05 A QUEST FOR SOULS.

A QUEST FOR SOULS. And he brought him to Jesus.”—John 1:42.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. At the beginning of the service last evening I raised the question with the Christians who were present if they would not set themselves apart definitely to do some earnest personal religious visiting every day during these meetings. Now, I am wondering how many of those Christians who heard that request have to-day heeded it, and to-day have sought to help somebody touching personal religion. All about us there are people who are neglecting the highest things, and yet these people have their heart-hungers and their longings, because eternity hath been set in every heart, and therefore nothing other than the eternal can satisfy the human heart. Oh, I am so anxious, my fellow Christians, that we shall give ourselves during these midsummer days, in this brief meeting, like we ought, to the right kind of religious visiting. I believe—I wonder if you people believe it with me—that every night we come here every Christian listening to me now, can by the right sort of effort bring at least one with you to every night service, who is not a Christian. What if you were to do that? Remember: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” What if every Christian listening to me now highly resolved in his or her heart: “As for me, I will do my best to bring at least one with me, every night, who is not a Christian!” Oh, I pray you, pass nobody by. Go after the tallest man in this fair city. Jesus needs him, and surely that man’s supreme need is Jesus. Go after the most gifted woman socially in all the city. How the Master needs her, and how she needs Him! Go after the poorest and wretchedest. Jesus would have you pass nobody by. Now, I raise the question with you again, my fellow Christian. Will you not give yourself for an hour to-morrow, to the right kind of religious visiting? There is some duty-neglecting Christian you ought to see. There is some back-slidden Christian that you ought to confer with. And, above all, there is somebody that you ought to talk with who is not a Christian at all. Oh, what an incongruity for a Christian to go his way dumb in the presence of those not Christians! Couldn’t you give an hour to-morrow, to this greatest quest of all? And if it could not be an hour, couldn’t it be half an hour? And if it could not be half an hour, couldn’t it be five minutes? And if it could not be five minutes, couldn’t you take one minute to ask some person face to face: “Is it well with your soul?” Be not afraid. Do your best, and God will be with you.

You are ready now, I trust, quietly and reverently, to listen for some moments to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. I am reading from John’s Gospel, in the first chapter:

Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God 1 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

Just one sentence, and that led them to follow Jesus, and you can speak that sentence.

Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye?

What are you men up to? Oh, how candid is the good Master, Jesus! He never misleads. He never deceives. How candid is Jesus! What seek ye? What are you men up to? Why do you follow me?

They said unto Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwell est thou? He saith unto them. Come and see. That is what He always says. That is Christ’s standing challenge to mankind—come and see!

They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day; for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first findeth his own brother, Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. The bringing of a soul to Jesus is the highest achievement possible to a human life. Some one asked Lyman Beecher, probably the greatest of all the Beechers, this question: “Mr. Beecher, you know a great many things. What do you count the greatest thing that a human being can be or do?” And without any hesitation the famous pulpiteer replied: “The greatest thing is, not that one shall be a scientist, important as that is; nor that one shall be a statesman, vastly important as that is; nor even that one shall be a theologian, immeasurably important as that is; but the greatest thing of all,” he said, “is for one human being to bring another to Christ Jesus the Savior.”

Surely, he spoke wisely and well. The supreme ambition for every church and for every individual Christian should be to bring somebody to Christ. The supreme method for bringing people to Christ is indicated here in the story of Andrew, who brought his brother Simon to Jesus. The supreme method for winning the world to Christ is the personal method, the bringing of people to Christ one by one. That is Christ’s plan. When you turn to the Hojy Scriptures, they are as clear as light, that God expects every friend He has to go out and see if he cannot win other friends to the same great side and service of Jesus.

