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Parting Words

But I have another story to tell. It was Ralph Wallace who told me of this one. A certain gentleman was a member of the Presbyterian church. His little boy was sick. When he went home his wife was weeping, and she said, "Our boy is dying; he has had a change for the worse. I wish you would go in and see him." The father went into the room and placed his hand upon the brow of his dying boy, and could feel the cold, damp sweat was gathering there; that the cold, icy hand of death was feeling for the chords of life. "Do you know, my boy, that you are dying?" asked the father. "Am I? Is this death? Do you really think I am dying?" "Yes, my son, your end on earth is near." "And will I be with Jesus to-night, father?" "Yes, you will be with the Savior." "Father, don't you weep, for when I get there I will go straight to Jesus and tell Him that you have been trying all my life to lead me to Him." God has given me two little children, and ever since I can remember I have directed them to Christ, and I would rather they carried this message to Jesus, that I had tried all my life to lead them to Him, than have all the crowns of the earth; and I would rather lead them to Jesus than give them the wealth of the world. I challenge any man to speak of heaven without speaking of children. "For of such is the kingdom of heaven."

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These very old and beautiful articles, sermons, and notes can be used freely. However, you must give the author proper credit, never involve them with money, and never claim them as your own. Matthew 10:8 ........ Freely you received, freely give.

By Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899)
One Million Souls For Christ
Founder Of The Moody Bible Institute
And Moody Church In Chicago, Illinois
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Power of Love

Love is the badge that Christ gave His disciples. Some put on one sort of badge and some another. Some put on a strange kind of dress, that they may be known as Christians, and some put on a crucifix, or something else, that they may be known as Christians. But love is the only badge by which the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ are known. "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one toward another." Therefore, though a man stand before an audience and speak with the eloquence of a Demosthenes, or of the greatest living orator, if there is no love back of his words, it is like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. I would recommend all Christians to read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians constantly, abiding in it day and night, not spending a night or a day there, but just go in there and spend all our time - summer and winter, twelve months in the year, then the power of Christ and Christianity would be felt as it never has been in the history of the world. See what this chapter says:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

A great many are praying for faith; they want extra ordinary faith; they want remarkable faith. They forget that love exceeds faith. The Charity spoken of in the above verses, is LOVE, The fruit of the Spirit, the great motive-power of life. What the Church of God needs today is love - more love to God and more love to our fellow-men. If we love God more, we will love our fellow-men more. There is no doubt about that. I used to think that I should like to have lived in the days of the prophets; that I should like to have been one of the prophets, to prophesy, and to see the beauties of heaven and describe them to men; but, as I understand the Scriptures now, I would a good deal rather live in the thirteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians and have this love that Paul is speaking of, the love of God burning in my soul like an unquenchable flame, so that I may reach men and win them for heaven.

A man may have wonderful knowledge, that may unravel the mysteries of the Bible, and yet be as cold as an icicle. He may glisten like the snow in the sun. Sometimes you have wondered why it was that certain ministers who have had such wonderful magnetism, who have such a marvelous command of language, and who preach with such mental strength, haven’t had more conversions. I believe, if the truth was known, you would find no divine love back of their words, no pure love in their sermons. You may preach like and angel, Paul says, "with the tongues of men and of angels," but if you have not love, it amounts to nothing. "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor," - a man may may be very charitable and give away all his goods, a man may give all he has, but if it is not the love of God which prompts the gift, it will not be acceptable with God. "And though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity" - have not love - "It profiteth me nothing." A man may go to the stake for his principles; he may go to the stake for what he believes, but if it is not love to God which actuates him, it will not be acceptable to God.

Power in Operation

The power we have been considering is the Presence of The Holy Spirit. He is omnipotent. Power in operation is the actions of the Spirit or the fruit of the Spirit. This we shall now consider. Paul writes in Galatians 5:16 etc.

"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 can not do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness against such there is not law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another."

Now there is a life of perfect peace, perfect joy, and perfect love, and that ought to be the aim of every child of God; that ought to be their standard; and they should not rest until having attained to that position. That is God’s standard, where He wants all His children. These nine graces mentioned in this chapter in Galatians can be divided in this way: Love and peace and joy are all to God. God looks for that fruit from each one of His children, and that is the kind of fruit which is acceptable with Him. Without that we can not please God. He wants, above everything else that we possess, love, peace and joy. And then the next three - goodness, longsuffering and gentleness - are towards man. That is our outward life to those that we are coming in contact with continually - daily, hourly. The next three - faith, temperance, meekness - are in relation to ourselves; and in that way we can just take the three divisions, and it will be of some help to us. The first thing that meets us as we enter the kingdom of God, you might say are these first three graces: love, joy, and peace.

Power In and Upon

The Holy Spirit dwelling in us, is one thing; I think this is clearly brought out in Scripture; and the Holy Spirit upon us for service, is another thing. Now there are only three places we find in Scripture that are dwelling places for the Holy Ghost.

In the 40th chapter of Exodus, commencing with the 33rd verse, are these words:

"And he (that is Moses) reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work. "Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. "And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

The moment that Moses finished the work, the moment that the tabernacle was ready, the cloud came, the Shekinah glory came and filled it so that Moses was not able to stand before the presence of the Lord. I believe firmly, that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and self seeking, and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Ghost will come and fill every corner of our hearts; but if we are full of pride and conceit, and ambition and self seeking, and pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God; and I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he is full already with something else. Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray Him to empty us.

There must be an emptying before there can be a filling; and when the heart is turned upside down, and everything is turned out that is contrary to God, then the Spirit will come, just as He did in the tabernacle, and fill us with His Glory. We read in 2nd Chronicles, 5th chapter and 13th verse:

"It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound, to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good; for His mercy endureth forever; that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord. So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the lord had filled the house of God."

Picking up the Bible

The hardest thing, I will admit, ever a man had to do is to become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. This seems to many to be a paradox, but I will repeat it; it is the most difficult thing to become a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. I have a little nephew in Chicago. When he was three or four years of age, he threw that Bible on the floor. I think a good deal of that Bible, and I didn't like to see this. His mother said to him, "Go, pick up your uncle's Bible from the floor." "I won't," he replied. "Go and pick that Bible up directly." "I won't." "What did you say?" asked his mother. She thought he didn't understand. But he understood well enough, and had made up his mind that he wouldn't. She told the boy she would have to punish him if he didn't, and then he said he couldn't, and by-and-by he said he didn't want to. And that is the way with the people coming to Christ. At first they say they won't, then they can't, and then they don't want to. The mother insisted upon the boy picking up the Bible, and he got down and put his arms around it and pretended he couldn't lift it. He was a great, healthy boy, and he could have picked it up easily enough. I was very anxious to see the fight carried on, because she was a young mother, and if she didn't break that boy's will, he was going to break her heart by-and-by. So she told him again, if he didn't pick it up, she would punish him, and the child just picked it up. It was very easy to do it when he made up his mind. So it is perfectly easy for men to accept the gospel. The trouble is, they don't want to give up their will. If you want to be saved, you must just accept that gospel; that Christ is your Savior; that He is your redeemer, and that He has rescued you from the curse of the law. Just say, "Lord Jesus Christ, I trust you from this hour to save me"; and the moment you take that stand, He will put His loving arms around you and wrap about you the robe of righteousness.

Peace Declared

When France and England were at war, a French vessel had gone off on a long voyage, a whaling voyage; and when they came back, the crew were short of water, and being now near and English port, they wanted to get water; but they were afraid that they would be taken if they went into that port; and some people in the port saw them, saw their signal of distress, and sent word to them that they need not be afraid, that the war was over, and peace had been declared. But they couldn’t make those sailors believe it, and they didn’t dare to go into port, although they were out of water; but at last they made up their minds that they had better go in and surrender up their cargo and surrender up their lives to their enemies than to perish at sea without water; but when they got in, they found out that peace had been declared, and that what had been told them was true. So there are a great many people who don’t believe the glad tiding that peace has been made. Jesus Christ made peace on the Cross. He satisfied the claims of the law; and this law which condemns you and me has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. He has made peace, and now He wants us just to enjoy it, just to believe it. Nor is there a thing to hinder us from doing it, if we will. We can enter into that blessing now, and have perfect peace. The promise is: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Now, as long as our mind is stayed on our dear selves, we will never have peace. Some people think more of themselves than of all the rest of the world. It is self in the morning, self at noon, and self at night. It is self when they wake up, and self when they go to bed; and they are all the time looking at themselves and thinking about themselves, instead of "looking unto Jesus" Faith is an outward look. Faith does not look within; it looks without. It is not what I think, nor what I feel, nor what I have done, but it is what Jesus Christ is and has done, and so we should trust in Him who is our strength, and whose strength will never fail. After Christ rose from the grave, three times, John tells us, He met His disciples and said unto them, "Peace be unto you." There is peace for the conscience through His blood, and peace for the heart in His love.

Peace

My little boy had some trouble with his sister one Saturday, and he did not want to forgive her. And at night he was going to say his prayers, and I wanted to see how he would say his prayers, and he knelt down by his mother and said his prayers, and then I went up to him, and I said, "Willie, did you pray?" "I said my prayers." "Yes, but did you pray?" "I said my prayers." "I know you said them, but did you pray?" He hung his head. "You are angry with your sister?" "Well, she had no business to do thus and so." "That has nothing to do with it; you have the wrong idea, my boy, if you think that you have prayed to-night." You see he was trying to get over it by saying, "I said my prayers to-night." I find that people say their prayers every night, just to ease their conscience. And then I said, "Willie, if you don't forgive your sister, you will not sleep to-night. Ask her to forgive you." He didn't want to do that. He loves the country, and he has been talking a great deal about the time when he can go into the country and play outdoors. So he said, "O, yes, I will sleep well enough; I am going to think about being out there in the country." That is the way that we are trying to do; we are trying to think of something else to get rid of the thought of these sins, but we cannot. I said nothing more to him. I went on studying, and his mother came down stairs. But soon he called his mother, and said, "Mother, won't you please go up and ask Emma if she won't forgive me?" Then I afterwards heard him murmuring in bed, and he was saying his prayers. And he said to me, "Papa, you were right, I could not sleep, and I cannot tell you how happy I am now." Don't you think there is any peace until your sins are put away. My dear friends, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the gospel of peace.

Obedience Explained

Suppose I say to my boy, "Willie, I want you to go out and bring me a glass of water." He says he doesn't want to go. "I didn't ask you whether you wanted to go or not, Willie; I told you to go." "But I don't want to go," he says. "I tell you, you must go and get me a glass of water." He does not like to go. But he knows I am very fond of grapes, and he is very fond of them himself, so he goes out, and some one gives him a beautiful cluster of grapes. He comes in, and says, "Here, papa; here is a beautiful cluster of grapes for you." "But what about the water?" "Won't the grapes be acceptable, papa?" "No, my boy, the grapes are not acceptable; I won't take them; I want you to get me a glass of water." The little fellow doesn't want to get the water, but he goes out, and this time some one gives him an orange. He brings it in and places it before me. "Is that acceptable?" he asks. "No, no, no!" I say, "I want nothing but water; you cannot do anything to please me until you get the water." And so, my friends, to please God you must first obey Him.

Over the Mountains

A lady had a little child that was dying. She thought it was resting sweetly in the arms of Jesus. She went into the room, and the child asked her, "What are those clouds and mountains that I see so dark?" "Why, Eddy," said his mother, "there are no clouds or mountains; you must be mistaken." "Why, yes, I see great mountains, and dark clouds, and I want you to take me in your arms and carry me over the mountains." "Ah," said the mother, "you must pray to Jesus; He will carry you safely." And, my friends, the sainted mother, the praying wife, may come to your bedside and wipe the damp sweat from your brow, but they cannot carry you over the Jordan when the hour comes. This mother said to her little boy, "I am afraid that it is unbelief that is coming upon you, my child, and you must pray that the Lord will be with you in your dying moments." And the two prayed, but the boy turned to her, and said, "Don't you hear the angels, mother, over the mountains, and calling for me, and I cannot go?" "My dear boy, pray to Jesus, and He will come; He only can take you." And the boy closed his eyes and prayed, and when he opened them a heavenly smile overspread his face, as he said, "Jesus has come to carry me over the mountains." Dear sinner, Jesus is ready and willing to carry you over the mountains of sin, and over your mountains of unbelief. Give yourself to Him.

Outflowing Streams

I would like to see some one just full of living water; so full that they couldn’t contain it; that they would have to go out and publish the Gospel of the grace of God. When a man gets so full that he can’t hold any more, then he is just ready for God’s service.

When preaching in Chicago, Dr. Gibson remarked in the inquiry meeting, "Now, how can we find out who is thirsty?" Said, he, "I was just thinking how we could find out. If a boy should come down the aisle, bringing a good pail full of clear water, and a dipper, we would soon find out who was thirsty; we would see thirsty men and women reach out for water; but if you should walk down the aisle with an empty bucket, you wouldn’t find it out. People would look in and see that there was no water, and say nothing." So said he, "I think that is the reason we are not more blessed in our ministry; we are carrying around empty buckets, and the people see that we have not anything in them, and they don’t come forward." I think that there is a good deal of truth in that. People see that we are carrying around empty buckets, and they will not come to us until they are filled. They see we haven’t any more than they have. We must have the Spirit of God resting upon us, and then we will have something that gives the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil; something that gives the victory over our tempers, over our conceits, and over every other evil, and when we can trample these sins under our feet, then people will come to us and say, "How did you get it? I need this power; you have something that I haven’t got; I want it." O, may God show us this truth. Have we been toiling all night? let us throw the net on the right side; let us ask God to forgive our sins, and anoint us with power from on high. But remember, He is not going to give this power to an impatient man; He is not going to give to a selfish man; He will never give it to an ambitious man whose aim is selfish, till first emptied of self; emptied of pride and of all worldly thoughts. Let it be God’s glory and not our own that we seek, and when we get to that point, how speedily the Lord will bless us for good. Then will the measure of our blessing be full. Do you know what heaven’s measure is? Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. If we get out heart filled with the Word of God, how is Satan going to get in? How is the world going to get in, for heaven’s measure is good measure, full measure, running over. Have you this fullness? If you have not, then seek it; say by the grace of God you will have it, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us these things. He wants us to shine down in this world; He wants to lift us up for His work; He wants us to have the power to testify for His Son. He has left us in this world to testify for Him. What did He leave us for? Not to buy and sell and to get gain, but to glorify Christ. How are you going to do it without the Spirit? That is the question. How are you to do it without the power of God?

