"And crown Him! Crown Him!! CROWN HIM!!! Yes, Crown Him Lord of all."

It is the rehearsal of the great Oratorio of Victory that we are all to join in singing.



The Church



Forces that Win. The Divine Law of Leadership. God's Messenger. Reaching Out for a World. "Keep Step." "Find My World, And Win It Back."



The Church



Forces That Win.

God's world is full of winning forces. The great ball of fire around which our earth revolves is the greatest winning force in the life of the earth. It is constantly winning the earth to itself with a power unseen but tremendous, beyond anybody's power to calculate. The swing of the earth away from the sun is being continually overcome. By an immense drawing power it steadily holds the earth where it can pour down its wealth of warmth and light and life into it.

It woos the moisture up from river and lake and sea, until its gravity partner in the centre of the earth woos it back again in refreshing rain and sheltering snow. It wins out of the earth's warm heart bounteous harvests of grains and fruits, the wealth of forests which affects the earth's life so radically, the flowers with their beauty and fragrance, and the soft carpeting of green to ease the journey for our feet. All the life and beauty of the earth is due to the winning power of the sun.

God Himself is the greatest winning force in all our world. Everywhere men feel the upward drawing toward Him. They may protest against church organizations and creeds, against teachings and long-settled practices and habits of thought, as they do so much, but there is always everywhere a longing in the human heart for God. It is the answer to the longing of His heart for us.

And man is a great winning force. Everywhere men are attracted to each other. There is a winning power within each of us that draws certain others irresistibly to us. And there are winning forces in life that each one of us is powerfully affected by. The old home of earlier days has a marvellous power of attraction for most men. The old fireside, the familiar rooms, the subtle aroma that seems inseparable from the very bricks and boards—who has not felt the tremendous drawing power of these?

What a strange power of attraction a man's mother-tongue has for him. How the heart will give a quick leap, in a foreign land, when, amid a confusing jargon of strange sounds, all unexpectedly some one speaks the dear old familiar words. The person speaking may not be specially congenial or attractive to us, but that sound his tongue gives draws us to him.



The Divine Law of Leadership.

Now I want to talk with you a bit about the forces at hand for winning our old world back to our Father's heart and home. God means us to use all the attractive powers we have in this great world-wooing and world-winning task. The world is to be won back, not driven. Men drive men, when they can. But God woos and wins. Man's coming back must be by his own glad, sweet consent. God won't have it any other way.

There are certain strangely winsome forces at our command for winning man. They are mighty in their drawing power. But there are counter-currents that divert and hinder their influence. We need to be familiar with these winning forces, and with the counter-currents, too.

There are seven great forces at our command for this blessed service of soul-winning and world-winning. They are not peculiar to foreign-mission service, for the foreign service itself is not essentially different from other service, except in the greatness of its need. They are the forces for use in all our winning work.

Two of these are distinctly human forces. The first is an organization, the Church. And then that of which the Church is made up, men and women; I mean the power of personality, developed and consecrated personality.

There are two divine forces that work through the human—Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have put these second in order, because they work through the human. The leadership is in human hands. The initiative of all action is with us. Of course, if you go a bit deeper in, the initiative is with God who moves upon our hearts to make us act. But on the distinctly human level the beginning of service rests in human hands, and these two mighty, almighty, divine forces work through us.

The divine law of leadership and of cooperation in leadership has not always been clearly understood. And there has been bad delay often because of the lack of understanding. Our Lord Jesus in the days of His humanity surrendered Himself to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in His great mission to men. The Spirit worked through Jesus. After Jesus' Ascension the order was reversed. The Spirit yielded Himself to the control of the glorified Son of God. Jesus worked through the Spirit. It was Jesus who sent down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost for the special mission begun that day.

And now, with the greatest awe coming into our hearts at the thought, be it said that these two work through our human leadership. The leadership in service among men is human leadership. The wondrous Spirit of God works through our leadership to reveal Jesus to men in all His winsomeness and power.

There can be no power at all in our human action and leadership except as the Spirit leads and controls us, and is allowed to. And, on the other side, we must not forget, though it has sometimes been forgotten, that God's working waits upon human action and leadership. Memory quickly brings up the fact, so often repeated in the history of the Church, that when men have failed to respond to God's call His work has fallen behind. Whenever a new chapter of earnest service has been begun it has always been through a new leadership. Some man has listened to God, and let Him have the free use of himself in reaching out to other men.

God needs men. He needs you and me. We are the wire for the transmission of His current of power. The wire is useless without the current. And the current must have the wire along which to travel to its place of service. The divine power is through human action and human leadership. The power is all divine. And the means through which it works is all human. Jesus and the Holy Spirit work through the Church and through each one of us who is willing.

Then there are three spirit forces, or influences, of mighty power in human hands; namely, prayer, and money, and sacrifice.



God's Messenger.

To-night we want to talk about the first of the two human forces—the Church.

We ought to remind ourselves of just what that word "Church" means in this connection. It has many meanings. There are at least two that we should note here in thinking of it as a great winning force. In its broadest meaning, the word is commonly used for the whole group of church organizations taken together, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox, the Protestant, and the few primitive societies that still retain their old original organization. In the deeper, less used meaning, it stands for the body of those men and women everywhere who are trusting Jesus Christ, and are allied with Him in the purpose of their hearts.

These two meanings, of course, should be the same. All who trust Jesus should be in the church organizations. And all who are in the organizations should be there because of their relation to Jesus. Whatever the facts regarding that may be, the mission of each is the same. And it is with that mission that we are concerned just now.

Jesus planned that His Church should be a great man-winning and world-winning organization. The mission of the Church is to take Jesus to all men. It is God's messenger of His truth to all. In that it is the direct lineal descendant and heir of the Hebrew nation.

That nation was chosen to be a messenger or missionary nation. That was the one purpose of its special creation as a nation. It was not to be as the other nations, in the characteristics that commonly mark strong nations. It was to be a teacher-nation, receiving its message of truth direct from God, embodying that message in its own life, personally and nationally, and giving it out clearly and fully and winsomely to all the nations of the earth. And, in spite of its failures and breaks, that mission was accomplished to a remarkable extent.

The Church is its heir. It was born in the Jewish nation. It became the heir to its world-wide messenger mission. The great commission given by Jesus as He was leaving is the Church's commission for its great life-work. It was spoken to the group of Jewish men who were the nucleus of that body called the Church, that came into being on the day of Pentecost. That ringing, "Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to the whole creation," is the Master's command to the Church which He brought into being. That is the Church's marching order by which its life is to be controlled and its faithfulness judged.

The scene of the Church's birth gives a vivid picture of its world-mission. It was born in a world-gathering. It was a world-church in its make-up at its birth. Men from all parts of the world became united in one body by the Spirit's touch that great Church birthday. Its birth-gift, the power of speaking many tongues, reveals at once the wide sweep of its service.

It was the Master's plan that His Church should speak all the languages of the earth then and now and always, as well as the language of heaven, the language of love. So every man would learn of Jesus in his native speech. The language of the cradle and of love-making and of the fireside, the language that most quickly kindles the fires in a man's heart, that was the language to be used in carrying Jesus to every man. That was Jesus' plan. The Church was rarely equipped with winning power for a world-service on its birthday in the gift of tongues.

Of course, this is not the only mission of the Church. That is to say, there are other purposes necessarily included in this. Taking the Gospel of Jesus to all men means more than merely taking it and telling it. The teaching and training and developing of those won to Jesus is an inseparable part of the Church mission. The great service of worship has always been recognized as a vital part of the Church life. Sometimes indeed these have been thought of, and still are thought of, as its only mission. But they grow distinctly out of the chief mission and are distinctly contributory and secondary to it. Indeed, they come into being only through the faithful doing of the chief task. Men were won. Then they met for worship and for training.



Reaching Out For a World.

The Church of those first years thoroughly understood what its great mission was to be. The first chapters of the Book of Acts vividly describe the ideal Church as planned by the Master, and as understood by those who felt His own personal touch upon themselves. Everybody went. They went to everybody. They went everywhere. There is pretty clear evidence that they actually went everywhere that men could go. They held their lives, and even their property, subject to the one great gripping purpose.

The greatest leader of the first century of the Church, Paul, who contributed most to its literature and exerted the greatest influence upon its life, was above all else a missionary leader. He went practically everywhere. He didn't go hastily, but by carefully thought-out plans. He won men to Christ, organized them into church societies, taught them, and sent them out to win others.

He worked in and out of the world's great city centres of his time. Ephesus, the Asiatic centre, Corinth, the centre of Greek influence, and, Rome, the centre of the world's governing power, were the scenes of his longest and most thorough campaigns. His choice of the centres was a master's strategic choice. For these centres sent their influence out to the ends of the earth. Paul's body might be in Ephesus or Corinth or Rome, but his thought and heart were on the world these cities reached by constant streams of influence.

