Never Say Die: A Talk with Old Friends

Never Say Die is a clear, compassionate presentation to lost sinners, showing them their great need and the provision of God in Christ. Samuel Gillespie Prout (1822-1911) was a pastor in Newport, Wales, and he wrote this for old friends whom he had known years earlier. His friend, Frances Ridley Havergal, read and greatly valued one of the early copies printed for private circulation, and she very much wanted this published for many to have and read. After Prout was apparently too occupied to prepare it for publication, she edited it for him, and found a publisher to bring it out into the world. F.R.H. wrote this in a letter to Prout: “Believe me, there is real spiritual power in what you have written; as I glanced over your specimen page I felt inclined to envy you,—it throbs with life and warm reality. Oh, may you have the joy of bringing the living water to thousands by it!” In a published advertisement about Never Say Die, this was quoted from her: “A splendid little book for evangelistic use. It says just the very things one wants to say or get said to all the dark and weary outsiders.There is a curious freshness and force throughout, and the ‘free salvation’ and the ‘marvellous love’ are told out with enviable power. I wish it could be put into the hands of every man and lad in the kingdom, and read at all the mothers’ meetings too. I am sure Christian workers only need to know it, to adopt it as one of their best tools.”—Frances Ridley Havergal