“Ye shall be witnesses unto me,” said Jesus, “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.” The early church went out and in one short generation shook the Roman empire to its very foundation. It was a pagan, selfish, sodden, rotten empire, and yet in one short generation, that early church had shaken that Roman empire from center to circumference, and kindled a gospel light in every part of the vast domain. And they did it by the personal method. The men and the women and the children who loved Christ, went out everywhere, and talked for Christ, in the hearing of those who knew Him not, and the hearers became interested, and followed on, and found out for themselves the saving truth that there is in Christ’s gospel. Every Christian, no matter how humble, can win somebody else to Christ. You would not challenge that, would you? Let me say it again. Every Christian, however humble, can win somebody to Christ. That is a most interesting and instructive story told of the nobly gifted Boston preacher, Dr. O. P. Gifford, who preached one morning to his congregation, making the insistence that it is the business, primary and fundamental, of Christ’s people to go out constantly and win others to the knowledge of the Savior. And as he brought to bear his message upon his waiting auditors, with words that breathed and thoughts that burned, the minister came on to say: “Every Christian can win somebody to Christ.” When the sermon was done and the people were sent away, there tarried behind one of his humblest auditors—probably the humblest, with reference to this world’s goods, for she was a poor seamstress. She tarried behind to make her plea to the preacher that his sermon was over-stressed. Greatly moved she was, the preacher stated, as looking him in the face she said: “Pastor, this is the first time that I ever heard you when you seemed to be unfair.” “Pray, wherein was I unfair?” he asked. Then she said: “You kept crowding the truth down upon us that every Christian could win somebody to Christ. Now, you did not make any exceptions, and surely I am an exception. Pray, tell me what could I do? I am but a poor seamstress, and I sew early and late to get enough to keep the wolf from the door for my fatherless children, and I have no education and no opportunity, and yet your statement was so sweeping that even I was included, and in that,” she said, “I think you were unfair—the first time I ever knew you to be so.” And then, when she had finished her vehement protest, he looked down at her in all her agitation, and said to her: “Does anybody ever come to your house?” She said: “Why, certainly, a few people come there.” And then, waiting a moment, he said: “Does the milkman ever come?” “To be sure,” she said; “every morning he comes.” “Does the bread-man come?” “Every day he comes.” “Does the meat-man come?” “Every day he comes to my cottage.” Then, waiting a moment for his questions to have their due effect, looking down earnestly at her, he said: “A word to the wise is sufficient,” and he turned upon his heel, abruptly leaving her. She went her way, and the nightfall came and she went to her bed to ponder late and long the searching message she had heard that morning. Why, she had not even tried to win anybody to Christ. She had never made the effort. She claimed to be Christ’s friend, and yet had never opened her lips for Him at all. She will try, and she will begin with her first opportunity to-morrow, even with the coming of the milk-man. Accordingly she was up before the daylight came, there waiting, if haply she might speak to him some word concerning personal religion. When he greeted her, he made the remark that he had never seen her up quite so early before, and she stammered out some embarrassing reply, not saying what she came to say, and now he had left her, and the gate clicked behind him as he left. Then she summoned her strength and called him back. “Wait a minute,” she pleaded, “I did have something to say to you.” And when he tarried to hear it, she poured out her heart to him in the query: “Do you know Christ? Are you a Christian? Are you the friend and follower of that glorious Savior who came down from heaven and died, that you might not forever die?” And fairly dropping his milk pails, he looked into her face with anguish in his own, as he said to her: “Little woman, what on earth provoked you to talk to me like this? Here for two nights, madam, I have been unable to sleep, and the burden of it all is that I am not a Christian, and I am in the darkness. If you know how to find the light, you are the one that I need, and you should tell me.” And there, in a few brief minutes of conversation, she told him how she had found the light, and he walked in that simple path that she indicated for him. And Dr. Gifford goes on to tell us that before that year was out, that same little seamstress had won seven adults to Christ, not only to the open confession of Christ as their Savior, but to take their places promptly in His church. You can win somebody to Christ. Have you tried? Will you try? Won’t you try, looking to God to guide and help you? The text tells of a man who won somebody to Christ. The case of an ordinary man is this, and therefore he is chosen, for we are just ordinary people. This man Andrew is not Paul, the outstanding Christian of the centuries. He is not Apollos, that eloquent, winsome man, who could compel people to listen to him, his words were so entrancing. He is just an ordinary, every-day, commonplace man. The Bible makes only three or four passing references to him. This man is the illustration we are to have tonight of the one person going out to win some other person to Christ. Let us fix our eyes upon him to-night, and learn from the story something to help us.

