Art of Soul-Winning.

"FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST."

FOREWORD AND APPEAL.

Fred B—— was a medical student. He was stricken, with that dreaded scourge, consumption. The physicians advised a trip to the mountains. During the first few months among the Rockies he improved rapidly, and hope and ambition flamed anew; but it was only a brief respite from suffering before the final collapse. Lying in a Denver hospital, he was visited by some consecrated young people, who sang and prayed with him. He yielded himself to Christ, and the peace of God filled his heart.

They brought him home to a little Iowa city to die. The day after his arrival the pastor was summoned to his bedside, when the young man related the circumstances of his conversion. The pastor said, "Then you are not afraid to die?" "No," said he, "not afraid, but not ready."

When asked why he was not ready, he replied: "I have done nothing for my Master. I have won no souls for him. Could I have six months more to live that I might bring some souls to Jesus, and thus not go into his presence empty-handed, I would be satisfied to die. I am not afraid to die, but not ready." Just then the door of the room opened, and the dying boy's father, an old, white-haired man who had been absent from home and had not seen his son since his return, came in. The old man was not a Christian. Then occurred a pathetic scene. The young man threw his arms about his father's neck, and drew him down upon his knees at the bedside, urged him to give himself to God, and then, with shortening breath, uttered such a prayer of intercession as is seldom heard. The old man sobbed aloud, yielded to Christ, declared his faith, and the dying boy had won one soul for his Master. In a few hours he had gone into the presence of the King; but not empty-handed.

O ye to whom God has given the strength and vigor of manhood and womanhood, and who have pledged your allegiance to the Christ of Calvary, are you winning any souls for your Master? Or are you going into his presence empty-handed? What if in the judgment-day it shall be seen that some souls who might have been saved have been lost through your neglect? What if it shall then be seen that the crown of many stars which you might have won is given to another? And what, if in the great day of his appearing you shall be found, having gathered no sheaves and empty-handed?

THE LORD'S COMMAND.

By the Master's final words to his disciples the obligation is laid upon every Christian to be a soul-winner. "Ye shall be my witnesses," is the risen Lord's message to all his followers. No one is excused. "Follow me," said Christ, "and I will make you fishers of men." And when his face was set toward Calvary, he said to the Father, "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." By the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, God distinctly says that, if we neglect "to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand." We are all sent, and if we shrink or excuse ourselves from our great mission we shall come into condemnation.

The unsaved multitudes know that every Christian should be an ambassador for Christ, and when we fail to do our duty we are condemned in their eyes as well as before God. A writer in the Epworth Era says:

"A college professor who was noted among his fellow-teachers for his habit of addressing young men upon their personal relations to Christ, was asked by one of his fellow-professors, 'Do they not resent your appeals as an impertinence?' He replied: 'No! Nothing is of such interest to any man as his own soul and its condition. He will never resent words of warning or comfort if they are prompted by genuine feeling. When I was a young man, I felt as you do. My wife's cousin, a young fellow not yet of age, lived in our house for six months. My dread of meddling was such that I never asked him to be present at family worship, or spoke to him on the subject of religion. He fell into the company of a wild set, and was rapidly going to the bad. When I reasoned with him I spoke of Christ. "Do you call yourself a Christian?" he asked, assuming an astonished look. "I hope so," I replied. "But you are not. If you were, he must be your Best Friend. Yet I have lived in your house for six months, and you have never once named his name to me; no, he is nothing to you!" I have never forgotten the rebuke.'"

BY PERSONAL EFFORT.

Have you ever noticed that much of the work which the Master and his disciples did was "personal work?" Some of our Lord's greatest sermons were preached to one person. The apostles were all won individually. Turn to your Bible now, and read the account of the visit of Nicodemus to Christ, and of the meeting with the woman of Samaria at the well. If you take the time to follow this theme through the Gospels and through the Acts of the Apostles, you will be sure to see that the work of winning souls for Christ by personal effort is the work of every Christian.

And a conviction of this is the greatest need of the Church to-day. It is the key to the twentieth-century revival. The world would be evangelized in this generation did each professing Christian win only one soul each year for Christ; and the great social and labor problems of the day would be speedily solved were the great Christian Church actively engaged in leading men and women to Jesus of Nazareth. Mightier than the influence of great sermons and fine music and splendid ritual is the influence of a life consecrated to personal effort in seeking the lost.

