February 1927
T h F.
K i n g ’ s
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Begin With the Children D R. DUFF, the missionary to India, began his work there on a principle altogether new in missionary enterprise. He began with the children. With the eye and heart of a philosopher, as he was —a Christian’ philosopher—he saw that, if he could gain the children, the coming generation would be gained. In the words of Sir Charles Trevelyan: ‘‘Up to that time preaching had been considered the regular mode of missionary activity; but Dr. Duff held that the receptive, plastic minds of children might be moulded from the first, according to the Christian sys tem, to the exclusion of all heathen teach ing, and that the best preaching to the rising generation which soon becomes the entire people, is the ‘line upon line pre cept’ of the schoolroom.” This incident of Dr. Duff’s recalls the action of the Spartans, who, when Anti pater demanded fifty children as hostages, offered him in their stead a hundred men of distinction. One would have thought this by far the noblest offer, but there was a far-seeing wisdom in it. In the children there was hope of retrieving their loss, and wiping out their dishonor.
Their fathers had lost the day; the chil dren might regain it. The great majority of those who are saved are saved in youth-- many of them indeed in early childhood. Dr. Spencer once examined a thousand persons who were professed Christians, united to var ious churches in the United States, with the following results: Of the thousand persons -conversed with he found that the number converted un der 20 years of age was 548. The number converted between 20 and 30 was 337; 30 and 40, 86 ; 40 and 50, 15; 50 and 60, 3; 60 and 70, 1; over 70, NOT ONE. Rev. H. Bonar had a similar experience as have many others. Let us awake to the absolute necessity of winning our boys and girls for Christ. - -o— . Are You a Drag on Evil? The late Rev. W,,H. Krause, M. A., of Dublin, said: “Every goad;, man is a hin drance to evil in the world; he hangs as a drag upon its wheels; even his appear ance throws a damp upon worldly people. Though he may be a timid man, and not speak-gor a prudent man, and think it not time to speak—whatever ,may withhold him from speaking, yet he is a restraint; his very appearance is a rebuke.”' ’■
Testing and Temptation O MIT prayer, and you fall out of God’s testing into the devil’s temp tation ; you get angry, hard of heart, reckless. But meet the trial with prayer, cast your care on God, and the paralyzing embittering effects of pain and sorrow pass away, a, stream of sanctifying and softening thought pours into the soul, and that which might have wrought your fall works in you the peaceable fruit of right eousness. You pass from bitterness into endurance, from endurance into battle, and from battle to victory, till at last the trial dignifies and blesses your life. - —o— Lord’s Prayer for Agnostics Thirty years ago Dr. Lyman Abbott re vised the -Lord’s Prayer for the use of agnostics. This revision is as follows: "Our brethren which are on earth, hal lowed be our name; our kingdom come, our will be done on earth, as there is no heaven. We will get. us, this day bur daily bread. We will forgive no trespasses, for there is no forgiveness. We will fear no temptation, for we can deliver ourselves from evil. And ours is the kingdom, and ours is the power, and there is no glory and no forever. Amen.”
Mrs. Torrey and Mother Ruth
Mrs. R. A. Torrey, wife of the great evan gelist and Bible teacher, writes: Dear ‘ Mother Ruth:” I am a girl ( ? ) of sixty- seven! and I am not writing for advice but to tell you that I think you are a wonderful woman. Your splendid, motherly advice to these girl inquirers is surely inspired by the Holy Spirit. I have just been reading your advice to the sad young woman who lost her beloved mother,
and who had contemplated suicide, to me a wonderful reply.
It seemed
Mother R u th ’s column deals with “Girls’ Problems of Today,” bu t she receives let ters from women, laymen and ministers and missionaries, business men, college folks— there seem to be no limits to her practical, lifting touch in almost every issue of
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