Andrew here stands forth as one who has just found the Savior. How will he act? Two things stand out in response to that question—how will he act? First of all, Andrew is immediately interested that somebody else may be saved. Don’t you like that? Isn’t that a wonderful example for us? Immediately, this man Andrew is concerned that somebody else may be saved. Oh, there are different evidences, my friends, indicated in these Holy Scriptures, whereby we may pass upon this eternally consequential question, whether or not we have been born again. It may be that at one of these services we will group these Scriptural evidences, and focus them upon this question: “Have I been born again, and what are the Scriptural evidences that I have been born again?” Certainly we might not be able to have a more interesting or profitable study. But whether we shall give ourselves or not to such service, here stands out for us one shining fact, like a mountain peak: If one is born again, that one is concerned that somebody else may be saved. “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” And the spirit of Christ is the spirit of compassionate anxiety that lost people may be saved. Now, Andrew evinces his concern, straighway after he finds the Messiah, that somebody else may find that same blessed, forgiving Savior. Years agone, I was preaching in a series of daily meetings like these, and one Sunday morning, when I made the call for those who would confess Christ to come forward and remain, there came a group down the aisles, and a number waited to be received into the church. When I came to question them about their coming into the church, I came presently to an humble German girl, a servant in one of the families. She was not long from the old country, and her English was barely intelligible, as we listened to it, and I said to her: “My child, why do you wish to join the church?” In her broken English, she made her reply to my question, and her English was so bad that it was wellnigh impossible for us to understand just what she was saying. Then I said to her: “My child, if you won’t mind, I will ask you to wait a week, and let us talk with you quietly and carefully, as is the custom with all the young people that come into the church. We would be careful about this great step. The church is for those who have found Christ as their Savior, who know the way, and too much care can hardly be exercised at that point, and I will just ask, if you don’t mind, that you will wait and let us talk it over, that no mistake may be made.” She readily assented to my proposal, and I passed to the next case, and when I was questioning him presently the child broke out in a sob audible to those in the rear of the large auditorium. All of us were immediately embarrassed. Evidently I had grieved her, and I turned back to her frankly, and said: “Why, my child, I did not mean to grieve you by asking that you wait. That is not anything unusual. The church is doing that sort of thing here constantly. We are asking that the young people talk with the pastor, and talk with the parents carefully, before they come into the church. Coming into the church is one of the greatest steps for a human soul, and it ought to be taken with much deliberation and wisdom. It was for your good, my child, and it is not anything unusual that you are asked to wait.” She said, with better English now: “Oh, sir, it is not that that makes me cry! I forgot. I cried because my brother here in this city is such a wild boy, and he is lost, and my heart is breaking. I am so concerned that he shall be saved. Won’t you ask everybody here to-day to join me in one prayer that my poor, lost, sinful brother may be saved? That is what made me cry.” And the dear old senior deacon spoke up, and said: “Pastor, we had better take her into the church now. She knows the way, and we need not wait another week.” She did know the way, and there was the outflashing in that conversation, in that last moment, of her deep knowledge of a forgiving Savior, and all that audience was swept with her tremulous appeal. They knew, every Christian there, that this woman knew the Lord, because of her heart’s longing for others to be saved.

There was another point about this man Andrew, strikingly suggested, when he found the Savior, and that point is that he went straight home to get his first work in for his Savior. Now, don’t you like that? He went straightway to get in his first work for the great Savior whom he had just found, in his own home. He went after a difficult case, let me tell you. He went after his own brother Simon. Rash and headstrong and impulsive was that man Simon, and yet plain Andrew, a weakling compared with Simon, went after that big, strong brother, nor did he cease until he had brought him to Christ.

