I fear that as long as church people talk about "reaching the masses" they will reach nobody. The very expression implies a class distinction--"we" on the one hand, "the masses" on the other, which amounts to "the [176] elite" on the one hand and "the common herd" on the other. If they should come to experiment with any one of us in their intent of reaching "the masses," what little sense of personal dignity we possess would rise up in defiant revolt. What self-respecting man wants to be approached and dealt with as "one of the masses?" I am not one of a lot; I am an individual. The heavens center above my head. The Almighty has attached a solemn importance to my existence. God knows me personally, cares for me personally, and loves me in particular. Jesus Christ died for me personally. And though he humbles me, he does not humiliate me, nor trample on my dignity as an individual, as a man in God's image, but rather by his love and grace heightens my self-respect while my self-abasement before him takes on a deeper tone. With what particular interest, with what tender respect, with what personal love he addresses himself to the lowest sinner! And when the sinner rose up, pardoned and healed, he also understood as never before that he was a man, even God's man. But these folks that profess to love "man," the race in general, and would not turn round for any particular one; these that would like to herd up "the masses," and have neither the love nor the humility to deal with any one of them on the common level--the redeemed sinner with the unredeemed, as in the sight of God--these have no salt in them to save others or even to save themselves. But Christ's religion is a "one-man" religion. There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.

[TAG 176-177]