And to these churches which he had won out of the raw stuff of heathenism he taught the same world-wide message. They became filled with this same world-wide spirit. The Thessalonian and Corinth Churches made their winning power felt throughout Greece and wherever Greek culture had gone, that is to say, everywhere.[22] The Church in Rome sent out the message of Jesus from its golden centre of all Roman roads, out to the farthest reaches of those far-reaching roads.[23]

It is striking, though not surprising, that the days of the Church's missionary activity have been the days of its greatest purity and vigor. When the vision of the Master's face on Olivet, and the ringing sound of His "Go ye" have been lost, the Church has written pages that would gladly be blotted out.

The Church has been a winning force beyond any power of calculation or words of description. All that has been done has been done through its activity and leadership. It is to-day a tremendous winning force, reaching its warm hands out to the very ends of the earth, and drawing men to Jesus. With our earnest prayer it will exert a yet mightier influence in taking Jesus to all men and in winning men everywhere to Jesus.



"Keep Step."

The Church is organized Christendom. It stands for the power of organization in God's service. All the vast power of the men and women whose hearts have been renewed by the Holy Spirit can be brought to bear at a given point with tremendous force through the Church. That was and is the Master's plan.

Organization is rhythmic action, a crowd of men working by agreement as one man. Never was the world so impressed with the almost magical power of organization as to-day. Never has organization been brought up to so high a pitch of efficiency. The unparalleled progress of the world in our day is due to the marvellous skill that has been developed in organized action.

Now, this almost omnipotent power of organization was meant to be used in winning the world back home. That is the meaning of the birth of the Church on that great Pentecost day. It is remarkable that the most perfectly matured bit of organization, in this day of matured and perfected organizations, is a church. For by common consent of thoughtful students the most finely adjusted and thoroughly matured bit of human machinery is the Roman Catholic Church.

If such a masterpiece of organization were controlled by the Spirit that controls in these early chapters of Acts, what tremendous and thorough and rapid work would be done in world-winning! And that is the goal toward which we should be driving. The evangelization of the whole world is an easy task for the whole Church. It would be a stupendous, if not an impossible task for the few. It has been a gigantic task for the leaders, who by dint of great planning and persuasion and earnest pleading have done as much as has been done. But if the whole Church or half of it were to go at it as earnestly as men go at other things, it would be an easy task.

I remember one October morning walking across an old smoke-begrimed bridge that spans the Ohio at Cincinnati. My eye was caught by a dingy sign in large plain letters nailed up in a prominent place. It simply, said, "Processions in crossing this bridge must break step." That was all. But it was imperative. It was a law. The processions must break step. The same men might cross the bridge, in as large numbers, at the same time, but they must not keep step.

The authorities knew perfectly well that for a body of men to march in step, every left foot set down at once, the impact of every right foot striking at the same moment, would so—I do not say, add to the force exerted—would so multiply the force exerted upon the bridge as to endanger its safety. The power of concerted action is immense beyond any power of conception. Every bit of power at command can so be brought to bear at one point with a force beyond any words to express.

Our Master reverses for us the old bridge sign. Out from Pentecost rings this word: "Let my followers all form in line, close ranks, and move out to a world conquest, and—keep step." That command of His will make a winning force so great as to shorten up the world's present calendars, and shorten up the world's pain, and lengthen out the new life that will come to untold numbers through Jesus.



"Find My World and Win it Back."

Nearly forty years ago David Livingstone, one of the Church's great world-winning pioneers, was lost in the depths of equatorial Africa. That is to say, he had advanced so far ahead of everybody else that the rest of us lost track of him, and so we called him lost. Perhaps we got the use of the word twisted, and we were the lost ones because we hadn't kept up. He had gone where the Church was told to go, but the rest of us had lingered behind, and so the main column became detached from its leader. Everybody was talking about the lost leader.

James Gordon Bennett, the owner of the New York Herald, sent a telegram to one of its correspondents, Henry M. Stanley. Bennett was in Paris, and Stanley at Gibraltar. The telegram summoned Stanley to come to Paris at once. Stanley went, reached Paris at midnight, knocked at the great newspaper-man's door, and asked what was wanted. "Find Livingstone," was the short, blunt reply. "How much money do you place at my disposal?" asked Stanley. "Fifty thousand dollars, or a larger sum. Never mind about the money; find Livingstone."

Stanley went. It took two years' time to get ready. It required a specially planned campaign and thorough preparation. The planning was done, and the world was thrilled when the bold missionary leader was found.

Our Master has sent a message to His Church. It is written down in a Book, and is being repeated by wireless messages constantly. He says, "Find my world, and bring it back; never mind about the expense of money and lives. Find my world and win it back." And the Church has the winning power to do it.



Each One of Us



Our Drawing Power. Sowing Ourselves in Life's Soil. Our Need of a World to Win. Living Broad Lives in Narrow Alleys. Giving God Free Use of Ourselves. Growing Bigger for Service's Sake. My Mission-field. Our Spirit-touch.



Each One of Us



Our Drawing Power.

The greatest human winning force is a man swayed in every bit of his being by the Spirit of Jesus. Man himself is the most attractive thing on God's earth. He has the greatest drawing power.

He is attractive to God. He drew out of the creative power of God this world of beauty and splendor. He drew Jesus down from the throne of God to the earth, to poverty and hard labor, to the limitations of human life, to misunderstandings and suffering and pain and death. These were gladly yielded to because it was all for man. How the crowds used to draw Jesus! He would give His strength out to them without stint, until those closest to Him, not understanding, sought to interfere for the sake of his strength.

One man was a sufficient magnet to draw him away from His rest, and to draw out of Him the best of love and strength He had. Nicodemus' earnest presence wooed out of His busy life a whole evening, and drew out the matchless words that the world has been feeding upon ever since. The woman of little half-breed Sychar, though an outcast, drew from Him the touch of power that transformed her life and her village.

Man is attractive to his fellows. There is no power so attractive to a man as another man. The phenomenal growth of modern cities is one of the evidences of this. Everywhere men acknowledge the attractiveness that their fellows have for them. Every friendship, every leadership, every family circle, and gathering of men for whatever purpose tells of the winning power that man has for his fellows. It is modified by all sorts of surrounding conditions, and exists in many different degrees. The great leader and the great orator have it in unusual measure. Every man has some of it. Each man is a magnetic north pole. Every man of his spirit-current is drawn toward him with a steady pull.

Man can win man. That fact at once brings out strikingly his winning power. For the hardest thing in all this world to win is a man. Of all luggage man is the hardest to move. He won't move unless he will move. Only as the string is tied inside to his will can he be persuaded to move. The heart may help open the door into the will. Most often that is the way to get in. Sometimes intelligence, the reasoning powers, open the way in, but rarely; often these two, the heart and the reason, combined. But even then they go tandem, with the heart in the lead; only man can get that door open, and tie the tether to the other man's will, and draw him out, whither he will. He can do it. And only he can. Man yields to the drawing power of his fellow.

With the deepest reverence be it said that when God would redeem a world He sent a Man. Aye, He came as a man. And, while Jesus was so much more than man, we must always insistently remind ourselves that He was truly and fully a man. He was as really human in every bit of His make-up and life as though only human. Because of man's power to win his fellow, Jesus came to the man-level, as a Man, that so He might win men.



Sowing Ourselves in Life's Soil.

Man is winsome, wherever found, just as he is. He may be shackled and slimed over with sin, as he plainly is. He may have lost much of his winsomeness, as probably he has, through deeply rooted prejudice and superstitions, and endless limitations of surroundings and education, but he still remains a powerful magnet to his fellow.

But he is most winning in his winningness as he returns to the original as God planned him. His native winning power comes out fully only as sin is taken out of him, washed out, and burned out; the desire for it removed, and the hurt of sin upon his bodily and mental powers overcome. Jesus is the sort of human that God planned. And only as He is allowed to come into a man's life, and treat the sin trouble at the core, and rule from within, can man come to his own in his rare winsomeness.

Only won men can win men, of course. Only the man who has felt the power of Jesus can tell some one else of that marvellous power. Nobody else wants to. Nobody else can. For nobody else knows that power. But that man must. There is something inside that compels him to. The man who realizes most keenly that he has been saved will be the most intent on getting others saved, too. The passion for Jesus becomes a passion for telling others about Jesus.

Jerry McCauley must spend out his life in Water Street because he had been gripped by the Man who spent out His life for him. The passion is irresistible. Splendid young Hugh Beaver must win the Pennsylvania students to Jesus because Jesus had become the magnet of his own life. Livingstone must plunge into the depths of the African wilds, and Duff into India's heat, and Hudson Taylor into China's inner provinces because of the Jesus-passion that gripped them.

Now the thing to mark very keenly is this: that God's chief reliance in His passionate outreach for His world is men. He is counting on you and me. The power that actually wins men is the power of God. Only He can so play upon human wills and hearts as to induce them gladly to open to Him. That is true. But it is as true that only through the winsome power of men can He use His winning power fully.

I am not going to take up just now why this is so, though that is full of helpful suggestion. But simply to have you mark that straight through this old Book, and through church history, and in actual experience this has been His way of reaching men. God's pathway to one human heart is through another human heart.

When men have failed Him God's plan has failed. His sovereignty doesn't mean that His plan doesn't fail. It means here that with endless patience He clings to the failed plan until He can get the man through whom it can be carried out. But meanwhile there has been serious delay and sad suffering for man.

