THE GOSPEL NOT ATTRACTIVE.
By L. C. Hall
WE have another commonplace on our list that does service even in high quarters for a moment's thought. People say with the utmost confidence, "The simple preaching of the gospel will always attract people." This is not true. It will not always attract people, or ever attract some people. As some men preach the simple gospel, it will attract and captivate; and as some men preach heresy and error, these will attract and captivate. Spurgeon keeps his tabernacle overflowing, but so would certain well-known preachers whose several churches have repudiated their teachings, as most of the readers of this think, rightly repudiated them. Christ preached the simplest, sweetest gospel, and men crucified him. Three years' hard work left our Saviour only a few hundred souls to testify to the attractiveness of his gospel when lived out. But men are not attracted by the gospel. The wise of Christ's time said, "Do a miracle and we will believe!" The wise of our time say, "We might believe Christ if he had done no miracle!" To the Jews he is a stumbling block, to the Greeks he is still foolishness. Who has not heard the simple gospel story preached, yes, and with earnestness, to a handful of people on a fine, clear Sabbath night, with hundreds living about? But the gospel was stupidly read, or the manner was dull, or the131English an offense, or the preacher's knowledge of men defective, his imagination not fired or absolutely lacking, and the old, old story, even in its simplicity, was marred by the preacher's lack of brains. A gathered crowd does not testify to truth. A pleased crowd seldom testifies to truth. When men are always pleased with the gospel, it often only shows that no one has as yet brought it to bear on the hardened conscience, so that the ointment smarted before it healed. Many of us are pleased with Christ's teachings as we understand them, when if we were only less blind and self-righteous, we too would go away sorrowful, because we had found out at last that Christ has been saying to us all these years, "One thing thou lackest!"—L. C. Hall, in N. Y. Observer.