but would slip away before one could grasp his hand. Mr. Vassar felt he
must see this soul, and walked five miles to the farm where he lived,
arriving as the family was about to eat an early dinner, of which he was
urged to partake. After being seated, the face of the young man not
appearing in the family group, Mr. Vassar excused himself from the
table, and hunted through all the farm-buildings where a man might
possibly be in hiding. At last, when about to confess himself defeated,
he walked to the further end of the corn-crib, and there, in an old
hogshead, he found the fellow lying low. He confessed afterward that he
had taken satisfaction in looking through the bunghole of the hogshead,
in believing Uncle John would not find him there. But this "winner of
souls," knowing his opportunity, leaped over by the side of the runaway,
and then and there turned, as Charles Spurgeon has said, "the hogshead
into a Bethel," and won a soul for heaven.

An Irish woman in a village was told about a strange man calling about
her place, and affirmed he would not be kindly treated if he knocked at
her door. Mr. Vassar, not knowing her feelings, came there in his
visits, but the moment she saw he was the man--according to the
description of him--she slammed the door in his face. He sat at once
upon her doorstep and began to sing:

"But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe."

In a few weeks she wanted admission into the Protestant Church, and all
her experience was, "Those drops of grief, those drops of grief; I could
not get over them."

See how men persevere to get rich or to gain political prestige! See how
insurance agents, and book agents, and traveling men persevere in their
efforts to convince men! They seek most favorable times, and then often
go again and again. And shall we who win immortal souls be any less
diligent?

STUDY XIX.

TENDERNESS.

Memory Verse: "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep."--(John x, 12.)

Scripture for Meditation: Luke xv, 3-7; John x, 1-18.

What infinite depths of tenderness are revealed in these sweet parables
of the Lost Sheep and the Good Shepherd! The tender, loving heart of the
Savior goes out in eager compassion and pity for the straying. What
boundless sympathy is revealed in the words, "He calleth his own sheep
by name;" "He goeth after that which is lost;" "When he hath found it,
he layeth it on his shoul