Sam P. Jones, the preacher / by George R. Stuart

"SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER,
BY
REV. GEORGE R. STUART, D. D., L. L. D.
AUTHOR OF
"BOOK OF SERMONS," "STORIES AND PARABIES," "FAMOUS STORIES OF SAM JONES," "THE PREACHER AND THE
CROWD," "WHAT EVERT METHODIST OUGHT TO KNOW," ETC.
PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS CLOTH, ONE DOLLAR
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION PUBLISHING COMPANY SILOAM SPRINGS, ARKANSAS

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER By Eev. George E. Stuart, D. D., L. L. D.
IN presenting a character who was neither a pedagogue, doctrinaire, nor euphuist, the purpose is to give the lineaments and characteristics of a plain Methodist preacher whose chief claim to a sempiternal memory and honor among men rests in the penteeostal testification and fruit of his ministry.
In writing of Sam Jones, the preacher, it will be difficult to steer from the other phases of this many-sided man, who was, as he de fined himself, ninety-five per cent man and five per cent preacher. He touched with swaying power the vital and especially the moral forces of our country. The door of his hospitality swung to its limit. According to observant and conservative authority, he welcomed more guests, lodged more friends, and fed at his table more visitors than any contemporary in the State of Georgia. In parlor, drawing room and dining room, he was the most genial and delightful of hosts.

6 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
A visitor never forgot the sunshine of his home. As a personal friend, he was faithful and affectionate. He never forsook a friend, whether that friend succeeded or failed. Rich and poor, without distinction, had a place at his table and in his heart. He was a veritable worshiper at his home altar. No sacrifice, however great, he would not cheer fully make for the comfort and happiness of his wife and children, kith and kin. He was master of the Chautauqua and lecture plat form, heroic and gigantic as a reformer, generous in public benefactions, honest and satisfactory in business, universally loved and respected as a fellow townsman, and exceptionally true and faithful in all the relations of life. He was a genius of distinct and strong personality, but was neither er ratic nor eccentric. He was every inch a man.
As a preacher he was one of the unique, outstanding personalities of our Southern pulpit. In fact, no man among our preachers has approached him very closely in his characteristics and work. He was the pioneer in the discovery and use in the pul pit of wit and humor of a certain type, and

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHES 7
of a style of speech and unconventional droEery never before attempted in the pulpit of America. Choice and guarded bits of wit and humor had appeared here and there in the pulpit among what were known as queer and eccentric preachers, but no man had. nearly approached him in the employment of what may be termed broad and grotesque humor and the street type of slang and par lance. His merry quips and quirks, jests and jokes seemed to many serious and devout spirits out of harmony with the sacred busi ness of saving souls. Yet to him humor was as sacred as pathos and a smile as holy as a tear. The quick, jerky gust that swishes one's cloak, doffs the hat, and sends the curls awry has no less of oxygen than the zephyr that quietly moves the branch of the majestic oak. He had lived from earliest childhood in an atmosphere of wit and humor; it was in his blood; therefore his spirit lost no more of Holy Unction in alternate humor and pathos than the atmosphere of vital elements in succeeding zephyrs, gusts and gales. He was at times like a runaway horse; no one could guess what would be next. His aud ience woiild be unceremoniously dismissed

8 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
after an hour of uproarious laughter in which sallies of wit, rongh and smooth, bursts of humor, ridicule, and irony followed each other in rapid succession. The whole per formance raised interrogation points in the minds of all thoughtful people. After the benediction the people would depart, the reckless laughing as if they, had been to a show, the thoughtful wondering if all relig ious precedents were falling and in extreme doubt whether to condemn for the sake of standards or suffer for the good that might follow. The various opinions would be scat tered through the community and all would return, with hundreds of others, to see what would happen next. The next hour he would take a text as solemn as the grave and preach a sermon with a ponderousness, solemnity, and pathos that would alarm sinners, stir saints, melt to tears, and bring hundreds of men and women to the altar. The criticism of the saints would be turned to prayer and praise and the laughter and jeers of the sin ner turned to sobs of repentance. The next service might be so tender and spiritual that the very air would seem redolent with the odors from the hills of God, or it might be'

SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEB 9
one in which shams and hypocrisies of incon sistent members of the Church would be held up and joked and joshed for another hour of laughter.
He was distinctly a topical preacher. Oc casionally he took a paragraph or chapter and gave an exposition. In this he was lucid and strong. His strength lay in hammering in a proverb. He would read a text like this, "One sinner destroyeth much good." Taking up one type of sinner after another and stripping every vestment from each sin, he would hold it up so that it would drip with slime and disgust with stench. He would turn the searchlight of God's law on it until its hideous rebellion against love and goodness would make one quake. Then he would send the sinner, reeking with sin, on his horrible mission of destroying good. He would take the sins of the father, one by one, and turn them loose in the home, like small pox and yellow fever germs or like a veno mous serpent, to put the virus of death in the innocent children; he would paint this corrupter and despoiler of his own helpless seed until the father would cringe like a con-

I
10 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
viet in chains and the audience would feel like every such father should be arrested and confined like the villain who would put dyna mite under a kindergarten.
He would not, like Thackeray, accuse, arrest, convict, jail, and leave the criminal; but, like the Master, he would extend the hand of mercy and open the door of love and hope. As a further stimulus to the hopeless, he would paint the hideous condition of a Hadley or a McAuley in his sinful and de bauched life, bring him into the presence of the loving, forgiving, and cleansing Savior then, washed and forgiven, he would send him on his Christ-like mission of saving other sinners, destroying sin, and bringing cheer and gladness to desolate hearts and homes, until every sinner in his audience, disgusted with the slimy robes of his own sins and charmed with the exalted possibility of do ing good, would rush to the same fountain for cleansing. He would take a saloon keeper as "One sinner," arm him with his murder ous daggers, or make him a mad-dog, whose venomous bite brought the horrors of hydro phobia, and then let his audience go with Tn'm from home to home, here debauching a young

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 11
wife's husband, there a fond mother's until his audience would almost scream with' horror. Patriotic men would burn with in dignation. He would paint his own down fall, his rained home and broken-hearted wife, until the audience would sob with him ; then, with his fiery black eye aflame and hia marvelous voice in a quiver of emotion, he would cry: "Brethren, a highway robber is a good man compared to any white-aproned, bull-necked scoundrel who will do business like this; and any set of cowardly citizens who will stand by and see him do his dirty work without a protest are as low-down as he is." In preaching from a text like this he was not content with a general applica tion, but he made it local and concrete with a fearlessness and audacity that would make men's faces almost blanch. If a city had a wicked mayor who was in league with saloon men and gamblers, he secured unmistakable evidence, planted himself on undeniable facts, then at an opportune time, before s sym pathetic audience of 5,000 men at a special men's meeting, he would take one sinner after another until he climbed up in natural order to the higher officials and then he

12 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
would name the officials and contrast an ex alted- office with a debased and debasing occupant of that office, the while so guarding his speech and keeping so true to the right and so fair to all that the guilty officials would frequently be among the penitents at the close of the service. In very many cases, at the close of one of his evangelistic ser vices, the leading saloon keepers, gamblers, and bartenders would be among the con verted and an election on prohibition would frequently be called, the saloons voted out, and the history of the town changed for all time. To obey the will of God and serve his fellow men was his highest purpose, from which no earthly influence could swerve him. To this end every power was put forth and every ambition subordinated. Prom the time he took the platform as an evangelist to his death, his life was spotless. His character was granite, without a flaw or fissure. Theologians berated him, scholars ridiculed him, newspapers abused him, and wicked men maligned him; but there was never a scintilla of evidence against the honesty of his purpose or the purity of his life.
For sixteen years we worked together,

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 13
roomed often together, generally in connect ing rooms. We bought and sold property in partnership, borrowed and loaned money, received jointly and divided np thousands upon thousands of dollars. He was always the receiver and distributor of the funds, which were divided on the basis of work done in the meetings by each of us, and during all the years of delicate and intricate associa tions no unkind word ever passed between us and I never had a question of his integrity and purity. Every one who knew Sam Jones in business or religion believed in him, and that was one of the sources of his power at home and abroad. His seasons of prayer in our rooms were brief. I called his attention to it once, and he replied: "George, my heart is as loyal to God as the needle to the north pole, and I walk up to him three or four times a day for marching orders. If a man is abstflutely right with God and in constant com munion with him every hour, it does not take long to settle accounts and get orders." He made no public demonstration of his piety or sanctity, did not carry a Bibl on the street or wear a sanctimonious face. He went to the pulpit apparently as joyous as if he

14 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
were going to a feast. He had a contempt that he could not express for public and spectacular demonstrations of piety. Like the Savior, he made the sanctimonious Phari see the butt of his jokes. The joy of the Lord was his strength. He held the word of God as a sacred trust, swerved not nor faltered to declare the whole truth as he saw it, regardless of personal relations, titles, orders, offices, or professions. The toga and the overalls were the same to him.
On entering a town to conduct evangelistic services, it frequently occurred that a steer ing committee called to see him, advising him of the delicate points of the city to be left untouched for fear of arousing great opposi tion. He would hear them kindly, investi gate quietly, and if he found that they were wrong he would at the first opportunity at tack with all the vehemence possible the Tery things they advised him to leave untouched. He feared no foe, catered to no influence, courted no favors, sought no compromise with sin or any of its devotees, however opulent or influential. He knew institutions, organzations, and human nature, and rarely made an unjust criticism or took an untenable posi-

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 15
tion. However severe and boistroua the opposition aroused by his preaching, when the storm culminated he and the best people of the community were invariably on the same side, and the right side, judged by his standard, which was the Bible.
He was in no sense an actor, mimic, or per former on the platform. He made no grim aces, struck no attitudes, poses, or postures for effect. His gestures were few except in his heroic and hortatory addresses to men only at special men's meetings and before the large night audiences. As a rule he stood still, with thumb hung in vest or pants pocket or hand or arm resting on the pulpit, anil spoke in a conversational tone and maaner. His discourses were orderly, but not technical homilies. They were made up of jlunt epigrams, homely philosophy, and grajiiie illustrations from his experience and from everyday life. Many of his sermons contain no humor. When he was serious he was dreadfully serious, and when humorous! he wis often shockingly humorous. He of ten nixed th pathetic and humorous so delightfilly that he charmed the most critical. Betims he was polished and rough, classic

16 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
and boorish, tender and scathing pathetic and humorous, serious and jocular, sympa thetic and caustic. At times h was so rough that even his best friends would have eliminated or moderated some of his express ions. At others be was so ornate and classic that the most cultured of his audience were surprised and charmed. At times he was a prophet of God, blazing with apostolic mesage; at others he was a humorous lecturer, entertaining his audience with facts and philosophy of everyday life. He was one of the most versatile preachers the Methodist Church ever produced. Charles Diefcens was refined and cultured, yet he gave to the world the most graphic pictures of London's roagh characters. He put into the mouths of his characters the language of the London slims. His most popular novel is so full of slang that it is predicted that it will ultimately be unintelligible. Sam Jones, no less refined and delicate in mind and heart, a congenial and delightful companion of cultured men and women, a welcome guest in the mst af fluent and refined homes of the country, often used on the platform the vernacular and slang of the street. Dickens was a dramatist

gAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 17
in dialogue; Sam Jones was a dramatist in monologue. He was as true to nature as Dickens and no less refined in mind and heart.
His peculiar gift was his commanding and persuasive utterance, his power of lucid, epigrammatic, and luminous statement. His mind perceived truth clearly and had power to penetrate with a philosophical insight into every crack and cranny of human nature. He gave out more usable illustra tions, quotable epigrams, proverbs, and ex pressions than any man of his age.
He loved pets, had a boyish attachment for dogs and horses, and named and spoke of them as if they were folks. He delighted in his Kentucky saddle horse with his shining coat, beautiful form and graceful steps. The mule was his Irishman for honest toil and humorous wag. Many of his finest and most humorous illustrations were taken from animals. . "Old Bullet," the hero of his first dray, and "Drennen," his last handsome Ken tucky saddler; the first pair of mules he drove on the streets of Cartersville, and the flop-eared mopes of the country negro; the rat terrier that played with Tn'm at the barn

18 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
and the handsome bird dog that followed him afield and greeted him at the front gate all contributed incidents for his homely illus trations that surprised and delighted his interested hearers.
He was as artless and guileless as a child, and the different personalities of an audience touched and moved his sensitive nature like a girl's fingers on the keys of a piano. Nine times out of ten, one who knew him could sit on the platform and look over the aud ience carefully and tell the character of the sermon he would preach. In a morning hour, when the whole town and community had surrendered to the meeting, stores, banks, offices, factories, and schools closed and the strong men and women of a community were present, he would give a masterful sermon that would astonish the clergy. They would walk away saying, "Wonderful sermon;" "Marvelous preaching." On another occa sion, when a kind of nondescript audience would be present, he would give a philippic, literally flaying every variety of human weakn-ess. The fads of society and the in consistencies of Church members would be brought into contempt by his humorous and

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHES 19
satirical invectives, and the dignified clergy would pronounce it a harangue. When a great representative crowd gathered at a night service, he would smite the Church as Isaiah smote Israel and Judah, or make an appeal to sinners with a solemnity, pathos and power that would make a profound impression on every one present.
He was master of his mind and had a memory that was entirely out of the ordinary. Personalities, conversations, events of his own experience, circumstances and daily happen ings as reported through the press were held in his mind as orderly as books are stacked in a library, and he had a marvelous power to select and use them to enrich his dis courses.
During the years of evangelistic work he read few books, but he lived in current periodical literature the dailies and months lies he devoured. He knew current events and kept abreast with the movements in busi ness, social, political, and religious life as reported in the press. He had the power to take any pungent, lucid, executive thought, read or heard, and clothe it with the terse epigrammatic language of Sam Jones and

20 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
send it forth on a new mission. In preach ing he used no sketch of his sermon, had no notes or data of any kind, and no scrap or scrip was ever in use. He never dulled a pencil or wet a pen in the making of a ser mon. He kept everything in the storehouse of his prodigious memory. Judged by the four primary laws of the platform, he was King. He could draw more people together, draw them oftener, hold them longer, and influence them more strongly than any other man who has stood on the American platform in this age. He had the most unusual ability to take a text of Scripture from which he had never before preached, suggested by some condition of the community or the meet ing, connect its lessons with the peculiar con ditions, and produce on the spot an excellent absolutely extemporaneous sermon. At some subsequent meeting, when similar conditions would arise, he would take the same text, recall every pungent thought used before, add others, and so continue until he produced one of his standard sermons. He said to his friends: "My sermons grow like my finger nails." He was never perturbed or confused by extraordinary circumstances. No crowd,

