{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33024/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33024","id":"gutenberg_33024","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33024","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Homiletical illustrations"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                           Moody's Stories\n                     INCIDENTS and ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                        Copyrighted, 1884, by\n                             F. H. Revel\n\n                 Printed in United States of America\n\n\n                           Moody's Stories\n\n                  Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes\n                     Incidents and Illustrations\n\n                            By D. L. Moody\n\n                        Authorized Collection\n\n                           THE MOODY PRESS\n                         153 Institute Place\n                               CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\nMOODY'S STORIES\n\n\nLady Pendulum\n\nWhen Mr. Sankey and I were in London a lady who attended our meetings\nwas brought into the house in her carriage, being unable to walk. At\nfirst she was very skeptical; but one day she said to her servant:\n\n\"Take me into the inquiry room.\"\n\nAfter I had talked with her a good while about her soul she said:\n\n\"But you will go back to America, and it will be all over.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said I, \"it is going to last forever.\"\n\nI couldn't make her believe it. I don't know how many times I talked\nwith her. At last I used the fable of the pendulum in the clock. The\npendulum figured up the thousands of times it would have to tick, and\ngot discouraged, and was going to give up. Then it thought, \"It is\nonly a tick at a time,\" and went on. So it is in the Christian\nlife--only one step at a time. That helped this lady very much. She\nbegan to see that if she could trust in God for a supply of grace for\nonly one day, she could go right on in the same way from day to day.\nAs soon as she saw this, she came out quite decided. But she never\ncould get done talking about that pendulum. The servants called her\nLady Pendulum. She had a pendulum put up in her room to remind her of\nthe illustration, and when I went away from London she gave me a\nclock--I've got it in my house still.\n\n\nThe Greater Mystery\n\nDr. Andrew Bonar once said that, although it was a mystery to him how\nsin should have come into the world, it was still a greater mystery\nhow God should have come here to bear the penalty of it Himself.\n\n\nNever Runs Dry\n\nI remember being in a city where I noticed that the people resorted to\na favorite well in one of the parks. I said to a man one day:\n\n\"Does the well never run dry?\"\n\nThe man was drinking of the water out of the well; and as he stopped\ndrinking, he smacked his lips, and said:\n\n\"They have never been able to pump it dry yet. They tried it a few\nyears ago. They put the fire-engines to work, and tried all they could\nto pump the well dry; but they found there was a river flowing right\nunder the city.\"\n\nThank God, the well of salvation can never run dry either!\n\n\nHe Trusted his Father\n\nA party of gentlemen in Scotland wanted to get some eggs from a nest\non the side of a precipice, and they tried to persuade a poor boy that\nlived near to go over and get them, saying they would hold him by a\nrope. They offered him a good deal of money; but they were strangers\nto him, and he would not go. They told him they would see that no\naccident happened to him; they would hold the rope.\n\nAt last he said: \"I will go if my father will hold the rope.\"\n\nHe trusted his father.\n\nA man will not trust strangers. I want to get acquainted with a man\nbefore I put my confidence in him. I have known God for forty years,\nand I have more confidence in Him now than I ever had before; it\nincreases every year.\n\n\nPeace Declared\n\nWhen France and England were at war once a French vessel had gone off\non a long whaling voyage. When they came back, the crew were short of\nwater, and being near an English port, they wanted to get water; but\nthey were afraid that they would be taken prisoners if they went into\nthat port. Some people in the port saw their signal of distress, and\nsent word that they need not be afraid, that the war was over, and\npeace had been declared. But they couldn't make those sailors believe\nit, and they didn't dare to go into port, although they were out of\nwater. At last they made up their minds that they had better go in and\nsurrender their cargo and their lives to their enemies rather than\nperish at sea without water; and when they got in, they found out that\nwhat had been told them was true, that peace had been declared.\n\nThere are a great many people who don't believe the glad tidings that\npeace has been made by Jesus Christ between God and man, but it is\ntrue.\n\n\nSawdust or Bread\n\nIf you go out to your garden and throw down some sawdust, the birds\nwill not take any notice; but if you throw down some crumbs, you will\nfind they will soon sweep down and pick them up.\n\nThe true child of God can tell the difference (so to speak) between\nsawdust and bread. Many so-called Christians are living on the world's\nsawdust, instead of being nourished by the Bread that cometh down from\nheaven. Nothing can satisfy the longings of the soul but the Word of\nthe living God.\n\n\n\"Baby's Feeding Himself!\"\n\nYou know it is always regarded a great event in the family when a\nchild can feed itself. It is propped up at table, and at first perhaps\nit uses the spoon upside down, but by and by it uses it all right, and\nmother, or perhaps sister, claps her hands and says:\n\n\"Just see, baby's feeding himself!\"\n\nWell, what we need as Christians is to be able to feed ourselves. How\nmany there are who sit helpless and listless, with open mouths, hungry\nfor spiritual things, and the minister has to try to feed them, while\nthe Bible is a feast prepared, into which they never venture.\n\n\nShould Not Be Postponed\n\nIn 1871 I preached a series of sermons on the life of Christ in old\nFarwell hall, Chicago, for five nights. I took Him from the cradle and\nfollowed Him up to the judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider\nI made as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. It was upon that\nmemorable night in October, and the court-house bell was sounding an\nalarm of fire, but I paid no attention to it. You know we were\naccustomed to hear the fire-bell often, and it didn't disturb us much\nwhen it sounded. I finished the sermon upon \"What Shall I Do with\nJesus?\" and said to the audience:\n\n\"Now, I want you to take the question with you and think it over, and\nnext Sunday I want you to come back and tell me what you are going to\ndo with Him.\"\n\nWhat a mistake! It seems now as if Satan was in my mind when I said\nthis. Since then I never have dared give an audience a week to think\nof their salvation. If they were lost, they might rise up in judgment\nagainst me. \"Now is the accepted time.\"\n\nI remember Mr. Sankey singing, and how his voice rang when he came to\nthat pleading verse:\n\n  \"To-day the Savior calls,\n    For refuge fly!\n  The storm of Justice falls,\n    And death is nigh!\"\n\nAfter the meeting we went home. I remember going down La Salle street\nwith a young man, and saw the glare of flames. I said to the young\nman:\n\n\"This means ruin to Chicago.\"\n\nAbout one o'clock Farwell hall was burned; soon the church in which I\nhad preached went down, and everything was scattered. I never saw that\naudience again.\n\nMy friends, we don't know what may happen to-morrow, but there is one\nthing I do know, and that is, if you take the gift of God you are\nsaved. If you have eternal life you need not fear fire, death, or\nsickness. Let disease or death come, you can shout triumphantly over\nthe grave if you have Christ. My friends, what are you going to do\nwith Him? Will you not decide now?\n\n\nTeaching Willie Faith\n\nSome years ago I wanted to teach my boy what faith was and so I put\nhim on a table. He was a little fellow about two years old. I stood\nback three or four feet, and said.\n\n\"Willie, jump.\"\n\nThe little fellow said, \"Papa, I'se afraid.\"\n\nI said: \"Willie, I will catch you. Just look right at me, and jump.\"\n\nThe little fellow got all ready to jump, and then looked down again,\nand said, \"I'se afraid.\"\n\n\"Willie, didn't I tell you I would catch you? Will papa deceive you?\nNow, Willie, look me right in the eye, and jump, and I will catch\nyou.\"\n\nThe little fellow got all ready the third time to jump, but he looked\non the floor, and said:\n\n\"I'se afraid.\"\n\n\"Didn't I tell you I would catch you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAt last I said: \"Willie, don't take your eyes off me\"; and I held the\nlittle fellow's eyes, and said, \"Now, jump; don't look at the floor;\"\nand he leaped into my arms.\n\nThen he said to me, \"Let me jump again.\"\n\nI put him back, and the moment he got on the table he jumped, and\nafter that, when he was on the table and I was standing five or six\nfeet away I heard him cry, \"Papa, I'se coming,\" and had just time to\nrush and catch him. He seemed to put too much confidence in me. But\nyou cannot put too much confidence in God.\n\n\nAct on Your Belief\n\nWhen President Lincoln signed the proclamation of emancipation, copies\nof it were sent to all points along the Northern line, where they were\nposted. Now, supposing a slave should have seen a copy of that\nproclamation and should have learned its contents. He might have\nknown the fact, he might have assented to its justice, but if he had\nstill continued to serve his old master as a slave his faith in the\ndocument would not have amounted to anything.\n\nAnd so it is with us. A mere knowledge of the historical events of\nChrist's life, or a simple intellectual assent to His teachings and\nHis mission, will be of no help in a man's life unless he adds to them\na trustful surrender to the Lord's loving kindness.\n\n\n\"Forty Miles to Liberty\"\n\nA friend of mine went to teach in Natchez before the war. He and a\nfriend of his went out riding one Saturday in the country. They saw an\nold slave coming, and they thought they would have a little fun. They\nhad just come to a place where there was a fork in the road, and there\nwas a sign-post which read, \"Forty miles to Liberty.\"\n\n\"Sambo, how old are you?\"\n\n\"I don't know, massa. I guess I'se about eighty.\"\n\n\"Can you read?\"\n\n\"No, sah; we don't read in dis country. It's agin the law.\"\n\n\"Can you tell what is on that sign-post?\"\n\n\"Yes, sah; it says forty miles to Liberty.\"\n\n\"Well, now,\" said my friend, \"why don't you follow that road and get\nyour liberty? It says there, only 'forty miles to Liberty.' Now, why\ndon't you take that road and go there?\"\n\nThe old man's countenance changed, and he said: \"That ar's a sham,\nyoung massa, but if it pointed up thar,\" and he raised his trembling\nhand toward heaven, \"to the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free,\nthat ar wouldn't be no sham.\"\n\nThe old slave, with all his ignorance, had even then experienced a\nliberty in his own soul that these young men, with all their boasted\neducation, at that time knew nothing of.\n\n\nThe Most Important Thing\n\nA certain John Bacon, once a famous sculptor, left an inscription to\nbe placed on his tomb in Westminster Abbey:\n\n\"What I was as an artist seemed of some importance to me while I\nlived; but what I was as a believer in Jesus Christ is the only thing\nof importance to me now.\"\n\n\nTaking the Wrong Boat\n\nA Methodist minister, on his way to a camp-meeting, through some\nmistake took passage on the wrong boat. He found that instead of being\nbound for a religious gathering, he was on his way to a horse-race.\nHis fellow-passengers were betting and discussing the events, and the\nwhole atmosphere was foreign to his nature. He besought the captain\nthat he would stop his boat and let him off at the first landing, as\nthe surroundings were so distasteful to him.\n\nThe story also goes on to relate how, on the same occasion a sporting\nman, intending to go to the races, by some mistake found himself on\nthe wrong boat, bound for the camp-meeting. The conversation about him\nwas no more intelligible to him than to the man in the first instance,\nand he, too, besought the captain to stop and let him off the boat.\n\nNow what was true in these two cases is practically true with every\none. A true Christian is wretched where there is no fellowship, and an\nunregenerate man is not at ease where there are only Christians. A\nman's future will be according to what he is here prepared for. If he\nis not regenerate, heaven will have no attractions for him. Heaven is\na prepared place for a prepared people.\n\n\nThe Best Proof\n\n\"The highest proof of the infallibility of Scripture,\" said the late\nA. J. Gordon, \"is the practical one that we have proved it so. As the\ncoin of the realm has always been found to buy the amount of its\nface-value, so the prophecies and promises of Scripture have yielded\ntheir face value to those who have taken the pains to prove them. If\nthey have not always done so, it is probable that they have not yet\nmatured. There are multitudes of Christians who have so far proved the\nveracity of the Bible that they are ready to trust it without reserve\nin all that it pledges for the world yet unseen and the life yet\nunrealized.\"\n\n\nHave Faith.\n\nI remember a man telling me he preached for a number of years without\nany result. He used to say to his wife as they went to church that he\nknew the people would not believe anything he said; and there was no\nblessing. At last he saw his error; he asked God to help him, and took\ncourage, and then the blessing came.\n\n\"According to your faith it shall be unto you.\" This man had expected\nnothing and he got just what he expected. Dear friends, let us expect\nthat God is going to use us. Let us have courage and go forward,\nlooking to God to do great things.\n\n\nChasing His Shadow\n\nWhen I was a little boy I tried to catch my shadow. I don't know if\nyou were ever so foolish; but I remember running after it, and trying\nto get ahead of it. I could not see why the shadow always kept ahead\nof me. Once I happened to be racing with my face to the sun, and I\nlooked over my head and saw my shadow behind me, and it kept behind me\nall the way.\n\nIt is the same with the Sun of Righteousness. Peace and joy will go\nwith you while you go with your face toward Him, but those who turn\ntheir backs on the Sun are in darkness all the time. Turn to the light\nof God, and the reflection will flash in your heart.\n\n\nHis Minister's Bible\n\nIf I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I don't\nknow why one of my friends has not a right to cut out another, and\nanother friend to cut out another part, and so on. You would have a\nqueer kind of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to! Every\nadulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every liar would\ncut out everything about lying; every drunkard would be cutting out\nwhat he didn't like.\n\nOnce a gentleman took his Bible around to his minister, and said,\n\"That is your Bible.\"\n\n\"Why do you call it _my_ Bible?\" said the minister.\n\n\"Well,\" replied the gentleman, \"I have been sitting under your\npreaching for five years, and when you said that a thing in the Bible\nwas not authentic, I cut it out.\"\n\nHe had about a third of the Bible cut out; all of Job, all of\nEcclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal besides. The minister\nwanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn't want the rest of\nhis congregation to see it. But the man said:\n\n\"Oh, no! I have the covers left, and I will hold on to them.\"\n\nAnd off he went holding on to the covers.\n\n\nMocked by his Children\n\nWhen I was in St. Louis some years ago, there was an old man who had\nbeen away off on the mountains of an ungodly life, but in his early\nmanhood he had known Christ. He came into the inquiry-room, literally\nbroken down. About midnight that old man came trembling before God and\nwas saved. He wiped away his tears, and started home.\n\nNext night I saw him in the audience with a terrible look in his face.\nAs soon as I finished preaching, I went to him and said:\n\n\"My good friend, you haven't gone back into darkness again?\"\n\nSaid he: \"Oh, Mr. Moody, it has been the most wretched day in my\nlife.\"\n\n\"Why so?\"\n\n\"Well, this morning as soon as I got my breakfast, I started out. I\nhave a number of children, married, and in this city, and they have\nfamilies; and I have spent the day going around and telling them what\nGod has done for me. I told them how I had tasted salvation, with the\ntears trickling down my face; and, Mr. Moody, I hadn't a child that\ndidn't mock me!\"\n\nThat made me think of Lot down in Sodom. It is an awful thing for a\nman who has been a backslider to have his children mock him. But it is\nwritten: \"Thy back-slidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, and\nsee that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the\nLord thy God.\"\n\n\nNo Need to Read Them\n\nA great many people say, you must hear both sides; but if a man should\nwrite me a most slanderous letter about my wife, I don't think I would\nhave to read it; I should tear it up and throw it to the winds. Have I\nto read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides?\nHave I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who\nhas redeemed me with His blood? Ten thousand times no! I will not\ntouch it.\n\n\nTolling the Bell\n\nI well remember how in my native village in New England it used to be\ncustomary, as a funeral procession left the church, for the bell to\ntoll as many times as the deceased was years old. How anxiously I\nwould count those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon\non living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I\nwould give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live. But\nat other times there would be only a few years tolled, and then a\nhorror would seize me as I thought that I, too, might soon be claimed\nas a victim by that dread monster, Death. Death and judgment were a\nconstant source of fear to me till I realized the fact that neither\nshall ever have any hold on a child of God. In his letter to the\nRomans the apostle Paul has showed, in most direct language, that\nthere is no condemnation for a child of God, but that he is passed\nfrom under the power of law, and in the Epistle to the Corinthians he\ntells us that \"there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual\nbody,\" \"and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also\nbear the image of the heavenly.\"\n\n\nA Father's Neglect\n\nA story has gone the round of the American press that made a great\nimpression upon me as a father. A father took his little child out\ninto the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, lie lay down\nunder a beautiful shady tree. The little child ran about gathering\nwild flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its father and\nsaying:\n\n\"Pretty! pretty!\"\n\nAt last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little\nchild wandered away. When he awoke, his first thought was:\n\n\"Where is my child?\"\n\nHe looked all around, but he could not see him. He shouted at the top\nof his voice, but all he heard was the echo. Running to a little hill,\nhe looked around and shouted again. No response! Then going to a\nprecipice at some distance, he looked down, and there, upon the rocks\nand briars, he saw the mangled form of his loved child. He rushed to\nthe spot, took up the lifeless corpse, and hugged it to his bosom, and\naccused himself of being the murderer of his child. While he was\nsleeping his child had wandered over the precipice.\n\nI thought as I read that, what a picture of the church of God! How\nmany fathers and mothers, how many Christian men and women, are\nsleeping now while their children wander over the terrible precipice\nright into the bottomless pit! Father, mother, where is your boy\nto-night?\n\n\nWorth Ten Thousand Men\n\nLet us not give heed to gloomy and discouraging remarks. In the name\nof our great Commander let us march on to battle and to victory. There\nare some generals whose name alone is worth more than a whole army of\nten thousand men. In our army in the Civil War there were some whose\npresence sent a cheer all along the line. As they passed on, cheer\nupon cheer went up. The men knew who was going to lead them, and they\nwere sure of having success. \"The boys\" liked to fight under such\ngenerals as that. Let us encourage ourselves in the Lord, and\nencourage each other; then we shall have good success.\n\n\n\"With or Without Power\"\n\nDoctor Gordon of Boston used to say that as you passed along\nWashington street of that city, or Broadway, New York, you might see\nstores with the card in the window, \"To rent, with or without power,\"\nand any one could rent the store, and by paying something extra could\nhave power furnished from the engine in the rear. Doctor Gordon\nthought it would be a good thing to ask men and women when they joined\nthe church if they wanted to be a member on the \"with power\" or the\n\"without power\" basis, and if the latter, to tell them there were no\nvacancies for that kind in the church, it already had too many members\nwithout power.\n\n\nTurning on the Tap\n\nA man who lived on the bank of Lake Erie had water pipes laid to his\nhouse from the lake; and when he wanted water all he had to do was to\nturn the tap and the water flowed in. If the government had presented\nhim with the lake he would not have known what to do with it. So we\nmay say that if God were to give us grace enough for a lifetime, we\nshould not know how to use it. He has given us the privilege of\ndrawing on Him day by day--not \"forty days after sight.\" There is\nplenty of grace in the bank of heaven; we need not be afraid of its\nbecoming exhausted.\n\n\nKeep Close!\n\nThe late Dr. Andrew Bonar once remarked in his own quaint fashion that\nit was always easy to trace the footprints of a person if we walked\nclose behind him, but if we were some distance back we might fail to\nfind them; and accordingly, if we followed close after the Master we\nwould easily see the way, but if we tried to follow afar off we would\nfind it difficult to know the path of His will.\n\n\nOn Both Knees\n\nWilliam Dawson once told this story to illustrate how humble the soul\nmust be before it can find peace.\n\nHe said that at a revival meeting a little lad who was used to\nMethodist ways, went home to his mother and said:\n\n\"Mother, John So-and-so is under conviction and seeking for peace, but\nhe will not find it to-night, mother.\"\n\n\"Why, William?\" said she.\n\n\"Because he is only down on one knee, mother, and he will never get\npeace until he is down on both knees.\"\n\nUntil conviction of sin brings us down on both knees, until we are\ncompletely humbled, until we have no hope in ourselves left, we cannot\nfind the Savior.\n\n\nSomething New\n\nA great many people seem to think that the Bible is out of date, that\nit is an old book, that it has passed its day. They say it was very\ngood for the dark ages, and that there is some very good history in\nit, but it was not intended for the present time; we are living in a\nvery enlightened age and men can get on very well without it; we have\noutgrown it.\n\nNow, you might just as well say that the sun, which has shone so long,\nis now so old that it is out of date, and that whenever a man builds a\nhouse he need not put any windows in it, because we have a newer light\nand a better light; we have gaslight and electric light. These are\nsomething new; and I would advise people, if they think the Bible is\ntoo old and worn out, when they build houses, not to put windows in\nthem, but just to light them with electric light; that is something\nnew and that is what they are anxious for.\n\n\nBidding Christ Farewell\n\nA rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a\npersonal friend. It is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, but it is\nChrist Himself we have. The moment we receive Christ we should receive\nHim as a friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children\ngood-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never\nheard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying:\n\n\"I have been near You for ten years. Your service has become tedious\nand monotonous. I have come to bid You farewell. Good-bye, Lord Jesus\nChrist!\"\n\nI never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how they go away;\nthey just run away.\n\n\nAny One Can _Believe_\n\nGod has put the offer of salvation in such a way that the whole world\ncan lay hold of it. All men can _believe_. A lame man might not\nperhaps be able to visit the sick; but he can _believe_. A blind man,\nby reason of his infirmity, cannot do many things; but he can\n_believe_. A deaf man can _believe_. A dying man can _believe_. God\nhas put salvation so simply that young and old, wise and foolish, rich\nand poor, can all _believe_ if they will.