iS?i^ ~^ PRINCT^TO-Nr Tvr T v)> PRmCETON, N. J. BV 3790 .P5 1887 Pierson, Arthur T. 1837 1911. •^^"^ Evangelistic work in t^i ^-. ^^ .-, -c^"' /I ms^m^^^^-^^^ EVANGELISTIC WORK. Ibangelistic fflor^i IN PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE. BY ARTHUR T.^PIERSON, D.D., AUTHOR OF "the CRISIS OF MISSIONS," " MANY INFALLIBLE PROOFS,' " KEYS TO THE WORD," ETC. "Do the work of an Evangelist." NEW YORK: THE BAKER AND TAYLOR CO. 9 Bond Street. Copyright, 1887, By The Baker and Taylor Co. Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York. TO DWIGHT L. MOODY, WHOSE LOVE FOR THE WORD, PASSION FOR SOULS, AND ZEAL IN THE WORK OF EVANGELIZATION HAVE PROVOKED TO LOVE AND TO GOOD WORKS VERY MANY ON BOTH SIDES OF THE SEA, Fiji's 23ook IS Bcnicatcti BY HIS CORDIAL FRIEND AND TRUE YOKE-FELLOW, THE AUTHOR. PREFATORY. T is "the altar that sanctifieth the gift." To this divine pledge this book owes its origin and its inspi- ration. The object ennobles the oblation. The cause of a world's evangelization is like the wheel in Ezekiel's vision. Its rim is dreadful, for it touches both earth and heaven ; and every other question that is vital to holy living is embraced in it, — "a wheel in the middle of a wheel." To reach all human souls with the good tidings is so imperative in importance that it fills the word of God and covers the whole history and philosophy of church-life. It would be presumptuous to hope that the pen which writes these pages can solve this problem of the ages. But a close study of the theme for twenty years, in circum- Viii PREFATORY. stances providentially very helpful, has thrown some light upon the matter ; and experience, that, like lamps at the ship's stern, illumines the path which has been traversed, throws at least a dim ray over the onward course. When the walls of the House of Com- mons were to be ornamented with cartoons, Haydon, the historical painter, begged Par- liament that, if he might not be one of the elect artists, he might paint one figure, put on a few touches, or at least mix the colors or hold the brushes for those who were more favored. ARTHUR T. PIERSON. 2320 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Septemler, 18S7. CONTENTS. ♦ ■ Page Prefatory vii Part I. Chapter I. The Evangelistic Problem .... 13 II. The Scriptural Solution 25 III. Duty and Delight 38 IV. Weights and Wings ...... 52 V. Power in Preaching 64 VI. Wisdom of Words 79 VII. The Secular Spirit 9^ VIII. Helps and Hindrances 106 IX. The Service of Song 119 X. Aids and Accessories 129 XI. The Evangelistic Era 142 XII. The Evangehstic Spirit I53 Part II. XIII. Whitefield, the Field Evangelist . . 169 XIV. Howard, the Prison Evangelist • • 184 XV. Finney, the Revival Evangelist . • I97 X CONTENTS. Chapter Page XVI. Chalmers, the Parish Evangelist . .211 XVII. Spurgeon, the Pastoral Evangelist . 220 XVIII. Shaftesbury, the Philanthropic Evan- gelist 235 XIX. Moody, the Evangelist of the People . 248 XX. Bliss, the Singing Evangelist . . . 262 XXI. McAll, the Evangelist of the French . 277 XXII. McAuley, the Evangelist of the Out- cast 288 XXIII. An Example of Evangelism .... 302 XXIV. A Word of Witness 315 Appendix , 333 PART I. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THEORY. Evangelistic Work. CHAPTER I. THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. OSES was bidden to make two trumpets of silver for the calling of the assembly and the journeying of the camps.i That last command and commission of our Lord, " GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE," is the signal blast upon the silver trumpet of the Great Captain of our salvation. Down through the ages sounds its clarion peal, echoing with the voice of God. It is the call for the solemn assembly, it is the sign for the journeying of the camps ; it summons 1 Numbers x. 2. 14 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the Church to take up the onward march, and stirs believers to unresting action, that every hving soul may hear the gospel of God. How to do this work with promptness, persistence, and power is the problem of EvangeHzation. It may well command and consume the best thought of the wisest, and the best effort of the strongest, of the followers of Jesus. The problem is gigantic because the factors in it are colossal, involving on the one hand the whole world of the unsaved, and on the other the whole church of the redeemed. This great trust is committed to the great body of believers ; and to it no true child of God ought to be, or indeed can be, indifferent. The one grand issue of the age is the immediate carrying out of our Lord's marching orders, ** Go, make disciples of all nations ! " Let us, first of all, look at some of the fac- tors that enter into this problem. The population of the world is reckoned at about fifteen hundred millions. Of these at THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. 15 least one half are yet in the deep, dark death- shade, not only unconverted, but unevange- lized, — that is, unreached by the gospel message. That the picture may not be painted in the discouraging colors of the pessimist, or with the gloomy undertone of despondency, let us concede that only this half of the race remain to be delivered out of the darkness of spiritual death. How are we to bring every soul of this seven hun- dred and fifty millions of mankind to the knowledge of a crucified Christ ? This is the engrossing question, and in answering it some grave facts must be considered and weighed. First, it can never be done by the present inadeqtiate supply of laborers. Take, for in- stance, the foreign field as the most distant from the centres of Christian influence, and as the most destitute of the gospel. If all missionaries, evangelists, and teachers in pagan, papal, and Moslem lands, including men and women, foreign-born and native- born, were economically distributed, each 1 6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. would have twenty-five thousand souls to care for. Secondly, the opportwiity of evangelization is practically limited to the life-time of each generation, which is about one third of a century. Within that short period every new generation of Christian workers must accom- plish whatever work they are to do for their fellow-men, for both they and the souls for whom they are held responsible are rapidly passing away. The great bulk of disciples now living must contribute their part to the solution of this evangelistic problem within the bounds of this present century. Thirdly, all accessions to the cJmrcJies by conversion do not represent actual growth. An increase of three per cent per annum goes to replace those church-members who die, and to keep the Church itself from de- clining in numbers and finally dying out altogether. Only what is in excess of this, therefore, represents real increase, the abso- lute gain of the Church upon the world. Now, those who have made a study of the THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. 1/ matter, taking a survey of the whole area of Protestant and Evangehcal Christendom, and the average accessions by conversion for the half century past, tell us that the increase is about seven converts yearly to every one hundred church-members. If this be true, — and it tallies with such conclu- sions as we have been able to make from a tolerably broad induction from facts, — we are making such slow progress toward the world's evangelization, that we are gain- ing from the world only about four new converts a year for every hundred professed disciples ! At such a rate, even had we unlimited time for the work, it would take half a mil- lennium of years for the thirty millions of Protestant Christians to reach the half of the race now without the gospel. The melancholy fact is that tlie population of the world is more rapid in its increase and displacement than the Church is in its evan- gelizing march. With all the progress made, after all the triumphs of the gospel, and 1 8 EVANGELISTIC WORK. notwithstanding all the open doors and multipHed facihties of communication and impression, the host of the unsaved is un- doubtedly vaster to-day than it has been at any previous age of human history. These are not the only conditions that complicate the great problem. The C/mrck itself lacks piety and therefore power. We have conceded that one half the race is al- ready evangelized ; but is this true? There are millions, nominally connected with Rom- ish, Greek and Oriental, and Protestant and Occidental communities, and even churches, who are sunk and buried in ignorance, superstition, and virtual idolatry. There are millions more who have a form of god- liness, but deny the power thereof; and yet millions more, who in the very blaze of gos- pel light live in irreligion, immorality, and infidelity. David was not the only saint who has run great risk in " numbering the people/' Quan- tity is no guaranty for quality, or number and measure for weicfht. Even in Christian THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. 9 communities fearful vices and sins prevail. Recent investigations in England unearthed such depths of moral corruption that it was not thought best to expose the full facts to public gaze, and the veil of silence was drawn over the worst of the depravities revealed to those w^ho conducted the investigations. The annual holocausts of the Moloch of Drink are so enormously costly that figures cannot represent the fearful outlay. The orgies of Venus are kept side by side with the orgies of Bacchus, under the shadows of our courts of law and churches of Christ. The old land- marks of the Sabbath are swept away, and even disciples overstep without hesitation the paling of divine restriction which sepa- rates one day in seven unto the Lord. Infi- delity winds its subtle shining coils into our periodical and scientific literature, the chairs of college-instructors and even of theological professors; and the unmistakable ** hiss " of the serpent may sometimes be heard even through the smooth, persuasive oratory of so-called " pulplt-dlvlncs." 20 EVANGELISTIC WORK. It is this low type of piety even in Chris- tian communities and churches that is the main hindrance to all evangelism. No less a man than the Rev. Dr. Rice of Virginia boldly said that four fifths of the member- ship of our churches add nothing to their real power; and that while such a standard of piety prevails evangelization will- not be vigorously carried on, for God would not allow such a type of Christianity to be widely diffused ! While worldliness pervades the lives of nominal disciples with the spirit of the age, the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of missions, is driven out. When piety ebbs to a low level, we find apathy and lethargy as to the condition of lost souls growing in the Church thick as rank sea-weeds. Where Evangelical faith loses its vitality, evangelistic work loses its vigor; for even those who call themselves disciples begin to doubt, if not to deny, the actual lost condition of men. Take away the honest, hearty belief that without Christ souls are lost, and you have broken the THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. 21 mainspring of evangelistic activity, paralyzed the nerves both of sensation and motion. Upon a worldly Church, however strong nu- merically and financially, God can place no dependence for pushing the evangelistic cam- paign. Practically the earnest workers and warriors are the few who live under a sense of the power of the world to come. Such, then, is the problem, and such some of the factors and elements which enter into and complicate it. The host of the unsaved is a vast multitude ; human life is very brief, and we must ''buy up opportunity;"^ the field is world-wide, and the laborers are few ; the progress in gathering converts is lament- ably slow; the standard of piety and of morality even in Christian lands is lamenta- bly low ; practical indifference as to the peril of lost souls is eating like dry-rot at the very foundations of evangelistic effort, — and who is sufficient for these things? When the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of all England, went to announce to 1 Eph. V. 1 6, Greek. 22 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the youthful Victoria the death of her uncle, William IV., and her accession to the throne of England and Hanover, she begged him not to retire until he had prayed with her. Without the strength of God she did not dare attempt to bear the weight of such a crown and sceptre. Two thousand years have almost passed since the ascending Lord left to the Church the responsible trust of giving the gospel to the world, and that trust is not yet fulfilled. Not only in the far-off lands beyond the sea, but in the very neigh- borhood of Christian churches and homes, men and women are living without God, and without the gospel. The light of the world has no more reached them than sunshine has the bugs that burrow beneath the stones by the wayside. How shall the Church of Christ do her duty to the dying about her doors? How turn this heavy trust into a sceptre of power, and this sacred commission into a crown of glory? There must be a neiv baptism of p7'ayer. We must look facts in the face, confront our opportunity and our THE EVANGELISTIC PROBLEM. 23 responsibility, weigh the worth of immortal souls in the scales of God, and measure the power of the gospel by the might of Him who gave it. Prayer can unlock prison doors and make shackles to fall from our hands and feet, and the iron gate to swing open of its own accord. It can make one man to chase a thousand, and two to put ten thousand to flight. When God gives a command, the command is the pledge of power to fulfil it. All we need is to take up the work, while we lay hands on the arm of God to get power, as those who have faith in prayer. At the outset of the discussion of these tremendous questions, we record our solemn conviction that the best organized methods will prove only massive machinery with- out an adequate motive power, unless and until there come upon us a new baptism from above. Dependence on our own en- deavor is like propelling a boat by puffing with our own breath at the sails, or like mak- ing the world move on its axis by pushing it with our feet. And while conductino; this 24 EVANGELISTIC WORK. discussion, the author devoutly implores for himself and his reader the guidance of that Spirit without whom the eye can see nothing clearly, and the life wield no sceptre of power for the salvation of man and the glory of God! THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION, 25 CHAPTER II. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. HEN God's Tabernacle was to be built, all things were enjoined to be " according to the pattern " showed to the great leader and law-giver of Israel in the mount. In every spiritual crisis and practical per- plexity there is one unfailing, infallible guide, — the oracles of God. For our standards of doctrine, here is the form of sound words ; for the moulding of character, here is the di- vine matrix ; ^ here are rules to regulate our relations to the world and to the Christian brotherhood ; the principles upon which the church is founded, and by which its activity is to be inspired and governed : for all things here is a divine pattern. We shall not turn 1 Romans vi. 17, Greek. 26 EVANGELISTIC WORK. in vain to the Word of God to seek a satis- factory solution to the evangehstic problem. The teaching of our Lord throughout makes emphatic the duty and privilege of every saved soul to become a saver of others. This is found, not so much in any direct injunction, as in the general tone and tendency of all His words. The conception of the believer as a herald, a witness, a winner of souls, runs like a golden thread through His discourses, and even His para- bles and miracles. He does indeed say to a representative disciple, " Go thou and preach the kingdom of God ; '^ ^ He does enjoin, " Go out quickly into the streets and lanes, highways and hedges, and compel them to come in ; " but the command is one which is incarnated in His whole life and is suggested or implied in the very idea of discipleship : *' Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Last words have a peculiar emphasis. It is a forceful fact that, at or toward the very 1 Luke ix. 60. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 27 close of each of the four Gospels, some say- ings of our Lord are found recorded which touch at vital points of contact the great question we are now considering.^ Harmo- nizing these passages, we shall find the divine pattern for the work of a world's evangeliza- tion, — a perfect plan that is the only possi- ble basis for the successful conduct of the work. It includes several particulars : — 1. Jerusalem is to be the starting-point for a world-wide campaign, including all na- tions and every creature. 2. The method of evangelization is three- fold : preaching, teaching, and testifying, — in other words, the simple proclamation of the gospel, confirmed by the personal witness of the believer as to its power, and followed by instruction in all the commands of Christ, or the training of converts for Christian walk and work. 3. Attached to the command is a promise, also threefold : the perpetual presence of the 1 Matt, xxviii. 18-20; Mark xvi. 15-20; Luke xxiv. 45- 49; John XX. 21, 22. 28 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Lord, the working of supernatural signs, and the enduement with the power of the Holy Spirit. 4. It is, however, to be especially noted, that neither the commission nor the prom- ise is hmited to the apostles.^ Careful com- parison of Scripture with Scripture puts this beyond any reasonable doubt. Christ need not have summoned the eleven apostles, whom He had already met in Jerusalem, to meet Him in Galilee ; but it was there that the great body of His disciples were found, and where the bulk of His life had been spent. It is more than probable that it was on this Galilean mountain that " He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once;" and to them all He said, "Go, make disciples." Here, then, is God's solution to man's problem. Evangelization is to be in a two- fold sense universal, — both as to those by whom, and as to those to whom, the Good Tidings are to be borne. All are to Go, 1 Cf. Matt, xxviii. 16, 17, with i Cor. xv. 6, etc. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 29 and to go to ALL. The ascending Lord left as a legacy to believers, the duty and privilege of carrying the gospel to every living soul in the shortest and most effective way. To accomplish this, two grand con- ditions must exist: there must be evangelistic work by the whole Church, and there must be evangelistic power from the Holy Ghost. Happily, the historic witness both illus- trates and confirms the scriptural. Annibale Carraci deftly distinguished the poet, as paint- ing with words, and the painter, as speaking with works. What Christ sketched in lan- guage is expressed anew in the " Acts of the Apostles." Pentecost brought to all the assembled disciples the promised enduement; then, while the apostles were yet at Jerusalem, these disciples, scattered abroad, went every- where preaching the Word.^ Mark ! — " Ex- cept the apostles!' The exception is very sig- nificant, as showing that this *' preaching" was confined to no class, but was done by the common body of believers. 1 Acts viii. 1-4 ; cf. Acts xi. 19, 20. 30 EVANGELISTIC WORK, Of course such ** preaching the Word " impHed no necessity for special training. To many modern minds the word *' preach " ahvays suggests a '' clergyman " and a ** pul- pit." A ''sermon" is encased not only in black velvet, but in superstitious solemnity. There is absolutely no authority for any such notions in the New Testament. There no line is drawn between "clergy" and " laity," and no such terms or distinctions are known. The word " preach," which occurs some one hundred and twelve times in our English New Testament, means " to proclaim ; " it is the accepted equivalent for six different Greek verbs. Three of these are from a common root, which means " to bear a mes- sage or bring tidings ; " ^ and this statement covers about sixty cases. As to the other three Greek words, one is used over fifty times, and means " to publish or proclaim ; "^ and another six times, and means "to say, speak, or talk about." ^ The other, which 1 Evayy^XKca, Karayy^Wu}, diayyeWw. ". Kripvaaeiy. ^ AaXrjcrai. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 31 means '' to dispute or reason," 1 is the only one of the six which suggests a foi'mal discourse or argument, and this is tiscd only tzvice. One word used in connection with the preaching of these early disciples is espe- cially suggestive.2 It is close of kin to the English words '* prattle," " babble," — mean- ing to use the voice without reference to the words spoken; it is one of those terms found in every tongue, which are the echoes of children's first attempts at articulate speech, and it conveys forcibly the notion of unstud- ied utterance. Those humble disciples talked of Jesus, telling what they knew. That was their '* preaching." There is nothing in the word *' preach " which makes it the exclusive prerogative of any order or class to spread the good news. Even Stephen and Philip, who not only preached but baptized,^ were not ordained to preach, but to " serve tables " as deacons. All Jews had a right to speak in the syna- 1 Aia^eyo/xai. - AaAew. Acts xi. 1 9, 20. 3 Acts viii. 5, ^S. 32 EVANGELISTIC WORK. gogue,^ and believers spoke freely in public assemblies.^ The proof is positive and am- ple that all the early disciples felt Christ's last command to be addressed to them, and sought, as they had ability and opportunity, to publish the glad news. Upon this primitive evangelism God set His seal, confirming it with signs following and adding to the Church daily. To such preaching we trace the most rapid and far- reaching results ever yet known in history. Within one generation, — with no modern facilities for travel and transportation and for the translation and publication of the Word ; without any of the now multiplied agencies for missionary work, — the gospel message flew from lip to car, till it actually touched the bounds of the Roman Empire. Within one century the shock of such evangelism shook paganism to its centre ; the fanes of false gods began to fall, and the priests of false faiths saw with dismay the idol-shrines forsaken of worshippers. ^ Acts xiii. 15. 2 I Cor, xiv. 26-40. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 33 Subsequent history bears an equally em- phatic witness, but it is by way of contrast. No sooner had evangelistic activity declined, than Evangelical faith was corrupted with heresy, and councils had to be called to fix the canons of orthodoxy; confirmatory signs ceased; and the evangelistic baptism was lost to the Church. Under Constantine the Church wedded the State, — the chastity of the Bride of Christ exchanged for the har- lotry of this world. Via crucis, the way of the cross, became via hicis, the way of worldly light, honor, and glory. A huge hierarchy, parent of the papacy, rose on the ruins of the apostolic Church. The period of formation was succeeded by one of de- formation, marked by putrefaction and petri- faction, or the loss of godly savor and of godly sensibility. And until the Reformation, dark clouds overhung the Church. Heresy and iniquity; a papal system, virtually pagan; ignorance and superstition as bad as idola- try; a nominal Church of Christ, whose lamps burned low and whose altar-fires had 3 34 EVANGELISTIC WORK. almost gone out, — such was the awful sequence when habitual work for souls declined. Too much stress we cannot lay upon this joint testimony of these two witnesses, Scrip- ture and History, by which it is fully estab- lished that God has given us a plan for evangelizing this world, and that the plan is entirely feasible and practicable. Our Lord has left us His pattern for speedy and effec- tive work for souls. So far and so long as that pattern was followed, the work was done with wonderful rapidity and success. So far and so long as that pattern is superseded or neglected, every other interest suffers. The promised presence of the Lord is condi- tioned upon obedience to the command, ** Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." To neglect souls is treachery to our trust and treason to our Lord. No wonder Evangelical soundness is lost, when the Church shuts her ears to the cry of perishing millions, and to the trumpet- call of her divine Captain. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 35 To primitive methods of evangelism the Church of to-day must return. In whatever calHng the disciple is found, let him '* therein abide with God." Whatever be the sphere of common duties, let all believers find in it a sacred vocation; let us all take our stand upon the common platform of responsibility for the enlargement and extension of the kingdom of Christ by personal labor. Let us not invest the term " minister " with a mistaken dignity. It never conveys in the New Testament the notion of supe- riority and domination, but of subordination and service. " Whosoever will be ereat among you shall be your minister; and who- soever of you will be chiefest, shall be ser- vant of all." ^ One word rendered '• minister " means "an under-rower," ^ — the common sailor, seated with his oars in hand, acting under control of the ** governor," or pilot.^ Neander shows conclusively that Chris- tianity makes all believers fellow-helpers to 1 Mark x. 43, 44. - 'TTTTjpeTTjs, Acts xxvi. 16. •^ Ewdiyj'w*/, Jas. iii. 4. 36 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the truth, and that a guild of priests is for- eign to its spirit.^ Teaching was not confined to presbyters or bishops; all had originally the right of pouring out their hearts before the brethren, and of speaking for their edifica- • tion in public assemblies.^ Hilary, deacon at Rome, says that, in order to the enlargement of the Christian community, it was conceded to all to evangelize, baptize, and explore the Scriptures. Tertullian says that the laity have the right not only to teach but to administer the sacraments ; the Word and sacraments being communicated to all, may be communicated by all as instruments of grace ; while at the same time, in the inter- ests of order and expediency, this priestly right of administering the sacraments is not to be exercised except when circumstances require.^ This chasm between " clergy" and *' laity" marks a rent in the body of Christ. The Church began as a pure democracy, but passed into an aristocracy and finally a 1 Neander, i. 179. 2 j^ 135 3 j. it)(3. THE SCRIPTURAL SOLUTION. 'i^'j hierarchy. The creation of a clerical caste is a matter of historic development. We get a glimpse of it toward the close of the second century. Ignatius would have nothing done without bishop, presbytery, and deacon ; and after all these centuries this high-churchism still survives. The common priesthood of believers is a fundamental truth of the New Testament. Expediency undoubtedly restricts the exer- cise of certain rights, but never the right and duty of bearing the good tidings to the unsaved." The partial purpose of these pages is to show that only by a return to God's original plan can the work be done. After all our human resorts and devices, we are nothing bettered, but rather worse ; Is it not time to reach out the hand of faith and touch the hem of His cfarment ? 38 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER III. DUTY AND DELIGHT. " Let the dead bury their dead ! Follow thou me ! Go thou and preach the kingdom of God ! " ^ HAT is a profound saying *' Let the dead bury their dead ! " It has a deep meaning; if at first it seem dull and lustreless, like a fragment of spar, we have only to turn it till the light strikes it at the "■ angle of reflection," and it will show rich hues. " Life " and " death " are words that span the infinities : the difference between them is the difference between holiness and sin ; the distance between them, the distance between heaven and hell. This is a world of death. The dead, who know not nor feel the powers of the world to come, may well be left to bury each 1 Matt. viii. 21, 22; cf. Luke ix. 60. DUTY AND DELIGHT. 39 Other ; loft to magnify the material and mor- tal, as all burial does. But for those who will hear and heed, Christ has a message of life. First of all, " Follow me ! " for '' he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness" of death "but shall have the lifjht of life." Then, " Go, preach the kingdom of God ! " Having the spirit of life, we are to speak the word of life. Christ came not to bury, but to raise and quicken the dead; and they who follow Him first get life, and then preach Him and so give life. Our first duty is to come unto Him that we may our- selves have life, and leave the ranks of the dead for those of the living; our foremost duty and our highest delight must then be to bring other dead to life; instead of bury- ing them more deeply from sight and con- tact of the Lord of life, we must take away the stone, that the dead may hear His voice and live and come forth. Evangelization is simply this, — rolling away the stone, and giving the dead a chance to hear the word of life. It is bringing the 40 EVANGELISTIC WORK. evangel, or gospel, into contact with the unsaved; and it is for contact, not co7ivcrsion, that the Church is responsible. We are to do our part and leave God to do His. Paul says : *' Christ sent me, not to bap- tize, but to evangelize." ^ Baptism is not to be reckoned, like repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,^ among the primary terms of salvation ; it is a sealing, not a saving, sacrament. We must not lift it to a level with faith. Faith justi- fies the soul which, in believing, appropri- ates Christ; baptism justifies faith, as one of its fruits and proofs, attesting faith as genuine. Every child of God may truly say, " Christ sent me to evangelize." This is a foremost duty and may be the highest delight. To evangelize is the first duty in the order of ti7Jic, for there must be believers to be baptized, and converts to become confessors, in order to form the Church; it is first in the order of importajice, for it is 1 I Cor. i. 17, cvayyiWo/xai. "^ Acts xx. 21. DUTY AND DELIGHT. 41 accession and growth that keep the Church in being. To the household of faith, as to the family of man, the condition of continu- ance is obedience to the law of increase. The propagation which keeps God's seed ahve on the earth, and eventually spreads that seed over the earth and subdues it, is evangelization. Everything, therefore, both as to the existence and enlargement of the Church of God, hangs on evangelizing men. The Church must continually ** go, dis- ciple all nations," becoming to human souls everywhere nursing mother. So far as she fails to bring the gospel to the knowledge of the unsaved, she disobeys the last command of her Lord, declines in spiritual life, forfeits her commission, and risks the removal of her candlestick out of its place. That other duties are important we do not deny, but we do affirm that the importance of evangelization is primary. Our Lord enjoined upon us first to disciple all nations and then to teach them to observe all His commands. Li the authorized version the 42 EVANGELISTIC WORK. two Greek verbs ^ are both rendered by the same word " teach," but the mistake is cor- rected in the Revision, for they represent two great branches of our duty and trust: first, to go out and gather in disciples; and then to teach and train the new converts in the knowledge and practice of truth and duty, — first, to "disciple" men, and then to " dis- cipline," or develop disciples into sanctified and serviceable workers. A great orator and sage, Sydney Smith, has said that the most effective figure in rhetoric is repetition. Probably the prin- ciples we thus lay down may seem axioms not needing demonstration, and scarcely requiring statement; but familiarity with truths takes away their force and blunts their edge, even as the tread of many feet wears away the inscriptions on memorial pavements, unless from time to time they are re-cut. And so we seek to give greater emphasis to admitted truths by frequent and varied statement. As with mallet and chisel, 1 MaSrjTeycroTe and 5tSa(r/cofT6s, Matt, xxviii. 19, 20. DUTY AND DELIGHT. 43 blow on blow, we would cut deeper thiit great inscription on the very threshold of church life, " Go, evangelize ! " The Church is to bear and rear children ; but before she can rear, she must bear. There are pains of travail, but she must not shrink from the throes of birth through which alone God's household grows. We have seen that the last command is followed by a promise of His presence. The precept and promise are joined by a living link, for only as the precept is obeyed can the promise be enjoyed. If the Church is faithful in making and training disciples, she basks in the sunshine of His smile. If zeal in evangelizing gives place to cold neglect of souls, her sun suffers obscuration if not eclipse, so surely does He withhold or with- draw the tokens of His gracious presence and glorious power. The glory of the Shechinah pales whenever passion for souls gives place to cold indifference. In various ways, by forms and figures both forcible and beautiful, the great Head 44 EVANGELTSTIC WORK. of the Church has sought to impress this double duty of evangehzation and edifica- tion. Two laws of church life are expressed and enforced throughout the New Testa- ment: first, the law of inward growth, and secondly, the law of outward extension. This is the key to much of the teaching of our Lord and of His apostles. In the interview between the risen Redeemer and His disciples, recorded by John,^ we find first a word of salutation, " Peace be unto you ; " then a word of commission, " As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you;" and then a word of conferment, '* Receive ye the Holy Ghost." He not only gives the commission, but He bestows the power to carry it out, — a divine enduemcnt. The work is great, but for it we have conferred by Him both authority and ade- quacy. The Church long since came to her Damascus and had her vision of the Holy One. She needs no longer ask, 1 John XX. 19-22. DUTY AND DELIGHT. 45 "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" for He has set before her the primary duty. With pierced hands He points to the mil- lions who have not even heard His name, and says, " Go out into the streets and lanes, the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in ! " When Mr. Webster, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill shaft, be- sought the vast concourse of people to " stand back," lest the crowd should break down the speaker's platform at peril of life or limb, — the answer was, " It is impossi- ble ! " *' Impossible?" thundered the Amer- ican Demosthenes, " Nothing is impossible at Blinker Hill ! " And when we remember who gave us our marching orders, and who left us the pledge of His perpetual presence; when we stand beside that cross on which He bore our sins, and remember that He is the propitiation for the whole world, ^ — we dare not talk of impossibilities. In the lexicon of the Christian life there is and ^ I John ii. 2. Revised version. 46 EVANGELISTIC WORK. there ought to be no such word as " fail ! " Nothing is impossible at Calvary / Canon Wilberforce tersely puts in four words the whole law of Christ, — "admit, submit, commit, transmit." The first three concern the relation of the believer to his Lord. He is to admit, to his mind and heart, the truth and Him w4io is the truth; submit his wayward will to His will ; and commit all things in trust to His keeping. The last of these -four words expresses the relation of the believer .to his fellow-men : henceforth he is to transmit; to become the medium through whom by lips and life, the light and love of God shall be trans- mitted to others. In these four words all the duties of the disciple are briefly summed up and comprehended. They are the car- dinal points in the horizon of his spiritual life. We are called not to be saved only, but to save. The watchword, the very motto on the banner of the Church, is service. The chief end of man is " to glorify God and to DUTY AND DELIGHT. 47 enjoy Him forever:" to glorify Him is the necessary preparation for the highest en- joyment of Him. The work is committed to the weak; God hath chosen the poor and base and despised, — those who are nothing in the eyes of men, that all dependence may be upon Him and all glory be to Him. God calls every disciple to direct effort to save men. The confession of Christ with the mouth, the preaching of Christ in the life, the translation of faith and hope and love into living forms, and of precept into practice, — all this is a mighty witness for Him and His gospel, but it docs not exhaust the demands of duty. The command covers more than this : it means personal work for souls. The methods are so various that they are not defined or prescribed ; but they embrace the whole range of opportunity, the whole scope of possibility. From the lisping in- fant in the cradle to the savage cannibal on the isle in the sea, we are to see in every human being a soul to be taught 48 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the way of salvation. In the quiet home and the busy mart, in rural retreats or city streets, at workman's bench or school-boy's desk, wherever a child of God confronts a child of man, there must be a voice to speak because there is an ear to hear. Even prayer is not effectual, energetic,^ which does not lead us to do something. Till the field at your feet, and send others to till the fields which you cannot reach. Only thus will the world-field ever be sown with the seed of the kingdom, and wave with har- vests for God. We have too much faith in God to believe that He would leave to us a work which we cannot do. A loyal soldier of England's Queen, when asked how long it would take the British army and navy to carry a proclamation from Her Majesty to the ends of the earth, replied, " About eighteen months." We have no conception of the rapidity with which the flag of the cross could be borne to the limits of the globe, if the enterprise were ^ Ja.s. V. 16, ii/ipyou/jiii/')]. DUTY AND DELIGHT. 49 really undertaken by the whole body of behevers. In 1835, '^"^ Hamburg, seven men in a shoemaker's shop resolved to at- tempt in person to spread the good news. Within twenty years they had organized fifty churches, gathered ten thousand con- verts, scattered half a million Bibles and eight million pages of tracts, and preached the gospel to fifty millions of people. At that rate, two hundred and fifty disciples could reach the whole population of the globe in thirty years ! If to-day there were but five hundred dis- ciples on earth, and each of them and of their converts should bring to Christ one soul each year, by this simple geometrical progression the number of converts would swell so fast, as to include the whole race in twelve years. Or if there were but one disciple and he should be the means of converting one soul each year, and every new convert do the same, thirty years would multiply the number to more than thirteen hundred millions. 