Hl~ I LLINO I S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2010. 7; P -qrs.I ; Y --- THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY M8I 4 d COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2010 F, "!h4 a. DWIGHT L. QODY tChe (IIan anb ibis (DIfsion PART I BY GEORGE T. B. DAVIS PART II BY PRESIDENT RUSSELL H. CONWELL PRESIDENT FRANK W. GUNSAULUS BISHOP SAMUEL FALLOWS BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT REV. GEORGE F. PENTECOST REv. HERRICK JOHNSON DR. P. S. HENSON DR. FRANK CRANE JOHN V. FARWELL JOSEPH COOK REV. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS AND MAN~YOTHERS PART III Zfloobg's 1-The 2-The 3-The 4-The Zhamatic V~ersion Adventures of Daniel Tale of a Blind Man Story of Mephidoseth Story of ]3arabbas 9-The Story of the of Samotts 3ible MONARCH BOOK COMPANY CHICAGO .::::: Stories 5-Elijah and the Priests of Baal 6-The Story of the Leper 7-The Story of the Widow's Son 8-The Story of Naaman Penitent Thief .. PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHT, 1900 K. T. IBOLAND INTRODUCTION. BY RT. REV. SAMUEL FALLOWS, D. D., LL. D. H remarked that the most ENRY DRUMMOND once hopeful sign of modern times was the intense interest manifested everywhere in the lives and deeds of the greatest men and women. Gladstone said, "Example inspires; advice chills." Thus it has ever been throughout the ages. The greatest lives merely reflect the inspiring example of great men gone before. Moses combined the greatness and goodness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In David's life we see the concentrated genius of a score of the judges and rulers of Israel preceding him. The apostles-poor, untutored, unlettered men-became the world's leaders for all future ages because of their contact with the God-man, Jesus Christ. Moreover, a great soul gathers into its unfathomable depths the goodness and greatness of all the noble hearts with which it comes in contact. Dwight L. Moody, inspired, first and foremost, by the example and words of Him "who spake as never man spake," and secondly, gathering fresh divineness from every rare soul he met, became the greatest religious leader of the nineteenth century. It is said that his was the most unaccountable life of the age. It is indeed unaccountable unless we see the strain of love that constantly flowed into it from his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Like Enoch, we can truly say he lived with God; he walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. He was an incarnation of that sublime Bible statement, "If 9 Wo: , 8 4 2 9 Io INTRODUCTION ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto, you." It is absolutely true that in his early days Mr. Moody heard some one remark, "The world has yet to see the power of one man wholly consecrated to Christ." He quietly remarked, "I will be that man." He surrendered himself absolutely and entirely to God, and as a result he shook two hemispheres and left an imperishable stamp upon the Christian world for all future time. It is needless that I should eulogize this wonderful man. In the following pages the foremost Christian leaders of America, and his co-laborers and co-workers from the beginning, have portrayed his character and traced his career, each from his own angle of vision. Their combined sketches and tributes form a beautiful and glowing composite photograph of one of earth's rarest and divinest souls. May God's richest blessing rest upon this book; may it have a million readers; and may the inspiring example of this man ever grow and increase throughout the ages to, come until the kingdoms of earth are the kingdoms of our Lord. SAMUEL FALLOWS. CONTENTS Prologue. Moody's First Christmas in Heaven. Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus. PART I. A BIOGRAPHICAL Chapter. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. SKETCH Page. Moody's Childhood and Youth........................... 27 Mr, Moody's Early Recollections..................... 35 Seeks His Fortune; Finds His Savior.................. 4o Starts a Sunday-School in Chicago's Slums................ 47 Gives up Business for Gospel Work.................. 58 Becomes Leader of the Y. M. C. A....................... 69 Mr. Moody Founds a Union Church.................... 75 Revival Meetings Among Civil War Soldiers.............. 8o How Moody and Sankey Met....... ................. 88 Moody and Sankey's Remarkable Work in Great Britain.. 99 The Wonderful Story of the Gospel Hymns.............. log Great Revivals in American Cities... ................ 113 Moody's Educational Monument at Northfield........... 120 Moody's Home and Daily Life..... ................. 127 At Moody's Church-After Thirty-Six Years.............. 142 Moody's World's Fair Gospel Campaign.................. 149 Moody's Work Among Prisoners......................... 156 Mr. Moody's Jast Sermon.............................. 161 The Death and Burial of Dwight L. Moody............. 18o PART II. CHARACTER SKETCHES AND TRIBUTES i. 2. 3. 4. Mr. Moody's Thrilling Career and Message. By Rev. N. D. Hillis ............. ............................ 205 A Natural Prince, and Leader. By Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, England .............. . . ....................... 212 Dwight L. Moody-A Criticism and an Appreciation. By Rev. George F. Pentecost................................... 22o Ingersoll and Moody-A Contrast. By Bishop John H. Vincent .................... ........................ 231 II i2 CONTENTS 5. The Secret of Moody's Power. By Dr. P. S. Henson... 237 6. A Man With a Message. By Dr. Frank Crane..............245 7. The Greatest Man of the Century. By President Russell H. Conwell..................... 8. The Likeness of Paul and Moody. By President F. W. Gun.................... 258 saulus................. . Moody and His Ways. By John V. Farwell...............275 xo. Moody, the Earnest Man of the People. By Bishop Samuel Fallows.......................................285 xx. Moody as a Study in Effectiveness. By Dr. Herrick By Joseph Cook.........294 12. Ten Sources of Moody's Powers. 13. Moody and Northfield. By Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, of London, England ............................... 297 14. Moody's Greatest Work. By Mr. Henry M. Moore.........301 305 15. Moody's Manliness and Modesty. By William E. Dodge. i6. The Greatest Worker in God's Vineyard. By Dr. J. Monroe Gibson, of London, England......................312 D. L. Moody-A Miracle. By Rev. A. C. Dixon...........315 17. 18. A Modern Saint. Rev. John McNeill's Tribute.............318 322 Moody. Was God's Mouthpiece. By Rev. George C. 1g. 20. Moody and Lincoln-A Likeness. By Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler. 329 21. Never Spoke an Unkind.Word. By Mr. Win. Fry, Dublin, Ireland........................................332 22. Personality of Mr. Moody. By Dr. James Buckley.........335 23. Moody Was a Modern Prophet. By Bishop W. F. Mallaiu... 345 24. The Story of the Scottish Campaign. By Lord Overtoun, of Glasgow, Scotland.................................349 25. "One of the Seventy." By Dr. Wilton Merle Smith..........352 Johnson..'288 Lorimer.. 26. Story of Mr. Moody's Burial. By Ira D. Sankey............ .354 PART III. MR. MOODY'S OWN VERSION OF FAMOUS BIBLE STORIES i. The Story of Barabbas .................................... 2. 359 The Story of Elijah and the Priests of 363 Baal.......... ......... 3. The Story of the Adventures of Daniel...................... 367 386 4. The Story of Christ and Bartimeus ......................... 5. The Story of Mephibosheth................................ 390 6. The Story of the Leper.................................... 394 7. The Story of the Widow's Son ............................ 396 8. The Story of Naaman..................................... 398 9. The Story of the Penitent Thief.............................. 403 ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait-D. L. Moody, with Autograph. Portrait-Bishop Samuel Fallows, Chicago. Portrait-President Frank W. Gunsaulus. D. L. Moody and J. V. Farwell's First Sunday-School Class. Portrait-Ira D. Sankey. Portrait-Mr. Moody from a Recent Photograph. Snap Shots of Moody Conducting Revival Service. Portrait-Mrs. Moody. The Bible Used by Mr. Moody. Mr. Moody's Mother. Wanamaker Falls. Mr. Moody's Study. Round Top-Mr. Moody's Final Resting Place. The Union Church at Northfield. Moody Avenue-Northfield. Mr. Moody's Sunday-School Class in 1856. Portrait-Rev. R. A. Torrey. Portrait-Ira D. Sankey, with Autograph. The Moody Bible Institute-Chicago. D. L. Moody, His Daughter and Granddaughter. Moody's Residence at Northfield. The Old Moody Homestead. The Northfield Seminary Buildings. Northfield Seminary Girls. Morquand Hall. Dr. F. B. Meyers' Outdoor Study at Northfield. Camping on Moody's Lawn. The Seminary at Northfield. Mr. Moody's Donkey, "Dandy." Headquarters for Moody Revival Meetings at Philadelphia. Portrait-Dwight L. Moody at the Age of Eighteen. The Teachers and Students of the Bible Institute, Chicago. A Breath of Fresh Air. Mr. Moody Conducting an Open Air Gospel Service at Camp Northfield. Moody and Sankey Leaving England. Mr. Moody and His Missionary Pony. Interior of the Church at Northfield, Where Mr. Moody's Funeral Services Were Held. 13 r4 ILL US TRA TIONS Male Choir at Moody's Chicago Avenue Church. Mr. Moody's Residence in Summer. Crossley Hall-Mount Hermon School for Boys. Portrait-Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis. The Home of the Northfield Training School for Christian Workers. Portrait-Rev. Geo. F. Pentecost. Portrait-Bishop John H. Vincent. Portrait-Dr. P. S. Henson. Interior of the Auditorium-Northfield. Portrait-Dr. Frank Crane. Portrait-Dr. Russell H. Conwell. Portrait-John V. Farwell. Portrait-Rev. Herrick Johnson. Portrait-Dr. Joseph Cook, LL. D. Rev. G. Campbell Morgan and Rev. H. C. MacGregor. Portrait-Rev. A. C. Dixon. Moody's Chicago Avenue Church. Portrait-Professor Do B. Towne'. View Across the Connecticut River-From Seminary Grounds. Moody's North Side Tabernacle, Chicago. The Auditorium-Northfield. The Crucifixion. Barabbas Passing Out from Bondage to Freedom. Blind Bartimeus Receiving His Sight. Mount Carmel. The Maid Telling the Mistress About the Wonderful Prophet, Elisha. Daniel in the Lions' Den. THE RT. REV. SAMUEL FALLOWS Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. PRESIDENT FRANK W. GUNSAULUS Presidenit of Armour Institute, Chicago. PROLOGUE MOODY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS IN HEAVEN (WRITTEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY) BY REV. F. W. GUNSAULUS IT [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] IS always Christmastide in heaven. The angels are always singing there, and their song is the one which gladdened the hearts-of the adoring shepherds on earth, nineteen centuries ago: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth good will to men." Dwight L. Moody, the most widely known of modern evangelists, one of the greatest of the servants of Jesus, one of the truest of the champions of the cross in private life and public deed, one of the noblest heralds of the Gospel of the Son of God, spent and enjoyed Christmas day more than three-score times on earth. He is spending now his first Christmas day in heaven. There has been a glad reunion with all whom he loved and honored in his life on earth He has met mother and friend. It is a joyous inaugural of new and deeper acquaintance with prophet and saint, hero and martyr, psalmist and preacher. I say "a new acquaintance," because for many years he has had intimate soul-acquaintance with the best and saintliest of religious believers and doers. He has now met them, and they have welcomed him. "Ten thousand times ten thousand In sparkling raiment bright, The armies of the ransom'd saints Throng up' the steeps of life; It is finish'd, all is finish'd, Their fight with death and sin; Fling open wide the golden gates And let the victors in." 17 PROLOGUE This victor has not entered without salutation. The gravitations and the affinities of earth and heaven, allying, pervading and controlling souls are permanent and divinely active. Moody is safe with the host who loved God here and who love him there. Nothing can ever separate his catholic soul from any of them. Not a great theologian, he has met and been greeted by Augustine. Not permitted the crown of martyrdom, but always giving his life to his work, he has seen and rejoiced with Polycarp. Not a mellifluous or dramatic orator but ever commanding men by holy utterance, he has found rich intercourse with Chrysostom. Not a profound scholar, but masterful of the light which scholarship sheds upon the path to and from Calvary, he has conversed with Lightfoot as well as Ignatius. There were, and yet are characteristics of spirit and likenesses of experience which render the dream of divinest associations, facts, already attained or sure to be attained in the long hours of eternity. There was a Luther in Moody; and if it has not already occurred, it will be of great moment, even in heaven, when the bluff and often imperious initiator of the Reformation, with nearly four centuries of heavenly light modifying the fiery glance men saw on earth and trembled at, shall strike glad hands with him through whom God revivified the church in the nineteenth century. I can conceive that Wesley and Whitfield, who one hundred years before wrought a similar work in the history of Englishspeaking Christian experience, shall come together and pour forth their praises with him, unto One whose name is above every name and who makes his evangelists both trophies and conquerors. Heaven is a place where genius has its reconciliations through holiness. And God so loved the world through Moody, that in the home-coming of such a worker as was he, Jonathan Edwards must be found with Horace Bushnell and old blind Cruden, who compiled the concordance PROLOGUE '9 which Moody so often used, must share the delight of the graceful and flaming Kirk, under whose ministry the evangelist was converted. But these are only a few of the souls who throng the streets of heaven, to render thanksgiving unto God that by His grace in Christ-Jesus, Dwight L. Moody was won to a cause whose championship makes his name one of the most influential of earth, if not one of the most illustrious in heaven. If Fenelon and Savonarola are surpassed in the ardor of the "Good-morning" which they have spoken to him or are to speak, it must be by Saint Francis Xavier and Sir Charles Borromeo. The evangelist makes the statesman possible and nations are safe where the champion of the cross has disclosed the fiery bolt of Sinai, and revealed to men that fountain of self-sacrifice where the law which has been broken falls into the breaking heart of love and peace is sure. So, on some to-morrow in heaven, Lincoln, who, while he was saving the country which Moody loved, was not too busy to speak to the ragged boys in his Sunday school, will stand with Gladstone and Shaftesbury, with Gordon and Knox, to exult in what God has wrought in their England and Scotland and America by the simple and sinewy speech of Moody. The one towering person among those whose career as an evangelist of the Lord commanded most of Moody's admiration and legal discipleship on earth was Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. Moody often said that Paul's account of his conversion in Acts XXVI. 14-16 was the story of God's way of making a great preacher. How like was Moody's experience unto that of Paul who was once Saul of Tarsus. What a meeting that must be when these heralds of the Cross salute one another! No man more eagerly or devotedly followed another, though there were nearly nineteen hundred years between them. Paul was a scholar; Moody was unlearned. Paul labored to sow seeds in a field of stones, 20 PROLOGUE with sharp swords thirsting for his blood; Moody stood in a harvest-field thick with golden grain which, while he desired to make it a field for seeding again, offered him the one difficulty coming from the fact that men's garners were full, and the world had grown so rich through Christianity that it had forgot the Christ. Paul was confronted by fierce intolerance; Moody was met by sleepy materialism and tame indifference. No man in the history of Christendom ever more truly believed what another man said than did Moody of Paul. Had not the apostle of the Gentiles put aside these differences between him and the trembling evangelist as he stood at the opening of his career when, in a flood of light, he had revealed the superiority and sovereignty of grace over everything else, saying: "For behold your calling, brethren, how that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called; but God chose the foolish things of the world, that He might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that He might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, 'He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.' " Had not Moody believed that Paul told the truth, just as a man believes the word of his friend, and had not Moody perceived, largely through the study of Paul, that to love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth is the beginning and the end of the Gospel, he never would have said to his friend at the conclusion of that meeting forty-five years ago in the little mission-school, "Reynolds, I have got only one talent. I have no education, -i * t , ' F K'^ o Vu O [r2 ~~ d i IRA D. SANKEY, AUTHOR OF THE INSPIRED SONG: T here wxere ninety and nine that safely lay In the shelter of the fold, But one was out on the hills awXay, Far off fromn the gates~ of goldAway on the mountains wxild and bare, Awvay from the tender Sheph~erd's care, Away from the tender Shepherd's care." PROLOGUE 23 but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to do something for Him. I want you to pray for me." After all, this is the heart-center of every victorious ministry. Without this inner power, Paul preached at Athens and made a relatively small impression in spite of his evident learning; with this same power, Moody preached in Edinburg and shook the land of John Knox till it trembled with the breath of God-and he gave evidence of no learning at all. Nevertheless, he was a profound gospel-scholar, just as was Paul. Below the assertions of culture which belonged to the head, whose cold ideas and reasonings divide men, there flowed the heart-stream of an experience with Christ whose phenomena and dicta scholarship misses, while it unites, like an all-embracing current, all continents and islands of human hope. Why was it that Moody could reach the most scholarly as well as the most ignorant in a vast auditory, at one and the same time? Why was that the man who had stopped at a noon-meeting with his dinner pail found the professor who came in from the school with his uncorrected examination papers and moved as was he by the same utterance? How could a coal heaver and a Drummond, a teamster and a George Adam Smith find inspiration for life at the fountain his words disclosed? The answer must be found in this, that Moody got down beneath the things which make men to differ from one another and revealed fundamental necessities in human nature, and at the same time showed the path to those supplies by which the love of God feeds the heart of humanity. This was Pauline, but above all, it was Christlike. And much as Moody loved Paul, and glorious as must have been the meetings between Moody and Paul, Moody loved his Saviour with a supreme ardor and there is no treasure in the English language sacred enough to be of use to the imagination when we think of that moment, only a few hours ago, 24 PROLOGUE when there was realized to this man what he hoped for as he sang with thousands round about him on earth: "Some day the silver cord will break, - And I no more as now shall sing; But O! the joy when I shall wake Within the palace of the King. "And I shall see Him face to face, And tell the story-Saved by grace; And I shall see Him face to face, And tell the story-Saved by grace." PART I. MR. MOODY'S LAST WORDS. "The world is receding and heaven is opening," A glorious vision enraptures my soul; I see just before me the King in His beauty; The race is now ended, I'll soon reach the goal. I've tried in my weakness to tell the glad story, That God is our Father and Christ is our Friend; And now my reward is a heaven of glory, A glory with Jesus that never shall end. I've labored for riches and gathered bright jewels, But not the vain riches that drag many down; My jewels are sinners I've led to the Savior, The jewels selected by Christ for His crown. Farewell, fellow workmen, I give you my blessing; Work on till the Master in glory appear; Remember my message to cheer you in labor, "The world is receding and heaven is near." DAVID H. KING, D. D. PART I. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH CHAPTER I. MOODY'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH and D WIGHTreligious figure ofthe most uniquecentury,extraordinary L. MOODY, the nineteenth sprang from the best blood in historic New England. His ancestors on both sides were of pure English descent, and for nearly a century had lived in the neighborhood of Northfield, Mass., where he first saw the light in 1837. The spot where he was born lies in the midst of the famous Berkshire hills, and is one of exquisite beauty. The town of Northfield lies in a valley cut through by the meandering Connecticut River; while round about on every side rise picturesque hills and mountains. Like nearly all great men, Moody had a great mother. Dwight was the sixth of nine children. When four years old his father died, leaving the widowed mother to care as best she could for her large family, the eldest of which was scarcely fifteen. Their homestead consisted of a substantial frame house with only two or three acres of adjoining land - the whole heavily mortgaged. The mother was strongly urged to give her children to the neighbors to bring up for her, but she sturdily refused, preferring direst poverty to parting from her flock, who were her dearest possessions on earth-her jewels. The eldest boys did odd jobs for neighboring farmers, and tended their little plot of ground; the mother worked from morning till night, now at home, now at the neighbors'. Thus by 27 28 DWIGHT L. MOODY dint of closest economy and constant struggling they managed to exist-though often they had little more than bread and water upon the family table. In the midst of these Spartan conditions the boy who was destined one day to sway the people of two hemispheres was reared. As a child, some of the characteristics which later made his name a household word wherever the English language is spoken could readily be detected. He had as sturdy a constitution as one could wish for. His limbs had muscles of iron, his nerves were threads of steel, he was the incarnation of superabundant restless energy. He had the will, while a child of five, of a boy of fifteen. He had the ambition of a full grown man when but a boy of ten. He was a leader among his comrades. And since the truth must be told, his leadership often resulted.in all sorts of mischievous pranks upon his own household and upon the neighboring farmers. For study and school life he had small use-he was too restless to sit still for five consecutive minutes; he must ever be doing something be it building up or tearing down. He was withal a remarkable boy, in whom a keen-sighted visitor might have detected numerous signs of large achievement in the future. Many stories are told of his boyhood escapades and experiences. While not a saintly or sentimentally devotional boy, he had a wholesome religious nature. While still a young lad he had a unique answer to prayer-a sort of presage of the hundreds of answers he was to have in after years. Once while he was crawling under a heavy rail fence, one of the rails becoming displaced the whole structure tumbled down and pinned him to the grouid. There he lay, imprisoned by the cruel rails. He struggled until he was covered with perspiration, and completely exhausted. He then began to call for help, but he was far away from the nearest farmhouse and THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 29 no one heard him. At length he began to think that he should die there on the mountain-side, all alone. But suddenly he remembered his mother's talks about God's hearing and answering prayers and determined to ask God's help in getting awiay. He prayed -earnestly a few seconds, then again bent all his remaining strength to, the task of freeing himself, and, behold! up went the rails and he crawled out happy and unharmed and free. That Moody should resort to prayer when all earthly means had failed was not strange, for from childhood he had been made familiar with God's name and power through his mother's intensely religious nature and training. He had learned to read the Bible before any other book while sitting upon her knee. He had heard the famous Bible stories told over and over again by his mother on Sunday afternoons. It was his mother's custom to repeat at the beginning of a meal at frequent intervals a text of scripture or a verse of a hymn, which the children would repeat in chorus after her. Thus in his ealiest years, while his mind was most plastic to outside impressions, the future evangelist became familiar with the noblest sentiments of saintly hymn writers and God's prophets and messengers throughout the ages. Many stories are told of young Moody's youthful pranks. It is related that while attending the village school, young Moody was selected to recite Mark Anthony's Oration over Caesar. He did so with dramatic effect. The two or three days before the time of recitation were spent in building a coffin, inside of which was put a tom-cat. This he caused to be carried into the room just before delivering the oration. All went well, as he recited the famous piece, until, at a certain point, he violently kicked the coffin, and out jumped the tom-cat, causing a great uproar, which was long remembered in the school. 30 DWIGHT L. MOODY One summer while hiring out to a family, composed solely of two old ladies, he caught a squirrel in the field and placed it in his dinner-pail. When the good ladies opened the pail, out jumped the squirrel, nearly frightening them out of their wits. Many similar stories are told of his adventures and escapades. Thus the boy grew up until seventeen years of age, when he set out into the world to seek his fortune, the farm not being able to support the large family. MRS. MOODY Wife of the great evangelist. i w; - I ' : a; O O " ., : : _ .,r w m_ ..., .... . t m. ...,_,.,_ , U L'a 0 . s" i W x F MR. MOODY'S MOTHER Died, i8g6, in her ninety-first year. o-- \, "4 , of C 'C ci 4 ]a ci .+ .I l { C .! a ci 40 :"F '4 C~l 5. i ty9' 4. '. CHAPTER II. MR. MOODY'S EARLY RECOLLECTIONS AS HE TOLD IT IN ENGLAND l CAN give you a little experience of my own family. Before I was four years old the first thing I remember was the death of my father. He was unfortunate in business, and failed. Soon after his death the creditors came in and took everything. My mother was left with a large family of children. One calamity after another swept over the entire household. Twins were added to the family, and my mother was taken sick. The eldest boy was fifteen years of age, and to him my mother looked as a stay in her calamity, but all at once that boy became a wanderer. He had been reading some of the trashy novels and the belief had seized him that he had only to go away to make a fortune. Away he went. I can remember how eagerly she used to look for tidings of that boy; how she sent us to the postoffice to see if there was a letter from him, and recollect how we used to come back with the sad news 'No letter.' I remember how in the evenings we used to sit beside her in that New England home and we would talk about our father; but the moment the name of that boy was mentioned she would hush us into silence. Some nights when the wind was very high, and the house, which was built upon a hill, would tremble at every gust, the voice of my mother was raised in prayer for that wanderer who had treated her so unkindly. I used to think she loved him more than all of us put together, and I believe she did. On Thanksgiving Day-you know that is a family day in New England-she used to set a chair for him, 35 36 DWIGHT L. MOODY thinking he would return home. Her family grew up and her boys left home. When I got so that I could write, I sent letters all over the 'country, but could find no trace of him. One day, while in Boston, the news reached me that he had returned.' While in that city, I remember how I used to look for him in every store-he had a mark on his face-but I never got any trace. One day while my mother was sitting at the door, a stranger was seen coming toward the house, and when he came to the door he stopped. He stbod there with folded arms and great beard flowing down his breast, his tears trickling down his face. When my mother saw those tears she cried, 'O,it's my lost son,' and entreated him to come in. But he stood still. 'No, mother,' he said, 'I will not come in until I hear first that you have forgiven me.' Do you believe she was not willing to forgive him? Do you think she was likely to keep him long standing there? She rushed to the threshold, threw her arms around him and breathed forgiveness." "WHERE IS MY WAND'RING BOY TO-NIGHT?" "Where is my wand'ring boy to-nightThe boy of my tenderest care, The boy that was once my joy and light, The child of my love and prayer? "Go for my wand'ring boy to-night; Go, search for him where you will; But bring him to me with all his blight, And tell him I love him still." II. "When I was a boy-before I was a Christian-I was in a field one day with a man who was hoeing. He was weeping THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 37 and he told-me a strange story, which I have never forgotten. When he left home his mother gave him this text: 'SEEK FIRST 'in THE KINGDOM OF GOD.' But he paid no heed to it. He said when he got settled life, and his ambition to, get money was gratifled, it would be time enough then to seek the kingdom of God. He went from one village to another and got nothing to do: When Sunday came he went into a village church, and what was his great surprise to hear the minister give out the text, 'Seek first the kingdom of God.' He said the text went down to the bottom of his heart. He thought it was but his mother's prayer following him, and that some one must have written to that minister about him. He felt very uncomfortable, and when the meeting was over he could not get that sermon out of his mind. He went away from that town, and at the end of a week went into another church and he heard the minister give out the same text, 'Seek first the kingdom of God.' He felt sure this time that it was the prayers of his mother, but he said calmly and deliberately, 'No; I will first get wealthy.' He said he went on and did not go into a church for a few months, but the first place of worship he went into he heard a third minister preaching a sermon from the same text. He tried to drown -to stifle his feelings; tried to get the sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he would keep away from church altogether, and for a few years he did keep out of God's house. 'My mother died,' he said, 'and the text kept coming up in my mind, and I said I will try and become a Christian.' The tears rolled down his cheeks, as he said, 'I could not; no sermon ever touched me; my heart is as hard as that stone,' pointing to one in the field. I couldn't understand what it was all about-it was fresh to me then. I went to Boston 38 DWIGHT L. MOODY and got converted, and the first thought that came to me was this man. When I got back I asked my mother, 'Is Mr. living in such a place?' 'Didn't I write you about Lhim? They have taken him to an insane asylum, and to every one who goes there he points with his finger up there and tells him to seek first the kingdom of God.' There was that man with eyes dull with the loss of reason, but the text had sunk into his soul-it had burned down deep. O, may the spirit of God burn the text into your hearts to-night. When I got home again my mother told me he was in his house, and I went to see him. I found him in a rocking-chair, with that vacant, idiotic look upon him. As soon as he saw me, he pointed at me and said: 'Young man, seek first the kingdom of God.' Reason was gone, but the text was there. Last month, when I was laying my brother down in his grave, I could not help thinking of that poor man who was lying so near him, and wishing that the prayer of his mother had been heard, and that he had found the kingdom of God." III. "I remember when I was a boy I used to try to walk across a field after the snow had fallen, and try to make a straight path; and as long as I kept my eye on a point at the other side of the field, I could make a straight path, but if I looked over my shoulder to see if I was walking straight, I would always walk crooked-always. And where I find people turning around to see how others walk, they always walk crooked. But if you want to walk straight through this world, keep your eye on the Captain of your salvation, who has gone within the vale. Just keep your eye on Him, and you will have peace and light. I remember, too, I used to try to catch my shadow. I used to try to see if I could not jump over my head. I ran and THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 39 jumped, but my head always kept just so far ahead of me. I never could catch my shadow, but I remember when I was a little boy, I was running with my face toward the sun, and I looked over my shoulder and I found my shadow coming after me. And I find since I became a Christian, that if I keep my eye on the Son of Righteousness, peace and light and joy and everything follow in the train; but if I get my eye off Him, I always get into darkness and trouble. So if you want to keep in the light, keep your eye fixed on the Son of Righteousness and follow Him." IV. "I remember when I left my mother, and went off to Boston and tried to get work and failed. It seemed that there was room for everyone else in the world, but there was none for me. For about two days I had that awful feeling that no, one wanted me. I never have had since, and I never want it again. It is an awful feeling. It seems to me that it must have been the feeling of the Son of God when He was down here. They did not want Him. He had come down to save men and they did not want to be saved. He had come to lift men up, but they did not want to be lifted up." CHAPTER III. SEEKS HIS FORTUNE : FINDS HIS SAVIOR AT his native Moody left THE age of seventeen young village to win his own way in the world. He first went to Greenfield, where his brother was attending school, but after a few months, seeking larger opportunities for success, made his way to Boston. He secured a situation as clerk in the shoe store of his uncle, Mr. Samuel S. Holton. How he came to go to Boston, some of his characteristics at this age, and the story of his conversion is graphically described by Mr. Edward Kimball, who was Mr. Moody's first Sunday-school teacher. He says: "To tell the story correctly I must go back of the important event a few weeks to Thanksgiving day. A Thanksgiving family dinner party was assembled at the Moody home, which was on a farm a mile and a half from Northfield, Mass. At the table among others were Samuel and Lemuel Holton of Boston, two uncles of the Moody children. Without any preliminary warning young Dwight, a boy of about seventeen, spoke up and said to his Uncle Samuel: 'Uncle, I want to come to Boston and have a place in your shoe store. Will you take me?' Despite the directness of the question, the uncle returned to Boston without giving his nephew an answer. When Mr. Holton asked advice in the matter from an older brother of Dwight, the brother told his uncle that perhaps he had better not take the boy, for in a short time Dwight would want to run the store. "Dwight was a headstrong young fellow, who would not study at school and who was much fonder of a practical joke than he was of his books. His expressed desire to go to Boston 4o THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 41 and get work was not a jest that the boy forgot the day after Thanksgiving. The two uncles were surprised when one day in the following spring Dwight turned up in Boston looking for a job. His Uncle Samuel did not offer him a place. Dwight, when asked how he thought he could get a start, said he wanted work and he guessed he could find a position. After days of effort and meeting nothing but failure the boy grew discouraged with Boston and told his Uncle Lemuel he was going to New York. The uncle strongly advised Dwight not to go, but to speak to his Uncle Samuel again about the matter. The boy demurred, saying his Uncle Samuel knew perfectly well what he wanted. But the uncle insisted, so that a second time the boy asked his Uncle Samuel for a place in his store. " 'Dwight, I am afraid if you come in here you will want to run the store yourself,' said Mr. Holton. 'Now, my men here want to do their work as I want it done. If you want to come in here and do the best you can and do it right, and if you'll ask me whenyou don't know how to do anything, or, if I'm not here, ask the bookkeeper, and if he's not here, ask one of the salesmen or one of the boys, and if you are willing to go to church and Sunday-school when you are able to go anywhere on Sundays, and if you are willing not to go anywhere at night or any other time which you wouldn't want me or your mother to know about, why, then, if you'll promise all these things you may come and take hold and we'll see how we can get along. You have till Monday to think it over.' " 'I don't want till Monday,' said Dwight; 'I'll promise now.' And young Moody began work in his uncle's shoe store. "A remark the boy's uncle made to me afterward will give an idea of the young man's lack of education at this time. The uncle said that when Dwight read his Bible out loud he couldn't make anything more out of it than he could out of 42 DWIGHT L. MOODY the chattering of a lot of blackbirds. Many of the words were so far beyond the boy that he left them out entirely when he read and the majority of the others he mangled fearfully. "The young man came on Sunday to the old Mount Vernon church to Sunday-school. He told Superintendent Palmer who he was and asked to be placed in a class. The superin-. tendent brought Dwight to the class I was teaching and he took his seat among the other boys. I handed him a closed Bible and told him the lesson was John. The boy took the book and began running over the leaves away at the first of the volume looking for John. Out of the corners of their eyes the boys saw what he was doing and, detecting his ignorance, glanced slyly and knowingly at one another, not rudely, of course, you understand. I gave the boys just one hasty glance of reproof. That was enough; their equanimity was restored immediately. I quietly handed Moody my own book open at the right place and took his. I didn't suppose the boy could possibly have noticed the glances exchanged between the other boys over his ignorance; but it seems from remarks made in later years that he did, and he said in reference to my little act in exchanging books with him that he would stick by the fellow that had stood up by him and who had done him a good turn like that. "Then came the day when I determined to speak to Moody about Christ and about his soul. I started down to Holton's shoe store. When I was nearly there I began to wonder whether I ought to go just then during business hours. And I thought maybe my mission might so embarrass the boy that when I went away the other clerks might ask who I was, and when they learned might taunt Moody and ask if I was trying to make a good boy out of him. While I was pondering over it all I passed the store without noticing it. Then when I found that I had gone by the door I determined to make a dash for it and have it over at once. I found Moody in the ~o~< DWIGHT L. MOODY From a recent photograph. ~ f I SNAP SHOT OF MOODY CONDUCTING REVIVAL SERVICE THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 45 back part of the store wrapping up shoes in paper and putting them on shelves. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I put my foot upon a shoebox. I feel that I made a very weak plea for Christ. I don't know just what words I used nor could Mr. Moody tell. I simply told him of Christ's love for him and the love Christ wanted in return. That was all there was of it. It seemed the young man was just ready for the light that then broke upon him, and there, in the back part of that store in Boston, the future great evangelist gave himself and his life to Christ." Although young Moody was unlettered and in appearance a typical country boy, yet by his overflowing energy, wit and good nature he soon won the admiration of his fellow-clerks and worked up a large personal trade in boots and shoes. Indeed, within three months after entering the house he was selling more boots and shoes than any other man in it. He was exceedingly ambitious and was not afraid of hard work. He determined that one day he would become a great merchant prince. Thoroughly converted, young Moody was, however, still densely ignorant of the deeper things of the spiritual life. In view of his wonderful work in later years, it seems almost incredible that he should have been so ill-informed. The contrast between his condition then and that only a few years later is most dramatic and wonderful. Moody knew so little about the primary facts of the Christian life that the church would not receive him until he had been on probation for twelve months. After his first examination by the church committee, Mr. Kimball described his condition as follows: "He could not tell what it was to be a Christian; had rio idea of what Christ had done for him; and with the utmost encouragement, aided by the presence of his teacher, whom he loved, he could answer but haltingly, chiefly in monosyllables, and then only when the question was of the simplest, 46 DWIGHT L. MOODY and its answer was obvious. I remember the chief question and its answer-the longest answer he gave: 'Mr. Moody, what has Christ done for us all-for you-which entitles Him to our love?' 'I don't know,' he said; 'I think Christ has done a good deal for us; but I don't think of anything in particular, as I know of.' " Even after a year's time he had seemingly advanced but little. Of his spiritual condition on the occasion of his second examination Mr. Kimball says: "When he met the committee again, no merely doctrinal questions were asked him any more than before, and little more light appeared; but it was decided to propound him for admission, in view of his evident sincerity and earnest determination to be a Christian, although he was still unable to give any intelligent reason for hoping that he had given his heart to God." In May, 1856, Mr. Moody was received into the Mount Vernon church of Boston. In the following September he left that city for Chicago. CHAPTER IV. STARTS A SUNDAY-SCHOOL IN CHICAGO'S SLUMS O N A beautiful day in the fall of i856 young Moody arrived in Chicago, and soon afterward obtained a situation as salesman in the boot and shoe store of Mr. Wiswall on Lake street. He carried a letter of recommendation to Mr. Wiswall, but the latter received him with some trepidation, owing to his rather uncouth appearance and impetuous manner. In a few weeks, however, young Moody had become the favorite of his employer on account of his energetic ways. His hearty style made him extremely popular with the class of customers that patronized Mr. Wiswall's establishment, and it soon became the custom among the other clerks, when uncourteous or unmanageable customers came in, to turn them over to young Moody, who beat them at their own tactics of fancied sharpness and never failed to send them away in a good humor. At this time Mr. Moody was intensely ambitious. He determined to become a leader in the world of finance. Mr. Wiswall says: "His ambition made him anxious to lay up money. His personal habits were exact and economical. As a salesman he was just the same zealous and tireless worker that he afterwards became in religion." A gentleman who was a clerk in those days in the same store gives the following interesting recollection of Mr. Moody at that time: "Moody was a first-rate salesman. It was his particular pride to make his column foot up the largest of any on the book-not only in the way of sales, but also of profits. He took particular delight in trading with notional or unreasonable people, especially when they made great show of 47 48 DWIGHT L. MOODY smartness and cunning and thought themselves extraordinarily wise. Nothing was ever misrepresented in the smallest particular, but when it came to be a question of sharpness of wit between buyer and seller, Moody generally had the best of it." For two years Mr. Moody was a clerk in this and other boot and shoe establishments in Chicago, before giving up business to devote himself entirely to Christian work. During most of this time he lived at a boarding-house kept by a Mrs. Phillips, on Michigan avenue. He had a famous circle of fellow-boarders, some of whom are still living, but more dead, among them being Edward Isham, Norman Williams, Levi Z. Leiter, General George W. Smith, General John L. Thompson, Benjamin B. Page and William H. Seward. Mr. Isham, in answer to inquiries regarding Mr. Moody's characteristics at that time and later, said: "Moody was an exceedingly earnest, active and forcible man, strenuous in all his activities, but he was at the same time a broad-minded, generous-hearted, affectionate man, of whom all who knew him were very fond. He was the same man in early days as later. Every one of the circle remained fond of him to the very end, no matter how much he differed from them in views. "His friendliness made all friendly to him. Those who knew him best had always the most unbounded confidence in his sincerity and the greatest interest in his work. He astonished all his friends by his extraordinary development of power in the lines he took up. I don't know of any one man who has reached and influenced more men by the sound of his own voice since the days of Peter the Hermit." Speaking of Mr. Moody's endurance and the immense amount of work he accomplished, Mr. Isham said: "I remember one night I was driving him in my sleigh to the tabernacle. He had been hard at work all day, having spoken once before, and he was to speak again that night. I was surprised at his THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 49 vigor, and I remember I expressed my wonder to him that he kept up so continuously. This was his reply to me: 'The fact is, I never allow my thoughts to run except in the one channel.' I do believe Moody spoke the truth when he said that. He never allowed any temptation or allurement to divert him. His earnest interest was always directed in one line. His whole life expressed absolute self-control, absolute self-discipline, absolute self-subordination. His later life was simply the outgrowth of the qualities we knew and admired in him in the early days." As an illustration of the way in which Mr. Moody continually had the spiritual wellbeing of his friends on his mind, Mr. Isham told this anecdote: "The last time I saw him was at the funeral of our common friend, Norman Williams, at Woodstock, Vt. After the services he went back to his hotel and wrote a four-page letter to me, with sentences heavily underscored, following his usual lines of thought. The letter was one more of his efforts to pluck me out of the burning, in which I suppose he considered me a brand." But while Mr. Moody was, first and foremost, a man of business, it must be remembered that he was also a member of the Christian Church, and had by no means forgotten that while serving his employer he must also serve his God. Not long after his removal to Chicago Mr. Moody connected himself with Plymouth Church, of which Rev. J. E. Roy was pastor, and devoted all his spare time on week-days and Sundays to religious work. His first work in this direction consisted of renting four pews in the church, then going out into the highways and byways and compelling young men and boys to come in and fill them Sunday after Sunday. This was somewhat of a sensation in religious circles, but Mr. Moody's enthusiasm carried it through to success. Dr. Roy is still living in Chicago. When I recently asked him about the truth of the pew story, Dr. Roy said: "It is. 5o DWIGHT L. MOODY absolutely true that the young man rented four or five pews and filled them with young men. He also went out and hunted up Sunday-school scholars, but I don't think that he asked for a class in the Sunday-school, as has been commonly reported. He said that he could not teach; but he was exceedingly active, took part in our prayer-meeting and went to neighboring prayer-meetings. He did not, however, attract large attention until he started his ragged Sunday-school on the shore of Lake Michigan. This was the wickedest spot in Chicago, and that was why Moody went there. Now it is covered with palatial homes. It. was on the North Side, and his work over there took him from the Plymouth into the New England Church." The story of Moody's first Sunday-school class on the shore of Lake Michigan is one full of romance. Not feeling confident enough to teach a class of boys from cultured and refined homes, as were those in Plymouth Sunday-school, he set out to find the worst class of youngsters in the city of Chicago. These he found on the North Side, in a low district known as "The Sands."