INDIVIDUAL WORK FOR INDIVIDUALS.
In a recently-published book by Henry Clay Trumbull, bearing the above title, the following interesting experience is given, which well illustrates the importance of individual work in bringing souls to Christ:— One Sunday I passed with a near relative. There I met a gentleman whom I had never seen before, but who was connected with my relative. I sat with him at the table, and we had pleasant conversation. In the evening the gentleman was out at church service, and the lady of the house was suffering from the headache. I urged her to retire, while I would sit up, and close the house after the visitor came in. As I did this, I sat by the sitting-room fire, on the cold winter night. When the visitor was in, and the house was closed, we still sat together there. He spoke of the service that he had attended, and he was evidently much impressed by the sermon. “You don't often hear a sermon like that, especially from such a minister,” he said. “The minister brought us right up face to face with the judgment seat, and there he left us. There were no soft words to ease us down, such as, ‘But I trust this is not for you, my brethren.’” Then, as if soliloquizing as he sat there looking into the fire, he added:— “I tell you that, in the great day, we who go over to the left hand will not feel very kindly toward the men who have glossed this thing over, when they had a chance to tell us the plain truth.” The impressed man was much older than myself—old enough, perhaps, to be my father; but he had been brought to my side in a condition of mind to need help, and I was there to speak for Jesus. It was not a question of seniority, nor of long acquaintance, to be considered by one who represented the Eternal. Laying my hand lovingly on his knee, as he sat by my side looking thoughtfully into the fire, I said:— “My friend, what do you mean by ‘we who go over on the left hand?’ You belong on the right hand, and you ought to recognize this. The Judge is your Saviour. You ought to trust Him fully as such.” “I suppose I ought to,” he responded. At this I drew my chair around so that I could look directly into his face, and I said earnestly, feeling the full force of my words:— “This is God’s doing, and you must recognize it. God has brought us to this house to meet for the first time in our lives. He has planned it so that you should go out to that evening service, and hear that impressive appeal. And now, while all others in the house are asleep, and you and I sit here facing the question of questions for your soul, I can not leave you until you settle it. I speak for the Saviour when I urge you to commit yourself to Him for now and for evermore.” Then reaching out my hand, I said:— “My friend, you realize what all this means, and its importance. Now, promise me that this night, before you sleep, you will, on your knees, tell your loving, longing, waiting Saviour that you've delayed this thing altogether too long, but that you won't do so any longer. Tell Him that you trust Him because He is the Saviour, and you are one whom He wants to save. Give me your hand on this, my friend, and then go to your room, and do what you know to be your duty.” My companion evidently felt that it was a crisis hour with him, and he could not evade the sense of this. My hand was outstretched to him. For some time he said not a word, but I saw that he was quivering with intense emotion. Meanwhile I was praying in my heart for a blessing on him in his conflict of soul. Then, with a convulsive movement that shook his strong frame, he put out his right hand, and clasped mine as tho it were for life. I realized that he had given himself to his Saviour. Rising, I asked God's blessing upon him, and bade him good night, and we parted. I went to my room for the night, and to pray for him, and he went to his room to pray for himself. Before he came downstairs in the morning, I left for my home. I never saw him again. Before the day closed, he left that house for his home. By a severe railroad accident on his way home he was fatally injured, and soon died. A younger brother of his was an office-bearer in one of the Fifth Avenue churches in New York. When he learned that the loved brother had thus committed himself to the Saviour while he was yet in life and strength, he was indeed rejoiced and grateful; and we thanked God together.