark 16: 15, was a command to you and 
 to me to go and teach, and that command is on every 
 man and woman, everyone that has the ability to 
 teach and the opportunity to teach. I believe, as a 
 superintendent, that the teacher is the most important 
 factor in any Sunday School. The teachers really do 
 the work for which the Sunday School is held. 1 
 know of no place on the footstool so fraught with 
 opportunity and responsibility as to stand with the 
 open Bible before a class of children and try to bring 
 them to the Savior. Dan. 12:3 reads: *'And they 
 that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- 
 ment ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the 
 stars forever and ever. * ' If you will take a reference 
 Bible, you will see that the word translated *'wise" 
 may with equal correctness be translated *'teachers. " 
 In Prov. 11: 30 we read: "The fruit of the righteous 
 is a tree of life ; and he that winneth souls is wise. ' ' 
 Knowledge is how much we know, wisdom is the use 
 
THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 69 
 
 we make of it. The purpose of all teaching is pri- 
 marily instruction ; in Christian work it is primarily for 
 edification and salvation. 
 
 I want to speak very briefly of the use of the Bible. 
 This is a very much neglected part of our work. We 
 try to teach too much without the Word of God. The 
 Word of God has its mission and place, and should be 
 used. Ps. 119:130 reads: "The entrance of thy 
 words giveth light. * ' God wants the darkness of the 
 world driven away, and there is only one way to get 
 darkness out, and that is the very way the janitor 
 drove the darkness out of this room to-night — by put- 
 ting in the light — and this is the only way to drive sin 
 out of the world. The Word of God is the light. Ps. 
 119: 105, **Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light 
 unto my path." When God wants anything done, He 
 has an agency to do it. Isa. 53 : lo-ii : "For as the rain 
 Cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and return- 
 eth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it 
 bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the 
 sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be 
 that goeth forth out of my mouth ; it shall not return 
 unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I 
 please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I 
 sent it." If God wants the earth watered He has a 
 way. If He wants the earth saved He has a way. 
 Take the Bible into your Sunday School work, into 
 the teaching of your lesson. 
 
 Let us look a little further at the teacher's work, 
 and what kind of work we do as teachers. We need 
 the teacher ; the teacher must be a living teacher ; we 
 want the living teacher. That was what God meant 
 when He took Philip away from the promising work in 
 
^o THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 
 
 Samaria and led him away down that desert road and 
 pointed out to him the eunuch. The eunuch was 
 reading the Word, but he needed the touch of the liv- 
 ing heart. We need the teacher, and so we must have 
 some qualifications and some helps for our teachers. 
 First of all, I would like to name some of these. We 
 must prepare. It is not a general preparation that is 
 needed, but specific study. Prepare early. If you 
 begin in the early part of the week to prepare your 
 lesson for the coming Sunday, then all through the 
 week you are looking at everything through your 
 Sunday School spectacles. The very best illustrations 
 are those that come from your own observation and 
 reading and intercourse with your friends. I heard 
 one the other day that I thought was real good. It 
 was not intended as an illustration, but I used it. One 
 time a young lady was presented with a book by an 
 older lady friend. The young lady took the book 
 home and tried to read it, but found it so dry she gave 
 it up. She said to herself: "I wonder why my friend 
 gave me such a dry book. * ' The next day she saw 
 this friend, and was so afraid that she would ask her 
 if she had read the book that she was very uncomfort- 
 able while in her presence, and made up her mind she 
 would go home and read that book even if it was dry. 
 So she tried again, and again she was compelled to 
 give it up. Three times she tried, and then laid the 
 book away. Some time after she met a young man in 
 whom she became very much interested. He became 
 interested in her, too, and in due time they became 
 engaged. Shortly after this she happened to pick up 
 this book and noticed that the name of the author 
 was the same as that of her lover. The next time he 
 
THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 71 
 
 came to see her she said: "I have a book here which 
 has your name in it, initials and all. ' ' He blushingly 
 acknowledged himself to be the author. That night 
 she sat up all night to read it, and wondered why she 
 had ever seen a dry line in it. What was the differ- 
 ence? W/iy^ she was in love with the author. It is the 
 save way with the Bible. Who loves God's book and 
 who does not? When do we love God's book and when 
 do we not? 
 
 Prepare more than you expect to teach. You can- 
 not teach all you know and teach with power. Another 
 thought : Prepare from the Bible. I think the Bible is 
 the best commentary in the whole world. I have seen 
 some commentaries of late-day manufacture upon 
 which I think the Bible would throw a great deal of 
 light. We want more of the Scripture in our Sunday 
 School teaching. 
 
 I believe in lesson helps, but I do not believe they 
 ought to take the place of original Bible study. At 
 the world's Sunday School Convention in London I 
 heard Rev. Richard Glover give three rules for the use 
 of helps: (i) Use lesson helps, but don't depend solely 
 on lesson helps; (2) use them with the Bible, and not 
 apart from the Bible; (3) those lesson helps are the 
 best helps which set you thinking and not save you 
 thinking. 
 
 We need to study methods of presenting the lessons, 
 and we need to study the scholars. I am so glad of 
 this convention ! It pays to stop and get the tools in 
 order. This illustration was once given me : A man 
 was shoveling sticky clay. Beside him he had a pail 
 of water. He would dip his shovel into the water, and 
 then into the clay, then go back and dip it into the 
 
72 THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 
 
 water, and then into the clay, and it took him just as 
 long to keep his shovel in condition to do the work as 
 it did to do the work. But did the man who hired him 
 complain? No, indeed! for if he had not taken the 
 time to keep his shovel in the proper condition, it 
 would soon have been so covered with the clay as to be 
 useless for the work which he was hired to perform. 
 It is always best to take time to keep the tools in order ; 
 so we need to study methods and principles of teaching. 
 
 The essential conditions of a good teacher are regu- 
 larity of attendance, punctuality, cheerfulness. There 
 is mighty little religion in a whine. We need more of 
 the gospel of a shining face and an open hand. Mr. 
 Reynolds once told me of a man in his Sunday School 
 who did not have the ability to teach, but he used to 
 stand in the door and shake hands with every one who 
 went in or out, and Mr. Reynolds said that man 
 shook more boys and girls into the kingdom of heaven 
 than any of his teachers taught in. There is power in 
 a smile. A little boy once said: ** Please, Mister 
 Superintendent, let me go over to that class where the 
 teacher smiles so much." 
 
 In the twenty-second verse of the ninth chapter of i 
 Corinthians, Paul said: *'I am made all things to all 
 men, that I might by all means save some." The 
 successful teacher adapts himself to the situation. 
 That is tact. This business takes tact. It does not 
 do to ask a man if he is saved when he is running to 
 make a train. You must know the persons in your 
 class, and adapt yourself to the disposition and need of 
 each. 
 
 A teacher, to be a success, must have beyond his 
 teaching the spiritual life. For, after all, it is what the 
 
THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 73 
 
 teacher is that really tells. Emerson said: "How can 
 I hear the words you say, when what you are is thun- 
 dering in my ears. " One boy said to another: "I don't 
 take any stock in my teacher any more." "Why?" 
 said the other. "Because when you add him up there 
 is nothing to carry." Teachers, you are more than 
 instructors. You want to be what you seek to have 
 your scholar become, and a good lesson is absolutely 
 spoiled by a bad life. The Gospel gets into a man's 
 heart not so much by words as by wedges. A man 
 told this story of his conversion. He said: "I was a 
 gambler, and I went into Pacific Garden Mission one 
 night and heard a man testify who said: 'Jesus Christ 
 saved me, and I was a gambler. ' The next night I 
 went again, the same man got up and said: 'Jesus 
 Christ saved me, and I was a gambler.' I listened to 
 that testimony for six straight weeks, forty-two nights 
 in succession, and I made up my mind if that story was 
 true for six weeks it was true for me, and I was saved. ' ' 
 It is what we are that tells the story. 
 
 Look for results. Would it be a surprise to you if a 
 dozen of your scholars should come to you and say: 
 "What shall I do to be saved?" One of Mr. Spur- 
 geon's students went to him and said: "I am discour- 
 aged, I don't see any results from my work." Mr. 
 Spurgeon said: "You don't expect to see results com- 
 ing along all the time, do you?" "Why, certainly 
 not." "Well, that is the reason you don't have them." 
 
 But do not be discouraged if you do not see results. 
 Some will say: "I have taught and I have not seen my 
 girls saved. " It does not say, "Be thou successful," 
 but, "Be thou faithful." Some folks seem to be such 
 good seed-sowers that God lets them do the sowing and 
 
74 THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 
 
 someone else do the reaping. A dear Christian man 
 who had been teaching a class of boys for some time 
 was about to go out into the next world. He called his 
 wife to him, and spoke of his boys, and said: "Oh, not 
 one of my boys has been saved!" She comforted him 
 by telling him that he had been faithful. When that 
 man's body was laying in the casket those boys came 
 and dropped bitter tears upon it, and shortly after 
 every one of them gave his heart to Christ. 
 
 The Christian world had prayed and prayed for a 
 single woman to go away to the cannibal islands to be 
 a missionary. Finally Harriet Newell volunteered to 
 go. Much money was spent on her training. They 
 had a great jubilee meeting in New York City when 
 she started. There was great rejoicing. But before 
 the ship landed on those islands she died. The letter 
 that came back with the sad news brought sorrow and 
 disappointment to the Christian world. But that letter 
 had not been on American soil three months when fifty 
 young women were ready to go. Harriet Newell' s was 
 a magnificent success, though she never did one 
 moment's work in her chosen field. Fidelity is success. 
 
 Do personal work if you want to be successful. I 
 have had teachers come to me and say: "I have only 
 one scholar in my class to-day; don't you think I had 
 better let him go in some other class, and I will go 
 home?" On nineteen different occasions Jesus sat 
 down and taught one scholar. Our scholars are not 
 won by classes, but one by one. It is hand-picked 
 fruit we want. Andrew is only mentioned separately 
 three times in the Bible, but one time it is said he 
 brought in his brother Peter, and do you know, it 
 seems to me that Andrew will get a whole lot of stars 
 
THE TEACHER AS A SOUL-WINNER 75 
 
 In his crown for the three thousand souls Peter won 
 on the day of Pentecost. One time in Toledo there 
 came a knock at my door, just as we were sitting down 
 to breakfast. I opened the door, and there stood a 
 young man seventeen years of age. He said: "You did 
 not feel very much encouraged over the work in Sunday 
 School yesterday. I want to tell you that it was your 
 words that led me to Christ." That boy is Tracy 
 McGregor, now superintendent of the McGregor Help- 
 ing Hand Mission in Detroit. I believe it was the 
 best day's work I ever did, and I don't know when I 
 spoke the word. 
 
 Love is the hammer that breaks the heart. Our 
 scholars are drawn by the power of love. Love will 
 do what nothing else will do. These boys and girls 
 ^vant to know right away that we love them and are 
 interested in them. My daughter teaches a class of 
 little girls. One morning there was a knock at the 
 door, and when Louise went to the door there stood 
 one of the little girls in her class crying most piteously. 
 When Louise put her arms around her and asked her 
 what the trouble was, she said: "My little baby brother 
 died last night, and I wanted to tell you and have you 
 cry with me. ' ' That scholar knew the teacher loved 
 her. Love is the hammer that breaks the stony heart. 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 A mistake which many Sunday School teachers make 
 IS that of trying to develop the fruit of the Spirit from 
 an unregenerate life. They teach their scholars to 
 love one another, to be joyful, patient, and unselfish, 
 before they have been converted. They might as well 
 hang oranges on a Christmas tree and expect it to 
 bear that kind of fruit. The fact is, one cannot evolve 
 the fruit of the Spirit from a life in which there is no 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 I have a friend who has fifty green -houses and about 
 five acres under glass. A large part of his business is 
 the culture of roses. He imports the wild rose stock 
 from Ireland and France, and buds or grafts it with 
 scions from the choice roses which he wishes to pro- 
 duce. It requires two men several months to do the 
 budding. Now this florist is not foolish enough to put 
 the wild stock into the green-houses and spend thou- 
 sands of dollars in cultivating it. If he did, the result 
 would be only wild Irish roses which would not sell 
 for ten cents a thousand. On the contrary, the first 
 thing he does is to insert a new life in the wild stock. 
 Then he puts it in the green-house and applies all the 
 methods known to modern science; and the result is 
 those elegant Marechal Niel and General Jacque roses 
 which sell for several dollars a hundred. 
 
 76 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 77 
 
 Many a teacher is trying to evolve the fruit of the 
 Spirit from a life in which there is no Holy Spirit, 
 because the scholar has never either consciously or 
 unconsciously accepted Christ as his Savior. The 
 first thing to aim at is conversion and, after that, what 
 might be called Christian culture may properly follow. 
 
 The attention of the writer was called to the value 
 of Decision Day in the foUowingVay : He was spend- 
 ing a Sunday in a Presbyterian church, and was asked 
 to address the Sunday School. He suggested to the 
 pastor that as it was the last Sunday in the year it 
 might be well to explain to the boys and girls just how 
 to become a Christian, with the idea of leading them to 
 begin the new year with a new life. The result was 
 that twenty-five or thirty accepted Christ as their 
 Savior. Apparently they were just waiting for an 
 opportunity. 
 
 The next Sunday he was in another city, in a Bap- 
 tist church. When asked to speak to the school he 
 told the superintendent what occurred the Sunday 
 before, and was urged to use the same method. He 
 did so, and quite a number of conversions followed. 
 So much interest was awakened that they wished to 
 continue the services through the week. The next 
 Sunday he was in a Congregational church, and had a 
 similar experience. In this place the officers of the 
 school were so surprised at the results that they tried 
 the plan themselves the following Sunday, and had 
 several more conversions. They then planned for a 
 series of meetings in which some of the worst men in 
 town were converted, and out of which grew a Men's 
 Band and a Gospel Mission. 
 
 The experience of these three Sundays in churches 
 
78 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 of different denominations, in both city and country 
 schools, led me to realize the importance of giving 
 young people a definite opportunity to accept Christ. 
 I said to myself, doubtless there are thousands of 
 schools in the land which are in precisely the same 
 condition that these were. They have had faithful 
 preaching and teaching, but for some reason there has 
 been no effort to gather in the harvest which years of 
 seed-sowing should have produced. Since then I have 
 seen the same method employed in scores of schools, 
 and I can hardly recall an instance in which conver- 
 sions have not occurred. 
 
 Mr. Moody often said that what led him to give up 
 business and devote all his time to Christian work was 
 an experience which he had with one of his Sunday- 
 school teachers. This teacher was taken seriously ill 
 and was obliged to leave the city. He came to see Mr. 
 Moody and expressed great sorrow at leaving his 
 class of young women, since none of them were Chris- 
 tians. Mr. Moody proposed to him to take a carriage 
 and go and visit each of them and tell them just how 
 he felt. He did so, and the result was that every one 
 of those young ladies gave her heart to God. Mr. 
 Moody, who went with him, was so impressed with the 
 possibilities of definite hand-to-hand work in winning 
 souls that he resolved to devote his whole time to it. 
 
 In the State of Iowa, the fourth day of February, 
 X900, was observed as Decision Day. The reports 
 were very incomplete, but the 172 schools which sent 
 in returns reported 3,476 conversions, including three 
 Sunday School teachers. This was an average of over 
 twenty for each school. In their report they said 
 nothing has ever so stirred the teachers and revealed 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 79 
 
 to them the possibility of winning souls. In Phila- 
 delphia not long- ago about three hundred schools 
 observed the day, with the result that about five thou- 
 sand young people decided for Christ. Over two hun- 
 dred entered the new life in one school alone. In 
 another city I know of a class in which fifty-five young 
 ladies accepted Christ on a single day as the result of 
 an earnest plea by one who taught the class for that 
 day only. 
 
 METHOD 
 
 1. Announce to the school some weeks in advance 
 that a Decision Sunday will soon be observed, not stat- 
 ing, however, which Sunday it will be. This will set 
 the scholars thinking and, very likely, will lead to 
 decisions before the day arrives. It will also increase 
 the prayerfulness of parents and teachers and those 
 scholars who are Christians already. 
 
 2. On the evening before, let all the teachers be called 
 together for special prayer and conference. Let the 
 pastor explain precisely what is involved in becoming 
 a Christian and just what steps to pursue in leading a 
 soul to Christ. Many a teacher has no idea how to go 
 about it. Let each teacher have a list of all the uncon- 
 verted members of his class, and let each one be 
 prayed for by name, taking one class after another. 
 Then let all unite in earnest prayer for a special 
 anointing of the Spirit to fit them- for the work of the 
 coming day, and let no one leave the place until 
 assured of it. (i John 5: 14, 15.) 
 
 3. When the day arrives let the pastor preach a ser- 
 mon which will prepare the way for the service which 
 is to follow. When the school is in session let the 
 
8o DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 attendance be marked, and the offering taken at the 
 very outset, so as to have nothing to distract attention 
 from the main object. It would be better to dispense 
 with library books altogether for that Sunday. Let 
 the superintendent announce that the lesson study will 
 be omitted for to-day, as there is more important busi- 
 ness, and then state what the object of the meeting is, 
 and in a tender, loving way show how anxious he is 
 that every unsaved member of the school should decide 
 for Christ that very hour. 
 
 Select hymns which are personal and persuasive, 
 such as, "There is a Green Hill Far Away," *' Almost 
 Persuaded," *'Just as I Am," etc. Arrange for sev- 
 eral prayers by the most spiritual teachers. Then let 
 an address be given by the pastor or whoever seems 
 best qualified to do it. In this address I would espe- 
 cially emphasize three things. First, the fact that all 
 have sinned against God ; second, the suffering which 
 Christ endured for our sins, and our debt of gratitude 
 to Him; third, explain very clearly just what one 
 needs to do in order to become a Christian. 
 
 For the sake of those who have had no experience in 
 such a service we give an outline sketch of one which 
 has been found useful. 
 
 Suppose you ask the scholars how many of them 
 have ever seen a flock of sheep. Then remind them 
 that although sheep are very tame and docile, they are 
 also quite stubborn and willful ; they like their own 
 way. Furthermore, they are great imitators. If one 
 of the flock jumps over the wall, all the rest will go 
 tumbling after it, and you cannot stop them. You 
 may catch them by the head or the heels, but they will 
 go, and you will go too, unless you let go. 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 8i 
 
 Now, God says that we are very much like sheep — we 
 are determined to have our own way. In Isaiah 53:6 
 He says: *'A11 we like sheep have gone astray"; and 
 in the next sentence He explains what He means by 
 going astray: "We have turned everyone to his own 
 way." That is the real essence of sin, that the sinner 
 is determined to have his own way. It may not be a 
 dishonest way, or an immoral way, or an untruthful 
 way. It may not be nearly so bad as someone's else 
 way, but it is his way, and not God's way. 
 
 What do we say of a sheep that has gone astray? 
 Why, we say it is lost. Yes, and that is what God says 
 about those who have had their own way and refused 
 to walk in His way. They are lost, and that applies 
 to all of us, doesn't it — for we have all had our own 
 way. Adam was a kind of black sheep who jumped 
 over the wall, and the whole race has gone tumbling 
 after him. 
 
 However, there has been just one person who did 
 not have His own way, but always walked in God's 
 way. Who can tell who that person was? Jesus. 
 Yes, Jesus, the Lamb of God. 
 
 Suppose you had a flock of sheep and wished to drive 
 them in a certain direction, but they all ran off another 
 way, except one good lamb who stayed by your side. 
 You would not take a whip and punish that innocent 
 lamb instead of those which ran away. And yet, do 
 you know something almost like that has occurred in 
 your case and mine? God has allowed His Son Jesus, 
 the only innocent Lamb in the whole flock, to suffer for 
 the sins of all the rest of us who went astray, *'A11 
 we like sheep have gone astray ; we have turned every 
 one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him 
 
82 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 the iniquity of us all." He is the Lamb of God who 
 taketh away the sin of the world. 
 
 Then I would turn to the twenty-seventh chapter of 
 Matthew and show what Jesus suffered for our sins. 
 I would paint that picture, if possible, so that they 
 would remember it to their dying- day. Show how the 
 soldiers stripped Him and put on a scarlet robe as if 
 He were a king. One of them said, '*A king ought to 
 have a golden scepter," and another ran out and 
 brought in a piece of reed and placed it in His hand. 
 *'What else does He need?" "A crown, of course. 
 Who ever heard of a king without a crown?" ** Surely, 
 I will get one," said another, and he ran out and broke 
 off a piece of thorn bush and twisted it up in the form 
 of a crown, and brought it in and placed it on the head 
 of Jesus. Now, the king has a royal robe and a crown 
 and a golden scepter, and they began to mock Him 
 and say: '*Hail, King of the Jews!" Then some of 
 them took the reed out of His hand and struck Him on 
 the head with it, and others went up and actually spit 
 in His face. Think of it! It is enough to make one's 
 blood boil with indignation — the way they treated our 
 dear Lord ; and it was all for our sins, too. 
 
 Then show how they stripped off the royal robe and 
 made Him carry His cross up Calvary's hill; how He 
 fainted and broke down, and how Simon took His 
 place. Then describe the crucifixion briefly, avoiding 
 all that is ghastly and gruesome, but making it as 
 vivid and realistic as possible, in order that each one 
 may see the picture, and realize clearly the relation of 
 Christ's death to his own sins. 
 
 Many people, both old and young, have never stood 
 at the foot of the cross and looked up into the face of 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 83 
 
 the dear Lord, and said to themselves: "That Man 
 died in my stead." Make them stand there — for once 
 in their life, at least — and feel the full force of that 
 thought. 
 
 A friend of mine, who had a Working Girl's Club in 
 New York, was showing them some photographs of 
 famous paintings. Among them was a Crucifixion 
 scene by Tintoretti. At the right of the picture is to 
 be seen one of the thieves who has been nailed to the 
 cross, and the cross has been erected. On the left is 
 the other thief. The soldiers have laid him on the 
 cross and have driven the nails through his feet. The 
 thief is resisting with all his might, and is trying to 
 raise himself from the cross, while one soldier is bru- 
 tally crowding down his arm, and another is trying to 
 drive the spike through his hand. In the center of the 
 picture you see the Lord Himself. They have laid 
 Him down upon the cross — no, I think He laid Him- 
 self down and suffered them to drive the nails through 
 His hands and feet. The thieves doubtless made the 
 air hideous with groans and curses, but Jesus did not 
 groan, did not complain, did not even open His mouth. 
 "He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep 
 before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His 
 mouth." Then the soldiers took the cross, with its 
 precious burden, and dropped it into the deep hole pre- 
 pared for it. As the cross went down it brought a 
 strain upon the hands and feet which produced an 
 agony which no mortal words can describe, but the 
 artist has brought it all out in the expression of the 
 countenance and, as you look into the face of the dear 
 Lord : you see what unearthly suffering He is enduring 
 for the sms of the world. 
 
84 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 As this picture came into the hands of one of the 
 girls she drew back with an expression of horror, say- 
 ing: **Oh, Mrs. P , you don't mean to say that 
 
 Jesus was crucified alive, do you?" "Yes, my dear," 
 said the teacher. "Why," said the girl, "I never 
 realized that before. Oh, it is awful!" "Yes, my 
 dear," said her teacher, "Jesus suffered all that and 
 much more, for your sins and mine." "Well," said 
 the girl, "if Jesus suffered all that for me, then I want 
 to live for Him," and then and there she gave her 
 heart to the Lord. 
 
 Many of you doubtless feel as that girl did ; you are 
 grateful for what Christ has done for you, and you 
 want to give your heart to Him, but you do not know 
 just how to do it. Listen, then, and I will try to make 
 it plain. 
 
 Salvation is a two-sided thing. On God's part it con- 
 sists in giving something, and on our part it consists in 
 receiving something, but the thing given by God and 
 received by us is not a thing at all, but a person. 
 "And this is the record that God hath given to us 
 eternal life, and that life is in His Son: He that hath 
 the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God 
 hath not life" (i John 5: 11, 12). 
 
 Then show how simple a thing it is to receive a gift. 
 Here is a leaflet. I will give it to anyone who will 
 accept it. Someone takes it and I ask him whose it is 
 now. "It is mine." "How do you know it is yours ?" 
 "Because I accepted your offer." "That is right, but 
 why does it not belong to that other boy? I offered it 
 to him as much as I did to you." "Yes, but he did 
 not accept your offer and I did." "Very true. Now 
 God has given His Son to be the Savior of all sinners 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 85 
 
 who will accept Him. Some of us have accepted God's 
 gift and we have a Savior. Some of us have not 
 accepted God's gift and we haven't a Savior, and we 
 see the reason why, do we not? It is simply and 
 solely because we have not been willing to accept 
 God's gift." 
 
 *'How long did it take that boy to become the owner 
 of that leaflet?" 
 
 '*Not a quarter of a minute. " 
 
 "It would not take you any longer to accept God's 
 gift and obtain a Savior." 
 
 Nor is it a question of feeling, as many suppose. 
 Turning to the boy who accepted the leaflet I would 
 say: "Did you have any special feeling of joy when 
 ]^ou took that leaflet?" "No, I can't say that I did." 
 "Have you had any particular joy since you became 
 the owner of it?" "No, I do not even know what it 
 is, for I have not read it." "But suppose you should 
 open it and find a hundred-dollar bill in it, would you 
 have any feeling then?" "I think I should." "Quite 
 likely, but would that tract be any more yours with all 
 the feeling that came from finding a hundred-dollar 
 bill in it than it is now without any feeling?" "Not at 
 all." 
 
 "You see, then, that the question of feeling has 
 nothing to do with the ownership. It was the accept- 
 ance of my offer which made it yours. So, one may 
 accept Christ with feeling or without it, as the case 
 may be. God does not say, "As many as felt happy, 
 or as many as felt sinful were saved" ; but, "As many 
 as received Him, to them gave He power to become the 
 sons of God. ' ' 
 
 Perhaps you are saying: "Suppose I should receive 
 
86 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 Christ as my Savior right here and now, what would 
 happen to me?" In the first place, He would forgive 
 your sins, for He says, in i John 1:9, "If we confess 
 our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." 
 But that is not all He would do. He would also come 
 into your heart and take possession of your life, for He 
 says, in Rev. 3: 20, "Behold, I stand at the door and 
 knock ; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I 
 will come into him." 
 
 You see, then, that if any of you should invite 
 Christ to come into your heart and be your Savior, 
 He would do it, because He says He will. You would 
 not go home alone to-day, you would not sleep alone 
 to-night, because you would have the constant com- 
 pany of the Lord Jesus. "Lo, I am with you alway, 
 even to the end of the world." 
 
 "But how can we know that Christ is in our hearts, if 
 we accept Him? "Well, in the first place, you have 
 His word for it, which ought to be sufficient, but in 
 addition to that He promises to reveal His presence to 
 those that obey Him. In John 14: 21 He says: *He 
 that hath my commandments and keepeth them . . . 
 I will manifest myself to him. ' In other words, when 
 you pray to Him He will seem to answer back ; when 
 you read His Word, He will speak to you out of it; 
 and every time you make any real sacrifice for Him, 
 there will come a thrill of joy into your heart, and His 
 blessed, 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' will 
 ring in your ears." 
 
 "Here, then, is a definite promise that if you confess 
 your sins He will forgive them ; if you invite Him into 
 your heart He will come, and if you obey His com- 
 mandments He will manifest Himself to you." 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 87 
 
 **In view of these promises, how many of you are 
 willing to accept Christ as your Savior now? You all 
 expect to do it sometime, of course, but there is no 
 time so good as the present. Will all the school please 
 bow their heads?" 
 
 "Now we will have a few moments of prayer, in 
 which I wish that every unsaved person in the house 
 would confess their sins and receive Christ as their 
 Savior. I will pray for you, and I will put it in such 
 a way that if you will make my words your prayer it 
 will bring Jesus Christ into your heart." 
 
 After the prayer, made just as simple and direct 
 as possible, I would assume that some of them had 
 accepted Christ. Then I would say: 
 
 "The first step in beginning the Christian life is to 
 accept Christ as one's Savior, and that I am sure 
 some of you have done. The second step is to confess 
 Christ as your Savior. In Romans 10: o we read, *If 
 thou Shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 
 Shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him 
 from the dead, thou shalt be saved.' You have 
 accepted Christ, and the next thing to do is to tell 
 someone of it. If I were you I would tell my teacher 
 that I had settled the question, and had decided to live 
 a Christian life." 
 
 At this point give the school five minutes for this 
 purpose, saying: ''Now, teachers and scholars, just 
 have a free talk with each other about this important 
 matter. " 
 
 After a suitable interval let the leader say, "I would 
 advise those of you who have accepted Christ to-day to 
 tell your parents what you have done, and ask them to 
 help you in your Christian life. If you care to come 
 
88 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 and tell me, I should be glad to give you a Life Card, 
 which I am sure you will find very helpful. ' ' On the 
 first page is a covenant which I would read to them, 
 and suggest that after they arrive home they read it 
 carefully, and then kneel down and ask God to help 
 them keep it, and then sign it with pen and ink, put- 
 ting down also the date when they signed it, and the 
 place where they live. Say to them : 
 
 *'You will find this covenant useful in many ways. 
 For instance, the devil will very likely come around 
 to-morrow morning and try to make you think you are 
 not a Christian. He will say, perhaps, 'You thought 
 you became a Christian yesterday, but you were mis- 
 taken, for this morning when your brother hid your 
 shoes under the bed and made you late for breakfast 
 you lost your temper, now didn't you?' and perhaps 
 you may have to confess that you did. 'Well,' he will 
 say, 'that proves that you are not a Christian, for if 
 you were you would not lose your temper.' This 
 statement is not true, as I can show you by a simple 
 illustration. Suppose you should go to work to-mor- 
 row for a man whose name we will call Mr. Johnson. 
 Mr. Johnson is now your new master, is he not? Sup- 
 pose that the first day you should spoil a yard of cloth 
 or break a machine. Would that prove that Mr. John- 
 son is not your new master? By no means. Have 
 you left his employ? No. Do you intend to leave it? 
 No. What does it prove, then — the fact that you have 
 damaged his work or broken his machine? It only 
 proves that you have not been as careful to please your 
 new master as you should have been, or that you did 
 not fully understand his work; that is all. So, if you 
 have taken Christ as your new Master to-day, and 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 89 
 
 to-morrow morning should lose your temper, what 
 does that prove? That Jesus Christ is not your new 
 Master? By no means: Has He discharged you? 
 No. Have you left His service? Certainly not. Do 
 you want to leave it? By no means. Then what does 
 it prove — the fact that you lost your temper the very 
 first day? Why, it only proves that you were not as 
 careful to please your new Master as you should have 
 been ; that is all. I hope you will not do it, of course, 
 but if you should, the thing to do is to kneel right 
 down and confess your sin, and He will forgive it 
 instantly; and then be more careful to please Him in 
 the future. 
 
 "Now, suppose you had taken one of these Life 
 Cards and signed it, see what a help it would be to 
 you. You could take it out and show it to him and 
 say, *See here, Satan, can you read writing? If you 
 can you will see my name at the bottom of this cove- 
 nant. I signed it not in the Sunday School, not under 
 any excitement or pressure, but all by myself in 
 my own room. I signed it because I meant it, because 
 that is the kind of a life I propose to live. I meant it 
 then and I mean it now, and if I didn't mean it then, I 
 do mean it now. So Satan, you can move right along. 
 I haven't any more use for you, I have a new Master.* 
 Or, perhaps, ten years from now you might open your 
 Bible and fine this covenant, and it would bring back 
 this hour to your mind, and you would say: 'I haven't 
 been as faithful to Christ as He has been to me, 
 but, thank God, I haven't withdrawn from that posi- 
 tion which I took in that Sunday School, and that 
 position is the Christian life.* And thus your weak 
 faith may often be strenthened by this outward and 
 
90 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 visible evidence of the covenant which you made with 
 God a few moments ago. ' ' 
 
 Having offered to give a Life Card to any who 
 come for it I would then dismiss the school. The 
 teachers, who have been previously instructed, will 
 encourage their pupils to come and get the Life Card, 
 and if necessary will come with them. Often a teacher 
 will come bringing a whole class of boys or young men 
 with her. As they come, the leader can ask each one 
 personally if they have really accepted Christ as their 
 Savior, and when they did it. In many instances 
 they will say, "I did it while you were praying, or 
 while my teacher was talking with me. " It is a good 
 plan to ask them to shake hands with you as a token of 
 their sincerity, and make them promise to sign the 
 Life Card as they take it. Then say to each one: 
 *' There is one thing more I wish you to do, and that 
 is to go and tell your pastor just what you have told 
 me. Will you do it?" In this way you pass them on 
 to him, and commit them to their purpose still more. 
 Occasionally one will come for a card who has not 
 really accepted Christ, but is only thinking of it, but 
 usually he can be persuaded to settle the question in a 
 moment or two, if one is wise and tactful. 
 
 After all have come who are likely to, I would sug- 
 gest that all kneel down and tell the Lord audibly what 
 they have said before in their heart, and to make it 
 easy for them it would be well to lead them in prayer, 
 asking them to follow you in concert, sentence by sen- 
 tence. It is a great help to them to hear their own 
 voice as they enter into covenant with the Master, and 
 you also make sure that they say the things you wish 
 them to say. 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 91 
 
 I would then lead them in prayer, making sure that 
 they confess their sins, and invite Jesus to come into 
 their heart and take possession of their life. 
 
 When they had risen I would question each one 
 something after this fashion: "Henry, you knelt and 
 confessed your sins and asked God to forgive you for 
 Christ's sake. Did you really mean it?" "Yes, I 
 did." "Do you think He has forgiven you?" "I 
 don't know, I am sure." "What did He say He 
 would do, if you confessed your sins?" "He said He 
 would forgive me. " "Do you think God has lied to 
 you?" "Of course not." "Then where are your 
 sins?" "They must be forgiven. " "What makes you 
 think so?" "Because God says so." 
 
 Or I would say: "Jesus says in Rev. 3: 20, *Behold, 
 I stand at the door and knock ; if any one hear my 
 voice and open the door, I will come into him.* I 
 heard you ask Him to come into your heart. Did you 
 really mean it?" "I did." "Do you think He has 
 come into your heart?" "I do." "Why do you think 
 so?" "Because I feel better, because I am so happy." 
 "Very well, but suppose you wake up in the morning 
 with a headache. You wouldn't feel happy then, 
 would you?" "I suppose not." "Then where would 
 your hope of salvation be? Do you not see that if 
 your hope of acceptance depends upon your feelings it 
 will vary from day to day?" Then show him that if he 
 has honestly invited Jesus to come into his heart he 
 has His promise that He would come, which is the 
 best evidence that a Christian can have. 
 
 If one has time it is well to give the converts some 
 instruction concerning the dual nature of the Christian 
 life. Show them that while the unsaved person has 
 
92 DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 only one nature, and that the selfish, sinful nature, the 
 Christian has in addition a new Divine nature which is 
 Jesus Christ. Let them understand that the old 
 nature is not one whit better now than it was before 
 their conversion, and that all their temptations will 
 come from this source. However, ''Greater is He 
 that is in you, than he that is in the world." And, 
 *'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted 
 above that ye are able ; but will with the temptation 
 also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to 
 bear it." 
 
 In holding such a service it is best to exclude the 
 smaller children from the main room, and have a 
 separate service with them if desired. Some may also 
 prefer to call for an expresson by rising, or by entering 
 an inquiry-room, but do not fail to deal personally with 
 each one and see that they have a scriptural reason for 
 their hope of salvation. 
 
 FOLLOWING UP RESULTS 
 
 This is very important. Indeed, it is a question 
 whether it is wise to hold such a service unless it is to 
 be carefully followed up. A Decision Day opens the 
 way for conversation with every person in the parish, 
 and a careful canvass should follow to lead to Christ 
 those who did not accept Him during the service. 
 The parents of all who decided should be visited, and 
 their co-operation secured. In some instances where 
 the parents were not Christians, such a visit has led to 
 their conversion. 
 
 A class for the converts should be formed for instruc- 
 tion in the duties and doctrines of the Christian life, 
 
DECISION-DAY IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 93 
 
 and in due season they should be received into the 
 Church. The Life Card is a four-page leaflet which 
 contains many useful hints on Christian living, how to 
 grow in grace, how to use the Bible, etc. It may be 
 obtained of the Bible Institute Colportage Association, 
 250 La Salle Avenue, Chicago, 111. Price, 4 cents per 
 dozen, 30 cents per hundred. 
 
 The covenant which the converts are asked to sign 
 and keep in their Bibles, where they may often see it, 
 reads as follows : 
 
 In obedience to God's cojnmand, I do here and now turn from 
 every known sin, and believe the Gospel that Christ died for my 
 sins, was buried and rose again. I receive Jesus as my Redeemer, 
 who bore my sins in His own body on the cross (2 Cor. 5: 21 ; Gal. 
 3: 13; I Pet. 2: 24), and who has power to forgive my sins (Mark 
 2: 10; Acts 5: 31). as my teacher to whom I will submit all my 
 thoughts (John 6: 68), as my guide to whom I will commit the 
 direction of my life (Acts 9: 6), as my risen Savior whom I will 
 trust to keep me from falling (Jude 24) and save me to the utter- 
 most (Heb. 7: 25) and resting upon God's assurance, I believe all 
 my sins are forgiven and / have eternal life. 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 19 Place , 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 REV. E. P. HAMMOND AND R. A. TORREY 
 
 No revival is what it ought to be if a good deal of 
 attention is not given to the children, and much 
 prayerful effort put forth for their conversion. If 
 Christian people use the divinely appointed means to 
 lead souls, young or old, to Christ, they may confi- 
 denty expect God's blessing, but this is pre-eminently 
 true in dealing with children. Dr. Duff, of Scotland, 
 went to India and labored for the conversion of the 
 heathen, yet with all his eloquence I heard him say in 
 the Free Church Assembly Hall of Edinburgh, that his 
 labors were a comparative failure until he turned his 
 attention to the children, and held up Christ as the 
 atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, then their 
 hearts were touched, and many repented and believed 
 in the Lord Jesus. From that time on he began to 
 speak of certainties instead of continuing to speak of 
 possibilities. **Take heed," said Jesus, ''that ye 
 despise not one of these little ones. ' ' The word trans- 
 lated "despise" is a very suggestive word. It means 
 literally to think down, to think little or nothing of. 
 Take heed that ye think not down one of these little 
 ones. The conversion of a child may be of very little 
 importance in our sight, but it is of immense impor- 
 tance in Jesus's sight. 
 
 94 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 95 
 
 I. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 1. The conversion of a child is important in the first 
 place because children oftentimes die. Most people 
 in Chicago die in childhood. For every one who dies 
 between twenty and forty there are many who die 
 between birth and twenty. So with very many of the 
 children at any time upon the earth, they must be con- 
 verted in childhood or pass into eternity unconverted. 
 In spite of the large number of children's caskets that 
 pass us in hearses, it is hard to bring people to realize 
 how likely children are to die. We look at the white- 
 haired man and say he is likely to die soon, but we 
 look at the little child and think that child has many 
 years before it. That is not at all sure. We have 
 very rude awakenings from this dream. Mothers and 
 fathers do you realize that your children may die? 
 Up quick, then, and lead them to Christ before that 
 day comes. If you do not it will be the darkest day 
 you ever knew, but if you have led them to Christ it 
 will not be a dark day. Lonely it will be but not 
 dark. Nay it will be glorious with the thought that 
 the voyage is over and the glory land reached quickly 
 by one you love. Sunday School teachers do you 
 realize that any one of the boys or girls in the class 
 you teach may die any day? Up, then, and win them 
 to Christ as speedily as you may. 
 
 2. The conversion of children is important, in the 
 second place, because it is much easier to win a child 
 to Christ than an adult. I once heard Dr. E. N. Kirk, 
 of Boston, say, '*If I could live my life over again, I 
 would labor much more among children. " During a 
 series of meetings lasting sometimes five or six weeks, 
 
96 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 I have seen more children converted the first week 
 than adults in all the weeks following. Children have 
 no old prejudices to overcome as many grown people 
 have. With the help of the Holy Spirit they are easily 
 led to feel the great love of Christ in giving Himself to 
 die for them, and when the simple story of His suffer- 
 ing and death is read and explained from God's Word, 
 they believe it, and exercise saving faith, and there 
 and then the Holy Spirit effects a change of heart. 
 Mr. Spurgeon once said in my hearing, "I could spend 
 days in giving details of young children whom I have 
 known and personally conversed with, who have given 
 evidence of a change of heart," and he added, "I have 
 more confidence in the spiritual life of such children 
 whom I have taken into my church, than I have in the 
 spiritual condition of adults thus received. I will go 
 further and say that I have usually found a clearer 
 knowledge of the Gospel and a warmer love toward 
 Christ in the child convert than in the man convert. 
 I may astonish you by saying that I have sometimes 
 met with a deeper spiritual experience in a child of ten 
 or twelve than in some persons of fifty or sixty. I 
 have known a child who would weep himself to sleep 
 by the month together under a crushing sense of sin. 
 If you would know deep and bitter and awful fear of 
 the wrath of God, let me tell you what I felt as a boy. 
 If you want to know what faith in Christ is, you must 
 not look to those who have been bemuddled by the 
 heretical jargon of the times, but to the dear children 
 who have taken Jesus at His word, and believed on 
 Him, and therefore know and are sure that they are 
 saved." 
 
 Every year that passes over our heads unconverted 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 97 
 
 our hearts are less open to holy impressions. Every 
 year away from Christ our hearts become harder in 
 sin. That needs no proof. The practice of sin 
 increases the power of sin in our lives. God and 
 heaven and Christ and holiness lie very near child- 
 hood, but if the child remains away from Christ, every 
 year they become farther and farther away. When I 
 see a child walk into the inquiry room of a Sunday 
 evening, I feel quite certain that if a worker of any 
 sense gets hold of that child it is going to be con- 
 verted; but when I see a man or a woman walk in 
 there I do not feel at all as sure. The adult has 
 become so entangled in sin, the mind has become so 
 darkened by the error and skepticism that arise out of 
 sin, there are so many complications added by each 
 year, that the case of an adult is very difficult as com- 
 pared with that of a child. The fact is, that with very 
 many if they are not converted in childhood they will 
 never be converted at all. Fathers and mothers, that 
 is true of the children in our homes. Sunday School 
 teachers, that is true of the children in your Sunday 
 School classes. It is now or never. 
 
 3. Conversion of the children is important, in the 
 third place, because converted children are among the 
 most useful workers for Christ. They can reach per- 
 sons who are inaccessible to everyone else. They can 
 reach their schoolmates and playmates, the Jewish chil- 
 dren, the Catholic children, the children of worldly 
 parents and infidels. They can bring them to Sunday 
 School or to children's meetings, and to Christ. You 
 and I cannot get close enough to them to show them 
 how beautiful Jesus is, and what joy and blessing He 
 brings. They can. Then they can reach their par* 
 
98 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 ents oftentimes when we cannot. They will not listen 
 to US, but they will to their children. There was a 
 rough, drunken gambler in Minneapolis, Minn. He 
 often went by the mission door, but when a worker 
 invited him in he repelled him with rude insults. But 
 his child, about ten years old, was gotten into the Sun- 
 day School and won for Christ. Then she began to 
 work and pray for her drunken papa, and a cottage 
 meeting was at last held in his wretched home. The 
 father took down his overcoat to go to the saloon. 
 Little Annie asked him if he would not stay to the 
 meeting. He roughly answered, "No. " "Won't you 
 stay for my sake, papa?" The man hung up his coat. 
 The meeting began, and the man was surly and wished 
 he was out of it. They knelt in prayer while he sat on 
 the end of the sofa. One after another prayed. Then 
 all were silent. Then Annie's little voice was heard in 
 prayer something like this: "God, save my papa." It 
 broke the wicked man's heart, and then and there he 
 accepted Christ. He afterwards became a deacon in 
 my church. When New Year's day came and many 
 had testified for Christ, Annie arose and said: "Papa 
 used to drink and mamma used to drink, grandpa 
 used to drink, and grandma used to drink. But papa 
 is a Christian now, and mamma is a Christian now, and 
 grandpa is a Christian now, and grandma is a Christian 
 now, and Uncle Joe is a Christian now, and auntie is a 
 Christian now. I guess we are all Christians down to 
 our house now." But the little girl herself led the 
 way. Wasn't the conversion of that child important? 
 Many a hardened sinner and many a skeptic has been 
 led to Christ by a child. 
 
 When in Scotland I heard a touching story, showing 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 99 
 
 how a child's simple question was used in leading a 
 scoffing skeptic to the feet of Jesus. It is a true story. 
 I was acquainted with the father of the child. Let the 
 skeptic tell the story: 
 
 "As I stepped upon the platform at the railway 
 station, a hand was laid upon my arm, and a voice 
 said, * Norman, is this you?' 
 