\n\n\nThe Wrath of God Was on Him\n\nI heard of a rich man who was asked to make a contribution on behalf\nof some charitable object. The text was quoted to him--\"He that hath\npity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given\nwill He pay him again,\" He said that the security might be good\nenough, but the credit was too long. He was dead within two weeks.\n\n\nThe War was Ended\n\nDuring the last days of the Civil War, when many men were deserting\nthe Southern flag, Secretary Stanton sent out a notice from the war\ndepartment that no more refugees should be taken into the Union army.\n\nA Southern soldier who had not seen that order came into the Union\nlines, and they read it to him. He didn't know what to do. If he went\nback into the Southern army he would be shot as a deserter, and the\nNorthern army wouldn't have him. So he went into the woods, and stayed\nthere, living on roots and whatever else he could get, until finally\nhe was starving.\n\nOne day he saw an officer riding by. He rushed out of the woods,\ncaught the horse's bridle, and said he would kill the officer if he\ndidn't help him. The officer asked what was the trouble, and he told\nhim.\n\n\"But haven't you heard the news?\" said the officer.\n\n\"No; what news?\"\n\n\"Why, the war is over! Lee has surrendered, and peace has been\ndeclared. Go to the nearest town and get all the food you want.\"\n\nThe man waved his hat, and went off as fast as he could.\n\nI want to say that peace has been declared between God and man. Be\nreconciled to God. The blood is on the mercy-seat, and the vilest\nsinner can be saved for time and eternity.\n\n\nNearer than he Thought\n\nI was reading, some time ago, of a young man who had just come out of\na saloon, and had mounted his horse. As a certain deacon passed on his\nway to church, he followed and said:\n\n\"Deacon, can you tell me how far it is to hell?\"\n\nThe deacon's heart was pained to think that a young man like that\nshould talk so lightly; but he passed on and said nothing. When he\ncame round the corner to the church, he found that the horse had\nthrown that young man, and he was dead. You, too, may be nearer the\njudgment than you think.\n\n\nIts Strength was Underestimated\n\nSome of the older people can remember when our Civil War broke out.\nSecretary Seward, who was Lincoln's Secretary of State--a long-headed\nand shrewd politician--prophesied that the war would be over in ninety\ndays; and young men in thousands and hundreds of thousands came\nforward and volunteered to go down to Dixie and whip the South. They\nthought they would be back in ninety days; but the war lasted four\nyears, and cost about half a million of lives. What was the matter?\nWhy, the South was a good deal stronger than the North supposed. Its\nstrength was underestimated.\n\nJesus Christ makes no mistake of that kind. When He enlists a man in\nHis service, He shows him the dark side; He lets him know that he must\nlive a life of self-denial. If a man is not willing to go to heaven by\nthe way of Calvary, he cannot go at all. Many men want a religion in\nwhich there is no cross, but they cannot enter heaven that way. If we\nare to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we must deny ourselves and take\nup our cross and follow Him. So let us sit down and count the cost. Do\nnot think that you will have no battles if you follow the Nazarene,\nbecause many battles are before you. Yet if I had ten thousand lives,\nJesus Christ should have every one of them. Men do not object to a\nbattle if they are confident that they will have victory, and, thank\nGod, every one of us may have the victory if we will.\n\n\nSeeing the Gospel\n\n\"Have you ever heard the Gospel?\" asked a missionary of a Chinaman,\nwhom he had not seen in his mission before.\n\n\"No,\" he replied, \"but I have seen it. I know a man who used to be the\nterror of his neighborhood. He was a bad opium smoker and dangerous as\na wild beast; but he became wholly changed. He is now gentle and good\nand has left off opium.\"\n\n\nIlluminated Christians\n\nWe see very few illuminated Christians now. If every one of us was\nilluminated by the Spirit of God, how we could light up the churches!\nBut to have a lantern without any light, that would be a nuisance.\nMany Christians carry along lanterns and say, \"I wouldn't give up my\nreligion for yours.\" They talk about religion. The religion that has\nno fire is like painted fire. They are artificial Christians. Do you\nbelong to that class? You can tell. If you can't, your friends can.\n\nThere is a fable of an old lantern in a shed, which began to boast\nbecause it had heard its master say he didn't know what he would ever\ndo without it. But the little candle within spoke up and said: \"Yes,\nyou'd be a great comfort if it wasn't for me! You are nothing; I'm the\none that gives the light.\" We are nothing, but Christ is everything,\nand what we want is to keep in communion with Him and let Christ dwell\nin us richly and shine forth through us.\n\nI have a match box with a phosphorescent front. It draws in the rays\nof the sun during the day and then throws them out in the dead hours\nof the night, so that I can always see it in the dark. Now, that is\nwhat we ought to be, constantly drawing in the rays of the Sun of\nRighteousness and then giving them out. Some one said to some young\nconverts, \"It is all moonshine being converted.\" They replied, \"Thank\nyou for the compliment. The moon borrows light from the sun, and so we\nborrow ours from the Sun of Righteousness.\" That is what takes place\nwhen we have this illumination.\n\n\nNot Ashamed of his Lord\n\nA young convert tried to preach in the open air; he could not preach\nvery well either, but he did the best he could. Some one interrupted\nhim and said:\n\n\"Young man, you cannot preach; you ought to be ashamed of yourself.\"\n\nSaid the young man, \"So I am, but I am not ashamed of my Lord.\"\n\nThat is right. Do not be ashamed of Christ--of the Man that bought us\nwith His own blood.\n\n\nHe Silenced the Devil\n\nIf you find yourself getting very miserly, begin to scatter, like a\nwealthy farmer in New York state I heard of. He was a noted miser, but\nhe was converted. Soon after, a poor man who had been burned out and\nhad no provisions came to him for help. The farmer thought he would be\nliberal and give the man a ham from his smoke-house. On his way to get\nit, the tempter whispered to him:\n\n\"Give him the smallest one you have.\"\n\nHe had a struggle whether he would give a large or a small ham, but\nfinally he took down the largest he could find.\n\n\"You are a fool,\" the devil said.\n\n\"If you don't keep still,\" the farmer replied, \"I will give him every\nham I have in the smoke-house.\"\n\n\nWarm the Wax!\n\nA gentleman in Ireland had a seal made for me. \"D.L.M.\" is on one\nside, and on the other, \"God is love.\" If I want to stamp \"God is\nlove\" I would not make much headway if the wax was hard and cold.\nMany people go to meetings, and it is as hard to make an impression\non them as in pressing a seal on hard wax. But let the wax be warmed\nup and an impression is made. If we are willing, every one of us may\nbe sealed for the day of redemption. \"In whom ye also trusted after\nthat ye heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation; in whom\nalso after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of\npromise.\"\n\n\nDraw Nearer\n\nWhen I was a boy my mother used to send me out doors to get a birch\nstick to whip me with, when I had to be punished. At first I used to\nstand off from the rod as far as I could. But I soon found that the\nwhipping hurt me more that way than any other; and so I went as near\nto my mother as I could, and found she could not strike me so hard.\nAnd so when God chastens us let us kiss the rod and draw as near to\nHim as we can.\n\n\nThe Panorama Looks Brighter\n\n\"When a panorama is to pass before an audience, the artist darkens the\nroom in which they sit, so that the picture may be more fully seen. So\nGod sometimes darkens our place on earth, puts out this light and\nthat, and then before our souls He makes to pass the splendors and\nglories of the better land.\"\n\n\nAll Things Work for Good\n\nThere is one passage of Scripture which has always been a great\ncomfort to me. In the eighth chapter of Romans Paul says: \"All things\nwork together for good to them that love God.\" Some years ago a child\nof mine had scarlet fever. I went to the druggist's to get the\nmedicine, which the doctor had ordered, and told him to be sure and be\nvery careful in making up the prescription. The druggist took down one\nbottle after another, in any one of which there might be what would be\nrank poison for my child; but he stirred them together and mixed them\nup, and made just the medicine which my child needed. And so God gives\nus a little adversity here, a little prosperity there, and all works\nfor our good.\n\n\nIt Takes Time\n\nSuppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school\nto-morrow morning, and when he came home in the afternoon, say to him:\n\n\"Willie, can you read? can you write? can you spell? Do you understand\nall about algebra, geometry, Hebrew, Latin and Greek?\"\n\n\"Why, papa,\" the little fellow would say, \"how funny you talk. I have\nbeen all day trying to learn the A, B, C's!\"\n\nSuppose I should reply: \"If you have not finished your education, you\nneed not go any more.\" What would you say? Why, you would say I had\ngone mad!\n\nThere would be just as much reason in that as in the way that people\ntalk about the Bible. The men who have studied the Bible for fifty\nyears have never got down to the depths of it yet. There are truths\nthere that the church of God has been searching out for the last\nnineteen hundred years, but no man has yet fathomed the depths of the\never-living stream.\n\n\nSomething God Cannot Do\n\nIn Ireland, some time ago, a teacher asked a little boy if there was\nanything that God could not do. The little fellow said:\n\n\"Yes, He cannot see my sins through the blood of Christ.\"\n\n\nIt Seemed Too Good to be True\n\nSome time ago I read in one of the daily papers a thing that pleased\nme very much. When the new administration of President McKinley went\ninto office some clerks in one of the departments were promoted. One\nyoung lady was offered a promotion, but she went to see the secretary,\nGeneral Butterworth, and said that there was a girl sitting next to\nher that had a family to support. A brother who had been supporting\nthe family had died, or sickened, and it had fallen upon her, and she\nasked the general to let her friend that sat next to her have the\npromotion in her place.\n\nThe general said that he had heard of such things in other\ngenerations, but he didn't know that it would ever happen in his\ngeneration. He was amazed to find a person on duty in Washington that\nwas willing to give up her position and take a lower one, and let some\none else have it that she might be able to help her family.\n\nIn Colorado the superintendent of some works told me of a miner that\nwas promoted, who came to the superintendent, and said:\n\n\"There is a man that has seven children, and I have only three, and he\nis having a hard struggle. Don't promote me, but promote him.\"\n\nI know of nothing that speaks louder for Christ and Christianity than\nto see a man or woman giving up what you call your rights for others,\nand \"in honor preferring one another.\"\n\n\nThe Scarlet Thread\n\nIn the British Navy there is said to be a scarlet thread running\nthrough every line of cordage, and though a rope be cut into inch\npieces it can be recognized as belonging to the government. So there\nis a scarlet thread running all through the Bible--the whole book\npoints to Christ.\n\n\nThe First \"Don't Worry Club\"\n\nMrs. Sangster says that we hear a good deal in this age, as if it were\na novelty, about the futility of being anxious, and people have\nestablished \"Don't Worry Clubs.\" But the first \"Don't Worry Club\" was\nbegun by our blessed Lord Himself when He said: \"Take no thought for\nthe morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of\nitself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.\" He bade us\nconsider the lilies growing in their beauty and purity without a\nthought, and taught us the true way of living without care, without\nsolicitude, bearing all burdens lightly, and having continual joy on\nour faces. Only those who have the indwelling Christ in their hearts\ncan walk through this world with bright and glad looks, because they\nknow that, let come what may, their Father is leading them safely.\n\n\nThe Story Followed Him\n\nWhile I was at a convention in Illinois an old man past seventy years,\ngot up, and said he remembered but one thing about his father, and\nthat one thing followed him all through life. He could not remember\nhis death, he had no recollection of his funeral, but he recollected\nhis father one winter night taking a little chip, and with his\npocket-knife whittling out a little cross, and with the tears in his\neyes he held up that cross, telling how God in His infinite love sent\nHis Son down here to redeem us, and how He had died on the cross for\nus. The story of the cross followed him through life; and if we tell\nchildren these truths, they will never forget them.\n\n\nThe Fatal Sleep\n\nSome time ago a vessel had been off on a whaling voyage, and had been\ngone about three years. The father of one of the sailors had charge of\nthe light-house, and he was expecting his boy to come home. It was\ntime for the whaling-vessel to return. One night there came up a\nterrible gale. This father fell asleep, and while he slept his light\nwent out. When he awoke he looked toward the shore and saw a vessel\nhad been wrecked. He at once went to see if he could not yet save some\none who might be still alive. The first body that came floating toward\nthe shore was, to his great grief and surprise, the body of his own\nboy! He had been watching for that boy for many days. Now the boy had\nat last come in sight of home, and had perished because his father had\nlet his light go out!\n\nI thought, what an illustration of fathers and mothers to-day that\nhave let their lights go out! You are not training your children for\nGod and eternity. You do not live as though there were anything beyond\nthis life at all. You keep your affections set upon things on the\nearth instead of on things above, and the result is that the children\ndo not believe there is anything in Christianity. Perhaps the very\nnext step they take may take them into eternity; the next day they\nmay die without God and without hope.\n\n\nThat Love is Spontaneous\n\nSome time ago, in an inquiry meeting, I said to a young miss who said\nthat she could not love God, that it was very hard for her to love\nHim:\n\n\"Is it hard for you to love your mother? Do you have to learn to love\nyour mother?\"\n\nShe looked up through her tears, and said, \"No; I can't help it; that\nis spontaneous.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"when the Holy Spirit kindles love in your heart, you\ncan not help loving God; it will be spontaneous.\"\n\nWhen the Spirit of God comes into your heart and mine, it will be easy\nto love and serve God.\n\n\nThe Summing Up of His Life\n\nA man was taken into one of our insane asylums a few years ago from\none of the Western cities. He had resolved to be rich. How he turned\nevery stone to accumulate wealth! All his energy and every faculty\nwere pushed toward that one end. \"Wealth, wealth, wealth! money,\nmoney, money!\" was his cry. At last it drove him mad, and they took\nhim to the mad-house, where he threw himself into a rocking-chair, and\ncried:\n\n\"Millions of money, and in a mad-house!\"\n\nThat was all there was of his life. Pretty short, wasn't it? Sixty\nyears gone, millions of money, and in a mad-house; and he died there.\nThat was the summing up of his life.\n\n\nBeautiful Motion but No Progress\n\nMany people are working and working, as Rowland Hill said, like\nchildren on a rocking-horse--it is a beautiful motion, but there is no\nprogress. Those who are working for salvation are like men on a\ntreadmill, going round and round and round; toiling and toiling and\ntoiling; but nothing comes of it all. There is no progress, and there\ncannot be until you have the motive power within, till the breath of\nlife comes from God, which can alone give you power to work for\nothers.\n\n\nGet It into Your Heart\n\n\"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.\"\nAn old Scotchman says: \"It is a good thing in a good place for a good\npurpose.\" Many people have the Bible in their heads, or in their\npockets; but we need to get it down into our hearts.\n\n\nHow the Miners were Saved\n\nIn the north of England they have been digging the coal for a century.\nThey have gone miles and miles away from the shaft, under the sea, and\nthere is danger of men getting lost. I heard of two old miners who\nlost their way. Their lights went out, and they were in danger of\nlosing their lives. After wandering around for a long time, they sat\ndown, and one of them said:\n\n\"Let us sit perfectly quiet, and see if we cannot feel which way the\nair is moving, because it always moves toward the shaft.\"\n\nThere they sat for a long time, when all at once one of them felt a\nslight touch on his cheek, and he sprang to his feet and said:\n\n\"I felt it.\"\n\nThey went in the direction in which the air was moving, and reached\nthe shaft.\n\nSometimes there comes a little breath from God that touches our souls.\nIt may be so gentle and faint that you barely recognize it; but if you\ndo, do not disregard it. Thank God that He has spoken to you, and\npraise Him for it, and whatever may come do not go in the opposite\ndirection. Give yourself up to be led by it, and you will come out of\ndarkness, out of bondage, out of sorrow, into perpetual light and joy.\n\n\nReceiving and Never Giving\n\nWhat makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all the time receiving,\nnever giving out anything. Why is it that many Christians are cold?\nBecause they are all the time receiving, never giving out anything.\n\n\nDumb Christians\n\nIt is a very sad thing that so many of God's children are dumb; yet it\nis true. Parents would think it a great calamity to have their\nchildren born dumb; they would mourn over it, and weep; and well they\nmight; but did you ever think of the many dumb children God has? The\nchurches are full of them; they never speak for Christ. They can talk\nabout politics, art, and science; they can speak well enough and fast\nenough about the fashions of the day; but they have no voice for the\nSon of God.\n\n\nLike Siamese Twins\n\nCovetousness and stealing are almost like Siamese twins--they go\ntogether so often. In fact we might add lying, and make them triplets,\n\"The covetous person is a thief _in_ the shell. The thief is a\ncovetous person _out_ of the shell. Let a covetous person see\nsomething that he desires very much; let an opportunity of taking it\nbe offered; how very soon he will break through the shell and come out\nin his true character as a thief.\" The Greek word translated\n\"covetousness\" means--an inordinate desire of getting. When the Gauls\ntasted the sweet wines of Italy, they asked where they came from, and\nnever rested until they had overrun Italy.\n\n\nNot Troubled with Doubts\n\nOne of the happiest men I ever knew was a man in Dundee, Scotland, who\nhad fallen and broken his back when he was a boy of fifteen. He had\nlain on his bed for about forty years, and could not be moved without\na good deal of pain. Probably not a day had passed in all those years\nwithout acute suffering. But day after day the grace of God had been\ngranted to him, and when I was in his chamber it seemed as if I was as\nnear heaven as I could get on earth. I can imagine that when the\nangels passed over Dundee, they had to stop there to get refreshed.\n\nWhen I saw him, I thought he must be beyond the reach of the tempter,\nand I asked him: \"Doesn't Satan ever tempt you to doubt God, and to\nthink that He is a hard Master?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he said, \"he does try to tempt me. I lie here and see my\nold schoolmates driving along in their carriages, and Satan says: 'If\nGod is so good, why does He keep you here all these years? You might\nhave been a rich man, riding in your own carriage.' Then I see a man\nwho was young when I was walk by in perfect health, and Satan\nwhispers: 'If God loved you, couldn't He have kept you from breaking\nyour back?'\"\n\n\"What do you do when Satan tempts you?\"\n\n\"Ah, I just take him to Calvary, and I show him Christ, and I point\nout those wounds in His hands and feet and side, and say, 'Doesn't He\nlove me?' and the fact is, he got such a scare there eighteen hundred\nyears ago that he cannot stand it; he leaves me every time.\"\n\nThat bedridden saint had not much trouble with doubts; he was too full\nof the grace of God.\n\n\nHoney-Dew\n\nI have sometimes been in a place where the very air seemed to be\ncharged with the breath of God, like the moisture in the air. I\nremember one time as I went through the woods near Mount Hermon school\nI heard bees, and asked what it meant.\n\n\"Oh,\" said one of the men, \"they are after the _honey-dew_.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" I asked.\n\nHe took a chestnut leaf and told me to put my tongue to it. I did so,\nand the taste was sweet as honey. Upon inquiry I found that all up and\ndown the Connecticut valley what they call \"honey-dew\" had fallen, so\nthat there must have been altogether hundreds of tons of honey-dew in\nthis region. Where it comes from I don't know.\n\nDo you suppose that this earth would be worth living on if it were not\nfor the dew and the rain? So a church that hasn't any of the dew of\nheaven, any of the rain that comes down in showers, will be as barren\nas the earth would be without the dew and rain.\n\n\nA Personal Matter\n\n\"The life of Christianity,\" says Luther, \"consists of personal\npronouns. It is one thing to say, 'Christ is a Savior.' It is quite\nanother to say, 'He is _my_ Savior.' The devil can say the first. Only\nthe true Christian can say the second.\"\n\n\nThey Knew It\n\nLet me tell you how I had my eyes opened about the theater question. I\nhad an assistant superintendent of a Sabbath school, a very promising\nyoung man, who seemed to be very happy in the work. A star actor came\nto the city, and he went to see him. I knew nothing of it, but the\nnext Sunday when he came into the Sunday-school all over the building\nthe boys cried out:\n\n\"Hypocrite! Hypocrite!\"\n\nThe perspiration started out of every pore of my body; I thought they\nwere looking at me. I said to the little newsboys:\n\n\"Who are you calling a hypocrite?\"\n\nThey mentioned the assistant's name. I asked the reason, and they\nsaid:\n\n\"We saw him going into the theater.\"\n\nI had never said anything about the theater to those children, but\nthey saw that man going in, and called him a hypocrite. They seemed to\nknow it was no place for a Christian to go. He lost his influence\nentirely, withdrew from the school, and after a while gave up\nChristian work altogether. He was just swept along with the tide in\nChicago and his influence was lost.\n\n\nPull for the Shore\n\nA vessel was wrecked off the shore. Eager eyes were watching and\nstrong arms manned the life-boat. For hours they tried to reach that\nvessel through the great breakers that raged and foamed on the\nsand-bank, but it seemed impossible. The boat appeared to be leaving\nthe crew to perish. But after a while the captain and sixteen men were\ntaken off, and the vessel went down.\n\n\"When the life-boat came to you,\" said a friend, \"did you expect it\nhad brought some tools to repair your old ship?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" was the response; \"she was a total wreck. Two of her masts\nwere gone, and if we had stayed mending her only a few minutes, we\nmust have gone down sir.\"\n\n\"When once off the old wreck and safe in the life-boat what remained\nfor you to do?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir, but just to pull for the shore.\"\n\nMan can't save himself. He has been wrecked by sin, and his only\nsafety lies in taking Jesus Christ as his Savior.\n\n\nEasy, and Yet Difficult\n\nIt is the easiest thing in the world to become a Christian, and it is\nalso the most difficult. You say: \"That is a contradiction, a\nparadox.\" I will illustrate what I mean.\n\nA little nephew of mine, a few years ago, took my Bible and threw it\ndown on the floor. His mother said,\n\n\"Charlie, pick up uncle's Bible.\"\n\nThe little fellow said he would not.\n\n\"Charlie, do you know what that word means?\"\n\nShe soon found out that he did, and that he was not going to pick up\nthe Book. His will had come right up against his mother's will.\n\nI began to be quite interested in the struggle: I knew if she did not\nbreak his will, he would some day break her heart.\n\nShe repeated, \"Charlie, go and pick up uncle's Bible, and put it on\nthe table.\"\n\nThe little fellow said he could not do it.\n\n\"I will punish you if you do not.\"\n\nHe saw a strange look in her eye, and the matter began to get serious.\nHe did not want to be punished, and he knew his mother would punish\nhim if he did not lift the Bible. So he straightened every bone and\nmuscle in him, and he said _he could not do it_. I really believe the\nlittle fellow had reasoned himself into the belief that he could not\ndo it.\n\nHis mother knew he was only deceiving himself, so she kept him right\nto the point. At last he went down, put both his arms around the\nBible, and tugged away at it; but he still said he could not do it.