- Here he gathered eighteen ragged and dirty urchins, the lowest class of street arabs, seated them on a driftlog, and under the open canopy of heaven proceeded to instruct them in his homely fashion in the things of the spiritual life. Sunday after Sunday he gathered these children from the lanes and alleys, and so inspiringly did he talk to them that his class soon became too large for the logs on the beach. He then rented an empty saloon in the same district and started a mission. Rev. G. S. F. Savage of Chicago recalls some interesting facts concerning Mr. Moody's work at this stage. He says: "I met him soon after he began his work on the sands and was compelled to rent an old deserted saloon. The building had become too dilapidated even for a saloon. In this tumble-down old house he began to gather in the children. He went out into the streets with candy and knick- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 5I knacks and got the good-will of the children. When the school grew larger, he bought a pony and rode around the neighborhood. He gave the boys and girls a ride on the pony and pleased them immensely. The children all fell in love with him." "Not long after he started the mission," continued Dr. Savage, "he invited me to come to a Thanksgiving service in the evening. There were no gas-fixtures in the house and he was trying to light it with a half-dozen candles; but the darkness had rather the best of it. I found him with a candle in one hand, a Bible in the other, and a child on his knee, which he was trying to teach. There were twenty-five or thirty children in all, and they were as sorry a lot of ragamuffins as could be found in Chicago. Moody asked them what they had to be thankful for. One said one thing and another said another thing, but they were generally agreed that there was nothing for which they were quite so thankful as for Mr. Moody himself. "The school grew rapidly and soon became the greatest in the city. Afterward it went into a large hall and Moody began to have a name in the city. It was hard work for him to preaich in those early days. One day I found him in his room trying to get up a sermon. He had thrown off his coat and was struggling with his Bible and a concordance, while the sweat ran down his face. Another time he came to me with an anxious look. 'I have never preached on the Holy Spirit,' he said, 'and to-night I want to make that my subject. Can you help me?' I gave him an excellent little book on the Spirit. The next morning he came to me with beaming face. 'I read that book through three times,' he said, 'and then preached it; and do you know, fourteen persons were converted!' After a while he talked to me about being ordained. 'What do you think about my being ordained?' he asked. 'Don't,' I replied, 'if you are ordained you will be on a level with the rest of us. 52 DWIGHT L. MOODY Now you are a preaching layman and that gives you an advantage. You are on the right road. Keep to it.' It cannot be said that he talked well in those days, nor were his manners attractive; but he was tremendously in earnest." During the years following Mr. Moody's arrival in Chicago his interest in religious work grew rapidly from day to day, although he did not for an instant neglect his business. Indeed, so successful was he in the latter field that in a few years he had saved, from his earnings and investments, nearly $I2,000. In a short time Mr. Moody's Sunday-school outgrew the small and cramped quarters of the old saloon. Then, using his own money and obtaining help from some influential friends with whom he had become acquainted, he rented a large hall over the old North Market. This hall was generally used on Saturday nights for a dance, and it took most of the forenoon of Sunday to sweep out the sawdust and wash out the tobacco and beer. Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Moody went into the thing heart and soul, swept out the place each Sunday mornifg, and soon succeeded in filling it with comfortable chairs. Among the men who assisted Mr. Moody financially at this time was Mr. John V. Farwell. After Moody had received a considerable sum from Mr. Farwell, he inquired what the successful man of business was doing in the way of personal work for his Savior. Finding that his time was not fully occupied, he invited him to visit his mission Sunday-school. On the following Sunday Mr. Farwell paid his first visit to the North Market street school. The scene that he witnessed was novel and rather startling. As yet seats had not been placed in the hall, and the scholars, to the number of nearly I,ooo, were engaged in every conceivable sort of romp and caper. Some were leaning up against the walls smoking; others were playing leap-frog on the bare floor; others were -- - - fir,. : : ,'. 4 -4._22 " ' - .I 4T u:0 i ke+ _z 0 A C) C) LT T Hl Y r r+ T 4 W E £ C) C) ~' t THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 57 wrestling or fighting; others were calling out mockingly, "Morning paper !" "Black your boots !" "Shine, mister; shine, shine!"-in short, a general state of pandemonium and chaos reigned throughout the hall. Finally, however, a Mr. Stilison began to read the Scriptures and there was a partial hush. Then Mr. Moody mounted the platform and began talking in a familiar, but intensely earnest and enthusiastic way, transidiom and brogue of the street, lating spiritual things into the boyish and roguish hearers could fully comprehend. which In a few moments the room was perfectly quiet and Mr. Moody literally held that multitude of I,ooo in his hand. His words were vivid pictures and full of emotion that tenderly touched the heart of each hearer. Mr. Farwell was astonished beyond measure at all he saw and heard. Upon being requested to make a speech, he said a few words, but only a few, fearing lest he should weary his impatient audience. His astonishment, however, turned to amazement when, at the close of his words, Mr. Moody rose up and moved that Mr. Farwell be elected superintendent of the Sunday-school from that day forth by acclamation. A deafening shout that shook the windows of the building proclaimed his unanimous election. It was in this dramatic fashion that Mr. Farwell began his work as a Sunday-school superintendent, under the leadership of Mr. Moody. The tremendous success of Mr. Moody's slum Sunday-school proved beyond peradventure of doubt that Mr. Moody possessed a rare genius for proclaiming God's Word among the common people. ,the CHAPTER V. O GIVES UP BUSINESS FOR GOSPEL WORK NE day an event occurred which changed the course of Mr. Moody's life and led him to abandon business and devote himself entirely to, religious work. How this happened can best be told in Mr. Moody's own words. He says: "I had never lost sight of Jesus Christ since the first night I met him in the store in Boston. But for years I was only a nominal Christian, really believing that I could not work for God. No one had ever asked me to do anything. When I went to Chicago I hired five pews in a church and used to go out on the street and pick up -young men and fill these pews. I never spoke to those young men about their souls; that was the work of the elders, I thought. "After working for some time like that, I started a mission Sabbath-school. I thought numbers were everything and so I worked for numbers. When the attendance ran below 1,000 it troubled me; and when it ran to 1,2oo or I,5oo I was elated. Still none was converted; there was no harvest. "Then God opened my eyes. There was a class of young ladies in the school, who were without exception the most frivolous set of girls I ever met. One Sunday the teacher was ill and I took that class. They laughed in my face and I felt like opening the door and telling them all to get out and never come back. "That week the teacher of the class came into the store where I worked. He was pale and looked very ill. " 'What is the trouble?' I asked. " 'I have had another hemorrhage of my lungs. The doctor says I cannot live on Lake Michigan, so I am going to New York state. I suppose I am going home to die.' He seemed 58 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 59 greatly troubled, and when I asked him the reason, he replied: 'Well, I have never led any of my class to Christ. I really believe I have done the girls more harm than good.' "I had never heard anyone talk like that before and it set me thinking. After awhile I said: 'Suppose you go and tell them how you feel. I will go with you in a carriage, if you want to go.' He consented and we started out together. It was one of the best journeys I ever had on earth. We went to the house of one of the girls, called for her and the teacher talked to her about her soul. There was no laughing then! Tears stood in her eyes before long. After he had explained the way of life he suggested that we have prayer. He asked me to pray. True, I had never done such a thing in my life as to pray God to convert a young lady there and then. But we prayed and God answered our prayer. "We went to other houses. He would go upstairs and be all out of breath and he would tell the girls what he had come for. It wasn't longbefore they broke down and sought salvation. When his strength gave out I took him back to his lodgings. The next day we went out again. At the end of ten days he came to the store with his face literally shining. "'Mr. Moody,' he said, 'the last one of my class has yielded herself to Christ.' I tell you, we had a time of rejoicing. He had to leave the next night, so I called his class together that night for a prayer meeting and there God kindled a fire in my soul that has never gone out. The height of my ambition had been to, be a successful merchant, and if I had known that meeting was going to take that ambition out of me I might not have gone. But how many times I have thanked God since for that meeting! "The dying teacher sat in the midst of his class and talked with them and read the fourteenth chapter of John. We tried to sing 'Blest be the tie that binds,' after which we knelt down to prayer. I was just rising from my knees when one of the 6o DWIGHT L. MOODY class began to pray for her dying teacher. Another prayed, and another, and before we rose the whole class had prayed. As I went out I said to, myself: 'O God, let me die rather than lose the blessing I have received tonight.' "The next evening I went to the depot to say good-bye to that teacher. Just before the train started one of the class came, and before long, without any prearrangement, they were all there. What a meeting that was! We tried to sing, but we broke down. The last we saw of that dying teacher he was standing on the platform of the car, his finger pointing upward, telling that class to, meet him in heaven. "I didn't know what this was going to cost me. I was disqualified for business; it had become distasteful to me. I had got a taste of another world and cared no more for making money. For some days after the great struggle of my life took place. Should I give up business and give mysyelf to Christian work or should I not? I have never regretted my choice. Oh, the luxury of leading someone out of the darkness of this world into the glorious light and liberty of the gospel!" On leaving business to devote himself entirely to religious work, Mr. Moody devoted himself day and night to the task of building up the North Market street school. He rapidly enlarged its scope, so that meetings were held week-days and week-evenings, as well as on Sunday. It became a people's institute among the poor of that district with the ultimate aim of saving souls shot through every effort. Classes in reading and writing and other branches of education were conducted evenings; but his main effort was ever directed to preaching the Gospel week-days as well as Sundays. The school flourished more and more, until it became far and away the largest in the city and the most famous Sunday-school in the entire Northwest. About this time President-elect Lincoln visited Chicago, and paid his memorable visit to Moody's Sunday-school. The THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 6i story of how he was induced to pay the school this high honor is as follows: The superintendent, Mr. John V. Farwell, on learning of Mr. Lincoln's presence in the city, being a friend of Mr. Lincoln's, called on him, and among other things told him of the remarkable school conducted by the energetic religious worker, Mr. Moody, on the North Side. Mr. Lincoln was greatly interested and promised to visit the mission on the following Sabbath. When the day arrived, Mr. Farwell sent a carriage for the President-elect, who was staying at the home of a prominent citizen of Chicago, and was in the midst of his dinner when the carriage arrived. However, on hearing that Mr. Farwell had come for him, Mr. Lincoln left his halffinished dinner, took a hasty leave of his host, and at once started for the school. As they journeyed along, Mr. Lincoln requested Mr. Farwell not to ask him for a speech, as he had never addressed a Sunday-school and would hardly know what to say. Mr. Farwell promised. As the two men entered the great hall, the enthusiasm of the street waifs and ragamuffins knew no bounds. Cheer upon cheer greeted the President-elect. It was with great difficulty that their enthusiasm was finally somewhat stilled and the usual exercises carried on. When at the conclusion of the service Mr. Farwell introduced President Lincoln, the enthusiasm once more broke out tumultuously, and continued cries of "Speech !" were heard throughout the hall. Thus called upon by the common people whom he loved, Mr. Lincoln made a brief address-which was the first and last Sunday-school speech of his life. He told the boys and girls that the Sunday-school room was the best possible place they could gather in on Sunday afternoons, and the Bible was the best possible book they could study. He told them that what they learned from the Bible would be of greatest 62 DWIGHT L. MOODY use to them in after life if they practiced its precepts; and finally, that their chances of becoming honorable and famous men and women depended very largely upon the attention they bestowed upon the Bible lessons they were then receiving. As he finished, a third ovation of wild cheers greeted the President and continued until he left the hall and his carriage disappeared down the street. Many interesting anecdotes are recalled by Moody's coworkers of his experience in this famous Sunday-school. One incident is especially noteworthy as showing both Mr. Moody's strategy and his supreme faith in the Spirit of God. One day Mr. Moody learned of the children of a famous liquor dealer, who had for .a number of .Sundays attended his school but suddenly ceased to come. As was his custom, Mr. Moody went to find out the reason for the absence of his scholars. On reaching the saloon and making known his errand, however, he received a very warm and rough reception and a fierce injunction to "get out of that place as quickly as possible and never show his head in it again." Return, however, he did, anid that frequently, but only to meet with a blasphemous rebuff each time. The saloonkeeper declared, "I would rather have my son a thief, and my daughter a harlot, than that you should make fools and Christians of them over there at your Sunday-school." But Moody still persisted. One day he found the saloonkeeper in a better humor than usual, and asked if he had ever read the New Testament. Bluntly the saloonkeeper replied: "No. Have you read Paine's 'Age of Reason' ?" The evangelist was compelled to answer in the negative. The saloonkeeper then proposed that if Mr. Moody would read the "Age of Reason" he would read the New Testament. Mr. Moody gladly agreed to this. To a friend he remarked, "He had the best of the bargain; but it gave me a chance to call again to bring him the book," THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 63 With great toil Mr. Moody finally succeeded in completing the "Age of Reason," and called upon the publican to find out how he liked the New Testament. But the man was unconvinced as yet, and wanted a public debate. Said he to Mr. Moody: "You are always inviting me and my children to go to meeting. You can have a meeting here if you want to." "What!" exclaimed Mr. Moody, "will you let me preach in your saloon ?" "I will," said he. "And will you bring in your family and let me call in a congregation composed of the neighbors ?" "I will," replied he. "But remember that I and my friends will have a chance to talk in this meeting as well as you." "All right," said Mr. Moody. "You may have forty-five minutes while I will take only fifteen." The day for the meeting dawned; but when Mr. Moody reached the place he found that it was too small for the large crowd that had gathered. They had adjourned to a neighboring house, which he found full of atheists, blasphemers and rough characters, eagerly awaiting a wordy and perhaps other battle with the young missionary. -Nothing daunted, however, and with a prayer in his heart that God would give the victory, Mr. Moody entered the building and took his place in the midst of the group. At once they poured at him a great number of questions; but he stopped them, crying, "No questions! I will use my time in preaching Christ to you-not in arguing with you. Go on and say what you like for forty-five minutes; then it will be my turn." At once four or five of the leaders began to talk, but before many minutes had passed they had disagreed and were quarreling with one another over their different doctrines. As the time passed, the debate grew furious, and the atmosphere soon 64 DWIGHT L. MOODY became rife for a fight. All. this time, however, Mr. Moody had been holding his watch in his hand. "Order! Your time is up," he cried, after forty-five minutes had elapsed. "I am in the habit of beginning my addresses with prayer. Let us pray." And, suiting the actiqn to the word, he kneeled down and began imploring God to have mercy on the assembled crowd and to give them faith in Christ and in the Word of God. Many were touched by the" earnest appeal. But he had scarcely ceased speaking when he requested a little boy, who had been remarkably converted in the Sabbath-school a short time previous, to pray. This child was full to overflowing of the Spirit of God. As his small but clear voice arose and he began talking to his Father and Friend, Jesus, a hush fell on the entire group. As the little boy continued to tell God all about those wicked men, and prayed that his Holy Spirit might convert them, it indeed seemed as though a second Pentecost had come, and as if the Holy Spirit had descended upon the gathering. Some began to weep and others began to pray, while still others rushed out of the room unable to withstand the almost visible power of the Spirit. A number were instantly converted by this remarkable prayer of the Spirit-filled child. As Elijah won a complete victory in his contest with the priests of Baal, so Mr. Moody's victory over the rumseller and his infidel friends was complete. The saloonkeeper's children attended Sunday-school regularly thereafter, while it was not long until the father himself stood up in a noon-day prayermeeting and begged for prayers for his conversion. At this time Mr. Moody's meetings were often disturbed by the rowdyism of Catholic boys. For a time Mr. Moody said nothing, but finally the interruptions became so frequent and of such a serious character that he went to Bishop Duggan, the Roman prelate of Chicago, and told him all about the 1A MR. MOODY'S SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS IN 1856 -w : -. 7 "W~Wt 1*rqS ~CUinWIIt7~ it, 4 y z REV. R. A. TORREY, Pastor Moody's Chicago Avenue Church: also Superintendent of "The Moody Bible Institute." THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 67 affair. Moreover, Mr. Moody declared that he frequently called upon Roman Catholics who, were sick and did everything in his power to help people in trouble, no matter what their creed. In conclusion he asked the Bishop to issue an order restraining the boys from breaking up his meetings. The Bishop was both surprised and pleased with Mr. Moody's boldness, zeal and kindly spirit. But he replied with tact that he would with pleasure give the recommendation asked for if Mr. Mocdy would become a member of the Catholic church, saying that such an energetic worker should certainly join the true church of God. Mr. Moody declared that he was afraid his joining the Catholic church would injure his work among the Protestants. "Not at all," replied the Bishop. "What! Do you mean that I could go to noon pray-meetings and pray with all kinds of Christian people-Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, all together, just as I do now ?" "Certainly," replied the Bishop. "If it were necessary you might do that." "Do you, then, favor Protestants and Catholics praying together ?" "Yes." wish you "In that case, Bishop," replied Mr. Moody, would kneel down right here and pray for me, that God will show me the light, and if it is His will, help me to join the true church and be a worthy member of it." Such a request the Bishop could not refuse. So down the two kneeled-the uncouth youth and the polished prelate. Earnestly and ardently the Bishop prayed for the heretic but no sooner had he reached the "Amen" than the heretic began as ardently to pray for the Bishop. Such tact and good-will completely won the Bishop, and they were good friends from that day forward. Mr. Moody was not conveirted by Bishop Duggan; but that prelate is said "'I 68 DWIGHT L. MOODY to have remarked that if such had been the case there is no telling what high position in the true church he might have attained. Years later, when Mr. Moody was conducting his great campaign in England, the incident was widely published in British journals. One day a Catholic priest, who had read it, called upon Mr. Moody, and long and earnestly labored with him to abjure his heresy and join the true church before it was too late. "If you would only join the true church," said the priest, "you would be the greatest man in England." CHAPTER VI.s rBECOMES LEADER OF THE Y. M. C. A. of Chicago was Men's Christian Association HE Young in 1857; but while officially a young men's organized association, it was really conducted and managed almost entirely by persons well advanced in years. At first it flourished vigorously, owing to the influence of the great revival of 1857-8, but soon the work became stagnant and mechanical. At this point, however, young Moody grew interested in the work, and, under the inspiring influence of his words and example, a new spirit was infused into the meetings. He interested other young men in the work and soon the attendance at the noon prayer-meetings rapidly increased, until the hall was over-crowded and they were compelled to move to a large back room in the Methodist Church block. It must be remembered that at this time Mr. Moody had no regular means of support, and in lieu of a lodging-house he slept upon the benches in this room. Oftentimes, having no money save a few pennies, he lived for days upon crackers and cheese ard water. Such self-denial and Christian heroism, however, was not to be without its reward. It was in these days of privation that Mr. Moody consecrated himself more than ever to God's service. A short time previous he had heard a man remark, "The world has yet to see what results can be accomplished by one man wholly consecrated to God." Moody said quietly, "I will be that man !" and from that time his single and sole aim was to glorify God with every moment of his time and every ounce of his strength. Mr. Moody's devotion to the work soon led to his being elected to the management of the association, but he sturdily refused to receive a penny for his T 69 70 DWIGHT L. MOODY labor. Mr. S. A. Kean, for the last fifteen years Treasurer of of the Chicago Young- Men's Christian Association, says: "Mr. Moody found a congenial field of labor in the Association. His advent to the weak and struggling organization, which was run almost entirely by middle-aged men, was like a stiff northwest breeze. His zeal and devotion rapidly became the life and hope of the Association, but he shocked the nice sense of propriety of some of these gentlemen, by carrying its work among a class of people who had hitherto been neglected, under the impression that its proper line of effort was among the higher classes of young men. Under-Mr. Moody's leadership the Y. M. C. A. became a very popular institution, extending its influence to all classes of society, bringing culture and wealth to the assistance of the ignorant and poor. Mr. Moody was most fertile in originating schemes for the raising of money for the Association, but of the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars which he secured for us he accepted nothing whatever for himself. He even refused a salary, saying it would embarrass him and limit his freedom to go at a moment's notice wherever the Lord might call him. I was Treasurer of the Association from the time of his first connection with it, and I do not remember to have paid him a dollar, either for his services or the expenses incidental to his work. Neither do I remember any appropriation being made for his assistance, though he often needed and always deserved it. His friends sometimes blamed him for his neglect of his own interests, but in reply he would always say: 'God is rich and I am working for Him.' During.these years his favorite text of Scripture was Paul's saying, 'This one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' " More and more as Mr. Moody threw himself soul and body in the work of the Y. M. C. A. it grew and flourished. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 7' The noon services were conducted by Mr. Moody with such originality and enthusiasm that they rapidly became renowned throughout the entire northwest.. Strangers visiting the city naturally attended them as one of the wonders of Chicago. Mr. Moody personally greeted each comer and endeavored to make them feel thoroughly at home. The meeting began with stirring songs, given out by the leader or some one in the audience, and continued throughout with.the utmost freedom. and familiarity. Indeed, from the platform Mr. Moody would often call on an individual as follows: "You, brother, over there by the first window, do you love the Lord and have you some testimony for Him ?" He would then, after the man had finished speaking, ask his name; where he came from; what business he was engaged in; what church he attended; and would end up by giving him a friendly word of counsel and advice. A few minutes later he would call out: "That' red-haired man on the back seat, are you a Christian ?" The man thus addressed would rise to his feet and say a few words, whereupon Mr. Moody would ask his name and residence, writing it in his little book, and assure the man to consider himself from henceforth an old member and to get right to work bringing in others. At other times he would walk up and down the aisles, noting the faces of the audience and seeking for persons under conviction. Finding such a one, he would at once approach him and tenderly and earnestly endeavor to secure his salvation. Sometimes he would approach the penitent individual, kneel down beside him, and have the whole congregation kneel also while he poured out an audible prayer for his conversion; and more than once such an impulsive proceeding resulted in instant salvation. It was Mr. Moody's regular habit to enter a little closet in the building and on his knees commune with God from i i to 72 Z)WIGHT L. MOODY a. m. At a quarter to twelve he went down on the sidewalk in front of the hall, his face glowing with Christian enthusiasm, and spoke to as many passers-by as possible, endeavoring to persuade them to attend the prayer-meeting. One day while thus engaged he laid his hand on the arm of a powerful man who was hurrying along and asked him, "Are you for Jesus?" "I am," was the answer. "Then go right up to the noon prayer-meeting." This was more than the stranger had expected, for he had fallen from the habit of attending prayer-meetings. To use his own words, he "used to be a Baptist, but had not worked at it now for a good while." Hence he endeavored to excuse himself, saying, "I cannot go up to-day." "Yes, you can," exclaimed Mr. Moody, understanding the man's condition in a flash; and it was only by a pretense of anger and display of force that the backslidden Baptist was able to get away. With half a hundred others, however, he was successful during his fifteen minutes of work on the sidewalk. Exactly as the clock struck 12 he would rush up the stairway, three or four steps at a time, and hasten to the platform to help forward the meeting. The leadership of the service he frequently gave into other hands, securing the services of clergymen and consecrated laymen throughout Chicago and the Northwest. But no matter who spoke, Mr. Moody's spirit animated every meeting, and oftentimes he would take charge of it in the middle of the service if it was inclined in any way to drag or become dull. If any one of the audience began to preach instead of giving a short and stirring testimony, Mr. Moody at once shut him up, calling for a hymn or quoting a text of Scripture. Indeed, so inexorable was his demand for point and brevity that these noon-day prayer-meetings soon became the model from which nearly all others throughout the Christian world I I:45 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 73 took their cue. It is doubtless true that Mr. Moody more than any other man taught the Christian people of Chicago the art of speaking and praying in meeting pointedly and briefly, and in later years just as truthfully did he teach almost the entire Christian world the same art. In 1865 the hall in the Methodist Church block becoming too small, Mr. Moody originated a scheme for a stock company, whereby a large and handsome hall should be built, devoted exclusively to Y. M. C. A. work. The money necessary for the undertaking was soon subscribed and the hall completed, the most prominent financial backer being Mr. John V. Farwell, who was so tremendously interested that he subscribed to the undertaking the land upon which his house stood, valued at $30,000. It cost $Ioo,ooo and was located on Madison street, in the heart of the business portion of Chicago. It contained an auditorium capable of seating 3,000 persons; a large room for the noon prayer-meeting about one-third that size; a library; a reading-room; offices for the Tract and Publication department; the relief department and the employment bureau; private rooms for some of the officers who were to live in it and have charge of the building; and, last but not least, a closet for private prayer. The dedication of this building, on the 29th of September, 1867, marked a new era in the progress of the Y. M. C. A. work throughout the world. While the dedicatory services were in progress Mr. Moody suddenly arose and moved that in honor of Mr. John V. Farwell's services the auditorium be named Farwell Hall. The motion was seconded and carried with a cheer. In delivering the opening address on this occasion President Moody said: "If there is one thing more than another for which Chicago is distinguished, it is the rapidity of its growth, in size, wealth and in the extent of its trade. But of all the great and swift successes which have come to us, none is more striking than that of the YoungMen's Chris- 74 DWIGHT L. MOODY tian Association. A few years ago this Association was growing weaker and weaker, and at one time it came very near dying. Those who organized it made the mistake of supposing that if they opened some rooms and gave notice of meetings to be held in them, sinners would come there of their own accord to be saved, But they were not long in finding out that if they would save the lost they must search for them in the byways and dark places, where they are hidden away from the light of Christ and His gospel. Then we began to go out and bring them in. That was just what Christ told us to do. And now, because we have obeyed Him and gone to work in His way, Christ has helped us to build this hall. "It seems to, me the Association has just commenced its work. There are those, indeed, who say that we have reached the limit of our power. But we must rally round the cross; we must attack and capture the whole city for Christ. "His answer to our prayers and His blessing on our work give me faith to believe that a mighty influence is yet to go out from us that shall extend through this county and every county in the state; through every state in the Union; and finally, crossing the waters, shall help to bring the whole world to God !" A marvelous prophecy this! Little did this Y. M. C. A. worker dream that in a few short years his prophecy would be fulfilled beyond his wildest hopes. For four years Mr. Moody held the presidency of the Y. M. C. A., and then declined reelection, being put in, however, as vice-president. CHAPTER VII. MR. MOODY FOUNDS A UNION CHURCH DURING these years, however, all Mr. Moody's energies were not devoted to the Y. M. C. A. He had continued his North Market street mission, with services not only on Sunday but throughout the week. The work rapidly grew into a church rather than a mere Sunday-school, and in 1863 a commodious chapel, with tower and spire, was erected in Illinois street, not far from the old Market Hall, at a cost of about $20,000, which money was collected by Mr. Moody himself. It was known as the Illinois Street church until in 1873, when the edifice was destroyed by the great Chicago fire and the present handsome structure at Chicago avenue and La Salle avenue, known as Moody's Chicago Avenue church, was erected in its stead. The creed of this Illinois Street church as prepared by Mr, Moody was extremely simple. It reads as follows: ARTICLES OF FAITH. (Creed Union Church-Common Property.) I. We believe in the only true God (John xvii. 3), the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 19). Who created all things (Rev. iv. I I), and upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb. i. 3), in whom we live, and move, and have our being (Acts xvii. 28). A God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is He (Deut. xxxii. 4); and He shall judge the w6rld (Psalm ix. 8) II. We believe all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be 75 76, DWIGHT L. MOODY perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. iii. 16-17). III. We believe that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Rom. v. 12), and judgment came upon all men to condemnation (Rom. v. 18). For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. vi. 23). IV. We believe there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (I. Cor. iii. i I). We also believe that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (I. Cor. xv. 3-4)', and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. i. 3), now to appear in the presence of God for us (Heb. ix. 24). V. We believe God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John iii. 16); and he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son, and that is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life (I. John v. o10-12). VI. We believe that Christ, the Head over all to the Church (Eph. i. 22), hath commanded us to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 19) ; and the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. And after the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 77 remembrance of me; for as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come (I. Cor. xi. 23-26). In accepting and subscribing to the above articles of faith, we by no means set aside'or undervalue any of the Scriptures of the Old and Netw Testament, but believe all to be equally God's own written Word, given to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; but the knowledge and belief of the truth, as stated in our articles of faith, we deem necessary to salvation and sound doctrine, and thereby requisite for Christian fellowship. As pastor of the church, Mr. Moody was a great success. Like a shepherd, he knew all his flock by name, and was ever ready to help the poor and unfortunate by every means within his power. He was able to say with Job, "The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out." Mr. Hitchcock;, who is still a member of Mr. Moody's church, and was at one time a member of his household, gave me the following interesting glimpse into Mr. Moody's methods at this time: "At an early hour in the morning, the omnibus which was to take Mr. Moody and a number of his leading men, was at the door, and with a carefully prepared list of residences they began the day's labor. The list included a large proportion of poor families living in garrets and in the upper stories of high tenement houses. As our omnibus reached a family belonging to his congregation, he would spring out of it to the ground and leap up the stairs three or four steps at a time, rush into the room after a rapid and hurried knock and pay his respects in these words: " 'You know me, 1 am Moody; this is Deacon de Golyer, 78 DWIGHT L. MOODY this is Deacon Thane, this is Brother Hitchcock. Are you all well? do you all come to church? and Sunday-school? Have you all the coal you need for the winter? Let us pray;' and down we would all go upon our knees, while Mr. Moody offered from fifteen to twenty words of tender, sympathizing supplication, that God would bless this man and his wife and each one of the children. Then springing to his feet, Mr. Moody would dash on his hat, dart through the doorway and down the stairs, followed by struggling deacons, shouting a hearty good-bye behind him, leap into the omnibus and off the horses run to the next place on the list, the entire exercise occupying about one minute and a half. We kept this up all morning. Before long the horses were tired out, for Moody insisted upon their going on a run from one house to another, so the omnibus was abandoned and the party proceeded on foot. One after another his companions became exhausted from running up and down stairs and across the streets, and kneeling on bare floors and getting up in a hurry, until reluctantly, but of necessity, they were obliged to relinquish the attempt; Moody was left to make the last few of the 200 calls alone. He returned home in the highest spirits and with no sense of fatigue, to laugh at 'his exhausted companions for deserting him. The next year, however, nothing daunted, Mr. Moody repeated this extraordinary performance with the exception that he did not take a carriage, but went through a similar social and religious work on foot, reminding his friends that on a previous New Year they had often felt obliged to leave the carriage before reaching the house, lest the sight of it should grieve or offend the poor home they visited, to whom it would appear a needless extravagant and injudicious use of money, and therefore they would give their pastor and his friends a less sincere and affectionate welcome." About this time, however, the great Civil War broke out, and Mr. Moody became the leading spirit of the Christian com- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 79 mission. Later he became engaged in Sunday-school work, traveling from one end of the Union to the other; but though absent from his church in body, he was still present with them in spirit. Years after Mr. Moody had left Chicago, Mr. Hitchcock said: "If it is announced that a letter is to be read from Mr. Moody, we are sure to have a crowded school. He really holds us in his hand, although he has been absent for so long." CHAPTER VIII. REVIVAL MEETINGS AMONG CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS DURING Mr. Moody's work in Chicago from I856 to i86I, his name had become a household word in that city. But the breaking out of the Civil War opened up a far wider field of usefulness, into which he plunged with characteristic energy, and his name rapidly became known throughout the nation. Soon after hostilities began, the devotional committee of the Chicago, Young Men's Christian Association, of which Mr. Moody was chairman, mapped out a plan for an active Gospel campaign among the soldiers. The first 75,000 volunteers were under way so quickly that very little could be done in the form of religious work among them; but when the second call, for 300,000 more, was made, and a camp of rendezvous, called Camp Douglas, was established near the southern.,limits of Chicago, Mr. Moody instantly saw and grasped his opportunity. When the first regiment arrived on the ground, Mr. Moody and his committee were there hard at work pitching a big tent, preparatory to holding a camp prayer-meeting that night. As fast as other regiments arrived other tents were pitched, in which were placed all kinds of religious literature, and long tables with abundant writing material, in order to remind the soldiers of the duty of writing home. Eight or ten meetings were held nightly in the different camps and continuous services were held on Sunday. Mr. Moody and his committee were obliged to issue call after call for assistance. In reply one hundred and fifty clergymen and laymen placed themselves under his direction. Scores of men were converted nightly and hundreds on Sunday, during the entire time that the camp was located at Chicago. In all over 8o THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 1,500 gospel services were held in Camp Douglas. Of Mr. Moody's activity at this time, Mr. B. F. Jacobs says: "In these meetings Mr. Moody seemed almost ubiquitous. He would hasten from one barrack and camp to another, day and night, week-days arid Sundays, praying, exhorting, conversing personally with the men about their souls, and reveling in the abundant work and swift success which the war had brought within his reach." After the battle of Fort Donelson, on the 15th of February, 1862, urgent calls came from Kentucky for gospel workers. In response a special committee of relief was sent, composed of Mr. Moody, Rev. Robert Patterson, D. D., and Mr. B. F. Jacobs. A number of others followed them from Chicago, eager to render any assistance within their power. Meetings similar to those in Camp Douglas were held in Kentucky with equally good results. Hundreds, and even thousands, were born into the kingdom in the midst of the awful carnage of war. As the war continued and the conflict increased in fierceness, Mr. Moody and his companions performed well-nigh Herculean tasks in caring for the wounded and preaching Christ to the dying. Back and forth between Chicago and the various camps and battlefields, with tireless vigor and jubilant faith, Mr. Moody toiled and traveled during the four terrible years of war. During this time of strain and hardship, Mr. Moody's faith increased a hundred fold. So frequent were the answers to his prayers that he was rather surprised than otherwise if the penitent soldier for whom he prayed was not converted before the concluding "Amen" was reached. One of the Christian commissioners gives the following remarkable instance of how God answered the prayers of these consecrated workers. It is a modern version of the miracle of the loaves and fishes: One night a party of Christian workers found themselves on DWIGHT L. MOODY 82 a lone battlefield in charge of hundreds of wounded soldiers, who, on account of the sudden retreat of the army, were entirely without shelter or food. After hours of heroic work in bringing the poor fellows water from a distant brook and searching the haversacks of the dead' for rations and finding scarcely anything, the men suddenly realized that unless they had a large supply of food at once the wounded men would die from starvation. Gathering in a little group they held a hurried consultation. "What are we to do ?" was asked by one and all. "The army is far out of reach and there is no village within a radius of a dozen miles." Suddenly a man full of faith exclaimed, "Let us pray to God to send bread." 'Acting on this suggestion, the group of Christian commissioners knelt down in a circle and held a prayer-meeting under the open canopy of heaven, telling God of their extremity and beseeching Him to send help at once However, it took the greatest faith even to make this prayer, for, humanly speaking, there seemed no earthly possibility of the request being answered. men then resumed their work of mercy and labor all night long in relieving the sufferings of the men and in giving Christian consolation. As the first ray of the dawn came over the hills, they were astonished to see a large wagon approaching. On closer inspection it proved to be a Dutch farm wagon, piled high with loaves of bread. On asking the driver where he came from and why he came, he said: "When I went to bed last night I knew that the army was gone and I could not sleep for thinking of the poor fellows who were wounded and would have to, stay behind. Something seemed to whisper in my ear, 'What will those poor fellows do for something to eat?' I could not get rid of this voice. It continued so strongly that I awoke my wife, told her 'The n G Cw J 00 } __ -~ . (' 4 C>r / k Hy.. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 85 of my thoughts, and begged her to.at once arise and begin making as much bread as she could. She agreed heartily and immediately set to work. Meanwhile I hitched up my team and went around to all our neighbors, telling them of the wounded soldiers who were doubtless left behind and asking them to give me all the bread they had in their houses. Some hours later when I reached home my wagon was full, but my old wife succeeded in piling her baking on the top, and I then hastened to bring the bread to the boys, feeling just as.if I was being sent by our Lord Himself." 