 '*I turned and looked at the speaker. It was an old 
 
 classmate, Richard , with whom I had agreed to 
 
 pass a few weeks and had not seen for years. After 
 we had pushed our way through the noisy crowd and 
 were seated in his carriage I looked at him again, and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ** * Richard, how you have altered! how different 
 now from the wild youth of old ! * 
 
 '* 'Yes, Norman, there have been many changes 
 with me since we parted ; but the greatest has been 
 here, ' said he, smiling and gently touching his breast. 
 
 " 'Humph!' was my ejaculation, which elicited no 
 reply. 
 
 "That evening, as he, his wife, and myself were 
 walking in the conservatory, and I was admiring some 
 jessamines, he said to me, 'Norman, I have yet a little 
 treasure to show you, and, although it is small, it is 
 greater than all these, almost the greatest one I have. 
 Can you guess?' 
 
 "When we went back to the drawing-room he 
 showed to me his beautiful little girl, his only child, 
 his little Bessie. I was not fond of children, but 
 strangely did the little maiden win her way to my 
 heart. Eight cloudless summers of her sunny life had 
 passed, and had each one as it gently glided by left with 
 her all its charms she could not have been more beautiful. 
 
loo THE CONVERSION OP CHILDREN 
 
 **That evening, sweet in memory to me, we became 
 firm friends. She loved me because, when she asked 
 papa, he said he did. 
 
 "The next day we all went out for a drive. Little 
 Bessie was bright and beautiful as the day, but some- 
 times there was a strange thoughtfulness of expression 
 upon her face which troubled me as being beyond her 
 years. 
 
 As I was talking to her father I said something jeer- 
 ingly about Him Who had led the only pure life on 
 earth. Richard said not a word in reply, but motioned 
 me to look at Bessie. She was looking into my face 
 with a gaze of mingled horror and surprise — an 
 expression such as I never saw before nor since, and 
 which I shall never forget. It was for a moment. No 
 one spoke. Then the little maid burst into a flood of 
 uncontrollable tears, and I felt a certain shame that in 
 the presence of one so pure I should have spoken what 
 she had never heard before. Then she looked at me in 
 a sort of pitying way, and said, *I thought you loved 
 my Jesus; oh, how could you have said that of Him?' 
 During the rest of the drive she lay upon her father's 
 bosom in perfect silence. 
 
 "The next morning I was alone in my room think- 
 ing of all that had occurred, and a strange unaccount- 
 able feeling of seriousness was creeping over me, a 
 sort of longing to be like her, when suddenly the little 
 one was at my side. I started as I saw her, and met 
 the tender gaze of love and pity which she bent upon 
 me. Her head was laid upon my arm, and for a 
 moment both were silent. Then the silence was 
 broken with the words, 'Won't you love my Jesus?' 
 and she was gone. 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN loi 
 
 **I could not ridicule that lovely spirit. The next 
 morning, and the next, and the next, the little girl 
 came in the same way, said the same words and disap- 
 peared. I never answered her, and at no other time 
 did she allude to the subject; but she never failed to 
 come at that morning hour. 
 
 "One day I said to her: *Tell me how, Bessie.' She 
 looked at me a moment, and the next was seated on 
 my knee, and the words that flowed, those simple, 
 childish words in which she told the story of Christ's 
 love, never shall I forget. My eyes w^ere far from dry 
 when she went away, but there was less sorrow on her 
 face than usual. Morning after morning she came, 
 and never seemed weary of. telling the sweet tale. 
 But one morning she did not come, and I waited a 
 long time in vain. No little feet came pattering along 
 the hall ; no little hand was clasped in mine ; no little 
 words of instruction were lisped in my ear. Presently 
 there came a hurried knock at my door. It was 
 opened without waiting for permission, and her father 
 was with me. 
 
 '* 'Norman,' said he, *she has just waked from a long 
 and heavy sleep and is fearfully ill. Will you come? 
 Tell me if you know what it is. ' 
 
 *'I went. There lay the little one with eyes closed, 
 and in a sort of stupor. I knew at a glance it was 
 scarlet fever. How I told those two aching hearts I 
 know not; but they were wonderfully calm in their 
 anguish. The doctor soon confirmed my statement, 
 but there was so painfully little to be done for the dear 
 sufferer that two days passed almost in silence as we 
 watched over her precious form. We knew from the 
 first that she was no longer of the earth, and, indeed, 
 
I02 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 it was a heavy burden for us to bear to think that she 
 no longer would be the light of our hearts. I say we, 
 for, though I was perhaps mistaken, the little one had 
 so taken possession of my heart, that it seemed to me 
 that she could not be dearer to those who had the first 
 earthly claim upon her affections. At the end of the 
 second day her life seemed partially to return. She 
 opened her eyes and, smiling, said, 'Dear Uncle Nor- 
 man, won't you love my Jesus? Mamma loves Him, 
 papa loves Him, and I love Him, and am going to 
 Him, and I want to tell Him that you will love Him.' 
 
 ** * Bessie,' said I, "tell Him my heart and life are His 
 forever more. ' 
 
 ** * Mamma, papa, I am so happy now. Now I have 
 all I want. Now I come. I come. Lord Jesus!' and 
 the youthful spirit, so pure, so holy, returned whence 
 it came. God's little messenger had turned a soul to 
 righteousness, and was called home. ' ' 
 
 4. The conversion of children is important because 
 persons converted in childhood make the best Chris- 
 tians. If one is converted when he is old he has 
 learned many bad tricks of character and life that have 
 to be unlearned, and it is generally a pretty slow 
 process. But when one is converted in childhood 
 character is yet to be formed, and it can be formed 
 from the beginning on right lines. If you wish to 
 train a tree into a thing of beauty and symmetry you 
 had better begin when it is young. If you want to 
 form a character of Christlike symmetry and beauty 
 you would better begin in childhood. That Christlike 
 man of the olden time, Polycarp, who ended his life 
 as a martyr at ninety-five, was converted at nine. 
 That fine young man of the New Testament, Timothy, 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 103 
 
 was brought tip on Scripture from a babe. I rejoice 
 with all my heart when an old broken-down drunkard 
 is brought to Christ. It means so much. But it 
 means so much more when a child is brought to Christ. 
 5. The conversion of children is important once 
 more because there are so many years of possible 
 service before them. If one is to live to eighty, say, if 
 converted at seventy there is a soul saved plus ten 
 years of service. When the boy Polycarp was con- 
 verted there was a soul saved plus eighty-six years of 
 service. I think enough has been said to show that 
 the coversion of the children is tremendously impor- 
 tant, in fact, the most important business the Church 
 of Christ has on hand. Surely it was well that Jesus 
 said, **Take heed that ye despise not one of these little 
 ones." 
 
 II. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE 
 
 CHILDREN? 
 
 Now we come to another question, Wko is responsible 
 for the conversion of children? An easy question to 
 answer. 
 
 I. First of all, the parents are responsible for the 
 conversion of the children. The first and greatest 
 responsibility of parents regarding their children is 
 their salvation. The responsibility to feed and clothe 
 and educate our children is nothing to our responsi- 
 bility to bring them to Christ and bring them up in 
 Christ. The parent who fails to bring his children to 
 Christ has failed at the main point of parental responsi- 
 bility. Yet parents are willing to leave the conver- 
 sion of their children to others, to the minister, to the 
 Sunday School teacher, or even to chance. What 
 
I04 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 would you think of yourself if you left the feeding of 
 your children and the clothing of your children to 
 others or to chance? You would despise yourself, and 
 well you might, but you would not really be as despic- 
 able as if you left the salvation of your children to 
 others. This is your highest and most solemn obliga- 
 tion as a parent to bring your children to Christ. 
 Have you done it? If not, then go at it at once. I sat 
 in the station at Evansville, Ind., one day waiting for 
 a train. A man and wife came in with two babes, one 
 a year and a half old, the other three. They sat down 
 to wait for another train. I turned to the man and 
 said, **Are you a Christian?" '^No, sir." ''Then," I 
 said, "you are not fit to be the father of those chil- 
 dren. God has laid a solemn responsibility upon you 
 in giving you those children to bring up for Him. ' * 
 And I say to every parent who is not a Christian, an 
 out and out Christian, you are not fit to be a parent. 
 The highest responsibility of fatherhood and mother- 
 hood, you are unfit for. Get fit to-day by taking 
 Christ and then begin at once to lead your children to 
 Christ. And you who are professed Christians, seek 
 power for this work and begin at once. 
 
 2. In the next place, the responsibility for the con- 
 version of the children rests upon all pastors, evan- 
 gelists and preachers of the Word. We are too 
 exclusively occupied with the grown-up people. But 
 Christ's first direction to the great preacher Peter was 
 that he was to prove his love by feeding the lambs. 
 The minister or evangelist who overlooks the young is 
 disobeying Jesus Christ, and the warning of Christ 
 should come to him with great power, "take heed that 
 ye despise not one of these little ones." The fact is 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 105 
 
 that it is our pride that leads us to neglect the children. 
 It is gratifying to our vanity to think that the grown 
 people and especially the men flock to our ministry. 
 Anyone, we fancy, can interest the children, but it 
 takes men of our own great mental caliber to interest 
 the men. Oh, take heed, take heed ! In the eyes of 
 our Master the children are of first importance. 
 
 3. In the third place, the responsibility for the con- 
 version of the children rests upon the Sunday School 
 teacher. The first and highest duty of the Sunday 
 School teacher is to lead his scholars to Christ. The 
 Sunday School teacher has not done his whole work 
 when he interests his scholars or even when he 
 instructs his scholars with good, sound, orthodox Bib- 
 lical doctrine. His business is to convert them, to win 
 them to Christ. Sunday School teacher, the proba- 
 bility is that there are scholars in your class that will 
 be led to Christ by you or else will never come. Do 
 you realize that? When you next sit before your class 
 let this thought sink deep into your heart, some of 
 these scholars are to be won to Christ by me or lost 
 forever. Oh, it is a glorious thing, but it is a solemn 
 thing to be a Sunday School teacher. What an oppor- 
 tunity! What a responsibility! Yet many and many 
 a Sunday School teacher allows scholars to drift into 
 their class and drift out of their class without any 
 definite word to convert and save them! Under the 
 first sermon I ever preached in Chicago a young 
 woman was deeply stirred. She was elegantly 
 dressed, and occupied a respectable place in society, 
 but only because her history was not yet known. She 
 was as truly a sinner as any woman of the street. The 
 next night, in conversation, she told me all her shame- 
 
io6 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 ful story. I pleaded with her to accept Christ, and 
 have her vileness washed away. She said that I was 
 the first person who had ever spoken to her about 
 her soul. Her mother was worldly, but for six 
 years she had been a regular attendant at one Sunday 
 School, but never once had her teacher approached 
 her personally about accepting Christ. And she had 
 gone out into the world to sin and shame. What a 
 responsibility rests upon the heads of that young 
 woman's Sunday School teachers! Oh! teachers, be 
 soul winners, realize the immense importance of the 
 conversion of the children to Christ and feel deeply 
 your own responsibility for those in your class. 
 
 4. After Sunday School teachers the responsibility 
 for the conversion of the children rests upon all work- 
 ers. We must save the old if we can, and, thank God, 
 in many cases we can, but we must save the children 
 anyhow. In church, in inquiry meeting, on the street, 
 in the home, everywhere, look out for the children, 
 and take every possible opportunity to bring them to 
 Christ. 
 
 III. HOW TO CONVERT THE CHILDREN 
 
 We come now to the last question and the all-impor- 
 tant one. How can we convert the children? 
 
 I. First of all, by prayer. True conversion and 
 regeneration is the Holy Spirit's work. It is He con- 
 victs of sin and righteousness and judgment (John 
 16:8-11). It is He that leads to saving faith. It is 
 He that makes children as well as adults new creatures 
 in Christ Jesus. And He works in answer to prayer. 
 There must, then, be very definite prayer for the con- 
 viction and conversion and the regeneration of the 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 107 
 
 children. We had one child that did not seem natu- 
 rally as religiously inclined as the rest. One night I 
 was led to ask prayers for that child. That very night 
 (or perhaps the next) when I went home I was told 
 that the child burst into tears as she went to bed, and 
 when her sister asked her what was the matter she 
 replied, "Oh, I am afraid I shall die and go to hell!'* 
 She did die, but, thank God, before the hour came 
 prayer had been answered, and she was trusting Jesus 
 and went to be with Him forever. Oh, parents, pray 
 for your children. Sunday School teachers, pray. 
 Pray definitely, pray earnestly, pray expectantly. Of 
 all that I heard in my own Sunday School days nothing 
 impressed me so as a story of a teacher who prayed 
 earnestly for all her scholars and all were converted. 
 I was a mere boy when I heard it, but when in later 
 years I got back into Sunday School as a teacher I 
 remembered it and I prayed. My class was composed 
 of reckless boys, but I saw every one of them, with 
 possibly one exception, make a profession of faith in 
 Christ. 
 
 2. The second step towards the conversion of the 
 children is the use of the Word of God. The Word of 
 God is the instrument God has appointed for convic- 
 tion, conversion and regeneration (i Pet. 1:23; Jas. 
 1:18). Fathers, mothers, Sunday School teachers, 
 study your Bibles to find out just how to use them in 
 leading a soul to Christ, and then use them in that 
 way with the children in the Sunday School class, in 
 the home, in the inquiry room and everywhere. 
 
 3. If we are to convert the children we must be bap- 
 tized with the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Ye shall 
 receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
 
io8 THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 you." Holy Ghost power is what every parent needs 
 and must have. Holy Ghost power is what every 
 Sunday School teacher needs and must have. I once 
 met a gentleman and lady who had read an address 
 on the Baptism with the Spirit, and they had sought 
 and received this baptism; so when I visited the 
 city where they lived, they came to see me. Their 
 hearts were full of joy. The man told me what won- 
 drous things God had done for him by the Holy 
 Spirit's power. Then the wife broke in and said, 
 *'Yes, and the best part of it is that I have been able 
 to get into the hearts of my own children, which I was 
 never able to do before. " Ah! that is what we want, 
 parents, to get into the hearts of our children. The 
 baptism with the Holy Spirit is the secret. It is not 
 enough that we can interest and amuse and instruct 
 the children. It is not enough that we can draw 
 pretty pictures on the blackboard and play kindergar- 
 ten games, and sing bright songs, and get texts of 
 Scripture, and pretty notions into the children's heads. 
 We must get Christ into their hearts. We must get 
 them to take Jesus as their own Savior, to trust in 
 the shed blood of Calvary and to surrender to Christ 
 as their Lord and Master, and confess Him as such 
 before the world. We must get them saved. Much 
 of our Sunday School work and of all our children's 
 work in this day is tomfoolery and an abomination in 
 the sight of God. We get the children — yes, v/e get 
 them in droves, and we amuse them, and we instruct 
 them, and we delight them, and we send them home 
 happy and resolved to come again, and then we fancy 
 we have done a good work for God, but in reality we 
 have done nothing for God but much for the devil. If 
 
THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 109 
 
 the children are not converted your work is a failure. 
 The conversion may not alwayst be immediate. It 
 takes time to effect real conversion, and sometimes the 
 fruit may not appear until years after, but if there is 
 not converting power in your work either now or 
 ultimately, your work has been a failure. That there 
 may be converting power in our work we must have 
 the Holy Ghost. It is not enough that we know the 
 lesson, it is not enough that we understand all these 
 new-fangled ways of teaching and interesting the 
 scholars, we must have the Holy Ghost. Ah! the 
 teacher that knows nothing about using the blackboard 
 and that sort of thing, but knows the power of the 
 Spirit, is worth a hundred who have gone to all the 
 schools of methods and can draw as well as Frank 
 Beard himself, but don't know the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 4. We should hold special meetings for children. 
 In these meetings as the children come in they should 
 be placed in classes of four or five, with a teacher at 
 the end of each class. There should be first a class of 
 boys and then a class of girls. This will prevent dis- 
 order and noise. There should be a good deal of sing- 
 ing, and the hymns should be bright and fresh and of 
 a character that the children can understand. They 
 should be taught the hymns verse by verse, and the 
 meaning of the hymns should be explained. Hymns 
 setting forth God's love and the atoning death of 
 Christ should be especially used. Children enjoy sing- 
 ing the same verse over and over again until the truth 
 has sunk itself way down into their hearts. 
 
 The sermon should be short and simple, emphasizing 
 the great facts, that all, including children, are sin- 
 
no THE CONVERSION OF CHILDREN 
 
 ners, and that Jesus has borne our sin in His own body 
 on the tree. It should be made very clear just what 
 one must do to be saved. When the sermon is over, 
 there should be a few moments of silent prayer, then 
 the conductor of the meeting should lead in a simple 
 direct prayer to God, having the children follow him 
 audibly, sentence by sentence. When this is done, 
 each teacher of a class should deal personally with 
 each child in the class, seeking to bring each one to an 
 immediate and intelligent acceptance of Christ as Sav- 
 ior. I have found this prayer, that is simple and 
 easily remembered, of great help : 
 
 ••Jesus take this heart of mine, 
 Make it pure, and wholly thine. 
 Thou hast bled and died for me, 
 I will henceforth live for thee." 
 
 (For further description of how to conduct children's 
 meetings, see chapter on "Decision Day in the Sunday 
 School.") 
 
I.— THE IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR 
 WORK 
 
 OPEN-AIR MEETINGS OF WILLIAM EVANS 
 
 This is seen by the indisputable fact that the great- 
 est and most influential preachers and teachers of the 
 ages past, and the age in which we now live, have made 
 constant use of it. 
 
 The messages of the prophets were delivered in the 
 open air. God's call to the prophet was: "Go, pro- 
 claim these words in the streets of the city" (Jer. ii : 6). 
 The sublime evangelical predictions of Isaiah; the 
 mournful dirges of Jeremiah; the symbolical and pic- 
 turesque visions of Ezekiel — all these, for the most 
 part, were announced in the streets of the great cities 
 of Jerusalem and Babylon. Throughout the streets of 
 Nineveh resounded the warning voice of the prophet 
 Jonah. The message of Micah, Nahum, and the rest 
 of the minor prophets was, without question, "a song 
 of the winds." Nehemiah's great revival sermon — a 
 sermon which resulted in an almost national revival — 
 was preached in the street of Jerusalem, close to the 
 water-gate. (Neh. 8: i, 3.) 
 
 The open-air worker and preacher of to-day, then, 
 is in **the goodly order of the prophets." 
 
 The Apostles of Jesus Christ were noted open-air 
 workers. The command of their Lord and Master 
 
112 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 was: "Go out into the streets of the city, and say.'* 
 Paul's greatest sermon — that masterstroke of homilet- 
 ics — was delivered in the open air, preached on Mars 
 Hill. Peter's "Magnum Opus," that great pentecos- 
 tal sermon, was delivered in the streets of the great 
 metropolis of Palestine. The Apostles of our Lord were 
 great street-preachers, and the open-air workers of to- 
 day are not only in "the goodly order of the prophets," 
 they are also "in the goodly fellowship of the Apos- 
 tles, ' ' even though they have not the honor of being 
 Episcopalians. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Exemplar of 
 Christianity, was a great open-air worker. His great- 
 est sermon, the "Magna Charta" of our holy religion, 
 that incomparable code of Christian ethics, that Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, was delivered with the hillside for 
 a pulpit and with the sky for a sounding-board. That 
 our Lord was noted for street-preaching is implied 
 from the fact that in the record of the last judgment, 
 recorded in Matthew, twenty-fifth chapter, those being 
 judged exclaimed: "Didst thou not preach in our 
 streets?" He who engages in street-preaching and 
 open-air work is following in the footsteps of his Mas- 
 ter. Beloved, the call to open-air work comes to us 
 one and all just as new and just as true to-day as when 
 the sands of Galilee were fresh with His footprints and 
 the temple's marble pavement echoed with His tread. 
 
 The Church of England sustains a great many open J 
 air preaching-stations. Noted among the men who 
 preach at these stations are the Bishop of Bedford and 
 Lord Radstock. Many of the prominent ministers 
 and laymen of the Established Church are often to be 
 seen conducting these services. In Whitechapel, Lon- 
 
IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 113 
 
 don, there is a pulpit built in the wall, from which 
 some clergyman addresses those who come to hear. 
 
 The Presbyterians of London are also very aggres- 
 sive in this line of work. They have a standing com- 
 mittee appointed to take charge of open-air work there. 
 The famous Presbyterian preacher, John McNeil, may 
 be heard preaching in the open-air meetings. 
 
 Spurgeon, the greatest preacher of the century, was 
 an indefatigable open-air worker. Read his lectures to 
 students, and see what rousing talks he gives them on 
 this kind of work. When asked one day what he 
 thought of ■ this kind of work, he said: "Give us all 
 you can of it; the more the better." Whitefield, 
 Wesley , Moody, Meyer — in fact, the best men and 
 preachers the age has produced for the ministry of the 
 Gospel, have been and are open-air workers. 
 
 One of the laws of the Presbytery of Glasgow is that 
 every minister, once a month, shall obey the command 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ and "go out into the high- 
 ways and the hedges and compel sinners to come in. * * 
 I feel constrained to say that I think this would be a 
 good thing for all our Theological Seminaries, our 
 Bible Institutes, our Training Schools for Christian 
 work to insist on. 1 hope to see the day — yea, I 
 believe it is not far distant — when every such institu- 
 tion shall have in its possession and for its constant use 
 a Gospel wagon and a Gospel tent; that a place shall 
 be provided in their faculties for a teacher and pro- 
 fessor of open-air work ; and that it shall be considered 
 a part of the training of every student for the ministry 
 of the Evangel of Jesus Christ to go out into the 
 streets and preach the Gospel to the masses, and thus 
 follow the example of Him who brushed the dew from 
 
114 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 the Judean lilies as He went about doing good and 
 preaching the Gospel of the kingdom. 
 
 IL— THE VALUE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 I use the word value, not in the sense of the com- 
 parative worth of this kind of Christian work to that of 
 any other branch of the same work. I use the word 
 in the sense of utility — as to what its value is to every 
 one who engages in it. 
 
 /. // will enable you to reach people you could not 
 otherwise reach. 
 
 This is true with regard to both quality and quantity. 
 Your audiences will be composed of people moral and 
 immoral, church-going and non church-going, righteous 
 and unrighteous, honest and dishonest ; the father and 
 the debauchee, the mother and the harlot, old and 
 young, male and female, national and international. 
 There will be a goodly representation of all sorts and 
 conditions of both men and women. Such a hetero- 
 geneous assembly, such a motley crowd, would not 
 and could not be gathered into any church in the land 
 — no, not even in our so-called institutional churches. 
 
 Then, as to quantity — as to numbers. Just look at 
 the crowds you can reach! Some of our ministers who 
 have only a handful to preach to might have hundreds 
 if they would go out into the open air and preach. 
 There is no need, in this day of our Lord, of our min- 
 isters complaining because they cannot get a large con- 
 gregation to preach to. If you want an audience, you 
 can find one anywhere. I think it would be a good 
 thing, when, during the excessive heat of the summer 
 months, our evening services are so poorly attended — 
 
IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 115 
 
 I think it would be a good thing to close the church 
 that contains but the handful and go out into the 
 parks, into the streets, where are the multitudes and 
 there preach to them the Gospel of the grace of God. 
 This, then, is one value of this feature of Christian 
 work — you will reach people you would not and could 
 not otherwise reach. 
 
 2, It ivill enable you to reach men. 
 
 That is the great problem every minister of the Gos- 
 pel has to face to-day — how to get hold of the men. 
 Our audiences are composed very largely of women. 
 They are in the great majority. We are glad the 
 women are there. We thank God for the godly 
 women of the churches, and we esteem it to be a glori- 
 ous privilege to preach to these mothers of the nation. 
 But we want, and we ought to have, men. When Jesus 
 Christ called His disciples to follow Him in His work 
 and labor of love. He said: "From henceforth ye shall 
 catch men.'' We ought to have as many men as women 
 in our audiences each Lord's Day. This may not be a 
 possibility in some towns and states where the census 
 shows many more women than men ; but it is possible 
 in this city. If you cannot get hold of the men in your 
 church, then go out into the streets and get hold of 
 them there. You will find your audiences to be com- 
 posed almost wholly of men. 
 
 J. It will give you freedom of speech not always pos- 
 sible in the pulpit of your church. 
 
 How often we preachers have to take the sharp cor- 
 ners off some of our sentences because such might 
 offend Mr. Brown, or Mrs. Smith! How aimless are 
 some of our sermons because of that very thing! I 
 remember reading of a plain but godly preacher being 
 
ii6 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 asked to preach in a fashionable city church. Just 
 before the hour for the service one of the church 
 people came to him and said: "Brother Williams, I 
 understand that you preach against Christians playing 
 cards. May I suggest to you that you refrain from 
 
 mentioning that this morning, because Deacon G 
 
 indulges in the game and has a weekly card-party at 
 his house. He might be offended and leave the church 
 if you were to speak against card-playing." Hardly a 
 minute had passed before another one came and asked 
 him not to preach against the dance, and another not 
 to preach against the theater. Feeling somewhat at a 
 loss to know what to do and say, he said to one of these 
 men: "What would you suggest that I preach about, 
 then?" The church-member turned to him and said, 
 "Give the Jews hail Columbia; there's not one within 
 forty miles of here. ' ' This story may be true or it 
 may not be. It illustrates my point, however, and 
 that is, that we oftentimes are restricted in our speech 
 from the pulpit. In the open-air work you need not 
 be so sparing. You can be more pointed in your 
 preaching. You can say things there that you would 
 not dare say, and which would not be wise to say, from 
 the pulpit of your church. That may be the only time 
 you will have the privilege and opportunity of speak- 
 ing to or seeing those people, hence you can say some 
 striking things to them. 
 
 ^. It will give you good development of the lungs. 
 
 This is not a thing to be lightly esteemed. More 
 than you or I have ever imagined depends on possessing 
 good lungs. I feel no diffidence in saying that if we 
 had more open-air preachers we would have fewer con- 
 sumptive preachers. Instead of the weak, thin, 
 
- IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 117 
 
 squeaky, collar-button voice, characteristic of so many 
 preachers to-day, and which is an intolerable nuisance 
 to listen to, you would have good strong lungs, and a 
 voice rich, full and resonant; one which it would 
 be a pleasure rather than a pain to listen to. 
 
 III.— THE NATURE OF THE OPEN-AIR 
 MEETING 
 
 Under this heading I will include the Speaker, the 
 Time, the Place, the Order of the Meeting. 
 
 /. The speaker. 
 
 He ought to be the best man that can be had for the 
 place, or that the place can afford. The Bible says: 
 *' Wisdom crieth aloud in the streets." Mark that. 
 Wise ones, not fools, cry aloud in the streets. If there 
 is one place in the world that you need to have a man 
 of tact, it is in the open-air meeting. Banish from your 
 minds the false thought that any kind of an inexperi- 
 enced man will do. Such a man will never hold a 
 crowd on tjie street-corner. He might possibly hold 
 one in a church where, for propriety's sake, they would 
 not get up and go out. The street-audience, however, 
 is not bound by any such etiquette. If you are not 
 interesting and tactful you cannot hold an audience. 
 You can get an audience. Yes! — a fool star-gazing can 
 do that. It is one thing to get an audience, however, 
 and it is another thing to hold it. It is still another 
 and a greater thing to hold it and to impress it with the 
 saving truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. London 
 puts into her street-preaching such men as Spurgeon, 
 John McNeil, Newman Hall. America can afford to do 
 no less. Now, do not misunderstand me on this point 
 
ii8 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 and infer that I mean that none but the best preachers 
 should preach in the open air. That is not my point. 
 I am seeking to do away with the false ideas so prev- 
 alent among mission-workers, and that is, that any 
 man will do to speak in the open air. 
 
 Then he must be a patient man. He must have 
 the patience of Job and the hide of a rhinoceros. 
 He must be invulnerable to attack, proof against 
 ridicule ; one that shall be able to return blessing for 
 cursing, and a smile for a frown. In short, he must 
 be a man who has complete control of his temper. 
 He must keep his equilibrium. To lose that is defeat. 
 It means a death-blow to all that he has said in the 
 meeting. If anywhere, here more, is it true that, *'a 
 soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words 
 stir up anger. * ' 
 
 2. The nature of the meeting. 
 
 There ought to be good singing. Song is a drawing 
 card. There are very few people in this world who do 
 not love singing. Music makes life worth the living. 
 I knew an individual who did not care for music or 
 song — he is the only man of that sort I have ever met 
 — he was a bachelor, he always will be, he ought to 
 be. He was the sourest individual I ever met in my 
 life. He was as sour as a pickle. Thank God, his 
 number is not legion. The overwhelming majority 
 of people love singing and will walk many a mile to 
 hear it, too. I was walking down a certain street the 
 other day and I noticed, that, as person after person 
 came to a certain house each one stopped and, look- 
 ing up to a third-story window, seemed as if they were 
 listening to something. I followed their example, and 
 soon found myself with the crowd listening to the 
 
IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 119 
 
 words of a beautiful hymn. Brethren, music draws 
 people. Do not forget that. Remember, it is true 
 not only for outdoor work, but also for indoor work. 
 It is a good thing to have an organ accompaniment. I 
 prefer a cornet accompaniment^ however. Its tone- 
 carrying qualities are much better. I preached on the 
 Boston Common a few weeks ago. They had a cornet 
 leading the singing. I was able to hear it at a very 
 great distance from the platform. It drew a great 
 many people. Mr. Moody recognized this fact. I 
 remember, during the World's Fair year, when Mr. 
 Moody was preaching in Forepaugh's mammoth tent, 
 he wrote me a letter asking me to come and assist in 
 the singing with my cornet. Said he: ** Towner has a 
 good strong voice, but nothing but a cornet will carry 
 the lead in such a large tent. ' ' 
 
 Then the address — if you choose to call it such — 
 should be interesting and picturesque. Get crammed 
 full of good illustrations; not from books, but from 
 life. If there is anything that is stale it is one of those 
 illustrations culled from some cyclopedia of illustra- 
 tions. The world is full of illustrations. Get them ! 
 Keep your eyes and ears open : observe the signs of the 
 times; interpret present-day events; get illustrations 
 from every-day life, and you will never be a dull, 
 uninteresting speaker. That is what our Lord did. 
 Read the sermons He delivered in the Temple and in 
 the synagogues, and you will notice that they do not 
 abound in illustrations, as do those delivered in the 
 open air. There is a wonderful lesson in this thought 
 for the street-preacher. 
 
 Do not be dogmatic. 
 
 Paul says: ''Beware of dogs:" Someone else has 
 
I20 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 added to that, *' Beware of dogmatists!" If you have 
 any hairs to split, split them before you go out into 
 the open air to preach Christ. Do not hit at denomi- 
 nations, but preach Jesus Christ crucified and risen 
 from the dead. I know an open-air worker who 
 scarcely ever holds a meeting but what he pounds the 
 Roman Catholics almost to death. Many Christian 
 workers are themselves responsible for the trouble they 
 have in open-air work. If a man preaches Christ, and 
 preaches Him in a loving spirit and tone, nine times 
 out of ten he will get a quiet and respectful hearing. 
 Do not make long addresses. Do not preach long 
 sermons. Rather be too short than too long. I think 
 ten minutes should be the limit for one speaker. Have 
 more than one speaker. Variety is the spice of life. 
 This is especially true in open-air work. Let your talk 
 be studied before you go to the meeting. This is not 
 at all contrary to one's dependence upon the Holy 
 Spirit for the message. This thing of taking a pas- 
 sage of Scripture which belongs to the Apostles only, 
 and that under certain peculiar circumstances, and 
 applying it to ourselves is all wrong. Some men have 
 taken that passage in the Gospel, "It shall be given 
 you in that hour what ye shall speak, " as a Scripture 
 that can be taken as a ground for no previous prepara- 
 tion for preaching. This is all wrong. If I have been 
 so busy in the service of the Master that I have not 
 had the time to prepare, or if I am called on unexpect- 
 edly to speak, then I believe that passage will be ful- 
 filled in my experience ; then I can open my mouth 
 wide and God will fill it with good words — words of 
 power. In cases where I could have prepared, but was 
 too indolent to do so, my mouth will be filled with 
 
IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 121 
 
 wind, but surely not with good words. Inasmuch, 
 then, as it is harder to preach to people in the open air 
 than it is in the church, so much the more is it neces- 
 sary to be well prepared for street-preaching. Do not 
 refer to politics in your address. When you preach 
 the Gospel preach it in love. Do not engage in ham- 
 mer-and-tongs preaching. Few men can do that suc- 
 cessfully. Your audiences will be composed principally 
 of men who have been abused and cuffed about all 
 the day ; some who have been idle for weeks, and are 
 going home to a famished wife and starving children. 
 They will need a clear, kind word to cheer their hearts 
 and show them the way everlasting. 
 
 "Tell them the story of Jesus, 
 
 Impress on their hearts every word; 
 Tell them the story most precious, 
 
 Sweetest that ever was heard. 
 Tell how the angels in chorus 
 
 Sang as they welcomed His birth 
 Glory to God in the highest ! 
 
 Peace and good tidings on earth ! 
 
 •*Tell of the cross where they nailed Him, 
 
 Writhing in anguish and pain ; 
 Tell of the grave where they laid Him 
 
 Tell that He liveth again. 
 Love in that story most precious 
 
 Clearer than ever I see ; 
 Stay, let me weep while you whisper, 
 
 Love paid the ransom for me." 
 
 Now, just a word as to time and place. With regard 
 to the place, let me say if you want to catch fish go 
 where the fish are. You will find the street-corner, 
 the steps of some public building, the ship wharves, 
 the race-course on race days, the parks, especially on 
 
122 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 Sundays — these you will find to be good places to hold 
 open-air meetings. Many preachers are in the habit of 
 holding an open-air meeting right on the steps of their 
 churches just before the evening service. This is a 
 good plan, because you can immediately, on the con- 
 clusion of that meeting, invite them into the church to 
 attend the evening service. This is the method the 
 great preacher, Newman Hall, of London, used. He 
 did this for many years. I think this is a good way to 
 get a good audience on a hot night. 
 
 As to the time. That will depend altogether on cir- 
 cumstances. Some people like to hold open-air meet- 
 ings in the daytime. That is a good time. You can 
 catch people then that you would not catch at any 
 other time. Others, and this is especially true of open- 
 air workers in England, prefer the nighttime for these 
 meetings. They hold them after sunset. They "love 
 darkness rather than light" in this respect. I think a 
 great many of the people they preach to in these meet- 
 ings do also. There are some people who would not 
 stop to listen to an open-air address in the daylight. 
 They naturally shrink from it. Others do not want to 
 be seen at such a gathering. The Nicodemuses are 
 not all dead yet. One of the common recollections of 
 my earlier life in England is that of seeing, on each 
 Sunday evening, groups of people at the principal street 
 comers of the city of Liverpool, under the light of the 
 torch lamp, listening to the story of the Cross. Men 
 who will not patronize an open-air meeting in the 
 daytime will steal up under cover of darkness and 
 listen to your story, and perhaps be touched. Breth- 
 ren, if the people will not come to the evening service, 
 then take the evening service out Jo them. 
 
IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 123 
 
 IV.— AND, FINALLY, RESULTS OF OPEN-AIR 
 WORK 
 
 I speak now especially of spiritual results. In the 
 first place, they cannot be counted in figures. I do not 
 believe much in figures, anyway. 
 
 "So you believe in figures. I do not. 
 Where do all large ideas, all great aims, 
 All schemes that uplift humanity, have birth? 
 In the majority? Ah, no, my friend; 
 In the minute minority of one. 
 In God, Heaven, Man, one is best." 
 
 To have the privilege of leading a man like C. H. 
 Spurgeon or D. L. Moody to Christ means to be the 
 indirect cause of leading thousands to the foot of the 
 Cross. 
 
 The results of open-air work are, for the most part, 
 never known to the workers. The present Bishop of 
 Liverpool was converted while listening to a talk given 
 at an open-air meeting. He does not know the name 
 of the man who spoke the word of life that night, and 
 the man who spoke the word does not know that it 
 touched the Bishop's heart and was the means of lead- 
 ing him to Christ. That man might have gone home 
 that night and said to himself: "Well, what is the use 
 of preaching in the open air anyway? Nobody seems 
 to be converted. I see no results of my work. ' ' Yet 
 how different was the case ! He had that night added 
 one more jewel to the diadem of our Lord. One man 
 at least will meet him in the everlasting habitations, 
 and say: "It was through your instrumentality that I 
 was led to become a Christian." Preaching in open-air 
 work is like casting bread upon the waters. It is a 
 
124 IMPORTANCE OF OPEN-AIR WORK 
 
 work of faith. And that man who has not the most 
 implicit faith in God's Word — that it will not return to 
 Him void — had better not preach that word. Not 
 time, but eternity alone will reveal the true results of 
 the work. 
 
 We are allowed, however, now and then to see its 
 results. I was at a home missionary meeting- the other 
 evening, and noticed that two churches reported that 
 they had been holding open-air meetings right near 
 their churches, and that in one case sixteen and in the 
 other twenty-three members had been added to the 
 church through these meetings, held during the sum* 
 mer months. 
 
 Brethren, preach the Word in faith and power. 
 That, and that alone, is our duty; leave the results 
 with God. If it is wise to let you see them He will do 
 it; if you do not see them as you would like to, still 
 plod on, always remembering that *'he that goeth 
 forth with weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubt- 
 less come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves 
 with him." 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS AND OTHER 
 
 LITERATURE TO PROMOTE 
 
 A REVIVAL 
 
 REV. H. W. POPE 
 
 The indiscriminate use of tracts by those whose zeal 
 exceeds their wisdom has led many good people to 
 have a strong prejudice against them. The character 
 of the tracts used has also strengthened this prejudice. 
 
 Some tracts are so antiquated as to be almost useless 
 in the present age. They were good in their day, but 
 their day has gone by. Others are so lacking in pith, 
 point or power as to be of little value. To use a 
 modern phrase, they do not '*get there." Others still 
 are so offensive in style as to defeat the very end for 
 which they were written. 
 
 It is foolish, however, to allow prejudice against 
 poor tracts to blind us to the value of good ones. And 
 good ones can be had. The choicest thoughts of the 
 best writers can now be found in leaflet form, and 
 there is moral dynamite enough in some of them to 
 shatter terribly the strongholds of Satan. Indeed, the 
 Bible itself is only a collection of sixty-six little tracts 
 bound in one volume; for, as someone has said, *'holy 
 men of God wrote small books on great subjects." 
 
 Making due allowance for unwisdom in the use of 
 tracts and for the inferior quality of many that are 
 used, it yet remains true that a great deal of good has 
 
 125 
 
126 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 been done by them. Many a soul has been awakened 
 by one of these little "leaves of healing'* which the 
 Holy Spirit has blown into the hand at just the right 
 moment. 
 
 A man stepped into a street-car in New York, and 
 before taking his seat gave to each passenger a little 
 card bearing the inscription: "Look to Jesus when 
 tempted, when troubled, when dying." One of the 
 passengfers carefully read the card and put it into his 
 pocket. As he left the car he said to the giver: "Sir, 
 when you gave me this card I was on my way to the 
 ferry, intending to jump from the boat and drown 
 myself. The death of my wife and son had robbed me 
 of all desire to live, but this card has persuaded me to 
 begin life anew. Good-day, and God bless you!" 
 
 Doubtless many people smiled when these cards 
 were distributed, but who will smile on the day when 
 the Book of Life is opened? 
 
 * Though scoffers ask, ' Where isyour gain? * 
 And mocking say, * Your work is vain, * 
 These scoffers die and are forgot, 
 Work done for GOD, it dieth not. 
 
 •• Press on, press on, nor doubt nor fear, 
 Through every age these words may cheer; 
 Whate'er may die and be forgot. 
 Work done for GOD, it dieth not." 
 
 We adore the kind Providence that led Philip to 
 cross the path of the Ethiopian at the very moment 
 when he was needed, but we forget that the same 
 thing occurs every day. There is no such thing as 
 chance in God's world, and those who seek to be led 
 by the Spirit often find themselves messengers of 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 137 
 
 mercy to some weary soul. A lady once traveled 
 nearly two hundred miles to tell the writer personally 
 how a little leaflet that he had given her the year 
 before led her to conversion. By the use of a similar 
 card a young man was led to give his heart to the 
 Lord, and through his influence both his father and 
 mother were brought into the Master's service. A 
 Christian worker in Nottingham, England, tells the 
 following incident: *'I was called to see a dying 
 woman. I found her rejoicing in Christ, and asked 
 her how she found the Lord. 'Reading that,' she 
 replied, handing me a torn piece of paper. I looked 
 at it, and found that it was a part of an American 
 newspaper containing an extract from one of Spur- 
 geon's sermons. 'Where did you find this newspaper?' 
 I asked. She answered: 'It was wrapped around a 
 parcel sent me from Australia. * Think of that ! — a ser- 
 mon preached in London, conveyed to America, then 
 to Australia, part of it torn off for the parcel dis- 
 patched to England, and after all its wanderings giv- 
 ing the message of salvation to that woman's soul! 
 Truly God's Word shall not return unto Him void." 
 
 PEOPLE WHO SHOULD USE TRACTS 
 
 There are at least five classes of people who can use 
 tracts to advantage. 
 
 First, ministers. Some ministers make constant use 
 of them in their pastoral work. They open the way 
 for conversation, and oftentimes they are better than 
 words, for a soul in exercise will sometimes quarrel 
 with the one talking to him. but could hardly quarrel 
 with a tract. A tract never gets out of patience, never 
 
128 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 answers back, and it sticks to what it has said. In 
 many places where a Christian could not enter, a tract 
 can slip in and speak a word for Christ. The sick, the 
 aged and, above all, the boys and the girls, appreciate a 
 leaflet adapted to their condition. Other pastors use 
 tracts to supplement their preaching. The tract 
 recalls the sermon and deepens the impression made. 
 A judicious use of the right kind of tracts has in some 
 cases been a mighty factor in promoting a revival. 
 
 HOW REV. EDWARD JUDSON USES TRACTS 
 
 During a ministerial experience of twenty years this 
 very successful pastor has made constant use of 
 tracts. He seldom makes a pastoral call without 
 having in his pocket an assortment of tracts adapted to 
 almost every member of the family, and especially to 
 the children. In this way he leaves behind him 
 definite souvenirs of his visit and seeds of truth which 
 will bring forth fruit later on. Then each tract 
 generally, has printed on it the notice of his services, 
 and acts as a constant invitation to church. 
 
 At the close of the Sunday-evening preaching serv- 
 ice he has often put some good brother in the chair, 
 and while the meeting proceeds he goes down into the 
 audience and gives to each person a choice leaflet, at 
 the same time improving the opportunity to say a 
 timely word. In this way he comes into personal 
 touch with the whole audience, gives every stranger a 
 cordial welcome and leaves in his hand some mes- 
 sage from God. 
 
 At least once a year he selects some one tract that 
 has in it the very core of the Gospel. On this he 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 129 
 
 prints a notice of the services and, selecting his 
 church as a center, he has this tract put into the hands 
 of every person living within half a mile in each direc- 
 tion, regardless of creed or condition. He sometimes 
 uses ten thousand tracts at one distribution a^d finds 
 it very fruitful in results. 
 
 A second class is business men. Some business men 
 use them constantly, passing them out when the right 
 person appears, or inclosing them in packages of 
 goods. Ticket agents give them out with tickets. 
 One agent says that twenty persons wrote to him that 
 they had been converted by the tracts he had given 
 them. I remember a business man who said to me: 
 **1 am a timid man and cannot speak in meeting, but 
 if you will buy some good literature I will pay for it 
 and enclose it with our packages of goods. * ' He dealt 
 largely with fishing- vessels, and thus he *'cast his 
 bread upon the waters. ' ' Recently I read of a drum- 
 mer who stopped in St. Louis and called on a merchant 
 to sell him some diamonds. The merchant said: '*I do 
 not need anymore diamonds." "Never mind," said 
 the drummer, *'I am going to show you my goods, if 
 you have no objections." He opened his case, and 
 exhibited his wares so attractively that in a short time 
 he sold the man a bill of goods in spite of himself. 
 Then closing up his samples, he said: **Now I have 
 something to show you better than all these. Here is 
 something very choice ; it is the pearl of great price. ' * 
 And pulling out a little pocket Bible, he said: **Are 
 you a Christian, my friend?" And then for a few 
 moments he talked Jesus Christ to him in the same 
 earnest way he had talked of diamonds before. Mix 
 religion with your business. Let the two go hand in 
 
ISO THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 hand. I believe in doing as did the blacksmith in 
 southern Vermont, who, after he was converted, was 
 asked to shoe a horse on Sunday. *'No, sir!" said he. 
 *'I am a Christian now, and I do not work on Sunday.*' 
 The man met him with an oath, but he replied: **Hold 
 on, friend ! you can't swear in this place. I want you to 
 understand that this is a Gospel shop. * * So should we 
 maintain a Christian atmosphere in every place which 
 we control, and not allow anything to be said or done 
 there which would displease our Master. 
 
