66. Working for Souls
Working for Souls
GREATEST OF ALL.—When Beecher was on his dying-bed, a brother said to him, “Dr. Beecher, you know a great deal; tell us what is the greatest of all things.” He replied, “It is not theology, it is not controversy: it is to save souls.”
CROWDING THE END.—It is related of Nordheimer that he foresaw his death, and, calculating pretty well when it would come, gave double recitations as long as he could sit up, so that his class might lose nothing. Hannah More commenced an enterprise in her old age, and thus wrote to Wilberforce: “For the night cometh; and it is a comfort to think that though I may be dust and ashes in a few weeks, yet by that time this business will be in actual motion.”
SISTER DORA.—It is said of Sister Dora (Miss Pattison), that no matter at what hour the hospital doorbell rang, she used to rise instantly to admit the patient, saying: “The Master is come and calleth for thee.”
INDIVIDUAL EFFORT.—When Williams, the martyr missionary, went to the South Sea Islands, he took with him a single banana-tree. And now, from that single banana-tree, bananas are to be found throughout whole groups of islands. Before the negro slaves in the West Indies were emancipated, a regiment of British soldiers was stationed near one of the plantations. A soldier offered to teach a slave to read, on condition that he would teach a second, and that second a third, and so on. This he faithfully carried out. Being sent to another plantation, he repeated the same thing there, and when at length liberty was proclaimed, and the Bible Society offered a New Testament to every negro who could read, the number taught through this slave’s instrumentality was no less than 600.
GO AFTER THEM.—Sportsmen do not stop at home and wait for the game to come and be shot at; neither do fishermen throw their nets inside their boats and hope to catch fish. Traders go to the markets; they follow their customers, and go out after business if it will not come to them; and so must Christian workers.
GAMING WITH SATAN.—Some of you may have seen the painting by Retsch, in which he has portrayed a game of chess between Satan and a young man, who has staked his soul on the issue. The different expressions in the faces of the players; the gay, heedless look of the young man, all unconscious of his peril; and the cunning, hellish leer of the Fiend, as the chances seemed to turn in his favor, can never be forgotten by any who have once beheld them. But how much more graphic and solemn is the scene which the Divine pencil has drawn—Christ and Satan battling for the soul of man! THE TIMELY LIGHT.—During a voyage to India, a man sat one dark evening in his cabin, feeling thoroughly unwell. Suddenly the cry of “Man overboard!” made him spring to his feet. He heard a trampling overhead, but resolved not to go on deck, lest he should interfere with the crew in their efforts to save the man. “What can I do?” he asked himself, and instantly unhooking; his lamp, he held it near the top of the cabin and close to the bull’s-eye window, that its light might shine on the sea. In half a minute’s time, he heard the joyful cry, “It’s all right; he’s safe!” The next day, he was told that his little lamp was the sole means of saving the man’s life; it was only by the timely light which shone upon him that the rope could be thrown so as to reach him.”