The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-03

English history. And if we are able to stuuy the Influence of letter writing in pohueal sense can we not study it's infu- enee In a spiritual sense7
 Letters From a Mother.
 Let us first see the spiritual influence of letter writing in your own life. Strange to say, you do not remember much about your mothers life I mean as you sit there you have forgotten ex- actly how she looked and the tone of her voice She has ben dead many years
 Then you have forgotten to a great ex- tent her words of advice In the home, but you have never forgotten her letters
 Somehow, after you left home, the words which she wrote to you made a far greater impression than the words which she spoke. If I should go into your home and ask for your most valu- able collection of papers you would in all probability show me a collection of old yellow letters. They were written by 1 her hand. You have read them over and over again. Some of those letters are stained as though the children had spat- l tered water upon them. They are stained with your tears as well as per- haps with hers. The gospel advice in those letters which you were able to read in the quietude of your own room l mother ever taught What has been true in reference to your life is also true in mine. The greatest lesson that my fath-
 CT taught me was not by the lip, but
 with the pen. Though I had lived with him for eighteen years he never so over whelmingly affected me as on the day I left for college He placed in my hand letter He told me to read it in the train. In this letter, on one half sheet of paper, he wrote these words: Tn col- l lege you will find two groups: Group the first, boys who go to college because their fathers send them there. Boys who drink and smoke and who cheat at their examinations Failure. Group the sec ond, boys who go to college to prepare for life's struggle; boys who study hard and go to church and the prayer meet 1 ing, especially the prayer meeting. | Success Them that honor me, will 1 honor. And they that despise me shall 1 be lightly esteemed That was all he wrote, but those written words, far more than any spoken words my father ever uttered, burned themselves into my in- nermost being. That letter of his illus trated the power of a spiritual pen, wielded in a Christian home.
 But why circumscribe this thought | within the four walls of a home? The l spiritual power of gospel letter writing | is seen everywhere that 1t has been tried.
 
 l derful spiritual influence be mostly at- tributed? He was without doubt one of 1 the most successful ministers in the American pulpit at the time of his death. To his marvellous and yet simple elo- quence. which Sunday after Sunday crowded the famous Brick church of New York city to the doors2 No, not chiefly. To his sweet and winsome per sonality in personal contact? No. not nrfppina1lV Tho qrpafpst mart of his in- fiuence was won by the power of person. al letter writing. One of his old class mates and most intimate friends told me that Dr. Babcock never let a member of his congregation get out of his reach. He kept a book filled with dates. On the birthdays of his boys at college he would drop them each a short letter, tell ing them to improve their opportunities and how much their parents and pastor were thinking and praying for them. On the sad anniversary of the death Of children he would drop a sympathetic note to the broken-hearted parents, tell Ing them how happy they ought to he that the partings would not now be very long. When the anniversary of young girls advent into the church came, he would drop her a letter, hoping that her year of faith in Christ had been happy year. In this way Dr. Babcock reached out everywhere and bound his people to him with links of steel. By this system of simple gospel letter writing the late pastor of the Brick church was able to make his Christian influence felt over America. My brother and sister, you and I have wasted many a glorious opportunity for gospel letter writing. will you not here and now consecrate your pen to do for Jesus what you can? Will you not consecrate the pen as well as the voice and the sense of touch m. fufIa xrror lxy Pauls gospel letters, written to his ab- sent friends. We by the power of gospel letter writing can accomplish on a small Ter scale what the tired travelling mis- sionary by his pen did on a hemispheric scale.
 Oh, the infinite influence of gospel pen! Infinite in reference to time! Some of us have seen the Assyrian his tories written upon the slabs of burnt brick by pens thousands upon thousands of years ago We have seen leaves of grass upon which the Greeks used to engrave their laws and the shoulder blades of a dead sheep's skeleton upon which the ancient Arabs used to write poetry The sides of the Egyptian obe- lisks are covered with hieroglyphics of the ancients. The first pen welded by man was chisel. and the first leaf was a sheet of solid rock But, though such writings may last hundreds and thou sands of years, yet they will not last as long as the gospel words written upon the human heart by a gospel pen. Such words shall last long after this earth is dead and our souls have passed cycles of eternity in heaven. Infinite in reference to wonders accomplished In our na- tional museums some of us have seen pens worth thousand times more than their weight in gold. They are the pens that have ben held in the hands of pres idents and kings-pens of peace or of war, pens of liberation or of enslave- ment, pens which decided the material advancement or retardment of nations But the sacred pen of gospel letter writ ing may be even greater in it's farreach- ing results. It may be the means for the liberation of immortal souls from sin. for their coronation in the heavenly redemption.
 Thus, in closing I would impress upon you all the influence of a consecrated pen. May you learn to use for God alright that pen which as a schoolboy you once held in your chubby fingers when it would sputter and twist and try to squirm out of your hands. Use alright that pen by which as young man you used to record the secrets of your heart when the old, old story of love became a new story to you in the springtme. Learn to use alright for Christ that same pen with which you have again and again written name upon a black bordered envelope. Use