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 21
however large, no occasion, however impor tant, no body of people, however cultured or prominent, had the slightest effect upon his uniform and absolute self-possession.
Indisputable records will show that this unique genius of the American pulpit and platform spoke to more people in a given time, moved more men and women to a better life, added more people to the Churches, led more men into the ministry, and added greater impetus to the public sentiment that finally destroyed the rum traffic in the United States than any other American Methodist preacher, living or dead. It is therefore worth while to study the schools in which such unusual capacities were developed for such eminent uses. What was the secret of his power! is a question often propounded. There is no secret of power. He was power ful by the natural and spiritual laws that generate power. On the human side, blood, education, environment, and personal ex perience conspire to make individuality.
He was of good stock. His grandfather was an itinerant Methodist preachr and his grandmother was the daughter of an itinerant Methodist preacher. They were

22 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
of the old-fashioned type, who made much of the family and of family religion. The religious character of the family is shown in a record given of an anniversary dinner at the grandfather's home: "There are fiftytwo members in our family. Twenty-two have crossed over; sixteen were infants; the other six died happy. There are thirty left, and all but one are in the Church and on the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven." The one exception referred to above was Joseph Jones, who afterwards be came a minister and successful evangelist. This is an unusual family record. Out of such stock we may expect unusual men. A study of the ancestors of the family shows that courage, consecration, directness, wit, and eccentricities were characteristic of the family. The grandmother's father, Rev. Robert L. Edwards, was an eccentric, bold pioneer preacher of Georgia. On hearing a preacher at a camp meeting delivering a smooth, indirect discourse to a large aud ience, composed largely of unconverted peo ple, he arose from his seat in the audience, went to the pulpit, placed his right hand on the breast of the preacher, and said:

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 23
"Brother, these people are sinners, sir, big sinners, on their way to death. If you won't tell them where they are going, sit down and let me tell them." He sat down, Mr. Ed wards delivered an exhortation, and sinners came flocking to the altar. This bold, heroic spirit was characteristic of the blood. The father of Sam Jones during the Civil War was a courageous and heroic captain of a Georgia regiment in which he had five brothers, all officers, one a chaplain. Six brothers in one regiment, all officers, is evi dence of fighting blood. His father was con verted early in life and felt a call to the ministry, but became a Christian lawyer of unusual power as a speaker. His speeches to the jury were characterized by humor, sarcasm, and invective. His mother was a strong Christian character and belonged also to a fine family. A study of his ancestors gives prophecy of such a character as he was". Blood is a heritage. Newspapers claimed that the press made Sam Jones. Mr. Jones asked them why they did not make another, and an editor facetiously replied: "We are out of material." Physical gifts are reckoned in blood and are undeniable assets. A mean

24 SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHER
physical body and vicious traits of character inherited have handicapped many a preacher. He was by heredity a splendid specimen of man, of unusually attractive personality. His voice was a constant marvel. It was clear and musical, and so articulate and distinct that in an ordinary conversational tone he could be heard and understood by an audi ence of three or four thousand. Added to this superb quality was a humanness that was vibrant in every tone. He was absolutely free from the conventional clerical tone and inflection. He spoke like a business layman without a particle of affectation. His voice carried the sympathy that melted, the invec tive that withered, and the pleading that moved the hardest sinful hearts. Next to his voice, his eyes were his largest physical asset. I have never seen eyes that held such psychic reserve in their depths or gave out with such force all the emotions of the soul. Kindness beamed, humor sparkled, sarcasm pierced, and belligerence verily blazed from his eyes. His unclerical and natural appear ance and demeanor, coupled with a face that bespoke a kind of recklessness that was win ning, appealed to the man of the world. In

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 25
his stern demeanor and in the hour of battle he had the face of a lion. The heavy, dark eyelashes shading his large jet-black eyes, the long, heavy, dark mustache that fell in a mischievous curve at the corners of his force ful mouth, his bold cheek and Roman nose, constituted a face whose manliness command ed. When he clinched his ample fist, threw his brave soul into the features of his face, and keyed his voice in accord with the do-ordie spirit that burned and blazed in words that went out like unsheathed daggers, the ramparts of sin trembled, and every brave man honored and applauded the hero of righteousness. Human nature carries a cheer for the plucky dog that fights to the death and a brick for the cowardly cur that slinks. The courageous fight that this St. Paul of modern times made against every phase of wrong, without fear of class or clique, good or bad, man or devil, won the love and res pect of heroic men and women. Much of the hero worship of the great crowd about him was attributable to his unclerieal non conformity to custom, semireckless appear ance, and language in the pulpit and on the platform. He was so out of the ordinary that

26 SAM P. JONES, THE PKEACHER
he was a clerical curiosity, and preachers and people came long distances to study him and his methods. Those who heard him once or twice in his humorous, irregular talks were often his unfavorable critics; but I never knew a minister or a layman of undoubted piety who heard him through a series of meet ings who did not regard him as a great and unusual preacher. His enemies were bigoted ecclesiastics who regarded formalities and phylacteries of more value than the salva tion of sinners, and impenitent and persistent sinners whose organizations and practices he fearlessly and irresistibly flayed.
His scholastic education was not extensive, but was of such kind as to accomplish the chief end of the school, which is to train the mind to think clearly, orderly, and consecu tively. He fell under the tutelage of excel lent teachers who gave him good training: in English, through grammar and rhetoric; in mathematics, through arithmetic and higher algebra; in Latin, through Caesar; in Greek, through the first lessons. In early life he was fond of reading and selected good literature. He was especially fond of Burns. In Ms early ministry he read the Bible as one reads law

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 27
books and had an unusually comprehensive knowledge of the Book of Books. He had the same kind and extent of scholastic edu cation that was acquired by many of our most renowned lawyers, judges, preachers, and statesmen of the South, who supplement ed a limited course of study by extensive reading and profound thinking.
The experiences that conspired to develop him into a great preacher were many and effective. Great preachers cannot be made by technical pedagogy. They are developed amid adverse and favorable circumstances, currents and eddies, storms and stresses of life. Scholars, debaters, exegetes, and homilists may be produced in universities and theological sminaries, but preachers who reach and save men come from the school of experience which acquaints them with the varied heart throbs generated in the toil, hardships, sacrifices, and sufferings of them selves and their fellows. There were few human -experiences which develop sympathy, knowledge of human nature and of men and things, which Sam Jones did not undergo. These varied experiences were effective in producing a man who not only knew his fel-

28 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
low man and every experience through which he goes, but one who knew every emotion of the soul. He entered this school of ex perience at nine years of age, when he kissed the lips of an affectionate mother cold in death. He saw the home broken up; he form ed one of a pathetic group of three little boys, motherless and homeless. He was at" the plastic age, when sorrows, lonesomeness, and touches of sympathy make the strongest impression. Here was the storage that later produced a superintendent of an orphans' home, and from which he drew pathos that melted. The paternal grandfather and grandmother, the old Methodist preacher and daughter of a Methodist preacher, took the little motherless group, while the father went out in business. The deep piety, the spiritual family altar, the midweek prayer service, and the Sabbath preaching, at all of which the genuine fervency of these con secrated grandparents was manifest, wrought deeply in the lives of these boys, two of whom made preachers. Later the father married a second wife, and a new home was formed with other experiences. The father was taken away to the Civil War after the

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 29
marriage. The boys were placed in school. Three boys in the teen age, in a small village under the care of a stepmother, however faithful, would have anything but a dull time. "With an over stock of humor, mischiefmaking and vitality, it is safe to credit various experiences in youthful follies. We may expect fusses, fights, explorations in village, field, and neighboring wood, climb ing hunting, swimming, and all these things which the combined genius of three bright boys could suggest. In all of these Sam Jones was the leader, and these heroic expe riences were both a training and a prophecy. He could climb the highest, jump the far thest, swim longest, out-run any boy his size, and whip any one near his weight. He was the hero and the master of the gang. As he approach his majority he started out to see what was in the world. Here he accum ulated another class of experiences that try out the real character of the promiscous folks of the world and give an insight into human nature impossible elsewhere.
His wanderings took him to Nashville at the breaking of the Civil War. Here he form ed the acquaintance of some young return-

30 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
ing soldiers and accompanied them into the mountains of Kentucky. With this group of young men, in an old country home in Ken tucky, he got experiences out of which he wrought so many suprising illustrations inafter years. This winter in the mountains of Kentucky, country sports, hunting and visit ing, tracking rabbits through the deep snow, sitting with the young people by the blazing fires, and the daily experiences in farm work, all became a part of his education. It is not surprising that in these groups and gather ings here and there in the neighborhood of country boys and girls around the big wood fires that the glowing winter fire would deepen the color on the cheek and add bril liancy to the sparkle and the eye of some bright, beautiful Kentucky girl, who would captivate the heart of a youth, at such a susceptible age and thus it happened. With a store of youthful experiences and the mem ory of a face he could not forget, he returned to Cartersville, Ga., to find his father, who had returned from the war and had reentered the practice of law. At the advice of his father, he decided upon a legal profession and studiously read law in his father's office.

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 31
This brought him in contact with lawyers, courts, juries, and criminals, out of which experiences came another class of knowledge and valuable illustrations. Hi unuasual speeches before the jury attracted the atten tion of the court. The judge said to the fa ther.- "You have reared one of the brightest boys ever admitted to the Georgia bar."
At the beginning of his law practise he re turned to Kentucky and married the lassie who had won h !s heart during his winter escapades with the Kentucky soldiers. The condition of the Southern country after the war made a successful career of a young law yer impossible. He was soon brought to face the embarrassment of inadequate funds for support. They lived in a one-room house in the outskirts of the town and were reduced to a grinding poverty which became intol erable to him and his brave and faithful wife. With a stock of grit, experience, and daring which he had thus far developed he walked out of the law office and applied for a job to dig ore in a near-by mining camp. He was given the night shift, beginning at one o'clock in the afternoon and ending at midnight. This experience with ore diggers and toilers

32 SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHEB
of the rougher type, these midnight journeys from the mine to his humble home, accom panied by groups of reckless men, put him in another school of experience out of which he got help and hurt. These were the days when whiskey was used in all adverse and hilarious human experiences, and he joined his jolly comrades in th midnight drink. Here began a dissipation that grew to serious indulgence. Later he secured a job running a stationary engine. Here he acquired the knowledge of and attachment for the loco motive that developed a love for steam en gines and railroad men. Some of his most graphic illustrations were drawn from his per fect knowledge of the locomotive engine. Next he made the purchase of a horse and became a drayman in the little town of Cartersville. This brought him in contact with what Is known as the street gang. The sa loon being the place where fires were kepf late at night, he drifted in with the crowd. Humorous and good-natured, he became the center of attraction and the favorite of the group and continued his drink.
At this point in his life he was brought to' the deathbed of his father, where he promised

SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEB 33
a better life, and soon after to the little cas ket that held the remains of his only babe, whom he worshiped. This broke his heart and brought him to prayer. Shortly after the death of his babe he went with his wife to hear his old grandfather preach. At the close of the sermon he walked down the aisle, gave his grandfather his hand, and surren dered his life to God and the Church. Here he quit his wicked life. His grandfather, knowing of his ability as a lawyer and his power to speak, soon after his conversion ask ed him to preach, and his acceptance began his wonderful career as a preacher. Many came to the altar and were converted at the close of his first sermon, which he said had only two points: "God is goou, and I am happy." His manly and undemonstrative surrender to God led to the large use of his method of calling on men to come down the aisle, give the hand, and surrender to God. He studied the text as he studied the law case, primarily to convict or acquit. He spoke be fore an audience with the freedom and aban don with which he addressed a jury, Young preachers are hardly conscious of the in-

34 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
fluence of older preachers in fixing the style and manner of their preaching.
Mr. Jones, in the beginning of his ministry, providentially fell in the district of the Rev. Simon Peter Richardson as presiding elder. He was one of th outstanding picturesque figures in the North Georgia Conference. Bold, eccentric, humorous, and graphic, he set the style for this young circuit rider's preaching. Dr. Richardson was notable for his sharp sayings and humorous and gro tesque way of putting things. He followed none of the modern clerical and pulpit man nerisms, but was a genius of his own type. Sam Jones said of his unconscious model: "Until I heard Simon Peter Richardson preach, I thought the pulpit was a prison in which a preacher could go so far to the right and so far to the left, but he taught me that the pulpit is a throne, the preacher the kingj and he can go anywhere God leads, re gardless of the manners, customs, or opinions of the people." From Dr. Richardson, his presiding elder and worthy exemplar, Mr. Jones learned that he could be natural in the use of inherited wit, humor, and picturesque illustration.

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 35
These are the agencies that wrought in his making on the human side. Such heritage, education, environment, and personal experi ence may produce a great lawyer, statesman, orator, educator, or theologian. It takes these and other important things to make a great preacher. In the school of a devout and con sistent Christian home, whence most preach ers come, he was led into a simple and un wavering faith in the Bible and all the Chris tian fundamentals. In his day and commun ity the Bible was taught in the home, the Sabbath school, and the secular school. Its heroes were the models, its stories the enter tainment, and its precepts the infallible and unquestionable rules of life. The Bible was read at length at the morning and evening prayers in the home and opening exercises of the school and constituted the textbook of the Sabbath school and the Sunday afternoon story-book. He was taught that the Bible is the infallible word of God. He believed it. From this guileless trust he never budged. He took every statement in the Bible at its face value without a question. He expressed his unsophisticated trust in the Bible in these words: "I believe the book from lid to lid. T

36 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
blieve the whale swallowed Jonah; and if the Bible had said Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe that," This was the palladium of his power.. "When one begins to discover mistakes in the Bible, the next dis covery will be the "wist not" of Samson.
Sam Jones approached God with the sim plicity of a child coming to mother and ac cepted all of God's promises with a childlike trust and thereby secured their rich fulfill ment. He harbored no doubts concerning his salvation. He believed in his second birth just as implicitly as in his first birth and for same reason personal consciousness of life. He believed in Pentecost and sought and real ized the power that came on Peter. Prayer was not simply a devont act of worship and a peradventnre. With God's promises before him, he sent forth his petitions with the same faith with which he wrote a check with his balance sheet before him, and he enjoyed the fruition of the Master's "As your faith, so be it unto you." The absolute surrender of all known sins and the sacrifice of self to the will of God brought him into the condition in which his faith made God's promise avail able. Thus he became not only a partaker

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 37
of the divine nature, but also the divine pow er. The power of Sam Jones was the power of God.
He had little faith in mere emotional de monstrations in the act of repentance. He standardized the expression, "Quit your meanness," which became the title of one of his books of sermons. This expression has caused many of his critics to conclude that he accepted external reformation for internal regeneration. In this he was greatly mis understood. He urged a sorrow as deep as the roots -of sin and as heroic as the process of pulling them up by the roots and casting them forever away. This he embraced in the exhortation, "Quit your meanness," "Quit sin," "Quit the world," "Quit the devil" "quit." The short unecclesiastical word is significant. He held that no repentance, however emotional, could go deeper than an absolute and unconditional turning away from all sin, and no word in our language, however long and technical, was more sig nificant to him than "quit." As a corollary, he held that a surrender of all sin and a tnrniag away from all sin did not take place without an emotion as deep as the root of sin,

38 SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEE

in whatsoever way that emotion may be ex

pressed. The fact is the same in every truly

penitent heart. The outward expression is

as varied as human nature. He held that the

fact of evangelical repentance is caused by

the smiting of the Holy Spirit; the culmi

nation is the surrender. The outward sign

may be tears, sobs, or unexpressed. The

!

outward sign may even be a smile, bespeak

i

ing an inward purpose as strong as that upon

the face of a brave hero in battle, as he

meets his foe with a smile and plunges his

well-aimed dagger to the vital spot. He

regarded not what was visible on the outside,

but relied wholly on what was occurring on

the inside. His long experience and knowli

edge of human nature taught him that out

ward signs are fickle. No one is truly pen

itent until he is willing to quit sin, and no

one is willing to quit all sin until he is truly

penitent.