There is a most striking sentence spoken by Jesus in explaining the parable of the tares, in Matthew, Chapter thirteen. He said, "The good seed are the sons of the kingdom." We think of the truth, the Gospel message, as the good seed that we are to sow, and so it is. But there's a far better seed. It is men, saved men. We are to sow our saved selves, our lives, in the soil of men's lives. Our presence among men was meant to be God's greatest sowing of the seed of life. Upon that seed He sends the dew and rain and sunlight of His Spirit. And through that sort of sowing He wins His greatest harvests.



Our Need of a World to Win.

Now I want to turn aside here a bit, and say this: we men need a world to win. The world needs winning. There's no doubt of that. And just as really we men need a world to win. We need the impetus and stimulus, the grip and the swing of having a world to win. The Master's command fits with great exactness into the need of our lives.

Every man needs a great purpose to grip his life. So he is anchored and held steady against the world's tidal movements. If he isn't tied to some great gripping purpose the wash of the sea will send him adrift, or the fierce undertow will suck him under. And many are adrift. And many are in the deadly suction of the undertow.

Jesus' command provides the great purpose that every man needs to hold him steady and to bring out, and bring out best, all the splendid powers with which we are endowed. When we are not gripped by the great purpose planned for us we swing off into smaller, meaner purposes.

I mean, of course, those of us who are awake. Many people are habitual somnambulists. All their walking and moving about is done in a state of sleep. Some men never wake up. They go through the motions of life so far as they must. The mechanism of habit keeps certain motions going, but the real man within is asleep or dozing, with occasional spells of being sleepily awake.

But men who are awake, and doing something, find a vent for their energy on some lower level. The God-given energy will move out and stir itself to action. But, having somehow missed the real purpose planned for them, they allow the lower purposes to grip them. They organize great affairs, or less great, industrial, intellectual, political, fraternal, social, and spend their energy on these. It is the response they make to the call of their natures for some great gripping purpose. But it looks very much like another case of meeting a request for bread with cold hard stones.

These things in themselves are right, of course; so far as they are right. They belong in the scheme of life. They should be given full place in one's life. But that place is always a distinctly secondary place. They belong in as number two.

A Christian business man gives most of the day and year to his business, and gives of the best of his thought and strength to it. But if he have gotten his bearings straight, his business is not in first place. It is made to serve something higher. It earns the gold with which to finance the great purpose of Jesus' life, and of his own life, namely, the purpose of winning men, and of winning a whole world of them. How it would sweeten business and fraternal and social contacts and friendships, if the salt of this great purpose seasoned them!



Living Broad Lives in Narrow Alleys.

We need the bigness of this great purpose. So many lives are dwarfed by their very littlenesses. We are bothered with being short-sighted. The eyeglasses of the Master's purpose for us would wondrously widen out our scope of vision. And through the new eyes would come broader, farther, clearer views, and changed action. The littleness of our ideas would be amusing if it were not so distressing.

I recall one day riding on a Fort-Wayne train through Indiana. I chanced to overhear a bit of conversation. Two men, chance acquaintances, were talking. One of them had his home in Elkhart. The other asked him where Elkhart is. By the side of the Elkhart man there sat a little sweet-faced boy. Instantly, as the question was asked, he looked up with surprised eyes, and said, "Don't you know where Elkhart is? Why, Elkhart is down where I live."

The amusing childish words seemed to have a familiar sound. I seem to have run across a few people whose idea of God's world is about on the level of the small boy's. The world is where they live. The rest is a hazy, vague something, or—nothing. It exists for them, if it exists at all in their thoughts.

"Living for self, for self alone, for self and none beside; Just as if Jesus had never lived, as if Jesus had never died."

It would be pitiable and pathetic enough if only these people themselves were concerned in their poor, stunted, narrow-alley living. But it is more than that; it is tragic, because of the multitude of brothers, here and abroad, sorely needing the help that was meant to go out to them through us.

Then most men live narrow lives so far as the daily round is concerned. The home, or shop, or store, or office is their daily horizon, with practically the same round of duties day after day, year in and year out. The very narrowness of the round tends to make narrow people. They get into as much of a rut in their thinking as their daily action is apt to become. Their work runs in fixed grooves that are apt to become fixed ruts. And this makes ruts in their thinking. Their souls seem to grow small by the very smallness and sameness of the daily tread. That is the life of the great crowd of men all over the world.

It's an immense relief to see something big Big things always attract. Is it partly because our daily round is so narrow and small? Jesus plans a bigness that shall refresh us constantly. We have hearts big enough to hold a world, and brains able to plan for a planet, even while our feet tread the same old shut-in path.

A young man may be going a commonplace, treadmill sort of grind, in a small corner of some great manufacturing concern, and be at the same time carrying on a bigger enterprise than the president of his concern. For he may be planning and praying for a world, and actually lifting it up in the arms of his strong purpose toward the level of God.

The shipping clerk may be hammering in barrel-heads all day long, but each blow may help emphasize the prayer of his heart for China, or India, or his Sunday-school class.

"Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and night, Forenoon, afternoon, and what? no more? The empty song repeats itself. Yea, that is life. Make this forenoon sublime, this afternoon a psalm, This night a prayer, and time is conquered, and thy crown is won."

The Master's gracious plan is that we shall have the refreshment of doing big things. We are made for big things. They help us grow into the big size that belongs to us. World-winning is a great boon to the crowd compelled by the habit of life to tread a narrow path.



Giving God Free Use of Ourselves.

Now the great question every earnest man asks himself is, How can I be of most use to God and my fellows? I want to suggest three things that have helped me in answering that question. It may be that they will help you, too, in getting your answer to it.

First of all is this: that we let God have the free use of us. Whatever I am, whatever gifts and opportunities I have—these I will turn over to God, that He may have the fullest and freest use of them. God asks from each of us a consecrated personality. And "consecrated" simply means that I give God the use of myself, and that He makes use of what I have given to Him. That's the double meaning of the word in the Bible.

My personality, that is, what I am in myself, is the chief thing I have in life. It is through this personality, which men recognize as I, that the Spirit of God works in His reaching out for others. My personality is the make-up of all that I am. My presence is that subtle something that combines all that I am. It clings to me wherever I go. Men know it by my name. Out through it goes the power of the man within.

The body, the glance of the eye, the quality and intonation of the voice, the way the body is carried, and the something more than these that unites them into one—these go to make up the presence, the outer shell of the personality. All the power within makes itself felt through this. A man's mere presence is an immeasurable influence.

There is a subtle, intangible, but very real spirit influence breathing out of every man's presence. It is proportioned entirely to the strength of the man living within. With some it is very attractive. Sometimes it is positively repulsive. It is the expression of the man within. The presence becomes the mould of the spirit within, large or small, noble or mean, coarse or fine, as he makes it. The strength of a man's will or its weakness; the purity of his heart or its lack of purity; the ideals of his life, high or low; the keenness or slowness of his thinking—all these express themselves in his presence.

We know the difference between a man of strong presence and one whose presence is weak; though very few of us are skilled in reading, except in a very small way, the character it reveals; through our presence each of us is constantly influencing those with whom we come in contact. Now this is the chief thing we have for our winning work. This is the thing that Jesus uses. It is this that the Spirit of God takes possession of, if He may, and that He uses in His outreach to others. We win most and best through what we are.

Now, of course, I do not mean that we are to be thinking of it that way all the time. The thinking that you have a winsome presence would itself rob you of the most winsome part of it. Winsomeness of presence is greatest and sweetest when we are wholly unconscious that there is such a thing about us. As we are absorbed in Jesus, and in our fellows, the winsomeness that is native to us shines out most attractively. It has been covered up and hidden away a good bit by sin. Some men seem to have none. Some have a great deal, in spite of their ignoring of God.

But as He is allowed to play upon us, as we seek to let His Spirit rule our conduct and control our powers, the original God-image comes out. This is a return to natural conditions as planned by God. What has been lost through sin is restored and grown bigger and richer by the Spirit's presence. I can give God the full use of this precious gift of personality.



Growing Bigger for Service's Sake.

There's a second thing to do. This consecrated personality can be made a developed personality. We don't start into life full size. We have to grow. The greatest task of life, as well as one of the sweetest, is in growing fine in grain, and big in size, and skilled in action. The highest achievement of life and the rarest to find is self-mastery, that is, all that one is in himself grown big and fine-grained, skilfully used and held steadily to its true use. All other achievements are through this one.

The stronger I can make my body the more I can give God to use. The more thoroughly I can understand the great, simple laws of my body, and the more I can get into the habit of obeying them, the more can God use me in His plans. Such common things as eating and drinking, breathing and exercising, sleeping and resting and dress, may not be called common any more, if through thoughtfulness here you and I can be of greater use to our Master and our fellows.

The keener and clearer and stronger we can make our thinking, by dint of self-discipline, the greater power have we with other men. The purer the heart, the loftier the practical ideals that control the personal habits, the greater is the winning power at command.

