======================================================================== WRITINGS OF J WILBUR CHAPMAN by J. Wilbur Chapman ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by J. Wilbur Chapman, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 144 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 01.00. And Judas Iscariot 2. 01.000. Introduction 3. 01.01. And Judas Iscariot 4. 01.02. An Old-Fashioned Home 5. 01.03. The Swelling of Jordan 6. 01.04. A Call to Judgment 7. 01.05. A Changed Life 8. 01.06. The Lost Opportunity 9. 01.07. A Great Victory 10. 01.08. Paul a Pattern of Prayer 11. 01.09. A Startling Statement 12. 01.10. The Grace of God 13. 01.11. Conversion 14. 01.12. Five Kings in a Cave 15. 01.13. Definiteness of Purpose in Christian Work 16. 01.14. The Morning Breaketh 17. 01.15. An Obscured Vision 18. 01.16. The Compassion of Jesus 19. 01.17. Sanctification 20. 01.18. An Unheeded Warning 21. 01.19. The Approval of the Spirit 22. 01.20. A Reasonable Service 23. 01.21. The True Christian Life 24. 02.001. Kadesh-Barnea or The Power of a Surrendered Life 25. 02.002. Preface 26. 02.003. Table of Contents 27. 02.004. About the Author 28. 02.01. Egypt 29. 02.02. The Passover 30. 02.03. The Red Sea 31. 02.04. The Waters of Marah 32. 02.05. From Marah to Elim 33. 02.06. Manna 34. 02.07. Kadesh-Barnea 35. 02.08. "Put That on Mine Account" 36. 02.09. A Continual Allowance 37. 02.10. Grieving the Spirit 38. 02.11. Bringing Back the King 39. 02.12. Kadesh-Barnea Again 40. 03.00. And Peter 41. 03.01. The Prodigal's Father 42. 03.02. No Difference 43. 03.03. "And Peter" 44. 03.04. Stoning Jesus 45. 03.05. The Upper and the Nether Springs 46. 03.06 Live in the Sunshine 47. 03.07. The Secret of His Presence 48. 03.08. "And the Twelve Gates Were Twelve Pearls" 49. 04.00. The Ivory Palaces of the King 50. 04.01. The Palace He Left Behind 51. 04.02. The Palace He Bids Us Enter 52. 04.03. The Enlarging Blessing 53. 04.04. The Full Reward 54. 05.00. The Life And Work Of Dwight Lyman Moody 55. 05.00.2. e-Sword Preface 56. 05.00.3. Table Of Contents 57. 05.00.4. Preface 58. 05.00.5. Appreciations 59. 05.01. Introductory Chapter 60. 05.02. Northfield 61. 05.03. His Early Life 62. 05.04. His Mother 63. 05.05 His Conversion 64. 05.06. Sunday School Work 65. 05.07. The Young Men's Christian Association And... 66. 05.08. Giving Up Business 67. 05.09. Moody And Sankey 68. 05.10. Evangelistic Work In England, Ireland, And... 69. 05.11. Evangelistic Work In The United States 70. 05.12. Mr. Moody In Two Wars 71. 05.13. The Spiritual Side Of Northfield 72. 05.14. The Northfield Schools 73. 05.15. The Northfield Conference And The Student... 74. 05.16. The Chicago Bible Institute 75. 05.17. The World's Fair Campaign 76. 05.18. The Last Campaign 77. 05.19. Mr. Moody As An Evangelist 78. 05.20. His Bible 79. 05.21. His Co-Workers 80. 05.22. Three Characteristic Sermons 81. 05.23. His Best Illustrations 82. 05.24. Revival Conventions 83. 05.25. How To Study The Bible 84. 05.26. His Creed - Three Cardinal Truths 85. 05.27. The Funeral 86. 05.28. Roundtop, Where Mr. Moody Loved To Speak... 87. 05.29. Memorial Services 88. 05.30. Appreciations By Eminent Friends 89. 05.31. Editorial Estimates Of His Character 90. 05.32. The Personal Side Of Mr. Moody 91. 05.33. Personal Reminiscences Of D.L Moody 92. 05.34. A Month With Mr. Moody In Chicago 93. 06.00. The Personal Touch 94. 06.01. A Testimony 95. 06.02. A General Principle 96. 06.03. A Polished Shaft 97. 06.04. Starting Right 98. 06.05. No Man Cared For My Soul 99. 06.06. Winning The Young 100. 06.07. Winning and Holding 101. 06.08. A Practical Illustration 102. 06.09. Whosoever Will 103. 06.10. Conversion Is A Miracle 104. 06.11. A Final Word 105. 07.00. The Secret of a Happy Day: Quiet Hour Meditations 106. 07.000. Introduction 107. 07.01. First Day - "The LORD is my shepherd" 108. 07.02. Second Day - "The LORD IS my shepherd" 109. 07.03. Third Day - "The LORD is MY shepherd" 110. 07.04. Fourth Day - "The LORD is MY shepherd" 111. 07.05. Fifth Day - "The LORD is my SHEPHERD" 112. 07.06. Sixth Day - "The LORD is my SHEPHERD" 113. 07.07. Seventh Day - "I shall not WANT" 114. 07.08. Eighth Day - "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" 115. 07.09. Ninth Day - "He leadeth me" 116. 07.10. Tenth Day - "Beside the still waters" 117. 07.11. Eleventh Day - "He restoreth my soul" 118. 07.12. Twelfth Day - "He restoreth my soul" 119. 07.13. Thirteenth Day - "He RESTORETH my soul" 120. 07.14. Fourteenth Day - "He leadeth me" 121. 07.15. Fifteenth Day - "He leadeth me" 122. 07.16. Sixteenth Day - "In the PATHS of righteousness" 123. 07.17. Seventeenth Day - "In the paths of righteousness" 124. 07.18. Eighteenth Day - "For his name's sake" 125. 07.19. Nineteenth Day - "Yea, though I WALK through the valley" 126. 07.20. Twentieth Day - "I walk though the valley of the shadow of death" 127. 07.21. Twenty-first Day - "I will fear no evil" 128. 07.22. Twenty-second Day - "Thou art with me" 129. 07.23. Twenty-third Day - "The rod" 130. 07.24. Twenty-fourth Day - "And the staff" 131. 07.25. Twenty-fifth Day - "Thou preparest a table before me" 132. 07.26. Twenty-sixth Day - "In the presence of mine enemies" 133. 07.27. Twenty-seventh Day - "Thou anointest my head with oil" 134. 07.28. Twenty-eighth Day - "My cup runneth over" 135. 07.29. Twenty-ninth Day - "Goodness and mercy shall follow me" 136. 07.30. Thirtieth Day - "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever" 137. 07.31. Thirty-first Day - Conclusion 138. S. Eternity 139. S. Prepare to Meet Thy God 140. S. Saved When the Lord Appears 141. S. Sowing and Reaping 142. S. The Accepted Time 143. S. The Master Is Come 144. S. The Precious Blood of Christ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 01.00. AND JUDAS ISCARIOT ======================================================================== And Judas Iscariot By J. Wilbur Chapman Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 - And Judas Iscariot Chapter 2 - An Old-Fashioned Home Chapter 3 - The Swelling of Jordan Chapter 4 - A Call to Judgment Chapter 5 - A Changed Life Chapter 6 - The Lost Opportunity Chapter 7 - A Great Victory Chapter 8 - Paul a Pattern of Prayer Chapter 9 - A Startling Statement Chapter 10 - The Grace of God Chapter 11 - Conversion Chapter 12 - Five Kings in a Cave Chapter 13 - Definiteness of Purpose in Christian Work Chapter 14 - The Morning Breaketh Chapter 15 - An Obscured Vision Chapter 16 - The Compassion of Jesus Chapter 17 - Sanctification Chapter 18 - An Unheeded Warning Chapter 19 - The Approval of the Spirit Chapter 20 - A Reasonable Service Chapter 21 - The True Christian Life ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.000. INTRODUCTION ======================================================================== And Judas Iscariot: Together With Other Evangelistic Addressees By The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. For many years a close colleague of Mr. Moody HODDER & STOUGHTON NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Copyright 1906 Introduction The sermons contained in this volume are published in response to numerous requests that they might be put into permanent form. The author of these sermons needs no introduction to the Christian readers of America. His fame as an author, preacher and evangelist is more than national. As Director of the evangelistic work carried on by the General Assembly’s Committee of the Presbyterian Church, he has achieved distinction as a preacher of the Gospel. Under his direction simultaneous evangelistic campaigns have been held in many of the leading cities of the land, and the Christian Church and the world have had an experience of a new, aggressive and emphatic evangelism that has stirred the Church, revived Christian service and been the means under God of turning thousands to a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ. Therefore it is a privilege and pleasure to put into book form some of the sermons which Dr. Chapman has preached in his evangelistic work and also as the Director of the Interdenominational Bible Conference at Winona Lake, Indiana. Thousands have borne witness to the profound impression and enduring influence of those messages. Especially is this true of "And Judas Iscariot" and "An Old-Fashioned Home." One can never forget the scene when the latter sermon was preached on Thanksgiving Day, 1905, in the great theater in Jersey City. Great numbers of men have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as a personal Savior following the preaching of "The Swelling of Jordan." The book is sent forth with devout gratitude to God for his blessing upon the preaching of these sermons, and with a prayer that even the reading of them may be attended with deeper devotion to Jesus Christ, and increasing service to those for whom Christ died. PARLEY E. ZARTMANN. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. AND JUDAS ISCARIOT ======================================================================== Chapter 1 - And Judas Iscariot TEXT: "And Judas Iscariot."-- Mark 3:19. There is something about the name of this miserable man which commands our attention at once. There is a sort of fascination about his wickedness, and when we read his story it is difficult to give it up until we have come to its awful end. It is rather significant, it would seem to me, that his name should come last in the list of the Apostles, and the text, "And Judas Iscariot," would suggest to me not only that his name was last, but that it was there for some special reason, as I am sure we shall find out that it was. It is also significant that the first name mentioned in the list of the Apostles in this third chapter of Mark was Simon, who was surnamed Peter. The first mentioned Apostle denied Jesus with an oath, the one last referred to sold him for thirty pieces of silver and has gone into eternity with the awful sin of murder charged against him. The difference between the two is this: their sins were almost equally great, but the first repented and the grace of God had its perfect work in him and he was the object of Christ’s forgiveness; the second was filled with remorse without repentance and grace was rejected. The first became one of the mightiest preachers in the world’s history; the second fills us with horror whenever we read the story of his awful crime. Different names affect us differently. One could not well think of John without being impressed with the power of love; nor could one consider Paul without being impressed first of all with his zeal and then with his learning. Certainly one could not study Peter without saying that his strongest characteristic was his enthusiasm. It is helpful to know that the Spirit of God working with one who was a giant intellectually and with one who was profane and ignorant accomplished practically the same results, making them both, Paul and Peter, mighty men whose ministry has made the world richer and better in every way. But to think of Judas is always to shudder. There is a kindred text in this same Gospel of Mark, but the emotions it stirs are entirely different. The second text is, "And Peter." The crucifixion is over, the Savior is in the tomb, poor Peter, a broken-hearted man, is wandering through the streets of the City of the King. He is at last driven to the company of the disciples, when suddenly there rushes in upon them the woman who had been at the tomb, and she exclaims, "He is risen, has gone over into Galilee and wants his disciples to meet him." This was the angel’s message to her. All the disciples must have hurried to the door that they might hasten to see their risen Lord--all save Peter. And then came the pathetic and thrilling text, for the woman gave the message as Jesus gave it to the angels and they to her, "Go tell his disciples--and Peter." But this text, "And Judas Iscariot," brings to our recollection the story of a man who lost his opportunity to be good and great; the picture of one who was heartless in his betrayal, for within sight of the Garden of Gethsemane he saluted Jesus with a hypocritical kiss; the recollection of one in whose ears to-day in eternity there must be heard the clinking sound of the thirty pieces of silver; and the account of one who died a horrible death, all because sin had its way with him and the grace of God was rejected. The scene connected with his calling is significant. Mark tells us in the third chapter of his Gospel that when Jesus saw the man with the withered hand and healed him, he went out by the seaside and then upon the mountain, and there called his Apostles round about him, gave them their commission and sent them forth to do his bidding. In Matthew the ninth chapter and the thirty-sixth to the thirty-eighth verses, we are told that when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion, and he commissioned the twelve and sent them forth that they might serve as shepherds to the people who appeared to be shepherdless. "Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." And then he sent the twelve forth. As a matter of fact the Scriptures concerning Judas are not so very full, but there is a good outline, and if one but takes the points presented and allows his imagination to work in the least, there is a story which is thrilling in its awfulness. The four Evangelists tell us of his call, and these are practically identical in their statement except concerning his names. Matthew and Mark call him the Betrayer; Luke speaks of him as a Traitor, while John calls him a Devil. The next thing we learn concerning him is his rebuke of the woman who came to render her service to Jesus as a proof of her affection. In John the twelfth chapter, the fourth to the sixth verse, we read, "Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein." Next we hear of him bargaining with the enemies of Jesus for his betrayal. The account is very full in Matthew, the twenty-sixth chapter the fourteenth to the sixteenth verse. "Then one of the twelve called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him." Then we are told of his delivering Jesus into the hands of his enemies, in Matthew, the twenty-sixth chapter, the forty-seventh to the forty-ninth verses: "And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude, with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed him." And then finally comes his dreadful end, the account of his remorse in Matthew, the twenty-seventh chapter, the third and the fourth verses. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that." And the statement of his suicide in Matthew, the twenty-seventh chapter, the fifth verse, "And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." I The natural question that comes to every student of the life of Judas must be, "Why was he chosen?" but as Joseph Parker has said, "We may well ask why were we chosen ourselves, knowing our hearts as we do and appreciating our weakness as we must." It has been said that if we study the Apostles we will find them representatives of all kinds of human nature, which would go to show that if we but yield ourselves to God, whatever we may be naturally, he can use us for his glory. It was here that Judas failed. I have heard it said that Jesus did not know Judas’ real character and that he was surprised when Judas turned out to be the disciple that he was; but let us have none of this spirit in the consideration of Jesus Christ. Let no man in these days limit Jesus’ knowledge, for he is omniscient and knoweth all things. Let us not forget what he said himself concerning Judas in John the thirteenth chapter and the eighteenth verse, "I speak not of you all; I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me." Again, in the sixth chapter and the seventieth verse, "Jesus answered them. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" and finally, in the sixth chapter and the sixty-fourth verse, "But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him." There were others who might have been chosen in his stead. The Apostles found two when in their haste they determined to fill the vacancy made by his betrayal. Acts 1:23-26, "And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." It seems to me that there can be no reason for his having been called of Christ except that he was to serve as a great warning to those of us who have lived since his day. There are many such warnings in the Scriptures. Jonah was one. God said to him, "Go to Nineveh," and yet, with the spirit of rebellion, he attempted to sail to Tarshish and we know his miserable failure. Let it never be forgotten that if Nineveh is God’s choice for you, you can make no other port in safety. The sea will be against you, the wind against you. It is hard indeed to struggle against God. Jacob was a warning. Deceiving his own father, his sons in turn deceived him. May we never forget the Scripture which declares, "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." Esau was a warning. Coming in from the hunt one day, weary with his exertions, he detects the savory smell of the mess of pottage, and his crafty brother says, "I will give you this for your birthright," which was his right to be a priest in his household; a moment more and the birthright is gone; and in the New Testament we are told he sought it with tears and could find no place of repentance. But many a man has sold his right to be the priest of his household for less than a mess of pottage, and in a real sense it is true that things done cannot be undone. Saul was a warning. He was commanded to put to death Agag and the flock, and he kept the best of all the flock and then lied to God’s messenger when he said that the work had been done as he was commanded. He had no sooner said it than, behold, there was heard the bleating of the sheep, and the lowing of the oxen. "Be sure your sin will find you out." The New Testament has many warnings like these in the Old, but Judas surpasses them all. There is something about him that makes us shudder. It is said that in Oberammergau, where the Passion Play is presented, the man taking the character of Judas is always avoided afterwards. He may have been ever so reputable a citizen, but he has been at least in action a Judas, and that is enough. I was once a pastor at Schuylerville, N. Y., where on the Burgoyne surrender ground stands a celebrated monument. It is beautiful to look upon. On one side of it in a niche is General Schuyler, and on the other side, if I remember correctly, General Gates; on the third, in the same sort of a niche, another distinguished general is to be seen, but on the fourth the niche is vacant. When I asked the reason I was told that "It is the niche which might have been filled by Benedict Arnold had he not been a traitor." The story of Judas is like this. He might have been all that God could have approved of; he is throughout eternity a murderer, and all because grace was rejected. Numerous lessons may be drawn from such a story. Certain things might be said concerning hypocrisy, for he was in the truest sense a hypocrite. Reference could be made to the fact that sin is small in its beginnings, sure in its progress, terrific in its ending, for at the beginning he was doubtless but an average man in sin, possibly not so different from the others; but he rejected the influence of Christ. Or, again, from such a character a thrilling story could be told of the end of transgressors, for hard as may be the way the end baffles description. Judas certainly tells us this. II However much of a warning Judas may be to people of the world, I am fully persuaded that there are four things which may be said concerning him. First: He gives us a lesson as Christians. There were many names given him. In Matthew the tenth chapter and the fourth verse, and in Mark the third chapter and the nineteenth verse, we read that he was a betrayer; in Luke the sixth chapter and the sixteenth verse he was called a traitor; in John the sixth chapter and the seventieth verse he is spoken of as a devil, but in John the twelveth chapter and the sixth verse he is mentioned as a thief. To me however one of the best names that could be applied to him is that which Paul feared might be given to him when he said, "Lest when I have preached to others I myself should be [literally] disapproved" (1 Corinthians 9:27). It is indeed a solemn thought, that if we are not right with God he will set us aside, for he cannot use us. I have in mind a minister, who once thrilled great numbers of people with his message. Under the power of his preaching hundreds of people came to Christ. There was possibly no one in the Church with a brighter future. To-day he is set aside, for God cannot use him. I have in mind a Sunday school superintendent, who used to be on every platform speaking for Christ, and then yielded to undue political influence of the worst sort, lost his vision of Christ and his power in speaking, and to-day is set aside. But of all the illustrations, I know of nothing which so stirs me as the story of Judas. He might have been true and faithful and he might have been with Christ to-day in glory; instead, he is in hell, a self-confessed murderer, with the clinking of the thirty pieces of silver to condemn him, and his awful conscience constantly to accuse him. It is indeed enough to make our faces pale to realize that, whatever we may be to-day in the service of God, we can be set aside in less than a week, and God will cease to use us if we have anything of the spirit of Judas. Second: I learn also from Judas that environment is not enough for the unregenerate. It is folly to state that a poor lost sinner simply by changing his environment may have his nature changed. As John G. Woolley has said, "it is like a man with a stubborn horse saying, ’I will paint the outside of the barn a nice mild color to influence the horse within.’" The well on my place in the country some years ago had in it poisoned water. It was an attractive well with a house built around about it, and the neighbors came to me to say that I must under no circumstances drink from it. What if I had said, "I will decorate the well house that I may change the water?" It would have been as nonsensical as to say, "I will change the environment of a man who is wicked by nature, and thereby make him good." Judas had lived close to Jesus, he had been with him on the mountain, walked with him by the sea, was frequently with him, I am sure, in Gethsemane, for we read in John the eighteenth chapter and the second verse, "And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples." He was also with him at the Supper. But after all this uplifting, heavenly influence of the Son of God he sold him for silver and betrayed him with a kiss. Nothing can answer for the sinner but regeneration. His case is hopeless without that. Third: Hypocrisy is an awful thing. The text in Galatians is for all such. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Those words in Matthew in connection with the sermon on the Mount are for such, when men in the great day shall say, "Have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out Devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" Jesus will say, "I never knew you." If we read the commission in Matthew the tenth chapter the fifth to the twentieth verses inclusive, we shall understand that these Apostles were sent forth to do a mighty work, and evidently they did it. Judas had that commission, and he may have fulfilled it in a sense, but he is lost to-day because he was a hypocrite. The disciples may not have known his true nature. In John the thirteenth chapter the twenty-first to the twenty-ninth verses we read, "When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or that he should give something to the poor." Which would seem to impress this thought upon us. Oh, may I say that it is a great sin to be untrue? The only time that Jesus is severe is not when sinners seek him out, nor when the woman taken in adultery is driven to him by those who would stone her with stones, nor with the thief on the Cross, but when he faces hypocrites; he can have no tenderness for them. Fourth: I learn from Judas that sin is of slow progress. There may have been first just a natural ambition. He thought that the Kingdom of Jesus was to be a great temporal affair, and he desired to be a part of it. How many men to-day have wrecked their homes and all but lost their souls, because of unholy ambitions! It may be an ambition for your family as well as for yourself. Doubtless Jacob had such when he stopped at Shechem. The result of his tarrying was his heart-breaking experience with the worse than murder of his daughter. There are souls to-day in the lost world who were wrecked upon the rock of ambition. Fifth: He was dishonest. It is a short journey from unholy ambition to dishonesty. The spirit of God Himself calls him a thief. But, Sixth: Let it be known that while sin is of slow progress, it is exceedingly sure. In the twenty-second chapter of Luke and the third to the sixth verses we read that Satan entered into Judas. It seems to me as if up to that time he had rather hovered about him, tempting him with his insinuations, possibly causing him to slip and fall in occasional sins, but finally he has control and then betrayal, denial and murder are the results. I looked the other day into the face of a man who said to me, "Do you know me?" and I told him I did not, and he said, "I used to be a Christian worker and influenced thousands to come to Christ. In an unguarded moment I determined to leave my ministry and to become rich. My haste for riches was but a snare. I found myself becoming unscrupulous in my business life and now I am wrecked, certainly for time--oh," said he, "can it be for eternity? I am separated from my wife and my children, whom I shall never see again." And rising in an agony he cried out as I have rarely heard a man cry, "God have mercy upon me! God have mercy upon me!" III There are but three things that I would like to say concerning Judas as I come to the end of my message. The first is that he was heartless in the extreme. It was just after a touching scene recorded in Matthew the twenty-sixth chapter the seventh to the thirteenth verses, "There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." It was after this that Judas went to the enemies of Jesus and offered to sell him, and as if that were not enough, it was just after he had left Gethsemane, in Matthew 26:40-49, that he betrayed him with his kiss. "Then cometh he to his disciples and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude, with swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, Master; and kissed him." The blood drops had just been rolling down the cheeks of the Master, for he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood; and I can quite understand how upon the very lips of Judas the condemning blood may have left its mark. But do not condemn him; he is scarcely more heartless than the man who to-day rejects him after all his gracious ministry, his sacrificial death and his mediatorial work of nineteen hundred years. Second: His death was awful. Acts 1:18, "Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." I can imagine him going out to the place where he is to end it all, remembering as he walked how Jesus had looked at him, recalling, doubtless, some of his spoken messages, and certainly remembering how once he had been with him in all his unfaithful ministry. All this must have swept before him like a great panorama, and with the vision of his betrayed Master still before him he swings himself out into the eternity; and then as if to make the end more terrible the rope broke and his body burst and his very bowels gushed forth. Oh, if it be true that the way of the transgressor is hard, in the name of God what shall we say of the end? Third: I would like to imagine another picture. What if instead of going out to the scene of his disgraceful death he had waited until after Jesus had risen? What if he had tarried behind some one of those great trees near the city along the way which he should walk, or, possibly on the Emmaus way? What if he had hidden behind some great rock and simply waited? While it is true that he must have trembled as he waited, what if after it all he had simply thrown himself on the mercy of Jesus and had said to him, "Master, I have from the first been untrue; for thirty pieces of silver I sold thee and with these lips I betrayed thee with a kiss; but Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me"? There would have been written in the New Testament Scriptures the most beautiful story that the inspired book contains. Nothing could have been so wonderful as the spirit of him who is able to save to the uttermost, and who never turned away from any seeking sinner, and he would, I am sure, have taken Judas in his very arms; he, too, might have given him a kiss, not of betrayal, but of the sign of his complete forgiveness, and Judas might have shone to-day in the city of God as shines Joseph of Arimathaea, Paul the Apostle, Peter the Preacher. The saddest story I know is the story of Judas, for it is the account of a man who resisted the grace of God and must regret it through eternity. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. AN OLD-FASHIONED HOME ======================================================================== Chapter 2 - An Old-Fashioned Home TEXT: "What have they seen in thy house?"-- 2 Kings 20:15. If you will tell me what is in your own house by your own choice I will tell you the story of your home life and will be able to inform you whether yours is a home in which there is harmony and peace or confusion and despair. Let me read the names of the guests in your guest book, allow me to study the titles of the books in your library in which you have special delight, permit me to scan your magazines which you particularly like, allow me to listen to your conversation when you do not know that you are being overheard, give me the privilege of talking but for a moment to your servants, and make it possible for me to visit with your friends in whom you have particular delight--and I will write a true story of what you have been, of what you are, and of what you will be but for the grace of God, even though I may not know you personally at all. In other words, whatever may be seen in your home determines what your home is. I was a man grown before I visited Washington, the capital of the nation. I was the guest of a member of the President’s Cabinet. Riding with him the first evening, when the moon was shining, we suddenly came upon the National Capitol, and I said to my host, "What in the world is that?" He said, with a smile, as if he pitied me, "That is the Capitol building, and that is the home of the nation." I am sure he was right in a sense, because the building is magnificent, and is in every way the worthy home of such a nation as ours; but I think I take issue with him, after careful thought, in his statement that the Capitol building is the home of the nation. I can recall a visit made to a home which was not in any sense palatial, where the old-fashioned father every morning and evening read his Bible, knelt in prayer with his household about him, commended to God his children each by name, presented the servants at the throne of grace, and then sang with them all one of the sweet hymns of the church; and from the morning prayer they went forth to the day of victory, while from the evening prayer they went to sleep the undisturbed sleep of the just, with the angels of heaven keeping watch over them. I recall another home in the State of Ohio where the father and mother were scarcely known outside of their own county. The size of their farm was ten acres, but they reared two boys and two girls whose mission has been world-wide and whose names are known wherever the church of Christ is known and wherever the English language is spoken. These, in the truest sense, are the homes of the nation, and such homes give us men and women as true as steel. Napoleon once was asked, "What is the greatest need of the French nation?" He hesitated a moment and then said, with marked emphasis, "The greatest need of the French nation is mothers." If you will ask me the greatest need of America I could wish in my reply that I might speak with the power of a Napoleon and that my words might live as long, for I would say, the greatest need of the American nation to-day is homes; not palatial buildings, but homes where Christ is honored, where God is loved, and where the Bible is studied. A returned missionary, who had been for twenty-five years away from his home because he would not accept his furloughs, was asked after he had been in California for a little season what impressed him the most after his absence of a quarter of a century. The reporter expected him to say that he was impressed with the telephone system which bound houses and cities together, or that he was amazed at the wireless telegraphy, by means of which on the wave currents of the air messages were sent from one city to another; but the returned missionary expressed no such surprise. He said, "When I went away from America almost every home had its family altar; now that I have returned I have watched very carefully and find that a family altar in a home is the exception and not the rule." Wherever this is true there is real cause for great alarm, for in proportion as the home fails the nation is in danger. Hezekiah had been sick unto death. The word of the Lord by the mouth of the Prophet came to him, saying, "Set thy house in order, for thou must die." Then he recovered for a season. The King of Babylon sent messengers to him, and when the messengers had gone Isaiah asked him the question of the text, "What have they seen in thy house?" The dearest and most sacred spot on earth is home. Around it are the most sacred associations, about it cluster the sweetest memories. The buildings are not always palatial, the furnishings are not always of the best, but when the home is worthy of the name ladders are let down from heaven to those below, the angels of God come down, bringing heaven’s blessing and ascend, taking earth’s crosses. Such a home is the dearest spot on earth, because there your father worked and your mother loved. There is no love which surpasses this. Some years ago, when the English soldiers were fighting and a Scotch regiment came to assist, the Scotchmen, strangely enough, began to die in great numbers. The skill of the physicians was baffled. They could not tell why it was that there seemed to be such a rapid falling away of the men. But at last they discovered the cause. The Scotch pipers were playing the tunes that reminded the Scotchman of the heather and the hills, and they were dying of homesickness. When the music was changed the deaths in such large numbers almost instantly ceased. We are drifting away from our old-fashioned homes; fathers have grown too busy, mothers have delegated their God-given work to others. We have lost instead of gained. Wherever the homes are full of weakness the government is in danger. The homes of our country are so many streams pouring themselves into the great current of moral and social life. If the home life is pure, then all is pure. I stand with that company of people today who believe that we are at the beginning of a great revival of religion, and I am persuaded that this revival is to be helped on not so much by preaching, though that is not to be ignored; nor by singing, though that in itself is useful; but it is to be helped or hindered by the condition of the homes in our land. I I have a friend, George R. Stuart, who says that when God himself would start a nation he made home life the deciding question. He selected Abraham as the head of the home, and in Genesis, the eighteenth chapter and the nineteenth verse, he gives the reason for this in these words: "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him." There are two great principles which must prevail in every home: First: Authority, suggested by the word "command." Second: Example, suggested by the expression, "He will command his children and his household after him." In order that one may rightly command he must himself be controlled or be able to obey an authority higher than his own. It is absolutely impossible for one to be the father he ought to be and not be a Christian, or to be worthy of the name of mother and not yield allegiance to Jesus Christ. If we are to set before those about us a right example, we cannot begin too soon. Your children are a reproduction of yourself, weakness in them is weakness in yourself, strength in them is but the reproduction of your own virtue. A convention of mothers met some years ago in the city of Cincinnati and was discussing the question as to when one ought properly to begin to train the child for Christ. One mother said, "I begin at six"; another suggested seven as the proper age; another said, "I begin when my child takes his first step, and thus point him to Christ, or when he speaks his first word I teach him the name of Jesus." Finally an old saint arose and said, "You are all of you wrong; the time to begin to train the child is the generation before the child is born," and this we all know to be true. But the responsibility does not rest simply upon mothers; fathers cannot ignore their God-given position. Judge Alton B. Parker and his favorite grandson, Alton Parker Hall, five years old, narrowly escaped death by drowning in the Hudson River. For half an hour the two played in the water. Then Judge Parker took the boy for a swim into deep water. Placing the boy on his back, he swam around for awhile, and then, deciding to float, turned over, seating the boy astride his chest. In this manner the judge floated a distance from the wharf before noticing it. Then he attempted to turn over again, intending to swim nearer the shore. In the effort to transfer the boy to his back the little fellow became frightened and tightly clasped the judge about the neck. Judge Parker called to the boy to let go his hold, but the youth only held on the tighter, and, frightened at the evident distress of the judge, began to whimper. In a few moments the grasp of the boy became so tight that Judge Parker could not breathe. He tried to shake the boy loose, and then attempted to break his grasp. The boy held on with the desperation of death, however, and every effort of the judge only plunged them both beneath the choking waves. With his last few remaining breaths, Judge Parker gave up the struggle and shouted for assistance. The mistake that the distinguished man made was that he went too far from shore with the boy. There are too many men to-day who are doing the same thing. They are going out too far in social life, they are too lax in the question of amusements, they are too thoughtless on the subject of dissipation. Some day they will stop, themselves recovering, but their boys will be gone. Example counts for everything in a home. It there is any blessing in my own life or others, if there has been any helpfulness in my ministry to others, I owe it all to my mother, who lived before me a consistent Christian life and died giving me her blessing; and to my father, who with his arms about me one day said, "My son, if you go wrong it will kill me." I was at one time under the influence of a boy older than myself and cursed with too much money. I had taken my first questionable step at least, and was on my way one night to a place which was at least questionable if not sinful. I had turned the street corner and ahead of me was the very gate to hell. Suddenly, as I turned, the face of my father came before me and his words rang in my very soul. If my father had been anything but a consistent Christian man I myself, I am sure, would have been far from the pulpit, and might have been in the lost world. There are those who seem to think that the height of one’s ambition is to amass a fortune, to build a palace or to acquire a social position. My friend, George R. Stuart, says you may build your palaces, amass your fortunes, provide for the satisfaction of every desire, but as you sit amid these luxurious surroundings waiting for the staggering steps of a son, or as you think of a wayward daughter, all this will be as nothing, for there is nothing that can give happiness to the parents of Godless, wayward children. Some one has said, "Every drunkard, every gambler, every lost woman once sat in a mother’s lap, and the downfall of the most of them may be traced to some defect in home life." The real purpose of every home is to shape character for time and eternity. The home may be one of poverty, the cross of self-sacrifice may be required, suffering may sometimes be necessary, but wherever a home fulfills this purpose it is overflowing with joy. One of my friends has drawn the following picture which he says is fanciful, but which I think is absolutely true to life: Back in the country there is a boy who wants to go to a college and get an education. They call him a book-worm. Wherever they find him--in the barn or in the house--he is reading a book. "What a pity it is," they say, "that Ed cannot get an education!" His father, work as hard as he will, can no more than support the family by the products of the farm. One night Ed has retired to his room and there is a family conference about him. The sisters say, "Father, I wish you would send Ed to college; if you will we will work harder than we ever did, and we will make our old dresses do." The mother says, "Yes, I will get along without any hired help; although I am not as strong as I used to be, I think I can get along without any hired help." The father says, "Well, I think by husking corn nights in the barn I can get along without any assistance." Sugar is banished from the table, butter is banished from the plate. That family is put down on rigid, yea, suffering, economy that the boy may go to college. Time passes on. Commencement day has come and the professors walk in on the stage in their long gowns and their classic but absurd hats. The interest of the occasion is passing on, and after a while it comes to a climax of interest as the valedictorian is introduced. Ed has studied so hard and worked so well that he has had the honor conferred upon him. There are rounds of applause, sometimes breaking into vociferation. It is a great day for Ed. But away back in the galleries are his sisters in their old plain hats and faded clothes, and the old-fashioned father and mother; dear me, she has not had a new hat for six years; he has not had a new coat for a longer time. They rise and look over on the platform, then they laugh and they cry, and as they sit down, their faces grow pale, and then are very flushed. Ed gets the garlands and the old-fashioned group in the gallery have their full share of the triumph. They have made that scene possible, and in the day that God shall more fully reward self-sacrifice made for others, he will give grand and glorious recognition. "As his part is that goeth down to battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff." This experience describes a home in the truest sense of the word better than all the palaces the world has ever known where love is lacking and the spirit of God is gone. II There are two great forces in every home. I speak of the father and the mother, not but that the children have their part in either making or breaking a household, but these two are the mightiest of agencies. The mother stands first. There are certain things which must be true of every mother. She must be a Christian. The father may fail if he must, but let the mother fail and God pity the children. She must be consistent. The children may forget the inconsistencies of the father but when the mother fails the impression is lasting as time and almost as lasting as eternity. She must be prayerful. I do not know of anything that lifts so many burdens or puts upon the face such a look of beauty as the spirit of prayer. And she must study her Bible. When we pray we talk with God, but when we read the Bible God talks with us and every mother needs his counsel. A poor young man stood before a judge in a great court to be sentenced to death. When asked if he had anything to say, he bowed his head and said, "Oh, your honor, if I had only had a mother!" A mother’s love is unfailing. When I was in Atlanta, Georgia, in October, 1904, a little girl and an old mother came to see the governor. They had met on the train, and the child agreed to take the old lady to see the governor of the State. They entered the governor’s office and she spoke as follows: "I want to see the governor," was the straightforward request of the little lady addressed to Major Irwin, the private secretary to the governor, as he inquired her errand. "That is the governor standing there. He will see you in a moment," replied the major, indicating Governor Terrell standing in the group. The governor went over to her. "What can I do for you, dear?" he asked. Throwing back her curls she opened wide her baby brown eyes and said: "Governor, it is not for me; it is for this old lady. Her name is Mrs. Hackett, and she wants to talk to you about pardoning her boy." This was said by a little lady of eleven, who spoke with all the grace and savoir-faire of a woman twice her age. In a voice choked with emotion, Mrs. Hackett began her tearful, scarcely audible story and presented her petition for clemency for her boy. "Governor, have mercy on me," she began, and threw back her bonnet, showing a face wrinkled by age and furrowed and drawn by suffering, "and give me back my boy." Breaking down under the strain of talking to the governor, whom she had planned for months to see, the pleading mother gave way to her grief. The governor was visibly moved, and continued to stroke the curly hair of Mrs. Hackett’s little guide. "Give me back my boy. I am an old woman, going on seventy-nine, and I cannot be here long. I know I am standing with one foot in the grave, and I do want to hear my boy, my baby, say to me, ’Ma, I’m free.’ Let me go down on my knees to you and beg that you have mercy on a mother’s breaking heart. During the last month I picked five hundred pounds of cotton and made two dollars to get here to see you. I got here without a cent, and this little angel gave me a dollar--her all. I don’t care if I have to walk back home, for I’ve seen you and told you of my boy." With unsteady voice the governor told her the law, and referred her gently to the prison commission, assuring her that they would give her petition the most considerate attention. I am told that when the books were examined the crime was found to be one of the blackest on the calendar, and yet the mother loved him. Her love always stimulates love. It lasts when everything else fails. A man cannot wander so far from God as to forget his mother, or go so deep in sin as to be unmindful of her sweet influence. The following is a sketch, full of touching interest, of a little ragged newsboy who had lost his mother. In the tenderness of his affection for her he was determined that he would raise a stone to her memory. His mother and he had kept house together and they had been all to each other, but now she was taken, and the little fellow’s loss was irreparable. Getting a stone was no easy task, for his earnings were small; but love is strong. Going to a cutter’s yard and finding that even the cheaper class of stones was far too expensive for him, he at length fixed upon a broken shaft of marble, part of the remains of an accident in the yard, and which the proprietor kindly named at such a low figure that it came within his means. There was much yet to be done, but the brave little chap was equal to it. The next day he conveyed the stone away on a little four-wheeled cart, and managed to have it put in position. The narrator, curious to know the last of the stone, visited the cemetery one afternoon, and he thus describes what he saw and learned: "Here it is," said the man in charge, and, sure enough, there was our monument, at the head of one of the newer graves. I knew it at once. Just as it was when it left our yard, I was going to say, until I got a little nearer to it and saw what the little chap had done. I tell you, boys, when I saw it there was something blurred my eyes, so’s I couldn’t read it at first. The little man had tried to keep the lines straight, and evidently thought that capitals would make it look better and bigger, for nearly every letter was a capital. I copied it, and here it is; but you want to see it on the stone to appreciate it: MY MOTHER SHEE DIED LAST WEAK SHEE WAS ALL I HAD. SHEE SED SHEAD BEE WAITING FUR-- and here the boy’s lettering stopped. After awhile I went back to the man in charge and asked him what further he knew of the little fellow who brought the stone. "Not much," he said; "not much. Didn’t you notice a fresh little grave near the one with the stone? Well, that’s where he is. He came here every afternoon for some time working away at that stone, and one day I missed him, and then for several days. Then the man came out from the church that had buried the mother and ordered the grave dug by her side. I asked if it was for the little chap. He said it was. The boy had sold all his papers one day, and was hurrying along the street out this way. There was a runaway team just above the crossing, and--well--he was run over, and lived but a day or two." He had in his hand when he was picked up an old file sharpened down to a point, that he did all the lettering with. They said he seemed to be thinking only of that until he died, for he kept saying, "I didn’t get it done, but she’ll know I meant to finish it, won’t she? I’ll tell her so, for she’ll be waiting for me," and he died with those words on his lips. When the men in the cutter’s yard heard the story of the boy the next day, they clubbed together, got a good stone, inscribed upon it the name of the newsboy, which they succeeded in getting from the superintendent of the Sunday school which the little fellow attended, and underneath it the touching words: "He loved his mother." God pity the mother with such an influence as this if she is leading in the wrong direction! It is necessary also to say just a word about the father. There are many pictures of fathers in the Bible. Jacob gives us one when he cries, "Me ye have bereft of my children." David gives another when he cries, "O Absalom, my son." The father of the Prodigal adds a new touch of beauty to the picture when he calls for the best robe to be put upon his boy. I allow no one to go beyond me in paying tribute to a mother’s love, but I desire in some special way to pay tribute to the devotion and consistency of a father. There are special requisites which must be made without which no father can maintain his God-given position. He must be a Christian. I rode along a country road with my little boy some time ago. I found that he was speaking to my friends just as I spoke to them. One man called my attention to it and said, "It is amusing, isn’t it?" To me it was anything but amusing. If my boy is to speak as I speak, walk as I walk, then God help me to walk as a Christian. He must be a man of prayer. No man can bear the burdens of life or meet its responsibilities properly if he is a stranger to prayer. He must be a man of Bible study. One of the most priceless treasures I have is a Bible my father studied, the pages of which he turned over and over, and which I never used to read without a great heart throb. "I con its pages o’er and o’er; Its interlinings mark a score Of promises most potent, sweet, In verses many of each sheet; Albeit the gilding dull of age, And yellow-hued its every page, No book more precious e’er may be Than father’s Bible is to me. "Its tear-stained trace fresh stirs my heart The corresponding tear to start; Of trials, troubles herein brought, For comfort never vainly sought, For help in sorest hour of need, For love to crown the daily deed, No book more precious e’er may be Than father’s Bible is to me." He must also erect in his house a family altar. I know that many business men will say this is impossible, but it is not impossible. If your business prevents your praying with your children, then there must be something wrong with your business. If your life prevents it, then you ought to see to it that your life is made right and that quickly. My friend, George R. Stuart, one of the truest men I know, gave me the following picture of a Christian home. He said: "When I was preaching in Nashville, at the conclusion of my sermon a Methodist preacher came up and laid his hand upon my shoulder and said, ’Brother Stuart, how your sermon to-day carried me back to my home! My father was a local preacher, and the best man I ever saw. He is gone to heaven now. We have a large family; mother is still at home, and I should like to see all the children together once more and have you come and dedicate our home to God, while we all rededicate ourselves to God before precious old mother leaves. If you will come with me, I will gather all the family together next Friday for that purpose.’ I consented to go. The old home was a short distance from the city of Nashville. There were a large number of brothers and sisters. One was a farmer; one was a doctor; one was a real estate man; one was a bookkeeper; one was a preacher; and so on, so that they represented many professions of life. The preacher brother took me out to the old home, where all the children had gathered. As we drove up to the gate I saw the brothers standing in little groups about the yard, whittling and talking. Did you never stand in the yard of the old home after an absence of many years, and entertain memories brought up by every beaten path and tree and gate and building about the old place? I was introduced to these noble-looking men who, as the preacher brother told me, were all members of churches, living consistent Christian lives, save the younger boy, who had wandered away a little, and the real object of this visit was to bring him back to God. "The old mother was indescribably happy. There was a smile lingering in the wrinkles of her dear old face. We all gathered in the large, old-fashioned family room in the old-fashioned semicircle, with mother in her natural place in the corner. The preacher brother laid the large family Bible in my lap and said, ’Now, Brother Stuart, you are in the home of a Methodist preacher; do what you think best.’ "I replied, ’As I sit to-day in the family of a Methodist preacher, let us begin our service with an old-fashioned experience meeting. I want each child, in the order of your ages, to tell your experience.’ The oldest arose and pointed his finger at the oil portrait of his father, hanging on the wall, and said in substance about as follows: ’Brother Stuart, there is the picture of the best father God ever gave a family. Many a time he has taken me to his secret place of prayer, put his hand on my head, and prayed for his boy. And at every turn of my life, since he has left me, I have felt the pressure of his hand on my head, and have seen the tears upon his face, and have heard the prayers from his trembling lips. I have not been as good a man since his death as I ought to have been, but I stand up here to-day to tell you and my brothers and sisters and my dear old mother that I am going to live a better life from this hour until I die.’ Overcome with emotion, he took his seat, and the children in order spoke on the same line. Each one referred to the place of secret prayer and the father’s hand upon the head. At last we came to the youngest boy, who, with his face buried in his hands, was sobbing and refused to speak. The preacher brother very pathetically said, ’Buddy, say a word; there is no one here but the family, and it will help you.’ "He arose, holding the back of his chair, and looked up at me and said, ’Brother Stuart, they tell me that you have come to dedicate this home to God; but my old mother here has never let it get an inch from God. They tell you that this meeting is called that my brothers and sisters may dedicate their lives to God, but they are good. I know them. I am the only black sheep in this flock. Every step I have wandered away from God and the life of my precious father, I have felt his hand upon my head and heard his blessed words of prayer. To-day I come back to God, back to my father’s life, and so help me God, I will never wander away again.’ "Following his talk came a burst of sobbing and shouting, and I started that old hymn, ’Amazing grace (how sweet the sound!) that saved a wretch like me!’ etc., and we had an old-fashioned Methodist class-meeting, winding up with a shout. As I walked away from that old homestead I said in my heart, ’It is the salt of a good life that saves the children.’ A boy never gets over the fact that he had a good father." "What have they seen in thy house?" If we are to help our children for time and eternity, our homes must be better, our lives must be truer, our ambition to do God’s will must be supreme. When these conditions are met it will be possible for us to answer the question of the text. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. THE SWELLING OF JORDAN ======================================================================== Chapter 3 - The Swelling of Jordan TEXT: "How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?"-- Jeremiah 12:5. High up in the mountains of Anti-Lebanon a famous river was born which was to play so important a part in the history of God’s people that it would not have been strange if the birds of heaven had chanted their praises when first it began its journey. From four different places in the mountain the stream starts. Then the four streams become one, and in a single channel the river makes its way across the plain. There are two chief characteristics which must be borne in mind. The first is that a part of its journey is through a rocky country, and caves are on either side of the river, sometimes one above another; frequently three caves are to be seen one above another. The other characteristic is that it overflows its banks in all the time of harvest. These two things must be kept in mind if the text would teach its lesson. There are certain people who will always remember the river Jordan--the children of Israel first of all, because it separated them from the Promised Land; and while scripturally Canaan does not stand for Heaven, yet in the mind of many it does, and the Jordan typifies an experience which stands between us and the future. Naaman will remember it, for when he came as a leper to the servant of God he was bidden to wash seven times in this river. At first he rebelled against the thought, finally he entered the stream, bathed twice, three times, four, five, six times, and was still a leper; but you will remember the word of the Lord, seven times must he bathe, and when the seventh plunge was taken, behold, his flesh was as the flesh of a little child! No man need expect to have light and peace and power or eternal life until he has fulfilled all the commands of God. The wild beasts frequently make their way to these caves as a place of refuge. When the waters begin to rise they are driven out, when they go to the higher cave, and then to the highest of all, and the waters constantly rising fill this cave and they are overpowered and put to death. They are an illustration for us. Men of to-day are in caves of different sorts; some in the cave of dissipation, others in the cave of infidelity, and still others in the cave of morality. One day the waters of judgment will begin to rise, and it will be an awful thing to stand in terror before God, driven forth without refuge. I Dissipation. "I am in the clutch of an awful sin," wrote some one to me recently, whether man or woman I cannot tell, but this was the story: Three years before the writer had been free, and then in an unguarded moment had gone down. Now came the pathetic cry, "I am helpless and hopeless." I do not know what the sin was, but it makes no difference; any sin can bind us if we but yield to it. Under the subject of dissipation I do not speak of drinking as the worst of sins, because it is not the worst, by any means. I had a thousand times rather admit to my home the drunkard who has been cursed with his appetite than to admit there the man who is lecherous, who possibly stands high in society and in the business world, but whose sin is great and whose heart is vile beyond description. I speak of drinking because it is the most common of sins. John B. Gough cries out concerning this sin, "I do not speak of it boastingly," said he, "for I have known what the curse of strong drink is; I have felt it in my own life and seen it in others, but I say the truth, let the bread of affliction be given me to eat, take away from me the friends of my old age, let the hut of poverty be my dwelling place, let the wasting hand of disease be placed upon me, let me live in the whirlwind and dwell in the storm, when I would do good let evil come upon me--do all this, merciful God, but save me from the death of a drunkard." When he would speak in such language, God pity the man who yields to such a sin. It may be that gambling is your weak point. When I was in Colorado a young man who was a graduate of Harvard, the honor man of his class, and who had recently buried his wife, sat at the gambling table, staked his last dollar and lost it; then deliberately put up his little child and lost her; and then, in despair, blew out his brains and sent his soul to hell. When such a man of culture and training would go down under such a sin, God pity the man who yields to it. Or it may be licentiousness, that sin which makes men lower than the beasts of the field, from which one can scarcely break away. I do not know what the sin may be that clutches your life, but if you have given way to it and rejected Christ, how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan, when the waters rise higher and higher and you are without Christ and without hope? II Some are in the cave of infidelity. That there are honest skeptics in the world we all believe, and the honest skeptic is one who says, "I cannot believe as you do, and I do not know that I would if I could, but if your hope is any comfort to you, then cling to it and go down to your grave trusting in it." The dishonest skeptic is the man who sneers at my faith, who laughs at the old-fashioned religion, who says that once he believed in it but has grown away from it, seemingly forgetting that the greatest men the country has ever produced have been humble followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Infidelity does not satisfy. It leaves an aching void in life and mocks us in death. Besides, it is deceiving and the talk of the infidel orator is deceiving. Said one of the most eloquent not many years ago, "When I think of the Christian’s God and the Christian’s Bible, I am glad I am not a Christian. I had rather be the humblest German peasant that ever lived, sitting in his cottage, vine clad, from which the grapes hang, made purple by the kiss of the sun as the day dies out of the sky, shod with wooden shoes, clad in homespun, at peace with the world, his family about him, with never a thought of God--I say the truth I had rather be such a peasant than any Christian that I have ever known." And when he said it the people cheered him. It was, however, but the trick of an orator. Let us change the sentences and give a new ring to the thought. "When I think of what infidelity would do I am glad I am not an infidel; how it would rob me of the hope of seeing my mother and meeting again my child; how it would take me in despair to the grave and send me away with a broken heart--I say I am glad I am not an infidel. I had rather be the humblest German peasant that ever lived, sitting in his cottage, vine clad, from which the grapes hang, made purple by the kiss of the sun as the day dies out of the sky, clad in homespun, shod with wooden shoes, at peace with the world and at peace with God, his family Bible upon his knees, the look of ineffable joy in his face and singing that grand old hymn of Luther’s, ’A mighty fortress is our God’--I had rather be such a German peasant than to be the mightiest infidel the world has ever known," and so I would, a thousand thousand times. God pity you if you allow yourself to put Christ out of your life and stand in the midst of the rising floods with no hope in him! How wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? III Some are in the cave of morality. It seems a strange thing to have a word to say against it, only when we remember that he that offends in one point is guilty of all, and when we remember God’s word as he has declared, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all the things written in the Book of the law to do them." Then the question for the moralist is this, "Have you ever offended in one point?" A splendid steamer was launched on Lake Champlain. She made her way safely across the lake and started back, when a storm came upon her, the engines were disabled and she drifted to the rocks. "Out with the anchor," said the captain, and the command was obeyed, but still she drifted, and although the anchor was down she crashed against the rocks with an awful force, and all because the anchor chain was three feet too short. Your morality so far as it goes may be a good tiling, but it does not reach the standard of God, nor can it until you are safely united to Christ; and if you have put him out of your life and stand alone in the midst of the rising floods, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? Sin is a terrible thing. It not only blights our hopes and prospects for the future, but it wrecks the strongest characters. One has only to open his eyes to see, if he will but look abroad, what dreadful havoc this awful evil hath wrought in the world, and yet the wonderful thing is that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life," and no matter how dreadful the wreck or how awful the ruin, Jesus Christ comes seeking to save that which was lost. Major Whittle used to tell the story of the aged Quaker named Hartmann whose son had enlisted in the army. There came the news of a dreadful battle, and this old father, in fear and trembling, started to the scene of conflict that he might learn something concerning his boy. The officer of the day told him that he had not answered to his name, and that there was every reason to believe that he was dead. This did not satisfy the father, so, leaving headquarters, he started across the battlefield, looking for the one who was dearer to him than life. He would stoop down and turn over the face of this one and then the face of another, but without success. The night came on, and then with a lantern he continued his search, all to no purpose. Suddenly the wind, which was blowing a gale, extinguished his lantern, and he stood there in the darkness hardly knowing what to do until his fatherly ingenuity, strength and affection prompted him to call out his son’s name, and so he stood and shouted, "John Hartmann, thy father calleth thee." All about him he would hear the groans of the dying and some one saying, "Oh, if that were only my father." He continued his cry with more pathos and power until at last in the distance he heard his boy’s voice crying tremblingly, "Here, father." The old man made his way across the field shouting out, "Thank God! Thank God!" Taking him in his arms, he bore him to headquarters, nursed him back to health and strength, and he lives to-day. Over the battlefield of the slain this day walks Jesus Christ, the Son of God, crying out to all who are wrecked by this awful power, "Thy Father calleth thee," and if there should be but the faintest response to his cry he would take the lost in his arms and bear them home to heaven. Will you not come while he calls to-day? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. A CALL TO JUDGMENT ======================================================================== Chapter 4 - A Call to Judgment TEXT: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."-- Deuteronomy 30:19. Moses was a wonderful man; whether you view him as a poet or as a leader of men, he is alike great. This text was spoken by him to the people of Israel at the close of his career. The leadership of God’s chosen people is now to be transferred to Joshua, and it is in order that he may speak to them as they should be addressed, and at the same time in order that he may free himself from judgment, that he speaks as he does. I have two great desires as I present this message. First, that I might myself be faithful, and that it might be said that I am free from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. Second, that I might help some one to the knowledge of Christ. This is no time for argument, for argument always calls forth discussion. It is no time for theory. Practical, every-day people of the world care nothing for mere theories. And it is no time for speculation, for to give such to the people is like giving a stone when they have asked for bread. But it is time for eternal choice. The audience of the preacher vanishes when he thinks of the text and its meaning and he is face to face with the Judgment when he shall be judged for the way he has spoken, and the people shall be called to account for the way they have heard. It is indeed a solemn word. "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." I Record. I desire to use this word as if it were a noun for the time being, for it will bring to us the same truth. This leads me to say that every one is making a record, either good or bad. Deep down through the surface of the earth you will find the evidence of storms centuries ago; the record was indelibly made. Two records are being kept. This is indicated in Revelation 20:1-15, where it is said, "And the books were opened." Notice that it is plural and not singular. There is a record in heaven kept by the Recording Angel. If it were in the memory of God it would be an awful thing, for while God does not remember forgiven sin, he cannot, from the very nature of the case, forget unpardoned sin, and if that is the record one day we shall meet it face to face. There is also a record upon earth. We have seen it in the characters of men who have gone astray, and in the faces of those who have been affected by their sins. In an eastern city where I was preaching my attention was called to a young man of brilliant prospects. He was a member of a great wholesale grocery firm, and young men looked at him almost with envy; but he began to drink, and at the end of a year the senior partner called him in to say that he must change his conduct or retire from the firm. He made promises only to break them, and finally, going from bad to worse, he was forced to retire. One morning we read the news in the paper that his bloated body had been found floating in the Hudson river; and his old father, up to a few years ago, walked up and down the streets with bowed head, giving every evidence of an almost broken heart. Sin is an awful thing and makes its record on whatever it touches. II Two Ways. There are just two ways in this world along which men may walk, and they are not parallel ways. I used to have that idea, but I am sure it is wrong. As a matter of fact, it is but one way; going in one direction is death, and in the opposite direction is life. First: Away from God, away from his love, every step only leads us farther from Him--not because of anything he is, but because of what we have done ourselves. A father in the South sent his boy to a northern university, and for seven years he was away from the restraints of his home. Then he came back with his diploma but with the habit of intemperance fastened upon him. It seemed impossible for him to break it, and his old father was fairly crushed. His mother broke her heart and died, all because of her boy. And yet the father loved him. One day the old father stepped from his carriage in the town in which he lived. The son was heard to make a request of him, and when evidently it was refused the boy turned and struck him full in the face. The old father staggered and would have fallen to the walk except for assistance. He entered his carriage, drove back to his home, the servants saw him go out into the grove where his wife was buried, throw himself on the grave and shriek aloud. Some time later the boy returned and the father met him at the door to say, "You must go away; you have disgraced my name and killed your mother and broken my heart." This is the measure of a father’s love perhaps in this one instance, but think how many times you have trifled with God, spurned his love, disregarded his Son, and yet he has loved you. And remember also that word which says, "There is a time, we know not when, A place, we know not where, That seals the destiny of men For glory or despair." Second: Towards God. How easy a thing it is, therefore, to be saved if there is but one way and this way runs in opposite directions, meaning either life or death. It is just to "right about face," as the soldier would say, by an act of the will and with the help of God to turn away from sin and from self. I am very sure we can do it, because it is commanded in this text, and God would not mock us with a command which could not be obeyed. I am equally sure that we must do it now, for God has plainly stated this in his Word. III Choose Life. As has been indicated, the text proves that we may choose life if we will, but I have more especially in mind the question, "Why should we do it?" and I answer, because it is the best sort of life and the only life. One of my friends used to tell of a man whom he saw in Colonel Clarke’s mission. The man rose for prayers and accepted Christ. Later on he saw him again in the mission. He went forward to testify. He had that look upon his face the result of sin, because of which you could not tell whether he was young or old, and leaning up against the platform he gave his testimony. Among other things he said: "I came to Chicago some little time ago from my home in the east, my father having made two requests--first, that I should change my name because I had disgraced his; second, that I should go away and never return. I had fallen too low here for them to receive me even in the station house, and I was on my way to end it all when I heard the music of this mission and came in and found Christ. As I came down the aisle this evening I heard one man say to another, ’He is getting paid for this,’ and I wish to say that I am. I have a letter in my pocket from my father, and he tells me that I cannot come home too soon for him. Boys, I am getting paid. I have a sister at home whose name I would hardly dare to have taken upon my impure lips, and she writes me that every day she has prayed for me and that a welcome home awaits me. I am getting paid, for to-night I am starting back to my New England home." It is life which we may choose, and life of the very best sort. It is better than anything that this world can give. Men have tried other ways, and they have ended in despair and shame and death, but this way is the path of the just and shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. Therefore choose life and choose it now. In St. Paul’s cathedral in London it is said that under the dome there is a red mark, and I have been told that this mark indicates the place where a workman lost his life. He fell from the scaffolding and was dashed to pieces upon the floor. I have been told that in the Alps very frequently you will see black crosses where men have slipped into eternity as the result of an accident. But I suggest these stories in order that I may say that where you are at this present moment may be the black cross of death, because there some one rejected Christ. If you feel this, choose Jesus Christ; choose him, and choose him now. "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. A CHANGED LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 5 - A Changed Life TEXT: "And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity: And he laid his hands on her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God."-- Luke 13:11-13. These verses present to us one of the most interesting stories imaginable--of interest to us first because it is one of our Lord’s miracles, and one has only to study these manifestations of his power to be persuaded of his divinity; interesting, again, because it is the account of a remarkable recovery from a great infirmity, for instead of bondage which had held this woman for eighteen years we behold her standing upright glorifying God. But it is all the more interesting to us because it presents a picture of what may be called the overflow ministry of Jesus, of which there are many instances--as, for example, the account of the staunching of the issue of blood when the woman touched the hem of his garment. He was going upon another errand, but was so filled with virtue that when one of the multitude at his side touched him, by faith healing was the result. And, again, we have an illustration in the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and once again in the rescue of the widow’s son from death. He was on his journey across the country and beheld the funeral procession coming. Mr. Moody used to say that Jesus broke up every funeral he attended, and he stops long enough in this journey to restore this boy to his broken-hearted mother. Again, in the case of the woman of Samaria, when he is going about his Father’s business, he stops by the wellside to rest, and even in his resting moments forgives a woman’s sins, so that under her influence an entire city is moved. Would that we could learn that it is the overflow of our lives that gives power to our Christian experience! This text is one of the best illustrations of this truth in the life of our Savior. I Many lessons might be drawn from this scripture, the first of which would be his power to uplift womanhood; but this is so well understood that it is unnecessary to take a moment of time to discuss it, except to say in passing that all that woman is today she owes to Jesus of Nazareth. She was as truly bound as this afflicted woman, and just as truly was she set free. But I prefer rather to let the woman of Samaria illustrate many Christians to-day who are bound in one way or another and so are shorn of power. For this suggestion I am indebted to my dear friend, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, a brief outline of whose sermon I recently had the privilege of reading. She was a daughter of Abraham, as we read in Luke 13:16, "And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" And therefore she was like many children of God whom we know. What it is that binds them we cannot always tell. With this person it is fashion, and with that it is earnings; with another it is pride, and still another selfishness; with this one it is the encouragement of some passion, and with still another it is the practice of some secret sin. It is not necessary to describe the bondage; it is true, alas, that many of us are sadly crippled in our influence because of these things, for this woman was just as truly bound as if she had been in chains. When Jesus entered the synagogue his eye saw her instantly, and he detected her difficulty. He is in the midst of us to-day, and while we are unconscious of the bondage of the one who is beside us, he understands it perfectly. That minister who has lost his old power and is therefore an enigma to his people, that church officer who is out of communion and whose testimony has lost its old ring of genuineness, that young woman bordering on despair because in her heart she knows she is not right with God, and that young man whose character is being undermined by the cultivation of a secret sin--all these are known to him. He looks them through and through, and not a point of weakness is hidden from his gaze. Note again, that she was powerless to help herself. I doubt not that she had tried again and again to lift herself up. She had been unable to turn her eyes upward to see the stars, her vision had been centered upon things below, and in this way she is like many a Christian attempting to be satisfied with earthly things and making life a miserable failure. The Scriptures declare that she "could in no wise lift up herself," and I have been told that this expression is the same word which is used in another place in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where Jesus is said to be able to save to the uttermost; so that really the Scriptures mean that she tried to the uttermost to lift herself up and failed, and that she had gone to the uttermost in the matter of bondage, and then because Jesus is able to save to the uttermost he set her free; or, in other words, her need was met by his power. Oh, what an encouragement to know that the thing which has been your defeat and mine he may easily conquer! It is a striking picture to me; he laid his hands on her and said, "Woman, thou art loosed," and she stood straight and glorified God. Some years ago there came into the McAuley mission, in New York City, a man who was, because of his sin, unable to speak and was bound down until, instead of standing a man six feet high, as he should have done, he was like a dwarf. He came to Christ in the old mission, and when kneeling at the altar he accepted him, as if by a miracle Jesus set him free also, and when he stood up the bonds were snapped that held him, and he had his old stature back again. His speech, however, was not entirely recovered. It is the custom in the mission for one to observe his anniversary each year and to give a testimony. Whenever the anniversary of this man occurred he always had another read his lesson, then he would stand before the people bowed down as he had been in sin and suddenly rise before them in the full dignity of his Christian manhood, glorifying God in his standing. This was like the woman of the text, and oh, that it might be like some one reading this who, bound by an appetite or a passion, shall be set free by the power of God! The difference between this woman in the one case bound and wretched and in the other straight and glorifying God is the difference between Christians bound by appetite, pride or sin and when set free by the power of Christ. It is the difference between the average Christian experience and what God means we should be. Two things this woman had--first, his word, when he said, "Woman, thou art loosed"; and, second, the touch of his hand as he laid his hands upon her. Both of these privileges we may have. II Have you really taken all that God meant you should have? Your life is the test of this question. If you are constantly failing at the same point, if you are dominated by a spirit of unrest, if you are lacking in spiritual power, something is wrong and you need the touch of the living Christ. The early disciples were an illustration of those of us who have not yet fully appreciated and appropriated our Savior. He had given them life, for in the seventeenth of John he declares that this is true. They had peace as a possession, for in the fourteenth chapter and twenty-seventh verse he says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." They also had joy as a gift, for he said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full"; and yet they quarreled among themselves, one of them denied him with an oath, and all of them forsook him. They were a weak, vacillating company of men, but suddenly there came a remarkable change. It was as if there had been two Peters. The first was a coward, the second a perfect giant in his fearlessness. The first was afraid of a little girl, the second faced a mob and fearlessly proclaimed the truth of God that condemned him; and the secret of this change is found in the fact that the Holy Ghost had fallen upon him and upon them. This is what we need. Jesus was God’s gift to the world, and the Holy Ghost is his gift to the church. Have we failed to take both? A man over in England, telling his pastor about his experience, said that he had taken Jesus for his eternal life and the Holy Ghost for his internal life. This is certainly what we need to do more than anything else. We need the Holy Spirit of God in our lives. He would illuminate our minds as we read the Bible, strengthen our faith as we appropriate Christ, transform our lives as he came to do, and enable us to live and preach in demonstration of the Spirit and with power. Have you ever stopped to think what is really associated with the full acceptance of the third Person of the Trinity? First, Power. "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you." Second, Ability to pray. "We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us." Third, Victory over sin. "For the law of the Spirit of Christ in Christ Jesus sets me free from the law of sin and death." Fourth, Cleanness of life. "Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit." Fifth, The representation of Jesus Christ. Not imitation, but reproduction, is what we need. Two artists are painting before a picture. The work of one is sadly deficient, the other an inspiration, for one is copying while the other is reproducing his own work. Oh, that we might be so filled with the spirit of God that men should take knowledge of us that we not only had been with Jesus but were like him! Two things we need, both of which we may have: His word and his touch. First, his Word. We surely have this. Has he not said, "Ye shall receive power"? But with this there is coupled a condition, "Come out from among them and be ye separate." Fulfilling this condition, we have only to step out upon his promise on the ground of the fact that he has said, "That ye might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Second, we have the touch of his hand. This emphasizes his reality. One of the greatest dangers of the day, it seems to me, is the fact that we are so inclined to make him unreal. It also indicates his nearness. He can fill us so that his life may come throbbing into our very being, and this is the secret of victory in the time of temptation. We must be empty to be filled, but no man can empty himself. Two ways may be presented for the emptying of a jar of air. First, use the air pump; but in this way it cannot be perfectly done. Second, fill the jar with water. This is the better way. When Christ fills our lives he empties us of self and sin. To some unknown friend I am indebted for four steps which we must take if we would be loosed from our bondage and stand straight in the presence of God and men. First: What God claims I will yield; that is myself. Second: What I yield God accepts. Since I have taken my hands off from myself I am not my own. "I have not much to bring Thee, Lord. For that great love which made Thee mine, I have not much to bring Thee, Lord, But all I am is Thine." Third: What God accepts he fills. Fourth: What God fills he uses. III Mind you, it is not once and for all that we are filled with the Spirit of God; there will be a necessity for daily renewal, not only because we may sin but also because we may use the strength which he has imparted to us. Three suggestions may be made, therefore, for our constant infilling. First: Make his word your daily portion. Count that day lost which passes without a portion of his word absorbed into your life. Second: Make his will supreme. There can be no joy in the household when the children rebel against the parents. There can be no power in Christian experience when our wills are contrary to his. Third: Make him the king of your life. His coronation will one day come, when he shall be proclaimed King of kings and Lord of lords; but while we wait for that we may crown him in our own lives. When Queen Victoria had just ascended her throne she went, as is the custom of Royalty, to hear "The Messiah" rendered. She had been instructed as to her conduct by those who knew, and was told that she must not rise when the others stood at the singing of the Hallelujah chorus. When that magnificent chorus was being sung and the singers were shouting "Hallelujah! hallelujah! hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," she sat with great difficulty. It seemed as if she would rise in spite of the custom of kings and queens, but finally when they came to that part of the chorus where with a shout they proclaim him King of kings suddenly the young queen rose and stood with bowed head, as if she would take her own crown from off her head and cast it at his feet. Let us make him our King and every day be loyal to him. This is the secret of peace. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. THE LOST OPPORTUNITY ======================================================================== Chapter 6 - The Lost Opportunity TEXT: "And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it."-- 1 Kings 20:40. There is a very striking incident connected with this text. The great battle is raging, a certain important prisoner has been taken, and if you read between the lines you seem to know that upon him depend many of the issues of war. His skill in leading the enemy had been marvelous, his courage in the thick of the fight striking; and now he is a prisoner. The king puts him in the keeping of a Jewish soldier, saying, "Guard this man; if he escapes thy life shall be demanded for his." It is possible that they gave an extra pull to the thongs that bound the enemy and the guard was left alone with him. It is an important duty he has to perform. His life hangs in the balance. He must have been impressed with it. But, as we read on between the lines, strange as it may seem, he becomes negligent, his bow is laid down and his spear is left standing against the tent. He becomes hungry and takes a few small cakes to eat, he is weary and lies down to doze and sleep. Suddenly there is a snap and a bound, and the guard arouses himself just in time to see his prisoner dash into the thicket, and he is gone. Now the king requires the prisoner at the guard’s hand. Terror-stricken, he falls upon his face to cry aloud in the words of the text, "And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it." It is my purpose to show in this illustration that God is always placing opportunities within our grasp. In a sense they are bound, for they may be made to do our will if we rightly use them. And it is also my purpose to show that as saint and sinner alike we have permitted opportunities to slip away while we doze in weariness or give attention to matters of less importance. God save us all from the expression, "It might have been," when it is too late, for even God himself cannot reverse the wheels of time and bring back the lost opportunity. We see this all about us. I hold in my hands a piece of cold iron. I cannot bend it; if I put it in the fire it becomes pliant; if I take it out it is cold again. There is a point in time, however, where it is bent as easily as a piece of paper. Years ago our nation sent astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of Venus. Preparation for this great sight had been going on for months. There was a critical moment when the sun, Venus and the earth were all in line. Every astronomer knew that at that moment his eye must be at the smaller end of the glass if he would see the planet go flying past the larger end. If he should miss that moment no power on earth could bring the planet back again. The world is full of these moments. Galileo studied the eye of an ox and beheld the principle of the lens. Watts [Transcriber’s note: Watt?] looked at the teakettle lid as it was lifted by steam, Columbus saw the wind’s direction and knew there was land not far away. The difference between these men, to whom the world is indebted, and many others is this, that they have looked at the oxen’s eyes and have been unmoved, have allowed the teakettle to boil without making an impression upon them, and the wind to blow without leading them to any shore. The opportunity for greatness is gone. There is not a person in the world but to whom at some time a great opportunity has been given, and for the use or abuse of it we shall be called to a strict account. I These opportunities for doing good come to the one who is a Christian. First: I would not preach to others what I did not first preach to myself, but there are many of us as ministers like Chalmers, who was one day visiting an old man seventy-two years of age, apparently in perfect health. They talked together about everything but Christ. The minister was inclined to speak about his soul, but did not. Before morning the old man was dead. Dr. Chalmers returned to the house, called all the old man’s household about him, and offered the most touching apology and prayer. He spent the entire day in the woods, saying, "If I had been faithful this might not have been." I have no question but God would say, "So shall thy judgment be." Second: You who are Christian workers have failed. A Christian merchant was told that there was a certain man with whom he had traded for years to whom he had never spoken about his soul. "I will speak the next time I see him," he said, but he never came, for while he was busy here and there the man was gone from him. Before he came again death met him. So shall his judgment be. Third: You who are parents have failed. Years ago a young Scotchman from Fife, in Scotland, was leaving home. He was not an active Christian. His mother went with him to the turn of the road and said, "Now, Robert, there is one thing you must promise before you go." "No," said the lad, "I will not promise until I know." "But it will not be difficult," said his mother. "Then I will promise," he said. And she said, "Every night before you lie down to sleep read a chapter and pray." He did not want to promise it, but he did. Who was that Robert? It was Robert Moffat, the great missionary, who, when he came into the Kingdom, brought almost a continent in after him. Many a mother has lost her opportunity to speak to her boy, and she has lost it because she has not lived as a mother should who would help her boy. So shall her judgment be. II These opportunities come to the unsaved. The Bible is full of men who have had an opportunity to be saved but are lost. First: There is Herod. His face blanches as he listens to the truth, he is ready to forsake some of his sin; but more is required than that to be a Christian, and Herod fails. Second: Look at Felix. As he gazes into the face of Paul the Apostle and hears his message, he trembles; a moment more he will be a Christian; but more is required than that to be saved, and Felix is lost. Third: Behold Judas. See him at the feet of Jesus. Later he is full of remorse because he has sold him for thirty pieces of silver; but mere remorse never saved a soul, and Judas is lost. You have doubtless heard of that young girl of whom the poet tells us. She had a string of pearls in her hand and her hand is in the water, the string is broken, and one by one the pearls slip away. So it has been with you who have been Christians. My hope is that there may be one pearl left yet. To-day is the accepted time; do not let the opportunity slip. III The Bible is full of men just the opposite who had opportunities to be saved and embraced them. First: Zaccheus. There was just one day, one hour, one moment; when Jesus would pass by, and Zaccheus ran to the sycamore tree; but he made haste and came down, and that saved him. Second: Bartimeus. There was just a moment when Jesus was near to hear the sound of his voice. If Bartimeus failed that moment he would be blind forever. I can see him quickly turning his sightless eyes in the direction of the Savior. He cried unto him and it was his earnestness that saved him. We must make haste while yet it is to-day. Third: Coming down from the mountain, where he had preached his great sermon, Jesus beheld the leper. He was dead, according to the law, yet he had a napkin bound about his mouth. If one had called to him, "Your child is dead," he could not have gone to see the little one. But he breaks through all of this and cries, "If thou wilt thou canst make me clean." It was his desperation that saved him. Fourth: Look at the dying thief, so near that he could have touched Christ if he had been free. Here yawned before him the very brink of hell, here was judgment for his sins, for he acknowledged that he was justly punished. I can see him struggle to decide whether he shall speak or not, and at last he cries, "Lord, remember me." And Jesus said, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." It was his last chance, and he took it. And this may be yours. God forbid that you should let the opportunity slip away. But whether my message is to ministers, to Christian workers, to parents or to the unsaved, I call your attention to this fact: It was when the soldier was busy that the prisoner escaped. Many of you have been busy about pleasure, and some day it will mock you. You have been caught by the fascination of business, and it does not prevent your soul having been surrounded by sin from which after a while you cannot escape, and if the opportunity slips away so shall our judgment be, for we must decide it. In a few years at the latest, possibly in a few months, perhaps in a few weeks--who knows but within a few days?--eternity shall be upon us. If it is an opportunity that is gone or a soul that is lost it will be a sad eternity indeed for us. To this end may God keep us watchful. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. A GREAT VICTORY ======================================================================== Chapter 7 - A Great Victory TEXT: "And they stood every man in his place round about the camp, and all the host ran, and cried, and fled."-- Judges 7:21. Few things in this world are so inspiring to the traveler and at the same time so depressing as a city or temple in ruins. I remember a delightful experience in passing through the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, on the Nile in Egypt, and later passing through Phylae at Assuan on the Nile; and these two thoughts, each the opposite of the other, kept constantly coming to my mind. The loneliness is oppressive, and one would be delighted to hear the song of a bird, the bark of a dog, or the cry of a child. These ruins were once happy homes, or were temples filled with worshipers. Here little children played and gray-haired patriarchs worshiped their gods. Akin to this picture is the one of the people of Israel at the time of this story, and the alternating feelings of pleasure and sadness keep constantly coming and going. The condition of the land beggared description. Homes were there, but no children were about the doors; there were fields, but no crops to be harvested; pastures, but no cattle fed upon them; the hills were to be seen, but no flocks bleated on their sides; people were there, but they were found in the caves and hiding away on the mountain sides. When they had entered Canaan, these chosen people of God, he had said unto them, "And it shall come to pass, if thou shall hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face; they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee." We have here the Old Testament Beatitudes, and there is nothing like them. The story with which the text is associated really begins in the first verse of the sixth chapter of Judges, "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years." But there must also be read in connection with this the last verse of the fifth chapter of Judges, "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years." It seems incredible that there could be such a difference in the experiences of God’s people, and yet, as you study them in all their wanderings, you will find, if you turn over but one leaf of the Bible, the people who sing to-day are active in evil to-morrow, and the history of Israel is the history of one’s self. Life is like a short ladder, as some one has said, and we spend most of our time going up to pray and down to sin. There is a striking picture in the second verse of the sixth chapter. The chosen people of God were dwelling in caves instead of their rightful positions in their homes, and the same is true to-day; men who ought to be at the front are left behind because they are living selfish lives or lives of sin. Do not for a moment think that I am saying that because a man is living out of sight that he is doing nothing, for we have only to remember Gideon to know that this is not true. He was a hidden man doing an honest work, and the Angel of the Lord called him, saying, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." To this Gideon makes a significant reply in Judges 6:13, "And Gideon said unto him, Oh, my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." For the angel had said, "The Lord is with thee, Gideon," and Gideon had said, "If the Lord is with us, then how can these things be?" And the angel did not say it. How often it is true that we miss the truth of God because we miss the grammar of the Bible. When Gideon had thus replied, we read in the fourteenth verse of the sixth chapter, "And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites; have not I sent thee?" And the thing to pay special attention to there is that the angel looked at Gideon. Sometimes in translating a foreign language you come upon a word which you cannot express in your own language; so it is with us here, for the Lord looked Gideon into a new man and said unto him, "Go and thou shalt save the people," which leads me to say that one man right with God is mightier than a host against God. The seventh chapter of Judges opens with the significant word "then." You must have all that goes before in your mind to appreciate this word. God has a plan for every life, and all your sickness, your disappointment, your discipline, is for something. There must be a "then" for you. It is the call of God and the answer to it that makes real life. Compare Gideon the farmer with Gideon the soldier, and you will see the difference in a human life. Let one, however low or ignorant, but hear the voice of God and respond to it, and when such an one answers God’s call for his country, for the church, or for Christ, the heroic in him is being stirred. It is said that years ago there used to be a man in Mr. Spurgeon’s Tabernacle who never had spoken in his social meetings, for the reason that he had a stammering tongue. One day he heard the great preacher say that the Lord could use even the tongue of the stammerer. It sent him to his home, and to his knees, and when he rose to his feet after having yielded himself wholly to God, as if by miracle God gave him the gift of speech, and I have been told that no one in the Tabernacle spoke more to the edification of the people or the praise of God than he. Some years ago when John G. Woolley was delivering his closing address on the commencement day at college a young boy heard him under peculiar circumstances. He had walked in from the country. It was a hot day, and to quench his thirst he had tasted the water of one of the springs. It made him very ill, and just to escape the heat of the sun he crept under the platform, which had been erected upon the college campus for the commencement exercises. While there he fell asleep and was awakened by the sound of a musical voice. Something that the graduating student said stirred his soul, and he there made a vow that he would be a preacher. It was God’s call to him and his answer. He has since become one of the world’s most famous preachers, and his influence has been as wide as the world itself. When the Midianites stood against the children of Israel God called Gideon to lead an army against them, and this text is part of this story. The scene was remarkable. Thirty-two thousand people following Gideon’s leadership with the first flush of the battle upon them. They were ready to march, and God said when he looked at them, "The people are too many." They would seem to us to have been too few, for literally a multitude of Midianites stood against him. But we go wrong so often by applying human arithmetic to divine decrees. It is said that when Napoleon marched with his soldiers he was counted as being equal to 40,000 of his men, and so, after all, it is not a question of numbers with God, but of the few men whom he can use. The test by means of which Gideon’s army was decreased was remarkable. In Judges, the seventh chapter and the second to seventh verses, we read, "And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me. Now therefore go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand. And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there; and it shall be, that of whom I say unto thee, This shall go with thee, the same shall go with thee; and of whomsoever I say unto thee, This shall not go with thee, the same shall not go. So he brought down the people unto the water; and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, were three hundred men; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand; and let all the other people go every man unto his place." This test is going on now among men; by the way we walk and talk, by the way we listen and work, men form their judgment of us, and so does God. We may measure our spiritual state by the way we spend our leisure moments, by the way we spend our Saturday afternoons, by our rest days, and by the books we read. There is flowing past us the stream of literature and the stream of pleasure, and the question is whether we are going to fall down before these streams to drink or whether we are just going to dip up as we hurry along to fulfill our mission; or, in other words, whether we are to be so taken up with God’s plan that we have no time to idle away and no disposition to turn aside. "It does not so much matter how many members one may have in his church, for under the banner of a popular Christianity soldiers march. What if there should be a struggle ahead when to be a Christian would mean to suffer martyrdom, or dying at the stake, or contending with the beasts of Ephesus like Paul, how then do you think it would be?" And yet all the time to-day the struggle is going on; both from within and from without the foe is assailing us, the Bible is being attacked, Christ is being denied, the resurrection is counted a myth, and the future is being questioned, and in every part of the church it would seem as if men thought that the life of the Christian was all a holiday, for people are idling, gossiping, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, instead of being in the thick of the fight in the name of the Lord of hosts. Give us three hundred in the church right with God rather than the thirty-two thousand compromising with sin and the world, and we shall win the victory. I I am impressed in this story with the thought of how much may be accomplished without wealth, influence or material strength. We somehow seem to think that we cannot work as ministers without a fine equipment. We have an idea that we must have a committee back of us to be assured of success, that if we are without influence we have a small mission in the world, forgetting that Michelangelo wrought the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel with the ochres which he digged with his own hands in the garden of the Vatican; forgetting also that the greatest work in the world has been accomplished by men like Gideon, who delayed not for elaborate preparation, but just took firebrands and torches--indeed, anything they could lay their hands upon--and cried out, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," and won the victory. The text is most striking, and presents an outline which any one ought to be able to see. II They stood. It is not so easy to stand as to march or to fight. I have been told that the most difficult service of the soldier is picket duty; and yet never until we learn to stand shall we be able to fight. In the fourteenth chapter of Exodus, the thirteenth and fourteenth verses, we read, "And Moses said unto the people. Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to-day, for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace." And again, in 2 Chronicles 20:17, it is recorded, "Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to-morrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you." Three thoughts are impressed upon my mind: First: Before any service, let us stand, giving God a chance with us. Let him use you and not you use him so much. In the beginning of his Christian service Hudson Taylor, the China Inland missionary, was desirous of being used and cried out for God to send him out into service. At last God seemed to say to him, "My child, I have made up my mind to save inland China. If you will come and walk with me I will do it through you," and the China Inland Mission was born. Second: Wait for orders. In Ephesians the sixth chapter and the tenth to the thirteenth verses, we have the following description of a soldier: "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." The striking part of that description is the sentence, "having done all, to stand." In other words, with all our ingenuity and our planning, with all our preparation and equipment, we lack one thing: that one thing is the touch of the Almighty God. Third: Be willing to do the common thing. It was rather interesting to march with thirty-two thousand, and a striking thing to break pitchers and cry aloud, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon," but just to stand was a different matter, and not at all easy. If we were only willing to do the common things for Christ we should accomplish more in our lives. The great Bethany Sunday school building standing in Philadelphia is a model in its perfect equipment. The mighty Sunday school held there is one of the wonders of the world. The building was begun not only in the mind and heart of the distinguished superintendent, the Hon. John Wanamaker, but when he appealed for funds as they were then needed one of the poorest children in the city made practically the first and best contribution. She gathered bones from the alleyways, sold them and brought her few pennies to help make this wonderful work a success. III Every man in his place. First: Let us remember that God has a plan for every life. Ephesians 4:8-13, "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Second: That which in our lives fits into God’s plans dignifies and strengthens in every way. A few years ago there was a young man selling farming implements. He felt inclined to do Christian work, and later on became a Christian Association secretary. He became known locally because of his ability to sing in a male quartette. He was a good singer. Whether he was more than the average secretary I do not know. He one day felt the call to preach and shrank back from it because he felt he was without ability, then gave himself to God without reserve. He has since become one of the greatest preachers to men in our country, has possibly led more men to Christ than any other man of his day, and it was my privilege a short time ago to see hundreds of men under the power of his preaching come to Christ; and this was all because Fred B. Smith gave himself unreservedly to Christ. Third: It may be a very ordinary service that God calls you to perform, but if you feel it your place your service will please him. Rev. Dr. Torrey tells the story of the poor mother who by hard day’s work made it possible for her boy to attend college. The day of the graduation came, and he said to her, "You must go with me to the commencement." Naturally she shrank from it, for her clothing was of the poorest sort; but he said that there would be no commencement without her. He was the valedictorian of his class. Proudly he led her into the hall, and with beaming face she listened while the great throng applauded his brilliant speech. When he received his gold medal he walked down from the platform and pinned it upon her breast, saying, "This is yours," and she was as proud as any queen could have been. It was a very common thing to wash and iron for one’s daily living, but to be honored thus was something any mother might long to experience. She simply did her best in a humble way and pleased God. IV Round about the Camp. First: Let it be remembered that we have a responsibility to others. Some years ago on the Irish Sea a terrific storm was raging. It was known that just off the coast a vessel was going to pieces. Suddenly two men, an old sea captain and his son, put out through the storm. Everybody tried to persuade them not to do so, for it seemed to be absolutely useless. Over the waves, which appeared almost mountain high, they pushed along until at last amid the cheers of the waiting throng they returned with their little boat filled with those who had been all but lost upon the ship. When the minister said to the old sea captain, "Why do you do this? Why take such a risk?" he answered, "I have been there myself, and I knew the danger." It is because we have been once in sin and now are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ that we say something to those who are about us. Second: We are responsible for others. When Horace Bushnell was a tutor in Yale he was a stumbling block to all the students because he was not a Christian. He realized this himself, and yet he said, "How can I accept Christ or the Bible, for I do not believe in either one." And then the question came to him as from God, "What do you believe?" and he said, "I only know there is a difference between right and wrong." God seemed to say to him, "Have you ever taken that stand where you would say, ’I am committed to the right even if it ends in death’?" and he said, "I never have." Falling upon his knees he said, "O God, if Jesus Christ be true, reveal him to me and I will follow him." And he began to walk in the light, which constantly increased, and almost every student in Yale came to Christ. "No man liveth unto himself alone." We are responsible for the souls of other men. We are also responsible for their service; if we are half-hearted they will surely be. V "And the host ran, and cried and fled." What hosts are against us to-day? First: As individuals there may be coming constantly to our minds a question of doubt, of pride, or of secret sin, and we wonder if these are evidences that we are not Christians. Not at all. They are but the fruit of our old nature, and are the hosts encamped against us. We have only to take our stand with Christ, right with him, and we shall win the victory. Second: In the Church we meet with indifference, worldliness, infidelity, and we wonder how we may win the victory. The answer is simply, "We have but to be right with God and to walk with God," and three hundred such followers of his could put the enemy to rout quickly. Third: There is also a battle which those of us who are Christians are obliged to fight. It has to do with the unsaved man. Men are not Christians to-day not because they do not believe, not because they are without interest in the future, but simply because they have put off and put off, and I know of no way to overcome this difficulty except by taking one’s stand with Christ and with those who are like-minded with Christ. Having first concern for the lost, then his intense earnestness in their salvation, the proscrastination of the sinner will flee away. For such a victory as this we plead and pray. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.08. PAUL A PATTERN OF PRAYER ======================================================================== Chapter 8 - Paul a Pattern of Prayer TEXT: "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it."-- John 14:14. Jesus testified in no uncertain way concerning prayer, for not alone in this chapter does he speak but in all his messages to his disciples he is seeking to lead them into the place where they may know how to pray. In this fourteenth chapter of John, where he is coming into the shadow of the cross and is speaking to his disciples concerning those things which ought to have the greatest weight with them, the heart of his message seems to be prayer. What an encouragement it is to his disciples to pray when they remember that he said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:12-13). Jesus was himself a pattern of prayer. He had prayed under all circumstances; with him the day was born in prayer, went along in meditation and closed in most intimate fellowship and communion with his Father. Under all circumstances, whether it be the raising of Lazarus from the dead, or the breathing in of the very spirit of God so essential to him in his earthly ministry, he prayed; and because he was a man of prayer himself, he could speak to his disciples with authority concerning this subject. If we ourselves would know how to pray there are certain great principles which must be remembered when we come to him. First: We must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. If one has hazy or mystical ideas of Christ then from the very nature of the case prayer is impossible. Second: We must believe his word. Mr. Spurgeon’s statement that when he went to God he always went pleading a promise is the secret of his great success as a man of prayer. Earthly parents are not insensible to the pledges they make to their children and surely God cannot be. Third: We must confess and forsake our sins. To confess sin is to arraign before us those sins of which we know ourselves to be guilty, and when they appear before us in solemn and awful procession we must heartily renounce them. If we do not we cannot pray. In another place in God’s word we read, "Ye ask and receive not, because, . . ." and while in the verse the rest of the sentence is "Ye ask amiss," we might finish by saying, "We ask and receive not, because our lives are not right in God’s sight." Fourth: We must exercise our faith. The little child who prayed for rain and then wanted to carry an umbrella with her when the sun was shining is an oft repeated illustration, but such faith as this is what every child of God must practice. The text is exceedingly broad. "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it." It is broad enough to include temporal blessing and spiritual power, comprehensive enough to lead us to believe that God will direct our lives if we ask him and will bear our burdens even though they be almost insignificant in their weight. Thank God for the "anything" in the text! It may be stated truly that God’s promises to Israel are especially concerning temporal blessing and that his promises to the church have particular reference to spiritual possessions; and they both, the history of Israel and the history of the church, prove that God will give to us temporally as well as spiritually. These blessings are included in the "anything." I have been greatly impressed with Paul as a pattern in prayer, and for the outline of this message as well as for many of the suggestions I am indebted to an English clergyman, the Rev. E. W. Moore, who has written, "The Christ Controlled Life," and "Christ in Possession," and has recently sent out a little book entitled, "The Pattern Prayer Book." TEXT: "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it."-- John 14:14. Jesus testified in no uncertain way concerning prayer, for not alone in this chapter does he speak but in all his messages to his disciples he is seeking to lead them into the place where they may know how to pray. In John 14:1-31, where he is coming into the shadow of the cross and is speaking to his disciples concerning those things which ought to have the greatest weight with them, the heart of his message seems to be prayer. What an encouragement it is to his disciples to pray when they remember that he said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:12-13). Jesus was himself a pattern of prayer. He had prayed under all circumstances; with him the day was born in prayer, went along in meditation and closed in most intimate fellowship and communion with his Father. Under all circumstances, whether it be the raising of Lazarus from the dead, or the breathing in of the very spirit of God so essential to him in his earthly ministry, he prayed; and because he was a man of prayer himself, he could speak to his disciples with authority concerning this subject. If we ourselves would know how to pray there are certain great principles which must be remembered when we come to him. First: We must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. If one has hazy or mystical ideas of Christ then from the very nature of the case prayer is impossible. Second: We must believe his word. Mr. Spurgeon’s statement that when he went to God he always went pleading a promise is the secret of his great success as a man of prayer. Earthly parents are not insensible to the pledges they make to their children and surely God cannot be. Third: We must confess and forsake our sins. To confess sin is to arraign before us those sins of which we know ourselves to be guilty, and when they appear before us in solemn and awful procession we must heartily renounce them. If we do not we cannot pray. In another place in God’s word we read, "Ye ask and receive not, because, . . ." and while in the verse the rest of the sentence is "Ye ask amiss," we might finish by saying, "We ask and receive not, because our lives are not right in God’s sight." Fourth: We must exercise our faith. The little child who prayed for rain and then wanted to carry an umbrella with her when the sun was shining is an oft repeated illustration, but such faith as this is what every child of God must practice. The text is exceedingly broad. "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it." It is broad enough to include temporal blessing and spiritual power, comprehensive enough to lead us to believe that God will direct our lives if we ask him and will bear our burdens even though they be almost insignificant in their weight. Thank God for the "anything" in the text! It may be stated truly that God’s promises to Israel are especially concerning temporal blessing and that his promises to the church have particular reference to spiritual possessions; and they both, the history of Israel and the history of the church, prove that God will give to us temporally as well as spiritually. These blessings are included in the "anything." I have been greatly impressed with Paul as a pattern in prayer, and for the outline of this message as well as for many of the suggestions I am indebted to an English clergyman, the Rev. E. W. Moore, who has written, "The Christ Controlled Life," and "Christ in Possession," and has recently sent out a little book entitled, "The Pattern Prayer Book." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.09. A STARTLING STATEMENT ======================================================================== Chapter 9 - A Startling Statement TEXT: "The wicked shall not be unpunished."-- Proverbs 11:21. There are very many passages of Scripture which ought to be read in connection with this text; as for example, "Fools make a mock at sin" (Proverbs 14:9), for only a fool would. Better trifle with the pestilence and expose one’s self to the plague than to discount the blighting effects of sin. And, again, "The soul that sinneth it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). From this clear statement of the word of God there is no escape. Or, again, "Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance" (Psalms 90:8). There is really nothing hidden from his sight. We may conceal our sinful thoughts from men and sometimes even our evil practices; but not from God. Or again, "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15). Here is unexampled progress indicated from which there never has been the slightest deviation. But one of the sharpest texts in all the Word of God, and one which men somehow in these days seem to ignore, is Paul’s expression, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7), and if we compare this reference in the New Testament to the text in the Old Testament the harvest indeed seems to be sure, for "The wicked shall not be unpunished." There is a note of truth in all of these statements for both saint and sinner. Jeremiah the thirtieth chapter and the eleventh verse, "For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished." The old Prophet is speaking to the people of Israel; and while he tells them that they are God’s people, nevertheless they shall not altogether go unpunished, for if they sow to the flesh they must of the flesh reap corruption. In Deuteronomy 5:9, we read, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." It is a solemn fact that the sins of the fathers descend upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. It is more solemn that so blighting is the effect of sin that the fourth generation is the last. There is no fifth. Even though we be pardoned from sin forever, we shall not altogether go unpunished. Certainly it is true that if one rejects Jesus Christ, punishment for him is absolutely certain. The other day in the city of Chicago the following appeared in the Inter-Ocean as an editorial under the title of "Preaching for Men." "To those who look upon men as they are it is simply astounding that so many preachers should act as if the hope of reward alone could be efficient to move average mankind to leave sin and follow after righteousness. In every other relation of human life every man is constantly confronted with the alternative: Do right and be rewarded; do wrong and be punished. The pressure of fear as well as the pressure of hope is continually upon him. He knows that he may conceal his wrongdoing from the eye of man, but he is always under the fear of discovery and punishment. But he goes to church, and in nine cases out of ten the preacher, while insisting that he can hide nothing from the eye of God, yet says nothing to arouse in him that fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom. If he turn from religion to science he finds science more positive of the certainty of punishment than of the certainty of reward. Science cannot, for example, assure him of a long life, even though he scrupulously obey hygienic laws. But it can assure him of a speedy death if he wantonly violates those laws. Precisely this fact that the consequences of sin in punishment can be foretold more positively than the consequences of righteousness in reward is what makes fear the strongest influence dominating and directing human conduct. Yet many preachers deliberately abandon the appeal to fear and then wonder why their preaching does not move men to active righteousness. When more preachers recover from the delusion into which so many of them have fallen such complaints will diminish. For all human experience proves that the preaching that appeals to fear of punishment as well as to hope of reward is the preaching that is really effective--is the preaching of all the great preachers of the past and the present--is the preaching that moves." The statement of the text is exceedingly plain and the teaching is unquestioned. It is a good thing for us to-day to understand what sin is, for if we have a wrong conception of sin it naturally follows that we shall have a wrong conception of the atonement. Without an understanding of sin there is no sense of guilt, and without the sense of guilt there is no cry for pardon. The best definitions that I have ever found for sin are written in the word of God. I 1. "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). The word "transgression" means to go across. Does your life parallel God’s law or cross it? Your answer to this question determines the measure of your sin. You have only to read the ten commandments and try to mold your life by them to find your answer. Better still, you have only to read these commandments in the light of Jesus’ interpretation, where the look of lust is adultery and anger without cause is murder, to see how far short you have come; and if this is true certainly you are a sinner, and the text is for you. "The wicked shall not be unpunished." 2. "All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not unto death" (1 John 5:17). Righteousness means right relations with God. You may make ever so strong a claim to right living and speak ever so vehemently concerning the good that you are accomplishing in the world, but the first question for you to settle is this, What is your relation to God and what have you to say with reference to your acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ? It is a solemn thought that whatever we do counts for nothing if our relation to God be wrong, while the little that we may do may count for much if we have taken the right position before him. 3. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Omission, according to this scripture, is sin; neglected opportunity is sin, shirking responsibility is sin, refusing to obey God is sin; and so when I ask you about being a Christian, if it is best and right and you acknowledge that it is, then if you are not a Christian, this very fact is in itself sin, for when one knows the right and refuses to do it he is a sinner, and the text is true--"The wicked shall not be unpunished." 4. "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). Active doubt is sin. If you have a doubt concerning the sinfulness of certain things, then to do those things is sin. If I have the least doubt concerning the amusements which may be questionable, or the position which may be doubtful, so long as a doubt or a question remains these things are sin; and the Bible states the fact that "The wicked shall not be unpunished." 5. "And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment" (John 16:8). Unbelief is the chiefest of sins. It is to reject Jesus Christ, it is to close in our own faces the door of hope, it is to trample the blood of the Son of God under our feet, and it means also to insult the spirit of grace. One morning in the city of New York a man dashed down the street and past three men standing on the pier. They could not tell how old he was, nor how he was dressed, but they saw him jump upon the bulkhead near by, strip off his overcoat, coat and hat, and, before they could stir to save him, plunge off the end of the pier. There was a short rope lying near by, and seizing this a man ran with his companions to the point from which the man had jumped. They threw the rope toward the struggling figure that they could just make out below them. The rope fell a foot and a half too short. Then they ran back to the gas plant and got a longer rope. The ice was running so thick in the river that the man’s head and shoulders were still to be seen above the water when they returned. Taking careful aim they threw the rope squarely across the struggling form, shouting, "Catch it and we’ll pull you in." The unknown man, however, making a last effort, threw the rope aside and shouted back: "Oh, to h--- with it! I’m through!" Then he sank out of sight. That is a picture of the man who, having offered to him mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, spurns all that God offers, and is therefore hopeless. Sin separates us from God. Sin separates us from each other. Sin pollutes us and we become impure. Sin deceives us and we are in danger and know it not. A friend of mine walking along the streets of Cincinnati early one morning saw a young girl standing upon the very edge of the roof of one of the highest office buildings. She was carefully balancing herself and every moment it seemed as if she would fall. The elevator was not running, but he made his way hurriedly to the roof of the building, walked carefully across it, seized her by the hand, drew her back and found that she had risen in her sleep and all unconsciously was standing on the very brink of eternity. This is what sin does for us, and it is a solemn thought that for all such the text is true, "The wicked shall not be unpunished." II I do not make my appeal, however, on the ground that the punishment is all for the future, for that is indeed sure. I ask you the question, Do you believe in heaven as a place of rewards? If so, the same argument will prove the existence of hell. Do you reject hell, because it seems to you to be inconceivable? Then the same argument will blot heaven out of existence. What it is that awaits the wicked, I am sure I do not know--only that it is to be away from God, with the door of hope shut forever, and the Bible tells me that there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the wicked shall not be unpunished. I lift my voice against the punishment here, for sin is so sure in its deadly work, it is so insidious in its influence, that before you know it it is upon you; just one day of trifling and you are gone. The people about Pittsburg will never forget the Cheswick mine horror in 1903, when one hundred and eighty-two dead men were taken from the mine. Under the direction of one of the mining engineers, a rescuing party started into the mine to see if there was any hope of saving the men who might be yet alive. The journey is described by one who volunteered to go with the engineer on his perilous journey. "When we got to the foot of the shaft, Mr. Taylor lighted a cigar. He blew out a great cloud of smoke and watched it drift into a passage. ’This way,’ he said, ’The smoke will follow the pure air draught.’ So we went on, Mr. Taylor blowing clouds of smoke, and we following them. Suddenly he wheeled and yelled; ’The black damp is coming!’ The cigar smoke had stopped as though it had come to a stone wall, and was now drifting over our heads. We ran with death at our heels, ran with our tongues dry and swelling and our eyes smarting like balls of fire. It seemed only a minute until Mr. Taylor shrieked and fell forward on his face. He crawled along for a while on his hands and knees, and then fell again and lay still. I stopped for a second, with the idea of carrying him. Then I realized how hopeless that was. We were still a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the pit. He was a very heavy man, and I, as you see, am small and weak. Again I ran choking and beating my head with my hands. I fell, cut my face, called upon God, struggled to my feet and fell again. So I plunged on, falling and fighting forward. Black madness came upon me. The horrible, sickening after-damp was tearing my heart up through my dry throat. My brain was bursting through my temples. Then a stroke, as though by a sledge hammer, and I knew nothing more. They found me at ten minutes past one Tuesday morning. At first they thought I was dead. Then they saw my head rise and fall while I weakly pounded on a rock with a stick that I had caught in my delirium." This is to me a striking picture of what sin does for us. There is no one so strong but he may be overpowered by its awful influence. God save us from it, for "The wicked shall not be unpunished." III Oh, is there no hope? For it would seem from the message thus far as if nothing but despair was ahead of us. Two ways to escape from the power of sin have been suggested; one is man’s way, the other is God’s. Let us consider them both. 1. Man suggests reformation. But how about the sins of the past? They are still untouched. Man tells the sinner to do his best; but how about the will which has been weakened by sinful practices, and which seems unable to act? Man tells the depraved man to change his surroundings; but how about the heart that is unclean? The fact is, man’s way will not reach us. In January, 1904, the American Liner New York left Southampton and came into the New York harbor with a sad story to tell. A sailor was suspended over the side of the vessel making repairs when an enormous wave tore him away, and he was very soon under the forepart of the ship. The waves began to carry him away, and a life line was thrown to him with a buoy attached. The sailor, sometimes visible and then obscured by the rising of a swell, grasped the line, and a cheer went up. He took a half turn with the line around his waist, was rolling himself over into the bight of the line and it looked as if he would be saved. The sailors on deck were just about to haul in. The poor fellow’s hands and fingers must have been numb, for he suddenly rolled out of the half-formed bight, losing his grip upon the line. None of the passengers could help the man, none of the crew dared jump to his rescue, no boat could live in such a maelstrom. The sailor, who was struggling and being whirled around and bobbing like a cork, his oilskins partially spreading out and sustaining him, kept drifting further and further away. Aroused by the commotion, the second officer came on deck just as the sailor lost his hold. Tossing aside his cap, overcoat and jacket, he bade the seamen take a bowline hitch around his body and lower him away. The volunteer life-saver was cheered by the passengers as he went over. It was bitter cold, the sleet sharp and the swells ugly. A strong swim in the trough of the seas and over the crests and the officer might reach the seaman. It was his only chance. He had no more than touched the spume before the waves hurled him against the side of the steamer again and again, bruising his ankle and knee, but he struck out bravely and gradually drew nearer the sailor. For fifteen minutes the second officer struggled. During one of his brave spurts in the direction of the struggling man he looked up to the rail. The practiced eye of the seafaring man saw something that caused him suddenly to turn and breast his way back to the ship. The line was too short. The seaman holding the line attached to the officer had in his hands the mere end of it, and there was not another bit to pay out. It was a sixty fathom line, "all gone," and the officer yet only half way to the drowning man. It was too late to splice another. Had it been thought of in time the man might have been saved. A longer struggle was useless, and the officer allowed himself to be hauled aboard, leaving the helpless man to go to his last account. That is always the difficulty with man’s effort to save the lost. It does not reach far enough and fails just when it ought to hold. 2. God’s way. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin," that is God’s message. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." This is God’s invitation. "I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." This is God’s pledge, and he has never failed to keep it. In the old days, when England and Scotland were at war, the English came up against Bruce. They drove him from his castle and as he fled away from them they let loose his own bloodhounds and set them upon his trail. His case seemed hopeless. He could hear the bay of the hounds in the distance, and those who were with him had just about given up in despair; but not so with Bruce. He came to a stream, flowing through the forest, he plunged in, waded three bow-shots up the stream and then out upon the other side. The hounds came up to the stream, stopped and sniffed; they had lost the track. They turned back defeated, and Bruce in time won the day. Is it not like this with our sins? Like a pack of hounds they are after me; wherever I flee they are close upon me. "The wages of sin is death," I am told, but I have found the way of escape. Here flows a stream which runs red with the blood of Jesus Christ, and I plunge in and am free. "There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.10. THE GRACE OF GOD ======================================================================== Chapter 10 - The Grace of God TEXT: "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."-- Isaiah 43:25. In looking over an old volume of Sermons preached by H. Grattan Guiness, forty-five years ago, I came across the message which he delivered with this text as a basis. So deep was the impression made upon me by my first reading of the sermon that I have taken Mr. Guiness’ outline and ask your careful attention to its development. If one should enter a jewelry store and ask to see a diamond, or any other precious stone, the jeweler would first spread upon his show case a black cloth and then place the diamonds upon it, not only for protection but also in order that the black background might bring out distinctly the brilliancy and worth of the gems. So God gives this best of all his promises with the dark picture of sin clearly and thoughtfully portrayed. In verses twenty-second to the twenty-fourth we read, "But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honored me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities." In these verses God says that his people have not called upon him in prayer, they have not presented their offerings, neither have they presented unto him themselves. He also affirms that they have wearied of him, and that they have also wearied him with their iniquities, and then he exclaims, "I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense," and with these clear statements he gives us the gracious statement of the text, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Mr. Guiness gives us four beautiful thoughts in this text concerning our sins. First: They are blotted out from God’s Book. Second: They are blotted out with God’s hand. Third: They are blotted out for his sake. Fourth: They are blotted from his memory. A more admirable outline of a text of Scripture I do not know, a more cheering message to a child of God I have never found. I Not long ago, in Chicago, a young man was induced to confess to one whom he thought was his friend the killing of his father and mother. As the confession was being made, as he supposed to but one person, it was all being taken down by those who were near enough to hear him speak, and when he appeared before the court his own confession was used against him and sent him to a life imprisonment in the penitentiary. What was true of this young man is true of us. Every sermon the minister preaches is recorded, every word an individual speaks is put down. It is a solemn thought to realize, that at the judgment we shall give account for even our idle words. Science has proven that our acts, our words and even our thoughts make their indelible record. Not long ago in our home we came across a long-unused phonograph. We started it going, placing upon it one of the cylinders which had been packed away with the phonograph, and were startled to hear the voice of one who had been dead for years. We heard the message he dictated, the song in which he joined and the laugh with which he closed it, and yet his voice has long been silent in death. There is not a sin of your youth which has not made its record, not a passion of your mature years that does not stand somewhere against you, not an act, a feeling or an imagination that has not been indelibly written; not all the changes of time, not all the efforts of man, can wipe these things out. In the British Museum there is a piece of stone not larger than the average Bible at least four thousand years old, and in the center of the stone there is a mark of a bird’s foot; four thousand years ago the track was made, and for four thousand years the record has stood. If these things are true of us--and they are, according to the Word of God--then what prospect is there for us but that of eternal punishment? For when we stand at the judgment there shall appear before us the sins of omission and the sins of commission, the sins we have forgotten and the sins we have but recently committed against ourselves, against our fellow men, and against God. It is indeed a black picture, and with whitened faces and rapidly beating hearts we ask, Is there any hope? I bring you God’s gracious answer to this important question: "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." Notice, it is the voice of God speaking. "I, even I," he exclaims, "will blot out your transgressions." It is, first of all, a commercial term. We were in debt to God, hopelessly in debt, and our obligation has been canceled; over against our sin is placed the righteousness of the Son of God, and we are free. "Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow." It is also a chemical expression, for it is a picture of God applying the blood of Jesus Christ to every page of the written record. The sins of our youth long ago passed out of mind; the sins of our manhood, which have taken up every part of our being, the sins of to-day--all have gone, for he himself has blotted them out. When we realize that we are forgiven of God it means more than if we were forgiven of men, for in the might of his forgiveness our past sins are gone, they shall not even be mentioned against us; the fear of judgment is taken away, for Jesus himself says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). It is the Passover story over again, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Thus are our sins blotted out. II It is with God’s hand that the work is done; and for very many reasons this is a great comfort to us. First: Because it was God’s hand that made the record, he it was who put down all your sins. He never rested in his work; week after week, month after month, year after year, the recording work was being done until your record became blacker than the blackest midnight; and behold the hand that made the record blots it out. Second: It was his hand against which you offended. Your sin was against yourself. It is true it hurt your character, lowered your self-respect; but more especially was it against God, for you despised his authority, forsook his service, broke his laws, defied his justice; you grieved his spirit, and you crucified his Son. And behold it is the hand against which you committed all these offenses which blotted out your transgressions. Third: It is the offended hand which blots them out. It was the hand that opened the fountains of the deep, and behold the floods came, the waters above and the waters below clasped their hands and destruction was everywhere save in the Ark. It was his hand that brought destruction upon the cities of the plain, consuming them with a mighty flame, and it was his hand that opened the sea for the children of Israel and then closed the sea over the pursuing Egyptians. The very thought of the offended hand makes us tremble, but behold, it is this hand that blots out all our transgressions. Fourth: It is the hand of justice that does the work. The same hand wrote, "The wicked shall not go unpunished," and wrote again, "The soul that sinneth it shall die," and wrote yet again, "The wages of sin is death." This hand is stretched forth in our behalf. I doubt not the question has often come to us, "How can God be just and be the justifier of them that believe?" In the light of such statements as these just quoted I am sure it is for this reason--it is for the offering of the just for the unjust. He made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. A man was needed for such an offering, and Christ became man. The man required must be born under the law, so Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh. The man born under the law must be without sin, so he was born pure. The man born under the law and without sin must be willing to die, and so he came saying, "I delight to do thy will, O God." And the man born under the law, without sin and willing to die must be able to provide an atonement which would make the wandering sinner and the love of God one, and so Christ at the command of God was thus furnished a sacrifice of sufficient power and magnitude to save the whole world. It is this hand of God that blots out our transgressions. Fifth: It is the hand of the Supreme Being that does the work. What a word of encouragement this is. It was this hand that made the worlds and hurled them off into space. It was this hand that created man and made him in the likeness of God. It was this hand that formed the countless number of angels, and has ever directed their heavenly movements. It was this hand that wrote the law upon Sinai. And it was this hand that holds the keys of the kingdoms of heaven and hell. He blots out our transgressions. From his decision there can be no appeal. With such a work as this, who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Would God that justifieth do it, or Christ that died consent to it? In the light of such a thought the Apostle Paul says, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). III Our sins are blotted out for his sake. God saves the sinner not alone because of pity for the sinner, and certainly not simply because he is in danger of hell, but in order that he may glorify himself; and this is no selfish glorification, but rather in order that he may show to us now and throughout all the ages what he really is. God has made different revelations of himself. We have beheld his wisdom in creation, in his providences and in his word. We have seen his justice in that he gave his only begotten Son to die for poor lost men. We have seen his power in the working of miracles and the transforming effect of his grace. It remains for us to see his love in the story of salvation, for until we behold him as the Savior of the sinner we do not know him. It is this that shall make us not only rejoice here in time but rejoice with joy unspeakable in eternity. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2:7-8, "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." IV Our sins are blotted out from God’s memory. The last of this wonderful text is the best. When we detect a failure of memory here in this world among our friends it is an evidence of weakness, but it is no weakness in God to forget. This is but another one of those expressions descriptive of God in which human language is used to describe a thought and in which human language is too poor an agency to convey all the depth of the meaning. It is just another picture of God stooping down to meet our weakness and it is God assuring us that our sins are gone completely. It is as if they never had existed, for they shall never stand against us and in the day of judgment they shall not even be mentioned. Our sins must have been a grief to him, just as the sin of an earthly child is the source of sorrow to an earthly parent; but they are so no longer, for he has forgotten. The Bible represents God as being angry because of our transgressions, but if ever there was anger with him it is so no longer, for you cannot be angry with a person whose injury against you you have forgotten entirely. We do not in this world speak of what we have forgotten, nor will God speak of our sins. We do not punish what we have forgotten, nor will God permit us to be punished, for he has blotted out our transgressions and will remember them no more. There is no awaiting penalty for your sin, there is no judgment to meet at the great white throne, there is no hell for you at the last, for your sins, for Christ’s sake, have been forgotten. If you cast a stone into the water and it sinks away there is for a time a ripple, where the stone has gone down; but in a moment it has gone forever, you can see it no more. So God has cast our sins into the sea and the place where they have gone cannot even be found. V But what must I do to take advantage of all this gracious offer of God? I answer according to the Scripture. There must be true repentance; repentance is a change of mind, it is having a new mind for God. There must be regeneration; regeneration is a change of nature, it is a new heart for God. There must be conversion; conversion is a change of living and a new life for God. If we would be born from above we must accept God’s word. Two friends were conversing one evening. One of them with a skeptical mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven and why God permitted it, and because the Bible failed here he would have none of it. Just as his friend was leaving the skeptic said to him, "Here is my lantern. I want you to take it and it will light you home." But the lantern was refused by the Christian man, "for," said he, "this lantern will not light up the mountains in the distance, nor the valley stretching away at my feet." His friend was amazed. "Man," said he, "take the lantern; it will make a road for you across the moor and light up your pathway home." "Oh," said his friend, "if that is true I will take it; but listen to me. So is the Bible not for distant paths of investigation; it is not so much to tell us concerning creation and existence--we shall know these things by and by. It is for the path at your feet and it will light you home a space at a time." The skeptical man saw it in an instant, he took God’s word and came back again to the faith of his childhood. So I offer it to you with its promises as of lanterns, if its commands are carefully received and followed out. You, too, may pass from darkness into light and you may claim from God this text of mine which says, "I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.11. CONVERSION ======================================================================== Chapter 11 - Conversion TEXT: "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."-- Matthew 18:3. Jesus Christ was the world’s greatest teacher and preacher. Multitudes followed him because he taught them, not as the scribes, but as one having authority. He came to them with the deepest truth of God, but couched in such familiar expressions, and told in such a fascinating way, that all men heard him and went their way rejoicing that so great a teacher had come into the world as the messenger of God. He desired to speak to them concerning the kingdom, and seeing on the distant hillside a farmer sowing his seed, he gave them the parable of the sower; and every farmer in his company began to understand his message. He told them the story of a woman baking bread, and in the spreading of the leaven every housekeeper had a vision of one of the deepest principles of the coming kingdom. He gave them the account of the boy who went away from his home, breaking his mother’s heart, and, according to tradition, putting her in her grave; causing his old father to bow his head in shame again and again, and yet in spite of it all, his father loving him; and every listener learned from the story a lesson concerning the love of God which could have been given to him in no other way. He was acknowledged as the world’s greatest teacher and preacher. The text is introduced by the word "verily," and this is peculiar to Jesus. The word calls especial attention to the coming message. It was as if he had sounded a bell and said, "Stop and listen"; and wherever the word "verily" occurs the Bible reader would do well to give heed to the message of Jesus. What hope is there for the moralist when Jesus said, "Except ye be converted"? What hope can there be for the man who says God is so merciful that he will not allow him finally to be lost when Jesus said "Ye shall not enter into the kingdom, except ye be converted and become as little children." It will be necessary for us to read carefully Matthew 18:8-9, if we would be impressed with the importance of conversion. There are solemn words here. "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire." I have been told that there are two ways of reading this text. The first is as we have it in the King James version; the second would make it read thus: "Verily, I say unto you, except ye convert yourselves and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Those who hold to this second reading say that there is a difference between regeneration and conversion--that regeneration is God’s part of the contract, while conversion is ours; that conversion is simply having the willing mind, while regeneration is God’s imparting to us his own life; and to convert one’s self is simply to be willing to be saved. And this is all-important, for even God himself cannot save us against our wills. But I prefer to use, in my treatment of the text, the generally accepted idea of conversion, and wish my message to center around the following questions: What is conversion? How may I be converted? Do I know when I was converted? How may I know certainly? I What is conversion? I own a piece of property, and you desire to purchase it. You pay me a price, and the property is transferred from my ownership to yours. It is a converted piece of property. This is just a hint as to what conversion is. We were sold under sin; and if any should object to this expression, we have sold ourselves under sin. Jesus came and in the shedding of his own blood paid the price of our redemption. As a child of God, I am bought back from bondage to freedom. To be converted is to be turned about. Going away from God, I turn towards him. With my face set away from heaven, I deliberately turn and accept Jesus, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." To be converted is to cross the line which separates light from darkness, and may be done as easily as if one drew a line in the path before him and stepped over it. Both of these would be by the act of one’s will; only it is to be remembered that when by faith we accept Jesus there is imparted to us a knowledge which comes from the Holy Ghost alone; while we seem to be acting in our own strength, yet really it is in the strength of God. Let it be remembered, however, that no two people may have exactly the same experience. There is an illustration of this in the healing of the blind men in the New Testament. I can imagine them having a convention, and each giving his testimony. One declares that the only way to receive your sight is to have clay and spittle put upon your eyes and to wash in the pool of Siloam. Another ridicules this experience and declares that only the touch of the fingers of Jesus is necessary. Still another speaks and emphatically declares that even the touch of Jesus is superfluous, for at the command of Jesus he saw clearly. Another says that instantaneous sight is impossible, and describes his own experience, when he saw men like trees, walking. But when all have given their testimony, they finally unite in declaring that whereas they once were blind, now they can see; and after all this is the important matter. A friend of mine described a number of people who came to view "The Angelus" that celebrated masterpiece of Millet’s. Some people admired the perspective; others, the figure of the man; others, that of the woman. One man simply stood aghast as he looked, and exclaimed, "What a marvelous frame that picture has!" and no two people expressed the same opinion concerning the masterpiece. How could we expect them to have the same experience in coming to Christ? It may be that some will say, "Why insist upon conversion when my life is a moral one?" And my answer is that the difficulty with morality is that it is worked out according to men’s standard and falls far short of God’s. In my first pastorate I had a blind man as one of my hearers. He used to walk about the village where I preached, generally without a guide, and apparently went as easily as a man with eyes. He had a little stick in his hands, with which he touched the trees and the fences, and seemed to know by the very sound where he was. One day at noon, when he should be going home, I saw him walking rapidly away from his home. I finally convinced him that he was going in the wrong direction, and he asked me to set him straight, which I did. Going in the new direction, he used his stick in the same fashion, used his legs in the same mechanical way, but the difference between the man in the first instance and the second was this--that in the first picture he was going away from home, while in the second he was going homeward rapidly. The trouble with man’s morality is that it is self-centered and not Christ centered if he is rejected. II How may I be converted? For from the text which says "Except ye be converted" it would seem as if some power outside of ourselves must be working in our behalf, and this is true. The foundation of it all is the atonement by Christ, his sacrificial death upon the cross. Rejecting this truth, there is no hope for us. In our sinful condition, the spirit of God rouses us, convicts us of sin, convinces us of our need of a Savior, and finally God, in his grace, gives us the strength to yield, and we pass from darkness to light. Sometimes great need drives us to light, as in the case of Nicodemus; while again great sin compels us to come to him, as in the case of the thief on the cross. But whether it be need or sin, let us start with little faith, if we have no more, and God will meet us the moment we start. I once conducted services in a soldiers’ home. The commanding officer told me, when the service was concluded, of a former inmate, an old sea captain, who came to the institution a confessed infidel. He refused to attend any of the services in the chapel; finally he was taken ill, and then the commanding officer entered his room, asking him to read the Scriptures, which he declined to do. Again he came suggesting that he read the Bible to see if there was any part he could believe, and a bottle of red ink and a pen were left by his bedside, the officer suggesting that he mark any verse red if he could accept it. This appealed to the dying man and he said, "Where shall I read?" The officer said "Begin with John’s Gospel." And he did so. He read through two chapters without making a mark, and through fifteen verses of the third chapter. Then he came to the sixteenth verse, which is a picture of the very heart of God, and he reached for his pen and marked the verse red. When this much of the story had been told we reached the old captain’s room and passed the threshold to find the bed empty, for he was gone. "I wish you might have seen his Bible," said the captain. "I sent it to his family recently. There was not a page in it that was not marked red." Over his bed swung a pasteboard anchor; marked upon it were these words--"I have cast my anchor in safe harbor." For he had gone home. III Do you know when you were converted? That is, do you know the exact time? There are two extremes in experiences in this matter. I recall the experience of an old man who sat in my lecture room one Friday evening, and just as the hands of the clock marked the hour 9:30 he said "I will," and came to Christ. That was the moment of his conversion. But, as for myself, I have not had this experience; I do not know just when I turned to Christ. It must have been when I was but a small child. One of the best women I know has had an experience similar to mine, while one of the greatest preachers in the land has told me that he was a drunkard until he was 21 years of age, and then, on his knees, by his father’s death bed, he came to the Savior. After all, it is not so much a question of the knowledge of the day, or the hour, or the month of one’s conversion as "Do we now know Christ?" IV How may we know that we have passed from death into life? Certainly not with our feelings as a proof, for they change as the sands shift on the seashore. If our feelings be the foundation, then we may be in the kingdom and out of it a great many times a day. It is not always to be determined by a great change in one’s life, for men who have not accepted Christ have had such an experience. There is only one sure way of knowing it, and that is on the authority of the word of God. John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation: but is passed from death unto life." And John 6:47, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life." It is said that Napoleon while riding in front of his soldiers lost control of his horse, when a private stepped from the ranks, seized the horse’s bridle and saved the officer’s life. Napoleon saluted him and called him captain. "But, sir," said he, "I am not a captain, only a private." "Then," said Napoleon, "I will commission you captain." And immediately he stepped into the company of those officers; they ordered him to the ranks, but he said, "I am a captain." "By whose authority?" they said. If then he had replied, "Because I feel like a captain," how ridiculous it would have been! Pointing to Napoleon, he said, "I am a captain, because he said it." Thus with God’s word as a foundation we stand secure. V Do not forget to notice that we are told that we must come like little children. Not like the philosophers of the world, but like little children who always trust implicitly those who are about them. If we would be saved, we must be willing to be taught, and we must some time make a beginning. Then why not now? Some years ago John B. Gough visited a home in a New England city, and the heartbroken mother told him that her boy, who was an inebriate, was confined in an upper room in the house, which was much like a cell. The great temperance leader went to speak to him and said "Edward, why don’t you pray?" and he said, "Because I don’t believe in prayer." "But," said Mr. Gough, "You must believe in God." And he replied, "I do not believe in anything." "I am sure you are wrong in this," said he, "for I know that you believe in your mother." Then there came a new look into his face when he said, "Yes, I believe in her." "Well," said Mr. Gough, "you must then believe in love. Let us fall upon our knees and pray." And the young man began, "O love," and the spirit of God said unto him, "God is love," and he changed his prayer and said "O God," and then came the same spirit and said, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son," and he said "O Christ," and when he said this the deed was done. He immediately rose from his knees, and he has been free ever since. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.12. FIVE KINGS IN A CAVE ======================================================================== Chapter 12 - Five Kings in a Cave TEXT: "And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them. And Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed, be strong and of good courage: for thus shall the Lord do to all your enemies against whom ye fight."-- Joshua 10:24-25. The history of the children of Israel is one of the most fascinating stories ever written. It abounds in illustrations which are as practical and helpful as any that may be used to-day, drawn from our every-day experience. God certainly meant that we should use their story in this way, for in the New Testament we read that the things which happened to them were as ensamples for us. The word "ensample" means type, or figure, or illustration. To appreciate this text and the story of the five imprisoned kings we must go back a little bit to the place where the leadership of Moses had been transferred to Joshua. God is never at a loss for a man; his plans are never frustrated. If Moses is to be set aside Joshua is in preparation for his position. Doubtless Joshua may have felt somewhat restrained, as he was kept in a position of not very great prominence, but he certainly realized when he stood as the leader of the children of Israel that all things had been working together for the good of his leadership, and doubtless he praised Jehovah for his goodness to him. There are many incidents in connection with the immediate story of the children of Israel which should be mentioned here. When they were ready to move towards Canaan Joshua told them that when the soles of the feet of the priests touched the water of the Jordan the water would stand on either side before them and they could pass dry shod into Canaan. Suddenly the marching began. They stood within three feet of the waters, which ran the same as they had been running for years; then two feet, then one, and then six inches, but there was no parting of the waters before them. Let us remember that God had said, "When the soles of the feet of the priests touch the water they shall separate." And it was even as he said, and on dry land the children of Israel passed over to the other side. It is a perfectly natural thing for one who is unregenerate to say, "Why insist upon confession, and the acceptance of Christ, and how can the mere acceptance of the Savior save me from the penalty and the power of sin?" But a countless multitude will rise to-day to say, "It was when we stepped out upon what we could not understand and what seemed as impassable and impossible as the parting of the waters of the Jordan that God gave us light and peace." When once they were in Canaan what an interesting story that is in connection with Rahab of Jericho! The spies had entered her home and a mob outside was seeking them that they might put them to death. Rahab promised them deliverance, only she exacted from them a promise in return that they would save alive her father and her mother and her loved ones; and when she let them down by means of a cord from the window of her home they said to her, "Bind this scarlet cord in the window and gather your loved ones here and they shall be saved." And when the children of Israel had marched about Jericho and the walls were about to fall, suddenly they lifted their eyes and they saw the red cord fluttering from the window, and while all else was destroyed Rahab and all her loved ones were saved. What a little thing evidently stood between them and death--just a red cord! And yet as a matter of fact it is only a red cord that is between us and death--namely, the blood of the Son of God; for, as in the Old Testament times when God saw the blood and the destroying angel passed over the home, so in these New Testament times the blood which has been received by faith insures us our safety and we are set free from sin’s penalty and sin’s power. The story of Achan is a note of warning. It is rather singular that when the children of Israel had taken Jericho they failed at Ai, and yet not singular when we realize that one man had sinned in all the company. He had taken gold and silver and a Babylonish garment and had hidden the same in his tent, and this was in direct disobedience to the commands of Joshua. The sad thing about sin is that we cannot sin and suffer alone. Our friends suffer, our kindred must bear a part of the woe with us. When Achan sinned the children of Israel lost a victory. Sin is progressive. In Joshua 7:21, we read, "When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and behold they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it." And you will notice that, first he saw, then he coveted, then he took. It is always thus; a sinful imagination will lead to outbreaking iniquity, and a small sin encouraged will ultimately mean disgrace. The story of the Gibeonites is also interesting. They had heard of the power of the children of Israel and were afraid of them; but they made up their minds to deceive them. So, lest the Israelites should think that they came from a near by territory and therefore should turn against them they put on old clothes, wore old shoes upon their feet and carried musty bread in their baggage. Then they stood before Israel and said, "We have come from a far country; look at our clothing, it is worn out; and at our shoes, they are in holes; and at our bread, it was fresh when we started, it is musty to-day." And Joshua said, "We will make them hewers of wood and drawers of water," and they were saved from death but they served in bondage. Let this be remembered always that deception inevitably means bondage. One is in bondage to his conscience, for it constantly reproves him. He is in bondage to the one he has deceived, for he can never stand honestly before him. He is most of all in bondage to his sin, for he will surely be found out. The Amorites were against the children of Israel and they were a great company. It is in connection with their struggle against this power that the text is written. I The Israelites started in this conflict with a mighty power against them, as we have seen. But so have we. There are first of all the tendencies of our old nature against which we must fight, for just as with the law of gravitation if I take my hand away from a book or a stone it falls to the floor or the ground because this law pulls it downward, so there is a law in my members and has been in the life of every man since Adam’s day pulling me away from the true to the false. It is for this reason that it is easier to do wrong than to do right, to be untrue than to be true. Then there is against us the very world in which we live. Its atmosphere, its business, even its social life is tainted with that which is sinful or to say the least questionable, and he who lives in the world and is in any sense of it has a hard battle to fight. But there are two special things which are against us. First: The sins which we have encouraged. It may be in the beginning very small, but Satan is perfectly satisfied if he can have the least hold upon the life of the one whom he wishes to wrong. I read in a Chicago paper the story of a woman who was making a heroic struggle against an awful curse. She had become addicted to the use of morphine. For fourteen years she was a consumer of the drug. Apparently she could not shake off the habit. Building up a resistance to the action of the drug, her system became accustomed to enormous quantities of it. She could not eat, nor sleep, nor work without it. Most of her scanty earnings went to purchase it. She was a seamstress, and by toiling many hours a day managed to get enough money to buy it. Some years back she had been a happy wife and mother. Her husband loved her; she was devoted to him and to their two children. She lost him; she lost the care of her children; rapidly she drifted away from them. The powerful narcotic helped to deaden her pain. When her anguish became unbearable a double dose of it would enable her to drowse away the hours. "I will never again touch or taste morphine, so help me God!" she said. Immediately she discontinued the use of the drug wholly. She could get no sleep; she could not swallow food half the time or retain it. She was beset by horrible visions. She was racked by an inexpressible longing. But she held on. Those who knew her and watched her agonizing battle with astonishment and sympathy told her that she was killing herself. "It may be," she would answer, "but I shall die true to my oath." "But," they would urge, "a habit like yours, which has obtained for years, should be broken gradually." "I will master it. I have blotted it from my life," she would answer. "I shall quit it this way even if I go into the grave. It has mastered me; it has cost me my home, husband and children; now I will master it." She started at shadows, her nights were nights of horror; she would bury her nails in the palms of her hands and compress her lips to keep from screaming. There was no rest for her. Still she tried to work and grew weaker. "You cannot give me that," she said, "I remember my oath. Give me any medicine you choose save opium. God would forsake me now if I forsook my promise to him." The physician remonstrated with her, but in vain, so he gave her a substitute which failed of its effect, as he knew it would, and she died. Even when the hand of death had clutched her grimly, though her terrific sufferings would have been allayed by the poison, she refused to take it. Any person in the room would have bought it for her and administered it gladly, so that she might pass away in peace, but she would not prove traitor to herself. She was a friendless woman except for acquaintances recently made. Her life had been sad and hard. Held in the grip of an enemy that set its mark upon her, she was shunned and went her downward way alone. Those who were with her say that just before the end came she smiled, knowing that she had won her fight; and yet years ago she began to trifle with sin, and it had mastered her. Again, we have against us sins which not only have been encouraged but have been committed again and again until they have become a habit of our lives, and he who has such a sin as this finds himself in the grip of one who is a tyrant. In a city paper the other day I came across the story of a man who once had some prominence in the world but began to go wrong, naturally drifted towards the evil and finally found himself surrounded by the lowest of companions. Because of his natural ability he easily assumed leadership. The particular form of crime they practiced was administering chloral to those who sat at the bar in the saloon to drink. They did this by attracting the attention of the man who was to drink to something else in the room and then the deadly knock-out drops would be administered and they would rob the man. One night the dose was too strong and the victim died. The one who caused his death came before the city authorities recently to give himself up and pitifully ask that he might be quickly sent to death to pay the penalty of his crime for, said he, "From that moment my mind has never been at rest. I wandered about town for two or three days trying to get rid of the sight of that fellow’s face; but at night was when I suffered. The moment I dozed off I could see him in my dreams beckoning and laughing as he dragged me over some cliff, and I waked up cold with fear. No one knows what I suffered. I left the city. I went to Denver. I went to Butte. I traveled everywhere, but wherever I went night and day that dead man was hovering around me. I couldn’t sleep and my mind began to weaken. One night I went into a gambling den. I thought the excitement might drive that vision out of my head. I played roulette. I bet on the black; the red won. And right before me I saw that printer’s face just like I see you now, grinning as the dealer dragged in my money. I ran out of that club like a crazy man and wandered about town till I saw a freight train pulling out of the yards. I climbed into an empty box car and lay down in the corner to rest. For a few moments the face was gone. Suddenly a flash of lightning lit up that car as bright as this cell, and there, just a couple of feet from me, I saw that man I’d killed plainer than I see you. He reached out and caught me by the arm. I screamed and jumped out of the car. They found me next day lying beside the track; and when they got me to a hospital, as I hope for pardon, that thing’s black and blue finger marks showed on my shoulder. I’ve been in a lot of places since that but I never got over it. Finally it got so bad I couldn’t stand it and I came back to Chicago to confess." And just as we have all these things against us so the children of Israel had the Amorites against them and the five kings were unitedly arrayed to fight them. II But there was a sure deliverance for Israel and there is a sure deliverance for us. God promised to be with Joshua and his people. Joshua 1:5, "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Even the things that were impossible he helped them to accomplish. Joshua 6:1-2, "Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given unto thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valor." Even where men had failed him he gave them victory. Joshua 8:1-2, "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land; and thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it." Even where the forces were combined against them it made no difference. Joshua 10:8, "And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." So it is with us. God has promised to deliver us, and over our sinful nature, the atmosphere of the world, sins encouraged and sins committed, we may expect a complete victory. Everything is at man’s disposal if only God is with him. In connection with the children of Israel even the day was made longer that they might fight their battles. Joshua 10:12-14, "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it, or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel." The weak were made strong that the enemy might not triumph over them. "If God be for us who can be against us?" In this struggle with the Amorites Israel won the day. III The victory of the Israelites over the Amorites was like the general deliverance which God has given us from the power of sin, but there are certain sins which may pursue us, and from these we ought to be set free. When the children of Israel started from Egypt and had passed through the Red Sea certain of the Egyptians started after them, the waters of the Sea came together and they were put to death. The next day the Israelites camped upon the shore and they could easily go back. Doubtless more than one could say as he turned over the body of a dead man to see his face, "Why, this is my old tax master who used to beat me. He will never have power over me again." Is such a deliverance as this from individual sins possible? I think it is. I can think of five sins which stand in the way of men and which maybe likened to the five kings shut up in the cave. First: Sinful imagination or secret sins. I doubt not but that almost every one whose eyes may light upon this sentence has been guilty at this point. He may have said again and again, "I will never do this thing again," and he has put the king into the cave and rolled the stone against the door. Second: Impurity. It may be that some one who reads this sentence will plead guilty at this point, and he may have said, "This sin which is now my defeat began with only a suggestion of evil which I encouraged; but I will never be guilty again," and he puts the sin into the cave and rolls the stone against the door. Third: Intemperance, not simply in the matter of drinking strong drink, but it may be intemperance in the matter of dress, or eating, or pleasure; in other words, it is the lack of self-control. This has been the defeat of more men than one, and as you stop and think you say, "I will never lose control of myself again," and you put the sin within the cave and roll the stone against the door. Fourth: Dishonesty; not simply in what you do but in what you say, for one may be dishonest in speech as well as in appropriating that which does not belong to him. If you should be condemned just here and have determined never to fail again at this point, by an act of your will you consign this king to the cave and close up the entrance. Five: Unbelief, which is the greatest sin of all and is the last and greatest sin to be put into the cave. As a result of such an action there may be temporary relief, but not permanent, for the kings may break away from the cave and organize their forces against you once more and you go down. Here comes in the power of the text. Bring the kings out, every one of them, and put your feet upon their necks and stand in all your right and dignity as Christian men, and expect deliverance not so much because of what you are but because of the fact that from the days of the first sin it has been said, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head." Near Toledo, Ohio, there used to live an old doctor noted for his infidelity. He was violent in his opposition to the church. One day he called Robert Ingersoll to the town where he lived and paid him two hundred dollars, that he might by means of his lecture break up the revival meeting. Everybody was afraid of him. He heard of an old preacher back in the country who was a stranger to the schools but not a stranger to God, and he asked his friends to make it possible for him to meet him. Finally they met, and the infidel with a sneer said, "So you believe the Bible, do you?" and he said, "Yes, sir; do you?" "And you believe in God, do you?" and he said, "Yes, sir." "Well, I want you to understand that I am an infidel, and believe none of these things." The old minister looked at him and said simply, "Well, is that anything to be proud of?" and it was an arrow that went straight through the unbeliever. He went back to his office and began to think it over. "Anything to be proud of," he said, and he finally realized that he was not in a favorable position. Then he thought of an old Christian he knew and said, "If I could be such a Christian as that I would come to Christ." He went to tell the minister, and the minister said to him, "Get down on your knees and tell God so," and he began to tell him, then broke down and sobbed out his confession of sin. His cry for deliverance was heard, and he rose up a free man in Christ Jesus. From that day till this he has been freed from every one of his sins, is preaching the Gospel and counts it his highest joy to contribute in every possible way to the enlargement of the bounds of the Kingdom of God. So there is deliverance from every form of sin if we will but move in God’s way. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.13. DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE IN CHRISTIAN WORK ======================================================================== Chapter 13 - Definiteness of Purpose in Christian Work TEXT: "Salute no man by the way."-- Luke 10:4. Luke is the only one of the Evangelists giving us the account of the sending out of the seventy. The others tell us that Christ called certain men unto him and commissioned them to tell his story; but in this instance after Jesus had said, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head," he calls the seventy and sends them forth prepared to endure any sacrifice or suffer any affliction if only they may do his will. And when he had said unto another, "Follow me," but he answered, "Suffer me first to go and bury my father," Jesus said unto him (Luke 9:60-62), "Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." From this expression of the Master we quite understand that no other service, however important it may seem to us, is to come between us and our devotion to him. And in the expression concerning the man having put his hand to the plow and looking back we have one of the strongest illustrations that Jesus ever used. He does not say that if any one puts his hand to the plow and turns back to some other form of service he is not fit for the Kingdom of God, but what he says is this: If any man has his hands to the plow and simply looks back he is not fit for the Kingdom; and this for two reasons: First: Because no man could plow as he ought to unless he would keep his eyes straight ahead of him, and Second: No man could plow if he has his mind fixed upon something else. Jesus wants his disciples to know that his work is the important work, that nothing can surpass it. Not only is it wrong for us to turn away from him to any other service but it is a sin even to take our eyes off of him to gaze upon anything else. Under such sharp teaching as this he sends forth the seventy. Let it be noted, first, that he sent them forth two by two. Perhaps one was sent because he was strong in the opposite direction from his fellow laborer. Who knows but one could speak and the other could sing? Certainly one was the complement of the other. And they went forth with burning hearts to give the message of Jesus. That illustration in the New Testament where four men brought the sick man to Jesus is along the same line. Two men might have failed utterly, three men would have found it difficult service, for four men it was easy. I once made my way into the office of a doctor to ask him to come to Christ. The meetings were in progress in the church and I thought he was interested. He received me kindly, but firmly declined even to talk of Christ and I left him, utterly discouraged. The next night the man gave his heart to Christ, and for this reason, I believe. We had made him in a little company of church officers a subject of prayer, and you cannot pray earnestly for one for any length of time without speaking to him concerning his soul’s salvation. Without having had a conference four men determined to see the doctor, and they all called upon him within two hours of time. When the first came he laughed at him; when the second came his prominence in the business world at least commanded the doctor’s respect; when the third came, having driven four miles in from the country, he began to be interested; and with the coming of the fourth there was awakened in him a deep conviction. He closed his office, went to his home and before the evening hour of service came had accepted Christ. We have practically the same commission as the seventy. "As the Father hath sent me even so send I you," said Jesus to us. These conditions are as true to-day as in those days in the work of the seventy. The harvest is great. There possibly never has been a time when more people are absenting themselves from the church than at the present time. These men and women are fit subjects for the Gospel. The seventy went as the messengers of peace, so may we go. There are troubled hearts all about us, there are those who are in despair, men and women who are saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace, while ours is the very message of peace. Jesus said to them, "Carry neither purse nor scrip nor shoes," for their dependence was upon him. So must it be to-day. Not upon method nor upon skill must we depend, nor upon the schemes of men, however successful they may have been in the past, but upon him. In those days the men were sick and troubled, in these days they are dead in sins and as his messengers we carry the message of love. I This expression of the text meant very much to the Oriental, for as a matter of fact the salutation of the Eastern people frequently took a half an hour of time, and sometimes an hour would be consumed. They touched their turbans, fell upon their knees, saluted one another with a holy kiss, talked together concerning their own interests. These things were a part of the salutation. Jesus says to the seventy, "Salute no man as you go." They were not bidden to be impolite--this is farthest from the spirit of the Christian--yet they were commissioned to be about the king’s business and the king’s business required haste. The idea of the text is that there must be definiteness of purpose in Christian work. When Elisha kept his eyes fixed upon Elijah there came to him as the result the mantle of Elijah and he was clothed with power. When Gehazi followed Elisha’s command and as he went to the home of the Shunammite saluted no one he became the forerunner of life to the child. And when Paul said, "This one thing I do," and nothing could swerve him from his path of duty, he became the mightiest preacher in the world’s history since Christ. But let it not be thought for a moment that we are advocating a gloomy religion; far from it. I like the story of the little girl who went one day into her grandfather’s room to ask him to read to her and found him asleep with his head upon the back of the chair, his Bible upon his knees and the sunlight coming through the window at the proper angle to cast about him a halo of glory, and she ran to her mother saying, "I have been in grandpa’s room and I have seen God." If as a Christian the people of the world can have any thought other than this, that we at times at least remind them of Christ, something is wrong with our Christian experience. There were two sides to the experience of Jesus. In one we see him at the wedding rejoicing with those that did rejoice, making wine out of water and contributing to the happiness of all those who were present. In the other instance we see him upon the mountain side and crying out, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" with an almost breaking heart. When Charles G. Finney was in Utica there came down to see him a woman who was concerned for the town in which she lived. She returned to her home and through days and nights found it impossible either to eat or to sleep because she realized the lost condition of those about her. At last when she was so weak that she could not pray, she had rest only when those about her prayed for her. When Mr. Finney reached that town one of the greatest revivals in his history as an evangelist was the result. I was one day engaged with other pastors in an eastern city in a Gospel campaign. The ministers were preaching in turn each day and when it came my time to preach I could find in all the audience scarcely one of my people. Up to that day the interest had been remarkable, but somehow from that day on, although people had been converted by the hundred, there was no perceptible spiritual impression. When the meetings had closed one of the prominent society leaders of my church came to explain to me why she was away from the service and she said, "I gave my afternoon reception and the people of our church were there." When I told her that I felt that as a result of that afternoon reception our own church had lost a blessing she seemed utterly amazed; and yet to this day I am firmly persuaded that hundreds of people might have come to Christ if we had not in that day grieved the Spirit. II The text means that those of us who are Christians shall show by our very faces that we are on the king’s business and that it is solemn business. One day a man knocked at the door of my study, was admitted, sat down on the couch in the room and began to sob. He did not need to tell me why he had come. I knew, but finally when he sobbed it out this was his message: "I have come to ask you to bury my wife, and to ask if you will not go with me to comfort the children, for they are heartbroken." I knew by the very look of his face that he had lost a loved one. Do you think for a moment that those who gaze at us would imagine that we had the least conviction that people away from Christ were lost? I am sure they would not. The text also means that we shall be desperately in earnest. A father and his boy heard a minister preach a sermon on the judgment and as they went to their home the father said, "My boy, it was a great sermon and you must think about it." And the boy did. He made his way to his room and threw himself on his bed only to hear his father downstairs laughing and singing; and he said to himself, "It is not true, for if my father believed I was in danger of the judgment he could not laugh and he would not sing." That day was the turning point in the boy’s life. He became a man of renown but never a believer in Jesus Christ as we accept him. The text also indicates how we should pray, with an eye single to his glory but with a purpose that cannot be shaken. Pray as the Shunammite prayed, pray as the woman besought the unjust judge; such prayer brings victory. III Did you ever realize that you were standing in the way of the conversion of your friends? How about your living? If your testimony rings anything else than true to Christ you are a stumbling block in the way of some one. How about your testimony? In the meetings to which I referred there came a young woman one day evidently greatly moved. First one pastor would speak to her and then another, and finally I was given the privilege. For a long time I could not understand her words for her sobs and then she said, "I am a Christian, a member of one of the churches in this movement. I have been engaged to a young man for the last three years. He was not a Christian. Three weeks ago he was taken ill and a week ago he died. In all the time that I knew him I never spoke to him about Christ. I do not know that he even knew that I was a Christian, and now," she said, with a heart which seemed to be literally crushed, "he has gone and I never warned him." And the text means that no one could come within the reach of our influence without having at least a suggestion made by ourselves to them that we are the followers of Christ and that we long to have them know him who means so much to us. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.14. THE MORNING BREAKETH ======================================================================== Chapter 14 - The Morning Breaketh TEXT: "Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night."-- Isaiah 21:11-12. It is very interesting to note that, whether we study the Old Testament or the New, nights are always associated with God’s mornings. In other words, he does not leave us in despair without sending to us his messengers of hope and cheer. The Prophet Isaiah in this particular part of his prophecy seems to be almost broken-hearted because of the sin of the people. As one of the Scotch preachers has put it, he has practically sobbed himself to sleep. A great shadow has fallen upon the people of God and he is in despair because of it. They have sown to the wind and now they are reaping the whirlwind, a result which is inevitable. They are away from Zion with its temple, and are deprived of the view of those mountains which are round about Jerusalem and to this day are clad with vines and olive trees. They are in captivity and are the abject slaves of the enemies of God. Isaiah’s heart is well-nigh crushed, but in the midst of the despair he has a vision of the chariots coming and hears a cry which rejoices his soul, "Babylon is fallen." It is because of these tidings that he cries out in the words of the text. What a night they had had of it! They had been in darkness that was ever increasing, and the song of thanksgiving which used to fill their souls because of the nearness of Jehovah had entirely departed from them. The figure of the watchman is often used in the Bible, as for example when he stands upon the city walls and is told that if he sounds the trumpet telling of the approach of the enemy and the people hear and do not take warning their blood is upon their own heads, while if he fails to sound the trumpet and the people are cut off, their blood is required at the watchman’s hand. And again in the first chapter of Zechariah the eighth to the eleventh verses, "I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled and white. Then said I, O my Lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold all the earth sitteth still and is at rest." For here the man standing in the midst of the myrtle trees is him of whom the prophets did speak, while the messengers are those who bring him tidings of the progress of his kingdom. But again where David comes to the watch tower and sees the two messengers running, the second one bringing him tidings of the death of his son, and from this watch tower he staggers back again to his room crying out, "O Absalom, my son, would God I had died for thee!" The poet usually sings of the night as a time of beauty. He sings of the moon and the stars; but in the Bible night always stands for that which is dark, foul, loathsome, sinful, cold and deadly. There are different nights mentioned in the Scripture, for the most part in the Old Testament. There was that night in Eden when sin blinded the eyes of Adam and Eve and a great darkness fell round about them. There was the night of the flood, all because the people had neglected God; and there was the night of the destroying angel passing over the cities of Egypt, all because of the indifference of those who knew not God. But even in these nights God does not leave his people without help, for in Eden we read, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head"; while in the flood behold the Ark; and in the Passover night we see the blood of the Paschal lamb sprinkled upon the lintels of the door. There are different mornings mentioned in the Scriptures, and as a rule we find them in the New Testament. The morning of his birth. The morning of his resurrection. The morning of his miracle when the empty nets are filled and the discouraged fishermen are made to rejoice. The morning of his return, when, after the rising of the morning star, an endless day of blessing shall be ushered in. It used to be the custom in Scotland, especially in Aberdeen, for the night watchman of the city guard as he paced the streets to cry aloud, "Twelve o’clock and the night is dark; one o’clock and the storm is heavy," and the restless sleeper would toss upon his pillow and listen for the tidings of the morning hour, "Two o’clock and the morning is starry." It is in this spirit that we listen to-day to the cry of the watchman when he declares, "The morning cometh and also the night." I We are in a sense in the night in these days, even though we are Christians. First: Because of the existence of sin. It is everywhere, in the heart as a mighty principle of evil pulling us down as the law of gravitation pulls material substances toward the earth’s center. In the life as shown by our habits and practices, for these are the fruits of sin. In the very air we breathe sin is manifest, and sin has brought the night. Second: I sometimes think that the darkness is increasing because as ministers we fail to preach concerning sin. We speak of it as an error or a mistake; we talk about the devil and call him his Satanic majesty; we preach about hell and call it the lost world, while it is true that in the olden days when men trembled under the word of the preacher the man of God spoke of the devil and hell and sin in all their awfulness. But the morning cometh, for while it is true that sin is in the world and it has gripped many of us, yet because of Christ’s death upon the cross we are free from the penalty of sin; we may be free from the power of sin, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death; we may be free from the practice of sin, for Christ is the secret of our deliverance. But the text tells us that while the morning cometh the night also appears. And so for those of us whose lives have been such a struggle we cry, "Is there no deliverance?" and I answer, yes, we shall one day be free from the presence of sin; and that will be at his return when we shall see him and be like him, and the new day which is never to close shall be upon us. Third: We are in the night because of the existence of sorrow. Next to sin this is the greatest fact in the world, for men are born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. And somehow the morning and the night as they are fastened together in this text present to us the story of our lives, for we are first in the morning when everything seems peaceful, and almost immediately in the night when we are really in despair. I journeyed from Naples to Rome over a fine piece of railway and found myself now in the darkness of a tunnel and almost immediately rushing out onto a fertile plain. That railroad is the story of many a life. But "Is there no deliverance that is complete?" and I answer, yes, there is a time coming when there shall be no sea and no tears and no night, for the former things are passed away. Fourth: We are in the night because of mystery. Life is full of questions. "Why must I have this trial or pain or trouble?" So many of us are asking these questions, and there is really no answer, at least none for the present. And yet God has not deceived us, for he has said, "What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter." He tells us that when we see him we shall know, but also declares that no one can see his face and live; and then, said the sainted Augustine, "Let me die that I may see him." It is true that we shall go on from light into darkness, from morning into the night, but is there no final deliverance? And I answer, yes, when we see him and become like him we shall know as we are known. Let us wait and believe until that day. Have you ever seen a perfect rainbow--that is, a rainbow in a perfect circle? I never have. The most perfect one I have ever seen was on the plains of Jericho, but it was a half circle. However, in the Revelation we are told that in that day there shall be a rainbow round about the throne, when half circles shall be made whole and half things shall be made complete; that is the morning for which we long. II But there is another suggestion, "the morning cometh and also the night." There is the thought of the transition from the one to the other. We certainly have been in the night so far as our living is concerned and our working, but now I feel sure there is coming a change and we are living in a critical time. May God help us to be faithful. All truth is like a cycle and at different points in the circumference there are truths which must be especially emphasized. The late A. J. Gordon once preached a sermon on the "Recurrence of Doctrine," in which he stated that while in one day justification by faith was the prominent truth for the church, in another sanctification was prominent, in still another the return of the Lord, and in still another the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. All this I firmly believe and it only proves to me that the prominent truth for to-day is every man for his neighbor, every friend for his friend, every parent for his child, the individual seeking the individual for Christ. God is calling us to action; let us not fail. I have a friend who used to use an illustration of a sea captain, his first mate and his wife wrecked upon a rocky shore, huddled together upon a rock out from the shore but too far for them to escape by throwing themselves into the waves. The life-line is shot out to them and the captain puts it round his first mate and bids him jump and he is drawn to the shore in safety. Then he put the cord around the waist of his wife, but the current is running in such a way that she must spring at just the proper second or she will be thrown back against the rocks and be killed. And he shouts to her, "Spring!" but she waited to kiss him and waited too long, sprang into the sea and was thrown back against the rock and drawn shoreward lifeless. Whether that story is true or not I cannot say, but it is an illustration of the present day to me. God is saying, "Now is the day of opportunity." May he pity us if we fail! III While all that has been said is true concerning the morning of the Eternal Day, in another sense it is true that already a brighter day is breaking. First: A better day for Bible study. This old Book which people have feared was going to pass away is better to-day than ever. It is the object of deeper affection, and there is no question but that more people are believing in it to-day as the inspired Word of God than for years; and all because they have tested it and it has stood the test. Second: A better day of prayer is dawning. Fifty thousand people in Great Britain are banded together to pray and to pray until the blessing comes if that be for years. Oh, that God would teach us to pray! We do not half understand what it means to ask God for blessings. A story of prayer which would seem impossible if I did not know it to be true, for I have friends who have been in the town where it occurred and have met the descendants of the old sea captain, is the story of the captain who took his boy and others to fish and in the midst of the hurricane the boy was washed over board. Broken-hearted, he returned to the shore and the fisher wife, as was her custom, came down to meet them, only to sob her way back to her home because her boy was gone. They spent the night in the kirk in prayer, when the minister said, "Why not ask God to restore his body?" and they did. They put out to sea and journeyed sixty miles until he told them to stop and when they let over the grappling hooks they knew by the very tug of the rope that they had his body. They bore it back again to the broken-hearted captain and his wife, who had all the time been waiting in the kirk in prayer. May God teach us how to pray! A brighter day is dawning, and while it may be that some of us cannot see it, while there may be skeptics who say it is not exactly true, yet I know from what I have seen myself that the darkness is passing away. In June, 1897, the steamer Catalonia at ten o’clock at night was found to be on fire. One of my friends has told me that he paced the deck and considered himself lost because the flames were burning fiercely. Finally the fire was under control and the people sang, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Telling me of the lessons that he learned on this awful journey, he said: "That night at twelve o’clock, when the pumps were being forced and the clouds of smoke were taking on new dimensions and we were wondering what the morning would bring us, the man on the bridge shouted, as he had at each midnight of the trip, ’Eight bells, all’s well!’" Had the man down in a stateroom watching by the side of his sick wife heard the words, he might have said, "It’s a falsehood," but that man’s vision was restricted by the narrow walls of his stateroom. Had the mother and daughter, sitting in the cabin, with their arms about each other, wondering why they had been allowed to sail on the Catalonia and leave their loved ones behind, heard it, they might have said, "The man is beside himself," but they could not see beyond the cabin. Had the lonely traveler who stood near the hatchway given it a thought he might have said, "It’s a lie," but he could not see through the clouds of smoke at which he stared silently. But the vision of the watch swept the horizon, and there was no obstruction in the ship’s path. He knew that each revolution of the Catalonia’s machinery pushed the ship on her way to Queenstown. He had a right to say it. I somehow seem to hear the sound of the goings in the tops of the trees and have evidence that God is coming to his church with blessing. It is true there is in some quarters indifference, in many places worldliness, but I can see no insurmountable barrier in the way of the progress of the Kingdom of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.15. AN OBSCURED VISION ======================================================================== Chapter 15 - An Obscured Vision TEXT: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."-- Proverbs 29:18. It is not altogether an easy matter to secure a text for such an occasion as this; not because the texts are so few in number but rather because they are so many, for one has only to turn over the pages of the Bible in the most casual way to find them facing him at every reading. Feeling the need of advice for such a time as this, I asked a number of my friends who knew me intimately and knew the occasion which was before me to suggest what in their minds would be an appropriate Scripture, and in their suggestions I have had the most singular indication of the leading of Providence. One said, "Use Hosea 5:4, where God in speaking concerning his people Israel says, ’They will not frame their doings,’" which means that his people would not set before themselves the way in which they were going; or it might mean that they would not set up a plan for their lives which would be according to his will and which he might bring on to completion. Another said, "Use Genesis 26:18," where we are told that Isaac digged again the wells of his father Abraham. This is a suggestive incident and has in it a message for to-day, for if there is one thing needed more than another it is that the old wells at which our fathers drank and were refreshed and which, alas! in these modern times have been filled in, at least to a certain extent, should be opened and men be summoned once again to drink of their living waters. Another said, "Use Jeremiah 6:16, ’Ask for the old paths;’" for as a matter of fact we cannot improve upon the ways in which our fathers walked, so far as the revelation of God is concerned or the doing of his will. Still another suggested that I should use Isaiah 62:10, "Gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people," in which the description is of a great prince coming and all hindrances should be removed that the journey might be robbed of its difficulties and dangers. You will notice if you have watched the suggestions of these Christian workers that the texts are practically all the same, and then when I tell you that the line of thought they have indicated was the very line which God suggested to me weeks and months before the conference you will be impressed as I have been that this subject is not of my own choosing, and therefore must be a message from God. Neither is the text one of my own choosing, for God pressed it in upon me again and again and from it I was afraid to turn away. I like the text because it is in the book of Proverbs. This book is not simply a collection of wise sayings and affectionate exhortations, for you will remember that the Proverbs were put down after the event and not before its occurrence. This being true, Proverbs presents an established fact: here we find what the wise men in all the ages have learned to be truth. If they speak of sin and its penalty they do it in the light of their own experience; if they say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge they mean that they have tried other sources of wisdom and all have failed but this. All this makes the text exceedingly valuable, for the wise men of other days must have tried to walk without the vision and not only failed themselves but have set the people astray. By a vision we do not mean simply an imagination or dream which might come to some person who had little practical understanding of the ways of life, but we mean an appreciation of God’s thought and approximate understanding of his plan and a desire to know his will. The word "perish," does not mean destruction, but rather the idea is to "run wild"; so the literal rendering of the text is, "Where there is no revelation the people run wild"--that is to say, if God is put out of thought every man is a law unto himself and therefore is dangerous to the community in which he lives. He is like a ship sailing for a harbor without chart or compass and with utter indifference to the pole star. Whatever your impressions, convictions or purposes, they should always be squared by reverent, careful and profound study of God’s will and word. The first sentence of the Bible is this, "In the beginning God," and it must be the first sentence of every plan and of every purpose of the individual and the community or there is danger ahead. I There ought never to be an age without a vision, indeed without repeated visions. If there should be such a time it might be a time of prosperity, but inevitably souls would be neglected. There ought not to be an individual without a vision. If there should be such an one he is missing the best of his life. If there be no vision the horizon of man may be bounded by his office, his store, his home, his own city or his native land, while as a matter of fact this is only a part of what God meant him to do and to be. God’s plans are from everlasting to everlasting. The wonderful work he is doing in this world is only a part of the plan, for in the ages to come he expects to show forth the manysidedness of his grace and reveal to us the depth of his love to us in Christ. John McNeill’s friend had an eagle which he had reared in the farm yard with the ordinary fowl that lived there. This friend sold his property and determined to move to another part of Scotland. He could dispose of his horses and sell his chickens but no one wanted the eagle. What should he do with it? He determined to teach it to fly, and threw it up in the air only to have it come down with a thud upon the ground. Then he lifted it and placed it upon the barn yard fence and was holding it for a moment when suddenly the eagle lifted its eyes and caught a glimpse of the sun. It stretched forth its head as far as it could, threw out one wing, then another, and with a scream and a bound was away flying upward until it was lost in the face of the sun. This is what we are needing to-day--namely, to lift up our eyes and see God’s plan and try to understand his purposes. The eagle so long had held its head down that it had lost the vision of the sun; the first glimpse of it set him free. What we mean by a vision, therefore, is an appreciation of God’s purposes and plans and a hearty yielding to him for service in the accomplishment of the same. Joseph Cook when he was making a plea for China’s millions said one day, "Put your ear down to the ground and listen and you will hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of four hundred millions of weary feet." I have to say this morning, Lift up your eyes and look, open your ears and listen and you will both see and hear that God has a great plan for us which he will reveal to all if only we will permit him to do so. In proportion as a people loses its faith in a revelation from God it falls into decay. The student of history recalls vividly the story of the French Revolution, which is a proof of this statement. God has always spoken concerning his plans and it has been to living men and women that he has granted visions. He came to Abraham and he saw Christ’s day and was glad: he visited Moses and he endured as seeing him who is invisible: he was lifted up before Isaiah and he first confessed his sin and shame, then cried, "Here am I, send me." He granted Saul of Tarsus a vision of himself as he approached Damascus until he cried, "Who art thou?" and then began to walk in fellowship with him until like the hero that he was he mounted from the Eternal City to that City which has foundations whose Builder and Maker is God. He stood before John as in apocalyptic vision he saw him with his head and his hair, white like wool, as white as snow and his eyes as a flame of fire. But if you should say, "Oh, yes, but this is in Bible times and we are living in a different age," then hear me when I say that he has come to living men and women in our own day with a revelation of his will. He spoke to Zinzendorf and we have a mighty work among the Moravians. He revealed himself to the Wesleys and we have the mighty movement of Methodism. He talked with Edwards and we have the great Revival of New England. He revealed himself to Finney and we have the great manifestation of power in the state of New York. He walked and talked with Moody and we have the greatest evangelistic work of his day and generation with Moody as his instrument. These were all men with visions. He has come to great missionaries like Paton who saw the New Hebrides Islands evangelized while yet they sat in darkness, because he saw God. He has spoken to our own Fulton in China, who writes that the people are flocking to Christ. To him it is no surprise, for he knew that they would do it while others were still skeptical. He knew it because he knew God. Let us remember that, however true it may be that God speaks in conscience, providence, through the church and by the preaching of his Word, his supreme revelation is in his own Word. This Book contains the revealed will of God and this Book is his Word. II Why are we not having revelations to-day as we know they have been given at other times? Why is not some one in our own land especially working out some of the great plans and purposes of God? The question is easily answered. The difficulty is not with God. He is the same forever. We alone must be at fault. Without any spirit of harsh criticism and with a prayer to God that he will make my spirit as he would have it, permit me to say that I fear the visions are not being given to us for the following reasons: First: Because of the disrespect shown to his Son. We have come to a time when men seek to limit his knowledge, and occasionally they are saying that he did not know concerning the things of which he spake. Such blasphemy makes us shudder. There is a disposition to misinterpret his teaching. They did it in Paul’s day and he spoke by inspiration when he said, "If any man present another gospel than that which I have presented let him be accursed." There is a disposition to rob him of his deity. "Is Jesus divine?" was the question asked not long ago of one who called himself a minister, and he answered, "Yes, in the sense that Buddha is divine or Confucius is divine." Our faces grow white with fear as we listen to such blasphemous statements in such an age as this. This helps to overcast the sky and God can hardly trust us with a vision in such an atmosphere. Second: An irreverent criticism of the Word of God. That there is a reverent criticism all will allow, and that many who are walking these paths are devout believers in God and in his word I would like to be among the first to acknowledge. There are three kinds of critics to-day. First: Those who honestly want the best and who are studying carefully and prayerfully to know the truth. Second: Those who ape scholarship. Third: Those whose lives may not be right, and for them if any part of the Bible could be cut away they would be less condemned. We need not fear, however; our Bible is not in danger, for this is largely a question of scholarship. Some of you who listen to me may not class yourselves as scholars. I certainly do not put myself in that company, but one thing I know: I have seen the Bible work as no other book has ever worked, and I have seen Jesus Christ save miraculously multitudes of poor lost sinners. I am not disturbed for the future; there are as great scholars as the world has ever known who still hold to your mother’s Bible and who have lost not one whit of confidence in it. Thomas Newberry, a devout English student, spent fifty years in study to give the world his Newberry Bible. He said, "I accept the theory of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. I have studied every ’jot and tittle’ of the Word of God and after these fifty years I see no reason for changing my position." Scholars’ names almost without number could be mentioned as believing in the Scriptures as the divinely inspired Word of God. For myself I would have great assurance in standing side by side with Dr. Paton, and I would not think of trembling so long as our sainted Dr. Moorehead walks courageously along life’s journey as he nears its end with faith in God’s Word unshaken, with confidence in God’s Son constantly growing. This blessed old Book has been railed at in all the ages. Men have professed to overthrow it, they have cut and slashed at it like Jehoiakim of old, but it is better than ever to-day. It is the Word of God. Heaven and earth may pass away but this Word, never. Not long ago I attended a conference of Christian workers and was told by one of them that I could not appreciate the Bible except I read it with the thought of literary criticism in mind. My friend interpreted a portion of the Word of God for me in this way and it was beautiful. It reminded me of nothing so much as a diamond perfectly cut, kissed by the sunlight and throwing back its sparkling light to me as I gazed upon it. Another said that I would never be able to understand the Bible until I read it from the standpoint of the elocutionist in the best use of that expression, and he read in my hearing the story of Joseph and his brethren and I felt that I myself had never read the Bible before and really had never heard it read. Still another came with his higher criticism and said that much of the Bible was mythical, that the stories I had loved were simply allegorical; and I listened to him and went back to my Bible to read, only to find that you may read it any way, spell it out in your youth letter by letter, read it through your tears as you reach middle life and your heart is aching, hold it against your heart when your eyes are too dim to read its pages, and it will yield to you a sweetness which is actually beyond the power of man to describe. This is a wonderful Book and in this Book God reveals himself. Handle it irreverently and you will have no vision. Third: It seems to me that the church is not what she ought to be, and this being true the vision is denied. One of my friends said the other day that the difficulty with the church is that she has lost her interrogation point. At the day of Pentecost people were saying, "What do these things mean?" To-day they never think of saying it. I have been told in a little pamphlet issued by an English writer that the church has lost her possessive case, which means that somehow she has gone on without realizing that the risen, glorified Christ is her blessed Lord. It is a great thing to say "Jesus"; infinitely greater is it to say "My Jesus." The church has lost her imperative mode. In days that are past it was possible for the church to stand in the presence of evil and say, "In the name of Almighty God this iniquity must stop." But to-day it is not possible. The church has lost her present tense. We are constantly looking for blessings in the future. God’s promises are all written for the present. It is to the church on fire that God grants a vision. Fourth: Some of the difficulty must rest with us as ministers of the Gospel. I fear that some of us have lost our message. It has loosened its grip upon us, and you never can move another man until you are first moved yourself by the message you would give to him. At a great gathering not long ago I heard a distinguished Eastern professor speaking. The topic of his lecture was "My Foster Children," and these foster children were some animals which he had had as pets, whose habits he had carefully studied. One was a Gila monster from the plains of Arizona, another was a horned owl, the third was a rat, and the fourth was an opossum. If you can imagine more uninteresting subjects than these you are more imaginative than myself, and yet he thrilled me and held three thousand people in breathless interest. Oh, my brethren, if I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and as a Savior able not only to save to the uttermost but to keep through eternity, and that message grips me, I am a poor preacher if I fail with it to grip and move other men. I fear we have lost our boldness. I am a minister of the glorious Gospel of the grace of God and I have a right to demand a hearing and to give my message, not because of what I am myself--God forbid--but because of what my Savior is. Some of us have lost our passion for souls; we mourn over it, we know that when we once had this it was the secret of a successful ministry. It is not wrong for me to say to you this morning that to the minister without a message, to the minister who has lost his holy boldness, to the minister who has anything less than a burning passion for souls, God cannot give his vision. III I know that I have your deepest sympathy in the longing which I now express for this great gathering--namely, that God would give to us a vision. First: As to what the Bible really is. One of my friends told me the other day of a blind girl who could not read because she had been too busy and somehow had not thought that she could use the raised letters which have been such a boon to God’s blind children. I am told she learned that she might read while on these grounds last summer. It was made possible later on for her to have a teacher and she began to study little books until she could read quite fluently. One day unknown to her there was brought into her home a Bible with raised letters and without telling what the book was it was opened at the fourteenth chapter of John and she was bidden to read in it. She had no sooner touched the page, her fingers enabling her to read, "Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," than with radiant face she exclaimed, "Why this is God’s Word; the very touch of it is different." I would that we might have this vision. Second: I wish that we might have a vision of Christ. He is the chiefest among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. He is a mighty Savior and a mighty helper. I cannot bring him a burden too great, nor talk to him about a trial too insignificant. Oh, that we might see him as he is! And finally, I wish that we might know what service is, for knowing this we would be instant in season and out of season. Some years ago Fannie Crosby, the blind hymn writer, was speaking in one of the missions in New York City. Suddenly she stopped and said, "I wonder if there is not some wandering boy in this audience this evening who would have the courage to step out from this audience and come up and stand by my side so that I might put my arms around him and kiss him for his mother?" There was a hush upon the audience; then a boy from the rear seat started and came to the platform, and with her arms around about him and her lips against his cheek for his mother’s sake, Fannie Crosby said, "Oh, my friends, let us rescue the perishing." From this meeting she went to her home, and sitting in her room wrote: "Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave, Weep o’er the erring one, Lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus, the Mighty to save." Years afterward she spoke in St. Louis at a great meeting and related this incident. Before she had finished a man in the audience sprang to his feet and said, "Miss Crosby, listen to me. I am a prosperous merchant in this city, a husband and a father, a Christian and an officer in the church. I was that boy around whom you threw your arms." Such an experience as that is worth a lifetime of service. I wish to put myself on record. I know that many of you are with me. I stand for nothing in these days that would in the least obscure men’s vision of the power of God, or their vision of the glorious majesty of the Son of God, and I count nothing worth while except to do that thing which would mean the winning of a soul to Jesus Christ. I believe God is giving to some men in these days a vision as to what may be accomplished if only a mighty work of grace should be given to us. He certainly is ready to pour out his Spirit upon his own people, and it is only necessary that we should first of all realize our weakness, then understand his power, realize that souls are lost and dying and then know that he is able to save to the uttermost; and above all to realize that in all ages he has used human instruments for the accomplishment of his purposes, and realizing these things to see that our lives are right in his sight, to have such a victory for God as the world has never seen. For this day we hope and pray and cry aloud, "O Lord, how long, how long?