During his time as a preacher, evangelist, and Christian educator, Massachusetts native Dwight L. Moody had a gift for powerfully communicating the love of God. A man was taken into one of our insane asylums a few years ago from one of the Western cities. He found that as he spoke God’s words from the Bible, thousands responded. Born in 1918, William Franklin Graham was raised on a farm outside Charlotte, North Carolina. “What nonsense!” he said to himself; “the idea of a rational man being disturbed by that hymn.” “Religion is all very well, but you must admit that there are difficulties—about the miracles, for instance.” Upon inquiry I found that all up and down the Connecticut valley what they call “honey-dew” had fallen, so that there must have been altogether hundreds of tons of honey-dew in this region. Secretary Seward, who was Lincoln’s Secretary of State—a long-headed and shrewd politician—prophesied that the war would be over in ninety days; and young men in thousands and hundreds of thousands came forward and volunteered to go down to Dixie and whip the South. A young convert tried to preach in the open air; he could not preach very well either, but he did the best he could. “I thought I would die when I found I had lost my hold on that son.” I heard once of a man who went to England from the Continent, and brought letters with him to eminent physicians from the Emperor. “Yes,” I said, “you can go to the theater just as much as you like if you are a real, true Christian, and can go with His blessing.” “Thursday”; and so on, till he came to the answer, “Sunday.” He had been dishonest, but when the truth came to him that he must make it right before God would help him, he made it right. “Well,” the first said, “I give it up. “Oh, God, put new ministers in every pulpit.” “No,” he replied, “but I have seen it. But, mind you, if a man had asked me two hours afterward what I had read, I could not tell him; I had forgotten it nearly all. That is stronger than death itself. The men knew who was going to lead them, and they were sure of having success. I say: She repeated, “Charlie, go and pick up uncle’s Bible, and put it on the table.” They wanted to see their little ones. A father took his little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, he lay down under a beautiful shady tree. And then the Lord, when it was nearly finished, said, “John, before you close the book, put in one more invitation. John kept on writing. Watchman Nee | The following testimonies were excerpted from these Christians’ respective biographies or from personal testimonies. The church itself had been formed twelve years earlier by Bostonians unhappy with the rigid doctrinal exclusiveness of another large city church. We must make the Sunday the most attractive day of the week; not a day to be dreaded, but a day of pleasure.” Then I found there was another bolt at the top and another bolt at the bottom. Parents would think it a great calamity to have their children born dumb; they would mourn over it, and weep; and well they might; but did you ever think of the many dumb children God has? It is an awful thing for a man who has been a backslider to have his children mock him. I said: Some people in the port saw their signal of distress, and sent word that they need not be afraid, that the war was over, and peace had been declared. Some one said to some young converts, “It is all moonshine being converted.” They replied, “Thank you for the compliment. Probably not a day had passed in all those years without acute suffering. “Were you at such a place on such a night?” asked the first. “But I want to get ready, mamma.” For hours they tried to reach that vessel through the great breakers that raged and foamed on the sand-bank, but it seemed impossible. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying: All men can believe. “I hab hearn folks say, ‘Hope I has ‘ligion, but I doan know’; but I neber hearn a man say, ‘I hope’s I has money, but I doan know.’ Dat sorter ‘ligion dat yer hopes ye’s got, but doan know, ain’t gwine to do no mo’ good dan der money what yer hopes ye’s got but doan know.”, An English army officer in India who had been living an impure life went round one evening to argue religion with the chaplain. I am afraid that door represents every sinner’s heart. This is my prayer. “Ah,” said the doctor, “you were afraid to prejudice the boy in the right way, but the devil had no such prejudice. The idea that a father is to let his children run wild! I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood. The next day he went down into the pit, and the coal fell in upon him. The pendulum figured up the thousands of times it would have to tick, and got discouraged, and was going to give up. But she never could get done talking about that pendulum. And so it is with heaven; if your treasure is on before you, you’ll be wanting to follow it; you’ll be glad to be on the road thither as soon as possible. The thief is a covetous person out of the shell. I suppose we were there a good deal oftener than we were in church. He had been smuggling opium into the States. The dying man sprang up from his cot, and said, “What do you say? Moody, I have profound respect for you, profound admiration for you, but I do not believe a word you say.” When he got there, strange to say, they were singing the same hymn. That was the big thing, you know. The idea that the God who made the ass couldn’t speak through his mouth! A good many people are afraid of doing anything out of the regular lines—of doing anything out of order. How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men and women, are sleeping now while their children wander over the terrible precipice right into the bottomless pit! Finally an old man with beautiful white hair got up to speak, and his face literally shone. Then he started into the water, and the old sheep looked up to the shepherd instead of down into the water. Just do whatever you know will please Him. He found he was in for a life job, and he picked the book up. He offers a seat in His mansions. Yet that is just what thousands of people do. I went to the druggist’s to get the medicine which the doctor had ordered, and told him to be sure and be very careful in making up the prescription. That great Christian leader, the late Rev. You are not training your children for God and eternity. If a man does that, he cannot but see the superiority of the heavenly over the earthly treasures. They are like these farms in California—a dreary desert, everything parched and desolate, and apparently no life in them. We will begin with ‘gold.’ ” But day after day the grace of God had been granted to him, and when I was in his chamber it seemed as if I was as near heaven as I could get on earth. The next morning she went out again and kept him there until dinner-time. He didn’t remember that whatsoever a man soweth so shall he reap. How can you throw this place open to ruin the young men of Chicago?” She tossed her head and said: “Indeed I am not. I have a match box with a phosphorescent front. “I have a peace that I never knew of before. I want to say here to young men, that when a young man makes a wrong start, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is ruin to him. He said in after years it was the last thing he ever stole. There is not anything that would wound a man much more than to be told that you do not have any faith in him. Next night I saw him in the audience with a terrible look in his face. I remember a man telling me he preached for a number of years without any result. “Why, Mr. Tennyson,” she replied, “there’s only one piece of news that I know, and that is—Christ died for all men.” When I was a boy my mother used to send me out doors to get a birch stick to whip me with, when I had to be punished. “Up where?” said the old man. During their talk the officer said: An old Welshwoman said Christ was Welsh, and an Englishman said: Do you belong to that class? We want people quickened by the Spirit of God. Eager eyes were watching and strong arms manned the life-boat. What we need is to pray to God to lift us up out of this low, cold, formal state that we live in, that we may dwell in the atmosphere of God continually, and that the Lord may lift upon us the light of His countenance, and that we may shine in this world, reflecting His grace and glory. The teacher readily put down “gold,” and they all comprehended it, for all had run to that country in hope of finding it. They wanted to return home, so they got in and began to row. Moody’s Stories Every one has heard that you have been converted in the Moody meetings, and if you go out it will be all through fashionable society. “If you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in continual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you should see him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end a thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish enough to be reckoned among madmen? I would sooner go out into the street and eat dirt than do some of the things I used to do before I became a Christian.” The thought flashed across my mind, “Will there be no difference? But foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the covetous man.” When I was in St. Louis some years ago, there was an old man who had been away off on the mountains of an ungodly life, but in his early manhood he had known Christ. The tears started again. People say, “Oh, any one can make up a sermon.” But if you think so, just try it! Suppose a man says, “Mr. The entrance had a door with a spring lock. A star actor came to the city, and he went to see him. Make haste to be wise; for “how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”. Well, the mother took the work up with this boy. Well, what we need as Christians is to be able to feed ourselves. The late Dr. Andrew Bonar once remarked in his own quaint fashion that it was always easy to trace the footprints of a person if we walked close behind him, but if we were some distance back we might fail to find them; and accordingly, if we followed close after the Master we would easily see the way, but if we tried to follow afar off we would find it difficult to know the path of His will. Into darkness he went again. I took Him from the cradle and followed Him up to the judgment hall, and on that occasion I consider I made as great a blunder as ever I made in my life. “If I had known that a bunch of flowers would do so much good, I would have sent some from home.” If you would realize the responsibility of that incident, if you would measure the consequences of that rescue, ask the millions of Methodists who look back to John Wesley as the founder of their denomination. Mothers and fathers went to him and begged him not to sell their children liquor. One young lady was offered a promotion, but she went to see the secretary, General Butterworth, and said that there was a girl sitting next to her that had a family to support. “But you will go back to America, and it will be all over.” Yes, D. L. Moody certainly was a wonderful preacher; taking it all in all, the most wonderful preacher I have ever heard, and it was a great privilege to hear him preach as he alone could preach; but out of a very intimate acquaintance with him I wish to testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher. Bishop Ryle has very well likened faith to a root whose flower is assurance. “Put it down,” said I; “many a man thinks more of tobacco than he does of God. She said, “What?” Faith is the simplest and most universal experience in the world. “I know where they ain’t!” was the reply. A sculptor once showed a visitor his studio. When he started home he could not get this little word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. You would say that he was a first-class lunatic, wouldn’t you? Man’s Need | Jesus is there, the Holy Father is there, the Spirit is there—our Father, our elder Brother, our Comforter. And let him that heareth say, Come. He made promises to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the others, and did He not fulfill them? There is nothing for the fire to burn. A mother told me up in Minnesota that she had a little child who took a book and threw it out of the window. I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty years in heaven He came down and spoke to John. A friend of mine was once taken by an old man to see his riches. He could not remember his death, he had no recollection of his funeral, but he recollected his father one winter night taking a little chip, and with his pocket-knife whittling out a little cross, and with the tears in his eyes he held up that cross, telling how God in His infinite love sent His Son down here to redeem us, and how He had died on the cross for us. After the meeting was over I went to her and asked her what the trouble was. And yet this was the very hymn that I despised.”. Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I would give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live. Christ comes and takes us by the hand, and says: “Mr. The old man’s countenance changed, and he said: “That ar’s a sham, young massa, but if it pointed up thar,” and he raised his trembling hand toward heaven, “to the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, that are wouldn’t be no sham.” “I don’t know, massa. I could not see why the shadow always kept ahead of me. When all had given this answer, he solemnly repeated this text, “The Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”. Although God forgave the sins of Jacob and David, and the other Old Testament saints, yet there were certain consequences of their sins which those saints had to suffer after they were forgiven. And when they were compelled to tell her what had happened, she cried out: There is a father over there who wouldn’t swear for all the world before his children, but sometimes he gets provoked in his business and swears before he knows it. In order to make sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and deep that he could go down into it with a ladder. On one occasion the preacher had to send some one into the gallery to wake me up. Give yourself up to be led by it, and you will come out of darkness, out of bondage, out of sorrow, into perpetual light and joy. He took a chestnut leaf and told me to put my tongue to it. He didn’t want to believe it. I heard a man say that he didn’t want people to throw bouquets to him after he was dead, and say, “There, smell them.” He was in trouble till about two in the morning.       Let me hide myself in thee. His mother said, He came, and found a young man very sick. No use of your bothering about it.’ ” A man died in the Columbus penitentiary some years ago who had spent over thirty years in his cell. Christ proved His superiority right there. It turned out that this teacher was not a Christian. I don’t see how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come out of your lips.” Robertson said: “I would if I knew enough. “Ah, man, you make an ass, and I will make him speak.” My little boy clapped his hands. He believed in conversion, but he was going to be converted the regular way. When he got there, he picked the boy up in his arms, and brought him up to the house. I have been twice at the point of death. A boy of fifteen years of age was in the audience, driven into the chapel by a snowstorm. There was an architect in Chicago who was converted. ‘The Spirit and the bride say, Come. “Why,” she said, “do you ever go?” And yet when you talk with them you find they have faith, and you cannot say they are not children of God; but they have not the power, the liberty, the love that real disciples of Christ should have. Then it thought, “It is only a tick at a time,” and went on. That is the way I used to feel when I was a boy. Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school to-morrow morning, and when he came home in the afternoon, say to him: Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were dead, and you didn’t have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles or friends to come and give you pocket money, and give you presents, don’t you think you would feel bad? Ten thousand times no! He could not tell how many plans he had prepared while the minister was preaching. “Does the well never run dry?” If they were lost, they might rise up in judgment against me. A great many people seem to think that the Bible is out of date, that it is an old book, that it has passed its day. If it is in heaven, he will not be long with you before he’s talking about heaven; his heart is there, and so his speech isn’t long in running there, too. “Thank you,” I said; “I will be around, and if there is anything here I don’t like I may have something to say about it.” “Yes, sah; it says forty miles to Liberty.” That bedridden saint had not much trouble with doubts; he was too full of the grace of God. Dwight L. Moody, in full Dwight Lyman Moody, (born February 5, 1837, East Northfield, Massachusetts, U.S.—died December 22, 1899, Northfield, Massachusetts), prominent American evangelist who set the pattern for later evangelism in large cities.. Moody left his mother’s farm at age 17 to work in Boston and there was converted from Unitarianism to evangelicalism. He had not a word to say. Sixty years gone, millions of money, and in a mad-house; and he died there. He is now gentle and good and has left off opium.”. When they were talking a young man from the high school came up the street, and this boy walked away from his mother. He was amazed to find a person on duty in Washington that was willing to give up her position and take a lower one, and let some one else have it that she might be able to help her family. “Willie, can you read? But the man had a father’s heart. She said nothing to her family, until finally the burden became too heavy, and she told them. I go to the other man, and say: “What does this mean? Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the witness-box, and see how quickly the judge will rule him out. 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