Off for America

Previous to my coming across to this great country of ours, I was holding meetings in London. I took my ticket from there to Manchester to bid some friends good-by. When I got to the railway carriage I saw little groups of boys around two little fellows. Their coats were threadbare, with patches here and there carefully covering up the holes. Some good mother, it was evident, too poor to send them away in fine style, was trying to make them as neat as she could. The boys belonged to a Sunday-school in London, and the group around them were their school-mates, who had come down to bid them good-by. They shook hands, and then their Sunday-school teacher did the same, and wished them Godspeed. After that their minister came and took them by the hand, and breathed a prayer that they would be blessed. When they all had bade the boys good-by, a poor widow came up and put her arm around the companion of her son. Perhaps he had no mother, and she kissed him for his mother, and wished him good-by. Then she put her arms around the neck of the other boy, and he put his arms around her, and she began to weep. "Don't cry, mother," said the boy, "don't cry; I'll soon be in America, and I'll save money, and soon send for you to come out to me; I'll have you out with me. Don't cry." He stepped into the carriage, the steam was turned on, and the train was in motion when he put his head out of the window, and cried, "Farewell, dear mother"; and the mother's prayer went out, "God bless my boy, God bless my boy." Don't you think that when they came to America, and sent the first letter to England, that mother would run quickly to the door when the postman came with that letter? How quick that mother would take that letter and break the seal! She wants to hear good news. There is not one here who has not a message of good news, of glad tidings; better news than was ever received by a mother in England from a son in America, or from a mother in England by a son in America. It is glad tidings from a loving Savior; glad tidings of great joy.

Master and Servant

There is a very sweet story of Elijah and Elisha, and I love to dwell upon it. The time had come for Elijah to be taken up, and he said to Elisha, "You stay here at Gilgal, and I will go up to Bethel." There was a theological seminary there, and some young students, and he wanted to see how they were getting along; but Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee." And so Elisha just kept close to Elijah. They came to Bethel, and the sons of the prophets came out and said to Elisha, "Do you know that your master is to be taken away?" And Elisha said, "I know it; but you keep still." Then Elijah said to Elisha, "You remain at Bethel until I go to Jericho." But Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth and my soul liveth, I will not leave thee." "You shall not go without me, "says Elisha; and then I can imagine that Elisha just put his arm in that of Elijah, and they walked down together. I can see those two mighty men walking down to Jericho, and when they arrived there, the sons of the prophets came and said to Elisha, "Do you know that your master is to be taken away?" "Hush! keep still," says Elisha, "I know it" And then Elijah said to Elisha, "Tarry here awhile; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan." But Elisha said, "As the Lord liveth and my soul liveth, I will not leave thee. You shall not go without me." And then Elisha came right close to Elijah, and as they went walking down, I imagine Elisha was after something; when they came to the Jordan, Elijah took off his mantle and struck the waters, and they separated hither and thither, and the two passed through like giants, dry shod, and fifty sons of the prophets came to look at them and watch them. They didn’t know but Elijah would be taken up right in their sight. As they passed over Jordan, Elijah said to Elisha, "Now, what do you want?" He knew he was after something. "What can I do for you? Just make your request known." And he said, "I would like a double portion of thy Spirit." I can imagine now that Elijah had given him a chance to ask; he said to himself, "I will ask for enough." Elisha had a good deal of the Spirit, but, says he, "I want a double portion of thy Spirit." "Well," says Elijah, "if you see me when I am taken up. you shall have it." Do you think you could have enticed Elisha from Elijah at that moment? I can almost see the two arm in arm, walking along, and as they walked, there came along the chariot of fire, and before Elisha knew it, Elijah was caught up, and as he went sweeping towards the throne, the servant cried, "My Father! My Father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!" Elisha saw him no more. He picked up Elijah’s fallen mantle, and returning with that old mantle of his master’s, he came to the Jordan and cried for Elijah’s God, and the waters separated hither and thither, and he passed through dry-shod. Then the watching prophets lifted up their voices and said, "The Spirit of Elijah is upon Elisha;" and so it was, a double portion of it.

May the Spirit of Elijah, beloved reader, be upon us. If we seek for it we will have it. Oh, may the God of Elijah answer by fire, and consume the spirit of worldliness in the churches, burn up the dross, and make us whole-hearted Christians. May that Spirit come upon us; let that be our prayer in our family altars and in our closets. Let us cry mightily to God that we may have double portion of the Holy Spirit, and that we may not rest satisfied with this worldly state of living, but let us, like Samson, shake ourselves and come out from the world, that we may have the POWER OF GOD.

Not Easily Offended

In the 119th Psalm and the 165th verse, we find "Great peace have they who love thy law: and nothing shall offend them." The study of God’s Word will secure peace. You take Christians who are rooted and grounded in the Word of God, and you find they have great peace; but it is these who don’t study their Bible, and don’t know their Bible, who are easily offended when some little trouble comes, or some little persecution, and their peace is all disturbed; just a little breath of opposition, and their peace is all gone.

Sometimes I am amazed to see how little it takes to drive all peace and comfort from some people. some slandering tongue will readily blast it. But if we have the peace of God, the world can not take that from us. It can not give it; it can not destroy it. We have to get it from above the world; it is peace which Christ gives. "Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them." Christ says "blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." Now, if you will notice, wherever there is a Bible taught Christian, one who has the Bible well marked, and daily feeds upon the Word by prayerful meditation, he will not be easily offended.

Such are the people who are growing and working all the while. But it is these people who never open their Bibles, these people who never study the Scriptures, who become offended, and are wondering why they are having such a hard time. They are the persons who tell you that Christianity is not what it has been recommended to them; that they have found it was not all that we claim it to be. The real trouble is, they have not done as the Lord has told them to do. They have neglected the Word of God. If they had been studying the Word of God, they would not be in that condition. If they had been studying the Word of God, they would not have wandered these years away from God, living on the husks of the world. But the trouble is, they have neglected to care for the new life; they haven’t fed it, and the poor soul, being starved, sinks into weakness and decay, and is easily stumbled or offended.

I met a man who confessed his soul had fed on nothing for forty years. "Well," said I, "that is pretty hard for the soul - giving it nothing to feed on!" And that man is but a type of thousands and tens of thousands today; their poor souls are starving. This body that we inhabit for a day, and then leave, we take good care of; we feed it three times a day, and we clothe it, and take care of it, and deck it, and by and by it is going into the grave to be eaten up by the worms; but the inner man, that is live on and one, and on forever, is lean and starved.

Not a Failure

"He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).

Sometimes it looks as if God's servants fail. When Herod beheaded John the Baptist, it looked as if John's mission was a failure. But was it? The voice that rang through the valley of the Jordan rings through the whole world to-day You can hear its echo upon the mountains and the valleys yet, "I must decrease, but He must increase." He held up Jesus Christ and introduced Him to the world, and Herod had not power to behead him until his life work had been accomplished. Stephen never preached but one sermon that we know of, and that was before the Sanhedrim; but how that sermon has been preached again and again all over the world! Out of his death probably came Paul, the greatest preacher the world has seen since Christ left this earth. If a man is sent by Jehovah, there is no such thing as failure. Was Christ's life a failure? See how His parables are going through the earth to-day. It looked as if the apostles had made a failure, but see how much has been accomplished. If you read the book of Acts, you will see that every seeming failure in Acts was turned into a great victory Moses wasn't going to fail, although Pharaoh said with contempt, "Who is God that I should obey Him?" He found out who God was. He found out that there was a God.

None of Self

Then you will find all through the Scriptures, when men were filled with the Holy Spirit, they preached Christ and not themselves. They preached Christ and Him crucified. It says in the first chapter of Luke, 67th Verse, speaking of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist:

"And his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. As He spake by the mouth of His Holy prophets, which have been since the world began."

See, he is talking about the Word. If a man is filled with the Spirit, he will magnify the Word; he will preach the Word, and not himself; he will give this lost world the Word of the living God.

"And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways. To give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us. To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel."

And so we find again that when Elizabeth and Mary met, they talked of the Scriptures, and they were both filled with the Holy Ghost, and at once began to talk of their Lord.

We also find that Simeon, as he came into the temple and found the young child Jesus there, at once began to quote the Scriptures, for the Spirit was upon him. And when Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost, and preached that wonderful sermon, it is said he was filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to preach the Word to the multitude, and it was the Word that cut them. It was the sword of the Lord and Peter, the same as it was the sword of the Lord and Gideon. And we find it says of Stephen, "They were not able to resist the spirit and wisdom by which he spake." Why? Because he gave them the Word of God. And we are told that the Holy Ghost came on Stephen, and none could resist his word. And we read, too, that Paul was full of the Holy Spirit, and that he preached Christ and Him crucified, and that many people were added to the Church. Barnabas was full of faith and the Holy Ghost; and if you will just read and find out what he preached, you will find it was the Word, and many were added to the Lord. So that when a man is full of the Spirit, he begins to preach, not himself, but Christ, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. The disciples of Jesus were all filled with the Spirit, and the Word was published; and when the Spirit of God comes down upon the Church, and we are anointed the Word will be published in the streets, and in the lanes, and in the alleys; there will not be a dark cellar nor a dark attic, nor a home where the Gospel will not be carried by some loving heart, if the Spirit comes upon God’s people in demonstration and in power.

No Real Death

"With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation"
(Ps. 91:16).

Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy death, and we can say with Paul, if we will, "Oh, death, where is thy sting?" And we can hear a voice rolling down from heaven saying, "Buried in the bosom of the Son of God." He took death unto His own bosom. He went into the grave to conquer and overthrow it, and when He arose from the dead said, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Thank God, we have a long life with Christ in glory.

My dear friends, if we are in Christ we are never going to die. Do you believe that? If sometime you should read that D. L. Moody, of East Northfield, is dead, don't believe a word of it. He has gone up higher, that is all; gone out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal, a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His own glorious body. Moses wouldn't have changed the body he had at the transfiguration for the body he had at Pisgah. Elijah wouldn't have changed the body he had at the transfiguration for the body he had under the juniper tree. They got better bodies; and I too am going to make something out of death.

Mrs. Moody Teaching her Child

There was a time when our little boy did not like to go to church, and would get up in the morning, and say to his mother, "What day is tomorrow?" "Tuesday." "Next day?" "Wednesday." "Next day?" "Thursday;" and so on, till he came to the answer, "Sunday." "Dear me," he said. I said to the mother, "We cannot have our boy grow up to hate Sunday in this way; that will never do. That is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. I used to look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread. Very few kind words were associated with the day. I don't know that the minister ever put his hand on my head. I don't know that the minister ever noticed me, unless it was when I was asleep in the gallery, and he woke me up. This kind of thing won't do; we must make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; not a day to be dreaded; but a day of pleasure." Well, the mother took the work up with this boy. Bless those mothers in their work with the children. Sometimes I feel as if I would rather be the mother of John Wesley or Martin Luther or John Knox that have all the glories in the world. Those mothers who are faithful with the children God has given them will not go unrewarded. My wife went to work and took those Bible stories and put those blessed truths in a light that the child could comprehend, and soon the feeling of dread for the Sabbath with the boy was the other way. "What day's to-morrow?" he would ask. "Sunday." "I am glad." And if we make those Bible truths interesting—break them up in some shape so that the children can get at them, then they will begin to enjoy them.

Moody's Mother and her Prodigal Son

I can give you a little experience of my own family. Before I was fourteen 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 to the post-office to see if there was a letter from him, and recollect how we used to come back with the sad tidings, "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 the rest of us put together, and I believe 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. 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 toward 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 great beard flowing down his breast, his tears trickling down his face. When my mother saw those tears she cried, "O it is my lost son," and entreated him to come in. But he stood still. "No, mother," he said, "I will not come in, till I hear first you have forgiven me." Do you believe she was not willing to forgive him? Do you think she was likely to keep him long standing there? She rushed to the threshold, and threw her arms around him, and breathed forgiveness. God will forgive you.

Moody in the Far West

I remember when I went to California just to try and get a few souls saved on the Pacific coast, I went into a school there, and asked, "Have you got some one who can write a plain hand?" "Yes." Well, we got up the blackboard, and the lesson upon it proved to be the very text we have tonight. "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." And I said, "Suppose we write upon that board some of the earthly treasures? And we will begin with 'gold.'" The teacher readily put down "gold," and they all comprehended it, for all had run to that country in hope of finding it. "Well, we will put down 'houses' next, and then 'land.' Next we will put down 'fast horses.'" They all understood what fast horses were; they knew a good deal more about fast horses than they knew about the kingdom of God. Some of them, I think, actually made fast horses serve as gods. "Next we will put down 'tobacco.' " The teacher seemed to shrink at this. "Put it down," said I; "many a man thinks more of tobacco than he does of God. Well, then we will put down 'rum.' " He objected to this; didn't like to put it down at all. "Down with it! Many a man will sell his reputation, will sell his home, his wife, his children, everything he has, for rum. It is the god of some men. Many here are ready to sell their present and eternal welfare for it. Put it down;" and down it went. "Now," said I, "suppose we put down some of the heavenly treasures. Put down 'Jesus' to head the list, then 'heaven,' then 'river of life,' then 'crown of glory,' and we went on until the column was filled, and then just drew a line and showed the heavenly and the earthly things in contrast. My friends, they could not stand comparison. If a man just does that, he cannot but see the superiority of the heavenly over the earthly treasures. Well, it turned out that the teacher was not a Christian. He had gone to California on the usual hunt—gold; and when he saw the two columns placed side by side, the excellence of the one over the other was irresistible, and he was the first soul God gave me on the Pacific coast. He accepted Christ, and that man came to the station when I was coming away, and blessed me for coming to that place.

