HEART TALKS 
 
 REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D.
 
 /.
 
 <
 
 REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D.
 
 HEART TALKS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. B. CARRADINE, D. D. 
 
 M 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 Sanctification A Journey to Palestine The Second Blessing in Symbol The 
 
 Lottery Exposed The Bottle Church Entertainments The Better 
 
 Way The Old Man Pastoral Sketches The Sanctified 
 
 Life And Revival Sermons. 
 
 M. W. KNAPP, 
 
 PUBLISHER OF GOSPEL LITERATURE. 
 
 REVIVALIST OFFICE, CINCINNATI, OHIO. 
 
 Copyrighted 1899 by M. W. KNAPP.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 L MY CONVERSION, 3 
 
 II. CAW, TO THE MINISTRY, 12 
 
 III. MY SANCTIFICATION, 25 
 
 IV. CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK, 37 
 
 V. REVIVALS, 47 
 
 VI. ALTAR WORK, 56 
 
 vn. THE SECRET OP THE LORD, 69 
 
 VIII. WITHOUT REPUTATION, 77 
 
 IX. THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION, 88 
 
 X. THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM, 98 
 
 XI. THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON, . 106 
 
 XII. THE DEFEAT AT Ai, 117 
 
 XIII. THE SIFTER AND FAN, 126 
 
 XIV. THE BATTLE is NOT YOURS, 134 
 
 XV. THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE, 143 
 
 XVI. THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF, 152 
 
 XVII. THE WITHERED HAND, 163 ^ 
 
 XVIII. THE SMITTEN MOUTH, 173 / 
 
 XIX. THE SILENCE OF CHRIST, 181 
 
 XX. WAITING ON THE LORD, 190 
 
 XXI. THE CLEANSING BLOOD, 198 
 
 XXII. DWELLING AMONG LIONS, 207 
 
 XXIII. THE BLESSINGS OF TIME, 215 
 
 XXIV. THE FALL OF BALAAM, 225 
 
 XXV. THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD, 235 
 
 XXVI. WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 243 
 
 XXVII. HOLY JOY, 252 
 
 XXVHI. LOOKING UNTO JESUS, 263
 
 Heart Talks. 
 
 MY CONVERSION. 
 
 THE first deep religious impression I can recall 
 occurred in my boyhood. A protracted-meeting 
 was being conducted in the town where I was raised. 
 Several preachers were in attendance, and I, a lad of 
 eight or ten years, was present a few times. At the 
 close of the services, and on the departure of the 
 ministers, I remember to have gone into a room alone, 
 and, casting myself oh the bed, wept a considerable 
 while. At that time I felt a great softness of heart, 
 and realized a decided drawing to, and preference for, 
 the Christian life; but in the course of a few weeks 
 it all passed away. 
 
 At the age of nineteen or twenty, on returning 
 from college, I joined a fashionable Church of an- 
 other denomination from that in which I had been 
 raised. This step was brought about mainly through 
 certain social influences, and in connecting myself 
 
 with that branch of Christ's Church there was no 
 
 3
 
 4 HEART TALKS. 
 
 change of heart, nor indeed any proper spiritual im- 
 pression. 
 
 At the age of twenty-six, with a young wife and 
 two children, God found me. For years I had not 
 been to church, avoided preachers, laughed at re- 
 ligion, and was on the broad road to ruin. I regarded 
 not the Sabbath, was a great smoker of tobacco, had 
 got to imbibing wine occasionally, and was very pro- 
 fane. My temper at this time had become ungovern- 
 able, and the devil undoubtedly had me. 
 
 In the place where the Savior found me there were 
 no churches and no Christians. Instead of this, there 
 was any amount of card-playing, horse-racing, and 
 whisky-drinking. I did not take up with these last 
 three things, but, nevertheless, spiritually I was in a 
 lost condition. 
 
 The way my conversion took place has been an 
 unceasing wonder to me, as well as source of endless 
 gratitude. 
 
 Let the reader remember that there were no 
 churches in miles of me, and no preachers or Chris- 
 tians around. 
 
 The business of the store in which I was employed 
 as clerk and bookkeeper fell off greatly during the 
 summer of 1874. I used to walk up and down the 
 lonely building and meditate. Christ had got me 
 at last to a place where I was quiet, and could think.
 
 MY CONVERSION. 5 
 
 The thought which repeatedly arose to my mind, and 
 with ever-increasing bitterness and sorrow, was that 
 I was a failure; that at twenty-six years of age I had 
 done nothing and was nothing. 
 
 I can see now that the Spirit was very busy with 
 me; I could not recognize his work so readily then, 
 but it is all clear now. He had no one to use in that 
 part of the country to teach me, and so worked di- 
 rectly upon my mind and heart. Repeatedly, when 
 alone in the store, I have buried my face in the piles 
 of goods on the counter, and wept the saddest of 
 tears. Then there would come longings to redeem 
 my life, and be a true man. But I was profoundly 
 ignorant as to what steps to take. 
 
 At this juncture I wrote two or three lines to my 
 mother, saying, "I am determined to be a better man, 
 and when I am a better man, I am going to pray." 
 
 The reply of my mother was all the help of a hu- 
 man character I obtained in my conversion. She 
 wrote a hasty and brief answer, in these words : 
 
 "Mv DEAR SON, I am delighted to hear of your 
 good resolutions. But you have made a great mis- 
 take. Do n't wait to be a better man before you pray, 
 but pray, and you will be a better man. 
 
 "Affectionately, YOUR MOTHER." 
 
 This note brought a perfect flood of light to my 
 mind. I saw I had been putting the cart before the
 
 6 HEART TALKS. 
 
 horse. Like the lightning illumines the whole land- 
 scape with a sudden flash, so God used the simple 
 words of my mother to clear up the uncertainty and 
 darkness, and I saw in an instant, and that most viv- 
 idly, what I had to do. I must pray, and keep at it 
 until something happened. 
 
 That Thursday night I knelt down to pray at my 
 bedside for the first time since my boyhood. My 
 young wife looked perfectly astounded at the act. I 
 do not believe that if a wild animal had leaped through 
 the window into the room, she could have been more 
 amazed than she was at the spectacle of her kneeling 
 husband; but I always possessed a goodly amount of 
 will-power and what is commonly called backbone, 
 and so prayed on. Still I did not believe God would 
 have mercy on such a sinner as myself; and so He did 
 not, for without faith it is impossible to please Him. 
 
 Friday night I was on my knees again before 
 retiring; but it seemed to me that God was far away 
 in heaven, and I was down here on earth, and I did not 
 see how He could save me. And so He did not, for 
 here was unbelief again. 
 
 On Saturday night I went again through the mel- 
 ancholy and apparently fruitless struggle. I arose 
 with neither light nor comfort, but full of determina- 
 tion to press on and pray on until something hap- 
 pened.
 
 MY CONVERSION. ^ 
 
 On Sunday the store was closed, and I had the 
 entire Sabbath at home. After breakfast I walked 
 out in a grove near the house, and there, hidden from 
 view, knelt down amid the trees, and with longing 
 eyes looked up through an open space into the blue 
 heaven. I told God that I gave Him myself and all 
 I had, that I wanted salvation and rest, and please to 
 take me. I pleaded with Him in this way for quite a 
 while, and discontinued I know not why. I walked 
 thoughtfully back to the house, and took my seat by 
 tr^e side of a center-table in the room. I picked up 
 the Bible to read, and had scarcely read a line when 
 suddenly I was converted. Such a peace and rest 
 flooded my soul as I had never felt before in my 
 life, and it was so new, so sweet, so strangely blissful, 
 so melting, that I burst into tears, and cried out to 
 my wife on the opposite side of the table, "O Laura, 
 I am not going to hell after all !" 
 
 I went across the room, and poured water into 
 the basin to bathe my tear-stained face. But I found 
 that a fountain was flowing which I could not stop; 
 and a blessed, beautiful love and peace was in me 
 that water could not wash away. 
 
 In a few hours the ecstasy was gone; but I was 
 a changed man. Moreover, everybody saw it, at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 In going from my house to the store, two miles
 
 8 HEART TALKS. 
 
 away, I would pray three times before I got there. 
 I had the places picked out, one in a deep wooded 
 valley, one in a willow thicket in the middle of the 
 field, and one on the top of a hill, protected from view 
 by a clump of trees. 
 
 I was very ignorant in regard to spiritual things; 
 but I kept on praying, read much in a Bible which I 
 carried in my pocket; began family prayer, although 
 it came near choking me to pray before my wife and 
 neighbors who dropped in; and, in addition, talked 
 to everybody who would listen to me about this new 
 strange, wonderful life which had come to me. 
 
 Two men drove up to the store one day, and after 
 the exchange of salutations, pulled out a flask of 
 whisky and asked me if I would take a drink with 
 them. I replied: "No, I thank you. Now, as you 
 have offered something to me, let me read something 
 to you out of this Book." 
 
 I began drawing my little Bible out of my pocket ; 
 but the instant they saw what it was, they gave their 
 horse a sharp cut with the whip, and without a word 
 of farewell dashed down the road. To this day I can 
 recall their astonished look, discomfited faces, and 
 rapid retreat. 
 
 Yet with this completely changed life, I could not 
 understand many things about my own experience. 
 I could not see why that delightful joy which
 
 CONVERSION. Q 
 
 filled me that Sabbath morning had left me. I knew 
 it was from God; but why should it depart? It did 
 not abide, although it left me a changed man. The 
 constant query of my mind was relative to that new 
 sweet emotion that swept over me. Was it salva- 
 tion, or God simply encouraging and drawing me on 
 to salvation yet to come? Let the reader remember 
 I had no one to look to or advise with. 
 
 One day there came an unutterable longing to 
 experience again the same sweet spiritual sensation 
 which had flooded me for the first time a few days 
 before. In my rummaging over the library for re- 
 ligious books I had found an old work, wherein I read 
 of a devout woman who was so humble that she al- 
 ways prayed to God on her face. It made a deep im- 
 pression on me. I was standing on the gallery of the 
 store thinking about it with that hungry heart of 
 mine. Looking up and down the long road, I saw 
 no one in sight, whereupon I stretched myself upon 
 the ground, put my face down in the grass, and asked 
 God to please grant me the same blessed joy He had 
 given me in my house that Sabbath morning, that I 
 might know I was His. Instantly I was filled with 
 holy joy, the identical first experience. I arose from 
 the ground all smiles, and with happy tears flowing 
 down my face. But in a few hours it was all gone 
 again.
 
 10 HEART TALKS. 
 
 So passed ten days or two weeks away, when I 
 became hungry for spiritual instruction. There was 
 so much I did not understand, and craved to know. 
 
 I determined to go to a Methodist preacher, and 
 lay the whole case before him. So, saddling my horse, 
 I rode twelve miles to Yazoo City, and called on the 
 Rev. R. D. Norsworthy. There were other preachers 
 in the town; but it is significant that I felt drawn to 
 go to a minister of the Church of my mother, and in 
 which I had been brought up. 
 
 .This Methodist pastor said afterwards, that as he 
 saw me walking towards his gate he felt, as he looked 
 at my face, that he had business on his hands. Tell- 
 ing him that I desired to speak with him on spiritual 
 matters, he dismissed all from the room, asked me to 
 be seated, and to tell him what was on my mind. 
 
 Something of my ignorance of religious phrases 
 and terms can be seen in one of the first utterances 
 that fell from my lips. The preacher must have been 
 amused, if not amazed. I said in a broken voice: 
 "Mr. Norsworthy, I am an awakened man; but I do 
 not think I am convicted yet;" and promptly bury- 
 ing my face in my hands, burst into a flood of tears. 
 
 From this occurrence it can be seen that the heart 
 and head do not always run equally together in the 
 race for heaven. It is possible to be all right in soul, 
 and not understand theology. The spiritual part of
 
 MY CONVERSION. II 
 
 a divine blessing can come on the lightning express, 
 while the intellectual part may arrive some hours or 
 days later on the freight. 
 
 The preacher saw at once that I was a converted 
 man; but determined that God should tell me, and in 
 His own way and time. He, however, quoted a num- 
 ber of Bible passages to me, which brought floods of 
 light then and afterwards. 
 
 So, on returning home, when this beautiful joy 
 swept again into my heart, I knew it was the Spirit's 
 witness to my salvation and sonship. I pored over the 
 Bible, devoured every good book I could find, prayed 
 on my knees six or seven times a day, talked religion 
 to everybody, stirred up the whole country, saw my 
 wife and sister both converted in less than a month, 
 and became blessedly established in a few weeks.
 
 IL 
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 
 
 SOON after my conversion, I felt drawn to join the 
 Methodist Church. Hiring a buggy, I drove 
 into Yazoo City one Saturday with my wife and two 
 children. The little ones were brought in to be bap- 
 tized. We all came to the altar together, the whole 
 family being given to God at the same hour. On 
 returning to my pew, I was melted with holy love, 
 and wept convulsively with my head bowed on the 
 bench before me. An old, grayheaded member of 
 the Church, Brother Hunter by name, came over to 
 me, and, giving me his hand, wept also as he tried to 
 speak. 
 
 It was while sitting in this pew I felt the first call 
 to preach. As my eyes fell on the preacher who had 
 taken me into the Church, and who was now speak- 
 ing in the pulpit, a voice whispered within me, "That 
 is your place." 
 
 I was astonished, and yet thrilled. In another 
 moment this verse was deeply impressed upon me, 
 and I was less familiar with it than many other pas- 
 sages: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the 
 feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publish- 
 
 13
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 13 
 
 eth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
 publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God 
 reigneth !" 
 
 As these words lingered like a strain of melody 
 in my heart, I found a great desire springing up to 
 do as the verse said. It seemed, however, as I thought 
 upon the matter, among the impossibilities, and so I 
 dismissed the thought, and remembered the impres- 
 sion no more for days. 
 
 After this my pastor paid me a short visit, and 
 while walking with him along the road, he suddenly 
 turned, and said, "My brother, you ought to preach." 
 
 Again I was both pleased and yet disturbed. 
 Then followed several weeks of a most remarkable 
 struggle in regard to the matter. An impression was 
 on me that I must preach, accompanied with delight- 
 ful divine touches upon the soul; but as I reasoned 
 against and resisted it, a profound gloom would come 
 upon me for hours. 
 
 While in this state of mind I spoke one day to a 
 friend and relative, who was an unconverted man, 
 telling him of the impression upon me, but that I felt 
 so unworthy that it seemed to me if I should enter 
 the pulpit some one ought to kick me out. His 
 reply was, "If you feeel this way, you evidently ought 
 not to preach." 
 
 His answer brought no relief, but cast me down
 
 14 HEART TALKS. 
 
 more than ever. It was some time afterward before 
 I got the light to see that he, being an unregenerated 
 man, was in no condition to give advice in spiritual 
 matters. I also got to see that a sense of unworthi- 
 ness is a good and proper feeling for one to have who 
 enters upon the sacred vocation of the ministry. I 
 saw that while I had expressed myself unfortunately 
 in confessing to my sense of unworthiness, yet back 
 of the faulty words was a right spirit and state of 
 heart with which God was well pleased. 
 
 There were two approaches to the house where I 
 lived, one which skirted a field and went over a hill 
 to the high road, and another much shorter, which 
 passed through a narrow, dark valley of several hun- 
 dred yards in extent. This valley was so filled with 
 forest trees, growing up its steep sides and bending 
 over at the summit, that even in the daytime the place 
 was shadowy and gloomy-looking; but at night the 
 darkness was intense, and on starlit nights it was ex- 
 ceedingly difficult to see the path which wound about 
 through the trees, crossing and recrossing the little 
 branch of water that tinkled down the center. 
 
 One night I entered this place, trying to persuade 
 myself that it was impossible for me to preach, that 
 I did not have the ability, the eloquence, and many 
 other things that I thought to be necessary. I found 
 that as I thus mentally argued against my entering
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 15 
 
 upon such a calling and life, that I was becoming more 
 and more darkened in mind and wretched in soul. 
 About the time I reached the darkest portion of the 
 woods, I felt that the valley was not as black as my 
 spirit in its conscious lack of all spiritual light and 
 comfort. I was in such misery, and there came upon 
 me such a horror of darkness, that I fell upon the 
 ground, and rolled upon the leaves in the most acute 
 and overwhelming distress. 
 
 Suddenly, I know not why, I looked up, and cried 
 out, "Lord, I will preach," when instantly the glory 
 of God filled me, the dark valley fairly flashed and 
 glittered, and laughing, crying, and shouting, I leaped 
 along the path, jumped the branch, ran up the hill- 
 side, on the top of which was my home, and fairly 
 quivering with joy, and with my face all aglow with 
 the happiness in me, I stood before my wife in the 
 sitting-room, crying out, "I will preach." 
 
 This joy remained in me for several days, when 
 I began looking again at my unfitness. I remembered 
 I had never been trained to speak in public, had not 
 gone to a theological college, was far from sure that 
 I could preach a sermon, etc. Whereupon all the old 
 gloom came back upon me. 
 
 I struggled along with the depression the best I 
 could while I attended to the work at the store. One 
 day I was out on a collecting tour, and had ridden
 
 16 HEART TALKS. 
 
 from house to house, and plantation to plantation, 
 with my bills and accounts, and was that wretched I 
 could scarcely speak to the people I was calling upon. 
 Happening to pass in the neighborhood of my home 
 in the afternoon, my wife, seeing my fatigue and mel- 
 ancholy, insisted on my stopping while she had me 
 a lunch prepared. I sat down at the table mechanic- 
 ally, and did not even notice what was placed before 
 me. I fear I did not hear her when she spoke to me. 
 I was in a gloom that God himself was putting on me 
 to bring me to my senses. 
 
 I can not tell why I did so, but without any mental 
 process leading up to the speech, without having 
 anticipated saying it a minute beforehand, and just 
 as if it was hurled out of me by some internal force, 
 I struck the table with my clenched hand, and cried, 
 "I will preach the gospel!" Instantly the glory of 
 God rilled me, so that I laughed, wept, and rejoiced 
 uncontrollably for fully a half hour. 
 
 Will the reader be out of patience with me, when 
 I state that, in spite of all this evident will of God 
 in my case, I allowed Satan in the next hour to 
 direct my mind to the fact that I was no speaker, 
 never had been one, and that the twenty-sixth year of 
 one's life was a very late hour to get ready for such an 
 important work. The consequence was, another spell 
 of gloom followed. For in less than a minute after I
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. \? 
 
 allowed the doubt to enter, God's Spirit withdrew, 
 and left me in the old-time horrible gloom. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to state that the next battle 
 I fought proved a victory, and one that was glorious, 
 complete, and permanent. 
 
 Several days after the occurrence just related, I 
 was sitting one night in company with my wife in our 
 room. She was sewing by lamplight on one side of 
 the center-table, while I was on the other side unable 
 to read, talk, and scarcely think, because of the bur- 
 den on the heart and conflict in the mind. Forgetful 
 of her presence and everything else in my misery, 
 suddenly as had happened twice before, without any 
 studied purpose of saying such words, here they came 
 again, "God helping me, I will preach the gospel," 
 when such a flash of light, such a tender, melting, 
 thrilling joy entered my soul, that I leaped to my 
 feet, and stood all trembling and transfigured before 
 my wife. To this day I recall her words: "Beverly, 
 how can you doubt God's will in this matter any 
 longer after what he has just done for you?" 
 
 Thank God! I never did any more. From that 
 hour to this, there has never been a question in my 
 mind but that God, in his infinite condescension, 
 called me to preach the gospel of his blessed Son, the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 A few weeks after this, I was recommended by the
 
 1 8 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Church Conference of Yazoo City, Rev. R. D. Nors- 
 worthy pastor, to the Quarterly Conference for li- 
 cense to preach. The last named body licensed and 
 recommended me to the Mississippi Annual Confer- 
 ence. A single vote was cast against me ; it was that 
 of the old man who had wept over me when I joined 
 the Church. He doubtless could not see how so 
 much could be done for a young man in so brief a 
 period: converted July I2th, and here in October li- 
 censed to preach and recommended to the Annual 
 Conference. It all looked like undue haste and gen- 
 eral prematureness to him. He did not know that 
 sometimes people can live a year in one day, and that 
 God can marvellously carry on His work in a surren- 
 dered soul and life. 
 
 I was outside of the church while they were bal- 
 loting on my name, having been requested to with- 
 draw. I can see the old brick building now, the place 
 where I had gone to Sunday-school as a child, and 
 attended Church with my mother, brother, and sis- 
 ters. My mind was not on what the Quarterly Con- 
 ference was doing inside. I was in the shadow of an 
 old tree which grew near the pavement, and was look- 
 ing up at the distant stars, filled with thoughts of 
 Christ, and feeling what an honor and responsibility 
 was laid on me in preaching the gospel. 
 
 Some one came to the church door and called me.
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 19 
 
 I went in, and was told by the presiding elder, the 
 Rev. H. H. Montgomery, that I had been licensed to 
 preach, and recommended for the traveling connec- 
 tion in the Mississippi Annual Conference, the next 
 session of which was to be held in December, 1874, 
 in the town of Hazelhurst. 
 
 That night, when assigned to a room in the hos- 
 pitable home of the Methodist pastor, I could not 
 sleep; but lay thinking and praying on the bed. It 
 seemed so strange to be a preacher. Then I felt so 
 keenly my littleness and helplessness that I was quite 
 cast down. Suddenly I had such a view of Christ 
 presenting me to his Father, protecting and covering 
 me by his love, grace, and power, that I was filled with 
 one of the sweetest blessings I had ever experienced. 
 
 Having a long ride before me the next day, I 
 arose before daylight without disturbing the family, 
 saddled my horse, and left Yazoo City asleep behind 
 me, while the firmament was twinkling above my 
 head, and the morning star hung, a great orb of 
 beauty, in the east, the beautiful forerunner of the 
 unrisen sun. 
 
 I was five miles from town when the day began 
 to break. The cotton and corn fields had little spots 
 and banks of silver haze upon them. A sweetness and 
 freshness was in the air of the early dawn that was 
 like an elixir to brain and heart. The hills were
 
 20 
 
 HEART TALKS. 
 
 standing up in the indistinct light, solemn and gray, 
 like great altars. A slight mist on their heads looked 
 like rising incense. Nature seemed to be sacrificing 
 to God. I was drinking it all into my already over- 
 flowing soul, when fully a quarter of a mile away, on 
 one of the hills, I heard a negro man singing. His 
 voice was rich, deep, and solemn. The hymn was a 
 plaintive old melody. The words and music God 
 brought to me through the misty, tremulous, beauti- 
 ful morning air were : 
 
 Solemnly. 
 
 $= 
 
 F 
 
 "A-wake, my soul, stretch ev - ery nerve, And 
 
 
 
 y i 
 
 i .HI 
 
 d. 
 
 h^ * * \ 
 
 - 
 
 ^=^ 
 
 |3S ** 
 
 -J E 
 
 
 
 
 ^ T* * &f 
 
 press with vig - or on ; A heav'n - ly race de - 
 
 /^N 
 
 cv r * 9 * 
 
 -- - 
 
 -& 
 
 r ^ 
 
 
 ^t> r r 
 
 
 -- F 
 
 
 t ^~ 
 
 
 JLk 'i 
 
 1 tH 
 
 3 j- 
 
 1 ! 
 
 
 ^-J 
 
 i ^ 3J 
 
 
 -^ J 1 PT- 
 
 
 ^n" St 
 mands thy zeal, And an im - mor - tal crown." 
 
 cvi r . 
 
 m 
 
 ~p Ez: 
 
 3 f~ 
 
 r^ n 
 
 J b P 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 -H F 2 * 
 
 f 1 H 
 
 
 ^~~
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 21 
 
 How the sacred song echoed and re-echoed over 
 the fields, in the valley, and was thrown back from 
 the opposite hillsides ! I was almost breathless, while 
 the words "heavenly race" and "immortal crown" 
 seemed to linger the longest. 
 
 The singer was hidden from me in the trees on 
 the hill. He knew not that his song was reaching, 
 rilling, and blessing me, and this made it all the more 
 powerful. I had checked the canter of my horse, and 
 was walking him along the road, that I might catch 
 every strain and hear every word. The singer was 
 deliberate. He may have been employed in some 
 kind of work, and hence took his time ; so that a full 
 minute elapsed, giving the strains of the first verse 
 full time to die away in the distance before he resumed 
 again. This time it was : 
 
 "A cloud of witnesses around, 
 
 Hold thee in full survey; 
 Forget the steps already trod, 
 And onward urge thy way." 
 
 This time I felt the wonderful strengthening and 
 girding power of the words, and said most fervently, 
 "Lord, it shall be so." 
 
 Again, after a pause, came another verse, thrown 
 outward by the mellow, solemn voice of the singer: 
 
 " 'T is God's all animating voice 
 
 That calls thee from on high; 
 T is His own hand presents the prize 
 To thine aspiring eye."
 
 22 HEART TALKS. 
 
 O, how the strain and words sank into the soul! 
 The contrast between earth and heaven was so pro- 
 foundly felt. The littleness of the one, and the great- 
 ness and blessedness of the other, seemed to be two 
 facts unquestioned by the glowing heart. 
 
 As the Negro sang that morning, would that all 
 could have heard him in one of God's natural tem- 
 ples! And yet, as far as I could see, there was but 
 one listener and worshiper beside himself. What a 
 pity not to have heard such a sacred song, with the 
 sides of the valley for sounding-boards, the opaline 
 sky for a ceiling, the floating mist on the hilltops like 
 incense rising from majestic altars, while the silent 
 woods and fragrant canebrakes seemed actually to be 
 drinking the scene and sound in, like the solitary lis- 
 tener ! 
 
 The singer reached the fourth stanza. How tri- 
 umphantly it rang out ! Not a note or word was lost : 
 
 " That crown, with peerless glories bright, 
 
 Which shall new luster boast, 
 When victors' wreaths and monarch's gems 
 Shall blend in common dust." 
 
 The world looked very little, and its honors and 
 rewards very contemptible, under the words of the 
 last verse. Heaven seemed the only thing worth liv- 
 ing for. The heart was all melted, and the tears 
 dropped fast.
 
 CALL TO THE MINISTRY. 23 
 
 I had reined in my horse to hear the last strain 
 and word of the hymn which God had sent to me. I 
 also wanted to impress the scene upon my mind, and 
 carry it away with me, a precious mental treasure 
 forever. And I did so. 
 
 After a little, when the silence reigned unbroken 
 over the fields, and the singer had gone, I touched 
 my horse and galloped swiftly away. I had many 
 miles to go, and much to do that day. I had to tell 
 my employer that God had work for me ; I wanted to 
 see my mother and get her blessing; and then I 
 wanted to reach my own home by sundown, where 
 my wife was waiting to hear what had happened, and 
 what I was going to do. 
 
 All this was attended to that day with a glad and 
 overflowing heart. The die had been cast. I had 
 crossed my Rubicon. I had turned my back on the 
 old-time life forever, and was now the Lord's. I was 
 His servant and ambassador from this time forth to 
 preach his gospel. 
 
 But I took that morning picture with me. To 
 this hour I see the dawning day, the outspread misty 
 fields, the motionless woods, the silent, solemn hills, 
 while floating over it all I hear the plaintive song of 
 the unseen Negro singer, whom God sent forth to 
 nerve, encourage, and bless the soul of a young, 
 newly-made preacher.
 
 24 HEART TALKS. 
 
 May he, with all others in the Christian ministry, 
 be able to join in the last verse of the already quoted 
 song: 
 
 " Blest Savior, introduced by thee, 
 
 Have I my race begun; 
 Till, crowned with vict'ry, at thy feet 
 I '11 lay my honors down."
 
 HI. 
 
 MY SANCTIFICATION. 
 
 I ALWAYS believed in the doctrine in a general 
 way, but not in the way particular. That is, I 
 recognized it as being true in our standards and 
 religious biographies; but was not so quick to see 
 it in the life and experience of persons claiming the 
 blessing. I was too loyal a Methodist to deny what 
 my Church taught me to believe; but there must 
 have been beams and motes that kept me from the 
 enjoyment of a perfect vision of my brother. Perhaps 
 I was prejudiced; or I had confounded ignorance 
 and mental infirmity with sin; or, truer still, I was 
 looking on a "hidden life," as the Bible calls it, and, 
 of course, could not but blunder in my judgments and 
 conclusions, even as I had formerly erred as a sinner 
 in my estimation of the converted man. 
 
 I remember once having been thrown in the com- 
 pany of three ministers who were sanctified men, and 
 their frequent "praise the Lords" was an offense to 
 me. I saw nothing to justify such demonstrativeness. 
 The fact entirely escaped me that a heart could be in 
 such a condition that praise and rejoicing would be 
 
 as natural as breathing; that the cause of joy rested 
 
 25
 
 26 HEART TALKS. 
 
 not in anything external, but in some fixed inward 
 state or possession; that, therefore, perpetual praise 
 could not only be possible, but natural, and in fact 
 irrepressible. But at that time all this was hidden 
 from me, except in a theoretic way, or as mistily be- 
 held in distant lives of saints who walked with God 
 on earth fifty or a hundred years ago. 
 
 In my early ministry I was never thrown with a 
 sanctified preacher, nor had I ever heard a sermon 
 on entire sanctification. I beheld the promised life 
 from a Pisgah distance, and came back from the view 
 with a fear and feeling that I should never come into 
 that goodly land. So, when I was being ordained 
 at Conference, it was with considerable choking of 
 voice, and with not a few inward misgivings and 
 qualms of conscience, that I replied to the bishop's 
 questions, that I was "going on to perfection," that 
 I "expected to be made perfect in love in this life," 
 and that I "was groaning after it." Perhaps the 
 bishop himself was disturbed at the questions he 
 asked. Perhaps he thought it was strange for a min- 
 ister of God and father in Israel, whose life was al- 
 most concluded, to be asking a young preacher if he 
 expected to obtain what he himself had never suc- 
 ceeded in getting. Stranger still, if he asked the 
 young prophet if he expected to attain what he really 
 felt was unattainable !
 
 MY SANCTIFICATION. VJ 
 
 One thing I rejoice in being able to say: That 
 although about that time, while surprised and grieved 
 at the conduct of a man claiming the blessing of 
 sanctification, and although doubts disturbed me then 
 and even afterward, yet I thank God that I have never, 
 in my heart or openly, denied an experience or warred 
 against a doctrine that is the cardinal doctrine of the 
 Methodist Church, and concerning which I solemnly 
 declared to the bishop that I was groaning to obtain. 
 God in his mercy has kept me from this inconsis- 
 tency this peculiar denial of my Church and my 
 Lord. Let me further add, that in spite of my indis- 
 tinct views of sanctification all along, yet ever and 
 anon during my life I have encountered religious 
 people in whose faces I traced spiritual marks and 
 lines a divine handwriting not seen on every Chris- 
 tain countenance. There was an indefinable some- 
 thing about them, a gravity and yet sweetness of 
 manner, a containedness and quietness of spirit, a 
 restfulness and unearthliness, a far-awayness about 
 them, that made me feel and know that they had a life 
 and experience that I had not; that they knew God 
 as I did not, and that a secret of the Lord had been 
 given to them which had not been committed to me. 
 These faces and lives, in the absence of sanctified 
 preachers and sermons on the subject, kept my faith 
 in the doctrine, in a great degree I suppose, from
 
 8 HEART TALKS. 
 
 utterly perishing. Then there were convictions of 
 my own heart all along in regard to what a minister's 
 life should be. Only a month before my sanctifica- 
 tion, there was impressed upon me suddenly one day 
 such a sense of the holiness and awfulness of the office 
 and work, that my soul fairly sickened under the con- 
 sciousness of its own shortcomings and failures, and 
 was made to cry out to God. Moreover, visions of 
 an unbroken soul-rest, and a constant abiding spirit- 
 ual power, again and again came up before the mind 
 as a condition possible and imperative. A remarkable 
 thing about it is, that these impressions came to one 
 who had enjoyed the peace of God daily for fifteen 
 years. 
 
 At the Seashore Camp-ground, in 1888, after hav- 
 ing preached at eleven o'clock, the writer came for- 
 ward to the altar as a penitent convicted afresh under 
 his own sermon, that he was not what he should be, 
 nor what God wanted him to be and was able to make 
 him. Many will remember the day and hour, and the 
 outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the time. I see now 
 that my soul was reaching out, even then, not for the 
 hundredth or thousandth blessing (for these I had 
 before obtained), but what is properly called the 
 Second Blessing. I was even then convicted by the 
 Holy Ghost in regard to the presence of inbred sin 
 in a justified heart.
 
 SANCTIFICATION. 29 
 
 Nearly a year afterward I instituted a series of 
 revival services in Carondelet Street Church, with the 
 Rev. W. W. Hopper as my helper. At all the morn- 
 ing meetings the preacher presented the subject of 
 entire sanctification. It was clearly and powerfully 
 held up as being obtained instantaneously through 
 consecration and faith. Before I received the bless- 
 ing myself, I could not but be struck with the pres- 
 ence and power of the Holy Ghost. While urging 
 the doctrine one morning, the preacher received such 
 a baptism of glory that for minutes he was helpless; 
 and while we were on our knees supplicating for this 
 instantaneous sanctification, the Holy Spirit fell here 
 and there upon individuals in the assembly, and shouts 
 of joy and cries of rapture went up from the kneeling 
 congregation in a way never to be forgotten. The 
 presence of God was felt so overwhelmingly and so 
 remarkably that I could not but reason after this 
 manner: Here is being presented the doctrine of in- 
 stantaneous sanctification by faith. If it were a false 
 doctrine, would God thus manifest himself? Would 
 the Holy Ghost descend with approving power upon 
 a lie? Does he not invariably withdraw his presence 
 from the preacher and people when false doctrine is 
 presented? But here He is manifesting Himself in a 
 most remarkable manner. The meeting or hour that 
 is devoted to this one subject is the most wonderful
 
 30 HEART TALKS. 
 
 meeting and hour of all. The service fairly drips with 
 unction. Shining faces abound. Christ is seen in 
 every countenance. If entire sanctification obtained 
 instantaneously is a false doctrine, is not the Holy 
 Ghost actually misleading the people by granting His 
 presence and favor, and showering His smiles at the 
 time when this error or false doctrine is up for dis- 
 cussion and exposition? But would the Spirit thus 
 deceive? Irresistibly and with growing certainty I 
 was led to see that the truth was being presented 
 from the pulpit, and that the Holy Ghost, who always 
 honors the truth when preached, was falling upon ser- 
 mon, preacher, and people, because it was the truth. 
 And by the marvelous and frequent display of His 
 presence and power at each and every sanctification 
 meeting He was plainly setting to it the seal of His ap- 
 proval and indorsement, and declaring unmistakably 
 that the doctrine which engrossed us was of heaven, 
 and was true. 
 
 One morning a visitor a man whom I admire 
 and love made a speech against entire sanctification, 
 taking the ground that there was nothing but a per- 
 fect consecration and growth in grace to look for; 
 that there was no second work or blessing to be ex- 
 perienced by the child of God. This was about the 
 spirit and burden of his remarks. At once a chill fell 
 upon the service, that was noticed then and com-
 
 SANCTIFICATION. . 31 
 
 mented on afterward. The visitor was instantly re- 
 plied to by one who had just received the blessing, 
 and as immediately the presence of God was felt and 
 manifested. And to the proposition made that all 
 who believed in an instantaneous and entire sanctifi- 
 cation would please arise at once the whole audi- 
 ence, with the exception of five or six individuals, 
 arose simultaneously. It was during this week that 
 the writer commenced seeking the blessing of sancti- 
 fication. According to direction, he laid everything 
 on the altar body, soul, reputation, salary, indeed 
 everything. Feeling at the time justified, having 
 peace with God, he could not be said to have laid his 
 sins on the altar ; for, being forgiven at that moment, 
 no sin was in sight. But he did this, however : he laid 
 inbred sin upon the altar ; a something that had troub- 
 led him all the days of his converted life a some- 
 thing that was felt to be a disturbing element in his 
 Christian experience and life. Who will name this 
 something? It is called variously by the appellations 
 of original sin, depravity, remains of sin, roots of 
 bitterness and unbelief, and by Paul it is termed "the 
 old man;" for, in writing to Christians, he exhorts 
 them to put off "the old man," which was corrupt. 
 Very probably there will be a disagreement about the 
 name while there is perfect recognition of the exist- 
 ence of the thing itself. For lack of a title that will
 
 32 HEART TALKS. 
 
 please all, I call the dark, disturbing, warring prin- 
 ciple "that something." It gives every converted 
 man certain measures of inward disturbance and 
 trouble. Mind you, I do not say that it compels him 
 to sin, for this "something" can be kept in subjection 
 by the regenerated man. But it always brings dis- 
 turbance, and often leads to sin. It is a something 
 that leads to hasty speeches, quick tempers, feelings 
 of bitterness, doubts, suspicions, harsh judgments, 
 love of praise, and fear of men. At times there is a 
 momentary response to certain temptations that 
 brings, not merely a sense of discomfort, but a tinge 
 and twinge of condemnation. All these may be, and 
 are, in turn, conquered by the regenerated man ; but 
 there is battle and wounds ; and often after the battle 
 a certain uncomfortable feeling within that it was not 
 a perfect victory. It is a something that at times 
 makes devotion a weariness, the Bible to be hastily 
 read instead of devoured, and prayer a formal ap- 
 proach instead of a burning interview with God that 
 closes with reluctance. It makes Church-going at 
 times not to be a delight, is felt to be a foe to secret 
 and spontaneous giving, causes religious experience 
 to be spasmodic, and presents within the soul a 
 constant, abiding, and unbroken rest. Rest there is; 
 but it is not continuous, unchanging, and permanent. 
 It is a something that makes true and noble men of
 
 MY SANCTIFICATION. 33 
 
 God, when appearing in the columns of a Christian 
 newspaper in controversy, to make a strange mistake, 
 and use gall instead of ink, and write with a sword 
 instead of a pen. It is a something that makes 
 religious assemblies sing with great emphasis and 
 feeling : 
 
 "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it." 
 
 It is an echo that is felt to be left in the heart, in 
 which linger sounds that ought to die away forever. 
 It is a thread or cord-like connection between the 
 soul and the world, although the two have drifted far 
 apart. It is a middle ground, a strange medium, upon 
 which Satan can and does operate, to the inward dis- 
 tress of the child of God, whose heart at the same time 
 is loyal to his Savior, and who feels that if he died 
 even then, he would be saved. 
 
 Now that something I wanted out of me. What 
 I desired was not the power of self-restraint (that I 
 had already), but a spirit naturally and unconsciously 
 meek. Not so much a power to keep from all sin, 
 but a deadness to sin. I wanted to be able to turn 
 upon sin and the world the eye and ear and heart of 
 a dead man. I wanted perfect love to God and man, 
 and a perfect rest in my soul all the time. This dark 
 "something" that prevented this life, I laid on the 
 altar, and asked God to consume it as by fire. I never 
 
 asked God once at this time for pardon. That I had 
 3
 
 34 HEART TALKS. 
 
 in my soul already. But it was cleansing, sin eradi- 
 cation, I craved. My prayer was for sanctification. 
 
 After the battle of consecration came the battle of 
 faith. Both precede the perfect victory of sancti- 
 fication. Vain is consecration without faith to secure 
 the blessing. Hence men can be consecrated, and 
 not know the blessing of sanctification. I must be- 
 lieve there is such a work in order to realize the grace. 
 Here were the words of the Lord that proved a foun- 
 dation for my faith: "Every devoted thing is most 
 holy unto the Lord." "The blood of Jesus Christ, 
 his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Still again : "The 
 altar sanctifieth the gift." In this last quotation is 
 a statement of a great fact. The altar is greater than 
 the gift; and whatsoever is laid upon the altar be- 
 comes sanctified or holy. It is the altar that does the 
 work. The question arises: Who and what is the 
 altar? In Hebrews xiii, 10-12, we are told. Dr. 
 Clarke, in commenting upon the passage, says the 
 altar here mentioned is Jesus Christ. All who have 
 studied attentively the life of our Lord can not but 
 be impressed with the fact that in his wondrous per- 
 son is seen embraced the priest, the lamb, and the 
 altar. He did the whole thing; there was no one to 
 help. As the victim He died, as the priest He offered 
 Himself, and His divine nature was the altar upon 
 which the sacrifice was made. The Savior, then, is
 
 MY SANCTIFICATION. 35 
 
 the Christian's altar. Upon Him I lay myself. The 
 altar sanctifies the gift. The blood cleanses from all 
 sin, personal and inbred. Can I believe that? Will 
 I believe it? My unbelief is certain to shut me out 
 of the blessing; my belief as certainly shuts me in. 
 The instant we add a perfect faith to a perfect conse- 
 cration, the work is done and the blessing descends. 
 As Paul says, "We which have believed do enter into 
 rest." 
 
 All this happened to the writer. For nearly three 
 days he lived in a constant state of faith and prayer. 
 He believed God; he believed the work was done 
 before the witness was given. 
 
 On the morning of the third day may God help 
 me to tell it as it occurred! the witness was given. 
 In was about nine o'clock in the morning. That 
 morning had been spent from daylight in meditation 
 and prayer. I was alone in my room in the spirit of 
 prayer, in profound peace and love, and in the full 
 expectancy of faith, when suddenly I felt that the 
 blessing was coming. By some delicate instinct or 
 intuition of soul I recognized the approach and de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost. My faith arose to meet the 
 blessing. In another minute I was literally prostrated 
 by the power of God. I called out again and again : 
 "O my God ! my God ! and glory to God !" while bil- 
 lows of fire and glory rolled in upon my soul with
 
 36 HEART TALKS. 
 
 steady, increasing force. The experience was one of 
 fire. I recognized it all the while as the baptism of 
 fire. I felt that I was being consumed. For several 
 minutes I thought I would certainly die. I knew it 
 was sanctification. I knew it as though the name was 
 written across the face of the blessing and upon every 
 wave of glory that rolled in upon my soul. 
 
 Can not God witness to purity of heart as he does 
 to pardon of sin? Are not his blessings self-inter- 
 preting? He that impresses a man to preach, that 
 moves him unerringly to the selection of texts and 
 subjects, that testifies to a man that he is converted, 
 can he not let a man know when he is sanctified? In 
 answer, read Hebrews x, 14: "For by one offering He 
 hath forever perfected them that are sanctified, 
 whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us." 
 