\nThe truth was--he did not want to. He got up again without lifting it.\n\nThe mother said, \"Charlie, I am not going to talk to you any more.\nThis matter has to be settled; pick up that Bible, or I will punish\nyou.\"\n\nAt last she broke his will, and then he found it as easy as it is for\nme to turn my hand. He picked up the Bible, and laid it on the table.\n\nSo it is with the sinner; if you are really willing to take the Water\nof Life, YOU CAN DO IT.\n\n\nNo Difference\n\nDuring the war, when enlisting was going on, sometimes a man would\ncome up with a nice silk hat on, patent-leather boots, kid gloves, and\na fine suit of clothes; perhaps the next man who came along would be\na hod-carrier, dressed in the poorest kind of clothes. Both had to\nstrip alike and put on the regimental uniform.\n\nWhen you come and say you are not fit, haven't got good clothes,\nhaven't got righteousness enough to be a Christian, remember that\nChrist will furnish you with the uniform of heaven, and you will be\nset down at the marriage feast of the Lamb. I don't care how black and\nvile your heart may be, only accept the invitation of Jesus Christ,\nand He will make you fit to sit down with the rest at that feast.\n\n\nDrawing a Comparison\n\nWhen I was in California I went into a Sunday-school and asked:\n\n\"Have you got some one who can write a plain hand?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nWe got up the blackboard, and the lesson upon it proved to be the\ntext, \"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.\"\n\nI said, \"Suppose we write upon that board some of the earthly\ntreasures? We will begin with 'gold.'\"\n\nThe teacher readily put down \"gold,\" and they all comprehended it, for\nall had run to that country in hope of finding it.\n\n\"Well, we will put down 'houses' next and then 'land.' Next we will\nput down 'fast horses.'\"\n\nThey all understood what fast horses were--they knew a good deal more\nabout fast horses than they knew about the kingdom of God. Some of\nthem, I think, actually made fast horses serve as gods.\n\n\"Next we will put down 'tobacco.'\" The teacher seemed to shrink at\nthis. \"Put it down,\" said I; \"many a man thinks more of tobacco than\nhe does of God. Well, then we will put down 'rum.'\"\n\nHe objected to this--didn't like to put it down at all.\n\n\"Down with it! Many a man will sell his reputation, his home, his\nwife, his children, everything he has, for rum. It is the god of some\nmen. Many here are ready to sell their present and their eternal\nwelfare for it. Put it down,\" and down it went.\n\n\"Now,\" said I, \"suppose we put down some of the heavenly treasures.\nPut down 'Jesus' to head the list, then 'heaven,' then 'River of\nLife,' then 'Crown of Glory',\" and went on until the column was\nfilled, and then just drew a line and showed the heavenly and the\nearthly things in contrast.\n\nMy friends, they could not stand comparison. If a man does that, he\ncannot but see the superiority of the heavenly over the earthly\ntreasures.\n\nIt turned out that this teacher was not a Christian. He had gone to\nCalifornia on the usual hunt--gold; and when he saw the two columns\nplaced side by side, the excellence of the one over the other was\nirresistible, and he was the first soul God gave me on that Pacific\ncoast. He accepted Christ, and that man came to the station when I was\ncoming away and blessed me for coming to that place.\n\n\nA Legend about Doves\n\nThere is a beautiful legend about a conference held by the doves to\ndecide where they should make their abode. One suggested that they\nshould go to the woods; but the objection was made that there they\nwould be in danger from hawks; another mentioned the cities, but boys\nwould stone them there, and drive them away or kill them. Presently\nsome dove suggested that they go and hide in the clefts of the rocks,\nand there they were safe. \"O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities\nand dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in\nthe sides of the hole's mouth.\"\n\n  Rock of Ages, cleft for me,\n  Let me hide myself in thee.\n\n\nLook to Christ!\n\nA leading surgeon I heard of, when he has a bad wound to dress, or a\nbroken limb to set, tells the patient:\n\n\"Now, look at the wound, see just how it looks, and then look at me!\"\n\nSo when you have seen the state your heart is in, look up to Christ,\nand nowhere else.\n\n\nPaying Attention to the Preacher\n\nThere was an architect in Chicago who was converted. In giving his\ntestimony, he said he had been in the habit of attending church for a\ngreat many years, but he could not say that he had really heard a\nsermon all the time. He said that when the minister gave out the text\nand began to preach, he used to settle himself in the corner of the\npew and work out the plans of some building. He could not tell how\nmany plans he had prepared while the minister was preaching. He was\nthe architect for one or two companies; and he used to do all his\nplanning in that way.\n\nYou see, Satan came in between him and the preacher, and caught away\nthe good seed of the Word. I have often preached to people, and have\nbeen perfectly amazed to find they could hardly tell one solitary word\nof the sermon; even the text had completely gone from them.\n\n\nBetter Make Sure\n\n\"I hab hearn folks say, 'Hope I has 'ligion, but I doan know'; but I\nneber hearn a man say, 'I hope's I has money, but I doan know.' Dat\nsorter 'ligion dat yer hopes ye's got, but doan know, ain't gwine to\ndo no mo' good dan der money what yer hopes ye's got but doan know.\"\n\n\nSome Things Quite Plain\n\nAn English army officer in India who had been living an impure life\nwent round one evening to argue religion with the chaplain. During\ntheir talk the officer said:\n\n\"Religion is all very well, but you must admit that there are\ndifficulties--about the miracles, for instance.\"\n\nThe chaplain knew the man and his besetting sin, and quietly looking\nhim in the face, answered:\n\n\"Yes; there are some things in the Bible not very plain, I admit; but\nthe seventh commandment is very plain.\"\n\n\nYour Own Picture There\n\nThe Bible is like an album. I go into a man's house, and while waiting\nfor him, I take up an album and open it. I look at a picture. \"Why,\nthat looks like a man I know.\" I turn over and look at another. \"Well,\nI know that man.\" I keep turning over the leaves. \"Well, there is a\nman who lives in the same street as myself--he is my next-door\nneighbor.\" And then I come upon another, and see myself.\n\nMy friends, if you read your Bibles you will find your own pictures\nthere. It just describes you. You may be a Pharisee; if so, turn to\nthe third chapter of John, and see what Christ said to the Pharisee:\n\"Except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God.\" But\nyou may say: \"I am not a Pharisee; I am a poor miserable sinner, too\nbad to come to Him.\" Well, turn to the woman of Samaria, and see what\nChrist said to her.\n\n\n\"That's Me!\"\n\nWhile we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day in his orphanage told\nabout the boys--that some of them had aunts and some cousins, and that\nnearly every boy had some friend that took an interest in him, and\ncame to see him and gave him a little pocket money. One day, he said,\nwhile he stood there, a little boy came up to him and said:\n\n\"Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you.\"\n\nThe boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder who was with him,\nand said:\n\n\"Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were dead, and you\ndidn't have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles or friends to come and\ngive you pocket money, and give you presents, don't you think you\nwould feel bad? Because that's me!\"\n\nSaid Mr. Spurgeon: \"The minute he said that, I put my right hand down\ninto my pocket and took out some money for him.\"\n\n\nQueer Ideas of Repentance\n\nThe unconverted have a false idea about repentance; they think God is\ngoing to make them repent. I was once talking with a man on this\nsubject, and he summed up his whole argument by saying:\n\n\"Moody, it has never struck me yet.\"\n\nI said: \"What has never struck you.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he replied: \"Some people it strikes, and some it doesn't.\nThere was a good deal of interest in our town a few years ago, and\nsome of my neighbors were converted, but it didn't strike me.\"\n\nThat man thought that repentance was coming down some day to strike\nhim like lightning. Another man said he expected some sensation, like\ncold chills down his back.\n\nRepentance isn't feeling. It is turning from sin to God. One of the\nbest definitions was given by a soldier. Some one asked him how he was\nconverted. He said:\n\n\"The Lord said to me, _Halt! Attention! Right about face! March!_ and\nthat was all there was in it.\"\n\n\nA Good Illustration\n\nA little child gives a good illustration of faith. Let the wind blow\nher hat into the river, and she does not worry; she knows her mother\nwill get her another. She lives by faith.\n\n\n\"Come! Come! Come!\"\n\nA man in one of our meetings had been brought there against his will;\nhe had come through some personal influence brought to bear upon him.\nWhen he got to the meeting, they were singing the chorus of a hymn:\n\n/*\nCome! oh, come to Me!\nCome! oh, come to Me!\nWeary, heavy-laden,\nCome! oh, come to Me!\n*/\n\nHe said afterward he thought he never saw so many fools together in\nhis life before. The idea of a number of men standing there singing,\n\"Come! come! come!\"\n\nWhen he started home he could not get this little word out of his\nhead; it kept coming back all the time. He went into a saloon, and\nordered some whisky, thinking to drown it. But he could not; it still\nkept coming back. He went into another saloon, and drank some more\nwhisky; but the words kept ringing in his ears: \"Come! come! come!\" He\nsaid to himself, \"What a fool I am for allowing myself to be troubled\nin this way!\" He went to a third saloon, had another glass, and\nfinally got home.\n\nHe went off to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as if the very\npillow kept whispering the word, \"Come! Come!\" He began to be angry\nwith himself: \"What a fool I was for ever going to that meeting at\nall!\" When he got up he took the little hymn book, found the hymn, and\nread it over.\n\n\"What nonsense!\" he said to himself; \"the idea of a rational man being\ndisturbed by that hymn.\"\n\nHe set fire to the hymn book, but he could not burn up the little word\n\"Come!\"\n\nHe declared he would never go to another of the meetings; but the next\nnight he came again. When he got there, strange to say, they were\nsinging the same hymn.\n\n\"There is that miserable old hymn again,\" he said; \"what a fool I am\nfor coming!\" When the Spirit of God lays hold of a man, he does a good\nmany things he did not intend to do.\n\nTo make a long story short, that man rose in a meeting of young\nconverts, and told the story that I have now told you. Pulling out the\nlittle hymn-book--for he had bought another copy--and opening it at\nthis hymn, he said:\n\n\"I think this hymn is the sweetest and the best in the English\nlanguage. God blessed it to the saving of my soul. And yet this was\nthe very hymn that I despised.\"\n\n\nDon't Scold\n\n\"He that winneth souls is wise.\" Do you want to win men? Do not drive\nor scold them. Do not try to tear down their prejudices before you\nbegin to lead them to the truth. Some people think they have to tear\ndown the scaffolding before they begin on the building. An old\nminister once invited a young brother to preach for him. The latter\nscolded the people, and when he got home, asked the old minister how\nhe had done. He said he had an old cow, and when he wanted a good\nsupply of milk, he fed the cow; he did not scold her.\n\n\nA Long Time to Reap\n\nA man died in the Columbus penitentiary some years ago who had spent\nover thirty years in his cell. He was one of the millionaires of Ohio.\nFifty years ago when they were trying to get a trunk road from Chicago\nto New York, they wanted to lay the line through his farm near\nCleveland. He did not want his farm divided by the railroad, so the\ncase went into court, where commissioners were appointed to pay the\ndamages and to allow the road to be built.\n\nOne dark night, a train was thrown off the track, and several were\nkilled. This man was suspected, was tried and found guilty, and was\nsent to the penitentiary for life. The farm was soon cut up into city\nlots, and the man became a millionaire, but he got no benefit from it.\n\nIt may not have taken him more than an hour to lay the obstruction on\nthe railroad, but he was over thirty years reaping the result of that\none act!\n\n\n\"As a Little Child\"\n\nA little child is the most dependent thing on earth. All its resources\nare in its parents' love; all it can do is to cry; and its necessities\nexplain the meaning to the mother's heart. If we interpret its\nlanguage, it means: \"Mother, wash me; I cannot wash myself. Mother,\nclothe me; I am naked, and cannot clothe myself. Mother, feed me; I\ncannot feed myself. Mother, carry me; I cannot walk.\" It is written,\n\"A mother may forget her sucking child; yet will not I forget thee.\"\n\nThis it is to receive the Kingdom of God as a little child--to come to\nJesus in our helplessness, and say: \"Lord Jesus, wash me!\" \"Clothe\nme!\" \"Feed me!\" \"Carry me!\" \"Save me, Lord, or I perish.\"--Rainsford.\n\n\nFollowing the Lamb\n\nA friend who lost all his children told me about being in an eastern\ncountry some time ago, and he saw a shepherd going down to a stream,\nand he wanted to get his flock across. He went into the water and\ncalled them by name, but they came to the bank and bleated, and were\ntoo afraid to follow. At last he went back, tightened his girdle about\nhis loins, took up two little lambs, and put one inside his frock, and\nanother inside his bosom. Then he started into the water, and the old\nsheep looked up to the shepherd instead of down into the water. They\nwanted to see their little ones. So he got them over the water, and\nled them into the green pastures on the other side.\n\nHow many times the Good Shepherd has come down here and taken a little\nlamb to the hill-tops of glory, and then the father and mother begin\nto look up and follow.\n\n\nTwo Pictures\n\nA friend told me of a poor man who had sent his son to school in the\ncity. One day the father was hauling some wood into the city, perhaps\nto pay his boy's bills. The young man was walking down the street with\ntwo of his school friends, all dressed in the very height of fashion.\nHis father saw him, and was so glad that he left his wood, and went to\nthe sidewalk to speak to him. But the boy was ashamed of his father,\nwho had on his old working clothes, and spurned him, and said:\n\n\"I don't know you.\"\n\nWill such a young man ever amount to anything? Never!\n\nThere was a very promising young man in my Sunday-school in Chicago.\nHis father was a confirmed drunkard, and his mother took in washing to\neducate her four children. This was her eldest son, and I thought that\nhe was going to redeem the whole family. But one day a thing happened\nthat made him go down in my estimation.\n\nThe boy was in the high school, and was a very bright scholar. One day\nhe stood with his mother at the cottage door--it was a poor house, but\nshe could not pay for their schooling and feed and clothe her children\nand hire a very good house too out of her earnings. When they were\ntalking a young man from the high school came up the street, and this\nboy walked away from his mother. Next day the young man said:\n\n\"Who was that I saw you talking to yesterday?\"\n\n\"Oh, that was my washerwoman.\"\n\nI said: \"Poor fellow! He will never amount to anything.\"\n\nThat was a good many years ago. I have kept my eye on him. He has gone\ndown, down, down, and now he is just a miserable wreck. Of course, he\nwould go down! Ashamed of his mother that loved him and toiled for\nhim, and bore so much hardship for him! I cannot tell you the contempt\nI had for that one act.\n\nLet us look at--\n\n\nA Brighter Picture\n\nSome years ago I heard of a poor woman who sent her boy to school and\ncollege. When he was to graduate, he wrote his mother to come, but she\nsent back word that she could not because her best skirt had already\nbeen turned once. She was so shabby that she was afraid he would be\nashamed of her. He wrote back that he didn't care how she was dressed,\nand urged so strongly that she went. He met her at the station, and\ntook her to a nice place to stay. The day came for his graduation, and\nhe walked down the broad aisle with that poor mother dressed very\nshabbily, and put her into one of the best seats in the house. To her\ngreat surprise he was the valedictorian of the class, and he carried\neverything before him. He won a prize, and when it was given to him,\nhe stepped down before the whole audience and kissed his mother, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Here, mother, here is the prize! It's yours. I would not have won it\nif it had not been for you.\"\n\nThank God for such a man!\n\n\nThe Folly of Covetousness\n\nThe folly of covetousness is well shown in the following extract:\n\n\"If you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in\ncontinual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for\nfear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and\nstrength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet\nalways carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late\nto catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running\ngreedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always\nstudying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you\nshould see him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end a\nthirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such\na one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish\nenough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this\ncharacter is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd\ndisquiets of the covetous man.\"\n\nI have read of a millionaire in France, who was a miser. In order to\nmake sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and\ndeep that he could go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a\ndoor with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. Search was\nmade, but they could find no trace of him. At last his house was sold,\nand the purchaser discovered this door in the cellar. He opened it,\nwent down, and found the miser lying dead on the ground, in the midst\nof his riches. The door must have shut accidentally after him, and he\nperished miserably.\n\n\nWhat is Needed\n\nNine-tenths, at least, of our church members never think of speaking\nfor Christ. If they see a man, perhaps a near relative, going right\ndown to ruin, going rapidly, they never think of speaking to him about\nhis sinful course and of seeking to win him to Christ. Now certainly\nthere must be something wrong. And yet when you talk with them you\nfind they have faith, and you cannot say they are not children of God;\nbut they have not the power, the liberty, the love that real disciples\nof Christ should have.\n\nA great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new\norgans, new choirs, and all these new things. That is not what the\nChurch of God needs to-day. It is the old power that the apostles had.\nIf we have that in our churches, there will be new life.\n\nI remember when in Chicago many were toiling in the work, and it\nseemed as though the car of salvation didn't move on, when a minister\nbegan to cry out from the very depths of his heart:\n\n\"Oh, God, put new ministers in every pulpit.\"\n\nNext Monday I heard two or three men stand up and say, \"We had a new\nminister last Sunday--the same old minister, but he had got new\npower,\" and I firmly believe that is what we want to-day all over\nAmerica--new ministers in the pulpit and new people in the pews. We\nwant people quickened by the Spirit of God.\n\n\nNeglecting Church\n\nA minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said:\n\n\"You know, John, you are never absent from market.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" was the reply, \"we _must_ go to market.\"\n\n\nOratorical Preaching\n\nMy friends, we have too many orators in the pulpit, I am tired and\nsick of your \"silver-tongued orators.\" I used to mourn because I\ncouldn't be an orator. I thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of\nspeech like some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of language\ntake the audience captive; but they came and they went. Their voice\nwas like the air--there wasn't any _power_ back of it; they trusted in\ntheir eloquence and their fine speeches. That is what Paul was\nthinking of when he wrote to the Corinthians: \"My speech and my\npreaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in\ndemonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not\nstand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.\"\n\nTake a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the\nwitness-box, and see how quickly the judge will rule him out. It is\nthe man who tells the plain, simple truth that has the most influence\nwith the jury.\n\nSuppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pharaoh, and had got his\nhair all smoothly brushed, and had stood before the looking-glass, or\nhad gone to an elocutionist to be taught how to make an oratorical\nspeech and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had buttoned his\ncoat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an attitude, and begun:\n\n\"The God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has\ncommanded me to come into the presence of the noble King of Egypt.\"\n\nI think they would have taken his head right off! They had Egyptians\nwho could be as eloquent as Moses. It was not eloquence they wanted.\n\n\nTo Which Class Do You Belong?\n\nSome one has said that there are three classes of people: the \"wills,\"\nthe \"won'ts,\" and the \"can'ts\"; the first accomplish everything, the\nsecond oppose everything, and the third fail in everything.\n\n\nSunday Work\n\nA Christian man was once urged by his employer to work on Sunday.\n\n\"Does not your Bible say that if your ass falls into a pit on the\nSabbath, you may pull him out?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the other; \"but if the ass had the habit of falling\ninto the same pit every Sabbath, I would either fill up the pit or\nsell the ass.\"\n\n\nThere Must Be Roots\n\nSuppose I hire two men to set out trees, and after a day or two I go\nout to see how they are getting along. I find that one man has set out\na hundred trees, and the other only ten. I say:\n\n\"Look here; what does this mean? That man has set out a hundred trees,\nand you have set out only ten. What does it mean?\"\n\n\"Yes, but he has cut off all the roots, and, just stuck the tops into\nthe ground.\"\n\nI go to the other man, and say: \"What does this mean? Why have you\nplanted all of these trees without roots?\"\n\n\"I don't believe in roots; they are of no account. My trees look just\nas well as his.\"\n\nBut when the sun blazes upon the trees, they all wither and die.\n\nThere are a lot of people running around who haven't got any roots. A\ngood many live on negations. They are always telling what they _don't_\nbelieve. I want a man to tell me what he _does_ believe, not what he\ndoes not believe. And I like to meet a positive man. We just want to\nknow what men do believe. We don't want trees that haven't any roots,\nfor they will dry up when the sun blazes on them. There are a good\nmany persons that are going on without any foundation; they have no\nfaith.\n\n\nThe Path of Obedience\n\nWhatsoever He tells you to do, do. But be sure He says it. Don't take\nyour ideas. Go and live right at home, go and treat your wife and\nchildren right, pay your debts, and do some things of that kind.\n\nA colored man said he had seen a sign; he said it read, \"G. P. C,\" and\nhe understood it to mean, \"Go preach Christ.\"\n\nAnother man got up, and said. \"No, that ain't it; it is 'Go pick\ncotton.'\"\n\nIf it is preach the gospel, go preach the gospel; and if it is pick\ncotton, then pick cotton.\n\n\nCalling a Man a Liar\n\nYou cannot offer a man a greater insult than to tell him he is a liar.\nUnbelief is telling God He is a liar.\n\nSuppose a man said, \"Mr. Moody, I have no faith in you whatever.\"\nDon't you think it would grieve me? There is not anything that would\nwound a man much more than to be told that you do not have any faith\nin him.\n\nA great many men say, \"Oh, I have profound reverence and respect for\nGod.\"\n\nYes, profound respect, but not faith. Why, it is a downright insult!\n\nSuppose a man says, \"Mr. Moody, I have profound respect for you,\nprofound admiration for you, but I do not believe a word you say.\"\n\nI wouldn't give much for his respect or admiration; I wouldn't give\nmuch for his friendship. God wants us to put our faith in Him. How it\nwould wound a mother's feelings to hear her children say, \"I do love\nmamma so much, but I don't believe what she says.\" How it would grieve\nthat mother. And that is about the way a great many of God's professed\nchildren talk. Some men seem to think it is a great misfortune that\nthey do not have faith. Bear in mind it is not a misfortune, but it is\nthe damning sin of the world.