Christ died
to save them, and Satan means that the sacrifice shall be in vain. He is
bringing all his powers to bear on them; and he has many and varied
powers.
"Here comes into the scene a man benevolently inclined; not a Christian,
but in his way a philanthropist. By accident he has come in contact with
one of the boys; by accident he learns that something--he does not know
quite what--is being attempted to benefit them. Can't you give him the
credit of being honest? The only thing he thinks of that he can do to
help is to give them an evening's entertainment. At one of the decent
theatres there is being presented what seems to be known in their
parlance as a 'moral play!' So he presents each boy with a ticket. Now,
what did we expect of those boys?
"Last week a lady and two gentleman who have been members of our church
for years, left the regular prayer-meeting, and went to the Philharmonic
concert.
"Ought we to expect that it would even occur to our seven boys to give
up what to them is a rare treat for the pleasure of spending an evening
with us? As for the moral obligation, they have probably never so much
as heard the words.
"Isn't it time we knew what we were about? What are we after? It is well
enough to teach the poor fellows to read and write, and to help lift
them up in other ways, but our efforts will amount to very little unless
we succeed in bringing them to the great Lever of human society; unless
Christ take hold of this thing we shall fail.
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