How to Induce Our People to Win Souls
Charles Spurgeon · The Soul-Winner; or, How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour
SOULS
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE
TO WIN SOULS.
I have spoken to you at different times, brethren,
about the great work of our hves, which is that
of winning souls. I have tried to show you various
ways in which we win souls, the qualifications both
towards God and towards man of those who are likely
to be used in winning souls, the kind of sermons that
are most likely to win souls, and also the obstacles in
the way of soul-winners. Now I should like, this after-
noon, to talk to you upon another part of the subject;
that is, —
HOW CAN WE INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO BECOME
SOUL-WINNERS?
You are aspiring, each of you, in due time, to be-
come pastors of churches, unless the Lord should call
you to be evangelists, or missionaries to the heathen.
Well, you commence at first as single sowers of the
good seed of the kingdom, and you go forth scattering
from your own basket your own handfuls. You desire,
however, to become spiritual farmers, and to have a
certain acreage which you will not sow entirely your-
self, but you will have servants who will aid you in the
work. Then, to one you will say, "Go," and he will
\^
120 THE SOUL-WINNEH.
go forthwilli; or, "Come," and he will come at once;
and you will seek to lead them into the art and mystery
of seed-sowing, so that, after a while, you may have
large numbers of persons round about you doing this
good work, and thus a far greater acreage may be
brought into cultivation for the great Husbandman.
There are some of us who have, by God's grace, been
so richly blessed that we have all around us a large
number of persons w4io have been spiritually quick-
ened through our instrumentality, people who have
been aroused under our ministry, who have been in-
structed and strengthened by us, and who are all doing
good service for God.
Let me warn you not to look for all this at the first,
for // is the work of time. Do not expect to get, in
the first year of your pastorate, that result which is
the reward of twenty years' continuous toil in one place.
Young men sometimes make a very great mistake in
the way they talk to those who never saw them until
about six weeks ago. They cannot speak w^th the
authority of one who has been as a father among his
people, having been with them for twenty or thirty
years; or if they do, it becomes a sort of foolish affecta-
tion on their part, and it is equally foolish to expect
the people to be all at once the same as they might
be after they have been trained by a godly minister
for a quarter of a century. It is true that you may go
to a church where somebody else has faithfully laboured
for many years, and long sown the good seed, and you
may find your sphere of labour in a most blessed and
prosperous state, and happy will you be if you can
thus jump into a good man's shoes, and follow the
path he has been treading. It is always a good sign
when the horses do not know that they have a new
driver; and you, my brother, inexperienced as you
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN yoULo. 121
are, will be a very happy man if that should be your
lot; but the probability is that you will go to a place
that has been allowed to run almost to ruin, possibly
to one that has been altogether neglected.
Perhaps you will try to get the principal deacon to
imitate your earnestness; you are at a white heat, and
when you find him as cold as steel, yoiv will be like a
piece of hot iron dipped into a pail of water. He may
tell you that he recollects others who were at first
just as hot as you are, but they soon cooled down,
and he will not be surprised if you do the same. He
is a very good man, but then he is old, and you are
young, and we cannot put young heads on old shoul-
ders even if we were to attempt to do it. Perhaps next
you will resolve to try some of the young people ; pos-
sibly you can get on better with them; but they do
not understand you, they are backward and retiring,
and they soon fiy off at a tangent. You must not be
surprised if this is your experience. Very likely you
will have almost everything to do in connection with
the work; at all events, expect that it may be so, and
then you will not be disappointed if it so turns out.
It may be otherwise; but you will be wise if you go
into the ministry expecting not to find any very great
assistance from the people in the work of soul-win-
ning. Anticipate that you will have to do it yourself,
and to do it alone; and begin doing it alone, sow the
seed, tramp up and down the field, always looking
to the Lord of the harvest to bless your labour, and
also looking forward to the time when through your
efforts, under the divine blessing, instead of a plot of
land that is apparently covered with nettles, or full of
stones, or weeds, or thorns, or partly trodden down,
you shall have a well-tilled farm in which you may sow
the seed to the best advantage, and on which you shall
122 THE SOUL-WINNER.
have a little army of fellow-labourers to aid you in the
service. Yet all that is the work of time.