His method of bringing men to a decision

for Christ and the Church was often crit

icized. It is natural for one to favor the

method by which he found the Savior and

to standardize the emotions and experiences

which accompanied his own repentenee. If

gAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 39
one fell suddenly under some powerful in fluence which threw him into an agony of conviction, and if under this great condem nation he surrendered his sins and by an imr mediate exercise of faith leaped into the light amid the exultant singing of enthusiastic friends with a joy that he expressed in a shout of triumph, he will have little faith in the genuine conversion of a man who de liberately walks down the aisle of the church and without external emotion or demonstrat ion gives his hand to the preacher, saying: "I surrender my life to Christ and to the Church." Yet this simple act changed Sam Jones the reckless, drinking drayman into Sam Jones the devout Christian, devoted preacher, and powerful evangelist. This sim ple act, however, was preceded by weeks of silent struggling under the smiting of the Holy Spirit through the words of a dying father and the silent lips of a dead babe; by a conscience on fire and an internal and silent battle as indescribable as it was invis ible. Sam Jones preferred the method by which he came to Christ, yet he used all methods inquiry room, "anxious seat," and immediate commitment by public confession

40 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
and giving the right hand as the external act. All who follow sincerely any of the methods may be saved if intelligent and prayerful con viction and a saving faith are exercised. Un der his proposition many came forward and shook hands with him who were not sincere and did not therefore meet the conditions of salvation. There were many hundreds and thousands who were sincere and were converted. These varying results, are the same under all methods used in the evan gelistic work. He felt that if men truly repent of sin and accept God, they are saved regardless of external demonstrations.
His power to produce epigrams, proverbs, and witty saying, and his bold attacks on sin in the Church and in the world gave him large space in the daily press. He became a kind of national curiosity, after whom scores have copied and, through the use of his methods and sayings, more or less adapt ed, have gained public notice and accomplish ed much good. Many have foolishly copied his defects to the disgust of the public. He was great in spite of his faults. Dwight L. Moody and Sam P. Jones were contemporary and were pioneers in America-in conducting

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 41
the "tabernacle revivals." The other evan gelists have followed them in this as well as other features of revival work. They were totally different in style of preaching and methods of work and therefore set up two dis tinct types of evangelism. The Moody type has tended toward the Presbyterian methods, more orderly and conforming much more to the ordinary style and manner of preaching. The Jones type has tended toward radicalism in style and methods.
He was not avaricious. He had no "cut and dried" method for securing money for his services; had no envelopes or cards or other devices printed or circulated for offer ings. When a letter of inquiry came from any town or city calling for the condition under which he would agree to hold a meeting, his answer was brief and characteristic and about as follows: "I have but one condition, and that is that a tent, tabernacle, or some kind of auditorium be provided and made comfortable for the seating of not less than 5,000 people. (The basket collections usually provide for such an expense. The other finances depend on the success of the meet ing.)" He gave absolutely no attention to

42 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
organization and machinery. Whatever ma chinery there was in any of his meetings was initiated and organized in the community out side of his suggestion or manipulation. He would walk into a great auditorium packed with people at the opening service, step to. the front of the platform and ask some of the brethren to volunteer to pass their hats for an offering to pay for the tabernacle, and all other movements of the meeting proceeded in a similar manner without organization un less initiated by a local committee. At the close of a meeting a voluntary offering was taken and he received it, much or little, with out comment. Instead of an organized force to bring folks into the tabernacle, he request ed a few policemen to stand at the door to prevent a jam and a crush, and their services were generally necessary.
All of his printed sermons and sayings were taken from his lips stenographically. All of his articles for the press were dictated. He was not the compiler or direct author of any of his books for profit. They were compiled, edited, and published by others. He never purposely laid up money. The property that fell into his hands came largely in an effort

SAM P. JONES, THE PKEACHER 43

to help others. He expressed his unselfish

life in this sentence: "Brother, I'm for-the

bottom dog. If you want to find Sam Jones,

just scratch under the bottom dog. If I'm1

not there, I've just gone to dinner." He lived.

for others. TTis; last act on the train on which

he died was to furnish a berth for a sick man

whom he found in the day coach. His body

lay in state in the Capitol at Atlanta, and no

citizen, official or privat-e, in the State of

Georgia ever had as many loving friends

!

from all conditions of life tearfully visit hi$

;

casket. His body reposes in Cartersville, Ga.,

j

beneath a splendid monument which bears

]

this inscription: "They that turn many to

I

righteousness shall shine as the stars forever

j

and ever." His spirit is with God, and the

j

results of his marvelous ministry are in the

j

keeping of the years.

<

.

HIS OPINION OF HIS OWN MINISTRY
Jf-r THINK I owe my success as an evan\_ gelist to the fact that I have some
thing to say and say it. I use plain AngloSaxon language. I don't say decay; I say rotten. I don't say penetrate; but pierce. I don't say donkey; but jackass. I don't say pandemonium; but helL I don't say, "Home of the Good;" but heaven. And I always liken a fellow to the thing he is most like, whether he be like a hog, a dog, a fox, or a skunk. The plain truth plainly spoken is, I think, the most omnipotent thing in the world.
"I have faith in God and in humanity, and in my ability to do anything heaven calls me to do. I never calculate who is against me. I just know that God is stronger than evil, heaven is stronger than hell, and that he who fights for the right will ultimately be on the conquering side.
"As for my personal ministry I have nevei counted the cost. I have been no respecter of persons. Dudes and bums, millionaires and paupers, gold buggers and silver diggers,

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 45
when the band begins to play, are all alike to. me. I am mad with nobody except the devil.
"I don't go much on church creeds. If my mother and the mother of this Baptist preach er here had swapped babies when we were a week old, in all probability I would have been a Baptist and he would have been a Methodist.
"Ill tell you my platform and then you can guess my politics. I'm for everything that's against whiskey, and against every thing that's for whiskey. Now yon know me. I am a concentrated, consolidated, eternal, un compromising, every-day-in-the-year, standup-to-be-knocked-down-and-dragged-out pro hibitionist.
"When a man proposes to preach to me I want to ask him three questions. First, are you posted as to the subject you are going to talk about f Second, do yon mean kindly to me! Third, do you live up to what you preach!"

STYLE
S AM JONES was extraordinarily varied in his style of preaching. He was either hortatory, forensive, or conversational, and distinctly so. Before a certain type of con gregation, he adopted a uniform style of speaking appropriate to that particular type of congregation.
If his audience was ragged and promisuous so was his style; if strong and normal, his style was adapted.
Three sermons have been selected which il lustrate the three styles of preaching. In preaching the sermon, "Trusting God," and similar sermons, he was quiet, talkative and alternately serious and humorous. He stood with arm resting on the pulpit, one foot cross ed over the other, sometimes twisting the ends of his long black moustache between his thumb and fingers and sometimes twisting his watch fob or resting his thumb in his vest or pants pocket withal apparently entire ly indifferent as to what he was saying or the effect of it. His voice he pitched in the

SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEB 47
tone and inflections of an ordinary conversa tion with a small circle of friends. Generally several thousand sat almost breathless, lean ing forward to catch every word of this seem ingly rambling talk, alternately bursting into laughter or melting to tears.
There was something indefinable about him that held his audiences for an hour or an hour and a quarter listening to what the severe critic would term a "rambling talk." He would often talk an hour without making a single platform gesture. He never used facial grimaces or bodily contortions and never walked or pranced on the platform.
In the conversational style of the following sermon and others like it, he stood still and talked 'to the thousands just as if he were standing on the street corner talking to a familiar friend and in about the same air and tone. If you would get Sam Jones, take this sermon, read it aloud in an ordinary con versational tone, read quite slowly and with an indifferent air. Don't whine, hollow or raise and lower the voice. Maintain the same quiet, natural, mellow uniform tone used in an ordinary conversation.
As you read, imagine a well-formed, shape-

48 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
ly manly looking fellow, absolutely nonclerical in dress, voice, action, speech and appearance with large snappy, expressive black eyes and an expression of the face thatwas stern, placid or humorous without effort or force. Just a man, talking to folks in the most natural and unpretentious way.

SERMON IV.
TRUST IN GOD, AND DO BIGHT
"Trust in the Lord and do good; so ghalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." Psa. 37:3-5.
T HESE three verses which I have read cover about all the ground that you and I have ever been over or ever need go over until we have stepped inside the pearly gates. In each of them there is a precious promise, and in each one of these promises are con ditions. I sometimes think we look too much to the promises, and too little at the conditions. I believe there is only one uncon ditional promise in the Book, as pertains to life and salvation, and that is the promise, you remmber, God made to Adam when he was wretched and unable to comply with the conditions. God said to him in that lost and

50 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
rained estate: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." And this put Adam right where he could comply with the conditions, and since that all promises in th Book are conditional promises.
You might ask me: "What do you mean by conditions?" Thefee railroads running by, yonder, haul passengers, for instance, on cer tain conditions. I know of but two one is, get your ticket; the other is, get aboard. And just as soon as you comply with these con ditions, then all the speed in that engine and all the comfort of that coach is yours to your destination. And when a man complies with the conditions of God's promises, thn all the pwer there is in God and all the comfort there is in the Divine Spirit is his. And the world must learn this fact. It is not so much a question of who I am, but to what am I in trusted. There's a good deal in that. I start to cross the Atlantic in a paper box, and as Boon as my box gets wet it comes to pieces, and down it goes, and I go down with it. If I start in one of those grand ocean steam ers, then all the strength in her hull, and all the power in her boilers, and all the skill of her officers are mine, and thank God, I'll

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 51
never go down, until she does. If I commit myself to the power of the flesh, I am no stronger than the things I commit myself to: but if I commit myself to God, I'll never go down until God does, and He never goes down. His course is upward all the way along.
These promises, as I said, are conditional promises, and we would be astonished to know how many of these promises are in the book. Some man onee compiled all the prom ises there are in the book, and made a book of them, and it was very large; and seeing the advertisement an old Christian man wrote to the publisher for a copy of "The Promises of God," but they answered him that the edition was all sold, and the book was out of print. He buried his face in his hands and cried, '"The Promises of God' out of print! How sad;" and he walked into his room and open ed his Bible, and the first page was covered with precious promises, and he said, "Thank God, this is not out of print." This book is full of them, and I sometimes think the reason we don't realize more out of these promises is because we look too little to the conditions.
There is not a condition in life but what

52 SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHEB
these promises go down to them and up to them and around them. There are thirty-two thousand precious promises in this book. There is a promise of the Father to us all. That's the precious part of it, and one won ders that such a Father could be so good to such children as we are, and my present joy and my eternal hope are based on the fact that I can look up in his face, and say1, "Father, my Lord and my God and Jesus.'' God is my Father, just as I feel that you are my brother. A man who realizes that God is his Father can realize in the deepest sense what it is to love his neighbor. There is a great deal in that too. We are not close enough together in this world. We are div ided. I do n't mean by rivers I do n't mean by geographical stretches, but I mean that we are divided in that every fellow has rigged him up a little concern of his own and gets himself off from every body lse. There's too much of that.
These promises are rich to us in proportion as we can realize that God is our Father, and that we are the children of God, and there fore brothers and sisters in Christ. I would scarcely consider my sister worthy of the

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 53
name of "sister" unless she was better to me than to herself. I -wouldn't own my brother if he did any thing that was too good for me. I would be ashamed of him, and I would despise myself if the best place in my heart and home didn't belong to my brothers and sisters. Good Lord, knock out this step brother and step-sistep business, and help us to be blood-kin to one another. That's what we want.
These promises come to us all alike, and they come to us as the children of a great Father, and they come to us in all conditions of life, and there is a promise for you and one for me; a promise for me in the' morning, at noon, and at night; a promise for me when I am living and a promise for me dying; a promise for me on earth and in heaven. There is not an inch of the way from the houryon gave yourself to God until the end, that you do not put your foot down on a precious promise that will rest your body, and on which you can pillow your head at night.
I appreciate the old woman that took the preacher home to dinner one day. She was preparing the dinner and the preacher picked up the Bible off the table, and was reading

54 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
it at random, -when he noticed the letters "T. P." marked often on the margin, and when she came in he said, "What does this 'T. P.' stand for that you have here I" She said, ""Where do you see it, now?" He said, "Why, here, opposite this verse, 'Bread shall be given him.' " ."Why," said she, "those letters 'T. P.,' written on the margin of my Bible there, stand for 'Tried and Proven;' I have tried them, and proven them to be true." And so, brethren, we should do likewise. We should have our "T. P.'s" and be able to say, "I have tried the promises of God, and proven them to be true."
These promises come to us in all there righteousness and fullness, but we had better stop and stand a few minutes on their condi tions. There is too much of this harping on the Divine side in this world. Every fellow thinks if the Lord would swap sides with him he would run in first rate. We want to do the running ourselves, and have God do the repairing. We are all perfectly willing to do God's part of the thing, but none is willing to do his own part of the business. God will never get a liking for you. That's your own job, and some of you have got a mighty tough

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER, 55
job. God will never quit drinking whisky for you, and nothing in God's world will keep a. man sober who is pouring whisky into his hide. Christ and whisky won't stay in the same hide, at the same time.
I know when a man opens his mouth on the ruinous effects of whisky he is dubbed a "political preacher," a politician drumming for some party. I don't go much on party myself. That's so. I want the political parties jof this country to crawl up out of the mud and wash themselves from head to foot and put on clean clothes before I have anything to do with them. Instead of break ing down the political fence and getting in on them, I don't think I would go in if thy were to invite me in.
I was running on politics! Well, if there is one class of people in this country I can not pray for it's politicians. These politi cians I can not pray for. Some power whis pers back when I try to, "Don't talk to me about them." Do you know a pious politician in America to-day! Do you I Rack me out one; I want to see him powerful bad. I've been hunting for one for years. I ain't on politics, but I wanted to say this much.