 There is no better way of rebuking profanity than 
 by the use of little cards or leaflets prepared for this 
 purpose. Here is one man's testimony: 
 
 "The other evening I arrived at S , and walked 
 
 over to the hotel. I entered, and, after checking my 
 things, started to mail a letter, previous to going in to 
 supper. Between the coatroom and the mailbox 
 stood three traveling-men. Two of the number 
 swore, as they talked, imagining doubtless that they 
 were emphasizing their point more forcibly. 
 
 *' Overhearing them, and praying for guidance, I 
 took from my pocket some attractive cards, with differ- 
 ent colored backs, which had upon the reverse side, 
 *Why do you swear?' while underneath were four 
 Scripture texts against swearing. I walked toward 
 the group and, without uttering a word, threw the 
 cards out between my hands, with the backs up, and 
 offered them to the first drummer, a little fellow who 
 had sworn the most. He looked at me curiously, 
 reached out his hand and drew a card. I immediately 
 turned to the other man who had sworn, and offered 
 him the cards, and he drew one. Then, without pay- 
 ing any attention to the third man, or even looking at 
 
THE USB OP TRACTS 131 
 
 him, I mailed my letter and started for the dining- 
 room, without having all this time spoken a word. 
 Turning the corner, I heard a shout of laughter from 
 the drummer who had not sworn, and knew my shot 
 had taken effect. 
 
 **I was just comfortably seated at the table, when 
 the little drummer came to the dining-room door and, 
 looking around, spied me at the table. He walked 
 right in and, coming up to where I sat, said: *Say, that 
 is the best rebuke I ever had in my life ; and I want to 
 say I'm sorry I spoke as I did and that I had no busi- 
 ness to do so. Could I get two or three of those cards?* 
 
 ** *Yes, but be sure before you give them to anyone 
 that you set the example yourself by not swearing 
 again. ' 
 
 *** All right, I will do so.' 
 
 **So I gave him the cards and he left. The follow- 
 ing Saturday I found my man in Albany in a large 
 retail grocery store. The minute he saw me he pulled 
 out one of the cards, showed it to the buyer of the 
 department, told him his experience and read the 
 upper text: *Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord 
 thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guilt- 
 less that taketh his name in vain. ' God not only used 
 His Word, as printed upon the cards, to rebuke this 
 man, but also used him as an instrument in His hands 
 all over the country in passing on the message to others. " 
 
 I know of many business men who use tracts con- 
 stantly, passing them out with a pleasant word to their 
 customers, or putting them in their correspondence. 
 One man who did the largest business of any firm in 
 his line between New York and Chicago, always had 
 one-half of his private desk devoted to a choice assort- 
 
132 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 ment of tracts. A Chicago business man had a thou- 
 sand leaflets printed and scattered them among his 
 friends. Some time afterwards he received a letter 
 from another city asking him to plan to spend a Sun- 
 day there when he next passed through. He did so, 
 and was driven to a new church in the outskirts of the 
 city. *'What do you think of that?" asked his host. 
 **Why, that is a very pretty church, I think, but what 
 of it?" *'That church is the result of a tract which 
 you sent me some time ago. I read it and my soul 
 was so aroused by it that I read it in the Endeavor 
 Society, and it had the same effect upon them. As a 
 result we looked around to see what we could do for 
 the Master, and finally started a mission in an empty 
 store which has grown into this church. ' ' 
 
 A business man in Brooklyn saw a tract lying on his 
 desk and, without much thought, put it into a letter 
 and mailed it. No sooner had he done this than the 
 devil whispered to him: *'You have made a fool of 
 yourself. What do you suppose that man will think of 
 you to put a religious tract in a business letter?" For 
 a moment he was ashamed and he turned to the Lord, 
 saying, "Was it a mistake?" Back came the answer: 
 *'Why would it not be a good idea to put a tract in 
 every letter you send?" "Lord, I will," was the 
 reply. This was in 1882, and a few days ago the man 
 told me that to the best of his knowledge he had never 
 sent out but one letter since without enclosing some 
 kind of Christian literature, and in that instance he 
 was ordering some goods and forgot to put one in, and 
 the goods proved to be the worst lot he ever received — 
 "Presumably," he said, "because I did not enclose a 
 tract." 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 133 
 
 A third class who can use tracts profitably is teach- 
 ers. The writer owes more to a district schoolteacher 
 than to all the professors he ever met in college or 
 seminary. Dr. Channing used to say: "There is no 
 office higher than that of a teacher of youth, for there 
 is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul and 
 character of a child." Professor Tyndall said: "If 
 there is one profession of paramount importance, I 
 believe it to be that of the schoolmaster." 
 
 Granted that the special work for which teachers are 
 employed is to educate the mind ; still, is it not their 
 duty also to lead them into the realms of spiritual 
 knowledge and, above all, to introduce them to the 
 Great Teacher, who said: "Take my yoke upon you, 
 and learn of me . . . and ye shall find rest unto your 
 souls. ' ' We all know that young people do not like to 
 have religion thrust upon them continually, but they 
 do, without exception, admire a manly Christian char- 
 acter, and they appreciate a loving interest in their 
 welfare and an occasional earnest word upon the subject. 
 
 Those who cannot talk freely with their pupils can, 
 at least, put into their hands the wise words of others ; 
 and who can estimate the good that would be done by 
 occasionally giving to each pupil a choice leaflet on 
 some vital subject? Old-fashioned tracts will not do 
 for boys. They need something down to date, some- 
 thing which sets forth in a terse and manly way the 
 attractions of the Christian life and the dangers which 
 beset the pathway of youth. 
 
 Another class of people who ought to use tracts is 
 housekeepers. Have them on the parlor table, so that 
 callers may read them while waiting. There is time 
 enough for a person to be converted while a lady is 
 
134 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 finishing her toilet ; and time enough to backslide, too, 
 before some people get down to the parlor. Place 
 them in your guest-chamber, so that your friends will 
 have something to ti^rn their thoughts toward the 
 Blessed One. White Cross tracts will do your boys 
 and girls no harm, and even Bridget may absorb a 
 good deal of the Gospel through an innocent little 
 leaflet. Give them to the butcher and marketman, 
 always accompanied with a kind word and a prayer, 
 and God will not fail to bless them. 
 
 The last class which I wish to speak of embraces all 
 who were not included in the other four classes. 
 Tract work is one which everybody can engage in. 
 Here is something which all can do, old and young, 
 rich and poor. It is a business that does not require 
 much time or capital, but it does require tact and 
 prayerfulness and an earnest desire to be used of 
 God. Timid people can in this way **hold forth the 
 word of life. * * 
 
 How many people are mourning because they **do 
 not know what to say" — but here is a way by which 
 they always have something to say. Some who have 
 begun very timidly to engage in this silent evangeliza- 
 tion have become not only brave, but enthusiastic, and 
 by their efforts have enlisted many others in the same 
 work. 
 
 HOW TO USE LEAFLETS 
 
 That depends upon the person you are addressing. 
 First of all, you must know what you are using and 
 not be giving tracts on swearing to Sunday School 
 teachers or *' Growing Old Gracefully" to little chil- 
 dren. If you meet an acquaintance on the street you 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 135 
 
 can say to him, in a playful way, as you pass a 
 leaflet to him, ''Don't say that I never gave you any- 
 thing. " Or you can say: "I have something here that 
 I think you will be interested in. Will you read it if 
 I give it to you?" To a stranger on the cars who has 
 no newspaper: "Would you like something to read?'* 
 Then it is an easy matter for you to inquire: *'What do 
 you think of it?" Sometimes you can interest people 
 in a leaflet by telling them some fact concerning it ; as, 
 for instance, you can say of Dr. Chickering's "What la 
 It to Believe on Christ?" "Here is a little book which 
 has a remarkable record. The author before he died 
 had the names of over seventeen hundred people who 
 had written him or told him personally that they 
 attributed their conversion to this tract." 
 
 Another way is to say: "Here is a little book that 
 has helped me. Perhaps you would enjoy it. " Leave 
 them in the cars when you travel, or on the parlor 
 table in the hotel. Give one to the waiter. He will 
 appreciate it and read it especially if you have pre- 
 viously shown your interest in him in some substantial 
 way. Never use cheap-looking tracts. They belittle 
 the cause you wish to help. 
 
 Never be ashamed of the work you are doing, but 
 act as if you were conferring a favor upon people, 
 which is really true if you are sowing good seed in a 
 Christian spirit. 
 
 I am convinced that churches and Christian workers 
 could greatly increase their influence by a more 
 liberal use of printer's ink. The methods of using 
 tracts are innumerable. Let each member be encour- 
 aged to keep on hand a choice supply to inclose in his 
 letters. After a missionary sermon, let there be given 
 
136 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 to each person as he passes out a good tract bearing 
 upon benevolence or missions. Tracts on temperance 
 or narcotics may be wisely distributed in the Sunday 
 School. Visit the jail, almshouse or hospital, and give 
 to each inmate an occasion to thank God on your 
 behalf. It is said that there is a gentleman in France 
 who watches the obituary column in the morning 
 papers and sends to the bereaved ones little tracts 
 adapted to their situation. Some railroad companies 
 will allow a box to be kept in the station filled with 
 good literature for the use of waiting passengers. 
 Occasionally select a good tract and, printing upon it 
 the name of your church, Sunday School or Endeavor 
 Society, with an invitation to attend the services, can- 
 vass the whole neighborhood, leaving a tract at every 
 house. Have a rubber stamp for this purpose. 
 Accompany each tract with a silent prayer that God's 
 blessing may attend it. Make yourself familiar with 
 what you distribute in order that you may bestow 
 them wisely, and remember that if you trust Him the 
 Holy Spirit will guide you in every detail of this work. 
 Some tracts will doubtless be wasted, just as many a 
 sermon fails to reach the hearts of careless hearers ; 
 but we are encouraged to **sow beside all waters," and 
 we never know on what soil the good seed may fall. 
 One thing we do know, however, and that is that Jesus 
 will appreciate the effort, for He hath said: "Inasmuch 
 as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my 
 brethren, ye have done it unto me. ' ' 
 
 USEFUL IN OPENING CONVERSATION 
 
 It is not an easy matter to open conversation on the 
 subject of religion, especially with a stranger, but a 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 137 
 
 leaflet will often open the way very happily. I sat 
 down beside a stranger in a railroad car. He called 
 my attention to a fire which had occurred the night 
 before, and then went on to speak of his own experi- 
 ence in having a factory burned and the difficulty 
 which he had in collecting his insurance. When he 
 had finished talking I handed him a card saying: "If 
 you insure in that company you never have any trouble 
 in securing your money." The card contained the 
 question: "Are you Insured in the Ev^erlasting Life 
 Insurance Company?" with an attractive description 
 of its advantages. After he had read it I asked him if 
 he had ever taken a policy in that company. He said: 
 "No, I never did, and it is a strange thing that I 
 haven't, too. My family are all Christians, and if any 
 man ever tried hard to get hold of it I am the man. 
 Perhaps you can tell me wherein I failed to grasp it." 
 The result was a delightful talk on how to become a 
 Christian and, as he left me, he thanked me warmly for 
 the help I had given him. Think of it! two entire 
 strangers sit down together and, in five minutes' time, 
 each is laying bare his heart to the other on the most 
 sacred of all subjects. Without that leaflet to open the 
 way, it would have been well-nigh impossible. 
 
 USEFUL TO CLOSE CONVERSATION 
 
 Often a conversation is interrupted by the entrance 
 of a third party, or the lack of time, and one has to 
 leave before he has finished what he had to say. In 
 such cases an appropriate tract will carry on the con- 
 versation and perhaps lead the soul to Christ. Riding 
 
X38 THE USE OP TRACTS 
 
 on a train, I fell into conversation with a stranger. 
 He said that he was a skeptic and was puzzled to know 
 which of the many different religions was the best. 
 *'The Mohammedans say their prophet is the one to 
 follow, and the Chinese have another, and the Mor- 
 mons another. I suppose you would say that Jesus 
 Christ is the one to worship. " I said: **My friend, did 
 you ever embrace any of these religions?" **No, I 
 never did, ' he replied. ** Don't you think it would be 
 better for you if you would? If you think Moham- 
 medanism is the true religion, give your heart to 
 Mohammed ; and if you can get salvation from it, well 
 and good. If that fails, try Buddhism, or become a 
 Mormon, and if these do not satisfy, then become a 
 Christian." There is a fable which tells of a horse 
 which stood between two stacks of hay, each of which 
 was so fragrant that he could not tell which to bite 
 from, and so he stood there and starved to death 
 because he could not decide which to choose. This 
 man was in precisely the same position on the subject 
 of religion, and I tried to make him see it and realize 
 that he was starving his soul because he could not 
 decide which to choose. As I urged him to embrace 
 some religion, and that, too, without delay, he said: 
 **My friend, there is a good deal of truth in what you 
 say. I am sorry I have to leave you for this is my 
 station. I hope we shall meet again." I put into his 
 hand Dr. Chickering's tract, "What Is It to Believe on 
 Christ," and Mr. Torrey's "Life Card," both of which 
 make the way of life plain to any honest inquirer. 
 The man had to leave me just as he was becoming 
 interested, but the tracts enabled me to carry on the 
 conversation even after he had left me. On the same 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 139 
 
 journey I had an opportunity to talk with two other 
 unsaved men without leaving my seat and, in each 
 instance, just as they became really interested, they 
 had to leave the train. In both cases, however, I gave 
 them an appropriate leaflet which would preach to them 
 long after I had to stop. 
 
 USEFUL TO COUNTERACT INFIDELITY 
 
 There is much infidel literature in circulation among 
 the factory population, and thousands of pernicious 
 books and pamphlets are scattered among the schools 
 of the land. Unless Christians do something to coun- 
 teract this influence we are allowing the devil a very 
 g^eat advantage. In some cases the young people's 
 societies have done excellent work in the spread of 
 good literature. 
 
 How tracts can be used to counteract error was well 
 illustrated in Portland. Col. Robert Ingersoll came 
 there and lectured, it is said, to fifteen hundred people. 
 Christians could not hinder it, but they could and did 
 do something to counteract his influence. At the sug- 
 gestion of one of the ministers, eighteen Christian 
 Endeavorers stood at the door of the hall on the night 
 of the lecture and gave to each person as they came 
 out a copy of Rev. H. L. Hasting's address, **Will the 
 Old Book Stand?" A more powerful refutation of 
 Ingersoll's talk could hardly be found, and his attacks 
 upon the Bible would make them all the more eager to 
 see what could be said upon the other side. Wherever 
 any apostle of infidelity appears, let Christian people 
 answer his arguments in the same effective way. 
 
I40 THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 USEFUL IN PROMOTING A REVIVAL 
 
 The first thing to do in promoting a revival is to 
 awaken the spirit of prayer and expectation, and to 
 set Christians talking about Jesus Christ and the Great 
 Salvation. Suppose a minister, or, better still, all the 
 ministers in the place, preach on a given Sunday on 
 the same subject, ** Prayer,** and at the close of the 
 sermon let each minister say to his people that as they 
 go out of the house they will receive at the door a 
 choice leaflet on the theme of the sermon. Let him 
 urge them to read it and pass it on to someone else. 
 If they wish more of the same kind they can obtain 
 them of such a person. In this way the whole town 
 will be led to talk and think about the same subject all 
 the week. The next Sunday let the ministers all 
 preach on Repentance or Conversion or Sin or the 
 Holy Spirit and follow the sermon with a good tract 
 on the same subject. In a little while scores of people 
 will be found using tracts to supplement their conver- 
 sation, and in their correspondence, and a deeper in- 
 terest in spiritual work will be awakened. 
 
 RESULTS OF TRACT WORK 
 
 While Barnum's circus was in Brooklyn a member of 
 the troupe came into the prayer meeting of the Grace 
 Baptist Church. He paid very close attention and, at 
 the close of a hymn, he arose and said, with a voice 
 full of emotion: *'I have never heard that hymn since 
 I heard it in Sunday School the day before I ran away 
 with the circus. I was then nine years old ; I am now 
 fifty. During all these years I have led a life of sin, 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 141 
 
 and the only thing I had to remind me of my innocent 
 childhood was a little tract given me in Sunday School 
 the day before I ran away. I was led to come here 
 to-night by seeing the light in the windows, and I want 
 you to pray that if there is any mercy for such a sinner 
 as I am the Lord Jesus may save me." He went 
 home that night rejoicing in a Savior. He began at 
 once to work among the members of his troupe, giv- 
 ing them tracts and inviting them to come to church, 
 and of those who came one professed to be saved, and 
 another, of his own accord, asked the prayers of God's 
 people. A good report has since been heard from the 
 first man, who, through all those forty-one years' had 
 treasured that little souvenir of his Sunday School days. 
 
 A pastor gave a tract to a young man who came tc 
 call on him. He was converted, and then his fathei 
 and mother, and all three became active workers in 
 the cause of Christ. 
 
 A servant girl in New York placed a searching leaflet 
 on the dressing-case of her mistress. Her attention 
 was arrested, her heart touched and, though a woman 
 of wealth and a leader in fashionable society, she 
 became a humble Christian and devoted her splendid 
 talents to the Lord, ever after giving much of her time 
 to the distribution of tracts. 
 
 I know of many instances, and I think it is safe to 
 say that more than two-thirds of those who publish 
 tracts have been led to engage in this work through 
 some personal benefit received from tracts themselves. 
 
 A lady in Virginia writes us that in reading the 
 King's Business she came upon an article on '*The 
 Use of Tracts," and sent at once for the appended list. 
 At first she gave them out very timidly, but so eager 
 
i4a THE USE OF TRACTS 
 
 were the people for them that now she can hardly keep 
 any by her. "Last night I was talking with a poor 
 wretched man who has hitherto evaded me, but now 
 manifests a deep interest in his salvation, and, on 
 inquiring the reason of the change, found that he had 
 been reading some tracts which I gave to a neighbor 
 of his some months ago. 
 
 **Last fall I sent out two hundred tracts to the 
 employes on the Pulaski Division of the Norfolk & 
 Western R. R. Returning here in May, I was told by 
 an engineer that the tracts had been read and passed 
 from hand to hand until literally worn out, and there 
 had been at least ten conversions among the trainmen. 
 
 **I am but a beginner in this work, with no training, 
 and no methods, but I go on my knees for all I need 
 to know, and ask God for opportunities, and for the 
 wisdom and power of the Holy Ghost. All the time 
 and everywhere I go I find the way opening till, in 
 view of the great need of workers, I am constrained to 
 cry out: 'Lord, send forth more laborers into the har- 
 vest. * All my work is by littles, so little that I can- 
 not tell much about it, and yet I do know of quite a 
 number who have been converted. My eyesight is so 
 poor that I seldom can write a letter, and read no book 
 but the Bible, but I pen a few words on the tracts 
 which are then sent forth on the wings of prayer. ' ' If 
 this feeble woman, an invalid in fact, can accomplish 
 so much for Christ in this way, what could others do 
 who have more strength? 
 
 A little boy belonging to a Sunday School in Phila- 
 delphia was telling a friend of an expected visit into 
 the country and what he was going to do there. **And 
 what do you expect to do for your heavenly Father?" 
 
THE USE OF TRACTS 143 
 
 his friend asked. **Why, nothing," said the boy; 
 **what can such a boy as I do for God?" *'You can 
 do much," was the reply. "Now, I will give you a 
 bundle of tracts to take with you, and you can dis- 
 tribute them among your friends." He had not been 
 in the country many days when a boy in the neighbor- 
 hood asked him to help drive his cows home. Here 
 was his chance to use the tracts ; so, taking out one of 
 his silent preachers, he gave it to him, saying: *' Here's 
 something for you." 
 
 **What is it?" looking it over. **What is it?" 
 
 **It is something good to read," said the lad. 
 
 *'But I cannot read. Never mind, I'll take it home; 
 they can read it there. " 
 
 Some days after, the country boy met his city friend. 
 *'Well," said he, "that little book you gave me made a 
 great stir at our house, I tell you. ' ' 
 
 "Did it, though? How do you mean?" 
 
 "Why," he replied, "they read the tract, and then 
 they read the Bible, and when Sunday came they 
 made me get out the old carriage and clean it up, and 
 then we all got in that could, and the rest got on 
 before and behind, and rode off to church. That 
 tract's done great things, I tell you." 
 
 Subsequently it was ascertained that this one tract 
 was the means of converting several souls. 
 
PERSONAL WORK 
 
 R. A. TORREY 
 
 By personal work we mean hand-to-hand dealing 
 with individual men, women and children. This is the 
 most effective method of winning lost souls. The 
 Apostle Peter was brought to Jesus by the hand-to- 
 hand work of his brother Andrew. Andrew first 
 found Christ himself, then he went to Peter quietly 
 and told him of his great find, and thus he led Peter to 
 the Savior he himself had found. I do not know that 
 Andrew ever preached a sermon ; if he did it is not 
 recorded; but he did a great day's work when he led 
 his brother Peter to Jesus. Peter preached a sermon 
 that led to the conversion of 3,000 people, but where 
 would Peter's great sermon have been if Andrew had 
 not first led him to Christ by quiet personal work? 
 Mr. Kimball, the Boston business man, led D. L. 
 Moody, the young Boston shoe clerk, to the Savior. 
 Where would all Mr. Moody's wonderful work for 
 Christ have been if he himself had not been led to the 
 Savior by the faithful personal work of his Sunday 
 School teacher? I believe in preaching. It is a great 
 privilege to preach the Gospel, but this world can be 
 reached and evangelized far more quickly and thor- 
 oughly by personal work than by public preaching. 
 Indeed, it can only be reached and evangelized by per- 
 sonal work. When the whole church of Jesus Christ 
 shall rouse to its responsibility and privilege in this 
 matter, and every individual Christian become a per- 
 
 145 
 
146 PERSONAL WORK 
 
 sonal worker, the evangelization of the world will be 
 close at hand. When the membership of any local 
 church shall rouse to its responsibility and privilege in 
 this matter, and each member become a personal 
 worker in the power of the Holy Spirit, a great revival 
 will be close at hand for the community in which that 
 church is located. Personal work is a work that wins 
 but little applause from men, but it accomplishes great 
 things for God. 
 
 There are many who think personal work beneath 
 their dignity and their gifts. A blind woman once 
 came to me and said, **Do you think that my blindness 
 will hinder me from working for the Master?" **Not 
 at all ; it may be a great help to you, for others seeing 
 your blindness will come and speak to you, and then 
 you will have an opportunity of giving your testimony 
 for Christ, and of leading them to the Savior." **0h, 
 that is not what I want," she replied. *'It seems to 
 me a waste of time when one might be speaking to five 
 or six hundred at once, just to be speaking to an indi- 
 vidual." I answered that the Lord and Savior Jesus 
 Christ was able to speak to more than five thousand at 
 once, and yet He never thought personal work beneath 
 His dignity or His gifts. Indeed, it was the work the 
 Savior loved to do. We have more instances of our 
 Savior's personal work recorded in the Gospels than 
 of His preaching. The one who is above personal 
 work is above his Master. 
 
 I. ITS ADVANTAGES 
 
 Let us look at the advantages of personal work. 
 
 I. All can do it. In an average congregation there 
 are not more than four or five who can preach to edi- 
 fication. It would be a great pity, too, should all 
 
PERSONAL WORK 147 
 
 attempt to become preachers; it would be a great 
 blessing if all would become personal workers. Any 
 child of God can do personal work, and all can learn to 
 do effective personal work. The mother who is con- 
 fined at home by multiplicity of home duties can still 
 do personal work, first of all with her own children, 
 and then with the servants in the home, with the 
 butcher, the grocer, the tramp who calls at the door, 
 in fact, with everybody who comes within reach. I 
 once knew a mother very gifted in the matter of bring- 
 ing her own children up in the nurture and admonition 
 of the Lord, who lamented that she could not do some 
 work for Christ, I watched this woman carefully, and 
 found that almost every one who came to the house in 
 any capacity was spoken to about the Savior, and she 
 was, in point of fact, doing more for Christ in the way 
 of direct evangelistic work than most pastors. 
 
 Even the one shut up at home by sickness can do 
 personal work. As friends come to the sick bed, a 
 word of testimony can be given for Christ, or even an 
 extended conversation can be held. A little child of 
 twelve who was dying in the city of Minneapolis let 
 her light shine for the Master, and spoke among others 
 to a Godless physician, to whom, perhaps, no one else 
 had spoken about Christ. A poor girl in New York 
 City, who was rescued from the slums and died a year 
 or two afterwards, was used of God to lead about 
 one hundred men and women to Christ, while lying 
 upon her dying bed. 
 
 The servant girl can do effective and personal work. 
 Lord Shaftsbury, the great English evangelist, was 
 won to Christ in a Godless home by the effective work 
 of the nurse girl. 
 
148 PERSONAL WORK 
 
 Traveling men have unusually good opportunities 
 for doing personal work, as they travel on the trains 
 from town to town, as they stop in one hotel after 
 another and go from store to store. A professional 
 nurse once came into my Bible class in Chicago, and at 
 the close of the meeting approached me and said: 
 
 * ' I was led to Christ by Mr. [a traveling man 
 
 connected with a large wholesale house]. I was in a 
 hotel parlor, and this gentleman saw me and walked 
 across the parlor and asked me if I was a Christian, 
 and when I told him I was not, he proceeded at once 
 to show me the way of life. I was so startled and 
 impressed to find a traveling man leading others to 
 Christ that I accepted Him as my Savior then and 
 there. He told me if I ever came to Chicago to come 
 to your Bible class." I have watched this woman for 
 years since, and she herself is a most devoted Christian 
 and effective worker. 
 
 How wonderful would be the results if all Christians 
 should begin to be active personal workers to the 
 extent of their ability! Nothing else would do so 
 much to promote a revival in any community, and in 
 the land at large. Every pastor should urge this duty 
 upon his people, train them for it, and see that they 
 doit 
 
 2. It can be done anywhere. There are but few 
 places where one can preach. There is no place where 
 one cannot do personal work. How often, as we pass 
 factories, engine houses, lodging houses and other 
 places where crowds are gathered, do we wish that we 
 might get into them and preach the Gospel, but gener- 
 ally this is impossible, but it is altogether possible to 
 go in and do personal work. Furthermore, we can do 
 
PERSONAL WORK 149 
 
 personal work on the street, whether street meetings 
 are allowed or not. We can do personal work in the 
 homes of the poor and in the homes of the rich, in hos- 
 pitals, workhouses, jails, station houses, and all sorts 
 of institutions — in a word, everywhere. 
 
 3. It can be done at any time. The times when we 
 can have preaching services and Sunday Schools are 
 quite limited. As a rule, in most communities, we 
 cannot have services more than two or three days in 
 the week, and only three or four hours in the day, but 
 personal work can be done seven days in the week, and 
 any time of day or night. Some of the best personal 
 work done in this country in the last twenty years has 
 been done on the streets at midnight and after mid- 
 night. Those who love souls have walked the streets 
 looking for wanderers, and have gone into dens of vice 
 seeking the lost sheep, and hundreds upon hundreds of 
 them have thus been found. 
 
 4. // reaches all classes. There are large classes of 
 men that no other method will reach. There are the 
 shut-ins who cannot get out to church, the street-car 
 men, the policemen, railroad conductors, sleeping-car 
 men, firemen, the very poor and the very rich. Some 
 cannot and others will not attend church or cottage 
 meeting or mission meeting, but personal work reaches 
 them all. 
 
 5. // hits the 7nark. Preaching is necessarily gen- 
 eral ; personal work is direct and personal. There is 
 no mistaking who is meant, there is no dodging the 
 arrow, there is no possibility of giving what is said 
 away to some one else. Many whom even so expert a 
 Gospel preacher as Mr. Moody has missed have been 
 afterwards reached by personal work. 
 
ISO PERSONAL WORK 
 
 6. It meets the definite need^ and every need of the 
 person dealt with. Even when men are aroused and 
 convicted, and perhaps converted by a sermon, per- 
 sonal work is necessary to bring out into a clear light 
 and into a satisfactory experience one whom the ser- 
 mon has thus aroused, convicted and converted. 
 
 7. // avails where other methods fail. One of my 
 best workers told me a few weeks ago that she had 
 attended church for years, and had wanted to become 
 a Christian. She had listened to some of the best- 
 known preachers, and still was unsaved, but the very 
 first inquiry meeting she went into she was saved 
 because some one came and dealt with her per- 
 sonally. 
 
 8. It produces very large results. There is no com- 
 parison whatever between what will be effected by 
 good preaching and what will be effected by constant 
 personal work. Take a church of one hundred mem- 
 bers; such a church under an excellent pastor would 
 be considered as doing an exceptionally good work if 
 on an average fifty were added annually to this mem- 
 bership. But suppose that that church was trained to 
 do personal work, and that fifty of the one hundred 
 members actually went at it. Certainly one a month 
 won to Christ by each one would not be a large 
 average. That would be six hundred a year instead of 
 the fifty mentioned above. A church of many mem- 
 bers, with the most powerful preaching possible, that 
 depends upon the minister alone to win men to Christ 
 by his preaching, would not accomplish anything like 
 what would be accomplished by a church with a com- 
 paratively poor preacher, where the membership 
 generally were personal workers. 
 
PERSONAL WORK 151 
 
 II. HOW TO SUCCEED 
 
 Certain things are necessary to do effective personal 
 work, but these things which are necessary are within 
 the reach of every Christian. 
 
 1. The first is a clear knowledge of Christ as a per' 
 sonal Savior. Paul was an effective worker because 
 he himself knew Christ as his own Savior. He could 
 effectively bring others to Christ because he could say, 
 **This is a faithful saying and worthy of all accepta- 
 tion, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save 
 sinners, of whom I am chief. * * 
 
 A clear knowledge of Jesus as a personal Savior 
 includes three things: first, a knowledge of pardon 
 through the atoning blood of Christ ; second, victory 
 over sin through the risen Christ ; third, absolute sur- 
 render to Christ as Lord. 
 
 2. A clear and firm conviction that any man who has 
 not accepted Christ is lost. Jesus said, "I am come to 
 seek and to save that which was lost." It was this 
 clear apprehension and deep conviction that men were 
 lost that drove Him to work day and night to seek and 
 to save them. In like manner Paul tells us that he 
 ceased not to admonish men night and day with tears. 
 It was doubtless the conviction that men were lost that 
 urove him to those earnest efforts, and brought from 
 him those tears of compassion. The conviction that 
 men are lost will fill us with a desire for their salva- 
 tion, will make us tireless in our efforts to save them, 
 and will give pathos and power to our words as we 
 speak with them. 
 
 But how can we get this conviction? By the study 
 of the Word and faith in the Word. Deep convictions 
 come through knowledge of the truth. If one would 
 
152 PERSONAL WORK 
 
 have a deep conviction that men are lost, he should 
 dwell upon this truth as set forth in the Word of God, 
 and ask God by His Holy Spirit to give this Word 
 truth and power in his heart and life. The conviction 
 that all men out of Christ are lost is largely missing in 
 professing Christians and even in ministers to-day, and 
 this goes far toward accounting for the powerlessness of 
 the average church-member and average minister as a 
 soul winner. 
 
 3. A practical knowledge of the Bible, The Bible is 
 the one instrument that God has appointed to produce 
 conviction of sin, and to bring men to faith in Jesus 
 Christ, and to regenerate. In order to be used of God 
 to produce conviction of sin, and to lead men to faith 
 in Christ, and to bring about the new birth in their 
 experience, we must know how to use our Bible so as 
 to produce these results. One may have a wide and 
 profound general knowledge of the Bible, and yet be 
 absolutely at sea in its practical use. In an after- 
 meeting I once asked one of the best-known and most 
 useful teachers of the Word of God in America to 
 speak with a woman and show her how to be saved, 
 and he replied, "I do not know how to do that." This 
 is something that every child of God ought to know, 
 and it is something that every child of God may know, 
 because there are books that tell very plainly just how 
 to do it. 
 
 4. Love, Nothing wins like love. It is the Savior 
 lifted up on the Cross, thus revealing His infinite love, 
 who draws men unto Him, and we, by our love to 
 men, can win them to the Savior. At the close of a 
 meeting in one of the suburbs of Chicago, the first 
 person that rose was a very large man. I was 
 
PERSONAL WORK 153 
 
 attracted by his appearance, and afterwards spoke to 
 him. He told me that he had attended church and 
 prayer meeting for years, but had only gone to criti- 
 cise ; that when men would get up and speak in prayer 
 meeting he would take out his note book and "keep 
 tab on them, ' ' writing down what they said, and then 
 comparing it during the week with the way they lived. 
 At last he was taken very sick, and was supposed to 
 be dying. A minister of the town called upon him, 
 and asked the privilege of praying with him. He 
 replied, "You can pray if you want to." "As the 
 minister knelt to pray," he said to .me, "I kept tab on 
 him, too. I thought I was dying, but I lay there with 
 my eyes open watching the preacher to see if he was 
 real, thinking nothing about my own soul, but about 
 him. As I watched, I saw a tear stealing down his 
 face, and I said, 'This man is real, he loves me, 
 though I am nothing to him,' and that broke my 
 heart." This man recovered, and has become an 
 untiring worker for Christ, but he was not won by my 
 sermon, or by my dealing with him, but by the other 
 minister's love, and that minister did not know that he 
 had accomplished anything by his prayer. 
 
 5. Self-renunciation. Jesus said to His disciples, 
 "Come ye after me, and I will make you to become 
 fishers of men." It is only by coming after Him that 
 we can become successful fishers of men; but He 
 says, "If any man would come after me, let him deny 
 himself and take up his cross and follow me." If we 
 are to be largely used in personal work, or any kind of 
 work for the Master, there must be an utter putting 
 away of personal interest, our own comfort, our ease, 
 our pride, our feelings. Pride is one of the greatest 
 
154 PERSONAL WORK 
 
 hindrances to effective personal work. Oftentimes it 
 keeps us from attempting work for fear of rebuff. It 
 makes us unwilling to seem beaten in an argument, 
 and so we keep on arguing, when it would be far 
 better for the disputant to leave him alone ; it leads us 
 to get angry when the one with whom we are working 
 seems to get the best of us, and nothing is more unfor- 
 tunate than when the worker loses his temper. A 
 cowardly worldling once spit in the face of a converted 
 prize-fighter. He knew that the prize-fighter could 
 whip him very easily, and the prize-fighter felt 
 tempted to do it. The hot blood rushed to his face, 
 but he simply took out his handkerchief and wiped the 
 spittle from his face and said, *'The blood of Jesus 
 Christ could wipe away all your sins as easily as I 
 have wiped this spittle from my face." That con- 
 quered. 
 
 6. Prayer, **The effectual fervent prayer of a right- 
 eous man availeth not," but there is no line in which 
 prayer avails more than in the line of personal work. 
 The worker must pray for wisdom. God has promised 
 to give it to us when we ask Him for it (James 1:5). 
 We need it with every case with which we deal. No 
 matter how thorough our knowledge may be of the 
 Word of God, and of men, each case presents its own 
 peculiarities, and only the wisdom which God gives is 
 sufficient. 
 
 We should pray for power. ** Power belongeth unto 
 God, * ' but the power that belongs unto God is at our 
 disposal in answer to prayer. 
 
 We should pray for those with whom we are dealing 
 that God will open their eyes to see the truth and 
 move their hearts to obey it. When the work is done 
 
PERSONAL WORK 155 
 
 we should pray for God's blessing upon the seed sown, 
 and oftentimes the work that has appeared fruitless 
 will become fruitful by the blessing of God. 
 
 We should pray for the definite anointing of the 
 Holy Spirit that we may become effective workers. 
 Many a man has tried ineffectively for years to be a 
 successful personal worker, but by coming to know 
 the privilege of being filled with the Holy Ghost has 
 stepped out of a place of powerlessness into a place of 
 power. The prayer must be real, earnest, persistent. 
 
 7. Perseverance. There is one text that a personal 
 worker needs to let sink deep into his heart: "Let us 
 not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall 
 reap if we faint not." No work requires as much 
 patience and perseverance as soul-winning. No work 
 is more worthy of it. We should show our patience by 
 the way we deal with each case. Many say a few 
 words to one, and then a few words to another, and 
 then to another. They keep flitting here and there; 
 they are not the successful workers. Others, when 
 they once begin to deal with a man hold on to that 
 man until, if it is in any wise possible, he has been led 
 to Christ. I have workers in my church who if they 
 get hold of a person in an inquiry meeting I feel 
 reasonably confident will lead that person to Christ. 
 If one attempt fails with a man, we should show our 
 perseverance by making another and another and 
 another. We should study how to get at men who are 
 unreachable. There is an avenue of approach to 
 every soul if we can only find it. It is worth much 
 time and thought and study to find it. It took me 
 fifteen years to win one man, but when that man, after 
 several years of effective ministry, lay silent in death. 
 
156 PERSONAL WORK 
 
 as I stood beside his coffin I was glad that God gave 
 me the perseverance to work fifteen years for his con- 
 version. 
 
 We should show our perseverance by seeking another 
 person when we have apparently failed with one, and 
 if we fail again, seek still another, and if again, still 
 another. 
 
 8. Constant activity. **In the morning sow thy seed, 
 and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou 
 knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, 
 or whether they both shall be alike good. ' ' The per- 
 sonal worker's motto should be, "At it, and always at 
 it," by day and by night, in the home, in the place of 
 business, on the street, in hotels, in the cars, every- 
 where. Nothing was more characteristic of Mr. 
 Moody, and nothing went further to make him the 
 mighty man of God that he was, than the fact that he 
 was always on the watch for souls, and always sowing 
 the seed which is the Word of God. He would speak 
 to the conductor who took up his ticket on the car, to 
 the reporter who came to interview him, to the servant 
 in the home, to the man he met in business. He was 
 at it and always at it, and so God gave him blessing 
 and victory. 
 
 God is calling all Christians to rouse up and go to 
 work, witnessing for Christ and striving by personal 
 effort to bring all within their reach to Christ. Who 
 will hear the call? A glorious reward awaits all who 
 do. They ** shall shine as the stars forever and ever." 
 
DRAWING THE NET 
 
 R. A. TORREY 
 
 Many a mighty preacher fails to get the results he 
 might from his preaching because he does not know- 
 how to draw the net. He is skillful at hooking fish, 
 but does not know how to land them. A friend told 
 me three days ago that he heard a man that evening 
 preach to a large congregation of men one of the best 
 sermons he ever heard, and, continued my friend, "I 
 believe there would have been fifty decisions right 
 then, but just at the critical moment the evangelist did 
 not know what to do, and he let the meeting slip 
 through his fingers. He asked them all to stand up 
 and sing some hymns. The men began to go out in 
 crowds. Then he tried to get hold of things again, 
 but it was too late, though there were some inquirers 
 there was nothing like the result there ought to have 
 been. The moment the last word of the sermon is 
 littered, there should be opportunity for decisions. 
 This opportunity may be given in a variety of ways. 
 You may ask the audience to bow a few moments in 
 silent prayer, insisting courteously but firmly that no 
 one go out for a few moments. If the interest is deep 
 enough you may then ask *'all who wish to be saved," 
 or "all who have made up their minds now and here to 
 accept Christ as their personal Savior, to surrender to 
 Him as their Lord and Master, and to begin to confess 
 Him as such before the world, ' ' to rise (or come forward 
 
 157 
 
IS8 DRAWING THE NET 
 
 and give me your hand ; or come kneel at the altar). 
 If you think the interest hardly warrants that, you can 
 ask "all in the audience who are burdened for unsaved 
 friends," or "all who are anxious for the salvation of 
 some friends in this audience," to rise. When they 
 have risen, invite all who wish to be saved right now 
 to rise. It is not well usually in the general meeting 
 to ask all Christians to rise, as this makes it awkward 
 for the unsaved, and they may not come back again. 
 Another good way is to say, "We are going to sing a 
 hymn and I don't want anyone to go out until it is 
 finished. The Holy Spirit is working in this meeting 
 (don't say that unless He is), and anyone moving 
 about may disturb some one just on the verge of a 
 decision for Christ. Now, while we sing the second 
 verse, all who will accept Christ (don't say, "if any one 
 will") arise. Stop when the second verse is sung and 
 call for decisions. Then sing the third, and the 
 fourth, etc., in a similar way. If you are fortunate 
 enough to have an altar in the church where you are 
 preaching, it is often better to have them come to the 
 altar. If you have no altar, you can have the front 
 seats emptied and use them for an altar. A solo may 
 be used in place of a congregational hymn. Still 
 another way is to say, as you close your sermon, "We 
 are going to have a second meeting to give those who 
 have been converted here to-night and all who are 
 interested an opportunity to accept Christ now and 
 enter at once into the joy of the Christian life. We 
 want every man who is interested in his soul's salva- 
 tion and all Christians to stay to that second meeting. 
 You can't afford to go away." It is usually better to 
 have the second meeting in another room, if there is 
 
DRAWING THE NET 159 
 
 one that the people have to pass as they go out. 
 Have wise workers posted at every door of this room 
 to invite and urge the people to come in as they pass. 
 When the interest is very deep you can have the 
 second meeting in another building. Have the singing 
 in the second meeting begin at once as the people 
 come in. When all are in, have absolute silence, and 
 then silent prayer. Perhaps two or three audible 
 prayers by men and women whom you can trust as 
 really knowing God may follow. (Don't take any 
 chances at this point and let some crank spoil youi 
 meeting.) The next thing to do varies with circum- 
 stances. You may call for an expression at once. If 
 the interest is very deep, call at once for those who 
 wish to accept Christ to rise or come forward. On 
 other occasions ask **all who have accepted Christ and 
 know that they are saved and are walking in fellowship 
 with Christ" to arise. Now you and your workers see 
 •^ho the persons to deal with are. Next ask those who 
 wish to become Christians to arise. It may be well to 
 sing one or several verses as this is done. One and 
 another and another and then many will arise. 
 Wherever it is possible it is well to have now still a 
 third room into which those who have risen as desiring 
 to become Christians shall go. Have a wise man in 
 charge of this room until you get there yourself. 
 Have him put one worker, and only one, with each 
 inquirer. These workers should be trained for the 
 work. Every church should have a training class for 
 this purpose. When you have gotten all you can into 
 the inside room, turn the outside meeting into a meet- 
 ing for testimony and prayer, which either you or some 
 wise worker manages. It is a great advantage to have 
 
i6o DRAWING THE NET 
 
 a choir leader who can do that. The unconverted ones 
 who have not gone into the inside room can be gotten 
 hold of personally in this testimony meeting or after- 
 ward. Don't have any holes in your net anywhere if 
 you can avoid it. Sometimes, in the second meeting, 
 it is well to ask all who were converted after they were 
 fifty to rise, then those who were converted after they 
 were forty, thirty, twenty, ten, before they were ten. 
 Then ask all who will accept Jesus to-night to rise. 
 Then all who really desire to know the way of life. 
 A good method to use occasionally in the second meet- 
 ing is te ask all who were converted after they were 
 fifty to come forward and gather about the platform, 
 then those who were converted after they were forty, 
 etc. This will gradually thin out those who are 
 seated, and the unconverted will find themselves being 
 left behind, and it will set some of them to thinking. 
 Especially will this be true if a man sees his wife leav- 
 ing him, or a son sees a mother. Some one may think 
 that there is too much method and maneuvering in all 
 this, but it wins souls, and that is worth maneuvering 
 for. Jesus Himself told us to be ^'*wise as serpents," 
 and also said that *'the sons of this world are for their 
 own generations wiser than the sons of light." Evi- 
 dently Jesus would have us exercise all honest 
 ingenuity in accomplishing His work, especially the 
 work of soul winning. It is lawful, as Paul's example 
 shows, to catch them **with guile" (2 Cor. 12:16). 
 The methods suggested will suggest still others. The 
 great purpose of all these methods is to get many to 
 commit themselves and to bring them to a decision to 
 accept Christ. Much good preaching comes to nothing 
 because it is not driven home to the individual and the 
 
DRAWING THE NET i6i 
 
 individual brought then and there to an acceptance 
 and confession of Jesus as Savior and as Lord. When 
 one has been led to accept Jesus, an immediate public 
 confession (then and there) should be insisted upon, 
 (Rom. lo; 9, lo,) 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 
 
 The owners of mill-ponds have a way of drawing off 
 the water now and then for the purpose of catching- the 
 fish. If the pond covers ten acres of land, and the fish 
 are distributed all through its waters, it is difficult to 
 find them, and impossible to catch them without 
 stealthy approach and enticing bait. But after the 
 bulk of the water has been drawn off and the area 
 reduced to half an acre, the fisherman casts in his net 
 and draws the fish ashore with ease. Such is the 
 object of the after-meeting. It gets rid of the ele- 
 ments in a crowd which are not a help, but a hindrance 
 to the work of soul-winning. It enables us to come 
 nearer to the inquirer, and to point him to Jesus in 
 face to face conversation. It reduces the size of the 
 pond so that the Gospel hand-net may be used with 
 good results. This reducing process may continue 
 even in the after-meeting. If you have a man or a 
 woman whom you know has grace for soul-winning, get 
 together a group of inquirers and put him or her in 
 the midst of them. The whole group may be rejoic- 
 ing in Christ before the meeting closes. If you have 
 small separate rooms to which you can invite these 
 groups, all the better. 
 
