The Use Of Tracts
By R.A. Torrey
Taken
from “How to Work for Christ,” published 1901
Comparatively few Christians realize the importance of tract work. I had been a Christian a good many years, and a minister of the Gospel several years, before it ever entered my head that tracts were of much value in Christian work. 1 had somehow grown up with the notion that tracts were all rubbish, and therefore I did not take the trouble to read them, and far less did I take the trouble to circulate them, but I found out that I was entirety wrong. Tract work has some great advantages over other forms of Christian work.
A. Importance and advantages.
Any
person can do it.
We cannot all preach; we cannot all conduct
meetings; but we can all select useful tracts and then hand them out
to others. Of course some of us can do it better than others. Even a
blind man or a dumb man can do tract work. It is a line of work in
which every man, woman and child can engage.
A
tract always sticks to the point.
I wish every worker did that,
but how often we get to talking to some one and he is smart enough
to get us off on to a side track.
A
tract never loses its temper.
Perhaps you sometimes do. I have
known Christian workers, even workers of experience, who would
sometimes get all stirred up, but you cannot stir up a tract. It
always remains as calm as a June morning.
Oftentimes
people who are too proud to be talked with, will read a tract when
no one is looking.
There is many a man who would repulse you if
you tried to speak to him about his soul, who will read a tract if
you leave it on his table, or in some other place where he comes
upon it accidentally, and that tract may be used for his salvation.
A
tract stays by one.
You talk to a man and then he goes away, but
the tract stays with him. Some years ago a man came into a mission
in New York. One of the workers tried to talk with him, but he would
not listen. As he was leaving, a card tract was placed in his hands
which read, "If I should die to-night I would go to _____.
Please fill out and sign." He put it in his pocket, went to his
steamer, for he was a sailor, and slipped it into the edge of his
bunk. The steamer started for Liverpool. On his voyage he met with
an accident, and was laid aside in his bunk. That card stared him in
the face, day and night. Finally he said, "If I should die
to-night I would go to hell but I will not go there, I will go to
heaven, I will take Christ right here and now." He went to
Liverpool, returned to New York, went to the mission, told his
story, and had the card still in his pocket, filled out and signed
with his name. The conversation he had had in the mission left him,
but the card stayed by him.
Tracts
lead many to accept Christ.
The author of one tract ("What
is it to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?") received before
his death upwards of sixteen hundred letters from people who had
been led to Christ by reading it.
B. Purposes for which to use a tract.
For
the conversion of the unsaved.
A tract will often succeed in
winning a man to Christ where a sermon or a personal conversation
has failed. There are a great many people who, if you try to talk
with them, will put you off; but if you put a tract in their hands
and ask God to bless it, after they go away and are alone they will
read the tract and God will carry it home to their hearts by the
power of the Holy Ghost. One of our students wrote me in great joy,
of how he had at last succeeded in winning a whole family for
Christ. He had been working for that family for a long time but
could not touch them. One day he left a tract with them, and God
used that tract for the conversion of four or five members of the
family. Another student held a cottage meeting at a home, and by
mistake left his Bible there. There was a tract in the Bible. When
he had gone, the woman of the house saw the Bible, picked it up,
opened it, saw the tract and read it. The Spirit of God carried it
home to her heart, and when he went back after the Bible she told
him she wanted to find the Lord Jesus Christ. The tract had done
what he could not do in personal work. I once received a letter from
a man saying, "There is a man in this place whom I tried for a
long time to reach but could not. 0ne day I handed him a tract, and
I think it was to the salvation of his whole family."
To
lead Christians into a deeper and more earnest Christian life.
It
is a great mistake to limit the use of tracts to winning the unsaved
to Christ. A little tract on the Second Coming of Christ, once sent
me in a letter, made a change in my whole life. I do not think the
tract was altogether correct doctrinally, but it had in it an
important truth, and it did for me just the work that needed to be
done.
There is a special class of
people with whom this form of ministry is particularly helpful,
those who live where they do not enjoy spiritual advantages. You may
know some one who is leading a very unsatisfactory life, and you
long to have that person know what the Christian life really means.
His pastor may not be a spiritual man, he may not know the deep
things of God. It is the simplest thing in the world to slip into a
letter a tract that will lead him into an entirely new Christian
life.
To
correct error.