 I knew I was sanctified, just as I knew fifteen years 
 before that I was converted. I knew it, not only 
 because of the work itself in my soul, but through 
 the Worker. He, the Holy Ghost, bore witness 
 clearly, unmistakably, and powerfully to his own 
 work; and although years have passed away since 
 that blessed morning, yet the witness of the Holy 
 Spirit to the work is as clear to-day as it was then.
 
 IV. 
 
 CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 
 
 OOME good people have expressed great skepti- 
 ^ cism in regard to a special call from God to evan- 
 gelize. They can understand a regular call to the 
 ministry, but fail to see and believe in an impression 
 from the Holy Ghost for that particular work. 
 
 There are several facts which should cause them 
 to give perfect credence to the statements of preach- 
 ers who have been thus impressed, anointed, and 
 separated for the calling and peculiar labor. 
 
 One fact is the existence of such a spiritual office 
 in the kingdom of Christ. Among the Savior's gifts 
 to the Church, in addition to prophets, apostles, pas- 
 tors, and teachers, Paul mentions the evangelist. The 
 Scripture does not leave us in doubt as to who and 
 what he is; and so, after telling us in Ephesians how 
 he is to "perfect the saints" and "edify the body of 
 Christ," etc., we are shown in another book a vivid, 
 life-size picture of one at work. The portrait is that 
 of Philip, sent here and there, caught away to this 
 place, having a revival in another place, and always 
 filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. The Bible 
 says about him, that he was an evangelist; the 
 
 37
 
 38 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Scriptural idea of such an office being that of a man 
 constantly on the move for God, and preaching as he 
 goes. Certainly the conclusion is clear, that if there 
 be such a spiritual office and work, there will be a 
 call to that effect from the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Our bishops ought not to be surprised at such a 
 call when, being preachers already, they state that 
 they were moved by the Holy Spirit to take upon 
 them the office and work of a bishop in the Church 
 of God; a work and office decidedly different in 
 many respects from that of a pastor. From compara- 
 tive obscurity he springs into prominence; from a 
 small salary he is advanced to a large one; from a 
 small local influence to lifetime power; from being 
 ruled to ruling others. This is a great change; yet 
 they say, before a large crowd of listening preachers 
 and laymen, that they have been moved by the Holy 
 Ghost to take upon them this office. 
 
 It certainly appears to the writer that when an 
 evangelist arises, and says that, as a preacher, the call 
 of God has come to him to enter upon a work which 
 means increased labor, uncertain income, and often- 
 times lifetime reproach, our bishops ought to be the 
 last to doubt him. If the two calls of bishop and 
 evangelist are brought under the searching light of 
 the Gospel, which seems to be the most spiritual and
 
 CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 39 
 
 heavenly, and which life looks most like that of the 
 Man of Nazareth and Galilee? 
 
 Again, our missionaries ought not to be surprised. 
 They were preachers, and yet upon them, as such, came 
 the call to cross the sea and labor with the heathen. 
 Not every minister of the gospel has this call. In 
 addition they feel impressed to go to certain coun- 
 tries. One man is convinced he must labor in Africa, 
 another in Japan, a third in China, a fourth in Alaska, 
 and so on through the list. He who calls them to be 
 missionaries knows their mental and physical fitness 
 for certain parts of the world, and whispers India, 
 Egypt, or some island of the sea. 
 
 Is it not strange that the Church, with these facts 
 about the bishops and missionaries before them, 
 should wonder at the special call of God to some of 
 his servants to evangelize. 
 
 There are other facts which, if mentioned, would 
 be seen to make an unanswerable argument for the 
 necessity of the work of a true evangelist in the 
 Church. But the scope and design of this chapter 
 will not allow me to bring them forward. Some of 
 them the reader will not have much difficulty in 
 guessing. They all confirm the fact of a distinct 
 divine call to the evangelistic work. It may be a call 
 for life, or for a shorter period. Nevertheless it
 
 40 HEART TALKS. 
 
 comes, has come, and will continue to come to certain 
 ones of the servants of God. It came to me. It may 
 be removed, but as yet is upon me. Moreover, 
 I did not want to be an evangelist. When it was 
 first suggested to me by a friend in the beginning 
 of the year 1891, the thought filled me with great 
 pain. I was perfectly satisfied with my work as a 
 pastor. Have always been happy in it, and successful 
 as well. Wedded as I was to the life, to the duties as 
 well as pleasures of the pastorate, the reader can see 
 it would take a good deal to get me out of it. 
 
 The first voice in this direction was an impression 
 which came vividly to me one day, that I would yet 
 be one. This was in the early part of 1893. 
 
 A second time, weeks afterward, it came upon me 
 while looking on my congregation at First Church, 
 which body of people I most deeply loved. The im- 
 pression was as clear to the mind as print to the eye, 
 "You must leave them and go out for Me." 
 
 A third time it came, while I was on my face in 
 the altar of my church, surrounded by a line of peni- 
 tents and seekers after pardon and holiness. The 
 whisper came to me, "You must be an evangelist." 
 As the word evangelist was impressed upon my mind 
 this time, a most heavenly sweetness filled my soul, 
 and a peace so deep and exquisite came upon me, that 
 I felt my heart would fairly melt within me. I wept
 
 CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 4! 
 
 silently on my face before the Lord, and whispered 
 back, "I will go, Lord." 
 
 At this time God was pleased to send me a double 
 confirmation of the call. One was in the general con- 
 viction of the people that I ought to be and would 
 be an evangelist. This corresponds with what takes 
 place when a man is called to preach the gospel; 
 others are impressed at the same time that he should 
 do so. 
 
 The other confirmation consisted in numerous 
 "calls" from every direction for evangelistic help in 
 meetings. The doors already began to open. 
 
 One day, under an unusually deep impression that 
 I must enter upon such a life, I spoke out suddenly 
 to a member of my family, and said, "I believe God is 
 going to swing me from Massachusetts to California." 
 
 How well this has been fulfilled is well-known to 
 thousands of people in the land. 
 
 After this, on a certain occasion when I had per- 
 mitted myself to look at the toil, hardship, and un- 
 certain support of the calling, the long absences from 
 home it would entail, and other disagreeable features 
 that can readily be conjectured, God visited me in 
 another way. The mind of the Spirit was made 
 known to me in a very different and painful manner. 
 An impression vivid as lightning was shot through 
 me, that was as quickly comprehended as though it
 
 42 HEART TALKS. 
 
 had been language. It was to this effect : "If you do 
 not go, I will lock up the Bible to you." 
 
 I can never forget the shocked and distressed feel- 
 ing of that moment. I was perfectly conscious that 
 God was speaking to me through his Spirit, and that 
 if I did not yield and go, the peculiar judgment 
 mentioned above would be visited upon me, and I, 
 who had been unfolding the Bible and preaching four 
 times a week with most delightful ease to my people, 
 would find the sacred volume in my hands locked 
 and sealed. 
 
 Still later than this, while in the church one day 
 during service, I had an open-eyed, waking vis- 
 ion of a broad landscape filled with church spires, and 
 from whose belfries came the sound of ringing bells. 
 I saw men standing before these buildings, looking 
 toward and beckoning to me. The very bells seemed 
 to call me. My soul was both melted and aroused 
 at the sight, and I do not remember to have doubted 
 or resisted the evangelistic call again. 
 
 I made my preparations to leave the pastorate, 
 writing to the bishop of our Conference concerning 
 my intention, and telling him that while I greatly re- 
 gretted to locate, yet as I was not sick or disabled, I 
 did not see how I could conscientiously ask for a 
 supernumerary relation, and in order to do the right 
 and honest thing I would request a location.
 
 CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 43 
 
 This step is a grave one to a Methodist preacher. 
 It meant with me the severing of relations that had 
 been tender and beautiful for eighteen years. It 
 meant the cutting off from my family, in case of 
 my breaking down or death, a certain annual income 
 paid by the Conference to certain claimants. Eigh- 
 teen laborious years spent in the itinerancy had given 
 me a good right and title to such a fund; but I cut 
 myself and family off from this financial help, as by 
 a single stroke, through my location. 
 
 The day I stood up at Conference to ask that I 
 might be located, my heart melted, my voice nearly 
 broke down, and eyes overflowed with the genuine 
 sorrow which I felt. I told the Conference in my 
 farewell remarks, that "I loved the Methodist Church, 
 her doctrines, experiences, bishops, preachers, and 
 people; that I always expected to entertain this love; 
 that a Methodist preacher had baptized me, another 
 had taken me into the Church, a third had married 
 me ; that Methodist preachers had baptized and buried 
 my wife and children, and, please God, they should 
 bury me." 
 
 The scene will be recalled by many as a tearful 
 time. Some one started a hymn, a number of the 
 brethren came forward and threw their arms around 
 me, and tears were flowing fast all around, when the 
 gavel of the bishop fell with a sharp rap, and I, at
 
 44 HEART TALKS. 
 
 my own request, was located in order to become an 
 evangelist. 
 
 I know that it was, and is still, a grave step. As 
 an evangelist I have no bishop or presiding elder to 
 look after my family in my absence, or in case of dis- 
 tress and want. In the event of my own personal 
 sickness or exhaustion from the work, I have no 
 salary to live on like a pastor until I get well. I have 
 no Board of Stewards to provide for me, or send me 
 away to some distant place to recuperate and recover, 
 while at the same time the family in my absence is 
 looked after and provided for as though its head were 
 present, engaged in faithful pulpit and pastoral work. 
 All this is lost in becoming an evangelist. Moreover, 
 I knew it when I located. 
 
 What a step it was! It helped me to understand 
 better than ever before the Scriptural account of Peter 
 leaping out on the waves to walk to Jesus, and of 
 Abraham going forth at the command of God into 
 strange countries, not knowing whither he went. 
 Here I was with a large family, with heavy monthly 
 expenses to meet, with no bank account, and no Offi- 
 cial Board back of me, and yet called to swing out 
 over the land to teach and defend a lost, forgotten, 
 and despised doctrine and experience, with countless 
 battles to fight, ecclesiastical opposition in high places
 
 CALL TO THE EVANGELISTIC WORK. 45 
 
 to meet, and the evil forces of two worlds against me. 
 I was to leap out on the waves, and go out at the 
 command of the Lord, not knowing whither I went. 
 
 So my new appointment was the United States 
 Circuit. The Savior was my Bishop, the Archangel 
 Gabriel my Presiding Elder; and the angels, ravens, 
 and widow women through the land were my Board 
 of Stewards. 
 
 I am still living, traveling, preaching, and rejoic- 
 ing, while God continues to answer by fire ; and wher- 
 ever I go sinners are saved, backsliders reclaimed, 
 and believers are wholly sanctified to God. 
 
 For almost six years I have been preaching a free 
 and full salvation all over our broad land ; the first to 
 the sinner, the second to the believer. I have held 
 meetings in nearly every State in the Union, beside 
 the Dominion of Canada. I have witnessed in that 
 time fully fifteen thousand souls converted, re- 
 claimed, and sanctified. My absences from home 
 range from two to seven months at a time. Tight 
 places and trying hours have been many. The body 
 has often been almost exhausted, and the heart at 
 times lonely in a human sense. But the constant 
 smile and presence of Christ has cheered, His hand 
 and voice has called me on to new fields, and as I 
 have joyfully sprung forward to do His will and pro-
 
 46 HEART TALKS. 
 
 claim a full gospel, He has, without a single exception, 
 on thousands of battle-fields stood by me, and given 
 me the victory. 
 
 What matter if devils rage, and human opposition 
 be felt. As I preach the Spirit answers to the Blood, 
 the fire falls upon the Word, sinnners are saved, 
 Christians are sanctified, Christ is uplifted and glori- 
 fied, and my own soul is thrilled, and blessed, and 
 satisfied. Hallelujah !
 
 V. 
 
 REVIVALS. 
 
 SOME people have regarded a protracted meeting 
 and a revival as synonymous. But they are far 
 from being the same. The one is a means, and the 
 other should be the end in view. The protracted 
 meeting is inaugurated in order to obtain a revival. 
 But many times the protracted services conclude as 
 they began, without a sign of a genuine, scriptural, 
 Holy Ghost revival. 
 
 There are preachers who were once famous for 
 their success in this regard, but who in later life 
 seem to have lost all their former power. There are 
 Churches which were once noted as centers of salva- 
 tion, that afterward entered upon a period of decline 
 and spiritual lifelessness, reminding one of the Bible 
 description, "Thrice dead and plucked up by the 
 roots." The change in individuals and churches in 
 this regard is painfully evident to all spiritual ob- 
 servers. 
 
 A revival on the divine side is the undoubted 
 manifestation of the presence of God, the outpouring 
 of the Holy Ghost and actual conscious arrival of 
 
 Christ in the midst of the congregation. On the 
 
 47
 
 48 HEART TALKS. 
 
 human side it is seen in the conversion of sinners, 
 reclamation of backsliders, sanctification of believers, 
 great joyfulness and activity upon the part of the 
 Church, and deep and solemn conviction in the entire 
 community. 
 
 This state of things is brought about by the faith- 
 ful preaching of the Word and the humble, prayerful 
 waiting upon God of the people. If the protracted 
 meeting lacks these features, the pulpit being with- 
 out unction, and the pew failing in humility, obedi- 
 ence, supplication, and persistent seeking after God, 
 the services end in utter failure. There is no descent 
 of the Spirit, no quickening of dead hearts, no glad- 
 ness and freedom, no rout and defeat of sin, no salva- 
 tion, no anything that is desirable and blessed in the 
 spiritual life. 
 
 A genuine revival is unmistakable. It is not only 
 seen, but felt. There was no need to post bills and 
 placards on the walls and fences, stating that the Holy 
 Ghost had fallen upon the disciples in the Upper 
 Room. Some kind of indescribable telegraphy flashed 
 the news everywhere. It is a wireless telegraphy, 
 but none the less certain. As soon as Samaria re- 
 ceives the Word of God, it seems to be known in 
 Jerusalem. When any Church receives the Holy 
 Ghost, it would be easier to hide a city on a hill with 
 its twinkling lights than this fact.
 
 REVIVALS. 49 
 
 In one of Dr. Finney's revivals, a man was com- 
 ing in from the country to the town where the work 
 of grace was going on, and when he was still a mile 
 away suddenly felt such a spiritual atmosphere that 
 he was completely melted, and came into the place all 
 hushed and subdued. God had drawn a line of holy 
 grace and power all around the town, and it came to 
 pass that when a man passed it, he was shot through 
 with a dart. 
 
 A revival brings with it such a spirit of song, 
 praise, and gladness, such responsiveness in worship, 
 such warmth and power in prayer, such a tender glow 
 through all the service, such waves of joy and glory, 
 that it can not be mistaken. There is no straggling 
 to the meeting. People come in a hurry, and early, 
 and stay late. 
 
 In one of my meetings in a Western State, the 
 congregation packed the house one hour before the 
 time of regular evening service, which was 7.30. We 
 were compelled to move the hour of worship up to 
 6.30. The crowd then filled the building at six 
 o'clock. It was amusing to see the sexton ringing 
 the first and second bell, when the audience had al- 
 ready crowded the house. The writer asked him with 
 a smile why he rang the bell when the congregation 
 had jammed the building before the first belfry sum- 
 mons ; was it to let the public know that there was no 
 4
 
 50 HEART TALKS. 
 
 more room in the house? He failed to understand 
 the little piece of harmless satire, and rang on just the 
 same for five minutes at a time, in obedience, we sup- 
 pose, to the law of habit, while the people smiled all 
 around at the needless wasted energy of an ecclesias- 
 tical machine or automaton. 
 
 The revival can come gradually, as the light creeps 
 up over the hills in the east, or suddenly, like a cloud- 
 burst. In the first instance there is seen a growing 
 seriousness on the part of the people, a quiet, general 
 melting, and almost before one knows it, the gospel 
 tide is in, and the Church beach is covered with the 
 warm, sunlit waves of salvation. In the second in- 
 stance, there has been faithful preaching for days, a 
 steady holding on to God by faith and prayer, when 
 on the fourth, fifth, eighth, tenth, or thirteenth day, 
 as the place was more or less difficult, there is a sudden 
 falling of the Spirit upon the people, followed in- 
 stantly by a melting down, breaking up, and rejoicing 
 time that would defy all description. 
 
 These sudden downfalls of the Holy Ghost would 
 read in print as follows: "The revival broke out at 
 eleven or twelve o'clock on such a morning, or eight 
 or nine o'clock on a certain evening ;" the point being 
 that all knew when the "Power came down," the Holy 
 Ghost fell on the audience, or the revival really began. 
 
 These instantaneous downpourings of the Holy
 
 REVIVALS. 51 
 
 Spirit have established a remarkable similarity in my 
 mind to certain natural phenomena. As I have wit- 
 nessed oftentimes in my meetings the hours of prayer- 
 ful, anxious expectancy of the divine arrival, followed 
 in a single second with the sudden overpowering de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost, and that succeeded by a 
 steady outpouring on human hearts and lives, of 
 streams and floods of grace and glory, I have been 
 invariably made to think of a sudden flash of light- 
 ning, the sharp, cracklike report of a peal of thunder, 
 and then the steady downpour of a tremendous rain. 
 
 I remember it is the same God who does both, 
 and so the likeness should not be so astonishing after 
 all. These are the revivals the writer prefers to see. 
 It is a kind of Noah's Deluge that sweeps skeptics off 
 their feet, chokes their utterances, drives sinners and 
 backsliders to the trees and hills, while the Ark of 
 Salvation, with a full passenger list and cargo, sweeps 
 victoriously over everything, and that in full view of 
 everybody. 
 
 No one needs to be told that a revival is going on. 
 Everybody knows it! Its gladsome and yet solemn 
 presence is being felt everywhere in the community. 
 God has granted the writer the privilege of witnessing 
 many of this order, and he has an impression that he 
 is destined to see many more before his work is ended. 
 
 On a certain morning in a Southern city, we were
 
 52 HEART TALKS. 
 
 standing facing an audience that had been faithfully 
 preached to for four or five days. God had been, and 
 was working still in hearts, but there was no unusual 
 manifestation of his presence. A hitch or clog was 
 felt to be somewhere. What was it, and where was it? 
 Suddenly a young lady arose, ?nd confessed to 
 anger, estrangement, and separation from her mother, 
 both parties being members of the Church. With 
 tears dripping down her cheeks, she begged her for- 
 giveness, as she sat on the opposite side of the build- 
 ^ ing. They met midway in the church and were locked 
 in each other's arms, while handkerchiefs were busy 
 in the congregation, though scarcely a sound was to 
 be heard except the low sobs of the mother and 
 daughter referred to above. 
 
 In the midst of the quiet, subdued feeling, a gen- 
 /'tleman walked down the aisle, and, stopping before a 
 fellow-member of the Church, requested his pardon 
 for some act of the past. In an instant the two men 
 were in each other's arms. Two ladies next arose in 
 different parts of the house, and asked the pastor to 
 forgive them for having talked about him. Both burst 
 into tears as they made the request, and he, with full 
 eyes himself, went to them and gave them his hand 
 with a fervent "God bless you." Next followed two 
 humble confessions from two of the brethren, and two 
 most touching reconciliations, when suddenly, like a
 
 REVIVALS. 53 
 
 flash of lightning, the Holy Ghost fell upon the audi- 
 ence, and there followed a scene I shall never be able / 
 to forget, of men and women prostrated under the 
 power of God, some helpless on the floor, some weep- 
 ing convulsively with faces buried in their hands, some! 
 on their feet, laughing, shouting, and clapping their \ 
 hands, and every soul melted, fired, or filled with the \ 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 We recall a second meeting, where we had reached 
 the fifth day without any notable break. There had 
 been a few souls brought into the light; but the 
 "power" had not come down. One morning, while 
 preaching, the fire fell, the wine of Pentecost arrived, 
 and the congregation looked like drunken people. A 
 man leaped to his feet, crying out in tones that thrilled 
 every heart, "Jesus has come ! Jesus has come !" The 
 aisles were filled with laughing, weeping, shouting 
 Christians, a number of them walking or running up 
 and down, clapping their hands and praising God. 
 Sinners were struck down on all sides as if by invisible 
 bolts. Under a single word or touch of the hand of 
 the Spirit-filled Christians, the men slipped from their 
 seats on the floor, or fell down wherever they were. 
 God's people were busy all over the house, talking to 
 and praying with the penitents and seekers ; while the 
 shouts of the saved, the cries and wails for mercy, 
 and the hallelujahs of the workers made a combina-
 
 54 HEART TALKS. 
 
 tion of sounds astonishing to that town, fearful to hell 
 and its hosts, and all beautiful and delightful to angels 
 and the redeemed of heaven. About twenty-five souls 
 were converted and sanctified at this single service. 
 A third remarkable revival broke out on the thir- 
 teenth day of a meeting I was holding in a city in 
 California. There had been a number of souls saved 
 and sanctified ; but what I called the "break" had not 
 come. One Sunday afternoon I was preaching in 
 Peniel Hall to an audience that packed both floor and 
 galleries. The subject was the Baptism of the Holy 
 Ghost, received after the birth of the Spirit, a second 
 work of grace. I was concluding the sermon, while 
 a deep, sweet realization of the presence of God was 
 on my heart and that of others, when suddenly that 
 indescribable flash! crack! and heavenly downpour 
 took place. In other words, the Holy Ghost fell upon 
 scores, if not hundreds, at the same moment. Many 
 will remember the amazing scene. W6 do not ques- 
 tion that a couple of hundred people were all shouting 
 and praising God at the same time. We saw fully 
 fifty people in the gallery standing on their feet, wav- 
 ing their hands and crying, "Glory! Glory to God!" 
 Down on the lower floor the scene was even more 
 wonderful. Numbers rushed to the altar without bid- 
 ding, a man fell flat on his face in the main aisle, a 
 woman leaped on the platform and began exhorting,
 
 REVIVALS. 55 
 
 while in the midst of shining faces, clapping hands, 
 liberated tongues, singing, shouting, mingled with 
 wails for mercy and cries of victory salvation free 
 
 'r 
 
 and full flowed like a torrent. 
 
 "O Lord, send the power just now, 
 O Lord, send the power just now, 
 O I<ord, send the power just now, 
 And baptize every one."
 
 VL 
 
 ALTAR WORK. 
 
 A?TER the sermon should be given the call for 
 penitents and seekers to come to the altar. Not 
 to do this is like throwing a seine in the river, and 
 neglecting to pull it in. It is like firing cannon on 
 the battle-field, with no after-charge, hand-to-hand en- 
 gagement, and captures. The pulpit is the battery, 
 while the altar is the storm-center of the battle, the 
 place where the greatest struggles are made and the 
 most marvelous victories won. Here Satan and his 
 dark hosts swoop down to fight the working, pray- 
 ing bands of Christ, to darken the minds and sadden 
 the hearts of the seekers, and to resist the heavenly 
 forces, which, while invisible to mortal eyes, are not 
 the less present. Here Doubt, Despondency, and 
 Despair flap their black wings above the altar battle- 
 field, hover over the prostrate and kneeling forms, 
 and settle like vultures to feed on every soul which 
 has been struck down by the devil. Here struggle 
 angels of light with demons of darkness. Here the 
 Holy Ghost descends like a dove, bringing his light, 
 flashing his joy, imparting his life, and at the same 
 time driving back the powers of the infernal world.
 
 ALTAR WORK. $? 
 
 Here labor God's devoted followers, reasoning, ad- 
 vising, comforting, cheering, persuading, stimulating, 
 and, in a word, doing everything to help and deliver 
 souls that are endeavoring to find pardon or purity, 
 regeneration or sanctification. 
 
 It would not be possible to overestimate the value 
 of these altar services, that are spiritual battle-grounds 
 where sin is slain and the devil defeated; they are 
 plains of glory, where dead lives are quickened, souls 
 born unto God, and men and women baptized with 
 the Holy Ghost and with fire. It not only means a 
 present triumph, but a number of other victories 
 growing out of it and to follow in the lives and labors 
 of those who were restored, renewed, saved, and sanc- 
 tified at the time. When the "break," as it is called, 
 takes place at the altar, it means that the revival has 
 arrived, and has come to stay. This "break," or sud- 
 den fall or outpouring of the Spirit, does not occur 
 in the beginning of the meeting, but generally about 
 the fourth or fifth day. In some instances not before 
 the tenth or fifteenth. It comes as it did at Pentecost, 
 after days of patient, faithful, humble, importunate 
 waiting on God. The formal and fashionable bowing 
 down for a few minutes at the altar, attended by the 
 regulation number of prayers, will never be rewarded 
 with the glories of opening heavens, the descending 
 Dove, the voice of God, and flames of holy fire falling
 
 58 HEART TALKS. 
 
 upon the soul. It is the protracted upward gaze, the 
 lingering, the continuous asking, which brings down 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is reserved for those who wait and labor to see 
 the most wonderful displays of divine power. They 
 continue to humble themselves, to supplicate, wait, 
 and expect; a half-hour passes away, then an hour; 
 the weak in faith and easily discouraged retire from 
 the church or tabernacle to house or tent. Those who 
 understand the altar and its possibilities, its amazing 
 fulcrum power, its position directly under the Throne 
 of Grace, still linger. Suddenly, like the swift light- 
 ning-flash and sharp crack of thunder is followed by 
 a downpour of rain, so suddenly and amazingly the 
 Spirit falls, and showers of heavenly grace come with 
 mighty outpour upon the people. Those who have 
 retired to their beds hear the shouts, outcries, weep- 
 ing, and laughter, blended with singing and prophesy- 
 ing. Some come running back to look and marvel 
 at the scene of shining faces, clapping hands, and leap- 
 ing forms. Only those who have patiently waited for 
 the spiritual flash, report, and downpour, best under- 
 stand and appreciate such a scene of grace. 
 
 It requires a good deal to be a successful altar 
 worker. It takes courage to begin the work, and 
 deadness to human opinion to carry it on. It de- 
 mands patience, wisdom, gentleness, mental quick-
 
 ALTAR WORK:. 59 
 
 ness, abundance of resource, victorious faith, and 
 power with God to run the altar successfully. John 
 S. Inskip was an acknowledged king here. He could 
 take charge at a moment, when, under a lifeless ser- 
 mon and drooping service, all hope of victory would 
 be gone from the most sanguine, and lo ! in five min- 
 utes a great triumph would be seen, and salvation 
 free and full would flow like a mighty tide. 
 
 Not all are as gifted and as wonderfully qualified 
 for leadership as Inskip ; but all can be effective, and, 
 under God's blessing, have victory over Satan, sin, 
 and the world in every altar battle. 
 
 While the writer has seen the wisdom of certain 
 methods, the power attending some kinds of propo- 
 sitions, yet he would not rely on them. He has ob- 
 served that the indispensable preparation and quali- 
 fication for a successful altar-worker is a calm, strong 
 faith, and an overflowing experience of holiness. A 
 man full of the Holy Ghost carries with him a sphere 
 of spiritual influence which is soon felt at the altar. 
 His ringing words, shining face, buoyant spirit, per- 
 fect confidence in and reliance upon God, inspires 
 faith, causes the seeker to pray and expect and finally 
 to receive with rapturous heart and speech the bless- 
 ings of pardon and purity. 
 
 Yet even the spiritual and successful worker will 
 find, that what will do one time will not answer at
 
 60 HEART TALKS. 
 
 another. The Spirit is a free Spirit, and will not work 
 in one groove. He is the leader himself, and would 
 have us to follow him. 
 
 Then, again, the mental and spiritual condition 
 of those at the altar is not always the same. Some- 
 times consecration is to be emphasized ; at other times 
 faith. Sometimes prayer is needed; on other occa- 
 sions the seekers need to be urged to step out on the 
 promises. On some occasions singing is felt to be 
 the need ; and again the best work is done when every- 
 thing is still, and souls are left with Christ, to deal 
 with him personally and alone. In most of my meet- 
 ings I gladly use all the workers I can get, and have 
 seen God's blessing many times on their labors; but 
 in one of my services I called off the workers, and 
 told the seekers to look to Christ alone, without hu- 
 man help. They did so, and the power began at once 
 to come down, and the fire to fall, and there ensued 
 one of the most wonderful scenes of grace I ever 
 beheld. 
 
 Singing is almost invariably used in getting people 
 to the altar ; and yet one night, although a volume of 
 inspiring song filled the house, so few were coming 
 forward, that I requested perfect silence, and in the 
 stillness which followed asked all who wanted pardon 
 or holiness to come to the altar, and instantly there 
 was a rush. We never know at first which method
 
 ALTAR WORK. 6 1 
 
 the Spirit is going to bless, and so have to follow on 
 softly, looking to him for guidance. He will always 
 lead if we are true to him. 
 
 This very difference in his leadings makes us to 
 realize our dependence upon him all the time, and, 
 while using the means of grace and "methods," as 
 we call them, we feel that all are in vain without the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 As we have just said, we can never tell at first 
 what the Spirit is going to bless. Some days every 
 proper, strong, and wise effort will have been put 
 forth, and there has been no answering fire from 
 heaven, when suddenly, on the utterance of a few 
 simple words, the Holy Ghost will fall. 
 
 One day I had done everything I could. The altar 
 was full, and not a soul was "getting through," as it 
 is called. Wearied in mind and body, I arose, and 
 said: 
 
 "It is just the question whether we will believe 
 God or not. He has said certain things, and left them 
 in his book. Are they true or not? He says, 'The 
 altar sanctifieth the gift.' Will you believe it or not?" 
 
 I had hardly gotten the words out of my mouth, 
 when three or four people leaped to their feet, with 
 illuminated faces and rejoicing in the blessing. 
 
 It seemed to me that I had said the same thing 
 repeatedly and much more strikingly before; but
 
 62 HEART TALKS. 
 
 somehow the Power came down this time, and the 
 glory of God filled the altar and the people. 
 
 In a meeting one night in Kentucky, the altar 
 was filled with men and women ; but not a soul could 
 be converted or sanctified. The preacher exhorted 
 and instructed, the brethren prayed, the choir and 
 audience sung, but everything was locked up. Sud- 
 denly a young married woman from the country, 
 dressed plainly in calico with an unadorned straw hat 
 on her head, and her baby on her arm, began walking 
 down the side of the altar. As she walked, she with 
 her disengaged hand would touch the bowed heads, 
 or gently pat the shoulders of the seekers. As she 
 did so, she was singing in a sweet, unaffected way : 
 
 "Come, O come to me, said Jesus; 
 
 Come, and I will give you rest; 
 I will take away the burden 
 
 From thy heavy laden breast; 
 No matter who the wand'rer, 
 
 Nor how far he's gone astray, 
 Behold whosoever cometh, 
 
 I will comfort him to-day." 
 
 The scene which followed could scarcely be cred- 
 ited, if it had not been witnessed by hundreds. There 
 was something in the very touch and helplessness of 
 this simple, devout woman, which the Holy Ghost 
 wanted; and as her voice sounded and hand de- 
 scended, the Spirit fell first upon one and then an- 
 other, until, leaping to their feet, the altar was sur-
 
 ALTAR WORK. 63 
 
 rounded by a now laughing, crying, shouting com- 
 pany of saved and sanctified souls. 
 
 As an illustration of good sense and readiness to 
 change and adapt one's self to the hour, with the view 
 of extricating and delivering a meeting that was at a 
 low ebb, I recall the following scene: 
 
 The preacher had labored hard in the pulpit for 
 an hour one warm night. The sermon was a failure. 
 Not only the preacher saw it, but the congregation 
 felt it. The preacher sat down and called on a certain 
 minister to conclude. As the latter arose, a number 
 wondered what on earth he proposed doing, and 
 could do. Every eye was on him as he came slowly 
 forward, and stood quietly looking at the great audi- 
 ence before him. He was a young man, and had a 
 task before him which older heads might well have 
 dreaded. For a full minute he stood silent, with a 
 solemn, almost abstracted look, and then began 
 singing: 
 
 "Oh, 'twas love, 'twas wondrous love, 
 
 The love of God to me; 
 It brought my Savior from above, 
 To die on Calvary." 
 
 At once the vision of the dying Savior was brought 
 up to the minds of the people, and that with an im- 
 mediate melting effect. Here was no call to come 
 to the altar, no covering up with apologies for a pul- 
 pit failure ; but an appeal to consider the love of God
 
 64 HEART TALKS. 
 
 in the form of his dying Son hanging on the cross. 
 How trifling seemed all excuses for holding back from 
 duty and God with that crucified figure before us ! 
 
 The hymn, so well known, went on, and when the 
 singer reached the last stanza, the weeping was gen- 
 eral, and heads bowed all over the building. The 
 preacher then lifted his hand, and said, "All who 
 would like to come and bow down at the altar for 
 pardon and sanctification, can do so" and instantly 
 there was a rush from all sides. The people literally 
 fell down, while such soul-sobs and cries went upward 
 as must have made heaven rejoice. 
 
 But still a greater than the sudden rescuer of a 
 meeting is the man who understands the "hanging 
 on" principle and spirit. 
 
 All who have been much at protracted and camp 
 meetings, have noticed that some preachers or work- 
 ers would not give up the struggle at the altar, al- 
 though ten, eleven, and even twelve o'clock at night 
 had come and gone. You left him in the midst of 
 the silent, gloomy line of penitents and seekers. He 
 could not or would not go. He was weary, but still 
 remained with prayer, exhortation, instruction, and 
 song. You remember him leaning against a post 
 near the hour of midnight, singing, "Here I give my 
 all to Thee," and punctuating the hymn with cries, 
 "Have you done it?" "Are you sure all is on the
 
 ALTAR WORK. 65 
 
 altar?" "Will you put all on now?" "Is everything 
 there?" 
 
 Then would follow again the stanza beginning, 
 "Here I give my all to Thee." You grew wearied, 
 and withdrew. In the distance you looked back, and 
 there he was still laboring, a fatigued, overworked 
 man, but unwilling to give up until victory came. He 
 knew God was near, and Christ was faithful. He had 
 a faith worthy of the name. You had not been gone 
 ten minutes when the fire fell, the Spirit answered to 
 the blood, and salvation rolled. Over twenty-five 
 souls were converted and sanctified that night ! 
 
 Some of my meetings have been remarkable for 
 the weeping spirit of the people. Many nights I have 
 beheld the altar wet, and one time drip with the tears 
 rained upon it. Men may say what they will against 
 the mourner' s-bench, but I have found it an unspeak- 
 able power for good everywhere I go, and I expect to 
 hold fast to it as a heaven-blessed method of getting 
 people saved and sanctified. I find it becomes a wall 
 between the man and his old life ; it is a cross for the 
 old self-life to die upon, and a battle-ground where 
 conflicts between three worlds rage, and where des- 
 tinies of immortal souls are decided. O, the many, 
 many, many hours I have spent at the altar after the 
 sermon, pressing the battle! No battle can compare 
 for a moment with the importance and results of one 
 S
 
 66 HEART TALKS. 
 
 of these altar fights. It is a fight, indeed. Angels 
 from above and devils from beneath struggle for the 
 possession of the souls at the altar. Christ is present, 
 the Holy Spirit is there, and Satan is on hand. Often- 
 times there are few workers to help the preacher, while 
 a cold, stiff Church membership sit back and look 
 on with skeptical remark or expressionless faces. 
 Great is the temptation of the evangelist to give up 
 at such times ; but he who holds on will invariably see 
 victory. Sometimes it comes in a half-hour; some- 
 times it requires an hour, or two hours, before the 
 rock cracks, the dark, oppressive presence is lifted, 
 and the power and the glory of God come down. 
 Very many are the victories I have seen at the altar, 
 in the joy of which I would forget the anguish of the 
 long waiting and exhausting labor about the wonder- 
 ful altar rail. Preaching a sermon is easy work com- 
 pared to this kind of service. 
 
 I have been often amused at preachers rushing at 
 the beginning of one of these great altar conflicts to 
 the choir, and there singing most lustily. They 
 wanted to be the brass band on a neighboring hill 
 and furnish music, while from afar they watched the 
 battle. More than once I have told them that they 
 were in easy position that it is far easier to sing in 
 the choir than work in the altar. It takes but little
 
 ALTAR WORK. 67 
 
 knowledge of musical notes to bring one into a sing- 
 ing band ; but to work patiently and successfully with 
 people at the altar requires a number of things, not 
 only knowledge of God, and a close walk with God, 
 but knowledge of self and knowledge of men. Souls 
 have to be dealt with in wisdom and love. They can 
 not be forced, but must be led. I have seen people 
 driven from the altar by coarse manners and offensive 
 questions. If ever we need good sense, tact, patience, 
 sympathy, love, firmness, and a good religious experi- 
 ence, it is in the altar work. I have not even men- 
 tioned the physical exhaustion connected with the 
 work. But at last, when the victory comes ; when the 
 faithful instruction and song and prayers have been 
 blessed of God and done their work; when suddenly 
 the light flashes downward from the skies, rapture 
 is poured into penitential souls, devils are cast out, 
 spirits are made free, and songs, shouts, and praises 
 abound; when joyful weeping, happy laughter, hand- 
 shaking, embracing, and prophesying in the Bible 
 way is the order of the day, then it is seen that it pays 
 to push the fight, press the altar work, and put God 
 to the test. 
 
 A single moment of one of these great altar vic- 
 tories recompenses us, in its sweetness and glory, for 
 all the toils of hours and days that have preceded the
 
 68 HEART TALKS. 
 
 slow-coming triumph. The pain of long travail is 
 utterly forgotten in the joy that God's truth has been 
 born again into the world in the shape of saved, re- 
 claimed, and sanctified sons and daughters. Praise 
 God for the altar !
 
 VII. 
 THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 
 
 FOR fourteen years of my Christian life I failed to 
 see what was in the Bible expression, "The secret 
 of the Lord." That there was a secret the Scripture 
 taught plainly and repeatedly. The veil in the Taber- 
 nacle and Temple, as it hid a certain part of the sanc- 
 tuary from all eyes but one, and that person a type of 
 Christ, confirmed the fact. Even in the Holy of 
 Holies the two angels bent over the ark as if in in- 
 vestigation and profound study, and so kept promi- 
 nent the same truth. Later still, Paul speaks of "the 
 mystery of the gospel hid for ages, but revealed in the 
 last days to the saints." And still later, John writes 
 about a white stone given to the Overcomer in the 
 Church, and in it a new name written which no man 
 knoweth saving he that receiveth it. 
 
 For quite a while we supposed this mystery and 
 secret was God's unseen, unrecognized presence in 
 the world. After that we thought it meant Christ's 
 incarnation.. 
 
 We were driven from these and a number of other 
 false conclusions by the explicit statement of God's 
 
 Word, which at first we did not notice, that the white 
 
 69
 
 TO HEART TALKS. 
 
 stone was given not to a repenting sinner, but to an 
 overcomer in the Church. Still farther, that the mys- 
 tery of the gospel, hid for ages, was revealed in the 
 last days to the saints. If it had been pardon spoken 
 of, and the saving knowledge of God, it would have 
 been a revelation to sinners, and not saints. Then we 
 remembered that pardon had been known from the 
 days of righteous Abel to the present hour; but this 
 peculiar revelation of grace made to saints was given 
 in the "last days." 
 
 After this we noticed that Paul declared plainly 
 what the mystery or secret was : "Christ formed within 
 us the hope of glory." Not Christ for us, or with us, 
 but in us. Christ not appearing to a sinner; but 
 Christ entering and dwelling in the Christian. The 
 Divine Visitor transformed into a perpetual abider. 
 
 The Savior alluding to it said to his disciples that 
 on the condition of their keeping his commandments 
 He would come into them and take up His abode 
 with them. 
 
 The experience unquestionably came to Paul, who 
 says that it pleased God after He had called him by 
 His grace to "reveal his Son in me." We all know 
 that the occurrence near Damascus was not an inward, 
 but an outward, revelation of Christ. The reference 
 is evidently to something which transpired at a later 
 period. The blessed secret is that there is a precious,
 
 THE SECRET OF THE LORD. Jl 
 
 beautiful experience for the child of God. It is for 
 them that fear him. Sinners do not fear God. The 
 Bible says so. There is, then, a holy secret to be im- 
 parted to the Christian if he is willing to accept. 
 
 There are several facts about the matter which im- 
 press the writer. 
 
 One is, that it is the secret of the Lord. 
 
 This explains why we can not make it clear to 
 those who have it not. If a certain man has a secret, 
 no one else but himself can tell it. People may guess 
 what it is, but can not know assuredly until he is 
 pleased to declare it. 
 
 This simple fact applied to the spiritual life will 
 at once explain what has often puzzled the sanctified 
 man. Filled with the blessing, yet he is unable of, 
 and by himself, to make the experience clear to one 
 who has it not. 
 
 Letters are written, sermons preached, books 
 loaned, and conversations are held in vain. The face 
 fails to light up with appreciation, and the mind to 
 grasp the meaning of what has been said. The sanc- 
 tified man thought that all he had to do was to run 
 home and tell his family, rush around .to his church 
 and pastor and proclaim it, and all would immediately 
 see, agree, be glad, and seek and find. To his amaze- 
 ment the countenances of his hearers remained heavy 
 and cloudy, while some were grieved, and still others
 
 72 HEART TALKS. 
 
 displeased. He told them carefully how he had ob- 
 tained the blessing, and thought they would follow 
 him ; explained what it did for the soul, and supposed 
 they would understand. To his surprise and sorrow 
 they did neither one nor the other, and he was left 
 to marvel. 
 
 If he had remembered the Scripture he would not 
 have been astonished at the result. God had prepared 
 him for the disappointment in the words, "I will give 
 him a white stone, and in the white stone a new name 
 written, which no man knoweth saving he that re- 
 ceiveth it." And still again in the words, "The secret 
 of the Lord." It is the Lord's hidden truth, and it 
 takes him to reveal it. 
 
 A second fact is, that there is a certain attitude 
 or position needful to secure a secret. 
 
 When one concludes to repose a confidence in an- 
 other, he draws the proposed confidant aside and 
 whispers, while the one thus trusted bends the head 
 and gives undivided attention to the utterance which 
 a little distance makes inaudible. 
 