We may not be conscious of the difference. We will not be thinking of that. But the increased power of attraction is there, and is breathing out of one's presence, and is distinctly felt by others. And, more, it is making a distinct mark upon others, more than they know. We must set ourselves to growing bigger and better for service's sake.



My Mission-field.

The third thing is a world-wide vision. That is to say, our thinking and planning and praying and giving shall be on a world scale. There is nothing remarkable about this. The strangely remarkable thing is that there is so little of it. Man was made on the world size. It is natural to us to grasp the world in our thinking and action. This other thing of living on a smaller scale is the cramping effect of sin. We were, made big. We are big. We need a big world. We enjoy bigness. We get this from God. We are truest to ourselves as we live on the world plan. The world was given us originally to subdue, and now to win.

This does not mean to neglect anything or anybody nearby. It's a bit of the cramping of sin that anybody thinks so. The man who spreads a map of the world beside his open Bible in the morning or evening prayer-hour is likely to have a warm hand for the fellow next him. We are made that way, to grasp the globe, and each thing close at hand that needs our care. That's a bit of the image of God in us. As we allow Him sway, the original power is restored to us.

One result of this will be that many of us will go in person to some far-away part of the great world-field. That's a serious thing to do, requiring some special qualification of body and of training. For the task out there is a great one. There are trying conditions to be met. The very best is called for.

If a man may go in person to the foreign field he is greatly favored. Let nothing hold him back. It is a privilege to serve anywhere. But the highest privilege of service is out there. Many cannot go; and many may not go. Some are plainly bidden to stay. The home administration of the missionary enterprise requires strong men at home.

A second result will be that wherever we are, will be a mission-field to us. We are, where we are, to give, not to get. Whether in far-off China or maybe in some disillusioned commonplace home town, we will be winning men to Jesus all the time by direct touch. The mastering thought will be to let the wondrous Spirit reach out through us, freely and fully, unhindered by anything in us, and so touch every one whom we touch.

In any circle, business or social, our hearts will be saying, "I am among you as he that serveth." Consciously, by direct word, by indirect touch, with love's rare diplomacy we will win men. Unconsciously, by our presence, we will as really be winning them.

No one has an imagination vivid enough, or words graphic enough, to tell the power of that direct human touch. All life is athrill with its magic. Even when it becomes less direct, a bit removed from the personal, its power is indescribably great.

John Eliot's work among the Massachusetts Indians kindled David Brainerd. Brainerd's flame touched Jonathan Edwards. Edwards' pamphlet on "Extraordinary Prayer for a Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth" suggested to William Carey the plan of an organized society. Fire spreads. Where the touch of God comes the fire of God goes out through that human touch.



Our Spirit-touch.

A third result will be this: we will be reaching out and winning men in all the rest of the world by our spirit-touch. You may be in some African fastness or in the midst of China's age-old civilization or just here at home, but you can be exerting a tremendous spirit-power that can be felt out to the ends of the earth.

It will all be in the Name of Jesus. It will be in the power of the Holy Spirit. Only in that Name and through the Spirit can such winning influence be exerted at all. So a man can have spirit-touch with the man by his side. And just as truly he can have spirit-touch with men at the farthest reach of the earth.

There is a spirit influence going out from each of us in addition to that which goes through the direct personal touch. It is not a conscious influence. That is, we are not concsious that it is being exerted. It goes out from us as we pray. It goes out of us as our thought is centered on those far-away parts and peoples. Its strength will depend on the strength of one's personality.

We are familiar with the fact that a man of strong personality has a greater influence upon his fellows whom he touches directly than a weaker man has. It is just the same with regard to one's spirit-touch. The stronger and keener and purer I may become, the more I know of the self-mastery which comes through Jesus-mastery, the greater force can I exert as a winner of men, both by direct touch and by spirit-touch.

Will you kindly come up nearer in spirit, as we close our talk together, and let me ask softly: Have we given the free use of ourselves to the Master? Are we growing ourselves into bigger-sized, finer-grained, better-controlled men and women daily? For the Master is depending on us. He is counting much on having the use of us. He can reach out to the very ends of the earth through each one of us. May we not fail Jesus!



Jesus



Jesus Draws Men. Jesus Draws Out the Best. Many Doors, but One Purpose. Make It a Story. How Peter Told Paul. "A More Excellent Way."



Jesus



Jesus Draws Men.

The great heart-magnet is God. No one is so winsomely attractive as He. His winning power is beyond any other. Man is winsome. But it is because God made him winsome, and re-makes him yet more winsome. He gave him a bit of His own self. That's the secret of all our human winsomeness.

Now Jesus is God to us. We know God only as we know Jesus. Jesus is the heart of God beating in time and tune with human hearts. Nobody is so winsome as Jesus. All the native winsomeness of man and all the divine winsomeness of God combine and blend in Him. He has always drawn men to Himself. And He still does, and always will.

He drew men of all classes when He was down here. The reverent star-students of far-away Babylon were drawn to His birth by a compelling they could not resist. He drew the thoughtful, scholarly men of His own nation, such as Nicodemus of the inner, highest circle. And He drew military officials of high rank and wealth in the service of imperial Rome. By the same power the half-breed, despised Samaritans and the earnest seekers after truth from cultured Greece were drawn to Him.

The plain farmer people of Galilee, and the hardy fisherfolk, and hard-handed laboring-men came as eagerly to him. He drew the pure, fine grained, gentle Mary of Bethany, with her unusual keenness of spirit insight; and drew as well the unnamed outcast woman, steeped in sin, who was forgiven much, and who loved much, and so gave much.

Practical hard-headed men of sharp bargains and shrewd trading, like Matthew, felt His pull upon their hearts equally with men of pure heart and lofty ideals like Nathanael. By special effort, for a special purpose He drew high-bred, high-strung, scholarly, intense Paul, out of his mad enmity into a lifelong devotion.

The crowds came until His daily routine and ministering help were repeatedly and seriously interrupted. And strong men sought Him alone to lay bare the longings and questionings of their hearts. His Roman judge felt the strange winsomeness of His presence and speech, though lacking in the courage to follow his convictions regarding Him. And the Roman officer in charge of His execution was forced to admit the power of His presence.

All the world gathered about His cross. Representatives from all parts, in large numbers, were at the Jerusalem feast; and on that morning, by common consent, they were drawn out to the place where He hung.

He even drew the arch-tempter. He came with his subtlest temptations, and bitterest enmity, and most malignant cunning. Could there be greater evidence, by contrast, of the drawing power of His purity and goodness and steadfast devotion to His mission?



Jesus Draws Out the Best.

And Jesus had the power to draw out of men the best there was in them. Possibilities, traits, and powers that neither they nor their friends supposed they had came out into strong life under the spell of His touch. There seemed to be something in Him that drew the same sort of thing out of them.

Out of Simon, the hot-headed, impulsive fisherman, He drew the steady man of rock. Out of fiery John, the son of thunder, He drew the man of tender, strong love. And out of quiet, retiring Andrew He drew a man with a reputation for bringing others to Jesus.

He drew out of the Sychar outcast a sense of her sin, and then a winner of souls; and out of that other woman of open sin, a longing for purity that paved the way to all else that came. Under His compelling touch there came out of the blind-born man a willingness to sacrifice all for such a Master; and out of James, the other son of thunder, a courage to endure suffering that men had not known he had.

That was when He was down here, a man. And ever since that fleecy cloud received Him out of sight He has been drawing men of all the world. And time would as utterly fail me, as it did the writer of the Hebrews, if I tried to tell of the men He has drawn. Men of every rank, high and low, in every nation, savage and civilized, in every generation of all these centuries have felt the thrill of His power. And they have followed Him at the cost of all that men hold most dear.

And He is just the same to-day. He is as available now in all His drawing power wherever men meet, in city slum and savage wild, in college hall and business street, among the philosophical and cultured, and among the ignorant and untrained. If we will take Him to them, and let Him out through our lips and lives, He will draw men up the heights. He can draw against any power of downward suction, and He will. He promised to draw men, if lifted up. And He has never failed to do it.

Now, it is this drawing Jesus that men need and want. There is an enormous advantage in taking Jesus to men, because there is a something inside men everywhere that responds to Jesus. That something may be choked and covered up, crowded down and fought against, as it is. But it is there. When you take Jesus to a man you may know that you are taking a supply to a demand. You are bringing a man the answer to his heart's questions. It is as the coming together of two parts that belong together, but have been held apart by some hindrance.

That hindrance is stubborn. It has to be fought. It can be overcome. That's the chief task. Then the part in man that answers to Jesus eagerly fits into its place in Him. That coming together is always blessed, beyond words. Everywhere men of all sorts and ranks and degrees of savagery and culture eagerly respond to Him. And they declare that they find in Him the full answer to their deepest longings.



Many Doors, but One Purpose.

It is this marvellous magnet, Jesus, that we are to take to men; not theology, nor education, nor medical skill, nor hospitals, nor industrial helps, except incidentally. These are the tin cup which one is glad to use to give the thirsty traveller water from the spring.

You will understand at once that I have no thought of criticizing theology or of discrediting it, if I could. It has its place. But that place is not out in the thick of the crowd, but back in the quiet hall of study. There must be thorough study and systematic putting together of the truth. There needs to be patient plodding and mental drilling.

