Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1890-08-29

10 aulniJ tlHJ VillS STilCe OF OQrlSulau Ipr-
p,ivouess is about the last fruit of the
Chrissial soul.
CHBIsTs WORDS WE'RE KIND ONES.
We hear a erent deal about the bitter
tongue. and the sarcastic tongue, and the
quick tongue, and the stinFng tongue, but
we know very little about the soft tongue
that lreakcth the bone" We read IIudi-
bras, aud Sterne, and Dean Swift and the
other apostles of acrimony, but give little
time to studying the example Of him who
was rcvilcd, and yet revied not again. o
that the Lord by his spirit would endow
MS all with the soft tongue that breaketh
the bone
pass now TO the other thought that l
desire to present, and that is, kindness as
means of usefulness. In all communities
you find skeptical men. Through early ed
ucation. or through the maltreatment of
protested Christian people, or through pry-
ing curiosity about the future world, there
are great many people who become skep-
teal in religious things How shall you
capture them for God? Sharp argument
and sarcastic retort never won a single
soul from shepticism to the Christian re-
ligiOn. While powerful books on the 'Evi-
dences of Christianity have their mission
IN confirming Christian people in the faith
they have already adopted, | have noticed
that when sIeptical people are brought
into tho kingdom of Christ it is through
the charm of some genial soul, and not by
argument at all.
Men are not saved through the head
they are saved through the heart a storm
comes ont of its hiding place 1t says;
"Now, Wen Just rouse up all this sea-"
and it makes a great buster, but it does
not succeed Part of the sea is reused up
perhape onc-half of it, or one-fourth of it,
After while the calm moon, placid and
beautiful, looks down, and the ocean be
gins to rise, 1t comes up to high water
mark. 1t embraces the great he1dlands
II submergcs the beaches of all the CONT
ncnts. 1t is the heart throb of one world
against the heart throb of another world
a nd | have to tell you that while all your
storms of ridcule and storms of sarcasm
may rouse mp the passion of an immortal
nature, nothing less than the attractive
power of Christian kindness can ever raise
the deAthlc,s spirit to happiness and to
God / have more faith in the prayer of a
child Eve years old, in the way Of bringing
an infdel bscl. to Christ and to heaven,
than have n all the Kissing thunderbolts
OF ecclesiastical controversy.
You cannot overcome men with religious
! augmentation. If YOU come at skeptical
man with an argument on behalf of the
Christian religion you put the man on his
mcttle He says: ~ see that man has q
cGrbiue III use my carbine I'll answer
his argument with my argument" But
if YOU come TO that man, persuading him
that you desire his happiness on earth and
his eternal welfare in the world to come,
he cannot answer it.
What ! have said is just as true in the
reclamation of the openly vicious. Did
you ever know a drunkard to be saved
| through the cariCature of a druEkard?
| Your mimicry of the staggering sep, aud
the thick tongue, and the disgusting hic-
| cough only worse maddens his brain. But
| Il you come 10 him in Kindness and sym
pathy, if you show him that you appreci-
ate the awful grip of depraved appetite,
if YOU persuade him Of the fact that thou
sands who had the grappling hooks Of evil
| inclination clutched in their soul as firmly
rs in his have been delivered, then a ray OF
| light will flash across his vision, and it
will seem as if a supernatural hand was
| steadying his staggering gait.
\ good many years ago there lay in the
| streets man dead drunk, his face exposed
| to the blistering monday sun. \ Christian
woman passed along looked at him and
| said, Poor fellow" She took her hand
| kerchief and spread it over his face, and
! passed on. The man reused himself NJ
! from his debauch and began to Loo. at the
! handkerchief, and 10! on it was the name OF
! a highly respectable Christian woman OF
! the city. He went to her, he thanked hei
| for her kindness and that one little deed
| the life that is TO come lie was afterward
attorney general of the United States; but
! higher than all, he became the consecrated
| disciple of Jesus Christ
KIND WORDS COST NOTHING.
Kind words are so cheap it is wonder
we do not use them oftener There are
] e ~ . -,