The Brookhaven leader., 1890-09-04

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
'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. o
that the Lord, by his spirit, would en-
dow US all with 1.-THE soft tongue that
bresketh the bone"
pass now to the other thought that
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 maltreatment of professed Chris
tian people, or through prying curiosity
about the future world, there are q great
many people who become optical in re-
ligious things. How shall you capture
them from God? Sharp argument and sar-
castle retort never won single soul from
skepticism to the 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,
have noticed that when skeptical peo-
pie are brought into the kingdom of
Christ, 1t 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 we'll just rouse up all
this sea-" and it makes a great
bluster; but it does not succeed. Part
of the sea is reused up-perhaps ono
half of it, or one-fourth of it. After
awhile the calm moon, placid and beau
tiful, looks down, and the ocean begins
to rise. 1t comes up to high-water
mark. 1t embraces the great head
lands. 1t submerges the beaches of all
the continents. 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
tian kindness can ever raise the death
lCSS SplElb W HdpplutSS anu W pOI.
have more faith in the prayer of child
five years old, in the way of bringing
an infldel back to Christ and to Heaven,
than l have in all the kissing thunder
bolts 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 relig on, you put
the man on lis mettle. He says. Il
see 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 l have said is just as true in
the reclamation of the openly vicious.
Did you ever know drunkard to be
saved through the carlcature of a
drunkard? 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 per-
suade him of the fact that thousands
who had the graphing hooks of evil in
clination clutched 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 super
natural hand were steadying his stag
gering gait.
A lar IN
the streets a 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 to look at the handkerchief,
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 little deed
saved him for this life, and saved him
for the life that is to come. lie was
afterward Attorney General of the
United States; but higher than all, he
became tho consecrated disciple of
jesus Christ.
Kind words are so cheap, it is 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 OK
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 tight bust
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. He feels like a ship
wrecked mariner looking out over the
beach, watching for sail against the
sky o, bear down to him. Tell
him that the Lord waits to be
gracious to him, though he has
been great sinner, there is
great Saviour provided. 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.
That man is dying forever for the lack
Of one kind word.