4 50 EVANGELISTIC WORK. What does all this show? That the bulk of professing disciples neglect this foremost duty to a dying world, and practically do 110 tiling IV hat ever in eliscipling others. In the question of personal salvation, service is forgotten. One fixes his thought on worldly treasures and pleasures, and buries himself out of sight and contact of the lost, in the sepulchre of self-indulgence ; another turns his thought to heavenly treasures and pleasures, but it is all about his own salva- tion that he thinks. This is all selfishness. The miser and the monk are alike: each lives for himself, and for himself seeks to lay up treasures; only the treasures differ in kind. It is a vicious type of piety that idly sits and sings, " When I can read my title clear," etc. Service is self- abnegation, self- oblivion. Moses was willing to be blotted from God's Book, and Paul could wish himself accursed from Christ, rather than have Israel cast away forever. He who would save others DUTY AND DELIGHT. 5 I must not be unduly absorbed in saving him- self. He who seeks first the kingdom of God will find his own salvation added to him, without fail. To you and me then is committed a dis- pensation of the gospel. If we do this thing willingly w^e have a reward, but if against our will, nevertheless there is the solemn commission. If there be some who cannot '* go into the dark mine," like Carey, they can " hold the rope," like Fuller. But woe is me, if in some way or other I preach not the gospel to a dying world ! 52 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER IV. WEIGHTS AND WINGS. HAT is a beautiful myth which repre- sents the birds as at first created without wings. Clothed in rich plumage and endowed with sweet voices, they could not fly. Then God made the wings and bade the birds go, take up and bear them as burdens. At first they seemed a heavy load, but as they lifted them to their shoulders and folded them over their breasts, lo ! they grew fast. The burdens became pinions, and that which once they bore, now bore them up to the heights of cloudless day. They Could now soar as well as sing. We are the wingless birds, and our duties are the pinions. When at God's beck we first assume them they may seem but bur- WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 53 dens. But if we cheerfully and patiently bear them they become less and less a load. His yoke becomes easy and His burden light; and so we who once were slaves become the Lord's freemen, and mount up with wings as eagles. Duty has become delight. The weights on the feet of the athlete have turned to winged sandals on the feet of him that bringcth good tidings, like the talaria of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. When God made each believer a mes- senger of the gospel, He had at heart not only the salvation of the lost, but the best good of the believer. We are all naturally like the snail; we carry our little world upon our back, and venture out of our shell only to pick up dainty morsels. God puts us in the midst of the unsaved, that we may get out of ourselves; He might send His angels to fly in the midst of the heavens and proclaim the everlasting gos- pel, but what would become of the be- liever? He would be a dwarf and a cripple. 54 EVANGELISTIC WORK. The reflex influence of evangelistic effort upon the Church itself, is scarcely less im- portant and valuable than the direct influ- ence upon unsaved souls. While then this universal responsibility cannot be avoided or evaded, there should be no desire to escape it, for in it lie the secrets both of growth and of joy. Growth is the law of all life, and action is the law of growth. The tree grows because there is motion in its cells, action among its atoms; and so the root fibres strike downward, the stem fibres upward and out- ward, and the sap courses up and down. Beneath a silence which is like the hush of death, God hears the tread of life, and we see the proof in leaf and bud, in bloom and fruit. The silence is only the secret cover- ing life, the hiding of its power. A human limb that is not used cannot grow, but withers and shrivels; the blood is stagnant, life is dormant, waste is no more replaced by supply ; all healthy development depends on life's endless revolutions. It is the one WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 55 uniform law in every sphere of life, that powers are impaired, weakened, and finally lost by the lack of exertion and exercise. Stagnation breeds decay. Natural law has its correspondent in the spiritual world : " To him 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," or " seemeth to have." God's law is, Use or lose. There is nothing good which is not lessened and lost at last by not using. In God's econ- omy disuse is misuse, abuse. Selfishness and self-absorption swell our worse self and shrink and shrivel our better nature. Self- denying service ~ work for God and for souls — shrinks whatever is unworthy of us, and feeds and fattens that other and nobler self. And so Paul said : " Herein do I exer- cise myself." He was the athlete, making weak and flabby muscles hard and firm and strong and sinewy. Our spiritual life finds its gymnastics in work for souls. The field 56 EVANGELISTIC WORK. is the world ; and work in it not only gets a crop, but makes the sower and reaper more a man and more a saint. It is thus that an intelligent disciple feels and knows that lost souls need his labor scarce more than he needs it; as a devoted Methodist bishop has said, " It is not merely how may I save others, but how may I save myself." Self-love drives and draws the child of God into service. The idleness which shuts us up to a self-indulgent lazy ease, shuts the channels of the soul to the influx of the life of God. No wonder the ** first love " is left ! He, who like Paul, from the hour of conversion starts to win souls, cannot lose or leave his first love, save to find a second and better; everything left behind by such a disciple is only a goal gained, and becoming a starting-point for another goal farther on. He not only saves his soul, but saves his life. Yes, all growth comes of action. Grace, as well as nature, says so. We see a truth with clearer eyes, for trying to make others WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 57 see it. We lift our load more easily for helping others bear their burdens. The true giver never fails to get back: he gets in giving. If not paid back in his own* coin, God's royal bounty pays him in heaven's own shekels. He gives goods, and gets good ; he gives a word of instruction and gets knowledge, or a word of cheer and gets joy; he gives a lift and gets lifted, gives a tear and gets his own tears wiped away. This is giving bread and water, and getting ambrosia and nectar; giving a copper, and getting a mine of gold and gems. So does nature teach and enforce that second lesson of grace, that, as there is no growth without action, so there is no joy without growth. It is the still pond, not the running stream, that freezes. The union of cold and quiet gives thick ice, but the rapid current of the brook cannot freeze solid ; if the frost gets hold of it at all, it is only to spread it with crystal which really keeps it warm; while 58 EVANGELISTIC WORK. if the current be rapid enough, hke the rushing torrent, it defies the cold, or if it freezes at all it is motion congealed, — the very ice is the image of life. You are neglecting souls ; you are cold and hard and joyless, because the dull, dead stagnation of selfishness has left you to freeze solid. What you need is currejit. Your spiritual life must have motion, action ; if it runs it will sing; there will come the murmur of music, a deep sweet peace like that of God, a joy like unto that which even Christ set before Him. These figures of speech must not veil the thought they are meant to reveal. All this is but expanding the old maxim of Dr. Duff, that ''to cease to be evangelistic is soon to cease to be Evangelical." When work for the souls of men declines or ceases, the way is open for every doctrinal and prac- tical error. Shaftesbury said to an assembly of young men, " Depend upon it, whatever you think when you are young and stirring, the time WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 59 will come when you will take counsel with your gray hairs, and you will then bless God if your career has been one by which your fellows have been benefited and God hon- ored ; and if you have endeavored as much as lay in your power to advance His holy name, and to do good to all that were within reach of your influence. Nothing is more likely to keep you fj'oni miscJiief of all kinds, from miscUief of action, of speculation, from every mischief that you can devise, than to be ever- lastingly engaged in some great practical work of good. Christianity is not a state of opin- ion and speculation. Christianity is essen- tially practical, and I will maintain this, that practical Christianity is the greatest curer of corrupt speculative Christianity. No man, depend upon it, can persist from the beeinninc: oi his life to the end of it in a course of self-denial, in a course of gener- osity, in a course of virtue, in a course of piety, and in a course of prayer, unless he draws from his well-spring, unless he is draw- ing from the fountain of our Lord Himself. 6o EVANGELISTIC WORK. Therefore I say to you, again and again, let your Christianity be practical." ^ We have nowhere met wiser words. '' The fruitful bough whose branches run over the wall," is that which grows from a strong, well -rooted, vigorous and healthy stock on the other side. The foremost dis- ciples in spiritual attainment are the fore- most in unselfish, persistent, untiring work for souls. Nothing makes our experience here as the days of heaven upon earth, like the consciousness of being used of God to win souls. Even Christ Himself is fully sat- isfied only when He sees of the travail of His soul, and beholds His countless seed. How slow we are to learn that the divine secret of joy is filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, in be- coming ourselves the messengers of His saving grace, and the means of making that grace effectual to the salvation of others. One may well be crucified with Christ, in order to be glorified together; and this is 1 Ilodder's Life of Shaftesbury, i. 327, 328. WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 6 1 taking up the cross and following Him, to be willing to be what He was, and to do as He did, to bring many sons unto glory. No man, perhaps, in all Christian history, has shown more devotion to Christ and to souls than the apostle Paul. He surren- dered all things for the sake of sharing in the fellowship of His sufferings. But his renunciations w^ere far overbalanced by his compensations, and the epistle to the Philip- pians is his balance-sheet. What things were gain to him, those he counted loss for Christ, laboring incessantly, and becoming all things to all men, that by all means he might save some. Yet his life's key-note was " Re- joice in the Lord ; " and he who went down into the lowest depths to lift up the fallen, is the man who was caught up into the third heaven, and heard what it is unlawful to utter. There is then a double need of evangeli- zation. Only thus can the wide world ever be reached by the gospel message, and only thus can the true life, health, growth, and joy of disciples be promoted and secured. 62 EVANGELISTIC WO UK. God needs every believer in the work of discipline others. This is not Hmiting God ; what He might do, and what He will do, are two different questions. His de- clared plan is and always was, to use the disciple as a witness for Him and a winner of souls. There never was or will be a body of ordained preachers large enough to evangelize this world without the help of the great body of disciples. Generals and captains may plan a campaign and conduct an engagement, but it is the rank and file that do the marching and the fighting. Every torpid church or idle Christian is a hindrance to Gods cause, and a help to the enemy of God and man ; a dead weight upon the usefulness of those who are will- ing to work, and a block upon the chariot wheels of God. He who anywhere neglects work, everywhere delays work. The Church at home is the engine of the whole ma- chinery of the work abroad. What if there be no adequate motor to keep the wheels revolving? And what of the indifferent WEIGHTS AND WINGS. 6^ disciples who throw on the fire more water than fuel? When Sir Joshua Reynolds painted Sarah Siddons as "the Tragic Muse," he placed his own name on the skirt of her robe, content, as he said, to go down to posterity on the hem of Mrs. Siddons's garment. If we but knew the present joy and the future glory of those that turn many to right- eousness, we should be willing to take the lowest place among all those who have part in this work, which is the only one that angels envy. 64 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER V. POWER IN PREACHING. ND now, gentlemen," said the first President of the Royal Academy, as he brought to a close those consummate lectures on Art, " I have but one name to present to you : it is the name of the incomparable Michael Angelo." The central secret of all successful evan- gelism, in its last analysis, is the constant presentation of the One and only *' Name} given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved." The very word " evan- gelism " implies that all must primarily and ultimately depend upon the faithful preach- ing of Christ crucified. To this all other means and methods must be tributary and subsidiary. But terms are not always used ^ Acts iv. 12. POWER IN PREACHING. 65 intelligibly, and as we have all drifted more or less from our original moorings, it may be well to ask what is meant by *' preaching the gospel"? Much so-called preaching for some reason fails to reach, touch, move, and mould men for a better life, or at most carries no converting power. Paul has left us his model for effective preaching, and hinted some- what as to its matter, manner, and mission.^ Its subject-matter is " Christ crucified." The medicine of God for all the wants and woes of man is the cross : to preach the gospel is to lift up the Lamb of God where all may look and live. Even John the Baptist was content to be only a voice crying, a finger pointing : " Behold the Lamb of God." The very heart of the gospel is a fact. " He bare our sins." That fact is closely linked with four effects: a death unto life, a bringing unto God, a redemption from sin, a deliverance from the world.^ This grand fact is the central theme of all true preach- 1 I Cor. i. 17-31. - I Pet. ii 24; iii. iS ; Titus ii. 14; Gal. i. 4. 5 66 EVANGELISTIC WORK. ing, the stem around which crystaUizes the science of salvation. It is not enough to hft up Christ as an example, the model for a " reconstructed manhood." The rallying- point and the radiating-point of both doc- trine and life is the CROSS. This is the golden milestone in the Forum of the Ages, where all roads meet. From all quarters sinners, seeking to be saved, must come to it; to all quarters, saints seeking to save, must move from it ; and it is on our way to the cross as penitent sinners, or on our way from the cross as witnessing saints, that we find every need of man met and every vital question answered. '* Christ crucified " is no narrow theme. As the God-man, all that is in God is in Him, and all that is in man is in Him, save sin; and combining both. He adjusts all the mu- tual relations of God and man. From His cradle to His cross, and from His cross to His crown, all our experience is represented and illustrated. He is the power and wis- dom of God, for He offsets our impotence POWER IN PREACHING. 6/ and ignorance. Man's sin springs partly from the incapacity of the natural man and partly from the hostility of the carnal mind.^ Its cure cannot be found, therefore, either in the power or wisdom of man, and all attempts at self-help and self-rescue have been, and ever must be, dismal and disastrous failures. The providential mission of the two great nations of antiquity was to show man's weak- ness and folly. Roman civilization stood for law and arms ; its watchword w^as Pozver. Greek civilization stood for letters and art; its watchword, Wisdom. Both those nations rotted in their own vices and drew the vul- tures to the prey by the scent of their decay. Well might Paul not be ashamed to present to the Roman, Christ the power of God, and to the Greek, Christ the wisdom of God. He who would discuss evangelism must be true to his own convictions ; the place is holy ground, and He who dwells in the Bush demands truth in the inward parts. Can- dor and a good conscience demand that we 1 Cf. I Cor. ii. 14, and Rom. viii. 7. 68 EVANGELISTIC WORK. record our deep and deliberate conviction which reaches to the roots of our being, that there will be no marked advance in evangel- istic work, witJioiit more emphatic and exclusive preaching of Christ crucified. The themes treated in the modern pulpit, as well as the sensational announcements by which they are heralded, often make us blush with shame. ^ They are travesties upon preaching. The connection of many a so-called " sermon " with the Word is fictitious or factitious ; the robe of a tawdry rhetoric is substituted for a divine simplicity of speech ; for lack of spe- cific gravity, specific levity abounds, and the pulpit becomes a place for secular entertain- ment, if not of clownish buffoonery. A popular and even a profitable lecture is 1 Take the pulpit notices for one week: "Confidence," " Dynamite under the Throne," " Bible Laws at Business," " Ideals of Manhood," " Why She came to the Kingdom," "Scientific Scepticism," "Taking Account of Character," " Would the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, or St. Patrick attend a Catholic Church ?" " Forcibleness of Right Words," " Sins Covered at Pompeii," "Ethics of Marriage," "Conditions of Power," " Success in Life," " Up a Tree," " Short Beds and Narrow Coverings," "How to choose a Wife," etc. POWER IN PREACHING. 69 not always fit for the pulpit. Preaching is the unfolding of a scripture-germ, — a *'Thus saith the Lord." The true preacher thinks God's thoughts after God. By searching the Word, and comparing spiritual things with spiritual, he gets at the mind of God. This germ he buries in his heart, till by holy, prayerful meditation it is made to grow, to germinate. The Word, first born of God, is born again of man ; it becomes incarnate in his conviction and affection, and so in his speech. '* Expression is the result of im- pression ; " the power of the former will cor- respond to the depth of the latter, as in the tree the expanse of the branches above ground corresponds to the expanse of the roots below ground. The true sermon has a divine genesis ; it begins in God. The Spirit broods over the mind, till the chaos of dim perceptions and confused conceptions is resolved into order. God says, ''Let light be," and light is.^ Then comes separation between heavenly and 1 Gen. i. 3, Hebrew. 70 EVANGELISTIC WORK. earthly things, and, Hke stars in a cloudless sky, celestial glories appear, and there is revealed a firmament of radiant splendor. The preaching that has such a Genesis will end in an Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, a reve- lation of the crucified and glorified One, which fits a man to speak to the churches with strange authority and power. The Word of God, alive with the thought of God, has taken root downward and bears fruit upward. It is no mere intellectual growth, branching into analytic argument and blooming into flowers of rhetoric. The hearer instinctively feels that such preaching is a more than human product, — a burning bush, aglow with the mystic flame before which reverence removes the sandals of criticism. So it has ever been. The preaching which God uses to convert men lifts Christ cruci- fied, and finds the secret of its power in turn- ing the eyes of men to Him alone. The Master Himself has left us our first and last lesson in homiletics : " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto POWER IN PREACHING. yi me."^ The preacher is a mediator between God and man, His mouthpiece, His ambas- sador. He must hear the Word at His mouth and then speak that Word as nearly as possi- ble just as he hears it from God. This is the germinal law of the sermon. There must be that preparation, above all, which is scriptural and spiritual. To learn to do this work easily is the peril of the preacher. Facility and felicity in the merely literary processes, and fluency and beauty in utterance, are often mistaken for pulpit power. The homiletical faculty is substituted for a mind, heart, tongue, infused, suffused, transfused with that Spirit who is the breath, the light, the life of the Word. The intel- lectual and human crowds out the spiritual and divine. Such preaching will, of course, be power- less to save and sanctify, for a stream rises to no higher level than its source. Preaching, when it is instinct with God's power, is the spreading of God's truth over the whole man, J John xii. 32. 72 ' EVANGELISTIC WORK. till it touches intellect, sensibilities, affections, conscience, will ; but we can apply truth to others only so far as it has first been applied to ourselves. God's word, in order to be effective, must have the man behind it as well as before it, and come forth backed by a rich personal experience, a co-ordinate testimony from the inward life of the preacher. This is what we have called the gcrmhial lazu of the sermon. It must get its theme and the essentials of its treatment from the teachings of the Word and of the Spirit. Then there is the preparation for that preach- ing which has the power of God. To this germinal law, wc add a terminal law. There is a certain end, or terminus, to be kept in view. A sermon is sermo, a speech having a definite aim, a result in the convictions, affections, resolutions of the hearer. As the germinal law gives the start- ing-point, the terminal gives the goal of sacred discourse. There must be a terminus ad quern as well as a terminus a quo. POWER IN PREACHING. 73 In pulpit oratory there are three elements, either of which may control : the text, the subject or theme, and the object or end aimed at. If the text rule, the result is an exposition or exegesis ; if the subject, an essay or discourse ; if the object to be at- tained be steadily kept in view, and control the disposition of the parts and the expres- sion and delivery, we get properly a sermon. The first thing to be fixed, in framing the normal sermon, is, therefore, the end or result to be readied ; then we are ready to choose the best subject to reach the object, and the best text to develop the subject. Other methods may be and are employed with some success, but not with the highest suc- cess. If a man starts with a subject which he proposes to treat, he runs the risk of accommodating the text to the theme rather than the theme to the text. In some such cases the notion which is the germ of the sermon is found in the preacher's brain rather than in the mind of God, and the use of Scripture is sometimes so foreign to its origi- 74 EVANGELISTIC WORK. nal purport and purpose that it becomes a caricature. Others start with a text which seems attractive or effective, and it is elabo- rated into an exposition more or less instruc- tive and profitable. But if, in the course of its treatment, no other end is kept in view, there is risk of merely displaying ingenuity and originality in interpretation, interesting and perhaps instructing the hearer, but not grappling with his conscience and will, as in the most energetic and effective oratory. The careful study of the preachers who have wielded most spiritual power will show that, although their methods are often de- fective and even crude, they are always seek- ing after souls ; they may set all homiletical and even grammatical laws at defiance, but, whether consciously or unconsciously, there is a definite purpose, evolved, perhaps^ in the process of making or preaching the sermon, which purpose reacts upon the product. Many a discourse which began in the viola- tion of this fundamental law of the sermon, has been remodelled while it was wrought. POWER IN PREACHhWG. 75 He who started with a topic or a text ends with an all-engrossing object, — the saving or sanctifying of souls, the only object that can produce the ideal sermon. If we are to have a new^ era of power in preaching, we must have a more definite re- sult, toward which all else moves. An essay may be ingenious, and an exposition original, and yet lack oratorical power; as Whately said, the man " aims at nothing, and hits it." Above all others the preacher needs the power of an engrossing purpose. Then Betterton's remark to the Lord Bishop of London will no longer have point ; that while *' actors speak of things imaginary as though real, preachers speak of things real as though imaginary." ^ These germinal and terminal laws we be- lieve to be fundamental to preaching-power; could they become governing laws, they would revolutionize modern preaching. We 1 Betterton's original epigram was : " You, in the pulpit, tell a story ; We, on the stage, show facts." J 6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. have given emphasis to them, for it has '' pleased God by the fooHshness of preach- ing to save them that beheve." The pulpit is the main agent in cva^igelisationy and to raise or lower its standard is to help or to hin- der every other form of active effort to save souls. When the '' preachers of the gospel " are content to preach the gospel; when Christ crucified is their theme, and is treated ** in a crucified style ; " when the germ of every ser- mon is some seed-thought of God that has found root in the heart and borne fruit in the speech ; when the aim of every sermon is to glorify Christ in saving and sanctifying souls, and toward that end every thought and word and gesture converge, — we shall see results of which even Pentecost was but a prophecy and foretaste. In the assault on Fort Pulaski, every ball in that first volley of seventy guns struck within a circle twelve feet in diameter. Down came the flag ! Of what use to resist such a fire ! Many a flag of Satan would be hauled down if our guns were pointed in one direc- POWER IN- PRE A CHIANG. 77 tion and shot upon shot were hurled, heavy and hot, against the walls of his citadel. The gospel is still the power and the wisdom of God unto salvation. There is no promise that man's word shall not fail ; but " My word, " says God, "shall not return unto me void." ^ Again we affirm it — would that it were with a clarion peal as loud as the trump of Gabriel! — we must have a thoroughly Evan- gelical, if we are to have a thoroughly evajt- gelistic, pulpit. Men must be drawn not to us, but to the Cross, and to us only that they may through us be drawn to Christ. Those attractions only are legitimate in the preacher that make the Cross effective. Let us have the gospel unmixed with human philosophy, poetry, rhetoric, and apologetics. It is the mixture of incongruous material that makes brittleness. That preaching that corrupts and adulterates God's gospel with man's wisdom lacks consistency and coherence, and is doomed to practical failure. "I preached philosophy and men applauded: I preached Christ and men repented." ^ Tsa. Iv. iq. 78 EVANGELISTIC WORK. The facts, rather than the philosophy, of redemption we are to preach. We are to speak the truth on the authority of a " Thus saith the Lord." Lowering God's Word into a comparison and competition with systems of human teaching sacrifices this unique au- thority. The primary test of human systems is found in their appeal to my reason and conscience ; the primary appeal of the gos- pel is found in the fact that God speaks. The philosophy of His scheme of salvation is too deep for me ; even the angels desire to look into the deep things of God. I may, like Nicodemus, ask Jiozv or zvJiy these things are so, but to my question God answers only by solemn and emphatic repetition, " Verily, verily, I say unto thee." So must w^e dare to preach with authority, as ambassadors of God. There has never been an era of pulpit power except with such conditions, and there never will be. WISDOM OF WORDS. 79 CHAPTER VI. WISDOM OF WORDS. NE of the mysteries of chemistry is iietitralization, the process whereby the peculiar properties of one sub- stance are, by another, destroyed or rendered inert or imperceptible. Thus, acids and alka- lies more or less completely neutralize each other. Combinations may from harmless elements produce poisons, or render poisons harmless. Mr. Froude says that prussic acid is formed of the same elements, combined in the same proportions, as gum-arabic.^ Hydro- gen, that most combustible gas, and oxygen, that great feeder of combustion, unite to 1 Short Studies, page 178. The statement seems inac- curate. Hydrocyanic acid = Nitrogen 14+ Carbon 12 + Hydrogen I. Gum-arabic = Oxygen 52.09+ Carbon 41.4 + Hydrogen 5.51. 80 EVANGELISTIC WORK. form water, the foe of combustion ; while nitrogen, the *' lazy giant," and oxygen, the very spirit of energy, hold each other in check in the atmosphere. It is possible to render neutral and in- effective even the vital truths of redemp- tion. Paul wrote to Corinth that he would not preach the gospel ''with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect!' Even the gospel may be neu- tralized by foreign mixtures ; matter is not independent of manner. There is a way of preaching even Christ crucified that prevents spiritual power. Two great questions arise as to evangelistic preaching: How shall it be made attractive, and How shall it be made effective. We must draw and hold, before we can win and mould men. Paul touches a vital point; he hints that there is a sort of attractiveness which sacrifices effectiveness, — something mixed with God's medicine to make it more palata- ble, that destroys its corrective and curative properties. WISDOM OF WORDS. 8 1 In the apostle we have a man naturally vain and ambitious, and having a double culture in Hebrew and Greek schools, who successfully resisted a subtle temptation which has proved to many a preacher the fatal fruit of a forbidden tree. Men of great powers have often veiled the homely gospel message behind the golden and silver tissues of ornate speech, corrupted the wisdom of God with the wisdom of man; or dazzled by a show of genius, and robed spiritual truth in the scholastic gown of secular learning, as though it were but a higher school of human philosophy. The preaching that lacks simplicity makes the Cross of none effect, by lifting it above the level of the average man. When the gospel is robed in unsanctified rhetoric, at- tention is diverted from the Christ to the *^ Chrysostom," the golden -mouthed orator. Such preachers, like the Pharisees, ''have their reward ; " they call forth a cold intellectual assent, awaken an esthetic pleasure, kindle a sentimental glow, perhaps even an enthusi- 6 82 EVANGELISTIC WORK, astic ardor and fervor ; but they fail to pierce the heart with the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. That sword proves Hving and powerful, not when worn in the sheath of scholarly culture, or when swung in air to show the flashing gems with which learning decks it, but when drawn from its scabbard and thrust naked into the hearer's heart. Nettleton slowly repeated the text, ** I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies," and before he " began to speak," the sword of the Spirit had already pierced his audience. A Scotch preacher has said that it is always some word of God that smites the sinner, and that man's words on\y feather God's arrow, that it may ** carry" straight to the mark. If the sermon is the unfolding of a Scrip- ture germ, it will naturally take largely even a Scripture form. As to the sprouting grain, so to the seed of His own truth God giveth its own body ; hence Paul says, ''which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost WISDOM OF WORDS. 83 teacheth." ^ He conceived of the gospel as having a dialect of its own. Effective preach- ing gets not only its idea, but its form of speech, from above. Unction begins in a vital insight into truth and then imparts an utterance which is of the Spirit; first the anointed eyes and then the anointed tongue. Paul not only confined himself to themes which have their root in Christ crucified, but he would not present even those themes with wisdom of words, lest the human rhetorician or scholastic philosopher should displace the divine ambassador and thus the Cross be made of none effect. He gave divine truth its own celestial body, and so the glory was not terrestrial, but celestial ; men heard heaven's message in heaven's dialect and gave glory to God alone. May not much of the ineffectiveness of modern preaching find an explanation in the attempt to make it attractive and effective by mingling with it wisdom of words ? The 1 I Cor. ii. 13. 84 EVANGELISTIC WORK. pulpit of to-day is largely loyal to the truth. Probably at no time since the Reformation has Christ been more generally preached. But often the fashion of the message fails to fit its form and feature ; the truth is some- times robed in a '' garment spotted by the flesh." We grieve the Spirit by the lack of faith in the power of God's Word and of God's Spirit to convert and transform. We forsake exposition and exegesis for philoso- phy and apologetics. Drawn down by the challenge of cultured critics and scientific sceptics, we vainly seek to cope with these ** Syrians " upon the plain, and to fight them with human weapons on their own level. But the whole history of evangelism shows that even scientists and sceptics are not so won. Theremin is right: *' Eloquence is a virtue ; " and the virtue that wrestles most powerfully with the foes of the truth is not the wisdom of the scholar or the magnetism of the orator, but the simple witness of him who speaks what he knows and testifies what he has seen; whose power to convince and WISDOM OF WORDS. 85 persuade is the fact of being himself con- vinced and persuaded. The master dialecticians and rhetoricians have never been the greatest winners of souls. There was a preacher who died a half century ago, whose pulpit orations outshone in splen- dor any others of his day, yet though master- pieces of argument and analysis, they were not fruitful in conversions ; while the seraphic Whitefield, wielding the simple truth of God with the power of the Spirit, warmed even the cold calculating Franklin, and the philo- sophical sceptical Hume. There is an evan- gelist of our own day — a man of one Book, of whom men say, "Howknoweth this man letters, having never learned?" who takes no pride in either his grammar or his rhetoric, and whose refined pastor once counselled him to keep silence — who has been moving two continents by simply holding up the Cross ! We fear that the drift of discussion and the very training of ministers are largely toward a vicious standard of pulpit power. Students are told to cultivate a high literary style, to 86 EVANGELISTIC WORK. aim at eloquence. Such terminology has too much of the worldly savor and flavor. The pulpit is no place for literary display. God bids us set up the unhewn altar that men may look only at the slain lamb upon it. He who, like Ahaz, brings into God's courts the elaborate carved Damascene altar, may hear men praise him, but he will see the Shechinah grow dim. Preaching is a divine vocation, and its power is of God. The preacher's style, like that of Atticus, "when unadorned is most adorned;" like a maiden, sweeter without paint and perfumery. Buffon said, ** Le style ! C'est I'hommc !" VVe would go further: style, in the true preacher, is God speaking through him ; it is what he is as a man of God, an anointed messenger of God, inspired to utter His message. As to eloquence, Pascal doubted whether preaching presents a proper field for elo- quence save in the sense of speech that is thrilled by the power of a supernatural con- viction and persuasion. This cultivation of style, this aspiration after eloquence, tend to WISDOM OF WORDS. 8/ self -consciousness. Instead of being absorbed in the truth and in passion for souls, the preacher becomes hypercritical. A slip of pen or tongue, an ungrammatical or un- rhetorical blunder or blemish, annoys and disconcerts him ; while on the other hand a musical sentence decorously wrought and sonorously uttered, a figure ingeniously elab- orated, an original thought flashing its bril- liance, pleases his carnal nature, and awakens self-complacency. Such vexation and such satisfaction alike divert the mind of the ambassador of God from his divine voca- tion and grieve the Holy Spirit; such pride and such humiliation are equally unseemly, and, like a godless repentance, need to be repented of. Moreover, there is a certain nameless charm, a mysterious power, that invests the anointed preacher, which is known as ttnc- tion. Its nature is a mystery; but one thing is sure, tmction and self-conscionsness neve?' go together. He whom God fills forgets himself, and whatever recalls him from this 88 EVANGELISTIC WORK. self-unconsciousness hinders the free flow of God's power through him; and, seeing that this is so, the godly preacher habitu- ally cultivates this holy engrossment, for the sake of the divine endowment and enduement. In fact, the sense of the awful responsibility of preaching is itself enough, when truly awakened, to lead to self-oblivion. '•i-It is curious," said Prof. George Wilson, " this feeling of having an audience, like clay in your hands, to mould for a season as you please. It is a terribly responsible power." Responsible indeed ! '* Probation " is that period of the soul's life when as yet the final decision is not yet made, either for or against God : to choose one way is salvation ; to choose the other way is damnation. Hence, zvJiile the man of God is preacJiing, a hearer's probation may end and his salvation or dam- nation begin. " Who is sufficient for these things?" While the preacher turns aside to indulge a flight of poetic fancy, elaborate a figure, indulge a pleasantry, or create a WISDOM OF WORDS. 89 diversion, he is giving way to Satan, who stands at every priest's right hand to resist him ; and in that fatal moment he loses his grip upon a soul almost persuaded ; his hand lets up its pressure just as the scale is turning for God ! When a preacher gets such a conception of preaching it lifts him above criticism ; it inspires that fear of God which makes him fearless of man, intrepidly indifferent to either compliment or censure. It becomes irrev- erent impertinence in the hearer to pull out his watch when the half-hour is up, as though a discourse born of God, and having a definite end, could be arbitrarily cut off at the expira- tion of thirty minutes while as yet the argu- ment and the appeal are incomplete. The true preacher does not bow to the caprice of his hearer, nor yield to the senseless clamor for short sermons. A crystal of truth, like any other crystal, must be cleft according to its seams : a sermon that has an end to reach, and stops short of it, is a failure as truly as a sermon that reaches its true end and 90 EVANGELISTIC WORK. highest impression, and then grows weaker by going beyond its proper close. Brethren of the ministry, and all who preach this gospel, let us go into the darkness where God dwells and get His whispered message ; then what we have heard in the darkness, in the ear in the closet, let us proclaim in the light, in the ears of many, from the house- tops. Let us cultivate a divine self-oblivion. He who aims at wisdom of words may hear the shouts of the multitude praising the beauty of his bow and arrows and the grace with which he handles them ; but it is only when we lose ourselves in God that we hear the groans of the wounded, which are the supreme test of the archer's skill, and remind us of the fabled shrieks of the mandrake when it is pulled up by the roots. He who is to plead with men to be reconciled to God should come out of God's Pavilion with that chrism of a celestial presence which makes even the face to shine. There is a way of preaching that carries power; but it is not an invention of human WISDOM OF WORDS. 