Moody Chasing his Shadow

When I was a little boy, I remember I tried to catch my shadow. I don't know if you were ever so foolish; but I remember running after it, and trying to get ahead of it. I could not see why the shadow always kept ahead of me. Once I happened to be racing with my face to the sun, and I looked over my head and saw my shadow coming back of me, and it kept behind me all the way. It is the same with the Son of Righteousness; peace and joy will go with you while you go with your face toward Him, and these people who are getting at the back of the sun are in darkness all the time. Turn to the light of God, and the reflection will flash in your heart. Don't say that God will not forgive you. It is only your will which keeps His forgiveness from you.

Moody and the Children

The first two or three years that I attempted to talk in the meetings, I saw that the older people did not like it. I had sense enough to know that I was a bore to them. "Well, I went out upon the street and I got eighteen little children to follow me the first Sunday, and I led them into the Sunday-school. I found that I had something to do. I was encouraged, and I kept at that work. And if I am worth anything to the Christian church to-day, it is as much due to that work as anything else. I could not explain these Scriptural passages to them, for I did not then comprehend them, but I could tell them stories; I could tell them that Christ loved them, and that He died for them. I did the best I could. I used the little talent I had, and God kept giving me more talents, and so, let me say, find some work. See if you can get a Sabbath-school to teach. If you cannot get that, go down into the dark lanes and byways of the city and talk to them and sing some gospel hymns; or, if you cannot sing, take some one with you that can sing some of these songs of praise. Sing or read the twenty-third psalm, or pray, and you can get a blessing in that way. When you have won one soul to Christ, you will want to win two, and when you get into the luxury of winning souls it will be a new world to you, and you will not think of going back to the world at all.

A Bad Boy

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. 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. Now, won't 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 said, "My boy, you are just killing me as you have killed your mother. These hairs are growing white, and you are sending me, too, to the grave." Still the boy would not stay, and the old man said, "If you 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.

A Boy's Story

Some years ago, as I was about to close a prayer meeting, a young man got up and urged all those men present that had not yet accepted of Christ, to do so that night. And in closing up his little speech, he said, "I once had a father and mother that cared more for my soul than for anything else. At last my father died; and when my father was dead and gone, my mother was more anxious than ever for me, and sometimes she would come and put her loving arms around my neck, and she would just plead with me to go to Christ. She used to tell me, after my father was dead, that she was lonesome without having me a Christian. I told her I sympathized with her; but declared I wanted to see a little of the world. I did not want to become a Christian in early life. Sometimes I would wake up past midnight, and would hear a voice in my mother's chamber. I would hear that godly mother crying to God for her boy. I was her only child. I was very dear to her. At last I felt I must either become a Christian or go away from that mother's influence; and I ran away. After I had been gone a long time, I heard from home indirectly. I heard my mother was sick. I knew what it meant. I knew that she was pining for me. I knew her heart was broken on account of me and my wayward life. I thought I would go home and ask my mother to forgive me. My second thought was, if I did, I would have to go and be a Christian. I could not stay under the same roof without becoming a Christian. My rebellious heart said, 'I will not go.' When I heard again, I heard my mother was much worse. The thought came, supposing my mother should die, supposing I should never see that mother again, I never could forgive myself. I started for home. There was no train to my native village. I took the coach. I got in just after dark. The moon was shining. I had to go about a mile and a half to my mother's house; and on my way I thought I would go by the village graveyard, and I thought I would get over the fence, and go to the grave where my father was buried, to see if there was a new-made grave. It might be that mother was gone. When I drew near that grave, my heart began to beat more quickly, as by the light of the moon I saw the new-made grave. The whole story was told. The whole story was clear. My sainted mother was gone. It was a fresh-made grave. It had just been dug. For the first time in my life this question came stealing over me: Who was going to pray for my lost soul now? Father and mother both gone now. And, young men, I would have given the world, if I could have called that mother back and have her put her arms around my neck, and heard her breathe my name in prayer. But her voice was silent forever. She was gone. I knelt beside that grave, crying that God might have mercy on me, and that God would forgive me. And I did not leave that grave all night till the morning dawn. But before morning I believed that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven my sins, and that my mother's God had become my God. But, young men, I would never forgive myself. I never can. I killed that mother. I trampled her prayers and her entreaties under my feet. I broke her heart, and sent her to her grave. Young man, if you have a godly mother, treat her kindly."

A Boy's Victory

I remember when out in Kansas, while holding a meeting, I saw a little boy who came up to the window crying. I went to him and said, "My little boy, what is your trouble?" "Why, Mr. Moody, my mother's dead, and my father drinks, and they don't love me, and the Lord won't have anything to do with me because I am a poor drunkard's boy." "You have got a wrong idea, my boy; Jesus will love you and save you, and your father too," and I told him a story of a little boy in an eastern city. The boy said his father would never allow the canting hypocrites of Christians to come into his house, and would never allow his child to go to Sunday-school. A kind-hearted man got his little boy and brought him to Christ. When Christ gets into a man's heart, he cannot help but pray. This father had been drinking one day and coming home he heard that boy praying. He went to him and said, "I don't want you to pray any more. You've been along with some of those Christians. If I catch you praying again I'll flog you." But the boy was filled with God, and he couldn't help praying. The door of communication was opened between him and Christ, and his father caught him praying again. He went to him. "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? If I catch you at it once more, you leave my house." He thought he would stop him. Not very long after this, one day his father had been drinking more than usual, and coming in found the boy offering a prayer. He caught the boy with a push and said, "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? Leave this house. Get your things packed up and go." The little fellow hadn't many things to get together—a drunkard's boy never has—and he went up to his mother's room. "Good-by, mother." "Where are you going?" "I don't know where I'll go, but father says I cannot stay here any longer; I've been praying again," he said. The mother knew it wouldn't do to try to keep the boy when her husband had ordered him away, so she drew him to her bosom and kissed him, and bid him good-by. He went to his brothers and sisters and kissed them good-by. When he came to the door, his father was there, and the little fellow reached out his hand. "Good-by, father; as long as I live I will pray for you," and left the house. He hadn't been gone many minutes when the father rushed after him. "My boy, if that is religion, if it can drive you away from father and mother and home, I want it." Yes, maybe some other little boy has got a drinking father and mother. Lift your voice to heaven, and the news will be carried up to heaven, "He prays."

A Child Legend

There is a beautiful legend told about a little girl who was the first-born of a family in Egypt, when the destroying angel swept through that land, and consequently who would have been a victim on that night if the protecting blood were not sprinkled on the doorposts of her father's house. The order was that the first-born should be struck by death all through Egypt. This little girl was sick, and she knew that death would take her, and she might be a victim of the order. She asked her father if the blood was sprinkled on the door-posts. He said it was, that he had ordered it to be done. She asked him if he had seen it there. He said no, but he had no doubt that it was done. He had seen the lamb killed, and had told the servant to attend to it. But she was not satisfied, and asked her father to go and see, and urged him to take her in his arms and carry her to the door to see. They found that the servant had neglected to put the blood upon the posts. There the child was exposed to death until they found the blood and sprinkled it on the posts, and then it was safe. See to it that you are safe in Christ.

A Child's Request for Prayer

At the close of one of the afternoon meetings we had in the Berkeley street church a few weeks ago, a little child brought me a note. I put it in my pocket, and read it when I got home. It was this, "Won't you pray that my mother may come home?" On inquiry I found that she was a little waif, her father was dead, and that her mother had deserted her and gone out to San Francisco, and had been gone over a year. Well, I must confess it kind of staggered me that they should pray that that mother might come back. But this note has just been handed to me, "You will remember the little child who asked prayers for her mother to return home, having been absent a year. This mother has returned, and was at the meeting with her little child on Friday night." The little child now wants us to pray that her dear mother may be converted.

A Good Mother

A young man went home from one of our meetings some time ago. He had been converted. He had previously been a dissipated young man. His mother had made it a rule, she told me, that she "would not retire till he came home." That was her rule, she said, "never to go to bed till my boy was at home. If he did not come home till five o'clock in the morning, I sat up, and when he was out all night I got no sleep; but when he came home I always met him with a kiss. I threw my arms around his neck. I treated him just as if he was kind, attentive and good. Sometimes he would be out all night. Those nights I would not go to bed. He used to know it. One night he came home. I looked to see if he was under the influence of liquor. He came up to me, and he said, 'Mother, I have been converted,' and then I fell on his neck and embraced him, and wept over him tears of joy. Why," said she, "Mr. Moody, you don't know what joy it gave me. I cannot tell you. You don't know what a load it took off my heart. You don't know how I praised God that my prayers had been answered."

A Higher Source

"I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honour him"

(Ps. 91:15).

First, "I will deliver." When God called Moses to go down into Egypt to deliver the children of Israel from the hand of the Egyptians, in all the world there wasn't a man who, humanly speaking, was less qualified than Moses. He had made the attempt once before to deliver the children of Israel, and he began by delivering one man. He failed in that, and killed an Egyptian, and had to run off into the desert, and stay there forty years. He had tried to deliver the Hebrews in his own way, he was working in his own strength and doing it in the energy of the flesh. He had all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but that didn't help him. He had to be taken back into Horeb, and kept there forty years in the school of God, before God could trust him to deliver the children of Israel in God's way. Then God came to him and said, "I have come down to deliver," and when God worked through Moses three million were delivered as easy as I can turn my hand over. God could do it. It was no trouble when God came on the scene.

Learn the lesson. If we want to be delivered, from every inward and outward foe, we must look to a higher source than ourselves. We cannot do it in our own strength.

A Little Boy Converts his Mother

I remember, when on the North Side, I tried to reach a family time and again and failed. One night in the meeting, I noticed one of the little boys of that family. He hadn't come for any good, however; he was sticking pins in the backs of the other boys. I thought if I could get hold of him it would do good. I used always to go to the door and shake hands with the boys, and when I got to the door and saw this little boy coming out, I shook hands with him, and patted him on the head, and said I was glad to see him, and hoped he would come again. He hung his head and went away. The next night, however, he came back, and he behaved better than he did the previous night. He came two or three after, and then asked us to pray for him that he might become a Christian. That was a happy night for me. He became a Christian, and a good one. One night I saw him weeping. I wondered if his old temper had got hold of him again, and when he got up I wondered what he was going to say. "I wish you would pray for my mother," he said. When the meeting was over I went to him, and asked, "Have you ever spoken to your mother, or tried to pray with her?" "Well, you know, Mr. Moody," he replied, "I never had an opportunity; she don't believe, and won't hear me." "Now," I said, "I want you to talk to your mother to-night." For years I had been trying to reach her and couldn't do it.

So I urged him to talk to her that night, and I said, "I will pray for you both." When he got to the sitting-room he found some people there, and he sat waiting for an opportunity, when his mother said it was time for him to go to bed. He went to the door undecided. He took a step, stopped, and turned around, and hesitated for a minute, then ran to his mother and threw his arms around her neck, and buried his face in her bosom. "What is the matter?" she asked; she thought he was sick. Between his sobs he told his mother how for five weeks he had wanted to be a Christian; how he had stopped swearing; how he was trying to be obedient to her, and how happy he would be if she would be a Christian, and then went off to bed. She sat for a few minutes, but couldn't stand it, and went up to his room. When she got to the door she heard him weeping, and praying, "O God, convert my dear mother." She came down again, but couldn't sleep that night. Next day she told the boy to go and ask Mr. Moody to come over and see her. He called at my place of business (I was in business then), and I went over as quiet as I could. I found her sitting in a rocking-chair weeping. "Mr. Moody," she said, "I want to become a Christian." "What has brought that change over you? I thought you didn't believe in it." Then she told me how her boy had come to her, and how she hadn't slept any all night, and how her sin rose up before her like a dark mountain. The next Sunday that boy came and led that mother into the Sabbath-school, and she became a Christian worker.

O little children, if you find Christ, tell it to your fathers and mothers. Throw your arms around their necks and lead them to Jesus.

A Mother Dies that her Boy may Live

When the California gold fever broke out, a man went there, leaving his wife in New England with his boy. As soon as he got on and was successful he was to send for them. It was a long time before he succeeded, but at last he got money enough to send for them. The wife's heart leaped with joy. She took her boy to New York, got on board a Pacific steamer, and sailed away to San Francisco. They had not been long at sea before the cry of "Fire! fire!" rang through the ship, and rapidly it gained on them. There was a powder magazine on board, and the captain knew the moment the fire reached the powder, every man, woman, and child must perish. They got out the life-boats, but they were too small! In a minute they were overcrowded. The last one was just pushing away, when the mother pleaded with them to take her and her boy. "No, they said, "we have got as many as we can hold." She entreated them so earnestly that at last they said they would take one more. Do you think she leaped into that boat and left her boy to die? No! She seized her boy, gave him one last hug, kissed him, and dropped him over into the boat. "My boy," she said, "if you live to see your father, tell him I died in your place." This is a faint type of what Christ has done for us. He laid down his life for us. He died that we might live. Now, will you not love Him? What would you say of that young man if he should speak contemptuously of such a Savior? May God make us loyal to Christ! My friends, you will need Him one day. You will need Him when you come to cross the swellings of Jordan. You will need Him when you stand at the bar of God.

A Sad Story

There was an Englishman who had an only son; and only sons are often petted, and humored and ruined. This boy became very headstrong, and very often he and his father had trouble. One day they had a quarrel, and the father was very angry, and so was the son; and the father said he wished the boy would leave home and never come back. The boy said he would go, and would not come into his fathers house again till he sent for him. The father said he would never send for him. Well, away went the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother does not. You mothers will understand that, but the fathers may not. You know there is no love on earth so strong as a mother's love. A great many things may separate a man and his wife; a great many things may separate a father from his son, but there is nothing in the wide world that can ever separate a true mother from her child. To be sure, there are some mothers that have drank so much liquor that they have drunk up all their affection. But I am talking about a true mother; and she would never cast off her boy.

