“I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto Me” (John xii.
32).
A true and pure Christian life attracts the world. There are hundreds of
men and women who find no inducements whatever in the lives of ordinary
Christians to interest them in practical religion, but who are won at once
by a true and victorious example. We believe that more men of the world
step at a bound right into a life of entire consecration than into the
intermediate state which is usually presented to them at the first stage.
In an audience once there was a man who for half a century or more had
lived without Christ, and who was a very prominent citizen, a man in
public life, of irreproachable character, lofty intellect, and a most
winning spirit and manners, but utterly out of sympathy with the Christian
life.
At the close of a service for the promotion of deeper spiritual life he
rose to ask the prayers of the congregation, and before the end of the
week he was himself a true and acknowledged follower of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said, as he went home that night, “If that is the religion of
Jesus Christ, I want it.”