Oh, if the limits of this hour allowed, I should like, my brothers, to poui out my heart in a plea for home religion. There is an old saying that comes to mind just here: “The shoemaker’s wife is the worst shod person in the village.” Oh, if I might pour out my heart for a moment in a plea that our homes be ordered like they ought to be in the realm of religion! If there be one place, let me say it to the parents, where you should put your best foot forward for Christ, it should be in your families. I tell you, that is an indictment against a father if his own boy does not believe in his religion. I tell you that is an indictment against a mother if her own girl does not believe: “My mother is the best Christian in all the world.” Oh, that our religion in our homes shall be outshining and congruous and consistent, even after the highest and most heavenly fashion! The accent, in my humble judgment, that most of all needs to be pronounced this night, throughout this whole country, from border to border, is an accent on the religion of our homes. As goes the home, so shall go everything in the social order. The citadel, both for church and for state, is the home. If we shall have the right kind of homes, then shall everything in the social order be conserved and saved, but if our homes shall be beaten down and unraveled and frazzled out by every superficial and foolish thing—God save the mark!— the nation is doomed and the land shall be lost. I wonder what your answer would be, as I look into the faces of Christian parents now, and ask you this simple question: Do you fyave family prayer at your house? Why don’t you have it? You might have measured off to you one round thousand years in which to get up your reasons why a Christian parent should not have family prayer in his house, and when the thousand years had passed, you would come back without the semblance of even one reason. Oh, men and women who love Christ, with your children growing about you, or already fairly grown, is it possible that human life, invested as it is with such sacred meanings and opportunities and responsibilities, shall go passing away, and the chiefest place of all to get in ycur witness for Christ, even under your own roof, shall be overlooked and lost! One of the most menacing signs that you can find in any community, if you are able to find it there, is the decay of family prayer in such community.

I am thinking now of two homes. To the first was I summoned one morning to the burial of their only child. She was a beautiful girl of some fifteen summers. They were not members of my congregation, but of another; but their minister was absent, and, therefore, was I summoned to conduct the funeral. I came to the splendidlooking home, and a vast concourse of people were in and about the house. I asked that I might see the family, and I was taken down the long hall and into the quiet room where the broken-hearted parents sat, and as tactfully as I could, I began to find my way to an apprehension of the situation, that I might the better speak in the funeral service to be had a few moments later. I found in response to questioning, presently, that both of these parents were professed Christians, and then I ventured to tell them that earth had no sorrow that heaven cannot heal, and that they must refuse to turn aside into the abyss of despair and broken-heartedness, because they had a Savior, and they were His friends- By this time the mother was on her feet, and said: “Sir, I have something to tell you that has utterly broken our hearts.” I waited to hear what it was, and then she said: “That beautiful girl yonder in her casket, our only child, has been here in our home these fifteen years, and yet in all these years, though her mother is a Christian, and her father is a Christian—in all these years that child never heard either one of us pray one time, sir.” And then she waited a moment more, and said: “Sir, our horrible fear is that it was not well with the child, and that her blood will be on our garments.” Will you say that it was not? Oh, cruelty of cruelties, inconsistency of inconsistencies, that a child should be in a Christian home fifteen years, and never hear the voice of a parent one time lifted in prayer!

There was another home of which I would speak. I pleaded with the people one morning in the other years, begging them that they put first things first, and that the men who were Christians would pause at the breakfast table for a little season of prayer with the loved ones around them, or in the evening time, when the day was done, that they would gather the circle about them, and speak with the great King and Savior in grateful acknowledgment and in continual plea for His mercies to be granted them. Numbers that morning said that they would change their ways. One outstanding business man, whose voice was often heard in the city, searched me out and said: “Oh, I have lived miserably far from what is consistent and right. I will turn over a new leaf tonight. Family prayer shall be at my house to-night, and every night henceforth.” I follow it just a moment more. The next morning, as I crossed the city, I saw his only son about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and as I was traveling rapidly along, the son summoned me, and when he reached me, I saw in his face that there was a deep battle of some sort going on, and I said: “What is it, my boy, that I can do for you?” And then he looked down with face averted, and then looked up with his face covered with tears, and said: “You ought to have been at our house last night.” “What happened at your house, my boy? I should like to know.” He said: “Oh, you should have been there. Papa prayed last night! Papa had sister and me called into the room, and papa sobbed as he told us he had not lived like a Christian father ought, and papa asked sister and me to forgive him. Neither of us could talk. We did not know what to say. Both of us cried. Papa asked mother to open the Bible for him, and he tried to read it, but he could not, and then papa knelt down and prayed, mostly about himself, and then he said when he got up: ’Children, papa is going to live a different life from this time on.’“ And the boy said: “I went to my room and I could not sleep.” I said: “Why couldn’t you sleep, my boy?” And then, as he leaned over on my shoulder, he said: “I found out last night that I am a sinner, and that I am lost. You do not know how I wanted to see you, that you might tell me what to do.” We turned into a little store house, vacant, and there, in a few words, I told the lad how it is that Jesus saves a sinner, and the lad made his simple, honest surrender, and was saved that very Monday morning. You should have heard him the next Sunday morning, when the pastor said: “Tell us, my boy, what started you in this upward way?” He looked across at his father, on the other side of the house, and said: “Papa’s prayer last Sunday night started me in the upward way.”