Well, the mother began to write, and plead with the boy to write to his father first, and he would forgive him; but the boy said, "I will never go home till father asks me." Then she plead with the father, but the father said, "No, I will never ask him." At last the mother came down to her sick-bed, broken-hearted, and when she was given up by the physicians to die, the husband, anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted to know if there was nothing he could do for her before she died. The mother gave him a look; he well knew what it meant. Then she said, "Yes, there is one thing you can do. You can send for my boy. That is the only wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not pity him and love him when I am dead and gone, who will?" "Well," said the father, "I will send word to him that you want to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will not come for me. If ever I see him you must send for him."

At last the father went to his office and wrote a dispatch in his own name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he got the invitation from his father, he started off to see his dying mother. When he opened the door to get in, he found his mother dying and his father by the bedside. The father heard the door open, and saw the boy, but instead of going to meet him, he went to another part of the room, and refused to speak to him. His mother seized his hand; how she had longed to press it! She kissed him, and then said, "Now, my son, just speak to your father. You speak first, and it will all be over." But the boy said, "No, mother; I will not speak to him until he speaks to me." She took her husband's hand in one hand and the boy's in the other, and spent her dying moments in trying to bring about a reconciliation. Then just as she was expiring, she could not speak, so she put the hand of the wayward boy into the hand of the father, and passed away. The boy looked at the mother, and the father at the wife, and at last the father's heart broke, and he opened his arms, and took that boy to his bosom, and by that body they were reconciled. Sinner, that is only a faint type, a poor illustration, because God is not angry with you.

I bring you to-night to the dead body of Christ. I ask you to look at the wounds in his hands and feet, and the wound in his side. And I ask you, "Will you not be reconciled?"

A Singular Story

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, "See 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 that 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. 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 third 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 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 to become a Christian." The tears rolled down his cheeks as he said, "I could not; no sermon ever touches 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 my 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 him 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 her house, and I went to see him. I found him in a rocking chair, with that vacant, idiotic look upon him. Whenever 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.

A Voice from the Tomb

The other day I read of a mother who died, leaving her child alone and very poor. She used to pray earnestly for her boy, and left an impression upon his mind that she cared more for his soul than she cared for anything else in the world. He grew up to be a successful man in business, and became very well off. One day, not long ago, after his mother had been dead for twenty years, he thought he would remove her remains, and put her into his own lot in the cemetery, and put up a little monument to her memory. As he came to remove them and to lay them away the thought came to him, that while his mother was alive she had prayed for him, and he wondered why her prayers were not answered. That very night the man was saved. After his mother had been buried so long a time, the act of removing her body to another resting-place brought up all recollections of his childhood, and he became a Christian. O you mothers!

After Love, What?

After love comes peace. I have before remarked, a great many people are trying to make peace. But that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do; all that we have to do is to enter into it. It is a condition, and instead of our trying to make peace and to work for peace, we want to cease all that, and sweetly enter into peace.

If I discover a man in the cellar complaining because there is no light there, and because it is cold and damp, I say: "My friend, come up out of the cellar. There is a good warm sun up here, a beautiful spring day, and it is warm, it is cheerful and light; come up, and enjoy it." Would he reply, "O, no, sir; I am trying to see if I can make light down here; I am trying to work myself into a warm feeling." And there he is working away, and he has been at it for a whole week. I can imagine my reader’s smile; but you may be smiling at your own picture; for this is the condition of many whom I daily meet who are trying to do this very thing - they are trying to work themselves into peace and joyful feelings. Peace is a condition into which we enter; it is a state; and instead of our trying to make peace, let us believe what God’s Word declares, that peace has already been made by the blood of the Cross. Christ has made peace for us, and now what He desires is that we believe it and enter into it. Now, the only thing that can keep us from peace is sin. God turneth the way of the wicked upside down.

There is no peace for the wicked, saith my God. They are like the troubled sea that can not rest, casting up filth and mire all the while; but peace with God by faith in Jesus Christ - peace through knowledge of forgiven sin, is like a rock; the waters go dashing and surging past it, but it abides. When we find peace, we shall not find it on the ground of innate goodness; it comes from without ourselves, but into us. In the 16th chapter of John and the 33d verse we read:

"These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace."

In me ye might have peace. Jesus Christ is the author of peace. He procured peace. His gospel is the gospel of peace.

"Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people; for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior," and then came that chorus from heaven "Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth." He brought peace.

"In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

How true that in the world we have tribulation. Are you in tribulation? Are you in trouble? Are you in sorrow? Remember this is our lot. Paul had tribulation, and others shared in grief. Nor shall we be exempt from trial. But within, peace may reign undisturbed. If sorrow is our lot, peace is our legacy. Jesus gives peace; and do you know there is a good deal of difference between His peace and our peace? Any one can disturb our peace, but they can’t disturb His peace. That is the kind of peace He has left us. Nothing can offend those who trust in Christ.

Agent and Instrument

The Holy Spirit is closely identified with the words of the Lord Jesus. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." The Gospel proclamation can not be divorced from the Holy Spirit. Unless He attend the word in power, vain will be the attempt in preaching it. Human eloquence or persuasiveness of speech are the mere trappings of the dead, if the living Spirit be absent; the prophet may preach to the bones in the valley, but it must be the breath from Heaven which will cause the slain to live. In the third chapter of the First Epistle of Peter, it reads, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit"

Here we see that Christ was raised up from the grave by this same Spirit, and the power exercised to raise Christ's dead body must raise our dead souls and quicken them. No other power on earth can quicken a dead soul, but the same power that raised the body of Jesus Christ out of Joseph's sepulcher. And if we want that power to quicken our friends who are dead in sin, we must look to God, and not be looking to man to do it. If we look alone to ministers, if we look alone to Christ's disciples to do this work, we shall be disappointed; but if we look to the Spirit of God and expect it to come from Him and Him alone, then we shall honor the Spirit, and the Spirit will do His work.

An Aid to Memory

It is a great comfort to us to remember that another office of the Spirit is to bring the teaching of Jesus to our remembrance. This was our Lord’s promise, "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance." - John 16:26

How striking that is. I think there are many Christians who have had that experience. They have been testifying, and found that while talking for Christ the Spirit has just brought into mind some of the sayings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and their mind was soon filled with the Word of God. When we have the Spirit resting upon us, we can speak with authority and power, and the Lord will bless our testimony and bless our work. I believe the reason why God makes use of so few in the Church, is because there is not in them the power that God can use. He is not going to use our ideas, but we must have the Word of God hid in our hearts, and then, the Holy Spirit inflaming us, we will have the testimony which will be rich, and sweet, and fresh, and the Lord’s Word will vindicate itself in blessed results. God wants to use us; God wants to make us channels of blessing; but we are in such a condition He does not use us. That is the trouble; there are so many men who have no testimony for the Lord; if they speak, they speak without saying anything, and if they pray, their prayer is powerless; they do not plead in prayer; their prayer is just a few set phrases that you have heard too often. Now what we want, is to be so full of the Word, that the Spirit coming upon us shall bring to mind - bring to our remembrance - the words of the Lord Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 2:9 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.

We hear that quoted so often in prayer - many a man weaves it into his prayer and stops right there. And the moment you talk about Heaven, they say, "Oh, we don’t know anything about Heaven; it hath not entered into the heart of man; eye hath not see; it is all speculation; we have nothing to do with it; and they say they quote it 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." What next - "but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." You see the Lord hath revealed them unto us: "For the Spirit searches all things - yea, the deep things of God." That is just what the Spirit does.

Anecdotes & Illustrations - Page 1

-Christ never preached any funeral sermons.

-His is a loving, tender hand, full of sympathy and compassion.

-Take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let death, let the judgment come: the victory is Christ's and yours through Him.

-The only man who ever suffered before Christ was that servant who had his ear cut off. But most likely in a moment afterward he had it on, and very likely it was a better ear than ever, because whatever the Lord does He does it well. No mm ever lost his life with Him.

- A great many people wonder why it was that Christ did not come at once to Martha and Mary, whom He loved, whenever He heard of their affliction. It was to try them, and it is the same with His dealings toward us. If He seems not to come to us in our affliction, it is only to test us.

- -When the Spirit came to Moses, the plagues came upon Egypt, and he had power to destroy men's lives; when the Spirit came upon Elijah, fire came down from heaven; when the Spirit came upon Gideon, no man could stand before him; and when it came upon Joshua, he moved around the city of Jericho and the whole city fell into his hands; but when the Spirit came upon the Son of Man, He gave His life; He healed the broken-hearted.

-No matter how low down you are; no matter what your disposition has been; you may be low in your thoughts, words, and actions; you may be selfish; your heart may be overflowing with corruption and wickedness; yet Jesus will have compassion upon you. He will speak comforting words to you; not treat you coldly or spurn you, as perhaps those of earth would, but will speak tender words, and words of love and affection and kindness. Just come at once. He is a faithful friend - a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

-There cannot be any peace where there is uncertainty.

-There is no, knowledge like that of a man who knows he is saved, who can look up and see his "title clear to mansions in the skies."

-I believe hundreds of Christian people are being deceived by Satan now on this point, that they have not got the assurance of salvation just because they are not willing to take God at His word.

-"But," a man said to me, "no one has come back, and we don't know what is in the future. It is all dark, and how can we be sure?" Thank God! Christ came down from heaven, and I would rather have Him, coming as he does right from the bosom of the Father, than any one else. We can rely on what Christ says, and He says, "He that believeth on Me shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Not that we are going to have it when we die, but right here to-day.

-Now, I find a great many people who want some evidence that they have accepted the Son of God. My friends, if you want any evidence, take God's word for it. You can't find better evidence than that. You know that when the Angel Gabriel came down and told Zachariah he should have a son he wanted a further token than the angel's word. He asked Gabriel for it and he answered, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Lord." He had never been doubted, and he thundered out this to Zachariah. But he wanted a further token, and Gabriel said, "You shall have a token: you shall be dumb till your son shall be given you."

-When we know our Bible: then his that God can use us.

-When we find a man meditating on the words of God, my friends, that man is full of boldness and is successful.

-When a man is filled with the Word of God you cannot keep him still, If a man has got the Word, he must speak or die.

-Let us have one day exclusively to study and read the Word of God. If we can't take time during the week, we will have Sunday uninterrupted.

-Now, as old Dr. Bonner, of Glasgow, said, Lord didn't sell Joshua how to use the sword, but He told him how he should meditate on the Lord day and night, and then he would have good success."

-One thing I have noticed in studying the Word of God, and that is, when a man is filled with the Spirit he deals largely with the Word of God, whereas the man who is filled with his own Ideas refers rarely to the Word of God. He gets along without it, and you seldom see it mentioned in his discourses.

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Anecdotes & Illustrations - Page 2

-Now I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but one thing I can predict; that every one of our new converts that goes to studying his Bible, and loves this book above every other book, is sure to hold out. The world will have no charm for him; he will get the world under his feet, because in this book he will find something better than the world can give him.

-What can botanists tell you of the lily of the valley? You must study this book for that. What can geologists tell you of the Rock of Ages, or mere astronomers about the Bright Morning Star? In those pages we find all knowledge unto salvation; here we read of the ruin of man by nature, redemption by the blood, and regeneration by the Holy Ghost These three things run all through and through them.

-The most solemn truth in the gospel is that the only thing Christ left down here is His blood.

-A man who covers up the cross though he may be an intellectual man, and draw large crowds will have no ilk there, and his church will be but a gilded sepulcher.

-There is either of two things we must do. One is to send back the message to heaven that we don't want the blood 9t Christ to cleanse us of our sin, or else accept it.

-Into every house where the blood was not sprinkled, the destroying angel came. But wherever the blood was on doorpost and lintel, whether they had worked much, or whether they had worked none, God passed them over.

-A man who has not realized what the blood has done for him has not the token of salvation. It is told of Julian, the apostate, that while he was fighting he received an arrow in his side. He pulled it out, and, taking a handful of blood threw it into the air and cried, "Galilean, Galilean, thou hast conquered."

-Look at that Roman soldier as he pushed his spear into the very heart of the God-man. What a hellish deed! But what was the next thing that took place? Blood covered the spear! Oh! thank God, the blood covers sin. There was the blood covering that spear-the very point of it. The very crowning act of sin brought out the crowning act of love; the crowning act of wickedness was the crowning act of grace.

-It is said that old Dr. Alexander, of Princeton College, when a young student used to start out to preach, always gave them a piece of advice. The old man would stand with his gray locks and his venerable face and say: "Young man, make much of the blood in your ministry? Now, I have traveled considerable during the past few years, and never met a minister who made much of the blood and much of the atonement but God had blessed his ministry, and souls were born into the light by it.

-There was never a sermon which you have listened to but in it Christ was seeking for you. I contend that a man cannot but find in every page of this book that Jesus Christ is seeking him through His blessed Word. This is what the Bible is for to seek out the lost.

-No man in the world should be so happy as a man of God. It is one continual source of gladness. He can l3ok up and say, "God is my Father, Christ is my Saviour, and the Church is my mother."

-It is the greatest pleasure of living to win souls to Christ.

-I believe in what John Wesley used to say, "All at it, and always at it," and that is what the Church wants to-day.

-If we were all of us doing the work that God has got for us to do, don't you see how the work of the Lord would advance?

-There is no man living that can do the work that God has got for me to do. No one can do it but myself. And if the work ain't done we will have to answer for it when we stand before God's bar.

-What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all the time receiving, never giving out anything. Why is it that many Christians are cold? Because they are all the time receiving, never giving out anything.

-If Christ comes into our hearts we are not ashamed.

-I wish we had a few more women like the woman of Samaria, willing to confess what the Lord Jesus Christ had done for their souls.

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Anecdotes & Illustrations - Page 3

-Believing and confessing go together; and you cannot be be saved without you take them both. "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation." If you ever see the kingdom of heaven you have to 'take this way.

-Satan puts straws across our path and magnifies it and makes us believe it is a mountain, but all the devil's mountains are mountains of smoke; when you come up to them they are not there.

-I do not know anything that would wake up Chicago better than for every man and woman here who loves Him to begin to talk about Him to theft friends, and just to tell them what He has done for you. You have got a circle of friends. Go and tell them of Him.

-I can't help thinking of the old woman who started out when the war commenced with a poker in her hand. When asked what! she was going to do with it she said: "I can't do much with it, but I can show what side I'm on." My friends, even if you can't do much, show to which side you belong.