91 oratory. Rhetoric and logic, poetry and philosophy, genius and culture, cannot in their best combination assure that kind of power. It must be gotten waiting upon God in the silence, secrecy, solitude, of the Holy of Holies where God dwells. 92 EVANGELISTIC WORK, CHAPTER VII. THE SECULAR SPIRIT. HETORICIANS treat of a 'Maw of accommodation," in accordance with which the orator is to descend and condescend to his audience, — to get down to their level in order to lift them up to his. This may do in rhetoric, but it involves risk in religion. During the whole history of God's ancient Israel and of the Church of Christ, the subtlest of all snares has been this plausible law of accommodation. Adopting worldly maxims, catering to worldly tastes, corrupted by worldly leaven, there has been a gradual letting down of the severe standard of New Testament piety, and a constant effort to robe the gospel in worldly charms, in order to attract worldly men to the church. The pulpit has, by this law of accommoda- tion, been lowered, at tinies, into a platform THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 93 for lectures more becoming the lyceum, or into a stage for performances more fit for the theatre. The service of song, in deference to the dictation of this worldly spirit, has dropped into a display of mere artistic talent, the appeal to aesthetic taste displacing the divine savor and flavor of worship ; so that in His house, where the Lord alone is to be exalted, •* classical music " is exalted, papists and pagans are hired to lead the praise of Protestant worshippers, and pro- fane organists use the grandest of instru- ments to dissipate holy thoughts and im- pressions. We build gorgeous gothic fanes, furnished with crimson and gold, garnished with the artist's pencil and chisel; then we secure for the pulpit the princes of ora- tory, and for the choir the star singers of the opera ; then we multiply concerts and chorals, fairs and festivals, entertainments and excursions; and by such allurements hope to draw the people and to " evange- lize the masses." But the hope is found to be delusive. 94 EVANGELISTIC WORK. These worldly expedients have proved very successful in secularizing the Church, but have sadly failed in evangelizing the world. They do not even draw the people except so far and so long as their novelty attracts curiosity seekers, or feeds the morbid appetite for excitement. It is time all such measures were abandoned as helps to the work of evangelization. They are rather hindrances ; for they destroy the peculiar character of God's people as a separate people, they divert attention from eternal things, and they grieve the Spirit of God, on whose pres- ence all power depends. The fact is, Zion's attractions are unique ; like her Lord, they are not of the world ; they belong to another order of beauty, *' the beauty of holiness." When the Church robes herself in the charms of worldly attire and adornment, she not only fails to draw the world to herself and to Christ, but she actu- ally takes the infection of the *' Spirit of the Age," which, however disguised, is hostile to God. Instead of transforming the children THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 95 of the world, she becomes conformed to them. The secular attractions with which she invests herself, so long as their power lasts, only turn the mind from divine things, drawing in the same direction as do the world, the flesh, and the Devil ; and keeping men under the power of the world that now is, rather than bringing them under the powers of the world that is to come. The gospel has great power of attraction, but it is not of the worldly sort. The good news of salvation has true and lasting charms, and so has the life of every true disciple. Let a pure gospel be preached, and a pure type of piety translate and illustrate its saving truths in the language of life ; and when Zion shall thus arise and shine. Gentiles will come to her light and kings to the brightness of her rising. If the Church would woo and win souls, it must be by offering them attractions and satisfactions which the world does not and cannot offer, — that which is bread and satis- fies spiritual hunger, instead of husks which 96 EVANGELISTIC WORK. fill but do not feed ; the well of water spring- ing up into everlasting life, instead of the broken cistern. The reason why the gospel of God's grace never wears out is because, to every penitent believer, it gives what it promises, — solid, substantial, satisfying food and drink. To draw souls, to get hold and keep hold upon them, the Church needs to be not more worldly but more unworldly; in her separation from the world unto God there is power, for it seems to say there is something for the sheep within her fold, that the world cannot give nor take away. The Master has left us a warning to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, hating even the garment that is spotted by the flesh. There is a true law of accommodation : ** I am made all things to all men that by all means I might save some ; " but even this may be perverted into an abandonment of all that is peculiar, essential, and vital to Christian character. Not even the hope of saving some can justify the secularization of the Church. Lot may have hoped to do THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 97 good to the wicked Sodomites when he pitched his tent toward Sodom and then went and dwelt there; but he saved nobody, and ruined his family, and got out of the fire of judgment, himself scarcely saved. He was a type of all such believers as obey this worldly law of accommodation. Aaron tried it at Sinai, and the golden calf was the result; Solomon tried it in Jerusalem, and temples to Chemosh and Molech and altars to Ashtoreth and Milcom confronted Jeho- vah's temple. It was this very principle that brought in all the idolatries of Jeroboam and Ahab, and compelled the multiplied captivi- ties of Judah and Israel ; and it was this that in the days of our Lord's sojourn on earth left the Jewish church to be like a skeleton- leaf out of which the life-sap has gone. From the days when God bade his people come out of Egypt and forbade them to make mixed marriages and form alliances with the heathen, history has borne but one harmonious witness; namely, that conformity to the world upon the part of the Church 7 98 EVANGELISTIC WORK. brings decay to piety and to all evangelistic activity. In the New Testament especially, the un- worldly character of the Church of Christ is written in large letters as upon public tab- lets, that all may read at a glance. Our Lord taught it in discourse and parable, and breathed it in His intercessory pra}'er. Paul and Peter, James and John and Jude, echo it, and the echo grows louder rather than fainter with each new reverberation. The Apoca- lypse as with mighty thunderings warns an already imperilled Church of the subtle snares of Babylon the gilded,^ the apostate counter- part of Jerusalem the golden. The array of Scripture texts on the one hand, and of historic facts on the other, is like the marshalling of two vast hosts, guard- ing God's people against the world's influ- ence and power; and on their banners we read, in command and symbol: "Be not con- formed to this world." Believers are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, and He cannot 1 Rev. xvii. 4, margin. THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 99 tolerate idols in His courts. If we will have the spirit of the world, we cannot have the Spirit of God ; or if He comes at all it will be not as the shining Shechinah but as the con- suming fire; as Jesus with lashing scourge and flashing eye, not with hands outstretched in blessing. One thing is absolutely certain : the modern secularization of the Church, as we have be- fore said, has thus far had no effect in further- ing the work of evangelization. Never had the worship of God such manifold and costly accessories and adornments. All the re- sources of nature and culture, architecture and art, mechanical elaboration and poetic imagination, have been taxed to the utmost to make the ordinances of religion attractive. Yet in every quarter we hear the same com- plaint, that the common people are desert- ing the churches. Dr. John Hall quaintly remarked, that while across the sea the pop- ulation is divided into " churchmen and dissenters," here it is divided into " church- men and absentersr But across the sea we lOO EVANGELISTIC WORK. shall likewise find the absenters far the more numerous. The late Earl of Shaftesbury, after large opportunity of observing and col- lating facts, stated, at the anniversary of the *' Open-Air Mission " at Islington, that " not - more than two per cent of workingmen in England are wont to attend public worship." We have not the basis for an accurate statement ; but the plain fact stares us in the face, that the bulk of our population, espe- cially in the cities, is practically as unreached by the gospel as the masses of pagans are in the heart of Africa. These multitudes of home heathen do not come to our churches, and the churches do not go to them; there is often close contiguity, but no real contact. In no city of our land could the church build- ings hold the people were they church-goers, and yet these buildings are not half full. In London, on a bright Sunday morning, the London *' Times " found, from reports care- fully compiled and compared, an average audience of but seventy-five. In one of the Protestant " cathedrals " of Philadelphia, only THE SECULAR SPIRIT. lOI twenty-five could be counted on a recent Sunday evening. In Detroit, a pew-holder in the most elegant church edifice of that " city of the straits," noted on the fly-leaf of his hymn-book, "November 27, fine evening; total attendance, 28." In the city of Broth- erly Love we have a total of nearly seven hundred places of worship, including those of all sizes and of every sect. Liberally estimating the average seating capacity at four hundred, we have, in a city of a million inhabitants, provision for a little over one fourth of the population. The key-note of evangelization is lacking when there is not room for all. It is true that we can say, ''And yet there is room;" but it is only be- cause even church-members are habitually neglecting the place of worship. We add a significant testimony. Professor Christlieb, of Bonn, Germany, said at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Co- penhagen, that, '' according to the statistics of the last twenty years, there has been a large falling off in attendance upon religious 102 EVANGELISTIC WORK. services throughout Europe, followed by an increase of crime. Paris has more atheists to-day than ever before existed in any great city. In no Christian country, however, are things so bad as in Germany. In many dis- tricts of Berlin there is only one church to every fifty thousand of the population. In New York there are two hundred places of public worship; in Berlin only fifty; and out of the whole population of Berlin, namely, one million, only twenty thousand, or two per cent, attend divine service. Hamburg is even worse, for out of a population of four hundred thousand, public worship on Sun- days is attended only by five thousand. In certain provinces of Germany there are sui- cides at the rate of forty a week. The ordi- nary religious teaching of the country is quite dead, and Christianity resolved into mere education. Sceptical works are popu- lar with the working classes, and in the mid- dle and upper classes hundreds are led away by the influence of scientific discovery and invention." Dr. Christlieb further stated that THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 103 there are "forty thousand out of a population of two hundred and fifty thousand in the city of Edinburgh who go to no place of worship ; two hundred thousand in Glasgow out of a population of seven hundred thousand, and nearly a million and a quarter in London out of a population of four million." The test of the vitality of church-life, as of our Lord's messiahship, is this: "To the poor the gospel is preached." Matthew Arnold divides society into " an upper class, material- ized ; a lower class, brutalized ; and a middle class, vulgarized." 1 Be it so ; a live church, with God's gospel in her hands and God's Spirit in her heart, can penetrate to the lowest strata, and lift even the undermost. But this never has been done, and never will be done, by wisdom of words or by the wisdom of this world. The church that conforms to the spirit of the age may be '* swept and gar- nished," but will be still " empty;" the Spirit of God will not make it His Temple nor ex- ercise there His drawing power, and that is 1 Somebody mistakenly quotes this "'pulverized'' I 104 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the only Spirit and the only Power that can ever fill these places of assembly with true worshippers or seekers after God. We must have a more unworldly pulpit. Preaching must be simpler in matter and manner ; it must impress men as dealing directly, honestly, earnestly, with their souls ; adapting itself to any class of hearers with facility, to private house or street corner or riverside as readily as to stately temples. Pulpit essays and orations that have scarce the salt that gives a gospel savor, that do not grapple with the conscience or arouse the will, help to make men infidels. They are poultices applied to the cancer which de- mands the knife ; and the hearer begins to doubt whether sin is indeed a fatal disease, or whether the preacher himself believes the souls of sinners to be in peril. What may draw the rich and cultured may repel the poor and ignorant, who cannot afford to pay for costly pulpit talent, who cannot under- stand stately orations, and who instinctively know that superb church edifices, with THE SECULAR SPIRIT. 105 expenses that only wealth can meet, are not for them ; and that, to be thoroughly ivel- come, one must wear the insignia of riches or at least of competency to assume his share of the outlay. That instinctive " pride of poverty " which keeps the poor away from our splendid church buildings is not a wholly ignoble sentiment. We must have a more unworldly atmos- phere in the churches. True winners of souls have an indefinable air of simplicity and sincerity about them that disarms indiffer- ence and even opposition. The sinless One drew near to Him the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. In order to evangelization of the masses there must be identification with them. The culture that seems cold and critical, the refinement that repels by its fastid- iousness, the intellectuality that is exclusive, and the selfishness that is unsympathetic, turn even ministers of Christ into rigid, frigid statues, and our cathedral churches into mar- ble mausoleums for the burial of a gospel that is practically dead, powerless to save. I06 EVAN-GELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER VIII. HELPS AND HINDRANCES. ECTURES on projectiles never yet made a marksman." Practical trial of methods and measures is the only true test of efficiency. The workman gets his best training for his work, in his work. Causes produce effects; means conduce to ends. Conversion is not a mechanical pro- cess, and yet there are helps and there are hindrances. Even supernatural power does not disregard natural law. Having laid down certain general principles, having given due prominence to preaching as the main instru- ment, it may now be well to glance at some of those subordinate helps which have been found to be aids in bringing souls within reach of the gospel and leading to self-surrender to Christ. HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 10/ First of all, we rank the evangelistic service. Church gatherings have a varied character. Sometimes they are social, for cultivation of fellowship in love and work ; sometimes sacramental, giving prominence to ordinances and holy rites ; sometimes devotional, for the expression of prayer, praise, and personal experience; sometimes didactic, presenting truth mainly for the instruction and edification of habitual hearers. There is need of a service differing from all these, in having for its specific, professed object to press the claims and invitations of the gospel upon the unsaved, and in which everything from first to last shall be meant and fitted to lead souls to Christ and to an immediate decision. Such services are now only occasional and exceptional ; even the Sunday-school is rather didactic than evangelistic. It is true that in any sermon something may be said to move the unconverted, but in a gathering whose sole or special object is the conversion of men there resides peculiar power. Mr. Mood^^'s I08 EVANGELISTIC WORK. motto is : '' Consecrate and concentrate," and he illustrates his maxim. To turn in one direction for a time all prayers and appeals and efforts gives sharper point to preaching, greater definiteness to praying, deeper spirit- uality to singing, and more energy to work- ing; it quickens faith in the gospel, awakens expectation of results, and attracts the half- convinced and the almost-persuaded, and im- pels them toward those final decisions that determine destiny for eternity. We have ourselves found it helpful to give to the second service of the Lord's day this evangelistic type ; to preach in a very simple, conversational way ; to popularize the sing- ing by having a large chorus choir of earnest, praying people to lead ; to break up the service by greater variety of exercises ; to combine with preaching, prayer and praise and promise meetings ; to call trusty laymen to the front who have skill in presenting truth and winning souls ; now and then to have '* parents' and children's meetings " where the formality and stateliness of the ordinary HELPS AND HINDRANCES. IO9 service of worship give way to a familiar fam- ily gathering, with stirring music, short prayers, and brief addresses. Better still, if the second service be also free to all; if by a vote of the congregation all exclusive rights in pews be surrendered, that the poorest may feel that he has a right as well as a welcome ; and if young men be sent out with printed cards of invitation, to distribute in hotels, saloons, on street corners, and in out-of-the-way places. — anything to get hold upon souls. Dr. Duff's reply to those who criticised his methods in India was, that he would stand on the street and beat two old wooden shoes together, if so he might win the ears of the people. In connection with evangelistic services, a change in the place of meeting sometimes helps marvellously in reaching " the masses." Those who do not and will not come to church buildings will throng an opera-house, theatre, public hall, or rink; why not go there and preach to them? Conservatism would sometimes stick to a church building, no EVANGELISTIC WORK. even if there were no one attending but the minister and sexton, rather than hold a ser- vice of worship in an " unconsecrated" place, though thousands were ready to come there and hear the gospel. It is a significant fact that no ** consecrated places " are known to the New Testament ; no Temple of the Holy Ghost but the body of the believer or the collective body of all believers. The Tabernacle and Temple with their hallowed courts are no more ; of old, where God had recorded His name He came to His people to bless them ; now, where two or three are met in His name, wherever spir- itual worship is offered, He records His name and comes to bless them.^ We would neither abandon church buildings altogether, nor un- duly magnify them as exclusive places of worship ; but we would subordinate all else to the reaching and saving of human souls. Evangelization depends, first of all, on get- ting the ears of men. Rev. Dr. William E. Knox, with his inimitable humor, told the 1 Cf. Exodus XX. 24; Matt, xviii. 19, 20: John iv. 23, 24. HELPS AND HINDRANCES. I i i students at Auburn Seminary that, after thirty years of study, he had found the secret of success in the ministry: "Get a big audi- ence ! Spurgeon and such as he could not but be great preachers, because they had such multitudes to address." But behind this quaint humor hides a suggestion. We must sacrifice somewhat to get at men's ears. If we are in dead earnest we shall not stand on our dignity. Before a consuming passion for souls, a spirit of hypercriticism and excessive conservatism melts away. They used to say of Lord Eldon, that he ''prevented more good than any other man ever didT Many a man becomes a mere obstruction, lying squarely in the way of all advance, by such excessive conservatism and dread of innovation. Lord Shaftesbury, whose noble heart yearned over the neglected multitudes in London, and who declined the highest offices and honors because they in- terfered with his divine call to labor among- the poor,^ found, as late as 1855, an enact- 1 Life of Shaftesbury, ii. 511. 112 EVANGELISTIC WORK. ment still in force, prohibiting the teaching of the gospel and the worship of God in private houses where twenty persons beside the family were assembled. It shows how late in this nineteenth century obstructive relig- ious legislation could still survive, that, while no legal prohibition forbade any assembly in any numbers for gain or mirth, for secular or political ends, a body of Christians met to pray or preach were liable to fine and jail ! Though in most cases it was a dead letter, it was a " rod in pickle," an ecclesiastical engine ready for use when desired ; or, as Brougham said, "dormant, not dead," a reptile capable of being warmed into active life at any moment by malicious passions, avarice, or mistaken religious zeal. Shaftesbury sought, by a bill, to repeal so much of the Act as hindered properly and orderly conducted religious meetings. But he met a strenuous opposi- tion even from Christian lords and bishops, which actually put the bill in jeopardy. He saw the high dignitaries of the Church of England deliberately placing impediments in HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 1 13 the way of religious worship and the evangel- ization of the masses of the people. Under pretence of preserving ojder in the Church, they were seeking ^ to limit the Christian work of laymen, arrest the progress of dis- senters, and prevent any innovations upon existing customs. The attitude of antagonism taken against his measure was to Lord Shaftesbury intol- erable. The idea of ''permission to pray"! It was like permission to breathe. " Every man should have perfect right to worship God when and how he pleased, in his own house or his neighbor's, in any number, at any time, unless the exercise of such right plainly endangered public morality or public safety." But it was especially intolerable to him in view of the five millions in Eng-Iand who were wholly without instruction of any kind ; and at last, after heroic efforts, he carried all that was vital in his bill, and vin- dicated the right as well as privilege of such assemblies. 1 Life of Shaftesbury, ii. 516-520. 8 114 EVANGELISTIC WORK. But the battle was not yet over ; there was yet to be conflict with this obstructive con- servatism. In the spring of 1857 ^ series of special religious services was commenced in Exeter Hall on Sunday evenings. Abundant success attended them. Thousands were present every Sunday evening, and from all quarters testimony was borne that a large class of those who were not habitual attend- ants at either church or chapel was reached. The movement appealed especially to work- ingmen. It disarmed their prejudices by providing that there should be no distinction of persons, no reserved seats or collections ; and that the humblest should be dealt with on precisely the same footing as the highest man in the land.^ Twelve services were held, and even the heat of the weather did not hinder the grow- ing attendance. Toward the last, five thou- sand people thronged the hall, and half as many more left, unable to get in. When the services were suspended for the summer, 1 Life of Shaftesbury, iii. 48. HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 1 15 arrangements were made to reopen them in the autumn, but they were actually prevented by an inhibition issued by the incumbent of the parish to the minister who was to have officiated at the reopening. Nor would they have been resumed at all, had not the Non- conformists, who were not fettered by such ecclesiastical restrictions, taken up the matter. Again this noble philanthropist sought to secure legislation that would be favorable to evangelistic effort, and again he encountered strenuous opposition, though the speeches of his opponents were principally conspicuous for their extraordinary feebleness.^ The measure called forth an immense amount of *' sacer- dotalism even among the Evangelical clergy." But public sympathy was with the measure, and a partial victory was ultimately secured. The special Sunday evening services at Exe- ter Hall grew in interest, and similar efforts were made in other directions ; and to reach the middle and upper classes, similar services were held respectively in the metropolitan 1 Life of Shaftesbury, iii. 52, 53. Il6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. theatres, and in Westminster and St. Paul's. By the middle of February seven theatres were opened, with an average attendance of twenty thousand seven hundred each night ; and of those attending, not more than one tenth had probably ever frequented any place of public worship before.^ The order was excellent, and the solemn silence impressive. ** Down the pale cheeks that once had blushed, and from the eyes still retaining lustre, tears flow, and occasion- ally over all the audience a stillness reigns, that proves reality to be more efi"ective than fiction, and the story of a cross erected on a Judaean hill eighteen hundred years ago to have lost none of its power." ^ No one could honestly doubt the vast good accomplished by these professedly evangel- istic services held in the great Exeter Hall and the theatres of London. They drew thousands whose poverty and rags would have kept them from going to any ordinary place of worship and would have shut them 1 Life of Shaftesbury, iii. 102. 2 jj-,, jij, 104. HELPS AND HINDRANCES. 117 out of many, even had they gone. These services were related to other services of worship as ragged schools were to other schools; their purpose was not to displace ordinary church assemblies, but by drawing the people first into contact with the gospel in the theatre or hall, to lead them into permanent church-going habits. And yet, not only did these services not meet with universal approval, but Lord Dungannon In the House of Lords led in open opposition to them. In this country, though less hampered by church establishments, efforts to " evangelize the masses," however successful, do not always meet either approbation or co-opera- tion. One instance may be given of hun- dreds. A prominent pastor in a large city, unable in his stately marble church building to get hold of non church-goers, prevailed on his people to open the opera-house for Sun- day evenings, and there, in place of three hundred, he spoke to three thousand. Yet, after some weeks of growing interest and Il8 EVANGELISTIC WORK. experience of a manifest blessing in souls saved, his people deliberately discontinued these services, and went back to their church edifice, with its average attendance of a few hundred; and although it was plain that they had lost their grip upon the people, they seemed content to have it so. We feel con- strained to ask, Where is our zeal for souls? Is a consecrated building practically of more consequence than the saving of the lost? The redemption of a soul is precious ; and soon it ceaseth forever. We do not wonder that evangelization moves slowly, when even in professing disciples there is so little down- right earnestness in the endeavor to save men. Fire is one of the greatest forces of nature. It not only burns and warms, but it marches on with the tread of a conqueror ; nothing stands before it. It consumes forests, it sweeps away vast structures, it melts even metallic barriers, in its onward progress. Give us one man on fire with God's Spirit, and nothing stands long between him and the souls that Satan holds in his Bastile ! THE SERVICE OF SONG. 1 19 CHAPTER IX. THE SERVICE OF SONG. EED needs a soil prepared for the sowing. Sacred song is both a " former " rain to help the seed to germinate, and a ''latter" rain to secure a fruitful harvest. In two of Paul's epistles he attributes to it value, as a vehicle for the communion of saints, and even for mutual exhortation, instruction, admonition.^ Evangelistic singing is a great help to evangelistic services. Even those w^ho are too conservative to give up the psalms and hymns, fragrant with hallowed memories and the associations of centuries, admit the strange power wielded over the popular heart by those modern spiritual songs, which have already won for themselves a deserved place 1 Eph. V. 19; Col. iii. 16. I20 EVANGELISTIC WORK. in our song-service, because, however defec- tive lyrically or musically, and although they sometimes offend a fastidious poetic taste, they have been used by the Spirit of God as channels of His power. The reasons may in part at least be as- signed. First of all, they are for the most part Evangelical. Whatever they lack, they are saturated with the gospel; sermons, set to music. There is no frame of mind or state of heart, from the dawn of religious inquiry to the full day of conscious salvation, which may not find in these spiritual songs a fitting expression and response. One who is on the point of decision may sing, — " I am coming to the cross." For one who needs to have emphasized a present salvation, there is — '• Hallelujah, 't is done ! I believe on the Son." If you would stir the soul by exhibiting the sufferings of Jesus, there is that touching hymn — THE SERVICE OF SONG. 12 1 " I gave my life for thee." i If an inquiring soul is tempted to delay, in the vain hope of making preparation, he is met with "Just as I am, without one plea; " Or if falsely led to linger under legal shadows, *' Free from the Law, oh happy condition ! " Who can doubt the real power over the popular heart of such inspiring songs as ** Wonderful Words of Life ; " or the deep sympathetic chord touched by " Rescue the Perishing; " or the quickening influence on faith of "Simply trusting every day;" or the rousing and almost martial power of 1 This hymn was suggested by the choice painting^ *' Ecce Homo," in the Dusseldorf Gallery, over which is an inscription in Latin: — " All this I did for thee; What doest thou for Me ? " Zinzendorf, the Moravian bishop, overcome at the sight of this picture, and feeling deeply that he could make no fitting response to this solemn question, prayed his Lord to pull him forcibly into the fellowship of His sufferings, should he incline to shrink and remain without. 122 EVANGELISTIC WORK. " Hold the Fort! " We have been in hun- dreds of evangeHstic services where some such simple gospel song, sung tenderly and sympathetically, has moved and melted the hearts of great audiences, so that the effects were almost visible. Of course this modern ''hymnology" needs careful sifting, for it has much chaff mingled with it, but much of it proves, when planted in human hearts, the very seed of the kingdom. Another reason for the popularity and power of these evangelistic songs is the clear eminciatio7i with which they are rendered. If the words cannot be understood, the sing- ing is regarded as a failure. As in reading the Bible " good emphasis is good exegesis," so good enunciation makes a sacred song an appeal and an argument. On the other hand, "artistic" singing aims to disguise and even " elide," or glide over, consonants because they interfere with pure vocalization ; and the favorite language in song is the Italian, because it abounds in vowel sounds. Artistic vocalists will sing an THE SERVICE OF SONG. I 23 anthem in English, giving such prominence to vowels and touching consonants so lightly, that the English can scarcely be distinguished from Italian,^ In that mysterious and subtle something, which in these days interferes with the perma- nent power of the gospel as preached, a large factor is wicojisecratcd organ-playing and cJioij^- singing. A very quaint Episcopal bishop used to say that the Litany needed a new petition, asking deliverance " from the Devil's poor and poor devils, whining saints and quar- tette choirs." The pulpit and choir are often not in practical accord. Dr. Goodwin says, — " Cases are not few, nor hard to find, where in the handling of choir-leaders and those who abet them, the Lord's house is turned into a concert hall, the service of song made largely a device for filling and renting pews, and the minister compelled to 1 As when an operatic singer in a church choir thus rendered the Fortieth Psahn ; by the comparative size of vowels and consonants we may indicate their comparative prominence in the anthem : — "I— wA— A-t'd f A— W th' lA— W— d." 124 EVANGELISTIC WORK. sandwich his part in between performances that suggest anything but the worship of God and the salvation of men.-^ Sometimes indeed he has to come to his duties in the puipit, after the world and the flesh and the Devil have, through the fin- gers and lips of an unconverted organist and choir- leader, set things moving to their liking ; and then turn the service over to them after the sermon, to be finished up as they may elect. Doubtless the Devil likes that way of conducting Sabbath services. If he can only get people's heads full of waltzes and operas and sonatas, and what-not else, before the preaching comes, and then have a chance to follow it up with a march or an aria of his own selection, the preacher's thirty minutes of gospel will not greatly damage his interests. Litde won- der that preaching in such circumstances saves few souls." There is not only manifest incongruity and impropriety, but as we believe somewhat that 1 Here is a recent programme : " Organ prelude ; An- them : Solo by ; Carol; Response to the Law; Solo and Anthem ; Gloria Patri ; Offertory ; Anthem, with Solos and Duet ; Recessional, with orchestra." And this in a Reformed Presbyterian Church ! THE SERVICE OF SONG. 1 25 borders on profanity, in putting forward un- godly persons to lead the service of sacred song. In this part of divine worship, hypoc- risy is not only sadly apparent but syste- matically tolerated. To hire those who are openly irreligious, though they may be war- blers from the opera stage, to sing ''Nearer, my God, to Thee," or to adapt "Jesus, lover of my soul," to " When the swallows home- ward fly," is putting upon a heartless formal- ity both praise and price. In more than one fashionable church choir, a singing-master, whose mouth is foul with tobacco and whose breath is foul with rum, sings Zion's sweet songs ; and we knew of one case in which a woman of bad repute and her paramour were for years the leading singers in a Presbyte- rian church ; and of another case in which a choir left the choir-gallery for a beer saloon during the sermon ! Alas for the unappreciated powers and possibilities of sacred song ! Music probably approximates, most nearly of anything on earth, the language of heaven. Its uses in 126 EVANGELISTIC WORK. worship, in direct praise, in indirect prayer, in the expression of gospel truth, in soften- ing the sensibihties, drawing souls together, banishing unholy thoughts and kindling heavenward aspirations, no pen has ever described. On the stage of a Liverpool theatre, a comic, burlesque singer came out before the footlights to sing in character. Just then, echoing through the chambers of his mem- ory, there came the strains of a Sunday- school hymn, and with such power that he forgot his comic song and retired in con- fusion. Dismissed by the enraged manager, he gave himself up to a prolonged drunken debauch. Meanwhile the Moody and Sankey meetings had begun in the city, and as the drunken actor heard his low companions making the evangelists the subjects of ridi- cule and mimicry, the thought flashed on his mind that he might repair his ruined reputation by composing a burlesque song about them. He sobered himself enough to begin. THE SERVICE OF SONG. 27 But in order to make sharper points and more telling hits, he must go and hear and study the men whose peculiarities he meant to lampoon. He went, of course in no frame of mind to be reached by the gospel. But, in the singing, he heard the gospel ; it had a strange charm over him, like the playing of David's harp upon Saul ; it drove out the demon that possessed him, and the burlesque actor became a penitent inquirer and then a rejoicing believer. Abandoning the stage, the comedian went into training for the work of a missionary ! In the mountains of the Tyrol, when twi- light is gathering and weaving its curtain of shadows, the mothers, wives, and daughters go into the valleys and sing. Up through mists and clouds float the melodies from beloved voices, till they fall like salutations of love upon the ears of fathers, husbands, and sons, as they wend their way homeward. On the Mediterranean waters, when the fish- ermen in their boats, enveloped in evening fog, can no longer discern even the outline of the 128 EVANGELISTIC WORK. shore, it is likewise the song of loved ones on the beach by which they guide their boats homeward. Who shall say how far sacred song may be used by consecrated lips, both to guide penitent souls to the blessed Christ, and to constitute a means of communion between saints? And if between heaven and earth there be possible any present communion, surely the songs which true disciples sing, making melody in their hearts to the Lord, must float upward, penetrating the veil that hangs between, and salute the ear of the redeemed upon the ''Delectable Mountains" ! AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 129 CHAPTER X. AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. HE crisis with the fisherman is the landing of the fish, whether by net or Hne. So with the fisher of men. He may have had success in finding and skill in enclosing souls in the gospel net, but his work is vain if he does not secure them. There is no more helpful handmaid to evangelistic work than the '* after-meeting." Its object is to make permanent whatever good has been done, to fix impressions made by the truth, to clinch nails driven by the master of the assembly. It is an inquiry meeting, but it is more. In all preaching services there is much "wasted ammunition." We often fail to bring men to a decision, and so our work is comparatively fruitless. 