Oh, I know it is difficult to have family prayers, my men and women! I know it is difficult, but listen to this: Everything on this earth worth while costs, and you and I must not, dare not, thrust back into some little inconsequential corner in our lives the thing chiefest and commanding that God has appointed for the winning of the world to God.

There is another point for our consideration in the case of this man Andrew. Andrew’s act magnifies the place and the power of personal work in the winning of lost people to Christ—the place and power of personal work—and just there are several suggestions for our consideration. There can be no substitutes for personal work. Jesus is depending on His friends to get His gospel made known to a gainsaying and unbelieving world. He is dependent on His friends. That is His own divinely appointed method. There can be no substitutes for personal work! Life must make its impact upon life. Now, everybody seems to understand that, I have sometimes thought, better than the church of God understands it. The business men understand the power of personal work. They send out their drummers up and down the land, to look into the faces of their customers, real or prospective, and explain their wares. And certainly the politicians understand the power of personal work. You let a great issue be on, city or state or national, with two virile parties each contending for supremacy, and you will observe that the champions of these parties send their spokesmen, their representatives, to look their fellow-men in the face and argue and plead and explain, if haply they may win their votes. Oh, will the church of God fail to lay to heart that the chief instrumentality human for the winning of the world to Christ is the power of personal work? There can be no substitute for personal work, none at all. Elisha may send his servant Gehazi, with the prophet’s own staff back yonder to the chamber where the dead boy lies, saying to his servant: “Put my staff on that boy and see if it won’t bring him to life,” and the instructions may be carried out, but the boy will remain in the cold grip of death. Elisha, the prophet, himself must go, and stretch his own body, warm and pulsing, on the cold body of that dead boy. Elisha himself must make the impact of life upon that dead body. The Divine Master of life himself gave an emphasis to personal work beyond anything that I can describe in my simple discourse this evening. Jesus preached His chiefest sermon on the new birth to just one man. My fellow-men, if Jesus thought it worth while to have just one for His congregation, and there do His best work, surely the servant shall not be greater than his Master. And when Jesus came to preach His sermon on eternal life, He preached it yonder to a woman at the well of Samaria — a poor drab of a woman, about whose character the less said the better, and yet she had a soul that was to live forever, and when she came to that well to draw water therefrom, Jesus had His opportunity, and with words tactful and honest and faithful, He found His way to that woman’s conscience, and at the right time revealed himself the forgiving Savior to her. Jesus gave His best service for one soul.

Listen to Him yonder as He tells the story of the shepherd leaving his ninety and nine sheep safely housed in the sheep-cote. Ninety and nine of them were safe, but one was missing, and he left the ninety and nine safely housed in the sheep-cote, and went out after that missing sheep, over the hills and mountains, with his feet pierced by stones and thorns, searching, looking for that one missing sheep. Nor did he give up his quest, until that sheep was found, and the shepherd brought it back and put it in the sheep-cote with the others. What is Jesus saying in this pungent parable? “Oh, my church,” the compassionate Savior says, “go out and seek earnestly until that lost sheep is found!” He is saying just that.

