Connecticut western news., 1896-09-03

not again. Oh, that the Lord, by hA spirit, would endow us all with ''the soft tongue that breaketh the bone"
 pass now to the other thought that I desire to present, and that is kindness as a means of usefulness. In all oom-
 munities you find skeptical men.
 Through early education, or through the
 maltreatment of professed Christian peo-
 pie, 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 God? Sharp argument and sarcastic re- tort never won single soul from skep-
 ticism to the Christian religion. While powerful books on the evidences of Christianity have their mission in con- firming Christian people in the faith
 they have already adopted, have mo-
 ticed 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. It
 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 awhile the
 calm moon, placid and beautiful, looks
 down, and the ocean begins to rise. It
 comes up to high water mark. It em-
 braces the great headlands. It sub
 merges the beach of all the continents.
 It is the heart throb of one world against
 the heart throb of another world. And I
 have to tell you that while all your
 storms of ridicule and storms of sar-
 casm may 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. have more faith
 in the prayer of Q child years old in
 the way of bringing an infidel back to
 Christ and to heaven than I have in all
 the missing thunderbolts of ecclesiastical
 controversy. You cannot overcome men
 with religious augmentation. If you come at a skeptical man with an argu-
 ment on behalf of the Christian reli-
 zion, you put the man on his mettle. He
 says: "I see that man has carbine.
 I'll use my carbine. I'll answer his ar
 gument 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.
 Power of Kindness.
 What have said is just as true in the reclamation of the openly vicious Did you ever know a drunkard to be saved through the caricature of a drunk ard? Your mimicry of the staggering step, and the thick tongue. and the dis gusting 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 a depraved appetite; if you persuade
 him of the fact that thousands who had the graphing hooks of evil inclination clutched in their soul as firmly as they now are in his have been rescued, then ray of light will flash across his vi sion and it will seem as If supernatu- ral hand were steadying his staggering gait A good many years ago there lay in the streets of Richmond, Va, man dead drunk, his face exposed to the blis- tering monday sun. A Christian woman
 passed along. looked at him, and said, Poor fellow" She took her handker-
 chief and spread it over his face and
 passed on. The man reused himself up from his debauoh and began to look at the handkerchief, and, lol on it was the name of highly respectable Christian woman of the city of Richmond. He
 went to her, he thanked her for her
 kindness, and that one 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 con- secrated disciple of Jesus Christ. Kind words are so cheap it is wonder we do not use them oftener. There are tens of thousands of people in these cities who are dying for the lack of one kind word. There is a business man who has fought against trouble until he is per fectly exhausted. He has been thinking about forgery, about robbery, about sui eide. Go to that business man. Tell him that better times are coming and tell him that you yourself were in a tight business 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 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 sav ing, omnipotent, kind word. Here is soul that has been swamped in sin. He wants to find the light of the gospel. He feels like shipwrecked mariner look ing out over the beach. watching for
 sail against the sky. Oh, bear down on | him. Tell him that the Lord waits to be gracious to him, that 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 dy- l ing forever for the lack of one kind word. There used to be sung at great
 many of the pianos all through the | country a song that has almost died out. | l wish somebody 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 sen- timent:
 Kind words never die, never die,
 | Cherished and blessed.
 | Futility of Fretfulness. Oh, that we might in our families and
 in our churches try the force of kind
 nessl You can never drive men, women
 or children into the kingdom of God.
 A March northeaster will bring out
 more honeysuokles than fretfulness and
 scolding will ever bring out Christian | grace. I wish that in all our religious | work we might be saturated with the