 So in securing this secret from the Lord, it is not 
 to be obtained in a careless way. There is the draw- 
 ing aside from the crowd, and an attitude of the soul 
 which corresponds to what is seen when we behold 
 the bent head, rapt face, and fixed attention of the 
 hearer to all that is being said.
 
 THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 73 
 
 Here again we see the failure of many Christians 
 in the obtainment of the blessed experience. They do 
 not observe the conditions which are inexorably de- 
 manded of those who would enter within the veil. It 
 is not truer than if a man fails to draw near and listen 
 intently to what is whispered to him in a noisy street, 
 he fails to get the intended information; than, if a 
 person neglects to wait in a certain manner upon God, 
 he will never know the secret of the Lord, will never 
 be wiser concerning the second work of grace in the 
 soul. There are just as fixed laws in the spiritual as 
 in the natural world. Happy is the man who obeys 
 them. As a farmer does not and can not make a 
 good crop by laziness or an accident, so men do not 
 rise and shine in the character world, are not caught 
 up into great heights of the love and knowledge of 
 God, by a stumbling chance or by waiting with listless 
 eyes and idle hands for something to happen. 
 
 If the soul would see deep into the mysteries of 
 heaven and grace, the vision will not come in a hap- 
 hazard way. The wonderful experience of Daniel cost 
 him weeks of lonely prayer and fasting on the banks 
 of the river Hiddekel. It took all that was meant in 
 the words "exiled to Patmos" to open the heavens to 
 John. The baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire 
 came at the end of ten days of ardent prayer and pa-
 
 74 HEART TALKS. 
 
 tient, faithful waiting on God in an upper room, away 
 from the busy streets and talking circles of Jerusalem. 
 
 A man who prays three or four hours daily, is felt 
 by others to be ahead in some important particulars. 
 The preacher who has been on his knees an hour in 
 humble, tearful waiting on God, begins in his sermon, 
 not with his audience, but beyond and above them 
 in tenderness of heart, clearness of spiritual vision, 
 and conscious strength of soul; moreover, the audi- 
 L ence feels it. 
 
 Look where we will, the faithful working of this 
 spiritual law is beheld. He who turns aside sees the 
 flaming bush, and talks with God. He who waits on 
 the Lord renews his strength, and mounts up on 
 eagle's wings. He who wraps the mantle about his 
 head at the entering in of the cave and listens, will 
 hear the still, small voice. And he who will lay all 
 on the altar, and patiently, believingly, and prayer- 
 fully look upward, will be rewarded by the descend- 
 ing fire of the Holy Ghost, and the blessed secret of 
 the Lord. 
 
 It is simply absurd for a man to say there is no 
 such secret, when he refuses to comply with the con- 
 ditions of obtaining the revelation, and it is lost time 
 on our part to listen to their ridicule, arguments, 
 doubts, and denials. 
 
 A third fact connected with the secret of the Lord
 
 THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 75 
 
 is the remarkable effect it has upon the person who 
 has been put in its possession and enjoyment. 
 
 The writer has seen an individual tell another a 
 secret, and instantly saw the face light up, a pleased 
 look or smile overspread the countenance, and an 
 almost indescribable expression spring in the eye, that 
 came from the consciousness of a new and valued pos- 
 session. 
 
 So we have been impressed with the people of 
 God who obtained this secret. It was their smiling 
 looks, shining faces, and speaking eyes that first 
 deeply impressed us with the distinctiveness and 
 superiority of the gift of grace they were enjoying. 
 
 The hard lines of the face had been changed into 
 curves of pleasing repose; the lips, even when not 
 speaking, seemed to declare inward rest ; the eyes had 
 a quiet, sunny look, like unto deep, clear springs ; and 
 the voice possessed a note of gladness, and at times 
 an exultant ring, which impressed the dullest spiritual 
 hearer. 
 
 It was the beaming light and joy of this secret 
 which made the Irish gaze fascinated on Fletcher's 
 face, when they did not understand a word that he 
 uttered. They said there was heaven in the man's 
 countenance. 
 
 Such a beautiful look the writer, when a young 
 preacher, saw on the face of a lady who had been
 
 76 HEART TALKS. 
 
 an invalid seventeen years. For all that weary time 
 she had sat in a large chair, and crippled and stiffened 
 with rheumatism, unable to do anything to help her- 
 self or others, quietly waited for death to relieve her 
 from her acute sufferings. Six years were added to 
 the seventeen, and still, with a patient smile on her 
 lips, and that holy restful light in her face, she waited 
 for God to say it was enough ajid call her home. Of 
 the hundreds who visited her, all marked the pure, 
 unearthly joy which filled her, and that was not only 
 seen in the eye, and heard in the voice, but felt in her 
 presence. The secret of the Lord kept her not only 
 uncomplaining, but joyful through a quarter of a cen- 
 tury of suffering. 
 
 She finally died, and they buried her, sitting in 
 her invalid chair, which she had transformed into a 
 throne, and in which she had ruled over many hearts 
 as a crowned queen among the daughters of God. 
 She died with the sweet, old-time smile on her lips, 
 and was buried with it still resting on her face. There 
 she is under the ground to-day, sitting in her throne- 
 chair, and waiting for the coming of her Lord, whose 
 voice will make her spring from the dust to meet him 
 in the air, and whose blessed secret kept her strong, 
 patient, and victorious through many years of as great 
 pain and sore trouble as almost ever fell to the lot of 
 any of God's children.
 
 VIII. 
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 
 
 'T'HE writer once confounded reputation with char- 
 * acter in the religious life. The two are very 
 different. Reputation is what men think of us, and 
 character is what we are in the sight of God. The 
 first is what we appear to be; the second is what we 
 really are. The one is a pleasant possession, but not 
 essential; the other is blessed, and we must have it 
 to stand before and live with God. We draw some 
 reflections from the Scriptural words, "of no repu- 
 tation." 
 
 One is, that it is possible to have reputation with- 
 out character. 
 
 This springs from the fact that people can not 
 read one another's hearts, and are ignorant of each 
 other's lives. The public life may be one thing, and 
 the private life another. A man may have a street 
 face and a home face, and the two not agree. As the 
 story goes, he may be a salmon in his own community, 
 and a codfish in a distant city where he has not a 
 single acquaintance. The countenance may be affable, 
 the words pleasant, and the thoughts dark and foul. 
 
 Hence it is that people are in high places to-day 
 
 77
 
 78 HEART TALKS. 
 
 who would not be if they were known. The Bible 
 prepares us for great shocks of surprise at the Day 
 of Judgment, where reputation shall be utterly ig- 
 nored, and character alone shall be demanded. Now 
 and then sudden exposures in public and social life 
 furnish us brief but powerful commentaries on these 
 solemn allusions of the Scripture. 
 
 A lady was once speaking to me about her dead 
 husband, saying that he detested hypocrites, and was 
 filled with a spirit of honesty and honor himself. And 
 yet we knew, and had the proof, of her husband being 
 a petty thief. Only a few of us possessed the circum- 
 stance, and kept it secret. The man's ardent denun- 
 ciations of sin sounded very oddly to the little group 
 who really knew him. The community did not know. 
 He died with a good reputation, but without the char- 
 acter many supposed he had. A life superstructure 
 had been erected without a foundation. 
 
 At another time a prominent lady, apologizing 
 to us for her husband's absence from Church, said, 
 "But he is ripe for heaven." 
 
 We brooded over the speech of this unsuspecting 
 woman, and it actually became oppressive as we re- 
 membered that not less than a dozen people possessed 
 facts which were sufficient to blight and blast her 
 marital happiness forever. 
 
 Great will be the astonishment of families,
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 79 
 
 Churches, communities, and multitudes on the Day 
 of Days, when the real man and woman are brought to 
 light, and God shows the difference between reputa- 
 tion and character. 
 
 Again, it is possible to have character without 
 reputation. 
 
 Paul tells us that Christ had none, that he was 
 "of no reputation." The same fact is brought out 
 in his reference to the disciples of the Lord. The 
 Savior himself said that all manner of evil should be 
 spoken about them; they would be cast out of syna- 
 gogues and put to death ; and people in visiting those 
 things upon them would think they were doing God 
 service. 
 
 No one can question the fact of their possession of 
 religious character, and yet they were without repu- 
 tation. 
 
 So was Luther in his day, and Wesley in his time : 
 they were jeered, ridiculed, denounced, and perse- 
 cuted all through life; the churches were closed to 
 them; ministers and magistrates united to condemn 
 and oppose them; and yet they were men filled with 
 the Holy Ghost, died in the faith, and went to heaven. 
 These facts ought to bring many of God's servants 
 great comfort to-day. Shut out from Churches, dis- 
 counted in certain social and ecclesiastical circles, 
 struck at and condemned in religious and secular
 
 80 HEART TALKS. 
 
 papers, yet it is possible to have not only a conscience 
 without offense, but to be the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost and filled with the fullness of God. It is pos- 
 sible to have one's stock very low on earth, and that 
 same religious stock be very high in heaven. It is 
 possible to possess a pure heart, a genuine Christian 
 character, and yet have the Church, as we see it in 
 some places to-day, ashamed and afraid of us, and 
 downright opposed to us. 
 
 So, just as one can have reputation without char- 
 acter, this strange, old world furnishes the equally 
 remarkable spectacle of a person having character 
 without any reputation. 
 
 Again, it is possible to have no reputation, and 
 still be happy. 
 
 The fact is, it is very hard to be happy in a con- 
 tinuous way with what is termed a reputation. We 
 have studied the cases of orators, musicians, authors, 
 and all kinds of celebrities and prominent folks, and 
 we have discovered that, as a rule, they are the un- 
 easiest of people. A man with a reputation on his 
 hands has an elephant to take care of. So much for 
 its cumbersomeness. Again, it reminds me of an in- 
 valid, a baby at night, and a costly pet, all three in 
 one. It needs a vast amount of attention, and in its 
 exactions is perfectly tyrannical. It matters not how 
 well its possessor "spoke his piece" before, he must
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 8 1 
 
 excel, and more than excel every time, and delight 
 and astonish everybody, or the man is gloomy, irri- 
 table, and miserable. 
 
 Apply this spirit to the ministerial, ecclesiastical, 
 oratorical, or any other kind of reputation, and behold 
 the result. I knew a man once whose great pride as 
 a preacher was in having answered the roll-call of his 
 Conference over thirty years without a single break. 
 To have failed on the thirty-third time would have 
 given him as much anguish as the commission of a 
 sin. It was a kind of annual misery with him. 
 
 A layman boasted that he had sat forty years in 
 one place in the church. He had also remained in the 
 same spot in other respects. His pride took hold of 
 the first fact. Here was his reputation. For any one 
 even to attempt to take his seat angered him. His 
 reputation cost him a good deal of mental peace, as 
 all frequently saw. 
 
 There is a kind of pseudo-religious reputation born 
 of the fact of years of church attendance, identifi- 
 cation with various kinds of Church work, a cordial 
 reception in the best ecclesiastical circles, and a stand- 
 ing well with Church functionaries and prominent 
 people. This, like the rest, is filled with disquietude, 
 and demands to be recognized, petted, patted, and 
 generally coddled, smiled upon, and praised. It is full 
 of fears of losing its peculiar ground, and others tak-
 
 82 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ing its place. To lay all this on the altar is one of the 
 hardest of spiritual performances, and is the explana- 
 tion why so few of that class of Christians obtain the 
 blessing of sanctification. 
 
 Just a glance over the list hastily given is sufficient 
 to convince the thoughtful that to get rid of reputa- 
 tion would be a relief all around, especially to the man 
 who has groaned under the burden for months or 
 years. 
 
 The fact is, that the happiest people the writer 
 ever knew were those who had lost all they had in 
 this line. With this loss had gone Church patronage, 
 social honor, a certain kind of public reverence and 
 attention, together with the estimation formerly en- 
 tertained of their good sense and general levelheaded- 
 ness. And yet these same people were bubbling over 
 continually with a joy beyond all language to de^ 
 scribe. All sanctified people have had third and sev- 
 enth heaven experiences here, and it is with difficulty 
 that we restrain our pen at this point. 
 
 Still again, it is possible to have no reputation, 
 and be very useful. 
 
 We sometimes wonder that so many overlook the 
 remarkable truth that the individuals who have 
 wrought most spiritual good for this world, had no 
 ecclesiastical reputation during their lives. It was 
 after they were dead that their detractors and opposers
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 83 
 
 took time to read what they had written and observe 
 their works, and then the world saw that angels had 
 been in their midst, and they knew it not; that God 
 himself had spoken to them through human lips, and 
 they had failed to know and receive him. 
 
 It does not require reputation to achieve great 
 things for humanity. The Bible proves this in the 
 record of the disciples, and history confirms the 
 thought in the deeds of Luther, Wesley, Booth, and 
 a host of others. The fact is, that reputation seems 
 to be in the way of workers. It clogs, cumbers, hin- 
 ders, embarrasses, paralyzes, and in many ways keeps 
 one from doing for God, and especially doing his best 
 for God. 
 
 It is well to have nothing to distract and absorb 
 us when Christ calls us to labor for him ; it is well to 
 have both hands empty for him. If we have other 
 gods and idols of our own, even though that idol be 
 only reputation, we will never be and do for the Sa- 
 vior what he desires. Such a man can not afford to 
 speak at every providential call because he has an 
 oratorical fame to support and perpetuate ; or another 
 person will not engage in mission or slum work be- 
 cause a certain social prestige is lost by such a life. 
 So the soul-stirring and life-saving message was not 
 delivered, and the diamond in the gutter was not 
 found and lifted up.
 
 84 HEART TALKS. 
 
 We know of a city where there are seven missions, 
 and they are all run by people who have lost their 
 ecclesiastical or Church reputation. Not a denomi- 
 nation in the place, nor all the denominations com- 
 bined, have been sufficient to run a single mission; 
 and yet here is a body of people laughed at, despised, 
 and in a sense ostracized and tabooed, running seven 
 distinct works. 
 
 A concluding thought is this, that there is going 
 to be a great revolution of opinion and judgment at 
 the Last Day. 
 
 People who stood very high on the earth will 
 stand very low before the Bar of Christ when all hearts 
 shall be known. A great many "big men," so-called 
 in this world, will be found to be exceedingly small 
 under the marvelous light of eternity. The sudden 
 shrinkage of individuals who were admired, quoted, 
 and even feared on earth, will occasion one of the 
 most shocking sensations of the Judgment-day. Men 
 will never cease to talk about those dreadful collapses 
 and downfalls, and which were long ago predicted 
 by Christ under the figure of the house built on a 
 foundation of sand. 
 
 On the other hand, some people who were over- 
 looked, or who were discounted, despised, laughed at, 
 and rejected, will loom up in such moral grandeur, 
 such mighty proportions of spiritual attainment, that
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 85 
 
 the astonishment will be even greater here than the 
 amazement already described. 
 
 We knew quite a wealthy man who recently died. 
 He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South. Out of a large fortune he gave thirty dollars 
 a year to the support of the Church, and was bitterly 
 opposed to missions, especially those in the foreign 
 field. Yet this man had a great ascendency in his 
 Church. Perhaps court was paid to him because of 
 what was hoped he might yet do. But he did noth- 
 ing. He died without doing anything. The outside 
 world did not, and does not, know the littleness of his 
 Christian and Church life. They were much im- 
 pressed with his imposing form and rolling guttural 
 speech. They thought he was a pillar in the Church, 
 when he was only a sleeper. They imagined that he 
 supported the Church, when he only occasionally en- 
 tertained the bishops. 
 
 The sight of this man shrinking, drawing in, draw- 
 ing up, drying up, and generally going to nothing 
 under the solemn, silent, searching gaze of the Son 
 of God will be one of the sickening and horrifying 
 visions of the Day of Judgment. 
 
 The writer is acquainted with a woman who, filled 
 with the Holy Ghost and burning up with the love of 
 souls, started with her slender means a little mission 
 in one of our large cities. She was ridiculed, slan-
 
 86 HEART TALKS. 
 
 dered, and struck at in many ways. She bore all 
 silently and patiently, founded a Sabbath-school of 
 fifty children picked up from the street, and with her 
 simple revival services among people who never went 
 to Church, saw twenty clear conversions in three 
 months. This was not a large number, but it hap- 
 pened to be a larger average than that of a large 
 Church of several million members, which reported 
 sixteen thousand conversions for one year's work. 
 The denomination referred to has seventeen thousand 
 preachers on its roll ; so there were a thousand preach- 
 ers who did not have a single convert. As for the 
 three million members, according to figures, they did 
 nothing. The woman I referred to brought twenty 
 souls to Christ in three months. As examined in a 
 comparative way, her work begins to grow upon one. 
 Then, when we remember what the Savior said about 
 the worth of a soul, her achievement was great in- 
 deed. In addition, when we notice that in the line of 
 soul-saving she did the work of eighty preachers, the 
 whole thing, in a strange, solemn way, prepares us for 
 the astounding scenes of the Day of Reward and 
 Doom. 
 
 Aladdin saw a small copper lamp or vessel lying 
 on the seashore near him. As he looked upon it a 
 thread of smoke began ascending from the vessel, and 
 spreading and enlarging until it became a great cloud,
 
 WITHOUT REPUTATION. 87 
 
 and then assumed the shape of a gigantic geni. After 
 a while the shape disappeared, the cloud of smoke re- 
 turning with steadily diminishing proportions to the 
 diminutive metal lamp at Aladdin's feet. 
 
 The fictitious scene becomes all powerful when 
 applied to the occurrences at the Judgment. So will 
 we see the swagger, strut, puff, and swell of a mere 
 reputation steadily disappear before our eyes. It may 
 once have filled the land and overshadowed thou- 
 sands ; and now behold ! It is lost in a poor, morally 
 shriveled creature who cowers at the feet of Christ. 
 
 And, thank God ! we shall also see the other sight. 
 We will behold coming forth to public view from some 
 humble, despised, and wronged one of earth, the 
 beauty, grace, glory, dignity, and majesty of a Christ- 
 like nature and life. It can be hidden and kept down 
 and shut in no longer. It is God's own work wrought 
 in the face of Satanic hate and every human discour- 
 agement. It is something to rejoice over and to praise 
 God for. And it is a piece of justice done to suffering 
 man as well. And so the glory of that life, so long 
 bound in with hardship and thrust into obscurity, 
 shall stream forth at last, and fill the firmament of ob- 
 servation.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 
 
 T^EMPTATION is anything but a joyous experi- 
 * ence. Whether it is realized as a cloud upon the 
 spirit, or a violent attack upon faith and love, or an 
 assault through the appetites, it is something which 
 no Christian desires. It is a moral necessity in this 
 world, so we are told, and believe, and also discover; 
 but we are not the less delighted that in heaven we 
 will feel its power no more forever. 
 
 As temptation is a heavy-hearted experience, the 
 caption of this article, "Comfort in Temptation," 
 would strike the reader at first as contradictory. But 
 one is as true as the other; in fact, the apostle tells 
 us to count it all joy when we fall into divers tempta- 
 tions. So the two can go together; we can be in 
 heaviness through manifold trials of this kind, and 
 yet be joyful. 
 
 We, however, are not referring in this article to 
 the joy of which St. James speaks. The "Comfort" 
 we are writing about springs from other facts, and 
 we are glad to bring such consolation to those who 
 are tempted and tried by the great adversary of their 
 
 souls. 
 
 88
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 89 
 
 The first comfort is clearly stated in the Bible in 
 the words, "There hath no temptation taken you but 
 such as is common to man." 
 
 If there is not strength and consolation in this 
 declaration to the tried soul, then we know nothing 
 about human nature. To be lost in a vast wilderness 
 is a paralyzing experience ; but to see signs of human 
 life here and there would immediately cause hope to 
 spring up in the heart, and strength into the limb. 
 The successful climber of the dizzy heights of the 
 Matterhorn brought a great company of people to do 
 what otherwise they never would have had the nerve 
 to have accomplished. After Columbus had gone 
 across the dreaded Atlantic, and thereby dissipated its 
 superstitious terrors, there came a host of adventurers 
 on his track with great cheerfulness and assurance. 
 The moral effect of having been preceded by another 
 in some line of toil and difficulty is tremendous. What 
 man has done and endured can be borne and accom- 
 plished again by man. This is the reasoning of men, 
 and the very thought is inspiration and life itself. 
 
 This is the same principle of comfort embraced 
 in the statement that the dark, sad temptations of life 
 which try us so severely are not peculiar to us, but 
 are common to man. Others have wrestled with and 
 conquered these things of the spiritual life which are 
 now dismaying us; others have trod these deserts, or
 
 90 HEART TALKS. 
 
 plowed these seas, and found a San Salvador beyond. 
 In spite of long sailing there has been land, and land- 
 ing, and coming forth, and victory for others, and the 
 same can be for us. 
 
 The desolate state of the heart ; the lonely, friend- 
 less feeling of the soul ; the wave of sickening doubt ; 
 the suggestion that friends have ceased to love you, 
 that health will fail, and usefulness cease, and the 
 poorhouse be at last your refuge all these are influ- 
 ences and whispers which the accuser of God and of 
 his brethren has injected into many a faithful heart 
 that is now in rapture near the throne, striking a 
 golden harp or waving a palm of eternal victory. 
 
 Under temptation, one's rapturous feelings go 
 down; so did those of the holy Madame Guyon. A 
 great fear arises as to divine deliverance from trouble ; 
 the saintly Payson went through the same experience. 
 The heart sinks for a while under a lonely trial ; so did 
 Paul, who, when he met friends at last at the Three 
 Taverns, "thanked God and took courage." 
 
 The most pious and influential preacher in one 
 of our Southern States said that once for fully thirty 
 minutes he was conscious of a violent inward urging 
 to be profane. He said his soul recoiled in horror 
 from it, that he recognized the dark influences as the 
 work of the devil, but that the distressing movement 
 was there, nevertheless.
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. QI 
 
 The thought of suicide as an escape from sickness 
 and trouble is purely Satanic, and yet it has come to 
 the best of people, who have resisted it with proper 
 promptness and disapproval, knowing full well it came 
 from Satan, and that it stood for a sin which, from its 
 very nature, was unpardonable. 
 
 It is certainly a great mental relief in the midst 
 of sore experiences, when Satan would have us believe 
 they are peculiar to us, thereby making us feel we 
 are the worst of all God's creatures I say it is blessed 
 to the soul to hear God's Word affirming, "There hath 
 no temptation taken you but such as is common to 
 man." Such a statement upon the part of heaven is 
 bound to bring the sweetest consolation to the soul. 
 
 A second comfort in temptation is found in the 
 words that, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you 
 to be tempted above that ye are able." 
 
 According to these words there is no excuse for 
 men who fall under temptation. The temptation was 
 not greater than they could have borne. This is God's 
 own declaration, and we believe God. 
 
 Those who go down under the assault of the 
 Evil One, invariably begin to whine and whimper 
 about it, saying they could not help it ; that the assault 
 was of such a nature that they could not resist; that 
 they were, so to speak, overpowered. But the Bible 
 says they do not tell the truth, that they fell with a
 
 92 HEART TALKS. 
 
 superior force in them. They went down before some- 
 thing weaker than themselves. A man has fallen 
 under the blow of a boy's hand! Let us read the 
 Word of God again, "God is faithful, who will not 
 suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." So, 
 then, according to this, they could have endured the 
 attack. 
 
 This same statement, which puts the fall of the 
 Christian in a new light, also fills the tempted but 
 as yet unfallen child of God with great comfort 
 There is no need to fall. Greater is He that is in 
 us, than the devil and the world outside of us. The 
 powers of darkness will be held in check; they will 
 not be allowed to do their worst upon us. The winds 
 and waves of hell will be weighed and gauged by the 
 Divine Hand before they are allowed to beat upon His 
 servant. In a word, there is no necessity for spiritual 
 foundering and shipwreck. 
 
 Under the light of this clear Bible statement down 
 go the timeworn excuses for falling in "the smell 
 of the wine at the Lord's table," "the odor of a sa- 
 loon," "the power of habit," "the force of suggestion," 
 "the influence of a smile," "the touch of a hand," etc. 
 
 Under this jubilee blast of liberty we can go as 
 free men past saloons, be delivered from habit, keep 
 strong under look and touch of evil, and be more than 
 conquerors through Him who loved us.
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 93 
 
 A third comfort in temptation is declared in the 
 words, "He will with the temptation also make a 
 way to escape." Here is something more than 
 strength to endure promised; it is actual deliverance 
 and escape. 
 
 There are several ways in which God can deliver 
 us from the hour and power of temptation. 
 
 One is by the removal of the object. 
 
 This we do not believe is frequently done, as our 
 probation, from the nature of the case, demands that 
 we be morally tested and tried. So to put us on trial, 
 and then remove the very class and character of things 
 which will declare and reveal us, would be to act con- 
 tradictorily, and, indeed, absurdly. If we are not 
 tempted and tried, there can be no Day of Rewards 
 for us. Still there are times when God, who knows 
 how much we can endure, will remove the object that 
 under present conditions might be too powerful for 
 us, and allow it to come later to the attack, when we 
 are better prepared. 
 
 Again He delivers us by urging His tempted fol- 
 lower to a precipitate flight. 
 
 Time was when we regarded a man's avoidance 
 of a place of moral danger, and withdrawal from cer- 
 tain social surroundings as a confession of weakness 
 and an indication of cowardice. But with the flight 
 of years we became convinced that such a course was
 
 94 HEART TALKS. 
 
 proof, not only of the wisdom, but of moral courage as 
 well. 
 
 Flight in some instances is the best, truest, and 
 safest thing we can do. Joseph achieved an immortal 
 victory when he fled from his temptress. There are 
 places and circumstances where we can not tarry or 
 dally. To do so is to fall. The impulse or impression 
 to fly is from God himself, who would thereby save us. 
 The divine whisper has been unmistakable at times 
 in the life when there was peril, and when God saw the 
 danger was greater than the man dreamed. The in- 
 ward voice was to "fly!" And many have obeyed, 
 and fled, and so have been delivered, where others, 
 under a mistaken idea of Christian hardihood and 
 courage, have gone down. 
 
 We read in First Samuel that David asked the 
 Lord, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me into the 
 hands of Saul?" and God answered, "They will de- 
 liver thee up." This is a wonderfully impressive sen- 
 tence, and shows God's knowledge of men embraces 
 all that they are capable of doing, and what they will 
 or would do under certain circumstances. This same 
 Lord has lost none of his love for his people, and none 
 of his knowledge of the sinful heart. So His whispers 
 come to the soul as suddenly and clearly as ever warn- 
 ing was given to David, "If such and such a thing 
 takes place, you will fall into sin."
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 95 
 
 No one can read certain warnings given by Wes- 
 ley and others of the old writers on the line of discreet- 
 ness and circumspectness of life, without realizing that 
 they had come into strange experiences and had gath- 
 ered wisdom as the years went by. 
 
 There is an instrument lately invented by which 
 it is said the capacity of children for the strain and 
 drain of school hours is tested. God needs no ma- 
 chine of any kind to know how much we can bear 
 in the hour of moral trial. He knows us altogether. 
 He is aware that a protracted assault upon the soul 
 would cause some Christians to go down under certain 
 circumstances, and so, as it does not agree with His 
 plans to remove the cause, His method of deliverance 
 to his child is the whisper to fly. 
 
 The third way God saves us in and from tempta- 
 tion, is by a mighty pouring of divine grace and power 
 into the soul. 
 
 The effect of this is to so lift the Christian up 
 above the influence of the tempting thing or being, 
 that he marvels how he could ever have been so 
 shaken and stirred. Under increased divine love and 
 strength the whole matter looks so little and con- 
 temptible that he wonders how he could ever have 
 been moved by such an ambition, pursuit, pleasure, 
 or object. 
 
 This deliverance, considered in the light of reason,
 
 96 HEART TALKS. 
 
 is like a man struggling to lift a two-hundred-pound 
 rock, when suddenly the power of two other men is 
 added to him, and lo! off he walks with the boulder 
 with the greatest ease. Or it is like a regiment sorely 
 beset in battle, just able to hold its ground, when, with 
 a great shout, a new regiment dashes to their aid, and 
 now with a still greater cry the two bodies of troops 
 charge and sweep the field before them. 
 
 In like manner there are "evil days," as Paul calls 
 them, when we simply "stand" and "having done all 
 to stand." God permits this for various reasons. The 
 very ability to stand, however, is victory in itself, and 
 a divine rescue; but God has a greater deliverance 
 still, and a much more marvelous victory. After 
 that we have suffered awhile, he will pour down re- 
 enforcements from the skies in the shape of brigades 
 and divisions of spiritual joy and power, and with a 
 shout of triumph we will charge over everything and 
 plant our triumphant banners upon the loftiest forts 
 and strongest citadels of our spiritual enemies. 
 
 It is as though the strength of three men had 
 been given to one. It is the arrival of the second 
 regiment to help the first. It is the bringing up of 
 the reserve corps, which had been held in watchful 
 observation of us, and at the critical moment was sent 
 rushing and flashing into the heart and life, and lo!
 
 THE COMFORT IN TEMPTATION. 97 
 
 the hour, field, battle was ours, through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. 
 
 The victory is so great that the Bible says we 
 are "more than conquerors." We not only have a 
 rock to kill Goliath, but several other stones are 
 placed in the wallet, or scrip, in case that if more 
 giants should come along we could slay, not only 
 one monster, but, under the mighty grace of God, de- 
 stroy the whole breed. It is a superabundant victory. 
 
 This is like God. This is the way He deals with 
 His people who are faithful to Him. He not only will 
 not give us over to the will of our enemies, but will, 
 according to David, lift our heads up above our ene- 
 mies. He has not only saved us in the past; but we 
 can say with Paul concerning the future, "The Lord 
 will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve 
 me unto His heavenly kingdom."
 
 X. 
 
 THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 
 
 OODOM, with its natural beauty, sin, vileness, foul- 
 ^ ness, God-forgetfulness, and heaven-defiance, is a 
 good type of the world. Upon this beautiful, wicked, 
 and doomed city four different looks were cast by four 
 different beings. They stand for truths of a solemn 
 and all-important nature. One day in my Bible read- 
 ing, I was suddenly impressed with this steady gazing 
 of individuals at this city of the plain, and the mind 
 as immediately associated and connected the looks 
 with the truths we have alluded to. 
 
 The first look was cast by Lot. 
 
 It was the gaze of a man who was getting his own 
 consent to live there. He was well aware of the char- 
 acter of the place, and yet looked with longing in the 
 gaze. According to the Bible he ought not to have 
 dreamed of abiding in such a place. The blessedness 
 of walking not with the ungodly, standing not with 
 sinners, and sitting not with the scornful, did not 
 begin with the Psalmist's time ; but, as a duty and ne- 
 cessity, commenced with the first century of the 
 world's history. Can a man take fire in his bosom 
 
 and be unburned, and handle pitch and be undefiled? 
 
 98
 
 THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 99 
 
 Lot's going to Sodom to live meant the corrup- 
 tion and destruction of his entire family. So much 
 do association and surroundings mean in this world. 
 And yet people, without a thought, make changes and 
 moves of various character that are certain to affect 
 disastrously their own household for time and eternity. 
 
 Sin begins with a look in forbidden directions. 
 So Eve fixed her eyes on the interdicted fruit, and 
 David from the roof of his palace gazed one evening 
 where he should not. So, while we sing there is life 
 for a look, there is also death from a look. 
 
 It is remarkable how evil will come in like a tide 
 if the first glance deepens into a gaze. The only hope 
 is to make a covenant with the eyes, and say, "I will 
 not look on any wicked thing." 
 
 It is also curious and significant to see how Lot 
 got into Sodom. It was not at a bound; but he first 
 "looked toward Sodom," then "journeyed toward 
 Sodom ;" later still, "he pitched his tent over against 
 Sodom," and finally found himself in Sodom. Each 
 successive step was doubtless attended with additional 
 gazing; but the first look witnessed the start to the 
 unholy place. 
 
 Some one says there are two ways of getting down 
 from a tower; one is to jump off, and the other to 
 come down by the steps. So there is a way of going 
 rapidly with a single leap into sin and ruin ; but very
 
 100 HEART TALKS. 
 
 few take that route. The great majority come down 
 by the steps, by the successive stages of moral lapse 
 typified in the expressions, "looking toward," "jour- 
 neying in the direction," and "pitching the tent over 
 against Sodom." 
 
 The thing to do is to avoid the first look, and if 
 that has been cast, to say, "I will look no more." 
 
 Once, when riding along a country road, I saw 
 a bird charmed by a snake. The reptile lay full 
 length on the limb of a tree, and had its eyes fixed 
 on its spellbound victim, not a foot away. The bird, 
 with extended, tremulous wings, and low, distressed 
 cry, had its head bent forward, and was gazing into 
 the red, open mouth and glistening eyes of its en- 
 snarer and would-be destroyer. I got down from my 
 horse, and with a large stick killed the serpent and 
 rescued the almost exhausted songster of the woods ; 
 but the scene actually produced a kind of heart nausea, 
 and I never forgot the impression. 
 
 The lesson is not to let the eye get on the world, 
 lest the eyes of the world get fixed on you, with its 
 basilisk, destructive gaze, and there would be no de- 
 liverance. 
 
 The second look directed upon Sodom was by 
 the Lord. 
 
 I know of no scene in the Bible that is more im- 
 pressive than this, in which we see the Almighty stand-
 
 THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. IOI 
 
 ing on the brow of the mountains which skirt the val- 
 ley of Siddim, and looking silently and fixedly upon 
 Sodom as it lay in its wealth, beauty, wickedness, and 
 utter corruption in the center of the plain. 
 
 As the people sinned on that day, how little they 
 dreamed it was their last, and that God in human 
 form was standing on a mountain ten miles away, 
 looking down upon them! It was a look of sorrow, 
 condemnation, and judgment. What thoughts must 
 have rolled through the Divine mind at this hour! 
 He had given the people a beautiful land, and every 
 material blessing, and time in which to save them- 
 selves and honor God, and yet they had misused every- 
 thing, perverted his gifts, despised his grace, broken 
 his laws, rejected his warnings, ill-treated his servants 
 and messengers, and put themselves finally beyond 
 the pale of mercy. 
 
 It is a fearful thought that a person may live such a 
 life as to bring upon him or her the silent and fixed 
 look of God. The dreadfulness of the thought is, that 
 such a gaze means that judgment is close by. 
 
 The third look thrown upon Sodom was by Lot's 
 wife. 
 
 She had been mercifully drawn by angel hands 
 out of the doomed city, and was in a place of safety. 
 The command given to her was not to look back, 
 which is the command to the pardoned and regener-
 
 102 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ated soul until to-day. The woman disobeyed, and, 
 turning, fixed her eyes upon the burning city. The 
 awful picture had scarcely been made upon the retina 
 of the eye, when she was as instantly destroyed and 
 turned to a pillar of salt. 
 
 The disposition to look back on the world we 
 have left, and the sinful life we have forsaken, is one 
 of the strange facts we have to encounter in the spir- 
 itual life. The hymn-book recognizes it in the words, 
 "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it ; prone to leave the 
 God I love." We are called to deal with it as a prin- 
 ciple in the moral life, and know it to exist in spite 
 of the teachings of modern theology. It is the expla- 
 nation of many strange things we see in the Church, 
 and accounts for the cases of spiritual petrifaction 
 we find in the pulpit and pew. 
 
 One would think that a regenerated heart would 
 gladly push on to mountains of a higher grace and 
 deliverance, even as the angel told Lot and his fam- 
 ily, "Stay not in all the plain; escape for thy life to 
 the mountains." What is there in the old life to 
 tempt us again? What is there in Sodom to draw us 
 back? 
 
 And yet, in spite of Zindendorf and all his follow- 
 ers ; in spite of an army of smaller writers, there is this 
 disposition in the regenerated soul to look back, and, 
 worse still, the inclination becomes an act. As a con-
 
 THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 103 
 
 sequence the ghastly miracle of people being turned 
 to stone is still going on. We see it in faces and lives. 
 Men and women once sweeping across the plains of 
 salvation are now stationary, and become like ada- 
 mant. The people not only see it, but they themselves 
 feel it. Faces of stone in the pew, faces of stone in 
 the official board, and faces of stone in the pulpit! 
 We can not always tell when the backward look was 
 turned, and what special thing or object occasioned 
 it; but we all can see the life suddenly arrested, and 
 the face of stone looking from the stationary life 
 upon us. 
 
 The fourth look on Sodom was cast by Abraham. 
 
 He stood on the mountains next day, and saw the 
 destruction which God had sent on the cities of the 
 plain. The Bible says that the Lord rained fire upon 
 them from out of heaven, and the smoke went up as 
 the smoke of a great furnace. The spectacle must 
 have been horrifying beyond all words to describe. 
 To see a country which the day before was all beauti- 
 ful and prosperous, with bustling cities, and teeming 
 with multitudes of people, suddenly ingulfed in fire, 
 and literally swept with cyclones of flame and smoke, 
 and, underneath it all, to catch glimpses of what was 
 transpiring, was truly a scene of horror, and well cal- 
 culated to fix the gaze of not only one man, but 
 every eye that could endure the sight.
 
 104 HEART TALKS. 
 
 This look was not mentioned without a purpose. 
 It is not less certain that one part of the human fam- 
 ily will, from the heights of eternity, behold the over- 
 throw and witness the destruction of this world. They 
 will see the flames licking up cities, forests, and rivers 
 alike, and leaping from the mountain-tops like wild 
 animals. They will see whirlwinds of fire sweeping 
 about like cyclones on the plains, vast pillars of smoke 
 now appearing like waterspouts, and now seen falling 
 here and there like great pillars under the touch of a 
 Samson hand. Complete and overwhelming will be 
 the ruin of terrestrial things on that day. 
 
 There was no joy in Abraham's look that morning 
 of disaster to Sodom, and there will be nothing of the 
 kind in the heart of God's people on the dreadful Day 
 of Judgment. But there will be no dissent to, or dis- 
 approval of, the divine proceedings in that fearful 
 hour. It will all come to the silent witnesses in that 
 time, that it was in vain God loaded the people down 
 with material bounties; in vain for them harvests 
 waved, flowers and fruits abounded, flocks and herds 
 multipled, cities prospered and Plenty waved her wand 
 over the broad earth. It was in vain God gave his 
 Son, sent his Spirit, and filled the earth with churches, 
 bibles, and preachers. It was in vain he bore with 
 them, and warned and promised and pleaded ten thou- 
 sand times. They would not have him to reign over
 
 THE FOUR LOOKS TOWARD SODOM. 105 
 
 them. They mocked at message and messenger. 
 They broke every commandment, grieved the Holy 
 Ghost, and trampled the blood of Christ under their 
 feet as an unholy thing. They laid up wrath against 
 the Day of Wrath. They made themselves ripe for 
 destruction. And it has come at last. This is the end 
 long foretold by prophet and affirmed by God. Time 
 is ended. The earth is being burned up ; the heavens 
 are passing away; the nations who forgot God, and 
 still can not pray, are calling for the mountains to fall 
 upon them; and from the great cliffs of the eternal 
 world, the Redeemed stand and view the dreadful 
 scene. The typical look of Abraham is fulfilled at last.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 
 
 A 5 far as it is possible for a doctrine or great spir- 
 itual truth to be illustrated in a man, God has 
 striven to show heavenly facts in vessels of clay. 
 
 Notably is this seen in the case of Samson. The 
 marvelous strength given the man, and his use of the 
 same, was intended to teach something; and if that 
 teaching is not holiness and some of its striking fea- 
 tures, then the wonderful life of the man is still an un- 
 solved problem. 
 
 Accepting the thought that holiness is thus typi- 
 fied and taught, and at once Samson's life becomes 
 luminous and full of profound instruction as well as 
 warning to us. The reader is called upon to observe 
 several facts. 
 
 First, the man was a Nazarite. 
 
 The Nazarites were the typical holy people. They 
 were under peculiar vows to God, and lived a life of 
 self-denial and sacrifice. They drank no wine, ate no 
 grapes, and were not allowed to cut their hair. 
 
 A sanctified man is the Nazarite of to-day. He 
 is under peculiar vows, and is expected to be different 
 
 from his regenerated brethren. Things which are 
 
 106
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 107 
 
 lawful in themselves and may be practiced or enjoyed 
 by others, are not allowed to him. There are books 
 he can not read, and songs he can not sing, and pleas- 
 ures and pursuits from which he is precluded by God 
 and man. The unshorn hair and refraining from 
 grapes and wine stand for principles of life and con- 
 duct, which will make a peculiar and holy people. 
 The Nazarite in early days, and now, was highly ex- 
 alted; great was to be his honor; but not less true is 
 the fact that he had to walk a very narrow and lonely 
 path. It costs to be a Nazarite. 
 
 Another fact about Samson's life was that his 
 strength was the gift of God. 
 
 So is holiness the direct work of the Lord upon 
 the soul. He imparts it. It can come in no other way. 
 
 An additional fact was that the marvelous strength 
 of the man was a secret. 
 
 The fact of the general ignorance as to where his 
 power lay is seen in the credulity and blunders of 
 Delilah. No one connected it with his hair. When 
 Samson told his betrayer that if seven green withes 
 were used to bind him, he would be helpless, she be- 
 lieved him. So in regard to the pinning of his head 
 to the wall. The woman who knew him best did not 
 dream where his mighty power lay. 
 
 All this is significant. It means that the unc- 
 tion and influence of the sanctified man is a mys-
 
 108 HEART TALKS. 
 
 tery to all who have it not. They see the effects, but 
 do not know how to account for it. Often they say 
 it is personal magnetism, eloquence, a pleasing man- 
 ner, and many other like things. The real secret is 
 hidden from them. The white stone with the new 
 name is only known by those who have received it. 
 
 A fourth fact connected with the history is, that 
 it was not necessary for Samson to be a physical giant 
 to possess his strength. 
 
 We doubt not that he was a man of ordinary size, 
 and very likely below the average stature of men. 
 This fact alone would actually add to the wonder of 
 this human miracle, and so to the glory of God. 
 
 We recall once hearing a magnificent female voice 
 in a large church. It was so deep, rich, and powerful, 
 that we turned to look at the singer, and saw a frail- 
 looking little woman that a mere touch or jostle 
 seemed able to push into the grave ; and yet from the 
 delicate creature came pouring forth the full rich 
 sounds that were thrilling and moving everybody. 
 
