upon the barbers in that shop. They talked in undertones. They did not know his name. They did not know who had been there, but they knew that something had elevated their thought. And I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship. Mr. Moody always sought and found the individual. (Text.)
(2353)
PERSONAL INFLUENCE
"The Catch-my-pal Movement" is attracting
great public attention in the northern or
Protestant section of Ireland. The nature
of the movement will scarcely be suspected
from the designation which has attached to
it in popular speech; it is really an organization
for the reclamation of drunkards.
The originator, who is a Presbyterian layman
living at Armagh—Patterson by name—had
no intention of launching a general reform
work; he stumbled into his present
great service in a spontaneous attempt to
help a poor fellow whom he found dead drunk
at the foot of an Armagh lamp-post one
day last July. By dint of genuine Christian
sympathy and much hard work, Mr. Patterson
succeeded in sobering the man up and
persuading him to quit the drink. Then
he sent the fellow to get a drunken "pal"
and together they saved him. The three then
went to work for a fourth. By the time
Mr. Patterson had reformed six of the tipplers,
he found to his surprize that he had
actually started a "movement." It was organized
later under the dignified name of
"The Protestant Total Abstinence Union,"
but the public has not been able to remember
that title. The main idea of using drunkards
to save drunkards has been so perfectly exprest
in the phrase "Catch my pal" that
only that name is known to the "man in
the street."
(2354)
Personal Influence Pervading the World—See Faith, A Child's.
PERSONAL PREACHING
Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer, of Arabia,
says that forty years ago Dr. Talbot Chambers
preached a missionary sermon in one
of the New York churches, on a rainy Sabbath,
when there was only one man in the
audience. He made an appeal for the payment
of the deficit of the Dutch Reformed
Board. That deficit amounted to $55,000,
and $11,000 were needed immediately to
meet the crisis. Before Dr. Chambers went
to bed that night there was a ring at the
door, and Mr. Warren Ackerman announced
himself as the man who had heard the
sermon that morning. He drew out his
check-book and wrote his check for $11,000.
Early in the morning there was a ring at
the door, and there stood Mr. Ackerman
asking for a return of the check which he
had given the previous night. "Now," Dr.
Chambers thought, "he is coming back because
he feels he has given too much, and
is giving one-half of the total amount
needed." But when the check was filled in
the amount was $55,000, the largest single
gift ever received by the Reformed Board.
In such fashion does a sense of personal
responsibility enable men to do exceeding
abundantly above all that they are able to
ask or think for the kingdom of God.
(2355)
Personal Touch in Music—See Music of Despair and of Hope.
PERSONAL WORK
Our Roman Catholic brethren have a
strong hold upon the cities—and why? Instead
of putting a single priest in a great
parish, as we put a single minister, they put
a whole corps of clergy and a company of
sisters to come into personal vital touch
with the people, and especially with the sick
and the poor.
Campbell Morgan became pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in London with a beggarly attendance at the services. Soon the building was crowded to the doors. He said: "Do not give me credit for this great work. Give it to the twenty deaconesses who have gone from house to house, heart to heart, pleading the cause of Christ."
A priest of the Church of Rome says: "We have had very little anxiety in competition with Protestant church in our great cities, so long as a single man was both preacher and pastor in a great parish. But the deaconesses with black bonnets and white ties, who find their way to the hearthstones of the people, will win."—J. P. Brushingham, Pittsburgh Christian Advocate.
(2356)
PERSONALITY AS A REDEMPTIVE
FORCE
The salvation of the world is not to be
by schemes of salvation, but by saviors, and
the saviors of society are persons fit to be
strong, good seed. Why is not social redemption
accomplished by the vast movement
of social mechanism, in which we are all
so much involved that every man's trade—as
Robert Louis Stevenson once said—is that