I should certainly say to you, do not expect all
this at least for some months after you settle down to
work. Revivals, if they are genuine, do not always
come the moment we whistle for them. Try and whistle
for the wind, and see if it will come. The great rain
was given in answer to Elijah's prayers; but not even
then the first time he prayed, and we must pray again,
and again, and again, and at last the cloud will appear,
and the showers out of the cloud. Wait a while, work
on, plod on, plead on, and in due time the blessing
will be given, and you shall find that you have the
church after your own ideal, but it will not come to
you all at once. I do not think Mr. John Angell James,
of Birmingham, saw much fruit to his ministry for
many years. As far as I remember, Carr's Lane Chapel
was not the place of any great notoriety before he
preached there; but he kept on steadily preaching the
gospel, and at last he drew around him a company of
godly people who helped to make him the greatest
power for good that Birmingham had at that time. Try
to do just the same, and do not expect to see all at
once what he and other faithful ministers have only
been able to accomplish in many years.
In order to secure this end of gathering around you
a band of Christians who will themselves be soul-win-
ners, I should recommend you not to go to work
according to atiy set rule, for what would be right at
one time might not be wise at another, and that which
would be best for one place would not be so good
elsewhere. Sometimes, the very best plan would be
to call all the members of the church together, tell
them what you would like to see, and plead earnestly
with them that each one should become for God a
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 123
soul-winner. Say to them, "I do not want to be your
pastor simply that I may preach to you; but I long
to see souls saved, and to see those who are saved
seeking to win others for the Lord Jesus Christ. You
know how the Pentecostal blessing was given ; when
the whole church met, with one accord in one place,
and continued in prayer and supplication, the Holy
Spirit was poured out, and thousands were converted.
Cannot we get together in like manner, and all of us
cry mightily to God for a blessing?" That might suc-
ceed in arousing them. Calling them together, and
earnestly pleading with them about the matter, point-
ing out what you wish them specially to do, and to
ask of God, may be like setting a light to dry fuel;
but, on the other hand, nothing may come of it because
of their lack of sympathy in the work of soul-saving.
They may say, "It is a very nice meeting, and our
pastor expects a good deal of us, and we all wish he
may get it," and there it will end so far as they are
concerned.
Then, if that should not succeed, God may lead you
to begin with one or two. There is usually some
"choice young man" in each congregation; and as
you notice deeper spirituality in him than in the rest
of the members, you might say to him, "Will you come
down to my house on such-and-such an evening that
we may have a little prayer together?" You can grad-
ually increase the number to two or three, godly young
men if possible, or you may begin with some gracious
matron, who perhaps lives nearer to God than any
of the men, and whose prayers would help you more
than theirs. Having secured their sympathy, you
might say to them, "Now we will try if we cannot influ-
ence the whole church ; we will begin with our fellow-
members before we go to the outsiders. Let us try
124 THE SOUL-WINNER.
and be ourselves always at the prayer-meetings, to set
an example to the rest, and let us also arrange to have
gatherings for prayer in our own houses, and seek to
get our brethren and sisters to them. You, good sis-
ter, can get half-a-dozen sisters together into your
house for a little meeting; and you, brother, can say
to a few friends, 'Could we not meet together to pray
for our pastor?'" Sometimes, the most effectual way
to burn a house is to do it by pouring petroleum down
the middle of it, and setting fire to it, as the ladies and
gentlemen ( !) did in Paris in the days of the Commune ;
and, sometimes, the shortest method is to light it at
the four corners. I have never tried either plan; but
that is what I think. I like to burn churches rather
than houses, because they do not burn down, they
burn up, and keep on burning when the fire is of the
right sort. When a bush is nothing but a bush, it is
soon consumed when it is set on fire; but when it is
a bush that burns on and is not consumed, w^e may
know that God is there. So is it with a church that
is flaming with holy zeal. Your work, brethren, is to
set your church on fire somehow. You may do it by
speaking to the whole of the members, or you may
do it by speaking to the few choice spirits, but you
must do it somehow. Have a secret society for this
sacred purpose, turn yourselves into a band of celestial
Fenians whose aim it is to set the whole church on
fire. If you do so, the devil will not like it, and you
will cause him such disquiet that he will seek the utter
break up of the union, and that is just what we want;
w^e do not desire anything but war to the knife betw^een
the church and the v^orld and all its habits and cus-
toms. But again I say, all this will take time. I have
seen some fellows run so fast at first that they have
soon become like broken-winded horses, and truly
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 125
that is a pitiable sight; so take time, brethren, and do
not look for everything you desire to be secured all
at once.