 The Bible is the text-book for an after-meeting, as 
 it ought to be for every religious service. The leader 
 
 162 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 163 
 
 may take a few minutes to make plain the way of life 
 from some text or paragraph of the Book. But let 
 him remember that the purpose of the meeting is not 
 edification, but salvation. An address to Christians, 
 unless it be a few words at the close urging them to 
 go out and seek the lost, is out of place in the after- 
 meeting. If no unsaved person remains, it would be 
 well for the Christians to have a season of humiliation 
 and prayer. There should be earnest heart-searching 
 while they ask God and each other, "Am I an Achan 
 in the camp hindering the work of the Lord?" 
 
 The testimony of Christians as to the Scriptures 
 which led them to Christ, or into larger faith and 
 brighter hope, is a most important part of the after- 
 meeting. Let me give, as nearly as I can remember, 
 what was done and said in an after-meeting which I 
 attended a few weeks ago. As soon as quiet was 
 restored, there was an earnest prayer for guidance. 
 The leader then arose and said: "We will now hear 
 from as many as can speak in five minutes the Scrip- 
 tures which God used in showing them the way of life. 
 We want simply the Word of God without comment. 
 Rise and speak distinctly, with a prayer that God will 
 bless others through the truth as He has blessed you." 
 The first one to respond was a young woman who 
 quoted with a clear voice: "Him that cometh unto Me 
 I will in no wise cast out." The leader said: "That 
 invitation is also a promise; it implies that all who 
 come to Christ He will receive, but it says very much 
 more. He will receive and never cast out. There is 
 in it saving and keeping power. It is the Scripture for 
 those of you who are afraid that you may not hold 
 out." The next witness was a man of middle age, 
 
i64 THE AFTER-MEETING 
 
 who said: "He is able to save to the uttermost all who 
 come unto God by him. " The leader: "God is all- 
 powerful, but you make Him able by accepting the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and this ability is based upon the 
 fact that He ever liveth to make intercessions for us." 
 Third witness: "Come unto me all ye that labor and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Leader: 
 "Do you want rest of heart? Come to Jesus for it 
 now." Fourth witness: "Look unto me and be ye 
 saved all ye ends of the earth." Leader: "Looking is 
 not a long process. You can look as quick as a light- 
 ning flash; look this moment and live." Fifth wit- 
 ness: "There is therefore now no condemnation to 
 them who are in Christ Jesus." Leader: "We who 
 have accepted Christ need not fear the judgment day. 
 Our case has been settled in the court of mercy where 
 Jesus Christ is the Advocate." Sixth witness: "To 
 as many as received Him to them gave He power to 
 become the sons of God." Leader: "And if sons, then 
 heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Will 
 you not accept this rich inheritance through Christ this 
 evening?" Seventh witness: "The blood of Jesus 
 Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." Leader: 
 "Then do not try to cleanse yourself, and do not divide 
 your trust between the blood and ordinances. The 
 Blood is all-sufficient; accept Jesus Christ and the 
 Blood cleanses at once. 
 
 •♦ 'There is a fountain filled with blood, 
 Drawn from Immanuel's veins, 
 And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains. ' " 
 
 Eighth witness: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
 and thou shalt be saved." Leader: "It does not say 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 165 
 
 believe on Jesus nor believe on Christ nor believe on 
 the Lord. Jesus means Savior, and a Savior from 
 sin we need. Christ means the anointed one, the high 
 priest and an intercessor, an advocate we need. Lord 
 means Master, and the Master we need to rule our 
 lives. You cannot accept Him as Savior while you 
 reject Him as Lord, nor can you follow Him as Lord 
 while you reject Him as Savior. His intercession is 
 for those who accept Him as both Savior and Lord. 
 So you see, Paul preached to the jailer the full Gospel 
 when he said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and 
 thou shalt be saved.* The little word on is very 
 important ; it does not say believe about the Lord Jesus 
 Christ; you may believe all about Him without believ- 
 ing on Him. I believe much about Washington, Lin- 
 coln, and Grant, but I am not conscious of believing 
 on either of them in the sense that I am depending 
 upon them for anything. When your faith about 
 Christ has been translated into faith on Christ, you are 
 saved." The invitation was then given, and a num- 
 ber came forward and gave the leader their hands, 
 confessing Christ as their Savior and Lord, the leader 
 remarking that it was well to begin the Christian life 
 with a handshake and pass it on to others. 
 
 This all took seven or eight minutes, and I do not 
 say that it is a model method, but it has the advantage 
 of being full of God's Word. 
 
 I would not, however, always wait till the close of 
 the after-meeting before asking converts to confess 
 Christ. We ought to expect God to save people while 
 we are preaching, and Jesus Christ is worthy of the 
 most public confession. If the purpose of the after- 
 meeting is to make it easy for people to confess Christ, 
 
i66 THE AFTER-MEETING 
 
 because the unsympathetic crowd who might scoff 
 are gone, it had better be abandoned. That scene 
 on Calvary was not in a corner. Our Lord's shameful 
 death on the cross was public, and it is fitting that our 
 confession of Him should be *' before men," not before 
 Christians only, if we would have Him confess us 
 before the Father and the holy angels. 
 
 It is well to have it understood that it is in order for 
 the new convert to confess Christ at any time. There 
 might be a little confusion now and then, but a glo- 
 rious confusion it would be if caused by the confession 
 of new-bom faith in the Savior. While I was preach- 
 ing to the unsaved, urging an immediate decision, 
 about the middle of the sermon I saw a tall young man 
 near the door rise up, step into the aisle, and come 
 walking toward the pulpit. He stood just in front of 
 me for a moment looking up into my face as if he 
 wanted to say something. My first thought was that 
 he was a little *'off," and might create a disturbance; 
 so I paused for an explanation, when he reached out 
 his hand and said, with a voice full of genuine emo- 
 tion: "Excuse me, sir, but I have just accepted the 
 Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, and I felt I could 
 not wait for you to get through before I told you." 
 There was no need of any more sermon. The Spirit 
 of God fell upon the audience. Oh, that our praying 
 and preaching may be with such power that men and 
 women will not wait for us to ask them to request us to 
 pray for them, nor to confess Christ, but under the 
 conviction of the Spirit will cry out as at Pentecost, 
 What must we do? And when they have accepted 
 Christ, so full of faith and joy that they will not 
 wait for formal invitations, but at once **make 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 167 
 
 known to all around what a dear Savior they have 
 found." 
 
 The praying in an after-meeting should be brief, and 
 for but one thing — the salvation of the lost. Long 
 general prayers that take in everything and everybody 
 are apt to be powerless anywhere, but they are 
 specially out of place in a meeting with a definite 
 object. 
 
 In dealing with an inquirer, when you see that he 
 has come to the point of accepting Christ, it is well to 
 ask him to kneel with you and pray aloud. His prayer 
 will be an index to his heart. If he begins with con- 
 fessing sin and thanking God for the gift of Christ, 
 you may be sure that he is saved. If he apologizes for 
 sin and fails to make a full confession, he needs further 
 instruction. 
 
 The workers in an after-meeting should be on fire 
 with love to Christ and souls. If they are mature 
 Christians with large experience, all the better, pro- 
 vided they do not tell their experiences to inquirers, 
 and thus put them to seeking a similar experience 
 rather than Christ. Young, intelligent Christians with 
 a great Savior and a little experience make very 
 effective workers. Preach Jesus in the after-meeting, 
 and spend no time in answering curious questions. 
 A young college student rose for prayer in one of my 
 meetings, and made an engagement to see me in my 
 study next morning at ten o'clock. When alone with 
 him I asked him: "What is it that troubles you?" 
 **Well, sir," he replied, "I have been greatly troubled 
 for some time over the question as to where Cain got 
 his wife, and I think, if I could settle that, I could 
 take a step further." I answered the question as best 
 
i6S THE AFTER-MEETING 
 
 I could, and it seemed satisfactory to him. But with 
 the next breath he asked another question just as 
 frivolous. I answered that, and he asked another. I 
 saw he was a sort of jack-in-the-box of questions, and 
 that it was wasting- time; so I said: "My friend, 
 answering these questions is profitless; if we could 
 answer them all and a thousand more like them, 
 neither 5'^ou nor I would be any nearer heaven. Will 
 you kneel with me and ask God to save you from sin?" 
 He consented, and while we prayed he surrendered to 
 Christ. I might have spent the whole day in answer- 
 ing his questions without leading him to Christ. 
 
 A man came to Mr. Moody in an after-meeting with 
 a long list of hard questions. Mr. Moody said, *'I will 
 answer your questions if you will promise me to do 
 one thing." *'What is it?" ** Promise me you will do 
 it before I tell you." "No sensible man does a thing 
 like that." "Will you promise me, then, that you 
 will try to do it?" "Yes, I can make that promise." 
 "Well, give your heart to Jesus Christ and then come 
 to me with your questions." The man went away 
 disappointed, but two nights afterwards he returned 
 with a radiant face and told Mr. Moody that he had 
 done what he asked him to do and that, for twenty- 
 four hours, he had been one of the happiest men on 
 earth. "Where are your questions?" asked Mr. 
 Moody. "I haven't any," he said. "The moment I 
 accepted Jesus Christ they were all answered, or 
 appeared so insignificant that they were not worth 
 answering." Philip might have spent hours answer- 
 ing the eunuch's questions about Isaiah, but he began 
 at the same Scripture and preached unto him JesuSc 
 Let us follow his example. 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 169 
 
 The open Bible in face-to-face work is indispensable. 
 Turn to the Scripture that suits the case and let the 
 inquirer look at it while you read. The truth may- 
 enter through eye-gate more readily than through ear 
 gate. A hand-book for soul- winners may be useful in 
 the worker's study, but do not take it into the after- 
 meeting. Let the inquirer read directly from the 
 Bible. The little New Testament which has about 
 one hundred texts marked with red ink may do good 
 service, and, if you can afford to give every inquirer 
 or convert the copy from which you have read, it will 
 be highly prized. God may continue in the home the 
 work which began in the after-meeting. 
 
 After dealing with a poor drunkard in two after- 
 meetings, and becoming a little discouraged because of 
 the fact that in the second the fumes of drink remained 
 upon his breath, I gave him a little Testament and 
 asked him to go to his room and read on his knees 
 John 3: 16. The next week I met him on the street 
 sober and rejoicing in the Lord. He told me that he 
 went at once to his garret-room, knelt down before the 
 only chair in it, with the little book open before him, 
 read aloud the verse I had marked, and while he read 
 light came into his soul. Since that hour God had 
 given him strength to pass saloons without entering, 
 and though the thirst for drink was not gone, he was 
 trusting God for grace to overcome. 
 
 As to the length of the after-meeting, that should 
 depend upon the work to be done. If there are 
 earnest souls seeking Christ, and loth to leave without 
 comfort, we should remain with them as long as we 
 think they need our services. The Holy Spirit may 
 not watch the clock as we do, and the nervous haste 
 that some Christians manifest to get away at a certain 
 
I70 THE AFTER-MEETING 
 
 time may not be pleasing to Him. As I was about to 
 begin an evening service in a New York church, the 
 pastor whispered: "You must be careful to get 
 through the whole service by nine o'clock. " *'But," 
 I replied, "suppose the Spirit should indicate we ought 
 to remain later?" **Oh, well, if you keep the people 
 later than nine they will not come back to-morrow 
 evening." We remained until 9:45, and the next 
 evening the audience was twice as large. To have 
 sent the people home at nine would have been to miss 
 the greatest blessing of the evening. 
 
 An after-meeting should be entered with the utmost 
 reliance upon the Holy Spirit. It is to be a time of 
 decision. There will be battles fought, and the 
 power of the Spirit is needed to give the victory. 
 Keep the upward look. If the Spirit seems to indicate 
 that the program you have formed should be laid 
 aside, let it go. Be willing that God should have 
 the right of way. Rejoice if He burns up all red tape 
 and makes the meeting thoroughly unconventional. 
 "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 If, as leader, you are under the complete control of 
 the Holy Spirit, you will be able to decide at once 
 what ought to be done or said. You will see at a 
 glance that a brother is talking from force of habit, or 
 for the purpose of airing a fad, and not with an earnest 
 desire to lead souls to Christ, and you will be able to 
 stop him with the right words and in the right tone. 
 In an after-meeting a few evenings ago, just as the 
 leader was giving an invitation for inquirers to accept 
 Christ, a brother rose and began to make a speech on 
 prayer. The leader was a stranger and had never 
 seen the brother before, but it was evident to him that 
 if the Holy Spirit to whom the meeting had been com- 
 
THE AFTER-MEETING 171 
 
 mitted was leading it the brother's message was not of 
 the Spirit. He therefore quietly suggested that the 
 time would not admit of an address. The brother left 
 the room at once indicating by his manner that he was 
 angry, but the meeting, which would have been killed 
 by his long speech, went smoothly on with good 
 results. There are a class of Christians, especially in 
 great cities, who attend all meetings — not for the good 
 they can do or receive, but for the purpose of finding 
 an opportunity to speak on some favorite theme. 
 When they rise the meeting falls, and the leader needs 
 the wisdom that God alone can give in dealing with 
 this class of good but rather useless people. 
 
 A whispered word, or even an elbow-touch from a 
 friend may do more than twenty sermons in leading to 
 a decision. An earnest business man in New York 
 City told me it was not the sermon nor a word, but just 
 a touch on the shoulder which led him to confess 
 Christ before men. He had already accepted Him as 
 Savior, and just needed this little encouragement. 
 He said: ''While the evangelist was inviting all who 
 loved Christ to confess Him by going forward and giv- 
 ing him the hand, I felt a gentle touch on my shoulder. 
 I looked around and saw the face of an old friend 
 looking wistfully at me. He did not utter a word, but 
 I knew what he meant, and I went right up and gave 
 him my hand." This was the beginning of a bus- 
 iness man's Christian life." 
 
 For efficient work in the after-meeting our greatest 
 need is that we be endued with the Holy Spirit. And 
 this enduement comes in answer to prayer and a com- 
 plete surrender of the will to God. Then the right 
 word will be said to the right person, at the right 
 time, m the right way. 
 
HOW TO MAKE THE WORK 
 PERMANENT 
 
 REV. E. P. GOODWIN, D.D. 
 
 All ministers and Christian workers who have to do 
 with evangelistic efforts find great difficulty in secur- 
 ing permanent results. I desire to name two or three 
 methods, tested by much experience, which have 
 proved of great value. Take first the common experi- 
 ence in nearly all revival meetings. People come 
 from everywhere. If the meetings are marked with 
 unusual power and are continued for some length of 
 time, there is sure to be a considerable class of persons 
 interested not identified with any church and not under 
 the eye or personal care of any pastor. Then, espe- 
 cially in the great meetings conducted by noted revival 
 leaders, multitudes of such are sure to be gathered in. 
 In Mr. Moody's meetings, it was no uncommon thing 
 to find scores of persons night after night in an inquiry- 
 room, and that in my own church, not one of whom 
 had I ever seen, and most of whom were never met 
 again after the meetings ceased. But more or less the 
 same is true of all revival services in our city missions 
 and in all such Christian work. Therefore, the name and 
 address of everyone rising for prayer or dealt with in 
 the inquiry-room should be secured. Every such person 
 should then be visited at his home or place of business 
 as soon as possible, and again and again, until fully 
 established. 
 
 172 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 173 
 
 In all dealing with souls, every Christian worker 
 will find it, I am sure, of prime importance that there 
 should be secured in some way a following up of the 
 work by systematic Scripture teaching. People need 
 something more than impressions to hold them fast. 
 Not everyone is brought down by a single arrow shot 
 at a venture. Some people have to be shot full of 
 arrows before they surrender. Impressions, impulses, 
 half-formed choices and purposes often fade and lose 
 their grip after the music and prayers are over. Men 
 need the Master of the assembly with His nails to 
 fasten things and make them stay. And this is what 
 regular meetings for instruction do. Then, besides, 
 there are difficulties to be met, doubts to be removed, 
 truths and duties to be emphasized and pressed home, 
 and all this takes time. Few people see and grasp 
 truth clearly and fully at a single glance, or in an 
 hour. Certainly if people are to be rooted and 
 grounded so as to stand fast, there must be time. 
 The gourd that shoots up in a day is like to wither in 
 a night. Most converts — yes, and most believers as 
 well — need line upon line, precept upon precept, here 
 a little and there a little, to make them able to give a 
 reason for the hope that is in them. It is a great 
 thing to be established and stand fast in the faith; 
 and, in order to do this, nothing, it is safe to say, is so 
 essential as the organizing of young converts into 
 classes for stated and continuous instruction in the 
 Word. It is not too much to say that, without this, it 
 is impossible to secure satisfactory results in evangel- 
 istic work, or growth and power in Christian life. In 
 my judgment, the chief reason for the failure of most 
 whom I have known who have dropped away from 
 
174 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 their professions and fallen back into the world, lies 
 in their having no subsequent systematic training. 
 They accepted the truth, had good impulses, sincere 
 purposes, and meant to be true followers of Christ; 
 but they were chiefly ruled by impulses (had little 
 knowledge of truth, had no sufficient instruction as to 
 the meaning of the life they had accepted, no adequate 
 knowledge of the temptations of the world, the wiles 
 of the adversary, the deceitfulness of the heart or the 
 secret of success in standing fast), and so, having no 
 root, they withered away. If all such sincere inquir- 
 ers after salvation could be organized into classes for 
 Bible study, even for a few weeks, I believe but very 
 few would abandon their hope. The very agreeing to 
 meet for such instruction sifts out those who are only 
 transiently impressed. I should say unhesitatingly that 
 where such systematic teaching is secured, permanency 
 of Christian life is almost certain, while, where it fails, 
 permanency rarely results. I have in mind one series 
 of revival meetings, with which I had personally to 
 do, where there was a very large number of professed 
 acceptances of Christ. Very little thorough inquiry 
 work was done, and, so far as my knowledge goes, no 
 organized effort at instruction was attempted. Out of 
 nearly three thousand cards signed by those expressing 
 a purpose to lead a Christian life, I doubt if a hundred 
 ever took any step further. In two of the most ear- 
 nestly engaged churches but one person ever came 
 forward upon profession of faith. For myself I long 
 since ceased to expect results of any value except in 
 connection with such training. 
 
 I do not mean to discredit all such decisions reached 
 in inquiry-meetings or elsewhere, as ephemeral. Let 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 175 
 
 us hope that many are truly turned then and there 
 from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan 
 unto God. But commonly only a small percentage of 
 such prove effective in the Master's service. Our 
 churches are full of those who are like Gideon's army: 
 — only a handful are in dead earnest and to be counted 
 on when the battle is joined. Bible-trained workers, 
 inspired with the Master's love and equipped with 
 knowledge as well as zeal, are pitifully few in all our 
 churches ; but wherever one finds even a few such, they 
 are worth a host of others, for with them victory is 
 sure. 
 
 What has been said implies another condition of 
 great importance in making evangelistic work per- 
 manent. I mean the importance of making public 
 confession of faith and becoming members of the visi- 
 ble church of Jesus Christ. Observe, I do not say 
 that believers, those who truly accept Jesus Christ as 
 Savior and Lord, are to join this or that particular 
 church organization, but the church which the Holy 
 Spirit meant when under His guidance and control 
 the church of Christ was organized, and believers were 
 by the Lord daily added thereto. What I say now is this : 
 that it is not possible to fully meet the Lord's wish 
 and realize the larger measure of grace which He 
 desires to bestow, whether in the development of indi- 
 vidual Christian life or in power to witness and work 
 in His behalf, without public and continuous church 
 membership. I do not say that such persons cannot 
 be true believers. Unquestionably they can be. The 
 test of salvation is not the test of visible church mem- 
 bership. He that truly believes on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ is unquestionably saved. The Scripture plainly 
 
176 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 declares that the thief on the cross was saved that way, 
 without any baptism and without joining the church. 
 So was the woman at the well, and so of the multitudes 
 of others. But that is not the question. The ques- 
 tion is this: Is such a standing aloof from the visible 
 church, as so many do, while yet in a way performing 
 Christian duty, meeting the wish of the Lord Jesus 
 and doing the work He wants believers to do in the 
 world? I say no, it is not. If anything is plain in 
 connection with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus 
 and the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is that our Lord 
 established his church, a body of believers united to 
 Him by the Holy Ghost and made thereby His Body, 
 the body of which He is to be everlastingly the head, 
 and in whom and with whom all true believers are to 
 be finally associated with Him in glory. 
 
 The Lord Jesus was obviously not using words 
 lightly when He commanded His disciples to observe 
 the Last Supper, nor when, by the light of the Spirit 
 He organized the church and sent out His disciples to 
 be His witnesses and go everywhere preaching His 
 Gospel and calling upon men to believe and be bap- 
 tized. The Lord's ideal of the believer, in other 
 words, was of a believer led by the Spirit and seeking 
 always and with earnest and absorbing purpose to 
 carry out his Lord's wish and do His will. In the 
 very nature of the case, therefore, all who desire to 
 honor Him and secure the fullest measure of His favor 
 and power will do as His disciples did — openly and 
 gladly identify themselves with His church. In no 
 other way can they secure the closest union with their 
 Lord, and in no other way secure the fullest measure 
 of the energy of the Holy Spirit. He cannot so fully 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 177 
 
 impart Himself to believers who stand aloof from what 
 Jesus Christ Himself appointed. There are objections 
 and so-called reasons for holding other views, but in 
 my judgment they are without Scripture warrant. 
 One Scripture truth runs through all these teachings 
 of the book of Acts and the Epistles — records and 
 teachings which are divinely and infallibly inspired — 
 viz., one body of believers united by the indwelling of 
 the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ, and that one body 
 manifesting Him before all the world, witnessing His 
 Gospel and seeking to win men to believe on Him unto 
 salvation. So far as these Scriptures go, there is, in 
 my judgment, no scrap of authority or permission to 
 stand aloof from public avowal of Jesus Christ and 
 meanwhile claim to be doing His will as much as in 
 him lies. 
 
 What, then, it may be asked, as to those who, like 
 Mohammedans, may incur the penalty of death by 
 being baptized? It is enough to say that the Lord 
 made no exceptions, and that so far as we know the 
 Apostles made none. Nor in general have true believ- 
 ers ever shrunk from open avowals of their faith, as 
 the massacres of Christians all through the centuries, 
 and these so striking examples of believers in China 
 just now, show. The Lord has always put high honor 
 upon those who have stood fast in the faith, and have 
 counted it a joy to bear a witness that cost even life 
 itself. 
 
 But, in our country, none are called to endure such 
 a test, and no such reasons can be alleged for not mak- 
 ing open confession. I give it as my deliberate judg- 
 ment that all such standing aloof is nothing other than 
 a subtle device of the great adversary. Largely the 
 
178 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 reasons given when thoroughly analyzed prove to be 
 excuses for worldly aims and practices, beliefs, habits 
 or fellowship condemned by the Word of God. I 
 have never known such a case where I could not detect 
 in my own mind either a plain worldly reason, or an 
 unscriptural belief, as the underlying cause of refusal 
 to make open confession of faith. And I go further. 
 It is a somewhat popular idea that there are those 
 who can accomplish more in serving the Master by 
 staying outside the church, and sometimes examples 
 are pointed out of those who are shining illustrations 
 of what Christian life can be without church profession 
 or obligation. By all means let us recognize and 
 rejoice in all true believing in Jesus Christ, whenever 
 it can be found, and let us not deny that there are such 
 genuine disciples whose names are not upon any roll 
 of the church. But, admitting this, I deny that such 
 are helping the Master whose names they refuse pub- 
 licly to own or to wear. His own word is decisive : 
 ** Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, 
 him will I confess also before my Father which is in 
 heaven." He organized His church for all believers, 
 and gave His Holy Spirit to dwell in that church as 
 His publicly owned and recognized body. Into that 
 fellowship He calls all true believers to come and ally 
 themselves by being baptized and by participating in 
 the Lord's Supper. Whoever fails to do either, fails 
 therefore to fulfill to the letter our Lord's own 
 appointment. He may nevertheless be a sharer in 
 salvation, as has been already shown, but he cannot be 
 an example of what Jesus Christ wants a believer both 
 to be and to do, for he has never met and is not meet- 
 ing, day by day, Christ's plain requirements. More 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 179 
 
 than that, so long as he stands aloof from the church, 
 he is dishonoring the very name of Him to whom he 
 looks for salvation, and, practically, invites others to 
 disobey His commands. Such an example of disobedi- 
 ence to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit would be a 
 poor way to win men to the Master's service. 
 
 More than that, as a matter of fact, there is no 
 greater hindrance in persuading people to rank them- 
 selves upon the Lord's side than this very attitude of 
 non-professing believers. Those cherishing secret 
 hopes naturally say: '*If such non-churchmembers are 
 sure of salvation and are examples of Christian living, 
 we are as sure of salvation as they, and there is no 
 need of our joining the church." Every pastor in his 
 work has this argument to meet. 
 
 Then, besides this, such non-churchmembers almost 
 universally stand away from all the activity of the 
 churches. They take no part in prayer-meetings, 
 rarely engage in Sunday School work, and never, of 
 course, attempt to reach and bring in the unconverted 
 or in anywise bring them to decisions for Christ. In 
 the nature of the case, they can have no ardor for 
 revivals, no longing for souls. As a matter of fact, 
 they are hindrances instead of helps to all aggressive 
 Christian work. A community of such non-confessing 
 believers would never see a revival, and I doubt very 
 much whether it would ever win a soul. Jesus Christ 
 wants His sheep brought into the fold. That is the 
 only place where they can find safety and go in and 
 out and find pasture, and this fold is His church. To 
 stay out is to be puny and stunted and dwarfed. 
 
 Another thing that needs to be mentioned and 
 emphasized as a condition of securing permanency in 
 
i8o TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 evangelistic work, is the necessity of setting young con- 
 verts at work and keeping them at it. Indeed, that is 
 an absolute necessity for all Christians, old and young, 
 if they are to thrive and grow. Weeds will flourish of 
 themselves, but not flowers. They must have care and 
 painstaking, and this must be followed up. 
 
 We seem often to forget that in dealing with new- 
 born souls we are dealing with children. Too often, 
 after such have reached a decision, they are left to 
 care for themselves. Sometimes they are regarded as 
 too weak and immature to be leaders of others. It is 
 of course possible that such may be overzealous and 
 unwise; but, on the whole, there is no better way of 
 developing young Christians than to set them at work 
 reaching and bringing in others. The early disciples 
 may have made mistakes in going forth as witnesses 
 after Pentecost; but, if they did, we have no record of 
 it. The Holy Spirit, who took possession of that whole 
 company of believers, doubtless qualified them for their 
 work, and those whom the Lord added daily were 
 worthy of being received. No doubt there is need of 
 wisdom and judgment in seeking souls, but where 
 harm is done by one who is overzealous and injudi- 
 cious, it is quite safe to say that far more harm results 
 from keeping the arms folded and the lips shut. A 
 fervent '* Amen" or a "Glory to God," or "Hallelujah" 
 from a new-born soul would not hurt a prayer-meet- 
 ing, nor would a misapplication of Scripture, or a 
 prayer full of bad grammar. When a devout brother 
 with a remarkable history thanked the Lord in my 
 prayer-meeting one night, that "He and I had put up 
 a big job on him in getting him converted," there 
 were some smiles, but many hearts beat warmer and 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT i8i 
 
 many *' Am ens" followed the prayer. We have little 
 need to fear an excess of zeal in most churches. If 
 four-fifths of our church members could be sent out 
 and kept out doing some form of Christian work 
 a part of every week, they would grow faster 
 and become more aggressive and stable and efficient 
 as believers than they now are, and our weekly 
 meetings would be less like refrigerators than 
 they often are. The best school for training Chris- 
 tians is trying to help others by telling them what 
 Christ has done for us. Paul kept repeating the story 
 of his own conversion, and that won others and helped 
 him. There is nothing safer or wiser for a new con- 
 vert than the telling others how he found salvation. 
 The less he tries to explain, philosophically, how men 
 are saved, how the Spirit moves upon the heart, how 
 a divine will gets a human will to decide and sur- 
 render, and the more he just sticks to what the Word 
 says and what he has found there, the better. I 
 believe that was what our Lord meant to have His dis- 
 ciples do when He said they were to go forth to the 
 ends of the earth as His "witnesses." They were not 
 to argue, or make speeches, or persuade men by their 
 eloquence, or logic, or learning. They were only to 
 be witnesses, and tell to men everywhere what Jesus 
 Christ had done for them. And to-day this is, above 
 everything else, what the world needs. 
 
 Then, as the new converts go forth, they will of 
 course find many forms of Christian activity in which 
 they are needed, and can be made most helpful. So, 
 some may become Sunday School teachers, Bible-class 
 teachers, visitors among the sick and poor and unfor- 
 tunate, workers in missions and helpers in many other 
 
i83 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 ways. Such work is self-developing and potential. 
 The Holy Spirit delights to find such pupils and very 
 quickly turns them into helpers. He opens the truth 
 to others, clears their minds of misapprehensions, 
 strengthens their faith, reinforces their zeal with 
 knowledge, gives them fervency and power in prayer, 
 and in every' way increases their ability and efficiency. 
 This is clearly the way the early disciples were devel- 
 oped. Their School of Training, which for example 
 Paul so lovingly and gratefully commends in the last 
 chapter of Romans, was the school of Christian work 
 in which they had been mainly self-taught ; or, more 
 strictly, Paul was head master, and Phoebe and Pris- 
 cilla and Aquila his chief helpers. They and their 
 beloved associates, observe, were all pronounced and 
 active church members, and as such they all gave 
 themselves to individual Christian work in winning 
 and then helping to build up believers. What is the 
 ideal way of developing the church? Our Lord 
 described Himself as a man taking a far journey, giv- 
 ing authority to his servants, and ^Uo every man his 
 work.'* There was to be no one to be left idle, or 
 without some specific duty assigned. Paul says the 
 same thing when, in describing the gift of the Spirit, 
 which, it is to be remembered, was a gift intended, as 
 at Pentecost, for «//, he says: **But all these [divine 
 operations] worketh that one and the self-same Spirit 
 dividing to every man severally [individually] as He 
 will. * ' No one is left out ; or, in other words, no one 
 who is a true believer is to be without work. Only 
 get all true converts, and all true church members 
 engaged in such a fellowship with the Holy Spirit 
 interpenetrating, energizing, empowering all, and the 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 183 
 
 mystery of revivals and adding daily to the church 
 and hastening the Kingdom, will be solved. 
 
 Every new convert should be set immediately at the 
 daily study of the Bible. He should be given instruc- 
 tions in how to study the Bible. Perhaps the best 
 book in the Bible for a young convert to begin with is 
 the Gospel of John. It is true that this is one of the 
 most profound books in the Bible. But John says that 
 he wrote it *'that ye may believe that Jesus is the 
 Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may 
 have life in His name." Now, this is just what the 
 beginner needs. The Gospel of John may well be fol- 
 lowed by the Acts of the Apostles. Then let the 
 young convert study the Epistle to the Romans, and 
 then Ephesians. Each of these books should be read 
 again and again. Topical study is also good for the 
 young convert, taking up such great subjects as Sin, 
 Grace, the Blood, Justification, Prayer, the Holy 
 Spirit, etc. The New Topical Text Book (F. H. 
 Revell) is inexpensive and useful for this purpose. 
 
 While the young convert should study chiefly the 
 Bible, there are other books that are very helpful — 
 the writings of D. L. Moody, Andrew Murray, F. B. 
 Meyer, G. Campbell Morgan, G. H. C. MacGregor and 
 R. A. Torrey being specially commended. Many of 
 these books are issued in inexpensive form, and cata- 
 logues may be obtained from the publishers of this 
 volume. 
 
 In the pages immediately following is reprinted 
 *'How to Make a Success of the Christian Life," 
 which fittingly concludes *'How to Make the Work 
 Permanent." These pages are published separately 
 as a tract for circulation among new converts. 
 
i84 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF THE 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 BY R. A. TORREY 
 
 There are two classes of persons who start out in the 
 Christian life: those who make a complete or partial 
 failure of it and those who make a complete success of 
 it. The question at once suggests itself : "Is it pos- 
 sible to point out a plain pathway, in which any one 
 who will can walk, and following which will make 
 success absolutely sure? I believe it is. I believe that 
 God's Word gives a few simple instructions which if 
 followed will make success in the Christian life a cer- 
 tainty. 
 
 There are seven steps in the path marked out in the 
 Bible. 
 
 I. Begin right. What a right beginning is we see 
 John i: 12, "But as many as received Him^ to them 
 gave He power to become the sons of God, even to 
 them that believe on His name." Receive Christ. 
 Take Hint as your Savior who died for your sin. Trust 
 the whole matter of your forgiveness to Him. Rest 
 upon the fact that he has paid the full penalty of your 
 sin. 2 Cor. 5:21, "For He hath made Him to be sin 
 for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him." Gal. 3: 13, "Christ 
 hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
 made a curse for us : for it is written, Cursed is every 
 one that hangeth on a tree." It is in this first step 
 that many make a mistake. They try to mix in their 
 good works as a ground of salvation. They think if 
 they are good God will forgive them, because of 
 Christ's death and their goodness. Take Him as your 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 185 
 
 Deliverer^ the one who will save you from the power 
 of sin, who will quicken you when dead in trespasses 
 and sins. Don't try to save yourself from the power 
 of sin. Trust Him to do it. Take Him as your 
 Master. Don't seek to guide your own life. Sur- 
 render unconditionally to His lordship over you. Say, 
 *M// for Jesus." Many fail, because they shrink back 
 from this entire surrender. They wish to serve Jesus 
 with half their heart, and part of themselves, and part 
 of their possessions. It is a wretched life of stum- 
 bling and failure, this life of half-hearted surrender. 
 It is a joyous life all along the way, the life of entire 
 surrender. If you have never done it before and wish 
 **to make a success of the Christian life, " go alone with 
 God, get down on your knees, and say, 'M// for 
 Jesus." Say it very earnestly; say it from the bottom 
 of your heart. Stay there until you realize what it 
 means and what you are doing. It is a wondrous 
 step forward when one really takes it. If you have 
 taken it already, take it again. Take it often. It 
 always has fresh meaning and brings fresh blessedness. 
 
 Taking Christ as your Master involves obedience to 
 His will, as far as you know it in each smallest detail 
 of life. This is one of the most essential conditions of 
 receiving "the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to 
 them that obey Him." Acts 5 : 32. 
 
 2. Confess Christ openly before men. Matt. 10: 32, 
 "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, 
 him will I confess also before my Father which is in 
 heaven." Rom. 10: 10, "For with the heart man 
 believe th unto righteousness; and with the mouth 
 confession is made unto salvation." The life of con- 
 fession is the life of full salvation. It is when we con- 
 
i86 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 fess Christ before men that He confesses us before 
 **my Father in heaven," and that the fullness of His 
 blessing comes. It does not mean that we are to con- 
 fess Christ just once, as for example, when we unite 
 with the Church, but constantly. The one who would 
 make the largest success of the Christian life should 
 seize every opportunity of confessing Christ before 
 men — in the home, in shopping, at work, in the church, 
 everywhere. I once hsard a wise old preacher say, 
 *'If we make a good deal of Christ, He will make a 
 great deal of us." How many backsliders fell away 
 from Christ at this point! They went to a new city, 
 or a new place to work, and neglected to confess 
 Christ, and now they are back in the world. 
 
 3. Study the Word, i Pet. 2:2, "As newborn 
 babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye 
 may grow thereby." The Word of God is the soul's 
 food. It is the nourishment of the new life. One who 
 neglects the Word cannot make much of a success of 
 the Christian life. All who get on in the Christian 
 life are great feeders on the Word of God. Here many 
 fail. Ask any backslider, "Have you fed on the Word 
 daily?" I never have found one that could say that 
 he had. 
 
 Two points on Bible reading are: first, read for food 
 for your own soul ; second, read a great deal on your 
 knees. The Bible has become in some measure a new 
 book to me since I have taken to reading it on my 
 knees. 
 
 4 *'Pray without ceasing." I Thess. 5:17. The 
 one who would succeed in the Christian life must lead 
 a life of prayer. That is easy enough if you only set 
 about it. Have set times for prayer. The rule of 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 187 
 
 David and Daniel, three times a day, is a good rule. 
 Ps. 55: 17, "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will 
 I pray, and cry aloud: and He shall hear my voice." 
 Dan. 6: 10, **Now when Daniel knew that the writing 
 was signed, he went into his house : and, his windows 
 being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he 
 kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, 
 and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." 
 Begin the day with thanksgiving and prayer — thanks- 
 giving for the definite mercies of the past, prayer for 
 the definite needs of the present day. Stop in the 
 midst of the bustle and worry and temptation of the 
 day for thanksgiving and prayer. Close the day with 
 thanksgiving and prayer. 
 
 Then there should be the special prayer in special 
 temptation — when we see the temptation approaching. 
 Keep looking to God. "Pray without ceasing." It 
 is not needful to be on our knees all the time. But 
 the heart should be on its knees all the time. If 
 "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon 
 his knees," let us keep him trembling all the time. 
 We should be often on our knees, or our faces literally. 
 This is a joyous life, free from worry and care. Here 
 is the point (neglect of prayer) where many fail. 
 
 There are three things for which the one who would 
 make a success of the Christian life must especially 
 pray: first, for wisdom, "If any of you lack wisdom, 
 let him ask of God," James 1:5; second, for strength, 
 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
 strength," Is. 40: 31 ; third, for the Holy Spirit, "Your 
 heavenly Father shall give the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask Him." If you have not yet received the bap- 
 tism of the Holy Spirit you should offer definite prayer 
 
i88 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 for this definite blessing and definitely expect to 
 receive it. If you have already received the baptism 
 of the Holy Spirit you should with each new emer- 
 gency of Christian work pray to God for a new filling 
 with the Holy Spirit. Acts 4: 31. 
 
 5. Go TO WORK FOR Christ. Matt. 25: 29, "For unto 
 every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
 abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken 
 away even that which he hath." Note the context, 
 and you will see that this means, those who use what 
 they have will get more, and those who let what they 
 have lie idle will lose even that. The working Chris- 
 tian, the one who uses his talents, whether few or 
 many, in Christ's service, is the one who gets on in 
 the Christian life here, and who will hereafter hear 
 the, *'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord. " Find some work to 
 do for Christ and do it. Seek for work. If it is noth- 
 ing more than distributing tracts or invitations to 
 meetings, do it. Always be looking for something 
 more to do for Christ, and you will always be receiv- 
 ing something more fro7n Christ. 
 
 6. Give largely. Pro v. 11:25, "The liberal soul 
 shall be made fat." 2 Cor. 9:6, 8, "He which soweth 
 sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which 
 soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. And 
 God is able to make all grace abound toward you ; that 
 ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may 
 abound to every good work." Success and growth in 
 Christian life depends on few things more than upon 
 liberal giving. A stingy Christian cannot be a grow- 
 ing Christian. It is wonderful how a Christian man 
 begins to grow when he begins to give. Give syste- 
 
TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 189 
 
 matically. Set aside for Christ a fixed proportion of 
 all the money or goods you get. Be exact and honest 
 about it. Don't use it for yourself under any circum- 
 stances. A tenth is a good proportion to begin with. 
 Don't let it be less than that. After you have given 
 your tenth you will probably soon learn the joy of giv- 
 ing free-will offerings in addition to the tenth. 
 
 7. Keep PUSHING ON. Phil. 3:13, 14, "Brethren, I 
 count not myself to have apprehended : but this one 
 thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
 and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 
 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high call- 
 ing of God in Christ Jesus. " Forget that which lies 
 behind; press on to the better things that lie before. 
 "Press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus" (R. V.). Forget the 
 sins which lie behind. If you fail anywhere, if you 
 fall, don't be discouraged, don't give up, don't brood 
 over the sin. Confess it instantly. Believe God's 
 Word. I John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is 
 faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
 us from all unrighteousness. * ' Believe the sin is for- 
 given; forget it; press on. Satan beguiles many a 
 poor soul here. He keeps us brooding over our fail- 
 ures and sins. He even makes us think this is humility, 
 as if it were humility to doubt God's Word and Make 
 Him a liar by not believing the sin is forgiven and put 
 away, when He says it is. 
 
 Forget the achievements and victories of the past 
 and press on to greater. Here Satan cheats many of 
 us out of the larger life. He keeps us thinking so 
 much of what we have already obtained and makes us 
 so contented with it and so puffed up over it, that we 
 
I90 TO MAKE THE WORK PERMANENT 
 
 come to a standstill, or even backslide. I have seen 
 this in many individuals and many churches. *'How 
 well we have done ! ' ' they think. Our only safety is 
 in forgetting those things which are behind, and press- 
 ing on. "Excelsior!" "Higher!" should be the soul's 
 persistent cry. Press on ! There is always something 
 better ahead. You may have received a second bless- 
 ing, or a twenty-second, but there is still something 
 better until we "come . . . unto a perfect man, unto 
 the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," 
 Eph. 4: 13. 
 
 Young Christian friends and older Christians, the 
 road to certain success in the Christian life is plain 
 enough. Shall we take it? The truths of this tract 
 are familiar; but are you practicing them? Read them 
 over frequently and see if there is not some point at 
 which you fail. If you find there is, correct your mis- 
 take AT ONCE. 
 
MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 
 
 D. B. TOWNER 
 
 The day is past when any intelligent person doubts 
 for a moment the helpfulness of singing in revival 
 services. The time was, when some very zealous 
 people objected to singing in church services, and who 
 even now do not encourage it to any great extent, and 
 yet these same people make the best use of singing 
 that they know how in revival meetings. Therefore, 
 no matter what the objection may be to singing in the 
 regular church services, all are agreed that for mission 
 and revival meetings singing is helpful. It would be 
 a very easy matter to prove by the Scripture that the 
 early Christians believed in singing, and that even our 
 Lord Himself approved of it and engaged in it, but 
 that is not the object at this time. The Wesleys cer- 
 tainly were heartily in favor of it, and made much of 
 it — and so have all the successful evangelists from 
 their day down to the present time. It is very gener- 
 ally conceded, we think, that Mr. Moody was the 
 prince of evangelists, and he perhaps made more of 
 singing than any man of his time, or before him, and 
 if any one doubts the wisdom of his course in this 
 direction, they have only to listen to the testimony of 
 men and women from every country where the Gospel 
 has been sung, to be convinced that the Gospel when 
 sung is as powerful to convert men and women as it is 
 when preached. One who was an actress, but is now 
 
 19 1 
 
192 MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 
 
 an evangelist, says that the singing of a Gospel song 
 by a company of Christian Endeavorers in a public 
 park of Chicago convicted her of her sin and turned 
 her heart to God, and that she was saved on the spot. 
 A pastor in a large city of this country says that the 
 singing of a man and his wife brought him to Christ, 
 and these are only two of a great multitude who have 
 come under our personal knowledge, who have been 
 led to Christ through song. But one says, ** These are 
 isolated cases, and since so much singing is done that 
 seemingly does not produce conviction of sin, does it 
 not follow that singing is not of much importance in 
 revival services?" Not at all, no more than the fact 
 that many sermons do not convict of sin is proof that 
 there is no power in preaching to convert men. 
 
