Winning Those Met in Church and Bible Class

Where you have many persons to hear you, as where you have only one, it is the single hearer, or the one individual with whom you converse, that is the hopeful subject of Christian effort It is the eye-to-eye and heart-to-heart intercourse that tells for Christ with a souL It has often seemed to me that there is about so much good going out from a speaker, at any one time, in behalf of souls. This good is divided among the hearers present If there are twenty hearers, each can have his one-twentieth. If there are a thousand, each has only a thousandth. When there is but one, he takes the whole. This thought is an encouragement to a preacher when he has but a small audience.

In a Bible class that I had the privilege III

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of conducting for years, I counted more on my talks with individuals after the class hour was over than on all my words to the class as a whole, during the school session, stimulating and pleasant to me as was this latter exercise. One summer Sunday morning, as I passed out from the Bible class room toward my home, I overtook a young lady who had been an attendant in the class, for some weeks, with a lady who was a regfular member. This visitor to the Bible class was not a member of our church congregation, nor did she belong to a family that was; but I was alone with her as we walked away from the room that Sunday morning, and therefore I must say a word for Christ to her, whether it seemed a fitting time or not” In season and out of season is the rule for us.

As we walked, we talked of the Bible lesson of the morning. Every Bible truth is like a many-sided crystal, — turn it which way you will, there is one facet that sends the light directly to your eye. So, that

XI9 morning, we found that a talk about the Bible lesson of the day brought us to a talk about our personal relations to the Saviour. In this talk she seemed much interested, and as we came opposite my house, where I would ordinarily have stopped, I felt that I had no right to leave her, and I kept on with her to her home. As she told me afterwards, she had longed for this talk, and when we approached my house she feared I would leave her, although she was not ready to end the conference. How often is this the easel

That Sunday morning walk was a crisis hour in her life history. She gladly yielded herself to the Saviour, and devoted herself to his service. She connected herself with the church of which I was a member, and she became a Sunday-school teacher of rare devotion and efficiency. She not only herself loved Christ, but she faithfully represented Christ to others. One after another of the boys in her class was won to Christ’s love and service: and “3

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those who were under her instruction and influence now rise up to call her blessed What would my work as a leader of the class as a whole have amounted to, that Sunday morning, without my having that personal religious talk with that one visiting young lady?

There came into that Bible dass, as a member, a gentleman with whom I had been very pleasantly associated in another part of the country in former days. His wife came with him to the class. Yet I knew nothing of their personal religious views, save that, while they were members of our congp-^fation, they were not members of our church. I felt that it was not enough to counsel or urge them and others of the class collectively to submit themselves to Christ Speaking to an individual as an individual is the way to win a soul, not addressing a congregation of persons in the hope that some individual will think that he, rather than everybody 114 else, is addressed by the speaker; so I determined to reach these two individuals outside of the Bible class room.

They lived quite a distance from my home, in another part of the city. Thither I went on a week-day afternoon. I told them why I had come, and how deeply 1 was interested in their welfare. I urged their committing themselves to the Saviour. We kneeled and unitedly sought God’s blessing on us, as God saw our need. That was a decisive hour with them both. They were glad to have it so, and I was glad that it was so.

Both became teachers instead of passive learners. They were soon active in church and Sunday-school work. The gentleman became a leader in the Sunday-school, and a prominent and honored office-bearer in the church. If that Bible class had accom plished nothing more than winning that gentleman and his family to their present sphere of Christian activity, it would more than have repaid me for all that I have “5 done in comiectioa with it I (fid diat good wofk by God’s blessing, diroagli only going one week-day afternoon to have a fiure-to-face talk with those two for Christ And all my best work for souls seems to have been done in just that way.

A graduate of a school of science, who was a pronounced agnostic in his attitude toward religious truth, having heard of thb Bible class and its discussions, asked a friend if he might, though a disbeliever in the Bible, be an attendant of the class. Being assured of a cordial welcome he came, and was interested in the discussions, and, as a result, became a firm believer in the Bible, which was the basis of all these discussions. Of course I had, meantime, repeated eye-to-eye talks with him on the subject, outside of the class; for it is indeed rare for any abiding impression to be made by words spoken and heard in public unless the truth is applied, and an acknowledgment ii6

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of it secured in a face-to-fiice talk with the individual hearer.

This man said afterwards that he was first touched by my saying to him one day, “I am praying for you every day.” Before a great while he who came in as a non-believer stood up in his home church and confessed his faith in his newly found Saviour. Then he too became a Bible teacher, &ithfully leading others to the Saviour, whom he was thenceforward glad to trust and represent

One Sunday afternoon a well-known graduate of one of the prominent American universities outside of Philadelphia, who had given up his early religious views, but who had come to question in his mind whether his non-belief was sufficient for him, came into our Bible class room. At the close of the exercise he came to me and asked if he might have a talk with me about the Bible lesson of the afternoon. 117 ltl^M^lUll miocii

At this I invited him to my home to pass the evening with me.