That remarkable soul-winner, Dr. J.O. Peck, now translated, said: "So great is my conviction of the value of personal effort, as the result of a lifework of winning souls, that I can not emphasize the method too strongly. If it were revealed to me from heaven by the archangel Gabriel that God had given me the certainty of ten years of life, and that as a condition of my eternal salvation I must win a thousand souls to Christ in that time; and if it were further conditioned to this, that I might preach every day for the ten years, but might not personally appeal to the unconverted outside the pulpit; or that I might not enter the pulpit during these ten years, but might exclusively appeal to individuals, I would not hesitate one moment to make the choice of personal effort as the sole means to be used in securing the conversion of one thousand souls necessary to my own salvation."

Dr. Theodore Cuyler once said concerning the three thousand souls he had received into Church fellowship during his ministry, "I have handled every stone."

TROPHIES OF PERSONAL EFFORT.

Is it not a suggestive fact that nearly all those men who have shone brightly in the galaxy of martyrs, preachers, and reformers in the Christian Church through the centuries have been won to Christ by the personal effort of some consecrated life? Think of some in our own age.

Dwight L. Moody, when a clerk in a store, was visited by his Sunday-school teacher, who put his hand upon the young man's shoulder and talked to him about Christ; and Mr. Moody says, "I had not felt I had a soul till then."

Colonel H.H. Hadley, who has kneeled and prayed with over thirty-five thousand drunkards, declares that one of the agencies which led him to Christ was a brief interview with Chaplain (now Bishop) McCabe on a railway-train in Ohio just after the Civil War.

Lord Shaftesbury, one of the greatest Christian philanthropists of the nineteenth century, was won for Christ in early boyhood by the effort of Maria Willis, a servant-girl in his father's home.

The conversion of Diaz, the great Cuban evangelist, was due to the faithfulness of a consecrated young lady of Brooklyn. She found him in a hospital at the point of death, procured a Spanish New Testament, read to him the words of mercy and invitation, pointed him to Christ; and he went back to his own country, a flaming herald of the gospel.

J. Wilbur Chapman, one of the most successful pastor-evangelists of this generation, says that while in a revival-meeting, when a boy, his Sunday-school teacher touched him on the elbow, and said, "Do you not think you had better stand?" and that one touch, as much as anything else, pushed him into the kingdom.

Joseph F. Berry, whose name is a household word in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was led to Christ by two young friends who took the young printer to his father's barn, and held a prayer-meeting with him, which resulted in a glorious conversion.

THE WORTH OF A SOUL.

What is a life worth? What is your life worth? What is the life of your son or daughter or mother or wife worth? What would you take for a life? But if the life of a dear one be worth so much to you, what must be its value in God's sight, who sees to what depths a soul may plunge and to what heights it may rise? It may be a small matter to you that in yonder saloon is a man dissipated and drunken. But what if he were your father or brother or husband? It may be a very small matter to you that the boy whom you met on the street is puffing a cigarette and wears already upon his face the marks of an evil life. But what if he were your boy or your brother? Yet, in God's sight, his life is as valuable as if he were your boy or your brother; and every soul is of infinite worth.

Jesus Christ set a high estimate upon human life when he left his Father's throne and came into this sin-cursed world to suffer and die that he might redeem us from death.

The Church of to-day needs a new vision of the worth of a soul. We need to stand beside Calvary and see the price that was paid there for human life.

John Keble, the poet-preacher of the English Church, said that the salvation of one soul is worth more than the framing of the Magna Charta of a thousand worlds.

It was meditation upon the words of the memory verse of this study that fired the souls of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier with a holy enthusiasm to rescue the perishing multitudes. Had their successors and disciples been, filled with the same enthusiasm, and kept themselves free from the machinations of politics, they would have long since evangelized the world, and Jesuitism would not have been "the scandal of Christianity."

THE DEATH OF A SOUL.

What is death—the death of a soul? What is it to die eternally? In the passage for meditation our Lord gives us a glimpse into the realms of death. Surely the Son of God is not trifling here; nor does he speak to confuse. For a moment the curtain is drawn, and we see what is actually transpiring in the future world. In these days there is a disposition in some quarters to make light of the future punishment of the wicked. Some preachers are dumb upon the awful punishment of sin, or preach only half a gospel, saying, as Bishop Warren puts it, "You must repent, as it were; be converted, in a measure; or you will go to hell, so to speak."

