The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1890-08-29

communities you find skeptical men
Through early education, or through
the maltreatment of professed Christian
people, or through prying curiosity
about the future world. there are a great
many people who become skeptical in
religious things How shall you capture
them for God? Sharp argument and
sarcastic retort never won a single soul
from skepticism to the Christian relig-
ion While powerful books on the
Evidences OF Christianity" have their
miss on in confirming Christian people
in the faith they have already adopted.
have noticed that when skeptical peo-
pie are brought into the Kingdom of
Christ 1t is through the charm of genial
soul and not by argument at all Men
are not saved through the head; they are
saved through the heart A storm comes
out of its hiding place 1t says: Now
we'll just rouse up all this sea-" and 1t
makes a great bluster, but it does not
succeed Part of the sea is reused up
perhaps one half of it or one-fourth of
it After n while the calm moon, placid
and beautiful. looks down, and the ocean
begins to rise 1t comes up to high
water mark. 1t embraces the great
headlands- 1t submerges the beaches
of all the continents. 1t is the heart
throb OF one world against the heart
throb of another world.
And / have to tell you that while all
your storms of ridicule and storms of
sarcasm may rouse up the passion of an
immortal nature, nothing less than the
attractive power of Christian kindness
can ever raise the deathless spirit to
happiness and to God. | have more
faith in the prayer of a child five years
old, in the way of bringing an infidel
back to Christ and to Heaven, than ]
have in all the kissing thunderbolts of
ecclesiastical controversy.
You can not overcome men with re-
ligious augmentation. If you come at
a skeptical man with an argument on
behalf of the Christian religion, you
put the man on his mettle. He says:
II see that man has a carbine. I'll 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 can not 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 drunkard?
Your mimicry of the staggering step,
and the thick tongue, and the disgust
ing hiccough. only worse maddens his
brain. But if you come to him in kind
ness and sympathy; if you show him
that you appreciate the awful grip of a
depraved appetite; If you persuade him
of tho fact that thousands who had the
graphing hooks of evil inclination
clutched in their soul as firmly as in his
have been delivered, then a ray of light
will flash across his vision, and it will
seem as IL a supernatural hand were
steadying his gait
A good many years ago there lay in
the streets a man dead drunk, his face
exposed to the blistering noon day sun.
a Christian woman passed along, looked
at him, and said: "Poor fellow" She
took her handkerchief and spread il
over his face, and passed on The man
reused himself up from hisdebauch, and
began to look at the handkerchief, and,
10! on it was the name of a highly re-
spectacle Christian woman of the city.
He went to her, he thanked her for heI
kindness, and that one little deed saved
him for this life and saved him for the
life that is to come. He was afterward
| Vi Iuo oIdIcS,
but higher than all, he became the con-
secrated disciple of Jesus Christ
Kind words are so cheap it is a won
der VIC do not use them oftener. There
are tens of thousands of people who are
dying for the lack of one kind word.
There is business man who has fought
against trouble until he is perfectly ex-
hausted. lie has been thinking about
J | rnhharu oh 10
Go to that business man. Tell him thai
better times are coming, and tell hin
that you yourself were in tight bust
ness pass and the Lord delivered you
Tell him TO put his trust in God. Tel
him that Jesus Christ stands beside
every business man in his perplexities
Tell him of the sweet promises of God'i
comforting grace. That man is dying
for the lack of just one kind work. Gt
, tomorrow and utter that one saving
omnipotent kind word Here is a sou
that has been swamped in sin. He wants
to find the light of the Gospel He feel
like a shipwrecked mariner looking gu
over the beach, watching for sal
against the sky. o. bear down on him
: Tell him that the Lord waits to be gra
; ciouS to him, and though he has been
great sinner there is a great Saviour
provided. Tell him that though hi
sins are rs scarlet they shall be as snow
o though they are red like crimson the,
shall be as WOOL That man is dyinl
. forever for the lack of one kind word.
There used to DO sung at a grea
many of the pianos all through The
country a song that has almost died out
= l wish somebody would start it again il
y our social circles There may not havr
been very exquisite art in the music
! but there was grand and glorious senti
ment:
kind words NJ yer die. never die;
D Cherished and blessed"
. o, that we might in our families anC
l in our churches try the force of kind
t ness. You can never drive, men
: women or children into the Kingdom o
5 God A March northeastern will bring
2 out moro honeysuckles than fretfulnes
: and scolding will bring out Christian
: grace. i wish that in all our religious
: work we might be saturated with tn,
5 spirit of kindness. Missing that, W,
1 miss n great deal of usefulness Their,
r is 20 need of coming out before mel
p and laundering to them the law unles
r at the same time you preach to then
the Gospel.
Do you not know that this simple
4 story of Savionr's kindness is to re
? deem all nations? The hard heart o
4 this worlds obduracy is to be broker
I before that story. There is in Antwerp
3 Belgium. one of the most remarkable
7 pictures / ever saw. 1t is THE Descen
| of Christ From the Cross" 1t is one o
Ruben's pictures. No one can stan,
! | and look at that ssDescant From tn,