You have no need to be told of the immeasurable value of the splendid foundation building of Christian scholars. But this is school work, in the main. It is to make us better workmen. So a man gets his bearings and poise. But the people down in the dust and drive of the crowd don't want theology. They want Jesus. It is striking that everywhere men want to hear about Jesus.

Educational work has played an indispensably great part in the scheme of missions. But the purpose of it, of course, is to make an open door for the entrance of Jesus into men's lives. It is invaluable in itself alone, regardless of any other purpose. But the teacher of any sort of learning in the mission school, who is chiefly absorbed in the teaching itself instead of using it as a means to something higher, is missing the whole purpose of his work.

And what words can be used strong enough in speaking of the blessed work of medical men in foreign-mission lands? These skilled, patient, faithful men and women in hospital and dispensary and private service are doing a work of incalculable value. It should be done even if the bodily results were all. But the underlying purpose through it all is to lead men to know Jesus. And no one has such a short, quick road into a man's heart as he who can relieve his body.

These things are doorways into men's lives; and great doorways, too. They are well worth all the money and lives expended if they went no farther than body and mind and better conditions. But the main purpose in them is to find a way into men's hearts, and take in Jesus; that so men may get the greater as well as the less.



Make it a Story.

Now, how shall we best tell men of Jesus? Well, the modern newspaperman's rule in his work is this: "Make it a story." This is his leading rule in all his writing work. Whatever the occasion may be, whether a meeting of scholars or an accident on the street, it is to be put into story-form. That is the ideal toward which he works. All the descriptions, and quotations, and information, and philosophizings are to be woven into this web. They know that a story is the easiest thing to read and to listen to, and also the hardest to tell well.

That should be our rule here: Make it a story about Jesus. When it comes to talking the Gospel to a group of people, large or small, in New York or Shanghai, make it a story. Wherever you may begin the story, see that its purpose is to lead up to Jesus. You may use twenty-five minutes in getting your story out, and then put the Jesus touch in the last five minutes. But as they go away that last five has given its flavor to the whole half-hour's talk. Or, you may begin with Him, and so run through. But the rule should be: Make it a simple, natural, attractive story, such as people will want to listen to, because it interests them.

That means a lot of hard work in preparation. The simpler and easier and more natural it seems to the crowd the more it will have cost you in study. You will have to study so carefully that they won't guess you have studied at all. You must absorb this Bible story, bit by bit, through and through, until it becomes a bit of yourself.

You must use books that help make this Book clearer and plainer. That is really the mission of biblical books, to make the Book plainer. If they send you to the Bible they have fulfilled their mission. If you stay in them, they have failed.

The Bible is an Oriental book in its way of putting things. Its story is built upon the habits of those Eastern peoples. While it is full of simple teaching easily understood, one needs to understand those habits to get the real meat of the meaning. This means a habit of hard work for him who would be a winner of men. He should have an ambition to know the Bible story thoroughly, and to get it from the Bible itself.

But, whatever your particular message may be at any time, let it lead up by a straight road to Jesus. Follow the rule of the Book itself here. The Old Testament all points to Jesus. It can be understood only as He is understood. And the New is aflame with His presence. Tell the story of Jesus to men. They never tire of that. Tell it accurately. Tell it simply. Tell it with endless variety. Put it in simple every-day words, so they think about the story and not about you or your words.

Tell Jesus' life; His characteristics; how He mingled among men, and talked with them. Take up the Gospel incidents, and give them their natural flavoring and coloring in present-day speech. Tell of the Nazareth life, in home and carpenter shop and village. Go through those wondrous three and a half years, bit by bit.

Go into the temptation wilderness, out on the blue waters of Galilee, and into Gethsemane's olive-grove. Climb that bit of a rise of ground called Calvary. Wherever you are in that story, make sure that the coloring of Calvary gets distinctly in, by word or phrase or climax or somehow.

Now, of course, there will be some theology in your telling. You will make comments and explanations. And preachers call that theology. That is unavoidable. That is the place for such teaching, as it naturally grows out of the story. But the story should be the main thing. Men should be sent away thinking about a Man, Jesus; not about a theory of doctrine.



How Peter Told Paul.

I remember very distinctly one time Mr. Moody was speaking at the Ohio Sunday-school Convention in Cleveland. He was saying that teachers should open up the Bible and make it attractive. Then he told the story of how, in '84, in London he was talking with a lawyer friend who had just come down from Edinburgh. He had been hearing Andrew Bonar preach up there, and was greatly taken with his way of preaching.

Mr. Moody told the story something like this:

"Bonar was preaching in Galatians, where it says that Paul went to Jerusalem to see Peter, and he said that he could imagine Peter saying to Paul, 'Would you like to take a walk?' and Paul said he would, so they went down through the streets of Jerusalem, over the brook Kidron, arm in arm, and Peter stopped and said, 'Look, Paul, this is the very spot where He wrestled and where He suffered, and sweat great drops of blood. There is the very spot where John and James fell asleep, right there. And right here is the very spot where I fell asleep. I don't think I should have denied Him if I hadn't gone to sleep, but I was overcome. I remember the last thing I heard Him say before I fell asleep was, "Father, let this cup pass from me if it is Thy will." And when I awoke an angel stood right there where you are standing, talking to Him, and I saw great drops of blood come from His pores and trickle down His cheeks. It wasn't long before Judas came to betray Him. And I heard Him say to Judas, so kindly, "Betrayest thou the Master with a kiss?" And then they bound Him and led Him away. And that night when He was on trial I denied Him.'

"He pictured the whole scene. And the next day Peter turned again to Paul and said, 'Wouldn't you like to take another walk to-day?' and Paul said he would. That day they went to Calvary. And when they got on the hill Peter said, 'Here, Paul, this is the very spot where He died for you and me. See that hole right there? That is where His cross stood. The believing thief hung there, and the unbelieving thief there on the other side. Mary Magdalene and Mary, His mother, stood there, and I stood away on the out-skirts of the crowd.

"'The night before, when I denied Him, He looked at me so lovingly that it broke my heart, and I couldn't bear to get near enough to see Him. That was the darkest hour of my life. I was in hopes that God would intercede and take Him from the cross. I kept listening, and I thought I would hear His voice.' And he pictured the whole scene, how they drove the spear into His side, and put the crown of thorns on His brow, and all that took place.

"And the next day Peter turned to Paul again and asked him if he wouldn't take another walk. And Paul said he would. Again they passed down the streets of Jerusalem, over the brook Kidron, over Mount Olivet, up to Bethphage, and over to the slope near Bethany. All at once Peter stopped and said: 'Here, Paul, this is the last place where I ever saw Him. I never heard Him speak so sweetly as He did that day.

"'It was right here He delivered His last message to us, and all at once I noticed that His feet didn't touch the ground. He arose and went up. All at once there came a cloud and received Him out of sight. I stood right here gazing up into the heavens, in hopes I might see Him again and hear Him speak. And two men dressed in white dropped down by our sides and stood there and said: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."'"

Then Mr. Moody said, "My friends, I want to ask you this question: Do you believe that picture is overdrawn? Do you believe Peter had Paul as his guest and didn't take him to Gethsemane, didn't take him to Calvary and Mount Olivet? I myself spent eight days in Jerusalem, and every morning I wanted to steal down into the garden where my Lord sweat great drops of blood. Every day I climbed Mount Olivet and looked up into the blue sky where He went to His Father.

"I have no doubt Peter took Paul out on those three walks. If there had been a man that could have taken me to the very spot where the Master sweat those great drops of blood, do you think I would not have asked him to take me there? Now, you ministers, don't you believe the people want preaching like that? They do. They want to hear about the Lord."

I remember that I was sitting in that convention where I could easily see the faces of the people. It was a sight not to be forgotten. I remember that sea of eager upturned faces as distinctly as I remember Mr. Moody's talk. The people sat so still, as though in a spell, with eyes big and shining with something wet, and occasionally a slight twitching of emotion and a handkerchief called into service.

Mr. Moody talked in that natural way of his, so quiet and yet so intense in its quietness. That's what people want—Jesus brought to them, simply and naturally. And Moody knew it. It took years of hard self-discipline for him to be able to talk as he did. Such talking takes study and hard work. But it's all worth while if we can make Jesus plain to men in all His wondrous winsomeness.



"A More Excellent Way."

Then there's another way of telling the story of Jesus to men. It's a yet better way. Tell it with your life. That was Jesus' own plan. He lived what He taught. He proposed coming down into each one of us and living His life over again in us. He does just that now. Then as men meet us they are meeting Him, too, in us. The things that marked Him will be noticed in us.

The intense hatred of sin, the purity, the gentleness and patience, the warm sympathy, the constant self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice, the eagerness to win men, the tireless going wherever men could be helped—these may be in us as they were in Him, and will be, as we let Him live in us. And men will recognize the Jesus-story being lived in their midst. Jesus wants to reach out through us to men. And He will; He will; more than we ever know or will know. This is the best telling of the story.