I suppose that, in most places, there is a prayer-
meeting on Monday night. If you want your people \
as well as yourself to be soul-winners, try_ and keep up \J
the prayer-ntcctings all you can. Do not be like cer-
tain ministers in the suburbs of London, who say that
they cannot get the people out to a prayer-meeting
and a lecture, too, so they have one week-night meet-
ing for prayer, at which they give a short address.
One lazy man said, the other day, that the week-night
address was almost as bad as delivering a sermon, so
he has a prayer-meeting and a lecture combined in one,
and it is neither a prayer-meeting nor a lecture, it is
neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring; and
soon he will give it up because he says it is no good,
and I am sure the people think so, too. And after
that, why should he not give up one of the Sunday
services? The same reasoning might apply to that
as to the week-night meeting. I saw, in an American
paper to-day, the following paragraph: — "The well-
known fact is again going the rounds that, in Mr.
Spurgeon's church in London, the regular hearers
absent themselves one Sunday evening every three
months, and the house is given up to strangers. Eng-
lish 'boasting is excluded' in this matter. Our Amer-
ican Christianity is of so noble a type that hosts of our
people give up their pews to strangers every Sunday
night in the year." I hope it will not be so with your
people, brethren, either with respect to the Sabbath
services or the prayer-meetings.
If I were you, I would make that prayer-meeting a
special feature of my ministry; let it be such a prayer-
meeting that there is not the like of it within seven
126 THE SOUL-WINNER.
thousand miles. Do not go walking into the prayer-
meeting, as so many do, to say anything or nothing
that may occur to you at the moment; but do your
best to make the meeting interesting to all who are
there; and do not hesitate to tell good Mr. Snooks
that, God helping you, he shall not pray for five-and-
twenty minutes. Earnestly entreat him to cut it short,
and if he does not, then stop him. If a man came
into my house intending to cut my wife's throat, I
would reason with him as to the wrong of it, and then
I would ef¥ectually prevent him from doing her any
harm ; and I love the church almost as much as I love
my dear wife. So, if a nian will pray long, he may
pray long somewhere else, but not at the meeting
over which* I am presiding. Tell him to finish it up
at home if he cannot pray in public for a reasonable
length of time. If the people seem dull and heavy,
get them to sing Moody and Sankey hymns; and then,
when they can sing them all by heart, do not have
any more "Moody and Sankey" for a time, but go back
to your own hymn book.
Keep up the prayer meeting, whatever else flags;
it is the great business evening of the week, the best
service between Sabbaths; be you sure to make it
so. If you find that your people cannot come in the
evening, try and have a prayer meeting when they
can come. You might get a good meeting in the
country at half-past four in the morning. Why not?
You would get more people at five o'clock in the morn-
ing than you would at five o'clock at the other end
of the day. I believe that a prayer-meeting at six
o'clock in the morning among agricultural people
would attract many; they would drop in, and just have
a few words of prayer, and be glad of the opportunity.
Or you might have it at twelve o'clock at night; you
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 127
would find some people out then whom you could
not get at any other time. Try one o'clock, or two
o'clock, or three o'clock, or any hour of the day or
night, so as somehow or other to get the people out
to pray ; and if they cannot be induced to come to the
meetings, go to their house, and say, "I am going to
have a prayer meeting in your parlour." *'Oh, dear!
my wife will be in a state." "Oh, no! tell her not to
trouble, for we can go into the coach-house, or garden,
or anywhere, but we must have a prayer meeting here."
If they will not come to the prayer meeting, we must
go to them; suppose that fifty of us go trudging down
the street, and hold a meeting in the open air; well,
there might be many worse things than that. Remem-
ber how the women fought the liquor sellers in Amer-
ica when they prayed them out of the traffic. If we
cannot stir the people without doing extraordinary
things, in the name of all that is good and great let us
do extraordinary things, but somehow we must keep
up the prayer meetings, for they are at the very secret
source of power with God and with men.