\n\n\nBending His Will\n\nA mother told me up in Minnesota that she had a little child who took\na book and threw it out of the window. She told him to go and pick it\nup. The little boy said, \"I won't.\"\n\nShe said, \"What?\"\n\nHe said again, \"I won't.\"\n\nShe said: \"You must. Go and pick up that book.\"\n\nHe said he couldn't do it. She took him out, and she held him right to\nit. Dinner-time came, and he hadn't picked up the book. She took him\nto dinner, and after it was over she took him out again. They sat\nthere until tea-time. When tea-time came she took him in and gave him\nhis supper, and then took him out and kept him there until bed-time.\nThe next morning she went out again and kept him there until\ndinner-time. He found he was in for a life job, and he picked the book\nup.\n\nShe said she never had any trouble with the child afterward. Mothers,\nif you don't make your boy obey when he is young, he will break your\nheart.\n\n\nHow To Find the Thirsty\n\nWhen preaching in Chicago, Dr. Monro Gibson once asked in the inquiry\nmeeting, \"Now, how can we find out who is thirsty? I was just thinking\nhow we could find out. If a boy should come down the aisle, bringing\na good pail full of clear water and a dipper, we would soon find out\nwho was thirsty. The thirsty men and women would reach out for water;\nbut if he should walk down the aisle with an empty bucket, we wouldn't\nfind out. People would look in and see that there was no water, and\nsay nothing. So,\" said he, \"I think that is the reason we are not more\nblessed in our ministry; we are carrying around empty buckets, and the\npeople see that we have not anything in them, and they don't come\nforward.\"\n\n\nMaking Parables\n\nStewart Robertson met Marshall, the great politician, and Marshall\nsaid:\n\n\"Why don't you preach in parables like your Master?\"\n\nRobertson said: \"I would if I knew enough. I wish you would make me a\nfew.\"\n\nHe never could get to see him from that day until one day he met him\non a corner, and he said:\n\n\"Marshall, where are those parables?\"\n\n\"I knew you would be after me, but I give it up. I tried, but I\ncouldn't make them. I didn't know it was so hard.\"\n\nPeople say, \"Oh, any one can make up a sermon.\" But if you think so,\njust try it!\n\n\nA Father's Mistake\n\nThe story is told that a man once said he would not talk to his son\nabout religion; the boy should make his own choice when he grew up,\nunprejudiced by him.\n\nThe boy broke his arm, and when the doctor was setting it, he cursed\nand swore the whole time. The father was quite grieved and shocked.\n\n\"Ah,\" said the doctor, \"you were afraid to prejudice the boy in the\nright way, but the devil had no such prejudice. He has led your son\nthe other way.\"\n\nThe idea that a father is to let his children run wild! Nature alone\nnever brings forth anything but weeds.\n\n\nA Rum-Seller's Son Blows His Brains Out\n\nLook at that rum-seller. When we talk to him he laughs at us. He tells\nyou there is no hell, no future--there is no retribution. I've got one\nman in my mind now who ruined nearly all the sons in his neighborhood.\nMothers and fathers went to him and begged him not to sell their\nchildren liquor. He told them it was his business to sell liquor, and\nhe was going to sell liquor to every one who came. The saloon was a\nblot upon the place as dark as hell.\n\nBut the man had a father's heart. He had a son. He didn't worship God,\nbut he worshiped that boy. He didn't remember that whatsoever a man\nsoweth so shall he reap. My friends, they generally reap what they\nsow. It may not come immediately, but the retribution will surely\ncome. If you ruin other men's sons, some other man will ruin yours.\nBear in mind God is a God of equity; God is a God of justice. He is\nnot going to allow you to ruin others and escape yourself. If we go\nagainst His laws, we suffer.\n\nTime rolled on, and that young man became a slave to drink, and his\nlife became such a burden to him that he put a revolver to his head\nand blew his brains out. The father lived a few years, but his life\nwas as bitter as gall, and then went down to his grave in sorrow. Ah,\nmy friends, it is hard to kick against the pricks.\n\n\nMrs. Moody Teaching Her Child\n\nThere was a time when our little boy did not like to go to church, and\nwould get up in the morning and say to his mother:\n\n\"What day is to-morrow?\"\n\n\"Tuesday.\"\n\n\"Next day?\"\n\n\"Wednesday.\"\n\n\"Next day?\"\n\n\"Thursday\"; and so on, till he came to the answer, \"Sunday.\"\n\n\"Dear me,\" he said.\n\nI said to the mother, \"We cannot have our boy grow up to hate Sunday\nin this way; that will never do. That is the way I used to feel when I\nwas a boy. I used to look upon Sunday with a certain amount of dread.\nVery few kind words were associated with the day. I don't know that\nthe minister even noticed me, unless it was when I was asleep in the\ngallery, and he had some one wake me up. This kind of thing won't do.\nWe must make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; not a day\nto be dreaded, but a day of pleasure.\"\n\nWell, the mother took the work up with this boy. Bless those mothers\nin their work with the children! Sometimes I feel as if I would rather\nbe the mother of John Wesley or Martin Luther or John Knox than have\nall the glories in the world. Those mothers who are faithful with the\nchildren God has given them will not go unrewarded.\n\nMy wife went to work, and took Bible stories and put those blessed\ntruths in a light that the boy could comprehend, and soon his feeling\nfor the Sabbath was the other way.\n\n\"What day's to-morrow?\" he would ask.\n\n\"Sunday.\"\n\n\"I am glad.\"\n\nIf we make Bible truths interesting, and break them up in some shape\nso that these children can get at them, then they will begin to enjoy\nthem.\n\n\nMissed At Last!\n\nIn one of the tenement houses in New York City a doctor was sent for.\nHe came, and found a young man very sick. When he got to the bedside\nthe young man said:\n\n\"Doctor, I don't want you to deceive me; I want to know the worst. Is\nthis illness to prove serious?\"\n\nAfter the doctor had made an examination, he said, \"I am sorry to tell\nyou you cannot live out the night.\"\n\nThe young man looked up and said, \"Well, then, I have missed it at\nlast!\"\n\n\"Missed what?\"\n\n\"I have missed eternal life. I always intended to become a Christian\nsome day, but I thought I had plenty of time, and put it off.\"\n\nThe doctor, who was himself a Christian man, said: \"It is not too\nlate. Call on God for mercy.\"\n\n\"No; I have always had a great contempt for a man who repents when he\nis dying; he is a miserable coward. If I were not sick, I would not\nhave a thought about my soul, and I am not going to insult God now.\"\n\nThe doctor spent the day with him, read to him out of the Bible, and\ntried to get him to lay hold of the promises. The young man said he\nwould not call on God, and in that state of mind he passed away. Just\nas he was dying the doctor saw his lips moving. He reached down, and\nall he could hear was the faint whisper:\n\n\"_I have missed it at last!_\"\n\nDear friend, make sure that you do not miss eternal life at last.\n\n\nChoose Now\n\nA teacher had been relating to his class the parable of the rich man\nand Lazarus, and he asked:\n\n\"Now, which would you rather be, boys, the rich man or Lazarus?\"\n\nOne boy answered, \"I would rather be the rich man while I live, and\nLazarus when I die.\"\n\nThat cannot be.\n\n\nThe Mansion Made Ready\n\nOnce when I was traveling to a city there was a lady in the car with\nme. After I had reached the hotel where I was to stay, and had got\ncomfortable quarters, she came, and said:\n\n\"Oh, sir, I cannot get a room in this hotel; they are quite full! How\never did you manage to get a room?\"\n\n\"Easily enough,\" I replied; \"I just telegraphed on before that I was\ncoming, to have a room ready for me.\"\n\nAnd it is somewhat similar in regard to gaining admission to heaven.\nYour names must be sent on beforehand, and entered in its book, else\nyou won't get in; but get your names inscribed on its pages, and then\nyou won't be disappointed. God will have a mansion ready for you when\nyou ascend to your heavenly home. When you come to its gates, the\nguardian angels will refer to the book of life to see if your name is\nthere. If so, pass in; but if not, admittance will be inexorably\nrefused.\n\n\nThe Promise For All\n\nEvery one of God's proclamations is connected with that word\n\"whosoever\"--\"whosoever believeth,\" \"whosoever will.\" I think it was\nRichard Baxter said he thanked God for that \"whosoever.\" He would a\ngood deal rather have that word \"whosoever\" than Richard Baxter; for\nif it was Richard Baxter, he should have thought it was some other\nRichard Baxter who had lived and died before him; but \"whosoever\" he\nknew included him.\n\nI heard of a woman once that thought there was no promise in the Bible\nfor her; she thought the promises were for some one else, not for her.\nThere are a good many of these people in the world. They think it is\ntoo good to be true that they can be saved for nothing. This woman one\nday got a letter, and when she opened it she found it was not for her\nat all; it was meant for another woman that had the same name; and she\nhad her eyes opened to the fact that if she should find some promise\nin the Bible directed to her name, she would not know whether it meant\nher or some one else that bore her name. But you know the word\n\"whosoever\" includes every one in the wide world.\n\n\nReaping As They Sowed\n\nAlthough God forgave the sins of Jacob and David, and the other Old\nTestament saints, yet there were certain consequences of their sins\nwhich those saints had to suffer after they were forgiven.\n\nIf a man gets drunk and goes out and breaks his leg, so that it must\nbe amputated, God will forgive him if he asks it, but he will have to\nhop around on one leg all his life. A man may sow thistle-seed with\ngrain-seed in a moment of pique against his master, and the master\nmay forgive him, but the man will have to reap the thistles with the\ngrain.\n\n\nSmall Beginnings\n\nAn obscure man preached one Sunday to a few persons in a Methodist\nchapel in the South of England. A boy of fifteen years of age was in\nthe audience, driven into the chapel by a snowstorm. The man took as\nhis text the words, \"Look unto me and be ye saved,\" and as he stumbled\nalong as best he could, the light of heaven flashed into that boy's\nheart. He went out of the chapel saved, and soon became known as C. H.\nSpurgeon, the boy-preacher.\n\nThe parsonage at Epworth, England, caught fire one night, and all the\ninmates were rescued except one son. The boy came to a window, and was\nbrought safely to the ground by two farm-hands, one standing on the\nshoulder of the other. The boy was John Wesley. If you would realize\nthe responsibility of that incident, if you would measure the\nconsequences of that rescue, ask the millions of Methodists who look\nback to John Wesley as the founder of their denomination.\n\n\nSaying and Doing\n\nA man was once conversing with a Brahmin priest, and he asked:\n\n\"Could _you_ say, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life?'\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the priest, \"I could say that.\"\n\n\"_But could you make any one believe it?_\"\n\nChrist proved His superiority right there. His character and His\nactions were back of His words. He exhibited His divine power to\nsilence His enemies.\n\n\nClimb Higher\n\nI remember being in a meeting after the Civil War had been going on\nfor about six months. The army of the North had been defeated at Bull\nRun; in fact, we had nothing but defeat, and it looked as though the\nRepublic was going to pieces; so we were much cast down and\ndiscouraged. At this meeting every speaker for a while seemed as if he\nhad hung his harp upon the willow; it was one of the gloomiest\nmeetings I ever attended. Finally an old man with beautiful white hair\ngot up to speak, and his face literally shone.\n\n\"Young men,\" he said, \"you do not talk like sons of the King. Though\nit is dark just here, remember it is light somewhere else.\" Then he\nwent on to say that if it were dark all over the world, it was light\nup around the Throne.\n\nHe told us he had come from the East, where a friend had described to\nhim how he had been up a mountain to spend the night and see the sun\nrise. As the party were climbing up the mountain, and before they had\nreached the summit, a storm came on. This friend said to the guide:\n\n\"I will give this up; take me back.\"\n\nThe guide smiled, and replied: \"I think we shall get above the storm\nsoon.\"\n\nOn they went; and it was not long before they got up to where it was\nas calm as any summer evening. Down in the valley a terrible storm\nraged; they could hear the thunder rolling, and see the lightning's\nflash; but all was serene on the mountain top.\n\n\"And so, my young friends,\" continued the old man, \"though all is\ndark around you, come a little higher, and the darkness will flee\naway.\"\n\nOften when I have been inclined to get discouraged, I have thought of\nwhat he said. If you are down in the valley amidst the thick fog and\nthe darkness, get a little higher; get nearer to Christ, and know more\nof Him.\n\n\nThe Greatest Miracle\n\nJesus said, \"The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works\nthan these shall ye do because I go to the Father.\"\n\nI used to stumble over that. I didn't understand it. I thought what\ngreater work could any man do than Christ had done? How could any one\nraise a dead man who had been laid away in the sepulchre for days, and\nwho had already begun to turn back to dust; how with a word could he\ncall him forth?\n\nBut the longer I live the more I am convinced it is a greater thing to\ninfluence a man's will; a man whose will is set against God; to have\nthat will broken and brought into subjection to God's will--or, in\nother words, it is a greater thing to have power over a living,\nsinning, God-hating man, than to quicken the dead. He who could create\na world could speak a dead soul into life; but I think the greatest\nmiracle this world has ever seen was the miracle at Pentecost. Here\nwere men who surrounded the apostles, full of prejudice, full of\nmalice, full of bitterness, their hands, as it were, dripping with the\nblood of the Son of God, and yet an unlettered man, a man whom they\ndetested, a man whom they hated, stands up and preaches the Gospel,\nand three thousand of them are immediately convicted and converted,\nand become disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.\n\n\nDifferent Kinds of Murder\n\nOne young man at college, an only son, whose mother wrote to him\nremonstrating against his gambling and drinking habits, took the\nletters out of the post-office, and when he found that they were from\nher, he tore them up without reading them. She said:\n\n\"I thought I would die when I found I had lost my hold on that son.\"\n\nIf a boy kills his mother by his conduct, you can't call it anything\nelse than _murder_, and he is as truly guilty of breaking the sixth\ncommandment as if he drove a dagger to her heart.\n\n\n\"It Is Not For You!\"\n\nCommenting on the text: \"It is not for you to know the times or the\nseasons, which the Father hath put in His own power,\" Spurgeon said:\n\n\"If I were introduced into a room where a large number of parcels were\nstored up, and I was told that there was something good for me, I\nshould begin to look for that which had my name upon it, and when I\ncame upon a parcel and I saw in pretty big letters, '_It is not for\nyou_,' I should leave it alone. Here, then, is a casket of knowledge\nmarked, '_It is not for you_ to know the times or the seasons, which\nthe Father hath put in His own power.' Cease to meddle with matters\nwhich are concealed, and be satisfied to know the things which are\nclearly revealed.\"\n\n\nStolen Goods a Burden\n\nI heard of a boy who stole a cannon-ball from a navy-yard. He watched\nhis opportunity, sneaked into the yard, and secured it. But when he\nhad it, he hardly knew what to do with it. It was heavy, and too\nlarge to conceal in his pocket, so he had to put it under his hat.\nWhen he got home with it, he dared not show it to his parents, because\nit would have led at once to his detection.\n\nHe said in after years it was the last thing he ever stole.\n\nThe story is told that a royal diamond valued at $600,000 was stolen\nfrom a window of a jeweler, to whom it had been given to set. A few\nmonths afterward a miserable man died a miserable death in a poor\nlodging-house. In his pocket was found the diamond, and a letter\ntelling how he had not dared to sell it, lest it should lead to his\ndiscovery and imprisonment. It never brought him anything but anxiety\nand pain.\n\n\nUnlocked By Prayer\n\nGod's best gifts, like valuable jewels, are kept under lock and key,\nand those who want them must, with fervent faith, importunately ask\nfor them; for God is the rewarder of them that _diligently_ seek Him.\n\n\nThe Faithful Promiser\n\nGod is always true to what He promises to do. He made promises to\nAbraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the others, and did He not fulfill\nthem? He will fulfill every word of what He has promised; yet how few\ntake Him at His word!\n\nWhen I was a young man I was clerk in the establishment of a man in\nChicago, whom I observed frequently occupied sorting and marking\nbills. He explained to me what he had been doing; on some notes he had\nmarked B, on some D, and on others G; those marked B, he told me, were\nbad, those marked D meant they were doubtful, and those with G on\nthem mean they were _good_; and, said he, you must treat all of them\naccordingly. And thus people indorse God's promises, by marking some\nas bad and others as doubtful; whereas we ought to take all of them as\n_good_, for He has never once broken His word, and all that He says He\nwill do, will be done in the fullness of time.\n\n\nThrow Out the Ballast\n\nWhen men go up in a balloon, they carry with them what they call\nballast--that is, small bags of sand, and when they want to rise\nhigher they just throw out some of the sand. So we, if we want to rise\nnearer heaven, must just throw out some of the sand, and cast aside\nevery weight. We won't rise higher till we do so.\n\n\nA Mother's Love\n\nThe closest tie on earth is a mother's love for her child. There are a\ngood many things that will separate a man from his wife, but there\nisn't a thing in the wide, wide world that will separate a true mother\nfrom her own child. I will admit that there are unnatural mothers,\nthat there are mothers that have gone out of their heads, mothers that\nare so steeped in sin and iniquity that they will turn against their\nown children, but a true mother will never, never turn against her own\nchild. I have talked with mothers when my blood boiled with\nindignation against the sons for their treatment of their mothers, and\nI have said:\n\n\"Why don't you cast him off?\"\n\nThey have said: \"Why, Mr. Moody, I love him still. He is my son.\"\n\nI was once preaching for Dr. G. in St. Louis, and when I got through\nhe said that he wanted to tell me a story. There was a boy who was\nvery bad. He had a very bad father, who seemed to take delight in\nteaching his son everything that was bad. The father died, and the boy\nwent on from bad to worse until he was arrested for murder.\n\nWhen he was on trial, it came out that he had murdered five other\npeople, and from one end of the city to the other there was a\nuniversal cry going up against him. During his trial they had to guard\nthe court-house, the indignation was so intense.\n\nThe white-haired mother got just as near her son as she could, and\nevery witness that went into the court and said anything against him\nseemed to hurt her more than her son. When the jury brought in a\nverdict of guilty a great shout went up, but the old mother nearly\nfainted away; and when the judge pronounced the sentence of death they\nthought she would faint away.\n\nAfter it was over she threw her arms around him and kissed him, and\nthere in the court they had to tear him from her embrace. She then\nwent the length and breadth of the city trying to get men to sign a\npetition for his pardon. And when he was hanged, she begged the\ngovernor to let her have the body of her son, that she might bury it.\nThey say that death has torn down everything in this world, everything\nbut a mother's love. That is stronger than death itself. The governor\nrefused to let her have the body, but she cherished the memory of that\nboy as long as she lived.\n\nA few months later she followed her boy, and when she was dying she\nsent word to the governor, and begged that her body might be laid\nclose to her son. That is a mother's love! She wasn't ashamed to have\nher grave pointed out for all time as the grave of the mother of the\nmost noted criminal the State of Vermont ever had.\n\nThe prophet takes hold of that very idea. He says: \"Can a mother\nforget her child?\" But a mother's love is not to be compared to the\nlove of God.\n\n\nRestitution\n\nI was preaching in British Columbia some years ago and a young man\ncame to me, and wanted to become a Christian. He had been smuggling\nopium into the States.\n\n\"Well, my friend,\" I said, \"I don't think there is any chance for you\nto become a Christian until you make restitution.\" He said, \"If I\nattempt to do that, I will fall into the clutches of the law, and I\nwill go to the penitentiary.\" \"Well,\" I replied, \"you had better do\nthat than go to the judgment-seat of God with that sin upon your soul,\nand have eternal punishment. The Lord will be very merciful if you set\nyour face to do right.\"\n\nHe went away sorrowful, but came back the next day, and said: \"I have\na young wife and child, and all the furniture in my house I have\nbought with money I have got in this dishonest way. If I become a\nChristian, that furniture will have to go, and my wife will know it.\"\n\n\"Better let your wife know it, and better let your home and furniture\ngo.\"\n\n\"Would you come up and see my wife?\" he asked; \"I don't know what she\nwill say.\"\n\nI went up to see her, and when I told her, the tears trickled down her\ncheeks, and she said: \"Mr. Moody, I will gladly give everything if my\nhusband can become a true Christian.\"\n\nShe took out her pocketbook, and handed over her last penny. He had a\npiece of land in the United States, which he deeded over to the\ngovernment. I do not know, in all my backward track, of any living man\nwho has had a better testimony for Jesus Christ than that man. He had\nbeen dishonest, but when the truth came to him that he must make it\nright before God would help him, he made it right.\n\nNo amount of weeping over sin, and saying that you feel sorry, is\ngoing to help it unless you are willing to confess and make\nrestitution.\n\n\nWillie and the Bears\n\nI said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the\nChicago fire, \"I am coming home this afternoon to give you a ride.\"\n\nMy little boy clapped his hands. \"Oh, papa, will you take me to see\nthe bears in Lincoln Park?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI had not been gone long when my little boy said, \"Mamma, I wish you\nwould get me ready.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she said, \"it will be a long time before papa comes.\"\n\n\"But I want to get ready, mamma.\"\n\nAt last he was ready to have the ride, face washed, and clothes all\nnice and clean.\n\n\"Now, you must take good care, and not get yourself dirty again,\" said\nmamma.\n\nOf course, he was going to take care; he wasn't going to get dirty! So\noff he ran to watch for me. However, it was a long time yet until the\nafternoon, and after a little he began to play. When I got home, I\nfound him outside, with his face all covered with dirt.\n\n\"I can't take you to the park that way, Willie.\"\n\n\"Why papa? you said you would take me.\"\n\n\"Ah, but I can't; you're all over mud. I couldn't be seen with such a\ndirty little boy.\"\n\n\"Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me.\"\n\n\"Well, you've got dirty again.\"\n\nBut he began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was dirty.\n\n\"I'se clean; mamma washed me!\" he cried.\n\nDo you think I argued with him? No. I just took him up in my arms, and\ncarried him into the house, and showed him his face in the\nlooking-glass. He had not a word to say. He would not take my word for\nit; but one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for himself. He\ndidn't say he wasn't dirty after that!\n\nNow, the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty--_but I did\nnot take the looking-glass to wash it_; of course not. Yet that is\njust what thousands of people do. The Law is the looking-glass to see\nourselves in, to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of\nGod; but they take the Law and try to _wash_ themselves with it,\ninstead of being washed in the blood of the Lamb.\n\n\nChrist For All\n\nAn old Welshwoman said Christ was Welsh, and an Englishman said:\n\n\"No, He was a Jew.\"\n\nShe declared that she knew He was Welsh, because He spoke so that she\ncould understand Him.