9 I30 EVANGELISTIC WORK. The blacksmith drives the blast through his furnace fire, till the iron is at white heat; then he lays the iron on the anvil, and at once beneath the blows of his heavy hammer gives it shape. We with prayer and pains prepare to preach, add to convincing argu- ment persuasive appeal, and when souls are brought to white heat, in most cases we allow the impression to cool, and not only lose our opportunity but leave hearts to greater hard- ness than before. We ought to insist on instant, visible, decisive action, and show ourselves masters of the situation, with love's urgent entreaty impelling and compelling them to decide. On the other hand, how often does a solemn sermon close amid that hush of silence which is the sign and signal of a crisis in soul-history, when a few well-chosen words with individuals now under the Spirit's influence would turn the scale of destiny. The minister sits down, and a solo singer or a quartette choir warbles an air whose only effect is to drive away all real concern about AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 131 the soul ; then follows an "■ organ postlude," that devil's device to *' play out " the people, and the impression too; and what these closing exercises of '* worship " do not ac- complish, Satan's fowls of the air, flying about the church-vestibule, complete ; catch- ing away the seed that was sown in the heart. How many of the three thousand, pricked in their heart at Pentecost, would have been converted had Peter's sermon been followed by a modern operatic chorus with orchestral accompaniment on the organ, and promis- cuous worldly conversation on the way home ? Peter held an " after-meeting," where the in- quirers' question, ''What shall we do?" was promptly and plainly answered; where the argument of the sermon was enforced by personal testimony and exhortation, and awakened sinners were urged, by firm but gentle pressure, from conviction to decision. Yes, CHOICE ! that was the master-stroke of Pentecost. And hundreds of hearers, now left to drift upon the current of worldliness 132 EVANGELISTIC WORK. into more hopeless alienation from God, would, if promptly, patiently, lovingly fol- lowed up while the impression of truth is fresh and forcible, yield to Christ as Saviour and Lord. The after-meeting is simply a device sug- gested by common-sense and experience to prevent truth from losing its grip upon souls. The net already cast it drags to shore ; the driven nail it fastens ; the hot iron it ham- mers into shape. That is the philosophy of it in a nut-shell, and this sensible and ra- tional means the Spirit abundantly uses and approves. To the power of the after-meeting some things are essential. First, it should immedi- ately follow the other. A break is a Ipss of continuity; delay is disaster. As nearly as may be the preaching service should merge or melt into the other, unconsciously and imperceptibly; if the place of the meeting be changed at all, it should be to the room nearest and most accessible ; and if that room be on the way out, it will catch twice AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 133 as many inquirers as if it were at the other end of the building. When churches build to save souls, inquiry-rooms will be put where no one can go out without passing their open doors and those who at those doors invite entrance. After-meetings ought to be far more com- mon than they are. To let awakened souls go without such after-contact is in nine tenths of cases to lose hold of them. When the truth grapples with the conscience and the Spirit strives with man, Satan is on the alert to take advantage of the slightest interval of interruption, diversion, or delay, to dissipate impressions. We must keep up the pressure upon the conscience till the will yields ; a slight diversion may prevent conversion. To let go is to lose our advantage for Christ. Again, the after-meeting must be plamied for; the best Christian workers ready, with their Bibles, for close hand-to-hand contact with inquirers, and to meet by an appeal to the Word every objection or obstacle to immediate and intelligent choice of Christ. 134 EVANGELISTIC WORK. There must be no undue formality, no wait- ing for some one else to move ; for while the worker hesitates and lingers, the golden mo- ment has fled. Variety is very helpful. It is well if no two such meetings are conducted alike ; it avoids running in ruts. Where the inquirers are many, there may be a plain talk to them in a body, explaining very sim- ply the way of salvation, the nature of faith, and its supreme act of choice in the personal acceptance of Jesus as Saviour and Lord ; or some clear-headed disciple may be asked to tell in a few words just " how to be saved," or answer in a brief, telling way a few prac- tical questions. But the great end to be kept in view is to get before every soul the duty and privilege of unconditional surrender to God in Christ; and to secure this result, personal contact with each, one by one, has always been found the surest road to success. For such individual dealing with inquirers we need a body of trained workers, who like a physician can diagnose the disease from the symptoms and prescribe the remedy. AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 1 35 To the skilled worker, the Word of God is alike pharmacopoeia and dispensary, with a ready balm for every want and woe of man. He gets past all artificial pretexts and super- ficial objections, to his patient's heart ; then turning to the Scripture, selects the remedy in some fitting text, — a simple "Thus saith the Lord," — which goes further than all hu- man arguments, anecdotes, or even personal experiences.^ Next only to the movings of the Spirit, this direct personal dealing is the surest means of bringing souls to Christ. Preach- ing is only preparatory : it spreads truth over a greater breadth of surface, but this carries it to a greater depth. We may preach to men in masses, but they are converted one by one. With rare exceptions, unless the word preached is followed by the word spoken privately and personally, it does not convert. Yet that converting word is often so simple that we can account for its power only by God's sovereign choice of weak things 1 See Appendix A. 136 EVANGELISTIC WORK. We have known an ignorant old colored woman to lead to Christ by her tearful, ear- nest words, — "I hope you love Jesus," — those whom the most convincing argument could not move. The fisher of men aims first of all to get souls into his net. Whatever will draw men to him and to the gospel he preaches, provided only it be a lawful bait, he does not despise. Our Lord used the feeding of the body as a help to the feeding of the soul. Dr. Guthrie yearned to see a real practical love-feast, — at least one decent, comfortable meal for the poor of God's household every Sabbath day.^ But why not give such Christian beneficence and benefaction wider scope ! Some years since, a prominent Episcopal church in New York City set in play a many-sided benevo- lence, and became a sacred Briareus, stretch- ing out a hundred hands to help. Not content with pitching a gospel-tent right amid the people, the body was fed that afterward spiritual hunger might be supplied. ^ AutobiograpRv, ii. 210. AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 137 On Sunday afternoons the ** Andrew and Philip Society " served hot meats, oysters, tea and coffee and bread to hundreds of hungry men, as on Tuesday afternoons the " Mary and Martha Society " did to hungry women. Those who thronged the supper- tables naturally stayed to hear of Him who taught us to feed the poor as well as to preach the gospel to them ; and the drunken and degraded were led to Him and were so changed in look and life as no longer to be recognized by former companions in sin. Ah, if we have but the will and self-sacrifice, we may reach even the outcasts; and some whom no man could bind or tame may be found clothed and in their right mind, sitting at Jesus' feet ! To the true winner of souls, the salvation of the lost is the golden mile- stone toward which all roads run; he is so absorbed in reaching this great end that he is ready to use any proper means whereby to save some. House to house visitation is a mighty means of evangelizing, for it gives opportu- 138 EVANGELISTIC WORK. nity for individual approach and appeal. Unhappily this is done, if at all, occasionally and spasmodically, and not systematically and habitually. If the ** districting" of the great cities could be made the basis for a permanent division and distribution of labor; if each church would undertake, by systematic visitation within an assigned territory, to keep track of non-church goers, invite them to come to the place of worship and throw about them Love's embracing arms, — results, of such magnitude as we little suspect, might follow. All so-called mission movements are valu- able aids, some of them almost indispensable to permanent evangelistic success. Mission Sunday-schools, open-air preaching, gospel- tents, cottage prayer-meetings, medical and midnight missions, — whatever brings fellow- workers into contact with each other and with unsaved souls, God will surely honor and bless. No church, no believer, can afford to be without some mission work; its form is of minor importance. AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 139 ''Christian associations" of young men and young women, when not secularized, wield a grand influence in evangelization ; but there is danger just now that entertainments and exhibitions, lectures and socials, gymnastic sports and debating clubs, may absorb ener- gies that ought to be spent in direct labor for souls. These association^ seem part of God's plan in our generation to develop lay activity, especially among the young men ; and this is perhaps their chief claim to our consideration and co-operation, that they train workers for evangelism and then set them at work. The "■ Gospel Temperance " movement, under the guidance of such men as John B. Gough, William Noble, Francis Murphy, William E. Dodge, and Canon Wilberforce, — not to mention certain heroic women of our day, — has already proved a mighty evangel- izing power. It proves at least a John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord ; and when such as Basil Wilberforce plead the cause of temperance it is a John the Evan- 140 EVANGELISTIC WORK. gelist pointing to the Lamb of God. In his visit to the United States he addressed great throngs ; but whether in church building, association hall or opera-house he stood pleading for uncompromising abstinence from all that could intoxicate, the whole burden of his address was the impotence of the old Adam will to break the bonds of the drink habit, and the saving, keeping power of the Lord Jesus. Canon Wilberforce himself spoke of the fact that the temperance pledge is often the forerunner of conversion. He mentioned one gathering where six hundred working- men rose to acknowledge Jesus as their newly found Saviour, and it was noticeable that every one of them had on the blue ribbon, which showed that to them at least temperance had led the way to faith. The printing-press must not be forgotten among the foremost helps to evangelistic work. Printers' ink ! Great indeed is its power, either for good or evil. The compe- tition is sharp between the pulpit and the AIDS AND ACCESSORIES. 141 press, and it is hard to say which wields the most imperial sceptre. There can be no question that the press commands the greater audience, whatever its comparative authority. Such an agency ought to be used, in every way, to spread the gospel, not only in sub- sidizing columns of newspapers for reports of sermons and for advertisements, but in multiplying printed notices, cards of invita- tion, and other devices to attract the eye of the casual reader or passer-by.^ Men of the world find great advantage in even very costly advertising. They give wide publicity to their business enterprises, and multiply de- vices to attract attention and draw customers, though in many cases these expedients are traps and snares. Why should not the chil- dren of light wisely use every legitimate means to call attention to the courts of God's house and the gospel feast there spread, and to set forth the fact that there is enough for all, and that it is free to all? 1 See Appendix B, C. 42 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XI. THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. I STORY is a succession of divine crusades. The careful observer de- tects a distinct and definite plan of Providence in every generation ; and God's true seers, the only wise and great in His eyes, are they who, as Prince Albert used to say, find out that plan and fall into their own place in it, and so serve their own generation by the will of God. In the Middle Ages God led on a crusade against feudalism. At no other epoch in history perhaps have the masses of mankind been as ill-treated as under the sway of the feudal system. Over its ruins the race has marched onward toward individual intelli- gence and independence, and the main hin- drances to intellectual growth and social THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. 143 progress to-day are the surviving relics of that ancient thraldom. Then followed the double Reformation in philosophy and relig- ion, and the era of great inventions. God gave the Bible to the common people, and the mariner's compass, printing-press, and steam-engine, as means for bearing the mis- sionary and spreading the Word over the world. Then came the crusade of philan- thropy, when such as Wilberforce fought to abolish the slave-trade and break the slave's fetters, and such as Shaftesbury thought and wrought for a half-century to better the con- dition of inmates of insane asylums and laborers in factories, mines, and workshops. Under the same divine leadership we have come to the great Evangelistic Era. During the last fifty years the grand question which has absorbed the best minds and hearts in the Church of God is how to bear the message of life to the whole human race as soon as practicable. Home missions and foreign mis- sions are but two gigantic arms of one still more gigantic work, — a world's evangelization. 144 EVANGELISTIC WORK. When and where God leads, the true disci- ple follows. He dares not be indifferent or heedless when God says, " Go forward ! " This age is at once intensely individual and intensely universal ; emphasizing on the one hand individual development and responsi- bility; on the other, the duty and privilege of doing good to all men. Because this movement is of God it cannot be stopped ; the waves will not be swept back and the tide is fast rising; the very roar of the surf is God's voice of thunder calling His people to leave no human soul to live and die with- out the gospel. But before this great work is accomplished or even attempted on a proper scale, there are some truths and facts which the Church of God must come to see and feel. The Reformation was only a day dawn after long and deep darkness. The old truth of justification by faith was exhumed from the rubbish of half-pagan rites, false doc- trines, superstitious forms ; the right of the people to have and to interpret the Word of THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. 145 God was affirmed and vindicated ; and a new and mighty impulse was given to Evangelical truth and life, which were not only exhumed but revived. Yet even so great a Reforma- tion left the Church in alliance with the State, and the hierarchical spirit prevalent; and so secularism and clericalism survived. Worst of all the failures of the Reformation was this, that the revival of Evangelical faith did so little directly to revive evangelistic activity. For three hundred years more the Church remained in a half-dead condition, as to the heathen world, either treating her obligations with contemptuous indifference or denying her debt altogether. And the con- sequence was that there were signs of a lapse backward into barbarism ! From the year 1700 to about the time of the French Revo- lution there was a fearful decay of spiritual life. Both in England and America there was an awful dearth of conversions and almost a death of piety ; the land was flooded with infidelity and immorality; it was the feature of the age that Christianity was treated 146 EVANGELISTIC WORK. with open disregard and made the butt of ridicule. Christ was no longer preached. Early in the reign of George III., Blackstone, the legal commentator, had the curiosity to go successively to hear every clergyman of note in London, and heard not one discourse which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero, or from which he could have learned whether the author were a fol- lower of Confucius or Zoroaster, Mahomet or Christ ! This plain drift backward toward the dark ages was another illustration of the great fact that Evangelical faith and evangelistic work must go together. The decline of either risks the other; and therefore no revi- val of Evangelical faith is complete, or will be permanent, which is not closely followed by evangelistic effort. Since the middle of the last century God has been leading the way for a new Reforma- tion, and already there is a great advance. It began in a revival of preaching that was both Evangelical and evangelistic. At this THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. 1 4/ very juncture which marked the crisis of modern history, God raised up the apostles of this new era of evangeUsm: Whitefield and the Wesleys, Grimshaw, Romaine, Row- lands, Toplady, Fletcher, Edwards, — these were a few of the men whom He had pre- pared to herald this new Reformation. They preached the old gospel of apostolic days, everywhere, at all times, fearlessly, faithfully, fervently, pointedly; they taught the su- premacy and sufficiency of Holy Scripture ; the fulness and freeness of Christ's satisfac- tion for sin ; the universal need of the new birth; justification by faith and the vital link between faith and holiness ; and God's eternal hatred of sin and love toward sinners. The end and effect of such preaching were the preparation of the Church for the evangel- istic era, now just in its dawn or early morning. Whitefield, Wesley, and others who were pioneers in this great movement were evan- gelists and open-air preachers. They not only led the way in holding up a crucified 148 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Christ, but they set the example of seeking and going after the lost, and so stimulated a wide evangelism. The Church as a body- did not feel the force of her obligation to a lost world ; and those who did, and who urged it, met of course with opposition. Every great advance in piety or philan- thropy, or even philosophy and invention, has encountered at least the inevitable vis inerticE. The era of modern missions was born only through throes. Dr. Ryland bade Carey ''sit down " and not presume to undertake the conversion of the heathen. The Scotch Assembly branded such schemes as fanati- cal, revolutionary, dangerous ; Sydney Smith trailed the guns of his satire against the ** nest of consecrated cobblers," caricaturing that humble missionary band with their twelve-and-sixpence. But even to-day hun- dreds of professed children of God do not yet see that God is leading on the last and greatest crusade of history, and that he who seeks to overthrow it fights against God, THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. 149 while he who does not join it turns his back on the Captain of the Lord's Host ! This revival of universal evangelism is the New Reformation, and notwithstanding the apathy of the great body of Christians the crusade has made great advance. We are nearing the close of a century of missions, during which more doors of access have been opened, more missionary organizations formed, more laborers sent forth, more new translations of the Bible made and more copies scattered, more converts gathered from Pagan, Papal, and Moslem communities, more evangelists raised up, and more evan- gelizing agencies set in motion, than during a thousand years preceding ! But as yet we have only begun our return toward the primitive, scriptural, apostolic basis. We still hinder the full display of God's power by clinging to the mistake of centuries. What is that mistake? Not the secular spirit which leavens the Church and leaves men of the world to guide its affairs, shape its policy, and even box-in its pulpit ; 150 EVANGELISTIC WORK. not the hierarchical spirit which Hfts the ministry into a clerical caste and builds a barrier between them and the laity, even in work for Christ. All this is bad enough; but worse than all and underlying all is the practical denial of the responsibility of every individual believer for reaching tmsaved souls with the gospel. The spirit of indifferentism is still abroad in the Church. What most of us do to save the heathen at home or abroad, we do by proxy. We substitute for our own individual, personal work, other men and at best our money. Voluntary societies acting for the Church take the place of the whole Church. Out of some thirty million Protestant church- members, with over one hundred million nominal adherents, some five thousand labor- ers go abroad, and we give them a meagre support and rest content: are we not evan- gelizing the heathen ? We give one out of perhaps five hundred to labor as preacher or evangelist in fields nearer by, and here and there a few more to teach classes in Sunday- THE EVANGELISTIC ERA. 151 schools; but where are the multitudes of believers? In their counting-houses and workshops, in the marts of commerce and the offices of the learned professions ; and the most of them absorbed in their own worldly business. If to-day the five thou- sand missionaries with their native helpers, and the faithful souls in home fields who are working to save the lost, were suddenly snatched away by a divine rapture as Enoch and Elijah were, who would carry on the work of evangelization? Oh for some new John the Baptist or Luther or Wesley to prepare the way of the Lord and sound the trumpet of this new Reforma- tion; to provoke a listless, torpid Church to love and good works ! Again we repeat it, and write it in large letters as on tablets by the wayside that he who readeth it may run to do God's bidding: EVERY believer is God's witness, worker, warrior. The scriptural idea and ideal is a whole body of believers at work for souls ; universal activity, world-wide evangelism. It took a 152 EVANGELISTIC WORK. whole Christ to redeem ; it will take a whole Church filled with the Holy Ghost to apply redemption. The great commission was ad- dressed to every believer, and must be so accepted. It is not needful that all should forsake other honest and honorable employ- ments in order to become professional preachers. " Let every man, in that calling wherein he is found, therein abide with God." Not a new sphere of work, but new work in our sphere. " Service " must be emblazoned on our banners, and become our watchword. Our secular calling must become a divine vocation. The world is Avide, and the work is as wide as the world. There is a place for every willing worker, according to his ability. But to every one of us a dispensation of the gospel is committed ; and only he who hears and heeds this call to work can give a proper account of his stewardship. THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT I 53 CHAPTER XII. THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT. IDEON spread his fleece to catch the heavenly dew; it was dry on all the floor, but the fleece was wet. The sign, worth all others, that God will save souls by our word and work is that we are like fleece saturated with celestial moist- ure. All the best methods fail without that last, best gift, the Spirit's anointing. This is a divine enduement and endowment; yet there are natural conditions, as the fleece was a " condition " of the dew. I. No man can expect the evangelistic bap- tism who does not heartily accept the evait- gelistic principle. The gospel's mission and our mission is to seek and to save that which is lost. Every believer, being as such sent to preach the gospel, is to make the advances 154 EVANGELISTIC WORK. and take up positive, personal, aggressive Christian work. Moreover, we must conceive of our mission as to the masses of mankuid, not an elect few, a select class. To what we invidiously call the "common people" the bulk of the race belong, and from them the bulk of disciples always have come and will come. When Jesus saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion. The crowning proof of His messiahship was His preaching to the poor; and the crowning joy of His work that, while rulers derided, the common people gladly heard Him.^ We have, to guide us, both a divine plan and an historic fact. " God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the promises." He has not called many of the rich, mighty, worldly-wise, and high-born ; but He has called these five classes : the ** foolish," " weak," ' base," '' despised," and "those that are not," — the nonentities.^ What- 1 Matt. ix. 36; xi. 5; James ii. 1-4. 2 I Cor. i. 27, 28, TO /XT? OVTO.. THE E VANGELISTIC SPIRIT. 1 5 5 ever we may think of this plan of God, the fact is that for nearly two thousand years the successes of the gospel have been among the poor, lowly, and outcast ; while pharisees sneer and cavil, doubt and deride, publicans and harlots go into the kingdom. The giant foe of human progress has been CASTE, the building up of artificial, arbitrary distinctions between man and man, — a wall of pasteboard in essence ; in effect, a wall of adamant. Caste has separated nations; in the same nation, tribes; in the same tribe, families; in the same family, husband and wife, sons and daughters. It crushes and quenches the very hope of betterment by which man is saved from stagnation and despair, and dooms him to stay where he was born, however low his level. By an inexorable fatalism it decrees that, from ignorance, superstition, want, and woe, he shall have no escape. God would give neither sanction nor recognition to such a monster as caste, and hence did not choose those who would naturally claim caste- 6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. privileges.^ To have treated these superfi- cial social distinctions as implying merit or virtue would have been to imply a difference in human need, as though the Jiigh-boni had less need to be new born. Therefore does God teach us that so far as there is differ- ence, He makes us to differ ; and that in the fact of sinfulness and condemnation there is no difference, and we must make none. While, however, God gives no false encour- agement to the rich and wise and mighty, He throws no discouragement in the way of any class, for in calling the lowest he calls the highest. What is broad enough for the base of the pyramid is broad enough for all that is above it. The highest has only to take his place among the lowest, and he gets the fulness of blessing. We have enlarged upon this, because it is a fundamental principle of evangelism. In God's eyes he only is a true preacher or teacher of the good tidings who seeks to save souls as such, and who accepts the 1 2 Kings V. II, 12. THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT. I57 gospel's mission and his own as beinrj to the whole lost family of man, and not to any elect aristocracy. He only has the evangel- istic spirit to whom the gospel is the great leveller. The worker for souls who will prove the winner of souls comes with the same gospel to all alike. Like his Master before him he is no respecter of persons. For any other attitude toward lost men there is no adequate apology, even in the affinity of culture, refined taste, and sensibil- ity. To consult affinity and refinement takes the very sinews out of evangelism. F. W. Robertson, the " friend of the workingman " was asked how, with such superlative refine- ment and cultured sensibilities he could endure close contact with so much that was coarse and rude ; and his answer was : " My tastes are with the aristocracy, but my prin- ciples are with the mob." The final outcome of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy was: there is nothing really great on earth but man ; and nothing really great in man but his soul. 158 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Again we write it, — as with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, — he only is fit to work for souls whose first law is to honor all men and despise or neglect no man. God's eye-salve has never yet anointed his eyes who does not see the greatness of the soul in the greatness of its ruin ; who does not see all on a level hopelessly, helplessly lost without Christ; who does not see that the same gospel is sent to, and fitted for, all ; and that the smallest measure of capacity that is equal to responsible sin is equal to voluntary acceptance of salvation. 2. This principle is the basis oi passion for souls, which is its natural if not necessary outcome. The believer who begins, not by denying, but by confessing, that he is his brother's keeper, will find his brother's keep- ing getting to be more and more a matter not of conscience only, but also of love. This passion for souls is the next sign and test of the evangelistic spirit. And of all human qualifications for winning souls, no other can be compared with this. If not the THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT. I 59 equivalent of unction, it is inseparable from it ; if it be not the dew, it is the fleece that holds the dew. Francis Xavier, *'the apostle of the Indies," misguided as he was, flamed with this con- suming passion for souls. He washed the sores and cleansed the clothes of a crew sick with scurvy ; rang a bell in the streets of Goa to call pupils to his school ; and after a fear- ful vision of perils and privations before him, as the price of winning isles and empires to Christ, he could only cry : '* Yet more, O my God, yet more ! " No marvel if during ten years he. visited fifty kingdoms, preached over nine thousand miles of territory, and baptized a million persons. This passion for souls is God's corrective for a fastidious hypercriticism. Dr. Dufl" met some who could not endure foreign missions "because they smelt so bad," — like a charac- ter in modern fiction who " could n't stand the poo7^ smell," — but there is a love that makes one oblivious of sights and sounds and smells that stand between lost souls and l6o EVANGELISTIC WORK. salvation. Passion for souls inspires a labor of love to which self-sacrifice is nothing, for that is the very law of love. See Ignatius the martyr facing the fierce Numidian lion in the arena and saying, *' I am grain of God ! I must be ground between the lion's teeth to make bread for His people." Such voluntary sacrifice inspired by pas- sion for souls gives to life its divinest beauty. That taunt, ** He saved others; Himself He cannot save ! " is truth, unconsciously told. Poussa the potter, after many efforts to make a porcelain set for the Emperor's table, despairing of making anything worthy of a king's acceptance, flung himself into the fur- nace where he was glazing his masterpieces. And they say that such heavenly beauty never gilded wares before, as made them shine. The Chinese sages in this fable were writing more wisely than they knew. Such passion for souls quickens our in- ventive powers, and leads to new devices to reach men. There was a poor cobbler with spectacles on his nose and an old shoe THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT l6l between his knees, — his forehead and mouth indicating great decision of character, and his eyes, benevolence, — around whom a group of poor children might have been seen sitting or standing busy with their lessons. It was John Pounds, of Portsmouth, — ** father of rag- ged schools." When both Church and State left these little waifs to run wild to ruin, this consecrated cobbler, moved with pity, went in person on the streets and quays, gathered them in, and taught them lessons in reading, and in virtue, temperance, and piety. Unknown to fame, comp'elled to earn his bread at his bench, he saved from vice to a better life at least five hundred children. And it was a very peculiar evangelistic argu- ment that he used. He would run after, and hunt down, some shy, hungry, ragged urchin, and win his trust by puttijig a hot roast potato under his nose. And so in his little shop, seven feet by fifteen, thirty or forty boys would crowd ; nay, they loved him so that they would sit outside on the street to be near him. II 1 62 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Such passion for souls brings its reward, even here. Sir Humphry Davy, after enu- merating his various discoveries in natural philosophy and chemistry, added : *' But the greatest of my discoveries is Michael Fara- day ! " — the poor apprentice of a bookbinder whom he helped to an education, and who outshone even his illustrious patron. The earnest worker who loves souls is on a con- stant tour of discovery. He detects fine gold even in rough quartz crystals, sapphires in clay, opals in sand, diamonds in soot; and brings fragrant flowers out of sterile sands and foul marshes. 3. Where the principle of evangelism is thoroughly accepted, and passion for souls is awakened, there are the two most im- portant conditions of that divine cndue- ment which is called tinction, the crowning gift of the Holy Spirit for service. He who would win souls needs the winning grace which only God can give. No words can describe this gift, but it may be known and felt. THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT 1 63 It is a chrism of power, an anointing. It is eye-salve to the eyes, to enable us clearly to see sin in its enormity and deformity, heaven and hell in their reality, and man's need and God's grace. It imparts that di- vine sense of the powers of the world to come which is the grand secret of converting power. It touches the tongue, and prepares us to speak attractively and effectively the message of grace. It is like the holy oil poured on Aaron's head and running down to the skirts of his garment, communicating to the whole man a nameless charm like fragrance. This is the baptism of fire. Nothing burns its way through all obstacles like fire; noth- ing so melts and moulds, so transforms and transfigures. It is a baptism of power. It gives strength to the weakest and flu- ency to the stammering tongue. When the Spirit comes on the believer for ser- vice, all God's truths are such verities and realities that he knows them as truths and cannot hold his peace ; he is weary 1 64 EVAA^GELISTIC WORK. with forbearing ; silence is harder than speech. There is much zeal that, as Dr. Bonar says, consists mainly of personal ambition and bigotry, love of praise and love of authority, pride of talent and pride of denomination, with but a fraction of love to God and love to man. But when the Holy Spirit inspires our zeal, the earthen vessel emptied of self is filled with God, — ''a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."^ Such a divine gift comes only in answer to prayer; and therefore all evangelistic work not begun, continued, and ended on our knees, gauged by God's standards is a fail- ure. Socrates said that his work in Athens was to bring men *' from ignorance uncon- scious to ignorance conscious." Our first need is the consciousness of need. We must feel that in the Spirit of God alone lies all power to convert. Even the truth and the blood cannot save unless He applies them. 1 2 Timothy ii. 2i. THE EVANGELISTIC SPIRIT 1 65 Saint Antoninus of Florence, in a fable, represents Satan as preaching the gospel in the disguise of a friar. When asked why he, the foe of God and man, proclaimed the truth, he answered that nothing is so hardening as the gospel preached without unction ; and that, as he had no unction, it was only a savor of death. The best preaching, with the best aids to impres- sion, cannot bring one soul to submit and commit all to Christ ; but let the Spirit breathe on a congregation, and, like blades of grass in a breeze, stubborn wills bow. They who most honor the Spirit are those whom the Spirit most honors. No time is lost in waiting for the Spirit. "TARRY YE . . . UNTIL YE BE ENDUED WITH POWER FROM ON HIGH ! " PART II. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN PRACTICE. CHAPTER XIII. WHITEFIELD, THE FIELD EVANGELIST. F history is " philosophy, teaching by examples," no proper discussion of evangelistic work can afford to pass by this prince of evangelists, who led the way as a field preacher. Even Wesley is in this respect his pupil, following the lead of Whitefield.i In the old South Church, at Newburyport, Massachusetts, is his cenotaph surmounted by a symbol of immortality, a flame bursting from an uncovered urn. The epitaph records that he was " born at Gloucester, England, Dec. 1 6, 1 7 14; educated at Oxford Univer- sity; ordained in 1736; that in a ministry of thirty-four years he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times and preached over eighteen thousand sermons." 1 Wedgwood's Life of Wesley, 177. I/O EVANGELISTIC WORK. This remarkable preacher united the mind of a cherub and the heart of a seraph with a voice such as is rarely bestowed on any of the sons of men. But no natural gifts would have made him the evangelist that he was, but for his ardent and fervent piety. His holy zeal, unselfish love, passion for souls, gave to his look, speech, attitude, and action, unexampled energy. Probably " no other uninspired man ever preached to so large assemblies, or enforced the simple truths of the gospel by motives so persuasive and awful, and with an influence so powerful upon the hearts of his hearers.'' His career furnishes encouragement to those whose early life has been passed in sin, but who would spend all their remaining years in service to God and to souls. He confesses that for sixteen years he hated instruction, and wasted money and time in the company of youths whose mockery of virtue and religion brought him nigh to the scat of the scorner in the vestibule of hell. But beneath all his early vices ran the under- WHITEFIELD. 171 current of a restless conscience; and when the inn at Gloucester was dark and still, the Tavern-keeper's boy sat often, late at night reading the Bible which he was yet to wield as a weapon of such power. In his eighteenth year, at Oxford, he joined the holy club, led by the Wesleys, known as '' Methodists " because the members lived by rigid rule, and whose threefold aim was salvation, sanctification, service. From quiet- ism the pendulum now swung to asceticism, and, like Luther, Whitefield sought peace through fasting, penance, and prayer. He cultivated humility by wearing dirty shoes and patched breeches, as though clean shoes and a clean heart, wholeness of garments and holiness of life, were incompatible! These rigors begat morbid melancholy and then a seven weeks' sickness, during which he learned his first great lesson, — that simple trust in Jesus lifts the load of sin. He began now to devour the Bible, com- mune with God, and visit the poor and the prisoner. He had a manifest call to the 172 EVANGELISTIC WORK. ministry. Born an orator, at twelve years of age he had charmed visitors by his easy, graceful declamation, and was wont to imitate clergymen, reading prayers and even com- posing sermons. His friends pressed him to apply for holy orders ; and the fame of his powers and piety led Bishop Benson to offer to consecrate him at once as a deacon, not- withstanding his youth. His humility shrank from such a responsible step, but he was ordained at the age of twenty-one. On the next Sabbath he preached his first sermon, and with such simplicity, authority, and unction that it was plain God had raised him up for a great work. Some complained to the bishop that his "enthusiasm had driven fifteen people mad : " his quaint reply was that he only hoped the madness might last till the next Sabbath. He soon left for Lon- don, where such crowds thronged to hear him that the police had to stand guard. The Wesleys had sailed for Georgia, and Whitefield's mind turning the same Avay, he sailed for America in December, 1737. WHITEFIELD. 