56 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
I've got the profoundest contempt for a man or woman that will drink wine, beer, or whisky. It's these things that are debauch ing humanity. And another thing I want to say. A good many of you are drinking beer or whisky or wine for your health. The devil is in it, and he doesn't care whether you drink it for your health or not. He doesn't care how or why you do it all he wants is that you do it. If the Church of God in America would quit drinking whiskey and vote on this infernal whisky question they could starve out half the lager-beer saloons in the country in six months, and vote the., bal ance out of sight, for half of the saloons in Cincinnati are run by Church members I don't say Christians. God bless you, a Christion won't drink that stuff. I got religion thirteen years ago, and I know what a Chris tian can do.
There are a dozen preachers here who know more than I ever will. They're posted on a thousand things I never even heard of. but I'll say this much; there are two things I know well, one is what a fellow has to do to be religious, and the other is what he must refuse to do to be religious. I know these

SAM P. JONES, THB,PREACHER 57
two things as well as any one, and that's abont enough for this occasion.
Look at the conditions. "Commit your way to God and trust in him and do good, and yon shall dwell in the land, and verily you shall he fed." There is a promise cover ing earth and time, and the wants of the world; and I am glad to say to you that there is not a physical want of my nature but what this world stands with outstretched hands to give it to me. I've heard of people starving to death, but I never saw them. I never saw the coffin of a man who had starved to death. I've no patience with people who starve in this country not a particle.
If you want a sure successful life in this world in every sense, the Bible says: "Trust in the Lord and do good." How will I get every thing I want for my physical mant "Trust in the Lord and do good." Trust IB God and do your duty that's it exactly. There's a heap of trust in this country. There is the trust that makes men stand with hands held out a-waiting for God to drop somethingin. He wfll take every thing you give. That's one kind of trust, and that's abont nine-tenths of the faith in this country a catch-afl-that

58 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
comes faith. That's true. Always begging for something Lord bless you, if that's your faith. The country is just a nation of beggars that's the truth about it. Yes, it is, too religious tramps knocking at God's door beg ging. I've a contempt for this sort of thing I have, too always on the beg.
I've children, and when they hang around me and beg for something, I don't give it to them; but when I carry home presents and playthings for the little ones, and get there at midnight, the first thing that greets my ears when I awake in the morning is not the little fellows in there begging for something, but they have got hold of what I have brought them, and have found it in the other room. And I hear one say: "I've dot the best play thing;" and another says, "Ain't this nice?" and "Ain't that a good papa to bring us all these nice things!" and as I lie there I think in my heart, I'm glad I brought these things. So God has been bringing us things, and all we want to hear is that he is around, and we are right after him begging for something, and never show gratitude for what we have received. Lord, have mercy on us. We don't deserve any more.

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 59
As I said, I don't go much on tie divine side of the question; I look for the assurance that God is faithful to what he promises. There are lots of preachers who are everlast ingly preaching on the God side of redemp tion, on the Divinity of Christ, and the authenticity of the Scriptures, and of th mysteries of redemption, and the incarnation. La me! the devil doesn't want any better joke on a preacher than to start him off on that line. If I ever see a fellow on the divine side of the Gospel, he puts me in mind of those disciples who had been fishing all night, and Christ walked up to them and said I can imagine I see them all languid and depressed with their ill luck, and hungry "Cast your net on the other side of the ship, over there." And they said: "Why, Master, we fished all night and got nothing." "Put your net on the other side of the ship;" and they did, and it broke with fishes.
There's many a preacher fishing on the wrong side of the ship on the God side of the question. There's no fish over there. You ask one of them how many fish he has caught, and he will say: "Well, I haven't caught any, but I have had a lot of fine bites." Good

60 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
Lord, help us to see that the fish are on the man side of the Gospel, and attend to our own business and let the Lord attend to hit. That's determination. Let's stand on our side of the Gospel. Let us try to save souls. It's his business to create souls, and let him attend to his business. You are the fellows to bring them in, and Christ will attend to the rest and see that his blood cleanses us from all sin. If I want to dwell in the land and be fed of it, all I need to do is to trust in God and do my duty. "We have plenty of trust.
St. James gave us a clincher at this point when he said, "Show me your faith without your works, and 111 show you my faith by my works." That's the test of a man's faith. A man is judged by faith here, but by works hereafter. Every man must go before the judgement bar on the merits of his life. "Because I hungered and ye fed me, come in." That's it. Faith without works is dead! dead! dead! "Trust God and do your duty."
Kind friends, a better race of people never walked the face of the earth than those of Nashville. I love them for their prayers and

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 61
sympathy. One day they tried to impress on me the fact that I ought to accept a home in their midst and accept kindnesses to me and my family. I said: "I don't need any house. I have a better house now than any of you. I just live all around here, and when I get there your wife gives me a better meal than she gives you, and I get a better room, than you do; and the fact of the business is. I'm getting along better than yon all." Trust in God and do your duty, and every thing in this country is wide open.
Ill tell you what's true. Since I gave my heart to God I have had three spuare meals a day you can tell it by my looks and plenty of good clothes, and have any of you more than thatt If you have, what's done with itt Get it out here. You won't have it long. While you do have it, it's a heap of trouble. I mixed with some of the old rich fellows in one town, and told 'em I wonlden't swap places forty-eight hours with any of ' em.
I don't want to run a three or four-hundred-thousand dollar concern for my board and lodging and clothes. I've got too much sense for that. John Jacob Agtor was walk-

62 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
ing on Broadway one lay, and two fellows were walking behind him, and one says: "Jim, would you attend to all old Astor's business for your meals and clothes?" Jim said: "No; I'm no fool." "Well," says the other, "that's all old Astor gts." He owned twenty thousand houses in New York, and he couldn't live in more than one of them. Money is like a walking-stick; one will help you along, tut fifty on your back will break you down. Money is like salt water; the more you get the more you want. When you are full you want it worse than ever.
If a fellow has ten thousand dollars he wants twenty; if he has twenty he hankers for forty, and so on, and when he has a hun dred thousand dollars he is a great, big, down right lump of selfishness from head to foot. If I were to follow the earth's plan I have a wife and little children I would go to work and buy two or three thousand bolts of linen, bleaching and domestic; buy five thousand' cases of shoes, two or three thousand suits of clothes for my boys, and build a big ware house and fill it with flour, and lard, and hams, and I am laid up then for hard times. I want to have plenty, you know. I would

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 63
rather have my little home than have the job of keeping rats and thieves off the build ing, and 111 have an easier job. I can get to sleep when night comes. There's a heap in that. I met an old fellow in the city some time ago when the banks were shaky. He said: "I'm troubled; the money interests of this country are in an awful condition; and our banks have locked up what we have." I said: "Why, I did not know that." He said: "Why, the papers are full of it." "I never read anything about banks," I answer ed; "I'm not interested in that part of the paper."
Brethren, I'll tell you one thing; you may let every bank in the country break, and they won't get me for a nickel I haven't anything to lose. I never want to be afraid some one would steal what I had before I wake in the morning. They wouldn't steal it if they knew I hadn't more than I wanted. Trust God and do right, and you won't starve. When I joined the North Georgia Conference I was bankrupted I've never got over it, in fact but it didn't bother me.
I was put on a circuit that paid the preach er the year before $65. I had a wife and one

64 SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHER
child, a horse and $8 that was my assets. I took charge of the circuit, and the thought never struck me that I could not live. I wa glad I had a place to work for Christ. I had to give my note for $120 to "get a house that was twice as much as the preacher got the year before. An old brother in the Church said to me: "You'll starve; yon can not live on this circuit." I said, I'm going to stay here. Well, I did my best. I think I preached about five hundred times a year on circuits when I first started, and along about April of the first year my wife said to me: "Every thing is out,-money and provis
ions and alL" Brethren, did you ever notice how every
thing gives out at once, coffee, flour, and so onT I said, "Wife, it'll all come right. The Bible says so, and 111 starve to death if it isn't true. I have done my duty the best I could." It was not more than an hour after this that a neighbor brother drove up with a wagon load of stuff, and I had more in my house then than I ever had since. "Trust in God and do your duty." I said to my wife then, "Well stay right here and not say a word, and if yon and I and the child do starve

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 65
well let 'em think we died of typhoid fever. "Whenever you put your trust in God and do your duty you'll come out ahead every time." I'm sorry if any brother is uneasy about his salary. Do your duty. No work is hard if Christ is with us, and will bless us in our work.
I wouldn't give the spirit of the old negrd woman down South for all of the alleged faith of some Christians. She was coming down the street with a big basket of clothes, sing ing happily as a lark when a citizen said to her, "Good morning, aunty, you seem to be as happy as a lark this morning." "Well," said she, "I is, boss." "Have you any money laid up?" "No, boss, I hasn't." "A home of your ownf" "No, boss," "Well, how do you livet" "I washes for it," said she. "Suppose you get sick and couldn't work, what would become of you?" Said the old black woman, cheerfully, "I neber s'poses any thing of de kind, boss. The Lord is my Shep herd, and I ain't going to want." I wouldn't give the spirit of that old woman for all the money in America, when it comes down to facto.
I have seen some members of the Church

66 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER

who said they were starving, and I thought

it was a good thing. And I've seen some

preachers nearly starving, and I remember a

minister who despised the way the people had

of putting off punched nickels on him. He

said it was scandalous. I said: "You needn't

complain, you've got the drop on them; you

put off punched sermons on them." That's

about even;.

"Trust in God and do your duty," that's it;

and I've never yet known a faithful, sacred

,

man to want, and that's all we can have in

1

- this world what we eat and wear. Said one

of these rich fellows to me, "Jones, do you

want us rich men to scatter our money all

over town? What would become of ust"

I said you'll have it back in twelve months.

All you lose will be only one year's interest,

that's all They will have it again if it's

turned loose to-morrow. That's true.

Affinities sometimes determine some ques

tions. "Trust in the Lord and do good." Do

your duty, and this world has never witnessed

the fact that yon should not be card for ia

this life. I don't mean that a man should

turn loose and do nothing in the world but

sing and pray. It is my religious duty to

RAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 67
work as well as pray. I never saw a real lazy man in my life that I had any confidence in his religion, A lazy preacher of course yon haven't any in Ohio is a man God will not have much to do witlu A fellow gets religion, he gets it in his blood and muscle, all over, from head to foot, and it makes an industrious man out of him. It'll make a woman indus trious. There are women in this world who haven't struck a lick of work with their own hands for years. They board and lie around and about; all they do is shop, shop, shop. Hell .is full of such women as that! That sort can not go to heaven.
I don't care how much you work it's Christian. If you're worth a million dollars, what's that compared to the wealth of the whole continent} And yet you think you are some one if you own a few nickels! They're the poorest thing a fellow was ever loaded down with. You can scatter nickels along the way ten feet apart, and you can tole a man into hell with them. You know what sort of animals you can tole. I'm not reflect ing on any one here, mind you. "I'm just insinuating a reference," as the old fellow said. "Get all I can keep all I have," is

68 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
the curse of the world and the Church. That's it.
Take the next promise: "He will give yon. the desires of yonr heart." That's a bigger promise than the other. Do yon know how to. get every thing yon wantt "Delight thyself in the Lord." There's too mnch moping and sad religion in this world. It's not religion it's not Christianity. That's what I mean. Many a Christion is moping through this world with a long face, as if his father were dead, and left frim ont of his will, without a cent. If the Lord God, my Father, had done that I couldn't look worse than a great many of these Christian people. Some of us think it's a sin to laugh.
One good sister went away the other night and said: "I don't like so much levity." Poor soul, I hope you're much better by this time. If you take a tonic to-day you'll be still better to-morrow. "I don't like so much levity." Call this levityT Crack these jokes one at a time, and you'll find every one of 'em has the red-hot sting of a hornet tangled up in it, and you'll get stung. If you think it's levity it's because you have a levitous mind. There is no levity in this world; so it seems

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 69
to a fellow who has dyspepsia, but not to a naturally healthy man. The only levitou^ thing about it is, I hold up the looking-glass, and you people laugh at your carcasses re flected there.
Religion never was intended to make our pleasures less, and in eternal loyalty to God I yield the palm to none, and no man- shall unchristiahize me because I don't mope about like some of these follows. If you want dignity wait until I die, and 111 be as digni fied as any of yon. Just wait. What's a preacher any more than a manf How can a religious man be any more sacred t Tell me that. I wouldn't do a thing at home that I wouldn't to at Church. "Want- to drag the Church downt No, I want to drag the home up. Some people are solemn, serious, and very pious at Church, and they'll come to Church pious and sleek and say, "I don't like that merriment." You ought to have your neck broke.
The reason why the Church makes no pro gress in this world is because every fellow goes at it as if the Lord was working him to death and paying him nothing for it. That's about it. If this sad, solemn, drooping, digni-

70 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
fied piety is what makes your religion, I want it before I die, bnt I don't want it until just about a minute before I die I don't want to be loaded with it while I live. If religion means I shall mope and cry and must not laugh, it would be too short to stretch myself on it, and too narrow to curl myself up in it. "Delight thyself in the Lord." Have you ever been to a prayer-meeting in this city,, or a town prayer-meeting?
The preacher walked in solemnly and al most noiselessly, and the old brethren come in and scatter around the church as far apart as possible: one brother is called to sing and another to pray, and then after prayer they'll go home sneakingly and call it "growing in grace." O Lord, what a lonesome time they have had. The Lord does n't go within a mile of 'em, and the devil gets in. I would as Boom pray to make a shade-tree out of my walknig-stiek as try to grow in grace at a meeting like that. It's a disgrace to us, and yet the oldcorpse says: "I don't like such merriment at Church, and so much levity at Church. I wish you would make us cry." I don't believe there's a bit of piety in crying. There's no meanness in laughter. I tell you

