The Influence of a Tract.
The following item which a correspondent sends us is designed to encourage every worker in our Tract Societies. The law of demand and supply hold as well in the moral as in the commercial world. If such success as is described below, attended the giving of a tract at that time, what might we not expect now, if the church would come into a right position, when it is necessary that the work of warning the world should be accomplished so speedily? Great perils exist in these last days; but promises equally great are given us, with which to meet them; and great blessings and great success will assuredly now follow all efforts put forth in the right spirit and with the right motive. Two hundred years ago, a humble peddlar sold a lad a tract, called “The Bruised Reed,” which led to his conversion. This was a simple, unpretending act of itself. But mark how the hidden life of the church is propagated, how one genuine convert swells the vital pulsations and augments the giant energies of the church. That lad was no other than Richard Baxter. His writings were the means of rousing, with scores of others, the soul of Philip Doddridge. Philip Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion,” was the means of quickening that illustrious advocate of freedom William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce’s “Practical Christianity,” was the means of bringing Leigh Richmond to Jesus. Leigh Richmond’s “Dairyman’s Daughter” has been the means of bringing multitudes to the footstool of mercy. There were, in Nov., 1856, in the records of the Tract Society alone, fifteen hundred cases of conversion attributed solely to the circulation of that little book. How many more have been converted by the same means, eternity only will reveal. What a motive to labor, though it be in a humble way.—Guide to Holiness.