Truth applied

Dedication

^pO THE BELOVED WIFE OF MY YOUTH, whom God gave me, and who has proved not only an encouragement to every good word and work, but also a loving and faithful, a wise and prayerful helpmeet in all my toils as a pastor and evangelist, these readings are dedicated.

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EDITOR'S NOTE.

Preface

In all attempts to instruct and benefit our fellow-men there are two things of vital importance — first, to find, second to apply, the truth. The inspired word of God is the only infallible standard of truth ; therefore, in the readings submitted, no attempt has been made to search for or apply scientific or philosophic truth, but simply to apply the word of God. This word, we are told in 2 Tim. iii. 17, is such, " that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works ; " consequently the Scriptures, by the author of these readings, are deemed of sufficient authority, scope, and adaptation without any human supplements. Futhermore, since God, in Jeremiah xxiii. 28, says : " The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully," the attempt has not been so much to interpret, expound, or explain God's word as to ' ' speak faithfully " in applying the truth.

In " Truth Applied/' the object has been in the plainest, clearest, and most direct way, to reach the conscience through the understanding ; and to this end the flowers of rhetoric have been studiously avoided ; the circumlocution of high-sounding phrases has been rejected, and the one aim has been so to speak that all could understand, and that the "common people would hear gladly."

The readings were prepared and delivered extempore so far as manuscripts were concerned. They were vi

Preface.

also prepared not at my leisure, but on various occasions according as some circumstance would arise in the midst of a series of meetings to call for a special reading. They were spoken without notes except marginal references in my Bible, and were taken down as spoken, by a stenographer. My health and strength were such as to prevent my giving them any thing like a careful or thorough revision.

The style is that of a speaker dealing with the masses. These readings were spoken to the multitudes with a design to help rather than entertain, and they are now published for the same class and with the same object, and are therefore intentionally free and colloquial in style.

If God will use them in book form as much as when delivered, then the object in publishing them will have been attained. God grant that they may be as " bread cast upon the waters," and, in spite of their inelegancies, may they be a blessing to the many who requested their publication, and also to many who never heard them. R. G. PEARSON.

Asheville, N. C, August 24, 1889.