 Singing, like preaching, must be of the right sort to 
 be helpful in bringing souls to Christ. Many who are 
 disposed to use singing to promote evangelistic work 
 have erroneous ideas about it. They think that the 
 principal thing is a fine solo singer, and it does not 
 matter very much how the people sing, or whether they 
 sing at all. But quite the reverse is the correct idea. 
 While solos, duets, quartets, etc., are excellent, the 
 greater power lies in the singing of the people. 
 Therefore, to get the greatest help from the singing in 
 a revival meeting, the people must be made to sing. 
 Hence it is necessary that there be a good leader, and 
 by a good leader we mean a man skilled in music, 
 filled with the Holy Ghost, and a love for souls, a good 
 organizer and choir conductor, a good solo singer, and 
 a man with a fine sense of the fitness of things. Such 
 a man will be a channel through which the Spirit can 
 work, and will under God be a power in a revival. A 
 
MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 193 
 
 man may be a splendid musician and have a magnifi- 
 cent voice, and yet be of absolutely no use in revival 
 work because he is not a spiritual man and does not 
 sing for the definite purpose of winning men to Christ. 
 Having the right sort of a leader of the singing, you 
 still must have a suitable collection of hymns and 
 tunes. I say hymns and tunes, because we so often 
 see a good hymn coupled with a poor tune, or a good 
 tune coupled with a weak hymn. In either case the 
 result will not be satisfactory. Because of this many 
 are opposed to the introduction of new books and songs 
 in a revival. But this should not be the case, for if 
 you have such a leader as has been described, and give 
 him the selection of the book, you have no more to 
 fear than you have in giving to the Spirit-filled 
 preacher the choice of subjects he should speak upon, 
 or the methods he shoul d employ. But so long as the 
 selection of a book is left to a committee who either 
 are not at all musical, or else are not in sympathy with 
 revival work, or want to get the book that costs the least 
 money, or are prompted by any other motive than to 
 obtain the book best adapted for the work of winning 
 souls, you will be crippled in the music. A poor book 
 is dear at any price, and does incalculable harm to the 
 meetings. For we say frankly, that many of the 
 so-called Gospel hymns have not a particle of the Gos- 
 pel of Christ in them, and many of the tunes are such 
 an abomination to every person with a knowledge of 
 or taste for music, that even if there is much blessed 
 and converting truth in the hymn it is lost sight of in 
 the dislike awakened by the bad tune. There are 
 two extremes which should be avoided in choosing 
 music for evangelistic meetings: first, the frivolous 
 
194 MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 
 
 light songs, and, secondly, the too staid and grave 
 ones. I do not say classical, for the term classical as 
 generally applied to music is misleading. It is a prev- 
 alent opinion that classical music is difficult, which is 
 as great a mistake as it would be to measure hymns 
 by their length, or a picture by its size. Many of the 
 very simple tunes are truly classical, while much of 
 the difficult music is anything but classical. It often 
 requires time to determine whether a tune is a classic. 
 I venture that very few, if any, would have pro- 
 nounced "Old Hundred" classic in the year it was 
 written, and yet, to-day, no man of any caliber would 
 pronounce it otherwise. 
 
 While great care should be exercised in the selection 
 of music for revival meetings, yet one must not be 
 hypercritical about new songs. About twenty years ago 
 a committee of literary men and musicians were com- 
 piling a denominational hymnbook, and certain hymns 
 and tunes were rejected as not being of a high enough 
 order. But to-day those same tunes and hymns are being 
 used in all denominational books as they are revised 
 and compiled, and have proven by their vitality that 
 they belong among the classics. If a tune is well 
 written, no matter how simple, don't be afraid to try 
 it. If a hymn does not teach error, direct or implied, 
 don't be afraid to give it a trial; but if it does, no 
 matter what its literary merit may be, let it alone. 
 Let it be distinctly understood that we are not opposed 
 to the use of old hymns, not by any means, for quite 
 the contrary is the case. We believe that the good 
 old hymns are the heritage of the church, and should 
 be regarded as such, and that they should be sacredly 
 kept and perpetuated, and that each successive genera- 
 
MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 195 
 
 tion should be taught to sing them well, but to hold on 
 to these to the exclusion of the new ones would be a 
 calamity. As new men come on the scene, they 
 embody the truth into new hymns, and it gives it a 
 freshness just the same as is the case with a new ser- 
 mon, and new tunes awaken new interest in these 
 themes, such as the old ones do not. As we become 
 familiar with a tune, it gradually loses its power with 
 us, even though we never become tired of it. But the 
 new tune arrests the attention, and gives the truth it 
 carries a chance to enter the heart. Some people seem 
 to outlive their usefulness, while others never do. It 
 is just so with songs. There are those that should be 
 m every selection, and there are others that seem to 
 have been embalmed, as it were, and laid away in the 
 denominational books which are never used. We do 
 not object, they have served well no doubt, now let 
 1 hem rest in peace, while others come on and do serv- 
 ice in their turn. 
 
 Then we believe there is a place for sentimental 
 songs in evangelistic meetings. By this we mean 
 songs with a good religious flavor, on topics calling to 
 mind home and dear ones, for through these songs the 
 emotions are stirred, and men are frequently made to 
 think and finally to repent. Of course, these songs 
 must be of a high order, and judiciously used. 
 
 In short, what is needed in revival or evangelistic 
 meetings is hymns that contain a message for the sin- 
 ner, founded on the Word of God, worshipful hymns 
 for believers, and hymns of thanksgiving and praise, 
 written by men and women whose hearts are aglow 
 with the love of God, presented by a leader who is a 
 musician anointed by the Holy Ghost for such service. 
 
196 MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 
 
 When these conditions obtain, the music in evangel- 
 istic meetings will be a mighty power, and no one will 
 doubt but that it has the approval of Almighty God. 
 
 When the soloist sings he should do it with just as 
 definite a purpose of leading some one to Christ as the 
 preacher has when he preaches. He is not there to 
 entertain people, but to save people, and he needs the 
 baptism with the Holy Spirit for this work just as 
 much as the one who preaches the Word. The same 
 is true of the chorus. They should be trained to 
 realize that the salvation of some in the audience 
 hangs upon the way they sing and the way in which 
 they conduct themselves. Both the soloist and the 
 choir should come to the meeting after very much and 
 very definite prayer to God for His blessing upon their 
 work. 
 
 Mr. Moody made very much of solos and quartets 
 and choir singing and congregational singing, to get 
 the audience into a receptive mood, so that when he 
 preached his word dropped into prepared soil. He 
 would have them sing and sing until he saw just the 
 favorable moment had come, and then he would arise 
 and deliver his message. He attributed much of the 
 wonderful effects of that message to this fact — that the 
 singing got the people ready for it. 
 
 A suitable solo or duet or even chorus often serves 
 to clinch the message and bring people to immediate 
 decision. It is well for the preacher, oftentimes, to 
 
 say, *'Now I am going to ask Mr. to sing, and 
 
 while he sings I want to ask the Christians to bow 
 their heads and pray God to bless the song to some 
 one's conversion and let the unsaved think, and when 
 the song is ended I will give all who wish to accept 
 
MUSIC IN A REVIVAL 197 
 
 Christ an opportunity to arise (or, come forward) and 
 say so in that way. ' ' Music can also be used very 
 effectively while all the Christians are standing, by 
 asking all those who wish to be saved to come forward 
 while we sing "Just as I Am," or some similar hymn 
 of invitation. People should be so familiarized with 
 a few choice hymns that they can sing them v/ithout 
 a book while kneeling at the altar or bowing in 
 prayer. Many a successful revival campaign has been 
 signalized by one or more hymns that have been the 
 keynote of the whole movement, and were not only 
 sung again and again at the meetings, but on the 
 streets, on the cars, in the home, and everywhere. 
 
 In the great reformation under Martin Luther in 
 Germany, the historic Huguenot movement in France, 
 the Methodist revival in England and America, hymns 
 were one of the mightiest instruments used of God to 
 spread and perpetuate the work. If we are wise we 
 shall make much of holy song in the great revival upon 
 which we are now entering. 
 
ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 
 
 A. F. GAYLORD 
 
 This subject is of far more importance than the 
 average minister or the average church realizes. 
 One great reason why so many of our churches have 
 such a small attendance is because the people are not 
 made to know what is going on, or that the meetings 
 are important, by frequent and judicious advertising. 
 By wise and persistent advertising the vacant seats in 
 most of our churches could be filled. Many churches 
 do not give this subject a second thought ; but up-to- 
 date business men are saying constantly: ** This ad- 
 vertising pays," or, "That advertising doesn't pay." 
 The church of Jesus Christ would do well to adopt 
 many ideas from the commercial world relative to 
 making important work known. The old saying, 
 "The best tie to connect business men with the public 
 is to advertise, " is as true to-day as when first uttered. 
 In announcements for the Lord's Day and other meet- 
 ings of the church, too great emphasis is laid upon 
 reaching the church-goers. One of the chief purposes, 
 if not the paramount purpose, of the church is to reach 
 the unsaved. The unsaved, as a rule, are within hear- 
 ing of the Gospel, but the majority of them are not in 
 actendance at our churches. C. H. Spurgeon used to 
 say that if you could get people to thinking you could 
 get results. Just so ; if we can get people to thinking 
 of the church and of their own responsibility thereto, we 
 
 198 
 
ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 199 
 
 can get results. The writer was much struck recently 
 by an illustration in a leading paper. The saloon, 
 brilliantly lighted within, the sidewalk in front clean, 
 and everything bright and attractive, holding out every 
 inducement to the young man from the country who 
 has just reached the city, was illustrated in one cartoon. 
 In another cartoon was represented the church with 
 this announcement: **Open Sunday and Wednesday 
 evenings. ' ' The sidewalk in front was covered with 
 snow and not a single light was to be seen. This is 
 a true picture of many of our well-equipped metro- 
 politan churches. Statistics show that every year 
 thousands of young men from the rural sections flock 
 to the cities. Many of them, while in the country, 
 have the advantages of church-life, and are brought 
 up under the influences of Christian homes ; but, when 
 they reach the city, they fall among less godly com- 
 panions, and forget their early training. It is the busi- 
 ness of the church to reach these young men. Just 
 how to reach them every church and every organization 
 must decide for itself, with a due regard to its environ- 
 ment. 
 
 The little weekly bulletin announcing the church, 
 its services and its church motto, together with when 
 and where the pastor may be seen, is a very attractive 
 way of reaching many. At all times, and on all occa- 
 sions, a large bulletin-board close to the church, 
 announcing in an attractive way the speaker and his 
 subjects, has proved a great help, as all who have 
 tried the bulletin know. 
 
 It is also well to place permanent bulletin-boards 
 where a great many people pass on foot or in the cars. 
 The bulletins should be large enough to be read from 
 
200 ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 
 
 the cars, and there should be frequent changes of mat- 
 ter, so that people will learn to watch to see what is 
 going on. 
 
 One of the best ways of advertising is by the use of 
 the large three and twenty-five sheet bulletin-boards. 
 They are expensive, but experience demonstrates that, 
 when they have been used to advertise evangelistic 
 and other special meetings, they have accomplished 
 great results. All the bill-boards of a large city were 
 utilized recently for notices of special revival services. 
 These notices were found in every part of the city. 
 The newspaper people noticed them, felt that some- 
 thing important was going on, and reported the meet- 
 ings daily. 
 
 A church may be well known in its own locality and 
 city, but the pastor may be more widely known ; and 
 his name, appearing in a striking way on the bulletin- 
 board, often attracts people who do not care for the 
 church, but who wish to hear him speak. 
 
 There is perhaps no better plan for the bulletin than 
 that followed by Mr. Moody in his wide evangelistic 
 work. He always used a white background with 
 plain black letters — letters that could be read a block 
 away. As an auxiliary to the large bulletin, Mr. Moody 
 made use very frequently of the free-admission ticket 
 — thus creating a personal tie between the meeting 
 and the recipient. 
 
 At the weekly prayer-meeting and other meetings, 
 the co-operation of each individual member of the 
 church should be obtained. They should be handed 
 all the tickets that they will take and judiciously dis- 
 tribute. These tickets should have printed upon them 
 the name and location of the church, the name of the 
 
ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 201 
 
 pastor, and also the subjects for the morning and even- 
 ing services. It is well to have some striking text 
 printed upon the back of the ticket. Distributing these 
 tickets is work that any Christian can do. What mat- 
 ter if many tickets are wasted ? — many bullets are 
 wasted in a war. 
 
 A very useful form of advertisement is an attractive 
 card about the size of the regulation visiting-card, neatly 
 printed, inviting people to the chuich service, and 
 reading, in the corner, "Presented by," with a blank 
 space for the name of the person immediately respon- 
 sible for the invitation. Members of the church 
 should be encouraged to carry these cards in their 
 pockets, signed by their own hand, and to give them 
 out to people whom they meet in business, socially, 
 on the train or in any other way. 
 
 In villages and cities where members of the church 
 have stores and business-houses, a plain window bul- 
 letin-board, from twenty-four to thirty inches wide, 
 with black letters announcing the church, its pastor 
 and when the services are held, keeps before the eyes 
 of the passers-by the fact that the church is at least 
 wide-awake and has something to offer. Experience 
 has shown that passers-by are attracted by these 
 things and remark upon the activity of the church 
 and are drawn to attend it. Why should not the church 
 be as zealous and wide-awake in the business for 
 which it stands as is the business man for the dollars 
 and cents that he may make while here? In one case 
 it is things temporal ; in the other, things eternal. 
 
 Small window-cards, twelve by eighteen inches, 
 printed so that they can be read from the street, are 
 very useful for special meetings — not only in revival 
 
202 ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 
 
 services, but at Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving or 
 other special occasions. These should be handed 
 around among the members of the church and their 
 friends to hang up in their windows. During a presi- 
 dential campaign the majority of us are quite willing 
 to wear the emblem of the party with which we intend 
 to cast our vote, or to hang our candidate's picture 
 in the front window, or some other conspicuous place, 
 and politicians say that much good is accomplished in 
 this way. We know that much good is accomplished 
 by these window-cards in advertising religious meet- 
 ings. A man who had placed one of these cards in his 
 window sat behind the curtain at another window and 
 watched the people passing by. Men, women and 
 children of all classes stopped and read the sign 
 through. Much good is accomplished by placing a 
 pointed text in the window where people may read it. 
 Many have been blessed by these texts. A recent 
 appeal from the pastor of the church with which 
 I am connected brought the hearty co-operation of the 
 members to put these cards in their windows, and 
 this one church gave out several hundred of them. 
 When a large number of these cards are noticed on 
 different streets, they at once awaken comment on 
 the part of the passers-by. They wonder what is 
 going on, and go to the church to find out. The great 
 object is to set the people to thinking about the meet- 
 ings and about Christ. 
 
 In cities, the advertisements in our surface and ele- 
 vated cars, and on the platforms of elevated lines, 
 are read by thousands of persons. 
 
 We have found transparencies very useful. They 
 consist of a wooden frame from eighteen to twenty- 
 
ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 203 
 
 four inches in length and about twelve inches high, 
 with white linen around the four sides, on which are 
 printed in black letters the announcements of the 
 meetings. To the wooden bottom tallow candles are 
 secured. When these are carried about in the evening 
 they do more to attract people than the most artistic 
 printed matter. Perhaps the novelty of the thing is 
 the strongest point in its favor. As many as pos- 
 sible of these transparencies should be sent out every 
 evening. Sometimes it is well to organize the whole 
 corps of transparency-bearers into a procession and 
 send it through the more thickly populated part of the 
 city. 
 
 In connection with special evangelistic meetings 
 recently held in the city of Chicago, a van eighteen 
 feet long and ten feet high was covered with black 
 cloth, on which was painted in white letters the 
 announcement of the meetings and speaker. This was 
 driven up and down the main thoroughfares of the 
 city and was read by thousands. Many say these 
 things are undignified; but they fill the churches 
 and result in bringing men to Christ. Not a few 
 churches are dying from dignity. The up-to-date 
 business-house sacrifices dignity in order to achieve 
 results. The writer has been greatly impressed with 
 the fact that the average church or religious institu- 
 tion falls far below the high standard established and 
 maintained by successful business-houses. 
 
 A thorough canvass of the locality where a church 
 is located is very effective. The names of all non- 
 church goers should be secured. There should be a 
 well-organized corps from some of the organizations 
 of the church to do the work, and it should be done in 
 
204 ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 
 
 as short a time as possible. An invitation should be 
 left at every house and, later, after all the names are 
 secured, a postal-card announcing the services of the 
 church, with a kind invitation from the executive 
 committee or the pastor, should be sent to each per- 
 son. These should be followed up by a personal let- 
 ter. What fails to reach one will reach another. 
 Here again a lesson may well be drawn from the busi- 
 ness man, who is all the time gathering the names of 
 prospective customers and, if he or his agent is 
 unable to call in person, he sends a letter soliciting an 
 order, or in some way puts his work before the desired 
 customer. Certainly a church should be as zealous 
 and aggressive in winning men to Christ as a business- 
 house is in winning customers. I have recently sent 
 out many letters of this kind and not one has been 
 returned. 
 
 The great question is, How can an interest be 
 aroused in the church? — and every possibility of reach- 
 ing those who do not want to be reached should be 
 * ' pushed for all there is in it. " A wise advertising com- 
 mittee of not more than two — better still one — which 
 prayerfully considers each and every step to be taken 
 before any printed matter is issued, and the hearty 
 co-operation of those who assist in getting out such 
 printed matter, is certain to accomplish large results 
 in reaching those for whom the church of Christ was 
 established. 
 
 In all our advertising we should not forget nor 
 neglect the newspapers. Most newspapers are will- 
 ing to assist to the utmost of their ability in pushing 
 the work of any church that shows itself alive and 
 aggressive. If notices and descriptions of meetings, 
 
ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 205 
 
 and outlines of sermons and othes: interesting matter 
 is sent to them, they will publish it. They will even 
 send reporters to the meetings ir there is anything 
 worth reporting; but it is not fair to leave it to the 
 papers to find out what is going on, when it is our 
 interest more than theirs that is in hand. Many min- 
 isters and churches complain of not getting satisfactory 
 reports in the newspapers, but they are more to 
 blame than the newspapers. They think that the 
 newspapers ought to know that they are alive and 
 important; but newspaper men are very busy men 
 and, though quite ubiquitous, they are not omnipresent. 
 Not a few abuse the newspapers and then wonder 
 why the newspapers do not support them. It is well 
 sometimes to utilize the advertising columns of the 
 newspapers. If this is done, an attractive advertise- 
 ment should be put in the amusement column, for that 
 is the column of advertisements read by people look- 
 ing for some place to go, by travelers and commercial 
 men, the very class which the church wishes to reach 
 and oftentimes fails to reach. A very large church 
 that we know, whose audiences usually filled the lower 
 floor only, advertised a special evening service, with 
 the subject, in the amusement columns of the papers. 
 The next Sunday evening the church was filled upstairs 
 and downstairs. Perhaps 800 or 1,000 additional 
 people were present. The church did not keep up this 
 special advertising for more than a week or so, but it 
 has kept full from that day to this, though five years 
 have passed. 
 
 The best kind of advertising of all is done by get- 
 ting individuals to go after individuals. They should 
 be encouraged to be persistent, going after the 
 
2o6 ADVERTISING THE MEETINGS 
 
 same persons time and time again, at least until they 
 come. 
 
 Of course no kind of advertising-, no matter how 
 expensive or thorough, will do permanent good unless 
 there is something in the meeting to which people are 
 invited that is worth going for. Furthermore, the 
 people who are brought in by the advertising should 
 be given a hearty welcome by the church. This is 
 a matter that needs constant watchfulness, care and 
 prayer. 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 C. H. SPURGEON, ADDRESS TO OPEN AIR "PREACHERS, " 1 887 
 
 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 : What 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 ! I am afraid that in the process 
 of evolution you will develop devils. I do not know 
 much else that will come out of human nature, for 
 manhood is as full of sin as an egg 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 
 endeavor to bless men by trying to make them tem- 
 perate; 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 unbelievers. We drive at something more than 
 
 ao7 
 
2o8 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 temperance ; for we believe that men must be born 
 again. It is good that even a corpse should be clean, 
 and therefore 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 every- 
 thing that is holy as they are now in love v/ith every- 
 thing that is sinful. You aim at a radical cure; the ax 
 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 spirit- 
 ual 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 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 209 
 
 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 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 pos- 
 sible 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 possibilities lie about 
 thee ! There is no bound to what God can accomplish 
 if He works by thy heart and voice. The other Sab- 
 bath morning, before I entered 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 instruments 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. 
 
2IO HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 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 
 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 
 preaching, and we think of a very pretty, flowery pas- 
 sage, 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 illus- 
 trating 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, down- 
 right 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 accom- 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 211 
 
 plished by our reasoning, or persuasion, or threaten- 
 ing; it can only come from the Lord. 
 
 In what way^ since the winning of souls lies here^ can 
 we hopefully expect to be endowed 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 him- 
 self. I am persuaded we have never laid enough 
 stress on the work of God within our own selves in its 
 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 vic- 
 tories. If the champion's locks be shorn, the Philistines 
 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 dwell 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 will 
 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 with the divine 
 treasure unless it is a clean vessel, and unless in other 
 
212 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 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. 
 
 IVe win some souls to Christ by acting as witnesses. 
 We stand up and testify for the Lord Jesus Christ con- 
 cerning 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 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 serv- 
 ice. 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 yourself: *'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 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 213 
 
 boldly. If the interrupter questions me about other 
 things, I shall tell him that I do not come to bear wit- 
 ness 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 5^ou 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 sorrowfully to 
 confess, '*Alas! I do not feel the full power of 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 me. ' ' Perhaps 
 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 Bun- 
 yan, "sometimes without hope, like a man in chains to 
 men in chains, and when I heard my own fetters rat- 
 tle, yet I told others that there was deliverance for 
 them, and I bade them look to the great Deliverer." 
 X would 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 
 
214 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 pastor of this church ; but I preach what 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 eternal 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 personal 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 a cer- 
 tain case of robbery ; he knows what he saw, and has 
 to make a declaration of that only. They begin to 
 question him about a picture in the house, or the color 
 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 the 
 beginning to end, and know where you are in preach- 
 ing 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 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 215 
 
 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 only witnesses^ 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 
 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 congregation 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 dislike 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 vigor. With such views they will never convert 
 workingmen. To win men, you must feel : "I 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 
 Savior, I am one of them." To the very chief of 
 
ai6 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 tinners 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 quali- 
 fications 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 Noah ; 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 forever 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 ! 
 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 Sav- 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 217 
 
 ior, and show them that we ourselves perceive theif 
 need and feel for them, or else we are not likely to 
 turn them to the Savior. 
 
 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 respon- 
 sible 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 converted now?" It never 
 occurs to me that the Word of the Lord will fail. No, 
 that can never be. I often feel 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 can- 
 not return to Him void is a great encouragement to 
 your hearers as well as to yourself. Your enthusiastic 
 confidence that they will be converted 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 your 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 Chris- 
 
ii8 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 tian people here, we have not only to be witnesses and 
 pleaders^ 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 
 Christian Church, the holy art of decoy ; that is to say, 
 our example, in ourselves coming to Christ, in our- 
 selves living godly lives in the midst of a perverse 
 generation, our example of joy and sorrow, our exam- 
 ple 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 Mr. John had 
 
 offered to fight one of his neighbors a little while 
 before, and therefore it was not likely that he would 
 have done much preaching very near home. This 
 made the interruption an awkward one. If any man's 
 life 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 imag- 
 ine, and what they do not know they make up. At 
 the same time, our walk and conversation should be 
 the most powerful part of our ministry. This is what 
 is called being consistent^ when lips and life agree. 
 My time is short; but I must say a word upon 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 219 
 
 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 kind 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, liv- 
 ing church which will pray for you ; and if you cannot 
 find such a church where you labor, 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 independent 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 
 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 I 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 tip to a ditch which looks as if it could not be 
 
220 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 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 
 thejn 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 I did not 
 attend to grammar." 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 when He might not bless us for our own. You 
 have heard, I dare say, the moiikish story of the man 
 who had preached, and had won many souls to Christ, 
 and congratulated himself upon it. One night, it was 
 revealed to him that he should have none of the honor 
 of it at the last great day ; and he asked the angel in 
 his dream who then would have the credit of it, and 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 221 
 
 the angel replied: **That deaf old man who sits on the 
 pulpit stairs and prays for you, was the means of the 
 blessing. ' * 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 brethren^ if we are going to win 
 souls ^ we must go in for downright labor and hard work. 
 
 And, first, we must work at our preaching. You are 
 not getting distrustful of the use of preaching, are you? 
 ("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 con- 
 verted through fine music, and church decoration, 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 
 
222 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching 
 the new birth, believe in preaching the whole counsel 
 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, 
 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 shame- 
 less midnight streets, despite yon flaming gin-palaces 
 at the corner of every street, despite 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 preach- 
 ing 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 mid- 
 night, for there remaineth 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 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 223 
 
 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 
 recollect that a brother was speaking to me one Mon- 
 day night, and suddenly he vanished before he finished 
 the 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 
 received 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 in- 
 dividual 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 who have the same happy art. How 
 much more good would come of preaching in the 
 streets if every open-air preacher were accompanied 
 
224 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 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 
 story 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 railway 
 accident, and someone must go round to the station 
 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 whom 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 weight 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 noua at all. But a telling, 
 touching Gospel tract may often be the seed cf eternal 
 life ; therefore, do not go out without your tracts. 
 
HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 225 
 
 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 fellow." 
 Visit as much as you can, for it will be of use to your- 
 selves as well as to the people. 
 
 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 with me; you 
 would have went over me, and, as my brother, you 
 
226 HOW TO WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST 
 
 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^ it is a pity to be too critical. You must let a 
 great storm rage in its own way. You must let a liv- 
 ing heart speak as it can. If you are zealous, and yet 
 cannot speak, your earnestness will invent its own 
 method of working out its purpose. As Hannibal is 
 said to have melted 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 GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 AN ADDRESS ON THE REVIVAL OF 1857 
 AND 1858 
 
 DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, MARCH 28, 1 858, BY 
 
 THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE MUSIC 
 
 HALL, ROYAL SURREY GARDENS 
 
 "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the 
 nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our 
 God. " — Isaiah £2 : 10. 
 
 When the heroes of old prepared for the fight they 
 put on their armor; but when God prepares for bat- 
 tle He makes bare His arm. Man has to look two ways 
 — to his own defense, as well as to the offense of his 
 enemy; God hath but one direction in which to cast 
 His eye — the overthrow of His foeman ; and He disre- 
 gards all measures of defense and scorns all armor. 
 He makes bare His arm in the sight of all the people. 
 When men would do their work in earnest, too, they 
 sometimes strip themselves, like that warrior of old, 
 who, when he went to battle with the Turks, would 
 never fight them except with the bare arm. "Such 
 things as they," said he, "I need not fear; they have 
 more reason to fear my bare arm than I their scim- 
 itar.'* Men feel that they are prepared for a work 
 wh.en they have cast away their cumbrous garments. 
 Ana so the prophet represents the Lord as laying aside 
 for awhile the garments of His dignity, and making 
 
 227 
 
228 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 bare His arm, that He may do His work in earnest and 
 accomplish His purpose for the establishment of His 
 church. 
 
 Now, leaving the figure, which is a very great one, I 
 would remind you that its meaning is fully carried 
 out whenever God is pleased to send a great revival of 
 religioQ. My heart is glad within me this day, for I 
 am the bearer of good tidings. My soul has been 
 made exceedingly full of happiness by the tidings of 
 a great revival of religion throughout the United 
 States. Some hundred years, or more, ago, it pleased 
 the Lord to send one of the most marvelous religious 
 awakenings that was ever known; the whole of the 
 United States seemed shaken from end to end with 
 enthusiasm for hearing the Word of God; and now, 
 after the lapse of a century, the like has occurred 
 again. The monetary pressure has at length 
 departed ; but it has left behind it the wreck of many 
 mighty fortunes. Many men, who were once princes, 
 have now become beggars, and in America, more than 
 in England, men have learned the instability of all 
 human things. The minds of men, thus weaned from 
 the earth by terrible and unexpected panic, seem 
 prepared to receive tidings from a better land and to 
 turn their exertions in a heavenly direction. You will 
 be told by anyone who is conversant with the present 
 state of America, that wherever you go there are 
 the most remarkable signs that religion is progressing 
 with majestic strides. The great revival, as it is now 
 called, has become the common market-talk of mer- 
 chants ; it is the theme of every newspaper ; even the 
 secular press remarks it, for it has become so astonish- 
 ing that all ranks and classes of men seem to have 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 229 
 
 been affected by it. Apparently, without any cause 
 whatever, fear has taken hold of the hearts of men ; a 
 thrill seems to be shot through every breast at once ; 
 and it is affirmed by men of good repute that there 
 are, at this time, towns in New England where you 
 could not, even if you searched, find one solitary 
 unconverted person. So marvelous — I had almost 
 said, so miraculous — has been the sudden and instan- 
 taneous spread of religion throughout the great 
 empire, that it is scarcely possible for us to believe 
 the half of it, even though it should be told us. Now, 
 as you are aware, I have at all times been peculiarly 
 jealous and suspicious of revivals. Whenever I see a 
 man who is called a revivalist, I always set him down 
 for a cipher. I would scorn the taking of such a title 
 as that to myself. If God pleases to make use of a 
 man for the promoting of a revival, well and good; 
 but for any man to assume the title and office of a 
 revivalist, and go about the country, believing that 
 wherever he goes he is the vessel of mercy appointed 
 to convey a revival of religion, is, I think, an assump- 
 tion far too arrogant for any man who has the slightest 
 degree of modesty. And again, there are a large 
 number of revivals, which occur every now and then 
 in our towns, and sometimes in our city, which I 
 believe to be spurious and worthless. I have heard of 
 the people crowding in the morning, the afternoon 
 and the evening, to hear some noted revivalist and, 
 under his preaching some have screamed, have 
 shrieked, have fallen down on the floor, have rolled 
 themselves in convulsions and afterwards, when he 
 has set a form for penitents, employing one or two 
 decoy ducks to run out from the rest and make a con- 
 
230 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 fession of sin, hundreds have come forward, impressed 
 by that one sermon, and declared that they were, there 
 and then, turned from the error of their ways ; and it 
 was only last week I saw a record of a certain place, in 
 our own country, giving an account, that on such a 
 day, under the preaching of the Rev. Mr. So-and-so, 
 seventeen persons were thoroughly sanctified, twenty- 
 eight were convinced of sin, and twenty-nine received 
 the blessing of justification. Then comes the next 
 day, so many more ; the following day, so many more ; 
 and afterwards they are all cast up together, making a 
 grand total of some hundreds who have been blessed 
 during three services, under the ministry of Mr. So- 
 and-so. All that I call farce ! There may be some- 
 thing very good in it ; but the outside looks to me to 
 be so rotten that I should scarcely trust myself to 
 think that the good within comes to any very great 
 amount. When people go to work to calculate so 
 exactly by arithmetic, it always strikes me they have 
 mistaken what they are at. We may easily say that 
 so many were added to the church on a certain occa- 
 sion, but to take a separate census of the convinced, 
 the justified and the sanctified, is absurd. You will, 
 therefore, be surprised at finding me speaking of 
 revival ; but you will, perhaps, not be quite so surprised 
 when I endeavor to explain what I mean by an 
 earnest and intense desire, which I feel in my heart, 
 that God would be pleased to send throughout this 
 country a revival like that which has just commenced 
 in America, and which, we trust, will long continue 
 there. 
 
 I should endeavor to mark, in the first place, the 
 cause of every revival of true religion; secondly, the 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 231 
 
 consequences of such revival; then, thirdly, I shall givs 
 a caution or two, that we make not mistakes in this 
 matter, and conceive that to be God's work which is 
 only man's; and then I shall conclude by making an 
 exhortation to all my brethren in the faith of Christ, to 
 labor and pray for a revival of religion in the midst of 
 our churches. 
 
 I. First, then, the cause of a true revival. The 
 mere worldly man does not understand a revival ; he 
 cannot make it out. Why is it that a sudden fit of 
 godliness, as he would call it, a kind of sacred epi- 
 demic, should seize upon a mass of people all at once? 
 What can be the cause of it? It frequently occurs in 
 the absence of all great evangelists; it cannot be 
 traced to any particular means. There have been no 
 special agencies used in order to bring it about — no 
 machinery supplied, no societies established; and yet 
 it has come, just like a heavenly hurricane, sweeping 
 everything before it. It has rushed across the land, 
 and of it men have said, *'The wind bloweth where it 
 listeth ; we hear the sound thereof, but we cannot tell 
 whence it cometh or whither it goeth. " What is, then, 
 the cause? Our answer is. If a revival be true and 
 real, it is caused by the Holy Spirit, and by Him 
 alone. When Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, 
 and preached that memorable sermon by which three 
 thousand persons were converted, can we attribute the 
 remarliable success of his ministry to anything else 
 but the ministry of the Holy Spirit? I read the notes 
 of Peter's discourse ; it was certainly very simple ; it 
 was a plain narration of facts ; it was certainly very 
 bold, very cutting and pointed and personal, for he 
 did not blush to tell them that they had put to death 
 
232 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 the Lord of life and of glory, and were guilty of His 
 blood ; but on the mere surface of the thing, I should 
 be apt to say that I had read many a sermon far more 
 likely to be effective than Peter's; and I believe there 
 have been many preachers who have lived, whose ser- 
 mons, when read, would have been far more notable 
 and far more regarded, at least by the critic, than the 
 sermon of Peter. It seems to have been exceedingly 
 simple and suitable and extremely earnest, but none 
 of these things are so eminently remarkable as to be 
 the cause of such extraordinary success. 
 
 What, then, was the reason? And we reply, once 
 more, the same word which the Holy Spirit blesses to 
 the conversion of one, He might, if He pleased, bless to 
 the conversion of a thousand; and I am persuaded 
 that the meanest preacher in Christendom might 
 come into this pulpit, this morning, and preach the 
 most simple sermon, in the most uneducated style, and 
 the Holy Spirit, if so He willed it, might bless that 
 sermon to the conversion of every man, woman and 
 child within this place: for His arm is not shortened. 
 His power is not straitened and, as long as He is Omni- 
 potent, it is ours to believe that He can do whatsoever 
 seemeth Him good. Do not imagine, when you hear 
 of a sermon being made useful, that it was the sermon 
 itself that did the work. Conceive not, because a cer- 
 tain preacher may have been greatly blessed in the 
 conversion of souls, that there is anything in the 
 preacher. God forbid that any preacher should arro- 
 gate such a thing to himself. Any other preacher, 
 blessed in the same manner, would be as useful; and 
 any other sermon, provided it be truthful and earnest, 
 might be as much blessed as that particular sermon 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 253 
 
 which has become notable by reason of the multitudes 
 who by it have been brought to Christ. The Spirit of 
 God, when He pleaseth, blows upon the sons of men. 
 He finds a people hard and careless; He casts a desire 
 into their minds — He sows it broadcast in their spirits 
 — a thought towards the house of the Lord, and 
 straightway, they know not why, they flock in multi- 
 tudes to hear the Word preached. He casts the seed, 
 the same seed, into the preacher's mind, and he 
 knows not how, but he feels more earnest than he did 
 before. When he goes to his pulpit, he goes to it as 
 to a solemn sacrifice, and there he preaches, believing 
 that great things will be the effect of his ministry. 
 The time of prayer cometh round ; Christians are found 
 meeting together in large numbers ; they cannot tell 
 what it is that influences them, but they feel they must 
 go up to the house of the Lord to pray. There are 
 earnest prayers lifted up; there are earnest sermons 
 preached and there are earnest hearers. Then God, 
 the Almighty One, is pleased to soften hard hearts, 
 and subdue the stout-hearted, and bring them to know 
 the truth. The only real cause is, His Spirit working 
 in the minds of men. 
 
 But while this is the only actual cause, yet there are 
 instrumental causes ; and the main instrumental cause 
 of a great revival must be the bold, faithful, fearless 
 preaching of the truth as it is in Jesus. Why, breth- 
 ren, we want every now and then to have a reforma- 
 tion. One reformation will never serve the church; 
 she needs continually to be wound up and set a-going 
 afresh ; for her works run down, and she does not act 
 as she used to do. The bold, bald doctrines that 
 Luther brought out began to be a little modified, until 
 
234 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 layer after layer was deposited upon them, and at last 
 the old rocky truth was covered up, and there grew 
 upon the superficial subsoil an abundance of green and 
 flowery errors, that looked fair and beautiful, but were 
 in no way whatever related to the truth, except as they 
 were the products of its decay. Then there came 
 bold men who brought the truth out again and said: 
 *' Clear away this rubbush; let the blast light upon 
 these deceitful beauties ; we want them not ; bring out 
 the old truth once more!" And it came out. But the 
 tendency of the church perpetually is, to be covering 
 up its own naked simplicity, forgetting that the truth is 
 never so beautiful as when it stands in its own 
 unadorned, God-given glory. And now, at this time, 
 we want to have the old truths restored to their 
 places. The subtleties and the refinements of the 
 preacher must be laid aside. We must give up the 
 grand distinctions of the school-men, and all the lettered 
 technicalities of men who have studied theology as a 
 system, but have not felt the power of it in their 
 hearts; and when the good old truth is once more 
 preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live 
 coal from off the altar, this shall be the instrument, in 
 the hand of the Spirit, for bringing about a great and 
 thorough revival of religion in the land. 
 
 But added to this, there must be the earnest prayers 
 of the church. All in vain the most indefatigable 
 ministry, unless the church waters the seed sown, with 
 her abundant tears. Every revival has been com- 
 menced and attended by a large amount of prayer. In 
 the city of New York, at the present moment, there is 
 not, I believe, one single hotir of the day wherein 
 Christiaus are not gathered together for prayer. One 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 235 
 
 church opens its doors from five o'clock till six, for 
 prayer ; another church opens from six to seven and 
 summons its praying men to offer the sacrifice of sup- 
 plication. Six o'clock is past, and men are gone to 
 their labor. Another class find it then convenient — 
 such as those, perhaps, who go to business at eight or 
 nine — and from seven to eight there is another prayer 
 meeting. From eight to nine there is another, in 
 another part of the city, and what is most marvelous, 
 at high noon, from twelve to one, in the midst of the 
 city of New York, there is held a prayer meeting in a 
 large room, which is crammed to the doors every day, 
 with hundreds standing outside. This prayer meeting 
 is made up of merchants of the city, who can spare a 
 quarter of an hour to go in and say a word of prayer 
 and then leave again ; and then a fresh company come 
 in to fill up the ranks, so that it is supposed that many 
 hundreds assemble in that one place for prayer during 
 the appointed hour. This is the explanation of the 
 revival. If this were done in London — if we for once 
 would outvie old Rome, who kept her monks in her 
 sanctuaries, always at prayer, both by night and by 
 day — if we together could keep up one golden chain 
 of prayer, link after link of holy brotherhood being 
 joined together in supplication, then might we expect 
 an abundant outpouring of the Divine Spirit from the 
 Lord our God. The Holy Spirit, as the actual agent 
 — the Word preached, and the prayers of the people, 
 as the instruments — -and we have thus explained the 
 cause of a true revival of religion. 
 
 II. But now what are the consequences of a 
 REVIVAL of religion? Why, the consequences are 
 everything that our hearts could desire for the 
 
236 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 church's good. When the revival of religion comes 
 into a nation, the minister begins to be warmed. It 
 is said that in America the most sleepy preachers have 
 begun to wake up ; they have warmed themselves at 
 the general fire, and men who could not preach with- 
 out notes, and could not preach with them to any pur- 
 pose at all, have found it in their hearts to speak right 
 out, and speak with all their might to the people. 
 When there comes a revival, the minister, all of a sud- 
 den finds that the usual forms and conventionalities of 
 the pulpit are not exactly suitable to the times. He 
 breaks through one hedge ; then he finds himself in an 
 awkward position, and he has to break through 
 another. He finds himself, perhaps, on a Sunday 
 morning, though a Doctor of Divinity, actually telling 
 an anecdote — lowering the dignity of the pulpit by 
 actually using a simile or metaphor — sometimes per- 
 haps accidentally making his people smile and, what 
 is also a great sin in these solid theologians, now and 
 then dropping a tear. He does not exactly know how 
 it is, but the people catch up his words. "I must 
 have something good for them," he says. He just 
 burns that old lot of sermons ; or he puts them under 
 the bed and gets some new ones, or gets none at all, 
 but just gets his text, and begins to cry : ' * Men and breth- 
 ren, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall 
 be saved." The old deacons say: **What is the matter 
 with our minister?" The old ladies, who have heard 
 him for many years, and slept in the front of the gal- 
 lery so regularly, begin to rouse, and say: "I wonder 
 what has happened to him? How can it be? Why, he 
 preaches like a man on fire. The tear runs over at his 
 eye ; his soul is full of love for souls. ' ' They cannot 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 237 
 
 make it out; they have often said he was dull and 
 dreary and drowsy. How is it all this is changed? 
 Why, it is the revival. The revival has touched the 
 minister; the sun, shining so brightly, has melted 
 some of the snow on the mountain-top, and it is run- 
 ning down in fertilizing streams to bless the valleys; 
 and the people down below are refreshed by the min- 
 istrations of the man of God who has awakened him- 
 self up from his sleep and finds himself, like another 
 Elijah, made strong for forty days of labor. Well, 
 then, directly after that the revival begins to touch the 
 people at large. The congregation was once num- 
 bered by the empty seats, rather than by the full ones. 
 But on a sudden — the minister does not understand 
 it — he finds the people coming to hear him. He never 
 was popular, never hoped to be. All at once he 
 wakes up and finds himself famous, so far as a large 
 congregation can make him so. There are the people, 
 and how they listen! They are all awake, all in 
 earnest ; they lean their heads forward, they put their 
 hands to their ears. His voice is feeble ; they try to 
 help him ; they are doing anything so that they may 
 hear the Word of Life. And then the members of the 
 church open their eyes and see the chapel full, and 
 they say, "How has this come about? We ought to 
 pray. ' ' A prayer meeting is summoned. There had 
 been five or six in the vestry; now there are five or 
 six hundred, and they turn into the chapel. And oh! 
 how they pray ! That old stager, who used to pray for 
 twenty minutes, finds it now convenient to confine 
 himself to five; and that good old man, who always 
 used to repeat the same form of prayer when he stood 
 up and talked about the horse that rushed into the 
 
238 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 battle, and the oil from vessel to vessel, and all that, 
 leaves all these things at home, and just prays: '*0 
 Lord, save sinners, for Jesus Christ's sake." And 
 there are sobs and groans heard in the prayer meet- 
 ings. It is evident that not one, but all, are praying ; 
 the whole mass seems moved to supplication. How is 
 this again? Why, it is just the effect of the revival, 
 for when the revival truly comes, the minister and the 
 congregation and the church will receive good by it. 
 
 But it does not end here. The members of the 
 church grow more solemn, more serious. Family 
 duties are better attended to; the home circle is 
 brought under better culture. Those who could not 
 spare time for family prayer, find they can do so now ; 
 those who had no opportunity for teaching their chil- 
 dren, now dare not go a day without doing it ; for they 
 hear that there are children converted in the Sunday 
 School. There are twice as many in the Sunday School 
 now as there used to be ; and, what is wonderful, the 
 little children meet together to pray ; their little hearts 
 are touched and many of them show signs of a work 
 of grace begun ; and fathers and mothers think they 
 must try what they can do for their families — if God is 
 blessing little children, why should He not bless theirs? 
 
 And then, when you see the members of the church 
 going up to the house of God, you mark with what a 
 steady and sober air they go. Perhaps they talk on 
 the way, but they talk of Jesus; and if they whisper 
 together at the gates of the sanctuary, it is no longer 
 idle gossip; it is no remark about, "How do you like 
 the preacher? What did you think of him? Did you 
 notice So-and-so?" Oh, no! "I pray the Lord that 
 He might bless the word of His servant, that He might 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 339 
 
 send an unction from on high, that the dying- flame 
 may be kindled, and that where there is life, it may be 
 promoted and strengthened, and receive fresh vigor.** 
 This is their whole conversation. 
 