\n\n\nStarting Right\n\nMany a man is lost because he does not start right. He makes a bad\nstart. A young man comes from his country home, and enters upon city\nlife. Temptation arises, and he becomes false to his principles. He\nmeets with some scoffing, sneering man, who jeers at him because he\ngoes to a church service; or because he is seen reading his Bible; or\nbecause he is known to pray to God. And the young man proves to be\nweak-kneed; he cannot stand the scoffs and the sneers and the jeers of\nhis companions; and so he becomes untrue to his principles, and gives\nthem up.\n\nI want to say here to young men, that when a young man makes a wrong\nstart, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is ruin to him. The\nfirst game of chance; the first betting transaction; the first false\nentry in the books; the first quarter-dollar taken from the cash-box\nor the till; the first night spent in evil company--either of these\nmay prove the turning-point; either of these may represent a wrong\nstart.\n\n\nNapoleon and the Conscript\n\nThere is a well-known story told of Napoleon the First's time. In one\nof the conscriptions, during one of his many wars, a man was balloted\nas a conscript who did not want to go, but he had a friend who offered\nto go in his place. His friend joined the regiment in his name, and\nwas sent off to the war. By and by a battle came on, in which he was\nkilled, and they buried him on the battle-field. Some time after, the\nEmperor wanted more men, and by some mistake the first man was\nballoted a second time. They went to take him, but he remonstrated.\n\n\"You cannot take me.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I am dead,\" was the reply.\n\n\"You are not dead; you are alive and well.\"\n\n\"But I _am_ dead,\" he said.\n\n\"Why, man, you must be mad. Where did you die?\"\n\n\"At such a battle, and you left me buried on such a battle-field.\"\n\n\"You talk like a madman,\" they cried; but the man stuck to his point\nthat he had been dead and buried some months.\n\n\"Look up your books,\" he said, \"and see if it is not so.\"\n\nThey looked, and found that he was right. They found the man's name\nentered as drafted, sent to the war, and marked off as killed.\n\n\"Look here,\" they said, \"you didn't die; you must have got some one to\ngo for you; it must have been your _substitute_.\"\n\n\"I know that,\" he said; \"he died in my stead. You cannot touch me; I\ndied in that man, and I go free. The law has no claim against me.\"\n\nThey would not recognize the doctrine of substitution, and the case\nwas carried to the Emperor. He said that the man was right, that he\nwas dead and buried in the eyes of the law, and that France had no\nclaim against him.\n\nThis story may or may not be true, but one thing I know is true: Jesus\nChrist suffered death for the sinner, and those who accept Him are\nfree from the Law.\n\n\nGreen Fields or Desert?\n\nWhen I was out in California, the first time I went down from the\nSierra Nevada Mountains and dropped into the Valley of the Sacramento,\nI was surprised to find on one farm that everything about it was\ngreen--all the trees and flowers, everything was blooming, and\neverything was green and beautiful, and just across the hedge\neverything was dried up, and there was not a green thing there. I\ncould not understand it. I made inquiries, and I found that the man\nthat had everything green, irrigated; he just poured the water right\non, and kept everything green, while the fields that were next to his\nwere as dry as Gideon's fleece without a drop of dew.\n\nSo it is with a great many in the church to-day. They are like these\nfarms in California--a dreary desert, everything parched and desolate,\nand apparently no life in them. They can sit next to a man who is full\nof the Spirit of God, who is like a green bay tree, and who is\nbringing forth fruit, and yet they will not seek a similar blessing.\n\nWell, why this difference? Because God has poured water on him that\nwas thirsty; that is the difference. One has been seeking this\nanointing, and he has received it; and when we want this above\neverything else God will surely give it to us.\n\n\nReligion In the Home\n\nWhat we want is family piety, righteousness in our homes. A young\nminister came to me, and said he couldn't get along with his wife, and\nwhat should he do? I told him to get out of the ministry. A man has no\nright to be in the pulpit unless he can get along with his family.\n\n\nA Universal Failing\n\nIt is a false idea that all pride is confined to the upper classes.\nYou will find it in the lanes and alleys. You will find little dirty,\nbarefooted children who will get a string of shavings, put it round\ntheir necks, and strut down the street as if they were wearing golden\nbeads. Pride is born and grows in the human heart. You do not plant it\nthere; it grows there of itself. There is as much pride among the poor\nas among the rich; and that is one reason why more of them do not come\nto the Lord Jesus Christ: they do not like to be laughed at, scoffed\nat, sneered at, and ridiculed. It costs them too much.\n\n\nWords and Actions\n\nA man may preach with the eloquence of an angel, but if he doesn't\nlive what he preaches, and act out in his home and his business what\nhe professes, his testimony goes for naught, and the people say it is\nall hypocrisy after all; it is all a sham. Words are very empty, if\nthere is nothing back of them. Your testimony is poor and worthless,\nif there is not a record back of that testimony consistent with what\nyou profess. What we need is to pray to God to lift us up out of this\nlow, cold, formal state that we live in, that we may dwell in the\natmosphere of God continually, and that the Lord may lift upon us the\nlight of His countenance, and that we may shine in this world,\nreflecting His grace and glory.\n\n\nThe One-Eyed Doe\n\nThere is an old fable that a doe that had but one eye used to graze\nnear the sea; and in order to be safe, she kept her blind eye toward\nthe water, from which side she expected no danger, while with the good\neye she watched the country. Some men, noticing this, took a boat and\ncame upon her from the sea and shot her. With her dying breath, she\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh! hard fate! that I should receive my death wound from that side\nwhence I expected no harm, and be safe in the part where I looked for\nmost danger.\"\n\n\nLost Opportunities\n\nIf a farmer neglects to plant in the springtime, he can never recover\nthe lost opportunity; no more can you, if you neglect yours. Youth is\na seed-time, and if it is allowed to pass without good seed being\nsown, weeds will spring up and choke the soil. It will take bitter\ntoil to uproot them.\n\nAn old divine said that when a good farmer sees a weed in his field he\nhas it pulled up. If it is taken early enough, the blank is soon\nfilled in, and the crop waves over the whole field. But if allowed to\nrun too late, the bald patch remains. It would have been better if the\nweed had never been allowed to get root.\n\n\nSteer Clear\n\nA steamboat was stranded in the Mississippi River, and the captain\ncould not get her off. Eventually a hard-looking fellow came on board,\nand said:\n\n\"Captain, I understand you want a pilot to take you out of this\ndifficulty?\"\n\nThe captain said, \"Are you a pilot?\"\n\n\"Well, they call me one.\"\n\n\"Do you know where the snags and sand-bars are?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, how do you expect to take me out of here if you don't know\nwhere the snags and sand-bars are?\"\n\n\"I know where they ain't!\" was the reply.\n\nBeware of temptations. \"Lead us not into temptation,\" our Lord taught\nus to pray; and again He said, \"Watch and pray, lest ye enter into\ntemptation.\" We are weak and sinful by nature, and it is a good deal\nbetter for us to pray for deliverance rather than to run into\ntemptation and then pray for strength to resist.\n\n\nLooking for Revivals\n\nMen are anxious for a revival in business. There is a great revival in\npolitics just now. In all departments of life you find that men are\nvery anxious for a revival in the things that concern them most.\n\nIf this is legitimate--and it is perfectly right in its place--should\nnot every child of God be praying for and desiring a revival of\ngodliness in the world at the present time? Do we not need a revival\nof downright honesty, of truthfulness, of uprightness, and of\ntemperance? Are there not many who have become alienated from the\nChurch of God and from the house of the Lord, who are forming an\nattachment to the saloon? Are not our sons being drawn away by\nhundreds and thousands, so that while you often find the churches\nempty, the liquor shops are crowded every Sabbath afternoon and\nevening? I am sure the saloon-keepers are glad if they can have a\nrevival in their business; they do not object to sell more whisky and\nbeer. Then surely every true Christian ought to desire that men who\nare in danger of perishing eternally should be saved and rescued.\n\n\nOpportunity\n\nA sculptor once showed a visitor his studio. It was full of statues of\ngods. One was very curious. The face was concealed by being covered\nwith hair, and there were wings on each foot.\n\n\"What is his name?\" said the visitor.\n\n\"Opportunity,\" was the reply.\n\n\"Why is his face hidden?\"\n\n\"Because men seldom know him when he comes to them.\"\n\n\"Why has he wings on his feet?\"\n\n\"Because he is soon gone, and once gone can never be overtaken.\"\n\nIt becomes us, then, to make the most of the opportunities God has\ngiven us.\n\n\nThe Usual Way\n\nI used at one time to read so many chapters of the Bible a day, and if\nI did not get through my usual quantity, I thought I was getting cold\nand backsliding. But, mind you, if a man had asked me two hours\nafterward what I had read, I could not tell him; I had forgotten it\nnearly all.\n\nWhen I was a boy I used, among other things, to hoe corn on a farm;\nand I used to hoe it so badly, in order to get over so much ground,\nthat at night I had to put down a stick in the ground, so as to know\nnext morning where I had left off.\n\nThat was somewhat in the same fashion as running through so many\nchapters every day. A man will say, \"Wife, did I read that chapter?\"\n\n\"Well,\" says she, \"I don't remember.\"\n\nAnd neither of them can recollect. And perhaps he reads the same\nchapter over and over again; and they call that \"studying the Bible.\"\nI do not think there is a book in the world we neglect so much as the\nBible.\n\n\nGetting On Splendidly\n\nOne man said to another, some time ago: \"How are you getting on at\nyour church?\"\n\n\"Oh, splendid.\"\n\n\"Many conversions?\"\n\n\"Well--well, on that side we are not getting on so well. But,\" he\nsaid, \"we have rented all our pews and are able to pay all our\nrunning expenses. We are getting on splendidly.\"\n\nThat is what the godless call \"getting on splendidly.\" They rent the\npews, pay the minister, and meet all the running expenses.\n\nA man was being shown through one of the cathedrals of Europe; he had\ncome in from the country. One of the men belonging to the cathedral\nwas showing him around, when he inquired:\n\n\"Do you have may conversions here?\"\n\n\"Many what?\"\n\n\"Many conversions here?\"\n\n\"Ah, man, this is not a Wesleyan chapel.\"\n\nThe idea of there being conversions there! And you can go into a good\nmany churches in this country and ask if they have many conversions\nthere, and they would not know what it meant, they are so far away\nfrom the Lord; they are not looking for conversions, and don't expect\nthem.\n\n\nA Hundred Years Hence\n\nOnce, as I was walking down the street, I heard some people laughing\nand talking aloud. One of them said:\n\n\"Well, there will be no difference; it will be all the same a hundred\nyears hence.\"\n\nThe thought flashed across my mind, \"Will there be no difference?\nWhere will you be a hundred years hence?\"\n\nYoung man, just ask yourself the question, \"Where shall I be?\" Some of\nyou who are getting on in years may be in eternity ten years hence.\nWhere will you be, on the left or the right hand of God? I cannot tell\nyour feelings, but I can my own. I ask you, \"Where will you spend\neternity? Where will you be a hundred years hence?\"\n\n\nA Free Gift\n\nRemember, salvation is a free gift, and it is a free gift _for us_.\nCan you buy it? It is a free gift, presented to \"whosoever\" will\naccept it.\n\nSuppose I were to say, I will give this Bible to \"whosoever\" will take\nit; what have you got to do? Why, nothing but take it. But a man comes\nforward, and says:\n\n\"I'd like that Bible very much.\"\n\n\"Well, didn't I say 'whosoever' will can have it?\"\n\n\"Yes; but I'd like to have you mention my name.\"\n\n\"Well, here it is.\"\n\nStill he keeps eyeing the Bible, and saying, \"I'd like to have that\nBible; but I'd like to give you something for it. I don't like to take\nit for nothing.\"\n\n\"But I am not here to sell Bibles; take it, if you want it.\"\n\n\"Well, I want it; but I'd like to give you something for it. Let me\ngive you a cent for it; though, to be sure, it's worth about five\ndollars.\"\n\nSuppose I accept the cent; the man takes up the Bible and marches away\nhome with it.\n\nHis wife asks, \"Where did you get that Bible?\"\n\n\"Oh, I bought it.\"\n\nMark the point; when he gave the penny, it ceased to be a gift. So\nwith salvation. If you were to pay ever so little, it would not be a\ngift.\n\n\nWhat Seed Are You Sowing?\n\nSuppose I meet a man who is sowing seed, and say, \"Hello, stranger,\nwhat are you sowing?\"\n\n\"Seed.\"\n\n\"What kind of seed?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Don't you know whether it is good or bad?\"\n\n\"No; I can't tell. But it is seed--that is all I want to know, and I\nam sowing it.\"\n\nYou would say that he was a first-class lunatic, wouldn't you? But he\nwouldn't be half so mad as the man who goes on sowing for time and\neternity, and never asks himself what he is sowing or what the harvest\nwill be.\n\nFather, what seed are you sowing in your family? Are you setting your\nchildren a good or a bad example? Do you spend your time at the saloon\nor the club, until you have become almost a stranger to them? or are\nyou training them for God and righteousness?\n\n\nBound Hand and Foot\n\nWhen I was speaking to five thousand children in Glasgow some years\nago, I took a spool of thread and said to one of the largest boys:\n\n\"Do you believe I can bind you with that thread?\"\n\nHe laughed at the idea. I wound the thread around him a few times, and\nhe broke it with a single jerk. Then I wound the thread around and\naround, and by and by I said:\n\n\"Now get free if you can.\"\n\nHe couldn't move head or foot. If you are slave to some vile habit,\nyou must either slay that habit, or it will slay you.\n\n\nUnity\n\nThere is one thing I have noticed as I have traveled in different\ncountries; I never yet have known the Spirit of God to work where the\nLord's people were divided. Unity is one thing that we must have if\nwe are to have the Holy Spirit of God to work in our midst.\n\nIf a church is divided, the members should immediately seek unity. Let\nthe believers come together and get the difficulty out of the way. If\nthe minister of a church cannot unite the people, if those that were\ndissatisfied will not fall in, it would be better for that minister to\nretire. I think there are a good many ministers in this country who\nare losing their time; they have lost, some of them, months and years;\nthey have not seen any fruit, and they will not see any fruit, because\nthey have a divided church. Such a church cannot grow in divine\nthings. The Spirit of God doesn't work where there is division, and\nwhat we want to-day is the spirit of unity amongst God's children, so\nthat the Lord may work.\n\n\nGet Inside!\n\nYou have looked at the windows of a grand church erected at the cost\nof many thousands of dollars. From the outside they did not seem very\nbeautiful; but get inside, when the rays of the sun are striking upon\nthe stained glass, and you begin to understand what others have told\nyou of their magnificence. So it is when you have come into personal\ncontact with Christ. You find Him to be the very Savior and friend you\nneed. You will see in Him what you have never seen before.\n\n\nHunt For Something\n\nWe must study the Bible thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were,\nfor some great truth.\n\nIf a friend were to see me searching about a building, and were to\ncome up, and say, \"Moody, what are you looking for? Have you lost\nsomething?\" and I were to say, \"No, I haven't lost anything; I'm not\nlooking for anything particular,\" I fancy he would just let me go on\nby myself, and think me very foolish. But if I were to say, \"Yes, I\nhave lost a dollar,\" why, then, I might expect him to help me to find\nit.\n\nRead the Bible, my friends, as if you were seeking for something of\nvalue. It is a good deal better to take a single chapter, and spend a\nmonth on it, than to read the Bible at random for a month.\n\n\n\"When Ye Think Not\"\n\nMcCheyne, the Scotch preacher, once said to some friends, \"Do you\nthink Christ will come to-night?\"\n\nOne after another they said, \"I think not.\"\n\nWhen all had given this answer, he solemnly repeated this text, \"The\nSon of Man cometh at an hour _when ye think not_.\"\n\n\nHome Piety\n\nIf a Christian is unsound in patience or unsound in love, we take no\nnotice of it; but let him be unsound in faith, and off goes his head.\nI do hate to see a minister or professing Christian mean and peevish\nto his wife, and yet be as polite as a dancing-master to other women.\nI tell you he is not fit to preach the Word of God. I don't want to\nhave anything to do with him. The home was established before the\nchurch, and he sadly needs more home piety.\n\n\nConstant Watching\n\nThe Persians had an annual festival when they slew all the serpents\nand venomous creatures they could find; but they allowed them to swarm\nas fast and freely as ever until the festival came round once more. It\nwas poor policy. Sins, like serpents, breed quickly, and need to be\nconstantly watched.\n\n\nThe Wrong Physician\n\nI heard once of a man who went to England from the Continent, and\nbrought letters with him to eminent physicians from the Emperor. The\nletters said:\n\n\"This man is a personal friend of mine, and we are afraid he is going\nto lose his reason. Do all you can for him.\"\n\nThe doctor asked him if he had lost any dear friend in his own\ncountry, or any position of importance, or what it was that was\nweighing on his mind.\n\nThe young man said: \"No; but my father and grandfather and myself were\nbrought up infidels, and for the last two or three years this thought\nhas been haunting me, 'Where shall I spend eternity?' And the thought\nof it follows me day and night.\"\n\nThe doctor said, \"You have come to the wrong physician, but I will\ntell you of One who can cure you\"; and he told him of Christ, and read\nto him the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, \"With His stripes we are\nhealed.\"\n\nThe young man said, \"Doctor, do you believe that?\"\n\nThe doctor told him he did, and prayed and wrestled with him, and at\nlast the clear light of Calvary shone on his soul. He had settled the\nquestion in his own mind at last, where he would spend eternity.\n\nI ask you, sinner, to settle if now. It is for you to decide. Shall it\nbe with the saints and martyrs and prophets, or in the dark caverns of\nhell, amidst blackness and darkness forever? Make haste to be wise;\nfor \"how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?\"\n\n\nSeeking the Lost\n\nI remember, when we were in London, they found one old woman who was\neighty-five years old, and not a Christian. After the worker had\nprayed, she made a prayer herself:\n\n\"O Lord, I thank Thee for going out of Thy way to find me.\"\n\nHe is all the time going out of His way to find the lost.\n\n\nHe Got Time To Think\n\nI was once preaching on the text, \"Be not deceived; God is not mocked;\nfor whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.\" No sooner had I\nread it than a man stood right up in the audience and said:\n\n\"I don't believe it.\"\n\nI said: \"My friend, that doesn't change the fact. Truth is truth,\nwhether you believe it or not; and a lie is a lie, whether you believe\nit or not.\"\n\nHe didn't want to believe it. When the meeting broke up, an officer\nwas at the door to arrest him. He was tried and sent to the\npenitentiary for twelve months for stealing. I really believe that\nwhen he got into his cell, he believed that he had to reap what he\nsowed.\n\n\nThe Motherless Child\n\nOnce I heard of a little sick child, whose mother was seriously ill;\nand so, in order that she might have quiet, and that the sick child\nmight be no trouble to her, the little one was taken away to a\nfriend's house, and placed in charge of a kind lady for a time. The\nmother grew worse, and at length died. The father said:\n\n\"We'll not trouble the child about it; she is too young to remember\nher mother; just let her remain where she is until the funeral is\nover.\"\n\nThis was done, and in a few days the little girl was brought back to\nthe house. No mention was made of her mother, or of what had occurred;\nbut no sooner was she taken to the house than she ran first into one\nroom, then into another, into the parlor, the dining-room, and all\nover the house, and then away into a little room where her mother used\nto go to pray alone.\n\n\"Where is mother?\" she cried. \"I want mother!\"\n\nAnd when they were compelled to tell her what had happened, she cried\nout:\n\n\"Take me away, take me away; I don't want to be here without mother.\"\n\nIt was the mother made it home to her. And so it is in heaven. It is\nnot so much the white robes, the golden crown, or the harps of gold,\nbut it is the society we shall meet there. Who, then, are there? What\ncompany shall we have when we get there? Jesus is there, the Holy\nFather is there, the Spirit is there--our Father, our elder Brother,\nour Comforter.\n\n\nConverted the Regular Way\n\nI never yet knew a man converted just in the time and manner he\nexpected to be. I have heard people say, \"Well, if ever I am\nconverted, it won't be in a Methodist church; you won't catch me\nthere.\" I never knew a man say that but, at last, if converted at all,\nit was in a Methodist church.\n\nIn Scotland a man was converted at one of our meetings--an employer.\nHe was very anxious that all his employes should be reached, and he\nused to send them one by one to the meetings. But there was one\nemploye that wouldn't come. We are all more or less troubled with\nstubbornness; and the moment this man found that his employer wanted\nhim to go to the meetings, he made up his mind he wouldn't go. If he\nwas going to be converted, he said, he was going to be converted by\nsome ordained minister; he was not going to any meeting that was\nconducted by unordained Americans. He believed in conversion, but he\nwas going to be converted the regular way. He believed in the regular\nPresbyterian Church of Scotland, and that was the place for him to be\nconverted.\n\nThe employer tried every way he could to get him to attend the\nmeetings, but he wouldn't come.\n\nAfter we left that town and went away up to Inverness, the employer\nhad some business up there, and he sent this employe to attend to it,\nin the hope that he would attend some of our meetings.\n\nOne night, as I was preaching on the bank of a river, I happened to\ntake for my text the words of Naaman: \"I thought; I thought.\" I was\ntrying to take men's thoughts up and to show the difference between\ntheir thoughts and God's thoughts. This man happened to be walking\nalong the bank of the river. He saw a great crowd, and heard some one\ntalking, and he wondered to himself what that man was talking about.\nHe didn't know who was there, so he drew up to the crowd, and\nlistened. He heard the sermon, and became convicted and converted\nright there. Then he inquired who was the preacher, and he found out\nit was the very man that he said he would not hear--the man he\ndisliked. The very man he had been talking against was the very man\nGod used to convert him.\n\n\nCrazy from Sin\n\nI was once preaching in Chicago, and a woman who was nearly out of her\nmind came to me. You know there are some people who mock at religious\nmeetings, and say that religion drives people mad. It is _sin_ that\ndrives people mad. It is the want of Christ that sinks people into\ndespair.\n\nThis was the woman's story:\n\nShe had a family of children. One of her neighbors had died, and her\nhusband had brought home a little child. She said, \"I don't want the\nchild,\" but her husband said, \"You must take it and look after it.\"\nShe said she had enough to do with her own, and she told her husband\nto take that child away. But he would not. She confessed that she\ntried to starve the child; but it lingered on. One night it cried all\nnight; I suppose it wanted food. At last she took the clothes and\nthrew them over the child and smothered it. No one saw her; no one\nknew anything about it. The child was buried. Years had passed away,\nand she said:\n\n\"I hear the voice of that child day and night. It has driven me nearly\nmad.\"\n\nNo one saw the act; but God saw it, and this retribution followed it.\nHistory is full of these things. You need not go to the Bible to find\nit out.\n\n\nDon't Swear!\n\nI was greatly amazed not long ago, in talking to a man who thought he\nwas a Christian, to find that once in a while, when he got angry, he\nwould swear. I said: \"My friend, I don't see how you can tear down\nwith one hand what you are trying to build up with the other. I don't\nsee how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come\nout of your lips.