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 71
as long as the light of my fathers face shines on me I am going to carry a smile through the world. Whenever a man can't laugh, he's in need of a liver medicine. There's somethnig wrong with him. Many a fellow in this country has mistaken a disordered liver for religion a miserable old dose it is to carry. I do n't care whether a man laughs or cries at Church. I want to know whether he's a good husband or father and a good neighbor.
I want a religion that will keep me straight, and not on that keeps my mouth shut and makes me look pious, and enables me to cover up my menness with my looks. The matter with the Church is, it is hidebound. Some of yon do n't know what that expression means. It means that your hide gets full and wants loosening up, and you have got down in your coffin and you need a thorough shaking up.
We have disgusted the world with our religion it's not attractive to the race, be cause our religion is without joy, gladness, smiles, and song. I want every man to go with a quick step to prayer-meeting, and for their first song let them break out on "All hail the power of Jems' name" with a rush;

72 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
and call on some brother to pray with a rash, and let hi drop on his knees and pray with a rush, and let him stand np and sing with a rush, and talk with a rash and go home with a rush. "Commit yourself to God, and he will bring it to pass.' 1 That's the biggest promise in the book. How will you get all things? Commit yourself to God. So it is with man. You go to a stable and get a horse and buggy, and you can drive and guide the horse as yon please. He wants to go every where, but will go anywhere he is guided. Pull on his left rein, he goes left ;pull on the right, he goes to the right; say "whoa," he stops; knock the lines on his back, and he goes forward. Thatg the way with religion.
God has lines and guides you by them, but sometimes you are balky and wont go, and, he pulls on the lines, and your mouth gets away up under your ear, like the old mule that is balky and won't go; and the mule will point his head in the wrong direction, but the body goes the way the mule goes. Stand here some night, and see that sister headed for the theater on Wednesday night. God wants her to go to prayer-meeting, and he

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 73
will poll on that line; and the devil wants her to go to the theatre, and he pulls on that line.
She's like a dog following two men on the street you can't tell to whom the dog be longs. But you follow them out to the forks of the road where the two men seperate, and then you'll know whom the dog belongs to. So, stand in this city on Wednesday night, 'at the forks of the road, with the prayermeeting here and the theatre there, and, you'll know whose servant she is. If yon go to the theater Wednesday or any other night yon are the devil's dog. The faith that be lieves every thing, and does nothing, is worth nothing to a man.
Don't criticise me, but criticize yourself. You can pick a thousand flaws in my sermon, but look out for yourselves. You.can't say any thing worse about me than I can about you. If there's any thing I despise it's a dull time. I like to see things move up. Yon can not harm me. Some men open their mouths to laugh, and you can drop a great big brick bat of truth right in. It's the biggest thing a man has a laughing month. A man can be

74 SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHER
pious and laugh, but let him not laugh at the truth I
SAYINGS
There is not an angel in heaven that is proof against bad company.
The Bible was not given to teach me the way the heavens go, but to teach me the way to go to heaven.
A big nose is a sign of intellect; a big mouth, character; a big chin, courage; and big ears, generosity. Some of you pastors ought to get ear-fertilizers; for there are more little 'possum-eared Church members in this country than you can count.
THE HOBTTTORY STYLE
Sam Jones was at times so rough, so humor ous and ragged in his discourse that it was difficult to conceive him in the role of gentle ness and tenderness, earnestly and pathetic ally pleading as a mother would plead with her children.
In the following sermon and in others of its kind, Mr. Jones was a surprising personal ity. With the strong and combative features of his most unusual face tempered to the

SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHER 75
mildness of a mother's face, and his voice mellow and literally musical with sympathy and pathos free from humor and invective, a St. John saying softly, "Let us love one an other," he plead with his audience like a Whitfield or Moody.
There was a benign look from his eye, a melting pathos in his voice and a pleading earnestness in his face as he said, "The' Divine Spirit is here tonight and His busi ness here is to woo and beseech and implore every man to give his heart to God and lead a good life."
At the close of a sermon like this, men and* women who came to hear wit, humor, homely and jocular criticism of the faults of the com munity, would break away from their worldly circles and wicked companions and come weeping to the altar. Ministers with tearbathed faces would gather about the altar to aid the struggling penitent into the light.
The crowd would disperse saying, "How different he was tonight." "He didn't talk' like Sana Jones."
He was always Sam Jones, the mystery, the indefinable, the ecclesiastic puzzle. Reduce your voice to the mellow pleading tone, your

76 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
face to earnestness of expression and read the following sermon and you will get an idea of Sam Jones in Ms hortatory style.
EPIGRAMS AND PEOVEEBS
Perhaps the most remarkable gift of the evangelistic genius was the power to origin ate, adopt and gather popular pointed and pithy sayings. He kept his ear always at tentive to bright sayings that were capable of being reduced to proverbs or "Sam Jones' sayings."
For example a friend told Mr. Jones of a humorous sort of fellow passing a dude and turning to this friend and saying, "I would have spit on that fellow but was afraid he could not swim and I don't like to drown ven a fool." Mr. Jones took that and adopt ed and used it the rest of his life.' In his reference to "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" he would say, "Sow saloons and reap drunkards," "Sow cards and reap gamblers," "Sow dance halls and reap dudes and dndeens," Sow dudes and dudeens and reap a thimbleful of calves' foot jelly the whole thing runs out."
A dude is just a pimple on society showing

8AM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 77
that the blood is out of order. "If you spit on one, you have got hi if he can't swim." "If I were shipping them I would put a dozen in a match box and post them. I could put a half dozen in my vest pocket and never know they were there unless one would get astraddled of my tooth pick." Thus he would take the one humorous suggestion of little ness and adopt it and produce others to go with it.
He cared little whether an illustration was rough or smooth so it carried the point with force. He would often say smilingly, "My illustrations are not elegant but they illus trate and this is all the use I have for them."1
In the next few pages are gathered the two or three classes of his -epigrams. The rougher ones, the smoother ones and the humorous ones. His epigrams were used for the most part in his discourses delivered in the con versational style. He always fixd a setting for his sayings like the jeweler builds the cone for the diamond set. If the saying was rough, h would set it in a smile; if pathetic, in a tear; if bright, in a sunbeam. His say ings taken out of their settings, out of the mood and temper of himself and his crowd

78 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHEB
when they were uttered seem rough. He so tempered his audiences to his sayings that he rarely offended. His fanny and unusual sayings put everybody in town to reapeating them* and thus he was advertised.
Other evangelists and pastors have copied him in this. Bright sayings make a discourse sparkle and add greatly to its attractive power. Why not gather and use the gemst People like them.
Flemming Bevelle Company of New York publishes a book of the famous stories and saying of Sam Jones from which the follow ing extracts are taken.
THE BOUGH AND HTJMOEOUS EPZOBAM8
Some of you old hard-headed Methodists could take three square butts with the billygoat and send him home by the drug store to get headache medicine.
I like a fast horse; but good Lord deliver me from a fast woman.
Some fellows have acted the dog so long till all they lack of being a dog is a little more hair and a tail.
These little idle, godless club buck that live on their appetites and passions ate no

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 79
higher animals than the pig that lies in the trough and waits for buttermilk.
A profane swearer is fit for nothing bnt to be butted to death by a goat, and I would hate to be the goat that had the nasty job.
Whiskey is a good thing in its place, and that place is hell.
I haven't seen a horse-race in twenty-five years. Not that I object to fine horses, but I object to the scrubby little devils laying around the race-track betting on them. The horse is a thoroughbred, the man is a scrub.
Some of you old kicking, quarrelling, grum bling Christians think you are preserved. You are not preserved, you are just pickled.
To me there is not better recommendation for a preacher than that he has raised the devil.
A man's money will help him to heaven, or it will help him to hell, whichever route he wants to go. He can take his money and go up with it or down with it, either way.
I have thought many a time that every swearing man ought to command .some lonely island to himself get off like Robinson Crusoe, and curse it out among the goats.
The man who will drink is a fool, and the

80 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
man who will sell liquor is a scoundrel, and the church members who will rent their stores for saloons and will give their sympathy to the saloon-keepers, are bigger scoundrels than the red-nosed devil that drinks it, or the bullneck scoundrel that sells it.
The less sense a fellow has, and the less he thinks, the more opinions he has.
If I throw a stone into a crowd of dogs, and one runs yelping, yon know that is the one that is hit.
It takes a lot of religion for a fellow to shout at another preacher's meeting.
. Society! That heartless old wretcht So ciety! Society! Society! the leech of the soul, that sucks it until it is as hollow as a drum.
If you lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas.
The Lord knows I would rather have fifty old maids on my hands than have a son-inlaw like some of you have got.
If some of your wives knew you as God knows you, they would give you the whole house to yourself.
If some of these old money-mongers get to

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 81
heaven, they will be out before breakfast digging tip the golden streets.
It tickles me to see one of these little flopeared editors take another drink -out of his jnb, sit down on one ear and fan himself with the other, and try to write an original editorial on Sam Jones.
Many a man imagines that he has got relig*ion because he is solemn, when it's only livercomplaint.
The dvil has no better servant than' a preacher who is laying feather-beds for fal len Christians to light on.
They will put in jail for stealing a man's money, but you can be an average churchmember and steal a man's reputation.
Ignorance is round as a ball and slick as a button; it's got no handle to it and you can't manage it.
The meanest woman in the world is the woman who will give four dollars a yard for her dress, and then go over to that'poor old woman who is a member of her church and jew her down to the last nickel she can get her to.make it for.
The sheep will run from a shepherd who

82 SAM P, JONES, THE PREACHER
never calls them except when he wants to shear them.
I don't believe we came from monkeys; but when I looks at some of you fellows, I feel that some of us are headed that way.
Ignorance and prejudice are the slippers for the devil to walk around lightly in.
BUTTEBFLY AND BEE
"One of these little flitting society girls, compared to a substantial Christian girl, re minds me of a butterfly, compared to a honey bee. The butterfly flits here and there with its beautiful color, and nobody ever knows what it's for or when it goes. The honey-bee flies from flower to flower, lighting with a velvet tread upon each blossom extracting its. sweetness without marring its beauty, and lays up honey to bless the world."
THE STREAMLET
"If you want to know my idea of the dif ference between a liberal Christian and a stingy Christian, I can give it to you in the picture of the little stream and the old pond. See the little streapi leaping down the moun tainside. Running along in its healthful ac-

RAM P. JONES, THE PREACHEB 83
tivity it passes near a pool or pond. The old pond hails the little stream: "Whither away, master streamlet 1" The streamlet replies: "I am going to bear this cup of water to the sea." The old pond smiles complacently, and says: "0, you poor foolish thing; we have had a backward spring and we will have a hot summer to pay for it, and you .will be dried up then it you waste your water." "Well," said the streamlet, "if I am to die so soon I will use this blessing while I have it for the good of others." The old pond smiled again and threw its arms around all it had and said, "I won't let one drop get away. I know I shall need it for myself by and by." The hot summer did come hotter and hotter still. The sun's rays poured down upon field and hill and mountain. And how about the streamlet t The trees lined its ver dant banks and locked their arms above its oosom and did not let a ray of sun touch the streamlet. The cattle sipped its tide; the "birds sang its'praise, and on it went rejoicing in its useful course. And how about the old pondf The sun poured down on its bosom hotter and hotter. The old pond began to "breed malaria and the wind scattered it over

84 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
the settlement. The people began to have chills and fever. The sun came still hotter. The frogs cast venom on its bosom; the cattle met at its brink, but would not touch its water; the birds fleew away without a note of praise. Then in mercy to the land the sun smote it with hotter breath and dried it up from the face of the earth. And how about the streamlet! It ran on to the river and gave all it had, and the river caught it up and carried it to the sea, and the sea sent its incense in clouds; and the winds, like waiting steeds, caught up the clouds and car ried them until they stood over the mouth of the streamlet and tipped the cup and poured the water back into its mouth. The stream let then, with renewed bigour, went singing down the mountain, passing near the old pond now dried up, sang out with merry voice:
"Old ponds may come, old ponds may go, But I go on forever."
Sister, brother, men, listen to-night. You can't go out alone to fight the battle of right God won't let you. He will make angels pitch their tents around you, and make the good men of earth stand by you, and God

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 85
himself will be your friend. Glory to God, yon don't go by yourself 1 If the devil says yon are too weak to walk or start, tell him God is with you.
Brethren, let us all start that way to-night. Let's start a better life, and if you do start to-night God will be with you. He will help you fight the battle.
SAYINGS.
I wish some of these pastors could see that men never can be saved by pastoral visits. I don't want my pastor to go fooling around my house two or three times a week in my wife's way, and in my children's way. I want him to study the source of life and truth, and then on Sunday preach a sermon that will set their souls on fife for the week. Then I don't care whether he calls around or not. If shoeleather will ever save this world, th-i Lord knows the visiting pastors have worn out enough already to save the whole world. Give us Gospel of truth and sense. Give us a Gospel that means the conquest of the world by bringing men into contact with truth.