 And then comes the great result. There is an 
 inquirers' meeting held. The good brother who pre- 
 sides over it is astonished ; he never saw so many com- 
 ing in his life before. **Why," says he, ** there are a 
 hundred, at least, come to confess what the Lord has 
 done for their souls! Here are fifty come all at once 
 to say that under such a sermon they were brought to 
 the knowledge of the truth. Who hath begotten me 
 these? How hath it come about? How can it be? Is 
 not the Lord a great God that hath wrought such a work 
 as this?" And then the converts who are thus brought 
 into the church, if the revival continues, are very 
 earnest ones. You never saw such a people. The 
 outsiders call them fanatics. It is a blessed fanaticism. 
 Others say, they are nothing but enthusiasts. It is 
 a heavenly enthusiasm. Everything that is done is 
 done with such spirit. If they sing, it is like the 
 crashing thunder; if they pray, it is like the swift, 
 sharp flash of lightning, lighting up the darkness of 
 the cold-hearted, and making them for a moment feel 
 that there is something in prayer. When the minister 
 preaches, he preaches like a Boanerges, and when the 
 church is gathered together, it is with a hearty good 
 will. When they give, they give with enlarged liber- 
 ality ; when they visit the sick, they do it with gentle- 
 ness, meekness and love. Everything is done with a 
 single eye to God's glory; not of men, but by the 
 power of God. Oh ! that we might see such a revival 
 as this 1 
 
240 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 But, blessed be God, it does not end here. The 
 revival of the church then touches the rest of society. 
 Men who do not come forward and profess religion, 
 are more punctual in attending the means of grace. 
 Men that used to swear, give it up ; they find it is not 
 suitable for the times. Men that profaned the Sab- 
 bath and that despised God, find it will not do; they 
 give it all up. Times get changed; morality prevails; 
 the lower ranks are affected. They buy a sermon 
 where they used to buy some penny tract of nonsense. 
 The higher orders are also touched; they, too, are 
 brought to hear the Word. Her ladyship, in her car- 
 riage, who never would have thought of going to so 
 mean a place as a conventicle, does not now care where 
 she goes so long as she is blessed. She wants to hear 
 the truth ; and a drayman pulls his horses up by the 
 side of her ladyship's pair of grays, and they both go 
 in and bend together before the throne of sovereign 
 grace. All classes are affected. Even the senate feels 
 it ; the statesman himself is surprised at it and won- 
 ders what all these things mean. Even the monarch 
 on the throne feels she has become the monarch of a 
 people better than she knew before, and that God is 
 doing something in her realms past all her thought — 
 that a great King is swaying a better scepter and 
 exerting a better influence than even her excellent 
 example. Nor does it even end there. Heaven is 
 filled. One by one the converts die and heaven gets 
 fuller; the harps of heaven are louder, the songs of 
 angels are inspired with new melody, for they rejoice 
 to see the sons of men prostrate before the throne. The 
 universe is made glad: it is God's own summer; it is 
 the universal spring. The time of the singing of birds 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 341 
 
 is come ; the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. 
 Oh ! that God might send us such a revival of religion 
 as this! 
 
 III. Now we shall have to turn to the third point, 
 which was a caution. When Christmas Evans 
 preached in Wales, during a time of revival, he used 
 to make the people dance ; the congregation were so 
 excited under his ministry that they positively danced. 
 Now, I do not believe that dancing was the work of the 
 Spirit. Their being stirred in their hearts might be 
 the Holy Spirit's work, but the Holy Spirit does not 
 care to make people dance under sermons; no good 
 comes of it. Now and then among some of our 
 friends there is a great break-out, and we hear of a 
 young woman in the middle of a sermon getting on 
 top of a form and turning round and round in ecstasy, 
 till she falls in a fainting fit, and they cry, ''Glory 
 be to God ! ' ' Now, we do not believe that that is the 
 work of the Spirit; we believe it is ridiculous non- 
 jense, and nothing more. In the old revivals in 
 America, a hundred years ago, commonly called "the 
 great awakening," there were many strange things, 
 such as continual shrieks and screams and knockings 
 and twitchings, under the services. We cannot call 
 that the work of the Spirit. Even the great White- 
 field's revival at Cambuslang, one of the greatest and 
 most remarkable revivals that was ever known, was 
 attended by some things that we cannot but regard as 
 superstitious wonders. People were so excited that 
 they did not know what they did. Now, if in any 
 revival you see any of these strange contortions of the 
 body, always distinguish between things that differ. 
 The Holy Spirit's work is with the mind, not with the 
 
242 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 body in that way. It is not the will of God that such 
 things should disgrace the proceedings. I believe that 
 such things are the result of Satanic malice. The 
 devil sees that there is a great deal of good doing. 
 **Now," says he, "I'll spoil it all. I'll put my hoof in 
 there and do a world of mischief. There are souls 
 being converted ; I will let them get so excited that 
 they will do ludicrous things ; and then it will all be 
 brought into contempt. ' ' Now, if you see any of these 
 strange things arising, look out. There is that old 
 Apollyon busy, trying to mar the work. Put such 
 vagaries down as soon as you can, for where the Spirit 
 works. He never works against His own precept, and 
 His precept is: "Let all things be done decently and in 
 order." It is neither decent nor orderly for people to 
 dance under the sermon nor howl nor scream while 
 the Gospel is being preached to them; therefore it 
 is not the Spirit's work at all, but mere human excite- 
 ment. 
 
 And again, remember that you must always distin- 
 guish between man and man in the work of revival. 
 While, during a revival of religion, a very large num- 
 ber of people will be really converted, there will be a 
 very considerable portion who will be merely excited 
 with animal excitement, and whose conversion will not 
 be genuine. Always expect that and do not be sur- 
 prised if you see it. It is but a law of the mind that 
 men should imitate one another, and it seems but 
 reasonable, that when one person is truly converted, 
 there should be a kind of desire to imitate it in 
 another, who yet is not a possessor of true and sov- 
 ereign grace. Be not discouraged, then, if you should 
 meet with this in the midst of a revival. It is no 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 243 
 
 proof that it is not a true revival ; it is only a proof 
 that it is not true in that particular case. 
 
 I must say, once more, that if God should send us a 
 great revival of religion, it will be our duty not to 
 relax the bonds of discipline. Some churches, when 
 they increase very largely, are apt to take people into 
 their number by wholesale, without due and proper 
 examination. We ought to be just as strict in the 
 paroxysms of a revival as in the cooler times of a 
 gradual increase, and if the Lord sends His Spirit like 
 a hurricane, it is ours to deal with skill with the sails, 
 lest the hurricane should wreck us by driving us upon 
 some fell rock that may do us serious injury. Take 
 care, ye that are officers in the church, when ye see the 
 people stirred up, that ye exercise still a holy caution, 
 lest the church become lowered in its standard of piety 
 by the admission of persons not truly saved. 
 
 IV. With these words of caution, I shall now gather 
 up my strength, and with all my might labor to stir 
 you up to seek of God a great revival of religion 
 throughout the length and breadth of this land. 
 
 Men, brethren, and fathers, the Lord God hath sent 
 us a blessing. One blessing is the earnest of many. 
 Drops precede the April showers. The mercies which 
 He has already bestowed upon us are but the forerun- 
 ners and the preludes of something greater and better 
 yet to come. He has given us the former, let us seek 
 of Him the latter rain, that His grace may be multiplied 
 among us and His glory may be increased. There are 
 some of you to whom I address myself this morning 
 who stand in the way of any revival of religion. I 
 would affectionately admonish you and beseech you 
 not to impede the Lord's own work. There be some 
 
244 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 of you, perhaps, here present to-day who are not con- 
 sistent in your living. And yet you are professors of 
 religion; you take the sacramental cup into your hand 
 and drink its sacred wine, but still you live as world- 
 lings live, and are as carnal and as covetous as they. 
 Oh, my brother, you are a serious drawback to the 
 church's increase. God will never bless an unholy 
 people ; and in proportion to our unholiness, He will 
 withhold the blessing from us. Tell me of a church 
 that is inconsistent, you shall tell me of a church that 
 is unblest. God will first sweep the house before He 
 will come to dwell in it. He will have His church pure 
 before He will bless it with all the blessings of His 
 grace. Remember that, ye inconsistent ones, and 
 turn unto God, and ask to be rendered holy. There 
 are others of you that are so cold-hearted that you 
 stand in the way of all progress. You are a skid upon 
 the wheels of the church. It cannot move for you. If 
 we would be earnest, you put your cold hand on every- 
 thing that is bold and daring. You are not prudent 
 and zealous ; if you were so, we would bless God for 
 giving you that prudence which is a jewel for which 
 we ought ever to thank God, if we have a prudent man 
 among us. But there are some of you to whom I 
 allude who are prudent, but you are cold. You have 
 no earnestness, you do not labor for Christ, you do not 
 serve Him with all your strength. And there are 
 others of you who are imprudent enough to push 
 others on, but never go forward yourselves. O ye 
 Laodiceans, ye that are neither hot nor cold, remember 
 what the Lord hath said of you — *'So then, because 
 thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of 
 my mouth/* And so will He do with you. Take 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 245 
 
 heed, take heed, you are not only hurting yourselves, 
 but you are injuring the church. And then there are 
 others of you who are such sticklers for order, so given 
 to everything that has been, that you do not care for 
 any revival, for fear we should hurt you. You would 
 not have the church repaired, lest we should touch one 
 piece of the venerable moss that coats it. You would 
 not cleanse your own garment, because there is ancient 
 dirt upon it. You think that because a thing is 
 ancient, therefore it must be venerable. You are 
 lovers of the antique. You would not have a road 
 mended, because your grandfather drove his wagon 
 along the rut that is there. *'Let it always be there," 
 you say; '*let it always be knee-deep." Did not your 
 grandfather go through it when it was knee-deep with 
 mud. Why should not you do the same? It was 
 good enough for him, and it is good enough for you. 
 You always have taken an easy seat in the chapel. 
 You never saw a revival ; you do not want to see it. 
 You believe it is all nonsense and that it is not to be 
 desired. You look back ; you find no precedent for it. 
 Doctor So-and-so did not talk about it. Your vener- 
 able minister who is dead did not talk so, you say; 
 therefore it is not needed. We need not tell you it is 
 scriptural ; that you do not care for. It is not orderly, 
 you say. We need not tell you the thing is right; 
 you care more about things being ancient than 
 being good. Ah, you will have to get out of the way 
 now; it isn't any good; you may try to stop us, but 
 we will run over you if you do not get out of the 
 way. With a little warning we shall have to run over 
 your prejudices and incur your anger. But your preju- 
 dices must not, cannot, restrain us. The chain may 
 
246 THE GREAT REVIVAL 
 
 be never so rusty with age and never so stamped with 
 authority, the prisoner is always happy to break it and, 
 however your fetters may shackle us, we will dash 
 them in pieces if they stand in the way of the progress 
 of the kingdom of Christ. 
 
 Having thus spoken to those who hinder, I want to 
 speak to you who love Jesus with all your hearts and 
 want to promote it. Dear friends, I beseech you 
 remember that men are dying around you by thou- 
 sands. Will you let your eye follow them into the 
 world of shades? Myriads of them die without God, 
 without Christ, without hope. My brother, does not 
 their fearful fate awaken your sympathy? You believe, 
 from Scriptural warrant, that those who die without 
 faith go to that place where "their worm dieth not and 
 their fire is not quenched." Relieving this, is not 
 your soul stirred within you in pity for their fate? 
 Look around you to-day. You see a vast host gathered 
 together, professedly for the service of God. You know 
 also how many there are here who fear Him not, but 
 are strangers to themselves and strangers to the cross. 
 What ! Do you know yourself what a solemn thing it 
 is to be under the curse, and will you not pray and 
 labor for those around you that are under the curse 
 to-day? Remember your Master's cross. He died for 
 sinners; will not you weep for them? 
 
 *'Did Christ o'er sinners weep; 
 And shall your cheek be dry?" 
 
 Did He give His whole life for them, and will not you 
 stir up your life to wrestle with God, that His purposes 
 may be accomplished on their behalf? You have 
 unconverted children — do you not want them saved? 
 
THE GREAT REVIVAL 247 
 
 You have brothers, husbands, wives, fathers, that are 
 this day in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of 
 iniquity — do you not want a revival, even if it were 
 only for their sakes? Behold, how much of robbery, 
 of murder, of crime, stains this poor land. Do you 
 not want a revival of religion, if it were merely for 
 quenching the flames of crime? See how God's name 
 every day is blasphemed. Mark how, this day, trades 
 are carried on, as if it were man's day, and not God's. 
 Mark how multitudes are going the downward course, 
 merry on their way to destruction. Do you not feel 
 for them? Are your hearts hard and stolid? Has your 
 soul become steeled? Has it become frozen like an ice- 
 berg? O Sun of Righteousness, arise! and melt the icy 
 heart and make us all feel how fearful it is for immor- 
 tal souls to perish — for men to be hurried into eternity 
 without God, and without hope. O, will you not 
 now, from this time forth, begin to pray that God may 
 send forth His Word and save them, that His own name 
 may be glorified? 
 
 As for you that fear not God, see how much ado we 
 are making about you. Your souls are worth more 
 than you think for. O that ye would believe in 
 Christ, to the salvation of your souls! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 We are indebted to the editor of The Epworth Herald for the 
 privilege of reprinting the articles in this section. They have 
 appeared in several of the special Revival Numbers of The 
 Epworth Herald and are specially helpful and suggestive. 
 
 THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 
 
 REV. JOSHUA STANSFIELD 
 
 In revival work the spirit counts for more than any- 
 thing else ; not alone the Holy Spirit in personal work 
 upon the unconverted, but the spirit of Christ and of 
 holy zeal as made known in the believer. Neither 
 numbers nor prestige is the determining factor. It is 
 not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the 
 Lord. That is to say, success is not primarily nor 
 principally by either intellectual, numerical or organ- 
 ized advantage, but by the spirit of God in the work- 
 ers. 
 
 Numbers, caliber and organized effort may be 
 an advantage or a disadvantage. The brightest and 
 brainiest of our workers may always be used to high- 
 est advantage if their work be in the Spirit. Other- 
 wise, they are seeking results according to the capital 
 invested — namely, brains, brilliance, social prestige 
 and systematic work. By these they may, and prob- 
 ably will, secure accretions to the church, but not 
 conversions. In our glorious twentieth-century move- 
 
 248 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 249 
 
 ment, the aim is, and should be, to secure conversions — 
 persons who have received Christ and thereby become 
 the sons of God. Persons born, not of blood nor of 
 the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of 
 God. 
 
 Let it be clearly understood, then, that with excel- 
 lent material and numbers, or without them, God can 
 work unto salvation. He can use the many or the 
 few; the few or the many. But success depends 
 largely upon the spiritual character and condition of 
 the workers. 
 
 On one of my first charges, in the earlier years of 
 our young people's work, after diligent and careful 
 attention to the matter, we secured a weekly attend- 
 ance of seven persons. This continued for nearly 
 eight months, during v/hich time we had systematic 
 and faithful work according to the organization under 
 which we were then living. As early as possible after 
 the organization of the Epworth League we became a 
 chapter of the same, and the spirituality and fidelity 
 of these faithful few were the nucleus from which 
 there grew one of the most vigorous chapters of the 
 league, and has so continued to this day. Success has 
 been not by numbers, but by the spirit in and of the 
 membership. 
 
 Take an apposite case. Last year I conducted 
 special revival meetings at Albion College, Michigan. 
 Of the four hundred or more students in the college, 
 over seventy percent were Christians ; some of them 
 were only nominally so, but a goodly number both of 
 the young men and young women rejoiced in the 
 indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 I found among them some of the brightest young 
 
2SO MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 people it has ever been my privilege to meet, using 
 the best of their powers in the highest of all work, the 
 salvation of souls. There were, however, on the part 
 of about fifty persons, an intelligent consecration for 
 spiritual power and an intense zeal in their labors such 
 as I have not seen for many years, if indeed ever. 
 Private prayer and group prayer meetings between 
 class hours; personal and written invitations to the 
 unsaved to come to Christ; deputations of two persons 
 or more to bring certain individuals to the services; 
 an accurate list of the names of all the students, with 
 the church standing and largely the present religious 
 condition of each person. 
 
 A grand revival did not "break out. " It came. It 
 had to come from such conditions. On the fourth day 
 of the meeting seventy-five persons were at the altar 
 at one time. The president and professors, as well as 
 a number of the fourth-year men, were pointing the 
 unsaved to Christ and the unsanctified to a better 
 life. 
 
 Of all the young men who came forward not one 
 came alone, for some spirit-filled, earnest Christian 
 either brought them or came with them. One hundred 
 and two persons gave intelligent testimonies to saving 
 grace in twenty minutes on the closing evening. But 
 surely one of the brightest parts of that whole work was 
 to see the president, professors and senior men — 
 strong, cultured men — leading souls into the kingdom. 
 
 With such conditions and such a spirit it was not 
 surprising that, before the brief meeting closed, it was 
 stated that there were not twelve unconverted students 
 who had not been to the altar in prayer. 
 
 **It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 251 
 
 saith the Lord. " Let the weakest person or chapter in 
 our league take courage. Here is our help. Let the 
 largest and best of our Epworthians bring all they 
 have and are to the direction and endowment of that 
 same divine spirit, and our beloved Methodism shall 
 surely record two million conversions and more, to the 
 glory of God in the church. 
 
 HONORING THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 REV. W. S. HARRINGTON, D.D. 
 
 The place — the small village of S N , in 
 
 Chenango County, N. Y. The time — 1840, or '41. 
 The spiritual condition of the community was one of 
 stagnation. 
 
 In this town stood a Methodist house of worship, 
 and by its side the home of a Methodist physician. In 
 that home was a commodious kitchen where the social 
 meetings of the church were often held. The society 
 was small and its members did not feel able to supply 
 fuel and lights for special services in the church 
 edifice. The circuit was large and the pastor unavail- 
 able at that point because employed elsewhere. A few 
 devout souls gathered in that kitchen night after 
 night, crying mightily to God for help. He heard 
 and answered the cry of these hungry ones. The 
 Spirit fell upon them. Believers were sanctified. 
 These tidings reached the ears of those who had been 
 uninterested and they began to come to the meetings. 
 Sinners were converted. Night after night every 
 unconverted person in attendance was brought to 
 Christ. Some curious ones hardly dared enter, so 
 
252 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 they stood outside observing the course of the meet- 
 ing. Some of these, while standing outside, were 
 stricken with conviction, and came into the house cry^ 
 ing for mercy. 
 
 One very small boy who belonged to that home can 
 never forget those services, so Spirit-filled, so preg- 
 nant with good to many people. That home belonged 
 to the father of this writer. That small boy was 
 myself. I do not know of any others living who had 
 part in those wonderful meetings, but the memory 
 thereof, after these sixty years, continues to warm my 
 heart and has been an inspiration to me through the 
 more than forty years of my ministry. 
 
 The conditions above named were very unfavorable, 
 but as these devout souls pleaded for the Holy Spirit, 
 the divine promises were to them fulfilled. Nothing 
 is too hard for God. No place is so remote, no society 
 is so weak, but there may be a glorious revival if the 
 Holy Spirit is properly honored. *'Ye shall receive 
 power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you." 
 
 THE REVIVAL WITH A PLAN 
 
 REV. ISAAC CROOK, D.D. 
 
 It began in my study. I was a "transfer." My 
 predecessor, a gifted, beloved man with entrancing 
 pulpit ability, had twice served that same church. He 
 was idolized, and deserved it. 
 
 The church was generous, magnanimous, thrifty, 
 but had not grown by revivals. The young, vigorous 
 city — Winona, Minn. — had seen little of that sort of 
 work. The writer was not a ** revivalist.'* 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 253 
 
 Seated in my study one forenoon, some time after 
 conference, prayerfully thinking over the state of the 
 church, a plan of campaign broke in upon me. I 
 resolved to propose it to the official board at the next 
 meeting. When it was outlined, one of the younger 
 men of the board promptly moved its adoption. It 
 was done with a unanimity that brought assurance of 
 victory. It was of the Lord. The main feature of the 
 plan was a visit fro^n the church to the church and 
 congregation. A committee was selected to choose 
 workers and assign the work. It required many a 
 night's session and careful adjustment. No battle was 
 ever more carefully planned. As subsidiary and 
 essential to this was the appointment of evening meet- 
 ings, to which the people were to be invited. But 
 there was no evangelist nor strange singer as an attrac- 
 tion. 
 
 The visit was to be more than an invitation. It was 
 a proposal to co-operate. 
 
 Another meeting, at eight in the morning, was 
 announced, not solely nor mainly as a prayer-meeting, 
 but as a council of war and to plan definite work for 
 the day. Of course, there was prayer for help to do 
 this, but no throwing off duty on the Lord. 
 
 The arrangement was a sifting process. One of the 
 committee, a man of large business, said : 
 
 **This is ticklish business. What if we have not 
 treated some of these folks right to whom we are 
 assigned?" 
 
 *'Then all the more go and apologize," was the 
 answer. 
 
 When the plan was ready and the visitors called out, 
 there were about fifty of them. The request was made 
 
254 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 that others ready to do visiting should tarry. This to 
 prevent a feeling that any were slighted. None such 
 reported, so well had the work been done. In fact, 
 some of the visitors' names appeared among those to 
 be visited. There was no "nobler than thou" in the 
 arrangement. It was a co-operation. 
 
 Soon the nightly audiences swelled to overflow. 
 The pastor preached a short sermon. The young 
 people sang and many of them were saved. The 
 church members personally asked seekers to go with 
 them to the prayer-meeting room at the rear of the 
 pulpit. They were often almost in the kingdom 
 before they had walked the aisle into that room, where 
 they prayed, talked, sang and were saved. 
 
 Mary C. Nind, then out on her missionary district, 
 coming home after a few weeks of such work, said: 
 *' What has come to pass? I meet people on the street, 
 and find them talking religion. We never saw it in 
 this fashion." 
 
 Families were saved. Drunkards redeemed and 
 some went to heaven in a year's time. Children born 
 again. Dance clubs broken into. One young man 
 gave up an inherited fortune to come with us. One 
 young woman surrendered a marriage engagement 
 rather than Christ. A bookkeeper in a wholesale 
 liquor-house, who had a family dependent upon him, 
 left his desk. He never suffered and went home in a 
 year. Universalism was knocked out of a drunken 
 policeman, who lost his place on the force, but he soon 
 went to heaven. A Roman Catholic, heartbroken over 
 the death of his wife, came in as a fruit of the revival, 
 and said: *'Had I known what I was missing no four- 
 horse team could have kept me from it." The work 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 255 
 
 was pervasive. It extended by correspondence to dis- 
 tant states. *' Those were days of the Son of man." 
 
 The revival had three essential elements in it: 
 
 It came as an answer to prayer. 
 
 It went forward by lay -workers in co-operation. 
 
 It was guided by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 These all will characterize the twentieth -century 
 movement. 
 
 SEVEN VITAL PARAGRAPHS 
 
 CHARLES W. BALDWIN. 
 
 1. Make up your mind it is your work and your 
 people's, and by God's blessing you can and will do it. 
 
 2. Get together such as are disposed to lay hold with 
 you. Pray and plan. Pledge all you can to personal 
 effort, immediate and continuous, and to mighty 
 prayer. 
 
 3. Before public meetings are held visit every house. 
 Take with you the best man or woman you can. Talk 
 about religion and the revival and pray, yourself and 
 assistant, by turns. Make your visits short. 
 
 4. Preach the Word. Preach Christ. His divine 
 and supernatural character. His human heart of love. 
 His readiness to forgive. His vicarious death and His 
 shameful sufferings. His resurrection. His ascen- 
 sion and His heavenly intercession. Declare the 
 judgment day, heaven and hell. Preach the necessity 
 of being born again and invite sinners and backsliders 
 to come to Jesus. 
 
 5. Have your best people around the altar or inside. 
 Some time during every meeting get all the church, if 
 
256 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 possible, to come and stand around the altar. If the 
 members come forward, a kind and urgent request to 
 everybody, who wants to see the meetings prosper, to 
 stand in the pews close behind the church members, 
 will usually be heeded. Tact and perseverance will 
 get nearly all to move. This makes the congregation 
 mobile and tractable, and one step may be followed by 
 another. 
 
 6. Exhort much, not from chancel only, but up and 
 down the aisles, and, kneeling with the people in the 
 aisles, pour out your soul in prayer. Let all see that 
 you are in earnest. 
 
 7. Do not be discouraged. Keep at it and always at 
 it. Love the work and devote yourself to it. Believe 
 God, and thus justify your name as a believer. 
 *' Knowing the terror of the 'Lor^ persuade men." 
 
 PRAYING-BANDS 
 
 B. H. HART. 
 
 One thing I never fail to do. About three months 
 before I begin my special revival services I begin to 
 preach on revival themes and subjects exclusively — to 
 the church at the morning service, and to the unsaved 
 in the evening. I never permit special services of any 
 kind to interfere with this purpose. I try to pack 
 these sermons full of love, compassion, rewards, etc., 
 leaving the penalty for neglect until the special meet- 
 ings are well under way. Another great help to me 
 has been the praying-band. This is nothing more 
 than a company of young men or women (never both) 
 who have covenanted with the pastor to go wherever 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 257 
 
 he might send them for the purpose of praying with 
 the unsaved. I am aware that other pastors, equ-ally 
 happy in the work of saving men, do not approve of 
 this aid. But I am quite certain that a faithful trial 
 will convince them of its efficiency. In what I am 
 pleased to look upon as the greatest revival of my 
 ministry — one in which more than four hundred souls 
 were converted — such a band of young men did splen- 
 did service. They would go anywhere, at any hour of 
 the day or night, and pray with anyone I might sug- 
 gest. 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 W. p. MACVEY. 
 
 Several specific things can be done : 
 
 1. You will be impressed that certain persons ought 
 to be reached. Make a list of them — not indiscrimi- 
 nately of the unsaved, but of all for whom some godly 
 heart is burdened. In nine cases out of ten ninety per- 
 cent of such people will be saved, and ninety percent 
 of the total converts will have been thus listed. 
 
 2. You will "feel" that certain persons are adapted 
 to be lieutenants — not because of position, but because 
 the Spirit points them out to you. Get in touch with 
 them, work with them, understand them, pray to- 
 gether. 
 
 3. Preliminary meetings, notably cottage-meetings, 
 are in order. Let the lieutenants have charge of 
 them. The league can plan them. Let the people 
 pray until they are burdened for the salvation of 
 others. Inquiry-meetings, following the Sunday 
 preaching service, prepare the way. 
 
258 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 4. There is little use in trying to reach others until 
 the heart of the church is right. When this beats 
 responsive to the heart of God you cannot help but 
 save others ; an irresistible spiritual law works out that 
 result. 
 
 5. Abundant visitation, judicious advertising, inspir- 
 ing music, good janitorship, cordial ushering, reason- 
 able hours (there is no need to tire the people out), all 
 contribute to success. 
 
 But life is the gift of God and a revival is the work 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN REVIVALS 
 
 REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 
 
 The most remarkable conversions which have 
 occurred under my ministry in times of revival have 
 been those which took place in the homes of people 
 who sometimes had not been present at all in the meet- 
 ings. Personal visitation by the pastor and wise 
 Christian workers while the revival is going on is a 
 very important factor in revival work. 
 
 EXALT PERSONAL EFFORT 
 
 REV. GEORGE B. WIGHT, D.D. 
 
 Get thoroughly baptized by the Holy Spirit. This 
 will give you a proper sense of the importance of the 
 work of saving souls, a right preparation for it, and 
 the needed enthusiasm in it, without which there can 
 be no success. This is more important than all human 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 259 
 
 helps. Evangelists, music and methods, all have their 
 place in the work, but power and result come from the 
 Spirit only. 
 
 Be persistent and do not weary in well-doing. 
 Some meetings accomplish but little because they are 
 discontinued too soon. I knew a meeting to be held 
 three weeks without apparent result; at nine o'clock 
 on the evening which began the fourth week, not a per- 
 son had been forward ; at quarter past nine, forty were 
 seeking salvation and a great work followed. Results 
 belong to God, so do not be discouraged if they are 
 not seen at once. Work faithfully and pray earnestly 
 and leave the rest to Him. 
 
 Personal work is of the utmost importance. You 
 can do much in the public meeting, but much 
 preparatory work can be accomplished by personal 
 interviews with the unconverted at their homes or 
 places of business. I have often heard expressions of 
 surprise because certain persons went to the altar, 
 when no one knew they were under concern; but I 
 was not at all surprised, for I knew what good brother 
 or sister had for days been quietly working up those 
 cases. I cannot too strongly urge upon you this per- 
 sonal work. Persistent, intelligent and systematic, 
 when directed by the Holy Spirit, it will be more 
 effective than any other agency you can employ except 
 the direct preaching of the Word. 
 
 From a number of cases of the results of personal 
 work which I have known, the following may be of 
 interest: A Sunday School teacher once told me that 
 she expected her entire class of young ladies would be 
 converted in the meetings which were about to be held 
 in her village. She had asked God for their souls and 
 
36o MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 she knew He would answer her prayers. With this 
 assurance she worked judiciously and prayerfully and 
 the result was according to her faith ; every one of her 
 class was soundly converted to God. 
 
 AN UNLOOKED-FOR REVIVAL 
 
 REV. ROBERT WATT, D, D. 
 
 The subjoined incident may be of some service to 
 the cause of Him "whose we are and whom we serve." 
 It occurred during the second year of the writer's 
 ministry, on this wise : 
 
 The usual week-night prayer service was being 
 held. The only unusual feature that evening was that 
 a visiting minister made the address. His remarks 
 were not as felicitous as could have been desired, and 
 the devotional spirit might have been more propitious. 
 The mention of a special service, beginning that night, 
 would have provoked a broad smile. It seemed wise, 
 under the circumstances, to conclude the service. 
 With that thought in mind the pastor rose to announce 
 a closing hymn. At that juncture, however, an 
 unlooked-for event happened. There came upon him 
 an almost resistless impulse to open his heart to the 
 people. And yet there was such an utter absence of 
 so-called "special indications" that the impulse was 
 about to pass unheeded. So persistent, so insistent 
 was it that it could not be disregarded entirely. 
 Something must be done, and quickly, too, for the 
 burden was becoming unbearable. 
 
 Relief was at hand. Seated in that quiet room that 
 autumnal night was a goodly company of young 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 261 
 
 people whose respect and love had been gained by the 
 pastor. Why not make use of this to win them to the 
 Master? Surely the thought was divinely given. 
 The fact was referred to in those closing words. 
 Allusion was made also to the heart-hunger for souls 
 felt by every true pastor. The words, falteringly 
 spoken, were listened to with an interest that was sur- 
 prising. Feeling deepened and intensified. Many 
 eyes were luminous with the mist of unshed tears. 
 
 Why not open the door of opportunity at once? 
 Without waiting to parley or debate the wisdom or 
 unwisdom of such a course, the suggestion was acted 
 on. Imagine the feelings of that inexperienced pas- 
 tor, when, in response to a simple invitation, twelve 
 young people — some of whom had been conspicuously 
 careless hitherto — rose and requested the prayers of 
 the church ! It is needless to add that the service did 
 not close at the usual hour. The dreamed-of revival 
 had come! The tide must be taken at its flood. 
 Services for the rest of the week were announced, and 
 that series of meetings continued for over six weeks. 
 The revival in that obscure little church became the 
 subject of general remark throughout the whole com- 
 munity. Its seen results were seventy souls saved, 
 believers edified and a discouraged, struggling church 
 put on its feet so that it became one of the best charges 
 in the conference. 
 
 I have called it the * *unlooked-for revival, " for such it 
 was. There was no season of formal preparation, no 
 "Scolding of the church — there were some hearts long- 
 ing for a revival and — it came ! 
 
 And what a blessed revival it was! Its memory 
 abides and, not infrequently, has it proved a spiritual 
 
262 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 tonic when faith was languid and the "signs" lacking. 
 How my heart glows as it all comes back again through 
 the mist of years ! And with this memory comes this 
 passage: '*They joy before thee according to the joy 
 of harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the 
 spoil." Fortunate the pastor and the church who are 
 sensitive to the presence of **the King," and whose 
 faith is keen-visioned enough to detect the sign of the 
 Son of man. 
 
 O FOR A BAPTISM OF PRAYER! 
 
 MRS. M. N. VAN BENSCHOTEN. 
 
 He was the principal of the academy in the place 
 and a member of my Bible-class. I had been told he 
 was skeptical in his views. I found him keen, alert, 
 and appreciative. For three months I prepared every 
 lesson with reference to him. When the revival serv- 
 ices commenced I thought: **Now is the time to bring 
 him in." For two weeks he was indifferent and at 
 times frivolous. One afternoon I was reading about 
 the destruction of Sennacherib's host, when suddenly 
 I could read no more, for a strange strength took hold 
 of me. I said: "This mighty God is ours. He is the 
 same yesterday, to-day and forever. He who an- 
 swered Hezekiah's prayer can give me this soul." 
 I arose at once and, with a commanding faith that 
 thrilled me, I slowly ascended the stairs to my secret 
 place of prayer. I had only uttered, *'Oh, thou God 
 of Hezekiah!" when a tidal wave of intercession was 
 rolled upon me. An hour passed ; but still I wrestled 
 against the powers of darkness, and with God, that 
 Christ might gain that soul. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS 263 
 
 At last a great calm came over me. I heard the 
 rush of dark wings ; the morning broke ; the clear light 
 shone ; I knew I was victor. 
 
 That night I could not go to meeting and I learned 
 he was not there. It did not disturb me; it had passed 
 out of my hands; all anxious care was gone. The 
 second night I was again detained, but my husband, 
 on his return, said: "The professor was there and 
 came forward and was gloriously saved. He said he 
 had been under great conviction, but had resisted, for 
 he knew if he was converted he must preach — *But,* 
 said he, 'I have surrendered, and Jesus is mine.' " 
 
 That young man has been preaching the Gospel for 
 several years. 
 
 Oh, Sunday School teacher, pray mightily to God, 
 and win that unsaved soul in your class to Jesus ! 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 These outlines have been very carefully selected from the pub- 
 lished sermons of those whose preaching has been blessed to 
 the salvation of men. The outlines are obtained by reducing 
 to their present form many of the best sermons of such emi- 
 nent evangelists as: D. L. Moody, Charles G. Finney, C. H. 
 Spurgeon, Chas. Ingles, Harry Moorehouse, R. A. Torrey, 
 and others. The compilation and editing is by the editor of 
 this volume. THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
 REGENERATION 
 
 "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto 
 thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
 God."— John 3: 3. 
 
 I. Regeneration is an absolute necessity. 
 
 II. What regeneration is not. 
 
 1. It is not going to church. 
 
 2. It is not good works. 
 
 3. It is not reformation. 
 
 4. It is not baptism. 
 
 5. It is not the Lord's Supper. 
 
 III. Necessary for every one without regard to 
 
 CHARACTER OR REPUTATION. 
 
 IV. Not THE WORK of man, but OF God. 
 
 V. Wrought through faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 VI. Accomplished by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 VII. The only way to see heaven and heavenly 
 things. 
 
 I. Changed into a new man with a new nature. 
 364 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 265 
 
 2. With power to overcome temptation. 
 
 3. Fitness to dwell in heaven. 
 
 4. Singing a new song. 
 
 5. Seeing sainted ones in glory. 
 
 — D. L. M. 
 
 THE GOSPEL— I 
 
 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach the Gospel to the poor."— Luke 4: 18. 
 
 I. What is the Gospel? 
 
 II. Good tidings. 
 
 1. Takes away the fear of death. 
 
 2. Tells us we shall rise again. 
 
 3. Promises the forgiveness of sins. 
 
 4. Gives assurance of everlasting life. 
 
 5. Proclaims God's love for even the chief of 
 
 sinners. 
 
 D. L. M. 
 
 THE GOSPEL— II 
 
 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
 me to preach the Gospel to the poor."— Luke 4:18. 
 
 I. To WHOM SHALL THE GOSPEL BE PREACHED? 
 
 1. To every creature. 
 
 2. To the sinning and to the unworthy. 
 
 3. To all who take the place of guilty sinners. 
 
 II. For whom is there blessing? 
 
 1. For all the poor and needy. 
 
 2. For those who believe Christ died in their stead. 
 
 3. For all who accept Him. 
 
 D. L. M. 
 
266 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 CHRIST AS A DELIVERER 
 "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive 
 delivered? But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the 
 mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be 
 delivered : for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, 
 and I will save thy children."— Isaiah 49: 24, 25. 
 
 I. There are two classes of people. 
 
 1. Those bound by Satan. 
 
 2. Those delivered by Jesus. 
 
 II. Some do not know they are bound by satan. 
 
 III. All are born into slavery. 
 
 IV. Christ came to deliver the captives. 
 
 V. The proclamation of deliverance is to all. 
 
 VI. To KNOW the truth is to be made free. 
 
 VII. Christ delivers now from the power of every 
 
 SIN. 
 
 VIII. All who believe in Him are delivered. 
 
 -d. l. m. 
 
 COMPASSION OF CHRIST 
 
 "And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was 
 moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." — 
 Matt. 14: 14. 
 
 I. Christ knows the history of each one of us. 
 
 II. He is moved with compassion when we tell it 
 over to Him. 
 
 III. A sinner's confession moves Christ with compas- 
 sion. 
 
 IV. Christ has compassion for all kinds of sinners. 
 
 V. He receives all who come to Him with any dis- 
 tress. 
 
 VI. The sad stories of your life will move His heart 
 with compassion. 
 
 — d. l. m. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 367 
 
 CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE WORLD 
 
 "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is 
 lost" — Luke 19: 10. 
 
 I. God sent His Son into the world to do a work. 
 
 II. He gave Him power to do that work. 
 
 III. Ask Him to use His power in your behalf. 
 
 IV. He gives an instantaneous salvation. 
 
 V. His salvation is genuine and thorough. 
 
 VI. Salvation is for those who are lost. 
 
 VII. Take the place of a lost sinner and be saved. 
 
 — D. l. m. 
 
 RETRIBUTION 
 
 "Son, remember. "—Luke 16.25. 
 
 I. There is everlasting retribution, future punish- 
 ment. 
 
 II. There will be a quickened memory and condemn 
 nation for all sin. 
 
 III. The Bible plainly teaches future retribution, 
 
 IV. Justice demands that there be future retribu- 
 tion. 
 
 V. There is a place where Jesus will not come 
 offering salvation. 
 
 VI. Present Christian privileges despised, will there 
 be remembered for judgment. 
 
 VII. A REAPING in kind MUST FOLLOW THE SOWING OF 
 TARES. 
 
 VIII. Grace refused hardens the heart and makes 
 
 FUTURE RETRIBUTION MORE SURE. 
 
 IX. Mercy spurned makes a death-bed the fearful 
 
 BEGINNING OF UNENDING PUNISHMENT. 
 
 — D. L. M. 
 
36S SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 LOVE 
 
 "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, 
 be of one mind, live in peace: and the God of love and peace 
 shall be with you."— 2 Cor. 13: 11. 
 
 God is love. 
 
 I. His love is universal. 
 
 II. His love is unchangeable. 
 
 III. His love is everlasting. 
 
 IV. His love is unfailing. — d. l. m. 
 
 CONFESSING CHRIST 
 "For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and 
 with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." — Rom. 10: 10. 
 
 I. Confessing Christ must follow believing on Him. 
 
 II. Some professed Christians are moral cowards. 
 
 III. Christians are in darkness because they do not 
 confess Christ. 
 
 IV. Pride is the one hindrance to their confession. 
 
 V. Christ confesses in heaven those who confess Him 
 ON earth. 
 
 VI. Confessing Christ brings great blessings in this 
 life. 
 
 VII. Confession of salvation through Christ leads 
 OTHERS TO Him. — D. L. m. 
 
 SEEKING THE LORD 
 "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him 
 while he is near. "—Isaiah 55: 6. 
 
 I. The sinner seeking the Lord. 
 
 II. It is a direct command. 
 
 III. With all the heart. 
 
 IV. Must be in earnest. 
 
 V. While He is near. 
 
 VI. When He may be found. — d. l. m. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 269 
 
 GRACE— I 
 
 I. What is grace? 
 
 II. It is a free gift. 
 
 III. Unto whom is it given? 
 
 1. To those who confess they are lost. 
 
 2. To those who take the lowest place. 
 
 3. To those who know they are unworthy. 
 
 4. To those who stop working for salvation. 
 
 5. To all men. — d. l. u 
 
 GRACE— II 
 
 I. Law cannot save the sinner. 
 
 II. The distinction between law and grace. 
 
 III. What is it to be under grace? 
 
 IV. Unbelief is a hindrance to grace. 
 
 V. How TO BE PARTAKERS OF GRACE. 
 
 VI. Every necessity is provided for in grace. 
 
 — d. l. m. 
 
 WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH JESUS? ^ 
 "Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which 
 is called Christ?" — Matt. 27: 22. 
 
 I. It IS A direct question. 
 
 II. It is a disturbing question. 
 
 III. It is a personal question. 
 
 IV. It is an imperative question. 
 
 V. It is a present question. — d. l. m. 
 
 ON TRUSTING IN THE MERCY OF GOD 
 "I will trust in the mercy of God forever and ever." — Psa. 52: 8, 
 I. What mercy is, 
 
 1. Meicy is not to be confounded with mere good- 
 
 ness. 
 
 2. Mercy is a disposition to pardon the guilty. 
 
 3. Mercy is exercised only where there is guilt. 
 
27© SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 4. Mercy can be exercised no farther than one 
 deserves punishment. 
 
 II. What is implied in trusting in the mercy of God. 
 
 1. A conviction of guilt. 
 
 2. That we have no hope on the score of justice. 
 
 3. A just apprehension of what mercy is. 
 
 4. A belief that He is merciful. 
 
 5. The conviction of deserving endless punish- 
 
 ment. 
 
 6. The cessation from all excuses and excuse- 
 
 making. 
 
 III. The conditions on which we may safely trust in 
 God's mercy. 
 
 1. Public justice must be appeased. 
 
 2. We must repent. 
 
 3. We must confess our sins. 
 
 4. Make restitution so far as lies in our power. 
 
 5. Must really reform. 
 
 6. Go the whole length in justifying the law and 
 
 its penalty. 
 
 7. Must be entirely submissive to those measures 
 
 of the government bringing him to conviction. 
 
 8. Must close in cordially with the plan of salva- 
 
 tion. 
 
 IV. Mistakes which are made on this subject. 
 
 I Many really trust in justice and not in mercy. 
 
 2. Many trust professedly in the mercy of God 
 
 without fulfilling the conditions on which 
 mercy can be shown. 
 
 3. Sinners do not consider that God cannot dis- 
 
 pense with their fulfilling these conditions. 
 
 4. Many are defeating their own salvation by self- 
 
 justification. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 171 
 
 5. Many pretend to trust in mercy who yet profess 
 
 to be punished for their sins as they go along. 
 
 6. Persons, in the letter, plead for mercy who 
 
 often rely really upon justice. 
 
 7. Some are covering up their sins, yet dream of 
 
 going to heaven. 
 
 8. We cannot ask for mercy beyond our acknowl- 
 
 edged and felt guilt. 
 
 (a) If we ask for little msrcy we shall get none 
 at all. 
 
 (b) To deny the desert of endless punishment is 
 to render salvation impossible. 
 
 (c) All are not saved because they defeat the 
 efforts God makes to save them. 
 
 — c. G. r. 
 
 THE SAVIOR LIFTED UP, AND THE 
 LOOK OF FAITH 
 
 "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so 
 must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in 
 him should not perish, but have eternal life." — John 3: 14, 15. 
 
 "And 1, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
 unto me. This he said signifying what death he should die."— 
 John 12: 32, 33. 
 
 The object was to save men from perishing. 
 I. Christ must be lifted up as the serpent was ih 
 
 THE wilderness. 
 
 1. As a remedy for sin. 
 
 2. As a full and adequate remedy. 
 
 3. As a present remedy. 
 
 4. As a divinely certified remedy. 
 
 5. As one crucified for the sins of men. 
 
272 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 II. Christ must be looked at when He is lifted up. 
 I. Look expecting divine power to save. 
 a. Looking to Jesus implies that we look away 
 from ourselves. 
 
 3. Salvation must be the object for which they 
 
 look. 
 
 4. Sinners must look to Christ as a remedy for all 
 
 sin. 
 
 5. Sinners may look at once without the least 
 
 delay. 
 
 6. Must look, for blessings, not to works, but to 
 
 faith. 
 
 Bemarkg 
 
 1. A great multitude will be saved. 
 
 2. Faith is here put to the test. 
 
 3. Many perish through mere unbelief. 
 
 4. Many are stumbled by the simplicity of the Gos- 
 pel. 
 
 5. Natural man seeks for a way of salvation credit- 
 able to himself. 
 
 6. Many have religion, but with Christ out of view. 
 
 7. Many are looking for some wonderful sign or 
 token. 
 
 8. Many also perish from delay. 
 
 9. Some are driven oflE into the wilderness through 
 despair. 
 
 10. Others neglect to look because they think they 
 are improving. 
 
 11. Many refuse to look because full of doubts. 
 
 12. Sinners look every other way but toward 
 Christ. — c. G. F. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 273 
 
 THE EXCUSES OF SINNERS CONDEMN GOD 
 
 * 'Wilt thou even disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, 
 that thou mayest be righteous?"— Job 40: 8. 
 
 I. Every excuse for sin condemns God 
 
 1. Nothing can be sin for which there is a justifi- 
 
 able excuse. 
 
 2. If God condemns that for which there is a good 
 
 excuse, He must be wrong. 
 
 3. But God does condemn all sin. 
 
 4. Consequently every excuse for sin charges 
 
 blame upon God. 
 