\"\n\nHe replied: \"Mr. Moody, if you knew me, you would understand. I have a\nvery quick temper. I inherited it from my father and mother, and it is\nuncontrollable but my swearing comes only from the lips.\"\n\nWhen God said, \"I will not hold him guiltless that takes My name in\nvain,\" He meant what He said, and I don't believe any one can be a\ntrue child of God who takes the name of God in vain.\n\n\nThe True Sheep Knows\n\nI tell you the true sheep know a true shepherd. I got up in Scotland\nonce and quoted a passage of Scripture a little different from what it\nwas in the Bible, and an old woman crept up and said:\n\n\"Mr. Moody, you said----.\"\n\nI might make forty misquotations in an ordinary audience, and no one\nwould tell me about them. Like two lawyers: one said in court that the\nother didn't know the Lord's Prayer. The other said he did:\n\n\"Now I lay me down to sleep.\"\n\n\"Well,\" the first said, \"I give it up. I did not think you knew it.\"\n\nDidn't either one of them know it, you see.\n\n\nThe Father Knew Best\n\nDr. Arnot, one of the greatest Scotch divines, was in this country\nbefore he died. His mother died when he was a little boy only three\nweeks old, and there was a large family of Arnots. I suppose they\nmissed the tenderness and love of the mother. They got the impression\nthat their father was very stern and rigid, and that he had a great\nmany laws and rules.\n\nOne rule was, that the children should never climb trees. When the\nneighbors found out that the Arnot children could not climb trees,\nthey began to tell them about the wonderful things they could see from\nthe tops of the trees. Well, tell a boy of twelve years that he\nmustn't climb a tree, and he will get up that tree some way. And so\nthe Arnot children were all the time teasing their father to let them\nclimb the tree; but the old sire said:\n\n\"No.\"\n\nOne day he was busy reading his paper, and the boys said:\n\n\"Father is reading his paper. Let's slip down into the lot and climb a\ntree.\"\n\nOne of the little fellows stood on the top of the fence to see that\nfather did not catch them. When his brother got up on the first\nbranch, he said:\n\n\"What do you see?\"\n\n\"Why! I don't see anything.\"\n\n\"Then go higher; you haven't got high enough.\"\n\nSo up he went higher, and again the little boy asked:\n\n\"Well, what do you see now?\"\n\n\"I don't see anything.\"\n\n\"You aren't high enough; go higher.\"\n\nAnd the little fellow went up as high as he could go, but he slipped,\nand down he came, and broke his leg. Willie said he tried to get him\ninto the house, but he couldn't do it. He had to tell his father all\nabout it. He said he was scared nearly out of his wits. He thought his\nfather would be very angry. But his father just threw aside the paper,\nand started for the lot. When he got there, he picked the boy up in\nhis arms, and brought him up to the house. Then he sent for the\ndoctor. And Willie said he got a new view of that father. He found out\nthe reason why that father was so stern. He said the moment that boy\ngot hurt, no mother could have been more loving and gentle.\n\nMy dear friends, there is not one commandment that has been given us\nwhich has not been for our highest and best interest. There isn't a\ncommandment that hasn't come from the loving heart of God, and what He\nwants is to have us give up that which is going to mar our happiness\nin this life, and in the life to come.\n\n\n\"Help Yourself!\"\n\nWhen I was out on the Pacific coast, in California, some years ago, I\nwas the guest of a man that had a large vineyard and a large orchard.\nOne day he said to me:\n\n\"Moody, while you are my guest I want you to make yourself perfectly\nat home, and if there is anything in the orchard or in the vineyard\nyou would like, help yourself.\"\n\nWell, when I wanted an orange, I did not go to an orange tree and pray\nthe oranges to fall into my pocket; but I walked up to a tree, reached\nout my hand, and took the oranges. He said \"Take,\" and I took.\n\nGod says, \"There is my Son; take Him as your Saviour. The wages of sin\nis death; but the gift of God is eternal life.\"\n\n\nThe Rich Husband\n\nThere was a shop-girl in Chicago, a few years ago. One day she could\nnot have bought five dollars' worth of anything; the next day she\ncould go and buy a thousand dollar's worth of whatever she wanted.\n\nWhat made the difference?\n\nWhy, she had married a rich husband; that was all. She had received\nhim, and of course all he had became hers. And so we can have all, if\nwe only receive Christ.\n\n\nSettle It Now!\n\nSome years ago, in one of the mining districts of England, a young man\nattended one of our meetings and refused to go from the place till he\nhad found peace in the Savior. The next day he went down into the pit,\nand the coal fell in upon him. When they took him out, he was broken\nand mangled, and had only two or three minutes of life left in him.\nHis friends gathered about him, saw his lips moving, and, bending down\nto catch his words, heard him say:\n\n\"It was a good thing I settled it last night.\"\n\nSettle it now, my friends, once for all. Begin now to confess your\nsins, and pray the Lord to remember you. He will make you an heir of\nHis kingdom, if you will accept the gift of salvation.\n\n\nThe True Source of Joy\n\nGod doesn't ask us to rejoice over nothing; He gives us ground for our\njoy. What would you think of a man who seemed very happy to-day and\nfull of joy, and couldn't tell you what made him so? Suppose I should\nmeet a man on the street, and he was so full of joy that he should get\nhold of both my hands and say:\n\n\"Bless the Lord, I am so full of joy!\"\n\n\"What makes you so full of joy?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know.\"\n\n\"You don't know!\"\n\n\"No, I don't; but I am so joyful that I just want to get out of the\nflesh.\"\n\n\"What makes you feel so joyful?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know.\"\n\nWould we not think such a person unreasonable? But there are a great\nmany people who want to feel that they are Christians before they are\nChristians; they want the Christian's experience before they become\nChristians; they want to have the joy of the Lord before they receive\nJesus Christ. But this is not the Gospel order. He brings joy when He\ncomes, and we cannot have joy apart from Him. He is the author of it,\nand we find our joy in Him.\n\n\nThe Meanest Kind of Murderers\n\nWhen I was in England in 1892, I met a gentleman who claimed that they\nwere ahead of us in the respect they had for the law. \"We hang our\nmurderers,\" he said, \"but there isn't one out of twenty in your\ncountry that is hung.\"\n\nI said, \"You are greatly mistaken, for they walk about these two\ncountries unhung.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I will tell you what I mean,\" I said; \"the man that comes into my\nhouse and runs a dagger into my heart for my money is a prince\ncompared with a son that takes five years to kill me and the wife of\nmy bosom. A young man who comes home night after night drunk, and when\nhis mother remonstrates, curses her gray hairs, and kills her by\ninches, is the blackest kind of a murderer.\"\n\n\nWhere your Treasure Is\n\nYou can soon tell where a man's treasure is by his talk. If it is in\nheaven, he will not be long with you before he's talking about heaven;\nhis heart is there, and so his speech isn't long in running there,\ntoo. If his heart is in money, he will soon have you deep in talk\nabout mines, speculation, stocks, bank rate, and so on. If his heart\nis in lands, it won't be long before he's talking about real estate,\nimprovements, houses, and so on. Always the same, wherever a man's\nheart is, there his tongue will be sure to go.\n\nSome one in England said, if you see a man's goods and furniture come\ndown by the luggage train, you're pretty sure he'll be down by the\nnext passenger train; he won't be long after; he'll follow his goods.\nAnd so it is with heaven; if your treasure is on before you, you'll be\nwanting to follow it; you'll be glad to be on the road thither as soon\nas possible.\n\n\nWhy his Life was Spared\n\nTwo Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met on Sunday night to\nsing hymns in the cabin. As they sang the hymn, \"Jesus, Lover of my\nSoul,\" one of them heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful voice\nbehind him. He looked around, and although he did not know the face he\nthought that he recognized the voice. So when the music ceased he\nturned around and asked the man if he had not been in the Civil War.\nThe man replied that he had been a Confederate soldier.\n\n\"Were you at such a place on such a night?\" asked the first.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"and a curious thing happened that night; this hymn\nrecalled it to my mind. I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood. It\nwas a dark night and very cold, and I was a little frightened because\nthe enemy were supposed to be very near at hand. I felt very homesick\nand miserable, and about midnight, when everything was very still, I\nwas beginning to feel very weary and thought that I would comfort\nmyself by praying and singing a hymn. I remember singing this hymn--\n\n  'All my trust on Thee is stayed,\n    All my help from Thee I bring.\n  Cover my defenceless head\n    With the shadow of Thy wing.'\n\n\"After I had sung those words a strange peace came down upon me, and\nthrough the long night I remember having felt no more fear.\"\n\n\"Now,\" said the other man, \"listen to my story. I was a Union soldier,\nand was in the wood that night with a party of scouts. I saw you\nstanding up, although I didn't see your face, and my men had their\nrifles focused upon you waiting the word to fire, but when you sang\nout--\n\n  'Cover my defenceless head\n    With the shadow of Thy wing.'\n\nI said, 'Boys, put down your rifles; we will go home.' I couldn't kill\nyou after that.\"\n\n\nThe Sinner's Heart\n\nWhen I was in Dublin some years ago I got up to go to an early\nmeeting, and found the servants had not opened the front door; so I\npulled back a bolt, but I could not get the door open. Then I turned a\nkey, but the door would not open. Then I found there was another bolt\nat the top and another bolt at the bottom. Still the door would not\nopen. Then I found there was a bar, and then I found a night-lock. In\nall I found five or six different fastenings.\n\nI am afraid that door represents every sinner's heart. The door of his\nheart is double-locked, double-bolted, and double-barred. Oh, my\nfriends, pull back the bolts, and let the King of glory in!\n\n\nNothing Small\n\nThere are a great many different ways of doing good. A lady once\nvisited a hospital, and noticed with what pleasure the patients would\nsmell and look at the flowers sent to them. Said she:\n\n\"If I had known that a bunch of flowers would do so much good, I would\nhave sent some from home.\"\n\nAs soon as she got home, she sent some flowers out of her garden. It\nwas a little thing--a bouquet of flowers. It might be a very\ninsignificant work--very small; but if it was done in the right\nspirit, God accepted it. A cup of water given in His name is accepted\nas given to Himself. Nothing that is done for God is small.\n\n\nAn Anecdote about Tennyson\n\nIt is said that Tennyson once asked an old Christian woman if there\nwas any news.\n\n\"Why, Mr. Tennyson,\" she replied, \"there's only one piece of news that\nI know, and that is--Christ died for all men.\"\n\n\"That is old news, and good news, and new news,\" Tennyson responded.\n\n\nOn Satan's Ground\n\nThere is a legend that the Apostle John was much distressed over the\nfall of a young convert. He summoned Satan before him, and reproached\nhim for ruining so good a youth.\n\n\"I found your good youth on my ground,\" said Satan; \"so I took him.\"\n\nThe only safe course is to avoid temptation altogether.\n\n\nTwo Bidding for the Soul\n\nThere are two who are bidding for your soul and mine--the Lord Jesus\nand Satan.\n\nSatan bids, and he offers that which he cannot give. He is a liar, and\nhas been from the foundation of the world. I pity the man who is\nliving on the promises of the devil. He will never satisfy. But the\nLord Jesus is able to give all that He offers. And what does He\noffer? He offers peace and joy and comfort that the world knows not\nof. He offers eternal life in the kingdom of God. He offers a seat in\nHis mansions. We are to sit with Him upon His throne.\n\nMay God help you to make a right choice! Make up your mind you will\nnot rest until the great question of eternity is settled, until you\nhave crossed the borderland, and pressed into the kingdom of God.\n\n\nTried and Proven\n\nI knew an old lady that marked in the margin of her Bible, opposite\nthe promises. T. P.; T. for \"tried,\" and P. for \"proven.\" What we want\nis to try the Bible and see if it is not true.\n\n\nThe Prairie Fire\n\nOut in the Western country, in the autumn, when men go hunting, and\nthere has not been any rain for months, sometimes the prairie grass\ncatches fire, and there comes up a very strong wind, and the flames\njust roll along twenty feet high, and travel at the rate of thirty or\nforty miles an hour, consuming man and beast. When the hunters see it\ncoming, what do they do? They know they cannot run as fast as the fire\ncan run. Not the fleetest horse can escape. They just take a match and\nlight the grass around them, and let the flames sweep, and then they\nget into the burnt district and stand safe. They hear the flames roar\nas they come along, they see death coming toward them, but they do not\nfear, they do not tremble, because the fire has swept over the place\nwhere they are, and there is no danger. There is nothing for the fire\nto burn.\n\nThere is one mountain that the wrath of God has swept over--that is,\nMount Calvary; and the fire spent its fury upon the bosom of the Son\nof God. Take your stand by the cross, and you will be safe for time\nand eternity.\n\n\nPerfect Order\n\nA good many people are afraid of doing anything out of the regular\nlines--of doing anything out of order. Now, you will find perfect\norder in a cemetery. You will find perfect order where there is death.\nWhere there is life you will find something out of order.\n\n\nIs your Soul Insured?\n\n\"Pa,\" said a little boy as he climbed to his father's knee, and looked\ninto his face as earnestly as if he understood the importance of the\nsubject, \"pa, is your soul insured?\"\n\n\"What are you thinking about, my son?\" replied the agitated father.\n\"Why do you ask that question?\"\n\n\"Why, pa, I heard Uncle George say that you had your house insured,\nand your life insured; but he didn't believe you had thought of your\nsoul, and he was afraid you would lose it; won't you get it insured\nright away?\"\n\nThe father leaned his head on his hand, and was silent. He owned broad\nacres of land that were covered with a bountiful produce; his barns\nwere even now filled with plenty, his buildings were all well covered\nby insurance; and as if that would not suffice for the maintenance of\nhis wife and only child in case of his decease, he had, the day\nbefore, taken a life-policy for a large amount; yet not one thought\nhad he given to his own immortal soul. On that which was to waste away\nand become part and parcel of its native dust he had spared no pains;\nbut for that which was to live on and on through the long ages of\neternity he had made no provision. \"What shall it profit a man if he\ngain the whole world and lose his own soul?\"\n\n\nMemory\n\nI have been twice at the point of death. I was drowning once, and just\nas I was going down the third time I was rescued. In the twinkling of\nan eye my whole life came flashing across my mind. I cannot tell you\nhow it was. I cannot tell you how a whole life can be crowded into a\nsecond of time; but everything I had done from my earliest\nchildhood--it all came flashing across my mind. And I believe that\nwhen God touches the secret spring of memory, every one of our sins\nwill come back, and if they have not been blotted out by the blood of\nthe Lord Jesus Christ, they will haunt us as eternal ages roll on.\n\nWe talk about our forgetting, but we cannot forget if God says\n\"Remember.\" We talk about the recording angel keeping the record of\nour life. I have an idea that when we get to heaven, or into eternity,\nwe will find that recording angel has been ourselves. God will make\nevery one of us keep our own record; these memories will keep the\nrecord, and when God shall say, \"Son, remember,\" it will all flash\nacross our mind. It won't be God who will condemn us; it will be\nourselves. We shall condemn ourselves, and we shall stand before God\nspeechless.\n\nThere is a man in prison. He has been there five years. Ask that man\nwhat makes the prison so terrible to him. Ask him if it is the walls\nand the iron gates--ask him if it is his hard work, and he will tell\nyou _no_; he will tell you what makes the prison so terrible to him\nis _memory_; and I have an idea that if we got down into the lost\nworld, we would find that is what makes hell so terrible--the\nremembrance that they once heard the Gospel, that they once had Christ\noffered to them, that they once had the privilege of being saved, but\nthey made light of the Gospel, they neglected salvation, they rejected\nthe offer of mercy, and now if they would accept it they could not.\n\n\nBalaam's Ass\n\nA friend of mine was going back to Scotland, and he heard a couple of\nthese little modern philosophers discussing the Bible. One said: \"The\nBible says that Balaam's ass spoke. Now, I am a scientific man, and I\nhave taken the pains to examine an ass's mouth, and it is so formed\nthat it couldn't speak.\"\n\nHe was going to toss the whole Bible over because Balaam's ass\ncouldn't speak.\n\nMy friend said he stood it just as long as he could, and finally he\nsaid:\n\n\"Ah, man, you make an ass, and I will make him speak.\"\n\nThe idea that the God who made the ass couldn't speak through his\nmouth! Did you ever hear such stuff? And yet this was one of your\nmodern philosophers!\n\n\nThe Border Apple-Tree\n\nIf you want real peace and rest to your soul, keep separate from the\nworld.\n\nI remember when I was a boy in Northfield, right near the old red\nschoolhouse there was an apple-tree that bore the earliest apples of\nany tree in town. They had a law in that town that fruit on a tree\noverhanging the street belonged to the public, and any fruit on the\nother side of the fence belonged to the property-holders. Half that\napple-tree was over in the street, and it got more old brooms and\nbrickbats and handles than any other tree in town. We boys used to\nwatch to see when an apple was getting red. I never got a ripe apple\nfrom that tree in my life, and I don't believe any one else ever did.\nYou never went by that tree that you didn't see a lot of broom-handles\nand clubs up there.\n\nNow, take a lot of Christians who want to live right on the line, with\none foot in the world and one foot in the church. They get more clubs\nthan any one else. The world clubs them. They say, \"I don't believe in\nthat man's religion.\" And the church clubs them. They get clubs both\nsides. It is a good deal better to keep just as far from the line as\nyou can if you want power.\n\n\nBad Company\n\nA friend of mine said he had a beautiful canary bird; he thought it\nwas the sweetest singer they had ever had. Spring came on, and he felt\nit was a pity to keep the poor bird in the house, so he put it under a\ntree right in front of his house. He said before he knew it a lot of\nthese little English sparrows got under that tree (and you know they\ncannot sing any more than I can, and I don't know one note from\nanother), and went, \"Chirp, chirp, chirp.\" Before he knew it, that\nlittle canary had lost all its sweet notes. It had got into bad\ncompany.\n\nAfter he found out that he had made a mistake, he took the bird into\nthe house, but it kept up that \"Chirp, chirp, chirp.\" He bought\nanother bird, but the canary nearly ruined it. He said that bird never\ngot back its sweet notes.\n\nNow, don't you know lots of Christian people who had a fine testimony\nseveral years ago, but they have lost their witness, and all they do\nnow is talk, talk, talk, talk? Why? Because they are out of communion\nwith God, and have lost their witness.\n\n\n\"Hitch On\" and \"Cut Behind\"\n\nSome one tells of an incident that happened in a New England town the\nother day. All the boys were sleighing. A big sleigh--we call it a\n\"pung\" up there--was being driven through the streets by an old man\nwho looked like Santa Claus. He was calling out to the small boys to\nhitch on, for a pung is like a 'bus, it always holds one more.\n\nThere were already about twenty rollicking boys hitched on, when one\nlittle fellow dropped off behind. He tried, but couldn't catch up\nagain, and pretty soon he began to look out for another chance for a\nride. A man's sleigh was standing near by, and the boy began to eye\nthe man. When the man in the sleigh started off, the little fellow\nhitched on behind, and the man grabbed his whip and struck him\ndirectly in the eye. It looked as if the eye had been put out, but it\nwasn't.\n\nNow, that's the way we go through this world. Some say, \"Hitch on,\nhitch on\"; others, \"Cut behind, cut behind.\" The hitch-on people fill\nthe churches, and the cut-behind ones empty them.\n\n\nKnown by Name\n\nA friend of mine was in Syria, and he found a shepherd that kept up\nthe old custom of naming his sheep. My friend said he wouldn't believe\nthat the sheep knew him when he called them by name. So he said to the\nshepherd:\n\n\"I wish you would just call one or two.\"\n\nThe shepherd said, \"Carl.\"\n\nThe sheep stopped eating and looked up.\n\nThe shepherd called out, \"Come here.\"\n\nThe sheep came, and stood looking up into his face.\n\nHe called another, and another, and there they stood looking up at the\nshepherd.\n\n\"How can you tell them apart?\"\n\n\"Oh, there are no two alike. See, that sheep toes in a little; this\nsheep is a little bit squint-eyed; that sheep has a black spot on its\nnose.\"\n\nMy friend found that he knew every one of his sheep by their failings.\nHe didn't have a perfect one in his flock.\n\nI suppose that is the way the Lord knows you and me. There is a man\nthat is covetous; he wants to grasp the whole world. He wants a\nshepherd to keep down that spirit. There is a woman down there who has\nan awful tongue; she keeps the whole neighborhood stirred up. There is\na woman over there who is deceitful, terribly so. She needs the care\nof a shepherd to keep her from deceit, for she will ruin all her\nchildren; they will all turn out just like their mother. There is a\nfather over there who wouldn't swear for all the world before his\nchildren, but sometimes he gets provoked in his business and swears\nbefore he knows it. Doesn't he need a shepherd's care? I would like to\nknow if there is a man or woman on earth who doesn't need the care of\na shepherd. Haven't we all got failings? If you really want to know\nwhat your failings are, you can find some one who can point them out.\nGod would never have sent Christ into the world if we didn't need His\ncare. We are as weak and foolish as sheep.\n\n\nThe Right Time for Action\n\nA man was always telling his servant that he was going to do a great\nthing for him. \"I am going to remember you in my will.\"\n\nSambo got his expectations up very high. When the man came to die, it\nwas found that all he had willed Sambo was to be buried in the family\nlot. That was the big thing, you know. Sambo said he wished he had\ngiven him ten dollars, and let the lot go.\n\nIf you want to show kindness to a person, show it to him while you are\nliving. I heard a man say that he didn't want people to throw bouquets\nto him after he was dead, and say, \"There, smell them.\"\n\nNow, this is the time for action. I have got so tired and sick of this\nsplitting hairs over theology. Man, let us go out and get the fallen\nup. Lift them up toward God and heaven. We want a practical kind of\nChristianity.\n\n\nCriticising the Sermon\n\nVery often a man will hear a hundred good things in a sermon, but\nthere may be one thing that strikes him as a little out of place, and\nhe will go home and sit down at the table and talk right out before\nhis children and magnify that one wrong thing, and not say a word\nabout the hundred good things that were said. That is what people do\nwho criticise.\n\n\nA Reminiscence\n\nI remember blaming my mother for sending me to church on the Sabbath.\nOn one occasion the preacher had to send some one into the gallery to\nwake me up. I thought it was hard to have to work in the field all the\nweek, and then be obliged to go to church and hear a sermon I didn't\nunderstand. I thought I wouldn't go to church any more when I got away\nfrom home; but I had got so in the habit of going that I couldn't stay\naway. After one or two Sabbaths, back again to the house of God I\nwent. There I first found Christ, and I have often said since:\n\n\"Mother, I thank you for making me go to the house of God when I\ndidn't want to go.\"\n\n\nTransplanting the Lily\n\n\"It is easy to go when the time comes. There are no ropes thrown out\nto pull us ashore; there are no ladders let down to pull us up. Christ\ncomes and takes us by the hand, and says:\n\n\"'You have had enough of this. Come up higher!'