 Doubtless, the physical frame of Samson seemed 
 utterly inadequate to do the deeds which he per- 
 formed. It must have perfectly astonished the people 
 to see him rip great massive gates from the city wall, 
 and carry them with ease miles away; or to see him 
 destroy a lion or achieve any one of the remarkable 
 exploits for which he was famous. The things done
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. IOQ 
 
 were so disproportionate to his size, they so towered 
 above him according to the natural eye, that the 
 miracle was declared in the performance, and God was 
 seen and glorified. 
 
 We have beheld the blessing of sanctification come 
 upon and shine forth from apparently very unpromis- 
 ing subjects. Not to speak of men who were pigmies 
 in body but giants in spiritual power, we have also 
 been made to wonder at the marvelous divine endue- 
 ment abiding in individuals who were rough in ap- 
 pearance, unattractive in person, unpolished in speech, 
 and without education or culture whatever. They 
 were not even remarkable for gifts, and so were not 
 giants of any kind. They were plain, unpretending 
 men and women, and this very fact brought out the 
 power and glory of God all the more. The extraor- 
 dinary was seen plainly against a background of the 
 ordinary. 
 
 A fifth fact relative to the strength of Samson was 
 that it would arise in him in mightiest force at certain 
 times. 
 
 While he always had the secret of strength, yet 
 there were occasions when this power would fairly 
 boil in him, and rush forth like the sweep of an irre- 
 sistible tempest. Once this happened at the sight of 
 a lion; again as he looked at the gates of Gaza; and 
 still again on viewing a multitude of Philistines. Ac-
 
 110 HEART TALKS. 
 
 cording to the Scripture, the Spirit would come upon 
 him, and with his blood rushing through his veins, his 
 muscles swelling like great ropes, and a shout of tri- 
 umph ringing from his lips, Samson would hurl 
 himself upon the enemy, and there would be a mar- 
 velous victory. 
 
 All this is perfectly familiar to the sanctified man ; 
 that strange coming upon him of the Spirit, and the 
 feeling that he can not only leap over a wall, but run 
 through a troop, strangle lions, tear up gates of brass, 
 and scatter a host of the king's enemies anywhere, 
 everywhere, and every time. 
 
 It seemed, when the Divine energy would surge 
 through Samson, that he had to throttle, tear up or 
 knock down something. This same peculiar force 
 swells in the soul of the sanctified, and brings with 
 it a sense of physical power that is felt all over the 
 body. If sin was in a material form before the man of 
 God at such a time, it would have to go down. The 
 hands reach out instinctively to shatter and destroy 
 the works of the devil. 
 
 So when once the writer beheld a preacher shaking 
 with the power of God upon him, cast something afar 
 with his hand, and with a quick sweep of the foot hurl 
 some wooden object from the platform, we knew how 
 he felt, and what he meant, and what was in him. We 
 knew that an overplus of spiritual force was working
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. Ill 
 
 out in a physical way, and that he had thus to relieve 
 himself, even as Samson, heaven filled and fired, felt 
 compelled to tear up heavy gates, pack them for miles, 
 and pitch them on the top of a hill. 
 
 Many times the writer has felt this strange in- 
 fluence as he stood in the pulpit. It would fill the soul 
 and fairly tingle to the ends of the body. It was an 
 intoxication that did not interfere with, but brought 
 clearheadedness. A thrilling joyous sense of power 
 throbbed through the entire being, and the hands 
 fairly itched to upheave gates, choke lions, pull down 
 walls, and beat a triumphant way through every kind 
 of difficulty and opposition. 
 
 We do not doubt that when the Spirit of the Lord 
 would come upon Samson, he would shout, and under 
 his tremendous onset nothing could stand before him. 
 In like manner we have seen the holy power filling 
 and overflowing some servant of God. While the 
 blessing is always a resident latent strength, yet at 
 the sight of a spiritual foe, a work to be done, a battle 
 to fight, and a victory to win, this wondrous spiritual 
 force will be felt coming down on brain, heart, and 
 body, as well as springing up from the very depths 
 of the soul, and the man will stand before us filled, 
 glowing, and fairly transfigured. 
 
 It is noticeable by every one that if the possessor 
 of the blessing is true to God, the Lord will never
 
 112 HEART TALKS. 
 
 leave him in the presence of his enemies without this 
 divine girding and anointing. Sometimes the man 
 will have gone through the preparatory services and is 
 ready to rise with his text before a great audience, 
 when suddenly he feels the sweet sense of power com- 
 ing upon him. As he opens his lips and speaks, the 
 volume increases, and in a little while a Samson of 
 New Testament times, with his mysterious strength 
 and perfect ability to meet the demand of the hour, 
 is before us, and sweeping all things before him. 
 
 The writer has seen the power rising up and filling 
 a man in the pulpit until all felt the strange, inscrutable 
 presence of God in the speaker, and realized that a 
 giant stood before us. And, moreover, he was a 
 giant, had the strength of a giant, and did the work 
 of a giant in the swaying at his will of a multitude of 
 people. Samson was living again and at his old-time 
 work. 
 
 We have seen this power fall upon a preacher when 
 he was concluding a sermon. He had made his points, 
 convinced the understanding of the people before him, 
 had shown the vileness and helplessness of man, and 
 declared the almighty ability of Christ to save and 
 save to the uttermost. At this juncture we have seen 
 the Spirit of the Lord descend upon the speaker, and 
 then such a holy, rapturous, triumphant, ringing laugh 
 would peal from his lips, that no words could describe
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 113 
 
 the panic and consternation among sinners and back- 
 sliders. Such as had strength to move at all would 
 rush to the altar and fall down, while others would 
 be stricken into a silence that was both remarkable 
 and awful. The God of Samson had come ! Samson 
 himself was again before us, his form actually appear- 
 ing to tower above us, his voice echoing from church- 
 walls as from mountain-sides, and the altar-floor seem- 
 ing like another plain of Philistia covered with dead 
 and wounded Philistines. 
 
 A sixth fact about Samson was that, when the 
 power was upon him, any weapon he could lay his 
 hand upon, was sufficient to win the victory. 
 
 For instance, at the time when he met the lion 
 in the way, and the animal "roared against him," the 
 Scripture says, "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily 
 upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a 
 kid." But the same passage tells us that when he did 
 this, "he had nothing in his hand." 
 
 At another time, a multitude of his enemies were 
 arrayed before him. The crowd "shouted against 
 him," but the Bible says, "The Spirit of the Lord 
 came mightily upon him," and then adds that Sam- 
 son found a bone lying on the ground, and, rushing 
 into the combat with this simple weapon, he slew 
 with it one thousand men. 
 
 It is to be noticed that the Spirit was upon him 
 
 8
 
 114 HEART TALKS. 
 
 when he did so much with those empty hands on one 
 occasion and with a mere bone on the other. 
 
 All this is profoundly significant, and means that 
 a man, with the blessing in him and filling him to 
 overflowing, at the call of duty and trumpet-blast of 
 battle can win victory with the simplest of means and 
 instrumentalities. 
 
 We all know what it is to see great union-meetings 
 of the Churches, with combined choirs, platform nota- 
 bles, resetted ushers, artistic solos, eloquent prayers, 
 and great discourses on the oratorical, logical, and 
 theological order, and yet nothing accomplished. 
 The chariots of Assyria had been hired, and the horses 
 of Egypt secured, but victory did not come. Some- 
 thing seemed to be lacking. The Spirit of God had 
 not and did not fall upon the services and the people. 
 
 Again, we all have seen the tremendous pulpit 
 effort, and a series of tremendous efforts, utterly fail 
 to do what was longed for and expected. The man 
 was scholarly, polished, refined, and a Christian at 
 that. His logic was unanswerable, and his manner 
 beyond criticism. He was an elegant Christian 
 gentleman, preaching the truth; but somehow God 
 did not answer by fire. There was a perfect magazine 
 of spiritual weapons, parks of pulpit artillery, some 
 sky-rockets for signal service, cavalry charges of 
 propositions, and admirable manipulation of the con-
 
 THE STRENGTH OF SAMSON. 115 
 
 gregation, but nothing was done. There was no 
 "power." The results of the meeting were more like 
 that of a dress parade and review than an actual battle. 
 
 Over against all this let a man have the blessing 
 we are writing about, and the fruit of his life and the 
 result of his labors will at once begin to excite the 
 talk and astonishment of the community and country 
 at large. It will be observed that while he employs 
 the usual methods and agencies of grace, yet he does 
 not lean on them or look to them, but to something 
 or somebody above and beyond. The "power" seems 
 to come down in a way independent of people, circum- 
 stances, and everything. No matter what he says 
 and what he does, a heavenly influence is at once felt 
 in convicting, softening, quickening, comforting, and 
 saving power. There seems to be a double response 
 to what he utters, one from heaven and the other from 
 the hearts of men. He is clothed with holy energy, 
 and God owns, acknowledges, and honors his servant 
 in ways most unmistakable from the skies. 
 
 It matters not whether he is empty-handed or full- 
 handed, whether he gives a complete sermon or a 
 simple talk, the strong man of God is always before 
 us, and never having a defeat. There are times when 
 he may seem to have nothing in his hands, or he may 
 have picked up a mere bone, and yet he, being filled 
 with the Holy Ghost, sweeps everything before him.
 
 Il6 HEART TALKS. 
 
 The beautiful solo, sung with artistic grace and 
 studied effect, has left every heart unmoved and every 
 eye dry as stone, when under a single stanza or 
 two of an old hymn, the man we speak of has every 
 face bathed with tears. The eloquent prayer got no- 
 where, and the studied discourse was lost in thin air; 
 but Samson, the real spiritual Samson, with whom 
 God wants to fill the Church to-day, being present 
 and called on to conclude, put his consecrated arms 
 around the pillars of God's promises, and in a few 
 broken, burning utterances of the soul, and with a 
 mighty upheaving, pulling-down grasp of faith, fairly 
 brought the heavens down, and he, Samson, and the 
 people alike, were all covered up with shouts, cries, 
 laughter, weeping, clapping of hands, and sweeping 
 clouds of glory. 
 
 "Our fathers had this power, 
 And we may have it too! 
 'Tis the power, the power! 
 Tis the very same power! 
 T is the power, the power ! 
 Tis the power which Jesus 
 Promised should come down."
 
 XII. 
 THE DEFEAT AT AI. 
 
 'T'HE reader will remember that, after the children 
 * of Israel had crossed the Jordan into Canaan, and 
 after the great victory at Jericho, there came a most 
 mortifying defeat to them at a place called Ai. The 
 aggravating features of the humiliation were the small 
 size of the town assailed and the smaller number of 
 the enemy's forces, compared to the Israelites. Well 
 might the people be astounded. 
 
 The explanation of the reverse was, there had 
 been transgression in the camp. God was grieved, 
 and would not go out with his people to battle. As 
 a result their power was gone, and they not only could 
 do nothing with their foes, but could not even stand 
 before them. 
 
 We read that Joshua rent his clothes and fell upon 
 his face, while the elders of Israel put dust on their 
 heads. It was after that, God told them there was 
 an accursed thing in the camp. The search was made, 
 and under the tent of Achan was found the wedge of 
 gold and Babylonish garment which had been 
 secreted there by the disobedient Israelite. The rest 
 of the history is well known as to the stoning of 
 
 "7
 
 Il8 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Achan, the destruction of the hidden things, and the 
 burning up of all the man's property. 
 
 Once more power and victory returned to the 
 children of Israel; God went out with their armies, 
 and the nations melted at their very presence. 
 
 The occurrence makes a melancholy narrative, but 
 it is something that has transpired many times since 
 in the lives of Christians and in the history of 
 Churches. 
 
 It is not uncommon to see a Church, after a career 
 of usefulness and power, go into a condition of moral 
 apathy and deadness. It is even more common to 
 behold men, once clothed with heavenly zeal and 
 mighty with the unction of God, gradually cool off, 
 lose their spiritual force, and become weak like other 
 men. They have had Jerichos to fall before them, 
 but now, under some strange change, they can not 
 take Ai. Indeed, they retire from before Ai. They 
 recognize the loss in themselves, and others observe 
 it as well. Something has happened. Something is 
 the matter. 
 
 Time would fail to tell of preachers and laymen 
 who ran well for a season, and then gradually or sud- 
 denly their triumphant career was ended. There have 
 been a number of evangelists who fairly blazed for 
 a while, and then their light began to wane and
 
 THE DEFEAT AT AT. 1 19 
 
 finally, in some instances, went out entirely. Among 
 the names were some prominent ones. They had the 
 ear of the people, drew multitudes, pulled down fire 
 from heaven, and yet after all this went into eclipse 
 and darkness. 
 
 In some cases there can be a proper explanation 
 like unto that of John the Baptist, who saw himself 
 decrease and Christ increase. The man's work may 
 be ended, his mission accomplished, and so he passes 
 away. 
 
 In other instances the explanation is not so easy. 
 The demand for workers is great, the laborers are few, 
 the people need instruction and salvation, and the 
 sheep are scattered; why should men once so useful, 
 become useless, and who shone as stars of the first 
 magnitude retrograde to the glimmering of the fourth 
 and fifth rank, and at last go out altogether? Surely 
 the Holy Ghost did not exhaust Himself on them in 
 their first year. Surely usefulness should increase with 
 growing wisdom and experience and from long and 
 deep communion with God. Certainly some kind of 
 explanation is in order. 
 
 It is curious to hear the man himself talk. He 
 tells of great battles in the past, great victories over 
 every kind of forbidding circumstance. It is while 
 lying in the fields besieging little Ai, he describes how
 
 I2O HEART TALKS. 
 
 he captured Jericho on the fourth or fifth day, his 
 auditors meanwhile wondering why he can not take 
 the small place now before him. 
 
 His explanations of present inability and failure 
 are voluminous, some of them pathetic, others elo- 
 quent. He says that his natural force is abating. But 
 it is noticed that he eats as much as ever, and perhaps 
 more. He speaks of nervous prostration a great deal : 
 time was, he had more to say about bodily prostration 
 on the floor in prayer. It is sad to hear him talking so 
 much about what "the doctors say about his case." 
 Meantime the people are also discussing his case ; but 
 it is another one than that which the physicians 
 are thinking about. One is looking at the physical 
 and the other at the spiritual side of the man. From 
 what he says about the great power he once possessed 
 before he broke down physically, one would suppose 
 that spiritual force could not abide in or proceed from 
 a frail and delicate body; that religious influence de- 
 pended more on health than grace, and on the state of 
 the nerves rather than on the condition of the soul. 
 
 Without depreciating the advantages of health and 
 strength in the work of God, yet, as an offset to this 
 idea, we would call attention to Summerfield, Payson, 
 and a number of others, who scarcely ever knew an 
 hour of physical ease, who would in preaching be in- 
 terrupted by hemorrhages, and swoon in the pulpit
 
 THE DEFEAT AT AI. 121 
 
 after an hour's faithful labor, and yet their power with 
 God and man was marvelous. 
 
 Let it be understood that we are not referring to 
 defeats before places which would not surrender if an 
 angel fresh from heaven would come and offer them 
 the gospel. The Bible speaks very plainly about in- 
 dividuals and places that are given over to idols and 
 to believe a lie. Christ himself came to towns where 
 He could do no mighty works, and Paul came to 
 Athens, and had to leave it as he found it, in its silly 
 mirth and with its multitudinous false gods. To this 
 day there are Jerusalems that have to be wept over 
 as not knowing the time of their visitation, and towns 
 whose very dust, Christ says, shake off from youi 
 feet 
 
 We allude not to defeats before such communities, 
 but to the departure of spiritual power from individ- 
 uals who once possessed it abundantly, and to need- 
 less reverses before Ai, when the place should and can 
 be taken by men and women filled with the Holy 
 Ghost. The town has not been given over to hard- 
 ness, and yet it is not taken for God. What is the 
 matter? There is an explanation. What is it? 
 
 Just as in the instance of Israel, something wrong 
 had been done, and the wedge of gold and Babylonish 
 garment were buried under a tent in the midst of 
 the camp so there has been a moral misstep, a trans-
 
 122 HEART TALKS. 
 
 gression of the Divine law, and the fact is hidden in 
 the life, is unconfessed, and perhaps imrenounced. 
 
 The result is that God will not go up to the battle 
 with the man. The sermon is preached, the prayer 
 uttered, the testimony and exhortation given, con- 
 siderable intellectual ability displayed, an appearance 
 of something being done is created; and yet devout 
 hearts feel that something is lacking, and victory, 
 clear, glorious, unmistakable victory, does not come. 
 An accursed thing is in the camp; the offender has 
 his tent pitched over it, and the face which looks out 
 of the tent is one of darkness and profound melan- 
 choly. 
 
 But this is not the explanation of all cases of de- 
 feat, nor indeed of the great majority of instances of 
 failure. The blessed power of prevailing with man 
 and obtaining gracious victories in the work of God 
 can be lost in ways far less gross and criminal. It 
 can go through actions which are not the breaking of 
 the letter of the Ten Commandments. 
 
 Loose thinking can do the deed. 
 
 Careless speech can sap the holy power. 
 
 Lack of prayer will affect the divine glow and 
 glory. 
 
 Still more remarkable: an undue attention given 
 to things that are lawful and proper in themselves
 
 THE DEFEAT AT AI. 
 
 will, in time, leave us weak in the presence of friends 
 and foes. 
 
 He who possesses the wonderful blessing which 
 Christ promised the disciples, is called upon to walk 
 in a very narrow way. There are many things 
 which others can do that he can not. He is a Nazarite. 
 There are pursuits which are perfectly honorable, but 
 he can not walk in them. There are books which 
 are untainted, and yet he can not read them. There 
 are songs that are clean, but he can not sing them 
 without hurt to his soul. He may be in the possession 
 of gifts which, if used, might lead him to prominence 
 and wealth. Other men, good and true, tread these 
 paths and are succeeding with gifts not superior to 
 his own ; but he is called by the Master to a close walk 
 and a peculiar work. He can not do as others 
 may do. 
 
 So, if betrayed by his gifts into these walks and 
 pursuits, he after a while discovers in some important 
 hour that the old-time force has gone. He can not 
 take Ai. It is while he feels his inability to take Ai 
 that he tells how he once captured Jericho. This, 
 of course, is intended as an apology for the present 
 failure, and also helps to while away the time. 
 
 The things mentioned may seem too little and in- 
 significant to some to cause such a disaster; but they
 
 124 HEART TALKS. 
 
 are not little. A spider-web once took so much elec- 
 tricity from a telegraph wire and buried it in the 
 ground that a message could not be sent from one 
 town to another. The stock company and the public 
 were as much troubled and annoyed about it as if the 
 little white threads were chains of iron. The connec- 
 tion was broken and the power shut off. 
 
 There is nothing wrong in the bicycle as used for 
 exercise, health, and business, but the writer knew a 
 holiness preacher who allowed his wheel to so mo- 
 nopolize his thoughts and conversation, and consume 
 so much time in oiling and repairing, that he lost 
 his power and found himself helpless before Ai. 
 
 We knew another to devote so much of the day 
 to telegraphy, that should have been spent in commu- 
 nion with God and in soul-work, that the bubbling 
 joy went out of his heart, the shine from his face, and 
 in sermon and prayer you could see that he could not 
 capture Ai. 
 
 The writer once had with him for a week or so, 
 while in his active work, a large, sweet-toned music- 
 box. It was only a few days when, through the pa- 
 thetic sentimental pieces, he felt that a spider-web was 
 getting on his wire. Of course, the box went, for 
 he was anxious to get some messages through to the 
 throne about Ai, which at the same time was holding 
 out most remarkably.
 
 THE DEFEAT AT AT. 125 
 
 Recently we met a young man who Has lost his 
 spiritual joy and power by over-devotion to a musical 
 accomplishment. 
 
 A kodak is a pleasant article to possess, and is 
 Qapable of giving much genuine and innocent pleas- 
 ure ; but if a man, filled with the Holy Ghost and called 
 to a special work, begins to use one too much, he will 
 soon commence wondering where the dew is that was 
 once on the fleece, and what can be the matter with 
 the walls of Ai, which will not go down under his ser- 
 mons and prayer-guns. 
 
 Politics, election returns, Associated Press dis- 
 patches, questions of reform, and many other matters 
 can and will, if we are not careful, become switch-lines 
 to take the Divine electricity out of our souls. 
 
 Abundance of talk on any ephemeral, non-essen- 
 tial, and temporal question will be a spider-web to the 
 line. 
 
 Bicycles, kodaks, telegraphy, music, literature, and 
 art are all good things. They are legitimate and 
 proper, but through them it is possible to lose the 
 old-time glory and power, and we be left everlasting 
 besiegers of Ai, when we should take it at once with 
 a charge and shout of victory. 
 
 If we are having continued reverses, meeting with 
 frequent defeats in our religious work and life, let us 
 look under the tent. Small things may be hidden
 
 126 HEART TALKS. 
 
 there, and, according to the Bible, God notices small 
 things. 
 
 If anything is there to which, while lawful, we 
 give undue attention and devotion, let us correct mat- 
 ters and put them in proper relation. 
 
 If anything is there that is doubtful and question- 
 able, we had better dig it up at once and say good-bye 
 to it forever. 
 
 If there is a sin, may we not only dig it up, but 
 stone it to death in the valley of Achor. God will 
 then go up with us to the battle ; Ai will fall ; greater 
 cities still go down, and the inhabitants of the land 
 will tremble at our presence.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE SIFTER AND FAN. 
 
 HP HERE is a great difference between a sifter and 
 * fan. They do directly opposite things. The Bible 
 states that the former is used by the devil and the lat- 
 ter by Christ. There is never an interchange or ex- 
 change. The character of both forbid it, and the work 
 both are doing would not allow it. 
 
 The sifter, as we all will recollect as children, was 
 filled by the cook with meal and then treated to a 
 rapid handshaking. The result of this was that the 
 meal escaped, and only bran was left. This last 
 article, we recall, was thrown out of the kitchen-win- 
 dow on the ground for the chickens to peck at. 
 
 In like manner Satan takes a man or woman and 
 sifts them. The idea is to get all the good out of the 
 individual and leave only the bad; to shake out the 
 meal and leave the bran. It is a sickening sight 
 to see a man undergoing this manipulation of the 
 devil's sieve, and behold health, virtue, truth, honor, 
 purity, and every other good thing gradually depart- 
 ing, until at last nothing but the bran of a wasted life, 
 blighted reputation, and undone character is left. We 
 
 have seen people who had been so thoroughly sifted 
 
 127
 
 128 HEART TALKS. 
 
 by Satan, so brought down to bran alone, that it looked 
 like nothing remained for the adversary to do but to 
 knock what was left out of the kitchen-window of hell 
 into the pit for devils to scratch and peck at. 
 
 The devil's sieve is a fearful thing. Christ said 
 that the great adversary endeavored to ruin Peter 
 that way. "Simon, Satan hath desired thee that he 
 might sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee 
 that thy faith fail not." In the short time that the 
 enemy was allowed to handle Peter, he had some ter- 
 rible victories over him, and brought him to the brink 
 of ruin. There are others who do not escape as did 
 the apostle, but are finally and forever undone. 
 
 The winnowing fan which Christ is represented 
 as using does the direct opposite of the sifter. A pile 
 of wheat, mixed with chaff, is laid on the floor, and the 
 fan is turned upon it with its strong air current. The 
 result is that the chaff is blown away, and the golden, 
 solid wheat remains. The sifter got rid of the meal 
 and kept the bran; the fan gets rid of the chaff and 
 retains the wheat. 
 
 This is Christ's plan and blessed loving work on 
 the souls which belong to him. His omniscient eye 
 sees that in the wheat of devoted religious character 
 there can be downright chaff. And he sees this among 
 the sanctified as well as the regenerated. 
 
 We do not mean by chaff that actual or inbred sin
 
 THE SIFTER AND FAN. 129 
 
 is left, but things that are not best or wise, things 
 that can be removed or improved. Habits, customs, 
 notions, mannerisms, odd ways in particular and gen- 
 eral, and certain performances taken up, practiced and 
 exacted of others, that are above the Word, beyond 
 the Word, and not in the Word. 
 
 It would require a much larger article than this 
 to mention and describe the various chaffy things that 
 can become mixed up in the wheat of the Christian 
 life, and that should come out, and that from many 
 honest, Christ-like souls is coming out. 
 
 One thing is certain, that we can not pick this 
 chaff out of each other. It would be an endless job, 
 and one that would be resented anyhow. Meanwhile 
 we would be removing the trashy stuff from the life of 
 our brother, he would be doing the same office for us, 
 and there might be a misunderstanding. According 
 to the Bible, it takes Christ to do this work. He blows 
 it out with His winnowing fan. He wants all wheat 
 in His followers and not a particle of chaff. How we 
 ought to love Him for this, and bless God for the 
 steady divine breath that is to blow out of our lives 
 every unwise, foolish, and questionable thing. I repeat 
 that we can have a sanctified heart, and yet can be im- 
 proved in manners, habits, notions, and many other 
 particulars. Against these things Christ, who has 
 already, with His holy fire, burned up inbred sin, now
 
 130 HEART TALKS. 
 
 directs the great winnowing fan of His grace, and 
 they go! Thank God, all of us have both seen and 
 felt some of them go ! 
 
 I know a brother who was genuinely sanctified, 
 who tried to drive people by abuse into the blessing 
 of perfect love. The Lord turned His fan upon him, 
 and blew the cudgel out of his hands, and he now tries 
 to persuade men into the higher experience. We 
 all recognize among God's people a disposition to 
 exaggerate, especially in description of Church work 
 and revivals. Every meeting is described as a "tor- 
 nado," a "cyclone" or a "flood." The town is said 
 to be "moved as never before," to be "shaken from 
 center to circumference," and "turned upside down," 
 etc., etc. The actual figures of conquest are not given. 
 Perhaps they would not exactly agree with the other 
 statements about cyclones and tornadoes. The feel- 
 ing left in the mind after such a letter is that the 
 whole work has been done, and nothing else is left 
 for any one else to do. The writer, in common with 
 many others, has erred on these lines, it being so easy 
 and natural to think, when our own hearts are on fire, 
 and a lot of holiness people are shouting around us, 
 that the whole country is surrendering to God. 
 
 A few months ago we read a letter in one of our 
 Church papers from a young preacher, in which he 
 stated that the whole southern part of the State was
 
 THE SIFTER AND FAN. 13! 
 
 aroused about a certain Holiness College, and great 
 numbers of young men were coming, etc., etc. The 
 southern part of the State had a population of a mil- 
 lion, with a large number of towns. The young man 
 we speak of had been to two or three small commu- 
 nities, and yet wrote as he did. The college register 
 thus far has failed to record the arrival of the southern 
 part of that State. 
 
 Against all exaggerated language Christ directs 
 His winnowing fan with the words, "Let your con- 
 versation be yea, yea, nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more 
 than this cometh of evil." 
 
 Again, we know of several godly people who 
 have a way of breaking in upon another person who 
 has been called upon to pray in public, and of keeping 
 up such a verbal clamor that the one who was asked 
 to lead in prayer can not be heard at all. We once 
 held a meeting where not a single prayer was heard 
 for days on account of this strange interruption. As 
 for responses to prayer and ejaculations of praise and 
 joy coming from those around who are listening, we 
 all like and rejoice in. But this was a loud-voiced, 
 verbal drowning out of every prayer offered in the 
 church, except that of this honestly mistaken brother. 
 
 The winnowing fan needs to be turned on this 
 unwise habit, while the apostle writes, "Let all things 
 be done in order."
 
 132 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Still again, I meet a religious body of people all 
 over the land that in prayer and exhortation have 
 adopted a whine. As a peculiar nasal utterance it 
 belongs to this denomination. I have never heard 
 any one else adopt it or try to make it their own. 
 Once heard, it can never be forgotten. The people 
 themselves are excellent, and have the solid wheat 
 of a good religious experience, but have mixed up with 
 it this chaff of human addition. God has given us 
 our natural voices, and why we should renounce 
 them, so to speak, in worship, and get to whining 
 the instant we come into His presence and com- 
 mence praying to Him, I utterly fail to see. The 
 winnowing fan is certainly needed here ; not to remove 
 inbred sin, for this has been burned out by the bap- 
 tism with the Holy Ghost and fire, but to blow away 
 a needless, senseless, and hurtful custom. 
 
 The writer knows a number of God's sanctified 
 children who have placed themselves before this fan 
 of Christ, and said, Take out of me and my life, O 
 Lord, everything that is not best and wise. I want to 
 be like you in all things. 
 
 It is certainly blessed to see the winnowing- 
 process going on, and to behold Ihese men and women 
 becoming more spiritually lovely and attractive all the 
 time, They get so loving, gentle, patient, discreet, 
 level-headed, restful, and Christ-like that we rejoice
 
 THE SIFTER AND FAN. 133 
 
 to meet and be with them. We find ourselves wish- 
 ing that all of God's people were like them ; fierceness, 
 combativeness, argumentativeness, offensive pecu- 
 liarities and mannerisms, unscriptural notions and 
 practices all given up, the chaff gone, and the beau- 
 tiful, golden wheat of a modest, humble, faithful 
 Christian life and character left for hell to be amazed 
 at, earth to admire, and heaven to rejoice over. 
 
 May the good Lord turn His winnowing fan upon 
 us all ! If we are all wheat, we have nothing to dread 
 or lose. If we have chaff, it ought to go. We wonder 
 how many will say Amen.
 
 XIV. 
 "THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS." 
 
 '"PHIS was God's message to His people when the 
 * enemy, in overwhelming numbers, were arrayed 
 against them. It is a message that needs to be sent 
 and received to-day fully as much as upon that morn- 
 ing, when the forces encamped against Israel were 
 like grasshoppers for multitude. 
 
 The sentence of five words, which forms the cap- 
 tion of this article, is susceptible of two applications. 
 First, it may come in rebuke. There are some people 
 who act as if the whole Church rested upon their 
 shoulders. These characters are found both in the 
 ministry and laity. They go about with pondering 
 brows, anxious looks, and burdened spirits. The care 
 of the Church or Churches proves a crushing load to 
 them. To some they appear to be the door of the 
 Church, to others they seem to have the keys, and to 
 still others they look like they not only run the visible 
 kingdom of Christ, but actually bear it up. To the 
 young and uninitiated these personages, with their 
 burdened, even oppressed, appearance, are very awe- 
 inspiring. 
 
 The writer recalls a certain large building in one 
 134
 
 THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 135 
 
 of our great cities, which has near its foundation a 
 row of Satyr-like figures. They are bowed down as 
 if they were upholding the vast fabric above, when the 
 truth is, as the architect will tell you, they have only 
 the appearance of supporting, and really bear up 
 nothing. A number of times we have seen individuals 
 in the Church, who reminded us of these stone images. 
 They carry a burdened look, a strained expression of 
 countenance, as if they could not hold out much 
 longer. They bear themselves as if, through the neg- 
 lect and faithlessness of others, great and crushing 
 burdens had been laid upon them, when the truth was 
 that the financial and religious welfare of the Church 
 did not depend upon them at all. We have all seen 
 this character in the home, business-office, and many 
 other places ; but for richness of expression, complete- 
 ness of outline, as well as fullness of detail, we have 
 to go to the Church to behold the man. He may 
 be a presiding elder, pastor, steward, or Church mem- 
 ber, it does not matter; the facial expression born 
 of the imagination that a fearful responsibility is upon 
 him, and one out of all proportion greater than that 
 which rests upon the other members of the Church, 
 is unmistakably there. In addition can be read in the 
 mystic handwriting on the countenance the inward 
 belief that he is the only one of the Lord's prophets 
 now left in the land, and that if he should die well,
 
 136 HEART TALKS. 
 
 there is no language powerful enough to describe the 
 extent of the woe which would befall the Church at 
 the loss of such a servant, who, not content with be- 
 ing a pillar, actually bears up the pillars themselves! 
 In a word, he has unwittingly made himself the foun- 
 dation. 
 
 So they all have a "bearing-up" look. An awful 
 load, not only of personal but of general responsibility, 
 seems to be crushing them to the earth. They try 
 to cultivate a meek silence at times, but it will not 
 and does not last; they must speak and recount what 
 they have done, are doing, and are going to do; the 
 last being always the greatest of the three. In one 
 case I recall a steward who, on one of his monthly 
 laudations of what he had done and suffered for Zion, 
 ran out of facts concerning actual performances, and 
 said, "Brethren, I can't even sleep at night for think- 
 ing of these things." The "these things" to which he 
 referred was a debt of several hundred dollars on 
 a Church which never paid less than fifteen thousand 
 dollars a year for all purposes, and never had a deficit 
 to report at the Annual Conference. The brother 
 knew this, but he must have some grievance in order 
 to be able to give a reason for the grief which was in 
 him. The sadly amusing feature of it all was that he 
 was a well-to-do man, and could easily have paid the 
 bill, and not missed the money. But he wanted
 
 THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 137 
 
 to "grieve" instead of "give." Two small letters make 
 a great difference in words. 
 
 The grief-stricken appearance I have beheld in 
 some Church officials, and the sighs I have heard 
 them heave, would give them fame in the world of 
 drama, and command any price as "wailers" and 
 "mourners" for funerals in the far-away East. 
 
 Time was in my early ministry when I was much 
 impressed with this class of people, and thought every- 
 thing rested upon them, that nothing would or could 
 be more calamitous than the death of these same 
 nervous, wiry, jerky, fussy, busy, consequential indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 Little by little I began to see that the Church 
 did not rest upon them; that others, who were say- 
 ing but little, were really doing more, and much more, 
 than these same persons, and not only financially, but 
 in every other way, for the cause of Christ. 
 
 Then, I have seen one of these deluded beings die ; 
 and it was simply marvelous to note how well God's 
 cause got along without him; in fact, that an actual 
 sense of relief was realized. Only think of it! Not 
 a jar was felt through all the vast and complicated 
 machinery of the Church ; not a halt of a single mo- 
 ment upon the part of God's mighty advancing hosts. 
 Multiplied thousands were being saved while he was 
 dying. Hundreds of millions never heard of him, and,
 
 138 HEART TALKS. 
 
 awful to state, among the few who knew him, no one 
 was inconsolable at his departure. And yet he imag- 
 ined that he was not only important, but essential. 
 
 The expression, "We can not get along without 
 him," even when uttered in connection with the best 
 and most useful of men, is not only untrue, but per- 
 fectly absurd. 
 
 The Orientals had a figurative way of conveying 
 truth, which was very powerful. One of their sym- 
 bolic sermons was to thrust a finger into water, and 
 then, upon withdrawing it, ask the looker-on to show 
 them the hole. The lesson was, that just that much 
 we would be missed on the earth ; that, the instant we 
 were withdrawn from the walks of life, men would 
 rush in instantly, and so fill our places ; we would never 
 be missed. 
 
 Let the reader ask himself what physician, lawyer, 
 merchant, or preacher has arrested by his death the 
 onward sweep of his profession or calling. 
 
 But the people of whom we speak will not be so 
 taught and convinced. They are settled in the idea 
 that they, like Atlas, bear up everything. So they 
 go on in their delusion, while their brethren also go 
 on, but smiling as they go, at this conceit, which, if 
 it were true, would wreck the Church with the death 
 of every such man.
 
 THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 139 
 
 But the expression, "The battle is not yours," is 
 also one of comfort. 
 
 If the battle is not ours, then it is the Lord's. 
 Here at once we get the consolation, and see the vic- 
 tory. If God's people would only allow this fact to 
 take possession of mind and heart, what an amount 
 of fret and anxiety they would be delivered from ! In 
 the great moral struggle going on around the world, 
 God is leading. It is His war. While He uses us, 
 it is His power, truth, and presence which is to win 
 the day at last. 
 
 All of God's children who have in them a proper 
 concern for the welfare and spread of His kingdom 
 in the world have several blessed facts for their con- 
 solation. 
 
 One is, that God took care of the Church quite a 
 while before they were born. He brought the truth 
 up out of the Dark Ages when the Devil seemed to 
 have the world in an everlasting grasp. If the Lord 
 did this when Bibles were scarce and faithful men few, 
 what reason for hope and joy have we now, with the 
 broad flashlight of the gospel flung in every direc- 
 tion, with countless copies of the Scriptures, and a 
 vast body of consecrated and sanctified men and 
 women altogether given up to the Lord! 
 
 Another fact is, that the gospel will continue to
 
 140 HEART TALKS. 
 
 roll on its victorious way after we are dead. Elijah 
 has to go, but God is getting Elisha ready to take 
 his place. George Fox is called away, but John Wes- 
 ley takes up the same cry which died away on the 
 Quaker's whitening lips. The Methodist Church be- 
 gan to lose power, and the Salvation Army sprang 
 to the front dfter sinners. A cold, stiff ecclesiasticism 
 creeps like death toward the heart of the Church, and 
 God sweeps the holiness movement around the world. 
 So it goes. You need not be afraid to die, my brother ; 
 draw up your feet, turn your face to the wall, and be 
 gathered to your fathers. The Church will manage 
 to get along after you are gathered. The gospel-car, 
 loaded down with happy passengers, will be rushing 
 through the land, while you, poor, dear heart, will 
 be gasping for breath. The old ship of Zion will be 
 coming up the stream of Time, the banks resounding 
 with the shouts of the redeemed, while you are being 
 lowered in the grave. 
 
 If a dead Christian could look out of the glass 
 case of his coffin, or take a peep out of the grave on 
 Sunday morning after his burial, he would be sur- 
 prised to see how many had taken his place and were 
 rushing on with the banner of salvation. 
 
 It was a custom in Greece, when tidings of an 
 important nature were sent, for it to be borne by a 
 man with a flaming firebrand. As he sank exhausted,
 
 THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS. 141 
 
 another man caught it up ere it fell, and so on, until at 
 last the flambeau, with its figurative message, had 
 reached the point of destination. So runs and falls 
 the gospel messenger, and so others quickly take up 
 the good news, the tidings of great joy to all people, 
 and have borne it far away while the dying Christian 
 is breathing his last, surrounded by friends and family. 
 
 A third consolation is the thought that, as the 
 battle is the Lord's, he is bound to win. 
 
 Viewed in any light, there can be no question 
 about the matter. How can one who is omnipresent, 
 omniscient, and omnipotent, be overcome? If the 
 Lord was afraid of the issue, He could easily stop the 
 generation of the human family until we all died out ; 
 or he could remove the oxygen from the air, or send 
 a flood, or make the earth open, and swallow us up 
 out of sight, or with a blow of His almighty hand 
 shiver the earth to pieces, and let us fall forever 
 through the bottomless space which underlies the 
 universe. 
 
 But God sees fit not to defeat us by physical might, 
 but with moral and spiritual forces. It makes the 
 battle longer, but the victory not the less certain. So 
 wonderful. is His power that He overrules everything, 
 makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and declares 
 that all things shall work together for good to us if 
 we but love Him.
 
 142 HEART TALKS. 
 
 More than all that, the very end of the war has 
 been foreseen and described by Heaven. It is over- 
 whelming victory for God and His people, and eternal 
 disaster and irrevocable defeat to Satan and his fol- 
 lowers. The very language of sinners in their fear 
 and despair at the Last Day has been given, when 
 they ask for mountains and rocks to fall on them, and 
 hide them from the face of Him who sits upon the 
 throne. A picture, taken of the closing scene, shows 
 the Devil with the false prophet in hell, with all the 
 nations that forget God; while Jesus reigns from sun 
 to sun, holiness is everywhere, and the New Jerusalem 
 is seen descending from the skies. 
 
 Surely, in view of all these things, the child of 
 God should be no pessimist, but look up, and be glad, 
 for God is with us, and the day of earth's redemption 
 draweth nigh. yr
 
 XV. 
 THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 
 
 A MORAL test is not necessarily a temptation. 
 ** The Devil tempts, while God tests His people. 
 In those days, the Bible says, God did tempt Abraham. 
 The commentators tell us, the better reading is that 
 God tried or tested Abraham. The Scripture is clear 
 in the statement that God tempts no man. More- 
 over, our knowledge of Him precludes the idea. 
 
 But God can place us in certain circumstances and 
 situations, can pass us through various conditions of 
 life, which will reveal and declare who we are and 
 where we are in the spiritual life. These testings come 
 to all. They vary somewhat, yet are similar with 
 many. They appear with remarkable vividness in 
 Elijah's life, and as we study them, they seem reflec- 
 tions or pictures of our own. 
 
 In Elijah's case we notice the test of success. 
 
 The prophet had won a great victory on Mount 
 Carmel. The fire had fallen, he had been vindicated 
 and honored by God, the people were convinced, and 
 the prophets of Baal had been slain by hundreds. 
 Through all this amazing success he kept in his proper 
 place before God, was humble and true as ever, and 
 
 143
 
 
 144 HEART TALKS. 
 
 went from this triumph to another on the brow of the 
 mountain, where he pleaded with the Lord, and re- 
 ceived rain for the parched country. He stood the 
 test of success. 
 
 Not all can stand it. Many have gone down under 
 lit, and many more will yet do so. Some Christians 
 lose their heads immediately upon a first clearly- 
 marked success. Others run well for a while, and then, 
 as victory after victory comes to them on different 
 lines of the Christian life, they begin to falter, totter, 
 and then topple from their high attainments and close 
 walk with God. 
 
 They went up the ladder of temporal promotion 
 too rapidly. The elevation was so sudden, and the 
 position so lofty, as to create dizziness. Frequent 
 success in the work of the Lord brought about public 
 praise, newspaper notices, various kinds of compli- 
 ments, which at last sapped the strength, stole away 
 the humility, and destroyed the power of one of God's 
 devoted servants. 
 
 The harm was not all done at once, but spiritual 
 people could see the damage being inflicted, and be- 
 held it with intense sorrow. The man, once so hum- 
 ble, developed spiritual pride before he was aware of 
 it. He can not endure contradiction. He finds it 
 difficult to pardon a criticism passed on himself or 
 work. He has a keen relish for praise; it is like in-
 
 THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 145 
 
 cense in his nostrils. He does not care to hear others 
 complimented ; it is wearisome to him. He wants the 
 censer swung before him mainly, if not altogether; 
 and if it is not done, he drops hints to bring about 
 the swinging of the sweet thing. Time was that news- 
 paper puffs and notices humbled him, but now he care- 
 fully cuts them out or sends marked copies of the 
 paper to individuals or to others papers, that the echo 
 of his greatness might dwell long in the land. 
 