We must al7i'a};j set an ear7iest example ourselves\ \
A slow-coach minister will not have a lively, zealous \j
church, I am sure. A man who is indifferent, or who
does his work as if he took it as easily as he could
ought not to expect to have a people around him who
are in earnest about the salvation of souls. I know
that you, brethren, desire to have about you a band
of Christians who long for the salvation of their friends
and neighbours, a set of people who will be always
expecting that God will bless the preaching of your
sermons, who will watch the countenances of your
hearers to see if they are getting impressed, and who
will be sorely distressed if there are no conversions,
and greatly troubled if souls are not saved. Perhaps
128 THE SOUL-WINNER.
they would not complain to you if that were the case,
but they would cry to God on your behalf. Possibly,
they would also speak to you about the matter. 1
remember one of my deacons saying to me, as we were
going down to the communion, one Sabbath evening,
when we had only fourteen to receive into the church,
''Governor, this won't pay." We had been accustomed
to have forty or fifty every month, and the good man
was not satisfied with a smaller number. I agreed
with him that we must have more than that in the
future if it was possible. I suppose some brethren would
have felt annoyed to have had anything like that re-
mark made to them; but I was delighted with what
mv good deacon said; for it was just what I mvself
felt.
Then, next, 7i'e waiii around us Christians who ar^ j
willing to do all they can to help in the work of win\l
ning souls. There are numbers of people who can-
not be reached by the pastor. You must tr}' to get
some Christian workers who will "buttton-hole" peo-
ple, you know what I mean. It is pretty close work
when you hold a friend by a lock of his hair, or by his
coat-button. Absalom did not find it easy to get away
when he was caught in the oak by the hair of his
head. So, try to get at close quarters with sinners;
talk gently to them till you have whispered them into
the kingdom of heaven, till you have told into their
ears the blessed story that will bring peace and joy
to their heart. We want in the Church of Christ a
band of well-trained sharpshooters, who will pick the
people out individually, and be always on the watch
for all who come into the place, not annoying them,
but making sure that they do not go away without
having had a personal warning, a personal invitation,
and a personal exhortation to come to Christ. We
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOUI^S. 120
want to train all our people for this service, so as to
make Salvation Armies out of them. Every man,
woman or child who is in our churches should be set
to work for tlie Lord. Then they will not relish the
fine sermons that the Americans seem to delight in
so much; but they will say, "Pooh! Flummery! We
don't want that kind of thing." What do people who
are at work in the harvest field want with thunder and
lightning? They want just to rest a while under a tree,
to wipe the sweat from their foreheads, to refresh them-
selves after their toil, and then to get to work again.
Our preaching ought to be like the address of a com-
mander-in-chief to his army, "There are the enemy;
do not let me know where they are to-morrow." Some-
thing short, something sweet, something that stirs and
impresses them, is what our people need.
We are sure to get the blessing we are seeking when \
the whole afmosphere in which we are living is favour-
able to soul-winning, I remember one of our friends
saying to me one evening, "There will be sure to be
a blessing to-night, there is such a lot of dew about.''
May you often know what it is to preach where there
is plenty of dew! The Irishman said that it was no
use to irrigate while the sun was shining, for he had
noticed that, whenever it rained, there were clouds
about, so that the sun was hidden. There was a great
deal of sense in that observation, more than appears
at first sight, as there usually is in Hibernian state-
ments. The shower benefits the plants because every-
thing is suitable for the rain to come down, the shaded
sky, the humidity of the atmosphere, the general feel-
ing of everything is damp all around; but if you were
to pour the same quantity of water down while the
sun was shining brightly, the leaves would probably
be turned yellow, and in the heat they would shrivel
130 THE SOUL-\VINNER.
and die. Any gardener would tell you that he is always
careful to water the flowers in the evening when the
sun is off them. This is the reason why irrigation,
however well it is done, is not so beneficial as the rain ;
there must be a favourable influence in the whole at-
mosphere if the plants and flowers are to derive benefit
from the moistening. It is just so in spiritual things.
