What is your influence?

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).
“Your zeal hath stirred up very many of them” (2 Cor. 9:2—R. V.).

Books and sermons may be resisted; even tears and entreaties may be despised; but the silent and unostentatious influence of holy lives will speak a language to the heart it cannot easily gainsay, a language which will sound on when we sleep in the dust. The dim tracery of words will be washed away and effaced from memory, but the deep lines of a beautiful example, chiseled into the heart, will remain forever. It is holiness, not the profession of it, that will give us influence both with God and men, winging our prayers with faith, and our counsels with wisdom, deriving power from above, and sending out from us currents of influence through the earth.


Chrysostom said that one single man, inflamed by holy ardor, could change an entire neighborhood. This has been proved true by men in different circumstances. A Boston newspaper once wrote that Phillips Brooks brightened an entire community when he went through it. Men felt their hearts warm as if the sun had broken through the murk and dim alleys of the city.

Marquis de Renty, the French nobleman who was so devout, had such an influence that his mere presence sufficed often to rebuke without a word being spoken. He once passed a house during the carnival season, where loud noise and carousing and dancing was heard. He went in and looked on, standing silently. The revelers were unable to go on, and began to weep. As a result a number of them began a new life.

Charles Finney, during his revival efforts, one time walked through a factory. One young woman passed a trifling, foolish remark to another and laughed. Finney looked at her, and she became confused, breaking a thread with which she was working. Then she began to weep. Finney spoke to her, and sensed she was convicted. Conviction spread rapidly through the entire factory so that the owner, who was accompanying Finney, gave permission for work to cease. The prayer-meeting which followed was the beginning of a revival.

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