 He is a spiritually fallen man. He has an idol in X" 
 his life, and it is himself. He is a self-worshipper. He * 
 says that it is not so, but it is evident to all that Christ 
 has really the second place in his life. He was once 
 great in his littleness, but is now little in his greatness. 
 The trouble is that he does not realize it. God knows 
 it, men see it, but he, the fallen one, is the last to rec- 
 ognize it. God, in His goodness, will yet show His 
 servant these melancholy things. The pillow of the 
 Satan-deceived and fame-deluded man will yet be wet 
 with bitter tears over the fact that he could not stand 
 success; that he was faithful enough in a humble 
 and obscure sphere, but lost his head completely when 
 elevation and promotion came. 
 
 Few men can stand success. All are willing to risk ^ 
 it, and thousands who enter upon that condition get' 
 spiritually hurt, and, worse still, go into backsliding, 
 and some into gross sin. 
 
 10
 
 146 HEART TALKS. 
 
 We recently heard some grave-eyed, serious-faced 
 men speaking of Hobson, the hero of the Merrimac. 
 They were deploring his late conduct and the re- 
 markable weakness he was exhibiting. One of them 
 said, "He could not stand success; the flattery of a 
 nation was too great for him." The silence which 
 followed the remark was eloquent as well as pathetic ; 
 all felt the words of the speaker were true. 
 
 We never hear a young preacher much praised, 
 but we tremble for him. No one can tell the harm 
 that has been done here by indiscreet Christian men 
 and women. It is true that the flattered, patted, and 
 petted man of God says that he needs all this kind 
 of word-incense and tongue-anointings ; but a glance 
 at the spiritual giants of the Bible Joseph, Elijah, 
 Daniel, and Paul shows that they had none of this 
 coddling and nursing, taffying and sugar-plumming. 
 
 Few can stand it. Few can be trusted on pin- 
 nacles. Few can wield the scepter of any kind of 
 power without making a bludgeon of it to others 
 and finally a tripping-stick for himself. Under the 
 strange, intoxicating influence of public notice, public 
 applause, and the dizziness of high position, behold, 
 the simplicity and sincerity of Christ is lost. The 
 humble man grows haughty, the once lowly child of 
 God becomes domineering, and the meek, obscure
 
 THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 147 
 
 preacher in time evolves into a dreaded ecclesiastical 
 tyrant and autocrat. 
 
 A friend of the writer saw a man elected to the 
 highest position in the Church. He said that in twelve 
 hours the "swelling" of the man was painfully apparent 
 to his best friends. 
 
 Few can stand success and power. Some, thank 
 God, like Elijah, can do so ; may their tribe increase ! 
 But many can not ; down they go. Look at them tot- 
 tering already! See them falling! Hear the crash! 
 My God, have mercy ! 
 
 A second moral test is that of failure. 
 
 This is the opposite of the other. It is to see 
 the work of our hands fail, or apparently fail. It may 
 be a failure of a single effort, a series of efforts, or a 
 lifetime work. 
 
 In Elijah's case it was the apparent defeat of the 
 greatest purpose and effort of his life. He was look- 
 ing for a result that would honor God and bless the 
 people. His victory on Mount Carmel, his triumph 
 in prayer on the brow of the mountain overlooking 
 the sea, and the destruction of Baal's prophets, had 
 prepared him to expect the complete overthrow of 
 idolatry in Israel and the universally-accepted and 
 peaceably-restored worship of God. To his amaze- 
 ment this does not follow, but instead he gets a mes-
 
 148 HEART TALKS. 
 
 sage from Queen Jezebel that she is determined to 
 have his life, and that speedily. The Scripture tells 
 us that when Elijah heard that, "He went for his life." 
 Then followed his dejection under the juniper-tree 
 and his low spirits in the cave on the mountain. In 
 his own words, "he wanted to die." He who stood 
 the test of success and glorious victory went down 
 under the test of temporary reverse or apparent failure. 
 
 As a rule, a less number lose spiritual ground here 
 than through the test of success. Still many weaken 
 and go down at this point, so that the lesson is needed 
 to be taught and the warning-signal held up. 
 
 With failure comes the falling away of friends. It 
 is sad to say, and can be said without bitterness or 
 cynicism, that there is a class of admirers and follow- 
 ers who are simply fair-weather adherents. They can 
 go from Bethany to Jerusalem with an acclaiming 
 crowd with you, but fall away in the journey from the 
 Judgment Hall to Calvary. They are enraptured with 
 one's success, but when the tide of popularity or pros- 
 perity seems to turn, they also turn. 
 
 One does not have to live long to see this most 
 melancholy feature of human nature. If ever a man 
 needed comfort and sympathy, it is when adversity 
 comes, when a strange revolution of life's wheel pulls 
 him down in temporal things, and heavy hands of
 
 THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 149 
 
 power and influence are outstretched to keep him 
 down. Now is the time for the grasp of the hand, the 
 cheery smile, the warm word of love, the sympathetic 
 visit, or the reassuring letter. But not always do these 
 things come, and, worse still, from where they might 
 have been expected. 
 
 This forsaking, turning away, and cooling off 
 towards one in misfortune, has been seen even in the 
 home. Men in fine financial condition have had a 
 court and deference paid them by their families, which 
 they imagined to be the outcroppings of love and de- 
 votion; but when trouble came, and they could not 
 do as formerly, they discovered a failure in attention 
 and an absence of affection, which first surprised and 
 grieved, and then, as the cause flashed upon the mind, 
 shocked and hardened them. 
 
 Here comes in, then, the power of failure. It alters 
 our surroundings, seems to change people, shakes 
 one's confidence in those formerly trusted, and so 
 opens the heart wide to sorrow, despair, and a pro- 
 found spirit of skepticism as to many things and all 
 people. 
 
 An additional feature of failure is a certain lone- 
 liness attendant upon it. The successful man is sought 
 after, the failing man is let alone. Elijah had the 
 entire wilderness to himself after his rebuff and defeat
 
 150 HEART TALKS. 
 
 at Jezreel. In like manner men are allowed to have 
 solitary hours, lonely days, and empty rooms after 
 failure comes. 
 
 Let a man fail in a speech or sermon, and he will 
 be struck with the fact, how few will hunt him up. 
 It is the man who carried everything before him, and 
 .who needs no human comfort, who is surrounded and 
 fairly covered up with congratulations. 
 
 Let a man lose his fortune, or his business position, 
 or fail in a great undertaking, or come short of what 
 was expected of him by his friends, and at once he 
 hears the sighing of the wilderness around him, and 
 knows that in heart and life he is alone. 
 
 This is a crucial hour, a most wonderful oppor- 
 tunity in the character-world, a battle-field for either 
 a great victory or equally stupendous defeat. What 
 shall it be? Will the man rise or sink? Will he push 
 on or stop? Will he rise superior to the test or go 
 down under it? 
 
 While it is the soul's glorious opportunity, it is 
 also Satan's hour. Here he has captured great num- 
 bers, as, lying under the juniper-tree, they said they 
 were no better than their fathers, that hope was in 
 vain, and they only craved for themselves the privi- 
 lege to die. 
 
 Happy the man who will stand the test, push
 
 THE TEST OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 151 
 
 on through the desert, hold to his faith in God, and 
 keep the sweetness and cleanness of his soul in spite 
 of everything. He shall come into the "confirmed," 
 "strengthened," "established," "settled" experience 
 which Paul writes about, and after that obtain the ' 
 crown of glory that fadeth not away.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 
 
 ALL the sides of a man's character are not touched 
 ** by the tests of success and failure. There is a 
 mighty trying force in loneliness, and an equally 
 powerful one in being thrown constantly for days or 
 months or years with what is called the crowd or mul- 
 titude. Each peculiar condition will reveal some 
 weakness of the heart, and call for attention and up- 
 building at a place where feebleness was not suspected. 
 
 After a while may come the test of want. 
 
 This means not simply the loss of many comforts, 
 but positive need itself. This trial came to Elijah far 
 from infrequently. Driven by persecution to deserts 
 and caves, comforts, doubtless, he never knew, while 
 oftentimes a bare subsistence was his lot. And there 
 were times when his need was so great that it required 
 a miracle from heaven to keep him from starvation. 
 
 Elijah was the most faithful servant God had in 
 Judah or Israel, and yet there was no one who seemed 
 to have a harder time in what is called the temporali- 
 ties of life. At the time we now write of, he was dwell- 
 ing in a cave far away from towns and cities, and was 
 
 fed by ravens, and drank at the brook which flowed 
 
 152
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 153 
 
 in front of the cavern. He seemed to have had but 
 two meals a day, and the fare was not sumptuous. Of 
 course, Satan was busy at this point, to call the proph- 
 et's attention to the comfortable, not to say luxurious, 
 living of the prophets of Baal, of the three hundred 
 whom Queen Jezebel had fed at her own table, while 
 he, God's servant, living the truth, and preaching the 
 truth, spent most of his life in exile, suffering, and 
 actual want. 
 
 One day he noticed that the brook which mur- 
 mured before his hiding-place, did not flow with as 
 great volume as on the preceding day. The follow- 
 ing day it had still diminished, and Elijah saw it stead- 
 ily lessen, its tinkle weaken, until it became a mere 
 thread of water, a trickle, and then finally a dry bed 
 of sand and rock. 
 
 There is not the slightest intimation in the Book 
 that the prophet's faith failed in this trying circum- 
 stance or that he became impatient or repining. That 
 the opportunity was golden for such a mental and 
 spiritual state, none can question. But the man of 
 God stood true to God and himself through it all. 
 
 Not all, however, can claim such a victory. It 
 is a bitter trial to be needy, even when we have 
 brought poverty on ourselves by indolence or a sinful, 
 spendthrift life. But there is a keener pang sometimes 
 in the thought that our stripping and need comes
 
 154 HEART TALKS. 
 
 while walking in the ways of righteousness. The great 
 enemy is quick to call attention to the fact. The soul 
 is requested to note the prosperity of the wicked, that 
 they have all that heart can wish, and spread them- 
 selves like a green bay-tree, while the child of God 
 has the dust thrown upon him by their flying carriage- 
 wheels, and in many cases can not see twenty-four 
 hours ahead, so far as daily bread is concerned. 
 
 It constitutes an experience never to be forgotten 
 to see the brook of one's income steadily diminishing 
 and drying up, to hear the tinkle of temporal pros- 
 perity getting fainter with the flight of each day, 
 more than that, to behold the gaunt form of Need 
 leaning against the door, looking in, and, later on, 
 walking in, and taking his place in the house as one 
 of the family, his presence after that being as con- 
 stantly realized as that of any member of the house- 
 hold. 
 
 Bishop Marvin tells of the profound impression 
 made upon him as a child, by his father and mother 
 looking together, one day, into their almost emptied 
 corn-crib, and talking gloomily about the future. He 
 said, their anxious faces and low voices rolled a burden 
 even on his boyish heart^ and made a solemn memory 
 that time had never been able to obliterate. 
 
 When a Christian, steady, straightforward, and 
 true, spends his life in an everlasting financial strain
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 155 
 
 and pinch, and sees at the same time men of the world 
 with their comfortable homes and easy incomes, and 
 whose lives are not such as they should be, he is going 
 through a test. 
 
 When a preacher, with an inadequate salary, one 
 on which he finds it impossible to do justice to his 
 children in the way of education and preparation for 
 life, looks across the street, and sees a lawyer, whose 
 beautiful home and grounds declare not only comfort, 
 but luxury ; when he contrasts these happenings in his 
 mind with the added thought that he is doing far more 
 good in the world than the lawyer, the man is passing 
 through a test, and a severe one at that. 
 
 When an evangelist goes to a place, and labors 
 with all his mind, soul, and strength for the spiritual 
 good of the community, and sees scores of souls 
 saved and blessed under his ministry, and receives 
 far less for the ten days' work than some strolling 
 lecturer with a "funny subject" obtains in a single 
 night's address, there is a fine opportunity here for 
 repining, not to say discouragement. When this same 
 evangelist, after one month's hard gospel labor, had 
 scarcely an amount above traveling expenses given 
 him for compensation, and landed at his home on 
 Christmas eve with two dollars in his pocket, a very 
 great spiritual test was brought to bear upon such 
 qualities as patience, faith, and loyalty to a divine work.
 
 156 HEART TALKS. 
 
 A letter, received from a devout young Christian 
 woman, contained such a portrayal of absolute want 
 in the large family of which she was a member, of 
 the brook having completely dried up, that the heart 
 literally ached as we read the lines. 
 
 Of course, these conditions throw the life open 
 to violent and persistent assaults of the Devil, the 
 temptations being in the direction of unbelief, bitter- 
 ness, worldly pursuits, compromise of principle and 
 character, and other lines too numerous to mention. 
 
 The child of God who can see the brook diminish, 
 and then disappear, whose bread comes by weight, 
 and day by day, and as by a miracle, and yet keep 
 sweet, patient, believing, and faithful in the Savior's 
 work all the time, has about graduated in one of the 
 highest schools in the spiritual life. He has swept up 
 out of the class of "The Thirty," and is one of the 
 famous "Three" spoken of in the Old Testament. 
 
 The opposite test of want is that of relief. 
 
 The idea we would present is, that the mode which 
 God often adopts to deliver the Christian in his trou- 
 bles is often as faith-trying as the condition of need 
 in which he was plunged. 
 
 This thought is brought out by considering the 
 manner in which God relieved his servant Elijah. It 
 was a time of famine in the land, and yet the Lord 
 did not send the prophet to a wealthy man to be taken
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 157 
 
 care of, but to a poor widow, and she so poverty- 
 stricken that she had only a handful of meal left in 
 her barrel. Again Elijah rose victorious over the new 
 test, and, believing it was all right, told the woman 
 to make the cake of bread out of that last meal, and 
 doubt nothing. His mighty faith stimulated and in- 
 vigorated her sinking heart, and she did so. It was 
 a wonderful biscuit that she made that day. It proved 
 to be perfectly abundant for the needs of three people, 
 not only all that day, but as long as the famine lasted. 
 The reader can not but recall occasions of distress, 
 financial, spiritual, and other kinds, where relief came 
 in ways and methods that were utterly unexpected. 
 The time, manner, and instrument are scarcely ever 
 what the tried one looked for, and in that fact we be- 
 hold God even in the hour of deliverance quickening 
 and developing faith in the soul. Man in his wisdom 
 would not have conceived of succor in that way; 
 reason would not have planned it in such a fashion. 
 The deliverance of God, like all His other tests, is to 
 intensify and strengthen faith. God is pledged to re- 
 lieve his child, but the method and time is of Divine 
 selection, and with every repetition is bound to 
 strengthen the man's confidence in the love and faith- 
 fulness of the Almighty. Besides, the waiting itself 
 develops faith. Who would have dreamed that the 
 Lord would have commanded the poorest woman in
 
 158 HEART TALKS. 
 
 the country to take care of His servant? But He did 
 so, and the method of relief was an overwhelming 
 argument and proof of God's ability to provide for 
 His people in the most discouraging circumstances, 
 and so an inspiration to faith and perfect soul-restful- 
 ness. How could a man doubt after such an unmis- 
 takably providential dealing? 
 
 A Christian woman, brought to sore straits, and 
 almost yielding to despair, had to be comforted, and 
 faith in God renewed. The agency the Lord used to 
 revive and restore His child was the sight of a sparrow 
 hopping about on the snow-covered ground. In- 
 stantly the words of Christ rushed over her, "Your 
 heavenly Father feedeth them are ye not much bet- 
 ter than they?" The revulsion of feeling was com- 
 plete as, with ascendant faith in her heart, and happy 
 tears in her eyes, she murmured, "If He cares for 
 sparrows, how much more will He care for me !" 
 
 One of the most gifted preachers in the South, 
 Dr. C. K. Marshall, had suddenly lost two beautiful 
 children. He and his wife were prostrated under the 
 blow. In the very blackest day of their sorrow they 
 were, one morning, in their bedroom, too stunned 
 and heartsick to take up the simplest duty. How, 
 now, shall they be helped? Who is qualified to talk 
 to and help this prince of pulpit orators, who knew 
 beforehand all that any one could say to him?
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. 159 
 
 The strangeness of God's methods of relief is again 
 seen in the way He remembered His gifted servant. 
 Prominent, learned, and cultivated people had come 
 and gone, with their conversations, prayers, expres- 
 sions of sympathy, and counsel. All had failed. One 
 day God sent a poor old colored washerwoman, who, 
 standing at the foot of the bed, and looking down 
 with streaming eyes and kindling face upon the pros- 
 trate man and his wife by his side, so held up the duty 
 of submission to God, the certainty of reunion in 
 heaven, and, above all, the fact of an ever-present f 
 loving, sympathetic Christ, that the fountains of the 
 deep were broken up in the souls of the two she ad- 
 dressed, the stony feeling was swept away, a tide of 
 sweetest spiritual consolation rilled their hearts, and 
 life, with its burdens and duties, was taken up from 
 that hour with a comfort and power never before 
 realized. The instrument of relief was a negro woman, 
 poor, unlettered, and unknown to the world, but well 
 known to God and filled with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 We heard a gentleman say in Alabama, a couple 
 of years ago, that he became convicted for his sins at a 
 meeting, and there came a night when he was so bur- 
 dened that he thought he would go wild with grief and 
 despair. The services were over, the meeting had 
 ended, all in the household were asleep, and he tossed, 
 wakeful and miserable, upon his bed. By his side,
 
 160 HEART TALKS. 
 
 sound asleep, was a tobacco-chewing, backslidden 
 preacher. There was no need of waking him up, for 
 he himself was spiritually lapsed and dead. While 
 thus situated, who but God could give relief? It was 
 a summer night, the windows were open, and the katy- 
 dids were singing by scores in the trees. Suddenly 
 God made the choral chirp or song sound exactly like 
 "Come to Jesus," "Come to Jesus." With a burst of 
 tears the man cried out, "I will," fell upon his knees 
 by the bedside, and was instantly saved. 
 
 In the first year of his ministry, the writer, like 
 many other preachers, had a very hard time financially. 
 He saw the brook get smaller every day, and finally, 
 after living on bread alone for several days, saw even 
 that give out. The weather, also, was bitter cold, and 
 his coal supply was exhausted. As the town in which 
 he lived was not on his circuit, there was no one to 
 look to or call on. He had well-to-do men on his 
 work, but they, in the rush of their own life and busi- 
 ness, had overlooked him. What would God do in 
 this case? 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon the young 
 preacher, with a perfectly empty storeroom in his 
 house, knelt down before his stove, and cast in the last 
 lump of coal he had. Without rising, he dropped his 
 face in his hands, and said, with tears in his voice as
 
 THE TEST OF WANT AND RELIEF. l6l 
 
 well as eyes, "Lord, I will trust you," when suddenly 
 there was a knock at the front door of the cottage 
 home, and on the doorstep stood a poor farmer's boy. 
 He said, with a kind voice, but in a bashful way, to the 
 preacher : 
 
 "I have just sold the bale of cotton I made this 
 year, and have brought you four dollars. I have 
 heard you preach several times, and want to help 
 you." 
 
 Doubtless the young man wondered, as he turned 
 away, why the preacher's voice was so broken as he 
 thanked him, and why tears should fall over such a 
 small present. But it was not small in the sight of 
 God or of the man benefitted. Moreover, the preacher 
 saw back of the brown hand of the country-boy the 
 white hand of Christ. He was at His old work of 
 breaking bread. Then was the Scripture verified, 
 "And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah, say- 
 ing, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, and dwell there; 
 behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to 
 sustain thee." 
 
 May the Lord grant us to be as faithful under 
 the two tests of want and relief as was His servant 
 Elijah ! And for our additional strength and comfort 
 may we not forget that Christ was brought into want, 
 and had the Devil to whisper to Him in the wilder-
 
 1 62 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ness, "Why can not these stones be turned into 
 bread?" He stood the test to the end, even forty days ; 
 and then came the relief. It was wonderful. The 
 Bible says that "Angels came and ministered unto 
 him." The same will be done to us if we abide in 
 Christ and remain faithful.
 
 XVII. 
 THE WITHERED HAND. 
 
 HP HE hand is king among the members. It is 
 * hardly possible to overrate its value to the body. 
 If the eyes fail, the hand becomes, through touch, a 
 second sight ; if the tongue is dumb, the hand, through 
 signs and gesticulation, furnishes not only words, but 
 a language itself. Oratory without the hand is almost 
 like a bird without wings, while the great body of 
 musical instruments, thus deprived, become nothing 
 but pieces of furniture. 
 
 But there are other offices of the hand, which, 
 when we apply to the spiritual life, will add a pain- 
 ful interest to the spectacle presented by the Gospel 
 in the words that, in the congregation listening to 
 Christ, there was a man whose hand was withered. 
 This meant much, when viewed alone in a physical 
 sense, but with a spiritual application, a far greater 
 trouble and calamity is prevented. 
 
 There are many withered hands in Christian con- 
 gregations and assemblies to-day. As the lame man 
 lay at the Beautiful Gate, and the palsied man was 
 stretched by the Pool of Bethesda, so these withered 
 
 ones are in the Church, under the wings of the cher- 
 
 163
 
 1 64 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ubim, and in the immediate presence of the God of 
 grace, love, and power. 
 
 There are a thousand blessed and beautiful things 
 these people 'could do with their hands if they were 
 not withered. Some have never done anything; 
 others were once useful, but have ceased doing. The 
 sinner's hand and the backslider's hand are wonder- 
 fully alike in the fact that just now both are lifeless 
 and powerless. One was always so; the other was 
 healed for a season, for a while did great good, and 
 then something happened, known to God and them- 
 selves, and now, although still in the house of wor- 
 ship, they are present with a withered hand. 
 
 We once knew a lady whose right hand became 
 paralyzed. She carried it on a pillow. It was smooth 
 and plump, but had a dead white look that was corpse- 
 like. This useless, lifeless hand was literally loaded 
 with diamonds and emerald rings. We never looked 
 upon the helpless member, covered with sparkling 
 jewels, without a sense of pain, as well as disgust. 
 And it is with no pleasant sensation we look upon the 
 beautiful, well-kept, and even jeweled hands in the 
 Church, and think of the little good they are doing 
 for Christ in this world. Another dead thing is loaded 
 down with gems ! 
 
 One office of the spiritual hand is, to give the 
 grasp of interest and love.
 
 THE WITHERED HAND. 165 
 
 It would be impossible to estimate the good which 
 has been done by such a clasp. It is a means of grace 
 to both parties. Men and women can date the great 
 moral change of their lives to such a cordial grasp of 
 the hand. Such a pressure given the writer, when 
 he had turned his back on the world, was like a great 
 influx of strength to his soul. And yet this needed 
 work of the hand is lacking in so many places because 
 it is withered. 
 
 Another office of the hand is, to uplift the fallen. 
 
 There are many hands and weapons lifted to push 
 and knock people down who are treading the way of 
 life. And there are hands to keep them down. And 
 then, thank God, there are hands to lift men up. They 
 are few in comparison with the others, but they exist 
 for all that. 
 
 It is always counted a noble act for a man to pluck 
 one from the fire or the waves, or to deliver from any 
 great physical danger. Men commemorate such deeds 
 in marble, in medals, and in song, oration, and book. 
 The land resounds with the achievement in which a 
 hand went down, and a human life came up. 
 
 There are greater dangers than fire and flood; 
 and mightier perils than falling buildings and plung- 
 ing derailed trains; and greater despairs born in the 
 heart than that of feeling a vessel going down in mid- 
 ocean, or beholding the flames cutting off all hope
 
 166 HEART TALKS. 
 
 of escape from a burning building. There are such 
 things as hopeless poverty, present crushing want, 
 profound moral mistakes, sins committed, character 
 wrecked, reputation gone, conscience on fire, and dev- 
 ils goading the heart to desperation. Where one sinks 
 in the sea, or is ingulfed in blazing houses, thousands 
 are going down here, and the sad thought is, that they 
 would not have gone down if there had not been so 
 many withered hands in the Church. 
 
 We knew a man who had a number of disasters 
 befall him. Finally, one morning, a greater trouble 
 than all, which had gone before, befell him in his busi- 
 ness. Stunned, heartsick, despairing, he took the 
 street-cars for home. On the cars he met a friend 
 and member of the Church, who noticed his sorrow, 
 but said nothing. He reached home, and almost 
 staggered into his wife's room, hungry for a look and 
 word and grasp of sympathy and love. The wife was 
 so absorbed in her young baby that she had scarcely 
 a glance for her wretched husband. He told her that 
 he was in great distress, and her cold reply was to 
 go in the next room, and lie down. A hand-clasp of 
 love and pity would have saved him even then, but it 
 did not come. He was married to a woman who had 
 a withered hand when it came to spiritual help. He, 
 with a groan, walked into the next room, and com- 
 mitted suicide.
 
 THE WITHERED HAND. 167 
 
 Few active, devoted workers but have thrilling 
 histories to relate of timely help that, under God, they 
 were able to extend, and that prevented desperate 
 deeds, robbed hell of a victim, and added a new citizen 
 to the kingdom of God. Look on us, said Peter to the 
 lame man, and at the same time gave him his hand, 
 and Luke says, the afflicted one leaped to his feet. 
 Save us from a hand that is idly folded into its 
 fellow-palm, and coddled in its deathlikeness on a 
 pillow, and gemmed when it is doing nothing for 
 God or man worth a copper cent. Give us the 
 hand that can reach downward, and get hold of a 
 despairing heart and sinking life, and lift them up, 
 and present them to God. Such a hand Christ carried 
 with Him, and such a hand we should all pray to pos- 
 sess. 
 
 A third office of the hand is, to give. 
 
 The sight of a woman stopping on the street to 
 give to a beggar has always warmed my heart. The 
 spectacle of a liberal man giving his gold, silver, and 
 bank-notes to a worthy cause is always an uplifting 
 sight. The human race is united in condemnation and 
 disgust of a miser, and all agree in admiring and prais- 
 ing the generous and princely giver. No statue is built 
 for an avaricious man who hoarded and lived for him- 
 self ; but the man whose heart-throbs broke the fasten- 
 ings of his front door, and the latch of his gate, and
 
 1 68 HEART TALKS. 
 
 helped the outside world in its need and distress as 
 God gave him ability, this is the man whose name 
 is pronounced with love and gratitude, and whose life 
 is honored everywhere. He has built monuments for 
 himself in churches, colleges, and good institutions 
 of various kinds. The tears which he dried by his 
 benefactions to the poor will reappear, transformed 
 into flashing gems, that will deck his crown at the 
 Last Day. The blessings he receives from countless 
 lips will be woven into a marvelous robe of glory 
 for him in the coming world. 
 
 Few know how to give. The hand is withered. 
 The man can not get his fingers into his pocket, and 
 has no strength to draw out his purse, or to extract 
 coins and bills from its folds. Poor, lifeless member 
 that can not respond to the call which comes up from 
 starving people in our alleys for bread and coal, and 
 from the jungles of India and Africa for gospel light 
 and salvation ! 
 
 A fourth office of the hand is, to supplicate in 
 prayer to God, and bring down the power of Heaven 
 upon the people. 
 
 We naturally fold or clasp the hands when we pray, 
 and often they are uplifted in supplication. The more 
 earnest the petition becomes, the more the hand is 
 used. We have all seen such hands. There have 
 been times that we have beheld them over the heads
 
 THE WITHERED HAND. 169 
 
 ot a congregation, when they reminded us of banners, 
 leading on to battle and victory. Some of them would 
 get hold of the throne, and would bring down the 
 Spirit upon the audience in mighty power. There 
 were no pillars and galleries lined and loaded with such 
 spiritual difficulty and opposition but they could, by 
 the might of those hands of prayer, bring the whole 
 thing down before God with a perfect crash. 
 
 How we bless God for these hands of prayer ! We 
 see them in many places, at the sick-bed, dying-bed, 
 family altar, Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, and 
 Church service. They are barricades between souls 
 and ruin, and they, at the same time, are great levers 
 to pry men and women out of sin and despair into 
 hope and righteousness. 
 
 It is said of Stonewall Jackson that he could be 
 seen, during the raging of the battle, with his head 
 bowed and right hand uplifted in prayer, as he gal- 
 loped up and down in front of firing and charging 
 lines. Who wonders at his victories? God would not 
 let anything override that lifted hand. And it has 
 seemed to the writer that, while God intended to 
 emancipate the slave in the Civil War, yet He had 
 to bury that man before He could let the invading 
 army roll on to accomplish the great design. God 
 honors the uplifted hand. 
 
 When a certain battle took place between the Is-
 
 170 HEART TALKS. 
 
 raelites and one of their powerful enemies, the Bible 
 says that Moses went up on a mountain, and lifted his 
 hands in prayer. The Scripture adds that, when his 
 hands drooped, Amalek prevailed, but when they were 
 steady in their uplifted position, Israel prevailed. The 
 efficacy of fervent, importuning prayer is plainly 
 taught here in this striking occurrence. 
 
 In view of all -this, how exceedingly melancholy 
 it is to see the withered hands in the Church ! They 
 are busy in Church festivals, they can clap an elegant 
 approval of some song in a social reception, but they 
 hang pale and lifeless when we enter the realm of 
 prayer and importunate pleadings for salvation, full 
 salvation, and the mighty power of God to come upon 
 the people. 
 
 What a time we would have, and how the king- 
 dom of hell would be shaken, if all the hands, now 
 numbered as Christian, could be restored and filled 
 with life and power as we have mentioned, and be 
 lifted triumphantly to the skies ! Who doubts, if this 
 were done, Israel would prevail, and sin and Satan 
 would go down everywhere? 
 
 Christ's remedy for the withered hand is to stretch 
 it forth. This is what He told the man thus afflicted 
 before him, and he, in the effort to obey, suddenly felt 
 life and strength rush into the dead member. 
 
 If the withered hand is that of the unconverted
 
 THE WITHERED HAND. 17 1 
 
 man, the thing to do is to fix the eyes on Christ, and 
 try to do with the paralyzed soul what He commands 
 to be done. 
 
 If the hand has become withered from disuse or 
 sin, and is that of the backslider, then sin is to be re- 
 nounced, and the long unused powers of the life must 
 be dedicated again to God, and the effort to obey in 
 all things be made, while the eye all the while is stead- 
 ily fixed on Christ. 
 
 The repentance of the backslider, whether he has 
 lapsed in the regenerated or sanctified life, is to do 
 the first works, take up neglected duties, and obey 
 God in every particular. The heart is sick, and the 
 hand is heavy, but He who made us bids the drooping- 
 hearted man to stretch forth the withered hand. Re- 
 turn to forsaken fields of duty, resume the old-time 
 benevolences, go to helping and assisting the needy 
 and fallen, invade the realms of importunate prayer 
 again, give heart, tongue, foot, hand, and voice 
 once more fully to God. In a word, with eyes fixed 
 on Christ, stretch forth the withered hand. 
 
 Reason will say, it is hopeless. Feeling may urge 
 you to wait for more emotion. Despair may whisper, 
 nothing will come of it ; and the Devil may tempt you 
 not to do so, but Jesus says, stretch it forth. So, in 
 His beloved name, do it ! The instant that you do so, 
 healing life, restoration, joy, and blessedness will rush
 
 172 HEART TALKS. 
 
 into the spirit, and another being will be seen who has 
 a tongue to praise God, a foot to leap at His bidding, 
 and a hand, withered no longer, but able to lift up 
 the fallen, give freely to the needy, and pull down the 
 blessings of Heaven upon hundreds and thousands 
 of struggling immortal souls.
 
 XVIII. 
 THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 
 
 PAUL, had been arrested by ecclesiastical authority, 
 and was standing before the Sanhedrim under 
 the charge of being an enemy to the Church. Being 
 allowed to speak for himself, he said, "Men and breth- 
 ren, I have lived in all good conscience before God 
 until this day." This was a first-class experience, and 
 one that few can truly claim as their own, and yet it 
 was instantly met with the loud, harsh command of 
 the high priest, "Smite him on the mouth !" 
 
 It would seem from this that an experience of a 
 high order was not relished by the scribes and doctors 
 of the temple. Perhaps there is an element of con- 
 demnation in the relation of high spiritual attainment 
 or obtaimnent to religious people who have degener- 
 ated into men of Church affairs, whose eyes have been 
 diverted from the Spirit in the wheels to the wheels 
 themselves. The Sanhedrim lived for the machinery, 
 but Paul had seen "a man's hand in the wheels." It 
 had a scar in the palm. To say that he had beheld 
 more than the high priest and the elders, was not only 
 
 presumptuous, but unpardonable, and called at once 
 
 J73
 
 174 HEART TALKS. 
 
 for a crushing blow on the lips which had given such 
 umbrage. 
 
 It is an old offense and an old punishment. Christ 
 Himself, long before Paul's mishap, had in like man- 
 ner outraged the same high ecclesiastical circle, and 
 received a similar cruel blow upon His mouth. And 
 yet He had simply declared the truth in every word 
 which He had uttered. 
 
 It seems that some men do not want to hear the 
 truth, or anyhow the whole truth. They live obvi- 
 ously on lower planes of the spiritual life, and yet 
 would speak advisedly about the higher planes. Un- 
 der the plea of attending to the "wheels," to the va- 
 rious Sanhedrim meetings of the Church, they have 
 overlooked the privilege, duty, and necessity of wait- 
 ing ten days in humble supplication and expectancy 
 before God in the upper room. Giving only a few 
 -, minutes of each day to God in real prayer on their 
 knees, they feel perfectly competent to sit in judgment 
 upon servants of God who daily pray from three to four 
 hours upon their faces. Living at the foot of the 
 mountain, they indulge in smiles and considerable 
 criticism of one who arises in the camp, and speaks 
 of a fire-encircled Summit, where blessed truths were 
 engraven by God's finger on the tables of the heart. 
 They overlook the spiritual meaning in the toilsome 
 ascent of the mountain, the loneliness of the top, the
 
 THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 175 
 
 waiting for days on God to reveal Himself. In a word, 
 they neglect the conditions of obtaining Divine mani- 
 festations and blessings, and yet cry out against the 
 statements of those who have fully obeyed these higher 
 demands of the gospel. 
 
 If the Christian, descending to the camp from the 
 fire-crowned mount, would only wear a veil, or if he 
 would live his experience without any oral testimony, 
 all would be well. It is the tongue that seems to hurt 
 so in certain circles. Therefore, be it resolved, that, 
 whosoever shall claim that he has received from 
 Heaven anything different from, or superior to, the 
 ecclesiastical circles of his village, town, or city, be- 
 hold ! he shall be smitten at once upon the mouth. Be 
 it, also, resolved that, whosoever shall strike this same 
 offender with weapons of ridicule, misrepresentation, 
 and oppression, he shall be counted to have done the 
 Church a kindness, and rendered a service to God. 
 
 So the smiting goes on. 
 
 The sound of the blows are all over the land. The 
 last few years reveal a vision of blood. Clenched hands 
 are lifted, and fall with sickening thud upon mouths 
 testifying to the truth ; and the blood spurts. 
 
 What if this is a figure? Which is the more pain- 
 ful, a blow on the face, or private letters, published 
 articles, and public deliverances where ridicule and 
 unjust condemnation abound, and the thing struck at
 
 176 HEART TALKS. 
 
 is not the face, but the man's reputation, influence, 
 standing, work, and happiness. The bruised face will 
 be well in a day or so ; but what about the heart and 
 life that have been struck? A cool linen bandage may 
 heal the one; but who can undo the hurt of a written 
 or printed lie? Can the writer himself do it? Who 
 is willing to undertake such a journey and such a task, 
 where the paper containing the misrepresentation or 
 fabrication has a circulation of from ten thousand to 
 five hundred thousand copies? 
 
 This slayer of his brother forgets that God asked 
 Cain where his brother Abel was. This smiter of the 
 Christian testifier forgets that God watches the fall 
 of a sparrow, much more that of a falling hand, whose 
 destination is a mouth that God made, and that is 
 declaring what God, in His glorious power, has done 
 and can do for the soul. He has also forgotten that 
 God is a just God, and that this very fact of Divine 
 justice and judgment will close the windows and doors 
 of heaven upon him, and transform the sky into an 
 impenetrable ceiling of brass. Prayer, like smoke, is 
 driven back into the eyes of such a man, and commu- 
 nion with heaven without repentance becomes im- 
 possible. 
 
 In a word, this man, under a closed heaven, is 
 now in fine condition to misunderstand, and even^be
 
 THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 177 
 
 wrathful with a child of God who speaks of open skies, 
 descending doves, and flaming tongues of fire. 
 
 So it comes to pass that, look when and where we 
 will, there is a vision of clenched hands, smitten 
 mouths, and spurting blood. Blood is everywhere ! 
 
 It is an age of blood-flowing, not simply in the 
 military world, where swords and cannon are used, 
 but in the after-history of investigation, where no po- 
 sition of responsibility and prominence will save a 
 man from violent attacks. The vision of blood is in 
 the political world, where one party spends most of 
 its time in belaboring the other. It is in the com- 
 mercial world, where, with every conceivable art, strat- 
 agem, and power, individuals as well as corporations 
 are trying to undo and destroy some real or fancied 
 opponent. It is in the literary world, where criticism 
 is as keen as the blade of the guillotine, and as pitiless 
 and unjust as the men who ran that instrument of 
 death in the Reign of Terror. 
 
 When we come to the ecclesiastical world, the 
 Church life, and, closer still, to the Christian life, we 
 would expect and crave to see something different 
 and better. But the vision of blood remains. Angry, 
 clenched hands and crimsoned mouths abound. Re- 
 ligious denominations are still seen firing at each 
 other, and chasing one another, as they do in war. 
 
 12
 
 178 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Two divisions of one great common creed are still 
 debating about how to meet each other with amity 
 and brotherly kindness in their work, and failing to 
 do it. One of these bodies sends a delegate to the 
 other to convey greetings. He does so, and sits down, 
 when, in fifteen minutes, a leading man on the other 
 side tomahawks and scalps him so quickly and cleverly 
 in a platform reply, that the victim scarcely realizes 
 that he has been slain. The great warrior sits down, 
 with the scalp of the young chief at his belt, who, 
 covered with blood, has hardly yet comprehended 
 what has been done. 
 
 Look at the Church members striking at one an- 
 other. Hear the stewards talking about one another. 
 Listen to the preachers and evangelists judging, criti- 
 cising, and condemning one another. See how the 
 editors of Church papers are forever after one another. 
 It is a vision of blood everywhere! It is a spectacle 
 of cutting and slashing, stabbing and shooting, toma- 
 hawking and scalping, gouging and biting, wherever 
 you turn. Doubled fists, smitten mouths streaming 
 with blood, are on all sides. Heenan and Sayers, 
 Sullivan and Kilrain, and Corbett and Fitzsimmons 
 never gave harder and crueler blows in their line than 
 I have seen and heard given in the name of Christ 
 in this so-called Christian land. 
 
 We do not allude to warnings of and denunciations
 
 THE SMITTEN MOUTH. 179 
 
 against sin that must be delivered from the Church 
 press and pulpit, but to personal attacks, the violent 
 assailing of individuals who love God, and are keep- 
 ing His commandments. 
 
 Listen to some of the words as they fall from the 
 lips of the smiter as he strikes the mouth of one of 
 God's Spirit-filled servants. 
 
 "He is not my style of preacher" Smash ! 
 
 "He does not cast out devils like I do. Hit 
 him!" Smash! 
 
 "He believes in the second coming of Christ, and 
 is a visionary. Hit him, somebody hit him, every- 
 body " Smash ! 
 
 "He believes that Christ can heal the body" 
 Smash! 
 
 "He says, he has received the blessing of sanctifi- 
 cation as a work clear and distinct from his regenera- 
 tion. Let everybody strike him!" Smash! smash! 
 smash ! 
 
 "He is a Church-splitter a crank a schismatic 
 an abuser of the Church and his brethren." Bang 
 thud smash ! 
 
 "Did you hear him?" 
 
 "No; but somebody else did." Smash! 
 
 "Did you investigate the Church-splitting matter, 
 and hear the other side of the case?" 
 
 "No ; and I do n't want to." Bang !
 
 ISO HEART TALKS. 
 
 "Would you condemn a man unheard? Is that 
 just, or right, or Christ-like?" 
 
 "I have n't time to talk with you. Hit him there, 
 some one! Strike him again! Knock him down! 
 That 's it ! Smash smash ! Now, drag him down 
 the street like they did Stephen ! Beat him as he goes ! 
 Roll him over and over ! Thrust him outside the walls ! 
 Now finish him! Bang thud smash smash 
 smash! Is he dead? Quite dead? All right! Now 
 let us open Conference with the reading of the thir- 
 teenth chapter of First Corinthians, or begin divine 
 service by singing the hymn : 
 
 "Blest be the tie that binds 
 
 Our hearts in Christian love ; 
 The fellowship of kindred minds 
 Is like to that above."
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 
 
 IV A ANY, in studying the life of Christ, overlook 
 * * * the sterner side of His character. They make 
 Him nothing but love ; invest Him with a forbearance 
 that has no end; and rob Him of justice, judgment, 
 and that ineffable dignity and grandeur belonging to 
 Him as King of kings and Lord of lords. They fail 
 to see that He who wept over Jerusalem, drove out 
 men and animals from the temple with uplifted 
 scourge and burning, indignant words, "Ye have made 
 my Father's house a den of thieves." That, while He 
 said, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest," He 
 also proclaimed, "Behold, your house is left unto you 
 desolate." That He who took little children in His 
 arms, said to the religious teachers of that day, "Ye 
 generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damna- 
 tion of hell?" That He who sat down, and opening 
 His mouth, taught the multitudes unweariedly for 
 hours, was silent in the presence of certain characters, 
 and would make them no answer whatever. 
 
 There is no contradiction in this course of Christ, 
 but perfect moral consistency. The explanation of 
 
 the varying conduct is found in the characters of the 
 
 181
 
 1 82 HEART TALK'S. 
 
 individuals before Him. The Savior has evidently 
 more than one side to His personality. There is a 
 way of obtaining an audience, and enjoying delightful 
 communion with Him ; and there is a life we can live 
 which will make the skies empty, lock the gates of 
 heaven at our approach, and cause the Son of God 
 to maintain toward us an unbroken silence. 
 
 The dreadful fact of Divine silence is the thought 
 present to the reader; and this unspeakable calamity 
 we bring on ourselves. 
 
 Christ was notably silent to certain men. The 
 Bible says that, under the questions they put to Him, 
 "He answered not a word." 
 
 Christ is silent to some people to-day. Some are 
 honest enought to confess the great woe; in other 
 cases many see it. Whether in Bible times or to-day, 
 this Divine silence is not arbitrary, but is invariably 
 the result of something the man has done, or, deeper 
 still, what the man has become. Light is also thrown 
 on the matter in one of Paul's inspired statements, "If 
 we deny Him, He will also deny us." He is to us what 
 we allow Him or make Him to be. Beyond all doubt, 
 the fact of Christ ceasing to speak to a human soul 
 can be explained. 
 
 Christ was silent to Herod. 
 
 The Scripture says Herod was glad to behold Him
 
 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 183 
 
 of whom he had heard much, and now hoped to 
 see Him perform some wonderful work. But no in- 
 terrogation that this corrupt, unprincipled man could 
 put to Jesus elicited the slightest reply or even a rec- 
 ognition of his presence. He said nothing, and did 
 nothing so that Herod marveled. 
 
 Christ had previously said of Herod that he was 
 a fox. He had a low, cunning nature. On top of 
 this was a vulgar curiosity to see Jesus, and behold 
 him work physical wonders that would make him 
 stare. To such a character the Divine Being is in- 
 variably silent. There is nothing to be said to such 
 a man except Judgment Day words, and that time 
 has not yet arrived. 
 
 The writer has been struck with the fact that, 
 after a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit on a meet- 
 ing, there is an immediate rush of a certain element 
 in the community to the next service, who are brimful 
 of curiosity to see what is going on; and invariably 
 we have observed on such nights a notable absence of 
 the Holy Ghost. He would not work to gratify such 
 a lust of the eye, or speak to men and women in such 
 a mental and spiritual state. 
 
 Again, Christ was silent to Pilate. 
 
 The Roman governor put many questions to Jesus, 
 and charged Him to answer, but the Evangels tell us,
 
 1 84 HEART TALKS. 
 
 "He answered him nothing." Two replies, evidently 
 given for the benefit of the world, make all the more 
 remarkable Christ's silence to the individual. 
 
 The study of the Roman governor shows him to 
 have been timorous, cowardly, time-serving, and un- 
 just. It is hard to conceive of a blacker character than 
 that of the man who sat in judgment upon Jesus 
 Christ. He knew Him to be innocent, said he found 
 no fault in Him, and yet sentenced Him to the most 
 horrible death known to men. Who wonders that, 
 to the numerous questions he propounded, the Savior 
 made him no reply? 
 
 Still again, Christ was silent to the chief priests 
 and elders. 
 
 Matthew says, "When He was accused of the 
 chief priests and elders, He answered nothing." 
 And Mark states, "The chief priests accused Him of 
 many things, but He answered nothing." 
 
 Every one who has beheld and felt the power of 
 character; who has looked across the great gap and 
 chasm that yawns between virtue and vice, truth and 
 falsehood, righteousness and unrighteousness, can 
 thoroughly comprehend and appreciate the silence of 
 Christ to these men. 
 
 All of us have met persons, whom to talk with 
 is simply to waste words, and lose time. They have 
 put themselves where reason, truth, revelation, and
 
 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 185 
 
 warning are all alike lost upon them. To such people 
 we finally become utterly voiceless. 
 
 In addition to this, we all know how the presence 
 of unsympathetic, uncongenial natures will freeze the 
 powers of speech, and drive us into profound silence. 
 The explanation of being strangely shut up to indi- 
 viduals, or before assemblies, can often be found right 
 here, while the exquisite suffering of being com- 
 pelled for years or a lifetime to be in the presence of 
 moral opposites can easily be imagined. Of course, 
 this leads to silence, long spells of silence, and whether 
 in business or family life, only that conversation is in- 
 dulged in which is absolutely necessary, or that is felt 
 to be one's duty. 
 
 We know of a married couple who lived over 
 twenty years in the same house, and never exchanged 
 a single word in that time. Neither one was religious, 
 but one had moral character, and the other had none. 
 One day there had been a revelation of a hideous, un- 
 principled heart, and straightway a silence of twenty 
 years fell in between the two. 
 
 If we contemplate a single feature of Pilate's char- 
 acter, his injustice, we can easily see that that alone 
 would be sufficient to account for Christ's voiceless- 
 ness before him. All of us have doubtless been thrown 
 with people at some time in our lives who seemed 
 utterly incapable of rendering us justice. No state-
 
 1 86 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ment or explanation we could make them in self- 
 defense or extenuation, would make them change 
 their opinions or remove their prejudice. 
 
 I once wrote a number of letters to a prominent 
 man in order to disabuse his mind from the effect of 
 false reports of my work. I was slow to awaken to 
 the fact, but the awakening came at last, that he was 
 set in his judgment and conclusions, and would not 
 be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. From 
 that moment a profound silence fell on me toward 
 him, so far as self-defense is concerned. No matter 
 what is written or told him, I never utter a word. 
 
 Many a daughter-in-law has found out that her 
 mother-in-law will always side with her son. And 
 many a son-in-law has ceased to expect justice from 
 the mother of his wife. Such is the power of natural 
 laws and affections that the woman is unable to dis- 
 criminate and render true judgment. She is so biased 
 by heart and family ties that the son-in-law ceases to 
 expect justice, and falls into silence in the presence 
 of this familiar manifestation of character. 
 
 All these things we mention that we might see 
 why it is that, in spite of loud calling, testifying, pray- 
 ing, and preaching, some people obtain no answer 
 from Christ. The state of the heart is such, the char- 
 acter is such, that it is impossible for the Savior to 
 speak to them.
 
 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 187 
 
 If a supposedly virtuous woman was seen chatting 
 pleasantly on all kinds of topics with a man who was 
 a notorious, impenitent libertine, observers who have 
 any knowledge of character would immediately con- 
 clude that the woman was not herself pure. There 
 could be pity and sorrow in a true woman's heart over 
 such a character, and a gospel warning might be given, 
 but there could be no friendly social conversation. 
 
 If I regard iniquity in my heart, says David, the 
 Lord will not hear me. So, far from answering us, 
 God will not even hear us. In other words, the kind 
 of character or life or heart we bring to God settles 
 the question whether we will hear from Him or not. 
 
 There are individuals to-day, and a number of 
 them were once Christians, to whom the Lord speaks 
 no more. It is plainly evident to the practiced spir- 
 itual eye. They are receiving no messages from Him. 
 They are speaking to a silent Christ. As long ago 
 prophesied, "They will call, and I will not answer." 
 
 Who has not beheld these persons, both in pulpit 
 and pew? And who has not heard them testifying, 
 praying, and preaching, and yet no answer from the 
 Son of God? 
 
 Saul, the first king of Israel, got into this dreadful 
 place, and his cry was, "God has departed from me, 
 and answereth me no more." He, by disobedience,
 
 188 HEART TALKS. 
 
 had brought himself where the Divine Being quit talk- 
 ing to him. Jerusalem is in that state to-day. Let the 
 traveler go to what is called "The Wailing Place," and 
 * listen to the heartbroken cries, and then look up at 
 the empty heavens above, where dwells the silent God. 
 He came to them, and offered them eternal life. They 
 refused to listen to Him. He foretold them what 
 would at last come upon them as people, city, and na- 
 tion, that they would one day call, and there would 
 be no answer. It has all come to pass. The nation 
 has been scattered, the city is trodden under foot, the 
 temple is destroyed, and their God is silent above 
 them. He answers no more, neither by dreams and 
 prophets, nor by Urim and Thummim, nor by any 
 other way ; they, by their own conduct, have made for 
 themselves a silent God, one who speaks to them no 
 more. 
 
 May God, in His mercy, save the reader from this 
 unspeakable woe and calamity, a silent Christ, a 
 Savior who has ceased to answer! 
 
 And yet there are men in the pulpit to-day who 
 are living under this curse. And there are men upon 
 ecclesiastical official boards, and women prominent in 
 Church work, and people religiously busy in many 
 ways, to whom Christ never speaks. And, sadder still, 
 there are men and women dying now, while we write
 
 THE SILENCE OF CHRIST. 189 
 
 these words, to whom Christ is utterly silent, and the 
 despair in their breasts at this hour springs from the 
 fact that they made Him silent. 
 
 Again we repeat, May God save us from the im- . 
 measurable woe, both in life and death, of a silent / 
 Christ! '
 
 XX. 
 
 WAITING ON THE LORD. 
 
 'T'HE Bible expression, "Waiting on the Lord," has 
 -* several meanings according to the Scripture. 
 One is that of service. So the Levites and priests 
 were said to minister unto the Lord. Aaron, Eli, 
 Samuel, Zechariah, and many others were found in 
 the Tabernacle or Temple, actively engaged for God. 
 It has a broader meaning to-day, and service to God 
 can be offered not only in the church, but on street 
 and highway, and wherever sickness, sorrow, pain, 
 want, and sin can be found. 
 
 Another meaning is that of prayer. When men 
 separate themselves from their pleasures and pur- 
 suits, and linger for hours and days in prayer for some 
 special or general blessing, it is said to be a waiting 
 on the Lord. So Moses on the Mount, Daniel by the 
 river Hiddekel, Paul in the Temple, and the disciples 
 in the Upper Room, waited on God. We do the same 
 thing, whether at home or in the Church, when we 
 plead for certain blessings and wait in supplication 
 before the Throne. 
 
 A third meaning of the expression is a certain 
 190
 
 WAITING ON THE LORD. 191 
 
 tarrying on the Divine Providence. We wait to know 
 the will of God in some steps of life, or to obtain ex- 
 planation of an inscrutable divine dealing, or receive 
 some peculiar deliverance, or enter upon the fulfill- 
 ment of some divine promise. 
 
 This last waiting includes the other two. In order 
 to tarry on God's time, the soul must abound in 
 prayer, and be found in the divine service. To neglect 
 either one would be to let go of the Savior, open the 
 heart to doubt and worry, and end in the final forsak- 
 ing of the post of duty where the Lord intended to 
 have met and relieved us. Concerning this three- 
 fold waiting on the Lord, we have some, blessed prom- 
 ises. Isaiah mentions four things as a certain result. 
 
 One is that we shall "renew our strength." 
 
 No argument is needed here to prove what has 
 been felt a thousand times by the child of God. Some- 
 thing is found at the mercy-seat of prayer, and about 
 the altars, and in the work of God, which is like new 
 life to the soul. We come away from the closet of 
 prayer and house of God with the feeling that we have 
 been renewed or made over again. 
 
 Another promise is that we "shall mount up with 
 wings as eagles." 
 
 The disciples took a great heavenward flight on 
 the morning of Pentecost; but it was no accident. 
 They had paid a great price for the privilege ; they had
 
 192 HEART TALKS. 
 
 waited ten days in the dust for the joy of putting the 
 clouds under their feet. 
 
 Fletcher had upward soarings of religious experi- 
 ence, which many are fond of quoting, but not of 
 imitating. Anyhow they will not pay the price he 
 paid for his aerial ascents, which was four hours each 
 day spent in prayer. 
 
 Some discuss with great gravity and scholarly acu- 
 men these wonderful uplifts in the kingdom of grace. 
 They try to locate and then describe it in the realm 
 of psychology, when the explanation is to be found 
 in kneeology. A protracted waiting upon God will 
 always be rewarded by the gift of a pair of wings. 
 There is no shadow of a doubt upon the minds of 
 observers when a Christian gets them. All can see 
 he is mounting, and know he is far above the crowd 
 that is standing by, gazing after him. 
 
 The experience of wings lifts the soul suddenly 
 far above obstacles which just a moment before 
 seemed insurmountable. The experience also gives 
 a wonderful view of terrestrial things, God's works 
 enlarging and man's works looking exceedingly 
 small. Such caught-up people have also blessed 
 things to tell us of Christ and His Kingdom. They 
 seemed to have been near the Gates of Pearl. Let no 
 man condemn them who never had a pair of wings 
 given to his soul after days of importunity.
 
 WAITING ON THE LORD. 193 
 
 A third promise is, we "shall run, and not be 
 weary." Have we not seen these people? They are 
 always going for God, going swiftly, and that without 
 seeming to be exhausted. They make no complaints, 
 seem to have no dyspepsia or nervous prostration, and 
 all they crave is the privilege of running for heaven. 
 This man does not say so much about visions and 
 views and great revelations; he is too busy running 
 for God, delivering His messages, charging the 
 enemy, executing flank attacks as well as front move- 
 ments, picking up the wounded, distributing lint, 
 making constant captures, and doing many other 
 things too numerous to mention. 
 
 A fourth promise is, that we "shall walk, and not 
 faint." It is placed almost last as the result of waiting 
 on the Lord ; but it is not less blessed than the other 
 two, and may be even more important. 
 
 In these words a great multitude of the quiet, 
 patient, faithful followers of Christ are presented. 
 Men in the treadmill of every-day work, women in 
 the toil and drudgery of home life. People so cir- 
 cumstanced that they can not run, but have to walk. 
 So many hours for labor, so many mouths to fill, so 
 many little garments to make, so many little ones to 
 teach, so many small duties to perform. 
 
 When men with handspikes uplift a great log, 
 
 they do not run, but walk, and with a slow, steady 
 13
 
 194 HEART TALKS. 
 
 motion. There are some situations in the Christian 
 life, and some duties where we can not run, but are 
 compelled to go slowly. The load is heavy ; it requires 
 patience, deliberation, and steadiness, and will not 
 allow swiftness. Thank God that heaven has a bless- 
 ing for these quiet-lipped, grave-eyed, life-burdened 
 followers of Jesus! We can walk through all, and 
 not faint. It comes by waiting on the Lord. 
 
 An additional promise to the man who waits on 
 the Lord is, that "he shall inherit the land." In an- 
 other place David says, "He shall exalt thee to inherit 
 the land." The figure is one of complete deliverance, 
 perfect victory, and quiet establishment. Enemies are 
 removed, ownership and mastership is given, and 
 peace reigns supreme. 
 
 This last promise is made to the man who will wait 
 on the Lord in the sense of tarrying for the Divine 
 providence, or giving God His own time to do for us 
 what we have asked and He has promised. It is a 
 mark of great advancement in spiritual things when a 
 man can do this. Many try it and break down; but 
 some go to the end. Happy is such a man or woman 
 of God. They shall be repaid and blessed beyond 
 words to describe. 
 
 Some of us are marvelously inconsiderate here. 
 We forget that when we ask God for certain things
 
 WAITING ON THE LORD 195 
 
 He has to deal with others as well as ourselves, and 
 always with free agents. He can not compel any one, 
 but has to work with them in full recognition of their 
 moral freedom. 
 
 The angel told Daniel, in explanation of a delayed 
 message from heaven, that he had been withstood by 
 a certain Prince, and hence prevented from coming. 
 
 It is a reasonable thing to wait on the Lord. It 
 is what we want others to do for us. Sometimes we 
 can not explain ourselves; sometimes our plans are 
 working, but the consummation has not come. So 
 we ask people to wait on us. If they love and trust 
 us, they will. In like manner we pray God to bring 
 certain things to pass. At once He starts the influ- 
 ences which are to prove successful ; but it takes time. 
 Many hearts and lives have to be touched and 
 changed. Then God has plans of His own, which we 
 do not see. He has. to work them out, while at the 
 same time He does not forget us, our past prayers, 
 and present waiting before Him. * Beyond all question 
 He is doing His best for us. His answers and deliv- 
 erances are on the way to us, struggling through . 
 human and Satanic opposition. Be patient a little 
 while longer, ye heartsick children of God. It will 
 yet come to pass, and you shall inherit the land. 
 
 The man of desperate acts takes things in his own
 
 196 HEART TALKS. 
 
 hand. The suicide took matters in his own hand. 
 The people who flew to the wine-cup, the morphine- 
 bottle, to the world, and into sin, would not wait on 
 God. 
 
 The papers speak of a man who committed suicide 
 on account of poverty. The next day a large remit- 
 tance came by mail ; but he was in his grave, and had 
 placed himself there. 
 
 It pays to wait on God. Joseph looked at a closed 
 prison-door for years. Doubtless his heart often sick- 
 ened ; but he waited on the Lord. One day the door 
 opened, and Joseph not only walked out free, but was 
 exalted to rule over the land. 
 
 John Wesley had a curse in his life. He neither 
 committed murder nor suicide, as some men have 
 done under similar circumstances. He waited on the 
 Lord. The time came when the Lord completely de- 
 livered him. 
 
 One day in California, while sitting in a restaurant, 
 I heard a man call for his dessert and a cup of coffee. 
 The waiter tarried a little too long, he became impa- 
 tient, jumped up, stamped out, and slammed the door. 
 Just as the door closed behind him, and his feet were 
 on the pavement, the waiter came in, bearing a de- 
 licious dessert and a fragrant, steaming cup of coffee. 
 We have often since then thought of the simple scene. 
 It was a parable in itself in spite of its simplicity.
 
 WAITING ON THE LORD. IQ7 
 
 The Lord keep us patient, faithful, steadfast. May 
 we believe in, and rely on, and wait for Him! He 
 has not forgotten us. Angels are on the way with 
 nectar and ambrosia. Above all, God is coming with 
 deliverance and blessing and honor and exaltation, 
 and says meanwhile for our comfort that even now all 
 things are working together for our good if we but 
 love Him.
 
 XXI. 
 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 
 
 T N the Old Testament God took a world of pains to 
 * teach men that the cleansing of the soul could only 
 be had through blood. This was the explanation of 
 the red life-currents which streamed from bird, lamb, 
 and bullock in the Jewish days. The meaning of the 
 many sacrifices was, that without the shedding of 
 blood there could be no remission of sins. 
 
 The next step was to show what or whose blood 
 was meant. So, under the combined teaching of 
 priest, prophet, and religious ceremony, the intelligent 
 Israelite got to know that it was not possible for the 
 blood of bulls and goats to purge the soul from the 
 defilement of sin, that a nobler sacrifice was typified, 
 and a more precious blood was yet to be poured out 
 for the human race. 
 
 In due time the great antitype appeared, and died 
 on Calvary. He suffered without the gate to sanctify 
 the people. The Fountain was opened up in the 
 House of David for sin and uncleanness. The means 
 for perfect heart-cleansing, for snowy whiteness of 
 soul, for complete purification from all sin, had come 
 
 at last. Though one had lain among the pots, yet 
 
 198
 
 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 199 
 
 now should his wings be as burnished silver and his 
 feathers like yellow gold. Not only should the soul 
 be made white as snow, but whiter than the snow. 
 The blood of Christ was to do it. 
 
 About this precious, blessed blood John has sev- 
 eral things to say in his first epistle. 
 
 First, that it cleanses. 
 
 This is certainly an all-important statement, for 
 many have been and still are looking in other direc- 
 tions for the longed-for purification. The eye has 
 been fixed on Time, Old Age, Church Membership, 
 Good Resolutions, Growth in Grace, and upon many 
 other things to obtain that whiteness and cleanness 
 which every soul must at times long for, and must also 
 possess in order to see God. 
 
 But John says that it is the blood that cleanseth. 
 This God-inspired announcement ought to save mill- 
 ions from countless and heartbreaking mistakes. 
 There is absolutely nothing in any one of the things 
 just mentioned to purify the heart. Whoever trusts 
 to them is a fool, and doomed to bitter disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 The Bible says, "The blood cleanseth." Myriads 
 are shouting this in the sky, and multitudes are pro- 
 claiming it on earth. 
 
 There is no need to stop and explain to certain 
 critical classes the difference between the procuring
 
 200 HEART TALKS. 
 
 cause, the meritorious cause, the instrumental cause, 
 and all the other niceties and hairsplitting definitions 
 seen by scholarly minds in the plan and process of re- 
 demption. The great, blissful fact is, that the blood 
 of Christ cleanses. This truth alone makes the sink- 
 ing, despairing heart leap for joy, and turns the con- 
 fused mind from its wanderings through a labyrinth- 
 ian maze of theological, psychological, and diabolical 
 error, and shows it, in a word, where and when and 
 how spiritual cleanness can be found. But the apostle 
 states another fact about the blood. 
 
 It cleanses from all sin. 
 
 This goes even beyond the first statement in its 
 revelation of the depth and power of Christ's redemp- 
 tion. Many have brought part of their sins to God, 
 but not all. Many believe that they have committed 
 some things which can not be pardoned; that they 
 have sinned away their day of grace; that their souls 
 have been hurt irremediably by their own conduct; 
 and that they are now doomed and certain to be 
 damned. 
 
 All this gloomy talk is nothing but an emphatic 
 denial of God's own Word, that the blood of Christ 
 cleanses from all sin. 
 
 When God says a thing is so, what can man say 
 after that? Is God a liar? Would He deceive a soul 
 with false hopes? Do not all see that neither one is
 
 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 2OI 
 
 possible? Then if all sin can be cleansed by the blood, 
 what need for any one to be in gloom or despair? 
 
 Let men say what they will, the Bible states that 
 all sin is washed away. The guilty individual may 
 cry out, "You have no idea what I have done." My 
 reply is, "I do not care what you have done; the 
 Scripture says that the blood cleanses from all sin." 
 But the rejoinder is, "I have done thus, and so and 
 so." All right, the blood cleanseth from all sin. 
 
 Once, while quite sick at home, a lady requested 
 an interview. Her apology for insisting on seeing me 
 when I was physically prostrate, was that she was in 
 great spiritual darkness and agony of mind. I can 
 never forget the anxious, distressed face of the visitor 
 as she said: 
 
 "I am in darkness. For the love of God point me 
 to a passage in the Bible that will save me from 
 despair." 
 
 Sick as I was, I felt my face kindling with joy as 
 I repeated, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
 cleanseth us from all sin." 
 
 "O," she replied, "that is so sweet!" And in a 
 few moments went away with a bright countenance. 
 But the adversary flung another cloud upon her the 
 next day, blacker than the first. This time she went 
 directly to the Bible, crying out, "Lord, let my eye 
 fall on some word of thine which will bring me light,
 
 202 HEART TALKS. 
 
 victory, and complete deliverance." Suddenly, as she 
 read on, this verse fairly flashed itself before her eyes, 
 "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." The 
 result of a single reading was instantaneous and 
 permanent relief. 
 
 A few months after this I was going from New 
 York to Boston. The conductor came to me on the 
 train, and, according to custom, wanted my fare. I 
 handed him my ticket, which I had bought, and he 
 gave me instead a small, red slip of cardboard, which 
 I stuck in my hatband, and then placed the hat in 
 an iron hatrack on the wall. At the next town quite 
 a number of people got off, and another crowd came 
 on. The conductor, not knowing me, approached 
 where I was sitting and reading, and wanted my rail- 
 road fare. In reply I looked up and pointed to the red 
 slip in my hat, whereupon he instantly passed by. 
 This happened several times, until finally, begrudging 
 even a few moments from the book in which I was 
 immersed, the next time he came by and asked for 
 my money, I never raised my eyes from the volume, 
 but silently pointed with my finger to the little red 
 card in my hat. The effect on him was always power- 
 ful. Invariably he passed me by without saying 
 anything. In a word, when he saw the red, he 
 passed over me. The little incident threw a gracious
 
 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 203 
 
 light on the Old Testament passage, and it became 
 more precious and real than ever. 
 
 God, help us to believe. No matter what the mis- 
 take, mishap, error, or sin may be ; may we have faith 
 enough in the Bible and in the atonement to sprinkle 
 the blood upon it. God's promise is, that when He 
 sees the blood He will pass over. 
 
 A third statement of the apostle is equally remark- 
 able and comforting. The blood cleanses from all sin 
 while we are walking in the light. 
 
 This statement is more important than many 
 dream, who hastily read the Scripture. 
 
 Numbers are contending to-day that regeneration 
 is purity, that no sin is left in the converted heart. 
 But this passage in John declares to the contrary. 
 Mr. Wesley says it is one of the strongest verses in 
 the Bible to teach the second work of grace. 
 
 If the reader will observe, John says that the man 
 who obtains this peculiar heart-cleansing from all sin 
 is in the light, is walking in it, and has fellowship with 
 his Christian brethren. Here is a picture, not of a 
 sinner, but of a child of God. He is in the light, is 
 evidently growing in grace, is moving forward all the 
 time, is in loving communion with other Christians, 
 and right there the blood of Christ cleanses him from 
 all sin. Moreover, the sacred writer says that it is
 
 204 HEART TALKS. 
 
 "sin," not "sins," that he is cleansed from. The con- 
 clusion being unanswerable that a sin principle is left 
 in the heart of the man who is walking in the light; 
 in other words, that the Christian did not obtain 
 purity in regeneration; but something is left which 
 requires the blood of Christ to purge and deliver him 
 from. 
 
 A fourth comforting teaching of the verse written 
 by John is seen in the immediate appropriation of the 
 blood by the regenerated or sanctified child of God, 
 in case of neglect of duty or positive transgression. 
 The word to believing souls at such a time is sweeter 
 than the thrilling note of the silver bugle which an- 
 nounced the dawn or birth of the year of jubilee. 
 "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us 
 from all sin." 
 
 Deplorable as it is to fall into sin, yet God never 
 intended that we should sink in paralyzing despair 
 and perish, in case of the wrong thought, word, or 
 deed. He would have His grieving child instantly 
 confess all to Him, promise to be more faithful in the 
 future, and believe that the blood of Christ cleanses 
 him from this most humiliating of sins, a sin commit- 
 ted after the reception of grace and light, and Christ 
 had become the Lord and Master of the heart and life. 
 Thank God, the blood cleanses even then and there! 
 
 The fifth thought of comfort in the verse is that
 
 THE CLEANSING BLOOD. 205 
 
 the blood cleanses now. The verb is in the present 
 tense. It does not say that the blood will cleanse; 
 but that it does cleanse; it cleanses now. 
 
 Then if it cleanses now, why should one wait a 
 week, day, hour, or a single minute for the soul's 
 purification and restoration. 
 
 This one verse dashes to pieces the old Dark Age 
 Theology, where Time, Bodily Humiliation, Peter's 
 Pence, and Pilgrimages were invested with atoning, 
 saving, and sanctifying power, and so Christ was 
 robbed of His glory. To this day evangelical Chris- 
 tianity is burdened with these old, false Middle Age 
 teachings. 
 
 There is nothing in bodily mortifications, and the 
 flight of years to cleanse the soul. It is all right to 
 groan and humble ourselves ; but it is the Blood, after 
 all, that can alone cleanse ; and, thank God ! it cleanses 
 now! The instant that the soul really believes this, 
 light, joy, and deliverance is sure to come. If the 
 blessed fact is turned upon any sin in the life, or all 
 sin, it is bound to go. If directed against the sin 
 which remaineth in them who are truly regenerate, 
 who are walking in the light, that also will as speedily 
 and consciously depart; the Holy Ghost not only 
 bearing witness to it, but the soul of the man himself 
 all conscious of the departure. Here is where men 
 are falling or rising to-day. Here is where they are
 
 206 HEART TALKS. 
 
 floundering or flying. It is as they have read and re- 
 ceived this marvelous Bible passage. 
 
 If our faith can not grasp the wonderful state- 
 ment made in it, then, of course, we are shut out of its 
 blessedness, for Christ can do no mighty work where 
 there is unbelief. If we do not believe that the blood 
 of Christ can destroy and take away inbred sin, He 
 can not do it. But if we can and do believe that He 
 can, and that He does, then, all glory and praise to 
 God! the blood cleanses us now from all sin. He 
 Himself has uttered the amazing words, "According 
 to your faith, so shall it be unto you." Faith is not 
 only the condition of salvation, but the measure of 
 salvation. Again, Christ speaks, and says, "All things 
 are possible to him that believeth." 
 
 Well might men say, after this utterance, "Lord, 
 I believe!" Why should they with tears add, "Help 
 thou mine unbelief." Faith honors God, faith pleases 
 God, and faith in the power of the blood to cleanse 
 now from any and all sin, will bring the blessing de- 
 sired down upon the soul every time, and world with- 
 out end.
 
 XXII. 
 
 DWELLING AMONG LIONS. 
 
 SOME Scripture passages can only be unlocked by 
 experience. We may think we understand; but 
 it requires more than a knowledge of grammar, rhet- 
 oric, and the laws of exegesis to clear up the mystery. 
 
 When David said that his soul had dwelt among 
 lions, a child's idea at once would be that he had 
 been in the woods with wild beasts. This interpre- 
 tation with the flight of time disappears, and some- 
 thing of the truth dawns upon the mind; but the 
 wholeness of it remains for the deeply spiritual heart 
 to comprehend. 
 
 It is not long in the Christian life before the child 
 of God discovers the lions which David speaks of, 
 and he will freely confess that for some reasons the 
 animals of the forest would be pleasanter companions. 
 
 One of the dreadful facts about souls which de- 
 part from God into sin, is the steady and unmistak- 
 able drift into the habits, lives, and, finally, the appear- 
 ance of animals. The devil, who is a fallen spirit, is 
 called a serpent and dragon, and with profound reason 
 for such nomenclature. The gravitation of ten thou- 
 sand devils is seen first to be in the coarse, brutal ani- 
 
 207
 
 208 HEART TALKS. 
 
 mal nature of a demoniac, and then from him into a 
 drove of hogs. 
 
 When human souls cut loose from God, the drift 
 to the animal life is sure and evident. Music, liter- 
 ature, and other things may retard the progress some- 
 what to human eyes ; but the awful undertow is there, 
 and the man is being steadily carried out to the sea 
 of fleshly grossness and carnality. The forces in the 
 man's will and pursuits, and in the refinement of the 
 social circle, are felt by and by not to be equal to the 
 strange power which is dragging the spirit from like- 
 ness to God, and sinking it into the habits, ways, ap- 
 petites, selfishness, and groveling existence of an 
 animal. 
 
 Another curious thing is, that such men and wo- 
 men do not adopt one type, but fall, almost insensibly 
 to themselves, into every variety of animal life known 
 to man. So, in looking upon the multitudes of earth, 
 we see not only lions, but wolves, foxes, hogs, goats, 
 monkeys, snakes, and all the rest of the human me- 
 nagerie. I hardly need ask the reader if he has seen 
 men and women who have impressed him in appear- 
 ance and ways with the animals just mentioned. 
 
 Neither jeans nor broadcloth can hide the hog at 
 the table who evidently is not eating to live, but living 
 to eat. ; A wolf looking at a lamb is a familiar spec- 
 tacle in society. The human monkey who lives to be
 
 DWELLING AMONG LIONS, 209 
 
 laughed at is in every neighborhood. And who has 
 not seen the eyes of the fox fastened on you in office, 
 parlor, or church ; and felt the crawly approach of the 
 snake, the touch of whose hand and soft, slippery 
 style of speech created a sickening sensation similar to 
 that when a serpent is discovered to be near. 
 
 These horrible likenesses instantly disappear under 
 the regenerating and sanctifying power of God; and 
 in this fact we obtain the second proof of what has 
 been stated, that a spirit, human or angelic, which 
 departs from God becomes animalized. 
 
 David's affliction was in being compelled to dwell 
 awhile among men whom he could best describe as 
 lions. He may have been thinking only of the feroc- 
 ity of the beast ; but it is doubtful. The full photo- 
 graph reveals a catlike approach, treacherous waiting, 
 the sudden spring, terrible roar, crushing blow, grind- 
 ing teeth, tearing claws, and all the vast strength and 
 cruel nature of the great brute of the forest. 
 
 With such men as Saul and Doeg to deal with, 
 and such characters as Joab, Abishai, Ahithophel, and 
 Shimei about him, the noble, magnanimous, spiritual 
 David felt the repugnance and suffering analogous 
 to one condemned to dwell with wild animals in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 Christ knew what it was to be among lions when 
 
 He looked into the pitiless faces of the high priest 
 14
 
 210 HEART TALKS. 
 
 and elders, as He stood arrested and bound before 
 them. He also saw as well as felt them in the dread- 
 ful treatment He received from the hands of a brutal 
 soldiery, by whom He was tormented for hours 
 through the night. 
 
 Paul was among lions when he stood before the 
 Sanhedrim, or confronted the Jewish populace as, 
 enraged over his religious experience, they cast dust 
 in the air and howled for his death. 
 
 A Christian has lived a very obscure and solitary 
 life who does not in time get to know the awful depths 
 in the expression, "dwelling among lions." All of 
 us have been among the lions. Some only for a little 
 while; but others, through God's providence, have 
 to abide with them a long time. 
 
 All will agree that for a child of God to be com- 
 pelled to stay several hours in a room filled with drink- 
 ing, gambling, cursing men, would be like being cast 
 among lions. But the meaning goes deeper still. The 
 verse has profounder and more painful applications. 
 
 It is to live year after year in a godless community, 
 where Christ is forgotten, the Sabbath desecrated, the 
 Bible and religion laughed at, while the devil is the 
 unquestioned monarch and ruler of the place. The 
 actual sight of lions rolling over each other, now gam- 
 boling and playing, and now fighting each other with 
 fearful roars and gaping wounds, would not be a more
 
 DWELLING AMONG LIONS. 211 
 
 dreadful spectacle to behold than what many of God's 
 children are compelled to witness from day to day and 
 year to year, in towns and cities that seem utterly 
 given up to every kind of folly and sin. 
 
 Dwelling among lions is to be a member of a cold, 
 dead, formal, worldly congregation, where a conver- 
 sion never takes place, where genuine revivals are 
 laughed at and denounced, where the class-meeting is 
 abandoned, and the church given over to lectures, 
 Chautauquan circles, church suppers, ice-cream festi- 
 vals, grab-bag performances, and every conceivable 
 kind of amusement. 
 
 Dwelling among lions is to be a member of a 
 Conference Synod, Presbytery, or Council, where no 
 one believes that God can and does sanctify the soul 
 instantly in answer to consecration, prayer, and faith. 
 The roar and rending that takes place over such a 
 testimony and Church report will show that all the 
 lions are not dead yet. 
 
 It is to stand up in some Preachers' Meeting and 
 claim the experience of entire sanctification, and 
 gently urge the blessing upon others. The sight of 
 a half-dozen persons springing, so to speak, at the 
 testifier's throat in loud and angry denial, will throw 
 considerable light on David's words, "My soul hath 
 dwelt among lions." 
 
 It is to sit in a car, stage-coach, or at a hotel
 
 212 HEART TALKS. 
 
 table where escape is impossible, and be compelled 
 to listen for minutes or hours to the profanity or 
 obscenity of young traveling agents. 
 
 It is to be a member of an irreligious household, 
 and feel as lonely and even lonelier than Robinson 
 Crusoe on his island, or a hermit in the desert. 
 
 It is to be united for life to a man or woman 
 whose unspiritual, carnal, or worldly life makes a gap 
 and chasm between the husband and wife, like that 
 between a man and an animal. There are mutual, 
 instinctive shrinkings from each other, as a man would 
 draw back from an animal, or an animal would depart 
 from a man. But the laws of God and the State are 
 such that the ghastly companionship can not be 
 broken. 
 
 Again, the experience is seen in being thrown with 
 very disagreeable religious people. They claim the 
 nature of the sheep; but keep up the old-time roar, 
 the slash of the claw, the bite of the tooth, and the 
 heavy blow of the paw. It seems impossible for them 
 to let a person come into or leave their presence with- 
 out inflicting a gaping wound. "The sermon was 
 wrong," "the exegesis was faulty," "the manner was 
 not pleasing," "the voice was too loud," "the dress 
 was objectionable," and so on, endlessly. They are 
 self-commissioned to set everybody right but them- 
 selves. They have slaps, scratches, bites for all their
 
 DWELLING AMONG LIONS. 213 
 
 brethren and sisters, which they call heavenly rebukes 
 and revelations. They are Divinely appointed to go 
 around and tell everybody how to dress and who to 
 marry, and how to do generally. They have received 
 a revelation from God that it is wrong for a man to 
 wear a mustache, while women must wear Mother 
 Hubbard-looking dresses, and let their hair hang 
 down their backs like the mane of a Shetland pony. 
 They have, moreover, just received some new light, 
 with some new notions, and everybody must come 
 right over into their way of thinking, or take the con- 
 sequences of going at once into backsliding, and 
 finally into hell. 
 
 Again, the lions are seen in the shape of argu- 
 mentative and disputatious, religious people. They 
 look in the midst of their pulpit, platform, and pen 
 deliverances, not to say attacks, as if they were after 
 mashing and killing a man, instead of saving him. 
 Everybody is wrong, and they are right. They have 
 just received the last edition of the Bible from heaven. 
 The world is getting worse all the time; Saturday is 
 the true Sunday; Turkey and the whole Moham- 
 medan Empire was to go down in 1898; and whoso- 
 ever will not believe and receive these things ought 
 to be kicked out of the community and sent to hell in 
 a body. This is just the way it looks and sounds. 
 
 Still again, the lions are beheld in the form of
 
 214 HEART TALKS. 
 
 untidy religious people. The apology made for them 
 is that they are eccentric. The plain truth in English 
 is, that in body and apparel they are unclean. We 
 expect nothing better of lions, for they have neither 
 soap nor towels, and have to wear one suit for a life- 
 time. But there is no excuse for human beings, with 
 springs and rivers flowing around them in great num- 
 bers and overflowing abundance, while soap can be 
 had for a cent a bar. 
 
 It is a great mistake to quote the wild life and 
 rough manners of John the Baptist, and the unkempt 
 condition of Elijah as God's idea of a man's life and 
 appearance. These two men were great, not because 
 of these things, but in spite of them. The Baptist is 
 not heaven's conception of the perfect man, with his 
 shaggy mantle, food of locusts, almost clotheless 
 body, and generally ascetic life. 
 
 Jesus Christ is the ideal man! With his tunic, 
 sandals, and the garment woven without a seam, He 
 was well clothed. And He came eating and drink- 
 ing. He was the sound, wholesome, morally sym- 
 metrical man, who is worshipped around the world 
 to-day, and is drawing all men unto Himself. The 
 children were not afraid of Him, but nestled in His 
 arms ; the women sat at his feet ; the sick and troubled 
 flocked to Him, and as the Pharisees themselves said, 
 "Behold the whole world is gone after Him."
 
 XXIII. 
 THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 
 
 TIME is a segment cut out of the rim or circle of 
 Eternity. It is a kind of projection or loop from 
 an endless line. It comes out of the eternal as an in- 
 finitesimal part of it, and is to be swallowed up by it 
 as a raindrop falls back into the ocean, from which 
 it was originally lifted. The angel with uplifted hand 
 foretells its approaching funeral, and declares in 
 trumpet tones, "That there should be time no longer." 
 
 But with all its comparative littleness as to dura- 
 tion, what tremendous events have transpired and 
 will yet occur between its two gates the Beginning 
 and the End. The creation of a race is seen, its thrill- 
 ing history of sin, sorrow, defeats, redemption, strug- 
 gles, victories, death, resurrection, and the final judg- 
 ment and everlasting division into the Lost and Saved. 
 Then comes the closing scene of the heavens rolling 
 up, the earth on fire, Satan cast into hell, and Christ 
 victorious over all for evermore. 
 
 To the individual life and history, time is scarcely 
 less momentous, for it brings to each soul the very 
 things that have come in a colossal scale to the world. 
 Between the cradle and the grave each man and wo- 
 man is made to realize the fact of two other worlds 
 
 215
 
 216 HEART TALKS. 
 
 besides this, that are contending for the soul ; the one 
 to pull down and destroy, and the other to uplift and 
 save. Sin, sorrow, sickness, failure, suffering in many 
 forms, come to all. So, also, does salvation appear, 
 with pardon, peace, purity, usefulness, happiness, and 
 blessedness in its hands, as gifts to the believing, 
 obedient soul. 
 
 To some, time is only a curse and a burden 
 through lives of evil. They are glad to get rid of it. 
 There are others who not the less feel the sorrowful 
 load which the years bring to the mind, heart, and 
 body, but through Christ have learned to endure all 
 patiently, in hope of an immortal crown and joys 
 that never die beyond the grave. 
 
 There is still a third class who, not the less sensi- 
 tive to the ills, pains, hardships, disappointments, 
 mortifications, crosses, and troubles which are neces- 
 sarily connected with an earthly existence, yet have 
 made such discoveries through the teaching of the 
 Spirit, that they plainly see how time, under God's 
 blessing, is a friend to grace, and does through Divine 
 power what nothing else could possibly do. 
 
 One thing it brings to the true child of God is the 
 spirit of moderation. 
 
 The force of a devoted Christian life, for all its 
 desirableness, is not without peril. A stationary en- 
 gine, as it lies sidetracked without coal, water, or fire,
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 217 
 
 is helpless and useless. We have plenty of such in 
 the Church to-day. But an engine trembling with a 
 mighty head of steam needs a steady hand and level 
 head at the throttle; for some have gone too fast, 
 some run beyond the depot, some pitch down a bank, 
 and others are blown up. 
 
 There is a danger of an intolerant, arbitrary, and 
 even fierce spirit creeping into the hearts of the newly 
 converted and sanctified, under the mighty inflow of 
 Divine glory and power. The conservation and 
 proper direction and use of this great spiritual force 
 is not at once learned by them. The boiler is injured 
 at times by heatings not commanded of God, the bell 
 and whistle terrifies and paralyzes rather than warns, 
 and sometimes people are run over who might have 
 been saved. The cowcatcher is put at an angle, not 
 so much to lift up as to grind and crush. People are 
 grieved whom God has not grieved. 
 
 Other Christians have as much steam as the fiery, 
 new engine on the road ; but have distributed it evenly 
 on the gospel train, so that not only is a proper speed 
 kept up, but the passengers are made comfortable as 
 well; while the new locomotive is mindful mainly of 
 its whistle and high rate of running, and its passen- 
 gers, missing certain genial, heavenly, Christ-like in- 
 fluences that should stream backward in proper chan- 
 nels, slowly freeze.
 
 2l8 HEART TALKS. 
 
 The new engine is apt to indulge in caustic 
 remarks at the expense of the older locomotives, albeit 
 some of them for many years have maintained the 
 unbroken record, "On Time." 
 