I have often noticed that, when God blesses my min-
istry to an unusual extent, the people in general are in
a praying mood. It is a grand thing to preach in
an atmosphere full of the dew of the Spirit. I know
what it is to preach with it; and, alas! I know what
it is to preach without it. Then is it like Gilboa, when
there was no dew nor rain. You may preach, and
you may hope that God will bless your message; but
it is no use. I hope it will not be so with you, brethren.
Perhaps your lot will be cast where some dear brother
has long been toiling, and prajing, and labouring for
the Lord, and you will find all the people just ready
for the blessing.
I often feel, when I go out to preach, that there is
no credit due to me, for everything is in my favour.
There sit the good folk, with their mouths open, wait-
ing for the blessing; almost everybody there is ex-
pecting me to say something good, and because they
are all looking for it, it does them good, and when I
am gone they keep on praying for the blessing, and
they get it. When a man is put on a horse that runs
away with him, he must ride; that is just how it has
frequently been with me, the blessing has been given
because all the surroundings were favourable. You
may often trace the happy results not only to the preach-
er's discourse, but to all the circumstances connected
with Its delivery. It was so with Peter's sermon that
brought three thousand souls to Christ on the day of
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOUI^. 131
Pentecost; there never was a better sermon preached,
it was a plain, personal message likely to convince
people of the sin of their treatment of the Saviour in
putting Him to death; but I do not attribute the con-
versions to the apostle's words alone, for there were
clouds about, the whole atmosphere was damp; as my
-friend said to me, there was "plenty of dew about."
Had not the disciples been long continuing in prayer
and supplication for the descent of the Spirit, and had
not the Holy Ghost descended upon every one of them
as well as upon Peter? In the fulness of time, the
Pentecostal blessing was poured out most copiously.
Whenever a church gets into the same state as that of
the apostles and disciples at that memorable period,
the whole heavenly electricity is concentrated at that
particular spot. Yet you remember that even Christ
Himself could not do many mighty works in some
places because of the people's unbelief, and I am sure
that all His servants who are thoroughly in earnest are
at times hampered in the same way. Some of our
brethren who are here have, I fear, a worldly, Christ-
less people; still, I am not sure that they ought to run
away from them ; I think that, if possible, they should
stop, and try to make them more Christlike.
It is true that I have had the other sort of experi-
ence, as well as the joyous one I have been describ-
ing. I remember preaching one night in a place where
they had not had a minister for some time. When I
reached the chapel I did not have any kind of wel-
come ; the authorities were to receive pecuniary benefit
if nothing else from my visit, but they did not welcome
mei at all; they said, in fact, that there had been a
maiority at the church meetinpf in favour of invitinc:
me, but the deacons did not approve of it because they
did not think I -vvas "sound." There were some breth-
132 THE SOUL-WINNER.
ren and sisters froii) other churches there; they seemed
pleased and profited, but the people who belonged to
the place did not gxt a blessing; they had not expected
one, so of course they did not receive it. When the
service was over I went into the vestry, and there
stood the two deacons, one on each side of the man-
telpiece. I said to them, ''Are you the deacons?" ^
"Yes," they answered. "The churcli does not prosper,
does it?" I asked. "No," they replied. "I should not
think it would with such deacons," I said. ''Did I
know anything against them?" they asked. "No," I
said, "but I did not know anything in their favour."
I thought that, if I could not get at them in the mass,
I would try what I could do with one or two. I was
glad to know that my sermon or my remarks after-
wards led to an improvement, and there is one of
our brethren there, and doing well to this day. One
of the deacons was so irritated by what I said that he
left the place, but the other deacon was irritated the
right way, so that he remained there, and laboured
and prayed until better days came. It is hard when
you are rowing against wind and tide, but it is worse
even than that if you have a horse on the bank pull-
ing a rope, and dragging your boat the other way.
Well, never mind, brethren, if that is your case, but
work away all the harder, and pull the horse into the
water. Still, remember tliat when once a favourable
atmosphere is created, then the difficulty is to main-
tain it. You notice that I said, "When the atmosphere
is created," and tliat expression reminds us how little
we can do, or rather that we can do nothing without
God, for it is He who has to do with atmospheres. He
alone can create them and maintain them; therefore,
our eyes must be continually lifted up to Him, whence
Cometh all our help.
