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::R0215 : page 3::

THE CONCLUSIVE ARGUMENT

I have read that Benjamin Franklin tried to convince the farmers of his day that plaster enriched the soil. All his philosophical arguments failed to convince the farmers; so he took plaster and formed it into a sentence by the roadside. The wheat coming up through those letters was about twice as rank and green as the other wheat, and the farmers could read for months in letters of living green the sentence: This has been plastered. Arguments and culture, and fine sermons cannot convince sinners; they want to read in pulpit and pew, in our utter separation from the world, in our contentedness of mind and victorious joy, the clean-cut truth: This has been redeemed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Ah! brother, sister, the pierced hand of Jesus can pull out the throne of depravity from our heart, and open there a running stream of joy which will flow on through our pain, or poverty, or loneliness, or persecution, or trial, like a cooling river through a desert of sand. It is grand to live in a state where hallelujahs form the normal breathing of the soul. It is the joy of unwavering faith and repose in the blood of Jesus.—Advocate of Holiness.

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— August, 1880 —