A Passion for Souls

There is a secret fellowship with God where we get this heavenly fire kindled within, and it makes personal work for souls easy, natural, a relief, and a rest. To linger in God's presence until we see souls, as through His eyes, makes us long over them with a tireless longing.

This passion for souls is probably the highest product of spiritual communion with God. It absorbs us, and even our own salvation is forgotten in that passionate yearning which made Moses ready to have his name blotted out of God's book for Israel's sake, or Paul willing to be anathema for the sake of his brethren.

It seems to me that such passion is the highest form of unselfish love, and the nearest approximation to the divine motive that impelled the Lord Jesus Christ to empty himself of his orginal glory and majesty, and assume "the form of a servant," enduring even the cross.

No man can kindle in himself that celestial fire; it must come from the live coal from the altar above.

-- Dr. A. T. Pierson, evangelist, missionary statesman, founder of Student Volunteer Movement