Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-08-25
deliberstion

Christian elaboration, that all
the buzzing around about
their soul amounted to nothing. They
conquer them, and above all, they con-
| quer themselves. "Oh,' you say,
that's very good theory to preach on
hot day, but it won'r work. -
| IT WILL WORK. IT HAS WORKED.
| believe it is the last Christian grace
we win. You know there are fruits
which we gather in June, and others in
| July, and others in August, and others
in September, and still others in Ooto-
Der; and have to admit that this grace
of Christian forgiveness is about the last
| fruit of the Christian soul.
We hear great deal about the bitter
tongue, and the sarcastic tongue, and
| the quick tongue land the singing tongue;
but we know very little about ''the soft
tongue that breaketh the bone.'' We
read Hudibras, and Sterne, and Dean
| Swift, and the other apostles of acri-
mony, but give little time to studying
the example of Him who was re viled,
and yet revilsd not again. o, that the
Lord, by His spirit, would endo1 us all
with "the soft tongue that breaketh the
bone. -
pass now TO the other thought that
desire to present, and that is, kindness
as means of usefulness. In all oom-
munities you find skeptioal men. Through
early education, or through the mall
treatment of professed Christian people,
or through prying curiosity about the
future world, there are great many
people who become skeptical in religious
things. How shall you capture them for
God2 Sharp argument and sarcastic re-
tort never won a single soul from scepti-
cism to the Christian religion. While
powerful books on the "Evidenoes of
Christianity have their mission in con-
hrming Christian people In the faith they
have already adopted, 1 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 wen just rouse up all
this sea; and it makes q great buster;
but 1t does not succeed. Part of the sea
is reused up,-perhaps one half of it, or
one-fourth of it. After a while the calm
moon, placid ana beautiful, looks down,
and the ocean begins TO rise. It comes
up to high-water mark. It embraces
the great headlands. It submerges the
beaches of all Its 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 ridioule and storms of sarcasm
may rouse up the passion of an immor-
tai nature, not hing less than the attrao-
tive power of Christian kindness can
ever raise the deathless spirit TO happi-
ness and to God. have more faith in
the prayer of q child five years old, In
the way OF bringing an infldel back to
Christ and to heaven; than l have in all |
the Kissing thunderbolts of ecclesiastical |
controversy.
You cannot overcome men with re-
ligious RECOMMENDATION If you come at a |
sceptical man with an argument on be- |
half of the Christian religion, you put |
the man on his mettie. he says: 81 |
see that man has carbins. IN use nv |
carbine. I'll 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 it.
What have said, is just &c true in the |
reclamation of the openly vicious. Did /
you ever know g drunkard 70 be saved |
through the caricaturs Of q drunkardl |