THE SECRET OF SUCCESS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1879

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS.

The success we here speak of is success in reaching the hearts of those to whom we would be good, and winning men to Christ. One of the great secrets of success in this work is to come near to your hearers, put yourself in sympathy with them, make them feel that you have interests in common with them, and that you are laboring unselfishly for their good. Our readers will thank us for giving them the following profoundly impressive article on this point. It is an extract from Bishop Simpson’s “Yale Lectures on Preaching,” published in the N. Y. Independent of Jan. 9, 1879:—

“For some cause, literary men do not always draw the masses. Their language is too learned, or their sympathy is not apparent. It not unfrequently happens that some man of the common people, some day-laborer, perhaps, will gather around him an audience of attentive listeners where a scholarly orator will utterly fail. The reason is that his audience understand him. His language is the language of their lives; he knows their habits of thought; he seems to sympathize with them, and draw their souls to him.

“I call your attention to this, though I may have occasion to refer to it again, because the times require that true ministers should not only be in sympathy with the masses, but that the masses should feel that sympathy. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the wall of partition is rising higher and higher between the educated and the uneducated, between the capitalist and the laborer; and there are no men who can stand in the breach, none who can serve as agents of union, but the ministers of the gospel, and on them in this country, now and for years to come, rests and will rest a fearful responsibility. No other class, I repeat, can stand between the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious. They must follow the example of the Lord Jesus and stoop to the lowest depths of degradation, and yet keep themselves unspotted from the world. The minister must ever give a helping hand to his brothers, and, while he looks with affection upon the wretched outcast, he also looks heavenward, whither he draws his erring brother; and while he struggles to save him from destruction, the Saviour’s hand holds him and draws him nearer to himself. It is safe to reach with one hand to rescue the fallen sinner from the verge of hell if with the other he can grasp the hand of omnipotent and boundless love. The office of the true minister is to stand between God and sinful man; to listen to the whispers of divine love and repeat them in the ears of the erring, holding the cords of love and letting them fall deeper and deeper and deeper, to reach the vilest outcast of earth, while he himself is bound by the cords of adoption to the Father’s throne. How deep he may go, who can tell? He may go so low that the astonished angels shall exclaim: ‘Oh! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!’

“I shall never forget a certain exhibition I once attended. Shortly after schools for the imbecile were commenced in Europe, a young man, moved with benevolence, crossed the ocean to examine their mode of operation and success. Assured of their utility, he returned to this country and commenced a similar institution. He advertised for the most idiotic and helpless children that could be found. Among those brought him was a little boy five years of age, who had never made an intentional act, had never spoken a word, and had never given any look of recognition to a friend. He lay on the floor, a mass of flesh, without even ability to turn himself over. Such was the student brought to this school. The teacher made effort after effort to get the slightest recognition from his eye or to produce the slightest voluntary movement; but in vain. Unwilling, however, to yield, he had the boy brought to his room, and he lay down beside him every day for half an hour, hoping that some favorable indication might occur. To improve the time, he read aloud from some author. One day, at the end of six months of unavailing effort, he was unusually weary and did not read. He soon discovered that the child was uneasy and was trying to move itself a little. The thought flashed across his mind: ‘It misses the sound of my voice.’ He brought his mouth near the child’s hands, and, after repeated efforts, the little one succeeded in placing his fingers on the teacher’s lips, as if to say: ‘Make that sound again.’ The teacher felt that from that moment his success was assured, and, by careful manipulation of his muscles, he soon taught the child to walk; and when I saw him, at the end of five years, he stood on the platform, recited the names of the presidents of the United States, and answered a number of questions correctly. I looked on with astonishment, and said to myself: ‘Was there ever such patience and such devotion? How strong should be the love of that little boy for his teacher! Was there ever an instance of one stooping so low and waiting so long?’ Then I said: ‘Yes; there was one instance. The Son of God came down from

Heaven; laid himself down beside me, his great heart by my heart; watched me with perpetual care; infused into me his own life; and waited for nearly twenty years before I reached my finger to his lips and said: “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.”’ What condescension! What love to fallen man! Christ stooping so low authorizes us to stoop and wait on and wait ever. Some of these wretched ones around us have been suffering for more than eight and thirty years; have been lying at the edge of the pool, waiting for us to come and help them into the troubled waters.”