This is a very necessary form of work in the day
in which we live. The air is full of error. In our personal work we
have not always time to lead a man out of his error, but oftentimes
we can give him a tract that can do the work better than we can. If
you tried to lead him out of his error by personal work, you might
get into a discussion, but the tract cannot. The one in error cannot
talk back to the tract. For example, take people that are in error
on the question of of seventh day observance. It might take some
time to lead such a one out of the darkness into the light, but a
tract on that subject can be secured that has been used of God to
lead many out of the bondage of legalism into the glorious liberty
of the Gospel of Christ.
To
set Christians to work.
Our churches are full of members who are
doing nothing. A well-chosen tract may set such to work. I know of a
young man who was working in a factory in Massachusetts. He was a
plain, uneducated sort of fellow, but a little tract on peronal work
was placed in his hands. He read it and re-read it, and said, "I
am not doing what I should for Christ." He went to work among
his companions in the factory, inviting, them to the church, and to
hear his pastor preach. Not satisfied with this, he went to doing
personal work. This was not sufficient, so he went to work holding
meetings himself. Finally he brought a convention to his city. Just
that one plain factory man was the means of getting a great
convention and blessing to that place, and all from reading that
little tract. He was also instrumental in organizing a society which
was greatly blessed of God. It would be possible to fill this
country with literature on Christian work that would stir up the
dead and sleeping professors of religion throughout the land, and
send them out to work for the Lord Jesus Christ.
C. Who should use tracts.
Ministers
of the Gospel should use them.
Many ministers do make constant
use of them in their pastoral work, leaving well chosen tracts where
they make their pastoral calls, handing out tracts along the line of
the sermons that they preach. It is said of Rev. Edward Judson of
New York, that he seldom makes a call without having in his pocket a
selection of tracts adapted to almost every member of the family,
and especially to the children. "At the close of the Sunday
evening preaching service, he has often put some good brother in the
chair, and while the meeting proceeds he goes down into the audience
and gives to each person a choice leaflet, at the same time
improving the opportunity to say a timely word. In this way he comes
into personal touch with the whole audience, gives each stranger a
cordial welcome, and leaves in his hand some message from God. At
least once a year he selects some one tract that has in it the very
core of the Gospel. On this he prints the notices of the services,
and selecting his church as a center, he has this tract put in the
hands of every person living within half a mile in each direction,
regardless of creed or condition. He sometimes uses 10,000 tracts at
one distribution, and finds it very fruitful in results."
Sunday
School teachers.
Every Sunday School teacher should be on the
lookout for tracts to give to his scholars. In this way he can do
much to supplement his hour's work on the Lord's Day.
Traveling
men.
Traveling men have a rare opportunity for doing tract work.
They are constantly coming in contact with different men, and
finding out their needs. A Christian "drummer" with a
well-assorted selection of tracts can accomplish immeasurable good.
Business
men.
Business men can use tracts to good advantage with the very
men with whom they have business engagements. They can also do
excellent work with their own employees. Many a business man slips
well chosen tracts into many of the letters which he writes, and
thus accomplishes an effective ministry for his Master.
School teachers. It is very difficult for school teachers in some cities and towns to talk very much with their pupils in school. Oftentimes the rules of the school board prevent it entirely, but a wise teacher can learn all about her scholars and their home surroundings, and can give them tracts just adapted to their needs.
Housekeepers.
Every Christian housekeeper should have a collection of well
assorted tracts. She can hand these out to the servant girls, the
grocery men, the market men, the butcher, to the tramps that come to
the door. They can be left upon the table in the parlor and in
bedrooms. Only eternity will disclose the good that is accomplished
in these ways.
D. How to use tracts.
To
begin a conversation.
One of the difficulties in Christian work
is to begin. You see a person with whom you wish to talk about the
Lord Jesus Christ. The great difficulty is in starting. It is easy
enough to talk after you have started, but how are you going to
start a conversation naturally and easily? One of the simplest and
easiest ways is by slipping a tract into the person's hand. After
the tract has been read, a conversation naturally follows. I was
once riding in a crowded car. I asked God for an opportunity to lead
some one to Christ. I was watching for the opportunity for which I
had asked, when two young ladies entered. I thought I knew one of
them as the daughter of a minister. She went through the car looking
for a seat, and then came back. As she came back and sat down in the
seat in front of me, she bowed, and of course I knew I was right as
to who she was. I took out a little bundle of tracts, and selecting
one that seemed best adapted to her case, I handed it to her, having
first asked God to bless it. She at once began to read and I began
to pray. When she had read the tract, I asked her what she thought
about it. She almost burst into tears right there in the car, and in
a very few moments that minister's daughter was rejoicing in the
Lord Jesus Christ as her personal Saviour. As she afterwards passed
out of the car, she said, "I want to thank you for what you
have done for me in leading me to Christ.
