THE KING’S BUSINESS 1061 the snow lay five feet deep on a level on these hills, and drifts werd sometimes high as the houses. The houses are very much scattered, but the people are an intelligent and well educated class, largely of New England descent. There were perhaps fifty families that one might hope to reach by the meetings. Mr, Honeyman did not depend entirely upon the meetings in the schoolhouse for results. That was simply the center from which he worked. A thorough house-to-house canvass was made of the district before the meetings began. This canvass was conducted along very clearly defined and wise lines. Mr. Honeyman himself visited in every home, and dealt with individuals there. In many o f his visits he was accompanied by the Presbyterian pastor from the neighboring borough. The schoolhouse was packed with eager hearers. There were I think over forty definite decisions for Christ. These included a number of the leading men of the community. In fact pretty much the whole com munity was won for Christ. A Sunday school was organized, arrangements made for the Presbyterian minister from the borough to conduct a service every Sunday afternoon, and for the converts to join the various churches in the borough, according to their various denominational preferences. The meet ings lasted two weeks. The people gave a free-will offering (and it was really a free-will offering) to Mr. Honeyman of over $50. If this sort of work could be done generally throughout the rural communities of our country it would mean far more for the highest welfare of our land than all these conferences where men are meeting to theorize over the rural problem. Yes, and it would mean more for the cause of Christ than many of these highly-lauded great evangelistic campaigns. As we draw toward the close of 1916, every wise pas- Plans for the tor, and Sunday school superintendent and teacher, Next Year. and other Christian workers will begin to form plans for the coming year. We will learn wisdom from the mistakes and failures of the year that is closing, and plan thoughtfully and carefully not to repeat them during the year that is before us. Two things we must plan for, more and better Bible study, and more and more effective prayer. To these we ought to add, more personal work, and more effective personal work. We ought to plan for these, not only in our own lives, but in the church .as a whole. We should give much thought to organizing our churches for these three things. There is much resolving along these lines in these days, but we need more than mere resolutions—we need planning and organizing, to which we give our most careful and prayerful thought.
There was a day when many Christians were too much given to introspection and self-examination. But that day has passed. O f course one meets now and then some one who, because of ill health or some other
Where Have You Failed?
cause, is morbid; but this is decidedly exceptional. Most of us go hurrying on, never looking back to see and profit by the mistakes of the past. In fact a good many of us don’t think that we have made any mistakes, whatever we did was just the right thing to do. The fact that we did it, proves it. But every one of us has failed at some point during the past year. Let us look very care fully back and see where it was, in order that we may not fail at the same point again. What childish folly it is to go on year after year failing at the
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