Now, all experience and all observation confirm the point that I am seeking to make, that there can be no substitutes for personal work. How shall we save our churches? My fellow Christians, there is one sure way, and that is that our churches be great life-saving stations to point lost sinners to Christ. The supreme indictment that you can bring against a church, if you are able in truth to bring it, is that such church lacks in passion and compassion for human souls. A church is nothing better than an ethical club if its sympathies for lost souls do not overflow, and if it does not go out to seek to point lost souls to the knowledge of Jesus. But now I come to a practical question. How may you and I win sinners to Christ, as did Andrew of old? That is entirely practical, and this Wednesday evening let us focus our thoughts for a moment on the practical question, how may you and I, like Andrew, win people to Christ? There are several suggestions to be given in response to that question. First of all, let us magnify the Word of God and its Author, the Divine Spirit himself. We are to magnify both the Word of God and the Author of such Word, namely the Holy Spirit himself. The one is our sword, and the other is our power. We are to take this Word of God and we are to deliver to the lost world about us the message of this Word of God concerning Jesus and the relation of humanity to Him. Our message is made out for us, fortunately: “Preach the preaching that I bid thee.” “Preach the Word.” The Word of God is to be proclaimed. The Word of God is to be avowed. The Word of God is to be declared. The Word of God is not bound. The Word of God will take care of itself, if only it be faithfully proclaimed. You and I are to come with this Word of God, and without mincing or reservation, are to tell men everywhere that outside of Jesus Christ they are lost, and shall never meet God in peace, if they are not forgiven by this Divine Savior. We are to declare that, and the Lord, in the power of His Spirit, shall apply and shall bring to pass such results as in His wisdom and mercy He deemeth best. Nor is that all. As we give ourselves to the task of winning souls to Christ, we are with all diligence and devotedness to seek the guidance and power of the Divine Spirit himself at every step. He would guide and help us. You do not have to see the man to-morrow by yourself— that difficult man. The talk you are to have with him is not to be in your own strength alone. Beside you shall stand the omnific Savior, and going with you shall be the counsel and power of His Spirit. You do not have to see that woman in your own poor, unaided wisdom. You are to do the best you can, leaning on the Arm Everlasting, and God’s wisdom and God’s power clothed upon from His Spirit shall accompany your simple, honest effort.

Again, if you and I are to win people to Christ, then we are to use, like Andrew did, the power of personal testimony. When Andrew found his Savior, he said: “Brother, listen! I have found the Messiah. Let me tell you about Him.” And then, with words that thrilled and burned, Andrew told his brother what he had tasted and seen and felt of—Jesus, the long looked for Messiah. My fellow Christians, there is nothing else human quite so powerful as the power of an earnest personal testimony concerning Jesus’ experience in your own life, as you tell somebody else what Jesus has been and consciously is to you yourself. You let some man in this audience come down this aisle and stand up and tell us: “This very day I have had definite dealings with God, and know it,” and every ear is alert to catch what he says. There is no power like the power of personal testimony. You can tell that neighbor or friend how you heard Christ’s voice, and how you responded, and what He said to you, and what He did, and what you have seen and experienced of His grace and love in your own little life. Tell that experience to somebody without delay. But that is not all. There is no power human like the power of personal love, as we go out to win people to Christ. Oh, do we care for the people round us who are lost? Do we really care? Of old there issued from the lips of one sorely pressed, this plaintive cry: “No man cared for my soul.” Are there men and women in Fort Worth who, if we could get at what they think, would say this to us: “They have their churches and their preachers and their Christians numbering many, but nobody ever cared for my soul?” Is there somebody in this community, lost and groping like a blind man for the wall, not ready to die, not ready to live, who in truth could say to us: “I have lived these long years, but nobody ever said that he cared for my soul?” Make that impossible as these days pass. Go with your word of witnessing and pleading and love, and go without delay. There is nothing so powerful in all this world as the power of love. Everybody ought to know the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians by heart, and in its gracious spirit every one of us ought to live every day: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Do we love lost sinners? Do we care for the young men about us who are coasting the downward road? Do we care for the people whose toil is rigorous and whose lot in life is hard? Do we care for business men and professional men, who are side-stepping with reference to the supreme things, namely, the things of God and the soul and eternity? Do we love these people well enough to go to them and earnestly and alone say to them: “Is it well with your soul?” There is no power in human life like the power of love. The prayer that the psalmist of old prayed is the prayer that you and I ought to pray: “Enlarge my heart.” He did not pray that his head might be enlarged. “Enlarge my heart,” for out of the heart are the issues of life.