THE CALLS OF GOD
"Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all ttsy counsel and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear coraeth." Prov. 1, 24-26.
T HESE are the words of God our Father, our Benefactor, and the God who will be our final Judge.
If we were wise men and wis women in the best sense, I might stop the pulpit part of these services now, and instead of inviting penitents into the inquiry rooms, we might turn this whole audience into an inquiry-room, and the best of us would start out to be better, and the medium class, morally speak ing, would make an immense movement for ward.
"Because I have called." Whatever else we may say all Bible readers admit that that this world of men are in danger of some thing, and that the Lord is doing his best to save men from the danger and death that

SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHER 87
threatens them; We purpose, practically, with your prayers, and with the help of God, to go into th question before us. Give us your attention if you are not a Christian, and give us your prayers if you are a Christian.
First, we notice the numerous calls of God ot men. The first great influence or agency in calling men to a better life is the third person of the adorable Trinity, which is the blessed Holy Spirit. Sometimes I think we magnify the work of the Holy Ghost too little in the great work of redemption. Jesus Christ, the Savior of man, came, and suffered, and died, but the suffering and death of Christ would have been of no effect but far the divine agency and power of the Holy Ghost.
Really, brethren, when we think lightly on this question we can never understand the cross, we can never see the cross in its beauty and outlines until it is bathed in the light of the Divine Spirit. I have walked out in the omnntainous regions of my own State, an hour before daybreak"; I have stood on the porch of some country home and looked at the hula and valleys around me; they presented but the dim outline of something that I could not

88 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
appreciate, because I could not folly see. I go back into that dwelling, and in three hours more I walk out again on the front poarch. The sun has risen on the scene, and bathed the mountains and valleys in a sea of light, and now I look, and see beauties and splendors that never met my eyes before. The light of the sun shows me the beauties of the world, and helps me to understand its mysteries. Berthren, I see th cross erected, God's only begotten Son, the victim, suspended; he suff ers, he dies, and I see but the dim outlines of something I can not catch it in its fullness, I can not take it in in all its beauty, but when the Divine Spirit rises on the scene, and bathes the cross in a sea of light, I see my Savior in beauty and power.
Blesses Spirit, live in our world and drawall men to Christ. This Holy Spirit is work ing today in the world, and is touching and moving the hearts and consciences of men. I am so glad of the divine agency of the blessed Spirit! It was so good in God to love me in my wayward life. It was so good for Christ to die for me, and spend thirty-three years among those that lived before me. It was so good in Christ to ascend to the Father, for

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 89
he said: "It is expedient for you that, I go away;" and when he entered the shining courts above the blessed Spirit poised himself a moment, and listened as his lips uttered: "The work is finished among men in sacrificial atonement," and then he flew to earth to sprinkle the nations, and make them meet for the Master's use in heaven. O, brother, this divine agency is in our world to-night. This would indeed be a fatherless, a comfortless, and a starless world without his ever-abiding presence and his power.
It was glorious to Mary and Martha to have Christ their guest. When Christ was with them he was not out in the street unstoppnig the ear of the deaf and giving eyes to the blind. When he was in the home of Mary and Martha they had him all to them selves. But here is this Divine Spirit. When I bid wife and children good-bye, and walk out of my home, I leave the Divine Spirit with them, and when I board the train for some distant point, the blessed Spirit rides, over these railways with me; and wherever I come I find that same Spirit abiding in the hearts of the people. Blessed be God for this

90 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
Spirit of grace that dwells not only in the world, but in the hearts of men.
This divine Spirit is here to-night, and his business here is to woo and beseech and im plore every man to give his heart to God and lead a good life. Brethren, can yon say aa yon look over the past and as you survey the present, "No good spirit has touched my heart; no divine power has moved my con science?" This light and this power lighteth every man that cometh into the world. We are warned at this point, brethren, to grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby we are taught that this sin, if we commit it persistently, is a sin for which there is no forgiveness in this world or in the world to come.
It is that Spirit touching your heart yester day, to-day, and to-night, and have you not in your soul a desire to be a better mant Every good desire and every hungering for better things, is implanted in the hearts of men by this Spirit of grace. O, how fearful and guilty we are to trifle with this blessed Spirit, this Spirit that comes back and im plores us to lead a better life. God not only gave us his Son to die for us, but he let thit

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER SI
divine Spirit abide among men to lead them to a better life.
I have seen the Spirit of God, as it touched the hearts and consciences of men; I have seen them in the face of the call of the Spirit and the influence of great reject and reject and reject the call, until I could almost hear the rustling wings of the divine Spirit as the blessed influence of God departed to coma back no more forever. 0, what a fearful sin it is to drive out of your heart the Influence of God.
Yon may trifle with the preacher and laugh at the Church, but, O, brother, I warn you not to trifle with the Spirit of God.
"There is a time, we know not when, A point, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men, For glory or despair."
God forbid that any man in this service to-night should cross the line from beyond which no man ever came back. O, Sir, while the good Spirit touches your heart, yield, yield, yield instantly, and yield forever! If God had given his Son to die for us, we had refused to look at the scene, then we would

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have died without excuse; but when God gives a sacrifice, and then points us to the sacri fice; he comes closer to us, and calls by his Word, by his blessed Book. On every page of this Book there is a divine calL O, sir, if I begin with Genesis and end with Rev elation, I yet have to acknowledge, the truth. I have received ten thousand calls from a life of sin to a life of holiness in the sight of God. This Book is full of calls, and every call is plain and easy of understanding. This Book lies on the table in your home, this neglected Book, and you throw it aside as a thing of no moment. If this little bundle of paper I hold in my hand is true, it outweighs all this world; if this Book is true, then iet us read it, and heed its calls, and be guided by its divinely given precepts. 0, sir, this Book is yours. God sent it to your home. May be it was a present under God from a good moth er to you; may be a precious Christian wife gave this Book to you the day of your mar riage; may be some good man dropped this Book in your hands and said: "There is a Holy Bible, Book divine!" Clasp it to your heart and say, "Precious treasure, thott art

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER S3
mine." Take this Book, brother, b guided
by it. Not only does God call us by bis Spirit
and by his Word, but he calls us also by his ministry, s O, how many consecrated preachers there are in the world to-day. Look at this city. It has a thousand pulpits calloing men to a better life. . O, sir, while you hear me now, I look yon in the face and .sayyour criticisms of a preacher, your criticisms' upon the pulpit do not lessen your responsi bility to God. I don't care who may be your preacher; I care not whether he is educated or uneducated. This much I can say and tell the truth I never heard an old Negro preach anywhere that there was not truth enough in his sermon to save a thousand souls like mine. I know that, and whatever you may say about your preacher, you can not say that in any single sermon you have ever listened to there was not truth enough in it to make you a good man, and carry you home to God. They are doing their duty the best they can, and I say to you to-night, there are preachers within hearing of my voice that hav spent restless nights on their knees praying for your husband or your son, when you are sleep-

94 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
ing, as if there were nothing for yon to be interested in. One who has not filled the re lations of pastor to a people can not tell the hours of agony we spend before God in wrestl ing at the throne, that God may revive his work and save the children of our precious mothers, and bring the world to Christ.
Thank God for the preachers. They have been worth all the world to me. And I tell yon, brother, as long as sin is in the world, may God let the preachers stay in the world. There is not a preacher in any pulpit in this town that is not worth more to your city, than any ten policemen in your city, when it comes to good order, morals, and civilization; and if you will multiply your churches, you can minify your police force. If you will make churches thicker, the bar-rooms will give way before them, and may God grant to the preachers of this city power with their con gregations and power with sinners such as they have never had before. Thank God for the faithful ministry, doing it's best toward bringing the world to God. Thank God for the preachers that have not only preached to us, but have met us on the sidewalk and taken our hands and said, "I am interested

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 95
in you; I am praying for yon." They have come nnder onr roof and prayed with our loved ones, when we were away, and care less and thoughtless, and not only that, but they have fallen dawn on their knees in their studies, and called upon God to bless us. And I venture the assertion, there is not a person in this house to-night whose name has not been registered at the mercy seat, and put there by the prayers of a faithful preacher, God helps to see that others are interested, and may it interest us now and forever.
God calls men by his ministry. Now we are ont perfect; I know we are not perfect, and we have been troubled about that. There is not a preacher in this city who does not, in his heart, wish that he were a better preach er and a more efficient preacher. Brethren, if you want to set your preachers on fire, bap tise their efforts with tears and prayers, and God will give force to his "Word.
God calls you likewise by his providences. And how closely those providences come to us. How sad they make our hearts, and how they show the hollowness of time or sense. "What man or woman is there here to-night who never made a pilgrimage to a grave f

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Who has not gone and laid away some loved onet Which man here has never, never, had his home circle touched by the hand of death t Where is my father t Where is my mother I Where is my wife! Where are my children 0! these questions bring tears of sadness to many eyes. And I want to tell you men, your precious mothers will not stay much longer. Many have already gone. I was sitting in a traveler. He introduced himself and said: "Mr. Jones, I have been reading your sermons, and I was very much affected. But," said he, "I will tell you something that affected me a great deal more than that." I said, "What, Sir!" He pulled out a letter, and he says, "You see this! "It is from my precious good old mother, now seventy years old. Read those sentiments." And they were like the sentiments of an angel of God. Said he: "Mr. Jones, mother has been writing that way to me all my life since I have been away from home, and it is not what mother said that touches the heart, but it is that nervous hand she holds that pen with. She is not going to write to me much longer." And he said: "When I answer the letter I said, 'Previous

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 9?
mother, your boy surrenders to God, and he will never give you any more trouble.' "
Providence touches us on. all sides. When I was preaching at Nashville I got on the train Friday evening and started home, and I sat on the engine with the engineer. He said to me, "Mr. Jones, you touched mo and got very close to me last night at meeting." Said I, "How is thatt" He said, "When you told about your old schoolmate, Virginia." The incident which I related was this: One morning I walked down to an old school mate's home, and when I walked in there was the wife and mother, an old schoolmate of mine. I talked to her kindly and took my seat by the side of her child, which was sick. There was a little two-year-old fellow on his mother's lap, looking like a little angel chisled out of marble. When I walked in I spoke to her and sat there a moment. Said I: "Virginia, I believe God is going to take this sweet child too." "Yes, yes," she saia, "and this will be the fifth precious one God has taken." "Well," said I, "Virginia, did it ever occur to you that God was doing his best to save your poor husband?" "O," she said, "do you recognize what it means?"

98 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
Said I, "I believe it so." "O, well," she said, "if God can save my husband by tak ing these precious children I will give all my children up to God without a murmur." And she sat there, and the tears just rained out of her eyes on the face of the little sick child. I got up and walked down town, and I found her husband, a kind-hearted, good fellow, that had drunk himself to the verge of perdition. I stopped him on the walk and laid my hand on his shoulder, and I said, "John, I am just from your house, old fellow. Now, John, your wife is bathing that child this moment in her tears. You have got as good a wife as a man ever had. Did it ever occur to you that God is doing his best to save you from a drunkard's grave?" I saw the tears start in his eyes: and I want to tell you to-day that that man is one of the best men in our city, and an official member of the Church that my wife belongs to. Thank God, thank God for the means by which he reaches, the children of men and leads them to a better life.
God came to our horn* thirteen years ago. And if you had asked me: "What is the wrost thing that can happen to you?" I would

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 99
have thought in my heart, "The loss of my father." And I have scarcely seen a day since my father died lie is not dead: he is not dead: I never fhm\t of him as being dead; I just think of him as a father in heaven I have not seen a day since he told me good-bye that I would not have given any thing in the world if I could just have my father back one hour, and just lean my head on his bosom, and have him talk to me like he once did. But he is gone. O, when my Father in heaven took my earthly father, then it was that I realized that he would be a father to me,..and bless me beyond all that, that my earthly father could have done. When God came to my home and took our little nineteen-monthsold Beulah to that bright world up yonder, I was a poor, cheerless, miserable sinner. I looked in the face of that sweet child, and I am a great deal better father to my other children than I ever would have been if I did not have one in heaven. Gone! and O, how dark and cheerless was my home! I could not pray; I could not look to God. I looked down into the grave, and it was dark, so dark! She is gone! That is the only one of my children that ever saw her father when

100 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
he was not a Christian. That is. the only one that ever saw her father when he was dissipated! She is in heaevn. Thank God I have not a living child that ever looked in my face when I was not a Christian trying to set a good example, and trying to lead my children to a better world.
Fathers, you owe your children a debt. God" has come very close to you. If taking your property away from you will save you, God will do that. If taking your wife, and nothing else but taking your wife from you will save you, God will take your wife. If taking your children, and nothing but that will save you, God will take your children. The engineer, sitting on that engine, said: "Mr. Jones, last night, when you told about Virginia, you got mighty close to me;" and the tears started down his cheeks. Said he: "This last year God came to my home and took the sweetest child I had." Then he said: "Mr. Jones, since that I have not cursed an oath and 1 have not taken a drink. I want you to pray for me. I have got a good wife; I have happy children. Pray for me. I want to be a good man." O, brethren, God gets very close to us when he comes to our homes, and touches

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our hearts and makes us wish, for a better life. O, will you hear!
He calls us by his providences to-night, and by those precious promises he gives us in His book. But God does not stop there. He calls me in every way. I believe it was Mr. Spurgeon who said that, if we but had ears to hear, we should know that God calls us in ten thousand ways. Brother, when you walk out in the morning you see the sun climbing the slippery steeps of the eastern horizon, and God speaks through the sun, and the sun looks down and smiles upon you and says: "0, man, I am climbing up higher, and my pathway grows brighter. Is your pathway upward and brighter like mine!" When the sun reaches the meridian, he looks down again and says: "O, man, I have reached my meridian height! Have you reached the meridian of your life! Will you soon begin to decline as I now do!" And when he sinks behind the western hori zon and paints a scene of beauty across it, he whispers back and says: "O, man, suns have their setting. Suns will set, and we shall die. Will yon paint the beauties of a happy, well-spent life upon the faces and lives of those around you! or will you die

102 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
like the sun, going down in gloom and dark ness?" 0, sir, when I enter my home at night, then God speaks to me. The supper bell rings, and I call my children around the table. They gather, and I help thir plates. God looks at the picture and says: "My child, I will feed you on heaven's bread and angel's food if you come to me. You are the" father, and these are children. I am a Father; be thou my child and come to me, and I will clothe you and feed you with the bread of heaven." And then, when I sit down at my gas-jet and begin to read, the little candle fly flits around th light, and I dash it away. "Out, poor, foolish thing; don't burn your self to death." It flits around and into the light, and burns itself to death. And God says: "Poor man, you are doing the very same thing yourself. You are dazzled by the plea sures of life, and flitting around them, you will drop into the flame and be burned up forever." Then, when I retire at night and close my door, God says: "Man, some day heaven's door will be closed. Will you be with the damned, cast out, or will you be shut in forever with God." "When some sud den noise wakes you at night, God says: "Ye

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 103
know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh. Be ye also ready." When you walk down town to business, God says to you as you measure off your yard of cloth, "Man, I will measure off your days to you." And when yon take the scissors and clip the cloth, God says: "When I measure off your days the scissors of death shall clip you from time and pass you into eternity." And when you take the sugar or coffee and throw it into the scales and weigh it, God says: "0, man, mene, rnene, tekel: thy days are num bered; thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." There yon are, a black smith, and as yon pound the iron God says: "O, man, I have pounded upon your heart with the hammer of truth: yet I have never shaped you unto God." Here is a schoolteacher. Christ comes to you and says: "Learn of Me; I will teach you things that no other teacher ever knew." Are you a lawyer t God says to you: " As yon represent your clients there, let my Son be your advo cate, for you shall be tried up yonder by and by." Are you a farmer t With every seed you drop from your hand God says: "Man, I have been sowing the seed of God in your

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heart. Have they come upf" And, -when you take the sickle in to reap the harvest, God says: "Man, some of these days the sickle of death will cut you down, and the wheat shall be separated from the chaff." As you see that river flowing through your city, God tells you: "O, man, as you look upon its waters, will you ever stand redeemed on the banks of the river of life. As you walk through your orchards looking upon the fruit laden trees, God says, "0, man, will you ever eat of the tree of life that grows in the city of God?" Every cracking, burning fire that meets your gaze God says, "Will you be cast out where the worm never dies and the fire shall never be quenchedt" And here, as we ride up and down the streets, each house tells me: "There is a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Will you live and abide there with God forever, or will you be houseless and homeless in eternity T" Wherever I turn, wherever I go, God is calling me to a better life.
Now, brother, God is not only calling ud in a thousand ways, but there is another fact: We have heard those calls, every one of them;

