Produced by Jason Isbell, Karina Aleksandrova and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net QUIET TALKS ON _POWER_ BY S. D. GORDON [Illustration] NEW AND REVISED EDITION CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY LONDON AND EDINBURGH COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY Chicago: 63 Washington Street New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street CONTENTS PAGE CHOKED CHANNELS 9 THE OLIVET MESSAGE 33 THE CHANNEL OF POWER 61 THE PRICE OF POWER 87 THE PERSONALITY OF POWER 117 MAKING AND BREAKING CONNECTIONS 147 THE FLOOD-TIDE OF POWER 173 FRESH SUPPLIES OF POWER 199 CHOKED CHANNELS. An Odd Distinction. A few years ago I was making a brief tour among the colleges of Missouri. I remember one morning in a certain college village going over from the hotel to take breakfast with some of the boys, and coming back with one of the fellows whom I had just met. As we walked along, chatting away, I asked him quietly, "Are you a christian, sir?" He turned quickly and looked at me with an odd, surprised expression in his eye and then turning his face away said: "Well, I'm a member of church, but--I don't believe I'm very much of a christian." Then I looked at him and he frankly volunteered a little information. Not very much. He did not need to say much. You can see a large field through a chink in the fence. And I saw enough to let me know that he was right in the criticism he had made upon himself. We talked a bit and parted. But his remark set me to thinking. A week later, in another town, speaking one morning to the students of a young ladies' seminary, I said afterwards to one of the teachers as we were talking: "I suppose your young women here are all christians." That same quizzical look came into her eye as she said: "I think they are all members of church, but I do not think they are all christians with real power in their lives." There was that same odd distinction.