The Personal Touch.
by J. Wilbur Chapman.
_FOREWORD_
IF
If to be a Christian is worth while, then the most ordinary interest in those with whom we come in contact should prompt us to speak to them of Christ.
If the New Testament be true--and we know that it is--who has given us the right to place the responsibility for soul-winning on other shoulders than our own?
If they who reject Christ are in danger, is it not strange that we, who are so sympathetic when the difficulties are physical or temporal, should apparently be so devoid of interest as to allow our friends and neighbours and kindred to come into our lives and pa.s.s out again without a word of invitation to accept Christ, to say nothing of sounding a note of warning because of their peril?
If to-day is the day of salvation, if to-morrow may never come, and if life is equally uncertain, how can we eat, drink, and be merry when those who live with us, work with us, walk with us, and love us are unprepared for eternity because they are unprepared for time?
If Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men, who gave us the right to be satisfied with making fishing tackle or pointing the way to the fishing banks instead of going ourselves to cast out the net until it be filled?
If Jesus Himself went seeking the lost, if Paul the Apostle was in agony because his kinsmen, according to the flesh, knew not Christ, why should we not consider it worth while to go out after the lost until they are found?
If I am to stand at the judgment seat of Christ to render an account for the deeds done in the body, what shall I say to Him if my children are missing, my friends not saved, or if my employer or employee should miss the way because I have been faithless?
If I wish to be approved at the last, then let me remember that no intellectual superiority, no eloquence in preaching, no absorption in business, no shrinking temperament, no spirit of timidity can take the place of or be an excuse for my not making an honest, sincere, prayerful effort to win others to Christ by means of the _Personal Touch_.
CHAPTER I
_A Testimony_
I have the very best of reasons for believing in the power of the personal touch in Christian work, especially as it may be used in the winning of others to Christ.
My boyhood"s home was in the city of Richmond, in the State of Indiana, my mother was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in the first years of my life in company with my father and the other children of the household, I attended the church of my mother. When she was just a little more than thirty-five years of age she was called home. My father in his youth had been trained as a Presbyterian; many of his ancestors having belonged to that denomination; therefore it was quite natural that he should return to the Church of his fathers when my mother had gone home.
It was thus I became a member of the Presbyterian Church, and my Church training as a boy after fifteen years of age was in that denomination.
Because of this special interest in both the Church of my father and my mother, I attended two Sunday Schools. In the morning I was in a cla.s.s in the Presbyterian school and in the afternoon was a member of a cla.s.s in the Grace Methodist Sunday School, my teacher in the afternoon school being Mrs C.C. Binckley, a G.o.dly woman, the wife of Senator Binckley of Indiana, through all her life from girlhood, a devout follower of Christ and a faithful teacher in the Sunday School. Not so very long ago I heard that she was still teaching in the same school, and I am sure, as in the olden days, winning boys to Christ.
I fear that I was a thoughtless boy, and yet the impressions made upon my life in those days by the death of my mother, the teaching of my father, and the influence of my Sunday School teacher, were such that I have never been able to get away from them.
One Sunday afternoon a stranger came to address our school--his name I have never learned; I would give much to find it out. At the close of his address he made an appeal to the scholars to stand and confess Christ. I think every boy in my cla.s.s rose to his feet with the exception of myself. I found myself reasoning thus: Why should I rise, my mother was a saint; my father is one of the truest men I know; my home teaching has been all that a boy could have; I know about Christ and think I realise His power to save.
While I was thus reasoning, my Sunday School teacher, with tears in her eyes, leaned around back of the other boys and looking straight at me, as I turned towards her she said, "Would it not be best for you to rise?" And when she saw that I still hesitated, she put her hand under my elbow and lifted me just a little bit, and I stood upon my feet. I can never describe my emotions. I do not know that that was the time of my conversion, but I do know that it was the day when one of the most profound impressions of my life was made upon me. Through all these years I have never forgotten it, and it was my Sunday School teacher who influenced me thus to take the stand--it was her personal touch that gave me courage to rise before the school and confess my Saviour.
In the good providence of G.o.d, during my student days, as well as during the first years of my ministry, I was thrown in contact with men who knew G.o.d, who were being marvellously used by Him, and who seemed ready and willing to give a.s.sistance to one who was just beginning the journey of life with all its struggles and conflicts ahead of him.
When I was a student attending Lake Forest University, not far from Chicago, I was very greatly troubled about the matter of a.s.surance. I heard that Mr Moody was to be in Chicago, and in company with a friend I went in from Lake Forest to hear him. Five times in a single day I sat at his feet and drank in the words which fell from his lips. He thrilled me through and through. I heard him preach his great sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," when old Farwell Hall was crowded with young men many of whom were students like myself.
The impression that Mr Moody made upon me as a Christian young man, was that I myself was not absolutely sure I was saved. I a.n.a.lysed my experience and found that sometimes I was more than sure and at other times dwelt in Doubting Castle. When the great evangelist called for an after-meeting, I was one of the first to enter the room where he had indicated he would meet those who were interested, and to my great joy he came and sat down beside me. He asked me my difficulty and I told him I was not quite sure that I was saved. He asked me to read John v.