 II. Consider some of these excuses in detail 
 
 1. Inability. 
 
 2. Want of time. 
 
 3. A sinful nature. 
 
 4. Willing to be a Christian, but hindered. 
 
 5. Waiting God's time. 
 
 6. Circumstances are very peculiar. 
 
 7. Temperament is peculiar. 
 
 8. Health is too poor to go to the meetings. 
 
 9. The heart is so hard there is no feeling. 
 
 10. My heart is so wicked I can't. 
 
 11. My heart is so deceitful. 
 
 12. I have tried to become a Christian. 
 
 13. It will do no good to try. 
 
 14. I have offered to give my heart to Christ, but 
 
 He won't receive me. 
 
 15. There is no salvation for me. 
 
 16. I cannot change my own heart. 
 
 17. I cannot change my heart without more convic- 
 
 tion. 
 
 18. I must first have more of the Spirit. 
 
274 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 19. God must change my heart. 
 
 ao. I can't live a Christian life if I were to become 
 
 a Christian. 
 ai. This is a very dark and mysterious subject. 
 a a. I can't believe. 
 2$, I can't realize these things. 
 34. I can't repent 
 III. All excuses for sin add i^msult to injury 
 
 X. A plea that reflects injuriously upon the court 
 
 is an aggravation of the original crime. 
 a. A plea that is false, made in self -justification, is 
 
 an aggravation of the crime charged. 
 3. It is truly abominable for the sinner to abuse 
 God and then excuse himself for it. 
 
 Remarks 
 
 I. No sinner under the light of the Gospel lives a 
 single hour in sin without some excuse to justify him- 
 self. 
 
 a. Excuses render repentance impossible. 
 
 3. Sinners should lay all their excuses at once 
 before God. 
 
 4. What infinite madness to rest on excuses which 
 you dare not bring before God now. 
 
 5. Sinners don't need their excuses. God does not 
 ask for even one. 
 
 6. Sinners ought to be ashamed of their excuses and 
 repent of them. 
 
 7. Admit your obligation and you are, of course, 
 estopped from making excuses. 
 
 8. To admit the obligation and still plead excuses is 
 to insult God to His face and charge Him with infinite 
 tyranny. — c. g. f. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES »j$ 
 
 THE SPIRIT NOT STRIVING ALWAYS 
 
 And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with 
 — Gen. 6: 3. 
 
 I. What is implied in the assertion, **My spirit 
 
 SHALL not always STRIVE WITH MAN"? 
 
 1. That the Spirit does sometimes strive with 
 
 man, 
 
 2. That men resist the Spirit. 
 
 II. What is not intended by the Spirit's striving? 
 
 III. What, then, is the striving of the Spirit? 
 
 IV. How MAY it be known WHEN THE SpIRIT OF GOD 
 STRIVES WITH AN INDIVIDUAL? 
 
 I. When one finds his attention arrested to the 
 
 great concerns of his soul. 
 a. When a man finds himself convinced of sin. 
 
 3. When the mind is convicted of the great guilt 
 
 and ill desert of sin. 
 
 4. When the soul is convicted of the guilt of unbe- 
 
 lief. 
 
 5. When men see the danger of dying in their sins. 
 
 6. When sinners feel the danger of being given 
 
 up of God. 
 
 7. When sinners are convicted of the great blind- 
 
 ness of their minds. 
 
 8. When sinners are shown their total alienation 
 
 from God. 
 
 9. When men are convinced that they are ashamed 
 
 of Christ. 
 
 10. When sinners are convicted of vorldly minded- 
 
 ness. 
 
 11. When such a personal application of the truth 
 
 is made as to fasten the impression. 
 
»76 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 I a. When sinners are convinced of the enmity of 
 their hearts against God, 
 
 13. When sinners are powerfully convicted of the 
 
 deceitfulness of their own hearts. 
 
 14. When, not infrequently, the sinner is stripped of 
 
 his excuses, and clearly shown his great folly 
 and absurdity. 
 
 15. When men are convicted of the folly of seeking 
 
 salvation in any other way than through 
 Christ alone. 
 
 16. When men are convinced of the great folly and 
 
 madness of clinging to an unsanctifying hope. 
 
 17. When sinners are convinced that all their good- 
 
 ness is selfish. 
 
 18. When self-deceived men feel that they are now 
 
 having their last call from the Spirit. 
 
 V. What is intended by the Spirit's not striving 
 
 ALWAYS ? 
 
 VI. Why God's Spirit will not strive always. 
 
 1. Because longer striving will do the sinner no 
 
 good. 
 
 2. Because to strive longer not only does the sin- 
 
 ner no good, but positive evil. 
 
 3. Because sinners sin willfully when they resist 
 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 4. Because their resistance tempts the forbearance 
 
 of God. 
 
 5. Because there is a point beyond which forbear- 
 
 ance is not a virtue. 
 
 VII. Consequences of the Spirit's ceasing to strive 
 with men. 
 
 I. A confirmed opposition to religion. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 277 
 
 2. An opposition to revivals and to Gospel min- 
 
 isters. 
 
 3. Men betake themselves to some refuge of lies 
 
 and will settle down in some form of fatal 
 error. 
 
 4. Those who are left of God come to have a 
 
 seared conscience. 
 
 5. This class of sinners will inevitably wax worse 
 
 and worse. 
 
 6. Another consequence of being abandoned by 
 
 the Spirit will be certain damnation. 
 
 7. Again Christians find themselves unable to pray 
 
 in faith for such sinners. 
 
 8. When the Spirit has ceased to strive with sin- 
 
 ners no means whatever, employed for the 
 purpose, can be effectual for their salvation. 
 
 Remarks 
 
 1. Christians can account for the fact why there are 
 some for whom they cannot pray. 
 
 2. Sinners should be aware that light and guilt keep 
 pace with each other. 
 
 — c. G. F. 
 
 GOD'S LOVE COMMENDED TO US 
 
 "But God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we 
 were yet sinners, Christ died for us." — Romans 5: 8. 
 
 I. How DOES God commend His love to us? 
 
 II. Why does He commend His love to us? 
 
 III. He would show that His love is unselfish. 
 
 IV. Again God designed to reveal the moral char- 
 acter OF His love for men, especially its justice. 
 
278 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 V. He sought in thus commending His love to us 
 TO subdue our slavish fear. 
 
 VI. He would lead us to serve Him in love and not 
 
 IN BONDAGE. 
 
 Remarks 
 
 1. We see that saving faith must be the heart's belief 
 of this great fact that God so loved us. 
 
 2. God would have men see His love in the gift of 
 His own dear Son. 
 
 3. Men find it difficult to repent because they do not 
 receive this great fact in simple faith. 
 
 4. In no other way could God so forcibly demon- 
 strate His great love to our race. 
 
 5. If we had been His friends, there had been no 
 need of His dying for us. 
 
 6. It is not sinless beings but sinful men that move 
 God's heart to its very foundations. 
 
 7. Christ died for us that He might save us; not in 
 hvitfrom our sins. 
 
 8. You must infer that Jesus is willing to save you 
 from wrath if you truly repent and accept Him as your 
 Saviour. 
 
 9. You may infer that God, having spared not His 
 Son, will also with Him freely give you all things else. 
 
 — c. G. F. 
 
 SALVATION OF THE LORD 
 
 "Salvation is of the Lord."— Jonah 2: 9. 
 
 Where Jonah learned this sentence of good theology! 
 I. An exposition of the doctrine of salvation. 
 1. The plan of salvation is entirely of God. 
 a. It was of the Lord in execution. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES J79 
 
 3. It is of the Lord in the application of it. 
 
 4. It is the Lord who sustains the work in any 
 
 man's heart. 
 
 5. The ultimate perfection of salvation is of the 
 
 Lord. 
 
 II. How God has hedged this doctrine about. 
 
 1. Salvation is not the result of natural tempera- 
 
 ment. 
 
 2. It is not the minister who converts men. 
 
 III. What is — what should be the influence of 
 
 THIS doctrine upon MEN? 
 
 1. With sinners it is a great battering-ram against 
 
 their pride. 
 
 2. With saints it keeps from error and distrust. 
 
 3. It nerves one to work for God. 
 
 IV. What is the obverse of this truth ? 
 
 I. Salvation is of God: then damnation is of man. 
 
 — c. H. s, 
 
 SALVATION TO THE UTTERMOST 
 
 "Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come 
 unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them."— -Heb. 7: 25. 
 
 Revelation affords us a complete history of salva- 
 tion. Nowhere else can we find any trace thereof. 
 
 I. The people who are to be saved. 
 
 1. Where these people come to. 
 
 2. How they come. 
 
 3. What do they come for? 
 
 4. In what style do these persons come? 
 
 II. What is the measure of the Saviour's ability? 
 I. To the uttermost extent of the sinner's guilt. 
 
28o SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 2. To the uttermost of the sinner's rejection of 
 
 Him. 
 
 3. To the uttermost of the sinner's despair. 
 
 4. To the uttermost of the saint's distress. 
 
 III. Why is Jesus Christ able to save to the utter- 
 most? 
 
 1. Because He died to save. 
 
 2. Because He lives to make intercession. 
 
 (a) A warning. There is a limit to God's 
 
 mercy. 
 (d) A question. Christ has done so much for 
 
 you; what have you ever done for Him? 
 
 c. H. s. 
 
 THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE 
 
 "He that is our God is the God of salvation: and unto God the 
 Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the 
 head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth 
 on still in his trespasses." — Ps. 68: 20, 21, 
 
 We gather from the text that death is in the hand 
 of God; that escapes from death are manifestations 
 of His divine power and that He is to be praised for 
 them. 
 
 I. The sovereign prerogative of God. 
 
 1. To God belongs the right to exercise it. 
 
 2. The Lord has the power of this prerogative. 
 
 3. The Lord has actually exercised this preroga- 
 
 tive. 
 
 4. Let Him have all the glory of it for your 
 
 deliverance. 
 
 II. The character of the sovereign in whom that 
 
 PREROGATIVE IS VESTED. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 281 
 
 I. Salvation is the most glorious of all God's 
 
 designs. 
 a. The most delightful works which the Lord has 
 
 performed have been works of salvation. 
 3. To those who can call him *'Our Lord," He is 
 specially and emphatically the God of salva- 
 tion. 
 III. Hear the solemn warning of our Sovereign 
 Lord. 
 
 1. He will by no means spare the guilty. 
 
 2. He is not indifferent to human character. 
 
 3. He has the power to smite those who rebel 
 
 against Him. 
 
 4. He will smite with a terrible, even an utter, 
 
 overthrow. 
 
 — c. H. s. 
 
 SALVATION BY KNOWING THE TRUTH 
 
 "God our Savior: who will have all men to be saved, and to 
 come unto the knowledge of the truth." — i Tim. 2: 3, 4. 
 
 It is the wish of God that all men should be saved. 
 I. It is by a knowledge of the truth that men are 
 
 SAVED. 
 
 1. It is a knowledge of the truth. 
 
 (a) This knowledge saves him from carelessness. 
 {V) This knowledge saves him from prejudice. 
 {c) This knowledge saves him from despair. 
 
 2. How a saving knowledge works. 
 
 (a) Shows a man his personal need of being 
 
 saved. 
 {p) Reveals the atonement by which we are 
 
 saved. 
 
flSa SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 (c) Shows us what that faith is by which the 
 atonement becomes available for us. 
 3. How we are to know the truth. 
 {a) By a believing knowledge. 
 
 (b) By a powerful knowledge. 
 
 (c) By an experimental knowledge. 
 
 II. Two INFERENCES. 
 
 1. To you that are seeking salvation. 
 
 2. To you who desire to save sinners. 
 
 — C. H. S. 
 
 THE PLAIN MAN'S PATHWAY TO PEACE 
 
 "And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed 
 him, crying and saying. Thou son of David, have mercy on us. 
 And when he was come unto the house, the blind men came to 
 him : and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do 
 this? They said unto him. Yea, Lord. Then touched he their 
 eyes, saying. According to your faith be it unto yoiL And their 
 eyes were opened ; and Jesus straitly charged them, sajring, See 
 that no man know it." — Matt. 9: ay-sa 
 
 The extreme simplicity of the cure. Conversion as 
 a work of the Holy Ghost is likewise extremely 
 simple. 
 I. Many persons are much troubled in coming to 
 
 Christ. 
 
 1. In some cases it is ignorance. 
 
 2. In many cases men are hindered by prejudice. 
 
 3. With others the hindrance lies in downright bad 
 
 teaching. 
 
 4. Then there is the natural pride of the human 
 
 heart. 
 
 5. In some instances the trouble arises from a 
 
 singularity of mental conformation. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 383 
 
 6. Some are kept from coming to Christ through 
 remarkable assaults of Satan. 
 
 II. This is not at all essential to a real saving; 
 TO a coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 I. It is very hard to see how despairing feelings 
 
 can be essential to salvation. 
 a. Much of all this struggling and tumult within, 
 
 which some have experienced, is the work of 
 
 the devil. 
 
 3. Many instances prove that all this law and work 
 
 and doubting and fearing and despairing and 
 being tormented by Satan are not essential, 
 because there are scores and hundreds of 
 Christians who came at once to Christ, as 
 these two blind men did, and to this very day 
 know very little about these things. 
 
 4. There are all the essentials of salvation in the 
 
 simple, pleasant, happy way of coming to 
 Jesus just as you are. 
 
 5. The Gospel command implies in itself nothing 
 
 of the kind, which some have experienced. 
 
 III. Those persons who are privileged to come to 
 Jesus Christ softly, pleasantly and happily, are 
 NOT losers. 
 
 1. They may lose a sensational religious experi- 
 
 ence, but there is not much in that. 
 
 2. Do not suppose that persons who come thus 
 
 gently lose something by way of evidence 
 afterwards. 
 
 3. Do not think that those who come gently to 
 
 Christ lose a good deal of adaptation for after 
 usefulness because they will not be able to 
 sjmipathize with those who are in deep per- 
 
284 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 plexity and in awful straits when they are 
 coming to Christ. — c. h. s. 
 
 THE GREAT ARBITRATION CASE 
 
 "Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his 
 hand upon us both." — ^Job 9: 33. 
 
 There is an old quarrel between the thrice holy God 
 and His sinful subjects, the sons of Adam. The 
 infinite grace of God proposes an arbitration. 
 
 I. What are the essentials of an umpire_, an arbi- 
 trator OR A daysman? 
 
 1. Both parties should be agreed to accept him. 
 
 2. Both parties must be fully agreed to leave the 
 
 case entirely in the arbitrator's hands. 
 
 3. To make a good arbitrator it is essential that he 
 
 be a fit person. 
 
 4. He should be a person desirous to bring the 
 
 case to a happy settlement. 
 
 II. Enter into the court where the trial is going 
 
 ON AND SEE THE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE GREAT 
 DAYSMAN. 
 
 1. He opens His court by laying down the prin- 
 
 ciples upon which He intends to deliver 
 
 judgment. 
 (a) strict justice. 
 (5) Fervent love. 
 
 2. Next He calls upon the plaintiff — the Great 
 
 Creator — to state His case. 
 
 3. Then the defendant — the guilty sinner — is 
 
 called upon by the daysman for his, and he 
 pleads : 
 (a) 1 confess to the indictment, but I say I could 
 not help it. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 285 
 
 (d) I am no worse than other offenders. 
 
 (c) I have done a great many good things. 
 
 (d) I promise that for the future I will do better. 
 {e) I have with me a friend to help me out — 
 
 Ritualism. 
 (/) I have nothing more to plead, I appeal to 
 the mercy of the plaintiff. 
 
 4. The plaintiff declares He will not spare the 
 
 guilty ; he has offended and he must die. 
 
 5. The arbitrator now gives Himself for the sin- 
 
 ner, with the pledge to suffer in His own proper 
 person all that the weeping, trembling sinner 
 ought to have suffered. 
 III. Let us now look at the daysman's success. 
 
 1. The case has been settled conclusively. 
 
 2. The case has been settled on the best principles. 
 
 3. The case has been so settled that both parties 
 
 are well content. 
 
 4. But what is more wonderful still, both parties 
 
 have gained the case. 
 
 5. Both parties have come to be united in the 
 
 strongest, closest, dearest and fondest bond 
 of union. 
 
 — c. H. s. 
 
 ONLY TRUST HIM! ONLY TRUST HIM! 
 
 "And as lie entered into a certain village, there met him ten 
 men that were lepers, which stood afar off, and they lifted up 
 their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And 
 when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto 
 the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were 
 cleansed." — Luke 17: 12-14. 
 
 It was required by the Saviour to perform an act of 
 faith in Him before there was the slightest evidence 
 
iS6 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 in themselves. He had wrought a good work upon 
 them. 
 
 I. What signs are commonly looked for by uncon- 
 verted MEN AS REASONS FOR BELIEVING IN ChRIST? 
 
 1. A consciousness of great sin and a horrible 
 
 dread of divine wrath, leading to despair. 
 
 2. The experience of quite a blaze of joy before 
 
 they can trust Christ. 
 
 3. Others expect a text to be impressed upon 
 
 their minds. 
 
 4. Some expect an actual conversion to be mani- 
 
 fest in them before they will trust the Sav- 
 iour. 
 
 5. Others have an idea that if they were to be 
 
 saved they would experience some very sin- 
 gular sensation. 
 
 II. What the reason is for our believing in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 1. God's witness concerning His Son Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. The next warrant for our believing is Jesus 
 
 Christ Himself. 
 
 3. Again, the warrant for believing is in the fact 
 
 that God commands us to believe. 
 
 4. Moreover, there is the promise made to us and 
 
 to every creature: ** Believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
 
 5. These poor lepers believed because they had 
 
 heard of others whom He had cleansed. 
 
 III. What is the issue of this kind of faith that 
 
 I HAVE been preaching? 
 
 I. The very existence of such a faith as that in the 
 soul is evidence that there is already a saving 
 change. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 287 
 
 (a) It will be an evidence also that you are 
 humble. 
 
 (d) It will be the best evidence that you are 
 reconciled to God. 
 2. Before long, sooner or later, you will become 
 delightfully conscious of the fact that you are 
 saved. 
 
 (a) By simply trusting Christ alone, without mir- 
 acles, signs or evidences, you will have within 
 you a power which will carry you through 
 life and preserve you in holiness even to the 
 end. 
 
 (d) This is faith to die with as well as to live 
 with ; it is to trust because of what /esus is 
 and not because of what j^ou are, 
 
 — c. H. s. 
 
 JESUS ONLY 
 
 "And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, 
 lave Jesus only." — Matt 17: 8. 
 
 The quiet but delightful ordinary fellowship with 
 ** Jesus only," which ought to be the distinguishing 
 mark of all Christian life, is better for every day than 
 the excessive strain of the transfiguration glory. 
 I. What might have happened to the three dis- 
 ciples AFTER THEY HAD SEEN THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 1. They might have seen nobody with them on 
 
 the holy mount. 
 
 2. When they lifted up their eyes they might have 
 
 seen Moses only. 
 
 3. As a third alternative, they might have seen 
 
 Elijah only. 
 
288 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 4. Or they might have seen Moses and Elias with 
 Jesus. 
 
 II. What really did happen. 
 
 1. "Jesus only" was all they wanted to see for 
 
 their comfort. 
 
 2. ** Jesus only" was enough as their power for 
 
 future life. 
 
 3. ** Jesus only" shall be our reward — to be with 
 
 Him where He is. 
 
 III. What we anxiously desire may happen to 
 
 THOSE WHO HEAR US. 
 
 1. For ourselves and fellow Christians, that, more 
 
 and more, the great object of our thoughts, 
 motives and acts may be "Jesus only." 
 
 2. For those who are not yet believers in Jesus our 
 
 desire is that this may happen to them — that 
 they may see "Jesus only." 
 
 — c. H. s. 
 
 FAITH: WHAT IS IT? HOW CAN IT BE 
 OBTAINED? 
 
 "By grace are ye saved through faith." — Ephes. s: £. 
 
 The fountain-head of our salvation is the grace of 
 God. Faith is the channel along which the flood of 
 mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons of men. 
 I. Faith^ what IS IT? 
 
 1. It is made up of three things: knowledge, 
 
 belief and trust. 
 
 2. It is believing that Christ is what He is said 
 
 to be. 
 
 3. It is believing that Christ will do what He has 
 
 promised. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 289 
 
 4. It is expecting this of Him. 
 
 5. Sometimes it is little more than a simple cling- 
 
 ing to Christ. 
 
 6. Another form of faith is to freely follow Christ 
 
 as a leader. 
 
 7. Again, one exerts faith in Christ while learning 
 
 of Him. 
 
 8. A higher form of faith is that which grows out 
 
 of love. 
 
 9. Again, faith also realizes the presence of the 
 
 1 iTing God and Saviour. 
 
 10. A firm form of faith arises out of assured 
 
 knowledge. 
 
 11. This faith makes it easy to commit our soul and 
 
 all its eternal interests into the Saviour's 
 keeping. 
 
 II. Why faith is selected as the channel of sal- 
 vation. 
 
 1. Because there is a natural adaptation in faith to 
 
 be used as the receiver. 
 
 2. Because it gives all the glory to God. 
 
 3. Because it is a sure method, linking man with 
 
 God. 
 
 4. Because it touches the springs of action. 
 
 5. Because faith again has the power of working 
 
 by love. 
 
 6. Because, moreover, faith creates peace and joy. 
 
 III. How CAN WE OBTAIN AND INCREASE OUR FAITH ? 
 
 1. If you have a difficulty concerning faith, take it 
 
 before God in prayer. 
 
 2. The Holy Spirit will enable you to believe if 
 
 you hear very frequently and earnestly that 
 which you are commanded to believe. 
 
290 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 3. Next consider the testimony of others. 
 
 4. Note the authority upon which you are com. 
 
 manded to believe. 
 
 5. Think over what it is that you have to believe. 
 
 6. Think upon the person of Jesus Christ. You 
 
 cannot doubt Him. 
 
 7. Submit yourself to God. Yield to Him. 
 
 — C. H. Sw 
 
 ALL THINGS ARE READY. COME 
 
 "Come, for all things are now ready." — Luke 14: 17. 
 
 The readiness of everything on God's part is the 
 argument why men should come and partake of His 
 grace. 
 
 I. It is God's habit to have all things ready, 
 
 WHETHER FOR HiS GUESTS OR FOR HiS CREATURES. 
 
 1. God's thoughts go before men's comings. 
 
 2. This also proves how welcome those are who 
 
 come. 
 
 II. This readiness should be an argument that 
 His saints should come continually to Him to 
 find needed grace. 
 
 1. Therefore come to the storehouse of divine 
 
 promise. 
 
 2. Come next to the mercy-seat in prayer. 
 
 3. Christ is always ready to commune with His 
 
 people. 
 
 4. All things are ready for every daily duty. 
 
 5. Those who aspire to a higher degree of holiness 
 
 can come. 
 
 III. The perfect readiness of the feast of divine 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 291 
 
 MERCY IS EVIDENTLY INTENDED TO BE A STRONG ARGU- 
 MENT WITH SINNERS WHY THEY SHOULD COME AT ONCE. 
 
 1. Come, for all things are now ready. 
 
 2. Come, for all things are now ready, 
 
 3. Come, for all things are now ready. 
 
 4. Come, for all things are now ready. 
 
 IV. This text disposes of a great deal of talk about 
 
 THE sinner's readiness OR UNREADINESS. 
 
 1. The unreadiness of those who were bidden 
 
 arose out of their possessions and out of their 
 abilities. 
 
 2. Personal condition does not constitute an unfit- 
 
 ness for coming to Christ. 
 
 3. It is a great truth that what we regard as unfit- 
 
 ness is often our truest fitness. 
 
 — C. H. S, 
 
 EVERY MAN'S NEED OF A HIDING-PLACE 
 
 Text: "And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, 
 and a covert from the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, 
 as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." — Is. 32; 2. 
 
 Introduction: The man of this text is the man Christ 
 Jesus. Every man needs a hiding-place from five 
 things: The displeasure of God; his own conscience; 
 the power of sin within; the power of Satan; the 
 wrath of God. 
 I. Every man's need of a hiding-place. 
 
 I. From the displeasure of God, All have sinned 
 
 and God is holy. 
 a. From the accusations of his own conscience. No 
 torment like the torment of an accusing <X)n- 
 science. Illustrate from the Bible, literature 
 
292 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 and experience. Conscience sometimes 
 sleeps, never dies; the time of awakening 
 comes. Illustrate. 
 
 3. From the power of sin within. No man is able 
 
 in his own strength to overcome the evil 
 within. Any one who fancies he is, is self- 
 deceived. Illustrate. 
 
 4. Front the power of Satan. Some people do not 
 
 believe there is a devil, {a) The teaching of 
 the Bible; {p) evidence of the devil's exist- 
 ence all around us; the devil is too cunning 
 and too strong for us. 
 
 5. Fro7n the wrath of God. Many in this day do 
 
 not believe in the wrath to come, {a) The 
 Bible teaches it and it is safe to depend upon 
 the Bible ; {b) common sense also teaches it. 
 II. Christ the refuge every man needs. 
 
 1. Christ is a refuge from the displeasure of God. 
 
 (John. Z'-Z^'^ — Experience. 
 
 2. Christ is a refuge from the accusations of con- 
 
 science. 
 
 3. Christ is a refuge from the power of sin within. 
 
 (John 8: 36.) Illustrations from life. 
 
 4. Christ is a refuge from the power of Satan. 
 
 Satan is too strong for us; not strong enough 
 for Christ, (i John 4:4) Illustrate from life. 
 
 5. Christ is a refuge from the wrath to come, (i 
 
 Thess. i: 10.) Common sense teaches that 
 the Christ who can save us from the power 
 of sin here can save us from the consequenceg 
 of sin hereafter. 
 Conclusion: Close with an appeal. 
 
 — R. A. T 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 293 
 
 REFUGES OF LIES 
 
 Text: "The hail shall [sweep away the refuge of lies." — Is. 
 28: 17. 
 
 Introduction: Every man needs a refuge from the 
 displeasure of God, the accusations of his own con- 
 science, the power of sin within, the power of Satan 
 and the wrath to come. Almost all men have some- 
 thing in which they are trusting. How many are 
 trusting in a false refuge, a refuge of lies! 
 
 I. Tests whereby a refuge of lies can be known. 
 
 A true refuge must have five characteristics: 
 I. It must meet the highest and the fullest demands 
 of our own conscience ; if it does not it is not 
 a refuge from the accusations of our con- 
 science ; neither is it a refuge from the dis- 
 pleasure of God. 
 a. Trust in it must make us better men. If our 
 refuge is not making us better men, it is not 
 a refuge from the power of sin nor the power 
 of Satan; neither is it a refuge from the 
 wrath of God. The refuge that does not save 
 us from the power of sin here will not save 
 us from the consequences of sin hereafter. 
 
 3. It must stand the test of the dying hour. 
 
 4. It must stand the test of the judgment day. 
 
 5. It must stand the test of God's Word. 
 
 II. Refuges of lies. 
 
 I. Trusting in our own goodness. Apply the tests 
 
 gfiven above. 
 7. Other people's badness. *'I am not as bad as 
 
 other men." Apply the tests given above. 
 3. Hope that God is too good to let any one go to 
 
 hell. Apply tests. 
 
294 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 4. Infidelity. Apply tests. 
 
 5. Religion. To have religion is one thing, to 
 
 have Christ is another; many trusting in their 
 performance of religious duty. Apply tests. 
 III. Christ a true refuge. 
 I. Apply the tests. 
 Conclusion: Appeal to throw away all confidence in 
 refuges of lies, and flee to Christ at once. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 A SOLEMN QUESTION 
 
 "Where art thou?"— Gen. 3:9. 
 
 God puts to every man and woman a very solemn 
 question. 
 
 I. A QUESTION ALL OUGHT TO ANSWER. 
 
 1. We should want to know how we stand before 
 
 God. 
 
 2. We must answer the question some day. 
 
 II. How TO CONSIDER AND ANSWER IT. 
 
 1. Seriously. 
 
 2. Deliberately 
 
 3. Honestly. 
 
 4. Prayerfully. 
 
 5. Scripturally. 
 
 III. The most important points to consider in re- 
 gard TO OUR STANDING. 
 
 1. Are you saved or are you lost? 
 
 2. Are you a child of God or a child of the devil? 
 
 3. Are you for Christ or against Him? 
 
 4. Are you an earnest, consecrated Christian or 
 
 a lukewarm and worldly one? 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 295 
 
 Conclusion: 
 
 1. Some know where they are — saved. 
 
 2. Others cannot answer the question so. 
 
 3. Answer the question definitely and at once. 
 
 R. A. T. 
 
 WHAT IT COSTS NOT TO BE A CHRISTIAN 
 
 Introduction: Show the folly of making ventures in 
 all phases of life without counting the cost. 
 
 I. It costs the sacrifice of peace of conscience. 
 (Isaiah 57:21.) 
 
 II. It costs the sacrifice of the sense of perfect 
 security which the christian enjoys. (Isaiah 26:3.) 
 
 III. It costs the sacrifice of the highest joy of 
 which the human soul is capable, (i Peter i :i8.) 
 
 IV. It costs the sacrifice of the hope the chris- 
 tian has. (Titus 1:2; I Peter 1:4; Rom. 8:17.) 
 
 V. It costs the sacrifice of the highest manhood 
 
 AND womanhood. 
 
 VI. It costs the sacrifice of God's favor. (Heb. 
 11: 6). 
 
 VII. It costs the sacrifice of Christ's acknowl- 
 edgment. (Matt. 10:32, 33.) 
 
 VIII. It costs the sacrifice of eternal life. (John 
 3:15, 16; John 3:36.) 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE? 
 
 *'How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"— 
 Heb. 2 : 3. 
 
 There are some things it will not do to neglect — the 
 folly and wickedness of neglecting the salvation offered 
 to us in Christ Jesus. 
 
296 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 I. Because of the greatness of that salvation. 
 
 1. In the way in which it was given. 
 
 2. In what it cost. 
 
 3. In what it accomplishes. 
 
 4. In the greatness of the opportunity. 
 
 II. Because it is the only salvation. 
 
 III. Because we incur the just and awful dis- 
 pleasure OF God. 
 
 1. There need be no grave offense against 
 
 morality. 
 
 2. No conscious or unspoken rebellion against 
 
 God. 
 
 3. No speaking against the salvation. 
 
 4. No decided refusal ; simply a neglect. 
 
 5. All one needs to do in order to be lost is to 
 
 do nothing. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 "TO-DAY' 
 "The Holy Ghost saith to-day. "—Heb. 3:7. 
 
 Men say *' to-morrow"; the Holy Ghost saith 
 **to-day. " There are many reasons why all should 
 accept Jesus *' to-day." 
 
 I. Because Jesus brings peace to the tormenting 
 
 CONSCIENCE AND A WISE MAN WILL WISH THAT PEACE 
 AS SOON AS HE CAN GET IT. 
 
 II. Because Jesus brings joy unspeakable and full 
 
 OF GLORY, AND A WISE MAN WILL WISH THAT GLORY AS 
 SOON AS HE CAN HAVE IT. 
 
 III. Because Jesus brings deliverance from sin, and 
 
 A wise MAN WILL WISH FOR THAT DELIVERANCE AS 
 SOON AS HE CAN GET IT. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 297 
 
 IV. Because Jesus brings beauty of character, and 
 A wise man will desire that beauty of character 
 as soon as he can have it. 
 
 V. Because Jesus fills our lives with highest use- 
 fulness, AND every wise MAN WISHES TO BEGIN BEING 
 USEFUL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. 
 
 VI. Because the sooner we come to Christ the 
 
 RICHER WILL BE OUR ETERNITY, AND A WISE MAN 
 WISHES TO BEGIN AT ONCE. 
 
 VII. Because if we do not come to Jesus to-day we 
 
 MAY never come AT ALL, AND A WISE MAN WILL WANT 
 
 to come at once before it is too late. 
 Conclusion: Many things that may make this the last 
 opportunity and a refusal now, fatal. 
 
 1. Death is ever lurking at our doors. 
 
 2. Loss of opportunity may come. 
 
 3. A hardened heart may seal your doom. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 DAVID'S SIN 
 
 *'The thing that David had done displeased the Lord." — 2 
 Sam. 11: 27. 
 
 Wherefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord to do that 
 which is evil in his sight." — 2 Sam. 12: 9, la 
 
 The Bible is faithful to recount the sins as well as 
 the virtues of its characters, thus teaching us good les- 
 sons, as in the case of David's sin. 
 L We are taught that a very good man, if he gets 
 
 HIS EYES OFF FROM GOD AND HiS WORD MAY EASILY 
 fall into very gross SIN. 
 
 II. We are taught that God never looks upon any 
 man's sin with the least degree OF allowance. 
 
298 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 III. We are taught that whatsoever a man sow- 
 
 ETH HE SHALL ALSO REAP; AND, LIKE THE FARMER, HE 
 WILL REAP MUCH MORE THAN HE SOWS. 
 
 IV. We ARE TAUGHT THAT THE SINS OF GoD'S SERVANTS 
 GIVE GREAT OCCASION FOR ENEMIES OF THE LORD TO 
 BLASPHEME, 
 
 V. We ARE TAUGHT THAT THE SIN OF God's PEOPLE IS 
 BASE INGRATITUDE TOWARD GOD. 
 
 VI. We ARE TAUGHT A BRIGHTER LESSON FROM THIS 
 DARK STORY — THAT THERE IS FULL, FREE AND ABUNDANT 
 PARDON FOR THE VILEST SINNER. 
 
 VII. We ARE TAUGHT THAT God's PARDON IS TO BE 
 FOUND BY THE CONFESSION OF OUR SIN. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH JESUS? 
 
 "What shall I do then with Jesus?" — Matt. 27: 22. 
 
 The most important question one can put to himself. 
 
 I. How MUCH DEPENDS ON DOING THE RIGHT THING 
 
 WITH Christ. 
 
 1. Our acceptance or condemnation before God. 
 
 John 3: 18. 
 
 2. Our peace of conscience depends solely on this. 
 
 Rom. 5:1. 
 
 3. Our becoming sons of God. John i: i«. 
 
 4. True joy. i Peter i : 8. 
 
 5. Eternal life. John 5: 24; 3:36. 
 
 II. What we must do with Him. 
 
 1. Accept Kim or reject Him. John 12: 44-48. 
 
 2. Let Him in or shut Him out. Rev. 3: 20. 
 
 3. Confess Him or deny Him. Matt. 10: 32, 33. 
 
 4. Be for Him or against Him. Matt. 12: 30. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 399 
 
 III. Think who He was. 
 
 1. Your divinely anointed King. Acts 2 : 36 ; 5:31. 
 
 2. The Son of God. 
 
 3. Your Saviour. Is. 53:5. 
 
 Conclusion: Sum up and put the question : What will 
 you do with Jesus right now? Illustrate by Pilate's 
 awful mistake and its consequences. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? 
 •*And now why tarriest thou?"-— Acts 22: 16. 
 
 There is no reason for delay for which the Word of 
 Go ' has not an answer. 
 
 I. **I AM WAITING UNTIL I AM CONVINCED." (Johu 7 : 
 
 17.) 
 
 II. "I AM WAITING UNTIL I HAVE ENJOYED THE WORLD 
 
 ENOUGH.'* (Mark 8:36.) 
 
 III. "I AM WAITING FOR MY FRIENDS." (Matt. 10:37.) 
 
 IV. "I AM WAITING UNTIL CHRISTIANS ARE MORE CON- 
 SISTENT." (Rom. 14:12.) 
 
 V. "I AM WAITING UNTIL THERE IS NOT SO MUCH TO 
 
 GIVE UP." (Phil. 3:7, 8.) 
 
 VI. **I AM WAITING FOR FEELING." (ActS 16:31: Johu 
 
 i;i2.) 
 
 VII. **I AM WAITING UNTIL I AM BETTER." (Matt. 
 
 9:13) 
 
 VIII. "I AM WAITING UNTIL I AM SURE I CAN HOLD 
 
 OUT." (Jude 24.) 
 
 IX. *'I AM WAITING FOR GOD*S TIME." (2 Cor. 6\2.) 
 
 X. **I AM WAITING UNTIL I DIE." (PrOV. 29:1.) 
 
 R. A. T, 
 
300 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 THE PRICE OF POWER 
 
 *'And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and 
 signs among the people." — Acts 6: 8, R. V. 
 
 This poor world needs men and women of power, 
 and God has made it possible. We can become such by 
 paying the price of power. 
 
 I. Power costs the putting away of all sin. 
 
 II. We must set right the things we have done. 
 
 III. There must be absolute surrender to God. 
 
 IV. It costs a large expenditure of time and 
 strength and time in prayer. 
 
 V. It requires a large expenditure of time in Bible 
 
 STUDY. 
 
 VI. There must be the entire renunciation of 
 
 SELF-INTEREST AND SELF-SPARING IN ALL THEIR FORMS. 
 
 VII. There must be humiliation of self. 
 
 R. A. T. 
 
 THE DRAMA OF LIFE IN THREE ACTS 
 
 (Luke 15: 11-33.) 
 
 I. The first act — the wandering, going away from 
 FROM home ; or, the nature of sin. 
 
 Scene i. The young man in his beautiful and 
 
 sumptuous home. The beginning of sin, a 
 
 desire to be independent of God. 
 Scene 2. The young man with his portion of 
 
 goods goes from home. The growth of sin. 
 
 His heart went first, his feet afterwards. 
 
 II. The second act — the desolation in a far coun- 
 try ; or, "mEFRuiTS of sin. 
 
 Scene i. Is one^f gaiety. The first fruit of sin 
 is pleasure. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 301 
 
 Scene 2. Is one of hard times. The second fruit 
 
 of sin is want. 
 Scene 3. Is one of utter wretchedness. The 
 
 third fruit of sin is degradation and abject 
 
 slavery. 
 III. The third act — the wanderer's return home 
 
 AGAIN ; OR, the REMEDY FOR SIN. 
 
 Scene i. His thoughts are turned homeward and 
 fatherward. Serious reflection the first ingre- 
 dient in the remedy for sin and its bitter conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Scene 2. His threefold resolution, (a) To go to 
 his father; (d) to confess his sin; (c) to seek 
 acceptance. 
 
 Scene 3. His welcome home. *'He arose and 
 came to his father. " The father is watching for 
 him, and seeing him coming runs to meet him, 
 and welcomes him with the best his heart and 
 hand have to give. — r. a. t. 
 
 INFIDELITY- ITS CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES 
 AND CURE 
 
 I. Its causes. 
 
 1. The misrepresentation of Christianity by its 
 
 professed disciples, (a) in doctrine; (6) in 
 life. 
 
 2. Ignorance of what the Bible contains and 
 
 teaches. 
 
 3. Conceit. Men become infidels because they 
 
 find things in the Bible they cannot under- 
 stand. 
 
302 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 4. Sin. This is the commonest and most funda* 
 
 mental cause of infidelity. 
 
 5. Resistance to the Holy Spirit. 
 IT. Its consequences. 
 
 1. Sin. Infidelity breeds sin. 
 
 2. Anarchy. Anarchists are almost, if not always, 
 
 infidels. 
 
 3. Wretchedness and despair. 
 
 4. Suicide. 
 
 5. Hopeless graves. 
 
 6. Eternal ruin. 
 III. Its cure. 
 
 1. Christlike living on the part of professed Chris- 
 
 tians. 
 
 2. A surrendered will on the part of the infidel. 
 
 John 7:17. 
 
 3. Study of the Word of God. Ps. 119: 130. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 ETERNAL LIFE, OR THE WRATH OF GOD 
 —WHICH? 
 
 "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he 
 that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
 abideth upon him." — John 3: 36. 
 
 The great question that confronts each of us: 
 Eternal life or the wrath of God. Which shall it be? 
 I. The things contrasted. 
 
 I. *' Eternal life." What is it? 
 
 (a) It is really life. 
 
 (b) It is fullness of life. 
 
 (c) It is life of highest knowledge, 
 
 (d) It is the life of God. 
 {e) It is endless life. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 303 
 
 «. ''The wrath of God. " What is it? 
 
 (a) It is the intense and settled displeasure of 
 the infinitely holy Being who created us, and 
 all things, and who has the absolute control 
 of all the powers of this universe. 
 
 II. How TO DECIDE BETWEEN THEM- 
 
 I. God answers the question. 
 (a) Believe on the Son of God. 
 (d) Accept God's testimony concerning Jesus 
 Christ. — R, A. T. 
 
 "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and 
 saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." — Ps. 34: 18. 
 
 The Lord knoweth the proud afar off. Ps. 138: 6. 
 
 But he dwells with him that is of a contrite spirit. 
 Is. 57: 15. 
 
 When the sinner feels his distance from God, then it 
 is that he is drawing nigh to God. 
 
 He has a broken heart, and God draws nigh to him. 
 Luke 15: 18, 20. 
 
 I. In a broken heart there is, 
 
 1. A sense of sin. Ps. 38: 4; Luke 18: 13. 
 
 2. Self-abhorrence on account of sin. Job 42:6; 
 
 Ezek. 16: 6^. 
 
 3. Justifying God's dealings. Ps. 51: 4. 
 
 4. A view of the love of a dying Saviour. Zech. 
 
 12 : 10. 
 
 5. A confidence in returning to God. Hos. 6:1; 
 
 Luke 15: 18. 
 
 II. The Lord is nigh, and saveth them. 
 
 I. He accepteth such a heart as His sacrifice. Ps. 
 51:17: Is. 66: 2. 
 
304 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 3. He maketh such a heart His abode. Is. 57 : 15. 
 
 3. He speaketh peace to such a heart. Is. 57: 18; 
 
 Luke 7: 50. 
 
 4. He healeth such a heart. Ps. 147: 3; Is. 61: i. 
 Let us search into the cause of hardness of heart. 
 Guard against the continuance of a careless spirit. 
 Direct the eye of faith constantly to the cross of 
 
 Jesus. 
 
 Be faithful to the first convictions of the Spirit. 
 
 Cease not to pray, till such a frame of mind be 
 obtained. 
 
 Look forward to the time when we shall no longer 
 complain of hard hearts — 
 
 And when broken hearts shall be healed forever. 
 Rev. 7: 17; 21: 4. — c. B. 
 
 "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." — Matt. 11: 28. 
 
 I. What is rest? 
 
 1. That which every human creature is seeking. 
 
 Ps. 4:6. 
 
 2. That which the world offers. Prov. 9: 16, 17. 
 
 3. But can never give. Eccles. i : 13, 14; 2 : 22, 23, 
 
 II. Where is it to be obtained? 
 
 1. Not in sin. Is. 57: 10, 20; Jer. 2:36. 
 
 2. Not in riches. Ps. 39:6; Eccles. 5:10, 12. 
 
 3. Not in idleness. Prov. 15; 19. 
 
 4. Not in pleasure. Eccles. 2:1. 
 
 5. Not in fame. Eccles. 2:16. 
 
 6. Not in knowledge. Eccles. 1:18. 
 
 7. Not in self -righteousness. Heb. 4:3, lo. 
 
 8. But only in Christ. Heb. 4: 3. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 305 
 
 {a) In His atonement. Rom. 5:10. 
 (d) In His righteousness. Ps. 32: i, 2. 
 
 (c) In His intercession. Rom. 8 : 34. 
 
 (d) In His glory. Heb. 4:9; Rev. 7: 16, 17. 
 Therefore, come to Him: 
 
 At all events and hazards. Matt. 15: 22. 
 
 Guilty. Luke 7: 37, etc. 
 
 Naked. Rev. 3: 18. 
 
 Lost. Matt. 8: 25. 
 
 Ignorant. Luke 10: 39. 
 
 Tempted. 2 Cor. 12: 7, 8. 
 
 Backsliding. Jer. 3:22. 
 
 Abide in Him. John 15: 9. 
 
 Follow Him. Matt. 11:29. — c. b. 
 
 "And ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for 
 me with all your heart." — Jer. 29: 13. 
 
 I. What is the disposition of mind here intended? 
 
 1. It is not lip-service. Jer. 3:10; Ezek. 33:31; 
 
 Matt. 15:8. 
 (a) Indolence. Cant. 3:1. 
 {b) Impatience. 2 Kings 6 : 33. 
 
 2. But it is a heart perfect with God. 2 Chron. 
 
 16: 9; 15: 17. 
 (a) Steadily fixed on God's. Ps. 108:1; Is. 
 26:8, 9. 
 
 3. It is the earnestness of Jacob. Gen. 32:24-28. 
 (a) The confidence of David. Ps. 27: 7-14. 
 
 {b) The perseverance of the woman of Canaan. 
 
 Matt. 15: 22. 
 (c) The importunity of the widow. Luke 
 18:3-5. (See Is. 62:6, 7.) 
 
3o6 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 II. What is the blessing promised? 
 
 1. Ye shall fin dme. 2 Chron. 15:2, 4, 15; la. 
 
 45:19; Matt 7:7, 8. 
 