At my home he told me that he had known nothing of the Bible class before the day he came into it But as the Bible lesson of the day was presented that afternoon in an unconventional way, he had said to himself, ‘’There is a man who can help me. I’m going to ask him if he will” We talked freely that evening. We prayed together. That was the beginning of a close friendship of years. He soon came to confess his faith openly.

He grew steadily in knowledge and love and influence. To-day he is a prominent clergyman in the denomination with which he is connected, and is widely known for his active service, cmd he is leading many to enjoy the Christian feith, about the reality of which he, for a time, doubted. His coming to that Bible class that afternoon, his being impressed there, and my having the opportunity of speaking to him for Christ, were clearly of God. Well is it for ii8

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us if, when God gives us such an opportunity, we do not fail to do our simple part| and thus share the blessing.

Two sisters came to that Bible class together. Then, one of them fell dead. The other was so much affected by hd* loss that she felt she could not come to the class. I attended the sister’s funeral, and I expressed hearty sympathy with the survivor, but at that time I had no opportunity for a free conversation with her. Some time later I saw the stricken sister in our church on the day of a communion service, watching the service from the back part of the house. It was a snowy Sunday. I hurried round to the front door of the church, and joined her as she came out

I walked with her, in the snow, to her home, at a distance, and talked with her, by the way, quite freely. I asked her why she did not confess Christ as her Saviour, and join with his other children in the celebration of his love, instead of sitting as a 119 lookcr-oiL She bad oot 6ccd dot HoahtSoic, but now that die was adoedit die considered it saiaady. When I came to her home door, I stopped and adoed if she would be leadjr to take this decisive step at the next season of communion in our church. 9ie hesitated for a few minutes, and then she gave me her hand in assurance that she would.

On the Wednesdsgr evening belbre the next communion service idien candidates for church-membership were to aq)pear befipre the church session, at the dose (^ the weekly pra)rer-meeting, I saw that ^ster present The 2q)pointment had slqiped my mind, but it had not slqiped hers. She was there, ready to confess Christ, and I told her that I was glad that she was so. Seemingly her choice for life was made, as her future has evidenced.

These are merely a few illustrations, out of many, of the gain of personal work, or of indiWdual work with individuals, for Christ, in a single sphere of my varied ex-In abuccb anb JStblc Cta00

perience. I have not been as faithful as I should have been in this. I have at times failed to act and to speak when it was my duty; but the blessing that God has granted to my imperfect labors may stimulate others to do more and better, and thus to have far richer results to rejoice over. I pray that it may be so.

One who was in the congregation, but not yet in the Sunday-school, I came to know in very pleasant relations, and therefore I felt a measure of responsibility for him. He was influential in the commu* nity, and on this account I was the more desirous that his influence should be on the right side.

I sought him in his boarding-house home, and I told him frankly of my wish that he would commit himself to the Saviour, and be an open and avowed follower of his, outspoken in his service. In conversation with him, I found that he had never been accustomed to pray as a child, IndMDual Tmorft

and therefore, naturally, not in later years. Few of us realize how much we owe, thrpugh life, to the lessons and habits and influences of our childhood, or how difficult it is for us to supply this lack in maturer years. I hardly ever realized that truth as I realized it in my talk with this man. When I urged him to kneel and pray, he responded:

You do not know what you are asking of me. You ask me to get down on my knees and speak into the air, to talk to no one, for no realized purpose. That may seem a natural thing for you to do, but for me it would seem a most unmeaning thing, if not, indeed, a bit of mockery. I cannot doif*

This was in the early days of the telephone. I asked him:

Have you ever talked through the telephone?*’

«Oh,yesI”hesaid

*’You know I have one In my house, and another in my office. The telephone

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is a great convenience to me and a great comfort If you had never spoken through a telephone, and should come into my house, and see me talking into a hole against the wall, while I held a peculiar tube to my ear, you might, in surprise, ask what I was doing. If I said I was in loving converse with a friend at a distance, it might seem unreasonable to you, if not a bit of mockery.

“If, after this, you should go into another house, and should see a valued friend acting similarly, and he should give you the same answer, and this should happen half a dozen times over, with friends whom you respected, would it still seem unreasonable or foolish?”

“No, it would not”

“How is it about the spiritual telephone? Are there not as many to testify to the value of that as of the Bell telephone?”

“I suppose there are.”

“Well, now, my friend, won’t you try InMpttmal tnock

it? You can have connection from this roonu But you must be willing to try it in good fiuth. When you speak, you must give attention as you listen for a response. It is not enough for you to call into the mouthpiece opening without having the tube at your ear. It is a blessing to be on the spiritual telephone circuit**

This was a new way of looking at the prayer question. Soon my friend was on the telephone circuit He had connection in his own room. He was making calls and getting responses. He would no longer consent to be without the connection. By and by he was an active member of the church, he was a teacher in the Sunday-school. There is a gain in religious instruction while one is very young, but it is well to begin to learn the best things at any age, when you first have an opportunity.