But Christ did not speak with any uncertain sound about the future punishment of the impenitent. He is authority. Take your Bible and read such passages as Matt. xxv, 41, 46; Matt. viii, 12; Luke xvi, 23; John v, 29.

In the light of these words, we must see that the death of a soul means eternal separation from God, from mercy, and from heaven.

And yet how indifferent we are concerning the unsaved multitudes all about us who are drifting into a hopeless eternity. The Church needs a vision like that of the little lad in Olive Schreiner's "Story of a South African Farm," who, waking at midnight, sees multitudes drifting over the precipice into eternal night, and throws himself on his face on the floor, crying out in the agony of his burdened heart to God to have mercy.

Some one tells of a shepherd in the Far West who, on a dark, stormy night, found three sheep missing. Going to the kennel where the faithful shepherd-dog lay with her little family, he bade her go to find the sheep. An hour afterwards she returned with two. When these had been put in the fold, he said, "One sheep is yet missing. Go!" The faithful dog took one mute look of despair at her little family, then was off in the dark and the storm. In two hours she had returned with the lost sheep, but was torn and bleeding, and, as she staggered toward the kennel, fell dead at the door. But if a poor, dumb brute, with no immortal hope, be obedient, even unto death, what shall we say of men and women who know the destiny of the soul, and whom the King of kings has bidden seek the lost, yet are disobedient, indifferent, and thoughtless as to the dying multitudes about them?

THE SUPREME MOTIVE.

But the supreme motive in all our efforts to win others should be "the glory of God." Possessed of an undying love for him who first loved us, we will have an inspiration to seek the lost for whom he gave his life. And all our efforts shall be, as Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians, "unto the praise of his glory."

Love never faileth. Love knows no impossibility. He who works for wages and he who works for love live in two different realms. A lot of men were entombed in a coal-mine, and great crowds gathered to help clear away the earth and rescue the miners. An old, gray-headed man came running up, and, seizing a shovel, began working with the strength of ten men. Some one asked to relieve the old man. "Get out of the way," he cried; "I have two boys down there."

Love will triumph; and he whose heart throbs with love to Christ will find real joy in rescuing from sin those who are the purchase of his blood, that his name may be glorified.

Study his life of self-sacrifice. See again his suffering for sinful men. Linger in Gethsemane, and behold the agony of Calvary. Then your heart will begin to throb with love to him "who first loved us."

Get a new vision of your crucified, but now risen, Savior, until the beauty of his matchless life charms your heart and you are ready to say:

Then you will possess the highest motive that moves human hearts, and personal work in soul-winning will become a real delight.

"YIELD YOURSELVES UNTO GOD."

A DEFINITE EXPERIENCE.

In a prayer-meeting a young lady was asked, "What is the first thing we must do if we would win others to Christ?" She replied, "We must live holy ourselves." She was right. Just as the telegraph wire must be insulated, so must the life of him who expects to be the messenger of God be insulated from the old life of sin before he can hope to carry the loving messages of the gospel to other souls.

This implies a definite experience of conversion. He who would engage in this most fascinating of all work must have nothing short of an inner consciousness of sins forgiven and of the presence of Christ in his life. He must be able to say, like Andrew and like Philip of old, "I have found him." He must know what it is to have "a new heart" and to have peace with God.

William Butler, the veteran missionary and soul-winner, now translated, wrote the author of these studies a letter, in which he said:

"First and foremost, I thank God for a true conversion. When I got religion, I got it good and thorough. Christ became everything to me. The law of sin, or temptation to worldly conformity of any kind, was completely eradicated from my heart; and from that hour to this the law of Christ has fully satisfied my soul, and made me gloriously free and independent of the world and its maxims and pleasures. And now, after fifty-five years' enjoyment of peace with God and humble devotion to his service, I bless him that I ever gave him my heart and devoted myself to his work. I am happy. The consoling comforts of the grace of God are with me by day and by night, and the blessed future is radiant with the hope of being 'numbered with the saints in glory everlasting.'"

