SCALPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 726, 27 July 1929, Page 10

SCALPS

THE QUIET CORNER. _—_—_

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner.) ‘VILLIAM CAREY worked for well nigh seventeen years as a missionary in India before he was able to claim one convert. Most men would have thrown in the towel long before, if their boat with the devil ‘was so apparently unprofitable. Many evangelists in these days go to the other extreme. and exhibit such a zealousness for the souls of others that they resemble, in the spiritual realm, so many savages who count their success by the number of scalps that they can hang round their belts. Furthermore, there is a tendency among such people to boast of their stealth, and to make the subject of “startling conversions” the main topic of their conversation. Surely the truth of the whole matter lies in this: that it is as hard to point to where God begins to grapple with an erring soul as it is to point to the source of the Nile. A. river can be traced to its apparent starting place between two rocks upon a mountain side——but its actual source is hidden from every eye but God’s. All too often “decision” is mistaken for conversion. Conversion is a gradual process. If it were instantaneous men would be blinded, as it were, with the splendour of a sudden light. There is about Nature (2 wonderful gradualness. Night and day, sunlight and shadow, blend with each other in such a way that it is almost impossible to detect just where one begins and the other ends. The first conversion that Carey placed to his credit was doubtless someone whose spiritual growth he had watched through the years with as much interest as a scientist displays when watching the tedious growth of a stalactite. Man sows the seed; it is God who giveth the increase, and the less that is said about this matter of “our converts," the less danger will there be of our boasting in anything save in the Cross of Christ. NEXT WEEK: A WORD IN SEA§ON.