Personal Influence Pervading the World—[See Faith, A Child’s].
PERSONAL PREACHING
Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer, of Arabia, says that forty years ago Dr. Talbot Chambers preached a missionary sermon in one of the New York churches, on a rainy Sabbath, when there was only one man in the audience. He made an appeal for the payment of the deficit of the Dutch Reformed Board. That deficit amounted to $55,000, and $11,000 were needed immediately to meet the crisis. Before Dr. Chambers went to bed that night there was a ring at the door, and Mr. Warren Ackerman announced himself as the man who had heard the sermon that morning. He drew out his check-book and wrote his check for $11,000. Early in the morning there was a ring at the door, and there stood Mr. Ackerman asking for a return of the check which he had given the previous night. “Now,” Dr. Chambers thought, “he is coming back because he feels he has given too much, and is giving one-half of the total amount needed.” But when the check was filled in the amount was $55,000, the largest single gift ever received by the Reformed Board. In such fashion does a sense of personal responsibility enable men to do exceeding abundantly above all that they are able to ask or think for the kingdom of God.
(2355)
Personal Touch in Music—See [Music of Despair and of Hope].
PERSONAL WORK
Our Roman Catholic brethren have a strong hold upon the cities—and why? Instead of putting a single priest in a great parish, as we put a single minister, they put a whole corps of clergy and a company of sisters to come into personal vital touch with the people, and especially with the sick and the poor.
Campbell Morgan became pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in London with a beggarly attendance at the services. Soon the building was crowded to the doors. He said: “Do not give me credit for this great work. Give it to the twenty deaconesses who have gone from house to house, heart to heart, pleading the cause of Christ.”
A priest of the Church of Rome says: “We have had very little anxiety in competition with Protestant church in our great cities, so long as a single man was both preacher and pastor in a great parish. But the deaconesses with black bonnets and white ties, who find their way to the hearthstones of the people, will win.”—J. P. Brushingham, Pittsburgh Christian Advocate.
(2356)