-I may say with truth that there is only about one in ten who professes Christianity who will turn round and glorify God with a loud voice. Nine out of ten are still born Christians. You never hear of them. If you press them hard with the question whether they are Christians they might say, "Well, I hope so." We never see it in their actions; we never see it in their lives. They might belong to the church you go to, but you never see them at the prayer-meetings or taking any interest in the church affairs. They don't profess it among their fellows or in their business, and the result is that there are hundreds going on with a half hope, not sure whether their religion will stand them or not

-It is our privilege to know that we are saved.

-We shall draw the world to Christ when we are filled with religion.

-He that overcometh shall inherit all things. God has no poor children.

-I hold to the doctrine of sudden conversion as I do to my life, and I would as quickly give up my life as give up this doctrine, unless it can be proved that it is not according to the word of God. Now, I will admit that light is one thing and birth is another. A soul must be born before it can see light A child must be born before it can be taught; it must be born before it can walk; it must be born before it can be educated.

-If you receive Him it will be well; if you reject Him and are lost it will be terrible.

-Thanks be to God, there is hope to-day; this very hour you can choose Him and serve Him.

-Now just think a moment and answer the question, "What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?"

-I believe in my soul that there are more at this day being lost for want of decision than for any other thing.

-One of two things you must do; you must either receive Him or reject Him. You receive Him here and He will receive you there; you reject Him here and He will reject you there.

-The mightiest man that ever lived could not deliver himself from his sins. If a man could have saved himself, Christ would never have come into the world.

-He came to deliver us from our sinful dispositions, and create in us pure hearts, and when we have Him with us it will not be hard for us. Then the service of Christ will be delightful.

-If you are under the power of evil, and you want to get under the power of God, cry to Him to bring you over to His service; cry to Him to take you into His army. He will hear you; He will come to you, and, if need be, He will send a legion of angels to help you to fight your way up to heaven. God will take you by the right hand and lead you through this wilderness, over death, and take you right into His kingdom. That's what the Son of Man came to do. He has never deceived us; just say here; "Christ is ray deliverer.

-God will honor our faith.

-There is nothing on this earth that pleases Christ so much as faith.

-Faith is the foundation of all society. We have only to look around and see this.

-I believe there is no man in the world so constituted but he can believe in God's word. He simply tells you to believe in Him, and He will save you.

-When I was converted twenty years ago I felt a faith in God; but five years after I had a hundred times more faith, and five years ago I had more than eve; because I became better acquainted with Him. I have read up the Word, and I see that the Lord has done so and so, and then I have turned to where He has promised to perform it, and when I see this I have reason to believe in Him.

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Anecdotes & Illustrations - Page 4

-All you have got to do is to prove that you are a sinner, and I will prove that you have got a Saviour.

-Do you believe the Lord will call a poor sinner, and then cast him out? No! his word stands forever, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out."

-If God put Adam out of this earthly Eden on account of one sin, do you think He will let us into the Paradise above with our tens of thousands sins upon us.

-The only charge they could bring against Christ down here was, that He was receiving bad men. They are the very kind of men He is willing to receive.

-"Lord, you don't really mean that we shall preach the Gospel to those men that murdered you, to those men that took your life?" "Yes," says the Lord, "go and preach the Gospel to those Jerusalem sinners." I can imagine Him saying: "Go and hunt up that man that put the cruel crown of thorns upon My brow, and preach the Gospel to him. Tell him he shall have a crown in My kingdom without a thorn in it"

-We must not limit the mighty grace of God.

-Grace means undeserved kindness. It is the gift of God to man the moment he sees he is unworthy of God's favor.

-A man does not get grace till he comes down to the ground, till he sees he needs grace. When a man stoops to the dust and acknowledges that he needs mercy, then it is that the Lord will give him grace.

-If you are ready to partake of grace you have not to atone for your sins-you have merely to accept of the atonement. All that you want to do is to cry, "God have mercy upon me," and you will receive the blessing.

-"The grace of God hath power to bring salvation to all men," and if a man is unsaved it is because he wants to work it out; he wants to receive salvation in some other way than God's way; but we are told that "he that climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber."

-When we get full of this grace we want to see every one blessed-we want to see all the churches blessed, not only all the churches here, but in the whole country. That was the trouble with Christ's disciples. He had hard work to make them understand that His gospel was for every one, that it was a stream to flow out to all nations of the earth. They wanted to confine it to the Jews, and He had to convince them that it was for every living being.

-If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you are free

-There is no sin in the whole catalogue of sins you can name but Christ will deliver you from it perfectly.

-We are led on by an unseen power that we have not got strength to resist, or else we are led on by the loving Son of God.

-The trouble is, people do not know that Christ is a Deliverer. They forget that the Son of God came to keep them from sin as as well as to forgive it.

-You say "I am afraid I cannot hold out.' Well, Christ will hold out for you. There is no mountain that He will not climb with you if you will; He will deliver you from your besetting sin.

-Satan rules all men that are in his kingdom Some he rules through lust. Some he rules through covetousness. Some he rules through appetite. Some he rules by their temper, but he rules them. And none will ever seek to be delivered until they get their eyes open and see that they have been taken captive.

-'When Christ was on the earth there was a woman in the temple who was bowed almost to the ground with sin. Satan had - bound her for eighteen years; but after all these years of bondage Christ delivered her. He spoke one word and she was free. She got up and walked home. How astonished those at home must have been to see her walking in.

-Praise is not only speaking to the Lord on our own account, but it is praising Him for what He has done for others.

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Anecdotes & Illustrations - Page 5

-If we have a praise church we will have people convened.

I don't care where it is, what part of the world it's in, if we have a praise church we'll have successful christianity.

-Every good gift that we have had from the cradle up has come from God. If a man just stops to think what he has to praise God for, he will find there is enough to keep him singing praises for a week.

-We have in our churches a great deal of prayer, but I think it would be a good thing if we had a praise meeting occasionally. If we could only get people to praise God for what He has done, it would be a good deal better than asking Him continually for something.

-All should work and ask God's guidance.

-The world knows little of the works wrought by prayer.

-Let us pray, and as we pray, let us make room for Jesus in our hearts.

-Unless the Spirit of God is with us, we cannot expect that our prayers will be answered.

-David was the last one we would have chosen to fight the giant, but he was chosen of God.

-Every one of our children will be brought into the ark, if we pray and work earnestly for them.

-The impression that a praying mother leaves upon her children is life-long. Perhaps when you are dead and gone your prayer will be answered.

-I would rather go into the kingdom of heaven through the poor house than go down to hell in a golden chariot.

-I believe there are more young men who come to Boston who are lost because they cannot say no, than for any other reason.

-It ain't necessary to leave the things of this life when you follow Him. It is not necessary to give up your business, if it's a legitimate one, in order to accept Christ. But you musn't set your heart on the old nets by a good deal.

-A great many people want to bring theft faith, theft works, their good deeds to Him for salvation. Bring your sins, and He will bear them away into the wilderness of forgetfulness, and you will never see them again.

-Do you believe that He would send those men out to preach the gospel to every creature unless he wanted every creature to be saved? Do you believe He would tell them to preach it to people without giving people the power to accept it? Do you believe the God of heaven is mocking men by offering them his gospel and not giving them the power to take hold of it? Do you believe He will not give men power to accept this salvation as a gift? Man might do that, but God never mocks men. And when he says "Preach the gospel to every creature," every creature can be saved if he will.

-Lift your eyes from off these puny Christians-from off these human ministers, and look to Christ. He is the Saviour of the world. He came from the throne to this earth: He came from the very bosom of the Father. God gave Him up freely for us, and all we have to do is to accept him as our Saviour. Look at Him at Gethsemane, sweating as it were great drops of blood; look at Him on the cross, crucified between two thieves; hear that piercing cry, "Father, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." And as you look into that face, as you look into those wounds on His feet or His hands, will you say He has not the power to save you? Will you say He has not the power so redeem you?

Believe

Have faith in God! Take Him at His word! Believe what He says! Believe the record God has given of His Son! I can imagine some of you saying, "I want to, but I have not got the right kind of faith." What kind of faith do you want? Now, the idea that you want a different kind of faith is all wrong. Use the faith you have got; just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, you can't give any reason for not believing. If a man told me he couldn't believe me, I should have a right to ask him why he couldn't believe me. I should have a right to ask him if I had ever broken my word with him; and if I had not broken my word with him, he ought to believe me. I would like to ask you, has God ever broken His word? Never. My friends, He will keep His word. God condemns the world because they believe not on Him; that is the root of all evil. A man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ won't murder, and lie, and do all these awful things. Don't get caught up by that terrible delusion that unbelief is a misfortune. Unbelief is not a misfortune, but is the sin of the world. Christ found it on all sides of the world. When He first got up from the grave, He found that His disciples doubted. He had reason to cry out against unbelief.

(My Notes: It is not known who wrote this short biography of D.L. Moody. I must also add that it isn't known how many of D.L. Moody's notes were taken out of context and how many hands they have gone through. It is known that D.L. Moody was a man who loved GOD with all of his heart and spent his life in happy and faithful service to our Lord and Saviour, JESUS CHRIST.)

D. L. Moody - A Short Biography
1837 1899

D. L. Moody may well have been the greatest evangelist of all time. In a 40-year period he won a million souls, founded three Christian schools, launched a great Christian publishing business, established a world-renowned Christian conference center, and inspired literally thousands of preachers to win souls and conduct revivals.

A shoe clerk at 17, his ambition was to make $100,000. Converted at 18, he uncovered hidden gospel gold in the hearts of millions for the next half-century. He preached to 20,000 a day in Brooklyn and admitted only non-church members by ticket!

He met a young songleader in Indianapolis, said bluntly, "You're the man I've been looking for for eight years. Throw up your job and come with me." Ira D. Sankey did just that; thereafter it was "Moody will preach; Sankey will sing."

He traveled across the American continent and through Great Britain in some of the greatest and most successful evangelistic meetings communities have ever known. His tour of the world with Sankey was considered the greatest evangelistic enterprise of the century.

It was Henry Varley who said, "It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives himself up wholly to Him." And Moody endeavored to be, under God, that man; and the world did marvel to see how wonderfully God used him.

Two great monuments stand in the indefatigable work and ministry of this gospel warrior - Moody Bible Institute and the famous Moody Church in Chicago.

Moody went to be with the Lord in 1899.

Blind Bartimeus

The apostle was going into Jericho for the last time. By the wayside he finds a poor, blind beggar who asks for a farthing, and he says, "Silver and gold have I none, but I can tell you of a great physician in Israel who can cure you." "Can cure me?" he says. "I was born blind." "Yes, but I have talked to a man in Jerusalem who says he was born blind, but now he sees." "Why," says Bartimeus, "how is that?" "Well, sir, Jesus of Nazareth was in Jerusalem, and a boy, he said, led him up to Him, and He just made clay with spittle and anointed his eyes, and sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam. If you could only go up to Jerusalem, all you would have do would be to tell Him. He don't charge anything." "He don't charge anything?" "No, He treats princes, potentates, and penniless all alike, for nothing; you have only to come before Him, and ask Him." I can see Bartimeus' eyes light up as he cries out, "If I can get my eyes by asking, I will get them." He takes his place by the wayside in expectancy. All at once he hears some one coming, and he cries out, "Who is coming? What does it mean?" At this no one answers him, but he begins to mistrust that it is Jesus of Nazareth. He has been told how great crowds flock about Him. And he cried out again in a louder voice, and they told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried again, then, with all his might, "Thou son of David, have mercy upon me." Some in the crowd thought Christ was going up to Jerusalem to be crowned king, and did not want Him to be disturbed by the blind beggar; they cried out not to disturb the Master, but the beggar would not cease, but cried all the louder, "Thou son of David, have mercy upon me." And the prayer reached the ear of the Son of God, and he hushed all the voices about Him while He heard the earnest suitor. There was no mistake.

Critics Beware

Love will rebuke evil, but will not rejoice in it. Love will be impatient of sin, but patient with the sinner. To form the habit of finding fault constantly, is very damaging to spiritual life; it is about the lowest and meanest position that a man can take. I never saw a man who was aiming to do the best work, but there could have been some improvement; I never did anything in my life, I never addressed an audience, that I didn’t think I could have done better. and I have often upbraided myself that I had not done better; but to sit down and find fault with other people when we are doing nothing ourselves, not lifting our hands to save some one, is all wrong, and is the opposite of holy, patient, divine love.

Love is forbearance; and what we want is to get this spirit of criticism and fault finding out of the Church and out of our hearts; and let each one of us live as if we had to answer for ourselves, and not for the community, at the last day. if we are living according to the 13th chapter of Corinthians, we will not be all the time finding fault with other people. "Love suffereth long, and is kind." Love forgets itself, and don’t dwell upon itself. The woman who came to Christ with that alabaster box, I venture to say, never thought of herself. Little did she know what an act she was performing. It was just her love for the Master.She forgot the surroundings, she forgot everything else that was there; she broke that box and poured the ointment upon Him, and filled the house with its odor. The act, as a memorial, has come down these 1800 years. It is right here - the perfume of that box is in the world today. That ointment was worth $40 or $50; no small sum of those days for a poor woman. Judas sold the Son of God for about $15 or $20. But what this woman gave to Christ was everything that she had, and she became so occupied with Jesus Christ that she didn’t think what people were going to say. So when we act with a single eye for the glory of our lord, not finding fault with everything about us, but doing what we can in the power of this love, then will our deeds for God speak, and the world will acknowledge that we have been with Jesus, and that this glorious love has been shed abroad in our hearts.

If we don’t love the Church of God, I am afraid it won’t do us much good; if we don’t love the blessed Bible, it will not do us much good. What we want, then, is to have love for Christ, to have love for His Word, and to have love for the Church of God, and when we have love, and are living in that spirit, we will not be in the spirit of finding fault and working mischief.

Cast Your Cares

"Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you"
(1 Peter 5:7).

A great many people seem to embalm their troubles. I always feel like running away when I see them coming. They bring out their old mummy, and tell you in a sad voice:

"You don't know the troubles I have!"

