THE METHODIST

NEW CONNEXION MAGAZINE.

DECEMBER, 1859.

ESSAYS, &c., ON THEOLOGY AND GENERAL LITERATURE.

REASONS FOR RELIGIOUS TRACT DISTRIBUTION.

(Concluded.)

"THE kingdom of heaven," said our Lord, "is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." This beautiful illustration has been verified, not only in the growth of Christianity, but in all those subordinate institutions and agencies by which its blessings have been distributed to the world. The present revival, wide-spread and glorious as it has already become, seems to have originated in circumstances which, to human appearance, gave little promise of the results which have flowed from them-circumstances which show that, in order to be useful, it is not necessary to be splendidly endowed, or to wait for great occasions, but that the Divine blessing richly attends earnest, prayerful, and persevering endeavour, however humble, to human judgment, the instrument may be. The circulation of religious tracts has been fruitful in instances of this encouraging description. Numerous and striking cases of conversion are on record, the "great change" having been wrought upon drunkards, thieves, licentious characters, papists, infidels, and self-righteous Pharisees; upon persons also of all classes in society, and all grades of education.

A young man, the son of a pious mother, had embraced the principles of infidelity, leaving his parent no resource but that of prayer, which was earnestly offered on his behalf. One day the young man was walking, in a musing frame of mind, near a mill-pond. His glance fell upon a leaf of paper near the edge of the water; he carelessly picked it up, and a few steps further picked up two or three more, forming a complete tract, which the winds of heaven had blown to the spot. He arranged the leaves, and read as he walked. The little messenger spoke to him of God, the Bible, and eternity. He read it again, and feelings arose within him which he thought had been annihilated. He again read it on reaching home, and thought, "What if

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all this should be true!" He now became anxious to look into a Bible, but in his well-furnished library that book was not to be found. The pocket Bible which was his when a boy, he had left in the bookcase at his mother's residence, although she had often urged him to take it. After trying in vain to reason away his convictions, he went over to his mother's house, hoping to obtain possession of the Bible unobserved. His countenance, however, indicated the agitation of his mind, and his anxious glances at the book-case at length excited in his mother a suspicion of her son's actual object. She left the room almost overpowered, and on returning soon after, and finding her son gone, was overjoyed to find that the despised pocket Bible was gone also. Her prayers were answered, and the zeal which her son had displayed in advocating infidelity, was henceforward displayed in the service of that faith which he had before endeavoured to destroy. A tract is a small arrow, but it is often sharp-pointed, and capable of vanquishing formidable opponents. The Rev. Legh Richmond mentions an interesting instance. A clergyman of rank and influence was so strongly prejudiced against the circulation of "The Society's tracts" in his parish, that he resolved to do all in his power to prevent it. He propagated the most injurious reports as to their tendency, condemning them, however, without perusal. Irritated by the extent to which he still found that these intrusive little books were sold and otherwise distributed, he determined to write a tract against the tracts, and thus discourage their circulation. With this object he bought and borrowed as many of the Society's tracts as he could procure. He read and examined these objects of his enmity, till "the eye was not satisfied with seeing." It was not long before a revolution took place in his judgment and affections, more particularly through the attentive perusal of "The Warning Voice," "The Dairyman's Daughter," and "The Negro Servant." His heart and conscience were awakened, and his soul humbled in the dust. The pen that had been lifted as a signal of war dropped from his hand, but was soon resumed as an instrument of peace. He used it in a letter of thanks to Mr. Richmond (the author of one of the tracts), blessing God for the happy change that had been thus wrought; and from that time the tracts and their distributors were ever welcome to his parish and his house.

The conversion of Richard Baxter seems to have been, in a great measure, the result of what may be called tract distribution. “It pleased God," he says, "that a poor pedlar came to the door that had ballads and some good books, and my father bought of him Dr. Gibbs' "Bruised Reed.' This I read, and found it suited my taste, and seasonably sent to me. After this we had a servant that had a little piece of Mr. Perkins' work 'On Repentance,' and the reading of that did further inform and confirm me; and thus, without any means but books, was God pleased to resolve me for himself." Who can compute the effects produced by these little books, through this one conversion, on the minds of men and the interests of the Church, not only in Baxter's own times, but in all succeeding ages? Doddridge, it is said, borrowed the works of Baxter, and the practical writings of the earlier divines of the seventeenth century, which he read often and carefully, and with much spiritual benefit. There is, indeed, a striking

