1 R. A. Torrey, » Hid.
272 THE WINNING OF SOULS
II.
The Way to Win Souls.
1. What is meant by winning souls ? To the writer of the text, we may be quite sure, the soul meant nothing less than the entire individuality, with all its faculties, and whoever would win souls, as he understood the term, would have to address himself to the whole man or woman, not to some rarefied, ethereal, intangible part of their being. To win a human being is, we may take it, tantamount to winning him over to some point of view, to a certain resolution, to make him take his stand on a certain side. Now, we all know what is meant by a winning manner — how often we have envied the fortunate individuals who seemed naturally endowed with that gift, who could state their case and advance their claims in a way it was difficult to resist, who could make you do things without hurting your feelings, convincing you somehow that those were the right things to do, though you had not thought so previously ! Some one else may urge just the same course of action on you, but his manner, his very tone, has an aggressive quality which rasps you, ruffles you, rouses your opposition, and he fails to carry you with him, however cogent his arguments may be. Now souls — men and women — have to be won, not hustled, not coerced, not threatened. The appeal even of religion, however majestic, must respect man's reason, and not seek to carry the inviolable sanctuary of the soul by force ; no one has ever yet been driven into heaven as into a sort of concentration camp, at the point of the bayonet or the crack of the whip, and He who understood the human soul els no one else has ever done used the note of appeal rather than of command or menace. Soul-winning — the influencing of men and women for the better — which is not first and last persuasive is a contradiction in terms.
(1) The word " win " is used in warfare. Warriors win cities and provinces. Now, to win a soul is a much more difficult thing than to win a city. Observe the earnest soul- winner at his work ; how cautiously he seeks his great Captain's directions to know when to hang out the white flag to invite the heart to surrender to the sweet love of a dying Saviour ; when, at the proper time,
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to hang out the black flag of threatening, showing that, if grace be not received, judgment will surely follow ; and when to unfurl, with dread reluctance, the red flag of the terrors of God against stubborn, impenitent souls. The soul- winner has to sit down before a soul as a great captain before a walled town ; to draw his lines of circumvallation, to cast up his entrenchments, and to fix his batteries. He must not advance too fast, or he may overdo the fighting ; he must not move too slowly, or he may not seem to be in earnest, and may thus do mischief. Then he must know which gate to attack, how to plant his guns at Ear-gate, and how to discharge them ; how, sometimes, to keep the batteries going, day and night, with red-hot shot, if perhaps he may make a breach in the walls ; at other times, to lie by and cease firing, and then, on a sudden, to open all the batteries with terrific violence, if per- adventure he may take the soul by surprise, or cast in a truth when it was not expected, to burst like a shell in the soul, and do damage to the dominions of sin.
^ The Christian soldier must know how to advance by little and little — to sap that prejudice, to undermine that old enmity, to blow into the air that lust, and at the last, to storm the citadel. It is his to throw the scaling ladder up, and to have his ears gladdened as he hears a clicking on the wall of the heart, telling that the scaling ladder has grasped and has gained firm hold ; and then, with his sabre between his teeth, to climb up, spring on the man, slay his unbelief in the name of God, capture the city, run up the blood-red flag of the cross of Christ, and say, " The heart is won, won for Christ at last." This needs a warrior well- trained, a master in his art. After many days' attack, many weeks of waiting, many an hour of storming by prayer and batter- ing by entreaty, to carry the Malakoff of depravity, — this is the work, this is the difficulty. It takes no fool to do this. God's grace must make a man wise thus to capture Mansoul, to lead its captivity captive, and open wide the heart's gates that the Prince Immanuel may come in. This is winning a soul.^
(2) We use the word in love-making. We speak of the bride- groom who wins his bride. There are secret and mysterious ways by which those who love win the object of their affection, which are wise in their fitness to the purpose. The weapon of this warfare is not always the same, yet where that victory is won the