I am told that in the Palace of Justice in Rome there is a remarkable chamber where visitors are sometimes taken. The remarkable thing about it is the decorations. The ceiling and walls and even the floors are covered with strangely painted frescoes. That is, they seem strange as one enters. They seem grotesque. They do not harmonize. They are out of touch with each other, and make a bewildering maze of confusion. But there is one spot in the chamber, just one spot upon the floor, where, if you stand, everything falls into place. The artist's conception stands out perfect in perspective and color and beauty.

To the great crowd of men in this old world life seems a good bit like that Roman chamber. Things seem out of harmony—sin, pain, confusion, unsatisfied longings, unconquered weaknesses, broken plans, and disappointed ambitions. But there is one spot, a central point, just one, where all that concerns you will come into harmony, and bring heart-rest.

That one spot is where you take your stand side by side with Jesus. His presence clears everything up. He sweetens the life, and straightens the path, and leads you steadily on toward the dawning of the day. And that's as true for China and the Pacific islanders as for Britisher or American. Men need Jesus. He satisfies them. He is the great magnet. He draws men as no other can. He places Himself at our disposal to be taken to men. They can't resist Him. Let us take Him.

O Jesus Master, thou hast drawn me till I want to be Thy slave forever. Help me take Thee to all other men that they may feel Thy wondrous drawing power, and satisfying power, too.



The Holy Spirit



The Last Talk Together. The Partnership of Service. The Power that Never Fails. The Trinity of Service. Living on the Top Floor. Partial Weavings of the Strands. Unbroken Connection Above.



The Holy Spirit



The Last Talk Together.

A little group of men were climbing the winding path that led up Olivet's slope. The Master was in the midst, and the others before and behind, where they could hear His voice. For they were talking together as they walked along. That is to say, He was talking, and they were listening, with an occasional question. They went on until they were over against where little Bethany nestles in among the blue hills. There they stood a little while, still talking together earnestly.

It was their last talk together. And there were two things the Master was saying. Those two things came with all the tender emphasis of a last message. They were to go on an errand to the world; a lifelong errand, and to the whole world. That was being burned in. But they weren't to start on the errand until the Holy Spirit had come upon them. The errand and the Spirit's presence were coupled together. That was to be their errand. And He was to be their life-power as they went on the errand.

They were to go. The Spirit was to come. He would come before they went. They must not go until He had come. Then they were to go in His presence and power. They would be able to go because of Him. Their going would be worth while, because wherever they went He would be at work in them and through them. The real work would be done by Him. But it would be done through them. His presence was essential to their work being done. Their presence was essential to His doing His work. He would work as they went, and where they went.

That was the new blessed partnership of world-wide service planned by the Master as He went away. They would tell of Jesus. The Spirit would open doors, guide their tongues, guard their persons, and make the message of Jesus as a flame of fire in men's hearts.

Just before this, Jesus had talked a great deal with His disciples about the Holy Spirit. They didn't yet know how much this that He was saying, would come to mean to them. But they remembered after the Master was gone, and then they understood. When they got down into the thick of the world's crowds they understood the great significance of what He had said.

That last talk[24] they had together in the upper room and along the Jerusalem streets, on the betrayal night, was full of teaching about the Holy Spirit. And the next time after that that they met, in the upper room,[25] on the evening of the resurrection day, He breathed strongly upon them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." And the very last word on the Olivet slope was, "Wait; wait until the Holy Spirit comes." He burned in deep that their dependence must be entirely upon the Spirit.



The Partnership of Service.

Jesus Himself is an illustration of what He told them about this. He was on a missionary errand. He had been sent by His Father, even as later these men and we have been sent. With awe ever growing, one remembers that the divine Jesus in the days of His humanity gave Himself over to the control of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was the dominant factor in His life and in all His activities. All His teachings and movements were at the suggestion and direction and control of the Spirit. The power in speech and action, in healing, in raising the dead, and in the wondrous mastery of Himself was the Holy Spirit's power working upon and through Jesus.

Then it was that as He was going away He said, "As the Father hath sent me, even so I send you." And with that He coupled the significant breathing upon them, with the word, "Take ye the Holy Spirit." We are to be as He, both in our utter dependence upon the Spirit and in our assurance of His power in us.

Ever since then that has been the effective partnership for world-service: men and the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit and men. If you are thinking of the human side you say, "Men and the Holy Spirit." If you are speaking of the divine side, you say, "The Holy Spirit and men." The two belong together. Where men have failed to go the Spirit has been hampered in speaking to men. He has spoken, but the story of salvation through Jesus has not been known. The Spirit's mouth-piece for the telling of that story was lacking. That seriously hindered Him in His work.

Where men have gone without the Spirit, that is without yielding themselves habitually to His control, they have been sorely hampered. It is like having the kindling wood set in order for a fire, but the fire not started. There is no heat, nor any of fire's results. The kindling must have the flame, and the flame must have the coals. The two are partners in service.

This partnership belongs peculiarly in the world-wide service of winning men. If anybody needs the Spirit's presence, he does who attempts to win a man to Jesus anywhere. But if any man-winner needs that presence more than another, he does who goes into the peculiar atmosphere of a non-Christian people. And, on the other hand, if anybody can be sure of the Spirit's presence and power always with him, and working through him, he can who has gone out on the world-errand.

That man is in the direct line of obedience to Jesus' command. The Spirit Himself is sent by Jesus, and comes to us in direct obedience to Jesus' desire. These two, the man and the Spirit, are as one in the purpose that controls them. That man may depend on the gracious, irresistible Spirit's power at every turn. He is a thrice West man, if he have learned to depend upon His unseen Partner.



The Power That Never Fails.

You and I have to remind ourselves constantly that our chief dependence is not upon organization, nor method, nor personal talent, nor personal training, but upon the Holy Spirit working through these. The better organized the human machinery, the better the methods used, the more there is of personal gift, and the more thoroughly one's powers have been drilled, the more there is at the Spirit's disposal for Him to use. The practical bother is to remember this; to get it rubbed in until it is like an instinct in us, that the power is all from Him, through us. Not without Him, and not without us; the two together; but always His the far greater part—indeed, the real part.

The Holy Spirit has a double work to do: with us who go; and upon those to whom we go. Within us He has to work out the character of Jesus. He opens the Word, making its meaning stand clearly out. He wakens the mind up to do its best work. He guides in our decisions, suggesting and directing and controlling our thoughts, and in our actions, in our dealings with men. In things that are little in themselves, but on which so much hinges, He guides.

It constantly occurs that we are not at all conscious of His control at the time. But afterward we can see how He has been deftly, softly guiding, with His rare light touch upon us. When, in the thick of work, we may be pressed hard, and a bit wearied, and in doubt, He sends the quiet, quick suggestion into our thoughts that leads out of the tight corner and into the achievement of the thing desired. He works through us, and through what we do, giving power that otherwise would not be there. While you are talking in conversation or in public address, He is working through what you are saying.

And He works upon those to whom we go. He opens doors; the doors of circumstances that we find locked and double-padlocked against us. He opens the yet tighter-shut, harder-to-open human doors. He inclines men favorably toward us personally, and to our message. Under His touch the message becomes as a tongue of flame, kindling, disturbing, softening, burning down, and moulding over into new shape the inner man to whom the message comes.

Sometimes quarrymen find a very hard kind of rock in the stone quarries. They pick little grooves for the iron wedges, and then with great sledge-hammers drive these wedges into the hard rock. But sometimes this fails to split the rock. The iron wedges and big sledges have no effect at all on the stubborn stone. Then they go at it in another way. The iron wedges are removed from the narrow grooves. Then little wooden ones, of a very hard fibre are selected. These sharp-edged, well-made wooden wedges are first soaked in water. Then they are put in the grooves tightly while wet, and water is kept in the grooves. The sledges are not used. They would smash the wooden wedges.

The water and wedges are left to do their work. The damp wood swells. The particles must have more room as they swell. The granite heart of rock can't stand against this new pressure. It takes longer than with iron wedges and sledge, but after a while the rock yields and lies split wide-open. The water works on the wood, and that in turn on the stone. The iron wedges sometimes fail, but the wood and water never fail.

It seems to be a part of our make-up to make plans, and to count on the plans. And planning does much. We don't want to plan less, necessarily, but to learn to depend more in our planning on the soft, noiseless, but resistless power of the Holy Spirit.

"The day is long, and the day is hard; We are tired of the march and of keeping guard; Tired of the sense of a fight to be won, Of days to live through, and of work to be done; Tired of ourselves and of being alone: Yet all the while, did we only see, We walk in the Lord's own company. We fight, but 'tis He who nerves our arm; He turns the arrows that else might harm, And out of the storm He brings a calm; And the work that we count so hard to do, He makes it easy, for He works, too: And the days that seem long to live are His— bit of His bright eternities—and close to our need His helping is."[26]



The Trinity of Service.

Now, we want to mark keenly that full power depends upon three things. There is a trinity of service, a human-divine trinity. The full results can come only through its working. The ideal winner of men needs to believe thoroughly in this trinity.

First of all is the message. There needs to be a clear understanding of the Gospel. That is the winner's message. That is the direct thing he uses in approaching and laying siege to some man's heart. It is a simple message, but very often it is grasped only partly by those who tell it.

