of life, He knows most about life, and, above all, He knows where
the golden fruit of happiness is found and where the secret wells of
peace.

And to some of us whom God has called to be fishers of men the issue
is yet more solemn. We have the boat and the nets, all this elaborate
organization of the Church, but have we caught anything this year?
Where is the draft of fishes? Where are the men and women saved by
our triumphant effort? I will make my humble confession this morning,
that for five-and-twenty years I have cast the net, but only lately
have I found the right side of the ship; only lately have I discovered
how easy it is to get the great draft of fishes by simply going to
work in Christ's way. I do not believe in the indifference of the
masses in religion; the indifference is not in the masses, but in the
churches. You will never catch many fish if you stand upon the shore
of cold respectability and wait for them to come; launch out into the
deep and you will find them. Go for them--that is Christ's method.
Compel them to come in, for remember Christ's ideal was, as Bishop
Lightfoot so nobly put it, "the universal compulsion of the souls of
men." And if your experience is like mine, you will find that there is
strangely little compulsion needed to bring men and women to Christ.
I stood but lately in a house where fifty fallen women lived; I went
there to rescue three of its unhappy inmates. When the moment came to
take these three women from their life of sin, their comrades lined
the passage to shake my hand; there were tears and prayers, and
messages like these, "Be good. You'll be a good woman," "We wish we
had your chance"; and these poor souls in their inferno wished me
"a happy New-year." Compulsion! There was small need for compulsion
there! I believe I could have rescued all of these fifty women at one
stroke had I known where to take them. But to the shame of the Free