It Must Be Applied

A gospel preacher met an acquaintance, a soap manufacturer, on the street.  All about the two men were evidences of worldliness and sin, in the flashing signs advertising liquor, in the shadowy stairways leading to questionable places of amusement, and even in the language tossed into the air by a careless throng of pedestrians.

“Your religion hasn’t done any good, otherwise there would be no sinful people like we see here,” said the friend to the preacher.

As they walked on, they came near a little boy playing in the gutter, his hands muddy, his clothes filthy–and the preacher pointed him out:

“Your soap hasn’t done any good, or else this child would not be so dirty.”

“But, of course, the soap has to be applied before it will do any good,” replied the man.

“How true,” the preacher answered, “and so does religion have to be applied to the hearts and lives of sinners before it will do them any good!”

                                                                                                                            (Author Unknown)