That message needs to be understood clearly and fully by the man who would have the greatest power in winning men. From its first plain teaching about sin, on to the terrible results that sin left to itself works out; through the blessed teaching of love as shown most in the sacrifice for sin which Jesus made on the cross; the need of a clean cutting with sin, and clear-out surrender to Jesus as Saviour and Master; the work of the Holy Spirit in one's heart; and then the climax of service out among men—this simple message needs to be grasped fully and clearly. This is the first great essential hi the trinity of service.

There is a second thing, yet more important, that must go with this first. And that is a man who embodies the message in himself. It isn't enough to know the story of the Gospel, nor to tell it. It must be lived. That is the best telling of it. The man must be a living illustration of the truth he is telling. He may be conscious of not illustrating it as he should. The earnest man is never aware that he is as good an illustration of it as he is. He may think himself a poor illustration. He is quite apt to. But he is yet more apt not to be thinking of that side as he attempts to win men. He will be all taken up with Jesus, and with getting men to know Him.

The man is more than the message, even when he is less than the message. When his life fails to live out the truth he is speaking, still even then he is more. For the life is more than the lips. And, while he is talking, his life is discounting his words and taking away some of the power that belongs with them. I do not mean that those he is talking to are making the comparison, necessarily. They may not know about his life, whether it embodies the message or not.

I mean that the life that is true breathes a force and power into the man himself and so into his words. Or it doesn't. The message takes on the quality of the man. One man's talking catches fire; another's doesn't. The listeners know that it is so, though they don't usually know why. All the while you and I are trying to win others, in Sunday-school class or meeting, in Gospel service or church preaching, in personal conversation or letter-writing, there's a subtle something that goes out of us, as an atmosphere, that affects the power of the message we're giving out.

And that something is actually greater in its power than the truth we are speaking. It may be a touch of flame making the truth burn within him who is listening. It may be a deadly, dampening chill checking the fire that is naturally in the truth. The man is always more than the message.



Living on the Top Floor.

Then there is a third thing. It is yet more than the message or the man, or than both message and man together. It is this: the Holy Spirit controlling the man who embodies the message. I mean by controlling him that he has surrendered himself to the Spirit's control. And, further than that, that he cultivates the Spirit's presence.

There needs to be a habitual cultivation of the Spirit's presence and friendship, even as we cultivate our human friendships. There needs to be time spent alone, habitually, with the Book of God. I do not mean just now merely studying the Bible to get better acquainted with its contents. Something more than that—thoughtful meditation on its truths; the quiet, steady holding of one's self open to the searching and stimulating and enlightening influence of this rare Book. The Spirit speaks through these pages. Yet it is to be feared that many a careful student of its pages does not get deeper in than the print. He doesn't know and meet the Person who speaks in the print and through it.

Then, beyond the quiet time with the Book, there is the holding of one's whole life open to the Spirit's suggestion and subject to His direction. He guides through our thinking. And sometimes He guides us when our thinking, for some reason, has not gotten up high enough for Him to guide through it. Samuel thought that David's oldest brother was God's chosen one. But into his rarely sensitized inner ear the Spirit said "No." His thinking wasn't keen enough to be the channel through which he could be guided. But he had learned to hold his thinking subject to a higher power.

One time Paul thought it would be good to go over east into the province of Bithynia, and even tried to make a start that way. But the Spirit made plain His plan that they were to go in just the opposite direction, to the west. Had Paul's thinking been more open to the Spirit's touch at that point, he wouldn't have made the false start. But he was wise clear beyond the great crowd of us. For at once he dropped his own thought-out plans, and did as he was bid.

The keener our mental processes are, the better informed we are, the better poised our judgment—the better can the Spirit reveal His plans to us through this natural channel, if it is open to Him. But there is one thing higher up than our thinking powers. And that is the spirit-perception. The mental isn't at the top. It's a step up to the spirit floor, the highest of all.

Some men of splendid ability and training and consecration are constantly hampered because they insist on living on the mental floor. All their decisions are made there, not subject to change from above. And the Holy Spirit, who is the Commander-in-chief of all the forces in this campaign, is unable to use them as He would.

They haven't got the sensitized inner ear of the quiet time that would lead them up into higher, broader service. They go faithfully plodding along on the lower level. The Spirit can use them, of course. He does; but never to the full The Spirit of God controlling the man who embodies the message—this brings fulness of power in winsome service; and only this can. It is not by keenness of thinking, nor fulness of learning, nor shrewd, well-balanced judgment, but by the Spirit of God working through these, and sometimes working higher up than they have reached.



Partial Weavings of the Strands.

Now it will help us, I am sure, and make the truth stand out more clearly, to recall a good many variations that belong in here. Running back over these things brings up certain facts.

The truth has power of blessing in itself, regardless of who is speaking it. A bad man may preach the Gospel, and the truth itself will be felt in spite of the man. There is a life in truth itself, quite apart from the medium of its transmission. This explains why men who have turned out to be bad men have had good results attending their ministry. But it was the truth making itself felt in spite of the handicap it suffered at the hands of the man talking.

And men whose understanding of the truth is very one-sided and meagre have been greatly used and blessed in their work. It is striking how a man who has been rescued from a life of open sin, and who goes into Christian service with tremendous earnestness, will have great power. His emphasis of truth may be one-sided. It is quite apt to be. He tells what he has experienced. The man himself is a living illustration of the truth spoken. All the truth that can get out through him has the tremendous push forward of his life. But the extent of his service is limited.

And there are men who have a clear, well-rounded grasp of the blessed message of Jesus, and who give it out clearly and fully. But they are hampered by their mental swaddling-clothes, in which they have been wrapped up in school-days. They never get up out of them into the freedom of strong action through the Spirit's control.

Then, too, without doubt God's Spirit works alone, without using anybody. He speaks through nature's beauty and power. He speaks in the inner heart of every man. He is speaking directly to men all the time everywhere. But the message is a partial one. The direct revelation of God, in nature and in conscience, is a limited revelation. The full revelation of God was made in Jesus. And so it is in this Book that tells of Jesus.

The Spirit of God can speak most fully where that Book is known. He can work most fully and powerfully through the man who lives the Book. Every printing of this Bible, or any part of it, is giving the spirit freer entrance into men's hearts. Every one of us who produces a new translation of it in the language of his life gives the Spirit a wide-open door where otherwise the opening had been narrow.

Now, whatever combination of these there may be, some of the blessed power of God will be seen and felt. The truth unembodied or even hampered; men who embody the truth they know, but whose knowledge is small; men of much knowledge, but small practice; men of full knowledge, but who have not learned to let the Spirit sway them fully; the Spirit Himself speaking where Jesus is not known, and without any man's help—through each of these, power of life will go out to men.

But the fulness of power that runs like a mighty stream goes only as the three things come into one. The message, full and clear, the man who lives it, the Holy Spirit possessing and controlling the man who lives the message—this is the trinity of service through which alone the flood-tide flows.



Unbroken Connection Above.

That blessed flood-tide of power may be much more common than it is. There needs to be daily quiet time, alone with the Master, with the door shut, the Book open, the knee bent, the will bent too, to a clear right angle, the mind quiet and open, the inner spirit unhurried; broad, thoughtful reading; keen, clear, quiet meditation; the rigorous squaring of the life up to the standard of the Book; the cultivation of the Spirit's presence and friendship; and these habits steadily followed until they become second nature.

Then will be fulfilled the promise, "Out of His inner being shall flow rivers of water of life."[27] And men have always been drawn irresistibly to the rivers. And yet, while there will be fulness of power, there will not be full knowledge of how full the power is. That is reserved for "the Morning."

For hundreds of years men have used a contrivance called a diving-bell for working under water. Practically it enables a man to live out of his native element. For a man to live in water for any length of time is impossible. Expert divers do so for a few minutes at a time, but must rise constantly to get a fresh supply of air. But their work is dangerous, and very trying on the body. By means of the diving-bell a man may live and work for hours under the water; that is to say, in an element that of itself, unchecked, would quickly take his life.

The diving-bell is a sort of huge inverted cup, let down into the water by its own weight, opening downward, so that the man in the bell faces the water directly with nothing between himself and it. Death by drowning is always within arm's length, yet he remains safe. The simple principle on which the thing is constructed is that water and air can't occupy the same space at the same time. The bell, being full of air, holds the water out.

But there needs to be a continual supply of fresh air sent down by means of a tube connected with the upper air. Death by drowning and death by suffocation, both threaten constantly, and each is held off, one by the air, and the other by the continual supply of fresh air. The man's ability to work and his very life depend upon the uninterrupted connection with the fresh air above.

The Christian man in this world is living out of his native breathing element. He needs to have his own atmosphere with him, or else he will die. And he needs to have a fresh supply continually from above, or his life will be at very low ebb.

Missionaries in foreign-mission lands speak much of the peculiar, deadening, moral atmosphere there. There is a strange sense of depression in it. They always plan to have their children brought home at an early age that they may be brought up through the tender, impressionable years in a land where Christian standards of life are recognized.

