“The love of Christ doth me constrain
     To seek the wandering souls of men.”

Love never faileth.  Love knows no impossibility.  He who works for wages and he who works for love live in two different realms.  A lot of men were entombed in a coal-mine, and great crowds gathered to help clear away the earth and rescue the miners.  An old, gray-headed man came running up, and, seizing a shovel, began working with the strength of ten men.  Some one asked to relieve the old man.  “Get out of the way,” he cried; “I have two boys down there.”

Love will triumph; and he whose heart throbs with love to Christ will find real joy in rescuing from sin those who are the purchase of his blood, that his name may be glorified.

Study his life of self-sacrifice.  See again his suffering for sinful men.  Linger in Gethsemane, and behold the agony of Calvary.  Then your heart will begin to throb with love to him “who first loved us.”

Get a new vision of your crucified, but now risen, Savior, until the beauty of his matchless life charms your heart and you are ready to say: 

    “Come, and possess me whole,
       Nor hence again remove;
     But sup with me, and let the feast
       Be everlasting love.”

Then you will possess the highest motive that moves human hearts, and personal work in soul-winning will become a real delight.

THE SOUL-WINNER’S LIFE.

“Yield yourselves unto god.”

STUDY VIII.

A definite experience.

Memory Verse:  “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born
    again, he can not see the kingdom of God.”—­(John iii, 3.)

Scripture for Meditation:  John iii, 1-15.

In a prayer-meeting a young lady was asked, “What is the first thing we must do if we would win others to Christ?” She replied, “We must live holy ourselves.” She was right.  Just as the telegraph wire must be insulated, so must the life of him who expects to be the messenger of God be insulated from the old life of sin before he can hope to carry the loving messages of the gospel to other souls.

This implies a definite experience of conversion.  He who would engage in this most fascinating of all work must have nothing short of an inner consciousness of sins forgiven and of the presence of Christ in his life.  He must be able to say, like Andrew and like Philip of old, “I have found him.”  He must know what it is to have “a new heart” and to have peace with God.

William Butler, the veteran missionary and soul-winner, now translated, wrote the author of these studies a letter, in which he said: