The Russellville Democrat., 1890-09-04
dow us all with "the soft tongue that

about the future world, there arc agreat 1 many people who become skeptical in re- ligious things. How shall you capture them from God? Sharp argument and sar- castle retort never won a single soul from skepticism to tho Christian religion. While powerful books on the 'Evi- dences of Christianity" have their mis- sion in confirming Christian people in the faith they have already adopted, l have noticed that when skeptical peo- pie arc brought into the kingdom of Christ, 1t is through tho charm of some genial soul, and not by argumentat 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-fonrth of it. After awhile the calm moon, placid and beau tilul, looks down, and the ocean begins to rise. It comes mp to high-water mark. It embraces the great head lands. It submerges tho beaches of all the continents. It is the heart-throb of one world against the heart-throb of am other world. And 1 have to toll 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 tian kindness can ever raise the death less spirit to happiness and to God. have moro faith in the prayer of child five years old. in the way of bringing an infidel back to Christ and to Heaven, than l have in all the hissing thunder bolts of ecclesiastical controversy
 You can not overcome men with TO- ligious augmentation. If you come at a skeptical man with an argument on behalf of the Christian religon, you put the man on his mettle. He says. q sec that man has a carbine. I'll use my carbine. I'll answer his argument with thy argument But if you come to that man, persuading him that you de- sire 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.
 
 saved through the caricature of 8 drunkard? Your mimiery of the stag gering step, and the thick tongue, and the disgusting biccough, 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 per suade him of the fact that thousands who had the grappling hooks of evil in clination elutched in their souls as firmly as in his have been delivered, then ray of light will flash across his vision, and it will seem as is a super natural hand were steadying his stag gering gait.
 A good many years ago there lay in the streets 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 itover his face, and passed on. The man ronsed himself up from his debauch, and began to look at the handkerchief, and To! on it was the name of highly respectable Christian woman of the city. He went to her, he thanked her for her kindness; and that little deed saved him for this life, and saved him for the life that is to come. He was afterward Attorney General of the United States; but higher than all, he became the consecrated disciple of Jesus Christ.
 Kind words are so cheap, it is won der we do not use them oftener There arc 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 ho is perfectly ex- hausted. He has heen 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 a tight busi- ness pass, and the Lord delivered you. Tell him to put his trust in God. Tell him that Jesus Christ stands beside every business man in his per- plexities, Tell him of the sweet prom ises of Gods comforting grace. That man is dying for the lack of just one kind word. Go tomorrow and utter that one saving, omnipotent, kind word. Here is soul that has been swamped in sin. He wants to find the light of the Gospel lIe feels like a ship wrecked mariner looking out over the beach, watching for sail against tho sky o, bear down to him. Tell him that tho Lord waits to be gracious to him, though he has been great sinner, there is a great Saviour provided. Tell him that though his sins arc as scarlet, they shall be as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. That man is dying forever for the lack of one kind word.
 There used to be sung at a great many of the pianos all through the country a song that mas almost died out. l wish some one would start it again in our social circles. There may not have been very exquisite art in the music, but there was grand and glorious sem timent
 Kind words never dle never die; Cherished and blessed.
 o. that we might in our families and in our churches try tho force of kind ness. You can never drive men, women or children into the Kingdom of God. A March portheaster will bring out more honeysuokles than fretfulness and scolding will bring out Christian grace. l wish that in all our religious work we might be saturated with the spirit Of kindness. Missing that we miss deal of usefulness. There is no need of coming out before men and thunder ing to them the law unless at the same time you preach to them the Gospel. Do you not know that this simple story of Savioar's kindness is to redeem all nations? The hard heart of this worlds obduracy is to be broken before that story.
 There is in Antwerp, Belgium, one of tho most remarkable pictures l ever saw. It Is The Descent of Christ from the Cross" It is one of Rubens pict-