I want to tell you if you want to solve the problem for the future get hold of the young men now. Get them for God now. Save your boys and girls. Save the young man and woman and you launch a life-boat.
At the Iroquois fire in Chicago six hundred people were burned to death. One young woman about seventeen years of age fought through the crowd, but her hair was singed from her head, her clothes were burned, her face blistered. She got on a street car to go to her home in Oak Park. She was wringing her hands and crying hysterically, and a woman said to her: "Why, you ought to be thankful you escaped with your life."
"I escaped—but I didn't save anybody; there are hundreds that died. To think that I escaped and didn't save anybody."
In Pennsylvania there was once a mine explosion, and the people were rushing there to help. Up came an old miner seventy or eighty years of age, tired, tottering and exhausted. He threw off his vest, his coat and hat and picked up a pick and shovel. Some of them stopped him and said: "What is the matter? You are too old; let some of the younger ones do that. Stand back."
The old fellow said: "My God, I've got two boys down there!"
So you see it seems to make all the difference when you've got some boy down there.
Who is wise? You say Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire, is wise, the mayor, the judge, the governor, the educator, the superintendent of schools, the principal of the high school, the people who don't worry or don't live for pleasure, the inventor. But what does the Lord say? The Lord says, "He who winneth souls is wise."
[CHAPTER XXVI]
"A Good Soldier of Jesus Christ"
I'd rather undertake to save ten drunkards than one old financial Shylock—it would be easier.—Billy Sunday.