There is no language strong enough to put this truth, that we must, each of us, whether here or there, carry our own atmosphere with us, and have continual uninterrupted connection with the upper air. And that "must" cannot be too strongly underscored.

Blessed Holy Spirit, breath of God, and breath of my life, help me to let Thee have full sweep within me, that so my life may be kept sweet and full; and so Jesus can get freely and fully out of me to the great hungry crowd.



Prayer



The Greatest Doing Is Praying. At the Other End. A Weekly Journey Round the World. Prayer a Habit. A Praying Bent Of Mind. The Man Is The Prayer. Unseen Changes Going On.



Prayer



The Greatest Doing Is Praying.

The greatest of all things we can do is to pray.

Jesus lived a life of prayer. All that He did and said grew out of His prayer. There is no way of knowing exactly how far it was so. But the more I study His life the stronger grows the impression that His teaching and activity, which form the greater part of these Gospel pages, were actually less than His praying. He seems to have put prayer first. All the rest was an outgrowth of it. He was on a world-winning errand. And this was what He thought of prayer. The emphasis of Jesus' personal habit was laid upon prayer.

The Holy Spirit is a prayer-spirit. He is the Master-Intercessor. He breathes into us the spirit of prayer, and makes it glow into a passion. He teaches us how to pray. It is a lifelong teaching. You who are teachers know that patience and skill are more in a good teacher than the knowledge taught. With greatest skill, and loving, tactful patience the Spirit teaches us to pray.

And then He does more: He uses each of us as His praying-room, praying in us with yearnings beyond utterance the prayer to which we have not yet reached up, but which needs to be prayed down on the earth. All the power needed in this great winning work is in the Holy Spirit and comes from Him. And the chief thing He emphasizes is prayer.

The greatest thing each one of us can do is to pray. If we can go personally to some distant land, still we have gone to only one place. But our field is the world. It is impossible for us to reach our whole field personally. But it can be reached, and reached effectually, by prayer. The place where you and I are sent, whether at home or abroad, is simply our base of action. It is our field for personal touch. And that means very much. But it is more than that. It is only a small part of our field of activity. It is most significant as our base of action, from which we send out our secret messengers of prayer to all parts of the field.

And then, in the particular town or city or country district to which we have been sent, or in which we are being kept, the prayer properly comes before the personal activity. And it runs along side by side with the activity, and follows along after. We give the personal touch which must be given, and which may be so marvellous in power, but there's something even there greater than the great personal touch; and that is the power of prayer.

It is through the prayer that the personal presence means most. That personal presence may become a positive hindrance. It may be a drag upon the work. It often is just that for lack of prayer. For the real sweetness and efficiency of personal service out among men is in secret prayer.

And if we give money, it needs even more the prayer to go with it. Money seems almost almighty. As a winning force, of course, it must be reckoned far less than personal service. For it is less. It gets its almost omnipotence from human hands. If the personal touch depends for its subtle power on prayer, how much more does money! Money given to missions, unaccompanied by prayer, can no doubt be made to do great good. But it is a very pauper in its poverty alongside the bit of money that is charged with the spirit-current of prayer.



At the Other End.

One day I ran across a party of about twenty Pittsburg men on their way to a men's Christian convention in Cincinnati. There were a few ministers in the party, but it was made up chiefly of business men, typical, keen, alert American business men. We got together and talked about things of common interest.

And this question was asked: Does prayer do things? Then the question was spread out some. I go into my room at night to retire. I read a bit from the Book, and kneel to pray. I pray for a man in Pittsburg or in Hang-chow, China. Does anything take place in Pittsburg or in Hang-chow that wouldn't have taken place if I hadn't prayed? Of course, the praying does me good. The very bending of knee and head before God, the good wishes in my heart going out to some one else—these influence me. I rise better for both.

But is that all? Does anything happen at the other end? Does my prayer do anything in Hang-chow? If I write a business letter to Hang-chow, enclosing a foreign draft, the letter does something. A vast amount of business is carried on that way. Would the prayer as really do something as the letter and the draft?

There was a good bit of talk back and forth, and questions asked. It was interesting to find these men were ready to admit that they really believed that something would occur at the other end. They belonged to a church noted for its sound teaching, and came from the orthodox church city of Pittsburg. The matter-of-fact power of prayer to do business "at the other end" seemed to appeal to these business men. Apparently they had not been looking at prayer that way. But they readily admitted that it must be so. Then the next question asked itself: How much of this foreign business are we doing? And so the little crowd talked along while the train pounded the rails at the rate of forty-odd miles an hour.

Prayer does do things. Something happens at the other end that wouldn't happen if the prayer were not made. The banker can touch London and Paris and Shanghai and Calcutta and Tokyo, without moving from the desk where he is dictating letters, with his correspondence spread out before him. The praying man can as really touch these cities as he kneels in his room, with map and Book spread out before him.

Things are changed out there that need changing. That banker does business, too, in his home city and out in the home-land. But many times, with many a house, the bulk of foreign business is in excess of that done at home. Now we want to do a large business abroad in soul-winning and in world-winning, as well as at home.



A Weekly Journey round the World.

I use that word "business" in this connection thoughtfully and reverently. I know there is a sacredness, a hallowedness about prayer that never or rarely enters into business matters. We keep the two things apart in our thoughts; reckoning the one a common thing, and the other a holy thing. And I would increase, if I could, that sense of reverence in prayer. But there is a great advantage in using the familiar language of business in thinking of the results of our praying.

Prayer is doing business for God. It gives a practicality, a something-you-can-touch-and-feel feeling to think in that way. Shall we not make plans at once to increase our foreign correspondence?

You can have a simple schedule or memorandum to guide your praying. I do not mean a slavish hard-and-fast system, or set of rules, set down to be followed, with a feeling that you have been untrue if you forget. Nothing of that sort at all. But merely a simple something to glance at each day, and so serve as a reminder to guide your thoughts.

A little memorandum can be made running through the days of the week. It can be so planned as to run around the world during the week. The little schedule which I use is divided into the days of the week, Sunday to Saturday. There is a daily page containing notes, catch-words, about personal affairs, and home, and friends, and church, and appointments, and such items. Then each day of the week has a page, and on it is marked home-land items and foreign items.

In marking out the weekly world journey I had to begin somewhere. The Master told the disciples to begin at Jerusalem and work out. So I followed that rule, and Sunday is marked Turkey and the lands grouped with it, Arabia and Persia. The memorandum moves east, following the compass-line of greatest need. Monday is India day, including Ceylon and the lands and islands lying adjacent. Tuesday is China day; Wednesday, Japan, the island kingdom; and the island world of the Pacific.

This brings me across the Pacific, and so Thursday is marked South America, including Central America and Mexico. The easterly line takes me across the Atlantic again to Africa on Friday. Saturday takes an upward turn to the papal lands of Europe, and to Russia, completing the world-journey for that week. The matters for prayer here in the home-land are noted through the days of the week in the same way. Each page has certain home and certain foreign items.

A little prayer-book of that sort grows under constant use. Your reading of missionary news leads to the making of fresh notes. Names of persons are added, and dates of coming conferences, and so on, and verses of Scripture that stand out in the daily reading. So the book becomes to you a very precious little batch of leaves, lying inside the precious Book of God.

It should be accompanied by a map of the world. For a good while I used the one which was inserted in one of Dr. A. T. Pierson's mission books. That copy has long since been replaced by others, larger, giving more information. It is an immense help to glance at the map daily, and look at the part marked for the day. The lands get fixed in mind in that way without special effort. Gradually they stand out more and more clearly, and come to be very real to you.

That map may become dear to you, for it suggests the field that you are influencing. It is your prayer sailing-chart. It becomes fragrant with memories. Experiences you have had alone with God over His Word, and over this map of His World, come back to refresh and sweeten.



Prayer a Habit.

There's a little sentence of Paul's that used to puzzle and bother me, "Pray without ceasing." But it has become a great help to me. It puzzled me because I didn't see any practical way of doing it. It didn't seem to mean the repetition of prayers, with little mechanical helps, such as some use. It surely doesn't mean staying on your knees a long time. But, as I tried to pray my way into its meaning, it came to mean four distinct things to me. And I would not be surprised to find more yet coming out of it.

First of all, it means that prayer should be a habit. There should be a fixed time every day, or times, for going off alone to pray. Into that time the Book is taken. Quiet time is spent in reading it. For this is listening to God. And that comes first in praying; listening first, then speaking. The reading may be rapid and broad, or slower and more meditative. Whichever it may be, there should be a cultivation of the habit of meditation.

I do not mean a sleepy trying to imitate what we suppose some holy men do. But a keen thinking into the meaning of the words, and into their practical use in one's own life. Then the praying itself. The being still before God, and the definite prayer for particular things, and persons, and places. That habit can be fixed until it becomes second nature. It can be cultivated until it becomes the sweet spot of the day to you.



A Praying Bent of Mind.

Then while the daily habit continues prayer may become an attitude, a bent of mind. Whatever comes up suggests prayer to you. The bent of your mind is to pray as things come up in the daily round. You can't stop your work, but you think prayers. Your heart prays while your hands are busy.