24, and trembling with emotion I read: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is pa.s.sed from death unto life."
He said to me, "Do you believe this?" I said, "Certainly." He said, "Are you a Christian?" and I replied, "Sometimes I think I am, and again I am fearful." Then he said, "Read it again." And I read it once more. His question was again repeated, and I answered it in the same manner as before. Then he seemed to lose his patience, and the only time I can remember Mr Moody being sharp with me was when he turned upon me and said, "Whom are you doubting?" And suddenly it dawned upon me that I was doubting Him who said I was possessed of everlasting life because I believed on the Son and on the Father who had sent Him, and in spite of this possession and His sure Word of promise concerning it, I was sceptical. But as I sat there beside him I saw it all. Then he said, "Read it again." And I read it the third time, and talking to me as gently as a mother would to her child he said, "Do you believe this?"
I said, "Yes, indeed I do." Then he said, "Are you a Christian?" And I answered, "Yes, Mr Moody, I am." From that day to this I have never questioned my acceptance with G.o.d.
For some reason Mr Moody always seemed to keep me in mind. He came into my church in the early days of my ministry, told me where he thought I was wrong and suggested how I might be more greatly used of G.o.d. He advised me to give my time wholly to evangelistic work, and when I said to him one day that I was going to take up the pastorate after three years of experience in general evangelism, he seemed disturbed. To him more than to any other man, I owe the greatest blessing that ever came into my life.
Through Mr Moody I met the Rev F.B. Meyer, and one sentence which he used at Northfield changed my ministry. He said, "If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?" That seemed like a new star in the sky of my life, and one day acting upon his suggestion, after having carefully studied the pa.s.sages in the New Testament which relate to surrender and to consecration, I gave myself anew to Christ and I shall never be able to express in words my appreciation of what this man of G.o.d to whom I have referred, did for me by personal influence.
All along the way I have been brought in contact with men whom G.o.d has signally blessed, and I am persuaded that there are many to-day whose hearts are hungering for a blessing, who are waiting as I was myself, for someone to speak to them personally, and help them out of darkness into light; out of a certain kind of bondage into a glorious freedom.
The personal touch in Christian work, to me, means everything.
CHAPTER II
_A General Principle_
I have been amazed in my study of the biographies of men and women who have been specially used of G.o.d, to see how almost universal is the rule that they have come to Christ, or to an experience of power, through the personal influence of a friend or acquaintance. Preaching is not enough, it is sometimes too general; the impressions of a song may soon be effaced, but the personal touch, the tear in the eye, the pathos in the voice, the concern which is manifested in the very expression of one"s countenance; these are used with great effect, and thousands of people are to-day in the Kingdom of G.o.d, or in special service, because of such influences being brought to bear upon their lives.
John Wesley is a notable ill.u.s.tration of the influence of the personal touch. Peter Bohler of the Moravian Church, came into his life when he was in sore need of just such a.s.sistance as he seemed able to give. Dr W. H. Fitchett of Australia, writes:--
"The Moravians of Savannah taught him exactly what Peter Bohler taught him afterwards in London, but the teaching at the moment left his life unaffected. Wesley"s own explanation is, "I understood it not; I was too learned and too wise, so that it seemed foolishness unto me; and I continued preaching, and following after, and trusting in that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified."
"The truth is that Peter Bohler himself, had he met Wesley in Savannah, would have taught him in vain. The stubborn Sacramentarian and High Churchman had to be scourged, by the sharp discipline of failure, out of that subtlest and deadliest form of pride, the pride that imagines that the secret of salvation lies, or can lie, within the circle of purely human effort. Wesley later describes Peter Bohler as "One whom G.o.d prepared for me." But G.o.d in the toilsome and humiliating experiences of Georgia, was preparing Wesley for Peter Bohler."
Bohler described Wesley as "a man of good principles, who did not properly believe on the Saviour, and was willing to be taught." Later on, in the city of London, where Wesley had been intimately a.s.sociated with Peter Bohler and had come directly under his influence, he one night attended a religious service in Aldersgate Street, where the one conducting the service was reading Luther"s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. The effect of that service upon Wesley is best told in his own words.
"About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which G.o.d works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an a.s.surance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more special manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, "This cannot be faith; for where is thy joy?" Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, G.o.d sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth, them according to the counsels of His own will."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in speaking of his own early experiences, writes thus: "When I was a young child staying with my grandfather, there came to preach in the village Mr Knill, who had been a missionary at St Petersburgh, and a mighty preacher of the gospel. He came to preach for the London Missionary Society, and arrived on the Sat.u.r.day at the manse. He was a great soul winner, and he soon spied out the boy. He said to me, "where do you sleep? for I want to call you up in the morning." I showed him my little room. At six o"clock he called me up, and we went into the arbour. There, in the sweetest way, he told me of the love of Jesus and of the blessedness of trusting in Him and loving Him in our childhood. With many a story he preached Christ to me, and told me how good G.o.d had been to him, and then he prayed that I might know the Lord and serve Him.