My friends, if you go to the Lord with your troubles, He will take them away. Would you not rather be with the Lord and get rid of your troubles, than be with your troubles and without God? Let trouble come if it will drive us nearer to God.

It is a great thing to have a place of resort in the time of trouble. How people get on without the God of the Bible is a mystery to me. If I didn't have such a refuge, a place to go and pour out my heart to God in such times, I don't know what I would do. It seems as if I would go out of my mind. But to think, when the heart is burdened, we can go and pour it into His ear, and then have the answer come back, "I will be with him," there is comfort in that!

I thank God for the old Book. I thank God for this old promise. It is as sweet and fresh today as it has ever been. Thank God, none of those promises are out of date, or grown stale. They are as fresh and vigorous and young and sweet as ever.

Cherries

—The prodigal son got down very low, but he did not get down low enough to beg; he went to work.

—I've lived nearly forty years, and I've learned one thing if I've learned nothing else; that no man or woman who treats disrespectfully father or mother ever prospers.

—The most devoted love on earth is the love of a mother for her child; but what is it in comparison to God's love? Mothers "may forget, yet I will not forget thee," saith the Lord.

—When I was in England, my little girl said, "Papa, why don't those colored folks wash themselves white?" You might as well try to make yourselves pure and holy without the help of God.

—Some one has said there were thousands of men in that camp who knew that God could use them, but David was the only one who believed that God would use him. Said David, "Now, I will go."

—There are three thoughts that I have tried to bring out, that God is love; that His love is unchangeable; that His love is everlasting. The fourth thought is this, that His love is unfailing. Your love is not.

—A great many people wonder why it is that they don't prosper, and are not blessed in the world. It is no wonder to me. The wonder is that God blesses them as He does. If I had a child in constant rebellion toward me, I wouldn't want that child to prosper until that spirit of rebellion would be swept away, because prosperity would ruin them.

—It seems to me after I am dead and gone, I would rather have a man come to my grave and drop a tear, and say, "Here lies the man who converted me; who brought me to the cross of Christ;" it seems to me I would rather have this than a column of pure gold reaching to the skies, built in my honor. If a man wants to be useful, follow Christ.

Child Friendship, how Durable

I heard some time ago of a little book upon a passage of Scripture, I didn't know there was such a passage; which occurred in the story of David and Mephibosheth. You know, one day Jonathan and David were together, and Jonathan said, "David, I want you to make a vow." I suppose it had been revealed to Jonathan that he was to take his place. Instead of his heart being filled with jealousy, he loved him as a brother. "Now, I want you to make a vow that when you get my father's throne, if any of my father's house are alive, you will show them kindness." "Why, yes, Jonathan," replies David; "I will. I would do it for your sake alone." Well, time went on. You know how Saul persecuted David, and drove him into the cave of Adullam, and if he could have caught him, you know how he would have slain him. News came to him that the Israelites were routed, and that Saul and Jonathan were slain, and David came up to Hebron, and reigned for seven and a half years, and came after this up to Jerusalem. I can see him in his palace in the height of his power, and the recollection of the old vow he made to Jonathan suddenly comes upon him. His conscience tells him he has made a vow to his old friend Jonathan which he has not kept. I can see him order in one of his servants, "Do you know if there are any of Saul's house alive?" "Well, I don't know, but there is an old servant of Saul's, Ziba." David orders him in, and asks, "Are any of Saul's house alive, because if there are I want to show kindness to them." I can imagine the expression of his face. The idea of David showing kindness to any of Saul's house; to Saul, who wanted to slay him, and who persecuted him. "Well, yes," the servant answers; "there is a son of Jonathan living." "What!" he cries; "a son of my old friend Jonathan; where is he?" "He was at Lo-debar the last I heard of him." Now, you may have been a great traveler, and yet you have never heard of Lo-debar. You may have been all around the world, and still you have not heard of Lo-debar. You may work in the post office, and you have never heard of Lo-debar; never saw a letter directed to that place. Still, that is the place where every one of Adam's son has been. Every one has been in Lo-debar. Every backslider is there. When David heard where he was, he sent down to bring up Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth. See that chariot sweeping through the town. "Why, the king's chariot is here," the people say; "what does it mean?" We are told that this poor prince was lame, and I can see the poor, lame prince as he comes out to meet the servant. "What is it?" he inquires. "King David has sent for you," the servant replies. I can see the prince trembling from head to foot when he hears this. He thinks King David wants to slay him; he thinks he is just going to cut off his head. That's the way with sinners. They think that God stands behind them with a double-whetted sword ready to annihilate them. The servant says, "I want you to come down and see the king." "But," replies the prince, "I tell you that means death to me." Just as a good many sinners think. "But," continues the servant, "he has sent me, and wants you to come;" and he gets him into the carriage and onto the highway, through the streets and unto the palace of the king. The king looks upon him, and sees upon his brow the image of Jonathan, and says to Mephibosheth, "I will show thee kindness for thy father's sake, and I will restore unto you all of Saul's possessions, and you shall sit at the king's table." He restores to the lame prince the inheritance he lost, and then gives him a place at the king's table. That is the gospel. God wants you to come up from Lo-debar to Jerusalem, and take your inheritance. The moment you come from your Lo-debar to the city of peace, that moment you will learn the glad tidings.

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Colossians 3:11- "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

CHRIST is all in all to every one who has truly found Him. He is our Savior, Redeemer, Deliverer, Shepherd, Teacher, and also sustains toward us many more offices, to which I desire to call your attention.

1. If we turn to Luke 2:10, 11, we find Christ is there announced as our SAVIOR: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."

We learn to know Christ as our Savior, to meet Him on Mount Calvary, to look on Him as the bleeding Lamb of God, before we know Him as our Redeemer, Deliverer, and Shepherd. Now, looking round upon this vast assembly, I, who do not know the hearts of the people, cannot know whether you can say that Christ is your Savior. There are many, I trust, who can say this, and who rejoice in His salvation; while, without being uncharitable, I am afraid there are many who know nothing personally of Jesus as their Savior.

He is offered to every one of you today as a Savior; "God gave Him up freely for us all," that we all through Him might be saved. If you are belonging to this world, I can prove that you have a Savior. If you belonged to some other planet, such as the moon or any of the stars, then I could not say a Savior was offered to you; for it is not revealed whether the people of these distant worlds, even if they are inhabited, require salvation or not. But this I know, that every man on this globe has a Savior offered him.

SALVATION FREE TO ALL

I have no sympathy with those men who try to limit God's salvation to a certain few. I believe that Christ died for all who will come. I have received many letters finding fault with me, and saying I surely don't believe the doctrine of election. I do believe in election; but I have no business to preach that doctrine to the world at large. The world has nothing to do with election; it has only to do with the invitation, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." That is the message for the sinner. I am sent to preach the gospel to all.

After you have received salvation, we can talk about election. It's a doctrine for Christians, for the Church, not for the unconverted world. Our message is "good tidings, which shall be to all people; for unto you is born this day a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." All people, this Savior is proffered to you. Accept Him, and God will accept you; reject Him, and God will reject you. Your eternal destiny depends on your refusal or otherwise to accept the proffered Savior. The case is simply one of giving and taking. God gives; I receive. We must, then, first of all know Christ as our Savior.

2. But He is still more: He is our REDEEMER.

Supposing I saw a man tumble into a river, and I were to jump in and rescue him, I should be a savior to him - I should have saved him. But when I brought the man ashore, I should probably leave him, and do nothing further.

But the Lord does more. He not only saves us, but He redeems us - that is, buys us back. He ransoms us from the power of sin, as if I should promise to watch over that rescued man for ever, and see that he did not again fall into the water. The Lord not only saves us from spiritual death, but He redeems us for ever that death can never touch us.

LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES

When I was at Richmond, U.S., the colored people were going to have a meeting. It was the first day of their freedom. I went to the African church, and never before or since heard such bursts of native eloquence.

"Mother," said one, "rejoice today. Your little child has been sold from you for the last time; your posterity are for ever free. Glory to God in the highest! Young men, you have heard the driver's whip for the last time; you are free today! Young maidens, you have been put up on the auction- block for the last time!" They spoke right out, they shouted for joy; their prayers had been answered, it was the gospel to them. In like manner Jesus Christ proclaims liberty to the captives. Some have accepted it; some, like the poor negroes, scarcely believe the good tidings; but it is none the less true. Christ has come to redeem us from the slavery of sin.

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Now, who will accept of that redemption? There was one colored woman, a servant in an inn in the Southern States, who could not believe she was free. "Be's I free, or be I not?" she asked of a visitor. Her master told her she was not, her colored brethren told her she was. For two years she had been free without knowing it. She represents a great many in the Church of God today. They can have liberty, and yet they don't know it.

3. Again, Christ is our DELIVERER.

The children of Israel were not only saved and redeemed from the bondage of the Egyptians, but they were also delivered, that they should not be led back again into bondage. Many are afraid; they think they are not able to hold on, and therefore shrink from making a profession. But Christ is able to keep you from falling; He is able to deliver you in the dark hour of trial and temptation, from every evil device of Satan, and from the snare of the fowler.

In Isaiah 49:24, we read: "Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? But thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children." I will save him; I will deliver him. The children of Israel were saved from the cruel bondage of Egypt, they were led out of the land of Goshen; but still they were not fully delivered. The great host of the Egyptians was thundering behind them. It was not till they had passed safely through the Red Sea, which closing behind, them, swallowed up the host of the enemy - it was not till then that they were free, that they were delivered. And similarly in our times of danger we shall find it to be true of Christ, "He delivered my soul"; and again in Job 33:24, "Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth: he shall pray unto God, and He will be favorable unto him: and he shall see His face with joy: for He will render unto man His righteousness. He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light." Here we have the saving, the redeeming, the deliverance from the pit. Man is fallen into the deep pit, he is kept there a lawful captive by one who is mighty. If he is to be brought back from the darkness of the pit to see the light, then we must have a ransom. Here God comes forward, and says, "I have found a ransom." Christ is the ransom, and He will deliver us. Sound out the cry, "Christ is our deliverer." He is mighty to save, He is able to deliver.

A LEADER

4. But now we need something more. Look back again to the children of Israel; when they had marched gloriously through the Red Sea, they had been saved, redeemed, and delivered; but was that all they required? No; they had been brought into the wilderness. What now do they need? They must have a way to go in the pathless desert. They required a leader. Then Christ is the way and the leader. Are we in difficulties, in doubt, or in perplexity? Christ is our way. "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 10).

I have heard some say, "Well, if I am converted, and become religious, I don't know what church I would go to. There are so many different churches and denominations. I really don't know which is the right one." Hence some people are bewildered, and do not know which is the true way. Well, I would say to such, Look only to Him who says, "I AM THE WAY." He is the only true way, and if you want to reach the kingdom you have only to follow Him. We may be in darkness, but He is able to lead us in the right path. He is the Shepherd of His flock. He will go before us and lead us. He is calling upon us to arise and follow Him, and He will lead us by a way we know not; He will guide us to the green pastures if we only look to Him.

THE PILLAR OF CLOUD

All that the children of Israel had to do was to follow the cloud. If the cloud rested, they rested; if the cloud moved forward, then they moved. I can imagine that the first thing Moses did, when the gray dawn of morning broke, was to look up and see if the cloud was still over the camp. By night it was a pillar of fire, lighting up the camp, and filling them with a sense of God's protecting care; by day it was a cloud shielding them from the fierce heat of the sun's rays, and sheltering them from the sight of their enemies.

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Israel's Shepherd could lead them through the pathless desert. Why? Because He made it. He knew every grain of sand in it. They could not have a better leader through the wilderness than its Creator.

And, sinner, can you, in all your difficulties or doubts and fears, have a better leader than Jehovah? Oh, I do like that good old hymn: "Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but Thou art mighty, Hold me with Thy powerful hand.

Bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more." Yes, that is the true prayer of the bewildered sinner. God is able, and still more, He is willing, to lead us, and to feed us.

"Thou gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst" (Nehemiah 9:15).

He is still as able to lead any of us as He was four thousand years ago to lead the children of Israel, "For I am the Lord; I change not." To every one of us He says, "Fear not, I will lead thee; I will help thee." Wonderful thing, is it not, to have God to help us on our way? In our Western countries, when men go out hunting into the dense backwoods, where there are no roads or paths of any kind, they take their hatchet and cut a little chip out of the bark of the trees as they go along, and then they easily find their way by these "blazes." They call it "blazing the way." And so, if you will allow me the expression, Christ has "blazed the way." He has traveled the road Himself, and knowing the way, He tells us to follow Him, and He will lead us safe on high.

5. Now we have seen Christ is our Savior, Redeemer, Deliverer, Leader, or Way. But He is more than all that; HE IS OUR LIGHT.

"I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He shall have the very "light of life." Yes, it is the privilege of every Christian to walk in an unclouded sky.

But do we walk thus in an unclouded sky? No, most Christians are often in darkness. If I were to ask this congregation if they were all walking in the light, I believe there is scarcely one, if he spoke the true feeling of his heart, but would reply, "No, I am often in darkness." Why is that? It is because we are not following Christ, and keeping close to Him. We are much in darkness when we might be in the light.

Suppose the windows of this building were all closed, and we were complaining of the darkness, what would any one say to us? Why, they would say, "Admit the light; open the windows all round, and you'll soon have plenty of light." Similarly we must let in Christ, who is the light, and open our minds to receive Him, and we shall soon walk in light. There is a great deal of darkness at the present time, even in the hearts of God's own people. But follow Him, and then you will have plenty of light. Then Christ will show to each of us that He is "The Light"; and He will do more, He will set us on fire with His light, that we also may shine as lights in this dark world.

May God help His own people to SHINE BRIGHTLY, to flash out of darkness, that men may take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. But remember, the world hates the light. Christ was the light of the world, and the world sought to extinguish it at Calvary. Now He has left His people to shine. "Ye are the light of the world." He has left us here to shine. He means us to be "living epistles, known and read of all men." The world is certain to watch, and to read you and me. If we are inconsistent, then you may be sure the world will take occasion to stumble at us.

The world finds plenty of difficulties on the way; let us see that we Christians do not add more stumbling-blocks by our un-Christlike walk.

God help us to keep our lights burning clear and brilliant! Out West a friend of mine was walking along one of the streets one dark night, and saw approaching him a man with a lantern. As he came up close to him he noticed by the bright light that the man had got no eyes. He went past, but the thought struck him, "Surely that man is blind." He turned round, and said, "My friend, are you not blind?" "Yes." "Then what have you got the lantern for?" "I carry the lantern that people may not stumble over me, of course," said the blind man. Let us take a lesson from that blind man, and hold up our light, burning with the clear radiance of heaven, that men may not stumble over us.

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6. Objectors have said that it's all moonshine about Christ's people being lights on the way. Well, that's just what we believe; we reflect the light of Christ.

REFLECTED LIGHT

Just like the moonshine, our light is borrowed light. When we are living in the light of our Savior we shine with His light: somewhat like the face of Moses, which shone after he had been in the mount with God. Let us live in an atmosphere of heaven, and we cannot help shining. But whenever we get downcast and weak in faith, then we are sure to lose our light.

I remember during the American war I was in a prayer meeting. We were all very dark and gloomy. Things had been going against us for some time.

At last an old man got up, and said, "What is the matter with us, that we are downhearted and sad? It is simply our lack of faith. Moses, Joshua, and David were men strong in faith. They believed, and therefore God honored them. Whence comes our want of faith? God is not dead. He is as powerful, as willing, to help today as ever He was. Why, then, are we not full of faith in Him? It is God-dishonoring to forget that He still has power, although our armies are defeated, and all seems dark and gloomy."

GET ABOVE THE CLOUDS

I will tell you what happened to me some time ago when I was out West. I wanted to reach the summit of one of the Western mountains. I had been told that sunrise was very beautiful when seen from the summit. We got up to the half-way house one afternoon, where we were to rest till midnight, and then set out for the top. Soon a little party of us started with a good guide. Before a great while it began to rain, and then it became a regular storm of thunder and lightning. I thought there was little use in going on, and said to the guide, "Guess we'd better turn back; we won't see anything this morning, with all these clouds." "Oh," said the guide, "I expect we'll soon get through these clouds, and get above them, and then we'll have a glorious view." So we went on, whilst the thunders were rumbling right about our ears. But soon we began to get above the thunder-cloud; the air was quite clear, and when the sun rose we had a splendid view of his rays as they tinged the hilltops; and then, as the glorious sunshine began to break on where we stood, we could see the dark cloud far beneath our mountain height. That's what God's people want - to get into the clear air above the stormy clouds, and to CLIMB HIGHER away up to the mountain peak. There you'll catch the first rays from the Sun of Righteousness far above the clouds and mists. Some of you may be in great darkness and gloom; but fear not, climb higher, get nearer to the Master, and soon you'll catch His bright rays on your own soul, and they will sprinkle back upon others.

KEEP THE LOWER LIGHTS BURNING

We must live as children of the light, not as children of the darkness. If we are dark and sorrowful, how is the world to know that we are children of peace, and joy, and gladness? Our determination must be to keep our lights 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 these lights.

These Western lakes are more dangerous sometimes than the great ocean.

One wild, stormy night a steamer was trying to make her way into the harbor. The captain and the pilot were anxiously watching for the lights.

By and by the pilot was heard to say, "Do you see the lower lights?" "No," was the reply; "but 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 her head round?" "No; the night is too wild for that. She won't answer 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.

And with us the upper lights are 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. In the place God has put us He expects us to shine, to be living witnesses, to be a bright and shining light.

While we are here our work is to shine for Him, and He will lead us safe to the sunlit shore of Canaan, where there is no more night.

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7. But Christ is more than our Light on the way; for He is OUR TEACHER.

What a wonderful thing to have a teacher sent from heaven. "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James 1:5).

"If any lack wisdom": I am afraid there are a great many of us who lack wisdom, and even the best of us at times will be in perplexity. There are moments in the life of us all when we seem in a fix; we just stand still, and say, "What shall I do? I don't know what is the best way." Oh, leave it with God, He will Himself be our teacher! "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me." Here is a wonderful teacher. He has had a school for many thousand years; He has had the best men in His school; but still there's room for another scholar there. His college is not too full yet, and the teacher is the One sent from heaven.

Any one, every one in this assembly may join this school. Jesus will welcome you there. Are you in doubt about anything? ask Jesus; He will tell you.

Anxious sinner, seek the good teacher, as Nicodemus did: "Master, we know thou art a teacher sent from God." If you seek Him thus He will direct you. He will keep you, and lead you into green pastures and by the still waters. I met a woman the other day who was full of infidel doubts and fancies. She could not believe. Reading for some time infidel works had thrown a dark and gloomy pall over her mind. It made me sad to see her in such a case. Some of you may be like her. I wish you would take Christ as your teacher, and then all darkness would flee away.

Christ is able to teach us. See how He taught the disciples. He never wearied of their learning from Him. So He will teach us if we will only listen to Him.

THE OLD JUDGE CONVERTED

I remember, as I was coming out of the daily prayer meeting in one of our American cities a few years ago, a lady said she wished to speak to me; her voice trembled with emotion, and I saw at once that she was heavily burdened by something or other. She said she had long been praying for her husband, and she wanted to know if I would go to see him; she thought it might do him some good. What is his name? "Judge - ," and she mentioned one of the most eminent politicians in the State. "I have heard of him," I said; "I am afraid I need not go, he is a booked infidel; I cannot argue with him." "That is not what he wants," said the lady. "He has had too much argument already. Go and speak to him about his soul." I said I would, although I was not very hopeful. I went to his house, was admitted to his room, and introduced myself as having come to speak to him about salvation. "Then you have come on a very foolish errand," said he; "there's no use in attacking me, I tell you that. I am proof against all these things, I don't believe in them." Well, I saw it was no use arguing with him; so I said, "I'll pray for you, and I want you to promise me that when you are converted you'll let me know." "Oh, yes, I'll let you know," he said in a tone of sarcasm. "Oh, yes, I'll let you know when I'm converted!" I left him, but I continued to pray for him. Some time subsequently I heard that the old judge was converted. I was again preaching in that city a while after that, and when I had done talking the judge himself came to me, and said: "I promised I'd let you know when I was converted; I have come to tell you of it. Have you not heard of it?" "Yes; but I would like to hear from you how it happened." "Well," said the judge, "one night, some time after you called on me, my wife had gone to the meeting; there was no one in the house but the servants. I sat by the drawing-room fire, and I began to think: Suppose my wife is right, that there is a heaven and a hell; and suppose she is on the right way to heaven, where am I going? I just dismissed the thought. But a second thought came: Surely He who created me is able to teach me. Yes, I thought, that is so. Then why not ask Him? I struggled against it, but at last, though I was too proud to get down on my knees, I just said, 'Father, all is dark; Thou who created me canst teach me.' "Somehow, the more I prayed the worse I felt. I was very sad. I did not wish my wife to come home and find me thus, so I slipped away to bed, and when she came into the room I pretended to be asleep. She got down on her knees and prayed. I knew she was praying for me, and that for many long years she had been doing so. I felt as if I could have jumped up and knelt beside her; but no, my proud heart would not let me, so I lay still, pretending to be asleep. But I didn't sleep that night. I soon changed my prayer; it was now, 'O God, save me; take away this terrible burden.' "I didn't believe in Christ even yet. I thought I'd go right straight to the Father Himself. But the more I prayed I only became the more miserable; my burden grew heavier. The next morning I did not wish to see my wife, so I said 'I was not well, and wouldn't wait for breakfast.' I went to the office, and when the boy came I sent him home for a holiday. When the clerks came I told them they might go for the day. I closed the office doors: I wanted to be alone with God. I was almost frantic in my agony of heart. I cried to God to take away this load of sin. At last I fell on my knees, and cried, 'For Jesus Christ's sake take away this load of sin.' At length I went to my wife's pastor, who had been praying with her for my conversion for years, and the same minister who had prayed with my mother before she died. As I walked down the street the verse that my mother had taught me came into my mind, 'Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.' Well, I thought, I have asked God, and here I am going to ask a man. I won't go.

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Christ All in All - Page 6

I believe I am a Christian. I turned and went home. I met my wife in the hall as I entered. I caught her hand, and said, 'I am a Christian now.' She turned quite pale; she had been praying for twenty-one years for me, and yet she could not believe the answer had come. We went into our room, and knelt down by the very bedside where she had so often knelt to pray for her husband. There we erected our family altar; and for the first time our voices mingled in prayer. And I can only say that the last three months have been the happiest months ever I spent in my life." Since then that judge has lived a consistent Christian life; and all because he came to God, asking for guidance.

If there is one here today whose mind is filled with such infidel thoughts, go honestly to God, and He will teach you the right way through the dark wilderness of infidelity. He won't leave you in darkness or doubt. It is the devil's own work to lead men into such doubts; well he knows if he once gets them there he has them pretty safe.

It is Satan's work to keep you in ignorance or doubt. It is God's work to teach you. The teacher is Christ; He is appointed by God for this work.

God help us all to accept Him as our teacher. 8. Now we have seen Christ as our Savior, Redeemer, Deliverer, Leader, Light, and Teacher. But He is still more; He is also OUR SHEPHERD.

A very sweet thought it is to me, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." There is not one here, except the very babes, who does not understand the work of a shepherd. He watches over his flock, protects them from danger, feeds them, leads them into the best pastures. In fact, the 23rd Psalm is just a statement of the duties of a good shepherd: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want," etc.

You want to be fed; are you going to wander about seeking something to satisfy the cravings of your soul? Then, I tell you, you never will find anything to satisfy the longings of your heart. The world cannot, and never could, satisfy a hungry soul. The Lord Jesus can - He is the true Shepherd. He is seeking to restore your soul, to lead you back to the paths of righteousness. Even to death will He lead you, and safely through its shadow guide you to a better land. Mother, father, will you claim Him as your Shepherd? Young man, young woman, will you have Him as your Shepherd? My little child, will you have Jesus as your Shepherd? He will lead safely and softly.

You can, all of you, if you will. For "God gave Him up freely for us all," that He might have us for His flock. He will lead us through life, down to the banks of the Jordan; He will lead us across the dark river into His kingdom. He is a tender, loving Shepherd.

I sometimes meet people in the anxious inquiry-room who are nourishing hard, bitter feelings against God, generally because they have been afflicted. A mother said to me the other day, "Ah, Mr. Moody, God has been unjust to me; He has come and taken away my child." Dear afflicted mothers, has God not removed your children to a pure and happy life? You may not understand it now, but you will by and by. He wants to lead you up there. THE EASTERN SHEPHERD.

A friend of mine, who had been in eastern lands, told me he saw a shepherd who wanted his flock to cross a river. He went into the water himself and called them; but no, they would not follow him into the water.

What did he do? Why, he girded up his loins and lifted a little lamb under each arm, and plunged right into the stream, and crossed it without even looking back. Whenever he lifted the lambs, the old sheep looked up into his face and began to bleat for them; but when he plunged into the water the dams plunged after him, and then the whole flock followed. When they got to the other side he put down the lambs, and they were quickly joined by their mothers, and there was a happy meeting.

My friend says he noticed the pastures on the other side were much better and the fields greener; and on this account the shepherd was leading them across. Our great Palestine Shepherd does that. That child which He has taken from the earth is but removed to green pastures of Canaan, and the Shepherd means to draw your hearts after it, to teach you to "set your affections on things above." When He has taken your little Mary, Edith, or Julia, accept it as a call to look upward and beyond. You, mother, are you weeping bitter tears for your little one? Do not weep! Your child has gone to the place where there is neither weeping nor sorrow. Would you have it return? Surely never.

Christ is our Shepherd - faithful and loving. Though sickness, or trouble, or even death itself, should come to our house, and claim our dearest ones, still they are not lost, but only gone before. God help each one of us to have Him as our Shepherd.

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Christ All in All - Page 7

If time permitted, I should like to take up the subject of Christ as our Justification, our Wisdom, our Righteousness, the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother; but it would take a whole eternity to tell what Christ is to His people, and what He does for them.

I remember when I was preaching on this subject in Scotland, after I had done, I said to a man that "I was sorry I could not finish the subject for want of time." "Finish the subject," said the Scotchman, "why, that would require all eternity, and even then it would not be complete; it will be the occupation of heaven." 9. Once more, let us look at Christ as OUR BURDEN-BEARER.

Oh, I love to think of Him as the bearer of our burdens as well as our sin-bearer.

He carries our sins, although they are more numerous than the hairs of our heads. Great and terrible as these burdens are, God has laid them all on Jesus.

"O Christ, what burdens bowed Thy head! Our load was laid on Thee." That aspect of His burden-bearing we have already looked at in His work as Savior and Redeemer. I wish now to take up the sweet thought, which has been a great comfort to me.

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Glorious, is it not, to know we have such a Savior? Can you feel that He has lifted your burden off your shoulders on to His own shoulder? Then you will feel light in heart.

A LIGHT HEART

On one occasion, after I had been talking this way, a woman came forward, and said, "Oh, Mr. Moody, it's all very well for you to talk like that, about a light heart. But you are a young man, and if you had a heavy burden like me you would talk differently. I could not talk in that way, my burden is too great." I replied, "But it's not too great for Jesus." "Oh," she said, "I cannot cast it on Him." "Why not? surely it is not too great for Him. It is not that He is feeble. But it is because you will not leave it to Him. You're like many others. They will not leave it with Him. They go about hugging their burden, and yet crying out against it. What the Lord wants is, you to leave it with Him, to let Him carry it for you. Then you will have a light heart, sorrow will flee away, and there will be no more sighing. What is your burden, my friend, that you cannot leave with Christ?" She replied, "I have a son who is a wanderer on the face of the earth. None but God knows where he is." "Cannot Christ find him, and bring him back?" "I suppose He can." "Then go and tell Jesus, and ask Him to forgive you for doubting His power and willingness; you have no right to mistrust Him." She went away much comforted, and I believe she ultimately had her wandering boy restored to her!