similarity between Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," and many of Baxter's earnest and solemn appeals. And among the great number who have been brought to God through Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," was the distinguished Wilberforce, an example of "the highest style of man"—a man as valiant in vindication of evangelical religion as of the rights of the slave, and the influence of whose life and writings will doubtless be transmitted to the end of time. One illustrious link of this transmission is in the person of the Rev. Legh Richmond, who, after becoming a clergyman, was convinced of the unscripturalness of his principles, and led to the Saviour, by reading Wilberforce's "Practical View of Christianity." "To this incident," he says, "I was indebted originally for those solid views of Christianity on which I rest my hope for time and eternity. May I not, then, call the honoured author of that book my spiritual father? and if my spiritual father, therefore my best earthly friend?" The fruits of this conversion were great and precious. Mr. Richmond served his generation with great zeal and efficiency as a minister of Christ, and for a number of years as clerical secretary to the Religious Tract Society. Besides these and other services, however, he wrote "The Dairyman's Daughter," "The Young Cottager," &c.-little works, the beauty, pathos, and piety of which have been felt by both young and old to an extraordinary extent. The Tract Society's circulation of these narratives has been, probably, not less than a million and a half of copies! At an early period it "was so general that they found their way to the palaces of kings, and entered the hut of the wandering Indian." "The Dairyman's Daughter," read by Mr. Pinkerton in the family of the Princess Sophia Metstchersky, of Russia, was one of the means which led her to religious decision, and by her this beautiful narrative was translated into the Russian language. When on his death-bed, Mr. Richmond received a letter mentioning the conversion of two persons, one of them a clergyman, as the consequence of their having read the same narrative. What, then, may we suppose to have been the whole effect produced by the million and a half of copies of these tracts which have been put in circulation? In these productions, as well as in his connection with the Tract Society, this eminent man carried out the deep convictions of his mind. "I ought," he says, "to recommend the reading and distribution of tracts as a means of grace, which has been blessed of God to many. It may appear to the ignorant, the uninformed, or the prejudiced, a matter of slight and unimportant moment; but what we have seen and heard this day is a demonstration-a manifest demonstration-that a religious tract is an engine of gigantic importance."

In modern days there is no name more illustrious than that of Dr. Chalmers. His mighty eloquence laid every department of nature, science, and philosophy under tribute to Christianity. And as he vindicated the Gospel from the scepticism of science, and threw around it and its leading doctrines a glory in which they had scarcely been seen before, so his labours were closely associated with the revival of evangelical religion in Scotland. Yet he also attributes "a great revolution in all his opinions about Christianity" to the reading of Wilberforce's "Practical View."

The great revolution wrought in this single instance through the instrumentality of that little work, gives to it a higher importance than belongs to many of the brilliant events of history. And what an encouragement is thus afforded to tract distributors! The instances of apparent success may not be numerous, but here and there a silent revolution may be wrought in some mind, which shall hereafter powerfully influence many other minds, and set in motion agencies for good to which no limits can be prescribed, but which shall continually enlarge the sphere of their benign and saving operations to the end of time.

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As our community is now specially interested in China, a brief glance at the manner in which tracts are received there will no doubt be acceptable. The report of the present year, anticipating a great increase of missionary labour in China, says: "Men, however, until they have mastered the language, can do nothing without tracts; and even when they preach with fluency and power, they regard tracts as admirable subsidiaries to impress the truth on the awakened hearer." Reading, in this populous country, is a very general acquirement; a book is a treasure, often eagerly read, and then carefully hoarded. The preacher may be understood in only a single dialect, whilst a tract or other book is equally intelligible in every part of the empire. It is said that, in the early history of China, the Burby small books, without the aid of living teachers, diffused the principles of Budhism, engrafting it on the system of Confucius, and thus in no small degree changing the religion of the empire; and this means seems destined to be a powerful auxiliary to the missionary's labours in changing it once more to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. The readiness of the Chinese to receive Christian books is strongly testified by Dr. Gutzlaff. After describing the eager manner in which on one occasion a box of books had been grasped from his hands, he says:-" If ever our Christian books were read with attention, it was here at this time. We took a wide range in the adjacent country, and were really astonished at the general knowledge which these silent preachers had spread." On another occasion he says:" At this time I was almost overwhelmed by the number of priests who ran down upon us, earnestly begging at least a short tract, of which I had taken great quantities with me. The greatest favour we could bestow upon the natives was to give them a book, which, as a precious relic, was treasured up, and kept for the perusal of all their acquaintances and friends." And again :-"I brought my stores on shore, but finding that the great crowds bore me down, and robbed me of every leaf, I entered into a boat and sat down, while multitudes of boisterous applicants were on shore. They now waded, and even swam, in order to get near me, and carried off in triumph the precious gift. On landing, the press was great. Within a few minutes the priests thronged around me. Though they were urgent, they behaved politely, and begged, almost with tears, that I would give them a few tracts." The minds of such people are at least accessible to Gospel truth, and that it actually finds access there are many gratifying instances to show. We can only add, however, a quotation from the Rev. Alexander Stronach, of Singapore:-"Here, as at Penang, tracts are always accepted, and I know that they have aided in enlightening the minds, and in some measure affecting the hearts, of very many interesting Chinese; but not until the great day of revelation shall be known the full amount of good effected through the instrumentality of these expounders of truth in the homes of the heathen."

There are many ways in which tracts may be distributed. Some have dropped them from gigs, others distribute them at railway stations, or deposit them in cabs and omnibuses. Cabmen themselves have placed a tract in their vehicle for each person employing it, and a number of the London cabmen are now most efficient tract distributors. Tracts sent in