erica; he was much surprised and struck
with the interest felt in England by the rich for the poor, by the
master and mistress for their servants, by the landowner for his
tenants, and he said to me, "This seems to me the most marvellous thing
I have seen in England. With us a master cares not one snap of the
fingers what becomes of the man he employs, he no more thinks of what
becomes of him than he does of a dollar that passes through his hands.
He sees that he does his work, and if the man dies, the master gets
another in his place to-morrow, and asks nothing about the man who has
disappeared."

Well! I thank God we are not come to that yet, however advanced we may
be in our independent ways; and it is not right and Christian that we
should.

II. Now we come to the way in which we are to try to draw other souls
to Christ, the souls of our children, of our servants, of our
companions, of our fellow-workers. The first principle of success is
gentleness.

In the 4th chapter of the 2nd book of Kings we have this story. There
was a Shunammite woman who had an only son. She was a good
kind-hearted woman, who had shown much hospitality to the prophet
Elijah [Transcriber's note: Elisha?]. One day the little boy ran out
into the harvest field, when the sun was hot, and he had a sunstroke,
and was very ill. "He said unto his father, My head, my head. And he
said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him and
brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then he
died. And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and
shut the door upon him, and went out." Then she ordered one of the
servants to saddle an ass, and drive her to the prophet; and when she
found him, she told him the piteous story, and how the poor little
fellow whom she loved so dearly, and who was such a darling of his
father, and such a pet of the old Elisha when he paid them his visits,
was lying white and dead upstairs on the bed.

Then Elisha was sorely troubled, and he gave his staff to his servant,
Gehazi, and made him run as fast as he could to the house of the
Shunammite. "Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and
go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute
thee, answer him not again; and lay my staff upon the face of the
child." Gehazi obeyed, but it was of no use. "He laid the staff upon
the face of the child: but there was neither voice, nor hearing