One of the most heart-moving conversions that I have ever known, I witnessed years ago in my city, during the holiday period in mid-winter. There reached me the message that a little Sunday school boy in one of our mission Sunday schools had been accidentally shot by his little neighbor friend, and I hurried to the humble home as fast as I could go, and I found the unconscious little fellow in the hands of two skillful doctors, as they sought to diagnose the case. After awhile, when they had finished their diagnosis and treatment, I asked them what of the case, and they said: “He will not live. The shot is unto death.” I asked them if he would recover consciousness, and they answered that he might—that he might live two or three days, or he might not live until morning. I went back the next day, for this first day the boy’s father was in the stupor of a terrible drunk. A great-hearted and kindly father he was, too, when he was sober. Oh, the tragedy that many of these big-hearted, capable men allow their lives thus to be cajoled and cheated and destroyed by some evil habit! I went back the next day, and the father was sobering up. He was a fine workman in a harness and saddlery establishment. He was sobering up, and the agony of his case was something pitiful to behold. He would walk the floor, and then he would pause, as the tears fell from his face, while he looked on that little suffering boy, nine or ten years of age. I sat down beside the boy and waited for awhile, and presently the child opened his eyes, and the little fellow was conscious. His eyes were intelligent. His lips moved as he spoke my name, for he had frequently heard me speak in the mission where he went to the Sunday school. I bent over him, and the father came and sobbed and laughed as he observed the consciousness that had come to his little boy. And the father stroked the little fellow’s face, and kissed him with all the affection of a mother, and said, as he laughed and cried: “My little man is better, and he will soon be well.” The little face was clouded as he feebly whispered, saying: “No, papa; I will not get well.” And then the father protested, as he said: “You will get well, and I will be a good man, and I will change my ways.” The little fellow’s face was clouded, and he kept trying to say something, and I reached for the man to bend over to catch it, and this is what we did catch, after awhile: “When I am gone, papa, I want you to remember that I loved you, even if you did get drunk.” That sentence broke the father’s heart. He left the room, unable to tarry any longer. A few minutes later, I found him lying prone upon his face, there upon the ground, behind the little cottage, sobbing with brokenness of heart. I got down by him and sought to comfort and help him. And he said: “Sir, after my child loves me like that, oughtn’t I to straighten up and be the right kind of a man?” I said: “I have a story ten thousand times sweeter than that to tell you. God’s only begotten Son loved you well enough to come down from heaven and die for you, himself the just, for you the unjust, that He might bring you to God. Won’t you yield your wasting, sinful life to Him, utterly and honestly, and let Him save you His own divine way?” And then and there he made the great surrender. You should slip into one of our prayermeetings some night, when the men and women talk about what Christ has done for them, and one of the most appealing and powerful testimonies you would ever hear is the testimony of this harness workman, as he stands up, always with tears on his face, to tell you that love brought him home when everything else had failed. They criticised him because he drank. They scolded him because he drank. They railed at him because he drank. They pelted him with harsh words because he drank. But a little boy said: “Papa, I love you even if you do get drunk,” and love won the day when everything else had failed. Oh, my fellow-men, when everything else shall fail, “love never faileth.” Do you love these lost men and women of Fort Worth? Then, I pray you, in the great Master’s name, go and tell them that you care for them, and tell it before another sun shall sink* to rest in the far west to-morrow evening.

Long enough have I talked, but I gather up as best I can all I should say for a final moment of appeal. Here it is: Oh, my fellow Christians, let us see to it that you and I, like Andrew, do our best to win people to Christ} What argument shall I marshal to get us to do that thing right now, and to get us to do that thing as we never did it before, and to get us to do that thing these passing days, linking our lives with God with a devotion, and giving ourselves with a humility and a personal appeal, such as we never knew before? What arguments shall I marshal to get us to do that right now? Shall I talk about duty? Then this is our first duty. m And what a great word that word duty is! Robert E. Lee was right, that matchless man of the South, when he wrote to his son, saying: “Son, the great word is duty.” Shall I talk about duty? My fellow Christians, your duty and mine, primal, fundamental, preeminent, supreme, tremendously urgent, is that we shall tell these around us that we want them saved. Shall I talk about happiness? Oh, was there ever another happiness on this earth comparable to this—the hearing from the lips of some soul the glad confession that you had said the word to win such soul to Christ? There is no happiness on this earth comparable to that. Shall I talk about responsibility? What shall I say about responsibility? Your responsibility and mine for these souls about us lost, is a responsibility big enough to stagger God’s archangel. You are your brother’s keeper. What if you neglect him, and he shall die in his sins? If you shall neglect him, and he shall die in his sins, when you might have won him, then it shall turn out that you are your brother’s spiritual murderer. Men can be killed by neglect. Women can be killed by neglect. A while ago there was condemned to death in England a notorious criminal, one of the hardest in all the records of crime. Minister after minister sought to get into his cell before the man’s execution, to talk to such man about God and the hereafter, but he steadfastly refused to see any minister. Presently one somehow got into the cell, and began to talk with him, and the poor man, condemned to be executed to-morrow, realized that he was talking at last with a minister of the gospel, and the minister brought to bear his mightiest appeal to that man to turn to God, even in those last waiting hours. The man was stolid and was utterly indifferent, and presently the minister said to the man: “Don’t you realize that in a few hours more your life shall be taken and you shall be in another world?” He said: “Quite well, sir, do I realize that my life will be taken, but whether there is another world or not, I do not know, and I have not any concern about that.” And then the minister urged and remonstrated and pleaded, and at last the condemned man rose up and said to him: “Sir, if I believed like you say, that a man dying without Christ is lost, and shall be lost forever—if I believed that and had your chance, I would crawl on my knees to tell the men of England, before it is too late, to repent of their sins and turn to God.”

Oh, do we believe it, that these men and women about us, and the dear young people under our own roofs, and the devoted husbands, beside whom walk gentle, Christian wives—do we believe that these men are lost, and that these young people are lost? Do we believe it? Then, I pray you, even as I summon myself, let us go to them in the right spirit, pleading with God to teach us, to empower us, to enable us to plead that now, before the day is gone, they may repent of sin and be saved forever. My message is done when I shall have asked one question. Mark it: Do these Christian men and women listening to me to-night, down in their hearts really wish that sinners shall be saved during these days of special meetings? Probably hundreds here present answer me back: “Sir, that is our deep wish, that sinners may be saved?” But I am going to make it stronger than that. Do these Christian men and women listening to me this Wednesday night say: “Sir, I promise you, yea, sir, I promise God, and in the presence of God and of angels and men, I declare my promise, not only do I desire to see sinners saved in these special meetings, but I will try myself, frail as I am and weak as I am—I will try myself, like Andrew, to win somebody to Christ?” Do you say: “That is my wish, sir, and that is my purpose, God helping me?” Everyone who says that, stand to your feet.

(A great number stood.) THE CLOSING PRAYER.

Give us thy counsel and comfort, our Father, this hour, when our hearts have been searched by thy Word of truth, and in these last moments, ere we separate, we make our appeal to thee, that we may translate into life, into power, into action, this message from thy Book this night. How we rejoice that many in this presence stand, quietly and humbly, but courageously, to say that they not only desire to see sinners saved, but, what is of far more meaning, they purpose,_ looking to thee, O God, to help them, to strive personally to win others to Christ, in the hours and days just before us. O Divine Spirit, rest thou upon every head and heart, and be on every tongue, and send us to the right persons, and give us to speak what and as we ought to speak to them concerning their personal salvation. Go thou before us, and prepare the heart, that we shall speak to, and open the understanding, and make the soul to be concerned by thine own life-giving touch, thine own spiritual illumination. Our gracious Father, let these days be days when preachers and laymen, when parents and children, when Christians of every age and name, shall personally dedicate their very best to win the people to Christ. Let this be the time when the people all about us, of all conditions and classes and needs shall have brought home to them the all. important truth that to live without God is to live vainly, is to miss the true end of being; Let the truth, terrible and sure, be written like fire in every conscience, that to live contrary to the will of God is to come to defeat and death. And let this be a time when, on the right hand and on the left, men and women and children shall come with honest, earnest and complete surrender of their lives to Christ. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen,