Untitled article by Mrs. S. M. I. Henry

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 35.

GO YE; PREACH. NO. 2.

By Mrs. S. M. I. Henry

TO PREACH, first of all get a hearing. It would be a farce to begin without an audience of at least one. To get this hearing, the first requisite is to arrest the attention by something exhibited in some way, which shall answer to the cry of human need. This involves a life, a testimony, an example, helpfulness of just the sort that is required to meet the need,—such helpfulness as shall compel confidence, where there is none, restore confidence which has been lost, and keep it when once found. This demands Christ in us, and Christ in us must have at least as good a chance as he did in himself, to express the life and truth.

It took Christ the largest part of his life to get ready to speak, and to find ears to hear. We are not quite sure that we know what he was doing all those years which are covered with silence, but we can at least believe that he was doing just what experience has made so clear that we must do, before we can follow him in practical work for the lost, that is, getting acquainted with the world, which he had come to save, the enemies he must meet, and the resources upon which he must depend. Our resources are those that he garnered for us during those days, and stored up in the Holy Spirit and the Word. The enemies which we must meet are the same that he overcame for us; the field is the same field of the world, with precisely the same needs; and we must take the Gospel to it, go into it, preach by life and love and self-sacrifice, as he did. We must live before we talk; he did. Any child must do that, and the words must be the expression of the life, or they will amount to nothing. Some preachers are all talk and no life; some are all life and no talk. The last are the first, but are not all that is required. The effective preacher both lives and talks. We must not ourselves choose our rostrum, forum, or sanctuary, and stand and ring, or sing, or call, to collect an audience; but the command is, “Go ye.” Perhaps, very probably, we must go first simply to observe and “take our bearings,” to walk quietly about into places of business, maybe into junk shops, saloons, disreputable haunts of all sorts; because they are part of the field.

If there are any clean, respectable places which have maintained such a character until we came and found them, they can get along without us better than we can without them. Any such will be invaluable as a base of some sort of supplies. Some preachers shrink from the very needy, the disreputable, the outcast; but no fields are so productive as these. It is still true that publicans and sinners press into the kingdom before the scribes and Pharisees. There are timid preachers who are afraid of losing reputation, of offending public sentiment, and violating good taste; but the man or woman who is really charged with a message from God does not need to stop to consider these things, but can well afford to go straight on, for these are among the things which, if “committed unto him,” he is perfectly able to take care of for us. 2 Tim. 1:12.

We can not go anywhere without leaving something which we may have valued, and which we must so absolutely trust some one to take care of for us, that it shall not be a burden to us as we remember it. It may be only a grave, but if we can not trust it to some caretaker, even if it be “only God,” and so really leave it, we can not go; or, if we must go, it will be with weakness and not strength. It is therefore necessary that we should know that God will take care of all things for us, before we go and preach to any one. Otherwise, we shall not be strong enough to stand, and to withstand the efforts which will be made to silence us, or drive us from the field.

We must also be able to trust God to overcome all opposition for us, or we shall faint away spiritually, and be a dead weight on the hands of any good work. But with faith in his keeping, we can go on regardless of opposition, until he shall be able to manifest himself through us in such a manner as to make even our enemies to be at peace with us; as they must be when they find out that they really need what we have.

The secret of a successful preacher, either by life or word, is to allow God to make him indispensable to those to whom he is sent. Men will not quarrel with, or bitterly oppose, anything which they recognize as necessary; and in so far as the needy world finds that we, as the servants of God, are truly ministers of those things which do relieve its sorrows, it will be kind to us, at least as long as it can use us.

There is much in human nature which rebels against being used; but, as dispensers of the Gospel, we must be glad of the opportunities which such a disposition of us will afford. In making a channel for water from a great reservoir to the homes of a city, much that would seem but superfluous conduit must be used to maintain the connection. The pipes must sometimes pass under very unclean places, and long distances without being broken in upon by a single tap, and must also often find them self-drawn upon for no good purpose. The precious tides with which they are filled may be left to run out into gutters, to make foulness all the more foul. They will be drawn upon by the mercenary, the ungrateful, the vicious; but for the sake of the homes that could not exist without the water which they carry, they must submit to all the waste and misuse. So we must be ready and glad to be used by man, as well as God, as conductors of truth and helpfulness.

Some are afraid that they will not be able to accomplish anything if they do go, and so hold back and remain shut in with themselves to perish spiritually. Such fearfulness is from unbelief, for when God has said, “Go ye,” to any servant of his, he has also said, that his Word shall not return unto him void, but shall accomplish that whereunto he has sent it. Isa. 55:11. Beside all these assurances of faith, we are taught that “our God shall fight for us,” so that we may be left at peace to go on.

I know of a W. C. T. U. woman who had a remarkable illustration in her own experience of all these principles to which I have called attention. The command, “Go ye,” had come to her, and she had gone, leaving much behind her for God to care for, while she found daily much more which would have taxed the “strong man, armed.” She was pursued by a vile and relentless enemy, so that even her life was in danger, altho she did not know it until months afterward; for she had learned to go on and ask no questions. Her home was moved at three different times to get her into a place of safety. For more than six months she had a self-constituted body-guard of men, who had been converted in her work. This patrol never lost sight of her while she was out on the street. They kept themselves at a respectful distance, but maintained a constant watch over the house where she lived. But at last God himself undertook for her, and worked out the problem of how to make a powerful and malignant enemy into a friend, and so render especial visible protection anywhere unnecessary. To accomplish this he simply led her out one morning, on a certain errand, so that she was on the scene of a terrible disaster, in which ten men lost their lives—eight at once, instantly, the other two being brought into the hotel, on the steps of which she was standing. One of the surgeons, in passing, recognized her, and she was called in, and accosted with:—

“I thought I could depend on you.”

“You can,” she replied, “for anything that I can do.”

“Then take that head, and find the face of it, if you can,” was the order.

She ripped the sleeve from the right arm back to the elbow, plunged her hand into a pail of hot water which had been brought, with cloths and sponges, and went to work on the unconscious form on the bed. The other man was groaning across the hall, and all night, until he died. She went between the two; then she devoted herself to the survivor for the next five days and nights.

This disaster had cast a shadow over the entire city, and thousands of both high and low, good and bad, waited with intense anxiety for the result of the efforts to save this tenth man; and, of course, the woman who had taken up the work, just as his own mother might have done, was in every thought.

A surgical operation was to be performed for him, whereat he laid his hand on her, and said:—

“Will you stay with me?”

“I will,” she said.

“All through?”

“I will, all through.”

“Honor bright?”

“Honor bright.”

So she stood at his bed-head, with her hand where he himself placed it, on his head. When he had gone into the ether sleep, the surgeon said to her:—

“Now you can be excused.”

“But I can not be excused,” she replied.

“But you ought to. You had better go.”

“Did you hear what he asked, and I promised?”

“Yes, but he will never know.”

“But I should; and I should expect to be forsaken in my extremity if I did not keep that promise. Do not notice me. If I faint, let me lie; but I shall not faint.”

She had only one thought, which was to honestly meet the need of that poor boy who had trusted her; but God made of it an engine for the slaughter of the hatred which had pursued her with such malignity, as well as of winning some of those hostile souls to the love of that Christ whom she had preached.

MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

Sanitarium, Battle Creek, Mich.