'Such were the wonderful answers to prayer experienced by Mr. Moody and his heroic co-laborers in the midst of the great conflict. Another remarkable incident of the campaign among the soldiers was the revival among rebel prisoners. It was one of the most remarkable prison revivals ever conducted. During the midst of the conflict about Io,ooo rebel prisoners were captured at Fort Donelson and taken to Camp Douglas, Chicago, which was temporarily turned into a prison. On the arrival of the men in Chicago, Mr.. Moody felt a great burden for their salvation. He felt that they were as much his brothers as the Union soldiers, and that God's spirit was equally powerful to work upon their hearts. After many efforts he finally obtained a pass permitting one person to hold meetings among them. This he gave to the Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, Mr. Hawley. He himself, however, having no ticket of admission, secured a torch, and in the evening, accompanied Mr. Hawley, acting as his servant and thus hoping to pass the guard without question. But this unique ruse failed. The guard saw that the permit was for one person only, and under no circumstances would admit Mr. Moody to accompany Mr. Hawley within the gates. As they were discussing the matter, however, a superior 86 DWIGHT L. MOODY. officer passed by, overheard the conversation and came up to learn the cause of the disturbance. He at once recognized Mr. Moody, heard his side of the case, conducted him to headquarters and there secured for him a permit to hold meetings whenever he wished. Greatly rejoicing, he hastened again to the entrance and, joining his co-worker, Mr. Hawley, they proceeded at once to hold a prayer-meeting. A brief passage from the Scriptures was read, they both led in prayer, and then each gave an earnest exhortation to accept salvation. The spirit of God was present in power, and at that first meeting large numbers of prisoners stood up, signifying their desire to accept Christ as their Savior. Indeed, so intense was the interest manifested that meetings were held thereafter afternoon and evening each day. The entire camp was swept with the revival spirit. As success grew and increased daily, a large number of ministers of different denominations were called upon to assist in conducting the meetings, and did so gladly. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were won to Christ in a few weeks. The entire camp was a scene of joy instead of sorrow. Large quantities of religious literature, including religious papers, Bililes and Testaments, were sent to the camp; the prisoners were.treated as equals in every respect, and at the conclusion of their term thousands of men returned to their Southern homes thanking God for their bonds. At the conclusion of the war Mr. Moody returned to Chicago and devoted himself to three special lines of work. First and foremost, he strengthened and built up his church at Chicago and La Salle avenues; secondly, he became once more the leading spirit of the Y. M. C. A.; thirdly, he began to take an active part in Sunday-school work in other cities, traveling here and there throughout the various states of the Union, attending Sunday-school conventions, which were then at the zenith of their power, and while there conducting a series of gospel meetings. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 87 Before 1870 Mr. Moody had gained an almost national reputationas a Sunday-school speaker and worker, and more and more, as the years went on, he devoted himself to this work. From Maine to Texas, from Montreal to San Francisco, from St. Paul to New Orleans, Mr. -Moody went year after year, preaching and praying, rousing Sunday-schools and Christian Associations into activity, laboring with the pastors of churches in revivals, coming home now and then to give a few weeks' earnest labor to his own congregation and finding a hatful of calls awaiting him. He thus gained experience of inestimable value and received a training better than that of the schools for the still greater work which the Lord had in store for him across the sea. CHAPTER IX. HOW MOODY AND SANKEY MET how T HE recentlyoftold by the latter, shortly after he had was STORY Mr. Moody first met Mr. Sankey received the intelligence that the world had lost the services of one of its greatest evangelists. It was in the year 1870, that two young men journeyed to Indianapolis, Ind., to attend the International Convention of the Young Men's Christian Association. The one was Dwight L. Moody, who came from Chicago, Ill., and the other was Ira D. Sankey, whose home was at New Castle, Pa. They had heard of each other, but had never met. Moody had already gained some reputation as a speaker, and Sankey for his ability to win souls by his singing of hymns, but neither figured very prominently as leaders of the exercises at the convention. At that time, Sankey was a Government officer in Pennsylvania, holding a commission in the internal revenue service-a position paying him something like $1,5oo00 per year. His religious work, until that time, had been conducted during leisure hours. Sankey had heard enough of Moody to make him curious to see him and hear him talk, and when fhe went to the convention he immediately commenced to look for the young man from Chicago. Arriving at the Academy of Music, where the convention was being held, he took a seat close to the rear of the hall. He waited and listened for an hour or so,,but was compelled to leave the place without even hearing anybody mention the name of the man for whom he was hunting. 88 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 89 Few people seemed to know who Moody was or anything about him. It was afterward learned that Moody occupied a seat near to the door and close to where Sankey was on the opening day of the convention. Neither took any very prominent part in the proceedings, the greater portion of the programme being occupied by the more important speakers. The first meeting of the two men did not occur until a day or so after they had arrived at Indianapolis, and then only under rather novel circumstances. It was announced that "Mr. Moody, from Chicago," would conduct a prayer meeting on a certain morning at 6 o'clock in a little room some distance away from the Academy of Music. Notwithstanding the early hour for the service, Sankey determined to take advantage of the opportunity to see and hear the man whom until that time he had been unable to find. The distance to the little room where the prayer meeting was to be held was much greater than Sankey had anticipated, and the service was half through when he arrived. He found a seat, as he expressed it, in the "amen corner," and sat down. He had scarcely been seated when somebody touched him on the elbow, and turning around, 'he discovered that he was sitting beside the Rev. Robert McMillen, whom he happened to know quite well. McMillen asked Sankey to take charge of the singing at the service, explaining that there seemed to be nobody present who could lead. At the conclusion of a very lengthy prayer, McMillen nudged Sankey, and told him to start right in and sing. Without waiting for any further invitation, young Sankey arose and sang with wonderful feeling the words: DWIGHT L. MOODY, 90 "There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains." The congregation forgot to join in on the chorus, and Sankey finished the hymn by himself. Moody was well pleased with the singing during the remainder of the service. When the meeting was brought to a close McMillen asked Sankey to step forward and he would introduce him to Moody. A procession was formed which slowly made its way to the front of the room where Moody was standing. As Sankey drew near, Moody stepped out and took him by the hand. "Where are you from?" Moody asked. "Pennsylvania," replied Sankey. "Married or single?" "Married. I have a wife and one child." "What do you do for a living when you are at home?" "I am in the Government service." All this time Moody had been holding Sankey's hand. Looking down into his face with his keen black eyes he said: "Well, you'll have to give it up." Sankey stood amazed and was at a loss to understand just what Moody meant by telling him he would have to give up what was to him a good position and one affording him a very comfortable living. He was so taken back for a few seconds that he could make no reply. Moody, however, explained what he had meant. "You'll have to give up your Government position and come with me. You are just the man I have been looking for for a long time. I want you to come with me. You can do the singing and I'll do the talking." Sankey had by this time partly recovered from his sur- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 91 prise, but the thought of giving up a good position for an uncertainty was too much, and he begged for time in which to consider the matter. Moody asked him if he would go with him and pray over the question, and out of politeness Sankey consented. Moody prayed that Sankey would see his way clear to do as he had asked, and Sankey argued within himself against the proposition. The two finally parted and Sankey returned to his room impressed by Moody's prayer, but still undecided. That was on Sunday. All that day and night Sankey thought over Moody's words, but the next morning found him still inclined to stick to the Government position with its salary assured every month. Just at a moment when he was more inclined to be wavering than anything else a card was brought to him. He examined it and found it was from Moody, and asking him to meet him at a certain street corner that evening at 6 o'clock. Without knowing what he was wanted for Sankey wrote an acceptance upon the back of the card and returned it to Moody. Together with a few friends he went to the ap-pointed place at 6 o'clock that evening, and in a few seconds Moody came along. Without even stopping to speak, Moody walked on and into a store near by and asked permission to use a store box. The permission was given and Moody rolled the large box out on to the street corner and then calling Sankey aside asked him to get up and sing something. Sankey complied, and after one or two hymns had been sung Moody crawled up onto the box and commenced to preach. The workingmen were just on their way home from the mills and factories, and in a short time Moody had secured a large crowd. Sankey says of him that he preached 92 DWIGHT L. MOODY that evening from that store box as he has never heard him preach since. The crowd stood spellbound as the words fell from Moody's lips with wonderful force and rapidity. After he had talked for about fifteen minutes Moody leaped down from the box and announced that he was going to hold a little meeting of his own at the Academy of Music, and invited the crowd to accompany him there. Arm in arm Moody and Sankey marched down the street singing hymn after hymn as they went. The crowd followed closely at their heels, and the men with their dinner pails forgot to go home, so completely carried away were they with the sermon from the store box. Speaking of that march down the street, Sankey declared it to have been his first experience as a Salvation Armyist. It took but a few minutes to pack the Academy of Music to the doors, and Moody saw that the men in their working clothes were first seated before he ascended to the platform to speak. His second address was as captivating as the one delivered on the street corner, and it was not until the delegates had arrived for the evening session of the convention that the meeting was brought to a close. Sankey was still undecided when Moody again brought up the question of their going together. However, he accepted an invitation to spend a week with Moody, and before that week was over he had sent his commission to Hugh McCullough, who, was at that time Secretary of the Treasury, and a soldier who had been imprisoned at Libby Prison was given Sankey's place in the internal revenue service. It was during the service at Moody's church in Chicago one evening that the great fire occurred which destroyed so much of that city. Tw, a 0J N -z 20 .L7 0 Q H ~ by s .z cLt y w 0 .C - , }-.. 'C) N) i U -C)' C) -C) U. 1C it N <-CI IT W 0i C OC -C) r N OC C)H L C) O N r71. r) .C y 0 7y 0 4 tI THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 97 The church was crowded with men and women when the warning rumble of the fire alarms compelled Moody and Sankey to bring the meeting to a sudden close. Moody's church was destroyed that night and some of the people who had attended the meeting were burned to death at various parts of the city before sunrise the next day while trying to save their homes. The two evangelists were now without a home in which to preach. Moody took the first train out of Chicago and made a hurried journey to Philadelphia, New York and Washington, and soon returned with sufficient money to enable his congregation to rebuild their church. Mr. Sankey, in the meantime, returned to his family in Pennsylvania. But no sooner was the new tabernacle erected in the midst of the ruins than the two brethren returned and commenced their work. again together, taking up their lodgings in ante-rooms of the great rough building and giving themselves day and night to comforting the bodies and saving the souls of the unfortunate people who thronged this place of refuge. In a few weeks a remarkable revival of religion had sprung up and was being carried on with surprising and gratifying results in the new tabernacle. In the spring of 1872 Mr. Moody visited England a second time, and during his absence Mr. Sankey conducted his meetings in Chicago. A remarkable example of Mr. Moody's faith in God occurred when he started on this journey. He receives an invitation to go to England. God wants him there. He announces his intended departure to his family, who are to go with him, and to his church and Mr. Sankey, who are to be left behind. He appoints the day to give them his parting message and to bid them farewell. But he has no money. He cannot pay his passage. The last day arrives. That evening he is to take the train for New York. No money for car or steamer fare! He will not ask it of men; he can only pray God 98 DWIGHT L. MOODY to send it. But his faith never falters. A few hours before he and his family are to take the train, a friend, Mr. John V. Farwell, who knows nothing of his needs, suddenly remembers that Mr. Moody will want some money "after he reaches England." He accordingly leaves his place of business, goes to say good-bye to Mr. Moody, and while shaking his hand, leaves $500 in it. Truly Mr. Moody's faith was rewarded! "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform!" During this visit to England, Mr. Moody became more and more convinced that Great Britain was ready for the most wonderful revival it had ever known. Early in the year 1873 he received an invitation from three workers in England to, begin meetings there. On receiving the letter, Mr. Moody read it to Mr. Sankey and exclaimed: "You have often proposed that we should go out evangelizing together. No0w go with me to England!!" Mr. Sankey finally consented and preparations were made for the journey. CHAPTER X. MOODY AND SANKEY'S REMARKABLE WORK IN GREAT BRITAIN ACCORDINGLY, on the 7th day of June, 1873, Mr. Moody, his family, and Mr. Sankey sailed from New York, and ten days later landed in Liverpool. Strengthened by all his previous experience, Mr. Moody's faith was now stronger than ever, and he was determined, and prayed that as a result of this visit ten thousand souls might be brought to Christ. However, on reaching the other side, a great disappointment awaited Mr. Moody. He found a letter stating that owing to the death of the men who had invited him to England it would be impossible to have him make the visit. Sankey was dismayed, but Moody was confident that everything would come out right in the end. With the letter still in his hands, he turned to Sankey and said: "Sankey, if the Lord opens the door to us, we'll go through. If not, we'll go back at once to America." Neither had any money, and the situation was anything but cheerful. Moody found another letter in his pocket which had been handed him before leaving New York, and which he had neglected to open. Tearing open the envelope, he rapidly ran his eye down the letter, and, quickly turning to Sankey, exclaimed: "Sankey, the Lord has opened the door. We'll stay!" The letter was from a resident of York inviting Moody and Sankey to visit his city should they ever come to England. The invitation was gladly accepted, and three days later Moody and Sankey were holding meetings in York. The attendance was at first rather poor, but Moody's ser99 IoO DWIGHT L. MOODY mons and Sankey's hymns soon had their effect, and it was not long before the meeting place was too small to accommodate the crowds. From that on they met with continued success. Mr. Moody's method of expounding the Scripture attracted wide attention; one of the first effects of his.ministry being the rousing of believers to more earnest study of the Bible. He exhorted them to bring their Bibles to every service, and taught them the best methods of Bible study. As a result of this Bible instruction there arose such a demand for a certain edition of the Bible, with index and concordance, that the publishers were forced to increase their production and were still unable to supply the demand without considerable delay. Mr. Sankey's singing was also a surprise and pleasure. Such dramatic rendering of Gospel songs had never been heard before. Oftentimes his lodgings were in the center of the city, and when he would sit down. with his harmonium and play and sing for his host and hostess-the windows of the house being open-a crowd that filled the street would gather and listen most attentively. The Moody and Sankey meetings became more and more successful as the weeks and months went by. The revivals started in local towns soon swept over all of England, Ireland and Scotland like a great tidal wave. For two years they continued to work in all parts of Great Britain with a success never before known. The largest halls in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Liverpool and London were engaged and filled to overflowing. Ministers of all creeds and laymen of every class, from duke to street-sweeper, joined enthusiastically in. Every day accounts of it filled column after column of the newspapers. So great, indeed, was the desire to hear the latest tidings concerning it that several extra newspapers were started in London, and some of those which had been leading a precarious life leaped at once into large success. The press THE MAN AND HIS MISSION IOI throughout the English-speaking world was discussing the merits of Mr. Moody's preaching and Mr. Sankey's singing. Some wondered how the men could do it; others, seeing and feeling the Divine-mission of the men, thanked God for raising them up to reap the remarkable harvest. At one meeting, composed of sixty-six young men, who were inquiring what they must do to be saved, sixty of them were blessed before they left the place. In thousands of Christian homes the deepest interest was felt by parents for their children, and by masters and mistresses for their servants, and so universal was this that Dr. Horatius Bonar declared his belief "that there was scarcely a Christian household in all Edinburgh in which there was not one or more persons converted during the revival there." While preaching in Edinburgh a noted infidel, chairman of an infidel club, attended the services. He came to the meeting intending not only to ridicule it, but also hoping to raise a controversy with Mr. Moody and thus practically break it up. In this, however, he was unsuccessful, and would have been thrust out of the house if Mr. Moody had not interposed in his behalf. He remained after the congregation had been dismissed, and Mr. Moody, seeing him, asked him if he wished to become a Christian. He answered that he did not, and that he had a poor opinion of Christians. "Will you not let me pray for you ?" asked Mr. Moody. "Oh, yes," said he. "I have no objection to your trying your hand on me, but I do not think it will do the least good." At once Mr. Moody kneeled down beside the scoffer and prayed for him earnestly and tenderly; then left him, promising to pray for him still further at home. In a few days the infidel became convicted of sin, resigned the presidency of the infidel club and was happily converted. At a later meeting held in Edinburgh by the evangelist, it is authentically stated that out of thirty persons seeking the 102 DWIGHT L. MOODY Lord seventeen were members of this infidel club-one of them being its president, the successor of him whose conversion has just been related. Finally, and best of all, the infidel with whom Mr. Moody prayed became a successful Gospel evangelist. During these two years hundreds of extraordinary conversions were reported. A workman gives the following experience: "Several months ago I listened to an address from the text, 'Whosoever believeth hath everlasting life.' I had led a life of sin and thought that the words surely could not refer to myself; but on retiring that night, during my sleep I dreamt that the 'Whosoever' referred to me. I at once jumped out of bed and hunted up the Bible to see 'Whosoever' with my own eyes. The moment my glance rested upon that wonderful word I was changed and at once believed on Christ. On that promise I have been resting ever since." Dr. Andrew Bonar writes the following charming domestic scene, which occurred at this time. He says: "One day I called upon a man and his wife who resided in my parish. I said to the woman: 'I understand you have been receiving a blessing at the Moody and Sankey meetings.' " 'Yes,' said she, 'it occurred in this fashion: A few nights ago my husband went out early in the evening to attend the revival service. A few moments after he had gone I also determined to go to the meeting. I entered the tent, listened for a few moments, and received such a blessing that I came home and at once, upon my knees, accepted Christ. Strangely enough, that same evening my husband was also converted. When he came home he entered quietly, took a seat opposite me and gazed into my eyes. I also looked frankly and eagerly at him. Then I asked: "' "Have you got something?"' "' "Yes," replied he, "have you?"' "' "I have, indeed," said I."' THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 103 "'"Well, that was just what I was desiring to tell you about," said he, "but I scarcely knew how to begin." " 'Oh! I cannot tell you how happy we have both been ever since that glorious moment,' said the wife." The following incident of Moody and Sankey's revival at Inverness is reported: At the conclusion of a service held in the Presbyterian Church, a gentleman and his wife, while passing out of the hall, were invited to enter the inquiry room. "No, we cannot go in to-night," replied the man, turning to his wife as he spoke, as if he thought she would not wish to go in. But the one who had given the invitation, noticing the look, said: "By all means bring, the lady in also." Mr. Moody at once took them aside into the pastor's study, talked with them a few moments about their difficulties, prayed with them, and in a short time both left the hall rejoicing in Christ. A-very few minutes later the same lady returned.to tell Mr. Moody that her two sons had been in the inquiry meeting held in another room at the same church and that both had found salvation. Thus in one night was a whole family snatched from darkness and brought into the glorious light of the Gospel. While working in the city of Birmingham, a young lady having been converted was in great distress to know what to do concerning her affianced husband. He was a wild young man and apparently hopeless, as far as concerned his becoming a Christian. As he was calling upon her one evening he noticed that she was preoccupied. When he inquired what was troubling her, she replied that she had given her heart to Christ, and was in doubt whether she could be thoroughly happy with a man who was an unbeliever. At once the young man exclaimed, both laughing and crying for joy: "You need not be troubled in the least point, Mary. I also 104 DWIGHT L. MOODY have been to these wonderful revival meetings and have given my heart to Christ. One night last week I entered the meeting in a spirit of fun, and while there heard Mr. Sankey sing. -is song so touched my heart that I at once accepted Christ and have been rejoicing ever since." However, in the midst of the young-couple's jubilation, the mother of the young lady entered the room, and inquiring what they were talking about was told the circumstances. Instead of rejoicing with them she scolded them for frittering away their time on such a senseless thing as religion. When she had left the room the young people knelt down and prayed earnestly for her, and in a few days had the satisfaction of seeing her under deep conviction, and finally she, too, found salvation. During their campaign in Liverpool Mr. Henry Drummond, who was following Mr. Moody from town to town assisting in the inquiry room, reported the following instance of the conversion of a comic singer. He said: "As the young man entered the stage of the theater one evening he started to, sing a comic song. At the same instant, however, the verse of a Sunday-school hymn which he had memorized in his youth came so vividly to his mind that he was utterly unable to, think of anything save that single verse. The comic song he could not sing. After one or two attempts he gave up in despair and retired in confusion to the wing. Here he was met by the angry manager, who, at once dismissed him. The young man went out on the street and at once plunged into dissipated habits, hoping to drown the memory of the tragic occurrence in drink. In the midst of his debauch, however, he composed a short comedy, which ended with a burlesque upon the way in which Messrs. Moody and Sankey conducted their revival services. Wishing, however, to make his satire complete in every.particular, he decided to attend one of the Gospel meetings then being held in Victoria Hall. As he f ,1 P N / W \.J U nl ice. O ;, z i. o w cn . , <. ] ' ^ t' . r :_ t ,; _ r ' T. f °;; _ i , " ' W ., ' x ' --_ _4 :-, " tT. I S rt '.- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 10o7 sat endeavoring to obtain an exact report, the Holy Spirit descended upon him with such power that he was convicted of his terrible sins before God, and in sorrow and with penitence he entered the inquiry room, where he speedily found peace and joy in his Savior. Not long afterward he entered a training school to prepare himself for service in the foreign mission field." While still in Liverpool an incident occurred which showed that Mr. Moody was a man of decisive action and had an extraordinary genius for organization. The evangelist was conducting a meeting one night when one of the city preachers who spoke declared the chief needs of Liverpool were cheap refreshment houses to counteract the effect of the saloons. When the speaker finished Mr. Moody begged him to go on for ten minutes longer. Meanwhile he was busy whispering with some of the prominent citizens on the platform. At the end of the ten minutes Mr. Moody came forward and announced that.a company had been formed to carry out this very object. The stock was subscribed on the spot, and the "British Workmen Company, Limited," was thus formed. It is still in existence, and has done a vast amount of good, and has incidentally paid dividends almost from the start. It was during theLondon campaign, where the services were held in Agricultural Hall, which seated 15,000 persons and was daily filled to overflowing, that one of the most remarkable conversions of all Mr. Moody's revival services occurred. Years afterward Mr. Moody related the story of this conversion as follows: "The man was an English race-horse owner. He was dethe voted tc: track in all that that implies, and had been for the biggest part of his life. He was third owner of the Epsom race track, and a well-known character in sporting circles. He came to the meeting out of curiosity, but his heart was changed before it closed. He became a-Christian, gave up his sporting Io8 DWIGHT L. MOODY connections, sold his horses and all his racing interests and thereafter lived an exemplary Christian life. He had several sons, all of whom are earnest Christian workers. "This was a remarkable case, but there may have been others to equal it, although the change does not stand out in such strong contrast. I have always felt that I have been well repaid for my life's workl if I had accomplished no more than the saying of that man." As a total result of the two years' campaign it is estimated that more than persons were won to Christ! Thus Mr. Moody's prayer for Io,ooo souls was answered ten times over! ioo,ooo CHAPTER Xl. THE WONDERFUL STORY OF THE GOSPEL HYMNS T IE world-wide popularity and sale of the Moody and Sankey Gospel Hymns is one of the miracles of latterday religion. We are glad to be able to give the true story of the origin and spread of these books. The facts are as follows: Very soon after beginning the revival meetings in England, Mr. Moody sorely felt the need of new songs, to keep up and fan still further the flame of revival. He consulted with Mr. Sankey, gathered together half a hundred of their most popular and effective songs, and decided to have them printed in a small book, to use at their meetings. Taking the copy in his hand, Mr. Moody set out, and walked up and down the streets of London trying to find a publishe'r. Up steep and dark stairways he climbed, only to meet with a polite refusal from the manager of the firm. At last, after groping down into a sort of underground cellar, he found the manager of an insignificant house, who was willing to print a small edition if Moody would put up the money' in advance. This was done. But it took every cent that Moody and his wife and Mr. Sankey and his wife had in the world. The book, however, was an instant success. The first edition was sold out in a few hours, and thereafter, although the presses were kept in motion day and night, it was difficult to print it fast enough to supply the demand. That is the true origin of the Gospel Hymns, which has since attained a larger circulation than any other publication except the Bible, and is to-day one of the best paying literary properties in the world. Mr. Moody returned to Chicago in the fall of 1875. The half-built Farson block, at 236 and 252 Monroe street, was log IIO DWIGHT L. MOODY roofed over and turned into a tabernacle for the home-coming of the evangelist. All winter he preached to audiences ranging up to 10,000 persons, among other things raising $Ioo,ooo to pay the losses incurred by the struggling Young Men's Christian Association in two disastrous fires. The Chicago avenue church was placed firmly on its feet with the royalties from the English issues of Mr. Moody's books and the Moody and Sankey "Hymns." In all Mr. Moody devoted $70,000 to the establishment of the Chicago avenue congregation. "Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs," which he compiled with P. P. Bliss and Mr. Sankey, is said to have reached a circulation of 20,000,000 copies and to have realized $1,250,000 in royalties. This money was received by a committee, who applied it to various religious purposes. None of it went to Mr. Moody, who asked no price and would take none for his labors. All his royalties for years have been equally divided between his various educational institutions. Last year they amounted to $20,000 The story of the origin and evolution of the Gospel Hymns would not, however, be complete unless larger mention was made of Mr. Sankey, who was the chief author of the books. A short time ago, while attending one of Mr. Moody's summer conferences at Northfield, it was my privilege to obtain from Mr. Sankey's own lips the stiory of how he became a singer; of how he uses his songs to glorify God; and of how his most famous hymn, "The Ninety and Nine," was written. I found Mr. Sankey in his room at the Betsy Moody Cottage early one morning. He is short and heavy set in figure, with full face, snapping eyes, and a hearty, ringing laugh. He speaks rapidly and with a nervous energy that characterizes all his movements. When I asked for the salient facts of his youth, and how he became a gospel singer, he said: "I was born on a farm in 1840. Was converted at a very THE MAN AND HIS MISSION I I.I early age. While still a youth, the family removed to Newcastle, Pa. In the town I at once began taking an active part in the church to which I belonged. I became superintendent of the Sunday school, leader of the choir, class leader; also president of the Y. M. C. A. of the village. "When did I begin to sing? I sang from childhood. I was literally full and running over with music. Inherited, do you ask? No. None of my ancestors were eminently musical. But I seemed to have been endowed at birth with a musical spirit, and by being converted early, my voice was early consecrated to the Lord.' I had no special training save that obtained by my individual study and practice. Although I studied music in the ordinary manner, I have never sung in the usual way, nor do I ever wish to do so." "What chiefly differentiates your singing from that of other people?" I asked. "Well, in my singing I try to depict the new features in each verse," said Mr. Sankey. "I endeavor to paint the picture in music. I strive to enter into the song with my whole heart and mind so that I can get the spiritual meaning out of the hymn and present it vividly to the audience." Thousands of persons, in America, England and the other lands where Mr. Sankey has gone on his unique mission, have been converted through his singing. He has had so many wonderful experiences in the course of more than twenty years of singing, that he expects shortly to publish a volume entitled, "The Story of the Gospel Hymns." It will contain hundreds of cases of answered prayer, and scores of touching anecdotes. As an illustration of his methods of composing and of how God has been with him, he-after considerable urging-narrated the following story of how he wrote the music for his famous song, "The Ninety and Nine." Mr. Sankey said: "When Mr. Moody and I were holding 1I2 DWIGHT L. MOODY revival meetings in England and Scotland, I was traveling one day from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I was reading a newspaper as the train sped along, when my eye fell on a poem about a shepherd and his sheep. I read it through, and at once felt it would make a great song if it were set to music. I tore it out and laid it in my scrapbook, thinking that some time I might compose music for it. "Next day, the subject of the meeting in Edinburgh was 'The Good Shepherd.' At the close of the meeting, after the famous Dr. Andrew Bonar had spoken, Mr. Moody rose and said, 'Mr. Sankey, have you any hymn appropriate to the occasion, for a solo?' I had nothing save the poem I had found on the train the previous day. I felt that would be exceptionally appropriate, but I was unable to use it, as no music had as yet been written for it. Suddenly the impression came upon me: Sing the hymn and make the tune as you go along. It was almost as if I had heard a voice, so vivid was the sensation. I yielded to it, and taking the little newspaper slip and laying it on the organ before me, with a silent prayer to God for help, I commenced to sing. "Note by note, the music was given me clear through to the end of the tune. After the first verse, I was very glad I had gotten through, but overwhelmed with fear that the tune for the next verse would be greatly different from the first. But again looking up to the Lord for help in this most trying moment, He again gave me the same tune for all the remaining verses, note for note. The impression made upon the audience was very deep. Hundreds were in tears. "Mr. Moody left the pulpit and, coming to my side at the organ, said: 'Where did you get that? I never heard anything like it in my life.' He at once closed the meeting with prayer-asking God to bring home to the Shepherd's fold many a poor wanderer-and pronounced the benediction. In such a God-given way was 'The Ninety and Nine' born." CHAPTER XII. GREAT REVIVALS IN AMERICAN CITIES SCARCELY had Mr. Moody returned to. America when urgent calls for his services came from three citiesWashington, Philadelphia and Brooklyn. He decided to begin work at Brooklyn, where a vast crowd greeted him at his first meeting, held on the 24th of October, 1875. The Brooklyn Rink, in which the meetings were held, was capable of seating 6,000 persons, and was filled to overflowing day and night, the people being extremely anxious to hear the man who had shaken Great Britain as no man had ever done before. The great majority of the crowds, however, were Christians already. After the meetings had continued a few days, Mr. Moody exclaimed: "I don't believe I have reached 500 unconverted persons in any one of the meetings, unless it was some of the night meetings for men." From that time on to the conclusion of the meetings, frequent services were held for "non-church-goers" only, who were admitted by ticket. Of his preaching in these meetings, Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler of Brooklyn said: "Mr. Moody never in his life preached more eloquently than in Brooklyn. Especially his discourses on confessing one's sins, on repenting, and on seeking and saving the lost, were ideal in their arousing and searching power. Although the critics may say that he says 'Isrel' for 'Israel,' and though he may persist in saying 'they was' for 'they were,' and 'done it' for 'did it,' this makes in reality no difference whatosever, when one remembers the mighty power which follows his words. It is a beautiful piece of modesty for Mr. Moody to declare: 'There are plenty of ministers in Brooklyn who can preach far "13 114 DWIGHT L. MOODY better than I,' but I for one know -not of a minister in this city, or in any other city, for that matter, who can pack so much soul-saving truth into concise, portable form and send it home to the heart with such effectiveness as Dwight L. Moody." Mr. Charles M. Morton, who was at this time conducting the Mission Bethel of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, gives the following examples of remarkable conversions in an article in the Illustrated Christian Weekly. He says: "Almost from the beginiing, the inquiry meetings have been filled with persons of both sexes and of all ages and conditions. An old man and his wife, both gray-headed, came forward together to the front seats and prayed for 'eleventh hour' mercy, and went away rejoicing. Grateful tears coursed down the cheeks of each of them. "A young man in the employ of a Brooklyn tailor, on his way to a customer with a suit of clothing, just finished, stopped in at the rink for a little while, and went on rejoicing in Christ. He will attend to his employer's business more promptly in the future. "On one side of a Christian worker knelt an old grayheaded man, and on the other a tender girl of seventeen. As the tears coursed down their cheeks the father and daughter began the Christian life together. "A confirmed skeptic came to, the rink to gratify the curiosity he had to hear Moody and Sankey, but could not get in on account of the throngs. Wandering over to the Reformed Church, he met a Christian acquaintance, who persuaded him to remain, and they had a long conversation. The next night he came to the same meeting and was among the first to rise to be prayed for. Walking home from the meeting he said: 'Well, I didn't think the time would ever come when I should prefer a prayer-meeting to a theatre.' That day he had bought himself a little pocket Testament, and when his friend marked a special verse or two for him he expressed the warmest grati- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 1 15 tude. A praying mother whose faithfulness had never waned had much to do with all this." This campaign in Brooklyn was the real beginning of a great American revival, which rapidly spread to New York and Philadelphia, and was second only in extent and influence to his recent campaign in England. It was known as "the great awakening" of 1875-6. The second city visited by Mr. Moody and his assistants was Philadelphia, where the services were held in the old Pennsylvania freight depot, which had recently been purchased by Mr. John Wanamaker, in which to locate his new department store, and which, in the interim, was placed at the disposal of Mr. Moody. This immense structure in the centre of the business district of Philadelphia, corner of Market and Thirteenth streets, was capable of seating 20,000 persons. The text of Mr. Moody's sermon at the opening meeting was: "Say not ye that there are yet four months and then cometh the harvest. Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest." The text was made a rousing bugle call for an advance all along the line. "I am going to begin moderately in Philadelphia," said Mr. Moody, in the course of his sermon. "It takes about a month to get thoroughly at work. We had to quit Brooklyn just as we were beginning to do something, but we are here for a long siege." Day by day and week by week the tide of spiritual power rose higher and higher. At the end of three weeks nearly o10,000ooo and women had inquired the way of salvation. men Rarely, if ever, in the history of America have larger, more enthusiastic, or more remarkable a series of meetings been held than those in the old freight depot in Philadelphia. The following statistics of attendance will give an idea of the interest and enthusiasm aroused. It is stated that the total attendance at the meetings from 116 DWIGHT L. MOODY the 21st of November, 1875, to the 4th of February, 1876, was over a million people. On a single Sunday as many as 28,000 different people attended the services. During a single week nearly 20,000 tickets were given out for the afternoon meetings held for women only and for evening Sunday services for men-all these people stating that they were not Christians. So perfect were the arrangements for handling the crowds that the audience was seated at the rate of a thousand a minute; and, had necessity demanded, the entire audience of 13,000 people could have been passed out of the building in four minutes. The average attendance daily was 22,000. Three days later, on the 7th of February, a similar series of meetings were begun in the Hippodrome, New York City. The wonderful success at Brooklyn and Philadelphia was repeated. Multitudes were brought to Christ daily. A notable feature of these meetings was the interest they aroused among the leaders of wealth and fashion. One society lady anxiously inquired of her pastor whether she might not join the band of Christian workers at the Hippodrome. "No,'" was his reply, "that is not the place for you." "But what shall I do ?" she inquired anxiously. "I must have a share in the work of bringing people to Christ." "I will tell you what to do," replied her pastor, "take your carriage and go out and make calls among your fashionable friends and talk to them about Christ in their own parlors." Day after day this was done, with the most encouraging results, so that several of her friends were induced to go and do likewise. Here is an incident which helps to explain - the hold Mr. Moody secured among people of wealth: The child of a wealthy family, living in upper New York, was very sick, and when the host and hostess where Mr. Moody was staying called upon this family they found that the doctors had given up all hope of the child's recovery. THE MANAND HIS MISSION II7 Returning home with their hearts full of sympathy for their stricken friends, they told Mr. Moody of the sad case. "Let us all kneel down and pray for the child," said Mr. Moody. Then, as they all knelt together, Mr. Moody poured out his soul in earnest and trusting supplication to God for the child's .recovery. In a few days the child had recovered so much that it was entirely out of danger, and its parents, recognizing this as a direct answer to the evangelist's prayer, expressed their gratitude to God by giving Mr. Moody $25,000 as a thank offering at the close of the Hippodrome meetings. Among the lower classes, also, God's power was equally manifested during the great revival. For example, here are seven experiences related at a meeting held for men only. Mr. Moody presided, and called upon the converts one after another to tell what God had done for them. The first speaker was a young man of 28 years of age, who had been about to commit suicide on account of his heavy losses one night in a gambling den. While debating whether to shoot or drown himself, he found himself in front of the Hippodrome. Hearing the singing, he felt a strange impulse to enter the building. He did so, and before the meeting was ended he gave his heart to Christ, all thoughts of suicide disappeared, and he became one of the happiest men in the building. A few days later he also had the added joy of seeing his wife converted. The second testimony came from an Englishman who had led a dissipated life in London for ten years, breaking nearly every law of God and man, and was at last compelled to fly from the country to escape imprisonment. He declared that for several weeks before the Hippodrome meetings he had been under conviction and had resolved to become a moral man. "But," said he, "as often as I resolved to give up liquor and evil I felt the appetite for drink and the power of the Ii8 DWIGHT L. MOODY devil was stronger than I. At length I determined to try an experiment, and I spoke the name of 'Jesus' every time the appetite came upon me, and through His blessed name, though I spoke no,formal prayer, I have been saved from my terrible enemy for many days." This man was thoroughly converted at one of Mr. Moody's meetings a few days later. The third speaker was a converted skeptic, who had attended the meetings first out of curiosity, even going into a converts' meeting to see what it was like. Here, however, the simple testimonies of those who had found Jesus made such a deep impression upon him that he speedily became converted also. The fourth man who gave his testimony was one who had been led into infidelity through his fondness for religious argument. He had taken sides against Christianity "for argument's sake," till at length he succeeded in convincing himself that Christianity was wrong. One evening he strayed into the inquiry room and was soon busily engaged in arguing with the person who sat next to him, and was feeling very proud, having worsted his opponent, when a worker came along, and overhearing his declarations of infidelity said to him bluntly: "If that is the case, there is no hope for you." That alarmed him. "Do you really think there is no hope for me ?" he asked. "None at all," was the reply, "unless you begin to pray." Greatly alarmed, he went home fully convinced of his danger and began to pray. Before morning his prayer was answered and he was happily converted. The fifth man was a converted liquor seller. The sixth was one who had been groping in darkness, but had not succeeded in finding his Master until Mr. Moody knelt in prayer with him in the inquiry room. Then the light burst gloriously upon him. The seventh and last was a besotten drunkard, who had be- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION II9 come so desperate that he resolved to drink himself to death. All hope was gone. "I had an awful appetite," said he. "I could not live without liquor But now that appetite is all gone. For weeks I have had no wish for liquor." At the conclusion of the New York services, Messrs. Moody and Sankey turned their faces joyfully toward Chicago, where an equally marvelous revival quickly sprang up. The meetings were held in the famous tabernacle, capable of seating 7,ooo people Here, as elsewhere, the revival soon became the most prominent topic of conversation, and opinions were expressed by all sorts of individuals. As a result of the Chicago revival more than 6,ooo persons registered their names as having been converted, and branch revivals were spread, through its influence, all over the North and West. These three meetings, held in three of America's largest cities during the winter of 1875-6, were but the beginning of similar services to be conducted by the great evangelist in all the leading cities of the United States and Canada during the coming twenty-three years. It is said that in holding special meetings for the conversion of his fellowmen, Mr. Moody has traveled over I,ooo,ooo miles, has addressed over oo100,000,000ooo persons-25,000,oo of whom were young people-and has dealt personally with nearly 750,000 individuals. CHAPTER XIIl. MOODY'S EDUCATIONAL MONUMENT AT NORTHFIELD PERHAPS the most remarkable and unaccountable fact in the life of this wonderful man was that he, a man almost entirely without education, should have left as his chief memorial and monument one of the greatest educational institutions in America. More and more as the years went on and Moody went here and there over the entire world, holding evangelistic services, he realized that man must not only be called out from the pathways of sin, but he must also be trained, physically, mentally and spiritually, for God's service. With this in view, soon after his return from his great series of meetings in England in the winter of 1875-6, he returned to his native village of Northfield, Massachusetts, for rest and recuperation. Here he built a modest frame house within a stone's throw.of his mother's house, in which he was born. There Mr. Mdody spent the summerof 1875 resting from his great labors of the year previous in England, planning an equally great campaign among American cities, during the coming winter. But as day after day he worked in the fields and met the bright young farmer boys of the neighborhood, or drove with a friend or two to visit the homes of his former friends and neighbors, he observed with great pity that there was no open door educationally for those"bright young men and women of scanty means. So touched was he by their lack of opportunity for mental and spiritual growth that he at once started in his own home a small school; chiefly, it is true, for the study of the Bible. Here the students came from the surrounding neighborhood each morning, studied with their in120 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 121 spiring teacher for several hours, and then drove home in the gathering darkness. A few, however, who lived tool far to come and go each day, Mr. Moody took into his own home, an addition to the house being built for their especial accommodation. This was the beginning of the Northfield schools, which to-day owns property valued at nearly half a million dollars, and where 1,200 earnest and consecrated young men and women are being trained, physically, intellectually and spiritually, for valiant service for God in whatever way their-talents may lead. Nor alone in the winter is the educational work carried on. But a few years since Mr. Moody started a most unique summer school or series of schools, known they world over as the Northfield Summer Conference. To these meetings are invited the foremost Christian leaders of the world, and to them also come hundreds and thousands of earnest seekers after the truth as it is revealed in God's Word. Each summer for six weeks these conferences are held. They now consist of the World's Student Conference, the Young Men's Christian Association Conference, and the General Conference for Christian Workers. Each lasts about two weeks, each has for its single aim the deepening of the spiritual life. Of course Mr. Moody is the pivot point upon which all these meetings hinge. He scoured the earth to secure the best speakers on the different phases of the Christian life and work. He advertised the meetings far and wide to attract large audiences to hear the speakers, then he prayed that the Holy Ghost might descend upon each.visitor to Northfield, and he or she might be a messenger to tell the glad tidings to those at home, and thus the whole land be stirred up by the influences emanating from the Conferences. In issuing a call for a Conference Mr. Moody wrote: "The great need of the hour is the preaching of Bible truth in the 122 DWIGHT L. MOODY power of thelHoly Ghost. Preaching of negatives neither draws men nor builds them up,into, the likeness of Christ. Let us then gather together in Northfield this season for a special preparation for service; let us be willing to be shown whatever is hindering God's work through us, and then by the study of His Word and prayer seek His blessing in our individual lives. Northfield students have no theological hobby. As in former years the only standard will be the Bible, the revelation of God to His people. It is not time now to discuss the quarrels. We believe the Bible as it has stood for ages. It is still the inexhaustible treasure of power to the church. Let us then come together this season to gather wheat with which to feed a starving world." Among the men who have made these conventions worldfamous in the past are Henry Drummond, Rev. Henry Van Dyke, President F. L. Patton, Rev. F. B. Meyer, Dr. Andrew Murray, Dr. A. T. Gordon, Prebendary Webb-Peploe, Rev. G. Campbell Morgan and Rev. George H. C. Macgregor. It was my good fortune to. attend a number of these stirring conferences in Northfield. I found the village to be beautiful beyond all expectations. It lies alongside the meandering Connecticut River and is encircled by the hazy foothills of the Green Mountains. It reminds one strongly of a big platter in which the village forms the bottom and the mountains the edge. It is a far-reaching panorama of green meadow, silver water and fleecy clouds. As I walked about the streets and saw the happy groups of people going here and there and heard their joyous conversation about the Christ, I was overwhelmed by the physical and spiritual beauty of the spot that made it appear like nothing so much as Beulah Land. As many as twenty-five meetings were held daily during the General Conference. Three times daily the Auditorium, seating 2,500 people, was crowded with people, eager to hear of "The Life More Abundant." As I have said, 2 I-V V rO 0J H' 0rT, LF2 ~?