Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-28
that's very good theory to preach on q
hot day, but il won I work.

| fruit of the Christian soul.
We hear great deal about the bitter
tongue, and the sarcastic tongue, and
the quick tongue, and the singing tongue;
but we know very little about 1.-THE soft
tongue that breaketh the bone'' We
read Hudibras. and Sterne, and Dean
Swift, aud the other apostles of acri-
mony, but give little time to stud wing
the example OF Him who was reviled
and yet revilsd not again. o, that the
Lord, by His spirit, would endox us 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 com :
munities you find skeptical men. Through
! early education, or through the NAL
treatment of professed Christian people,
or through prying curiosity about che
! future world, there are a great many
people who become skeptical in religious
things. How shall you capture them for
GodE sharp argument and sarcastic re-
| tort never won single soul from scepti-
cism to the Christian religion While
| powerful books on the evidences of
Christianity have their mission in con-
nrmlng Christian people in the faith they
have already adopted, ! have noticed
that when skeptical people are brought
into the 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 out of its hiding place. 1t
says; NOW well just rouse up all
this sea;' and II makes great buster;
but IL does not succeed. Part of the sea
Is reused up,-perhaps one-hRlf OF 1t, or
one-fourth of it. After a while the calm
moon, placid and beautiful, looks down,
| and the ocean begins 10 rise. 1t comes
up TO high-water mark. 1t embraces
the great headlands. 1t submerges the
| beaches of all Its continents. 1t is the
heart-throb of one world against the
heart-throb OF another world. And l
have TO tell you that while all your
storms of ridicule and storms of sarcasm
may rouse up the passion of an immor-
| tai nature, nothing less than the attrac-
tive power of Christian kindness can
ever raise the deathless spirit TO happi-
ness and to God. l have more faith in
the prayer of 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 cannot overcome men with re-
ligious augmentation. If you come at a
sceptiual man with an argument on be-
half of the Christian religion, you put
the man on his mettle. He says: al
see that man has a carbine. I'lI use my
carbiue. III answer his argument with
my argument. But if you come to
that man, persuading, him that you de-
sire his happiness on earth and his ster-
nal welfare in the world to come, he
cannot answer IL
What l have said, is just as true in the
reclamation of the openly vicious. Did
you ever know drunkard TO be saved
through the caricature of a druukard?
Your mimicry OF the staggering step,
and the thick tongue, aud the
DISGUSTING HICCOUGH
only worse madGens his brain. But if
you come to him in kindness and SYM
patty; II you show him that you appre-
ciate the awful grip of q depraved appe-
lite; If you persuade him of the fact that
thousands who had the graphing hooks
OF evil inclination clutched in their soul
as firmly as in his have been delivered,
then ray of light will flash across his
vision, and it will seem as il a supernat-
ural hand were steadying his staggering
gait.
A good many years ago there lay in
the streets man dead drunk, his face
exposed to the blistering MONDAY sun.
A Christian woman passed along, looked
at him, and said: ''Poor fellow. - She
took her handkerchief and spread it over
his face, and passed on. The man
reused himself up from his debauch,
and began 10 look at the handkerchief,
and. loisou it was the name of g. highly
Nnh1 10
He went to her, he thanked her for her
kindness; and that one little deed saved |
him for this life, aud saved him for the
life that is TO come. He was afterward
attorney of the United States;
but higher than all, he became the con-
secrated disciple of Jesus Christ.
Kind words are so cheap, 1t is q won
der We 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. He has been thinking about |
forgery, about robbery, about suicide. |
Go to that business man. Tell him that |
better times are coming, and tell him |
that you yourself were in q tight BUSH |
ness pass, aud the Lord delivered you.
TELL HIM TO PUT HIS TRUST IN GOD.
Tell him that Jesus Christ stands beside |
every business man in his perplexIties.
Tell him of the sweet promises of Gods |
comforting grace. That man is dying
for the lack of just one kind word. Go |
tomorrow and utter that one saving
omnipoteut, kind word. Here is a soul |
that has been .wamped in sin. He wants
to find the light of the Gospel. He feels
like a shipwrecked mariner looking out
over the beach, watching for a sail
against the sky. o, bear down on him.
Tell him that the Lord waits to be gra-
cious to him, and though ne has been
great sinner, there is great saviour pro-
vided. Tell him that though his sins are
as scarlet, they shall be as snow; though
they are red like crimson, they shall be
as wool The man is dying for ever for
the lack of one kind word.
There used TO be sung at a great many
of the pianos through the country q song
that has almost died out. l wish some
body would start II asain in our social
circles. There may not have beer very
exquisite art IN the music, but there was
a great and glorious sentiment:
kind words never die. never die;
Cherished and blessed"
o, that we might in our families aud
IN our churches try the force of kind
ness. You can never drive men, women
or children into the kingdom of God A