How to Catch Souls

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 22, 1873

How to Catch Souls.

Of all the works which demand the greatest wisdom, the most tact, the use of every and all means, in order to succeed, is that of winning souls to God and righteousness. Here are a few thoughts, from an eminent minister, worthy of careful attention. If these things are so, how can selfish, self-caring, cold-hearted, unsympathizing men be successful ministers? They cannot. We must come into sympathy with those we wish to reach or we can never help them. In this world of widows and orphans, of poverty and want, of sickness and sorrow, it will often be the minister’s duty to give more than words. If he finds no occasion to do this it is because he is not about his Master’s business.

“There could be no thought, if there were no physical organization which sustained it. The mind, in this world, rests upon a body, and acts through a body. This fundamental fact ramifies; and the intellectual and moral condition of men’s minds is very largely affected by their physical surroundings—so much so that it is often impossible to do anything for them which is effectual and final in its benefit, unless we go to them first through their physical condition.

“A man is picked up in the street. He has just come out from a course of dissipation. He has just had a ‘spree.’ His nerves are unstrung. He is uncombed and unwashed. His raiment is torn. Everything about him is degraded. He cannot look upon himself with allowance, as the old phrase is. Now sit down and talk to that man. You might almost as well talk to a stone post. But if you will take him home, kindly, gently, and treat him with the same consideration that you would a brother; if you will receive his long complaints of himself, his maudlin confessions, with forbearance; if you will give him some tonic, some cordial, to brace his shattered nerves; if you will see that he has a cleansing and refreshing bath; if you will clothe him in sweet raiment again, so that he shall have some sense of respect for himself; if you will bring him into his right mind by sleep, and by food, and by patient waiting and rest, and then say to him the few things that you have to say, you will overwhelm him. He cannot resist your admonitions. And you reach the man’s conscience, his heart, and his understanding, by first looking after his physical necessities.

“Now, transfer your thought to the history of our Lord. How much of his ministry was teaching! But generally it was either preceded or immediately followed by an administration of physical mercy. According to the citations and summations given in the gospel, how many times did he spend, apparently, the whole of his visits in certain villages, in works of mercy—in healing the blind, the deaf, the lepers; in curing those who were afflicted by various disorders! How much of his time was spent in restoring household love, and bringing back peace, where they had flown away! One of the secrets of his great power among the people was that he drew them to him by deeds of mercy. He created in them a disposition to listen to him by the kindnesses which he did to them.

“I do not say this to make it appear that the first work in any community, when one attempts to regenerate the people, should be bread-giving, house-building, physical comfort-breeding; but I do say that there should be, in all classes of work, on the part of those who go out to labor for the salvation of men, a wise consideration of the condition of the people. While the spiritual enlightenment and culture of the soul is the superior part of the work, it oftentimes is the second step in it. We are to reach the highest steps in their development by going through the lower ones.

“There are different stages of the work, which should be a matter of study in every wise administration. Every wise pulpit, every wise church in a community, will look after the physical thrift, the outward condition, the industries, of the poor; will seek to improve the political economy in their midst, by the inauguration of better methods; will seek to prepare the way for that which is the best part of the gospel; will make men well off, and will give them good ground to stand on, in this world, in order that they may be blest, and have a spiritual foundation on which to rest, in the world to come. ‘These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.’

“Some go out and carry bread, and tea, and coffee, and good cheer, saying, ‘I like a gospel that takes care of the body;’ others go out and carry tracts, and Bibles, and prayers, saying, ‘I like a gospel that takes care of the soul;’ but I say that both of these are important parts of the true gospel. Which shall come first, you must determine wisely. Sometimes one, and sometimes the other, should have priority. If persons are in circumstances of comfort in life, but are without the sympathy of Christ, the first ministration should be that of personal sympathy and prayer; but if persons are degraded and thrown out of life, the first ministration should be that of outward mercy and succor; and afterward should come the ministration of religious truth in its various applications.

“I was very much struck with an old Englishman that I knew, who used to do a great deal of amateur preaching and amateur teaching, visiting jails and poor-houses, who said to me one day, ‘I make them understand, wherever I go, that I am never going to give them anything.’ I said to myself, ‘That being the general rule of your ministration, I would not give the turn of my hand for all the good that you will do.’ A man who determines that he will not succor men that are in physical distress, through all the range of his ministration, will not do any good. I did not then believe that he did any good; I do not believe it now; and since he is dead I do not think he believes it.’

“Neither the physical nor the spiritual element of the gospel can be dispensed with; but which shall come first, and which second, you cannot tell till the exigency arrives. You must bear in mind that preaching the gospel is sometimes to give the loaf and sometimes to give the word. If persons are in one condition, one administration precedes; and if they are in another condition, another precedes.”

D. M. CANRIGHT.