LITERATURE CHRISTIAN
And the gospel must first be published among all nations.
—Mark 13:10
3150 Only One-Half Percent
It has been calculated that all missionaries in the world combined reach fewer than ½% of the heathen in the world by word-of-mouth. How can we reach the 99½% without? To reach the 3,500,000,000 unevangelized we must employ prayer-backed Gospel literature.
3151 Bible Study Helps New Challenge
Today we face this challenge: the whole Bible is available in the languages of 90 percent of the world’s population.
Another 5 percent has some portion of the Bible. The task we face now is supplying the necessary Bible study helps as quickly as possible. The world is gradually becoming more and more literate. It is said that 100 people learn to read every minute, a million a week and 52 million a year.
—Dr. Eurere Nida, American Bible Society
3152 Bunyan Saved By A Tract
It was Leigh Richmond, who dropped a tract on the pavement in England and prayed that a bad man would pick it up.
A bad man did pick it up. He carried the tract with him to prison and he was converted, and he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, which turned millions to righteousness. He was John Bunyan.
3153 Putting Religion In Whiskey Bottles
George W. Phillips, Tacoma’s “whiskey-bottle parson,” who floated religious tracts around the world, died in 1976 at the age of 84.
Mr. Phillips had been actively seeking converts to Christianity since joining the Salvation Army in Montana as a young man. A native of Waukesha, Wis., he had lived in Tacoma since 1929.
It was in 1940 that he started putting religious messages in whiskey bottles and having them dropped into the ocean from ships. Later he also used helium-filled balloons to transport his message, which were printed in several languages. He had received responses from 48 countries and all 50 states.
3154 Tracts Stopped Bullet
Compton, California (EP)—Two youthful robbers twice fired a 22-caliber revolver at the Rev. Ross Owens, a Baptist minister here, but the clergyman walked away unhurt.
“I was supposed to fall over and die—but nothing happened,” he said. Instead, the youths robbed Owens of $1.27.
Alerted police rushed to the scene in time to capture the bandits. They found a hole in Owen’s coat but no blood. Then the minister pulled out a sheaf of gospel tracts and discovered they had absorbed the impact of the bullet.
The bullet lay harmless in the bottom of his shirt pocket.
“It was a miracle,” said Owens, “and I’m sure those two young men believed it, too.”
—Gospel Herald
3155 Blessing Upon Blessing
A tract entitled The Bruised Reed led to the conversion of Richard Baxter. He wrote The Saints’ Rest which was blessed to the conversion of Philip Doddridge. Doddridge wrote The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. William Wilberforce from reading this book found Christ and wrote his Practical View. This book was instrumental in the conversion of Leigh Richmond who wrote The Dairyman’s Daughter which has been translated into more than 50 languages, and has been blessed to the conversion of thousands.
It is related of Dr. Goodel, that when he was through Nicomedia, he left with a stranger a copy of The Dairyman’s Daughter, printed in the Armenian Turkish language. Seventeen years afterwards he visited Nicomedia, and found a church of more than 40 members, and a Protestant community of more than 200 persons. That tract with God’s blessing did the work.
—Dr. George W. Truett
3156 Hitler’s Bodyguard Converted
One of Hitler’s bodyguards was a man named Kurt Wagner. He adored Hitler and reverenced him as a god. At the end of the war, with Hitler a suicide in a Berlin Bunker, Kurt’s faith was shattered in his Feuhrer, and he planned a suicide. Going for a final cup of coffee, he picked up a discarded Gospel tract and read it—first carelessly and then with interest.
As a result of reading this Gospel tract, he sought out a godly pastor who led him to Christ. Kurt was transformed from a hardened man into a peace-loving man, and he became a new creation in Christ, because he received Him as his Lord and Saviour.
—Christian Victory
3157 The Silent Preacher
I preach some weighty sermons,
But utter not a word;
And tell folks things worth hearing,
Although I can’t be heard.
Born of a love for mortals,
I help those in distress
To find the loving Jesus
Who gives the weary rest.
I go into the prisons
Where captives sadly mope,
And for eternal freedom,
I tell them how to hope.
Unto the sick I hasten
With a prescription sure;
Tell where the poor and needy
Great riches can secure.
’Tis strange but true; my message
Doth comfort, bless, and cheer,
Yet oft the truths I herald
Make sinners quake and fear.
Yes, many miles I travel—
And sometimes I’m sent back
I go where you can’t enter,
For I am a gospel tract.
—The Bible Friend
3158 The Tract in Oyster’s Mouth
A professional diver said he had in his house what would probably strike a visitor as a very strange chimney ornament—the shells of an oyster holding fast a piece of printed paper. The possessor of this ornament was diving on the coast, when he observed at the bottom of the sea this oyster on a rock, with a piece of paper in its mouth, which he detached, and commenced to read through the goggles of his headdress. It was a gospel tract, and, coming to him this strange and unexpected way, so impressed his unconverted heart, that he said: “I can hold out against God’s mercy in Christ no longer, since it pursues me thus.” He became, while in the ocean’s depth, a repentant, converted and sin-forgiven man.