\n\n\"Do you hurt a lily when you pluck it? Is there any rudeness when\nJesus touches the cheek, and the red rose of health whitens into the\nlily of immortal purity and gladness?\"--Talmage.\n\n\nElection\n\nHow many men fold their arms and say:\n\n\"If I am one of the elect, I will be saved, and if I ain't, I won't.\nNo use of your bothering about it.\"\n\nWhy don't some of these merchants say: \"If God is going to make me a\nsuccessful merchant in Chicago, I will be one whether I like it or\nnot, and if He isn't I won't.\"\n\nIf you are sick, and a doctor prescribes for you, don't take the\nmedicine--throw it out the door. It does not matter, for if God has\ndecreed you are going to die, you will; if He hasn't, you will get\nbetter. If you use that argument you may as well not walk home from\nthis tabernacle. If God has said you'll get home, you'll get\nhome--you'll fly through the air.\n\nI have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going to stumble\nover this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty years in\nheaven He came down and spoke to John. One Lord's day in Patmos, He\nsaid to him:\n\n\"Write these things to the churches.\"\n\nJohn kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And then the Lord, when\nit was nearly finished, said, \"John, before you close the book, put in\none more invitation. 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him\nthat heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And\nWHOSOEVER WILL, let him take the water of life freely.'\"\n\n\nThe Mysteries of the Bible\n\nDr. Talmage tells the story that one day while he was bothering his\ntheological professor with questions about the mysteries of the Bible,\nthe latter turned on him and said:\n\n\"Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things you don't.\"\n\n\nThe Little Lone One\n\nI sometimes think if an angel were to wing its way to heaven, and tell\nthem that there was one little child here on earth--it might be a\nshoeless, coatless street Arab--with no one to lead it to the cross of\nChrist, and if God were to call the angels round His throne and ask\nthem to go and spend--aye, fifty years, in teaching that child, there\nwould not be an angel in heaven but would respond gladly to the\nappeal. We should see even Gabriel saying, \"Let me go and win that\nsoul to Christ.\" We should see Paul buckling on his old armor again,\nand saying, \"Let me go back again to earth, that I may have the joy\nof leading that little one to his Saviour.\"\n\nAh! we need rousing; there is too much apathy amongst professing\nChristians. Let us pray God that He may send His Holy Spirit to\ninspire us with fresh energy and zeal to do His work.\n\n\nDoubting Castle\n\nIt is the privilege of every child of God to know that he is saved,\nand yet I find ever so many people living in Doubting Castle. Why, it\nis _salvation by doubts_ nowadays, instead of _by faith;_ there are so\nfew that dare to say, \"I know that my Redeemer liveth; I know in whom\nI have believed.\" We find most Christians nowadays shivering and\ntrembling from head to foot--they do not know whether they are saved\nor not.\n\n\nFaith\n\nBishop Ryle has very well likened faith to a root whose flower is\nassurance. To have the latter, he says, it is necessary that there\nmust first be the hidden source of faith.\n\nFaith is the simplest and most universal experience in the world. Call\nit by whatever name you may, confidence, trust, or belief, it is\ninseparable from the human race. The first sign of a dawning\nintelligence in the mind is the exercise of the infant's faith toward\nthose it knows, and its fear toward those it does not know. We cannot\neven remember when we first began to have faith.\n\n\nConfessing Christ at Home\n\nI was preaching in Chicago to a hall full of women one Sunday\nafternoon, and after the meeting was over a lady came to me and said\nshe wanted to talk to me. She said she would accept Christ, and after\nsome conversation she went home. I looked for her for a whole week,\nbut didn't see her until the following Sunday afternoon. She came and\nsat down right in front of me, and her face had such a sad expression.\nShe seemed to have entered into the misery, instead of the joy, of the\nLord.\n\nAfter the meeting was over I went to her and asked her what the\ntrouble was.\n\nShe said, \"Oh, Mr. Moody, this has been the most miserable week of my\nlife.\"\n\nI asked her if there was any one with whom she had had trouble and\nwhom she could not forgive.\n\nShe said, \"No, not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Well, did you tell your friends about having found the Saviour?\"\n\n\"Indeed I didn't. I have been all the week trying to keep it from\nthem.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"that is the reason why you have no peace.\"\n\nShe wanted to take the crown, but did not want the cross. My friends,\nyou must go by the way of Calvary. If you ever get peace and joy you\nmust get it at the foot of the cross.\n\n\"Why,\" she said, \"if I should go home and tell my infidel husband that\nI had found Christ, I don't know what he would do. I think he would\nturn me out.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"go out.\"\n\nShe went away, promising that she would tell him, timid and pale, but\nshe did not want another wretched week. She was bound to have peace.\n\nThe next night I gave a lecture to men only, and in the hall there\nwere eight thousand men and one solitary woman. When I got through and\nwent into the inquiry meeting I found this lady with her husband. She\nintroduced him to me (he was a doctor and a very influential man),\nand said:\n\n\"He wants to become a Christian.\"\n\nI took my Bible and told him all about Christ, and he accepted Him. I\nsaid to her after it was all over:\n\n\"It turned out quite differently from what you expected, didn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied; \"I was never so scared in my life. I expected he\nwould do something dreadful, but it has turned out so well.\"\n\nShe took God's way, and got the joy and peace she sought.\n\n\nHow to Settle the Theater Question\n\nA lady came to me once and said, \"Mr. Moody, I wish you would tell me\nhow I can become a Christian.\" The tears were rolling down her cheeks,\nand she was in a very favorable mood. \"But,\" she said, \"I don't want\nto be one of your kind.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I asked, \"have I got any peculiar kind? What is the matter\nwith my Christianity?\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"my father was a doctor, and had a large practice,\nand he used to get so tired that he used to take us to the theater.\nThere was a large family of girls, and we had tickets for the theaters\nthree or four times a week. I suppose we were there a good deal\noftener than we were in church. I am married to a lawyer, and he has a\nlarge practice. He gets so tired that he takes us out to the theater,\"\nand she said, \"I am far better acquainted with the theater and theater\npeople than with the church and church people, and I don't want to\ngive up the theater.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"did you ever hear me say anything about theaters?\nThere have been reporters here every day for all the different papers,\nand they are giving my sermons verbatim in one paper. Have you ever\nseen anything in the sermons against the theaters?\"\n\nShe said, \"No.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I have seen you in the audience every afternoon for\nseveral weeks, and have you heard me say anything against theaters?\"\n\nNo, she hadn't.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"what made you bring them up?\"\n\n\"Why, I supposed you didn't believe in theaters.\"\n\n\"What made you think that?\"\n\n\"Why,\" she said, \"do you ever go?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why don't you go?\"\n\n\"Because I have got something better. I would sooner go out into the\nstreet and eat dirt than do some of the things I used to do before I\nbecame a Christian.\"\n\n\"Why!\" she said; \"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" I said. \"When Jesus Christ has the preeminence, you will\nunderstand it all. He didn't come down here and say we shouldn't go\nhere and we shouldn't go there, and lay down a lot of rules, but He\nlaid down great principles. Now, He says if you love Him you will take\ndelight in pleasing Him.\" And I began to preach Christ to her. The\ntears started again. She said:\n\n\"I tell you, Mr. Moody, that sermon on the indwelling Christ yesterday\nafternoon just broke my heart. I admire Him, and I want to be a\nChristian, but I don't want to give up the theaters.\"\n\nI said, \"Please don't mention them again. I don't want to talk about\ntheaters. I want to talk to you about Christ.\" So I took my Bible,\nand I read to her about Christ.\n\nBut she said again, \"Mr. Moody, can I go to the theater if I become a\nChristian?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"you can go to the theater just as much as you like if\nyou are a real, true Christian, and can go with His blessing.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"I am glad you are not so narrow-minded as some.\"\n\nShe felt quite relieved to think that she could go to the theaters and\nbe a Christian. But I said:\n\n\"If you can go to the theater for the glory of God, keep on going;\nonly be sure that you go for the glory of God. If you are a Christian\nyou will be glad to do whatever will please Him.\"\n\nI really think she became a Christian that day. The burden had gone,\nthere was joy; but just as she was leaving me at the door she said:\n\n\"I am not going to give up the theater.\"\n\nIn a few days she came back to me and said: \"Mr. Moody, I understand\nall about that theater business now. I went the other night. There was\na large party at our house, and my husband wanted us to go, and we\nwent; but when the curtain lifted everything looked so different. I\nsaid to my husband, 'This is no place for me; this is horrible. I am\nnot going to stay here, I am going home.' He said, 'Don't make a fool\nof yourself. Every one has heard that you have been converted in the\nMoody meetings, and if you go out it will be all through fashionable\nsociety. I beg of you don't make a fool of yourself by getting up and\ngoing out.' But I said, 'I have been making a fool of myself all of my\nlife.'\"\n\nNow, the theater hadn't changed, but she had got something better,\nand she was going to overcome the world. \"They that are after the\nflesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the\nSpirit, the things of the Spirit.\" When Christ has the first place in\nyour heart you are going to get victory. Just do whatever you know\nwill please Him. The great objection I have to these things is that\nthey get the mastery, and become a hindrance to spiritual growth.\n\n\nWhat a Sister Can Do\n\nI want to say to young ladies, perhaps you have a godless father or\nmother, or a skeptical brother, who is going down through drink, and\nperhaps there is no one who can reach them but you. How many times a\ngodly, pure young lady has taken the light into some darkened home!\nMany a home might be lit up with the Gospel if the mothers and\ndaughters would only speak the word.\n\nThe last time Mr. Sankey and myself were in Edinburgh, there were a\nfather, two sisters, and a brother, who used every morning to take the\nmorning paper and pick my sermon to pieces. They were indignant to\nthink that the Edinburgh people should be carried away with such\npreaching. One day one of the sisters was going by the hall, and she\nthought she would drop in and see what class of people went there. She\nhappened to take a seat by a godly lady, who said to her:\n\n\"I hope you are interested in this work,\"\n\nShe tossed her head and said: \"Indeed I am not. I am disgusted with\neverything I have seen and heard.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the lady, \"perhaps you came prejudiced.\"\n\n\"Yes, and the meeting has not removed any of it, but has rather\nincreased it.\"\n\n\"I have received a great deal of good from them.\"\n\n\"There is nothing here for me. I don't see how an intellectual person\ncan be interested.\"\n\nTo make a long story short, she got the young lady to promise to come\nback. When the meeting broke up, just a little of the prejudice had\nworn away. She promised to come back again the next day, and then she\nattended three or four more meetings, and became quite interested. She\nsaid nothing to her family, until finally the burden became too heavy,\nand she told them. They laughed at her, and made her the butt of their\nridicule.\n\nOne day the two sisters were together, and the other said, \"Now what\nhave you got at those meetings that you didn't have in the first\nplace?\"\n\n\"I have a peace that I never knew of before. I am at peace with God,\nmyself, and all the world.\" Did you ever have a little war of your own\nwith your neighbors, in your own family? And she said: \"I have\nself-control. You know, sister, if you had said half the mean things\nbefore I was converted that you have said since, I would have been\nangry and answered back, but if you remember correctly, I haven't\nanswered once since I have been converted.\"\n\nThe sister said, \"You certainly have something that I have not.\"\n\nThe other told her it was for her, too, and she brought the sister to\nthe meetings, where she found peace.\n\nLike Martha and Mary, they had a brother but he was a member of the\nUniversity of Edinburgh. He be converted? He go to these meetings? It\nmight do for women, but not for him! One night they came home and told\nhim that a chum of his own, a member of the university, had stood up\nand confessed Christ, and when he sat down his brother got up and\nconfessed; and so with the third one.\n\nWhen the young man heard it, he said: \"Do you mean to tell me that he\nhas been converted?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"there must be something in it.\"\n\nHe put on his hat and coat, and went to see his friend Black. Black\ngot him down to the meetings, and he was converted.\n\nWe went through to Glasgow, and had not been there six weeks when news\ncame that that young man had been stricken down, and had died. When he\nwas dying he called his father to his bedside and said:\n\n\"Wasn't it a good thing that my sisters went to those meetings? Won't\nyou meet me in heaven, father?\"\n\n\"Yes, my son, I am so glad you are a Christian; that is the only\ncomfort that I have in losing you. I will become a Christian, and will\nmeet you again.\"\n\nI tell this to encourage some sister to go home and carry the message\nof salvation. It may be that your brother may be taken away in a few\nmonths.\n\n\nHow one Man Treated Doubts\n\nA wild and prodigal young man, who was running a headlong career to\nruin came into one of our meetings in Chicago. Whilst endeavoring to\nbring him to Christ, I quoted this verse to him: \"Him that cometh unto\nme I will in no wise cast out.\"\n\nI asked him: \"Do you believe Christ said that?\"\n\n\"I suppose He did.\"\n\n\"Suppose He did! do you believe it?\"\n\n\"I hope so.\"\n\n\"Hope so! do you believe it? You do your work, and the Lord will do\nHis. Just come as you are, and throw yourself upon His bosom, and He\nwill not cast you out.\"\n\nThis man thought it was too simple and easy.\n\nAt last light seemed to break in upon him, and he seemed to find\ncomfort from it. It was past midnight before he got down on his knees,\nbut down he went, and was converted. I said:\n\n\"Now, don't think you are going to get out of the devil's territory\nwithout trouble. The devil will come to you to-morrow morning and say\nit was all feeling; that you only imagined you were accepted by God.\nWhen he does, don't fight him with your own opinions, but fight him\nwith John vi. 37: 'Him that cometh to Me I will in nowise cast out.'\nLet that be 'the sword of the Spirit.'\"\n\nI don't believe that any man ever starts to go to Christ but the devil\nstrives somehow or other to meet him and trip him up. And even after\nhe has come to Christ, the devil tries to assail him with doubts, and\nmake him believe there is something wrong in it.\n\nThe struggle came sooner than I thought in this man's case. When he\nwas on his way home the devil assailed him. He used this text, but the\ndevil put this thought into his mind:\n\n\"How do you know Christ ever said that after all? Perhaps the\ntranslators made a mistake.\"\n\nInto darkness he went again. He was in trouble till about two in the\nmorning. At last he came to this conclusion. Said he:\n\n\"I will believe it anyway; and when I get to heaven, if it isn't true,\nI will just tell the Lord _I_ didn't make the mistake--the translators\nmade it.\"\n\n\nUse or Lose\n\nAn Eastern allegory runs thus: A merchant, going abroad for a time,\ngave respectively to two of his friends two sacks of wheat each, to\ntake care of against his return. Years passed. When he came back, he\napplied for them again.\n\nThe first took him into a storehouse, and showed him his sacks; but\nthey were mildewed and worthless.\n\nThe other led him out into the open country, and pointed to field\nafter field of waving wheat, the produce of the two sacks given him.\n\nSaid the merchant: \"You have been a faithful friend. Give me two sacks\nof that wheat; the rest shall be thine.\"\n\nLet us put to good use the talents God has given us.\n\n\nThe Anchored Boat\n\nI once heard of two men who were under the influence of liquor. They\ncame down at night to where their boat was tied. They wanted to return\nhome, so they got in and began to row. They pulled away hard all\nnight, wondering why they never got to the other side of the bay. When\nthe gray dawn of morning broke, behold! they had never loosed the\nmooring line or raised the anchor!\n\nThat's just the way with many who are striving to enter the kingdom of\nheaven. They cannot believe, because they are tied to this world. Cut\nthe cord! Confess and forsake your sins! Cut the cord! Set yourselves\nfree from the clogging weight of earthly things, and you will soon\nrise heavenward.\n\n\nNot Much up There\n\nA friend of mine was once taken by an old man to see his riches. He\ntook him to a splendid mansion, and said, \"This is all mine.\" He\npointed to a little town, \"That is mine; it is called by my name.\" He\npointed to a rolling prairie, \"That is all mine; the sun never shone\non a finer prairie than that, so fruitful and rich, and it's all\nmine.\" In another direction he showed him fertile farms extending for\nthirty miles, \"These are all mine.\" He took him into his grand house,\nshowed him his beautiful pictures, his costly gold plate, his jewels,\nand still he said, \"These are all mine. This grand hall I have built;\nit is called by my name; there is my insignia on it. And yet I was\nonce a poor boy. I have made it all myself.\"\n\nMy friend looked at him. \"Well, you've all this on earth; but what\nhave you got up there?\"\n\n\"Up where?\" said the old man.\n\n\"Up in heaven.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm afraid I haven't got much up there.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said my friend, \"but you've got to die, to leave this world;\nwhat will you take with you of all these things? You will die a\nbeggar; for all these riches count as nothing in the kingdom of\nheaven. You will be a pauper; for you have no inheritance with the\nsaints above.\" The poor old man (he was poor enough in reality, though\nrich in all the world's goods) burst into tears. He had no hope for\nthe future. In four months' time he was dead; and where is he now? He\nlived and died without God, and without hope in this world or the\nnext.\n\n\nTouching the Spot\n\nWhen a man has broken his arm, the surgeon must find out the exact\nspot where the fracture is. He feels along and presses gently with his\nfingers.\n\n\"Is it there?\"\n\n\"No,\"\n\n\"Is it there?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nPresently, when the surgeon touches another spot, \"Ouch!\" says the\nman.\n\nHe has found the broken part, and it hurts.\n\nIt is one thing to hear a man preach down other people's sins. Men\nwill say, \"That is splendid,\" and will want all their friends to go\nand hear the preacher. But let him touch on their individual sin, and\ndeclare, as Nathan did to David, \"Thou art the man,\" and they say, \"I\ndo not like that.\" The preacher has touched a sore place.\n\n\nThe Little Boy and the Big Book\n\nI like to think of Christ as a burden bearer.\n\nA minister was one day moving his library upstairs. As he was going up\nwith a load of books, his little boy came in, and was very anxious to\nhelp his father. So his father just told him to go and get an armful,\nand bring them upstairs. When the father came back, he met the little\nfellow about half-way up, tugging away at the biggest book in the\nlibrary. He couldn't manage to carry it up. It was too big. So he sat\ndown and cried.\n\nHis father found him, and just took him in his arms, book and all, and\ncarried him upstairs. So Christ will carry you and all your burdens,\nif you will but let Him.\n\n\nThe Invitation to a Saloon Opening\n\nThey were going to have a great celebration at the opening of a saloon\nand billiard hall in Chicago, in the northern part of the city, where\nI lived. It was to be a gateway to death and to hell, one of the worst\nplaces in Chicago. As a joke they sent me an invitation to go to the\nopening. I took the invitation, and went down and saw the two men who\nhad the saloon, and I said:\n\n\"Is that a genuine invitation?\"\n\nThey said it was.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said; \"I will be around, and if there is anything here\nI don't like I may have something to say about it.\"\n\nThey said, \"You are not going to _preach_, are you?\"\n\n\"I may.\"\n\n\"We don't want you. We won't let you in.\"\n\n\"How are you going to keep me out?\" I asked. \"There is the\ninvitation.\"\n\n\"We will put a policeman at the door.\"\n\n\"What is the policeman going to do with that invitation?\"\n\n\"We won't let you in.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I will be there.\"\n\nI gave them a good scare, and then I said, \"I will compromise the\nmatter; if you two men will get down here and let me pray with you, I\nwill let you off.\"\n\nI got those two rum-sellers down on their knees, one on one side of me\nand the other on the other side, and I prayed God to save their souls\nand smite their business. One of them had a Christian mother, and he\nseemed to have some conscience left. After I had prayed, I said:\n\n\"How can you do this business? How can you throw this place open to\nruin the young men of Chicago?\"\n\nWithin three months the whole thing smashed up, and one of them was\nconverted shortly after. I have never been invited to a saloon since.\n\n\n\n\"Too Late!\"\n\nAt our church in Chicago I was closing the meeting one day, when a\nyoung soldier got up and entreated the people to decide for Christ at\nonce. He said he had just come from a dark scene. A comrade of his,\nwho had enlisted with him, had a father who was always entreating him\nto become a Christian, and in reply he always said he would when the\nwar was over. At last he was wounded, and was put into the hospital,\nbut got worse, and was gradually sinking. One day, a few hours before\nhe died, a letter came from his sister, but he was too far gone to\nread it. It was such an earnest letter! The comrade read it to him,\nbut he did not seem to understand it, he was so weak, till it came to\nthe last sentence, which said:\n\n\"Oh, my dear brother, when you get this letter, will you not accept\nyour sister's Savior?\"\n\nThe dying man sprang up from his cot, and said, \"What do you say? what\ndo you say?\" And then, falling back on his pillow, feebly exclaimed,\n\"_It is too late! It is too late!_\"\n\nMy dear friends, thank God it is not _too late_ for you to-day. The\nMaster is still calling you. Let every one of us, young and old, rich\nand poor, come to Christ at once, and He will put all our sins away.\nDon't wait any longer for feeling, but obey at once. You can believe,\nyou can trust, you can lay hold on eternal life, if you will. Will you\nnot do it now?\n\n\n\n\nTOPICAL INDEX\n\n\n  Assurance, 44\n  Atonement, 8, 30, 98\n  Attention, 43\n\n  Backslider, 17, 22\n  Balaam's ass, 102\n  Bible, 9, 10, 15, 16, 22, 29, 34, 44, 80, 84, 102, 108\n  Breath from God, 35\n\n\n  Child, As a, 49\n  Choice, 98\n  Christ, as Burden-Bearer, 120;\n    for all, 73;\n    seeking the lost, 86;\n    coming of, 67, 85;\n    in the Bible, 31\n  \"Come,\" 46\n  Communion with Christ, 21, 65, 84, 103\n  Confessing Christ, 26, 27, 35, 52, 77, 109\n  Conversion, 25, 80, 88\n  Conviction, 21\n  Courage, 20\n  Covetousness, 27, 35, 51\n  Crazy from sin, 89\n  Criticising the sermon, 106\n  Cross of Christ, 31\n\n  Death, 18, 24, 107, 118\n  Decision, 10, 61, 62, 93, 122\n  Don't Worry Clubs, 31\n  Doubts, 36, 109, 116\n  Doves, Legend about, 42\n  Drawing a comparison, 42\n\n  Election, 107\n  Eternity, 81\n\n  Faith, 12, 14, 23, 55, 109\n  Finding the thirsty, 57\n\n  Giving, 23, 35\n  Grace, 20\n\n  Habit, 83\n  Heaven, 14, 62, 87\n  \"Hitch on\" and \"Cut behind,\" 104\n  Holy Spirit, 20, 35, 75\n  Home Religion, 76, 85\n  Honey-dew, 37\n\n  Illuminated Christians, 26\n  Indwelling Christ, 31\n  Infidel books, 18\n  Is your soul insured? 