The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-09-26

-AANA ~ Ou0 W Sct DUCK n swarm OF
bees that had wandered off from the
hive. AS he moved amid them they
buzzed around his head, and buzzed
around his hands, and buzzed
around his feet. If he had killed one
OF them they would have stung him to
death. But he moved in their midst
In perfect placidity until he had capt
ured the swarm of wandering bees.
And SO l have seen men moving amid
the annoyances, and the vexations and
the assaults of life in such calm. Chris
tan elaboration that all the buzzine
around about their soul amounted to
nothing. They conquered them, and
above all they conquered themselves.
oh" you say, that's very good
theory to preach on hot day, but it
won't work" 1t will work. 1t has
worked. believe it is the last Chris
tan 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 October; and 1 have to admit
that this grace of Christian forgiveness
is about the last fruit of the Christian
soul.
THE SOFT TONGUE.
We hear a great deal about the bit
ter tongue, and the sarcastic tongue.
and the quick tongue, and 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 acrimony, but give little time to
studying the example of him who was
reviled, and yet reviled not again. Oh,
that the Lord, by his spirit, would en-
dow us all with 1.-THE soft tongue that
breaketh the bone"
pass now to the other thought that
l desire to present, and that is, kind
ness as a means of usefulness. In all
communities you find skeptical men.
Through early education, or through
the maltreatment of protested Christian
people, or through prying curiosity
about the future world, there are a
great many people who become skep-
tical in religious things. How shall
you capture them for God? Sharp ar
current and sarcastic retort never won
a single soul from skepticisIn to the
Christian religion. While powerful
books Oh the Evidences of Christiani-
ty" have their mission in confirming
Christian people in the faith they have
already adopted, l 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 it's hiding place. 1t
says, "Now we'll just rouse up all this
sea, and it makes great buster, but
it 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 and beautiful, looks
down, and the ocean begins to RISE 1t
comes up to high-water mark. 1t en-
braces the great headlands. 1t sub
merges the beaches of all the CONT
nents. 1t is the heart throb of one
world against the heart throb of an
other 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 Chris
tan kindness can ever raise the death
less spirit to happiness 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 I have in all the kissing thunder
bolts of ecclesiastical controversy.
You cannot overcome men with re-
lgious 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:
81 see that man has 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 cannot answer it.
MIMICRY WILL NOT SAVE THEM.
What 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
drunkarda Your mimicry of the stag
gering step, and the thick tongue, and
the disgusting hiccough, only worse
maddens his brain. But if you come
to him in kindness and sympathy; if
you show him that you appreciate the
awful grip of depraved appetite; if
you persuade him of the fact that thou
sands 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 if supernat-
ulral 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 SUM-
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 to look at the handker-
chief, and 10! on it was the name of a
highly respectable Christian woman of
the city. He went to her; he thanked
her for her kindness; and that one
little deed saved him for this life. and