—Ministers’ Research Service
3159 The Scudders From A Tract
John Scudder, a promising young physician in New York, while visiting one of his patients one day picked up a tract on the table and read it. The result was that he and his wife went to India as missionaries. Their nine children all became missionaries in that land. By this time the Scudders have given almost six hundred years of continuous missionary service for India.
—Earnest Worker
3160 The Danish Lad Who Cried
Thomas Johannes Bach, well-known missionary-statesman, pioneer missionary in South America, and for almost twenty years the general director of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, whose godly life profoundly influenced thousands around the world, often recalled that first “chance” encounter on the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark.
How irritated he was at the nerve of the slightly-built Danish lad who offered him a gospel tract.
“Will you please take this little leaflet? It has a message for you.”
“Message indeed! Why do you bother other people with your religion? I’m quite able to take care of myself.”
Such a show of temper from this fiery, red-headed engineering student did not deter the young lad who continued to hold the piece of paper before him.
Johannes snatched the gospel tract, deliberately ripped it, crumpled it up, and put it in his pocket. Bach, still angry and yet surprised that the young man said nothing, could not help watching him to see what he would do. He saw something he would never forget. The young Danish lad stepped into a nearby doorway, folded his hands, closed his eyes, and began to pray. Johannes was astonished to see tears on his cheek.
Fifty-nine years later in Copenhagen, the seventy-six-year-old missionary, author, and teacher stood on the very spot where he had received that piece of paper and thanked God for the young Danish lad who had cared about his soul.
—Betty Barram
3161 The Child’s Concern
A mother in New England was helping pack a box to be sent to India. Her son, aged four, insisted on putting in an offering all his own, a little leaflet entitled “Come to Jesus.” His name was written on it with the little prayer, “May the one who gets this soon learn to love Jesus.” When the child’s leaflet reached that far-off land it was finally given to a Hindu priest who was teaching the missionaries the language. He took it without looking at it, but on his way back to his mountain home he thought of the leaflet, took it out, and read the writing on the outside.
The child’s prayer so touched him that he was then eager to read further. He soon gave up his idols and became a devoted missionary to his own people. Fifteen years after that, American missionaries visited his mountain village, and there found the converted Hindu priest with a congregation of fifteen hundred people who had learned to love Jesus as their Saviour, through the influence and teaching of that leaflet.
—Helping Hand
3162 The One-Cent Tract
A son of one of the chiefs of Burdwain was converted by a single tract. He could not read, but he went to Rangoon, a distance of 250 miles. There a missionary’s wife taught him to read, and in forty-eight hours he could read the tract through. He took a basket full of tracts, and with much difficulty preached the gospel in his own home, and was the means of converting hundreds to God. He was a man of influence; the people flocked to hear him. In one year 1,500 natives were baptized in Arrecan as members of the church. All this through one little tract! That tract cost one cent. Whose cent was it? God only knows. Perhaps it was the mite of some little girl—perhaps the well-earned offering of some young boy. But what a blessing it was!
—The Evangelical
3163 Little Tract Big Results
“Many decades ago a lady gave some leaflets to two actors. One of the actors, led by this tract to attend church and so becoming converted, was Dr. George Lorimer, pastor of Tremont Temple in Boston. Through his influence, Russell H. Conwell was led into the ministry. Thus the Baptist Temple in Philadelphia, together with the work of the Tremont Temple, and the personal influence of these two notable pulpit speakers, is traceable to one little leaflet in the hands of a woman.”
—Gospel Herald
3164 From a Torn Leaf
A clergyman in England asked a dying Christian woman where she found the Saviour; and she gave him a piece of paper torn from an American journal containing part of one of C. H. Spurgeon’s sermons. The scrap had been wrapped around a package that came to her from Australia. The words of Spurgeon were read by her and were the means of leading her to Christ. Commenting on this incident, a writer says, “Think of it; a sermon preached in England, printed in America, in some way coming to Australia, a part of it used as wrapping paper there, coming back to England, was the means of converting this woman.”
3165 The Tract Which Influenced Europe
Dr. Panton tells of “a young Frenchman who had been wounded at the siege of Saint Quentin and was languishing on a pallet in the hospital when a tract that lay on the coverlet caught his eye. He read it and was converted by it. The monument of the man may be seen before the Church of the Consistory in Paris, standing with a Bible in his hand—Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Reformation in France.
“But the tract had not yet finished its work. It was read by Coligny’s nurse who penitently placed it in the hands of the Lady Abbess and she, too, was converted by it. She fled from France to the Palatinate, where she met a young Hollander and became his wife. The influence which she had upon that man reacted upon the whole continent of Europe, for he was William of Orange, who became the champion of liberty and Protestantism in the Netherlands.”
—Dr. George W. Truett
3166 Chain Reactions From a Book
This is true no matter how obscure a person may be. Over 200 years ago an old Puritan doctor wrote a book entitled The Bruised Reed. A copy of it was sold by a poor peddler to a young man whose name was Richard Baxter, who upon reading it, became converted to Christ. Baxter in turn wrote the monumental book, A Call to the Unconverted. This book fell into the hands of another young man, Phillip Doddridge by name. Phillip Doddridge wrote The Rise and Progress of Religion.