 (a) In time of contrition. Deut. 4:29: Jer. 
 3: 22; Hos. 14: 2, 4. 
 
 (b) In time of affliction. Ps. 50: 15. 
 
 {c) In time of perplexity. 2 Chron. 20: 12. 
 (a) In ever}^ time. Heb. 4: 16. 
 
 2. Let every sin be mortified. Ps. 66: 18. 
 
 3. Let the heart be prepared. 2 Chron. 19:3. 
 
 4. Let the assistance of the Spirit be sought. 
 
 Rom. 8: 26; Eph. 6: 18; Jude 20. 
 
 — c. B. 
 
 "And they 77ent out, and preached that men should repent" — 
 Mark 6: 12. 
 
 Repentance is a distinguishing grace of the man of 
 God. 
 
 He cannot know himself to be a sinner without deep 
 shame and humiliation of soul. 
 
 What have I done? What have I neglected to do? 
 
 The first sign of spiritual life is an awakened sense 
 of sin. 
 
 Therefore the ministers of Christ *' go out and 
 preach that men should repent*' 
 I. Mark the necessity of repentance. 
 
 1. As saving from deserved punishment. Ezek. 
 
 18: 28, 30; Luke 13: 3-5; Rev. 2: 5; 3: 3. 
 
 2. As justifying God in the punishment of sin. 
 
 Jos. 7: 19; Ps. 51: 4. 
 
 3. As a means of forgiveness. Job 33: 27, 28; 
 
 Luke 24: 47; Acts 2: 38; 3: 19; 5: 31^ 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 307 
 
 II. Mark its character. 
 It has many counterfeits. 
 
 I. Natural repentance produces 
 
 (a) Alarm. Matt. 27: 3.5; Acts 24: 25. 
 {d) Conviction, 20. 
 
 (c) Confession, i Sam. 25: 24, 30; Matt. 3: i, 6. 
 
 (d) Resolutions. Ex. 9: 27, 28; 10: 16, 17. 
 
 (e) Partial amendment. 2 Kings 21 : 27-29. 
 
 a. Spiritual repentance has all these, but it has 
 
 more. 
 (a) It is connected with faith. Acts 20: 21. 
 3. It includes a hearty sorrow for sin. 2 Cor. 
 
 7: 10. 
 
 (a) An entire forsaking of all sin. 2 Chron. 
 33:12, 15, 16; Ezek. 18:28. 
 
 (b) An instant return to God. Hos. 5:15; 6:1: 
 Luke 15: t8-2o. 
 
 {c) An evidence in godly fruits. Matt. ^:8; 
 Acts 26: 20; 2 Cor. 7:11. 
 
 III. Its origin is of God. 
 
 1. The gift of Almighty God. Ezek. 36:26; Acts 
 
 11: 18; 2 Tim. 2: 25. 
 
 2. The blessing of an exalted Saviour. Acts 5: 31. 
 
 3. The work of the Holy Spirit. Zech. 12: 10. 
 Produced—- 
 
 By a sight of our own guilt and need. Ps. 51:4; 
 
 Jer. 31: 18, 19; Luke 15: 16, 17. 
 By a sight of the love and sufferings of Christ. 
 Zech. 12: 10; Acts 2: ^6^ 37. 
 Deepened— 
 
 By a view of the character of God. Job 42:5,6. 
 By an assurance of pardon. Ezek. 16: 63. 
 
 — c. B. 
 
3o8 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that 
 believeth." — Mark 9: 23. 
 
 The very nature of faith supposes difficulty. 
 
 I. It is opposed to sight. John 20:29; 2 Cor. 5:7; 
 
 Heb. II : 27. 
 3. It rises above sense and feeling. Job 13: 15. 
 
 3. It puts reason to silence. Luke i : 34-38 ; John 
 
 6: 12-16. 
 
 4. It implies a consciousness of weakness. V. 24 ; 
 
 Matt. 15: 25. 
 
 5. And a dependence upon Almighty strength. 
 
 2 Chron. 14: 11; 20: 12; Ps. 40: 17; 2 Cor. 3: 5. 
 Let us mark some of the achievements of this won- 
 derful principle. ''''All things are possible to it.** 
 
 1. It overcomes all the temptations of time and 
 
 sense. Heb. 11:8-10, 24-26; i John 5: 
 
 4, 5. 
 
 2. It stands firm in the promise, notwithstanding 
 
 all natural impossibilities. Rom. 4:17-21; 
 Heb. II : 11. 
 
 3. It is unshaken by all seeming contradiction. 
 
 Heb. 11: 17-19. 
 
 4. It obediently ventures upon present difficulty. 
 
 Exod. 14:2, 15; Heb. 11:29. 
 
 5. It performs the greatest work by the weakest 
 
 means. Judges 7:16-22; Is. 41:14, 15; i 
 Cor. 1:21; Heb. 11:30. 
 
 6. It overcomes even the prescript of the Divine 
 
 will. Deut. 23:3, with Ruth i, 16; 4:10. 
 Matt. 15; 24-28, with 10: 5, 6. 
 
 7. It triumphs over the forebodings of the most 
 
 frowning providences, i Sam. 30:6; Hab. 
 3: 17, 18. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 309 
 
 8. It maintains an assured confidence under con- 
 
 flict and chastening. Ps. 65:3; Mic. 7:8, 9. 
 
 9. It prevents hard thoughts of God under the 
 
 most afflicting dispensations. 2 Kings 4:26; 
 Job i: 21. 
 10. It obtains the supply of grace to the utmost of 
 our desire. Ps. 81: 10; Matt. 21: 22. 
 Be sure that faith is grounded upon the clear war- 
 rant of Scripture, i John 5:14. 
 
 Act present faith as the way to encourage its fruit- 
 fulness. Matt. 25:29; 2 Pet. 1:5. 
 
 Face the most appalling difficulties in the resources 
 of faith. Zech. 4: 7; Mark 11: 22, 23; Phil. 4: 13. 
 
 Connect the exercise of faith with every Christian 
 duty. Luke 17: $-6. 
 
 Let the habitual exercise of faith prepare you for 
 every emergency. Gal. 2 : 20. — c. b. 
 
 THE WATER OF LIFE 
 
 I. Its character. 
 
 1. Living. Jno. 4: 10. 
 
 2. Clear. Rev. 22 : i. 
 
 3. Pure. Rev. 22: i. 
 
 4. Abundant Ezek. 47 : 1-9. 
 
 5. Free, Rev. 21 : 6. 
 
 II. For whom provided. 
 
 1. The thirsty. Rev. 21 : 6. 
 
 2. Whosoever. Rev. 22 : 17. 
 
 III. Way to obtain it. 
 
 1. Come. Rev. 22: 17. 
 
 2. Take. Rev. 22: 17- 
 
3IO SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 The nature of. Matt. 21:9. 
 
 The source of. 2 Tim. 2 : 25. 
 
 The necessity for. Acts. 8 : 22. 
 
 The results of. Luke 15:7; Luke 17:3. 
 
 By whom commanded. Acts 17:30. 
 
 In whose name? Luke 24:47. — c. i. 
 
 FORGIVENESS 
 
 The foundation of it — His blood. Eph. 1 17. 
 
 The author of it — God. Eph. 4:32. 
 
 The completeness of it all. Ps. 103 : 3. 
 
 The proclamation of it is preached. Acts 13 : 38. 
 
 The reception of it — all that believe. Acts 13: 39. 
 
 The certainty of it — are forgiven, i Jno. 2: la. 
 
 The results of it — saved. Luke 7:50. 
 
 The results of it — peace. Luke 7:50. 
 
 The results of it — blessed, Ps, 32; i. — c. i. 
 
 A SEVENFOLD VIEW OF THE LOVE OF GOD 
 
 It is infinite in its character. Jno. 17 : 23. 
 It is constraining in its power. 2 Cor. 5: 14. 
 It is inseparable in its object. Rom. 8 : 35-37. 
 It is individual in its choice. Gal. 2 : 20. 
 It is universal in its extenTs Jno. 3:16. 
 It is unchanging in its purpose. Jno. 13:1. 
 It is everlasting in its duration. Jer. 31:3. 
 
 --C. I. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 311 
 
 TEN STEPS IN THE PRODIGAL'S LIFE 
 
 His demand. — "Give, .portion." Luke 15 : 12. 
 His departure. — "Took. .Journey." Luke 15:13. 
 His Distress. — "Famine." Luke 15: 14. 
 His condition. — "In want." Luke 15: 14. 
 His depravity. — "Feeding swine." Luke 15:15. 
 His conviction. — "Came to himself." Luke 15 : 17. 
 His determination. — "I will arise." Luke 15: 18. 
 His confession. — "I have sinned." Luke 15 : 18. 
 His contrition. — "No more worthy." Luke 15 : 19. 
 His conversion. — "The best robe, etc." Luke 15 : 22. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION 
 
 What is it? Rom. 4:5-8. 
 
 The One who justifies. Rom. 8 : 33. 
 
 Whom He justifies. Rom. 4 : 5. 
 
 How He is justified. Rom. 3 : 24 and v. 9. 
 
 From what He is justified. Acts 13 : 39. 
 
 Result of being justified. Rom. 5; i. 
 
 REDEMPTION^ 
 
 I. What i am redeemed with — 
 
 1. By blood. I Pet. i : 19. 
 
 2. By power. Neh. 1:10. 
 
 II. What i am redeemed from — 
 
 1. Bondage. Ex. 6: 6. 
 
 2. Enemy. Ps. 106 : 10. 
 
 3. Iniquity. Titus 2 : 14. 
 
 4. Curse of the law. Gal. 3 : 13. 
 
 III. What the Lord has redeemed — 
 
3ia SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 1. The soul. Ps. 49 : 8. 
 
 2. The body. Rom. 8 : 23. 
 
 3. The life. Ps. 103 : 4. 
 
 IV. The beauty of the redemption — 
 
 1. It is plenteous. Ps. 130:7. 
 
 2. It is precious. Ps. 49 : 8. 
 
 3. It is eternal. Heb. 9: 12. — c. i 
 
 MERCY 
 
 The author, i Pet. i : 3. 
 
 The ground. Rom. 3 : 25. 
 
 The SUBJECTS. Luke 17:13. 
 
 The character. Ps. 103 : 4. 
 
 The measure. Ps. 103 : 8. 
 
 The EXTENT. Ps. 103:11. 
 
 The DURATION. Ps. 103 : 17. — c. i 
 
 SIN 
 
 The servants. Rom. 6 : 20. 
 
 The wages. Rom. 6 : 23. 
 
 The deceitfulness. Heb. 3 : 13. 
 
 The PLEASURES. Heb. 11:25. 
 
 The sacrifice. Heb. 10: 12. 
 
 The eternal consequences. Jude 7. — c. l 
 
 JESUS, THE FRIEND 
 
 I The sinner's friend. Matt. 11: 19. 
 
 2. My friend. Cant. 5: 16. 
 
 3. Who satisfies. Cant. 5:1. 
 
 4. Who sticketh closer than a brother. Pro v. 18 : 24. 
 
 5. The unchanging friend. Prov. 17:17- 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 313 
 
 6. The surety. Prov. 6:1, 
 
 7. Who dies. John 15: 13. 
 
 8. Who reproves. Prov. 27:6. 
 
 9. Who counsels. Prov. 27:9, 10 
 
 10. Communion. Prov. 27: 17. 
 
 11. Resurrection. John 11: 11. 
 
 My Beloved is my friend. Christians need an object 
 for their heart. Joy clings (17 Matt). Jesus only. 
 His photograph: altogether lovely. My beloved. 
 No fear. Welcome. Paul. Loved me. My friend. 
 
 — H. M. 
 
 RULES FOR EVANGELISTS 
 
 (Being those given by Paul to Timothy.) 
 
 1. **Stir Up the gift that is in thee." 2 Tim. i : 6. 
 
 2. *'Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our 
 Lord." 1:8. 
 
 3. '*Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou 
 hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ 
 Jesus" (i: 13); and again, in v. 14: "That good thing 
 which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy 
 Ghost which dwelleth in thee." 
 
 4. You want strength; then, **Be strong in the grace 
 that is in Christ Jesus. ** 2 : i. 
 
 5. "Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ." 2:3. 
 
 6. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, 
 was raised from the dead (2:8). Evangelists, that is 
 the doctrine for you. Christ raised from the dead is 
 God's receipt in full for the sinner's justification. 
 
 7. ** Study to show thyself approved unto God^ a work- 
 
314 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 man that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing 
 the Word of Truth. " 2:15. 
 
 8. "Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteons- 
 ness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the 
 Lord out of a pure heart. " 2:22. 
 
 9. "Foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing 
 that they do gender strife. " 2 : 23. 
 
 10. '"Continue thou in the things which thou hast 
 learned." 3: 14. Not only preach to others, but live 
 out the truth you preach. 
 
 11. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God** 
 (3: 16). Be persuaded of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 ture. Use it, for it is the sword of the Spirit. 
 
 12. "I charge thee, therefore, before God and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Preach the Word, be instant in 
 season, out of season." 4:1, 2. 
 
 13. "Do the work of an evangelist" (4:5). Do the 
 work, don't merely talk about it, or be satisfied with 
 the title of an evangelist. DO the WORK— it is 
 tough work, hard work, but blessed work. 
 
 — M. R. 
 
 CONVERSION 
 
 "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
 thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have 
 mercy upon him, and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.'* 
 —Is. 55. 7. 
 
 To be converted means to be turned about or to be 
 turned to God. Man has turned his back upon God, 
 but, when converted, he faces a loving and forgiving 
 God. 
 I. The first step toward conversion is an earnest 
 
 DESIRE AND INTENTION TO FORSAKE SIN. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 315 
 
 II. The second step toward conversion is a will- 
 ingness TO ACCEPT God's salvation, whatever it 
 
 MAY REQUIRE. 
 
 III. The third step toward conversion is making 
 
 UP YOUR mind to believe WHAT GoD WANTS YOU TO 
 KNOW IN ORDER TO BE SAVED. 
 
 1. That the race is totally depraved. 
 
 2. That the death of the Son of God was vicari- 
 ous. 
 
 3. That the Word of God gives assurance of your 
 
 salvation. — f. s. 
 
 HE STILL WAITS 
 •'And therefore will the Lord wait." — Is. 30: 18. 
 
 Now that God has done all He can do for our sal- 
 vation, He has to stop and wait for us. 
 
 I. The FIRST CLASS OF PEOPLE THAT THE LoRD HAS TO 
 WAIT FOR IS THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 I. There are three reasons why Christians ought 
 to be willing to respond to God in efforts to 
 save the lost: 
 
 (a) Is the honor conferred upon us in working 
 fpr God. 
 
 (d) Is the great privilege we have to at once 
 work for God. 
 
 (c) Is the great reward that comes to the faith- 
 ful in God's service. 
 n. Another class that God has to work for is the 
 
 BACKSLIDER. 
 
 III. Still others God is waiting for are those who 
 
 THUS far have REJECTED God's GRACE. 
 
 — F. S. 
 
3i6 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 A GREAT CONDITIONAL PROMISE 
 
 *'Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou 
 shouldest see the glory of God?" — John ii: 40. 
 
 Something to be done in order to enjoy the accom- 
 plishment of the divine promise. Look at some of the 
 stones to be rolled away : 
 
 I. Is THE AWFUL STONE OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 II. Is THE MISERABLE STONE OF PREJUDICE. 
 
 III. We need to get rid of criticism. 
 
 IV. Another one to remove is the stone of excuse. 
 
 V. Again is the want of ability to do anything. 
 
 1. We must believe that until we do our part 
 
 God will not, or, I may say, cannot do His 
 part. 
 
 2. We must also believe that when we do our part 
 
 there is nothing impossible with God. 
 
 — r. s. 
 
 CHRIST OUR EXAMPLE 
 
 "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in dark- 
 ness, we lie and do not the truth." — i John i : 6. 
 
 The moment we accept the Son of God as our 
 Saviour, we must take Him as our example. 
 
 I. In His devotion to His father. 
 
 II. In His submission to God. 
 HI. In His compassion. 
 
 IV. In His humility. 
 
 V. In His patience. 
 
 VI. In His love for communion with the Father. 
 
 — F. s. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 317 
 
 CHRIST OUR MIGHTY ONE 
 
 •'Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come 
 unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them." — Heb. 7: 25. 
 
 Look at some of the things He is able to do for us. 
 
 I. He is able to keep us from falling. 
 
 II. He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. 
 
 III. He is able to deliver us when tempted. 
 
 IV. He is able to prepare us for every good work. 
 
 F. S. 
 
 CHRIST OUR FRIEND 
 
 "The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 
 Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans 
 and sinners." — Matt. 11: 19. 
 
 I. He is the friend of sinners. 
 
 II. He is the friend that sticketh closer than a 
 brother. 
 
 HI. He is the friend that loveth at all times. 
 
 IV. He is the faithful friend. 
 
 V. He is the friend that gives us hearty counsel. 
 
 VI. He is the friend that makes us like himself. 
 
 F. S. 
 
 SAVING THE LOST 
 
 "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is 
 lost." — Luke 19: 10. 
 
 A soul saved or lost — which? 
 I. Lost. 
 
 I. Every soul out of Christ is lost. 
 
 (a) In that they are all sinners. Rom. 3 : 22, 23. 
 (d) In that they are all the slaves of sin. John 
 8:34. 
 
3i8 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 (c) In that if they do not turn to Christ they 
 will be lost eternally. John 3 : 36. 
 II. Saved. 
 
 1. Christ is seeking to save. 
 (a) By His providence. 
 {d) By His Spirit. 
 
 (c) By His Word. 
 
 2. He can save. 
 
 (a) From the gfuilt of sin. Acts 10: 43. 
 
 (b) From the power of sin. John 8 : 36. 
 
 (c) From hell, i Thess. i : 10. 
 
 (d) To the uttermost. Heb. 7 : 25. 
 
 3. He came to seek the utterly lost, 
 
 4. He is seeking to save now. — R. a. t. 
 
 GOD-GIVEN CONVICTION 
 "They were pricked in their heart."— Acts 11: 37. 
 
 To be pricked in the heart with the conviction of sin 
 is not a pleasant experience, but if rightly received 
 leads to very great blessing. 
 
 I. Why these men were pricked in their hearts. 
 
 I. They saw the appalling enormity of the sin of 
 rejecting Christ. V. 36. 
 
 II. How they were pricked in their hearts. 
 
 I. It was by the preaching of the Word of God. 
 a. It was by Peter's testimony to a risen and 
 
 exalted Saviour. 
 3. It was by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 III. The results of their being pricked in theib 
 hearts. 
 
 I. They turned from their awful sin. V. 38. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 319 
 
 2. They publicly confessed their sin and their 
 
 acceptance of Christ. V. 41. 
 
 3. They were saved. V. 47. 
 
 4. They found a deep and lasting joy. V. 46. 
 
 5. They received the Holy Spirit. V. 38, 39. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
 SAVED 
 
 "For by grace are ye saved through faith." — Eph. 2: 8. 
 
 One of the greatest words in the English language 
 is the word *' saved. " Expand and illustrate. 
 
 I. Who are saved? 
 
 I. Every one who believes in Jesus Christ. 
 
 II. From what are we saved? 
 
 1. From all guilt. 
 
 2. From God's displeasure. 
 
 3. From the condemnation of our own conscience. 
 
 4. From the power of sin. 
 
 5. From future judgment. 
 
 III. To WHAT ARE WE SAVED? 
 
 1. We are saved to peace and joy. 
 
 2. We are saved to a true and pure and holy and 
 
 useful life. 
 
 3. We are saved to God's favor and delight. 
 
 4. We are saved to sonship. 
 
 5. We are saved to eternal life. 
 
 6. We are saved to an inheritance incorruptible, 
 
 etc. 
 
 IV. How WE ARE SAVED. 
 
 1. We are saved by grace. Salvation is a gift. 
 
 2. We are saved by grace through faith. 
 
 — R. A. T. 
 
320 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 HOW TO BECOME SONS OF GOD 
 
 **But as many as received him, to them gave he power to 
 become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." 
 — John i: 12. 
 
 To be a child of God involves so much — so much in 
 the life that now is, so much in the life which is to 
 come. 
 
 I. What is involved? 
 
 1. Our absolute security in this present life, 
 
 2. The supply of every real need. 
 
 3. Joy. 
 
 4. Peace. 
 
 5. Likeness to God. 
 
 6. Infinite glory hereafter. 
 
 II. How MAY WE BECOME SONS OF GOD ? 
 
 1. We are all God's offspring, but we are not all 
 
 sons of God. Acts 17: 28; John 8: 44. 
 
 2. We are made sons of God by receiving Jesus. 
 
 John 1 : 12; Gal. 3:26. 
 
 3. To receive Jesus is to receive Him as He offers 
 
 Himself to us. 
 
 (a) As our atoning Saviour. Matt. 20: 28. 
 
 (b) As our Deliverer from sin's power. John 
 8:36. 
 
 {c) As our Rest-giver. Matt. 11: 28. 
 {d) As our Teacher. John 13: 13. 
 (e) As our Way of Access to God. John 14: 6. 
 (/) As our King. 
 
 (g) As our Lord and God. John 20: 28; John 
 5: 22. 
 III. Who may become sons of God in this way? 
 
 I. Anyone. How sweeping it is! "As many as." 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 3^ 
 
 2. The loveliest character or the vilest sinner. 
 
 3. It is possible to anyone at this moment. 
 
 •♦BeUeve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."— 
 Acts 16: 31. 
 
 Introduction: This text makes the way of salvation 
 as clear as day. 
 
 I. There can be no doubt that this is the true 
 
 WAY TO BE SAVED AND A SURE WAY TO BE SAVED. 
 
 1. An inspired apostle whom God sent for this 
 
 very purpose declares it. 
 
 2. Positiveness: *' Thou shalt be saved." 
 
 II. What is involved in believing on the Lord 
 Jesus ? 
 
 1. Trust in Jesus for pardon for all my sin. 
 
 2. Surrender to the Lord Jesus as Lord and Mas- 
 
 ter of my thoughts and acts. 
 
 3. Confession of Jesus as my Lord. Rom. 10; o 
 
 10 (R. v.). 
 
 4. Looking to the Lord Jesus for guidance in all 
 
 I do. 
 
 5. Obedience to the will of the Lord Jesus as far 
 
 as His will is known. Luke 6 : 46. 
 
 6. Study of the words of Jesus in order to know 
 
 His will. 
 
 7. Dependence upon Jesus and not upon self or 
 
 others for strength to do His will. 
 
 •*GOD CALLING, YET'* 
 
 Text: Gen. 6: 3. 
 
 I. God calls in many ways. Rev. 22:17; Acts 
 2: 21; 2 Pet. 3: 9. 
 I. Calls by pastors; Sunday School teachers. 
 
3^2 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 parents' prayers, Bible, songs, memoriea 
 His Spirit. 
 a. Unusual ways. Still small voice. Cyclone, 
 Lightning. Death of child or loved one. Loss 
 of business, etc. Heb. 12:6; Eccle. 7: 14. 
 
 II. God is always calling. 
 
 But man is not always heeding! The heart 
 hardens like the hand — like the bone — like 
 the face. ** While the lamp holds out to 
 burn, the vilest sinner may return." But 
 WILL he? May is God's part! Will is man's 
 part! John 7:17; Heb. 4: 2. 
 
 III. God is able^ willing^ ready to save. 
 
 But man is difree moral agent . **Tho' God be 
 
 good and free be heaven, no force divine can 
 
 love compel." 
 There are two parties to every gift — the giver 
 
 and the receiver. John i: 11, 12, 13; Rom. 
 
 10: 13. — c. N. H. 
 
 "CONVICTED, BUT NOT REGENERATED" 
 (Texts: Acts 24: 25, and John 3: 5.) 
 
 I. This was Felix's chance of heaven. He lost it — 
 no other ever came. Heb. 3: 15; 2 Cor. 6: 2; Heb. 
 2:3; Eccle. 12: I. 
 
 I. It is a terrible thing to be lost. Shut out; not 
 shut in, John 8:21; Rev. 21:8; 2 Thess. 
 1 : 7-9. 
 
 II. Paul, a prisoner, ^^ reasoned** before Felix, a 
 prince in purple. 
 
 I. Religion is the only reasonable thing! It is not 
 Just emotion, prayer, song, ceremony, creed. 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 323 
 
 It IS that and more; it is life — life as Christ 
 would have us live it. Rom. 12:1, 2; Isa. 
 i: 18. 
 a. Paul reasoned of righteousness. Yet he talked 
 ** Christ and Him crucified." Rom. 14:17; 
 Rom. 10: 4. 
 
 3. Of temperance in self -control, John 8: 32-36. 
 
 4. Oi judgment. Heb. 9:27; Heb. 10:27; i Pet. 
 
 4: 17; John 5: 22. 
 III. '^^Xm trembled. The devils ^^/^Vz/^^ and trembled, 
 but were not saved. One must not only tremble, 
 but turn from sin to Christ. '''Almost persuaded" — 
 
 but LOST. 
 
 C. N. H. 
 
 "SALVATION:" A LAWYER'S VIEW 
 
 Text: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" 
 —Heb. 2: 3. 
 
 I. The great doctrine of jurisprudence, as of grace, is 
 neglect. Not reject, spurn, abuse — just neglect. 
 
 1. Companion texts. **What shall it profit a man 
 
 if he gain the whole world and lose his own 
 soul?" 
 
 2. **What is the hope of the hypocrite, tho' he hath 
 
 gained^ when God shall take away his life?" 
 
 II. God's salvation is measured by His gift — "His 
 ONLY Begotten Son." Saved from what? The 
 penalty of sin ! The guilt of sin ! The power of sin ! 
 
 X, To make it practical. Saved so you won't 
 think only of self — so you won't lie, cheat, 
 drink, swear, gamble, use tobacco or play 
 cards or dance. 
 
324 SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 
 
 a. Saved to what? Life abundant here. Ja^^^ 
 lo: 10. Life eternal hereafter. John 17: ♦,. 
 III. How? By accepting Jesus Christ as Savioi* 
 When? Now/ Rom. 10:13; John i:ii, 12, j; 
 Rom. 10: 10. — c. N. H. 
 
 "CHRIST OR THE ROBBER?" 
 
 Text: *' Whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin." "Th 
 Holy Ghost ts given to them that obey."— Matt. 27. 17 and 22. 
 
 One is either a child of obedience or a child of dis- 
 obedience ; of God or of the devil ! 
 
 I. Man can choose Christ. If he does not choose 
 Christ he has chosen the Robber. Paul, Peter, John, 
 chose Christ ; Judas, Felix, Pilate, chose the Robber. 
 Life is made up of decisions; they soon become 
 permanent, 
 
 I. Pilate was influenced by his friends against 
 Jesus. But no one could crucify Jesus that 
 day but Pilate. You alone! The world — 
 society, ambition, politics — says: "Crucify 
 Him!" But hold! Let's wait until we have a 
 reason for it. Pilate wanted the world's 
 friendship. He got it, but oh — the price he 
 paid! 
 
 II. The Robber to-day! Worldliness — love of money, 
 love of ease, love of pleasure, cards, theaters, danc- 
 ing, slander, liquor, tobacco, evil thinking, etc. All 
 cry out as of old: *' Crucify Him!" 
 
 III. I choose Christ! *'As for me, my house will serve 
 the Lord." *'Take the world, but give me Jesus." 
 **A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand," 
 Good-bye, Robber! Come in, Jesus! 
 
SUGGESTIVE OUTLINES 325 
 
 **GOD'S JUSTICE AND HIS MERCY" 
 (Text: John 3: 16.) 
 
 I. Preach justice, wrath from standpoint of Love. 
 "God is love." "Everyone that loveth is born of 
 God" (i John 4: 7). But God is 2X^0 Justice. For 
 our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12 : 29). Wrath, 
 justice, judgment are more often mentioned in the 
 Bible than love ! 
 
 II. The test of love is something surrendered. God 
 gave ^'' His only Begotten Son.*' 
 
 1. The purpose: "That man might not perish.** 
 
 2. But by receiving "the gift" have everlastingXxi^. 
 
 3. In law it '" presumed that a man will not do an 
 
 idle thing. What an idle, absurd, foolish 
 thing God did in giving His Son to die upon 
 the cross — unless there was a purpose ! What 
 other purpose could there be than that stated? 
 
 III. In law, mercy is never asked until guilt is ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 I. Sin is against God. Hence only God can for- 
 give sin. (Ps. 51:4). "Without shedding of 
 blood is no remission." Heb. 9: 22. 
 
 — C. N. H. 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS FOR SERMONS 
 AND BIBLE READINGS 
 
 Genesis i : 26; i Cor. 15 : 45. The Two Adams. 
 
 5:24. Walking with God. (The Secret of Abid- 
 ing Peace.) 
 
 5 : 24. How to move in the Best Society, or 
 Walking with God. 
 
 7:1. Noah and the Deluge. 
 Exodus 8: 10. The Fool's Day. 
 
 12: 13. The Power of the Blood. 
 Numbers 13: 30. Faith of Caleb and Joshua. 
 
 32: 23. Found Out. 
 Joshua I. Courage and Enthusiasm. 
 I Samuel 8:4. ''Disobedience." 
 I Kings 18. Elijah at Carmel. 
 
 18: 21. ''How Long Halt Ye?" 
 
 18: 38. A Mighty Prayer. 
 Psalms 1 : 1-3. God's Picture of a Happy Man. 
 
 14: I. The Fool's Creed. 
 
 32 ; I. How to Be a Happy Christian. 
 
 51. David's Confession and Prayer. 
 
 51 : 10. *' Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God.** 
 
 62: II. Power: Its Source and How to Obtain It. 
 
 103 J 3. 5- **II^ Forgiveth Our Iniquities." 
 
 Ji9» 59» 6o- "A. Message for the Dying Year. 
 
 119:126; 8:5, 6. The Need of a General Revival. 
 
 139:23,24. David's Prayer: ** Search Me and 
 Know Me." 
 
 326 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS 327 
 
 Proverbs 8 : 36. Our Most Dangerous Enemy. 
 
 11: 30. Business That Always Pays and That Is 
 
 Open to All. 
 13: 15. A Hard Road. 
 14:9. The Awfulness of Sin. ** Fools make a 
 
 mock at Sin. ' ' 
 27: I. Uncertain. 
 Isaiah 9 : 6. The Wonderful Jesus. 
 
 49: 24, 25. *' Christ as a Deliverer.' 
 
 53: 4, 5. **Death of Christ." 
 
 55:6. "Seek Ye the Lord While He May Be 
 
 Found." 
 55:6; Heb. 11:6; Hos. 10:12. A Wise Secret. 
 57:7. Seven Facts about the Way of the Wicked. 
 57: 21. Peace. 
 Jeremiah 17: 9. The Heart of Man. 
 21:8. Two Ways. 
 23:28. The Bible: Wherein It Differs from All 
 
 Other Books. 
 23:29; Heb. 4:12; Luke 8:11. The Power of 
 
 the Word. 
 33: 17. God's Power to Save a Drunkard. 
 Ezekiel 33' i^- *'Why Will Ye Die?" 
 
 3$: 18. A Mad Choice. 
 Daniels. A King's Folly and What It Cost: A 
 
 Tragedy. 
 Amos 4:12. A Great Meeting for Saint and Sinner, 
 
 Believer and Infidel. 
 Malachi 3:8. A Remarkable Robbery. 
 Matthew 4: 19. A Sermon to Christian Workers. 
 5 : 29. Hell. 
 
 6: 24. **No Man Can Serve Two Masters," etc 
 7 : 6. Hopeless Cases. 
 
328 TOPICS AND TEXTS 
 
 Matthew 7:13. Paths to Perdition. 
 
 7: 22, 23. False Hopes. 
 
 10: 32. The Duty of the Hour. 
 
 11: 19. A Friend Worth Having. 
 
 11:19. A True Friend. 
 
 11: 27-30. *' Coming to Christ." 
 
 11:28. ''Come." 
 
 II : 28. The Cure for All Our Woes. 
 
 11: 28, 29. Every Man's Great Need Met. 
 
 12: 24-32. Sin against the Holy Ghost. 
 
 12:30. With or Against: Which? 
 
 22: 14. Speechless before God. 
 
 22 : 42. "What Think Ye of Christ?" 
 
 23: 37, 38. The Failure of Jesus Christ. 
 
 24: 35. Certainties and Uncertainties about the 
 Future. 
 
 24: 44. "Be Ye also Ready, for in Such an Hour 
 that Ye Think Not the Son of Man Cometh." 
 
 27:22. The Great Question of the Day. 
 
 27: 22. Decision. 
 
 27: 22. The Question of Questions. 
 Mark 8 : 36. An Idiotic Bargain. 
 
 10: 26. Then Who Can Be Saved? 
 
 II : 22. Have Faith in God. 
 
 13: 22, 23. False Christs and False Prophets. 
 
 13: 34. "To Every Man His Work." 
 
 14: 1-20. Parable of the Sower. 
 
 14: 14. "Compassion of Christ." 
 
 15: 25, 26. Who Can Be Saved? 
 
 16: 16. How to Be a Daniel. 
 
 16 : 16. How to Be Saved and How to Be Damned. 
 Luke 2:7. No Room for Christ. 
 
 4: 18. The Blessed Gospel. 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS 329 
 
 Luke 4: 18. '*The Gospel in the New Testament." 
 
 5: 27. Sudden Conversions. 
 
 7 : 48. * * Thy Sins Are Forgiven. " 
 
 7:50. A Woman Who Is Sure to Be in Heaven. 
 
 9. Losing Sight of Self. 
 
 10: 25-37. Christ the Good Samaritan. 
 
 12 : 20. God's Estimate of a Certain Rich Man 
 
 14: 18. Profitless and Wicked Manufacturing. 
 
 15 : 4-7. The Lost Sheep. 
 
 15:11-24. Prodigal Son. 
 
 15:14-23. The Road from Starvation to Plenty. 
 
 16: 25. ''Retribution." 
 
 17:32. A Woman Wh Should Never Be For- 
 gotten. 
 
 18: 9-14. A ''Good Man" Lost, and a "Bad Man" 
 Saved. 
 
 18: 22. "One Thing Thou Lackest." 
 
 18:35-43; Mark 10: 46-52. Bartimaeus. 
 
 19:1-10. An Extraordinary Case : A Rich Man 
 Saved. 
 
 19: 10. "Christ's Mission to the World." 
 
 19: 10. Saved or Lost. 
 
 19: 14. High Treason. 
 
 24: 34. Easter Promises and Warnings. 
 
 24 : 49. The Christian Worker and the Holy Spirit. 
 John i: 38; Matt. 6: 33. "What Seek Ye?" 
 
 1:41. Working for Christ. 
 
 2 : i-ii. Christ's Miracle at Cana of Galilee. 
 
 3: 7. "Ye Must Be Born Again." 
 
 3: 16. "For God so loved the world that He gave 
 His only begotten Son, that whosoever believ- 
 eth in Him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life." 
 
330 TOPICS AND TEXTS 
 
 John 3: i6. Amazing- Love. 
 3; 16. God Is Love. 
 
 3: 16. The Most Wonderful Thing in the World 
 3: 16. The World's Greatest Gift: Enterprise. 
 3: 18. Condemned. 
 4: 14. Eternal Satisfaction. 
 5 : 40. A Strange Refusal. 
 6: 35. Christ, the Bread of Life. 
 6: 44. God's Cables. 
 8: 32. Freedom for All Men. 
 8:36. Liberty. 
 
 9. Christ Restoring the Blind. 
 
 10. Christ, the Good Shepherd. 
 10. The Shepherd and His Sheep. 
 12: 42, 43. Open Confession of Christ. 
 14:6. The Way to God. 
 
 15 : 9. An Open Door. 
 15: 25. A Strange Hatred. 
 15 : 25. *'They Hated Me v^ithout a Cause." 
 16: 5. Where Will You Spend Eternity? 
 18: 38. Some Absolute Certainties. 
 18:40. A Strange Election. 
 19:30. '*It Is Finished." 
 Acts 1 : 8. Witnessing for Christ. 
 2: 1-4. Pentecostal Power. 
 4: 12. No Salvation except in Christ. 
 4: 12. An Imperative and Immediate Need. 
 4: 31-35. A Model Church. 
 6:7. Stephen. 
 8 : 4. Spreading the Gospel. 
 9: i; 22: 10. A Brilliant and Bitter Infidel Con- 
 verted. 
 11:13, 14. Sincere but Not Saved. 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS 331 
 
 Acts 11: 13, 14. What a Man Must Believe and What 
 
 He Must Do to Be Saved. 
 13: 39. Taking God at His Word. 
 16: 25-34. In Jail at Midnight. 
 16: 30. Genuine Salvation and How to Get It. 
 16:30-31. A Plain Answer to a Great Question. 
 16: 33. All in One Hour. 
 17:30. "God commandeth all men everywhere 
 
 to repent." A New Year's Call. 
 18: 8. Family Religion. 
 20: 31. Love for Souls. 
 24: 25, R. V. A Fatal Mistake. 
 26: 28. A King's Costly Folly. 
 Romans 1:1. A Servant of Jesus Christ. 
 1 : 16. God's Power at Man's Disposal. 
 1 : 16. Salvation for Everybody 
 i: 22. Where Infidelity and Liberalism FaiL 
 3:22. Man's Great Failure. 
 3: 22, 23. The Universal Equality of Men. 
 5 : 6. God's Love for Sinners. 
 6:23. An Easy Question for a Wise Man to 
 
 Answer. 
 6:23. Outrageous AVages. 
 6:23. Eternal Life: What It Is and How to 
 
 Get It. 
 8: 17. Joint Heirs with Christ. 
 9: 20. Man's Right Attitude before God. 
 10: I. How to Get Men Saved. 
 10:13. Saved by a Cry. 
 I Corinthians i: 18, 31. "God's Instrumentalities.'* 
 1:27. Weak Things Employed to Confound the 
 
 Mighty. 
 3:11. The Only Foundation. 
 
332 TOPICS AND TEXTS 
 
 1 Corinthians 5:6, 7. Little Sins. 
 
 13. Love. 
 
 13:5. Self -Examination. 
 
 15:16. Some Certainties Connected with the 
 
 Resurrection of Christ. 
 15:57. Glorious Victory. 
 
 2 Corinthians 2:11. The Devices of the Devil. 
 
 6: 17, 18, R. V. Separation. 
 
 11:13-15. Ministers Who Are Doing the Devil's 
 Work. 
 Galatians 3: 10, R. V. A Wonderful Contrast. 
 
 5:22. Fruits of the Spirit. 
 
 6:7. • * Be Not Deceived. * ' 
 
 6:9. Perseverance. 
 Ephesians 1:2, 12. Men Out of Christ. Their Condi- 
 tion To-day. 
 
 2: 12. No Hope. 
 
 4:30. Grieving the Spirit. 
 
 5: 15. Fools in God's Sight. 
 
 5:16. Redeeming the Time. 
 
 5: 25-27. Christ and the Church. 
 Philippians 3:7,8. A Great Sacrifice for a Greater 
 Gain. 
 
 4. Seven Privileges of the Believer. 
 
 4: 4. How to Be Always Happy. 
 
 1 Timothy i : 6. The One Thing to Get. 
 
 1:15. Why Jesus Christ Came into the World. 
 1:15. One Thing That Every Man Should 
 
 Believe. 
 4:8. A Paying Investment. 
 
 2 Timothy 2. God's Pattern for a Christian Worker. 
 
 2:15. An Approved Workman. 
 3: 14, 15. Saving the Children. 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS 333 
 
 Hebrews 2:3. A Startling Question. 
 
 2 : 3. No Escape. 
 
 3: 13. Hardened. 
 
 7: 25. Christ Mighty to Save. 
 
 9:27. The Judgment. 
 
 10: 11; 13: 14. Heaven: What Sort of a Place It 
 Is and How to Get There. 
 
 12:25; 10:28. Three Classes. 
 James 4: 2. The Power of Prayer. 
 
 4: 3. Hindrances to Prayer. 
 
 5: 16, R. V. The Prayer of the Righteous Man. 
 
 1 Peter i : 4. 5. A Great Inheritance and How to Get It. 
 
 1:8. How to Be Unspeakably Happy. 
 1 : 8. Why Christians Sing. 
 2:21. In His Steps. 
 
 2 Peter 2:1. Infamous Ingratitude. ' 
 
 3 : 9, R. V. Not God's Fault. 
 I John 3:15, 17. The World. 
 
 4: 8. God Is Love. 
 
 5. The Glory of the Believer as Seen in i John 5. 
 
 5: 15. The Prayer That God Hears, or How to 
 Pray so as to Get What You Ask. 
 Jude 20. Praying in the Holy Spirit. 
 Revelation 3: 17. Blind Eyes. 
 
 12:9. How the Devil Fools Men. 
 
 22: 17. God's Last Call. 
 
 Christ's Call to Peter. 
 
 John 1 : 40. 
 Matt. 14: 28. 
 Luke 9: 28. 
 John 6 : 66. 
 Luke 22: 45. 
 
134 TOPICS AND TEXTS 
 
 Christ— The Bread of Life. 
 
 Christ in the Old Testament. 
 
 Confession of Sin. 
 
 Divinity of Christ. 
 
 Five Things That No Man Can Do. 
 
 1. Romans 5 : 6-8. 
 
 2. Romans 3 : 20. 
 
 3. John 14: 6. 
 
 4. John 6 : 44. 
 
 5. Hebrews 12: 14, 
 Foundations of Faith, The. 
 
 I Peter 3: 15. 
 
 Matt. 24: 35. 
 
 John 9 : 25. 
 
 John 4: 29. 
 Fourfold View of Christ. 
 
 Gal. 3: 13. 
 
 Gal. 2 : 20. 
 
 Rom. 15: 14. 
 
 John 14: 1-13. 
 Four Skeptics : Nathaniel, Thomas, Pilate, the King's 
 
 Courtier. 
 God's Attitude toward the Wicked. 
 
 1. Matt. 5 : 44. 
 
 2. Heb. 11:6. 
 
 3. John 3: 16. 
 
 4. Rom. 5 : 6-8. 
 
 5. Ps. 7: II. 
 
 6. Is. 57: 21. 
 
 7. Ps. 86:5. 
 
 8. 2 Pet. 3 : 9. 
 
 9. Heb. 7 : 25. 
 Hebrews 11. 
 
 Holy Spirit, The. 
 
TOPICS AND TEXTS 33S 
 
 Holy Spirit and the Word, The. 
 
 Hope. 
 
 How to Study the Bible so as to Get the Most Good 
 
 out of It. 
 Importance of Bible Study. 
 John the Baptist. 
 Joseph of Arimathaea. 
 Jesus and Sinners. 
 
 1. Luke 15: 2. 
 
 2. Matt. 9: 13, R. V. 
 
 3. Luke 19: 10. 
 
 4. I Tim. i: 15. 
 
 5. Rom. 5 : 8. 
 Life and Character of Jacob. 
 Life and Character of Joshua. 
 Life and Character of Peter. 
 Nicodemus. 
 
 Power of the Holy Spirit. 
 Psalm Thirty-second. 
 Priceless Possessions. 
 
 1. Eph. 1:7, 2. 
 
 2. Phil. 3:8, 9- 
 
 3. Rom. 5 : I. 
 
 4. I John 2: I. 
 
 5. Eph. 3:18. 
 
 6. John 6: 47. 
 Salvation Free. Is. 55: i, 2. 
 Salvation Full. Heb. 7:25. 
 Salvation Forever. Heb. 5 : 9. 
 Seven Comes. 
 
 Isa. 55:1. 
 Isa. 55:3. 
 Mark 6: 31. 
 Matt. 11: 28. 
 
336 TOPICS AND TEXTS 
 
 Some Reasons Why Every Sensible Man Should Be a 
 
 Christian. 
 Six **One Things," The. 
 
 1. Mark lo: 21. 
 
 2. John 9: 25. 
 
 3. Luke 10: 42. 
 
 4. Matt. 20:8. 
 
 5. Phil. 3: 13. 
 
 6. Joshua 21 : 45. 
 Twenty-third Psalm. 
 
 Three Fires. 
 
 Matt. 3:11. 
 
 1 Cor. 13: 15. 
 
 2 Thess. 1 : 29. 
 What? 
 
 Mark 8 : 36. 
 
 I Pet. 4: 17. 
 
 Matt. 27: 22. 
 What It Is to Believe on Christ. 
 What Christ Is to Those Who Believe on Him- 
 
 1. I Pet. 2 : 24. 
 
 2. 2 John 2: I. 
 
 3. Rom. 7: 24, 25. 
 
 4. Matt. II : 28. 
 
 5. John 10: 28. 
 Why Jesus Christ Is Coming Again. 
 
 Why I Believe that Jesus Is the Son of God. 
 Why the King Came. 
 
 
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