~~'* W ~ X?3 f 4Rh 9 L . ' c'6 0 0 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 125 Mr. Moody was the mainspring of the meetings. His activity seemed endless. He arranged the program, conducted the meetings, led the singing, kept the speakers going from morning till night, stirred up things whenever things became dull, and looked after people and problems generally. I remember hearing Mr. Moody at one of the conferences say to the great audience assembled in the Auditorium: ""I am tired and sick of moral essays; it would take about a ton of them to convert a child 5 years old. A man went to a certain church once and said he liked it because the preacher never touched on politics or religion, but just read nice little essays. Give the people the Word of God. Some people say the Bible is a text book; they get a text and away they go. They go up in a balloon and talk about astronomy, and then they go down and give you a little geology; the next Sunday they go on the same way, and then wonder why the people do not read their Bibles. Some one has said that there were four things necessary in studying the Bible; admit, submit, commit, and transmit. First, admit its truth; second, submit to its teaching; third, commit it to memory; fourth, transmit it. If the Christian life is a good thing for you, pass it on to someone else." But what most astonished me at Northfield was the magnificent system of schools which have sprung up out of the ground where the great evangelist was born, almost as if by magic. Twenty years ago the land was barren, save for a few struggling farm-houses; to-day the spot is covered with a chain of Moody schools, consisting of more than twenty beautiful brick and stone buildings. There are three large winter schools, with an aggregate attendance of 1,200 students, which are the Northfield Seminary for Girls, the Mount Hermon Academy for Boys and the Northfield Training School for Christian Workers. The aim of the Seminary and Academy is to give poor but earnest boys and girls an 126 DWIGHT L. MOODY academic education at one-half the usual cost, or $Ioo per year for board and tuition. The distinctive trait of the schools lies in the fact that they do not train the intellectual alone but endeavor to develop fully the spiritual as well as the mental and physical nature. The Bible is given the prominent place in the curriculum, and practical Christianity is inculcated by word and example. In view of all the above facts the Moody Schools constitute one of the marvels of the age. It is a wonderful example of the power of the Holy Spirit to teach even an unscholarly man the deepest philosophical truths. Looking at this pregnant fact, while all the old colleges and universities of the land have lost sight of the central fact that man is, first and foremost, a spiritual being, and that accordingly spiritual training should predominate, over intellectual and physical, here comes an unlettered evangelist and founds an ideal university-for it will be a university ere the twentieth century is far advanced. Truly God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. Northfield is Moody's immortal monument. In future ages he will be as well known as an educator as he is to this generation as an evangelist. CHAPTER XIV. MOODY'S HOME AND DAILY LIFE M Of his R. MOODY'S home life was ideally happy. married life as a whole his sister-in-law, Mrs. William H. Holden, recently said: "I never met with a happier couple. In every way he deferred to her. She answered all his voluminous correspondence. She was the one to whom he always spoke of his plans and his work. No trouble was too great for him if he could save her any bother or every-day, ordinary little troubles. They were married in 1862, and Mr. Moody had already then started on his missionary work at North Market Hall. They were very poor, had hardly enough to live on and resided in a little house at Dearborn avenue and Indiana street, but they were happy, and this happiness has always continued through their lives." Mr. Moody married Miss Emma C. Revell. For several years Miss Revell had been one of Mr. Moody's Sabbathschool teachers. As in every step of his life, he married and set up housekeeping by faith. His first home was a small cottage, which was generally full to over-flowing with visitors. It also overflowed with fun, sympathy and religion. Mr. Moody delighted to play practical jokes on his wife and guests, and would laugh and jump and shout with the children, the happiest child of them all. But in the midst of the merriment some text of Scripture would flash suddenly upon him, and instantly he would cry, "Get out your Bibles," and lo! in a twinkling he would turn the whole household into a Bible class. Whatever cares or troubles burdened him during the 127 128 DWIGHT L. MOODY day, he never failed to lay them aside on entering his cheery home. Three children-two boys and a girl-were born to him, and a happier or a more devoted mother it would be hard to find. From their earliest years Mrs. Moody taught them to pray daily, and instilled into their minds the fact that they belonged, soul and body, to Christ Jesus. During the early years of his married life Mr. Moody had no regular salary. He lived by faith, and this daily trusting for sustenance often brought the family into sore straits. Never, however, did the mission worker falter. He knew that God would take care of them, and his confidence was justified, for never was their larder entirely empty. One of the pleasantest gifts ever bestowed upon Mr. Moody was the present of a new and completely furnished house. It came about in this way: An old friend of Mr. Moody had just built a row of beautiful houses. One of these he determined to set apart for Mr. Moody free of rent, if other friends of the mission worker would furnish it. The others gladly agreed and the undertaking was carried through with enthusiasm, the house being completely fitted up, from garret to cellar, in almost luxurious style. Soft carpets adorned the floors; handsome furniture was found in the hall and parlor; while on the walls of the drawing-room hung life-size portraits of Mr. Moody and his wife. In addition, there was a book-case, containing a not inconsiderable library. The dining-room and kitchen were also completely furnished with all things required for housekeeping, and everything was in order for the surprise. Early on New Year's morning Mr. Moody and his family were captured and carried off in a carriage-they knew not why nor whither. Finally it stopped before a handsome residence and they were conducted into the house, which, to his surprise, was full of acquaintances and friends. After THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 129 mutual greetings had been exchanged and he was wondering what it could all mean, the Rev. Dr. Patterson, on behalf of the company, presented him with a lease of the house and the free gift of all it contained, as a token of love and respect for his simple and earnest Christian character and of gratitude for his heroic labors for the conversion of their city. Never was any one more surprised than Mr. Moody. It seemed more like a dream than reality. Hand in hand with Mrs. Moody, almost speechless with wonder and well-nigh weeping for joy, the couple made the round of the beautiful rooms-much finer than they had ever expected to enjoy. On returning to the assembled friends in the parlor, he tried to thank them for their wonderful kindness; but so overcome was he with emotion that he could only brokenly express to them the gratitude which filled his heart to overflowing. D. L. Moody was one of the hardest workers of the age. Morning, noon and night, for six days out of the seven, he worked incessantly, preaching three or four times a day, giving interviews to reporters, planning the gospel meetings, answering scores of letters, talking individually with anxious inquirers for salvation. He slept only a few hours,. but soundly. Every waking moment he was scheming, talking or preaching. He used to playfully remark that if it was not for his Saturday day of rest he would be in his grave in one month. During a recent visit to Northfield I visited the home of D. L. Moody, saw the study-table-where he worked, and was given interesting facts about his daily life. My guide and informant was Mr. A. P. Fitt, the evangelist's son-in-law, a sturdy, handsome Englishman, who was, for several years, Mr. Moody's private secretary. Mr. Fitt lives just across the street from his father. He is well known as a superintendent of the Bible Institute Colportage Association. 130 DWIGHT L. MOODY The large, roomy house of the evangelist, painted white, with green blinds, stands on the summit of a hill that stretches gently down, like a green carpet, to the Connecticut River, a mile distant. From the wide front porch a scene truly fairy-like greets the eye. First comes a band of green sward reaching to the river; then the stream stretches lazily out like the proverbial silver cord; then a ridge of hazy mountains; while topping these, rises a semicircle of misty mountains-a fascinating panorama, from its beginning in the grass ten feet away, to its ending in that beautiful peak ten miles distant. We passed through the large parlor, the equally large living room, the dining-room-with its heavy oak square table, easily capable of seating four on each side-up a flight of zig-zag stairs, and were, at last, in the great man's study. It overlooks the beautiful expanse of hill and vale just described. It has three good-sized windows, and between two of them stands his working table-a square oak affair as substantial looking as the man who bends over it for two hours each morning before breakfast. From floor to ceiling, on two sides,.the walls were lined with rows of books. They were mostly commentaries, with some works on homiletics and a complete library of everything Spurgeon ever wrote. Mr. Fitt described Mr. Moody's method of sermon-making as follows: "The first step consists in choosing a subject, writing it on a big manila envelope, putting into it every clipping he comes across. Next, he finds a text to fit the subject chosen. Having this, he goes through Cruden's Concordance, and a Topical Text Book, to find ,out what the Bible says about the theme. "Having the subject, the text, and Bible passages relating to it, well in hand, the next labor is illustration. He reviews his varied career, picking out here and there incidents that THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 131 fit into the desired niche. He does not hesitate to look through dictionaries -of anecdotes. In fact, everywhere, through history, biography, etc., he searches industriously together with his secretary to discover just the right incident to write up and clarify the topic. Finally he always sees what Spurgeon has said about the matter. "His sermons are usually preached at first at Northfield," said Mr. Fitt, taking up an envelope having a series of a dozen dates on it, showing the times and places that sermons have been delivered-the first place named being Northfield. As we sat talking in the pleasant study, Mr. Fitt described as follows Mr. Moody's mode of life while he is at home from May to October: "Mr. Moody is.never idle. Summer as well as winter, he works from early morniig often till late at night. Reaching Northfield in May, at the close of a hard winter's evangelistic campaign, he at once engages in three lines of work; gives daily talks to the students in the schools at Northfield; superintends the various conferences for Christian workers that are held throughout the summer months; prepares his sermons for the following winter. This summer he has been unusually busy looking after the gospel work among the soldiers. "His workifng day is about as follows: Rises at five o'clock A. M.; studies on sermons two hours before breakfast. After the morning meal come family prayers, usually conducted by Mr. Moody. His prayers are earnest, definite, brief. He prays for his family, the Northfield schools, the classes (like the soldiers) which are especially on his mind, and certain individuals. He is noted for thanking God a great deal, for health, for all the blessings he enjoys. "From nine o'clock till noon he visits the schools, giving helpful talks, and attends to conference matters. He always goes about in a single-seated buggy. He drives rapidly, and 132 DWIGHT L. MOODY is, perhaps, the most familiar figure on Northfield streets. He knows all the boys and girls and has a nod and smile for each. He enjoys this driving about immensely. It is one of his chief recreations. "Reaching home at noon, he busies himself for an hour in his garden. His exercise is obtained chiefly by this means. He dearly loves to see things growing. He is fond of animals, also. Raising chickens and doves are his hobbies in this line. "At one o'clock P. M. comes dinner, after which he opens his mail, and dictates to his stenographer, and replies to the most important letters. An after-dinner nap follcws this; then more driving, executive work, committee meetings, etc. "After tea, at six P. M., he generally attends the services in the Northfield Auditorium. If at home, he enjoys a game of halma, or croquinole with his wife and son and any friends who may have called. In the summer he retires early as a rule." I am glad to present another view of Mr. Moody's home life, written by Mr. F. H. Jacobs, who was for a score of years one of Mr. Moody's .most trusted singing lieutenants. Mr. Jacobs writes as follows: When a boy I remember very distinctly how I longed to know something of the way Lincoln spent the day. With what eagerness I sought any information that might possibly come from the conversation of groups of men standing about discussing the war and our leaders. And I find that we have not changed very much since growing to manhood, for the question as to the daily habits of Mr. Moody is asked me almost constantly by those who know of my former associations with him in his work. I will try and give you a glimpse of his daily employment of time. Mr. Moody was an early riser. He delighted to arise before any one else in the house wakened. The golden hours 1' ,p THE SEMINARY AT NORTHFIELD I 4' MOODY'S PET DONKEY "DANDY" For years 'Dandy'' has been a familiar figure on Afr. Mlood) 's lawn, keep ing the grass trimmed and beautiful. I a-f 0 w .2 0, x C U-- Ia j-- 0 ' >_a _ : [A ) , ,i H w w wC .. DWIGHT L. MOODY At the age of z8. U U * H 0 H z z SU H W H THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 137 of the waking day were spent when at home in his study. It is scarcely necessary to tell you what he studied. Like Sir Walter Scott, to him there is but one book. In Northfield his rising hour was 5 o'clock, and for two hours or more he was alone with his Bible and its Author. No doubt the nuggets which so often appeared in his speeches were crystallized during these quiet hours. Here he usually read consecutively the whole book, and it is in thus reading that he received the comprehensive knowledge of God's Word so often exhibited in his addresses. But he did not by any means confine himself to a general study. He often entered into the minutest detail. This is especially exhibited in his work on "Bible Characters.'' A close observer of his conversation during the day would often detect that his morning hours had been spent in the study of Bible heroes or of the sublimely simple and unparalleled life of the Son of God. At 7:30 or 8 o'clock he breakfasted when at home, with his family; when away, with his associated workers. At the table his conversations were often interspersed with little pleasantries, which seemed to' add relish to the food partaken, and were enjoyed by all present. His tastes were very simple. He ate only plain, nutritious food, well cooked and wholesome. He seldom drank tea or coffee, but considered ice water one of the greatest luxuries of earth. To his simple diet no doubt is due his matchless physical strength to endure hard work. There are very few men who could equal him in physical endurance. After breakfast his family or workers, as the case might be, joined in morning devotions. A chapter in the Bible or the "Daily Reading," as prepared by Major Whittle, was read and then he usually lead in prayer, or selected some one for that part of the service. Just a word about his prayers at family devotions. Like those in public they were brief and right to the point. I think I never heard a man pray who could comprehend so 138 'DWIGHT L. MOODY much in few words as he did. His family, his schools, his workers, their families, the work in hand, missionaries, ministers, all forms of Christian work in all places, were remembered in an incredibly short space of time and brevity of speech. You rose from your knees having belted the globe with tender petitions for God's care for His own. After prayer, directions were given to his workers for special things needing attention, or matters of a personal nature were attended to at home and then came his correspondence, which was very heavy. While a great deal of this was done by helpers under his direction, the larger portion received his personal attention. A strong point with him was his mastery of details connected with his work and schools. After his correspondence was finished, which was often interrupted by callers, he sometimes went out for a little exercise in the open air. When at home he often drove over the farms, attending to some matters needing personal supervision in connection with his schools, or he read the daily papers, keeping well abreast with the spirit of the times. He was a great admirer of strong characters, and often in conversation some incident of great courage, or bravery, or prowess, came to his mind, and with eyes sparkling with admiration he would relate the incident to those who were present. His general reading gave him a wonderful fund of available information concerning present living leaders in the progress of the world. He was a great admirer of Bismarck and Gladstone among statesmen, but his acquaintance was not limited to these men. He was conversant with leaders in every country. Spurgeon among preachers seemed to stand highest with him, although he was very enthusiastic over the- prospective success of young men who are becoming prominent in their respective fields of labor, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 139 His preparation for preaching was usually by himself. He was very careful in the selection of his subjects. Having studied large audiences for thirty years he seemed to know what was best to preach each successive service, but he did not rely on his judgment alone. He invariably petitioned for guidance in the selection of texts and sermons. I believe it is to these two things: his wonderful judgment and his implicit faith in God to guide him, that we may trace the widespread success of his work as an evangelist. He almost always went to his meeting with a positive assurance as to what his message was to be. When on the platform you saw him just as he was, with his earnest, intense individuality moved by the single purpose of winning souls for Christ. Every act of his, every song sung, every prayer uttered, every word read was turned into this one profound and overpowering desire for conversions. As I followed him from time to time, this one master motive of his life often wrung from me the words, "0 that there were a thousand men with the overmastering, burning desire to win souls for God!" A man under such intense mental and physical strain must of course have shown signs of temporary exhaustion. This was very often the case when after two and often three services in a day he reached his room completely exhausted, but always cheerful and alert concerning reports from workers. He seldom spoke of weariness himself. His workers usually gathered in his room before retiring, giving reports from different parts of the field. In these meetings, very informal and always enjoyable, were often seen some of the stronger characteristics of this man of God. How eagerly he drank in the report of a successful worker who spoke of gathered sheaves for the harvest home. But no less eager when after several reports, perhaps there is one who could not speak of a successful meeting and had to confess he had 140 DWIGHT L. MOODY met with failure. As some worker rose and reluctantly related his seeming failure, I saw Mr. Moody's face change from joy to deep solicitude and sympathy as his eyes became suffused with tears, and with one consent all heads bowed, while he commended the work and workers to God and especially mentioned this one to Him who sees all our work and to whom no doubt our successes are often signal failure and our failures the highest success. This done, the work of the day was dismissed, and for relaxation the company engaged in some pleasant conversation. The thought of some prominent author, or the master motive of some great man, or the great achievement of some person, or the outcome of present great movements in the world were discussed. There was no man who surpassed Mr. Moody in the enjoyment of a good laugh. In fact, he entered as heartily into the relation or the perpetration of a manly joke as any man I ever saw. And his enjoyment was not confined to jokes on somebody else. If there was the least hint of something laughable about himself he was the most eager to have his associates enjoy it at his expense.' Time and space forbid my mentioning many interesting things that came up in daily contact with this wonderful man, but I cannot close without mentioning one more characteristic. That was his devotion to his friends. He was very quick in recognizing sterling worth in men and a kind act was never forgotten; on the contrary, it was sure to be rewarded. On the other hand, men become devoted admirers of him. Only the other day I heard a prominent pastor say, "Moody has won my heart; I love him dearly." Again and again have I heard men say they counted it the privilege of their lives to be connected with him in his work in the least degree. If you were to ask me what most impressed me in his THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 141 daily life I would answer, "his unconscious humility and the utter absence of selfishness." This man was honored above degree; his name was a household word in all Christian nations; his works were known around the world; his presence was the delight of the humblest cottager, and he was entertained in the palaces of royalty; and yet his daily life was the personification of childlike humility. To me he was a marvel of God's grace. He achieved success seldom attained, but had no greater delight than to hear men of strength preach the gospel, being a living example of the Scripture injunction, "In honor preferring one another." CHAPTER XV. AT MOODY'S CHURCH-AFTER THIRTY-SIX YEARS IN 1863 D. L. Moody organized his church in Chicago. A few years later he left the institution and went all over the world as an evangelist. Thirty-six years later, in 1899, I visited this church and found Moody's influence and spirit not a whit less vigorous than on the day he left it. That such should be the case is one of the most remarkable tributes to the man that can be conceived. Thirty years absent and his spirit still ruling every member of his church as surely as the day he founded it! At 7:55 o'clock-while still a block away-I heard the swelling chorus of "A Shelter In a Time of Storm." There was, somehow, something so deliciously joyous in the sound, that my pace unconsciously quickened, and I felt a touch of that longing for the courts of the Lord described by the Psalmist. Inside, the large lecture room was already comfortably filled-and new comers were arriving in twos, threes, and quartets. Everybody was singing heartily-as though it was a physical culture class for lung development. Everybody looked happy: from the leader, Rev. R. A. Torrey, to the group of boys in their teens in the front row. The ordinary long-faced prayer-meetingey air of solemnity was nowhere to be found. The people appeared to be expecting as good a time as though the curtain was soon to rise and the play begin. These things I noted as I took a seat in the middle of the room so as to see and hear accurately what was going on. By the time I secured a book, they were singing with a will: "I Will Sing the Wondrous Story"-a boy of fifteen next me doing his utmost to swell the ringing chorus. 142 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 143 After another rousing song, Mr. Torrey arose and said in his resonant, cheery, hearty tones: "In my early ministry I once read a book on 'The Improvement of the Prayer Meeting.' Various plans and schemes were suggested. But by years of experience I have found the best way to improve a prayer meeting is to so conduct it that the presence of God will be manifest there. That's what we want to-night. We want the Spirit of God to come here in such power that we shall be actually conscious of it. Let all bow in silent prayer and earnestly ask for this." As the mass of heads bent forward, Mr. Torrey continued: "Let each one make it a personal request for God's presence. Now, will some one lead us in a brief prayer ?" The next instant a woman's voice was heard: "Oh, our God, we beseech Thee! Come! Come to-night! Let us feel and know that Thou art here in our midst!" "Now let all sing heartily: 'Praise Him, Praise Him: Jesus Our Blessed Redeemer,' "came the clear tones of Mr. Torrey's voice; and in response there rose a rolling torrent of praise that made the blood tingle. "As the keynote for our meeting to-night, I will read the 65th Psalm," said the leader. He then read the passage, making short running comments. The entire time occupied by the reading and exposition did. not exceed five minutes-possibly not more than three. It was an innovation and one as salutary to the life of the meeting as it was upsetting to my preconceived notions: for it is not a meeting for praise and prayer; wrongly conceived of by some as a forum for dissertation and discussion. "After singing a verse of 'Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,' the testimony part will begin. Let them be personal experiences and brief," said Mr. Torrey. Scarcely had the last note of the song died away before a woman was on her feet saying: "I praise God to-night for a happy and Christiani home. Some 144 DWIGHT L. MOODY time since I wanted to go out and preach the gospel, but God showed me that there was a large enough field for preaching and practicing, too, right in my own home. Praise Him for the conversion of my sonl!" Before this lady had regained her seat another was exclaiming: "I want to publicly thank God for healing me in answer to prayer." Now; two, three and four were on their feet simultaneously. A boy of fourteen, on the front row, was the first to catch the eye of the leader, and said: "I thank the Lord for curing my sister in answer to prayer. She sent a request to this meeting for your prayers, and in answer to them has been healed. I also want to thank God for saving me three weeks ago. I used to go nearly every night to the theater and to shows: I don't go any more. I come to thecbetter show here in the house of God." A colored woman with beaming face, cried: "Oh, I am so happy in Jesus to-night! I tell youse people it pays to serve de Lord. Ise been happier dis week dan ever befo'. I tell you dere's no foolin' 'bout dis business. Get your names right. away in de Book ob Life, and make sure ob heaven-Praise de Lord!" "There is a Land of Pure Delight," began the leader, and the congregation joined in vigorously. At the conclusion of one verse a man jumped to his feet and said: "I want to thank God that three years ago He picked me up out of the gutter of deep sin, and has kept me by His power ever since-praise His holy name !" One of the church workers rose and said: "I desire to thank God for a sweet new peace I have been enjoying this week. You may not know it, but it is a fact that religious work gets monotonous-it gets to be a routine sort of thing like all other work-and unless you keep very, very close to Christ, you are liable to lose His presence, and so 0 03 7. r T1 C _. OR 0 0 h 0 LC x mYiC 0 H m ) m f THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 147 lose the joy, peace and surpassing sweetness of the Christian life. At least, I have found it so: and I thank God for a fresh baptism of His Spirit." After numerous other testimonies, Mr. Torrey rose and said: "Now, we will close this part of the service-unless there is some one whose heart is so full that he feels he must say a word." Instantly, two persons were speaking at once: they gave brief and fervid bits of experience. As they sat down, and before Mr. Torrey could speak, four others had arisen in various parts of the room beseeching a word to, praise -another-still another-truly it seemed that the Spirit was present in power ! Finally Mr. Torrey said: "Now, friends, please bow your heads and pray silently for each of these written requests which have been sent me." Then he read: "Pray for a. man who is dying of consumption that he may be willing to be talked to about his soul and be converted." After the reading of several other requests, Mr. Torrey said: "Has anyone present any request ?" "Pray for my sister," came from a voice in the rear. "Pray for my brother that he may be brought to Christ." "Please pray for a sick sister-in-law." From all parts of the room came petitions for the united prayer of the mass of bowed heads for the conversion and healing of members of families, of friends, of relatives. "Pray for God's blessing upon Mr. Moody and Mr. Towner in their revival meetings in a Western state," said Mr. Torrey. "Pray for Evangelist Inglis, of London," said another"Pray for my grandson in the army, that don't know Jesus." "Pray for God's blessing upon our pastor and upon next Sunday's services :" an earnest prayer aloud followed and this feature of the service was over. Mr. Torrey said: "Are there any persons here to-night who themselves want to find Christ? If so, will you please hold 14.8 DWIGHT L. MOODY up your hands ?" In response, one-two-three-four-five hands went up in quick succession. Mr. Torrey prayed briefly: he prayed for the complete salvation of the inquirers; for God's blessing upon all the activities of the church; that the service would prove a lasting blessing to all present, and God's kingdom brought nearer thereby. He then said: "It is two minutes till 9 o'clock. We must close. Let us all join in singing two verses of 'I Need Thee Every Hour,' and after the meeting I will be very glad to talk with those that raised their hands." As the strains of the grand old hymn poured out from the hundreds of throats and filled the room like sacred incense, Mr. Torrey walked down the aisle to the door, where he gave each person as they passed out a word of greeting and a hearty grip of the hand. As I left the room in the midst of, the throng, I could not help thinking and exclaiming: "That was an ideal prayer meeting." CHAPTER XVI. T MOODY'S WORLD'S FAIR GOSPEL CAMPAIGN HE six months' series of meetings conducted by Mr. Moody in Chicago during the World's Fair was one of the most remarkable gospel campaigns ever conducted. It was a huge scheme, conceived, planned and carried through victoriously by one man, to offset the materialistic spirit of Chicago during the World's Fair period, and keep God and His ways before the eyes of the millions of visitors from every quarter of the globe. As soon as it was decided that the World's Fair was to be held in Chicago, Mr. Moody began to gather his forces for the coming campaign-which an eminent minister declared was "the boldest and most daring thing undertaken in connection with the Columbian Exposition." During Mr. Moody's fourteen months' evangelistic tour in Europe, and during his journey to the Holy Land in 1891-2, he perfected his plans and obtained the promised assistance of the ablest evangelists of Europe. Immediately after he landed in America, Mr. Moody hastened to his home at Northfield and inaugurated a season of prayer for the coming work. At Northfield Seminary and the Mount Hermon school for boys he gathered the students and teachers of his schools about him, at six o'clock in the morning, to seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and to pray for the work to come. "If you think anything of me," said he, with choking voice and tear-filled eyes, "if you have any regard for me, if you love me, pray for me that God may anoint me for the work in Chicago. I want to be filled with the Spirit, that I may preach the' Gospel as '49 50 DWIGHT L. MOODY I have never preached it before. We want to see the salvation of God as we have never seen it before." Mr. Moody arrived in Chicago in May, 1893, full of the Holy Spirit, and it was in this spirit of prayer and consecration that the meetings began, and the same spirit pervaded them from first to last. Multitudes from all parts of the earth, who had come to the Fair frivolous and gay, seeking worldly pleasures only, returned home repentant and prayerful, to seek the welfare of their fellow-men. The late Dr. A. J. Gordon of Boston, after being for a month associated with Mr. Moody in conducting the campaign, gave the following vivid description of it to the Boston Watchman. He said: "A man's work often furnishes the best character-sketch of himself which can possibly be drawn. We therefore give an outline of Mr. Moody's summer campaign in Chicago as a kind of full-length portrait of.the evangelist himself. Let the reader be reminded that it is in the months of July and August, when many city pastors are summering, that this recreation scheme of Mr. Moody's. is carried on after his hard year's campaign in England and America. "Four of the largest churches in different parts of the city are held for Sfinday evenings and various week-evening services. Two theaters, the Empire and the Haymarket, located in crowded centers, are open on Sundays, and the former on every week-night, and they are not infrequently filled to their utmost capacity while the gospel is preached and sung. Five tents are pitched in localities where the unprivileged and non-church-going multitudes live. In these services are held nightly, and as we have visited them we have found them always filled with such, for the most part, as do not attend any place of Protestant worship. A hall in the heart of the city is kept open night after night, the services continuing far on to the morning hours, while earnest THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 151r workers are busily fishing within and without for drunkards and harlots. Two gospel wagons are moving about dispensing the Word of Life to such as may be induced to stop and listen, and the workers estimate that 1,000 or more are thus reached daily of those who would not enter a church or mission hall. "Daily lectures are given at the Institute for the instruction in the Bible of the students, Christian workers, ministers, missionaries, and others who wish to attend. The large hall in which these lectures are given, seating comfortably 350, is always filled. During July there were thirty-eight preachers, evangelists, and singers, and other agents co-operating in the work, and their labors are supplemented by an endless variety of house-to-house and highway-and-hedge effort by the 250 students in residence in the Institute. "'We shall beat the World's Fair,' said Mr. Moody goodnaturedly, as we arrived on the ground. With malice toward none and charity toward all, this is what he set out to do, viz., to furnish such gospel attractions, by supplementing the churches and co-operating with them, that the multitudes visiting the city might be kept in attendance on religious services on Sunday instead of attending the Fair. So it has been. Mr. Moody estimates that from 30,000 to 40,000 people have been reached by his special Sunday evangelistic services. This multiplied by seven days easily foots up about Ioo,ooo brought weekly within reach of the gospel. The World's Fair has been closed on Sunday for want of attendance, but the religious services are daily growing. Every good opening for the gospel is readily seized. When Forepaugh's great circus tent had been set up in the city Mr. Moody tried to secure it for Sunday. He was granted the use of it for a Sabbath morning service, but as the manager expected Sunday in Chicago to be a great harvest day, he reserved the tent on the afternoon and evening for his own X52 DWIGHT L. MOODY performances. Fifteen thousand people came to hear the simple gospel preached and sung at the morning service. The circus, however, was so poorly attended in the afternoon and evening that Sunday exhibitions were soon abandoned. More than that, the manager said he had never been in the habit of giving performances on Sunday and should not attempt it again, and he offered, if Mr. Moody would appoint an evan-. gelist to travel with him, to open his tent thereafter on Sundays for gospel meetings, and be responsible for all expenses. "It was the same with the theaters. At first they declined to allow religious services on Sunday. Their performances on that day not having proved as successful as they anticipated, now Mr. Moody can hire almost any one which he wishes to secure. "Eulogy and biographical encomiums upon living men are undesirable, and the writer has risked the displeasure of his friend in putting so much into print concerning him. But we hope that what we have written will awaken serious reflections in the minds of ministers and laymen alike concerning the problem of summer work and summer success for the gospel in our great cities. "We may also hope that a stronger faith in the divine administration and mighty efficiency of the Holy Ghost may be hereby inspired. We have no idea that the large and extensive religious enterprises which we have been describing are due alone to the superior natural endowments of the evangelist. For years in his meetings and conferences we have heard him emphasize the presence and power of the Holy Ghost in the worker as the one and indispensable condition of success. It must be that where the Spirit has been so constantly recognized and honored he has been doing invisibly and irresistibly much of the great work which human judgment attributes to the man who is the chosen agent." THE. MAN AND HIS MISSION 153 No better idea of the spirit of the campaign and the method with which it was carried on can be obtained than by giving the story of a typical meeting held in Haymarket Theater one Sunday morning. The great auditorium, seating 3,000 people, was filled to overflowing an hour before the appointed time for service, while it is estimated that three or four thousand more came too late to be admitted. An overflow meeting was therefore held in a neighboring theater. On the stage in Haymarket Theater, gathered around and behind Mr. Moody, were a number of his evangelistic coworkers, two quartettes of singers, Mr. D. B. Towner's male choir, a large mixed choir and three of Mr. Moody's song lieutenants, Mr. George C. Stebbins, Mr. D. B. Towner and Mr. F. H. Jacobs. The service opened with an hour of song, embracing solos, quartettes, congregational singing and choir selections, rousing the people to a high pitch of enthusiasm and expectancy. Immediately following the song service, Mr. Moody rushed to the front of the platform and exclaimed: "We want to keep up these meetings. We want to reach and save the drunkards, the fallen, the wretched, the lost. We want your sympathy and help. Now," he exclaimed, "all who want the theater meetings continued, hold up your hands." And all over the congregation thousands of hands went up. "That is very encouraging," said Mr. Moody. "Now, jfust put your hands in your pockets-for we are going to take up a collection for the spread of the work." This witty turn amused and pleased the audience. The voters were fairly caught and responded handsomely. After the collection and another song, Mr. Moody came forward and at once plunged into an eloquent address on "Overcoming." At the conclusion of this inspiring sermon, hundreds of 154 DWIGHT L. MOODY persons came forward to signify their desire to henceforth lead a Christian life. The editor of The Boston Congregationalist summed up the results of the campaign as follows: "Mr. Moody's six months' campaign in Chicago has been a marvelous success, greater than even he had anticipated. Looked at from the human side alone, it has not been any less wonderful than the Fair itself and its allied congresses. If the display in Jackson Park appealed to the eye and the aesthetic sense, the congresses in the Art Palace to the intellect and the love of knowledge, Mr. Moody's meetings have appealed to the religious sense. Hundreds of thousands from every section of the country and from all over the world have heard the gospel from the lips of the great evangelist or from some one of his helpers. "The summer campaign in Chicago has shown that people are not weary of the gospel, that when preachers present it with earnestness they are not unwilling to go into the churches to hear it. It has proved, also, that no men are more thoroughly in sympathy with the people, or more anxious to do them good, or more eager to bring them the gospel as it is found in the New Testament, than the pastors of the various evangelical churches in our cities. Without the aid of these pastors Mr. Moody's success would have been far less than it has proved to be." Mr. Frederick L. Chapman, editor of The Ram's Horn, also eloquently summarized its effect upon the world. He said: "We have watched the World's Parliament of Religions with wonder, we felt as we might if witnessing some grand review of marshaled hosts; but when with intenser interest we turned to see this most remarkable battle for truth and right and the coming of the kingdom of Christ in our midst, it seemed as though we were watching the militant hosts of THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 155 Immanuel moving into action and striking the very strongholds of satanic power, not only in Chicago, but the whole world over. As far as our farthest guests shall go to their distant homes will the influences of this wonderful work follow and be felt forever.... "From the farthest suburbs to the very center of civic life, in the most beautiful quarters, along magnificent boulevards, to the lowest slums of our city, the effect of this movement has been felt. But Chicago is not the only place to be benefited by this wonderful work. The hundreds of thousands which thronged these great gatherings came from every land on earth. Every state in the great Republic sent a host of representatives. Returning to their homes over the whole wide world, they have taken with them the