In these days of compromise and doubt we need to have as definite an experience of salvation as had William Butler. He who would win others to a new life must himself possess that life, and know it, being able to say with Paul, "I know whom I have believed."

A COMPLETE SURRENDER.

John Wesley said, "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon the earth."

A life surrendered to God will be an invincible life, while the life only partly surrendered will know nothing but defeat. Someone says that, in the transfer of property, any reservation implies, also, reserved rights. If a man sells a ten-acre lot, and keeps a yard square in the center for himself, he has a right of way across what he has sold to get to his reservation. And if, in our surrender, we keep back anything, "that constitutes the devil's territory, and he will trample over all we call consecrated to get to his own." Therefore a complete surrender of the life to God is absolutely necessary.

To the rich young man who came to him, Jesus said, "One thing thou lackest." He demanded an unconditional surrender of every interest of his life. But the young man was not willing to make the surrender, and went away sorrowful. Of every man and woman Jesus asks the same surrender. But many now wander off in the darkness of formality and doubt because they are not willing. Three things are implied in such a surrender: (1) An acknowledgment of the Divine ownership and human stewardship in all temporal affairs; (2) A complete submission of the will to God; (3) The supremacy of Jesus Christ in the heart and life, so that the interests of his kingdom are first, always, and everywhere.

There is an old story of a monk who, having been disobedient to the rules of the monastery, was told he must die. They took him out into the graveyard, stood him upright in a grave, filled in the earth about his feet. Then they asked, "Are you dead yet?" He said, "No." The earth was then filled in about him to his waist, and the question again asked. He replied, "No." Then they filled in the earth until he was covered, all but his head, and could scarcely breathe. When asked if he would die, he replied, "Yes, I will give up; I will die." So may we die to the old life of self and sin, and live the new life of entire surrender to our risen Lord!

THE SPIRIT'S WITNESS.

When the life has been wholly surrendered to God, and Christ, the crucified and risen Savior, is enthroned in the heart and confessed before men, then the blessed assurance of our sonship with God will be clear and joyous. No longer shall we say, "I hope I am a Christian," or, "I am trying to be a Christian;" but, like Paul, we shall exclaim, "I know whom I have believed."

The witness of the Spirit will give a holy confidence to the soul-winner.

Much of the timidity and reluctance shown by Christians toward personal work may be traced to a refusal or neglect to live the surrendered life and have the clear assurance of acceptance with God.

This direct testimony to our adoption is given only by the Holy Spirit, and given only to believers because they are the sons of God. It is God's seal which he places upon his own, and we then no longer receive the spirit of bondage unto fear; but we receive the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The voice of God is heard in the soul bearing witness to our acceptance, and then the fruit of the Spirit speedily follows in the life to corroborate the inner voice and "give unmistakable confirmation to the testimony which was primary and direct."

To some, this assurance comes like a sudden flash from the sky; to others, like the gentle breathing of the evening zephyr. But it comes, it surely comes; and no soul should be satisfied until it comes; for it is essential to a useful, joyous life. Look up now, and with eager expectancy await the "blessed assurance."

EVERY WEIGHT.

We hear much about "personal liberty" in these days, and, to hear some talk, one would think that personal liberty was a gift to be selfishly guarded rather than to be sacrificed for the good of others. But Paul, the apostle, sacrificed his liberty for the sake of others; so did Onesimus, the Christian slave. Surely those professing Christians who make "personal liberty" their plea for engaging in some form of worldly amusement (such as dancing, card-playing, or theater-going), and those who are given to some filthy habit (such as the use of tobacco), have not studied the life of Jesus, or of Paul, or of Onesimus.

If there were no other reasons why these things should be renounced, that they injure our influence as soul-winners would be sufficient; for who ever heard of a man or woman who engaged in these forms of questionable amusement becoming illustrious as a soul-winner? To say the least, they are "weights," and must be laid aside.

In a revival service, a lady rose, and, with tears raining down her face, said: "I have taught a Sunday-school class of sixteen young men for three years, and have not seen one of them converted. I believe I know why, and now confess my sin. Being a teacher in the city schools, I thought I must see a Shakespearean play, and went to the theater one night. I saw several of my class there, and they all seemed to be looking at me as if surprised. Next day I met some of them, and they confessed surprise that I was at the theater. I have been conscious from that time that I had lost my influence to win these young men to Christ." Within one week after this confession was made this lady had won seven of her class for the Savior.