This book came into the hands of William Wilburforce, and he was converted. Wilburforce was a burning and shining light, and set in motion a social reform which freed all the slaves in the British Empire. In turn, he wrote a book entitled, A Practical View of Christianity. This book cheered the faith and fired the zeal of a minister, Leigh Richmond, by name; who, in turn wrote a book entitled The Dairyman’s Daughter. A man in the bleak north of Scotland was greatly influenced by this book, and he became a mighty champion of truth until all Scotland rang with the eloquence of Thomas Chalmers.
—Christian Victory
3167 The Bit of Paper In India
Sadhu Sundac Singh was distributing Gospels in the Central Province of India. He came to some non-Christians on the train and offered a man a copy of John’s Gospel. The man took it, tore it into pieces in anger and threw the pieces out of the window. That seemed the end. But it so happened, in the providence of God, there was a man anxiously seeking for truth walking along the line that very day, and he picked up, as he walked along, a little bit of paper and looked at it, and the words on it in his own language were “The Bread of life.”
He did not know what it meant; but he inquired among his friends and one of them said, “I can tell you; it is out of the Christian book. You must not read it or you will be defiled.” The man thought for a moment and then said, “I want to read the book that contains that beautiful phrase!” and he bought a copy of the New Testament. He was shown where the sentence occurred—our Lord’s words “I am the Bread of Life”; and as he studied the Gospel, the light flooded into his heart. He came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and he became a preacher of the gospel. That little bit of paper through God’s Spirit was indeed the Bread of Life to him, satisfying his deepest need.
3168 The Queen’s Example
Britain’s beloved Queen Mother, Mary, gives us a beautiful example in her practice of tract distributing.
Seth Sykes, the well-known evangelist, tells me that he went into a certain religious book depot, not long ago to purchase some copies of the widely blessed little tract, Safety, Certainty, and Enjoyment, and was informed that fifty extra copies of the tract were being given free to him, because Queen Mary had purchased a supply of these tracts there a little while before, and had paid for an extra fifty, to be given to the next purchaser. The Queen Mother told the saleman that it was her practice to carry several copies with her, for distribution in going from place to place. A beautiful and inspiring example indeed!—and one which enhancingly agrees with the Christian character of the gracious woman whom Britain was proud to call queen for a quarter of a century.
—Evangelical Christian
3169 Book Awakens a Town
A recent writer says that Robert Chambers, in his Reminiscences, tells that the hamlet, Peebles, in which his childhood was passed, was old and dull.
The people knew nothing of the outside world until a certain Tom Fleck became possessed of an ancient copy of Josephus, and went from house to house each night reading a chapter from it. The village soon grew wildly excited as the siege of Jerusalem progressed. The people crowded to listen at night, and discussed the position of affairs by day. For the first time in their lives they saw that there was something in the world outside of their hamlet, and it did not matter that this something had existed centuries ago.
—J. H. Bomberger
3170 Letters Not Kissing Babies
New York (UPI)—Whatever benefit politicians derive from kissing babies and brides probably isn’t in the form of votes, according to some recent polls released Monday by the poll firm of Louis Harris and Associates.
While two-thirds of the politicians surveyed said they regularly attend weddings, christenings and other social functions, only 19 percent of the voters said they have ever seen a politician at such an affair.
While 70 percent of officials said they held regular office hours when constituents could visit them, no more than 14 percent of public officials questioned think “face-to-face problem solving” is “highly effective.” How can a politician best communicate with his or her constituents?
The Harris polls showed that 59 percent of the public surveyed said they had received a newsletter.
3171 Floating Bottles With Messages
All in all there were 876 bottles. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Center, passengers on board the Queen Mary on her last voyage from England to California, had asked if there was any way in which they could participate on the historic cruise. There was! Stuff mimeographed messages into the bottles, cork each one, and then throw them overboard!
Each note invited the finder to mail the message to Long Beach, along with the information as to where it had been found, and a gift in the form of a brass tray bearing a photo of the Queen Mary would be sent in return. During the thirty-eight days of the voyage all 876 bottles were dispatched into the sea.
That was four years ago, and since that time bottles have been showing up in all parts of the world. So far 108 replies have been received. One bottle was found on a beach of the Caroline Islands, 7,000 miles from where it was dropped off the southern California coast.
3172 According to Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster said: “If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be. If the evangelical volume does not reach every community, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will.
“If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degeneration and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end”.
These words of a century-and-a-half ago had a strangely prophetic ring.
3173 Epigram On Literature (Christian)
• There are only two powers in the world—the sword and the pen; and, in the end, the former is always conquered by the latter.
—Napoleon
• “Give me twenty-six lead soldiers, and I’ll conquer the world,” said Benjamin Franklin. “The pen is mightier than the sword.”
See also: Bible Distribution ; Witnessing ; Writing ; Matt 24:14.