SAM P. JONES, THE PKEAC2ER 105
those calls have been so loud that all men have heard them. Blessed be God, you have not only heard them with your ears, but they have rung through the chambers of your souls; and not only have you heard these calls, and heard them a thousand times, but you have understood every one of them. You knew what they meant; you knew their purpose; you knew the desire of God in mak ing those calls. Now, because I have been called in ten thousand ways, and God has made me hear those calls, and God has made me understand those calls, and I have refused them all, God says himself: "I, also, will laugh at your calamities. I will mock when your fear eometh." I don't know what that means. I read in that Book, "With what mea sure ye mete it shall be measured to you again." Hear me, brother; listen, O, men, to night you scoff and laugh at God. Now, as God pleads with you, you laugh and scoff at him. and so, by and by, when you plead and beg, God will laugh and scoff at you. As you treat God to-night he will treat you by and by. Yon say, "0, that is so unreasonable. It is so wicked to talk that way." It is God's own utterance. Hear it, brother. You laugh

106 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
and scoff now, and God says, when you plead by and by, as I plead to-night: "I will laugh at your calamities. I will mock when your fear eometh.",
0, what a thought! I don't understand it, I say. I can't understand it. One min ute: I will illutrate, and then leave this aw ful question with you. One of our old preachers told me the only incident I have ever heard in all my experience that can at all illustrate what this thought is or what it can mean. He said in the village where he then lived, out in the country about two miles, there lived a gentleman of culture and refinement a Christian gentleman. The man was wealthy, and he had only one child, a boy. Upon this boy he lavished ail the love of his heart; he gave him every thing that love could suggest and money could buy. This boy went off to college, and came back home dissipated, and the father ex hausted all the infinite sympathy and love of his heart upon him. Yet the boy went from bad to worse. It was the comment of the community that such a father could love, that such a father could bestow such kind ness upon such a degraded boy. The father

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loved him on, and clang to hfrn through it all ; but the boy got deeper in his guilt. The father, said the preacher, drove into town one day, and hitched his horse on the square, and started down to a store to procure some things. He met this drunken boy of his staggering along the street. The boy met him, and took his father by the collar and shook him rudely, and cursed him to hit face. The father pulled loose from the boy, and with a countenance that meant mort than a biography, stepped into his buggy and drove off home. The servant took his his horse and he was seen to walk away to a beautiful^ grove of a hundred acres in front of the house, and walked down to the furtherest corner. Some of them watched him. When he reached the further corner he put his hands to his head, gave the most unearth ly shriek that human lips ever gave utterance to, and then took down his hands a moment; then threw up his hands again with a scream that startled all who have heard it, and then walkd deliberately back to his house. Just as he reached the porch this boy came walk ing up behind him on the porch. Tfia father turned around; the boy staggered in. The

108 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
father caught him and straightened him up in his presence, turned his face toward the road, and said: "Off of these premises for ever. You are no longer my son or kin of mine. You vagabond, leave forever." And ten days later that boy died in the gutter in that town, and his father never saw his corpse or attended his funeral. "Mercy knows the appointed bounds and terms of vengence there."
O, sir, this alone can illustrate the feeling! of the Son of God when he walked upon the hill, near the city of Jerusalem, and looked down upon it in its guilt and said: "O, Je rusalem." It was the wail of a God. "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." Off of my heart forever. Off of my heart forever. God pity the man that pushes divine love to extrem ities like that.
"I have called and ye have refused." God help us to-night, if we have not done so before, to yield our hearts to God, and be religious from this blessed hour out. "Won't you,

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friends! Won't youf But, thank God, in conclusion, just one sentence:
"But they who turn to God. shall live, Through his abounding grace;
His mercy will the guilt forgiv* Of those who seek His face."
God is not implacable towards you. He loves you. He calls you. He seeks you. Come to God and live to-night. Won't you, friend T I beg you come. We are going to invite into the inquiry room every man that does not want to slight another offer of grace and scoff at the Bible, and means to yield to God. We beg you come now. Let us settle the question to-night. It has been the dilly-dally of the past that has been the curse of those here. Now, men of sense and men of souls, hear me to-night. Let us make an eternal decision before we leave this house. If it is right to serve God and live right, let us decide it to-night, and act upon that de cision. If it is not right, let us decide, "I won't yield to God," and let that decision be final and eternal. As for one, I utter it from the depths of my heart, if I never sur rendered fully to God until now, by the grace

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of God I make the unconditional eternal surrender to-night. God shall be my portion for ever.
Will you decide that way* If you don't, then decide the other way, and walk out of this house with destiny fixed and doom settled for all worlds. God help you to say, "This night I surrender to God and make my peace with him through Jesus Chrirt."
THE FOEENSIC SAM JONES
Imagine an audience of five to eight thous and men packed in a wooden tabernacle, warehouse or tent, every seat taken and standing two or three deep around the walls. Imagine a choir of men two to five hundred seated on an amphi-theatre platform with two pianos and orchestra with E. O. Excell, the three hundred pound chorus leader, conduct ing a song service of tremendous voice and power.
At the hour appointed for preaching Sam Jones presses his way through th throng to the platform. No rush, no sputter, no sign of show or parade, modestly dressed with such quiet mien that a stranger could not tell him from other members of accom-

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 111
panying group. He takes an ineonspicioua seat on the platform and sits quietly looking over the crowd, twisting his moustache in a thoughtful mood. When Mr. Excell has with masterful voice finished the solo usually sung before the sermon, Sam Jones rises with face intense, his big black eyes aflame and pitches his voice to compass the thousands.
He has the air, attitude and voice of a great speaker. He impresses the audience in the first ten sentences that they are in the presence of an orator of unusual ability. In voice, gesture and action, he is an orator. There is that majesty and authority in his voice and mien that commands the respect of every class. With index finger "Thou art the man," with clinched fist and master hammer stroke, "to dominate or die," "to break down the wrong or perish in the strug gle," with mellow tones of sympathy or thunder tones of authority, this masterful platform man literally bewilders his audi ence with the power of his thought and speech.
In the following sermon if you would get Sam Jones as the orator, read the sermon with a clear, loud, mandatory voice. Throw

112 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
into your voice all the tremendous terror of an actor and with uplifted right hand, cry, "The Judgment! The Judgment! My God, I am afraid of the Judgment seat of Christ!" or clench your fist, put the terror of an im pending wreck in face and eye and voice and utter with the authority of a commanding officer, "No, Sir! God Almighty will burn this world up and bring us to the Judgment seat of Christ! You cannot dodge this minis terial officer already on your track."
After an hour of clear argument, of fear ful denunciation of sin, of vivid pictures, of impending judgment and punishment, he turns into his own experience; pictures with deep pathos his own downward steps to the gates of death and the mercy of God that saved him. After leading his audience to the gates of hell, lashed by Conscience and condemned by record, he turns and leads them back to the cross whose blood fell upon his guilty record and blotted out the stain A rescued man, he throws out the life line. The appeal is tender and powerful and the results always miraculous.
There was no compromise with sin any where or at any time in his preaching, but

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 113
his masterful strokes that reformed institu tions and communities were in these great sermons to the thousands when he was srmonie, forensic, stately, masterful. His per sonality, voice and spiritual power cannot be put into a printed sermon but to those who are able to supply these things, the fol lowing sermon will present its author in his sermonic and forensic style.
In the terrific philippic against sin and un righteousness in general, he always found a place to attack any local situation where sin was entrenched. With no apparent regard for opposition that might be aroused or criti cism incurred, he courageously and unmerci fully attacked sin in high and low places indiscriminately. If Church or civic officials were wicked he flayed them, if Clubs or other social functions in any city fostered sin he unmercifully exposed them and con demned them.

SERMON XV.
"WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN, I HAVE WRITTEN."
"What I have written, I have writ ten." John xix, 22.
N OW, brethren, let us all be quiet and prayerful to-night. Let every man who believes in God lift his heart in prayer while I preach. I will read three or four verses in different parts of the Bible. Let us give attention to them, because they have much to do with the discussion that follows: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." (Ecclesiastes xi, 9.) "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Ec clesiastes xii, 13.) And then we read: "So

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 115
then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." (Rom. xiv, 12.) And again we read: "And the books were opened; and another book was opened." (Rev. xx, 12). And now we come to the text: "What I have written, I have written." (John xix, 22.)
There are two "somethings" and one "someone" that I had to do with yesterday. I have had to do with them to-day. I shall have to do with them forever. "Conscience" and "record" are the two somethings and God is the some one. Conscience Record God. Conscience and record are like two index fingers pointing right up into the face of God, and God is the great index finger pointing to the final judgment. Conscience is that something in my life approving the right, disapproving the wrong. Conscience when outraged is that something that will not let me sleep, no matter how soft my pil low. Conscience that something that will not let me eat, no matter how richly laden tile table. Conscience that something in me that makes me drop my head in guilt and shame before the world. Conscience where is the man in this audience who never felt the pangs and pains of an outraged icon-

116 SAM P. JONES, THE PEEAGHEB
gciencef The poet was right when he said:
"What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do,
This teach me more than hell to shun, That more than heaven pursue."
And I am right in saying upon this oc casion that the most fearful sin a man ever committed in this life, is to sin directly and to sin persistently against his own con science. Do you do that thing which con science says thou oughtest not to dot Do you not do that thing which conscience says thou oughtest to do! Do you persist in the evil when conscience cries: "Stop! hold! murder! murder! don't do it I" Conscience ah, me, brother! some one has said that an outraged conscience is the worm that shall never die, and the fire that shall never be quenched.
Where is the man that never outraged his conscience; that never did violence to his conscience T I have more admiration for that poor heathen woman who, in answer to the dictates of conscience, drowns her babe in the Ganges as it flows at her feet, than I have for any woman in this building who

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stabs her conscience. I pray you listen! Heaven is the home of conscience. You have felt its pangs, you felt them yesterday, you feel them to-day, and you may feel them for ever.
Record: A man has a record just as a man has a conscience. My record is as much a part of me as my conscience or hand is; my record is as mnch a part of my immortal being as my hand or arm of my physical be ing; my record is as inseparable from that body as this arm is inseparable from my physical body. Your record is just as much a part of you as your hand is. You can not separate them. Do what you will, yon can not remove them. I was sitting, some years ago, by the side of a soldier that had lost his arm up to the elbow, in the war. As I sat by his side he pulled up his empty sleeve and turned and said, "My, but those fingers burn and itch!" I says, "What fingerst" "Those fingers on my right hand." I said, "You have no right hand." He said, "That is true, but that whole hand and arm is as much on me in feeling, although buried on a battle-field in Virginia, to-day, as it was before I went to battle."

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So your rcord can not be separated from you. Every man's record is made up to this hour. Now, with the conscience outraged as many are in this house, with a record that condemns me, at every point in life; with the great God and the judgment seat before which I shall appear to give an account of my deeds, whether good or bad, is enough to bring men to their feet and make them see this in the light of eternity. You men who don't believe in hell fire you men who don't believe in eternal punishment, if you can tell me how long the record of guilt can live, I will tell you how long hell will endure.
I tell you, my friends, if there is not to be a final judgment when man shall be brought to a final bar to give an accouunt of all the deeds done in the body, if there is to be no judgment hereafter, there are in cidents and feelings and inspirations and fears and dreads about my being that can not be explained in time of eternity. Everybad deed of my life, every wayward act of my life, every wicked word of my life, have been so many fingers pointing me ever and anon to the great day in which I shall give an account to God, for the way I have lived,

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for what I have done, and for what I have said.
If you can tell me how long a lie will live, I will tell you how long eternal punishment for telling a lie will live. If you will .tell me how long it takes time and eternity to gather back into nothing the guilt of butcher ing your neighbor and bring him back to life, I will tell you how long your conscience will be guilty for taking the life blood of your neighbor. I am not troubled how long conscience may last, but I am troubled how long conscience may lash, for conscience and record go before the great white throne.
An old sheriff down in Georgia, named Zacky, was approached by his pastor one day, who said to him, "Come out and give your heart to God, and prepare for death; you are getting old." Mr. Zaekey said, "I am not afraid to die." And he told him the truth. God never made a braver man in this world. There was no danger on earth he would not face in duty. He would walk up to the mouth of a thousand cannons. He never knew what the tremor of physical fear was. He looked up into his pastor's face and said, "I am not afraid to die." "That

120 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
is true. God never made a braver man than you, but how about the judgment bar of God!" And the old man's lips trembled.
"The Judgment, the Judgment, My God, I am afraid of the judgment!" Some people say that the hour of death is the honest hour. That is a mistake. Many a poor fellow has passed out of this world with a smile on his face and gone to eternity to be damned for ever. I never ask how a man dies; I care nothing about how he dies; you need not ask how I died, but keep the record of my life, and then you may know. If you live right! I don't want any evidence; I only want Ms conscience and record right. You men who have rejected ten thousand opportunities, look at your record to-night, take a survey of the field and the conscience in your bosom^ looking up to God, and bring yourself so clo to the throne that it may do you good.
If this Book teaches any thing, it teaches the final judgment; if you tell me there is no judgment, I declare to you in the life of sin I never look to my sins that all of them do not point their bony fingers toward a final judgment day a day when each man shall give a final account. If I am to be respon-

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 121
ible to any body on a judgment, then there most be a trial for judgment implies a trial, a trial necessitates a time and place for hear ing, and when I speak of judgment I am not talking to you of brimstone, but ten thou sand times worse the idea of being banished from God is a thousand times worse than hell itself, and so is a record that makes me drop my head or call for rocks and mountains to hide me from the face of God and the Lamb forever.
Judgment is a forensic term, and means simply the equitable adjustment of an issue, but in an ecclesiastical sense it means the final adjudication in heaven's chancery, when God shall summon mn and angels alike around his great white throne and there sift the issue between himself and all created intellig-ences; and when God once says to you, "depart, ye cursed," there never shall be an after jurisdiction. The record of my inno cence or my guilt, will blaze forever in full view of my eyes as my vindication injieaven or my condemnation in hell.
Judgment! Let us strip this subject of all its mystery. When a man has violated the laws of his State there are but three ways by

122 SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHER
which he can hope to escape. One is by force of law, another by force of testimony, anoth er by pardon, where the governor -extends his clemency and pardons the criminal. Now I grant you that justice may be defeated in many ways. A criminal may violate the law of the State and fly from justice, and keep out of the way of sheriffs and officers. He may bribe the grand jury so that they will not find a true bill against him, but when a man is once arraigned before the criminal courts of this country there are but three ways by which he can hope to escape justice.
One way is by force of law. When a criminal is brought into the court-house, and one witness after another is introduced, and they prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and when the judge picks up the Code of the State and says. "This man is guilty, but the law of the State does not make the offense a crime," the man is acquitted by force of law. There is no law that says his conduct is criminal, therefore he is acquitted.
I might stop here and run off at a tan gent, and say some things that would burn like fire. I understand that the jurors of the courts of this city will take a solemn