 The only hope for the case just mentioned is to be 
 found in what Christ will be able to do through time. 
 Nothing else can do it light, argument, exhortation, 
 warning, example, and even the Divine patience and 
 pity, will not effect the change from intolerance and 
 arbitrariness to a spirit of gentleness and moderation. 
 But time, through grace, will do it. The man will 
 little by little see his honest, intellectual mistakes, his 
 misjudgments of men, and his erroneous conceptions 
 of truth and duty. What a relief all around ! 
 
 Great spiritual light poured into the mind does not 
 always mean that the head is wise and the judgment 
 will be infallible. Then, again, we can not read the 
 hearts of men. Some people do not parade all they 
 are doing for God and man. In every Church I have 
 served as pastor, there were individuals who would 
 never give publicly, nor even sign a card ; but never- 
 theless they contributed a great deal more than some 
 who cried out in tones that could be heard all over the 
 Church, "Put me down twenty-five dollars !" 
 
 I once thought a man was niggardly; but found 
 afterwards he was supporting two preachers in a for- 
 eign land, and saying nothing about the matter.
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 2ig 
 
 L/ittle by little with time the eyes get open. Our 
 lips are not as ready with criticism and judgment as 
 of yore. With no less zeal for God and His cause, 
 yet it is now a zeal according to knowledge. The 
 moderation is not a cooling off of religious experi- 
 ence, nor a curtailing of work, nor a withholding of 
 testimony. It is, instead, a deliverance from hastiness 
 of judgment, jumping to conclusions, and quickness 
 to suspect and speak hardly and severely of others. 
 It is the departure of a domineering, autocratic spirit 
 and manner. It is the correcting of pure love, the 
 mellowing of the Christian into a calm-eyed, level- 
 headed, sweet-hearted, kindly-tongued man. He is 
 as true to God and the gospel as ever; but all the 
 more true in that he has learned to be undeviatingly 
 kind to men whom God made and Christ died for. 
 He has the spirit of moderation. 
 
 A deeper apprehension of what we mean is to be 
 had by contrasting the counsel and speeches of young 
 men on the floor of Convention and Conference, with 
 the utterances of the older men. A second illus- 
 tration is beheld in the loquacity and bearing of a 
 young graduate from a theological college when 
 placed in charge of his first work, or in the company 
 of men that he thinks have not had the advantages he 
 has enjoyed. 
 
 An eminent man once said that, "Early in life as
 
 220 HEART TALKS. 
 
 a student I thought I knew everything; later, noth- 
 ing ; still later, something." Here was moderation. 
 
 Another man said in the beginning of his Christian 
 life he thought everybody was white. Then, with 
 certain revelations and experiences, he concluded all 
 were black. Now he says all look gray. We judge 
 that he meant he had found good traits in bad people, 
 and objectionable things in good people, and so mix- 
 ing his colors he got a neutral tint on his glasses with 
 which he viewed the world. While not accepting all 
 of his theology, yet it would be well to quickly recog- 
 nize the good in all, and at the same time see if our 
 own willfulness, headiness, quickness to judge and 
 condemn, may not be the means of turning still other 
 people into critics and judges of ourselves, and so 
 cause them to think as they observe these dark lines 
 against our white professions, that, after all, there is 
 no pure white in the Christian life ; that gray is all that 
 we can hope for possibly. 
 
 Another blessing that comes with the flight of time 
 is what I would call the outgrowing of certain things. 
 Some of us remember when aprons and knee-pants 
 were discarded ; also when marbles and tops failed to 
 interest us. As children we had hung breathless over 
 the stories of "Robin Hood," "Robinson Crusoe," and 
 the "Swiss Family Robinson." One day, when near- 
 ing the twenties, we took up the books and tried to
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 221 
 
 read them, wondering where the charm was which 
 once we felt in their pages. They now wearied us. 
 There was still fascination in the books for a younger 
 generation ; but not for us, for we had outgrown them 
 in mind, as our body had outgrown the little shirt- 
 waists we once wore on the days we could walk under 
 our father's dining-table without touching it with the 
 top of our head. 
 
 The soul is constantly advancing and developing, 
 and grows faster when properly treated. It is a piti- 
 ful thing to see it kept down to playthings and picture- 
 books in the intellectual and spiritual life, when it 
 ought to be grappling with the greatest truths and 
 solving the deepest problems. 
 
 We have all noticed how people tire of various 
 things after a few repetitions. They weary of certain 
 amusements and accomplishments, become bored with 
 visiting and visitors, and fagged to death with travel. 
 Yet there was a time when these things were like 
 Paradises to them. They still charm other novices for 
 a while ; but the older and wiser ones turn in other and 
 new directions for contentment and satisfaction. The 
 explanation is that the soul is still growing. Made for 
 the illimitable and the eternal, how can this planet, 
 with all that it contains, satisfy permanently a spirit 
 that Christ says is greater than the world, and is al- 
 ways reaching out for something higher, mightier,
 
 222 HEART TALKS. 
 
 and better than it has? So, by and by the world itself, 
 with all its pleasures and pursuits, becomes an out- 
 grown thing. 
 
 The idea of an individual going back on earthly 
 routes for the satisfaction and rilling of mind and 
 heart, is as absurd as a man trying to wear the gar- 
 ments and read the books of boyhood days. He looks 
 on the same scenes that once made his heart leap; 
 but the heart never bounds again as it did at the first 
 sight. He has outgrown and passed beyond them. 
 
 In the religious life we are told to leave the first 
 principles, and to go on to perfection. This does not 
 mean that we give them up in the sense of renunci- 
 ation of their benefits and denial of their truth, any 
 more than a man gives up the alphabet when he gets 
 to reading, and takes up the study of history, art, and 
 science. 
 
 We have been made to marvel at preachers spend- 
 ing years in the discussion of water baptism, laying 
 on of hands, grades in the ministry, etc. Time was 
 we tarried there; but we saw something better on 
 ahead, and went on. 
 
 Some ministers are wedded to the ecclesiastical 
 regalia of beaver hat and clerical coat. Others prefer 
 to lay them aside, and do so without any condemna- 
 tion of heart or lips of those who prefer the minis- 
 terial uniform. But in their hearts they feel they have
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF TIME. 223 
 
 in a sense outgrown the garb, and prefer to be recog- 
 nized as Christ's servants in other ways. 
 
 Some delight in titles, and, as Christ says, love 
 to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, in the market-places. The 
 day comes when all these things, together with the 
 semicircular row of chairs on the conspicuous plat- 
 form, get to be exceedingly small, and become per- 
 fectly sickening to the soul. 
 
 Some rejoice in the red tape and machinery of the 
 Church and Conference. Some delight in the office 
 of Conference secretary, chairman of committees, and 
 places on Boards of all kinds. Others have seen the 
 Spirit in the wheels, have beheld a man's hand in the 
 midst of the complex machinery which Ezekiel de- 
 scribes, and have had such a vision of a marred coun- 
 tenance with a crown of thorns on a blood- 
 besprinkled brow, that they can not with any heart or 
 willingness go back to anything that is less spiritual 
 and divine. They have outgrown the old life, have 
 cracked the shell and got the kernel, have stripped 
 away the envelope, and stand thrilled with the sweet, 
 heavenly handwriting they have found there. 
 
 Let those who love platforms, big occasions, pub- 
 lic orations, chaplaincies, fraternities and lodges, fetes 
 and orations, Church lobbying and wire-pulling, se- 
 cret meetings and councils, dignities and honors let 
 them go after them. We would not condemn them.
 
 224 HEART TALKS. 
 
 We only say that the soul, all-panting for Christ and 
 Christ alone, has seen Him, and is in full pursuit, re- 
 fusing to be diverted or turned aside by any object, 
 and determined to settle on nothing less or lower than 
 Jesus, the Son of God. The dead can bury the dead; 
 he proposes to preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost 
 sent down from heaven. Men may worship the Tem- 
 ple; but he is after the Lord of the Temple. Men 
 may dispute and wrangle about the chief seats in the 
 synagogue ; they can have them all ; he does not desire 
 a single one; he is perfectly satisfied in sitting at the 
 feet of the Savior. He craves no newspaper puffs and 
 notices; wants no college complimentary degrees; 
 fishes for no praise or flattery, and is not one particle 
 hurt in being overlooked and set aside. The figure 
 of the suffering, dying Christ on the cross has been 
 burned into his soul by the baptism of fire, and weaned 
 him forever from the littleness, hollowness, fussiness, 
 swagger, and strut of life. For the first time he knows 
 what Paul meant when he said, "Let no man trouble 
 me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord 
 Jesus ;" and for the first time he goes to the very bot- 
 tom of the hymn : 
 
 " When I survey the wondrous cross 
 
 On which the Prince of Glory died, 
 My richest gain I count but loss, 
 And pour contempt on all my pride."
 
 XXIV. 
 THE FALL OF BALAAM. 
 
 THE word fall suggests the thought of height or 
 position from which to be cast down. A man 
 flat on the ground has nothing in a physical sense 
 to fall from or fall to. The Bible says that Judas "fell," 
 which quiet statement is sufficient to shut the mouths 
 of those who say he never possessed redeeming grace. 
 If answer is made that it is said he fell from the 
 "apostleship," our reply is that the idea of Christ in- 
 ducting an unconverted man into the ministry is sim- 
 ply unthinkable. Judas fell from the apostleship, 
 which position means more than an office, and stands 
 for spiritual light, life, and grace as well. 
 
 And so Balaam fell. 
 
 This means that he had something to fall from. 
 That he was a good man to begin with, no thoughtful 
 reader of the Bible or student of the human heart 
 can deny. 
 
 In the first place he was a prophet. Not self- 
 instituted ; but God called and used. The fact of this 
 ecclesiastical position shows that he was all right at 
 
 first. He who said, "If the blind lead the blind, they 
 15 225
 
 226 HEART TALKS. 
 
 both will fall into the ditch," will hardly be guilty of 
 the inconsistency of placing an unconverted man over 
 the unsaved. The preacher or prophet of God's 
 choosing and ordination is bound to be a good man. 
 He may fall away in after years ; but when the call and 
 installment take place, he is all right. 
 
 Two indications of Balaam's piety might be over- 
 looked by the hasty reader. One appears in the state- 
 ment that when the servants of Balak came with the 
 request that he would come and curse a certain people 
 that were covering the land, Balaam's prompt reply 
 was that he would have to ask God. This unquestion- 
 ably shows a close walk with the Lord. Let the 
 Christian reader ask himself if the first impulse with 
 him, and immediate practice, is to bring to God for 
 guidance and approval everything that comes up in 
 life in the way of duties, and especially matters of per- 
 sonal advantage. 
 
 We read that Balaam obtained an early reply from 
 God telling him not to go with the men. This imme- 
 diate answer from heaven is another striking proof 
 of the man's acceptance and spiritual standing. Some 
 who read these lines will recall how many hours have 
 been spent by them on their knees awaiting light and 
 a response from God in regard to certain steps of life. 
 But there is a life. where the soul gets constant and 
 instant direction. Balaam in this first view of him
 
 THE FALL OF BALAAM. 227 
 
 seems to have been at that point, or, rather, on that 
 high moral ground. 
 
 Up to this moment the man seems blameless, but 
 after this we get an unmistakable glimpse of inbred 
 sin and the peculiar direction it took in his case. Next 
 day, we read, the servants of Balak returned with 
 still greater urgings that he would come, and with 
 assurance of reward. Right here is seen the inner 
 trouble, "the ground of the heart" of the prophet, in 
 his own words, that he would go in and see if the 
 Lord would allow him to depart this time. Here at 
 once flashes into view the "proneness to wander," the 
 "bent to backsliding," which the Bible recognizes in 
 God's people, and which the Lord wants to burn out 
 with the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire. 
 
 It should have been sufficient for Balaam that God 
 had answered in the negative on the day before. God 
 does not change, and if it was wrong for the prophet 
 to go yesterday, it was wrong for him to go to-day. 
 But the inclination toward a forbidden thing was al- 
 ready in him, and growing as well. Already his eyes 
 were fastened on the "wages of unrighteousness," 
 which, according to the apostle, wrought his ruin. 
 
 Some have wondered that the Lord permitted him 
 finally to go. But he was no more allowed to do as 
 he did than any Christian is sanctioned in wrong- 
 doing. Man is a free moral agent, and can not be
 
 228 HEART TALKS. 
 
 forcibly and physically restrained. When Christians 
 go into sin, they realize that they have an indwelling 
 power to do so, in spite of light, grace, warnings, re- 
 bukes, and protests from man and God. In this power 
 Balaam went. The Bible says God went out to "with- 
 stand" him. He could not, consistently with the prin- 
 ciples of His kingdom and the moral constitution of 
 the man, bind him with ropes, imprison and in other 
 ways keep him from departing, but He could "with- 
 stand him;" i. e., throw difficulties, obstacles, and 
 warnings in his way. 
 
 And so an angel met him down the road with a 
 flaming sword, and waved hirri back. 
 
 The "perverse" man, as the Bible calls him, went 
 on. There are many like him to-day, the similarity 
 being not only in wrongdoing, but in being divinely 
 met down the road with warnings and swords of flame. 
 When Christians receive strange and unexpected 
 rebukes from human lips, and, at times, in letters, 
 it is time to inquire in the life, and see if all is well. 
 
 Of course, a child of God may expect wrathful 
 utterances from the world, and sharp lectures and 
 faultfindings from religious oddities, croaks, and 
 cranks. But if the remonstrance and warning come 
 from really good people, the angel side of the world, 
 there is cause for alarm. In the ghastly moral falls 
 that now and then take place among Christians, the
 
 THE FALL OF BALAAM. 229 
 
 facts, if known, would be that they received solemn 
 appeals and warnings from people of God, months 
 and years before the life and character crash came. 
 
 It is curious to note that, in addition to the oppo- 
 sition of the angel, God added pain of a physical char- 
 acter to Balaam. The ass on which he rode became 
 affrighted at the supernatural spectacle, ran into the 
 wall, and ground the foot of the prophet against the 
 stones. Balaam became infuriated, and smote the 
 dumb beast, who actually saw more than the prophet 
 did. 
 
 The physical pain always comes with the warnings 
 of God. To stray out of the order of God's will and 
 providence is to be continually getting hurt. Things 
 go wrong. Accidents, as we call them, happen; all 
 kinds of painful, unexplainable things take place. 
 
 In the case of a layman who began to depart from 
 God, after a devout life, there occurred, one after an- 
 other, such physical mishaps and narrow escapes of 
 life that he became deeply alarmed, and flew back to 
 duty and God. 
 
 Not all do this, but become filled with a blind rage 
 against the very things and beings God sends to 
 block their way to ruin, and go to striking right and 
 left, and with a growing fury as the years go by, In 
 a word, they begin to ripen for destruction. 
 
 Not only poor dumb animals feel the cruelty of
 
 230 HEART TALKS. 
 
 these maddened, backslidden lives, but innocent mem- 
 bers of the family. Everybody seems to them to be 
 blocking up their way, hindering them in their pleas- 
 ures, pursuits, rights, and privileges; so down comes 
 the cudgel of word, look, act, and life itself, on bleed- 
 ing, faithful hearts. Is it not strange that all can see 
 that God is dealing with them but themselves? In- 
 ferior minds and natures recognize the spotted record 
 and doomed life, while he, the wrong and wandering 
 one, frets over hindrances that have been sent of God, 
 and pushes on to ruin. 
 
 Farther down the highway Balaam encountered 
 the angel again. 
 
 The reader will notice the expression, "farther 
 down," which we use. The second battle did not take 
 place on the same ground of the first. God fell back 
 as His perverse servant pressed on, and met him at 
 a remote spot. 
 
 The idea is, that while the Lord keeps up the con- 
 test with the disobedient Christian for a while, yet the 
 struggle is never on the same moral place or plane. 
 As the soul pushes past God, who is making effort to 
 stop and save it, that soul is compelled to become 
 harder and worse for such a course. So the next 
 warning and withstanding takes place, in a true sense, 
 farther down the road. And the third battle is still 
 farther down than the second, the man persisting in
 
 THE FALL OF BALAAM. 23! 
 
 evil, God continuing to fall back and withstand him 
 again, until the time is reached when the Lord steps 
 aside, and allows the infatuated and determined man 
 to go on to his destruction. 
 
 The disobedient Christian can tell that he is far- 
 ther down the road, and in the last conflicts with 
 Heaven, by the lessening power of conscience, and 
 the rarer, fainter utterance of the voice of the Spirit. 
 The man, however, becomes accustomed to provi- 
 dential hinderings, and looks upon them daily with 
 less concern, and finally with no trouble at all. 
 
 There were three more Divine withstandings of 
 the prophet on the top of the mountain, and each one 
 occurred in a different place. God did His best to 
 save Balaam, and put a blessing instead of a curse for 
 His people into his unwilling lips. 
 
 The man said some fine things on the mountain 
 standing by God's altar. It was the spiritual flaring 
 up of the human candle before going down and out 
 in the socket. He was ostensibly in the service of 
 God; but the drift of his soul toward the forbidden 
 evil had become now like the rush of Niagara just 
 above the falls. 
 
 Samson and David went down under the power 
 of women; Judas and Balaam fell through love of 
 money. The former class of transgressors doubtless 
 wonder how the latter class could so care for bits of
 
 232 HEART TALKS. 
 
 shining metal. In like manner we doubt not that 
 the metallites, or second class, marvel at the weakness 
 of the first class, as they succumb to female arts 
 and blandishments. 
 
 Nevertheless, both classes fell, and a fall is a fall, 
 whether it be over a Bathsheba or a bag of money. 
 Men are going to hell from both causes. Samson, 
 David, Balaam, and Judas, all went down with a crash 
 into sin. Where can be the comfort to any one in a 
 moral fall in recalling that he did not go down like 
 his neighbor, or with the sin of his neighbor? If a 
 half-dozen men have fallen into a deep well, it matters 
 not a particle whether they tripped over a rock or 
 slipped on a piece of spongy soil; whether one was 
 looking at a star, or another chasing a firefly; the 
 grievous fact is that all are in the well. Think of a 
 spirit of pride and boasting springing up in such a 
 miry place as to the manner in which each one got 
 there ! The whole dispute would be absurd and profit- 
 less. So, when a man has fallen into moral ruin, what 
 need to boast that he did not go down like his neigh- 
 bor, or with the sin of his neighbor? He sinned, that 
 is enough; and he is down, and that is more than 
 enough. 
 
 Of the four individuals mentioned above, but one 
 seems to have been rescued, and that one was David. 
 The Scripture is unmistakable about the ruin of Judas
 
 THE FALL OF BALAAM. 233 
 
 and Balaam. They were wrecked on the money ques- 
 tion. 
 
 There is a rapids in Niagara, not only below the 
 falls, but one above. So is it in life. Just before a 
 man takes the final leap into sin there is a marvelously 
 accelerated movement in his life toward moral ruin 
 that is plainly observable to many, and that corre- 
 sponds to the Upper Rapids. 
 
 When Balaam left the mountain in the last work 
 he did for God, he was in the Rapids. God evidently 
 met him no more, but stood aside and let the man leap 
 to his destruction. And he leaped, or was carried 
 over the Falls, just as the reader prefers to regard the 
 matter. The fallen prophet, fully determined to ob- 
 tain the pay and honors of King Balak, does one of 
 the most diabolical things on record in the Bible. 
 Knowing, as he did, that the awful judgment of God 
 would come upon the children of Israel if they car- 
 nally intermingled with the nations by the way, Ba- 
 laam in some manner, according to the Bible, brought 
 about the transgression between the men of Israel and 
 the women of Moab. In this way the curse which he 
 was not permitted to pronounce from the mountain- 
 top was brought on the Israelites by their own act. 
 
 The man was now out of the Rapids and in the 
 Falls ! In a few days he had entered the Rapids below 
 the Falls. He had, in a word, yielded to a rushing
 
 234 HEART TALKS. 
 
 temptation, shot an awful downward plunge into the 
 vortex of sin, and soon came to the place and hour 
 when physical destruction was added to moral ruin, 
 as the Lower Rapids in Niagara pound to pieces 
 everything that is borne to it from the Falls. 
 
 The Bible tells us that a great battle took place 
 as the result of what had gone before, in which con- 
 flict many were slain, and among the killed was Ba- 
 laam, the unfaithful prophet of God. 
 
 May God have mercy on any one of His servants 
 who has become careless in life, and commenced open-- 
 ing his heart to questionable thoughts, desires, and 
 ambitions! As yet he is only floating on the stream, 
 and almost imperceptibly ; but he has left the place of 
 safety, and from where we stand we can see the arrowy 
 rush of the Upper Rapids of an increasing evil influ- 
 ence, hear the dull roar of the Falls of the sin itself, 
 and see in the still remoter distance the gray, jagged 
 rocks, and wild, leaping waves of the Lower Rapids, 
 where disaster and physical death are certain to come. 
 The heart involuntarily cries out for mercy in behalf 
 of the drifting soul and doomed body of such a man. 
 And yet what escape and deliverance can be expected 
 for one who in steadfast perversity has fought his way 
 through every warning and withstanding that a pa- 
 tient, loving God could devise and execute. Still we 
 cry out, God have mercy!
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 
 
 T N Second Chronicles we read that a great multitude 
 * of the Ammonites and Moabites had gathered 
 against Israel. The situation was so dark and hope- 
 less from human view, that the people with their little 
 ones were in humble supplication before the Lord. 
 The king himself was no exception. All hearts were 
 anxious, troubled, and looking to God. 
 
 In the midst of this protracted waiting, suddenly 
 the Spirit of God fell upon a man in the congregation, 
 whose name was Jehaziel. At once he opened his lips 
 and uttered the most comforting and strengthening 
 words to the Jews. He told them that God would 
 deliver them, and that in a most remarkable way. He 
 bade them be of good cheer, that they only needed 
 to stand still, and they would see the salvation of 
 heaven. 
 
 The fulfillment of the man's words' will be remem- 
 bered by the reader. So great was the victory which 
 God wrought for His people, that they were three 
 days gathering up the spoil. 
 
 From the circumstance of the Spirit of God fall- 
 ing upon Jehaziel we obtain the startling and thrilling 
 
 235
 
 236 HEART TALKS. 
 
 truth that God in His work uses the man nearest to 
 Him. This is not simply a gracious fact, but a most 
 solemn one, and one calculated to stir the Christian 
 heart to its profoundest depths. As a truth, it is not 
 only taught in the Bible, but as constantly proved 
 in life. 
 
 We have noticed merchants on busy days in their 
 stores; observed managers and directors of work in 
 a time of rush; and seen old-time masters with their 
 slaves on sudden calls for immediate action; and in- 
 variably we have marked that the individual nearest 
 to the merchant, overseer, or master was the one em- 
 ployed to do a work or commissioned to bear a mes- 
 sage. We frequently saw this, but failed to be im- 
 pressed with its deep significance when applied to 
 spiritual things, until we brooded over the case of 
 Jehaziel. 
 
 What we see men doing, the Lord does. He uses 
 the human instrument that is nearest to hand. It is 
 a principle of conduct which applies in both the busi- 
 ness and moral world. No one who gives a thought 
 to the matter but can and must approve. God uses 
 the man closest to Him. This is the great truth of 
 the passage! From it we draw several reflections. 
 
 First, the mystery is explained of the Divine favor 
 and use of certain men in the Church and world. 
 
 People who have wondered why God blesses some
 
 THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 237 
 
 persons so abundantly, and why He employs them so 
 constantly, need marvel no longer with such Scrip- 
 ture before them. The Divine Hand is laid on the 
 nearest head. The Lord speaks to the man closest 
 to Him. 
 
 Of course, there were good people in the congre- 
 gation of Israel that day, as there are in religious 
 gatherings to-day. But some were nearer to God 
 than others. The good King Jehoshaphat was closer 
 than the people ; but Jehaziel was nearer still than the 
 king. He was the nearest, and so on him the Spirit 
 of God fell. 
 
 We have often beheld similar scenes in Sabbath 
 audiences and revival-meetings. There are good peo- 
 ple in the congregation, and some are better, and 
 there is the man or woman who is best or nearest to 
 God. On that soul the Holy Ghost is certain to de- 
 scend. It is as fixed, unchangeable, and faithful a 
 Divine procedure as God working in His great natu- 
 ral laws. Indeed, it is a law. Whoever stands nearest 
 to God will be most blessed and honored of God. 
 Nothing else can happen to one in such a moral po- 
 sition. Wonderful place of grace and glory! Who 
 would not occupy it? 
 
 For sidelights to this blessed truth, let the reader 
 turn to the description of the Last Supper, and ob- 
 serve that John heard the Savior say things which
 
 238 HEART TALKS. 
 
 escaped Peter and the other disciples. The explana- 
 tion was that he was nearest to Christ. 
 
 Let him look again on the banks of the river Jor- 
 dan, and see the Dove alighting upon Him who spent 
 whole nights in prayer, and who said, "My meat is to 
 do the will of Him who sent me." To this day the 
 Dove comes to the Lamb, to the soul most like Christ. 
 
 Another reflection drawn from the occurrence, 
 which befell Jehaziel, is that here is a Divine testimony 
 to human faithfulness. The Spirit of God only falls 
 upon prepared hearts. 
 
 This fact utterly demolishes the hope of spiritually 
 lazy people, who expect to be blessed, and yet fail to 
 put themselves in the heart, mind, and life position 
 to be thus honored of God. They wonder why the 
 glow they see in other faces is not in their own, and 
 why the spirit buoyancy, inward exultation, liberated 
 tongue, and unmistakable unction of life is not theirs. 
 The explanation is that the condition of praying, life 
 emptying, believing, and waiting has not been met by 
 them. They have been spiritually indolent, have 
 failed to plow, harrow, plant, and cultivate, and yet 
 are looking for a waving harvest and full granaries. 
 
 Nothing is said in the passage about any special 
 devotion of time and energy to God by Jehaziel ; but 
 the Bible has so clearly taught this to be the indis- 
 pensable condition of spiritual manifestation and reve-
 
 THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 239 
 
 lation, that to state God's Spirit fell upon the man is 
 tantamount to saying that he had been waiting upon, 
 and living close to God. 
 
 The flames of fire, shining countenances, and won- 
 drous, rapturous utterances of Pentecost, were pre- 
 ceded by ten days of patient supplication to God in 
 the Upper Room. The visions of Daniel came; but 
 not without weeks of fasting and prayer upon his 
 part on the banks of the river Hiddekel. 
 
 Some affect to be surprised and even hurt at the 
 sudden outbursts of joy, and the Divine use of certain 
 persons in religious services. Why not themselves? 
 is the fretful query often asked inwardly, when not 
 uttered to others. The answer has already been 
 given, and is also embraced in the Bible statement 
 the man who prayeth secretly shall be rewarded 
 openly. The private devotion is the explanation of 
 public heavenly honor. The closet of prayer is the 
 place where the crown and robe are obtained which 
 make a man appear as a spiritual king when standing 
 before the Church and world. 
 
 A young preacher rebuked a large company of 
 gamblers on a steamboat with such holy power that 
 it not only awed the men, but led the rebuker to a 
 great national honor. The secret of his ascendency 
 was that he had spent a couple of days in his state- 
 room in tears and prayer over the matter. Any one
 
 240 HEART TALKS. 
 
 could have had a kind of brute courage sufficient to 
 have condemned the transgressors, and still have ac- 
 complished nothing. This kind of reproof is cheap, 
 and obtained at little cost ; but few are willing to pay 
 the price of two days' humiliation and prayer to secure 
 the heavenly backing and the Divine favor and power 
 this man possessed. 
 
 A prominent minister of the gospel ridiculed the 
 doctrine of a second work of grace in a large con- 
 course of people. There were many good persons 
 present who disapproved his utterances, but could not 
 or did not speak in reply. The Spirit fell that morn- 
 ing upon a young preacher to answer the denier of 
 sanctification by faith in the blood of Christ. For 
 thirty minutes by the clock this suddenly appointed 
 defender of a great Bible truth fairly flamed and 
 glowed in his presentation of the doctrine and procla- 
 mation of the experience, while love to man and grati- 
 tude to God was heard in every utterance, and tears 
 of joy welled into his eyes and fell fast upon his cheeks. 
 To many the thought doubtless came, that this man 
 was a chosen instrument to protect the ark, and so 
 settled back in the old condition of spiritual laziness. 
 The real explanation was that the young preacher had 
 spent several days in special waiting upon God. He, 
 in other words, happened that morning to be nearest
 
 THE MAN NEAREST TO GOD. 241 
 
 the Lord, and so the Divine Hand was laid upon him, 
 with the command, "Speak for Me." 
 
 Nothing in nature occurs in a haphazard way. 
 Law regulates everything. A Divine Hand guides 
 and controls according to perfect wisdom, truth, and 
 faithfulness. In like manner in the kingdom of grace 
 there is nothing like moral accidents. The same God 
 presides in both realms. Law is in both worlds. 
 
 We talk about the lightning striking at random. 
 It is not so : the electric fluid falls on the object nearest 
 to it, and most favorable for its reception. So does 
 the heavenly lightning. The Spirit comes upon peo- 
 ple who are prepared for Him. 
 
 A brief final reflection we draw is, that none of us 
 can afford to miss standing in the place nearest to 
 God. We can without much hurt be cast out of social 
 circles, synagogues, and places of earthly honor; we 
 can be displaced from favored positions near the rich 
 and great; but we can not, without irreparable injury 
 to ourselves both now and forever, live at a distance 
 from God. We must for our present and future high- 
 est good stand close to the Heavenly King, where His 
 hand can touch us, and His voice reach us at any and 
 at all times. 
 
 It is this spot where is ever to be found the flam- 
 ing speech, transfigured countenance, unctuous life, 
 16
 
 242 HEART TALKS. 
 
 and beautiful influence, more powerful at times than 
 words and deeds themselves. 
 
 Here John lived, and talked about opening heav- 
 ens, and said, "Hear what the Spirit saith to the 
 Churches." Here Paul abided, and spoke about not 
 knowing whether he was in the body or out of it. 
 Here Jehaziel must have dwelt. And here may we all 
 dwell. There is room for us all. But let us remem- 
 ber that it is not the man who is near to God who is 
 most honored, but the man nearest to God.
 
 XXVI. 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 
 
 THE caption of this chapter was the first utterance 
 of Christ after His resurrection. Of all things 
 which he might have said, perhaps no more beautiful, 
 blessed, needful, and significant speech could have 
 been made by Him to His sorrowing disciples, and, 
 beyond them, to the struggling, battling Church in 
 all ages, and even to the sinful world itself. Since 
 Christ died and rose again, it may well be asked, why 
 should any one weep? 
 
 The question comes to the penitent, Why weep- 
 est thou? 
 
 Has not Christ died and paid the debt that you 
 owe to an offended God and violated law? If 
 He has, why not burst forth into rejoicing and 
 singing, with the heaven-declared statement that 
 Jesus has suffered for all, that He died for the un- 
 godly, that no one might perish, but all have eternal 
 life? 
 
 Every community and Church is familiar with a 
 character who might well be called "the chronic 
 mourner." These persons come to the altar at every 
 
 meeting and at every call. They will not be com- 
 
 243
 
 244 HEART TALKS, 
 
 forted, seem unable to get relief, and certainly fail 
 to receive the assurance they wish to possess. 
 
 In a certain city, lately, I was speaking to one of 
 this class. She was a woman of seventy years of age. 
 When I tried to bring her help and comfort, she con- 
 templated me silently for a few moments, and said 
 with a melodramatic air, "My brother, I have been 
 a mourner for fifty-two years." 
 
 If she intended to astonish me, she succeeded per- 
 fectly. For a full minute I said nothing, as I looked 
 upon this living monument of unbelief, this individual 
 who had persisted in grieving over her sins for a half- 
 century, as though Christ had never died and paid 
 the full obligation she owed to Heaven in regard to 
 the transgressions of the past. I even detected an 
 accent of pride in the statement that she was a 
 mourner of such long standing. She was no ordinary 
 penitent. She had made a science out of spiritual 
 grieving. She had been so satisfied with the words 
 that they were blessed who mourned, that she re- 
 fused to come to the other part of the sentence, "they 
 shall be comforted." She knew nothing of that. She 
 was a mourner, called herself one, when in the sight 
 of God 'she was an unbeliever. 
 
 Is it not strange that people who will not look to 
 Christ for pardon after He died for all sins, can not be 
 made to see that in this fixed mental attitude they
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 245 
 
 make Christ to die in vain, utterly contradict God's 
 own Word, and discourage hundreds who would 
 otherwise come to Christ and be delivered and 
 blessed? 
 
 Again, the words apply to those who grieve over 
 the presence of inbred sin. 
 
 While we do not have to repent over the existence 
 of this principle, we can lament the fact of its being in 
 us, and should go promptly to Christ for its destruc- 
 tion and removal. 
 
 After its discovery, to sit down and sorrow over 
 the dark inheritance and fail to come to Christ with it, 
 is to repeat the folly of the ordinary transgressor who 
 will not let the Son of God save him. 
 
 To those of us who have gone within the veil, and 
 exercised the second distinct faith for heart-cleansing 
 or the sanctification of the soul, the days and weeks 
 of protracted mourning and seeking by some, without 
 the obtainment of the blessing is simply astounding. 
 The blood has been shed outside the gate to sanctify 
 the people; why weepest thou? Let us go forth at 
 once to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach, 
 and obtain the unspeakable grace. 
 
 We once saw a lady receive the blessing after a 
 most faithful seeking for it for a few hours. She had 
 to leave the meeting that night at ten o'clock on the 
 cars in company with a lady friend. She was fairly
 
 246 HEART TALKS. 
 
 electrified with her new possession, and the way into 
 the Holiest being all plain to her, she bent over her 
 friend who was at the altar, and who was weeping and 
 grieving without securing what she desired, and ex- 
 claimed, while laughing and crying over her and clap- 
 ping her on the shoulders, "Jennie, darling, make 
 haste and get the blessing; the train will be here in 
 fifteen minutes." 
 
 Quite a number around the altar smiled at the 
 speech, but others saw deeper into the words, and to 
 them it was a paraphrase of what Christ had long ago 
 uttered, "Why weepest thou?" 
 
 When Christians refuse to thus cast themselves on 
 the atoning sacrifice, it can readily be seen what a 
 paralysis they occasion to the faith of others who are 
 not spiritually strong to begin with, or are less exalted 
 in social and ecclesiastical planes. So we have seen 
 the slowness of a preacher in obtaining sanctification 
 throw the entire Church back. Their eyes were on 
 him as a kind of example, and as he did not sweep into 
 the Holiest, they reasoned very naturally that there 
 would be no need for them to try, and that there was 
 no hope or prospect for them. O ! that all seekers 
 in pulpit and pew would look to Calvary, and behold 
 the blood which cleanseth from all sin ! O ! that the 
 voice of Christ could be heard by these sad, discour-
 
 WHY DEEPEST THOU* 247 
 
 aged followers of His, whose highest conception of 
 the Son of God in redemption is the suppression of 
 the carnal mind, the keeping of the Old Man in a kind 
 of subjection ! 
 
 "Why weepest thou?" Is Christ not able to do ex- 
 ceeding abundantly for you above all that you can ask 
 or think? Did he not say, "All things are possible to 
 him that believeth," and "According to your faith so 
 shall it be unto you?" 
 
 Still again the words apply to the bereaved. 
 
 How perfectly helpless all of us have been made 
 to feel in a place and at an hour when Death has en- 
 tered and taken away the light of the home ! At such 
 a time we feel the vanity of human consolation, the 
 nothingness of human strength. 
 
 Once as a pastor we stood in the midst of a fam- 
 ily who were grouped around the deathbed of a 
 lovely daughter just grown, and now breathing her 
 last. We shall never forget the affecting silence of 
 those moments. No one spoke, but tears fell swiftly 
 down every face. Each tired, heavy sigh from the 
 pillow was feared to be the last breath, and when 
 finally the physician, whose eyes were steadily fixed 
 on the dying girl, looked up with a sad face and said 
 quietly, "It is all over," I immediately called all to 
 their knees around the bed, and in the midst of chok-
 
 248 HEART TALKS. 
 
 ing sobs, commended the grief-stricken family to 
 Him who once died Himself and rose again, and who 
 said that at His voice all that are in their graves shall 
 come forth into everlasting life. 
 
 Mary in tears at the Savior's tomb is a picture 
 which appeals to every heart. Here was an attitude, 
 a burden, a sorrow known to us all. Then comes the 
 footfall of Christ. His eye rests on the drooping fig- 
 ure, and His loving voice falls upon her ear "Wo- 
 man, why weepest thou?" 
 
 How quickly the tearstained face was raised ; how 
 it flashed and glowed with joy, we all can easily 
 imagine, when in another moment, with an additional 
 word from His lips, she saw it was Jesus. He had 
 broken the bands of Death. The grave could not 
 hold Him. He had come back to tell the grieving 
 world of His victory, and that as He had raised Him- 
 self from the tomb, even so He would resurrect all 
 who believe on Him. 
 
 Since that marvelous and blessed return, and since 
 the words, "I am the resurrection and the life," how 
 can there be inconsolable sorrow at the side of the 
 deathbed, and by the margin of the grave? 
 
 "Thy brother shall rise again," said the Savior 
 to the sisters of Bethany. And we have only to 
 change the word brother to father, mother, husband, 
 wife, sister, son, and daughter, to make them sound
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 249 
 
 like sweetest music to every grieving, bereaved heart 
 around the world. No wonder He said, "Why weep- 
 est thou?" 
 
 Once more, the words apply to the heart and life 
 which has been wounded and injured by human 
 tongues and influence. 
 
 Not only opposition and persecution have come, 
 but lower, sadder still, misrepresentation, detraction, 
 and slander are hurled like javelins and boomerangs 
 at the servant of God. No office or position, and 
 no religious experience or life of usefulness, is suffi- 
 cient to protect one here. 
 
 The added pain is that oftentimes the blow is 
 struck, not by a worldly hand, but by one who went 
 with you to the house of God in company. We have 
 seen some gentle Christian natures sink, completely 
 crushed, under this peculiar form of malevolence. 
 
 Still we say, "Why weepest thou?" Why should 
 we grieve hopelessly as though some strange thing 
 had happened? Was not Christ slandered? Were 
 not the disciples vilified? Was not Wesley accused 
 of having broken all the commandments? And are 
 we to expect better treatment than they received? 
 
 Again, has not Christ promised deliverance to us 
 from this and every other evil? Does not the Bible 
 say that all things work together for good to them 
 that love God? Then, "Why weepest thou?"
 
 250 HEART TALKS. 
 
 Paul said, "None of these things move me ;" and 
 we should say the same, and go right on in God's 
 service. 
 
 As for general misrepresentation, there are few 
 revival-meetings in which every true evangelist does 
 not see the funeral and burial of various kinds of false 
 reports. We have nothing to do but discharge our 
 duty, and "wait on the Lord," and the Bible says 
 He will bring it to pass. He will deliver us from all 
 our enemies, and cause us to inherit the land. 
 
 How many Christians worry needlessly in regard 
 to these things! Some workers at times feel half- 
 paralyzed, heartsick, and tempted to give up their 
 labor for Christ and souls. My advice to them is to 
 hold on, hold in, hold up, and hold out. 
 
 If a lie is told upon you, make no answer, but wait 
 on the Lord, be of good courage, and "weep not." If 
 a misrepresentation is circulated about your work, 
 methods, family, or Christian life, and a thick door 
 seems to be shut and locked in your face, do not think 
 of opening it yourself. Do not lose time and energy 
 in trying to prize it off its hinges or blowing it up 
 with dynamite. Wait on the Lord, weep not, be 
 patient, and suddenly it will open and God will do 
 the opening. 
 
 Your coat may be bespattered with the mud of 
 human hate, detraction, or misconception. Mr. Spur-
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 251 
 
 geon says, do not wipe it off at once, for that will 
 simply smear it and make matters worse. Be patient, 
 he said, and let it dry; by and by it will drop off of 
 itself. 
 
 He will take care of the mud-flinger, the mud- 
 flinging, the mud, and especially the coat and the man 
 flung at. He, with His own touch, will brush off the 
 mire, and show that it did not come from a fall of 
 the man, but was cast upon him by the hand of an 
 enemy. "Wait," I say, "on the L,ord." In a word, 
 "Why weepest thou?"
 
 XXVII. 
 HOLY JOY. 
 
 MUCH has been said and written against what 
 is called emotional or demonstrative religion. 
 A great deal of sage advice and warning is given to 
 people who are filled with the Spirit in such expres- 
 sions as "Talking one's self empty," "Living one's 
 religion," "Best proof of being well is walking 
 around/' and "Thunder kills nobody." 
 
 We are not in this chapter championing what 
 has been scornfully dubbed "mere noise," although 
 we cheerfully confess that we have not the slightest 
 objection to the commotion and stir made by people 
 who are genuinely filled with the Holy Ghost. We, 
 in fact, like it. We have been heard and seen in these 
 lines ourselves repeatedly by friend and foe; our 
 comfort, meanwhile, being that, according to the 
 second chapter of Acts, there was anything but a 
 quiet time on the morning of Pentecost with the dis- 
 ciples ; and John is our authority for saying that there 
 was silence in heaven only for the space of a half- 
 hour ; after that, he heard the noise of a great multi- 
 tude shouting and praising God, and it sounded like 
 the voice of mighty thunders and the roar of many 
 
 waters. 
 
 252
 
 HOLY JOY. 253 
 
 And yet, with all this, we are not contending 
 for noise and what is called "fuss." We have listened 
 to some which we wished that we had not heard. 
 And yet the Church has not suffered as much in this 
 way as it has with a graveyard quiet and deadness. 
 
 We are speaking in this connection of an inward 
 condition and life, far back from the lips, in the heart, 
 and that expresses itself in more ways than one ; some- 
 times, indeed, with words; but sometimes being 
 voiceless, but felt always as a penetrating, melting 
 influence as powerful as any word or deed. 
 
 It is a peculiar joy we are writing about. Not 
 the ecstasy of one of those many refreshings, anoint- 
 ings, and comfortings that come to the child of God, 
 and as certainly leak out in a few minutes or hours. 
 Nor is it the result of regeneration, but of the bap- 
 tism with the Holy Ghost. It is not the gladness 
 of the New Birth, but that strange rapture which 
 comes from spiritual crucifixion and death. 
 
