Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1896-09-08

in their midst in perfect placidity un-
til he had captured the swarm of wan
dering bees. And so have seen men
moving amid the annoyances, and the
vexations, and the assaults of life in
such calm, Christian deliberation. that
all the buzzing around about their sc ul
amounted to nothing. They conquered
them, and, above all, they conquered
themselves. 90" you say, that's a
very good theory to preach on hot
day, but it won't work" 1t will work.
1t has worked. l believe it is the last
Christian 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 l have to
admit that this grace of Christian for
giveness Is about the last fruit OF the
Christian soul. We hear great deal
about the bitter tongue, and the sarcas-
tic tongue, and the quick tongue, and
the singing tongue: but we know very
little about 1.-The soft tongue hat
breaketh the bone" We read Hudibcas,
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 endow us all with "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 sceptical men.
Through early education, or through
the maltreatment of professed Chris
tian people, or through prying curiosi-
ty about the future world, there are a
great many people who become scepti-
cal in religious things. How shall you
capture them for God? Sharp argyll
ments and sarcastic retort never won
single soul from scepticism to the
Christian religion. While powerful
books on "The Evidence of Christiani-
ty" have their mission in confirming
Christian people in the faith they have
already adopted, / have noticed hat
when sceptical people are brought in
to the kingdom of Christ. it is through
the charm of some genial soul, and rot
by argument at all. Men are not Gaved
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 a 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, end
the ocean begins to rise. 1t comes up
to high-water mark. 1t embraces the
greah headlands. 1t submerges the
beach 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 sar-
casm may rouse up the passion of an
immortal nature, nothing less than The
attractive power of Christian kind
ness can ever raise the deathless spirit
to happiness and to God. 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 1
have in all the Kissing thunderbolts of
ecclesiastical controversy. You can
not overcome men with religious argu-
mentation. If you come at sceptcal
man with an argument on behalf of the
Christian religion, you put this man
on his mettle. He says: II see that
man has a carbine. I'll use my car
bine. I'll answer his argument with
nv argument" But il 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 cannot answer it.
What | have said is as true in the
reclamation of the openly vicious Did
Won ever know drunkard to be saved
through the caricature of drunkard?
Your mimicry of the staggering step,
and the thick tongue, and the disgust
ing hiccough. only worse maddens his
brain. But il you come to him in kind
ness and sympathy; if you show him
that you appreciate the awful
grip of 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 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
streets of Richmond. Va. man dead
drunk, his face exposed TO the blistering
MONDAY sun. A Christian woman pass
ed along, looked at him, and said.
Poor fellow" She took her handker-
chief and spread IL over his face, and
passed on. The man reused himself
up from his debauch and began to look
az the handkerchief, and. To- on IL was
the name OF a highly respectable
Christian woman OF the city OF Rich
mond. He went to her. he thanked her
for her kindness; and that one little
deed saved him for this life. and saw
ed him for the life that IS to come. He
was afterward attorney general OF the
United States; but. higher than all, ne
became the consecrated disciple OF
Jesus Christ. Kind words are Sd cheap,
X is a wonder We do not use them Oft