influences of the lessons to which they have listened, the songs they have heard, and the enthusiasm here inspired. "To sum up the results of such a work is impossible for man. It cannot be measured in time, for eternity alone can tell, and God alone knows how many hundreds of thousands of hearts have been and will be reached." CHAPTER XVII. MOODY'S WORK AMONG PRISONERS DURING life he bethe last few years of Mr. Moody's came intensely interested in the prisoners throughout the world. Like a mother, he longed to lighten their weary hours; and like his Heavenly Father, he longed to redeem them from their ways of sin. Mr. Moody himself tells how he became interested in this work, as follows: "In 1895 I heard to my amazement that no less than three-quarters of a million men and women in this country belong to the criminal class; that is, the number in and out of our jails and prisons. It was an astonishing statement. I could hardly believe it, until I had made investigation. "I began to visit the jails and prisons in every state I went to, and I found that the county jails in most places were entirely neglected. Here and there were Christian people who took an interest in the county jails. In the state penitentiaries they have libraries and reading matter, but a great many jails that I visited-and one jail in Texas I found with no less than three hundred prisoners-had not a solitary thing to read. When I asked the prisoners if there was anything I could do for them, they said if they had something to read it would help them to kill the time. I asked them if they would read sermons or religious books. They said, yes. "I sent some books into that prison. There were some prisoners who could not read, and they insisted upon the men who could read, reading aloud, to them. They read Spurgeon's and other sermons that I sent in. Before long I began to hear of men being converted. Then I sent Testaments, and became so interested that I began to write to the 156 THE MAN AND HIS MISn,.. I57 sheriffs of all the different counties. There are two thousand seven hundred counties in this country, and nearly all of them have a county jail. Out of all the letters that we have written to those sheriffs, only one has written back a saucy letter." Seeing the great need, Mr. Moody began to devise ways and means to meet it, and finally evolved a definite plan of campaign. He conceived the great ambition of placing one of his Colportage Library books in the hands of every prisoner in the penitentiaries of the United States. To this end, as he went about the country holding evangelistic services, he solicited from every source money for what he termed his "Prison Fund." As a result of these efforts up to the 15th of November, 1899, a total of 316,331 copies of these books had been distributed in penal institutions-including county jails, United States jails, city jails, district jails, penitentiaries, prisons, workhouses, houses of correction, convict camps, prison stations, bridewells, chained gangs. Of this gratifying result Mr. Moody recently said: The work in these jails and prisons has been about the most encouraging thing I have done outside of regular evangelistic work. Hardly a day passes without my hearing of definite cases of conversion and blessing through the reading of these books. I believe that many a man will rise up in eternity and thank God he was in prison, because there he met Christ. We hear of many who now, like Peter and Paul, are praising God though still in bonds." Only a few months before his death, while at East Northfield, Massachusetts, Mr. Moody wrote out the following story of the remarkable conversion of Mr. Valentine Burke. It is one of the evangelist's last appeals to Christian people: "When I was holding meetings in St. Louis, Mo., in 1880, the Globe-Democrat published verbatim reports of my sermons every day. 158 DWIGHT L. MOODY "One night I preached on the Philippian jailer and next morning the paper came out with a sensational headline: 'How the Jailer at Philippi Was Caught.' A copy of the paper was carried into the city jail and fell into the hands of a notorious prisoner named Valentine Burke. "This man was one of the worst characters known to the St. Louis police. He was about forty years old at that time, had spent about twenty years in jail, and was then awaiting trial on another serious charge. "As Burke glanced over the morning paper the headline caught his eye. Thinking it was some jail news, he began to read it. He was anxious to see how the jailer was caught. He had once passed through a town called Philippi in Illinois and supposed that this was the place referred to. "Every now and then he came across the words-'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.' That text was quoted nine times in the sermon. God used it to convict him, and after reading the sermon through, a sense of his responsibility before God rushed upon him. There in his cell at midnight he prayed to God for the first time in his life. On the following Sunday he talked with the friends who held service in the jail and was led into the light of the gospel. "From that night Burke was a changed man. The sheriff thought he was playing the 'pious dodge', and had no confidence in his professed conversion. But when he came to trial, the case against him was not pressed and he escaped through some technicality. "For some months after his release Burke tried to find work, but no one would take him, knowing his past history. He thought perhaps it was because of his ugly face, and he prayed God to make him good-looking. He went to New York and was taken in by a member of the police force, who knew him and who told him that he would shoot him dead if he abused his confidence. Being unsuccessful in New York, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 159 he returned to St. Louis, where, finally, the sheriff sent for him and told him he had had him shadowed ever since he left jail, and that he was convinced at last that he was sincere and he made Burke a deputy-sheriff. "That was in 188o. When I was preaching in Chicago in 189o Burke, who had not been off duty for the ten years, came up to see me. During all that time there had been many changes in the administration of the sheriff's office and they had changed every deputy but him. Finally they appointed that ex-convict treasurer of the sheriff's office. "I preached in St. Louis again in 1895. A short time before my visit an evangelist was called away in the middle of revival meetings. The committee wanted Burke to come and preach in his absence, but the sheriff said he had just levied on a jeweler's store and had not had time to take an inventory, and Burke was the only man he could trust to put in charge of it. "This incident shows what the grace of God can do for a hardened sinner. Not only can it save him, but'it can keep him. Valentine Burke lived an active, consistent Christian life in that public position until God called him home in 1895. "I believe that in all our jails and penitentiaries there are just such rich jewels that will one day sparkle in our Saviour's crown if we will only arouse ourselves to put the way of life before them. The conversion of such men as Valentine Burke and Jerry McAuley ought to stir us all to do something definite for prisoners. Facts like these led me in the spring of 1895 to start the Prison Fund in connection with The Bible Institute Colportage Association, Chicago, which, with the aid of kind friends, has been sustained since, although the fund usually and especially now is in pressing need of donations. "Here is a class numbering many thousands to whom I6 DWIGHT L. MOODY Christian people certainly ought to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ. The need of such work is very great and experience has shown that it is a kind of Christian labor that is frequently overlooked. Every earnest effort put forth to provide good or better reading matter for the prisoners has been very much appreciated by them. "It should be remembered that very few jails have any chaplain in attendance, which leaves the work of reaching these unfortunates to the local Christian worker, if there are such in the vicinity who are interested. With such conditions, of what inestimable value is a good book placed in the hand of the prisoner at an opportune time! "There is almost no way of reaching very many of this class for God except by means of good literature. The inmates of these penal institutions are constantly changing and fresh supplies of books must be frequently provided. "Will not our Christian friends give the necessary funds that this good work may go on? Ten thousand books are now needed and called for." CHAPTER XVIII. OMR. MOODY'S LAST SERMON WHY NOT BE A CHRISTIAN? "And they all with one consent began to make excuse." Luke xiv:18. [Delivered in Convention Hall, Kansas City, on Thursday night, November 16, 1899, to an audience of 15,000 people. The next day Mr. Moody was stricken with heart disease and was hurried home in a private car.] S OME people are always making excuses for not doing their duty, and especially for not coming to Christ. If I asked you to come to Christ, you would be ready to give some reason for not accepting the invitation. I never saw an unsaved man in my life but had some excuse-never! and if you don't have one ready, Satan will be right by you to help you to make one. He is good at that sort of thing. That has been his occupation the last six thousand yearshelping men to make excuses. Just bear in mind, these men were invited to a feast, and not to a funeral. They were not invited to go to prison. They were not invited to a hospital, or to a madhouse; but they were invited to a feast. Now, when a man prepares a feast, there is a great rush to see who will get the best seats; but when God prepares His feast, the chairs would all be empty, if His disciples did not go out to compel people to come in. No sooner did the King send 'out His invitations than the excuses began to rain in. "And they all with one consent began to make excuse." All at it, and always at it. Did you ever stop to think, my 161 162 DWIGHT L. MOODY friends, what would take place if God should take every man at his own word who wants to.be excused? If He were to say, "I will excuse you," and with the next breath take them all out of the world? If every one in this audience should be taken at his word, who makes excuses in this respect, and if God should say, "Cut him down, let him cumber the ground no longer, hew him down," there would be a very terrible state of things in Kansas City. If every man in Kansas City, and every woman, who wants to be excused, and is saying so, if God should take them at their word, and say, "I will excuse you," oh! my friends, there would be a great many shops not opened to-morrow. The saloons, for instance, would be closed; for I never saw a saloon-keeper in my life but what wanted to be excused. He knows he cannot go on with his hellish .traffic, if he accepts this invitation. He would have to stop that at once. There would be a great many of your princely merchants that would be gone. They do not want to accept the invitation, because they think, if they do, they cannot make money so' fast. They are carrying on some business which would then have to be stopped, because they accepted this invitation. There would be a very sad state of things taking place. Those that were left would have to be busy burying the dead. It would be a very solemn time, if God should take men at their word, and just excuse them. You let some terrible disease lay hold of a man, and half his excuses are gone at once. Every kind of excuse is given; but that man does not live who can give a good excuse. Let any man get an invitation from President McKinley to go down to the White House to some banquet; and there is not a man but would consider it a great honor to receive such an invitation. But only think of the invitation that I bring to-night! It comes from the King of kings. The marriage supper of the Lamb is going to take place, and God MOODY AND SANKEY LEAVING ENGLAND % :::...x :yle , fi i 4rc 7 Y E 5 i ." .-- Y ,, ., . ,; , I tt i ti .e_ THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 165 wants every man in this assembly to be present. I cannot speak for the rest of you; but if I know my own heart, I would rather be torn limb from limb-I would rather have my heart torn out of me .than be absent from that marriage supper. I have missed a good many appointments in my time, but, by the grace of God, I mean to make sure of keeping that one. These men all began to say, "I pray thee have me excused." Let us take up that first man's excuse. What was it? He had bought some ground, and he must needs go and see it. Why did he not, if he were a good business man, go and look at the ground before he bo,ught it? It was not going to make the ground any better for him to go and look at it. He had not made a partial bargain and might withdraw. He was not afraid that some one might step in ahead of him and get the ground from him, and so he would lose it; it was not anything of this kind; but he had bought the ground, and must needs go and see it! It is a strange time to go and see ground, just at supper time! I think the ground would have looked all the better after he had been to the feast. But the fact is, my friends, he did not believe it was a feast; and that is the trouble to-day. Men do not believe the Gospel is a feast. The second man is approached by the messenger, who says, "My lord has made a great feast, and he wants to have you come to it." "Take back to your lord the message that I cannot be there. I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I have got to go and prove them." Why did not he prove his oxen before he bought them? That is the time to prove oxen; but now he has bought them, let them stand in the stall. The trade is already closed; the bargain is already made; the oxen are bought. They are his, and now he can go and prove them at any time. A queer time to prove oxen, at supper time! He had better have proved them in the morning, and so have been ready to go to the feast in the evening. 166 DWIGHT L. MOODY The third man had married a wife, and therefore he could not come. Why not take his wife along with him? A young bride likes to go to a feast-no, one better. He might have taken her; and if she was not willing, then let her stay at home. You smile, you laugh at this, but you can see plainly what these excuses were. They were simply falsehoods, just manufactured to ease their consciences. That boy down in the audience sees how absurd these excuses were; for the fact was, they did not want to, go, to the feast; and it would have been a good deal more honest for them to have said: "I don't want to go to your lord's feast, and I will not go." Now, I would just like to take up some of the popular excuses of the present day. I do not doubt but there are hun. dreds of you who say to-night: "If I could accept that invi, tation, Mr. Moody, I would like to be a Christian; but, I have tried, and I find it is a very hard thing." Well, now let us look at that excuse. Do you mean to say that God is a hard Master? Do you say it is a hard thing to serve God? and do you say that Satan is an easy master, and that it is easier to serve him than God? Is it honest,--is it true? If it is, then I must confess that I have not read my Bible right; because I read it this way: "The way of the transgressor is hard." You go over to the Tombs in New York city and you will find a little iron bridge running from the police court where the men are tried right into the cell. I think the New York officials have not been noted for their piety in your time and mine; but they had put up there in iron letters on that bridge: "The way of the transgressor is hard." They know that is true. Blot it out if you can. God Almighty said it. It is true. "The way of the transgressor is hard." On the other side of that bridge they put these words: "A bridge of sighs.". I said to> one of the officers, "What did you put that up there for?" He said that most of the young men (for most of the criminals are young men. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 167 "The wicked don't live out their days"-put that in with it)he said most of the young men as they passed over that iron bridge went over it weeping. So they called it the "Bridge of Sighs." "What made you put that other there: 'The way of the transgressor is hard?' " "Well," he said, "it is hard. I think if you had anything to do with this prison you would believe that text, 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' " One of the greatest lies that has come out of the pit of hell is, that Christ is a hard Master. It is a lie, and has been so from the foundation of the world. Oh, young man, I beg of you, do not believe the devil when he says that God is a hard Master. It is false, my friends; and to-night let me brand that excuse as one of the devil's own lies, that he has been retailing up and down the earth for six thousand years. Look how poor Adam suffered, because he believed the devil's lies! Look at poor Judas! Did he find the devil an easy master? See him throwing down the thirty pieces of silver! Why, he got so tired of the devil's service that he hanged himself twenty-four hours after he entered it. Then there is another very popular excuse. I can imagine a good many would say: "Well, Mr. Moody, the fact is, I want to be saved." Of course you do! You would not be coming here at this time-at some inconvenience, many of -you-if you did not want to be saved. But you say: "The fact is, Mr. Moody, I don't know that I am elected. If I thought I was elected I would come. I know that I cannot come unless I am elected; and I really want to come very much, but I don't know that I am one of the elect." Now, I have heard that till I have got sick and tired of it. I want to say to every unconverted man in this hall to-night that you have no more to do with the doctrine of election than you have with the government of China. I am not saying this in haste; I weigh well my words. I say that no unconverted man has anyt'hing to do with the doctrine of election. 168 DWIGHT L. MOODY You have to do with the word whosoever. Now, the invitation is "Whosoever will, let him, come to this feast." Tonight, my friends, let me say that you are invited, every one of you; and if you don't come, it will be because you won't, not because God does not want you, or has not given you the power to come. With the invitation there comes the power. Christ said to the withered man, "Stretch out thy hand." The man might have said that he had not the power; but with the invitation there came the power. And so it is here. Suppose I walked up the street to-night, and I stepped up to the door of this Convention Hall to go in, and a man stopped me, and I said to him, "Why not let me in?" "Where's your ticket?" "I have got none." "But no one is admitted without a ticket." "Then I cannot go in, I suppose?" "No; it is for a certain class-those that have got tickets." I go along farther--up to a club-house. I step in, and a policeman pushes me back. I say, "I want to go in;" and he says, "You cannot go in here unless you have got a ticket. None but members can be admitted to-night." I do not happen to be a. member of the club, and I cannot go in. I go along a little farther, and come to another meeting; and there, perhaps, they are Quakers. The policeman stops me, and says, "Nobody admitted but Quakers." I am not a Quaker, and cannot go in. Farther on I find a soldiers' meeting. I cannot go in because I am not a soldier, and none but soldiers are admitted. But I go farther on, for I find written up in great big letters, "Whosoever will, let him come in." In I go; that means me. Now God has headed His invitation with whosoever, in great burning letters; and if you will go in, God will receive you to-night. He wants you to come this hour-this very minute. "Whosoever will, I have an idea that let him take of the water of life freely" the Lord Jesus Christ saw how men were going to stumble over that doctrine of election; for, after He had been back in THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 169 heaven for thirty or forty years, and John was in the, Spirit on the Lord's Day, in the Isle of Patmos, Jesus came to him and said, "John write this," and he wrote. Again He said: "John, before you close the book, put in this-The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him. that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." That forever has settled in my mind, the doctrine of election. Another excuse is: "I can't understand the Bible. Men are giving that as the reason why they do not accept the invitation to be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now, I want to say I never met a sceptic or infidel who had read the Bible through. I heard a man say the other day to another man, "Have you read such a book?" "Yes." "What is your opinion of it?" "Well, I only read it through once, and I would not like to give my opinion without reading it more carefully." But men can give their opinion about God's Book without reading it. They read a chapter here and there, and say, "Oh, the Book is so dark and mysterious!" and because they cannot understand it by reading a few chapters, they condemn the whole of it. The Word of God tells us plainly that the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. It is a spiritual book, and speaks of spiritual things; and a man must'be born of the Spirit before he can understand the Bible. What seems very dark and mysterious to you now will all be light and clear when ye are born of the Spirit. You say, "If that is so, how am I to understand how to be saved?" I will tell you. When God puts salvation before a sinner, He puts it so plain that a man who runs can read, and a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. There are a great many things in the Book which are dark and mysterious; but when it comes to the plan of salvation, God has put it so plain that that little girl ten years old can understand .ro7 DWIGHT L. MOODY it, if she will. You understand what it is to come. "Come unto me, all ye that labor." You know what it is to take a gift. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many.as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." You know what it is to believe in a man. Well, "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." You know what it is to put trust and confidence in a man. Now, put your trust and confidence in the living God, and you are saved. You are saved by casting yourself unreservedly upon the Lord Jesus Christ. When God puts salvation before a man, He puts it so, plain and simple that if he is willing to come as a little child, he can come. Suppose I should send my little boy, five years old, to school to-morrow morning, and when he came home I should say, "Can you read, write, spell? Do you understand all about arithmetic, geometry, algebra?" The little fellow would look at me, and say, "Why, Papa, why do you talk that way? I have been trying all day to,learn the A B C." Sup. posing I replied: "If you have not finished your education you need not go to the school any more" what would you say? You would say: "Moody has gone mad." Well, there is about as much sense in that as in the way that infidels talk about the Bible. They take it up, read a chapter, and say: "Oh, it is so dark and mysterious, we cannot understand it " This blessed Book is given to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, to guide the way to those eternal mansions. It never was given to keep men out of the kingdom, of God. That is the devil's work--trying to make you believe the Word of God is not true. I tell you the only way we can overcome the enemy of our souls is by the written Word of God; and the devil knows that, and so he comes up, and says: "It is full of lies; it is dark and mysterious; it contra- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 171 dicts itself; don't you believe it." He knows the moment a man goes to the Word of God and believes it, he finds liberty to his soul, and gets beyond Satan's reach; he gets a weapon in his hand with which to conquer the devil; he overcomes the enemy of his salvation. The devil does not want you to find that out, and whispers this lie; and you believe it rather than the Word of God. Young man, your mother is right;, the Bible is true, and you had better accept it. Keep this in mind; you will never stand up before the bar of God, and say, the Bible kept you out of the kingdom. It may sound very well here, now; you may be satisfied to give that for an excuse down here, to-night; but you will not be satisfied to give it in the Courts of Heaven-you will not stand up in the great Judgment Day, and say the Bible kept you out of the kingdom. Then there is another class. Some people say: "I haven't any doubt about the Word of God; but the fact is, there are some men in the Church who are hypocrites; therefore I don't purpose to go into the Church." I am not asking you to come into the Church not but what I believe in churches -but I am asking you to the marriage supper of the Lamb; I am inviting you to this feast; we will talk about the Church by-and-by. We want you to come to Christ first; then we will talk to you about the Church. But you say: "Here are some hypocrites." So there are; and I can imagine you saying: "Oh, yes-there is a man up here in one of the churches that cheated me out of $25 a few years ago; you are not going to catch me in the company of such hypocrites." Well, my friend, if you want to get out of the company of hypocrites, you had better get out of the world as quick as you can. I'll find a hundred hypocrites in the world to where you'll find one in the church. Of course there are hypocrites in the Church, the tares and the wheat grow up together. But if you stay out of the Church because there are hypo- 172 DWIGHT L. MOODY crites in it why don't you quit your business because there are hypocrites in that? Are you a grocer? There are factories in this country grinding marble to put into sugar. Are you a lawyer. Are there no hypocrites among lawyers? Are you a doctor? Are there no quacks among doctors? Are you a Republican? Are there no hypocrites there? Or a, Democrat? "But," you say, "I don't belong to either; I'm a Prohibitionist." Are there no hypocrites in the Prohibition party? Oh, I'm getting tired and sick of people trying to live on the faults of others. You can't get very fat on that. Look out for the men who are always howling about hypocrites. They are usually hypocrites themselves. One of the twelve apostles -turned out to be a hypocrite; and there is no doubt there will be hypocrites in the Church to the end of time. But "what is that to thee?" says Christ to Peter: "Follow thou Me." We do not ask you to follow hypocrites, we ask you to follow Christ; we do not ask you to believe in hypocrites, we ask you to believe in Christ. Another thing---if you want to get out of the company of hypocrites you had better make haste and come to Christ. There will be no hypocrites at the marriage supper of the Lamb; they will all be in hell, and you will be there with them if you do not make haste and come to Christ. That excuse would sound strange, would it not? We very often hear men give it down here, but it would sound very strange before Jehovah-a man saying: "I know You invited me to be at the marriage supper of Your Son, but I did not accept it because I knew there were some hypocrites that professed the Gospel." There is another class who say: "I know there are hypocrites, but they don't have any influence over me." If I could go to the door as you go out to-night, and take you by the hand and say: "'My friend, why not accept of the invi- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 173 tation to-night?" you would say: "'I pray to be excused tonight; I have not time. I have got some very pressing business to-morrow morning to attend to, and I have to go home to bed as quick as possible, to get my night's rest. You will have to excuse me." And the mothers here would say: "I have to go home and put the children to bed; you really must excuse me;"-"very pressing business;"-"no time." Thousands of men in Kansas City say they have not time. Thanks be to God! it don't take time; it takes decision. But what have you done with all the time God has given you? Your locks are turning gray, your eye is growing dim; and that temple of your body is coming down; what have you done with all those years? Is it true you have not time? What did you do with the three hundred and sixty-five days last year? No time?-what have you done with it all? Have not you had time to, accept of this invitation? Why, men spend fifteen or twenty years to get an education, that they may go out to earn a living for this frail body that is soon to be eaten up with worms; or five years to learn a trade, that they may earn a living; and yet they have not five minutes to seek their souls' salvation! You "have no time." Is it true? You know it is a lie; and if you go out to-night unsaved, it will not be because you have not time, but because you won't accept the invitation. God says, "Seek first the kingdom of God." That is the first thing to do. Supposing you do not get so much money to-morrow, and get Christ, is not that worth more than money? Better for a man to be sure of salvation than to have the wealth of the world rolled to his feet! But there is another excuse coming up from some one in the gallery. A man says, "My heart is so hard." Well, that is just the very reason you ought to come. If you had not a hard heart you would not need a Saviour. Can you soften your heart? Can you break your heart? Did not God invite 174 DWIGHT L. MOODY the hard-hearted? Did not-Christ come to seek and to save that which was lost? It is just because men's hearts are hard that they need a Savior. That is no excuse at all. God invites you, and you won't stand up and tell the Great King you did not accept His invitation because you had a hard heart. He invites "whosoever"; and you can come along with your hard heart. In one of my meetings there was a minister talking to a man in the inquiry room. He said, "My heart is so hard, it seems as if it was chained, and I cannot come." "Ah!" said the minister, "come to Christ, chain and all;" and he just came to Christ and Christ snapped the fetters, and set him free right there. If you are bound hand and foot by Satan, that is the work of God to break the fetters; you cannot break them. Thanks be to God! He can break the fetters and set the captive souls free to-night. I do not care how hard the heart is: the Lord can save to the uttermost; He bids you come just as you are. Oh, this old excuse-"I am so bad!" Away with it! Paul said he was the "chief" of sinners; and if the chief has gone up on high there is hope for everybody else. The devil makes us believe that we are good enough without salvation, if he can; and if he cannot make us believe that, he says, "You are so bad the Lord won't have you;" and so he tries to make people believe, because they are so bad Christ won't have anything to do with them. God invites you to come just as you are. I know a great many people want to come, but they are trying to get better and to get ready to come. Now mark you, my friend, the Lord invites you to come just as yotu are; and if you could make yourself better you would not be any more acceptable to Him. Do not put these filthy rags of self-righteousness about you. God will strip every rag from you when you. come to Him, and He will clothe you with glorious garments. When our war was THE MAN AND HIS MISSION -175 going on, we would sometimes go to the recruiting office and see a man come in with a silk hat, broadcloth coat, calfskin boots-his suit might be worth $Ioo; and another man would come in whose clothes were not worth $5.oo; but they both had to strip, and put on the uniform of the country. And so when we go into Christ's vineyard we must put on the livery of heaven, and be stripped of every rag of.our own. However bad you are, come just as you are, and the Lord will receive you. Some say: "I would like to become a Christian; but I have a prejudice against revival meetings, and against a layman too. If it was a regular minister, if it was our regular minister, I would accept the invitation." If that is your difficulty, I can help you out of that. You can just get up, and go out of the hall, and run right over to your minister, and have a talk with him.; your minister would be most glad to see and talk and pray with you. And if you say you do not want to be converted in a special meeting, there are regular meetings in all the churches throughout Kansas City. But if you say: "There is a great awakening here in Kansas City," and you do not want to be converted in that way; then jump into a train, and go to some town where there is no revival. We can find you some place where there is no revival, and some church where there is not much of the revival spirit. If you really warit to go, don't give that for an excuse. How wise the devil is! When the church is cold, and everything is dead, men say, "Oh, well, if there was only some life in the Church I might become a Christian-if we could only just have a wave from heaven!" Then when the wave does come they say, "Oh no; we are afraid of excitement, and afraid of these special meetings. We are afraid there will be something done that won't be just in accordance with our ideas of propriety." My friend, it is God who is working. He prepares the way. 176 DWIGHT L. MOODY There is another class here who say: "I would like to come; but then I do not feel." That is, I think, the very worst excuse, and the most common excuse we have. I wish sometimes the word could be abolished-feel! feel! You go into the inquiry room. "Well, Mr. Moody, I do not feel this and that." Why, supposing my friend Mr. Stone should invite me to go to his house to-morrow to dinner, and I say to Mr. Stone, "I should like to, go very much, but I don't know that I feel right." "Well," he says, "what do you mean? Do you mean you don't want to go to my house?" "Oh no, I want to go." (That is what men say: "Oh yes, we want to be saved.") "What do you mean, Mr. Moody? Do you mean that you do not know you will be well to-morrow? Do you think you will be sick?" "Oh no, I expect to be well to-morrow, if I live." "Well, what do you mean by feeling?" "Well, I do not know just how I'll feel. I would like very much to go to your house to dinner to-morrow, but I don't know that I will feel just right." "I don't understand you, Mr. Moody; I am not talking about feeling; I invite you to come to my house to dinner." "Well, I would like to come very much, but the fact is, I do not know how I will feel to-morrow." I can imagine my friend saying, "What has come over Moody? I think the fellow has gone mad. I asked him to my house to dinner, and he says he would like to come, but he does not know that he will feel right; he talked about feeling all the time." Of course you would say he has gone mad. But that is the way people talk now. You speak to them about coming to the kingdom of God, and they say: "I do not know that I feel just right." Away with your feelings. God is above feeling. We cannot control our feelings? If I could I would feel good all the time-never catch me feeling bad at anything! I am sure if I could control my feelings I never would have any bad feelings; I would always have good feelings. Bear in mind, Satan may change THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 177 your feelings fifty times a day, but he cannot change the Word of Gold; and what we want is to build our hopes of heaven upon the Word of God. When a poor sinner is coming up out of the pit, and just ready to get his feet upon the Rock of Ages, the devil sticks out a plank of feeling, and says: "Get on that;" and when he puts his feet on that, down he goes again. Take one of these texts-"Verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." My friend, that is worth more than all the feelings that you can have in a whole lifetime. I would a thousand times rather stand on that verse than on the best frame of feeling. I took my stand there twenty years ago. The dark waves of hell have come dashing up against me; the waves of persecution have surged around me; doubts, fears, and unbelief have assailed me; but I have been able to stand right there. It is a sure footing for eternity. It was true eighteen hundred years ago, and it is true to-night. That Rock is higher than any feeling. What we want is to get our feet upon the Rock, and then the Lord will put a new song into our mouths. There is another class who say they cannot believe. Not long ago a man said to me: "I cannot believe." I said, "Who?" "Well, I cannot believe." I said, "Who?" He stammered and stuttered, and I said: "Who cannot you believe-God?" "Oh yes, I believe God: I cannot believe myself." "Well, you do not want to believe yourself. Your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Put no confidence in the flesh. Don't believe yourself; call yourself a liar, and let God be true. Believe in God, and say as Job said; 'Though He slay me I will trust Him.'" Some men seem to talk as if it was a great misfortune that they do not believe. Bear in mind, it is the damning sin of the world. "When He, the Holy Ghost, is come, He will reprove 178 DWIGHT L. MOODY, the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me." That is the sin of the world-"because they believe not on me." Why, that is the very root of sin-the very tree, and all the fruit! This is the tree that brings forth this bad fruit-it is the tree of unbelief. I wish I had time to go on with these excuses; for they are as numerous as the hairs on our heads. But if I could go on and exhaust them all, the devil would help to make more. You can just take them, tie them up in one bundle, and mark them lies-the whole of them.. Not one of them is true. If your excuse is a good one, if it will stand the light of eternity, do not give it up foranything I have said. Hold it firm, take it to the bar of God, and tell it out to Him. But if you have an excuse that won't stand the piercing eye of God, I beg of you, as a friend, give it up--let your excuses go. Let them go to the four winds of heaven, and accept of the invitation now. It is a very easy thing for a man to excuse himself into hell, but he cannot excuse himself out. I wish I had time to call your attention to who will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Lift your eyes heavenward to-night, mothers; you have loved children that have gone on before you; they will be at the marriage supper of the Lamb; they will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God; will you be missing? Fathers and mothers who have loved ones that have gone on before you! if you could hear them, they are shouting from the battlements of heaven; "Come this way." Young man, you have a sainted mother there--a loved father there; they are beckoning you heavenward to-night. They have been gathering from the time the holy Abel went up; for six thousand years, gathering out of the four corners of the earth. The purest and best of earth are here; they are in heaven; and God wants you and me to be there. Blessed is he that shall be at the marriage supper of the Lamb! THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 179 Dare you make light of the invitation? Suppose one of these reporters should write out an excuse to the King of Heaven: "While sitting in the convention hall November 16, 1899, I received a very pressing invitation from one of Your messengers to be present at the marriage supper of Your only-begotten Son. I pray Thee have me excused." Would you come up and sign that? Would you take your pen and put your name down to that excuse? I can imagine you saying, you would let your right hand forget its cunning, and your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth first. I doubt whether there is a man in this room who could be made to sign this excuse; but what will you do? Many of you will get up and go out of this hall, making light of the preacher, laughing at everything you have heard, paying no attention to the invitation. I beg of you, do not make light of this invitation. It is a loving God that invites you; but God is not to, be mocked. Go, play with the forked lightning, trifle with any pestilence, any disease, rather than with God. God is not to be trifled with. Just let me write out another reply: "To the King of Heaven: While sitting in the convention hall November 16, 1899, I received a pressing invitation from one of Your servants to be present at the marriage supper of Your onlybegotten Son. I hasten to reply, By the grace of God I will be present." Who will sign that? Who will set to their seal to-night that God is true? Make up your mind now; do not go away till the question of eternity is settled. [As the great evangelist finished, he asked all who were willing to sign the invitation to stand up. Half a dozen arose in different parts of the hall. Then as many more. As Mr. Moody continued to urge a decision they arose in groups over the hall until half a hundred were standing, signifying their acceptance of the Great Invitation.] CHAPTER XIX. THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF DWIGHT L. MOODY [This is probably the most authentic account of Dwight L. Moody's death and burial that has appeared in print. It is written by Mr. John B. Devins, for ten years one of Mr. Moody's warmest friends, managing editor of the New York Observer; staff correspondent of the New York Tribune.] WIGHT L. MOODY'S death was as calm and peaceful as his life was strenuous. The passing of his spirit from the body, which had been tortured with pain for some weeks, to the beautiful beyond, was as gentle as could be wished for. On the 22d of December, 1899, Dwight L. Moody, the greatest evangelist of the century, the most unique religious figure of the age, fell asleep in death at his home at Northfield, Massachusetts, just before noon-tide. His family were gathered at the bedside, and the dying man's last moments were spent in comforting them and in contemplation of that reward for which he had so long and earnestly labored. He knew that death was near, but its sting to him was lost in the victory of his future life. Besides the family, there were present also the Rev. Dr. Schofield, the pastor of the village Congregational church, and Dr. Wood, the family physician, and the nurse. Early in the day Mr. Moody realized that the end was near at hand, and talked with his family at intervals, being conscious to the last, except for a few fainting spells. Once he revived, and with a wonderful display of strength in his voice said in a happy strain, "What's the matter; what's going on?" One of the children replied: "Father, you have not been as well, and so we came in to see you." 18o j zL~ LW t .wM n TTF+ry i tY L T I -_~7~22~ I , Ems. I THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 183 A little later Mr. Moody talked quite freely to his son: "I have always been an ambitious man; not ambitious to lay up wealth, but to leave you work to do, and you are going to continue the work, and the schools at East Northield and Mount Hermon at Chicago." Once the stillness of the chamber was broken by the anguished cry of Mrs. A. P. Fitt, his daughter, in the words: "Father, we cannot spare you." His reply was characteristic of the man: "I am not going to throw my life away; if God has more work for me to do I will not die." As the noon-day hour drew near the watchers at the bedside noted the approach of death. Several times his lips moved as if in prayer. Once, coming out of a sinking spell, he rallied visibly and said: "If this is death, there is no valley. This is glorious. I have been within the.gates and I saw the children, Dwight and Irene." (His two grandchildren who had died recently.) Shortly before the end, Mr. Moody, again waking, as if from slumber, said with joyousness: "Earth is receding, heaven is approaching. God is calling me." These have been currently reported as his very last words. They were indeed among his last words, but those spoken last related more especially to his wife and children. Once he said feebly: "I think it is time I made my will now. Will, you may have the Mount Hermon School to look after. Paul, you may have the Seminary when you are fitted for it. Emma, you and Percy (her husband) take care of the People's Institute in Chicago." "What about mother?" asked "one of the children. "Oh, she is like Eve, she is the mother of us all," replied he, with his old-time smile. Then he placed his hand affectionately in the hand of the noble woman, who has been, in very truth, a helpmate for nearly forty years. "You have been a good wife to me." As the doctor saw him about to faint again, he went to his bedside and gave him a hypodermic injection. "Is there 184 DWIGHT L. MOODY anything gained by this?" asked Mr. Moody. "Nothing, except to give you strength and relieve your sufferings," replied the doctor. "Then," said he, "I think we will stop, for it is only prolonging the sufferings of those who are dear to me," and with this consideration for his wife and children he passed away. But to us, his own words concerning the beyond, spoken just a few months ago: "He has gone up higher; that is all; gone out of this old tenement into a house that is immortal; into a body that touch, that sin cannot taint, a body fashioned like unto His own glorious body." On the followingTuesday, December 26, 1899, the most remarkable funeral was held. It was truly a Christian burial service: The key-note was struck when Dr. C. I. Schofield, the pastor of the Congregational church in East Northfield, said, at the opening of the services: "We are not here to mourn a defeat, but to celebrate a victory." Mr. Moody died as he lived, a victor. He was buried as he died-a victor; there was, indeed, no martial music, nor stately parade following a plumed hearse. In fact, there was neither hearse, nor funeral music, nor tolling bells, nor crape, nor veils to hide faces suffused in tears. Tears there were in the eyes of every one of the large congregation present. But there was no weeping, and the calmest faces in the church were those of the immediate family. The resignation manifested by Mrs. Moody was that of one whose husband had entered unto joys unspeakable, which await her also, and which she is to share with him. "I hope no one will speak of me as fatherless," said the daughter in the morning, to a friend. The clear voice of the elder son's wife was heard in the Gospel Hymns, manifesting sweet resignation; there was no suggestion of the death of two children, the serious illness of her father or the death of her devoted father-in-law, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 185g all within a year. The sons were as interested as if they were attending a meeting led by their father. The entire family were wonderfully sustained. The day of the funeral was a perfect day. "One of the Lord's own days," a visitor called it. The sun rose clear over the mountain, at whose feet Northfield nestles. In the distance, on the foothills of the Green Mountains, patches of snow appeared. The morning was frosty, but in the afternoon, as the friends gathered for service, the temperature had risen several degrees. Large parties from Boston, New York and other cities arrived soon after noon. A special train from Brattleboro, Vt., brought many friends. There were many well known clergymen and laymen present in addition to those taking part in the services. Besides Ira D. Sankey, Mr. Moody's associate for nearly thirty years, .accompanied by his wife, there were three of Mr. Moody's singers in the audience-George C. Stebbins, D. R. Towner and F. H. Jacobs. Passing Mr. Moody's house in the afternoon, a stranger would not have thought that death had been a recent visitor. No signs of mourning appeared. No crape was seen on the door. The window blinds were all open. People entered the house as if going to a reception. Inside, after the services, they sat in the library and parlor chatting cheerfully. Their conversation was mainly about Mr. Moody, recalling