A young lady, once a society belle and fond of worldly amusements, consecrated her life to the Lord's work. In a rescue mission she was asked to speak to a poor wreck of a man who had been a gambler. He looked at her suspiciously as he asked, "Do you play cards, or dance, or go to the theater?" "No, not now," she replied. "Well, then you may talk to me; but I won't listen to one word from you fine folks who are doing on a small scale the very things that brought us poor wretches to where we are." And the young lady afterwards said she had found more real joy in leading that lost soul to Christ than she had ever found in the pleasures of the world.

Lay aside every weight; lay aside every weight, just now.

PRAYER.

Nothing is more essential to the soul-winner than prayer. Prayer will generate a spiritual atmosphere in the individual life. The prayers of many will generate a spiritual atmosphere in a community. In answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit will do his office, and produce such pungent conviction of sin that men will carry out, as on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

In the Life of Mr. Finney it is related that, during a revival at Rome, New York, the air seemed surcharged with Divine power. A sheriff, who had laughed about the meetings, came over from Utica. He felt this strange influence when he crossed the old canal, a mile west of town. When he sat in the hotel dining-room, he had to get up and go to the window two or three times to divert his attention and keep from weeping. After dinner he hurried away, but was afterwards converted.

See what spiritual triumphs and great revivals the early Church witnessed; but the secret of it all was that "they continued steadfastly in prayers." Why is it that to-day many have so little courage and so little power to win others to Christ? They neglect prayer. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." How little time we spend daily in prayer! Study the life of Paul, and Savonarola, and Catherine of Siena, and Martin Luther, and John Knox, and see how they all gave themselves continually to prayer, and so prevailed. All they who have become illustrious as great soul-winners have been, without exception, men and women mighty in prayer. They came to understand that God's storehouses of wisdom, prayer, and grace are inexhaustible, and with the key of prayer they unlocked every door.

Prayer avails for the salvation of others when every other means seems to fail. The disciples spent ten days in prayer. Then came Pentecost and a revival that brought thousands into the kingdom. John Livingstone, with a few friends, spent a whole night in prayer, and the next day five hundred persons gave themselves to Christ. Two sisters agreed to spend the night in prayer in behalf of an unconverted brother. That night, although twenty miles away, the young man tossed on his bed in agony of conviction, and next day started for home, and found salvation.

Prayer is omnipotent; and, if we would see the kingdom of Christ come speedily in the world, we must have a great revival of prevailing prayer.

FAITH.

Not the mystery of faith, nor the philosophy of faith, does the soul-winner need to study; but the simplicity, the childlikeness of faith. To believe God implicitly is to have victorious faith. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," said Paul; and everywhere in the Bible we find the clear teaching that "God and one make a majority." To realize this in one's own life is to live the victorious life.

But perhaps we should distinguish between trust and saving faith. Trust gives the life to God; faith takes from God that which he has promised in his Word. Trust is continuous; faith is a definite act. "Faith is the giving substance to things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Heb. xi, 1.)

It is true that we walk by faith now; but faith has a clear eye. Faith can see the clouds full of chariots and horses. Faith can see legions of angels marshaling themselves for our defense. Faith can see that every promise of God is steadfast, and will surely be fulfilled, and can claim its fulfillment.

Of Barnabas it is said, "He was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." The fullness of faith will make unbelief and moral darkness impossible in the soul, and will generate a triumphant confidence in God.

To have faith is to have power; and the little child, as well as the grown man, may possess this power, and exercise it in winning souls for Jesus. A little girl who had bowed at the altar and given her heart to God, pulled the pastor's coat at the close of the service, and said, "Will you please pray for my mamma?" "Certainly," said the pastor. And the next evening the little girl brought her mother to the service. When the invitation was given, she took her hand and led her to the altar. That little girl's faith won her mother to Christ.

Faith will give courage for personal work. With a strong, unfaltering confidence which takes God at his word, we shall not hesitate nor fear to approach the unsaved and seek to win them to the Savior.

Faith is nourished by the Word. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." If we feed our faith upon the Word, and exercise it, then we shall have the faith of those mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, and we shall prove the promise of the Savior, "All things are possible to him that believeth."