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 123
oath on the Bible to render a verdict accord ing to the law, and go into the juryroom and perjure themselves, and walk out and say they don't believe in the law. If you are one of those men, you are a perjurer a moral leper you swear to execute the laws of the State, and try a case under that law, and walk out of your jury-room and say, "We don't believe in the law!" You ought to be in the penitentiary yourself, sir. And if I was the judge on the bench, I would order your arrest, and I would cause the last one of you to be prosecuted for prejury and put in the penitentiary, even the justices as well as the jurors. That is the truth about it.
But if the thing charged in the indictment is a crime, then he may be acquitted by force of testimony. When the jury, after hearing the evidence, say: "There is not sufficient evidence to convict, and we find the prisoner not guilty," then the prisoner is acquitted by force of testimony. But if he is condemn ed by law, and condemned by testimony, then there is but one hope, and that is the par don of the governor.
Now, up yonder, before that tribunal, there can be but three ways by which men can

124 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
hope to escape. You can not dodge God's ministeral officers and keep out of their way. You will come to the judgment! to the judg ment ! to the judgment! When we leave this room some will go this way, some that way, but every road you take converges right to wards the judgment-seat of Christ, and if we never see each other's faces again, we shall meet at the throne of God at last. I can not dodge God's ministerial officers. "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence! If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
No, sir! God Almighty will burn this world up and bring us to the judgment-seat of Christ. You can not dodge the ministerial officers already on your track. One of God's sheriffs put his hand on your head one day, and since that it has begun to frost. God's sheriff touched your eye one day and it grew dim and you have been wearing spectacles ever since. God's sheriff touched your leg,

SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEB 125
and you are now walking with a cane along the streets. Wherever you meet men the touch of God's sheriff is upon, them, and that means simply:
I have claimed you for my own! I will take you by and by. And then, again, yon can not bribe God'* grand jury. They have already sat upon your case, and the verdict reads: "The soul that sinneth it shall die, and he that believeth not shall be condemned." I know in this country that a criminal sometimes rushes up and defies the court and its author ities, but can you defy the court of God that sits upon the throne? Shall I rush up in the presence of the great God, who in the beginning held a great flaming mass on the anvil of eternal purpose, and pounded it with his own powerful arm, and every spark that flew from it made a world shall I rush up into the presence of such a God as that and defy him? No, sir! Shall I bribe the Judge of all the earth? No, sir- But when I shall be individualized at that final moment, and shall be called to walk into the presence of that great God, I have but three ways in which I can hope to escape.

126 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
One is by force of law. Now, hear me! I shake that little bundle of paper (the Bible) in your face, and if that little bundle of paper is true, it outweighs all this universe. If this book is true, I have in my hand a bundle of paper that does not weigh ten ounces, and yet it outweighs all the stars of the universe. If this little book is true and we have to die whether it is true or not you and I must meet God, and give an account of what we have done in the body.
The law of God. I want to say at this point that God will spring no new law up on you up yonder. Men say: "I do not like to read that Bible, it condemns me." If this law condemns you down here to-day, it will condemn you up yonder at the judg ment to-morrow. You will be the same man: This will be the same book.
"But," says that man, "I have never vio lated many laws in that book." Well, listen: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law. and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."
How do you understand that! Yonder is a boat chained to a wharf on your levee.

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 127
That chain has 100 Hnlra, but if I want to cut that boat loose, how many links must I cut! Fifty of the biggest linkst Ten of the middle-sized onesf No. I need only cut the smallest link, and that boat is as effectually loosened as if I had cut them alL And he that breaks the least is as guilty as if he had broken them all. Suppose I want to go to New York. There is one right road to that place, and 1,000 leading in other directions. When I take one of the^wrong roads I am as effectually out of the way as if I had taken every wrong road in the uni verse. And, brother, hear me: God looks not upon sin with the least allowance, and can any man stand up before the final bar and say: "I have never violated a precept of that book." Until you can do that, you can never hope to escape by the force of law.
The law condemns. The apostle tells us that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." The law is but a rule of action that prescribes what is right, and prohibits what is wrong. And, brother hear me! If, in your past life you have ever violated a precept in this book,

128 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
you can not hope to escape up yonder by force of law on the final judgment day. You are compelled to acknowledge: "I am guilty before God. I have violated precept after precept. I have not only done it repeatedly, but I have done it knowingly and willfully. I can not hope to be acquitted by force of law."
Then I say to you, how about the force of testimony t Now we have come directly to the text: "What I have written I have writ ten." I just quoted before that: "So, then, every one of us shall give an account of him self to God." Know thou that for all these things you shall be brought unto judgment, whether these things be good or bad. Now we stand there before his final throne. "What I have written I have written."
I declare to you this evening that it is my belief and it is founded on Scripture, that every man and every boy of us is now writ ing testimony by which we shall stand or fall on the last judgment day. Greenleaf on Evidence tells us that the best evidence a case is susceptible of shall be produced. He tells us again that written testimony is better than oral testimony. He tells us again that

SAM P. JONES, THE PBEACHEB 129
the evidence produced must correspond with the allegation, and be confined to the point at issue. Now, brother, here is the best testi mony (the Bible), and every word of it in God's own handwriting. Written testimony is better than oral testimony. Lnmpkin, one of the grandest jurists that ever sat npon the Supreme bench of Georgia, said: "I would rather trust the smallest slip of paper than the best memory man was ever gifted with." Here is written testimony: Start an engine from New York to San Francisco, and there is attached to its side a little piece of mechan ism which indicates the number of miles it has traveled, the stops it has made, and how long it stopped at each station and if yon want to know the record of the journey you need not ask the engineer a word. The little piece of mechanism on the side of the engine tells you its record. You go to, the city of New York, and you see the MeAlpine Hotel with its many rooms. You see that it is lighted up day after day and night after night, some rooms burning 100 jets, some ten, some one. Yon step to the proprietor and say, "How can you keep an account of this gasf How do you know how much you burn?" and he

^130 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
says, "Come with me." You walk with him down underneath a double stairway. He strikes a match and lights a candle and holds it to the dial plate of the gas-meter. He says, "You see that finger trembling on the face of the dialT That indicates to the onehundredth part of an inch how much gas has passed through this meter during the past three months. There is a record for you." And every man and every boy this evening can stand up and face this fact. "What I have written I have written."
Ah, me! the record of some men, the record of some boys who hear my voice this moment 1 If your wife could read your record just aa you have written it down, she would spurn you from her presense and drive yon ever from her home. There are boys listening to my voice whose mothers would drive them from their presence if they could read the last night's record of those boys. O, the re cord! Boys, every oath, every wicked deed, every midnight carousal, every debauched act of your life, is written in legible indelible letters, and shall sparkle forever on the tab lets of your hearts.
O, me! Men sometimes say it makes no

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 131
difference. Brother, it. makes no difference whether yon approached this hall in this or that spirit, hnt it makes an eternal difference whether you did right or wrong on your way here.
Record! Record! "We sometimes say "aa true as the Bible," but every record, every line on the tablet of your heart is just as true as the Bible is true. It is a secret record. God would not suffer an angel of heaven to touch that record. God would not suffer the worst enemy in the world to touch that re cord of yours. God would not suffer your precious mother to put her finger on that record. It is a secret of the soul by which it shall stand or fall at the judgment-seat of Christ. True! true! Holy Spirit, shine on our record this evening! Let usjread it now in thirty seconds a record of accumulated guilt that will drive us to some power to save, some power to relieve.
Record! Record! Record! What is your record as a Christian! On one side of your record I see recorded vows of eternal con stancy to God. On that page I see "I swear eternal allegiance to God and the right." Brother, what is your record from that day

132 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
to thist With vows upon you that would almost crush an angel, how have you lived since you knowingly and intentionally made thse vows to Godf Ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, what is your record since the day God called yon into his work, and you promised to be faithful .to God and to manf O Holy Spirit, shine on these records here this evening. Let us see what we must meet at the final bar of God. I want to say to you that I would frequently preach very differently but for record-making. I want to say to this vast assemblage of fathers, busbands, and sons here this evening, that while I preach the gospel to others, I never forget for a moment that I have a soul in my own body that will be saved or lost. God pity us here this evening, and turn our eyes inward, to see these records as God would have us see them.
What is your record, husband f What is your record, fathert What, is your record, son? There are hundreds of men here thii evening, and the only reason you can hold up your heads, the only reason you can move among your fellows, is the consciousness that nobody on earth can read your record. It

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 133
is hidden out of the sight of man. There are men listening to me now, who, if I could tear a page of the record from their heart and stick it there on that wall in legible let. ters, would shrink from this congrega tion, rush out of this hall and out of this town and never be seen within its radius again, O, brother, it is hidden now, but God's Word for it, every wicked act, every secret sin, shall be proclaimed from the house tops. Oh, fearful thought! Record! It was this that made the poet say:
"It is not all of life to live,
Nor all of death to die" I know that you may drown out this record in a night's spree, but it comes back with all its power to condemn in the morning. I know that in the giddy round of pleasure you may drown its voice for the hour, but ever and anon it shakes its horny hand in your face, and says: "Look! Read the record of yesterday, of last week, of last year."
"What I have written I have written." What have you written upon the record of your lifet What upon yours J And upon yoursT I-stand here to condemn no man. I ask you; my brother, in all love and kindness,

134 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER
what is the record yon have made this hourf Some months ago a lady slipped a pedometer into her husband's pocket as he went out in the evening. He was a business man in the city, but every night as he left the supper table he said: "I have to go down to the store." On one occasion she put one of these indicators in his pocket, and when he came back she took it out and consulted it. The faithful little dial told her that her husband had walked seventeen miles that night. And she said to him, "Husband, where have you been to-night?" He replied, "I haw been post ing my books." She said, "Tour books must have been very much scattered. She pulled the little indicator out and put it in his face and said, "There is the record of your work! Seventeen miles to-night. It is half a mile to the store and half a mile back. Explain yourself." She made him explain, and it turned out that he had walked sixteen miles round a billard table. And I tell you, sir within your bosom there is a faithful record being kept every day, and. when at last God shall say, "Wto art thou and what hast thou done?" the record has passed into the record ing angel's hands, and he shall read line after

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 135
line and page after page of guilt enough to damn the universe.
Record! record! Every oath has been re corded Every wicked act has been recorded. Every unfaithful act has been recorded up yonder! O, my brother, how about your record t I have found out another thing: Men talk one way with their tongue and write another way upon the record of their heart. A man stands up and says: "I do be lieve in God." Then he writes down upon the tablet of his heart: "I have just told a lie. I do. I do'." A man out there says: "I do not see any use in revivals. I am as good as any body in the Church." Then he takes up his pen and writes within: "I have told one of the biggest lies I ever told. There is a big use in revivals. The world is going to destruction, and I am the meanest man in town." He writes one way and talks an other. Brethren, I will know you bye and bye just as you are.
Record! record! There are men who hear my voice to-day who, if their record were to close with this hour, have sinned enough to damn the universe, and I beg you never to add another line to that accumulating record

136 SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER

of guilt, which is enough to make the derfl,

when he looks at it, hide his black face under

his wings! God pity us! May the pen-drop

I! j

from our palsied hands! May we never in-

ij

dite another line that may condemn us here

or at the judgment bar of God.

"What I have written I have written,"

And I want to tell you that when once you

put it down, it is down forever. The auto

biographies we write on paper can be alter

ed and underlined, but the autobiography

you have written on th tablet of your heart

can never be altered or erased. It goes down

as it is. It abides with you forever.

Record! record! record! At the age of 24

I was brought face to face with the fact that

I had a record sufficient to damn the uni

verse. Brethren, let me turn to Spencer; let

me read him through and through, and hav

ing done so, I say to Mr. Spencer: "I have

been charmed with your theory, but how a-

bout my conscience, my record, my Godf"

Mr. Spencer says: "I do not treat on those

subjects." I say: "Of all subjects, I am

the most in need of these." Then.. I turn

to Brother Darwin, and after reading his evo

lution theories, I say: "But how about my

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 137
conscience, my record, my God!" He says: "I do not treat on those subjects." I go to Mr. Tyndall and all earthly philosophers and scientists just at the time I need help and enlightenment, but they torn their backs on me and walk off. Now, with record enough to damn the universe, I stand with no philos opher to help me, aid no scientist that can reach me. Brother, hear me! All the tears of my precious mother could never have eras ed one single line of this record. All the prayers of my father would have been wast ed on this record. All the prayers of the Church would avail nothing. All the com bined chemicals of earth could not have erased one single word of it. O, what shall I dot
And now, brother, T wJH tell you why I hang my highest hope of salvation on this, blessed GospeL When every other source had failed me, I took this book in my hands, and I sought the cross of Jesus Christ, and there, a poor, guilty, wicked wretch, I fell down under the cross. And the preciotai Saviour picked me up and pardoned all my sins. He blotted out this record of mine, and he took my arms and put them around

138 SAM P. JONES, THE PEEACHEB
the neck of God. And I love this religion and this Bible because it proposes to do with conscience and with record and with God. And there is no other system in the moral universe that proposes to lead a poor man in these dreadful extremities. Aye, with record enough to condemn all men, I went to the cross. And now I understand that blessed old hymn:
"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins." Bless God for that precious blood that saves a poor, lost, ruined sinner! I want to say to you to-day that my hope of heaven rests on this point. Fourteen years ago a poor, wrecked, ruined sinner, His blood washed away my guilt, and now my record has been washed out in the precious blood of the Son of God. Now take heed to the judg ment. Charge me with Sabbath-breaking, charge me with every thing, but there is the record, and the precious blood has washed out every page and every line, and I stand acquitted on the final judgment day by the force of testimony and the prerogative of pardon. Blessed be God! Acquitted on the final judgment day! Brother, brother, the

SAM P. JONES, THE PREACHER 139
hope of the world is the cross of the Son of God. Let us rush up under that cross, the lost, the wicked, and the wayward. Four teen years ago I was the worst of the worst, and sometimes I think that God suffered me, in spite of my mother's prayers and my father's example, to go down to the gates of hell, that I might be sent back again to bring back the men closest to the gates of helL God help you all! I care not who you are, he will not only pardon your sins, but he will separate them as far as the east is from the west. He says: "I will blot them out of the book of my remembrance."
O, brethren, let us turn our eyes to the hope of the world. This evening let us, on. God's own terms of capitulation, run He, white flag out of the citadel of our hearts, and God will tell the angels to get their wings and fly down 'to earth and convey peace and hope to every rebellious heart.