1 73 Burning with love for souls, he made that ocean voyage memorable. The cabin be- came a cloister, the steerage a school-room, and the deck a church.^ He preached thrice a day and oftener on Sunday; and before his mighty appeals even the toughest tars bowed and bent like reeds in the wind. Six voyages to England and back succeeded that first journey to these shores, and the inter- vals were full of ceaseless toil for souls. For thirty years he averaged one and a half ser- mons a day, visiting over fifty towns and cities in New England and as many more from New York to Georgia, and at least seventy places in Britain. His audiences averaged two thousand, and at times swelled to incredible size; some say, at Kingswood and Cornwall, to ten thousand ; at Philadel- phia, to twenty thousand ; at Boston Common, to thirty thousand; and at Moorfields, to sixty thousand ! He was driven to the fields by the action of ecclesiastics. At Bristol, shut out from 1 Belcher's Life of Whitefield. 1/4 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the churches, the taunt was flung at him, that if he would convert the heathen he might try his hand upon the Kingswood colhers. He took up the challenge, and on Feb. 17, 1739, he first attempted to speak to these wild men on that wild common near Bristol. A hundred of them came to stare at the eccentric stranger, but soon increased to twenty thousand ; and down their grimy faces the tears rolled and left ''white gutters" in the black soot. Nor were those transient tears the only proofs of the power of his preaching. When, months after, he left Bris- tol, a swarthy train followed him and halted at Kingswood to spread a feast for him and astonish him by a liberal subscription for a charity school among the colliers. This providential moving of the Pillar showed Whitefield that the open field was to be his sanctuary. He had not been shut out of the churches in vain ; they might have shut him in. Two months after his first ad- dress at Kingswood, he spoke to vast throngs at Moorfields, where not only the abjectly WHITEFIELD. I / 5 poor but the lowest class of the population were found. ^ He was warned not to go, and that he would not return alive. But, unattended save by two friends, he stormed Satan's stronghold in the heart of London. He was treated not only with decency but with respect. His evening audience at Ken- nington Common was equally attentive and courteous, joining in the psalm and Lord's prayer as quietly as in any church. And the thought dropped like a seed from God into his heart, — "Why should I not preach where none need go away disappointed?" Following the divine leading, he deter- mined without regard to the opinion of man or his own personal ease to take to the open field. At Kennington such a vast host filled the river stairs that the watermen had to put on hundreds of additional boats, and even then their wherries were overloaded by the ladies who pressed into them. And thus, by no sudden caprice or studied scheme, but by simple surrender to the pressure of events 1 April 29, 1739. 1/6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. and the leading of God's Providence, White- field accepted the itinerant life of a field preacher, and led into the same path his illustrious contemporary, John Wesley. To these *' mad notions " of a man who could not be kept from preaching the gospel by the narrow exclusiveness and stilted state- liness of the church of his day, and to the "immoderate zeal" which led him to break through the restraint of forms, and throw away alike liturgy and manuscript, we owe the mightiest extempore sermons that ever fell from human lips, heard by throngs such as never before waited upon any preacher's voice. Not only the colliers of Kingswood, the miners of Cornwall, and the rabble at Moorfields, but the nobility and gentry of England and the untitled nobility of Amer- ica confessed the wonderful power of his preaching. Can we learn any secrets of evangelistic success from a man who in himself combined many of the excellences of Fenelon and Massiilon, Loyola and Luther? WHITEFIELD. \ jy First, he studied the proper use of his voice. Like his Lord before him, " he opened his mouth and taught them." He spoke with loud and clear tones, with perfect articulation and enunciation. His voice was a great gift, but his management of it made it the per- fection of the faculty of human speech. It had wonderful richness and sweetness; but behind its musical modulations and persuasive pathos there lay deep feeling. It was the man, back of the voice, that so warmed the cold, calculating Franklin and charmed the philosophical, sceptical Hume. The human voice is the grandest of in- struments, and all others are sonorous and melodious only as they approximate to its perfection. He discovered and developed its powers ; he learned to handle, and play on, that consummate instrument. Garrick said he would give a hundred guineas to say '• Oh ! " as Whitefield did ; and that, by merely varying his pronunciation of the word, " Mesopotamia," he could make an audience tremble or weep. But no natural ■178 EVANGELISTIC WORK. volume or compass of voice could have ena- bled him to reach thirty thousand hearers, without the mastery of enunciation. It was because he articulated every syllable clearly and sharply that his opening words on Soci- ety Hill, Philadelphia, were audible two miles off, at Gloucester Point. If his oratory betrayed genius, it still more revealed industry. He trusted to no native gifts ; his culture of his powers of speech was careful and constant. If nature made his voice powerful, practice made it omnipo- tent, and his elocution was more an acquire- ment than an endowment. Here is a hint for every preacher. Why should the stage or rostrum usurp oratorical culture ? Why should actor or orator take more pains to amuse or charm, than the preacher to save? Whitefield threw life into his speaking. Demosthenes made the power to inove^ men, — as Mirabeau did, ** audace," — the prime requisite of eloquence. Whitefield, being moved himself, spoke like a man who is 1 YSvf\(ns. WHITEFIELD. 1 79 dealing with eternal issues. There was not only melody in his voice, but harmony in his whole elocution ; his whole body, mind, and heart entered actively into his oratory. Whitefield studied the preparation of ser- mons. His native fluency tempted to indo- lence, but his was no lazy way of preaching. His art was so elaborate that it was con- cealed. Each repetition of a discourse, even to the fortieth, showed constant improvement in matter and manner, tones and action. Even his simplicity was studied. His aim was to reach men ; and, like others who have sought to touch the popular heart, he used the dialect of the people and was charged with " vulgarisms." But that plain speech brought truth home to some whom no pol- ished diction could move. While some mur- mured because he said that Jesus would receive " even the Devil's castaways," by that very statement one of those *' castaways " had been drawn to Him. To a courtly clergyman who complained of ill success, Daniel Burgess quaintly replied : " Thank l80 EVANGELISTIC WORK. your velvet month for that! too fijie to 7ise market language ! " Whitefield's appeals were direct and pointed. He did not preach over, or before, or around, but to, his hearers. It was no poHshed ora- tion, labored essay, or empty declamation, but a sermon, — a speech to men, — that dealt a blow at the individual man and lodged a dart in the individual conscience. John Fawcett, under the scaffold at Bristol Amphitheatre, found the preacher dissecting his soul, as *' though he had known his thoughts from ten years old." But tenderness qualified his directness; and the mingling of truth with love subdued even coarse and brutal natures. Whitefield studied illustration, and turned even the incidents of the day to use. By the furnace fires at Shields, which secured to the glass its crystalline purity and transparency, he illustrated the uses of adversity. He made the storm at sea such a vivid reality to the New York seamen that they saw the ship sinking, and shouted, '* Take to the long boat ! " He so enchanted Chesterfield when WHITEFIELD. I 8 I describing a blind beggar stumbling over the edge of a precipice, that he cried out, " Good God ! he is gone ! " as he jumped forward to save him. He could build into the structure of his discourse the occurrences of the mo- ment. The shadows flitting across the floor become emblems of human life; the light- ning and thunder of the gathering storm, the glance of the eye and the sound of the voice of God ; then the bow on the retiring cloud represents the grace that paints even wrath with hues of promise. He even dared the boldest personifica- tion. Cold abstractions were quickened into concrete realities. Gethsemane, Golgotha, Tabor, became living scenes ; and on one occasion he besought Gabriel to ** stop ! " that he might " yet bear to heaven news of one sinner reconciled to God " ! No wonder the fiddler and trumpeter that went to annoy him found their instruments struck dumb, and that Tuppen, who meant to stone him, lost his own stony heart; or that Franklin, under his charity sermon, gradually won by his 1 82 EVANGELISTIC WORK. appeals, first determined to give his coppers, then his silver, then his gold, and ended by- emptying his pockets into the hat ! The boy Rodgers let fall his lantern ; the planter could not find time to " plant a sprig," nor the ship-builder to lay a plank. He riveted all eyes and ears. This great evangelist illustrates what There- min suggests, that eloquence is a virtue. His power lay deeper than any gifts of voice, graces of gesture, or vividness of imagery. It was the play of moral and spiritual forces. The whole man spoke. His passion's secret lay in earnestness. Life slumbers under winter snows, but bursts into bloom under summer sunshine. VVhitefield himself said that hear- ing Tennent preach showed him more and more that no one can preach further than he has experienced. ** Like people, like priest." A man will not make others feel what he does not. " I am persuaded," said he, '* that the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ. Many con- gregations are dead because dead men are WHITEFIELD. 1 83 preaching to them. Betterton, the actor, said that the players would empty the play- house if they spake like the preachers ; and told the Lord Bishop of London that while actors speak of things imaginary as though real, the preachers too often speak of things real as though imaginary." ^ His preaching was thoroughly Evangelical. His thousands of sermons were variations on two key-notes: man is a sinner, but may be forgiven; man is immortal, and will in- herit heaven or hell. It seemed like a new religion; but, as John Bacon said, it was only the old revived and treated as though the preacher meant every word he said. His fondness for his work made his labor a relief and rest He never spared himself; and when failing health compelled him to put himself on short allowance, he preached only once a day and thrice on Sunday. He counted not his life dear unto himself, and left a maxim worthy of Saint Paul : '' We are immortal till our work is done." 1 vSee page 75, note. 84 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XIV. HOWARD, THE PRISON EVANGELIST. URKE has characterized Howard's work as " a circumnavigation of charity." He visited all Europe, not to gratify an appetite for novelty, not to satisfy a refined and aesthetic taste, not to survey sumptuous products of architecture and art, not to make money, or to get health, or to cultivate elect friendships. His was the genius of humanity. He went to descend into deep dungeons, to dare the contagion and infection of laza- rettos ; to explore the vastness and to sound the deepness of human poverty and misery, want and woe ; to visit the sick and the prisoner in dark cells and gloomy hospitals and pour in the light of sympathy, and to tender the ministry of an angel. HOWARD. J 85 Such a man may well be selected as the second example of evangelistic work in practice, and with the more propriety as we design to show that some of the most con- spicuous examples of evangelism are from the ranks of the laity. Howard has been called the philanthropist of prison reform ; he was more than this, he was the prison evangelist ; for his ultimate aim was not simply to relieve bodily distress and temporal want, but to carry the gospel of light and love and life to those who would in no other way be reached ; to preach the gospel to those who were sick and in prison, and, in ministering to them, minister to Christ. He was born — according to the inscrip- tion of the statue in St. Paul's — in Hack- ney, Sept. 2, 1726. He inherited none of the benevolence which he displayed, if tradition rightly ascribes to his father the penurious habits of a miser. He was of a frail body, and had only a fair education; at school was rather slow to learn, and never I 86 EVANGELISTIC WORK. showed either briUiance or acuteness. But even as a boy his frankness, conscientious- ness, and sterhng moral quahties drew to him Richard Price, the foremost scholar of the school, who became his life-long friend and aided him in his reports on prisons. So defective was Howard's intellectual training that he never learned to compose, even in English, with grace and accuracy, and his private correspondence was marred by mis- takes even in grammar and in spelling. His father's death, when he was about sixteen, left him the heir of an estate and a moderate fortune of perhaps thirty-five thousand dollars in money, which he was to receive in full in his twenty-fourth year. Soon after he thus became his own master, he took a tour on the Continent; and on his return suffered for years from ill-health. While a lodger in the house of an invalid widow lady, Mrs. Loidore, he was very sick ; and her considerate nursing so won his heart that he married her, in his twenty- fifth year, though she was more than twice as old as HOWARD. 187 himself. It was an act of grateful recognition of her service to him in his need. After a happy married life of two or three years, her death left him a second time free of all home ties ; and again he went on a tour of travel, in this instance in the direction of Portugal, where the terrible earthquake of Lisbon, in 1755, had left untold sorrow and suffering behind it. What strange ways God takes to train his workmen for their work and sphere ! This voyage providentially shaped Howard's future career. A French privateer captured the vessel in which he sailed, and he was taken prisoner with the rest, and cast into a filthy dungeon at Brest, where for a week the cap- tives almost starved. Then he was removed first to Morlaix, and afterwards to Carpaix, where, though he was treated with more humanity, he was still a prisoner and subject to many privations and vexations. He him- self confesses that it was what he underwent during this experience that drew out his sympathies toward the unhappy inmates of 1 88 EVANGELISTIC WORK. similar jails. Upon his release, he made a prompt and successful effort to secure relief for his fellow-prisoners, and then retired to his estate at Cardington. There he set himself to improve the con- dition of his tenants; and in 1758 married his second wife, who became a true yoke- fellow in all his efforts to make the cottages at Cardington models of beauty and home comfort. He began by improving the phy- sical and material condition of his tenantry ; he sought to make their homes cleanly and healthy, well-watered, lighted, and drained; then to stimulate their intellectual life; but all was only on the way to their moral and spirit- ual elevation. He was a kind of patriarch, using his authority to enforce industry, sobri- ety, and morality, and to promote public worship. He aimed at nothing short of an ideal community. In 1765 his second wife died, shortly after having borne him a son. His melancholy bereavement drove him from home. After visiting Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and HOWARD. 189 Naples, he again returned to Cardington. In 1773 he was made high sheriff of Bedford, and these official duties brought him once more into the interior of prisons, though in a new capacity; there he found proofs of unjust imprisonment, and saw calamities and distresses that he yearned to relieve, and determined if possible to remove. About the close of 1773, now forty-seven years old, he set out, at his own costs, upon his tour of prison inspection. Fifty years before, the Marshalsea, which Dickens has described in '' Little Dorrit," held three hun- dred and thirty prisoners, in a wretched con- dition : at night, in wards not sixteen feet square, fifty persons were sometimes locked up, half in hammocks, and the other half on the floor, almost stifled, and sometimes actu- ally dying for want of fresh air. Yet even this does not equal what Howard found and describes. In cells scarce large enough for one person, close and dark, he found three persons confined for the night, with a few wisps of straw on a damp floor as their only 190 EVANGELISTIC WORK. bed ; the infirmary for the sick consisted of but a single room. He reported the results of his observation to the House of Commons, and secured the passage of two bills which essentially reformed prison discipline, and which at his own expense he had printed and posted to every jailer and warder in the kingdom. Then he visited the jails of Lon- don and Wales, to see if the provisions of these bills had been enforced ; and carried his investigations into houses of correction and city and town jails. He found jail fever and loathsome small-pox destroying multi- tudes, not only of felons, but of unfortunate debtors whom the unjust legislation of those days classed with criminals. He was prevailed upon to accept a nomi- nation for the House of Commons ; but God had better work for him to do, and he was defeated. He visited the Scotch and Irish prisons, and found the latter in a worse state than any in England. Then he carried his researches into France, Flanders, Holland, and Germany, where he rejoiced in a much HOWARD. 91 improved condition of things. Like Shaftes- bury in later times, he was satisfied with no information at second hand. Fearless of dan- ger and forgetful of self, he penetrated to the very depths of every prison to which he could get access, and testified of what his own eyes had seen and his own senses perceived. He would wait to see convicts' messes weighed out, and then pocket a piece of the green and mouldy biscuit given to them, as a substantial evidence against the captain of a convict hulk. Another survey of English prisons after his return showed some improvement in their management; but in Cornwall, for instance, he found a prisoner whose door had not been opened for four weeks, and whose cell was lined with filth. In 1776 he went to the Swiss jails, as well as those of England and Wales, and the next year published his book on the '' State of Prisons," etc. That book, which showed what an astonishing mass of important and valuable matter one man may collect, and what heroic exposure one may 192 EVANGELISTIC WORK. dare for the sake of humanity, lifted Howard to the rank of a leading philanthropist. What John Howard endured in this circum- navigation of charity no one can imagine. He breathed and lived in an atmosphere so foul that he could not take passage in a post- chaise, but had to ride on horseback, because the exhalations from his clothes were so offensive to fellow-travellers, even the leaves of his memorandum-book being so tainted that they had to be spread out for hours before using. He went into cells and felons' wards where even jailers would not go with him ; where were damp floors, covered per- haps with water an inch or two deep, and the straw or bedding was laid on the floors ; where there were neither sewers nor vaults ; and where, lest the jailers should have to pay window-tax, they stopped even these small apertures ! '* Temperance and cleanliness were his only preservatives ; but trusting in divine Providence, and believing himself in the way of duty, he visited the most noxious cells and dungeons, fearing no evil." He averaged HOWARD. 193 forty miles a day in his travelling tours, and lived on the plainest diet, abjuring both animal food and all alcoholic drinks. In 1778 he went to Holland, Flanders, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, devot- ing a fortune of forty-five thousand dollars, left him by his sister, to the further prose- cution of his work. At Prague he found the monastery of Capuchin friars a place of riot and revelry, and brought them to promises of amendment by threatening them with summary exposure. After a further tour of forty-six hundred miles on the Continent, and nearly seven thousand miles of travel in Great Britain, in 1780 he published an appen- dix to his book, and in 178 1 went to the Continent, to carry on further investigation. In Russia he learned from the man who inflicted the punishment of the knout, that he sometimes received orders to do it in such a manner as to secure the death of the victim, which he did by a few well-directed strokes on the sides, which would tear away huge masses of flesh. 13 194 EVANGELISTIC WORK. In 1784, after publishing a third edition of his work, he retired to Cardington. He was now nearly sixty years old, and the time of rest seemed to have come. But of late the question of infectious disease in prisons had so occupied him that he determined to give the last years of his life to fight that terrible pestilence then known as *' The Plague." Nothing but personal experience would suf- fice. He set sail in an infected ship, and underwent confinement in the lazaretto, that every custom of quarantine might be per- sonally tested by himself, probably intending to build a lazaretto himself on the most im- proved sanitary principles. He inspected, with great risk, the lazaretto at Marseilles ; then, at Toulon, the arsenal and the galleys ; then went to Italy, Malta, Smyrna, and the Golden Horn ; then to Venice, closely exam- ining the hospitals, actually undergoing quar- antine in the Venetian lazaretto, and with his own hand whitewashing his room, to prove the beneficial results of such treatment of the apartments. HOWARD. 9S It was while at Venice that he heard of a scheme to erect in his honor a statue in London. His remonstrance was so prompt and vigorous that the project was laid aside. He had already recorded his desire that over his dust only a plain marble slab should be raised, with his name and age, and the motto: ** My hope is in Christ." Nothing could be more distasteful to him than any such public recognition of his unselfish labors. He w^as not living for human honors or rewards. In 1789 he left England never to return. At the village of Cherson on the Dnieper, near the Crimea, he visited a young lady * sick with malignant fever, and caught the fatal infection; and early in January, 1790, he departed this life, in the sixty-fourth year of his age; as Jeremy Bentham says, "dying a martyr, after living an apostle." Such is the simple story of a life that led all others in prison evangelism, toiling per- sonally to turn prisons and jails, hospitals and lazarettos, into places of comfort and healing, and to turn the prisoners and victims 196 EVANGELISTIC WORK. of disease in them from evil to good. What a preaching of Christ was that ! The impulse to such evangelism can only be derived from Him who left the throne of glory and the palace among the stars, to enter personally the stable at Bethlehem, and to be called the Nazarene ; to identify himself with the aban- doned and the outcast, feed the hungry, heal the leper with his touch, lift up the fallen, ac- cept a cross of shame between two thieves, and go into the very sepulchre, that he might make the darkness of the tomb forever light to those who should follow him into the grave. John Howard went everywhere to publish THE PROGRAMME OF THE KINGDOM. "THE SITRIT OF THE LORD GOD IS UPON ME. Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; He HATH SENT ME to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison To them that ARE BOUND. To proclaim the ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE L0RD."1 1 Isa. ]xi. I, 2. FINNEY. 197 CHAPTER XV. FINNEY, THE REVIVAL EVANGELIST. HARLES GRANDISON FINNEY seems to have been raised up, at a peculiar juncture in the churches of this land, to introduce a new era of revi- vals of religion. The prevalent condition was one of "dead orthodoxy," — soundness of faith with little of the salt of godliness, and still less of vital spiritual power. The antidote to stagnation is agitation, and to effect this, extraordinary means are often required. *' When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses." Mr. Finney was a born reformer, impassioned to the borders of impetuosity, positive to the borders of bigotry, and original to the borders of heresy. With a scourge of sting- ing cords, he lashed the hypercalvinistic 1 98 EVANGELISTIC WORK. fatalism and cold pietism of the churches, and, by the very antagonism which he awak- ened, stirred to their depths the stagnant waters. Born at Warren, Connecticut, in 1792, up to his twenty-fifth year he had no real relig- ious training. The region in the State of New York to which his family moved was a virtual wilderness. He picked up a common education and even a little knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; but, though always a learner, he never was a scholar. In 18 18 he entered a law-office in Adams, Jefferson County, New York. Hitherto what little he had known of the gospel was mostly repelling: the preaching he had heard was monotonous, mechanical, and half fatalistic ; and he was practically as ignorant as a heathen. The frequent references to the Mosaic Code which he met in legal studies led him to buy a Bible ; and his casual glances into the ** perfect law of liberty," like a passing glimpse of his face in a mirror, showed him what manner of FIAWEY. 199 man he was, and made him restless and troubled in conscience. Occasional attendance at preaching ser- vices and prayer-meetings impressed him with the lack of plain and practical presentations of truth, and of faith in the answers promised to prayer. If the Bible be true, all men are lost sinners, and ought to be told, in a way too clear to be misunderstood, their condi- tion and the way of salvation. If the Bible be trustworthy, those who pray to God ought to believe Him and trust His word. These early impressions, made on him before con- version, gave direction to the whole current of his after-life. The practical lack of faith in prayer on the part of professed children of God was a stumbling-block over which he well nigh fell into scepticism. When asked at a w^eekly meeting in Adams if he would like to be prayed for, he frankly said he could not see, according to their own confession, that God heard their prayers. But further reading of the Bible revealed the reason : they did not 200 EVANGELISTIC WORK. look for answers, — unbelief; and they did not meet the scriptural conditions, — elisobedience. At the age of twenty-nine, Mr. Finney was compelled to face the question of the per- sonal acceptance of Christ as a Saviour. Pride led him to hide the concern about his soul, which would not let him rest. He vainly tried to pray, but his convictions grew clearer and heavier, and the way of salvation plainer and straighten So strong was the Spirit's striving with him that it was like a hand-to-hand struggle : the question seemed put to him directly, "Will you accept now — to-day?" And he replied, " I will, or die in the attempt." He went up into the woods, determined to give his heart to God before he ever cam.e down again. And he did. His sin was a crushing weight, but he laid hold of the promise,^ "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart." With a faith that from the first was very childlike, he cried : " Lord, Thou canst not lie ; I take Thee at Thy word ; I do ^ Jer. xxix. 13. FINNEY. 201 search with all my heart, and I know there- fore that I have found Thee." Then he continued in prayer till peace flooded his soul. He did not know that this was conversion; and his peace begat new anxiety lest he had grieved the Holy Spirit, and had lost conviction and concern because he had lost the Divine moving within. But he said to himself, ** If ever I am converted, I will preach the gospel." In the evening he went to his office. There was in the room neither fire nor light, yet it seemed to him he was in a flood of glory, face to face with Christ, whose look broke him down in tears of strange joy. He wept aloud, confessing sin and praising God, unconscious of the lapse of time, enrapt as in a trance. He received then and there a baptism of the Spirit, that went through him body and soul, like an electric wave. Love flooded his whole being, till he cried out, " Lord, I can bear no more." Whatever may be the human philosophy of such an experience, he from his death-hour looked 202 EVANGELISTIC WORK. back to it as the most remarkable experience of his Hfe. From that day Charles G. Finney was filled with the Holy Ghost. He had been taught by experience, before he had been ^ taught by theory, justification by faith as the secret of peace with God, and entire self- surrender as the secret of the peace of God. He had been both accepted in the Beloved and anointed for service. He declared at once and at all times that he was the Lord's. He felt that he must preach, and was not only willing to do so, but unwilling to do any- thing else ; and as preaching meant to him no formal pulpit oratory, but direct dealing with souls, he began at once, and his words to individuals were like barbed arrows that could not be withdrawn. Mr. Finney was a marked proof that the Spirit of God can instantly make a man a new creation, in whom old things pass away, and all things become new; and can as in- stantly qualify for the work of winning souls. In a moment the world had lost hold, and FINNEY. 203 God had taken hold ; and going forth at once to save others, he met doubters, scep- tics, cavillers, and found, given him at the moment, the answer which shot down and shattered all their defences of fallacy, sophis- try, falsehood, and self-righteousness. Almost every one he spoke to was converted ; and sometimes, without a spoken word, convert- ing power came. He was so wrought upon by his sense of the lost state of souls about him, and the powers of the world to come, that his looks, his tears, his own evident emo- tion, his very presence, moved others. . Of course such a sudden, remarkable con- version set the town ablaze with excitement, and the people instinctively thronged the prayer-meeting. He went and found the place packed with people, and pervaded with an awful silence of God. Unasked and un- prepared, he rose, and, as God gave him utterance, told somewhat of his experience, and spoke of the reality of things unseen. The minister followed with humble confes- sion of his own unbelief and inconsistency, 204 EVANGELISTIC WORK. and acknowledged that he had been a stum- bling-block in the way of souls. Unconsciously to himself, Mr. Finney had begun his career as a revivalist. Nightly meetings followed almost without arrange- ment or announcement, and the work spread. He worked especially among the young people whose leader he had been, and but one of them all remained unconverted. He visited his parents at Henderson, and shortly they found Christ, and the work of grace spread there also. Meanwhile, filled with God, he scarcely felt need either of food or sleep. His visions of God's glory were like the days of heaven upon earth, but he was strangely restrained from telling others ; and he specially noticed that whatever turned his eyes within, and away from Jesus, even for the analysis of his motives and feelings, robbed him both of peace and power. He could do nothing while any obstacle, or even cloud, intervened between him and God. But, while fellow- ship with Him was unhindered, he pre- FINNEY. 205 vailed as a prince both with God and with men. He was thus also taught, experimentally, travail for souls, its nature and necessity. His interest for others would not allow him to rest, until prayer brought assurance of answer. He had no training in theology, and to many his views of Scripture and Christian doctri-ne seem erroneous. But Orthodoxy had become cold, dead, barren; a new method of presenting truth was needed to arouse disciples and alarm the unsaved. God permitted' Mr. Finney perhaps unduly to emphasize man's freedom and responsi- bility because these truths had been obscured and obstructed by undue stress upon man's inability and God's sovereignty. A resort to extremes often restores balance. Men must be taught not to wait on God in list- less inaction for blessings that must crown their own endeavor. In 1822 Mr. Finney was received under Presbyterial care as a candidate for the min- 206 EVANGELISTIC WORK. istry. He did not enter that holy ofifice, however, through college or seminary doors. God doubtless saw that a "system of theology " might fetter his original force and cool his ardor and fervor, or make him only an ex- ponent of some school of opinion ; and so He sent him out with the freshness of His anointing upon him, an illustration and proof of what Divine tuition can do for a man whose only teacher is the Spirit, and whose one book is the Bible. He had no desire or expectation of labor- ing among cultured city congregations, and, soon after being licensed, began labors as a missionary evangelist. His first fields were Evans' Mills and Antwerp, and were a type of his life-work. He had a double aim: first to arouse the Church, lead false disciples to give up their delusive hope, and idle disciples to take up work for Christ; and secondly, to awaken the unsaved to feel their lost state and commit themselves at once, by some signal visible act, to at least a declared interest in their own salvation. These things FINNEY. 207 should be made emphatic, for they are what distinguish Mr. Finney from other evan- gehsts. In various towns and cities, from Buffalo and Rochester to Troy, Providence, and Boston, eastward, and New York City, Philadelphia, and Reading, southward, and even in England and Scotland, he left the savor of his mighty influence. In studying such a man of mark, we are tempted to see onl}- those bolder, stronger features which are like mountains in a land- scape, and which defy imitation. Nature does sometimes break her die after mould- ing a great man. But some secrets of Mr. Finney's power are communicable; and, as an evangelist and winner of souls, he fur- nishes many most helpful suggestions. He came in the spirit and power of Elias, like whom he shone conspicuous for coura- geous cajidor, bold p7'eaching of tlie law, con- suming zeal for God, and power in prayer. His candor made men hear, and gave him great power even with cavilling scep- tics. Men instinctively respect truth, and 208 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the truthful man who is honest and bold, though he hits hard and strikes home ; while they as instinctively detect and detest a pulpit politician. Mr. Finney scorned traps of logic or tricks of rhetoric, and had no aim but to deal truly and faithfully with every hearer, using great simplicity in language and illustration. Trained as a lawyer, he preached law. He showed God's right to command, and the rightness of His commands ; that per- fect government demands perfect law and perfect obedience, and rests on the sanc- tions of reward and penalty; and that wrath against sin is as much a perfection as love toward goodness. Then he proved all men to be wilful transgressors, and therefore both without excuse and without hope, save as they bow to His will to be saved in His way. Such preaching wrought, as it always will, deep conviction. His sermon on the "Wages of sin" struck like a thunderbolt. Then after this ploughshare of law had crashed through the refuges of lies, tearing FINNEY. 209 up by the roots selfishness and self-right- eousness, with gentle hand he let fall in the fresh furrows the seed steeped in his own tears. Often for one, two, three hours he would in one mighty plea unfold gospel truth, first by strong reasoning grappling with conviction, then by awful appeals arousing conscience, then by tearful tender- ness persuading the heart and moving the will at once to cJiOGse Christ and say so. He flamed with zeal, like Elias repairing the broken altar of the Lord, and hewing in pieces the false prophets of Baal. He attacked with heroic bravery all formality and hypocrisy, unbelief and unfaithfulness, and the pretences and pretexts behind which sinners hid a heart full of hate toward God and godliness. His power in prayer was marvellous. In 1853, after a long drought, he so wrestled with God for rain, that while he prayed a clear burning sky of brass was suddenly black with clouds, and before the service closed floods drowned his voice. To hear 14 2IO EVANGELISTIC WORK. him pray was to feel that you yourself had never prayed. Like all such princes of God, he lived under a vivid sense of the powers of the world to come. He thoroughly believed and felt the reality of unseen things, and above all the unseen Spirit, and that in His anointing lies the secret of all true service to souls, and power in preaching. He pre- pared sermons, but most of all he prepared himself; and at times his mightiest messages were messages of the moment. Zoroaster's followers were enjoined to quench their fires from time to time, and rekindle them from coals in the Temple of the Sun, that they might be reminded that fire was heaven's sacred gift. Blessed is the man who daily resorts to those celestial altars whence only come the coals which set our lips aflame ! CHALMERS. 2 1 1 CHAPTER XVI. CHALMERS, THE PARISH EVANGELIST. HIS name is especially worthy of a permanent record, for Chalmers was one of the men who have led the way in the practical solution of that great problem of our civilization : " How to deal with the masses in our great cities." At his sixty-fifth year, we find this great- est of Scotchmen on fire with all his youth- ful ardor, in this mission to the masses in Edinburgh, where, as in Ephesus, the gold, silver, and precious stones of the sacred fanes and palaces were in strong contrast to the wood, hay, stubble, of the huts and hovels of the poor. With sublime devotion, Chalmers at this advanced age, when most men retire from active and arduous toil, entered upon the most difficult experiment 212 EVANGELISTIC WORK. of his life, that he might demonstrate by a practical example what can be done for the poor and neglected districts in a great metropolis. The West Port, in the ''old town" of Edin- burgh, was the home of a population whose condition may be described by two words, poverty and misery. He undertook to redeem this heathen district by the gospel, planting in it schools and a church for the people, and organizing Christian disciples into a band of voluntary visitors. The name '* territorial system " was attached to the plan as he worked it, and has passed into history under that sonorous title. In St. John's parish, Glasgow, he had already proved the power of visitation and organization. Within his parochial limits he found 2,i6i families, 845 of them without any seats in a place of wor- ship. He assigned to each visitor aboujt fifty families. Applications for relief were dealt with systematically, and so carefully, yet thoroughly, that not a case either of scanda- lous allowance or scandalous neglect was ever CHALMERS. 2 1 3 made known against him and his visitors. There was a severe scrutiny to find out the fact and the causes of poverty, to remove necessary want, and remedy unnecessary want by removing its cause. The bureau of intelhgence made imposture and trickery hopeless, especially on a second attempt. And poverty was not only relieved, but at a cost which is amazingly small. While in other parishes of Glasgow it averaged two hun- dred pounds to every thousand of the popu- lation, and in many parishes of England it averaged a pound for every inhabitant , in St. John's it was but thirty pounds for a thousand people. It was an illustration of heroism in these latter days, when a man past threescore years, whose public career, both with his pen and tongue, had made him everywhere famous, gave up his latter days to elevate the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual condition of a squalid population in an obscure part of the Modern Athens. His theory was that about four hundred fami- 214 EVANGELISTIC WORK. lies constituted a manageable town parish ; and that for every such territorial district there ought to be a church and a school, as near as may be, free to all. This district in West Port contained about this number of families, which were subdivided into twenty "proportions," each containing some twenty families. A careful census, taken by visiting, re- vealed that of 41 1 families, 45 were attached to some Protestant Church, 70 were Roman Catholics, and 296 had no church connec- tion. Out of a gross population of 2,000, 1,500 went to no place of worship; and of 41 1 children of school-age, 290 were grow- ing up entirely in ignorance. It is a curi- ous fact that these 411 families averaged one child each of appropriate age for school, and that of these 41 1 children there were ab^out as many growing up untaught as there were families without church connection. This careful compilation of statistics revealed that the proportion of ignorance and of non-attendance at chnrch CHALMERS. 2 1 5 correspond almost exactly ; in other words, families that attend a place of worship commonly send children to school, and the reverse. Another fact unveiled by this effort at city evangelization was that about one fourth of the inhabitants of this territory were paupers, receiving out- door relief, and one fourth were habitual, professional beggars, tramps, thieves, and riffraff. Here was a field indeed for an experiment as to what the Church could do in her mis- sion among the masses. Chalmers was hun- gry for such an opportunity; it stirred all his Scotch blood. So he set his visitors at work. But he did not himself stand aloof. Down into the '* wynds " and alleys and ** closes " of West Port he went ; he presided at their meetings, counselled them sympa- thetically, identified himself with the whole plan in its formation and execution, while his own contagious enthusiasm and infec- tious energy gave stimulus to the most faint- hearted. 2l6 EVANGELISTIC WORK. He loved to preach to these people not less than to the most elegant audiences of the capital, or the elect students of the uni- versity. He would mount into a loft to meet a hundred of the poorest, as gladly as ascend the pulpit of the most fashionable cathedral church crowded with the elite of the world's metropolis. And those ragged boys and girls hung on his words with characteristic admiration. Two years of toil, with the aid of Rev. W. Tasker, enabled Dr. Chalmers to open a new free church in this district. The Lord's Supper was administered ; and out of one hundred and thirty-two communicants, one hundred were trophies of the work done by him and his helpers in that obscure district. With a prophetic forecast Chalmers saw in this success the presage of greater possibili- ties, and a practical solution of the problem of city evangelization ; and hence he con- fessed it was the joy of his life and the answer to many prayers. The plan pursued by Dr. Chalmers was CHALMERS. 2 1 7 not at all like the modern evangelistic ser- vices, —an effort spasmodic, if not sporadic, — preaching for a few weeks in some church edifice or public hall or tabernacle, and then passing into some other locality, leaving to others to gather up results and make them permanent. From the most promising be- ginnings of this sort, how often have we been compelled to mourn that so small harvests have been ultimately gleaned! He organ- ized systematic work that looked to lasting results. The ploughman and the sower of seed bore also the sickle and watched for the signs of harvest. And whenever the germs of a divine life appeared, they were nurtured, cherished, guarded, and converts were added to the church, set at work, kept under foster- ing care, and not left to scatter, wander at will, or relapse into neglect. As to his mode of dealing with pauperism, the sagacious Chalmers saw that, while a ministry of love to the poor, sick, helpless, was a first necessity, it would be unwise and hurtful to their best interests to encoura^^e 2l8 EVANGELISTIC WORK. them to depend on charity. The church must not be an asylum in which indolence and incompetence and improvidence should take refuge. The poorest must be educated to maintain, not to sacrifice, self-respect, and must be compelled to form and maintain habits of self-help, industry, economy, thrift. Instead of clothing the poor with the half- worn garments of the better class, he would have them taught to save money worse than wasted on tobacco, drink, and vicious indul- gence, and buy their own garments. And the results of this wise policy were seen in the gradual and rapid improvement in the appearance of the attendants at church: rags gave way to respectable raiment, and it was not the cast-off clothing of their betters, either. Chalmers had no less ambition than to ameliorate d^ndi finally abolish pauperism ; and his success in St. John's parish, Glasgow, had proven that he was master of the situation ; and no one can tell what results might have followed, but for the Poor Law, enacted in CHALMERS. 219 1845, which, by the admission of a statutory right to pubHc rehef, encourages improvi- dence, weakens family ties among the poor, conduces to a morbid satisfaction with a state of dependence, and thus sows the seed of the very pauperism it professes to relieve and reduce. Nothing in Chalmers was more a secret of success than the utter absence of the caste spirit. With a royal mind and manners, — a king among men, — he could descend to the lowest, with sublime unconsciousness of condescension. The Christian missionary makes slow prog- ress in Africa, because he can offer the negro no true brotherhood except in another w^orld. But the Mohammedan Moor says even to the most degraded Hottentot: "Come up and sit beside me ; give me your daughter and take mine ; all who pronounce the formula of Islam are on a level of equality, here and hereafter." ^ i W. S. Blunt. 220 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XVII. SPURGEON, THE PASTORAL EVANGELIST. ABAKKUK was bidden to write upon the wayside tablets, in plain large letters, that great motto which be- came the doctrinal centre of Patd's theology, and the historical centre of the great Refor- mation : " The just shall live by faith." Plain preaching of gospel truth on every occasion, — preaching so plain that the mes- sage may be caught even at a cursory glance, understood by the feeblest mind, and retained by the most treacherous mem- ory, — that is the inmost secret of evangelistic success; for it 'not only evangelizes every hearer, but it makes every believer an evangelist. Lord Shaftesbury said of Mr. Spurgeon, that his great secret is simply and solely SPURGEON. 221 that from the heart he preaches Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and trains a body of men who, hke himself, get at the hearts of their auditors.^ We select him as an example of evangelistic work done, and evangelistic power wielded, /;/ ordinary pastoral spheres ; and as a proof that a minister of Jesus Christ may, without going outside of his own pulpit and church, do the work of an evangelist and make full proof of his ministry. The spacious Metropolitan Tabernacle is built for the aceommodation of the multitudes, not for architectural or artistic display. There are no sittings out of the range of the preacher's eye, fit only for the blind, or out of the range of his voice, fit only for the deaf; there are no echoes to dispute with the preacher the privilege of being heard. Here is the first condition of suc- cess: Mr. Spurgeon has a building in which from four thousand to six thousand people can be gathered, every one of whom can hear every word he says. ^ Life of Shaftesbury, iii. 397. 222 EVANGELISTIC WORK. The entire service of worship exalts God. The short, thick man, with low forehead, large cheeks, flat nose, and capacious mouth, is not in appearance such a man as is chosen for a hero ; he becomes good-looking, how- ever, when he opens his mouth boldly to preach the gospel. The music, led by a pre- centor without choir or instrument, is not elaborate and is scarcely " modern," and the vast audience does not always keep time ; but there is a great volume of praise, like the sound of many waters. In comparison with that singing, now and then interrupted by a comment on the meaning of the verses, the most silvery song from an operatic quartette, and the swell of the grandest organ, arc only a parody on worship. And oh, \\\\2X praying, peculiar for that ele- ment of adoration in which nearly all public prayer is lacking ! His confession of sin is humble, his supplication fervent, his interces- sion importunate ; but when he praises and extols God, it is an eagle soaring toward the sun, and bearing you on its wings. You see SPURGEON. 223 the glory of God ; you feel smitten with the splendor of His power and wisdom, goodness and holiness. The reading of Scripture is interspersed with brief, pithy, suggestive, and studied com- ments, making the Word of God plain and practical, and preparing the soil for the ser- mon. That is preaching indeed. The text is the sermon contracted ; the sermon is the text expanded, Christ alone is lifted up, and He draws all men unto Him. The people press upon him to hear the Word of God. Whatever the method of administration, tJie impression is that of a fi'ee cJutrch, and that so long as there is a seat, you, whoever you are, are as welcome to it as the highest princes of the realm. No doubt Mr. Spurgeon is a man of un- common gifts. But his genius is not the source of his success. He speaks very sim- ply, very naturally, very earnestly, and ex- temporaneously. While you do not get the idea that there is any lackpf pains in prepara- tion, you have before you no pulpit elocu- 224 EVANGELISTIC WORK. tionist, or even orator, but simply a man who has something to say to you from God, and who says it as well as he can. He evi- dently bends every power and purpose to the one end of bringing sinners to Jesus, and he does move men. Some pulpit Ciceros draw forth praise: ''How pleasantly he speaks ! " this Demosthenes compels men to say, " Let us go to Jesus." Mr. Spurgeon has been as severely criti- cised as any preacher of his day. But if effectiveness is the test, he is the greatest preacher of this century. The chief sur- geon of France boasted to Sir Astley Cooper that he had performed a difficult feat in surgery one hundred and sixty times; he confessed that ''in every case the patient lost his life, but the operation was very bril- liant!' Mr. Spurgeon regards no sermon as a success that does not prove effective to save and to sanctify. For more than thirty years there has been a constant onward movement in his public career. Dickens remarked that " comincj SPUR GEO AT. 225 out" is easy, but it is a matter not so easy to prevent " going in " again. At seventeen years of age, Charles Spurgeon was the boy- preacher at Waterbeach ; that was thirty-six years ago. He went to the world's metropo- lis in 1853, and yet he still preaches to as full a house, and with as much energy and enthusiasm, as ever. From his first sermon, he has shown the spirit of an evangelist. He assumes that there are those before him who have not heard of Christ, and he speaks as if their salvation hung on his lifting up Christ. He looks for results, and he has them regularly, constantly. The Lord has added to the church daily for thirty-five years. The people flock to hear him because tJiey get a blessing. They can hear concert singing and eloquent speaking elsewhere ; can find splen- did galleries of art, and see theatre-acting, elsewhere ; but where else can they hear such praying, praising, preaching, and get such lasting blessing? What frantic efforts are made, often, to get 15 226 EVANGELISTIC WORK. an audience ! What resorts to advertising, worldly expedients and attractions, dramatic acting and often clownish trifling, with a necessity for constant change of programme to keep up the excitement ! Here is a young man who goes to London, not yet twenty years old, begins preaching to a '' handful " of people in a common church building. There is nothing to make a sensation; but the house is soon full, and must be enlarged. During the enlargement he conducts wor- ship at Exeter Hall, and for three months even that is crowded. The congregation return to the remodelled church edifice only to find the throngs greater than ever, and a large Tabernacle is planned. Before that is erected, the monster Music Hall in Surrey Gardens is used for worship ; and for three years from seven thousand to ten thousand souls throng that great assembly-room. In 1 86 1 the new Tabernacle is opened, and from the first it is full; and during the re- pairs to that building in 1867, Agricultural Hall is crowded every Sunday morning by SFURGEON. 227 twenty thousand people to hear that same simple, earnest preacher. But this is not all. Mr. Spurgeon has aimed to make the church of which he is pastor a centre of evangelizmg influences. It is the mother of churches, missions, Sun- day-schools, preaching stations, orphanages, almshouses, — every conceivable form of gospel effort and benevolent work. And the church is not exhausted by this manifold activity; for all this Christian, evangelistic, benevolent work reacts upon the church life : the water is poured on the widely extended roots of the tree, but is returned in the leaves, flowers, and fruit which grow on the branches. Because the church scatters, it increases. Even this is not all. The Pastor's College has been training thousands of young men to become preachers of the gospel; and while they are taught to preach, they are set at preaching. The work is one of faith and prayer, supported by voluntary gifts; any one, however ignorant or poor or lowly, who shows zeal for God and passion for 228 EVANGELISTIC WORK. souls, capacity and devotion for the work, can get there a fit education for preaching a plain gospel in a plain way. And every Sunday students or graduates from this College may be found supplying some fifty to one hundred chapels in the metropolis and its suburbs. In addition to this the Col- portage Society employs men who act both as salesmen and as evangelists. Mr. Spurgeon's tongue is a mighty evan- gehzing agency; but his pen and the press make his influence even mightier, because they extend it farther. Regularly reported by a short-hand writer, his sermons, cor- rected by himself, and published in the cheapest form, are given to the public in perhaps twenty different languages ; their circulation probably falls little short of a million, and they are read in newspaper columns by hundreds of thousands more; while his *' Sword and Trowel " and his books have indefinitely multiplied his ave- nues of influence, and the multitudes into contact with whom he comes. SPURGEON. 229 It may be doubted whether God ever gave to his people an example more encourag- ing to the ordinary preacher and pastor. Here are evangelistic work and evangelistic success, both on a colossal scale, yet all within the circle of one church and its activ- ities, headed and led by a thoroughly Evan- gelical and evangehstic pastor. He is a man of faith and prayer; he studies the Bible as the one book, and preaches Christ and noth- ing else; he scorns all mere devices of logic and rhetoric, but speaks with the demonstra- tion of the Spirit and the persuasive power of God. He expects results from every ser- mon and service of worship ; conducts all his church enterprises as God's work rather than his own ; refuses all invitations to lyceum lectures and platform addresses, committee meetings and social festivals ; invites no out- side help from evangelists, and holds no "protracted meetings;" corrupts the sim- plicity of church-buildings by no devices of elaborate art, and the simplicity of church worship by no devices of worldly attraction ; 230 EVANGELISTIC WORK. stays at home and attends to his own business ; and yet has the greatest working church in the world to-day, and from that church has sent out more preachers and Christian evan- geHsts than any theological seminary within the same space of time! Any church may be an evangelistic centre, and any pastor an evangelistic preacher, if there be a will. Wesley's quaint motto, *' All at it, and always at it," is the key to the problem. The preacher must lift up Christ. Let us not be afraid of the repeti- tion which Sydney Smith regarded as the secret of impression. The word inculcation is full of ethical suggestion: it means *'to tread in with the heel " (/;/, calx). Men never tire of hearing the old, old story; it is the old, but on^yy remedy for sin and sorrow. Let us depend upon the gospel itself as the attract- ing power, unmixed with human poetry and philosophy. Mixtures of incongruous things make brittleness. Preaching that corrupts God's gospel with man's folly lacks consist- ency and coherence ; it is doomed, like Nebu- SPURGEON. 231 chadnezzar's image; it is on a wrong basis, and will fall and be ground to powder. There is a story of a marble-cutter, with chisel and hammer working a block of stone into a statue. A preacher who was looking on said, - I wish I could, on hearts of stone"! deal such transforming blows ! " - Perhaps you might," was the workman's quiet answer, "if, like me, you worked on your knees." We are deeply and unalterably persuaded that W\Qpozver of prayer is the lacking, if not the lost, power of the Christian ministry of to- day. The work done on the knees is the only work that evinces or effects the trans- formation which is a supernatural sign that God is with the workman. The Bible, studied on the knees, becomes a new book ; the cross, seen from the knees, wears a new halo ; the sermon, wrought out on the knees, thrills with a new power. Mr. Spurgeon's whole work is vitalized by the breath of prayer, which is, after all, the breath of God. While the work on the new Tabernacle was yet scarcely begun, in 1859 Mr. Spurgeon 232 EVANGELISTIC WORK. and one of his praying deacons met on the ground one evening, after the workmen had gone, and there besought God for a blessing on the work and its safe completion, and that no one engaged upon it might suffer harm. The prayer was answered in abun- dance ; not a man was hurt in the entire course of building. Again, in 1861, as the work neared completion, there were put on record the fact that four thousand pounds were needed to open it free of debt, and the prayer that God would bestow the needed money. The pastor and leaders in the move- ment afiixed their signatures to this covenant of prayer. Four months later, a record was added that the prayer was answered in abun- dance and in anticipation of the actual need. This covenant of praise was similarly signed ; they set to their seal that God is true, and asked His continual blessing on the new building. Shortly after, the house, built at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars by a comparatively poor congre- gation, was dedicated without debt. A work SPURGEON. 233 SO begun and so carried on must have upon it God's seal. If we could have in our churches to-day a revival of plain preaching and prevailing prayer, without one new condition or addi- tion every such church would become a centre of evangelism. We must stop seek- ing for, and planning for, success of a worldly sort or upon a worldly basis. All the attrac- tions and adornments of the world cannot make up for the lack of spiritual power. If the angel no longer comes down and stirs the pool, vainly shall we call in the quacks of Jerusalem to impregnate the waters with medicinal drugs. We must cry to Heaven till the angel comes down and imparts heal- ing virtue. God's purpose in raising up Spurgeon seems to be to rebuke, both in pulpit and pew, apathy and idleness, unbelief and world- liness ; to show that no new measures are needed ; that the old gospel is still the power and wisdom of God unto salvation. One anointed tongue and pen have been at work 234 EVANGELISTIC WORK. for a generation; wherever that voice has reached or that pen scattered through the press its miUion leaves, there the sacred fires have been kindled. Let us learn ! and from closet and pulpit, in family and assembly of believers, let us pray the Lord God of Elijah for the fire from above, till even the unbe- hever is compelled to shout, ** The Lord He is God ! " SHA FTESB URY. 235 CHAPTER XVIII. SHAFTESBURY, THE PHILANTHROPIC EVANGELIST. HEN Admiral Foote, in the harbor of Bangkok, received the king of Siam on board his flagship, the Christian commander asked a blessing at dinner. ** Why," said the king, " you do just like the missionaries ! " "I too am a missionary," was the reply. Recently one has passed away, whose pub- lic life of over fifty years was linked with more active philanthropies than any man before him ; and who, though heir to estates and titles, found no human being, however poor, wretched, outcast, or filthy, whom he would not visit on an errand of mercy in any place, however dark and dismal. Finding the condition of Insane patients in hospitals, workers in mines and factories, 236 EVANGELISTIC WORK. dwellers in tenement houses, and the out- cast population of towns and cities, a disgrace to Christian civilization, he, like Michael Angelo, criticised " by creation, not by find- ing fault," and set himself to create a new state of things, moved by an evangelistic purpose to spread the blessings of the gospel. He carried on his investigations in person, and then in person carried out his benevo- lent schemes. He went into the worst quarters of London, at midnight, where the vermin of society hide; to the vagrants' hiding-places in dismal vaults and under arches, to bring homeless wretches to the ragged school, and sit at their side to speak to them words of hope and love, and awake longings for a better life, — exchanging a night of rest for one of sleepless toil, that he might introduce to the blessings of a home the poor outcast. We may find this same man in the chair at great anniversary meetings, eloquently addressing vast throngs ; there is no part of SHAFTESBURY. ^17 the grand battlefield where Christianity con- fronts the foes of God and man and seeks to right human wrongs, but he is there to watch the fate of the conflict, kindle new enthusiasm in the war of the ages, and take up arms against the foe. Again, he is in the House of Commons or of Lords, pleading for remedial legislation, forcing commoners and peers to face the facts of English society, unveiling the evils which he has himself explored, carrying through Parliament scores of bills of relief for the neglected operatives and the op- pressed workingmen, and measures of reform for the unfortunate and outcast classes. By this man's importunate and resolute plea, hours of labor are shortened, sanitary and educational provisions secured, cruelties abolished, and crimes abated. He befriends alike the little chimney-sweeps and the shoe- blacks, the outcast and the criminal ; for his motto, like that of Haller, is '' Christo in fauperibtisy Again, he might be seen distributing prizes 238 EVANGELISTIC WORK. at the flower shows. He valued these as encouragements to window gardening, gentle habits, and happy homes; as occasions of mixing with the people, and bringing together those whom social distinctions ordinarily separated ; and many are the little hands he caressed and the lips he kissed, from among the children of the poor, as he rewarded their care of their mute little plants. The earl might be found meeting with the coster-mongers, encouraging them to habits of thrift and neatness ; teaching them to care even for their donkeys, and, in order to identify himself with them, himself buying a donkey and a barrow and then lending them, with the Shaftesbury arms embla- zoned on the barrow, to his poorer fellow- costers. He told them if they had any grievances to be redressed to write to him, and to be sure to add to his name, *' Coster." When the grateful coster-mongers met, a thousand strong, and presented him with a donkey, he rose to receive him, put over his neck his own arm, and said he could SHAFTESB URY. 239 wish no more than to be as patient, unmur- muring, and faithful as that donkey ; then, as the animal was led from the platform, he facetiously accepted the chair which the donkey had vacated. Shaftesbury might be found familiarly talk- ing to the homeless boys at Saint Giles's Refuge, questioning them as to their habits of life, means of livelihood, lodging-places; appealing to their better natures, encourag- ing them to industry and honesty, virtue and piety, and promising to use his influence with the government to grant a frigate for a training-ship, and to institute refuges and schools for them. The shoe-blacks all knew him, and called him " Our Earl." Again, we find him in the midst of four hundred professed criminals. That was a most unique gathering. Forty notorious thieves put their names to a '' round-robin," asking him to meet men of their class; and with no companion but Thomas Jackson, the ** thieves' missionary," he confronted an assembly from which all but professed 240 EVANGELISTIC WORK. criminals were rigidly excluded. And there, after opening devotional exercises, he frankly asked them of their manner of life, and as frankly they confessed the crimes by which they lived. He besought them to forsake the old life for a new career ; and when they told him that they " must either steal or die," and that "prayer, however good, was not food for an empty stomach," he planned in their behalf the emigration scheme that paved the way for hundreds to begin life anew, under more hopeful surroundings. Once he stood in the midst of a throng at Guildhall, met to commemorate his eigh- tieth anniversary. The highest and noblest were there, with the lowest and humblest; and outside, the flower-girls, the coster-mon- gers with donkeys and barrows, in holiday dress, and the ragged-school children, — all come to salute the old man of fourscore who had proved himself the greatest benefactor of his generation ! How long will it take us to learn that the condition of the common people is the gauge SHA FTESB UK V. 24 1 of the commonwealth? Robert Peel gave to his daughter a splendid riding-habit, as a birthday gift ; but it held the germs of malig- nant typhus, caught from the poor husband over whom the seamstress, who wrought its embroidery, had thrown it, when he shook with the chills of a fatal fever. And from that garment the rich man's daughter took the terrible infection, and the riding-habit was exchanged for the shroud. The safety of the highest is bound up with the lowest. Society avenges all neglect of her poor and outcast ones : the capstone of the pyramid sits insecurely when the base is unsafe. Shaftesbury saw this, and his life- long purpose and passion were to uplift to a better estate those who were lowest and least. Urged again and again to accept office, with its honors and dignities, he replied, as to Palmerston in 1855 : ** I cannot satisfy my- self that the call to accept office is a divine call ; but I am satisfied that He Jias called me to labor among the poor'' From the point of view of the poor and working classes, he 16 242 EVANGELISTIC WORK. habitually looked at every question. What he bestowed on the poor was not pity nor patronage, but syinpaihy and service, — going into the worst quarters to carry toys to the little ones ; moving among them on holidays, as one of them; reading and praying at the bedside of their sick and dying; and, most wonderful of all, never knozvn to make even the most trifiing promise to them which he left unfulfilled. In one winter ten thousand basins of soup and bread made in his own house were distributed among them. Shaftesbury was an evangelist as well as a philanthropist. His Evangelical doctrine inspired his evangelism. He believed in the depravity of the natural heart, in the necessity of the new birth and trust in atoning blood, and in a future state of reward and punish- ment. Having no authority for a probation in the next life, he sought to improve the opportunities of this. His whole faith and life moved about a threefold centre, — the divinity of Christ, the cross of atonement, and the coming of the Lord. SHAFTESBURY. 2^3 He could be found liimself taking part in evangelistic services such as were so success- fully held in Exeter Hall for non-church goers. He rejoiced in such efforts to reach the neglecters of worship, and in the absence of all discrimination between rich and poor, high and low. It is hardly credible that up to within about thirty years English legislation actu- ally hindered evangelization, forbidding the gathering of even a small assembly for wor- ship in a private house. This relic of bar- barism was through his influence swept from the statute book, and so another obstacle was removed out of the way of reaching the neglected with the gospel. But Shaftesbury's evangelism was private and personal. He did not exhaust his zeal in public efforts to secure legislation: never did he lose a chance of bringing before an individual or a community the claims of personal religion. His evangelistic spirit showed itself in his generous and constant ghins. To him the 244 EVANGELISTIC WORK. common phrase, " munificent bequests," had no meaning. What munificence can there be in bequeathing to purposes of benevo- lence what can be no longer used for pur- poses of self-indulgence? He did believe in 7nunificent donations, and kept himself poor by his ceaseless charity. But he illustrated his own principle, of antedating the pleasure of the recipient by the joy of the donor, and also the final rewards of sacrifice for others by the reverence and gratitude showered upon him while yet living and doing good. He held nothing but his conscience to be his own, all else being subject to the calls and needs of suffering humanity. No wonder that he was the constant recipient of gifts from those he sought to bless, — not paintings and statues only, but touching memorials of the love of the poor: over his bed a sampler worked by factory girls ; upon his bed a patchwork coverlet made by the ragged- school children ; in fact, by day and by night he was literally clothed with the tributes of the grateful poor whose lifelong friend he was. SHAFTESBURY. 245 His life illustrated the vicarious law: *' He saved others ; himself he cannot save." His self-giving to the cause of the poor and friendless was a costly one: it cost pain of body and exquisite suffering to his keen, sympathetic sensibilities, and cares and anxi- eties that left even on his face the pathetic lines of a visage marred by sorrow. But what a recompense of reward is now his, who " could not bear to leave this world with all the misery in it," even for a heaven in which there is no sorrow. A most important fact and factor in Shaftesbury's life must not be passed by. The religious impulse of his whole character and career is directly traceable to Maria Millis, his pious old nurse, who, before he was seven years old, taught him of Jesus, and at whose side he learned the prayer which he never failed to use till his dying day. Neglected by his own parents, the evangelist of Parlia- ment owed to this evangelist of the nursery the first lessons he learned in the school of Christ. The watch she left to him he wore 246 EVANGELISTIC WORK. on his person as a reminder of the sacred touch by which she set in motion and regu- lated the dehcate mechanism of his being, nor would he allow it to be displaced by the costliest chronometer. His burial scene is itself a history. In the great Abbey a mourning nation crowds about his bier, on which lie, side by side, floral tributes of crown princesses and flower- girls ; and when it is borne to its simple sepulchre, thousands throng the streets, every man with hat uplifted, and almost every bonnet clad in crape. Artisans and laborers, factory hands and chimney-sweeps, seamstresses and flower-girls, deputations from the homes and refuges and training- ships, mission organizations and charitable societies, — all are therewith draped banners; and the hearse is preceded by the coster- mongers' band, playing '' Safe in the arms of Jesus ! " Such, in brief, was the life of a man of whom the Duke of Argyll said, that " the social reforms of the last century have been SHAFTESBURY. 247 mainly due to the Influence, character, and perseverance of one man, — Lord Shaftes- bury." The motto of his family, embodied and adorned in his Hfe, was LOVE — SERVE." 248 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XIX. MOODY, THE EVANGELIST OF THE PEOPLE, R. MOODY, what is the way to reach the masses with the gos- pel?" "Go FOR them!" was the quaint and characteristic answer; and it expresses the Hfe principle of Dwight L. Moody. From the beginning of his career as a Christian, nothing has been more character- istic of him than his aggressive evangelism. He has never waited for open doors to pre- sent themselves ; he has gone to closed doors and thrown them open. He has not waited for others to come to him ; he has gone after them, from the days when he gathered into Sabbath-school his own class from the street, till now. His motto has been: "Launch out into the deep and let MOODY. 249 down your nets for a draught!" If there be one lesson of his Hfe that will be long remembered, it is this practical proof of what one man with no early opportunities or social advantages, with neither wealth nor culture, can do, with God only as his patron and helper. Mr. Moody, like any true workman of God, avoids all personal prominence ; and there is no doubt that encomiums lavishly used on the Lord's laborers are out of place : the only time for eulogy is when the time comes for the elegy. But if there was ever a man since John Wesley who could claim the world as his parish, it is Dwight L. Moody. His life may be divided into four marked periods : first, as a Sunday-school worker; then, as the organizer of a church for the people; then, as an evangelist on both sides the sea; and finally, as an educator of youth. In all these departments his success may be easily traced to his singleness of aim. He sees and feels the destitution of the great masses of the people; and instead of saying 250 EVANGELISTIC WORK. to others, *' Go and carry the gospel to them," he goes himself. When he went into the street and gathered in that first class of rough, ragged, dirty urchins, and sat down among them to teach them out of God's Word, he struck the key-note of all his sub- sequent career: going after souls. Every step of success marked a new stage of prog- ress. If one class of gamins could be gath- ered out of the street, and reformed and reclaimed to God, why not a hundred? And so the work grew, until a mission Sunday- school on the North Side of Chicago, and then the Chicago Avenue Church, were the result; and the Sunday-school teacher found himself the unexpected centre of a great evangelistic church in the metropolis of the West. Meanwhile his knowledge of the Word and his power in handling it were growing. The man of one book was getting a strange education in the school of Christ. In that book were his grammar and lexicon, his logic and his philosophy, his poetry and his ora- MOODY. 2^\ tory. And as he studied and mastered it, his imagination grew chaste, his style pure, his EngHsh correct and elegant, his argument convincing, his appeals persuasive. He was getting God's university education, — learning that greatest logic, the "demonstration of the Spirit; " that highest science, the "knowledge of God ; " that loftiest philosophy, the " mys- tery of grace." Here was his analysis of human nature, his universal history, his dictionary of language, his system of ethics, his tutor in homiletics, and his encyclopsedia of illustrations. Like Apollos, he became mighty in the Scriptures; and those who once sneered at his enthusiasm and ridiculed his English were glad to sit at his feet who was taught of God. And so he who began as a humble Sunday-school teacher, and had grown to the founder of a church for the people, came by insensible degrees to be an evangelist every- where sought and welcomed. From Chicago he began to go out more and more fre- quently and widely on evangehstic tours, 252 E VA NGELIS TIC WORK. and everywhere rapid results followed: the reaper overtook the ploughman, and the treader of grapes him that sowed the seed. He had learned to preach simply, — let us rather say he had not learned to preach otherwise; and in the unaffected language of nature, uncorrupted by the fastidious culture of the schools, he spoke face to face with men; and they heard him. Sprightly and vivacious, with a touch of humor as well as pathos, direct and pointed in his appeals, urging to an immediate decision, and feeling his dependence on the Spirit of God, he compelled all classes to acknowledge that he was a man of power. And yet God gave him grace to be humble ; not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to feel that he was himself nothing, and that God was all. In 1872 he and Mr. Sankey crossed the sea to begin an evangelistic campaign in Great Britain and Ireland. God set His seal on that work in such a marvellous manner that it became plain that Chicago and the Chicago MOOD V. 253 Avenue Church were no longer to held and confine Mr. Moody. And their return to America was the signal for that amazing series of special services, evangelistic meetings, and Christian conventions which have made the entire United States the field for his tillage. Of these services abroad and at home we have no need to write, for both American and British readers are familiar with them. But it is generally conceded that since the days of Wesley and Whitefield no man has ever addressed audiences so vast, or urged home the vital truths of the gospel more effectively and powerfully. Northfield was his birthplace and the home of his boyhood. It had attractions of its own. His mother still lived there, and there he determined to make his home. It is a beautiful spot ; the view from his front porch is surpassed nowhere for picturesque- ness : the lower spurs of the White and Green Mountains are seen to the north and west; the sinuous Connecticut flows just in the middle ground of the picture. 254 EVANGELISTIC WORK, Mr. Moody had long felt the disadvantage of his early lack of education ; and he con- ceived that one of the great demands of the day is for an education for the daughters of plain people in farming and manufacturing communities, who cannot afford to pay for style, but are the backbone of the Common- wealth. Partly as an experiment, not him- self knowing whereunto this would grow, he added somewhat to his own house, and opened it for a school. The price was to be nominal, — it is now one hundred dollars a year, — the Bible to be the basis of every- thing and the centre of the scheme of cul- ture. Twenty girls filled this house, and others clamored for admission. A small brick building was put up on the other side of the road, and that was filled and more room needed. Then an opportunity was afforded of purchasing ample grounds to the north and east of Mr. Moody's home, and it was done. In 1879 East Hall was built, with rooms for about sixty students; then BonarHall; in 1884 Marquand Memo- MOOD V. 255 rial Hall; then Recitation Hall in 1885, which Mr. Moody says was " sung up " by Mr. Sankey; and now Weston Hall is added, and Talcott Library is in process of erection, — the whole property being worth probably two hundred thousand dollars. Applicants must be fifteen years old and in good health, and must pass an examination in the initial and rudimentary branches. The students do most of the domestic work, mainly to lessen ex- pense and to promote sensible ideas of the dignity of work. The aim is to send out young women trained in all the best elements of an English education, and inspired with Bible knowledge and a missionary spirit. A Ladies' Aid Society is organized to lend money to needy and worthy students, the loan to be repaid into the fund as they are able. One thing leads to another. The Mt. Hermon school for boys, two or three miles southwest, and on the other side of the river, was Mr. Moody's next step. A fine farm of four hundred acres, suddenly found to be in the market, was bought for a nominal sum. 256 EVANGELISTIC WORK. In 1885 five brick cottages were built, then Recitation Hall; and in 1886 Crossley Hall and the Dining Hall. And here Christian young men come to get an education pre- eminently in the Word of God and in evan- gelistic work. Mr. Moody does not expect to graduate from this school thoroughly equipped ministers of the gospel, but, as he says, skirmishers, — Christian workers fitted to handle the Word of God skilfully, and go and work personally among the masses in fields not ordinarily reached. The establishment of a permanent school for evangelists is one of the greatest needs of our day. There are many whose circum- stances preclude an extended course of study, — poor men, men advanced in years or having families, who desire to qualify them- selves by a short course of study in the Eng- lish Bible for such teaching, Bible-reading, lay preaching, and Christian work as they may be able to do. We do not read the signs of the times aright, if there be not a demand for some such training schools for MOODY. 257 Christian workers. Our colleges and even our theological seminaries are training Chris- tian ministers and scholars. But there are many who cannot go to college or seminary, who have passion for souls, love for the Word, capacity to work, and whom God has touched with the celestial fire. They will never be great men, nor scholars, nor trans- lators of the Bible, nor theological profes- sors ; but, properly trained in the Word of God and for His work, they may become a mighty agency in evangelization. To us it seems as though Mr. Moody had been specially raised up of God to encourage and perhaps to found such a school for Christian workers. But there ought to be many, in different parts of our land and of the world. The disproportion between our workers and the field is painfully obvious. We cannot supply the needs of a world by our present educational system. We need imperatively some other and supplementary institution for the training of laymen for the work of God. 17 258 EVANGELISTIC WORK. We feel constrained to add, at risk of being misunderstood, that we believe some of our theological schools lack in a scriptural and a spiritual atmosphere. There are elaborate lectures on theology, church history, homi- letics, and kindred themes, and courses of study in Hebrew and Greek exegesis ; but theology is often taught more from its po- lemic than its practical side ; church history is too much a cold review of old controver- sies, and homiletics is often simply the art of constructing a finished literary address. A few months of direct evangelistic labor will do more for a man's practical qualifica- tion for the work of preaching the gospel than years of study of the art of preaching, from an intellectual point of view. We yearn to see theology taught from a biblical and spiritual and practical side, teaching young men not simply how to split hairs, or throw up defences, or handle controversial weapons, but how to use Bible truth for the salvation and sanctification of souls. We should like to see the first book of church history. MOODY. 2^C) namely, the Acts of the Apostles, so thor- oughly mastered as that students should learn how men anointed by the Holy Ghost go forth to win souls and organize churches ; and learn to analyze those first apostolic sermons and reproduce their methods of handling prophecy and pressing home Evan- gelical truth, as modern missionaries train their converts and lay helpers. We should like to see homiletics taught more as a divine art of '' thinking God's thoughts after God," men forgetting the literary standard in the engrossing aim after pozvcr, caring less for the defectiveness of the essay and more for the effectiveness of the appeal. We could even forego a little of Hebrew and Greek learning, if necessary, that men might know more of the English Bible, might master its contents, know what it teaches, get some adequate conception of its beauties, and be able to present its tes- timony to the great themes of redemption. We would not abate the zeal for a thoroughly educated and qualified ministry; but we 260 EVANGELISTIC WORK. yearn to see men filled and thrilled with the Holy Ghost, with passion for souls, with a divine enthusiasm for missions, with self- forgetfulness, with holy ardor and fervor in God's work. Cannot something be done to increase in all our educational institutions the scriptural, spiritual tone, and send out men, not coldly intellectual to preach ser- mons complete homiletically but powerless spiritually; but rather at white heat, glow- ing with seraphic earnestness, full of the gospel, trained in the Word of God, able to wield the sword of the Spirit with the power of the Holy Ghost? Cannot the training of the schools be so combined with actual ex- perience in the work of winning souls, as that young men shall not be withdrawn too much into the class-room and the study, and lose the quickening impulse of constant con- tact with souls and personal work for Christ? Certainly Mr. Moody's conferences and sum- mer schools are suggesting and supplying a lack. They magnify three things till they fill the whole horizon of thought, namely, MOODY. 261 the Word of God, the person and work of Christ, and the person and work of the Holy- Ghost. No man can attend them without being impressed with the riches of the Bible, the all-sufficiency of Jesus, and the necessity of a Divine anointing for service. No wonder that believers get there a new inspiration in Bible study, a new enthusiasm for Christ as their Redeemer, and a new qualification for winning souls ! 262 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XK BLISS, THE SINGING EVANGELIST. T was said of Beethoven and Mozart, that it was the office of one " to Hft mortals up," and of the other " to bring angels down." Such is the power of that subtile, weird thing which we call music. Visitors at Rome, Pa., will see in the mod- est cemetery a plain marble shaft twenty feet high, surmounted b}^ a cap and draped urn. It bears a significant inscription : '' Erected by the Sunday-schools of the United States and Great Britain, in response to the invitation of D. L. Moody, as a me- morial to Philip P. Bliss, author of ' Hold the Fort' and other gospel songs." On the reverse side are the names of Mr. Bliss and his wife, Mrs. Lucy Young Bliss, BLISS. 263 with the sad record of their tragical death by the falHng- of the railroad bridge at Ash- tabula, Ohio, Dec. 29, 1876. Here is the memorial of a man vvho preached the gospel in song. With him the service of song in the house of the Lord was a service of worship and a means of evangelism. God raised him up to show us what a spirit could be carried into song, and w4iat capacities consecrated song has for convicting, converting, sanctifying, and educating. Yet Mr. Bliss was not a sweet singer only; but a poet, composer, and evangelist, as well as an ideal Christian gentleman. Dr. Vin- cent says : *' He was one of the noblest, gentlest, holiest, and cheeriest of men." The faith that dwelt in him dwelt first in his father, whose simple childlike trust in God, and whose continual communion with Jesus, and whose happy frame, always read- ing his Bible or singing, were reproduced with rare fidelity in his son. If any one asks, ** What's in a name?" we only point 264 EVANGELISTIC WORK. to the name, Philip Paul Bliss. What a prophecy that name was of a character that combined the simplicity of Philip, the devo- tion of Paul, and the uniform bliss of one who liv^ed in God ! His joy especially gave tone if not tune to his whole life. On one occasion late in his life, when just about to sing, " More joy in His service," he stopped and said to Dr. Goodwin : " I don't think I can sing that as ' my prayer ' any more. It seems as though I had as much joy in serving the Blessed Master as I can bear." Mr. Bliss had in early life few educational advantages, and at eleven years of age left home and went to work on a farm. But at twelve he made his public confession of Christ, though all through childhood he gave evidence that he was a child of God. Until he was sixteen his energies were given to the toil for daily bread. In 1855 he spent the winter at school, and such was his quickness to learn and improve, that the next winter he taiigJit school. BLISS. 265 His passion for music was characteristic of him in early hfe. When an awkward, over- grown lad of ten years, he passed by a house and heard strains of music that so charmed him that, barefoot and stranger as he was, he ventured in at the open door, and stood entranced but unobserved. It was the first time he had ever seen or heard a piano, and as the young lady ceased playing, he ex- claimed, " O lady, do play some more ! " Startled, she turned and said, *' Get out of here with your great feet ! " little dreaming what a beautiful flower her rudeness was crushing. The winter of 1857 Mr. Bliss passed in the singing-school of Mr. J. G. Towner, and had there his first systematic training in the divine art; he also attended one of Brad- bury's musical conventions. His life-work was thus providentially, but unconsciously, taking shape. The next winter he taught in the academy at Rome, Pa., and became an inmate of the family of Mr. O. F. Young, whose daughter Lucy he married in 1859. 266 EVANGELISTIC WORK. He afterward saw that this was the very best thing he could have done. Their married Hfe was one long concord of sweet sounds, unmarred even by those discords of the seventh that lead to harmony. They were not opposites, but they were apposites : he poetic, demonstrative, impulsive, impressi- ble; she practical, reserved, persistent, self- controlled. The consciousness grew upon Mr. Bliss that God had called him to service, and that service implied his being used of God to the best purpose and in the largest measure. He saw that if he had any gift, it was that of song; and it grew upon him that to set the truth of the gospel to music was a grand aim to engross his life. He had, however, rare gifts of humor and mimicry; and on one occasion, after singing some comical medley in a musical institute, some of his fellow- musicians urged him to enter the opera field as a bouffe singer. It would have been a great temptation to him, but for his love to Christ. God had a grander work for him. BLISS. 267 and a nobler platform than the stage of the theatre. The first composition, published in 1864, gave no prophecy of his future. It was a mere sentimental song tinged with religion. The conception of using song as a vehicle for gospel truth had not then rooted itself in him; but it was slowly forming, and led to the writing of both songs and tunes for "The Prize," etc. In 1869, in Chicago, he heard Mr. Moody for the first time. That meeting proved pivotal as to his after-life. Mr. Moody's attention was drawn to a rather fine-looking fellow in his audience in Wood's Museum, who sang with great sweetness and power, and he managed to get hold of his hand before he went out and to get a prom- ise from him of more help in the same line ; and it was the power of Bliss's solo singino- that was among the first influences that led Moody to magnify gospel songs as a means of evangelization. In May, 1870, Mr. Bliss and Mr. Whittle first met; and they went together to the 268 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Winnebago Sunday-school convention, were drawn to each other, and for a time their families lived in the same house. While Mr. Bliss was leading the choir and superintend- ing the Sabbath-school in the First Congre- gational Church, he developed practically his own power to make song helpful to worship and preaching. As he stood in the choir, gallery during rehearsals, he would point to the crimson cross in the transept window, and say : " I am glad we have the cross always before us. Let us forget every- thing else when we sing. Let us seek to have the people lose sight of us, of our efforts, our skill, and think only of Him." The pastor, Dr. Goodwin, soon learned that he need have no fear that the anthems and voluntaries that such a leader selected would, either before or after the sermon, prove a hindrance to its power; and when he com- mitted to him the closing service, unity of impression was always so conserved that the effect of the truth was only deepened and confirmed. BLISS. 269 The next epoch in Mr. Bhss's hfe was approaching. During the winter of 1873-74 he was urged by Mr. Moody, then in Scot- land, to give up all else and devote life to the singing of the gospel. While weighing this matter, an invitation to Waukegan led Mr. Whittle and Mr. Bliss to hold meetings of an evangelistic nature there for three days. God's spirit was present in power. He used Mr. Whittle's and Mr. Cole's plain preach- ing and Mr. Bliss's pathetic singing in a very manifest way, that could not be mistaken. As Mr. Bliss sang " Almost Persuaded," sinners rose in all parts of the house, fully persuaded to yield to Christ. The next afternoon those three men, Mr. Whittle, Mr. Cole, and Mr. Bliss, I held a consecration meeting; and then and there the sweet singer gave up everything to the Lord, abandoned his musical conventions and secular music, and put himself wholly at the Lord's disposal. From that day, W^ednes- day, March 25, 1874, until that fatal plunge at Ashtabula, Dec. 29, 1876, P. P. Bliss knew but one aim: to brincr souls to Christ by 270 EVANGELISTIC WORK. sacred song. How he carried out his pur- pose let us consider, for it has a bearing upon hundreds of other Hves. God has in every Hfe a plan, which it ought to be, and may be, our highest joy to work out into finished completeness. Mr. Bliss had a distinct divine commission: the re- demption of sacred song from prevailing perversion. When Darwin Cook heard him sing at a wedding anniversary, he felt the power of song to impress the gospel, and he went to him and told him that such was his calling. Moody says : '' I believe he was raised up of God to write hymns for the church of Christ in this age, as Charles Wesley was for his day." In order to do this, three things were necessary, and he studied to secure them all, and succeeded : — I. The words must be full of the gospel. Ex- amine his favorite songs, especially those the words of which he composed: how near they lie to the very heart of the gospel ! They present Christ as a living, loving, personal. BLISS. 271 coming Saviour. They emphasize faith and a present salvation. To one who said he would "try" to seek the Lord, Mr. Bliss spoke up and said, " Spell it t-R-U-S-t." And that was the key-note of his singing, as in '^Whosoever Will," "Tis the promise of God," etc. Mr. Bliss may have written some hymns that lack poetic beauty, but they contain no morbid sentiment, no sighing for past days and over aching voids, like Cowper's Olney hymn. They were not studied productions ; they were inspirations. Sometimes a melody would come to him first, and he would wait for words that seemed to fit Into its very structure. Sometimes the words would come first, born of a sudden glimpse of truth, and would have to wait for a melody to match them. 2. The music must be fitted to the words, and fitted to be the vehicle of the Spirit. He and Mr. Whittle spent at the author's house four weeks of their stay in Detroit In 1875. During that time I had rare oppor- 2/2 EVANGELISTIC WORK. tunities of knowing him and observing his habits. On one occasion I wrote the words of the song : " With harps and with viols," to suit a sermon Mr. Whittle was preparing; and before he began to compose the music for those words, Mr. Bliss withdrew to his room for a season of prayer. It was no marvel that his songs have been made so conspicu- ously the channels for the conveyance of spiritual impressions, for not only the words, but the music too, were '' sanctified by the word of God and by prayer." As George Herbert would say, ** he dipped his words in his own heart" before he sang, and bathed them in his own rich experience, and then singing was an emotional utterance, a kind of language finer and more subtile than human dialects, in which to express the highest truths and deepest feelings. 3. The words must be clearly enunciated, even in singing. Mr. Finney was himself a fine singer, and had been a choir leader. But he had no pa- tience with the modern "mouthing of words" BLISS. 273 and "murdering of English" in choir sing- ing. One Sunday morning, after an anthem in which the words had been successfully smothered in vocalization, he rose to pray, and quaintly gave thanks to the Omniscient One that He could ''understand the anthem," while confessing that it was " impossible for the audience to catch one intelligible word." Who, that ever heard Mr. Bliss sing, lost the words? What superb enunciation, emphasis, and musical pronunciation, and — shall we call it? — elocution! How he sang those words, *' When Jesus comes," and with increasing volume brought out that line of the chorus, ''All Glory, GRAND, ETERNAL!" So he rendered in a masterly manner, " ' Man of sorrows,' what a name ! " at first so soft as scarcely to be audible, yet every word clearly cut, and by a gradual crescendo mounting up to the grand height of that last line, " Hallelujah ! WHAT A SAVIOUR ! " 18 274 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Such singing is the loftiest flight of vocal ut- terance, and, like the most tremendous bursts of oratory and eloquence, lifts and bears an audience as on giant wings. It reminds us of what Gladstone characterizes as the supreme influence of the speaker, — the power of " re- ceiving from his audience in a vapor what he pours back on them in a flood." Such singing is eloquent ; it evokes the sympathy and stirs the emotion of an audience, and these increase thus the very power by which they were called forth. Philosophize as we may, the fact is, as attested in hundreds of instances individu- ally known, his singing was conspicuously used to convert souls. Mr. W. O. Lattimore has confessed that when, given up to the wild- est debauchery, he seemed drifting rapidly to a drunkard's death and a hopeless hell, he somehow got into the Tabernacle at Chicago, and heard that song written by Mr. Bliss, *'What shall the harvest be." The words and music roused him even from his drowsy stu- por, and he listened : — BLISS. 275 " Sowing the seed of a Imgering pain ! Sowing the seed of a maddened brain ! Sowing the seed of a tarnished name ! Sowing the seed of eternal shame ! OH, WHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE?" and every line seemed to be armed with a heavier and sharper dart, and to come deeper into his soul. He rushed from the Taberna- cle to the intoxicating cup and the gaming- table, into solitude and into society, but the song rang like a clarion in his ears ; and in letters of fire everywhere appeared the question, " What shall the harvest be ? " until he found peace where only it can be found. We believe Mr. Bliss was raised up of God to become in himself a living protest against corruptions in the service of song, such as idolatry of art, singing in a dead language, praising by proxy, lack of gospel quality, and perversion to self-display. He had a royal nature, and in the line of song especially transcendent gifts. But they w^ere all the Lord's. This was his alabaster box of pre- cious ointment, but he broke it upon his 276 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Lord's blessed feet, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. How pathetic that unconscious prophecy of his departure ! He wrote, with regard to that last journey: "Have planned to leave the boys here at Rome with grandma and Aunt Clara this winter, so that wife can go with me!'' Just before the train crashed through the bridge, he was seen writing a hymn or tune. They went together. McALL. 277 CHAPTER XXI. McALL, THE EVANGELIST OF THE FRENCH. OVE Is Omnipotence: and therefore God is Love. Before it, even the barriers of a strange language melt away, and the iron doors of distrust and hatred open as of their own accord. In the summer of 1871 Rev. Robert W. McAll and his wife were visiting Paris, then still comparatively desolate and deserted, at the close of the terrible war with Germany. Moved by a deep desire to reach the poor, priest-ridden workingmen with the gospel, he and his wife were giving away tracts in the hotels and on the public streets in the evening hours of an August day, when a workingman said : '* If any one will come among us and teach us, not a gospel of priestcraft and superstition, but of truth and liberty, many of us are ready to hear." 278 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Mr. McAU returned home; but above the murmur of the waves and the hum of busy life, he heard the voice of that workingman : "If any one will come and teach us ... we are ready to hear." He said to himself, " Is this God's call? Shall I go?" His friends said, "No !" But a voice within said, "Yes." And he left his English home and parish and went back, — back to Belleville, whence in days of anarchy and violence issued forth the desperate mobs to burn and destroy and kill. There, in January, 1872, in the Rue Julien La Croix, he opened one little hall, in a faubourg of one hundred thousand des- perate, lawless communists ; one man con- ducting a gospel meeting to save millions ! He had nothing in his hands for defence, in the midst of men known as assassins, but a pocket-Bible, — his " double-barrel revolver." And in a district worse to work in than St. Giles in London he began to tell the old story of Jesus. And very soon the little place was crowded, and a larger room be- came a necessity; and so it spread until McALL. 279 fifteen years later that one gospel hall has become 07ie hundred and thirty, in which in one year have been held fourteen thousand religious meetings, with a million hearers, and four thousand services for children, with two hundred thousand attendants. No such history is to be found elsewhere, and no sta- tistics can adequately represent the results of a work so apostolic in principle and pattern. These many services are simply '' recruit- ing offices " to secure new volunteers for the Lord's army; no new sect or church is formed, but converts are gathered and then fall into the neighboring churches. But the work is only at its beginning. The cry comes from all parts of France for new sta- tions ; and the work needs only more inai and more means to be indefinitely multiplied. The McAU Mission is one of the most remarkable movements of Providence in modern times. At the critical hour of the history of France, God raised up the right man for the place and the work : as Sydney 280 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Smith would say, the round peg found the round hole. It was in the very period of transition when, breaking with Romanism, and the clericalism which Gambetta declared to be the foe of France, the nation was left with- out a religion, and in danger of drifting into infidelity and atheism. Mr. McAll, obedient to the call of God, fell almost unconsciously into his place in the plan of God, and intro- duced a mode of worship without a vestige of superstition or a relic of empty formalism and hollow ceremonial. Doubtless he was building more wisely than he knew; but He w^io called him to the work had prepared the material for the structure, and guided its erection. Certain principles underlie the work of the McAll Mission in Paris and other French cities, and contribute to its phenomenal success. I. The Gospel f 07' the Masses. — The leader of the movement and his fellow-helpers are moved with compassion for the multitudes that have really no true knowledge of Christ, McALL. 281 that faint for spiritual food and are scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. They have confidence in the adaptation of the gospel to every need of every human soul, in the accessibility of the common people, and in the susceptibility even of the crimi- nal classes to the approach of unselfish disciples. 2. The Power of Passion for Souls. — Twenty years ago the thought of finding in this priest-ridden people, ignorant, super- stitious, hardened, and half-atheistic, such readiness to receive the Protestant gospel, would have seemed wildly chimerical. But simple love for their souls, unmixed with any self-advantage, has been the moving spring of all this work, and it has proved resistless. When Mr. McAll began his work in Belleville he could not speak French, but he could utter two sentences in the tongue of those workingmen : one was, "God loves you ; " and the other, '* I love you ; " and upon those two, as pillars, the whole arch rests. 282 EVANGELISTIC WORK. 3. The Attraction of a Free Gospel. — From the first free distribution of tracts on the streets of Paris, until the work reached its present grand dimensions, nothing has at once surprised and drawn the workingmen more than this, that for all this ministry to their good, they have not been asked a cen- time ! The feast has been spread on a hun- dred tables without money and without price. They have been wont to associate all that is called religion with a tax, heavy and oppressive. The priests have fattened on the money paid for masses for the dead ; and cathedral churches have been reared out of poor men's scanty wages. But all this is an unselfish labor, for which no return is asked. 4. The Simplicity of true Gospel Work. — These methods are unchurchly, — at the far- thest remove from ritualistic formalism and ecclesiastical ceremony. Any place of meet- ing is good enough where the people can be comfortably gathered. A Bible, a simple stand, a small reed-orijan, a few hundred McALL. 283 chairs, a plain, earnest address, singing, prayer, hand-to-hand contact, — this is all the machinery of the greatest mission movement of modern times ! A bare hand reached out to the poor workingman, through which may be felt the warm throb of a loving heart, with not even a kid glove between to act as a non-conductor, — that is the secret of power. 5. The Exempl'fication of true Christian Unity. — The effort is both unsectarian and undenominational. No lines of division ap- pear between workers, and no " tribal stand- ards " are unfurled. Christ's is the only name known. They are "all one," and hence '' the world believes." The energies often expended in contests and conflicts, or at least rivalries and jealousies among disciples, are here all turned into the channel of pure evangelistic work. 6. The Moral Education of the Common People. — Mr. McAU saw in Belleville extreme poverty and misery side by side with mental and moral degradation. He felt that both the material and spiritual conditions of the 284 EVANGELISTIC WORK. people must be remedied together, and that the gospel was the lever to raise the whole man to a higher plane. Hence the promi- nence given from the first to schools and class instruction. He went everywhere, preaching and teaching; informing the in- tellect and elevating the humanity of those whose souls he sought to save. And the work has been successful along all these lines, and the more successful be- cause projected along all these lines. The hand of the venerated and lamented pastor, George Fisch, was not the only one stretched out in recognition and encouragement. In 1877 the '' Societe Nationale d'Encourage- ment au Bien " presented McAll with a silver medal, for his devotion to Jiumanity. And the following year the " Societe Libre d'ln- struction et d'Education " presented him a medal for services rendered to popular in- struction. These public acknowledgments of McAll's work as a philanthropist and edu- cator were entirely aside from all questions of religion ; while the Government recognized McALL. 285' that same work as the best security for order and good citizenship, offering him every aid in the planting of new gospel stations, as the best "police measure" for the prevention of disorder and crime. The McAU Mission work inspired in the Huguenot churches — the *' Waldenses " of France — an aggressive evangelism. Their life had been repressed ; the law had pro- hibited all such aggressive work, as "prose- lyting." They saw this humble man come to Paris, and remove the barriers between the " unchurched and churched " and come close to the people ; they saw him gathering the multitudes into his "halls," making those halls not only nurseries of piety but grand training schools for future evangelism; meet- ing papacy and infidelity not controversially and negatively, but experimentally and posi- tively. And here, where they had thought there was no field for evangelization, a for- eigner had built up the most wonderful mission in Europe, and proved papal France to be the foremost missionary field of the 286 EVANGELISTIC WORK. world. The Protestant French churches began to ask whether France could not and ought not and must not evangelize France ; and so they have become the missionaries of this new era, and in their poverty need only money to thrust in the sickle and reap these white harvests. And so among this mercurial people, whose very blood is quicksilver, God is carrying on a work whose depth and reality are beyond all question. France has had a fickle but never a torpid national life, — "like a maniac at times, but never like a corpse." But the gospel is God's remedy both for infidelity and instability ; and so far and so fast as the gospel permeates the French nationality, every noble characteristic develops. Dr. A. F. Beard, who has the most discrimi- nating view of the whole situation, pronounces France, of all lands, the '* most hopeful and strategic." McAU has put in motion a host of agen- cies, all evangelistic. Mission stations, with schools, classes, mothers' meetings, prayer- McALL. 287 meetings, evangelists, visitors, tract-distribu- tors, — everything thoroughly Evangelical, variations of one key-note,— ''Christ cruci- fied." The labors are great, of providing speakers for so many meetings, and with no free day but Saturday. The appliances are very comprehensive and complete, avoiding only open-air preaching, which conflicts with municipal law. The methods are very sim- ple ; no expensive buildings or outlay, — a clean, whitewashed wine-shop or commodi- ous room, adorned with texts and provided with platform and seats. And, withal, no mission anywhere is more economically, honestly, and conscientiously conducted and administered. Every centime is accounted for in detail. 288 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XXII. McAULEY, THE EVANGELIST OF THE OUTCAST. INZENDORF, when a lad at Halle, founded the now famous Senfkorn Ordcn, — the '' Order of the Grain of Mustard-Seed." Its simple principle was that every member of it should seek daily the conversion of some other soul. That " order " lies at the basis of the Moravian Church, the leader of God's missionary host. Jerry McAuley and the ''Water Street" and " Cremorne " Missions have become synonymes of self-sacrificing work for the salvation of the abandoned and outcast classes in our cities ; and this is simply an- other ''order of the mustard-seed," — a con- verted criminal seeking to save others like McAULEY. 289 himself by declaring what God had done for his soul. The conversion of this notorious river- thief, whose heart was a cage for all unclean birds, and whose lawlessness made him the terror even of the police, is one of the modern miracles. It was while in prison, serving out his sentence, that on a Sunday morning he saw on the chapel platform one of his old confederates in crime, known as " Awful Gardner." During McAuley's im- prisonment, Orville Gardner had found deliv- erance from the chains of sin, and burning to open prison doors to those who were still bound, he had come that morning to tell the story of redemption. He addressed the convicts as one who had but a little before worn that same dress, but who had found in Jesus a white robe to cover all his sin and crime. The voice choked with emotion, and the tears raining down his face, bore witness that with intense feeling and earnestness he was speaking. Then as he knelt and prayed, the sobs of those guilty 19 290 EVANGELISTIC WORK. men echoed his own, and even Jerry Mc- Auley was forced to hide the tears he was ashamed to have seen. McAuley knew that Gardner was no hypo- crite ; and as he heard that tongue so long famihar with oaths and obscenities, curses and blasphemies, tenderly talking in that new and heavenly dialect, he sat in rapt astonishment. It was all a strange language to him ; but the man's transformation was a notable miracle, and he could not deny it. Little as he could understand the message of grace, one verse quoted by Gardner stuck in his memory; and on his return to his cell, he took down the prison Bible which he had thrust into the ventilator, brushed away the dust and cobwebs, and began to read. A lady visitor to the prison read and prayed with him, and helped him to pray for himself. His increasing unrest and de- sire for pardon at last drove away sleep. He flung himself on the stone floor in an agony of despair, and wept and prayed. McAULEY. 291 resolved not to rest until his load was lifted. In a vision of the night a gentle hand seemed laid on his head, and a tender voice said, " Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven." He always believed this a real visitation from God in answer to prayer. He rose from the floor, and another jail, like that of Philippi, rang with *' songs in the night," and '* the prisoners heard." The guard, astonished, opening the door, found Jerry shouting, clapping hands, and leaping in an ecstasy of delight, and threat- ened to report him for disorder. Disorder ! Yes, it was the disorder of the sepulchre when the dead hears the voice of the Son of God and comes forth, shaking off his grave-clothes. From that hour Jerry McAuley was a new man. When prison doors shut behind him, he felt an irresistible desire at once to redeem his own past and save his old companions ; and though he fell again into evil company and evil habits, the Lord had His hold upon him, and he was at last developed into an 292 earnest and stable disciple, and learned that his only safety was in entire abandonment of all evil and in positive consecration to work for souls. No man knows a ///// salvation until he gets to this same fork in the road, and deliberately takes the way of self-denial for Christ and service for souls. But what work should he, could he, do? Born of a counterfeiter, he had no schooling but in vice and crime, and had only learned to read and write while in prison. He had neither money nor social standing; neither learning nor eloquence ; neither a good name nor even a knowledge of the Scriptures. But one thing was sure: the very life he had led fitted him to reaeh eriminals and outcasts like himself. He knew them, and they knew him. If he could make them beheve that he was a converted man, and sincere in his desire to do them good, he might get a hold upon them that other men could not. To his hearty surren- der to this conviction^ zvc may trace a McAULEY. 293 career of usefulness that even angels might envy. He went back to his old haunts of crime, and began to work, without waiting for further preparations, appHances, or encour- agements. In October, 1872, the Water Street Mission took shape as an institution, and Jerry and Maria McAuley began there the ten years' work whose grand results we shall never measure till the " Books " are opened. Night after night, week after week, year after year, they labored in their humble way, seeking and saving the lost. They fed the hungry, sheltered the outcast, trusted the most untrustworthy, and taught the most ignorant; and by simple patience and love constrained the worst men and women to newness of life. There was open to them ** a door great and effectual, and there were many adversa- ries." But Jerry McAuley and his brave wife were not easily intimidated. If any one came to his meetings with a persistent pur- pose to interrupt them, Jerry did not hesitate 294 EVANGELISTIC WORK. to put him out; and more than one gigantic ruffian has proved a coward when, in the name of the Lord whom he served, Jerry laid hands upon him. With undaunted per- severance, that triumphed over all obstacles, the work was carried on, and a night rarely passed without some marked case of con- version. The means used were of the most unpre- tending sort. A plain but tolerably com- modious room, seated with benches; singing, praying, simple reading of the Word of God with such explanation as a man taught of God could add, and the testimony of per- sonal experience, together with hand-to- hand contact with the lost, — these were all Jerry McAuley's ''secrets." But God used just such humble people and methods to work wonders of grace. When Saint Theresa began to build her hospital, she had, as her whole capital, three ' halfpence. But she said : ''Theresa and three halfpence are nothing; but God and three halfpence are incalculable." All successful McAULEY. 