A MOTHER'S PRAYER ANSWERED

This circumstance reminds me of a faithful father and mother in our country, whose eldest son had gone to Chicago to a situation. A neighbor of theirs was in the city on some business, and he met the young man reeling along the streets drunk. He thought, "How am I to tell his parents?" When he returned to his village, he went and called out the father, and told him. It was a terrible blow to that father, but he said nothing to the mother till the little ones had all gone to rest; the servants had retired, and all was quiet in that little farm on the Western prairies. They drew up their chairs to the little drawing-room table, and then he told her the sad news. "Our boy has been seen drunk on the streets of Chicago - drunk." Ah, that mother was sorely hurt; they did not sleep much that night, but spent the hours in fervent prayers for their boy. About daybreak the mother felt an inward conviction that all would be well. She told the father "she had cast it on the Lord, had left her son with Jesus, and she felt He would save him."

One week from that time the young man left Chicago, took a journey of three hundred miles into the country; and when he reached his home, he walked in, and said, "Mother, I've come home to ask you to pray for me." Ah, her prayer had reached heaven; she had cast her burden on Jesus, and He had borne it for her. He took the burden, presented her prayer sprinkled with the atoning blood, and got it answered. In two days that young man returned to Chicago rejoicing in the Savior. What a wonderful thing it is to have Christ as our burden-bearer! How easy, how light do our cares become when cast upon Him!

Do you say Christ is nothing to you? If so, it is only because you won't have Him. He is to all who will accept Him a Savior from death, a Redeemer from the power of sin, a Deliverer from our enemies, a Leader through the wilderness; He is the way Himself, He is Light in the darkness, He is a Teacher to His people, He is the Shepherd of His flock, our Justification, Wisdom, Righteousness, Elder Brother, Burden-bearer.

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Christian Love - Page 1

IT speaks in Galatians about love, the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, gentleness, long suffering, meekness and temperance. The way this writer has put it -- and I think it is very beautiful -- is that joy is love exultant, peace is love in repose, and long suffering is love enduring. It is all love, you see, a gentleness is love in society, and goodness is love in action, and faith is love on the battle-field, and meekness is love at school, and temperance is love in training.

Now there are a great many that have got love and they hold the truth. I should have said they have got truth, but they don't hold it in love, and they are very unsuccessful in working for God. They are very harsh, and God cannot use them. Now let us hold the truth, but let us hold it in love. People will stand almost any kind of plain talk if you only do it in love. If you do it in harshness it bounds back and they won't receive it. So what we want is to have the truth and at the same time hold it in love.

Then there is another class of people in the world that have got the truth, but they love so much that they give up the truth because they are afraid it will hurt some one's feelings. That is wrong. We want the whole truth anyway. We don't want to give it up, but hold it in love, and I believe one reason why people think God don't love them is because they have not this love. I met a lady in the inquiry-room today, and I could not convince her that God loved her, for she said that if He did love her He would not treat her as He had. And I believe people are all measuring God with their own rule, as I said the other day, and we are not sincere in our love, and we very often profess something we really don't possess. Very often we profess to have love for a person when we do not, and we think God is like us.

Now God is just what He says He is, and He wants His children to be sincere in love; not to love just merely in word and in tongue, but to love in earnest. -That is what God does. You ask me why God loves. You might as well ask me why the sun shines. It can't help shining, and neither can He help loving, because He is love Himself; and any one that says He is not love does not know anything about love. If we have got the true love of God shed abroad in our hearts we will show it in our lives. We will not have to go up and down the earth proclaiming it. We will show it in everything we say or do.

VERY NICE TO THEIR FACES

There is a good deal of what you might call sham love. People profess to love you very much, when you find it is all on the surface. It is not heart love. Very often you are in a person's house, and the servant comes in and says such a person is in the front room, and she says: "Oh, dear, I am so sorry he has come, I can't bear the sight of him ;" and she'll get right up and go into the other room and say, "Why, how do you do? I am very glad to see you! " [Laughter.] There is a good deal of that sort of thing in the world.

I remember, too, I was talking with a man one day and an acquaintance of his came in, and he jumped up at once and shook him by the hand-why I thought he was going to shake his hand out of joint, he shook so hard-and he seemed to be so glad to see him and wanted him to stay, but the man was in a great hurry and could not stay, and he coaxed him and urged him to stay, but the man said no, he would come another time; and after that man went out my companion turned to me and said, "Well, he is an awful bore, and I am glad he's gone." Well, I began to feel that I was a bore, too, and I got out as quickly as I could. [Laughter.] That is not real love. That is love with the tongue while the heart is not true. Now, let us not love in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. That is the kind of love God gives us, and He wants the same in return.

Now, there is another side to this truth. A man was talking to me out here the other day that he didn't believe there was any love at all; that Christians professed to have love, but he didn't believe men could have two coats, and I think he reflected on me, because I had on my overcoat at the time and he hadn't got any. I looked at him and said: "Suppose I should give you one of my coats, you would drink it up before sundown. I love you too much to give you my coat and have you drink it up."

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Christian Love - Page 2

A good many people are complaining now that Christians don't have the love they ought to have, but I tell you it is no sign of want of love that we don't love the lazy man. I have no sympathy with those men that are just begging twelve months of the year. It would be a good thing, I believe, to have them die off. They are of no good. I admit there are some that are not real, and sincere, and true, but there are many that would give the last penny they had to help a man who really needed help. But there are a good many sham cases-men that won't work, and the moment they get a penny they spend it for drink. To such men it is no charity to give. A man that won't work should be made to work. I believe there is a great deal more hope of a drunkard or a murderer or a gambler than there is of a lazy man.

TOO LAZY TO STAY CONVERTED

I never heard of a lazy man being converted yet, though I remember talking once with a minister in the backwoods of Iowa about lazy men. He was all discouraged in his efforts' to convert lazy men, and I said to him, "Did you ever know a lazy man to be converted?" "Yes," said he; "I knew of one, but he was so lazy that he didn't stay converted but about six weeks." And that is as near as I ever heard of a lazy man being converted, and if there are any here today saying they don't love us because we don't give them any money, I say we love them too well. We don't give to them because it is ruin.

Some years ago I picked up several children in Chicago and thought I would clothe them and feed them, and I took special interest in those boys to see what I could make of them. I don't think it was thirty days before the clothes had all gone to whisky and the fathers had drank it all up. One day I met one of the little boys for whom I bought a pair of boots only the day before. There was a snow-storm coining up and he was barefooted. "Mike," says I, "how's this? Where are your boots ?" "Father and mother took them away," said he. There is a good deal that we think is charity that is really doing a great deal of mischief; and the people must not think because we don't give them money to aid them in their poverty that we don't love them, for the money would go into their pockets to get whiskey with.

POVERTY SOMETIMES A BLESSING

It is no sign that we are all hypocrites and insincere in our love that we don't give money. I believe if the prodigal son could have got all the money he wanted in that foreign country he would never have come home, and it was a good thing for him that he did get hard up and to live on the husks that the swine ate. And it is a good think that people should suffer. If they get a good living without work, they will never work. We can never make anything of them. God has decreed that man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and not live on other people.

But I am getting away from the subject. I only wanted to touch upon this subject because a good many are complaining that Christian people don't help them. I have sometimes fifteen or twenty letters a day, coming from Kansas, and Europe even, asking us to take up a collection. They say: "Here is a poor woman. Just get the people to give a penny apiece." Suppose we began doing that sort of thing. We should have to have somebody to look up this man or this woman and find if they are worthy. If we took up one collection, we would have to take up five hundred. I never found a person true to Christ but what the Lord would take care of them. I think it is a good thing for people to suffer a little until they come back to God. They will find that God will take care of them that love Him. A great many say, "Oh, I love God." It is easy enough, to say this, but if you do love God He knows about it, be assured. He knows how much you love Him. You may deceive your neighbors, and think you love God, and assume a good deal of love, when there is really no love in your heart.

Now it says in Corinthians 8: "But if any man love God, the same is known of him." God is looking from heaven down into this world just to find that one man. God knows where he lives, the number of his house, and the name of the street he lives in. In fact, He has the very hairs of your head numbered, and He will take good care of you. He will not let any of His own children come to want, He will not let any of those that come to want suffer, He will provide for their wants if they are only sincere, but He don't want any sham work, When the Lord was here He was all the time stripping those Pharisees of their miserable selfrighteousness. They professed great love for Him while their hearts were far from God. Let us not profess to love God with our tongue and lips, while our lives are far from it.

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Christian Love - Page 3

DON'T KNOW THEIR OWN MINDS

Another class say, "I don't know whether I love God or not. I am really anxious to know whether or not I love God." Now, if you are really anxious it won't take you long to find out. You cannot love God and the world at the same time, because they abhor each other. They are at enmity, always have been and always will be. It is the world that crucified God's Son; it was the world that put God's Son to death. Therefore, if we love the world it is a pretty good evidence that the love of the Father is not in us. We may say our prayers and go through some religious performances, but our hearts are not right with God because we cannot love God and the world at the same time. We have got to get the world under our feet and the love of God must be first in our hearts or else we have not got the love of God.

The command we have is that he who loveth God loveth his brother also. Now, if we have got our heart full of enmity and jealousy and malice toward any of God's children it is a sure sign that the love of God is not in our hearts. To love a man that loves me that don't require any goodness; the greatest infidel can do that; but to love a man that reviles me and lies about me and slanders me-that takes the grace of God. I may not associate with him, but I may love him. I may hate the sin, but love the sinner, And that is one of the tests by which to find out whether you have love in your heart. The first impulse of the young convert is to love every one, and to do all the good he can, and that is the sign that a man has been born from above, born of God, and that he has got real love in his heart; and these tests God gives us that we may know.

CHRISTIAN LOVE OPPOSED TO WORLDLINESS

The question is, do you love the world? Had you rather go to a theatre than to prayer-meeting? Had you rather go to a dance than to commune with the godly? If so it is, then it is a good sign that you have not been converted and not born of God. That is a test. People want to know whether they love God or not; let them turn to that test and they will find out If your heart is set on the world and you had rather not be with God's people, it is a sure sign that you have not been born of God.

Well, there is another class of people who say, "I don't see if God really loves me and I love Him, why I am called upon t have so many afflictions and troubles." Just turn a moment to the 8th chapter of Romans, the 28th verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose." It is not a few things; not a part of them, but all work together for good. Give a man constant prosperity and how quickly he turns away from God, and so it is a little trouble here, and a little reverse here, and some prosperity there, and taken all together it is the very thing we need.

If you just take your Bibles you will find that God loves you. There is no one in this wide world, sinner, that loves you as God loves you. You may think your father loves you, or your mother loves you, or a brother or a sister, but let me tell you you can multiply it by ten thousand times ten thousand before it can equal" God's love. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Can you have greater proof of God's love and Christ's love? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Christ laid down his life for his enemies. Ah, my friends, it will take all eternity for us to find out the height and breadth and length and depth of God's love.

PROTECTED BY THE FLAG

How men with an open Bible can say that God don't love them is more than I can understand. But the devil is deceitful and puts that into their heads. Let me beg you, beg you, go to Calvary and there you may just for a moment catch a glimpse of God's love. There was a man came from Europe to this country a year or two ago, and he became dissatisfied and went to Cuba in 1867 when they had a great civil war there. Finally he was arrested for a spy, court-martialed, and condemned to be shot. He sent for the American Consul and the English Consul, and went on to prove to them that he was no spy. These two men were thoroughly convinced that the man was no spy, and they went to one of the Spanish officers and said, This man you have condemned to be shot is an innocent man." "Well," the Spanish officer says, "the man has been legally tried by our laws and condemned, and the law must take its course and the man must die."

And the next morning the man was led out; the grave was already dug for him, and the black cap was put on him, and the soldiers were there ready to receive the order, "Fire," and in a few moments the man would be shot and be put in that grave and covered up, when who should rise up but the American Consul, who took the American flag and wrapped it around him, and the English Consul took the English flag and wrapped it around him, and they said to those soldiers, "Fire on those flags if you dare!" Not a man dared; there were two great governments behind those flags. And so God says, "Come under my banner, come under, the banner of love, come under the banner of heaven." God will take good care of all that come under His banner.

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Christian Love - Page 4

Oh, my friends, come under the banner of heaven today. This banner is a banner of love. May it float over every soul here, is the prayer of my heart. God don't will the death of any who will come under His banner of love. It is pure love, and sinner, may the love of God bring you into the fold is the prayer of my heart. I read once of a young man who left his father, and at last that father died and the boy came to the funeral, and there was not a tear that flowed over his cheeks during all the funeral. He saw that father laid down into the grave, and he did not shed a tear. When they came to break the will, and the boy heard that the father had dealt kindly with him and had given him some property, he began to shed tears. When that boy heard his father's will read, his heart was broken, and he came to his father's God.

0 sinner, if you want to find out God's love, take this last will and testament of Jesus Christ. He showed his love by going to Calvary; He showed his love by His death agony there. He loves you with an. everlasting love; He don't want you to perish. O, may you love Him in return.

Communion

COMMUNION

Do not shrink from the thought of living in full communion with God. Be decided to let God draw nearer and nearer and put His holy finger on every detail of your daily life, on every detail of your daily work, on every detail of your daily habits, of your conversation, your reading, your writing.

Very small things can hinder full communion with God. Let us be united that our Lord and Master shall have the first place in our hearts.

The believer should ever remember that Christ is his life, and that Christianity is nothing less than the living exhibition of Christ in his daily walk.

COMMUNION WITH GOD

Among the forms of insect life, there is a little creature known to naturalists which can gather around itself, a sufficiency of atmospheric air, and so clothed with it, descends into the bottom of the pool; and you may see the little diver, moving along dry, and at its ease, protected by his crystal vesture, though the water all around be stagnant and bitter.

Communion with God, and prayer is such a protector. A transparent vesture, the world sees it not, a real defense, it keeps out the world.

By means of it, the believer can gather so much of heavenly atmosphere around him, and with it descend into the putrid depths of this contaminating world, that for a reason. No evil will touch him, and he knows when to ascend for a new supply.

Communion with God kept Daniel pure in Babylon.

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