 There is a Divine work in the soul which intro- 
 duces the Christian into the realm of joy as certainly 
 as justification and regeneration brought him into 
 the spiritual province of peace. "Being justified by 
 faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. By whom, also, we have access by faith 
 into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice." 
 
 He who will faithfully regard the spiritual multi-
 
 254 HEART TALKS. 
 
 plicands and multipliers of the Upper Room, and the 
 ten days of faithful waiting and importunate praying, 
 will beyond every shadow of doubt obtain the product 
 of a full, steadfast, delicious, satisfying joy to abide in 
 the soul. 
 
 Not all have it ; for not all are true to God's arith- 
 metic. There is trifling either with the multiplier or 
 the multiplicand of consecration and faith. The full- 
 ness of waiting is not observed, the fervor and force 
 of prayer is neglected; and so they "come short," as 
 the apostle says, of the great blessing. The cold face, 
 lackluster eye, hard facial lines, and lack of spiritual 
 spring and buoyancy, plainly indicate the failure to 
 the observant, fire-baptized disciple. For some reason 
 best known to themselves and God, they have not 
 obtained that blessed result called the Secret of the 
 Lord, and the Mystery of the Gospel. They can 
 grasp the idea of peace and occasional overflowings 
 of spiritual gladness ; but the fact of a constant, abid- 
 ing, upspringing joy in the soul is beyond their com- 
 prehension. 
 
 The holy joy we speak of arises from a sense of 
 conscious cleanness, sweet submissiveness to God's 
 will, and the perpetual presence of Christ in the soul. 
 With this is felt the nestling of a perfect love in the 
 heart and the blessed throbbings of spiritual power.
 
 HOLY JOY. 255 
 
 Who wonders, then, at the presence of a perennial 
 gladness and sunshininess in such a heart? The mar- 
 vel would be if, after such a work, there would be no 
 such resultant condition. 
 
 The outward manifestation of this inner joy is 
 unmistakable. It may differ somewhat, according to 
 circumstances and temperament; but with all that, 
 there are signs of this deeper salvation in those who 
 possess it that are not to be beheld in the regenerated 
 man, no matter how true and faithful he may be. 
 
 One mark is a peculiar brightness of the face. 
 Another is a smiling expression. A third is a restful 
 look about the eyes, brow, lips, and, indeed, all the 
 lines of the face. A fourth sign is recognized in the 
 voice, in an indescribable ring and accent which comes 
 from the heart and goes to the heart. A fifth is a 
 certain instinctive and instantaneous responsiveness 
 of the soul to all that is read and preached from God's 
 Word on this hidden life. A sixth is a spring and 
 buoyancy of the spirit which makes it difficult at 
 times to refrain from what might be called physical 
 demonstrativeness. A seventh is the language of 
 praise that becomes as natural as the breathing of a 
 healthy lung. Just as the sin-burdened heart has 
 words of complaint, fault-finding, gloom, and despair, 
 so the blood-washed and fire-baptized soul has a Ian-
 
 256 HEART TALKS. 
 
 guage that describes and declares its own restfulness, 
 contentedness, gladness, and blessedness in a con- 
 stantly indwelling Christ. 
 
 If we single out any one of the above marks just 
 mentioned, and study their effect on the world around 
 us, we will have at once furnished the most urgent 
 motives as Christians for seeking to enter upon such 
 a spiritual life. 
 
 Think of the power of a restful face as it is seen 
 daily unchanged in the midst of the varying circum- 
 stances of life ! 
 
 Such a sweet, glad countenance, that of an elderly 
 woman, who had troubles and sorrows enough to have 
 crushed a giant, created deep convictions in all who 
 beheld her. The patient, kindly smile she turned on 
 her home-circle, friends, and acquaintances, in spite 
 of her life-burdens, was a call in itself to high regions 
 of Christian living that reached a loftier note to the 
 spiritual ear than the trumpet-blast which sounds 
 loud and clear from Mt. Sinai. 
 
 As for the language of praise so familiar to those 
 who are deeply and genuinely sanctified, the moral 
 effect is even more powerful. It bubbles up from a 
 filled and overflowing heart. Language is felt to be 
 a relief. The lip and tongue are like channels convey- 
 ing away some of the fullness of the abundantly satis- 
 fied soul. Oftentimes the quietly uttered "Praise the
 
 HOLY JOY. 257 
 
 Lord," "Hallelujah," "Glory," "Bless the Lord," is 
 spoken in perfect unconsciousness of human auditors. 
 Men hear the words with wonder. Various may be 
 the opinions of the listeners ; but there is conviction in 
 the expressions for them all. 
 
 So Paul and Silas praised God in the dungeon, 
 and it brought about a revival. No astonishment 
 would have been felt by the prisoners in the outer 
 prison over the language of complaint and lamenta- 
 tion. They were accustomed to that. But when two 
 men in the inner prison, all bloody with a dreadful 
 scourging, and with feet stuck in the stocks, sang 
 and praised God at midnight, so that Nature itself 
 bore witness to the moral grandeur of the occurrence, 
 both jailer and prisoners alike were brought down 
 in an awful fear and bitter repentance before God. 
 
 The rejoicing and praises of the martyrs as they 
 were crucified, torn to pieces by wild animals, or 
 slowly burned to death at the stake, did more to 
 spread Christianity than all the eloquent sermons ever 
 preached. A singing, shouting, praising Christian 
 sank finally into a heap of ashes; but thousands of 
 people returned home from the awful spectacle beat- 
 ing their breasts and convicted to their hearts. Out 
 of this number many would turn to Christ and be 
 saved. That voice of praise and rejoicing going up 
 
 from the curling smoke and crackling flames was a 
 17
 
 258 HEART TALKS. 
 
 divine argument, a heavenly proof, a voice from the 
 sky itself that could not be answered, doubted, or 
 gainsaid. And so the blood of the martyrs became 
 the seed of the Church. 
 
 We knew a preacher who was hurled from a large 
 church and handsome salary for preaching sanctifi- 
 cation as a direct, instantaneous work of Christ in 
 the soul of the believer. Instead of complaining, he 
 went to the man who had cast him out, and with a 
 joy that he could not keep out of face or voice said, 
 "I expect to do the best work of my life this year." 
 The happy look and joyful spirit and speech of the 
 victim, without any intention upon his part, troubled 
 the man he spoke to far more than a volume of re- 
 proaches and complaints. In fact, he talked about 
 it for months, and said he could not forget it, or get 
 over it. 
 
 "Again, if the joy should declare itself in the action 
 of the body, there is peculiar convicting power even 
 in that manifestation. 
 
 We would not indorse all the bodily exercise we 
 have seen. Some "profiteth little," and some is over- 
 done, and does harm rather than good. But there 
 have been physical manifestations of the inner joy, 
 both in pulpit and pew, upon which the Holy Ghost, 
 who had already inspired the movement, now fell 
 again with approving power.
 
 HOLY JOY. 259 
 
 The sight of David leaping before the ark seemed 
 to have aroused but one harsh critic, and that was 
 Michal, the wife of the rejoicing man. But it must 
 be remembered that she was some distance off, and 
 was looking through a window, while David was 
 close to the ark. He was coming up the road with 
 the Holy Oracles, and in good religious company. 
 A great deal depends upon being in the procession. 
 
 Sometimes cool-blooded Christians in the audi- 
 ence have wondered at something they beheld in the 
 demonstrative way in the pulpit. They failed to see 
 how it could have been done. The explanation is that 
 they were looking through the window, and labored 
 under the additional disadvantage of spiritual dis- 
 tance. The man in the pulpit saw a glory they could 
 not see, and heard the rolling of the wheels which is 
 to bring up the ark to Jerusalem. 
 
 A preacher was watching another at a camp-meet- 
 ing. He studied his pulpit movements closely. He 
 saw him give a leap at a climactic point in the dis- 
 course. The solemn comment of the observer was, 
 "that it had cost the speaker a great deal to be able 
 to do what he had done that day." The man's eyes 
 filled when he heard the true discriminating words. 
 He, above all men, knew for himself "that with a great 
 price he had obtained this freedom." One other thing 
 he knew, and that was that he never let the great
 
 260 HEART TALKS. 
 
 indwelling joy overflow in an irresistible manner by 
 way of the body rather than the tongue; but the 
 Holy Ghost used it as an arrow to pierce men and 
 women with conviction. It is true that the scoffer 
 might be present ; but so they were at Pentecost ; yet 
 while some laughed and doubted that day, many beat 
 their breasts, and said, "What must we do?" 
 
 Finally this joy is our strength. The Bible says 
 so: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." 
 
 More and more the writer is convinced that it 
 is not human eloquence, logic, or wisdom that is to 
 win the day; that it is not ecclesiastical pomp, cere- 
 mony, or power which will vanquish the enemies of 
 God; that it is not scholarship, culture, position, 
 reputation, influence, high places, and offices that con- 
 stitute the strength of the Church. We will never 
 conquer with these things and by these methods. Our 
 strength is the joy of the Lord ; our invincibility will 
 be found in being filled with the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Men and women drunk on the wine of the King- 
 dom, intoxicated with the love of God, and whose 
 faces are shining with a rapture not born of earth, but 
 sent down from heaven, will be not only a spectacle 
 but an actual spiritual force, under which the people 
 will be compelled to go down before God. It did so 
 at Pentecost, has done so often since, and will do so 
 again to the end of time.
 
 HOLY JOY. 261 
 
 It rests with the Church to say how long the na- 
 tions shall stay away from Christ, and the world lie in 
 wickedness. 
 
 The victory will never come with the use of carnal 
 weapons, or by legislation, or by righting symptoms, 
 or by all the proprieties, moralities, and orthodoxies 
 of the Church and Christian life. The devil does not 
 care how proper and orthodox we are, provided we 
 do not get the Holy Ghost. And the triumph will 
 never be obtained by quietness, peacefulness, and 
 peaceableness. It will never be brought to pass by 
 the forces which lie in justification and regeneration, 
 and the faithful, excellent lives of good people. 
 
 The Church will have to get drunk on joy. There 
 must be an intoxication of spirit, as the body is with 
 wine. There must be a bubbling gladness in the 
 heart; an overflowing of a sweet, holy rapture, that 
 can not be restrained, but will rush into every open 
 channel of privilege, opportunity, and duty, and with 
 sunlit face, shining eyes, liberated tongues, praising 
 lips, and flying bodies carry the food, light, comfort, 
 and treasures of the gospel to the starving, benighted, 
 broken-hearted, and bankrupted nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 Who is it that sneers at an emotional, demonstra- 
 tive religion, when, according to the Bible, two-thirds 
 of it is feeling? Look and see "The kingdom of
 
 262 HEART TALKS. 
 
 heaven is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Lately a convention of preachers was called in 
 Texas to ask one another what was the matter with 
 the Church, and why there is such a dearth of revivals. 
 Our reply would have been, let the Church seek for 
 the baptism with the Holy Ghost, be fired and filled 
 with this holy joy, and salvation will roll over the land 
 like a deluge. 
 
 The Lord's command to his people on the eve of 
 a great battle was not to take sword or spear, but 
 to go forth with harps, singing and praising the beauty 
 of holiness, and that all would be well. The reader 
 has only to turn to the Old Testament to read the 
 account of the marvelous victory which followed, 
 when the people sang, rejoiced, and praised God, and 
 without using a weapon saw the Almighty mow their 
 enemies down before their eyes. 
 
 May we take the lesson to heart, and at once seek 
 and obtain the experience which places the harp in 
 the hand, the song in the heart, the light in the face, 
 the praise on the lips, and the leap to the feet, and 
 thereafter see as stupendous victories for God and 
 His Truth as were ever beheld in the centuries and 
 ages that are gone!
 
 XXVIII. 
 "LOOKING UNTO JESUS." 
 
 SALVATION is brought to the soul by looking 
 to the crucified Son of God. It was taught in 
 symbol before the tragedy of Calvary took place. The 
 Jews, when bitten by fiery serpents, were told to look 
 to a Brazen Serpent uplifted on a pole. If, instead, 
 they looked at the reptile which stung them, or at 
 the bitten place, or at Moses, or at the Tabernacle, 
 they all died. But whosoever looked upon the up- 
 lifted Brazen Serpent lived. It mattered not how far 
 the man was gone, or how many reptiles had poisoned 
 him ; it mattered not if friends had to hold up his head 
 and with merciful finger lift up the drooping eyelid; 
 the instant the eye fell upon the Serpent on the Pole 
 the man felt a great rush of life in him, leaped to his 
 feet, and became sound and whole. 
 
 Christ Himself declared that He was the fulfill- 
 ment of this remarkable type ; that He would be lifted 
 up on the cross, that "whosoever believeth on Him 
 should not perish, but have eternal life." Salvation 
 for a look to Jesus. 
 
 Of course, the world wonders and stumbles over 
 
 this condition of pardon, men failing to see the justice 
 
 263
 
 264 HEART TALKS. 
 
 involved, the love that inspired, and the profound 
 wisdom which permeated the whole infinite act and 
 sacrifice. They especially stagger over the simple 
 requirement of a look to be saved. The spiritual 
 thinker sees far deeper, and knows that the looking to 
 means also a looking from. He who looks to Jesus 
 is doing a marvelous thing in the spiritual life. Just 
 as the eye was turned from crawling reptiles and fes- 
 tering wounds, from self and surrounding friends, 
 from the great leader Moses, and the beautiful Taber- 
 nacle, and was fastened on a serpent of brass hanging 
 on a pole, and all this done at the command of God, 
 so the sinner looks away from the devil and his own 
 sin-poisoned soul, from all hope of self and human 
 strength, looks beyond the preachers, gazes higher 
 than the Church, and, fastening his eyes upon the 
 Crucified One, cries, 
 
 " In my hand no price I bring, 
 Simply to thy cross I cling," 
 
 and is instantly filled with salvation, sweet, restful, 
 and blessed, and knows he has eternal life. It was a 
 look from earth to heaven, from men to God, from 
 sin to Christ, and God rewarded it with an instan- 
 taneous pardon and glorious rush of spiritual life 
 into the soul. 
 
 But the necessity of looking unto Jesus is not
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 265 
 
 ended by regeneration. Paul was not addressing sin- 
 ners in pursuit of forgiveness, but Christians in a race 
 for heaven. Even then, in such a blessed life, he says, 
 there must be a steady looking unto Jesus. 
 
 Indeed, the expression is used after every weight, 
 and "the sin which doth so easily beset" has been 
 laid aside. Here is a spiritual state which plainly in- 
 dicates that the second great look has been cast upon 
 Him who has been made unto us, not only righteous- 
 ness or pardon, but sanctification. There is a look to 
 Christ on Mount Calvary, and there is a second wait- 
 ing and look to Him on Mount Zion. The cross 
 brings one experience, the Upper Room another. 
 One is life, the other power. One is a birth, the other 
 a baptism. One brings peace, the other purity. Both 
 come from looking to Jesus. They can come in no 
 other way ; the Bible and life prove it. 
 
 And yet after this, when the "weights" are laid 
 aside, and "the sin which doth so easily beset" is gone, 
 and we are running toward the goal of glory, the look 
 to Jesus must be kept up. Here is where the trouble 
 begins with many. Here is the cause of weakness, 
 hesitation, and failure in the Christian life the eyes 
 have been more or less turned from Jesus. For sev- 
 eral reasons we are to cast the steady, continued look 
 upon Christ. 
 
 One is for constant cleansing.
 
 266 HEART TALK'S. 
 
 We do not mean that inbred sin is left in the heart, 
 or that sin is being committed in the life ; but we refer 
 to a blissful experience in which the soul is continu- 
 ally thrilled with the consciousness of being kept 
 clean. 
 
 A man who does not know this secret of the Lord 
 said once to the writer, "If the heart has to be cleansed 
 all the while, then it must be defiled all the while." 
 My reply to him was, "Yes, just about as unclean as 
 a clean rock on clean white sand, with the clear water 
 of a brook flowing over it all the time." He saw the 
 picture and the idea, and was silent. 
 
 By a steady look to Jesus we can keep under the 
 Blood, and feel every second its cleansing power as it 
 flows over the soul. We fail to see the necessity of sin, 
 while rejoicing at the same time in the delightful re- 
 alization of perpetual whiteness and purity. 
 
 Again we must look to Jesus for perfect conform- 
 ity to Him in all things. 
 
 We may have pardoned and purified hearts, and 
 yet the outward life is left with all its manifold features 
 of speech and act, looks, tones, gestures, bearing, 
 manners, and scores of other things that are not nec- 
 essarily sinful, but need to be corrected and changed. 
 Sanctification means great light, but not all light, as 
 some would make it. It means perfect love ; but not
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 267 
 
 a perfect head by any manner of means. It means 
 that the sin principle is out of the soul; but does not 
 mean that we can not grow in grace within, or be im- 
 proved in our ways and manners without. 
 
 ,The thing to do is to look to Jesus, with the ques- 
 tion, What would He say, and What would He do 
 under the circumstances which surround us? Nor 
 should we be discouraged in not obtaining all the 
 light at once. We are to keep looking, and blessed 
 will be the result to ourselves, and marked will be the 
 improvement in the eyes of those who are proper 
 judges of spiritual things. 
 
 A mechanic or contractor bending over the plans 
 of the building which is being erected, should be both 
 a rebuke and inspiration to us. 
 
 A musician with his eyes on the notes of a piece 
 of music, making the fingers to fall just when and 
 just how the printed sheet before him directs, and 
 going over and over it until the rendering agrees with 
 the original; such a sight is a sermon in itself, and 
 is enough to make every careless Christian ashamed 
 of himself, and arouse him to greater faithfulness and 
 Christlikeness. 
 
 Christ is our plan, our example and model; and 
 so the eyes of the soul should be fixed steadfastly 
 upon Him, that the life might be made to agree in all
 
 268 HEART TALKS. 
 
 things possible with Him. Men took knowledge of 
 the disciples, that they had been with Jesus. So they 
 can and will note us, if we are Christlike. 
 
 Christ has brought a marvelous soul harmony into 
 the world. Souls are being thrilled, melted, and 
 drawn to God by it. We are to study the notes that 
 fell from His lips and life in Bethlehem, Bethany, and 
 Jerusalem, in Judea and Galilee, in Gethsemane and 
 Calvary, and reproduce the melody. When we, with 
 the Gospel before us, and the Holy Spirit within us, 
 strike the right chords and utter the right note, people 
 around us both feel and know it. When we strike a 
 false or discordant note, they also know it. 
 
 All of us can recall times when we suffered excru- 
 ciating pain of a mental character in having to listen 
 to incorrect playing, and what is called flat or falsetto 
 singing. The ear, nerve, mind, and heart all partook 
 together of the misery. Even more painful is the 
 fact of un-Christlikeness in the words, manner, spirit, 
 and deeds of a Christian. The appearance of spiritual 
 vanity and pride, of irritability and uncharitableness, 
 of faultfinding and tattling, of arrogance, selfishness, 
 and bitterness, even if only for a moment, sends a 
 pang through the soul. It was so unlike the other 
 part of the life song, it was so different from, the notes 
 given by Christ in the Four Gospels, it had such a 
 falsetto ring, that all looked up pained, and felt, even
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 269 
 
 if they said nothing, that the music of Bethany and 
 Galilee had not been followed. 
 
 Our only hope is to keep the eyes fixed on Jesus. 
 This is our duty and our privilege. If we are faithful 
 here, we will not only realize blessedness within, but 
 discover we have power without. Men will want us 
 to bring them to Him who created such melody of 
 heart and harmony in life within us. And we will 
 bring them. 
 
 Still again, we must look to Jesus for guidance. 
 
 With all the power of a splendid intellect, and the 
 knowledge which experience brings, yet the child of 
 God is still under the necessity of being Divinely led 
 and directed in the daily steps of life. This need 
 springs from the fact of our ignorance concerning 
 God's plans, our inability to understand people, and 
 our lack of power to read the future, and know what 
 is best for us to do. 
 
 The Lord has promised to lead the soul whicfi 
 will faithfully, patiently, and obediently look to and 
 follow Him. He will guide, He says, with His Word, 
 His Spirit, and His eye. All these three are men- 
 tioned in the Scripture, and show different degrees of 
 nearness upon the part of the soul to God. There is 
 an undoubted advancement from the "Word" to the 
 "eye." Just as well-trained servants get so that they 
 do not need to be spoken to at the table, but a glance
 
 270 HEART TALKS. 
 
 will show them what is wanted ; so the Christian first 
 held in and held back, and only able to go by explicit 
 statements, conies at last to understand the move- 
 ments of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, and finally 
 walks certainly and triumphantly amid a whirl of 
 duties, conflicts, and perils, guided by the looks of 
 Christ. 
 
 He has promised to guide us in all things, and lead 
 us into all truth. The leading will not be violent, but 
 very gentle; it will be a still, small voice rather than 
 a thunder-clap; it will be recognized as a drawing 
 rather than a driving; but it will be unmistakable to 
 the faithful, devoted man of God, and will always 
 bring one into realms of spiritual rest and assur- 
 ance. 
 
 A good thing to do, when duties seem to conflict, 
 the road forks, and it is difficult to tell which of two 
 ways to take, is to wait on the Savior in prayer, and 
 ask Him to shine on the path He would have us tread, 
 making it sweetly attractive to the soul, and at the 
 same time put a kind of fog upon the other and cause 
 it to have a forbidding appearance. Christ will do it. 
 We are convinced that He will lead us in every step 
 of life ; in business, pleasure, marriage, Church rela- 
 tions, and all, if we fix our eyes upon Him, and pa- 
 tiently wait for light and direction. 
 
 Anna Shipton tells us in one of her books how
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 2"Jl 
 
 Christ allowed her to turn aside from her regular 
 work to rest a few days in an Italian town, and write 
 on one of her forthcoming volumes. She became so 
 absorbed that she went beyond the number of days 
 she first asked for, and suddenly discovered that the 
 flying pen had lost its power, and that her brain had 
 ceased to create. She was wondering about it one 
 night while wakeful in bed, when a large bird, blown 
 by the storm from the mountains, gave a scream near 
 her window-shutters, which sounded like the word 
 "Direct." Yes, said the convicted woman, that is 
 just what I want, and have failed to ask for direc- 
 tion from Christ, and on her knees in another minute 
 came the impression she must leave the town. The 
 next day, while speeding on the train, with a happy 
 feeling of being in the line of duty, she led a man to 
 God on the cars, which work of grace led to a still 
 greater gospel work in another town. 
 
 Once more we must look to Jesus for comfort. 
 
 We continually need it in such a world as this. 
 The whole race in its sinfulness and heart-brokenness 
 wants consolation for that matter. But deeper still is 
 the need of the Christian, who, hated by hell, cast off 
 by the world, and misunderstood by friends, is cer- 
 tainly bereaved, indeed, if he has not heaven to turn 
 to for consolation. 
 
 But this comfort is to be received and enjoyed,
 
 272 HEAR1 TALKS. 
 
 and so deep and satisfying is it that one possessing 
 such a blessing can rejoice in the sorest tribulations 
 of earth and time. 
 
 A distinguishing title of the Holy Ghost is the 
 Comforter. Christ said He would send Him into the 
 world, knowing the paramount need for Him. The 
 Savior also said, "I will not leave you comfortless; I 
 will come to you." 
 
 Different from anointing for special service, dis- 
 similar to sudden influxes of energy and power to pro- 
 claim the Word or make some notable stand for duty, 
 is the sweet comfort with which Christ can fill the 
 soul. Bringing as it does a perfect melting of the 
 soul, tenderness of spirit, gladness in loneliness, con- 
 tentedness to live, suffer, or die, to be or do anything 
 for Jesus it is an experience so unearthly, so holy, 
 so heavenly, as to be beyond the power of verbal de- 
 scription. Jesus in some way takes the tired, grieved, 
 hurt, lonely soul in His arms and comforts it. 
 
 We once heard a prominent preacher say, with the 
 tears running down his face, that since his mother had 
 died he had found a place where he could go and cry 
 out all his troubles and get perfect comfort, and that 
 place was the lap of Jesus. 
 
 Once at a camp-meeting I saw a business man, 
 who had been through great griefs and trials, sud- 
 denly obtain the comfort which Christ loves to bestow,
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 273 
 
 while sitting disconsolately behind a large wooden 
 column in the Tabernacle. The transformation was 
 amazing ! Who, when in sadness and loneliness, does 
 not love a dear one to hunt them up, and with hand 
 and voice cheer and heal the aching heart? So Jesus 
 found His grieving servant behind the pillar, and put- 
 ting His arms around him, comforted him. O, how 
 the man wept! The fountains of the deep were 
 broken up, his form shook under the emotion which 
 rilled him, while his face shone with the light and 
 peace and holy calm of heaven. 
 
 I have seen a father rough to his child, and beheld 
 the weeping little fellow go to his mother, who, with 
 soothing words, tender kiss, and embrace, and some 
 promise of the morrow, would cause the child to com- 
 pletely forget his sorrow. The little, tear-stained face 
 would be turned up gleefully to hers, the tongue talk 
 happily about other things, and the only sign left of 
 the other experience would be an occasional catch in 
 his breath, the last sighs of the almost spent breast 
 storm. And so have I seen God's child struck by the 
 world and deeply hurt. Then I have beheld him go 
 to Jesus and look up to Him, and at once get such 
 calm of mind, comfort of heart, and forgetfulness of 
 what had been said and done to him, that the face 
 glowed like a seraph, and any one could see that he 
 
 had been caught away from the strife of tongues, the 
 18
 
 274 HEART TALKS. 
 
 pride and wrath of man, and was hidden in the secret 
 place of the Most High. 
 
 We all know what it is to seek human comfort and 
 fail to find it when the heart is fairly breaking for 
 sympathy. Some of us know what it is to lie awake 
 at night with a great sorrow, or walk through the 
 house while all are quietly sleeping, and have to 
 wrestle alone with the trouble. The peaceful sleeping 
 of the household intensifies the loneliness, and adds 
 to the pang. You walk out on the street, and the 
 whole town is asleep. Everybody is at rest but your- 
 self. By and by you come back and sit on the steps 
 of your own house, heartsick and solitary under the 
 stars. How far away they seem ! Suddenly it occurs 
 to you to look to Jesus, and instantly you are filled 
 with a holy peace and comfort, which would make 
 words bend and break to describe. The tortured 
 heart is at rest, the fever has been banished from the 
 spirit, Jesus has come to comfort you ! He had been 
 waiting all along for His follower to look up to Him. 
 He had not been asleep like the household and town, 
 for His eyelids never slumber. As I have heard my 
 mother, now in heaven, sing when I was a child, 
 
 " Though the night be dark and dreary, 
 
 Darkness can not hide from Thee; 
 Thou art He, who never weary, 
 Watcheth where Thy people be."
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 275 
 
 Finally, we look to Jesus for reward. 
 
 Beyond the approval of conscience, the smile of 
 God, and the blessedness of godly living, we are told 
 by the Bible not to look for our recompense as Chris- 
 tians in this life from men. 
 
 The Scripture informs us that the world will hate 
 us ; that if we live godly in Christ Jesus we shall suffer 
 persecution; that men will say all manner of evil 
 against us; that our good will be evil spoken of; and 
 we will be as strangers and pilgrims in the earth. 
 
 More than this, we learn that the closer we live to 
 God, the less will we be understood ; while enmity will 
 be encountered, not only from the world, but in the 
 Church. We will be cast out of the synagogue, and, 
 sadder still, our foes will be they of our own house- 
 hold. The circles to which we would naturally go 
 for appreciative sympathy and reward are seen, under 
 these words, to be steadily lessening and narrowing 
 all the time. 
 
 To be in a spiritual experience above others, is to 
 be a mystery to them; and not to be comprehended 
 in matters of grace and religion, has been equivalent 
 to the dungeon, stake, and headsman's axe in the 
 past, and means anything but an easy time in the 
 present. 
 
 The price which Madam Guyon had to pay for
 
 276 HEART TALKS. 
 
 holiness of heart was her own beautiful head laid on 
 the block of the executioner. The cost to John Wes- 
 ley was mobs, slander, and constant persecution. 
 While to-day a man who would enter the Holy of 
 Holies in the Christian life, must lay down his repu- 
 tation at the door, and consent to be ridiculed by the 
 world, discounted and struck at by the Church, mis- 
 understood by his own household, and walk a lonely; 
 path to heaven. 
 
 In view of these things, the man who would look 
 for reward for his faith and labor from sinners, and 
 even Christians, is worse than a fool, and doomed to 
 bitter disappointment. 
 
 Tell them your hardships and trials for the Trutti, 
 and some few will listen the first time, but grow rest- 
 less under a second recital, and yawn and count you 
 a bore at the third. 
 
 But what we can not find in men, we can obtain 
 in Christ. He never turns a deaf ear to our words, 
 or sends us away empty. He rewards both here and 
 hereafter. He gives the overflowing cup, the anointed 
 head, and a table spread in the presence of our enemies 
 even in this world, as a kind of hint and type of the 
 great unseen eternal reward. Our soul delighting itself 
 as with marrow and fatness, our spirit kept like a wat- 
 ered garden, songs in the night, praises in the dun- 
 geon, companionship in the wilderness, opening
 
 LOOKING UNTO JESUS. 277 
 
 heavens on Patmos, and Christ looking us up when 
 we are cast out from the councils and company of the 
 synagogue, is part of Christ's blessed recompense in 
 this world. 
 
 As for the reward at the last day, what pen can 
 describe, or brush depict, or tongue declare the things 
 which God has prepared for them who love Him? 
 It is enough to stagger the imagination, overwhelm 
 the mind, and yet electrify the soul, and make men 
 leap for joy, to read expressions that are dropped here 
 and there in the Bible, about thrones, crowns, king- 
 doms, glorious bodies, exceeding and eternal weights 
 of glory; and yet realize that these wonderful terms 
 are but hints in themselves of the reward which Christ 
 has promised to all who will be faithful to Him unto 
 the end. 
 
 It is natural to look to men, and especially to 
 friends and kindred, for recompense and reward in the 
 spiritual life; but it is a mistake to do so for all that, 
 and sooner or later we find it out. People are too 
 selfish, or busy, or burdened with their own toils and 
 sorrows, to give the time to the consideration and 
 proper treatment of cases which appeal to them for 
 recognition and help. It is a bitter piece of knowl- 
 edge to obtain, but a profitable experience when it 
 comes, and happy is the man who does not sour in 
 learning it
 
 278 HEART TALKS. 
 
 We had best look to Jesus. We will not be dis- 
 appointed there. We will get all that the heart craves 
 and the life deserves from His faithful, loving, pitiful 
 hand. 
 
 An old preacher was struck down suddenly with 
 the pangs of approaching death. For the first few 
 moments he was bewildered with the confusion and 
 excitement of his family in the room, the fainting sen- 
 sations of the body, and the dimness which came upon 
 his sight. With a trembling, piteous voice, he ex- 
 claimed, "Where is Jesus, my old, true, life-long 
 friend?" Then with a sudden burst of sunshine in 
 his face he said, with a deep, contented sigh, "Ah! 
 here He is and now it is all right." 
 
 If the writer, before 'drawing his last breath and 
 sinking into the grave, was allowed to write or speak 
 but three words to the world or Church, to old or 
 young, to sinner or saint, to the justified or sanctified, 
 those three words should be, "lyook to Jesus."
 
 Pentecostal Light, 
 
 By REV. A. M. HILLS. 
 
 101 Large Pages. Price in Cloth, 50 Cents. 
 In Paper Cover, 10 Cents. 
 
 THIS BOOK TREATS OF : 
 
 1 Praying for the Spirit. Filled with the Spirit. 
 Grieve not the Spirit." 
 
 IT HAS HAD A CIRCULATION OF OVER THREE 
 THOUSAND IN TWELVE MONTHS, 
 
 Rev. S. T. Morris, of Calumet, Mich., writes: 
 "Pentecostal Light is a work of power, and 
 
 should be in the hands of every believer in 
 
 America. It is rightly named, and you have 
 
 my special thanks for writing it." 
 
 "The last chapter alone is worth its price." 
 "Effective medicine for worldliness among 
 
 professors. 
 
 Address M. W. KNAPP, Revivalist Office, 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO.
 
 Tears and 
 Triumphs 
 
 *^No. 2. 
 
 One of the Best 
 Song Books for 
 the Price Ever 
 Issued, 
 
 By L. L. PICKETT 
 and M. W. KNAPP. 
 
 It is Pentecostal, Evangelical, Loyal. 
 
 It Is printed in round and shaped note*, con- 
 tains a Topical Index, an Index of Choruses, and 
 single songs worth more than its price. 
 
 It contains the merits intensified which 
 pushed the sale of " Tears and Triumphs " No. 
 i in so short a time to 
 
 . . OVER 100,000 COPIES . . 
 
 One firm ordered 2,000 belore the book ap- 
 peared. Others are buying by the hundred and 
 thousand. Prom the 
 
 NIAGARA OF PRAISE 
 
 which it is receiving the following few drops have been selected: 
 
 Western Christian Advocate, Cincinnati. " Will be greatly appre- 
 ciated by lovers of inspiring song in Sunday-school and revival work." 
 
 Rev. J. C. Johnson. " I had Tour dozen yesterday and sold them iii a 
 few minutes. Its soul-stirring songs take with all denominations." 
 
 A Teacher and Composer orders 200 and writes: " I do not hesitate to 
 pronounce it one of the best books for the purpose intended now on the 
 market; a marvel of completeness." 
 
 Evangelist I>. B. Gernigan. " We sold the last one of the song books, 
 150, before the meeting closed. It is a book for the people. They shout 
 and cry as they sing. It is the best book I ever saw." 
 
 Mrs. O. C. McGarvey, Music Teacher. " It is better adapted to revival 
 meetings than any book we have ever seen. I consider it a collection of 
 the most spiritual songs I have ever seen." 
 
 G. E. Kersey, Teacher and Musical Composer. "It is the best new 
 
 song book on the market for camp-meeting, revival, church and home." 
 TV. M. Patty. "Indeed, it is a triumph in the interest of holy song." 
 
 "^^ It is adapted to Evangelistic Work, Camp- Meetings, 
 Prayer and Praise Meetings, Sunday-schools and General 
 Church Worship. 
 
 Such men as Hoffman, Bryant, Sweney, Palmer, Ogden, Kirk- 
 patrlck, KieCfer, Mclntosh, Tillman, Lincoln, Street, Black, T. 1L. 
 Perkins, \f. p. Perkins, Rev. J. E. Raukin, Gilmour and many 
 others have assisted in making it. 
 
 3- Try the following: Nos. 5, 6, 7, 32, 35, ft, 58, 60, 62, 63, 70, 76, 85, 91, 94, 
 116, 118, 121, 125, 132, 133, 147, 149^ 154, 155, 163, 168, 179, 180, 187, 193, 195, 196, 
 199. If not pleased, return it and get your money back. 
 
 PRICES: Board, 25c. prepaid; $2.80 per doz. prepaid: $20 per 100 
 not prepaid. Muslin, 20c. prepaid; $2.25 per doz. prepaid: $16 per 100 
 
 not prepaid. Printed in round and shaped notes. State which you v ish, 
 
 ORDER OF THIS OFFICE.
 
 FOOD FOR LAMBS; 
 
 BY A. M. HILLS, 
 
 Author of " Holiness and Power " and " Pentecostal Light.' 
 
 Abridged Edition, 
 
 Price, 10 Cents j 16 for $1.00. 
 
 STABLE OP CONTENTS Chapter I., Why God Calls Children Ear- 
 ly; II., Same Continued ; III., Same Continued; IV., Two Other 
 Reasons "Why God Calls Little Children to Remember Him and 
 Seek Him; V., First Condition of Salvation Repentance; VI., The 
 Second Condition of Salvation Faith : VII., The Third Condition 
 of Salvation Surrender of Self to God's Service: VHL, Coming to 
 Christ. 
 
 Complete Edition. 
 
 Price, Cloth, SO Cents; 4 Copies, $2.40. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I., Why God Calls Children Ear- 
 ly; II., Same Continued ; III., Same Continued ; IV., Two Other 
 Reasons Why God Calls Little Children to Remember Him and 
 Seek Him; V. , First Condition of Salvation Repentance ; VL.The 
 Second Condition of Salvation Faith ; VII., The Third Condition 
 of Salvation Surrender of Self to God's Service ; VIH., Coming to 
 Christ; IX., Ten Evidences of Conversion: X.,Frayer; XI , The 
 Bible; XII., Obedience; XHL, A Life of Love; XIV., A Life of 
 Service; XV., Joining the Church; XVI.. Religion Made Easy by 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This is an invaluable and timely Text-Book for training Child- 
 ren in the Home, Sunday-School and Day School. 
 
 No Parent or Teacher can Afford to be Without it. 
 
 Free from cant and adapted to believers of every name. It will 
 help fasten truth in the child-mind as no other book we know. 
 
 The 80-cent Book and The Weekly Bevivalist, 
 One Year, S/.5O.
 
 Burning Books 
 
 By Seth C. Rees, 
 
 The Quaker Author and. Evangelist. 
 I. FIRE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 Over 300 pages. Price, $1.00. If you appre- 
 ciate celestial light and fire, you will be de- 
 lighted with this book. 
 Four copies, post- 
 paid, for the price of 
 three. 
 
 CONTENTS : C h a p- 
 ter I., Fire from Heav- 
 en; II., Established -in 
 Christ; III., God's 
 Choice of Instru- 
 ments ; IV., Stephen's 
 Fulness ;V., The True 
 Saint; VI., Rooted and 
 Grounded; VII., 
 Abounding Grace; 
 VIII., The Secret of 
 the Lord; IX., Ex- 
 ploits; X., A Larger 
 
 Outlook; XL, Abundant Resources; XII. , More 
 Than Conquerors; XIIL, This is That; XIV., 
 The Holy Peace; XV., Call of Rebecca; XVL, 
 Blessings in Disguise. 
 
 II. PENTECOSTAL CHURCH. 
 Like the Bible and the Life of Jesus, it com- 
 bines the characteristics of the Lamb and the 
 Lion, the Lily and the Lightning. 
 
 CONTENTS: Chapter I., Opening Words; II., 
 The Ideal Pentecostal Church is Composed of 
 Regenerated Souls; III., A Clean Church; IV., 
 A Powerful Church; V., A Powerful Church 
 Continued; VI., A Witnessing Church; VII., 
 Without Distinction as to Sex; VIII. , A Liberal 
 Church; IX., A Demonstrative Church; X., An 
 Attractive Church Draws the People Together; 
 XI., Puts People Under Conviction; XII., Will 
 Have Healthy Converts; XIIL, A Joyful Church; 
 XIV., A Unit; XV., The Power of the Lord is 
 Present to Heal the Sick; XVI., A Missionary 
 Church; XVII., Out of Bondage; XVIII., En- 
 tering into Canaan; XIX., The Land and Its 
 Resources; XX., Samson; XXL, Power Above 
 the Power of the Enemy; XXII., Compromise 
 and Its Evil Effects; XXIII., Sermon; XXIV., 
 The Author's Experience. 
 
 Price, 50 cents; four copies, postpaid, $1.50. Special 
 rates by the quantity.
 
 OLD CORN 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID B. UPDEQRAFF. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I, Old Corn ; CHAPTER II, The Blood of Christ; 
 CHAPTER III, Cleansing Through the Blood ; CHAPTER IV, Con- 
 secration; CHAPTER V.The Baptism with the Holy Ghost; CHAP- 
 TER VI, Is Pentecost Repeated? CHAPTER VII, Power for Service ; 
 CHAPTER VIII, Mistakes of Simon Magus; CHAPTER IX, "Our 
 Old Man;" CHAFER X, Crucified with Christ; CHAPTER XI, The 
 World Crucified; CHAPTER XII, Steps in the Experience of the 
 Apostles; CHAPTER XIII, Self-Purification; CHAPTER XIV, Unto 
 Perfection ; CHAPTER XV, A Good Conscience ; CHAPTER XVI, 
 Shall He Find Faith? CHAPTER XVII, Self-Preservation; CHAP- 
 TER XVIII, Antagonisms to Holiness; CHAPTER XIX, Spirituality 
 vs. Ritualism ; CHAPTER XX, Last Promise of Jesus ; CHAPTER 
 XXI, Divine Guidance ; CHAPTER XXII, John the Baptist; CHAP- 
 'TER XXIII, An Unexpected Decree: CHAPTER XXIV, Christ's 
 Coming Premillennial ; CHAPTER XXV, The Parousia; CHAPTER 
 XXVI, Free from the Law ; CHAPTER XXVII, Serving in " New- 
 ness " or " Oldness "Which ? CHAPTER XXVIII, Suffering and 
 Glorification ; CHAPTER XXIX, Salvation through Sanctification ; 
 CHAPTER XXX, The Parables; CHAPTER XXXI, Sin Not a Neces- 
 sity; CHAPTER XXXII, Distinctions; CHAPTER XXXIII, Philos- 
 ophy of Doubt ; CHAPTER XXXIV, Negative Ritualism ; CHAPTER 
 XXXV, Trinity, the New Birth^ etc.; CHAPTER XXXVI, Personal 
 Testimony. 
 
 Price, $1.00; Four Copies, prepaid, $3.00. 
 
 It and THE REVIVALIST, weekly, one year, $1.75. 
 Send all orders to 
 
 M. W. KNAPR, 
 
 REVIVALIST OFFICE, CINCINNATI, OHIO.
 
 Books by Byron J. Rees. 
 
 THE HEART CRY OF JESUS. 
 
 CLOTH, 40 CENTS. 
 
 HULDAH, THE PENTECOSTAL PROPHETESS. 
 
 Every sentence is compact and precious 
 as beaten gold. The American Friend. 
 
 CLOTH, 50 CENTS. 
 
 
 
 CHRISTLIKENESS AND OTHER PAPERS. 
 
 There is something in it for every one. 
 If you want an uplifting and inspiration 
 for a higher life, read this book. Chris- 
 tian Standard. 
 
 PAPER, 25 CENTS. 
 
 The Set, Post-paid, $J.OO. 
 
 WITH 
 
 The Weekly Revivalist, $1.80. 
 
 Address 
 
 M. W. KNAPP, 
 
 OFFICE OF THE 
 REVIVALIST, j* 
 
 Cincinnati, O. & Providence, R L
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 A 000891 611 6