Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-25

ing curiosity about the future world, there
are great many people who become skep-
ticsl in religious things How shall you
capture them for God? Sharp argument
and sarcastic retort never won single soul
from skepticism to the Christian religion.
While powerful books on the Evidences of
Christianity" have their mission in confirm
ing Christian people in the faith they have
already adopted, I have noticed that when
skeptical people are brought into the king
dom Of Christ, 1t is through the charm OF
some genial soul, and not by argument at
all.
Men are not saved through the hesd; they
are saved through the heart. Astorm comes
out of its hiding place. 1t says: NOW well
Just rouse up all this sea-" and it makes
great bluster; but it does not succeed. Part
of the sea is reused up, perhaps one-half of
it, or one-fourth of il. After while the
calm moon, placid and beautiful, looks
down, and the ocean begins to rise. 1t
comes up to high water mark. 1t embraces
the great headlands. 1t submerges the
beaches of all the 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 ridicule and
storms of sarcasm NAV rouse up the passion
Of an immortal nature, nothing less than the
attractive power of Christian kindness can
ever raise the deathless spirit to happiness
and to God. 1 have more faith in the prayer
of child years old, in the way of bring
ing an infdel back to Christ and to heaven,
than have in all the kissing thunderbolts
of ecclesiastical controversy.
WASTED ARGUMENTS.
You cannot overcome men with religious
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 can
not answer 1t.
What 1 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 drunkard? Your MIN
icry of the staggering 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 inclination
elutched in their soul as firmly as in his
have been delivered, then a ray of light
will fash across his vision, and it will seem
as if supernatural hand were steadying
his staggering gait
A good many years ago there lay in the
street man dead drunk, his face exposed to
the blistering MONDAY sun. A Christian
woman passed along, looked at him, aud said:
Poor fellow" She took her handkerchief
and spread it over hIsAface, and passed on.
The man reused himself up from his de-
bauch, and began to look at the handker-
chief, and, lol on it was the name of highly
respectable Christian woman of the city.
He went to her, he thanked her for her kind
ness; and that one little deed saved him for
this life, and saved him Tor the life that Is
to come. He was afterward Attorney Gen
eral of the United States; but, higher than
all, he became the consecrated disciple of
Jesus Christ.
DYING FOR KIND WORDS.
Kind words are so cheap, it is wonder
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 busi-
ness man who has fought against trouble
until he is perfectly exhausted. He has
been thinking about forgery, about rob-
berry, about suicide. Go to that business
man. Tell him that better times are COM
a tight business pass, and the Lord delivered
you. Tell him to put his trust in God. Tell
him that Jesus Christ stands besides 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, omnipotent, kind word.
Here is a soul that has been swamped in
sin. He wants to find the light OF the
gospel. He feels like shipwrecked mari
ner 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
gracious to him, and though he has been a
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.
That man is dying for ever for the lack Of
one kind word.
There used to be sung at a great many of
the pianos all through the country q song
that has almost died out. wish somebody
would start it again in our social circles.
There may not have been very exquisite art
in the music, but there was q grand and
glorious sentiment:
Kind words never die, never die;
Cherished and blessed"
THE WAY TO TEACH.
o, that we might in our families and in
our churches try the force of kindness. You
can never drive men, women or children into
the kingdom of God. A March northeaster
will bring out more honeysuckIes than fret
fulness and scoldihg will bring out Christian
grace. wish that in all our reli gious work
we might be saturated with the spirit of
kindness. Missing that, we miss q great
deal of usefulness. There is no need of COM
ing out before men and laundering to them
the law unless at the same time you preach
to them the gospel. Do you not know that
this simple story of Savior'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 the |
most remarkable pictures ever saw. 1t is
THE Descent of Christ from the Cross" 1t |
is one of Rubens' pictures. No man can
stand and look at that Descent from the |
Cross" as Rubens pictured it. without hav-
ing his eyes flooded with tears. if he have |
any sensibility at all. II is an oyermaster- |
ing picture-one that stuns you, and stag
gers you, and haunts your dreams. One |
afternoon, man stood in that cathedral |
looking at Rubens' descent from the |
Cross" He was all absorbed in that scene |
of Saviour's suffering when the janitor |
came in and said: "It is time to close up the |
for the night 1 wish you would |
depart" The pilgrim looking at that |
descent from the Cross, turned around to |
the janitor and said: "No, no; not yet
Wait until they get Him down."
THE SOFT TONGUE.
o, it is the story of Sayiour's suffering
kindness that is to capture the world. When |
the bones of that great Behemoth of inlquity |
which has trampled all nations shall be
broken and shattered, it will be found out
that the work was not done by the hammer