incidents in his eventful career, helpful words which he had spoken and deeds of kindness which he had done. At ten o'clock, Dr. Schofield and Dr. R. A. Torrey, the pastor of the Chicago Avenue Church, and superintendent of the Bible Institute of Chicago, conducted a service consisting of Scripture selections and a prayer. Then the body was carried to a church a half a mile distant, on a bier, by thirty-two students from the Mount Hermon School. At 2:30 P. M., the public service began. At the right of the 186 DWIGHT L. MOODY middle aisle sat the present head of the family, William R. Moody. Next to him was his mother, then in order the daughter and son, Mrs. A. P. Fitt (Emma Moody) and Paul Moody; Mrs. W. R. Moody (Mary Whittle) and A. P. Fitt. Behind them sat other relatives, including brothers and sisters of Mr. Moody, and their families. Christmas greens festooned the galleries of the church, while on the coffin and about it were appropriate floral tributes from the trustees, faculties and students of the several institutions in Northfield and Chicago. At the head. rested a floral pillow, in which a crown had been worked in white, attached to it were purple streamers on which appeared Mr. Moody's own words, "God is calling me." An open Bible, rested at the foot, with the words "Victory. I Corinthians, XV, 55-57," on the left hand page, and "II Timothy IV. 7, 8," on the opposite. Palms, ferns, laurels and violets, cut flowers and callas were placed about the pulpit. When the lid of the cloth-covered coffin was removed, the face and hands were plainly visible from every setting, a single ray part of the church. As the sun passed through a blind and rested upon the coffin. Gradually it rose until it reached the face of the friend so dearly loved by a multitude of people. With evening coming on and with the shadows deepening in the room the effect of this stray sunbeam seemed like a light sent from "Within the Gates." Dr. Schofield had charge of the services which began with the hymn, "A Little While," composed by Major Whittle and James McGranahan. The following is the first verse: ,was "A little while! and He shall come: The hour draws on apace, The blessed hour, the glorious morn When we shall see His face; THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 187 How light our trials then will seem! How short our pilgrim way! Our life on earth a fitful dream, Dispelled by dawning day!" Chorus: Then come Lord-Jesus, quickly come, In glory and in light! Come, take Thy longing children home, And end earth's weary night. After the hymn, Dr. Schofield offered the invocation, Dr. Arthur T. Pierson read the Scripture lesson and Dr. George Needham prayed. "Immanuel's Land" was the second hymn. Dr. Schofield then spoke as follows: This is not the place, nor am I the man to present a study of the life and character of Dwight L. Moody. Thiswill follow. But some things at least press to be said. Some things .are so sure that no lapse of time, no quieter afterthought can unsettle them. No one will ever question that we are to-day laying in the kindly bosom of the earth the mortal body of a great man. Whether we measure greatness by qualities of character, by qualities of intellect, or by things done, Dwight L. Moody must be accounted great. The basis of Mr. Moody's character was sincerity, genuineness. He had an inveterate aversion to all forms of sham, unreality, and pretense. Most of all did he detest religious pretense, cant. At this point he held high and stern opinions. But nowhere did he apply them so relentlessly as in the sphere of his own life. In no morbid sense an introspective man, he was yet always testing his foundations at this point. Along with this fundamental quality, Mr. Moody cherished a great love of righteousness. His first question concerning any proposed action was, "Is it right?" i88 DWIGHT L. MOODY But these two qualities, necessarily at the bottom of all noble character, were in him suffused and transfigured by divine grace. Sensitive beyond most men upon the point of righteousness, Mr. Moody never doubted the power of God's grace to reconstruct the most defective character; and where he could see in any man a longing for this, his patience was inexhaustible. Besides all this, Mr. Moody was in a wonderful degree brave, magnanimous and unselfish. We are not here to extol Mr. Moody after the flesh. Doubtless, this unlettered New England country boy became what he was by the grace of God. But the law of the bestowal of the talents is clear: "To every man according to his several ability." The hiding of Dwight L. Moody's power lay in five things. First in a definite experience of Christ's saving grace. He had passed out of death into life, and he knew it. The new birth was to him a subjective certainty. The Spirit witnessed with his spirit that he was a son of God. That delivered him from lust of earthly things, from deference to the great. The humblest of Christians, he yet could conceive of nothing more exalted than divine sonship. Secondly, Mr. Moody believed in the Divine authority of the Scriptures. The Bible was to him the voice of God, and he made it resound as such in the consciences of men. Thirdly, he was baptized with the Holy Spirit and knew that he was. It was to him as definite an experience as his conversion, and when he preached he expected the Spirit to convert and convict men. Fourthly, he was a man of prayer. He believed in a living and unfettered God. It never occurred to him that the Almighty had tied His own hands by natural laws. He believed in the supernatural as available. The mountain about him was always filled with horses and chariots of fire. But fifthly, Mr. Moody believed in work, in ceaseless effort, in wise provision, in the power of organization, of publicity. He expected the supernatural to work but through the natural. He hitched his THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 189 wagon to a star, but always kept his wheels on the ground and the axles well oiled. President H. G. Weston of Crozer Theological Seminary followed Dr. Schofield. In closing his beautiful tribute to his friend, he made the statement deliberately that if Jesus Christ had been born in the present century, with Mr. Moody's mind and body, he believed that he would have done just about as Mr. Moody did. Dr. Weston said in part: I count as one of the greatest blessings of my life my acquaintance with Mr. Moody, the influence he has had on me, and the privilege of studying God's methods in his life and work. We instinctively attribute the success of every man who is eminent in attaching and influencing others to some special natural endowment, to education and training or to a peculiar magnetic personality. Mr. Moody had none of these, yet no man has surpassed him in the power of his attraction and influence, both over masses of men and over individuals of strong character, of executive ability, of great resources, whom he fastened to himself with hooks of steel, making them not only his lifelong friends, but his constant partners in all his good works. This marvelous power wielded so many years undiminished to the end we cannot explain by bestowment of any one peculiar natural gift. He had none of them. What had he? He had life. I do not mean the manner of living, but what the Bible means by this word-what Christ means when he declares the purpose of his coming; I am come that they might have life, and have it abundantly. God gave him life, made him a partaker of the divine nature; and from the moment he received it the development, growth and manifestation of that life became the whole object of his existence. To it he devoted every power of his being, and that devotion kindledinto intensest activity every latent energy of his nature, and made him the complete, round- 9o DWIGHT L. MOODY sided, full-orbed man that he was, of instinctive judgment and tact, and gave him his wonderful mastery of man. Then he nourished and strengthened that life by devotion to God's Word. He prized it as the treasure by which his life could be enriched. He realized to the full Christ's words: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." That word he hid in his heart, as the seed is hidden in the earth that it may swell and grow. He hid it there, ready for use on every occasion and in every emergency. It was sweeter to him than the honey in the honeycomb. His mind and heart were given to the study of the Word of God. But his life, like that of Christ, was for others. He did not search the Bible to add to his knowledge, but to save men from sin. His first and dominant purpose was to have every man receive that life of which he had been made a partaker; to this his sermons were devoted; he counted everything but loss unless this were attained, and then he coveted for all the means of developing and utilizing that life. The sight of poor girls and boys deprived of the means of education would not let him rest until he had provided some method by which their lives should be enriched and made more in accordance with Heaven's designs in conferring on them spiritual life. He dotted this fair plain with houses that young men and young women shofld have the means of so enlarging their lives that they might be useful to their fellows. His work was in the line of Christ's miracles, which never enriched the object with bounties of land or money or resources, but always gave power to life, making the dead eye to see-, touching the dead tongue, the dead ear, the dead limb. And in his highest miracles speaking of the dead to life. This likeness to Christ, this knowing the power of his resurrection and conformity to his death, was the reason that when he spoke every man gave him credit for the utmost THE MAN AND HIS MISSION '9' sincerity. It was the reason that men listened to him and believed in him, and were influenced by him as individuals. They saw not the man, but the truth he spoke. He had that wonderful egotism'by which he could constantly speak of himself and yet never draw attention to himself. Men saw in all that he was and did, the truth as it was in Jesus. I believe that if Jesus had been born in this century, and in this town, with Mr. Moody's mind and body he would have lived and done about as Mr. Moody did. And so because Mr. Moody could in his measure use those great words of Christ, "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it abundantly," because these words expressed his whole being, I loved and honored and valued him, and because of what he was, and, therefore, of what he did, I say to-day, I had rather be Mr. Moody dead, lying there in his coffin, than any living man on earth. Dr. Torrey then made an earnest address, calling upon those present and Mr. Moody's friends everywhere to go forward in his work. In his address he said: It is oftentimes the first duty of a pastor to speak words of comfort to those whose hearts are aching with loneliness and breaking underneath the burden of their sorrow, but this is utterly unnecessary to-day. The God of all comfort hath already abundantly comforted them with a comfort wherewith in coming days they will be able to comfort others. I have spent hours within the last few days with those who are nearest to our departed friend, and the words that I have heard from them have been words of rest in God and of triumph. As one of them has said: "God must be answering the prayers that are going up for us all over the world, we are being so wonderfully sustained." Another has said: "His last four glorious hours on earth have taken all the sting out of death." And still another: "Be sure that every word to-day is a word of triumph." 192 DWIGHT L. MOODY Two thoughts has God laid upon my heart for this hour. The first is found in the words of Paul in I Corinthians xv:Io: "By the grace of God I am what I am." God has wonderfully magnified His grace and love in D. L. Moody. God was magnified in his birth. The babe that was born sixty-two years ago on yonder hill with all the possibilities that were wrapped up in him was God's gift to the world. How much that gift meant to, the world! How the world has been blessed and benefited by it we shall never know this side the coming of our Lord. God's grace was magnified in his conversion. He was born in sin as we all are, but God by His providence, by the power of His Word, by the regenerating power of His Holy Spirit, made him the mighty man of God that he became. How much the conversion of that boy in Boston forty-three years ago meant to the world no man can tell; but it was all God's grace that did it. God's love and grace was magnified again in the development of that character that has made him so loved and honored in all lands to-day. He had a strength and beauty of character possessed by the few sons of men; but it was all from God. To God alone was it due that he differed from other men. The other thought is found in Joshua, i:2: "Moses, my servant, is dead; now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them." The death of Mr. Moody is a call to go forward. A call to his children, to his associates, to ministers of the Word everywhere, to the whole Church. "Our leader has fallen, let us give up the work," some would say. Not for a minute. Listen to what God says: "Your leader is fallen, move forward. Moses, my servant, is dead; therefore arise, go in and possess the land. Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid. As I was with D. L. Moody, so I will be with thee, I will not fail thee nor forsake thee," THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 193 Bishop W. F. Mallalieu of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who had known Mr. Moody since 1875, said: "Servant of God, well done; Thy glorious warfare's past; The battle's fought, the race is won, And thou art crowned at last." I first met and became acquainted with, him whose death we mourn, in London in the summer of 1875. From that day, when he moved the masses of the world's metropolis, to the hour when he answered the call of God to come up higher, I have known him, esteemed him and loved him. Surely we may say the world will endorse the affirmation that in his death one of the truest, bravest, purest and most influential men of this wonderful nineteenth century has passed to his rest and his reward. With feelings of unspeakable loss and desolation we gather about the casket that contains all that was mortal of Dwight L. Moody. And yet a mighty ufplift and inspiration must come to each one of us as we think of his character and his achievements for he was "One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward; "Never doubted clouds would break, "Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph." In bone and brawn and brain he was a typical New Englander; he was descended from the choicest New England stock; he was born of a New England mother, and from his earliest life he breathed the free air of his native hills and was carefully nurtured in the knowledge of God and the holy traditions and histories of the glorious past. It was to be expected of him that he would become a Christian of pronounced characteristics, for he consecrated himself thoroughly, completely and irrevocably to the service of God and 194 DWIGHT L. MOODY humanity. The heart of no disciple of the Master ever beat with more genuine, sympathetic and more utterly unselfish loyalty than did the great, generous, loving heart of our translated friend. Because he held fast to the absolute truth of the Bible, and unequivocally and intensely believed it to be the inerrant Word of God, because he preached the Gospel rather than talked about the Gospel, because he used his mother tongue, the terse, clear, ringing, straightforward Saxon; because he had the profoundest sense of brotherhood with all poor, unfortunate and even outcast people; because he was unaffectedly tender and patient with the weak and the sinful; because he hated evil as thoroughly as he loved goodness; because he knew right well how to lead penitent souls to the Savior; because he had the happy art of arousing Christian people to a vivid sense of their obligations, and inciting them to the performance of their duties; because he had in his own soul a conscious, joyous experience of personal salvation, the people flocked to his services, they heard him gladly, they were led to Christ, and he came to be prized and honored by all denominations, so:that to-day all protestantism recognizes the fact that he was God's servant, an ambassador of Christ, and indeed a chosen yessel to bear the name of Jesus to the nations. We shall not again behold his manly form animated with life, hear his thrilling voice, or be moved by his consecrated personality; but if we are true and faithful to our Lord, we shall see him in glory, for already he walks the streets of the heavenly city, he mingles in the songs of the innumerable company of white-robed saints, sees the King in His beauty, and waits our coming. May God grant that in due time we may meet him over yonder. Dr. Pierson, a friend of long standing, referred to the death of four prominent persons in the last few years-C. H. Spurgeon, in London; Adoniram J. Gordon, in Boston; Catherine THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 195 Booth, the mother of the Salvation Army, and George Muller, in Bristol-and added that Mr. Moody's death was a greater loss than any of the four mentioned. Mr. Moody was a great man, he said, having the greatness of goodness. Everything that he touched succeeded. The speaker estimated that Mr. Moody had addressed audiences aggregating one hundred million people during hi3 public life. His books have also gone into all the world; he has erected a score of buildings in Europe and America, besides carrying on for twenty years his great educational institutions. Dr. Wharton, a fellow-evangelist, said, among other things: flowers of our Southern land upon I would lay the the bosom of our dear friend. No man did so much as he to bind together the sections of our great country, the different denominations of the Christian religion, the countries of the world. He belonged to all the world, and his loss is felt in every nation of the globe. I know it is better for him, and his triumphant entry into the beautiful city has made all Heaven glad, but we shall miss him more as the days go by. This calm, sweet day is a fit token of his glorious departure. When he went "inside the gates" they were left open, and the light streams through upon us all to-day. "He was a burning and a shining light." With unflagging zeal from the first to the last, he wore his life out in his Master's service, and the great, loving, tired heart ceased to beat. His light made every life brighter, every home happier. It has not gone out; it never will, but will shine on through ages. His life was like the morning star, which goes not down behind a dark horizon, but melts away in the opening day, and into the brightness of the rising sun. We will now say good-bye, dear one, but only until the morning. "I have three children, and the greatest desire of my life is that they may be saved," said Mr. Moody in a sermon on "Heaven," "that I may know that their names are written in -fairest 196. DWIGHT L. MOODY, the Book of Life. I may be taken from them early; I may leave them in this changing world without a father's care; but I would rather have my children say that of me after I am dead and gone, or if they die before me, I would rather they would take: that message to the Master-that ever since they can remember I have tried to lead themeto the Master, than to have a monument over me reaching to the skies." As Dr. Wharton sat down, William Moody rose and requested permission to add a word. This was his brief tribute of a loyal son to a loving father: "As a son I want to say a few words of him as a father. We have heard from his pastor, his associates and friends, and he was just as true as a father. I don't think he showed up in any way better than when, on one or two occasions, in dealing with us as children, with his impulsive nature, he spoke rather sharply. In every case he would come to us and say: 'My children, my son, my daughter, I spoke quickly; I did wrong; I want you to forgive me.' That was D. L. Moody as a father. "I-e was not yearning to go; he loved his work. Life was very attractive; it seems as though on that early morning when he had one foot on the threshold, it was given him for our sake to give us a word of comfort. He said: 'This is bliss; it is like a trance. If this is death, it is beautiful.' And his face lightened up as he mentioned those whom he saw. "We could not call him back; we tried to for a moment, but we could not. We thank God for his home life, for his true life, and we thank God that he was our father, and that he led each one of his children to know Jesus Christ. Father has crossed the bar; thank God he was homeward bound and went in under full headway." John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, also added a word of testimony to the memory of his close friend for many years, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION '.97 and then the Mount Hermon Quartet, whose singing was such a treat to Mr. Moody, sang, "The Hope of the Coming of the Lord," a new hymn by Major Whittle, to which his daughter, Mrs. Moody, wrote the music: A lamp in the night, a song in time of sorrow, A great glad hope which faith can never borrow, To gild the passing day with the glory of the morrow, It is the hope of the coming of the Lord. Chorus: Blessed hope, blessed hope, Blessed hope of the coming of the Lord; How the aching heart it cheers, How it glistens thro' our tears, Blessed hope of the coming of the Lord. A star in the sky, a beacon bright to guide us, An anchor sure, to hold when storms betide us, A refuge for the soul where in quiet we may hide us, Is the hope of the coming of the Lord. Chorus. A word from the One to all our hearts the dearest, A parting word to make Him, aye, the nearest, Of all his precious words, the sweetest, brightest, clearest, Is the hope of the coming of the Lord. Chorus. After the public services the coffin was carried again by the Mount Hermon students to Round Top, the Olivet of Northfield, just at the crown of the little hill, where many of the best meetings are held every year. Mr. Moody thought that the Lord might return while he was living, and he, had been heard to say that there was no place on earth that he would prefer to be when that eventful hour dawned than on 198 DWIGHT L. MOODY Round Top. His remark was recalled after his death, and no other place was even mentioned. At the grave those gathered sang "Jesus, Lover of My Soul:" "Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high; Hide me, oh, my Savior hide, Till the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide, Oh,' receive my soul at last. "Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, oh, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me; All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing. "Thou, O Christ, art all I want; More than all in Thee I find; Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, Heal the sick and lead the blind; Just and holy is Thy name I am all unrighteousness; Vile, and full of sin I am, Thou are full of truth and grace. "Plenteous grace with Thee is foundGrace to cover all my sin; Let the healing streams abound; Make me, keep me, pure within; Thou of life the Fountain art, Freely let me take of Thee; Spring Thou up within my heart, Rise to all eternity." t t_ e -- .. r- . .. _ _ . .. WNWf 0 ry: - I 0 u0 0 STHE MAN AND HIS MISSION 201 At the conclusion of the singing Dr. Torrey offered prayer and Dr. Schofield pronounced the benediction. After the friends ihad withdrawn, the family gathered about the coffin, the cover was raised, and a last look was taken of the face of the 'husband and father. The cover was replaced, and the coffin with its precious burden was lowered into the box resting in the simple brick vault. From this resting place one may see his birthplace, a little more than a stone's throw to the south; his own home for the last quarter of a century, about as far to the west; the seminary buildings, some of them a minute's walk to the north; the last two buildings erected at Mount Hermon, the chapel and Overtoun Hall, four miles distant, appear across the beautiful Connecticut River Valley. To the north six miles, Hinsdale, in New Hampshire, is plainly seen, while the hills about Brattleboro stand out in bold relief. At a meeting of. Mr. Moody's friends, held in the evening after the funeral, it was decided to make a public statement regarding the institutions founded by him. These consist of the Northfield Seminary and the Northfield Training School for Young Women, the Mount Hermon School for Young Men, and the Bible Institute at Chicago, for both men and women. The Northfield plant consists of 1,200oo acres of land and thirty buildings. With its present endowment it is valued at $1,250,00ooo and is practically free from debt. At Chicago the buildings, land and endowment exceed $250,000 in value. The Northfield schools have about nine hundred students, who are charged $ioo a year for board and tuition; the actual cost is $200. At Chicago the amount required appr'oximates $150 each for three hundred students. In other words $125,00ooo annually is required to maintain the work begun by Mr. Moody of offering young men and women of limited means an opportunity to secure an education that will thoroughly equip them for Christian life and service. This sum 202 DWIGHT L. MOODY has been largely raised by Mr. Moody's personal efforts. It is now proposed to start a Moody Memorial Endowment Fund of $3,ooo,ooo, the interest on which would guarantee the perpetuation of his work in all its present prosperity. Friends wishing to respond to this appeal without curtailing their support to the current expenses should address Mr. Moody's elder son, William Revell Moody, at East Northfield, Mass. PART II. A LIFE IN CHRIST. BY REV. HENRY VAN DYKE, D. D., Professor elect at Princeton University DWIGHT L. MOODY Pis 1Pis tis fPis EPis New York, N. Y. Zht'grist fait1l. Boob fighIt work was a long labor of lov~e. life was a of of t~ope. beatli was. a full triumplh memory is a strong inspiration to service. rewarb is an interitance of g1org PART II. CHARACTER SKETCHES AND TRIBUTES I. MR. MOODY'S THRILLING CAREER AND MESSAGE BY REV. N. D. HILLIS WHEN [Copyright 1899 by George T. B. Davis.] long time hath passed, some historian, recalling the great epochs and religious teachers of our century, will say: "There were four men sent forth by God." Their names, Charles Spurgeon, Phillips Brooks, Henry Ward Beecher and Dwight L. Moody. Each was a herald of good tidings, and each made a permanent contribution to the Christian church, while of all it may be said their sermons were translated into many tongues and their names known in every For town and city where the English language is spoken. our instruction, rebuke and inspiration, God hath raised up other preachers, representing a high order of intellect, marked eloquence and permanent influence, but as to the first order of greatness, there have been perhaps these four-no more. God girded each of these prophets for his task, and taught him how to "dip his sword in heaven."In characterizing the message of these men we say that Spurgeon was expositional, Phillips Brooks devotional, Henry Ward Beecher prophetic and philosophical, while Dwight L. Moody was a herald rather than a teacher, addressing himself The to the common people-the unchurched multitudes. symbol of the great English preacher is a lighted lamp, the 205 DWIGHT L. MOODY 206 symbol of Brooks a flaming heart, the symbol of Beecher an orchestra of many instruments, while Mr. Moody was a trumpet, of narrow range perchance, but sounding the advance, sometimes through inspiration and so'metimes through alarm. And our sorrow to-day is the more in that the last of these giants has gone down to,the valley and disappeared behind the thick shadows. Oft in hours of gloom and doubt, full oft in days when wickedness seemed enthroned in high places, and the poor without an advocate in high places, when good men seemed weakness ,and leaders a lie, in our depression we have turned our thoughts toward the three prophets in the English tabernacle, in. Trinity and in Plymouth, or toward the evangelist and friend of the common people, and have been comforted by the mere thought that things were a little safer because these four men were in their appointed places. The first three were commanders, each over his regiment, and worked from.a fixed center, but the evangelist was the leader of a flying band, who went everywhither into the enemy's country, seeking conquests of peace and righteousness. Be the reasons what they may, the common people gladly heard the great evangelist. In his death the unchurched classes have lost their best friend. Fallen now their tower of strength. Changed, too, the very face of our moral landscape. For nearly forty years the multitudes have pressed and thronged into, the great halls and churches to hear this herald speak of duty, sin, salvation, and God's love in His great Christ. But disappearing from our sight he is not life continues, for multitudes he will remain a dead. cool spring flowing in a desert, the covert of a rock in time of sorrow. For the republic the roll call of self-made men is long and brilliant. Orators like Clay come in from the corn fields, statesmen like Webster come from the bleak hillsides of New England, Presidents like Lincoln come forth from the univer-While THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 207 sity of rail-splitting, the inventors, merchants and editors come in from rural districts and villages, and all are the architects of their own fortunes. But among all this group of men whose life in low estate began on a simple village green, none is more thrilling in its struggles, more picturesque in its contrasts and more pathetic in its defeats and victories than that of the great evangelist. An orphan at 4, one of the props of the family at 9, at 19 a clerk in a shoe store of Chicago, at 23 the founder of a Young Men's Christian Association, where he slept on the benches because he had no bed, and bought a loaf at the bakery because he had no money for board. At 24 the superintendent of a Sunday school in a deserted saloon, where his pupils were drunkards, tramps, ragamuffins, mingled with street waifs and boys from a newsboys' home; at 40 the most widely talked about man in Great Britain, where his friends were college presidents and professors, authors, editors, statesmen, scientists like Drummond and Lord Kelvin. Returning home, in Philadelphia he found that merchants had erected for his meetings a building seating 10,000 people, an event that was repeated in New York, Boston, Chicago and many other great cities in our land. At 53 he founded a training school for young men and women in Chicago that has sent out 1,500 workers, a school for young men at East Northfield and for young women at Mount Hermon, institutions that now have for their work more than a score of great buildings,. Thrilling, indeed, this story. It repeats the experiences of young David, to pass from the sheepcote to the king's throne and the scepter of universal sway. "Where were the hidings of his power?" you ask. From nothing, nothing comes. Blood tells. A great ancestry explains a great man. The time was when men thought God calls the prophet. But when God wants a John the Baptist He calls not the son, but the father and mother, and they ordain the 208 DWIGHT L. MOODY child in the cradle and before the cradle. When the.Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt one mother there was brave enough to dare the king, and hide her babe in an ark, amidst the bullrushes, and the mother's courage repeated itself in the greatest of jurists, Moses. Hannah was a dreamer who loved solitude, and walked the hills alone with God, whose eyes "were homes of silent prayer," and her religious genius repeated itself in her son Samuel, one of the greatest of the judges. What was unique in Timothy, Paul tells us, was first of all unique in his mother, Lois, and his grandmother, Eunice. And the greatest evangelist since Whitfield had his power through the ordainment of a great ancestry. He was of the best old New England stock. His father had the fine old Puritan fibre, and his mother, widowed with her little flock about her, exhibits almost unparalleled heroism, courage and hope in the hour of suffering and trouble. For the tides of power in this man flow down from the ancestral hills. Among his birth gifts was the gift of perfect health and a perfect body-with stores of energy that seemed well-nigh inexhaustible. His, also, was the gift of common sense, a mind hungry for knowledge, a reason that saw clearly or saw not at all; moral earnestness, sincerity, self-reliance, courage, wit, humor, pathos, an intuitive knowledge of men, the genius for organization. Like Isaiah, he had a quenchless passion for righteousness. Like Daniel, he had the courage of his convictions in the face of fierce opposition. Like Paul, his enthusiasm for men made him the herald of righteousness to foreign nations. Like Bernard, his was the crusader's heart, organizing his hosts against passion, ignorance and sin. Without the eloquence of Spurgeon, without the fine culture of Phillips Brooks, without the supreme genius of Mr. Beecher, Mr. Moody was a herald, a man sent forth from God, who called the unchurched classes to repentance, who flamed forth on them the love of God in Christ. For nearly six THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 209 years, it is said that Mr. Moody's audiences averaged 5,000 each afternoon and evening, a record that has never been surpassed in all the history of evangelism. "Our bishops," said the London Telegraph, "have back of them a state income, great cathedrals, a small army of paid helpers and musicians, but where our bishops have reached tens this man has reached hundreds." If preaching is man-making and man-mending, then Mr. Moody was a veritable prince among preachers. In view of the great audiences of I5,000 people that thronged into or about the hall in Kansas City, where he preached his last sermon, all must confess that no preacher .in the land since Mr. Beecher's time was comparable to Mr. Moody in personal popularity, or in the power to hold the masses. Any student skilled in the art of reading human nature, and, while listening to his words, has noted their effects upon the faces of the vast audience before him, must make haste to affirm that Mr. Moody knew the human mind.and heart as a skillful musician knows his instrument, and sweeps all the banks of keys before him. In the addresses that were given no element of great speech was lacking. The way in which Mr. Moody moved his audience from tears to laughter reminded us of Mr. Beecher's assertion that if he could make a pan of milk slop over on one side he was always sure he could make it slop over on the other. Life is determined by the emotion of the heart, quite as much as by the arguments of the head. No matter how scholarly or intellectual the preacher may be, he is at best a second-rate preacher whose truth burns with a cold white light. Truth in the hands of an intellectual philosopher, who has found his way into the pulpit, cuts with a keen edge, indeed, but truth in Mr. Moody's hands has been heated red hot, and the edge of his sword burns as well as cuts, like the word of God, 210 DWIGHT L. MOODY dividing between the joints and marrow, and separating the sinner from his evil deeds. No misconception can be greater than to suppose that Mr. Moody succeeded in spite of his lack of theological preparation. My old professor of dogmatic theology criticised me harshly during my student days for going to hear Mr. Moody on Sunday morning. Because the great evangelist was a layman and unordained, this distinguished theologian said that he declined to attend any of. Mr. Moody's meetings during his great campaign in a city in which this professor had formerly resided. It is true that Mr. Moody had never crossed the threshold of college or theological seminary. Moreover, in his enthusiasm he often used the vernacular homely idioms, and in every sermon broke some-of the laws of grammar or of rhetoric. But nothing is risked in the statement that it was a great good fortune for him that he never found his way into a theological seminary. Nevertheless, he was a past master in his chosen art-he reached .men, not because he knew so little about preaching, but because he knew so.much. Could some scholar take a volume of Mr. Moody's- sermons and condense his thoughts, methods, appeals and illustrations into a volume of homiletics, the book would be so large and comprehensive that the ordinary work on the art of preaching would not make an introduction thereto. Taken all in all, for the work of an evangelist, this man represented more culture and more thought about the methods of reaching the common people than any other man in his generation. To him it was given to meet all the great preachers of the day and to work with them. He had also the power of selection from each Spurgeon, or Maclaren, or Brooks, or Beecher, of his special gift and excellence. Having spent eight months of each year in working with the foremost pastors at home and abroad, he had four months in summer for THE MAN AND HIS MISSION study and conference. Those who have seen Mr. Moody's library know that this man was a student of books as well as men. Superficial indeed the judgment of those who think that Mr. Moody was without education, or training, or logic, or knowledge of preaching as a science. With him preaching was a fine art, an art that conceals the art. Did our theological seminaries multiply their three years of study by two they could not hope to equip their students as well as experience with men had equtipped Mr. Moody. Perhaps of all the arts and occupations in our age not one is comparable to the art of preaching. It demands the highest talent, the deepest culture, tireless practice and complete consecration. And happy the generation to whom God gave this herald of good tiding, this friend of the common people, this messenger to the unchurched multitudes, who followed him as their leader along those paths that lead to prosperity and peace, to Christ, the sole man's Savior, to God, man's Father. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. II. A NATURAL PRINCE AND LEADER BY REV. F. B. MEYER, OF LONDON, ENGLAND and come have TO of hisknown D. L. Moody,has been to many the one men strong personality, within range of the most influential factors in their character and lifework; and it is not easy for such to imagine a world from which the inspiration of his presence has been withdrawn. It is still less easy, under the immediate sorrow of such a bereavement, to characterize this natural prince and leader of men. He had a marvelous power over others. You cannot read the biographies of Dr. Andrew Bonar, of Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Professor Drummond, or of Dr. Dale, men as far as possible removed from each other in many respects, without encountering the same tribute to the spell which this strong, tender, intense nature exerted over them. There was something magnetic about him. Whoever was speaking at the Northfield Convention, it was the fact that Moody was present-though only as a listener, sitting, probably, off the platform, under the deep gallery on the right-which gave the session importance, and the speaker's words weight. Even when men have not agreed with him, and have seriously antagonized his positions, they have acknowledged the absolute sincerity and nobility of his character. I met him first in York in 1873, on his arrival with Mrs. Moody and his two eldest children. Accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Sankey, they had come to our country, as it appeared, by a Divine prompting, and had just landed at Liverpool. Some time before, the secretary of the Y. M. C. A. 212 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 213 had impressed on him the two words, "Bennett, York;" and not knowing where else to turn, two of his friends having suddenly died, Moody telegraphed to Mr. Bennett, saying, "I will be in York to-night." This was Saturday. On the following day he preached at the chapel, built for Rev. James Parsons, and then occupied. by Rev. John Hunter (now of Glasgow). During the following week he held evening services in the old Lendal Chapel, and noon prayer meetings at the Y. M. C. A. After two or three more days with the Wesleyans, he came to the Baptist chapel, of which I was minister, and conducted meetings there for about a fortnight, with ever-increasing numbers ,and marvelous results. He and Mr. Sankey have often spoken of that little vestry, where we three spent much time in prayer, little weening that the earnestness of our desires and intercessions were the travail pangs of so great a spiritual movement as followed. These were the days when the "Sacred Songs and Solos" had not been compiled, and we used a number of fly-sheets with paper covers. But the main lines of Moody's character and work were already laid. He said to me once, alluding to academic degrees, "I want to be D. L.-Moody, O. O." And on my asking him what the letters stood for, he said: "Why, of course, Out-and-Out." He liked nothing better than to get a Bible student alone, and ply him with questions as to what he knew of the Bible, or any fresh light he had recently received. He was always collecting incidents, illustrations, witty and wise sayings, which he placed in large envelopes, on which were written the key-words of addresses in course of preparation. He was not so familiar with his addresses as he became afterwards, for one afternoon, having come in to tea, he hastened away suddenly to cross to the other side of York, to the house of Dr. Kitchen, with whom he was staying, to get the notes of his address on "Heaven." 214 DWIGHT L. MOODY The first all-day meeting he held in England was arranged by us as we walked up and down Coney street, and it was at my instance that the evangelists went on to Rev. A. A. Rees, at Sunderland, who first coined the announcement, which became so widely known, and, indeed, carried Scotland, notwithstanding the prejudice against the solo singer, and his "kist o' whistles," that "Mr. Moody would speak, and Mr. Sankey sing, the Gospel." This was, of course, not his first introduction to Great Britain, or to wide and extended work. He had first made his mark in Chicago, in an old shanty lighted by tallow candles, which had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper, though his own education was then so imperfect that he is said to have been obliged to skip some of the longer words as he read the Bible to the children. His brushes with the saloon-keepers; his efforts for all outcast and neglected souls; his indefatigable labors in connection with the Y. M. C. A. at Farwell Hall; his herculean exertions for the soldiers in camp and on the field of battle, as a delegate of the Christian Commission, during the Civil War; his journeyings in all parts for Sundayschool conventions, had given him an amount of experience, and created a wealth of resource, which were only waiting for the open sphere and conspicuous platform that opened before his labors in England. His two previous visits to our country had been for the purpose of observation, and of coming in contact with leading Christian men. He always spoke with gratitude of the impulse he had received in the direction of Bible study from a Mildmay Conference, and described as one of the most important seed-germs of his career a sentence which he overheard from the lips of an eminent servant of God, in the course of a conversation with a friend: "The world has yet to learn what God can do by a man wholly devoted to Him." All who have heard him will recall the quiver in his voice THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 215 when he told some pathetic story; but I never guessed the intensity of his tenderness till I saw him with his grandchildren. He used to drive them about in his carriage, or carry them in his arms. One of the most striking incidents in my memory was when he stood with them beside his mother's grave, in a summer sunset, and asked us to pray that they might be in the coming century what she had been in this. And when little Irene was dying, he used to be on the watch below her window to keep all quiet, would steal down from the meetings to hear the latest news, would be the nurse and playmate of her little cousin, that all might devote themselves to the chamber of sickness. So touched, because a little child had sent the invalid a pet lamb! How moved he was, as we saw it together! He was absolutely fearless. I remember one occasion, wvhen he felt it laid on his heart to speak some unpalatable truths to a number of ministers and others. Before me, as I write, is the large circle that sat around his spacious diningroom in the summer evening, the monument of ice-cream which he carved with such precision; and then the direct unvarnished words, which wounded deeply, that a better condition of soul-life might be induced. Whether in a crowd, or with an individual, he never swerved a hair's breadth from what he thought right, to win a smile, or avoid a frown. As a conversationalist he was charming. He would sit in the porch of his unpretending but comfortable house, overlooking the lovely landscape, telling story after story of marvelous conversions. One day, for instance, a young man drove up as we were talking, and he toldme that he had won him to Christ when quite a lad by a conversation on the roof of a Chicago hotel, that being the only quiet spot he could find for his purpose. Or he would recall reminiscences of men whom he had known. He had a great fund of information about agriculture; had traveled widely and observed shrewd- 216 DWIGHT L. MOODY ly; was in keen and close touch with the great religious movements of the time; and was specially fond of asking questions of anyone who seemed likely to communicate reliable information. He was always hungry for facts. The most extraordinary contrasts met in his nature. His external appearance was rough, and his manners brusque; but he had one of the tenderest hearts that beat. His scorn and hatred of anything wrong and mean were withering; his pity for the erring, unlimited. Having been debarred from the benefits of early education, yet-in his magnificent institution at Northfield, where 700 young men and women are always under training, and in the great Bible Institute at Chicago-he has probably done more in the cause of learning than any other single man in America. Unable to sing a note, he has promoted a college of sacred singers. Outside the ministeriai ranks-and yet he spent his life to help ministers and churches to do their work more efficiently. He was absolutely loyal to church organization, always making it his aim to vitalize anid quicken church life, and increase the efficiency of existing institutions. Towards the end of his life he was greatly impressed by the movement for the promotion of a deeper spiritual life. I induced him to come to Keswick, which he greatly enjoyed, and he wrote to me saying: "I am going to do all I can to get the Christians to get a higher stand, and to get them together." Of course, he was well aware of the perils attending all such movements, but he was more than ever persuaded that nothirig but a quickened spiritual life would meet the requirements of the American church at this juncture; and nothing that I can remember filled him with greater glee than when, last August, two-thirds of the New York Presbytery spent ten days at Northfield for the DR. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS Beecher's successor as Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. 