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.16. THE COMPASSION OF JESUS ======================================================================== Chapter 16 - The Compassion of Jesus TEXT: "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion."-- Matthew 9:36. The keynote of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ was "compassion." You have but to follow him in his journeys by day and by night to find the proof of this statement. Whether he ministers to the sick of the palsy, turns aside to help the father whose child is dead, heals the woman with the issue of blood, drives away the leprosy from the man dead by law, stops to open the eyes of the blind man by the wayside, helps the beggar or wins the member of the Sanhedrim, he is always the same. If you journey with him in the morning on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, or at noon rest with him as he sits on the well curb of Jacob’s well; it you stop with him in the evening as he bares his side and thrusts forth his hand to the doubting Thomas, or behold him as he is roused from his sleep in the boat to quiet the storm; if you study him on the mountain side at midnight or behold him in the garden of Gethsemane when no one beholds his agony but the eye of his Father--you will learn that he was always compassionate. You cannot discover him under any circumstances when this statement is not true of him. Matthew 9:1-38 is indeed remarkable. It can be appreciated only when we read the closing part of the eighth chapter, for it is here that the people, angry because of the destruction of the swine, besought him to leave their country; and it is here we see him taking his departure. Men have since that time driven him from their hearts and their homes for reasons quite as trifling. It is a sad thing to know that any one can drive him away if he chooses to do so. The chapter is remarkable, however, because here we not only read the story of the calling of Matthew from his position of influence, but find more specific cases of healing than in most other chapters of the New Testament. There is the healing of the sick of the palsy in the second verse, the significant part of which is he was healed when Jesus saw their faith; the picture of the father whose child was dead and then raised by him, in Matthew 9:18 and Matthew 9:25; the account of the woman with the issue of blood, in the twentieth verse, and the picture of discouragement when all earthly physicians had failed changed into great joy when the virtue of the great physician healed her: the account of the dumb man, in the thirty-second verse, who was possessed of a devil as well; and then in the thirty-fifth verse a general statement concerning him to the effect that he healed all manner of diseases. The chapter is also remarkable because these cases presented to Jesus were of the very worst sort. The man with the palsy could not come himself, however much he wanted to do so, and four men were required to bring him; the child was dead and so beyond all human help; the two blind men were undoubtedly beggars and outcasts; the dumb man was possessed of a devil in addition to his dumbness; the group of people who were subjects of his healing power had every manner of disease, but while the people were different and the cases were desperate, Jesus was always the same. There were six specific illustrations of healing: three of these came to Jesus for themselves, the two blind men and the woman; two others were brought to him, the man sick with the palsy and the man who was dumb; and for the other case the father came and took Jesus to the child. In all the general cases Jesus went himself to the suffering. When all these subjects have been presented then comes the text, which is its own outline. There is first the picture of the multitudes, a great number of people. Then the statement that they had fainted; literally it is, "they were tired." Then they were described as sheep, the only animal known which in its wandering cannot find its way home of itself. And finally it was stated that they had no shepherd, the responsibility for their wandering resting upon others rather than upon themselves. This is the outline of this message. I The picture which Jesus beheld as he walked through his own country is repeated to-day on every side of us, and he is still moved with compassion because of those who are helpless and undone. It is true we have done something for him. The last census shows that the membership of the Protestant churches has increased more rapidly than the population. For this we should be thankful. It is also true that the church machinery of the day is well nigh perfect: the buildings and equipment with which we have to do have never been excelled. Yet, counting the membership of both the Catholic and Protestant churches, there are forty million people to-day in our land who are not in the church and who evidently do not care for the church. With these people there seems to be a growing indifference to everything that is spiritual. A man in an apartment house in New York, when asked the other day to do something for a poor family for the sake of God, answered blasphemously, "I do not care for the opinion of men, I do not even care for God himself; I am for myself first, last and all the time." As we walk the streets we ought to be impressed with the fact that men on every side of us are lost in the proportion of one to four. As we sit in a car we ought to be impressed with the fact that one in four have rejected Christ and are hopeless. In every city it is literally true that there are thousands of unchurched people without God and without hope in the world. Of them the text would be true. "But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion." II When Jesus saw these multitudes he saw them fainting or literally "growing tired," and this is the picture of lost people to-day. I am persuaded that they are tired of many things which follow in the wake of sin. 1. They must be weary of the hollowness of the world, for it cannot satisfy. I one day talked with a woman in Massachusetts whose opportunity to mingle with the so-called best people of the world had been unexcelled. She had been a chosen and welcomed guest in the homes of royalty and knew intimately every President of the United States since she had grown to womanhood. After her conversion I asked her if the life of the world had satisfied; her answer was, "It is hollowness and sham almost from beginning to end." 2. The unchurched people must be weary of an accusing conscience. There is no unrest like it. The man who sees the folly of his conduct and whose conscience will not let him sleep, the man who realizes the blighting power of sin and yet seems powerless to heed the call of conscience, is in a pitiful condition. "And I know of the future judgment, How dreadful so’er it may be, That to sit alone with my conscience Would be judgment enough for me." 3. They must be tired of the world’s sorrow, for it is on every side. We are born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward and I cannot but think that in all parts of our cities to-day the people away from Christ are saying, "Oh, that I knew where peace might be found." 4. I know they are tired of the slavery of Satan. A man formerly prominent in social and political circles, the cashier of a bank, when he found that he was a defaulter took his own life and left a letter for his wife in which he said, "Oh, if some one had only spoken to me when I so much needed help all this might have been different." III In the Old Testament and New, God’s people are represented by the figure of sheep. Especially it seems to me this must be a good figure, because sheep when wandering find it impossible to seek again for themselves their home, and in their helplessness they fittingly represent the one who wanders away from God. There are so many people to-day who are trying to find their way back without Christ. They are like wandering sheep. There are so many who are seeking to climb up some other way into the favor of God. These are on every side of us, and the time has come for us to present unto them Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. IV These people that Jesus saw were shepherdless. The responsibility for their wandering therefore rested not so much upon themselves as upon the fact that the one who should have cared for them was not doing so. We are our brother’s keeper, whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not. In meetings in California one of the ministers went forth during the week to invite those who were away from Christ to come to him. He found an old white-haired soldier who said, "When I was in the army years ago I promised God that I would be a Christian. I have never kept my word. Yes, I will come to him now." And when he came his wife and children came with him. "All these years," he said, "I have waited for some one to ask me." He called upon another man who had been impressed in the meetings and this man acknowledged that he had long felt his need of help, that he had prayed the night before, "O God, if you want me to come to thee send some one to speak to me." When the minister came the man trembled when he said, "You must be the messenger of God for whom I have been waiting," and he came beautifully to Christ. On every side of us people are waiting as sheep without a shepherd for us simply to do our duty. V The result of this vision which Jesus had was that he did an unusual thing. In the tenth chapter and the first verse we read, "And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." Which leads me to say that we must have the same spirit. Our present day church methods reach not more than one-fourth the unsaved and many of these come from the ranks of our Sunday schools and from Christian homes where for one reason or another they have not made a profession of their faith in Christ. Three-fourths of the lost are left to wander farther and farther away simply because they will not yield to our present day church methods. This is not as Jesus would have it. In John 21:5-6 we read, "Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitudes of fishes." Although these disciples had toiled and taken nothing the results were all changed when they cast their net on the right side of the boat. May it not be that we have been fishing on the wrong side or fishing in our own strength, or, as some one has said, fishing in too shallow water, when we should have been casting our nets in the deep? The fact is, we need him and without him we can do nothing. I have been told that of the forty distinct cases of healing in the New Testament only six came to Jesus by themselves. Twenty were brought to Jesus and to the fourteen others Jesus was taken. I doubt not that the proportion is the same to-day, and if it is true then our methods of work must be changed and instead of praying for them to seek Jesus we must either take them to Jesus or bring the Master into their company. There can be no successful winning of the multitudes until the personal element enters into it all. 1. There must be prayer. When Jacob went forth to meet Esau he walked with fear and trembling, but in Genesis 32:28 we read, "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed," so that long before Esau was met victory was won. There must be no attempt to win the lost without first of all we have gained an audience with God in prayer, and if we pray as we ought to pray he will give us the assurance of victory before we start upon our mission. 2. There must be personal contact. It is said that a man recently went into a jewelry store to buy an opal and rejected all that were presented to him. One of them he rejected instantly. The salesman picked it up and closed it in his hand and finally in a casual way opened his hand and placed the opal upon the counter. "Why," said the customer, "that is the opal I want. I have never seen anything finer," and yet he had rejected it first. The salesman told him that it was a sensitive opal and needed the touch of a human hand before it could reveal its beauty. Oh, how many souls there are like this in the world! I have read that when Robert Louis Stevenson visited the island of the lepers where Father Damien did his illustrious work he played croquet with the children, using the same mallets that they used; and when it was suggested that he put gloves upon his hands he refused to do so because, he said, "it will remind them the more of the difference between us." This spirit must prevail in our work if we are to win souls. Two things we may do to reach the lost. (1) Speak to them. The power of human speech is simply marvelous. A Sunday school boy appeared in a Baptist Church to apply for membership and when they asked him about his conversion he said, "My Sunday school teacher took me for a walk one Sunday in Prospect Park and talked with me about Jesus and I gave myself to him." One of the officers of my church when an unsaved man was asked by his minister to attend special services in the church and then was urged by his wife to go with her. Both invitations were angrily declined. He at last agreed to escort her to the church but not to enter in. The biting cold wind of the night drove him into the church and he was just in time to hear the minister’s appeal to the unsaved. All were asked to lift their hands who would know Christ and then he remembered that when he was a boy and had been drowning in Lake George he lifted up his hand as high as he could and his brother took hold of it and kept him from sinking. Suddenly it came to him in the church that he was sinking in another way, and instantly he raised his hand and Christ took hold of it. I do not know of a more godly man among all my list of friends than he; and he says to-day that the invitation given to him and refused with anger led him to Christ. (2) Write. The chief justice of the supreme court of a western state was not a Christian until a few years ago. He was a genial, kindly man, and naturally a great lawyer, but he had never confessed Christ as his Savior, and apparently had little real interest in the church. One day the pastor of the Presbyterian church determined that he would write him a letter, and then decided that so great a man would not receive his communication and destroyed it. But the pastor’s wife had more faith and urged him to write again. He did so, and sent the second letter and forwarded with it Spurgeon’s "All of Grace." He received word almost instantly that the chief justice had been deeply impressed, and that as a matter of fact he was waiting for years for some one to speak to him. The letter moved him and the little book gave him the instructions needed. To-day he is one of the brightest Christians I know. His face is a benediction. He said to me one day that it was a wonderful thing to be a Christian; that he never allowed any one to meet him that he did not talk with him about his soul. Are there not hundreds and thousands of other men waiting, as the chief justice waited, for some one to speak or write? 3. There must be a personal consecration not only to Christ but to the work if we would be successful. The biography of Helen Kellar [Transcriber’s note: Keller?], who was released from her imprisonment by the devotion of her teacher, is an illustration along this line. This teacher must go to this girl sitting in darkness and describe to her the commonest objects of every-day life. She told her about water, heat and cold and when something hurt her she told her with the language of touch that she loved her and Helen Kellar [Transcriber’s note: Keller?] answered back, "I love you, too." The devotion of this teacher brought this noble soul to light and power. A work like this awaits many of us in bringing the lost to Christ. When Elisha went down to raise the Shunammite’s boy he put his eyes to the eyes of the boy, his hands to the boy’s hands and his mouth to his mouth. Something like this we must do. We have friends who possess eyes and see not, we must have eyes for them; they have lips and speak not, we must speak to God for them; they have hands and reach them not out after God, and we must have faith for them. In other words, we must not let them go away from Christ. Such a spirit as this pleases God and such a spirit saves our friends. A friend told me that with the ship’s surgeon of a vessel he once crossed the sea. He said the doctor told him that one day a boy fell overboard and was rescued but the case seemed hopeless. The ship’s surgeon casually passing along the deck said to those who labored with him, "I think you can do nothing more; you have done all that is possible," and then curiosity led him to look at the boy for himself. Instantly his whole spirit was changed. He blew into his nostrils, breathed into his mouth, begged God to spare him, labored for four hours with him before he could bring him back to life, for the boy was his own boy. What if we should not have this spirit with the lost! "If grief in Heaven could find a place, Or shame the worshiper bow down, Who meets the Savior face to face, ’Twould be to wear a starless crown." But on the other hand, what if we should simply be faithful? Then may the following be true of us: "Perhaps in Heaven, some day, to me Some sainted one shall come and say, All hail, beloved, but for thee My soul to death had fallen a prey. And, oh, the rapture of the thought, One soul to glory to have brought." General Booth of the Salvation Army describes a vessel making its way home from the Australian gold fields. The miners had struggled to get rich and at last every man had around about him his belt of gold. The ship lost her way in the ocean and, set out of her course, suddenly crashed upon the rocks of an island near by. Almost instantly she sank. As one miner stood looking at the shore he knew that he was strong enough as a swimmer to save his gold and save his own life; but as he was about to throw himself into the sea a little girl whose mother and father had been washed overboard came over to him to say, "Oh, sir, can you not save me?" It was then a choice between the child and the gold. The struggle was terrific but at last the gold was thrown aside, the child fastened to his body and he struggled through the waves until he fell exhausted and fainting upon the shore. The great Salvation Army officer says that when this strong man came to himself the little child was by his side. Throwing her arms about his neck she exclaimed with sobs, "Oh, sir, I am so glad you saved me." "That was worth more to him than the gold," said General Booth. And if in heaven some day upon the streets of gold we shall meet just one redeemed soul who was once lost and in the darkness, and we know that that one soul is there because we were true, the streets of gold will be better, the gates of pearl will be brighter, the many mansions more beautiful, the music sweeter, and, if such a thing were possible, the vision of Christ more entrancing. Certainly it would be thrilling to hear him say to us, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto these little ones ye did it unto me." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.17. SANCTIFICATION ======================================================================== Chapter 17 - Sanctification TEXT: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification."-- 1 Thessalonians 4:3. It is quite significant that the Apostle Paul writes explicitly concerning sanctification to a church in which he had such delight that he could write as follows: "Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; so that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure: which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us; when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with ever-lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day" (2 Thessalonians 1:1-10). No higher commendation than this could be paid to any followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet unto such a people we find him saying, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." It reminds us of that other scene in the New Testament when Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. He was a member of the Sanhedrim, he was in the truest sense of the word a moral man, and yet Jesus, knowing all this, deliberately looked into his face and said with emphasis, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:5-7). Both of these statements lead us to believe that God’s requirements for his people are very high. These we may not attain unto at all in our own strength or the energy of our flesh or because of any inherited righteousness which we may possess. There is no way to reach his standard except by complete identity with Christ; and this is made possible by means of faith. To know the will of God concerning anything is a great satisfaction. It is like food to our souls if we can say with Jesus, "My meat is to do God’s will." It is an indescribable pleasure if we can say with the Son of God, "I delight to do thy will." It is the key to the highest form of knowledge, for we have found it true that "he that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine." It is the promise of eternal life, for we are told in God’s Word, "He that doeth the will of God abideth forever." There is possibly no place where God’s will for us is more clearly stated than in this text. Sometimes we may know his will by praying. How often revelations have come thus to us as if from the very skies concerning his desires for us! We may know it sometimes by thinking. If one would but yield his mind perfectly to God in his providences as well as in his word he would know God’s will concerning him. We may know it sometimes by talking to others, for not infrequently God gives a revelation to one child of his for the guidance of another’s life. But in this connection it is most definitely stated, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." And the Apostle emphasizes his words, First: By the use of the most affectionate expression, "Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more" (1 Thessalonians 4:1). Second: He speaks on the authority of Jesus himself. "For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:2). Third: He emphasizes it by referring to the second coming of our Lord, for he well knew that if one was looking for the appearing of the Son of God he would turn away from fleshly lusts and abstain from that which was unclean, thus encouraging the work of sanctification. The Apostle Paul says to the Thessalonians after he has clearly set before them God’s will concerning their living, "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). It was not enough for them, in his judgment, to abide in the faith; they must abound in the works of the Gospel. To talk well without walking well is not pleasing to God, for the character of the Christian is thus described, "He walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit." The presentation of this subject impresses upon us the fact that we have lost many of the best words in the Bible because they have been misused and their teaching misapprehended. If you speak of holiness men look askance at you, and yet holiness is simply wholeness or healthfulness and is to the soul what health is to the body. Who, then, would be without it? If you speak of sanctification immediately your hearers imagine you are talking concerning sinlessness, and yet there is no better word in the Scriptures than sanctification, for in one way it means separation from sin, in another way it means an increasing likeness to Christ. There are six particular effects of faith. First: There is union with Christ. It is true that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world and that we are an elect people, but it is also true that we are by nature the children of wrath and it is necessary that we should make a deliberate choice of him as a Savior. When by faith we have taken Christ as a Savior we are united to him. Faith is counting that which seems unreal as real, as untrue as true and that which seems not to exist as if it existed. Faith unites us to him. Without him we are as nothing. Second: Justification. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1). "He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18). As we believe in Christ we are clothed with his righteousness. Whether we can explain it or not, this righteousness answers every demand of God’s justice. Thus it is that Romans the eighth chapter the thirty-third and the thirty-fourth verses becomes true for us. Let it be noticed, however, that in both of these verses the two words, "it," and "is" are in italics, which would indicate that they were not in the original. Concerning those who are justified, therefore, the verses would read as follows: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect." The rest of the verse is a question, "God that justifieth?" The thirty-fourth verse reads, "Who is he that condemneth?" and the answer is a question, "Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us?" and Paul here simply means to say that if God can lay nothing to our charge and Christ would not condemn us then we are free, and justification at least to the layman carries with it this thought: 1. The justified man stands as if he had not sinned at all. His record is clean. 2. The debt which sin had incurred is paid and instead of being afraid and trembling at the thought of sin we sing with rejoicing, "Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe." Third: Participation of his life. Paul writes to the Galatians, "I live, and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." And in John 15:1-6 we read, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." So faith unites us to him and his life becomes a very part of our being. (a) It is like the principle of grafting. When the branch is grafted into the tree the life of the tree throbs its way into the branch and ultimately there is fruitfulness. If we only could sustain the right relations to Christ we would have the cure for worldliness. (b) Because of this participation and privilege we need not be concerned. I have heard of a man who grafted a branch into a tree and then went each day to take the graft out to see what progress it had made, and the branch died. (c) Our life need not be intermittent--that is, hot to-day and cold to-morrow--but it may be all the time an abundant life; not because of what we are but because of what Christ is. Fourth: Peace. Romans 5:1, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And peace arises from a sense of reconciliation. If faith is strong, then peace is abundant; if it is fitful peace partakes of the same character. That man who has faith in Jesus Christ as a personal Savior has the following threefold blessing--first, Peace with God; second, The Peace of God; third, The God of Peace. Fifth: Sanctification. Acts 26:18, "To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Of this we shall speak more at length a little later. Sixth: Assurance. This is plainly written in God’s word. Notice John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." And John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation: but is passed from death unto life." The entire first Epistle of John also emphasizes the same truth. I Sanctification is therefore entirely by faith. First: By faith we receive the indwelling of the Spirit and he makes Christ real to us. Because Christ is real by faith we may walk with him; and that man who keeps step with Jesus Christ will find that he has come day by day to turn away from those things which were formerly his defeat. We may also talk with him. That hymn which we sometimes sing, "A little talk with Jesus, How it smooths the rugged way," has been true in the experience of many of us. We may also be so constantly associated with him that we may find ourselves actually like him; and to grow like Christ by the power of the Spirit is to have the work of Sanctification carried on. Second: By faith exercised in God the Spirit continues his work. We have only to remember the promises of God concerning him, the first of which is that the Spirit is here carrying on his special work in his particular dispensation. His second promise is that he is in us if we be children of God, and we need only to yield to his presence day by day to be delivered from the power of sin. His third promise is that he will take of the things of God and show them unto us. Things which the world’s people cannot understand he makes plain unto us. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for those who love him," but the Spirit hath revealed them unto us. The fourth promise is that he will not leave us. We may resist the Spirit, we may grieve the Spirit, but we will not grieve him away. His power may be greatly limited in our lives, the work of sanctification under the influence of his presence be greatly hindered, but he is with us, "nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate us from him." Third: By faith we have a vision of things unseen and they become real to us. Faith is to the soul what the eye is to the body. The things of God become actually real, and becoming so they are powerful. Under the influence of this vision temporal things are trifling. The Christian who is true to his position lives in heaven, breathes its atmosphere, is pervaded by its spirit and so becomes pure, tender, obedient, loving. No wonder that to these people whose lives were so attractive Paul wrote in the text, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." II Justification and sanctification ought to be compared to appreciate the latter. The first is an act, the second is a work. We do not grow in justification. There is no distinction between Christians in this respect; the smallest child accepting Christ is as truly justified as the saint of a half century. So far as sanctification is concerned there is the widest possible difference. Justification depends upon what Christ does for us, sanctification depends upon what Christ does in us. First of all it is a supernatural work. In this respect among others it differs from reformation. Henry Drummond has said that in reformation men work from the circumference, in sanctification they work from the center. The Triune God may really be counted upon as the author of this work. In 1 Thessalonians the fifth chapter and the twenty-third verse we have the work of the Father. "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." In Ephesians 5:25-26 we have the work of the Son. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." In John 17:17 we have special emphasis laid upon the work of the Spirit. "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." What folly, therefore, to think that we could carry on this work by ourselves! Second: Just what, therefore, is this work of sanctification? When we are regenerated we have given to us an entirely new nature. The old nature and the new are absolutely different; and the old and the new war one against the other. The Bible is full of the accounts of those who have met this inward conflict. Some of the most eminent people in the world whose names have been mentioned in the Bible and out of it have told the story of their backsliding, their falling, their repentance, and their lamentation because of their weakness. You have all read Romans 7:1-25. Whether this is the story of Paul’s experience or not, it is the story of yours. Galatians 5:16-17 gives us the same thought. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary, the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." What is it, therefore? It is just the working day by day of the spirit of Christ in us. It is the growth of that spiritual nature which after a while controls our whole being. It is the bringing into subjection of the old nature until it has no more dominion over us. After Paul’s struggle in the seventh chapter of Romans he comes triumphantly to the second verse of the eighth chapter of Romans and exclaims, "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." III It God is the author, then certain things need to be emphasized. First: We need only to be yielding day by day to his efforts and presence and power to become more and more sanctified. His life flows along the path of least resistance; if there is difficulty with us in the matter of temper, sharpness of tongue, an impure mind or an unforgiving spirit, give him liberty and the work is complete. Second: We must learn that the least thing may hinder his work in us. It became necessary for me recently to purchase a hayrake. I was told of two different kinds, one the old-fashioned kind where the prongs of the rake must be lifted by hand, the other an automatic arrangement where by simply touching the foot to a spring the movement of the wheels would lift the rake at the proper time so that raking hay was a delight. The first day the rake was in the field it was almost impossible to use it. It was too heavy to lift by hand and the foot attachment would not work. We sent for the man who had sold us the implement. There was just one little part of the attachment missing. Missing that, hard effort was required and poor work was accomplished. It may be that some little thing stands in the way of your blessing, or the lack of some little thing hinders your usefulness. Third: We have only to remember the law of growth. We do not grow by trying. Who ever heard of a boy growing in this way? Who ever heard of a doctor who had a prescription for growth? Our effort for Christian growth is just a succession of failures. How many times we have said, "I am determined to be better; my temper shall never get the better of me again"! We are beginning at the wrong end. Instead of dealing with the symptoms, let us see that we are in right relations with Christ and he will effect the cure. Let us, therefore, just observe the right attitude towards Christ and we have the secret. Henry Drummond has said in one of his books that the problem of the Christian life is simply this: "Men must be brought to observe the right attitude. To abide in Christ is to be in right position and that is all." Much work is done on board a ship in crossing the Atlantic, yet none of this is spent in making the ship go. The sailor harnesses his vessel to the wind, he lifts his sail, lays hold of his rudder and the miracle is wrought. God creates, man utilizes. God gives the wind, the water, the heat, and man lays hold of that which God has given us, holding himself in position by the grace of God, and the power of omnipotence courses within his soul. IV We are in this world slowly but surely coming to be like Christ. To be Christ-like is one thing--we may be in this way or that--but to be like Christ is entirely different. Wonderful transformations have been wrought in this world by education and by culture. I remember when I was a lad in Indiana being told of a celebrated Indianapolis physician who advertised for the most helpless idiot child and the most hopeless was brought to him. For weeks and months no impression could be made upon that child. He used every day to take the child into his parlor, put him down on the floor and then lie beside him with the sunlight streaming in his face. He said over and over one syllable of a word until at last the child caught it, and I remember as a boy seeing that same child stand upon a platform, repeat the Lord’s Prayer and the twenty-third Psalm and sing a hymn to the praise of God [Transcriber’s note: part of page torn away here, and one, possibly two, words are missing] is wonderful; but more remarkable than that is the work which is going on in us day by day. We are becoming more Christlike; one day we shall be like Christ. "But when?" you say. This is the answer: "Beloved, now are ye the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.18. AN UNHEEDED WARNING ======================================================================== Chapter 18 - An Unheeded Warning TEXT: "My Spirit shall not always strive with men."-- Genesis 6:3. For the truth of this statement one needs only to study his Bible and he will find written in almost every book of Old Testament and New a similar expression. At the same time in the study of God’s word it will be revealed to him that God has a great plan which he is carefully working out. We must be familiar with the beginning and the unfolding of this plan and with the conclusion he reached. When after the rebellion of his people and their unwillingness to obey his precepts we find him saying, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Then turning to the New Testament Scriptures we find almost a similar expression when Jesus reaches the climax of his compassionate and gracious ministry with the children of Israel. "He came unto his own and his own received him not"; and in Matthew 23:27-39, inclusive, we hear him saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." From that day on his special ministry was to the Gentiles, and he has been seeking in every possible way to bring us to an appreciation of what it means to know him and to be filled with all his fullness. We have but to stop for a moment and consider to realize that by many his overtures have been declined, his Spirit grieved and his Son rejected. Men have lived as if they had no responsibility towards him at all and in many instances they have put him entirely out of their consideration. If we compare present day indifference and sin with the condition of things at the time of the flood, and then again compare them with the position of Israel when Jesus turned away from them with tears, it would seem almost as if the world of the present day had made progress both in the matter of indifference and rejection; and therefore it is not strange that such an Old Testament text as this would be applicable to people living about us. It is a solemn text. "My Spirit shall not always strive with men." It is along the line of those solemn words of Dr. Alexander: "There is a time, we know not when; A place, we know not where, That seals the destiny of man For glory or despair." Again we read, "Ye shall seek me and shall not find me, and where I am there ye cannot come." That also is the spirit of the text. God tells us, "To-day if ye will hear his voice harden not your heart," which simply means that if we neglect to hear the heart will become hardened, the will stubborn, and we shall be unsaved and hopeless. Again he tells us, "Now is the accepted time, and now is the day of salvation." So for men to act as if they might come at any time and choose their own way of salvation is to sin against him, and to all such he speaks the text--"My Spirit shall not always strive with men." It is assumed that the spirit of God does strive with men. If he will not strive always, then he does strive at some particular time, and with many of us he is striving now. We may not be willing to confess it to our friends, but nevertheless it is true. In many ways he is bringing to our attention the eternal interests of our souls, and this is striving. It is implied that men are resisting the Spirit of God. If this were not so there could be no striving, and the text indicates that men may continue so long to resist him and to sin against him that after a while the door of mercy will close and hope be a thing of the past. I What is the striving of the Spirit? I have no doubt but that many are asking this question seriously and fearfully and it is worthy of our most careful consideration. 1. It is just God speaking to us and causing us to say to ourselves if not to others, "Well, I ought to be a Christian; this life of worldliness does not pay." There is nothing but an accusing conscience, a weakened character and a blighted life as the result of it. Do not for a moment think that this is just an impression that has come to you; it is the voice of God and you would do well to hear it. This striving of the Spirit is simply the Spirit of God seeking to convince men that the only safe life is that which is hid with Christ in God, safe not only for eternity--the most of us believe that--but safe for time. Temptations are too powerful for us to withstand alone and trials are too heavy for us to bear in our own strength. The striving of the Spirit is just our heavenly Father graciously attempting to persuade us to yield to him, sometimes by providences. When but a lad my old pastor used one night an illustration from which I never have been able to get away. It was the story of the old fisherman who took his little boy with him to fish and found that on his accustomed fishing grounds he was unsuccessful; so, leaving the boy upon the little island, he started away to fish alone. The mists came down in his absence and, missing his way, he lost his boy. He rowed everywhere calling him and at last he heard him in the distance, saying, "I am up here, papa; over this way." The fisherman found him, but not quickly enough to enable him to escape the cold night winds, and the boy sickened and died. The old fisherman said: "Every night when I stood at my window I could see his outstretching hands and always above the storm I could hear his voice calling me upward. I could not but be a Christian." My mother had just a few weeks before gone home to God, and I heard her voice as plainly as I could hear the voice of my friend at my side. Every vision of a mother in heaven, of a child in the skies, is a call of God. He seeks to persuade us by calamities. The Chicago theater horror, with its hundreds of women and children dead and disfigured, was God’s call to a great city and to the world. This is the striving of the Spirit. Not with audible voice does he speak to us but by means of impressions and convictions. Let us not think for a moment that these come simply because the preacher has influence and may possibly be possessed of a certain kind of genius or power. These are God’s warnings to us. Be careful, therefore, how you resist them. Jesus said in John the sixteenth chapter the seventh to the eleventh verses, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The word "reprove" is a judicial word. When the judge has heard the testimony for or against the criminal and the arguments of the counsel, he himself sums up the case and lays it before the jury, bringing out the strong points or the weak ones in relation to the criminal. This is reproving, and it is this that the Spirit does. He brings before us Jesus Christ and then presents unto God our treatment of him, and so it is easy to understand how the text could be true. "My spirit shall not always strive with men." 2. How may we know that he is striving? There are very many ways. (1) If the attention is aroused and centered upon religious subjects and interests, then be careful how you treat God. The student who finds his mind constantly escaping from his books to the thought of eternity; the business man who cannot possibly escape the thought that he owes God something and ought not to slight him, these have proofs that the Spirit is striving. After an evangelistic meeting which I recently conducted I received the following letter, which clearly indicates the striving of the Spirit: "I had not attended the church for years until to-night, but being a visitor in C. and hearing that you were from the East and a Presbyterian I determined to go. I was lonely and it may be the Spirit was calling me. I heard you speak of your little boys and of the sainted mother who has gone before and my proud heart was touched. I, too, have two darling boys back in the old state, a loving Christian wife and a dear old mother who in parting said, ’Dear son, I am old and I may never see you again on earth, but if I am not here when you return, remember, my son, my boy, we must meet in heaven.’ "How much that meant to her! I did not quite realize it then, but your talk to-night impressed me and I believe that her prayers are being answered together with those of a loving, courageous, steadfast Christian wife, and that I am at last, at the age of forty-two, beginning to see how great my opportunities to do good have been and how my example has been a great hindrance and stumbling block to others in the way of life. Admitting that this life has no stronger emotion than our love for our families, how much more I am impressed to-night with my duty to him who gave his only Son to suffer that we might live in the life everlasting! "In a busy business life and career I had drifted away from the safe anchorage of the church and Sunday school of my boyhood and had almost convinced myself that by charity and exercising good will and kindliness in my business I could do almost as much good as if I were in the church; but I see my mistake. To make an army effective we must stand in the ranks, must be soldiers in the army of Christ ready and willing to do at all times whatever we see before us. "I have written my dear old mother a letter to-night which I know will please her far more than if I had told her I had found a mine of California gold; her prayers, my wife’s, yours and those of other true Christian men and women have been answered, and I realize that now, (not next week, nor next month, nor when I get my business finished and go back to the East) is the day and the hour to remember Christ and know that his love for us is greater even than the love that tugs at our heartstrings when we think of the dear little ones at home who lovingly call us father, and for whom we gladly endure the heartaches of separation when we know that our labors will contribute to their comfort and happiness. "I realize from the standpoint of a business man how many there are in the world to criticise your best efforts and your work and how few who ever stop to say, ’I thank you; you have done me good.’ I take time to-night to do more. I want to say that your message from the King of kings has not fallen on stony ground. I shall try to enter again the battle of life, not as only in search of the wealth of this world but in search of the wealth that the world cannot take away--life everlasting. "You were right. Preach and pray the fathers into the Kingdom of God and the rest is easy, for all unconsciously our children follow in our footsteps, watch our every word and action; then how much, how much it means if our example is wrong!" II (1) Whenever we are convinced especially of the sinfulness of sin we may be sure that the Spirit is striving with us. There are times when we may be thoughtless and sin with impunity; but not so when the Spirit is doing his work, for sin is an awful thing. (2) Whenever we are impressed with the heinousness of unbelief be assured that the Spirit is at work, for the worst sin in all this world is not impurity but rather that we should not believe on Jesus Christ. To reject him is to sneer at God, to trample the blood of his Son under foot, to count his sacrifice a common thing and really to crucify him afresh. In all this impression God speaks. (3) When we see the danger of dying in our sins he is moving us. It is a mystery to me how men can close their eyes in sleep when they realize that any night God might simply touch them and time would give way to eternity and the judgment would be before them. As a matter of fact men are not indifferent to this, and the fact that they are not proves that the Spirit of God is opening their eyes. (4) When he strips us of excuses be sure that he is working. The man who has said, "I will wait until I am better," begins to realize that his past sins must be taken into account and no future resolutions can touch them. The man who has said, "There is time enough," suddenly realizes that between him and eternity there is but a beat of the heart. The one who has claimed that hypocrisy in the church kept him out of it comes to see that hypocrisy proves the life of the church, for men never counterfeit that which is bad money but rather that which is good. (5) Whenever we see the folly of trusting in any other word than Christ’s then the Spirit of God is with us. Not reformation, for it does not touch the sins of the past; not resolution, for this is too weak, and though we may seem better than others, this may be true only according to our own standard. When we see the folly of these positions the Spirit of God is doing his work; so be careful how you treat him. III What would be the consequences of the Spirit ceasing his work? We really could not express it in words. No man has power or energy to make it plain. We can only just hint at the condition. 1. There would be an opposition to religion, for whenever you find a man turning against that which has been the world’s hope remember that the state of that man is awful in the extreme and will grow worse. 2. There will be an opposition to revivals, to all preaching and to the ministers of the Gospel wherever this spirit is made manifest. We ought to tremble for ourselves if this is our spirit, or for others if it is theirs. 3. Wherever men settle down into some form of error this is a description of one who has sinned against the Spirit of God, for there is a longing in every soul for something outside of and beyond one’s self; and the things of the world cannot alone satisfy. 4. When men continue to grow worse and worse and seem to glory in their shame there is great cause for solemn thought. In the light of these suggestions the text is given, "My Spirit shall not always strive with men." IV Why should he cease his striving? Not because he is not compassionate, for he is; nor forbearing, for that is his character; not that he is without patience, for he is infinite in this grace; nor because he is without mercy, for his mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. 1. But because it will do the sinner no good to continue his pleadings. It is a known law of the mind that truth resisted loses its power. Why should God continue when we only spurn his offers of mercy? Agassiz, the great Christian scientist, tells of his work in the mountains when his assistants lowered him to his work by means of a rope and a basket. They always tested his weight before letting him down; and yet he said that one day when they had lowered him deeper than ever they found that they could not lift him, though they had tested his weight before he had been lowered. They must go away over the mountains to secure other assistance. "And then," said the scientist, "when they did lift me they found that their failure was due to the fact that they did not take into account the weight of the rope." Every time you refuse Jesus Christ as your Savior and God calls you again you must lift against that other refusal, and this is why it is so difficult for some to come to Christ. 2. Because to continue warning is to hinder the sinner. The more light we have the greater guilt. Better would it be for the sinner when all hope is gone for the Spirit to leave, for he shall be called to account for warnings. Oh, the solemnity of the day of judgment! 3. Because to resist the Spirit of God is for men to sin willfully if the rejection is final. It is a sad thing to say "no" to God, and if we sin willfully there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. V What is meant by the Spirit not striving? Not that he will be withdrawn from men in general, but rather from the individual. 1. He may not follow the sinner, who will be indifferent to preaching, to praying, to his own spiritual condition, for he has given himself over to error. 2. It simply means that we have come to the limit of his patience, for we have trifled with him in our continued rejection. 3. It also means that there is just some one point where he will cease to work. That point may be here and that day may be now, and so the text is solemn. A long time ago an old woman tripped and fell from the top of a stone stairway in Boston as she was coming out of the police station. They called the patrol and carried her to the hospital and the doctor examining her said to the nurse, "She will not live more than a day." And when the nurse had won her confidence the old woman said, "I have traveled from California, stopping at every city of importance between San Francisco and Boston, visiting two places always--the police station and the hospital. My boy went away from me and did not tell me where he was going, so I have sold all my property and made this journey to seek him out. Some day," she said, "he may come into this hospital, and if he does tell him that there were two who never gave him up." When the night came and the doctor standing beside her said, "It is now but a question of a few minutes," the nurse bent over her to say, "Tell me the names of the two and I will tell your son if I see him." With trembling lips and eyes overflowing with tears she said, "Tell him that the two were God and his mother," and she was gone. I cannot believe that God has given any of you up. You would not be listening to this message, you certainly would not be reading these words if he had. He has not given you up. I beseech you therefore hear him. It would be a sad thing for you to say no to him at the last and have him take you at your word, and if he has not given you up I am persuaded that there is some one else in the world deeply concerned for your soul. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.19. THE APPROVAL OF THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== Chapter 19 - The Approval of the Spirit TEXT: "Yea, saith the Spirit."-- Revelation 14:13. The world has had many notable galleries of art in which we have been enabled to study the beautiful landscape, to consider deeds of heroism which have made the past illustrious, in which we have also read the stories of saintly lives; but surpassing all these is the gallery of art in which we find the text. Humanly speaking John is the artist while he is an exile on the Island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea. The words he uses and the figures he presents are suggested by his surroundings, and it would be difficult to imagine anything more uplifting than the book of Revelation if it be properly studied and understood. When John speaks of the Son of Man he describes his voice as the sound of many waters--undoubtedly suggested by the waves of the sea breaking at his feet. Locked in by the sea on this lonely island he gives to us this Revelation for which every Christian should devoutly thank God. His eyes are opened in an unusual way and before him as in panoramic vision the past, the present and the future move quickly, and he makes a record of all the things that he beholds. His body is on Patmos but as a matter of fact he seems to be walking the streets of the heavenly city and gives to us a picture of those things which no mortal eye hath yet beheld. He describes the risen Christ. It is a new picture, for as he beholds him his head and his hair are white like wool, as white as snow; and yet it is an old picture he gives, for he is presented as the Lamb that has been slain, with the marks of his suffering still upon him, and these help to make his glory the greater, and if possible to increase the power and sweetness of the angels’ music. He presents to us a revelation of the glorified church and of the four and twenty elders falling down at the feet of Jesus, casting their crowns before him and giving him all adoration and praise. He cheers us with a knowledge of the doom of Satan, for in the closing part of the book he presents him to us as bound, cast into the pit and held as a prisoner for a thousand years, while in every other part of the Bible he is seen going about like a raging lion seeking whom he may devour. He gives to us some conception of the final judgment, and the great white throne is lifted up before us; the dead, small and great, stand before God, the books are opened and those whose names are not found written in the book are cast away from his presence forever; and then as a climax of the picture we have before us the new heaven and the new earth. Again I say, there is nothing so wonderful as Revelation if only we have the mind of the Spirit in its interpretation. In this text John is speaking of those who die in the Lord and the whole verse reads as follows: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them" (Revelation 14:13). Ordinarily this text has been used only on funeral occasions, but literally interpreted the text which stands as the heart of the verse may be read as follows, "Amen, saith the Spirit." It would seem as if the Holy Ghost were giving his assent to the truth which has been spoken. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." It is like an old time antiphonal service, when choir answered choir in the house of God; or, to put it in another way, it is one of those remarkable interruptions several instances of which are found in the Scriptures. One is in Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." According to the revision this verse has an added word and reads as follows, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day, yea and forever." I call special attention to the little word "yea." Somebody has said that it is as if the Apostle were saying that Jesus is the same to-day that he was yesterday, than which no thought could be more comforting. And it would seem at the closing part of the verse as if the angels of God had broken in upon his message to say, "Yea, and he is forever the same," which is certainly true. Could anything be more inspiring than to know that we have the approval of the Holy Ghost of the things we say or think? There are many representations of the Spirit of God in the Bible. His love is presented under the figure of the mother love, as in Genesis the first chapter and the second verse; "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved [or brooded] upon the face of the waters." In this text the Spirit broods over the world as the mother bird hovers over her little ones. We see him in the figure of the dove in Matthew 3:16 : "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." And here we have a revelation of his gentleness. Again he is presented to us under the figure of the wind, "And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting" (Acts 2:2). Here we see his power. We catch a vision of him in the fire in Acts the second chapter and the third verse, "And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them"; and here we understand his cleansing influence. But here in this text we have his directing power. It is as if he were giving particular attention to all that John is saying and giving his approval to it because it is the truth. Since the day of Pentecost he has occupied a new position. However, he has existed from all eternity. We behold him in his work in the Old Testament Scriptures. But from the day of Pentecost the affairs of the church have been committed to him, its organization, its development, its services, whether it be the preaching, the praying or the singing. We cannot ignore him, for he has to do with all the work and with the preaching of the word. He convicts of sin. John 6:44, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." He applies Christ to the awakened sinner, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." He helps to interpret the Word of God because he inspired men to write it. It is impossible to get along without him. I put no mark of disrespect upon scholarship. I know what it has accomplished; it has filled libraries with knowledge which has made the world rich, it has weighed planets and given us almost a perfect understanding of the heavenly bodies. It has estimated the velocity of light until we have stopped to say, "Such things are too wonderful for us." It has read the tracings upon obelisks, and made the past an open book to us, giving us the secrets of men who have been thousands of years in their tombs, but I do wish to say that that which comes to us directly from the Spirit of God is beyond scholarship. Hear what Paul has said to us in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14. "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." There are certain great truths to which I am sure the Holy Ghost would say a deep amen. I The Bible is the word of God--not simply that it contains the word of God, but is that very word. Peter tells us where we got our Bible. 2 Peter 1:21, "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." It is an inspired Book, and inspiration is the inbreathing of God himself. This makes the Bible different from every other book. We cannot study it exactly as we study others. We may pick it up and say it is just paper, ink and leather, like any other book, but we have missed the power of it if we say this. We might say, "Jesus is just a man, eating, drinking, sleeping, suffering like a man"; but we have missed his power if we say only this, for the Bible is filled with God, and Jesus is God Himself. Jesus said, "Ye must be born again if ye are to enter my Kingdom," and this makes the difference in men. Because of this new birth one man sees the things of God to which another would be totally blind, and this makes the difference in books and leaves the Bible incomparably beyond all other books. How may we know that the Bible is the word of God? Not simply scientifically, although the Bible is a scientific book; but not in this way any more than we could find life in the body by cutting it up with a knife. The Bible is like a sensitive plant; approach it in the wrong way and it will close its leaves and withhold its fragrance. Come to it reverently and there is no blessing that it cannot bestow. 1. Accept it by faith and act according to its principles. If God exists, as we know he does, then talk with him; if Christ is here presented to us with all his uplifting teachings, then walk with him; if the promises of God are written here, as we know they are, then present them to him expecting him to keep his word. General Booth of the Salvation Army once said in a great meeting where I was present that we were poor, weak Christians to-day because we were not living up to our privileges as Christians. He described a young man who had lost his position and had gone from one degree of poverty to another until at last he was on the verge of starvation. With his wife and little ones about him he sits in deepest gloom. There is a rap at the door and the postman brings a letter which is a message from a former employer who tells him that he has just learned of his distress, that he will help him, and that in the meantime he incloses his check for a sum of money which he hopes may make him comfortable. A check is simply a promise to pay. The young man, says General Booth, looks at it a moment and then begins to rush about the room in great excitement. "Poor man," said his wife, "I knew it would come to this. His mind is giving way." Then he presents the check to her and says, "I know what I shall do with it. I will frame it and hang it on the wall." Then again he exclaims, "I shall take it to my friend and have him set it to music and sing it each day," and he might do both of these and starve to death. What he should have done was to present it for payment and live off of its proceeds. "We have been framing God’s promises long enough," said General Booth, "and singing them quite long enough; let us now present them for payment, and we shall know that God is true." 2. Live its truth. Whatever God presents as a principle translate into your life and then believe that God will transform your living. It will support you in trial and it will comfort you in the deepest sorrow. The world was shocked by that great railroad accident which meant the death of Mrs. Booth-Tucker, but when in Carnegie Hall Commander Booth-Tucker stood to speak great words concerning his noble wife he said: "I was once talking with a man in Chicago about becoming a Christian and he said to me, ’If God had taken away your beautiful wife and you were left desolate with your little children would you believe in him?’ And," said the Commander before his great New York audience, "if that man is in this audience to-day let me tell him. God has taken my beautiful wife and I am here surrounded by my children, but I never believed in him more thoroughly and was never more confident of the truth of his Word." II Jesus Christ is the Son of God. To this truth I am very sure the Holy Ghost will add his amen. In John 15:26 we read, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." And if you would know that Jesus Christ is God’s Son I would suggest, 1. That you simply test him; try him in heathen lands and tell me if any other story could thrill and transform as does the story of his life and death. Dr. Torrey says that whether the story was told in China or England, whether the story was told in India or Australia, it was always the same and never was without effect. 2. Try him in your own life. One day in a service in a western city an old woman was wheeled into the church in an invalid’s chair. I knew by the expression of her countenance that she was suffering. When I met her after the service and asked her about her story she said as the most excruciating pain convulsed her body, "I have not been free from pain in twenty years and have scarcely slept a night through all that time," and then, brushing the tears from her eyes, and with an expectant face, she exclaimed, "but if I could tell you all that Jesus Christ has been to me in these twenty years I could thrill you through and through." 3. If you would know that he is the Son of God just lift him up and behold him as he draws all men unto him. This is the secret of the power of great preaching. It made Mr. Moody known whereever the English language is spoken and constituted Mr. Spurgeon one of the world’s greatest preachers. As a matter of fact there is no other theme which may be presented in the pulpit by the minister with an assurance of the co-operation of the Holy Ghost. There may be times when he may feel obliged to preach concerning philosophy, poetry, art and science, but unless these things lead directly to Christ we have no reason for believing that the Holy Ghost will add his amen to our message, and without this amen the time is almost lost. III The church is the body of Christ. I am persuaded that to this truth he will give his hearty assent. This is Paul’s over and over. Notice the following verses. Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." The words "unto them" are in italics, so not in the original, and we ask "added to what?" Acts 2:47, "Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord ’added to the Church’ daily such as should be saved." Here we are beginning to get the truth. Acts 5:14, "And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." This is the truth. You will see that Christ is the head, the church is his body and we are, as individual members of the church, just being added to him. One day the body will be completed and then the Lord himself will appear. If Christ is the head he must control the body. If his life is hindered and not permitted to flow through every part of it there is confusion, strife, unrest and loss of power. There are certain things which we must do if we are to be in this world as he would have us. He must control the preaching. If given an opportunity he will direct in the choice of a theme, he will quicken our intellect in the development of that theme, he will give us an insight into the best way to present it to our hearers, and putting faith in these preliminary conditions he will take care of the results. He must also dictate the praying in a church. There is much of it that is meaningless. It is too formal, too lifeless, and entirely too general in its character. In Matthew 18:19, we read, "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." It does not mean that if the two should agree together as touching any one thing, but agree with him, for wherever you find two in prayer there are three, and wherever there are three there are four, and the additional one present is the Spirit of God waiting to help us in our praying and to present our prayers unto the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. He must inspire the singing of the church. In Ephesians the fifth chapter and the nineteenth verse we read, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." One reason why there is such a lack of power in many churches in this country is due to the fact that the singing is simply used as filling for the services. Hymns are used in a haphazard way with little thought as to their bearing upon the theme to be presented. I am quite persuaded that when the preaching, praying and singing are all submitted to his control, whatever may be man’s opinion of the service, he himself will give to it his hearty amen. IV We are the sons of God. In Romans 8:16-17 we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." To this truth he will say amen. A careful study of the Scriptures will reveal the fact that, 1. We are heirs. If therefore this be true we have but to claim our birthright privilege, and there is no weakness in our lives but may be offset by the strength of his. Whatever Christ has received as the head of the church he has received in trust for the body and we may have our possession in him if we but appropriate it. A man in England died the other day in the poorhouse. He had a little English farm upon which he could raise no grain and he let it go to waste and died a pauper. His heirs discovered that on this little English possession there was a copper mine and they are living in luxury to-day in the possession of that which belonged to their ancester [Transcriber’s note: ancestor?] all the time but was not appropriated and used by him. 2. Being sons of God, we are not free from trial; but there is this one thing to say about our Christian experience: "Our light afflictions which are but for a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," and God’s presence with us in trial is infinitely better than his absence from us in the time of prosperity. Our trials are but the discipline through which we must pass in order that we may one day be prepared to stand in his presence and do his bidding throughout eternity. 3. Being sons of God, we are sure one day of glory. The song which has been singing its way around the world in the Torrey-Alexander meetings presents this thought to us beautifully. "When all my labors and trials are o’er And I am safe on that beautiful shore, Just to be near the dear Lord I adore Will thro’ the ages be glory for me. "When by the gift of his infinite grace I am accorded in heaven a place, Just to be there and look on his face Will thro’ the ages be glory for me. "Friends will be there I have loved long ago; Joy like a river around me will flow; Yet just a smile from my Savior, I know, Will thro’ the ages be glory for me. Chorus. "Oh, that will be glory for me, Glory for me, glory for me, When by his grace I shall look on his face, That will be glory, be glory for me." Whatever may be our limitations here, they shall be gone there; whatever may be our weakness here, it shall be lost there. Dr. Charles Hodge in his "Lectures on Theology" has given us an imaginary picture of Laura Bridgman, the famous deaf-mute. The celebrated theologian has described her standing in the presence of Christ in that great day when we shall all be before Him, when Christ shall touch her eyes and say, "Daughter, see," and there shall sweep through her vision all the glories of the sky; when He shall touch her ears, which have been so long closed, and say, "Daughter, hear," and into her soul shall come all the harmonies of heaven; when he shall touch her lips, which on earth have never spoken a human word, and say, "Daughter, speak," and with all the angel choir she will burst into the new song. What Dr. Hodge has said concerning Laura Bridgman will be true of us. Our day of limitations will be past, the experiences of weakness be gone, and we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. This, therefore, is a good outline of a creed for us to-day. We believe the Bible is the Word of God, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, we believe that the Church is the body of Christ, we believe that we are by regeneration the sons of God, and making such a statement we have a right to stop and listen and I am sure we shall hear as from the skies, "Amen, saith the spirit." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.20. A REASONABLE SERVICE ======================================================================== Chapter 20 - A Reasonable Service TEXT: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."-- Romans 12:1. There is perhaps no chapter in the New Testament, certainly none in this epistle, with which we are more familiar than this one which is introduced by the text; and yet, however familiar we may be with the statements, if we read them carefully and study them honestly they must always come to us not only in the nature of an inspiration but also with rebuke, especially to those of us who preach. Paul’s intellectual ability has never been questioned. Yet, giant though he was in this respect, he was not ashamed to be pathetic when he likens his care for his people to the care of a nurse for her children. He is not ashamed to be extravagant when he likens his sorrow and pain at their backsliding to the travail of a woman for her child. He is not ashamed to be intense when in the ninth chapter and the first, second and third verses he says, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." We must also be impressed with the fact that he was not at all afraid of public criticism. He not only sat at Gamaliel’s feet but the great lawmaker might well have taken his place at his feet, and yet he says, "I am willing to be counted a fool if only I may win men to Christ." He is not bound by custom. He not only preaches in the synagogue and in the places set apart for the churches of the early days, but he goes about from house to house entreating people to come to Christ. He is not ashamed to weep, for he sends his messages to the people and exclaims, "I tell you these things weeping"; and here in this text he is strikingly unusual, for he is not a preacher speaking with dignity, nor an Apostle commending obedience, but a loving friend beseeching in the most pathetic way the yielding of themselves to Christ. There are two things to remember about Paul in the study of such a subject. First: He was a Jew and he knew all about offerings. Sacrifices were not forms to him and a living sacrifice was not a meaningless expression. He had been present on the great day of Atonement when the scapegoat bore away the sins of the people. He had heard the chimes of the bells on the high priest’s robe as he moved to and fro before the entrance to the holy of holies, and he had waited with breathless silence for him to come forth giving evidence in his coming of the fact that Israel could once more approach Jehovah. The text to him was throbbing with holy memories and was full of significance. Second: He received his instructions concerning these things of God, not from men, for when he writes to the Galatians he says: "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:11-12). And so, since he is a heaven-taught man, we must listen while he speaks and give heed to his entreaties. I The context. We shall not appreciate this striking text unless we take into account its setting. The first chapters of Romans present to us a black cloud indeed, for when the first sentences are spoken we shudder because of their intensity. We read in the twenty-fourth verse that God gave the people up to uncleanness; in the twenty-sixth verse that he gave them up to vile affections, but in the twenty-eighth verse that he gave them over to a reprobate mind. With this awful condition of affairs we start; and yet for fear that the man who counts himself a moralist might read these verses and feel that they did not apply to him, Paul writes in Romans 3:22 these words, "Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference." But when the cloud is the blackest the rays of light begin to appear, and they are rays of light from heaven; looking on the one side at mystery and catching a vision on the other side of grace, Paul exclaims, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). The word mercy is of frequent occurrence in the Bible. "From everlasting to everlasting is God’s mercy," we read. This gives us some idea of duration. "New every morning and fresh every evening are his mercies." This reveals to us the fact that they are unchanging. "He is a God of mercy." This is his character. "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him." This is the invitation of God given to all the world! But Paul is not speaking of mercy in general; he goes on in his masterful argument outlining the doctrines of grace and on the strength of that he uses the text. First: We are justified. Romans 5:1, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." In justification our sins are pardoned and we are accepted as righteous because of the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed unto us and received by faith alone. And yet to him this definition in every day language means that, being justified, we stand before God as if we never had sinned. No wonder that in the light of such a doctrine Paul could say, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). Second: We are kept safe. Romans 5:10, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Literally the closing part of this verse is, "We are kept safe in his life." A child in its mother’s arms could not be so secure as we in his life. Underneath us are the everlasting arms and around about us the sure mercies of God. Third: We are baptized into his death. "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" (Romans 6:3). "The wages of sin is death." This is God’s irrevocable statement, but Christ died for our sins and Paul’s argument here is that we died with him, so the demands of the law have been met and we are to go free. No wonder Paul could say, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Fourth: We are alive unto God. Romans 6:11, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Not only are we justified and kept safe and crucified with him and buried with him but in the plan of God we are risen with him. What a wonderful mercy this is! Fifth: We have deliverance from the self life. The seventh chapter of Romans is just the cry of a breaking heart and reaches its climax in the twenty-fourth verse, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But the deliverance is in the eighth chapter, especially in the second verse, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." What a mercy this is! Sixth: For those of us who believe there is no condemnation. Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Judgment is past because he has been judged. We have nothing to do with the great white throne; Christ as our substitute has met sin’s penalty and paid our debts. What a mercy this is! No wonder Paul is thrilled with the thought of it. Seventh: No separation. Romans 8:38-39, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." So that for time we are safe and our eternity is sure. Was there ever such a catalogue of mercies? In the light of all this the Apostle exclaims, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). It is a good thing to study Paul’s "therefores." He is a logician of the highest type. In Romans 5:1, there is the "therefore of justification." In Romans 8:1 there is the "therefore of no condemnation." In Romans 12:1 there is the "therefore of consecration," and this as a matter of fact is the outline of the Epistle. II Present your bodies. This means the entire yielding of one’s self to Christ. It corresponds to the Old Testament presentation of the burnt offering all of which was consumed. Back in the Old Testament times for fourteen years there had been no song in the temple, for it was filled with rubbish and uncleanness, but the rubbish was put away and the uncleanness vanished, the burnt offering was presented and the song of the Lord began again. If you have lost your song and have been deprived of the harmony of heaven then present your bodies a living sacrifice. There is a threefold division in man’s nature. The Spirit, where God abides if we are his children. This is like the holy of holies. The Soul, which is the abode of the man himself. The Body, which is the outer court. When Christ was crucified the veil of the temple was rent in twain and the whole was like one great compartment. I cannot but think that if we should come to the place of complete consecration, the acceptance in our lives of what was purchased for us when he was crucified, for us the veil of the temple would be rent in twain and not only would God abide in our spirits but he would suffuse our whole nature, look with our eyes, and speak with our lips. This must have been what Paul meant when he said, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." III A living sacrifice. That is in contrast with the dead offering of the Old Testament sacrifice. Suppose for a moment that it would have been possible for an offering to have been presented in the Old Testament times and then after that for it to have lived again; it is inconceivable that this offering would have been put to any unholy use. I have many times tried to imagine the surprise of the son of the widow of Nain and the daughter of Jairus after their being raised from the dead. They certainly could not have lived selfish, sinful lives again, and I am sure that Lazarus when once he had been in the grave and was raised at the voice of the Master could never again have been worldly and unclean. But let it not be forgotten that we are a risen people; we were crucified with Christ, we died with Christ, we were buried with Christ, we have risen with Christ! How then ought we to live? In one of our western cities a minister told me recently of a young man who had graduated at a school for stammerers and came to see him one day. Keeping time with his fingers in the use of his words he said slowly: "I--want--to--speak--to--you." Without following his method of speech through I will quote what he said: "I have for a long time wanted to be a Christian and was ashamed to attempt to speak when it was so imperfectly done, but now I have graduated and I have the control in part at least of my speech, and I have come to you to-day to make my confession, for the first use I make of my voice must be the confession of him who loved me and gave himself for me." IV Your reasonable service. It is a reasonable service, First: Because God uses human instrumentality and he needs you, and it is therefore a reasonable demand to make, for we should place ourselves absolutely at his disposal. In the guest book of a friend I saw recently a few lines written by Dr. John Willis Baer in which he said, quoting from another: "God gave himself for us. "God gave himself to us. "God wants to give himself through us." But if our lives are inconsistent and our hearts are unclean he cannot do it. If we have not yielded ourselves altogether God himself is limited. Second: It is a reasonable request to make because of what God has done for us. One of the distinguished ministers of the Presbyterian Church told us the other day in a conference in a western city that a little boy who had been operated upon by Dr. Lorenz said as soon as he came out from under the anesthetic, "It will be a long time before my mother hears the last of this doctor"; and then, said my friend, "I thought of an incident in my own life of a poor German boy whose feet were twisted out of shape, whose mother was poor and could not have him operated upon, and I determined to bring him to a great doctor and ask him to take him in charge. The operation was over and was a great success. When the plaster cast had been taken off from his feet my friend said he went to take him home. He called his attention to the hospital and the boy admired it, but he said, ’I like the doctor best.’ He spoke of the nurses and the boy was slightly interested, but said, ’They are nothing compared to the doctor.’ He called his attention to the perfect equipment of the hospital and he was unmoved except as again and again he referred to the doctor. They reached the Missouri town and stepped out of the station together, and the old German mother was waiting to receive him. She did not look at her boy’s face nor at his hands but she fell on her knees and looked at his feet and then said sobbing, ’It is just like any other boy’s foot.’ Taken into her arms, the minister said all the boy kept saying to her over and over was, ’Mother, you ought to know the doctor that made me walk.’" Then my friend said, "There is not one of us for whom Jesus Christ has not done ten thousand times more for us than the doctor did for this boy, and we have never spoken for him, we have not yielded ourselves to him." It must have been with some such spirit as this that the Apostle said, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.21. THE TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 21 - The True Christian Life TEXT: "My beloved is mine, and I am his."-- Song of Solomon 2:16. "I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine."-- Song of Solomon 6:3. "I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me."-- Song of Solomon 7:10. These three texts should be read together, and the significant change found in each text as the thought unfolds should be studied carefully. They remind one of three mountain peaks one rising higher than the other until the third is lifted into the very heavens. Indeed, if one should live in the spirit of this third text he would enjoy what Paul has described as a life in the heavenly places, and his picture of Christ would be surpassingly beautiful. At the same time the three texts give us a complete picture of a true Christian life. The first text may be regeneration, the second text consecration, and the third text sanctification. The Jews counted this Book, the Song of Solomon, as exceedingly sacred. They hid it away until the child had come to maturity before he was allowed to read it, and it was to them the holy of holies of the Old Testament Scripture. These texts are also like the division of the ancient tabernacle. There was first of all the outer court where the altar of sacrifice was to be found--and this must be constantly kept in mind, for no one can say "my beloved is mine" until he has passed the altar of sacrifice. It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we are adopted into the membership of the family of God. The second division was the holy place, where was found the laver. Here the priests made themselves clean, and they could not minister in the presence of Jehovah until they had been made clean from all earthly defilement. This second text gives us the same thought, for here the writer changes the order exactly and says, "I am my beloved," instead of saying, "My beloved is mine." This is consecration and the consecration of a clean life. God will not accept or use that which is unclean, and it is only as we come to the place where we allow him to have full control of our lives that we realize we are his. The third division of the tabernacle was the holy of holies, where the high priest made his way once a year that he might stand in the presence of Jehovah. In this third text, where the writer says, "I am my beloved’s, and his desire is towards me," we have come to the place in our experience where if his desire for us controls our living we are in the holy of holies indeed; where we can see him and enjoy his presence. I "My beloved is mine." This is regeneration. A minister once preaching to his congregation said, "Let every one say Jesus," and from all over the congregation there came the music of his name. "Now," said the minister, "Let all those who can, say ’my Jesus,’" and the response was not so hearty. A line ran through the congregation separating husband from wife and parents from children. It is only by faith in Christ and by the operation of the grace of God that we can experience this first text. Two things are true concerning this point. First: He wants to make better all that we have. Whatever may be our natural characteristics, he can make all that we have more beautiful. One day in Colorado I wanted to make a journey to the summit of Pike’s Peak, only to find that throughout the entire day the train was chartered. I was turning away in despair when a railroad man said, "Why do you not go up at three o’clock to-morrow morning, for then," he said, "you can see the sun rise, and the sight is beautiful." So the next morning we started. Just as I was going on the train a railroad man said, "When you come to the sharp turn in the way as you go up, look over in the Cripple Creek district and you will see a sight never to be forgotten." We climbed higher and higher, leaving the darkness at the foot of the mountain, until at last we came to the place indicated and I looked away, only to be intensely disappointed. The sight was almost commonplace. As we pursued the journey upward finally we came to another place, where I heard some one give an exclamation of delight. As I looked in the same direction there was a marvelous transformation. I could see before me a mountain which looked like a white-robed priest and another like a choir of angels and still another like a golden ladder reaching up into the skies, and all because the sun had risen upon the same scenery which a moment ago was uninteresting. If Christ could only thus take possession of our lives and become our Savior the transformation would be quite as great. Second: He is ours to exercise in our behalf all that he is as Prophet, Priest and King. His office of Prophet relates to the past, his office of King to the future when he shall be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords, but his office as Priest is now being fulfilled and he is my great High Priest to intercede for me with God and make explanation for all my weakness. Adelaide Proctor has given us the story of a young girl who was in a convent in France, whose special work it was to attend the portal and keep the altar clean. The war swept over France, the battle raged near the convent, many of the soldiers were killed and a number injured. These were borne into the hospital that they might be nursed back to strength, and one of them was given to this young girl. Her nursing was successful, but he tempted her to leave the convent. They made their way to Paris, where she lost everything that makes life worth living. Then, just a wreck of her former self, she came back again to die within the sound of the convent bell. She touched the portal and instantly it was opened, not by a girl such as she had been but by a woman such as she might have been--true and noble. She bore her in her arms to her old cell, nursed her back again to a semblance of her old strength, and then she slipped into her old place to answer the portal and keep the altar clean, and not a nun in all the convent ever knew that she had sinned. This is Christ’s ministry in our behalf at this time. Making up for my weakness, answering for my defects, he is my High Priest. II "I am my beloved’s." This is really better than the first text, because if he is mine, and faith is like a hand of the soul, then faith may grow weary and the result would be sad; if I am his and he holds me then that is different. In John 10:28-30, we have a picture of the true sheepfold and of the place where the child of God may rest, held in the hand of God and of his dear son. "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave them unto me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one." What a joy it is to know that we are his! First: His by redemption, for we are redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. "Ye are not your own but ye are bought with a price." Second: We are his because God gave us to him; in his wonderful intercessory prayer Jesus said, "Thou gavest them to me," and again, "Ye are not our own." Third: We are his because again and again we have said so with our lips. How true the text is, then, in the light of the Scripture! If this is true then what is consecration? It is not giving God something, for how could we give him that which is already his own? Consecration is simply taking our hands off and letting him have his way with us in everything. The late George Macgregor used to tell the story of one of the bishops of the Church of England, who had an invalid wife and who never could surrender beyond a certain point. He was unwilling to say that he would give up his wife, for God might call him to some mission he could not perform, and she had been the constant object of his care. But at last he won the victory and rose from his knees to say to his friend that the surrender should be complete, and then they went into the room of his invalid wife to tell her. With a sweet smile upon her face she said, "I have reached the same decision and you can go to the ends of the earth if need be." That night the old bishop’s wife died and when they went across the hall to tell the bishop there was no answer to their knock. When they entered the door they found the bishop with eyes closed, hands folded and heart still. He, too, had gone. God did not want to separate them. He wanted them to be united, their wills surrendered to him and then he would send them in the same chariot up into heaven. III "I am my beloved’s, and his desire is towards me." If we would know God’s desire for us we have only to study the Scriptures, and if we should fulfill his desires we would have an experience of heaven upon earth. First: It is his desire that we should be holy. Ephesians 1:4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Holiness in not sinlessness, it is to the spiritual nature what health is to the physical life. In other words, God desires that we should be spiritually healthy, and this we cannot be with secret sins in our lives. Second: It is his desire that we should be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians 4:3, "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication." Sanctification is not sinlessness, it is separation. It is absolutely useless to think of pleasing God if we are in touch with the world in any way, for since the days of the crucifixion it has been against him. Third: It is his desire that we should present ourselves unto him in the sense above suggested--namely, that we should take our hands off from ourselves and allow him to direct and to control his own possession. Romans 12:1-2, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Romans 6:13, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." In these expressions the tense of the verb indicates that the action is to be definite and that it is to be once and for all. He has certain desires for us also expressed in the seventeenth chapter of John. First: He desires that we should have joy. Joy is better than happiness; happiness depends upon our surroundings and circumstances, joy has nothing to do with these but rather is the result of centering our affections upon him. Second: He desires that we should be one with him. By this I am sure he means that we should be one in our thought of sin, one in our desire for holiness, one in our efforts to reach the unsaved, and one in our longing in all things to be pure and true and good. Third: He desires to make us the object of his love. In this seventeenth chapter of John he tells us that the same love which he had for his son he has for those of us who are in his Son. Thank God for this. If he must open the windows of heaven to speak forth his love for that Son and then has the same for us, oh, what joy it is to be a Christian! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 02.001. KADESH-BARNEA OR THE POWER OF A SURRENDERED LIFE ======================================================================== Kadesh-Barnea or The Power of a Surrendered Life By The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. For many years a close colleague of Mr. Moody This electronic version was created by eSwordScribe@gmail.com on August 9, 2010 Source text is from: http://www.swartzentrover.com/cotor/E-Books/holiness/JWChapman/Kadesh-Barnea/KBindex.htm ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 02.002. PREFACE ======================================================================== Preface Our Father in Heaven never intended that we, who are his children by regeneration, should live anything else than a life of perfect obedience and trust; for we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. This means more to us than we may at first realize. In his explanation of the miracle of Pentecost, Peter said (Acts 2:33): "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." Since therefore upon our head, Jesus Christ, God hath poured forth the Holy Ghost, whatsoever the head has received is in trust for the body; and we are the body of Christ and members in particular. All that the head has obtained, I may claim. A life of unrest dishonors Him, for He said in Matthew 11:28-29 : "Come onto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." He surely must be grieved If we have disregarded His promise. A life devoid of peace discredits His word, for He said (John 14:27): "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Peace is just the opposite of unrest, and no child of God ought to be without it, for it is his birthright in Christ. A life of failure brings reproach on His cause, for what the Apostle found to be true may also be realized in your experience and mine (Php 4:13): "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me"; and may also be the testimony of every child of God. A life without power is contrary to His plan for you and me, for one of the last words of Jesus Christ is recorded in Acts 1:8 : "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." And since He is no respecter of persons, this power must be yours for the claiming. This blessing of a "Life of Privilege," or a "Victorious Life," or a "Surrendered Life," is not only the privilege of every Christian, but it is the birthright of every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ; and if we have not claimed it, the responsibility can be placed on none other than ourselves. "God would and ye would not." These words tell the sad story of the defeat, the discontent, the soul-hunger of many a life to-day. I believe there is no better illustration of this subject than the history of the Children of Israel, and I am not alone in this view, for Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians in speaking of the Israelites (1 Corinthians 10:11): "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." The marginal reading for the word "ensamples" is "types"; so God must have intended that we should study their failures and take warning, that we should behold their victories and not lose hope. These words were spoken by Jeremiah concerning Israel: "For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear." Alas! the same might be spoken concerning God’s children to-day. God would, and ye would not! I ask a careful reading of this little book, the thoughts of which are expressed in the simplest language. Dear reader, if you are able to subscribe to the few conditions herein stated, I believe you may enter at once upon the enjoyment of your birthright privilege as a child of God, and lead a fully surrendered life. J. Wilbur Chapman ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 02.003. TABLE OF CONTENTS ======================================================================== Kadesh-Barnea By The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. Table of Contents Title Page Preface Chapter 1 Egypt Chapter 2 The Passover Chapter 3 The Red Sea Chapter 4 The Waters of Marah Chapter 5 From Marah to Elim Chapter 6 Manna Chapter 7 Kadesh-Barnea Chapter 8 "Put That on Mine Account" Chapter 9 A Continual Allowance Chapter 10 Grieving the Spirit Chapter 11 Bringing Back the King Chapter 12 Kadesh-Barnea Again Please note this electronic version includes content About the Author ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 02.004. ABOUT THE AUTHOR ======================================================================== J. Wilbur Chapman 1859-1918 “It is a very difficult thing to make a rule for another to live by. The rule which governs my life is this: anything that dims my vision of Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps me in my prayer life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me.; and I must, as a Christian, turn away from it.” Though J. Wilbur Chapman was not converted until years later, at the age of four he was often seen standing on his chair for a pulpit, acting out the role of preacher.A Presbyterian, he had great success in four pastorates, but is best remembered as a powerful evangelist. Greatly influenced for Christ as a young man by a godly mother and a spiritual father, he was led to accept Christ by his Sunday school teacher and later found absolute assurance that he was a child of God through the personal counseling of Dwight L. Moody. Why was he such a success as a pastor and leader? “His unusual power with men, his never-failing friendliness, his positive and comprehensive preaching, his extraordinary genius for organization, and the unprecedented results of his manifold labors,” are the reasons given by his biographer, Mr. Ford Ottman. Mr. Ottman reports, “He made fluent use of an adequate vocabulary, and it was said his full, round and firm voice, when rising to a climax, developed a depth and power comparable to thunder at a distance; yet it had a musical tenderness, a pathos almost like tears, a throb, a tremolo-stop, as in the grand organ, perfectly adapted to the wonderful expression of God’s symphony, of God’s love and grace and sufficiency.” Through his teaching, preaching, and greatly used Bible conferences, he influenced thousands of Christians to have a deeper, more effective devotion to Christ and the Bible. He won many thousands to the Lord in his evangelistic meetings. Though he had an unusual sense of humor, he seldom joked; yet he trained an excitable, vehement seeker of souls to carry on after he was gone—a young baseball player named Billy Sunday. No two men were ever more different in their methods; no two ever agreed more completely on their message. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 02.01. EGYPT ======================================================================== Chapter 1 Egypt This dark land, in which the Children of Israel served in bondage for over four hundred years, is a perfect type of the world of sin in which the Spirit of God found us. No Egyptian taskmaster was ever more merciless and cruel than sin, and the case of no Israelite was ever more helpless or hopeless than that of a man who is lost in sin, for remember Paul’s words, as he describes our lost estate (Ephesians 2:12): "At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." They of old in Egypt could not save themselves; the more they struggled, the more helpless they became. Is this not a perfect illustration of that condition in which we were before God saved us? But hope came to Israel, and help came to us from the very same source. But alas! it is true that one may be redeemed and may be in possession of eternal life, and still be dwelling in Egypt. It is not a difficult matter for us to determine whether we are in this position or not. Egypt was the place of bondage for Israel, and the world is the place of bondage for the Christian. If a Christian is in the world and of it, he has no deliverance from his sin. He is repeatedly making the same failure, he is constantly confessing his weakness, but alas! each day only finds him failing again, and he is of all men most miserable. He is saved from the penalty of sin, but not from its power. We find also that when Israel was in Egypt, they were all the time groaning in their bondage; and this is the experience of the Christian living in the world. It is perfectly illustrated in the seventh chapter of Romans (which doubtless was a record of Paul’s own struggles); and especially in that verse which reads: "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." Reader, if you are constantly groaning over your defeat, discouraged because of your failure, and losing hope because you have no song with which to praise God, it is clear evidence that while you may be in possession of eternal life, you are still dwelling in Egypt. It is also not to be forgotten that while Israel dwelt in Egypt, they were unable to worship God. So there are thousands of Christians, who have been redeemed by the blood, and kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, and yet somehow they are utterly powerless in the matter of worship. Their prayers are like sounding brass, their testimony like a tinkling cymbal. It is because they have continued to dwell in Egypt. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 02.02. THE PASSOVER ======================================================================== Chapter 2 The Passover In Exodus 12:21-22, we find these words: "Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning." Paul connects this ceremony with us, for he says in the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter five, verse seven: "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." It is remarkable what light is shed on the New Testament by the stories of the Old Testament, and thus it is that the Passover of old sheds light on the doctrine of the atonement for to-day; for that ancient ceremony typifies the shedding of the blood of Jesus for us, making us both safe and sure. It was while the Israelites were yet in Egypt that the Passover was celebrated, and it was while we were yet in our sins that Christ died for the ungodly. In Him we have redemption (1 Peter 1:18-19): "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." In Him we have shelter from a doom so terrible that, when compared with that which fell upon Egypt, the trials of the children of Israel seem as nothing. In Him we have a salvation, which, as John McNeill says, "speaks not only from night till morning, but all through Time’s long night, till the eternal morning breaks. A salvation of which we get the beginning here through faith in the blood of the Passover lamb, but of which we shall sing throughout all eternity." What did the passover mean to Israel? Moses said: "Draw out a lamb, and kill it"; and every Israelite must have thought: "If I am not to die because of my sin, then something is to die for me." Thus in the Old Testament sacrifice we surely get the foundation-truth of the atonement provided by the Son of God, namely, substitution. If you take this thought from the scene on Calvary, you rob the atonement of its power, and make the death of Christ the most shocking thing the world has ever known. The atonement of Jesus Christ is to be summed up in these words: "Christ died for the ungodly." He was as innocent, as gentle, as spotless as a lamb; "and the LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." But He was a willing victim, for we read He loved us and gave Himself for us. His work was not in vain, for "with His stripes we are healed." But as the killing of the lamb was not enough, for it might have been slain and the blood collected in a basin and a bunch of hyssop placed by its side, and Israel still have been in danger — the blood must be applied to the lintels of the door before the family is safe; so it is not enough that our Passover Lamb has been slain — we must by faith apply His blood to our own souls. The bunch of hyssop corresponds to faith. Hyssop was a very common thing; it grew just without the door of every Israelitish dwelling, and all could secure it if they wished. Faith is a very common thing among men. Take the faith you have in your mother, your brother, your dearest friend, and turn it upon Christ, and it will become the first step towards saving faith. Notice that God did not say: "When you see the blood, I will pass over you," but: "When I see" it. It is not our appreciation of the blood of Christ that saves us, but God’s estimate of it. We may understand very imperfectly the atonement of Christ, but it was not meant for us to comprehend; it is for God to understand, and for us to accept. Dear reader, have you settled this question? This is not all the Christian life. There is much land to be possessed, but alas! many stop here. But to continue here is to abide still in Egypt. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 02.03. THE RED SEA ======================================================================== Chapter 3 The Red Sea After the Passover, when the pillar of cloud had gone before the children of Israel, changing into a pillar of fire by night, they came to the Red Sea, and God miraculously opened a way for them through the sea, and dry shod they passed over to the other side. After them in hot pursuit came all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. In their blind rage they followed them into the path of the sea, when suddenly the waters came together, holding the Egyptians in their close embrace, and behold! these enemies of Israel lay dead upon the shore. There must be something of typical teaching to be attached to this Red Sea experience. Beyond all question, it stands typically for the death of Christ, but not as a redemption; that is one thought of the atonement, but there is still another side to it. The Red Sea must stand for the death of Christ in its power to deliver us from the control or dominion of sin. We had in the Passover the suggestion as to what His death means as a substitution. But that is not all the teaching to be drawn from His death. Many people stop here, and therefore they have neither peace nor power. It must be something like this. Just as Jesus was my substitute and died for me, so He is my living head, with whom and in whom I must die daily. And just as He lives to make intercession for me at the right hand of God, so He lives in me to carry out and perfect His life. I can only find out what the life is that He would live in me, when I look at His death. In that death I find He submitted His will absolutely unto God; and so if one wants to live a life of perfect peace, there must be an unconditional surrender of one’s life. It is to be like Christ when we yield everything to God. We have not a thought, we have not a wish, we have not a hope, but for God. We would not live a day except that God might be glorified in our life of that day. If you say this is impossible, my answer is: Did Jesus do it? If He did, then He waits to fill out your life and mine in the same way. But just as Israel went down into the Red Sea, so I must go down into the death of Christ for deliverance from the power of self and sin. However, it is not to be forgotten that when Christ died upon the cross, He died for sin; but in the second place, it is said that He died unto sin. He was tempted, and He gave up His life rather than yield. In this I may have fellowship with Him as I enter into His death. Egypt stands for the world. In it the Spirit of God found us when we were saved. Out of all the company of Egyptians certain foes pursued Israel, even to the midst of the sea. They are like the sins which have followed us since our conversion: pride, temper, lust, avarice, and many other things that have cost us no end of trouble all our Christian life through. We have always been sure of our salvation, but these foes that have beset us, have made us unutterably miserable. Is there no escape from them, and is there no hope of victory? Let us see. You remember that the waters of the Red Sea rolled in on the Egyptians, and covered them, so that there remained not so much as one of them. We are told that they were seen dead upon the shore. The Rev. F. B. Meyer says the Israelites might have gone back and said: "There is my old taskmaster; he will never trouble me again." Another might have said: There is mine, he will oppress me no more." All this beautifully illustrates what may be counted upon if we enter into the death of Christ. He died unto sin, and so we may stand in Him and say from henceforth: "I count my temper slain, my pride crucified, my lust dead, and my avarice lifeless." But all this time, however, with these certain Egyptians slain, Egypt as a nation was still intact. So is Sin. Paul said, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." But he never said, "Reckon sin to be dead unto you." Some people have here made a fatal mistake. My personal sins I must count slain, but Sin back of them all is very much alive. How, then, are we to meet temptation? Remember always that temptation is not sin. If it stands beckoning to you from the other side of the sea, you need not yield. Yielding is sin. Put Christ and His death between you and sin, and you will always gain the victory. Those were great words of Paul when he said: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Can you subscribe to this teaching, and will you enter by a complete submission of your will into all that the death of Christ means? Will you say: "Henceforth I shall live as a man dead to sin"? I believe it is possible for one to be saved, not only from the penalty of sin — that is the teaching of the Cross; but also from the power of sin — that is the lesson learned on the shores of the Red Sea. There are two thoughts in Paul’s lesson above referred to. We are not to yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness; but this is a negative truth, and is only half the truth. We may yield them unto God; this is positive teaching, and is the secret of deliverance. The verb indicates that it may be done instantly. Then why not do it now? Why not write your name, as you read, to this covenant? ____________________________ 189__. "I definitely dedicate myself this day unto the Lord, to be His forever. I shall expect deliverance from sin’s power only through Him. ____________________________ [Name.]" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 02.04. THE WATERS OF MARAH ======================================================================== Chapter 4 The Waters of Marah From the shores of the Red Sea the children of Israel took up the line of march, but the people were soon suffering from thirst. It was a dreary journey. They had been so long in bondage that they could hardly appreciate their freedom. Their slavery had made them very dependent, and this must have added to their burdens as they marched. Suddenly away in the distance they beheld evidences of water, and soon their lips were pressed down to the spring; but to their dismay, they found that the waters were bitter. How like the experience of the average Christian all this is! Redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, led out of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea, and yet you have been at different times perfectly disconsolate! Some friend failed you, and the waters were bitter. The world seemed cruel and unsympathetic, and the waters were bitter. God called to Himself your mother, your children, your husband, your wife, your friend, and the waters were bitter. You call yourself a Christian, and you feel that you have passed through the Red Sea, entering into the death of Christ, and laying hold upon His power to keep you from sin; but when a trial came, the waters of life seem to you bitter as the waters of Marah. When Moses realized the condition of the spring, he threw in the wood of a certain tree, and immediately the waters became sweet and pure as a mountain stream. Here is the secret of sweetening your life! Bring to bear the principles of the Cross upon every bitterness of your life. If your heart has been embittered by unkind words of another, stand near the Cross and hear Him say, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Are you distressed because some trial has overtaken you? Listen again while you hear Him groaning in agony in the pain of crucifixion, and what are your sorrows when compared with His? Do you rebel when you hear that perfect peace is only to be found when there is perfect submission? Hear Him say, "It is finished!" and remember that these words give us the climax of His absolute submission to the will of God. The difficulty with us in our Christian life has been that we have not let our wills run parallel with the will of God. No one can make a cross so long as he keeps one piece of wood just beside another, but the moment he puts the one across the other, the cross immediately appears. No one can have a cross in this world, in the sense of a burden, if his will is parallel with the will of God; but the moment it runs contrary to that will, then there is confusion and unrest. Apply all the principles of the Cross of Christ to your springs of bitterness, and they will in every case be sweetened. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 02.05. FROM MARAH TO ELIM ======================================================================== Chapter 5 From Marah to Elim "And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim." That was a change for Israel as delightful as the change from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light, from unrest to rest. It was almost like passing from earth to heaven. It was certainly a delightful experience. Marah’s waters were bitter, but Elim had twelve wells of water, and they were all sweet, and the twelve wells were surrounded by seventy palm trees. It is a most significant thing to me that in every type of the Old Testament and in every story of the New Testament, whenever anything is presented that may hint at the Christian’s rightful experience, that life is presented as something glorious and wonderful; if any one is having a hard time in his Christian life, it is simply because he has not brought up his experience so that it may correspond to his standing in Christ. There were twelve wells of water at Elim — that would signify a well for every month of the year for the Christian. A well means both refreshment and rest. And there were seventy palm trees about these wells. The number is suggestive, to say the least. A man’s life according to the Psalmist is three score years and ten, that is, seventy, so there would be a palm tree for every year of his life. Some one has said that this tree may be used for three hundred and sixty-five different purposes. So there is a well for every month, a palm tree for every year, and some part of the tree for every day of the life of a child of God. But delightful as was the change from Marah to Elim, it is not for a moment to be compared with the experience which comes to the Christian, when he has gone beyond the cross of Christ, passed through the Red Sea of His death, and stands on Resurrection ground. Paul writes of the cross to the Corinthians because they had backslidden, but to the Ephesians he speaks repeatedly of the heavenly places. To the Colossians he says, "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." It is a sad thing that so many Christians are having a lean experience and hungry souls, when God has prepared such abundant blessings for us all in the storehouse of His grace, and offers them to us all without money and without price. CHRIST OUR ALL I’ve found a joy in sorrow, A secret balm for pain, A beautiful to-morrow Of sunshine after rain. I’ve found a branch of healing Near every bitter spring A whispered promise stealing O’er every broken string. I’ve found a glad hosanna For every woe and wail; A handful of sweet manna When grapes of Eschol fail. I’ve found a Rock of Ages When desert wells are dry; And after weary stages, I’ve found an Elim nigh— An Elim with its coolness Its fountain and its shade; A blessing in its fullness, When buds of promise fade. O’er tears of soft contrition I’ve seen a rainbow light; A glory and fruition, So near!—yet out of sight. My Savior, Thee possessing, I have the joy, the balm, The healing, and the blessing. The sunshine, and the psalm, The promise for the fearful, The Elim for the faint, The rainbow for the tearful, The glory for the saint! ~ Mrs. Jane Crewdson ~ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 02.06. MANNA ======================================================================== Chapter 6 Manna As the children of Israel journeyed on from Elim, they were very hungry, and they began to murmur. They sighed for the things of Egypt once again, and at last God sent to them from the skies heavenly manna. "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." They gathered it each day, and the supply was never exhausted. This is surely a type of what the Christian has given to him as spiritual food. First of all, there is God’s Word; it has been a sweet morsel to us. Secondly, the Lord’s Supper; it has been both meat and drink to our hungry souls. All this has been ours, but there seems to be something lacking in the lives of many. The blessings our hearts have longed for seem still to tarry. Is there not yet something to be obtained? Could you not say, reader: "My Christian life has been like this: Jesus, my Passover Lamb, shed His blood for me, and I have accepted Him as my personal sacrifice. So far as I knew the way, I entered into His death to keep me from the power of sin. The Red Sea experience has been mine. I have been both at the bitter waters of Marah and beneath the palm trees of Elim. I have fed my soul on the heavenly manna, and the Lord’s Table has been to me a perfect delight. And yet! and yet! I am filled with unrest, I am constantly suffering defeat, I am full of envy, I am the victim of pride, I am always inconsistent." I doubt not but that this is the experience of many Christians. Is there anything better? YES, there remaineth yet much land to be possessed. This was true for Israel, and this leads me to the most important step of all this lesson. I need not be miserable. God did not intend that I should be defeated. He cannot be pleased to have me discouraged. It is against His own name that I should be living in Egypt. I am like the prodigal in this. I will be like him in one thing more— "I will arise and go to my Father," and I will say unto Him: "Father, I have been a disobedient child. I now come to Thee to claim my birthright. Fill me with Thy Spirit." Reader, can you subscribe to this? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 02.07. KADESH-BARNEA ======================================================================== Chapter 7 Kadesh-Barnea After the children of Israel had gone past Horeb, through the wilderness by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the Lord their God had commanded them, they came to Kadeshbarnea at which point they were actually on the borders of the land of Canaan. We would almost have expected to see them breaking their ranks to see who could be the first to enter into the Land of Promise, just as in the olden days a company of Crusaders, when they came near to the City of Jerusalem and saw stretching out before them the object of their hopes and endeavors, some fell upon their faces, others fell upon their knees, some began to pray, and some to weep, until finally at the signal from their leader, every man sprang to his feet and shouted three times, "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of the King! City of the King!" And then they broke their ranks to see which of them could be the first to enter into the city. We would have expected this of the children of Israel. They had endured so many days of wandering and so many years of oppression, that you would have thought they would have hailed with delight the land of freedom. But instead they called twelve spies, and sent them across the border to look over the land and make a report to them. They awaited their return with impatience, and when they came they said that Canaan was a. marvelous country; the people dwelt in cities with high walls; they were giants in size and in strength. They said it was a most fruitful country, and they bore with them the famous grapes of Eschol to prove their statement. Ten of the spies said," Let us not go over," but two of them, Caleb and Joshua by name, said, "What if the walls be high and the men be strong and the outlook discouraging? The Lord Jehovah is our God, and with Him we shall win the victory." Instead of listening to the two spies, they took the counsel of the ten. They turned back to their wanderings; they fell by the wayside; they were buried in the wilderness; and not one of them over twenty years of age, with the possible exception of the tribe of Levi, and certainly with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, ever saw the land of Canaan again. Their sojourn at Kadesh-barnea for them was the time of crisis. Before them was rest, and for years they had been strangers to it. In the Promised Land there was fruit, while Egypt had given them nothing but leeks and garlic and onions. That is just the difference between the Christian’s living in Egypt and in Canaan. Before them in the land of Canaan was communion and fellowship with God; they had no altar in Egypt, and they dared not erect one. If they had gone into Canaan, their communion would have been so perfect that they would almost have seen God face to face. Behind them was the wilderness. We can hardly appreciate what these wilderness wanderings were until we read the ninety-first Psalm, written by Moses during the wilderness experience: "Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee... Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet..." Reading this, you will have only the faintest conception as to what the children of Israel chose in preference to rest and communion with God. We have had our Kadesh-barnea in the past. We have perhaps reached it in the death of a loved one, when God has seemed to call us out of the old life of selfishness and carnal experience into the new life of spiritual power; but many a person has heard God’s voice in affliction only to harden his heart, while the Scriptures declare that whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth. Some of us came to Kadesh-barnea at the time of a great revival. I have in mind now a young man, who in one of the meetings at J..., in the state of Illinois, was thoroughly converted, and at once began to search his heart to see if he was in the position that God wanted him to occupy. He was a young man of large means, and had devoted himself to the occupation of stock farming, and had in his possession several thousand acres of the best land of the state. Fortune seemed to smile upon him in everything that he did. But on the day of his conversion God turned his face away from the farm and gave him a longing for the ministry. For some time he was undecided, but at last he gave up his business and returned to college to take his senior year, which he had previously neglected to take. During the year he devoted himself to the most earnest Christian service. He was thrown in contact with some student volunteers, and for the first time God began to press upon him the work of a foreign missionary; but to go to the foreign field meant the breaking of some very tenderest of ties, and the sacrifice of a palatial home, and the giving up of what men count dear to themselves. It was his Kadesh-barnea. Canaan seemed to be before him, and the wilderness was behind. For a little time he hesitated, and then at last he boldly declared himself for Christ, put his all upon the altar, and determined to go to China. When once the question had been settled, he became restless as he thought of the thousands of souls dying without Christ, and so while he pursues his studies in this country he has placed in the control of a foreign missionary society sufficient funds to keep a worker in the place he one day hopes to occupy. No words can describe the joy that fills his soul to-day. His face is radiant. His peace flows like a river. God has undoubtedly equipped him with wonderful power over other men. He came to Kadesh-barnea and when others would have thought the sacrifice was too great to make, he made it with joy, and God has verified His promise unto him as found in Mark, tenth chapter, verses twenty-nine and thirty: "Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life." Some reach Kadesh-barnea in the progress of a Bible conference. I do not know but that I did myself. For five years I had struggled against what I believed was God’s plan for my life, but to walk in the way He had marked out was to change all the plans of my student life and my early ministerial career; it was to give up the things I had worked for years to obtain; and the fact is, I was unwilling to do it. The sacrifice was too great in my estimation, and the returns would be too small. No words can describe the unrest that filled my soul. At last one day I was sitting in my home in the country, reading the account of Mr. Meyer’s address at the Northfield Conference, when my eye lighted upon this expression: "If you are not willing to forsake everything for God, then are you ready to say, ’I am willing to be made willing’?" That seems a very simple sentence when put into words, but it was for me a star of hope in what was midnight darkness. I felt that I could say that, and upon my knees I whispered: "I am willing to be made willing." In less time than I am taking to write it, God lifted the cloud that had been before me for years. He removed the mountain over which it seemed impossible for me to pass, and suddenly the way became bright with glory, and the first step taken, the next became a delight, and no words can describe the joy and the peace which have been mine since the first step was taken. There are just two things to do when one reaches Kadesh-barnea. The first is to go back to the wilderness. And what will this mean? For Israel it meant fighting and failure, it meant lusting for that which it was not right for them to have. It meant idolatry; it meant murmuring against God. Some one who is reading this may have come to Kadesh-barnea, and is not ready to step over the line into the Canaan of blessedness. Reader, if you should turn back, what would the wilderness mean for you? It would mean an up-and-down, hot-and-cold Christian experience. It would mean that to-day you will be in fellowship with Christ, and to-morrow you will doubtless question if you have been converted. To-day you will be so near to Him that you feel as if you can reach out your hand and touch Him, and to-morrow you will follow Him afar off,and as a result of it you will deny Him. It would mean to-day a willingness on your part to do anything He might call you to do, either to live for Him or to die for Him, and to-morrow you rebel at the least suggestion of service. It would mean that instead of being a spiritual Christian you would be a carnal Christian, and if you are a carnal believer, Paul says that first of all you are a babe, and then you are filled with envy, and then you are engaged in strife. All of which must be most unsatisfactory. In a recent address delivered at Northfield the Rev. C. I. Scofield, D. D., made the following suggestion as to a wilderness life for a Christian. He says: "There is a proper wilderness experience, and it is sometimes necessary that a child of God shall learn to depend upon God, shall learn by an experience which may be bitter as at Marah or blessed as at Elim, that all his springs must be found in God. This is a young convert’s experience, and a proper wilderness experience. But it loses its propriety from the very day of arrival at Kadesh-barnea. A wilderness experience after we have looked over into the land, is but one prolonged disobedience. What is it to be in the Wilderness After Kadesh-Barnea? "The marks of it are, first of all, restlessness. In the wilderness the children of Israel wandered about. They had no abiding-place. The camp might be in some beautiful oasis, and it may well have been in the hearts of the people to remain there under the shade of the palm trees, and by the ever-flowing fountains of water. But in the wilderness this was never possible. Before long the pillar-cloud lifted, and then the tents must be folded and the weary journey resumed. There are no restful Christians in the wilderness. Happy moments come, indeed, but they do not stay. "The second mark of the wilderness experience is discontent. The children of Israel murmured in the wilderness. They found the way hard, and they said so. They murmured against God and against Moses. They wished themselves back in Egypt. They thought regretfully of the flesh-pots of Egypt, and ceased to have any appetite for the manna which fell from Heaven. They said to Moses, ’Our soul loatheth this light bread. Just a wilderness Christians have no relish for the simple things of Christ, ’the sincere milk of the Word.’ "The third mark of a wilderness experience is fruitlessness. The children of Israel fought in the wilderness, but they got nothing by it but the right of way for the day’s march. How different the conflicts after Israel entered the land! Then a victory meant possession. "The fourth mark of a wilderness experience is that it is negative. The Israelites in the wilderness were not doing Egyptian things. Here is just where we find the majority of the people of God. With all the prevailing worldliness of our day, and conceding, as I do, that the old line of demarcation between the Church and the world is very much effaced; fully aware that there is a broad border land where one can hardly distinguish Church from world, I yet do not believe that the great majority of the real people of God in the world to-day are doing Egyptian things. The difficulty is that they are living in a poor, negative experience of not doing things. They do not dance, they do not play cards, they do not attend theaters; but when you inquire for the positive and aggressive side of their Christian lives, it is absent. They are simply negative. "And another thing we need to see about that wilderness. It had two borders. There was the Egyptian side of the wilderness, and the Canaan side. A Christian lingering on the Egyptian side of the wilderness is peculiarly discontented, and in him may be found all the marks of the wilderness experience. He is continually looking over into Egypt, and wishing he might have liberty to do Egyptian things. It is on this side of the wilderness that the backsliding takes place. There is a story of a little girl who often fell out of bed, and who was finally asked by her mother to think why she was always falling out of bed. After a period of reflection, she answered, ’I think it is because I go to sleep too near where I get in.’ That is just the trouble with the great majority of Christians. They do come out of the grosser forms of worldliness, but they linger so near the borders of the world that they are always rather longing to go back into the old things, and not infrequently they do slip back. "Then there is the Canaan side of the wilderness. That is Kadesh-barnea. It is the place where weary Christians, after an experience of wilderness wandering which has made them heartsick, stand and look over into a better experience. You know how this comes. Perhaps some day you took your Bible when you were tired, so tired of unrest and sin and defeat, and you read there the great words of the Apostle Paul: ’The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death,’ and you say, ’Oh that that might be true of me!’ Then perhaps you read in Galatians that other great word of his, ’I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ And again you groan and sigh and say, ’Oh that this were true of me!’ Then perhaps you come to the great decisive verse, Romans 12:1, ’I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.’ And there, just there, you are at Kadesh-barnea! It may be that sometime you have heard from the lips of some servant of the Lord strong testimony concerning an experience of rest and victory and possession here in this troubled world, and again for a moment you have been at Kadesh-barnea, and looked over into that good land, and wished, oh! so fervently, that you might be there too. Possibly sometime you have met some tranquil saint, peaceful, restful, poor perhaps in things of this world, the body racked by pain possibly, but with a great content in the heart; and you have said, ’There is something I am a stranger to.’ The late Reginald Radcliffe, of Liverpool, told me that walking down a London street one day with the Rev. William Pennefather, of blessed memory, a sturdy beggar approached them. He looked for one moment into the shrewd face of Radcliffe, the able Liverpool lawyer, and then into the face of William Pennefather, and without a moment’s hesitation he approached the latter, and said, ’Oh, man with Heaven in your face, give me a penny!’ Maybe you have met some one with Heaven in his face, and you have longed to have Heaven in your face too; and then you were at Kadesh-barnea, just on the border land." The thing for us to do, if we have reached Kadesh-barnea, is to cross over the line. We have been told something of the beauty of the original Canaan, and that the land literally flowed with milk and with honey. The Bible gives us glimpses of its fruitfulness. "And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came unto the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out. And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us" (Deuteronomy 1:24-25). So let us send spies over into the Spiritual Ca.naan, that we may learn of that as a dwelling place. Moses must have had it in mind when he said: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalms 91:1). And Paul must have thought of it when he said so much to the Ephesians about the heavenly places; and Jesus must have been teaching about it when He said: "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The fact is, every description of the Christian life, as God intended we should live it, makes it a life of blessedness and glory, but the spies must also find out for us if it is a land of fruitfulness. This we learn to be true when we read: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22-23). You should bear in mind that the expression is not the fruits of the Spirit, but fruit: and it is never to be forgotten that we may have all of these blessings if we are but living as God intended we should live. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. It is not possible for me to take up all these different blessings at this time, but we may consider briefly two or three. Meekness is not, as some have supposed, lifelessness, but the word "meekness" as used in the Bible is the same Greek word that is used in Xenophon’s "Anabasis" for the training of horses; and the Scripture idea of a meek man is a tamed man. If this be true, it is not discouraging if one has a fiery temper or a miserable disposition. A fiery temper is a good thing if it is controlled, instead of controlling us. It is like the steam in an engine. It really serves to send us on to greater victories. Oh, the blessedness of putting all that we have into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, both to keep and control, to be tamed by Him! It is not an easy thing to define peace. Webb-Peploe says that to his mind the best way to define it is to take its opposite, and contrast it with peace. It is the opposite of unrest, or confusion, or strife. Jesus certainly spake the truth when He said, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." It is not a peace like His, nor the peace between us and God which He had purchased with His blood, but His own peace; and the fact is, it has been waiting for us ever since we were converted, but we have never entered upon its possession by crossing over from Kadesh-barnea into Canaan. It is also a difficult thing to define love. As a part of the fruit of the Spirit, it is not ordinary human affection; it is as far beyond it as the day is brighter than the night. It is the same in kind as that which filled the heart of God, as that which impelled the Son of God to die for us, and still impels Him to make intercession for us. All this, and more, we would have if we had but crossed over into Canaan. When the spies returned from Canaan and made their report to the children of Israel, they declared that there were giants there of such stature that they themselves were only like grasshoppers for smallness. I am well aware that this expression typically refers to the enemies which one meets even in the spiritual Canaan, and which Paul had in his mind when he said (Ephesians 6:12): "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." But it is also true that the people who dwell in Canaan are always giants in their power both Godward and man-ward. This is the place where Mr. Spurgeon dwelt in sweet fellowship with his Divine Lord. This is the land in which George Müller abides, and where he has learned so perfectly the will of God concerning him, that God never seems to say "no" to his requests; for George Müller never asks for anything but that which is in accordance with God’s plan for him. This is the place where Mr. Moody dwells, and if men say that the secret of his power is not in his sermons or in his manner of delivery, then I would make reply it is in the very life of the man, in the atmosphere that surrounds him. This is the land where Hudson Taylor abides, and it is here we find the secret of the China Inland Mission. God never seems to refuse Hudson Taylor either money or men. I one day said to Dr. McCarthy, who represents him in this country: "Can you tell me the secret of Hudson Taylor’s power?" He made quick response that he believed it was to be largely found in this: Missionaries in China are constantly surrounded during the day by the Chinese people, so they have little time for communion with God, or for the study of His word. To overcome this difficulty, Hudson Taylor acquired the habit of rising every morning between two and three o’clock, and going alone into his room, turning the key in the door, and spending the entire time in communion and fellowship with Christ. Sometimes he would sit for a whole hour without saying a word; at other times he would be upon his knees in prayer; on other occasions he would he engaged in poring over the pages of the Bible. But sometimes he would sit with closed Bible and folded hands and open eyes, looking upward apparently into the very face of God, and saying over and over again the name of Jesus Christ. "Sweetest name on mortal tongue, Sweetest note of seraph’s song, Sweetest carol ever sung, Jesus! Blessed Jesus!" Have you ever tried this? if not, test it to-day, and you wilt have come to you an experience which is only granted to those who live in Canaan. I do not know that there is a better explanation of the way we may enter into Canaan than that given by Dr. Scofield in his Northfield address," Kadesh-barnea, and Beyond," from which I now quote: "Now it would be a poor service to you for me to leave you here. If you are indeed at Kadeshbarnea. if there is in your heart a sincere longing to enter now into this Canaan experience you will ask of me how, practically this may be done. I believe there are four steps which must be taken by any who would know what it is habitually to have ’the days of heaven on earth,’ in their Christian life. "First, see in the Word of God that He has provided some better things for you than to wander in the wilderness of failure and discontent and doubt; that there is possible for you what has been realized in countless other lives - a present enjoyment of victory over known sin, of the realization of all the great promises of the Bible, and of rest from disquieting doubt and anxiety and care. See that in the Word of God. "Secondly, see that by efforts to keep the Law you can never enter this experience, that the utmost which the Law can do for a saint is to show him his need - to place before him an ideal to which he has not attained, and in his own effort can never attain. "Thirdly, see that there is power in Jesus Christ to give you this experience. It is your conversion over again, and in a very real sense. As a sinner you came to the Lord Jesus, because He alone had the Words of eternal life. There was none other who could possibly take away the guilt of your sin and give you eternal life. You could not gain it for yourself; you could not blot out your own transgressions; you were perfectly helpless. And the time came when you saw that, and trusted Him to do it all. Now, just as you came as a sinner to a crucified Christ, come as a weary saint to a risen and mighty Christ, and, remembering how you once knelt under the burden of your sins, kneel again under the burden of your failures as a Christian, of your doubts, of your anxieties, of your fears, of your defeats, of your weakness; and look to Him just as simply by faith to give you victory, and possession, and rest, as once you looked to Him by faith to give you pardon and peace. Cease utterly from any thought that you can by yourself, in yourself, or of yourself, cross from Kadesh-barnea into the good land. Remember that Joshua only can lead you into that land and give ’you your inheritance in it; and cast yourself just as utterly upon Jesus for this blessedness as you did in the first coming to Him cast yourself upon Him for forgiveness. "And fourthly, when you have done that, then say by faith, ’Now I am in the land. He has given me my possession.’ Just here is the point of failure, I am persuaded, in countless earnest efforts to have the life more abundant. So many take the first three steps of which I have spoken; they see in the Word the promise of a better experience, they learn by bitter failure that the Law can never make them perfect, and they believe that Jesus Christ can, as a gift of His power, bestow that which they desire; but they never take the fourth step, and say, ’I now, by faith, take this life of victory, this place of rest, and possession, and joy, and fruitfulness.’ "Will you not take these four steps to-day, if you have not already done so? For some of you are seeing in Jesus a full answer to all your need in this respect. Will you not now, in simplicity of faith, and without waiting for any feeling whatever, simply say, ’Lord Jesus, as I once took Thee as my Savior from the guilt of sin, I now take Thee as my Deliverer from the power of sin, and enter into the possession of my inheritance in Thee’? And just as surely as the joy of salvation followed that decision of yours, when as a sinner you came to Christ, just so the experiences proper to the new life of victory will, moment by moment, be yours if you take this second step of faith." There are certain reasons why it would be best for us all to-day to enter in. This may be God’s last call to you to enter upon the enjoyment of this life of privilege. This was true of all the children of Israel beyond a certain age, for when they realized what they had missed in failing to take advantage of God’s opportunity, we find them saying to Moses (Deuteronomy 1:41-46): "Then ye answered and said unto me, We have sinned against the LORD, we will go up and fight, according to all that the LORD our God commanded us. And when ye had girded on every man his weapons of war, ye were ready to go up into the hill. And the LORD said unto me, Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight; for I am not among you; lest ye be smitten before your enemies. So I spake unto you; and ye would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD, and went presumptuously up into the hill. And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah. And ye returned and wept before the LORD; but the LORD would not hearken to your voice, nor give ear unto you. So ye abode in Kadesh many days, according unto the days that ye abode there." Some one will read this book only to say: "I am very sure there is such a life of blessing. I am quite sure that I have not entered upon it. I am perfectly confident that God intends that I should do so, and I am fully determined some day to do it - but not now"; and you may turn away for the last time. It is not a question of life with you, but a question of blessing. You will remember how Moses came to Pisgah (Deuteronomy 32:49-52): "Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: Because ye trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified Me not in the midst of the children of Israel. Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel." It would be best for us to enter in to-day because if we fail to do so we may be keeping some one else out who has a right to go in. Caleb and Joshua had a perfect right to enter into Canaan directly from Kadesh-barnea, but the failure of the children of Israel put a barrier in their way. If I fail to go in, I may keep out the members of my family or the people in my church, and the responsibility of their failure may rest heavily upon me. It has been said in the pages that precede this, that there may be four steps into Canaan, but in reality the whole question is so easy of settlement that we have just to take one step, and that is to surrender the will. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land." If you should find it impossible to submit your will to God in everything, then it may be that Mr. Meyer’s very significant expression may prove a star of hope to you in your darkness and despair. If you are not willing to submit everything, then (he has said) offer this prayer, "Lord, I am willing to be made willing about everything"; and the victory will be yours. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 02.08. "PUT THAT ON MINE ACCOUNT" ======================================================================== Chapter 8 "Put That on Mine Account." "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account." - Philemon 1:18 It was after Paul’s eventful voyage, after the shipwreck at Melita, after the meeting with his friends at Apii Forum, and with the Roman soldier chained to his body, that this epistle to Philemon was written. Paul had appealed unto Caesar in the charges made against him, and he has now reached Rome that he might stand before the king. The Roman law was exceedingly slow of action, and so it was at least two years before his case could be presented. In all that time he tells us that he lived in his own hired house, and while he was chained to the Roman soldier, still he had liberty to speak, and great numbers of people flocked into his house to hear the story he had to tell. What a picture it was! The little old man who was the preacher, with his heart on fire with love for God, his face bearing the marks of his suffering, and also his joy, lifting his hand for the sake of emphasis and causing the chains of his imprisonment to rattle, and yet writing the greatest letters the world has ever read. It is not to be forgotten that the four epistles of the imprisonment are counted his best effort. The letter to the Ephesians represents the body of Christ, that to the Colossians represents the head of the body which is Christ, and that to the Philippians stands for the glad experience that comes to a Christian when head and body are perfectly united. The letter to Philemon was the fourth of the imprisonment epistles. Among his hearers one day was Onesimus, a runaway slave. His master was Philemon, a friend of Paul’s, and a convert in another city. Doubtless the slave had heard the apostle at the time of his master’s conversion. Running away from his bondage, he sought him out in the city of Rome. To the music of the clanking chains, the epistle was written. Erasmus says that Cicero never wrote anything of greater elegance. Luther says that it is a charming expression of Christian love, a real exhibition of Christian courtesy, a model of tact and delicacy. See the shrewdness of the apostle in Philemon 1:8-9 : "Wherefore, though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient, Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." It is as if he had said: "I am an apostle, and I might have enjoined thee to receive Onesimus, but I rather appeal to thee for the sake of love, and I would awaken your sympathies because I am an aged man. Better than all, I send you this entreaty and hope to move you, because I am a prisoner in bonds." The salutation contained in the first three verses is: "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house: Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Philemon was a man of influence, Apphia was his wife, and it is supposed that Archippus was their son. Onesimus was their slave in bonds, and because of some hardship he had broken away and hastened to Rome. It is a difficult thing to imagine the condition of the Roman slave. Society at its best was awful. What can we say of the dregs? If we would appreciate the text which is filled with the spirit of the gospel, it is necessary that we should bear in mind certain things concerning the Roman law. First, the Roman law gave a slave no right of asylum, but it granted him the privilege of making an appeal. Secondly, the Roman slave had the privilege of fleeing to his master’s friend, not for concealment, but for intercession. Thirdly, the owner of a slave in Roman times was absolute in his possession, yet he might be besought by a friend whom he counted as a partner. It was also agreed that a Roman slave could be adopted by his master as a son, and thus alone could he be freed. In the light of these thoughts the text begins to open up before us. We were God’s property, and we ran away. Our sin was against God; for this reason it needs atonement. Resolutions can never touch this side of sin, reformation can never wipe it out, but Christ’s atonement meets the case perfectly. Secondly, the law gives to the sinner no right of appeal. The standard of the law has never for a moment been lowered, but grace steps in and changes the whole matter, and every sinner under grace has the privilege of appealing for divine help. Thirdly, the sinner flees for refuge to Jesus, whom God counts a partner: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Fourthly, through faith in Christ we are begotten as sons. It is impossible to understand this, but the Word of God, to which may be added our experience, justifies us in believing that it is true, and being sinners we are thus delivered from the bondage of sin and kept from its power. Fifthly, in this new relation we return to God, and we are not received as slaves, but beloved as Christ Himself. At the close of a battle in the days of the war, a young man was found dying on the battlefield. A soldier stopped to render him assistance, and as he moistened his lips and made his head rest easier, the dying man said: "My father is a man of large wealth in Detroit, and if I have strength I will write him a note, and he will repay you for this kindness." And this was the letter he wrote: "Dear father, the bearer of this letter made my last moments easier, and helped me to die. Receive him and help him for Charlie’s sake." The war ended, and the soldier in tattered garments sought out the father in Detroit. He refused to see him at first on account of his wretched appearance, "but," said the stranger, "I have a note for you in which you will be interested." He handed him the little soiled piece of paper, and when the great man’s eyes fell upon the name of his son, all was instantly changed. He threw his arms about the soldier, and drew him close to his heart, and put at his disposal everything that wealth could make possible for him to possess. It was the name that made the difference. And thus we stand on redemption ground, and as Onesimus bore the letter to Philemon, so we stand before God in the name of Jesus Christ, and He speaks for us as did Paul for the Roman slave. "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account." I. He Answers for our Sin Romans 8:3 : "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." 2 Corinthians 5:21 : "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." There are some things in this world so dreadful that we cannot look upon them; some things are so horrible that the thought of them makes us sick; but there is nothing in this world so horrible as sin and the thought of sin to Jesus Christ, and yet He became sin for us. I once heard John McNeill say that of all the people in Jerusalem he thought Barabbas had the best idea of the atonement of Jesus Christ. "You will remember," said Mr. McNeill," that he should have been crucified, and Jesus released, but the order was exactly reversed. The door of the prison swings open, and Barabbas is free, and as he comes out into the light of the day, all the people seem to be hurrying in one direction. He hears that Jesus of Nazareth is to be crucified. He stops a moment to think, and then he exclaims: "Why, that is the man who is dying in my stead! I will go and see him." "He pushes his way out through the gate of the city, and up the hillside until he reaches the surging mob about the cross. He stands in the outer circle for a moment, and then pushes his way to the very inner circle, and stands so near that he can reach out his hand and touch the dying Savior. And," said my friend, "I can hear him say: "I do not know who you are, but I know that you are there in my stead." And said John McNeill: "Until you can give a better theory of the atonement, take that of Barabbas - Christ your substitute, dying in your place." Sin was judged for us in Christ, and He stands before God saying, "Put that on mine account." II. He Takes Away Sins Galatians 1:4 : "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." 1 Corinthians 15:3 : "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." 1 Peter 2:24 : "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." Our sins were like the sands of the sea in number; they were like scarlet and crimson in their awfulness; but the Scriptures tell us that they are hurled as far as the east is from the west, which is a distance that can never be measured. They tell us that they are cast behind God’s back, and that is surely comforting, for when I come to God as a sinner, my sins stand between me and God, and when I confess Jesus Christ as my Savior, God takes these same sins and puts them behind His back so that now God is between me and my sins. The Scriptures also declare that when our sins are confessed and forsaken, God remembers them against us no more forever. And when they rise at the judgment, ONE stands before God in our behalf, with pierced hands, and thorn-marked brow, saying, "Father, put that on mine account." III. He Answer For Our Failures 1 John 2:1 : "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." This is the high ideal - "that ye sin not" - but have you ever thought of the difference between Christ as the high priest, and as the advocate? As the high priest, He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin; so that in all the temptations that come to you and to me, He stands in the position as priest, and His sympathy for us is infinite. But if for any reason we should make a mistake, and fail, then He becomes our advocate, making intercession for our forgiveness; in other words, He is the high priest up to the point of sin, and from that point He is an advocate. 1 John 1:8-9 : "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I do not find any place in the New Testament, with the possible exception of the Lord’s Prayer, which was given before the atoning death on Calvary, where it is said that a Christian needs to ask for forgiveness of sin. It is only said that we must confess our sins; and the moment a confession is made, He stands before God to say, "Father, put that on mine account." IV. He Takes Our Cares Matthew 11:28 : "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." God never intended that His children should be disconsolate or discouraged. Php 4:7 : "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." It is always well for us, when we are tempted to be discouraged, to remember the Apostle Paul. He was chained to a Roman soldier, and yet in this one letter to the Philippians again and again he exclaims: "Rejoice! rejoice! and again I say, rejoice!" He it is who says (Php 4:6): "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." I can understand how some will say that this is impossible, that a man of business has too many cares and too many anxieties to be careful for nothing; but some one has pointed out the fact that we begin to read at the wrong place - we should read the closing clause of the fifth verse: "The Lord is at hand." And this makes all the difference. If the Lord is at hand, I need not be over anxious. If the Lord is at hand, no burden shall weigh me down. Paul gives us the secret of it when he says that by prayer we shall overcome, and Payson says God gives His answers more to the habit than to the act of prayer. But there is still something more that Paul says of prayer; he calls it supplication. This is more intense. It means to bring your sins, your cares, your family, your business, and putting them all together, to bear them before God. Anything but a stilted prayer. If our children should ask us for blessings as we ask God for help, we would think they had lost their reason. Mr. S. H. Hadley says that when he was converted, Jerry McCauley said to him: "You pray." Mr. Hadley said to him, with a sob: "I cannot pray. You pray for me." Then Jerry McCauley, putting his arms around him, offered up this prayer: "Dear Jesus, these poor fellows have gotten themselves into an awful hole. You helped me out. Please help them. Amen." Mr. Hadley said this was the first time he had ever heard a real prayer. Scripturally, the only way to pray is unto God through Christ by the Spirit, and every such prayer Jesus receives and exclaims: "Father, answer it, and put it on mine account." V. He Still Stands Besides Us In Death. Hebrews 2:10 : "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Death is still an enemy, but Jesus met him, and won the victory; and when we meet him, He shall stand beside us to say: "Put that on mine account." Death is a vanquished enemy, and Christ now uses him to put His children to sleep. "Aren’t you afeared, John?" said the wife of a Cornish miner as he was dying. "Afeared, lass! why should I fear? I ken Jesus, and Jesus kens me. An old pilot died not long ago in Boston. He had held the pilot’s commission for nearly seventy- five years; and for almost all that time he was a follower of Jesus Christ. As he was passing away, his face brightened, and he started up with this expression: "I see a light." His friends thought his mind was wandering, and that he was in imagination on the sea, and they said: "Is it the Highland light?" He said: "No." A moment more, and he repeated the sentence: "I see a light." They asked him again: "Is it the Boston light?" And he answered: "No." For the third time he said: "I see a light." They said again: "Is it the Minot light?" "Ah, no," he said, "it is the light of glory! Let the anchor go!" And they slipped the anchor, and the old pilot stood before Him who had taken him in His arms, and presented him without spot or blemish before His Father, saying: "My Father, every weakness, every failure, every sin in all this life, put on mine account." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 02.09. A CONTINUAL ALLOWANCE ======================================================================== Chapter 9 A Continual Allowance "And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life." - 2 Kings 25:30 This is a striking text, but the story it introduces is more striking by far. The Bible is always true to itself and its teachings, and the man who says that it is contradictory in its statements, betrays an ignorance which is inexcusable. I know of no better illustration of this fact than the story of Jehoiakim the father and Jehoiachin the son. It was this Jehoiakim who was sitting in his summer house when Jehudi came to him to read the scroll containing the words of the Lord. The king became very angry, and cut it with his penknife, and cast it into the fire. He was a destructive critic of the early school, and he was like the men of to-day who seem to think that because they cut away at the Scriptures, they shall be overthrown; but God always sustains His Word. After this scroll was destroyed, Jeremiah had only to call Baruch the scribe, and he dictated to him the whole scroll again; and some day the very ashes of that scroll shall rise in judgment against Jehoiakim. He was a tyrant of the worst character. Notice what Jeremiah says about him: "Woe be unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work; That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know Me? saith the LORD. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it" Jeremiah 22:13-17. Men cannot mock God. The reckoning time is surely coming, when the oppressor shall meet the one whom he has oppressed, and the thief shall stand before the one from whom he has stolen, and the deceiver shall be face to face with the one upon whom he has practiced deception, and the books shall be opened. Line upon line, sin upon sin shall stare him in the face. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. There was something awful in the curse pronounced upon Jehoiakim: "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem;" and again: "O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah." In the face of all this wrath, Jehoiachin comes upon the scene, and was made king of the people of Judah. I can hear the enemies of God scoff when it seemed as if the curse was to amount to nothing. It is in vain to stand before God’s providences. As well might one take his place in the way of the mountain avalanche to retard its progress as try to hinder the plan of God. In thirteen short weeks Jehoiachin was dethroned, the time was actually too short to be counted; and now we have a picture of the dethroned king as bad as it can be. Behind him the memory of his father; he had cursed God, and had murdered Urijah, and had died a horrible death; and instead of being on the throne we find Jehoiachin in the dungeon. 2 Kings 25:27 : "And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin." For three-eighths of a century he had not seen the sun rise, neither had he seen it set. All the time he had waked and slept, bound with the clanking chain. Little children became men and women, and he still suffered. Old men passed away and were forgotten, and he was in the darkness. God pity the man who has been for thirty-seven years in prison! I said to a man in the Joliet prison, who had been a prisoner for the same length of time: "Would you like to be free?" The tears came into his eyes as he said: "Why should I long to be free? The companions of my youth are gone, and a new generation is living. My family is scattered, I do not know where. Why should I desire to be free?" Jehoiachin must have been like that. It was an awful picture, and yet not more terrible than may be seen upon our streets every day. There are men who walk amongst us who are bound with chains just as real. Sin is an awful taskmaster. Satan is a terrible tyrant. But in all this wretchedness of Jehoiachin, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, comes upon the scene, and what he said and did is the text of this chapter. 1. 2 Kings 25:27 : "Evil-merodach king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison." I was at a loss to understand what that expression - "lift up the head" - meant until I read in Genesis 40:13 : "Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and restore thee unto thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh’s cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler." When Joseph referred to lifting up the head of the butler, he meant that Pharaoh restored to him his place. There must have been in the work of Evil-merodach this thought of restoration, of making up all that which had been lost; the Hebrew word "accept" means to lift up the face. It is appalling to think of the effects of sin, and the wretched condition of the sinner; but Christ has made provision for all this. In His atonement He answers before God all the demands of the law, and makes it possible for God to be just, and the justifier of all them that believe. But He will also lift us up until we stand before God as if we never had sinned. We may in our own thoughts bear the marks of our transgression, but we read in Jude that He presents us faultless before God. The Rev. F. B. Meyer tells of a story, taken from Adelaide Procter, of a young girl who lived centuries ago in a convent in France. She was sweet and pure and admired of all who saw her. Her work was to care for the altar of Mary, and answer the portal. Wars swept over France, and brought the soldiers to the convent, and one that was wounded was given into her care. When he recovered, he persuaded her to leave the convent. She went with him to Paris, where she lost her good name and everything that made life worth living. Years passed, and she came back to die within the sound of the convent bell. She fell fainting upon the steps, and there came to find her, not such a one as she had been, young and fair, but such a one as she would have been, a pure and noble matron. She picked her up and carried her into the convent, and placed her on her bed. All the years that she had been gone, she had faithfully done her work, and none knew of her disgrace; so she glided back into her old place, and until the day of her death, no one ever knew her sin. All this Christ has done for me. I like to think that I was chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that He had me in mind when He suffered and died, that He has made up before God for all that I have failed to do, and when I stand before Him it will be as if I never had sinned in all my life. 2. 2 Kings 25:28 : "And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon." It must have been a great surprise to Jehoiachin to hear the kindly words. He had been accustomed only to the clanking of his chains and the oaths of his companions in misery. But this is the way the Master works too. You remember the woman who was taken in adultery. The crowd hurried her into the presence of Jesus, and He said: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." That was severe, and when they slunk away from Him and His words, He turned to her and said: "Woman, where are thy accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" And she said: "No man, Lord." And He spake kindly and said: "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." This is always His way. Not far from my home in Indiana, just across the state line in Ohio, there lived an old woman who was the terror of all who had seen or heard of her. She was finally arrested, and sent to the Columbus Penitentiary. She broke every law of the institution, and they exhausted every form of punishment upon her. Times without number they had sent her to the dungeon, and for weeks at a time she lived on bread and water. Finally an old Quaker lady from the same part of the state asked permission to see her. The prisoner was led into her presence, with the chains upon her hands and feet. With downcast eyes she sat before the messenger of Christ. The old Quaker lady simply said: "My sister." The old woman cursed her, and then she said: "I love you." With another oath she said: "No one loves me." But she came still nearer, and taking the sin-stained face in both her hands, she lifted it up, and said: "I love you, and Christ loves you." She kissed her face first upon one cheek and then upon the other; and she broke the woman’s heart. Her tears began to flow like rain. She rose to her feet. They took the chains off, and until the day of her death they were never put on again, but like an angel of mercy she went up and down the corridors of the prison, ministering to the wants of others. The Quaker lady had spoken kindly to her. 3. 2 Kings 25:29 : "And changed his prison garments: and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life." There are several ways of understanding this expression. In the one hundred and ninth psalm we read: "As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones." This would be like our habits. We are not obliged to change our habits before we come to Christ, but we must come to Him first, and the change is part of His work. A fiery temper and an impetuous disposition may be real blessings to us, for He shall turn them into new channels and make them for His glory. Peter had in him all that would make a mean man, but when the Lord took possession of him, he was all the better for his weakness. Again, in Psalms 104:1-35 we read: "Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment." In this case it is like the atmosphere which is about us, and Christ changes this too. Thus we become responsible for the atmosphere of our lives. There are certain people who provoke you the moment you see them, and there are others who command a benediction upon you without opening their lips. If it is not easier for people to be Christians because they live with you, there is something the matter with either you or your religion. But there is still another thought in the garment. After the father of the prodigal put a new robe on him, he covered over all the signs of his wandering. When David put Mephibosheth at the table, all signs of his lameness were hidden. When God clothes us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness, He covers over all the marks of our sins, and every evidence of our weakness. 4. Many persons are perfectly sure of everything that has been said up to this point, but how about the future? God has made provision for you; if any child of His is weak or hungry, it is because he has not appropriated what God intended he should have. A man died in a poorhouse in England the other day. He had owned a little estate, but counted it worth nothing. The one who inherited the estate is to-day many times a millionaire, for upon the estate he found a copper mine. It had all the time been there, but was not discovered before. 2 Kings 25:30 : "And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life." It is a daily rate, that is the way God gives His help; manna for a day and light for a day. God will send you no more than you need, and will send you no more than you can bear. How many times have you said, "If I had had one more heartache, my heart would have broken; if I had had one more night of sorrow, my reason would have been dethroned." But you did not have another heart-ache, and the last sorrow did not come. One of my friends sent me these lines the other day; they came as a blessing: "Build a little fence of trust Around to-day. Fill up the space with loving deeds, And therein stay. Look not through the sheltering bars Upon to-morrow. God will help thee bear what comes, Of joy or sorrow." He sends an allowance of trouble perhaps, but He sends an allowance of strength too, and He will never leave and never forsake us. This strength He imparts is for every day, but it is for all the days of our lives. It is said that some years ago the king of Abyssinia took a British subject, by the name of Campbell, prisoner. They carried him to the fortress of Magdala, and in the heights of the mountains put him in a dungeon, without cause assigned. It took six months for Great Britain to find it out, and then they demanded his instantaneous release. King Theodore refused, and in less than ten days ten thousand British soldiers were on shipboard and sailing down the coast. They disembarked, and marched seven hundred miles beneath the burning sun up the mountains to the very dungeon where the prisoner was held, and there they gave battle. The gates were torn down, and presently the prisoner was lifted upon their shoulders, and carried down the mountains, and placed upon the white-winged ship, which sped him in safety to his home. And it cost the English government twenty-five millions of dollars to release that man. I belong to a better kingdom than that; and do you suppose for a moment, that earthly powers will protect their subjects and that God will leave me without help? His ALLOWANCE IS A CONTINUAL ALLOWANCE, GIVEN TO ME EVERY DAY, AND SHALL BE ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 02.10. GRIEVING THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== Chapter 10 Grieving the Spirit "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." Ephesians 4:30 Of all the epistles that ever came from the heart of the great Apostle Paul, this letter to the Ephesians seems to me about the sweetest and best. It is the epistle in which we find "the heavenly places" mentioned so many times; it is the epistle in which we find so many different names applied to our Father in heaven; and I suppose it is the letter in which we find the very highest spiritual truth presented in all the Bible. But while we find the very highest idea of spiritual things, we also find the Apostle Paul turning to give us instructions concerning the most ordinary affairs of daily life. Some rules are here concerning Christian conversation. Some suggestions are made touching the relation which the husband sustains to the wife, and the wife to the husband. Indeed, if one should live in the spirit of this letter to the Ephesians, he would do nothing less than live what has been called by some "the life of surrender," and others "the victorious life," but which Paul calls "the life in the heavenly places." Paul makes all these different suggestions, and then adds: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God," as if He could be grieved by a wrong atmosphere in the home, or by a wrong use of the lips; and this is true. While many of us would shrink from doing things plainly inconsistent with our Christian profession, we would be astonished if we could be made to understand that the way we have used our lips has grieved the Holy Spirit. First of all, the very fact that we may grieve Him proves by inference His personality. You cannot grieve an influence. It seems to me that we may grieve the Spirit by even stopping to prove that He has a personality equal to the Father and to the Son, for it is so self-evident. Yet many men and women do not seem to have grasped the truth of His personality, and thus must grieve Him. In the second place, the fact that we may grieve Him proves His sensitiveness. In John 1:32, it is said: "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove." The dove stands for all that is sensitive in the family of birds. I have been told that the dove has been known to tremble when there was held before it one single feather of a vulture’s wing. The Spirit of God is so sensitive that that which has even the appearance of the evil in it hurts Him. This idea of sensitiveness presents to us the thought of His love. If I do not love you, you cannot grieve me, but just in the proportion that I love you, you find it easy to grieve me. You cannot grieve an indifferent person. You may possibly hurt his feelings; you may anger him; but you grieve only the one whose heart is filled to overflowing with affection for you. The feeling that a mother must have when her offspring breaks her heart by evil-doing, is the feeling - but multiplied by infinity- which the Holy Ghost must have when we grieve Him. There are several different expressions in the New Testament in line with my text. "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts 7:51). I believe that only the unregenerate resist Him. In his letter to the Thessalonians Paul says, "Quench not the Spirit." That may refer especially to the life of the Holy Ghost in the church, so that we may quench Him by ignoring Him in the government of the church. If we would have a blessing sweeping over our land from sea to sea, from north to south, I believe that we must begin by conforming the life of our churches to the teachings of the Holy Ghost. "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God." Only a child of God may grieve the Spirit, and that is the sad part of it. How many times we have heard these words referred to and read as if they admonished us not to grieve away the Spirit of God! It seems to me that we must at least grieve the Spirit when we add to or take from any part of revealed truth. It would be contrary to Scripture to say that we could grieve away the Spirit. If the Spirit of God comes to abide in us, He comes to stay, and there is no power on earth that can separate us from Him, when once He takes possession of us. We have been born of the Spirit, and we cannot grieve Him away. That would mean a change of all God’s plan for us, for we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. I believe that I am a part of God’s great plan for ages to come, and if I should fall out it would mean a change of all God’s plans for time and eternity. We cannot grieve away the Holy Spirit of God; no, but we may grieve Him. 1. We may grieve Him by disobedience. Disobedience of children always raises a barrier between them and their parents. There may be ever so much love in a father’s heart, and he may have ever so much desire to pour forth that love, but he cannot do it so long as there is this barrier of disobedience between him and his child. The father of the prodigal son never ceased to love him, but the barrier of disobedience was there, higher than the highest mountain. Never until the son crossed that mountain could the father begin to pour forth his love upon him. What does Paul mean when he says, "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess"? We take that to be a command. "But be filled with the Spirit" is the rest of the same verse, and that is just as much a command as not to be drunk with wine. The only difference between the first command and the second is that one is negative and the other is positive. Are you filled with the Spirit? If not, you have disobeyed God’s command, and there is a barrier between you and Him. There are two tests, I think, by which we may know. First, if you are filled with the Spirit, God will give to you the testimony in His own word: "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do" (John 14:13). Have you ever asked to be filled with the Spirit? If you have prayed, believing that the infilling of the Holy Ghost would come to you, He will come. The promise of the Spirit is a promise of power, and "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20). Then it is not a question of feeling, but of belief. Once when I was in deepest sorrow, a member of my church said to me, "I am very much afraid that you are having financial difficulties," and he gave me a little piece of paper. It was a blank check signed with his name, that I might fill in for any amount. I said, "I think it is unsafe to give a man a check like that. I might send it back for half a million dollars." "Well," he said," if it would do you any good to think you had my fortune back of you, you may take the check." I put it in my pocket, and every time I passed a man on the street I thought to myself: "I wonder if he has such a fortune back of him as I." I believed in that check simply because I believed in the name that was signed to it. Have you asked to be filled with the Spirit, believing in Christ? Well, then, if you do not believe that you are filled, you are grieving the Holy Spirit of God. But there is another test. "By their fruits ye shall know them." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Galatians 5:22). Where there is a fulness of the Spirit, there will be a fulness of the fruit of the Spirit, but not always in perfection, of course. The fulness of the Spirit is a gift, and the fruit of the Spirit is a growth. To be drunk with wine is to be filled with a kind of wild exultation which leaves the last state of a man worse than the first. To be filled with the Spirit of God is to be filled with joy and exultation which is heavenly, and every wave of blessing that comes in upon us, wave upon wave, like the tide of the sea, carries a man nearer to the heavenly places. 2. Again, we grieve the Spirit by failing to keep our hearts clean. The late John MacNeil of Australia said that a new heart is not necessarily a clean heart; but many of us have been thinking that it was. David committed a great transgression, and was pardoned, and prayed: "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." Paul says: "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." MacNeil uses the illustration of a mother who puts a clean dress on her child in the morning, and tells her to keep it unspotted all day long. When night comes, the child’s dress is so soiled that it is hard to tell whether it is white or black; but the mother cleanses it. The child had the will to keep it clean, but the nature of the child made her get it soiled. The same thing takes place every day, but if that mother could only impart some of her own spirit to that child, so that the child would not only have the will but the ability to keep clean, would not that be wonderful? That is exactly what God wants to do for us. He wants to put Himself in us, and while we have the old nature of the flesh, He wants to give us, in all its fulness, His own blessed nature, to keep us free from sin. Some say that is perfection. Well, what of it? As an old minister once said to me, "I wish that people were as much afraid of imperfection as of perfection." But we may forsake every known sin, and still be very imperfect in God’s sight, for God may behold sin where we would be blind to it. It is not a question as to whether I can keep from sinning or not - I know that I cannot, for I have tried it many years; but the question is as to whether Jesus Christ can keep me. Who am I that I should limit the power of the Almighty? He is able to save unto the uttermost. Has He not told us in Jude that He is able to keep us from stumbling? Is anything too hard for the Lord? What Must You Do To Be Filled? You are the temple of God, and the Spirit dwelleth in you, so that if you want Him to fill you, the first thing to do is to get the temple clean. God does not require golden vessels, or silver vessels, but He must have clean vessels. In the days of Hezekiah, when the temple was filled with things that had no place there, it had to be cleansed before God would manifest Himself there. Again, when the court was filled with money-changers, Jesus had to drive them out with the scourge. Too many of us have allowed ourselves to be soiled by contact with the world. We may not be grossly inconsistent, and yet many times we have lost our power. A man can never be filled with electricity so long as he stands on the ground. He may touch the current, but it will pass away from him. But if he stands on a little stool with glass legs, he will be filled instantly, for glass is a non-conductor of electricity. If he touch the earth with one finger, he will lose the power. Now Paul says, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." We have been told that if we would be filled with the Spirit, we must weep, pray, agonize; but it is all to no purpose. One minister said to me: "I believe this filling is only for a few elect persons." Another said: "I have fulfilled every command of God, and still I am not filled." Brethren, the thing to do is to stop weeping, agonizing, and just get down before God and say: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me." Then ask Him to take it away. When you have become cleansed and set right, then God will be ready to fill you. 3. Then we may grieve the Spirit by practically denying His word. Was there not much of pathos in Jesus’ words when He said: "Why do ye not understand my speech?" Christ has promised to be with us "alway, even unto the end of the world." With us even in disappointment and trial. Some one has said that a Christian should spell disappointment with an "H" in place of the "d," and make it His-appointment. 4. But we grieve the Spirit more perhaps in matters of doctrine than anything else. We grieve Him in our lack of assurance. John says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life," and yet Christians are continually praying, "Save us at last." Do you not think that grieves the Spirit of God? We know that we are saved, not by our feelings, for they change like the waves of the sea, but because the Word of the Lord hath spoken it. To say anything else, to believe anything else, to act as if you believed anything else, grieves the Spirit. I am thankful that I believe these things, not because I feel them, not because I understand them, not because I can reconcile them with science, not because other men believe them, but because the Lord hath spoken them. A man has no right to advance his views unless he has compared scripture with scripture, and has reached his conclusions from the Word of God. Blessed Book! Laughed at, scorned, railed at; it is sweeter than ever, more powerful than ever! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but this Word, never, never, never! One word in closing. In Ephesians 4:31, the Apostle says, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice." This is a practical thought with which to close. Paul would seem to indicate that we grieve the Spirit by yielding to any of these things. The Spirit of God is grieved whenever we allow our old nature to triumph over our spiritual nature. For God has promised in His Word to set us free from the law of sin and death. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 02.11. BRINGING BACK THE KING ======================================================================== Chapter 11 Bringing Back The King "Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back?"-- 2 Samuel 19:10. THIS is a part of the story of the Prodigal Son of the Old Testament, excepting that in this Old Testament story the father was driven forth instead of the son, and in this story the son was a thief of the worst character. He had not stolen either silver or gold; his sin was worse than that, for we are told that he had stolen the hearts of the men of Israel from his father. Absalom was the prodigal, and David is the father of whom I speak. A mighty man in many ways, but a perfect illustration of the law that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Absalom did it in this way. "Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate; and it was so, that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him and said, ’Of what city art thou?’ And he said, ’Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.’ And Absalom said unto him, ’See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.’ Absalom said, moreover,’ Oh that I were made judge in the land,’ that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice.’ And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." I. Did it ever occur to you that David in his rejection was a perfect type of Christ in His rejection? If any reader should be afraid of the word "type," I will change it and say he is a perfect "illustration." When David knew that Absalom was in rebellion, he left Jerusalem and all his friends with him. And we read: "David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, ’Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom. Make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword." This was like an experience through which Jesus passed also. When He had spoken those words which we find in John’s Gospel from John 14:1-31, John 15:1-27, John 16:1-33, John 17:1-26, we read that when they had sung a hymn they went out, along the streets of the city, through the gates of the same, and Joseph Parker well says, "There never was such a going out before; there never has been such a going out since." But the illustration is even more perfect, for when David went out he turned to Ittai. "Then said the king to Ittai, the Gittite, ’Wherefore goest thou also with us? Return to thy place, and abide with the king, for thou art a stranger, and also an exile.’ "And Ittai answered the king, and said, ’As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be."’ This was like our Savior, too, for we read that when He had gone a certain distance He turned and said to His disciples these words: "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." But there is still more of the illustration. David in his flight from Absalom passed over the brook Kidron, and went toward the wilderness. "And all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over. The king also himself passed ever the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness." This was exactly the same journey that was made by the Son of God. He too went over the Kidron toward the wilderness, which we know as the Garden of Gethsemane, and there never has been a wilderness in all the world where the shadows were so dense or the darkness so deep as in that same garden. I have heard of a wilderness where the solitude was so intense that men lost their reason as they wandered in it, but it is all as nothing when compared with this Gethsemane experience through which the Son of God passed. But we are not yet at the end of the illustration. We read again: "And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot; and all the people that was with him covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up." Jesus did the same thing. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens tinder her wings, and ye would not !" David had his betrayer, too, and he was found in the company of those who were called his friends, for Ahithophel was one of David’s counselors. "And one told David saying, ’Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.’ And David said, ’O Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness."’ And his end was like the end of the New Testament betrayer: "When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father." How very similar was the experience through which Jesus passed, as we find it recorded in the Gospel of Mark! "And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said: ’Verily I say unto you, one of you which eateth with Me shall betray Me.’ And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto Him one by one, ’Is it I?’ and another, ’Is it I?’ And He answered and said unto them, ’It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with Me in the dish."’ And the end of His betrayer was like that of Ahithophel. "Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, ’I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.’ And they said, ’What is that to us? See thou to that.’ And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself." But there is still more to add. When they were going forth to battle, David the king suddenly hastened after them and calling them back he spoke to them most significant words. "And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, ’Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom.’ And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom." This was very much like the Son of God, for when it was getting dark about the Cross, and His heart-strings were snapping with agony, we read that He said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." There is much more that could be said, but this is enough for the illustration. Now the battle is over and Absalom is dead. Israel and Judah begin to confer as to their future plans. They finally decide to bring the king back. as we find recorded in the verse which I have chosen for my text: "Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back ?" The line of march is begun toward the palace and throne, and as they reached the river’s brink, we read: "There went over a ferry boat to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good." And so the king and his household stepped in. The nation was waiting on the other side to receive them. But of all the persons that saluted him there, the king’s eyes rested on Mephibosheth. All the time David had been gone, he had been inconsolable. "And Mephibosheth, the son of Saul, came down to meet the king, and had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came again in peace. And it came to pass when he was come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said unto him,’ Wherefore wentest not thou with me, Mephibosheth?’ And he answered, ’My lord, O king, my servant deceived me; for thy servant said, I will saddle me an ass, that I may ride thereon, and go to the king; because thy servant is lame. And he hath slandered thy servant unto my lord the king, but my lord the king is as an angel of God; do therefore what is good in thine eyes. For all of my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right therefore have I yet to cry any more unto the king?’ And the king said unto him,’ Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.’ And Mephibosheth said unto the king, ’Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace into his own house." It is a most significant thing to me that when David offered to give this poor lame man an inheritance he utterly refused to receive any of it, because for him it was enough to know that the king had come back; and to my mind this is the way out of all difficulties at the present time. It we could only bring our King back, if we could only put Him upon His rightful throne,if we could only place in His hands the reins of government, we should be of all men most happy. II. Is Jesus Christ a King? I have an idea that very frequently we must grieve the Spirit, and possibly grieve Him of whom the Spirit speaks, by our failure to appreciate His position. Jesus is not yet a King, and if we would know what He is, it is only necessary that we should compare scripture with scripture. This leads me to say that He was first of all a prophet. Now, a prophet is one who gives revelations of things to come. In this respect He perfectly fulfilled His commission. If you read Matthew 13:1-58, and put together the parables of the kingdom, you will find a perfect map or chart of what the church is to be until the end of the age. And if you will add to this the closing chapters of the Gospel of Matthew you will have a perfect account of all that is yet to be. I find in the second place that He is a priest, and as a priest He is now performing His priestly service. "Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God; who also maketh intercession for us." (Romans 8:34.) "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." (Hebrews 2:17-18.) We know exactly where Jesus Christ is now. It is true He is here in spirit, but it is also true that in His glorified body He is standing at this moment at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. In olden times when the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies, he wore a robe which was most beautiful. It was so perfectly wrought that it seemed as if it must have been the work of angels’ fingers. The most remarkable thing about it was the adornment on the hem. It was very curious, being made of pomegranates and golden bells. There was first a pomegranate and then a golden bell, and you will notice that there was just as much fruit as there was sound; and when the high priest entered the holy of Holies, and the children of Israel heard the clashing of the bells, they knew that the high priest was still alive, and the blessing of his intercession was to fall upon them. And we are sure that our high priest ever liveth from the fact that upon us day by day are falling mercies and blessings, the direct result of His incessant intercession. But it is not to be forgotten that He is not only there speaking for us. This would be like the chiming of the golden bells. He is qualified to speak because of what He did for us in this world upon the Cross; and this is like the pomegranates, for it is on the ground of His finished work that He has a right to speak and to intercede. I have read the story of a soldier who lost both arms in battle, and of course was maimed for life. It is said that his brother was arrested for some misdemeanor, and was sentenced to die. Every effort was made to secure his release, but to no effect. Finally the maimed soldier went before the king, and without saying a word that was eloquent, secured the offender’s pardon. All he did was just to lift his maimed arms, and say: "My brother, my brother, release him for the sake of these!" I think it is thus that Christ stands at the right hand of God, lifting the hands that were pierced by the nails, baring the side that was thrust through with the spear, and saying: "My Father, my Father, for the sake of these, pass over their sins." He will be a King. Satan once offered Him a kingdom of this world. He took Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and said unto Him: "All these things will I give Thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Then said Jesus unto him: "Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, ’Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." He put it all behind Him, and I am sure it was for this reason: He did not come into this world to become a king at once, but He came that He might die, and thus provide an expiation for your sins and mine. I am absolutely certain that the day will come when He shall be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David. And He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end." If this be not true, then I do not understand how any other prophecy concerning Him can be of value. III. How, then, may we bring Him back again? First of all, we must want Him. There are very many reasons why I long for Him to come back. I should like Him to come, first, for the sake of the poor Jew, who has gone wandering up and down this world without a king, without a sacrifice, without a prince. The people that have given to the world a Mozart, a Disraeli and a Mendelssohn. But there is a glad time coming for them, according te the word of the Lord, by the prophet Zechariah: "I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them; and they shall be as though I had not cast them off; for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them." I would like Him to come for the sake of the world. Isaiah said: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Paul tells us that the whole world feels the touch of the power of sin. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." His coming shall be in deliverance. Another has said "the day is coming when not only the wants of one family shall be supplied, but all families; and when not only one land shall be redeemed, but all shall be glowing with the glory of God; when not only one nation shall own Him as King, but all nations shall take their place in the kingdom of God. The day is coming when the whole world shall do the will of God. For Him the cables shall flash their messages under the seas, for Him the ships shall sail the ocean on voyages of peace, for Him the manufacturers shall give forth their goods, for Him the mines shall uncover their treasures, for Him steam and electricity shall drive the trains across the land, for Him the schools shall train the minds of millions, for Him the banners of all people shall fly aloft, and for Him the kings of earth shall bow themselves." "Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." But I want Him, in the third place, for the sake of Himself. There must have been something very charming about a man who made little children love Him; who charmed the woman’s heart until she poured out upon Him the box of precious ointment; who held the disciples by the power of His words until their hearts burned within them. I want Him to come that I may see Him face to face. He has been shedding forth precious gifts upon us, His riches of grace purchased on the Cross, and His riches of glory now poured out upon Him in the skies, but we long to see Him. I have heard of a man who won his fortune in California, and kept sending to his family precious gifts. Each year the gifts grew in value, but at last his wife wrote him saying: "We are pleased to have your offerings, but oh, my husband, we long to see you." And it is thus with Christ. I feel like saying: "Oh, Thou blessed Christ of God, we want to behold Thee in all Thy beauty, and if a word will bring Thee back, we will speak it to-day. Come, come, come quickly!" We must not only long for Him to come, but we must work for Him if we would hasten His appearing. In one place in the Scripture the church is called the body of Christ. This must be in its relation to the Spirit of God, for He is the animation of it, and if the Lord would come we must complete this body. Adam had dominion only when the woman was formed, and the Lord will have dominion when the church is completed. In another place the church is called the House of God. This must be in its relation to the Father as a matter of testimony. The house must be builded if He is to come. And in still another place the church is called the Bride. This must be in its relation to the Son of God it is a love relation. But the Bride must be made ready if He is to return. What then remains for us to do? Come with me through the streets of the city until we reach the lowest hovel. Stoop down beside the poor lost wretch, sunken in sin, and whisper in his ear: "My friend, will you accept Jesus Christ ?" Come with me to the house of the richest man in all the city, salute him in his palace, and say: "My friend, will you yield to Christ ?" Then set sail with me until we reach the shores of Africa, and say to those poor souls sitting in darkness: "Will you receive the Son of God?" And if the man in the hovel or in the palace or in the dark continent answers, "Yes," that may be the word that shall bring the King back, for it may be the last man to complete the church. I rejoice to say to you that the day will come when Jesus Christ shall reign! I shall never forget an experience in Cincinnati, listening to the rendering of the Oratorio of the Messiah, with Patti as soprano, Whitney as bass, Theodore Toedt as tenor, and Carey as alto, each supported by hundreds of trained musicians. Just before the "Hallelujah Chorus" there was a death-like stillness over all the throng, and then suddenly the bass singers sang: "For He shall reign forever and ever"; and the alto lifted it a little higher: "For He shall reign forever and ever"; and the tenors, raising it almost to the sky, sang, "For He shall reign forever and ever"; and then the sopranos, as if they were inspired, sang, "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords!" And then as if the angels were there, questioning "How long shall He reign?" with one accord they made one reply, "Forever and ever, forever and ever." And then, as if inspired, the whole choir shouted as with the voice of one man, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" I think it must be a prophecy of that day when from the dark continent the people shall announce: "He shall be King of Kings"; and the voice of Europe shall be added to it, and the shout of America shall give it power, and the deep undertone from Asia shall break out all together, "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 02.12. KADESH-BARNEA AGAIN ======================================================================== Chapter 12 Kadesh-Barnea Again "And we came to Kadeshbarnea." - Deuteronomy 1:19. There is another interpretation of the text than the one given in the earlier part of this book; and while it would not stand as a correct explanation of the Scripture, yet to say the least it is a splendid illustration, and is a striking lesson. When the children of Israel came up to Kadeshbarnea, after the spies had made their report and the land had been wonderfully described, we find the multitudes turning away in despair, and they leave Kadesh-barnea only to fall by the wayside, and be buried in the wilderness, but never again to see the Land of Promise. This is in line with the lessons which may be drawn in such New Testament texts as these-- "One thing thou lackest," "Thou art not far from the Kingdom" "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." But the Old Testament text is more striking, and therefore may be fitly used to give to the unconverted the message of the closing chapter of this book. There was just one thing that kept the children of Israel out of Canaan, and that was their unwillingness to trust God. There is just one thing that keeps you out of the Kingdom, my unconverted reader, and that is your failure to put your trust in the Son of God. I have always had the impression that Kadesh-barnea was a hill or a mountain, and from this point the children of Israel could see the Promised Land. But Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull, who has had the privilege of standing upon the spot, tells me that it is a depressed part of the country, and that if the children of Israel had gone into Canaan, they would have been obliged to cross over a mountain or at least a hill. This makes the illustration all the better, for between every unsaved soul and life there stands a mountain which must be crossed. It is the mountain of an unsurrendered will. But just as when we are traveling in the hill country in the summer days, and we see in the distance what seems to be an insurmountable barrier, and as we push on we find that the hill seems to melt away, and we are over it before we know it, so it is with this unsurrendered will. We simply need to be willing to be saved for God to make the way easy. The saddest thought for the children of Israel must have been that they were so near to Canaan, and after all had failed to enter in. And the saddest thought for many a man in eternity will be that he was so very near to God in the possession of eternal life; one step would have settled it, one word would have saved him; but alas! the step was not taken, the word was not spoken, and he is lost! "So near the door, and the door stood wide, Close to the port, but not inside, Almost resolved to give up sin, Almost persuaded to enter in, Almost resolved to count the cost, Almost a Christian, and yet lost!" There are certain men in the New Testament, who may be described as having come to Kadesh-barnea. I doubt not but the names will come to you in the nature of a surprise, but if we are surprised at the first name, we may be more so at the second, and still more at the third. I. Herod The first man’s name was Herod, and he was a murderer. I do not mean that his hands were red with his brother’s blood, but in the sight of God he was just as guilty as if that had been true. Some reader may ask when Herod was ever at Kadesh-barnea, or almost persuaded. It was at the time John the Baptist was preaching his wonderful sermons as the forerunner of Christ. He was probably the greatest preacher the world has ever produced, and yet he was simply (as he said) "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." In the crowd that listened to his impassioned words was Herod, the king, and Mark tells us: "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly." I feel very sure if you would have gone up to the palace of the king, you would have found him trying to break away from some of his sins; and if ever you behold a man in that condition, you may rest assured that he is under the influence of the Spirit of God. But the trouble with Herod was he wanted to make a compromise with God; he was willing to give up much sin, but not all. And this is an eternal mistake. It is an unconditional surrender which God demands, and no man can ever have life until he reaches the place where he is willing, by God’s help, to forsake every known sin. I used to have an idea that the trouble with men was intellectual, and therefore in the head; I am persuaded in these days that the real difficulty is SIN in the heart. I was holding a series of meetings in a former pastorate, when one evening a man lifted his hand for prayer. One of my elders spoke to him, but came back to me saying that the case was hopeless, for the man was an infidel. I then sent one of the most consistent women to his home, and she came back with the message that she felt sure that he was converted; and we were urged to admit him to the membership of the church. I can see him now as he took his first communion. The second communion he was away, and the third he was still absent; and when I looked him up, I found that he was out of the city, and had been for several weeks. I left a message for him to call upon me, and a few days later he was at my study door. His face was deathly pale, and as he entered the room he looked around in a frightened way, and then asked if any one was within hearing. When I assured him that no one was near, and had turned the key in the door to satisfy him, he came very close to me and said: "When I first saw you, I told you the reason that I could not be a Christian was found in the fact that I was an infidel, and this was partly true. My father was an infidel, and my grandfather before him, and the blood of infidelity courses in my veins; but somehow I got over that. But when I joined the church, I hardly felt that I was a Christian, for there was one sin I would not give up. My wife did not know about it, the best friend I had in the world was ignorant of it. I said, I can serve God, and continue that sin, and still be saved; but I could not. The other night on my knees I asked God to take it away, even if it took my life; and for all of these days I have been free! The peace of God has filled my very soul, and I have never been so happy." Then coming still nearer to me, he bent down and whispered one word to me, and that word was: "MORPHINE." ’That," said he, "was my sin." So in these days I have come to believe with all my heart that if one is just willing to forsake all known sin, by Christ’s help, he may at once be saved. You may come very near to the kingdom of God, and yet the holding of one sin may cause the loss of your soul. Kadesh-barnea is a dangerous place to stop. II. Pilate Strangely enough, Pilate was a murderer too in the sight of God, and yet I have an idea that some reader will ask: "When in the world was ever Pilate at Kadesh-barnea, or almost persuaded?" I think I can make it plain. When Pilate first heard that Jesus was to appear before him in trial, he was prejudiced against Him, and I can imagine he was just longing for the time to come when he could pass sentence upon Him; but when suddenly He appeared before him, hurried on by the crowd about Him, I can see Pilate’s look of wonderment as he caught the first vision of His face, and I can hear him say: "Truly this is no ordinary man." And as he is thus thinking, suddenly a messenger comes from his wife to say: "Have thou nothing to do with this just person, for I have been warned in a dream concerning Him." Then to satisfy himself, I can imagine how Pilate said to Him: "Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?" I can also see him tremble as Jesus gives his the answer. And then comes in the weakness of Pilate, when he turned to the rabble to say: "I will release this Man, for I find no fault in Him, but I will give you Barabbas to be crucified." But they shouted: "Away with Him! let Him be crucified!" Then Pilate’s conviction seems to increase, and he calls for a basin of water, and dipping in his hands, says to the people, "I wash my hands of this whole matter; take ye Him and crucify Him"; and poor Pilate must be trying to free his hands of the blood of the Son of God to-day. Not many years ago there came across the sea a remarkable book, bearing the strange title of "Letters from Hell." The introduction was written by the celebrated preacher, George McDonald. In this book there is a picture of Pilate in the lost world, kneeling down by a running stream, and through an endless period of time, apparently, he seems to be washing his hands. Without lifting his eyes, he keeps on with his difficult task, when some one suddenly touches him and says: "Pilate, what are you doing?" And as he lifts his hands they are red as the blood of the Son of God could make them; and when the other beholds them, with a shriek that echoes and re-echoes through the corridors of the lost world, Pilate exclaims, like one of Shakespeare’s characters: "Will they never be clean? Will they never he clean?" Poor Pilate! they never will. It is not a difficult matter to determine what was the cause of Pilate’s failure to take his stand with Joseph of Arimathea, with Nicodemus and with the faithful everywhere. Pilate had not the courage of his convictions. When he knew that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, it would have been better for him if he had gone himself to be scourged or prostrated himself upon the cross to be crucified. He would have been heroic beyond all others in this. And many a man has lost his soul because of the same weakness. He realizes that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died to save him, but he fails to receive Him and confess Him, because he lacks courage. The old clock in a church steeple in the city of Edinburgh was striking nine o’clock one night when a company of young men were just passing the church on their way to a place of sin. Suddenly one of them stopped and said: "I cannot go with you." When they pressed him for an answer, he said; "When I left my home in the country, my old mother said, ’My boy, you are going to a wicked town, and your temptations will be strong, but your father and I will pray for you without ceasing; and at 9 o’clock every evening we will be on our knees saying, Oh, God, save our boy’; and," said he, "I will not break their hearts." They jeered at him, and mocked him, but he turned back to his room, fell upon his knees and cried out to God, for mercy; and to-day he is not only a Christian, but also one of the leading merchants in Edinburgh. Having the courage of his convictions saved him. Many a man has come to be almost persuaded, but failing in this, he has lost all. Kadesh-barnea is a dangerous place to stop. III. Judas I can easily understand how one would at once exclaim, How was it possible for Judas the traitor to have been "almost persuaded"? but I am certain that it is perfectly natural to suppose that there were times without number when Judas was almost ready to step over the line into the real service of the Son of God. I believe when he heard Jesus Christ preach, and saw Him in His life, a wonderful illustration of all His preaching, he must have said: "I would to God that I were a true disciple." I feel very sure that when he saw Him touch the eyes of the blind man, and bless them first of all with the vision of His own face, he must have said, "Oh, God, if I were only right"; and that is what will make eternity so hard for Judas. He can never forget the face of the Son of God when He said: "One of you shall betray Me." He can never be free from the clinking of the thirty pieces of silver, and throughout eternity his conscience will condemn him. I can imagine his experience to be like that described in the poem: "I sat alone with my conscience In a place where time had ceased, And we talked of my former living In the lands where the years increased. "And I felt I should have to answer The question it put to me, And to face the answer and question Throughout an eternity. "The ghost of forgotten actions Came floating before my sight, And the things I thought were dead things Were alive with a terrible might. "And the vision of all my past life Was an awful thing to face,- Alone with my conscience sitting In that solemn, silent place." We say in this world that we forget, and we think we do. But there is coming a day when God will touch the secret spring of our memory, and say, "Son, remember"; and we will remember our rejection of every offer of mercy, and the lost world will be an awful place. We shall call to memory that we were almost persuaded, and yet lost! If I had made up my mind never to be saved, I should never again hear a sermon preached; I would positively decline to listen to the name of Jesus Christ as it might be spoken; I would flee away from the singing of a Gospel hymn; for we carry into the next world the memories of this, and the time will come when the recollection of all our rejections will cause weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. In one of Mr. Moody’s meetings a man lifted his hand for prayer, and Mr. Moody at once made his way to his side, and said he was glad he was determined to be a Christian; but said the man: "Not so fast, Mr. Moody. Some day I will settle it, but not now." The next time he saw him, he was very ill, and he said, "I would not settle the question now, for they would say I was frightened into being a Christian." His next interview with him was when he was convalescent, and he said, "I am going to move into another State, and when I have new friends I will be sure to become a Christian." The next word that came to him was to the effect that he had suffered a relapse, and was dying. Mr. Moody says he went to his home, and tried his best to talk to him, but it was useless. He said that it was ’’too late,’’ and when he was told that the thief on the cross came at the last hour, he said, "Ah, yes, but he had never heard of Jesus until then, and I have always known about Him." And when he was told that the eleventh hour was not too late to repent, he replied, "This is the twelfth, and it is too late!" and while prayer was being offered for him, he passed away with the heart-breaking expression: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved!" Mr. Moody said: "We wrapped him in a Christless shroud, we put him in a Christless coffin, we bore him to a Christless tomb, he went into a Christless eternity." Kadesh-barnea, and LOST! Felix and Agrippa Before these two men the Apostle Paul stood and told the story of his remarkable conversion; as he pleaded with them, filled as he was with the power of God, it is said that Felix "trembled"; and as the apostle continued to plead on, he turned to him to say: "Go thy way for this time. When I have a more convenient season, I will call for thee." I used to have an idea that he never had that convenient season again, but this is not true. There was another time when the apostle stood before him, pleading with all the power of God; but the second appeal was absolutely powerless in its influence upon him, and he heard it without even trembling for a moment. It is a dangerous thing for any one, when he is moved by the Spirit of God, to resist; and if today there is one single particle of desire in your heart to be a Christian, in the name of God I beseech you and encourage you. It is said that during a revival at Princeton College, Aaron Burr went to the president of the college to say that he was almost persuaded to be a Christian, and asked the president’s advice as to what he should do. "Well," said the president, "if I were you, I would wait until the excitement was over and then come." Aaron Burr bowed his head for a moment, and replied, "That is what I shall do"; and it is said that never again did he have the desire to be a Christian. Whether this story is true or not, the principle is true, and may God keep you from resisting the Spirit of God! Agrippa was certainly at Kadesh-barnea. I know there are those who say that when he said, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," he was speaking in irony; but I never could understand that, for if Paul stood before us today with his hands manacled, and his feet chained, and if he should appear to us as he did to Agrippa, and step forward with uplifted hands, saying, "King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets?" I think the most natural thing would be to exclaim, "Almost thou persuadest me." But Agrippa never entered into life, and Kadesh-barnea is still to be lost. "Almost persuaded! harvest is past, Almost persuaded! doom comes at last. ’Almost’ cannot avail; ’almost’ is sure to fail. Sad, sad, that bitter wail. ’Almost, but LOST!’" The "Royal Charter" had been around the world. A magnificent ship she was. She had touched at every important port, and was homeward bound. She had arrived at Queenstown, and a message was received that she would touch her dock at Liverpool the next morning. One of the members of my church told me he waited on the dock all night to see her come in. The Lord Mayor of London was there, and the Lord Mayor of Liverpool. Bands of musicians and thousands of people waited to give her a welcome home. But the "Royal Charter" went down in the night time between Queenstown and Liverpool, losing almost all on board. The wife of the first mate was a member of Dr. Wm. M. Taylor’s church in Liverpool, and he was told that he must tell her that her husband was lost. He said that he felt like an executioner when he reached the cottage where they lived. He touched the door bell, and a bright-faced, sunny-haired little girl sprang out and said: "Oh, Dr. Taylor, I thought it was my papa. He is coming home to-day!" "When I stepped into the house," said Dr. Taylor, "I found the breakfast-table spread in the sitting-room, and the wife of the first mate came forward and said: "’Dr. Taylor, you must excuse us for having the table here and at this hour, but you know my husband is coming home to-day, and if you will stay, it will make the day like heaven.’ "I took both her hands in mine," said Dr. Taylor, "and held them for a moment, and then said, ’My poor woman, the "Royal Charter" went down last night, and your husband was lost, and can never come home again.’" She looked at him just a moment, and then as she drew away her hands, she shrieked out: "Oh, my God, so near home, and yet lost!" I have known men nearer than that. Between them and eternal life was just one word, and they would not speak it; between them and hope there was just a line, and they would not cross it. Kadesh-barnea is a dangerous place to stop. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 03.00. AND PETER ======================================================================== And Peter By J. Wilbur Chapman Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1 - The Prodigal’s Father Chapter 2 - No Difference Chapter 3 - "And Peter" Chapter 4 - Stoning Jesus Chapter 5 - The Upper and the Nether Springs Chapter 6 - Live in the Sunshine Chapter 7 - The Secret of His Presence Chapter 8 - "And the Twelve Gates Were Twelve Pearls" PREFACE Ordinarily a book like this should take its name from the first chapter of its contents. But Peter is such a favorite of mine that I take the liberty of writing his name at the top of the page. Next to the Lord Jesus, of all whose names are mentioned in the New Testament, I long to see Peter. The sermons are sent forth with the great desire that they may be for His glory, "whom having not seen," I have loved. They have been kindly spoken of in many cities. That they may in some little way comfort the comfortless, strengthen the weak, and "by all means save some," is my earnest prayer. J. Wilbur Chapman ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 03.01. THE PRODIGAL'S FATHER ======================================================================== Chapter 1 - The Prodigal’s Father "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.. and had compassion, and ran.. and kissed him.. and said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it" (Luke 15:20-23). Of making many sermons on the prodigal son, there seems to have been no end. Yet I was in the ministry fifteen years before I preached from any part of the parable. There may be many reasons why, as a rule, we turn away from it. It may be that the picture is too realistic. I was standing in the prison chapel at Joliet, Illinois, when a request was made that I should conduct a service for the convicts. Just as I was leaving the building the officer said to me, "By the way, if you should come, do not preach upon any part of the prodigal. We have had twenty-four ministers here by actual count, and every one of them gave us the prodigal son, and these poor fellows have had about as much prodigal as they can stand." It may also be that we have turned away from it because it is such familiar ground that it has lost its charm for us. I was sweeping through the magnificent Rocky Mountain scenery some time ago, and when we had plunged into the Royal Gorge, and later swung into the Grand Canon, it seemed to me that scenery more sublime could not be found in all the world, and if I had never been impressed before with the existence of God, I should have cried out unto Him in the midst of those mountain peaks. I noticed that every one in the car, with one single exception, was gazing in rapt admiration. This one woman was intently reading a book, and to my certain knowledge, she did not lift her eyes once from the printed page while we were in that wonderful scenery. When we had swung out into the great table land, I overheard her say to a friend, "This is the thirteenth time I have crossed the mountains. The first time I could not keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks, so impressed was I, but now," she said, "I know it so well that I frequently go through the whole range with scarcely a glance cast out the window." It is thus, alas! that we read God’s Word, and that which fills Heaven with wonder, and furnishes the angels a theme for never-ending praise, we read with indifference or fail to read at all. And yet my own confession is that I never have had, until recently, the best of this story of the prodigal. I thought it was to give us a vision of the younger son, and as such it would be a message to backsliders; and while this is one part of the interpretation it is not by any means the best part. Then it occurred to me the story might have been given us that we should take warning from the selfishness of the elder brother; but I conceived such a dislike for this character that I never cared to consider him even for a moment. But it has in these later days become to me one of the sweetest portions of all the New Testament because I believe the parable was written that we might fasten our eyes upon the father of the parable and in that father get a glimpse of God. It may be interesting to know how this sermon was born. I was sitting in my room in the Dennison Hotel, in Indianapolis, in November, 1894, looking into the face of my friend, E. P. Brown, the editor of the "Ram’s Horn." I had known him in the days of his infidelity and had feared him because of his bitterness. I had heard him in some of his violent outbreaks against God and the truth, and this was the first privilege I had had of any extended conversation with him since his remarkable conversion, under Mr. Moody’s preaching in his own church in Chicago, when the theme was the father of this prodigal. I had heard repeated accounts of the conversion, and so I said to him, "Tell me, if you will, how you found Christ." To my amazement he said, "I think I was born again when I was eighteen years of age." This to me was startling; for a more violent infidel I had never known than this man in the days that were past. But said he, "I do not mean that I was born into the kingdom of God, but rather into the conception that my father loved me. To this thought I had always been a stranger, and that," said he, "was the beginning of a remarkable series of events all of which culminated in my conversion." Then he told me this story. A Father’s Love "I was a wayward boy, and did many things that caused my father much anguish of heart, because I did not know that he was my friend. We never were near together. There was no communion of love between us, and the thought that I was anything to him never entered my mind; and so, when only a boy, I took my destiny into my own hands and ran away. Just as I was coming into manhood I was taken sick, and out of sheer necessity I was obliged to turn my face toward father’s house, for I had been prodigal with my earnings, and had saved nothing for the time of need. There was no other friendly roof to which I could look for shelter, and so I had to go back home. I was given a friendly welcome, but in a few days I repented to the bottom of my soul that I had come. My father was very poor, and was himself just convalescing from a long illness. Every dollar that he earned cost him the most laborious effort and continual pain. I found that there was not bread for all, and to spare, but only a few crumbs for each. There was famine and want and hardship of which I had not dreamed, and the bread I took from my poor father’s table almost choked me, for it seemed to have the taste of blood upon it. It was agony to stay there and be a burden upon my parents, and I could not endure it, It would be better, I thought, to go out and die in the highway rather than live by eating bread which cost so much. And so after I had gained some strength I told father I would have to go. He begged me to stay, and said that times would surely brighten up soon, but I couldn’t do it; I had to go. "When he saw that I was determined not to stay, his face took on the saddest look I had ever seen him have, as he took his hat and cane to walk a short distance with me. We walked on slowly and almost silently together for perhaps a half a mile, when my father grew so weary he said he would have to go back. My parting with him at that time is one of the sad scenes in my life I never can forget. As he took me by the hand he said, with a voice trembling with emotion, "’I never wanted to be rich before, my boy, as I do today. God knows it almost kills me to see you leaving home because your father is so poor. Don’t go, my son; don’t go. Come back with me, and help will surely come from somewhere. I can’t bear to see you go in this way while you are still almost sick. You may die from want. Come back! As long as we have a crust there is a part of it for you, and while we have a roof over us there is no need for you to be without a home.’ "But when he saw that my mind was fixed, and that nothing he could say would induce me to change my decision, he said, oh, how sadly - "’Good-by! good-by! God bless you. If we never meet in this life again, I hope we’ll meet in Heaven.’ "And then as he softly and reluctantly let go of my hand, he turned and started to go home, but he only took a step or two and then stopped and spoke my name, and as he did so I turned, and as my father also turned toward me I saw a tear leave his eye and wind down his cheek. It was the first tear I had ever seen my father shed for me. As he stepped forward he put his hand into his pocket and took out something. The next instant he pressed a fifty-cent piece into my hand and then turned, without another word, and walked away. "I watched him as far as I could see him, with something in my heart that had never been there before, and then went on my way happier than I had ever been in all my life, for now I knew that father loved me, and the moment I knew it I also loved him. When he gave me that fifty-cent piece, I knew what it meant. I knew that it was every cent he had on earth, and I knew what great pain and labor it had cost. It was all that he could do for me, and in the gift I saw my father’s heart. I knew that he would have given me a fortune just as gladly, had it been his to give, and as I realized this, I repented that I had ever caused him a single anxious thought. I would have given anything just then to have blotted out the past. I resolved that from that day I would be a different son to him, and thank God I was. I went out into the cold and snow that morning better and stronger and braver than I had ever been before, because I knew at last that my father loved me. It was cold and cheerless outside, but warm and bright within. All day long something seemed to be singing in my heart -- "Father loves me! Father loves me!" All my life I had been hungering for just such a moment as this. It was a great turning point in my life. From that hour father was first in all my thoughts and all my plans. I determined that day that I would live for him, that I would live to help him in the hard battle he had to fight with the world. My first aim in life would be to make life easier for him, and from that hour I never consciously caused him another pang. One of the things for which I am most grateful to God today is, that He put it in my power to place father and mother in their own home, and during several of the last years of their lives relieve them from all temporal care. "The change in my life as a son was caused by the change in my belief in regard to my father. There was no change in him. He had always loved me just as much as he did on the morning when I discovered the state of his heart, but I had not believed that he did, and so I had behaved accordingly. When my belief changed my conduct changed. I suppose that father had always been anxious that I should know that he loved me, and had no doubt been trying in hundreds of ways to make the fact known to me, just as God has always been trying to make known His love to sinful man; but until the moment came when he could make the sacrifice for me, there was no way under heaven by which he could show me his heart. My extremity was his opportunity. "And so," he said, "when I heard Mr. Moody preach his wonderful sermon on the father in this story I said to myself, ’If God is like that, I want to know Him.’" This in brief was the story of his conversion. Did it ever occur to you that in the pictures of the fathers of the Bible you were always given a vision of one part of the nature of God? Jacob crying out, "Me ye have bereft of my children: Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and now you will take Benjamin from me," is an illustration of God crying out in His great tenderness over the lost. David exclaiming, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son l would God I had died for thee," is just a hint as to the way God feels over His own lost ones for whom His Son has really died. And yet better than any picture of a father as the revelation of God is the life of the Son of God from whose lips we have heard these words, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." But putting all these things together, and in the light of them reading the story of the prodigal, our hearts burn within us as we see God. "But When He Was Yet A Great Way Off" These words must have a wonderful meaning, for the measurement is from God’s standpoint. It would be an awful thing to be a great way off according to man’s conception, but when it is the computation of One who is infinite we are startled; and yet our amazement gives way instantly to adoration, for we are told that even if we are so great a distance from Him we are not to be discouraged. In Acts 2:39, we read that the promise is unto "all that are afar off," and in Ephesians 2:13, Ephesians 2:17, we are told that "Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ," and that Jesus Christ "came and preached peace to you which were afar off," as well as to them that were nigh. It never is any question with God as to how deeply one has sinned. It is a remarkable thing that throughout the whole Bible He has ever chosen the most conspicuous sins and the most flagrant sinners that He might present to us His willingness to forgive. God requires but three things if we would know Him in this way. First, there must be a willing mind. In Isaiah 1:19, we read, "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land." In another place we read, "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted for what a man hath and not for what he hath not." In still another place we are told, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." God Himself, infinite though He may be, will not save us against our wills. Second, there must be a desire to know the truth that we may do it. Mere knowledge of the truth may be our condemnation, and it is the saddest thing in the world that so many people know and yet are unwilling to do. It will be an awful judgment which must finally fall upon the rank and file of men because all their lives they lived under the shadow of the church and heard the preaching of the Word, all of which condemns them. The third requirement is an honest confession of one’s intentions. God never gives to one more light than he uses, but if there is in the heart a single desire, however faint, to know Him, and that desire is confessed before men and unto God, He enlarges our vision, sheds upon us more abundant light, and it is always by the way of confession that we enter into the fullness of joy. "His Father Saw Him" Mr. Moody says that that father was looking through the telescope of his love. I have always felt that he was looking through his tears. It is said that when astronomers want to increase the scope of their vision they add to the number of lenses, and sometimes our falling tears are like the lenses in the telescope. They bring objects far removed nigh unto us. But what a comfort it is to know that the Great Father of us all looks after us with a pity that is infinite, and with a sympathy that is beyond conception. The vision of the father of the prodigal was limited, but God’s eye sweeps through all space, and He sees us wherever we are. He can even behold our thoughts, and when you bowed your head and said, "I ought to come," and partly lifted your hand as an expression of your intention, or started to rise that you might make public your confession, He saw you and was ready to run to meet you. This is all that he requires on your part. He is ready to do all the rest. It is said that Dr. Rainsford, of England, in one of the Northfield conferences at one time related the story of an old friend of his, a German professor, who was an agnostic; and as you know the creed of the agnostic is simply, "I do not know." This old professor came to visit Dr. Rainsford and went with him to all the services of his church. When the day was ended the rector said to him, "Professor, tell me what you think of it all." His answer was, "It is beautiful, but that is all I can say." Then Dr. Rainsford put to him these questions: First, "Do you not think that it is possible that there may be a God?" and the old professor said, "Yes, possible." Second, "Then do you not think that it is probable that God has made a revelation of Himself to His creatures?" and his friend answered, "Yes, probable." Third, "Well, do you not think," said he, "that He would make that revelation plain if we were to ask Him?" and the old professor answered, "I should think He would be obliged to." "Well," said Dr. Rainsford, "have you ever asked Him?" and the old man answered, "No." "For my sake," said he, "will you ask Him now?" and they fell upon their knees in the study, and the old minister said, "Lord God, reveal Thyself unto my dear friend." When his prayer was ended he said, "Now, Professor, you pray," and the old man lifted his eyes and said, "O, God," and then as if he felt he had gone too far, he changed his petition, and said, "O, God, if there be a God, show me the light and I will "and he was just going on to say, "I will walk in it," when suddenly he sprang to his feet with his face radiant and shouted, "Why, I see it, I see it, and it is glorious!" His agnosticism took wings and departed from him. Faith filled his heart and joy thrilled in his soul. He has from that time to this been a good disciple of Jesus Christ. In the light of all this I make the plea; only encourage your least desire, and you shall come to know Him whom to know is life eternal. "He Had Compassion And Ran" I never knew until recently what that word "compassion" meant. I know now that it indicates one’s suffering with another. It is this that makes the story of a man’s transgression so pathetic. Other hearts are made to ache and almost break. Other eyes are filled with tears and other lives made desolate. I can see this old father going up to the outlook from his home gazing off in the direction which his boy had taken, coming down the steps again like David of old crying out, "Oh, my son, my son, would God I had died for you!" He had compassion. We had in our city a young man who was more than ordinarily prosperous in his business, and his prosperity seemed to be the cause of his downfall. It became so marked that his partners called him into their office to say that he must either mend his ways or dispose of his interests in the concern. His promises were good, and all went well for a little season, and then when the failure was worse than ever they insisted that he should dispose of his interests to them, and with a great sum of money he began to sink rapidly. He had gone from bad to worse until not long ago they found him floating in the river, for he had taken his own life. The story is sad in the extreme, but the saddest portion of it is found in the fact that there is an old man today going about the streets of the city mourning for his son. He scarcely lifts his eyes from the ground as he walks. Sometimes you behold him with the tears rolling down his cheeks. He has compassion. And it is a fact that one never sins, breaking even the least of God’s commandments, that the heart of the great and loving Father does not yearn over him and long for his return. What Did He Do? We all know this story so thoroughly well that it would seem almost unnecessary to emphasize things the father did when the meeting between himself and his son occurred, but for the sake of the story let me say: First, "he kissed him." You will notice that he did not wait until the boy’s garments had been changed, or the signs of his wanderings removed. There would have been no grace in this. But clad in all his rags, he threw his arms about him and drew him close against his heart, and gave him the kiss which was the sign of complete reconciliation. This is what Jesus Christ waits to give to every wandering soul. The old hymn says, "My God is reconciled," and this is the teaching of the Scriptures. It is not necessary that I should work myself up into a fever of excitement, nor weep and wail in the depths of my despair, but it is necessary only that I should receive what God offers me in Jesus Christ. The first step in the Christian life is an acceptance of that which comes from above. We had in Philadelphia a young man belonging to one of the better families, so-called, who by his wayward actions disgraced his father and finally broke his heart. After a little he left his home, went to Baltimore, from there to Washington, and after months of wandering determined to return. He was ashamed to meet the members of his family, but he knew that if he made a peculiar sound at the door at the midnight hour, there was one who would hear and understand; and when he stood before that door it was swung open and without a word of reproach his mother bade him welcome. The next morning he did not come down from his room, the second morning he was ashamed to come, but the third morning as he descended the stairway, his brother, a physician, met him and said, "Edward, mother is dying." She had been suddenly stricken down and was anxious to see him. He made his way into her room, knelt beside her bed and sobbed out, "Oh, mother, I beseech you forgive me!" and with her last departing strength she drew close to him, placed her lips close to his ear, and said, "My dear boy, I would have forgiven you long ago if you had only accepted it." This is a picture of God. With a love that is infinite, and a pity beyond description, He waits to save every one who will but simply receive His gift of life. Second, I have always imagined that when the father started out from the house running to meet his boy, that the servants must have noticed him, and possibly they ran after him. When the father saw the condition of the son, I can hear him as he turned to the approaching servants to say, "Run, bring the best robe and put it on him"; and it is a beautiful thing to me to know that when they brought the robe the father wrapped it round about him, thus covering over all the signs of his wanderings. This is what God does for me and for you. The moment we believe, the robe of Christ’s righteousness is placed about us, and God looks upon us as without spot or blemish, for we are at once accepted in the beloved. I remember that when Jonathan was dead and David wanted to do something for some one that belonged to him, the only one he could find upon whom he might lavish his affection was poor, little, lame Mephibosheth. He was lame on both his feet, you will remember, (his nurse had dropped him as she was fleeing away from the enemy), but when David found him he placed him at the king’s table and in such a position that his lameness was hidden; and if you had been on the opposite side from him you never would have known that he had a mark of deformity about him. This is what God does for every poor, wandering, lost one that comes to Him. "I, even I, am He that blotteth out all thy transgressions, and I will remember them against you no more forever." Third, he put the ring on his hand. The ring is always the emblem for completeness. And this was a beautiful illustration of the fact that the father’s love was perfect, and that this love had not been affected by the wanderings of the boy. This is certainly true of God, and I know no better figure to give a thought of His love than that of the ring. "For the love of God is broader than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind." Fourth, he put shoes on his feet. I can see the poor boy as he hobbles on to meet his father, his feet bleeding at every step, for the shoes were worn and he walked with difficulty; but when he was well shod with shoes from the king’s house, I can see him taking the hand of the old father and running back to his home. One of the commonest excuses presented by men for not yielding to Christ is the fear that they may not hold out, but to me it is comforting to know that the moment we are saved He puts shoes on our feet and that we are shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. Mr. Sankey tells the story of his boy who was with him, when a little fellow, in Scotland, and for the first time he possessed what in that country is known as a top coat. They were walking out one cold day, and the way was slippery. The little fellow’s hands were deep down in his pockets. His father said to him, "My son, you had better let me take your hand," but he said you never could persuade a boy with a new top coat to take his hands from his pockets. They reached a slippery place and the boy had a hard fall. Then his pride began to depart and he said, "I will take your hand," and he reached up and clasped his father’s hand the best he could. When a second slippery place was reached, the clasp was broken and the second fall was harder than the first. Then all his pride was gone, and raising his little hand he said, "You may take it now"; and his father said, "I clasped it round about with my great hand and we continued our walk; and when we reached the slippery places," said he, "the little feet would start to go and I would hold him up." This is a picture for the Christian. I am saved not so much because I have hold of God as because God has hold of me, and He not only gives me shoes with which I may walk and which never wear out, but Christ holds my hand in His, and I shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck me out of His hand; and His Father is greater, and no man shall ever pluck me out of His Father’s hand; and so between the hand of God and the hand of Christ I am secure. "And They Killed For Him The Fatted Calf" I can see the old father as he runs from home to home exclaiming, "Come in and rejoice with me, for my boy was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found," and they begin to be merry. One can never have the fatted calf killed for him but once, but one of the delightful things about the Christian life is that we may repeatedly sit down to enjoy the feast for others, and it is thrilling to know that we never have a time of feasting here that they do not have a time of rejoicing in Heaven, "For there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." At the close of a meeting in Joliet, Illinois, I sat down beside an honored evangelist, Rev. H. W. Brown, and among other things in his career, he told me this story. A number of years before he had a remarkable work of grace in the lake region of Wisconsin in that town of the strange name, Oconomowoc. After his work of grace he returned one day for a little visit, and as he stepped off from the cars he saw at the station an old man named James Stewart. Knowing him well, he asked him why he was there. The old man replied that his boy had gone away from home, and had said to him, "Father, I will return some day, but I can not tell when," and said he, "I am waiting for him to come back." Strange as it may seem, thirteen years afterward he revisited that old town, and the first man he saw when getting off from the cars was this old father. He had forgotten his story, but he met him, saying, "Mr. Brown, he hasn’t come yet, but he will come, and I am waiting." "Just then," said my friend, "I lifted up my eyes and saw one walking down the aisle of the car, and said to myself, If I was not sure that the boy was dead, I would say that that was the son." But other eyes had seen him too, and with a great bound the old father sprang to the steps of the car, and when the boy reached the platform, in less time than I can tell it, he was in his father’s arms. The old father sobbed out, "Oh, my son, thank God, you’ve come, you’ve come"; and then, turning to my friend, he said, "Mr. Brown, I should have waited until I died." Thus God waits, and looks and yearns and loves. Thus Jesus Christ entreats us to look unto Him, and be saved, and in His name I bid you come. "Thy sins I bore on Calvary’s tree, The stripes, thy due, were laid on Me, That peace and pardon might be free, Oh, weary sinner, come! Go leave thy burden at the cross, Count all thy gains but empty dross, My grace repays all earthly loss, Oh, needy sinner, come!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 03.02. NO DIFFERENCE ======================================================================== Chapter 2 - No Difference "For there is no difference" (Romans 3:22). This is one of the most difficult statements to receive in all the Bible, and I can well understand how the unregenerate man would resent its application. I cart hear him say, "What! no difference between the man who has fallen to the very lowest depths of sin and wretchedness, and the man who, boasting of his morality, has swerved only a little from the path of duty and the law of God?" And the answer to this question is both "yes" and "no." There is a difference in heinousness and degradation wide as the poles; but "no difference" so far as guilt is concerned, for both have rejected the Son of God, and this is the sin of sins. If two men were before the court, one charged with a great offense and the other with one of less degree, it would profit the latter man but little to say, "But, your Honor, I am not so great an offender as my companion in misery." The judge might well reply "’You are both guilty; in that ’there is no difference,’" and this is the teaching of my text. God’s Word declares -- "He that offends in one point is guilty of all"; not meaning, of course, that he has of necessity broken every law, but he has broken away from God by his transgression. If I am held a prisoner by a chain, it is not necessary that I should break every link in the chain that I might go free, but only one and that the very weakest; and so he that offends in one point is guilty of all and nothing less, while he that offends in all points is guilty of all and nothing more. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Three important questions grow out of this text as I have considered it. First, I do not ask if you are a sinner, for as we ordinarily use this word, we think of one who is lawless, wild and profane. But I ask: Have You Offended In One Single Point? If so, "There is no difference." Man would not say it, I know; but God says it, and it is written in the Book, and by the Book we shall be judged. Look at the prodigal. He was as truly a prodigal when he had taken the first step over the threshold of his father’s house, as when afterward you see him sitting in the midst of the swine, and trying to fill his belly with husks which the swine did eat. He is more degraded in the second picture, but not more guilty. Look at the leper. He is just as truly dead when the first sign of the dread disease appears, small though it may be, as when afterward you behold him, a loathsome object, sitting outside the city gates, with bandaged mouth, crying "Unclean! Unclean!" He was a leper, however, from the first, and by the law dead. This is the teaching of the text. If you have rejected the Son of God, whatever your position, "There is no difference" -- all are alike lost. It is not even a question of great sin. Many a man might plead "not guilty" if such a charge were made; but first of all Secret Sins. 1. There is a text which declares "our secret sins in the light of His countenance," and another reads that "All things are naked and open before Him with whom we have to do." In the light of this, who can stand? Not long ago in one of the school buildings of Chicago a picture of an eye was placed upon the blackboard as an illustration, and in a little time by order of the school board it was painted out, for it had been so perfectly painted that whatever position a child might be in, in the room, that eye was upon it. The effect was disastrous. But there is one eye which never slumbers and can never be painted out. "Thou God seest me." The sin was at midnight. He saw it. It was in New York or London or Paris. He saw it. Thus to the charge of "secret sin" you must plead guilty, and "there is no difference." Sinful Thoughts 2. But the charge is even closer. We are responsible for the sinful thought which tarries in the mind by the consent of our will. Who can stand in the light of this? A distinguished scientist has made the statement, which wise men receive, that if a man stands out in the sunlight and acts, his act, good or bad, flashes away to the sun and a picture which is never lost is made. And if he speaks, the sound bounds away, up and up, far beyond his reach, and makes its record forever. And if he refuses to step into the light, or in the darkness speak a word, this scientist declares that by the very thoughts of his mind certain physical disturbances occur which make a record lasting as time. I remember sending a telegram in a western city, and shortly after realizing that my message had been wrong, I made my way to the office to recall it. "Why," said the operator, with a smile, "it is gone, and is flashing over the wires now, beyond my recall." So with your sinful thoughts. They bound away, and no man can recall them when once they go. The answer to this charge must be -- "guilty." Beginning In Sin 3. Some are beginning Now. Held by the fascination of the evil one, and lured on by his charms, they are rushing on to hell. On one of the busiest streets of the gay city of Paris stands a building famous for its beauty. Over the magnificent doorway you may read these words, "Nothing to pay." The admission is free, the entertainment within is fascinating, and hundreds of young men pass through the portals, the rank and file of them taking their first or last step to hell. All sin is dearly bought, for it has hell back of it. It blights the life, wrecks the character, and blasts the fondest hopes of the soul. And when that awful day comes, and situation is gone, and character lost, and the hearts of loved ones broken, and you are cast a stranded wreck on the shores of time, you will cry out in terror, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me" -and there will be no deliverance. You will be more degraded than but not more guilty than now, for the chiefest of sins is the sin of unbelief, and that was the cause of your downfall. "There is no difference." God pity you. Do you know the Bible description of the end of a career of sin from the world-standpoint? "Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth." "Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore-mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." God save us from such a company. A minister could never lead a man to serious thought until he quoted the text: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Great sin, humanly speaking, is not necessary, but only forget Him and "There is no difference." If you have read that remarkable book, "Robert Falconer," written by George MacDonald, you will remember the dream of the wife of Andrew Falconer. He was a drunkard and after her death, the dream being told him, resulted in his conversion. She said in her letter, which she had written him: "I thought, Andrew, that the resurrection morn had come, and I was looking everywhere for you. Finally in my wanderings, I came to a great abyss. It was not so very wide, but it was very deep and was filled with blue, like the blue of the sky. On the other side I saw you, Andrew, and I gave a shriek which all the universe must have heard. Something made me look around. Then I saw One coming toward me. He had a face -- Oh, such a face! fairer than all the sons of men; He had on a garment which came down to His feet; and as He walked toward me, I saw in His feet the print of the nails. Then I knew who He was. I fell at His feet and cried, ’O Lord, Andrew, Andrew.’ ’Daughter, would you go to him?’ I said, ’Yes, Lord.’ And, Andrew, He took me by the hand, and led out over the abyss, and we came nearer and nearer, until at last we were united, and then He led us back to be with Him forever." Oh, my friends, not in the next world, if not in this, but here and now we may be made one in Him, one for time and eternity; but failing here, all hope is gone and there is before us only the blackness of darkness of despair. "For there is no difference." The second question is of the greatest importance: Do You Come Up To God’s Standard? It is not enough to be simply a member of the church. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils? and I will profess unto them, I never knew you." We have such a way of measuring ourselves by ourselves that we may feel well satisfied with the result. But how about God’s standard? Upon my return home at one time, my wife placed in my hands a piece of paper, written all over, but only two words were intelligible. At the top of the page was the word ’carriage’ plainly written, the next word was the same, only not so well written. It was my little daughter’s first copy-book. The teacher had written the word at the top of the line, and she had done fairly well so long as she had looked at the copy. But she had fallen into the serious error of cowing the line just above her work, and the word at the bottom of the page as nearly spelled "man" as "carriage." Thus people measure themselves by those around them, forgetting that He said -- "Look unto me and be ye saved." You may be better than the members of the church; but what doth it profit? You may be the best man in your community, but that does not save. How about God’s standard? Her Majesty, the Queen, issues frequently, I am told, an order for soldiers to compose her guard. Every man must be at least six feet tall. I can imagine some young Englishmen measuring themselves by themselves, until at last one man in great delight exclaims, "I will surely get in for I am the tallest man in town." And so he is; but when he stands before her Majesty’s officer, he is rejected, for he is three-quarters of an inch under the mark. His being taller than his friends profited nothing; they had all fallen short; some more, some less. But "there was no difference." And if you turn my question in upon myself, I confess that I do fully come up to the high standard of God; not in myself in any way, far from it -- but in Christ; for "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," and wherein I fail, He makes up. It is no point as to whether Adam or Eve were the more sinful; they were both guilty, and "there is no difference." The chiefest of all sins is not drunkenness, although that is horrible; it is not licentiousness, although that is vile; it is the rejection of God’s mercy -- or the sin of unbelief. "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:18. And whosoever he be among you -- sinner, either great or small, if he fail here, he stands with the condemned, and "there is no difference." The third and last important question is this: What Is The Remedy? There is another "no difference" which answers the question. "For there is no difference... for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:12-13. 1. It is useless to try by any amount of exertion, or feeling, or even prayer, to bring about faith. I have had my own experience in this. God says in His Word, "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." This is a sure way. A college student was greatly troubled spiritually, and was in conference with one of the professors until midnight. Just as he was leaving the house, going out into the darkness, the professor placed in his hands a lantern, saying: "Take it, George, it will light you home a step at a time." And this is what the Bible does. That lantern did not light up the forests, nor make luminous the landscape; it was not meant that it should; but it made every step bright. Man was lost by hearing Satan. He can only be saved by hearing God. Plant your feet firmly by faith on one single promise, and God will begin at once to make clear the way if you will only believe Him. 2. To the Philippian jailer’s question, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul’s answer was, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And there is no respecting of persons, for "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." A friend of mine told me that when he climbed the Matterhorn, he was besieged by men, waiting at the base of the mountain, ready to guide him up the difficult way; but the most of them would have never brought him down in safety, for they were simply men out of employment. He very easily, however, secured a safe guide when he said, "Show me your papers." Then the men who were without them stepped back, while the real guides stepped forward and holding out their papers he read something like this: "We, the undersigned, have climbed the Matterhorn under the care of such a guide, (giving his name), and we commend him to our friends" -- and then followed the names of people of great renown at home and abroad, a member of Parliament, a member of Congress, and your personal friend; and my friend at once felt secure because others had made the trip in safety. It is like that when under condemnation you ask, "What must I do?" Infidelity attempts an answer; Philosophy makes a vain effort to reply; and Jesus Christ the Son of God comes with the rest. Let me suggest to you the real test. Ask them each, "What have you done?" Demand of each that their papers be shown. Then will He come whose garments are dyed red, whose hands were pierced, and whose heart was broken, who died and rose again that He might become the justifier of all them that believe; and on the very palms of His hands you read the names, John Bunyan, John Newton, Jerry McAuley, and brighter than them all-Charles Haddon Spurgeon. "He hath saved us, and kept us, and in His presence we rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory." And this is enough -- I for one will say, "Blessed Lord, if Thou canst save others, and I know that Thou canst, Thou canst save me; and I will let Thee do it now." Will you join me in this now? 3. To sum it all up, if you would escape condemnation you need simply to Have A Willing Mind About Salvation. Then by faith accept what He in grace offers you. I have heard Christian workers say to earnest inquirers, "Give your heart to God, and you may be saved." But this is unscriptural at least the order is wrong. Accept first the gift of eternal life, then give yourself, out of gratitude for His goodness. The first saves you; the second is the first-fruit of your salvation. When William Dawson, the celebrated street preacher, was conducting a street meeting in London, he was told of a young man who in a neighboring house was dying. He climbed the rickety stairway, and stood by the bedside of a young man, a victim of consumption, and just nearing eternity. He found that he was the son of wealthy parents, but that his father had cast him off because of his sin. When William Dawson said he would intercede with the father in behalf of the son, the boy said it would be useless, for the father had long ago cast him off. And it almost seemed that he was right, for when Mr. Dawson entered the spacious mansion, and mentioned the boy’s name, the father said, "If you have come, sir, to talk of that scapegrace, I shall ask you to leave. He is no son of mine." "Well, sir," said the preacher, "he will not be here long to trouble you, for I left him dying." In a moment the man’s whole attitude had changed. "Is he sick?" he said "Is Joseph ill? then take me to him." And soon he was on his knees by the side of the dying boy, his arms about him, and his head pillowed on his breast. All the boy could say was, "Father, can you forgive me?" and the strong man could only sob, "O Joseph, my son, my son; I would have forgiven you months ago if you would only have received it." My friends, I bring you good news indeed, glad tidings of great joy; "God hath for Christ’s sake forgiven you," and if you would be saved, you need only to accept His gracious gift. The first "no difference" is discouraging, but the second one is sweeter than honey in the honey comb. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 03.03. "AND PETER" ======================================================================== Chapter 3 - "And Peter" "And Peter" (Mark 16:7). There is something about the very name of this impulsive, wayward, child-hearted man that awakens our interest at once. We know ourselves better when we know Peter thoroughly well. We study him in his failures and we grow discouraged, for we say, "If a man who could be so near Jesus Christ as Peter, with Him in the home of Jairus, on the transfiguration mountain and in Gethsemane, if he could deny Him, then it is not strange that we should fail in the midst of this sinful and adulterous generation. How carefully, therefore, we ought to walk." We study him in his successes and rejoice, for we say, "If a man like Peter, unlettered, uncultured fisherman as he was, if he could become the preacher at Pentecost and the writer of the epistles, then there is hope for every one of us." There are many reasons why I like him, and I am sure that next to the Lord Jesus, of all the men whose names are mentioned in the New Testament I long to see Peter. I like him because of his enthusiasm. He had an ardor about him that radiated through everything he did. If he was right, he was enthusiastically right; if he was wrong, he was enthusiastically wrong; and I like such a man. Some will say that is what caused Peter much of his trouble, but I would say that the world does not owe much to its over-cautious people. If Luther had been such a man, we would have had no Reformation. It is generally true that it is a bad thing for one to be possessed of zeal without knowledge, but if we study the life of Peter we agree with Mr. Moody when he says, "If I had to choose between knowledge without zeal and zeal without knowledge, I would take the latter." I am sure that God can take a man’s zeal, if he be honest and sincere, and make it redound to His honor and glory. Peter was a brave man. I am sure some will say, "What, a brave man? Did he not deny the Lord in the presence of a little girl when he said, ’I know Him not,’ and then the old habit of profanity came back upon him and ’he denied Him with an oath?’" Alas! this is all true, but then, you must remember that Peter had courage enough to follow Jesus down into the presence of His enemies, and Peter was the only One of the disciples who was near his Master in the court-room. There are so many reasons why I like him, and why I have longed to see him face to face. "And Peter." These words, which form an angel’s message to the broken-hearted disciples, present one of the sweetest pictures in the Old Testament scriptures or in the New. The crucifixion scene is over, the rocks have ceased their throbbing, and the crosses on the hillside are still, and the text is in the angel’s message to the disciples who have gathered themselves together after the dark, dark day, and are seeking to comfort each the other. They had always imagined that the Master whom they had followed was to be the King of a temporal kingdom, that they were to have positions of power; but now He had been crucified and their hearts are well-nigh breaking within them. I can see them as they sit in that little upper room in Jerusalem. They say one to the other, "We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done." But I am very sure that in this company of disciples, gathered together in that upper room in Jerusalem, there was one who was not of their number. That man’s name was Peter. He must have felt that he was no longer a disciple, and that he no longer had a right to the communion and fellowship of the saints. I can see him out on the edge of the city of Jerusalem in some dark, lonely place, far away from any eye to look upon him. Poor, broken-hearted man! But if Peter was not of the company of the disciples, I am sure of one thing, and that is that the disciples must have been talking about him. Human nature has always been the same. We have a great way of remembering all about a person’s failings and forgetting the strong points of their character; remembering only their weak places and forgetting entirely their virtues. And so I imagine these disciples were talking about Peter. I can hear one of them say, "Where’s Peter?" And then another man with a smile upon his face, would say, "Peter? Why, you wouldn’t expect him to be here, would you? Did you ever know Peter to be faithful to the end?" And they begin to point out the places of weakness, and one says, "Do you mind the time Peter stepped out on the water? How he began to walk toward Jesus; how he took a few steps very well, and then began to sink?" And another man would say, "That was just like Peter, always making a miserable failure in the end." And another would say, "Do you remember how the Master was bathing the disciples’ feet and Peter sprang to his feet and said: ’Master, you shall never wash my feet’?" And another would say, "He was always grieving the Master." But just as we recall these words, I would call your attention to this fact -Peter was the best loved disciple. Jesus seemed to love him with the very tenderest affection. But if they were gathered in the upper room and talking about Peter, there is another thing of which I am certain; he was the most utterly disconsolate man in all the city of the King, for, mark you this one thing, when once a man has been at the King’s table and tasted of the King’s meat, you can no more expect him to find pleasure in the world than you can expect the prodigal to go back and try to live on husks and satisfy himself with the company of the swine the second time. And so I can see him in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Poor Peter! If there is one in the world I pity, it is the one that stands like Peter of old, out of all communion with his blessed Lord. But I hear him say, "Well, I will go to the company of disciples; possibly they might have a word of encouragement for me." So he turns and goes along the streets and through the city and comes to the little room and sees the place in the distance. Some one has pointed it out to him. Then all his courage fails him, and turning back again he hurries along to his old retreat, and as he goes he says, "They wouldn’t receive me. I am afraid to go to them." Just as he reaches the place of darkness the despair again comes back and he says, "If I stay here I will die, and so I will seek out the disciples." So he turns back again and reaches the stairway leading up to the room, and, as he ascends, he drags his feet after him wearily. Poor Peter! Finally he reaches the landing of the stairway and just as he puts out his hand to take hold of the latch, he hears his name and his heart gives a great bound. He hears them talking about him. Poor man! he doesn’t realize they are speaking harsh words of criticism, but emboldened because of the sound of his name we find him pushing the door open and stepping across the threshold and standing in the little room. The disciples lift their heads to see who the new comer may be, but never a word is spoken. He stands looking and longing that there may be a word spoken to him and then he turns away to one of the couches in the room. Poor Peter! I have always imagined that when he entered that room, if some one of the disciples had gone toward him and taken his hand in his and said, "Poor Peter, we have heard all about your denial, but we know you too well to think you meant it, and we give you our sympathy and help," I have always imagined that Peter would have fallen upon his face in the little room, and there would have been given to us one of the tenderest pictures in all the New Testament scriptures. If there is ever a time when a man needs the word of sympathy, when he needs the warm clasp of the hand, it is when he has stepped the first time out of communion with his Lord. Speak the word to him then and many a Peter might be brought back into the fellowship of our God. But they did not speak to Peter, and so he turns away weary and almost brokenhearted. Poor man! But suddenly they hear a crowd of people approaching, and then some one with a great bound springs up the stairway, -- not like Peter a moment ago, dragging the feet wearily, but hardly seeming to touch the steps; and then the door is swung open, and it seems as if the sunlight has centered in the little room, for Mary is there. She has been over at His tomb, she has been talking with the angels, she has received the greatest message of all time, and as she springs into the company of the disciples she calls out, "He is risen, risen as He said, and He has gone over into Galilee and has sent word to His disciples to meet Him." Just the moment she speaks the words the disciples spring to their feet, rush toward the doors and out through the city toward Galilee. They want to see the Master; all save Peter. Poor broken-hearted man! He must have felt, "Oh, wretched man that I am; I am not included in the invitation; I am no longer a disciple." Just as Mary reaches the door, she turns her face back over her shoulder to see if all the disciples are gone; and she sees Peter. And then for the first time she gives the invitation just as the angels had given it to her and as the Lord gave it to the angels. He is risen as He said, and He has gone over into Galilee, and He wants His disciples to meet Him; "go tell His disciples -- and Peter." "And Peter." The only man’s name that was mentioned was the name of the man who felt that he wax no longer a disciple. The only one who had the special invitation was the poor fellow that felt himself out of communion and out of fellowship. I wish to say to you that the Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, and He sends an invitation to every one of His children, but if there is one to receive a special message, it is the man or woman out of communion, or out of fellowship, with Jesus Christ, and so I speak the words "And Peter; and Peter." Down in one of the southern churches a minister had been preaching with great power a sermon on the plan of redemption in Jesus Christ. When the people were passing out, an old colored woman was walking side by side with one of the elders of the church, when he turned to her and said, "Auntie, don’t you think it is a wonderful thing that Jesus Christ should die for such poor sinners as you and me?" She listened a moment and then said, "No, Massa; it doesn’t seem a wonderful thing at all to me, because it is just like Him." And so it is "just like Him." Just like the Lord Jesus Christ to love us all; but I am sure it is just like Him to love with a tender love, nay, with the tenderest love, the man or woman out of communion, out of fellowship with Him. Out Of Communion We have different names in different denominations to express or describe such a condition. Some call it "backsliding." That is a good name if you can’t get a better. Sometimes we call it "falling from grace," and I am very sure there is a better expression than that. Sometimes we say they are "apostate," but that is unscriptural. To my mind the best expression is this -- "out of communion." You know it takes the look of joy from your face; it takes the peace from your heart; it takes the power from your life. In the "abiding chapter" of John, there is only one condition for fruit-bearing -- you must "abide in Him." There can be no real joy, or peace, or power, until the child of God is in close communion and sweet fellowship with the blessed Christ, and so, having the different words to describe the position, I would like to suggest some things that lead us to stand in the position of Peter. Temperament It is sometimes due to one’s natural temperament. There are people in the world with whom it is just as natural to be joyful as it is for the lark to sing as it mounts up into the sky. Mr. Moody tells about a man who was a member of his church, and you never could get him to say anything but "Praise the Lord." He might have darkness about him, but he would praise the Lord for darkness. Mr. Moody says that one day he came into the meeting and he had cut his thumb, almost cut it off, and so they wondered what he could have to say with such an affliction as that. He just stood on his feet and said, "I cut my thumb this morning, but praise the Lord, I didn’t cut it off." It is just as natural for such people to be joyful as it is for the birds to sing. There are other people in the world with whom it is just as natural to look on the dark side of things. They are always complaining and thinking everything in the world is wrong, and the fact is, they are wrong themselves. It is their natural temperament. If there is a sunbeam in the sky, they will take great pleasure in seeing the cloud, if it is not larger than a man’s hand. Like the old college professor out west. He was a man who could see nothing right; no matter how sweetly the birds would sing, they might sing better. One morning one of the professors passed him on the campus and said, "Now, Professor, what is the matter with this day? You have never heard the birds sing sweeter, you have never seen the sky so bright, and just look at the sun, isn’t it shining wonderfully?" The old professor looked round hoping he could find a fault somewhere, and when he had failed utterly, he turned and said with a sigh, "Young man," he said, "this weather can’t last always, you know." Such people as that are always groaning, sighing and complaining. They say the ministers are wrong, the church people are wrong, and the world is going to destruction; and the fact is, they are wrong themselves. As Dr. Talmage says, they are looking at the world through the wrong kind of eye-glasses; they are looking through blue glasses, when they should be looking through clear white. It is just their temperament. If that is your position, you will get out of communion immediately; you will lose your grip on God and your power with men. Disease Then, again, sometimes we find people getting out of communion with Jesus Christ because of disease. The connection between the spiritual and physical is very close and intimate. Sometimes it is because the body is weak that we find the faith growing weak; yet, thanks be to God, it is possible to have a body very weak and have a faith triumphant. I am sure you know such people as that. But, my friend, if your body is weak, I am sure you will have to fight if you are going to win the victory. That was a beautiful myth given to us, that when God first made the birds He made them without wings. They were beautiful but they had no wings and they could not sing. And then the old myth tells us that God made them wings and bade them fly, and the little birds over all Paradise began to move their wings and mount up from the earth; and just as they mounted they began to sing, and the higher they rose the sweeter they sang, and they have been flying and singing ever since. Thanks be unto God, all Christian men and women have wings, wings of hope and wings of faith; and we are not obliged to live in this world, we may dwell in the heavenlies with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. One of my friends told me he stood one morning on one of the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains, bathed in the perfect sunlight of a perfect day. He looked down at his feet and a storm was raging in the valley. He felt almost as if he could step. out and walk from peak to peak, so heavy were the clouds, and he could almost hear the roar of the thunder and see the flash of lightning, for there was a tremendous storm raging in the valley. As he was looking down, suddenly up from the dark clouds came a black body. He looked again, and still a third time, and the great black object was a Rocky Mountain eagle, measuring seven feet from tip to tip of its wings. "As I looked," he said, "the eagle mounted higher and higher, clear above the clouds, and fighting its way through the storm soared high above my head, every feather wet with the raindrops, and every raindrop sparkling like a jewel in the sunlight; and I stood watching it until it was lost in the very face of the sun." This is a picture of the Christian rising above the things of the world. I will give you a verse of scripture to prove it: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint." You may have a temperament ever so miserable, and you may have a body ever so weak, but you may dwell in the secret place and never get out of communion and fellowship. Trial And yet again I imagine there are more people out of communion with Christ because of trial than for any other cause. I never could understand how Christians could step out of fellowship with Christ because of their afflictions. Listen, friends: "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." I am very sure we were never in our lives nearer heaven than one evening just as we reached our new home in Philadelphia, when we were in one of the hotels and my wife held in her arms our first-born boy, and he was dead. Just a little fellow, not yet a year old, and yet, without an hour’s warning, he had left us. We thought him perfectly well, but God took him. I remember how we stood there before his little lifeless form, and we thought our hearts were breaking; but as the tears fell down our cheeks, they became like telescopes and heaven was never nearer, or God nearer, than with His hand upon us in the weight of affliction. How could you stay out of fellowship with God when He has just put His hand upon you in love? I ask you if that is the reason, step back again into the light. I had the pleasure of laboring with Mr. Moody in the campaign in Chicago, and one of the greatest pleasures besides the fellowship with him was the meeting of such great leaders as John McNeill and Dr. A. C. Dixon. Dr. Wharton especially made his way into my heart. He is one of the great evangelists of the Baptist church, and one of the most successful pastors as well. He was telling me about a friend of his in Baltimore, Todd Hall. He is a detective. For years he was a very sinful man. Once, when Mr. Moody was conducting meetings, Todd Hall was detailed to arrest a certain man, and as he was looking for him some one said, "Todd, the man’s gone down into the Moody meeting." So Mr. Hall went to where the meetings were held, and as he entered, the usher said, "Yes, he is in the building, but he is ’way down near the front." So they ushered Todd Hall down the center aisle, and just as he walked down the aisle something the preacher said went like an arrow to his heart. He sat down and listened. When the service was over the people passed out, the man whom he was to arrest went with them, but Todd Hall never saw him. He had been arrested by the power of God, and as he sat in the hall one of the ushers came up to him and said, "What do you think of Moody?" "Oh," he said, "I wish I could be a Christian." The usher said, "Kneel down, and I will pray with you"; and they prayed right there in the great building when it was almost deserted. And he became a Christian. He went home and told his wife, and she said, "Todd, I will go with you into the church," and their little daughter said she would go, too, and the three went into the church, and Todd became a preacher as well as being a detective. "When I went back to Baltimore some time ago," said Dr. Wharton, "one of the first friends to meet me said, ’Todd Hall’s little girl is dead.’ And I said, ’Has it hurt Todd any, has it affected his power?’ And he said, ’Oh, you ought to see him and hear him now! When the doctor said, "Mr. Hall, your little girl is dying," he just knelt down and said this, "Dear, blessed God, you gave her to me, and you have loved her, and you have saved her, now I give her back to Thee." And the doctor said, "Mr. Hall, she is dying," and he, holding her hand and looking up, began to sing, "Bear her away on your snowy wings to her eternal home," and she was gone; and Todd Hall never knew what it was to preach before, he never knew what it was to work before.’" He just rose from his knees and came out from his affliction transfigured by the power of God, and I wish to say to any who are out of communion with God because of trials, you don’t know God, that is all. He is speaking in the tenderest words, "And Peter, and Peter." Two Men There are two men I would like to present to you as giving perfect illustration of the text. The first man is Elijah. You know he was one time up on a mountain top, and he prayed to God, and God sent the fire from heaven; and another time he locked up the heavens, and held the key, and when he got ready to unlock them, they came down in great showers of blessing; and another picture is Elijah under the juniper tree when he said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; let me die." Suppose God had said, "Well, Elijah, you can die if you want to." They would have buried him in the desert, and the moaning winds would have been his only requiem. You know God had something better for Elijah. You have been saying sometimes, "My prayer has not been answered." Yes, it has. God said, "No," and "no" was better. What was Elijah’s difficulty? The first thing was that he had had a mountain-top experience and now he has come to the valley, and some say, "I am so glad to have you say that." A woman wrote me a letter from Lafayette the other day and said: "Nothing ever gave me more encouragement than to have you say that Elijah was up and down," and, some say, "That is the way I live." You needn’t live that way. There was a man that went up on the mountain-top; He was transfigured; His face shone as the sun; His garments were bright with light; and He came down into the valley and brought the mountain-top experience with Him. This is what you may do; just bring the mountain-top experience down with you and you may rejoice, even though it be darkness about you. The second trouble with Elijah was that he looked away from God to his surroundings, and that is fatal. You hear a great deal about the world getting better. I would like to have you travel about the country a little bit and see if the world is getting better. Study your own city, if you please, and I imagine that you will find that there are things going on today that your fathers twenty-five years ago would not have permitted. There isn’t a man in the world who could preach and keep his faith if he looked down. There is only one thing to do, and that is to keep your eyes turned upward. Like the man who was teaching his little boy to climb up the mast of a ship for the first time. He was half way up when he looked down and was losing his balance, and in a moment would have fallen, but the father took his speaking trumpet and shouted, "Keep your eyes upward," and he climbed to the top of the mast and came down in safety. We have to keep our eyes turned upward. Oh, that we might center our eyes and faith on Him who is our only hope! Keep your eyes up, and you won’t get out of communion. The other man’s name was Peter. There were several reasons why he got out of communion. He became self-confident. I can just imagine Peter as he stepped out of the boat, trying to walk along. He thinks, "Don’t you wish you could walk on the water?" And then, just as he took his eyes away from Jesus Christ and began to think he was some. body, he went down. Only just get your mind made up that you are somebody, and God will prove to you that you don’t amount to very much. In my experience I have found that to be so. I never made up my mind over any effort of mine and said, "Wasn’t that splendid?" that God didn’t bring me down with a dreadful thud. Paul had it right when he said, "When I am weak, then I am strong." Why? Because when he was weak, he just leaned hard on God; and I believe there is nothing today that God could not do with you and me, if we just realized we were nothing and then let Him use us. The second trouble with Peter was that he followed Jesus Christ afar off"; and that is often the trouble with us too. You never had much trouble when you were faithful to the church, when you were going twice on Sunday and to the prayer meeting; then you didn’t get out of communion. It was when you began to stay away from the mid-week service, when one service on Sunday would do you, and when you stayed at home and read the Sunday newspaper and sometimes worse, then you got out of communion, and you said, "The minister isn’t as interesting as he used to be, and somehow we need another evangelist." The trouble isn’t with the minister, and you don’t need another evangelist; you need your own heart right and you need to get back where you were five years ago. John McNeill says we never ought to sing this hymn except in a grave yard, in a kind of mournful tune, "Where is the joy that once I knew When first I loved the Lord" and McNeill says, "It’s right where you left it, and if you want it again, go back where you left it and pick it up." Live right and live as near to Jesus Christ as when you first knew him, and you will have no trouble in getting in close communion with Him, and you won’t care whether the minister is right or wrong, you will be right. You won’t be bothered about the church; you are all right yourself because you are in Christ. God help you to live there. And then there is another thing, too, Peter got into bad company. That is the reason I am opposed to the church being mixed up with the world. We have not only the name but the reputation of Jesus Christ at stake. We have no business to be with bad company. An old Scotch woman had it about right when she said, "Peter had nae business among the ’flunkies.’" And we haven’t; if we are, we will find ourselves denying Jesus Christ. You didn’t mean to do it, you just struck a level with your company. God help us to keep in close touch with Jesus Christ. Just a word in closing. If you look the Bible through, you will not find a harsh word for the backslider. You turn over to the prophets and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, it is "Return, return, return." You turn over to the New Testament and read the story of the prodigal son; you may use it as an illustration for the unsaved man, but I have an idea the story of the prodigal son was written in part for the man who has once known God and has once been in the Father’s house and then gone off to live with swine, and the father of the prodigal is God, looking through the telescope of His love, waiting for his boy to come home. There are just two words in all the Bible for a mart who is a backslider, and the two words are these, "Come back, come back." One of the last Sundays I spent at the Bethany Sunday School in Philadelphia, an Englishman was there and spoke to the scholars. He sat down and told me this story: A young girl had run away from home and was living a life of sin, and her mother wanted my friend to help, her find her daughter. And he said, "Go home and bring me every picture you have, and I will find her." She brought them to him, and he just dipped his pen in the ink and wrote down beneath the sweet face these words, "Come back." Then he took those pictures down into the haunts of sin, and the mission stations, and left them there. Not long after, this daughter was going into a place of sin and there she saw the face of her mother. The tears ran down her face so that at first she could not see the words beneath, but she brushed away the tears and looked and there they were, "Come back," She went out to her old home at the edge of London and when she put her hand on the latch the door was open, and when she stepped in her mother, with her arms about her, said, "My dear child, the door has never been fastened since you went away." And that is true for you with God; the door has never been closed since you went away, it is wide open. I lift up before you this morning a face sweeter than any mother’s face. The prophets tried to tell you about it and they said, "Fairer than the sons of men and altogether lovely," and just below that face I write the words, "Come back." "Go tell his disciples, and Peter." Will you come? God grant it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 03.04. STONING JESUS ======================================================================== Chapter 4 - Stoning Jesus "Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him" (John 10:31). The shining of the sun produces two effects in the world, one exactly the opposite of the other. In one place it enlivens, beautifies and strengthens; in the other it deadens, mars and decays. So is it with the Gospel of Christ. It is unto some a "savor of life unto life"; unto others it is "a savor of death unto death." So it was with the coming of Christ into the world. He brought to light the truest affection and the deepest hatred. Men loved darkness rather than light, so Christ’s coming into the world could only disturb them. If you go into the woods on a summer’s day, and if it be possible, turn over one of the logs which may be near to you, you will find underneath hundreds of little insects; the moment the light strikes them they run in every direction. Darkness is their life; they hate the light. But if you could journey a little further and lift a stone, which for a little time has been covering the grass or the little flowers, the moment you would lift the obstruction these things would begin to grow. The light is their life; they die in the darkness. Christ’s coming into the world provoked the bitterest prejudice and called forth the deepest devotion. Simeon, a devout man, was in the temple when the young child Jesus was brought in, and he took him up in his hands and blessed God, and said, "Lord, lettest now thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for now my eyes have seen thy salvation." It was just the opposite with Herod. When the king heard concerning Jesus he sent the wise men that he might find out through them where He was, and when they did not return, he was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coast thereof two years and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. These are the two extremes. John’s gospel is the gospel of love, but in it we find the same great differences. Where can you find such sweetness as is contained in these words -- "For God. so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life"? Where is there such tenderness as in this expression -- "Jesus wept"? Only two words, and yet on them the sorrowing world rests, taking comfort and consolation! But where can you find such hatred as expressed in John 8:59, "Then took they up stones to cast at Him"? and again in the text, "Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him"? When you remember whom they were stoning, the Son of Man and the Son of God, the One who was going about doing good, the sin is something awful to think about. This text and the verse that follows is a beautiful illustration of hate and love, brutality and tenderness. He had just said, "I and my Father are one," words which should have made the hearts of the people leap for joy; that He was one with Jehovah, who had led their forefathers from Egypt to Canaan; who had spoken the worlds into existence; had held the winds in His fists; in whose hands the seas washed to and fro. You would have thought at these expressions of the Master every knee would have been bowed in loving devotion; but not so. The Jews took up the stones again with which to stone Him, and he gave them one of the tenderest answers His heart could dictate -- "Many good works have I shown you from my Father, for which of these do you stone me?" The text is an illustration of the fact that those who were models in fairness of their treatment of men are most unfair in their treatment of Jesus Christ. If you are familiar with the mode of stoning offenders in the early days, you will be able to see how true this was of the Jews. The crier marched before the man who was to die, proclaiming the man’s sins and the name of the witnesses appearing against him. This was for the humane purpose of enabling anyone who was acquainted with the circumstances in the case to go forward and speak for him, and the prisoner was held until the new evidence was given. But the Jews were not so considerate of Jesus; when He said, "I and my Father are one," immediately they began to stone Him. All that is asked for our religion, for Christ and for the Bible is just a fair consideration of their claims. The Bible, we claim, is the word of God, not because it is old only, but because it is both old and true. It seems as if it were written for us as individuals; it is my present answer to my present need. We simply present the Book in evidence. Suppose you try to find its equal; suppose you try to produce its simplest parable; failure would be the result. Our religion is the same; we only ask for it a fair consideration. For Christ it is just the same. In England not long ago a woman was lecturing against our religion, and after she had closed, one of the mill-hands said, "I would like to ask the lecturer this one question: Thirty years ago I was the curse of this town and everybody in it. I tried to do better and failed. The teetotaler got hold of me, and I signed the pledge and broke it. The police took me and sent me to prison, and the wardens tried to make me better, and I began to drink as soon as I left my cell. When all had failed, I took Christ as my Saviour, and He made a new man of me. I am a member of the church, a class-leader and superintendent of the Sunday School. If Christ is a myth and religion is untrue, how could I be so helped by them?" Men are still stoning Jesus Christ. Perhaps you shrink from the conduct of the Jews and cry, "For shame!" but there is a worse way to stone Him than that. Men can hurt you far more than by striking you in the face or beating you with stripes. Do you imagine that Christ’s worst suffering was when they cast stones at Him, or scourged Him, or put nails through His hands? I am sure not; but it was rather when He came unto His own, and His own received Him not; when they called Him "this fellow"; when He was in Gethsemane in an agony; when He was on the cross and He felt so forsaken that His heart broke. If He were here today in the flesh as He is in the Spirit, I am sure there are ways we could hurt Him more than by taking up stones from the very streets and casting them in His blessed face until His eyes were blinded by the blood drops falling down. Inconsistency I. Have you ever noticed the sadness which throbbed in the words of our Saviour at the Last Supper, "One of you shall betray me"? or when He was walking with them toward the garden, "All of you shall be offended this night because of me"? or when He was in the garden and we hear Him saying: "What, could you not watch with me one hour?" The stone that hurts Christ most is not the one that is cast by the unbelieving world; He expects that; it is the one that is cast by His own people, and there is only one stone that they can cast at Him, and that is the one of inconsistency to talk one way and live another, confessing with the lips and denying in the walk. You never took a step in the wrong direction but it was a stone cast at Christ. I have heard of a young lady who was engaged in the greatest amount of pleasure and frivolity, nearly forgetful of her loyalty to Christ. One day being asked by her companions to go to a certain place, she refused on the ground that it was Communion Sunday in the church, in amazement her friends asked her, "Are you a communicant?" If the world does not know it, if our friends do not know it; we are taking up stones with which to stone Him. Hatred II. On the part of those who are not His followers, with some it is absolute hatred; certainly it was so with the Jews. You read in the text that they took up stones again. The first time we read of their stoning Christ is in the eighth chapter of John, and it is supposed that they were near a place where stones abounded, and it was very easy to pick them up. The second time they were near Solomon’s porch; and it is a question if there were any stones there to be found. So it is thought that they carried them all the way, perhaps only dropping them as they listened to His speech, by which they were so enraged that they stooped and picked them up and hurled them at Him. Are you casting these stones at Christ? Remember that He said, "He that is not with me is against me." Indifference III. With many it is the stone of indifference. It was one of the first cast at Him in the world. It began at the manger, going to the cross, and it is still being thrown. With curling lips and insolent contempt men said, "Is this not the carpenter’s son?" When He was on the cross, they said in derision, "He saved others; now let Him save Himself." It is now the ninth hour and darkness is settled about the place. Listen! His lips are moving: "Eloi! Eloi!" Surely this will move them; but some one says, "He is calling for Elias; let us see if he will come to Him." This is all like the gathering of a storm to me: first the cloud was the size of a man’s hand, that is, at Bethlehem; it is larger at Egypt; heavier at Nazareth; darker in Jerusalem; then He comes up to the Mount of Olives, and the cloud seems to break as He cries out, "Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" Have you been indifferent to Christ? Anything is better than that; better outspoken opposition to Him. than to be theoretically a believer and to be practically denying Him. How can you be indifferent to Him? A man working on one of the railroads in the State of Indiana discovered, one morning, that the bridge had fallen, and he remembered that the train was due. He started down the track to meet her, saw her coming, and, raising his hands, pointed to the bridge; but on she came, having no time to lose. He threw himself across the track, and the engineer, thinking him a madman, stopped the train. The man arose and told his story, and saved the lives of hundreds. Christ did this for you; He purchased your redemption by the giving of Himself whether you have accepted this salvation or not. Will you stone Him for that? Unbelief IV. When He said: "I and my Father are one, they cast another stone at Him. That was unbelief. Indifference was hard to bear; hatred cut like a knife; but unbelief was the crowning sin of the Jews. Many are hurling it at Him today. He has promised to save us if we only believe, and we need only to trust Him to be saved. A little girl in Glasgow who had just found peace was heard counseling one of her playmates in this way: "I say, lassie, do as I did, grip a promise and hold on to it, and you will be saved," and there is salvation in the child’s words. Now read the verse that immediately follows the text: "Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?" It is supposed that some of the Jews had actually struck Him with a stone, and this drew forth from Him words tender enough, pathetic enough to turn aside the hatred of one who had a heart of stone. Do Not Stone Him 1. Because of what He was, they called Him the bright and morning star; the fairest of all the children of men; the chiefest among ten thousand. Oh, that we might have our eyes open to behold Him! 2. Fifty years ago there was a war in India with England. On one occasion several English officers were taken prisoners; among them was one man named Baird. One of the Indian officers brought fetters to put on them all. Baird had been sorely wounded, and was suffering from his weakness. A gray-haired officer said, "You will not put chains on that man, surely?" The answer was, "I have just as many fetters as prisoners, and they must all be worn." Then said the old hero, "Put two pairs on me." Baird lived to gain his freedom; but the other man went down to his death doubly chained. But what if he had worn the fetters of all in the prison, and what if voluntarily he had left a palace to wear chains, to suffer the stripes and endure the agony? That would be a poor illustration of all that Christ has done for you and for me. Will you stone Him for that? 3. Because of what He is today. In 1517 there was a great riot in London, in which houses were sacked and a general insurrection reigned; guns in the tower were thundering against the insurgents, and armed bands were assailing them on every side. Three hundred were arrested, tried and hanged; five hundred were cast into prison, and were to be tried before the king, Henry VIII. As he sat in state on the throne, the door opened, and in they came, every man with a rope about his neck. Before sentence could be passed on them, three queens entered, Catherine of Aragon, wife of the king; Margaret of Scotland, sister of the king; and Mary of France. They approached the throne, knelt at the feet of his majesty and there remained pleading until the king forgave the five hundred trembling men. But there is a better intercession than that going on for you and for me at this moment. Will you stone Him for that? Looking out from the windows of Heaven, the Son of God beheld people heavily burdened, bearing the weight of their sins, groping about in their blindness, crying, "Peace! peace!" and there was no peace. And He said, "I will go down and become bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh; I will open their eyes and bear their burdens, forgive their sins and give them peace." Between man and the Father’s house was a great gulf, wider than the distance from east to west, deeper than the distance from north to south; but Christ’s coming bridged the gulf over. Across the chasm He cast His cross, and on the other side I see Him standing, His arms outspread, His attitude one of pleading. Listen! you will hear Him saying, "Come unto me, come unto me, whosoever will, let him come." Will you stone Him for that? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 03.05. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER SPRINGS ======================================================================== Chapter 5 - The Upper and the Nether Springs "And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs" (Joshua 15:19). Half-way between Hebron and Beersheba there once stood the ancient city of Debir. It was the city of brains and books, and the center of intellectual culture of the olden days. At the same point now may be seen a rude assemblage of stone hovels, many of which are half standing, but the others are entirely broken down. One of the names given to this city, being translated, means the City of Books, or of learning -- what Athens was to Greece, the city of Debir was to Southern Palestine. It was supposed that all the records of antiquity of the nation were stored there. It was, indeed, a famous place. Caleb, the son of Hezron, of the tribe of Judah, was very anxious to secure possession of the city. It is this fact which gives rise to the text. His name is very familiar to us. He was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses over into Canaan, and he and Joshua were the only two born in Egypt who were given the privilege of entering Canaan, with the possible exception of the Levites, and that, not only because they had brought a truthful report of the land they had explored, but were also willing to take God at His word; and put all their trust in Him. Forty-five years after, when the wanderings were over, Caleb applied to Joshua for the share of the land which had been promised him, and among other portions there was granted to him Debir the city of learning. It was still, however, the stronghold of the giants of Canaan, and must be captured to be possessed. Caleb then made the proposition that he would give his daughter Achsah in marriage to any one who was able to take the city, and one Othniel, who had been much of a warrior, for he had delivered the children of Israel from the King of Mesopotamia, marched against Debir. After a great struggle the gates were broken down, the giants were captured or driven away, and the City of Books lay at the feet of the conqueror. When the victory was won, Caleb was as good as his word, and his daughter was given in marriage to the soldier. With her he also gave as art inheritance, a peculiar piece of property, known as "The South Land," valuable for some reasons, but it was mountainous and sloped southward toward the deserts of Arabia, the hot winds of which again and again swept across it. Before Achsah left her father’s house, she besought him for his blessing. The south land was not enough, she would also have springs of water; and Caleb responded at once, and gave her more than she had asked: for we read in the text: "He gave her the upper springs and the nether springs." From an exceedingly fertile territory the land was chosen. It contained no less than fourteen springs. The valley was beautiful, for look which way you would, you could see them gushing forth. Their presence in the field meant not only a blessing for the field in which they were found, but for all the country around them. I find in this beautiful story a good illustration of all that we receive from our Father. All that has been bestowed upon us is associated with victory, and that was won by Him whose name was called in the prophets the Conqueror. It was for Him a fierce struggle, but He came off more than conqueror. Then, after that, He was called the bridegroom of the church, which is to be His bride, and with Him we have received not only the gift of salvation, but in Him we are also blessed with all spiritual blessings. Paul gives us this when he writes to the Ephesians, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." I. God starts His children in this world as Caleb started his daughter, with an inheritance. No one is so poor but God has given him something. Some have taken the inheritance and treated it as the man with the five talents, they have gained other five also; others like the man with the one talent, have wrapped it in a napkin, and so they leave the world as poor as when they entered it. God has been very good to us. He has given us this world with all its beauty, its green pastures, its still waters, its rivers and its seas, its starry canopy stretching out above. The world is filled with forces of all kinds, but man has seemed to gain control over them, until today he stands himself like a conqueror in the midst of them all. But the inheritance is better than that. He has given us all the faculties of mind and all the powers of body. The mind, the heart, the hands, the feet -- no one is sent into the world a pauper. God has thus placed a fortune in the grasp of every child of His. It is such a great thing to have a mind, for with it man is able to search the deep things of God and really take hold of the thought of the Eternal. The science of geometry was worked out from a few simple principles by Euclid and Archimedes, by pure reasoning out of their minds; and on the sands of the floor of the room where they were studying Archimedes traced the curves in which, according to science, the heavenly bodies must move. And long after, when the telescope was invented, the Galileos and the Newtons beheld with reverent wonder that the heavenly bodies were sweeping along in the same curves described so long ago by the great Mathematician. It is indeed a wonderful thing to have a mind. But if these things which I have mentioned as our natural inheritance are all what we possess, then, with the success that may be gained by means of them, we may still be of all men the most miserable. For they are like the south land of Achsah, they stretch off toward the deserts of sorrow and care and darkness, and the hot winds of despair come sweeping past us again and again. The most miserable people in the world, sooner or later, are those who have just the world and nothing else. Men are born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, and this south land of the world is a poor portion. It is beautiful; it is the handiwork of God. But we must have more than that if the soul be satisfied. "The stars are beautiful, but they pour no light into the midnight of a troubled soul. The flowers are sweet, but they pour no balm into the wounded heart." There are times when the hungry, thirsty, fevered soul must have what the natural inheritance can not give, and God has made provision for that. Man sighs with groanings which can not be uttered, for the Infinite. If you put a seashell to your ear, you will find in it reminiscences of its original home, the roar of the sea, the wail of the wind, the groan of the dying wave, all discernible therein. It has the witness in itself that it belongs to the mighty deep. And if you listen attentively to your own heart, you will find constant proofs of its destined abode. The sighs, the yearnings, the dreams, the tears, the sadness, the music, all testify that we are made for God, and that only God can satisfy our wants. And God knew this, and so, as well as giving us the south land, He has also given us the springs of water from which we may drink and be satisfied. God pity the marl who has failed to accept the proffered gift. II. The springs of water were given to Achsah because of her marriage with Othniel, and they are a perfect illustration of that which comes to us because of our union with the Son of God. The springs were a free gift, and so is the nether spring of the gospel, which has come to us. "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." And never a spring bursting from the plains of Gerar, or from the mountains of Lebanon, or from the valleys of Canaan, perform such a mission as this nether spring of the gospel which is the gift of our God. We have seen the fields in the time of a drought looking parched and apparently dead and worthless, and then suddenly, almost in the night, the meadows were clothed with green, and the grain lifted up its head rejoicing, all because the rain had fallen. But in this nether spring of the gospel there is a more marvelous power than that he who comes to drink of its waters goes away with new life, and his whole nature is changed. The ancients believed in the existence of a spring in which, if a person bathed, he would renew his youth and live forever. We have found that spring today in the text, for "The gift of God is eternal life." "The Bible is all a-sparkle with wells and springs, rivers and seas. They toss up their brightness from almost every chapter. And water is many times the type or figure of that which enlivens, beautifies, and gives new life." Solomon, refreshed by the story of heaven, exclaims, "As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." Isaiah, speaking of the blessedness of the children of God, writes, "They shall spring as willows from the watercourses." The prophet, glowing with the thought of the millennium, says, "Streams shall break forth from the desert." The mission of water in this world is to bless and satisfy, refresh and help. "But all the waters that ever leaped in the torrents, or foamed in the cascade, or fell in the summer shower, or hung in the morning dew, have given no such comfort to the troubled heart, no such rest and refreshment to the sin-sick soul, as that which may be drawn by you and by me from the nether spring of the gospel." It is a good type or illustration of the gospel because of its brightness. Yet here it fails of giving us perfect description or idea, for where can you find such brightness as gleams in this nether spring? "David, unable to put it into words, plays it on his harp. Christopher Wren, unable to put it into language, springs it in the arches of St. Paul’s. Bunyan, failing to present it in ordinary story, put it in the form of allegory, which lives on today with constantly increasing power. Handel, with ordinary music unable to reach the height and sound the depth of the theme, thrills us with his oratorio." O, the gladness, the brightness, the joy unutterable in that life which is hid with Christ in God! And this I may drink in as I come to the nether springs. There is no life on earth so happy as the Christian’s. Take the humblest child of God you know, and why shouldn’t he be happy? According to the Bible, he is all the time under the shadow of God’s wings. If he walks, the angels bear him up; if he sleeps they let down ladders from the skies, up and down which the angels go to and fro, bringing down blessings of God, and bearing away his heavy burdens. Why, to get within the door of the kingdom, to have a place, not the nearest, but on the very outer circle, to bear the lowest title of all the redeemed, to be the weakest child of all the family of God, to be the dimmest jewel in His crown of rejoicing, to be the least, yea, less than least of all the saints is a hope which sets the heart a-singing. All this I find and more, a thousand times more, as I stoop and drink at the nether springs. Water is also like the gospel in its power to refresh. I remember the River Jordan the day when Naaman came to its banks with his leprosy. I see him going down into its waters, once, twice, three times, and then on until he had, according to the instructions of the servant of God, bathed seven times, and then, marvelous change! his flesh became as it were the flesh of a little child. But here is a greater change for the sinful soul who will come to the nether spring. Here came Newton, and left behind him his sins which were as scarlet. Here came Bunyan, cursing with every step until lewd people rebuked him, and he went away, so changed that he gave to the world the book that stands in the estimation of some, next to the Bible for sweetness and power. Here came Magdalen and the Philippian jailor, Zacchaeus, and the poor trembling thief on the cross, and they drank of the waters and stand today in the company of the redeemed. I stand by the side of the waters today, and with all the tenderness of a saved sinner, with all the assurance of a pardoned child of God, with all the alarm of a friend who sees his friends and neighbors going down to death, away from the Living Waters, I bid you come, come, come; "Whosoever will, let him come." It is a marvelous spring of which I speak. I recall the fact that when the Master met the man who was blind from his birth, He anointed his eyes with clay and spittle and then told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam; and when he had washed, he came seeing. I imagine that first of all he saw the face of the Master Himself. This is the power of the nether spring of the gospel. The touch of its waters will cause the scales to drop from our eyes, and we shall be able to see the wondrous things written in the Book of God, and not only so, but we shall have given unto us the vision of the face of the Master Himself. It is not strange that we are unable, in our sinful condition, to see things as they are in the kingdom of God, for we are blind. But if you will only come with your blindness to the nether spring, you shall go away rejoicing. It is like the pool of Bethesda. it has healing power, and we are not only saved from the guilt of sin, but we may likewise be saved from its power. The only difference is that in the pool the sick people must wait until the waters are troubled before they may step in and be healed, while in this nether spring the waters are always ready. This is no new idea so to represent the gospel of Christ, for I read in the gospel of John these words: "But whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." And in the Apocalypse, these words are found: "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst, of the fountain, of the Water of Life freely." O thirsty souls, come and drink! I know what springs of water have done for the world. Found in Gerar by Isaac, they make the field fruitful in abundance. Bursting forth in Lebanon, they send their waters down the mountain side, and as they go through the valley, they make it the very synonym of fruitfulness. Closely akin to that is what the nether spring of the gospel does for us. No one knows the fullness of his own being until he is filled with the influence and power of the gospel. You walk, in the month of January, over the most fertile place in a field or through the forest, and you will see the illustration of what man is in his natural state. The earth is full of roots and the trees are full of buds, all of which are closely bandaged so that they can not expand; but when the springtime comes, the roots in the earth commence to push upward and the buds on the trees begin to unfold, and in a very little time all nature is rejoicing. What a marvelous change, simply because the roots have been warmed by the sun and kissed by the light! and yet it is not worthy to be compared with a change which might be wrought in you, if you will but come to the nether spring and drink of its life-giving waters, for there you will meet Him who has said: "I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." III. I wish I might be able to make plain to you all, that there is so much more to the Christian life than simply being saved. That is only the beginning. The whole experience stretches away from that point, and gets brighter and brighter as the days go by. With the hope that we might learn the lesson together today, I have brought before you these two springs. Whether the strict exegesis of the text will allow the interpretation or not, I am very sure that all will agree that it is a perfect illustration. To drink at the nether spring is salvation, but to drink at the upper spring is a high privilege that is offered to every child of God. I could bring so many passages of Scripture to you which would serve as an illustration of what I mean. Take Ephesians 1:3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus." Or, Colossians 11:12: "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." Or, take Colossians 3:1-3 : "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Or, take Php 3:20 : "For our conversation is in Heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." I would that we might all drink at the upper spring. What peace would then fill our hearts! When we drink at the lower spring, we come to be at peace with God, but when we learn to drink also at the upper spring, we have the peace of God; and there is a great difference between the two. It is something like the difference between a microscope and a telescope. With the first we can see things near, and in a bulk not larger than a grain of sand, I can find a thousand million animalcule; but with the latter I can see things afar off. I can actually study the Milky Way, which is removed from me thousands and thousands of miles. At the nether spring, first of all, I see myself and all my sinfulness; then I see Christ in all His righteousness; then I hear Him say that though my sins be like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; and there at the nether spring I am made whole: but with the upper spring it is different. Like the telescope, it is all about the things which are above, and as I drink at its waters I find myself being lifted above this world, and my conversation, not only, but my very life, may be in the Heavenlies. What an influence for good such a power might have over us! On the English seacoast there is a certain fountain which is within the tide mark. Twice each day the tide spreads over it, and the pure sweet waters are defiled and spoiled by the bitter wave. But the tide goes down and the fountain washes itself clear from the defilement. This is the emblem of a life that is in daily contact with the world and its defilement. Again and again it is touched by the evil one, but I bring you the cure today. Live close to the upper spring and in the midst of trials most perplexing, great peace shall fill your soul. What an influence we might have over others if we were thus taking advantage of our privileges! I think one might be a Christian, that is, just simply be saved, and not have much of a positive influence over the world about him; but it would not be possible to live in close communion with Christ (which is only another way of speaking of the upper spring), without having the greatest possible influence for good over all with whom he might come into contact. Travelers tell us about the rain tree. It grows to be about sixty feet high, with a diameter of about three feet at the root. It has a singular quality. It imbibes and condenses moisture from the atmosphere as no other tree does, and so it is called the rain tree. Generally its bark is dripping wet, and this is not only in the damp season but in the midst of summer, when the rivers run low and the brooks roundabout run nearly dry. Then it imbibes the moisture. This is a picture for us all. I am very sure that if we did but know the lesson of the upper spring, we might live in the very midst of desolation and despair, and say with Paul, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." And the way to this upper spring is pointed out very plainly to us. I remember the dream of Jacob as he was going from Beersheba to Haran. It was of the ladder which was set upon earth, the top of which reached up to heaven. This ladder is set for us. It reaches to the very brink of the upper spring. The ladder is Christ; His feet rest upon the earth. His brow is bound with the glory of heaven. The events of His earthly life are the earthward end of the ladder; His divinity, His finished Messiahship, His perpetual priesthood the topmost end. In a distant city a fire was raging. It was thought that all the inmates had been saved, when, to the horror of the bystanders, two children were seen standing at a third-story window. It was before the days of the almost perfect appliances for the saving of lives. Two ladders were hurriedly spliced together and lifted to the side of the building. There was a shout of terror when it was found that the ladder lacked six feet of reaching the children. In a moment a brave fireman was mounting the ladder; he reached the topmost round, and then stood for moment balancing himself, until he had caught the window-sill with his hand, and then over his body, which supplied the gap between the ladder and window, the children came slowly down until outstretched hands reached them in safety. And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ did for you and for me! There was no way for us back to heaven. We were estranged from God. And then He came in His incarnation, and on the platform erected by the patriarchal, legal and prophetic dispensation, He stood, as it were, in His own body, reaching up His hands, He took hold of God, and the way was made complete. And so it has come to pass that not only in Christ we are saved, but it is also true that we mount by Him into the very secret place of the Most High. And this is drinking at the upper spring. Thus the secret of this great blessing is to be found by abiding in Christ. Dr. Gordon used to tell a little circumstance which came beneath his eyes in New England, which presents to us a figure of it all. Two little saplings grew side by side. Through the action of the wind they crossed each other. By and by the bark of each became wounded and the sap began to mingle, until in some still day they became united to each other. This process went on more and more until they were firmly compacted. Then the stronger began to absorb the life from the weaker; it grew stronger while the other grew weaker and weaker, until finally it dropped away and then disappeared. And now there are two trunks at the bottom and only one at the top. Death has taken away the one, life has triumphed in the other. There was a time when you and Jesus Christ met. The wounds of your penitent heart began to knit up with the wounds of His broken heart, and you were thus united to Christ. How is it now? Has the old life been growing less and less? Has he been increasing and have you been decreasing? If so, you have learned the lesson of the upper spring, and blessed are you. This is what Paul had learned when he said: "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live not of myself, but by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." And as you stoop to drink at the upper spring, you see in the water a reflection of a face. At first it seems not to be your own; you took again and find it is, but changed, so wondrously changed. Do you know the secret? It is the Christ that is in you shining forth, and so for you to live, has become, not only to act like Christ, and to speak like Christ, but actually to look like Him. And this is not strange, for nothing is more common than to remark the influence which a person of commanding talent or position exerts upon others. Alexander the Great always had a copy of Homer under his pillow. Caesar, meeting with a statue of Alexander, was fired with an ambition he had never known before. If these things are true, what must be the transforming power of the constant contemplation of the life of the Son of God? The very clod beneath the rosebush imbibes a perfume. You can not walk through an orange grove without carrying away with you some of the fragrance. And so you could not think much of Christ without living above this world and its many trials. A number of travelers were making their way across the desert. The last drop of water had been exhausted, and they were pushing on with the hope that more might be found. They were growing weaker and weaker. As a last resort they divided their men into companies and sent them on, one in advance of the other, in this way securing a rest they so much needed. If they who were in the advance guard were able to find the springs, they were to shout the good tidings to the men who were the nearest to them, and so they were to send the message along. The long line reached far across the desert. They were fainting by the way when suddenly, every one was cheered by the good news. The leader of the first company had found the springs of water. He stood at the head of his men shouting until the farthest man had heard his cry: "Water! water!" The word went from mouth to mouth, until the whole company of men heard the sound, quickened their pace, and soon were drinking to their hearts’ content. I have found the Water of Life; it is flowing fully, it is flowing freely; and so I stand and cry: "Water! water!" Take up the cry, every one, until every thirsty soul shall drink and live. But I have found another blessing, too. It is that of sweet communion with the Lord. It is that of the closest fellowship with Him. It is at the brink of the upper spring. Will you not come? The head of the springs, both of them, the upper and the nether, is found at the throne of God. For that reason I call you all to come and take of the waters freely. The Spirit and the bride say "Come": let him that heareth say "’Come": let him that is athirst come! And on the principle that water always seeks its own level, coming from the throne it will go back again, and it will bear us too into His very presence, whom to know is life everlasting, and whom to see is a joy without end. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 03.06 LIVE IN THE SUNSHINE ======================================================================== Chapter 6 - Live in the Sunshine "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude 1:21). Jude’s is one of the briefest of all the letters in the New Testament, containing only twenty-five verses. It is, perhaps, the last of the epistles. Though the date is not definitely settled, it was probably written after the destruction of Jerusalem, when most of the Apostles had finished their work. There is a most delightful spirit of humility in the letter. The writer called himself a servant, and the bondsman of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James; and that is a beautiful modesty, for, in fact, it is generally believed that he was the Lord’s own brother and the son of Joseph and Mary. To no particular church or people was the letter written, but the accounts make it especially applicable to us. It is very practical. The heart of Jude was stirred because certain men were denying God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, because of this, "I exhort you that you should contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." That expression in the Greek, however, reads for the faith delivered "once and for all" to the saints. So the doctrine is the same today as in the days of Jude and before then. Reading on to the twentieth and twenty-fifth verses, they indicate that we are expected to contend as did the early disciples. It has always seemed to me that faith produced men, and their living in the world was a contending for the faith. We have the pattern of the life of the Apostolic Christian given to us. If you study the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and, better still, the wonderful prayer of Christ in John 17:1-26, you will see that there were three great elements in their character. They were in the world, but not of it; they were constantly looking for the coming of Christ; and they were filled with missionary fire and zeal. These three Characteristics must predominate now if the church is to have power. When one is in the world and not of it, he realizes he is a pilgrim and a stranger here, and he endures trials and temptations, because he knows that they are but for a little while. The second characteristic has just as great an influence. The disciples were constantly expecting the return of our Lord; they remembered the testimony of the men who had heard the angels on the slopes of Olivet, and again and again they opened their eyes, expecting to behold Him face to face. It was this hope in their hearts which inspired their lives, transfigured the cross and its shame, and kept them pure in the midst of all temptation and sin. The third characteristic is equally important. How much we need to long for the salvation of others! Nothing so touches the hidden, springs of the Christian heart as to feel in some measure that he is responsible for those about him. Some one has said, when God would draw out all the fathomless love of a woman’s heart, He lays a helpless babe upon her bosom; and it is true that the church will awake to power when she awakes to responsibility. There is something which I have in mind which will give us all the things I have spoken about. It is described in the text. If there could be any subject growing out of the text to describe it, I should say that it would be "Live in the sunshine." I know what the sunshine does for the clouds; it gives them a silver lining. I know what it does for the grass and the trees and the flowers; it warms and nourishes until they blossom into beauty and fruitfulness. Take the plant away from the light, and it will droop and die; place it where the sun will kiss it, and every leaf rejoices. This is the very poorest illustration as to what the love of God will do for us; so let us keep ourselves in the love of God. I. That word "keep" is the key word of Jude’s epistle. In it we are told that God will keep us, but we are also told to keep ourselves. We are told to persevere, but it is also said we will be preserved. This is God and man working together, and it is singular, to say the least, that the word "preserve" and the word "persevere" are composed of exactly the same letters. The literal rendering of the expression that God will keep us is "as in a garrison." How secure, then, we must be! How May We Keep Ourselves In The Love Of God? 1. No way so efficient as by prayer. There are different kinds of prayer. Jacob prayed when he met the angel of Jabbok, and his name changed from Jacob to Israel. Moses prayed when he plead with God to look with favor again upon His chosen people. Christ prayed in the garden, for it is said: "Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly." But this is not the kind of prayer I have in mind; it is rather the kind that Christ offered when He was alone on the mountain with God. I imagine the Father talked with Him more than He with the Father. It is the kind that David describes when he says. "My meditation of Him shall be sweet." Faith is the eye with which we can see God, and meditation the wing with which we fly to Him. It is the kind of prayer offered when the suppliant feeds that he is the only one in all the universe; it is the kind of prayer which if our mother could hear, or the dearest friend we had on earth, we should feel that it had been diverted and had not reached God. It is the kind of prayer we offer when we let God talk to us as well as talk to Him. This will keep us in the love of God. 2. Few things will so help us as this old book, the Bible. Two gentlemen were riding together, and when they were about to separate, one asked the other, "Do you ever read your Bible?" "Yes," said his friend; "I do, but I receive no benefit because I feel that I do not love God." "Neither did I," replied the other; "but God loved me," and that answer fairly lifted the man into the skies, for it gave him a new thought. The question is not at all as to how much I love God, but rather as to how much God loves me. Read the Bible in that way, and it will help you to live in the text. Love dictated every word, love selected every sentence, love presented every Providence, love sent Christ to die upon the cross, and you can not read it in this way without keeping yourself in the love of God. 3. All the means of grace will keep us, but if there is one above another it would be the Lord’s Supper. The very coming to the table and taking that which represents His body and His blood really lifts the soul into such a condition that it is one with Christ. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father, and he that is in Christ is in the Father. What better way, could there be of entering into His love? II. There must be emphasis upon the preposition "in." The Greek signifies the closest connection, the most intimate association and the most perfect communion. All these things are possible. The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and there may be just as close a fellowship between Christ and His followers. Now and then in this world we find persons whose lives are so blended that they almost look alike. This is oftentimes true of the husband and wife. Tennyson had it in his mind when he said: "In the long years liker must they grow." This communion of the believer with Christ is suggested by the stones in a building, which take hold upon the foundation; by the branches which take hold upon the vine; by the different members of the body all knit together; by the union of the husband and wife; by the union of the Father and the Son; so that in this union there is a stability, vitality, consciousness, affection and perfect harmony. If one is in Christ, he will live above the world and the storm’s effect. The earth may be covered with storms, but a little way up the atmosphere is clear and the sun is shining. If we wait upon the Lord, we shall renew our strength; we shall mount with wings as eagles. The Love Of God III. Would that we might understand the meaning of the expression "the love of God." It is hinted at in this world. Passing along the streets, one hears the words of a song or catches the strains of a piece of music being played, and he says, "That is from Beethoven or Mozart, I recognize the movement." So in this life, we catch strains of the love of God. We behold it in the mother’s disinterested, self-denying love; we see it in the lover’s glow, and in the little child’s innocent affection; but these things are only hints. The Bible gives us the best revelation. Beginning with Genesis the scroll is constantly unfolding. Patriarchs and prophets, judges and kings, each tell their story. So, little by little, we get flashes out of His great heart until they all come together as the rays of the sun are converged in the sun-glass; then we begin to understand. It was not, however, until the Sun of Righteousness arose at the advent that there came the morning light which gives us the thought, not of the administration of God, but of His heart. What is infinite love? The purest, sweetest, tenderest thing known on earth is the over-hanging heart of a mother over the cradle that contains her babe that can give nothing back; receiving everything and returning nothing -- yet the love of the mother is but a drop in the ocean when compared with the love of God. It is infinite, infinite! There’s a wideness in God’s mercy Like the wideness of the sea; There’s a kindness in His justice, Which is more than liberty. For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind. Over in England an archdeacon, having reached almost the end of his life, had his home so constructed that he could spend his closing days in sunshine. In the morning they placed his chair so that he could turn his face toward the east and see the rising sun; at noontime they wheeled his chair into the south window, where he could behold the sun in his meridian; but in the evening hours they would place him in the west window, where he could behold the king of day sinking behind the distant hills. So let me ask you in the morning of your life to keep your faces toward the east window, and at noontide live in the south window, but when evening time comes, turn your face toward the west window, so that all your journey through you may live in the sunshine, and thus keep yourselves in the love of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 03.07. THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE ======================================================================== Chapter 7 - The Secret of His Presence "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty" (Psalms 91:1). To me this is one of the most beautiful expressions in all the Bible; beautiful because it is poetic, but more than that for the reason that it holds up before us one of the greatest privileges that can come to the children of God. There is a difference of opinion as to who the author of the Psalms may be. We get into the way of thinking that David wrote everything in the Psalter, but Moses is the author here. The Talmud ascribes not only this one to him but the nine preceding as well. The rule is that all the Psalms without a name in the title are to be ascribed to the poet whose name is given in the nearest preceding title; but this rule will not always hold good. This is the Psalm quoted by the devil when he was tempting Christ upon the mountain, and it has ever been throbbing with comfort for every troubled soul. Whoever wrote it, it is beautiful, and all will agree that the lesson taught is one touching our communion with God and our fellowship with Jesus Christ. It is very true that all Christians do not occupy the same position in this world. All are saved, and it is by the same "precious blood of Christ." But there is so much more to the Christian life than simply being saved; that is only the beginning. The blessings here offered are given in a very general way. God is no respecter of persons, and so it is as if He had said, any one who will fulfill the conditions may have the blessing; and as there is only the one condition, namely, that we shall dwell in the "secret place of the Most High," you would think that all would accept, for the promise is that we "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." The blessings here promised are not for all believers, but only for those who live in close fellowship with God. Every child of God looks toward the inner sanctuary and the mercy seat, but all do not dwell there. They run to it at times and enjoy occasional glimpses of the face of Him who is there to be seen; but they do not continually abide in the mysterious presence, and this is possible for every one. It is with the desire that I might learn the lesson myself as well as bring it to you, and with the almost unutterable longing that we might know how to abide in the "secret of His presence" that I have brought you the subject. May the Lord help us every one! I have been on the mountain tops of Christian experience, when I have seemed to see the face of Him who loved me and gave Himself for me, and I am sure that you can say the same; but the text says that we may abide there in our thoughts while we may be all the time in the very thickest of the fight for God. I like the verse. Every word is sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. It is so restful to know that there is any place in the world where we may abide. There is also something very winning to me in the fact that it is a secret place, for that surely means that God has something that is just intended for me, and for me alone. When I am there, I am away from the world. It is the place Mrs. Brown discovered when she wrote the beautiful hymn, "I love in solitude to shed The penitential tear; And all His promises to plead When none but God can hear." There is something about the word "shadow" that always interests, for there never has been a shadow without the light; thus the "secret place" must be a place of brightness. It is a place where God is, for the nearest of all things to me as I journey in the sunlight is my shadow, and he who walks in nay shadow or rests in it must be very near to me; so that when I am in the shadow of God, I can reach forth my hand and touch Him; I can lift up mine eyes and see Him face to face. I know there is a sense in which God is always near us. He is in all things, and He is everywhere. But there is something about the "secret of His presence" to which every one is a stranger until he has dwelt there. In Psalms 119:1-176 the psalmist seems in the first part to be writing of the presence of God in a general sort of way. As another has said, "He had been beating out the golden ore of thought through successive paragraphs of marvelous power and beauty, when suddenly in the fifty-first verse he seems to have become conscious that He of whom he had been speaking had drawn near and was bending over him. The sense of the presence of God was borne in upon his inner consciousness, and lifting up a face on which reverence and ecstasy met and mingled, he cried: ’Thou art near, O Lord!’" If we could only attain unto this how strong, how happy, how useful we should be. It is possible as well for those of us who are in the very midst of perplexing cares as for the priest or the saint; for since the Master bids us all to abide in Him, and does not limit either His meaning or the number of people who may obey, I am absolutely certain that it rests with me and with you to determine whether we shall take advantage of our high privilege. The typical reference must be to the holy place of the tabernacle, which the priests were privileged to enter; but Peter assures us that we have become in this new dispensation "a holy priesthood," so that it is possible for us to enter on that ground. If this interpretation is allowed, then it is something, too wonderful almost to describe, to which we are bidden, for in the tabernacle just beyond the veil was the glory cloud, and all the magnificence that could be wrought in gold and silver, purple and fine linen. But I am persuaded that even that was as nothing when compared to that which awaits us when we enter the secret place of God. The writer to the Hebrews tells us just how we may enter. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh," how easy it all seems when we look at it in this way! A Christian is all wrong according to the text if he thinks that all the life here below must be turmoil and strife, for there is an abiding even here, and a sweet, undisturbed communion even in the midst of the tempest. A dwelling place is a home, not a temporary shelter to which one may run for momentary relief, as the birds fly to the boughs of the trees in the midst of the storm and then leave again when the storm has passed. It is the idea of a home. What can be more restful and comfortable? The Hebrew for the expression "shall abide" is "shall pass the night." Is it not a wonderful thing that the experiences that have seemed to us to be Heaven begun below, but have been as fleeting as the shadows sweeping the hillside, may be with us all the time? What place is so restful as your home? I know there is a rest that comes to one the moment he accepts the pardon that is offered by the Redeemer and the burden of sin is gone. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." This is His promise, and He never has failed; but immediately following that expression is this: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find lest unto your souls." I suppose one might secure the former and never come to the latter. Is not that the rest that comes to us when we are near enough to learn of Him, which is only another way of speaking of the "secret place"? What place is so comfortable as the home? There we are free from the annoyances of the world; there we have that which seems to soothe and to quiet. Could there be anything more expressive than the words we find in Psalms 91:4 : "He shall cover thee with His feathers." It would be almost a sacrilege for one to use the words if they were not in the Bible; but it is the picture of the mother bird shielding the little ones. What so warm, so comfortable, as the mother’s wings, or the nest that love has made? But listen to this: if you will only dwell in the "secret place," you shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty; and as if that would not be tender enough to woo us, we are told again, "He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings thou shalt trust." Home is the place for explanations. There we tell our secrets. If the people of the world do not understand us, our loved ones in our homes do. In Psalms 27:4, David wants to "dwell in the house of the Lord" that he may "inquire in His temple." There were many times when he was perplexed, when he could not understand God. One time he said, "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path is the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." And what is so trackless as the sea? Then he says, "I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end." It was as if God there had made some special revelation to him; it was the "secret place," and God had told him the secret of it all, for that is God’s way. Did He not walk with Enoch on the way as friend walks with friend? Did He not talk with Moses at Midian and tell him things he never could repeat? I remember very well that John was so near to the blessed Christ that he leaned his head upon His bosom. How easy for Him to bend His head and whisper to him the things He could not even tell the other disciples, for they were not near enough; for there are things that can not be spoken above a whisper. If they were, their power would be gone. One could not thus come near to Christ without receiving some special message. When Paul was caught up into the heavens, I remember that he heard certain things that it was not possible for him to utter, partly because he had no language and partly because they were secrets he had been told. And one of the best things about Peter was that he met Christ after His resurrection. after he had denied Him with an oath, after he had forsaken Him; and when their eyes met and their hands clasped, the same as in the other days, except that the Master’s were marked by the nails, they had an interview. How tender the message must have been! I imagine it was the turning point of Peter’s life for real power. He told Mark many things about himself, but of that interview with Christ he never spoke a word. To me it is a beautiful reminder of the fact that Christ is "the same yesterday, today and forever," and if I am only near enough to Him, I may inquire of Him concerning all the mysteries of my life, and He who made known His ways unto Moses will answer me in the "secret place" and in the secret way. "If I tried I could not utter What He says when thus we meet." It would be impossible for one to read the verses immediately following the text without being impressed with the fact that the most remarkable results will follow our abiding and dwelling in the "secret place." In order that the subject may be the more practical and helpful I desire to suggest some things which will surely be ours when we fulfill the conditions. 1. In the "secret place" there is peace. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," our Master said, "but in Me ye shall have peace." I have read that a certain insect has the power to surround itself with a film of air, encompassed in which it drops into the midst of muddy, stagnant pools, and remains unhurt. And the believer may be thus surrounded by the atmosphere of God, and while he is in the midst of the turmoils of the world he may be filled to overflowing with the peace of God, because God is with him. This is true whatever your occupation, if it is ever so menial. The Rev. F. B. Meyer tells us of Lawrence, the simple-minded cook, who said that "for more than sixty years he never lost the sense of the presence of God, but was as conscious of it while performing the duties of his humble office as when partaking of the Lord’s Supper." What peace he must have had! If you are constantly engaged so that you have said it was impossible for you to enjoy your religion very much because you were so busy, still you may have this peace, because you are in the "secret place." I know that it is impossible for one to keep two thoughts in the mind at the same time and do them both justice; but there is the heart as well as the mind, and while the mind is busy the heart may be rejoicing in all the fullness of God. The orator is conscious of the presence of his audience, and his heart is touched by their appreciation while his mind is busy in presenting the thoughts that move them. You may have all your mind taken up with the book you are reading or studying, but your heart is conscious of the presence of the one you love and who sits by your side. The mother may be very busy in one part of the house; her mind may be greatly engaged, but her heart is conscious of the fact that her little babe is in another part of the house, and the least cry will draw her to the child. So the mind may be occupied to the very fullest extent, and even be disturbed by the things about us, while the heart may be abiding in sweet communion and fellowship with Him because we are dwelling in the "secret place." Those were comforting words of the Master’s when He said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." So that I may have peace even when trial comes. David found this to be true, for in that beautiful Psalm, Psalms 27:1-14, he says: "In the time of trouble He will hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle will He hide me." The pavilion was a great tent in the very center of the camp, and when he was there nothing could harm him; he could be at peace even if he should hear the sounds of his enemies. But the expression is even stronger than that, for David says that if it were necessary God would even put him in the "secret of His tabernacle"; that is the same as the Holy of Holies; and who would not have been safe there? Here is our "secret place" again, and this is just where God has given us the privilege of going. Why should we be disturbed if troubles are about us and our enemies rise up to do us harm? 2. In the "secret place" there is purity. If our surroundings were only better in this world, our lives would be purer. It is very easy to be good in the company of some people we know; they seem to draw out all the good in us. To be surrounded by certain kinds of scenery is to be lifted near Heaven; to touch a little child pure as the angels of God is to receive a benediction. What could not the presence of God do for us if only we were all the time conscious of it? This is just what I may have, did I but dwell in the "secret place." One of the reasons which David gives for desiring to dwell in the house of the Lord was that "he might behold the beauty of the Lord." I wish that it might be possible for me to make plain to you as I might understand it myself all the beauty that waits us in the "secret place." Think of the gorgeousness of the Holy of Holies in the ancient tabernacle, which is a type of this! The wonderful curtains and hangings of the place, its blue and purple, its fine twined linen and threads of gold. Think of the beautiful veil with the cherubim, with the embroidery so fine that angel fingers must have wrought them, the table of pure gold holding the bread, and the seven-branched candlestick? Who from the outside looking upon the badger skin tent would have imagined how glorious it was within? So I do not think it would be possible to make plain to you all that awaits you in the "secret place." He who has dwelt there with God could not tell his joy if he had an angel’s speech; but this I know, that if you will but enter in and dwell there, the very beauty of the place wilt make you pure, and you remember that it is only unto "the pure in heart" that the vision of God is promised. I suppose we might have been with Jacob when in his dream he saw the heavens opened and beheld the angels going up and coming down and heard the voice of God, and we only should have seen the dreary mountains round about. I doubt not but that we might have been with Paul when he was caught up to the third heaven, and we should have seen nothing but the humble surroundings of his tent. And I doubt not but that if Paul were here today he would see God here this morning, and he would have walked on the street with Him yesterday. Is not the trouble with ourselves instead of our surroundings or our times? Every permitted sin encrusts the windows of the soul and blinds our vision; and every victory over evil clears the vision of the soul, and we can see Him a little plainer. The unholy man could not see God if he were set down in the midst of heaven; but men and women whose hearts are pure see Him in the very commonest walks of life. And there is not a place in the world if it is right that we should have been there, but after we have passed by we may say, "Behold, God was in this place, and I knew it not." And if we can not say it, it is wrong for us to go. 3. In the "secret place" there is power. Oh! that we might all of us possess real power! This is our cry day and night, and yet there is nothing we may have easier. There is no promise with which I am familiar that tells us that we may have power of intellect or of human might. But there is a promise that we shall have power after that the Holy Ghost shall come upon us; and in the olden times He literally filled to overflowing the Holy of Holies, so that at one time it was almost impossible for one to enter. This will come to us likewise when we dwell in the "secret place." In I Chronicles we read, in the fourth chapter and twenty-third verse, of certain men who "dwelt with the king for his work." There can be no effective service that is not the outcome of communion. Our Lord’s Day precedes the week of work, and this is always the plan of God. That wonderful fifteenth chapter of John is founded on that idea. We must abide first, and after that we can not help but bear fruit. Oh! that we might be so near to Him that we should be magnetized and charged with a spiritual force that the world could neither gainsay nor resist! I have left to the very last the most practical question of all, and that is: How may I enter into this "secret place"? Can not something be said that will make the way plain? It may all be summed up in this answer. None can "know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." It is impossible for any one to enter into the "secret place" of the Most High except through Jesus Christ. He said, "I am the way, I am the door, by me, if any man will, he shall enter in." It is just what Paul meant when he said, "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." There are some places in the Bible where the way seems plain. "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him." And whatever else is meant by this feeding on Christ, this certainly is true -- we are to set apart daily periods of time when we may have communion with the Saviour. Is it not because we are too hurried that our vision of Christ is blurred and indistinct? It is only when the water is still that you can see the pebbly beach below. You could not go alone with Christ half an hour each day, or even a less time, and sitting still, look up into His face, by faith talk to Him and let Him talk to you, without feeling that for a little part of the day you had been in heaven, when in fact it was only the "secret place" of the Most High. Christ would be in you and you would be in Christ, even as in the southern sea the sponges may be seen beneath the waves, the sponge in the sea and the sea in the sponge. Then we could say with Paul: "I live, and yet not I but Christ liveth in me." Again I have read in the Bible these words: "He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him." And I have found that I have only to go the way I think Christ wants me to go and to do the things I think He wants me to do to be able to stand on the very mountain top of Christian experience; and that is only another way of speaking of the "secret place." You could not go where Christ has bidden you without meeting Him, and you could not meet Him without a blessing coming with the meeting. After all this has been known, I have been told that the vision still tarries. Sometimes that is to try our faith; but He will come if you wait, for He has promised. If, however, after long waiting still He should tarry, take up this old Book, turn its pages with a prayer that God might open your eyes so that you might see Him. This is the garden where he walks; press on, you will meet Him face to face. This is the temple where He dwells; stand knocking at the door, even while you wait it may swing noiselessly on its hinges, and He will lead you Himself into the "secret place." Did you ever cultivate the habit of talking aloud to God? Sit down this very day and with upturned face and open eyes talk to Him as to your father, as to the dearest friend you have, one to whom you can tell your most secret thoughts; tell them to Him. The very room where you sit will seem to be filled with angels; but best of all God will be there, for one could not long talk to Him without feeling Him to be near. After such an experience some one has written: "Suddenly there came upon my soul a something I had never known before. It was as if some one Infinite and Almighty, knowing everything, full of the deepest, tenderest interest in myself, made known to me that He loved me. My eye saw no one, but I knew assuredly that the One whom I knew not and had never met had met me for the first time and made known to me that we were together." God give us all such an experience. Come into the "secret place." Come in! After the Lord Jesus Christ had entered the heart of a girl in India, one who was of the higher caste, she was so transformed by His presence that out of the fullness of her love to Him she put on paper a little verse for which I shall never cease to thank God. Will you go with me and with her into the "secret place" of the Most High that we may abide under the shadow of the Almighty? "In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide; Oh! how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus’ side! Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low, For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the ’secret place’ I go. When my soul is faint and thirsty, ’neath the shadow of His wings There is cool and pleasant shelter and refreshing crystal springs. And my Saviour rests beside me as we hold communion sweet; If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet. Only this I know, I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and fears. Oh! how patiently He listens, and my drooping soul He cheers. Do you think He ne’er reproves me? What a false friend He would be If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see. Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord? Go and hide beneath His shadow; this shall then be your reward; And whene’er you leave the silence of that happy meeting place You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 03.08. "AND THE TWELVE GATES WERE TWELVE PEARLS" ======================================================================== Chapter 8 - "And the Twelve Gates Were Twelve Pearls" In Psalms 119:1-176 the psalmist seems in the first part to be writing of the presence of God in a general sort of way. As another has said, "He had been beating out the golden ore of thought through successive paragraphs of marvelous power and beauty, when suddenly in Psalms 119:51 he seems to have become conscious that He of whom he had been speaking had drawn near and was bending over him. The sense of the presence of God was borne in upon his inner consciousness, and lifting up a face on which reverence and ecstasy met and mingled, he cried: ’Thou art near, O Lord!’" If we could only attain unto this how strong, how happy, how useful we should be. It is possible as well for those of us who are in the very midst of perplexing cares as for the priest or the saint; for since the Master bids us all to abide in Him, and does not limit either His meaning or the number of people who may obey, I am absolutely certain that it rests with me and with you to determine whether we shall take advantage of our high privilege. The typical reference must be to the holy place of the tabernacle, which the priests were privileged to enter; but Peter assures us that we have become in this new dispensation "a holy priesthood," so that it is possible for us to enter on that ground. If this interpretation is allowed, then it is something, too wonderful almost to describe, to which we are bidden, for in the tabernacle just beyond the veil was the glory cloud, and all the magnificence that could be wrought in gold and silver, purple and fine linen. But I am persuaded that even that was as nothing when compared to that which awaits us when we enter the secret place of God. The writer to the Hebrews tells us just how we may enter. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh," how easy it all seems when we look at it in this way! A Christian is all wrong according to the text if he thinks that all the life here below must be turmoil and strife, for there is an abiding even here, and a sweet, undisturbed communion even in the midst of the tempest. A dwelling place is a home, not a temporary shelter to which one may run for momentary relief, as the birds fly to the boughs of the trees in the midst of the storm and then leave again when the storm has passed. It is the idea of a home. What can be more restful and comfortable? The Hebrew for the expression "shall abide" is "shall pass the night." Is it not a wonderful thing that the experiences that have seemed to us to be Heaven begun below, but have been as fleeting as the shadows sweeping the hillside, may be with us all the time? What place is so restful as your home? I know there is a rest that comes to one the moment he accepts the pardon that is offered by the Redeemer and the burden of sin is gone. "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." This is His promise, and He never has failed; but immediately following that expression is this: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find lest unto your souls." I suppose one might secure the former and never come to the latter. Is not that the rest that comes to us when we are near enough to learn of Him, which is only another way of speaking of the "secret place"? What place is so comfortable as the home? There we are free from the annoyances of the world; there we have that which seems to soothe and to quiet. Could there be anything more expressive than the words we find in Psalms 91:4 : "He shall cover thee with His feathers." It would be almost a sacrilege for one to use the words if they were not in the Bible; but it is the picture of the mother bird shielding the little ones. What so warm, so comfortable, as the mother’s wings, or the nest that love has made? But listen to this: if you will only dwell in the "secret place," you shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty; and as if that would not be tender enough to woo us, we are told again, "He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings thou shalt trust." Home is the place for explanations. There we tell our secrets. If the people of the world do not understand us, our loved ones in our homes do. In Psalms 27:4, David wants to "dwell in the house of the Lord" that he may "inquire in His temple." There were many times when he was perplexed, when he could not understand God. One time he said, "Thy way is in the sea, and thy path is the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." And what is so trackless as the sea? Then he says, "I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I their end." It was as if God there had made some special revelation to him; it was the "secret place," and God had told him the secret of it all, for that is God’s way. Did He not walk with Enoch on the way as friend walks with friend? Did He not talk with Moses at Midian and tell him things he never could repeat? I remember very well that John was so near to the blessed Christ that he leaned his head upon His bosom. How easy for Him to bend His head and whisper to him the things He could not even tell the other disciples, for they were not near enough; for there are things that can not be spoken above a whisper. If they were, their power would be gone. One could not thus come near to Christ without receiving some special message. When Paul was caught up into the heavens, I remember that he heard certain things that it was not possible for him to utter, partly because he had no language and partly because they were secrets he had been told. And one of the best things about Peter was that he met Christ after His resurrection. after he had denied Him with an oath, after he had forsaken Him; and when their eyes met and their hands clasped, the same as in the other days, except that the Master’s were marked by the nails, they had an interview. How tender the message must have been! I imagine it was the turning point of Peter’s life for real power. He told Mark many things about himself, but of that interview with Christ he never spoke a word. To me it is a beautiful reminder of the fact that Christ is "the same yesterday, today and forever," and if I am only near enough to Him, I may inquire of Him concerning all the mysteries of my life, and He who made known His ways unto Moses will answer me in the "secret place" and in the secret way. "If I tried I could not utter What He says when thus we meet." It would be impossible for one to read the verses immediately following the text without being impressed with the fact that the most remarkable results will follow our abiding and dwelling in the "secret place." In order that the subject may be the more practical and helpful I desire to suggest some things which will surely be ours when we fulfill the conditions. 1. In the "secret place" there is peace. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," our Master said, "but in Me ye shall have peace." I have read that a certain insect has the power to surround itself with a film of air, encompassed in which it drops into the midst of muddy, stagnant pools, and remains unhurt. And the believer may be thus surrounded by the atmosphere of God, and while he is in the midst of the turmoils of the world he may be filled to overflowing with the peace of God, because God is with him. This is true whatever your occupation, if it is ever so menial. The Rev. F. B. Meyer tells us of Lawrence, the simple-minded cook, who said that "for more than sixty years he never lost the sense of the presence of God, but was as conscious of it while performing the duties of his humble office as when partaking of the Lord’s Supper." What peace he must have had! If you are constantly engaged so that you have said it was impossible for you to enjoy your religion very much because you were so busy, still you may have this peace, because you are in the "secret place." I know that it is impossible for one to keep two thoughts in the mind at the same time and do them both justice; but there is the heart as well as the mind, and while the mind is busy the heart may be rejoicing in all the fullness of God. The orator is conscious of the presence of his audience, and his heart is touched by their appreciation while his mind is busy in presenting the thoughts that move them. You may have all your mind taken up with the book you are reading or studying, but your heart is conscious of the presence of the one you love and who sits by your side. The mother may be very busy in one part of the house; her mind may be greatly engaged, but her heart is conscious of the fact that her little babe is in another part of the house, and the least cry will draw her to the child. So the mind may be occupied to the very fullest extent, and even be disturbed by the things about us, while the heart may be abiding in sweet communion and fellowship with Him because we are dwelling in the "secret place." Those were comforting words of the Master’s when He said, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." So that I may have peace even when trial comes. David found this to be true, for in that beautiful Psalm, Psalms 27:1-14, he says: "In the time of trouble He will hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle will He hide me." The pavilion was a great tent in the very center of the camp, and when he was there nothing could harm him; he could be at peace even if he should hear the sounds of his enemies. But the expression is even stronger than that, for David says that if it were necessary God would even put him in the "secret of His tabernacle"; that is the same as the Holy of Holies; and who would not have been safe there? Here is our "secret place" again, and this is just where God has given us the privilege of going. Why should we be disturbed if troubles are about us and our enemies rise up to do us harm? 2. In the "secret place" there is purity. If our surroundings were only better in this world, our lives would be purer. It is very easy to be good in the company of some people we know; they seem to draw out all the good in us. To be surrounded by certain kinds of scenery is to be lifted near Heaven; to touch a little child pure as the angels of God is to receive a benediction. What could not the presence of God do for us if only we were all the time conscious of it? This is just what I may have, did I but dwell in the "secret place." One of the reasons which David gives for desiring to dwell in the house of the Lord was that "he might behold the beauty of the Lord." I wish that it might be possible for me to make plain to you as I might understand it myself all the beauty that waits us in the "secret place." Think of the gorgeousness of the Holy of Holies in the ancient tabernacle, which is a type of this! The wonderful curtains and hangings of the place, its blue and purple, its fine twined linen and threads of gold. Think of the beautiful veil with the cherubim, with the embroidery so fine that angel fingers must have wrought them, the table of pure gold holding the bread, and the seven-branched candlestick? Who from the outside looking upon the badger skin tent would have imagined how glorious it was within? So I do not think it would be possible to make plain to you all that awaits you in the "secret place." He who has dwelt there with God could not tell his joy if he had an angel’s speech; but this I know, that if you will but enter in and dwell there, the very beauty of the place wilt make you pure, and you remember that it is only unto "the pure in heart" that the vision of God is promised. I suppose we might have been with Jacob when in his dream he saw the heavens opened and beheld the angels going up and coming down and heard the voice of God, and we only should have seen the dreary mountains round about. I doubt not but that we might have been with Paul when he was caught up to the third heaven, and we should have seen nothing but the humble surroundings of his tent. And I doubt not but that if Paul were here today he would see God here this morning, and he would have walked on the street with Him yesterday. Is not the trouble with ourselves instead of our surroundings or our times? Every permitted sin encrusts the windows of the soul and blinds our vision; and every victory over evil clears the vision of the soul, and we can see Him a little plainer. The unholy man could not see God if he were set down in the midst of heaven; but men and women whose hearts are pure see Him in the very commonest walks of life. And there is not a place in the world if it is right that we should have been there, but after we have passed by we may say, "Behold, God was in this place, and I knew it not." And if we can not say it, it is wrong for us to go. 3. In the "secret place" there is power. Oh! that we might all of us possess real power! This is our cry day and night, and yet there is nothing we may have easier. There is no promise with which I am familiar that tells us that we may have power of intellect or of human might. But there is a promise that we shall have power after that the Holy Ghost shall come upon us; and in the olden times He literally filled to overflowing the Holy of Holies, so that at one time it was almost impossible for one to enter. This will come to us likewise when we dwell in the "secret place." In 1 Chronicles 4:23 we read, of certain men who "dwelt with the king for his work." There can be no effective service that is not the outcome of communion. Our Lord’s Day precedes the week of work, and this is always the plan of God. That wonderful John 15:1-27 is founded on that idea. We must abide first, and after that we can not help but bear fruit. Oh! that we might be so near to Him that we should be magnetized and charged with a spiritual force that the world could neither gainsay nor resist! I have left to the very last the most practical question of all, and that is: How may I enter into this "secret place"? Can not something be said that will make the way plain? It may all be summed up in this answer. None can "know the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." It is impossible for any one to enter into the "secret place" of the Most High except through Jesus Christ. He said, "I am the way, I am the door, by me, if any man will, he shall enter in." It is just what Paul meant when he said, "But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." There are some places in the Bible where the way seems plain. "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him." And whatever else is meant by this feeding on Christ, this certainly is true -- we are to set apart daily periods of time when we may have communion with the Saviour. Is it not because we are too hurried that our vision of Christ is blurred and indistinct? It is only when the water is still that you can see the pebbly beach below. You could not go alone with Christ half an hour each day, or even a less time, and sitting still, look up into His face, by faith talk to Him and let Him talk to you, without feeling that for a little part of the day you had been in heaven, when in fact it was only the "secret place" of the Most High. Christ would be in you and you would be in Christ, even as in the southern sea the sponges may be seen beneath the waves, the sponge in the sea and the sea in the sponge. Then we could say with Paul: "I live, and yet not I but Christ liveth in me." Again I have read in the Bible these words: "He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him." And I have found that I have only to go the way I think Christ wants me to go and to do the things I think He wants me to do to be able to stand on the very mountain top of Christian experience; and that is only another way of speaking of the "secret place." You could not go where Christ has bidden you without meeting Him, and you could not meet Him without a blessing coming with the meeting. After all this has been known, I have been told that the vision still tarries. Sometimes that is to try our faith; but He will come if you wait, for He has promised. If, however, after long waiting still He should tarry, take up this old Book, turn its pages with a prayer that God might open your eyes so that you might see Him. This is the garden where he walks; press on, you will meet Him face to face. This is the temple where He dwells; stand knocking at the door, even while you wait it may swing noiselessly on its hinges, and He will lead you Himself into the "secret place." Did you ever cultivate the habit of talking aloud to God? Sit down this very day and with upturned face and open eyes talk to Him as to your father, as to the dearest friend you have, one to whom you can tell your most secret thoughts; tell them to Him. The very room where you sit will seem to be filled with angels; but best of all God will be there, for one could not long talk to Him without feeling Him to be near. After such an experience some one has written: "Suddenly there came upon my soul a something I had never known before. It was as if some one Infinite and Almighty, knowing everything, full of the deepest, tenderest interest in myself, made known to me that He loved me. My eye saw no one, but I knew assuredly that the One whom I knew not and had never met had met me for the first time and made known to me that we were together." God give us all such an experience. Come into the "secret place." Come in! After the Lord Jesus Christ had entered the heart of a girl in India, one who was of the higher caste, she was so transformed by His presence that out of the fullness of her love to Him she put on paper a little verse for which I shall never cease to thank God. Will you go with me and with her into the "secret place" of the Most High that we may abide under the shadow of the Almighty? "In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide; Oh! how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus’ side! Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low, For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the ’secret place’ I go. When my soul is faint and thirsty, ’neath the shadow of His wings There is cool and pleasant shelter and refreshing crystal springs. And my Saviour rests beside me as we hold communion sweet; If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet. Only this I know, I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and fears. Oh! how patiently He listens, and my drooping soul He cheers. Do you think He ne’er reproves me? What a false friend He would be If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see. Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord? Go and hide beneath His shadow; this shall then be your reward; And whene’er you leave the silence of that happy meeting place You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face." I have been told that the deeper the water, the larger the pearl. Whether that be true or not, I can not tell; but I know that from the greatest depths God sometimes takes His brightest jewels. It is no cause for discouragement if you have been a great sinner. Paul was a persecutor, Bunyan a blasphemer, Newton a libertine, and yet they shine today as the jewels of Christ. Geologists tell us that the diamond is only crystallized carbon, charcoal glorified. This Book tells us something better than that, that "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Heaven is a place of unutterable sweetness. Can you imagine the number of little children there? Can anyone describe the sweetness of a child’s song? And when you remember that your own little one may be there! What wonderful singing it is as their lips are touched by the finger of Christ, and their hearts are thrilled with His presence. "O, the joys that are there mortal eye hath not seen, O, the songs they sing there with hosannas between, O, the thrice blessed song of the Lamb and of Moses, O, the white tents of peace where the rapt soul reposes, O, the waters so still and the pastures so green, There, there they sing songs with hosannas between!" The boy who was blind makes the best expression of Heaven to me. The doctor had cut away the obstruction from his eyes, and the bandages placed there were removed one by one until after a little they had been all taken off. When he opened his eyes in silent wonder as if a new world had been opened to him, he beheld his mother, and yet he did not know that it was she. Finally he heard her familiar voice asking him, "My son, can you see?" He sprang into her arms, exclaiming, "O, mother, is this Heaven?" That is the best definition. Heaven is seeing eye to eye. knowing even as we are known. If there is one word which better than another will describe Heaven to me, it is an explanation. "’What is Heaven?’ I asked a little child, ’All joy’; and in her innocence she smiled. I asked the aged, with her care oppressed, All suffering o’er, ’Oh, Heaven at last is rest.’ I asked the artist who adored his art -’ Heaven is all beauty,’ spoke his raptured heart. I asked the poet with his soul of fire, ’Tis glory,’ and he struck his lyre. I asked the Christian waiting his release, A halo ’round him, low he answered, ’Peace.’ So all may look with hopeful eyes above, ’Tis beauty, glory, joy, rest, peace and love." A City Of Gates There is something significant in the fact that Heaven is a city of gates. The idea must be that there is some special way to get in. We can not live just as we please and at the last enter Heaven; we might if it were not enclosed. The Bible tells us that we may come in from the north, the south, the east and west, but we are obliged to pass through the gates, and it is not always easy. "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way"; one might be liable to miss it. "Strive to enter in," says the Bible; so one must be very earnest. Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, the life"; "I am the door"; and again, "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Some people think that God is so merciful that after awhile they may stand in His presence; but He is just as well as merciful, and He has provided the way by which every one must enter Heaven. It is through the gate. Reformation will not do, morality can not answer; it is giving up yourself to Him, putting your hand in His and letting Him lead you all the journey of life, until you pass through the gates. A child dying said to his father, "I wouldn’t be afraid to go if mamma would go with me." "But," he said, "little one, she can’t go." Then the child said, "I want you to go," and he said, "my darling, I can’t go." Then when the child had prayed to Him who had promised to walk through the valley of the shadow, after a little while he said, "I am not afraid now, for Christ has said that He will be with me, and He will." Lift up your heads, oh, ye gates, lift them up, for the time is coming when with Jesus we shall pass through! Gates Of Pearl I am sure that there is some meaning in the fact that the gates are of pearl. Do you know the history of pearls? Humanly speaking, it is a history of suffering. When discovered, it is at the risk of the pearl-fisher’s life. It is said that pearls are formed by the intrusion of some foreign substance between the mantel of the mollusk and its shell. This is a source of irritation, suffering and pain, and a substance is thrown. around about that which is intruded to prevent suffering; and thus the pearl is formed. Do you begin to see the significance of the fact that the gates are of pearl, and not of gold? There was a time when there was no entrance into Heaven for us; sin had closed it; man had grievously sinned, he had broken every law of God, and there was no hope for him at all. Then it was that the Babe was cradled in the manger, became a youth, grew to manhood, endured thirty-three years of suffering, culminating in the agony upon Calvary, when in the tremendous tension His heart broke. Then it was He died, the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty; then it was that He arose from the dead, went out unto Bethany, ascended into Heaven to swing wide open the gates. And thus it is they are open today; and one never nears of the gates of pearl but he must realize in some measure what salvation cost, not so much to you and to me, but to Him -- humiliation, sorrow, suffering, death; and do you realize that every one who refuses allegiance to Him is arrayed against Him, for He said, "You are either for me or against me, there is no middle ground"? Twelve Gates How full the Word of God is! In its teaching, beauty and sweetness come from it with every touch. It is a rock; you can not touch it but the water of life will come forth; it is a flower, you can not come near it without being blessed by its fragrance. There is something to me even in the number of Heaven’s gates. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, three on every side, and the city lieth four square. Is this not an indication that God has made abundant provision for our entrance into the city above? It is man who has narrowed down the way. The Bible invitation is, "Whosoever will, let him come." The provision is abundant. No one can stand at the judgment and say anything but this, "Lord, I might have entered, but would not." Twelve gates, and if you are not in it, it is your fault alone. God has done all that He could do. The Trinity has been exhausted, almost, on a sinful world, and He will do no more; it is for us ourselves to choose to enter in, it is very easy to be saved. In one of the schools of a great city, by the falling of a transom a cry of fire was started. The children were panic-stricken, and the teachers as well. In rushing from the building many were injured; some were killed. When it was found that the alarm was false, returning to her room, one of the teachers found sitting at her desk a young girl who had not stirred. When asked the reason for her bravery, she said, "My father is a fireman, and he told me if ever there was an alarm of fire in the building just to sit still where I was, and he would save me. My father is a fireman and he knows, and I just trusted him." That confidence in Jesus Christ would bring salvation. Said a man in Glasgow to a distinguished evangelist, "I am very anxious to be saved; what must I do?" The evangelist quoted many passages of Scripture to him, among them John 3:16 : "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him," and when he had gone this far the man stopped him, saying, "But I do believe." Then the evangelist quoted the sixth chapter of John and the forty-seventh verse, Christ’s own words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." The man saw it in a moment and cried out rejoicing, "I have got it, I have got it." That kind of acceptance of God brings everlasting life. Twelve gates, and every gate a pearl, and every gate exactly alike, so after all there is only one way. The Gates Are Open I am so glad that the gates are open today. We read that they shall not be shut at all by day, and as there is no night there, the conclusion is that they are open constantly. They are open now. Some have been going in since we have been speaking; at every tick of the clock a soul speeds away. I wish that I might go as did Alexander Cruden, seventy years of age, giving to the world his concordance, dying in want because he had given so freely to others. Going into his room they found him kneeling, his face buried in the Bible, his white hair falling down upon the chair, his spirit gone, the very angels filling the room where he had been. I wish that I might go as did David Livingstone. They looked into his tent door and said one to another, "Keep silence, the great leader is in prayer," for he was on his knees. After a little while they came back, and he seemed to be still praying; then half an hour later again, and when they touched him they found that Livingstone was dead. The chariots of God had halted while he prayed, and Livingstone, entering in, was caught up into the skies. Oh, the joy of such an entrance into Heaven! Dr. Pierre, returning to France from India after a long journey, said that his men when they came in sight of their native land were unfitted for duty. Some of them wistfully gazed upon the land they loved. Some of them shouted, some prayed, some fainted, and it is said that when they came near enough to recognize their friends on shore that every man left his post of duty, and it was necessary for help to come from off the land before the vessel could be anchored in the harbor. Oh! the joy of thus entering Heaven. Welcome from the gates, welcome from our friends long gone, welcome from every angel in the skies. The joy, the joy of one day sweeping through the gates! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 04.00. THE IVORY PALACES OF THE KING ======================================================================== The Ivory Palaces of the King By J. Wilbur Chapman Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1 - The Palace He Left Chapter 2 - The Palace He Bids Us Enter Chapter 3 - The Enlarging Blessing Chapter 4 - The Full Reward The Ivory Palaces of theKing By The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. Fleming H. Revell Company New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, Edinburgh Dedication To my wife, whose loving sympathy has made it possible and easy to live what this little book contains, and whose perfect self-sacrifice made the way easy to travel, that I might "do the work of an evangelist," this book is affectionately dedicated. Entered According To Act Of Congress In The Year 1893 By Fleming H. Revell Company, In The Office Of The Librarian Of Congress, At Washington, D. C. Chicago: 63 Washington Street New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 04.01. THE PALACE HE LEFT BEHIND ======================================================================== Chapter 1 - The Palace He Left When an Old Testament poet would give us a glimpse of the beauty of the character of Jesus Christ and press upon us some conception as to what his incarnation meant to Him by way of sacrifice and to us in the fullness of blessing, he writes these words: "All Thy garments smell of Myrrh and Aloes and Cassia, out of the Ivory Palaces." These words form only one touch of a master’s hand in the almost perfect delineation of a perfect character; for Psalms 45:1-17 is a picture of the Son of God, from the first verse almost to the last. It is so presented that it appeals to us in different ways. To the eye he is the most fair, to the ear most gracious, and his garments are so perfumed that even as he sweeps past us, by faith, there comes to us a better fragrance than any that has ever been borne on the wings of the summer wind. It is the purpose of this little book, not only to present the ’Ivory Palaces’ from which he came to be our Savior but also to present the great Palace of a Christian’s life; at the door of which he stands today beckoning us on, saying, "I am come, that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." The very idea of a Palace is that of splendor. There have been magnificent palaces in this world like the Tuileries of the French, the Windsor castle of the English and the Alhambra of the Spanish; but they are not for a moment, to be compared to the Palaces of Ivory from whence He came to redeem the world. The Old Testament poet then, could only have had this thought in mind: that the Palaces of Ivory were overwhelmingly beautiful, almost beyond the power of words to describe, and yet, God so loved the world, and His Son was so submissive to His will, that the scene in Bethlehem was enacted and the death on the cross was made real. The most touching thing about it all to me is this; that He came from such a place; to such a place; from the company of the angels to this world where His own received Him not: where He was despised of men, a pilgrim without a home, a wanderer without a friend; and yet He knew all about it before. He came, and herein is seen His marvelous love, for He was "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Holman Hunt had the idea in his master piece, "The Shadow of the Cross," in which he represents Jesus of Nazareth as standing at the carpenter’s bench where he is wearied with his work, and, as the day is dying, he lifts Himself from the constrained position in which He has been laboring, and seeking to relax His muscles, He stretches forth his arms, and stands thus for a moment while the sunlight is coming in at one of the windows just at the proper angle to cast at his back the shadow of a cross. The artist caught this idea in his picture. The shadow of the cross was on him at Bethlehem, in Egypt, at Nazareth, in Gethsemane and at last deepened into Calvary. And yet in the shadows ever deepening he moved on to become our Redeemer. I am persuaded that if I could only make you feel all that he endured as he came out from the Ivory Palaces, to be your Savior, you could not resist his power. Another thought about his coming may be suggestive. From other palaces of earth, there is a way that leads out to the greater highway. Along this the friends make their journeys to and from the mansion. Not infrequently they may be seen at quite a distance, then at a bend in the way, they are lost sight of, only to be seen a little nearer, until at last their journey is completed and with their friends they are united. As I think of Him coming out of the Ivory Palaces, such a highway springs to my mind. It is the Old Testament: it is the grand avenue that leads up to the gospel dispensation. There are very many people who have turned away from the Old Testament, with its sacrifices and burnt offerings, but that man has not yet taken hold of the real sweetness of God’s book who has found it only in the New Testament scriptures. The old couplet is true: "The new is in the old contained; The old is by the new explained." The Old Testament becomes not only plain but convincing when you make it point to Christ. One of my friends took home a dissecting map to his little children seeking thus to instruct them in geography. They worked diligently to put it together but failed. One girl lost her patience and rose up from the floor where they were at work saying, she would try no more. Her foot touched one of the pieces of the map and turned it over and she saw on the other side a part of a man’s hand. Turning over another piece she saw part of his face and then to her great surprise she found a part of the figure on every piece before her; then she said to her sister, "let us put the man together first." this they did, and when the map was turned over behold every river, mountain and sea was in its proper place. This is the secret of Bible study. Put the man Christ Jesus together first. Isaac bound on the faggots thus becomes a representation of Christ, while Abraham points to God. Jacob’s Ladder rising up from Bethel is a type of Jesus Christ. One side of the ladder is His human nature, the other side of the ladder is His divine nature; all the incidents in His life are the rounds of the ladder, and as we stand and look up, we hear His voice saying: "By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved." The smitten rock in the Old Testament tells of Him who said on the great day of the feast, "if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink." The Brazen serpent is a type of him who said, "and I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me." Down the long avenue he comes. Types and figures get plainer and plainer until Bethlehem’s gates swing open and shepherds are aroused with the angel’s song: "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord," and from His first infant step to the last one upon Calvary when, bearing His cross he fainted beneath its load, His whole life was a seeking after the lost. There is not only given to us however, a hint of the splendor from which He came; there is also a touch of a master’s hand which adds great tenderness to the fact of His coming. In the cathedral at Notre Dame there is an old chest which contains the robes worn on great occasions in the ages past. It is said that there is the robe worn by Pope Plus the VII., at the crowning of the first Napoleon, and the robe that was worn at the baptism of the Second Napoleon. A friend of mine said that as these garments were before him, there came a perfect rush of historical memories to his mind, and so it has seemed to me in order that the heart of the beholder might be made very tender and the picture of Jesus Christ Himself most impressive, the poet not only tells us of His coming incarnation but holds up before us the garments He wore. Passing through the hall of my own home one day, I beheld on the couch in one of the rooms an old garment I had not seen for years. It was made after the fashion of twenty-five years ago. If one should put it on today, it would be only to provoke mirth, but as my eyes rested upon it, there came to my mind one of the tenderest scenes in a person’s life. It was the last dress I had seen my mother wear. I stood alone in that room for half an hour with my hand upon the garment; the very touch of it seeming to bring before me, with ever increasing tenderness, the face of one who had been for twenty-three years in heaven. The very sight of the garment made the tears flow like rain I am sure the Old Testament poet himself must have wanted us to have some such conception of Jesus Christ when he said there was myrrh in his garments. He must have had some reference to the very sweetness of His life, for myrrh is always fragrant -- the smallest piece of it will fill a room with perfume. It was the first thing they gave Him at His birth -- almost the last thing they offered Him upon His cross. Did not His garments smell of myrrh, because of the sweetness of His influence? You cannot wear Him out. Put upon him all your burdens. Afflict Him with all your griefs and He is ever the same. If we could but tell the story of His sweetness and if we could but live His life, we could charm the drunkard from his cups, the prodigal from his wanderings, and the sinner from his sins. One of my friends owns the two master pieces of Munkasky’s "Christ before Pilate" and "Christ on Calvary." When the former picture was on exhibition in the lower part of Canada, it is said a rough looking man came to the door of the tent and said to the attendant, "is Jesus Christ here?" When informed that the picture was there, he asked the price of admission. Throwing down a piece of silver, he passed in and stood in the presence of the masterpiece. He kept his hat on, sat down on the chair before the painting and brushed off the catalogue. The one having the picture in charge had a desire to see how such a picture would move such a man. The man sat for a moment and then reverently removed his hat, stooped and picked up the catalogue, and, looking first at it and then at that marvelous face which seemed to throb with life; tears started from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks; he sat for an hour, then he left the tent and as he went out said: "I am a rough sailor from the lakes but I promised my mother before I went on this last cruise, that I would go and see Jesus Christ. I .never believed in such things before, but a man who could paint a picture like that, must believe in them, and there is something in the picture that makes me believe in them too." It is a marvelous thing that there is power in a canvass when touched by a master hand to save a soul, It is also marvelous that your life and mine may be so transformed that people can see in us Jesus Christ; and when they behold in us His sweetness there is a power before which they must surrender. One of the best things therefore to represent Him in His sweetness, is myrrh. There is another touch given to the picture which adds both tenderness and pathos. David detected aloes in His garments. Very frequently aloes mean bitterness. It was a bitter life for Christ. The nights on the mountain, on the sea, and in the desert were nights of bitterness. His bosom was the resting place for John, and yet He had no place to lay His own head. He fed the five thousand, yet ofttimes He was an hungered and no man gave unto Him. Bitter betrayal, bitter pain, bitter bereavement stung its way through his brain, his hands, his heart. There was one family that seemed to be very near him. They lived at Bethany, and one day as he visited them, behold Lazarus was dead. He knows what it is to miss one from the family circle. Lonely and afflicted, his eyes filled with tears which flowed down his cheeks, upon his breast, and then fell to the ground. Aloes in His very garments. Oh, ye who have done naught but reject Him, how do you feel in His presence -- who to save you, left the Ivory Palaces to endure all this? There is still another touch to the picture, for Cassia is found in his garments. Cassia grows in India, and has healing power, and what could it mean but that He is the great physician? When He was on earth, mothers lifted their little children to Him that He might bless them, and fathers brought their suffering boys that He might set them free. Lepers rat crying after Him, that He might drive away their uncleanness. Blind men reached out to Him in their blindness that He might open their eyes. When I was in Hartford at one time with Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins we were asked to visit the Deaf and Dumb asylum, and speak and sing to the children who never had heard a human voice. It was a very novel experience, and yet as my friends sang, "Shall you? Shall I?" and the interpreter told them the song, it so touched their hearts that tears flowed down their cheeks. But what moved me more than anything else, was one little boy who had been born deaf and dumb, and who at an early age had by sickness lost first his eye sight, then the sense of taste and the sense of smell; but as they introduced him to us, they also presented his teacher, a young, frail, beautiful girl, who, when the boy was brought to the institution, said that she would give her life to bring him to the understanding of some language. She taught him the language of touch, and I saw her fingers move rapidly in the palms of his hands, and the boy’s sightless eyes flashed with intelligence as he hurried over the building to do her bidding. And I said to myself that was what Christ did for me. I was blind and He opened my eyes; deaf, and He unstopped my ears and poured into my very soul the harmony of heaven; dumb, and He unsealed my lips and pressed upon them the language of the skies. The great physician is a great Saviour, and He will help you whatever your need may be. He came into the world becoming incarnate, dwelling in the flesh, a seeking, sorrowing, suffering Saviour, crying out with a tenderness which should touch every heart "By me, if ally man enter, he shall be saved." And yet with all that Jesus Christ has done there is still something for every one of us to do before we may enter into the Ivory Palaces of a Christian experience. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 04.02. THE PALACE HE BIDS US ENTER ======================================================================== Chapter 2 - The Palace He Bids Us Enter The only way to enter this world is to be born into it, and the only way to enter this Palace of a Christian’s life is to be born into it. Unto Nicodemus, the Master said, "ye must be born again," and we too must pass through the door by which he entered. To the disciples who stood around about him he said "except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." These are the words of Jesus himself. There can be no authority beyond his. What hope is there for the moralist, when Jesus Himself has said: "Except ye be converted." What ground is there for the idea that God is so merciful that after a time all may be saved, when His only begotten Son has said: "Ye shall not enter the kingdom except ye be converted." He makes the subject all the more important when he says: "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire." "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." Indeed, this question is so important, that it should be settled before anything else. What Is Conversion? When a piece of land is sold it is said to have been converted from one owner to another. What then is conversion for us but the change of owners. From being Satan’s, we become Christ’s. Our affections, our desires, our longings go out to Him. The only difference between the two being that we submit to the spirit and accept the offers of mercy from God. The word in its simplest interpretation means: "Being turned about." The traveler going in one direction, finds that he has made a mistake in the way, so he turns squarely about; in a sense he has been converted. The old soldier gave a good definition o| his conversion, when he said that with him, it was "right about face." For this reason morality will not save us. I remember once meeting a blind man, who was a neighbor. He had the faculty of going to every part of the town without a guide, he carried a little cane in his hand, with which he would touch the trees and the fences as he passed. It was just the time that I knew he was supposed to be going to his dinner, so I stopped him, asking him where he was going: "To my home," he replied. But I said to him: "You are going in the wrong direction." He suffered me to take him by the hand and turn him about, and then walking in just the same manner, but with his face turned in the new way, I saw him as he entered his house. The trouble with our friends who are moralists is, that they are very circumspect in their actions, gentle in their manners, kind in their disposition, but they are going in the wrong direction! Their faces are turned away from God. Perhaps they need not change their manner of living very much if they are converted, but the whole tendency of their living will be changed. To be converted is to know: 1st. That you are a sinner, and that without Christ you are lost. 2nd. To believe that the Lord Jesus Christ can save you. 3d. To submit yourselves entirely to Him. Yet it is not to be forgotten, that while the power is the same, and the work is all of God, that no two persons need expect to have the same experience. We do not expect this in other things, why should we in the matter of our salvation? One person is of an impulsive, affectionate disposition, and he gives his heart to God with a great demonstration of affection. Another person is of a calm, considerate disposition. He comes very quietly into the kingdom. Some men are saved from great sin Conversion for them is a change as great as from darkness to light. Others are just the opposite, and for years they have stood so near the kingdom that all they needed was just a simple confession of Christ as a Saviour. Peter followed the Master with greatest demonstration. John and James were just the opposite -- all three were disciples. Saul was converted in the midst of the glare of the light of heaven; Nicodemus came in the night time, and quietly made up his mind to yield to the Master -- both were saved. The blind men were healed in different ways. One had his eyes touched by the great physician; another had clay and spittle put upon them; another was simply told to see. One saw clearly, another at the first beheld men as trees walking. Would it not have been the greatest folly for them to have doubted their sight, simply because their experiences were not identical? One thing they could say together, that whereas they were blind, now they could see, and that was the all-important matter. It is well to ask how this work is all brought about. The ground and foundation of it is the finished work of Christ; His perfect sacrifice, His complete atonement. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." That is the only way. Yet the statement, "Except ye be converted," would seem to indicate that there was some person or influence outside of and beyond ourselves. And this is true. It is the Holy Spirit of God. It is His work to arouse us, to convict us of sin, to make us feel our lost condition and our need of Christ, when we are thus awakened, He presents Christ to us, then it is for us to open the door of the heart, to submit our wills to Him, to forsake all and follow Him; in other words it is to say "I will." The word of God is very plain about the matter, that all we need to do is simply to believe. "For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. "He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:16-18. In the light of these words, how can we longer doubt? I have known of those who were saved without great conviction of sin, so that one need not be discouraged, if he is without this. In the 3rd of John, we read that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and there is no evidence that he was a great sinner; his life had been very circumspect; he was one of the Rulers of the Jews; but there was a great need in his heart; it was not guilt of conscience, but the great void in his heart that led him to the Master. If you have either, come to Him, for He can take away every stain of sin, and He can also fill to overflowing every longing heart. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24. There is not a word about feeling, nor about getting better, nor understanding the way, but just simply "believing." May we know just when we were converted? I am very sure that some people have had this experience, but I am just as sure that there are others who have not; this is not discouraging, for I should be very sure that I had been born, even if I did not know my birthday. I know a man who can tell you the day, the hour, almost the second, that he was converted. I was sitting by his side, one Friday evening, at 9:15 o’clock, in a certain part of the Lecture room of the church. He lifted his eyes to heaven as he said: "I will," and all was settled. But my own experience was entirely different. I do not know the time when I was converted. I remember when I joined the church, but I had been a Christian long before. One of the greatest preachers in these modern times was kneeling at the beside of his dying father; he had been wayward; his father almost with his last breath said: "My son, I want yon to accept Christ, and promise to meet me in heaven." And the boy as he knelt said: "Father, God helping me, I will," and he was converted there. But on the other hand, one of the best women I know had an experience exactly the opposite. It is not necessary that you should know the moment that you were saved, but you may be saved this moment if you will but say "I will," to the entreaties of the spirit of God. May I Know If I Have Been Converted There is nothing of which we may be more assured. The key verse of the first epistle of John is found in 1 John 5:13 : "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life." We are not to judge by our feelings for they may change as often as the waves of the sea. We are not always to judge by the fact that a great change has come over us. We are not to be sure because our experience has been the same as that of another. We may be sure only by resting on the Word of God. Read Romans 10:9 : "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Have you confessed Him? If not then do it now, and you may be sure of your salvation. Read John 20:31 : "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name." Do you believe? If not then begin now, and you may carry this promise to the very throne of God, and claim from Him your salvation. My strongest reason for believing that I am saved, is not that I feel happy; nor that my life may be better than in the days gone by, but rather, that He has said it. If, therefore, I doubt my salvation, I am doubting Him. We Must Become As Little Children. Like them in weakness. But for that very fact, God will place round about His everlasting arms, and we have nothing to do with the "holding out." He will keep us just as the earthly parents keep their little ones. Like them in willingness to be taught. It is not strange that I cannot understand before I am saved, for the things of God are spiritually discerned, and it is not strange that I am able to understand so little now that I am a child of God, for I am only a little child; I need only to be patient; the time will come when I may put away "childish things." Like them in trustfulness. The little child does not understand very much that is going on about him; he needs only to trust, as he does. And that is all that is necessary in the Christian life. Just trust, day by day. There are two passages of scripture which make it apparent to me that the Christian life is a growth. The first is the entrance. "Verily I say unto you except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." The second is the close of the journey. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." All the way between the two is the Christian life. If therefore; you will but take His hand, trust absolutely in Him, and cease entirely to rest upon self, you may this day step across the threshold into life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 04.03. THE ENLARGING BLESSING ======================================================================== Chapter 3 - The Enlarging Blessing Many people have supposed that when once they had accepted the offers of mercy through Jesus Christ that that was the Christian life. I once occupied this position myself, I now believe that it was but stepping over the threshold and that all the chambers of the king’s palace from this point on await our exploration and enjoyment. There is an ever increasing, enlarging blessing which we may have by simply receiving it. This is not at all a question of regeneration. It is a question of the life more abundant; of deep abiding peace and of power with God and men. It touches not so much the Father nor the Son; it brings you face to face with the third person of the blessed Trinity, the Holy Ghost. There is no question which could be better put to us than the one Paul asked of the Corinthian church members, as he met them in Ephesus. "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed." There may be life without the answer -- there certainly cannot be power. There is t woeful amount of ignorance concerning the Holy Ghost. We do not seem to be impressed with His personality. We not infrequently use an impersonal pronoun in our petitions and remarks in referring to Him, when the fact is he shares with God the Father and the Son, the honor and power of the Godhead. The successful Christian everywhere is the one who honors Him and makes room for His entrance and control over their entire being. What a change there would be in our Christian living and in our Christian experience, did we but have a definite testimony concerning this one question. One of my friends in New York city, has given up a high social position and all selfish interests that she may work among the fallen women of the metropolis. She has opened the "Door of Hope" for every one who would apply for admission. One evening, leaving her home, she took a pink rose, saying she would give it to the vilest woman she would meet in her wanderings. In a Mulberry street dive, she found her subject; a young girl with face bruised and bleeding, eyes blood-shot, clad in rags and surrounded by a band of New York’s worst characters; the vilest profanity was proceeding out of her mouth. My friend pushed her way through the crowd and put the pink rose in her hand with the request that if she ever needed a friend she would call upon her. The girl received the gift with a sneer. My friend passed on about her work, but with a prayer that God might touch her heart. Some days afterwards she found her sitting in the entry of the "Door of Hope" looking even more wretched than when her eyes first beheld her. Her first thought was to send her away, thinking that she was too low to be saved. Her second thought was, what would the Master do if he were here in my stead; and then with a great rush of love because she beheld a soul for whom Christ died, she stooped and took her sin stained face in her hands and kissed her twice. The touch of love broke the girl’s heart. She fell upon her knees in the entry and then and there gave herself to God. She became transformed, almost transfigured. She went up and down the streets of New York City into the lowest haunts of sin, herself a missionary and evangelist to her fallen sisters. Wherever she went she carried the light of heaven. Whenever she spoke it was with the power of God. A few months later she lay in her coffin at the "Door of Hope." Hundreds flocked to look at the face which was like an angel’s and went away to thank God that she had not lived in vain. With a record of only a short Christian experience, my friend writes me that more than a hundred souls had been converted to Jesus Christ through her ministry. This change was all wrought because first of all she received the Son of God as her personal Saviour, and then that she threw open every door of her nature for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The change was great but not greater than would be witnessed in the life of any child of God who would make an unconditional surrender to the spirit of God bidding him at any cost, at any sacrifice, to come in and abide with him. It is very encouraging to know that we do not need to pray for the spirit of God as if He were afar off. In one sense the hymn is wrong where we say "come Holy Spirit heavenly dove" for he is here and is but waiting to completely fill us. There is a beautiful figure in the Old Testament which some one has used with great blessing. In the days of the flood Noah opened the window of the ark and the little dove flew forth and finding no place to rest the sole of its foot it came back again to the outstretched hand. The second time he opened the window the dove flew forth and finding an olive branch bore it back to the hand of Noah. The third time he opened the window of the ark, the dove flew hither and thither and finding a resting place for the sole of its foot, it came back no more forever. The dove is always a figure representing the Holy Spirit. He came first in the Old Testament touching Abraham and Moses and Isaiah and others, but does not seem to abide permanently; he came again when Jesus Christ was crucified and plucking the olive branch from the cross, he made his way back to God saying, "peace hath been made in the death of the Son." He came the third time at Pentecost with a rushing sound as of a mighty wind filling all the place where the people sat, resting upon them with cloven tongues like as of fire and he has never gone back since the day of Pentecost. He is here, waiting to fill us if we but fulfill the conditions. For many years in my Christian experience I was somewhat troubled by the fact that I could not tell just the day or the hour in which I was converted. It has ceased to trouble me now, and first, because I should know I were living in this world, even if I did not know my birthday. And secondly, because there is something far better than knowing just the time you were converted and that is, a definite experience concerning the receiving fully of the Holy Ghost. It is a very serious question in my mind whether any one can have a full experience of power, until first of all, they have had definite experience concerning the receiving of the Holy Ghost. Have you had this? There are some things which might be suggested which may make the way plainer for us all. There must be a deep longing for his coming, even as we longed for salvation through Jesus Christ. When we are satisfied with nothing else, when we long for nothing more, I believe He will come in and fill us and the result will be power. Some times we find people longing for such an experience in order that they may have peace or blessedness. Not infrequently ministers cry out for Him that they may have more power in preaching. I am convinced that He will never fill us so long as these are the first thoughts. Bid Him come in that he may have power over yourself first, and you are on the way to enlarging blessings. Let Him come in that he may drive out everything contrary to the will of God and you will find yourself very shortly in a full possession of His power. There is another suggestion which must not be over-looked, namely, there must be a full surrender. He can never fill the heart that is only partially given up. Every door of the nature, every impulse of the will, every affection of the heart must be surrendered to Him. Then we may expect Him. Rev. F. B. Meyer has made two helpful suggestions just here. If you cannot at once reach this position, then come before Him and say, "Lord I am willing to be made willing about everything," and "if you cannot give up everything for God then say ’I will let thee take everything.’" Then another suggestion is this, we must receive him by faith. The foundation for it is in Galatians 3:14, "That you might receive the promise of the spirit through faith." I am convinced that if one fulfills the conditions, he has a perfect right to stand before God claiming the promise of the Holy Spirit, with a faith which may be utterly devoid of emotion, just as one has the right to claim the free gift of salvation when he has surrendered his will unto God. Why have we not received the Holy Ghost? It may be because we have disobeyed some clear command. Mr. Meyer well says "if one has broken one of God’s commands, or has been a disobedient child, he can never be filled with the power of God, neither can he claim His blessings, until he goes back to the place where he made the mistake and makes it right with his God." It may be because we have not confessed our sins The trouble with us is not so much that we sin, but rather than when we sin, we do not immediately confess it before God The abiding of an unforgiven sin in the heart of the Christian will absolutely prevent the infilling of the Holy Ghost. It may because we have too little communion with God in his word. When one of my friends was presiding at a great convention in the City of Wash-ington a number of years ago, in the midst of the deliberations a number of Indian chiefs who had been conferring with the President came into the convention. They looked about with interest. At last an old chief through an interpreter rose and spoke. He said, "what is the secret of all this happiness? Our men do not look like yours; their faces are sad; their hearts heavy. Our women are not like yours. Our children are growing up in ignorance. Our homes are miserable. Tell us if you can, what the medicine is which we must take." Then General O. O. Howard, with his empty coat sleeve, his arm being left on the battle field, sprang forward, and, lifting up the Bible in one hand, cried out "Mr. Speaker tell him that this is the good medicine." And it is quite true, it is the medicine which will cure the world’s sickness; it is the medicine which will fill you with a new life, purging your heart from all that is evil, making your heart free from all that is sinful, making your heart throb with new impulses emotions and desires. Your trouble may be here. Not long ago, a woman died in London. A few years ago she was utterly unknown, but at her funeral a great concourse of people passed through the great church to look upon her face. There were representatives of royalty; lords and ladies, people of high degree. Then the poorer people came. Finally there came one woman carrying a little babe on one arm and holding another child by the hand. She reached the casket, put the baby down and was just bending over to kiss the glass that covered the sweet face when the guard exclaimed, "move on, move on." Stopping for a moment and looking at him, she lifted up her hand and shouted out until every one in the church heard her. "I will not move on. This woman saved my boy and I have a right to look." It was Mrs. Booth who was resting in her coffin. One of the grandest women of all God’s family; she had been transformed by the Holy Ghost and thus became a winner of souls. So may we all be. Out in the hill country of Scotland a shepherd counted his flock and found that three sheep were missing. Going to the kennel where the shepherd dog was resting with her young, he pointed to the wilderness and said "three sheep are missing, go." The dog looked for a moment at her young and then at her master, and was lost in the night. She was gone an hour, then came back bruised by the thorns and beaten by the wolves but she had the two sheep that were lost. The shepherd counted his flock once more; finding one still missing. He stood again at the kennel door while the mother was resting with her little ones. Pointing to the wilderness once more, he said "go." With a look of mute despair first at her little ones, then into his face, she rose up and was lost in the darkness. Two hours passed and then three, then she came back bruised, bleeding, almost dying, but she had the one sheep that was lost. The shepherd picked it up, wrapped it in his shepherd’s plaid and turned away to his fold, while the dog staggering back to her young, reached the kennel door and fell dead. When I read it, I said, Oh, that a dumb beast of the field with no thought of God, no hope of eternity, no prospects of hearing the Master say "well done, well done," should be so faithful to its master’s command, while we sit with folded arms as our Master, with his pierced palm is pointing to the wilderness saying," the thousands, are lost, go, go." If we were but filled with the Spirit of God we would heed His cry. "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 04.04. THE FULL REWARD ======================================================================== Chapter 4 - The Full Reward Even after one has accepted Jesus Christ, entered the Palace of Life, and received the Holy Ghost fully, there is still something before him in the way of Christian experience. It comes when one has passed through all the chambers of the king and stands in His presence, whom, having not seen we love. It is written in ii John viii. "Look to yourselves that we receive a full reward;" it is of that I write. I am not at all surprised to hear Peter, in Matthew 19:27, put the question to the Master "Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?" because Peter had about him a great deal of human nature. Many times we have found ourselves pondering over the same problem. We have made sacrifices for Christ; we have been in the very thickest of the fight for Him; we have labored zealously in the field when it was white unto the harvest, and we have often said, what shall we have for all this? This is the answer. The Christian ought not to work simply because of the reward before him, nor ought he on the other hand to lose sight of the reward. I have been very much impressed with the subject of crowns presented in the New Testament, I once had an idea that they were all one and the same; that if it was said in one place that I might have the crown of life, and in another place the crown of righteousness, it was simply a different way of stating the same thought. This is as far from the truth as anything could possibly be. They are each different from the other and are given for different reasons, as rewards for different kinds of service; and while every Christian may have one, it is an inspiration to know that every Christian may have them all. The subject of crowns is in itself interesting. The crown of Ivan the terrible had eight hundred and forty-one diamonds in it; the crown of Peter the great, eight hundred and eighty-seven; the crown of England seventeen hundred; the crown of Imperial Russia, twenty-five hundred; the crown of France five thousand, three hundred and fifty-two. You know how one little gem sparkles in the ring on your finger as it is touched by the sunlight. Can you imagine the overwhelming splendor of the crown of France, studded with diamonds? How glad I am that the crown of the poorest saint of God is infinitely better than this. It is not a question of our being saved. Faith as a grain of mustard seed might remove mountains and the same amount of faith can save a soul. It is entirely a question of service. I hold up these five crowns as an inspiration. The Crown Of Life James 1:12; "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life." This is for those who live a passive Christian life; this is the martyr’s crown. I imagine many a one standing before the judgment seat of Christ, not to be judged for their sin for that is all put away at the cross, but to receive the reward, and being obliged to say to the judge: "I did very little for thee, indeed nothing but suffer; I had an aching head, and a weak side and an irritated lung all the way, but I did the best I could. I tried to be peaceful and patient; I could not enter the thickest of the fight; I was very rarely in the meetings; my voice was still where others were heard, and all that I could do was just simply to pray that the work of God might go forward." I imagine there are many like the man who prayed faithfully for his pastor, and, for fourteen years that minister had a constant accession to his church. There never was a communion without people coming to confess Christ. Men wondered at his success. They said it was not in his preaching, for he was not an extraordinary preacher, but still the people came At the close of his pastorate, when he was saying "good-bye" to his friends, he called upon this bed-ridden saint who had never heard him preach. He took the thin, wasted hand in his, and then heard this confession; "Pastor, I have never heard you preach in all these years, but there has never been a day that I have not prayed that God would give you souls as a result of your preaching," and then the secret was out. A Russian soldier on picket duty was found by a peasant without an overcoat. The peasant took off his own great coat, gave it to the soldier and hurried home. Chilled through and through by the Russian winter, in a little while he died, but before he died he had a dream in which he seemed to stand in the very presence of Christ. When he opened his eyes he told his friends that he had seen the Master, and the strangest thing he said, "He had near Him the great coat." And when he asked Him what it meant, He simply said -- "I was naked and ye clothed me." Never a kind word, a cup of cold water, a pleasant smile, an earnest prayer given in the name of the Lord Jesus, but you will meet the reward, and the reward shall be the Crown of Life. The Incorruptible Crown 1 Corinthians 9:25. This is exactly the opposite of the other. This is for the man who leads an aggressive Christian life. Paul had this in his mind when he said, he was striving for the crown that is incorruptible. We will get a better meaning of the closing part of the chapter if we translate the word "castaway," as it should be and make it "disapproved." We thus have the picture of the great apostle striving on the race course to reach the goal, which is a picture of what many a Christian should be doing in his life here below. It was the spirit which Paul had when he said, "Now behold I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem;" and again, "This one thing I do;" and again, "Laying aside every weight I press forward;" and again, "I am willing to suffer the loss of all things." It is the spirit we should have if we realized the lost condition of men. The church is all wrong in its ideas when it says, "we have opened our doors, the music is good, the pews are free, the preaching is of the very best, the people are welcome, let them come." This is not the spirit of the Master. He said, "Go out after the lost," and if you will read the parable of the lost sheep, the lost piece of money, and the prodigal son, you will find how far you are to go and how tong you are to seek. It is all summed up in the little word "until." This is the warrant for changing your method if the old method will not work. It is said that the great conflagration in London could have been easily stopped if the firemen could have proceeded at once against it, but they could not do so until they had received the order from the Lord Mayor, and he could not give the order until he had entered his office, seated himself in his official chair, donned the robes of office, and in the regular way sent forth the message for them to fight the flames. By that time they were beyond control. We sometimes find this spirit in the church of to-day. There is such a thing as a church being dead because of dignity and conservatism, and it is an inspiration to know that there is a crown awaiting the man whose spirit is exactly the opposite. The Crown Of Rejoicing 1 Thessalonians 2:19. If there is one more to be desired than another, it is this one. The Thessalonians were Paul’s crown of rejoicing, because he had led them to Christ. This is the crown that Wesley is wearing. Baxter has found it. Whitefield and Edwards received it. It is awaiting Moody. Spurgeon has already had it placed upon his brow, for we are told that he was able during his ministry to lead thirteen thousand by profession into his own church, and this was but the beginning of the multitudes that were won to Christ throughout the world under his influence. It is the crown 1 long to wear. This is the soul winners’ crown. Oh, that we all might receive it You know nothing of real joy without you have been the instrument in God’s hands of leading a soul to Christ. The Crown Of Glory 1 Peter 5:4. "But when the chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive the Crown of Glory." In Ephesians we are told that "He gave some apostles" and that office has ceased. "He gave some prophets" and that has ceased. "He gave some evangelists" and to my mind that is the highest office in the church; and "He gave some pastors." It would be just as correct to call them shepherds. There is no Christian in the world but has received a commission from the Master, to do as He would if He were in this world, and what he said to Peter, he says to us all, "Feed my sheep." It will be a glad day when the church has more pastors than the one who has been called to stand in the sacred desk and preach. I had sixteen elders in my own church, and I counted them as shepherds of the flock, and God looks upon them in the same way and will hold them responsible. There are many Christians in the church who can do the same work. Not a Sunday school teacher but unto him God has committed the same service. It will be a day of rejoicing when the members of the church feel their responsibility to use all their influence in holding up those who have given themselves to Christ. The cry in these days is for the minister that will draw; the greater cry should be for people that are able to hold those who are drawn to the church of Christ. l am sure the Holy Spirit had this in mind when he held out this fourth crown as a reward. I know people who are afraid of the results of revivals. It all depends upon the condition of the church. If we let the people come in and then allow them to drift out, the last state of the man is apt to be worse than the first; but if, when they come in, we throw round about them the arms of our sympathy, and our prayers, we will soon find that they will be able to take their place in all the services of the church. If the church is spiritual, the new members will be spiritual. If it is worldly, they will take upon themselves the same character. The rule is, that the new members will always average up to the old ones. I can remember when my own little girl was just beginning to walk, we were obliged to hold our arms about her as she took her first steps, but now we never think of doing it, she can run the whole day and not be weary. The spirit of the church is often times to hold back until it can be determined if the new converts will hold out. Christ’s way would be to take a new member by the hand at once, and help him where he is weakest. This is the best service of the church, and he who is faithful in this respect, shall receive the Crown of Glory when the chief Shepherd shall appear. The Crown Of Righteousness 1 Timothy 4:8. To me, this stands side by side with the crown of rejoicing. Sometimes I am almost persuaded to place it first. It may be at morn, when the day is awaking, When sunlight thro’ darkness and shadow is breaking, That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory, To receive from the world "’His own." O joy! O delight! should we go without dying, No sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying, Caught up thro’ the clouds with our Lord into glory, When Jesus receives "’His own.’ Are you ready? For those who go with uplifted face, crying, "O Lord Jesus, how long?" He will come, and His reward will be with Him -- It will be the Crown of Righteousness. But there is something better still, and that is the full reward in Revelation 4:4. This is a picture of the glorified church. We are told that the four and twenty elders came in with crowns upon their heads, clothed with white raiment, seated about the throne. In Revelation 4:10, suddenly the King of Kings appears. At once the four and twenty elders fall down before Him, and taking off their crowns, cast them before the throne, saying, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive Glory, and Honor, and Power," so that the best reward of all is to be with Him. That was a glad day in 1855, when the soldiers came back from the Crimean War, and the Queen gave them medals, called Crimean medals. Galleries were constructed for the two Houses of Parliament and the royal family to witness the presentation. Her majesty herself came in to give the soldiers their rewards. Here comes a colonel who lost both his feet at Inkerman; he was wheeled in on a chair. Here is a man whose arms are gone -- and so they came, maimed and halt. Then the Queen, in the name of the English people, gave the medals, and the thousands of people with streaming eyes sang, "God save the Queen." But I can think of something that would have made the scene more wonderful. If these men had taken off the medals which the Queen had placed upon them, and cast them back at her feet saying: "No, your majesty, we cannot keep them, we give back the medals. To see thee is the greatest reward." That shall we do in heaven. I have a friend who was in the Crimean war; he told me that he had received a medal with Inkerman upon it -- for that was his battle; but he said the most touching part of it all was the experience of a friend of his who fought by his side. A cannon ball took off one of his legs, but the brave fellow sprang up immediately and taking hold of a tree, drew his sword, and was ready to fight even to death. Immediately another cannon ball came crashing past and took off the other leg. They carried him, wounded, bleeding, and as they supposed dying. to the hospital. Strangely enough he came back to life again, and when the day came for the awarding of medals they carried him upon his stretcher before Her Majesty, the Queen. To the other soldiers she had simply given the medals by the hands of her secretary, but when she saw this man carried in on a stretcher, his face so thin and pale, she rose from her throne stooped down by his side and pinned with her own hands the medal upon his breast, while the tears fell like rain upon the face of the brave soldier. Thus I trust it will be with many of us. We shall come into His presence, stand face to face with Him, and He will rise from His throne coming forward to receive us, and as we look up into His face, thrones will vanish away and crowns will be as nothing, for to see Him with all his beauty will be the full reward. THE END ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 05.00. THE LIFE AND WORK OF DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY ======================================================================== The Life And Work Of Dwight Lyman Moody By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman Copyright 1900 This book is in the Public Domain. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 05.00.2. E-SWORD PREFACE ======================================================================== Preface As an e-Sword user, and a resource creator, I always try to find quality works I believe will be beneficial to others in their studies. I hope this fits that description, and that all who use this module will find it to be a blessing. To Dr. David S. Thomason, Ed Sandlin, and Pamela Marshall, Thank You for all of your help in proofscanning, I couldn’t do it without you all. Your Brother In Christ, Jason L. Briggs ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 05.00.3. TABLE OF CONTENTS ======================================================================== Table Of Contents 1. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER Early Acquaintance with Mr. Moody - A Most Profound - Influence - Master in Moving Men - The Power of God on His Work - The Last Picture of the Evangelist - Professor Drummond on Moody. 2. NORTHFIELD Northfield Not a Modern Town - The First Settlers - The Second Settlement - After the Revolution - The House in Which Moody was Born - The Character of the Town. 3. MR. MOODY’S EARLY LIFE The Death of His Father - Mrs. Moody’s Struggle - Incidents from Moody’s Early Days - His Rudimentary Education - Departure from Home - Looking for Work. 4. HIS MOTHER A Picture Never To Be Forgotten - His Mother’s Blessing - Her Puritan Ancestry - Her Conversion - D. L. Moody’s Tribute to His Mother - Verses She Had Marked. 5. HIS CONVERSION First Acquaintance With Mr. E. D. Kimball - Just Ready for the Light - Mr. Moody’s Probation - Admitted To the Church - A Changed Life - He Seeks His Future In the West. 6. SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK Preparation for Future Work - Recruiting For the Church and For Sunday Schools - The School on "the Sands" - Muscular Christianity - The North Market Mission - President Lincoln’s Visit - Incidents of the Work. 7. THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION AND THE CHICAGO AVENUE CHURCH First work with the Young Men’s Christian Association - The Illinois Street Church - Elected President of the Young Men’s Christian Association - Dedication of the New Building - A Great Religious Centre - The North Side Tabernacle - Development of the Chicago Avenue Church. 8. GIVING UP BUSINESS Moody as a Commercial Traveller - "God will Provide" – He Gives Up Business - His Means Exhausted - Friends Come with Unsolicited Aid - Marriage - His Wife and Her Influence - Mr. Moody’s Family. 9. MOODY AND SANKEY Mr. Sankey’s First Singing at a Moody Meeting - A Sudden Proposition - A Street Service - Mr. Sankey joins Mr.Moody - The Effect of Mr. Sankey’s Singing - A Blessed Partnership. 10. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN ENGLAND, IRELAND AND SCOTLAND The Discouraging Outlook - Sunderland - Revival Fire Kindled at Newcastle - Edinburgh - The Work in Scotland Continued - The Evangelists go to Ireland - The Return to England - Various Meetings - The London Revival. 11. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THE UNITED STATES The Gospel Campaign in Brooklyn - The Campaign in Philadelphia The Great Meetings in New York - Glorious Enthusiasm for the Lord - In Baltimore, 1878. 12. MR. MOODY IN TWO WARS The Sanitary and Christian Commissions - Mr. Moody’s Zeal - Experiences from the War - The Revival at Camp Douglas - Work in the War with Spain - On Sea and Land - Striking Illustrations - "God Keep Us From War." 13. THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF NORTHFIELD A Blessed Town - Northfield Dear to Mr. Moody - Mr. Moody’s Love of Nature - Dr. A. J. Gordon - Rev. F. B. Meyer at Northfield - A Star In the Midnight Darkness. 14. THE NORTHFIELD SCHOOLS Marvellous Educational Work - The Beginnings of Northfield Seminary - Three Great Ends in View - Mt. Hermon - The Northfleld Training School. 15. THE NORTHFIELD CONFERENCE AND THE STUDENT VOLUNTEERS Various Bible Conferences - The Pre- Eminence of Northfleld - The Beginnings and the Growth of the Conference – The Student Volunteers - Missionary Interest Awakened. 16. THE CHICAGO BIBLE INSTITUTE The Need of the Institution - The Practical Nature of the Work - Touching Requests for Prayer - The Rev. R. A. Torrey - The Women’s Department. 17. THE WORLD’S FAIR CAMPAIGN The First Meeting - How Mr. Moody Vivified the Work - The Reports of Co-Workers - The Monday Conferences - Meetings For Children. 18. THE LAST CAMPAIGN Mr. Moody Goes to Kansas City - The Great Convention Hall - Inspiring Opening Services - The Beginning of the End - Mr. Moody Breaks Down - Back to Northfleld. 19. MR. MOODY AS AN EVANGELIST D. L. Moody an Evangelist in the Truest Sense of the Word - Especially Adapted to His Work - His Dread of Notoriety - His Views on Sudden Conversion. 20. HIS BIBLE A Book More Than Precious to Him - The Advice of Harry Moorehouse - Mr. Moody’s Ideas Concerning the Way to Use God’s Word. 21. HIS CO - WORKERS Ira David Sankey - Paul P. Bliss - Major Whittle - Henry Varley - John McNeill - George C. Stebbins - Ferdinand Schiverea - H. M. Wharton - R. A. Torrey - A. C. Dixon - Henry Drummond - G. Campbell Morgan - George H. Macgregor - F. B. Meyer. 22. THREE CHARACTERISTIC SERMONS Characteristics of the Three Sermons - God’s Love - The Excuses of Men - Reaping Whatsoever We Sow. 23. HIS BEST ILLUSTRATIONS The Fervour of His Eloquence - "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning" - "For Charlie’s Sake" - A Penalty Necessary - Calling on God - One Year’s Record. 24. REVIVAL CONVENTIONS A Typical Convention - What is Evangelistic Service? - We Want New hymns - Apt Replies to Questions. 25. HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE A Characteristic Bible Reading - Helpful Auxiliaries to Bible Study - Jesus the Key to the New Testament - The Four Gospels - Six Things Worth Knowing - How Christ Dealt With Sinners. 26. HIS CREED - THREE CARDINAL TRUTHS His View Concerning the Word of God - What to do With Difficult Passages - Don’t Cut Anything Out of the Bible - Christ Referred to the Old Testament - The Second Coming of Christ - Will the World Grow Better or Worse? - The Work of the Holy Ghost - The Holy Ghost, A Person - The Real Fruit is Love - How The Judge Became a Working Christian - The Holy Ghost Testifies of Christ - Three Classes of Christians - We Have to Be Very Humble - A Blessed Experience. 27. THE FUNERAL Mr. Moody’s Last Moments - A Triumphant Passing Away - Funeral Services - Addresses by Dr. Scofield, Dr. Weston, Dr. Chapman, Bishop Mallalieu, Mr. Torrey, and others. 28. ROUNDTOP, WHERE MR. MOODY LOVED TO SPEAK AND WHERE HE WAS BURIED Mr. Moody’s Remains Taken to Roundtop - A Place of Blessing - Roundtop Particularly identified With Mr. Moody. 29. MEMORIAL SERVICES The Great Meeting in New York - Impressive Addresses - Estimates of Mr. Moody by Dr. Greer, Mr. John R. Mott, Mr. Cutting, Dr. Buckley, and Others who Knew and Loved Him. 30. APPRECIATIONS BY EMINENT FRIENDS Testimony to Mr.Moody’s Wonderful Personality -The Opinions of Prominent Men who Knew Him and His Work -The Universal Regard in Which He Was Held. 31. EDITORIAL ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER Important Tributes from the Secular and Religious Press - All Men Eager to Admit Mr. Moody’s Greatness - What He Accomplished for the Betterment of Mankind. 32. THE PERSONAL SIDE OF MR. MOODY Personal Characteristics - His Hold Upon His Friends - His Charming Social Side - His Kindliness, Modesty and Unselfishness. 33. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF D. L. MOODY By Rex. H. M. Wharton, D.D. An Estimate of Mr. Moody, based on intimate association with him and long knowledge of his work. 34. A MONTH WITH MR. MOODY IN CHICAGO By Rev. H. M. Wharton, D.D. Mr. Moody as He Appeared to one of his Prominent Co-Workers during the World’s Fair Campaign. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 05.00.4. PREFACE ======================================================================== Preface NUMEROUS invitations have come to me recently, to write concerning the life and work of D. L. Moody, all of which were the publishers of this volume for several declined. I have, however, accepted the invitation of reasons. First. Because they have made it possible for me in so doing to make a generous contribution to some benevolent or educational work, which I may select, my hope being that I might in this way contribute to the work for which Mr. Moody gave his life. Second. Because very many friends have urged upon me the so doing; they presented it to me as a call to duty as well as a privilege, they told me it was a golden opportunity to speak of.his life to many people who might not read the particulars of it elsewhere, and I was convinced that a subscription book would reach thousands of homes, which might not otherwise be influenced. They told me that my work as an evangelist made it fitting that I should write of him, who was known as the greatest evangelist of the generation. Third. I write because I loved him, and I felt that I might in this way pay tribute to the most consistent Christian man I have ever known. I am confident that there has not been in these latter days a man who was more truly filled with the Holy Ghost than he. In view of all this my contract was made with the publishers and it was made before I knew what other books might be written, but even then I was assured by those who knew that my book had a field of its own, and could not be considered as in competition with any other for I would write from an entirely different standpoint. This book is sent forth with the prayer that God may make it a blessing to its readers everywhere. It is my purpose, in using such facts as I may legitimately claim, to present Mr. Moody, not only in his early life, and tell the story of his conversion, but to present him as a public character, as a man of God, as a Prince among evangelists, and give to my readers such a view of him as may not be found in other books. He was a man of great faith in God, and of mighty power in life and in prayer; he was a devout student of the Bible, he was a great preacher, and he moved men as it has been given few men to do. He reached more people during his lifetime than any other man, possibly in the world’s history. He was, in the judgement of a distinguished Scotch Christian, the greatest educator of his day. He had a victorious life, and a triumphant death. It is the purpose of this book to give a review of all this, in as personal and practical a way as possible. Letters have been written me by many of his old friends, giving me even a better knowledge of him than my more than twenty years’ acquaintance could afford. So I write with pleasure, and thanking God that it is my privilege. He was the best friend I have ever known, and whether I think of him as a preacher, and a great leader of men, or just as a humble follower of God, in his home as I frequently saw him, he was the most thoroughly consecrated man, and the most Christ-like of any one I have ever known. Among those who rise up to call him blessed, I thank God I stand. New York, January, 1900. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 05.00.5. APPRECIATIONS ======================================================================== Appreciations THE GREATNESS OF MR. MOODY by Henry Drummond WERE one asked what on the human side were the effective ingredients in Mr. Moody’s sermons, one would find the answer difficult. Probably the foremost is the tremendous conviction with which they are uttered. Next to that are their point and direction. Every blow is straight from the shoulder and every stroke tells. Whatever canons they violate, whatever faults the critics may find with their art, their rhetoric, or even with their theology, as appeals to the people they do their work with extraordinary power. If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience and not by its balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then there is eloquence of the highest order. In sheer persuasiveness, Mr. Moody’s has few equals, and, rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos of a quality which few orators have ever reached, and appealing tenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it not unseldom almost to sublimity. In largeness of heart, in breadth of view, in single-eyedness and humility, in teachableness and self-obliterations in sheer goodness and love, none can stand beside him. THE LAST OF THE GREAT GROUP by Newell Dwight Hillis WHEN long time hath passed, some historian, recalling the great epochs and religious teachers of our century, will say, "There were four men sent forth by God; their names Charles Spurgeon, Phillips Brooks, Henry Ward Beecher and Dwight L. Moody." Each was a herald of good tidings; each was a prophet of a new social and religious order. God girded each of these prophets for his task, and taught him how to "dip his sword in Heaven." In characterising the message of these men we say that Spurgeon was expositional, Phillips Brooks devotional, Henry Ward Beecher prophetic and philosophical, while Dwight L. Moody was a herald rather than teacher, addressing himself to the common people - the unchurched multitudes. The symbol of the great English preacher is a lighted lamp, the symbol of Brooks a flaming heart, the symbol of Beecher an orchestra of many instruments, while Mr. Moody was a trumpet, sounding the advance, sometimes through inspiration and sometimes through alarm. The first three were commanders, each over his regiment, and worked from fixed centre, but the evangelist was the leader of a flying band who went everywhither into the enemy’s country, seeking conquests of peace and righteousness. Be the reasons what they may, the common people gladly heard the great evangelist. MOODY AS A PROPHET by Rev. F. B. Meyer, B. A. GOD’S best gifts to man are men. He is always sending forth men. When the time is ripe for a man, God sends him forth. When for a moment the race seems to be halting in its true progress, then, probably from the ranks of the common people, rises he who leads a new advance. "There came a man sent from God." Yes, God constantly sends men. But the greatest gift is a prophet. When New Testament times dawned the touch of the priest had lost its power forever but around those times prophets have power gathered - John the Baptist, Savonarola, Luther, Latimer, White-field, Wesley, Spurgeon, and it is not fulsome flattery which includes the name of Moody. WHAT IS A PROPHET? A prophet is one who sees God’s truth by a distinct vision; who speaks as one upon whose eyeballs has burned the Light of the Eternal, and, thus speaking, compels the crowd to listen; he is one whose strong, elevated character is a witness to the truth in which he believes and which he declares. These are the three necessary conditions of a prophet. It matters not in what diction he speaks, whether in the rough, unpolished tongue of the people, or in the choice, well-balanced language of the schools. A man who possesses those three qualities is a prophet, and has a mission from God. Such a one was Moody. There were certain traits in the prophets and in John the Baptist which we recognize also for the most part in Moody. For instance, the prophet generally rises from the ranks of the people. Again and again from the common people have been supplied the leaders of men. Those in the upper grades of society, from whom we should naturally expect the most, would seem very largely to have worn themselves out with luxury and self-indulgences. History is full of the stories of prophets who came from a lowly stock. And Moody was the child of humble New England parents. His father died early, and Moody’s boyhood was spent face to face with privation. He had to fight his way from the ranks of the people. We have to thank this fact for the strong common sense which distinguished him. Moody had the practical insight to humor which belong especially to those who toil upon the land. And this man, with his close relationship to the life of the people, came to be able to hold ten thousand of them spellbound in the grasp of his powerful influence. TAUGHT OF GOD’S SPIRIT Again, it will generally be found that a prophet is not learned in the teaching of the schools. John the Baptist received his college education in the desert, amid the elements of Nature. These were his great kindergarten, in which his soul was prepared for its great work. When men go to the conventional colleges they learn to measure their language with the nicest accurateness. Was Moody’s lack in this and in similar directions a loss to him? Nay, he was taught of God’s Spirit. He bathed himself in a book, in that one volume which is in itself a library, the intimate knowledge of which is alone sufficient to make men cultured. There is often a brusqueness about the prophet. We see that in John the Baptist. He was not a man to be found in king’s courts. Without veneer, brusque, gaunt, strong, he lived and laboured. Moody partook the same characteristics. It is not unlikely, however, that he assumed a certain attitude of brusqueness because he felt afraid of being made an idol of the people. Having seen the evils of popularity, he wished to avoid them. To timid, friendless women, to individual sinners, he was wonderfully gentle and kind in manner. Amongst his grandchildren, whose simple playmate he became, he was tenderness itself. The brusqueness belonged only to the rind, to the character which had known deep experiences. Moody had very distinct experiences. The manner of his conversion led him to expect immediate decisions in the souls of others. Under his Sunday school teacher’s influence he had been led on the moment to give himself to Christ, and he looked for others to do nothing less, nothing more tardy. HIS BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST Again, the prophet has known a touch of fire. Mr. Moody once told me that a number of poor women in Chicago who heard him speak said one day, "You are good; but there is something you have not got; we are praying that it may come. Later, one afternoon in New York, he was walking along, when an irresistible impulse came upon him to be alone. He looked around. Where could he go? What was to be done? He remembered a friend living not far away. So into his house he rushed, and demanded a room where he could be alone. There he remained several hours, and there he received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When he returned to Chicago and began to speak, the godly women who had spoken to him beforetime said, "You have it now." And the wonderful power which Moody henceforward exercised over his fellow-men he owed to that touch of fire. It never left him. People were attracted. What happened when he visited England, happened wherever he went. The prophet had the real ring about him. He dealt with things as they are. There was genuine greatness of heart in Mr. Moody, and it constantly triumphed over sect differences. When his mother died three years ago the Roman Catholics of the neighborhood asked that they might be pallbearers. A prophet, of course, has his message. His office is not so much that of teacher or preacher as of herald. He sounds the alarm and cries "fire." With Moody it was not repentance because of hell-fire. The love of God was his proclamation. And how he could speak about that! I have seen him break down, as with trembling voice and tears in his eyes he pleaded with men for the love of God’s sake to be reconciled with Him. A prophet is humble. In this respect Moody was true to the type. He seemed the one person who did not know there was a Moody. He did not know half so much about himself as the newspapers told. This is true greatness. And now he has gone. My world is very much thinner. A great tree has fallen. One more throbbing voice is silent. Spurgeon is gone. Moody is gone. The voices are dying. Listen to-day to the voice of the Son of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 05.01. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER ======================================================================== Chapter 1 - Introductory Chapter "I do not know whether I dare say what I am now about to speak to you. I asked a brother minister this afternoon, and he would not take the responsibility, but after thinking it over I will say it. I believe if Christ had actually lived in the body of our dear brother and had been subject to the same limitations that met him, he would have filled up his life much as D. L. Moody filled up his, and for that reason I say, after the most careful thought, I had rather be D.L. Moody lying dead in his coffin than to be the greatest man alive in the world to-day." This remarkable tribute was paid by Dr. H.G. Weston, of the Crozier Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa., and when he had finished it, there was a wave of sympathetic expression and approval which swept over the entire audience, and his remarkable utterance was greeted with quiet Amens and suppressed sobs. I question if this generation has known a man who was more Christlike than D. L. Moody. That he sometimes made mistakes his best friends will allow, but that he was ready to undo these mistakes when they were made, and to make acknowledgment when that was necessary, all who knew him well will testify. EARLY ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. MOODY I have heard his name since infancy. First of all from my mother’s lips when I was a child. For it was at that time his name was being spoken with approval by ministers and Christian workers, and also at that time that the newspapers were making frequent reference to his increasing usefulness and power. I am naturally a hero worshipper. There are certain names that have always stirred me and certain personalities that have ever been my inspiration. No name, however, has ever been more sacred among the names of men than that of Moody, and no character has ever so taken hold of my very being, as his. When first I felt called to preach the Gospel, I determined there were certain men whom I must hear. In my list of names I had Henry Ward Beecher, and I shall ever recall with grateful appreciation the opportunity of hearing him in the Plymouth Church when his text was: "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom." And when his prayer reminded me of nothing so much as the running of a mountain stream over the rocks as it hurried on its way to the sea, I came away feeling that I had had a great privilege, not only in hearing Mr. Beecher preach, but in being lifted up to Heaven by his prayer. A MOST PROFOUND INFLUENCE The second name in importance on my list was that of Dr. John Hall, and possibly the deepest impression of my life was made, when he was preaching from the text in I Timothy iv:6: "Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ." He closed his sermon by leaning over the pulpit and saying, "I have only one supreme ambition, and that is that I might close my ministry here and have you say concerning me, "he was a good minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," and I came away saying that I had had such an uplift as rarely comes to a young minister. Written in large letters on my list was the name of Charles H. Spurgeon, and it has ever been the regret of my ministry that before it was given to me to cross the sea, God had called him to cross over into the better land. But of all the names written, none stood out so plainly as that of D. L. Moody. I had somehow made up my mind from what I had heard of him, and from what the newspapers had printed of his work, that he was to move me more mightily than any other man in the world, and I bear glad testimony to the fact that the after-years proved my expectation to be true. He exercised the most profound influence over me from the very first moment I met him, an influence which only increased with the passing years, and still abides, although he is in the presence of his God. AT THE WORLD’S FAIR MEETING IN CHICAGO In the providence of God I was frequently with him in services; notably, at the World’s Fair Meetings in Chicago, when he was not only the genial host of the workers with whom he was surrounded, but was the leader of a great force of Christian ministers and laymen, commanding the city for God with as great genius as ever an officer commanded and led his soldiers against the enemy on the field of battle. He invited me to be with him in Pittsburg in 1898, and one of the most tender memories of my life is that which I have of him in connection with the meetings held in the Exposition Building. I saw him in frequent conferences when I was pastor in Philadelphia, when his great heart yearned over the cities in the East, much as did the heart of the Master when looking down upon the City of his love, he said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" I was with him in the special campaign in New York, when from early morning till late at night in the Grand Central Palace, he not only preached himself, but had called to his assistance workers and friends from many other cities. It was my great privilege to be frequently at Northfleld where Mr. Moody showed not only his great heart, but his great power as a leader as in no other place in the country, and intimately as I knew him, and devotedly as I loved him, I never came in contact with him that my heart did not beat a little faster and my pulses throb a little more quickly. MOODY CONDUCTING MEETINGS I used to love to watch him in the meetings he conducted. His eyes were always open to take in the most minute detail of the services, and things to which other men would be blind he was ever seeing. I frequently almost lost the message he was giving in my admiration for the messenger. While he was sitting in the first part of the service, he would make a dive into his pocket, take out a little piece of paper and write a message to some of his workers, put down an illustration or record something which was to be the seed thought for a future sermon. Sometimes you would scarcely think he was noticing what was going on, and suddenly he would be on his feet announcing a hymn, and while he could not sing himself, yet he was superb in his power to make other people sing, "Isn’t that magnificent" he would say, as voice after voice took up the great chorus. "Now the galleries sing, that is my choir up in the gallery, now show the people what you can do; now the men, now the women, now altogether," until it would seem as if greater singing one had never heard in all his life. He was ever on the alert in every service. I have heard him many times relate, however, one instance to the contrary, when George O. Barnes was being greatly used in evangelistic effort. Mr. Moody had taken him around to several appointments, and the evening service came so quickly upon them that they did not have time to eat anything except a hasty lunch which they took somewhere together, the principal article of which Mr. Moody said was bologna. When Mr. Barnes arose to speak in the evening, the room was very hot, and Mr. Moody said that that, together with the lunch he had taken, made him very drowsy; he pinched himself to keep awake, but at last he fell asleep. Mr. Barnes did every-thing he could to arouse him, and when he had failed he stopped preaching, and Mr. Moody said, turned to his audience to say, "This is the first time I have ever seen D.L. Moody defeated, but the devil and bologna sausage seem to have gotten the best of him." I have heard him tell it over and over. No one enjoyed a joke better than himself, even though he might be the subject of it. He seemed to know what the people wanted and what they would take, and the things that other men would turn away from he would present with great power. I remember a meeting in Albany, New York, years ago, when short conferences were being held through the country by Mr. Moody and his co-workers, when he turned to Dr. Darling, then of Schenectady, now of Auburn Seminary, and said, "Doctor, tell them the story you told me this morning;" and then the distinguished preacher gave an illustration which he might have thought too simple to use in a crowded assemblage, but which swayed the great audience. A MASTER IN MOVING MEN He was a master in moving men. I can shut my eyes now and see him, with tears rolling down his face, as he plead with men to turn to Christ; sobs breaking his utterance as he told of the love of God to men and of God’s special love to himself. He was as sincere a man as ever stood on the platform to preach, and it was for this reason that people of all classes and grades believed in him. When the New York Dailies came out with great headlines saying, "Moody is dead," a Jew in one of the courts turned to a friend of mine to say, "He was a good man," and when his death was being discussed in one of the great clubs in the City of New York, a man who was an infidel said, "I think he was the best man this generation has known, and if I should ever be a Christian I should want to be one just like Moody, if I could." There were times when he was more than eloquent, when every gesture was a sermon. Who can ever forget his description of Elijah going up by a whirlwind into heaven. When carried away by the power of his own emotions, he lifted his hands while his audience seemed to be lifted with him, and raising them higher and higher, I can hear him say the words, "Up, up, up’ I can see Elijah going, and I see heaven open to receive him as he rises." The impression on his audience was profound. A BLESSING TO HAVE KNOWN HIM To have known him at all was a blessing, but to have known him with any degree of intimacy was one of the rarest privileges of a minister’s life. I would not say that I knew him better than other men, for hundreds knew him far more intimately and for a far longer time than I; but if love, since I have known him, can make up for the years in which I was not acquainted with him, then these recent years with their increasing admiration and love will give me the right to speak and write. Dr. Pierson says concerning George Muller, "A human life filled with the presence and power of God, is one of God’s choicest gifts to His church and to the world." "Things which are unseen and eternal seem, to the carnal man, distant and indistinct, while what is seen and temporal is vivid and real. Practically, any object in nature that can be seen or felt is thus more real and actual to most men than the living God. Every man who walks with God, and finds Him a present help in every time of need; who puts His promises to the practical proof and verifies them in actual experience; every believer who with the key of faith unlocks God’s mysteries, and with the key of prayer unlocks God’s treasuries, thus furnishes to the race a demonstration and an illustration of the fact that ’He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.’ "DEATH HAS NO TERROR TO ME" "George Muller was such an argument and example incarnated in human flesh. FIesh was a man of like passions as we are, and tempted in all points like as we are, but who believed God and was established by believing; who prayed earnestly that he might live a life and do a work which should be a convincing proof that God hears prayer and that it is safe to trust Him at all times; and who has furnished just such a witness as he desired Like Enoch, he truly walked with God, and had abundant testimony borne to him that he pleased God. And when, on the tenth day of March, 1898, it was told us of George Muller that ’he was not,’ we knew God had taken him;’ it seemed more like a translation than death," the same thing can be said of Mr. Moody. He used to say, "Sometime you will pick up a paper and will read of D.L. Moody’s death; don’t believe a word of it; I may be asleep, but I shall not be dead; death has no terror to me, and his words were a prophecy of his triumphant passing into the presence of God. The telegram written by Mr. A. P. Fitt, his son-in-law, to Mr. Louis Klopsch, of the Christian Herald, is a confirmation of this: "EAST NORTHFIELD, MASS., Dec. 22. "Mr. Moody had a triumphant entry into Heaven at noon. "As early as 8 o’clock, A.M. he said: ’Earth is receding and Heaven is opening. God is calling me.’ "He was perfectly conscious to the last, and showed the same courage and faith, unselfishness and thought for his wife and children and his schools as always. "His doctor says it was ’a pure case of heart failure, due to absolute loss of bodily strength.’ "In leaving us he gave unflinching testimony to the truths he taught. A. P. Fitt" A WONDERFUL LIFE His was a wonderful life. In one of Tissot’s pictures there is seen a great multitude of people lame and halt and blind in the way along which Jesus of Nazareth is to come, and then there is a view representing him passing, and as he moves along, only those before Him are sick, while all behind him are well. This was Mr. Moody’s life. All that was behind him felt the touch of his power. The Chicago Bible Institute has become an object lesson to Christian workers everywhere. Northfield is a centre of influence forth from which streams of blessing flow to the very ends of the earth. England, Ireland and Scotland have felt the touch of his consecrated life, and millions of lives the world over thank God that he ever lived, those who were lame, halt and blind spiritually now leap and praise God that D.L. Moody ever lived. His home life, in the testimony of those who knew it best, was most beautiful. On that memorable day when his body was lying in the casket in the Congregational Church in Northfield, when other speakers had paid their tribute to his distinguished father, Mr. William R. Moody, his eldest son, rose to say: "As a son I want to say a few words of him as a father. We have heard from his pastor, his associates and friends, and he was just as true a father. I don’t think he showed up in any way better than when, on one or two occasions, in dealing with us as children, with his impulsive nature, he spoke rather sharply. We have known him to come to us and say: ’My children, my son, my daughter, I spoke quickly; I did wrong; I want you to forgive me. That was D.L. Moody as a father. "He was not yearning to go; he loved his work. Life was very attractive; it seems as though on that early morning as he had one foot upon the threshold it was given him for our sake to give us a word of comfort. He said: ’This is bliss; it is like a trance. If this is death it is beautiful.’ And his face lighted up as he mentioned those whom he saw. "We could not call him back; we tried to for a moment, but we could not. We thank God for his home life, for his true life, and we thank God that he was our father, and that he led each one of his children to know Jesus Christ." A BEAUTIFUL HOME There was ever a holy atmosphere about this home to me in the few times I was permitted to pass its portals. Mr. Moody used to tell a story of a sick child whose father one day came into his room and to whom the child said, "lift me up," and the father lifted him gently, and he said "lift me higher," and he lifted him yet a little higher; "higher," said the child, faintly, and he lifted him just as high as his arms could reach, and when he took him down he was dead. "I believe," said Mr. Moody, "that he lifted him into the arms of Christ," and then his great kindly face glowed, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks he said, "I would rather have my children say that about me than to have a monument of gold that would pierce the clouds," and his home life clearly bore out the fact that he not only said this in words, but he put it into every action in his home. His personality was charming; he was the centre of every group everywhere. It was a most ordinary thing to see representative men from many parts of the world in his home, but none were ever so prominent as to dim the brightness of his greatness, and yet he was as modest as a woman and as humble as a little child. Who that ever sat about his table can forget his laugh. It was as hearty a laugh as one has ever heard. He knew just how to put every man at his best. His questions always brought forth that which would make a man appear to the best advantage before his hearers. "Morgan," he would say, speaking to the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, "tell that story about Joseph Parker; " and then although he might have heard it before he was the most interested listener; his eyes would gleam and his face light up as the inimitable story teller painted the picture of London’s greatest preacher. THOUGHTFUL OF OTHERS He was so very thoughtful of other people. The last time I rode with him to Mt. Hermon, he stopped to talk a few minutes with the men at the old ferry, asked them about their homes and spoke a cheering word concerning their work, and said as he drove on, "I want them to know that I am interested in them." Driving up from the station at the last students’ conference at Northfield, he stopped every student trudging along with his baggage and took the bag into his buggy until it was piled up with luggage, and the greater the number of men whose burdens he lifted, the happier he became. Walking across his lawn one day when his conversation was, as ever, the evangelising of the great cities, he turned quickly and said, "Chapman, how many children have you?" and when I told him two, as I had then, he turned quickly about and said "come with me," and he pointed out to me some white turkeys and some ducks of a very rare breed and said, "I will send a pair of these to the children," and when only a few days had elapsed, sure enough the turkeys and the ducks came safely to my country home, and my children took particular delight in feeding and caring for the ducks and turkeys that came from Mr. Moody’s house. Driving along the country road with Dr. Wilton Merle Smith, of New York, when the conversation had been general, he stopped his horse under the shade of a great tree, and, said Dr. Smith, "he poured out his soul in such prayer as I have rarely heard." "I JUST WANTED TO BE WITH YOU" I shall ever remember one of his illustrations. He had told one of his children that he was not to be disturbed in his study, and after a little while the door of the study opened and the child came in. "What do you want," said the father, and the little fellow looking Up into his father’s face said, "I just wanted to be with you," and the tears started into the great evangelist’s eyes as he said, "it ought to be like that between us and our God." I can well understand how his little child would want to be with him every minute of his time, for there are many of us who counted it our special privilege to be in fellowship with this godly man. The first time I saw him is a memorable day in my life. I was a student at Lake Forest University, and he was to speak in Chicago, I think it was in 1878. Four times he preached the Gospel that day and I was in every service; but the service of all services was that of the afternoon in old Farwell Hall; it was for men only. The place was filled to overflowing with men; the singing was superb, so said my friends, but I lost the power of the music in the sight of this man of God of whom I had heard so much. His text was, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The sermon is remembered because, under God, it has been used to lead so many to Christ. Under the power of it I saw my own heart, and then I saw the Saviour who was waiting to make it clean. I halted around with others if only I might have the chance to touch his hand. Just in front of me went a man who held Mr. Moody’s attention for a little time, and who said to him, as he afterwards told me, "I am a defaulter, I have taken money which is not my own, I am a fugitive from justice, what must I do?" And Mr. Moody told him he must take the money back, even though it meant punishment, and he did it; was sent to the penitentiary, was pardoned out just before he died of quick consumption. "HE HAS FORGIVEN ME!" Before the pardon Mr. Moody made his way across the country that he might stand in his cell, and as he entered, the young man sprang to his feet and putting his arms out to Mr. Moody said He has forgiven me, He has forgiven me." His evangelistic life was filled with just such incidents. In the evening of that great first day I saw him once again and followed him into the after meeting where I had the privilege of a moment’s conversation. I had been in doubt for a long time on the subject of assurance. I did not know certainly whether I was a Christian or not, and Mr. Moody said, when I asked him to help me, "do you believe this verse?" and he quoted the Fifth Chapter of John and the 24th verse, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." I said, "certainly I believe it." "Are you saved," he said, and I said, sometimes I think I am, other times I feel I am not." He put. his hand on my shoulder and said but one sentence, and then he left me; " young man," said he, "whom are you doubting?" and then he left me, and it flashed across my mind in an instant that, in my lack of assurance, I was doubting Christ; from that moment to this I have never doubted. THE POWER OF GOD ON HIS WORK The next impression was in connection with the brief conferences held throughout the country when five days were spent in Albany and Troy, and the meetings were held in the First Reformed Church of which I afterwards became pastor. I came down from my country church with many other ministers from different parts of the State. The great church was crowded; I was obliged to stand in the aisle, but I forgot all discomfort in the impression that was made upon me by this mighty man of God. I followed him from one city to another and then went back to my own church to preach to my people on the story of the Moody meetings. The power of God was not only on his work, but was on the very mention of it, so that my church officers came together and said that this work must go on, and more than a hundred people came to Christ because of it. In the day when rewards are given for service, I am very sure that my dear friend will share in the glory of these who came to Christ indirectly through his ministry. When I became an evangelist his word was always the cheeriest; I never met him that he did not have some word to say concerning the work at large. If ever there was a perplexity in my mind, or any doubt as to what my course of action should be, in settling any problem, Mr. Moody was the first to give advice and always the wisest of all advisers. The last time I saw him was in Boston, in the days when Admiral Dewey was to be welcomed, to the New England Metropolis. He was there that the people might have the privilege of hearing Campbell Morgan. I heard him say, "some people think we ought to give the meetings up because of the excitement outside, but I believe," he said "that Christ is more attractive to the people than anything in all this world." The very morning of the parade when Mr. Morgan was obliged to be away and other speakers could not delay, some of his friends suggested that he at least give up this meeting. But he was never easily discouraged and he positively refused to yield in the least, and he preached himself with his old time vigour to a great company of people in Tremont Temple. THE LAST PICTURE OF THE EVANGELIST The last picture of him is drawn by the Hon. John Wanamaker. He was on his way to Kansas City, and, as Mr. Wanamaker said, he had turned away from his comfortable home and was going away into the far West, when he might have had all the rest of his home and help of his family, only for the joy of preaching the Gospel. Mr. Wanamaker met him at one of the railroad stations. It just so happened at this time that he was alone he purchased his own ticket, checked his baggage, then said, "we will have a little time now together," and they sat down in another railway station when Mr. Moody poured out his heart to his old friend concerning some of the interests that were dear to him, and then as they parted he said, with his face flushed and his eyes filled with tears, "if I could only get hold of one more Eastern city I should be grateful to God." These two friends said good-bye, the one to go into all the comforts of the presence of his loved ones, and the other to hurry away across the country that he might hold his last service, preach his last sermon, and then go from the very thick of the fight into the presence of his God. D. L. Moody is dead. Men say it with sobs, and the old world seems lonely without him, but D.L. Moody is in heaven, we say it with thanksgiving, and we can just imagine the joy which rang through all the arches of the heavenly land when he entered in through the gates into the city. So is it strange that many can say the words of Dr. Weston with which this chapter began, "I would rather be D. L. Moody lying dead in his coffin than to be the greatest man alive in the world to-day." PROFESSOR DRUMMOND ON MOODY In his day no one was closer to Mr. Moody, than Prof. Drummond, and a few years ago he said this of his friend: "Whether estimated by the moral qualities which go to the making up of a personal character, or the extent to which he has impressed these upon communities of men on both sides of the Atlantic, there is, perhaps, no more truly great man living than D.L. Moody. By moral influences in this connection, I mean the influence which, with whatever doctrinal accompaniment, leads men to better lives and higher ideals. I have never heard Mr. Moody defend any particular church. I have never heard him quoted as a theologian. But I know of large numbers of men and women of all churches and creeds, of many countries and ranks, from the poorest to the richest, and from the most Ignorant to the most wise, upon whom he has placed an ineffaceable moral mark." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 05.02. NORTHFIELD ======================================================================== Chapter 2 - Northfield It is pleasant to think that the privilege should have been given to Mr. Moody of absorbing his earlier training and of associating his later work with so charming a place naturally as Northfield. God’s children are not denied the fair, the beautiful things of Nature. It is just like our Heavenly Father to give the best to one who walked so close to Him as did this dear friend. Those of us who knew Mr. Moody well remember how he loved beautiful things. The song of the brook was music to his soul; the coming of the leaves and flowers of spring was a parable; and his own dear Northfield was beloved by him to the end. He was perfectly happy when driving about through the beauties of the surrounding country. In view of his love for Nature, and the unusual beauty of his early environment, it is, perhaps, not surprising that the first doubts to assail the faith of the boy Moody, after his conversion, were pantheistic. He himself has related how a pantheist approached him and told him of God as Nature, and how it troubled him. But his doubts resolved themselves into a firmer belief in Nature, not as God, but as God’s handiwork. NORTHFIELD IS NOT A MODERN TOWN Its elms whisper a long story of days when men who sought to worship God in freedom of conscience martyred themselves by denial of the comforts of their homes in the old world and faced the terrors of bitter want and of crafty savage foes in the wildernesses of New England. Long before this particular spot in the valley of the Connecticut was occupied by the white man, large tribes of Indians dwelt there, living upon the fruits of a generous lowland soil and the trophies of the chase. The streams abounded in shad and salmon. The plenty of fish gave the place its Indian name, Squakheag, which signifies, in the Indian tongue, a place for spearing salmon. Wigwams clustered on nearly every knoll and bluff, and along the banks of the river ran the narrow trail of the aborigines. A little way back from either side the river, and following its windings, extends a range of hills. Brush Mountain, one of these hills, was regarded by the Indians with a superstitious veneration, as the abode of their Great Spirit. Did not his breath come forth every spring, from a cleft in the rock, and melt the snow? To-day the traveller who climbs Brush Mountain will be shown an opening whence comes a blast of air, warm enough in the winter to keep the snow from accumulating in the immediate vicinity. THE FIRST SETTLERS In 1669 a small party of whites, following the trail along the Connecticut northward from Northampton, came upon the lands of the Squakheags. The natives had suffered severely a few years before from the raid of a large party of Mohawks, who had come from the West, laying waste their fields and destroying their villages. To the eyes of the white men the land seemed very fair. About Northampton the tillable soil had been quite completely taken up, and the Squakheag region seemed to offer a good situation for a new settlement. As the Indians were not unwilling to part with their lands, a petition was made to the General Court of Massachusetts by thirty-three settlers, for permission to purchase the land from the Indians. The permission was granted on the condition that not less than twenty families should settle there within eighteen months after the first move. The settlers took up the land in 1673, and for two years lived in amicable relations with their Indian neighbours. Then, when King Philip’s war broke out, the Squakheags were moved by the rude eloquence of the chief’s emissaries to take part in the uprising. One morning they attacked the whites in the fields, killing many, and driving those who remained to seek refuge within the stockade. The position of the sixteen families in the fort was perilous. A relief expedition from Deerfield was ambushed while on the way, and fled home with great loss. Another company succeeded in reaching Northfield and rescuing the beleaguered ones, who left the settlement and returned to their former homes. THE SECOND SETTLEMENT Not for seven years did the proprietors of the land take steps towards its re-occupation. Then about twenty families returned. Houses were built along a main street, and were protected by two forts, in 1688 eleven Indians, sent. on the warpath by the French in Canada, six persons in Northfield, and so alarmed the rest that more than one half left the settlement. ’This so weakened the town that it was abandoned by those who remained. The final settlement was made in 1713, and Northfield now prospered, although in 1723 it was again exposed to attacks from savages, who had been incited to make depredations upon the New England villages by the French Governor of Canada. It is said that men were then able to harvest their crops only in armed parties of forty or more. A fort was built a few miles up the river, and a cannon was placed there, that its voice might give warning of the approaching enemy. Peace came after the death of the Governor of Canada. The existence of the hamlet continued for a long time precarious, for it was an outpost among the settlements, and therefore especially exposed to danger from the savages. During the French and Indian War Northfleld was in constant terror. Thereafter such dangers gradually disappeared, and time was given to develop the natural resources of the place. Northfield sent her quota to take part in the War of the Revolution, nor did she hesitate to assert the principles of liberty, even to the extent of forcing her parson, against his first desire, to omit from his prayer the usual petition for blessing on "his majesty," the King of Great Britian. AFTER THE REVOLUTION After the war the town rapidly acquired a certain culture. A hotel building, erected in 1798, was purchased by a company of citizens in 1829, and made into an academy which did honourable service for education during many years. About this same time the town was deeply affected by the wave of Unitarianism, which was then spreading throughout New England. Schisms arose in the village church, and a new parish was formed. Northfield lies where three States meet Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. Just south of the Massachusetts State line is the village, scattered for the most part along the main street, two miles long and 160 feet wide, on the east side of the river. On either side of the street is a double row of elms and maples, which have grown old with the village until they bend their lofty heads over the quiet roadway like the nodding guardians of some useless post. Savage neighbours arc no longer near to enforce in alert sentinelship. Several roads cross this avenue, and all lead to scenes purely pastoral. Flanking the main street are dwellings, for the most part set well back among their lawns and fragrant gardens. These homes were built to last. They seem as substantial to-day as when they were built, although many of them are very old. The house occupied by Mr. William Alexander, for instance, has been in the hands of his family for one hundred and fifteen years. The present day tendency to flock to the large cities has somewhat affected the younger generation of Northfield’s old families, but the elms and the old houses are still there to perpetuate the atmosphere of old New England days, and better than all this the town has been so sanctified by the labours of her own best-known son that she will be remembered as the home of good works long after pompous cities have crumbled. HIS BIRTHPLACE Mr. Moody’s birthplace is a plain, small farm-house, which still stands on the hillside. It looks upon one of the country roads, which winds up from the main street in an easterly direction. The building is two stories high, with green blinds, and is protected from the sun by stately trees. There is one tree, of especial majesty, under which Mr. Moody is said to have planned some of his greatest sermons. The home in which Mr. Moody and his family were domiciled after his work had so broadened as to make necessary a larger house than the homestead, stands near the north end of the town, and is not far from his mother’s house. It was purchased for about $3,000. A plain, roomy building it is. From time to time, as the requirements came up, Mr. Moody had additions built to the house, until it spread out its arms with a suggestion of hospitality most inviting to the visitor. The building fronts upon the main street. Mr. Moody’s study is on the first floor, only a few steps within from the entrance. The atmosphere of the house, with its simple but substantial furniture, suggests the home of a man who desires to shape his environment to make it suit his work. THE CONCEPTION OF NORTHFIELD SEMINARY When Mr. Moody returned to Northfield after his evangelistic tour of Great Britain, he went home to Northfield to rest. With his eyes sharpened by travel, and with his usual alert observance of the needs of those about him, he conceived a plan of making possible education for girls who were born to the unstimulating routine of farm life. The germ of Northfield Seminary lay in this conception. In 1878 Mr. Moody purchased the first sixteen acres of land toward the two hundred and seventy acres which are now owned by the Seminary. Mr. H.N.F. Marshall, of Boston, was a guest of Mr. Moody at that time, and the decision to purchase the land was arrived at with the advantage of his advice. As he and Mr. Moody came to a decision, the owner of the land walked up the street. They invited him in, asked his price for the sixteen acres, paid the money, and had the papers made out before the owner had time to recover from his surprise. Work was begun on the building the following year. It was intended to establish this school as a high-class seminary for girls. When it was opened in 1879, twenty-five pupils entered. At first they studied and recited at Mr. Moody’s home, the first dormitory not being opened until 1880. Bonar Hall, the second dormitory, was burned a few years later, but Marquand Hall was opened in 1885. Other buildings have followed. At present the school possesses seven dormitories, a library, a gymnasium, a recitation hall and an auditorium. The buildings have been erected with a view to artistic effect as well as adequate accommodations, and add much to the beauty of the situation. From the slopes of the school grounds, one looks up the river valley to the distant green hills of Vermont and New Hampshire, while the placid river meanders through fertile fields which show rich with the fruits of the farm. Well built roads wind through the grounds; shade trees and groups of shrubbery have been set out. Moreover, the land yields practical returns as a farm under the supervision of Mr. Moody’s brother. Six horses and fifty head of cattle belong to this school farm, and from ten to fourteen men are constantly employed. The school now numbers about four hundred pupils, its graduates being admitted to Wellesley, Smith and other high - grade institutions. THE MOUNT HERMON SCHOOL FOR BOYS When Mr. Moody was conducting his earliest mission work in Chicago, he laid close to his heart a plan to provide some day a school where boys could secure training in the elementary branches and the Bible. With this still in mind he purchased, in 1880, two farms of 115 acres each, with two farm-houses and barns. They were situated on what was known as Grass Hill, four miles from Northfield Seminary, and in the town of Gill. This school was incorporated as the Mt. Hermon School for Boys. The present buildings include five brick cottages, a large recitation hall, a dining hall and kitchen, Crossley Hall and Silliman Science Hall. This school now numbers about 400 students, and here as at the Seminary the industrial system is a prominent feature, but at Mt. Hermon nearly all of the work of the farm and house is done by the boys. The auditorium of the Northfield Seminary was built in 1894 and was planned by Mr. Moody for the use of the summer conferences. It seats nearly 3,000 persons. A grove of white birches on a hillside back of the Seminary becomes, during the summer meetings "Camp Northfield ", where young men spend their summer outing periods. Henry Drummond describes somewhere his first astonishment at finding this little New England hamlet with a dozen of the finest educational buildings in America, and of his surprise when he stopped to think that all these buildings owed their existence to a man whose name is perhaps associated in the minds of three-fourths of his countrymen, not with education, but with the want of it. THE CHARACTER OF THE TOWN The eastern part of the town has of late years become known as East Northfield, and has its separate Post Office and stores. New streets have been laid out and new houses have been built. Northfield, in fact, is coming to be known as a summer resort, but not of the usual type. Frivolous recreation gives way there to sane occupation and wholesome exercise. Intemperance, the use of tobacco, card playing and dancing have no place there; but the heart of nature is opened to those, who, with minds bent upon the best things, seek her reverently. Northfield then is both a typical New England town and the result of the individual impression of one man’s life. All that is best in American culture is there epitomised, and the elms and the hazy hills and the homes of by-gone generations are witnesses of the regenerating influences which can be brought into play through the devotion and singleness of purpose of one man. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 05.03. HIS EARLY LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 3 - His Early Life Dwight Lyman Moody was born in the town of Northfield, Mass., February 5, 1837. He was the sixth of seven sons who, with two daughters, made up the family of Edwin and Betsy Holton Moody. The father had acquired a little farmhouse and a few acres of stony ground on a hillside just without the limits of the town, but the whole was encumbered by mortgage. Mr. Moody worked as a stonemason when the opportunity was afforded, using his leisure time to till his farm. The burden of his responsibilities proved too heavy; reverses crushed his spirit; and, after an illness of only a few hours, he died suddenly at the age of forty-one years, when Dwight was only four years old, leaving a large family unprovided for. A SUDDEN UPHEAVAL OF THE FAMILY Young as he was, the picture impressed on the boy’s mind by this sudden upheaval of the household, consequent upon his father’s death, remained vivid. He did not forget the desperate feeling which must have seized the family in that crisis; nor did he ever forget the wonderful fortitude with which his mother met the situation. Only a month after the death of the father two posthumous children were born - a boy and a girl. Neighbours advised Mrs. Moody not to face harsh conditions now confronting her. Keep your twin babies, but bind out your children, they urged. "It will be so long before they can be of any real service to you that their maintenance just now will be a greater burden than you should assume." But Mrs. Moody was not the woman to be daunted by circumstances. The idea of separating from her children was not entertained. She took upon herself the task of snatching some tribute money from an unwilling soil, and of bringing up her children to wholesome manhood and womanhood - how well she succeeded is shown by the results. ONE CALAMITY AFTER ANOTHER One incident of this early period proved a severe blow to the bereaved family. The oldest son, upon whom the mother was planning to place considerable dependence, ran away from home. Mr. Moody in later years related this incident and its sequel in the following words: "I can give you a little experience of my own family. Before I was four years old the first thing I remember was the death of my father. He had been unfortunate in business and failed. Soon after his death the creditors came in and took everything. My mother was left with a large family of children. One calamity after another swept over the entire household. Twins were added to the family, and my mother was taken sick. The eldest boy was fifteen years of age, and to him my mother looked as a stay in her calamity, but all at once that boy became a wanderer. He had been reading some of the trashy novels and the belief had seized him that he had only to go away to make a fortune. Away he went. I can remember how eagerly she used to look for tidings of that boy; how she used to send us to the post office to see if there was a letter from him, and recollect how we used to come back with the sad news, ’No letter.’ I remember how in the evenings we used to sit beside her in that New England home, and we would talk about our father; but the moment the name of that boy was mentioned she would hush us into silence. Some nights when the wind was very high, and the house, which was upon a hill, would tremble at every gust, the voice of my mother was raised in prayer for that wanderer who had treated her so unkindly. I used to think she loved him more than all of us put together, and I believed she did. On a Thanksgiving day – you know that is a family day in New England – she used to set a chair for him, thinking he would return home. HIS BROTHER HOME AGAIN "Her family grew up and her boys left home. When I got so that I could write, I sent letters all over the country, but could find no trace of him. One day, while in Boston, the news reached me that he had returned. While in that city, I remember how I used to look for him in every store – he had a mark on his face – but I never got any trace. One day while my mother was sitting at the door, a stranger was seen coming towards the house, and when he came to the door he stopped. My mother didn’t know her boy. He stood there with folded arms and a great beard flowing down his breast, his tears trickling down his face. When my mother saw those tears she cried, ’Oh, it is my lost son,’ and entreated him to come in. But he stood still. ’No, mother,’ he said, ’I will not come in until I hear first that you have forgiven me.’ Do you believe she was not willing to forgive him? Do you think she was likely to keep him standing there. She rushed to the threshold, threw her arms around him and breathed forgiveness." The Moody family were Unitarians. Dwight had early advantages of Christian training, attending, as soon as he was old enough, the church in the village, where the Rev. Mr. Everett was pastor. In his interest in the efforts of Mrs. Moody to earn a livelihood for her family, Mr. Everett once took Dwight into his family for a time, in order that he might attend school, making return for this privilege by running errands and doing chores. It may seem strange that a Unitarian training should have fostered a temperament which afterward became, in its expression, so purely evangelical. By way of explanation, it is said, that Mr. Everett was not one of those who questioned the divinity of our Saviour. Unorthodoxy had not as yet affected this church. The Bible as the Word of God, Jesus as the Son of God, the Church and its Sacraments - these were accepted beliefs of this country pastor. Dwight also had the benefits of religious training in the home. Mrs. Moody early taught her children to learn passages of Scripture and verses of hymns. These she would recite at her frugal table, and the children would repeat them after her. INCIDENTS FROM MOODY’S DAYS When Dwight was about six years old, an old rail fence one day fell upon him. He could not lift the heavy rails. Exhausted by his efforts, he had almost given up. "Then," as he afterward told the story, "I happened to think that maybe God would help me, and so I asked Him; and after that I could lift the rails." Another incident, which Mr. Moody has related, seems to have made so profound an impression upon his youthful mind that its influence in preparing his heart for the Gospel message cannot have been slight. He himself has related the story in these words: "When I was a young boy - before I was a Christian - I was in a field one day with a man who was hoeing. He was weeping, and he told me a strange story, which I have never forgotten. When he left home his mother gave him this text ’Seek first the kingdom of God.’ But he paid no heed to it. He said when he got settled in life, and his ambition to get money was gratified, it would be time enough then to seek the kingdom of God. He went from one village to another and got nothing to do. When Sunday came he went into a village church, and what was his great surprise to hear the minister give out the text, ’Seek first the kingdom of God’ He said the text went down to the bottom of his heart. He thought it was but his mother’s prayer following him, and that some one must have written to that minister about him. He felt very uncomfortable, and when the meeting was over he could not get that sermon out of his mind. AGAIN ’SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD’ "He went away from that town, and at the end of a week went into another church, and he heard the minister give out the same text, ’Seek first the kingdom of God.’ He felt sure this time that it was the prayers of his mother, but he said calmly and deliberately, ’No, I will first get wealthy.’ He said he went on and did not go into a church for a few months, but the first place of worship he went into he heard a minister preaching a sermon from the same text. He tried to drown - to stifle his feelings; tried to get the sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he would keep away from church altogether, and for a few years he did keep out of God’s house. ’My mother died,’ he said, and the text kept coming up in my mind, and I said I will try and become a Christian.’ ’The tears rolled down his cheeks, as he said, ’I could not; no sermon ever touched me; my heart is as hard as that stone,’ pointing to one in the field. I couldn’t understand what it was all about - it was fresh to me then. I went to Boston and got converted, and the first thought that came to me was about this man. When I got back I asked mother, Is Mr. L ----- living in such a place?’ ’Didn’t I write to you about him?’ she asked. They have taken him to an insane asylum, and to every one who goes there he points with his finger up there and tells them to seek first the kingdom of God.’ There was that man with his eyes dull with the loss of reason, but the text had sunk into his soul - it had burned down deep. O, may the Spirit of God burn the text into your hearts to-night, When I got home again my mother told me he was in his house, and I went to see him. I found him in a rocking chair, with that vacant, idiotic look upon him. As soon as he saw me, he pointed at me and said ’Young man, seek first the kingdom of God.’ Reason was gone but the text was there. Last month, when I was laying my brother down in his grave, I could not help thinking of that poor man who was lying so near him, and wishing that the prayer of his mother had been heard, and that he had found the kingdom of God." It is doubtful, however, if young Moody had experienced any real religious feeling up to the time of his conversion in Boston. He was a boy like other boys - unlike the majority, too, in his imperious will, his indifference to obstacles, his boundless energy. He was as fond of mischief as the average boy. The influences of a farm-boy’s life, tempered though they were by the forceful direction of a devoted mother, were not calculated to cultivate in him a taste for the finer things of life. His passionate outbursts of temper are still remembered by those who early came into contact with him. His profanity is a matter of his own record. Still, he was doubtless in this regard merely a type of his environment. The notable thing about the boy was his force; he bore in his endowment great possibilities for good or ill. HIS EARLY EDUCATION Perhaps only twelve terms at the district school constituted Dwight’s early education. A smattering of the three R’s, a little geography, and the practice of declamation made up the sum of his learning. The truth of the matter seems to be that he did not study faithfully. It was only during his last term that he began to apply himself with diligence, too late to make tip for what he had lost. His reading is described as outlandish beyond description. With his characteristic tendency to jump directly to the heart of a question, he never stopped to spell out an unfamiliar word, but mouthed his sense of it without full dependence upon his training or made up a new word which sounded to his ear as suitable as the original. Of his experiences as a schoolboy Mr. Moody has given the following in his sermon on "Law versus Grace": "THE LAW PARTY AND GRACE PARTY" "At the school I used to go to when I was a boy, we had a teacher who believed in governing by law. He used to keep a rattan in his desk, and my back tingles now [shrugging his shoulders] as I think of it. But after a while the notion got abroad among the people that a school might be governed by love, and the district was divided into what I might call the law party, and the grace party; the law party standing by the old schoolmaster, with his rattan, and the grace party wanting a teacher who could get along without punishing so much. "After a while the grace party got the upper hand, turned out the old master, and hired a young lady to take his place. We all understood that there was to be no rattan that winter, and we looked forward to having the jolliest kind of a time. On the first morning the new teacher, whom I will call Miss Grace, opened the school with reading out of the Bible and prayer. That was a new thing and we didn’t quite know what to make of it. She told us she didn’t mean to keep Order by punishment, but she hoped we would all be good children, for her sake as well as our own. This made us a little ashamed of the mischief we had meant to do, and everything went on pretty well for a few days; but pretty soon I broke one of the rules, and Miss Grace said I was to stop that night after school. Now for the Old rattan, said I to myself; it’s coming now after all. But when the scholars were all gone she came and sat down by me, and told me how sorry she was that I, who was one of the biggest boys, and might help her so much, was setting such a bad example to others, and making it so hard for her to get along with them. She said she loved us, and wanted to help us, and if we loved her we would obey her, and then everything would go on well. There were tears in her eyes as she said this, and I didn’t know what to make of it, for no teacher had ever talked that way to me before. I began to feel ashamed of myself for being so mean to any one who was so kind; and after that she didn’t have any more trouble with me, nor with any of the other scholars either. She just took us out from under the Law and put us under Grace." DEPARTURE FROM HOME The circumstances which led up to the departure of young Moody from home have been variously stated. He had come to the age of seventeen. In those days a boy of seventeen was supposed to be ready to enter upon the serious business of life. New ambitions were arising in Dwight’s heart. Mr. Edward Kimball, who afterwards led the boy to the Lord, is perhaps as well informed of the circumstances of his life in Boston as any man now living. He gave the facts as he was familiar with them at the time of Mr. Moody’s death. "To tell the story correctly," said Mr. Kimball, "I must go back to Thanksgiving day forty-five years ago. A Thanksgiving family dinner party was assembled at the Moody home, which was on a farm a mile and a half from Northfield, Mass. At the table, among others, were Samuel and Lemuel Holton, of Boston, two uncles of the Moody children. Without any preliminary warning young Dwight, a boy of about seventeen, spoke up and said to his uncle Samuel: "Uncle, I want to come to Boston and have a place in your shoe store. Will you take me?" Despite the directness of the question, the uncle returned to Boston without giving his nephew an answer. When Mr. Holton asked advice in the matter from an older brother of Dwight, the brother told his uncle that perhaps he had better not take the boy, for in a short time Dwight would want to run his store. YOUNG MOODY LOOKING FOR A JOB "Dwight was a headstrong young fellow who would not study at school, and who was much fonder of a practical joke than he was of his books. His expressed desire to go to Boston and get work was not a jest that the boy forgot the day after Thanksgiving. The two uncles were surprised when one day in the following spring Dwight turned up in Boston looking for a job. His uncle Samuel did not offer him a place. Dwight, when asked how he thought he could get a start, said he wanted work and he guessed he could find a position. After days of efforts, and meeting nothing but failures the boy grew discouraged with Boston, and told his uncle Lemuel he was going to New York. The uncle strongly advised Dwight not to go, but to speak to his uncle Samuel again about the matter. The boy demurred, saying his uncle Samuel knew perfectly well what he wanted. But the uncle insisted so that a second time the boy asked his uncle Samuel for a place in his store. "Dwight, I am afraid if you come in here you will want to run the store yourself," said Mr. Holton. "Now, my men here want to do their work as I want it done. If you want to come in here and do the best you can, and do it right, and if you’ll ask me when you don’t know how to do anything, or if I am not here, ask the bookkeeper, and if he’s not here one of the salesmen or one of the boys, and if you are willing to go to church and Sunday school when you are able to go anywhere on Sundays, and if you are willing not to go anywhere at night or any other time which you would not want me or your mother to know about, why, then, if you’ll promise all these things, you may come and take hold, and we’ll see how we can get along. You can have till Monday to think it over.’ I don’t want till Monday,’ said Dwight; I’ll promise now. And young Moody began to work in his uncle’s shoe store. A remark the boy’s uncle made to me afterward will give an idea of the young man’s lack of education at this time. The uncle said that when Dwight read his Bible out loud he couldn’t make anything more out of it than he could out of the chattering of a lot of blackbirds. Many of the words were so far beyond the boy that he left them out entirely when he read and the majority of the others he mangled fearfully." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 05.04. HIS MOTHER ======================================================================== Chapter 4 - His Mother Devotion to his mother was a duty and a privilege second only to devotion to his God, in the mind of Mr. Moody. When at home in Northfield, he never failed to look in upon his mother in her cottage early every morning, to give her a hearty greeting, and to see that she was provided with every comfort and many luxuries. When away, no matter how many times a day he preached, nor how many informal meetings he personally conducted, a letter was posted to his mother at frequent intervals in which she was told at length of the success of the meetings. A PICTURE NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN During the last years of her life, when failing health prevented her from attending public worship, the devoted son never forgot tile aged mother, and he often arranged for her to hear the noted speakers and singers of the conferences. There is one picture associated with Northfield I can never forget It had to do with one of the summer conferences. Some one had been asking about Mr. Moody’s mother, and he had spoken to a few of those who gathered about him and said, "We might have a little service just at her house on the lawn, for she is not able to be out; "and so a number of distinguished Christian workers gathered just outside her window, sang the hymn she loved, prayed Gods special blessing upon her and her distinguished son, and then one after the other spoke some word of appreciation of their visit to Northfield. I was standing just by Mr. Moody’s side, and I heard him say to one of his friends, "I always thought she. had such a beautiful face," and as he looked at her the tears started in his own eyes, rolled down his cheeks, and he said with much emotion to a distinguished English Christian standing by his side, " I think she has been the best mother in the world." HIS MOTHERS BLESSING Once again when many young men were gathered from all over the eastern part of our country in the World’s Students’ Conference, Mr. Moody said: "You know my mother is an old lady. She is too feeble to attend these meetings. She is deeply interested in this work, and she has prayed earnestly for its success. I want her to hear some of you speak and sing. We are going up the mountain this afternoon to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Meet me at my house at three o’clock. We will have a little service there and then I want you to go on to my mother’s home, and I want some of you to speak, and we will all sing. "I want you to receive my mother’s blessing before we go to the mountains to pray, for next to the blessing of God I place that of my mother." The three hundred anxious pilgrims who gathered on Mr. Moody’s spacious lawn that afternoon, and who, after a brief service of song and prayer, journeyed on to the mother’s cottage and later to the mountain top, presented a picture never to be forgotten by the members of that company. Much that is here written is his own words concerning her. I have an Old mother away down in the Connecticut Mountains," Mr. Moody used to say, "and I have been in the habit of going to see her ever year for twenty years. Suppose I go there and say, ’ Mother, you were very kind to me when I was young-- you were very good to me; when father died you worked hard for us all to keep us together, and so I have come to see you, because it is my duty. Then she would say to me, ’Well, my son, if you only come to see me, because it is your duty, you need not come again. And that is the way with a great many servants of God. They work for Him, because it is their duty - not for love. Let us abolish this word duty, and feel that it is only a privilege to work for God, and let us try to remember that what is done merely from a sense of duty is not acceptable to God." And so it was. Year after year, in the very heat of those spiritual campaigns which brought him prominently before the people of the two continents, Mr. Moody would slip away regularly to the spot where, amid the serene surroundings of the Northfield hills, his mother sat with her thoughts upon him and his work, praising God who had permitted her boy to become the instrument of so much blessing. HER PURITAN ANCESTRY Betsey Holton, the mother of Dwight L. Moody, was a descendant in the fifth generation of William Holton, one of the first settlers of Northfield. In fact, this ancestor was one of that committee of the General Council of Massachusetts which laid out the plantation of Northfield, after it had been purchased from the Indians in 1673. The marriage of Betsey Holton to Edwin Moody united two strains of old Puritan blood. Doubtless this lineage accounts in no slight degree for the restless energy and dogged earnestness of the son, Dwight. "I always thought that Dwight would be one thing or the other," the dear old woman once remarked. Where others had failed to see, she had early recognised the hardiness of the boy’s character, - hardiness which she must have seen through its very kinship with her own. For her schooling had not been easy. Left a widow with nine children, a small house, and an acre or so of heavily mortgaged land, she had taken upon her womanly shoulders the full responsibility of bringing up her family. Tilling the ground, and doing odd jobs for the neighbours, she continued to scrape together enough to keep her children fed and clothed, although the margin between plenty and want was frequently so slim as to bar out comfort. There were times when no food seemed forthcoming; but a Providence whose care extends even to the sparrows did not permit the burden to become too heavy for this widowed mother, although her resources were often taxed to the utmost. YOUNG MOODY AT THE VILLAGE SCHOOL Every day she taught the children a little Bible lesson, and on Sundays accompanied them to the Unitarian Sunday school. They were sent, too, to the village school. Dwight was as loth as the average young boy to endure the discipline of the school-room. It is not hard to picture him "with shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school." But the wise mother knew. Seeds were being scattered in the fertile heart and mind of the boy: and if they did not seem to sprout at once, perhaps it was for the very reason that they had not been sown in a shallow soil. The Rev. Dr. Theodore Cuyler, when he first met Mrs. Moody, turned to her son, and said, "I see now where you got your vim and your hard sense!" Others remarked the same resemblance of the son to his mother. I speak of this merely to make it evident how much he owed her. However completely she came into sympathy with her son’s work in later years, at the outset of his labours his mother did not give him her sanction. She herself was a member of a non-evangelical church. For a long time she did not even hear her son preach. How he finally not only convinced her of his fitness for his work, but also became the means of leading her into the higher life has been related by a close friend of the family in the following words HIS MOTHERS CONVERSION In 1875 he returned to his home in Northfield to preach, shortly after coining back to America from one or his great London successes. The family still lived on the Old farm, and still drove to town to Sunday meeting in the Old farm wagon, just as they used to in the days gone by. Most of the members of the family Were going to drive to town that morning to hear Dwight preach. The mother startled a daughter by saying to her: "I don’t suppose there would be room in the wagon for me this Morning, would there? " No one had ever thought of the mother unbending and going to hear her son. "Of course there will be room, mother," said the daughter. And the mother was taken down to the church with the rest. Mr. Moody preached from the fifty - first Psalm, and preached with a fervor that was probably inspired by the presence of his mother. When those who wished prayer were asked to arise, old Mrs. Moody stood up. The son was completely overcome, and, turning to B. F. Jacobs, now of Chicago, said with emotion, "You pray, Jacobs, I can’t. " When he returned to Northfield after some evangelical tour, Mr. Moody would invariably drive directly to see his mother, to receive her welcome, even before joining his immediate family. Sitting in her sunny room the kindly, keen, Old lady would give to her son kernels of sound wisdom with the blessing of her approval. She was permitted to remain in this world until her ninety-first year. When at the last she began to sink, it was not thought by those about her that there was any immediate danger, and Mr. Moody, who was at the time conducting services in a distant city, was not informed as to the state of her health. But toward the close of a week of meetings the evangelist grew restless. He felt a strange intuition that his presence was needed at home, and, for no other reason, he cancelled his engagement and started for Northfield. He arrived in time to receive her blessing. At his mother’s funeral, acting upon an impulse, Mr. Moody delivered a touching tribute to her memory. Mrs. William R. Moody had concluded her song "Crossing the Bar," when the evangelist rose from his place with the family, and, bearing in his hands the old family Bible, and a worn book of devotions, came forward. Standing by the body of his mother, he said: HIS TRIBUTE TO HIS MOTHER "It is not the custom, perhaps, for a son to take part in such an occasion. If I can control myself I would like to say a few words. It is a great honor to be the son of such a mother. I do not know where to begin; I could not praise her enough. In the first place my mother was a very wise woman. In one sense she was wiser than Solomon’ she knew how to bring up her children. She had nine children and they all loved their home. She won their hearts, their affections, she could do anything with them. "Whenever I wanted real sound counsel I used to go to my mother. I have travelled a good deal and seen a good many mothers, but I never saw one who had such tact as she had. She so bound her children to her that it was a great calamity to have to leave home. I had two brothers that lived in Kansas and died there. Their great longing was to get back to their mother. My brother who died in Kansas a short time ago had been looking over the Greenfield papers for some time to see if he could not buy a farm in this locality. He had a good farm there, but he was never satisfied; he wanted to get back to mother. That is the way she won them to herself. I have heard something within the last forty-eight hours that nearly broke my heart. I merely mention it to show what a character she was. My eldest sister, her oldest daughter, told me that the first year after my father died she wept herself to sleep every night. Yet, she was always bright and cheerful in the presence of her children, and they never knew anything about it. Her sorrows drove her to Him, and in her own room , after we were asleep, I would wake up and hear her praying, and sometimes I would hear her weeping. She would be sure her children were all asleep before she would pour out her tears. IT IS A GREAT THING TO HAVE SUCH A GREAT MOTHER "And there was another thing remarkable about my mother. If she loved one child more than another, no one ever found it out. Isaiah, he was her first boy; she could not get along without Isaiah. And Cornelia, she was her first girl; she could not get along without Cornelia, for she had to take care of the twins. And George, she couldn’t live without George. What could she ever have done without George? He staid right by her through thick and thin. She couldn’t live without George. And Edwin, he bore the name of her husband. And Dwight, I don’t know what she thought of him. And Luther, he was the dearest of all, because he had to go away to live. He was always homesick to get back to mother. And Warren, he was the youngest when father died; it seemed as if he was dearer than all the rest. And Sam and Lizzie, the twins, they were the light of her great sorrow. She never complained of her children. It is a great thing to have such a mother, and I feel like standing up here to-day to praise her. And just here I want to say before I forget it, you don’t know how she appreciated the kindness which was shown her in those days of early struggle. Sometimes I would come home and say, such a man did so and so, and she would say, "Don’t say that, Dwight; he was kind to me" "THE BIGGEST LOAD OF WOOD I EVER SAW" My father died a bankrupt, and the creditors came and swept everything we had. They took everything, even the kindling wood; and there came on a snowstorm, and the next morning mother said we would have to stay in bed until school-time, because there was no wood to make a fire. Then, all at once, I heard some one chopping wood, and it was my Uncle Sam. I tell you I have always had a warm heart for that uncle for that act. And that night there came the biggest load of wood I ever saw in my life. It took two yoke of oxen to draw it. It was that uncle that brought it. That act followed me all through life, and a good many acts, in fact. Mr. Everett, the pastor of the Unitarian Church, I remember how kind he was in those days. I want to testify to-day how my mother appreciated that. "I remember the first thing I did to earn money was to turn the neighbour’s cows up on Strowbridge Mountain. I got a cent a week for it. I never thought of spending it on myself. It was to go to mother. It went into the common treasury. And I remember when George got work we asked who was going to mill the cows. Mother said she would milk. She also made our clothes and wove the cloth, and spun the yarn, and darned our stockings and there was never any complaining. I thought so much of my mother I cannot say half enough. That dear face! There was no sweeter face on earth. Fifty years I have been coming back and was always glad to get back. When I got within fifty miles of home I always grew restless and walked up and down the car. It seemed to me as if the train would never get to Northfield. For sixty-eight years she has lived on that hill, and when I came back after dark, I always looked to see the light in mother’s window. IN TIME TO RECEIVE HER BLESSING When I got home last Sunday night I was going to take the four o’clock train from New York and get here at twelve I had some business to do; but I suppose it was the good Lord that sent me; I took the twelve o’clock train and got here at five - I went in to my mother. I was so glad I got back in time to be recognised. I said, ’ Mother, do you know me? She said, ’I guess I do.’ I like that word, that Yankee word ’guess. ’The children were all with her when she was taking her departure. At last I called, Mother, mother. No answer. She had fallen asleep; but I shall call her again by-and-by. Friends, it is not a time of morning. I want you to understand we do not mourn. We are proud that we had such a mother. We have a wonderful legacy left us. One day mother sent for me. I went to see what she wanted, and she said she wanted to divide her things. I said, ’Well, mother, we don’t want anything you’ve got; we want you. We have got you, and that’s all we want.’ ’Yes, but I want to do something.’ I said to her, ’ Then write out what you want, and I will carry it out.’ That didn’t satisfy her. Finally she said, Dwight, I want them all to have something.’ That was my mother, and that was the way she bound us to her. "Now, I have brought the old Bible, the family Bible, for it all came from that book. That is about the only book we had in the house when father died, and out of the book she taught us. And if my mother has been a blessing to this world, it is because she drank at this fountain. I have read twice at family worship, and will read here a few verses which she has marked. VERSES SHE MARKED "’Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.’ "She has been a widow for fifty-four years, and yet she loved her husband the day she died as much as she ever did. I never heard one word, and she never taught her children to do anything but just reverence our father. She loved him right up to the last. "’She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.’ "That is my mother. "She considereth a field and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good, her candle goeth not out by night.’ Widow Moody’s light had burned on that hill for fifty-four years, in that one room. We built a room for her, where she could be more comfortable, but she was not often there. There was just one room where she wanted to be. Her children were born there, her first sorrow came there, and that was where God had met her. That is the place she liked to stay, where her children liked to meet her, where she worked and toiled and wept. "’She stretcheth out her hands to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.’ "Now, there is one thing about my mother, she never turned away any poor from her home. There was one time we got down to less than a loaf of bread. Some one came along hungry, and she says, ’ Now, children, shall I cut your slices a little thinner and give some to this person?’ And we all voted for her to do it. That is the way she taught us. "’She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for all her household are clothed with scarlet.’ "She would let the neighbours’ boys in all over the house, and track in snow; and when there was going to be a party she would say, ’Who will stay with me? I will be all alone; why don’t you ask them to come here?’ In that way she kept them all at home, and knew where her children were. The door was never locked at night until she knew they were all in bed, safe and secure. Nothing was too hard for her if she could only spare her children. I HONOR HER FOR THE PUNISHMENT I GOT "The seven boys were like Hannibal, whose mother took him to the altar and made him swear vengeance on Rome. She took us to the altar and made us swear vengeance on whiskey, and everything that was an enemy to the human family; and we have been fighting it ever since and will to the end of our days. "My mother used to punish me. I honour her for that. I do not object to punishment. She used to send me out to get a stick. It would take a long time to get it, and then I used to get a dead stick if I could. She would try it and, if it would break easily, then I had to go and get another. She was not in a hurry and did not tell me to hurry, because she knew all the time that I was being punished. I would go out and be gone a long time. When I came in, she would tell me to take off my coat, and then she would put the birch on; and I remember once I said, ’That doesn’t hurt.’ She put it on all the harder, and I never said that the second time. And once in awhile she would take me and she would say, ’You know I would rather put this on myself than to put it on you.’ I would look up and see tears in her eyes. That was enough for me. "What more can I say? You have lived with her and you know her. I want to give you one verse, her creed. Her creed was very short. Do you know what it was? I will tell you what it was. When everything went against her, this was her stay, ’My trust is in God. My trust is in God.’ And when the neighbours would come in and I tell her to bind out her children, she would say, Not as long as I have these two hands.’ ’ Well,’ they would say, ’you know one woman cannot bring up seven boys; they will turn up in jail, or with a rope around their necks.’ She toiled on, and none of us went to jail, and none of us has had a rope around his neck. And if every one had a mother like that mother, if the world was mothered by that kind of mothers, there would be no use for jails. Here is a book (a little book of devotions); this and the Bible were about all the books she had in those days; and every morning she would stand us up and read out of this book. All through the book I find things marked. "Every Saturday night - we used to begin to observe the Sabbath at sundown Saturday night, and at sundown Sunday night we would run out and throw up our caps and let off our jubilant spirits - this is what she would give us Saturday night, and it has gone with me through life. Not all of it, I could not remember it all: ’How pleasant it is on Saturday night When I’ve tried all the week to be good.’ "And on Sunday she always started us off to Sunday school. It was not a debatable question whether we should go or not. All the family attended. "I do not know, of course, we do not know, whether the departed ones are conscious of what is going on earth. If I knew that she was I would send a message that we are coming after her. If I could, I believe I would send a message after her, not only for the family, and the town, but for the Seminary. She was always so much interested in the young ladies of the Seminary. She seemed to be as young as any of them, and entered into the joys of the young people just as much as any one. I want to say to the young ladies of the Seminary, who acted as maids of honour to escort my mother down to the church this morning, that I want you to trust my mother’s Saviour. "I want to say to the young men of Mt. Hermon, you are going to have a great honour to escort mother to her last resting-place. Her prayers for you ascended daily to the throne of grace. Now, I am going to give you the best I have; I am going to do the best I can; I am going to lay her away with her face toward Hermon "SHE WAS TRUE AS SUNLIGHT" I think she is one of the noblest characters this world has ever seen. She was true as sunlight; I never knew that woman to deceive me. I want to thank Dr. Scofield for the comforting words he has brought us to-day. It is a day of rejoicing, not of regret. She went without pain, without struggle, just like a person going to sleep. And now we are to lay her body away to await His coming in resurrection power. When I see her in the morning she is to have a glorious body. The body Moses had on the Mount of Transfiguration was a better body than God buried on Pisgah. When we see Elijah he will have a glorious body. ’That dear mother, when I see her again, is going to have a glorified body. (looking at her face) God bless you, mother; we love you still. Death has only increased our love for you. Good-bye for a little while. Mother. Let us pray." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 05.05 HIS CONVERSION ======================================================================== Chapter 5 - His Conversion DWIGHT L. MOODY was not the boy to forget his compact with his uncle. He went to church every Sunday-- because he had promised to go. - attending the Mount Vernon Congregational Church, of which the Rev. Dr. E. N. Kirk was pastor. He always considered this to be a great church. Dr. Kirk was an excellent preacher, but young Moody was at a stage where all sermons sounded alike to him. Frequently he would fall asleep during service, at least until an occasion when he was suddenly awakened from his complete repose by a stern-faced deacon, who, as he roused the lad from his slumbers, pointed to Dr. Kirk, who was preaching - as much as to say, "Keep your eyes on him!" Thereafter Dwight remained awake. Moreover, for lack of something else to do, he began to listen to the sermons. For the first time in my life," he said in later days, "I felt as if the preacher were preaching altogether at me." HIS FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR E. D. KIMBALL One Sunday the young man appeared in the Sunday school of Mount Vernon Church. The superintendent, Mr. Palmer, to whom he gave his name, took him to the class taught by Mr. Edward D. Kimball, and he took his seat among the other boys. Says Mr. Kimball, "I handed him a closed Bible and told him the lesson was in John. The boy took the book and began running over the leaves with his finger away at the first of the volume looking for John. Out of the corners of their eyes the boys saw what he was doing and, detecting his ignorance glanced slyly and knowingly at one another, but not rudely. I gave the boys just one hasty glance of reproof. That was enough - their equanimity was restored immediately. I quietly handed Moody my own book, open at the right place, and took his. I did not suppose the boy could possibly have noticed the glances exchanged between the other boys over his ignorance, but it seems from remarks in later years that he did, and he said in reference to my little act in exchanging books that he would stick by the fellow who had stood by him and had done him a turn like that." This Sunday school teacher was not one of the ordinary type. Mere literal instruction on Sunday did not satisfy his ideal of the teachers duty. He knew his boys, and, if he knew them, it was because be studied them, because he became acquainted with their occupations and aims, visiting them during the week. It was his custom, moreover, to find opportunity to give to his boys an opportunity to use his experience in seeking the better things of the Spirit. The day came when he resolved to speak to young Moody about Christ, and about his soul. JUST READY FOR THE LIGHT "I started down town to Holton’s shoe store," says Mr. Kimball. "When I was nearly there, I began to wonder whether I ought to go just then, during business hours. And I thought maybe my mission might embarrass the boy, that when I went away the other clerks might ask who I was, and when they learned might taunt Moody and ask if I was trying to make a good boy out. of him. While I was pondering over it all, I passed the store without noticing it. Then when I found I had gone by the door, I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found Moody in the back part of the store wrapping up shoes in paper and putting them on shelves. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I placed my foot upon a shoe box. Then I made my plea, and I feel that it was really a very weak one. I don’t know just what words I used, nor could Mr. Moody tell. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was of it. I think Mr. Moody said afterward that there were tears in my eyes. It seemed that the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, for there at once in the back of that shoe store in Boston the future great evangelist gave himself and his life to Christ." Many years afterward Mr. Moody himself told the story of that day. When I was in Boston," he said, "I used to attend a Sunday school class, and one clay I recollect my teacher came around behind the counter of the shop I was at work in, and put his hand upon my shoulder, and talked to me about Christ and my soul. I had not felt that I had a soul till then. I said to myself This is a very strange thing. Here is a man who never saw me till lately, and he is weeping over my sins, and I never shed a tear about them.’ But I understand it now, and know what it is to have a passion for men’s souls and weep over their sins. I don’t remember what he said, but I can feel the power of that man’s hand on my shoulder to-night. it was not long after that I was brought into the Kingdom of God.’ APPLIES FOR ADMISSION INTO THE CHURCH One of his first steps after his conversion was to apply for admission into the Mount Vernon Church. It is frequently stated that after his application for membership in the Mount Vernon Church, he was looked upon so unfavourably as a candidate that he was kept waiting for a year before he was granted admission. It has also been said, that even after his acceptance by the church his remarks in the church meetings were so far from edifying that his pastor was obliged to suggest to him, that he could serve the Lord much more acceptably by keeping silence. While there is a foundation of truth in these statements, they must not be taken too literally. Mr. Moody was undoubtedly at that time ignorant of many of the most important reasons of his profession; but Dr. Kirk’s church was a revival church, and his spirit was not such as to deny the opportunities of grace to any one who deserved them. The Rev. Dr. James M. Buckley, editor of the Christian Advocate, has written quite exhaustively on this matter. He has said "Those sympathising with his Dr. Kirk’s peculiar work, gathered about him. Among them were such men as Julius Palmer, the brother of Dr. Ray Palmer, the author of ’My Faith Looks Up to Thee’; he was one of the deacons, and all the rest had the same sympathies. Mr. Kimball was not only Mr. Moody’s Sunday school teacher, and, as Mr. Moody expressly informed us, the means of his conversion, but was also one of the examining committee. But the Mount Vernon Church did not receive a person who could not furnish evidence that he was converted, even if he was perfectly orthodox in doctrine. TRUE EVIDENCE "About the time Mr. Moody was converted, a young man came from Scotland with a letter from a Presbyterian church. He could repeat the Shorter Catechism, answer all doctrinal questions glibly, but when he was asked of his position before God as a sinner and his conscious relation to Christ as a Saviour, he knew nothing of it and made no reply, except that ’such questions were never asked him before’. He confessed that he had simply ’joined’ because he was advised and expected to do so. This young man was advised to wait, and brethren were appointed to try to arouse in him a consciousness of his need of a Saviour and of a work of grace, and to point him to the Lamb of God. About the same time, a young woman applied who was wholly in the dark on ’doctrines’; tender, tearful, hesitating, distrustful of herself, she could not tell why she thought herself a Christian, but could only say that she loved Christ and the prayer meeting. One of the committee said, ’Do you love God’s people because they are His?’ Her face brightened, and she said, ’O, sir, is that an evidence?’ Yes.’ Then I am sure I have that if I have no other, for I love to be with Christians anywhere.’ She was promptly received. HIS FIRST EXAMINATION "When Mr. Moody appeared for examination, he was eighteen years old. He had only been in the Sunday school class a few weeks; he had no idea and could not tell what it was to be a Christian; even when aided by his teacher, whom he loved, he could not state what Christ had done for him. The chief question put to him was this: ’Mr. Moody, what has Christ done for us all - for you - which entitles Him to our love?’ The longest answer he gave in the examination was this: ’ I do not know. I think Christ has done a great deal for us, but I do not think of anything particular as I know of.’ "Under these circumstances, as he was a stranger to all the members of the committee, and less than a month had elapsed since he began to give any serious thought to the salvation of his soul, they deferred recommending him for admission to the church. But two of the examining committee were specially designated to watch over him with kindness, and teach him ’the way of God more perfectly. "When he met the committee again no merely doctrinal questions were asked of him; but as his sincerity and earnestness were undoubted and he appeared to have more light, it was decided to propound him for admission. About eight years after this, and when Mr. Moody had become prominent as an evangelist, he expressed his gratitude to one of the officers of the church for the course pursued, and said his conviction was that its influence was favourable to his growth in grace. He also said he was afraid that pastors and church officers generally were falling into the error of hurrying new converts into a profession of religion. To a person of our acquaintance Dr. Kirk himself referred with the deepest grief to these imputations upon the Church, and declared them to be without foundation in truth; as well he might, for if there ever existed a man in New England who was free from the spirit of ’staid and stiff New England orthodoxy ’, it was Dr. Kirk. "As for the suggestion to say but little in prayer meeting, we have little doubt that some one suggested that, for Mr. Moody has told us of his utter ignorance of the evangelical system. He was converted, he ’wished to do his duty’, he said, ’whatever came to his lips, knowing no thing about its consistency or inconsistency; but he acted on John Wesley’s rule, ’Do every religious, duty as you can until you can do it as you would.’" MR. MOODY’S LIFE IN BOSTON One of those who knew Mr. Moody at the time of his conversion was Mr. Charles B. Botsford, of Boston. Shortly after the death of Mr. Moody, Mr. Botsford related what he knew of the life of Moody in Boston. "I distinctly recall my first interview with Mr. Moody, early in 1856, said Mr. Botsford. "It was at the close of one of the Monday evening religious meetings of the Mt. Vernon Association of Young Men, formed several years before by Dr. Edward N. Kirk, for the benefit of young men of his church and congregation. Antedating the Y. M. C. A. by several years, it continued a vigorous life for several decades, and proved of great value. "A literary meeting alternated with a devotional meeting. It was at this, his first attendance, at one of the latter, that in a broken and trembling way, he earnestly stated his purpose to turn over a new leaf and lead a Christian life. When the meeting was over I took him by the hand and conducted him for the first time to the rooms of the Y. M. C. A., in the old Tremont Temple, to attend, as was my custom, the 9 o’clock prayer and conference meeting. Moody spoke, but much more zealously than grammatically, and he continued to be an active participant in the meetings from week to week. "LET THE LEAVEN WORK" "After a time, one of the most cultured members complained to Mr. Moody’s uncle, a shoe dealer on Tremont Row, between Brattle and Hanover streets, that his nephew was altogether too zealous and conspicuous in the Y. M. C. A. meetings, saying that he wished in some way to have the zealot restrained. When consulted about the matter I said: ’No, let the leaven work!’ The world knows what Mr. Moody has since done, in, by and for Y.M.C.A.’s, to say nothing of his other work. "In the meantime I had taken Moody to a Sunday morning devotional meeting, that I was accustomed to attend, in the vestry of Dr. Neal’s Baptist church, where the Boston University now stands. At that meeting, also, with its strong sectarian atmosphere, Moody spoke, and so stumbled in absolute disregard of the Pilgrim’s English, that, in embarrassment, I bowed my head on the rail of the seat before me. He continued there, also. It was from this church, later, that a good sister, more zealous to steady and guard the ark of the Lord than to encourage unlearned young men to become leaders in Israel, went to Mr. Holton and said: ’If you have any interest in or regard for your nephew, you had better admonish him not to talk so much, for he is making a fool of himself.’ But still the leaven worked. May 4, 1856, Mr. Moody united with the Mt. Vernon Church, where he was a member of Mr. Kimball’s class in the Sunday school. He was not a constant attendant of the mid-week devotional meetings of the church, for, as he expressed it, he did not have liberty there in his utterances, and, naturally enough, perhaps, for the atmosphere of the meetings was strongly intellectual and positively spiritual, with such leaders as Deacons Palmer, Kimball, Pinkerton and Cushing, with Dr. Kirk, at the close, to deepen and seal the impression." A CHANGED LIFE Concerning his relations to the Mount Vernon Church, Mr. Moody afterward said: "When I first became a Christian, I tried to join the church, but they wouldn’t have me, because they didn’t believe I was really converted." A number of years afterward, Dr. Kirk was attending the anniversary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which was held that year in Chicago. He was entertained by Mr. Moody, the man who as a boy had come into the light, in some measure, under his influence, and he preached on Sunday in the pulpit of his former parishioner. When he returned to Boston Dr. Kirk called upon Mr. Moody’s uncle, Mr. Holton, and said: " I told our people last evening that we had every reason to be ashamed of ourselves. That young Moody, whom we thought did not know enough to belong to our church and Sunday school, is to-day exerting a wider influence for the Master than any other man in the great Northwest." Speaking of his experience in passing from the life of sin to the life of religion, Mr. Moody once said: "I used to have a terrible habit of swearing. Whenever I would get mad, out would come the oaths; but after I gave my heart to Christ, He took the oaths away, so that I did not have the least disposition to take God’s name in vain." At another time, when waited upon by a journalist, who asked him for a sketch of his life, Mr. Moody said "I was born in the flesh in 1837; I was born in the Spirit in 1856. What is born of the flesh may die; that which is born of the Spirit will live forever". HOW MOODY REVENGED HIMSELF UPON THE DEACON The Rev. Dr. Savage, of Chicago, used to tell of the way in which Mr. Moody revenged himself upon one of the deacons who had been instrumental in keeping him waiting for admission to the church. Mr. Moody’s action was, of course, good-natured, for he not only bore no malice, but, on the other hand, was thankful for the wisdom which had required of him some sane understanding of his own state before he was allowed full fellowship with God’s people. The earnest inquirer finds only a stimulus to further search when his own unfitness is made clear to him. To return to the story. It was during the London campaign, and in the midst of one of the great meetings in Exeter Hall. Mr. Moody, whose sharp eyes never missed a detail in the great audiences which he faced, saw, away back under a gallery, his old friend, the deacon. The good man was travelling at the time, and had come to the meeting largely out of curiosity. Mr. Moody said nothing until toward the close of the service. Then he suddenly exclaimed: "I see in the house an eminent Christian gentleman from Boston, Deacon P, come right up to the platform; the people are anxious to hear you." ’The deacon was far from eager to accept this hearty invitation, but he found that there was no alternative. So, mounting the platform, he began to speak. He told of having been acquainted with Mr. Moody during the evangelist’s early life - of the fact that they had been members of the same church. Here Mr. Moody suddenly interrupted: "Yes, Deacon, and you kept me out of that church for six months, because you thought I did not know enough to join it." The deacon, at last succeeding in making himself heard above the roar of laughter which greeted Mr. Moody’s sally, retorted that it was a privilege to any church to receive Mr. Moody at all, even though with considerable trepidation, and after long endeavour to know him thoroughly. HOW HE REPAYS HIS OLD SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER A number of years after his own conversion Mr. Moody found an opportunity to repay his old Sunday school teacher in kind for the help which Mr. Kimball had given to him. After a service in Boston a young man came to Mr. Moody and introduced himself as a son of Mr. Kimball. "I’m glad to meet you," said Mr. Moody. "Are you a Christian?" The young man admitted that he was not, and Mr. Moody inquired of him as to his age. "I am seventeen, was the reply. "That was just my age, when your father led me to the Lord," said Mr. Moody, "and now I want to repay him by leading his son to Christ." The coincidence, in age made an impression on the young man. After a brief conversation, he promised to surrender his heart to the Saviour, and a short time afterward Mr. Moody received a letter from him, stating that he had found what he had sought. After his reception into the Mount Vernon Church, Mr. Moody remained in Boston for about five months. The restraint of his conservative surroundings lay heavy upon him. He yearned for freedom - freedom to think, freedom to speak, freedom to work. He must have had some consciousness of the great intuitions, the great feelings, which were struggling in him to burst forth into bloom, and he must have realised that the soil of staid Boston was not stimulating to such a growth. He had come into a new life his forceful nature was not the kind to wait for circumstances to develop it. He required broad opportunity. HE SEEKS HIS FUTURE IN THE WEST His unrest finally decided him definitely to seek a future in the West. His mother, it is said, did not approve of the move, dreading, as do all good mothers, the change which would take her son farther from her, and possibly fearing the dangers of a new environment which might not prove wholesome. Any dread which she may have felt was afterward proved to have been ill-founded. Securing a letter from his uncle, Mr. Moody set out for Chicago in September, 1856, and entered the Western Metropolis with small store of earthly goods, but with a large fund of buoyant hope and energy, and a devoted purpose to serve his Divine Master. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 05.06. SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK ======================================================================== Chapter 6 - Sunday School Work WHEN young Moody arrived in Chicago, he presented a letter which his uncle had given him to Mr. Wiswall, a shoe dealer on Lake Street. The boy was not altogether a prepossessing candidate for a position. He was boisterous and uncouth, and it was with many misgivings that Mr. Wiswall took him into his store. His employer’s decision, however, was fully justified by the young man’s work. It was not long before young Moody had the reputation of being the best salesman in the employ of the firm. He especially delighted to take in hand customers who were unusually difficult to deal with, and, while he never over stepped the line between honesty and deceit in his business dealings when it came to a contest of wits he was almost invariably victorious. GOOD PREPARATION FOR FUTURE WORK It was not long before the growth of Mr. Wiswall’s business led him to open a jobbing department. Mr. Moody was promoted to a situation in the new department, and in this wider opportunity for the exercise of his business faculties, he continued to win approval as a valuable assistant. His work took him to the rail road stations, hotels and other business places in search of customers, and doubtless did much toward widening his acquaintance, and adding to his experience in dealing with men. The acquirement of practical knowledge of the best way to approach men was a wonderful preparation for the great work of his later years. A number of Mr. Wiswall’s clerks slept in rooms in the store building, an arrangement which naturally led to a fraternal intercourse. It is said that in the evenings these young men made it a habit to enter into debates upon the live questions of the day - and sometimes even questions which were not living issues. Politics, theology, business, all supplied topics to these young orators, and frequently discussions became very enthusiastic. The slavery question was often mooted. My Moody was, as might be expected from his vehement nature, an earnest participant in these debates. Unembarrassed by the limitations placed upon him by lack of education, he plunged boldly into whatever subject was under discussion, and generally made his point. In theology the main subject of debate was the old, old question, foreordination versus free will. Mr. Moody had developed strong Calvinistic tendencies, and he found a worthy opponent in one of his fellow clerks who, by bringing up, was a Methodist. The question of amusements was also taken up. Mr. Moody was strongly averse to any frivolous form of amusement, or any amusement which seemed to him frivolous. The story is told that he came into the store one night from some religious meeting, and found two of the clerks engaged in a game of checkers. He dashed the checker board to the ground; then, before any one could protest, dropped upon his knees and began to pray. It must not be thought, however, that he was entirely averse to healthful sports. On the contrary, rough games and practical jokes were a keen delight to him. RECRUITING FOR THE CHURCH Shortly after his arrival in Chicago, Mr. Moody united by letter with the Plymouth Congregational Church, of which Dr. J. E. Roy was at that time pastor. It was a hospitable church, and Mr. Moody was not slow to find an opportunity to exercise his desire to do practical Christian work. He rented five pews and kept them filled with young men at every service. He also went out and hunted up boys and girls for the Sunday school. The statement has been made that he asked for a class in the Sunday school but was refused. This is doubtful, for Mr. Moody himself recognized and declared at that time that he could not teach. He, however, took part in the prayer meetings, and in his work as a recruiting officer for the church of Christ, began to ignore denominational lines. RECRUITING FOR SUNDAY SCHOOLS It seemed as if no church could give him enough to do; therefore he began to attend a Sunday morning class in the First Methodist Church, and to work with its Mission Band, which was composed of a number of devoted young men, who every Sunday morning used to visit various public places and invite strangers to attend church services. It will be seen that Mr. Moody’s Christian work was purely practical. This was a characteristic determined by his temperament. Theorizing had no place in his energetic mind, but his whole heart was bent to secure the best results from the means at hand and when means were lacking to find them. We are struck with his method of making use of every opportunity, however slight. He never ignored small things; he felt it as incumbent upon him to to help the clerk who worked beside him in the store, and the stranger hw met casually upon the street, as to endeavor to sway large audiences from the rostrum. As a matter of fact, it is doubtful if, in these humble beginnings of his efforts, he had any realization of the great work that lay in store for him. He simply saw men and children sinking in the moral lazaretto of a great city and stretched out his hand to help them. A scientific study of the principles of education has impressed upon our the necessity of dealing with children, if we desire to effect any permanent change in the mental or moral condition of the world; for the children of to-day are the fathers and the mothers of the next generation. Without theorising, Mr. Moody must have had an understanding of this principle. It was not long after he came to Chicago that he began to work among the children. His success in recruiting for the Sunday schools was wonderful. On one occasion he found a little mission Sunday school on the North side, and offered to take a class. The superintendent pointed out that they already had almost as many teachers as pupils, but added that, if Mr. Moody would get his own pupils, he would be at liberty to conduct a class. The next Sunday Mr. Moody appeared with eighteen ragamuffins. They were dirty, unkempt, many of them barefoot, but as the young teacher said, "each had a soul to save". HIS SUNDAY SCHOOL ON "THE SANDS" Mr. Moody’s missionary explorations led him into the most evil parts of the city. His face became familiar in the worst saloon districts, among the sailors’ boarding houses, and on the docks. It was on one of these excursions that he fell in with Mr. J. B. Stillson, a business man who was employing his spare time in the same missionary work. The two men cast in their lot together, and, according to one historian, during a single summer helped to recruit twenty mission Sunday schools. Mr. Moody recognised that the average mission school was not calculated to reach the lowest strata of society. There was too large a requirement of order, too little allowance for the homes from which the pupils had come. Accordingly, he decided to begin a mission school of his own, On the north side of the Chicago River was a district called "The Sands", sometimes also known as "Little Hell". To-day, some of the finest residences of Chicago stand there where, in the early fifties and sixties, crime and debauchery reigned supreme. It was to this home of vice Mr. Moody went to begin his work. He found a deserted shanty which had formerly been a saloon and hiring this ramshackle place, started out to drum up children to fill it. At first he found it hard to get at the young street Arabs; then he filled his pockets with maple sugar, and, judiciously distributing it among those who promised to come, soon had his little room overflowing with barbarians. One who visited the school in those days has described his experiences. "When I came to the little old shanty and entered the door," he said, "the first thing I saw by the light of the few candles, was a man standing up, holding in his arms a Negro boy, to whom he was trying to read the story of the Prodigal Son. A great many words the reader could not make out and was obliged to skip. My thought was, If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honour and glory it will astonish me! When the meeting was over, Mr Moody said to me, ’I have got only one talent. I have no education, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for Him.’ I have watched him since, and have come to know him thoroughly, and for consistent walk and conversation I have never met a man equal to him." MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY There was probably never another school just like this school on "The Sands" to which young Moody devoted his spare time. Speaking from the steps of the hall entrance, the evangelist could make his voice heard in the doors of two hundred saloons. At first he had no seats for his school, and for some time none of the other usual requisites; no blackboard, no library, no maps; but it was a live school - in fact, it was about as much as the teachers could do to keep the turbulent membership sufficiently quiet to sing a little and hear a little talking. Mr. Moody was helped here by his friend Mr. Stillson. As a cardinal doctrine they held that the worse a boy was the more necessity there was to keep him in the school. There is a story of one young rough who defied for a long time all efforts to tame him, and whose riotous behavior endangered the existence of the school. Having meditated and prayed over the matter all the week, Mr. Moody came to the school on Sunday persuaded that there was but one remedy that would reach this case, and that was a good thrashing. Coming up behind the young rowdy, he seized him and pushed him through the open door of a little anteroom, then, locking the door, proceeded to business. The excitement in the schoolroom was drawn off by singing until the two reappeared after a somewhat prolonged and noisy recess in the anteroom. Both were evidently well warmed up, but the humble bearing of the offending boy made manifest the result of the battle. "It was hard work," remarked Mr. Moody, "but I guess we have saved him." This proved to be true; and, moreover, this exhibition of muscular Christianity served as a strong claim on the admiration of the school Mr. Moody had demonstrated his ability to keep order, and thereafter found many helpers. One day an old pupil, coming up the aisle, noticed a new recruit with his cap on. He snatched it off, and with one blow sent the offender to the floor. "I’ll teach you to keep your cap on. in this school," was the explanation of the young protector as he passed to his own seat with the air of one ready to do his duty. THE NORTH MARKET MISSION After a while the little shanty became too small for Mr. Moody’s purpose, and, with the permission of Mayor Haines, the school was removed to a large hall over the North Market. This hall was generally used on Saturday evenings for dancing, and it often took the whole Sunday morning for Mr. Moody to clean it up so that it would be in condition for his use in the afternoon. There were no chairs, so Mr. Moody set out to secure money to buy them. He went to several rich men, among others to Mr. J.V. Farwell, a prominent merchant. After receiving a contribution, he asked Mr. Farwell what he was doing in a personal way for the unsaved, and invited him to attend the mission. The next Sunday Mr. Farwell appeared at the North Market School. The scene, to his imagination, defied all description. Ragamuffins were darting hither and thither, crying their street cries, and entering upon all sorts of mischief, but from this state of confusion Scripture readings, songs, and speeches occasionally rescued them. Mr. Farwell made a speech, and at the close, to his great consternation was nominated by Mr. Moody superintendent of the school. The election was carried by acclamation before he had time to object. This office, so suddenly pressed upon him was filled by Mr. Farwell for more than six years. A PLAN THAT WORKED TO A CHARM It was not easy to find suitable teachers for the classes which made up such a school, and it was not always easy to get rid of unsuitable teachers, but a plan was hit upon that worked to a charm. As no teacher could do such pupils good unless he could interest them a rule was made giving the pupils the privilege, under certain limitation, of leaving his class when he chose and going into another one. The result was that the superintendent was relieved from the unpleasant task of taking a dull teacher’s class away from him, for the class, one by one, quickly took itself away. Mr. Moody put a vast amount of work into the school. His evenings and Sundays were spent in skirmishing about "The Sands" looking after old pupils or hunting up new ones. Along with the Gospel he gave a great deal of relief for the sick, the unemployed, and unfortunate. He was the almoner not only of his own charity, but also of the gifts of the many friends who became interested in his work. His old employer has stated that as many as twenty children used to come into the store at one time to be gratuitously fitted with new shoes. As the school became popular, interest and curiosity brought many visitors, and it became easier to find teachers for the seventy or eighty classes. The attendance at the school increased in the most astonishing fashion, In three months there were 200 pupils in six months 350, and within a year the average attendance was about 650, with an occasional crowd of nearly 1000. The city missionary made objection to the wide range from which Mr. Moody was now drawing his recruits, on the plea that he was infringing on the work of other missions, but the work of the North Market School continued. No uniform lesson leaf was used in the school, but each teacher and pupil was supplied with a copy of the New Testament and from this drew information and inspiration. PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S VISIT A notable event in the history of the school was the visit of President-elect Lincoln, who came one Sunday at the request of Mr. Farwell. When the carriage went to the house where Mr. Lincoln was visiting, he left an unfinished dinner in order to keep his appointment, and was hurried northward to the unsavoury district in which the North Market was situated. The President-elect was perhaps not accustomed to talk to Sunday schools; at any rate he requested that he should not be asked to make a speech; but when he was introduced to the spirited aggregation in the North Market Hall, the enthusiasm was so great that he yielded and spoke. His words were for right thinking and right acting. When a few months later this man issued a call for 75,000 volunteers, about sixty of the boys who had heard him that day in the North Market Hall answered. To them the words of the man who had told them of duty still rang through the words of the head of the State. Conversions and transformations were continually occurring as a result of the work of Mr. Moody’s school. More are related than can possibly be mentioned here. MANY TIMES IN DANGER OF HIS LIFE It must not be supposed that in his peregrinations among the lowly and the wretched, Mr. Moody always met with a welcome reception. There were many times when he stood in danger of his life. On such occasions he made it a principle to run away just as fast as he could, and he generally escaped because he could run faster than those who pursued him. One Sunday morning he was visiting some Roman Catholic family, with the purpose of bringing the children to the school, when a powerful man sprang at him with a club. The man had sworn to kill him, but a hard run saved the life of the young evangelist. Even after this attack he did not desist in his visit to this house, but continued again and again, until his tact and patience disarmed his adversary. On another occasion, one Saturday evening he found in a house a jug of whiskey, which had been stored there for a carouse the following day. After a rousing temperance lecture, Mr. Moody persuaded the women of the house to permit him to pour the whiskey into the street. This he did before departing. Early the next morning he came back to fetch the children of the place to Sunday school. The men were lying in wait for him to thrash him. It was impossible to get away, for he was surrounded on all sides, but before they could touch him, Mr. Moody said, "See here, men, if you are going to whip me, you might at least give me time to say my prayers." The request was unusual; perhaps it was for that very reason that it was acceeded to. Mr. Moody dropped upon his knees and prayed such a prayer as those rough men had never heard before. Gradually they became interested and then softened, and when he had finished they gave him their hands, and a few minutes later Mr. Moody left the house for his school, followed by the children he had come to find. HE KNEW HIS WORK THOROUGHLY Mr. Moody was not only busily engaged in Chicago, but early in his missionary life he was called to speak in small Sunday school conventions chiefly because he had already gained the reputation of reaching the masses of poor children in the cities. He knew this work thoroughly, and in his own way he could tell about it, not only to the instruction but often to the amusement as well of his audience. At one time he was invited to a place in Illinois and was accompanied by a Christian Association secretary; they two were advertised to speak. The secretary, in speaking of it afterwards said, "If ever two poor fellows were frightened, it was Moody and I." They reached their destination about two o’clock in the morning, too early to sit up and too late to go to bed, but they determined that they would spend all the time that was given them in prayer. During the rest of the night they sought God for power and guidance. Before the hour came when they were to speak, Mr. Moody secured the use of a public-school room which was quite near the place of the larger meeting. When asked what he wanted to do with it, he said, " I want it for an inquiry meeting." Both these young men were to speak, and each agreed that while the other spoke he would pray for him. When Mr. Moody was announced he seemed like one inspired. He pictured to them their need of Christ to help them as Sunday school teachers; told them it was an awful sin to do their work in a careless manner, and alter an address of an hour called upon all who wanted to meet him and to know Christ, to come with him to the school-room next door, where great numbers were helped. This was the beginning of a widespread spirit of revival, but it was also the beginning of a new life for Mr. Moody. From 1858 to 1865, Mr. Moody, Mr. Jacobs and Major Whittle, who were closely identified in conventions held in different parts of the country, became deeply impressed with the need of more of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The annual convention was to meet in Springfield, and these three workers were deeply concerned that it should be the best convention in the history of the State. They reached Springfield before the association convened, and held revival meetings as a prelude to what was to follow afterward. Seventy persons were converted. This became the Revival Conference. The next year the Sunday school workers met in the city of Decatur, and a record was brought up of ten thousand persons brought to Christ in a year. From this time on Mr. Moody was constantly invited to other States, and from Maine to Texas, from Montreal to San Francisco, from St. Paul to New Orleans, he went year after year, preaching and praying, rousing the Christian Associations into activity, inspiring the pastors to labour for revivals, helping the Sunday school teachers to reach their scholars for Christ; and in all his work as an evangelist throughout the world, deeper impressions were never made than in the first days of his active work as a Sunday school teacher and leader. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 05.07. THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION AND... ======================================================================== Chapter 7 - The Young Men’s Christian Association And The Chicago Avenue Church MR. MOODY had not been long identified with active Christian work in Chicago, before he saw an opportunity for service in connection with the Young Men’s Christian Association. This organisation had been established in Chicago as a result of the great revival of 1857 - 8, but after a few years the interest in the daily noon prayer meeting began to wane. To increase this interest impressed Mr. Moody as his duty. His abilities were soon recognised by those in charge of the work, and he was appointed chairman of the Visiting Committee to the sick and to strangers. His work in behalf of the noon meetings was blessed moreover with large results. RESULT OF HIS FIRST YEAR’S WORK He had found the Association made up of conservative men of middle or advanced years, but his advent among them was, as an officer of the Association has said, "like a stiff north-west breeze," and under his influence the institution became free and popular, and its influence was extensively widened. His abilities were especially eminent in raising money, but of the thousands of dollars he secured he would take nothing for himself. Among other schemes devised by him was one which federated the mission schools of the city under the Association, and brought them under the care of the stronger churches. The report of the first year of the work of his committee on visitation gives the number of families visited as 554, and the amount of money used for charitable purposes as $2350. Meanwhile, the growing strength of the North Market Mission taxed the ingenuity of the young superintendent to provide room for its expansion. He set himself to work to secure a suitable edifice, and, collecting personally about $20,000, saw a neat chapel rise in Illinois Street, not far from the old North Market Hall. This was in 1863. Mr. Moody had ever aimed, as the converts of the Mission grew in number, to recommend them to regular church homes, but an increasing unwillingness on the part of the converts to leave the influences of his personal presence seemed to necessitate the organisation of a regular church to be made up of the converts of the Mission. THE ILLINOIS STREET CHURCH The Illinois Street Church was therefore organised under Congregational auspices. Members were baptised and received into the church by regular pastors of other Congregational churches, but the communion service was conducted by Mr. Moody without reference to established forms. He was the pastor of the church, although he never received ordination. For this reason, probably, the church, although organised by Congregationalists, was not reckoned a Congregational Church. Its discipline and confession of faith were made up with the end that no true lover of the Lord should be kept from the fellowship of this Christian band by any non-essential of doctrine or observance. The membership of this church in the beginning was unique. Almost every communicant had been rescued from degradation by the work of the Mission. And it was a working congregation. Labour was so divided that every member had something to do, and every night saw some service in the chapel. The meetings seemed to be a continuous revival. Boundless energy and great physical strength, with the constant dwelling of God’s spirit in him, alone enabled Mr. Moody to bear up under the great strain. At times he would find himself completely exhausted and almost ready to give up, but a few hours of rest or a slight change I occupation generally sufficed to put him very quickly on his feet again. TWO HUNDRED CALLS IN A DAY The story is told of how he made two hundred calls on New Year’s Day. "At an early hour the omnibus which was to take him and several of his leading men was at the door, and, with a carefully prepared list of residences, they began the day’s labour. The list included a large proportion of families living in garrets and the upper stories of high tenements. On reaching the home of a family belonging to his congregation he would spring out of the ’bus, leap up the stairways, rush into the room, and pay his respects as follows, I am Moody; this is Deacon De Golyer; this is Deacon Thane; this is Brother Hitchcock. Are you well? Do you all come to church and Sunday-school? Have you all the coal you need for the winter? ’Let us pray? And down we would all go upon our knees, while Mr. Moody offered from fifteen to twenty words of earnest, tender, sympathetic supplication. "Then springing to his feet, he would dash on his hat, dart through the doorway and down the stairs, throwing a hearty ’good bye’ behind him, leap into the ’bus, and off to the next place on his list the entire exercise occupying about one minute and a half. Before long the horses were tired out, for Mr. Moody insisted on their going on a run from one house to another; so the omnibus was abandoned, and the party proceeded on foot, One after another of his companions became exhausted with running upstairs and downstairs, and across the streets, and kneeling on bare floors, and getting up in a hurry; until, reluctantly, but of necessity, they were obliged to relinquish the attempt, and the tireless pastor was left to make the last of the two hundred calls alone. He returned home in the highest spirits to laugh at his exhausted companions for deserting him." The next year Mr. Moody went on foot through another such day - reminding his friends that on the previous New Year they had often felt obliged to leave the ’bus before reaching a house, lest the sight of the vehicle should hurt the poor they visited, as an apparent waste of money. ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE Y. M. C. A. The increase of the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association during the Civil War called for increased accommodations. Mr. Moody’s success with his Mission, and his well-known energy and boldness, led to the proposal that he be elected president of the Association. His lack of learning and his bluntness caused considerable opposition to his election, but he received a small majority. A building committee was immediately organised. Mr. Moody’s plan was to organise a stock company, with twelve trustees, who should erect and hold the building in trust. The stock was to bear six percent interest, from the completion of the building, and the interest on the stock was to be paid out of the rentals of such portions of the building as were not needed for the use of the Association, and also from the rent of the great Hall. The excess of the rentals over the interest was to be used to buy up the stock, at par, in behalf of the Association. Mr. Moody succeeded in placing the stock to the value of $101000. The new building was erected in Madison Street, between Clark and La Salle Streets. The large hall had a seating capacity of three thousand. There were in the building a large room for the noon prayer meetings, a library, offices, etc. The hall was dedicated September 29, 1867. The report of the treasurer, Mr. John V, Farwell, on that occasion, showed that the entire cost of land, building, etc., was $199000. Stock had been subscribed to the amount of $135000; $50000 had been loaned on mortgages. The remaining indebtedness was at once cleared up by subscriptions. DEDICATION OF THE NEW BUILDING Among the speakers at the dedicatory service was Mr. George H. Stuart, president of the United States Christian Commission. His address sketched the history of the Association, and described the possibilities that were open to its efforts. The effect of his speech was marvellous. It seemed as if the words of this great Christian man had loosened the heart-strings of every individual in the large audience. The hall was still unnamed, but on Mr. Moody’s nomination it was christened "Farwell Hall," in honour of Mr. John V. Farwell. Under the management of Mr. Moody, Farwell Hall became very popular. The daily noon prayer meeting was so well attended that occasionally the one thousand seats in the prayer room were not sufficient to hold the people, and it was necessary to adjourn to the large hall. Monday evening a special meeting was held for strangers. Every noon Mr. Moody would go to the street in front of the hall a few minutes before the meeting, and endeavour to send within as many of the passers-by as he could approach. Then, as the clock struck twelve, he would hurry up the stairs and take his usual seat, near the leader, where, if the meeting seemed to drag or to require a stimulus, he would take it in hand and do everything necessary to animate it. Mr. Moody began to be known in Young Men’s Christian Association work throughout the United States and Canada, and his services were in frequent demand for conventions and revival services. Four months after its dedication, Farwell Hall was burned, in January, 1868. Mr. Moody did not lag when this catastrophe overtook the enterprise in which he was bound up. Subscriptions were opened immediately, and most of the original stockholders came to the front with renewed support. On the old foundations a new Farwell Hall was erected. It was dedicated in 1869, to an only too brief period of noble service for the Master. A GREAT RELIGIOUS CENTRE Mr. Moody continued president of the Association for four years. He then declined re-election, but consented to act as vice-president, with Mr. J. V. Farwell in the chair. The Sunday evening meetings in the new hall were wonderful. Mr. Moody would there preach the same discourse he had delivered to his congregation in Illinois Street in the morning. Such throngs attended these evening meeting that they came to compose, with one exception, the largest protestant congregation in Chicago. The sermon was followed by an inquiry meeting. Farwell Hall soon became a great religious centre. That its success as an institution was due in large degree to Mr. Moody cannot be doubted. His energy made possible the erection of the first structure; his perseverance called forth the second, phoenix like, from the ashes of the first; his devotion filled the prayer meetings; his faith led hundreds to a changed life; and his directness, his singleness of purpose, prevented any deviation of the work from the paths of Christian helpfulness. The second Farwell Hall went down in the great fire of 1871, but its work still lived. Mr. Moody used to give an incident of his last service in Farwell Hall on the night of the great fire. He said: INCIDENT OF HIS LAST SERVICE IN FARWELL HALL "The last time I preached upon this question was in Farwell HaIl. I had been for five nights preaching on the life of Christ. I took Him from the cradle and followed Him up to the judgement hall, and on that occasion I consider I made as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. If I could recall my act I would give this right hand. It was upon that memorable night in October, and the Court House bell was sounding an alarm of fire, but I paid no attention to it. You know we were accustomed to hear the fire-bell often, and it didn’t disturb us much when it sounded. I finished the sermon upon ’What shall I do with Jesus?’ And I said to the audience, ’Now I want you to take the question with you and think over it, and next Sunday I want you to come back and tell me what you are going to do with it.’ What a mistake It seems now as if Satan was in my mind when I said this. Since then I have never dared to give an audience a week to think on their salvation. If they were lost, they might rise up in judgement against me, ’Now is the accepted time.’ We went down stairs to the other meeting, and I remember when Mr. Sankey was singing and how his voice rang when he came to that pleading verse: ’To-day the Saviour calls; For refuge fly. The storm of justice falls, And death is nigh.’ After the meeting we went home. I remember going down La Salle street with a young man who is probably in the hall to-night, and saw the glare of flames. I said to the young man, ’This means ruin to Chicago.’ About one o’clock Farwell Hall went; soon the church in which I had preached went down, and everything was scattered. I never saw that audience again. My friends, we don’t know what may happen to-morrow, but there is one thing I do know, and that is, if you take the gift, you are saved. If you have eternal life, you need not fear fire, death, or sickness. Let disease or death come, you can shout triumphantly over the grave, if you have Christ. My friends, what are you going to do with Him tonight? Will you decide now?" THE NORTH SIDE TABERNACLE The Illinois Street Church was also burned in the great fire, and Mr. Moody at once began the work of feeding and sheltering the homeless. Complaints were made of his too bountiful distribution, for he would refuse no one who asked. He therefore withdrew from the relief work, and went East, to hold revival meetings and to raise money toward rebuilding his church. With the large assistance of Mr. George H. Stuart and Mr. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, he obtained three thousand dollars for the erection of a rough structure in the burned district, not far from the ruins of the old church. This " North Side Tabernacle," as it was called, covered a plot of ground one hundred and nine feet long and seventy-five feet wide. All around it were the ruins. There was some doubt whether the situation of the Tabernacle would permit a large attendance, but on the day of dedication more than one thousand children came together. The meetings in the Tabernacle were distinguished by a remarkable revival. During the year following the fire eight services were held every Sunday. A wide relief work was also instituted by the indefatigable pastor. Mr. Moody had returned from the eastern tour refreshed spiritually and blessed by a large access of power. He has told us how, while he was in New York City on that memorable journey, God revealed Himself especially to his servant. This baptism of the Divine Love vivified his later work and made it tell with the unconverted as never before. And so, in the Tabernacle among the ashes, sprang up a wonderful manifestation of God’s presence, and hundreds were led to Christ. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHICAGO AVENUE CHURCH The new church, which afterward came to be known as "The Chicago Avenue Church", was partly erected in 1873. From that time it was used by the congregation, a temporary roof being built over the first floor, but not until 1876 was it completed, freed of debt, and dedicated. Up to this time the preaching and pastoral work was done chiefly by Mr. Moody and Mr. Watts Dc Golyer. Since then the Rev. W. J. Erdman, the Rev. Charles H. Norton, the Rev. G. C. Needham, President Blanchard, the Rev. Charles F. Goss and the Rev. F. B. Hyde have occupied the pulpit and acted as pastors. The present pastor is the Rev. Dr. R. A. Torrey. The church has always maintained its early character as an undenominational, evangelical and aggressive congregation. The sittings and other privileges are all free, and the motto selected at the organisation of the church, and still inscribed over the main entrance, is "Welcome to this House of God are strangers and the poor." It has always been dependent upon the offerings of the people for its support, and the expenses are met through the systematic weekly giving of the congregation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 05.08. GIVING UP BUSINESS ======================================================================== Chapter 8 - Giving Up Business It is not hard to appreciate the straits to which Mr. Moody was subjected by the conflicting claims of his business and his mission work, Only a man of boundless energy and fine physique could have accomplished what he was accomplishing. His business received its full share of his attention as formerly, but in his every spare moment his mind was occupied by plans for the work at North Market Hall, while every evening and every Sunday he gave himself up wholly to his labours for the Master. MOODY AS A COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER Meanwhile he had not remained with Mr. Wiswall. After two years with his first friend, he entered the establishment of Mr. C. N. Henderson, who had become acquainted with him at the Mission, and had taken interest in the young man and his work. This new connection forced upon him the work of a commercial traveller. His evenings could no longer be given to mission work at home, for the greater part of his time was spent out of the city. However, no matter how far his travels might have taken him during the week, he never failed to return on Saturday night, that he might be at North Market Hall on Sunday. It will be readily understood that inasmuch as his business arrangements provided for his return to the city only one Sunday out of four, the expenses of his weekly trips would have been a serious drain upon his slender financial resources. But the superintendent of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, a man of generous impulses, who felt deeply interested in the North Side Sunday school, finding that Mr. Moody’s presence was essential to the Sunday work, provided him with a free pass over the railroad lines under his control, to bring him home three Sundays out of the four. Mr. Moody had not held his position very long before Mr. Henderson died. In the changes which the removal of this good man entailed in the house, Mr. Moody severed his connection with the firm and removed to the establishment of Messrs. Buel, Hill, & Granger, with whom he remained for about one year. More and more was his heart wrapped up in his practical Christian work business meant less and less to him. Finally he made his decision and gave up secular business entirely that he might devote his whole strength and time to practical work for the Lord. "GOD WILL PROVIDE" This was no sudden decision, no lightning conviction of a great duty. On the contrary, the step was decided upon only after mature deliberation and a thorough test of his fitness for his chosen work. His first ambition had been to become a great merchant; now this was thrown aside, and when at last he bade good-bye to business, he said to one of his friends, "I have decided to give to God all my time". "But how are you going to live?" asked his friend. Mr. Moody replied, " God will provide for me, if he wishes me to keep on, and I shall keep on until I am obliged to stop." There was no unpleasantness in his severance of the old business connections. All his former employers spoke in the highest terms of Mr. Moody and of his work with them. Said Mr. Hill, a member of the last firm for whom he worked, "One day not long after he left our house I ran across him, and I asked him, ’Moody, what are you doing?’ ’I am at work for Jesus Christ,’ was the reply. At first his answer shocked me a little, but after I had thought it over I decided that it was a fair statement of the facts in the case. It was true; that was just what he was doing, and his work for the Lord was as vigorous, as practical, as it had always been for other employers." Mr. Hill added that Mr. Moody had left the employ of his firm in the pleasantest circumstances, having retained his Christian character unblemished. All of his old employers, as a matter of fact, not only bade him God speed when he left them, but kept some track of his future course, with the conviction, even in those early days, that he would succeed in accomplishing great things. It had not been difficult for Mr. Moody, during his years of business life, to lay up a considerable sum of money out of his salary, for his living expenses were very light and his frugality a matter of record; but a great part of what he earned went into his mission work. Before leaving the world of business he set aside a certain sum. Part of this money he invested, but he saved out $1,000 to pay his first year’s expenses. He was now happy. Free to devote his time to his loved Mission, and to the Y.M.C.A .work, which was becoming almost equally dear to him, and conscious of the fact that he had in his pocket money to enable him to accomplish many of his plans, he set out with a light heart on his new life. And yet, it was not a new life, it was simply a ripening of those seeds which had been sown back there in his uncle’s store in Boston when he first gave his heart to the Lord. One of the first things he did was to invest part of his thousand dollars in a small pony. With the help of this animal he was able to extend his missionary excursions over a much wider area, and to accomplish much more than theretofore. The sight of Mr. Moody on his pony became a familiar one in the poor districts of Chicago. It is said that often after a Sunday morning hunt for Sunday school recruits, he would be seen emerging from some squalid street, surrounded by children, some of whom had clambered upon the pony with him, while others hung to the bridle reins or marched behind in procession on their way to the Sunday school. HIS MEANS EXHAUSTED Meanwhile the thousand dollars quickly vanished. It did not prove enough to meet half the demands which the mission work and various other deeds of charity brought upon Mr. Moody. Then the rest of his small fortune disappeared, and he found himself reduced to the proverbial water and a crust. One of the few books which he had read was the life of George Muller, whose work of faith in England had impressed him so deeply that he determined to follow that good man’s principle and trust in the Lord even for his sustenance. When the growth of the Y.M.C.A. noon prayer meetings necessitated their removal to a large backroom in the First Methodist Church block, Mr. Moody betook himself there, and, though at length brought to the necessity of sleeping on the benches of the prayer room and living on crackers and cheese, he kept on with his work, not even making his condition known to his friends, who would have been glad to help him. All this time he was collecting considerable sums for charitable purposes, but not one cent did he devote to himself. He had determined to give his faith a thorough test. At times he must have felt some faltering, but at those times the Lord always gave him some reassurance. After a time some of his friends began to wonder how he was living, and were greatly astonished at the result of the investigations. Discovering his poverty, they insisted upon supplying him with the necessities of life. From this time on, trust in God always brought Mr. Moody an answer to his needs. This does not mean that he was never tried, but simply that, taking everything into consideration, he was supplied comfortably, and sometimes even bountifully. People who knew him came to esteem it a privilege to help him. It is of interest here to give Mr. Moody’s own narrative of the incident which finally influenced his decision to leave business for Christian work. MOODY’S OWN NARRATIVE I had never lost sight of Jesus Christ since the first night I met Him in the store in Boston. But for years I was only a nominal Christian, really believing that I could not work for God. No one had ever asked me to do anything. "I went to Chicago, I hired five pews in a church, and used to go out on the street and pick up young men and fill these pews. I never spoke to those young men about their souls; that was the work of the elders, I thought. After working for some time like that, I started a mission Sabbath school. I thought numbers were everything, and so I worked for numbers. When the attendance ran below one thousand, it troubled me; and when it ran to twelve or fifteen hundred, I was elated. Still none were converted; there was no harvest. Then God opened my eyes. "There was a class of young ladies in the school, who were, without exception, the most frivolous set of girls I ever met. One Sunday the teacher was ill, and I took that class. They laughed in my face, and I felt like opening the door and telling them all to get out and never come back. That week the teacher of the class came into the place where I worked. He was pale, and looked very ill. ’What is the trouble?’ I asked. ’ I have had another hemorrhage of my lungs. The doctor says I cannot live on Lake Michigan, so I am going to New York State. I suppose I am going home to die.’ "He seemed greatly troubled, and when I asked him the reason, he replied: ’Well, I have never led any of my class to Christ. I really believe I have done the girls more harm than good.’ I had never heard any one talk like that before, and it set me thinking. After a while I said: ’Suppose you go and tell them how you feel. I will go with you in a carriage, if you want to go. THEY SOUGHT SALVATION "He consented, and we started out together. It was one of the best journeys I ever had on earth. We went to the house of one of the girls, called for her, and the teacher talked to her about her soul. There was no laughing then! Tears stood in her eyes before long. After he had explained the way of life, he suggested that we have prayer. He asked me to pray. True, I had never done such a thing in my life as to pray God to convert a young lady there and then. But we prayed, and God answered our prayer. We went to other houses. He would go upstairs, and be all out of breath, and he would tell the girls what he had come for. It wasn’t long before they broke down, and sought salvation. When his strength gave out, I took him back to his lodgings. The next day we went out again. At the end of ten days he came to the store with his face literally shining. ’ Mr. Moody,’ he said, the last one of my class has yielded herself to Christ.’ I tell you we had a time of rejoicing. He had to leave the next night, so I called his class together that night for a prayer meeting, and there God kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out. The height of my ambition had been to be a successful merchant, and, if I had known that meeting was going to take that ambition out of me, I might not have gone. But how many times I have thanked God since for that meeting! The dying teacher sat in the midst of his class, and talked with them, and read the fourteenth chapter of John. We tried to sing ’blest be the tie that binds,’ after which we knelt clown to prayer. I was just rising from my knees, when one of the class began to pray for her dying teacher. Another prayed, and another, and before we rose, the whole class had prayed. As I went out I said to myself: ’O, God, let me die rather than lose the blessing I have received to-night!’ "The next morning I went to the depot to say good-bye to that teacher. Just before the train started, one of the class came, and before long, without any pre-arrangement, they were all there. What a meeting that was! We tried to sing, but we broke down. The last we saw of that dying teacher, he was standing on the platform of the car, his finger pointing upward, telling that class to meet him in Heaven. I didn’t know what this was going to cost me. I was disqualified for business; it had become distasteful to me. I had got a taste of another world, and cared no more for making money. For some days after, the greatest struggle of my life took place. Should I give up business and give myself to Christian work, or should I not? I have never regretted my choice. O, the luxury of leading some one out of the darkness of this world into the glorious light and liberty of the Gospel. MR. MOODY’S MARRIAGE It is time to speak of Mr. Moody’s marriage. There was a lady who for some years had been a helper in his Mission. His first acquaintance with her dated from that little North Side Mission Sunday school in which he was offered a class on condition that he provide his own pupils. The interest of Mr. Moody for this young lady, whose name was Miss Emma C. Revell, grew deeper and deeper, and meanwhile her interest in him developed. It would hardly be thought by the average man of affairs, that marriage was a safe step for a man who had thrown up all business and had entered upon unsalaried mission work. But Mr. Moody was living the life of trust, and the faith of Miss Revell was not less strong. They were married August 28, 1862. They made their first home in a small cottage. A hospitable home it was, and a cheery one, and yet the little household was sometimes in great straits. Even after his marriage, Mr. Moody continued to refuse all offers of a salary. Often the family was in sight of want, but the Lord never permitted real distress. A number of instances are related of the ways in which his trust in God was honored. A REMARKABLE AND SURPRISING GIFT A remarkable way in which the Lord remembered Mr. Moody, was by the gift of a new and completely furnished home. An old friend had erected a row of fine houses, one of which he privately set aside for Mr. Moody, free of rent, on the understanding that the evangelist’s other friends would furnish it. The enterprise was taken up with enthusiasm, all unknown to Mr. Moody and his wife, and the house was fitted up comfortably. Early on a New Year’s morning Mr. Moody and his family were captured and driven to the house. When they entered they were surprised to find it full of acquaintances and friends. Their surprise was turned to gratitude and joy when a spokesman of the company handed to Mr. Moody a lease of the house and the free gift of all it contained This home was not long left to them, for the great Chicago fire carried it away. No Life of Mr. Moody would be complete without further reference to his wife, who has been his constant companion in all his sorrows and his joys. She is of a retiring disposition, and yet in that day of rewards when D. L. Moody is crowned, it is the opinion of his many friends who know whereof they speak, that Mrs. Moody will have no small share of reward. Mr. Ira D. Sankey has said, "Amid all that has been said about what has made Mr. Moody so great a man, I want to say that one of the greatest influences of his life came from his wife. She has been the break upon an impetuous nature, and she more than any other living person is responsible for his success. HIS WIFE AND HER INFLUENCE She has been more than interested in his work from the beginning. In connection with his Sunday school work in Chicago, the following incident is told: "A stranger who was visiting the Sunday school in Chicago, noticed a lady teaching a class of about forty middle-aged men, in the gallery. Looking at her and then at the class, he said to Mr. Moody, ’Is not that lady altogether too young to teach such a class of men? She seems to me very youthful for such a position.’ Mr. Moody replied, ’She gets along very well, and seems to succeed in her teaching.’ The stranger did not appear to be altogether satisfied. He walked about the school, evidently in an anxious state of mind. In a few moments he approached the superintendent again, and, with becoming gravity, said, ’Mr. Moody, I can not but feel that that lady must be altogether too young to instruct such a large company of men. Will you, sir, please to inform me who she is?’ ’Certainly,’ replied Mr. Moody, ’that is my wife.’ The stranger made no more inquiries, and nothing occurred to indicate the state of his mind during the remainder of his visit. One of the members of his family has said, "No man ever paid greater homage to his wife than Mr. Moody. I never met with a happier couple. In every way he deferred to her. She answered all his voluminous correspondence. She was the person to whom he always spoke of his plans and his work. No trouble was too great for him, if he could save her any bother or every-day, ordinary little troubles." Mrs. Moody has done some remarkable work in the inquiry meetings held in different parts of the country. One of my dear friends is Mr. E. P. Brown, for a long time the editor of the Rams horn. I knew him in the days of his infidelity. A more bitter infidel I have never known in my life. He has told me how one night he entered the Chicago Avenue Church that he might criticise Moody in his article which he was writing for his infidel paper. Mr. Moody’s sermon was on the father of the prodigal, and looking squarely into the face of my friend, he said, "My friend, the father of the prodigal is the picture of God, and as the father of the prodigal is waiting for his son, so God is waiting for you. "I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HIM" E. P. Brown was startled. He has since said: "I heard the theologians talk about God, and I hated Him, but I had a father and I knew what his love was, and I found myself saying, If this is the true picture of God then I would like to know Him." When the invitation was given for the inquiry meeting, E. P. Brown accepted it, and it was Mrs. Moody who gave him help which finally led him out of his darkness of unbelief and led him into the glorious light and liberty in which he now stands as a son of God. This is but one instance. Hundreds of others might be repeated. We can quite understand, therefore, how it is that from the very day when D. L. Moody determined to give up his business to the last moment of his life when he said good-bye to his beloved wife, she was more helpful and inspiring to him than any other person in the world. Mr. Moody’s family consists of three children. William Revell Moody, his eldest child, has ever been the constant companion of his father, who relied upon him. If a father’s mantle may fall upon his son’s shoulders, William R. Moody in his father’s purpose and plan, ought to lead in the carrying on of his great work. He is a graduate of Yale and is a consecrated Christian man with a great desire to do everything his father could wish. He is happily married to the eldest daughter of Major D. W. Whittle. It was with great pleasure that the Christian world knew that in this way these two families so greatly used of God were so happily to be brought into closer and more sacred relations. Mrs. W. R. Moody is the author of the hymn "Moment by Moment", and has been very useful in Christian service both at home and abroad. MR. MOODY’S FAMILY Emma Moody Fitt, Mr. Moody’s second child, was as near to him as a daughter can be to her father. The most intense affection made them one in their interests and work. She is the wife of Mr. A. I. Fitt, for some time Mr. Moody’s private secretary, and latterly his valued helper in every way. I have heard Mr. Moody say again and again, "I do not know how I should get along, if it were not for Fitt." He has been the superintendent and prime mover in the colportage work in Chicago, and Mr. Moody’s work in general owes much to his faithful, untiring and affectionate interest. Paul, the second son and youngest child, is a member of the Junior Class at Yale College. An earnest, active Christian young man, he is making his life tell for Christ among the students and giving great promise of future usefulness in the world. Very many people look to him in future days largely to carry on his father’s public work. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 05.09. MOODY AND SANKEY ======================================================================== Chapter 9 - Moody And Sankey An International convention of the Young Men’s Christian Association was held at Indianapolis in June, 1870. Mr. Moody attended. During the convention an early morning prayer. meeting was conducted in a church adjoining the hail where the convention was held. Mr. Moody led this meeting. Ira D. Sankey, who at that time was Assistant Collector of Revenue in New Castle, Pa., but whose interest in religious work had made him an active worker in the field, had come to Indianapolis to attend the convention. He had heard of Mr. Moody, but had never seen him, and learning that the Chicago preacher was to lead this morning meeting, he yielded to a strong impulse and attended. Mr. SANKEY’S FIRST SINGING AT A MOODY MEETING When Mr. Sankey entered, the singing was being led by a man who was dragging through a long metre hymn in the slow old-fashioned way. Mr. Sankey was scarcely seated when some one touched his elbow, and turning around, he discovered that he was sitting beside the Rev. Robert McMillen, with whom he happened to be well acquainted. Mr. McMillen whispered to Mr. Sankey that nobody present seemed able to put any life into the singing, adding, "When that man who is praying gets through, I wish you would start up something." Without waiting for any further invitation, Mr. Sankey arose and sang with wonderful feeling "There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.’’ The power and fervor of the singer’s voice was such that the congregation forgot to join in the chorus, and Mr. Sankey finished the hymn by himself. The effect of this song was not missed by Mr. Moody. At the close of the service, when Mr. McMillen brought Mr. Sankey forward, Mr. Moody stepped to one side and took the singer by the hand. "Where do you come from?" he asked. "Pennsylvania,’ replied Mr. Sankey. "Are you married or single?" "Married; I have a wife and one child." "What business are you in?" "I am a government official connected with the Internal Revenue service", answered Mr. Sankey, not realizing what motive was subjecting him to such cross-examination. A SUDDEN PROPOSITION "Well," said Mr. Moody, decidedly, "you will have to give that up; I have been looking for you for eight years." Mr. Sankey stood amazed and was at a loss to understand just what Mr. Moody meant by telling him that he would have to give up a comfortable position, and he was so taken aback for a few seconds that he could scarcely reply. At last, however, recovering from his astonishment, he asked the evangelist what he meant. Mr. Moody promptly explained. "You will have to give up your government position and come with me. You are just the man I have been looking for, for a long time. I want you to come with me; you can do the singing, and I will do the talking." The proposition did not sound particularly attractive to Mr. Sankey, and he told Mr. Moody, that he did not feel he could accept it and begged for time in which to consider the matter. Mr. Moody asked him if he would join him in prayer in regard to it, and the singer replied that he would most gladly do so. Says Mr. Sankey, "I presume I prayed one way and he prayed another; however, it took him only six months to pray me out of business." It was true that Mr. Moody was praying that Mr. Sankey would see his way clear to do as he had asked, while Mr. Sankey was arguing with himself against the proposition. This first meeting between the two men was on Sunday. All that day and night Mr. Sankey thought over Mr. Moody’s words, but the next morning found him still inclined to stick to the government position with its assured salary. A STREET SERVICE Just at a moment when he was in considerable doubt as to the suitable course, a card was brought him which on examination proved to be from Mr. Moody. It requested him to meet Mr. Moody at a certain street corner that evening at six o’clock. Mr. Sankey did not know what he was wanted for, but he accepted the invitation, and, accompanied by a few friends, met the appointment promptly. In a few minutes Mr. Moody appeared, and without stopping to speak, walked into a store on the corner and asked permission to use a dry-goods box. The permission granted, the evangelist rolled a large box out to the edge of the sidewalk, and then calling Mr. Sankey aside asked him to climb up and sing something. Mr. Sankey complied. A crowd began to collect, and Mr. Moody getting upon the box began to preach. Mr. Sankey says of that sermon, "He preached that evening as I had never heard any man preach before." The hearers, most of them workingmen on their way home from the mills and factories, were electrified. They hung on every word, apparently forgetting that they were tired and hungry, and when Mr. Moody closed, which he was forced to do by the density of the crowd, he announced that he would hold another meeting at the Academy of Music, and invited the crowd to accompany him there. Arm in arm with Mr. Moody, Mr. Sankey marched down the street singing hymn after hymn as he went, the crowd following closely at their heels. Mr. Sankey has since declared that this was his first experience in Salvation Army methods. The meeting in the Academy of Music was necessarily brief because the convention was soon to come together, oddly enough to discuss the question, "How shall we reach the masses?" and as the delegates came in Mr. Moody, with a short prayer dismissed the meeting. MR. SANKEY JOINS FORCES WITH MR. MOODY Although deeply affected by the power of Mr. Moody’s inspiring message, Mr. Sankey was still undecided. He went home to talk the matter over with his wife, and to her the proposed partnership seemed, at that time, an unwarranted and injudicious step, but after several months, the influence of Mr. Moody’s invitation still working in him, he went by request to Chicago and spent a week with Mr. Moody. For several days they worked together in church, in Sunday school, in saloons and drinking dens, joining their gifts of speaking and singing to bring light to the discouraged and the sinful. When the week was over, Mr. Sankey had decided. He sent his resignation to Hugh McCulloch, who at that time was Secretary of the Treasury; another veteran of the War was given his place in the Internal Revenue Service, and Mr. Sankey joined forces with Mr. Moody. This was about six months before the great Chicago fire. When that tidal wave of flame overwhelmed that part of Chicago where Mr. Moody’s work was especially located, and destroyed his church and his home, the evangelist’s plans were for a time completely disarranged, and he went for a tour in the Eastern States, while Mr. Sankey returned to his home in Pennsylvania. But when the new tabernacle sprang from the ashes of the old, the two brethren once more began their labours, taking up their lodgings in anterooms of the great rough building, and throwing themselves heart and soul into the effort to bring the unfortunate people to Christ. This work in the rough chapel among the ruins was signalized by a great revival. While Mr. Moodly was on his second visit to Great Britain in 1872, Mr. Sankey took charge of the meetings. Mr. Moody had gone more especially to attend the Mildmay Conference in London. When he returned, he found that Mr. Sankey had received an especial baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that the blessings of his work had been increased a thousand fold by the responsibilities which had been left with him. MR. SANKEY FOLLOWS MR. MOODY TO ENGLAND It was about this time, possibly under the influence of this second trip to England, that Mr. Moody decided upon that third tour which was to bring to Great Britain a spiritual regeneration such as had not been known since the days of John Wesley. Mr. Moody said to his co-worker, "You have often proposed that we make an evangelizing journey together; now let us go to England." Again Mr. Sankey found himself in some doubt as to his proper decision. It happened that he was then considering an offer from Mr. Phillips to go to the Pacific Coast and give a series of "Evenings of Song." Fortunately he again decided to follow Mr. Moody. Possibly he was influenced in his decision by a realization that if he went with Mr. Phillips he would be associated with a man whose gifts were similar to his own, a condition which might lead to difficulties, while if he went with Mr. Moody he would have his own work to do entirely separate from the work of Mr. Moody, although complementary to it. So attended by his little family, he trustfully set forth with Mr. Moody and his family, June 7, 1873, on a journey of four thousand miles. The joyful, prayerful singing of the Gospel hymns by Mr. Sankey was a revelation of unexpected truth and grace to the people of the British Isles. In Scotland especially, the masses were moved by him. With an indescribable impulse, the cautious, distrustful followers of John Knox, worshippers who for generations had been accustomed to reject as uninspired all other services of praise than their own rude version of the Psalms, now listened with delight to the music which fell like a blessing from the lips of the most gifted Christian singer of the time. SANKEY’S SINGING IN EDINBURGH One of his hearers has thus described the impression made by Mr. Sankey’s singing in Edinburgh. "Mr. Sankey sings with the conviction that souls are receiving Jesus between one note and the next. The stillness is overawing; some of the lines are more spoken than sung. The hymns are equally used for awakening, none more than ’Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By’. When you hear the ’ Ninety and Nine ’sung, you know of a truth that down in this corner, up in that gallery, behind that pillar which hides the singer’s face from the listener, the hand of Jesus has been finding this and that and yonder lost one to place them in His fold. A certain class of hearers come to the services solely to hear Mr. Sankey, and the song draws the Lord’s net around them. We asked Mr. Sankey one day what he was to sing. He said, ’I’ll not know till I hear how Mr. Moody is closing.’ Again we were driving to the Canongate Parish Church one winter night, and Mr. Sankey said to the young minister who had come for him, ’ I am thinking of singing’ ’I am so Glad to-night.’ ’O said the young man, please rather sing ’Jesus of Nazareth.’ An old man told me to-day that he had been awakened by it the last night you were down. He said, ’It just went through me like an electric shock.’ A gentleman in Edinburgh was in distress of soul, and happened to linger in a pew after. the noon meeting. The choir had remained to practice and began, ’Free from the Law, O, Happy Condition.’ Quickly the Spirit of God carried the truth home to the awakened conscience, and he was at last in the finished work of Jesus. SANKEY’S FAVORITE HYMN Mr. Sankey’s hymns were gathered from a hundred sources. A great many of them are to-day known by every child in the land and are remembered by many other persons as means of grace in their own conversions. Of all his songs the favorite was, "The Ninety and Nine". This beautiful hymn has an interesting little history. While Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey were in the Highlands of Scotland they were subjected to some criticisms because Mr. Sankey’s music was so much of a deviation from the established music of the Scotch churches. Anxious not to offend the prejudices of any in the multitudes whom they were meeting, Mr. Sankey cast about him for a song which might satisfy not only the hearts, but the ears as well of the rough shepherds of the Highlands. One day in the corner of a newspaper he found the words of "The Ninety and Nine ". They had originally been printed in The Christian, of Boston, Mass., and were reprinted in England in The Rock. The melody came to him like an inspiration. The first time he sang it, it was not even written out. It is natural that a song like this should have appealed to the shepherds of Scot1and to whom its sentiment came with an especially pleasing force. It became their favorite among Mr. Sankey’s songs. and when he went to Ireland and England it was called for more, and appreciated more, than any other song in his collection. It was also said of the results of Mr. Sankey’s singing, "The wave of sacred song has spread over Ireland and is now sweeping through England, but indeed it is not being confined to the United Kingdom alone. Far away on the shores of India, and in many other lands, these sweet songs of the Saviour’s love are being sung." "HE SANG THE GOSPEL" It was not alone the novelty of his method that aroused interest in Mr. Sankey’s songs to such a high degree. He possessed a voice of unusual purity and strength, and even when facing a great congregation of seventeen or eighteen thousand people, could make every word which he uttered so distinct that it was heard on the very outskirts of the throng. His vocal method has been criticised, undoubtedly with justice, but it can be said that, whether his method was correct or incorrect artistically, it was at least effective. Patti at her best could not move hearers with her singing in the way that Mr. Sankey won the hearts of his audiences. He literally, as he himself proclaimed, "sang the Gospel". This phrase, novel as it was, was criticised by many staid conservatives in the matter of religion, but its truth cannot be questioned. If it were not true how could it have been that so many should have been led to Christ through the influence of that marvellous singing. An English journal has told of a little girl only ten years old who had listened with delight to Mr. Sankey’s singing. "O!" she said "How I love those dear hymns! When I am gone, mother, will you ask the girls of the school to sing the hymn. ’Ring the bells of Heaven There is joy to-day, For a soul returning from the wild; See the Father meets him out upon the way, Welcoming his weary, wandering child.’ The night before her death, she said, "Dear father and mother, I hope I shall meet you in Heaven. You cannot think how bright and happy I feel," and half an hour before her departure she exclaimed, "O! mother, listen to the bells of Heaven, they are ringing so beautifully." She closed her eyes awhile, but presently she cried again, "Hearken to the harps, they are most splendid; O! I wish you could bear them," and then, " O! mother, I see the Lord Jesus and the angels. O, if you could see them too! He is sending one to fetch me!" About five minutes before her last breath she said, "Lift me up from the pillow; high, high up! O! I wish you could lift me right up into Heaven! "Then doubtless conscious that the parting moment was at hand, "Put me down again, quick," and calmly, joyously, brightly, with her eyes upward, as if gazing upon some vision of surpassing beauty, she peacefully breathed forth her spirit into the arms of the ministering angels whom Jesus had sent for her, How can we measure what the voice of the singer had done for that little girl. A NOVELTY IN RELIGIOUS WORK An innovation in Mr. Sankey’s singing was the use of the parlor organ to accompany himself. Wherever he went this little instrument was placed upon the platform for his use, and it is doubtful if he could have found anything more effective for his accompaniment. Criticised it was, for, like "singing the Gospel," it was a novelty in religious work and, therefore, was frowned upon by those who felt that established methods should never be violated. It was even charged that he had been sent to England by a firm of organ makers who paid him a large salary on the condition that he use their organs in his services. This charge was denied both by the organ makers and by Mr. Sankey, and it does not seem likely that a man, who by agreement with Mr. Moody, turned over a fortune in royalties on books of song to charitable and religious purposes would stoop to accept such an unworthy tribute. At a children’s meeting in Edinburgh in 1874, Mr. Sankey related the following incident: "I want to speak a word about singing, not only to the little folks, but also to grown people. During the winter after the great Chicago fire, when the place was ’built up with little frame houses for the poor people to stay in, a mother sent for me one day to come to see her little child, who was one of our Sunday school pupils. I remembered the little girl very well, having often seen her in our meetings, and was glad to go. A LITTLE GIRLS TESTIMONY She was lying in one of the poor little huts, all the property of the family having been destroyed by the fire. I ascertained that she was beyond all hopes of recovery, and that they were waiting for the little one to pass away. ’How is it with you to-day?’ I asked. With a beautiful smile on her face, she said, ’It is all well with me to-day. I wish you would speak to my father and mother.’ ’But,’ said I, ’are you a Christian?’ ’Yes.’ ’When did you become one?’ Do you remember last Thursday in the Tabernacle when we had that little Singing meeting, and you sang, ’Jesus Loves Even Me?’ ’Yes.’ ’It was last Thursday I believed on the Lord Jesus, and now I am going to be with Him to-day.’ That testimony from that little girl in that neglected quarter of Chicago has done more to stimulate me and to bring me to this country than all that the papers or any persons might say. I remember the joy I felt when I looked upon that beautiful child face. She went up to Heaven, and no doubt said that she learned upon earth that Jesus loved her, from that little hymn. If you want to enjoy a blessing, go to the couches of the bedridden and dying ones, and sing to them of Jesus, for they cannot enjoy these meetings as you do, and you will get a great blessing to your own soul." A story is told of a young Highlander who had lived far from the Lord for so long that his pastor had come to believe that the truth could not touch him, but one day he was found deeply awakened. When asked what had brought about this change in his feelings he said that it was the result of hearing his little sister sing "When He cometh, when He cometh To make up His Jewels. During the great revival in Scotland, a certain writer said, Perhaps not a week has passed during the last year in which we have not had evidence that the Lord had directly used a line of one of these hymns in the salvation of some soul." WONDERFUL SPIRITUAL RETURNS Mr. Moody’s preaching, Mr. Sankey’s singing - how indissolubly these two are associated in the minds of millions of people! And how wonderful were the spiritual returns that this partnership brought! Often Mr. Moody’s words would bring a sinner to the point of conviction, and then the tender pathos of Mr. Sankey’s singing would let a great flood of blessing into that sinner’s soul, and the softening influences would work until he would cry out in his joy, "I am saved!" And, on the other hand, when a meeting had just begun, and away back in the farthest corners men were sitting who had come in a scoffing mood, or out of curiosity, to hear the evangelists, the preliminary song of Mr. Sankey would rouse the attention of those persons, and they would try to get nearer the platform, and by the time Mr. Moody was ready to speak, they would have forgotten why they had come, in their eagerness to hear the preacher’s message. Mr. Sankey’s singing was as direct in its appeal to the individual as Mr. Moody’s speaking. Their was no sentimental clap-trap about either, in spite of. the charge which we have frequently heard to that effect against the "Gospel hymns". Music, of all the arts, is now in the highest development. John Addington Symonds in his story of the Renaissance tells us that the form of art in which any given generation finds the most perfect expression for its ideals of beauty depends upon the nature of the religious feeling of that generation, Thus, the mysticism of the mediaeval Church was typified in the symbolism, the lofty aspiration of Gothic architecture; the rich formalism, the sensuous comprehensiveness of the Church of Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries established the ideals and led to the feelings which were spread in glowing colors upon the canvasses of the greatest painters the world has ever known; while, in present times, the development of religious life to a plane of lofty hope, brotherly love, and a consciousness of salvation has found its highest expression in music. A BLESSED PARTNERSHIP Music comes from the heart in a way that words cannot; there are times when its appeal is resistless, and so, for nearly thirty years, to the sound sense of Mr. Moody’s words, illumined as they were by the reflection of a great heart, was added the appeal of Mr. Sankey’s song. Surely this partnership was blessed beyond our comprehension. It has been wonderful the way Mr. Sankey’s song has been carried beyond the mere locality of utterance. An illustration of the way in which it heralded and accompanied the Gospel message as sent out from the words of his brother evangelist is found in the letter of a traveler who was going from England to France in 1875. "It has been perfectly delightful," he says "to find traces of the work everywhere. While waiting at I heard a porter filling the whole station with the ’Sweet Bye and Bye.’ As he came up to my carriage, I was struck with his bright, cheery face and spoke to him. The man’s face glowed when he talked of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey. Sunday afternoon at______, I was alone in the reading room and began to sing to myself one of ’the hymns’. Presently the door creaked, and on looking up I saw that a whole bevy of maids had gathered and were listening attentively, it was so unlike what foreign servants would do, I felt sure that they must be English, and I knew that if I moved they would run away, so I sang on as if I had not seen them. Then an old gentleman came in, and on my stopping, said, ’ O! don’t stop, but please sing ’The Home Over There’. He went on to tell that he had been sitting gloomily in his room when he heard a Sankey hymn. How one is taught every day that one’s ’times’ are not in ones own hands! I wanted to sing for my own selfish gratification; but I was shamed by being shown how it might be used, for others came in after, and a band of us sang ’Hold the Fort’, a specially necessary command it seems when travelling abroad." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 05.10. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND... ======================================================================== Chapter 10 - Evangelistic Work In England, Ireland, And Scotland When Mr. Moody arrived at Liverpool, June 27, 1873, he set foot upon English soil for the third time. His former trips had been brief; now he had come with a determination "to win ten thousand souls for Christ." The first word received on landing ’was disappointing. He learned that the two friends who had invited him to England, the Rev. Mr. Pennefather, rector of the Mildmay Park Church, in London, and Mr. Cuthbert Bainbridge, an eminent Wesleyan layman, had recently died. A third invitation had been given by Mr. George Bennett, Secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association in York. THE OUTLOOK NOT ENCOURAGING Mr. Moody telegraphed to Mr. Bennett announcing his arrival and readiness to begin work, but the reply stated that there was so little religious warmth in York that it would take at least a month to get ready for the meetings. Mr. Moody, however, was not afraid of the prevalent spiritual frost. He telegraphed to his friend, "I will be in York to-night," and at 10 o’clock in the evening arrived in that city, unheralded and unknown. The outlook was not encouraging, but Mr. Moody sent for Mr. Sankey, who had gone from Liverpool to Manchester, and the meetings began at once. Only eight persons attended the first meeting. The other meetings on this first Sunday betrayed a somewhat wider interest, but during the following week the congregations were very small indeed. The second week was marked by some improvement, and before the month was over, in spite of the coldness manifested by the ministers of the place, the work had made a considerable impression. The inquiry meetings were an innovation in English services, but they grew in favour and became more and more an important instrument of spiritual success. The number of converts at York was in the neighbourhood of two hundred. The work closed with an all-day meeting, beginning with an hour for conversation and prayer and continued with an hour for praise, a promise meeting, a witness meeting, a Bible lecture by Mr. Moody, and finally a communion service. The meetings were chiefly held in chapels, the evangelist preferring not to go to public halls for fear of seeming to neglect the regularly established forms of worship. SUNDERLAND After attending some of Mr. Moody’s meetings at York, the Rev. Arthur Rees, a liberal Baptist clergyman of Sunderland, invited the American evangelists to come and help him in his work. Accordingly Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey began meetings in Mr. Rees’ chapel, Sunday, July 27th. Here, as at York, coldness had to be dealt with, and moreover the evangelists had been heralded from the scene of their first labours by criticism rather than by praise. Still from the first large congregations attended the meetings, although there is little doubt that the early motive of attendance was curiosity. Gradually the people of Sunderland awoke. In order to avoid the appearance of sectarianism, Mr. Moody had the meetings removed to the Victoria Hall, though overflow meetings were generally conducted in various chapels. Even after the power of the Spirit took hold of the people of Sunderland, ministerial criticism of the evangelists’ course increased, but Mr. Moody was not without friends. None of the attacks troubled him so long as the Holy Spirit was manifested in the meetings and people were being converted. At the close of the month the results were not what lie had hoped for, but it is interesting to note that long after the evangelists had left, and when news of the great work of God through them in Scotland came back to Sunderland, the city was stirred profoundly, and moved to genuine revival power. NEWCASTLE By invitation of the Rev. David Lowe, Mr. Moody went from Sunderland to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, spending a few days in Jarrow on the way. He was greeted at Newcastle by Mr. Thomas Bainbridge, a brother of one of the friends who had invited him to England. At Newcastle the fire was kindled which was to mightily move Great Britain. Ministerial opposition was overcome, five of the principal chapels of the town being offered for the services. Mr. Moody accepted the use of the Rye Hill Baptist Chapel, a large edifice, and within a fortnight crowds were turned away for want of room. All the neighbouring towns and villages felt the spiritual impulse, and in response to requests hundreds of meetings were held outside the city by multiplying assistants of the evangelist. Mr. Moody, in order to prevent the exclusion of the unconverted by the crowds of Christians who attended the meetings, now began to divide his congregations into classes, giving tickets of admission to the various services. Meetings for merchants were held in the Assembly Hall; meetings for mechanics were held at the Tyne Theatre, and in each instance the size of the crowds usually necessitated three or four overflow meetings. The name and residence of every inquirer was made a matter of record, and in order that assistants in the inquiry room should be more fitted to the purpose, tickets were issued to clergymen and other men of practical experience in Christian work, that they might help in the great work of leading souls to Christ. At first most of the conversions were among the educated classes, but afterward the work became more general. The noon prayer meetings which had been commenced previous to the arrival of Mr. Moody, by way of preparation had grown to remarkable proportions, while Mr. Moody’s afternoon Bible readings drew even from the ranks of busy merchants and professional men. Two whole-day meetings or conferences were held. During the last week of the meetings, the Jubilee Singers began their connection with the work. As a result of this month’s work, hundreds of converts were received into the churches, and the whole North of England was aroused. Scores of Christian workers were sent out to carry the good tidings to the remoter districts, and the stimulus to the various churches proved unprecedented. Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey now moved toward Scotland, holding on the way brief, though successful, series of meetings in a number of small cities. EDINBURGH To understand the influence of the labours of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey in Scotland, it is important to know something of the rise and progress of her Christian character. This takes us back to the Reformation, to the Christian organisation of John Knox. In all subsequent struggles Scotland realised that the work of the Reformers had had much to do in fostering the zeal and spiritual independence for which her people were ever distinguished. Down to the close of the last century the light of the Reformation shone clearly, but an eclipse came, and it was not until the appearance of the brothers James and Robert Haldane that the sun again burst forth. These men, with Mr. Simeon, an evangelical clergyman of Cambridge, were Scotland’s first great evangelists. In ten years they established more than one hundred independent churches, providing also for the training of ministers. The next era was the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. This, strangely enough, proved to be the beginning of Christian union, for non-conformist brethren offered to the ministers who had given up their livings and entered the Free Church of Scotland the use of their churches for half of every Sunday. Thenceforward there was one body in Christian work. Mr. Moody’s meetings commenced late in November in the Free Church Assembly Hall. From the first no place in Edinburgh could contain the crowds. Three or four of the largest halls and churches were constantly in use, and even then it was necessary to come to the place of meeting an hour or two before the appointed time in order to be sure of admittance. The converts were numbered by thousands. The awakening among the nominal church members could hardly be described. As an example of the thoroughness of the work it is stated that at one meeting, composed of sixty-six young men, sixty were converted before they left the place. The watch-night meeting, which closed the year 1873, was perhaps the most remarkable service that had ever been held in Edinburgh. For five full hours a great audience, many of them obliged to stand, praised God and gave their testimony to the work of His saving grace in them. The Christian Conference on January 4th was attended by about 150 ministers; such a meeting had never been seen in Edinburgh before. The farewell meeting was held in the fields on the slope of Arthur’s Seat, there being no building which could accommodate the multitudes who wished to join in the last service of their brethren from America. As a result of the work in Edinburgh fully 3,000 persons were received into the churches. THE WORK IN SCOTLAND CONTINUED From Edinburgh Mr. Moody went to Dundee, January 21st, and for several weeks the visitations with which the Holy Spirit had blessed other cities came to this old stronghold of Scottish faith. The meetings began at Glasgow on February 8th. Three thousand Sunday-school teachers surrounded the evangelists in the City Hall at the first meeting. An hour before the time for the services such a crowd had assembled that four large churches in the neighbourhood were filled by the overflow. Mr. Moody had been in Glasgow in 1872, when he had attracted no attention; now from the start the revival work exhibited a power almost unparalleled. The Glasgow noon prayer meeting had been commenced during the week of prayer for Scotland, which was held in Edinburgh a month before the evangelists went to Glasgow. This preparation was not in vain. At first, church-going people were affected. Then the hand of God touched the great masses of the population who were without the fold. Meetings were held in the streets and squares of the city; fathers and mothers met to pray for the conversion of their children; children’s meetings were also held. The great conference of Christian workers at the Kibble Crystal Palace in the Botanic Gardens, April 16, renewed the vigour of all departments of home missionary work in Scotland. The last meetings were the greatest of all. Going to the evening service the carriage of Mr. Moody was almost blocked by the dense throngs which surrounded the Crystal Palace, and, seeing the multitudes, the evangelist determined to preach from the carriage, as there were more without the building than within. Those inside the palace, learning of the change of program, immediately joined the throng outside, and the service which followed was one of wonderful effect. At the close of the discourse, Mr. Moody invited inquirers to meet him at the palace, and this great audience hall was filled. Large numbers gave themselves to Christ. It was at Glasgow that Henry Drummond was drawn to this great evangelistic movement. While in Glasgow the evangelists made several brief excursions to neighbouring cities. THE TOUR IN THE NORTH About the middle of May, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey, after a three days’ visit to Edinburgh, went northward through Scotland, stopping in Perth, Montrose, Aberdeen, Inverness, and in some other towns. To the very end of Scotland, to John’-o’-Groat’s house, the evangelists went, meeting crowds of people at every shopping place, and holding service after service, generally in the open air. At Aberdeen 12,000 to 20,000 people attended the outdoor services; at Inverness the meetings were held at the time of the annual wool fair, and many were reached who had been spending their lives beyond the reach of the churches. On returning from the north, farewell meetings were held in some of the places where the evangelists had laboured. THE EVANGELISTS GO TO IRELAND Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey had received invitations from many different quarters, and they now decided prayerfully that the greatest opportunity before them lay in Ireland. Accordingly they bade good-bye to Scotland, and on September 6th, held the first meeting in Belfast, at Dougal Square Chapel. The second meeting was held in a larger church, while the evening meeting was adjourned to a still larger place of worship, with seating capacity for about two thousand persons, which was only about one-quarter of those who tried to gain admission. In fact, in Ireland the attendance upon the meetings was but a repetition of the crowded following which had sought to come under the spell of the American workers in Scotland. On Monday a noon prayer meeting was commenced, and that, too, had to be adjourned to a larger building. It became necessary here, as in Scotland, to divide the audiences, so that men’s meetings, women’s meetings etc., etc., were held. There were several great open air meetings. On one occasion two hundred young men gave themselves to Christ. The evangelists had been invited to Londonderry by a committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and there they went for four days, beginning October 11th, holding a number of notable meetings and returning to Belfast on the 15th, to hold their farewell services there. The final inquiry meeting at Belfast was attended by about 2,400 persons, admitted by ticket; 2,150 converts’ tickets were given before the close of the evening service. DUBLIN The difficulty of finding a place large enough for the meetings had led Mr. Moody to name to the brethren at Dublin, as a condition of his coming, the engagement of the Exhibition Palace. This condition was met; the Palace was engaged, and on October 24th, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey arrived in the Irish capital. There were in Dublin only about 40,000 Protestants, out of a population of 250,000, but the denominational line was frequently crossed by the work of the evangelists. Indeed, so deep was the encroachment of the revival upon the Roman Catholic population, that Cardinal Cullen felt himself called upon to interdict the attendance of his flock upon the Protestant meetings. In spite of this, many Roman Catholics were converted. Mr. Moody was unable to see why the line between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism should be observed in his work any more than the lines between different Protestant denominations. The fact that a man had a soul to save was a sufficient call to enlist his energies. At Dublin, the Bible readings were, perhaps, valued more than any other of the services. One unique meeting was held for the soldiers of the garrison of Curragh, who attended in large numbers and were won by the stories and the earnest logic of the speaker. An organised society of Atheists tried their hand at opposing Mr. Moody by introducing their members into the inquiry meetings, but the scheme was discovered, and the intruders were not allowed to enter into debate or useless conversation. The thoroughness with which the hearts of the Irish people were touched was evidenced by their liberality in providing funds to meet the expenses of the meetings. £1,500 were required, and 5,000 or 6,000 of the leading citizens of Dublin were invited by circular to contribute. There were only two instances of personal solicitation, but the money came in so rapidly that it was difficult to keep track of it. Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey did not work for pay; they took whatever the Committees on Finance in the various cities where they were conducting services regarded as a suitable renumeration, - this in spite of the inevitable criticism made by opponents of the movement that the evangelists were "in the business for the money they could get out of it". Dublin was merely the centre of the revival interest. All over Ireland the spell was so powerful that the mere announcement in a village that some man who had been to the Dublin services would tell what he had seen there, was sufficient to draw a great crowd. The meetings closed on November 29th, after a conference of three days, which was attended by about 800 ministers. The meeting for converts on the second day of the conference called together about 2,000 persons. When their labors ended, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey went once more to England, this time not unheralded. In Ireland, as in Scotland, the spirit which they had aroused continued to manifest itself in many increasing results. THE EVANGELISTS RETURN TO ENGLAND The first meetings of the new campaign in England, were held at Manchester. Within a week it was said, "Manchester is now on fire." The services here were not marked so much by that joyful spirit which had characterised the evangelism of Scotland and Ireland, as by a solemn earnestness, and the influence of the meetings proper was extended in a great many practical ways throughout the city and its environs. An important result in Manchester was the impulse given by Mr. Moody to the Young Men’s Christian Association movement. He held one meeting after which a large collection was given toward a new building for the Association, and this sum proved the nucleus of more than £30,000 which was ultimately raised for the purpose. Nearly 500 names were added to the roll of active members of the Association. SHEFFIELD AND BIRMINGHAM Meetings were held in Sheffield, beginning on the night of December 31, 1874. It was not easy to arouse the unimpressible metal workers of Sheffield, and at first considerable disappointment was felt in the results of the services, but it was not long before the power of the evangelists’ message became manifest. Leaving Sheffield thoroughly awakened, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey went to Birmingham where their meetings began on January 17th, in the Town Hall with its seating capacity for 5,000 persons. In the evening the services were held in Bingley Hall, a great enclosed area which was customarily engaged for the annual cattle show. In spite of its accommodations for 10,000 or 12,000 persons, the immense building was thronged every evening, an hour before the time of service. The conference with which the Birmingham meetings closed was attended by ministers from all parts of Great Britain. After the departure of the "brethren from America", the work of grace continued just as it had in every city which they had visited. LIVERPOOL Mr. Moody came to Liverpool as an old friend. As the city contained no hall large enough for his purposes, an immense temporary structure, called the Victoria Hall, had been erected. It held about 10,000 persons, and the expense of building it was met by voluntary contributions, no direct solicitation being made. This was the first hall erected during the campaign especially for revival services At the first meeting two-thirds of the congregation were young men. The noon prayer meeting was sometimes attended by 5,000 Or 6,000 persons. Eighteen services were held each week in the Victoria Hall, and the Gospel was also carried into the streets and byways, and missionary services were held in warerooms and in stables, as well as in the open. It was during one of the Liverpool meetings, that Mr. Moody gave a remarkable exhibition of his organising abilities. A great meeting was being held and the theme for discussion was, "How to reach the masses". One the speakers expressed the opinion the chief want of the masses in Liverpool was the institution of cheap houses of refreshment of counteract the saloons. When he had finished, Mr. Moody asked him to continue speaking for ten minutes longer, and no sooner was this time up when Mr. Moody sprang to his feet and announced that a company had been formed to carry out the objects the speaker had advocated; that various gentlemen had taken 1,000 shares of £1 each, and the subscription list would be open until the end of the meeting. The capital was gathered before adjournment, and the company was soon floated, being known as the "The British Workmen Company, Limited". It has not only worked a revolution in Liverpool, but has paid a handsome dividend as well. During the month at Liverpool, the number of persons converted, or awakened, ran into the thousands. The inquiry rooms were invariably crowded. THE LONDON REVIVAL "If I come to London," Mr. Moody had said, "you will need to raise £5,000 for expenses of halls, advertising, etc." "We have £10,000 already," was the reply. This shows the spirit in which the efforts of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey in the Metropolis of the world were anticipated. The work of preparation had been carried on by able committees. Preliminary daily prayer meetings were crowded. It was decided to attack the city in the four quarters. The meetings began in the north and were held in the great Agricultural Hall. The congregations in this immense structure averaged during the first week about 18,000 persons, but it was impossible to make so large a number hear the preaching, and the size was reduced, by means of temporary partitions, to the capacity of about 14,000, and even then it was constantly overcrowded. The inquiry meetings were held in St. Mary’s Hall, but so great was the curious crowd, which blocked the adjacent streets, that it was found advisable to remove these meetings to one of the galleries of the Agricultural Hall itself. The services were managed by a committee, with the assistance of seventy or eighty ushers. Interest increased weekly. Sometimes 400 or 500 persons at one time would be conversing in the inquirers galleries about the salvation of their souls. As in other places, the work began with the better classes, and was afterward extended to the slums. The campaign in the East End, which began five weeks after the meetings in the North End, centred in Bow Road Hall, built especially for the services, and designed to hold an audience of 10,000 persons. Overflow meetings were held in a large tent near the building. In the West End the services were held in the Royal Opera House, where many thousands thronged the three or four different meetings which were held each day. For several weeks Mr. Moody divided his attention between the Opera House and the Bow Road Hall. It was at this time that the controversy arose regarding the meetings at Eton. The patrons of the famous college which is situated in that little town, did not wish their sons subjected to irregular religious influence, and the matter was even taken up by the House of Lords. The evangelists had been invited by a large majority of the students in the college, but pressure in high quarters made it inadvisable to accept the invitation in its full intent. A meeting was held in the private grounds of a gentleman at Eton, and there Mr. Moody preached to about two hundred of the college boys, and two or three times as many citizens of the town. In conducting the meetings in South London, a new hail, erected for them near Camberwell Green, was occupied by the evangelists. This structure seated about 8,000 persons. Here the chief interest centred in the inquiry room, where the spirit was as earnest and as deep as it had been in the other quarters of the city. When Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey discontinued services in one of the four quarters of the city, the meetings were continued by others, and the fire which God had permitted the two evangelists to kindle was not suffered to die out. The final service was held July 12th, the evangelists having conducted 285 meetings in London, and having addressed fully 2,500,000 persons. Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey hastily withdrew at the conclusion of this last service, rather than face the ordeal of parting with so many dear friends. This was ever Mr. Moody’s custom. The last meeting in England was held in Liverpool, and on October 6th, attended by many loving prayers, Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey set sail toward the West, arriving in New York eight days later. CAN WE MEASURE THE RESULTS? Lecky, the historian, calmly and dispassionately asserts that the evangelistic labors of John Wesley and his co-workers, by lifting the moral tone of the common people, saved England from a revolution. Mr. Moody may not have served as an instrument for the accomplishment of so deep an economic purpose, but it is certain that the regenerating springs of spiritual life, which God used him to draw from the rock of indifference, refreshed and revived a people fast tending to religious numbness. And nothing is so dangerous as this apathetic numbness; it has done more to hinder the progress of salvation than all the active forces of the devil put together. I am not prepared to deny that many who were awakened or converted during Mr. Moody’s labours in Great Britain went back to their former walks soon after the immediate presence of the evangelists ceased to be felt; nor will I deny that much of the work inspired by his efforts crystallised into conventional and narrow forms; but I believe from the bottom of my heart that the movement blessed Britain as she had not before been blessed for one hundred years, and I know that tens of thousands of persons became better men and women for the effect of Mr. Moody’s words upon them. Through this man God led men to read their Bibles, to live honestly, to rid themselves of besetting sins, and to place their faith in Christ as a personal Saviour. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 05.11. EVANGELISTIC WORK IN THE UNITED STATES ======================================================================== Chapter 11 - Evangelistic Work In The United States On his return from Great Britain, Mr. Moody went to Northfield, there to spend some little time resting at his old home and enjoying the companionship of his relatives. It was be readily understood that although he had gone from the United States two years before known to very few, the wonderful results of his labors in Great Britain had made his name a household word, and his fellow-countrymen awaited his active work in this country not only with curiosity (which it must be admitted was felt by a large body of unbelievers and indifferent ones) but also, many of them, with a deep conviction that the Lord had raised him up to lead the people in a great religious awakening. GOSPEL CAMPAIGN IN BROOKLYN The Gospel campaign in the United States began at Brooklyn, on Sunday, October 24, 1875. The skating rink on Clarmont Avenue, with its seating capacity of six thousand, was secured for the use of the services. Preliminary work had been conducted in Brooklyn according to the system which Mr. Moody invariably insisted upon, so that when he took up the work in person, almost everything was already in full swing. A chorus of two hundred and fifty voices had been organized to lead the music. Interest accumulated with the progress of the services, and the size of the audiences uniformly increased. Nothing in secular affairs seemed capable of drawing off the public attention, not even an exciting election, with its public meetings and torchlight processions. The very first meetings brought together enormous crowds. These audiences, it was surmised, might hare been attracted by curiosity; but the novelty soon wore off, and yet the weekday meetings at 8 A.M. and 7.30 P.M., overflowed and had to be accommodated in neighboring churches. The "overflow" meetings continued as a feature of the work until the last. In the second week, a woman’s prayer meeting followed the morning service, and a Bible reading was held in the afternoon, beside the regular evening meeting. These additional gatherings were almost as largely attended as the others. To all of these was added a young men’s meeting held at night after the evening service to accommodate the clerks and other persons detained by business during the earlier hours, and inquiry meetings were also held in the adjoining churches. Still there was no falling off in the crowds who could not find even standing room. DIFFERENT APPEARANCE OF THE AUDIENCES It is difficult to estimate the numbers who attended during the meetings. Counting in the overflow meetings the audiences must have included, especially toward the last, from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand per day. Perhaps a higher estimate would be nearer the fact. As in Great Britain, different expedients were employed to change the class attendance, - expedients which would have been fatal to a less absorbing interest. To many of the meetings in the Rink church-goers were not invited; indeed they were asked to stay away, and admission was procurable only on the statement that a ticket was to be used by some unconverted person. The different appearance of the audiences on successive nights was fair evidence that they were not composed of the same people. The effect of the Brooklyn meetings was an awakening rather than a great conversion of non-church-goers, and prepared the churches for greater activity. As in England, the first work of the evangelists fell somewhat short of that which was to follow. No attempt was made to record the number of conversions, although they were by no means few. A feature of the work was the hearty and undivided support of the churches; at one prayer meeting nearly one hundred ministers were present. During these meetings Mr. Moody sounded the keynote of his theory, if such it may be called, of bringing about a great religious awakening. He said to Henry Ward Beecher, "There is no use attempting to make a deep and lasting effect on masses of people, but every effort should be put forth on the individual." The meetings closed November 19th. At the final service the building was crowded almost beyond its limit, while the streets were filled with thousands of persons who were disappointed in their endeavor to get in. CAMPAIGN IN PHILADELPHIA From Brooklyn Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey went to Philadelphia and began their meetings in the old Pennsylvania Railroad depot at Thirteenth and Market Streets, now occupied by Mr. John Wanamaker as a, great mercantile establishment. The depot was situated in a dull and uninviting neighborhood, comparatively deserted by night, and not very well lighted, and when the suggestion was made that the property might be temporarily renovated for an auditorium until the railroad company should find a purchaser for it, there was considerable derision; but President Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, had a hearty and large way of doing things, and he told the men who were giving their interest to the proposed meetings, that they could have the use of the property at the rate of one dollar per year, provided they were ready to get out at a month’s notice when the company should effect a sale. It happened, however, that just about this time a Philadelphia merchant, Mr. Wanamaker, was laying plans to develop his business on a broader scale. He made the Pennsylvania Railroad Company an offer for the old depot, and became its purchaser; but, before proceeding to occupy it, he consented that the interior should be reconstructed temporarily for the revival services, of which he had been one of the chief projectors. PREPARATORY ARRANGEMENTS About forty thousand dollars was spent in reconstruction and equipment of the building. Chairs were provided for about ten thousand persons, which leaves out of count the space upon the platform occupied by a chorus of six hundred singers. The expenses were met by voluntary contributions. Three hundred Christians were chosen to act as ushers while a like number of workers were selected to serve in the three inquiry rooms. The original intention had been to engage the Academy of Music, but this was overruled in favor of the depot, largely because of the suggestion that the novelty of such an auditorium would alone draw thousands of people. The first day it rained; moreover the burning of Market Street bridge, the night before, had stopped the streetcars running on the chief thoroughfare to the place of meeting. Still the great improvised tabernacle was filled by an audience of 10,000. In Philadelphia, as elsewhere, Mr. Moody began by seeking to arouse the Christians to a sense of their responsibility. On one occasion, he spoke of the "dumb people in the churches who had said nothing for Christ for ten or fifteen years", and of the "dwarfs who had not grown since they were converted". On the second evening, a young men’s meeting was conducted in Arch Street Methodist Church, by Mr. John Wanamaker. With a few exceptions the clergy of the city took hearty interest in all the services. Many of them, whose acquaintance with Mr. Moody’s methods was based entirely upon vague report, had looked forward with dread of sensational methods, but the quiet yet thorough way in which Mr. Moody entered upon his work brought to these doubters a feeling of gratified disappointment. On November 26th, the morning prayer meeting had an attendance of 8,000. A Methodist minister said, "If we had a hundred Moodys and Sankeys in the country all the Protestant sects would unite within ten years." VARIETY OF SUBJECTS DISCUSSED The last evening service of the eighth week was attended by more than 13,000, while many thousands were turned away. The regular meetings ended January 16th. However, a convention for clergymen and Christian laymen was held January 19th and 20th these developed more especially into services of praise. At the first meeting of the convention about 1,000 ministers and lay delegates were present. Mr. Moody spoke first on "Evangelistic Services". This was followed by "How to Conduct Prayer meetings"; "Inquiry Meetings - Their Importance and Conduct", and "The Training of Young Converts and Lay Workers". On the following day the subjects discussed were, " How Should the Music be Conducted in the Lord’s Work?" "How to Expound and Illustrate the Scriptures"; "How to Get Hold of Non-Church-Goers" and "Our Young Men--What More can We Do for Them?" In the evening, Mr. Moody spoke on "Daniel". I mention these subjects to give an idea of the variety of thought which made the convention so helpful. Mr. Moody said that in all his experience thus far he had never seen such services as these in Philadelphia. For fifty miles around the city the country sent recruits, and the total attendance during the nine weeks was estimated at about 900,000. As a thank-offering a large sum was raised, amounting to about $127,000. The total expenses of the meetings were in the neighborhood of $30,000. After the evangelists had departed chairs and other articles which had been in use at the depot were sold at auction; the chair in which Mr. Moody had sat brough $55, as did also M. Sankey’s chair. The principal employment of the great thank-offering collection was to help the Philadelphia Young Men’s Christian Association complete its new building in time for the Centennial Exposition, which began the same year. The meetings in Philadelphia established Mr. Moody’s leadership of the Lord’s active army in the United States. His clarion note had no uncertain sound. THE GREAT CAMPAIGN IN NEW YORK After leaving Philadelphia Mr. Moody took his family to Florida and rested for a time before entering on the great campaign in New York. But preparations in the metropolis were busily going on. Gilmore’s Concert Garden, which had formerly been known as Barnum’s Hippodrome, was rented for the services, $1,300 being paid weekly for its use. The meetings in the Hippodrome began February 7, 1876, at 8 P.M. More than $15,000 had been expended on the building to make it completely serviceable. The crowds were handled by 500 ushers; a choir of 1,200 singers was placed under the order of Mr. Sankey; several hundred Christian workers gave their services to the inquiry rooms for inquiry work. There were, for work with the unconverted, each day two general directors and sixteen Christian leaders; each leader had twelve to fourteen helpers, so that in each of the seven inquiry rooms there were usually two leaders and twenty to thirty helpers. At the first meeting 7,000 persons were present in the main hall, and 4,000 others attending the overflow meeting, while several thousand were left in the streets. The service was fittingly opened with silent prayer. What that movement inaugurated for New York can never be estimated. During the first week of services the aim was to arouse professed Christians to a higher sense of their responsibilities. The noon prayer meeting began on the second day, and at the prayer meeting after the evening service that same day almost all of the great audience who had listened to Mr. Moody’s sermon on faith remained. More than two hundred Christians who wished their faith quickened arose in response to Mr. Moody’s question, and fifty unconverted persons asked for prayer. On the fourth day there were five distinct meetings, the aggregate attendance being about 20,000. But Sunday was naturally marked by the greatest crowds. On the first Sunday more than 25,000 persons attended the meetings. There were on that day two exclusive services one for men and one for women. At the afternoon meeting for women, on Sunday, February 21st, 10,000 were present. At the evening meeting on that day such numbers arose for prayer that Mr. Moody said, "There are so many I can’t count them; truly, God is in this house." GLORIOUS ENTHUSIASM FOR THE LORD The last two days of the Hippodrome meetings, April 18th and 19th, were devoted to the Christian Convention with which Mr. Moody’s meetings generally ended. As a thank-offering the sum of $135,000 was raised. The last meeting for converts was attended by between three and four thousand persons who were able to testify to their conversion. Both in extent of time and in the results accomplished the campaign in the New York Hippodrome was perhaps the most important ever conducted by Mr. Moody. In moving New York God moved the country, and the voice of the evangelists was heard throughout the land. There was so little of the sensational about the meetings that a narrative concerning them may seem monotonous, for the reason that one service so much resembled the others. In each was manifested intense earnestness for souls, and glorious enthusiasm in the work of the Lord. It is not necessary to tell of all the great series of meetings which Mr. Moody conducted. After leaving New York he went by way of Augusta, Ga., Nashville, Tenn., Louisville, Ky., St. Louis, Mo., and Kansas City, Mo., to Chicago, and in all these cities his labors were blessed with great results. His greatest meetings in Chicago, however, were not held until October, 1876, a date from which they continued for some time. The campaign in Boston began in the last of January, 1877. The Boston meetings, like those in other cities, were a wonderful demonstration of God’s power. The assistance of the late Dr. A. J. Gordon and Miss Frances E. Willard was especially helpful. Interest was so great. that a daily paper, The Tabernacle, was published to further the work. Every home in Boston was visited by Christian workers. IN BALTIMORE 1878 From this time Mr. Moody’s activity seldom ceased. One tour was followed by another, and hardly a city or town of any great importance in this country has failed to receive through his help a renewal of interest in spiritual affairs. The meetings in Baltimore in 1878 were marked by such notable results that I feel that possibly an account of them will most fittingly close this chapter concerning Mr. Moody’s evangelistic work in the United States. After all there is space to do little more than indicate the general nature of his services to the Lord. In the month of October, 1878 the services began in Baltimore. Mr. Moody had received a pressing invitation to visit Cleveland, but before he would give his answer he felt led to visit Baltimore. On his arrival he called into counsel some of the leading laymen of the city, and after talking the matter over with them, he was confident that God wanted him in that city. It was no half-hearted service, and, when he came to do his work, he brought to bear upon the city where he labored all his own personal influence, and the blessing also of the presence of his family. So, temporarily he removed from Northfleld and came to dwell in Baltimore. A committee of laymen was selected to have charge of this work. The committee was as follows Dr. James Carey Thomas, Dr. P. C. Williams, Gen. John S. Berry, Mr. G. S Griffith, Mr. Henry Taylor, Mr. George W. Corner, and Mr. A. M. Carter. EVERY EVANGELICAL DENOMINATION REPRESENTED The following notice one day appeared in the daily papers: D.L. Moody will conduct meetings for Christians at the Mount Vernon Place M. E. Church, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week, at 4 P.M. Subject: "The Holy Spirit." The meetings in this church were simply preparatory to the great work which was yet to follow. Every evangelical denomination in the city was represented. Special meetings for men were held in the Associate Reformed Church, and noonday meetings were held in the Maryland Institute. There were some notable experiences in these meetings. Several gamblers were seated in one of their accustomed haunts one evening when it was suggested as a joke that they go to hear Moody. The proposition was agreed to. The meetings were being held at that time in St. Paul’s M. F. Church, South. At the close of the meeting Mr. Moody started towards the gamblers; they immediately arose to leave the building. He called out to them, "Don’t go, men; I want to see you," but they kept on going. Following after them he called out, "Come back, young men, come back:" but they refused and left. A few days after this, one of them, who belonged to a prominent family in the city, was taken very sick, and as he lay upon his bed entirely helpless, was asked by one of Mr. Moody’s workers, if he would not come to Christ. He made this promise: "If God will only allow me to leave this room I will become a Christian." He finally recovered, and one of the first things he did was to go to the meetings which were being held in the Associate Reformed Church. At the close of the preaching when the inquiry meeting was announced, Mr. Moody started clown the east side aisle where this man was sitting. As he approached him he said, "I am glad to see you, I have been looking for you several weeks." "Why, you don’t know me, Mr. Moody," said the man. "Yes I do," he answered, "you are one of those gamblers I saw out at Dr. Cox’ s church." The man fulfilled his promise to God by accepting Christ for his Saviour; gave a wonderful testimony of His saving power, and was instrumental in the conversion of many others who had been gamblers like himself. "HE COULD NOT BURN THE IMPRESSION" One great feature of Mr. Moody’s work had always been the singing, the wisdom of which may be seen in the following: While he was holding services in the Monument Street M. E. Church, a man addicted to drink and with no thought of God attended one of the meetings. He was much impressed with the singing. particularly with one hymn, "Come, O, Come to Me." He heard the announcement for the day meetings, and he determined to attend. As he entered the church Mr. Bliss was singing the hymn above mentioned. The man bought a hymn book that he might read the hymn for himself, and testified that he had no peace. Finally he burned the book, but he could not burn the impression that had been made by the Spirit. He then drank the harder, but could not drown the impression. Time passed on; one night he wandered into the Methodist Church, and as he did so he heard them singing again, "Come, O, Come to Me," and there that night he obeyed the call and accepted Christ. The hymn was number eighty-eight (88) in Gospel Hymns, No. 3. Mr. Moody always spoke of him after that as No. 88. During the meetings at Broadway M. E. Church, a pickpocket entered the meeting for the purpose of relieving some one of his gold watch, which he was not long in doing; after procuring his prize, he started to leave the church but was unable to do so, for those who were in had to remain, and those who were out could not get in; he was therefore led to listen, was much impressed with the sermon, and stayed for the inquiry meeting, where he accepted Christ as his personal Saviour. The next day the door bell of the parsonage was rung, and when the servant answered, she found no one, but tied to the knob of the door was a package. This when opened was found to contain a gold watch and chain, and with it a note stating the facts, and asking that it be returned to the owner, which was done. The repentant thief gave his name and address, but asked that he might be forgiven, as God had forgiven him. "DO YOU WANT THIS SAVIOUR" Dr. Leyburn’s church (Associate Reformed), where the meetings, for men only, were held at 4 P. M. was the scene of many new births. One day a man who had lost all through drink and who had brought his family to the verge of starvation, was asked by an unsaved man to go to hear Mr. Moody. At first he ridiculed the idea, but finally said, "Can a fellow get warm there?" (his feet being out of his shoes). On being assured that he could, he went. He was ushered to the third seat from the front Mr. Moody took for his text Matthew 1:21, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins." The man said to himself, "That is what I need, some one to save me from my sins; I have been trying to save myself, and have made a miserable failure." When Mr. Moody had finished his talk, he looked straight at the man, and said, "Do you want this Saviour?" He answered, "I do." Turning to one of the workers, Mr. Moody said, "Go talk to that man." In a little while the worker said, "Would you like me to pray with you?" The man replied, "That is just what I have been wanting you to do ever since you have been here." The worker prayed, and a familiar expression with that man afterward was, "I left my sins in the third pew of Dr. Leyburn’s church." He became a great worker for Christ, and is now a preacher of the Gospel. "WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST" In this same church a physician who was an infidel, attended the services, simply through curiosity. Mr. Moody’s text was, What think ye of Christ?" The next day he attended again, and Mr. Moody spoke on "Walking with God". He began an investigation to find if such a person did really live. This must be done outside the Word of God as he did not claim to believe in the Bible. The result of his investigation was the acceptance of the Christ of God and Bible. Since that time he has been an active Christian worker. Perhaps no meetings were more interesting than those held in the Maryland Institute at noon. At the door taking tickets was a man who, but a few months before, was running a beer saloon in East Baltimore. On entering, one who knew him said, "Why, Tom, what are you doing here?" His reply was, "O, I have given up that business and accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour, and now I am a doorkeeper in the house of my God." On the 26th of March, 1879, Detective Tod B. Hall, of the Baltimore City Detective Force, entered the Institute looking for a man with whom he had business, who, he was told, was in the meeting. He was persuaded to remain and was ushered to a front seat. He was much impressed with Mr. Moody’s earnestness and simplicity. The text was John 3:14-15. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, etc." When he had finished his sermon, Mr. Moody asked that all Christians rise, and many arose. Then he said, "All those who believe that by putting into practice what I have said they will receive the benefits of a saved life, please rise. THE DETECTIVE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO RISE He then and there believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and received Him as his personal Saviour. Passing out from the seats into the aisle he was met by many who knew him, and to all he said, "It is settled I am determined to live a different life the balance of my days. He entered the Institute to find a man, and found The Man Christ Jesus. His first act was to go to the City Hall, and into the office where the detectives were at that hour of the day. He told them what he had done, and how he proposed by God’s help to live, and then said, "Now, boys, all I ask is, don’t ridicule me, but give me your sympathy." He then and there started for his home, and when he arrived he found a strange lady in the house, and the devil suggested, "Don’t say anything until this strange lady is gone." In his own language, "I saw it was a trick of the devil," and walking to the center of the room he said. "Annie, I left you this morning not worthy the name of a husband, not worthy the name of father to our children, but a little while ago, at the Maryland Institute, I determined to live a different life; let us kneel down and ask God to help me be a better man." They did so, that being the first prayer ever offered by him in his home; when he arose his wife said, "Tod, if you have made up your mind to be a Christian I will be one too;" and they both took their stand for Christ the same day. And no one who visited that home after that day, would doubt that Christ had an abiding place there. In July, 1896, his wife took her departure to be with Christ as she bade him good-bye she said, "Tod, I’ll wait and watch for you, and give you a royal welcome when you come." HE LED SCORES OF MEN TO CHRIST I know of very few men who have been more wonderfully blessed in their Christian experience than Tod B. Hall. I have seen him in my own church, and in other places, literally lead scores of men to Christ. In the same place one day, as Mr. Moody was working in the after-meeting, he came to a man in the centre aisle and said, "Are you a Christian?" To this question the man replied, "Yes sir. I am glad to say, Mr. Moody, I am." Passing on, he came to one who was not a Christian. He suddenly turned to one of the ushers and said, "Tell that man to come here" (referring to the one who was glad he was a Christian). As he approached, Mr. Moody said, Sit down there and talk to this man." Whereupon the man replied, "You will have to excuse me, Mr. Moody; that is something I never do." Mr. Moody turned to him quickly and said, "Either sit down and talk to that man, or else sit down and let some one talk to you." On Friday evening, May 16th, Mr. Moody preached his last public sermon in the Mount Vernon Church, where nearly eight months before he had begun the meetings. On the evening of May 26th, after the usual meeting of the converts in the Y. M. C. A. rooms, conducted by E. W. Bliss it was proposed that the entire company go in a body to Mr. Moody’s house on Lanvale street. He was to leave the next day, and all wanted to show their love in this simply way. On reaching his house they sang, "He will hide us". Mr. Moody appeared and spoke loving words in saying good-bye. One of the company then sang, "There’s a land that is fairer than day". Mr. Moody then offered a fervent prayer and said good-bye. The next day he left for his home in Northfield. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 05.12. MR. MOODY IN TWO WARS ======================================================================== Chapter 12 - Mr. Moody In Two Wars When the Civil War broke out Mr. Moody was one of the busiest men in Chicago. The Young Men’s Christian Association work and his Mission were occupying his time fully, but he and his associates were not slow to see the great opportunity which the army camps afforded to reach throngs of men who were not easy to approach under normal conditions. Not long after the commencement of hostilities there came into being two great organizations, the Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission the one to look after the physical welfare, the other to look after the spiritual welfare of the soldiers. THE SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN COMMISSIONS The Sanitary Commission was the result of the federation of the so-called "Soldiers Aid Societies", which had individually already accomplished much good. At the outset the Government had not approved of these societies, fearing the effect of their operation upon the discipline of the troops, but, as their value became more apparent, and after they had been consolidated in one general organization, the field widened until the Sanitary Commission ranged in importance along with the Government Medical Bureau. The Christian Commission was projected by a convention, held in Norfolk, Va., November 16, 1861, and Mr. George H. Stuart of Philadelphia, was elected president. Like the Sanitary Commission it was recognized and countenanced by the Government. Says one writer: "The Commissions aided the surgeon, helped the chaplain, followed the armies in their marches, went into the trenches and along the picket-lines. Wherever there was a sick, a wounded, a dying man, an agent of the Christian Commission was near by." As often as possible the workers gave Christian burial to the dead, and marked the graves so that later they could be identified by the relatives or friends. Religious services were conducted in camp or in the field; religious literature was distributed widely; in short, every means was employed to turn to the call of their Divine Master the attention of thousands of men who had answered their country’s call. MR. MOODY’S ZEAL The Chicago Young Men’s Christian Association was one of many whose individual efforts in behalf of the soldiers led to the convention which formed the Christian Commission. The devotional committee, of which Mr. Moody was chairman, began to work immediately after the second call for volunteers, when the great rendezvous of Camp Douglas was established near the southern limits of Chicago. The committee was on the ground at the arrival of the first regiment, and began prayer meetings at once. Religious literature was given out among the soldiers, and Sunday services were established where they could easily be attended by the soldiers. The work spread so rapidly that the committee was obliged to send out a call for assistants. One hundred and fifty men, clerical and lay, responded, and eight or ten meetings were held every evening in the different camps. During the war the Association held more than 1,500 services in or near Chicago. The Association Chapel, built at Camp Douglas in October, 1861, was the first camp chapel erected. Soldiers who were converted at Camp Douglas went to the front, and presently a call came to Chicago to send Christian workers to the Union lines. Mr. Moody answered this invitation in person, being the first regular army delegate from Chicago. His earliest work in the field was with the troops near Fort Donelson. Mr. Moody’s idea of the best treatment for Dying soldiers was to carry to them the glad tidings of salvation and to point out to them the open gates of Heaven. He maintained that the administration of physical comforts was comparatively an unimportant matter. When death is a question of only a few hours and he whom the dark angel is claiming is far from the path of righteousness, who will care to hear of temporal things while some friend stands ready, to lead him back to the way of truth? EXPERIENCES FROM THE WAR As long as the War continued Mr. Moody went back and forth between Chicago and the various camps and battlefields. How his experience was widened, how his faith was strengthened by the visions of grace which God permitted him to see! The triumphant deaths which he and his fellow laborers witnessed are almost beyond enumeration. Many were the assurances of salvation which came to their cars from dying lips, and they saw hundreds of ashy faces lighted up With a "light that never was, on sea or land". It was practical work, this. Often there was time only for a few words of prayer, or a brief exhortation But God’s blessing came with the asking. From the many stories which I have heard Mr. Moody tell of his experiences during the terrible years of the war, I have selected the following. "I was in a hospital at Murfreesboro, and one night after midnight I was woke up and told that there was a man in one of the wards who wanted to see me. I went to him, and he called me ’chaplain’ - I wasn’t a chaplain - and he said he wanted me to help him die. And I said, ’I’d take you right up in my arms and carry you into the Kingdom of God if I could; but I can’t do it ’I can’t help you to die. And he said, ’Who can?’ I said, ’The Lord Jesus Christ can - He came for that purpose.’ He shook his head and said, ’ He cant save me; I have sinned all my life.’ And I said, ’But He came to save sinners.’ I thought of his mother in the North, and I knew that she was anxious that he should die right, and I thought I’d stay with him. I prayed two or three times, and repeated all the promises I could, and I knew that in a few hours he would be gone. I said I wanted to read him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes were riveted on me, and when I came to the 14th and 15th verses, he caught up the words, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ He stopped me and said. ’is that there? I said, ’Yes,’ and he asked me to read it again, and I did so. He leaned his elbows on the cot and clasped his hands together and said, That’s good; won’t you read it again?’" HE ENTERED THE KINGDOM OF GOD "I read it the third time, and then went on with the rest of the chapter. When I finished, his eyes were closed, his hands were folded, and there was a smile on his face. O! how it was lit up! What a change had come over it! I saw his lips quivering, and I leaned over him and heard, in a faint whisper. ’As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’ He opened his eyes and said, That’s enough; don’t read any more.’ He lingered a few hours, and then pillowed his head on those two verses and went up in one of Christ’s chariots and took his seat in the Kingdom of God." "You may spurn God’s remedy and perish; but I tell you God don’t want you to perish. He says, ’As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’ ’Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?’" A CHRISTIAN SOLDIER After the terrible battle of Pittsburg Landing, we were taking the wounded down the Tennessee River to a hospital. I said to some of the Christian Commission, ’ We must not let a man die on the boat without telling him of Christ and Heaven.’ You know the cry of a wounded man is ’Water! Water!’ As we passed along from one to another, giving them water, we tried to tell them of the water of life, of which, if they would drink, they would never die. I came to one man who had about as fine a face as I ever saw. I spoke to him, but he did not answer. I went to the doctor, and said ’Doctor, do you think that man will recover?’ ’ No; he lost so much blood before we got him off the field that he fainted while we were amputating his leg. He will never recover.’ I said: ’ I cant find out his name, and it seems a pity to let him die without knowing who he is. Don’t you think we can bring him to?’ ’You may give him a little brandy and water,’ said the doctor ’that will revive him if anything will.’ "TELL MOTHER I DIED TRUSTING IN JESUS" I sat down beside him, and gave him brandy and water every now and then. While I was waiting I said to a man near by: ’Do you know this man?’ ’O yes, that is my chum.’ ’Has he a father and mother living?’ ’He has a widowed mother.’ ’Has he any brothers or sisters?’ ’Two sisters; but he is the only son.’ ’What is his name?’ ’William Clarke.’ I said to myself that I could not let him die without getting a message for that mother. Presently he opened his eyes, and I said ’William, do you know where you are?’ He looked around a little dazed, and then said: ’O, yes; I am on my way home to mother.’ ’Yes, you are on your way home,’ I said; ’but the doctor says you won’t reach your earthly home. I thought I’d like to ask you if you had any message for your mother.’ His face lighted up with an unearthly glow, as he said ’O, yes tell my mother that I died trusting in Jesus.’ It was one of the sweetest things I ever heard in my life! Presently, I said ’Anything else, William?’ With a beautiful smile be said, ’Tell my mother and sisters to be sure and meet me in Heaven; ’and he closed his eyes. He was soon unconscious again, and in a few hours his soul took its flight to join his Lord and Master. THE PRISON DOORS OPENED It was my privilege to go to Richmond with General Grant’s army. Now just let us picture a scene. There are a thousand poor captives, and they are lawful captives, prisoners in Libby Prison. Talk to some of them that have been there for months, and hear them tell their story. I have wept for hours to hear them tell how they suffered, how they could not hear from their homes and their loved ones for long intervals, and how sometimes they would get messages that their loved ones were dying, and they could not get home to be with them in their dying hours. Let us, for illustration, picture a scene. One beautiful day in spring they are there in the prison. All news has been kept from them. They have not heard what has been going on around Richmond, and I can imagine one says one day, ’Ah, boys, listen! I hear a band of music, and it sounds as if they were playing the old battle-cry of the Republic. It sounds as if they were playing the ’The Star Spangled Banner! Long may it wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!’ And the hearts of the poor fellows begin to leap for joy. ’I believe Richmond is taken. I believe they are coming to deliver us and every man in that prison is full of joy, and by and by the sound comes nearer and they see it is so. It is the Union army! Next the doors of the prison are unlocked; they fly wide open, and those thousands of men are set free. Wasn’t that good news to them? Could there have been any better news? They are out of prison, out of bondage, delivered, Christ came to proclaim liberty to the captive." REMINISCENCES OF A VETERAN A veteran of the war tells the following story, which, while its importance is slight, gives an idea of the interest aroused by Mr. Moody’s work. "The death of Mr. Moody calls to my mind the first time I ever saw or heard of him. It was at Murfreesboro, Tenn., in the spring of 1862, when General Rosecrans was preparing his army auspices of the Christian Commission. His preaching resulted in quite a revival in a number of regiments and brigades, and caused considerable excitement and great interest. General Alexander McDowell McCook, who commanded one of the corps, became much interested in the work. There was something of a rivalry between a number of regiments as to which furnished the most recruits to Moody’s Christian army. They told a story on Colonel Fred Kneffler, of an Indiana regiment, who was an enthusiastic admirer and defender of his regiment and did not propose to allow it to play second to any regiment in the army of the Cumberland." "One day an officer of another regiment came over and related in the hearing of Colonel Kneffler that the evening before some twenty converts had been baptized. This made the number exceed the converts of Colonel Fred’s regiment by some twelve or fifteen. The Colonel immediately summoned his adjutant and in his extremely German brogue - made more broken by the excitement under which he labored - ordered him to detail fifteen men band have them baptized without delay." THE REVIVAL AT CAMP DOUGLAS Mr. Moody was at Shiloh, at Murfreesboro, with the army at Cleveland and Chattanooga; he was one of the first to enter Richmond with Grant’s army. devoting himself there to the soldiers of both armies without discrimination. But the greatest Christian work with which he was connected during the war was the revival among the Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas. This camp, originally used for the instruction of Union recruits was transformed into a prison at the time when about 10,000 rebel captives were sent there after the taking of Fort Donelson. The burden of the souls of these men lay heavy on Mr. Moody’s heart. One day he secured a permit to visit them, and gave it to the secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association, himself accompanying him in the thought that as assistant to the other he might enter the lines without a question. The guard refused to let both the men in on one pass, Mr. Moody exhibiting in vain the can of oil which he was carrying to furnish light for the service. But the officer of the day, who overheard the conversation and came up to investigate, recognized Mr. Moody and took him to headquarters, where through the exercise of his official influence the young missionary was given a pass to go in and hold meetings for the prisoners whenever he might choose. A few minutes later Mr. Moody and his friend, Mr. Hawley, began their first meeting for the prisoners. Deep interest was manifested from the start. Meetings were held in the prison camp thereafter every afternoon and evening. Great numbers were soundly converted, and they were organized into a Young Men’s Christian Association. As large an opportunity as possible was given them for Christian culture. In this revival work a great many Christian ministers and laymen assisted. WHAT HE DID FOR THE PRISONERS The report of the Army Committee for the year 1865 shows a distribution of 1,537 Bibles, 20,565 Testaments, I,000 prayer books, 2,025 hymn Books, 24,896 other religious books, 127,545 religious newspapers, and 43,450 pages of tracts, besides 28,400 literary papers and magazines. The Camp Douglas chapel was erected at a cost of $2,300, and a soldiers’ library and reading room were furnished by the Association, in a building erected by the Christian Commission. This was all in addition to the regular home work. An employment bureau was established this year, chiefly for the Benefit of the many wounded soldiers who were continually applying to the Association for assistance. Situations were found for 1.435 men, 124 boys, and 718 girls, besides transient employment for many persons who were unable to get out to service. All this work was clue in large part to the consecrated zeal of Mr. Moody. He never would be limited to a certain line of opportunity, but always took advantage of every chance to do something for his Master. His work during the Civil War exemplified all those qualifications of his which shone through his later and more extended efforts, and it was for him, moreover, practically the first recognition he received outside his own city of Chicago. More than thirty years passed by before the United States again found itself in arms. Like the Civil War, the War with Spain was undertaken for the relief of an oppressed people. The opportunity for a Christian campaign in the army camps was as great in 1898 as in 1861, perhaps greater, and the organized forces of Christian workers were much more efficient at the outset in the later year. This increased efficiency in Christian organization, who shall say in how much it was due to Mr. Moody’s service during the long interval? IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN April 25, 1898, three clays after the President’s first call for volunteers, the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association met in New York City to discuss the situation, and decided to undertake immediately a work among the soldiers and sailors. The organization had the machinery necessary for the undertaking. In nearly 700 cities throughout the country there were local associations; these in the several states were united in state organizations, with state committees and state secretaries, and were finally all bound together in an international organization, with its international committee, sub-committees and secretaries. Accordingly, in order to promote united effort and to secure effective co-operation, the international committee appointed a sub-committee to organize and supervise the work, its official title being "The Army and Navy Christian Commission of the International Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations." The work of the Commission was divided into three departments the Executive, for general supervision, with Colonel John J. McCook as chairman; the General work, for the direction of the social, physical and regular religious effort, including the Bible classes, with C. W. McAlpin as chairman; and the Evangelistic department, for the promotion of evangelistic effort in the different camps, with D. L. Moody as chairman. The Evangelistic department through Mr. Moody kept a force of clergymen and evangelists in the field, co-operating with the regular religious work carried on in the tents. A careful and conservative estimate shows over 8,000 soldiers who publicly professed to accept Christ in all the meetings during the summer, while the number of those stimulated in their Christian lives cannot be estimated. An interesting fact in this connection is that the regiments that suffered most in the battles around Santiago were, with few exceptions, the regiments that, when in Tampa, were encamped around the great canvas-covered tabernacle where were held nightly services, some of which were attended by more than 2,500 soldiers, and where many of these men became Christians. One of these companies went into the battle with seventy-six men, and the next day, at roll call, only seventeen answered. The work was established in the regiments of colored troops at the various camps, with colored young men of influence and ability in charge. This received the approbation of all students of the race problem. A prominent colored minister, after watching it carefully, termed it the "most practical and most helpful work I have ever seen carried on among the colored people." VISITATION OF THE SICK In all the camps visitation of the sick was carried on, both the camp secretaries and visiting evangelists taking part in this service. The following is one of many incidents: A new ward being opened one day was at once filled with sixty-six invalid soldiers. Going through the wards a worker came in contact with a sick boy from a Pennsylvania regiment, and stopping to talk to him, found the boy ready for the Gospel message. The boy said he came from a Christian home and had a brother in the missionary field, but that he had been a bad boy and had given his family much trouble. After talking with him a while, he said to the secretary, "Do you mean to say that I can be saved now and here?" The secretary assured him that such was the case, and opened to him the simple way of salvation. Before the secretary left, the boy joined him in prayer, praying for himself, and when he was leaving he said, "Now, remember, chaplain, I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour, and in so doing you tell me I am saved." He exacted a promise from the secretary that he would return during the evening, and when he returned the boy greeted him cheerfully, and said, "I am a very sick boy, but remember, whatever comes, I tell you now that I have accepted Jesus Christ and am trusting Him as my Saviour." The next morning, as the secretary made his rounds, the soldier boy had gone to his long home. ON SEA AND LAND The Commission followed closely in me wake of the Army of invasion, and pressed its work among the soldiers around Santiago de Cuba. It followed General Miles’ army to Porto Rico, and with the third expedition to the Philippines workers and equipment were sent to render similar service. The Navy Department at Washington supported the plan cordially, although from the nature of the case it was not easy to accomplish work on the ships. It was decided to place a representative of the Commission on each ship that had no regular chaplain, but the war was over so quickly that only one vessel was thus supplied. An idea of the feasibility of the work, however, is shown in the following incident from the one worker’s report: "At first, as I started to go over the ship with other things, I would fill my side pockets with copies of the New Testament, and give a copy away now and then, after a special personal talk with an open-hearted sailor or marine. As a matter of fact, I thought there would be no general eagerness for the books, and so great tact should be exercised in giving them out. I said to myself the first day, ’These 300 Testaments will last through my entire service but I was utterly mistaken. One day a marine said, ’What are those little books in your pockets?’ I replied, ’Testaments.’ Then he quickly said, ’Will you give me one?’ I gave him one, and by that time there was about me quite a crowd of men who were off duty (I was below in their quarters), and they all wanted the books. From that time I gave away fifty books a day until they were all gone. One night I heard some one at my window. I sprang up, thinking it was a marine after a drink of icewater; but, to my surprise, a sailor was standing there in the dark, like Nicodemus. He said, with some hesitation, ’Chaplain, I am after one of those little Bibles.’" All this evangelistic work was directed by Mr. Moody from Northfield. His health made it inadvisable for him to go to the front during the summer heat, so he planned to take the field in person in the autumn. But when the autumn came the war was over, and his presence was no longer necessary. To him, however, belongs the credit of organization. THE ARMY & NAVY Y.M.C.A. At the beginning of the war, the International Committee undertook the task to which it had been manifestly called, with but little, if any, thought of the far-reaching possibilities of the future. When the war closed it was evident that a door of opportunity had been opened for a permanent service to a large and important class of young men. Accepting the responsibility of the situation, the International Committee voted to make the work, so auspiciously begun, a permanent feature of its plan and effort, and in September 1898, its Army and Navy Department was organized. The ninety seven army posts in this country, and such as may be established in the new possessions, will form a field for extended effort, and already in several of these, associations have been organized. The regimental plan of organization is also being tested with good results. A comprehensive plan of work covering the entire Navy has already been inaugurated. A Naval Young Men’s Christian Association has been formed. STRIKING ILLUSTRATIONS The following incidents illustrate the value of the evangelistic work during the war with Spain. "I’ll never surrender to Spain," said a great stalwart soldier, "but, boys, I’m going to surrender to Jesus Christ to-night." What that meant in the way of moral courage few can understand, facing as he did the jibes and sneers of his old companions. At the close of a meeting in Camp Thomas theatre three soldiers came to an association worker and said that a man who had been converted a week before was sick, and wanted to see them. They went up to his tent, and found him suffering terribly, but rejoicing that he had accepted Christ. He said several times, "Well, I’ve lived right one week, anyway." A young soldier from one of the Texas regiments was reproved gently by the camp secretary for swearing and he immediately arose and apologized, saying: "I don’t know why I utter these oaths except that I am living in an atmosphere of obscenity and cursing; I never swore at home; I trust you will forgive me, sir; I did not realize that you were present." It was at the close of the service in the Third Brigade Young ’Men’s Christian Association tent, Camp Cuba Libre, Jacksonville, Florida. A hundred soldiers had risen for prayers, and at least fifty had come forward and given their hands in token of a surrender to Christ as a personal Saviour. The benediction had been pronounced when a bright-faced Virginia boy, nineteen years old, came to the platform and said "Won’t you pray for me, sir? I want to be a Christian here in camp." They knelt together, and others gathered around until twenty noble fellows were in the group of prayer. Nearly all confessed the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer and went down to their tents rejoicing. "GOD KEEP US FROM WAR" From the activity which Mr. Moody displayed in the two wars which were fought during his working career, it might be thought that he was not averse to international conflicts. This was far from true. It was simply that when war came he saw in it, and took advantage of, an opportunity to do good. Just before the commencement of the Spanish war, in a meeting at Pittsburg, he told his hearers what he thought of war. "War, awful war!" he exclaimed. "Never has our country had more need of your prayers than at the present time. God keep us from war, if it be possible, and God keep hate of Spain out of our hearts! I have not met a man who served in the last war who wants to sec another. God knows that I do not want to see the carnage and destruction that such a war would bring. God pity America and Spain. There are many mothers who will be bereaved, many homes broken up, if we have war. Have you thought of this? "Have you thought of this?" No; in the heat of preparation in our eagerness to avenge a wronged people, in all the excitement of what seemed to be a Divine call to arms, many of us did not think of this. But the great, tender heart of Moody ached with the sorrow of anticipation. He knew that nations are nourished by the rain of mothers’ tears; he knew that sad-faced fathers to-day, like Abraham of old, stand ready to offer up their sons on their county’s altar. And with a pity - dare I say it? - a pity akin to the pity of his Master, he yearned for, his people. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 05.13. THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF NORTHFIELD ======================================================================== Chapter 13 - The Spiritual Side Of Northfield Northfield is beautiful for situation, and the words of the Psalmist in Psalms 48:2, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion," in the judgement of many people could be applied to this center of influence in the Christian world of to-day. It is impossible to think of Northfield without thinking of Mr. Moody, and equally impossible to consider for a moment the work of D. L. Moody, without being compelled to give much consideration to his native town, the place he loved as few men love the place of their birth. A BEAUTIFUL PLACE Independent of its spiritual attractions, there are few more beautiful places; the Connecticut River, bending here and there between hill and vale, is more than interesting. The poet speaks of "rivers singing their way to the sea;" one can quite understand how this expression could be used in this connection, for we quite believe that it would be true of the Connecticut. And if the river itself could speak it would tell many a story of lives that from Northfield have sung their way on up to Heaven, and have started the melody of song in many other lives as well. It is said that Mr. Moody loved the view from his own house better than from almost any other point of observation, and well he might. Dr. Gordon once wrote of him, "Moody cannot endure the seashore; his green fields and ever shadowy hills and deep-rolling Connecticut are his paradise." Northfield is a typical New England town. It consists practically of one long stretch, on either side of which stand stately elms, their branches meeting overhead and forming an arch, which has ever increasing beauty for the lovers of the quaint old town. It has ever been a very winsome place both because of the fact that it is so far removed from the busy hum of cities as to make it restful, and also because here within the boundaries of the town so many people have seen themselves to be out of touch with God and have come to know Him in all His fulness, and thus have entered the life of blessing. NORTHFIELD DEAR TO MR. MOODY But Northfield was dear to Mr. Moody for more reasons than one, and I am quite sure that he never thought of it, that there were not more than a hundred reasons why it should be much to him. He used to say that when the train left Greenfield, which was not far away from his own home, he found himself so impatient to be with his loved ones that it was impossible to sit still, and so he would frequently walk up and down the aisle of the car until he was safely home. The center of Northfield, to the pilgrim journeying thither from all parts of the world, was the home of Mr. Moody himself, and the visit to that home, and a vision of it, both within and without, furnished one of the best comments on his life. Here dwelt a man through whose hands millions of dollars had passed, and practically none of it, though he had the best of right to a portion of it, both legally and morally was turned aside to give him what the world would count luxuries. Tens of thousands of homes are more beautifully and expensively furnished, but there was an air about this heart of Northfield which one detected the moment he crossed the threshold of the home - an air not of necessity associated with tapestries or pictures or paintings or furnishings ordinarily found in the homes of the rich, but which ever comes, when Christ is the unseen guest and the head of the house. IS IT ANY WONDER THAT HE LOVED NORTHFIELD? The old home was much to the Great Evangelist because it was his home. It was associated with his early struggles with poverty, with his father and mother, so dear to him, with his own immediate household, bound to him, it would seem, with ties stronger than those that ordinarily unite the members of the family; with the students whom he loved and whom it was his delight to help to gain an education. It was the scene of the beginning and the growth of the Bible Conferences, which have yearly increased in influence and power until the whole Christian world acknowledges its indebtedness to God for this fountain of blessing. There, at Mt. Hermon, the site of the boys’ school, was started the Student Volunteer movement, which has been used of God to send hundreds of young men and women to foreign fields, and influenced hundreds more who now stand waiting for an opportunity to go. Is it any wonder that Mr. Moody loved Northfield? We love it too because it is associated with his triumphs. "Triumphs over the obstacles which stood in the way of his buying back his old home which had been lost by his father’s failure in business. Triumphs over the discouragements that stood in the way of his giving an education to boys and girls who were poor, as he once had been; discouragements that would have defeated any other man, and at last the scene of the triumphant and victorious ending of his life and his glorious entrance into Heaven when he said, "Earth is receding, Heaven is opening, God is calling, and I must go." Northfield is known throughout the world also because of the celebrated people whose names and words are interwoven in its latter day history. But whoever has visited Northfield in the past, or whoever may turn his face thither in the future, no name, however great it may be, can ever outshine his of whom we write. He was the gentlest, the kindest, the noblest Christian man it has ever been our good fortune to meet. One of the most familiar Northfield pictures was D. L. Moody sitting on the little porch in front of his house early in the morning hailing passers-by in whom he might have some special interest, directing this one, giving an order to another one, until he would have transacted half a day’s business when others were just rising from their beds. I can hear his voice now as I write, as it sounded out one morning not later than 5.30 o’clock, when I heard him calling, "Chapman, Chapman," and, looking out of my window of Weston Hall, saw him sitting in his buggy ready for a drive, and then for an hour and a half we rode up through his favorite glen past Dr. Pierson’s summer home, and the site where later Drs. Mabie and Torrey were to build. HIS GREAT LOVE OF NATURE His love of nature was manifest in every turn of the road. "Look at that," he would say, and before us was a beautiful picture of a running stream and bending boughs of trees, through which the morning sun was breaking. " Listen," he would exclaim again, and the whole of the forest on either side of the road seemed vocal with the song of birds. "Isn’t it beautiful," he would say over and over. To take a morning ride with D. L. Moody was to see God in all nature, but most of all was to feel His presence in the remarkable personality of the man who sat beside you, impressing you by his every word and gesture with the fact that he was absolutely surrendered to God. It always seemed to me that his favorite meal for guests was breakfast. Happy that man who had an invitation to this feast of the day, for he could then see D. L. Moody at his best in his home life, and bow with him about his family altar, forth from which streams of blessing had gone to the very ends of the earth. Northfield is associated with certain other people whom Mr. Moody was wise enough to call to his assistance and help. First and foremost would be Major D. W. Whittle; for next to Mr. Moody, as a preaching evangelist, stands Major Whittle, a man of plain speech and solid piety, whose words have been already owned of God to the awakening of thousands of souls. Major Whittle is a native of Vermont, is about sixty-three years of age, and when Mr. Moody first met him was a resident of Chicago, where he was converted, and united with the First Congregational Church, under the pastorate of Rev. W. W. Patton, D.D. Major Whittle was employed in the office of Fargo & Co.’s Express until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted a company in Chicago and joined the army as a captain of infantry. During his army life he maintained his Christian profession, and for a long time kept up a company prayer meeting. At the close of the war he returned with the brevet rank of major, and soon after was offered a situation as business manager of the Elgin Watch Company, with a salary of five thousand dollars a year, which he accepted. His work as superintendent of the West Side Tabernacle Sunday School, a mission opened by the first Congregational Church, was greatly blessed, and for some time before his entrance upon the work of an evangelist his services were in considerable demand as a Bible reader and helper in revivals of religion. At length feeling called of God to a wider field of Christian labor, he resigned his position, with its ample salary, and gave himself wholly up to Christ, trusting in Him for direction and support. Major Whittle is laid aside at Northfield now, his very presence in the old town meaning a blessing to many. His ministry too has been a benediction to all with whom he has come in contact. I question if a more godly man lives to-day than this honored servant. DR. A. J. GORDON Next in importance, possibly, would be Dr. A. J. Gordon, the honored pastor for so many years of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. Mr. Moody relied much upon him, often did the great evangelist dwell upon his readiness to do any service, to take any place, to stand in any gap. "I cannot thank you enough," he wrote one summer, when his absence had thrown the whole charge of the Conference upon Dr. Gordon, "for your great help at Northfield. All the letters I have got from there speak in the highest terms of your generalship. "I know of no one who could have taken your place. "It will now answer the question, ’What is going to become of the work when I am gone?’" The presence of such men as these made Northfield a heavenly place in its atmosphere. Mr. Moody never displayed greater wisdom than in his selection of men to aid him in his Conferences. "One of the interesting features of Dr. Gordon’s later ministry at Northfield was the evening baptism in the lake which has, since his death, been called after his name. These services were of great solemnity. The assembled people, the soft singing in the eventide air, the majestic baptismal formula ’Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?’ the face as it had been the face of an angel, the broken waters, and the resurrection chant at the end - these things can never be forgotten by those who stood by the water’s edge." REV. F. B. MEYER OF LONDON Certainly no one has ever visited Northfield who has made a deeper impression by his ministry, than the Rev. F. B. Meyer. He is now the minister of Christ Church, London, having succeeded in that historic pulpit Rev. Newman Hall, D. D., but he is known in this country, because of the fact that he has led, by the direction of the Spirit, thousands of people into the joys of the surrendered life, and Mr. Moody will doubtless hear in Heaven words of appreciation of the fact that he ever secured Mr. Meyer for his Northfield work. Time does not permit in this connection to mention the names M MacGregor and Morgan, Andrew Murray, Dr. Webb-Peploe and hundreds of others of the real leaders in the Christian world to-day. They have counted it an honor to visit Northfield and give the very best of their thought to help carry on a movement which was manifestly of God. There are many special incidents which have made Northfield blessed in its memory. One is related by Mr. George C. Neech ham, of the sainted A. J. Gordon of Clarendon Street Church. "Dr. Gordon, unlike some Christians, believed there was something always beyond. This he ever sought to attain. Some years ago, during the first Northheld convention, he was desirous to secure what he yet needed as a saint and servant of Christ. Toward the close of those memorable ten days, spent more in prayer than in preaching, my beloved friend joined me in a midnight hour of great heart-searching and in-filling of the Spirit. He read with peculiar tenderness our Lord’s intercessory prayer of John xvii. The union of the believer with Christ and the Father, as taught by our Lord in that chapter, called out fervent exclamations, while with deep pathos he continued reading. During united prayer which followed, the holy man poured his soul with a freedom and unction indescribable. I never heard him boast of any spiritual attainment reached during that midnight hour. Soul experiences were to him very sacred, and not to be rehearsed on every ordinary occasion. But I have no doubt that he received then a divine touch which further ennobled his personal life and made his ministry of ever-increasing spirituality and of ever-widening breadth of sympathy." A STAR IN THE MIDNIGHT DARKNESS One incident connected with my own Christian experience can never be effaced from my memory. I was seated in my country home reading the accounts of the Northfield conferences, before I had ever thought of attending the same, when one sentence in an Address delivered by Mr. Meyer arrested my attention. It was concerning the life of surrender, and the sentence was as follows: "If you are not willing to give up everything to God, then can you say, I am willing to be made willing?" It was like a star in the midnight darkness of my life and led to a definite surrender of myself in October 1892. But after that there were still some discouragements and times of depression, and one morning very early in front of Mr. Moody’s house with the Rev. F. B. Meyer, I said to him, " Mr Meyer, what is my difficulty?" I told him of my definite surrender and pointed out to him my times of weakness and discouragement, and in a way which is peculiar to himself he made answer, ’’My brother, your difficulty is doubtless the same as the one I met. Have you ever tried to breathe out six times without breathing in once?" Thoughtlessly I tried to do it and then learned that one never breathes out until he breathes in, that his breathing out is in proportion to his breathing in; that he makes his effort to breathe in and none to breathe out. Taking my hand in his, my distinguished friend said, "it is just so in one’s Christian life, we must be constantly breathing in of God, or we shall fail," and he turned to make his way to Mr. Moody’s house for breakfast while I hastened up to my room in Weston Hall thanking God that I had had a message better to me than any sermon I had ever heard. Such incidents as these in the lives of thousands of ministers make Northfield a place delightful to visit and Northfield meetings a benediction. A very wealthy family, the father and mother of which had been frequent visitors at Northfield, could never induce the young ladies of their home to go with them, their idea of a Bible conference being such that they considered it a poor way to spend a vacation; but one summer, because of the description of the beauty of the scenery, they consented to go. They were seated one morning on the piazza of the Northfield Hotel with Mr. Meyer, when something in his conversation led them to say that they would hear him preach that morning. The power of God came upon one of the young ladies and she returned to her room only to fall upon her knees and definitely yield herself to God. She returned to her home to engage most actively in Christian service. Shortly after her return she was taken ill and died, and before her death she called her mother to her room to say to her that she wanted her to call to her room, before the funeral, every girl whom she had ever known intimately and socially and to tell them that in the little time she had known Christ fully she had had more joy than in all her social life put together. This is but one incident among thousands that could be related concerning the influence of Northfield. Is it strange, therefore, that many who love it can say as the Psalmist said of Zion, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Northfield." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 05.14. THE NORTHFIELD SCHOOLS ======================================================================== Chapter 14 - The Northfield Schools A favorite aphorism with Mr. Moody was, that "it is better to set ten men to work than to do the work of ten men", and his institutions were every one of them founded with this idea in mind. He ever had a great desire more thoroughly to equip young men and women that they might more properly do the work to which God had called them. In one sense Mr. Moody was not an educated man, for, so far as the schools were concerned, he had the scantiest equipment for his life work. This was always a source of sincere sorrow to him, and he determined that others should not meet this difficulty if he could prevent it, yet in the very widest sense he was most thoroughly educated, and it was entirety fitting that Professor Henry Drummond should speak of him as "one of the greatest educators of his day." HIS TRULY MARVELOUS EDUCATIONAL WORK There is really no greater proof of Mr. Moody’s breadth of mind than that he should have started these different institutions. I think he is the only evangelist in this country that has ever, to any great extent, concerned himself with such matters, and since he is easily the greatest evangelist that this country has produced in modern times, it is all the more remarkable that in the very prime of his life, and at the time when he was really at the height of his success as an evangelist, he should give so much of his strength to educational causes. If there ever has been a disposition to criticise Mr. Moody’s latter day evangelistic effort, such criticism should always be made in the light of his truly marvelous educational work. Personally I do not think that he is rightly a subject for unfavorable criticism in his last efforts along evangelistic lines, for whenever I heard him, even to the very last, he always seemed to have a special anointing of God upon him. But I have heard men say that his special efforts in his last days were not to be compared with the work of his earlier ministry. However, let me repeat again, that if to his evangelistic work you add his educational interests, then each succeeding day of D. L. Moody’s life was greater than the day that preceded it, and he was at the very zenith of his power when God called him home. He knew that the object of Christianity was to make men and women better in every way, and fit them, not only with all their heart but with all their mind to serve their God and their country, so he founded these institutions for the turning out of such characters. Henry Drummond has said, "his pupils should be committed to nothing as regards a future profession. They might become ministers or missionaries, evangelists or teachers, farmers or politicians, business men or lawyers; all that he would secure would be that they should have a chance of becoming useful, educated, God-fearing men and women." But he would help them if he could to fill these positions to the glory of God. NORTHFIELD MADE HIS PERMANENT RESIDENCE On his return to America from Great Britain, Mr. Moody went with his family to the home of his boyhood days. He decided to make Northfield his permanent place of residence, and he settled clown to enjoy a period of rest before he formed new plans for work. It was a time of real preparation for the future, and the history of to-day proves that God was as truly speaking to him then as to Moses when He was alone with him on the mountain. During journeys over the hills about his native town, he met many of the farmers’ daughters, bright, intelligent girls, with ambitions extending beyond the routine of the farm-house drudgery. They appealed so strongly to him that he conceived the plan of a school where such girls, possessed of moderate means, might receive a careful training in the Bible and ordinary English branches. This was the seed thought, and out of it has grown the Northfield Seminary, Mt. Hermon, and the Northfield Training School. PURCHASE OF GROUND AND OPENING OF THE SCHOOL It has been said that this educational idea was not alone D. L. Moody’s. A brother, not now living, Samuel Moody, an active, intelligent man, had long desired the establishment of a High School in his native place, and frequently talked of it. There is still another thing that should be mentioned. At this time Mr. D. L. Moody was deeply interested in the education of a young lady cousin, whom he afterward sent to Wellesley College. This cousin, Miss Fanny C. Holton, died in February, 1887, but her character, influence and helpfulness had a most important relation to the origin of the Northfield Seminary and to its entire history. In 1887, Mr. Moody held meetings in Boston, and there met Mr. H. N. F. Marshall, who was intimately connected with the founding of both schools. It was Mr. Marshall who made the first purchase of ground for the school. In 1878, Mr. Marshall first visited Northfield, and this visit led to the above-mentioned purchase of the sixteen acres of ground nearly opposite Mr. Moody’s house. In 1878 and 1879, while Mr. Moody was working in Baltimore, Mr. Marshall again joined him, and the project of the school for young ladies was further discussed. A second lot of ground was purchased adjoining the first, and on this the first recitation building was erected. In 1879, during the summer, Mr. Moody altered his own house for the accommodations of the pupils. A long wing, adjoining the house, was divided into ten rooms for the accommodation of the students. November 3, 1879, the school opened, not with eight or ten pupils, as they had dared to hope, but with twenty-five, and until the recitation hall was finished, in December, the pupils studied in Mr. Moody’s own home. Miss Harriet W. Tuthill came as the first teacher and principal of the school. The price charged to every pupil then, as now, was but $100, and applications came pouring in from all parts of the country. THREE GREAT ENDS IN VIEW In this work of education there were three great ends which occupied Mr. Moody’s thought in addition to the natural educational advantages. The first had to do with a better Biblical education, and his great object was to help and encourage them, and fit them in the best way for a happy and useful life, to bring them in close contact with the Fountain of Life, from which they might draw freely for all their needs. The second end in view was to meet the demand for trained women who would devote themselves to missionary work, either at home or abroad, but more particularly among the poor of the great cities. But a third object in founding the school was that the buildings which should be erected for purposes of education should be available during the summer and vacation months for another use. They could be used for gatherings of persons who delighted to study the Bible, and also to confer concerning matters touching the Kingdom of Christ. Mr. Moody lived long enough to see these three ends more than fulfilled, and great numbers of young women the country over bless God that he was ever used to inaugurate such a work in their behalf. On the first day of April, 1880, ground was broken for East Hall, and on the first of October the building was finished. It became the home for sixty-three students. When the Hall was opened Mr. Moody said, "I would like to give this hall a motto, and let it also be the motto of the school. Isaiah 27:3 : ’I, the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." When this remark was made he committed the building and school, in a special prayer, to the continual service and never-failing care of God. CONSTANTLY INCREASING The second year of the Seminary began, with East Hall well filled, and a large number of day scholars, while the third year opened with every room that was obtainable more than crowded. Not only was this building used, but while Mr. Moody was absent in Great Britain, his own house was given up entirely to the use of the school. The school has always been much like a home, and the spirit of happiness and harmony, which is the real spirit of Christ, has always prevailed. The fourth year of the Seminary began with a new dormitory. The building was named Bonar Hall, in memory of the visit made to Northfield by Dr. Andrew Bonar. This structure was afterward destroyed by fire. The school was constantly increasing in numbers and widening its influence. In 1885, Marquand Hall was formally opened. At the same time was celebrated the eightieth birthday of Mrs. Betsey Moody, and the forty-eighth birthday of her son D. L. Moody. In 1886 the corner-stone was laid of another dormitory, holding forty-five pupils. It was finished in the summer of 1887 at a cost of $25,000, and bears the name of Weston Hall. It was this Hall that was set apart for the use of the New York Presbytery at the last meeting of the Northfield Conference. In the spring of 1887, the Talcott Library was built, the gift of James Talcott, of New York, a trustee of the school, and the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse, of England, made an address on this occasion. But even though the buildings were constantly increasing, and were not at all small in their dimensions, each succeeding year found them filled to overflowing, until in the ninth year there were 252 boarding pupils and eighteen teachers. PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SEMINARY In the judgment of many of his friends D. L. Moody never performed a more important service than when he gave to the world the Northfield Seminary. Other buildings than those mentioned above have been erected, until to-day the school possesses as many dormitories as any girls’ school in the country. In addition it has the Skinner Gymnasium, and the new Auditorium built by Mr. Moody in 1894, to accommodate the increasing crowd at the summer conferences. The buildings all possess a wide degree of artistic beauty. The 270 acres belonging to the Seminary show good results from the time and money expended on them. The hillside, once so desolate, is covered with a beautiful turf. Well built roads wind through the grounds and from ten to twenty men are kept constantly employed. The entire production of the farm, with the exception of a few apples, are used by the farm or the school. While the price of board and tuition at the Seminary from the outset has been $100 a year, as before mentioned, yet it must not be supposed that this pays for the education of the girls. in point of fact it covers not more than one-half the running expenses of the school. The other half Mr. Moody became responsible for, and he toiled day and night, early and late, that he might make the education of these girls possible, and the schools a success. I am very sure that no one could ever invest his money better than to help in the memorial endowment fund which is now being solicited throughout the country, that Mr. Moody’s work may be perpetuated and grow in increasing usefulness. MT. HERMON The plan for a school where boys could have a training in elementary English branches and also the Bible, really dates back to Mr. Moody’s mission work in Chicago, and he never abandoned his purpose. Four miles distant from the Young Ladies’ Seminary, on the opposite side of the river, the Mt. Hermon buildings, composing the Mt. Hermon School for young men are to be found. While the plan was conceived earlier it was carried out later than that of the Northfield Seminary, but it is not to be placed second in point of influence; side by side these two institutions have come along together to positions of influence and power. In 1880 the ground for Mt. Hermon was purchased. Through the generosity of Mr. Hiram Camp, Mr. Moody was fortunately able to secure his farms, and subsequent purchases have put the boys’ school in possession of more than 700 acres of ground. The price of board and tuition is the same as at the girls’ school, and it was Mr. Moody’s plan to have the work of the house and the farm performed by the boys themselves. For two years the school numbered not more than twenty-five boys, the ages ranging from eight to eighteen. Two farm houses served as dormitories and a small building was erected to serve as a schoolhouse. It was soon decided that better results would be obtained by admitting only older boys, and the minimum age of admission was made sixteen. In 1882 five brick cottages were built, four of which were used as dormitories, and the middle one designed to serve as a kitchen from which the meals were carried to the other buildings. Since then there have been added a three-story recitation hall, dining hall and kitchen, Crossley Hall and Silliman Science Hall. Mt. Hermon gives a good education to boys who have been deprived of earlier advantages, and who cannot attend more expensive schools. The industrial system of Mt. Hermon tends to exclude undesirable students. In their spare time boys are allowed to do overwork, for which they are paid. Many of the students remain at Mt. Hermon throughout the year because they have no homes, or because they desire to earn money. during the vacation pupils pay three dollars a week for board. However, this is not paid in money but in work. THE EDUCATIONAL PLAN IN MOUNT HERMON The educational plan in Mt. Hermon, as in all other institutions associated with Mr. Moody’s name, centres around the Bible, and the results are apparent in the large number of students engaged in home and foreign missionary work. People sneered in the beginning at the idea of an uneducated evangelist teaching the youth anything about education, but as the buildings rose one after the other their sneers soon changed to astonishment, and now one only hears words of praise for this noble work. Mr. Moody had the most supreme faith in God as touching this educational work at Northfield. He knew that God had laid it on his heart, and was persuaded that He would help him to carry it through. I remember his telling at one time an incident which had to do with the completion of one of the buildings. They were out of money, and the work could not go on unless the money should be provided, so he made his way up to his study, wrote the strongest letter he could to a great business man, and told him that he must have several thousand dollars at once. When the letter was finished he put it on a chair before him and got down upon his knees to pray God that this letter should accomplish the object he had in mind. The letter went on its way and reached the business man in his home as he sat at the breakfast table. He read it with indifference, and then for some reason read it the second time, with a little bit of interest. For some reason he could not explain he read it the third time, and then went to his library and wrote a check for the full amount, saying in the letter which accompanied the check, "for some reason unaccountable I am unable to get away from your request, and I send you my check as you desire. I am sending it to you from my home for fear that I might change my mind when I reach my place of business." CONVINCING INCIDENTS Incidents like this could be multiplied without number, and when one looks at Mt. Hermon, studies its great buildings, familiarizes himself with the number of lives that have come forth from the school to make the world better and brighter, and then studies the whole of Mr. Moody’s plant, his first impression is one of wonder and admiration, the second a feeling of gratitude that he has an object lesson proving the truth that, if God only has His way with His own, the day of miracles is not past. I wish I might put into this chapter an appeal to philanthropists everywhere to support the work of this man who was sent from God. I am persuaded that the blessing of God will be on one who in any way answers the appeal sent forth. There is a third institution at Northfield which should not be overlooked. On Friday, June 1, 1888, "The Northfield" was opened to the public. It is a fine hotel, designed expressly to meet the needs of the many who annually visit Northfield, who attend the summer conferences, or as friends of the two schools. It was opened with an overflow of guests. It was at this hotel that the friends of Mr. Moody gathered on the night preceding his funeral and the evening following it, and it is in this hotel that the Moody Training School for Women meets. THE NORTHFIELD TRAINING SCHOOL In his work in Chicago, and in his evangelistic work throughout the world, Mr. Moody had learned to appreciate the especial influence of women in ministering to the poor. He also found that it was almost impossible to secure the right standard of women to do the work he had in mind. Sometimes their influence was marred by inexperience, more frequently by lack of training. He determined to start a training school which city churches and mission fields could draw upon, not for highly educated missionaries, but for Christian women who could be trained especially in Bible knowledge and domestic economy. The Northfield Hotel was an eyesore to Mr. Moody because it was empty from October to the end of March. He determined that this should not be so, and in 1890, the first term of the training school began there. Fifty-six students took up residence at once, and the next year the numbers were quite doubled. In addition to systematic Bible study, the pupils are taught such branches of domestic economy as will make them useful in their work with the poor, and they are especially instructed in preparation of foods for the sick. It seems an incredible thing that a man without education himself, as the world speaks of him, should have been used of God to establish a work which in many ways is the wonder of all who see it, but it is an illustration of the fact, that we can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 05.15. THE NORTHFIELD CONFERENCE AND THE STUDENT... ======================================================================== Chapter 15 - The Northfield Conference And The Student Volunteers This is a day in which God is using in a very remarkable way what is known as the Bible Conference. In many parts of the country there are annual summer gatherings of Christian people for the study of God’s Word. The number is rapidly increasing, and the growth of some of these conferences is really remarkable. In a sense, at least, the Northfield Conference which came out of the heart and the deep study of D. L. Moody, is responsible for them all. VARIOUS BIBLE CONFERENCES There has been annually, until within the past two years, a gathering of earnest, active Christians at Niagara, on the Lake, and some of the most widely known Bible students in the country have gathered there to consult together concerning the things of the Kingdom. The teaching at this conference has been largely along dispensation lines, and the prominent truth presented in all their services has been the return of the Lord, while the majority of the teachers at Northfield have not only accepted, but strongly advocated the truth known as the "blessed hope". Still Mr. Moody had one characteristic which impressed itself on all his associates. He would not exalt one truth at the expense of another, and so Northfield has not been known as the place where any particular line of truth was promulgated. If any exception could be taken to this statement it would be in favor of those truths which contribute to the deepening of the spiritual life. Another widely known Bible Conference, which is certainly in existence because of the influence of Northfield, is the Winona gathering at Winona Lake, Ind. For five years the Christians of the Middle and Western states in increasing numbers have gathered there for the same kind of work that was done at Northfield. Mr. Moody has ever contributed to the effectiveness of the Conference by sending such speakers as the Rev. G. H. C. MacGregor, the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, and the Rev. J. G. Cunningham. The gathering has increased from thirty-five, the first year, to more than 1,500 at the last annual meeting. I desire personally to say that Winona owes to Mr. Moody more than it can ever repay. THE KESWICK MOVEMENT One of the most celebrated conferences abroad is that which meets in the early summer at Keswick, a town of Cumberland, England, on the south bank of the Greta, twenty-four miles from Carlisle. The first convention was held in July, 1875, and was only for the purpose of experiencing a fuller spiritual life. It has been thought by many that the Keswick movement stood for the promotion of the doctrine of "sinless perfection". This is most untrue. It does stand for the very highest type of Christian living, and in every way stands for the exaltation and manifestation of Christ in the life. There are six successive stages that ought to be indicated in connection with Keswick, for they have widely influenced the Northfield teachers, especially those from abroad. They are named in the order of their importance. 1. The definite and immediate abandonment of every known sin or hindrance to holy living. 2. The abandonment and renunciation by faith of the self-life, or the life, that centers in self-indulgence and self-dependence. 3. The immediate surrender of the will in loving and complete obedience to the will of God, separation for the purpose of consecration. 4. The infilling of the Holy Spirit, or the claiming of the believer’s shave in the Spirit’s Pentecostal gift of power for service. 5. The revelation of Christ as an indwelling presence in the believer’s soul and daily life, and as his actual Master and Lord. 6. Beyond these there is always a sixth and last stage of teaching the privileges and victories implied in this higher or deeper life, such as the rest life of faith, power over sin, passion for souls, conscious fellowship with God, growing possession of promises, and prevailing prayer and intercession. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF NORTHFIELD The basis of all this teaching is, as is very apparent, the conviction that the average Christian life is too often grievously destitute of real spiritual power and is essentially carnal; and that it is the duty and privilege of every child of God to enter at once into newness of life, and to walk henceforth in the power of Christ’s resurrection. But Northfield is pre-eminently, in the judgment of many people, the most important gathering of Bible students in this country, if not in the world. Thousands of lives have been transformed, by the power of the Conference, and one of the most notable gatherings in its history was that of last year when the entire Presbytery of New York met and were assigned to quarters in Weston Hall, attended regularly the services, and came back literally filled with the Spirit of God, the result being that the whole city of New York has seemed to feel the touch of the power that rested upon them and there is scarcely a Presbyterian Church in the city that has not had remarkably large additions as either a direct or indirect result of this last summer Conference. However much Mr. Moody’s friends may have to say of him in meetings in other places, it is certainly true that he was at his best in Northfield at the Conference. There was no more interested listener in all the audience than he. He was quick to notice the impression the speakers made upon the people, and while he was never what could be called a flatterer, yet when those whom he had invited to be present helped the people he was the first one to express his appreciation. As a rule he was at all the gatherings. THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFERENCES A description of the Northfield Conferences necessitates referring once again to the Round Top services, one of which is described in another chapter. These meetings were held in the evening, at the sunset time, and the influence upon all who gathered there was simply profound. I question if there is any work that Mr. Moody was engaged in throughout the world in which he was more interested than the Northfield Conference, a brief story of which ought to be given. The Northfield Conferences began in 1880. Early in September the buildings of the Seminary were thronged with three hundred visitors. Among those who came was a delegation from Great Britain. The first conference continued for ten days. The spirit of the meeting was largely devotional, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit being largely dwelt upon; and the result was very impressive. There was at that time no large auditorium in which the various meetings could be conducted, so a large tent was pitched behind Last Hall, and there the exercises were held. The culmination of the conference was Pentecostal in its power, and the spiritual refreshing which came at that time to many believers is still manifest in whatever they do. In October, 1881, the second convocation began, continuing through the month. The Rev. Dr. Andrew Bonar, of Glasgow, Scotland, was the principal speaker, and among the others who participated were Dr. George F. Pentecost, Dr. A. J. Gordon, Dr. James H. Brooks, Dr. E. P. Goodwin, Mr. George C. Needham, and Major Whittle, besides many others whose names have since come to be especially associated with Northfield work. There was great variety in the services. The spirit of the second conference was less devotional than the first, but was given more to doctrinal and practical study, Most of the meetings were held in East Hall, but in the afternoons the conference met in the Congregational Church of the village, and occasionally in the open air. The interest deepened throughout the month. HOW THEY HAVE GROWN Shortly after this Mr. Moody went to England, and in his absence no summer conferences were held at Northfield for three years, and it was not until August, 1885, that the third convocation was held. Mr. J. E. K. Studd of Cambridge University, England, gave a fine impetus to the meeting, and Mr. John B. Gough delivered during this month one of his last addresses. Dr. A. T. Pierson and Dr. A. J. Gordon also helped to make the meetings signal in their influence. And so, year after year, the Northfield Conferences have grown in interest and attendance. The new buildings which, from time to time, have been erected for the educational work of the Seminary have much increased the facilities of entertainment for visitors, and the new auditorium makes it possible to assemble a great throng under cover. Still there are many who think that the open-air services have been more stimulating and helpful than any of the others. The speakers have been drawn, as formerly, from the best, and it is a privilege indeed to receive through association with such men the best fruits of their own experiences. It has always seemed to me that the genius of Mr. Moody shone more in his management of the summer conferences than in any other detail of his York, and his earnestness and his devotion were ever so impressed on all the services that no one could go away from a meeting without carrying with him a blessing Mr. Moody’s educational ideals, which in their practical forms are visible to the visitor to the conferences in the noble buildings which crown the Northfield hills, were epitomized in the work of the summer conferences. THE STUDENT VOLUNTEERS Some time in the spring of 1886, with his customary foresight and intuition in regard to what might advance the Kingdom of Christ, Mr. Moody called to his Sidle Mr. L. D. Wishard, then college secretary of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Associations of the United States and Canada. As a result of the conference between these two men, Mr. Moody invited each of the College Young Men’s Christian Associations of the country to send, a delegate to spend a month at Mt. Hermon in July of the same year, to study the Bible and methods of Christian work adapted to college students. This invitation was accepted by 250 students, from about ninety different college associations. The meetings continued from July 7th to August 2nd. The program of each day was as follows From eight o’clock in the morning the men considered informally for an hour some phase of College Association work. At ten o’clock all met and listened to addresses from noted speakers from abroad. Some time was also given to those who desired to ask practical questions, and these were answered by Mr. Moody in his usual clear, direct manner. In these meetings, as elsewhere, Mr. Moody was able to exercise his wonderful ability to associate with himself a corps of prominent Bible scholars and teachers. A large number of Christian students were present who had decided to devote their lives to the work in foreign missions. These naturally met together in a common fellowship, and their earnestness and devotion made from the outset a deep impression on all. Their appeals on behalf of the claims of missionary work on educated Christian young men also made a profound impression, and many students were then and there led to express a willingness and a desire to enter upon work in the foreign field. MISSIONARY INTEREST AWAKENED The interest awakened was fostered by two young men, Messrs. Wilder and Foreman, who were led speedily to devote a portion of their time as students to deepening and widening this work among the students of the colleges not represented at Mt. Hermon. This in brief, then, is how the Student Volunteer movement was born; it came into being in connection with the first Christian Student Conference ever held at Mt. Hermon, where Mr Moody’s school for boys and young men is situated. Like many another thing for which Mr. Moody opened the way, if he did not actually originate it, the Student Volunteer movement has grown almost beyond comprehension. It assumed organization in 1888, and has become a recognized factor and power in the missionary life of the Church throughout the world, as possibly no other single movement. Briefly stated, the four-fold purpose of the organization is First, to awaken and foster among all the Christian students of the United States and Canada, intelligent and active interest in foreign missions. Second, to enroll a sufficient number of properly qualified student volunteers to meet the successive demands of the various missionary Boards of North America. Third, to help all such as pledge themselves to foreign missionary work to prepare for their life work, and to increase the co-operation of these young workers in developing the missionary life of home churches. Fourth, to lay an equal burden of responsibility on all students who are to remain as ministers and lay workers at home, that they may actively promote missionary enterprise by intelligent advocacy, gifts and prayers. The Volunteer movement is not a missionary board. It never has sent out and never will send out a missionary, for it is simply a recruiting station. As in so many other ways, the wisdom of Mr. Moody in calling to his side such men as L. D. Wishard, C. K. Ober and John R. Mott, of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, was soon manifest in the progress of the movement, and these men have had much to do with the rapid increase of the work during these last years. THE GROWTH OF THE WORK Some conception may be gained of the prodigious strides which the organization has made when it is known that it already has made itself felt in more than 1,000 institutions of learning. Then it should be remembered that in many of these, perhaps more notably in state, professional and independent institutions, the subject of foreign missions was dealt with for the first time when the representatives of the student volunteers began to extend their efforts. It is safe to assert that where one student gave this subject careful consideration before the movement began, scores and scores have felt and thoughtfully considered the claims of the world-wide missions since and through the ministry of this work. It is said that the student attitude of many colleges, both denominational and state, has completely changed, and certain it is that no other subject has ever taken such a deep hold on the convictions of college men, or has called forth from them such unselfish devotion. There are on the roll of the movement at this time about 4,000 students. Of this number about one-third are women and two-thirds are men. Forty-eight denominations are represented. Nearly 1,200 of the volunteers have already gone to the foreign field. The number of students who now are planning to become foreign missionaries is five times as great in the colleges of the land, and twice as great in the seminaries, as it was before this movement started. The Student Volunteers have also afforded substantial aid in assisting to raise money, for whereas the colleges formerly gave about $5,000 a year to foreign missionary work, they now give more than $40,000. SOME INDIRECT EFFECTS It must be plain to any thoughtful person that the reflex influence of this movement in the institutions of learning themselves is simply incalculable. For every student who has offered himself to go abroad, certainly one or more have been influenced to take up a more aggressive Christian life at home. Development in Bible study and in personal work for the salvation of their fellows on the part of the students, as a secondary influence of this movement is without any doubt one of the great evangelistic tendencies of the century. At least indirectly, it may be traced to Mr. Moody. One of the most wonderful things about the Student Volunteer influence has been its effect upon the students of other lands. Ten years ago the organization for the United States and Canada was the only student movement in the world, employing the volunteer methods, but now there are student volunteers in Great Britain, Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, Australasia, South Africa, China, India and Ceylon. All the organizations express their indebtedness to the American branch for the helpful and practical influence it exerted in the formative periods of the work. It is exceedingly significant that even the students of mission lands have joined hands with the students of Christian lands in a determined effort to preach the Gospel to all mankind. In August, 1895, there was formed in the historic Vadstena Castle, on the shores of Lake Vettern, in Sweden, a World’s Student Christian Federation. There were present official representatives from America, Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Mission lands. Mr. John R. Mott, in his "Strategic Points in the World’s Conquest," says, "Never since the Wartburg sheltered the great German Reformer, while he was translating the Bible for the common people, has a mediaeval castle served a purpose fraught with greater blessing to all mankind." A FEDERATION FOR THE WORLD Since the formation of this federation it has been entered by the representatives of five other countries, India, Ceylon, South Africa, China and Japan, so that practically all the countries, having anything like a student volunteer movement, are now banded together. The first convention of the World’s Student Christian Federation was held in the United States, in July, 1897, in conjunction with the annual conference of the American and Canadian Intercollegiate Young Men’s Christian Association, at Northfield. In addition to the 600 students who had come together from 136 universities and colleges, there were present students and Christian workers from twenty-five other nations or races. Special meetings were held on Round Top, the spot which is now especially consecrated to Mr. Moody’s memory. Round Top is not less sacred because it is the place where more students have dedicated their lives to the extension of Christ’s religion than any other place in the world. Says Mr. Mott, "Day after day at sunset, the hundreds of delegates from the ends of the earth met on this sacred mountain to lift their eyes and look far beyond the beautiful Connecticut valley and the distant green mountains upon the great harvest fields of the world, and linger and listen to burning messages from their fellow students, telling of the triumphs of Christ among their own people, and the need of more men in the regions beyond." PRAYER IN TWENTY-ONE LANGUAGES The Federation delegates attended not only the large special meetings over which Mr. Moody presided, but also the conferences for the discussion of methods. One afternoon a pilgrimage was made to Mt. Hermon, which, as the reader will remember, is several miles from Northfield on the other side of the river The groves and hills and river banks about Mt. Hermon are sacred, for it was here that the Student Volunteer movement came into existence in 1886. Some who had attended that first wonderful meeting were present to recount the experiences of those first days of blessed surrender. Before. the delegates left Mt. Hermon, Mr. Moody called them together for the consecrating of the ground that had been set apart as a site for a chapel. In a representative meeting this plot was dedicated to God’s service. Then the delegates offered prayer in twenty-one different languages, and yet there was no confusion of tongues, for all were brought together in their common love of the Master. What will be the result of this movement we can only conjecture, for it is yet in its infancy, but it is significant to note that already it has brought together Christian students in all the world as never before. It has made the various student movements acquainted with one another. It has organized six great national student movements, and has facilitated the organization of two others. The last conference of the Federation was held in Eisenach, at the foot of the famous Wartburg, in Germany, and was attended by students from twenty-four countries. Nearly 400 years ago, in the castle which still crowns that storied mountain, a monk made a consecration of his talents which blessed the world as it had not been blessed before for many centuries. When Martin Luther came down from that sacred hill he brought with him a Bible for the people. The perverseness of the generation did not lead him to dash his tablets to the ground as he descended, but instead they went out through the land and gave men almost for the first time an insight into the true teachings of our Lord. How fitting it is that on this spot, hallowed by the memory of the great reformer, the flower of the young men of to-day should pledge themselves to devote their lives to carrying to all the quarters of the globe the blessed Gospel! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 05.16. THE CHICAGO BIBLE INSTITUTE ======================================================================== Chapter 16 - The Chicago Bible Institute The Chicago bible institute is one of the great monuments which Mr. Moody has left for himself. That it was born in prayer is proved from the words of an address which Mr. Moody made at one of the last meetings of the World’s Fair campaign: "Little we thought, when we prayed some three or four years ago for a Bible Institute near the church, that we should have any such opportunity to preach the Gospel to the world as we have had these last six months. We should not have been able to do the work we have clone during these past months but for the Institute and the three hundred workers who had gathered there from every part of the country. No matter at what point the work has been started, we have had force enough to carry it on. I believe that it would have been utterly impossible to have carried on this work without the help of the Bible Institute. It may be that God raised it up for such a time, even as Esther was raised up for the time of her country’s peril and need." THE NEED OF THE INSTITUTION The need of an institution of this kind became evident to Mr. Moody as he went about, holding evangelistic services in various places. There was constant difficulty in getting persons who were able to deal directly with inquirers or who were trained sufficiently in the knowledge of the Word of God to point the soul to Christ. In every meeting there would be great numbers of the poor and of the outcast whose hearts would be reached by the message, and when there was any great number of such inquirers it was quite impossible for him to deal personally with them all. On one occasion, Mr. Moody said, "One of the great purposes we have in view in the Bible Institute is to raise up men and women who will put their lives alongside the life of the poor and the laboring classes, and bring the influence of the Gospel to bear upon them." Out of a little Mission Sunday School, which had been organized by Mr. Moody, grew the Chicago Avenue Church, and it was in this church that the first steps were taken toward the founding of such an institute as Mr. Moody had in mind. In the spring of 1889, the Chicago Evangelization Society came into existence, and Mr. Moody was its president. From the experiment made at the church it was clearly demonstrated that it would be possible to have a Bible Institute conducted on practical lines in the City of Chicago. Ground and buildings near the church were purchased, and the organization was effected in October, 1889, when the Institute opened for regular work. THE BEGINNING At the beginning something like eighty students were enrolled, fifty of them being men and thirty women. Three houses had been already purchased by the Institution, and another brick structure was at once begun which was finished the following year. The attendance during this year was three times as great as the first year. The students came from all parts of the world. They held religious opinions of every type, and they came to the Institute with different objects. Some of them intended to continue their studies after leaving the Institute; others expected to enter immediately upon active work when they left, indeed, there were many pastors of churches, who came there in order that they might increase their knowledge of practical ways of working in their own churches. Perhaps in no institution of the country would there be manifest a more intense zeal for work than would be found there. The main object of the institution was both practical and simple; it was to give all the students a thorough working knowledge of the Scriptures, in order that they might be equipped for personal Christian work, and at the same time have their own spiritual lives stimulated. There are, in all, accommodations for about three hundred students. The two departments are kept separate except at the time of lectures, when all come together in the lecture hail of the main building. THE OBJECT IN VIEW One is not a guest at the Institute for any great length of time without discovering the object which the Institute has in view. He will see here 200 or 300 bright and earnest Christian young men and women from all parts of the world. As a rule, they come from that class of people which the Institute is training them to help. They have no fortune back of them, few of them have had the advantages of an education beyond that afforded by the common schools. They come there with strong convictions that God has called them to some special service which needs special training such as the Institute can give them. One feels the influence of the spiritual atmosphere which pervades the Institute as soon as the door is opened to receive him, and, if he were spending some little time among these young people so consecrated to their work, he could not come away, without having received great personal blessing. THE ORDINARY ROUTINE The ordinary routine of the Institute is systematic and orderly to a high degree. The hour for breakfast is seven o’clock. All take part in asking God’s blessing upon the food, for grace is "sung" and not "said". When the breakfast is finished the chairs are pushed back from the tables and a short exposition is made of the Scripture chosen for the morning devotions. As a rule this Scripture is read by Mr. John H. Hunter, who has a general oversight of the men’s department; if not by him, then by some one of the visiting lecturers who is living temporarily at the Institute. At eight o’clock they assemble for prayer, and at nine o’clock the young men and young women assemble together for the first lecture of the day. From ten to eleven o’clock the time is given to thorough instruction, under competent teachers, in vocal and instrumental music. The second lecture hour is at eleven o’clock, and dinner at 12.30. At four o’clock in the afternoon comes the fourth lecture, and the evenings are invariably taken up by the students who are assigned to various places for practical work. It would seem to be one object of these students to bring theory and practice close together, for as in the morning they are shown where to find the Scriptures which would point the way to Christ, they are in the evening sent out with those same Scriptures to make a practical application of them upon the unsaved. THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF THE WORK The practical part of the education which is given to those who study here is of the most important character. Every student is required to do a certain proportion of practical work each week that he is in the Institute. Sometimes he will be obliged to visit the homes in some section of the city designated to him. At other times he will be obliged to organize and carry on cottage prayer meetings. Then, nearly all the missions of Chicago are supplied more or less by students from the Institute. Children’s meetings are held, industrial schools are also carried on, and in almost every case where students are sent to conduct meetings they are obliged also to hold inquiry meetings, so that they get hold not only of theories, but also are shown how to put these theories into operation. The course of study is most varied, though the main object constantly adhered to is that all the students may get a thorough knowledge of the Word of God and be taught how they may skillfully apply it. The doctrines of the Scriptures are studied in a thorough and careful manner. Several books are taken up and an analytic study made of these. Each year some of the best known Bible students of the country are brought in to reinforce the regular staff, and these give daily lectures on some biblical theme. As I have before stated, one of the most impressive features of the Institute life is the spiritual atmosphere which pervades it. TOUCHING REQUESTS FOR PRAYER After the supper hour, and just before the students scatter in all directions to visit the homes and missions and other places of assignment, they meet together for prayer, and those who have some special burden upon their hearts send up a written request to the leader. It is most touching sometimes to hear the words of these requests for prayer. Sometimes they are like this, "Please pray for that unsaved man with whom I am to speak to-night; or "Pray for me that I may conduct the services in my mission tonight in all the power of the Holy Spirit;" or "Pray for me that I may be led to do the right thing in striving to arrange for that series of cottage meetings." One by one these requests are read by the leader, and then the most fervent prayers are offered up that these desires may be heard and granted. The students insist upon it, that they have the most remarkable answers to prayer, and no one could be present at one of these meetings and notice the nature of the requests, and the fervent spirit in which they are presented to God, without believing that these prayers would be answered. The teacher from the outside has, as a rule, rare opportunities to get into close and intimate relationship with the young men of the Institute. If he can succeed in interesting these men with his Bible theme, he will be sure to be visited by large numbers, sometimes as many as twenty, who come to him for some further light upon questions which are troubling them. The students are frank and open-hearted, and are earnestly seeking whatever light God will give them. They seem to have a burning desire to be fitted properly for any work to which God may call them. The Rev. R. A. Torrey, who is the superintendent of the Institute, is without question the most capable man that Mr. Moody could have found for this very important position. He has preeminent endowments which qualify him in a very special manner to conduct this work which has been in his charge from its inception. He is a man of most delightful spirit, and has a profound knowledge of the Word of God, which he has wrought up in a most thorough form, and which is with intense earnestness taught the students, who are subjected to a very thorough examination at the end of their course. MR. TORREY’S INFLUENCE UPON THE INSTITUTE Mr. Torrey is not only the superintendent of the Institute, but also the pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church. He is loved by all the students, who accept as absolute his word, from which it is dangerous for any strange teacher to digress. He has had from the beginning a most profound influence upon the character of the Institute, as well as of the students who have gone from it. These students are trained for special spheres of work, spheres which would never be filled, if it were necessary to depend upon the ordinary theological seminaries. The theological student prepares himself for the ordinary ministry; those who come to the Moody Institute are seeking to become pastors’ assistants, mission workers in the slums, secretaries to Young Peoples’ Societies or Young Men’s Christian Associations, Sunday school workers, and evangelists. That there is need of such workers is clearly evident from the large number of requests which are constantly coming in to the superintendent for men to supply vacancies. It has been impossible hitherto to meet the demand, but nevertheless, year after year, there has been put into the world by this Institute a large number of consecrated Christian workers for fields which are considered by no means easy. A STEADY INCREASE The Institute is accomplishing the very object which Mr. Moody had in mind at the time of its organization, This object has been held to unswervingly from the beginning, and in the ten years’ history of the Institute it would be impossible to overestimate the value of the work which has been accomplished by it. Steadily from the beginning, the number of students in attendance has increased, and this increase is noticeable not only in the men’s department, but also in the women’s department. During these first ten years of its organization nearly three thousand students have studied at the Institute, and at least a third of these are now engaged in active Christian work throughout the country. The Institute has not only provided home workers, but is represented also by a large number in the field of foreign missions, and some of those who have come from foreign lands to be educated here have returned to their own homes and are loyally serving Christ there. Since the organization three other buildings have been purchased for the work of the Institute, and in connection with the Institute a Colportage Association has been established, which has published millions of books, and distributed them widely in all parts of the world. The purpose of this Association is to send out sound Christian literature at low prices. The work has no denominational connection, and all Christians are expected to give their sympathy and co-operation to the work in order that the vast influence of vicious literature, which is now so widely circulated, may be counteracted. Thousands of these books are distributed free, and it has been the special desire of Mr. Moody to put these books within the reach of the prisoners in the penal institutions of the country. LET US MULTIPLY SUCH INSTITUTES So long as the Institute endures, it cannot be said of Chicago, at least, that there is not a large number of intelligent, consecrated, Christians who are both willing and eager to go down in the slums and dark places and put their lives alongside the lives of the outcast and fallen. So deeply impressed was Mr. Moody with the importance of this work that he thought it desirable that such institutes should be started in other sections of the country, and I believe that he cherished the hope that, at no distant day, there might be institutes of this character in all of our great centres of population. It is the unique and splendid work which is being accomplished by the Institute that kept it close to Mr. Moody’s heart, and just so far as our sympathies go out toward the poor and the unsaved masses, we will seek by all the influence we possess to perpetuate this, and to multiply in our land institutes of a similar character. It is most interesting to notice the peculiar and deep influence which Mr. Moody had, not only upon the students in the Institute, but also upon those who gathered together at Northfield and Mt. Hermon. Not always at once were students drawn to him, but it would not be long before his tremendous magnetism would be felt in their lives. He held a unique position in all the schools that were under his direction; both at Northfield and Chicago he came to be regarded as a father, and no one would be able to estimate the influence exerted upon the character of the students by Mr. Moody’s broad sympathy. THE INSTITUTION WAS BORN OF NECESSITY While the Northfield schools were ever near to his heart, there was a special sense in which the work that was being carried on at the Institute appealed to him. Possibly too, his heart was drawn out more toward the Chicago work, because this more than the other depended upon the personal interest of Mr. Moody for its maintenance. It is in no sense a theological seminary; it was never designed to be; it was not even designed to supplement the education that might be obtained at a theological seminary. The institution was born of the necessity of bringing into the field workers who would be skilled to meet the needs and difficulties of those who never would come within the reach of the graduate of the theological school. If, however, the Institute does not cover the ground of theoretical study, which is ordinarily taken up by the technical school, it is nevertheless in its own way giving a thorough training for those who are to do a special work in the world. The Bible itself is the book upon which the attention of the student is constantly centred. The book is approached from various standpoints. All the great doctrines are most carefully and systematically taught the students. It would be a strange thing for any young man or woman to pass through the course of studies without having at the end a very clear conception of the great truth of salvation; and also a clear idea as to how salvation might be presented to other men. Whoever has had the privilege of working in the Institute of Chicago, or in any other place where graduates of this institution have assisted in the work, would see as no other how much real value lies in an institution of this kind. It would not be too much to say that the effectiveness of any evangelistic campaign would be quadrupled if there could be distributed through the audience a number of trained workers such as are to be found in the Chicago Bible Institute. THE WOMEN’S DEPARTMENT The splendid services of Mrs. S. B. Capron, for so long the superintendent of the women’s’ department, ought not to be passed by without notice. Coming as she did, enriched in experience, she brought a peculiar ability and a devotion of spirit to the work of the Institute. The same delightful spiritual atmosphere which pervades the men’s department, is noticeable in the buildings of the women’s department. These consecrated young women are, by no means, behind the young men in their zeal for the work which is laid out for them. They, too, are sent out upon the streets to work. They go to the police stations; they are to be found in the halls and tents; they go from house to house in visitation of the poor and the sick, and are especially equipped with the right answer for those who may be inquiring the way of salvation. As a rule the students are assigned to their different sections in pairs. They hold a mothers’ meeting on Wednesday at the Institute and, in their house to house visitation, invite the mothers to this meeting, telling them to bring their children too, and these little ones are entertained and taught by kindergarten methods, while the poor mothers have their bodies refreshed and their souls brought into contact with a higher spiritual plane. Then they are invited also to the great Sunday afternoon Bible class, to which they come, and again the children are taken care of in the primary departments. Often they can be induced also to attend the evening service, and all these tremendous results are being achieved, home and character being transformed by this noble band of young women who have given up their whole lives to consecrated service of this kind. DEVELOPMENT OF THE STUDENT’S CHARACTER The object of the Institute is not altogether defined by, or limited to, the study of the Bible or practical Christian work. There is another design, namely, that the character of the students themselves may be developed on spiritual and symmetrical lines. Many a one has come to the Institute with little conception of the possibilities lying within himself, or of the possibilities of service lying without him, who here, under the spiritual influence of the home, has had these things dawn upon him and has gone forth with some wide and noble plan of action. No wonder that this Institution, with its noble aim and its already accomplished good, was the joy and delight of Mr. Moody’s heart. It means the perpetuation of that work to which he had consecrated his own life; it means that after him will be raised up generations of men and women who will, so far as God will give them strength, do what he has done, by putting their lives alongside the lives of the poor and wretched and miserable and outcast. No man in all the world has so closely touched the lowly classes as did Mr. Moody. It might almost be said of him as it was said of his Master, "The common people heard him gladly," and his great design in the establishing of the Bible Institute was that it might ever be in the interests of the common people. In the interests of the common people it has been and doubtless will continue to be, for whatever of training may be gained by the students is immediately utilized, not in the behalf of the rich, but in behalf of those whom sin has marred, and who are in special need of personal sympathy such as they can give. Nowhere in all the world will there stand a whiter monument to the memory of Mr. Moody than this great training school of Christian workers. This is no finished work but one that will live on, and one which, by reason. of its peculiar need, will have a peculiar claim upon the sympathy and prayer of those who are interested in it. It was one of the cherished desires of Mr. Moody’s heart that this Institution might be put upon a basis that would make it possible for the work to continue without a constant appeal to its devoted friend is for an annual deficit. No more fitting tribute can be paid to the founder of the Institution than to fulfill this desire of his heart, and raise a sufficient endowment to perpetuate this one of his greatest works. At Mr. Moody’s special request, I, a few years ago, became Vice-President of the Bible Institute. He was desirous at that time that I should give much of my life to it, and I was very strongly tempted to do so. But the call of duty was clearer in another direction, and so I was obliged to turn aside, although nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to have been associated with him in this great work. I desire to commend it to my readers everywhere, and I believe the blessing of God will be especially upon them, if they should help, not only with their prayers, but by the contribution of their money, to the firmer establishment of this important work. Young men and women who could not possibly secure training for Christian work elsewhere, have been given opportunities for study here, and to my personal knowledge hundreds of them have been helped by Mr. Moody when there was no one else to help. I pray God, that in Chicago the Bible Institute may ever stand as a memorial of the work of this consecrated man of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 05.17. THE WORLD'S FAIR CAMPAIGN ======================================================================== Chapter 17 - The World’s Fair Campaign When the World’s Columbian Exposition became an assured fact, and Chicago was finally selected as the place of the celebration, Mr. Moody was quick to notice the possibility which would arise to carry the Gospel to the multitudes likely to be attracted there. Other men might have been blind to this, but not this mighty man of God. When he came to Chicago his mind was clear as to the necessity of a wide Opportunity for evangelistic movement, and he was in a position to command the services of those men upon whom God had set the special seal of His approval. His heart had for some time been fixed upon this work, as is evident from the address he made after his memorable experience on the steamship Spree, in which he says: A VOW TO GOD "As I was preparing to leave London after my last visit there, I called upon a famous physician. He told me that my heart was weakening and that I would have to ease up on my work, that I would have to be more careful of myself; and I was going home with an idea that I would ease up a little. During the voyage, the announcement came that our vessel, the Spree, was sinking, and we rolled there for two days helplessly. No one on earth knows what I passed through at the thought that probably my work was finished, and that I would never again have the privilege of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and on that first dark night after the accident, I made a vow that if God would let me live and bring me back to America, I would go back to Chicago, and at this World’s Fair, preach the Gospel with all the power He would give me. And God has made it possible for me to keep that vow during the past five months. It seems as if I went to the very gates of Heaven during that two days on the sinking ship, and God permitted me to come back and preach His Son a little longer." After landing on these shores he went to his Northfield home, and having brought the students of Mt. Hermon and Northfield together at six o’clock in the morning, he said to them, "If you have any regard for me, if you love me, pray for me that God may anoint me for the work in Chicago; I want to be filled with the Spirit that I may preach the Gospel as I never preached it before; we want to see the salvation of God as we have never seen it before." Not only to the students of Northfield and Mt. Hermon did he emphasize the importance and value of prayer, but he insisted it upon in other directions so that in all regions there was rising continuous prayer that the blessing of God might be poured out upon the unsaved masses which would throng the streets of Chicago. THE FIRST MEETING OF THE CAMPAIGN It was a most fitting thing that the first meeting of this campaign should be held in the Chicago Avenue Church, known as Moody’s church. On the first Sunday of May, which was bright and beautiful, a great congregation came together in the church and waited patiently for the appearance of the evangelist. He came in, followed by Mr. Sankey and other distinguished leaders. When the time arrived for Mr. Moody to speak, he took for his theme the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son. If, in his description, he pictured the elder brother as the meanest man on earth, and unworthy of a father’s love, on the other hand he showed how graciously God received those who, through repenting of their sins, turned back to Him. The yearning of his own heart that the lost sinner might be found, was a key note, and gave the characteristics of all the sermons that were subsequently preached by Mr. Moody and his co-workers in this campaign. All were animated with the one spirit, that Christ might be presented lovingly, earnestly, and persistently as the friend of sinners. The vast number of those who accepted the invitation invariably offered, shows how God set His seal to simple testimony of this character. A MARKED CHARACTERISTIC OF HIS FAITH Afternoon services were held in this same church, and again there was another crowd to hear Mr. Moody, who spoke on the subject of Praise. He had such a full assurance that God would send a wave of blessing over the city that his heart was filled with praise in anticipation of it. The invariable desire on the part of Mr. Moody to praise God with his whole heart for anticipated blessings was one of the marked characteristics of his faith. This is as rare as it is beautiful, and it was the theme of that afternoon meeting. At night the church was thronged again, while services were also held in other places. Special meetings in different parts of the city were also conducted by the students of the Institute. So passed the first day of the great campaign in Chicago. The sins and sorrows of the city lay like a heavy burden on Mr. Moody’s heart, and it became evident, as his plans matured, that his design was not merely to reach the multitude of strangers who were pouring into the city, but that he might also influence the citizens themselves. The moral condition of the city was beyond description. Sunday was the great holiday of the week; all the places of amusement were open; the worst features of a Sunday on the Continent were observed, and nothing but the outpouring of the Holy Spirit could check the tide. It is no easy matter to plan and carry into execution the details of a great campaign like this, but Mr. Moody was in perfect command of the situation. He spent hour after hour waiting upon God, and God in response opened door after door of opportunity. Difficulties vanished as they were approached, and what had seemed to be utterly impossible was accomplished. As the days went by the magnitude of the work was very much increased. The great buildings were secured in different sections of the city, theatres, halls, churches and missions were opened. The large circus tent of Forepaugh was also secured. Five other great tent tabernacles were moved from section to section, and sometimes great crowds assembled in the open air. Speakers were assigned to these places, and day after day for months there went out a testimony for God such as perhaps no other city of the world has had. SONG, A FEATURE OF THE MEETINGS Mr. Moody had surrounded himself with a company of men with whom it was one of the greatest privileges to be associated. The men most used of God in evangelistic work went there, as well as a large number of others who had been gifted with the power of Gospel singing. The singing was one of the strong features in all the meetings, and contributed largely to their success. Mr. Moody always made the most careful arrangements for the song services in connection with the meetings. Indeed the singing was a feature of no small importance in all these meetings. Where it was possible, great choirs were organized under skillful directors and these, together with great congregations who were once wrought up into the spirit of praise, would fill the buildings with such music as is rarely heard. Wherever Mr. Moody conducted evangelistic services he paid the same careful thought to the services of praise, and the meetings in the Chicago campaign will by many be remembered best for the magnificent singing. As a rule when the services of the day were over, Mr. Moody would meet with his co-workers at the Bible Institute. Each speaker, as he came in from some different section of the city, would be greeted with a cordial word from Mr. Moody and an inquiry as to the nature of the services. Almost without exception, the reports were of the most encouraging character. Not only were the audiences large, but often the aisles were filled with chairs, great crowds as well being turned from the doors, unable to get in. Often the report was that large numbers had definitely accepted Christ. THE REPORTS OF CO-WORKERS At all such reports Mr. Moody’s face would be lighted up with a look of intense pleasure. From the beginning, the only reason that he had for holding these services was in order that sinners might be saved. While he was always glad if Christians were reached and lifted up into a higher level of experience, still the deeper joy came to his heart when some lost man or woman might be through his, or his colleagues’, preaching led to accept Christ. Rarely an evening passed that such news was not brought in to the great joy of Mr. Moody. God had so singularly owned the work from the beginning that scarcely a meeting passed without some being led by the Spirit of God to a definite surrender of themselves to His service. It was a privilege to look upon Mr. Moody’s face when these reports were brought in by different speakers. When the last one had reported, the meetings would close with praise and prayer. No one who was privileged to attend these after-services in the Institute will ever forget the delightful fellowship of these godly men. They had come from all parts of the world. They had been most largely used of God, and were men of wide and varied experiences. The evening would be spent, not merely in the giving of reports of the special services from which they had come, but other things drawn out of past experience would he brought in, so that one would feel that he was in some special way connected with the carrying out of God’s purpose, as he might listen or contribute something to these meetings. By reason of the work connected with the meetings themselves, the men might come in very much exhausted, yet, after such a meeting as has been spoken of, there would come a sense of a new baptism of the Spirit, and in their waiting upon God there would be a renewal of strength for whatever service might lie before them. THE MONDAY CONFERENCES In accordance with the custom of the Institute, Mondays were set aside as days of conference and rest. Mr. Moody would meet the workers from all parts of the city and put to them questions as to the results of the week’s work. These meetings, by reason of the suggestions and comments that were offered, were not only deeply interesting, but also exceedingly profitable. Mr. Moody himself would put questions to those who had been conducting the meetings. He would inquire about the progress of the work, ask the number of people that had been present, and how many of them had made up their minds to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. He would also want to know the different nationalities that might be represented, as to the proportion of the working men and of the poor, desiring to learn, if possible, how many of those attending were representatives of visitors to the World’s Fair. Then these workers would be asked to give their opinion as to the value of the meetings compared with others which had been held by these same workers at other places. Questions of this kind, and answers given by trained and skillful workmen, would bring out the most useful suggestions. It was also discovered that at the tents, congregations were a thousand or more at the evening services, and perhaps half as large in the day services. These audiences were made up not only of Protestants but also of Roman Catholics. In some sections, the neighborhood being almost altogether Roman Catholic, perhaps more than three-fourths of the great audiences would belong to that faith. In some of the tents were large numbers of workingmen who would sit with intense interest expressed in their faces, and when the invitation was given, individuals among these would make decision for Christ. As a rule, all the churches in the immediate vicinity of the tent meetings were in perfect sympathy with the work, the ministers attending the meetings and sitting- on the platform, and the largest number of workers were secured from these churches. MEETINGS FOR CHILDREN Some of the most interesting reports were made concerning the children’s meetings. Oftentimes Sunday school teachers would be drawn to these meetings where they would find their classes assembled, and in many instances, if the members of the class were not reached, Sunday school teachers would be, and those who had not hitherto made a profession of faith would come out definitely for Christ in these meetings. In all the sections where these meetings were held, the spiritual power of the neighboring churches was intensely magnified. The prayer meetings of the local churches grew in attendance, and the Sunday services were far better attended than ever before. It was most interesting also to hear the reports of the men who had charge of the great meetings in the theatres. Sometimes, as for example at the Empire Theatre, nearly the whole congregation would consist of men only, and a very large proportion of these men would be not only out of work, but drinking men. For these, temperance meetings were held, and hundreds of pledges were signed by these men, while hundreds of others yielded themselves altogether to Christ. GREAT THRONGS AT THE MEETINGS While there were large audiences at nearly all the services, some of them reached enormous proportions. Dr. J. Munro Gibson, of London, who was associated with Mr. Moody in his campaign, said on returning to London, "While the Fair grounds were quite deserted on Sundays the churches were full. There was little use trying to get into the churches where Mr. Moody or Mr. McNeill preached unless you went an hour or two before the time, but even with only a preacher of ordinary abilities the church would be filled, not only in the morning but also at the evening service, and it is not an easy thing to secure a good attendance for evening services in Chicago." It was not only on Sunday nights, but on week nights as well. Many of the great buildings were thronged long before the hour of opening. At the Haymarket Theatre, in West Madison Street, where Mr. Moody was to preach, a great throng would stand in the streets long before the doors were opened, and when they were opened every available inch of space would be filled in an almost incredibly short time, and those who failed to gain entrance would be directed to some place for an overflow meeting, to which, however, they could by no possibility be induced to go until assured that Mr. Moody would speak there. Perhaps the most extraordinary meetings in point of number, were those held in Forepaugh’s circus tent,’ and those in Tattersall’s Hall. When Mr. Moody was arranging to secure the use of the mammoth tent, he had difficulties in making an agreement with the manager, who expected Sunday to be his great day in Chicago, but he was finally prevailed upon to allow him the use of it for Sunday morning, reserving Sunday afternoon and evening for his show. When these arrangements were being made, one of the circus men contemptuously asked him if he supposed it would be possible to get an audience of 3,000. What must have been his surprise when, arriving on the scene Sunday morning, he found assembled a vast congregation of 18,000 people, whereas the attendance at the circus in the afternoon and evening was so poor that the performances had to be given up altogether on Sundays. This was perhaps the greatest throng that attended any one service. After an hour of singing by the great choir and congregation, Mr. Moody spoke from the text, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." His whole being seemed to be under the control of the power and Spirit of God, and never perhaps did he speak with so much earnestness as to this vast multitude. ENCOURAGING FEATURES OF THE WORK It was at this service that the pathetic incident happened where a little child was lost, and Mr. Moody taking the little one in his arms made an effort to discover the parents. As the anxious father made his way toward the platform, Mr. Moody, still holding the child, said, with tears streaming down his cheeks, "this is what Jesus Christ came to do, he came to seek and save sinners, and to restore them to their heavenly Father’s embrace." It was a most solemn service and will never be forgotten by any one who had the privilege of attending. Toward the close of the meetings Mr. Moody said, "We have to-day everything to encourage us, and nothing to discourage us. This has been by far the best week we have had. The Gospel has through this agency been brought to 150,000 people during the week. I have never seen greater eagerness to hear the word of God, The largest halls are too small for the crowds that come to many of the services. One night, for instance, on my way to the Fair Grounds, I beheld one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen on earth. It was a wonderful display of fireworks and illuminations, tens of thousands of people gazing on the scene. It seemed useless to expect any one to come away from that scene and sit down in a tabernacle to hear the Gospel; but the house was filled, and we had a blessed meeting. The following nights though cold and rainy, with a damp, uncomfortable room, the people crowded in until every inch of space was occupied. I thank God that I am living in Chicago to-day; these have been the happiest moments of my life; what a work He has given us to-day; what encouragements He has given us; how He has blessed us. Perhaps never in your life will some of you have an opportunity to do as much for Christ as now. Though it required a vast sum of money, Mr. Moody was equal to the occasion, and raised every dollar. Northfield was deeply interested in the work, and contributed largely. The work being presented by Dr. Gordon, of Boston, a contribution of about $10,000 was sent to Mr. Moody from Northfield after Dr. Gordon’s appeal. Mr. Moody himself had great skill in getting good collections. When he had to leave the Haymarket Theatre, he said to the audience, "How many people believe we ought to go on? Just lift your hands." And when they had their hands up, he said, "Now put them down deep into your pockets, and help us to carry it on." No work of this kind can be measured in terms of money. I am sure that in the days to come there will still be great harvests gathered from this sowing, and this World’s Fair campaign will doubtless be numbered among the greatest ever conducted by Mr. Moody. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 05.18. THE LAST CAMPAIGN ======================================================================== Chapter 18 - The Last Campaign The last public appearance of Mr. Moody was in Kansas City, Missouri. He began a series of meetings there November 12, 1899. Earlier in the autumn a meeting of the ministers of the evangelical churches had sent an invitation to the great evangelist to captain a religious campaign in the young and vigorous western city. The preliminary discussions of the proposed meetings afforded proof of the confidence reposed in Mr. Moody by many men of many minds. About him the religious forces of the city crystallized with enthusiasm. His name was a power, making for Christian unity. The executive committee of ministers represented the Presbyterian, Methodist. Episcopal, Congregational, Christian, Methodist Episcopal, South and Baptist denominations. HOW THE EXPENSES WERE DEFRAYED When the laymen were informed of the proposed meetings they sent word to the ministers that they would raise the funds necessary to defray all expenses--a pledge that was abundantly fulfilled. Several of the large business establishments announced that they would pay for one day each the rental of the hall where the meetings were held. The general gratification over the coming of Mr. Moody was a splendid testimonial to his recognized leadership in soul-winning. Mr. Moody arrived in the city on Saturday morning, in readiness to inaugurate the campaign on the day following. Immediately after breakfast he went with members of the local committee, to have a look at Convention Hall, the mammoth building where the meetings were to be held. He stood upon the stage and tried his voice. He was more than satisfied with the result, declaring that he had come 1,500 miles from New York to find the best hall he had spoken in in this country. The hall had been dedicated only in February of that year. It has a seating capacity of between 15,000 and 20,000. In the interior there are four floors commanding the stage, and here the famous evangelist in his last meetings preached the Gospel to some of the largest audiences ever reached at one time by his voice. MR. MOODY’S LARGE HUMAN INTEREST One secret of Mr. Moody’s hold upon the public was illustrated by a characteristic conversation on the occasion of his first visit to the Convention Hall. He had a large human interest, even in secular movements and institutions. One of the reporters of the party said to him: "Do you know, Mr. Moody, how this building was put up? Do you know what it means to this city?" "No" said Mr. Moody, " I suppose some wealthy man owned it." "Kansas City owns it." Was the answer. "Nearly every man and woman, hundreds of children contributed to its building, and own stock in it. It was built by gifts of the poor, as well as of the rich. It was built voluntarily by the people, and not by taxes. And it stands to-day as it stood the day it was finished, without a dollar of debt." At once Mr. Moody was intensely interested and demanded the story of the building. It was given him. "That is the sort of thing that annihilates anarchy," said Mr. Moody, in a burst of enthusiasm. "When I laid eyes on the hall, I said that there was no such hall in the country. But now that I know the sentiment and feeling that have been put into the hall, I know there is no other such building in the world. Do you know that when men are induced to unite as this city has united, where all classes of people behave as if they had common interests, a great lesson has been taught. The value of your hall, it strikes me, it is not in dollars and cents, but moral significance. I did not believe that such a thing could be done in this generation. It has never been done before." It was this cordial sympathy and hearty appreciation of everything that influenced or manifested the life of a community that the people feel that Mr. Moody was one with them, and upon this common ground of vantage he gained the public ear for his message. THE FIRST SERVICE AT KANSAS CITY The first meeting of the memorable series was held on Sunday afternoon. The singing was led by great chorus of more than 500 voices, organized for the occasion. This was in charge of Prof. C. C. Case, who accompanied Mr. Moody. In his characteristic way Mr. Moody said, "There’s good material in that choir. They sing famously well. At first, I am told, there was some difference between the Methodists and Presbyterians in the manner of their singing. The Methodists sang fast, and the Presbyterians sang slow. The result was peculiar. But we have taught them to pull together pretty well now." Another feature of singing that pleased Mr. Moody was an old men’s quartette, which sang several times. The happy faculty possessed by evangelist of securing desired action on part of vast audience, was shown in this first meeting in connection with singing. The hymns to be used were printed in sheet form, and were in the hands of the audience. The noise made in handling them threatened to drown the speaker’s voice. Just before he began his sermon Mr. Moody said "All who have sheet hymns please hold them up high." At once 5,000 hands were uplifted, holding the rustling sheets of paper. The effect was that of a Chautauqua salute. "Now shake them," he said. They all did, and the result was an indescribably noisy confusion. "Now sit on them," he said, with a laugh. "I only wanted you to see what a noise they would make, if you kept handling them." The result of this felicitous admonition was a reign of silence. The service was to begin at three o’clock, but before that time the great auditorium was filled, and it was necessary to close and lock the doors. Several thousand people were turned away. At night an overflow meeting crowded the Second Presbyterian Church near by, and great crowds of people went home, unable to get into either meeting. There had been notable gatherings in the great Convention Hall on former occasions, but even the dedication services, with the attraction of Sousa’s Band and the appeal to civic pride, failed to bring together such a throng as that assembled to hear the man of God preach his plain, direct Gospel. It was the greatest meeting in point of attendance in the history of the Mississippi Valley. It was evidence of the fact that, as some one has said, "man is incurably religious," and of the further fact, that there is attractiveness in the message of a recognized ambassador for Christ. DEEP EFFECT OF THE OPENING SERMONS The subject of the opening sermons, afternoon and evening, was the same, "Sowing and Reaping." Mr. Moody looked down into the thousands of upturned faces, and amidst intense silence, began the delivery of his last series of sermons by saying: "In after years, as you go by this building, I want you to remember this text that I am going to read to you. I pray that God will write it on every heart. It appeals to men and women of every sort and condition; to the priests and the ministers and the reporters: ’Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.’" Then followed such a sermon as has won thousands for Christ. Terse, direct sentences, freighted with convicting truth, were dropped deliberately from his lips. He was the master of the assemblies. The people sat in rapt attention, and upon their faces could be traced the effects of varying phases of thought. Toward the close the preacher made an appeal, tender as a young mother’s love, and unnoticed tears fell from thousands of eyes. In solemn silence, at the last, the benediction dismissed audiences whose souls had been stirred to deepest depths. APPEALS TO THE UNCONVERTED The meetings on Monday fulfilled the expectations aroused by Sunday’s services. Following the evening sermon an after-meeting was held in the Second Presbyterian Church, just across the street from Convention Hall. The church was crowded, many standing. As Mr. Moody took his place, the old hymn, "Just as I am," was sung, and then, with no preamble, he began one of his face to face dealings with inquirers. In a simple, conversational way, he presented the truth, just as though he were sitting by the side of each one before him. He closed with an effective incident from his army experience, illustrating his appeal. Then the evangelist paused a moment. The church was still. The ticking of the clock could be distinctly heard. Then he spoke: "Will any one say he will trust Christ? If so, say ’I will’." He paused, but no reply came, and then again he put the question quietly, "Who will say he will trust Christ?" A moment of silence again, and far back in the church there came a low, but firm, response, "I will." At the sound Mr. Moody advanced quickly to the edge of the platform, and with his eyes questioned those before him. The responses came fast and faster, and in a few minutes fully fifty had said "I will." The after-meeting on Tuesday evening was a repetition of the one the night before. It was marked by the conversion of one of the most prominent business men of the city. His action, which was without reserve of any sort, made the timid confident, and the result was decision on the part of many. THE BEGINNING OF THE END On Wednesday came the first indications of a break-down. The great strain of speaking twice a day in so large a building as Convention Hall began to tell on Mr. Moody. After the night meeting he told the ministers that he was almost exhausted; that he must have some rest, and that it would be impossible for him to lead the inquirers’ meeting in the church. He went at once to his room at the Coate’s House, that he might rest and be ready for the great meetings of the next day. On Thursday afternoon he gave signs of exhaustion, though anything like a total physical collapse was not apprehended. To a sympathetic inquiry on the part of one of the city ministers, who asked him how he felt, the answer was, "Not big." At night his appearance had changed. His face was flushed, and he perspired profusely. He appeared at times hardly able to support himself, and it seemed sometimes as though he would fall from weakness. The pauses after making his telling points were lengthened, but otherwise his presentation of the truth was as usual. "Then cometh the end." The benediction was pronounced. The public personal work of Dwight L. Moody was finished. For tens of thousands of people whose lives were touched by the evangel of this soul-winner every incident of that last day will possess a deep interest. There was one circumstance of the afternoon that, in the light of what followed, seemed prophetic in its significance. When Mr. Moody sat in his chair, so tired, during the song service, before beginning his sermon, he asked Mr. Case to sing "Saved by Grace," Fanny J. Crosby’s beautiful hymn. In it is the stanza: "Some day the silver cord will break, And I, no more, as now, shall sing; But O, the joy when I shall wake Within the palace of the King. Then I shall see Him, face to face, And tell the story, Saved by Grace." But if Mr. Moody had any premonition of the approaching end, it passed away as he became possessed of his subject, "The Grace of God." He warned the older Christians to avoid living in the past. He denounced the pessimistic tendencies of those who were sure the former days were better than these. "I have no sympathy," he said, "with the idea that our best days are behind us. In a hopeful, cheery mood he spoke of the shock he had experienced some time before, when he picked up a paper and saw himself alluded to as "old Moody." "Why," he said, "I’m not old. I’m only a baby when considered in comparison with the great eternity which is to come." The last sermon on Thursday night was on the parable of "The Great Supper." In it he dealt especially with the excuses men made for staying out of the Kingdom of God. Mr. Moody closed his sermon in a peculiarly effective way. He said that, if an excuse were written out by one of the reporters, asking God, "I pray Thee have me excused from the marriage feast," that no one in the house would sign it. If the note were written to go direct to God, "I will be there," all would want to sign it. "Now," said the preacher, "how many will accept this invitation? How many will say, ’I will?’" Then, as a number responded, the request was repeated. Still he lingered, his energies exhausted, and made one more appeal. "I’ll wait a few minutes longer to see if anyone else, any man, woman or child, will say the word. I could stand here all night and listen to these ’I wills.’" So he went away to his long rest with the sound of "I will" spoken by those who were moved by his words still in his ears. UTTERANCES DURING THE LAST SERMON Some of the utterances of that last day are peculiarly worthy of preservation. Among them were such statements as these: "I’ve worn God’s yoke for over forty years, and I’ve always found it easy." "There’s nothing sweeter than to obey God’s will. He is not a severe task-master." "You may trust God. I can believe in God rather than in D. L. Moody. My heart has deceived me a thousand times, but God has never deceived me once." "If you have a good impulse act on it. Don’t be afraid. I say that most of the good done in the world is done by men who act on impulses. I am sixty-two, and I have acted on impulses all my life. I never made a mistake by acting on an impulse I felt to be good." "The natural growth of the Christian is toward more kindness and a more beautiful nature. Have you ever noticed how many old people seem cross and crabbed these days? That is because they have not been good Christians." "I am not old. I’m only an infant compared with the ages that will roll over me when I am gone." "Those who live in Christ will live forever. The glory is not past, but to come." Friday morning, toward noon, Mr. Moody went out driving. He came back thoroughly exhausted. Not until then did he relinquish the hope of preaching that day. He sent for one of the ministers of the committee, Rev. Dr. Matt. S. Hughes, of the Independence Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, to preach that afternoon, saying, as he made his request, with a flash of his old spirit, "You Methodists are always prepared to preach." Mr. Moody told those who were near him that he had never felt so feeble before. For the first time in forty years he was obliged to abandon his services. He had not been able to lie in bed for three nights, but had taken all his rest in his chair, sleeping only a few minutes at a time. It was decided, upon consultation with his physician, Dr. Schauffler, that he should go home at once. Mr. Moody was sitting in his armchair. He was breathing heavily, and his face seemed puffy and bloated. He said his limbs were swelling, and he had a feeling of oppression about his heart. I’m afraid I shall have to give up the meetings," he said. "It’s too bad." He was silent. "It’s the first time in forty years of preaching that I have had to give up my meetings." He did not say anything for a while. Then he spoke in a low voice. "It is more painful to me to give up those audiences than it is to suffer from my ailments." How regretfully he relinquished his labors! But he could at least lay down his life with the knowledge that his steps had never lagged. BACK TO NORTHFIELD An effort was made to get a special car, but none being available at once, the Gospel car, "The Messenger of Peace," belonging to the American Baptist Publication Society, and in charge of Rev. S. G. Neil, the railroad evangelist, was offered for the trip to Northfield. At nine o’clock on Thursday evening, accompanied by a physician and friends, the homeward journey was begun. The next day a cheery telegram came from Mr. Moody, saying that he had had the best night for a week, and thanking "the good people of Kansas City for all their kindnesses". Charles M. Vining tells an interesting story of the trip home with Mr. Moody. When the train pulled into Detroit it was over an hour late, and unless at least half of this time could be made up, the eastern connection for the through Boston train could not be made. As the train was standing in the station at Detroit, the engineer came back along the train until he reached the Gospel car. "Whose car is this?" he asked one of the party who was standing outside. "It’s a special taking Mr. Moody, the evangelist to his home," was the reply. "Where has he been?" came the question. "He was holding meetings in Kansas City, where he was taken ill, and now we are taking him home. We are about an hour late, and if we don’t make up the time, we won’t make the proper connections for Boston." "Look here," said the engineer, "fifteen years ago I was converted by Moody, and I have lived a better and happier life ever since. I didn’t know Moody’s car was on to-night, but if you want me to make up the time for you I’ll do it. Just tell Mr. Moody that one of his friends is on the engine and then hold your breath." As soon as the train got clear of the city the engineer pulled the throttle open, and it is said that he made the fastest time ever made over this division. Connections were made, and when the party awakened the next morning they were on the Boston train. When Mr. Vining left East Northfield for Kansas City, Mr. Moody said: "Tell them they have caged the old lion at last." While the influences of his work were still active in the churches of the city, came the tidings that he had entered into rest, and Kansas City, the recipient of his latest toil, bowed its head in sorrow over the common bereavement that had come to the Christian world. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 05.19. MR. MOODY AS AN EVANGELIST ======================================================================== Chapter 19 - Mr. Moody As An Evangelist In the ancient Church there were men whose special call and labors were to save her decaying life from extinction, and reinforce it with fresh spiritual power. If time permitted, the names of patriarchs and prophets in the Old Testament might be mentioned, and the names of New Testament apostles might be spoken, for all of these were evangelists in the truest sense of the word. The word "evangelist" means "the bringer of good tidings." This being true, D. L. Moody was an evangelist in the truest sense of the word. The office, being of divine appointment is distinct from that of the pastor, the teacher, and the prophet, and as a rule in all the history of the Church has been given to those who have no stated pastoral charge, but have traveled from place to place as they had opportunity to work. HE LED THEM TO CHRIST Among all the men whom the world has ever known as evangelists D. L. Moody takes no secondary place. One has but to study the history of the Church to learn the value of religious awakenings in general, and he who states that their effect upon the Church is not helpful makes a statement which cannot be supported by the facts. I once heard Mr. Moody say that when some one in the City of Boston had criticized the meetings he had held, he determined that he would go back to the city and call for all those who had been converted in his meetings to be present at a service which he would announce. The great building was filled to over, flowing and at least ten years after his services had closed he had the joy of hearing literally thousands give testimony to the fact that he had led them to Christ. A little before the middle of the eighteenth century began what may be called the First Era of Revivals in this country, part of a religious movement that affected and moulded in a most remarkable manner the entire English-speaking world for three-quarters of a century. The leaders of this movement in England were Whitefield and the Wesleys. The leader in America was Jonathan Edwards. REMARKABLE REVIVALS IN AMERICA "The second Era of Revivals in this country dates from about 1797 Among the honored leaders in the earlier phase of the movement were Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin and President Dwight, associated with such men as the elder Mills. In its later phase, in what may be called the supplement to the Revival of 1797, the revivalists Nettleton and Finney were prominent." It is an interesting fact in revivals that they frequently succeed some great calamity. It was so with the wonderful work of grace known as The Revival of 1859. The churches, to an alarming extent, were characterized by indifference and conformity to the world. Speculation was running rife, and men were entering recklessly in the race for riches. As a natural result, frauds and failures were very common, and in a day the most fanciful dreams would perish and millionaires would become paupers. But God was working in it all, and as a direct result there was a call sent forth to the Christians of the Nation for united prayer, and the result was the mighty awakening. Its history can never be known perfectly. It is written in Heaven, and when we stand there we shall know the full story. But no history of revivals in this generation would be complete without due consideration being given to the man whose name is a household word, and who has been a blessing to Christians throughout the world, Mr. Dwight L. Moody. Mr. Moody may be regarded as being, in his career and work, the representative of lay activity in the work of evangelization especially of the Young Men’s Christian Association as embodying and organizing this activity. That association had largely to do with opening the way for him into the various churches and communities in the early stages of his work, and with awakening and sustaining enthusiasm in his various evangelistic enterprises REPRESENTATIVE EVANGELISTS It would be difficult to imagine men more unlike than these representative evangelists. Jonathan Edwards was a mighty logician, and his great theme was The sovereignty of Gods Grace in the Salvation of Sinners. His sermons stirred the souls of men to their very depths, and sometimes resulted in remarkable outward manifestations of feeling, as when, during the preaching at Enfield, of the sermon entitled ’Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,’ the audience rose up in agony to cry out for mercy. George Whitefield was an orator of great power. Indeed, many of those who heard Whitefield regarded him as the most eloquent of men, and the traditions of the remarkable effects produced, not only by his sermons but by the very tones of his voice, are still handed down. Dr. Asahel Nettleton was very different from either of the two just mentioned. The following general estimate of his life has been given by some one: Dr. Nettleton’s life was marvelously useful and helpful. I never heard the opinion expressed that he was either a great or a very learned man; but I never heard those who knew him intimately question his goodness. He was a most godly man, serious, circumspect, discreet, and gifted with rare discrimination, enabling him to know and read men, and greatly aiding him to adapt himself and his instructions to men in their various moods, with their different peculiarities, prejudices, conditions, and prepossessions. He had power to prevail with God and man. His rare success is not to be attributed to his greatness, nor to his native sagacity, nor to the happy combination of gifts constitutional or natural, nor to everything combined in him, so much as to his holiness. He walked with God, knew and trusted God. He had a mighty faith. He found out how much God loved men, and he was brought into sympathy with God for the salvation of men. His perception of the guilt and doom of sinners was intense and absorbed him. He was a man whose religious development would lead him to cry out while prostrated on the cold ground at the midnight hour, "Give me souls or I die!" CHARLES G. FINNEY Charles G. Finney was still another type of man, but few men have been more mightily used of God than he. Sometimes he could proceed no farther in the service than the reading of his text when the power of God would fall upon his audience and scores of people would profess Conversion. But with all their greatness none of them outshine Dwight L. Moody, who stands out among all men as God’s chosen instrument to show what one consecrated layman may accomplish when filled with the Holy Ghost. He was mightily moved when Henry Varley, the English evangelist, said to him as they were visiting at a friend’s house together in England some years ago: "It remains for the world to see what the Lord can do with a man wholly consecrated to Christ." Mr. Moody soon returned to America, but those words clung to him with such power that he was induced to return to England and commence that wonderful series of labors in Scotland and England. Mr. Moody said to Henry Varley on returning to England, "Those were the words of the Lord through your lips to my soul." Strangers sometimes thought him difficult to approach, and he was, if you were trying to seek him out to say flattering words to him; but no man in all the world was more approachable than he when he knew that you had an unselfish desire with him to extend the bounds of the Kingdom of God. ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO HIS WORK Mr. Moody was especially adapted to his work, first, because he was pre-eminently practical in this practical age. He was most direct in his speech; every one knew exactly what he meant; there was no mistake in his utterance. His energy was literally boundless; day and night and night and day he toiled, never seeming to be weary. His earnestness and enthusiasm were contagious and wherever he found an audience dull and lifeless he had only to speak to them a few minutes until they were ready to do anything that he might command. He preached to larger crowds than any man in his generation, and yet it was ever his object and aim to reach the individual rather than the people in a mass. He was a born organizer, and in this century which has been specially distinguished for its progress in organization he took high rank. He was the world’s greatest evangelist because with all these qualities he knew men through and through, and he was able to move them at his own will. A distinguished southern Presbyterian minister writes me the following, which illustrates my thought. "I first knew Mr. Moody in Louisville, Kentucky during a great campaign that he was conducting there. I first had some conversation with him in regard to some work which we were setting on foot at the time. I found him a most sympathetic listener, and wonderfully helpful, but the moment any allusion was made to his own work, and what great things it was doing for Louisville he instantly shifted the conversation. AN EMBARRASSING INCIDENT "After the work had been in progress for some days, and the great Tabernacle on Broadway had been crowded from day to day, and at every meeting, an incident occurred which troubled me greatly, and which I did not fully understand until many months later. The after-meeting was held one morning in the Warren Memorial Church. At the conclusion of the service a great many workers in the meeting tarried for a moment of conference. A gentleman approached Mr. Moody, ’See this group of ladies on the right of the platform, they are among our prominent women of the City, and supports of our movement, both with their means and their personal work. They have not yet had the pleasure of shaking hands with you, and they have tarried for this purpose.’ ’Where are they?’ asked Mr. Moody. The gentleman pointed them out, saying, ’I will tell them you will see them in a few moments.’ And in a little while I saw Mr. Moody reach under the pulpit stand for his little felt hat, go out a back door, and taking a cab, drive to his hotel. "The ladies waited for some time, and finally left with the greatest feeling of indignation, and many, of them, declaring that they would not again be seen in the meetings, and work with a man who could be so rude. I confessed I was puzzled myself, and did not know what explanation could possibly be offered for the strange action. "Some year or so after this I was in Chicago with him on the platform. Again a woman came to the foot of the stair, and said she wished to see Mr. Moody. ’He was used of God for the salvation of my husband, I want to shake hands with him, and tell him how grateful I feel toward him.’ I said, ’Why certainly, wait and I will see that you have the privilege of seeing him,’ when finally I called his attention to her, and when she had given him her reason for wishing to shake hands with him, without one word he turned and left her. Again, I thought, here is a type of the same thing we saw in Louisville. I comforted the poor woman as best I could. GUARD AGAINST FLATTERY "A few days later in his conference with young men, he spoke of how we should guard against flattery, and how many strange things we had to do, to prevent the devil’s getting a hold upon us. After this conversation I told him of the injustice I had done him in my mind, in the incidents above alluded to. His explanation was very brief, but equally satisfactory and to the point. ’If I had shaken hands with those women, I wouldn’t have been half through before the devil would have made me believe that I was some great man, and from that time I would have to do as he bid. "I was present with him in a meeting for a month after this time, and studied him in the light of this explanation, and no one thing has ever helped me more to explain his closeness to God, and his humility of Spirit than the facts alluded to." His messages had no uncertain sound, concerning the Gospel. He believed that men were lost without Christ. He told the story of the mother who came into the Eye Infirmary in Chicago and said: "Doctor, there is something wrong with my baby’s eyes." He described how the doctor took the child in his arms and carried it to the window, looked at the eyes only a moment, then, shaking his head, gave the child back again to its mother. "Well, Doctor, what is it?" she said. "Poor woman" he replied, "your baby is going blind; in three months’ time he will be stone blind, and no power on earth can ever make him see." Mr. Moody told how the mother held the baby close against her heart and then fell on the floor with a shriek, crying out, "My God! My baby blind! My baby blind! " ON SUDDEN CONVERSION I can see his face now as he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks: "Would to God, we might all be as much moved as that when we know that our friends are spiritually blind as well as lost!" Because he believed this, he preached as he did, and it was this spirit that literally drove him to Kansas City to preach his last sermon, and then turn his face home to die. He believed in instantaneous conversion; he had no patience at all with the man who thought he must grow better to be saved. He once said: "When Mr. Sankey and myself were in one place in Europe, a man preached a sermon against the pernicious doctrines that we were going to preach, one of which was sudden conversion. He said conversion was a matter of time and growth. Do you know what I do when any man preaches against the doctrines I preach? I go to the Bible and find out what it says, and if I am right I give them more of the same kind. I preached more on sudden conversion in that town than in any town I was in, in my life. I would like to know how long it took the Lord to convert Zaccheus? How long did it take the Lord to convert that woman whom He met at the well of Sychar? How long to convert that adulterous woman in the temple, who was caught in the very act of adultery? How long to convert that woman who anointed His feet and wiped them with the hairs of her head? Didn’t she go with the Word of God ringing in her ears, ’Go in peace?’" He was a master in the conduct of evangelistic meetings. I well remember, during the recent Armenian massacres, some one interrupted him in one of his services, saying, "Mr. Moody, I want to ask permission to present a petition, and to ask the people to sign it. This petition is to be sent to the President of the United States, asking him to take some action which may help to stop this dreadful slaughter of innocent people." The man who made the request, was of considerable prominence, and many a leader would have yielded to his entreaty. A BETTER PLAN But Mr. Moody was always true to his convictions, and said, "My friend, I have a better plan than yours. I always believe in approaching any difficulty by the way of the throne of God. Will some one lead us in prayer?" It is sufficient to say that there was no petition presented, and everybody was satisfied, that his was the better way. He was at his best in the Inquiry Meeting. He knew just what Scripture to use, and it was a rare privilege to be anywhere near him when he talked with one who wanted to be a Christian. He was never easily discouraged; circumstances that would greatly hinder others, had no effect upon him, except to lead him closer to Christ. Mr. William Phillips Hall, the Business Men’s Evangelist, relates the following: In Mr. Moody’s early evangelistic career, he began a series of meetings in a church across the sea. There was nothing remarkable about the first service except that it was formal and cold. In the evening the attendance had increased, and when the invitation was given to those to stand, who desired to express an interest in their souls’ salvation, so many stood that the evangelist feared they had not understood his invitation, so he gave it again more plainly, only to have a larger number stand. And when the after-meeting was called, there was a most remarkable manifestation of the power of God, and it was the beginning of a great and memorable work of grace. AN INCIDENT FROM HIS EARLY CAREER One of the members of that church went home to tell an invalid member of the family, that two Americans, by the names of Moody and Sankey, had conducted services in the church that day. The invalid burst into tears, and reaching for her purse took out a piece of an English newspaper, which contained the large announcement that Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey were being greatly used of God in Chicago. So she had read it and had cut it out of the paper, and from that moment began to pray that God would send those two men to her church. I have heard Mr. Moody relate the incident myself and then say: "I believe when the rewards are given out in Heaven, that that invalid woman will share with us in the glory and honor of that grand campaign." No one this side of Heaven can ever estimate the number of people he won to Christ in his evangelistic services. It has been estimated that he preached to millions. It is safe to say that he must, under the power of God, have led hundreds of thousands to a decision. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 05.20. HIS BIBLE ======================================================================== Chapter 20 - His Bible Mr. MOODY loved his Bible. He knew it so well that his eyes and fingers could find any passage that he wanted from Genesis to Revelation, and it mattered not how hurriedly he was speaking, it was as easy for him to find the text he wished as for the master musician to find the notes on the keyboard of a piano, and yet, he tells us himself that, when he first entered the Sunday-school class in Boston, he did not know the difference between the Old Testament and the New. MORE THAN PRECIOUS TO HIM The Bible as a book was more than precious to him. His own Bible was a storehouse of richest treasure. He was never heard even by his closest friends to make a play on Bible words and phrases, and he was always quick to rebuke those who did. He really had no patience at all with the so-called higher criticism of God’s word. He was one day approached by a newspaper reporter who asked for some word from him regarding the higher criticism. "I’m not up to that sort of thing," he said, with a twinkle in his eye. "You see, I never studied theology, and I’m precious glad I didn’t. There are so many things in the Bible that everybody can understand that I’m going to preach about them until they are exhausted, and then, if I have any time left, I’ll take up the texts I don’t understand." "Aren’t you ever asked to discuss difficult passages of Scripture?" was the inquiry. "Mercy, yes" answered Mr. Moody, "almost every day, but I always answer people just as I have answered you, and tell them that there is satisfaction and consolation enough in the promises of the Savior, all that anybody can want. The single verse, ’Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,’ contains all the theology and religion that I need, or any other man or woman. The page taken from the Bible he studied, and giving us a picture of his notes made on the ninety-first Psalm, is but an illustration of the entire book. Almost every page contained an illustration or reference to an incident which shed light upon the truth of God: A VALUABLE ADVICE Years ago Harry Moorehouse, the English Bible reader, said to him while visiting his church in Chicago, "If you will stop preaching your own words and preach God’s Word, you will make yourself a great power for good." This prophecy made a deep impression on Mr. Moody’s mind, and from that day he devoted himself to the study of the Bible as he had never done before. He had been accustomed to draw his sermons from the experiences of Christians and the life of the streets, now he began to follow the counsel of his friend, and preach the Word. His first series of sermons on characters of the Bible was preached during the summer before the Chicago fire, and at once attracted great attention. He also began to compare Scripture with Scripture. "If I don’t understand a text," said his friend Moorehouse, "I ask another text to explain it, and then, if it is too hard for me, I take it to the Lord and ask Him to explain it for me." This method Mr. Moody adopted, and this was one of the secrets of his power. He was mighty in the Scriptures, and spoke as with. authority from God. He had a large library at his house at Northfield, much of which had been presented to him by admiring friends; but it is safe to say that there are not half a dozen books in the world, besides the books of the Old and New Testaments, of which he could give the names and a general outline of their contents; hence there was room in his head for God’s Word, and with it he kept himself continually full and running over. His method of Bible study was like the method of a humming bird studying a clover blossom. From the cells of sweetness down into which he thrust his questions and his prayers, he brought up the honey which God has stored away; he reveled in the profusion and preciousness of the promises, like a robin in a tree full of ripe cherries. It was enjoyable just to see how heartily he enjoyed the Word of God, and almost convincing to see with what absolute faith he clung to it for his own salvation, and with what absolute assurance he urged others to do the same. To Mr. Moody the Word of God was food, drink, lodging, and clothes; he climbed by it toward Heaven, as a sailor climbs the rigging; it was an anchor to hold him; a gale to drive him; it was health, hope, happiness, eternal life. COMMENTS ON HOPE AND FAITH It was by his loving, prayerful, trustful study of the Scriptures that he had acquired his skill as a practical commentator. Take, as a specimen of his off-hand comments, this from one of the Bible readings on Hope: "Hope is the anchor of the soul. Now none of you ever saw an anchor but was used to hold something down. It goes down to the bottom of the sea, and takes hold of the ground, and holds the ship to it. But this anchor, this hope, is to hold us up: it enters within the veil; it takes hold of the throne of God." On the text, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God," he said: "A great many people are mourning their want of faith; but there is no wonder that they haven’t any faith; they don’t study the Word of God. How do you suppose you are to have faith in God when you don’t know anything about Him? It is those who haven’t any acquaintance with God that stumble and fall; but those who know Him can trust Him and lean heavy on His arm. If a man would rather read the Sunday newspapers than read God’s Word, I don’t see how Christ is going to save him. There is no room in him for the Gospel when he has filled himself with the newspapers. For years I have not touched a Sunday newspaper, or a weekly religious paper either, on Sunday. Some people lay aside those religious papers for Sunday reading, but that is not a good way. Let us lay aside all other reading for one day in the week, and devote ourselves to the study of God’s Word. But you say, ’O, we must study science and literature, and such things, in order to understand the Bible.’ What can a botanist tell you about the ’Rose of Sharon’ and the ’Lily of the Valley’? What can the geologist tell you about the ’Rock of Ages’? What can the astronomer tell you about the ’Bright and Morning Star’? GET RID OF DOUBTS "A good many people are asking, ’Will this work hold out?’ Now I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but there is one thing I can predict, and that is, that every one of these young converts who studies his Bible till he learns to love it better than anything else, will be sure to hold out; the world will have no charms for him. What all these young converts want is to be in love with the Word of God; to feed upon it till it comes to be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. "One day when my old employer, C. N. Henderson, was sending me out to make some collections, he gave me some notes on which he had made some private marks. Some were marked ’B’. bad, and I was to get anything I could for them. Others were marked ’D’, doubtful; I was to get all the security I could. And others were marked ’G’, good, and these I was to treat accordingly. Now people take God’s notes or promises, and some of them they mark ’B’, because they don’t believe in them; others they mark ’D’, because they don’t feel sure of them; but if there happens to be one which has been fulfilled to themselves, that one they mark ’G’. "Now that isn’t the way to treat God’s promises. You ought to mark every one of them G--O--O--D, good. Heaven and earth shall pass away before any one of them shall fail. If we could only get these Christians out of Doubting Castle, how rich they would be, and what a work of grace there might be. O, these Devils, Ifs! When shall we ever get rid of them?" Mr. Moody’s Bible was a real storehouse of treasure. Every page of it was marked - almost every verse had some special illustration connected with it, so that he had only to open the book to have a perfect flood of light upon its pages. It was for this reason that he was always helpful and always interesting. The following is one of his most characteristic statements, and really was the beginning of my marking my own Bible. He always practiced what he preached, and he advised other people to mark their Bibles because it had been such a blessing to him: "When the preacher gives out a text, mark it; as he goes on preaching, put a few words in the margin, key-words that shall bring back the whole sermon again. By that plan of making a few marginal notes, I can remember sermons I heard years and years ago. Every man ought to take down some of the preacher’s words and ideas, and go into some lane or byway, and preach them again to others. We ought to have four ears - two for ourselves and two for other people. Then, if you are in a new town, and have nothing else to say, jump up and say: ’I heard some one say so and so;’ and men will always be glad to hear you if you give them heavenly food. The world is perishing for lack of it." He had many references to the twenty-third Psalm; this is one of the best. "I suppose I have heard as many good sermons on the twenty-third Psalm as on any other six verses in the Bible. I wish I had begun to take notes upon them years ago when I heard the first one. Things slip away from you when you get to be fifty years of age. "With me, the Lord. "Beneath me, green pastures. "Beside me, still waters. "Before me, a table. "Around me, mine enemies. "After me, goodness and mercy. "Ahead of me, the house of the Lord." ’Blessed is the day,’ says an old divine, ’when Psalm twenty-three was born!’ It has been more used than almost any other passage in the Bible.’ Mr. Moody was never more interesting, than when giving his Bible readings. He could hold his great audiences spellbound with his plain, practical, and yet powerful interpretations of the Scripture. He had no use at all for the so-called higher criticism. At one of the last conferences held in New York, he said to a company of ministers: "I don’t see why you men are talking about ’two Isaiah’s half the people in the country do not know that there is one Isaiah yet; let’s make them know about one, before we begin to tell them about two." The last conversation of any length, that I had with him, he must have talked for half an hour, concerning his absolute confidence in the Bible and his growing love for it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 05.21. HIS CO-WORKERS ======================================================================== Chapter 21 - His Co-Workers Mr. Moody was a great general not only in faculties of organization, but also in his shrewd choice of the right men for the right work. Thus, from the beginning of his labors, he associated with himself the most competent assistants, and it is by no means depreciatory of his own efforts to say that his success was in no small measure dependent upon those who helped him. It is not depreciatory, I say; for one of the greatest gifts is this ability to choose worthy helpers. Napoleon could not conduct in person all his campaigns, but he surrounded himself with a staff of generals so brilliant in their abilities that they were able to help him maintain his prestige for fifteen years. IRA DAVID SANKEY In speaking of Mr. Moody’s co-workers, I realize that space is obliging me to leave out the names of many who are worthy of mention, so I have endeavored to confine my choice to those whose names are most prominently associated with his work in the ears of the public. One name is indissolubly connected with Mr. Moody’s, and of its bearer I would speak first. Ira David Sankey was born August 28, 1840, in the village of Edinburgh, in western Pennsylvania. His parents were Methodists. His father was well-off in worldly circumstances, and in such good repute among his neighbors that they repeatedly elected him member of the State Legislature; he was, moreover, a licensed exhorter in his own church. From childhood Ira was known for a joyous spirit and trustful disposition. The gift of singing developed in him at a very early age: Reared in a genial, religious atmosphere, liked and respected by all who knew him, he lived on, till past his fifteenth year, before he was converted. His conviction occurred during a series of special services, and after a week’s hard struggle he found peace in accepting Jesus as his Saviour. Soon afterward he joined the church, and, about the same time, his father having removed to Newcastle, he entered the Academy at that place. The young man had developed from his gift of song a rich talent of expression, through his wonderful voice, of the hymns of the church. After his conversion it became his delight to devote this precious gift to the service of the Lord, and it was his continual prayer that the Holy Spirit would make use of the words sung to the conversion of those who flocked to the services. Before he attained his majority, he was appointed superintendent of the Sunday school, which contained more than 300 pupils. His singing of Gospel invitations, in solos dates from this time. The faith of the singer was rewarded with repeated blessings. A class of seventy Christians was committed to his charge, a responsibility which made him a more earnest student of the Bible The choir of the congregation also came under his leadership. Elsewhere in this book is described the meeting between Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey and their subsequent labors together. It is sufficient to add concerning Mr. Sankey that his gift is still used in the service of his Master. PAUL P. BLISS There are many who still remember the shock to Christian workers throughout the country when on the night of December 29, 1876, Mr. Paul P. Bliss and his wife perished in the terrible railroad accident at Ashtabula, Ohio. They had been spending the Christmas holidays in Pennsylvania, and, leaving their little ones at the house of a relative in Avon, N. Y., set out for Chicago to help Major Whittle in the revival work which was following the great meetings of Mr. Moody in that city. After they started on their journey, Mr. Bliss telegraphed to Major Whittle, "We are going home to-morrow." They did go home--to their home above. P. P. Bliss, like his associate in Gospel songs, Mr. Sankey, was a native of Pennsylvania. In early life he had few opportunities for culture, but, through a noble nature, God helped him to a place of great usefulness. He was married young, and through the influence of his wife, who was possessed of deep religious principles, was converted and led to consecrate his gifts to the service of his Master. Moving to Chicago, he united with the First Congregational Church, where, for many years, he was leader of the choir and superintendent of the Sunday school, also becoming widely known by his work in musical conventions. His voice was a rich baritone. As a composer he will long be remembered; he was the author of many of the best known Gospel songs, such as, "Hold the Fort," "What Shall the Harvest Be," "More to Follow," "Only an Armor Bearer," "Let the Lower Lights be Burning" "Pull for the Shore," etc. MAJOR D. W. WHITTLE When Major Whittle entered upon revival work Mr. Bliss decided to give up business and accompany him. During the years 1874-6, they traveled together through the West and South. Mr. Bliss devoted his share of the royalty from the Gospel Songs, a sum amounting to more than $60,000, to charity; this in spite of the fact that he had no private fortune. During the last three months of his life, in connection with Major Whittle, he held revival services at Kalamazoo, Mich., and afterward at Peoria, Ill. The voice of this sweet singer still lives in his songs, for those who heard him will never forget the pleading, tender, sympathetic quality of his voice. No singer in the history of evangelistic work has made a deeper impression on the Christian world. Major D. W. Whittle was for many years a well-known business man of Chicago. His prospects were large, and he had won a wide reputation for integrity and ability, when he gave up everything that might be counted of worldly advantage to enter upon evangelistic work. He was known, in earlier years, in his connection with Mr. Bliss. His career during the past few years is well known to the public; for a long time he has been one of Mr. Moody’s valued helpers, and the tie between the two men was cemented the more closely by the marriage of Major Whittle’s daughter, Mary, to Mr. Moody’s son, Mr. Will R. Moody. Major Whittle is especially at home in the inquiry room. The exercise of marvelous tact, and the use of excellent judgment, make his personal instruction clear as well as convincing, and his sympathy and love for those whom he tries to serve are unmistakable. Of special value were his services during the recent war with Spain. He toiled when he was too weary to preach, but always with that zeal which has so commended him to churches everywhere. I do not think I have ever known a more godly man. I never think of him without blessing. HENRY VARLEY Mr. Varley was born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1835. In boyhood his health was poor, and he came especially under the influence of his mother, who, although she died when he was only ten, gave him from her own strong nature and training the foundations of good character. It was not long after that he began to live in London, barren of worldly possessions and condemned to very many trying experiences. At fifteen he was converted, and scarcely a year later made his own first public address in the large Sunday school of the John Street Church, with which he had united. From this time various services yielded occasion for the development the gifts which the Lord had placed with His young servant. He was only nineteen when he secured a business partnership, but in 1854 he went to Australia to the gold fields. There he would preach on Sundays, and about the glowing fires in the evenings would lead his rough comrades to approach their Father’s throne in prayer. He did not succeed as a miner, and soon returned to Melbourne. In spite of flattering business offers he went back to London, where, in 1857, he married a daughter of his friend and former employer. Mr. Varley then purchased a large business at the West End of London, where for many years he resided. His position as preacher to a regular congregation began in 1859, and the spirit of revival soon appeared in his meetings. THE FREE TABERNACLE OPENED In 1862 was opened the Free Tabernacle, Notting Hill, to the erection of which Mr. Varley had consecrated the first £1,000 he ever made in business. In a short time 600 or 700 believers were gathered into the fellowship of this church. For twenty years Mr. Varley was the pastor of this people. The building was enlarged later to make room for hundreds who had been clamoring unsuccessfully for admission. It is now known as the West London Tabernacle. In 1868 Mr. Varley disposed of his large business and gave himself up entirely to religious work. From that time his revival efforts throughout the world are common knowledge. His work in Melbourne, Australia, in 1877, will never be forgotten, and his services in New York filled the great Hippodrome in Madison Square. In 1883 he resigned his pastorate in order to devote his whole strength to evangelistic work. It was Mr. Varley, who suggested to Mr. Moody, that God was waiting to find a man through whom He might speak to the world. On the day when Mr. Moody receives his reward, Henry Varley will have no small share in it. JOHN MCNEILL Visitors to the great World’s Fair at Chicago will never forget the great midday meetings conducted in Central Music Hall by the Rev. John McNeill. He is a Scotchman of the true type, as one-writer says, with a converted soul, a granite mind, and a great big loving heart. Essentially, he is a man of the people and has no use for ecclesiastical formalism. In his introduction to one of the volumes of Mr. McNeill’s sermons, the Rev. Dr. A. T. Pierson says; "Some men, like their Master, cannot be tied; John McNeill is one of them. He needs no introduction. On both sides of the sea he has won men as any man will win them who thinks and speaks in dead earnest. There is a great difference between having to say something and having something to say. He has shown that he has much that is worth saying, and therefore much that is worth hearing. Those who read his sermons will not need to be told that the man who followed Dr. Dikes at Regent Square, is a free, fresh, truthful, helpful preacher." It was found in Chicago that some people were forgetting the World’s Fair in their great desire to hear John McNeill speak at Central Music Hall. He is considered by many to be the greatest preacher that has ever come to our shores from abroad. He is a delightful man socially, and wins all to him, as they hear him talk in his own inimitable way. Daniel B. Towner was born in Rome, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, March 5, 1850. As a boy he began the study of music with his father, who was a teacher of music, and at nineteen he began to teach singing classes. From 1873 to 1875 most of his time was devoted to conducting musical conventions and institutes. In this work he was eminently succesful. In Cincinnati, in 1885, Mr. Moody held a series of meetings. Mr. Towner was assisting in the music, and the evangelist saw in him a man whose services would be invaluable. From that time Mr. Towner was associated with the work of Mr. Moody. He has a baritone voice of wonderful power and compass, and his heart is in the work. As a composer of Gospel music he ranks among the best. Mr. Towner is a most accomplished musician, and his voice has a sweetness about it that is never lost, even under the stress of continuous and exacting service. GEORGE C. STEBBINS Another singer who is known wherever the Gospel message is carried by song is Mr. George C. Stebbins. He is a native of New York State, and was born February 26, 1846, of Christian parents, the hallowed influence of whose lives is in his work to-day. At twenty he took charge of a choir, and also taught singing school for several years. At twenty-three he was converted. In 1869 he moved to Chicago and was soon employed by the First Baptist Church to lead the choir. During this time he met Mr. Moody, and often sang with Mr. Sankey and Mr. Bliss, who were his personal friends. Going to Boston for the further culture of his voice, he was employed in Dr. Gordon’s Church, the Clarendon Street Chapel, where he remained one year, when he went to Tremont Temple as director of music. Becoming more deeply interested in the evangelistic work, he joined the rank of singing evangelists, and on the death of Mr. Bliss was called upon to aid Major Whittle in Chicago. For a long time he was associated with Dr. George F. Pentecost. He accompanied Mr. Moody to California, and was with him in 1892 in closing his work in Great Britain. Mr. Stebbins wrote many of the best known songs in the Gospel Hymns, among others, "Savior, Breathe an Evening Blessing," "Must I Go and Empty Handed," "The Home-land," etc. But I doubt not he will be longest known as the author of "Saved .by Grace." Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins sing together beautifully, and of all my own assistants none have been more helpful than these sweet singers. FERDINAND SCHIVEREA As a younger man Ferdinand Schiverea was an actor, but he was led providentially to attend a meeting which Mr. Moody was conducting in Brooklyn. There the Spirit of God took hold of him mightily. For days he had no rest, but finally the light came. He went at once to his mother with the news and she said, "I have asked God for this, dear child; I have given you to God, and He has just done what He said He would, if I only would believe." The first effort of Mr. Schiverea was to lead his brothers to Christ. He then reached out for the neighbors, and every night for months held services of prayer in a small rear room in his poor home. During all this time, and for four years, he worked in a large furniture house, packing goods for shipment. The first work that God especially blessed him in was in Brooklyn, where for twelve months he held meetings nearly every night. He has labored in the principal cities and towns of the United States, as well as in most of the important cities and towns in Canada. In Toronto alone he held twenty different series of meetings. Mr. Schiverea is particularly strong in his ability to reach the masses; he is now in the very midst of his useful life, and his "love abides in strength." There is a future of increasing usefulness before him. He was a particular favorite with Mr. Moody, who never lost an opportunity to say a kind word about his work. H. M. WHARTON Of the men who stood very close to Mr. Moody, none was more highly esteemed by him, than the subject of this sketch. They came together first in a southern city where good words concerning Dr. Wharton had been spoken to Mr. Moody by the people of the city, and he did with him what he frequently did with many others called him out of the audience and insisted that he should preach, and then announced that he would conduct subsequent services. I first saw these two men of God together in the days of the World’s Fair, when Dr. Wharton always sat on Mr. Moody’s right. He is an inimitable story-teller, and Mr. Moody’s sides would shake and the tears run down his face as Dr. Wharton would tell some of his southern experiences, or recall some of the events of his boyhood days. As, for example, when he told one morning, which happened to be his birthday, of his great delight in the workmen that were digging some ditches near his boyhood’s home. A large number of Irishmen were in the company, and young Wharton had been punished for staying too long in their presence. He had been designed by his family to preach, and after the punishment he declared that he would not be a minister, but surely intended to be an Irishman. I can see Mr. Moody laugh now, as the story was told. Dr. Wharton is a magnificent preacher, and one of the best evangelists in the country. He has made himself poor in taking care of orphan children both at Luray and in other places, and the blessing of God will surely ever abide upon him. Mr. Moody considered him one of the most skilful workers in the after-meetings he had ever come in contact with, and to his ability in this direction I bear hearty testimony. R. A. TORREY Mr. Torrey was born January 28, 1856, in Hoboken, N. J. At fifteen he entered Yale College, and four years later the Yale Theological Seminary, whence he was graduated in 1878. During his last year in the Seminary he worked for six weeks in the inquiry room in Mr. Moody’s meetings in New Haven. In 1882 he resigned his charge and went to Germany for a year of study. Returning in 1883, he accepted a pastorate in Minneapolis, becoming later the superintendent of the City Missionary Society in that city, and after a time founded an independent people’s church. Several years later he accepted the invitation to become superintendent of Mr. Moody’s Bible Institute, entering on the charge in 1889. Most of the phenomenal success of the Institute is due to his wise administration. He was very close to Mr. Moody during the later years. No man, really, had Mr. Moody’s confidence more completely, and justly so, for no man could ever be more loyal to another than R. A. Torrey to D. L. Moody. A. C. DIXON Dr. Dixon is a typical southerner, fiery, intense, dramatic, eloquent. His father was a frontier preacher, and, the son was converted and joined his father’s. church when eleven years old. At fifteen he entered Wake Forest College, and after graduation decided to study law, but the need of some country churches in his neighborhood persuaded him to accept the ministry of different congregations. During nine months he baptized 100 converts. After an incumbency of three years in a small church he entered upon a new charge in Asheville, N. C., where, within three months of his aggressive ministry, 250 persons were converted. Three-and-a-half years later he was elected president of the Wake Forest College, but he declined the election, accepting instead the pastorate of a large Baptist church in Baltimore. His church began to expand, and soon a large tabernacle had to be erected to accommodate the crowds who pressed forward to enjoy his ministry. Later he was called to Brooklyn, where he has already won a high position as preacher and pastor of his church. Dr. Dixon is a man of deep convictions. The Bible is to him the book of life. He is a man of prayer, a believer in the Holy Spirit, tender and gentle in dealing with inquirers, ever beseeching sinners to become reconciled to God. Mr. Moody was devoted to him, and had the greatest confidence in his ability. HENRY DRUMMOND The death of Henry Drummond a few years ago took from the world a gentle, ministering spirit whose influences had been turned to Christian work by the help of Mr. Moody’s meetings in Glasgow, twenty-six years ago. What this one man, who was led to the Master by Mr. Moody, accomplished in his too brief period of service, it is impossible to estimate, but his forceful words, and the example of his shining life have been an inspiration to thousands. He was born in 1851, in Sterling, Scotland. He was well educated, and prepared himself for the ministry. His culture was wide Science unlocked her doors to him; advanced thought had no terrors for him, nor did these work any insidious undermining of his faith. When Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey were conducting their great mission in Scotland, Henry Drummond felt the burden of their message and became an earnest assistant at the meetings. He was one of the band of helpers who followed in Mr. Moody’s wake, and aided in continuing the work which the evangelists had begun. In later years he traveled widely, visiting the United States, and spending some time in East Central Africa. In 1877 he became lecturer on Natural Science in the Second Free Church College in Glasgow. He was the author of a number of important books, most of which tended to disabuse the public mind of any supposed conflict between science and religion. Acquaintance with him was a great stimulous to his friends. Several times he worked with Mr. Moody, and his opinion of the great evangelist was apparent in the words he uttered a few weeks before his death in 1897. He said, "Moody was the biggest human I ever met." And D. L. Moody was heard to say again and again that he loved Henry Drummond. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN Mr. Morgan was born December 9, 1863, at Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England. He was of nonconformist ancestry, his father being a Baptist minister. The young man was educated at Cheltenham, and at twenty was appointed to a mastership in the Jewish Collegiate School in Birmingham. Three years later he abandoned his profession of teaching to become an evangelist. He went to Hull to hold services for two weeks, but they proved so successful that they, ran for many months, and he finally left, in 1887, on account of ill health. He continued his evangelistic work, however, and at last became pastor of the Congregational Church in Stone, in 1889, and in 1891 pastor of the Rugeley Congregational Church. In 1893 he went to Westminster Road Church at Birchfield, a suburb of Birmingham. It was in 1896, while pastor of this church, that he first went to the United States, and visited Northfield. In 1897 he became pastor of the New-court Congregational Church, Tollington Park, London. He visited Northfield in 1897, 1898 and 1899. Mr. Moody had the greatest delight in Mr. Morgan’s ability. He had him travel through many of our cities in September and October of 1899. The last time I ever saw Mr. Moody was when he was sitting on the platform with Mr. Morgan. GEORGE H. MACGREGOR Mr. Macgregor was born in Scotland thirty-six years ago. His father was a minister. The boy attended the University of Edinburgh and New College of Divinity in the same city, and even before he completed his theological studies he was called to a church in Aberdeen, in 1888, gaining experience which proved invaluable. In 1889 he visited Keswick, and under the influences of the dwellers on that consecrated ground came into a closer walk with God. In 1891 he was invited to the Keswick platform. Mr. Macgregor bears in his style all the evidences of his fine culture, a culture which, like that of Henry Drummond, is consecrated to the Work of God. His zeal is inspiring. As a winner of souls he is not excelled. I do not think any one has ever visited Northfield who was really more helpful to the people than Mr. Macgregor. He is a most charming man, and as thoroughly consecrated as any one I have ever met. F. B. MEYER Mr. Meyer began his ministry twenty-seven years ago, in Richmond, Surrey, England, even before he had completed his studies, which he was then carrying on at Regent Park College; but after his graduation he went as assistant to the Rev. C. M. Birrell, of Pembroke Chapel, Liverpool, and later transferred his interests to York, where, during the meetings of Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey, in 1873, the young minister was profoundly stirred by the message of the American Evangelists. Mr. Meyer is best known, aside from his spiritual literature, as pastor of Christ Church, West London. This great institutional house of God was completed twenty-two years ago to perpetuate the Surrey Chapel work of Rowland Hill. Mr. Meyer followed Dr. Newman Hall in this pastorate. Dr. Hall was the successor of James Sherman, who, in his turn, succeeded Mr. Hill. It is doubtful if any other church in the world employs so wide a range of activities as Christ Church, London. Mr. Meyer’s name is known wherever the English language is spoken, and Bible students everywhere are devoted to him, for his own as well as his work’s sake. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 05.22. THREE CHARACTERISTIC SERMONS ======================================================================== Chapter 22 - Three Characteristic Sermons If one has known Mr. Moody for any great length of time, there are three sermons which doubtless would come before his mind as being more intimately associated with the great evangelist than any other sermons he has preached. The first has to do with the love of God. The second, with the excuses of men. The third, with his special appeal made to men in every part of the English speaking world on "Sowing and Reaping." CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE SERMONS The first sermon is remarkable because for a long time Mr. Moody felt called to preach the law, and was constantly crying out, after the manner of an Old Testament prophet, against sin, but under the influence of Harry Moorehouse, as suggested in another part of this volume, he seemed to come out from under the power of law into the power of grace, and his preaching was altogether different. His sermon on the excuses is very characteristic of him, and one has but to shut his eyes as he reads, to see the greatest evangelist of the generation pleading with men, as he alone could do,- now moving his audience to tears, and then almost instantly having them convulsed with laughter, but as a result of it all, leading multitudes to Christ. The third sermon is one which a host of men throughout the world will ever remember. It was the first sermon I ever heard him preach. Under the power of it, I saw my own heart as never before, and under the power of the Holy Ghost, as manifested in the preacher’s sermon, I began to feel the power of Christ to make me clean. The sermons follow in the order mentioned: GOD’S LOVE I have often thought I would like to have but one text; and if I thought I could only make the world believe that God is love, I would only take that text and go up and down the earth trying to counteract what Satan has been telling them - that God is not love. He has made the world believe it effectually. It would not take twenty-four hours to make the world come to God, if you can only make them believe God is love. If you can really make a man believe you love him, you have won him; and if I could only make people really believe that God loves them, what a rush we would see for the Kingdom of God! Oh, how they would rush in! But man has got a false idea about God, and he will not believe that He is a God of love. It is because he don’t know Him. Now, in Paul’s farewell letter to the Corinthians, in the 13th chapter, 2d Corinthians, he says: "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace, and the God of love" - he calls Him the God of love - "and peace shall be with you." Then John, who was better acquainted with Christ, telling us about the love God has for this perishing world, writes in this epistle, in the evening of his life, these words. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God, and he that loveth not knoweth no God, for God is love." We built a Church in Chicago a number of years ago, and we were so anxious to make people believe that God is love, that we thought if we could riot preach it into their hearts, we would burn it in, and so right over the pulpit we had the words put in gas jets, "God is love," and every night we had it there. A man going along there one night glanced in through the door and saw the text. He was a poor prodigal, and he passed on and as he walked away, he said to himself, "God is love? No. God is not love. God does not love me. He does not love me, for I am a poor, miserable sinner. If God was love, He would love me. God is not love." Yet there the text was, burning down into his soul. And he went on a little further, and turned around and came back and went into the meeting. He didn’t hear what the sermon was, but the text got into his heart, and that is what we want it is of very little account what men say, if God’s word only gets into the heart. And he stayed after meeting was over, and I found him there weeping like a child; but as I unfolded the Scripture, and told him how God had loved him from his earliest childhood all along, the light of the Gospel broke into his mind, and he went away rejoicing. This would be the best meeting to-day we have had yet, if we could only make this audience believe that God is love. Now turn a moment to the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel, first verse (John 13:1): "Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own which were in the world He loved them unto the end." His love is unchangeable. That night He knew very well what was going to happen. Judas had gone out to betray Hun. He knew it. He had already left that little band to go out and sell Christ. Do you tell me Christ did not love Judas? That very night He said to him, "Judas, what thou doest, do quickly;" and when Judas, meeting Him in the garden, kissed Him, and He said, "Betrayest thou thy Master with a kiss?" was it not the voice of love and compassion that ought to have broken Judas’ heart? He loved him in the very hour that he betrayed Him; and that is what is going to make hell so terrible, that you go there with the love of God beneath your feet. It is not that He don’t love you, but you despise His love. It is a terrible thing to despise love. He loved them unto the end. He knew very well that Peter was going to deny Him that night and curse and swear because he was mistaken for Jesus’ companion. He knew all His disciples would forsake Him, and leave Him to suffer alone, and yet He says He loved them unto the end. And the sweetest words that fell from the lips of the Son of God were that night when they were going to leave Him. Those words that fell from his lips that night will live forever. How they will live in the hearts of God’s people! We could not get on very well without the 14th of John and the 15th and 16th. was on that memorable night that He uttered those blessed words, and on that very night that He told them how much God loved them. It seems as if that particular night, when He was about to be deserted by all, His heart was bursting with love for His flock. Just let us look at the 16th chapter and the 27th verse (John 16:27) and see what He says: For the Father Himself loveth you because ye have loved me and have believed that I came from God." I don’t know but what Christ felt that there might be some of His disciples that would not love the Father as they loved Him. I remember for the first few years after I was converted I had a good deal more love for Christ than for God the Father, whom I looked upon as the stern Judge, while I regarded Christ as the Mediator who had come between me and that stern Judge, and had appeased His wrath, but when I got a little better acquainted with my Bible those views all fled. After I became a father, and woke up to the realization of what it cost God to have His Son die, I began to see that God was to be loved just as much as His Son was. Why, it took more love for God to give His Son to die than it would to die Himself. You would a thousand times sooner die yourself in your son’s place than have him taken away. If the executioner was about to take your son to the gallows, you would say, Let me die in his stead let my son be spared." Oh, think of the love God must have had for this world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for it, and that is what I want you to understand. "The Father Himself loveth you because you have loved Me." If a man has loved Christ, God will set His love upon him. Then in the 17th chapter, 23d verse (John 17:23), in that wonderful prayer He made that night, "I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know Thou hast sent Me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me." God could look down from Heaven and see His Son fulfilling His will, and He said "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." But when it is said, "God loved us as He loved His own Son," it used to seem to me to be downright blasphemy, until I found it was in the Word of God. That was the wonderful prayer He made on the night of His betrayal. Is there any love in the world like that? Is there anything to be compared to the love of God? Well may Paul say, "It passeth knowledge." And then, I can imagine some of you saying, "Well, He loved his disciples and He loves those who serve Him faithfully, but then I have been untrue." I may be speaking now to some backsliders, but if I am, I want to say to everyone here: "The Lord loves you." Now, it says in John, first chapter: "He loved them unto the end." That is, His love was unchangeable and you may have forgotten Hun and betrayed Him and denied Him, but nevertheless He loves you, He loves the backslider. There is not a man here that has wandered from God and betrayed Him but what the Lord Jesus loves him and wants him to come back. Now in this 14th chapter of Hosea He says, "I will heal every backslider. I will love them freely." So the Lord tells the back-sliders, "If you will only come back to Me I will forgive you." It was thus with Peter who denied his Lord; the Savior forgave him, and sent him to preach His glorious Gospel on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand were won to Christ under one sermon of a backslider. Just turn to the 31st chapter of Jeremiah and the 3rd verse (Jeremiah 31:3). He hath loved us," he says, "with an everlasting love." Now there is a difference between human and divine love. The one is fleeting, the other is everlasting. There is no end of God’s love. I can imagine some of you saying: "If God has loved us with an everlasting love, why does it say that God is angry with the sinner every day?" Why, dear friends, that very word "anger" in the Scriptures is one of the very strongest evidences and expressions of God’s love. Suppose I have got two boys, and one of them goes out and lies and swears and steals and gets drunk; if I have no love for him I don’t care what he does; but just because I do love him it makes me angry to see him take that course, and it is because God loves the sinner that he gets angry with him. That very passage shows how strong God’s love is. Let me tell you, dear friends, God loves you in all your backslidings and wanderings. You may despise His love and trample it under your feet and go down to ruin, but it wont be because God don’t love you. I once heard of a father, who had a prodigal boy, and the boy had sent his mother down to the grave with a broken heart, and one evening the boy started out as usual to spend the night in drinking and gambling, and his old father as he was leaving said, "My son, I want to ask a favor of you to-night. You have not spent an evening with me since your mother died, and now I want you to spend this night at home. I have been very lonely since your mother died. Now, wont you gratify your old father by staying at home with him? "No," said the young man, "it is lonely here, and there is nothing to interest me, and I am going out." And the old man prayed and wept, and at last he said, "My boy, you are just killing me, as you have killed your mother. These hairs are growing whiter, and you are sending me, too, to the grave." Still the boy would not stay, and the old man said, "If your are determined to go to ruin, you must go over this old body to-night. I cannot resist you. You are stronger than I, but if you go out you must go over this body." And he laid himself down before the door, and that son walked over the form of his father, trampled the love of his father under foot and went out. And that is the way with sinners. You have got to trample the blood of God’s Son under your feet if you go down to death, to make light of the blood of the innocent, to make light of the wonderful love of God, to despise it. But whether you do or not, He loves you still. I can imagine some of you saying, "Why does He not show His love to us?" Why, how can it be any further shown than it is? You say so because you won’t read His Word and find out how much He loves you. If any man will take a concordance and run through the Scriptures with the one word "love," you will find out how much He loves you; you will find out that it is all one great assurance of His love. He is continually trying to teach you this one lesson, and to win you to Himself by a cross of love. All the burdens He has placed upon the sons of men have been out of pure love, to bring you to Himself. Those who do not believe that God is love are under the power of the Evil One. He has blinded you, and you have been deceived with his lies. God’s dealing has been all love, love, love, from the fall of Adam to the present hour. Adam’s calamity brought down God’s love. No sooner did the news reach Heaven than God came down after Adam with His love. That voice that rang through Eden was the voice of love, hunting after the fallen one - " Adam, where art thou?" For all these thousand years that voice of love has been sounding down the ages. Out of His love He made a way of escape for Adam. God saved him out of His pity and love. In the 63d chapter of Isaiah, and the 9th verse (Isaiah 63:9), we read: "In all their affliction, He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old." In all their afflictions He was afflicted You cannot afflict one of God’s creatures without afflicting Him. He takes the place of a living father. There a man has a sick child burning with fever. How gladly the father or the mother would take that fever and put it Into their own bosoms. The mother would take from a child its loathsome disease right out of its body, and put it into her own - such is a mother’s love. How she pities the child, and how gladly she would suffer in the place of the child! That illustration has been often used here - "As a mother pitieth her children." You cannot afflict any of God’s creatures, but God feels it. The Son of His bosom came to redeem us from the cares of the world. I do not see how any man with an open Bible before him can get up and say to me that he does not see how God is love. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man will lay down his life for his friend." Christ laid down His life on the cross, and cried in His agony, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." That was wonderful love. You and I would have called fire down from Heaven to consume them. We would have sent them all down into the hot pavement of hell. But the Son of God lifted up His cry, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." I hear some one say, "I do not see, I do not understand how it is that He loves us." What more proof do you want that God loves you? You say, "I am not worthy to be loved." That is true. I will admit that. And He does not love you because you deserve it. It will help us to get at the Divine love to look a little into our own. families, and at our human love. Take a mother with nine children, and they are all good children save one. One is a prodigal, and he has wandered off, and he is everything that is bad. That mother will probably love that prodigal boy as much or more than all the rest put together. It will be with a love mingled with pity. A friend of mine was visiting at a house some time ago, where quite a company were assembled and were talking pleasantly together. He noticed that the mother seemed agitated, and was all the while going out and coming in. He went to her aside and asked her what troubled her, and she took him out into another room and introduced him to her boy. There he was, a poor wretched boy, all mangled and bruised with the fall of sin. She said, "I have much more trouble with him than with all the rest. He has wandered far, but he is my boy yet." She loved him still. So God loves you still. That love, it ought to break your hearts to hear of, and it ought to bring you right to Him. You may say you do not deserve it, and that is true; but because you do not deserve it, God offers it to you. You may say, "If I could get rid of my sins, God would love me," In Revelation, 1st chapter, 5th verse, it says: "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." It does not say He washed us from our sins and then loved us. He loved us first, and then washed us clean. Some people say, you must turn away from sin, and then Christ will love you. But how can you get rid of it until you come to Him? He takes us into His own bosom, and then He cleanses us from sin. He has shed His blood for you; He wants you and He will redeem you to-day if you will. An Englishman told me a story once that may serve to illustrate this truth, that God loves men in their sin. He does not love sin, but He loves men even in their sin. He seeks to save them from sin. There was a boy a great many years ago, stolen in London the same as Charley Ross was stolen here. Long months and years passed away, and the mother had prayed and prayed, as that mother of Charley Ross has prayed, I suppose, and all her efforts had failed, and they had given up all hope; but the mother did not quite give up her hope. One day a little boy was sent up into the neighboring house to sweep the chimney, and by some mistake he got down again through the wrong chimney. When he came down, he came in by the sitting room chimney. His memory began at once to travel back through the years that had passed. He thought that things looked strange and familiar. The scenes of the early days of youth were dawning upon him; and as he stood there surveying the place, his mother came into the room. He stood there covered with rags and soot. Did she wait until she had sent him to be washed before she took him into her arms? No, indeed; it was her own boy. She took him to her arms, all black and smoke, and hugged him to her bosom, and shed tears of joy upon his head. You have wandered very far from Him; there may not be a sound spot upon you, but if you will just come to God, He will forgive and receive you. There is a verse in Isaiah 38:17, - that I think a good deal of. It reads: "Thou has in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." Mark you, the love comes first. He did not say that He had taken away sins and cast them ,behind Him. He loved us first, and then He took our sins away. I like that little word m-y "my" there. The reason we do not get any benefit from Scripture is because we are always talking about generalizations. We say: "God loves nations, God loves churches, and loves certain classes of people. But here it reads: "Out of love to my soul He has taken all my sins and cast them behind His back." If they are behind His back they are gone from me forever. If they are cast behind His back, how can Satan ever get at them again? I will defy any fiend from hell to find them. Satan can torment me with them no more. There are four expressions wherein God put our sins away. The first is, He has blotted out our sins like a thick cloud. You remember, don’t you, how in the morning we wake and sometimes find the sky covered with clouds, and by the afternoon there is not a cloud to be seen. Can any one tell where the clouds go to? They vanish and we see them no more, and no one can tell what has become of them. God has blotted out our sins like these clouds. Another verse is: "I will remove them as far as she east is from the west," Another is: "I will roll them into the depths of the sea." And there is this one which reads "Who will take them out of love to my soul and cast them behind his back." They are gone through time and eternity. Bear in mind, it is out of love He does it, not out of justice. It is not justice we want, but mercy. God feels wonderful love, which it ought to break every heart here to contemplate, and the love of God ought to sweep over this audience, and bow every head here to-night, and fill our hearts full of gratitude and praise that God so loved us, and gave himself for us. It says in Galatians 2:20, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me." Take that verse in Isaiah, "Who loved my soul" and put it with this verse, "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," and you have it all. Christ shed every drop of his precious blood for sinners. Some people say "only one single drop of Christ’s blood is enough to cleanse you from sin." It is not true. If one drop would have done it, He would have shed but one drop; but it took every drop of blood that His life had, and He gave it all up to save us. Paul says, "He loved me and gave Himself for me, and so Paul loved Him in return. If you could but get that thought in your mind that Christ has loved you so much as to give Himself for you, you cannot help loving Him in return. EXCUSES OF MEN "And they all with one consent began to make excuse."-- Luke 14:18 We read in the 14th chapter of Luke that Christ is invited by one of the chief Pharisees to take supper with him on the Sabbath. I think by reading it carefully you will find it was a snare that the Pharisees were setting for Christ, that they were trying to get Him into some trouble, in order to get some reason that they might put Him out of the way. The law was that a man should not work on the Sabbath day, and the Pharisees were all the time bringing charges against Christ, because He was, as they said, working on the Sabbath! And so this Pharisee invited Him to his house, and there was a great company there. They had a certain man there who had the dropsy. Undoubtedly they had sent a servant out to get the man in so as to have him ready for the occasion. They had him sitting right opposite to Christ. Christ said to the Pharisees and the others sitting by, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" And there wouldn’t one of them answer Him a word. One after another, I can imagine, looked down, and it was as if they had said, "Keep still now," and they held their peace. Christ said to the man who had the dropsy, "You may be healed," and the man got up and walked borne a perfectly sound man. Christ said to the Pharisees, "If any of you have an ass or an ox fallen into the pit, will you not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?" And they said not a word. They knew very well that if any of them had an ox or an ass fallen into the pit they would save him if it was on the Sabbath day. But they said nothing. They were all the time putting questions to Him; but see how Christ answered all these questions. It would be well for you to take your Bible and go through the Scriptures and see with what wisdom and tact those questions were answered that were put to Christ. He said to the Pharisees gathered there - for he noticed that there was a great rush to see who was going to get the best seats. There they were pushing and elbowing each other back in order to get the best seats. Christ said, "Let me give you counsel. When you are invited to a feast take the lowest place. Do not be so ambitious to get the best place, to get to the head of the table; because if you get there, and a more honorable person comes, the head of the feast will make you sit further down, and you will be mortified and ashamed." Then He turned to the chief of the Pharisees who invited Him and said: "When you get up a feast, do not go and invite the rich, or you will be looking for them to invite you again." Isn’t it the same thing to-day in the world? When people get up a feast, they invite the rich and influential, so by that means they will get into society, and their invitations will be returned. But, He said, go to the lame, the halt, the dumb, the blind, and ask them, and you will be well rewarded for what you do by our Father in Heaven. A man sitting at the table burst out and said, Blessed is the man that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God." Then Christ said, "A certain man made a great supper and bade many;" here He described the great spiritual feast -" and sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, ’Come, for all things are now ready.’ And they began to make excuses." They made excuse. They did not have any to offer without making them. "And they all with one consent began to make excuses." A man gets up a feast, and his friends make no excuses; but God gets up a feast, and not only prepares a table, but He goes forth and invites them all to come. They cannot go; they would like to go, they say, but cannot possibly, they have so much to do. Let me show you what these excuses are, and you will see on the face of them that they are downright lies. The Scripture says, "One after one they began to make excuses." If those, men had been invited to go out and walk, if they had been invited to go to a hospital to witness some terrible operation, or if they had been invited to an execution, they would have had some reason for giving excuses; but these men were invited to a royal feast. It is not often that common people like us get an invitation to a royal feast. If Queen Victoria were to invite us to a feast at Windsor Castle, do you suppose we would not regard it as a great honor? Do you suppose you would make excuses? O, my friends, I have an invitation to-day that is a thousand times beyond that. It is from the very King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is the Marriage Supper of God’s own Son. Blessed is he that shall be at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. He wants to see you all there. The invitation is to every one here. All are invited - the lowest, the highest, the richest, the poorest, all can come if they will. Do you ever think what would take place in a city like New York if God should take men at their word when they make excuses, and should say to-night, "Well, I will excuse you," and so, with one stroke of Providence should sweep them all away, and cease to care for those who refused Him? Why, the grass would right away begin to grow in your streets. There would be very few stores open to-morrow. Most of the merchants would want to be excused; their stores would be closed up, every solitary one of them. The rumsellers would all want to be excused. You cannot find a rumseller in all New York but wants to be excused. Every man that is carrying on a dishonest business would want to be excused. I do not think there would be any crowd here to-morrow, if that should take place in the next twenty-four hours. What desolation would reign in the streets of New York, and how many of all classes would make excuses! If I should step down from this place, and go right down the aisle among the audience, beginning with that little boy, and asking every one down the line, if you had not an excuse, how many of you would not have them? You would begin to find one before I got to you, and if you could not find one, you would make up one, and if you could not easily think of one, Satan would help you to get up one. Let us take up the excuses of those three men mentioned here. The first man had bought some ground, and he must needs go and see it. Why didn’t he see the ground before he bought it? If he had been a good businessman, he would have seen it first. If he had been, he would have been looking at the title. That would have been the better way. But he said he must go and see his ground. He had an invitation to the supper, and said, I would like to go, but I cannot." And he said to the servant, "Tell the Lord I would be delighted to be there. I do not know anything that would please me more than to go, but business is so pressing it will be utterly impossible for me to go." If the devil can only get us off into some cradle of excuses and rock us off to sleep, that is all he wants. If would have been better if this man had been honest and said to the servant, "Tell the Lord I don’t want to go to the feast." It is better to be honest than to seek a refuge of lies and false excuses. And the other man could not accept the invitation either I suppose he thought to himself, "How shall I get out of it?" So he said, "I have just bought five yoke of oxen. I will give them as my excuse." I suppose, perhaps he asked his wife, "What shall I tell him?" Perhaps his wife told him, "Say you have just bought five yoke of oxen, and that you have to go and prove them." Now, why didn’t he prove them before he bought them? And besides, did he not have plenty of time to prove them? It was not necessary for him to go Just at the hour of the feast to prove his oxen. He manufactured the excuse. The third man’s excuse is more absurd, if possible, than the others. He said, "I have just married a wife." What difference did that make about his going? Why didn’t he take his wife along? You can see that that excuse was a downright lie. So these three men made excuses, and when the messenger came back and gave them to the Lord, he said, "Not one of those that were bidden and have refused shall taste of my supper. Go and get the beggars from the highways and hedges, and the tramps and the poor, the lame, the maimed, the dumb, the blind, and if these men won’t accept the invitation, let those who will, come. Let those that will accept of the invitation and press into the Kingdom. Thank God that His Gospel is for the poor as well as for the rich. If the rich won’t have it, thank God that the poor are pressing into the Kingdom. I want, to call your attention to the fact, that since these 1900 years have worn away, men are becoming very wise, or think they are, and they say, "We have now outgrown this old Bible, and are now living in a more intellectual age. Men are wiser than they used to be. They have got a great deal more culture; they have a great deal more refinement." But, my friends, with all your culture and all your refinement, can you find one man who has any better excuse than these three men had? I have met hundreds here in New York, in the inquiry room and outside of it, during the past few weeks, and I have yet to find the first man who has a better excuse. My friend, what is your excuse? Have you got a better one? Why do you not accept the invitation? God invites you. I have often heard people say "I would like to be a Christian very much, but O, it is so hard to serve God." Is that true? Is God a hard master? Is the devil an easy one? Is it true that those who have served both masters have found that .God is such a hard master? Is He austere? Does He require us to perform more than we can? Does He reap where He has not sown? O, ye saints of the living God, is that your testimony? There never was a greater lie forged in hell and told on earth, than that. "The way of the transgressor is hard." Ask the men in prison, ask the drunkard, if the way of the transgressor is one of ease. Go down to the Tombs. I am told that that little bridge over the prison yard over which the prisoners are led has written on one side the words, "The way of the transgressor is hard." If that is not true, how do they dare put it on there? They ought to take it off. There is not a man in all New York but knows as he goes down deep in his heart that the way of the transgressor is hard. On the other side of that bridge it is written, The Bridge of Sighs;" and over that the young men pass every day, and every one of them will testify that that portion of the Bible is true where it says the way of the transgressor is hard. So don’t give that as an excuse. There is another class that say, "I believe that. I believe the most delightful service in the world is serving Christ. That is not my excuse, but my excuse is this: There are so many things in that Bible that are dark and mysterious. I don’t understand the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. If I could understand the Bible on reading it through once, I could accept the invitation; but there are so many dark and mysterious things that I cannot accept the invitation," and so we find a good many giving the Bible as an excuse. I contend there is no book under the sun that has been so misjudged as the Bible. Of all the skeptics and infidels I have ever met, I have yet to meet the first one that has read the Bible through from beginning to end. Now, if a book comes out and you have not read all of it, and you are asked your opinion of it, you say, I have not read it through yet, and don’t like to express my opinion until I have more carefully read it." But people are not afraid of expressing their opinion of God’s book after having read a few chapters, and because they don’t understand what they have read, they condemn the whole. I have a boy about say four or five years, and I send him to school to-morrow, and he comes home, and I ask him, "Willie, can you read and write and spell? Do you understand all about geometry? Have you finished your algebra?" "Why, papa," he says, "why do you talk that way? I have been all the time trying to learn what A, B and C are." "What!" I say, "have you not finished your education? I will take you right away from that school if you have not." Now there is just as much reason in my doing that as there is in a man’s taking up the Bible and condemning it before he has studied it, and that excuse that these men are giving that they cannot accept the invitation because they don’t understand the Bible, will not stand before Christ’s tribunal. When they go up and stand before the Lord they will say, "I was very anxious to accept the invitation to be at the marriage service of your Son, but there were many things in the Bible that were dark and mysterious, and so I could not accept the invitation." That excuse sounds very well here, but up there you can’t tell that. You will be speechless when you stand before God’s bar. "Well," says another, "my trouble is not with the Bible, which I believe in from end to end, nor do I have any trouble about that other excuse about serving Christ: but the trouble I have is in seeing so many hypocrites, and I am not going to join the Church, there are so many hypocrites. I know a person who cheated me out of $5. and that same person pretends to be a Christian, and so you must not ask me to associate with hypocrites." Well, I say, if you don’t want to associate with hypocrites, you had better get out of the world as soon as you can. You will find one hundred hypocrites outside of the Church where you will find one in it. If you don’t want to associate with hypocrites, you had better accept this invitation at once. If I ever find a man who is a hypocrite, and betrays the cause of Christ, it only makes me want the love of Christ all the more, and I want to serve Him all the better. Because this or that man is untrue, is it any reason that I should like less the cause they betray? That is no excuse either, then. It is a personal, an individual matter with you. Suppose almost all men on the face of the earth are hypocrites, it is no sign that I or you should be so. Is that any reason why you should not become Christ’s follower? There is a young man over there who says, "Mr. Moody has not touched my case at all. My trouble is different. I would like to become a Christian, but if I become one, I am afraid I won’t hold out." That is a very common excuse. We have it in the inquiry room every night. "There is no one in New York that feels more anxious to become a Christian than I do," said a young man the other night, "but I am afraid that I will not hold out." Now, is it our work to keep ourselves, or is it the work of the shepherd to keep the sheep? The keeper of Israel never slumbers and sleeps, and is not the God of Israel able to keep us? The work of the shepherd is to take care of the sheep, and not the sheep to take care of the shepherd. Now the question comes, will you trust Him to-day? You will be able to stand if God stands with you. When I was talking with that young man, it reminded me of a boy whom I knew some years ago, whose father was a miserable drunken wretch and infidel, and he would not allow a praying man under his roof, for he said a man that prayed was nothing but a blackhearted hypocrite. Somebody got hold of his little boy, and got him into the Sabbath school, and he was converted. One day afterward, the old man caught him praying, and he caught him by the collar and jerked him to his feet, commanding him with oaths never to be caught doing that again, or he would have to leave home forever. Twice after that he caught him in the act of praying, and the last time told him to leave his house forever. The little fellow packed up his things in a handkerchief, went down into the kitchen where his mother was and bade her good-bye, then went and bade his little brother and sisters good-bye, and as he passed his father on his way to the door, he reached up his arms to put them around his father’s neck, and said, "Good-bye, father. As long as I live, I will pray for you, and he went down the street, but he had not gone a great while, before his father came after him, and said, "If that is Christianity, I want it." And the boy went back and prayed with his father, and led him to Christ. So you see you cannot give any excuse for not coming to Jesus, so accept His invitation this hour and be saved. But there is another excuse, and a good many of the young people give it. I have no doubt many of these little boys and girls here say, I don’t want to be a Christian, for if I do, I shall have to be gloomy. I know that was one of my excuses before I was converted. I thought if I became a Christian, I had got to put on a long face, and walk on through the world, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and have no more joy until I got into the other world. In other words, that Christianity was to make me sad and gloomy and despondent. But no; that is not religion, for religion should make you happy and joyful. See this man on the way to execution. A pardon from the Governor is put into his hands, and the poor man goes home to his family. Do you think that is going to make him gloomy? That is what the Gospel is. A pardon comes from the throne of Heaven, and that is not going to make us gloomy, is it? If a man dying for bread is given bread, is that going to make him gloomy? That is what the Gospel is - bread to the soul. If you give water to a man dying of thirst, a clear draught from the spring, isn’t that going to make him happy? Christ is the water of life. My friends, it does not make people gloomy. It makes people gloomy to want Christ. There are many who profess Christianity that don’t have a living Christ in them, and those are the people who are gloomy. But when Christ is with us a living well of water gushing up, it is a living well of gladness. And so, little boy, little girl, young man, young maiden, don’t give that for an excuse. Don’t say, "I will not accept of this invitation because it will make me gloomy and sad." That is not the experience of the true Christian. If you want to see a person truly happy, with a joy that the world does not know anything about, you must go to those that have been Christ’s, and have caught the spirit, for He brings us joy and true peace and happiness. Then another thing. There are a great many men that want to come, and they say, "Wait until I am a better man, and then I will come." I never knew a man to be saved that came to Christ in that way. You cannot make yourselves any better. You cannot cleanse yourselves. Every day and hour that you are staying from Christ you are getting worse instead of better. The very act of your staying away is a sin, and so instead of trying to get better, and get ready to come, just come as you are and be clothed with the garments of salvation. He will clothe you with His own righteousness I noticed when our war was going on, men used to come to enlist, and the man who came with a fine suit of clothes on, and the hod-carrier in his dirty garments, would both have to take off their clothes and put on the uniform of the Government. And so, when men go into the Kingdom of God, they have to put on the livery of Heaven. You need not dress up for Christ, because He will strip you when you come and put on you the robes of His righteousness. My friends, you cannot stand before God in your own righteousness. Come to God as a poor beggar, and He will have mercy upon you. I heard some years ago of an artist who wanted a model for the Prodigal. He went to many institutions and prisons, but could not get a man who suited his ideas of the Prodigal. One day, however, while walking down the street, he met a poor miserable tramp, and he suited the artist’s eye, so he asked him if he would be willing to sit for his portrait. The tramp said he would, if the artist would pay him for it. The artist promised and set a day and hour for him to come. At the appointed time, when the artist was sitting in his studio, the man came in, but he was so well dressed, the artist didn’t know him, and told him he had no appointment with him. When the beggar told him the circumstances, the artist said, "What have you been doing?" "Why,’ said the man, I thought if I was going to sit for my portrait, I would get a new suit of clothes." "Ah," said the artist, you won’t do; I wanted you just as you were." So, when you go to Christ, go just as you are, with all your rags, your filth, and your sin, and He will receive you. I don’t care how bad you are. He came for that purpose, and there is not a man or woman in this hall to-night that is so bad that Christ would not have you if you will only come. You may be a thief, a drunkard, a libertine, polluted with sin, and corrupt as the devil would have you, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ will receive you if you will just come, and come without delay, just as you are. But I need not go on enumerating excuses; if you drive a man from behind one excuse, he takes immediate refuge behind another. If you drive him from that, he gets behind another like a flash. You cannot exhaust excuses. They are more numerous than the hairs upon your head. I will tell you what you can do with them You can take them up and bind them in one bundle, and mark it, "Lies, lies, lies" in great big letters. God will sweep away those refuges of lies. It is only a question of time. By and by you will be left without an excuse. He that believeth not, will be without God, without hope, without excuse. Do not think of giving excuses here. If you have any excuse that you call good, if you have any excuse that you think will stand the light of eternity and of the judgment day, if you think you have any excuse that God will accept, do not give it up for anything I have said. Take it into the grave with you. Let it be buried with you, and when you come before Him, tell it out. If not, then give your excuses to us here to-day. It is easy to excuse yourself into hell, but you cannot excuse yourself out of it. It is easy to take a seat here, and to make light of everything you hear, and go away laughing and scoffing at the whole thing; but ah, it will be terrible to stand before God without an excuse. One of the most solemn things in Scripture is that not one of these men that were bidden to the feast of the Lamb and refused should taste of the supper. That is to say, that God would excuse them, taking them at their word. It will be a terrible thing to be excused from that feast. Do you really want to be excused? Is there a man or woman here that will say honestly that he or she would willingly be excused? Why not accept of the invitation now? Let the plough stand in the furrow, let the oxen stand in the stall until you accept the invitation. Let your business go until this question of eternity is settled with you. It is better for you to press into the Kingdom than it is for you to attend to any other duty. That is the first thing. A man must first attend to the soul’s salvation. If your wife won’t go, leave her at home. If you cannot get your family to join you, go alone. Make up your mind that to-day you will be up and pursuing that one object. If your companions make light of it, let them do it. It is Christ that invites you. Did you ever stop to think who will be there? Not one who has washed in the blood of the Lamb will be missing on that occasion. I would rather have my heart torn out of my body here on this platform, and go from here right straight to Heaven and be with Him at last, than live a hundred years and lose that opportunity. I want to be at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. I want to sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I want to be in the presence of the King of Kings Do not make light of it. I can imagine some of you saying, "I never yet got so low that I have been willing to make light of religion and serious things." Let me ask you: Suppose a man invites me to his house. Suppose he sends me a note and invites me to dinner with him, and I read it and simply tear it up or throw it aside and pay no more attention to it. Is not that making light of it? How many will thus walk out of this hall, and make light of everything they have heard? Suppose here we just write out a refusal of the invitation. "To the King of Heaven, While sitting in the church on a beautiful day, January, 1899, I received a pressing invitation from one of Your servants to be present at the marriage supper of Your only begotten Son. I pray Thee accept my excuses. Now, who would come forward and take a pen, and dip it in the ink and put his name to that? I can imagine you saying, Let this right hand forget its cunning and this tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, before I would be guilty of such a thing ten thousand times, No?" But I will tell you what you will do. You will get up and go out and make light of the whole thing. Let us write out an acceptance "To the King of Heaven: January, 1899. While sitting in the meeting, I received a very pressing invitation from one of Your messengers to be present at the marriage supper of Your only begotten Son. I hasten to reply. By the grace of God I will be present." Who will sign that? Will you say from the depth of your heart, "I will do that?" Some one up there says, "Yes, I will." Thank God for that! Why should not the one person speak for the whole audience? REAPING WHATSOEVER WE SOW "Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to tile Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." - Galatians 6:7-8 It is very easy for us to deceive ourselves and one another, and there is a good deal of deception in the world. But you cannot deceive God. When we try to deceive Him, we are thinking all the time that He is like us. We are told in Jeremiah that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Any man who leans on his own understanding will be deceived. How many times have we deceived others, and because we succeeded in doing so, thought we could deceive God; but we cannot do it. You may mock us, but whatever you do in that way, don’t mock God. I was reading some time ago of a young man who had just come out of a saloon. He had mounted his horse. As a certain deacon passed on his way to church he followed the deacon and said, "Deacon, can you tell me how far it is to hell?" The deacon’s heart was pained to think that a young man like that should talk so lightly; he passed on and said nothing. When he came round the corner to the church he found that the horse had thrown that young man, and he was dead. So you may be nearer the judgment than you think. Now, in the first place, a man expects to reap. That is true in the natural world. Men are sowing and planting, and what for? Why, to reap. And so it holds true, you will find, in the spiritual world. Not only that, when he sows he expects to reap more than he sows, and the same that he sows. If he sows wheat, he doesn’t expect to get potatoes; if he wants wheat, he sows wheat. If a man learns the trade of a carpenter, he doesn’t expect to be a blacksmith. It says in the 5th chapter of Matthew: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." See how God has dealt with the nations. See if they have not reaped what they sowed. What has become of the monarchs and empires of the world? What brought ruin to Babylon? Why, her king and people would not obey God, and ruin came upon them. What has become of Greece and all its power? It once ruled the world. What has become of Rome and all its greatness? When their cup of iniquity was full, it was dashed to the ground. What has become of the Jews? They rejected salvation, persecuted God’s messengers, and crucified their Redeemer, and we find eleven hundred thousand of them perished at one time. O, my friends, it is only a question of time! Look at the history of this country. With an open Bible our forefathers planted slavery; but judgment came at last. There is not a family North or South that has not to mourn over some one taken from them. Instead of that war humbling us, how defiant we became. Look and see how crime has increased during the past few years. Ah, this fair republic will go to pieces, if there is not more righteousness; it will perish like the other nations, if we don’t repent in time. I happened to be in France in 1867, and I confess I could not tell the difference between Sunday and any other day; and did not God punish France for her sins? She went down from her high station very quickly. But a few years ago she stood shoulder to shoulder with the leading nations of the earth. Why have those nations fallen? Just because God made them reap what they sowed. Now if a man sows for this life, why, he will reap in this life; and if he sows for eternity, he will reap in eternity. If he sows to the Spirit, he will have his harvest up yonder. If he sows to the flesh he will reap disappointment and despair; he will reap gloom, and death and hell; but if he sows to the Spirit, he will reap joy and peace and long-suffering and gladness, for these are the fruits of the Spirit; and not only that, but he has everlasting life. Now just ask yourself to-night what are you sowing? Are you sowing for time, or are you sowing for eternity? Are you sowing good seed, or are you sowing bad seed? You must remember the judgment sometimes comes down very suddenly, and sometimes it is deferred; but all through Scripture we find that God deals in grace before He deals in judgment. I have showed you that God dealt in judgment with Lot, and what a bitter end his was. Just take up your Bible, and, all through it, you will see that God deals in grace and government. Take that priest of His, Eli; he had two sons who didn’t care for God. He failed to bring them up right. They sold what was offered to God, and became very wealthy; but they were slain in battle against the Philistines, and Eli himself, when he heard the news, fell back and broke his neck. God sent a message twenty years before that sentence was carried out, that judgment would come. Look at the sons of Jacob. They sold Joseph and deceived their father. Twenty long years rolled away, and away down in Egypt their sin followed them; for they said: "We are guilty of the blood of our brother." ’The reaping time had come at last for those ten boys that sold their brother. If God will punish His own priest, Eli, one of His own children, won’t He punish those who have not accepted the offer of salvation? Mr. Moody proceeded at length to show that Jacob and David, though children of God, were severely judged in this life for their sins, and so continued. So keep this in mind that God has got a government. He may forgive us, He may give us eternal life, but it is the law of high Heaven that a man must reap what he sows. Now bear in mind that these three men were men of grace. We will see them in Heaven, there is no doubt about that. Now some of you will say, "If God is going to forgive me my sins, how does he make me reap what I have sown?" Well, I will illustrate it. Suppose I send out a man to sow wheat; he neglects to do his duty and sows tares. When the wheat grows up I find it out, and call him to account. "Well, to be honest with you," he says, "I got mad and sowed a lot of tares, but I am very sorry for it." I forgive him for sowing the tares, but when the reaping time comes, I make him reap them. Why, one of those men who spoke here to-day was a drunkard for thirty years. I have no doubt his sins are forgiven, but O, how he is reaping what he has sown! His wife and his children are away from him; he has not seen his little boy for fifteen years! I see a man in this audience to-night, and O, how he is reaping, how I pity him. A few months ago he was in a happy home in England. He gambled his employer’s money all away, and now he is an exile, a stranger in a strange land. God may forgive him, but he must reap what he has sown. Some men think that is hard, but it cannot be otherwise. I tried to help a poor man in Philadelphia. He had been in prison, and I could not help but try to lift him up. He betrayed my confidence, so we don’t know whom to help. Now suppose here is a father; he has got a boy who has gone out and stolen some money. His conscience is thoroughly roused, and he goes and confesses it. "Yes, my boy," the father says, "I will forgive you, but you must go and confess it." He don’t want to do that, but he must do it; he has got to reap what he has sown. Do you think God would punish Jacob and his own children and let unbelieving sinners go unpunished? Do you think the ten thousand rumsellers of New York are not going to be punished? I would not take the place of one of them, if you gave me all the world. Look at that little, weak, pale, thin girl, only six or seven years old; she went into a saloon and went to the bar and said to the saloonkeeper: "O, sir, don’t sell papa any more liquor, for we are starving." The rumseller ordered her out. You think there was no God to witness that? O, there is a just God yonder, and men are going to be gathered there to give an account of their stewardship by and by. Do you think that libertine who has gone and lied to that lady, and then ruined her and fled do you think he is going unpunished? He may escape the law on earth, but he will be tried at God’s bar, bound hand and foot and cast into hell. There is a day of grace now. He will forgive you the sin, though He will make you reap what you sow. He will give you your eternal life, if you will only come to Him and confess your sin, and is it not the very best thing you can do to come to God to-night? While preaching this sermon in a western city, and saying over and over the text, "Whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap," one man in the audience was deeply impressed. He sought Mr. Moody at the close of the sermon, and when he could speak to him, he said, "I am a defaulter. I have taken a great amount of money from my old place of employment in the State of Missouri. I have a wife and three children, and under your sermon to-night I have been convicted. Now what must I do? The penitentiary faces me if I return to Missouri." Mr. Moody said to me, when the man came to me I was on the eve of telling him instantly to go back and confess his sin and pay the penalty, but when I thought of my own wife and three children, I said, let me think about it until to-morrow, and then see me at my hotel. I met him next day at the hotel, and as soon as he entered my room, he said, "The question is settled. I have decided to go back." Sometime afterward when he had been sentenced to the penitentiary, he wrote me a letter in which he said that he had gone back to his old home; had stolen into the city in the night-time and after the children were asleep, had gotten into his house. He desired to spend a few days in fellowship with his wife, and he knew, if the children were aware of his presence, that the law would come down upon him, and so he remained hidden in his own home. Each night, when his wife would put the children to bed, he would stand near the door of an adjoining room and listen to their prayers and innocent talk. Finally he said, "Mr. Moody, I heard my little boy say, ’Papa does not love us any more; he has gone away, and he never writes us. I am sure he doesn’t love us,’ and Mr. Moody," said he, "I thought my heart would break, but it is true, as you have said, I am reaping what I have sown." He confessed his sin; was sentenced to the penitentiary and was pardoned out, after some little time of penal servitude. Mr. Moody was one day giving this illustration in the State of Missouri, and he said, "Some people have been disposed to question the truth of this." When he made that statement, a gentleman arose in the audience and said, "I am a former Governor of the State of Missouri." It was Governor Francis, who was speaking. "I can vouch for the truth of all Mr. Moody says, for I pardoned the man out myself." "But, in the sad story of the brokenhearted mans" said the great evangelist, "we have a perfect illustration of the text, ’whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 05.23. HIS BEST ILLUSTRATIONS ======================================================================== Chapter 23 - His Best Illustrations Mr. Moody was a master in the use of illustrations. He’ saw in everything on which his eye rested something, that would make the Word of God more easily understood. What other men would pass by, he seized upon, and, under his skillful touch, told in his inimitable way, it became powerful in illustrating the statements of the Bible. His illustrations always moved him, and for that reason they took firm hold upon his hearers. I have, again and again, seen the tears roll clown his face as he would tell some touching story of a father’s love for his child, or give some wonderful picture of the passing of a saint into the presence of God. There are those who criticize the use of illustrations in sermons, but Jesus used them, and was ever and again saying; "Whereunto shall I liken it," and would then tell the story of a prodigal son, or a broken-hearted mother, or a demoniac boy - "and the common people heard him gladly" THE FERVOR OF HIS ELOQUENCE The Honorable James A. Mount, Governor of Indiana, thus writes of him: "I unhesitatingly pronounce Dwight L. Moody the greatest preacher of the century. Classical scholars and literary critics may not agree with this estimate. Mr. Moody did not preach to please the ear, but to save the soul, yet he moved thousands to repentance by the fervor of his eloquence and the earnestness of his appeal. "He had a message from the Holy Spirit to dying men, and with love to God and love to men he delivered that message. More enduring than if perpetuated by marble shaft will be the name of Moody, for it is embalmed in the memory of loving hearts whom he led out of darkness into light, and from the power of sin to salvation through faith in Christ. ’He being dead yet speaketh’." And whatever may be given by men as the secret of his power as a preacher, all will agree in this, that his superb power in the use of illustration, contributed, in no small degree, to his ability to hold and to sway the millions of people to whom he preached. The following illustration I have often heard him use. It is said that Whitefield once preached a sermon, in the midst of which a sudden thunder storm of terrific force burst upon them, and, taking advantage of the storm to illustrate the Judgment, the effect of his preaching was profound. A request was sent to him to print the sermon for distribution; he agreed to do so on condition that the thunder storm be printed with it. To appreciate D. L. Moody’s illustrations you should have seen his audience moved by them, and you should have looked up into his face, all aglow with the power of his message, as I have done in the use of my story here given. The following are only a few of the hundreds he used when I have heard him preach: INFIDEL BOOKS People read infidel books and wonder why they are unbelievers. I ask, why do they read such books? They think they must read both sides. I ask, if that book is a lie, how can it be one side? It is not one side. Suppose a man tells lies about my family, and I read them so as to hear both sides; it would not be long before some suspicion would creep into my mind. I said to a man once, "Have you got a wife?" "Yes, and a good one." I asked: "Now what if I should come to you and cast out insinuations against her?" And he said, "Well your life would not be safe long if you did." I told him just to treat the devil as he would treat a man who went around with such stories. DOUBTS I remember laboring with a man in Chicago. It was past midnight before he got down on his knees, but down he went, and was converted. I said: "Now, don’t think you are going to get out of the devil’s territory without trouble. The devil will come to you to-morrow morning and say it was all feeling; that you only imagined you were accepted by God. When he does, don’t fight him with your own opinions, but fight him with John 6:37 : "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’ Let that be the "sword of the Spirit." "The struggle came sooner than I thought. When he was on his way home the devil assailed him. He used this text, but the devil put this thought into his mind: ’How do you know Christ ever said that after all? Perhaps the translators made a mistake.’ Into darkness he went again. He was in trouble till about two in the morning. At last he came to this conclusion. Said he: ’I will believe it anyway; and when I get to Heaven, if it isn’t true, I will just tell the Lord I didn’t make the mistake--the translators made it.’ LET THE LOWER LIGHTS BE BURNING A few years ago, at the mouth of Cleveland harbor, there were two lights, one at each side of the bay, called the upper and lower lights; and to enter the harbor safely by night, vessels must sight both of the lights. These western lakes are sometimes more dangerous than the great ocean. One wild, stormy night, a steamer was trying to make her way into the harbor. The captain and pilot were anxiously watching for the lights. By and by the pilot was heard to say, "Do you see the lower light?" "No," was the reply: "I fear we have passed them." "Ah, there are the lights," said the pilot;" and they must be, from the bluff on which they stand, the upper lights. We have passed the lower lights, and have lost our chance of getting into the harbor." What was to be done? They looked back, and saw the dim outline of the lower lighthouse against the sky. the lights had gone out. "Can’t you turn your head around?" "No; the night is too wild for that. She won’t answer to her helm." The storm was so fearful that they could do nothing. They tried again to make for the harbor, but they went crash against the rocks, and sank to the bottom. Very few escaped; the great majority found a watery grave. Why? Simply because the lower lights had gone out. Now with us the upper light is. all right. Christ himself is the upper light, and we are the lower lights, and the cry to us is, Keep the lower lights burning; that is what we have to do. THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH. I have no sympathy with the idea that our children have to grow up before they are converted. Once I saw a lady with three daughters at her side, and I stepped up to her and asked her if she was a Christian. "Yes, sir." Then I asked the oldest daughter if she was a Christian. The chin began to quiver, and the tears came into her eyes, and she said: "I wish I was." The mother looked very angrily at me and said, "I don’t want you to speak to my children on that subject. They don’t understand." And in great rage she took them away from me. One daughter was fourteen years old, one twelve, and the other ten, but they were not old enough to be talked to about religion! Let them drift into the world and plunge into worldly amusements, and then see how hard it is to reach them. Many a mother is mourning to-day because her boy has gone beyond her reach, and will not allow her to pray with him. She may pray for him, but he will not let her pray or talk with him. In those early days when his mind was tender and young, she might have led him to Christ. Bring them in. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." Is there a prayerless father reading this? May God let the arrow go down into your soul! Make up your mind that, God helping you, you will get the children converted. God’s order is to the father first, but if he isn’t true to his duty, then the mother should be true, and save the children from the wreck. Now is the time to do it while you have them under your roof. Exert your parental influence over them. "FOR CHARLIE’S SAKE." Some years ago at a convention, an old judge was telling about the mighty power Christians summon to their aid in this petition for Christ’s sake;" "in Jesus’ name;" and he told a story that made a great impression on me. When the war came on, he said, his only son left for the army, and he became suddenly interested in soldiers. Every soldier that passed by brought his son to remembrance; he could see his son in him. He went to work for soldiers. When a sick soldier came there to Columbus one day, so weak he couldn’t walk, the judge took him in a carriage, and. got him into the Soldiers’ Home. Soon he became president of the Soldiers’ Home in Columbus, and used to go down every day and spend hours in looking after those soldiers, and seeing that they had every comfort. He spent on them a great deal of time and a great deal of money. One day he said to his wife; "I’m giving too much time to these soldiers. I’ve got to stop it. There’s an important case coming on in court, and I’ve got to attend to my own business." He said he went down to the office that morning resolved in future to let the soldiers alone. He went to his desk, and then to writing. Pretty soon the door opened, and he saw a soldier hobble slowly in. He started at sight of him. The man was fumbling at something in his breast, and pretty soon he got out an old soiled paper. The father saw it was his own son’s writing. "Dear Father:- "This young man belongs to my company. He has lost his leg and his health in defense of his country, and he is going home to his mother to die. If he calls on you, treat him kindly, "For Charlie’s Sake." "For Charlie’s Sake." The moment he saw that, a pang went to his heart. He sent for a carriage, lifted the maimed soldier in, drove home, put him into Charlie’s room, sent for the family physician, kept him in the family and treated him for his own son. When the young soldier got well enough to go to the train to go home to his mother, he took him to the railway station, put him in the nicest, most comfortable place in the carriage, and sent him on his way. "I did it," said the old judge, "for Charlie’s sake." Now whatsoever you do, my friend, do it for the Lord Jesus’ sake. Do and ask everything in the name of Him "who loved us and gave Himself for us." A BEAUTIFUL LEGEND There is a beautiful tradition connected with the site on which the temple of Solomon was erected. It is said to have been occupied in common by two brothers, one of whom had a family, the other had none. On this spot was sown a field of wheat. On the evening succeeding the harvest - the wheat having been gathered in separate shocks - the elder brother said to his wife: "My younger brother is unable to bear the burden and heat of the day; I will arise, take of my shocks and place with his without his knowledge." The younger brother being actuated by the same benevolent motives, said within himself; "My elder brother has a family; and I have none. I will arise, take of my shocks and place with his." Judge of their mutual astonishment, when, on the following day, they found their respective shocks undiminished. This transpired for several nights, when each resolved in his own mind to stand guard and solve the mystery. They did so; and on the following night they met each other half-way between their respective shocks with their arms full. Upon ground hallowed by such associations as this was the temple of Solomon erected - of the world! Alas! in these days, how many would sooner steal their brother’s whole shock than add to it a single sheaf! "DINNA YE HEAR THEM?" During the Indian mutiny, the English were besieged in the city of Lucknow, and were in momentary expectation of perishing at the hands of the fiends that surrounded them. A little Scotch lassie was in this fort, and, while lying on the ground, she suddenly shouted, her face aglow with joy: "Dinna ye hear them comin’? dinna ye hear them comin’? "Hear what?" they asked. "Dinna ye hear them comin?" She sprang to her feet. It was the bagpipes of her native Scotland she heard. It was a native air she heard that was being played by a regiment of her countrymen marching to the relief of those captives, and these deliverers made them free. Oh, friend, don’t you hear the voice of Jesus Christ calling to you now? "THROW THE REINS TO CHRIST" An interesting story is told of Professor Drummond. He was staying with a lady whose coachman had signed the pledge, but afterward gave way to drink. This lady said to the professor, "Now this man will drive you to the station; say a word to him if you can. He is a good man and really wants to reform; but he is weak." While they were driving to the station, the professor tried to think how he could introduce the subject. Suddenly the horses were frightened and tried to run away. The driver held on to the reins and managed them well. The carriage swayed about, and the professor expected every moment to be upset, but after a little the man got the better of the team, and as he drew them up at the station, streaming with perspiration, he exclaimed: "That was a close shave, sir! Our trap might have been smashed into matchwood, and you wouldn’t have given any more addresses." "Well," said Professor Drummond, "how was it that it did not happen?" "Why," was the reply, "because I knew how to manage the horses." "Now," said the professor, "look here, my friend, I will give you a bit of advice. Here’s my train coming. I hear you have been signing the pledge and breaking out again. Now I want to give you a bit of advice. Throw the reins of your life to Jesus Christ." And’ he jumped down, and got into the train. The driver saw in a flash where he had made the mistake, and from that day ceased to try to live in his own strength. A REMARKABLE PICTURE Some years ago a remarkable picture was exhibited in London, As you looked at it from a distance, you seemed to see a monk engaged in prayer, his hands clasped, his head bowed. As you came nearer, however, and examined the painting more closely, you saw that in reality he was squeezing a lemon into a punch bowl. What a picture that is of the human heart! Superficially examined, it is thought to be the seat of all that is good and noble and pleasing in a man; whereas in reality, until regenerated by the Holy Ghost, it is the seat of all corruption. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light." "HE IS MY BROTHER" A fearful storm was raging, when the cry was heard, "Man overboard!" A human form was seen manfully breasting the furious elements in the direction of the shore; but the raging waves bore the struggler rapidly outward, and ere the boats could be lowered, a fearful space separated the victim from help. Above the shriek of the storm and the roar of the waters rose his rending cry. It was an ’agonizing moment. With bated breath and blanched cheek, every eye was strained to the struggling man. Manfully did the brave rowers strain every nerve in this race of mercy; but all their efforts were in vain. One wild shriek of despair, and the victim went down. A piercing cry, "Save him, save him!" rang through the hushed crowd; and into their midst darted an agitated man; throwing his arms wildly in the air, shouting, "A thousand pounds for the man who saves his life!" but his staring eyes rested only on the spot where the waves rolled remorselessly over the perished. He whose strong cry broke the stillness of the crowd was captain of the ship from whence the drowned man fell, and was his brother. This is the feeling we should have in the various ranks of those bearing commission under the great Captain of our salvation, "Save him! he is my brother." The fact is, men do not believe in Christianity because they think we are not in earnest about it. When the people see that we are in earnest in all that we undertake for God, they will begin to tremble; men and women will be inquiring the way to Zion. A FRAGRANT ACT There is a preacher in Edinburgh, but I never think of him as a preacher, although he is one of the finest preachers in Scotland. There is just one act associated with that man that I will carry in remembrance to the grave. There is a hospital for little children in Edinburgh, and that great minister, with a large parish and a large congregation, goes one afternoon every week and sits down and talks with those little children - good many of them there for life; they are incurable. One day he found a little boy, only six years old, who had been brought over from Fife. The little fellow was in great distress because the doctors were coming to take off his leg. Think how you would feel, if you had a little brother six years old and he was taken off to the hospital, and the doctor said that he was coming forty-eight hours afterward to take off his leg! Well, that minister tried to comfort the boy, and said: "Your father will come to be with you. "No," he said, "my father is dead; he cannot be here." "Well, your mother will come." "My mother is over in Fife. She is sick and cannot come. The minister himself could not come, so he said, "Well, you know the matron here is a mother; she has got a great big heart." The little chin began to quiver as the little boy said: "Perhaps Jesus will be with me." Do you have any doubt of it? Next Friday the man of God went to the hospital; but he found the cot was empty. The poor boy was gone: the Saviour had come and taken him to His bosom. One little act of kindness will often live a good deal longer than a most magnificent sermon. CALLING ON GOD Some old divine has pictured Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. A man pushed his way through the crowd, and said, "Peter, do you think there is hope for me? I am the man who made that crown of thorns and placed them upon Christ’s brow; do you think He will save me?" "Yes," said Peter, "’Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ You are a ’whosoever;’ if you call He will hear your cry. He will answer your prayer and save you. The man might have cried then and there, and the Lord saved him. Another man pushed his way up and said to Peter, "I am the man who took that reed out of His hand, and drove it down upon that cruel crown of thorns, sending it into His brow; do you think He will save me?" "Yes," said Peter, "He told us to go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and He did not mean any to be left out; salvation is for you. He did not come to condemn men; He came to get His arm under the vilest sinner and lift him up toward Heaven." Another man, elbowing his way through the crowd, pushed up to Peter, and said, "I am the Roman soldier who took the spear and drove it to His heart, when there came out blood and water; do you think there is hope for me?" "Yes," said Peter, "there’s a nearer way of reaching His heart than that; ’whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’" And the Roman soldier might have cried then and there, and might have obtained forgiveness and salvation. If the Lord heard the cry of those Jerusalem sinners whose hands were dripping with the blood of the Son of God - if He heard their cry and saved them, do you not think he will hear your cry and save you? A PENALTY NECESSARY A person once said to me: "I hate your God; your God demands blood. I don’t believe in such a God. My God is merciful to all. I do not know your God." If you turn to Leviticus 17:11, you will find why God demands blood: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the souls." Suppose there was a law that man should not steal, but no penalty was attached to stealing; some man would have my pocketbook before dinner. If I threatened to have him arrested, he would snap his fingers in my face. He would not fear the law, if there was no penalty. It is not the law that people are afraid of; it is the penalty attached. Do you suppose God has made a law without a penalty What an absurd thing it would be. Now the penalty for sin is death; "The soul that sinneth it shall die." I must die, or get somebody to die for me. If the Bible doesn’t teach that, it doesn’t teach anything. And that is where the atonement of Jesus Christ comes in. GRIP OF PROMISE Mr. Moody once told me that he was conducting meetings in Scotland, passing through an inquiry meeting he saw two little girls crying as if their hearts would break. He stopped long enough to ask them their difficulty, and one of them replied that she wanted to be a Christian. The great evangelist took his Bible and, opening it at the fifth chapter of John, the 24th verse (John 5:24), he asked her if she could receive that, and, with her face brightening, she said she thought she could and would. The next night, passing through the same room, he saw the same two girls upon their knees, and one of them crying bitterly. He was greatly perplexed, and, coming near enough to hear their conversation, he heard the child of the night before saying to her companion, "I say, lassie, you do just as I did, grip a promise and hold on to it, and he will save you, for he saved me." And this is true not only for the Scotch girl, but for every one who will simply take God’s Word and trust Him fully. ONE YEAR’S RECORD The following illustration of Dr. Gordon was much loved by Mr. Moody. Very tiny and pale the little girl looked as she stood before those three grave and dignified gentlemen. She had been ushered into the Rev. Dr. Gordon’s study, where he was holding counsel with two of his deacons, and now, upon inquiry into the nature. Of her errand, a little shyly preferred the request to be allowed to become a member of his church. "You are quite too young to join the church," said one of the deacons, "you had better run home, and let us talk to your mother." She showed no sign of running, however, as her wistful blue eyes traveled from one face to another of the three gentlemen sitting in their comfortable chairs; she only drew a little step nearer to Dr. Gordon. He arose, and with the gentle courtesy that ever marked him, placed her in a small chair close beside himself. "Now my child, tell me your name, and where you live?’ "Annie Graham, sir, and I live on K_________ Street. I go to your Sunday-school." "You do; and who is your teacher?" "Miss B_______ . She is very good to me." "And you want to join my church?" The child’s face glowed as she leaned eagerly towards him, clasping her hands, but all she said was, "Yes, sir." "She cannot be more than six years old," said one of the deacons, disapprovingly. Dr. Gordon said nothing, but quietly regarded the small, earnest face, now becoming a little downcast. "I am ten years old; older than I look," she said. "It is not usual for us to admit anyone so young to membership," he said, thoughtfully. "We never have done so still - "It may make an undesirable precedent," remarked the other deacon. The Doctor did not seem to hear, as he asked, "You know what joining the church is, Annie?" "Yes, sir;" and she answered a few questions that proved she comprehended the meaning of the step she wished to take. She had slipped off her chair, and now stood close to Dr. Gordon’s knee. You said, last Sabbath, sir, that the lambs should be in the fold "I did," he answered. "It is surely not for us to keep them out. Go home now, my child. I will see your friends and arrange to take you into membership very soon. The cloud lifted from the child’s face, and her expression, as she passed through the door he opened for her, was one of entire peace. Inquiries made of Annie’s Sabbath school teacher proving satisfactory, she was baptized the following week, and, except for occasional information from Miss B., that she was doing well, Dr. Gordon heard no more of her for about a year. Then he was summoned to her funeral. It was one of June’s hottest days, and as the doctor made his way along the narrow street on which Annie had lived, he wished, for a moment, that he had asked his assistant to come instead of himself, but as he neared the house, the crowd filled him with wonder; progress was hindered, and as perforce he paused for a moment, his eye fell on a crippled lad crying bitterly as he sat on a low doorstep. "Do you know Annie Graham, my lad?" he asked. "Know her, is it, sir? Niver a week passed but what she came twice or thrice with a picture or book, mayhap an apple for me, an’ its owin’ to her an’ no clargy at all that I’ll ever follow her blessed footsteps to Heaven. She’d read me from her own Bible whiniver she came, an now she’s gone there’ll be none at all to help me, for mother’s dead an’ dad’s drunk, an’ the sunshine’s gone from Mike’s sky with Annie, sir." A burst of sobs choked the boy. Dr. Gordon passed on, after promising him a visit soon, making his way through the crowd of tear-stained, sorrowful faces. The doctor came to a stop again in the narrow passageway of the little house. A woman stood beside him drying her fast-falling tears, while a wee child hid his face in her skirts and wept. "Was Annie a relative of yours?" the doctor asked. "No, sir; but the blessed child was at our house constantly, and when Bob here was sick she nursed and tended him, and her hymns quieted him when nothing else seemed to do it. It was just the same with all the neighbors. What she’s been to us no one but the Lord will ever know, and now she lies there." Recognized at last, Dr. Gordon was led to the room where the child lay at rest, looking almost younger than when he had seen her in his study a year ago. An old bent woman was crying aloud by the coffin. "I never thought she’d go afore I did. She used to run in regular to read an’ sing to me every evening, an’ it was her talk an’ prayers that made a Christian of me. You could a’most go to Heaven on one of her prayers." "Mother, mother, come home," said a young man, putting his arm around her to lead her away. "You’ll see her again. "I know, I know; she said she’d wait for me at the gate," she sobbed, as she followed him; "but I miss her sore now. A silence fell on those assembled, and, marvelling at such testimony, Dr. Gordon proceeded with the service, feeling as if there was little more he could say of one whose deeds thus spoke for her. Loving hands had laid flowers all around the child who had lead them. One young girl had placed a dandelion in the small waxen fingers and now stood, abandoned to grief, beside the still form that bore the impress of absolute purity. The service over again and again was the coffin lid waved back by some one longing for one more look, and they seemed as if they could not let her go. The next day a good-looking man came to Dr. Gordon’s house and was admitted into his study. "I am Annie’s uncle, sir," he said simply. "She never rested till she made me promise to join the church, and I’ve come. Dr. Gordon sat in the twilight, resting, after his visitor had left. The summer breeze blew in through the windows and his thoughts turned backward and dwelt on what his little parishioner had done. "Truly a marvelous record for one year. It is well said, Their angels do ever behold His face." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 05.24. REVIVAL CONVENTIONS ======================================================================== Chapter 24 - Revival Conventions In the early days of Mr. Moody’s evangelistic experience, frequent revival conventions were held, when questions were asked by the people and answered by the great leader, as a result of which hundreds of Christian workers were instructed in the special conduct of evangelistic services, and many ministers went out to do the work which they felt themselves before unable to perform. No wiser counsel was ever given. I remember in one of these conventions, Mr. Moody spoke as follows: WHAT IS EVANGELISTIC SERVICE? "Some one said to me, ’What do you mean by evangelistic services? Is not all service evangelistic? And what do you mean by preaching the Gospel? Are not all services in the churches and all meetings preaching the Gospel?’ "By no means. There is the greatest difference. There are really three services in every church; at least there ought to be; there is worshipping God; this is not preaching the Gospel at all. We come to the house of God to worship at times when we meet around the Lord’s table. Then there is teaching, that is building up the church, but it is not preaching the Gospel. Then there is the proclaiming the good news to the world, that is, to the unsaved; that is really Gospel preaching. Now the question we have before us is how can these services be conducted to make them profitable? Well, I should say first of all, you must make them interesting. If people go to sleep in church, they certainly need to be roused up, and if one method fails, try another, but I think we ought to use our common sense in all this work. We talk a great deal about this, but I think it is about the least sense we have, especially in the Lord’s work. This preaching to empty seats don’t pay. If people do not come to hear us, let us go where they are, and I have come to this conclusion, that if we are going to have successful Gospel meetings, we have got to have a little more life in them. Life is found in singing new hymns. For instance, I know some churches that have been singing about a dozen hymns for the last twenty years, such hymns as "Rock of Ages" "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." These hymns are always good, but we want a variety. We want new hymns as well as old ones. WE WANT NEW HYMNS I find it wakes up a congregation tremendously to bring in now and then a new hymn, and if we cannot wake them up by preaching, let us sing the Gospel into them. I believe the secret of John Wesley’s success was that he sent every man to work as soon as he was converted, and if people cannot speak, let us make them sing. Then, again, the question is asked as to whether we ought, in holding revival services, to change the minister every evening? I frequently receive letters telling me about special meetings, how the people turned out well, but there were no results, and I found out that they had a Methodist minister one night, a Baptist minister another, an Episcopal minister another, a Congregational minister another, in order to keep all denominations in, and the result was, they preached everybody out of doors. One man gets the people all interested, and just at the point where he needs to continue his own ministrations, another steps in, he goes out, and the people frequently go out with him. Then these meetings ought to be made short. I find a great many are killed because they are too long. The minister speaks five minutes, and a minister’s five minutes is generally ten, and his ten minutes quite often twenty, and the result is often long sermons drive people out of the spirit before the meeting is over. When the people leave they are glad to go home, and ought to go home. Now, you send the people away hungry and they will want to come back. There was a man in London who preached in the open air until everybody left him, and somebody said, "Why did you preach so long?" and he said, " I thought it would be a pity to stop while anybody was listening." It is a great deal better to cut right off. Then the people will want to come back. THE MOST APT REPLIES TO QUESTIONS At this point, Mr. Moody paused for questions, and he was always at his best when answering these questions in such services. He had the keenest mind and the most apt replies possible. Q:- - Would you start a meeting where there is no special interest in the church? Mr. Moody: - Certainly I would. So many people are saying to-day that they are waiting for God to favor Zion, and the fact is God has been waiting to favor Zion ever since Pentecost. They have no calendar in Heaven. God can work one month as well as another, and he is always ready when we are ready. Q:- - Suppose a minister is interested, and there is no special feeling among the people. Would you call in outside help? Mr. Moody: - That is a very important question. If I were a minister in a community or a church, and could not get more than one or two to sympathize with me, I would just get them around to my study, and we would pray and go forth in the name of the Lord, and say, "We are going to have a meeting." Three men filled with the Spirit of God can move any town in this country. Q:- -Suppose the congregation is alive and the minister is dead? Mr. Moody: - Then let the congregation go on without the minister. Q:- -Suppose the minister won’t permit them? Mr. Moody: - He cannot prevent it. A man that wants to work for God can do so; nobody can stop him. Q:- - Suppose there is a difficulty in the church which cannot be removed? Mr. Moody: - I do not know of anything that is too difficult for God. The trouble is we are trying to remove these difficulties ourselves instead of going to God in prayer. Q:- - Why was it the Lord Jesus could not do anything at Nazareth? Mr. Moody: - On account of their unbelief, but that was the world, not the Church. Q:- -Is it best to put the test question in a church, asking those who are anxious to arise, or rather to go to another room? Mr. Moody: - I think so. If any man is going to be saved, he is going to take up his cross, and if it is a cross, I would like to ask him to do it. What you want is to get them to do something they don’t want to do, and it is a great cross generally for people to rise for prayer, but in the very act of doing it, they are very often blessed. I do not think I should attempt to have meetings without the inquiry-room. People are impressed tinder the sermon, but what you want is to deal with them personally. Here and there one is converted under the sermon, but for every one converted under the sermon, hundreds are converted in the inquiry room. Q:- - Do you advocate "anxious seats?" Mr. Moody: - I would rather call it seats of decision; but in union meetings you know we have to lay aside a good many of the different denominational peculiarities. The "anxious seat" is known to the Methodists, but if we should call it that, the Presbyterians would be afraid, and the Episcopalians would be so shocked that they would leave, and I find in the union meetings, it is best to ask them to go right into the other room, and talk to them there. Q:- - What would you say to a person who replies, "I can be a Christian without rising for prayer"? Mr. Moody:- I should say, most certainly he could, but as a general thing, he won’t. Q:- - What method would you recommend to get people on their feet to testify for Christ? Mr. Moody:- In the first place, I would bury all stiffness. If a meeting has a formal manner, it throws a stiffness over it, so that it would take almost an earthquake to get a man up, but if it is free and social, just as you would go into a man’s house and talk with him, you will find people will appreciate it and get up. Q:- - If the world has got in and is stronger than the church, what then? Mr. Moody:- Then I would organize another church The mistake in all this is in taking unconverted people into the church. We really must be more careful. Q:- - How far is it wise to encourage young converts to labor with inquirers in the inquiry-room? Mr. Moody:- I always encourage them. I believe a man who has been a great drunkard, for instance, and been reclaimed, is just the man to go to work among his class. Q:- -When a man feels he must preach the Gospel, and the church doesn’t want to hear it, must he go out? Mr. Moody:- A great many have got the idea that they can preach the Gospel, when they cannot, and some have got the idea that they cannot preach the Gospel, and they can to a certain class, and then they are just the ones to speak in that church. Now, I have tried that. When I was first converted, I thought I must talk to them about Christ, but I saw they did not like it, and finally they came and told me, I could serve the Lord better by keeping still. Then I went out into the street, and God blessed me, and I got to preaching before I knew it. If the people don’t want you, don’t force yourself upon them. Go out and preach to the ragged and the destitute. Then some question was asked about the inquiry-meeting, in the conduct of which Dwight L. Moody was a master. To this inquiry Mr. Moody made answer: "If the ministers would encourage their members to be scattered among the audience, to never mind their pew, but sit back by the door if need be, or in the gallery, where they can watch the faces of the audience, it would be a good thing. In Scotland I met a man who, with his wife, would go and sit among the people, as they said, to watch for souls. When they saw anyone who seemed impressed, they would go to him after tire meeting and talk with him. Nearly all the conversions in that church during the last fifteen months had been made through that influence. Now, if we could only have from thirty to fifty members of the church, whose business it is just to watch for those who are impressed, and lead them into an inquiry meeting when the pastor announces it, the results would be magnificent. The best way in our regular churches is to let the workers all help pull the net in. When the people have come into the after-service, let some one who knows his Bible sit down beside them and give them God’s Word. I have very little confidence in the man who simply states his own experience, for, as a rule, that experience might discourage the one to whom he speaks, but if he points out God’s Word, the Spirit is pledged to apply that word to the seeking soul, and the result is salvation. It is an awful thing for a man to preach a sermon on coming to Jesus and then dismiss his audience without giving them a chance to come. Instruct your people in the knowledge of God’s Word, and teach them how to explain that word to the man who is saying, "What must I do to be saved?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 05.25. HOW TO STUDY THE BIBLE ======================================================================== Chapter 25 - How To Study The Bible No more interesting services were ever conducted by Mr. Moody than his Bible Readings. I remember riding on the train with him at one time, and as we came into New York City, where he was to conduct a service, I said to him, "let me see your Bible," he had it in his hands, turning over the leaves, he laughingly replied, "Oh, no, if I should give you this, you would have my sermon for to-night, and then you might preach it before I could." And yet no one was more willing to give help to others than Mr. Moody. He was always receiving from his friends, but he was ever giving to them in return; and as for myself, it has been difficult for me to preach without saying, "Mr. Moody said this," or "I once heard Mr. Moody say, and I have ever found that illustrations on which he had set his seal of approval, were received by all classes of people as authentic. Mr. Moody was peculiar in this, that however many times you might hear him say anything it never lost its freshness, and somehow you felt that you were hearing it for the first time. The following is a characteristic Bible reading--the theme being one, in which he was always at his best: A CHARACTERISTIC BIBLE READING In Ephesians 5:18, we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Ghost. A person who is full of the Holy Spirit deals much with the Scriptures. One of the things we lack in the present day is more Bible study. I think this nation is just waking up to the fact that we have had a famine, it is not the man now that makes a fine oration in the pulpit so much as it is a man that expounds the Word of God that we need. A boy once asked another boy how it was that he caught all the pigeons that were in the neighborhood. He said: ’Well, I tell you, it is because I feed them well. If you feed the people well they will come; and people have got tired hearing a little more or less eloquence. The preachers have hitherto used the Bible merely as a text-book. They have taken their texts out of the Bible, and they have gone all over Christendom for their sermons. The result is that our churches are weak in spiritual power. But it is beginning to improve already. The churches are not now hunting after a man that will make a grand oration, so much as they are for a man that will unfold to them the Word of God. That is what the people want. If they can only get back to the Word of God, then we will have not just here and there a revival, but we will be in a revival all the time. The church will be constantly in a revived state. It is those Christians that are feeding on the Word of God that are revived all the while. There is something fresh about them, and people are glad to hear them talk. "THAT BOOK MADE ME A GOOD MAN" As we come to study this Word of God, we want to keep in mind that it is the Word of God, not the Word of man; and that as the Word of God, it is true. I think the colored man was about as near the truth as one need be, when some infidel came to him and told him the Bible was not true. ’That Book not true? Massa, I was once a murderer, and a thief, and a blasphemer, and that Book made me a good man. That book must be true! If it is a bad book, it could not make such a bad man good.’ That is argument enough; we do not need anymore. Look around us; if a man becomes a profligate, he begins to talk against the Bible; if he is upright he takes it as a lamp to his feet. We are never afraid of a man that tries to live according to the teachings of this book. This book is God’s Word, and it will stand. Over the new Bible House recently built in London, England, are written these words, ’The Word of the Lord endureth forever.’ That building will pass away, that city may pass away, like Babylon and Nineveh, and other cities that once flourished, but the Word of God shall endure forever. Not one word that God has spoken shall fall to the ground. We want also to bear in mind that the Bible is not a dry, uninteresting book, as a great many skeptics try to make out. They ’say, ’We want something new; we have outgrown that.’ Why, the Word of God is the only new book in the world. All that the newspapers can do is to tell of things as they have taken place, but the Bible will tell of things that will take place. We do not consider the Bible enough as a whole. We just take up a word here and a word there, and a verse here and there, and a chapter here and there, and never take it up in any systematic way. We, therefore know very little about the Bible. I will guarantee that the bulk of Christians in America only read the Bible at family worship; and you will notice, too, that they have to put in a book-mark to tell where they left off the day before. You ask them an hour after what they have read, and they have forgotten all about it. Of course we cannot get much knowledge of the Bible in that way. When I was a boy I worked on a farm, and I hoed corn so poorly that when I left off I had to take a stick and mark the place, so I could tell next morning where I had stopped the night before. If I didn’t, I would likely as not hoe the same row over again. In order to understand the Bible we will have to study it carefully. I was told in California that the purest and best gold that they get they have to dig the deepest for; and so, in studying the Bible, we must dig deep. And there are a great many Christians walking on crutches in their Bible studying. They do not dare to examine for themselves. They go wondering what others say, what Edwards says, what the commentators say. Suppose you look and see for yourselves. God has given you your own mind to use. If we will go to the Word of God, and be willing to be taught by the Holy Ghost. God will teach us, and will unfold His blessed truth to us. There are three books that every Christian ought to have, if he cannot have but three. The first is a Bible - one with good plain print that you can easily read. I am sick of these little fine types. It is a good thing to get a good-sized Bible, because you will grow old by and by, and your sight may grow poor and you won’t want to give up the one you have been used to reading in after it has come to seem like a sort of a life-long companion. The next book to get is Cruden’s Concordance. You cannot get on very well in Bible study without that. There is another book printed in this country by the Tract Society called the Scriptural Text Book. It was brought out first in London. These three books will be a wonderful help to you in studying the Word of God. DO NOT READ THE BIBLE TO EASE YOUR CONSCIENCE Another thing: do not read the Word of God as I used to, just to ease your conscience. I had a rule to read two or three chapters every day. If I had not done it through the day, I would read them just before I went to bed to ease my conscience. I did not remember it perhaps an hour, but I kept the rule. You will never get much out of it in that way. It is a good way to hunt for something when you read it. Two words will give you the key to the whole Bible - Christ and Jesus. The Christ of the Old Testament the Jesus of the New, and the two books explain each other. You may search for these words in your study. Some time ago I went through the building where Prang’s chromos are produced in Boston. They were bringing out a chromo of a prominent public man, and he showed me this picture in its different stages of progress. In the first stone there was no trace of a man’s face; only a little tinge of color that did not suggest any shape. I saw the next stone, and still no face, and the third, and so on, and not until the fourth or fifth stone was there any likeness of a face at all. After a little it began to show, and yet not until I came to the fourteenth or fifteenth stone did it look at all like the man himself, and not until the twenty-sixth stone did it look as natural as life. That is the way it is when we read the Scripture. We take it up and do not see anything in it; we read it again, but see nothing. Again and again, and after you have read it twenty-five times, you will see the man Christ Jesus stamped on every page. STUDY ONE BOOK AT A TIME The Old Testament was written only to teach us who Christ was. Moses, the law, the prophets, they all testify to Christ. You take Christ out of the Old Testament and it is a sealed book to you. It has been a great help to me in studying the Bible to study one book at a time. Suppose you spend six months reading Genesis. Getting the key of that, you get the key to the whole Bible. Death, resurrection, and the whole story are told in Genesis. All in types, to be sure, and shadows that are brought out further on. There are eight great beginnings in Genesis - the beginning of creation, the beginning of marriage, the beginning of sin and death, of sacrifices, of the covenant, of the nation, and human race and Hebrew race. Take up these eight beginnings, and see what they teach, and this key will unlock to you the rest of the Bible. If you just take the Bible itself alone, without any other book to help you to interpret it, one passage will explain another. Instead of running after the interpretations of different men, let God interpret it to your soul. As Stephens said, Do not study it in the blue light of Presbyterianism, or the red light of Methodism, or the violet light of Episcopalianism, but study it in the light of Calvary. One man says, "I am a Romanist, and it has got to teach what Romanism teaches;" another says, "I am a Protestant, and it has got to teach me what Protestantism teaches." Take it up independent of these, and after you have dug its meaning out for yourself it will be so much sweeter to you. TAKE THE BIBLE TOPICALLY Another way is to take it up topically. Suppose you spend three or four months reading all you can find about love; after that you will be full of love. Then take the word grace, and run through the Bible, reading all there is about grace. After I had been studying grace for two or three weeks, I got so full that one day I could not stay in my study any longer, and went out on the. street and asked the first man I saw, if he knew anything about the grace of God. I suppose he thought I was crazy, but I was so full I had to talk to somebody. Then take up the subject of the blood, then the subject of Heaven. Some are troubled about’ assurance, and do not know whether they may have assurance of being saved or not; but take up the Bible, and let God speak to you about it. If you go into court, you will find that the lawyer just gets all the testimony he can on one point and he heaps it before the jury. If you want to convince men of any grand truth, just stick to that one point. Take up the Word, and get all the testimony you can. Bring in Moses and David and Joshua, and every apostle you can, and make them testify. If you read all the Bible says of forgiveness, before you have studied it a week, you will want to forgive every one. NOT ENOUGH BIBLES People do not have enough Bibles. Once in my own Sunday school I asked all the children who had on borrowed boots to rise; no one rose. Then I asked all those who had on borrowed coats to rise; no one rose. Then I asked all those who had borrowed Testaments in their hands to rise, and they all went up; and I said I want you all to bring your Bibles with you, and about two months after that it would have done your soul good to see every child come with a Bible. A great many people carry their hymn-books, but it is better to carry your Bible. When I was in Scotland I had to keep my eyes open, and preach exactly according to the Word, or some old Scotchman would rise and draw his Bible on me, and I would know it pretty quick. A man got up in Parliament a few years ago and made a grand speech full of eloquence, that took over four hours. He carried all the people with him in one voice. When he got through a man got up and read two or three lines of the law of England, and bursted the whole speech in a minute. Some men are very eloquent when there is not one word of truth in what they say, but you cannot know it, because you have not the Bible knowledge. There are a good many people who wonder that they do not have joy in their religion. The reason is that they do not feed upon the Word; that is where they get the joy. If we neglect the manna that God has given us for our soul’s nourishment, of course we won’t have joy; but people whine and say it is a great mystery to them that they do not have joy as others do. See how happy some are! Why? They feed upon the Word of God. That is why. They are not living upon the Old stale matter of the conversion that they had long ago. It makes me sick to hear men tell how happy they were long ago when they were first converted. The idea that they should not be happier since then! We ought to grow in grace and be advancing. Suppose I should keep telling my wife, "I loved you very much when I married you!" That is the way many treat the Lord, telling Him how much they loved Him once. HAVE A BIBLE YOU CAN MARK About bringing your Bibles with you - just have a Bible you can mark. If I should go and hear one of my friends preach, and he unfolded some grand and glorious truth, I would put a few words down upon the margin of the Bible that would just give me the key to the whole, and I would not forget it. By doing this, when you heard a good sermon you could go and preach it to other people. I hope the day will come when if a man hears a good sermon in the morning, he will be so full of it he will have to go and preach it over again in some locality where they have not heard it. If the lawyers and merchants would only do that they would make better missionaries than the hired ones. I think more of this Bible in my hand than of all the other Bibles in New York. If I had come without this Bible I would have been lonesome. I have carried it so long I have got used to it. Buy a good Bible, one that won’t wear out, with a good flexible cover that will fold around you. Button up your coat over it and keep it close to your heart. You can mark your texts in it and know where to look for them at any time, and they will all be glad to see you in any prayer-meeting. There will be something fresh about you that will make you always welcome. An Englishman said to me, "Did you ever study the book of Job?" "No," I said, "not particularly." "You ought to," said he; "it is a wonderful book; if you get the key to that, you get the key to the whole Bible." "That is singular," said I. "I thought Job was more of a poetical book; how do you make it out?" He said the first division represents Adam in Eden, a perfect man untried; the second head represents his fall; the third says "The wisdom of the world came to restore Job." You cannot," he said, "find any wisdom in all the books equal to the wisdom of those three men, but they could not help poor Job out of his difficulty." Just so is the world trying to put Adam back again; they try to amend him but they cannot do it. Your philosophers cannot restore Adam to his original perfection. What can the geologist tell you about the Rock of Ages? What can the astronomer tell you of the Bright and Morning Star? The fact is Job could not stand their treatment. He could stand his boils and his scolding wife, but he could not stand the way the wise men treated him. The fourth head is about Elihu; he came and. brought grace and that is what Job wanted. He did not want law; Job was a righteous man in his own conceit up to this time. He said, I have fed the hungry, I have clothed the naked, I did this and that - I! I! I! - that was Job’s cry then. He was a great man; if we had him now we would make him a leader in some Presbyterian Church and be glad to get him. GOD SPEAKS Under the fifth head God speaks. He says, "Gird up your loins like a man, I will put a few questions to you." The moment Job got a glimpse of God he was a different man; his self-righteousness was gone. When I go into the inquiry-rooms some days some have their heads down on their hands, and I cannot get a word out of them. I say to myself, such persons are near to God. But some are flippant and glib, and say, Why does God do this and why does God do that? God alone restores Adam to his lost state, and in his restoration he is better than he was at the beginning, because his last state is eternal. When he is restored to Heaven there is no more banishment. JESUS THE KEY TO THE NEW TESTAMENT Up to this point I have tried to show you that Christ was the key to the Old Testament, now I will show that Jesus is the key to the New. Christ was tempted as we are, but He had not the same enemy to overcome. He that knew no sin took upon Him ours. One of the saddest mistakes that young converts make, is that of merely feeding upon sermons instead of the Word of God. You know it is quite an event in the family when the child gets so it can feed itself. We want to learn as quick as possible to feed ourselves. If we will only take our Bible and make up our minds that we will depend upon our own study of the Bible. He will help us understand it. If we try to study it in one way, and we find we do not like it, let us take up another, and if that fails, try another. Some time ago my wife was very anxious that I should learn to like tomatoes. She liked them and she wanted me to like them. So she got me to try them, first raw, with vinegar, and sugar and pepper, but I could not bear them; then she fixed them another way, but still I could not eat them. One day I came home, and she said, "I have cooked the tomatoes a new way." Well, I tried them again once more, and I thought they were the best things I ever tasted. So, if you take up the Bible one way and don’t like it, take it up another way, and keep trying until you find a way in which it will unfold itself to you. You won’t find people that are in love with the study of this Word carrying a dime novel through the street. They won’t walk up Fifth Avenue with a trashy book in their hands. They will be reading books that will help them understand the Bible. You will be so anxious to get off alone and have a feast upon it, that you will have to reprove yourself for not going out and working more. THERE IS DANGER ON THAT HEAD There are a great many who are all the time feeding upon the Word - not in this country, I am sorry to say. I would rather be as they are elsewhere than as they are in this country, where they neither feed on the Word, nor study either. But some people are always taking in, taking in, and not as if they intended to give it out. Some one said we ought to fill our minds like they fill a vessel in the Mississippi river. A vessel goes up the Mississippi river, and takes in its cargo on the way, always with a view to taking it out. They put the freight that is coming out first on top. So let us store away our knowledge with a view of getting it out again, and not just to lumber up our heads with a lot of stuff that we never intend to use. Let us try to put these truths where we can get them out and give them to some one else. Now, I see some people who are here every night. They get the best seats every solitary night, and for the last six weeks they have been here every night, regularly. And when they go into the inquiry-room, you cannot get a word out of them; they won’t as much as lift a little finger; their arms are folded. They are always standing round the building an hour before the doors are open. Here they are every night, always taking in and never giving anything out. But if we get a good thing let us go and give it to some one else. Some one said he always studied the Bible with three R’s in his mind - Ruin, Redemption, and Regeneration. When I open the Word of God I keep that idea in view. There are three cornerstones that a man must know - first, that he is ruined, or he does not want a redeemer; second, there is redemption through the blood; and third, regeneration by the Holy Ghost, born of the Spirit. THE FOUR GOSPELS I have in my Bible here the keynotes to the four books of the New Testament. I will give you my idea of a few of them. Matthew, when he wrote about Christ, writes of Him as the Son of David. He writes from the standpoint of a man that had belonged to the government. If you want to find out about Christ as the Son of David, you will have to turn to Matthew. These four men, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, wrote from different standpoints. Matthew brings out Christ as the Royal Son of David, as the Heir, as Abraham’s successor, or from the line of Abraham to take the throne of David. Mark takes Him as a servant. You will find Him going here and there as a servant doing His master’s will. Luke brings Him out as the Son of Man, as coming in contact with man; and then we find in the Gospel of John he brings Him out as the Son of God. Luke and Matthew and Mark do not go and trace Him back as John does. John goes past Adam and Abraham and Zachariah and Malachi - sweeps past them all, and brings Him out of the bosom of the Father; and he has with one stroke of the pen settled the question of the divinity of Jesus Christ. No one can read the Gospel of John and believe it, and still doubt the divinity of Jesus Christ, and believe Him to have been a mere man. He spoke of Him as the Son of God, a stranger starting out in the world alone. All through John, He was meeting sinners alone. He met Nicodemus alone, and the woman at the well. I have been interested, some time ago, in taking up for study the characters that had personal interviews with the Son of God. There were nineteen. Peter had two such interviews. No one knows what they said. Take up the history of these nineteen persons and see how they were blessed, unless, indeed, they rejected Him, as Pilate did? ONE WORD AT A TIME Take one word at a time, and run through the Bible and read all you can find on that point. Take words "I Am." When the Lord sent Moses to Egypt, Moses was reluctant to go, and he said as a last excuse, " If I tell them that I have been sent, whom shall I tell them has sent me?" And the Lord said, "Tell them I Am." Some one said that was the same as a blank check given to Moses; and that when he got clown in Egypt and they wanted water, he just filled in the check with water, and they got it. Take the word "verily" of St. John. Whenever you see that word, you may feel sure there is some great truth coming after it. Some time ago I was blessed in taking up the seven blessings of Revelation for study. Some people say you cannot understand Revelation. They say the deep theologians can understand it, but common people cannot. Why, it is the one book that tells of the downfall of the devil, and the devil does not want us to find that out, so he says to us, "You cannot understand Revelation." It is the one book in the Bible that opens with a benediction. It tells us of the marriage supper of the Lamb. We get a great deal in Revelation that is not found in any other part of the Bible. All Scripture is given by inspiration, and all is profitable for reproof and correction, that a man of God may be thoroughly furnished. We want to take the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Do not let us join the unbelieving, scoffing world that says we cannot understand Revelation. "Blessed are those that watch. Blessed are those that keep from the world. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they shall rest from their labors. Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection." Let us have a part in the first resurrection And the last is, "Blessed are they that shall be at the marriage supper of the Lamb." Take these seven blessings and put them together and study them. SIX THINGS WORTH KNOWING I take up one chapter in the Epistle of John with the word "know." There are six things worth knowing. The fifth verse and third chapter says (1 John 3:5), "We know He is manifested to take away sin." That is what Jesus came for. We know it because God said it. Some people say it makes no difference what a man believes if he is sincere in his belief. Why it makes all the difference in the world. What we believe we know to be true. We are not deluded and deceived into believing it. The Spirit of God has borne witness to its truth. Take the third thing worth knowing, in the 14th verse (1 John 3:14). "We know that we have passed from death unto life." How many in this audience to-night know that. Suppose I should ask this audience, how many could say they knew it? Some people think it is not the privilege of any one to know that. But this is a great mistake. If I did not know it now I would not go to my dinner this day or to my bed this night until I did know it. It is worth knowing. Christ came to call us from death to life. Do you think we have to go on in this terrible uncertainty not knowing whether we are saved or not. God does not leave us with that uncertainty. But if you have malice and hatred against some one, that is a sure sign that you have not got the spirit of Christ. You may know you have not been born of God, for God is love. The fifth thing worth knowing is in the 24th verse (1 John 3:24), "We know that He abideth with us, by the Spirit which He hath given us." If we are out backbiting our neighbors, and living like the world, it is good evidence that we have not been born of God. The sixth thing worth knowing is the best of all. It is in the 2d verse (1 John 3:2): "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." John wanted to disabuse them of the idea that they were not sons of Heaven. I heard a man pray in a prayer-meeting: "When we come to die may we be the sons of God." But "now are we the sons of God," it says. "It does not yet appear what we shall be." The world does not yet know the difference, but it will be revealed by-and-by. There was a little boy in Boston who was probably the richest person in all Boston. The little child did not know that he was heir to a great estate. So, Christians, many of them, don’t know that they are heirs to all things. We will come into possession of our inheritance by-and-by. What God wants is to have us live for that inheritance. He has had it in store for us where He dwells. Satan cannot get there to get it out, though he would like to if he could. It is kept for us, and He keeps us for it. The day I first got hold of those truths I could not hold my peace. When people came in I said to them, I have got some honey out of the rock," and I gave it to my friends. So we can help one another in our wilderness journey. WHOM IS IT WRITTEN TO? The power of the Holy One is unlimited. If you have relatives who have no faith, and they are running down these meetings, do not get discouraged. The Lord God is able to save them. In the first twelve chapters of John, you will find Christ dealing with sinners altogether. In the 8th chapter of John, they are going to tell Him that they doubt His word. In the 10th chapter, He is going to have His sheep in spite of those unbelieving Jews. In the 11th chapter, the Jews are going to put Lazarus out of the way, because on account of Lazarus’s testimony all men were believing. From the 13th to the 17th chapters, you will find Christ dealing with His Church. When you take a chapter like that, you should consider whom the chapter is addressed to. We would not have any trouble about the doctrine of election if we considered that it was addressed to the Church, to believers. Suppose. I should find a dispatch on the floor, saying, "Your wife is dead," I would say, "My wife dead! How can that be, and I not know of it?" But suppose I should find on the back of the envelope that it was addressed to some one else, and not to me, the case would be different. We must understand whom it is written to. The whole Bible is not directed to sinners. A good deal of it is addressed to certain classes and individuals, and a great deal is addressed to the whole world. In the 13th of John, he has Christ dealing with the disciples. HOW CRIST DEALT WITH SINNERS There are certain passages addressed to the wicked, and certain passages to God’s people. Very often a sinner will get hold of some comforting word addressed to a Christian, and he will go and take comfort in it when he has no right to, any more than I would have a right to read some one’s letters. In the 7th chapter of John, Christ is with the Father. In the 18th chapter of John, Christ is in the hands of His enemies. And so you just take any one book and divide it up like that. Take the subject of the gifts of Christ and, with the word gifts, learn all that is written of the gifts of Christ and the gifts of Satan. For Christ’s gifts there are the bread of Life and the Holy Spirit and peace, and joy, and love, and mercy, and the morning star, and mansions. Take these gifts and put them down, and then put down beside them the gifts of Satan for serving him, and compare them. See if you will turn your back upon all these blessed gifts of God for the sake of the few fleeting moments of time here, and the baubles which, when you have got them, do not satisfy you. I want to speak of the seven different characters in John, and how Christ dealt with them. Suppose we could divide up these sinners here under these seven heads. Turn to the 7th chapter of John, and see how Christ dealt with that respectable sinner, Nicodemus. He set him aside entirely. He did not put a new piece into the old garment; the Lord does not patch a man’s coat. He gives him a new coat throughout. He told Nicodemus he must be born again. In the 4th chapter, see how Christ deals with one who has fallen. She is not very respectable, but He gives her the water of life. We cannot find any class of people in New York that has not its representative in the Bible, and Christ’s dealings with them. A nobleman came to Him, whose child was ill. He told him to go home, his child would live; He did not give the nobleman any medicine for his child, but the man took His word, and when he got home he found the child was nearly well, and that it was better from the seventh hour, when he had spoken to Christ. "TAKE UP THY BED AND WALK" If some poor tramp should read these words who has not got any friends, or anywhere to lay his head, a poor miserable sinner, if he will turn to the 5th chapter of John, he will know how Christ will deal with him. There was just such a poor beggar at the pool. Christ asked him if he would like to touch the waters; he said, "I would like to be put in, but I haven’t any one to help me; I am lame;" and the Lord said, "Take up thy bed and walk." He cured him by a word. I can imagine in the gallery there is a man who says: "I wish there was some class in the Bible that represented me. I have broken the law. If the law should get hold of me I would have to go to prison for twenty years; the police do not know; I have covered up my sin. I wish there was something in the Bible for me." Well, there is; there is. Turn to the 8th chapter of John. You will see how Christ dealt with a woman whom the law would have stoned to death. They dragged her into the presence of Christ, saying, "The law of Moses says, ’stone her to death;’ what sayest thou?" He stooped and wrote on the ground as if He paid no attention; then He raised up and said, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," and He went on writing on the ground. When He looked up again the crowd had disappeared. He said, "Where are thy accusers? Go thou and sin no more." If you want to know how Christ dealt with sinners, go to the Bible. There is no sinner here who has not his representative in the Bible. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 05.26. HIS CREED - THREE CARDINAL TRUTHS ======================================================================== Chapter 26 - His Creed - Three Cardinal Truths Mr. MOODY was the most faithful advocate of every truth presented in the Word of God. He seemed to have the most wonderful conception of all the great principles underlying the plan of salvation. His belief in the atonement was never to be shaken, and his uncompromising position as touching the inspiration of the Scriptures was always commented upon by those who heard him preach for any length of time, but there are three special truths with which his ministry was particularly identified in the judgment of many of his friends. HIS VIEW CONCERNING THE WORD OF GOD The first was his view concerning the Word of God in itself. The last time I heard him speak in Philadelphia he said: "It is always the greatest pleasure to me to speak on the subject of the Bible. I think I would rather preach about the Word of God than anything else, because I think it is the best thing in the world and we cannot ’possibly over estimate the value of Bible study. One must keep constantly drinking at this fountain if he is to be used of God. A man stood up in one of our meetings and said he hoped for enough out of the series of meetings to last him all his life. I told him, that was perfect nonsense; he might as well try to eat enough breakfast at one time to last him his lifetime. These meetings are a failure, if they do not bring you in touch with God’s Word, and enable you to drink deeply there." When I was with him in Pittsburg, I took the following notes from his morning address. "We do not ask men and women to believe in the Bible without inquiry. It is not natural to man to accept the things of God without question, and, if you are to be ready to give an answer or a reason for your faith to every one that asks you, you must first of all be a diligent student of the Word of God yourself. Do not be a doubter because you think it is intellectual. ’Give us your convictions,’ said a German writer; ’we have enough doubts of our own,’ and if you are filled with the Word of God there will not be any doubts. But some one will say, ’I wish you would prove to me that the Bible is true.’ My answer is, the Book will prove itself if you will let it. There is real power in it. ’For this cause also we thank God without ceasing, because when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is, in truth, the Word of God, which continually worketh also in you that believe.’ "It is not the work of men to make other men believe; but it is the work of the Holy Ghost. It is an awful responsibility to have a Bible and to neglect its teachings. What if God should withdraw it and say, I will not trouble you with it longer? WHAT TO DO WITH DIFFICULT PASSAGES "But some one else asks, ’what am I going to do when I come to a thing that I cannot understand?’ I answer, ’ I thank God that there are heights in it that I have never scaled, and depths in it that I have never sounded, because if I could understand it all, I would know that a man not greater than myself had written it. When it is beyond me in places, I know that God must have written it. ’It is one of the strongest proofs that the Bible must have come from God, that the wise men in all the ages have been digging down into it, and never yet have sounded its depths.’ "A man came to me with a difficult passage some time ago and said, ’Moody, what would you do with that?’ I answered, ’I don’t do anything with it.’ ’How do you understand it?’ I don’t understand it.’ ’How do you explain it?’ ’I don’t explain it.’ Well, then, what do you do with it?’ ’I don’t do anything with it.’ ’But you believe it, don’t you?’ ’O, yes, I believe it, but there are lots of things that I believe that I cannot understand and that I cannot make plain. I do not know anything about higher mathematics but I believe in them, with all my heart. I do not understand astronomy, but I certainly believe in astronomy.’ He was always most intense when he said, " But somebody will say, ’You surely do not believe in the story of Jonah and the whale. That’s entirely out of date. I want to say most emphatically that I do believe it, and when men turn away from this story, I think it is the master stroke of Satan to try to make us doubt the resurrection, for Jesus used it as an illustration of this doctrine. The book of Jonah says, ’God prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.’ Couldn’t God make a fish large enough to swallow him? If God can create a world out of nothing, I think he can create a fish large enough to swallow a million men. Don’t you? DON’T CUT ANYTHING OUT OF THE BIBLE "Then there are other people who say, ’I believe in the Bible, but not in the supernatural side of it.’ They go on reading the Bible with a pen-knife, cutting out this and that and the other thing. Now, if I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I think my friend has the same right, and you would have a queer book, if everybody cut out what he wanted to. Every liar would cut out everything about lying. Every drunkard would cut out what he did not like. It is a most absurd statement for a man to say he will have nothing to do with the supernatural. If you are going to throw off the supernatural, you might as well burn your Bibles at once. For if you take the supernatural out of the book, you take Jesus Christ out of it. "Then, I want to say, also, that it is absurd for any one to say that he believes in the New Testament and not in the Old. Do you not know that of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, it is recorded that our Lord made quotations from over twenty? Over 800 passages in the Old Testament are quoted or mentioned in the New. In Matthew there are about 100 quotations from twenty books in the Old Testament. In Luke, thirty-four quotations from thirteen books, and in John eleven quotations from six books. In the four Gospels there are more than 160 quotations from the Old Testament. CHRIST REFERRED TO THE OLD TESTAMENT "If the Old Testament Scriptures are not true, do you think Christ would have so often referred to them, and said, ’The Scriptures must be fulfilled,’ and, if He could use the Old Testament, let us use it. May God deliver us from the one-sided Christian who reads only the New Testament and talks against the Old. "It is a great thing to study the Bible. I once heard Dr. Pierson say there are four things necessary in studying the Bible Admit, submit, commit and transmit. "First: Admit its truth. "Second: Submit to its teachings. "Third: Commit it to memory, and "Fourth: Transmit to someone else. "And, if we are to study the Bible, there are three books which I think every Christian ought to have. First is a Bible with large print; the second, a Cruden’s Concordance; the third, a topical text book; and if we have these three books, anyone of us might become successful students of this old book. "Dr. Pierson also says, whenever we read any portion of the Bible we ought to remember the five P’s: "Place where written. "Person by whom written. "People to whom written. "Purpose for which written. "Period at which written. "Let me indicate some suggestions: 1st. Always carry a Bible with you. 2nd. Mark it. 3rd. Set apart a portion of each day to study it. 4th. Ask God to open your eyes to its truth. 5th. Believe that God wrote this word to you, and act accordingly. 6th. Commit some portion of the Bible to memory each day. 7th. Do not be satisfied with simply reading a chapter daily; study the meaning of at least one verse in it. "But remember this, that the Bible is every whit inspired. God has said it, and God always speaks the truth. ’Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST The second great cardinal truth with which Mr. Moody was so closely identified in his world-wide ministry was the second coming of Christ. He firmly believed that Christ was coming before the Millennium, and not after it. He was never more eloquent than when he was speaking of prophecy and its fulfillment. "Some people tell us," he said, "that it is useless to try to understand prophecy. ’The Church is not agreed about it; better let it alone, and deal only with those things that have been fulfilled.’ Paul did not say that. He said, ’All Scripture is profitable.’ If these people are right, he ought to have said, ’Some Scripture is profitable, but you cannot understand the prophecies, so better let them alone.’ ’And you can’t understand about this second coming,’ what nonsense this is! If God did not mean to have us study the prophecies, He would not have put them in the Bible. Some of them have been fulfilled. Some are being fulfilled, and all shall be. The three great comings are foretold in the Word of God. First, that Christ should come; that has been fulfilled. Second, that the Holy Ghost should come, and that has been fulfilled. Third, that our Lord should return from Heaven, and for this we are told to watch and wait. "Whoever neglects this truth has only a mutilated Gospel, for the Bible deals not only with the death and sufferings of Christ, but also of his return to reign in honor and glory. His second coming is mentioned and referred to over three hundred times, and yet I was in the Church fifteen or sixteen years before I ever heard a sermon on it. Every church makes much of baptism, but in all of Paul’s epistles baptism is spoken of only thirteen times; the return of the Lord fifty times. "We are also told in the Scriptures just how He is to come. The angel said, in like manner as you have seen him go. We know that He went up with His flesh and bones, and we certainly know that when He comes back again, He shall come just as He went away from His disciples; but it is also true that of that day and hour no man knoweth, but it is well for us that we do not know. If Christ had said, ’I will not come back for eighteen hundred years, none of His disciples would have begun to watch for Him until the time was near. The last chapter of John gives us a text which seems to settle the whole matter. Peter asks the question about John: ’Lord, what shall this man do?’ Jesus said unto him, ’If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.’ Then this saying went abroad among the brethren that that disciple should not die. They certainly did not think that the coming of the Lord meant death. There was a great difference between these two things in their minds, and when any one says that the coming of Christ means the death of the Christian, he has only to put this thought into the Bible as he reads, to see how ridiculous it is. Look at that account of the last hour of Christ with His disciples. What does He say to them? ’If I go away I will send death for you to bring you to me, or that I will send an angel after you?’ Not at all. He says, ’I will come again and receive you unto myself.’ WILL THE WORLD GROW BETTER OR WORSE? "Some people shake their heads and say that this thought is too deep for the most of us; such things ought not to be told to young converts. Paul wrote these things to young converts among the Thessalonians, and I believe there is no Christian to-day, whether he be young or old, but what he can get a great inspiration out of this truth. At one time I thought the world would grow better and better until Christ could stay away no longer, but in studying the Bible, I do not find any place where God says so. I find that the world is to grow worse and worse, then, after a while, Christ is to come in power and glory. Some people think this is a new and strange doctrine, but I say that it is not. Many of the most spiritual men in the world are firm in this faith. Spurgeon preached it, and I know of no reason why Christ might not come before I finish this sermon. "There is another thought I want to bring to your attention, and that is, that Christ will bring our friends with Him when He comes; all who have died in the Lord are to be with Him when He descends from His Father’s throne into the air. ’Behold, I come quickly,’ said Christ to John. Three times it is repeated in the last chapter of the Bible, and almost the closing words of the Bible are the prayer, ’ Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’ "The world waited for the first coming four thousand years, and then He came. He was here only thirty-three years and went away, when He left us a promise that He would come again, and, as the world watched for His first coming, so we wait for His appearing the second time unto salvation. But you also read, ’for in such an hour as we think not, the Son of Man cometh.’" THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST The third great truth for which Mr. Moody stood, and of which his own great life was a powerful illustration was the truth touching the work of the Holy Ghost. "When I was first converted, I spoke in a Sabbath school, and there seemed to be a great deal of interest, and quite a number rose for prayer, and I remember I went out quite rejoiced; but an old man followed me out - I have never seen him since. I never had seen him before, and don’t even know his name - but he caught hold of my hand and gave me a little bit of advice. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but he said, ’Young man, when you speak again, honor the Holy Ghost.’ I was hastening off to another church to speak, and all the way over, it kept ringing in my ears, ’Honor the Holy Ghost,’ and I said to myself, ’I wonder what the old man means.’ I have found out since what he meant, and I think that all that have been to work in the vineyard of the Lord have learned that lesson, that if we honor Him in our efforts to do good, He will honor us and work through us; but if we don’t honor Him, we will surely break down. "The only work that is going to stand to eternity is the work done by the Holy Ghost, and not by any one of us. We may be used as His instruments, but the work that will stand to eternity is that done by the Holy Ghost; and every conversion in these meetings, that is not by the power of the Holy Ghost, will not stand. They may be impressions that will last for a few weeks or months, but then they will pass away like the morning cloud; and I firmly believe that if a man or woman be not converted by the Holy Ghost, we will not see them in Heaven. THE HOLY GHOST, A PERSON "I really believe I was a Christian ten years before I believed it. I went into a church once and heard an old minister say that the Holy Ghost was a person. I thought the old man was wrong, and could not believe that the Holy Ghost was a person. I did not know my Bible then as well as I do now, but I went home and got my Bible, and went to work to study it out; and I have been thoroughly convinced ever since that the Holy Ghost is a person as much as God the Father is, and as much as Jesus Christ the Son is. Some may say that it is a mystery, and there are a good many things that are mysterious on their face. Now turn to the 14th chapter of John, 16th and 17th verses (John 14:16-17): ’And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.’ Now, if the Holy Ghost were not a person, Christ would not have said ’Who.’ To be sure He is a spirit. but at the same time He is a person, the same as God the Father is. God is a spirit, and yet He is a person. Three times in this last verse it says ’Him’ and once ’Who.’ Then in the 26th verse of the same chapter (John 14:26): ’But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.’ Then there are a good many other verses, and I want to call your attention to one or two more, just to show this fact, that He is a person. Whenever Christ spoke of the Holy Ghost, He always spoke of Him as ’He’ or ’Him,’ and we won’t honor the Holy Ghost unless we make Him a person, and one of the persons of the Trinity the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. THE REAL FRUIT IS LOVE "It is the work of the Holy Ghost to impart love. Just turn to Romans 5:5 : ’And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.’ The real fruit that we look for in a young convert is love, and I think it is one of the strongest proofs that this religion of Jesus Christ is divine, that it is the same all the world over. Even in the heart of China you will find, if a man is converted, he will love his enemies. The love of God is in that man’s heart. What do we as Christians feel and want to-day? What is the great lack of the Church? Why are so many complaining about the coldness of the Church? It is because we have not got this love. If the Holy Ghost is a power in the Church, shedding abroad love in our hearts, there won’t be any complaint. "A great many Christians are like Lazarus when he came forth he was bound hand and foot; but Christ said, ’Loose him and let him go.’ And so Christians want to feel that liberty they should feel when Christ calls them to be His disciples. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Many think to themselves before they get up to speak: ’Now, what will Mrs. B. say when I get up, if I don’t talk as well as the minister?’ and ’Oh, if I could talk as well as Brother A., wouldn’t I give my testimony quickly! But I haven’t any eloquence, and cannot speak like an orator. "Don’t you know, my friend, it is not the most fluent man that has the greatest effect with a jury? It is the man who tells the truth. And in speaking of your experience, God will help you if you trust in Him, and you will find after a simple trial that you have perfect liberty. The trouble is we have a great many Christians who have only got as far as the 3d chapter of John, and so far as liberty to come out and speak up for God is concerned, they don’t know anything about it. We want this spirit of liberty so as to be qualified for God’s work. A friend of mine told me once that when he went to a boarding-house he could always tell who the boarders were, for they never alluded to family matters, but sat down to the table and talked of outside matters; but when the son came in, he would go into the sitting-room to see if there were any letters, and inquire after the family, and show in many ways his interest in the household. It doesn’t take five minutes to tell that he is not a boarder, and that the others are. And so it is with the Church of God. You see these boarders in church every Sunday morning, but they don’t take any interest. They come to criticize, and that is about all that constitutes a Christian nowadays. They are boarders in the House of God, and we have got too many boarders. What we want is liberty. HOW THE JUDGE BECAME A WORKING CHRISTIAN "A friend of mine asked a judge in his church to go out to a schoolhouse in the country with him one day, where he was going to preach. He said to the judge that he would like to have him go, and the judge said he would like to go along. He told the judge he would like to have him speak to the people. The judge said, ’Oh, I could not do that.’ ’Why can’t you? You can speak in your court well enough without any trouble. Why cannot you speak here? Suppose you just try it?’ When they got out there, the judge refused to do so, but the minister said, ’I want to put the judge into the witness box and question him.’ And the judge got his lips open at last, and told how he was converted, and how the Spirit of God came down upon him. And there was a mighty power in what he said, and the result was that many were converted, and the judge has been a working Christian ever since. I think there are hundreds bound, as he was, by station. "A man who had been a professing Christian for three years I met at a meeting, and I knew he had been a professing Christian, and I supposed, of course, he had prayed in public. I noticed that he hesitated when I asked him, but he rose, and as soon as he opened his lips, the words came easily. I heard him tell a friend afterward that that night he felt as if he had been converted a second time. THE HOLY GHOST TESTIFIES OF CHRIST "I believe the world would have forgotten Christ’s death as soon as they forgot His birth, if it had not been for the Holy Ghost. It had only been thirty years since His birth, and all those wonderful scenes had happened in Bethlehem and it was well known in Jerusalem; yet, it seems to have been forgotten until Christ came. And they would have forgotten His death if it had not been for the Holy Ghost. He came to testify for Jesus Christ that He had risen. He saw Him in Heaven, and He came to tell us that He was there at the right hand of God. He convinced men on the day of Pentecost, three thousand of them. He does not talk of Himself, but of Christ. In the 15th chapter of John, the 26th verse (John 15:26), it says, ’But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me. "A man came to me the other day and said he was going where my wife and family are, and wanted to know if I had any message to send. Well, I sent them a message; but suppose when that man went down there, that he should go and see my wife and should begin to talk about himself, and not say a word about me. That would not cheer their hearts; they would want to hear about me. That would make their hearts warm. The Holy Ghost teaches us this lesson of self-forgetfulness. Every one of us Christians wants more of the Holy Ghost. Let us all give ourselves up to the influence of His Spirit, who will lead us on to liberty and life and peace and joy. THREE CLASSES OF CHRISTIANS "It seems to me that we have got about three classes of Christians. The first class in the 3d chapter of John, were those who had got to Calvary and there got life. They believed on the Son and were saved, and there they rested satisfied. They did not seek anything higher. Then, in the 4th chapter of John, we come to a better class of Christians. There it was a well of living water bubbling up. There are a few of these, but they are not a hundredth part of the first class. But the best class is in the 7th chapter of John, ’Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ That is the kind of Christian we ought to be. "When I was a boy, I used to have to pump water for the cattle. Ah, how many times I have pumped with that old right hand until it ached! and how many times I used to pump when I could not get any water, and I was taught that when the pump was dry I must pour a pail of water clown the pump, and then I could get the water up. And that is what Christians want--a well of living water. We will have plenty of grace to spare; all we need ourselves and plenty for others. We have got into the way now of digging artesian wells better. They don’t pump now to get the water, but when they dig the well they cut down through the gravel and through the clay, perhaps one thousand or two thousand feet, not stopping when they can pump the water up, but they cut to a lower stratum, and the water flows up abundantly of itself. And so we ought, every one of us to be like artesian wells. God has got grace enough for every one of us, and if we were only full of the Holy Ghost what power we would have! The influence of these meetings would be felt through the whole country. A learned doctor said once, speaking of Christ’s holiness, ’You fill a tumbler of water to the brim and then just touch it, and the water flows out; and so Christ was so full of truth that when the woman touched Him, virtue flowed out and healed her.’ Every one of us should be as full of the Holy Ghost as this, and then men will see that we have an unseen power. We must not be satisfied with just having life, but we want this power. How many times we have preached and taught, and it has been like the wind! And why? Because our hearts were not full, and we did not have that anointing. WE HAVE TO BE VERY HUMBLE "Some one asked a minister, if he had ever received a second blessing since he was converted. ’What do you mean?’ was his reply, ’I have received ten thousand since the first.’ A great many think because they have been filled once, they are going to be full for all time after; but O, my friends, we are leaky vessels, and have to be kept right under the fountain all the time in order to keep full. If we are going to be used by God we have to be very humble. A man that lives close to God will be the humblest of men. I heard a man say that God always chooses the vessel that is close at hand. Let us keep near Him. But we will have to keep down in the dust; God won’t choose a man that is conceited. The moment we lift up our head and think we are something and somebody, He lays us aside. If we want this power, we have to give God all the glory. I believe the reason we do not get this power more than we do, is because we do not know how to use it. We would be taking all the credit to ourselves and saying, ’Don’t I do a great work?’ and begin and boast about it. There are hundreds and thousands I believe that God would take up and use and give us a great baptism if we would only give Him the glory. We have not learned the lesson of humility yet, that we are nothing and God is everything." A BLESSED EXPERIENCE In the city of Glasgow, some years ago, Mr. Moody related an incident which is given here in his own words, from which we get a glimpse of his superior life, and from which we are led to believe that in this, as in everything else, he was a great illustration of the truths he taught to others: "I can myself go back almost twelve years and remember two holy women who used to come to my meetings. It was delightful to see them there, for when I began to preach, I could tell by the expression of their faces they were praying for me. At the close of the Sabbath evening services they would say to me, ’We have been praying for you.’ I said, ’Why don’t you pray for the people?’ They answered, ’You need power,’ ’I need power,’ I said to myself; ’why, I thought I had power.’ I had a large Sabbath school and the largest congregation in Chicago. There were some conversions at the time, and I was in a sense satisfied. But right along these two godly women kept praying for me, and their earnest talk about ’the anointing for special service’ set me thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got down on our knees. They poured out their hearts, that I might receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. And there came a great hunger into my soul. I knew not what it was. I began to cry as I never did before. The hunger increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any longer if I could not have this power for service. I kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York - O, what a day! I cannot describe it; I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to me. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. "I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you would give me all Glasgow. It is a sad day when the convert goes into the church, and that is the last you hear of him. If, however, you want this power for some selfish end, as for example, to gratify your ambition, you will not get it. ’No flesh,’ says God, ’shall glory in my presence.’ May he empty us of self and fill us with His presence. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 05.27. THE FUNERAL ======================================================================== Chapter 27 - The Funeral It would be difficult to imagine a more representative company of Christian workers than that which assembled about the casket holding all that was mortal of him who was said by many to have been the most remarkable man of this generation. The friends had been gathering for two days. The Holiday joys in their own homes and the natural desire that every man has to be with his own family at such a season of the year could not keep them from paying this last tribute to the man who had been a friend, indeed more than a friend to every one of them; for, if ever any one came to know D. L. Moody well, he loved him. Paul once wrote in his Epistle to the Philippians, "I thank my God for every remembrance of you," arid all who came close to this man of God could write the same concerning him. SO LIKE MR. MOODY HIMSELF The Hotel Northfield had been opened by the family of Mr. Moody for the accommodation of those who would come to the services, and Mr. Ambert G. Moody, his nephew, who has been so closely associated with Mr. Moody’s Northfield work, was there to receive the coming friends and bid them welcome, just as his distinguished uncle would have had it done. It was so like Mr. Moody himself to care for the comfort of these sad-hearted pilgrims. I found myself, as I was planning for the journey and had received notification that the Northfield was opened for us, saying, "Well, that is like him in all his careful thought for others. I suppose that he has ordered that the house be thrown open, and that it be made comfortable for all who would accept the invitation to come," and then it came to me like a shock that D. L. Moody was dead, and could care for us no more except as the influence of his sainted memory would guide and control for many a long day. Many of his co-laborers were in Northfield the evening of Christmas Day, and the life of this dear friend was talked over; always with love, and frequently with tears blinding the eyes of those who would attempt to speak. Those who were qualified to testify told of his last days and the closing hours of his life. One said, "It was just such an experience as we would have supposed he might have. It was glorious." HIS LAST MOMENTS AND HIS WILL Another told how just before the last he said, "Can’t a man die sitting up as well as lying down," and when the doctor said yes, they took him up and let him rest for a moment or two in his chair, but it was only for a little while, and then they put him back again in his bed. It was the last time he was to rise, and he who told it said with a sob, "I cannot bring myself to realize that he has gone from us." Another told how, when he was aroused from his stupor and saw all his loved ones about him, he said in his old way, so characteristic of himself, "What’s going on here," and when they told him that he had been worse for a little time, and that they had come to be with him, he closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep again. Still another told of the will he made, unlike any other will that any man had ever made; when he gave the care of Mt. Hermon to his son, William R. Moody; the Northfield Young Ladies’ School to the care of Paul, his son, a junior in Yale; the special oversight of the Bible Institute to Mrs. Fitt and her husband, Mr. A. P. Fitt, the latter having for years been Mr. Moody’s closest and most confidential helper, particularly in the Bible Institute in Chicago and the Colportage Library work. The Northfield Training School was to be the care of Mr. Ambert G. Moody, his nephew. And when something was said about Mrs. Moody, he had said she was the mother of them all, and they must all care for her. An old friend gave the account of his words to his boys when he said, "I have always been an ambitious man, not ambitious to lay up money, but ambitious to leave you all work to be done, which is the greatest heritage one can leave to his children." A TRIUMPHANT PASSING AWAY Still another gave the picture of his last hours. No more memorable sentences on one’s deathbed have ever been spoken. It was just such a triumphant passing away as his dear friends would have wished. Where have you ever read better sayings than these "Is this dying? Why this is bliss." "There is no valley." "I have been within the gates." "Earth is receding; Heaven is opening; God is calling; I must go." And when he went away from them for a little time and came back, he said that he had seen his loved ones in Heaven, giving their names, and when it was suggested that he had been dreaming, he assured them it was not so, but that he had actually been within the gates of Heaven. Thus his noble life went out, but he being dead yet speaketh, and is continuing to speak, and tens of thousands rise up to call him blessed. Such intimate associates as Mr. Ira D. Sankey, Mr. George C. Stebbins, Rev. George C. Neediham, Prof. W. W. White, Mr. William Phillips Hall, Mr. John R. Mott, Mr. Richard C. Morse, Rev. George A. Hall, and many others talked until the evening was gone, and then retired each to feel that his was a personal bereavement, because D. L. Moody was dead. WANTED TO SEE HIS FACE ONCE MORE Special trains were run from the surrounding New England towns, and they were filled with people who wanted to see his face once more. Farmers drove from distances of twenty miles away that they might pay respect to the memory of him in whom they all believed. The students were many of them away for their Christmas vacations, but there was a sufficient number present to bear his body from the house, which had become so much a part of himself, to the church in which he was so deeply interested. At last the day of the funeral came. It was a sad company of friends that met in the Grand Central Station in New York City the morning of the funeral. There was the Hon. John Wanamaker, who had been in close fellowship with him for years; the Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D., who had been as near to him in Christian work as any man in the country, who showed by every expression of his face that he was in sorrow, yet " not as others who have no hope Mr. and Mrs. Janeway, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, devoted friends of the great Evangelist for years, and intimately and officially connected with the Northfield work. There were very many others, but notably, there was the veteran evangelist, the Rev. Dr. E. P. Hammond, who had known Mr. Moody as long as any one in the company. It was a sad group of people that journeyed toward the little town where the devoted friend was lying dead. Many of them had not seen Northfield in winter. They had visited it when the trees were in full foliage, when the grass was green on the hill-sides, and when the birds sang their joyous welcome, but at this visit all nature seemed in sympathy with the many who sorrowed because their friend was not, but rejoiced as well because God had taken him, and because of the abundant entrance given him into His presence. At last the church was reached. Special seats were reserved for the late coming friends, and the most memorable funeral service in all the experience of the most of those who knew him began. During the morning Mr. Moody’s family had been with the body, which had been lying in the death-chamber since the time of death. But soon after ten o’clock the body was laid in the heavy broadcloth casket and removed to the parlor of the home, where a simple service of prayer was conducted by Mr. Moody’s pastor, the Rev. C. I. Scofield, assisted by the Rev. R. A. Torrey, of Chicago. FUNERAL SERVICES AT THE CHURCH At the close of this service the casket was placed on a massive bier, and thirty-two Mt. Hermon students bore it to the Congregational Church, where it was to lie in state. During the next three hours fully three thousand persons looked for the last time at the face of the great, good man. The casket was placed directly in front of the altar, and around it were banked many floral tributes. The gathering at the church for the funeral service at 2:30 was notable. Men from all walks of life - clergymen, business men, tillers of the soil - came side by side to pay a last tribute. The services were as simple and as impressive as if he himself had planned them. The voice of the loved one was still, but his presence was felt. The hymn, "A Little While and He Shall Come," was followed by the Rev. C. I. Scofield’s prayer. The Rev. A. T. Pierson read the Scripture lesson from II Corinthians, iv. ii. This was followed by a prayer by Rev. George C. Needham, after which the congregation sang "Emmanuel’s Land," the music being directed by Mr. A.. B. Phillips, Professor of Music in the Northfield Institute. The Rev. Dr. Scofield then pronounced the eulogy, saying: "We know,’ ’We are always confident,’ That is the Christian attitude toward the mystery of death. ’We know,’ so far as the present body is concerned, that it is a tent in which we dwell. It is a convenience for this present life. Death threatens it, so far as we can see, with utter destruction. Soul and spirit instinctively cling to this present body. At that point revelation steps in with one of the great foundational certainties and teaches us to say We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ "There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. But that is not all. Whither after all shall we go when this earthly tent dwelling is gone? To what scenes does death introduce us? What, in a word, lies for the Christian just across that little trench which we call a grave? Here is a new and most serious cause of solicitude. And I here again revelation brings to faith the needed word: ’We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.’ "Note, now, how that assurance gives confidence. First, in that the transition is instantaneous. To be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. And secondly, every question of the soul which might bring back an answer of fear is satisfied with that one little word ’home.’ "And this is the Christian doctrine of death. ’We know.’ ’We are always confident.’ In this triumphant assurance Dwight L. Moody lived, and at high noon last Friday he died. We are not met, dear friends, to mourn a defeat, but to celebrate a triumph. He ’walked with God and he was not, for God took him.’ There in the West, in the presence of great audiences of 12,000 of his fellow-men, God spoke to him to lay it all down and come home. He would have planned it so. "This is not the place, nor am I the man to present a study of the life and character of Dwight L. Moody. No one will ever question that we are laying to-day in the kindly bosom of earth the mortal body of a great man. Whether we measure greatness by quality of character or by qualities of intellect, Dwight L. Moody must be accounted great. "The basis of Mr. Moody’s character was sincerity, genuineness. He had an inveterate aversion to all forms of sham, unreality and pretence. Most of all did he detest religious pretence or cant. Along with this fundamental quality, Mr. Moody cherished a great love of righteousness. His first question concerning any proposed action was: ’Is it right?’ But these two qualities, necessarily at the bottom of all noble characters, were in him suffused and transfigured by divine grace. Besides all this, Mr. Moody was in a wonderful degree brave, magnanimous and unselfish. "Doubtless this unlettered New England country boy became what he was by the grace of God. The secrets of Dwight L. Moody’s power were: First, in a definite experience of Christ’s saving grace. He had passed out of death into life, and he knew it. Secondly, Mr. Moody believed in the divine authority of the Scriptures. The Bible was, to him, the voice of God, and he made it resound as such in the consciences of men. Thirdly, he was baptized with the Holy Spirit, and he knew it. It was to him as definite an experience as his conversion. Fourthly, he was a man of prayer; he believed in a divine and unfettered God. Fifthly, Mr. Moody believed in work, in ceaseless effort, in wise provision, in the power of organization, of publicity." "I like to think of D. L. Moody in Heaven. I like to think of him with his Lord and with Elijah, Daniel, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Wesley and Finney." "Farewell for a little time, great heart, may a double portion of the spirit be vouchsafed to us who remain." The next address was by the Rev. H. B. Weston, of Crozier Theological Seminary, Chester, Pa., who said: REV. H. B. WESTON’S ADDRESS "I counted it among one of the greatest pleasures of my life that I had the acquaintance of Mr. Moody; that I was placed under his influence, and that I was permitted to study God’s words and work through him. "He was the greatest religious character of this century. When we see men who are eminent among their fellows, we always attribute it to some special natural gift with which they are endowed, some special education they have received, or some magnetic personality with which they are blessed. Mr. Moody had none of these, and yet, no man had such power of drawing the multitude. No man could surpass him in teaching and influencing individuals - individuals of brain, of executive power. I am speaking to some of such this afternoon. Mr. Moody had the power of grouping them to himself with hooks of steel, and many of them were good workers with him many years; and they will carry on his work now that he has passed away. "Mr. Moody had none of the gifts and qualifications that I have mentioned: no promise, and apparently no possibility, in his early life; no early promise, if he had any promise, of the life he had to lead. What had he? There was nothing else as interesting in Northfield as Mr. Moody to me. I listened to him with profound and great interest and profit, as the one who could draw the multitude as no one else in the world. He entered fully into the words, ’Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ So he fed upon that word; his life was instantly a growth, because he fed on the Word of God, so that he might have it ready for every emergency. "All this was not for himself, but for others. He did not study the Bible for himself alone, but that he might add to his stock of knowledge. He did not study his Bible in order to criticize, but to make men partakers of that light which had enlarged his own soul, and that, I appeal to you, was the first desire of his heart, that other men might live. "With this one conception in his heart he dots his plain all over with buildings which will stand until the millennium. His soul was full of joy, and that definite joy finds its expression like the Hebrew prophet. I don’t think he himself sang, but he wanted the Gospel sung, and I used to listen to song after song and remember all the time this was simply the expression of that joy that welled up in his heart, the joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. "You remember last summer how hopeful he was, constantly, as he compared himself to ’that old man of eighty years, and I am only sixty-two, and I have so much before me to live for.’ Because D. L. Moody had mastered, or the power of Christ had so mastered, every fibre of his being; because of that completeness of consecration - I hardly dare say it - were Jesus Christ given the same body, the same mental caliber and surroundings, He would fill up his life much as Moody did, and that is the reason to-day that I would rather be Dwight L. Moody in his coffin than any living man on earth." The next speaker was the Rev. R. A. Torrey, who said: "It is often the first duty of a pastor to speak words of comfort to those whose hearts are aching with sorrow and breaking underneath the burden of death, but this is utterly unnecessary to-day. The God of all comfort has already abundantly comforted them, and they will be able to comfort others. I have spent hours in the past few days with those who were nearest to our departed friend, and the words I have heard from them have been words of ’Rest in God and triumph.’ REV. R. A. TORREY’S ESTIMATE OF MR. MOODY "As one of them has said: ’God must be answering the prayers that are going up for us all over the world. We are being so wonderfully sustained.’ Another has said: ’His last four glorious hours of life have taken all the sting out of death,’ and still another, ’Be sure that every word to-day is a word of triumph.’ "Two thoughts has God laid upon my heart this hour. The first is that wonderful letter of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10 : ’By the grace of God I am what I am.’ God wonderfully magnified His grace in the life of D. L. Moody. God was magnified in his birth. The babe that was born sixty-two years ago - the wonderful soul was God’s gift to the world. How much that meant to the world; how much the world has been blessed and benefited by it we shall never know this side the coming of Christ. God’s grace was magnified in his conversion. He was born in sin, as we are, but God, by the power of His word, the regenerating power of His Holy Spirit, made him a mighty man of God. How much the conversion of that boy in Boston forty-three years ago meant to the world no man can tell, but it was God’s grace that did it. "God’s grace and love were magnified again in the development of that character. He had the strength of body that was possessed by few sons of men. "It was all from God. To God alone was it due that he differed from other men. That character was God’s gift to a world that sorely needed men like him. God’s grace and love were magnified again in his service. The great secret of his success was supernatural power, given in answer to prayer. "Time and again has the question been asked, What was the secret of his wonderful power? The question is easily answered. There were doubtless secondary things that contributed to it, but the great central secret of his power was the anointing of the Holy Ghost. It was simply another fulfilment by God of the promise that has been realized throughout the centuries of the Church’s history: ’Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost shall come upon you. "God was magnified again in his marvelous triumph over death, but what we call death had absolutely no terrors for him. He calmly looked death in the face and said, ’Earth is receding. Heaven is opening. God is calling me. Is this death? It isn’t bad at all. It is sweet. No pain. No valley. I have been within the gates! It is beautiful. It is glorious. Do not call me back. God is calling me. "This was God’s grace in Christ that was thus magnified in our brother’s triumph over that last enemy, Death. From beginning to end, from the hour of his birth until he is laid at rest on yonder hilltop, Mr. Moody’s life has been a promulgation of God’s everlasting grace and love. "The other thought, that God has laid upon my heart in these last few hours are those words of Joshua i. 2: ’Moses my servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them’. "The death of Mr. Moody is a call to his children, his associates, ministers of the Word everywhere, and to the whole Church: ’Go forward. Our leader has fallen.’ ’Let us give up the work,’ some would say. Not for a moment. Listen to what God says: ’Our leader has fallen. Move forward. Moses my servant is dead, therefore arise, go in and possess the land. As I was with D. L. Moody, so I will be with you. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.’ "It is remarkable how unanimous all those who have been associated with Mr. Moody are upon this point. The great institutions that he has established at Northfield, Mt. Hermon, and Chicago, and the work they represent, must be pushed to the front as never before. Many men are looking for a great revival. "Mr. Moody himself said when he felt the call of death at Kansas City: ’I know how much better it would be for me to go, but we are on the verge of a great revival, like that of 1857, and I want to have a hand in it.’ He will have a mighty hand in it. His death, with the triumphal scenes that surround it, are part of God’s way of answering the prayers that have been going on for so long in our land for a revival. "From this bier there goes up to-day a call to the ministry to the Church: ’Forward!’ Seek, claim, receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and then go forthwith, to every corner, preach in public and in private to every man, woman, and child the infallible Word of God." THE WORDS OF BISHOP MALLALIEU The Rev. W. F. Mallalieu, bishop of the Methodist church, said: ’’ ’Servant of God, well done, Thy glorious warfare’s past, The battle’s fought, the race is won, And thou art crowned at last.’ "I first met and became acquainted with him, whose death we mourn, in London in the summer of 1875. From that day, when he moved the masses of the world’s metropolis, to the hour when he answered the call of God to come up higher, I have known him, esteemed him and loved him. Surely we may say, and the world will endorse the affirmation, that in his death one of the truest, bravest, purest and most influential men of this wonderful 19th century has passed to his rest and his reward. With feelings of unspeakable loss and desolation we gather about the casket that contains all that was mortal of Dwight L. Moody. And yet a mighty uplift and inspiration must come to each one of us as we think of his character and his achievements, for he was: ’One, who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph.’ "In bone and brawn and brain he was a typical New Englander; he was descended from the choicest New England stock; he was born of a New England mother, and from his earliest life he breathed the free air of his native hills and was carefully nurtured in the knowledge of God and the holy traditions and histories of the glorious past. It was to be expected of him that he would become a Christian of pronounced characteristics, for he consecrated himself thoroughly and completely and irrevocably to the service of God and humanity. The heart of no disciple of the Master ever beat with more genuine, sympathetic and utterly unselfish loyalty than did the great, generous, loving heart of our translated friend. Because he held fast to the absolute truth of the Bible, and unequivocally and intensely believed it to be the inerrent Word of God; because he preached the Gospel rather than talked about the Gospel; because he used his mother tongue, the terse, clear, ringing, straightforward Saxon; because he had the profoundest sense of brotherhood with all poor, unfortunate and even outcast people; because he was unaffectedly tender and patient with the weak and sinful; because he hated evil as thoroughly as he loved goodness; because he knew right how to lead penitent souls to the Savior; because he had the happy art of arousing Christian people to a vivid sense of their obligations and inciting them to the performance of their duties; because he bad in his own soul a conscious, joyous experience of personal salvation - the people flocked to his services, they heard him gladly, they were led to Christ, and he came to be prized and honored by all denominations, so that to-day all Protestantism recognizes the fact that he was God’s servant, an ambassador of Christ, and indeed a chosen vessel to bear the name of Jesus to the nations. "We shall not again behold his manly form animated with life, hear his thrilling voice or be moved by his consecrated personality but if we are true and faithful to our Lord, we shall see him in glory, for already he walks the streets of the heavenly city, he mingles in the song of the innumerable company of white-robed saints, sees the King in his beauty, and waits our coming. May God grant that in due time we may meet him over yonder." DR. CHAPMAN’S ADDRESS The Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman of New York, the next speaker, said: "I cannot bring myself to feel this afternoon that this service is a reality. It seems to me that we must awake from some dream and see again the face of this dear man of God, which we have so many times seen. It is a new picture to me this afternoon. I never before saw Mr. Moody with his eyes closed. They were always open, and it seemed to me open not only to see where he could help others, but where he could help me. His hands were always outstretched to help others. I never came near him without his helping me." At this point the sun came through a crack in a blind, and the rays fell directly on Mr. Moody’s face, and nowhere else in the darkened church did a single beam of sunshine fall. "The only thing that seems natural is the sunlight now on his face. There was always a halo around him. I can only give a slight tribute of the help he has done me, I can only especially dedicate myself to God, that I, with others, may preach the Gospel he taught. "When I was a student, Mr. Moody found me. I had no object in Christ. He pointed me to the hope in God; he saw my heart, and I saw his Saviour. I have had a definite life since then. When perplexities have arisen, from those lips came the words, ’Who are you doubting? If you believe in God’s Word, who are you doubting?’ I was a pastor, a preacher, without much result. One day Mr. Moody came to me, and, with one hand on my shoulder and the other on the open Word of God, he said: ’Young man, you had better get more of this into your life,’ and when I became an evangelist myself, in perplexity I would still sit at his feet, and every perplexity would vanish just as mist before the rising sun. And, indeed, I never came without the desire to be a better man, and be more like him, as he was like Jesus Christ. If my own father were lying in the coffin I could not feel more the sense of loss." REV. A. T. PIERSON’S ADDRESS The Rev. A. T. Pierson spoke next, saying: "When a great tree falls, you know, not only by its branches, but by its roots, how much soil it drew up as it fell. I know of no other man who has fallen in this country having as wide a tract of uprooting as this man who has just left us. "I have been thinking of the four departures during the last quarter of a century, of Charles Spurgeon of London, A. J. Gordon of Boston, Catherine Booth, mother of the Salvation Army, and George Muller of Bristol, England, and not one made the worldwide commotion in their departures that Dwight L. Moody has caused. "Now, I think we ought to be very careful of what is said. There is a temptation to say more than ought to be said, and we should be careful to speak as in the presence of God. This is a time to glorify God. "Dwight L. Moody was a great man. That man when he entered the church in 1856 in Boston, after ten months of probation, was told by his pastor that he was not a sound believer. That pastor, taking him aside, told him he had better keep still in prayer meeting. The man the church held out at arm’s length has become the preacher of preachers, the teacher of teachers, the evangelist of evangelists. It is a most humiliating lesson for the Church of God. "When, in 1858, he decided to give all his time, he gave the key to his future. I say everything D. L. Moody has touched has been a success. Do you know that with careful reckoning he has reached 100,000,000 of people since he first became a Christian? You may take all the years of public services in this land and Great Britain, take into consideration all the addresses he delivered, and the audiences of his churches, and it will reach 100,000,000. Take into consideration all the people his books have reached and the languages into which they have been translated; look beyond his evangelistic work to the work of education, the schools, the Chicago Bible Institute, and the Bible Institute here. Thousands of people in the world owe their hope to Dwight L. Moody who was the means of their consecration. "I want to say a word of Mr. Moody’s entrance into Heaven. When he entered into Heaven there must have been an unusual commotion. I want to ask you to-day whether you can think of any other man of the last half-century whose coming so many souls would have welcomed at the gates of Heaven. It was a triumphal entrance into glory. "No man ’who has been associated with him in Christian work has not seen that there is but one way to live, and that way to live wholly for God. The thing that D. L. Moody stood and will stand for centuries to come was his living only for God. He made mistakes, no doubt, and if any of us is without sin in this respect, we might cast a stone at him, but I am satisfied that the mistakes of D. L. Moody were the mistakes of a stream that overflowed its banks. It is a great deal better to be full and overflowing than to be empty and have nothing to overflow. "I feel myself called to-day by the presence of God to give eye that what is left shall be consecrated more wholly to him. Mr. Moody, John Wanamaker, James Spurgeon (brother of Charles), and myself were born in the same year. Only two of us are still alive. John Wanamaker, let us still live wholly for God." REV. H. M. WHARTON’S WORDS The Rev. H. M. Wharton, of Philadelphia, spoke in behalf of the southern States. He said: "I am sure, dear friends, that if the people of the South could express their feeling to-day, they would ask me to say we all loved Mr. Moody; we did love him with all our hearts. It seems to me that when he went inside the gates of Heaven he left the gates open a little, and a little of the light fell upon us all. "As I go from this place to-day, I am more convinced that I desire to live and be a more faithful minister and more earnest Christian, and more consecrated in my life. We will not say ’Good night, dear Mr. Moody,’ for in the morning we will meet again." As Mr. Wharton ceased, Mr. William Moody rose in the pew, and said he would like to speak of his father as a parent. He said: MR. W. R. MOODY’S TRIBUTE TO HIS FATHER "As a son, I want to say a few words of him as a father. We have heard from his pastor, his associates and friends, and he was just as true a father. I don’t think he showed up in any way better than when, on one or two occasions, in dealing with us as children, with his impulsive nature, he spoke rather sharply. We have known him to come to us and say: ’My children, my son, my daughter, I spoke quickly; I did wrong; I want you to forgive me.’ That was D. L. Moody as a father. "He was not yearning to go; he loved his work. Life was very attractive; it seems as though on that early morning as he had one foot upon the threshold it was given him for our sake to give us a word of comfort. He said: ’This is bliss; it is like a trance. If this is death it is beautiful.’ And his face lighted up as he mentioned those whom he saw. "We could not call him back; we tried to, for a moment, but we could not. We thank God for his home life, for his true life, and we thank God that he was our father, and that he led each one of his children to know Jesus Christ." MR. JOHN WANAMAKER’ S REMARKS Dr. Scofield then called upon the Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, who said: "If I had any words to say, it would be that the best commentary on the Scriptures, the best pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ, were in our knowledge of the beautiful man who is sleeping in our presence to-day. For the first time I can understand well the kind of a man Paul was, and Nehemiah, and Oliver Cromwell. I think of Mr. Moody as a Stonewall Jackson of the Church of God of this century. But the sweetest of all thoughts of him are his prayers and his kindnesses. It was as if we were all taken into his family and he had a familiarity with every one and we were his closest friends. "There is not any place in this country where you can go without seeing the work of this man of God. It seems to make every man seem small, because he lived so far above us, as we crept close to his feet. It is true of every one who sought to be like him. "I can run back into the beginning of his manhood, and there have the privilege of being close to him. I can call up personal friends that were at the head of railroads, that were distinguished in finance and business, and I declare to you, great as their successes were, I don’t believe that there is one of them who would not gladly have changed place with D. L. Moody. "The Christian laborer, I believe, to-day looms up more luminous than any man who lived in the century. It seems as if it were a vision when the one who has passed away stood in Philadelphia last month, when, on his way to Kansas City, and, with tears in his eyes, he said to me with a sigh: ’If I could only hold one great city in. the East before I die, I think it might help other cities to do the same.’ Still trusting God, he turned his back on his home and family, and went 1,000 miles carrying that burden, and it was too much for him. A great many of the people of the sixties are quitting work, and if anything is to be done for God, it is time we consecrate ourselves to Him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 05.28. ROUNDTOP, WHERE MR. MOODY LOVED TO SPEAK... ======================================================================== Chapter 28 - Roundtop, Where Mr. Moody Loved To Speak And Where He Was Buried The funeral services in the church were over. In every way it was the most remarkable gathering that could possibly be imagined on any such occasion, and one friend was heard to say to another as we passed out of the Congregational Church "I would not have missed this privilege for any consideration. My faith in God and in His promises is stronger to-day than ever; my fear of death is all taken away. Did you ever in all your experience attend a service in which the power of God was more mightily manifest?" One distinguished man said to a brother minister as they walked in solemn procession toward the grave, "If it had been possible to repeat that service with all its attending circumstances and surroundings in all the cities of the land, D.L. Moody would have been greater in his death than in his life, and thousands and tens of thousands would have been brought to Christ. A MOST NOTABLE SERVICE It was a notable service because there was a spirit of victory in it all. From where we sat on the platform we could look down into the faces of those who had been bereaved, and while there were marks of tears upon their faces, yet there was such evident joy in the thought that they had had him so long, and that he had brought so much of blessing into the lives of countless numbers of people, that one really forgot that he was attending a funeral and thanked God that he was sitting together with dear friends in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It was notable also, because not very often on funeral occasions do the bereaved ones join in the singing of the hymns, and yet at this funeral very frequently you could see that the lips of the members of the family were moving, and you knew they were singing the songs that Mr. Moody loved, and singing them just in the way that would have been pleasing to him. A RAY OF SUNLIGHT It was notable also, because of the fact that just in the midst of the services one single ray of sunlight from the setting sun came through the window, but the only face in all the building that was touched with the glory of that streak of light was the face of the man of God lying in his coffin. It was just what all could have wished for him, for to those who knew him and loved him, there was always a kind of a halo of glory about him, and this touch of sunlight was just a hint to us as to how his face would appear when in the better country we should see him once again with the redemption body transfigured into the likeness of Christ. I seriously question if any man in the present generation ever walked closer with God than did Mr. Moody. He was my ideal in this respect as in many other. His was a story like that of Enoch of old, and when he died we could understand it all, he simply was not, for God took him. All the funerals associated with Mr. Moody’s family have ever been most touching. When his mother was carried to the tomb, she was not taken away until her son had said what only a devoted and godly son could say concerning the life of a consistent Christian mother, and of her it was true as the wise man said, "Her children rise up and call her blessed." When the children of his eldest son, Mr. W. R. Moody, were buried, once again did he speak such words as he only was able to speak. Quite recently, at the funeral of Irene Moody, he said the most touching words concerning his love for his grandchild, told how she had always greeted him with a smile, and then told how she had influenced his life as very few people had - no one could have said these words with such tenderness and sweetness as Mr. Moody, but it was just like him to say them for the grief of his son was as if it had been his own. While holding services in my Church, Rev. B. Pay Mills spoke concerning the funeral of the brother of Mr. Moody, as contrasted with the funeral of Mr. Robert Ingersoll’s brother, and the picture is most striking in its contrasts A MOST STRIKING PICTURE "It was in June, 1879. This brother had died in Washington, and Colonel Ingersoll stood by the coffin and tried to read his address which he had carefully prepared. His voice became agitated, his form trembled, and his emotion overcame him. Finally he put down the paper, and, bowing himself upon the coffin, as if he would throw his arms about it, he gave vent to uncontrollable grief.’ When at last he was able to proceed he raised himself up, and among other words he said these: ’Whether in mid-ocean or mid the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all; and every life, no matter if its every hour be filled with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will at the last become a tragedy as sad and dark and deep as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. Life is a dark and barren vale between the cold and ice clad peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We lift our wailing voice in the silence of the night, and hear no answer but the bitter echo of our cry.’ "Could ever words more sadly hopeless have been uttered at a time like that? And then he added what to me were the most pathetic words of all - something about ’hope trying to see a star, and listening for the rustle of an angel’s wings.’ "Mrs. Browning most truly writes "’There is no God,’ the foolish saith, But none, ’There is no sorrow.’ And nature oft in bitter need The cry of faith will borrow. Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips cry, ’God be pitiful!’ Which ne’er said, ’God be praised!’ "I think I should like a greater comfort and a better hope than that. HIS BROTHER’S FUNERAL "Dwight Moody had a brother, and after his own conversion he earnestly pleaded with him, until the brother also yielded himself to Christ, and became such an earnest worker that he was the means of leading a number of his friends at his home into the kingdom. And then this brother died and was buried. A few years ago", Mr. Mills said, "as I spent a day in Northfield, and was driven through its beautiful streets by one of the old residents, I said, ’I wish you would tell me something about Mr. Moody that may not be generally known.’ And as we passed the old white Church he said, ’I remember his brother’s funeral.’ He said that there were a number of ministers in the pulpit, and that after they had finished the usual services and the coffin-lid was about to be put in its place, Mr. Moody arose, and stepping forward from the seat where he had been sitting, with a shining face, he laid one hand upon the coffin, and then, lifting the other, he poured out such a stream of thanksgiving unto God for the life that was gone and for the wonderful comfort and joy and hope that came to him in Jesus Christ, that it was said by this onlooker that it almost seemed as if the heavens were opened and they could see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. At last he ceased, the coffin-lid was placed in its position, and the body was carried out and laid in the grave. On one side of the sepulcher stood a large number of young men, many of them led to Christ through the influence of this one who was gone, and they held in their hands beautiful white flowers, which they cast down upon the coffin in token of the glorious resurrection. And on the other side of the grave stood Mr. Moody; and he said that as he stood there and thought of how his brother, being dead, was yet speaking, he felt that if he were silent the very stones would cry out, and he cried with a loud voice, ’Glory to God! Glory be to God! O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" ON THE PROCESSION TO ROUNDTOP When the last hymn had been sung on this day of the funeral of D. L. Moody, the audience was requested to remain seated until the family had passed out and also until the pallbearers had taken from the Church the precious remains of this servant of God. As we passed along in solemn procession towards Roundtop, it was my privilege to hear something of the conversation of those who followed the students who had been given the privilege of bearing him to his tomb. One gentleman said to his friend, "When Mr. Moody’s little grandchild was buried only a short time ago, the students carried her from the house to her grave, and Mr. Moody said to his son, ’I think I should like to be carried like that myself,’" and so the students bore him carefully to the place where he is to rest until the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God? and he shall rise. Roundtop was reached in the dusk of that winter day. The grave was lined with evergreen, and the resting place made as comfortable as possible. After a moment’s gazing at the grave, all but the immediate family and the specially invited guests were requested to withdraw, but before they went away some one started the following old hymn which Mr. Moody ever loved to have sung in his meetings. One voice was added to another until at last a great volume of song rose towards God: Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high Hide me, O my Savior, hide, Till the storm of life is past Safe into the haven guide, Oh, receive my soul at last; Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee Leave, oh, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me. All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing. Thou, O Christ, art all I want More than all in Thee I find Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick, and lead the blind. Just and holy is Thy Name, I am all unrighteousness Vile, and full of sin I am, Thou art full of truth and grace. Plenteous grace with Thee is found - Grace to cover all my sin: Let the healing streams abound; Make me, keep me pure, within. Thou of life the Fountain art, Freely let me take of Thee; Spring Thou up within my heart, Rise to all eternity. With heads solemnly bowed for a moment, the benediction was pronounced, and all that was mortal of D. L. Moody, the greatest evangelist of modern times, and one of the best men that ever lived was lying in the grave. PLACE OF BLESSING Roundtop has ever been a place of blessing to the Northfield visitors. There each evening, when the conferences are in session, as the day is dying out of the sky, Bible students gather to talk of the things concerning the Kingdom. At this point many of the young men and women of the various students’ gatherings, which have been so intimately associated with Northfield, have decided their life work, and forth from this point they have gone to the ends of the earth to preach the Gospel. The old haystack at Williamstown figures no more conspicuously in the history of missions than Roundtop figures in the lives of a countless number of Christians throughout the whole world. A. J. Gordon, of sainted memory, delivered some of his most telling addresses from this point. I recall one evening when he spoke of the Lord’s return, and just as he finished he stood for a moment with his kindly face, all aglow with the power of his theme, and said, "I wish He might come now" and as we looked towards the west and saw the sunset glow upon everything it came to us as a regret that the Lord did not come at that instant, and that we must go down from this mount of privilege to work and to wait, possibly through weary years until He should appear. From this point Mr. S. H. Hadley, Jerry Macauley’s successor in the old Water Street Mission has told the story of his remarkable conversion, until people first sobbed in sympathy for him because of all that he had suffered through strong drink, and then praised God that He had raised him up such a miracle of grace and such a monument to His keeping power. Here Mr. John Willis Baer has met the young people who were seeking to know what they must do to be used of God, and under the influence of the Spirit of God has pointed many a young man and young woman to the Spirit of God who could fill their lives and make them useful in every way. Indeed, every visitor to Northfield journeys to Roundtop, and every speaker at Northfield counted himself fortunate if he were permitted to gather the people about him and speak as once the Master did when He went up into a mountain. ROUNDTOP PARTICULARLY IDENTIFIED WITH MR. MOODY But Roundtop is particularly identified with Mr. Moody himself. It is situated just back of his home. It was the place where often he used to go for meditation and prayer, and whatever it has been to friends of Northfield in the past, it shall be more sacred to them in the future, because it is the last resting place of the man whom they devotedly loved. I recall one picture which can never be effaced from my memory. It was just at the close of one of the first days of the Northfield conference proper when it was announced that Mr. Moody would lead the Roundtop services, and as we were all gathered together singing, he came up. I can see him as plainly as I see my friend of to-day. He was carrying a chair in his hand upon which he was to sit in the midst of his people. He had his old, worn Bible in the one hand, and with his face beaming with delight because so many people were there at the beginning of the conference, he said, "I will ask Mr. Jacobs to sing," and the great strong voice of the singer sounded out from that hilltop and came back to us like an echo from the hills, until some of us wondered whether we were in the body or not. "Now, some one lead us in prayer," said the leader. "Now, let us sing," and there altogether we sang, he keeping time with his hymn-book. The hymn was "Christ Returneth": It may be at morn, when the day is awaking, When sunlight through darkness and shadow is breaking, That Jesus will come in the fulness of glory, To receive from the world "His own" Chorus-- O Lord Jesus, how long, how long Ere we shout the glad song, Christ returneth; Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Amen. Hallelujah, Amen. As the blessed words rolled out from the lips of those assembled there on that sacred hill, I remember how transported we all were with the bliss of that great truth, "Christ returneth!" The faces of those about me shone with joy, and there before us sat our beloved leader, the great factor of modern evangelism. He always seemed ready for Christ’s coming, and I doubt if his joyful demeanor would have altered in the least, if at that moment the Heavens had opened. He was always ready because his consecration of himself to God was renewed with every breath, and attested by, each succeeding act in his life. When the singing was at an end, Mr. Moody opened his Bible, and said: "I have come up to-night, dear friends, in a spirit of praise and thankfulness, to give you just a few nuggets from the margin of my Bible; you can take them down if you like, and if I go too fast for you just stop me." I stood just behind his chair, and beginning at Genesis he turned over the pages of his Bible, and quickly I wrote down what he had to say. The following is almost an exact report of that Roundtop meeting, and everything. recorded here I have, at one time or another, heard him say: "Turn to Genesis and put this down," he said. GENESIS: Adam illustrates Human nature. Cain " The carnal mind. Abel " The spiritual mind. Enoch " Communion. Noah " Regeneration. Abraham " Faith. Isaac " Sonship. Jacob " Service. Joseph " Suffering and glory. "Now, let us go on to Exodus the third chapter, maybe you would like this. Objections raised by Moses for declining and avoiding God’s call: Lack of fitness. Exodus 3:11. " words. Exodus 3:13. " authority. Exodus 4:1. " powers of speech. Exodus 4:10. " special adaptation. Exodus 4:13. " success at first attempt. Exodus 5:23. " acceptance by Israelites. Exodus 6:12. "Have you ever noticed the seven feasts in Leviticus, twenty-third chapter? I have long had it in my Bible, "Seven feasts: 1.Sabbath - Rest. 2.Passover - Death of Christ. 3.First-fruits - Resurrection. 4.Pentecost - Descent of the Holy Spirit. 5.Trumpets - Ingathering of Israel. 6.Atonement - Mourning for sin. 7.Tabernacles - Christ’s indwelling in the Christian. "Sin is an awful thing, let every man make a note of this. Joshua 7:21. "Steps in Achan’s sin: I saw. I coveted. I took, I hid. Compare Eve, Genesis 3:6; Ananias, Acts 5:1-10. "How mean was the sin of Achan! He saw the Babylonish garment and all the soldier in him withered up and he became a sneaking thief. "Here is a good thing on forgiven sin. Psalm 32. "Seven steps to blessedness of forgiven sin: Conviction. Psalms 32:3-4. Confession. Psalms 32:5. Forgiveness. Psalms 32:5. Prayer. Psalms 32:6. Protection. Psalms 32:7. Guidance. Psalms 32:8-9. Joy. Psalms 32:10-11. "Here are seven things God will do for the believer. I find them in the 91st Psalm: ’I will deliver him.’ Psalms 91:14-15. ’I will set him on high.’ Psalms 91:14. ’I will answer his call.’ Psalms 91:15. ’I will be with him in trouble.’ Psalms 91:15. ’I will honor him.’ Psalms 91:15 ’I will satisfy him.’ Psalms 91:16. ’I will show him my salvation.’ Psalms 91:16. "Now let us find something in the New Testament. Look at Matt. 7. "In this chapter we have: Two gates - strait, and wide; Two ways - broad, and narrow; Two classes - many, and few Two destinations - life, and destruction; Two trees - good, and corrupt Two fruits - good, and evil; Two things done to trees - hewn down, and cast out Two houses; Two foundations - rock, and sand; Two builders - wise, and foolish Two storms; Two results - the one house stood, the other fell. "I found this somewhere; does anyone want it? "Christ was foretold to: Adam - as a man. Gen :3:15. Abraham - as to His nation. Genesis 22:18. Jacob - as to His tribe. Genesis 49:10. Isaiah - as to His family. Isaiah 11:1-5. Micah - as to His town. Micah 5:2. Daniel - as to His time. Daniel 9:25. Mary - as to His person. Luke 1:30. By angels - as to His date. Luke 2:11. By a star - as to His birthplace. Matthew 2:9. "Here is an outline for a sermon. Let the ministers put it down. Luke 10:42 : ’One thing is needful’ - the Gospel. ’One thing I know.’ ’John 9:25. ’One thing have I desired.’ Psalms 27:4. ’One thing I do.’ Php 3:13-14. ’Not one thing hath failed.’ Joshua 23:14. ’Be not ignorant of this one thing.’ 2 Peter 3:8. ’One thing thou lackest.’ Mark 10:21. "Here is something about the Prodigal Son." Luke 15: His condition - ’in want’. Luke 15:14. His conviction - ’came to himself.’ Luke 15:17. His confidence - ’I will arise.’ Luke 15:18. His confession - ’I have sinned.’ Luke 15:18. His contrition - ’no more worthy.’ Luke 15:19. His conversion - ’He arose and came.’ Luke 15:20. "Turning-points in his life: Sick of home. Luke 15:12-13. Homesick. Luke 15:17-19. Home. Luke 15:20-24. Sequel. Luke 15:25-32. "Six cases of men ’afar off’ from God: The prodigal. Luke 15:13. The rich man. Luke 16:23. The ten lepers. Luke 17:12. The publican. Luke 18:13. The beggar. Luke 18:40. Peter. Luke 22:54. "God’s Word gives us a picture such as we find in no other place, turn to John, sixth chapter. "Seven classes of people: 1.Curious. John 6:2. 2.Admiring. John 6:14. 3.Greedy. John 6:26. 4.Skeptical. John 6:36. 5.Murmurers. John 6:41. 6.Scoffers. John 6:52. 7.Backsliders. John 6:66. "I have found much help in Hebrews. Note this: Sin is met by Atonement. Hebrews 1:3. Guilt is met by justification. Hebrews 2:9. Defilement is met by sanctification. Hebrews 2:11. Alienation is met by reconciliation. Hebrews 2:17. Temptation is met by succor. Hebrews 2:18. "Christ communicates eternity of existence to everything he touches: -- His throne is for ever and ever. Hebrews 1:8 : His salvation is eternal. Hebrews 5:9. His priesthood is unchangeable. Hebrews 7:24. His redemption is eternal. Hebrews 9:1-12. His inheritance is eternal. Hebrews 9:15. His kingdom cannot be moved. Hebrews 12:28. His covenant is everlasting. Hebrews 13:20. "The key word of Hebrews is ’better;’ see how many times it occurs: Better hope. Hebrews 7:19. Better Testament. Hebrews 7:22. Better covenant. Hebrews 8:6. Better promises. Hebrews 8:6. Better sacrifices. Hebrews 9:23. Better substance. Hebrews 10:34. Better resurrection. Hebrews 11:35. Better country. Hebrews 11:16. Better things. Hebrews 12:24. When it was too dark for him to see, the well-marked Bible was closed, and he offered such a prayer as I have rarely heard, thanking God that He had permitted us to come to Northfield, and asking Him that He might make it more of a blessing than ever before in all its history. This is but a specimen service of Round-top, and if the trees which stand there could speak, they would tell as thrilling a story of scenes witnessed there as has ever been pressed into human language, and now from this time on, pilgrims will journey to Northfield and to this the new heart of the old town, because in this grave lies the body of a man who yielded himself absolutely to God, who had only one supreme desire, and that was that he might glorify Him. The words of the poet certainly describe him in his life The strong man’s strength to toil for Christ, The fervent preacher’s skill, I sometimes wish but better far To be just what God will. No service in itself is small, None great, though earth it fill, But that is small which seeks its own, ’That great which seeks God’s will." D. L. Moody was a mighty man, because, he sought, as nearly as any man I have ever seen, to do the will of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 05.29. MEMORIAL SERVICES ======================================================================== Chapter 29 - Memorial Services The announcement of the death of Mr. Moody was a shock to many thousands. Numerous telegrams of condolence which were sent to the bereaved family from all the quarters of the world expressed but faintly the sense of loss which affected not only those who had known him personally, but also a great following of those who had known him only through his work. Hundreds of memorial services were held. The great meeting in New York, on Monday afternoon, January 8, 1900, brought out so much of interest in regard to Mr. Moody and in regard to the sentiment entertained toward him on all sides that I believe an account of the services worthy of permanent record in this place. THE GREAT MEETING IN NEW YORK At the hour appointed for the opening of the services, Mr. Win. E. Dodge, the presiding officer, announced a favorite hymn of Mr. Moody’s, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory." After the singing, the Rev. Dr. A. T. Pierson read a number of selections from the Bible, being those verses of which Mr. Moody was especially fond. The Rev. John Balcolm Shaw then led in prayer. Dr. David H. Greer then spoke. He said: "In the history of the Church of Christ very few have touched so many hearts and influenced so many lives as the dear friend we come to remember and to thank God for to-day. "I am sure it is no exaggeration so say the if all those whom he has led to a better life were to be gathered together, a half-dozen halls of this size would not hold them. In the tender services held at Northfield last week, Mr. Moody’s pastor said, that they were not gathered to mourn a defeat but to rejoice in a victory. So to-day there is not the note of sadness in our gathering nor a funeral gloom. We are gathered together this afternoon only to thank God with all our hearts for so fruitful and successful a life, and to pray that that influence which he exercised while here among us, shall continue. He is not dead, he has gone to the better life above, and he lives ’with us to-day and will live on, by his example and by the inspiration that came from his words and his life. HIS CONVERSION LIKE THAT OF ST PAUL "When Mr. Moody became a Christian man it was like the conversion of St. Paul, - clear, decisive, and full. When the blessed message came to him, that God had offered pardon and peace and life here and eternal, he accepted it in all its fullness, and he wondered with great astonishment that anyone could turn away from such a message and such an offer, and he longed to bring men to accept it and believe in it. From the very beginning his theology was very simple. His creed was: ’God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall have eternal life.’ And this message he repeated with all his courage and manliness and strength through all his life, and so earnestly that it told wherever he carried it. "Mr. Moody’s early work was a very simple one. He had very few opportunities of education. At that time he had no gift of utterance, but he found fellowship and help in the Young Men’s Christian Association, and he commenced his work among a few poor children in Chicago when he was a mere clerk there. I remember nearly forty years ago going with him one Sunday morning to that poor little school across the river, and I caught sight then of the peculiar character of the man, his directness, manliness, and hence his great influence upon those children and upon their parents. "There were two early influences that directed his life more than any others. One was the companionship and help that came to him from the brotherhood of the Young Men’s Christian Association. All his life he acknowledged that as having formed part of his character, and all his life he was a warm friend of the Associations and aided them in every way. But the stronger and greater influence was his beginning to study the English Bible. He had the idea that a great many other good men have that, if God wanted him to do work and speak for Him, God would put words in his mouth. In his earliest efforts his talks were repetitions of each other, and without much effect. A kind, earnest Christian man who influenced him very much talked with him and urged him that, if he wanted to do God’s work, he must fit himself in the best way for such service and prepare himself to do his Master’s work. He urged him, therefore, as the best means for so fitting himself, to study the Bible. Mr. Moody paid heed to the advice; he shut himself up for a long time and devoted himself to a thorough and intense study of the Bible. From this study he acquired two qualities, which in later years added much to his power: first that clear-cut, plain, simple, Anglo-Saxon of the King James version, which gave him such immense power over people everywhere; second, he acquired from his study of the Bible an arsenal of promise and warning, which he used through all his life with magnificent power and effect. There was something wonderful about his simple directness. To you, my friends, who are here this afternoon, I could give you, by the hour, instances of the keen way he went to a point. I remember when I first met him in Chicago he went to call on one occasion on a leading merchant and most influential man in that city, and when he went out he turned to him and said: ’If you were only a Christian man, what a grand influence you would have in this great city!’ That man has been a communicant of the Church for years, and he was Moody’s best friend for many years afterward. There was a manliness about Moody, a hatred of cant and mere religious form. He had the most intense and superb enthusiasm of any man I ever knew, tempered by strong human common sense. He had a wonderful intuitive knowledge of men. "We all know very much of his wonderful successes as a preacher, but those who knew him best and were closest to him know that the great power of his life was in personal conversation with men. The greatest sermon I ever heard from Mr. Moody was one night when we were coming along Madison Avenue at half-past twelve o’clock, going home from one of those great meetings in Madison Square. We had been kept there by those who insisted upon getting advice from Mr. Moody, and, as we were moving along, a gentleman came up from behind and said, ’Mr. Moody, how shall I accept Christ and change my life?’ He turned in the moonlight, and standing there on the corner he said a few sharply-cut, kindly words, and he put the truth so earnestly to that man that there was no getting away from it, and the man’s heart was changed from that clay. I was privileged to be with him at those great meetings at the Haymarket, London, and what struck me and surprised me most was the number of educated and cultivated people who came there - the large number of literary people who came there to hear Mr. Moody. The great majority of them did not believe in religion, and they came to hear and enjoy his clean-cut English phraseology. His work at Cambridge and Oxford and in the universities was simply wonderful. When he went to Oxford and Cambridge they determined to run him out of the town; they did not want that kind of a man there, and before they knew him and had heard him they were utterly opposed to his methods. But his courage and his straightforwardness conquered them, and the number of young men, not only in those universities but over all the world, whose lives have been influenced for the better by Mr. Moody’s work we will never know until we get into another and better world. His schools at Northfleld are models of organization and thoughtfulness. I trust that they will be carried on as a memorial to him. "What touched me more than anything else in Mr. Moody’s character was his extreme modesty about himself. He was the most masterful man I ever knew; when it came to the guidance and instruction of others, he was like a general, managing his army; but when it came to himself he was a most modest man. I was privileged to be in the house with him during all the time of those great meetings at Madison Square. I never heard him appreciate himself once; you would never have known he had anything to do with those meetings; time after time he said to his friends: ’My only wonder is that God can use so feeble an instrument as I, to do his work.’ His views became broader as he grew older, and his prejudices, of which he had many in his early life, were thrown off. I have heard him say, ’I am ashamed of myself; you know I have always talked about the extravagance and worldliness of the women in New York; it has been the theme of many of my talks in many places, but I have been here now several days; I have been on the East Side and on the West Side; I have been where the schools are which these women are conducting, and I want to say that I have never known so much self-sacrifice and devotion as is shown by these women, and I am ashamed of what I have said.’ I have heard him say, You know that I have had great prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church, but I am ashamed of it; I have had some opportunity of noting lately that among the churches where Christ is preached there is none where He is preached so simply and where His cross is held up as it is in the Catholic churches.’ I mention these incidents simply to show how he had thrown off his earlier prejudices." The next speaker was to have been the Hon. John Wanamaker, but illness prevented his attendance, and at his request Mr. Sankey was asked to take his place. After leading the hymn, "Saved by Grace," Mr. Sankey gave the audience an account of the funeral services at Northfield and the incidents attending that ceremony. MR. JOHN R. MOTT’S ADDRESS Mr. John R. Mott, the next speaker, one of the leading Christian Association workers in the world said "Among some people the impression exists that Mr. Moody did not exert a great and marked influence upon thinking young men and women. This is a great mistake; there is no class over which Mr. Moody exerted a greater and more helpful or more continuous influence than over the students of this and other countries. He was one of the main factors of that great spiritual awakening at Princeton in 1876 and 1877, resulting in the conversion of 100 young men, and marked the impulse of the movement that led to the Christian Association among the colleges of this country and Canada. When the suggestion was made that an actual conference of college men should be held, it was the influence, co-operation, and leadership of Mr. Moody that made it a fact, and the gathering at Mount Hermon in 1886, which has since convened from year to year, has extended from Northfield to other parts of the country; until now we have some 1,200 young men from the universities and colleges meeting together every year in the United States and Canada, and nearly 1,000 college women, while the movement has spread from this country into Great Britain, Switzerland, France, Germany, Australasia, even into China and Japan, and year by year the inter-collegiate gatherings are held for the training of young men and young women for leadership in the work of Christ. Possibly no greater influence has gone out from Mr. Moody’s life than that of these conferences. Be it understood that these are conferences, not of the rank and file of the students, but of the young men and women selected by the other students to become leaders in the organized work of Christ in the colleges and universities. Yale will send this year fifty, or one hundred, young men to be leaders in the committees and Christian societies; Harvard will send a large delegation, and Princeton will send hardly less than forty. Bryn Mawr and other young women’s schools will send their full delegations to take their part as leaders in the work of Christ. The Student’s Volunteer Mission movement had its origin in these meetings, and under the leadership of Mr. Moody. God used Mr. Moody for the purpose, and he seemed to generate the atmosphere which created this Divine movement as projected into foreign fields. The great increase in our Bible classes from 2,000 to 12,000 within a comparatively short time is traceable directly to these annual conferences under Mr. Moody’s leadership. There is no sign which is attended with greater promise to the Church of God than this one. "By his services to students, has the work of evangelism been most advanced. The greatest revivals ever known at Oxford and Cambridge were led by Moody. The most notable awakening at the University of Virginia was during the work of Mr. Moody. The last work among students which he performed, the last work of this description, was at the Yale revival, where twenty or thirty young men acknowledged their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Who can measure what he accomplished! Henry Drummond worked among students, and we might add twenty other names; and many of these men to-day are having access to lives and hearts of college men in this and other countries for the reason of Mr. Moody’s lasting influence upon them. "You ask me what is the secret of this influence of his among thinking young men and young women. I find it more especially in his matchless knowledge of the human heart. After that it seems to me that his most marked influence was in his wonderful honesty. If he didn’t know a thing he said, ’I don’t know.’ That gave him the intelligent confidence of the students. Then again his freedom from cant or professionalism gave them additional confidence in him. I have known students to go to his meetings in a critical frame of mind with the purpose of analyzing his methods; I have seen them subdued, almost without exception, by his matchless sympathy and heart power. He appealed to the heroic and self-sacrificing in young men, and then there was over all this and through it all that without which his results and work would be unexplainable, the fact of his abounding fidelity and spiritual life, due to the fact that he was a God-possessed man. I find in these the secret of his great success. "It was most proper and fitting that his body should be placed at rest on Roundtop; that one spot in all the wide world most gloriously and sacredly associated with his teachings and the influences of his life-work. "His going from us leaves a great gap; but I am reminded of the words of Henry Drummond on the death of a friend, when he wrote to a classmate: ’We must close up the ranks and work hard.’ The Chairman introduced the Rev. Dr. Theodore Cuyler as one of Mr. Moody’s earliest friends and co-laborers. Dr. Cuyler said: "The most unique and extraordinary Gospel preacher that America has produced in this century has gone up to his resplendent crown. It was accorded to our Moody to meet and influence more men and women than any other man in modern times. Spurgeon, in his fearless way, spoke once a week, but Moody spoke seven times a week - to 40,000 or 50,000 souls in a week. Our dear brother was more endeared to us because he was such a thorough typical American. He had tasted of the soil, and smelt of the New England fields. DR. CUYLER COMPARES MOODY AND LINCOLN "If I were called on to name the two most typical Americans of the century-men who have risen from obscurity to worldwide renown - the one a brilliant statesman and the other a model preacher - I should not hesitate to name Abraham Lincoln and Dwight L. Moody. When a nation’s life is to be preserved and its liberties maintained, Almighty God calls a poor boy from the log cabin in Kentucky; cradles him in the school of hardship and gives him the Great West for his only university, and then annoints him to lead us through a sea of blood to th& Canaan of freedom. In like manner God called the humble farmer boy from the banks of the Connecticut, gave him as his education only one book - the book which schooled him with the spirit of Jesus Christ - and then sent him out as a herald of salvation. Lincoln and Moody were alike in the gift of a remarkable common sense. Neither one of them ever committed a serious mistake. They were alike in being masters of simple, strong, Anglo-Saxon speech, the language of the Bible and of Bunyan, the language of the plain people. Lincoln’s heart gushed out in sympathy to all sorts and conditions of men and made him the best loved man in American history. Moody’s big loving heart, fired with a love of Jesus Christ, made him a master of human emotions, touching the fount of tears in thousands of hearts, and often bringing weeping multitudes before his pulpit. Finally, Lincoln, the liberator, went up to his martyred crown, holding the shattered manacles in his hand. Moody, the liberator, the liberator of immortal souls, fell the other day as a martyr from overwhelming work - went to be greeted at the gates of glory by the thousands he had led from the cross to the crown. "Ere I take my seat, let me say what may not be known to all of you. On the Sabbath before our brother started for Kansas City he delivered his last sermon in New York in yonder Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. In that discourse, as if already the preliminary shadow was falling, he uttered this wonderful sentence: ’You may read in the papers that Moody is dead! It will not be so! God has given me the gift of life everlasting.’ "Thank God, Moody is alive! Moody lives! His spirit is to-day in this hall where he lifted up Jesus. I hear that trumpet voice calling on the pastors and churches of New York to seek the seat of prayer, the baptism of fire, that shall kindle this city and set, perhaps, the nation aflame. "One other message and I am done. Our beloved brother who has just left us said: ’Five and twenty years ago, in my native village of Northfield, I planted two Christian schools for the training of boys and maidens in Christian living and consecration as teachers and missionaries of Jesus Christ. I bequeath as my legacy those training schools for Jesus to the churches of America, and I only ask, I only ask that visitors to the beautiful native village where I shall slumber on consecrated ground, when they go there shall not be pained by the melancholy sight of the ruins of these schools, but rather that they shall be rejoiced by seeing them as two glorious lighthouses of the Lord beaming out truth and kindness over the world.’ My beloved brother, the answer of the Churches of God in America will be: ’We will! We will! We will perpetuate those training schools of Jesus as a splendid, magnificent, fervent memorial of our beloved Dwight Lyman Moody’" MR. R. F. CUTTING’S REMARKS The next speaker was Mr. Robert Fulton Cutting. He said: "It is a good many years since I last saw Mr. Moody, in his own home, surrounded by his family, and I have been a great deal richer man since I had that experience. I do not know any man who touched me more than he did. He lacked many of those elements of eloquence which go to make up a great public speaker. He did not have much of poetic fire, glowing rhetoric, or elocutionary cadence, but his manner was so direct, so straightforward, so honest, that he seemed to speak to everything human in his audience - everything that was righteous. He seemed to know mankind as very few people do. And he came to this knowledge not by exhaustive analysis, not by psychological formulae, but he seemed to be able to see into a man’s heart because of the transparency of his own nature; because he was so unconsciously honest, so perfectly frank, so courteous, that men and women showed to him what they would not show to others, because they could not hide it from him. He knew mankind, he knew what human life was, and the brilliancy of his own work shone through and through them. "I was especially impressed at the Northfield conference by one incident. Mr. Moody had been speaking at one of the meetings, and had gone to one of the rooms. Mr. Sankey, who will probably remember the incident, gave out as one of the hymns - one, I think, that belongs to the old Gospel Hymn Book No. 2, - ’I feel like singing all the time.’ ’I only give that hymn out because Mr. Moody has left the room’, he said. ’He won’t let me sing ’that hymn; he does not believe in singing all the time.’ So it was that Mr. Moody knew perfectly well that the men or women whose lives were made up of uninterrupted singing knew very little of the gravity of human life, and was waiting for experiences which would temporarily chill them. He gained access to the hearts of men and women because he dealt with them in a common-sense way. That is the way he completely disarmed all criticism. No man who has played so large a part on the stage of our religious history was so far above criticism as was Mr. Moody. He knew only one doctrine - that ’God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.’ He knew only one heretic in the world, and that was the unconverted man or woman. Every man with the love of God in his heart was at home with him. In the midst of all his successes, what a wonderful testimony it was to that man’s greatness that he never seemed to have any perception of himself. Like the great master, Michaelangelo, he always so arranged the lights in his life that his own shadow should not fall upon his work. He did not know himself. He knew his field; he knew his God; but he did not know himself, - because he forgot himself when he first made up his mind what his life work was to be. That was the source of his power. "We are going now to lay our little tributes upon his tomb. If he is gone out of our natural life, he has not gone out of our eternal memories. What he has done for us in making us richer, we will endeavor, in our way, to do for others also." The Rev. Dr. David J. Burrell, of the Marble Collegiate Church, was the next speaker. His words were: "A goad man has gone and we cannot be sorry. We cannot repeat the liturgy of death, ’Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble; he cometh up as a flower and is cut down.’ We are saying, ’Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and all that is within me bless His Holy Name. Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and forget not all His benefits.’ It was a wonderful death, was it not? ’Earth is receding; Heaven is opening; God is calling.’ Was he thinking of the poet’s words "’The world recedes; it disappears; Heaven opens on mine eyes; mine ears With sounds seraphic ring? Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave where is thy victory, O death, where is thy sting?’ "It should have been a wonderful death, for it was a wonderful life that went before it. As I have been sitting here, the words that Dr. Pierson read out of Moody’s book have been hammering at my heart, ’One thing I do; one thing I do.’ This was the dominating power in Mr. Moody’s life, an absolute singleness of purpose. He looked into the face of Jesus Christ, who came into the world to do one thing; and, following the Master’s text, he said, ’This one thing I also do.’ "I met Mr. Moody when I was a Theological student, thirty-one years ago, in Chicago. I roomed in Farwell Hall, in which Mr. Moody preached, and his apartments were on the floor below me. The Hall took fire one morning, and burned slowly but surely through the forenoon. I busied myself in removing personal effects and otherwise, until at last, driven out, I found myself coatless and hatless in the street. A cordon had formed around in front, but there stood Mr. Moody with a bundle of handbills under his arms; he called me, saying, ’Take these and distribute them.’ I looked at the bill. It read, ’Our Beautiful House is Burned: The Noon-day Meeting will be held at the Clark Street Methodist Church.’ I asked, ’Where are your wife and children? ’He replied, ’I saw them safe.’ ’And your personal effects?’ ’O, never mind them,’ he said, ’Our meeting must go on.’ This was the spirit of the man, ’One thing I do.’ "We cannot better perpetuate his memory than by copying his enthusiasm. I mean to build him a monument, please God, in my ministerial life, by devoting myself most earnestly to the Master’s work. I believe I shall love the Bible better, because he loved it so; I believe I shall honor the Holy Ghost more, because he honored Him so; I believe I shall look more affectionately upon the Face so marred, yet so divinely beautiful, because he loved it so. My brethren in the service of Christ, if we revere the memory of this man, let us do the one great thing with more earnestness than ever. "Time worketh; Let me work too Time undoeth; Let me do Busy as time my work I’ll ply Till I rest in the rest of Eternity. Sin worketh; Let me work too Sin undoeth; Let me do Busy as sin my work I’ll ply Till I rest in the rest of Eternity Death worketh; Let me work too I Death undoeth; Let me do Busy as death my work I’ll ply Till I rest in the rest of Eternity.’" DR. DIXON’S ELOQUENT TRIBUTE The Rev. A. C. Dixon, who for years had been close to Mr. Moody, was the next speaker. He said: "There was no need that D. L. Moody should ever perform a miracle. He was a miracle. Miracle is God at work; and God Almighty worked through Dwight L. Moody, who showed to the world, as it seems to me no other man has shown in this generation, the difference between influence and power. He began without influence; he became influential through power. He did not magnify the influences of power and of money and of organization, education and position; but his trust was in God, and the power of Moody’s life was God Himself at work. Jesus was not a man of influence; He made Himself of no reputation but of power. Paul and Silas did not have enough influence to keep out of jail, but they had power enough after they were in jail to shake the doors open and walk out; and Moody was gifted with the power that could shake the doors open. I always felt when I left Moody, not like praising Moody, but like praising God. It seemed to me that I could feel and see the throbbing of God, of God’s love, God’s sympathy, God’s great-heartedness, as I came in contact with this wonderful man. He incarnated those words: ’God is able; God is powerful, all powerful.’ And God did mighty works through Moody because of his belief. He enabled God - I speak it reverently. Omnipotence stood helpless because of unbelief; but God worked through Moody because he believed. I saw some time ago a great steam engine, throbbing with power, but it could do nothing because a bolt was broken and the power was cut off. Moody furnished the bolt; he linked himself with Almighty God, and God worked through him because he trusted in His word and in His Spirit and in His Son. "The life work of our friend was so simple. He had a heart that took him into the great assemblies, into the great cities, the great countries and the great world, making not only a sphere but an atmosphere for Jesus. We speak of the modesty and humility of Moody; and the philosophy of his humility, I am impressed, was this: He always stood in the presence of some great undertaking, some wonderful unfinished work of God, and the work before him was so big that he could hardly see Moody; he could simply see the work to be done and the God that could do it, and he felt honored in being the instrument of God in its execution. Brethren, he always considered himself as the mere instrument of God, and he never thought to take any of the glory of his work to himself. I am afraid that many of us are too well satisfied we get puffed up with vanity and pride, with the little bit that we have done; we have not undertaken enough for God. Moody fought for evangelization of the cities and of the world, and if God will lift us unto his feet and just let us see Him as Moody saw Him, we shall be humiliated, expecting a blessing from Him. "I believe in the educational work established by Mr. Moody. God prosper the schools! May God lead some of the millionaires to lay millions upon that altar, and do it quickly, the more quickly the better for the glory of God. But education with Mr. Moody was the result of evangelism, and not evangelism the result of education. Education was an incident of his life, and education was established through his evangelism; and my prayer is that Moody may be projected into the future, and that those schools may be supported by evangelism. Not only by wealthy men giving their millions, but by pastors praying for them, do I hope that this two-fold work of Moody’s will be continued until we shall meet him in glory. "’Within the next twelve months,’ if Moody were standing on this platform, I believe he would say, ’Within the next twelve months we shall preach the Gospel to every creature in Greater New York.’ Let that be the watch-word for 1900! The politicians can reach all the voters in three months, and I believe that Christian people can reach every sinner in Greater New York within the next twelve months. We can bring the Gospel to the people in the home and on the street - the Word of God Himself - and the work of the Church will make God wake them up. Let us bring the Gospel to the people everywhere - in the homes, in the churches, in the theatres, on the streets. If we are to perpetuate Moody’s work, it will be by taking Christ into the homes and the hearts of the people. "Remember the Word of God to Joshua, the man who was to meet danger: ’Be strong and of good courage;’ and it needs courage to meet swords and bullets. Remember God’s words to Solomon, the man who was to meet difficulties in building the temple: ’Be strong and of good courage;’ and it takes a finer fiber of courage to meet obstacles than to meet bullets, it takes more real bravery to overcome the obstacles that beset the Christian’s path than to climb San Juan Hill or storm Manila or Santiago; it takes more than courage to meet the obstacles and labor of carrying the Gospel to the millions. Moody never faltered under difficulty, because he believed his God was equal to any emergency. Listen to these words of God, ’Moses, my servant, is dead; arise therefore and pass over Jordan.’ "God help us to carry on the work that he laid down and do it in the strength of his Almighty God!" THE CHARACTERIZATION BY DR. BUCKLEY The Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley then spoke as follows: "We go to the Bible for sublime passages, and those who understand the great book go to it for strange passages. The strangest memorial note in all literature is to be found in the Bible concerning a certain king who reigned in Israel eight years, and the epitaph proposed for him is this, ’and he departed without being desired.’ "What a contrast between such a career and that which has called us here! Our friend died when he was most desired; desired to maintain those wondrous Bible Conferences; desired as a nucleus of undenominational activity; desired to sustain those educational institutions which he had founded; desired to raise up more workers imbued with his spirit; desired to dart to and fro through the country to awaken communities, to snap the chains of conventionalism, to elicit and evoke the tremendous latent forces of the Church, and to unite Christians in the only way in which they can ever be united; - by a firm and unswerving belief in the fundamental principles of the Gospel he developed, and in active, soul-saving, consecrated labor. At this hour D. L. Moody was called away. "To attend a meeting of this sort sometimes produces singular effects. Persons are heated by the Scriptures, and by their own rhetoric, until at last one would think it a jubilation, and from a great memorial meeting in this city a gentleman retired saying, ’I was sad when I went there, but I don’t know now that it makes any great difference.’ According to these speeches, God is going to take care of His own work. The fact is the New Testament never teaches that we should not be sad. On the contrary, when Epaphroditus was sick, St. Paul wrote to the Philippians and told them that Epaphroditus longed after them because they had heard that he had been sick. And the Apostle said, ’indeed he was sick, nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.’ The real feeling is midway between jubilation and the sorrow of the world that worketh death. It is a great loss; to human eyes it is a dreadful and in a certain aspect of the case an irreparable loss. "How are we going to prove that any preacher has the Spirit of God? Will oratorical preaching, will pathetic preaching, will persuasive preaching demonstrate that he has the Spirit? Is the power of discerning spirits left in the Church? Did not some of the most famous evangelists the world ever saw fall into the very depths of iniquity and sin? Did not the author of that wondrous hymn, ’Come, ye sinners, poor and needy’, spend twelve years in the most dreadful depth of depravity, and go mourning all his days after he emerged from it? Have we not in our day known men absolutely to renounce the doctrines they held when they were most prosperous as evangelists, and confess with brazen face that in the very midst of their greatest efforts and success they did not believe what they were supposed to believe? How then shall a man prove that he has the Spirit of God? He must prove it by a long career, by a spotless reputation, by meeting men face to face as well as upon the rostrum, and by the men who have slept with him and traveled with him, and prayed with him, and suffered in evil report as well as in good report. These men must stand up, and be able to declare in the face of God, and in the presence of men, that this man all through this period lived as he professed, prayed as he professed, preached as he professed, denied himself as he professed. And then, if God gives such a wondrous death to that man as this, we have evidence probable and conclusive that he was a man of God. "But, my brethren, you cannot undertake to show that D. L. Moody did just what any other man could do, if he only had enough of the Spirit, Could God do as much by Peter in the same way that He could with Paul? What kind of a speech would Peter have made at Mars Hill to the Epicureans and the Stoics? He would, perhaps unconsciously, unless a special miracle had been wrought, have gotten himself into very great difficulty. He did it on several occasions, and had not learned better until the threshold of the crucifixion, when he smote off an ear in the excess of ill-regulated zeal. The fact in the case is that God by nature endowed Mr. Moody in an astonishing manner with regard to his mere body. There was a man in Connecticut who loved and adored Mr. Moody, and he invariably amused himself in this way, sitting in the cars. ’When Mr. Moody came in he would say, Do you know him? That is Huntington, the greatest railroad man in this country.’ Never did he hear one word of question from the men who had never seen Huntington. At other times he would suggest he was a Western judge. In every case every man seemed to think it exactly right. They saw that tremendous head, monster chest, prompt, intense, direct action, a man obviously born to command. This same man invariably told people afterward before they left him, for he was a Christian, ’No, that is not Mr. Huntington; it is Mr. Moody; and their curiosity was greatly excited. But D. L. Moody never reminded any other man of another man, in the ordinary sense of the term. All the humility of Mr. Moody was before God. He never was humble in his dealings with Mr. Sankey. He never was humble in his dealings with any man that he undertook to deal with. If ever there was a man self-confident under God, D. L. Moody was the man. "Physically many men reminded other men of Mr. Moody. That undefinable personality that will not show in a photograph, and cannot be painted in oil, was in Mr. Moody, and it went out of his eyes, and out of his head. He came up to me one day in a parlor car, and struck me on the shoulder and said, ’You look about the same as you did when,’ - and he mentioned a long period of time that need not be repeated here. A man came up and said, ’Who was that?’ Said I, ’That is D. L. Moody.’ ’I thought,’ said the stranger, ’it was Henry Wilson,’ and there was a very great physical resemblance between the Vice-President and Mr. Moody. "Then this man had what is seldom found in men inclined to corpulence, - immense activity. He was more active than the average man of medium size. "He could improve, and that was one of his glories. Two hundred years from now the extreme higher critics will be trying to prove that there were two Moodys, and they will do it by getting up the language word by word, and sentence by sentence, that Mr. Moody used when he began in Chicago. They will make a parallel of that with the highly improved style of his later years. Some persons say Mr. Moody was not a cultivated orator. Note that passage quoted by Drummond, observe that when in London he described the ascension of Elijah several parliamentary orators arose to their feet and looked in the air after the ascending prophet. Take his sublime eulogy of Joseph of Arimathea, delivered in this house less than a year ago. Not far from yonder box sat a bishop noted for sound judgment, and he said, ’That is a piece of work any man might be proud of.’ "Nearly twenty-five years ago the gentleman who presides to-day sat on the platform in the Hippodrome. A very strange scene took place in the City of New York. We have read the Arabian Nights’ entertainment, we remember that a certain Caliph used to go about in disguise, and marvelous are the extraordinary tales told of him. But at that time New York beheld an emperor, an emperor of a great territory, which is to be in the future one of the greatest empires of the world, unless it remains permanently republican. I refer to Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil. He went on the platform and took the seat vacated by Mr. Dodge and sat there. Two-thirds of the audience knew who he was, but the man of the occasion was Mr. Moody, and he was preaching then and there. What did he do? Did he exhibit that fawning and obsequious bow that many persons do when the President appears, or even a Secretary of State? Mr. Moody never referred to Dom Pedro, but he introduced into the midst of his discourse these words: ’What will you do with Jesus? What will you do with Jesus? An emperor cannot buy Heaven, but he can have it as a free gift,’ and after he said that he paused, and Dom Pedro bowed his assent, ’and afterwards remarked to the gentleman who wrote the account, ’That is a man to be heard and to be believed.’ "Mr. Moody was a personality. That personality is now invisible. It will disappear. You and I will remember him, and those who have seen him will remember him, but we belong to a vanishing generation. Who can go through Westminster Abbey without a guide-book, and know much about a great many that are there? Very few. The personality of Mr. Moody will be totally forgotten, as has been the personality to a large extent of Jacob Knapp, and of Charles G. Finney, and a great many others; to the present generation they are but names. There is but one way to prevent the personality of Moody from entirely disappearing. It is by the perpetuation of those schools, and the maintenance of their spirit. God forbid that those schools should ever follow in the Wake of Harvard Divinity School and of some others! Mr. Moody had his prejudices, but I heard him declare that he would fellowship with everybody who believed himself a sinner and trusted in Christ. ’But,’ said he, ’God being my helper, I never will fellowship a man who denies the Deity of my God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, or sneers at His atonement.’ "There was a man who spent his life in traducing the Bible, in caricaturing the ministry, in making audiences as large as this, laugh at our holy faith. That man boasted that he would have his stenographer with him when he died, that none could misrepresent his last words. He had a painless death. He never had to meet the king of terrors. No man whispered in his ear, ’You are about to die. Does your faith sustain you?’ He died and left the most deplorable scene of inconsolable grief that the world ever saw. Our Moody was told that he must die. What then? O, the blessing of the manner of his death to the Church! God showed, I believe, in a peculiar way for the Church and for him that ’Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’ There is something worse in this world than agnosticism, something worse than blank infidelity. It is the practical effects of a belief that we cannot be sure of the future. There are some hopeless words from ’In a Persian Garden’, that I heard sung with sweeter voices than are often heard in the sanctuary, at a private entertainment, and at the close a young lady was heard to say, ’Well, perhaps that is all there is to it.’ "There were those in the time of Paul who said, ’Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.’ Ah, if there were no life afterward I too would drink anything that would make me oblivious of my doom! But listen! listen! listen! ’I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, Write: Blessed are the dead which due in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.’ "Farewell, beloved brother! Farewell, stalwart friend! Farewell, all men’s friend! We shall see thee at last, but not in the flesh; for didst thou not thyself say, ’My body to the dust, my soul to the God who gave it.’" At the conclusion of Dr. Buckley’s remarks, Mr. Sankey sang a memorial hymn, written by him for the occasion, the whole assemblage joining in the chorus. The ceremonies were then closed with the benediction by the Rev. J. Balcolm Shaw. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 05.30. APPRECIATIONS BY EMINENT FRIENDS ======================================================================== Chapter 30 - Appreciations By Eminent Friends The estimation in which Mr. Moody was held by his co workers, and others who knew him, will testify perhaps most fittingly to his wonderful personality. Many of the following tributes were written in response to enquiries made by the Christian Endeavor World. "He was a convincing example of the priesthood of the people, and led out the laity into fields of unsuspected Christian usefulness. Edwards, Payson, Caughey, Inskip, Moody: the greatest of these was Moody." – Rev. D. H. Moore, D.D. Cincinnati, Ohio. "Mr. Moody was a man of the utmost sincerity, clear faith and strong constitution. He knew men, and was a man of common sense. He was a preacher, simple, direct and interesting. I believe that he gave a strong uplift to the religious life of America and Great Britain." - William Lawrence, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts. "In the most entire and utmost way, Mr. Moody exhibited and lived for and preached Jesus Christ at once God and Brother. His success in that preaching is only an illustration of the fact that such Gospel appeals to and meets as nothing else can, the needs of the human heart. His last words were ’The earth recedes, Heaven opens.’ Those may be our last words also if, as he did we trust and serve his Lord, who is at once Lord and Brother. - Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. "In Christ His life was a good fight of faith. His work was a long labor of love. His death was a full triumph of hope. His memory is a strong inspiration to service. His reward is an inheritance of glory With Christ." - Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D. D. New York, N Y. "He is, in my opinion, the greatest evangelist since White-field, and since the Apostle Paul there has been no man who has preached to so great a multitude and led so many to Christ. To the end of time Mr. Moody’s teachings will last. The simplicity of his words went direct to the heart of common men. His conscientiousness, his enthusiasm, his inspired common sense, his kindness - all made him especially fitted for his work." - Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. "He was, under God, the prime inspirer and director of the evangelistic trend, which has marked the last third of the nineteenth century. He has done more than any clergyman or layman of his generation in changing the style and method of the pulpit and in making it, as it ought to be, more direct, practical and sympathetic. To say that Mr. Moody was an uneducated man is wide of the mark. He was well educated, although self-educated, through the constant use of all the varied resources, which lay around him, for thorough and continuous preparation for his divinely designated mission." - Rev. Robert Hunter, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. "I have known Mr. Moody for twenty-five years, and have met him on many occasions. He was one of the purest and truest men I ever knew. He was a most thoughtful and careful student of the Bible. He was a great friend of young men, and his influence over them was remarkable. He was a devoted and laborious worker, and, so far as I know, the money he received nearly all went to aid poor young men or struggling colleges or churches. Mr. Moody was a remarkable reader of human nature and seemed intuitively to understand how to apply the truth to men in keeping with their disposition and nature. The Church of Jesus Christ has lost one of the most effective workers it ever had in the death of Mr. Moody." - Rev. I. W. Joyce, D. D., LLD., Bishop of the M.F. Church. "Mr. Moody was a man of tender compassion and unbounded sympathy, of deep humility and abounding charity, - of tireless energy and unflagging hope. Faith in a God who answers prayer and who can save the most hopeless, faith in the Bible as the Word of God from the beginning to the end, faith in the present power of the Holy Spirit, was the secret of his strong, beautiful and wondrous service." - Rev. R. A. Torrey, Chicago, Ill. Mr. Moody has taken his place among the immortals. In his own sphere his work was owned by God as truly as was that of Mr. Spurgeon in his sphere. Mr. Moody gave great prominence and power to the work of the laity. He emphasized the gentler rather than the sterner elements of the Gospel. His ministry was one of declaration rather than one of argumentation. His educational work is the most enduring feature of his unique service and his consecrated life." - Rev. P.S. MacArthur, D.D., New York, N.Y. "In the death of Mr. Moody, the world suffers a loss which no other man’s services, however invaluable, can neutralize. His speculations concerning things beyond this earth were not peculiarly his and were not the measure of his great worth. His value was his amazing gift for identifying the whole human side of his religion with the whole human side of his life, and for kindling other souls from the fires of his mighty devotion. May these things live after him forever." - George W. Cable, Northampton, Mass. "My heart aches over the loss that comes to us in the death of Mr. Moody. He has always been an inspiration to me in preparing hymns for gospel work; not that he was a musician or claimed to be, but I early learned to prize his judgment as to the value and usefulness of a hymn for the work. What moved him was sure to move others, and what failed to do so could be safely omitted. I have esteemed it one of my highest privileges to share in preparing songs for his work, and, now that he has gone, how lonely it seems!" – James McGranahan, Kinsman, O. "D. L. Moody believed the Bible to be the Word of God, and preached its truths with the authority of a messenger intrusted with a revelation. He believed in the Holy Spirit, and depended upon Him for power. His love for Jesus was a passion; and he loved people, good and bad, because Jesus loved them. "In the inner circle of his family and intimate friends he was as tender as a child, or gentle as a woman, at times as frolicsome as a boy, and as cheerful as morning sunshine. There was in him a rare union of spiritual fervor and common sense. His enthusiasm never ran away with his judgment. He was truly great in the Christlike sense of ministry to others." - Rev. A. C. Dixon, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. "The rounded fullness of Dwight L. Moody’s life is answer to the oft-repeated question, Is life worth living? It is not worth living if lived for self; it is if lived for others. And, when I think of the countless many who have been lifted to higher things by his earnest words and self-denying life, I am sure that his life was worth living. Only the recording angel can tell the number of those who, when the news of his death was telegraphed, responded with the expression, unrecorded on earth, ’Thank God for Dwight L. Moody’s life!’ "His end was peace. His message to all is service. ’Whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant.’ The world needs a successor. Who will he be?" – David J. Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. "He preached a positive Gospel to an age of doubt, and moved the popular heart and life as no other man of the age has done, unless it be Charles H. Spurgeon. The great preacher was ever true to the Bible doctrines concerning God, sin, punishment, repentance, Heaven and hell He stood firmly for the divinity of Christ and the inspiration of the Scriptures and the authority of the Book of books. He was a large-hearted, sympathetic, noble, manly man. His Gospel was full of sunshine and joy. ’God is love’ was the magnet which he used to draw men to Christ and a new life. His power was due to his positive faith, his life in close touch with the spirit of God, his rare good sense, his sympathy and love for all classes, his insight into human’ nature and his ability to manage men. He has shown what one can be and do who is wholly devoted to God and his work." - Rev. P. H Swift, D. D. Chigago, Ill. "Very few men have been so close to the strength and weaknesses of humanity. He saw and dealt with all classes - the high and the low, the rich and the poor - and as he came close to them they also were drawn close to him. This was because all believed in his love and truth, in his sincerity and absolute unselfishness. This was never shown perhaps to a greater degree than in the early life of this association, when full of faith, hope and perseverance he gave to this organization that spiritualizing force which is to-day the great source of strength and vitality. "Two of my childish recollections of Sunday are of sitting in one of the pews of the old ’spotted church,’ as it was called, and going with my father to the mission Sunday school in North Market Hall, where Mr. Moody was the chief spirit. I remember how he inspired me with confidence as a child, and how my love and respect grew with the passing years." – J.V. Farwell, Jr., Chicago, Ill. "Any tribute I might give to the memory of Mr. Moody would be largely influenced by personal affection as well as admiration, for during the well-nigh quarter of a century I have been associated with him and his work, both my love and my admiration for him have grown with the passing years, and his taking away therefore comes as a personal grief. "He combined in a most extraordinary degree great strength and force of character with great sympathy and tenderness of heart, and with these a most generous nature, always considering the welfare of others rather than his own comfort and happiness. "It may be truly said of him that ’a prince in Israel has fallen.’ and those who know him best and are best able to estimate his services to his generation will say, what they believe time will reveal to all, Dwight L. Moody was one of the greatest men of the century now closing." - George C. Stebbins, Brooklyn, N. Y. "The lines along which he won success are worthy of very careful attention. First, his life was a constructive force. He was in the world to build up, construct, to save. He could say, with Christ: ’I am come not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.’ He dealt with the positive, the known and settled in religion. "Second, he was thoroughly sincere. He believed his message to be absolutely true. There was no doubt in his heart, consequently none found expression on his lips. He was evidently so honest, so true, outspoken and frank that all men were convinced that he believed through and through every word he preached, and that he loved his fellow-men and desired their salvation above everything else; and that he was in the work, not to satisfy a selfish ambition, or for ease or fame, but because from conviction he had to be there. "The next element of power in Moody was a childlike simplicity that was marvellous. He was a man of remarkable wisdom, but there was no cunning in him. He was as absolutely free from duplicity as a man can be." - Rev. Charles C. Earle, Boston, Mass. "His life was spent for Jesus Christ, his Master. Self was kept back, while Christian power within was his guide. "God chose Moody, I have no doubt, because there was in his nature all the fire and enthusiam that would break out and electrify mankind. He was anxious for the souls of men. Moody was a layman, but his ministry has been as successful as any man in orders. Others have saved their hundreds, he his thousands. Moody was a born leader and was one of the greatest generals we have ever had. If he had been a soldier he would have stood side by side with Grant or Wellington. "Moody unified humanity. He wanted all denominations to get together. He knew that the way to have a union was not by creeds but by work. Let us take Moody’s idea of work as a unifying force." - Rev. George C Lorimer, D.D., Boston, Mass. "Dwight L. Moody was as undeniably the most extraordinary Gospel preacher that America has produced in this century as Spurgeon was the most extraordinary that Britain has produced. Both had all Christendom for their congregations. I am glad that, like Abraham Lincoln, he never went to any college; both formed their own racy Saxon styles for themselves. "With my beloved Brother Moody I had much personal intimacy for twenty-eight years. He delivered his first Bible readings in our little mission chapel in the winter of 1872. A few months later, when I was in London, he came into my room one day and said, ’They want me to stay and preach here; what shall I do?’ My quick answer was, ’Come’. He went with Mr. Sankey, and thus began his world-wide career in Britain. "One of his last sermons was delivered from my old pulpit here a few weeks ago. I said to him, ’Last night you were at your best; you were not talking to Christians, but. calling the unconverted to Jesus; stick to that as long as you live.’ Who will be the Elisha to follow our translated Elijah?" - Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D., Brooklyn, N.Y. Dwight L. Moody, the most divinely ordained Christian evangelist of the nineteenth century, sleeps well. He was girt with greatness all around. A great intellect was his. For, although unlearned in the classics and sciences, he was deeply schooled in the science of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, whom to know aright is life eternal. Other knowledges than this pass away, and are liable to puff up while they last. "Mr. Moody’s greatness of intellect was evidenced by the fact that his sermons repeated a thousand and more times were always as fresh and fascinating as they were at first. Only extraordinary minds can speak often on the same theme without becoming stale. He had also a great heart. He loved everything that was good. I do not believe he ever felt hateful toward any man. Supremely he loved Jesus Christ as we read of Him in the Word. Mr. Moody was as certain that the Holy Scriptures, as we have them, were fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, as he was that his pulse-beat came from his heart’s throb. I recall no other one in my day whose departure and ’abundant entrance’ above have brought Heaven so sensibly near. He was the friend of the whole world, and all lands will lament the loss of his measureless influence for human welfare." - Rev. John Lindsay Withrow, D. D., Boston, Mas. "Moody and I met for the first time in Cleveland, East Tennessee. It was about the middle of April, 1864. I was bringing together my Fourth Army Corps. Two divisions had already arrived, and were encamped in and near the village. Moody was then fresh and hearty, full of enthusiasm for the Master’s work. Our soldiers were just about to set out on what we all felt promised a hard and bloody campaign, and I think were especially desirous of strong preaching. Crowds turned out to hear the glad tidings from Moody’s lips. He showed them how a soldier would give his heart to God. His preaching was direct and effective, and multitudes responded with a confession and promise to follow Christ. "From that time on throughout his useful career I have had association with him. On the steamer Spree, during our remarkable wreck and rescue, I was with him. Who could have held up Christ with more fearlessness and fidelity than he did then to over seven hundred passengers? "In Chicago he acted as a general, and I became his subordinate during the World’s Fair. Thousands upon thousands crowded the theatres, tents, halls, churches, and other public. buildings, by his provisions, to hear the simple Gospel. "His work, again, in our war with Spain, by sending evangelical speakers to the front, whom he knew the soldiers would heed and hear, will never be measured by us who were mere helpers. He planned, selected his messengers, and sent them, and raised funds to give to our soldiers the bread of life. "With tears we read his last words: ’Heaven opens. Earth recedes. God is calling me.’ But O the triumph, Stephen-like, of such a departure." - General O. O. Howard., Burlingion, Vt. "I first knew Mr. Moody in 1857. It was at a Sunday school convention at a Clark Street mission in Chicago that I met him. He was then twenty-one years old, and was just entering the career in which he has done so much of good. He was a stout, robust ardent young fellow, shaking hands with everybody and smiling on them in his cheerful way, and the smile was not put on either - it was genuine. "I crossed the continent with him in 1871 to attend the California Sunday school Convention, and again in 1872 I crossed the Atlantic in his company when he first went to London to hold evangelistic services. At the invitation of Mr. Buley, the originator of the Dublin tax system, and a philanthropic gentleman of large means, I spent several days at Mr. Buley’s home, near Dublin, in company with Mr. Moody, and there I became better acquainted with the man himself. Since then I have met him many times. "Mr. Moody was bold, courageous in his advocacy of the things which he believed. He did not know what self-consciousness was. He was never embarrassed at least he never showed it. He had unlimited faith in the divine power to carry him through difficulties. To be sure he sometimes failed in his plans things did not go just as he wanted them to, but he never worried over such things. Once in Ireland I made fun of some of his old stories. I said, ’See here, Moody, I have heard you tell these same stories over and over again, and now I’d like to hear some new ones.’ He looked at me in a hurt sort of way and with tears in his eyes he said, ’Don’t say that. I have to use them.’ I made up my mind then that if any man could use an old sword as effectively as D. L. Moody did, I would never criticize him for it. "While fixed in his own faith, he was liberal towards people of diverse faiths. Once in Chicago he went to call on a Roman Catholic bishop. ’I have talked religion with almost everybody,’ said Moody, ’and I thought I would come and talk to you. Besides, some of your boys throw stones at a mission over on the north side.’ ’That’s very wrong in them,’ said the bishop, ’and I will tell them they must not do so.’ So they talked about religion for a while, and Moody said, ’You pray, bishop?’ ’Yes, said the bishop.’ Let’s pray now,’ said Moody, and they did, and they parted fast friends. Moody had largeness of soul while he had positiveness of faith. It would be good if we had more like him. "No man has died in this country in years for whom there has been a wider, greater, intenser affection than there was for Dwight L. Moody." - Rev. John H. Vincent, D. D. L. L. D., Bishop of the M.E. Church. "1. A man of prayer - the chief secret of his wisdom, usefulness and success. "2. A man of the Book - unwearied in Biblical study, he wore out several Bibles; absorbed the very atmosphere as well as the spiritual texts of Scripture. "3. A man of soundest evangelical faith, with a mighty grasp of essentials in the answer to the question, ’What must I do to be saved?’ "4. A man of extraordinary practical sagacity, organizing power, and aptness for leadership. He used to say that it was better to set ten men at work than to do yourself the work of ten men. But he was accustomed to do both. "5. A man of combined courage and tenderness - bold as any lion, tender as any drop of clew. "6. A man endowed by his unusually powerful but balanced emotions with greatness of character, and by his caution and trenchant common sense with strategic strength of character. "7. A man of commanding spiritual manliness, everywhere inspiring confidence. "8. A man of remarkable business and executive talent, he was trusted by men of affairs. "9. A man working easily with associates whose endowments filled out his own, like Professor Drummond and Mr. Sankey, the three together making a globe of capacities and aptitudes for the work they undertook. "10. A man whose career has been a spiritual link between England and America and all English-speaking lands. Mr. Moody has had no equal as an evangelist since President Finney was laid in his grave; and, as he had no real predecessor like himself, so he is not likely to have a successor. The Chicago and the Northfield schools ought to continue through his sons his unmatched work. ’I wonder,’ said a young minister to Professor Park, ’that Providence can accomplish so much through a man of only moderate endowments.’ ’I wish to speak respectfully of Providence,’ said Professor Park, in reply, ’but I call Mr. Moody a great man.’ ’I wish I had your shoulders,’ said Mr. Gladstone. ’I wish I had your head,’ said Mr. Moody, in answer." - Joseph Cook, L L. D., Boston, Mass. "My acquaintance with Mr. Moody runs back forty years or more, when he was just emerging from business and attracting attention in Chicago by his resolute and resistless efforts in religious work. We came together often. My house was his home, especially after the Chicago fire, when he walked out from his flame-lit house with his little family, saving nothing but his personal Bible. We were together several months at the time, and gathered the money mainly in New England for the rebuilding of the Illinois Street Mission. Soon after the fire he made the acquaintance of Mr. Sankey and founded the connection with which work in England began at York "Stretching over the years that intervened, up to Monday night, November 13th of this year, I have enjoyed the inspiration of his life. The freshest memory I have of him is the night above referred to, when he got off the Pennsylvania Railroad train to keep an appointment he had made with me by telegraph, to spend a short time between trains on his way to Kansas City for his last meetings. I remarked that same night, after he had left me, how heavy a burden seemed to rest upon his heart as he said again and again I wish that I might be moved of God to move one large Eastern city. For I think if one Eastern city could be thoroughly revived, the others would feel the influence and be stirred likewise.’ As I looked into the face of the man, whose eyes and voice were full of tears, it seemed as if a prophet like unto Elijah had come back again. He left behind him that night his comfortable home at Northfield and the hospitality which so many friends would have been glad to give him; laid himself down in a sleeping-berth of a Pullman car, rattling over a thousand miles to Kansas City; and rose with a heavy load of concern for the kingdom of his Master, and under the weight of it he staggered into his grave. In summing up the distinctly ’great things of this great century no man stands out more prominently who has spent so many continuous years in superhuman labor for the public good as Dwight L. Moody, the Christian American layman. Uncrowned, without title of any kind, he wears the first honors among the men who loved their fellow men." – The Honorable John Wanamaker. "In D. L. Moody’s death the world has lost one of the most remarkable men of the century. He was especially distinguished for his great devotion to the cause of Christianity and of preaching the gospel to the world. To me one of his most distinguishing characteristics was his consecrated common sense; this, together with a burning zeal for winning men to the service of Christ, and his ability to do the work of ten or a dozen ordinary men, made him the most successful and powerful evangelist of his day. He was as tender as a woman, and yet as strong and brave as a lion. It was my happy lot to have been with him for over twenty-eight years, in our own country and in lands beyond the sea; and my love and admiration for him increased as the years passed by. "The news of his death came as a great shock, as we had been led to believe that he was slowly gaining ground and likely to recover. A week before he passed away, I went to Northfield to see him, and, if possible, to cheer him up, but found him so weak and nervous that I decided not to risk an interview, lest harm might come to him; and thus I failed to bid him good-by. The last time I saw and talked with Mr. Moody was on the occasion of his last visit to Dr. John Hall’s church in New York City. We spent most of that Sabbath day together talking over the work in this country, and also the old days of our labors together across the sea. He seemed quite happy as we spoke of many kind friends with whom we had worked in Great Britain; but, when I suggested to him that we might go once more to that country and hold a few farewell meetings, even for a month or two, an expression of sadness came into his face such as I had seldom seen before, as he said, ’I should like to go, but I have a feeling that I shall not live to cross the sea again.’ This was the first intimation I had ever received that he had any thought that he might not be with us long. Little did I dream that I was having my last talk with my beloved friend. "It is a pleasant thought that Mr. Moody’s body has been laid to rest on beautiful ’Round Top,’ where he has spent so many of; the happiest hours of his life with those who had gathered there to hear his words of wisdom and grace. This spot might very appropriately be called Missionary Hill for it is believed that from it more young men and women have decided to go to foreign lands as missionaries than from any other single spot in the world." – Ira D. Sankey, Brooklyn, N.Y. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 05.31. EDITORIAL ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER ======================================================================== Chapter 31 - Editorial Estimates Of His Character Few men who have labored in the field of evangelism have won their deserved recognition so completely as Mr. Moody. Association with Mr. Moody very quickly convinced one that he stood pre-eminent among millions for his earnestness, his singleness of purpose, his unaffected piety, - for all that combination of principles and faculties which went to make up his marvelous personality. But it was not necessary to be associated with him to understand in some measure his greatness. His work stands as a monument to abilities which were far above the ordinary. Tens of thousands of men cry out, "He helped me!" Great buildings in various parts of the country attest his foresight in educational matters, and the practical bent of his mind. HIS GREATNESS RECOGNIZED EVERYWHERE These visible signs, this great mass of cumulative evidence of his greatness it is impossible to ignore. Even persons who were so unfortunate as not to come into sympathy with his efforts cannot refuse to recognize that he accomplished, with God’s help, great thing’s for the betterment of mankind. Here, then, I quote a few extracts from editorials in various journals, published immediately after Mr. Moody’s death. The unanimity of opinion is remarkable. I doubt very much if any other great man who has died within the past few years has received after his death such a shower of glad tributes. Those who have followed Mr. Moody’s career know how well deserved the tributes are, and yet, how much they fall short of recognizing the full measure of his greatness. "Mr. Moody undoubtedly exerted a powerful and stimulating influence, not only on the masses but on many of those who were his superiors in birth, breeding or intellect." - The London Spectator. "Wherever Moody spoke, whether in his own country or in other English-speaking lands, he invariably commanded attention and aroused interest. He retained to the very last of his public career the qualities which marked him from the outset as a potent preacher." - The Boston Globe. "Mr. Moody’s claim to greatness did not rest on his intellectual strength, but on his goodness. The standard of his character was his unqualified and immovable faith in God and in the Bible. With this faith he combined simplicity, honesty, sincerity, humility, zeal, an abhorrence of egotism, and a broad charity." - The Chicago Inter-Ocean. "His going leaves a great void behind, and the world will seem lonely without him to many in every land. His death will send a wave of sincere sorrow over millions of humanity without distinction of race, creed or church. Here was a man whose soul was pure goodness, who was ruled by loftier motives than commonly govern men, whose crown was Christlike character, and men, even irreligious men, instinctively yield his memory the homage of their respect and reverence." - The Presbyterian Banner. "Mr. Moody’s life teaches us that, while the Church needs scholars, what she needs most of all is the impulse of Christian devotion, that force which compelled St. Paul, and has compelled a thousand others in all branches of the Church on whom was laid the burden of a lost world, and who have said, ’Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.’ Mr. Moody’s life was well filled out with work nobly accomplished, and his death was the fit end of a life of faith and service. His memory is one of the treasures of the Christian Church." - The Independent. "He combined, as only his countrymen can, a remarkably keen business intelligence with unflagging enthusiasm. To the last he was very much what he had been at first; he attempted to be no more or better; he had no precise "views" or "opinions" about abtruse matters; and probably he did not himself know very well whether he was a Calvinist or not, or what were his exact theological bearings. But some gift within him, some influence which he gave out, had more efficacy with certain minds in certain moods than learning or eloquence or wit or pathos. The note of sincerity, the unflinchingly literal way in which he took things which others understood symbolically or spiritually, had a prodigious effect on people who wanted to see and hear and touch with their hands; people by no means necessarily unintelligent." – The London Times. "According to common agreement, Mr. Moody was not a great preacher, so far as greatness depends upon and is manifested in extensive learning or lofty flights of eloquence. There was in his appeals to sinners that mysterious something which is expressed neither in fine phrases nor in deep philosophic reflections. His magnetism and convincing force seem to have lain in an earnestness which left no doubt, and which affected the emotions like a whirlwind. By his death the evangelization movement has sustained a tremendous, perhaps irreparable, loss." - The Baltimore Herald. Chicago at one time claimed this mighty preacher. But when he died the whole world claimed him, so wide was the range of his evangelizing activities. He stirred the hearts of the two great English-speaking nations with his militant enthusiasm. He was the field marshal of the hosts that cling to the belief that the Gospel itself suffices for all the spiritual needs of humanity. The moral effect of his life-work upon humanity was greater than that of any other man of the nineteenth century." - The Chicago Times-Herald. "Mr. Moody’s strength lay in his simplicity and his earnestness. He has been described as magnetic, but simple earnestness always is magnetic. He had the faculty of impressing his hearers with his absolute and undeviating belief in the truth of all he said. He went straight to the point. There was no concession to oratorical effect or to literary polish. He said nothing simply because it sounded well, confining himself to straightforward, fearless statements of what he believed and what he wanted others to believe, and such apparent absolute faith necessarily carried conviction with it." – The Chicago Evening Post. He preached the Bible only and he lived in accordance with his preaching. For dogma, he cared little and in theology he was a tyro. He never preached over the heads of his audience. The wayfarer, though a fool, could not fail to understand him, and his earnestness was so great and his personal appeal so forcible that every one felt Moody was talking to him alone. Such honesty, sincerity and strength of purpose could not but have their reward, and few expounders of divine truth have looked upon a harvest so rich in sheaves as his." - The Chicago Tribune. "He seemed to care little for any business but his Master’s. It was this unflagging energy, this faith in his vocation, that brought him the confidence of men to whom like energy and faith had brought like success in the pursuit of wealth. He combined strangely the old and the new. He was perhaps the last great revivalist on the old theological lines, and he was the first to use wholly modern methods of publicity and appeal. In his earnestness, his unselfishness and his sanctified common sense he was one of the most remarkable men of our generation, for whose life the world has been better." – The Churchman. "What was the secret of his power? First and foremost, it was his intense religious earnestness. He knew God. The vision of the Eternal had risen in his soul. This deep and definite experience was an offset to his lack of literary culture. It made him profoundly anxious to do something for the souls of his fellow-men Nature had endowed him also with a sturdy and sober common sense. He cut no fantastic tricks, adopted no sensational methods, avoided even the appearance of smartness, and relied solely on the truth of God as spoken in plain and simple words and as vivified by the Holy Spirit." - The Nashville Christian Advocate. "The story of the outward life of such a man as Mr. Moody can be condensed after a fashion into a paragraph, and this has frequently been done; but the ramifications of its influence no pen can describe, no imagination can conceive. Its effect upon theology have been its least effects; but they have been incalculable. For though Mr. Moody has done little directly to change the theological thought of his time, he has done a great deal to inspire its religious life and those who believe that theology must always be the outgrowth of religion will believe that his theological influence is far greater and far more wholesome, because more vital, than either he or his contemporaries have imagined." - The Outlook. "In nearly all the great cities of this country and in many of the towns of Great Britain. the footsteps of Dwight L. Moody have been marked by the upspringing of schools, of helpful agencies, of aids to raise the fallen, to lighten the dark places, to help human beings in all that makes for righteousness. Although a lay evangelist, he was a great preacher, eloquent, soul-stirring, convincing and ministering to others the faith that made him whole, but great as he was as a preacher, he was greater as a worker, and his works live after him, vitalized and given enduring substance by the spirit which created them" - The Philadelphia Telegraph. "Farewell, Brother Moody! Thousands upon thousands will mourn thy departure; thousands upon thousands will look back to the time when they were first warned to return to the fold by the words of entreaty, while future generations will be blest by the influence of thy searching teaching of the truth as it is in Jesus. The Church will learn all too soon of the greatness of the prophet who has left them. But all work for the Master is done under human conditions; the man passes, his work abides. So it will be now; Moody has ceased to live in the flesh, but he lives in his work, and the results of his wonderful teaching will be felt by succeeding generations." – Christian Work. "Mr. Moody was a wonderful leader of men. Everywhere he went he set others to work for Christ. No one was so bad as to be repulsive to him, and no one was so wise or good that he did not venture to approach and use him to further his service for Christ. Thousands of waifs rescued from rags and wretchedness are useful men and women because Mr. Moody put his arms of love around them and lifted them up. He has built many structures in many cities, where young men and women gather to work for and worship God. But his noblest monument is made of living stones built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. His life can best be summed up in one sentence: He was a wise winner of souls." - The Congregationalist. "Mr. Moody was not only sincere; he was intensely in earnest. He not only implicitly believed in the truth of the doctrines which he expounded, but he was firmly convinced that the acceptance of those doctrines by the men and women whom he addressed was the most important thing in the world; that every other interest was in comparison trivial and without consequence. He believed, moreover, and he believed it in all humility, that he had been commissioned from above to go about the world delivering the message of the Gospel. He felt himself to be a Heaven-appointed minister to convince humanity of sin and point out the way of salvation." – The Philadelphia Inquirer. "He commanded the respect and confidence of men of other religious faiths and beliefs, and even of the non-religious classes, by his sturdy common sense, his geniality and whole-heartedness, and by his freedom from all cant and affectation. He lived the religion he professed, and practiced what he preached. In speech and manner he was simple, clear, and direct; he understood the common people because he was always one of them in thought and feeling, and among them his greatest and most enduring work was done. The world is a far better and happier world to-day because of the life of Dwight L. Moody. He will live long in the grateful and tender memory of mankind." - Leslie’s Weekly. "He never made any serious mistakes. There was no flaw in his character. He commanded an absolutely universal respect. Rich and poor, high and low, learned and illiterate, cherished almost exactly the same feelings toward him. The kind of influences which he began to put forth in Chicago forty years ago went on growing and extending to the day of his death - and to-day, as tidings of his death are borne to every part of the English-speaking world, his influence will seem to be greater than ever. It is not an exaggeration to say that the coming century will be in certain pervasive and vital respects appreciably different from what it would have been were it not for the distinctive spiritual and moral forces which Moody imparted and put forth." - The Chicago Record. "A rugged simplicity and absolute sincerity were the chief elements in his character. No one ever detected in him a suspicion of cant. It might have been said of him, as Mirabeau said of Robespierre, ’That is a dangerous man; he believes every word he says. For the ’drill and pipe clay’ of the clerical profession, as Robertson phrased it, Mr. Moody had nothing but contempt, and his own unconventional ways, in the pulpit and out of it, did a great deal to break down the stilted ministerial tradition. Nor were the changes in his own style of work, as the years passed by, without great significance. From being a mere evangelist, going from city to city to address vast and emotional audiences, he became, by chief intention and main use of time and strength, a Christian educator. His educational institutions at Northfield, so remarkably planned and endowed, he regarded as the crowning work of his life." - The New York Nation. "’By their fruits shall ye know them.’ Judged thus, Mr. Moody’s career takes saintly rank. Possessed of a marvelous personal magnetism, an earnestness that was irresistible, and an enthusiasm that defied the flight of time, he took his faith in Divine guidance in one hand and his faith in mankind in the other, and, so armed, hurled the full force of his splendid powers against the cohorts of evil. He could not fail. The measure of his revealed success will challenge the admiration of posterity. "’The measure of his revealed success.’ But what of the unrevealed? Its measure was never known, even to himself. It remains a mystery lodged beyond the stars He drew the scoffer. He startled the dormant conscience of carelessness, and stirred the soul of the evil-doer. He wrought blessings innumerable in garret and in mansion. He labored apart from the church, yet impelled toward the Church hundreds of thousands whom the Church had pot reached." - The New York Mail and Express. "No one could visit North America within recent years without feeling that Mr. Moody was one of the great personalities of the continent - and that not only as an evangelist or the representative of evangelical religion, nor even as an organizer of education, but for his own self’s sake as a man who lived his faith, and who lived it with extraordinary force of character and wisdom. What I feel to be our sorest loss in the death of this great and good man is that we shall no more have his large heart and large mind in the reconciliation of those divisions of opinion among Christian men which are so strong and in some quarters so bitter at the present day. No one could have assisted reconciliation so much as D. L. Moody. Yet it seems wrong to be envious even to this extent, when we have so very much to thank God for in the influence and results of His servant’s life." - Prof George Adam Smith in the British Weekly. "The death of D. L. Moody is an almost irreparable loss to evangelical Christianity. He was probably the greatest religious revivalist of the present century. Yet that fact hardly gives a true indication of the widespread influence he exerted over the lives of multitudes of men and women in the Old World as well as the New. Even as a revivalist he differed widely from the old-time revivalists of the last generation, who terrified the sinner into repentance by holding him over the precipice where he could see the lurid fires of the pit seemingly eager to envelop him. Mr. Moody doubtless held exactly the same beliefs as to the character and duration of future punishment as his predecessors did. But, without, perhaps, being exactly conscious of the fact, the seeming harness of this dogma was softened by his profound belief in the goodness and love of God. It was upon that thought he most often dwelt, never failing to bring it in even when he referred to the certainty of future punishment. This characteristic of his exhortations separated him widely from the revivalists of the past, and gave his teachings a much more general acceptance than was accorded to previous evangelists." – The New York Tribune. "He was very simple, absolutely earnest, without self-conceit or pretence or cant. He had power; he used it with all his might according to his knowledge and his lights. Nearly all of us came in time to see that the work was good and the results very valuable; that Moody, however he did it, took hold of the people that needed attention, stirred them up to good purpose, and brought them something that made them better. The English-speaking world long ago recognized him as a great force, and one that made for righteousness and the essentials of true religion. Not all of us are desirous to be good ourselves, but most of us are at least in favor of other persons being good. So, nearly all of us have been in favor of Mr. Moody, and respected him and his work, and honor his memory now that he has gone. He was one of the preeminently successful men of the century, and what he accomplished he did without much help from education, and without favor or aid save what his manifest deserts won for his work. He simply forgot himself, and took hold. He never let go, and he never remembered himself enough to distract his attention from the work his heart was in." – Harpers Weekly. "Mr. Moody was not a man to whom theological subtleties had any charm. But his convictions never halted. What he believed, he believed with heart and soul. He might have been wrong in premise and education, he might have been old-fashioned in theory, but in spirit he was always right and strong, and he had almost a prophet’s gift in the potency of his messages. No one could long be in contact with his honesty of purpose, his unqualified self-consecration, his boundless zeal and prophetic spirit without being moved by these qualities. His influence was not only national, but international. He was as notable a force in Great Britain as in the United States. He possessed great personal magnetism, which, combined with his religious enthusiasm, whose sincerity no one questioned, gave him a power of persuasiveness which was well-nigh irresistible. "While not reckoned among the clergy, or caring to be, he was ’yet a powerful inspiration to the profession. He will be missed and mourned by the churches as profoundly as by the common people, who regarded him almost as their Moses. His educational work in his native town might well stand as a monument of noble achievement. But that was among the least of the things that he did in his Master’s name and for His cause. He was a living Gospel, arid his death, with its peace and joy, seemed to partake of the beauty and splendor and awe of a transfiguration."--The Boston Transcript. "Mr. Moody was a great evangelist, and he did a great work. An unordained and essentially popular preacher, who felt that his commission to win souls was in his love for Christ and his desire to serve Him - he reached thousands who were not likely to come under the influence of others whose belief in Christianity he quickened from a dull acceptance of doctrine into a living power. Earnest in his own convictions, and gifted with a remarkable talent for enlisting the interest and sympathy of his hearers, he was a speaker of unusual effectiveness. Direct and simple in his utterances; not always grammatical; fond of anecdote and homely illustration; emotional, sometimes to an extreme - such was Dwight L. Moody as the leader of countless public meetings. He filled churches and audience-rooms because the people believed he had a message to deliver; as for himself, he believed that that message was of tremendous consequence. His methods have been criticized, but, certainly, he was not open to the charge of being insincere. His whole life was given to doing what he felt to be his highest duty. To this task he brought native ability, and a constantly increasing knowledge of the ways to make that ability count for the most." – The Hartford Courant. "Men are also asking the secret of Mr. Moody’s power. Four words sum it up: Common Sense and Consecration. He had many striking characteristics, but through them all shone his spirit of consecration. He was simple; a child could understand his sermons. He believed in the power of stories; if they caused laughter or weeping, he took advantage of the smiles or the tears to press home the Gospel message. He was a man of faith, faith in God and man. He looked for the best in men, and they responded by giving him their best. No one could hear him in private conversation or on the platform without recognizing his intense earnestness. Whatever he did, he did with all his heart, and he was able to inspire others to similar devotion. Some people called him narrow; they little knew that, if he had used his powers in other directions, he would have been as successful in conducting a great financial venture, or planning a military campaign, as he was in leading men to accept Christ as their Saviour. "Mr. Moody believed the Bible from cover to cover, and he believed in the fundamental doctrines of Christ. ’People ask me,’ he said one time, ’If I believe in the "higher criticism." How can I when I don’t know what it is? They ask me if I think there were two Isaiahs. Before taking up that question seriously, I believe we should try to see what the prophecy itself contains. ’Why do you go to hear Moody?’ said a scoffer contemptuously to a fellow club member. ’You don’t believe what he preaches.’ ’No, but he believes it with all his heart, and it is refreshing to meet such a man in these days of doubt and uncertainty. "Mr. Moody was an optimist. Elijah on Carmel was his ideal; he had little patience with the prophet under the juniper tree. He was a sincere man. While looked upon as a leader, his daily prayer was that God would keep him humble. To know him was to love him; thousands of people in every part of this country and in Europe, and hundreds of missionaries in foreign lands, have lost a personal friend in his death. He was a good man and faithfully served his generation." - The New York Observer. "Mr. Moody was not only reverential, but humble. He was not only humble, but tolerant. He improved very much under travel, under intercourse with able minds, and under the study of vast throngs, as so many units. The consequence was that from a lone exhorter he became a great leader, from a great leader he rose to be an organizer of much skill, and he topped both functions with that of an educator on distinct lines, at needed work, and upon a vast scale. We are regarding him entirely from the human point of view, for the purpose of this consideration, and we are noting in him exactly the qualities which would have made him successful in other undertakings. His qualities were not unusual. His use of them was extraordinary. The high purpose to which he applied them was ennobling and uplifting. The singular simplicity, candor and gentleness of his spirit were remarkable, considering the power he wielded, the influence which he commanded, the support which he received and the praise, whether interested or disinterested, of which he was the subject. His field was the world, and to do good his religion. "He made haste slowly. He died on the heights, but he started on the plains and had a hard passage through valleys and up mountain steeps, before he walked with God. Without more than elementary education, utterly without training, destitute of experience, simply aflame with spiritual purpose, he had to vindicate himself, he had to create for himself a way, and he had to do so against a critical, cultivated and combined class, the reverend clergy. They did not relish an unlettered lay intruder. They were justified in their instinctive disrelish. Of most lay intruders the note is arrogance, the method burglarious, the self-confidence unabashable and the ignorance unteachable. Of this lay intruder nothing like that could be said. He was altruistic, he was modest, he was hungry to learn, he was deferential to knowledge, what he acquired he held, what he held he increased, and what he increased and made his own he made also the precious possession of others. The greatest of lay workers became the master of lay workers, their monitor and their model, and this at first uneducated man established institutions for Christian instruction which taught the use of the tools of spiritual knowledge as aptly and as thoroughly as the use of the tools of any other knowledge is anywhere taught." - The Brooklyn Eagle. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 05.32. THE PERSONAL SIDE OF MR. MOODY ======================================================================== Chapter 32 - The Personal Side Of Mr. Moody He was a remarkable man in all ways, not the least of which was his appearance. He was not a striking figure so far as stature was concerned, for he was rather below the average in height, but he was a marked man in a crowd, and every one turned to look at him because the very atmosphere that surrounded him was commanding. He has been likened to Garfield, in his massive frame; they had the same smiling features, the same facility of anecdote, and the same effect of sincerity in everything they said or did. Their style of oratory was almost identical, and both possessed the rare gift of captivating people at. first sight. Mr. Moody was very quick at repartee. An interesting incident is related of his meeting with Mr. Gladstone. Heartily grasping Mr. Moody’s hand the old statesman said, "I wish I had your body." Mr. Moody replied, "I wish I had your head." Mr. Gladstone responded, "I mean I wish I had your lungs;" to which Mr. Moody again replied, "I wish I had your brains," and with hearty good wishes they parted. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS Mr. Moody had a wonderful voice. He could easily hold the attention of thousands, and yet in conversation there was a pathos and tenderness in his inflections that was most fascinating. He had a most attractive face; it was kindly and helpful in its every expression. He was fond of telling how his picture once did duty for that of Rutherford B. Hayes. During the Hayes campaign a big Republican rally was held in Fort Wayne, Ind. Everything was ready, when it was suggested that the meeting would be incomplete without a picture of General Hayes. This brought out the discovery that, although around the walls of the room were hung-the pictures of many celebrities of the clay, that of Hayes was not among them, nor could a picture of him be found. One of the members of the committee on arrangements, a sign painter, who had a natural gift of drawing, found a copy of Harper’s Magazine on the table in which was a small cut of Mr. Moody. He decided it was enough like Hayes to make a copy from, and in half an hour he had a good sized sketch, and labeled the product "Rutherford B. Hayes". It was hung on the stage, and the speakers of the evening pointed to it as they referred to "that statesman," etc. Finally the joke leaked out in the crowd, and almost resulted in breaking up the meeting. Mr. Moody was informed of the affair, and told it to President Hayes. HIS HOLD UPON HIS FRIENDS It has been said that he was dictatorial, sometimes extremely so, and it must be confessed that he did insist on his own way; but then, he had studied his work; he knew men, and he knew what would tell with them, and it was a rare thing ever to find him mistaken in his judgment. But even though he was brusque, sometimes almost to the point of rudeness, it is a mighty tribute to the power of his influence over men that he instinctively drew them about him. One of his English friends said of him, "He may make doorkeepers of us, or even door-mats, if he likes, and we will love him." And another has said of him, "Dear old Moody! We all love him, but some of us don’t like him." He was, however, the most tender-hearted man I have ever known. Dr. George F. Pentecost has well said of him, "Intentionally he never wounded any one; he simply lacked perception, and did not put himself in the other man’s place." His heart was big enough to take in the whole world, and his sympathy with mankind was genuine. An instance of this occurred in New York. While he was in the midst of a sermon a baby commenced to cry, much to the annoyance of some of the audience, who darted cruel looks at the innocent child and the embarrassed mother. The mother waited for a favorable opportunity to go out, but Mr. Moody told her to remain where she was; he guessed his lungs were stronger than the baby’s, and if any didn’t like it, they could go out. At the close of the service he made the unique announcement that the next afternoon he would preach to mothers with babies in their arms, and no one unaccompanied by a baby would be admitted. Never before was there such a gathering. The scene touched the heart of the great preacher, and his words the hearts of the mothers. Mr. Moody said afterward that a good many of the women present must have borrowed babies for the occasion. HIS CHARMING SOCIAL SIDE He was perfectly delightful socially; he was as genial a man as I have ever known. He would laugh till the tears rolled down his face at some story which he might have heard again and again. He found his recreation in helping others, for he was a tireless worker in one form or another, yet he was never so happy as when he was making others’ burdens easier to bear. From the very day that D. L. Moody came before the eyes of the Christian world, the same characteristics that made him great in later days, were exhibited. He was one of the most conscientious men I have ever known, and if he felt that anything was his duty, nothing in the world would make him so miserable as to feel that he must leave it undone, and nothing made him so happy as to feel that he could perform it quickly whatever the cost. If he ever wronged any one, he was the first to make that wrong right. Mr. Moody seldom preached a sermon without emphasizing the fact that true happiness and the richest blessings will never be realized by a professed Christian, if at any time he has wronged a fellow-man and has not made an honest attempt to clear up the wrong, or if he does not perform, willingly and promptly, known duties. That the great evangelist made this teaching one of the cardinal principles of his own life is clearly demonstrated by the following incident, related by him in an address to a body of students at Northfield. A SINGULAR INSTANCE OF HIS KINDLINESS "You can never accomplish much in your Christian life until you get right with your fellow-men as well as with God, and until you perform your duty as it comes to you. Let me give you an experience that I had a few mornings ago. I always get up early, and devote the first hour of the day to my Bible. This morning I sat down at my desk to study as usual. In a few minutes I chanced to look out of the window, and I saw a young fellow with a heavy valise on his back, walking toward the railroad station three miles away. If I thought about it at all, I thought he was one of the students going for an early train. I turned my eyes to my Bible, but, try as hard as I might, I could not fix my mind on what I read with my eyes. "I looked out of the window again. Something said, ’You ought to take that boy to the station.’ I tried to persuade myself that it was not my duty. I made another effort to study, but it was of no use. I jumped up and hurried to the stables, hitched up a horse, and drove rapidly until I came up to the boy. I took him and his baggage in and drove to the station. After giving the boy Godspeed and receiving hearty thanks for my kindness, I drove home, and went to my study. I took up my Bible, and I didn’t have the slightest trouble in fixing my mind on my work." I drove with him one morning while he was making some final preparation for the coming of the students to their annual conference, when we stopped at a little patch of corn, and he said, "I hoed two rows of corn here this morning before you were up. I have never been able to get out of my mind the imaginary picture of D. L. Moody, with coat and vest off, hoeing corn at Northfield. HIS EXTREME MODESTY With all his greatness he was one of the most modest men that you could possibly find. Other men might have been turned with the flattery of the people, but extreme modesty was a striking characteristic of the evangelist’s personality. His phenomenal successes in many lines left him a man devoid of all desire for notoriety and fame. Although thousands of persons would travel long distances to hear him preach, still he invariably maintained that there were any number of ministers who could excel him as a preacher, and he was always willing and eager to give place to others. During the Northfield Conferences, at which, in the minds of the people in attendance, he was the central figure, Mr. Moody seldom preached, unless to take the place of some speaker who was unable to meet his appointment, or unless urgent requests from the audience were repeatedly sent to him. Asked once why he did not speak more often at the conferences, the evangelist replied: "Oh, you can hear me any time. I want you to hear these noted men that I have brought from over the sea." Again, when urged to preach, he made this announcement from the rostrum one morning: "I don’t want to take the time of these dear brothers who have come so far to speak to us. I have received a good many requests to preach. If you really want to hear me you will be willing to get up early for the privilege. Meet me here in the auditorium at 7 o’clock to-morrow morning, and we will have a Bible talk together." Despite the numerous other sessions during the day, these sunrise services were continued during the rest of the conference, and each session was largely attended by those eager to catch every syllable that fell from Mr. Moody’s lips. HIS WONDERFUL UNSELFISHNESS He was absolutely unselfish. During the first visit of Messrs. Moody and Sankey to Great Britain they were in need of a book of songs to use at the meetings. No publisher would bring out the book, although Mr. Moody offered to give it to any one who would print it and give him what copies he wanted to use. Finally he was compelled to have the book printed at his own expense. It has since attained a larger circulation than any other publication except the Bible, and is one of the best paying literary properties in the world. Every dollar of the profits of the book has gone to charity in one form or another. Mr. Fleming H. Revell has said: "Some years ago, some of the papers began to say that Mr. Moody was making a good thing financially of his reputation. As a rule Mr. Moody never paid no attention to criticism. He was wont to say that no two people thought alike of everything or received always the same impression. He was friendly toward the public press, claiming that it was a great educator and a great power in spreading of both secular and religious knowledge. But he was deeply grieved at this. He referred to the criticisms one day in the pulpit here in Chicago. There were tears in his eyes, and his voice quivered as he spoke. ’As I know my heart before God,’ he said, ’I have never let the desire for money determine my conduct in any way. I know I am weak and sinful in many ways, but the devil has not that hold upon me. I have never profited personally by a single dollar that has been raised through my work. It hurts me, above all other things, to be charged with this. May God forgive those who say this of me.’" Mr. Revell added, that though Moody received over $125,000 from royalties on his work, he had never used a penny of it for personal purposes, reserving it all to further his work. "Mr. Moody was a good financier," he said. "He took great care of his money, but not to save it and build a fortune. Rather he desired it to use in his work. I fully believe he died a poor man. ANECDOTES OF HIS EARLIER YEARS OF SERVICE Dr. Edward Eggleston has told the following stories about Mr. Moody: "I have heard Mr. Moody tell how while in the Christian Commission service he was propounding his thorough question to a Tennessee planter, but, as the man was deaf, the repeated vociferation of ’Are you a Christian?’ failed to bring a reply. Turning to the black man who stood by he asked, ’Is your master a Christian?’ ’No, Massa, he is a Presbyterian.’ "It was not uncommon in those days for Mr. Moody to assail suddenly a strange young man with this blank query. Of course, he soon became noted for his zeal and eccentricity. A young man from the country who had held a situation in the city for just three weeks, was thus accosted by him in the street, ’Are you a Christian?’ He replied, ’It is none of your business.’ ’Yes it is.’ ’Then you must be D. L. Moody,’ said the stranger. "’Madam,’ said Moody to an Irishwoman, ’Won’t you go to church to-night?’ ’Whose is it? Is it Moody’s Church?’ ’No, it is God’s Church, but Moody goes there.’ ’Troth, thin I won’t go.’ With this she began to charge Moody with divers crimes, not knowing to whom she spoke. ’You better be careful,’ said he presently, ’my name is Moody.’ ’Tut, tut’, said she with Irish dexterity and effrontery, ’I know’d Moody afore you was born.’" A volume could be written of the things which the friends of this mighty man of God have said since his death. The words of two representative men may, however, with peculiar appropriateness be presented. THE SIMPLICITY OF HIS HABITS AND TASTES The Rev. George F. Pentecost his said: "Had he lived in the early days of Israel’s trials, he should have judged Israel, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies. He was like Gideon, and his latent powers were known only to God. He was the most reticent man I ever knew. One of his marked characteristics was his strong, practical common sense and fine knowledge of men. Once in the Boston Tabernacle, just before going on the platform, some one came to see him. ’There is a man outside wishes to see you.’ ’Well,’ said the evangelist, ’I have no time to see him.’ ’But,’ replied the usher, ’He says he must see you.’ ’What kind of a man is he?’ ’He is tall and thin, with long hair.’ ’That settles it,’ said Mr. Moody, ’I don’t want to see any long-haired men nor short-haired women.’ It was a rare thing for him to make a mistake in any of the men gathered about him. "He had the simplest habits and tastes. He spent money lavishly on other people - almost none on himself. I consider him the world’s greatest evangelist, and he has influenced more people for God than any other man in modern times." The Rev. G. Campbell Morgan has said of him: "My personal acquaintance with Dwight Lyman Moody was not of long duration according to the measure of the calendar. If, however, ’we could count time by heart throbs,’ then I might claim to have known him; for it has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to have come very near him in the ripest years of his life. I first saw him in 1883 during his second visit to Birmingham. Bingley Hall was being crowded by day with eager crowds who had come by train from the whole surrounding district. The city was moved to its very center. The impression of those days, therefore, is that of the man in the midst of the rush of work. He was keen, alert, forceful. No detail of arrangement escaped his notice. A vacant seat, the opening and closing of doors, a tendency to drag the singing, all these he noted and uttered directions about. Yet he was by no means a man who cared for detail’s sake. The greater was ever the reason for the less, and the less was important only as part of the greater. The supreme passion of his life was the winning of men for Christ, and no detail that would hinder or help was too small for consideration. HOW HE APPEARED IN HIS NATIVE TOWN "In 1896 I visited the States for the first time. Among other work, I had promised Mr. Moody to speak at the Chicago Institute to his students. The Northfield Conference was in session, and I managed to get a few hours there. Arriving late at night, I found my quarters and retired. The next day was a field day for me, and a revelation. I attended meetings from morning till night. Everywhere Mr. Moody was the moving spirit. Bright, cheery, and yet in dead earnest, he seemed to make everything go before him. In the intervals of the meetings he gave me a drive round the campus in his buggy. Every point of interest was pointed out, and in a few brief words the story of how the different buildings were erected was told. Passing one house, he said, ’People sometimes ask me how I found Northfield? I tell them it found me. I was born there.’ Suddenly he pulled up his horse to speak to a group of children. ’Have you had any apples to-day?’ said he. ’No, Mr. Moody,’ they replied. ’Then go down to my house, and tell them to give you all you want.’ Away they went, and so did he, both happier. Down a narrow lane he drove next, and through a gate to where a man was at work in a field. ’Biglow,’ said Mr. Moody, ’it’s too hot for you to work much. Half a day’s work for a days pay, you know, while this heat lasts.’ I sat by his side and watched, and began to understand the greatness of the man whose life was so broad that it touched sympathetically all other phases of life. MR. MOODY AS HOST After the evening meeting, at his invitation, I gathered with the speakers at his house. Then, for the first time, I saw him in a new role, that of the host. He sat in his chair at the head of the table and helped the ice-cream, directed the conversation, and listened with the patience and simplicity of a child to every word that others spoke. That night the talk turned on the most serious subjects, the inner life of the people of God and its bearing on the work of the churches among the people. As we broke up I went to bid him good-bye, as I was to depart by an early train on the morrow. ’O!’ said he, ’I shall see you in the morning; you are to preach at ten o’clock.’ That was my first notice. What did I do? I preached, as he told me, as others and better men have ever been glad to do. That was his way. He printed no programme of the Northfield Conferences. He gathered around him a band of teachers and speakers, and then as the days moved on he manipulated them according to the necessities of the case. After speaking next morning I hurried away, but in that brief stay Moody had become much to me. Strong, tender, considerate, from that day I more than reverenced him, I loved him." In the summer of 1897 I was asked to go to Kinsman, Ohio, to fill an engagement which properly belonged to Mr. Moody, but he was so busily engaged with his own Northfield work, and was so fearful of taking a long journey in the heat of summer, that Professor James MeGranahan insisted that I should come to Kinsman to speak to thousands of people who gathered every summer on the Fair grounds. Mr. Moody had started this meeting two or three years before, and he insisted that it should not be given up. PRAYER SAVED THE SHIP When I reached the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. McGranahan I found that my helper in the meeting was to be that grand old hero of many a battle-field and devoted soldier of the cross, General O.O. Howard. Sitting together with the friends who had come in from the surrounding country to attend the meeting, the name of Mr. Moody was mentioned, and General Howard said, "I was with him on the steamship Spree, when, Mr. Moody says, ’God heard our prayer and saved the ship.’ A good many people have criticised this statement," said General Howard, "and there was much controversy in the newspapers; but Moody always believed it. Over 700 people were with us on the ship. One morning, about daybreak, I was awakened by a sound like an explosion, and I heard the people rushing along the halls, and then some one said the main shaft had been snapped asunder, and falling down had made a break in the ship. The passengers were terror stricken. The bulkheads were quickly closed, and the bailing and the pumping began, but when they reached the third compartment of the ship, they found it almost impossible to clear it, and the aft part of the ship was sunk to the gunwale. Mr. Moody, with his son, I found on deck. He was lying back in a chair looking very ill, but after a moment he said, ’General Howard, won’t you come with me?’ And followed by his son we made our way to the stateroom, and there he fell upon his knees and prayed as only he knew how to pray. He told the Lord that He was the God of the sea, and asked Him that, like as He had stilled the Sea of Galilee, He might save these people in peril on the ship. He asked the Lord to send him a ship to take them safe home that they might finish their work; and when he had prayed, and his son had followed, he opened his Bible and read the ninety-first Psalm, and then said, ’This Psalm is just made for this occasion, isn’t it?’ A SERVICE OF PRAISE ON THE STEAMER "After that he was always surrounded by a company of people, giving help wherever help could be given. When Sunday morning came he gathered the people in the dining saloon, and conducted the service in his own inimitable style, and after forty-eight hours of drifting, a ship came hurrying over to us to take us safe home. Mr. Moody led a service of thanksgiving and praise, and preached as I never had heard him preach before. That is the story of his sending the cable ’Prayer saved the ship.’" There was a hush on the little assembly, and I know of one at least who offered up a prayer of thanksgiving that D. L. Moody had not only helped save the people on board the Spree, but had been used of God to save thousands of others just as truly drifting, and whose case was just as apparently hopeless. The Rev. F. B. Meyer, of Christ Church, London, knew Mr. Moody most intimately, and loved him not only for his work’s sake, but also because of the peculiar charm and fascination of his great personality. He has recently said in an English paper: "To have known D. L. Moody, and come within the range of his strong personality, has been to many men one of the most influential factors in their character and life-work; and it is not easy for such to imagine a world from which the inspiration of his presence has been withdrawn. It is still less easy under the immediate sorrow of such a bereavement to characterize this natural prince and leader of men. HOW MR. MOODY FIRST BLESSED MR. MEYER’S WORK I met him first in York, in 1873, on his arrival with Mrs. Moody and his two eldest children. Accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Sankey, they had come to our country, as it appeared, by a divine prompting, and had just landed at Liverpool. Some time before, the secretary of the Y. M. C. A. had impressed upon him the two words, "Bennett, York;" and not knowing where else to turn, two of his friends having suddenly died, Moody telegraphed to Mr. Bennett, saying, ’I will be in York to-night.’" This was Saturday. On the following day he preached at the chapel built for the Rev. James Parsons, and then occupied by the Rev. John Hunter (now of Glasgow). During the following week he held evening services in the old Londal Chapel, and noon prayer meetings at the Y. M. C. A. After two or three days with the Wesleyans, he came to the Baptist Chapel, of which I was minister, and conducted meetings there for about a fortnight, with ever-increasing numbers and marvelous results. He and Mr. Sankey have often spoken of that little vestry, where we three spent much time in prayer, little weening that the earnestness of our desires and intercessions were the travail pangs of so great a spiritual movement as followed. All who have heard him will recall the quiver in his voice when he told some pathetic story; but I never guessed the intensity of his tenderness till I saw him with his grandchildren. He used to drive them about in his carriage, or carry them in his arms. "One of the most striking incidents in my memory was when he stood with them beside his mother’s grave, in a summer sunset, and asked us to pray that they might be in the coming century what she had been in this. And when little Irene was dying, he used to be on the watch below her window to keep all quiet, would steal down from the meetings to hear the latest news, would be the nurse and playmate of her little cousin, that all might devote themselves to the chamber of sickness. MR. MOODY’S SURE FAITH "He never wavered in his attachment to the great fundamentals of the Gospel. His sermons on the Blood, the Holy Spirit, the Love of God in Jesus Christ, were great testimonies to the mighty truths which have been the theme of every revival of evangelical religion. There was no uncertain sound in the Gospel as he preached it, and it was the power of God unto salvation to tens of thousands. "What a welcome he must have received as he entered Heaven! Surely an abundant, a choral entrance must have been ministered unto him by myriads who are there, because of the message uttered in burning acccents by his lips." I am delighted thus to quote Mr. Meyer. I know of few men better qualified to speak than he. While in conversation the other day with Mr. Fleming H. Revell (Mr. Moody’s brother-in-law), he said to me. "If you would like to find in print a good description of Mr. Moody’s last hours and his triumphant entrance into the presence of God, you have only to read the closing lines of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, for in the passing over of Mr. Stand-fast, there is the most striking description of the passing away of Mr. Moody." For the help of my readers I here quote it. "When Mr. Stand-fast had thus set things in order, and the time being come for him to haste him away, he also went down to the river. Now, there was a great calm at that time in the river wherefore Mr. Stand-fast, when he was about half-way in, stood a while, and talked to his companions that had waited upon him thither. And he said, ’This river has been a terror to many; yea, the thoughts of it have also frighted me; but now methinks I stand easy; my foot is fixed upon that on which the feet of the priests that bare the ark of the covenant stood while Israel went over Jordan. The waters, indeed, are to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold; yet the thought of what I am going to, and of the conduct that waits for me on the other side, doth lie as a glowing coal at my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended; I am going to see that head which was crowned with thorns, and that face which was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith; but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot, too. His name has been to me as a civet-box; yea, sweeter than all perfumes. His voice to me has been most sweet, and His countenance I have more desired than they that have most desired the light of the sun. His Word I did use to gather for my food, and for antidotes against my faintings. He hath held me, and hath kept me from mine iniquities; yea, my steps hath He strengthened in His way.’ "Now, while he was thus in discourse, his countenance changed, his strong man bowed under him; and, after he had said, ’Take me, for I come unto Thee!’ he ceased to be seen of them." And so I bring my tribute to a close, thanking God, now, as I thanked Him at the beginning, that I have had the privilege of writing; and saying of Mr. Moody yet again - he was the best friend I ever had, and more helpful to me than any other man that ever lived in all my knowledge of the world. Other men have known him longer than I, but no one, I am sure, could ever have been more helped by him. I say of him as Paul said of the Philippians, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 05.33. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF D.L MOODY ======================================================================== Chapter 33 - Personal Reminiscences Of D.L. Moody By Rex H.M. Wharton, D.D. About twenty years ago, having just concluded in the city of Alexandria, Virginia, the second evangelistic meeting I had ever held, I determined to go to Baltimore in order to hear Mr. Moody, whose fame as a worker for Christ in the salvation of men was filling the world. Mr. Moody was spending the winter in the city of Baltimore, and I found difficulty, being an entire stranger, to gain access to the crowded building the one afternoon it was my privilege to hear him. By good fortune, I met a minister with whom I had become acquainted some months before. He took me through the pastor’s study to the platform. It was in this study that I saw Mr. Moody walking back and forth, his hands behind him, and apparently in deep thought. He shook hands with me, and with hardly an exchange of words put into my hands several circulars which he asked me to give to others as I went home. I found it to be a call to Christian workers to go forth into the harvest field. He preached that afternoon on Repentance, and I well remember something of the sermon, and especially his illustrations. The years passed on and I became pastor in the City of Baltimore. One afternoon, I think it was in, 92, I was standing in front of Mr. Moody in the great Cyclorama Building, where thousands had assembled for services, the choir was singing, and I think the Scriptures had been read. I did not, of course, suppose that he would recognize me, and was surprised when he looked down and said suddenly, "Come up on the platform." As I was sure he did not know me, I turned to a minister at my side, a prominent pastor of the city, and said, "He is calling you." He started to the platform when Mr. Moody said he wanted me, and as soon as I walked up, he said, "I want you to speak to the people right away." With hardly any notice at all I made some remarks, and before I left that afternoon he had asked me to go to Chicago. It occurred to me afterwards that he had possibly heard that I had been doing some evangelistic work and, being told that I was in the audience, called me up, and was taking a sample to find if I would do as a Chicago worker. A CLOSE PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE It did not take him long to make a decision when facts were before him. Upon my arrival at Chicago it was a great privilege to know that one of the blessings in store for me was a closer personal acquaintance with Mr. Moody. Three times a day, with few exceptions, I sat by his side at the table, and was often in his room, which was regarded as headquarters. Every night when we came in from our places of preaching - halls, churches, tents, theatres, we would meet around a large table in his room and enjoy refreshments and a most delightful social hour, as we discussed the work of the Master, or indulged in innocent jest and merriment. Mr. Moody was fond of a joke. He would tell a good story, and no man had a keener relish for it than he. It is said of Spurgeon that there was such a hearty good humor about him, and over all and through all such an atmosphere of genuine piety, that, though he had convulsed a party by a lively joke, he could turn at once and say, "Now let us have a word of prayer," and all go smiling into the father’s presence It would seem altogether the right thing to do. The same may be said of Mr Moody. And it mattered little if the laugh turned on himself, he enjoyed it just the same. A GOOD STORY Here is one I heard him tell one day at the table. First speaking in complimentary terms of the "Mountain Evangelist," George O. Barnes, of Kentucky, he said: "I got him here to preach once many years ago. We worked hard and lived on bread and cheese. One night when I was absent he preached a sermon on ’The Devil!’ I insisted that he must repeat it for my benefit, and I worked up a crowd for Saturday night. I had been out all day trying to raise money, and came home at five o’clock tired and hungry. In addition to the crackers and cheese I bought some bologna sausage. I never tasted anything better than that bologna, and I just ate it until I didn’t want any more. That night I was to preside and I sat behind Barnes. He hadn’t been preaching long before I got so sleepy I could not hold my eyes open any way I could fix it. I got out a pin and stuck myself with it, but nothing would do. I had been banging the people a good deal for going to sleep, and when they saw me it was all they wanted. They would not keep still. Barnes saw something was the matter. He could not get hold of them, and by and by he turned and looked at me, and saw what was up. The next day someone said some-thing to Barnes about it, he said, ’Well, Moody is pretty hard to down; but last night the devil and bologna did the work for him.’" It was comforting to hear Mr. Moody say that he also put people to sleep sometimes. Well, so did Paul, and may be you have also. If you are a preacher, then you know yourself. Mr. Moody was a great general. He was a great thinker, and planned his work even to the smallest details. He looked after the food and rest and recreation of his workers. Even his carriage horse must have at least one day’s rest in seven. It did not matter to him what ’day you took as Sabbath or rest day, but it must be one in seven. He was the only one who did not rest as much as he should. I organized a strike one day, and informed him that if he did not take a day in seven we would go out on a strike and walk the streets until he gave in. When we came from our work that night we found he had rested, and I told him the threatened strike was having good effect. ALWAYS READY FOR A PLEASANT WORD Everybody loved him, men, women and children. Although he had enough on his mind to keep a dozen men busy, he so arranged that the work was easily divided out, and he stood at the helm. But he was always ready to have a pleasant word with man, woman or child as they chanced to come his way. Nothing could be more enjoyable than his evening chats with the workers as they came in from their fields in all parts of the city to give an account of their labors. - a picture in minature of the time when we shall all go from the harvest field home to meet our great Leader and Commander, and tell him of the joys and sorrows, the trials and triumphs of our life work on earth. Mr. Moody was a wise level-headed man. He had a great deal of common sense. You could hardly get an off-hand expression of opinion from him. He heard what others had to say, but reserved his judgment until all the facts were before him; then when he spoke it was worth hearing. His conduct with reference to the Congress of Religions was a noticeable instance. When this ecclesiastical menagerie, gathered from all quarters of the globe, made its appearance, Mr. Moody was asked again and again to take part. He only replied that he had his hands full of work, and declined to go. When it seemed to some of us that our Lord was belittled and disgraced by the motley crew who disported: themselves upon the platform day by day in the wonderful "Parliament," we suggested that we should attack them all along the line. Mr. Moody was very emphatic in his instructions. "Preach Christ," said he, "hold up Christ; let the Parliament of Religions alone, preach Christ." And he was right. The many-colored bubble burst, and went to thin air. It will hardly be known in history. Christ lives and reigns; let us live for Him and preach His blessed Gospel. MR. MOODY WAS A FINE BUSINESS MAN Mr. Moody was a fine business man. If he had turned his attention to earthly, instead of heavenly things, he would have been a millionaire many times over. He had the happy faculty of dispatching business with great ease and rapidity, and was wise in the selection of his assistants. Over each department there is a head, whom he has chosen for that special work, and the work goes on well through and through. He looked after the smallest matters. The seating of the congregation, ventilation, arrangement of the singers, collections, all passed under his observation and direction. He was a great advertiser. He was one of the children of light, who have learned from the children of this world. The newspapers, street cars, bill posters and ticket distributors were all brought into requisition. One night when he was going to preach in the Standard Theatre - one of the hardest places - he went into barrooms and said, "Moody is going to preach in the theatre to-night, come in." They recognized him and prepared to go. The results proved his wisdom. Some Christian people seem to think that it is only necessary to open the church doors, and the outside world will break its neck trying to get in. Not so. The most attractive thing to the common mind is a circus. Men, women and children, old and young, white and colored, will run after it, and spend their last climes; and yet, when the circus comes, they plaster the country and paint the towns red with their advertisements. Let the people of God learn a lesson. Mr. Moody had a great deal of "snap," - I hardly know what else to call it. If he could not make things, like his Master, lie could make things move, and that comes next to making them. He never allowed a service to drag, - no, not for an instant. No awkward pauses, nor weary moments of inordinate suspense. He went right on from one thing to another even unto the end. I have gone with him to a great theatre building, when we were the first in the house, except the employees who look after the building. As soon as the people came rushing in, he was ready to start the singing. Not that he sang himself. He could make "a joyful noise unto the Lord," and as a gentleman remarked when asked what he thought of his singing, "I could at least say I never heard anything like it." He would call out the numbers of the hymns, and he well knew when the singing was good. Sometimes he would call for one part of the congregation to sing, then another, then all, till they would make the house fairly tremble with the thunder tones of praise. Then several prayers, then his own sermon, usually from twenty to thirty minutes, and then close with prayer. Perhaps he would have one or two sermons more of similar length, as was often the case in Chicago meetings. HIS GREAT FAITH And what faith he had! He believed in the Bible from "back to back" to use his own expression. One night I heard him preach on the ark. "Come thou, and all thy house into the ark." He said some infidel perhaps has come in here, and will say, ’What does Mr. Moody want to talk about that for? Nobody believes the ark story now.’ Well, if you don’t, you can’t believe Christ, The Son of God endorsed it. ’As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.’ A good many preachers these days are trying to cut certain things out of the Bible; they had better leave the pulpit. They are doing more harm than good. Some say, ’I don’t believe the fish story about the whale swallowing Jonah.’ There is no trouble if you bring God on the scene. He who made the earth could make a whale big enough to swallow a man or a man big enough to swallow a whale." Mr. Moody believed in the constant presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. He was a worker together with God in everything. It was thrilling to hear some of his prayers with those who worked with him. On Sunday morning he would call to God for a blessing, and when the clay was done, and all met in his room, how sweet it was to kneel and be led by him in a prayer of thanksgiving for the victories of the day. With happy hearts we said "Good night," and sought our rest, rejoicing that we had been engaged in the best and most glorious work on earth. A DAY OF HELP AND REFRESHING A few summers ago, while preaching in New London, Conn., I concluded one Monday morning to go and spend a few hours at Northfield, without letting Mr. Moody know it, my sole purpose being to get a day of help and refreshing from the services he was conducting at that time. It was August, and one of his most important conferences was in session. About ten o’clock I went to the auditorium, and took a seat far back in the great congregation, just inside the door in fact, and enjoyed one of his delightful and helpful addresses. He seemed unusually well, and full of wholesome truth, which he imparted to the great joy of his large audience. After the services were over, I stepped outside the door and went to the Northfield Inn, intending to get my dinner and go back to the auditorium for a little while, then take the five o’clock train for New London, and on to Baltimore; when after dinner some one came to me and said that I was wanted at the telephone. The well-known voice of Mr. Fitt greeted me with the startling information that Mr. Moody sent his regards, and said he wanted me to speak on the platform at four o’clock, at Roundtop at six, and again at eight in the auditorium. He would not listen though I urged that I must leave on the five o’clock train. Finally, however, he made a compromise by Mr. Moody proposing to send his carriage and take me out driving, bring me back to the auditorium in time for the services, and then to the train if I must go. To one who has been through the vales, and over the hills of beautiful Northfield, it is needless to say that in company with my good friend, Mr. Fitt, we had a charming drive, and a little after four o’clock made our way to the auditorium. When we entered, Mr. Moody called me to the platform saying, "I have been trying to get Dr. Wharton here for some time. He is here now, and we will keep him." Turning to Mr. Stebbins, he said, "You look out for that side of the platform, and I will take care of this, so he shall not get away to-day." He then announced that I would speak at six o’clock, and again at eight. There was only one thing to do, and that was as all others who came within his reach had to do, obey his commands; and it was always for the best that we did it. The six o’clock meeting at "Roundtop, known as the open air meeting, was largely attended, and to me exceedingly enjoyable. Mr. Moody sat beside me on the grass, and led in prayer just before the address. Elijah on Mount Carmel, pleading with his God was not nearer the heart of his Father in faith and acceptableness, I am sure, than he, as he led us all in prayer that beautiful evening. ’We had a fine meeting that night in the auditorium and several interesting addresses were made, after which, at Mr. Moody’s kind invitation, we went to his house, where, in company with a number of others a social hour was much enjoyed. Mr. Moody was not easily discouraged, nor unduly elated. With all the activity of his great soul, there was still a calmness and courage characteristic of him that at once inspired hope, and kept us all at our best all the days and nights of toil. It was my privilege to be associated with him in the Central Palace Hall, in New York City, where thousands of people assembled every day listen to his preaching. It was an unusual meeting in many respects, beginning in the early morning and continuing without intermission, throughout the day, until ten o’clock at night. There were many interesting conversions in those meetings, and the words which went abroad throughout the land must have accomplished great things. At the hotel many of his co-workers were entertained, and the brief intervals of personal intercourse were always heartily enjoyed. He would invite us to his room in the morning where, with Mrs. Moody and his daughter and others, he engaged n a daily worship before beginning the duties of the day. Handing me one of Henry Drummond’s books one day with an inscription in his own hand to Mrs. Wharton, he turned the leaves rapidly and said, " Look at this," and showed me a paragraph where Drummond speaks of passing to the end of a journey of life, and then, "Isn’t that good, Wharton, going to the Father, going to the Father." He has gone to the Father; he went before we wanted um to go, and as it seems to us the burning and shining light was consumed all too soon. Still the Father called, and when he went away, he said we must not call him back, and we will not. He cannot return to us, but we may go to Him, and in that blessed land we shall meet to part no more. Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 05.34. A MONTH WITH MR. MOODY IN CHICAGO ======================================================================== Chapter 34 - A Month With Mr. Moody In Chicago By Rex H.M. Wharton, D.D. It was a magnificent opportunity. The year of 1893 would find Chicago, the great city of the West, crowded day by day with hundreds of thousands of people coming and going from all parts of our own country, and from every nation under the sun. Mr. Moody was no prophet, but he was quick to see an opening for usefulness, and ever ready to grasp an opportunity for doing good. He saw before him an occasion similar to the Pentecost at Jerusalem, but on a much larger scale. In fact, the wonderful event at Jerusalem, when the Spirit descended upon the assembled disciples, and they went forth to meet and preach to the crowds coming up to the Holy City was but a prophecy of that which came to pass in the city of Chicago. Mr. Moody laid his plans with unusual wisdom and foresight. When the World’s Fair opened, and the people poured in from all quarters of the earth, he was there to meet them with a force adequate to the demands of that teeming multitude. A brief, outline of this plan will be of interest. OUTLINE OF HIS PLAN Wherever it was practicable, he grouped the churches, including as many as possible in the arrangement; the members were asked to come together in one of the largest of the group, and there met for worship and work. Services were held at night, and visitors who were staying in the neighborhood had ample notice that they might attend an interesting Gospel meeting. All available public places, halls, theatres, and other buildings, which could be used for public worship, were secured without regard to cost. When the theatres could not be had for the afternoons and evenings, they were secured for noonday services, and for Sunday meetings. The people of the great city seemed not only willing but anxious to do everything in their power to add to this wonderful movement for the Gospel of Christ, and for the salvation of souls. Perhaps one of the most interesting features was the tent work. This may be better understood by a simple description of a tent service. DESCRIPTION OF A TENT SERVICE After supper in the men’s department of the Bible Institute, about 100 men are on their knees for a few minutes. Brief, burning, pointed prayers ascend. God is counted on to stand by them in their work. Then, rising, they scatter to mission and tent, going in some cases four, five, and even six miles, each with his Bible and little package of tracts, those containing plenty of Scripture being preferred. Meanwhile, in the Ladies’ Home, fifty young women have been making similar preparations. One party is going to the big tent on Milwaukee Avenue, where Mr. Schiverea is holding meetings. On the street cars no time is lost. A young woman opposite speaks to the tired shop-girl at her side, opens her Bible, and points her to Him who said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" but the girl must get off at the next block. She slips the tract "God’s Word to You," into her hand with a kind pressure, and asks her to read it. A pleasant smile, and a Good Night, and the seed is sown. Meanwhile, the young men are not idle. A tract is handed to a fellow-passenger - a kind Word is spoken - and soon they, too, are talking of that wonderful Savior. A man on the platform has secured the attention of the conductor, who seemed under conviction. But we have reached our destination, and step from the cars. Before us is the tent, brilliantly lighted. We enter, and overhead is a great arch of canvass, supported by three center-poles and smaller ones about the sides - an auditorium accommodating 1,300 people, and seated with canvas benches. The little party kneel in prayer for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Then some take their places upon the platform, to sing the Gospel, some stand ready to welcome and seat the audience, and others go out upon the streets, with cards of invitation to bring in the passers-by. From our seat on the platform we watch the audience come in. First, a hesitating group of ragged little ones, then some young "toughs," with mischief in their faces are passed from one usher to another, who will keep his eye upon them. Next a mother with a baby in her arms, a laboring man in gingham shirt and no collar, fathers and mothers with their little ones so they gather - largely an audience of respectable working people, for this is the character of the neighborhood; but the "tough" element is not wanting. The blue coat of a policeman seen at the door makes it easy to preserve order. The police of Chicago have proved good friends of this work, and some of their hearts have been found tender as well as brave. A GRAPHIC ADDRESS A Gospel hymn opens the meeting, and how these people sing A solo from an Institute lady, full of the Gospel message, more hymns, a duet, prayer, and the evangelist begins to speak. Tenderly lovingly he deals with the people - unsparingly he deals with their sins. The trace of the actor still lingers in his graphic illustrations, largely drawn from his own experience; but so anxious is he that all be to the glory of God that he uses these with more and more care every year. The address is short, and a hymn of invitation to Christ is sung by the same soloist as before, and then the speaker begins to ask those who wish to turn from a life of sin to God, to rise. Here and there they rise to their feet, the Institute workers marking them carefully. Then the leader says that all may go who wish to do so but that a short after-meeting will be held for those, who choose to remain. A large part of the audience stay, and the workers thread their way among them, sitting down by those who have risen, and trying from the Word of God to show the way of salvation, often finding among those who linger, deep conviction of sin without the courage to rise and manifest the interest felt. At a late hour the party are once more on the cars, singing the Lord’s songs as they take the long ride home. THE WORKING FORCE From a very wide acquaintance all over the Christian world, Mr. Moody selected his helpers. He secured men of experience, who had been blessed in other work without regard to age, denomination or education. What he wanted was men who believed the Gospel with all their hearts, who worked under the power of the Spirit of God, and who could tell plainly and simply the story of redeeming love. Mr. Moody always attached fully as much importance to the singing as to the preaching of the gospel, and in arranging his plans, sought out the best Gospel singers he could find, whether men or women, and applying the same rules to them as to the preachers, his selections were along the same line. The great purpose of his heart was to put before the people the way of life, and in the inquiry meetings, never to give up a soul while it yet remained in darkness, but to labor on until the seeker had found his Savior. Without comment as to the wisdom of his plan, the results testified in unmistakable terms, that it was the one way to reach and save the many who came under the preaching of the Word, and there is no question that the results of the campaign during the World’s Fair in Chicago were far more extended than at Pentecost in Jerusalem, for while hundreds and even thousands returned from the holy City to their homes with a blessing, tens of thousands went from Chicago to all parts of the earth, net to tell simply of the wonders of the World’s Fair, but the glories and the joys of redeeming love. I might relate many incidents of this work if time and space would allow. Let it be said, however, that from the lowest dens of vice in the slums of the city, to the highest in culture and position, the burning words of the evangelist reached the hearts of the people, whether these words were said or sung, and the whole city throbbed with the blessed impulse of Divine power. MY ARRIVAL IN CHICAGO Many months before the beginning of the campaign, I met Mr. Moody and he engaged my services. During the spring of 1893, while holding meetings in the state of Texas, a telegram from him was received, announcing a number of appointments for me in Chicago on the following Sunday, according to our agreement made some time before. I had planned my arrangements to suit so that my meetings were closing at the time his message was received. Leaving immediately for Chicago, I arrived on Saturday night, and stopped at the Palmer House, and notified Mr. Moody that I was on hand and ready for duty. Sunday morning early, I was informed that a gentleman wished to see me in the office of the hotel, and on coming, down I met a handsome, young, blue-eyed Irishman. who said he had come to take me to preach at Haymarket Theatre. It was my first meeting with one who became my genial and fast friend at that time, and such has been our relation ever since. He informed me that he was in this country a brief time, as he then thought, but soon changed his mind, for he succeeded in winning the heart of Miss Moody, and is now one of the leading workers in the great institutions which were established by her father. All of us know Mr. A. P. Fitt, who for years has been at the head of some of the most important branches of a great work. MY FIRST SERVICES IN CHICAGO On arrival at the Haymarket Theatre that Sunday morning the crowd seemed to be as great in the street as in the house, and it was with difficulty that I could get to the platform, where Mr. Moody greeted me most cordially, and in a few minutes introduced me, and requested me to speak. Immediately upon conclusion of my sermon, he again took the great audience in hand, and turning to me said, "Please go across to the Empire Theatre, and address an overflow meeting there. I will join you in a few minutes." It was quite as difficult to get out as in, but I soon found myself landed on my feet upon the stage in the Empire Theatre, where the people were already joyfully singing under the leadership of my good friend George C. Stebbins. In due time Mr. Moody came on the platform, having spoken in the Haymarket Theatre, and preached in the Empire Theatre with unabated power and zeal. The meeting over, we went to a convenient hotel, where we had a hasty lunch, and from there up Michigan Avenue to Immanuel Church at three o’clock where another large audience was assembled, and we spoke again, I first, Mr. Moody following. The service here ended, and with but little rest we went for refreshment, then made our way along State Street to Central Music Hall, arriving before any of the audience. Soon after we walked upon the platform, Mr. Moody began to arrange for the service. The doors were opened, the people came pouring in, and a few of the singers had arrived and were on the stage. There was no organist, and no leader for the time, but our great evangelist, never waiting a moment for anything when there was work to do, turned to me, and said, "Wharton, can’t you start a hymn?" Taking up some familiar hymn, we sang while the people crowded the building. In a few minutes the choir had assembled, the leader was present, and the great throng joined heartily in praising God. At this service, the order was reversed, Mr. Moody preaching first, and I am sure that, never in my life, have I listened to a more powerful sermon than was preached by him on that occasion to the great waiting throng. A MOST POWERFUL SERMON His theme was "Daniel," and he carried us by the wonderful power of his imagination through all the scenes of that remarkable life, culminating with the miraculous delivery from the den of lions. Who can have forgotten his impersonation of the king, as looking down into the den of lions, he calls to Daniel, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" And then the reply of Daniel that comes up from the lions’ den, "O king, live for ever. "My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths that they have not hurt me, forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." The whole audience was subdued under the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, and their hearts were melted in sweet fellowship and love. We went away feeling that we had been close to the throne, and had heard and seen strange things that blessed Sabbath day. It will be for others to tell of his great achievements, and to account, if they can, for the secret of his power and his wonderful success. To me the great personality was the incarnation of love, and although he might at times impress one with a brusqueness which was almost abrupt, back of it all was still beating a great loving heart. THE CHICAGO BIBLE INSTITUTE Our headquarters during this campaign were at the Bible Institute, one of the well-known schools already referred to for teaching and training in the Scriptures and evangelistic work. This Institute was the outgrowth of many years’ thought on Mr. Moody’s part upon the needs of the working people and the poor outcast. He saw that men and women were needed to go among these people and do heart to heart work, so that by the Word of God and the power of the Spirit, they might, by their sympathy and love, bring them to Christ and to nobler lives. These must be searched out and trained, and material was abundant, but it required a vast deal of wisdom in one to select the proper material, and to secure workmen to prepare this material for successful service. There are also many who have been called of God into the Christian work at a period of life too late to take a regular college course, but who could, by the help of the Bible Institute, be qualified for great usefulness; and then there are persons who wish to devote their time to Gospel work while pursuing some other calling. ITS AIM AND METHOD OF WORK It was to meet all these demands that the Institute was established. It has sought to send out men and women who have a thorough consecration, intense love for souls, a good knowledge of God’s Word, and especially how to use it in leading them to Christ, untiring energy, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The method of training is by the study of the Bible and music, and actual work in leading men to Christ. The Institution is located in the heart of Chicago, and has from its beginning been under the management of Rev. R. A. Torrey, a man in every way qualified for this important work. When I reached the Institute the Monday following the day I have been describing, they sent me to a room which was to be my home for the next month. As I entered this pleasant little "Prophet’s Chamber," I looked around for pictures, but discovered only one little motto on the wall, neatly framed, and these were the simple words, "GET RIGHT WITH GOD." My first impulse was to kneel down and ask God’s blessing that I might be right with Him, and that He would use me in the work upon which it had been my privilege to enter. The very atmosphere of this place is one of worship and work. You can hear the songs of praise at almost any hour of the day. Little meetings are held in the rooms, or a special sermon or lecture in the chapel, and sweet social seasons when they are gathered around the tables in the dining-rooms, or in Mr. Moody’s great reception room. It was al. ways sweet and restful during the hours between the times of actual service. THOUSANDS SAVED The Institute is a hive, where the workers are coming and going, the difference being the bees go out, gather their honey and bring it home, while here the honey is gathered and carried abroad, where it is dispensed to those who will receive. The workers went forth every day and gave what they had gotten, to return in the evening all full of the sweet consolation that "It is more blessed to give than to receive. I count it one of the greatest blessings of my life to have participated in the great battle among the multitude that filled Chicago luring the most successful Exposition the world’ has ever known; and when the glorious end shall come, I believe it will be found that during this period of six months’ work thousands were saved by the preaching of Christ in these meetings, and not only this, but that Christians from all parts of the earth went back to their homes strengthened and blessed, clothed anew with powers of the unseen world, to work for the Kingdom of God more earnestly and faithfully than ever before. And besides all this, the evil influences that were counteracted, and the good influences that went forth, will bless the world to the end of time. God be praised for this true believer and consecrated Christian man, who, like his Master, loved the world, and gave himself for it, and now, having finished His work, has passed through the gates of glory, and wears a crown of righteousness and victory forever. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 06.00. THE PERSONAL TOUCH ======================================================================== The Personal Touch By J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. CONTENTS FOREWORD I. A Testimony II. A General Principle III. A Polished Shaft IV. Starting Right V. No Man Cared for my Soul VI. Winning the Young VII. Winning and Holding VIII. A Practical Illustration IX. Whosoever Will X. Conversion is a Miracle XI. A Final Word FOREWORD IF If to be a Christian is worth while, then the most ordinary interest in those with whom we come in contact should prompt us to speak to them of Christ. * * * * * If the New Testament be true--and we know that it is--who has given us the right to place the responsibility for soul-winning on other shoulders than our own? * * * * * If they who reject Christ are in danger, is it not strange that we, who are so sympathetic when the difficulties are physical or temporal, should apparently be so devoid of interest as to allow our friends and neighbours and kindred to come into our lives and pass out again without a word of invitation to accept Christ, to say nothing of sounding a note of warning because of their peril? * * * * * If to-day is the day of salvation, if to-morrow may never come, and if life is equally uncertain, how can we eat, drink, and be merry when those who live with us, work with us, walk with us, and love us are unprepared for eternity because they are unprepared for time? * * * * * If Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men, who gave us the right to be satisfied with making fishing tackle or pointing the way to the fishing banks instead of going ourselves to cast out the net until it be filled? * * * * * If Jesus Himself went seeking the lost, if Paul the Apostle was in agony because his kinsmen, according to the flesh, knew not Christ, why should we not consider it worth while to go out after the lost until they are found? * * * * * If I am to stand at the judgment seat of Christ to render an account for the deeds done in the body, what shall I say to Him if my children are missing, my friends not saved, or if my employer or employee should miss the way because I have been faithless? * * * * * If I wish to be approved at the last, then let me remember that no intellectual superiority, no eloquence in preaching, no absorption in business, no shrinking temperament, no spirit of timidity can take the place of or be an excuse for my not making an honest, sincere, prayerful effort to win others to Christ by means of the _Personal Touch_. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 06.01. A TESTIMONY ======================================================================== CHAPTER I A Testimony I have the very best of reasons for believing in the power of the personal touch in Christian work, especially as it may be used in the winning of others to Christ. My boyhood’s home was in the city of Richmond, in the State of Indiana, my mother was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in the first years of my life in company with my father and the other children of the household, I attended the church of my mother. When she was just a little more than thirty-five years of age she was called home. My father in his youth had been trained as a Presbyterian; many of his ancestors having belonged to that denomination; therefore it was quite natural that he should return to the Church of his fathers when my mother had gone home. It was thus I became a member of the Presbyterian Church, and my Church training as a boy after fifteen years of age was in that denomination. Because of this special interest in both the Church of my father and my mother, I attended two Sunday Schools. In the morning I was in a class in the Presbyterian school and in the afternoon was a member of a class in the Grace Methodist Sunday School, my teacher in the afternoon school being Mrs C.C. Binckley, a godly woman, the wife of Senator Binckley of Indiana, through all her life from girlhood, a devout follower of Christ and a faithful teacher in the Sunday School. Not so very long ago I heard that she was still teaching in the same school, and I am sure, as in the olden days, winning boys to Christ. I fear that I was a thoughtless boy, and yet the impressions made upon my life in those days by the death of my mother, the teaching of my father, and the influence of my Sunday School teacher, were such that I have never been able to get away from them. One Sunday afternoon a stranger came to address our school--his name I have never learned; I would give much to find it out. At the close of his address he made an appeal to the scholars to stand and confess Christ. I think every boy in my class rose to his feet with the exception of myself. I found myself reasoning thus: Why should I rise, my mother was a saint; my father is one of the truest men I know; my home teaching has been all that a boy could have; I know about Christ and think I realise His power to save. While I was thus reasoning, my Sunday School teacher, with tears in her eyes, leaned around back of the other boys and looking straight at me, as I turned towards her she said, "Would it not be best for you to rise?" And when she saw that I still hesitated, she put her hand under my elbow and lifted me just a little bit, and I stood upon my feet. I can never describe my emotions. I do not know that that was the time of my conversion, but I do know that it was the day when one of the most profound impressions of my life was made upon me. Through all these years I have never forgotten it, and it was my Sunday School teacher who influenced me thus to take the stand--it was her personal touch that gave me courage to rise before the school and confess my Saviour. In the good providence of God, during my student days, as well as during the first years of my ministry, I was thrown in contact with men who knew God, who were being marvellously used by Him, and who seemed ready and willing to give assistance to one who was just beginning the journey of life with all its struggles and conflicts ahead of him. When I was a student attending Lake Forest University, not far from Chicago, I was very greatly troubled about the matter of assurance. I heard that Mr Moody was to be in Chicago, and in company with a friend I went in from Lake Forest to hear him. Five times in a single day I sat at his feet and drank in the words which fell from his lips. He thrilled me through and through. I heard him preach his great sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," when old Farwell Hall was crowded with young men many of whom were students like myself. The impression that Mr Moody made upon me as a Christian young man, was that I myself was not absolutely sure I was saved. I analysed my experience and found that sometimes I was more than sure and at other times dwelt in Doubting Castle. When the great evangelist called for an after-meeting, I was one of the first to enter the room where he had indicated he would meet those who were interested, and to my great joy he came and sat down beside me. He asked me my difficulty and I told him I was not quite sure that I was saved. He asked me to read John 5:24, and trembling with emotion I read: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." He said to me, "Do you believe this?" I said, "Certainly." He said, "Are you a Christian?" and I replied, "Sometimes I think I am, and again I am fearful." Then he said, "Read it again." And I read it once more. His question was again repeated, and I answered it in the same manner as before. Then he seemed to lose his patience, and the only time I can remember Mr Moody being sharp with me was when he turned upon me and said, "Whom are you doubting?" And suddenly it dawned upon me that I was doubting Him who said I was possessed of everlasting life because I believed on the Son and on the Father who had sent Him, and in spite of this possession and His sure Word of promise concerning it, I was sceptical. But as I sat there beside him I saw it all. Then he said, "Read it again." And I read it the third time, and talking to me as gently as a mother would to her child he said, "Do you believe this?" I said, "Yes, indeed I do." Then he said, "Are you a Christian?" And I answered, "Yes, Mr Moody, I am." From that day to this I have never questioned my acceptance with God. For some reason Mr Moody always seemed to keep me in mind. He came into my church in the early days of my ministry, told me where he thought I was wrong and suggested how I might be more greatly used of God. He advised me to give my time wholly to evangelistic work, and when I said to him one day that I was going to take up the pastorate after three years of experience in general evangelism, he seemed disturbed. To him more than to any other man, I owe the greatest blessing that ever came into my life. Through Mr Moody I met the Rev F.B. Meyer, and one sentence which he used at Northfield changed my ministry. He said, "If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?" That seemed like a new star in the sky of my life, and one day acting upon his suggestion, after having carefully studied the passages in the New Testament which relate to surrender and to consecration, I gave myself anew to Christ and I shall never be able to express in words my appreciation of what this man of God to whom I have referred, did for me by personal influence. All along the way I have been brought in contact with men whom God has signally blessed, and I am persuaded that there are many to-day whose hearts are hungering for a blessing, who are waiting as I was myself, for someone to speak to them personally, and help them out of darkness into light; out of a certain kind of bondage into a glorious freedom. The personal touch in Christian work, to me, means everything. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 06.02. A GENERAL PRINCIPLE ======================================================================== CHAPTER II A General Principle I have been amazed in my study of the biographies of men and women who have been specially used of God, to see how almost universal is the rule that they have come to Christ, or to an experience of power, through the personal influence of a friend or acquaintance. Preaching is not enough, it is sometimes too general; the impressions of a song may soon be effaced, but the personal touch, the tear in the eye, the pathos in the voice, the concern which is manifested in the very expression of one’s countenance; these are used with great effect, and thousands of people are to-day in the Kingdom of God, or in special service, because of such influences being brought to bear upon their lives. John Wesley is a notable illustration of the influence of the personal touch. Peter Bohler of the Moravian Church, came into his life when he was in sore need of just such assistance as he seemed able to give. Dr W. H. Fitchett of Australia, writes:-- "The Moravians of Savannah taught him exactly what Peter Bohler taught him afterwards in London, but the teaching at the moment left his life unaffected. Wesley’s own explanation is, ’I understood it not; I was too learned and too wise, so that it seemed foolishness unto me; and I continued preaching, and following after, and trusting in that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified.’ "The truth is that Peter Bohler himself, had he met Wesley in Savannah, would have taught him in vain. The stubborn Sacramentarian and High Churchman had to be scourged, by the sharp discipline of failure, out of that subtlest and deadliest form of pride, the pride that imagines that the secret of salvation lies, or can lie, within the circle of purely human effort. Wesley later describes Peter Bohler as ’One whom God prepared for me.’ But God in the toilsome and humiliating experiences of Georgia, was preparing Wesley for Peter Bohler." Bohler described Wesley as "a man of good principles, who did not properly believe on the Saviour, and was willing to be taught." Later on, in the city of London, where Wesley had been intimately associated with Peter Bohler and had come directly under his influence, he one night attended a religious service in Aldersgate Street, where the one conducting the service was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. The effect of that service upon Wesley is best told in his own words. "About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more special manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, ’This cannot be faith; for where is thy joy?’ Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth, them according to the counsels of His own will." Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in speaking of his own early experiences, writes thus: "When I was a young child staying with my grandfather, there came to preach in the village Mr Knill, who had been a missionary at St Petersburgh, and a mighty preacher of the gospel. He came to preach for the London Missionary Society, and arrived on the Saturday at the manse. He was a great soul winner, and he soon spied out the boy. He said to me, ’where do you sleep? for I want to call you up in the morning.’ I showed him my little room. At six o’clock he called me up, and we went into the arbour. There, in the sweetest way, he told me of the love of Jesus and of the blessedness of trusting in Him and loving Him in our childhood. With many a story he preached Christ to me, and told me how good God had been to him, and then he prayed that I might know the Lord and serve Him. "He knelt down in the arbour and prayed for me with his arms about my neck. He did not seem content unless I kept with him in the interval between the services, and he heard my childish talk with patient love. On Monday morning he did as on the Sabbath, and again on Tuesday. Three times he taught me and prayed with me, and before he had to leave, my grandfather had come back from the place where he had gone to preach, and all the family were gathered to morning prayer. Then, in the presence of them all, Mr Knill took me on his knee and said, ’This child will one day preach the gospel, and he will preach it to great multitudes. I am persuaded that he will preach in the chapel of Rowland Hill, where (I think he said) I am now the minister.’ He spoke very solemnly, and called upon all present to witness what he said." D.L. Moody was thus won to Christ. His Sunday School teacher in Boston was Mr E.D. Kimball. He was not one of the ordinary type of Sunday School teachers. Mere literal instruction on Sunday did not satisfy his ideal of the teacher’s duty. He knew his boys, and if he knew them, it was because he studied them, because he became acquainted with their occupations and aims, visiting them during the week. It was his custom, moreover, to find opportunity to give to his boys an opportunity to use his experience in seeking the better things of the Spirit. The day came when he resolved to speak to young Moody about Christ, and about his soul. "I started down to Holton’s shoe store," says Mr Kimball. "When I was nearly there, I began to wonder whether I ought to go just then, during business hours. And I thought maybe my mission might embarrass the boy, that when I went away the other clerks might ask who I was, and when they learned might taunt Moody and ask if I was trying to make a good boy out of him. While I was pondering over it all, I passed the store without noticing it. Then when I found I had gone by the door, I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found Moody in the back part of the store wrapping up shoes in paper and putting them on shelves. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I placed my foot upon a shoe box. Then I made my plea, and I feel that it was really a very weak one. I don’t know just what words I used, nor could Mr Moody tell. I simply told him of Christ’s love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was of it. I think Mr Moody said afterwards that there were tears in my eyes. It seemed that the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, for there at once in the back of that shoe store in Boston the future great evangelist gave himself and his life to Christ." Many years afterward Mr Moody himself told the story of that day. "When I was in Boston," he said, "I used to attend a Sunday School class, and one day, I recollect, my teacher came around behind the counter of the shop I was at work in, and put his hand upon my shoulder, and talked to me about Christ and my soul. I had not felt that I had a soul till then. I said to myself. This is a very strange thing. Here is a man who never saw me till lately, and he is weeping over my sins, and I never shed a tear about them. But, I understand it now, and know what it is to have a passion for men’s souls and weep over their sins. I don’t remember what he said, but I can feel the power of that man’s hand on my shoulder to-night. It was not long after that I was brought into the Kingdom of God." The personal touch is necessary. It is not so much what we say, as the way we say it, and indeed, it is not so much what we say and the way we say it, as what we are, that counts in personal work. We cannot delegate this work to others. God has called the evangelist to a certain mission in soul winning. He has given ministers the privilege of winning many to Christ. Mission workers, generally, are charged with the responsibility for this special work. But this fact cannot relieve the parents, the children, the husband, the wife, the friends, the business man, the toiler in the shop, from personal responsibility in the matter of attempting to win others to the Saviour. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 06.03. A POLISHED SHAFT ======================================================================== CHAPTER III A Polished Shaft "He hath made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me," Psalms 49:2.[1] Personal preparation is essential to the best success in personal work. No familiarity with the methods of other workers; no distinction among men because of past favours of either God or men; no past success in the line of special effort; no amount of intellectual equipment and no reputation for cleverness in the estimation of your fellowmen will take the place of individual soul culture, if you are to be used of God. [Footnote 1: Suggested by Dr Charles Cuthbert Hall.] Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth would teach; It takes the overflow of heart To give the lips full speech. The words of Isaiah the Prophet literally refer to Him who was the servant of Jehovah. He was God’s prepared blessing to a waiting and needy people. He came from the bosom of the Father that He might lift a lost and ruined race to God. And swifter than an arrow speeds from the hand of the archer when the string of the bow is drawn back, He came to do the will of God. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find Him saying, "Lo I come, in the volume of the Book it is written of me I delight to do thy will." This was the spirit of all His earthly life. When He was hungry and sent His disciples to buy meat, He found it unnecessary to partake of the food they brought to Him, saying, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me." And when He came to the garden of Gethsemane, well on to the climax of His sacrificial life, we hear Him saying again, "Not my will, but Thine be done." In such a completely surrendered life we have a perfect representation of the prepared Christian worker. In the expression of Isaiah we have also the thought of His anguish. "He was made a polished shaft." In these days when there is a disposition to place Jesus upon the level with others who have wrought for the good of humanity, it is well to remember that He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. There is also the thought of the beauty of His character, for He is a "polished shaft," "chiefest among ten thousand," and "the One altogether lovely." He is "the lily of the valley" for fragrance, and "the rose of Sharon" for beauty, and thus prepared He stands before us beckoning us on to a work which is indescribable in its fascination. Calling His disciples He said, "I will make you fishers of men." The same promise is made to us. Working His miracles He said to those about Him, "Greater works than these shall ye do." We have only to follow in His footsteps and walk sufficiently near to hear His faintest whisper when He directs us to be, in the truest sense of the word, successful personal workers. It is a great encouragement to hear Him say, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." The shaft mentioned by Isaiah is an arrow prepared with all care. The quiver in which this arrow is placed is carried on the left side of the archer, placed upon the string of the bow, the archer drawing back the string adds to the elasticity of bow and string his own strength, and the shaft is off to do the archer’s will. There is in this story an illustration for all Christian workers. Fitness for service lies first of all in divine endowment. God has given to each one of us special and peculiar qualifications. If we live as we ought to live, exercising the gift that is in us; the painter may paint for His glory; the poet may sing and speak of Him; the preacher may preach and declare His righteousness, and should we live in less conspicuous spheres than these, we have only to do our best with that with which He has endowed us and our lives will be pleasing to Him. It lies also in the divine call. The shaft was made for a special purpose. We have been created to do His will. The possession of power is not enough; talents unused will rise at the Judgment Seat to rebuke us. God gives us ability and then calls us forth into the field that we may exercise it. Fitness for service also lies in the response to God’s will. The possession of power and the call of God may both be realised and we may still fail. It is when we say "I will," to God that human weakness is linked to divine strength and then a great service is possible. Life is not drudgery, it is an inspiration. "Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at desk or loom; When vagrant wishes beckon me away, Let me but find it in my heart to say, This is my work, my blessing not my doom; Of all who live I am the only one by whom This work can best be done." The word of the Prophet Isaiah is a picture of the child of God, as well as of Him who is our inspiration for service. There is the thought of definiteness of use in the shaft. Other articles may be created for a variety of purposes. This shaft is made to go at the owner’s will. There is only one way to live in this world and that is according to the will of God and for His glory. It matters little where I was born, Or if my parents were rich or poor; Whether they shrank from the cold world’s scorn, Or walked in the pride of wealth secure; But whether I live a surrendered man, And hold my integrity firm in my clutch, I tell you, my brother, as plain as I can, It matters much! It matters little where be my grave, Or on the land or on the sea. By purling brook, or ’neath stormy wave, It matters little or nought to me; But whether the angel of death comes down And marks my brow with his loving touch, And one that shall wear the victor’s crown, It matters much! There is also in this picture of the shaft the thought of directed motion. The aim is everything. The arrow cannot aim itself. There is no such thing as an aimless life. Our energies are either being directed for Christ or against Him; in the interests of humanity or contrary to them. Every child of God must reach the place where he will say, Not my will, but Thine, O God, be done; not my path but Thine, O Christ, be travelled; not my ambitions realized but Thine own purposes in me fulfilled, my Heavenly Father. The progress of such a life is peace, the consummation of it the most perfect victory. When I am dying how glad I shall be That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee. I shall be glad in whatever I gave, Labour, or money, one sinner to save; I shall not mind that the path has been rough, That Thy dear feet led the way is enough. When I am dying how glad I shall be, That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee. In the picture of the archer and his arrow, there is an illustration of derived energy. The arrow placed upon the string and drawn back by the archer speeds away to do the master’s will. It has no power in itself; it flies forward in the master’s strength. God is always seeking an outlet for His power along the line of service. It is when our lives are surrendered to Him that victory is possible. A friend of mine took for his year text the expression "I believe, and I belong." We might well add, "I live and I love," and because I do both I will obey. Ole Bull once played his violin in the presence of a company of University students. He charmed them, they knew at once that they were in the presence of a master. When he was finished playing, one who was present said to him, "What is the secret of your power, have you a special bow, or is it in the instrument you use?" Ole Bull responded, "I think it is in neither, but it has always seemed to me that I had power in playing because I waited to play until I had an inspiration, when my soul was overflowing with music and I could not stay the torrent that was back of me; it is then that I take my violin and the music flows forth." If we were always passive in the hands of the Master He would show forth in and through us His marvellous grace and power. The polishing of the shaft is always necessary. God uses all our experiences to equip us for life. Parental influence; the power of prayer as offered in our behalf by others; the education given us in the schools; the disappointments of life which seem almost to crush us; the sorrows which are indescribable; all these are like the touch of a master’s hand, and forth from such a school and such a training we ought to come prepared to do the will of God. The arrow was carried in the quiver and the quiver was near to the master’s side. Nearness to God is essential if we are to be used of God. He chooses the vessel nearest His hand. This has always been true. The apostles, martyrs, missionaries, and saints who have finished their work and have gone on before, as well as those who live to-day, prove the statement that we must be in closest relationship with Christ if we are to be entrusted with the gift of power. It is when we are in the secret place of the Most High that we learn God’s will concerning us. Many people do not know God’s will because they live too much in the bustle and confusion of life. God speaks His best messages to us in whispers, not in thunder tones, and we must be still to know that He is God and study to be quiet that we may go forth from quietness to conquer. The practice of the quiet hour is the secret of many a soul’s victorious service. Shut in with God alone, I spend the quiet hour; His mercy and His love I own, And seek His saving power Shut in with God alone; In meditation sweet, My spirit waits before the throne, Bowed low at Jesus’ feet. Shut in with God alone; I praise His holy name, Who gave the Saviour to atone For all my sin and shame. Shut in with God alone; And yet I have no fear, I rest beneath the cleansing blood, And perfect love is here. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 06.04. STARTING RIGHT ======================================================================== CHAPTER IV Starting Right "Every one over against his house," Nehemiah 3:28. The first part of the Book of Nehemiah gives us a striking picture of destruction, and as we look about us we see a city in ruins: the walls are down; the homes have been destroyed; the people are in despair, so great is the desolation that even the temple has been defaced. When the tidings concerning the havoc which has been wrought in the city of Jerusalem reached Nehemiah he was well nigh heart-broken. Speaking about the story that had been brought to him he said, "And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire," Nehemiah 1:3. When he reaches the city of Jerusalem he goes about to view the ruins, and he thus describes his journey: "So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king’s words that He had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work," Nehemiah 2:11 and Nehemiah 2:18. This picture of despair as seen in the olden days in Jerusalem is almost if not altogether being repeated to-day. The case is really desperate. The need of Divine help in the re-construction of human lives has never been greater. Hosts of men find the following testimony a description of their own experience. It is a young university man who is speaking, and before a great crowd of people he says:-- "Probably nine out of every ten of you men standing in front of me know who I am and know my family well. You will no doubt be surprised to hear of the awful experiences through which I have gone during the past six months. Just six months ago, as most of you know, I was an active Christian worker, and there are many of you in front of me who as recently as last July sat and heard me preach. During the last six months trouble came upon me, and in a weak moment, losing faith in God, I took to drink, and sank as low as it is possible for any man to sink. Not even the prodigal in the parable could have fallen lower than I did. Disowned by my mother; cast aside by my brother and sisters; despised by the members and officers of the church to which I belonged and in which I preached, I was in every respect an outcast. Just before Christmas, whilst tramping on the road, I actually took the shirt off my back to sell it for drink, so miserable was I. My nights I spent in the open fields, waking in the morning covered with frost. Something seemed to compel me to attend the meetings in this city. I attended night after night, and although the singing and the address had a wonderful effect upon me, I kept struggling against the working of the Spirit, until the singing of the chorus "I am Included," brought home to me as never before, the fact that even I, wretched outcast that I was, had not gone too far. I then and there made up my mind to accept the promise of John 3:16. From that time I have realized, as never before, that Christ went to Calvary not so much for the world, as He did for me. And I intend to devote the rest of my life to winning souls for Him." There is surely cause for great alarm because of the present condition of affairs, and for the following reasons: Home life is not what it used to be. In the olden times the home was a harbour into which tempest-tossed souls came day after day, and thus protected, had time to regain lost strength and go forth again to battle with the storm. It was once true that fathers were priests in their own households and mothers were saints. The best memory that some of us have is that which centres in a home where love ruled and reigned; where Christ was honoured; where the Bible was read, explained and loved, and where the very atmosphere was like heaven. In many instances to-day this is missing and he is to be pitied who has not such a memory as this, and such an influence for good in his life. The family altar in too many households has been broken down or given up. "What led you to Christ?" was the question asked of a distinguished Christian worker. And the answer quickly given was, "My father’s prayers at the family altar. They followed me through my manhood and compelled me eventually to accept Christ." When the family altar is gone from a home, it is like the taking away of a strong foundation from a building or depriving the arch of its keystone. Better sacrifice everything than this spirit and practice of prayer in the home. It is barely possible that because of conditions family prayers may not be conducted to-day as in other days, but there is at least time for a verse of scripture and a prayer out of a full heart, and the influence of even so brief a service will keep the members of the household from many a failure. Church attendance is not what it once was. The old-fashioned family pew is a thing of the past in too many cases. In other days the father, the mother, and the children attended divine worship in the house of God. They sang the hymns of the church together; they worshipped God with the same spirit of devotion; they listened to the minister’s preaching and they came forth from such a service clothed with a power that made them able to stand against the mightiest influences for evil. Because the family pew is out of date many boys are wandering, and many girls have gone astray. With the beginning of the fourth chapter of Nehemiah there is a change in the story as told by the Prophet. There is a ring of triumph when he announces: "So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof; for the people had a mind to work," Nehemiah 4:6. And the completeness of his work is described when he says: "Now it came to pass when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed ..." Nehemiah vii. 1. I am sure it is quite true that out from all the despair which sometimes appals us, we shall come into the same complete victory. But if we are to win others to Christ and if our work is to be a work of prevention, so that our children shall not go astray and our friends may not wander, then it will be essential that we should, like Nehemiah of old, begin to build everyone over against his own house. It is a sad thing to find so many people in the world who are a public success and a private failure. Great superintendents of Sunday Schools, and poor fathers; experienced Sunday School teachers, and inconsistent in their own homes; eloquent preachers and poor illustrations of the spirit of Jesus; famed for piety as revealed to the public eye and quite as famed for lack of piety, when living out of the lime light, in the common round of daily duties with those who know us best and ought to speak of us most highly. If our work is to be as God would have it where shall it begin? By all means let it begin with ourselves. There is a text of Scripture which every Christian must say over and over. He might begin the day with it and it might not be amiss for him to say it over before he closes his eyes in sleep. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me," Psalms 139:23-24. It is quite unnecessary to study the methods of men if we cannot bear the test of God’s searching eye. We must be right in our own homes. In a meeting conducted recently in Wales a gentleman rose to say: "I came to the meeting on Friday afternoon and made a covenant with God that I would speak to someone about Christ. It laid so hold of my heart that I went home and spoke to my little girl. I asked her if she loved the Lord Jesus Christ, and she said, ’Yes, I do.’ I said, ’Will you accept Jesus as your personal Saviour?’ ’Yes, I am willing to’ she said. I went to the steel works, and had been praying that God would use me. I asked the young man with whom I was working if he were a Christian. He looked black at me, but I asked him to be honest before God. In a moment his face changed as he said without hesitation, ’I will accept Jesus as my Saviour now.’ "I was working during the night, and it came to food time, so I asked several of the men if they would come into the smith shop and have a word of prayer. There was a young man there whose little boy I had spoken to. This young man came to me at three o’clock in the morning to tell me that he would accept Jesus as his personal Saviour. I asked some of the men if they would come up to my house and have a little prayer meeting after work, at six o’clock in the morning. They came up and I spoke to them, quoting the texts John 3:16 and John 5:24. Some of the men present were not saved. I asked them if they really understood the Scriptures, and they told me they did. ’Now,’ I said, ’will you not accept Jesus as your personal Saviour?’ and one who was in the smith shop told me that he had definitely given himself to God at three o’clock that morning. Then I asked a boy of fifteen if he understood the words. ’Yes,’ he said, so I asked him if he would not accept Christ. ’Yes’ he replied, ’I will.’ The following night I spoke to another in the works, concerning his soul, and asked him if he had fully surrendered, because I knew he was in trouble. About one o’clock I spoke to him and said, ’Will you give yourself to the Lord now?’ ’No,’ he said, ’not now.’ ’Well,’ I said, ’come to the smith shop at food time and have a word of prayer.’ After food time he came out, and started again at his work. Presently he came across to me. ’Well,’ I said, ’have you fully surrendered?’ ’Yes, Tom,’ he said, ’I have given myself to Christ, now.’" Beginning in the home it is quite easy to go out into a wider circle and serve. The tendency, however, is to begin in some public place, and oftentimes because of this we fail to win those who work by our side, who sit with us at our own table and who live with us day after day and for whom we are specially responsible. It will also be necessary for us to enlarge the circle and reach the people in our own places of business. Two business men journeyed into a New England city together for twenty years. One of them was a Christian, the other was not. They were both dying the same day, and the man who was not a Christian when he heard that his friend was dying, had a right to say to his wife, as he did, "It is a strange thing that my friend and I have known each other so well, and love each other so dearly, that he has allowed me to come to this day without a warning." A business man rose in a meeting to say, "I have been greatly concerned about one young man who works in my office. I asked him if he would not come to the office a little earlier this morning. When he came and we were alone I asked him if he knew why I had got him to come a little earlier. When he told me that he did not, I said to him ’I am a Christian, I have never spoken to you about Christ and I have asked you to come this morning that I might explain the way to you and urge you to take your stand for Him.’ That morning I had the great joy of leading my employee to Christ. I gave him a little pocket Testament in which I wrote his name, and under his name I wrote this Scripture, ’Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee,’ and after that I signed my name. Three days later," said the business man, "the young man of whom I speak, led three others to Christ, one of them was the head book-keeper in my office." If we are to be successful soul winners it is essential not only that we should get right with God but that we should keep right with Him. There must be a quick confession of sin and a quick turning away from all that would work against Christ. Our friends with whom we live and labour are keen critics, and as a rule, just ones. They know when we are wrong and nothing so hinders a testimony as to allow a wrong to go unrighted. When before our own households and with those who know us best, and by whose side we toil, in shop, or store, or office, or with those whom we employ, we keep ourselves unspotted from the world, we have an unanswerable argument for Christ and a testimony as regards the value of following Him which cannot be gainsayed. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 06.05. NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL ======================================================================== CHAPTER V No Man cared for my Soul "No man cared for my soul," Psalms 142:4. All about us people are saying these words, and they really think we do not care. I believe there has never been a story of a man in which was found more contrast than in this account of the man who sobs out the words, "No man cared for my soul." He is a shepherd boy, then a king, a saint, writing the twenty-third Psalm, then suddenly turned into a sinner blackening the pages of the Old Testament with the story of his transgressions. The world has not had better poetry than that which came from the heart and brain of this marvellous man. In addition to all this, he is a musician, and all through the Psalms he is keeping time to heaven’s music until, when he comes to the close of the Psalter, he stands like the leader of a mighty chorus, and calls upon every living breathing being to praise the Lord. He is a pursuer of men, and the hosts of the enemy run and cry and flee before him. Suddenly the scene is changed. He is himself pursued. He is in the cave of Engedi. The cave is dark, and it is in the gloom that we hear him crying out, "I looked upon my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me." And as he said this I think he must have said, with a sob, "No man cared for my soul." But it is not my intention so much to tell the story of this man whose life was so filled with contrasts, but rather to speak of those who live to-day, and who think they have a right to use the same words as the Psalmist, "No man cared for my soul." They walk on the streets of our cities; they live in our homes; they meet us in our places of business; they are members of our circle of friends; they know that we are Christians, and they are often thinking or saying, "No man cared for my soul." It is strange that we should permit this, because we read in the Bible, "He that believeth not is condemned already." "He that hath not the Son of God hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." It seems strange that one could say he believes the Bible to be true; that he accepts these statements concerning the one who is not a Christian, and yet lives and works and associates with him and never speaks to him about the salvation of his soul. It would seem as if they at least had a right to say, "No man _seems_ to care." But some may say, "They have the Church, and the doors are wide open; they have the minister, and his message is faithful." Yet, the average man who sits in church and listens to the most impassioned appeal of the preacher, rarely considers the sermon personal. He finds himself saying, sometimes against his will, that the preacher is professional, that his plea is perfunctory, and so he goes out of church and says again, "No man _seems_ to care for my soul." There came into my church in an Eastern city a man who worshipped with us for a time. His family were in the mountains. I made it a rule never to allow one to attend the church that I did not speak to him personally. One day I called on this business man. He took me into his private office. When I took him by the hand I said, "I have come to ask you to be a Christian." He looked at me in amazement; and I said, "I am not asking you to join my church, that may not be the church of your choice, but I am asking you to be a Christian." He drew his hand out of mine, walked away to the window, and stood looking down upon the busy street for fully five minutes. I thought I had offended him. Then he came back, and, brushing the tears out of his eyes, he took my hand again and said, "It is the first invitation to be a Christian I have ever had in all my life. Nobody ever asked me before. My mother never asked me; my wife has never asked me; no minister has ever asked me." Then, sinking back into the chair by his table, he used the words which are almost identical with the words of David, "I thought no one cared." Such men are all around us; men in deepest need; men with sore aching hearts. There was a man in an American city who occupied a high position among men. He took his own life. Under the stress of political excitement he misappropriated the funds of the bank, thinking he could repay them, and in his beautiful home he put the revolver to his temple and shot himself. The saddest letter I have ever seen was written by that man. He wrote to his wife asking her forgiveness. He told her to pray for the children whom he had dishonoured. Then he concluded his farewell letter with this statement: "Through all the months I have been wishing somebody would speak to me about becoming a Christian." In the light of such facts I believe that what we need in these days is not so much, more men to preach--although that would be a great blessing--as people in the church who will be absolutely consistent. If they say they believe God’s Word to be true, they must speak to those over whom they have an influence, about the personal acceptance of Christ. I was waiting one day outside the office of the Governor of one the Western States, and while I waited, the Lieutenant-Governor spoke to me. He said, "I was in your service last night, and I want to take issue with you on what you said. You told your hearers to go up and down the streets asking the people to become Christians. I think if anyone should come into my office and ask me to become a Christian I should tell him to go about his business." "You surely misunderstood me," I said; "what I told them was this, that if a business man was not a Christian, his friend who is a Christian ought to speak to him kindly about his soul." I had been introduced to the Lieutenant-Governor by one of the great politicians of the State, who was a sincere Christian, and I said, "Suppose our mutual friend here should come to you and say, ’I am a Christian. I think it is the best thing for a man to be a Christian. I am not always what I would like to be myself, but I should like to invite you to become a Christian.’ Then suppose he should tell you what a strength and help it had been to him, what would you say to him?" He looked at me for a moment, and said, "I think I should say ’Thank you.’" I am sure thousands could be won to Jesus Christ if the members of the Church were consistent in the matter of living in Christ and giving an invitation to people to become acquainted with Him. It is not fair to charge the minister with being professional, nor to say that in his appeal he is perfunctory. Nor is it always just to criticize those who are in the church, for not speaking to the unsaved, for there may be an explanation. Sometimes we feel a sense of our own unworthiness. There are business men who know that if they should speak to their employees, the first speech would have to be a confession of failure. There are women who know that if they should go to their husbands or children, and ask them to come to Christ, they would have first of all to say, "You must forgive my inconsistency." There are fathers who know that they could not go to their homes and call their children around them, and bid them come to Christ without first saying, "You must forgive your father." But if a confession is necessary, then make it. It is sometimes a sense of unworthiness that seals one’s lips, but remember if you have a friend who is not a Christian, and to whom you have never spoken of Christ, your friend counts you inconsistent because of your failure. I said to the officers in my church one evening, "How many of you have ever led a soul to Christ?" About half of them said they never had. One officer said, "That is a sharp question for me. If you will excuse me I will go home and speak to my children, to-night." He did so, and I received two of his sons into the church shortly after. Again, we seem to have failed to warn our friends because we have such a slight conception of the meaning of the word "Lost." A mother in Chicago one day carried her little baby over to the doctor, and said, "Doctor, look into this baby’s eyes, something has gone wrong with them." The doctor took the little child and held it in his arms so that the light would strike its face, He gazed at it only for a moment, then, putting it back into its mother’s arms, he shook his head, and the mother said quickly, "Doctor, what is it?" And he said, "Madam, your baby is going blind. There is no power in this world that can make him see." She held the baby in her arms close up against her heart. Then with a cry she fell to the floor in a swoon, saying as she fell, "My God--blind!" I think any parent must know how she felt. But Jesus said, "Better to be maimed, and halt, and blind than to be lost." If you believe the Bible you cannot be indifferent. But you say, some would not like to have you speak to them. I have been twenty-seven years a minister, and have spoken to all classes and conditions of men and women, and only in one single instance have I ever been rebuked. I was once asked to speak to the president of a bank. I went into his office, and was introduced to him by the pastor with whom I was staying. I said, "My friend is very interested in you, and I wish I could lead you to Christ." He looked at me in perfect amazement. Then, rising from the chair, he took me by the hand, and said, "Thank you, sir." I saw him that night, make his way down the crowded aisle of the church, give the minister his hand, and say, "I will." But I had a sad experience at college. I roomed with a man when I was a student for the ministry, and never spoke to him about his soul. When the day of my graduation came, and I was bidding him good-bye, he said, "By the way, why have you never spoken to me about becoming a Christian?" I would rather he had struck me. I said, "Because I thought you did not care." "Care!" he said. "There has never been a day that I did not want you to speak; there has never been a night that I did not hope you would speak." I lost an opportunity. I fear some day, I must answer for it. You had an idea that you had no influence, but you must remember that when you speak in the name of Jesus Christ, God stands back of you; that when you plead for the salvation of a person, all the power of heaven is working through you. Some may ask, What is the best time to speak to my friends about Christ? I should say, speak to them when they are in trouble, seek them out when others are being saved, but, best of all, go to them when the Spirit of God says go, that is the best time. Whenever God says "Go," He is always making ready the heart for our coming. I was one day walking down the streets of an American city with a Methodist minister, when he said to me, "What would you do if you were impressed that you should speak to a man?" I said, "Speak to him." He said, "But this man has not been in church for thirteen years." "Nevertheless," I said, "speak to him." He turned and made his way to the great house where this business man lived. He rang the bell, and the door was opened by the gentleman himself, who said, "Doctor, I am glad to see you. I have been in all day thinking you might come." And in a very few minutes he was kneeling in the library with this gentleman whom he quickly led to Christ. A year later I was passing through the city of Chicago, when, picking up a newspaper, I noticed that this man whom the minister had won to Christ, had died suddenly. I got a letter from the minister not long afterwards, and he said, "I was with him when he died. He sent a messenger for me to come and see him, and when I arrived he turned his face towards mine and said, "Dr ----, thank you for coming that day, for if you had missed that day, I might have missed this. Then he began to sing as best he could. He raised himself on his pillow, with his arms outreaching, and said, "Jesus Lover of My soul," and passed away. The minister’s letter was marked with tears, and down at the foot of it was written this sentence; "God helping me, I will never hesitate again." They are all about us, men with aching hearts, men caught by the power of sin, young people and older people as well. They are waiting. Preaching may not win them; singing may not touch them. But personal effort will. I might change the text and make it read: "The world does not care for your soul," You may win it, and it will mock you. Satan does not care for your soul. He will fascinate you and snare you, and when you say, "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" there will be no deliverance. But God cares. Christ cares. The minister cares, and thousands of others care. Some are saying, "What must I do to be a Christian?" A gentleman once said to me, "I do not love God." Another person once said, "You talk about love for Christ; is it like love for my mother, because if it is I have not got it." No, it is not like that. That is not the first step in the way. Tell them God does not say, "Love me, and I will save you." God says, "Trust me. Accept my conditions, believe on my Son and follow Him." There was a great man in a Western city who had a little girl who was deaf and dumb. He loved his child so much that he would not allow anybody to teach her. She had a kind of sign language which they both understood, but nobody else was allowed to teach her. This gentleman at one time had occasion to leave home and go abroad. He could not take his daughter with him, so his minister persuaded him to send her over to an institution where she could be taught to use the sign language of the deaf and dumb. He took her over himself, never for a moment imagining that she would learn to speak with her lips, as she did. The months passed by, and when the father returned, the minister went with him to see his child in the institution. The little girl had been told that he was coming, and looking out of the window she saw her father coming through the gate. She sprang to the door, and ran down the steps, and along the walk until she reached her father. Then she climbed up into his arms, and, putting her lips up against his ear, she said, "Father, I love you, I love you." The great man held her out at arm’s length, looked into her face, then pressed her more closely to his heart and fell in a faint--when he recovered consciousness he was sobbing. All the day he kept saying, "I have heard her speak, and she loves me, she loves me." So tell the people very plainly that God does not say, "Love me." He says, "Believe on me; trust me; follow me." Then ask them, Will you do it? And if they will follow Him, having accepted His Son as their Saviour, and with his help having turned from sin, then if they will obey Him, they will come to love Him with all their hearts. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 06.06. WINNING THE YOUNG ======================================================================== CHAPTER VI Winning the Young "There is a lad here," John 6:9. Jesus had just crossed over the sea of Galilee and, attracted by the miracles which he had wrought, great multitudes had followed after Him. In order that He might escape the throng, He went up into a mountain and there He sat with His disciples. When the Master saw the great company stretching out on every side of Him He said unto Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat." Philip was so amazed at the crowd that he answered Him, "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little." Then one of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said unto Him, "_There is a lad here_ which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes." Then Jesus made the multitude sit down, and took the loaves and gave to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were seated, and likewise of the fishes as much as they would, and when they were filled, the fragments that remained filled twelve baskets. The presence of this lad and the service which he rendered to Jesus, as well as the use which the Master made of him, all help us to teach our lesson. Youth is the time to turn to Christ. The wise man knew this when he said, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth; while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh; when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." Sin has not so strong a hold upon a life in the time of youth, therefore it is the easiest time to turn to Christ. I once heard a man tell the story of his special work among outcast men and women, and when I asked him he told me how he himself was converted. He said that as a boy in London, he was left one day in charge of the private office. He said "I wanted to write a letter and I took the firm’s note-paper; I used one of their envelopes, and when I wanted postage I opened the private drawer of the safe, the door of which was swinging open, and took out one postage stamp, and when I put this stamp upon my letter and dropped it into the post-box I felt as if I had dropped my character with it. That was the beginning, and the end was a prison cell, for I went from one form of thieving to another until I was obliged to pay the penalty. I found Christ while I was in prison, but I feel as if the mark of my early sin would never leave me. I would urge every boy to accept Christ," he said, "before the cords of sin bind him too securely." When one reaches the age of eighteen he finds it extremely difficult to turn away from the sins that are mastering him, and when he passes beyond twenty years of age, the tide against him is extremely heavy. The critical time in the life of boys and girls is from twelve to twenty. If they do not accept Christ during these years, it is wellnigh impossible to win them. If this is true then we must make the most of the opportunities of influencing the youth whom God is ever bringing before us. The Scripture used in connection with this feeding of the multitude is a good illustration. It is a lad who confronts us, and this is, as has been said, the favourable time for bringing Christian influence to bear upon him. There is a time in the life of every boy when it is comparatively easy to win him to Christ. Parents surely know this, and Sunday school teachers may easily discover it. "How did you come to Christ?" said a New York minister to a little boy. His reply was, "My Sunday school teacher took me last Sunday out into the park. She drew me away from the crowd and took her seat beside me. She asked me if I would become a Christian. I felt that I ought to do so, and because her invitation was so definite, and she seemed so interested, I told her I would do so, and because I am a Christian I went to join the Church." Too much cannot be said in favour of reaching the young while they are in the days of their youth. Recently in an audience of 4500 people I found that at least 400 of the audience came to Christ under 10 years of age; between 10 and 12, 600; between 12 and 14, 600; between 14 and 16, about 1000; between 16 and 20, fully one half, and in the entire audience not more than 25 people came to Christ after they were 30 years of age. Five hundred ministers were in the same audience. The majority of them were converted before they were 16 years of age; 40 of them between 16 and 20; and only 15 out of the 500 ministers were converted after they were 20. This in itself is an unanswerable argument in favour of personal work for the young. The lad is here now before us, but he will soon be gone. Boys quickly grow into manhood. As a rule religious influence weakens as they pass on, while the power of sin increases. Many young men would turn to Christ if they thought they could, but it seems to them that the attraction towards evil is almost, if not quite irresistible. I recently heard a Christian gentleman speaking before a great audience in London. He was telling of his going over the Alps in the care of a trusted guide. As they came to one of the most dangerous places in the journey his guide stopped him, and said, "Do you see those footprints off here to the right?" The gentleman said he did, plainly. "Do you notice," said the guide, "how they get farther and farther apart?" And when asked to give an explanation he said that a week before a young telegraph operator had attempted to cross the mountains without a guide, that just at the place where they were standing his hat blew off, and, without thinking, he reached out after it, lost his balance and started to fall. In trying to recover himself he started down the mountain to the right. The way was all covered with snow; when once he started he could not stop; farther and farther apart were his footprints until at last they were lost on the edge of a great abyss. He had gone over to his death. It is thus that young men go to destruction. Because they do, we ought to be instant in season and out of season in seeking to arrest their downward progress. When Jesus took the loaves and fishes in the possession of the lad and brought to bear upon them his own marvellous power, the results were great. No one realises what is being accomplished when he assists or influences a boy. I am wondering what that minister, who led Spurgeon to Christ, thinks of his work now that he sees it from the heavenly standpoint, and I have many times thought I should like to ask the business man who spoke to D.L. Moody about his soul, what estimate he puts upon the importance of the work he did that day. To win a boy to Christ may be to turn towards the Master one who may one day move the world for Christ. A great number of Chinese young men have come from their native land to study in the educational institutions of the United States. Some of them have found Christ in these institutions, others have passed through their course of study and returned to their native land without a hope in the Saviour. What a marvellous work might have been accomplished if the Christian students in these educational institutions had set themselves to win these Chinese boys. The students in China are to have an increasing influence in the Government, and if the majority of them had been led to Christ, the whole Chinese Government might have been powerfully affected. Some years ago there came to the United States a little Chinese boy. He was sent to a New England educational institution, and made his home in the house of a very humble woman. She knew Christ and loved Him, and she recognised the presence of this little boy as presenting an opportunity for service. She treated him as if he were her own child. She mothered him and grew to love him. She taught him how to read the Bible and she told him the story of Jesus and His love. That little boy came to Christ. He passed through the educational institution, went back to China to exercise his strongest influence for righteousness, and has recently been entrusted with the commission of bringing to the United States a number of other Chinese boys, all of whom, it is said, he will place in institutions that are Christian. The poor woman in New England did not realise that when she led one boy to Christ that she was touching forty others. This is the fascination of Christian work. Some of the noblest men and women the Church has ever known came to Christ in youth. Polycarp, Matthew Henry, Jonathan Edwards, the immortal Watts, John Hall, and a countless host of others who have served conspicuously in the advancement of the Kingdom of God, came to Christ before they were fifteen years of age, some of them coming as early as seven. The lad is here, it will be a pity if we allow him to grow to manhood without a hope in Christ all because we do not seek to win him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: 06.07. WINNING AND HOLDING ======================================================================== CHAPTER VII Winning and Holding "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus," 2 Timothy 3:15. Timothy’s inheritance was invaluable. His equipment was superb, and his experience from the day of his birth until the end of his life upon earth, ideal. He had a good grandmother. Evidently she influenced him profoundly. I am quite sure that his parents too must have fulfilled their obligations to their child, and in addition to his own immediate ancestry, he had Paul, the Apostle, who looked upon him as a son in the Gospel, and honoured him by sending him his last message when he said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all them also that love His appearing. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me" 2 Timothy 4:7-9. It is a great loss to any child to be deprived of what Timothy had. We may not all be rich, and we certainly cannot all be great, but we may all be true and faithful as parents, and when a child has such an inheritance he is well started in life. It is because children do not have this that many of them drift. Given a good ancestry it is comparatively easy to draw children to Christ, and even to draw them back when once they have wandered. It is the testimony of rescue mission workers that when they have the privilege of appealing to lost and ruined men in the name of a mother who was saintly and a father who was true to Christ, they have a hold upon an almost irresistible force, to bring the wanderer back to the faith of his father and the teaching of his mother. There is the sorest need to-day of a special and continued interest in behalf of our young people. David Starr Jordan is authority for the statement that "one-third of the young men of America are wasting themselves through intemperate habits and accompanying vices," the conditions in other lands are also very serious. The secretary of the College Association of North America has been quoted as saying that there are twelve thousand college men in New York City alone who are down and out through vice. "Talk of the ravages of war. The ravages of war, pestilence and disease combined are as nothing compared with the awful moral ravages wrought in the teen period. The shores are strewn thick with the wasted lives of those who have been wrecked in youth." "We have been seeking results too far afield and overlooking great opportunities near at hand. If you take a census of a Christian congregation and ask those who were converted before their eighteenth birthday to rise, five-sixths of your congregation will stand. This means that five-sixths of all the people who give themselves to Christ do it on the under side of the eighteenth year. Put beside this the fact that we have more than 12,000,000 children and youth in the Protestant Sunday Schools of America under eighteen years of age and you will see that our great evangelistic opportunity does not lie outside of the Church, but inside, in the Sunday School department. Here we have a vast army, ready and waiting for the Christian call."[1] [Footnote 1: Rev Edgar Blake.] It is one thing to lead souls to Christ, it is quite another thing to hold them when once they have been won. The serious time for drifting is between the ages of twelve and twenty. If we could but safeguard these years we would hold for the Church many who drift out upon the sea of life, make shipwreck of their hopes and break the hearts of those who are interested in them. "An investigation in the Wesleyan Church of England showed that only ten per cent of the Sunday School were held in active membership in the Church. Ten per cent. were held in a merely nominal relationship. Eighty per cent. were lost entirely. This is a fair statement of the situation in many churches. We have lost multitudes of our youth who might have been saved if they had been properly cared for. "At the very time the Church loses its grip upon the boys and girls the public school loses its grip also. The exodus begins about the fifth grade, and at the eighth grade fifty per cent. of the scholars have departed. At the twelfth grade, near the middle teens, ninety per cent. of the scholars have gone out from the public schools. Thus these two most powerful forces in the creation of character, the Church and the School, lose their hold upon youth at the same time. "The home also loses its hold at this period. Up to his middle teens your youth accepts everything on the authority of others, but midway of the critical teen period there comes an awakening. The consciousness of his own personality, his right to make decisions for himself comes to him for the first time. Sometimes spontaneously, sometimes gradually, but always he breaks with authority. He insists upon deciding matters for himself. Parents may counsel, but they cannot determine[1]." [Footnote 1: Rev Edgar Blake.] "A gentleman came to a friend of mine at the close of an address which he had delivered and said to him, ’I was much interested in what you said about the boys we lose. I teach a class of the finished product.’ ’Where do you teach?’ said I. ’In the State prison’ he said. A few years ago seventy-five per cent. of the inmates of the Minnesota State prison were boys who had once been in Sunday School and had been permitted to drift away. The later teen age, sixteen to twenty, is the criminal period. It is an appalling thing that 12,000 children were brought before the courts of New York in 1909, and in the same year more than 15,000 boys and girls suffered arrest in Chicago. Our criminal ranks are added to, at the rate of 300,000 a year, and in the vast majority of cases the criminal course is begun in the teen age. Is it necessary? Is this awful waste--this moral havoc--unavoidable? I believe not. Recently a young man in his teens was convicted of theft in the court of Milwaukee. When the judge asked him if he had anything to say before sentence was pronounced upon him, the young man arose, pale with excitement and said, ’Your honour, my father and mother died when I was three years old. I never had anyone who loved or cared for me. I have been kicked about all my life. Judge, I never would have been a thief if I had had a chance.’ This is the pitiful plea of thousands who have been wrecked around us. They were not shepherded and they went astray." There is a way to hold the majority of those whom we may win to the Saviour. A friend of mine led to Christ a young man who had gone to the very depths of sin and shame. He was a drunkard; he had disgraced his father’s name; had broken his wife’s heart, and when his little boy died he did not have enough money to bury the child decently; when the mother put the child in the grave the father was wild with drink, and he was buried without his father being present. But my friend won this man to Christ. After he was saved, every day for three weeks he went to sit by his side and talk with him; he guarded him at the critical time; he kept him from growing discouraged; he hindered him from drinking. To-day this man is himself one of the most noted rescue mission workers in the world, and is being used of God to save multitudes of men who like himself had gone down through drink. It is what we are ourselves that largely counts in the holding of our friends for Christ. Paul wrote to Titus saying, "In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works ... that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you," which is only another way of saying that a Christian life is an unanswerable argument in favour of Christ. When our lives are right with God; when we keep ourselves unspotted from the world; when we quickly confess our own failure or wrongdoing; when we have a concern not only that others should be saved, but that they might do something for Christ after their salvation, it is comparatively easy to hold them, and to keep from drifting those who have just started along the way. When my friend S.H. Hadley, the great rescue missionary, was lying in his coffin, a timid knock was heard at the door of the room where the body was resting. When the one who had knocked entered the room it was found that he was a drunkard, he had fallen from a high position to the very depths of despair, and as he stood timidly in the presence of the sorrowing friends of the great man, he said, "I thought I would like to come and look into his face and if I might be permitted to do so I would like to touch his hand. He did his best to win me while he was living and now that he is dead I cannot let his body be placed in the grave without coming here by the side of his casket to yield myself to Christ. All that he has said has followed me and I cannot get away from it." Timothy knew the Scriptures, and a familiarity with God’s Word is one of the best preventives in the case of drifting. One verse of Scripture committed to memory each day would help us to overcome the tempter; would keep us in loving touch with Jesus Christ; would inspire us to higher and holier living; and these suggestions made to those whom we win to Christ would keep them from wandering. It is the man who does not know his Bible who finds himself an easy prey to the wicked one. The ability to pray is also a God-given force which keeps us from drifting. When we read the Bible God talks to us; when we pray we talk to Him. We cannot always speak plainly of our condition to those about us, but we may tell Him what we are and what we wish we might have been. And while it is true that He knows before we speak, it is also true that in the telling we draw nearer to Him, and drawing nearer we absorb a little bit more of His spirit, and in that spirit we stand. Service is also one of the surest preventives from wandering. It is when the brain is idle that evil thoughts master it; when the heart is given up to impure imaginations that we find it easy to fall. And it is when we are busy lifting others’ burdens; making the way easier for others to travel; comforting those who are in distress; speaking a word of cheer to the cheerless, and above all, when we are seeking to lead others to Christ, that we ourselves grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. If these things are true, and we know they are, then it is the duty of every Christian not only to seek to win another to Christ, but by all means to seek to hold him when once he is won, and that which we know holds us will keep others from stumbling. The suggestions made above are for the young as well as the more mature. Young people will be interested in spiritual things if we have sufficient interest in them ourselves to make them attractive. If we would show as great interest in helping to keep those whom we may have won for Christ, as we revealed when we were seeking them, fewer of them would drift. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 101: 06.08. A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION ======================================================================== CHAPTER VIII A Practical Illustration It will be a great day when the Church is aroused to the responsibility and privilege of personal work. In Swansea, Wales, with Mr Charles M. Alexander, I had the satisfaction of conducting a mission in which I preached for an entire week on Soul Winning. I then urged the people to go forth and labour, and asked them to come back with their reports. These reports were thrilling. Often ten or twelve people would be standing at the one time waiting to speak. The following are only a few testimonies taken from the many:-- A minister said: "I spoke to a bright young fellow, under the influence of drink, as I was going home in the car last night. He got off the car when I did, so I stood at the street corner and talked with him for a few minutes. He told me that he had been a follower of the Lord Jesus many years ago, but had fallen away through bad company. I asked him to pray for himself. He said he could not, but asked me to pray for him. And there on that street corner I put my arm around his shoulder and we prayed together, and he has promised to come to the meeting to-night." "About three years ago," said another, "I came in touch with a man who has been the biggest and most hardened scoffer I have had to contend with. He had such a sarcastic way of ridiculing the Lord Jesus Christ. But this last fortnight I have seen a distinct change in that young man’s life. Last week, as we were working near to one another, I spoke to him and his eyes filled with tears. He said, ’I have decided to come out and accept Christ.’ I could hardly credit it, but it has proved to be real, and when I see God moving in such a hard case as this, I have hope for every sinner in this city." Another said, "I came to the Lord three years ago, one of the worst drunkards in Swansea. Since the Saviour found me, I have spoken to men on their death-beds. I have spoken to drunkards all over Swansea, but I neglected my own charge that God had given to me. Dr Chapman woke me up to approach my own household and children. It was the greatest struggle in all my life. I went to my two boys and put my hands on their shoulders saying, ’I want you to do something for Jesus and for your father.’ They said, ’Father, we will do it.’ Two of my boys came to the Albert Hall yesterday and gave their hearts to Jesus. This has been one of the most blessed weeks I have had since I was saved three years ago." "On Thursday night I had been asking the Lord to lead me to the right one to speak to. He led me to a young man of sixteen years of age who was under tremendous conviction. He said, ’I think I will make a clean breast of it. I have done something,’ and he told me his story. This young lad, in his employer’s service for four years, last week, for the first time, began to steal. He turned out his pocket and showed me what he had. He said, ’What shall I do? I go to bed at night and I cannot sleep, it is haunting me.’ I said, ’Look here, laddie, do this. Go to your master to-morrow morning, and make a clean breast of it and get the victory.’ ’What about my situation?’ said the boy. ’I will pray for you,’ I said. ’If your master is so unkind as to dismiss you, come to me and I will see what I can do.’ It was a long time before he gave in, but eventually he said, ’I will.’ I prayed for him, and last night I got this letter: ’Victorious! Devil conquered; overjoyed. I cannot very well explain what I experienced so will be pleased to meet you on Thursday next in the mission at Albert Hall.’" A week later this gentleman said: "I have a lot to thank God for these last ten days. I have had a glorious blessing. I can say with all humility, I have been on fire for Jesus. I had a letter yesterday from the young man whom I was talking about last Sunday. He says, ’Dear Friend, My only regret now is that I did not accept Jesus as my Saviour years ago. It would have saved me so much trouble. I explained everything to my master and handed him the article back. Then he gave me two-thirds of this particular article and burned the letter. So that is what I got for owning up.’" Another said: "I do thank and praise God this morning for the great things He has done in my home. He has brought my children to trust in the Saviour. I have great pleasure in reporting that a brother at the works, to whom I spoke a week ago, has decided for Christ. One of the workers presented me with a Testament to give to that brother, who was in very poor circumstances, and he received it with joy. The following day he came to tell me that he had read a chapter to his wife. His wife is travelling the wrong way. They have five little children, and on Thursday I took them to the meeting. On Friday morning he came to thank me for taking them there, and told me that during his absence from the house, his eldest boy, of about ten years of age, had got into a Bible Reading Circle, led by a Christian boy, and he asked his father if he could spare sixpence for him to buy a Testament. What joy filled my heart and soul from the fact that I could present that little lad with a Testament, and I sent my own lad back a mile, yesterday, with it. "I spoke to a dear Christian brother last night at the works. I asked him if his household were saved. ’I have one boy of sixteen not saved,’ he said ’Brother, will you promise me to speak to him when you go home?’ He went home and put his hand on the shoulder of the lad and gave him the invitation. The boy gladly promised to accept Jesus." Continuing with the reports, one said: "Last night, in one of our public houses I spoke to a woman about Jesus. Years ago she had lost her husband and instead of going to God for comfort she had turned to drink. She became a drunkard and had separated from her children. When I spoke to her she said, ’I know I am a sinner. I am the worst woman in Swansea, but I want to be good.’ ’Will you decide now?’ we asked her. ’Yes,’ she said. She came out into the cold biting wind and knelt in the open air, and there she sent up this simple prayer: ’Oh, God, although I am a bad woman, please make me good, for Jesus’ sake.’ Later she arose in a crowded meeting and told her story, concluding with this remark, ’By God’s help I am going to be a child of God.’" Another said: "On the second night of the mission I was led to speak to a dear brother who was a back-slider. I plead with him that evening to turn to Christ, but he did not come to a decision. The next night I went in and talked with him. I asked him again at the close of the meeting would he come back to the Lord Jesus Christ. He told me he could not come back that night. On the following night I went up and spoke to him again. When we got outside the building I said, ’I may not ever have the privilege of speaking to you again. Will you kindly give me your name? I will give you a guarantee that no one but God shall know about it. I want your name that I may pray for you.’ On Tuesday night in the minor hall at the after meeting I searched for him. I had been praying continually every night and morning, and sometimes during the day. When I found him that night I said, ’You have withstood the Spirit of God long enough. Make a definite decision to-night to return to the Lord. If you do not care about coming to the front, fill out this card, but make up your mind to give yourself to Christ.’ He took the card and filled it out. Then I said, ’You know the way of salvation because you have been that way before. When you get home tonight, will you kindly make a definite decision at your bedside?’ And he told me he would." Another gentleman rose to give his testimony and said: "I belong, as you know, to another city, but I want to speak a word to the glory of God, and for the encouragement of those who have taken up personal work for Him. Some two years ago in our city I spoke to one who was an inspector in the Police Force, but who is to-day the Chief Inspector of our Police, about the claims of Christ. He told me that I was the first one who had ever spoken to him as to how he stood in relation to these matters for a period of fifteen years. Having once broken the ice and spoken to him, I never gave him up. "About two months ago I had occasion to go to the Police Court to ask his assistance on behalf of a woman who wanted an ejectment notice against another woman who was living in the same house. When he heard the name of the woman who wished to obtain the notice he refused to have anything to do with the matter. She had been a bad character. He said, ’I tell you candidly, she ought to be drowned for her cruelty to her children.’ I said, ’You knew her once, but you do not know her now. How long is it since you saw her?’ ’About nine weeks’ he replied. ’Well,’ I said, ’nine weeks ago she and her husband both came to Christ in our mission hall. For the first time in thirteen years they entered a place of worship. She had a black eye that covered over half her face, but both her husband and she are now Christians, and are faithfully following Christ to-day. And yet you call her a lost soul.’ He said, ’Certainly I do. If there is a lost soul she is one.’ ’Then Sir,’ I said, striking him on the shoulder, ’Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus has saved that woman. When she comes on Monday night, Inspector, just look at her and see what Christ has wrought. I ask you to grant her request.’ He shook himself free. ’Wait a moment, Inspector,’ I said, ’I have never given up praying for you. You have risen to the position of Chief Inspector, but I want you not to forget Christ.’ "On the Thursday of the following week he came to my home. When I saw him there I was glad, for he had kept away from me for a long time. I said, ’I am glad to see you in my home.’ He said, ’You will be more glad when you know why I have come. In my room the other night I knelt down and gave myself to Jesus Christ, and asked the Lord to save me.’ I would ask those of you who are working for souls not to get disheartened and discouraged. When the mission ceases do not give up taking a personal interest in those for whom you are concerned. "Some months ago I was sitting in the Assize Court in your city. I sat next to our Chief Inspector. The case that was being tried was one of attempted murder. As I sat there following the case this Chief Inspector turned to me and said, ’Why didn’t they know Him on the road to Emmaus?’ I said, ’I suppose because their eyes were holden.’ He said, ’How did they know Him when they got to the home?’ I said, ’Probably in the breaking of the bread.’ ’Don’t you think,’ said he, ’that in the breaking of the bread they saw for the first time the marks of the wounds in His hands and knew Him by them?’ What a difference Christ had made in the life of that Chief Inspector." A man employed in the steel works rose in one of our meetings to say: "I made my covenant with God last Saturday. The burden was laid heavy on my heart on behalf of two souls. One of them was my own little girl. I spoke to her about Jesus, and she told me she would accept Him as her Saviour. I have been working this week on a shift that ran from ten o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning. On Tuesday night I asked the Lord to pour out His blessing on our workmen. About one o’clock in the morning I had an opportunity of speaking to a young man. I asked him if he had accepted Jesus as his Saviour, and he said he had not. Then I asked him to be honest before God, and I said, ’Will you accept Him now?’ With a smile he looked up at me and said, ’Tom, I will accept Jesus as my Saviour now.’ I have brought some of my mates with me here to-day and I thank God for what He has done. "Down at the works the other day there was a young man who came on duty at three o’clock in the morning. I knew he was troubled about his soul, and I spoke to him. I said, ’Are you in trouble about your soul?’ He said, ’Yes, I am.’ ’Well,’ I said, ’Jesus has died to save you. Will you accept Him now?’ He said to me, ’But, Tom, I have done this and that,’ ’Well,’ I said, ’Jesus has died for you, will you accept Him?’ As he looked me straight in the face he said, ’Yes, I will.’ "I asked these men who had accepted Jesus and one or two others, to come up to my home at six o’clock when we finished work. As we went through the yard there was a boy about fifteen years of age standing there and we got him to come along with us. In my home we had a small meeting. I asked God to pour down His blessing upon us. I asked one friend who was drifting, if he had ever accepted Christ, and he said at one time during a revival. I said, ’Praise God for that. He is willing to receive you back. Will you come?’ and he said, ’At three o’clock this very morning, I came back to the Lord Jesus.’ And then I turned to the boy of fifteen and said, ’Are you willing to accept the Saviour?’ And he said he didn’t think he was ready. I said, ’Well, my boy, if you don’t, what will become of you?’ He said, ’I will go to hell, I suppose.’ Not long afterwards he accepted the Saviour.[1] [Footnote 1: This man worked at night and slept during the day.] "Yesterday I could not sleep. I went home from my work. I was up in the morning with a burden on my heart because of the poor souls who were going to eternity without a Saviour. A young woman came to our house and started to sing ’Lord save Swansea,’ and the words kept ringing in my ears. I went back to bed but could not sleep. I had no peace. I said, ’Well, Lord, I believe Thou hast surely started the work.’ I went to the works last night. I did not feel very well as I had been up all day. I asked some of the men if they would come to a prayer meeting for the mission. We did not have much time before work commenced, but we went in and I asked one of the young fellows if he would accept Jesus. He replied, ’I must have time to think of it.’ The next night I said to him, ’Johnnie, have you thought of what we spoke on last night?’ and he said, ’I have been in trouble about my soul.’ Before we had tea I asked him if he would accept Christ now. He said, ’I cannot do it now.’ I said, ’God will give you strength.’ We went into a little shop and I prayed for him. At three o’clock this morning I spoke to him again. ’Johnnie,’ I said, ’can you see the way clear?’ ’Yes,’ he said, ’I can see the way clear now. I will accept Jesus as my personal Saviour.’" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 102: 06.09. WHOSOEVER WILL ======================================================================== CHAPTER IX Whosoever Will All classes of persons may do personal work if they will. A prominent business man in a Welsh city began to do this work and one morning spoke to eighteen people before breakfast. Several, to whom he spoke, accepted Christ. Making a further report of his work, he said. "An old man, about seventy years of age, whose face was white and who appeared to be very ill, was leaning against the wall of a building near where I have my office. I said to him, ’Have you been to the mission?’ ’No,’ he said, ’I have not.’ I then asked him if he had accepted Christ. ’Well,’ he said, ’I have been a believer all my life.’ I said, ’Are you saved?’ ’I cannot say that,’ he replied. ’Why?’ I asked; ’God says, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. Do you believe that?’ He stood staring me in the face for a few minutes, when he said, ’I never saw it in that light before.’ I said, ’Will you take him at His word now?’ And he replied, ’Yes, I will.’ "An old woman, an office cleaner, was making her way up the steps of a building. As I came up I recognised her, and said, ’Mrs Bell, I have been constrained to ask you if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour.’ She looked at me, then setting down her broom she said, ’I want to, but no one has ever asked me,’ ’Well,’ I said, ’I ask you now. Will you accept Him just here? Will you say, Lord Jesus I accept Thee as my personal Saviour?’ But she could not see the way. After some conversation I asked her if she would come to the hall and hear Dr Chapman and Mr Alexander, and she said she would go that evening. I was unable to go to the service myself that night and did not see her until the following Saturday morning. She came to my office and said, ’Since you spoke to me a few days ago I have had no peace. I am in an awful state, and unless I take Jesus I shall die. I am sure I shall because I cannot live like this.’ And right there in the office she knelt down and accepted Christ as her Saviour and had the joy that always comes with this acceptance. "This morning, the very first man I met, I was constrained to speak to about Jesus. I introduced myself by asking him if he had been to the mission. He said, ’Yes, I was at the Grand Theatre last Sunday afternoon.’ ’Well,’ I said, ’did you give your heart to the Lord?’ ’No,’ he replied, ’I did not.’ I said ’Why?’ ’Because I missed my opportunity,’ was his answer. I said to Him, ’Will you do it now?’ ’Do it now!’ he exclaimed. ’Listen,’ I said, ’God says in His Word. As many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God. Will you receive Him? It is either one thing or the other--receive or reject. Your sins have been atoned for by His precious blood. Will you take Jesus now?’ And suddenly, taking me by the hand, he said, ’I will.’ "From time to time I have been speaking to a young man belonging to a respectable family. At one time he was being brought up for the ministry, but he got into sin and sank very low. I persuaded him to attend one of the mission meetings. When Dr Chapman requested all those who wished prayer offered for themselves or for their loved ones, this poor fellow got up in the balcony and said, ’Pray for me.’ Prayer was offered for him, and there, that night, he experienced the joy of salvation. He came to me the other day and said that he had definitely taken Jesus Christ as his Saviour." One would not expect a police officer to be a personal worker, but many of them are, and notably so in Great Britain. Ex-Sergeant Wheeler of Oldham came to attend one of our meetings, and being asked to speak, he said: "Though an Ex-Sergeant, I am not an Ex-Christian. There are a large number of people who look upon a policeman from many standpoints, but it is very seldom that they see him in the position in which I am placed to-night. They have an idea that a policeman does not exist to preach the Gospel or to tell them about Jesus Christ, and it is Christian people who get that idea sometimes." "I know a police sergeant in London who is a particular friend of mine and a great Christian worker. A lady went to one of our Provincial Police Conferences in connection with the Police Association and saw this big man who was so enthusiastic in connection with the work that the lady doubted his genuineness, and to satisfy her curiosity she ascertained his private address, travelled by rail from London, visited his home during his absence, and asked his wife what sort of a man he was. That is the way to find a man out. But she found that he was even a better man in the home than he was out of it. If you want to find what a man’s character is, you do not ask about it on special occasions when he is on his guard, you ask what it is when he is at home, it is there that he unconsciously reveals it, and this revelation just because of its unconsciousness, proves invariably correct. "When the Lord Jesus brought me out of darkness into the light, when He broke the fetters and snapped the chains eleven years ago, I went home and said to my wife, ’I am going to live for Jesus, and we will start here, at home. We will have family prayers--we were not a large family, only nine of us, and for the first time in their lives, my children heard their father pray; and there on my knees in all humility I pledged myself before God that I would do anything, make any sacrifice, if by so doing I could help a weaker brother and lift him out of the gutter. That is the way I started. I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I hope to be, but, thank God, by His grace and love, I am what I am and not what I once was. The Lord changed my desires when he put a new heart within me. When I see a drunken man in the streets I do not pass him like I used to. My heart goes out to him and I look beyond the man in the streets to the life in the home he comes from, and see the misery there; but I thank God that He put the desire in my heart to try to help that brother. And how often opportunities present themselves. "On one occasion at five o’clock on a Sunday morning in the month of August, a policeman and I were going along the street. There was a man standing at a gate near the corner. As we approached he said to me, ’Sergeant, can you get me a drink of whisky?’ I said, ’That is rather a strange thing to ask a Sergeant of Police,’ ’Well,’ he said, ’I have plenty of bottled ale in my home, but it sticks in my throat.’ I said, ’Do you take whisky when you are thirsty?’ ’Yes,’ he replied. I got into conversation with him and after a while I said to him, ’Do you ever go to a place of worship?’ ’No,’ he said, ’I don’t, I pay a sovereign for a sitting.’ ’That won’t get you to heaven,’ I said, and after a little further talk with him he remarked, ’Sergeant, I am all right financially, but wrong here, in my heart.’ And then he said, ’Will you come to my home and pray for me?’ ’Yes,’ I replied, und we went. It was not far away, a fine home, a palace to mine, I thought, as I walked across the velvet carpet into the drawing-room. He brought a Bible and said, ’Read me something out of that.’ And he sat down like a little child, to listen. I turned to Isaiah 53:6, and read, ’All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ ’Now,’ I said, ’it starts with All and finishes with All, so we are both included.’ Then I took him to John 3:16, and then to the last chapter in the Book of Revelation, Revelation 22:17 : ’And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst--I stopped at that--and whosoever ...’ ’Now,’ I said, ’we will read it again. And after we had read it again we knelt down, and there in that large home I poured out my soul to God over that man. I plead for him, and while I prayed he said, ’Lord, if I am not too bad, save me.’ I said, ’Amen.’ And the Lord heard his prayer, and before I left the house he was a changed man. When I was leaving he came to the door and said, ’I never bargained for this, this morning, Sergeant.’ The man who wanted whisky got Christ. He drank of something different, he drank of the living water which Christ spoke about at the well of Samaria when He said, ’Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’" "I left him and went back the following day. I rang the bell and he answered the door himself. I asked him how he was, and he said, ’Grand, I have had no whisky.’ I went back a month later and he told me he was never so happy in all his life. He said, ’Do you remember me telling you I paid a sovereign for my sitting in church? Well, I occupy that pew myself now.’ And that day he gave me a donation for the Christian Police Association and told me to call again at any time. That is what the Lord does when he changes a man’s heart. There are many men to-day who may be all right financially; they may have a seat in God’s House; they may be members of a Church and yet not be right at heart. I urge upon you, get right with God and you will have, not the peace of this world, but the peace that passeth all understanding. "Something like seven years ago I went to some services in Manchester that were being conducted by Dr Torrey and Mr Alexander. At the close of these services I went to the front and took some Gospel literature that was there for distribution. When I got home and commenced my duties I began to give this literature to the policemen. I thought the policemen stood as much in need of it as anybody else. If he is a peacemaker, sometimes he is a peacebreaker, and with all due respect to him he is not always a law-abiding man. "There were two booklets in which I was specially interested. One which was called ’God’s Sure Promise,’ asked several questions at the close, and then requested the reader to sign his name. The other was, ’Get Right with God.’ I gave the latter to policemen on their beats, and asked them to read them carefully. I went on with my praying. One man received the book with great scorn. About a week after I visited this particular man, and with a smile upon his face he said, ’You remember those two booklets you gave me?’ ’Yes,’ I said. ’Well,’ he said, ’the one called "God’s Sure Promise" I tore up and put into the fire, the other I tore up and threw over the wall, but not before I read them both. Now, I have never got away from that, and about half an hour ago I came to the climax. I got down on my knees in the street, and now I can honestly say that God for Christ’s sake has pardoned all my sins.’ I felt overjoyed with his testimony, for he was the most scornful and bitter man in the division. I was so overjoyed that I walked round his beat with him, talking with him, and giving him words of encouragement. I can never forget that night. From ten o’clock until six in the morning it was one continual downpour of rain. We were soaked through. As we walked round I said, ’We will have a word of prayer.’ We took off our helmets, knelt down on the pavement and there we had a little prayer meeting just about two o’clock in the morning. The showers of rain were nothing compared to the showers of blessing we had. I was so delighted when we went off duty that morning that I could not sleep. "I came to Manchester when Dr Torrey was holding a meeting, and during the meeting I sent a note up to Dr Torrey saying that a policeman wanted to say something. However, the opportunity did not present itself that night. A week after that another policeman came to me and said, ’Sergeant, do you remember that booklet you gave me, "God’s Sure Promise?"’ I said, ’Yes.’ ’Well,’ he said, ’here it is signed.’ Seven years have passed away since that time, and those two policeman and I have stood together on the platform many and many a time telling the story of Jesus and His love. We have had some meetings together and I have seen them speaking to hundreds of men and the Lord has blessed them both. If the Lord Jesus Christ can save a policeman, He can save anybody. "I found that we existed for something more than locking up people. I wanted to arrest people in their sin, and going along the street one night in company with another constable we were called into a little house. The kind people there had taken in a woman off the street. She was lying on the floor in a very drunken condition, unconscious of everything around her. I knew this woman, she was about twenty-seven years of age. I made her acquaintance when I used to be on night duty. Every Saturday night or in the early hours of Sunday morning I used to find her door open--her home was in a little side street, that kind of people generally live in a side street. It was about three o’clock on Sunday morning when I walked in and saw the man lying on the floor and the wife who was also drunk, lying on a sofa. The next time I was on night duty I found the same door open, and this time the wife was lying on the floor and the man on the sofa, and both were drunk. "These kind people that I spoke of, consented to keep the woman there while I went to see the husband. I got to the house but found that he had removed to a little room in a little back street. There he was lying on a bit of a shake-down. I roused him up and told him where he would find his wife. He said, ’What time is it?’ I said, ’Three o’clock in the afternoon.’ He had one shilling left and he took a cab and went and brought his wife home. "A few days afterwards I got them both to sign the pledge. The man was about the same age as his wife. He told me he did not know the taste of tea and coffee, he drank nothing but beer. He only had the clothes he stood up in. Four months passed after he signed the pledge. I met him one night and he had on a black suit of clothes and a watch and guard in his pocket. I was delighted to see him. Some time after that I went to address a very large temperance meeting. The hall was packed, and when I went on to the platform who should be there but this young fellow occupying the chair. What a sight it was to me! He pointed out to me his wife in the audience. There she sat, all smiling and well dressed. Time went on and I was the means not only of keeping them to the pledge but of bringing them to Christ; the Christ of the Gospel; the Christ that has bridged the gulf between God and the gutter; between the saint and the sot; between the pew and the slum. "Oh, what a pleasure it has been to see how that man works for Jesus. I went to his house some time after that. It was not in the back streets, although he worked there and got some people to sign the pledge. But he came out into the front street, and there was a knocker on his door. When I knocked, his wife admitted me into the sitting room. She told me that Sunday morning that her husband was out visiting the sick. I know that he brought many men to the Sunday morning Bible Class. He told me this story. ’Do you know,’ he said, ’When I used to spend all my money in the public house, oftentimes on the holidays I would take the landlord’s luggage to the station for the price of a pint of beer. Not long ago we had our holiday, and instead of taking the landlord’s luggage to the station I had a man to carry mine, and as we were going up the street with this man walking in front of us we passed one of the public houses where I had often spent my wages. The landlord was standing at the door. When he saw me passing he said, ’What does this mean?’ I said, ’It means that I am going to Ireland instead of thee.’ That man is being used to-day in God’s service. The blood of Jesus Christ cannot only save but it can keep." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 103: 06.10. CONVERSION IS A MIRACLE ======================================================================== CHAPTER X Conversion Is a Miracle When one turns from sin to Christ and thus becomes a new creature, it is entirely the work of God. He must feel a sense of his need and appreciate the power of the Saviour, but it is the power of the Holy Spirit of God that transforms him. The stories of men and women who have been brought to Christ are always thrilling. Every Christian ought to be a soul winner, and however many other obligations may rest upon him, the obligation of introducing others to Jesus Christ is of the first importance. If our lives are right; if we are wholly submitted to Him; if we are quick to do His bidding; if we have a familiarity with the Scriptures; if we have a confidence in the willingness of God to save; then we are emboldened to seek the lost and turn to those who are furthest away from Christ. To know that others have been won to Him is always an inspiration. Recently in one of our meetings in New York, the Salvation Army forces came to assist us, and they brought with them some men and women whose stories of conversion were truly remarkable. In quick succession they appeared before an audience of several thousand. The first speaker modestly began by saying: "What I am this afternoon, I am by the grace of God. For years and years I had been nothing but an every-day drunkard. Not far from where the Salvation Army held their open air meetings was an old lamp post. One Sunday afternoon I heard their music and their singing, and I made my way to this lamp post. If it had not been there I believe I would never have been saved, for I was so intoxicated I could not stand. "After the meeting was over one of the sisters came to me and said, ’My brother, wont you come along to the meeting? You need salvation.’ ’Yes,’ I said, ’I need something better than what I have got.’ At the same time I did not go--I finished up the day in the saloon. I came out into the open air again and the devil said, ’You cannot mix with these people they are too far above you.’ By and by there came a man who said he had been every bit as bad as I was, and he told me how his life had been changed. And my eyes were opened then and there, and I kept going to the meetings and I got some decent clothes, and a home of my own--though I had been working every day I had not a home to go to--but when I was converted all became changed. And now I am perfectly happy. My life is completely made over. I never think of drink and have no desire for it. I have a happy home and a "little lump of glory" for a wife. "When I first became a Christian the devil said to me, ’You cannot stay there with those people, there is a whisky bill you have not yet paid. Suppose you are out in one of those open air meetings and the saloon keeper should see you and say, ’Why, he owes me six dollars,’ what could you say then?’ I went to that saloon keeper and said to him, ’How much do I owe you?’ And he said, ’Six dollars.’ ’Well,’ I said, ’I want to pay it.’ I did pay it then and there, and glory to God He has kept me from then to this day." The next testimony was that of a former anarchist. Before he was converted he did not have a shirt to his back. He is now a business man in New York City, and prosperous. "It was about eighteen years ago that I was with a group of men in a back street attending a meeting of anarchists, when the police came along and broke up the meeting. I made off as fast as I could, but I did not get away fast enough, for the police officer caught me by the arm and took me away to prison. While I was there the Salvation Army came to preach to us. Thank God for that night! It was the first time I had heard salvation preached, for I come from the stock of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When I got out of goal I went to the Salvation Army. There stood on the platform that night two girls. They told me about Jesus. They spoke of salvation for the drunkard, but that did not appeal to me; they spoke of salvation for the unbeliever, but that did not appeal to me; and when they spoke of salvation for the thief, neither did that appeal to me. Then one night they said salvation is for the Jew. I said to myself, ’That means me.’ I came forward that night and got rid of my wretchedness and my misery; I came for salvation, and the Jew got salvation.’ "I moved away from the Bowery, for that was where I spent most of my time. I have walked down the Bowery many a night with not a place to lie down in, with not fifteen cents to pay for a bed, and not a shirt to my back. Thank God, I moved away from the Bowery. I started in business myself. To-day I have a splendid business connected with twenty houses on Broadway. Hallelujah! Godlessness, sin, vice, takes a man off Broadway and puts him on the Bowery; salvation takes a man from the Bowery and puts him on Broadway." In the year 1880, the second convert in the Salvation Army in the United States was made, and after years of testing he came before us to speak as follows: "I started to drink when about thirteen years of age, and I kept drinking till the Salvation Army came to New York in 1880. I read in the papers about seven sisters coming over to open up the forces in the United States. There used to be an old lady who came to our house to see my mother. She was a Methodist, and my mother was also a Methodist. She used to come there like an old grandmother and darn stockings. One day she said she would like to go to the Salvation Army, and asked me to take her. I was leading such a dissipated and drunken life, that I had no money to pay the car fare, but she slipped ten cents into my hand and we went to the Salvation Army that night. She was very deaf and got me away up to the front. The Spirit of God took hold of me, and the Salvation Army people, in the way they have, got after me. One of the officers came up and said, ’Are you saved?’ I said, ’No, I could not be saved.’ I managed to get out of the meeting that night without giving my heart to God. But all the time there was something taking hold of me. I tried to drown it in drink. On Sunday night with the old lady I was back at the Army again. On Monday night I was drunk again. On Tuesday night I knelt down and gave my heart to Jesus, and a Salvationist said, ’Now brother, if you want the Lord to do anything, you just tell Him.’ "Before that time I had served two terms in the penitentiary. Sometimes twice a week I would be brought into the Police Court for drunkenness. Every time I went out and got drunk I would get arrested. I tried to get away from this life and went out West. I thought if I got out there and got into new surroundings things would be different. I got as far as Hornsville, New York, and got arrested there. I got a little further West and was arrested again. But I never got rid of the kind of life I used to live until I came to the Lord Jesus Christ. That was thirty years ago. The Lord is not only able to save a man but, thank God, He is able to keep him." This is the story of an English baronet. He went wrong in England, came to America as a cow boy, was wild and reckless, but was soundly converted. He said: "I will not say much about myself. Perhaps you already know something about me. You may have seen my picture in the papers, telling of my past life, but I want to try to tell you, to the glory of God, how I was born again. "When I succeeded my father to one of the oldest titles in England, in the year 1907, I was wild and reckless. I came over to America. To escape from a wild scrape I beat the sheriff in Colorado into Utah. Then I went home to England in 1908 and took over the title of the estate, and I made the occasion simply one drunken spree. I was out for all the devilment I could get into. I hated the Church. I hated religion. I hated anything good. When I went down to the old church which is in the grounds of the estate, they said to me, ’What will you do about the minister?’ I said, ’I would kick the fool out, but the law would make me put in another.’ If anybody mentioned the Salvation Army to me, I would refer to them as thieves and liars. "I came back to America and immediately got involved in some more sprees, such as driving horses into saloons, and other devilment. Then I crossed again to London and started a wild-west show of my own in the London Hippodrome. I came back to America deeper in sin than ever. One day I was sitting in a saloon planning a fresh escapade when a Salvation Army sister came in with her tambourine and some ’War Cries.’ She looked at me and said, ’Are you a Christian?’ I said, ’No.’ She gave me the address of the Headquarters and asked me to come up. The bar-tender turned round and said, ’Go up and rope somebody.’ I said, ’I will go up.’ There was something different about me. I did not know what was wrong with myself I went up to the open-air meeting and was as quiet as a mouse. For five or six days I could not keep away from the Headquarters. I did not know what was wrong. I went out to see some moving pictures to see if I could see myself amongst them; then I went and had another drink; but back to the Salvation Army Headquarters I had to go. I was getting almost crazy. I reached the point when I had either to give in or kill myself. "I locked the door of my room and then got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me. Do you know, it seemed as if hell was turned loose around me. Everything said, ’You have gone too far; you are too big a sinner,’ I said, ’But Jesus died for me.’ I prayed and prayed, and I heard that voice come and say, ’Go and sin no more,’ It was just as if a finger had touched my soul. My prayer turned from one of supplication to one of thankfulness for what God had done for me. I was born again. I rose up with the old life gone, and my two greatest blessings are that all that old life is blotted out for ever, and that I have the knowledge that the Spirit of Jesus my Saviour is in me, and I dwell in Him. The union between us is perfect. I thank God for that." The following story was told by a man who had been a successful lawyer. He had gone down into the depths of sin and by the power of God’s grace had been redeemed. He began by saying:-- Must Jesus bear the Cross alone, And all the world go free? No, there’s a cross for you to bear, And there’s a cross for me. "It is a cross for me to come here and relate my experience, but I am glad to be here inasmuch as something I say may gladden someone who is discouraged. I was brought up in a Christian home. My mother was a good woman and my father was a clergyman. I went through college and the lower school before I took a single drop of strong drink. But when I took my first drink--I remember it well--it seemed to be something I had been looking for all my life and had never found before. From that time on I drank periodically. I had a lovely family and an honoured name, but I dragged it and my family into the dust. I struggled through my own strength to redeem myself, but I could not, nor can any man. I took cures, but they availed me not. I was in the hospital fourteen times, struggling up all the time, but falling down again. I seemed too hopeless. The light seemed to be fading for ever from the horizon, and darkness was coming over me. I was without hope. I would rather have fallen asleep in death, away from my companions, away from my loved ones, and never have been seen again, than to have lived the way I was. But through the providence of God, and through a kind wife and sister, I am able to stand here to-day. God bless the wives of the drunkards and drinking men, for if any will have a crown in heaven, it will be the wife of the drunkard who stands by him through thick and thin and who never gives him up. "I went away to a certain town and while there I noticed the title of a book called ’Twice Born Men.’ It aroused my curiosity, and I picked it up and commenced to read it. I came to the story of the puncher, a man who was formerly a prize fighter, and who had descended to the lowest scale of humanity. He had become a drunkard of the worst type and had gone one night into a saloon with murder in his heart. He was going home to kill his wife, when there flashed in upon him some strange influence, some mighty influence, some compelling influence--the power of the Almighty--and drove him into the Salvation Army barracks, and there he knelt at the Penitent form and God took the load from his back. When he rose up there was a new light in his eyes, a new heart in his breast, and he arose a new born man. He began to work for Christ. "As I read that story I said, ’If there is hope for the puncher, there is hope for me.’ I had been brought up a Christian, and during my drinking days I had attended church, and I had fought as every poor drunkard fights to redeem himself. But through my own strength I failed, and I want to say to you here, there is no man who suffers pangs of bitter conscience or from a broken heart more than a poor drunkard who cannot tear the chains from himself. Have pity on him. And I read about this man going out to save those who were lost, and then I read on further about Danny, a drunkard, who while in prison was visited by the puncher, who sought him out, and said, ’There is a better life for you.’ He took him to his home, and it was a new and happy home he took him to, with a happy wife and children, and he laboured with them. Danny the thief; Danny the drunkard; Danny the murderer. When the day had passed Danny went back to prison. But the power of God came over Danny in prison, and he said to himself, ’If God can save the puncher, God can save me.’ And then there came into his heart a light; and I said, ’If God can save the puncher; if God can save Danny--He can save me.’ And He did save me, and He has kept me, and from that day to this I have never desired a drop of alcohol. "I have gone through physical sufferings that are attendant upon it, but thanks be unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ, He gave me the victory, and I stand here to-day an example of the keeping power of God. Oh, my friends, what a new life it opened up for me. I thought I was a Christian once; but until I was thrown down, until I was crucified twice over, not until then could I be convinced that God could save me from this terrible curse. And I want to say that no Christian man ever came to me and told me that God could save me from wrong. Oh, what a duty rests upon Christians to speak to the drinking men! When God took me by the hand I had a new life and I wanted to go out and save drunkards, and I have been trying to save them since. I went to the Salvation Army Barracks in Jersey City, and if it was not for the Salvation Army, I do not know whether I could have held out or not, but when I felt distressed those brothers prayed and stood round me, and if there is anyone here who is discouraged, and who is away from God, and who goes round the corner to see his little children going to school because he cannot go home, if there is anyone who has left a broken-hearted mother or wife at home; get up and go home to them and give your heart to the Lord." The last story told at the meeting has to do with the complete transformation of a woman’s life. It is a modern miracle. The one who tells the story is growing old and feeble, but all are thrilled as they listen to her. This woman was educated in a young ladies’ seminary, and had a fairly good start in life among some of the leading people in Western New York. She married a man who became an habitual drunkard. She was sorely disappointed in him, and, little by little, she started to drink, till there came the time when she and her husband were possibly two of the worst drunkards the State had ever known. She had been in prison two hundred or more times. But now, up in the little town of Canandaigua where she lives, she is treasurer of the Salvation Army, and has been for fifteen years. She is respected by all who know her. Not only the people in the army, but the well-to-do people of the town all love and respect Mary Law. Her husband was not converted until recently. She had been praying fifteen years for him, and one night she prayed specially for him, the last half hour of the meeting passed, the last twenty minutes, and then Charlie came. "I thank God for what He did for me," she said. "Before the Salvation Army got hold of me, I was one of the worst drunkards in the state of New York. The first night they came I wanted to know what the Salvation Army was like. Just like any other old drunken sot, I wanted to know what the Salvation Army was going to be. So I walked out as far as the Police Station, and I said, ’Where is the Salvation Army going to be to-night?’ ’Well,’ said the police officer, ’it is going to be up at the Presbyterian Church, but I want to tell you one thing. If you go up there you will get run in,’ I thought to myself for a moment, if I stay out I will get run in, so I might just as well go up there and get run in. I went up, and I suppose I was a terrible-looking object. I got into a corner near the door, so that if anything turned up I could get out. I had just one quarter in my purse when they came to take up the collection, and I put that quarter in. I believe if I had been outside I would have been run in. When I got outside I wanted that quarter for a bottle of whisky. I then went up to the Police Station. When the Police Justice saw me coming in he said, ’Where have you been to-night?’ I said, ’Up to the Salvation Army meeting.’ ’Well,’ he said, ’let me give you a little bit of advice. Keep right on going.’ "The first night they had their meeting in the hall I went to the penitent form, and the next night I got saved. That was over fifteen years ago. I have neither tasted nor handled one drop of intoxicating liquor from that day to this. I did not have a home fit for a dog to live in. I hardly ever knew what it was to be without a black eye. I have been pounded until I did not know where I was; until I was dazed. And when I came to, and saw where I was, I was lying on the floor and Charlie was lying on the bed with his dirty old clothes on, and if anybody has gone through hell, it is I. But I thank God to-day I have got just as good a husband as there is in the state of New York. I have just as comfortable a home as anybody could wish, and every dollar of it is paid for. Before that the saloons got the money, but I thank God to-day the saloons don’t get any of my money. "Charlie would get arrested, and when I saw him locked up, I would do something that would get me locked up too. We went in together and we came out together, We would not be out for long when back we would go again. If one went to the lock-up, the other went, and that is the way we carried on through life. "An election campaign was being held many years ago, and Charlie went up the street to vote. He came home drunk. I suppose it was election whisky, but he brought some home, and we had a drink together. We went to bed on Tuesday night, and woke up intending to go to work the next day. I asked one of the neighbours what time it was, and she said it is almost night now, but where have you been for the last two or three days? We had gone to sleep on Tuesday night and did not wake up till Thursday night. I went back, and we took another drink that night, and did not wake up till Saturday night. If my life, sixteen years ago, was not hell upon earth, I do not know what you call hell. "Just about the time when I first started out to serve God in Canandaigua, I was an outcast. Nobody cared for me. Nobody would notice me. When they saw me they would go out of their way to avoid me. Nobody wanted to come near me. But when I was drunk I thought I was about as good as they were, and sometimes I gave them a little of my mind, and that was the way I often got arrested. But to-day those very folks, who were my very worst enemies, who tried to hurt me and who did everything they could to injure me, are my very best friends. I have friends among the rich, and friends among the poor. They do not shun my home, they come and see me, and if I am sick some of the wealthy people come to see how I am getting along, and if I have everything I want. For all this I have to thank God and the Salvation Army. "I have been kicked and knocked and pounded until I have been almost dead. Charlie did the kicking and the pounding, but I was as much to blame as he was. I was drunk and so was he, but I was never the one to go to the police officer and get a warrant out for my husband. If he pounded me until I could hardly breathe, and he happened to get arrested for it, I managed to get arrested too. I cannot tell you how many times we have been in jail in the little village of Elgin, and in the penitentiary too. But I would rather go back to the penitentiary to-day and spend my days there than to live again the life that I lived before I was converted. I thank God and the Salvation Army to-night that I do not have to carry black eyes, and that I can go home in peace. "I have a nice comfortable home, and it is all paid for, and if it had not been for the Salvation Army coming to Canandaigua, I would have been in a drunkard’s hell to-day. When the Army first came there, I was like a great many others. I wanted to see what the Salvation Army was like, and out of curiosity I went to a meeting. But I was too drunk to understand anything about it. The next night I went there quite sober, and I gave my heart to the Lord. That was seventeen years ago, and I thank God that since then I have tried to do my utmost to serve Him to the best of my ability. And it is my determination, as long as He gives me breath, to do for Him all I can, to spread His Kingdom on earth." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 104: 06.11. A FINAL WORD ======================================================================== CHAPTER XI A Final Word As has been suggested, it is necessary, if one is to be a successful personal worker, to know well the Scriptures. The incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God, when it is received into the human heart as good and honest ground, will, without question, produce a satisfactory harvest. If you should attempt to win one to Christ, who insists that he is out of the Kingdom because of his doubts, tell him to come with his doubts, and Christ will set him free. "My doubts are round about me like a chain," said one in the audience, with whom one of our personal workers was labouring, and the worker said quickly, "Come, chains and all." The doubter hesitated a second, then said, "I will," and as he rose to move forward, he testified that the chains were snapped, and he was free. If the one you are seeking to introduce to Christ says that he is such a great sinner, and because of this he cannot come, then tell him to come with his sins. He wants him just as he is, and stands ready to set him free from the sins that have enslaved him and blinded his eyes so that he could not see Christ as he stood waiting to save him. It is a good thing to start by giving the assurance to the unsaved that God is Love, and that His love is boundless. This may be easily proved by the Scriptures. Tell him also that Christ is not only able, but ready and willing to save. There are abundant evidences of this in the New Testament. Tell him that no one is too sinful; none too far from God; none too depraved by sin to be saved. There are evidences on every side of us of many such seeking and finding pardon. It is well to start with such a declaration as is found in John 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." Insist upon it that Christ has laid down the conditions, and that if we are to be saved, we must honestly and sincerely, with all our doubts and sins, receive Him as a personal Saviour. Make it very plain to the one with whom you are dealing that when one comes into the Kingdom he is born into it. There is no other way than this, for Jesus said, John 3:3, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." If the joy of regeneration is to be experienced, it is necessary that the acceptance of Jesus as a Saviour should be definite, and that there should be sufficient confidence in God’s Word to lead us to believe that when we have fulfilled our part of the contract the Saviour will keep His. If we are born into the Kingdom then we start as babes in Christ. We are expected to grow. If we are to grow, we must have proper food; this is found in the Word of God. We must be faithful in prayer. We must have proper light and air; this is found by walking in fellowship with Christ, and learning His will as we study the Scripture, we seek with joy to do it. We may stumble as little children do, but He will help us, and if at times we seem to fail, He will hold us fast. As little babes in Christ it will not be strange that at times we grow discouraged and faint-hearted, but if we press on to know the Lord we shall find our strength increasing and our temptations decreasing until at last we may enter into a continuous and joyous Christian experience. Tell the one with whom you are dealing that the assurance of salvation is possible. Jesus said, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). And the Apostle John wrote, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God" (1 John 5:13). State very plainly the fact that we are saved by faith and not by feeling, and being thus saved we are kept by Divine Power. When we have passed through the darkness of doubt into the light of our conscious acceptance of Christ, and when on the authority of God’s Word we have the assurance of salvation, then let it ever be remembered that we must seek to bring others to Him. And as we labour day by day our own faith will grow stronger, our hope will be brighter, and our consciousness of the presence of Christ will be more marked. Day by day we may walk with Him and talk with Him until at last we shall see Him as He is and then we may hear Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant ... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 105: 07.00. THE SECRET OF A HAPPY DAY: QUIET HOUR MEDITATIONS ======================================================================== The Secret of a Happy Day: Quiet Hour Meditations by J. Wilbur Chapman Contents Introduction First Day "The LORD is my shepherd" Second Day "The LORD IS my shepherd" Third Day "The LORD is MY shepherd" Fourth Day "The LORD is MY shepherd" Fifth Day "The LORD is my SHEPHERD" Sixth Day "The LORD is my SHEPHERD" Seventh Day "I shall not WANT" Eighth Day "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" Ninth Day "He leadeth me" Tenth Day "Beside the still waters" Eleventh Day "He restoreth my soul" Twelfth Day "He restoreth my soul" Thirteenth Day "He RESTORETH my soul" Fourteenth Day "He leadeth me" Fifteenth Day "He leadeth me" Sixteenth Day "In the PATHS of righteousness" Seventeenth Day "In the paths of righteousness" Eighteenth Day "For his name’s sake" Nineteenth Day "Yea, though I WALK through the valley" Twentieth Day "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" Twenty-first Day "I will fear no evil" Twenty-second day "Thou art with me" Twenty-third Day "Thy rod" Twenty-fourth Day "And thy staff" Twenty-fifth Day "Thou preparest a table before me" Twenty-sixth Day "In the presence of mine enemies" Twenty-seventh Day "Thou anointest my head with oil" Twenty-eighth Day "My cup runneth over" Twenty-ninth Day "Goodness and mercy shall follow me" Thirtieth Day "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever" Thirty-first Day Conclusion Copied by Stephen Ross for WholesomeWords.org from The Secret of a Happy Day: Quiet Hour Meditations by J. Wilbur Chapman. Boston: United Society of Christian Endeavor, ©1899. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 106: 07.000. INTRODUCTION ======================================================================== Introduction Three thousand years have passed away since David sung this sweet song, and yet it is as new and fresh as if it had come to us this morning. No passage of Scripture has been more variously named or quoted. One has called it his creed, learned at his mother’s knee, repeated every day of his life, and to be lived by until the good Shepherd was seen face to face. Another has named it the minstrel song, and as such it has sung hope into the hopeless, strength to the weak, courage into the army of the disappointed; and it shall continue its ministry until the last one of God’s children is called home. Then it will wing its way back to God from whom it came. Henry Ward Beecher said it was "the nightingale song," for it sung its sweetest music in the night-time of disappointment and distress. In my own thought of it, it has always been the song of the meadow-lark, for it is the habit of this bird to sing only as it leaves the earth, and the higher it flies, the sweeter it sings. So this sweet song of David’s is appreciated only by those who are "in the world and not of it," and who, according to Paul’s injunction, live in the heavenlies. The Christian in touch with the world appreciates it not. One of my friends told me of his standing beside the open grave of his mother, when suddenly one of these meadow-larks started up from the dry grass by his side; and, as it rose, it began its song, rising in its flight until it could not be seen, but its music fell like a benediction upon the sorrowing hearts. Upon every child of God standing beside the grave of buried hopes and lost joys this psalm breathes its blessing. Its position is not to be forgotten, for the place where God has set it makes it a comfort to us all. It follows the twenty-second psalm, not because of the order of the numerals, and precedes the twenty-fourth, not for the same reason, but because the twenty-second is the psalm of the cross, and that is past, while the twenty-fourth is the psalm of the glory, and this is future. Thus these two psalms rise before us like two mountain peaks, leaving the twenty-third a fruitful, restful, refreshing valley between, with truth, not for the end of life alone, but for every step of the journey from the point of regeneration to the moment of translation to the skies. "As a brook among the hills, making music through the year, and refreshing weary and thirsty wayfarers, so these words have spoken to the heart of many: of the peace of the fold, of the limpid lake, of the green glen, of the cool of overhanging rocks, of the comfort of protectorship, of the home where the spread table and the anointed head bespeak the day’s work done, and mirror the complete rest and satisfaction of the soul. Then, taking every similitude, the Psalmist flings the necklace of pearls at the feet of Christ, declaring that this would be the condition of soul for all who knew his voice, and followed him as their shepherd." Every tense may be rendered by the present. "I do not want; he leads me; he makes me lie down; he refreshes; he guides; I fear no evil; they follow me." Not in the days that are to be, but to-day. Not in some scene which is yet to unfold or in some distant future, but here and now, if only thou wilt take him from this moment to be thy Shepherd, and wilt commence to obey his lead, and trust his watchful care. For me to say anything new about this twenty-third psalm is indeed a difficult task, but to say anything at all that would be helpful is to put a writer’s readers in his debt. In a little clipping which came one day to my table my eye lighted on an arrangement of the truth of this song of the meadow-lark which has never left me. It is well known that when once one has caught a vision of the constellations in the heavens, he cannot possibly in after nights be blind to them. In this same way I have never read the twenty-third psalm since that day when it has not fallen into six divisions, each with a name and each name beginning with the same letter. This is the order, and for its helpfulness to me I owe my unknown friend a debt of gratitude. Possession: The LORD is my shepherd, Psalms 23:1. Position: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters, Psalms 23:2 Promise:He restoreth my soul, Psalms 23:3. Progress: Yea, though I walk through the valley, Psalms 23:4. Provision: Thou preparest a table before me, Psalms 23:5. Prospect:Goodness and mercy shall follow me, Psalms 23:6. This is in a very peculiar way the song for the quiet hour. One could not live in its truth without having sweet fellowship with Him of whom the psalm sings. It has been said that every valley in the Scriptures has in it a well or spring of water. Whether this be true or not, we do know that, if this psalm be likened unto a valley, then we may find here that water which springs up into everlasting life, and which if a man keep drinking he shall never thirst. May God make this little book a blessing to the many Comrades of the Quiet Hour. The messages were delivered at the Detroit Quiet Hour meetings, when the divisions suggested above were followed; but now for the sake of my readers they are presented in the form of a meditation for each day of the month. May every reader in every day of thought meet Him with whom it is our privilege each moment to abide. "I have a Friend so precious, So very dear to me, He loves me with such tender love, He loves so faithfully, I could not live apart from him, I love to feel him nigh; And so we dwell together, My Lord and I." —J. WILBUR CHAPMAN Copied by Stephen Ross for WholesomeWords.org from The Secret of a Happy Day: Quiet Hour Meditations by J. Wilbur Chapman. Boston: United Society of Christian Endeavor, ©1899. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 107: 07.01. FIRST DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== First Day: "The LORD is my shepherd." It is said that whenever we find the Lord’s name written in small capitals in the Old Testament, we are to remember that the thought is to be concerning Jehovah. The Israelites spoke His name but once a year, and then the high priest was the speaker, and the place was the most holy place. They had such a reverence, not only for Jehovah but also for His very name, that they would not set their feet upon a piece of parchment for fear His name might be upon the other side. And He whom Israel thus reverenced is your Lord for this day. Is there any reason why it may not be a day of victory? In different places in the Old Testament this very name Jehovah is used with added emphasis, as if to make plain what He would be to Israel. Jehovah; that is, "I am that I am," Exodus 6:3. Since we live in the New Testament times, it is our privilege to finish the sentence, making Him to be all that our souls long for. I am thy life, thy strength, thy soul’s delight; "I will guide thee with mine eye." Jehovah-jireh; Genesis 22:14; that is, "The Lord will provide." "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Every hour of this day His strength shall counteract thy weakness; His rest shall be in place of thy restlessness; He himself shall guard thee from every ill. Jehovah-nissi; that is, "Jehovah my banner," Exodus 17:15. There was to be fighting that day with Amalek, and Moses knew that victory was his because Jehovah was his secret of strength. There will be temptations for you this day, but temptation is not sin; yielding is sin. But no temptation can overtake you and cause defeat if the Lord be given the mastery of your life. Jehovah-shalom; that is, "Jehovah send peace", Judges 6:24. And He will give peace in the place of unrest, because He gives Himself. It is every Christian’s privilege to claim the Lord in all His fullness. Do this for to-day, and victory is certain. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Realize, if you can, your own weakness. This will show you how dangerous your position is and how liable you are to fall. 2. Conceive, if you can, His mighty strength, and then realize that He is yours to stand between you and every temptation and trial. 3. Over and over this day keep saying, "If God be for me, who can be against me?" 4. Commit your way to Him, and let Him be responsible at least for this one day of your life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 108: 07.02. SECOND DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== Second Day: "The LORD IS my shepherd." He is our present helper. There is such a tendency to put Him out of our lives. In truth He is with us all the time; in practical experience He is in the heavens, and we only wait for the day when we shall see Him. But He is yours to-day; "Lo, I am with you alway" is for you now. Cultivate the habit of thinking of Him as at your side. Speak to Him as if He were your dearest friend. Walk with Him; go only where He would go or you could take Him. Take no step of which He could not approve. He will thus become your present help in every time of trouble and of need. "Sometimes I’m faint and weary; He knows that I am weak; And, as He bids me lean on Him, His help I gladly seek; He leads me in the paths of light, Beneath a sunny sky; And so we dwell together, My Lord and I." We sometimes make the mistake of setting our stakes too far ahead, as marking out the time when we shall have fellowship with Him; but for to-morrow and its needs we need not pray, but "just for to-day." Let this day mark a new experience. Begin the day by appropriating Him, with all that that means for He is yours. Then set the mark on until ten o’clock, and say, "For those two hours I will walk in the thought that He is mine. Then lengthen the time until the noon hour; and whatsoever you do, whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. If half the day may be thus lived, the whole day may be. In all this time make every act of yours true worship. As you cleanse your hands, let it draw you to Him whose blood may keep you unspotted from the world; as you put on your garments, let it remind you of Him whom you have been commanded "to put on"; as you drink, forget not Him who said, "I am ... the water of life"; and, as you eat, call to your remembrance your Lord who said, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger." Dr. Floyd Tompkins says, "Thus every act of every day may be like a sacrament." And a day thus lived, if repeated for a week, may become the habit of your life, and all because the Lord IS yours. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Do not live in the past to-day; for, if you were a sinner above all others, then God for Christ’s sake "hath put away thy sin," and forgiven sin with God is remembered no more forever. 2. Do not live in the future. He will care for you to-morrow, and you may never see it. Why take thought for it? 3. Live in the present. He is yours to-day, and for all the hours of this day you will have what all the saints in all the ages have had to make them great and good. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 109: 07.03. THIRD DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== Third Day: "The LORD is MY shepherd." Martin Luther once said that most of experimental religion would be found in the personal and possessive pronouns of the Bible, and that is certainly true of this psalm, for here we find only six verses, and they contain only one hundred and eighteen words, and in this brief list twenty-eight pronouns may be counted. He called this psalm a little Bible, and well he might; for, if we had only this, we should certainly come to know the Lord, and when we know Him we always trust Him. In the brevity of it it is like a short ladder, but it is long enough to reach from the gloom of this present evil day up to the brightness and glory of the perfect day; it is really, if properly understood, a ladder of three rounds; namely, out of self; into Christ, and into glory. But there is really no part of the psalm that brings more comfort than your appropriation of Him in the use of this pronoun "my." It will bring rejoicing where otherwise there would be despair; it will inspire a song where there might have been a groan; it will put a silver lining on every cloud; it will gird you with strength for every temptation. Say it over and over to-day, "He is my shepherd; He is MY shepherd." This little word will make a paradise of earth, and fill with glory the home where you live and the place where you work; in a word, it will lift you up to the heavenlies. The water-spider forms a sac-like cottage, and fills it with air; then shuts herself in and sinks into the sea. She then anchors it and there brings forth her young, she practically lives in an upper world, although surrounded by all the dangers of the great deep. This is your privilege for this day and every day to live in the very atmosphere of heaven while working down here in the sin-tainted atmosphere of this world. It is this personal appropriation of Christ that makes this world like heaven. It is this sweet fellowship that opens our eyes, so that again and again we cannot help saying, "Thou knowest that I love thee." "He knows how much I love Him, He knows I love Him well, But with what love He loveth me My tongue can never tell; It is an everlasting love, An ever-rich supply; And so we love each other, My Lord and I." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Put aside generalities to-day. It is wonderful to say, The Lord is a shepherd, but it is better far to say, He is MINE. Let this day be lived in the preciousness of it. 2. If He is yours, then He will be to you what every shepherd in the New Testament is pictured as being to the sheep. He will seek you when wandering, find you when lost, hold you when found, and shield you from every harm. 3. There is no excuse for failure to-day with such a shepherd, and Him all yours. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 110: 07.04. FOURTH DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== Fourth Day: "The Lord is MY shepherd." This psalm belongs to us if we can truthfully say these first five words; then the rest of the psalm is our spiritual possession. One of my friends was telling me the story of a traveler in Switzerland. He was a Christian. One day he came across a little shepherd boy to whom he told the story of the good Shepherd who had given his life for the sheep. He tried to teach him the twenty-third psalm but the little fellow could not read, and so made slow work of it. At last the man said to him, "I will tell you how to read a part of it on your fingers. Just take the first five words, and you will have a word for each finger." So the little fellow counted the words on his fingers, "The Lord is my Shepherd." This was only to keep them in his memory. A while after that the same traveler was passing through Switzerland again, and thought he would look up his little shepherd boy. He came to the place where he had lived, and was met by the mother of the lad, who in answer to the inquiry concerning her boy said that he was dead. The gentleman expressed his sorrow, and said that he had hoped to see him again. Then the mother said, "Are you the man that taught my boy to say something on his fingers?" He replied that he was. Then she said to him, "My boy, just before he died, told me to tell you, if you ever came this way again, that he died holding the fourth finger of his hand." The little fellow was just laying claim to the possessive pronoun "my." I think I should like to die like that. But it is better far to know that we may live claiming this promise. He is my shepherd — all that He is is mine, His mind, His peace, His meekness, His gentleness, indeed, His spirit, all my own. There is surely thus no excuse for failure, and there can be no reason why we should go astray. "Thou art my light and my salvation; Of whom shall I be afraid?" Suggestions for To-day. 1. Try to realize that everything in the good Shepherd is yours for to-day just as truly as if there were no one else to be considered but yourself. 2. By an act of appropriating faith lay claim to everything in Him that you lack in yourself, His patience for your impatience, His strength for your weakness. In every case claim from Him the grace opposite to your failing. 3. Remember that no mistake of yours in the past affects His love for to-day. The record is all clean; you can make it what you will. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 111: 07.05. FIFTH DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== Fifth Day: "The Lord is my SHEPHERD." David knew how he loved his sheep, and so no more endearing name could be given to his Lord. He is called "the chief Shepherd" by Peter in 1 Peter 5:4; for Peter was looking for Him to appear, and he knew Him to be the chiefest among ten thousand. And Peter’s longing may be fulfilled to-day. So live this day in the light, the hope, and the power of His appearing. In John he is called "the good Shepherd." John 10:11. "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Then in the same chapter is given a description of what would really seem to be the sheepfold, when it is written, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." John 10:28. What a resting-place that is! What security is there! But the next verse increases the sweetness and power of the thought. "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand." John 10:29. And it is as if the Father’s hand had just been placed over us as we rest in the hand of Christ. This is indeed the sheepfold; and, if this is our place in the plan of God, then surely nothing can molest us or make us afraid. But the next verse really increases the comfort of the thought, when Jesus says, "I and my Father are one." John 10:30. One in holding us out to the end. One in protecting us from danger and from harm. One in love toward us; for, having loved us, the love will be unto the end. Granted the fact that yours is a life of discouragement, that everything in life seems to be against you. Every day may be a day of blessing, every hour an hour of victory, if but lived in the thought that Jehovah in His might is your shepherd, in sympathy, in love, and in helpfulness. Suggestions for To-day. 1. It is the shepherd’s business to lead his sheep to the place where they may find food to eat and water to drink. Our Shepherd will do this for you to-day. 2. But you must be most sensitive to His leadings. It would be well to pause frequently to-day, and see whether He is really leading you on. 3. Do not dare go through the day without feeding upon His word. One verse may drive away the adversary of your soul. Stop often and take a deep breath of the very life of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 112: 07.06. SIXTH DAY - "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD" ======================================================================== Sixth Day: "The Lord is my SHEPHERD." There are two things to be constantly borne in mind in connection with the shepherd’s life, not only that he cares for the weak sheep, and goes seeking for wandering sheep, but— 1. The shepherd generally in his watch-care over the flock takes his position on some place of elevation. In this way he is able to protect the interests of his sheep, and our Shepherd is thus exalted, and at the right hand of God He has taken his seat. He is not standing, for that would indicate a work not completed, and after the order of men, but seated, as our high priest. Hebrews 10:11-12. Do you remember how, when our Master took with Him Peter and James and John and went into the garden of Gethsemane, He left the chosen three and went into the deepening shadows alone to pray? In the midst of His prayer He came back again to his disciples for a word of sympathy, and found them sleeping. Have you ever noticed the sentence recorded just at that point? It is this: "For their eyes were heavy." It is the explanation given by our Master, and recorded by the Holy Ghost, for their apparent failure. It was as if He had said, "Poor men, they are tired out; they have had no rest; their eyes were heavy; it is not because they are indifferent." And it is just this kind of explanation which He is making before God to-day, for you and for me, in the time of our weakness. 2. The shepherd always stands between his sheep and danger, and our Shepherd does the same. If we are living where we ought to live, and in right relations with Him, He wilt turn aside the darts of the evil one; but, if our walk is out of fellowship, and our hearts are not right, it will be perfectly natural and easy for us to fall. So to-day, when temptation comes, put Christ between you and it. When sin finds lodgment in your heart, break with it instantly in His power, for the least sin, encouraged and not forsaken, will lead you to awful defeat and despair. No child of God is strong enough to resist evil if he is out of fellowship with Christ. Put Him between you and every thought of sin. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Confess sin instantly to-day. Bear in mind that He is at the right hand of God to intercede for you. 2. Bear in mind that men who have made shipwreck of their lives began with a sin as small as the sin in your life of yesterday. 3. For to-day guard the point where you failed yesterday, not by the power of resolution, but by placing Him between you and that danger. He is ever the secret of victory over sin. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 113: 07.07. SEVENTH DAY - "I SHALL NOT WANT" ======================================================================== Seventh Day: "I shall not WANT." You will notice David does not say, "I shall not need;" it is by far a better word he uses, "I shall not want." We often want many things we do not need; but, the more we come to understand that the Lord is our Shepherd, the more our wants and needs become identical, and we can say, as David said, "I shall not want." If this twenty-third psalm be the valley of our present-day experience, then we shall want for nothing he does not supply. "I shall not want rest. ’He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.’ "I shall not want drink. ’He leadeth me beside the still waters.’ "I shall not want forgiveness. ’He restoreth my soul.’ "I shall not want guidance. ’He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.’ "I shall not want companionship. ’Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.’ "I shall not want comfort. ’Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ "I shall not want food. ’Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.’ "I shall not want joy. ’Thou hast anointed my head with oil.’ "I shall not want anything. ’My cup runneth over.’ "I shall not want anything in this life. ’Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.’ "I shall not want anything in eternity. For ’I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’ "That is what David said he would find in the good Shepherd. And one day it occurred to me to see how Psalms 23:1-6 was fulfilled in Christ. This is what I found in Christ’s own words— "’I am the good Shepherd.’ "Thou shalt not want rest. ’Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11:28) "Thou shalt not want drink. ’If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ (John 7:37) "Thou shalt not want forgiveness. ’The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.’ (Matthew 9:6) "Thou shalt not want guidance. ’I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ (John 14:6) "Thou shalt not want companionship. ’Lo, I am with you alway.’ (Matthew 28:20) "Thou shalt not want comfort. ’The Father...shall give you another Comforter.’ (John 14:16) "Thou shalt not want food. ’I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger.’ (John 6:35) "Thou shalt not want joy. ’That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.’ (John 15:11) "Thou shalt not want anything. ’Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.’ (John 16:23) "Thou shalt not want anything in this life. ’Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.’ (Matthew 6:33) "Thou shalt not want anything in eternity. ’I go to prepare a place for you...that where I am, there ye may be also.’" (John 14:2-3) —Mrs. John R. Mott. Suggestions for To-day. 1. When you pray this morning, plead God’s promise. Be very definite about it. He had you in mind when he made it. 2. As you walk to-day, go in the consciousness that "no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). 3. If for a brief moment you fear that you are out of fellowship with Him, get alone with Him. Plead His promise for His own presence, peace, and power; and He will keep his word. You shall not want. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 114: 07.08. EIGHTH DAY - "HE MAKETH ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES" ======================================================================== Eighth Day: He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. "The Christian life has two elements in it, the contemplative and the active; and both of these are richly provided for." The text above introduces us to the contemplative. "In a hilly country like Palestine, under a burning sun, only the glens or valleys were covered with the green herbage, which was refreshing and satisfying to the flock. If I should write that the Lord hath green pastures for us, I could present the thought of the riches of His provision for us; but, when I say He will lead us into this place of refreshment, I present to you the thought of His goodness and His grace." "But the slopes of Palestine, bared to the hot sun of the East, are not more parched and barren than the portion of the world through which you will be obliged to walk this day; so without the green pastures it will be a sad experience. What are these green pastures but the Scriptures of truth, always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted?" As with a new-born babe food is the requisite, proper nourishment it must have, so the fresh pasture of the word of God is opened, the knowledge of His will revealed, the delight of His fullness unfolded, and perfect satisfaction is offered. "When by faith we are enabled to find rest in the promises, we are like the sheep that lie down, and we find both provender and peace, rest and refreshment." It is said that hungry sheep never lie down. Why is it, then, that so many of God’s children seem famished and are not comfortable in Him? It is because they are taken up with the world, because they are feeding upon husks, because they have turned their faces away from the truth, but more truly still because they have refused to hear His voice leading them into all this restfulness and satisfaction. It is God’s will that we should be filled with peace. Suggestions for To-day. Begin the day in quietness. Get alone, if only for a little while, with God. Give Him the right of way in your life; breathe in of His gracious presence; keep very still before Him, and let this be in the early part of the day. Why in the Morning? At a meeting of Morning Bible-Readers held lately in Calcutta the following reasons were given why we should read the Bible and pray in the morning. 1. We owe first things to God. 2. We are most likely to be able to secure a quiet time in the morning. 3. There is much danger that Bible-study and prayer will be crowded out entirely if not enjoyed in the morning. 4. The mind is then free and fresh. 5. First impressions last. 6. Bible-study and prayer make a good foundation for the day. 7. We should seek a high-level start. 8. By this we are put on guard against sin. Psalms 119:9, Psalms 119:11 9. We shall most probably have occasion during the day to use what we get in the morning. One should not go out into wild districts without weapons and ammunition. 10. Many good and holy persons recommend this as one of the chief secrets of deep spiritual living. 11. There is biblical authority for the habit. See Psalms 5:3, and elsewhere. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 115: 07.09. NINTH DAY - "HE LEADETH ME" ======================================================================== Ninth Day: "He leadeth me." "The other side of the Christian experience is to be found in gracious activity. We not only think, but we act. We are not always lying down to feed or because we are satisfied, but we are journeying on toward perfection. But it must all be under His leadership. The shepherd leads the way; the flock, confiding from experience in His wisdom and goodness, follow. ’And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.’ John 10:4. In ordinary circumstances the shepherd does not feed his flock; he simply guides them where they may gather for themselves; but there are times when it is otherwise. Take in the autumn, when the pastures are dried up, and in winter in places covered with snow, he must furnish them food or they die; and so it is not an uncommon sight to see the shepherd all day long in the bushy trees, cutting down the branches upon whose green leaves and tender twigs the sheep are entirely supported. Mary was the sister sitting at her Master’s feet in contemplation, Martha the sister busy serving, constantly in action; but, as they both dwelt in one house, so must both these elements of the Christian life be in one heart." "It is a mistake to think the life may be right without the green-pasture experience, and quite as much of a mistake to think that there can be genuine satisfaction without service. So our good Shepherd will feed us as He leads us out to live for Him." There must be the reflection of His life in all we do. There must be the inflection of His voice in all we say. There must be the heavenly atmosphere of His presence in all that we are. Our Christian life is a failure if it is not possible for all with whom we come in contact to take "knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus." "He knows how I am longing Some weary soul to win, And so He bids me go and speak The loving word to him; He bids me tell His wondrous love, And why He came to die; And so we work together; My Lord and I." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Begin the day by enthroning Him in your life. Make Him your king as never before, and yield to Him your loyal submission. 2. Make a covenant with Him that there shall be only one path for you this day, and that the way in which He will walk before you. 3. Make a firm resolve that the day shall make some person happier, his burden lighter, his trouble easier to bear, because you touched them with your influence. 4. Make grateful acknowledgment to the Lord for the privilege of walking with Him one entire day. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 116: 07.10. TENTH DAY - "BESIDE THE STILL WATERS" ======================================================================== Tenth Day: "Beside the still waters." It is at least suggestive that in the contemplation of the whole of this second verse of this psalm we have in outline the possible experience of every child of God for every day; first the green pastures, then His undisputed leadership, then the still waters. Every day must begin with feeding, go on in active service, and end with quiet contemplation of His mercy and His goodness. So, because it is often more difficult to use a victory than to gain one, this suggestion is made for the day. It is said that sheep will never drink of the turbulent stream, but only at the still waters. How true it is that there must be still hours in our lives if we would grow and be girded with strength! The day which began with feeding must end in quiet thoughtfulness if we would keep in fellowship with the Lord, and absorb His beauty of holiness. What are these "still waters" but the influence and graces of the Spirit of God? His Spirit attends us in various ways like "waters"—in the plural number, you will notice—to cleanse, to refresh, and to strengthen. But He cannot be appreciated or appropriated in His transforming power until we have learned the lesson of waiting before Him in perfect quietness. I have found six positions for the child of God,— In His hand for safety.—John 10:28. At His feet to be taught.—Luke 8:35. On His shoulder for support.—Luke 15:5. At His side for fellowship.—John 21:20. In His arms for rest.—Deuteronomy 33:27. Beside the still waters for refreshment.—Psalms 23:2 "That silence is golden indeed in which the Holy Spirit meets with the souls of His saints. Not to raging waves of strife, but to peaceful streams of holy love, does the Spirit of God conduct the chosen sheep. He is a dove, not an eagle; the dew, not the hurricane. And our Lord leads us to these still waters; we could not go of ourselves." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Yield absolutely for this whole day to His leadership; make no reservation. 2. Commit to memory Psalms 119:11, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." 1 Corinthians 10:13. 3. When tempted, claim the victory, because of the Lord’s promise. When irritable, claim His peace and rest. 4. When the day is over, confess to Him your mistakes, thank Him for your triumph over weakness and sin. 5. Before you close your eyes in sleep talk to Him as to an earthly friend; tell Him your joys, your sorrows, your disappointments, and the failures you have made. "I tell Him all my sorrows, I tell Him all my joys, I tell Him all that pleases me, I tell Him what annoys; He tells me what I ought to do, He tells me what to try; And so we talk together, My Lord and I." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 117: 07.11. ELEVENTH DAY - "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL" ======================================================================== Eleventh Day: "He restoreth my soul." "When the soul grows sorrowful, He revives it; when it is sinful, He sanctifies it; when it is weak, He strengthens it. He does it. His ministers could not do it if He did not; his word would not avail by itself." The believer is liable to fall; but to fall and to fall away are two quite different experiences. Peter fell, until he struck the prayers of Him who said, "Satan hath desired you, but I have prayed for thee." The fifteenth of Luke is the lost chapter for the Christian; and it is possible for us, like the coin, to be lost and still be in the house; for our place to be as an adornment for our risen Head, as the lost piece of silver, and yet be on the floor and for that reason useless; but, as the sheep had its shepherd, the money its owner, the prodigal his father, so we have our Lord to whom we may offer the prayer, "Restore my soul, O Thou shepherd of the sheep." The same hand which first rescued us from ruin reclaims us from wandering; and, when He restores, it is to the same standing that we had before our fall from fellowship. Some one has said that that expression of the prodigal’s father, "Bring forth the best robe," is literally, "Bring forth the same old robe he used to wear," which teaches that, when the prodigal went home, it was to have the same standing he had before his awful blunder. We must have restoration, for of what use would be the green pastures and a soul out of tune with God? We must have placed upon us His hand, and hear His voice saying, "Peace, be still"; for of what use would be the still waters if our souls were turbulent and distressed? You may be lost to the holiness, the happiness, the peace, the power, that once was yours. If so, you need His restoring touch. If you were ever higher spiritually than you are to-day, you have fallen just the difference between that higher point and this. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Find out what it is that has robbed you of your peace and joy. The responsibility cannot be upon God; it must be with you. 2. Confess your faults to God or to men as you may have sinned against them. Remember you are no more nearly right with God than with your fellow men. 3. Believe that what you have honestly confessed He will freely forgive. 4. Breathe in once again of His fullness. 5. Ask Him for special help for the day, which may be yours on the morrow; then rest in Him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 118: 07.12. TWELFTH DAY - "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL" ======================================================================== Twelfth Day: "He restoreth my soul." There are certain tests by means of which we may know whether we are in need of restoring grace. Sometimes, alas! we so hurry along in the race of life that we do not realize how far we have drifted from God. The literal rendering of Hebrews 2:1 may be, "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should drift away from them." Heedlessness often causes drifting. These may be tests, according to Mr. Meyer:— 1. Restlessness, a general dissatisfaction with our selves and everything about us. Nothing seems right; everybody is wrong; we are content with no one thing beyond a passing moment. This is a sure indication of a drifting away from Him who said, "Take my yoke upon you ... and ye shall find rest unto your souls." "I have His yoke upon me, And easy ’t is to bear; In the burden which He carries I gladly take a share For then it is my happiness To have Him always nigh,-- To bear the yoke together, My Lord and I." 2. A lack of interest in the things of the Kingdom. How can two walk together except they be agreed? Since all the power of heaven contributes to the advancement of the kingdom of God, it is clear proof that your life is contrary to the plan of God if your interest is waning. 3. A spirit of impatience and intolerance with others is one of the surest indications that there is a letting down in spiritual force and fervor. "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness." So, if it is your disposition to criticize and not to restore, you are in need of restoring grace yourself. We ought to have the forgiving spirit, the spirit of charity, the spirit of helpfulness toward the weaker member of the body of Christ. Any other disposition than this is not His mind; but, if we have failed, we need not be discouraged. "Have you missed in your aim? Well, the mark is still shining; Did you faint in the race? Well, take breath for the next; Did the clouds drive you back? But see yonder their lining; Were you tempted and fell? Let it serve for a text." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Claim the opposite grace from Christ; that is, if impatient, claim His patience; if weak, His strength; if restless, His peace; if defeated, take Hhim as your victory over every enemy. 2. In your relations to the church and every interest flowing out from it live for one day as you think He would live whose name you bear. 3. In all your dealings with men until this day is passed govern your actions by the question, "What would Jesus do?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 119: 07.13. THIRTEENTH DAY - "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL" ======================================================================== Thirteenth Day: "He RESTORETH my soul." There are certain causes for spiritual declension, and they are always to be found in ourselves. It is true we have the old nature with us, while at the same time we have the new nature, the life of God, but it is no license for us to sin, for Paul writes, "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." If you lived yesterday in the flesh, it was at the cost of the Spirit. If you live to-day in the Spirit, it shall be at the cost of the flesh. There is really no excuse for failure if we are living as we ought to live, with Christ between us and temptation, and Christ between us and sin. But, because we have failed, it is well to know the reason; and it may be because— 1. There was some neglect of the Bible—the bread of life, the water of life, the staff of life; and he will be a weak, trembling, falling Christian who lets one day pass without a little portion of it running through his life—like the light to reveal imperfections and like the water to make the temple clean. 2. It may be that there is some unconfessed sin hiding away in the secret recesses of your heart. The children of God do not leap into grievous sin at a bound; there was first some little sin that tarried, was courted, then encouraged to stay, and finally conceived and brought forth a brood of iniquity, which was strong enough to overthrow the ripest saint. 3. It may be that, when God called you to some service, you disobeyed; and disobedience puts you out of tune with heaven. The fact that you are in the world proves that you are indispensable to the working out of God’s plan; the fact that He called you to do something for Him clearly indicates that His will must be yours, or there is confusion and strife. But, whatever the cause, He waits to restore you to the old strength, the lost peace, the old, sweet song that was formerly yours; and He will do it to-day. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Start the day with the word of God, and remember that when Jesus won the victory over Satan He said, "It is written." 2. Confess your sins that are past; and, if you fail to-day, confess to Him instantly. 3. Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it. 4. Make a covenant, just for this day. "Lord, for to-morrow and its needs I do not pray; Keep me from stain of sin Just for to-day; Let me both diligently work And duly pray, Let me be kind in deed and word, Just for to-day; Let me be slow to do my will, Prompt to obey; Help me to sacrifice myself, Just for to-day. Let me no wrong nor idle word Unthinking say, Set thou Thy seal upon my lips, Just for to-day. So for the morrow and its needs I do not pray But keep me, guide me, hold me Lord, Just for to-day." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 120: 07.14. FOURTEENTH DAY - "HE LEADETH ME" ======================================================================== Fourteenth Day: "He leadeth me." "The Christian delights to be obedient, but it is the obedience of love to which he is constrained by the example of his Master." If he is leading us, two or three things are true. 1. He will go before us, and He will select no way in which His sheep could not travel. "So on I go, not knowing; I would not if I might; I’d rather walk in the dark with God Than go alone in the light. I’d rather walk by faith with Him Than go alone by sight." If it be the path of sorrow, it is turned into rejoicing because He is with us; if it be the way of disappointment, change the d to an h and it will become "his appointment," and it will be our joy. 2. We must be like His bond-slaves as we go on; it is not, however, the slavery in which shackles keep us from freedom, but the spirit of that text, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." It does not mean liberty for us to do as we please, for that is lawlessness; but rather liberty for Him to do as He pleases with us; and that is all joy. It is possible under certain conditions for the marble to be molded like clay in the hands of the potter, and thus to become the statue of an angel; but this is nothing compared with the transformation which may be wrought in our lives, did He but have the right of way in them. 3. There can be only one way through this world for the child of God if this text be true, and that is the way where He can travel before us. In our attitude toward the world and our walk through it we must go only as He leads. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Make a firm resolve that this day of your life shall be for His glory, and so let Him lead you where He wills. 2. Remember His words, that "inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, you did it unto me." Lift some one’s burden to-day; cheer some one’s downcast soul. This will please Him. 3. If there is some one against whom you have a grudge, do that one a favor to-day. The chances are, your feelings will change entirely before the week is ended. Live and act to-day as you think Jesus would. This is allowing Him to lead you. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 121: 07.15. FIFTEENTH DAY - "HE LEADETH ME" ======================================================================== Fifteenth Day: "He leadeth me." There are certain ways by means of which we may surely detect the Lord’s leadings. His own example is an illustration. What did he do in circumstances so nearly like our own? His instructions given his disciples in the Gospels may serve as guideposts for us, pointing out the way in which we should walk. The advice of a friend may be the very clearest teaching of God. The preaching of a sermon or the singing of a hymn may open clearly the way. Those inner promptings of the Spirit which come we know not how are as a rule the leadings of God. And, if two of these agree, it is at least well to consider carefully whether this may not be God’s call to walk in the way of his own choosing. However, Henry Drummond has said in his "Ideal Life," "Let it be remembered that it requires a well-kept life to will to do the will of God. It requires a well-kept life to do the will of God, and even a better-kept life to will to do his will. To be willing is a rarer grace than to be doing the will of God, For he who is willing may sometimes have nothing to do, and must only be willing to wait, and it is easier far to be doing God’s will than to be willing to have nothing to do; it is easier far to be working for Christ than it is to be willing to cease. So there is nothing rarer in the world today than the truly willing soul, and there is nothing more worth coveting than the will to will God’s will. There is no grander possession for any Christian life than the transparently simple mechanism of a sincerely obeying heart; and, if we could keep the machinery clear, there would be lives in thousands doing God’s will on earth even as it is done in heaven." "Father, I know that all my life Is portioned out for me; The changes that will surely come I do not fear to see: I ask thee for a present mind, Intent on pleasing thee." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Tell him that for to-day at least you are perfectly willing to be led. 2. Wait patiently before you move, that you may know whether he is really going in advance of you. Remember that much of the chafing and disappointment and fret of life have come because you were impatient and moved before the pillar of cloud led you. 3. Do not say, "I cannot know his will; I am stupid about it all." This matters little to Christ, even if it be true. If he cannot make you understand in one way, he will in another. It is the business of the Shepherd to lead the willing sheep aright. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 122: 07.16. SIXTEENTH DAY - "IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS" ======================================================================== Sixteenth Day: "In the PATHS of righteousness." "In another verse we were told that the Shepherd led beside still waters, and the inference might have been that, when the feet were cut, or the muscles strained by the clamber up the rocky mountain track, or that, when the course lay amid deep, damp glens, overshadowed by heavy forests and overhanging rocks, that at such times the sheep was following his own wild way, outside the tender guidance of its Lord. And so the Psalmist takes up the metaphor again, and tells us that there are other walks by which the Shepherd is leading us to our home. Not always beside the gentle streamlet flow, but sometimes by the foaming torrent; not always over the delicate grass, but sometimes up the stony mountain track; not always in the sunshine, but sometimes through the valley of the shadow of death. But whichever way it is, it is the right way and it is the way home." John McNeill says it is literally, "He leadeth me in the sheep-tracks." If this be so, he leads in many different ways, from many different directions, but always in every way to the fold. But the word "paths," says Rev. Ford C. Ottman, has another meaning in the Hebrew: it is literally wagon ruts. David had a fine reason for the use of this term. In the Holy Land the roads were not good, and the wagon wheels were constructed so as to meet this difficulty. These wheels were perhaps eighteen to twenty inches in width; and, as wheel after wheel would pass over the ground, it would wear a smooth path, and many a time David leading his sheep home would take to the wagon ruts because it was the easiest path for himself and his sheep. But all this is as nothing when compared with the way in which the Lord will lead us if we but yield absolutely to his leadership. "Jesus, day by day Near us in life’s way, Naught of dangers will we reckon, Simply haste where thou dost beckon. Lead us by the hand To our Fatherland. Thus our path shall be Daily traced by thee. Draw thou nearer when ’tis rougher; Help us most when most we suffer; And, when all is o’er, Ope to us thy door." Suggestions for To-day. 1. You can bear the trials of the day because the way, though thorny, leads home. 2. You can endure the hardships of the passing hour, for strong souls always graduate from suffering into glory. 3. You can meet your temptations, fierce though they be, for God has with the temptation provided the way of escape. 4. This way is our good Shepherd, who goes before in every way of darkness and of trial, and leads us home. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 123: 07.17. SEVENTEENTH DAY - "IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS" ======================================================================== Seventeenth Day: "In the paths of righteousness." And what can this mean but right paths? In the wilderness of the desert there are no raised paths, the paths being merely tracks. They may run in different directions, and be most confusing. There must therefore be one who may choose the right paths for us. This our Shepherd is pledged to do. There have been times when you thought God’s way was not best; there was nothing for you but mystery. But remember, "All things work together for good," not always happiness, nor peace, nor prosperity, in the judgment of men, but always for good. In a cotton-mill every part of the work in all the factory works together for cotton cloth. In your life all is for good if you are where God would have you be. "Only do not judge God’s ways whilst they are in progress. Wait till the plan is complete. Wait till the tapestry is finished and you can see the other side, where the pattern will be worked out. Wait till the silver paper is torn off the worsted work and the blending of the colors is disclosed. Wait till you have got out of the vale to the mountain brow. Wait till in the light of eternity God can call you aside and reveal to you his purposes. Meanwhile trust. All his ways are pleasantness and his paths peace." Once again we say:— The fact that you are in the world proves that you are indispensable to God, and the fact that you are where you are, if it has not been of your own choosing, proves that God needs you there to work out his plan. You see only the "wrong side" of your life, like the weaver of tapestry. God sees the "right side," and weaves on, and shall until the work is ended. "My life is but the weaving Between my God and me; I may but choose the colors He weaveth steadily. Full oft he weaveth sorrow, And I in foolish pride Forget he sees the upper, And I the under, side." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Trust for today, where you cannot understand him. 2. Remember he said, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Wait for the hereafter. 3. Tell him over and over, as the way seems closing up before you, that you will never doubt him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 124: 07.18. EIGHTEENTH DAY - "FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE" ======================================================================== Eighteenth Day: "For his name’s sake." There could no greater blessing come into your life than that you should look up in every circumstance, and say,— "Lead thou me on O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone." But we do not need to plead for this leadership. He is pledged to it by the greatness of his own great name. The name indicates the honor and character of God, and these are committed to your care and mine. "The leading of a saint is guaranteed by their immutability." His name is— Wonderful. You can think of nothing in the way of blessing he will not press into your life. Counsellor. You can imagine no circumstance so trying that his judgment will fail you, nothing so trivial that he will turn away from the settlement of it. The Everlasting Father. The love of a father, the patience of a father, the helpfulness of a father, are his; but they are to be multiplied by infinity, and they are yours forever. Claim their helpfulness in your life, they are your inheritance. The Prince of peace. By that name he is pledged to you to bring rest in place of restlessness, harmony instead of confusion, and peace in the place of strife and worry. "Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin The blood of Jesus whispers peace within. "Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed: To do the will of Jesus,—this is rest. "It is enough earth’s struggles soon shall cease, And Jesus call us to heaven’s perfect peace." Suggestions for To-day. Remember three things give us the right to use a name:— 1. A legal relation. You have a right to use the name of your partner in business, and you are bound to him by a law which cannot be broken. 2. A life relation. You have the right to use the name of your father, and you are born from above, having the very life of God. 3. A love relation. Your wife has the right and the privilege of your name, and you are bound to God by a love which nothing in time or eternity can affect. Because of these things you have the right to claim the blessing of his name, for the sake of it he is pledged to hear your claim and honor it. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 125: 07.19. NINETEENTH DAY - "YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY" ======================================================================== Nineteenth Day: "Yea, though I WALK through the valley." There is probably no verse in Scripture with which we are more familiar than this. When the fear of death has taken hold upon us, we have said these words; and, when death was actually upon our loved ones, with shining faces they whispered this text. There are two interpretations for this expression, the first of which is that the reference is not so much to the future as to the present. "A valley is a low place with mountains on either side. Enemies may be posted on these mountains to shoot their arrows at the traveler, as ever was the case in the East. The Psalmist, however, said he would fear no evil, not even the fiery darts of the wicked one; for the Lord was with him." And David meant to say that in every trial of life, when enemies were on every hand, we need not lose hope. All the promises of God are ours for such a time as that, and the music of heaven cheers us on our way. One of my friends, the Rev. Ford C. Ottman, has said:— ’’One night from the old ruined castle of the Drachenfels I saw the sun set over the western hills, and heard the chiming of the evening bells along the Rhine; but darkness began to gather, and I must make my way to the little town at the foot of the mountain. "Perhaps I was half-way down, when I came upon one of the most beautiful spots that it has been my privilege ever to see; it was a veritable bower of fairies; the branches of the trees were twined together; the moss was softer than the softest carpet under your feet. ’’Passing through, while the shadows of the evening fell, that place suddenly became vocal with song. Never have I heard such music as that. I stood still in perfect wonder. It seemed almost like coming to the gates of heaven. "When I arrived at the foot of the mountain, I told a friend of this experience. ’O,’ said he, ’you were in the Nachtigallenthal, the Vale of the Nightingales; they sing there every night.’" When the sun of your life has seemed to set and hope is well nigh dead, and no star of promised day seems to rise in the sky of your life, listen. You will hear him say, "I will never leave thee"; and your soul will make a quick response, "I will fear no evil." There will be discouragements to-day and every day; but, as there is no valley without a well in it or a spring of water, you may in the midst of it all stoop and drink of the delight of his presence with you. Did he not say, I am with you in all your ways? "IT IS BETTER FURTHER ON." I hear it singing, singing sweetly, Softly in an undertone; Singing as if God had taught it, "It is better further on.’’ Night and day it sings the same song, Sings it while I sit alone. Sings it so the heart can hear it, "It is better further on." Sits upon the grave and sings it, Sings it when the heart would groan, Sings it when the shadows darken. "It is better further on." Further on! how much further? Count the milestones one by one? No, no counting, only trusting, "It is better further on.’’ Suggestions for To-day. 1. What if the clouds are above you? Remember that ever since that day when "a cloud received him out of their sight" he has been behind every cloud. James Whitcomb Riley’s verse is full of truth,— "But always keep rememberin’, when cares your path enshroud, That God has lots of sunshine to spill behind the cloud." 2. Remember that it is a "walk through," and you need not stop today where you halted yesterday. 3. What if you did fail? His love has not in any way wavered toward you. Those were sweet words of Browning’s:— "Have you found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smell sweet, Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved, and hold complete. "Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I’ll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again. "I find earth not gray, but rosy; Heaven not grim, but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All’s blue." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 126: 07.20. TWENTIETH DAY - "I WALK THOUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH" ======================================================================== Twentieth Day: "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." But there is another application, and it is the one most precious to us, possibly because most often given. The words speak of that time when we may pass by the way of death into His presence whom having not seen we have loved. "’I walk,’ says the Psalmist; and dead sheep cannot walk, they must be carried." "As if the believer did not quicken his pace when he came to die, but calmly walked with God. To walk indicates the steady advance of a soul, which knows its road, knows its end, resolves to follow the path, feels quite safe, and is therefore perfectly calm and composed. The dying saint is not in a flurry; he does not run as if he were alarmed, nor stand still as though he would go no further. He is not confounded nor ashamed, and therefore keeps to his old pace." Observe also that he is walking through the valley. "We go through the dark tunnel of death and emerge into the light of immortality. We do not die we do but sleep to wake in glory. Death is not the house, but the porch; not the goal, but the passage to it.’’ It is well called a valley. "The storm breaks on the mountain; but the valley is the place of quietude, and thus full often the last days of the Christian are the most peaceful in his whole career. The mountain is bleak and bare, but the valley is rich with golden sheaves, and many a saint has reaped more joy and knowledge when he came to die than he ever knew while he lived." These are the words of the sainted Spurgeon. I doubt not that if he could speak today he would only add to the beauty of his description of our going home to be with Christ. "Lie still in the darkness; Sleep safe in the night, The Lord is a watchman, The Lamb is a light. Jehovah, he holdeth The sea and the land, The earth in the hollow Of his mighty hand. All’s well in the darkness, All’s well in the light, The Lamb is a watchman, The Lamb is a light." Suggestions for To-day. 1. This may be your last day upon earth. If so, would your pace through the valley be the same as your walk of yesterday? 2. If "to live is Christ and to die is gain," and your life is anything less than Christ, then what will your death be? 3. If the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day, then what is it that casts the shadows on your path? It must be something between you and the light. 4. If to-morrow should mark your entrance into glory, then live today as you will wish you had when you see him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 127: 07.21. TWENTY-FIRST DAY - "I WILL FEAR NO EVIL" ======================================================================== Twenty-first Day: "I will fear no evil." He does not say, "There shall not be any evil," but, "I shall not fear it." It must have been because he knew that he had only to do with the shadow of death, for death in its substance had been removed and only its shadow remained. "Some one has said that where there is a shadow there must be a light somewhere, and so there is. Death stands by the side of the highway in which we have to travel, and the light of heaven shining upon him throws a shadow across our path. Let us then rejoice that there is a light beyond. Nobody is afraid of a shadow, for a shadow cannot stop a man’s pathway even for a moment. The shadow of a dog cannot bite; the shadow of a sword cannot kill; the shadow of death cannot destroy us." Why therefore should we be afraid? "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casteth out fear. Nothing else can do it. You may argue against fear. You may deride it. You may try and shame it. But all will be in vain. If you would master it, you must expel it by the trust which is born of love. A man comes home fain, and famished. His nature craves for food; but as he enters into his house, he learns that his child suddenly stricken with fever is lying at the point of death, and in a moment he has forgotten his hunger in the paroxysm of love and grief with which he bends over the tiny feverish form, and hastens to moisten the dry lips. Thus the lower passions are subdued in the soul by the higher and so it happens that the most timid spirit which is conscious of the presence of the good Shepherd can sing as it passes onward through the gloom, and its notes vibrate with the buoyancy of a courage which cannot flinch or falter." Suggestions for To-day. 1. If you are living where God intended you should, if this valley of shadows be accepted as a present-day experience, then Christ will be between you and every ill. 2. It is not God’s plan that anything should separate you from him; and, if anything stands between you, it is either with your permission or by your choice. 3. Evil cannot separate you from him at any trifle. The table on which was placed the show-bread of the tabernacle had about the bread a golden band, and a hand’s breadth away was a second band; so that, if any pieces fell away, it must be over these two golden bands, which was impossible. Round about us are the two strong arms of God; and, whether the psalm be present or future, I can say, "I will fear no evil." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 128: 07.22. TWENTY-SECOND DAY - "THOU ART WITH ME" ======================================================================== Twenty-second Day: "Thou art with me." Do you notice the change in the person of the pronoun here? In other instances the Psalmist has spoken of his Lord in the third person; but now, as he comes into the shadows, he comes nearer to him; and says "Thou." It is all very well to speak in general terms when all goes well with us; but the darkness is upon us and the heart-strings almost snap; it is better far to avail ourselves of our birthright privilege and say, "Thou art with me;" I will fear no evil. Doubtless this day shall mean something of disappointment and trial, but the sting will be taken out of it when we remember that He is with us "whose fan is in his hand." The fan was a rude instrument used to separate the chaff from the wheat, and our Lord is dealing with us for the same reason. He will not permit more of trial than we can stand or need. Let us rejoice that the fan is not in the hands of our enemies—they would make us suffer too much, nor in the hands of our friends—for they would make it too easy, but in His who walks with us every hour of every day. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Remember that whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth. 2. Picture Job’s suffering and Paul’s trials; then thank God that, while you have nothing so heavy, you do have Christ. 3. Remember that if we suffer with him, we shall also share in his glory. Then thank God for trial. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 129: 07.23. TWENTY-THIRD DAY - "THE ROD" ======================================================================== Twenty-third Day: "Thy rod." A shepherd’s rod is that with which he defends his sheep. It was not unlikely that in passing through the valley serious danger would meet the flock, and the shepherd’s business is to drive the evil away. Surely this is a comfort for us. There will be danger before you today. Temptations will spring upon you from most unexpected places. You will fail but for the Shepherd’s care. There are certain things which may surely be likened to the shepherd’s rod. 1. The Bible. When our Lord met the devil in the time of his temptation, to all of his insidious suggestions he said, "It is written." This is the real secret of victory. You cannot drive him away with holy feelings, with heavenly experiences, but only with God’s word well known, and well used. 2. Prayer. There are so many forms of prayer, none of which are more helpful than the ejaculatory. If we pray only at stated times, Satan may be there ready to tempt us. But the prayer that rises in the midst of business and when you are suddenly beset by danger takes him unawares and makes him flee from us. Prayer is like the shepherd’s rod. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Learn at least one new verse of Scripture for each day. Wield it as the sword of the Spirit. 2. Read one chapter of the book of Proverbs daily. Singularly enough, there are just thirty-one. Then live in the atmosphere of the portion you read. 3. Pray often. "Be instant in prayer." Let prayer strike the key-note for the day, and prayer through the day keep you in harmony with the key-note and the day will be a song of victory. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 130: 07.24. TWENTY-FOURTH DAY - "AND THE STAFF" ======================================================================== Twenty-fourth Day: "And thy staff." The shepherd’s staff is his crook, bent or hooked at one end. No shepherd is complete without it. It is used for three different purposes. Beneath it the sheep pass to be counted as they go into the fold. By means of it the sheep fallen into the pit are rescued. In the hands of the shepherd it is sometimes used for correction or punishment. Let it encourage you this day to know that your name is not unknown to the Lord. In the Old Testament days the high priest wore over his heart the breastplate on which were inscribed the names of the children of Israel. Our names in these New Testament days are written over his heart. God sees us there. But, alas! in spite of all this, many of us have fallen. David did. Peter did. But He whose name is love stoops to lift us up. You cannot get away from his love. David came up from the pit to write his best psalms, and Peter to preach one of the world’s greatest sermons. So may you. Many of us have needed the rod of correction. If your heart is aching and your home desolate, it would be well to stop and ask whether this is not God speaking to you in this way because you would not hear in any other. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Remember that temptation is a compliment paid you by the tempter. He sees that there is something in you worth the having, and tempts you that he may gain it. 2. Sin is yielding; it is opening the door, permitting the sinful thought for which you were in no way responsible to tarry with you. 3. Remember that God will take your part against sin if you will let him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 131: 07.25. TWENTY-FIFTH DAY - "THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME" ======================================================================== Twenty-fifth Day: "Thou preparest a table before me." There is a sudden change here in the figure of the psalm. In many of the preceding thoughts we have been walking, but now the picture is that of feasting. But this is always true; when one walks with God, he always feasts. And it is a prepared feast; God had our needs in mind when he spreads it. There is there that which will overcome our discontent, and there is food which will cause us all to rejoice even in the face of disappointment. "I say it over and over, and yet again to-day It rests my heart as surely as it did yesterday; ’It is the Lord’s appointment;’ Whatever my work may be, I am sure in my heart of hearts He has offered it for me. "I must say it over and over, and yet again to-day, For my work is somewhat different from yesterday; ’It is the Lord’s appointment;’ It quiets my restless will Like voice of tender mother, And my heart and will are still. "I will say it over and over, this and every day, Whatsoever the Master orders, come what may, ’It is the Lord’s appointment;’ For only his love can see What is wisest, best, and right, What is truly good for me." He places before us just that which may produce well-rounded, symmetrical Christian character. But, as we might starve in the presence of a well-laden board, so in spite of all God’s gracious provision we may remain children in weakness, and miserably fail; on the other hand, he that eateth shall never hunger. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Whatever other interpretation may be given to our feeding upon Christ, this at least is true: we must take time to do it, and time must be taken to-day to satisfy the soul’s needs. 2. It is not what we eat, but what is digested that gives strength to the body; so it is what you shall meditate upon to-day that will make you strong in the Lord. 3. Gratitude is the golden key that unlocks and keeps open the rich storehouse of God’s best gifts; so make your requests known "with thanksgiving" for the prepared table. 4. "Be careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything." Php 4:6. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 132: 07.26. TWENTY-SIXTH DAY - "IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES" ======================================================================== Twenty-sixth Day: "In the presence of mine enemies." "The good man has his enemies; he would not be like his Lord if he had not. If we were without enemies, we might fear that we were not the friends of God, for the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Yet see the quietude of the godly man in spite of and in the face of his enemies." There was an old Roman custom, which may have prevailed even in David’s time, which would shed light on this part of the psalm. When a soldier had won a victory and taken the enemy prisoners, a feast was made for him, and the captives were bound to the pillars of the banqueting-hall; and in their presence he was made to sit down and eat. This certainly may be realized in your experience and mine. A man’s foes are they of his own household, and our worst enemies are from within. With some it is temper; with others, pride; with still others, unholy thoughts; and with many, the disposition to actual outbreaking sin. But there is deliverance from all, and there may be so complete a submission to Christ that he, becoming the master of your life, will bind them all and cause you to feast in their presence. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Open your eyes to the fact that you are not free from danger. Sin is not dead, and the old nature may be easily revived. 2. Remember that sin is mightier than your resolution or your will. Determination not to sin is not the secret of victory. 3. Put your whole life in the undisputed control of Christ. He is the secret of victory always and everywhere. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 133: 07.27. TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY - "THOU ANOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL" ======================================================================== Twenty-seventh Day: "Thou annointest my head with oil." "Why anoint the head with oil? Ah! David has in mind a picture of the high priest in the sanctuary. In the most holy place of the tabernacle God revealed himself, but a curtain hung before it, and no one could pass that curtain and look upon God and live; but once a year, on the great day of atonement, it was the privilege of the high priest to pass within the veil, and stand in the presence of God. Just before the veil opened, and he passed in, his head must be anointed with oil. Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. This anointing was the symbol of the Spirit’s work preparing him to go in before God. It is written, ’Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.’ We are not yet ready to come face to face with God, but when the good Shepherd is leading us through the valley, and we come to heaven’s gate, just before we pass in, the Holy Spirit will finish his work of sanctification, and we, by him, will be prepared to meet God. ’Thou anointest my head with oil.’" Yet there is an anointing for the present time, which each may claim. 1. Oil to make the face shine. Psalms 104:15. It is not possible to come in touch with the Holy Ghost, and not reveal the fact in our lives. 2. The oil of gladness. Psalms 45:7. Satan cannot rob us of our life, but he may deprive us of our joy. It is the work of Christ to bring us to heaven, but it is the work of the Spirit to bring heaven to us now. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Whatever your past experience may have been in Christ, claim a fresh anointing for today from the Holy Ghost. 2. Remember that every Christian is a priest, but he cannot execute the priestly office without unction, and hence we must go day by day to God the Holy Ghost, that we may have our heads anointed with oil. 3. Remember that a priest in touch with any dead thing could not execute his office. Ask yourself over and over today, "Is my heart right in the sight of God?" 4. Live for one day, at least, a separated life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 134: 07.28. TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY - "MY CUP RUNNETH OVER" ======================================================================== Twenty-seventh Day: "Thou annointest my head with oil." "Why anoint the head with oil? Ah! David has in mind a picture of the high priest in the sanctuary. In the most holy place of the tabernacle God revealed himself, but a curtain hung before it, and no one could pass that curtain and look upon God and live; but once a year, on the great day of atonement, it was the privilege of the high priest to pass within the veil, and stand in the presence of God. Just before the veil opened, and he passed in, his head must be anointed with oil. Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. This anointing was the symbol of the Spirit’s work preparing him to go in before God. It is written, ’Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.’ We are not yet ready to come face to face with God, but when the good Shepherd is leading us through the valley, and we come to heaven’s gate, just before we pass in, the Holy Spirit will finish his work of sanctification, and we, by him, will be prepared to meet God. ’Thou anointest my head with oil.’" Yet there is an anointing for the present time, which each may claim. 1. Oil to make the face shine. Psalms 104:15. It is not possible to come in touch with the Holy Ghost, and not reveal the fact in our lives. 2. The oil of gladness. Psalms 45:7. Satan cannot rob us of our life, but he may deprive us of our joy. It is the work of Christ to bring us to heaven, but it is the work of the Spirit to bring heaven to us now. Suggestions for To-day. 1. Whatever your past experience may have been in Christ, claim a fresh anointing for today from the Holy Ghost. 2. Remember that every Christian is a priest, but he cannot execute the priestly office without unction, and hence we must go day by day to God the Holy Ghost, that we may have our heads anointed with oil. 3. Remember that a priest in touch with any dead thing could not execute his office. Ask yourself over and over today, "Is my heart right in the sight of God?" 4. Live for one day, at least, a separated life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 135: 07.29. TWENTY-NINTH DAY - "GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME" ======================================================================== Twenty-ninth Day: "Goodness and mercy shall follow me." "This sentence may be read, ’Only goodness and mercy shall follow me,’ for there shall be unmingled mercy in our history. These twin guardian angels will always be at my back and my beck. Just as when great princes go abroad they must not go unattended, so it is with the believer. Goodness and mercy follow him always. ’All the days of his life,’ the black days as well as the bright days, the days of fasting as well as the days of feasting, the dreary days of winter as well as the bright days of summer. Goodness supplies our needs, and mercy blots out our sins." It is Mr. Meyer who says that. The shepherd always goes before his sheep; goodness and mercy like shepherd dogs come after. What a protection for the sheep! how safe the journey may be! He Leadeth Me. "In pastures green? Not always: sometimes He Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me In weary ways, where heavy shadows be; "Out of the sunshine, warm and soft and bright, Out of the sunshine into the darkest night. I oft would faint with sorrow and affright, "Only for this; I know He holds my hand; So, whether in green or desert land, I trust, although I may not understand. "And by still waters? No, not always so; Ofttimes the heavy tempests round me blow, And o’er my soul the waves and billows go; "But, when the storm beats loudest, and I cry Aloud for help, the Master standeth by, And whispers to my soul, ’Lo, it is I!’ "Above the tempest would I hear him say, ’Beyond this darkness lies the perfect day, In every path of thine I lead the way.’ "So, whether on the hill-tops high and fair I dwell, or in sunless valleys where The shadows lie, what matter? He is there. "And more than this: where’er the pathways lead, He gives no helpless, broken reed, But his own hand, sufficient for my need. "So, where He leads me I can safely go, And in the blest hereafter I shall know Why, in his wisdom, he hath led me so." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Remember this is one of "all the days," and God had you in mind when he made the pledge of help. 2. Be sure the God who kept his word with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not begin to break his word with you. 3. Trust him when you cannot understand him; rejoice even when darkness seems to settle about you. 4. Walk boldly, knowing he is leading, and goodness and mercy are following close behind. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 136: 07.30. THIRTIETH DAY - "I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER" ======================================================================== Thirtieth Day: "I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever." A servant abideth not in the house forever; but the son doth. And we are the children of God. "While I am here, I will be a child at home with my God. The whole world shall be his house to me; and, when I ascend into the upper chamber, I shall not change my company, nor even change the house. I shall only be in the upper story forever."—Spurgeon. "This should be at once the crown of all our hopes for the future and the one great lesson taught us by all the vicissitudes of life." There is an end in which it shall be made plain why we had darkness here and sorrowed many times, and as we look back over all the way, we shall find that every road, crooked though it seemed, led heavenward. "The light of the Word shines brighter and brighter As wider and wider God opens my eyes; My trials and burdens seem lighter and lighter, And fairer and fairer the heavenly prize. "The wealth of this world seems poorer and poorer As further and further it fades from my sight; The prize of my calling seems surer and surer, As straighter and straighter I walk in the light. "My waiting on Jesus seems dearer and dearer As longer and longer I lean on his breast; Without him, I’m nothing, seems clearer and clearer, And more and more sweetly in Jesus I rest. "My joy in my Saviour is growing and growing, And stronger and stronger I trust in his word; My peace like a river is flowing and flowing, As harder and harder I lean on the Lord." Suggestions for To-day. 1. Do not complain at the trials and vexations of this short journey. This is not your home, and these are only incidents by the way. 2. Ask God for this day to help you live as Jesus would if he were in your place. 3. Remember that temptation, trial, sorrow, and disappointment all help in the weaving of the robe which we shall wear up yonder. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 137: 07.31. THIRTY-FIRST DAY - CONCLUSION ======================================================================== Thirty-first Day: Conclusion. In the war of the Rebellion a little drummer boy was injured in the battle. He was carried into the hospital, and one of the soldiers near by heard the doctors say the case was fatal. Immediately he said, "Doctor, if this is true, I must send word to his mother, for I promised to look after this boy." The letter went away to the North, and as soon as possible the mother came. The doctors met her at the hospital to say that she could not see her boy. He had fallen into a stupor, and if aroused would die in a paroxysm of pain; for he was then beyond all hope. But you cannot bind up a mother’s love with physician’s rules, and so she said, "Doctor, if you will permit me to go in, I will not speak to him; but I should like to sit beside him as he dies." Permission was given her, and she took her place by his side. She kept her word and said nothing to her child; but, when she saw by the expression of his face that he was suffering, she leaned over and put her hand upon his brow. There is something peculiar about the touch of a mother’s hand, and the dying soldier boy felt it. His eyes did not open, but she saw his lips moving; and, bending over, she heard him saying over and over, "I knew you’d come; I knew you’d come." And this I say of our good Shepherd. O thou Shepherd of the sheep, in every hour of trial and time of disappointment and night of misunderstanding "I know that thou wilt come." And he will. Suggestions for To-day. Say over and over the whole psalm, emphasizing the personal and possessive pronouns as here given:— Psalms 23:1-6. David’s confidence in God. A Psalm of David. 1. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. 3. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. THE END. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 138: S. ETERNITY ======================================================================== Eternity By J. Wilbur Chapman My text this evening is one word. Ever since I have been a minister I have asked God to help me say two words and say them properly. It is said that Whitefield used to say "Oh!" in such a fashion that his hearers were convicted of sin and some of them would cry out for mercy. The first word that I would like to say properly is "Lost." I have never yet spoken it as it ought to be uttered. I have tried my best and failed. If I could say it as the Son of God appreciated it when, fainting beneath the weight of the Cross, He staggered up Calvary’s hill, I would not need to preach. To me it is the most striking word in the English language. The other word I have asked God to help me say is the word of my text. It is written in Isaiah 57:15. It is the word "ETERNITY." A thousand years from to-night we shall be somewhere. Ten thousand years from to-night. Increase the multiple and you only increase the truth. How can a man speak a word that takes in the ages of time and all beyond it. ETERNITY! The old cobbler sat day after day on his little bench, hammering away at the shoes, and before him was an old-fashioned clock. After a while he thought that the pendulum of the clock was speaking to him and he heard it say as it swung one way, - Eternity, and when it went the other way, - Where? And the old clock became a preacher and he heard it speaking like this: "Eternity, where? Eternity, where?" The question is a solemn one. Eternity, where? The word becomes all the greater when I add to it a part of the verse in which the text is found: "The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." What a subject for thought is here. I speak of this One and they tell me that He is omnipresent, that is, everywhere. I speak again of Him and they say that He is omnipotent, that is, all-powerful. I talk of Him again and they tell me that He is omniscient, that is, all-knowing. We have come in contact with great minds. This is the greatest. We have been influenced by great personalities. This is an infinite personality. When I put these words together, the statement of my text is startling. "One that inhabiteth eternity." He is infinite. He is eternal. He is unchangeable. Eternity is the place of His abode. Answer me this question: Where will you spend eternity? Nobody can answer it but you. If I could answer it for you, God knows I would. If the mother who wrote this request that I hold in my hand and said: "My heart will break if my boy is not saved" - if she could answer this question for her boy, I know she wold. God has placed the power of choice and determination in our hands. God may love, and Jesus may die, and the Spirit may plead, but you alone can settle the question of eternity. Answer me this: Where will you spend eternity? I was preaching in Lincoln, Nebraska, when a professor of mathematics stepped up behind me and said: "Eternity begins where computation ends." I said: "Professor, what does that mean? "It means this," he said, "that when the man with the greatest mind the world has known thinks his way out and out and out into the future, and his mind fails because it can go no farther, that is the beginning of eternity." There is no end. Sometimes men try to measure the depth of dark caverns, but the plummet is not long enough. So they measure the depth like this: They take a stopwatch in one hand and a piece of rock in the other, and note the time when the rock drops from their fingers, and listen as it strikes the bottom, noting the time it has taken to fall. If you know the weight of the rock and the time of falling, you can measure with some degree of accuracy the depth of the darkness. They tell me that sometimes they let a stone fall and there comes back no answer from below. To-night I stand on the edge of the precipice of time, and I cry up into the light and into the darkness: "How long art thou, Eternity?" I get the answer from this Book. "The peace of the righteous is everlasting. The doom of the wicked is without end." Where will you spend it? I have no apology to make this evening for asking you to think about Eternity when there are so many problems in time. I have no apology for asking you to think about the future when on all sides of us there is the cry of the needy, burdens that must be lifted, and tears that must be wiped away. I cry out for this reason. A man is never fitted for time until he is prepared for eternity. One of the members of my household was dying. She came to the time of crisis. The doctor took her pulse. It was six o’clock. "She will pass the crisis at midnight," he said. I remember how we stood and watched her white face, and then the clock. The hands seemed never to move. Every second was a minute. Every minute longer than an hour. Six hours seemed and age., If every day were like that, we should still have no conception of eternity. When my father slipped away into eternity, one of his friends gave me his pocketbook. I opened it and found inside a piece of poetry, stained on one side as if with tears, and pasted together on the other as if worn with much reading. Some of the verses I remember after all these years: "How long sometimes a day appears, And weeks, how long are they. Months move as if the years Would never pass away. But days and weeks are passing by, And soon must all be gone. For day by day as moments fly, Eternity comes on. Days, months, and years must have an end, Eternity has none. ’Twill always have as long to spend, As when at first begun." Tell me, this evening, where will you spend it? Here in this world you have crowded God out of your life. You have lost consideration of Him. You have built your home without Him. You are training your children without Him. Yet you were made for God. Nothing less than God can satisfy you. If I had a place on which to stand and could hurl into space a million worlds like ours, I could never fill space. When I open my Bible, I read in the Psalms: "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." Whether I climb up into the light or go down into the darkness, in the daytime, in the night-time, I find God. Only God can fill space and only God can fill my life. You are going out into Eternity. God pity you. Oh, to have no hope, no Saviour. How long and dark the way is. Answer me this question: Do you not think that in these days, especially these prosperous days, we are thinking too much of time and all too little of Eternity? There is a great war filling the world at this moment, and we are a neutral nation. Multitudes of himes in the nations of Europe have marks of mourning upon them. I received a letter this morning from a friend in Glasgfow. He wrote me about one of our dear friends. He said: "Lady Maclay is aging rapidly." Grief for her lost boy is turning her life into winter. When that great day came, June 29th, and the British soldiers charged on the Dardanelles, her boy went down in a moment. And here are we, in this great protected nation, with no roar of cannon and no breaking of hearts. We are pursuing wealth and pleasure. We are forgetting God. I want to ask you this question: Do you think that we ought to be called to serious thought? I am neither a prophet nor a son of a prophet, but I know that will come to America if in her pursuit after pleasurfe and her love of power she continues to forget God. Judgment will fall. Judgment! I tremble for the country that will not hear when God speaks, and for the man who builds for time and has no thought of the future. Answer me this question: Do you really think that men at heart are indifferent? Let your mind run over the list of men you know. Do you think that they are indifferent? I do not. I know men fairly well. I know what they sometimes say with their lips. If I were to go through your shops and some of the workmen would tell me they were not interested in God, I should know they were not speaking the truth. If I were to go through your college halls and some student would say that he was not interested in spiritual things, I should know that he was speaking falsely. They are not indifferent. You walk the streets some day and your best friend passes you and you never see him. You take your seat by the fireside with the newspaper that you never read a line of. You were saying as you walked the streets, or as you sat by the fireside, or as you tossed restlessly upon your pillow: "God! Eternity! My soul! What must I do to be saved?" A Christian gentleman went to one of the judges in the state of Georgia and said: "Judge, I hear that you and your wife are to separate." He was highly indignant, and said: "Sir, that is an insult. No two people in this world have loved each other more devotedly. Separate! Nothing could separate us." His friend said: "But, Judge, your wife is a Christian. She is far from well, and the doctor tells me that she cannot live long, and you are not a Christian. Your wife will go straight to God. You are turning your back on Him." The old judge stood with tears running down his cheeks and lips trembling as he said: "My God! I never thought of that." Men are not indifferent. Answer me this: Are you reckless? A friend of mine crossed the Alps, and in crossing he came to a dangerous pathway, not much wider than my two hands. Deep abysses yawned on either side. He was a courageous mountain climber, but he siad: "I shall not cross it." The guide, throwing away his alpenstock and putting his hand over his eyes, started on the narrow pathway, making his way carefully across, until at last he turned and beckoned to my friend. This old Book that I hold in my hand says: The path of life is a hand’s breadth, and life itself is a vapor. With no desire to appeal to your emotions, I say what every doctor would warrant me in saying: There is one heart beat between you and Eternity. Yet you hold back as I plead with you, as your old mother prays for you, as your wife is in agony about you, as the ministers are heartbroken over you - and to-morrow, to-morrow may be Eternity. God pity you. I do not understand you. Why do you not come to Jesus? Answer me this: Are you satisfied? I mean the man without God. I had a dear friend in my first pastorate in New York. He was the president of the village. A great warm-hearted man. I loved him devotedly and he returned my affection. The devil tripped him and he began to drink. I hate the devil for that. It has often seemed to me that men like my friend are just the men the devil trips up. Not narrow, stingy men, - he has them anyway - but big hearts, big men. So my friend went down. When he had no home I took him into mine, but he would not stay. He was a great friend to me in the days of his prosperity. I was pastor of two little churches, and every Sunday I went up the Hudson and preached at my second church. I had to hire a horse and buggy, and I had about as much money as country ministers usually have. It cut in on my savings. One day I heard a ring at the door, and there stood my friend with a big fur coat on. He said: "Hurry, hurry." I thought there was some danger near, and so ran and put on my coat. He took me by the arm and around to the rear of the house, and there, hitched to the telegraph pole, was a gray horse and cutter. I have seen a good many horses in my time, but that one was perfection. We got into the cutter and drove to the river where the ice was three feet thick. We drove four miles up the river, and then he put the reins in my hands and said: "Now, you drive." No little boy sitting beside his father was ever prouder than I was when I took the reins in my hands. When we got to the end of the drive, we came to my house and stepped out of the cutter. It was at that moment that he threw his arm around my shoulder and said: "This is yours." Imagine my delight. And the devil got that splendid friend of mine. One night I saw him all in rags, and I went to him and said: "Thank God, you arfe coming back." "Not so fast," he said. "But you are Mr. D-------, think about your old mother." She was dead then. "Remember your wife and boy." The boy was dead. I had buried him. Nothing moved my friend. Finally, I said: "You are not satisfied, are you?" He sprang to his feet and held on to the back of the chair, swaying for the moment as if he would fall, and said a thing that I can hear him saying now. "Satisfied! What has it cost me? I, the president of the village, and homeless. My mother dead of shame, my wife in the insane asylum, my boy in his grave. Satisfied!" No man in all this world is satisfied without God. You are not. To-night as I close my appeal I say to every man in this building: In God’s name, why don’t you turn? Why don’t you turn? Drifting, drifting, drifting, out into the sea of Eternity! And I stand lifting the warning cry: Why don’t you turn? Tell me why. The very atmosphere of this place seems filled with God. It may be that God is giving some of you your last call. The door is open and it may shut again. Turn now. Why will you die? You know this old story. I happen to know the real truth about it, for a friend of mine was in a way associated with it. On the Harlem railroad a man kept the bridge. It was an old-fashioned drawbridge that turned with man power. You remember how he got a message to keep the bridge shut because a special was coming. However, just as the order came he heard the whistle of a little tug boat, and saw that he only needed to throw the bridge a little to let the tug boat through with her flagstaff. After he had let the tug through he turned to throw the bridge back and something was out of order. He bent to his task, pulling and pushing. The sweat came in great drops from his brow. An agonizing cry rose from his heart. The special came down the track and through the open bridge, and scores of people were killed. The keeper of the drawbridge was a man under fifty, and in the night his hair turned as white as snow. My friend went to where they kept him until he died, and the man walked up and down in his little padded cell like a caged tiger, by day and by night, rarely sleeping. One thing he kept saying over and over again: "Oh, if I only had. If I only had. If I only had." When he became exhausted he would fall on his cot, only to rise again and say: "Oh, if I only had." To-night the door is wide open and people are praying and God is waiting. It would be an awful thing to go out into Eternity saying: "If I only had." To-night I plead with you. I think God has sent me to some of you to give you another call. These meetings are going on because God in his mercy is flinging wide the door once more. Come in. Come in. You fathers here, you can never expect your boys to go in unless you go yourself. If my mother had not been a sweet, consistent Christian, dying at thirty-four, I wonder where I should have been. You young men, you boys and girls, everybody, come in! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 139: S. PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD ======================================================================== Prepare to Meet Thy God By J. Wilbur Chapman The subject for the evening has been announced as Preparedness. I might well speak to you to-night concerning preparedness for the nation, but I have a greater subject than that. I have something of greater importance to say. My subject deals with time and eternity, and the preparation we must make in time for eternity. You will find my text in the Book of Amos 4:12 : "Prepare to meet thy God." Before you sleep this evening I wish that you would open your Bibles. I would like you to start with the first words-- "In the beginning, God!" This is the right starting point for a man’s faith. Forget God, and there is disaster ahead. Build your plans without God and the storms will overtake you. Try to build character without God and defeat is certain. "In the beginning, God!" Now turn to the last Book in the Bible, to Revelation 20:12 : "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." Start with the one and end with the other, and this is the story of God’s dealings with His people. We see Him as Creator. We behold Him as the ruler of nations. We see Him as the judge of His ancient people. We behold Him as the father of Jesus Christ. We hear Him crying out through the lips of His Son to a wicked generation. At last we see Him seated upon the Throne. Time is being finished. The Books are being opened, and the dead, small and great, are standing before God. I wish I could give you a right conception of God. I think your faces would whiten and your lips tremble. Stop for a moment and think about Him. He holds the winds in His hands, yet last night you took His name in vain. In the hollow of His hand the seas beat and throb, yet today you blasphemed Him. He has showered His love upon you ever since you came into the world, yet you have resisted Him. Prepare to meet thy God. Prepare to meet Him, because He is God. We read in the Old Testament-- "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." Only a fool could say that. Think of the old argument of cause and effect. I see effects all about me, and I must go back to the great "First Cause." Then there is the old argument of design. I see design everywhere in this world. The seasons coming and going. Stars moving in their courses. The world turning on its axis. How suggestive all this is. The sun rising and setting with such precision that the scientists can tell you days, weeks, months, and years ahead, the exact moment of rising and setting. Who has done all this? The little flower that lifts its head at your feet, how perfectly formed it is, The bird that flies above your head, with the colours of the rainbow in its wings. What artist has done this? Then there is the old argument suggested by the longing of our natures for God. If you go to the savages of dark lands, where heathenism reigns, and the savage in his blindness bows down to wood and stone, -- why does he do this? Because he longs for something greater than himself. Then look at these enlightened times. The aspiration takes better shape. The longing grows to a higher kind. I know that this longing in my soul for God and eternal life was placed there by Himself. Just as the fin of the fish is the prophecy of the water in which it swims, as the wing of the bird is the prophecy of the air in which it moves, -- so I know that this longing in my soul is an unanswerable argument for his existence. I know, and so do you, that God is. Prepare to meet thy God. The closest fixed star is so far away that if you had an airship and should attempt to reach the star, you would require ages and ages of time. If you should pay but a small amount of money per mile for your passage, it would take millions upon millions of dollars. Yet men say there is no God. The sun sends down its light, and has been sending light and heat and warmth through all the years and ages past. When we estimate the distance of the sun and the length of time that light takes to travel, can you say that this is all by chance? No! Hear me! Prepare to meet thy God. God is all powerful. I can take a cannonball in my hand and throw it a little distance. Some of these strong young fellows from the college would far surpass me. Driving through the streets one day, a friend said to me: "Did you see that policeman?" "Well, what about him?" I answered. "He is the champion thrower of the hammer in all the world," said my friend. "It was he who came out first in the last Olympian contest." But God took not only our world, but countless worlds like it and tossed them into space as I might blow a bubble. He is omnipotent. He knows everything. You may deceive me. I know men fairly well, but you could deceive me. You cannot deceive God. One of these days you will face Him. One of these days your record will face you. One of these days you must answer before God for a misspent life. He knows you through and through. God is everywhere. Listen while I read this Scripture: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me." You cannot get away from God. One day, in one of the schools of Chicago, a gentleman wanted to illustrate a point. He drew an eye on the blackboard. It was so perfectly drawn, that the children in different parts of the room thought that the eye was looking straight at them. The School Board insisted that the eye should be erased. The children were becoming nervous. Men trample God’s love beneath their feet and go their own way in life. There is one verse of the Bible that they forget. It is this: "Thou God seest me." He saw you yesterday, or last night, in your sin. What He saw was written in a book. Men are always making records. I saw in the British Museum a piece of stone the size of my book. They told me that it was six thousand years old at least. Right in the center of it there was the print of a bird’s foot. When the stone was soft, six thousand years ago, the bird put its foot there and left an imprint. Six thousand years of record! So I cry out to you, young men and older men, business and professional men, men from the shops, women of society, prepare to meet thy God. You have been guilty of adultery, you of drunkenness, you of something else. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened." Because they will be opened,-- prepare to meet thy God. God has equipped us all with capital. He gave you your mind. He gave you your hands, your will, your heart. He gave you your feet, your lips, your eyes. You must give an account. Have your eyes looked upon that which is evil? Has your heart held thoughts that were impure? Has your mind been in rebellion against Him? Have your hands pushed down instead of lifted up? To what houses have your feet taken you? Prepare -- prepare to meet thy God. I ask you to prepare because you may meet Him sooner than you think. I have no desire to frighten anyone, but I would do even that if it were the only way. I do not wish to appeal to your emotions, but I would do that if it were the only way. Perhaps you may soon face Him. You may meet Him before tomorrow morning. How do you know that you can keep an engagement at nine o’clock tomorrow morning? There is a doctor of repute beside you. Turn and whisper to him. How about it, Doctor, nine o’clock in the morning? I know what his answer will be. He will say: Only God knows. When you close your eyes in sleep tonight your vitality will drop, and drop, and drop, until at last it will reach the lowest point. Then it will rise again until the day is born and you awake -- unless God should touch you with His finger. I don’t understand why men stay away from God. I don’t understand you young college men. There has never been a day since colleges were established when trained intellects were at such a premium. Trained minds and strong characters can do more today than ever before, Yet business men, professional men, and students, too, plunge into sin. Tomorrow, is eternity. I stood at the foot of my pulpit and a man came to me and said: "I wish that you might have such perfect health as I have. Never in my life have I had a headache, never a pain, never have I called a doctor for myself." I was his minister. A few months after, my telephone bell summoned me to his house. An excited voice said: "Hurry, Hurry." I went, to find his daughter alone with him, the rest of the family had gone away. Her father had risen saying that he must keep an early business appointment. "Meet me in the breakfast room," he said. In fifteen minutes she was there, but her father was not. She climbed the stairway to his room and found him seated in his chair with a newspaper on his knees, head back, eyes shut. Never an ache or a pain! Never a doctor! Fifteen minutes’ warning! Dead! But yon young men say: How old was he? Past sixty. We were seated in a hotel in Australia and were resting for the evening, when a quick knock came at the door. I took a cable from the boy, and got the code book and deciphered this: "Charles died today. Sick two days." He was dead. My nephew. A promising athlete, trained in a military school. Never sick a day in his life. Not a man in the college could surpass him in physical strength. Gone in two days. Prepare to meet thy God. There is only one way to be prepared. Science has a fine ministry in the world, but it does not get you ready for eternity. Philosophy is interesting as a study. It is wonderful in its teachings, but it stops this side of eternity. Infidelity seems to be all right when your health is fine, your friends many, and your family circle unbroken, but when your heart aches, and your baby dies, and you get a telegram saying: Mother is dead, or -- Father has gone, -- then all the infidelity in the world will mock you. Let me say a word to you men. I want to say that if you turn away from God’s only means of preparation, you miss the best for this life. There is only one way to prepare. What is it? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! Turn from your sins! Accept Him! A friend of mine was going to preach in a country village. One of the officers of the church met him, and, as they walked along an old-fashioned board walk, my friend stopped and said: "What is that?" There came from the window of a house near the board walk an agonizing cry of a man. As they listened, they heard the voice say: "Oh, Jesus, can’t you help me? " The church officer said: "The man who lives there is dying, and he has rejected God all his life. He has led scores of our boys and girls away from the faith of their fathers. He is dying in infidelity." And the cry came again: "Oh, Jesus, can’t you, help me?" Every minister in the community was trying to help him. Many of the Christians were interested in him. He could not find the way. The last thing they heard him say was the sentence: "Oh, Jesus, can’t you, can’t you? " Prepare to meet thy God. I do not want you to think that God is other than just, or that He is other than loving. It is true that ever since you came into the world He has been seeking you. Jesus Christ came all the way to Calvary for you. He is seeking you now. Listen! He is seeking you now. Don’t reject him. Hear this text again: "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." Driving swiftly down the streets of one of our western cities, a man lost control of his horses. A courageous man, springing from the sidewalk, brought the horses to a standstill and saved a man’s life. By a strange coincidence the man whose life was saved was charged with murder. The trial judge was the man who had saved him. Later the trial came on. The lawyers had made their pleas. The judge had charged the jury. They had reached a verdict, and just as the judge turned to speak to him, the prisoner arose and said: "Your honour, I don’t think you know me." The judge said: "Answer my question. Have you anything to say why a sentence of death should not be passed upon you?" Stretching out his arms, the prisoner said again: "I don’t think you remember me. I am the man you saved. Don’t you remember? Have mercy! Have mercy!" The judge leaned forward with tears on his cheeks and said: "Yes, I do remember you. I have known you ever since you came before me, but then I was your saviour, now I am your judge. I must sentence you to die." And today He is your Saviour, tears in His eyes, blood upon His brow, scourges upon His back, agony in His heart, saying: " Turn ye, Turn ye, for why will you die." I had read the funeral service in a beautiful home, when the undertaker came to the door and said: "Will all the friends kindly retire. The members of the family are coming in." The daughter of the home came in leading her father. The mother was lying in the coffin. The old man bent forward and said to the wife who had journeyed with him all the years: "Good-bye. I will soon see you." The daughter said it after him, and two or three of the boys said it. The eldest boy was a drunkard. He stood inside the door with the hot tears running down his cheeks. I walked over to him and said: "Tom, come and say goodbye to your mother." Partly from weakness, and partly because he was under the influence of drink, he staggered forward. But I never heard a boy cry like that. Such sobs as came from his heart! Over and over he kept saying: " Mother, Mother! His sister stepped forward and said: "Tom, don’t take on so. Mother has gone to Heaven, and you will soon see her." He threw one arm around my shoulder and the other around hers, and cried out: "Oh, my God! I am not going. I am not going." Prepare to meet thy God. Acknowledge your sins. Accept Him as your Saviour. Confess Him before men. Follow Him faithfully. One day you will meet God, and will hear His welcome -- "Well-done." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 140: S. SAVED WHEN THE LORD APPEARS ======================================================================== Saved When the Lord Appears By J. Wilbur Chapman Texts: Acts 1:11 -- "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 -- "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." These two texts of Scripture are plainly presented and there can be no question as to their interpretation; they mean just what they say, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again to this earth, and just as He ascended from the midst of His disciples, clothed with his physical body, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, so He will come again. He left a wondering company of disciples when He was on the slopes of Olivet, and from their midst began to ascend up towards heaven, and strange to say He will come back again to a company of disciples, for notwithstanding the plain statements of Scripture with reference to His coming, many in the Church are apparently unacquainted with the fact of His glorious appearing or else are indifferent to it. This may be because those of us who are in the pulpit have not been faithful in teaching the Word of God, or it may be that the rank and file of Christians have studied the Scriptures indifferently, if indeed they have studied them at all. All evangelical Christians believe that Jesus Christ is coming again sometime. We have said it over and over in our repetition of the Apostles Creed, and there can be no question about the fact at all. The only question is as to when He is coming; some say before the millennium, and they are called pre-millenarians; others expect Him after the millennium, and they are spoken of as post-millenarians. But if He comes after the millennium He will come to a world made ready for His appearing by human effort, righteousness will be asserting its power, and have in its control all things. If this position is accepted, then His coming is far removed from the present time, for just when men thought the world was rapidly growing better, the world-war was upon us and today the world is scarred and marred by its effects. If He comes before the millennium, then He will come to set the world right; He will set up His Throne and establish His Kingdom. He himself will work mightily in all ways and it will be a world worth while living in when it is all under the sway of His Almighty Power. As for myself, I prefer the millennium which He makes ready rather than the one which might be set up or prepared by man himself, therefore I am a pre-millenarian. Just what will it mean to be saved when the Lord appears? To be saved at all is the wonder of heaven and earth. We are saved from sin’s penalty by His death on the Cross and our personal acceptance of Him. We are saved from sin’s practice by the indwelling of His Spirit strengthening our wills. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." We are saved from sin’s presence by His coming again, for when He comes the last enemy shall be overthrown, temptation will be a thing of the past, and our deliverance shall last forever. Let us put it in this way: We have been saved by His death on the Cross and our identification with Him; this has to do with the past. We are being saved by His Spirit who makes Christ real to us and makes the Word of God powerful in the changing of our lives; this has to do with the present. We shall be saved when He appears and the body of this humiliation is made like unto His own glorious body; this has to do with the future. In order to prevent confusion, we must keep in mind the fact that there are to be two appearings of our Lord: First -- He comes for His Saints. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, he said, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Second -- He comes with His Saints. When the time is up and Scripture has had its fulfillment, he will set up His Kingdom on the earth; His sway will be almighty and His power irresistible. This truth has always been of the greatest possible inspiration to me. I learned it when I was a young minister, and it changed my whole conception of Christ and my interpretation of the Scripture, and filled me with a zeal to attempt at least to do His Will. It has never made me fanatical, and I am sure that it has not made me listless, and from the first day I received the truth until this present time, it has been to me "the blessed hope." In common with other Christians, I believe the Church to be the body of Christ and that as individuals we go to make up that body and as men are won to Christ and they surrender to Him, they are parts of that body. So of necessity, one day the body will be completed -- the last member will be added to it -- and I have always thought that perhaps the one who comes under the influence of my preaching, might be the last, and the skies would brighten and the Lord return, and I have hardly preached an evangelistic sermon for years without this in mind. It is to me a glorious hope. I have frequently been asked "Would you not be startled, indeed, would you not be afraid, if suddenly the skies should brighten and the Lord appear?" And my answer is "I might be, except for the statement made in my first text of Scripture, ’Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,’" it is "this same Jesus" who is coming back; He who was cradled in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, He who lived in Nazareth as a boy, a youth, and a young man, He who preached in Galilee as never man had spoken before Him, He who suffered in Gethsemane until the blood drops rolled down His face, He who died upon the Cross as my substitute, He who rose from the dead when the time was up and the stone was rolled away from the door, He who ascended up into heaven -- He is coming back again. How could I be startled when He appears? So human that He grew weary as He toiled, so human that He fell asleep when He was in the little boat with His disciples, so human that He toiled in the carpenter shop, making this implement and that, and making them well... So divine that the water blushed into wine when He looked at it; so divine that devils feared Him and went rushing into a herd of swine and drove them into the sea; so divine that disease was staid by His presence and His touch; so divine that death was overpowered by Him, and Lazarus, at the sound of His voice, came forth from the tomb bound in his grave clothes. He is coming back again and we shall see Him. "Just to see Jesus once scarred as Redeemer, Jesus, my Lord, from all suffering free, Just to see Jesus transfigured forever, That will be glory, be glory, for me. Just to see Jesus, when saved ones are gathering, Jesus who died upon Calvary’s tree, Just to see Jesus with all heaven ringing, That will be glory, be glory, for me." He is surely coming back again and it is well worth while to ask the question as to what this coming will mean to certain classes of people. 1. What will it mean to the saved? 1 Corinthians 15:51-52. -- "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." So many times we hear people use the expression, speaking of certain events, "This is as certain as death," but death is by no means certain, it is not at all sure that we shall all die. St. Paul himself tells us we shall not all sleep, and he is speaking of death; some will be alive when the Lord comes back, and perhaps we who are today in health and strength, shall be of the company. (a) Some day the skies will brighten and He will appear, and just as Saul of Tarsus saw what others did not see, so some eyes will be opened to behold Him, while others will be blinded to His coming, and when those who have their trust in Him are taken away, others will remain behind in wonder and in amazement. (b) Families will be separated. In this household a mother was a humble follower of Jesus Christ and all the others were indifferent to Him. She will be taken; the others left. In another household the father was a saint of God. The Bible and Jesus were his constant delight, but he was unable to lead his children to Christ, and with the godly mother he will be taken and the others left. A Christian business man who has been careful in all his business dealings, and consistent in his following of Jesus Christ, taken, and those with whom he is associated, left behind; perhaps the saved children of a household whose parents were worldly and cared not for Christ and His Church are taken. (c) It should be remembered, however, that before these are taken, the dead in Christ shall rise first; their spirits safe with Him from the moment of their death, their bodies have been resting in the tomb, and when He appears, the tombs of the Christian dead shall be opened, and spirit and body united. They shall go up to be with Him. There are some places I should like to be at that wonderful time. I think I should like to be standing here speaking of Him, or I should like to be pleading with an audience to turn to Him, or I should like to be sitting beside some one who is helpless and hopeless and urging them to accept Him, or I should like to be at the grave of D. L. Moody, and behold his tomb open and see him ascend to meet the Lord whom he so faithfully preached; or I should like to be at my mother’s tomb where years ago we placed her and said "goodbye" to her with tears blinding our eyes. To sum it all up, however, I think I should like to be just anywhere, seeking to please Him and trying to find out concerning His Will, that I might do it. I stood one day in Wales before the grave of the famous Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, and was told that he was buried in the same grave with a friend, a brother minister, whom he loved dearly, and this was all because they wanted to be together when the Lord came and they be caught up. They had agreed that hand in hand they would ascend to greet Him. (d) In the Scriptures we read that we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, that is, with our beloved who have gone on before. No more separation, no more fear of the cable’s message, no more funerals, no more visits to the cemetery, no more going back to the home that has been made empty because the loved one has departed. "We shall not all sleep, what ineffable bliss, Some living at present may taste even of this, His coming, the rapture, the joyful surprise, One moment a mortal, the next in the skies. Our Saviour will come in the air, He’ll descend, The living, the sleeping, to Him shall ascend, Some wait there in heaven, some wait here below, Then raptured in triumph to Him we all go. We shall not all sleep, but changed we shall be, Yes, changed in a moment when Jesus we see, In the blaze of His glory, the flash of an eye, All caught up together to meet in the sky." (e) When St. Paul was nearing the end of his remarkable career, he writes, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." The expression "if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" is literally "the out-resurrection from among the dead"! that is, St. Paul knew that the Lord was coming back, that the Christian dead would rise to greet Him, and he wanted to be of the company, and thus expresses his hope and desire... 2. What will it mean to the unsaved for Christ to appear? (a) If they are dead then it will mean that at His appearing their tombs will not be unsealed, they shall wait longer for another great event which is so startling that one shudders even as he reads of it, that is Judgment. (b) If they are living they will be left behind when others ascend to greet Him with their loved ones in the skies. (c) And when the time comes those who have rejected Jesus Christ will face the Judgment. In Revelation 20:11-13, I read, "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." It is a white throne, to me, at least, it is significant that when the saved greet Him there will be "a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The emerald is green and green rests the eye. In contrast the full blaze of the white of the throne of God’s judgment will be torture indeed. He will be upon the throne; the One whom men have rejected and despised in spite of His mercy, and love. "The dead, small and great, shall stand before God." There can be no favoritism there. The books shall be opened and on the basis of one’s record, men will be judged. Those who have accepted Christ need have no fear of the judgment of the Great White Throne. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," but if he has been rejected, and finally rejected, we know what the end must be, for the word of the Lord hath spoken it. Recently the Honorable Elihu Root, in one of his addresses used this expression: THE TIMETABLE OF THE ALMIGHTY. What a striking sentence, how suggestive, how true it is to these days, how it fits in to my subject. (a) The hour has come. Jesus said that as he was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, and when the price of our redemption was to be paid in full. (b) "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (c) The door of mercy is open; it may close at any moment. "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 141: S. SOWING AND REAPING ======================================================================== Sowing and Reaping By J. Wilbur Chapman I am bringing to you what I think is a very solemn subject. I have no apology for speaking on solemn themes, for we are living in a day when many people seem to be turning to light and trifling things. We have reached a time when men regard God lightly. In fact, many seem to have put Him out of their thoughts. It used to be, in olden days, that men were afraid when they sinned. When they transgressed God’s law they thought of judgment, and their minds went forward to the thought of final punishment. Now men sin with impunity. They brush God aside. They appear to think that if there be a God at all, they can escape His judgment. They are clever and rich. They are too important for judgment. So I bring you tonight a message which I hope and pray may help us all to think. It is a comparatively easy matter to lead people to Christ if they will only think. The text is in Galatians 6:7 -- "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Do you not see how this fits in with my preliminary statement? Stop a minute and think about God. He is infinite. He is eternal. He is omnipotent. And if you resist Him to the end, His power must be against you. He is omniscient. He knows what we are thinking about and what we are doing. What we say and do is written, and one day the books will be opened. He is omnipresent. He is everywhere. He is here tonight as I magnify Jesus Christ. He was in your room last night when you sinned against Him. He was in the drug store when you slipped in and bought drink against the law. He sees you in the darkness of the night and in the brightness of the noonday. He is always about you. Think of His greatness. He holds the winds in the hollow of His hands. He speaks and it is done. Now come back to the text again -- Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. What does this mean? I will tell you exactly. It means that God is not to be ignored. Many of us have actually done this in our actions, if not in our thoughts. The revelation contained in the Bible counts for nothing. The gift of His Son Jesus Christ -- you are not bothering about it. The love of God -- you have no use for it. You have turned your back upon God. But the text says: Be not deceived. God is not to be mocked. You may think you can mock Him, but some day you will face Him. Oh, it is well enough to think that you can get along without God when you are well and your family circle is unbroken and your friends are many. But some day, with a broken heart, and broken health, and a broken family circle, and friends forsaking you, where will you be when you have reached the end? You remember the old story of the stage driver who was so profane that the people who traveled with him marveled at his profanity when he led such a hazardous life. They wondered that he would risk blasphemy. They talked of Christ, only to hear His name blasphemed. People who came to like him urged him to become a Christian, but he resisted all pleas. At last he came to the end. He was dying. They thought that he had gone, when suddenly they saw one foot moving and they heard him say in a whisper: "I am on the down grade and I can’t find the brake." Some day, some day, men and women who have resisted God, spurned His love, and trampled it beneath their feet, will come to their end and they will not be able to find the brake. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. There is a general principle of judgment which runs all through God’s book. If you start in Genesis and go through to Revelation, you will find the thought mentioned many times. But I should like to speak particularly of two judgments. Watch very carefully, if you please. Revelation 20:11 -- "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them." Can you stand a judgment like that? If there has been a record made of your life to the present time, all your profanity, your intemperance, your impurity, -- answer me, could you stand that? It goes on to say, "and the books were opened." Down South the colored people have a song that they always sing in the minor key. It runs like this: "He sees all we do. He hears all we say. My God’s a writing all the time." We, too, are writing our own record. I am writing, and so are you. That sin of yours last night that your mother does not know about, -- it is written down. That sin that your wife does not know about, -- it has made its record. That sin you committed in Pittsburgh, in London, that sin of yours in Chicago, that sin committed in New York. I was saying this in Scotland, and Mr. Alexander said I went far afield to say, "that sin committed in New York," for the people in Scotland had never seen New York. At the close of the service three men came forward, and one of them said: "You have uncovered a sin I have tried to hide for years. I went to New York for five days, and was so far away from home that I thought I might give way. I sinned, and I have covered it over all my life. I thought no one would know it." The surest thing about sin is that it makes its mark. The books, God’s books and your book, shall be opened. Hear the text again -- Be not deceived. God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Not a very great while ago, on Long Island, not many miles from my home, a young woman turned away from her husband. He was a man of wealth and position. No one ever knew why she left him. She went away with another man very much her social inferior. Her husband’s heart was broken. He did everything he could. He wrote and sent messages to her. He sent his father after her. She would not return. There was only one thing to do to protect his name and household, because her sin was so very great, and that was to divorce her. He was forced to do it. She married her companion in sin and all seemed to go well, but one day, the New York papers contained an announcement that she and her companion were dead. They had died in a New York hotel together. She left this letter: "My friends, Fred and I have been young and heedless and cynical, living in this great wicked city of New York. We have often laughed at what the preachers say. We have often sneered at the words: ’Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,’ and ’The wages of sin is death.’ People say it is old fogyism. Fred and I know better. We are reaping the harvest and we cannot stand it." It seems to me as I stand here this evening, that I am preaching to some person who needs my message. It may be that God has sent you here to listen to what I am saying. The time has come when someone must speak for God to you and say: Be not deceived. God is not mocked. If you sow you will reap. Of course, if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have nothing to do with the "great white throne of judgment." I was a Christian for years before I knew this. I had thought that I should have to stand face to face with God and hear His "depart" or "welcome," but there is nothing like this in the Bible. If I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour, I have already appeared in judgment in his person, and I shall never stand in judgment again. But unless I take Him, unless I yield to Him, and in sincere and honest repentance turn from sin, then judgment is awaiting me. So many young men seem to think that they can sow their wild oats with impunity. I have heard men say that wild oats must be sown, but hear me when I say, if you sow your wild oats you will reap the same harvest, the same harvest! Just so surely as God lives and you do not repent, hear me, one day the reaping time will come. I am greatly concerned about men who do not come to Christ. I have come to feel in these days as if I were preaching to my own people. I have come to know you well. I have been in intimate touch with many of the students. I have lost all thought of a promiscuous audience. It seems to me as if I were standing here pleading for my own. Hear me then, my friends, as I say: Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. It is written plainly in God’s Word. It is proved by experience. We shall reap if we sow. Sow a thought and you reap an act. Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny. It is written in God’s Word that we shall reap what we sow. A well-dressed man came to me in one of the meetings in Ohio and slipped a letter into my hand. It said: "My name is so and so. My telephone number is so and so. You may call me if you wish. I lived a wicked life before my marriage. I was false to everything that stood for manhood. I thought that I was too clever to be trapped. I married. My wife was beautiful. There came to our home a little child. I thought sunshine had come at last. I loved the child devotedly. I used to take her in my arms and fondle her, covering her face with my kisses. One day I noticed something wrong with the child and I took her to a great specialist. He came to my home and called a conference of other doctors. They went over my little baby, studying every part of her body. They came to my library, for I am a man of position and means, and they said: ’Sir, what was your life before marriage?’ My God! I had to tell them that my life before marriage was in open rebellion of God’s laws. Then the doctor led me over to the side of the room and put his hand on my shoulder, and said: ’Sir, this is your harvest. Your baby will go through life, if she lives, with a twisted spine and shut eyes."’ -- Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. When we were going around the world we stopped one day at Thursday Island, and there I heard a sorrowful tale. There is much leprosy on the other side of the world, especially in the tropics. One day, not far from Thursday Island, it was found that a little boy and girl belonging to a good home were lepers. The laws are very strict, and while the wealth of the father of the children was great, it was decided that the family should live alone on another island. The mother stole away with the children and was lost in Sidney for two years, until, strange to say, her children were admitted to the schools. Then the law found them again and they were taken back to the vicinity of Thursday Island, and the law began its operation. The children were separated from the family and sent to the leper island. But how did they become lepers? How? The mother, with her love of social position, thought the cares of motherhood too heavy, so she had a South Sea Island woman to care for her children, and she was leprous. This was the story, and when I heard it and saw what a harvest had come to that woman for the seeds she had sown, I could not withhold my tears. It is hard to sin when sin hurts yourself and tosses you on your bed so that you cannot sleep, and you say: Will the morning never come? But it is harder still to sin and to hurt one’s wife and children, or other dear ones. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. I have come to the close of my appeal. I do not need to preach longer. In the light of my text tonight, I say to all of you that we reap the harvest of what we have sown. The harvest may be an impaired will, a ruined character, injury and sorrow to others. Hear me again, -- be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. My heart grieves for any sinner who stays away from the Saviour. I have a mind to give my place on the platform to someone else, so that I might go back through the building to this one and that one, and say: Turn ye! Turn ye! For why will you die? I have a mind to lay hold upon you and compel you to come, for there is only one way in all this world to escape the law of which I am speaking. That way is this: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Can I say any more than this? God help you! Some of you are sitting there and saying to yourselves: "I am too timid." Come down when the crowd rises. Some of you are saying: "I can settle it here." It would be worth everything for you to come out in the open and walk down this aisle. Come forward and let me take your hand, and let me hear you say: "God being my helper, I am going to turn to Christ tonight." Now is the time. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 142: S. THE ACCEPTED TIME ======================================================================== The Accepted Time By J. Wilbur Chapman My text is familiar -- 2 Corinthians 6:2 -- "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." This text is generally made use of in appeals to those who are not Christians, but if you will read the verses preceding and following the text, you will see that it is an appeal as well to those who are already Christians. Let me say in the beginning that salvation has been provided by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is an old-fashioned statement to make, but I am an old-fashioned preacher. It is the sacrificial death of Christ that brings salvation to man. Salvation is a very broad and inclusive word. It means for one thing that we are justified. If you realized the meaning of this word justification, you would shout. It means to stand before God as if you had never sinned. It means to have every sin put away. It means to stand in God’s sight with your life as clean and white as the pages of this Book. Also it means redemption. I want you to catch a vision of the marvelous thing that is yours when you accept Jesus Christ. "We are redeemed, not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." I was standing the other day in Tiffany’s, in New York, and I overheard a woman asking to see some pearls. The salesman placed on the counter some wonderful pearls. I heard him say that the price was $17,000. When I looked at them, they seemed overwhelmingly splendid. This sum represented Tiffany’s estimate of the value of the pearls. You may say that your life is not worth very much, but I tell you that you are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. I tell you that in the sight of God you are worth more than all the gold in the hills, all the diamonds in the fields. Salvation! It is a wonderful word. It means forgiveness. I wonder if we truly appreciate what divine forgiveness is. Suppose you do me an injury, and I say that I will forgive it. I mean it, too. But you meet me five years hence, and you find me still thinking about the injury. I have forgiven, but I have not forgotten. One of the most wonderful things written in God’s Book -- it makes my heart burn and brings tears to my eyes when I read it -- is that when God forgives, he forgets. He puts my sins behind His back, casts them into the depths of the sea, hurls them as far as the east is from the west. I am a quiet man, not much given to shouting. I like very well what one of the papers said the other day, that when I wanted to make a special emphasis, I lowered my voice instead of raising it. But it seems to me that I want to shout to-night as I am telling you about salvation. Salvation means redemption. It means justification. It means divine forgiveness and forgetfulness of sin. When I read my text in the light of this statement, it grows wonderful. Behold, now is the day of salvation. What does the text really mean? It means that now is the day to present salvation to others. Now is the day to tell them about it. To-day is the day to announce it to your children, to tell it to your classmates. Now is the day when a business man should speak to his employees and tell them about salvation. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." If you study God’s ways, you will notice that He is always planning, by His providential arrangements, to bring within the reach of our influence people whom we may turn to Christ. Keep your eyes open and see. Keep your ears unstopped and hear. You will meet a man in the street, you will travel with a man on the train, and God has sent him to you. Someone will visit in your home, or be in your employ. God is bringing him within your reach. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Do you remember when the Government sent astronomers to Africa to witness the transit of Venus? These men were especially chosen and commissioned to watch for the wonderful spectacle in the heavens. There will be a critical moment, and they must watch. What if they had been listless and careless? What if one of them had been reading a book? What if another of them had been star-gazing without an instrument? Everyone must have his eye at the glass watching for the moment. Who knows but that the critical moment is here to win hundreds of people to Christ. I have been a member of a certain club in New York for years. One Sunday I went there for dinner. I had been preaching in one of the churches. One of the strong business men of the city came in, and when we met I asked him where he had been. "I have been to church, he replied. "Where?" and he told me. One of the best known men in the country was the minister. I noticed that the man was deeply impressed, and I said to him: "You must have liked the sermon." His lips trembled and I saw tears on his cheek, although he is not an emotional man. Then he said: "When Dr. B. closed his sermon, if he had asked, is there a man here who will come down and accept Christ, I would have risen in the audience and walked down the length of the church, and taken my stand for Christ. My heart went like a trip-hammer. But the invitation was not given." There are critical moments in the history of souls, and we must be watching for these moments. "Behold, now is the day of salvation." If I knew how you could become rich and prosperous, I would certainly tell you about it. It is a strange thing that when we know how men may become Christians, and have their sins forgiven, our lips are so often sealed. It is easy to talk about almost everything under the sun, but when we begin to talk about Christ, a strange expression comes into our faces and our voices take on a forced tone. I am preaching to myself about this, as well as to my brother ministers and to all the Christians. Why do we not talk naturally and urgently about Christ? I plead with you all to join hands with me and unite your faith with mine. Let us go out and talk to men urgently, and tell them that "now is the accepted time." I never mean to preach unkindly to anyone. I would not preach unkindly to you if you were a sinner. I do not expect to preach with fists clenched. I remember a lesson that I learned when I was preaching before the professors in the theological seminary. The text of my sermon was: "What lack I yet?" No doubt I was very severe. When I had finished, one of the old professors, a very kind man, said gently to me: "Brother Chapman, you will never win your way in the ministry like that. Don’t preach that way. Double up your fists at men and they will double up their fists at you." I mean to speak kindly; nevertheless, I shall speak directly and sharply. I may say some things that will make you cringe. I shall say some things that will uncover hidden sins, but I promise you this, that I shall say them with a warm heart and sometimes with a sob. May I pause to say to the ministers that we are apt to forget that our principal business is winning souls. We think that we must build up the saints. Ministers must be on the watch for the critical moment: for the accepted time in the history of souls. Alas, for any minister who is not watching thus. When we were in Scotland, I had a little time at my disposal, and I used it in reading the lives of Scotch ministers of different denominations. I read the life of Thomas Chalmers. One day Chalmers went to visit a man past eighty. He knew that he was not a Christian. He sat and talked with him a long time with never a word about his soul. In the night there came to Dr. Chalmers a hurried message telling him that the man was dead. He hurried away to the home. This is what he says: "I made my way to the house and walked up and down the room with tears. I asked the man’s family to forgive me, and then I went out and walked in the woods until morning came. Oh, my God, if I had only been true." A man came into my study in Albany and said to me: "Will you come and talk to a young man who is dying?" On the way the man said to me: The young man is dying of consumption, and you must not speak to him about death." I sat by his bed and talked to him for some time. We talked about music, in which he was interested. We discussed politics. Then the visit ended, and I said good-bye. I can feel his cold hand in mine even to this moment. As I walked to the door and looked back, I caught a glimpse of his white face and deep-set eyes. They searched me through and through. I went home, but early the next morning I went back to the sick man’s house. I was just entering his bedroom when someone said to me: "He died yesterday, an hour after you were here." I would give anything if I had spoken to him. I do not know whether he died in the faith or not. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Anyone of us ministers would feel complimented if men should say: He is like Paul. Would not that be wonderful? I would like to resemble Paul in this. It is said that he went from house to house saying to men and women: "I beseech you to be reconciled to God." It is said that when he wrote he stained his manuscript with his tears. If some of us should begin to do that and should go from house to house, and from man to man, saying: "Behold, now is the accepted time," how long do you think it would be before this city would be stirred? It is a pity that parents forget that this is the "day of salvation" for their children. There are men and women here who would do anything for their children. There is not anything that you would not give them, education, books, travel. But let me ask you, how many of you parents here to-night have spoken to your children about Jesus Christ ? You say the minister will win them, or the Sunday School teacher, or the evangelist. I would be ashamed if I thought anybody in this world had more influence with my children than I. It is a dreadful thing to rear children and never try to win them to Jesus Christ. There trudged along a Scotch highway years ago a little, old-fashioned mother. By her side was her boy. The boy was going out into the world. At last the mother stopped. She could go no farther. "Robert," she said," promise me something?" "What?" asked the boy. "Promise me something?" said the mother again. The boy was as Scotch as his mother, and he said: "You will have to tell me before I will promise." She said: "Robert, it is something you can easily do. Promise your mother?" He looked into her face and said: "Very well, mother, I will do anything you wish." She clasped her hands behind his head and pulled his face down close to hers, and said: "Robert, you are going out into a wicked world. Begin every day with God. Close every day with God." Then she kissed him, and Robert Moffat says that that kiss made him a missionary. And Joseph Parker says that when Robert Moffat was added to the Kingdom of God, a whole continent was added with him. There are critical times in the history of souls." "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation." If you are a father, go home this evening and speak to your boy. If your own life has been inconsistent, tell your boy so. You will win him to Christ. The influence of a father upon a boy is wonderful. Fathers and mothers, why don’t you win your children to Christ? You Christian workers, how you let opportunity slip! An opportunity missed is a tragedy in one’s life. When we were in Belfast, Ireland, I said in one of the afternoon meetings -- everybody who was converted in ’57 and ’59 stand up. A great many white-haired people arose. Afterwards a man came to the inquiry room and rose for prayer. He said: "I was converted in ’57, and I had two years of great joy in the Christian life. One night God came to me and said: Go and speak to such a one, twelve miles away. I did not go. He called again, and I did not go. In a day or so, a letter came to me telling me that the man was dead. He died unsaved." There was an agonizing expression in the man’s face as he told his story. It was a picture of sadness that no artist could have painted. With trembling lips, he said: "All these years since that time, I have had a great sorrow in my soul." I saw him drop on his knees and heard him sob like a little child. "Now is the accepted time." In Peoria, Illinois, a man said to Mr. Wm. Reynolds: "Mr. Reynolds, why have you not asked me to be a Christian? Did you know I was not a Christian? "Mr. Reynolds replied: "Yes, I knew you were not a Christian." "Well," said the man, "did you care?" "Yes, I have cared all the time I have known you." "Why, then, did you not ask me," said the man. "Well," said Mr. Reynolds, "if you will come to my office now, I will spend the rest of the day with you." Then the man smiled and said: "I was converted yesterday." He told the story of how he was converted. He entered a train in Chicago, and took the only unoccupied seat in the car. Just as the train was pulling out, a burly sort of a man entered and sat alongside him. He dropped his traveling bag, and took out a book and began to read. It was the Bible. After a while he closed the Bible and looked out of the window, and said: "What a wonderful day." The other man replied, "Very wonderful." Then the big man saw the harvests in the fields, and said to his companion: "You have fine harvests out here." "Yes" was the reply, "very wonderful." Then he added: "Is not God good to give such harvests as these?" There was no reply. "Why, are not you a Christian?" said the big man. "No, sir," was the reply. "Why, how could you not be a Christian? Read this." And with this he opened his Bible and began to read him some verses. Presently he said to him: "Why don’t you bow your head on the back of the seat in front, and let me pray with you?" Telling his story, the man said: "Before I knew it my head was bowed and his arm was around me. When I lifted my head, I was a saved man. The train stopped at a station, and the man started out. He was almost gone, and I remembered that I did not know his name. I rushed to the car door, and put my hands to my lips and shouted -- ’What is your name?’ He looked over his shoulder and said one word -- ’Moody."’ It is said of Mr. Moody that he never let a day go by without speaking to somebody about Christ. He went to bed one night and could not sleep. Twenty minutes after eleven, and still no sleep. A quarter to twelve, and he was still awake. He had not kept his promise. He arose and dressed himself, and rushed out of the house. As he turned the corner he ran into a man who said something that I cannot repeat in public. Mr. Moody shouted out to him: "Are you a Christian?" The man said: "None of your business." Mr. Moody said: "Why, yes, it is my business." The man squared himself up and said: "If it is your business, then I know your name. Your name is D. L. Moody." It was a marvelous thing that a man could be so true to Christ, so loyal to his Master, that a man who met him in the dark knew who he was when he spoke about the Saviour. I do not know whether I shall ever preach again. I must speak this text to you, with the greatest emphasis of which I am capable. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Why don’t you take Him? Tell me, friends, why don’t you take Him? Why don’t you accept my Saviour? An old woman walked down the steps of a Boston police station and caught her heel and fell. They put her in the patrol wagon and took her to the hospital. A doctor, bending over her, said: "She will not live." She heard him say it, and spoke: "In the little package I brought to the hospital you will find a picture. It is a picture of my boy. He ran away from home in Colorado, and I sold my property and have searched for him everywhere. I have been going to police stations and hospitals, but I have not found him. I want to leave this picture with you. If you should see my precious boy, tell him that there were two in this world who never gave him up." The doctor bent over her and said: "Nurse, she is going." Then the nurse stooped down and said: "Mother, tell me the names of the two so that I may tell him." She lifted her face, lighted already with the light of heaven, and said in a whisper: "Tell him that God and his mother never gave him up." Then she was gone. My God whose love fills this Book; my God who gave His Son to die, has not given you up yet. Your sweet old mother, your dear father, your wife, your friends, your minister, none of them have given you up. Let us pray. Blessed God, our Father, in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour, we pray for everybody here who is unsaved. We pray especially for those who have said: I want you to pray for me. Oh, God, help them all and bless them. Do not let any of us be indifferent to the opportunities sent us of God. Bless all the ministers and workers. May there fall upon us such a blessing as we have never known before. Graciously use us these days, in Jesus’ name. Amen. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 143: S. THE MASTER IS COME ======================================================================== The Master Is Come By J. Wilbur Chapman My text is in John 11:28 - "The Master is come and calleth for thee." This passage takes us to the home in Bethany where Jesus loved to be. It has to do with the sickness and death of Lazarus, and his resurrection from the dead. Some years ago I heard a distinguished man of God preach from this text. The light of heaven was on his face and the fire of heaven was in his message. The outline of his sermon remains with me still, and I am going to use his outline as I preach to you from this text. It must have been a very remarkable family that lived in the Bethany home. Martha and Mary and Lazarus. It may not have been the largest house in Bethany, nevertheless Jesus loved to tarry there. If you tell me that you have the finest home in this city and Jesus is not there, then it is not the finest. If you tell me that yours is a home of poverty and Jesus abides with you, then I know that you do not mind your poverty. No one can think of the Bethany home without being deeply touched. Martha and Mary and Lazarus and - Jesus! One day there came a cloud, the size of a man’s hand, over that home in Bethany. Lazarus was sick. The cloud increased from day to day until it covered all the sky. When the sisters knew that their brother was sick unto death, they called a messenger and sent a message to Jesus. They did not say, "Go to the Master and tell Him that Lazarus is ill," but they said this, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." They knew that Jesus would know. How they watched for the return of the messenger, but the messenger delayed and Lazarus died. In those countries the preparations for death must be made very quickly. So they laid Lazarus at once in the tomb. When they went back to the home everything spoke of him. The old couch on which he rested, the manuscripts he read, the sandals he wore, the robe that was wrapped around him, - everything spoke of Lazarus, and Lazarus was gone. Just when their hearts were aching to the breaking, a messenger came saying that Jesus was coming to Bethany. Mary sat still in the house, but Martha went out to meet him, and when she met him she began in a tone of complaint, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." It was then that Jesus spoke his wonderful words: "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, thoughj he were dead, yet shall he live." Something in what he said and in the way he said it touched Martha’s heart, and she rushed back to her sister and cried out in the words of the text, "The Master is come and calleth for thee." Then the sisters went out together to meet Jesus. Presently they were standing at the tomb and weeping. Jesus was weeping too. Then He stooped down to look into the tomb from which the stone had been rolled away, and cried out the dead man, "Come forth." I scarcely need to rehearse the story to you because it is so familiar. And now I follow the outline that I have mentioned, and in so doing we shall find suggested in this story the steps that are essential to a revival. First, when Mary and Martha wanted Jesus they did not go themselves to Jesus, but they sent a messenger. I have always had an idea that if they had gone themselves, saying, "Master, Lazarus is sick, and if he dies our hearts will be broken and our home desolate," perhaps Jesus might have come back to Bethany with them at once and stayed the disease. They did not go themselves. They sent a messenger. And do you know that this is the way people expect revivals nowadays? They are anxious to have them come, but they do not put themselves into the work. They send someone else. In earlier days when people desired a revival, they waited upon God in fasting and prayer. They even spent nights in prayer. They forgot to eat and sleep. Fathers and mothers became concerned for their children. Wives were in agony about their husbands. Ministers stood up to preach and they looked like dead men. Often they preached to the accompaniment of sobs. When men and women sought God for themselves in this spirit the foundations were shaken, the heavens were opened, churches were quickened, and souls were converted. I believe in the work of the evangelist with all my heart. I keep before me two or three ideals. My greatest inspiration is Dwight L. Moody. Almost all that I know of evangelistic work I learned at his feet. I continue to use his methods. I have prayed God through all the years that I might have his spirit in preaching. I came in touch with him first when I was a university student. Later I sat at his feet as a young minister. I entered evangelistic work under his direction. I used to take his after meetings when he was unable to take them after preaching. Yet much as I believe in evangelists, there is not an evangelist in the world who has the power to bring a revival to your soul. You can have it only by seeking after God for yourself. We have praying ministers here and splendid committees at work, yet the revival tarries and men are not saved. People are not asking with sobs: "What must I do to be saved?" Thus far I have received just two letters from people who were concerned for their children. Let us not make the mistake of the sisters in Bethany, who did not go themselves to seek after Christ, but sent a messenger instead. Something else is to be noted. Only one of them went after all. Martha went, but Mary stayed in the house. This is the way revivals begin. No man has ever known of a whole community being roused at once. No minister can tell of a whole church being on fire at one time. One will be interested and will go forth to meet Christ like Martha. This city will never be moved by masses of people who are interested in revival. No, it will begin with individuals. Some minister will have a deep concern. He cannot eat or sleep. He feels as if he would die. He sits at his desk with tears running down his cheeks. Or some old saint of God will cry out, saying: "Oh, Lord, revive Thy work! Revive Thy work!" When the revival of ’57 swept through New York, it was traced to one man who spent days on his knees alone with nobody to pray with him. Then another came and another, and another, until there was a whole company of praying people. New York was stirred. Philadelphia was shaken. Chicago was moved. The whole American continent was stirred. The revival swept across the sea to Great Britain. It started with one man on his knees. There may be some man in this audience now who feels that his life has never counted much for God. To-night he feels that he will lay hold of God and never let go. This is the way revival begins, with one soul that is truly seeking God. When I began my ministry in Philadelphia, I succeeded Dr. Arthur T. Pierson. It was a perilous thing for a young man to do. Mr. Moody told me that if we could have a revival, everything would go well. I stood up before the people and said: "All the people who are willing to help me, come and tell me what you will do." A famous merchant was my chief elder, and he said that I could have his carriage to make pastoral calls. Another said that he would pay the expenses of the advertising. Others came and said that they would do this and that. Finally, down the central aisle of the church came an old Scotch woman, Mrs. Thompson. She took my hand, and, looking at me, said: "Djo you mind the little room at the head of the stairway in my house?" I said, "Yes, Mrs. Thompson." "Very well, minister," she said, "every day at twelve o’clock I will be in that little room. I will be on my knees, and I will never let go of God for you." In a short time I stood in my pulpit there and received four hundred and forty-four people. Of these, sixteen came as a direct result of the personal influence of this old Scotch woman. If there is one thing that we need more than anything else just now, it is an overmastering concern for people who are out of Christ. Martha was not fit to talk to Mary until she had seen Jesus. At least, she had no influence. Mary said: "You might as well go and meet Him and talk to Him." Mary herself sat still in the house. You know what that means. Teeth set together, lips closed. Martha talks and talks, but Mary will not move. Finally Martha went out to meet Jesus. the moment she caught the look on His face and heard the ring of His voice, she rushed back with a new light in her eyes, a new sound in her voice, a new power in her testimony, saying, "The Master is come." When she saw Jesus, she could talk to Mary as she had not done before. You want a revival, you will have to see Jesus first. Many of us want to see this city moved for God. We must be alone with him first. Oh, my God, send a revival! We beseech thee, send a revival. I was preaching in Lincoln, Nebraska, when I heard a woman say to her pastor: "I want you to pray for my husband and two boys." I was shocked when he said, "I shall not do it." When I asked him about it he said: "She is the most worldly woman in this city. She has led her husband and two boys into the world after her. It would be absolutely useless for me to pray so long as she professes to be a Christian and is not." This woman went to her home and said to her husband: "I want you to forgive me. I have been a church member, but a false one. I have been a professed follower of Christ, but I have denied Him. I want you to forgive me." I saw her husband converted, and the two boys came with their father. That man is to-day an elder of a church in his city. A woman came to her minister in Springfield, Ohio and said: "Pray for my boy." The minister said: "Absolutely useless." He told her to go back and get her boy. I had a letter from her in which whe told me the circumstances. "My boy came from the Central Methodist Church, where Bishop Bashford was preaching. He said to me: ’I am about persuaded to be a Christian. If you will go with me to-morrow I will settle it.’ " His mother said to him: "I cannot go, I have an engagement." Writing to me, she said: "To my shame, I confess that my engagement was at a card party. I kept the engagement and my boy never went back to the Church. I wrote to him like this: ’Dear Son, - Your mother’s heart is broken. When you were a little boy, and your father insisted that I should have you sleep alone, I put you in the cradle and you cried yourself to sleep. When I woke I saw your arms stretched out towards me. Now, my boy, it is your mother, with her face tearstained, who is stretching out her arms for you. Please come.’ " I saw the minister ten years afterwards and asked him about it, and he said that the boy had never come to Christ. He was absolutelu unmoved. Some of us in this city might speak and have no power. Might preach and plead and fail. We must get right with God. To your knees! To your knees! When they reached the tomb, Mary and Martha and Jesus, the sisters were weeping., Almost the sweetest words I know are these: "Jesus wept." Tell me this. Did you ever know a revival that did not begin with a baptism of tears? Tell me, did you ever have a revival by just appointing committees, organizing a choir, and putting money into the treasury? No! I will tell you when revivals come. They come when men begin to say to their ministers: Pastor, will you pray for my family? When mothers come to the evangelist and say: Pray for my boy. When wives are so deeply interested that they say: If my husband does not come, I shall die. When signs like these appear, then make ready. I remember an experience in the village church in New York, where I was a pastor in my early ministry. I had been preaching for a long time, but there was no yielding of hearts. I called my officers together and asked them to tell me what was wrong. They could not answer me. There was an old farmer in the congregation whose name was Herman Kramer. He could not pray in public, nor could he sing or speak. On the next morning after I had talked to the officers, he hitched up his horse to the cutter. A snow-storm had come in the night, and the fences were covered. This man of seventy years of age got into his sleigh and drove four miles across the fields and fences until he came to a blacksmith shop. Hitching his horse on the outside, he went in to where the young blacksmith was hammering away on this anvil. The blacksmith looked up and said: "Mr. Kramer, what in the world brought hyou here?" All he could do was to catch hold of the blacksmith’s bench with one hand to steady himself from falling. Reaching out his other hand, he said: "Your father and I were friends from boyhood. When he died I promised him that I would look after you and try to lead you to Chjrist. I have never spoken to you about your soul. Oh, Tom!" That was all he said, and he turned back home. It was not long before the blacksmith came to the meetings, driving through a blinding snowstorm. When he have his testimony, he said: "I have never been moved by a sermon in my life, but when Herman Kramer stood there sobbing in my shop, I said to myself, it is about time Tom Funston was in earnest himself." Revivals come with tears. When Jesus stood by the grave, I can hear Him saying: "Take ye away the stone." He could have done it Himself, but the Master will not do what you must do yourself. His word to us tonight is: "Take away the stone." I am speaking to you all in a kindly spirit, but I testify to you that there will never be a revival until many of us take away the stones that are in the way. Some man has not spoken to his boy about Christ. Someone who calls himself a Christian has never said a word to any of his employees. Talk about the difficulties between capital and labor - I believe there would be no such thing if the spirit of Jesus controlled both sides. Take away the stone. When they took away the stone at the grave of Lazarus, can you not see Him? Hallelujah! What a Saviour! I can shut my eyes and see Him as He stooped down and Looked into the tomb. I can hear Him say: "Lazarus, come forth." Mr. Moody once said that He called him by name because if He had said, "Come forth," everybody who was dead would have heard Him and gotten up ahead of time., So He said: "Lazarus, come forth." Your boy might be saved tonight. Your girl, your husband, if you would take away the stone. Oh, if we would begin to do this there would not be an indifferent Christian left in this city. The floodgates would be opened and God’s power would pour forth. Now, my friends, I have preached my sermon. I have nothing else to say, except that my heart aches and my soul longs to see the power of God manifested here. Frequently, in Australia, when Mr. Alexander led the choir in a song called "Someone’s Denying the Master To-night." it was hardly necessary for me to preach. I saw eight hundred men one night pressing their way into the inquiry room and dropping on their knees to say: "I yield." I saw them rising up and singing: "He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free." Let me say the text over again: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." There can be no doubt about it. Maybe you are a Christian, and maybe you are not. Let us get right with God now. Let us open our hearts to His Spirit. Blessed God, our Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, we pray that the Spirit may search us to-night. We pray that everything that is wrong may be taken away from us. Let the Holy Ghost come like a fire upon us. Oh, our God, if there is anything in our lives that stands in the way, take it from us. Oh, God, do not let us drift from Thee. Do not let us be a barrier in the way of others. In Jesus’ precious Name. Amen! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 144: S. THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST ======================================================================== The Precious Blood of Christ 1 Peter 1:19 by J. Wilbur Chapman I am preaching tonight on what I believe to be the most important subject in the Bible. Of course, anything that has to do with Jesus Christ is of vast importance. My text is found in 1 Peter 1:19— "The precious blood of Christ." The Apostle Peter, as we all know, was a fisherman in his earlier days. It is wonderful that he became the leader and writer that he was, and, strange to say, the word that he uses many times is this word — precious. He speaks of precious promises. He says of Jesus: "Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious." It is just about the last word that you would expect a fisherman to use. He was probably an uncultured man and a stranger to the schools. Before he began to follow Jesus, he had the habit of profanity. There was an occasion when, in an unguarded moment, his old habit took hold upon him and with an oath he said: "I know not the man." All this goes to show that if one accepts Jesus Christ as a Saviour and yields himself wholly to him, the Master will take complete possession of him and fashion him all over again. The power of old habits will be broken and the influence of evil associations will be overcome. When once Jesus comes into our lives, we are literally a new creation. The word of the text is the word of an artist. It is the word of a man who feels power in his soul. When the Apostle Peter caught a vision of Jesus Christ, his soul was on fire, and he used this word: The precious blood of Christ! All too little is said in these days about the blood of Christ. Some of us seem to avoid the subject as much as possible. The other evening I spoke about the personality and influence of Satan. If there is one truth more than another that Satan would oppose, it is the truth of this text. If there is one subject that he would like to turn our minds away from, it is the blood of Jesus Christ. He tells us that we can be saved by reformation, by good deeds. He tells us that we can be saved by doing our best. But all the way through the New Testament we find that the only way to God is a blood-marked way. The precious blood of Christ! I suggest that you take a little camel’s hair brush some time, and a bottle of red ink, and go through the New Testament, marking with red every passage that has to do with sacrifice, with the death of Christ. Every passage that speaks of salvation as the result of the shedding of blood. Well, you will mark a great many passages. You will redden everything that deals with pardon and peace, and forgiveness, and joy, and salvation, and the very music of heaven itself. Then when you have marked these verses red, take a little pair of scissors and clip out every red verse. Then you will begin to understand how large a place the blood occupies in the salvation of man. The apostle knew this, and because he knew it, he said: The precious blood of Christ! If you go through the Old Testament, you will find that the way to get back to God is the way of sacrifice. There it was the blood of bulls and goats, but these were not sufficient. When sin was too great, and human nature too weak, then Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He lived and loved, and suffered and died, and His heart broke. From pierced hands and feet and broken heart His blood poured forth, and because of this sacrifice, the Apostle Peter writes: The precious blood of Christ. In the Old Testament there are many figures that are used to make it plain. For example, when judgment was hanging over the homes in Israel, and the first born was about to be slain in Egypt, then the lamb without spot was sacrificed, the blood was collected in a basin, a bunch of hyssop was dipped in the blood, and the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts, and the word that came to the people was: "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Remember the lamb was to be without blemish. Jesus met this condition. The lamb was to be slain. Jesus died that we might live. I allow no one to go beyond me in paying tribute to the earthly ministry of the Master, to the marvelous words He spoke, and the great deeds He did. But I wish to say that I think I can prove that there is nothing said in the New Testament about our being saved by His life. I know there is one expression in the Epistle to the Romans which might seem to teach this: "Saved by his life." But literally this means — Kept safe in his life. The message of the Apostle Paul here was not to the unsaved, but to the saved. He is telling us that when once we have accepted Jesus Christ as the Saviour, then we have him as our environment, as our protector. His arms are underneath us and round about us. His wings are above us and we are kept safe in His life. But God’s Word teaches clearly that I am saved not because he lives, but because he died. One of the greatest preachers in England said the other day something like this— "Some men have a way of saying in these days very much about the works of men and very little about the death of Jesus Christ." But if I should lose out of my thinking the death of Christ and the shedding of His blood and all that it means, then I should have a wrong conception of God and His righteousness and justice. Also I should know that there was no chance for me to be saved, for if God could look upon sin and pass it over without an atonement, without something to blot it out, I think I should lose my great conception of God. I should also lose my joy as a saved sinner. But when I realize that He may be just, and the justifier of them that believe, when I know that He may hate sin while He loves the sinner, when I know that His own Son bore in His body our sins upon the tree — then I can sing and shout for joy, for I know that I am lifted from despair into hope, from darkness into light, from bondage into freedom. The Apostle Peter knew this, so we hear him say — the precious blood of Christ. How plain it all is, prefigured in the Old Testament, perfectly illustrated in the New. Listen while I give you some passages of Scripture. Jesus Christ died, and in dying he paid the penalty for my sins. His death was therefore, penal. Galatians 3:13 : "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." You remember the story of Father Damien. I recall when he started away from our country to the Hawaiian Islands to become a leper and to die as a leper for the sake of the lepers whom he served. Yet this is a poor illustration of Jesus Christ. He came into this world and suffered in my stead. He bore the shame of the cross. He was made a curse for me. As by faith I lift my eyes to Him and take Him as my Saviour, I take His place in the love and favor of God. Listen again. It was a voluntary death. John 10:18 : "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." I wish that I could help you to see what my salvation and yours cost. He turned away from the joy of heaven to the shame of earth. He turned away from the vast throngs saying — Holy, Holy, Holy, to this world where they veiled his face and smote him. He turned away from the immediate presence of the Father, and came down into this world where men spat in His face and heaped shame upon Him, and even placed the cross upon His tired shoulders. They did even more than this. They put Him on the cross and drove nails through His hands and feet. They lifted Him up between heaven and earth, as if He were unfit for earth and as if they would hold Him back from Heaven. He came down to earth to meet all this and He did it willingly. He was ready to suffer, ready to die for you and me. Tonight, all you need to do to have the bondage of sin taken away and to have sin cast behind God’s back, is just to take Him as your personal Saviour, and with His help to turn away from sin. It was a substitutionary death. In these times men seem to shrink from this thought. I have no harsh word for any man who cannot accept my theological position. I have no harsh word for the man who cannot at first accept a substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. But let me explain the meaning. It means that He takes my place and offers up Himself for me. I only know that I find this throughout the Word of God, and it takes hold of my soul and grips me. 2 Corinthians 5:21 : "For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin." There are some things in this world that are so dreadful that we cannot think of them without growing sick. We cannot speak of them without suffering. So it is when we think of sin in connection with Jesus. Yet we are told that He was made sin for us. When men come to my room and tell me that they are drunken and lecherous, that they have secret sins and passions that bind them, I can only go so far with them. These things I have not experienced, except through my sympathy. Yet while my Saviour did not sin, He was made sin for us. When the man who was a drunkard comes to Him, or the lecherous man, or the dishonest man or the woman who is weak, my blessed Redeemer knows all about their trouble, and knowing their trouble and staggering beneath the weight of the world’s woe, He hurries to the cross and dies. St. Peter knew this when he said — The precious blood of Christ! Hear me, too, when I give you this text from the Old Testament. Leviticus 17:11 : "For the life of the flesh is in the blood." What does this mean? It means that when Jesus Christ came into this world and lived and loved and suffered; when His heart broke on Calvary’s cross and the blood poured from His veins, He was laying down His life for you and for me. Of course, if I should lay down my life for you, it might avail in a certain way, but the value of the life determines the value of the blood. Do you not see this? I stand here tonight preaching and I know that there are some rich people here who are nevertheless very weak. There are some who are high in social life, but they have gone astray. Some are poor, too, and they have turned away from God. But no matter who you are, my Saviour is groaning upon Calvary and shedding His blood. He is able to save you all. The Apostle Peter knew this, and he said — The precious blood of Christ. I am hurrying to the close of my message but I want you to know the hope that is in the blood of Christ. Do not resist Him, my friends. Do not reject His precious blood. My friend, Dr. Geo. F. Pentecost, was determined to climb Pike’s Peak alone. His friends said to him, "You cannot do it without a guide who knows the way." But Dr. Pentecost said, "I know that I can climb it alone." So he started off. They told him that at a certain curve in the mountain there was a hut, open to any traveler, if by any chance he should miss his way going up. He was getting along very well, when suddenly a snowstorm overtook him. Without warning the blinding snow covered him and he began to drift. He staggered and fell, and then there came to him the warnings of his friends. He had practically given himself up to die, when he realized, as he lay upon the ground, that his hands were touching some dry twigs. It came to him that if he could start a fire he might still escape. He felt in his pocket for matches, and found one. But the wind was blowing a perfect gale. I heard Dr. Pentecost say that he took that single match and, shielding it in his hands from the snow, started to strike it, but he was afraid and he put it back into his pocket again. Finally, in his desperation, he got up closer under the shadow of a rock and struck the match, shielding the little flame as best he could, and touching it to the dry twigs. The fire was started and his life was saved. There was just that one little thing between him and death. What a blessing that he did not treat it carelessly. Tonight I am standing here to say that there is just one thing, between you and judgment, and that one thing is the precious blood of Christ. I beg you not to treat it carelessly. But someone is saying, — You don’t know my sins. You don’t know my habits. If I should start this evening, my old habits would come back at my heels like hounds scenting blood. True, I don’t know your habits, but I do know my Saviour. Do you remember the story in Scottish history, when they were seeking to take Bruce the King? They heard that he was in his palace and they started after him. The King heard that they were coming, and escaped with his trusted few. They made their way through the fields and into the forests, and when they thought that they had escaped, in the distance Bruce heard the baying of bloodhounds. They were his own bloodhounds. He gave himself up for lost, but in the distance he heard the babbling sound of a little mountain stream. With his faithful followers he went into the stream and by going up the stream some distance and across to the other side, they covered their trail. When the hounds came to the stream, so history tells us, they lost the trail and Bruce was saved. But I know a story a thousand times better than this. Yes, I do. I ask you to give your hearts to Christ, and then start, and the moment you start, all the old habits of your life are after you again; the old passions and lusts and desires. You have only half started when you sink back and say — It is hopeless. But wait a moment. You can cover your trail. Mr. Alexander and I landed one night four hours late, on the Fiji Islands. We were to have held services there. The service had to be cancelled. Nevertheless, we decided to stop, for we wanted to say at least that we had been in the Fiji Islands. While we were there, we heard in the distance what sounded like a cannon. We were told that it was calling the people to the House of God. A man stood with a mallet by a hollow log of a special kind of wood, and the sound could be heard for miles. We climbed up the hill and found a multitude of people with black skins and strange hair waiting for us. They sang two songs, in which Mr. Alexander led them. One was the "Glory Song," and the other was the song which belongs to our subject this evening. We did not know the words, but we knew the music. We have heard this song in every land under the sun. We have heard people sing it with tears rolling down their cheeks. We have heard it sung while multitudes pressed up to the altar and sobbed their way into the Kingdom of God. This is the song they were singing in the Fiji Islands— "There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins." Can you not see it? Plunge in! Plunge in! Tonight! To-night! Nobody is too sinful! Nobody is too sinful. Nobody is too far away. The precious blood of Christ can cleanse and save unto the uttermost. Nothing less than his blood can do this. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." I can say no more. With all my heart I wish that I might. I can only add this. I love Him. I love Him. He is to me as real as you are. I love Him. I want you to love Him. I want you to take Him. I know that there are people who want to say this evening — "Pray for me." Lift up your hand to express this desire of your heart. ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-j-wilbur-chapman/ ========================================================================