295 work for Christ and souls is an illustra- tion of the old adage : ** One with God is a majority." When, after seven and a half years at Sing Sing, Jerry McAuley came out of prison, with blighted life and reputation, no one could have thought that God would use a man so foolish, weak, base, despised, — a mere nonentity in human eyes, — to do a service so great, and among a class so low, that the wise and mighty were unequal to it. But so it was. His very humility, incompetency, conscious unworthiness, ignorance, weakness, drove him to the only Source of power. He gave himself up to God to be filled and to be used. And while others waited, and won- dered who should work for the outcasts and the abandoned, Jerry McAuley went to work and saved them. No man was so vile or so vicious that Jerry McAuley despaired of him. " Rowdy Brown" was one of the roughs, — a large, strong, bold fellow, who united the brutality of a savage with the ferocity of a wild beast. 296 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Passing a man who was seated on the fore- castle of a Liverpool packet, quietly reading his Bible, Brown, in pure malice, kicked him so violently in the mouth as to knock out his teeth; and this ruffian had killed men while in California. Hearing of the conver- sion of one of his sailor-mates at the Water Street Mission, he swore that he would go down there; and if that fellow should get up to talk, he would force open his jaws and empty a bottle of whiskey down his throat. He went with his bottle. But there was a Power there on whose resistance to his devil- ish plot he had not counted. While waiting for his time to come, he became strangely moved himself; a new sensation, a violent trembling, overmastered him. He could not even flee ; the crowd was too dense, and his strength was gone. By the time his old chum was giving his testimony. Rowdy Brown was ready to faint ; and when at the close of the testimonies, inquirers were invited to come forward, he startled the whole company by McAULEY. 297 dropping on his knees and crying, " Pray for me I " The excitement was intense. He yelled and groaned for mercy, while his awakened conscience rocked and racked even his huge frame. Two nights of tempest passed before he heard the Voice that speaks the soul into calm. But when he did get peace, he leaped from bed at midnight and roused the whole house with his shouts of praise. Rowdy Brown no sooner found Christ than he found work for Christ. In his intense pas- sion to save men he would actually pick up bodily and carry some sailor to the Mission, and set down the astonished man on the anxious seat, and then plead and pray with him till the heat of his own ardor and fervor melted him into submission to Christ. His old companions could not credit his conver- sion as a reality. A captain whom he had cruelly beaten scouted the idea, and ex- claimed: "Brown is a devil; he can't be converted ! " Yet even at that moment that same Rowdy Brown was preparing for a 298 EVANGELISTIC WORK. meeting on board a West India brig, stretch- ing a canvas for an awning and putting up his crude sign, and running boats to and fro to bring sailors on board who were wilhng to attend a " Jerry McAuley prayer-meeting." This is only one representative instance of the far-reaching results of Jerry McAuley's evangelistic work. A year or two before his death he was led to resign the Water Street Mission to other hands, and gave himself to the new Cremorne Mission, at the corner of Thirty-second Street and Sixth Avenue. Here was another gateway of hell, sur- rounded by houses of ill-fame ; but here, in that very room where vice and crime had held revel, God's grace repeated, and still re- peats, night after night the wonders wrought in the Water Street Mission. The whole work of Jerry McAuley shows the power of God's Spirit through personal testimony. Here was no marked ability of any sort. A man, born of criminals and bred to crime ; an ex-convict and outcast, ignorant and inadequate in himself to any great work ; McAULEY. 299 nay, bearing about side by side with the " marks of the Lord Jesus " the marks of his old Hfe, — simply delivered one great gospel message, backed up by his personal testi- mony: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." These personal testimo- nies from himself and other converts were the special attraction of these meetings, and in them was the hiding of their power. Such witness of the lips, confirmed by the life, in- spired hope even in the most desperate and despairing sinners ; it proved that ** He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." On September 21, 1884, at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, there was such a gathering as that metropolis has never known before or since. The building was 300 EVANGELISTIC WORK. thronged, and even the street blocked, by a crowd that was a strange mixture of mer- chants and ministers, lawyers and bankers, roughs and rowdies, women of fashion and women of the town. It was the funeral of Jerry McAuley; and all ranks and classes were there to lay their tributes side by side upon his coffin, and shed their tears together over the dust of the man who had done more than all the churches of that city to rescue the perishing from a life of sin and shame, and who went within the very gates of hell to pluck brands out of the burning. After the services were closed, for four hours the procession moved by that open coffin; and redeemed convicts and the noblemen of the land alike burst into tears as they looked for the last time on that pale face which ladies of quality, and women who had been sinners, alike kissed with grateful love. •' God buries the workers, but He carries on the work," is the inscription on the memorial tablet of the Wesleys in Eng- land's Abbey. The Water Street Mission, McAULEY. 301 now in other hands, has lately been adorned with a marble tablet, which bears this in- scription : — In Loving Memory of JERRY McAULEY, The Founder of this mission. He rests from his labors, And his works do follow him. Where I am there shall also my servant be. John xii. 26. 302 EVANGELISTIC WORK. CHAPTER XXIII. AN EXAMPLE OF EVANGELISM. HANDFUL of seed may sometimes be traced to the great harvest with its garner full. One instance will be given to show how feasible it is in any field to begin evangelistic work, and how rapid and remarkable may be the results. On a winter afternoon, in February, 1858, a young man of Philadelphia, whose name is now known wherever the English tongue is spoken,^ wxnt with a missionary of the American Sunday-School Union^ to a second- story back-room of a humble house on Pine Street, near Twenty-third, to begin a mission Sunday-school in a very destitute and un- promising quarter. The few children who gathered, with those who had called them 1 Mr. John Wanamaker. - Mr. E. \\. Toland. AN EXAMPLE OF EVANGELISM. 303 together, were compelled to beat a hasty retreat before the rowdies and roughs, known as " Killers " and *' Bouncers," whose clubs were the terror of the neighborhood. But a strong desire to teach these poor neglected little ones had taken possession of this young man of twenty-one ; and that same afternoon another room was found on South Street, where on the next Lord's day a Sun- day-school was begun, — afterwards known as the Bethany Mission, — with twenty-seven children, and two women, with the two men aforementioned, as teachers. The accom- modations were so poor that the only benches were those extemporized out of old boards and bricks ; and the neighborhood so unattractive that but one house relieved the long stretch of brick-yards, clay-pits, and ash-heaps between South Street and the Baltimore Railroad, half a mile below, — this deserted district being the territory of the terrible "■ Schuylkill Rangers." The rapid increase of children compelled the renting of a room adjoining, and still a 304 EVANGELISTIC WORK. third, downstairs, while the staircase itself was crowded. July came, and a proposal was made to erect a tent to relieve the pressure for room, as no larger building could be had. And, after prayer for guidance, the superin- tendent and his bigger boys of the school levelled off the ash-lot on South Street, where the tent was put up, made of old ship sails, which an old man interested in the work had himself begged at the wharves. That Monday morning when these '' tent- makers " met on the ground to put up their rude canopy was a time of excitement. It was a Catholic neighborhood, and there were threats that the tent should not be put up, or, if so, should be burned or torn down. But instead of carrying out these threats, many of these people actually came to be numbered with those who supported the work with their money and guarded it with their prayers. The tent enclosed seats for some four hundred persons; and when the side- curtains were raised, more than as many more could be accommodated on the lot outside. AN EXAMPLE OE EP^ANGELISM. 305 The Sunday-school at once grew from one hundred to three hundred ; and on the first night of the completed tent, before the first Sabbath service was held, a woman there gave her heart to God who is still a teacher in Bethany school. That first convert was God's seal on the work, and was both seed and sign of the coming harvest. The increas- ing interest forbade that the work should be limited to the summer season, and so friends rallied to help buy a lot and build a house ; and in January, 1859, the Sunday-school moved into a new brick building close by on South Street, having multiplied tenfold within its first year. From the first Sunday in the tent, not only prayer-meetings but preaching services were a part of the work; and in September, 1865, a church of twenty members was organized and a pastor installed. Soon even this new building became too strait and was crowded almost to suffocation. God was compelling these humble workers to do a greater service for the souls about them than they had ever 306 EVANGELISTIC WORK. imagined. In faith they followed His moving pillar, and He made the way plain. A large lot was bought, and in February, 1868, — ten years after the inception of the enterprise, — a large Sunday-school hall was erected and dedicated. It was both elegant and commo- dious, but its acoustic properties were so faulty that few could be heard who spoke from its platform ; and the superintendent, who was already a prosperous business man, offered at his own expense to tear down and reconstruct the building, which was done at a cost of fifty thousand dollars. But the grand result is a model Sunday-school hall, capable of seating over three thousand, and where every word from the platform may be heard in every part. Side by side with this structure, in 1874, stood also the completed church-building; together these two structures cover nearly thirty thousand square feet, and provide ac- commodations for five thousand. As we look back now over these thirty years since the first Sunday-school was held, the expenditure AN EXAMPLE OE EVANGELISM. 307 Upon the buildings, the support of the work, and the various benevolences in connection with it, reaches a total of not less than half a million of dollars ! What a sum for a few, fee- ble folk to gather, with scarce three persons among them representing wealth ! The bulk of that church- membership, though in numbers the fifth largest in the denomination, is even yet from the working- classes. Only the Book of Remembrance of the Lord Himself could reveal the sacred self-sacrifice by which the work has been carried to its present stage. On the central tower of the Sunday-school hall is a signifi- cant inscription : '' A little child shall lead them." It is the memorial of little Ella Hurst, a child of the infant school, who, in her desire to do something for the new build- ing, actually went into the streets and gath- ered buckets of bones, and sold them. The little gold dollar that she thus earned and brought to the building-fund became the nucleus of many other gifts. The story of her self-sacrifice became known, and from 308 EVANGELISTIC WORK. the influence of that one poor little child came all the money that was turned into stone and grew toward heaven in that sym- metrical bell-tower. But this was only one of the instances of self-denial, most of which have no written history, by which these great buildings have been raised. There were scholars and teachers, parents and children, who wrought some product of brain or brawn ; who gave up a new dress or coat or bonnet; who sold rings and breastpins and trinkets ; who gave money that had been laid aside for a watch or a book or some coveted pleasure ; or who even went without a meal, now and then, in order to get means to give. The story of how those structures went up would read like a romance. They are love and labor, tears and prayers, crystallized into architectural forms. But who shall write the exhaustive annals of the thirty years since that Sunday-school began on that wintry morning in 1858; those more than two thousand sessions^ with as many persons who have served as teachers A A' EXAMPLE OF EVANGELISM. 309 and officers, and ten times as many who have been connected in some way with the school ; the tracts and printed pages distributed by the miUion ; the more than five thousand Bibles and twenty thousand hymn-books sold ; and better than all, the thousands who from this school have been graduated into the wide world and scattered in every part of the world-field, or who are now shining among the stars? From the very inception of this enterprise a twenty minutes' prayer-meeting has been held uniformly at the close of the Sunday- school session, and visitors present at the school are invited to remain and participate. At times as many as fottrteen nations have been represented in those who have taken part in one of these after-meetings, and who have gone to their distant homes to bear the inspiration of this school, like a live coal to kindle fires on other altars. The direct and indirect influence of this evangelistic church and school no pen can record, for no arithmetic can compute it. 3IO EVANGELISTIC WORK. That whole section of the city is transformed. The drinking saloon and filthy hovel have given way to great blocks of neat and eco- nomical homes for the workingman ; there are sobriety, order, thrift, piety, where once drunkenness, anarchy, idleness, and crime abode. That school and church have made police-stations and lock-ups needless, and introduced all the blessings of a Christian civilization to redeem poverty and misery. The motto of this enterprise has from the beginning been growtJi ; first, by strengthen- ing and educating disciples, and secondly, by reaching out and gathering in outsiders. Hence every effort has been made to make the church and school a model Christian 'home, attracting to its bosom, and then nourishing and cherishing those w^hom it attracted. A w^eekly teachers' meeting and adult Bible-class is taught by the pastor ; weekly prayer-meet- ings are regularly held for the congregation at large, and for the elder ladles, the young ladies, and the young people, particularly. An Industrial Collecfe meets twice a week AjV example oe evangelism. 311 from October to June, for instruction in secu- lar and religious departments, at a nominal rate, and is attended by hundreds of students. Organizations of various kinds within the church offer abundant spheres for every wiUing worker to help according to the meas- ure of ability and opportunity. A church council, composed of elders, deacons, and trustees, to consider all matters pertaining to the conduct of the church and school ; foreign missionary, Dorcas, and aid societies; door men's and youths' associations, busy bees, white ribbon temperance army, and converts' classes, — these are a few of the many forms of organization for mutual help and common work. The work of the Evangelist Band, how- ever, falls particularly within the scope of this chapter, and furnishes a very significant example of what God is willing to do with a few consecrated young men. In February, 1884, some twenty young men had solemnly covenanted with each other to hold themselves ready promptly to take up any Christian work, 312 EVANGELISTIC WORK. especially among the unsaved.^ From the beginning, an abundant and conspicuous blessing has rested upon this organization. These young men, and others who have joined them, have come to be leaders in evangelistic work, conducting cottage prayer- meetings, mission Sunday-schools, out-door services, etc. One example of their evangelism may be mentioned. Under the lead of the associate pastor,^ early in the summer of 1885 a gos- pel tent was erected in the southwest part of the city. The main part of the work was done and the expense borne by these young men themselves. They obtained the privi- lege of using a vacant lot, dug post-holes with their own hands, — their pastor leading the way in the hardest of the work, — then built a high rough board-fence, enclosing the lot. Then they put up a rude framework of joists and timbers, and stretching over it a canvas covering made of old sail-cloth, built a rude platform and benches, and there 1 Appendix B. 2 Rgy, Thomas C. Iloiton. AA^ EXAAIFLE OF EVANGELISM. 3 13 began to hold a Sunday-school and preach- ing service, with weekly meetings. So great was the interest awakened that when the autumn came they determined to enclose the open sides with boards and put in large stoves, and so keep the services going through the cold weather. The result is that the work has been maintained until the present date, with no interruption, and has been constantly fruitful in conversions even among the lowest and outcast classes. Though the writer is honored with the privilege of association with this church as one of its pastors, he feels that there is no immodesty or indelicacy in giving this testi- mony, since his own connection with this enterprise has been too recent ^ materially to affect its character. In nearly every re- spect, the work here chronicled was already in progress before the present pastorate began. But he is quite willing to suffer the reproach of a seeming breach of good taste if he may prove to an apathetic and sluggish 1 Beginning July, 1883. 314 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Christendom that a few young men, with no pretence to either learning or culture, wealth or influence, may, by simply undertaking to work in the simplest way for souls, turn a vacant lot into a sanctuary, and make a rude tent for years, through summer and winter alike, a birthplace for souls ! Gottschalk, on a visit to Spain, learned of a poor dying girl who asked but one privilege before she breathed her last, — " to hear him make his piano talk." His generous nature responded ; and he had his favorite instrument carried at his own cost to her apartment, and there for hours soothed her sufferings by his master melodies and harmonies. So deep was her enjoyment, that while he was play- ing plaintively she quietly passed away. What might not we accomplish, if we had such passion for souls as would lead us to bear to the huts of the poor and the bedsides of the dying, without money or price, that blessed gospel which is vocal with the music of heaven ! A WORD OF WITNESS. 315 CHAPTER XXIV. A WORD OF WITNESS. i^^mERILY I say unto you: If ye have wffl faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."^ This is one of the great, deep lessons taught by our Lord. The difference be- tween the minute mustard-seed and the mountain is not, however, one of quantity only, but of quality also. The seed may be little, but it is the hiding of that great force of nature which we call vegetable life. The mountain is but a dead, inert mass of matter, incapable of motion or growth. The seed has the secret of life and, with it, of growth, A Matt. xvii. 20. 3l6 EVANGELISTIC WORK, and, by growth or expansion, can lift and heave huge masses of dead matter. So of the prayer which is the hiding of faith, and so of power to prevail with God. The prayer may be insignificant in human eyes, and the faith, even in the eyes of the praying soul, so small as to seem nothing; but it is the seed of God, and hides the life of God ; and in contrast to that vital principle all external obstacles are only like dead masses of matter, to be removed by the fiat of faith, which Coleridge says is " An affirmation and an act, That bids eternal truth be fact." Even where obstacles are overcome in the mind and heart of a minister of Christ, or a servant of God, he often finds obstacles in his environment which he seems powerless to remove or surmount. He feels himself hemmed in by massive walls or pressed down by heavy weights, and knows not what to do. For example, here is a man of God who in the midst of preaching is drawn or driven A WORD OF WITNESS 317 into closer contact with God, and comes to feel that his heart has never been fired with passion for souls or the flame of the Holy Ghost. He has a holy unrest until God touches him with the live coal from off the heavenly altar, and then he begins to burn as never before to reach with the gospel message those who are practically outside of the Church and its influences. But a second obstacle confronts him. He is a pastor of a church that has little or no evangelistic spirit. There may be wealth and numbers and outward prosperity, but there is also a worldly spirit and atmosphere. The Spirit of God is not present in power, and the people have not the mind to work in self-sacrificing ways. The pews are rented or sold to the highest bidder, and the poor do not feel at home or welcome. There is no systematic effort to get the outsiders who neglect all the means of grace to come and hear the gospel, and there is no systematic effort to carry the gospel to those who will not come to hear it. 3l8 EVANGELISTIC WORK. Under circumstances like these, a pastor whose heart the Lord has touched and set aglow with desire to evangelize the heathen about him is in sore perplexity. He hesi- tates to sever the pastoral tie that he may go out and work for unsaved souls with unre- strained freedom ; he loves his people, and he feels that if they can be made to see the necessity and the opportunity for such aggressive work as he does, and to break away from a sluggish indolence and a fetter- ing conservatism, great results must follow. It may be that a few consecrated souls are prepared to move, but are opposed, or at least obstructed, by the apathy and inertia of the rest. To encourage and inspire a pastor who feels himself thus encumbered and embar- rassed in his work for souls, the author of these pages, at the suggestion of his brethren, adds to this book his own personal word of witness, — reluctantly, because it invades those secret experiences which belong ordinarily behind the veil ; and yet conscientiously, for A WORD OF WITNESS. 319 he feels it a duty to give his testimony in a matter so weighty. In January, 1876, I was pastor of a large, wealthy church, preaching in a most elegant edifice, and surrounded with whatever could gratify a carnal ambition, love of ease, and lust of human applause. But God as with a lighted candle had been searching my heart, and shown me that idols were there, such as literary culture, intellectual accomplishment, oratorical power, and worldly honor; and a short time before, He had led me solemnly to renounce all these idols that I might be holier, more useful, and more blessed as a winner of souls. There was now in my heart no conscious idol, and for the first time there was a con- sciousness of close communion — almost con- tact — with God in prayer. With peculiar earnestness and importunity I was led to plead that in some way I might be enabled to reach the great host of unsaved souls out- side of the churches in the great city where I dwelt. At the same time there was a clear 320 EVANGELISTIC WORK. conviction that this prayer was of God and zvoidd be anszvered in a marked way that ivould show His hand. This persuasion was communicated to my wife alone, and we trustingly awaited the fulness of God's time for the blessing. On March 19, 1876, the Lord's Day, un- usual power was given me in preaching; and the time seemed so near when God would reveal His hand and give new access to the non-church goers, that I felt pressed in spirit and yearned to give vent to my feelings. That very evening, after the service, I opened my heart to a beloved brother in the minis- try; and the next Friday evening, at the church prayer-meeting, I spoke plainly to m,y beloved people of our obvious lack of power to reach these neglecters of worship, and incidentally remarked that our superb church edifice perhaps repelled the poor, who felt themselves unwelcome. I had then been seven years serving that church as pastor; and that night the grow- ing sympathy between us seemed to melt A WORD OF WITNESS. 32 1 or fuse our hearts into unity. It seemed natural to draw nearer to them ; and leaving the platform, I came and stood in the midst of them, and from the open Bible read the promises to praying souls, and especially to those who agree as touching what they ask. The Scripture testimony reached its climax in such a casting out of unbelief as fitted us to pray in faith. I knelt among them, as in a large family circle, and with strong crying and tears we together besought God to re- move even a mountain obstacle that might hinder us as a cJuircJi from ejfcctiially reach- ing the unsaved. The Spirit of God, whose presence was so vivid as to be almost visible, interceded within us, with groanings which cannot be uttered, for a new Pentecost of power which would draw us toward the masses of the people and draw them to us. It was a whole people wrestling with God for a blessing. While we were praying, that building was b:trning ! As the prayer closed, the smoke 322 EVANGELISTIC WORK. was already filling the room, but was attribu- ted to contrary winds driving it down the flues. In fact, the lath had caught from the srnoke-pipe, and the fire was working its way behind the plaster and so escaped detec- tion. But early the next morning, Saturday, March 25, the flames burst forth and laid our beautiful house in ruins. This was a strange answer to our prayer; but it was the common conviction of devout disciples that the whole event had a Divine meaning, and that God had thus set before us an open door, great and effectual, to the neg- lected and neglecting rnasses of our city population. We secured a large opera-house, and there the great central, vital truths of the gospel were preached simply and freely and extem- poraneously. A marked blessing was at once bestowed: more souls were hopefully con- verted in those sixteen months than durine sixteen previous years of my ministry; and the co7iverts were almost exclusively from those outsiders hitherto unreached. Not only so, A WORD OF WITNESS. 323 but from the day of that fire that church has been largely attended by the class of people toward whom our hearts had been so much drawn in prayer. The preaching of the gospel in simplicity and without price, in that place of amusement, somehow drew that church and the non-church goers to- gether, and the effect has been permanent. During the whole time of the rebuilding, polite ushers waited on all alike, and the poorest were made to feel that they were more than welcome. The relation of that church to the community is permanently changed. Upon no merely natural basis can these facts be explained. It might have been by a simple coincidence that the fire caught during the prayer; but for six months pre- vious God had, in answer to prayer, commu- nicated to the pastor the strong confidence that He would in some signal way give larger access to souls ; and, on the very Sabbath previous, that confidence had been commu- nicated to a brother minister, and on that 324 EVANGELISTJC WORK. very night to his own people, before the fire had been even suspected ! An assurance which proved so prophetic can be satisfactorily accounted for only on the ground that it was imparted by the Hearer of Prayer as a foretaste of the answer. But there were many other signal proofs that the Divine Presence was in that pillar of fire. One may be mentioned as an example. In the study, in the church tower, was a mass of manuscript matter containing valu- able results of Bible study, plans of sermons, etc. The desk which held it was so burned that only the iron lock was ever found; all the books were consumed ; but all that maii- iiscript, which could not be replaced, was found essentially unharmed, though bearing plain marks of its fiery ordeal. This again impressed every one as a token of the hand of God ; and my friend Mr. George Miiller urged me to embody these remarkable facts in a printed narrative, as a new proof of the power of prayer. That church, by a nearly unanimous vote, A WORD OF WITNESS. 325 has made all pews in the reconstructed edi- fice free at the evening service. Young men have gone forth with printed cards of invi- tation, distributing them in hotels, saloons, and on street-corners previous to the hours of worship. But best of all, there is a new atmosphere prevailing; the attitude toward the poor and outcast is no longer one of apparent coldness and indifference, but of warm welcome. The fact is, that whole church became evangelistic. The preaching was followed by familiar after- meetings, and missionary operations were carried on in destitute dis- tricts ; and so that fire which drove a house- less congregation into an opera-house for over a year, and led to the preaching of a simple and free gospel to rich and poor alike, begat a close contact with the mul- titudes that do not go to church, and has proved a lasting blessing not only to that congregation, but to the entire city. This plain narrative of facts is written with a definite purpose. It is such a history as 326 EVANGELISTIC WORK. cannot be private property; it belongs to the ivhole Church, as a proof and an illustration that to a praying, believing people all things are possible. Here was a rich, cultured con- gregation, largely leavened with worldliness, composed almost exclusively of the edu- cated and elevated class, that for some rea- son are seldom drawn into evangelistic effort. It was a large church with very few of the poor in it, and with no practical contact with the great body of those who attend no place of worship. For more than a quarter of a century it had been somewhat unjustly deemed an exclusive church, as though meant for a select, elect few. It was not an aggres- sive force in that community. But the pastor and the more prayerful of the people felt moved to desire greatly increased service to souls, and to see the church holding a different relation to the community, — going out after the neglected, and compelling them to come in. And they prayed for power from above. Their faith was as a grain of m.ustard-seed, but it had A WORD OF WITNESS. 327 in it the life principle of God and it removed all obstacles. In a sudden and strange way God threw that church into close contact with the churchless masses. The gospel was preached in its purity and simplicity; the people were drawn to hear it, and found a w^arm welcome; nay, they were sought after and invited to come. It was seen that there was power in a free gospel, and so all rights of pewholders were cheerfully surrendered for the second service ; plain congregational singing and after-meetings deepened and fastened the impression of the gospel ; ear- nest men and w^omen went out into the midst of the unsaved, and held prayer-meetings, Sunday-schools, and preaching services, of which more than one new church is now the result, with many other fruits which only eternity can unveil or reveal. To every fellow-pastor, and to every church, in the name of our common Master, we ad- dress these last words of affectionate appeal. Let us solemnly consecrate ourselves to the w^ork of soul-winning. Let us have a pure 328 EVANGELISTIC WORK. gospel preached, unmixed with sensational oddities and eccentricities, human philoso- phy and wisdom of words ; let us warmly welcome the poor, the stranger, and even the outcast, and go after those that will not come to us; let us have churches free, at least at the second service ; let us have singing that has the savor of worship, the flavor of the gospel, and helps to save souls; let us make the church the home of the people, associated with every rational pleasure and source of profit ; let us use all proper means whereby the most indifferent outsiders may be made to feel that we who love Christ are alive, awake, and after souls ; let us pray for, and until we get, that baptism of power which endues us with passion for souls and a holy zeal for the kingdom of God. And so our BetJiavens — houses of vanity — shall be transformed into BctJiesdas, — houses of heal- ing ; God's angel will stir the stagnant waters, the multitudes will be drawn to the churches as fountains of salvation, and many a helpless cripple shall learn to walk in newness of life. A WORD OF WITNESS. 329 With these words we close this vohime, in which are embodied the deepest convictions which have been reached or wrought by a quarter of a century of study of this great theme. The great problem lies before the Church, and the Scriptures furnish its only practical, possible solution. The whole Church must accept the duty of telling the old, old story. Each one of us is his brother's keeper. To have heard the mes- sage is sufficient qualification and authority for sounding it in the ears of every unsaved soul. Let every hearer become a herald. This is the tJieory of evangelism, in a nut- shell; and we have only to put this theory into practice, to bring the gospel into contact with every living soul before the Bells of God's Clock of the Ages shall ring in the natal hour of a New Century ! «'GO THOU, AND PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD." APPENDIX. APPENDIX. A. TO GUIDE INQUIRERS. 1. You should firmly believe that Jesus can and WILL save NOW, and has saved you. 2. Be ready to tell how you came to Him. 3. Find the central difficulty which hinders the seeker. 4. Shun controversy ; but meet all honest doubts and objections. 5. Learn how to use your Bible, pointing to the very texts which show the way to salvation and what conversion is. — Acts viii., ix., and x. 6. Cultivate a prayerful, humble dependence on the Holy Spirit. 7. Press every seeker kindly to a decision now. 8. Fix in mind that salvation hangs not on feel- ing, but on choice. 334 APPENDIX. 9. Urge BELIEVERS to become confessors. — Rom. X. 10. 10. Be able to put your finger on the follow- ing helpful passages for different classes of seekers : — (i) Backsliders. — Jer. ii. 19 ; iii. 13, 14. Hosea xiv. 4. Isa. i. 16-18. (2) Half- Convicted. — Rom. iii. 10-23 ' "^ii* 24; I John i. 8-10. Eccl. vii. 20. Isa. hii. 6. Psa. cxHii. 2. Acts xiii. 39. Gal. ii. 16. Eph. ii. 8, 9. Jer. iii. 5. (3) Despairing. — Isa. i. 18 ; xliii. 25 ; xliv. 22. Micah vii. 18, 19. Rom. v. 6-8. i Pet. ii. 24. Rev. xxii. 17. John iii. 16. (4) Fearful they will not Hold Out. — i Pet. iv. 19. Psa. cxxi. I. Isa. xliii. 2. i Cor. x. 13. 2 Cor. xii. 9. Rom. viii. 38, 39. Jude 20-25. (5) Stumbling over Inconsiste?it Church-mem- bers. — Rom. ii. I ; xiv. 3, 4, 12. John xxi. 21, 22. Matt. vii. 1-5. Hosea iv. 8. (6) Discouraged by Previous Efforts. — Jer. xxix. 13 ; 1. 4, 5. Deut. iv. 29. Rom, iv. 5. (7) Putting Off. — Prov. xxvii. i. James iv. 13-17. 2 Cor. vi. 2. Heb. iii. 13. Luke xii. 20. APPENDIX. 335 (8) Not ready to give up All for Christ. — Mark viii- 35-37; X. 29, 30. Phil. iii. 7-9. (9) Sceptical, — John vi. 40; vii. 17. Psa. xxv. 14. 2 Tim. ii. 13. Luke xvi. 31. (10) How /^ Believe. — John v. 24. Look, Isa. xlv. 22. Take, Rev. xxii. 17. Receive, John i. 11, 12. Trust, Isa. xxvi. 3, 4. Results: Joy — John XV. II. Peace with God — Rom. v. i. Peace oj God — Phil. iv. 6, 7. Rest — Matt. xi. 28-30. B. We append the simple Constitution of the EvangeHst Band of Bethany Church : — OBJECT. Its object shall be to train young men for all forms of Christian work, and to engage them in active service for souls. DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES. We do solemnly affirm our conviction that the testimony of a disciple of Christ is largely hindered, if not destroyed, by conformity to tlie world in his own life and amusements, and we hold that those who join this band should do so with the design and purpose of living a life separated unto God. AGREEMENT. In joining the Evangelist Band, I purpose, with God's help, to maintain and live, not only strictly APPENDIX. 337 moral and temperate, but to be an example to all believers in godliness and purity, and to devote such portion of my time as may be consistent with other duties to the direct work of witnessing to Christ and of winning souls to Him. c. (FORM USED BY THE AUTHOR FOR INVITATION TO PUBLIC WORSHIP.) AtlcL let SzTTL tlxat is AtTuivst ^ j;3 >-. OQ ^ n m •f=« to ^ CD 4^ 4^ N 4^ CD O Ph cro 2 GO Q ;:^ O u w o m ^ 4^ m P4I H o ci o 4^ 1^ O Eh m <\ "A o m (-1 " p4 P5 <1 !^ so ro o o O APPENDIX. 339 (reverse side.) WAS GLAD WHEN THEY SAID UNTO ME, LET US GO INTO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD. Strangers Always Welcome! Sabbath-School and Bible Classes AT THE CLOSE OF MORNING SERVICE. Interesting Devotional I Social Meetings Everij TUESDAY and FRIDAY Evening. Union Bible Service on Uniform S. S. Lessons At Y. M. C. A. Hall on Saturday Evenings at 7:45. Conducted bt the Tastoe. fj|OD so loved the world that He gave his ^nly begotten J^ON, that whosoever believeth in Him might not J^^erish, but have Everlasting Life. ^_;ome unto Me, and I will give you J;%,est. Take my yoke upon you and learn fjf me : and ye ^hall find rest unto your feoulsl 340 APPENDIX. QC LU 3 > UJ P^ O o CO o 3 o X ^• 00 H H 00 * « M « N M •• « S N N o :: P3 >^ OO Q LxJ > < CO LU Z o < j^ • X r ^ o 03 o CO J2 =3 o "a5 "cd o o c GC OQ O C/5 o CD LU A Great Book on a Great Subject. THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS; Or, the Voice out of the Cloud. BY THE REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSOK, D. D. l6mo, $1.25. ** One of the most important books to the Cause of Foreign Missions — and through them to Home Missions also -which ever has been written. It should be in every library and every household. It should be read, studied, taken to heart, and prayed over." — Congregationalist. *' Surely if the inspiration and the force of this ' Crisis of Missions* were imbibed and felt by the whole sacramental host, there would be a mighty uprising, a grand anointing, and a holy crusade to storm the kingdom of darkness all along the line, and speedily add the crown of earth to Christ's many crowns !" — Homiletical Review. " This is a book for every Christian to read with prayer and a sin- cere desire to know his personal duty in this great and glorious work." — N. Y. Observer. "We do not hesitate to say that this book is the most purposeful, earnest and intelligent review of the mission work and field which has ever been given to the church." — Christian Statesman. *'A closely compacted array of facts, arranged under distinct heads and welded together by the strong rivets of logic, vivified and made almost a thing of life by the evident presence throughout its pages of the guiding power of the Holy Ghost." — Right Rev. IVm. Bacon Stevens, Bishop