100\n\n  Joy, 94\n\n  Keeping, 8, 76, 99, 104\n\n  Law, 72\n  Liberty, 13\n  Look to Christ, 43\n  Love, 33, 69\n\n  Memory, 101\n  Money, 33, 95\n  Murder, 67, 95\n\n  Need, 45\n  Neglecting church, 53\n  No difference, 40\n  \"Not for you,\" 67\n\n  Obedience, 56, 91\n  Opportunity, 78, 79\n  Oratorical preaching, 53\n\n  Parables, Making, 58\n  Parents, 19, 32, 40, 50, 51, 58, 59\n  Peace, 9, 16, 23\n  Pendulum, Lady, 7\n  Personal religion, 38\n  Prayer, 68\n  Pride, 76\n  Promises, 63, 68, 99\n\n  Repentance, 45\n  Restitution, 71\n  Resurrection, 64\n  Revivals, 79\n  Rich husband, 93\n\n  Saloon opening, 120\n  Salvation, 8, 38, 82, 86, 93\n  Scarlet thread, 31\n  Sealed for redemption, 27\n  Separation, 69, 102, 118\n  Sin, 118, 119\n  Sinner's heart, 97\n  Sowing and reaping, 48, 63, 82, 87\n  Small beginnings, 64\n  Starting right, 73\n  Stealing, 35, 67\n  Substitution, 74\n  Sunday, 55, 60, 100\n  Swearing, 90\n\n  Temptation, 27, 77, 78, 85, 98\n  Theatre, 38, 111\n  Time to think, 86\n  Trial, 28\n  Trust, 8, 11, 46\n\n  Unbelief, 55, 56\n  Unity, 83\n  Use or lose, 118\n\n  Watching, 85\n  Work, 15, 24, 34, 48, 97, 106, 108, 114\n  Will, 39, 57, 66\n\n\n\n\nPSALM 23.\n\n\nThe Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.\n\n2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the\nstill waters.\n\n3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness\nfor his name's sake.\n\n4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will\nfear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort\nme.\n\n5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;\nthou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.\n\n6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:\nand I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.\n\n\n\n\nISAIAH 55: 1--7.\n\n\nHo, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath\nno money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without\nmoney and without price.\n\n2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your\nlabour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and\neat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in\nfatness.\n\n3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live;\nand I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure\nmercies of David.\n\n4 Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and\ncommander to the people.\n\n5 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations\nthat knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God,\nand for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.\n\n6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is\nnear:\n\n7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his\nthoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy\nupon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.\n\n\n\n\nJOHN 3: 1--16.\n\n\nThere was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the\nJews:\n\n2 The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know\nthat thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these\nmiracles that thou doest, except God be with him.\n\n3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,\nExcept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.\n\n4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can\nhe enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?\n\n5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be\nborn of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of\nGod.\n\n6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of\nthe Spirit is spirit.\n\n7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.\n\n8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound\nthereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so\nis every one that is born of the Spirit.\n\n9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?\n\n10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and\nknowest not these things?\n\n11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and\ntestify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.\n\n12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye\nbelieve, if I tell you of heavenly things?\n\n13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from\nheaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.\n\n14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must\nthe Son of man be lifted up:\n\n15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal\nlife.\n\n16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,\nthat whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have\neverlasting life.\n\n\n\n\nJUST AS I AM.\n\n\n  Just as I am, without one plea\n    But that Thy blood was shed for me,\n  And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee;\n    O Lamb of God, I come, I come!\n\n  Just as I am, and waiting not\n    To rid my soul of one dark blot,\n  To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,\n    O Lamb of God, I come, I come!\n\n  Just as I am--Thou wilt receive,\n    Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;\n  Because Thy promise I believe,\n    O Lamb of God, I come, I come!\n\n  Just as I am--Thy love unknown\n    Has broken ev'ry barrier down;\n  Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,\n    O Lamb of God, I come, I come!\n\n\n\n\nJESUS, LOVER OF MY SOUL.\n\n\n  Jesus, Lover of my soul,\n    Let me to Thy bosom fly\n  While the nearer waters roll,\n    While the tempest still is high!\n  Hide me, O my Saviour, hide\n    Till the storm of life is past;\n  Safe into the haven guide;\n    O receive my soul at last!\n\n  Other refuge have I none,\n    Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;\n  Leave, O leave me not alone.\n    Still support and comfort me!\n  All my trust on Thee is stayed,\n    All my help from Thee I bring;\n  Cover my defenceless head\n    With the shadow of Thy wing!\n\n  Thou, O Christ, art all I want,\n    More than all in Thee I find!\n  Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,\n    Heal the sick, and lead the blind.\n  just and holy is Thy name,\n    I am all unrighteousness;\n  False and full of sin I am,\n    Thou art full of truth and grace.\n\n  Plenteous grace with Thee is found,\n    Grace to cover all my sin;\n  Let the healing streams abound,\n    Make and keep me pure within;\n  Thou of life the fountain art,\n    Freely let me take of Thee;\n  Spring Thou up within my heart,\n    Rise to all eternity.\n\n\n\n\nBEHOLD A STRANGER.\n\n\n  Behold a Stranger at the door:\n  He gently knocks, has knocked before;\n  Has waited long, is waiting still:\n  You treat no other friend so ill.\n\n  Oh, lovely attitude! He stands\n  With melting heart and laden hands;\n  Oh, matchless kindness! and He shows\n  This matchless kindness to His foes.\n\n  But will He prove a friend indeed?\n  He will, the very friend you need--\n  The Friend of sinners; yes, 'tis He,\n  With garments dyed on Calvary.\n\n  Rise, touched with gratitude divine,\n  Turn out His enemy and thine;\n  That soul-destroying monster, sin;\n  And let the heavenly Stranger in.\n\n\n\n\nGLORY TO HIS NAME!\n\n\n  Down at the cross where my Saviour died,\n  Down where for cleansing from sin I cried,\n  There to my heart was the blood applied--\n        Glory to His name!\n\n    CHORUS:\n\n  Glory to His name,\n  Glory to His name!\n  There to my heart was the blood applied--\n        Glory to His name!\n\n  I am so wondrously saved from sin,--\n  Jesus so sweetly abides within,--\n  There at the cross where He took me in--\n        Glory to His name!\n\n  O precious fountain that saves from sin,\n  I am so glad I have entered in;\n  There Jesus saved me and keeps me clean--\n        Glory to His name!\n\n  Come to this fountain so rich and sweet.\n  Cast thy poor soul at the Saviour's feet.\n  Plunge in today, and be made complete--\n        Glory to His name!\n\n\n\n\nDEPTH OF MERCY!\n\n\n  Depth of mercy! can there be\n  Mercy still reserved for me?\n  Can my God His wrath forbear?\n  Me, the chief of sinners, spare?\n\n  I have long withstood His grace,\n  Long provoked Him to His face;\n  Would not hearken to His calls;\n  Grieved Him by a thousand falls.\n\n  Now incline me to repent,\n  Let me now my sins lament;\n  Now my foul revolt deplore,\n  Weep, believe, and sin no more.\n\n\n\n\nI WAS A WAND'RING SHEEP.\n\n\n  I was a wand'ring sheep,\n    I did not love the fold:\n  I did not love my Shepherd's voice,\n    I would not be controlled.\n  I was a wayward child,\n    I did not love my home;\n  I did not love my Father's voice;\n    I loved afar to roam.\n\n  The Shepherd sought His sheep,\n    The Father sought His child,\n  They followed me o'er vale and hill,\n    O'er deserts waste and wild;\n  They found me nigh to death,\n    Famished and faint, and lone;\n  They bound me with the bands of love;\n    They saved the wand'ring one.\n\n  Jesus my Shepherd is,\n    'Twas He that loved my soul,\n  'Twas He that washed me in His blood,\n    'Twas He that made me whole;\n  'Twas He that sought the lost,\n    That found the wand'ring sheep,\n  'Twas He that brought me to the fold,\n    'Tis He that still doth keep.\n\n  I was a wand'ring sheep,\n    I would not be controlled;\n  But now I love the Shepherd's voice,\n    I love, I love the fold;\n  I was a wayward child,\n    I once preferred to roam:\n  But now I love my Father's voice\n    I love, I love His home\n\n\n\n\nWHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS!\n\n\n  What a Friend we have in Jesus,\n    All our sins and griefs to bear!\n  What a privilege to carry\n    Ev'rything to God in prayer!\n  O what peace we often forfeit,\n    O what needless pain we bear,\n  All because we do not carry\n    Ey'rything to God in prayer.\n\n  Have we trials and temptations?\n    Is there trouble anywhere?\n  We should never be discouraged,\n    Take it to the Lord in prayer.\n  Can we find a friend so faithful,\n    Who will all our sorrows share?\n  Jesus knows our ev'ry weakness,\n    Take it to the Lord in prayer.\n\n  Are we weak and heavy laden,\n    Cumbered with a load of care?\n  Precious Saviour, still our refuge,--\n    Take it to the Lord in prayer.\n  Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?\n    Take it to the Lord in prayer,\n  In His arms He'll take and shield thee\n    Thou wilt find a solace there.\n\n\n\n\nO HAPPY DAY!\n\n\n  O happy day that fixed my choice\n    On Thee, my Saviour and my God!\n  Well may this glowing heart rejoice,\n    And tell its raptures all abroad.\n\n    CHORUS:\n\n  Happy day, happy day,\n    When Jesus washed my sins away!\n  He taught me how to watch and pray,\n    And live rejoicing every day;\n  Happy day, happy day,\n    When Jesus washed my sin away!\n\n  O happy bond that seals my vows\n    To Him who merits all my love!\n  Let cheerful anthems fill His house,\n    While to that sacred shrine I move.\n\n  'Tis done, the great transaction's done;\n    I am my Lord's and He is mine;\n  He drew me, and I followed on,\n    Charmed to confess the voice divine.\n\n\n\n\nThe Moody COLPORTAGE Library\n\n    Uniform in size and style, attractive paper covers,\n    4-3/4 x 6-3/4 inches. 20c each.\n\n\n  1 All of Grace. C. H. Spurgeon\n  2 The Way to God. D. L. Moody\n  3 Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study. Moody\n  4 Life, Warfare and Victory. Whittle\n  5 Heaven. D. L. Moody\n  6 Prevailing Prayer. D. L. Moody\n  7 The Way of Life. Various authors\n  8 Secret Power. D. L. Moody\n  9 To the Work. D. L. Moody\n  10 According to Promise. C. H. Spurgeon\n  11 Bible Characters. D. L. Moody\n  13 \"And Peter.\" J. W. Chapman\n  15 Light on Life's Duties. F. B. Meyer\n  18 The Good Shepherd. Life of Christ\n  19 Good Tidings. Talmage and others\n  20 Sovereign Grace. D. L. Moody\n  21 Select Sermons. D. L. Moody\n  23 Nobody Loves Me. Mrs. O. F. Walton\n  24 The Empty Tomb. Various authors\n  26 Sowing and Reaping. D. L. Moody\n  28 \"Probable Sons.\" Story. Amy LeFeuvre\n  30 Good News. Robert Boyd\n  32 The Secret of Guidance. F. B. Meyer\n  34 The Second Coming of Christ\n  40 The Power of a Surrendered Life, or Kadesh-Barnea. J. W. Chapman\n  42 Whiter Than Snow and Little Dot--Stories. Mrs. O. F. Walton\n  44 The Overcoming Life. D. L. Moody\n  48 The Prodigal. Various authors\n  49 The Spirit-Filled Life. John MacNeil\n  50 Jessica's First Prayer. Hesba Stretton\n  51 The Christ-Life for the Self-Life. Meyer\n  54 Absolute Surrender. Andrew Murray\n  56 What Is Faith? Spurgeon, Moody, etc.\n  57 Christie's Old Organ--A story. Walton\n  58 Naaman the Syrian. A. B. Mackay\n  60 Weighed and Wanting. D. L. Moody\n  61 The Crew of the Dolphin. Hesba Stretton\n  63 Meet for the Master's Use. F. B. Meyer\n  64 Our Bible. C. Leach and R. A. Torrey\n  65 Alone in London. Hesba Stretton\n  66 Moody's Anecdotes\n  69 Children of the Bible\n  70 The Power of Pentecost. Thomas Waugh\n  71 Men of the Bible. D. L. Moody\n  72 A Peep Behind the Scenes. O. F. Walton\n  73 The School of Obedience. A. Murray\n  74 Making the Home Happy. R. T. Cross\n  76 Moody's Stories\n  78 The Robber's Cave--A story. A.L.O.E.\n  81 Thoughts for Quiet Hour. D. L. Moody\n  83 The Shorter Life of D. L. Moody. Fitt\n  85 Revival of a Dead Church. Broughton\n  86 Moody's Latest Sermons\n  87 A Missionary Penny--A story. L.C.W.\n  88 Calvary's Cross. Spurgeon, Whittle, etc.\n  89 How to Pray. R. A. Torrey\n  90 Little King Davie--Story. Nellie Hellis\n  91 Short Talks. D. L. Moody\n  93 Pilgrim's Progress. John Bunyan\n  96 Kept for the Master's Use. Havergal\n  98 Back to Bethel. F. B. Meyer\n  100 Up from Sin. Len G. Broughton\n  102 Popular Amusements and the Christian Life. P. W. Sinks\n  104 Answers to Prayer. George Muller\n  105 The Way Home. D. L. Moody\n  109 Life of David Livingstone. Worcester\n  114 First Words to Young Christians. Boyd\n  115 Rosa's Quest--A Story. Anna P. Wright\n  116 Difficulties in the Bible. R. A. Torrey\n  119 Practical and Perplexing Questions Answered. R. A. Torrey\n  120 Satan and the Saint. James M. Gray\n  123 Salvation from Start to Finish. Gray\n  125 Life in a Look. Maurice S. Baldwin\n  126 Burton Street Folks. Anna P. Wright\n  127 Bible Problems Explained. J. M. Gray\n  128 Papers on The Lord's Coming. \"C.H.M.\"\n  129 Christian: Creed and Conduct. Evans\n  130 Intercessory Prayer. J. G. K. McClure\n  131 From Death Unto Life. J. H. Brookes\n  132 Ruth, the Moabitess. Henry Moorhouse\n  134 Forty-Eight Bernard Street. Clark\n  135 Deliverance from the Penalty and Power of Sin. O. R. Palmer\n  136 Mrs. Mary's Go-Tell. Graham Clark\n  137 Bird's-Eye Bible Study. A. Patterson\n  138 \"I Cried, He Answered.\"\n  141 Later Evangelistic Sermons. Biederwolf\n  142 Phil Tyler's Opportunity. F. E. Burnham\n  143 Moving Messages. J. C. Massee\n  144 The Christ We Know. A. C. Gaebelein\n  145 Five \"Musts\" of the Christian Life. F. B. Meyer\n  146 The New Life in Christ Jesus. Scofield\n  147 Problems in the Prayer Life. Buswell\n  148 When the Song of the Lord Began. W. E. Biederwolf\n  149 The Christian Life and How to Live It. W. H. Griffith Thomas\n  150 Where Is the Lord God of Elijah? Cox\n  151 The Faith that Wins. Roy T. Brumbaugh\n  152 God's Way of Holiness. H. Bonar\n  153 Souls Set Free. Mission field miracles\n  154 Thinking with God. Norman H. Camp\n  155 \"Charge That to My Account.\" Ironside\n  156 Vera Dickson's Triumph. Sara C. Palmer\n  157 Competing Artists. Sara C. Palmer\n  158 Antidote to Christian Science. Gray\n  159 Is the Bible the Word of God? Scroggie\n  160 And God Spake These Words. W. H. Griffith Thomas\n  161 Methods of Bible Study. Thomas\n  162 Romance of a Doctor's Visits. Wilson\n  163 The Little Shepherd. Anna P. Wright\n  164 God's Picked Young Men. H. K. Pasma\n  165 The Cross of Christ. James H. Todd\n  166 By Ways Appointed. Briggs P. Dingman\n  167 Miracles in a Doctor's Life. Wilson\n  168 The Living Christ. Will H. Houghton\n  169 Portraits of Christ. Harold S. Laird\n  170 The Doctor's Best Love Story. Wilson\n  171 Full Assurance. H. A. Ironside\n  172 To Show Thyself Approved. R. A. Torrey\n  173 A Sure Remedy. Walter L. Wilson\n  174 The Truth About Grace. Chas. C. Cook\n  175 Vivid Experiences in Korea. Chisholm\n  176 The \"True\" Mystery Solved. Wright\n  177 The Resurrection of the Human Body. Norman H. Camp\n  178 On Silver Creek Knob. Story. Cannon\n  179 The Princess Beautiful. Story. Cannon\n  180 Remarkable New Stories. W. L. Wilson\n  181 Rivers of Living Water. Ruth Paxson\n  182 \"Called Unto Holiness.\" Ruth Paxson\n  183 The Soul-Winner's Fire. John R. Rice\n  185 Aunt Hattie's Bible Stories--Genesis. H. I. Fisher\n  186 Treasures of Bible Truth. Schweinfurth\n  187 In His Hands--Story. Harriet Heine\n  188 Great Words of the Gospel. Ironside\n  189 So Great Salvation. J. F. Strombeck\n\n    _Ask for descriptive folder._\n\n    MOODY PRESS\n    153 Institute Place\n    (Dept. MCL) Chicago 10\n\n\n\n\nLIFE on the HIGHEST PLANE\n\n_By_ RUTH PAXSON\n\nNow, all 3 volumes in one book. 820 pages, #$3.00#\n\n    [Illustration]\n\n    The three volumes, \"THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST\"; \"THE\n    RELATION BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN\"; and \"THE\n    BELIEVER'S RESPONSE TO THE HOLY SPIRIT'S INWORKING\" have now\n    been combined, without revision and with fourteen colored\n    charts included in one handy volume.\n\n    These Bible studies were first given in embryo to pastors,\n    evangelists, teachers, and other Christian leaders in\n    conferences held in China. Later, printed in three volumes,\n    they brought great blessing to many.\n\n\nOther Books By Ruth Paxson\n\n    GOD'S PLAN OF REDEMPTION\n\n    It will aid one in personal Bible study or provide a practical\n    outline for study groups. The questions are based on the\n    teaching in each chapter of \"Life on the Highest Plane.\" Can\n    be used with or without the larger book. 48 pages, paper,\n    #25c.#\n\n    CALLED UNTO HOLINESS\n\n    Addresses given at Keswick's Conference in England. Sounds the\n    clarion call to a more holy life. Here is victory for the\n    defeated; deliverance for the enslaved; rest for the weary;\n    peace for the discouraged; and joy for the sorrowing. 126\n    pages, paper, #20c.#\n\n    RIVERS OF LIVING WATER\n\n    Studies Setting Forth the Believer's Possession of Christ, How\n    Obtained--How Maintained. Multitudes of Christians are living\n    a dry and thirsty existence when the Lord is waiting to give\n    them His very best--rivers of living water! Perhaps few\n    Christians have heard or read the Divine plan and purpose for\n    the life of the believer presented so tersely, simply and\n    clearly, and withal so lovingly and compellingly. 124 pages,\n    paper, #20c.#\n\n    The WEALTH, WALK and WARFARE of the CHRISTIAN\n\n    The author finds a \"Grand Canyon of Scripture\" in Ephesians.\n    Her threefold message to Christians will be especially welcome\n    to those who are suffering from spiritual or mental\n    depression; those who are conscious of their unworthiness,\n    failure and defeat; those who are passing through terrible\n    attacks of Satan. 223 pages, cloth, #$1.50.#\n\n    THE MOODY PRESS\n    153 Institute Place\n    Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVANGEL BOOKLETS\n\n    A series of brief, timely messages of supreme importance,\n    and gospel stories by evangelical preachers and teachers,\n    Christian workers and laymen. 22-page booklets, self-cover.\n\n\n  1. God Is Love. An appeal to the unsaved. D. L. Moody.\n  2. God Reaching Down. Messages to the unconverted. C. H. Spurgeon.\n  4. Jack Winsted's Choice. A Gospel story. Lillian E. Andrews.\n  6. Ruined, Redeemed, Regenerated. C. H. Mackintosh.\n  7. By the Old Mill. Story. Katherine Elise Chapman.\n  8. The Day After Thanksgiving. Story. Mrs. S. R. Graham Clark.\n  9. True Stories About God's Free Gift. Alexander Marshall.\n  10. Lois Dudley Finds Peace. Story. Anna Potter Wright.\n  12. The Penitent Thief, and Naaman the Syrian. D. L. Moody.\n  13. Adder's Eggs and Spider's Webs. H. A. Ironside.\n  14. Samuel Morris. The true story of a Spirit-filled African.\n  16. Saved and Safe. Salvation, Assurance and Security. Fred J. Meldau.\n  17. \"In the Beginning God--\" and other Talks. Mark A. Matthews.\n  18. Christian Science: Pedigree, Principles, Posterity. Percy W.\n          Stephens.\n  19. Modern Education at the Cross-Roads. M. H. Duncan.\n  20. Is the Bible True? Nashville address. Wm. Jennings Bryan.\n  21. How to Read the Word of God Effectively. A. T. Pierson.\n  22. The Most Important Thing in My Life. The testimony of Dr. Howard\n          A. Kelly, world-famous surgeon. William S. Dutton.\n  23. Where Are the Dead? H. G. Marshall.\n  25. Mary Antipas. Story. Howard W. Pope.\n  26. Four Old Pals. Story. Frederick Burnham.\n  28. Dios es Amor (God Is Love). Spanish edition of No. 1.\n  29. Forethought in Creation. W. Bell Dawson.\n  30. Bryan's Last Word on Evolution. William Jennings Bryan.\n  31. Why I Do Not Believe in the Organic Evolutionary Hypothesis.\n          James Edward Congdon.\n  33. The Double Cure. A Gospel appeal. Melvin E. Trotter.\n  35. Old Truths for Young Lives. For children.\n  37. How to Have a Happy Home. Harold Francis Branch.\n  38. The Peril of Unbelief and the Danger of Doubt. D. L. Moody.\n  39. Moody the Evangelist. Joseph B. Bowles.\n  40. The Only Begotten Son. H. A. Ironside.\n  42. Tom Bennett's Transformation. Story. Howard W. Pope.\n  43 Will a God of Love Punish Any of His Creatures Forever?\n          Alexander Marshall.\n  45. Intercession for Revival. Helen C. Alexander Dixon.\n  46. With Everlasting Love. Story. Elzoe Prindle Stead.\n  47. How the Word Works. Fred J. Meldau.\n  48. Why I Believe the Bible. M. H. Duncan.\n  49. Caught. Story. C. S. Knight.\n  50. The Fruit of the Spirit Is Joy. John R. Riebe.\n  51. A Life Decision in the Sand Hills. Story. Ronald R. Kratz.\n  52. Love's Danger Signal. Doctrine of future retribution.\n          John G. Reid.\n  53. Pictures That Talk, Series One. E. J. Pace.\n  54. Pictures That Talk, Series Two. E. J. Pace.\n  56. My One Question Answered: Was Jesus Christ a Great Teacher Only?\n          R. D. Sheldon.\n  57. Modern Miracles of Grace. John Wilmot Mahood.\n  58. How to Study the Bible. A helpful outline. B. B. Sutcliffe.\n  59. What is Your Answer? Oswald J. Smith.\n  60. Deus E Amor (God Is Love) Portuguese edition of No. 1.\n  61. The True and False in Christian Work and Worship. M. H. Duncan.\n  62. What Must I Do to be Saved? George E. Guille.\n  63. The Man in the Well. Other religious faiths. Oswald J. Smith.\n  64. Why All \"Good People\" Will Be Lost. J. E. Conant.\n  65. Two In One. Believer's two natures. Herbert Lockyer.\n  66. The Compromise Road. Story. Paul Hutchens.\n  67. An Hundredfold. Stewartship. David McConoughy.\n  68. Death or Life, Which? A clear presentation. Oswald J. Smith.\n  69. Bernard Enters the Race. Story. Anna Potter Wright.\n  70. The Trial of Jesus. Harold F. Branch.\n  71. The Christian's Citizenship. M. H. Duncan.\n  72. Atheism and the Bible. A startling revelation. Oswald J. Smith.\n  73. Galatians. God's answer to legalism. B. B. Sutcliffe.\n  74. O Sangue. (The Blood) Portuguese. D. L. Moody.\n  75. Who is a Christian? Timely questions answered. Oswald J. Smith.\n  76. Broken Life-Line. Story. Paul Hutchens.\n  77. Eagle Christians. Harry McCormick Lintz.\n  78. Elisha Rice. Man of God--Mountaineer. Helen R. Blankenship.\n  79. The Master Touch. Rebuilt Lives. William Seath.\n  80. The Bully of Stony Lonesome. Story. Charles S. Knight.\n  81. The Stolen Pearl. Story. Paul Hutchens.\n\n    Each, 10c; 12 copies (any assortment), $1.00; 100, $7.00\n    Attractive rates on large quantities.\n\n    MOODY PRESS\n    153 Institute Place\n    (Dept. MCL) Chicago 10\n\n\n\n\nBIBLE STUDY HELPS\n\n_by Grace Saxe_\n\n\n    Miss Saxe's BIBLE STUDY BOOKS make folks WANT to study the\n    Bible and shows them HOW.\n\n    These books are extensively used in mid-week prayer services\n    and ministers report a great increase in attendance and\n    interest.\n\n    Sunday school teachers will eagerly welcome a comprehensive,\n    systematic study of the Bible, book by book.\n\n    Women's Auxiliaries and Missionary Societies organize classes\n    following these Bible study outlines.\n\n    Neighborhood Bible Classes are being organized in cities,\n    towns, and rural districts, with these books as their guide.\n\n    Any group of friends can intelligently and profitably carry\n    on a self study class even without a teacher.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS ON BIBLE STUDY\n\n\n  #Studies in Genesis#\n  #Studies in Exodus#\n  #Studies in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy#\n  #Studies in Joshua, Judges and Ruth#\n  #Studies in I and II Samuel#\n  #Studies in I and II Kings and I and II Chronicles#\n  #Studies in Psalms#\n  #Studies in The Major Prophets#\n  #Studies in The Life of Christ#\n  #Studies in The Book of Luke#\n  #Studies in The Book of Acts#\n  #Studies in Romans#\n  #Studies in Hebrews#\n\n#THREE STUDIES: Christian Science and the Bible; The Second Coming of\nChrist; The Way of Salvation.#\n\n#Size 6-5/8 x 9-1/2 inches. Paper binding, each 50 cents. In lots of\n25 or more of one or assorted titles, at 20% discount or 40 cents net\neach, prepaid to any postoffice address.#\n\n    THE MOODY PRESS\n    153 Institute Place\n    Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: All apparent printer's errors retained.","title":"Moody's Stories: Being a Second Volume of Anecdotes, Incidents, and Illustrations","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":37617}