“Isn't it time we knew what we were about? What are we after? It is well enough to teach the poor fellows to read and write, and to help lift them up in other ways, but our efforts will amount to very little unless we succeed in bringing them to the great Lever of human society; unless Christ take hold of this thing we shall fail. Now, has He taken hold? Is He, at least, as much interested in them as we are? Is His Holy Spirit preceding and supplementing all our efforts? And, if this is the case, is an evening at a theatre going to ruin His plans?” Long before these earnest sentences were concluded Ried had returned from his distant corner, and taken a seat near his employer; his eyes were full of tears, and his voice trembled:-- “I beg your pardon, Mr. Roberts; I'm an ignorant blunderer; I did feel for the moment as though everything were lost.” “We have begun backwards,” said Mr. Roberts; “I was reading to-day that a mistake the missionaries made for years in trying to _civilize_ the Greenlanders; and what a perfect failure they made of it until one day almost by accident, a man began to tell them about Christ on the cross, and the story melted them. I don't think I have thought enough about Him in this matter.” “I stand convicted,” Dr. Everett said; “I've made the same mistake, I believe, in all my efforts for people. I have been praying for them, it is true; but, after all, I feel now as though there had been too much relying on human means, and not enough on God. It is a case of 'these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone.'” “Well,” said Mr. Roberts, looking at his watch, “we are in the same condemnation; it is, I believe, the most common, and one of the most fatal, mistakes that Christian workers make. But there is a way out. We expected to spend until ten o'clock with those boys. It is nearly nine now; suppose we spend the next hour with Christ, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit on any and every effort that we may make for them in the future? Our ultimate aim is to bring every one of them to Jesus and He knows it; now if we have gone about in the wrong way, we have only to ask Him forgiveness and look to Him steadily for guidance. What do you say, friends, shall we spend the hour in taking them to the only One who really can afford them lasting help?” I suppose that He who “maketh the wrath of man to praise Him” is equally able to manage the folly of man. Could the injudicious philanthropist have looked into that room that evening, and heard the prayers that went up to God for those boys, and understood something of the power of prayer, he would have had one illustration of how God manages the foolishness of men.