An Irish woman in a village was told about a strange man calling about her place, and affirmed he would not be kindly treated if he knocked at her door.  Mr. Vassar, not knowing her feelings, came there in his visits, but the moment she saw he was the man—­according to the description of him—­she slammed the door in his face.  He sat at once upon her doorstep and began to sing: 

    “But drops of grief can ne’er repay
     The debt of love I owe.”

In a few weeks she wanted admission into the Protestant Church, and all her experience was, “Those drops of grief, those drops of grief; I could not get over them.”

See how men persevere to get rich or to gain political prestige!  See how insurance agents, and book agents, and traveling men persevere in their efforts to convince men!  They seek most favorable times, and then often go again and again.  And shall we who win immortal souls be any less diligent?

STUDY XIX.

TENDERNESS.

Memory Verse:  “I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life
    for the sheep.”—­(John x, 12.)

Scripture for Meditation:  Luke xv, 3-7; John x, 1-18.

What infinite depths of tenderness are revealed in these sweet parables of the Lost Sheep and the Good Shepherd!  The tender, loving heart of the Savior goes out in eager compassion and pity for the straying.  What boundless sympathy is revealed in the words, “He calleth his own sheep by name;” “He goeth after that which is lost;” “When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing!” The seeker after souls must be like his Master.  A heart ready to melt at the sight of human suffering and human need is necessary to successful soul-winning.  There are many whose hearts are hardened by long years of rebellion against God; whose power of will is emasculated by long years of neglect; and they will never be saved until some earnest Christian worker shall find them, whose heart has been touched with the same sorrow that Jesus felt when he stood on the Mount of Olives weeping over Jerusalem.

J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, tells that when he was a college student he had charge of a man with a gangrenous foot.  It was his duty to dress the man’s foot every day.  He soon learned that his patient was not a Christian, and had not been in a church for forty years.  Such was his hatred of religion that he refused to go inside the church at his wife’s funeral.  Young Taylor made up his mind to speak to this man about his soul every time he visited him.  The man cursed him, and refused to allow him to pray.  The student persisted in presenting Christ until one day he said to himself, “It’s no use,” and was leaving the room.  When he reached the door, he turned around and saw the man looking after him as if saying, “Why, you are going away to-day without speaking to me about Christ!” Then the young man burst into tears, and returning to the bedside, said:  “Whether you wish me to or not, I must deliver my soul.  Will you let me pray with you?” The man assented, began to weep, was converted.  Mr. Taylor says, “God broke my heart, that through me he might break this wicked man’s heart.”