Use
a tract to close a conversation.
As a rule when you have
finished talking with some one, you should not leave him without
something definite to take home to read. If the person has accepted
Christ, put some tract in his hands that will show him how to
succeed in the Christian life. If the person has not accepted
Christ, some other tract that is especially adapted to his need
should be left with him.
Use
tracts where a conversation is impossible.
For example, one
night at the close of a tent meeting in Chicago, as I went down one
of the aisles a man beckoned to me, and intimated that his wife was
interested. She was in tears, and I tried to talk with her, but she
stammered out in a broken way, "We don't talk English."
She had not understood a word of the sermon, I suppose, but God had
carried something home to her heart. They were Norwegians, and I
could not find a Norwegian in the whole tent to act as interpreter,
but I could put a Norwegian tract in her hand, and that could do the
work. Time and time again I have met with men deeply interested
about their soul's salvation, but with whom I could not deal because
I did not talk the language that they understood.
One
day as I came from dinner, I found a Swede waiting for me, and he
said he had a man outside with whom he wished me to talk. I went
outside and found an uncouth looking specimen, a Norwegian. The
Swede had found him drunk in an alley and dragged him down to the
Institute to talk with me. He was still full of whisky, and spit
tobacco juice over me as I tried to talk with him. I found he could
not talk English, and I talked English to the Swede, and the Swede
talked Swedish to the Norwegian, and the Norwegian got a little bit
of it. I made it as clear as I could to our Swede interpreter, and
he in his turn made it as clear as he could to the Norwegian. Then I
put a Norwegian tract in his hands, and that could talk to him so
that he understood perfectly.
Oftentimes
a conversation is impossible because of the place where you meet
people. For example, you may be on the street cars and wish to speak
to a man, but in many instances it would not be wise if it were
possible, but you can take the man's measure and then give him a
tract that will fit him. You may be able to say just a few words to
him and then put the tract in his hands and ask God to bless it.
Use tracts to send to people at a distance.
It does not cost a tract much to travel. You can send them to the ends of the earth for a few cents. Especially use them to send to people who live in out of the way places where there is no preaching. There are thousands of people living in different sections of this country where they do not hear preaching from one year's end to another. It would be impossible to send an evangelical preacher to them, but you can send a tract and it will do the preaching for you.
E.. Suggestions as to the use of tracts.
Always
read the tracts yourself before giving them others.
This is very
necessary. Bad tracts abound to-day, tracts that contain absolutely
pernicious doctrine. They are being circulated free by the million,
and one needs to be on his guard, lest he be doing harm rather than
good in distributing tracts. Of course we cannot read all the tracts
in foreign languages, but we can have them interpreted to us, and it
is wise to do so. Besides positively bad tracts, there are many
tracts that are worthless.
Suit
your tract to the person to whom you give it.
What is good for
one person may not be good for another.
Carry
a selection of tracts with you.
I do not say a collection, but a
selection. Tracts are countless in number, and a large share of them
are worthless. Select the best, and arrange them for the different
classes of people with whom you come in contact.
Seek
the guidance of God.
This is of the very highest importance. If
there is any place where we need wisdom from above, it is in the
selection of tracts, and in their distribution after their
selection.
Seek
God's blessing upon the tract after you have given it out.
Do
not merely give out the tract and there let the matter rest, but
whenever you give out a tract ask God to bless it.
0ftentimes
give a man a tract with words and sentences underscored.
Men are
curious, and they will take particular notice of the underscoring.
It is oftentimes a good thing to have a tract put up in your office.
Men who come in will read it. I know a man who had a few words put
upon his paper weight. A great many who came into his office saw it,
and it made a deep impression upon them.
Never
be ashamed of distributing tracts.
Many people hand out tracts
to others as if they were ashamed of what they were doing. People
are not likely to read tracts if you hand them to them as if you
were ashamed to do it; but if you act as though you were conferring
a favor upon them, and giving them something worth reading, they
will read your tract. It is often well to say to a person, "Here
is a little leaflet out of which I have gotten a good deal of good,
I would like to have you read it."
Email: saved2serve@gmail.com
Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless HIS holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all HIS benefits (Ps. 103:1, 2).
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