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 133
It may happen that sonic of you do preach very
earnestly and well, and sermons that are likely to be
blessed, and yet you do not see sinners saved. Well,
do not leave off preaching; but say to yourself, "I
must try to gather around me a number of people
who will be all praying with me and for me, and who
will talk to their friends about the things of God, and
who will so live and labour that the Lord will give a
blessed shower of grace because all the surroundings
are suitable thereto, and help to make the blessing
come. I have heard ministers say that when they have
preached in the Tabernacle, there has been something
in the congregation that has had a wonderfully pow^-
erful effect upon them. I think it is because we have
good prayer meetings, because there is an earnest
spirit of prayer among the people, and because so many
of them are on the watch for souls. There is one broth-
er especially who is always looking after any hearers
who have been impressed ; I call him my hunting dog,
and he is ever ready to pick up the birds I have shot and
bring them to me. I have known him waylay them one
after another, that he might bring them to Jesus; and
I rejoice that I have other friends of this kind. When
our brethren, Fullerton and Smith, had been conduct-
ing some special services for a very eminent preacher
who is in the habit of using rather long words, he said
that the evangelists had the faculty for "the precipita-
tion of decision." He meant that the Lord blessed them
in bringing men to decision for Christ. It is a grand
thing when a man has the faculty for the precipitation
of decision; but it is an equally grand thing when he
has a number of people around him who say to each
hearer after every service, "Well, friend, did you enjoy
that discourse? Was there something in it for you?
Are vou saved? Do vou know^ the w-ay to salvation?"
134 THE SOUL- WINNER.
Always have your own Bible ready, and turn to the
passages you want to quote to the enquirers. I often
noticed that friend of mine, of whom I spoke just now,
and he seemed to me to open his Bible at most appro-
pi iate passages, he appeared to have them all ready
land handy, so that he would be sure to hit on the righ^
texts. You know the sort of texts I mean, just those
that a seeking soul wants: 'The Son of man is come
to seek and to save that which was lost." "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." "The blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."
"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."
''Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved." Well, this brother has a number of such
passages printed in bold type, and fastened inside his
Bible, so that he can refer to the right one in a moment,
and many troubled souls has he thus led to the Saviour.
You will not be unwise if you adopt some such method
as he has found so exceedingly helpful.
Now lastly, brethren, do not be afraid when you go
to a place, and find it in a very bad condition. It is
a fine thing for a young man to begin with a real
downright bad prospect, for, with the right kind of
work, there must come an improvement some time or
other. If the chapel is all but empty when you go to
it, it cannot well be in a much worse state than that;
and the probability is that you will be the means of
bringing some into the church, and so making matters-
better. If there is any place where I would choose
to labour, it would be just on the borders of the in-
fernal lake, for I really believe that it would bring more
glory to God to work among those who are accounted
the worst of sinners. If your ministry Is blessed to
such people as these, they will be likely to cling to you
through your whole life; but the very worst sort of
HOW TO INDUCE OUR PEOPLE TO WIN SOULS. 135
people are those who have long been professing Chris-
tians, but who are destitute of grace, having a name to
live, and yet being dead. Alas! there are people like
that among our deacons, and among our church mem-
bers, and we cannot get them out; and, as long as
they remain they exert a most baneful influence. It
is dreadful to have dead members w^here every single
part of the body should be instinct with divine life; yet
in many cases it is so, and we are powerless to cure the
evil. We must let the tares grow until the harvest; but
the best thing to do, when you cannot root up the tares,
is to water the wheat, for there is nothing that will keep
back the tares like good strong wheat. I have known
ungodly men who have had the place made so hot for
them that they have been glad to clear right out of
the church. They have said, 'The preaching is too
strong for us, and these people are too Puritanical
and too strict to suit us." What a blessing it is when
that is the case ! We did not wash to drive them away
by preaching the truth ; but as they went of their own
accord, we certainly do not want them back, and we
will leave them where they are praying the Lord, in
the greatness of His grace, to turn them from the
error of their ways, and to bring them to Himself, and
then we shall be glad to have them back with us to
live and labour for the Lord.