p. 213 | Thoughts about Truth by H. K. P.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 14.

Thoughts about Truth.

By H. K. P.

"Preach the word." "Thy word is truth." "The truth shall make you free." 2 Tim. 4:2; John 17:17; 8:32.

Rhetoric and declamation may have their place in pulpit work, but it is upon the power of truth that the successful preacher must mainly depend. There is plenty of truth in the Bible, but a great deal of it is like the gold in the ore; it needs to be dug up and melted down in the crucible of thought before it can be used. The Bible has not only truth enough, but also a great variety. There are truths that will cut like knives; truths that will heal like balms; truths that will tear pride from any one, as a cannon ball would tear the shingles from a roof; truths that will give such confidence to the humble that they would stand against a host.

There is as much art in using a truth as there is in using a rifle. I think one of the best ways to use truth is to dogmatize; be very sure that it is a truth, then state it clearly and emphatically on its own merits and let it alone. If there is any one who hears you and does not want to accept it, he will be certain to undertake to disprove it, and when he does that, he is in a fair way to believe it. I have fought all around an unwelcome truth for days and nights, attacked it from every conceivable point, and with every instrument I could lay my hand to, besieged it, stormed it, laid snares for it, tried to take it by treachery, and after I had worn myself out fighting it, I have surrendered unreservedly and unconditionally.

Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born that drops into its place; And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.

Another good way to use a disagreeable truth is to startle people with it; give it to them like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. At first their minds will fly to the other extreme, and they will take a position they cannot hold; then reaction will set in, and, like the limb of a tree that is bent from its normal position and is suddenly released, their minds will spring back to a new position. Too many arguments weaken the truth. It is better to send one barbed arrow to the heart of a tiger than to shoot him with a hundred that only pierce the skin. One argument that proves a position or a truth is enough. Its effects may not be so immediate as that of a number of arguments, but it will be the more lasting. One weak argument will do a cause more harm than a dozen good ones can repair, just as one sin in a woman's life will often outweigh a hundred virtues. "One of the rarest powers possessed by man is the power to state a truth." It requires great powers of observation to see a truth in its totality, greater powers of comprehension to think a truth in new relations without modification, and the greatest command of language to utter it without change. And as for hearing, alas! alas! How often have I thought and prayed over a statement for hours, and the first sleepy hearer that half heard of it would go home, and, without one moment's thought, blandly state what I had said, and his statement and my own did not look as much alike as Chicago before and after the fire.

It is a curious fact that people are with truths like boys with fish-hooks—if there is any way to stick themselves with them they will do it. May God help us to speak the truth and hear the truth.—H. K. P., in Christian Standard.