1 -:S ., '0 3y*a p F - - M.. /. t5* ' A : -> I is C ,, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 219 purpose of investigating and receiving teaching concerning the deepest phases in the soul's development. He died triumphantly, we learn, conscious to the last, and bearing testimony to the Gospel he had preached. The great institutions which he created and fostered; the colportage work; the colleges at Chicago, and Northfield, and Mount Hermon; his books-these will be the works that will follow him. He discovered men, knew how to bring the best qualities out of them, found them spheres, and gave them. back to themselves. Men like Mr. Mott and Mr. Speer, of the Student. Volunteers; like Mr. Baer, of the Christian Endeavor; like Dr. Wilbur Chapman, the well-known evangelist; to say nothing of hundreds besides, who have passed through his colleges or been influenced by his missions, will perpetuate in the coming generation something of the influence and power he wielded in this, through the grace of God. He never wavered in his attachment to the great fundamentals of the Gospel. His sermons on the Blood, the Holy Spirit, the Love of God in Jesus Christ, were great testimonies to the mighty truths which have been the theme of every revival of evangelical religion. There was no uncertain sound in the Gospel as he preached it, and it was the Power of God unto salvation to tens of thousands. What a welcome he must have received as he entered heaven! Surely an abundant, a choral, entrance must have been ministered unto him by myriads who are there, because of the message uttered in burning accents by his lips. May God comfort his noble wife, the confidant of his secrets, the partner of his anxieties and toils; and grant that his children may be enabled to maintain the work which he has left them as a sacred legacy and charge. III. DWIGHT L. MOODY-A CRITICISM AND AN APPRECIATION BY REV. GEORGE F. PENTECOST T [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] O write of D. L. Moody and his work one would better be content to do it in a paragraph, unless he were permitted the limits of a book. I am not to write of his work -that is known and read of all men the whole wide world over; but a little of the man himself as I have more or less intimately known him for the past twenty years; and that little I am writing here in Northfield, where the spell of his great personality is still upon me--for we cannot yet realize that we shall see his face and hear his voice no more. Had he lived in the early days of Israel's trials in the land the Lord God gave them he would have "judged Israel" and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies. He was a man of the stamp and character of Gideon; whose latent powers were known only to God; who, when called and chosen, knew only to believe, to obey, to dare, and to do. He was judge, prophet and preacher to the people of God during the latter third of the closing century. By him and his crude and sometimes rude, but always eloquent, speech God in our day waked up a sleeping church as truly as he did in the days of Luther and Wesley. Moody's name will go down bracketed with theirs in all coming time. Mr. Moody was one of the most widely and best known men of his generation, yet the world, and even the church, nay, many of those who counted themselves his intimate friends and were closest to him in his work, only knew the 220 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 22I outside of the man, or at least only that which lay a little below the surface of his personality. For, in spite of all his brusque, hearty and frank ways, Mr. Moody was the most reticent man I ever knew. Not Cromwell himself more perfectly concealed himself from those about him than did Mr. Moody. It was here in Northfield, which he loved better than any other spot on earth, in the seclusion of his own home, that he was best known, and only so far by those whom he admitted to the privacy of his home life. To them he would talk of the beauties of this place, of his plans for future work; with them he would read and study the Bible; talk of other men and workers, but of himself, never. To his fellow townsmen, with whom from a ooy he was brought up-being but the son of a poor, struggling widow-he was ever the kind and thoughtful friend, but never the familiar companion. In early life he was to them "Dwight Moody;" for 25 years past he has been Mr. Moody, only and always. For 25 years past few, if even one of them, have ever familiarly laid hand upon his shoulder. His deep and real piety, his utter consecration to God and the work which he conceived himself called of God to do, no one who at all knew him for a moment doubted. With all this being true, it is equally true-and I say it as one who has known and loved him long-that in some of the sweeter and gentler aspects of a saint's life he was singularly and, I believe, unconsciously deficient. Sensitive as a woman to any slight or lack of consideration from others, he was too apt to forget that "others," even his closest friends, were men of like passions and sensitiveness with himself. I have seen him cry like a child under the sting and smart of some real or fancied slight or wound received in the house of his friends, but I have seen and known many of his friends cry with bitter pain of wounds inflicted by Mr. Moody's treatment of them. In many ways Mr. Moody was the kindest and tenderest- 222 DWIGHT L. MOODY hearted man I ever knew, nor do I believe he ever intentionally wounded anyone-he simply lacked perception and did not know how to put himself in another man's place. His absorption in his work, his habit of going straight to the end of his purpose and never ceasing or turning aside till he reached his goal, regardless of whoever might for the moment be in his way, may in part account for this trait in his character. To him the King's business demanded haste, nor would he pull up or stay his hand though a friend were under foot. He did nothing out of personal consideration. His rule was to estimate and value men for their availability in his work. If they were useful to, him he used them, and so long as he used them he was always kind. The moment they ceased to be useful or were in his way he dropped them, and even flung them away. This, I think, was the most serious blemish on his otherwise fine character. To those who gathered about him-drawn by the irresistible magnetism of his personality he was at times brusque to the point of rudeness. On account of this characterisic, many prominent and able men, especially ministers, who would have been through life his attached and loyal helpers, have turned away from him, hurt to the quick, and indignant at what they esteemed unwarrantably rude and discourteous and unbrotherly treatment. But in this way he was impartial, being no"respecter of persons." AnEnglish gentleman once said to me, "Well, you know, we are all his lackeys, ready to fetch and carry as he may direct. He may make doorkeepers of us, or even door mats, if he likes, we will still love him and do what is in our power to serve and help him in his work:" If this seems to be a record of fault in Mr. Moody's character, at the same time it certainly is a tribute to his tremendous personality and his magnetic power over men. Perhaps this peculiar and, I cannot but feel, most regrettable and unfortunate trait in Mr. Moody's character, may best be set forth in a remark I once heard made by one of his truest and most loyal THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 223 friends, who yet has for some past years dropped out of the "inner circle :" "Dear old Moody! We all love him, but some of us do not like him." It may seem ungenerous and ungracious on my part to write such things in the foreground of this sketch, and yet it is done while my heart is still quivering with the sense of personal loss in his death-whom in life I loved, and in death I mourn. And now, having truthfully said this, let me write of other things more consistent with my own feelings-even though in my brief space I can only rapidly and imperfectly indicate some of the more prominent traits of his great personality. One of the marked characteristics of the man was his strong practical common sense, and, in the main, fine and quick knowledge of men. He would instantly detect a "crank," though he sometimes failed to discern a true, helpful man or woman under a modest exterior. He lived in almost mortal terror of being imposed upon or of having people, men or women, fasten themselves upon him with axes to grind. Once, in the Boston Tabernacle, while sitting in his private room, just before going onto the platform,, an usher came in and said, "There is a man without who wishes to see you." "Well," said Moody, "I have no time to see him now." "But," replied the usher, "he says he "What kind of a must see you on very important business." man is he ?" "Oh, he is a tall, thin man with long hair." "That settles it," said Moody; "I don't want to see any long-haired men or short-haired women." He rarely made a mistake in selecting his lieutenants, though he often dropped them for no apparent reason, and always without explanation. He simply ceased to call upon them for service. In the management of meetings he was without a peer. He almost instantly knew whom to shut off, and, with a shrewd remark or pointed story, how to tide the course of an open meeting over shoal places without disturbing the harmonies. In the organization of 224 DWIGHT L. MOODY great meetings or campaigns he was a past master. Nothing escaped him; and he knew how to hold his lieutenants responsible for attention to details upon the carrying out of which much of his success depended. In action-i. e., in. the thick of a great religious campaign, he was something of a martinet. I remember a little scene between him and the able secretary and manager of his London committee, Mr. Robert Paton. It was i i o'clock on a Saturday morning. Mr. Moody had suddenly changed the plan of campaign for the following week, and he wanted fresh tickets ready in time to distribute to his five thousand workers who would assemble early the next (Sunday) morning at the 7 o'clock workers' meeting. "Paton," said he, informing him of his change of plan, "I want 5o,ooo new tickets (handing him copy) ready for the workers' meeting to-morrow morning." "Impossible!" said Paton. "Why impossible ?" asked Moody. "Why," replied Paton, "this is Saturday and i i o'clock. All the printing establishments close down work at noon to-day, and even if they did not, 5o,ooo tickets could not be prepared in half a day." They argued the point a few minutes, and then Moody turned upon his heel with the remark, "Paton, it must be done." Mr. Paton looked blankly for a moment at the huge retreating figure, and then went out of the room like a shot; and in two minutes he was in a cab tearing down to the printing establishment. I do not know how it was managed, but the 50,000 tickets were distributed the next morning to his 5,000 workers. Thus it ever was with Moody. Once in a critical time, during the early building operations up here, Mr. Marshall, his general superintendent, said that it was absolutely necessary before the end of the week that a large sum of money be had. That afternoon Mr. Moody took train for New York. He came back the next day with the money. He did not borrow it! Moody, of all men I ever knew, could do things, and he did THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 225 them. As I heard only yesterday one of his close friends say, "He always got there!" "And Abraham went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan he came." That was characteristic of Mr. Moody. What he went forth to accomplish, that he accomplished. Mr. Moody's reverence for all things sacred or divine was almost extreme. I never heard him so,much as make a play upon Bible words or phrases, nor would he tolerate such use of God's word in his presence. A Bible conundrum or application of Scripture to point a jest or joke was absolutely tabooed with him. He once rather sharply rebuked me for naming Peter as the "shortest" man in the Bible because he confessed that "silver and gold have I lone." He was a Puritan of the Puritans in respect of the "Sabbath." He would not ride on a street or steam car, even to go, to a meeting at which he was to speak. Large, and unused and disinclined as he was to walk, I have known him to walk miles, at great cost of strength , rather than even to be driven in a private carriage. And yet he would send his "gospel wagon" scouring all over the Northfield hills on a Sunday morning, to bring the poor farmers and their children to church. In this he did not in'pose his own conscientious scruples upon others. It goes without saying that he had no sympathy with or even toleration for the "higher criticism." To George Adam Smith, two summers ago, when that distinguished scholar was his guest up here at his Northfield convention, he said, "Smith, what is the use of talking to the people about two Isaiahs when not half of them have yet discovered that there is so much as one?" That was a shrewd and practical remark, and illustrated his point of view. "I believe in the old Bible as it is-from back to back,"-was a common saying of his. In the hours of his relaxation, and especially in his vacation time, he was as jolly and genial as any man I ever knew. 226 DWIGHT L. MOODY He had a strong vein of humor in his composition. This appeared in his public speech, and often served him well; but in the quiet and retirement of home and in the social circle it came out strongly. Intensely fond of a good story-provided it was clean and sweet-I have seen him laugh until the tears would run down his cheeks and his sides ache with pain; and he would have his favorite stories told again and again for his own and his friends' delight. He was fond of play and sport, especially with young people, and as far as his rather unwieldy bulk would allow he would join in with them. He never wearied, and spared no expense to provide all his young people--the boys and girls of his schools-with all forms of healthy play and amusement. He even liked a practical joke, provided it was not played at his expense. He drew the line there. I have already spoken of his tender-heartedness and unbounded personal kindness to those in sorrow or need. He mourned and sorrowed like a father for his children when at different times two or three boys and some girl pupils in the schools up here were drowned while in swimming and killed in a carriage accident. All the passion and kindness of a strong and tender nature went out to the poor and for those for "whom nothing was provided." For men, and especially boys and girls, who had not what he thought "a fair chance" to get on in the world, he had a passionate longingperhaps born of his own early experiences. It was this compassion and his intense appreciation of the advantages of an education which inspired and led to the foundation of the Northfield schools, which will forever remain his best and greatest visible monument. Mr. Moody was a man of the simplest habits and tastes. He spent money lavishly upon others and in his work, but little upon himself. He was not a lover of money, and only coveted it for the good it might be made to do in his work, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 227 and, latterly, especially in connection with his schools. He might easily and rightfully have been a rich man, but like Samuel and Paul, he "coveted no man's silver or gold." Of all the vast royalties that the hymn books have yielded, and of which he might rightly have possessed himself, I have every reason to believe he has never touched a penny for his own personal use. On the subject of money for himself I have never heard him speak, nor would he allow the subject discussed in his presence. His power over men and women was most remarkable. Not himself a man of culture or skilled in drawing room manners or etiquette, he drew and attached to himself men and women of the highest social position, of largest wealth, and of great intellectual ability and acquirements. Men like G. A. Smith and Henry Drummond were his greatest admirers. It is a well known fact that when Lady Stanley (the wife of the famous Dean of Westminster) was dying she sent for Mr. Moody to minister to her the comforts and hope of the gospel. In the old country he was ever the honored guest of the highest in the land, and the same was true in his own country. The proverb concerning "a prophet" being "without honor in his own country" did not apply to him. I shall close this brief and hastily written sketch of "Dear Old Moody" by a reference to him as the world's greatest evangelist, a place which he easily held. I think it cannot be controverted that he has influenced more people, turned more men and women from sin to God, set more Christians to work for their Master, and stirred the whole Christian church more deeply, than any man in modern times. In saying this, I do not forget Wesley and Whitfield, Edwards or Finney. He founded no sect-that was ever farthest from his thought -for he lived and labored for the whole church and sought the spiritual welfare of "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." He 228 DWIGHT L. MOODY was not a theologian, but easily the greatest preacher since the days of Luther. Had he been a theologian he would not have given himself up so entirely, as in his later years, to the "Keswick movement." His gospel was the simple one of I Cor. 5: I1-4. His method was not that of the logician, much less that of the rhetorician; but that of passionate appeal to the hearts and consciences of men. He was not a great reader of books, except the Bible, I may say hardly a reader of them at all. He was too impatient of long sentences and logical processes to read. He read men; and when he found a full man he would suck or pump him dry. An anecdote or incident was more useful to him than an argument. His ability to re-mint other people's gold was phenomenal. He would get an anecdote or illustration from an other man and use it with an aptness and power that the originator never dreamed of. A story or illustration that would halt in the telling by another man would fly from Moody's lips like an eagle or a dove and burn from his telling like red hot iron, or go straight to, the mark like a rifle shot. He would condense a long argument or statement gathered from his living library of men into an epigram that would make its pointed and solid way to the heart or the conscience of his hearers. He was equally ready to seize a sling and stone from the hand of David, an ox-goad from Shamgar, a lamp, pitcher and trumpet from Gideon, or a sword from the fallen Goliath, or the jaw bone of an ass, and able to use either or all of them, as occasion required or opportunity offered, with the skill of the original possessors of the weapons, and always with the impression left on his hearers that he was the original fashioner of them all. As a preacher he was vehement, passionate and pathetic by turns. He played upon his audiences as a skilled musician upon an organ. They would laugh and cry and tremble as his words flowed on torrent like or rippled and murmured THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 229 softly with the sound of deep emotion and tears. Gen. Swift, a worldly man and astute politician, who was converted during the great Boston meetings, said to me, that "the most uncomfortable seat he ever sat upon was an old wooden chair in the Tabernacle, during a sermon, every word of which went through me like a bayonet charge." His sermons were not logical in their construction, not always consecutive in their arrangement of thought; but they were always charged with tremendous power and burst over and upon his audience like liddyte shells. The secret of his power was (humanly speaking) in his personality more than in his words or thoughts. It was the living preacher. Anyone who has heard Moody preach and then read the same sermon afterward must have been struck with what has seemed the strange lack in the printed page. In this he was more like Whitfield than any other great preacher of whom I know. I have often been asked what was Moody's greatest sermon. It would be difficult to answer that question; but I think I may safely say that his two greatest sermons were those on the two texts, "God is love," and "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." These two sermons illustrate the two sides of the message he had to sinners. Of his work it must be truly said that it was the greatest of its kind ever wrought by man since the gospel began to be preached. It was good, with as little possible bad in it as can be imagined. It will last-not as an organized movement, as Methodism has lasted--but as good blood infused into the life and body of the whole Church of God, throughout the world. All Protestant bodies have felt the stimulus of it 2 and so has the Episcopal Church in both England and America. Even the Roman Catholic Church has felt the power of it. I even go so far as to say that Mr. Moody is the real father of the Salvation Army, though the rearing and training of that religious prodigy were taken in hand by others and 230 DWIGHT L. MOODY directed in a way that Mr. Moody would not have suggested. The question has been asked: "Who will be Moody's successor ?" The answer is: "He has not, and never will have a successor." We might as well ask who was Moses's successor, or Isaiah's, or Jeremiah's, or Paul's, or Lincoln's, or "To Grant's. God's great servants never have successors. every man his work." Those who come after do not succeed either to the power or personality of those who have fallen and passed away. Even Elisha was not Elijah's successor. God will raise up other men to do His work, but no man will be Moody's successor. Mr. Moody's son is understood to be his father's chosen agent for the general management of the Northfield schools, but his successor he can never be. Peace to the ashes of this great and good man; rest to his great soul! We shall never on this earth see his like again. GEORGE Northfield, Mass. F. PENTECOST. IV. INGERSOLL AND MOODY--A CONTRAST BY BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] I KNEW Dwight L. Moody in 1857. It was at a Sundayschool convention in Clark Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago that I first met him. He was then about twenty-one years of age-short, stout, bustling, ardent, shaking hands with everybody, smiling, happy, hearty-an embodiment of genuineness and good-will. I crossed the Continent with him in 1871 to, attend the California State SundaySchool Convention. He was interested in Sunday-school work in those days, but it was chiefly on the evangelistic side. He tried to gather in the waifs and get them "converted." He was an incarnation of Sunday-school, =Young Men's Christian Association and Evangelistic endeavor. I met him the next year in London, and with him spent several days over at Booterstown, Dublin, with dear old Mr. Bewley, who was a sturdy Calvinist, a "Plymouth Brother," an earnest, hospitable, philanthropic soul, who was the pocket-book and promoter of the Dublin "Tract Society." In Mr. Bewley's fine mansion several of us spent three days together in spiritual conversation, seasons of silent prayer and Bible study, and in projecting plans for Mr. Moody's evangelistic work. It was on the occasion of that visit that I attended the most remarkable "Prayer and Bible Study Service" I ever knew. It was held in a hall in Dublin. The "Plymouth Brother" element dominated it, but it was a most spiritual and uplifting meeting. Since that Dublin meeting I have met Mr. Moody fre231 232 DWIGHT L. MOODY quently in New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Buffalo and elsewhere. Our lines of religious effort diverged, but for him I have always had the most profound respect. He was a man of great courage, of utmost fidelity, free from self-seeking and self-consciousness. He had unlimited faith in the power of an immanent and loving God. He had persistency, wisdom and the art of winning men to the approval and support of his schemes. He was uneducated after the manner of the schools. But I once heard Dr. John Hall of New York declare that "it was not fair to call Moody uneducated-for how can a man be called uneducated," said the Doctor, "who has spent twenty-five years in the constant, careful, devout and practical study of that greatest English classic-the English Bible ?" Mr. Moody was a master of the Word, and had rare knowledge of human nature, and knew from personal experience, prolonged and profound, what the grace of God can work through the acceptance of the truth of God by a trusting soul. The scholars "took" to Mr. Moody. Henry Drummond and George Adam Smith, able students, independent thinkers, bold and brave as they were competent, believed in Dwight L. Moody, consulted and communed with him, honored him in manifold ways, and gave him high place as a man of native mental force, profound insight into human nature and gifted with spiritual vision before the open Word. Moody was aggressive in his religious efforts. He never knew what it was to be afraid of mortal man. He dared to do things that were unpopular. He usually made such things popular. His faith was unwavering. He was never troubled by doubts. He held the essentials of the "orthodox faith," and he held them with his whole soul. His positiveness of conviction and expression paralyzed other men's doubts. He was open to conviction. His earlier views were gradually and greatly modified by his contact with the broad men whom he was glad to enroll on his list of devoted friends. He was THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 233 singularly free from dogmatism and had no faintest trace of bitterness in him. He believed that "God is love." And he loved. He was free from all religious affectation-he was the very soul of guilelessness and naturalness. He worshiped God, the infinite Reality. And he was "real." Robert G. Ingersoll and Dwight L. Moody died within the same year. They were nearly the same age. They lived through the most important part of the most wonderful century the world has ever known. They were fine specimens of physical manhood. They were both men of exceptional intellectual endowment. Both were gifted with high imaginative power. Both were masters of the "pictorial" art. Both were remarkable platform orators-able to attract and to hold the "crowd." Ingersoll was brilliantly rhetorical. Moody was direct, clear and simple. The former was a color"st. The latter a sharp, clean-cut delineator. Both had power of caricature. But in Moody's use of this gift there was rarely any scorn or sarcasm. In attempting a comparison of the two men I make no report concerning, or reflection upon, the great Agnostic's moral character. I assume that he was an upright man, a true American citizen, a loyal, loving husband and father. Both men-were married. Ingersoll's wife, I am told, defends and exploits her husband's doubts and denials. The wife of Mr. Moody is a sweet and consistent Christian woman, a faithful mother and a remarkable helper of her husband through all the years of his evangelistic labor. The Outlook for December 30, in an appreciative notice of Mr. Moody, says: "Mrs. Moody, who survives her husband, has always been an efficient and faithful help to him in all his undertakings, and he is quoted as saying, 'When I have an especially hard case, I turn him over to my wife; she can bring a man to a decision for Christ where I cannot touch him.'" What 234 DWIGHT L. MOODY a difference it makes, with a -man and his influence on which side his wife stands! Both Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Moody were distinctively religious teachers. Whatever Mr. Ingersoll may have contributed to political success, to national loyalty, or to Shakesperian literature, his renown was derived from his lectures and writings on religious subjects. He stands for religious Denial. He represents Agnosticism. He aimed to shake the faith of men, old and young, in the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. His influence at best was negative so far as all positive religious conviction is concerned, and positive, with an awful emphasis, in its repudiation of all that the Christian heart holds sacred. He ridiculed the faith of the Christian church and held up to scorn before great audiences of American people the sweet assurance of life eternal in Christ our risen Lord. And he died leaving no sign of change in this conviction. How unutterable the pathos of the end o£ such a life, and of wife and children clinging to the dead body with no faith in the life to come-and apparently submissive to this awful necessity! Over against all this hear the dying Moody, his face radiant, exclaiming, "Earth is receding! Heaven is opening! God is calling me!" Who will not cry out in the presence of this great contrast: "Let me.die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his!" JOHN H. VINCENT. Episcopal Residence, Topeka, Kansas. REV. GEORGE F. PENTECOST One of Mr. Moody's most Intimate Friends and Co-workers, bISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT .i~snop of the Methodist Episcpal Church. Founder of the Summer Assiembly, etc. Chautauqua V. 1 THE SECRET OF MOODY'S POWER BY DR. P. S. HENSON D [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] WIGHT L. MOODY'S name will ever shine resplendent in the annals of the modern church. Let us seek to discover, if we can, wherein his great strength lay that we may learn to follow him as he followed Christ. There were certain things that distinguished him by nature. In the first place he was a man of magnificent physique. He was built upon a broad pattern and endowed with a common sense as robust as his body. This nature gave him, or rather the God of nature, and you will notice, that when the Lord is minded to select a standard-bearer-a great leader to. meet a great emergency-he commonly selects a man who by nature is a stalwart-a man like Moses, or Samuel, or Martin Luther, or Jonathan Edwards, or John Knox, or Dwight L. Moody, so that grace may have a good foundation to build on, something sturdy on which it may get a grip. That magnificent physique, now cold in death, that robust common sense that so marvelously distinguished our beloved brother, are not possessed by all the saints, nor are they to be had for the asking. But there were things that pre-eminently distinguished him which may also distinguish us,-if we are only willing to pay the price. Six things I wish to mention especially, and these six things go far to explain the masterful sway exerted by this man while he lived, and which he will continue to exert through all the years of coming time. First of all, he was a converted man. It is not for any one of us to judge another. God knoweth the heart and we can never tell just how many have been truly 237 238 DWIGHT L., MOODY converted until we shall all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ. But it is a great thing to be converted. I fear that too many who profess godliness have only a form thereof. Even in the early church there were some of these. There were such men as Judas Iscariot and Simon Magusnames synonymous with hypocrisy and treason. There were professors of religion that were anything but Christians, and that at a time when it cost men something to be professed followers of Christ; and if then, much more now, when successive tidal waves of revival have swept into the church, not only much that has mightily enriched the church but much of flotsam and jetsam, some of which we have reason to fear is even cluttering up the pulpit to the infinite detriment of the cause of Christianity. It is not for me to bring a railing accusation against ministers of the Gospel or to charge them with hypocrisy and mercenary meanness of motive. I will not allow myself to believe that there are many deserving of such characterization though ever and anon some clerical monster is publicly exposed, to the great delight of a mocking world who drag him about with ribald shouts like another Hector around the walls of Troy. But I should be sorry to suspect that there were many such. On the contrary, I am ready to believe that many of the men that stand in the pulpit and preach the Gospel by rote, but not by heart, are sincere in their way, and are trying as best they can to do their duty; but never having had any personal experience of grace they come to think that nobody has had any more experience than themselves. They drift into utter disbelief in.the supernatural and become mere formalists and rationalists and apostles of ethical culture instead of genuine evangelical religion. Dwight L. Ioody was a converted man. That was one reason why he had such anchorage of faith. If a man has had genuine experience of the grace of God that bringeth salva- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 239 tion, the redoubtable champions of infidelity may pile objections to Christianity mountain high, 'but the inner citadel of the soul where the spiritual fortresses are can never be stormed. Dwight L. Moody had an indubitable experience. The world is tired of theorists-and even of so-called scientists. It wants to hear somebody, that knows something. What a privilege to have met Moses coming down from the mountain with his face all radiant with the light of glory, or to have conversed with Peter, James and John, or Paul or anybody who had really seen Jesus! Dwight L. Moody had seen God and knew God, and that made him such a power as a preacher. Not only this, he was a consecrated man. There are many people that are converted that are not consecrated. You know that they are not. You can judge before the judgment that they are not consecrated from the way they use their bodies, from the way they use their time, from the way they hold back their money when the Lord's cause is in sore distress for means to prosecute it, and from the way in which they prostitute their talents. They may have a genius for business, for medicine, for law, for many another sphere of earthly action, but as to helping the Lord's cause they are no better than dumb dogs. Moody was a conisecrated man and yet he was not a fanatic, nor a perfectionist. I never heard him lay claim to what some call "the higher life," but I believe that Dwight L. Moody laid himself and all that he was on the altar of the Lord. Moody was only a clerk when he consecrated himself to Christ, but he was a climbing clerk, and I believe that with his sturdy common sense, his marvelous tact, his instinctive knowledge of minen, his superb power of generalship---if he had pursued a business career he would have amassed a magnificent fortune; but what there was of earthly promise he surrendered utterly. Right here in Chicago that surrender was made and he lived like a rat on what he could 240 DWIGHT L. MOODY find,, and would have starved had it not been for direct help, from heaven. I have heard criticisms of Moody. I have heard people complain of his syntax, but I never yet met with any man that doubted his sincerity. He practiced what he preached, and people listened, not merely because of what he said,though what he said was well worth hearing-but because of the man that said it. They believed in the man, and therefore they listened as though an angel was speaking to them out of heaven. He was not only converted, not only consecrated, but concentrated! I believe that most of the failures in life are due to downright dissipation. If Christians fail at all-as most Christians do-they do not fail for lack of opportunities. Never were so many dbors open as to-day, and any man that wants to find a field of labor can find it anywhere. Nor do they fail for lack of ability. There are very few men but what have in themselves possibilities of power that would enable them to shake the entire church of God and the world outside if the power were only converged to a point. There is a mighty difference in powder. Let the grains of powder be loosely laid out and touched with fire,-there is only a flash and a harmless puff of smoke; but let that same powder be rammed down the throat of a gun, and its explosive force discharged in a single line, and you have a winged thunderbolt. The ordinary Christian is a puff of smoke. Dwight L. Moody was a thunderbolt. He was a man of one idea,-call it narrowness, if you please-but I think he was the broadest man that I have ever known. He had an ideal, and that ideal was to glorify God in the salvation of the world. Yonder is a man that is whittling sticks, and weighing out mint and anise and cummin, and toying with all the technicalities of the "ologies,"--and he imagines himself broad! But here is a man that covered the world with his glorious evangelism, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 241 whose voice sounded out to the ends of the earth, who had no less an object than the conquest of all the kingdoms of the earth for Christ. If that is not broad-in the Lord's name what: is? He was a converted man, a consecrated man, and a concentrated man. He was a man full of faith. He. believed in the personality of God--and that is a great matter in these times when you hear so much about nature, the powers of nature, and the laws of nature, that the:God of nature is receding to the vanishing point. "He that cometh unto God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him." Dwight L. Moody believed in God. The trend of our time is in the direction of a belief that this universe is a great organism, grinding out results in an automatic way. Dwight L. Moody believed in no such automatic organism, but that God is over all and that he ruleth all things after the counsels of his will, and that he could go to God as a child to his father and get what he wanted if it were a good thing to have. He had not only faith in the personality of God; but in the Word of God. A great many people.professing to be Christians have come to think lightly of this old Book, as an instrumentality for this world's conversion. They regard it as an interesting collection of Jewish folklore and that may still be studied with profit, but their thought is that we want modern weapons to meet modern conditions. But Dwight L. Moody believed in the old Book. He believed there is enough in it to serve all purposes of a pulpit text-book. Dickens and Thackeray and Kipling were never substituted for it in his ministry. Nature and art and history and literature might help to illustrate his texts, but he always found his text in The Book. This was the weapon on which he relied, and he never got so far away from it that he could not clutch it. He never had time to do such 242 DWIGHT L. MOODY work as is so much delighted in by the higher critics. I am saying nothing against the men that occupy themselves with such critical investigations. I am only saying that Dwight L. Moody never felt that he had time for that sort of thing. The battle was upon him, he was in the thick of it. And what concerned him was, not so much how the sword was made, as how to handle it, and he handled it right royally and thrust and parried with such masterly skill that the slain of the Lord were many and the sound of his victories rang round the world and up to the gates of heaven. Oh if I could only get the ear of the poor, despairing preachers that are pining for congregations to fill their empty houses! I would like to tell them over Moody's coffin how that great man did it. Moody stuck to the Bible, and therefore the people stuck to him. His home was right here in Chicago, and yet he never came to Chicago when he could find a place big enough to preach in. He concerned himself simply with the Bible, and the hungry multitudes crowded to hear him. There are scores of ministers that concern themselves with everything under heaven except the Bible-and as a consequence they preach to a beggarly amount of empty pews, and the people are none the worse off for staying away. Moody was not only full of faith but full of works! A man may be full of faith and yet it may be a preposterous faith that savors only of presumption. Moody had faith, but he believed in the vigorous use of means-he believed in the printing press, and he used that mighty lever and used it for God's glory; he believed in money, and with marvelous tact he gathered it in for the founding and fostering of great Christian enterprises; he believed in education and was not the apostle of ignorance as has been absurdly represented, and his dying solicitude was for his great schools in Northfield and Chicago. He believed in the use of food if a man was hungry-of medicine if he was sick. He believed in sum- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 243 moning a surgeon to set a broken bone, or to tie up a severed artery. He believed that God had not only provided food for man's sustenance, but remedial agents for the curing of diseased conditions, and he did not hesitate in either case to employ God's gifts. Aye, aye, says the incorrigible and unkind fanatic, but consider that Moody resorted to drugs and the doctors, and he is dead! Well, my dear brother, I have only to say that you will be dead too some day even though you trust in the Lord and abuse the doctors. We shall all be dead some time, but as to when is the best time to go God only knows. -But the Lord expects us in the treatment of our bodies to use our common sense, and the means'which he has graciously provided for their sustenance in times of health and their recovery fromn disease. Moody believed in God, but he believed in the use of means such as have been blessed of God for accomplishing good results. And; finally, he was a man full of the Holy Ghost. He did not, indeed, dwell so incessantly upon the Spirit's work as the manner of some is, and this perhaps because he profoundly realized, as some do not, that the work of the Spirit is not to call attention to himself but. to take of the things of Jesus and show them unto us. And that brings to mind a beautiful thing that Meyer tells, of a dear good woman in his congregation whose saddened countenance he one day noticed and was led by noticing it to inquire what was her trouble. She said she had long been longing for the fullness of the Spirit. She said that she had resolved to devote the very next day to prayer and fasting for filling of the Spirit, and she wanted him to join with her in prayer that the coveted blessing might be hers. He promised. When next he saw her he inquired as to the result.- "Well," she said, "pastor, I have been disappointed. I did not get what I desired." "But," said Meyer, "how does Christ seem to you?" "0, "Well, then," said Meyer, "you have never so precious." 244 DWIGHT L. MOODY got the blessing." And Moody undoubtedly had the fullness of the Spirit. Beyond any man I think I ever knew he had the faculty of taking of the things of Jesus and showing them unto us even as the Spirit had first shown them unto him. He was in touch with the very throne of God, and like a live wire all who came in touch with him felt the thrill of that power. Thousands of Liliputian critics with their little stepladders were always trying to climb up to his shoulders to look into his eyes to discover, if they could, wherein his great strength lay. The secret of his power is not far to seek. It lay not in his mental make-up, nor in his methods, nor his manner, nor his matter, but in the fact that he had power with God, and therefore he swayed so imperial a scepter over man. He stood so solid on his feet before the world because he had bowed so low on his knees before God. While he lived, with trumpet tongue he proclaimed the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and proved as no man has done in this age of doubt that the old gospel, the ever lasting gospel, is still the power of God unto salvation. We call him dead-but though dead he yet speaketh-and though he rests from his labors, his works follow him. POINDEXTER S. HENSON. First Baptist Church, Chicago. VI. A MAN WITH A MESSAGE BY DR. FRANK CRANE T [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] HERE was once upon a time a man hoeing potatoes. His back hurt because he had to bend over, his hands were sore from.friction with the hoe handle, and his clothes were wet with sweat, for the sun beat down hot upon him. Two or three well-dressed gentlemen sat upon the fence and watched him work. They did not altogether like the way he did it. They suggested, one to another, that the laborer was not properly clothed, that he thrust his hoe into the earth with a sort of a northeast motion, whereas he should have thrust it in a south-by-southwest direction; and, besides, he gathered the potatoes together into piles as he went along, instead of waiting until he got to the end of the row and then gathering them all into one big pile. So they smoked cigarettes and agreed that the man with the hoe was doing a very poor job. Meanwhile the latter went on getting out potatoes the best he could. Dwight L. Moody was a man who knew what he wanted to do and did it. He was concerned about results, not methods. He wanted to induce men to become Christians, to get converted and to take up the religious life. At this he went in the most direct way. He did not do anything else. All the force of his nature was leveled at this object. He had no time for theological speculation, for discussing current events, for matters of church government aid the like. So he hoed away at his potatoes. Some clergymen did not like his style. Others besides clergymen objected to his faulty grammar. 245 246 DWIGHT L. MOODY They criticised this and that. But the workman pursued his task until the' very quantity of the results made the critics climb down off the fence. The great public compared the laborer and the critics and decided. that criticism was very interesting, but it didn't produce any potatoes. Then the critics went away and climbed on another fence where they could watch other laborers and berate them because they did not do as Moody had done. Mr. Moody was a man who did things. He was a mighty Doer. He was no,Thinker, nor Speaker, nor Logic Monger, nor Dreamer. He did not bother his head about theology; he just took what theologic ideas the people had on hand, as Jesus did, and went to work to get men to live up to them. He did not "orate nor elocute;" he was simply a great soul intense with a message to other souls; he spoke his message with clearness and with feeling; so the people believed in him and said: "We will go with you to your God." His favorite instrument of' speech was the Story; as was the case also with His Master. He did not push the mind; he illuminated the heart. He was shrewd enough to see that not one man in a thousand ever changed his opinion because of reason or logic, but that what alters all men's notions about things is the fact that they come to occupy another point of view. With his naive stories he slipped around behind the stubborn intellect, flanked the line of doubts and occupied the heart. He was a great general. When you capture a man's heart, his intellect comes in next day and surrenders. He knew what was essential and what was non-essential. When a man knows that he may be great; if he does not know that, he can not be great. The essential thing is to surrender the will to the highest ideal. The man who does that is saved; the man who will not do it is lost. All other matters are entourage. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 247 Consequently one kind of theologic machinery is quite as good as another. He took -what the churches happened to have. He was orthodox because it is a waste of time and energy to be anything else, in the case of a man who is trying to save people from their sins. He quietly assumed the doctrine of God, of special providence, of answered prayer, of conversion, of heaven as a big, bright city, of hell as a chamber of horrors, of the church as the place where a good man ought to belong. What's the good of arguing about these things ? Most folks believe them, and for them argument only unsettles; some do not believe, and argument only renders them more settled in their unbelief. The main thing is: Are you going to give yourself up to what you know to be right or not ? All debate about other questions than this is a frittering away of time for a man like Moody. He assumed everything. Then he talked to you in his straightforward, easy way, and the love of God beamed through his talk, and his quaint stories touched your sentiment, and before long you had forgotten your old trivial debate as fully as he had, you found yourself squarely on Moody's view-point. Mr. Moody was not a priest nor a prophet. He did not smell of incense. He had no great unfolding thought, as had Bushnell and Robertson and James Martineau. He was a layman. He was an intense executive. His whole aim was to arouse conscience to act. Throwing his entire force into this one channel, he was fortunate enough to gain public favor. Many an earnest, effective man has worked all his life faithfully,. unnoticed and obscure. Moody could have done so. But popularity caught him and tossed him high. This was a sore temptation, but he was true. He stuck to his last. He carried with him to the end of life the same sweet simplicity, the same calm common-sense, the same wholesome sanity 248 DWIGHT L. MOODY which he had when he taught a Sunday-school class of ragamuffins in Plymouth Church, Chicago. He goes to his death as a real, true man, made a king by the favor of the people, and made a ruler of men by the grace of God. He was perhaps the last exponent, as the Wesleys and Whitefield were the first, of that great revival movement of the eighteenth and-nineteenth centuries. All men everywhere who are broad enough to respect genuine greatness must do him honor. FRANK Hyde Park, Chicago. CRANE. VIL THE GREATEST MAN OF THE CENTURY LET BY PRESIDENT RUSSELL H. CONWELL us look upon the life of Mr. Moody, and notice the lessons the world will naturally draw from it. The first one is in the encouraging fact that an ignorant man, advanced in years, may secure an education to fit him for public life if he will. You know the history of Mr. Moody. You know that he did not learn much in school, and that he went into business unfitted for it. He was an ignorant boy, and until twenty-three years of age could not use ordinary good grammar. Yet after that he became one of the skilled scholars of the world, both through the use of books at home and studying as he traveled, carrying books in his pocket. That lesson the world ought to heed. Grown men and women who are in ignorance, and whose lives might be so much more useful if they only had the higher forms of education, should heed the encouraging thought, that no matter how advanced in years you may be, you may be much wiser if you will. Mr. Moody was an ignorant boy. Theworld has not counted him among its scholars, because he graduated from no school, matriculated in no college, and attended no university. Yet wise men have sat at Mr. Moody's feet. The graduates of the greatest universities of England and Germany came and asked him to teach them. Audiences gathered, containing the best of the graduates of the colleges from every part of the country, and listened with rapt attention to his words. He was so wise that they could listen to him with great profit. 249 250 DWIGHT L. MOODY Oh, that the young people of the United States might get that lesson into their minds! You may be a poor working boy, as he was; you may be a fatherless boy, as he was; you may be astray, and wandering and wicked, as was he, and yet you may have all the wisdom that books can furnish necessary to make you a very useful and helpful man. The, next lesson that I draw from his history that is helpful to me is that any man can be a Christian. Men can now, as they have done in the years past, be great evangelists if they will. The death of Mr. Moody has ptit the seal upon the thought that even in this advanced age of the world the Gospel has lost none of its power. Its simplicity is just as effective, and its declaration just as influential, as it ever was in the history of the world. The time for another Wesley is now. The time for a, Whitfield is now. The time for a Luther is now. The time for a Moody is now. The day has not gone by, the world has not grown so wicked, so critical, or so learned, that the earnest, sincere evangelist cannot find plenty of work to do. Then there is that other thought-comforting to the young men who are arising in the ministry-that a man can still be great in the pulpit. We have thought that the pulpit is now claimed by a class of people who are not very well educated. People have often said: "Young men are going into the ministry because they cannot do anything else;" and young men with ambition and force have gone into banking and law and business and railroading and medicine, because they have said there is no opportunity for a man to develop into greatness of life and character and influence in the pulpit. Yet in the last century there has not been a greater man before the world than Mr. Moody. No greater has arisen in all the century than he. All the civilized world respects him and bows with reverence at his grave. A great man can yet find ample scope in the pulpit. The pulpits of THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 251 the future will contain great men when they learn, as he did, to lean on God and preach His truths sincerely. You will remember, also, that Mr. Moody did not depend entirely upon his preaching. I read in the "Homiletic Review" yesterday the declaration of a minister of the Gospel that the world was going to be saved "entirely by preaching," and that all the accessories of music, of entertainments, of socials, and all that, were of no use; that the world was going to be saved by the preaching of the Gospel from the pulpit in the church. Mr. Moody's life teaches us the great value of accessories. From the first he taught the great value of accessories. From the very first of his preaching he secured attractive music to go with his preaching. The very first music he had was an old broken down violinist who came in and led the street urchins in praise. Mr. Moody all his life used accessories greatly. When he came here to hold meetings in the church he sent ahead and had this city canvassed; advertising of all kinds was done systematically. In a thorough business way he laid out the field, defining the whole matter carefully, getting the people all ready to, expect something when he did come, and the crowds flocked here when he appeared. Mr. Sankey was as influential in the beginning of Mr. Moody's history as was Mr. Moody himself. Many of you who turned to the Lord at their meetings did so because of Mr. Sankey's singing. Mr. Moody was one of those men who knew he could not do all the work alone, and he recognized the fact that God had a great many other ways of preaching the Gospel, and he determined to use them. Christ was much more than a preacher. Mr. Moody established the institutions at Northfield for the purpose of preaching the Gospel in a great variety of ways. He did not rely entirely on preaching the Gospel by word of mouth, but used the great choruses with the orchestral music which were assembled at his meetings. 252 DWIGHT L. MOODY He found a great variety of methods to attract people's atten tion, and to impress upon their feelings the Gospel that he was preaching. Oh, to impress upon the young men in the ministry that they cannot carry on the Lord's work alone! They must use every other means, every agency of every kind which will reverently attract men and women into association with His Gospel. Then another lesson we learn from Mr. Moody is that friendship is better than criticism. True friendship which sees the good in a man, and which is ever ready to minimize the evil, is far better for God's work than criticism. Such has been Mr. Moody's relation to the Bible. Mr. Moody, with a broad common sense, has looked upon the Bible as having been written for common men, to be read by common men. He has interpreted the Bible by the manifest meaning that was found on its surface, because that is the true meaning. The Bible was not written for philosophers to, dig in; it was written for the wayfaring man, and Mr. Moody had the good sense to hold to that. To him the Bible has always been the same sacred book, and his death has emphasized that lesson to such a degree that I believe in his death, more than in his life, he is going to bring the Bible back to the esteem and love of the common people. I heard of a man in Kentucky who lived in the Mammoth Cave region, where there are large openings under ground. Not far from the Mammoth Cave lived a prosperous farmer, across whose fields ran a beautiful stream. It rippled and sang. It was inexhaustible. It furnished him with water for the irrigation of the farm and.the running of the mill. One day it occurred to him that he would like to have water a little nearer his house. Although he could have led it across the field from the rippling brook so beautiful and so helpful, yet he had a strong curiosity to see what kind of water there could be found in the earth. So he concluded he would dig 2', tjc DR. P. S. HENSON Pastor First Baptist Church, Chicago. I dV it 4 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 255 a well. He would not take the water which had been filtered in God's sunshine. He would have a well of his own. So he went out and dug a well. Down he went, blasting, blasting, and blasting down, down, down, as some of these critics go through this Bible, blasting down, down, down. At last an overcharge of dynamite blew the bottom out of the well. A cave was underneath, and the water ran out the other way. T.he most unfortunate thing about it was that a little while after the water from the brook began to trickle along the rock through the ground into this well which he had dug. Finally the brook disappeared, and he was compelled to move away from the farm. The farm is going to ruin because he had dug a well too deep, and let all the water that flashed on the surface flow into a bottomless hole. There are so many critics of the Bible who want to dig down by charges of dynamite who do not realize that this Bible was written for the peolple, and they who dig too far below will lose the blessings they now enjoy. It is as free as the-mountain stream; it is as bright as the fountain that flows in the valley, and it is free to all, and gives fertilization everywhere, unless a man dig a critical well, a personal well, and go down and blast the bottom out of it. Now Mr. Moody was one of those men who appreciated what God gave him--he took it for what it was worth, and he used it for what it was intended. And his mill grinds on, and always will grind on; on the surface, but not superficially, and in the place where God has intended it to be. God has not written a superficial book. I mean that it is a book that is as deep as the canyons of the mountains, and as high as the highest peaks, and as grand as the morning. But it is for every person to read for himself and in his own place. Do not allow yourselves to be turned by great destructive, tunnelboring critics, but read the Bible for yourselves, is the great lesson that comes from Mr. Moody's life. He studied the 256 DWIGHT L. MOODY Bible himself thoroughly, and had it in his heart and mind, and by its rivers of power wrought out his mighty work. Another lesson from his life to me is that "the old doctrines are not dead." We hear a great deal about the passing of the old theology, and hear that the "old-fashioned Gospel" has gone by; that the old creeds are of no further use, and that we need new ideas and new thoughts and a new Bible and a new Christ and a new God. But we are taught by the life of this wonderful man that these old doctrines remain as strong, yea., stronger than the everlasting hills. Christ is Christ, and God is God, and the word of God is true, and the Saviour of the world is still the Saviour of the.world. It needs but his life and death to re-establish in the heart of the thousands who love him the grand old doctrine that this world is a. lost world, and there is no salvation but through Jesus Christ. That old doctrine is so emphasized by his death that it puts back upon the pulpit platform the preaching of the old Gospel. Perhaps the forms and methods are new, that it may be wholly interesting, but it is the same old Gospel, the same old fountain, the same old river, the same old rolling ocean, going on and on. Grand old Bible! Sublime old doctrines! Another lesson, and the last I will mention, is that we all really desire to die the death of the righteous. I saw some men playing cards on the train going from Grand Rapids to Big Rapids last Thursday night. One of the men was very profane, so profane that I got up and moved across the car. At a place called Howard City we suddenly felt the closing of the brakes and the sharp whistle, the cracking of the brake and the running of the train off the track. Those four men leaped, up; and that man who had been swearing was as white as a gravestone. Let me die the death of the righteous. If at any time the train runs off the track and I am to die, then I want to die with the consciousness Mr. Moody had, that I have been true to God's words and true THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 257 to His Son, and die the death of the righteous. Compare the death of the richest man in this land; compare the death of the greatest politician on earth; compare the death of any king or queen with the magnificent death of Mr. Moody, and who is there, with any trace of common sense remaining in his possession, who would not rather choose the death of Mr. Moody. We need to learn this great lesson. We know that life must go,; we all know that; I know it and you know it, that death must come, that it will come is absolutely sure, and why not be ready to die the death of the righteous when that commandment comes. Surely you would rather be righteous and have Christ for your Saviour than to have any reputation or wealth or any sort of talent without Him. Mr. Moody's death emphasizes the importance of being ready to, die whenever the commandment comes; to have one's heart free from every sin; to have the consciousness of having served God fully .and completely; to have the idea of His forgiveness deeply planted in the soul, and the feeling of His presence in the heart. Brethren, brethren, whatever you hear about Mr. Moody, or read about him, keep this lesson I bring to you this morning always before you, that they who love much also suffer much. He had many persecutors, and has many critics and many enemies now. Even since his death have enemies arisen to assail and criticise. So it is ever. Every one who tries to serve God has enemies and critics and people who misunderstand him. RUSSELL H. CONWELL. The Temple College, Philadelphia. VIII. THE LIKENESS OF PAUL AND MOODY BY PRESIDENT F W. GUNSAULUS M OST clearly do we see the likeness of Paul and Moody as champions of their faith, as we study the account of Paul's conversion and the life of Moody, not forgetful of differences in nature, culture and environment. We shall be able to perceive that the power of one has its source in an experience such as stood behind the achievement of the other. Such men show us that the Christian ministry has its power and hope of making this a better world and otherwise serving God and man, in helping toward an erect manhood,-a manhood which is erect because it has first confessed the Lordship of Jesus Christ and then has been uplifted and inspired by a vision of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God and the revelation of man. In the presence of this career, it is useless to deny that we have often been weak, because we have failed to obtain the primary and fundamental energies indispensable for success in our work. Much of our effort at preaching is weak and unhelpful,-it cannot even be said to stir with promise of life,-because Saul, before or as he stood upon the verge of becoming Paul, has never felt his lips moving with even the questioning cry: "Who art Thou, Lord?" The emphasis of Saul's nature is on the word "Lord"--he is surer of his belief than he is of his doubt: "Who art Thou?" Never was a Saul, however brilliant and honest in his cruel devotion, lifted upon his feet and reconstituted into a Paul, the princely preacher, 258 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 259 nor was a Moody recreated an evangelist, if he missed the experience of this confession forming itself at the centers of his thought and feeling, and uttering itself resistlessly upon his lips by divine logic and by impulse inevitable,-the Lordship of Jesus Christ. "Who, art Thou?" Let him be uncertain as to a thousand other points,-yea, let him be only an inquirer as to all other belongings and qualities of Jesus of Galilee; but he must tingle in every drop of his blood with the omnipotent conviction that lies in that word, "Lord." The true minister is the true minstrel of the human soul,-the words minstrel and minister have a common root. He organizes the vagrant and apparently opposing sounds, the devious wafts of melody and the split and recalcitrant currents of tone about a common and regnant center. That center is the allsupreme and embracing theme. It alone co-ordinates and compels each aimless shiver of a chord and each stubbornly isolating tonic energy into harmony. Its power is the power of music, hushing discord by completing it or by rescuing it into concord; its energy is the energy of harmony coercing to order, not by mechanical strength, but by inherent beauty and truth; expanding half-tones or allaying them to wedded loveliness of utterance by the might, not of external volume or intensity, but by internal and perfect sweetness. Such is Jesus, and such is His Lordship,-the master-soul and the master-theme, first, of the spirit and heart of the preacher, and then, the all-mastering and transforming master-soul and master-theme in the world of men. The human heart, mind, life, go searching for a Lord,-yea, for the Lord,-not for an abstract philosophy, not for a radiant ideal, not even for a noble memory or for a deathless hope; but for all of these it cries, and it expects these, in its living Lord, divine and human, near enough to touch, lofty enough to command. It throngs our churches, until it is sure the preacher has not heard or seen Him,-and then it sadly stays away. It be- 260 DWIGHT L. MOODY sieges the altars of a faith which has awakened its pristine and fundamental desires, and, never as to-day, it hangs about, lingering yet in hope, asking for a Sovereign, a living Sovereign, whom no death may vanquish or change; and the heart of humanity will never give up the church and the preacher, until, either by its fears or by the facts, it is compelled to say: "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." Mr. Moody, like Paul, knew that the race's opposition to Jesus Christ Himself, whatever may be the race's present antagonism to our cheap sensationalism and to our cold ceremonialism, is marshalled behind a wall as thin as was that which divided Saul, the persecutor, with hands of blood, from Jesus his Lord, with hands of blessing. Nothing else will satisfy the demands of man which are feeling through, except the Lordly Christ before whose majesty of moral lovableness the wall is trembling down. Moody had experienced all this, -every true preacher can get it in no other way; and his experience of it makes his appeal the utterance of a personal affair, warm a.s. his blood, andas full of reality as he himself. Moody could not unwind the faultless argument for Christ's kingly nature and quality which came into Saul's mind at that unique and sudden moment, though he had no doubt it was as straight and strong as a cable between earth and heaven. It carried him into the conviction that the reality he confronted commanded him so completely, flung over him the spell of such an undeniable sovereignty, that, however much he might have to say: "Who art Thou?" he must also say: "Who art Thou, Lord?" Here was what no teacher of earth could teach him. No theological seminary can ever impart that conviction. Men still call Jesus Lord, only by the might of the Holy Spirit within them. Moody, like Saul of Tarsus, was convinced by a logic swift as lightning; premises and conclusions followed one another by the speed of God THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 261 rushing in upon him. Here began his deep and thorough preparation for the ministry. It began in that event, not in the process of reasoning, not in the advent of theory,-in that event came and remained his theological position. It placed him. He did not place it. Christ had taken him, as the sovereign harmony takes the wandering tone. He was apprehended, as Paul said, that he might apprehend. So completely had Christ won him that he said "Lord" with swift inevitableness. Every great truth comes in this way. Its way of coming fixes it in the life-tissue. He never would have to defend the proposition that Jesus is Lord, after that. The fact is that Christ had divinely Lorded it over him, by saving him from his sins. Do we defend that proposition? Do we doubt that men can or will believe in the Lordship of Christ? Do we spin our thread of logic and argument to convince, at length? Brothers, it is so only because.Paul's experience is not our experience. No human preacher ever convinced a man that Jesus is Lord; only Jesus Himself can do that. Christ is his own argument for Himself;-it is too great for you and me to manipulate. No human preacher ever had evangelic power who*did not know that Christ is Lord by the indubitable fact that He actually has taken his soul by moral majesty and so rules at the center of his life that while he questions: "Who art Thou?" as to a.thousand other things, he says in deepest, unconscious confession, "Who art Thou, Lord?" Ah, do you say, what then is the business of the church, if the church is not to compel men to acknowledge the power and right of Jesus to rule men, even at the point of the sword, or at the more stinging point of a condemnation as a heretic? Moody would answer: "Hear ye Him, as He says: 'Peter, put up thy sword into its-sheath;' let us leave My true kingliness to rule Tfrom its own throne." He seems to say: "If moral Lordship does not command, it is neither moral or 262 DWIGHT L. MOODY Lordly. Let me have My cross, instead of the legions who might protect Me. Let men see Me die and live there, and there will I draw all men unto Me." -This was his own trust in His Spiritual royalty. So did His divinity risk itself. So let the church and pulpit risk Him. Now, it is this Lord before whose moral grandeur and right to reign over him, Saul has fallen upon the earth,-this it is who says: "Rise, stand upon. thy feet." It seems strange at first that it is the same power,-Jesus. But Jesus could not be the-soul's true Christ if it had been otherwise. His Lord had other uses for Saul, now that he had confessed Jesus' Lordship, than to, leave him there flat and uneffective upon this disordered and needy planet. It is of first importance to note that only the power which commands our admiration can lift us up. "We live by admiration." We are made erect and manly by adoration. Before a merely beautiful character, a profound moralist, a true philosopher, a heroic martyr, we do not fall to earth in obedience, neither do we rise to our full height at his command. Divine enough must be that power which endows the minister of men,-divine enough to make our unhelped humanity lie full length upon the common earth which is our fate and home without that power, and yet divine enough that power must be, on the other side, to lift man into the image of God and place him permanently on his feet before the problem of life., Moody knew that a man can stand on his feet only when he is lifted up by command of Christ. Secondly, the moment Saul is swept into the march of God's energies by the sublime and moral energy of Christ, the very power whom Saul calls Lord must lift him up for other holy ministry. God's economics demand this of God's power; it must put the worshipper on his feet. Great, indeed, have been the services unto man and God wrought by men prone upon earth in adoration and prayer. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 263 Moody knew how to pray in deepest humility. There, truly, is found the right to rise and to labor, and there alone is borne the power to hear the voice saying: "Stand upon thy feet." Angels bow when most angelic, men refuse to bow when least they are men. Supreme are some of the cables to which captains and law-givers, saints and prophets, psalmists and reformers have hitched their otherwise motionless trains of hope when these souls were prostrate before the Divine Glory. But the minister of Christ only begins to be powerful there. Matched with the truths which we find there, side by side in importance.with the energies there felt and adopted, the completing and enriching powers for those which we know there, are the other sovereign inspirations and forces that promise and guarantee the vaster achievements of righteousness on earth, and the deeper joy of heaven; and these are for man only when a man honors his own conscience and hope, and lifts his head as God's son above the earth and into the free air of heaven. Christ-the power of God in humanity before whose spiritual sovereignty every Saul must bow,-He alone has the voice, the speech, the right to say: "Rise, stand upon thy feet." The hope for an erect, self-respectful, lofty-souled ministry lies in what Jesus is and does for humanity. It is our business to get Him to humanity. He alone can fairly say to Saul: "Rise, stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister." Where was there a more erect man than Moody? His, like Paul's age, has been an age of self-conceit and self-abasement. Pompousness has lived with pessimism, and kept open house. Intellectual arrogance and groveling discontent have mated. Man has been crying out: "I am nothing!" and yet he has asserted: "I can do anything." Man has been self-depreciative largely because of the recoil consequent upon his pretense; his confessedly abject position has often been the result 264 DWIGHT L. MOODY of his audacity._ Misanthropic he is, because of the collapse of his impious egotism. From whatever cause, he has been lying flat upon the earth, and often has he revelled in what Carlyle called "a dirt philosophy." Not as Saul of Tarsus or Moody has man in the nineteenth century been humbled by the spiritual glory of Christ; but he lies there nevertheless. He is cursed by the sin from which he alone cannot free himself. H'e is also half hopeless of a valid solution for the problem of life as it appears in himself or in his race. I have mentioned the fact of sin as one of the most restless influences which has caused, and still causes, -hopelessness. Sin is only practical faithlessness. Our age's philosophy does not extinguish or even hide it. We are enough like Saul to behold in humiliation its disaster and we see it more clearly as it writhes or slidders darkly against the background of a better day, for ours is the most luminously Christian age the world has ever seen. We are not only prostrate on the earth, but we are tired of it. The mind of man is not more weary of the speculative materialism which has failed as dogma, than the heart and conscience of men are in revolt against a practical materialism which has failed as a dogma, than the heart arid conscience of men are in revolt against a practical materialism which fails as a method of life. Hucksters of our day areadv ertising enough religious nostrums to demonstrate what a market there is for something to re-inspire the soul of man. Here Moody found himself and his message. Who was he? What is his message? How does it appeal to men? First of all, he was personally an erect and inspired man. How had he been made so? He felt, in a moment, unspeakably precious and grand, the actual Lordship of Jesus of Galilee. He had a vision-but more, he was a man of vision. He was not persuaded of it by logic. He had known it, yielded to it, gone into partnership with it as a fact in his experience. The triumphant Christ entered his life and thinking and hope, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 265 by Christ's triumphing over him and not otherwise. He was going to some Damascus a.persecutor of that which seemed to die on Calvary; he entered Damascus its disciple and champion. The very power he antagonized in vain humbled him; then it lifted him upon his feet. He first adored it when he suddenly discovered its splendor in absolute command of his soul. But obeisance, however abject, submissive and humble, was not enough for him who, saw the living Christ. He felt the fortunate contagion of the aggressive spiritual power of Jesus. He had to get on his feet. The gravitations that held him fast to earth, either because of his unworthiness, or because of the contrasting glory of Jesus, were caught up, through a larger, higher circle of law, by the other gravitations that pulled him. upward. The spiritual tallness he gained by his humility straightened itself in the light of God, in the hope of God for man that Jesus carried over Him. The whole fact is that he had fallen in love with God as Christ revealed Him; he also accepted the ideal and reality of man as Christ has revealed man also, and, on that ground, his sin has fallen dead, sloughed away, been forgotten by God and by man. He is a new man in Christ. The cross made him so. Can we marvel that he is now an erect, hopeful, aggressive, stalwart man? What else could he be, under the spell of such an uplifting force? Would it not be strange, if he were not on his feet? I have little hope of valuable service to, men from any socalled ministry to which all this is not intensely personal. It was personal with Moody. He asked, as did Saul, with an incomplete theology, it is true, but with vivid eagerness, "Who art Thou, Lord?" and the answer is as personal as the "who" and "thou" of his query, "I am Jesus, whom thou (Saul) persecutest:" Every disguise is torn away. Religious experience under Christ emphasizes "I," "Jesus," and "thou." It is almost fearfully accurate, and it is searchingly true. Ugly 266 DWIGHT L. MOODY facts, also emerge, sinister and illumined. There can be no mistake. "I am Jesus,"-not vague goodness, not your individual ideal of truth, but God's own purpose incarnate, the very heart-throb of this whole system of things,-"I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." "Wrong is an attack on Me; sin is a stab in My soul," so Jesus seems to say,-does say. All this enforces the personal element in the fundamental experience of the man who is to be a minister. It is his seal of a divine prerogative. He is to help men get upon their feet. Nothing of this sort is possible unless he is intense in the sense of his own recovered personality, unless, by his own right to reverence and to make his own self and life distinct, he can clear away all circumstances and abolish all trivialities from every other man and bring that man personally close up to the burning heart of the personal Christ. Each man must be thus distinguished before God. Jesus erect amidst depravity and doubt; His minister stalwart and full of faith also,-these are the facts that make distinct and sacred every man's soul and life. Then will each man respect himself as God deals with him by His providence and grace. This is the true call to the ministry. But Jesus makes it yet more personal. Hear His voice again, "I have appeared unto thee." "I" and "thee," these are the great words of the Good News unto men; and these are the two supreme facts in all thoroughgoing religion. Not the creed, not the church, and not society in general, nor even the noble fortune of race,-but "I" and "thee." Christ never had a real minister who was not made self-respectful and powerful because he was thus led to honor his own personality and to lead every other man to honor his, as God Himself honored it. O man, if thou wouldst be a minister, "rise, stand upon thy feet." Fear not to be personal, for impersonalness is cloud-land, weakness and death. An erect humanity in the pulpit, speaking to the humanity THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 267 that honors it, trusts it, and provides support for it,--how sublime it all was with Moody. Secondly, what was his message? His message is really the wine pressed from grapes grown on the soil of this experience. He has the right to believe that what has lifted him and set him upon his feet will exalt and make stalwart other men. In truth, whatever else we may carry, this only is each minister's working faith. If Jesus has truly become Saul's Lord, and lifted Saul up to his full manhood, that, and that only, will He expect and work for in His people. By no magic or miracle can you get out of your minister what he has not to give. Moody knew this. Experience, which is so personal and particular, which is to be crystallized into his message, makes the erect man not less, but more conscious of the facts of sorrow and sin in the world. They lie heavy on the heart of the time, and often they conduce to a conclusion of despair. The true man cannot be erect and have an outlook of hope, unless he appreciates the maddening riddle of life in its most involved snarl. I think every Moody must have in him the making of a pessimist as gloomy as Schopenhauer, and he must feel enough of the tragedy of life to shake the courage of a Liebnitz. But this must not be his all. He must have been on the dull earth, and felt its sick heart beat woe; he must also have been lifted up, conscious of it all, yet equally conscious that the very Christ who lifts him up and restores his faith was so much more conscious of it all that it brake His heart. It crowned Him with thorns when He flung upon its hidden night the first promise of a golden day. This is the only way God has of making Paul the minister. God's manifestation of Himself in our humanity is the uplifting fact in a world where, without Him man is on all fours in his animalism, or flat upon the earth,-earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,-in his despair. If our ministry is Christian, 268 DWIGHT L. MOODY it surpasses the keenest-eyed pessimism in perceiving the historical fact that "in Adam all die." But if it is Christian, it surpasses philosophic optimism by its discovery of an out- look through the fact that "in Christ all are made alive." Universal as was, and is, the disaster in Eden, so universal was, and is, the recovery at Calvary. The minister, of all men, is the one who can be.erect and free because he is true to both these facts. He knows it is a groaning creation, but he knows also that it is loaded with divine destinies; he is aware that his is a race strained in ignorance and toil, often whelmed in anguish and defeat. But against that fact he puts this, the Son of Man, the very fact whose luminousness lays bare this dolorous reality, has lived to the bottom of its woe, felt in His own heart its blind cruelty, and, after being the victim of its calculating malice and dull-eyed villainy, Jesus emerges the most hopeful.and the most powerful of leaders. He who was gibbeted by-man, comes assuring us, for He is carrying the'fortunes of redeemed humanity in His wounded hands. Surely, He can say: "Rise, stand upon thy feet." Surely, His minister must believe in man. Moody was no pious ignoramus as to life's tragic problem and its solution. He trusted Jesus and His way enthusiastically. And this is the central flame that lights and warms the heart of the preacher. Jesus believed in man, because He believed in God. He revealed man in revealing God. No one ever so depended upon God to reinforce man at his best. No one ever so trusted in man at his worst. He would not even save Himself at Calvary from man's fury. He would rather trust man to come again to Calvary, age after age, to find if one drop of His blood still quivered there. But this trust of His in man was fundamentally a trust in God, His Father and man's Father. Jesus knew in Himself what God the Father meant for man. He Himself was that meaning. Human worth, the right and duty of a man to respect him- THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 269 self, the joy a man ought to find in his privilege of being a man,-all these had their source in the fact that Jesus felt in Himself that the concerns of God and man are one. He illustrated the capacity of humanity to receive God and the willingness of God Himself to come into man and abide with him. In the manger at Christmas, humanity was proven capable of the Incarnation. Other events came in due order. That stable-event glorifies man; Calvary saves man; Easter rebuilds man; Olivet sees him go back to heaven. This hope kindles most as Jesus deals with the perplexing problems of evil. To Him and to His servant, Moody, the problem was not speculative, but practical. Witness Gethsemane and the heights of Golgotha. Moody knew that the pulpit often fails because it is untrue to the meaning of Calvary. The pulpit which fails here may succeed in being an arsenal of brilliant rhetoric and a fortress of valuable learning, but as a pulpit it is a pitiful sham and a wicked deceit. It will leave man prone on his face, without the vision Saul had of the real Christ. The Christ whom Saul saw, the Jesus who spoke to Saul, had been no connoisseur of morals or ingenious exponent of a new cult which gathered about Him a unanimous coterie of dilletantes. No. His face was more marred than any of the sons of man. He has met sin fatally at Calvary, as before He had met sin and wrestled with evil in Peter and Judas and Mary Magdalene. He was Lord only because He had triumphed over sin and iniquity. He had won the heart of man when sin had its carnival in His crucifixion. Let us be honest with God and conscience and the fact that it is a hopeless world without this Lord of man unfurling His blood-stained banner of hope. The only pulpit that men respect permanently pours forth the music of the redemption. It is tremulous with the minors of Good Friday. Men scorn to squander an otherwise pleasant hour of their 270 DWIGHT L. MOODY Sunday where two things are not believed,-first, the fact that humanity, unhelped from God, is prostrate and despairing; second, the fact that with the Christ there come hope, self-respect, and manhood. People were never as willing, nay, so desirous to go to church as they are now, if Christ is there to get them on their feet. In the presence of Moody's career how fearful a thing it is to fail to tell men of Christ.in an age both as misanthropic and aspiring as our own. Dr. Roswell Hitchcock mentions a Bedouin on the desert whose piteous condition was this: He had been without food so, long that he was starving. His hope was that some other traveler who had already gone that way, might have left, by chance or provision, a packet of food. Away, beyond, near a fountain, he spied what he took to be a traveler's bag, and to his hunger it must contain bread. Slowly and hardly he pulled himself over the hot sand to the little pouch. He took it up and poured out before his vacant eyes a stream of glorious gems. As they woed the sun by their splendor, his famished body fell over, while he murmured, "Oh, it is only diamonds, only diamonds!" Merciful heaven, that this should be an honest description of so much that is called preaching! "Diamonds, only diamonds!" It is a piteous thing for the preacher and the people. Both are disappointed sadly. Diamonds! And he, the preacher, works so long to find them, and so hard to grind them well, and so unceasingly, perhaps, to set them in a golden paragraph,-and they, the people, want only the bread of life. One mouthful of plain bread, and you may have the polished dogmas, the glittering periods, the flamelike phrases, the splendid sentences. All glowing exordiuins, all flashing epigrams, all brilliant perorations, for one taste of the bread of life! When Christ Jesus said to Saul, "I have appeared unto thee to make thee a minister," he gave Paul his theme, his method of appeal to men, his certainty of suc- DR. FRANK CRANE Pastor Hyde Park Methodist Church, Chiicago. i DR. RUSSELL H. CONWELL. Pastor of The Temple, Philadelphia. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 273 cess. Jesus Himself is the capital on which alone the pulpit is in business. Men have the right to expect their ministers to be experts in manhood, erect, Christlike manhood, fearless, hopeful, free. They have no right to expect their ministers to compete with their fellow-men in anything else except in manifesting this Christ in His actual Lordship over them, "in our mortal flesh." Other men have better right to speak with plain authority on a multitude of other interesting subjects, than has the minister! No man ought to be able to overmatch his mental and moral right to speak on the truth, the way, the life of manhood. Few of us are worthy to stand here! None save by God's grace. But we fail only when we vacate °our particular throne of power. No ton of diamonds is worth an ounce of bread to a hungry man. We ought to feed men bread. We have no responsibility as to creating the food. God does that. Christ is given to us;and we have no need to strive to induce hunger. Believe it, men are hungry and are hunting for bread. While I am searching for a triviality bright enough to attract a crowd, my brothers who have the right to expect me to give them to eat are begging for plain bread. No man to whom Jesus has appeared as Lord, who also has been lifted to his feet by the hopefulness of Christ, ever was solicitous for a subject to preach on or a text for a discourse. The true minister does not run 'his race with lecturer, essayist, or poet or statesman, foolfishly abandoning his prerogative, to be beaten in a contest, perhaps, with a magazine article purchasable for a quarter, but sufficient to emphasize the extemporaneousness of the parson's suddenly-acquired information which could not be disguised. The minister of Christ has an unfailing theTne. His topic's interest depends not on war or peace, parties or revolutions,-it is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. His sermon is not a bit of pious oratory or unctuous literature, neither is it an impersonal or senti- 274 DWIGHT L. MOODY mental relating of the precious story of Jesus. His is the argument in'favor of bread addressed to hunger. It is an address by a man in favor of hope, and it has the impulse of his hope grounded in Jesus. It is his experience with One who has said: "Rise, stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee," and it is this experience reinforced by all the history and prophecy of humanity, glorified by the love of God, and illumined by the mighty presence of Jesus as a living Lord-it is this, in the giving of comfort, in the urgency of appeal, in the defiance of wrong, and in the championship of right,-this, as it furnishes hope for mankind in Jesus Himself, makes the minister. Not all of these sources of power or instrumentalities of service belong to any one man, but if, on this Christmas Day, anything comes to us from Moody's life and death, it is the call of the Spirit that we who minister may trust the greatness and power of Christ's gospel. SFRANK Armour Institute, Chicago. W. GUNSAULUS. IX. MOODY AND HIS WAYS BY JOHN V. FARWELL M [Copyright 1899 by George T. B. Davis.] Y first acquaintance with Mr. Moody was as a late attendant of a class meeting in the old Clark Street M. E. Church, Chicago, coming in a little before io o'clock The recollection that I then thought him a very lazy Christian haunts me still, for I ascertained afterward that he came in after spending all the morning in getting poor children into a mission Sunday school, while I was only attending because it was one of the rules of the church, and not to get spiritual motive power for mission work for Christ, as he did. The next epoch of my recollections begins with the North Market Hall Mission Sunday school, in myself and others being invited to assist with five-minute talks to an audience of children, who were only sufficiently quieted to listen by gentle music from a brother of T. B. Carter, whose services were always needed at the end of five minutes, to quiet the boisterous waves of this sea of juvenile humanity. It took three months of such work of music and speech combined to prepare the children for classes, which were then formed. The school grew apace, when Mr. Lincoln's first visit to Chicago, after his first election, found him an invited guest of this school, then grown to 1,500 children, on the agreement that he was not to be asked for a speech. As he was about to leave Mr. Moody remarked to the school: "If Mr. Lincoln desires to say a word as he goes out, of course all ears will be open." As he reached the center of the hall, 275 276 DWIGHT L. MOODY evidently to go without saying a word, he suddenly stopped, and made a most appropriate Sunday-school address, in which he referred to his own humble origin, and closed by saying: "With close attention to your teachers, and hard work to put in practice what you learn from them, some one of you may become President of the United States in due time." When the war broke out and his call for 75,ooo volunteers was made, seventy-five young men from this school (scholars and teachers) responded. No one of these became President, but one of them was appointed postmaster of Chicago and filled the place to perfection. As a means of recruiting scholars for this school, Mr. Moody at one time promised a Christmas suit to a dozen of the worst street gamins if they would attend every session until Christmas. He had them photographed as they were found on the street, and as they appeared in the Sundayschool class after having obtained the suit-only two failing to meet the conditions. The first picture was underscored, "Will It Pay ?" and the second, "It Does Pay." As the teacher of this class I named it "Moody's Bodyguard." One day the worst of these boys came in and took a seat, with his hat on. Instantly another planted a stunning blow on his face, sprawling him on the floor, with the remark: "I'll teach you not to enter Moody's Sunday school with your hat on." The etiquette of good manners was thereafter fully maintained. About twenty years after this incident "Charley" Morton entered a railroad office to get a ticket as state secretary of the Y. M. C. A., while holding.,evangelistic meetings all over the state. He was asked to come inside, the ticket agent saying: "You do not seem to, know me." "I have not that pleasure," said Charley. "Well," said the agent, "do you remember Moody's bodyguard ?" THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 277 "Very well, indeed, and I have their pictures in my dressingroom." "Well, when you go home pick out the worst-looking one in the lot and you will see your humble servant, now a church member and Sunday-school worker, by heredity from Mr. Moody's church, and, I assure you, I never gave a pass with such sincere pleasure as I give you this. It did pay." A personal appeal for an immediate decision after presenting the facts of Christ's love, was his most effective weapon in Christian work. On leaving his home one morning his wife requested him to send a barrel of flour. On his way to the Y. M. C. A. he met a person he was greatly interested in, and was so earnest and persistent in his appeals that he forgot the flour until he reached the door to apologize to his wife for his neglect, when she answered, "You did not forget, the flour came about 3 o'clock." Truly his barrel of meal was kept full, that he might save a soul from death. On another occasion he overtook a man on Clark street bridge, a stranger to him, and asked if he were a Christian. The fact that the man knew Moody saved him from a severe castigation, for on his arrival at the board of trade he told the president of the Y. M. C. A. to tell his friend to be more discreet in the future, for if he had not known him he should have chastised him for his impertinence. Moody was thus admonished some weeks after, and, on asking the president who it was, said, "If you had been at the last prayer meeting of your church you would have heard his confession of faith, with this incident which you complain of as the means used for his conversion." Riding on a railroad train he opened a conversation with a perfect stranger about the weather, etc., and then asked the same question and continued the interview until he neared his station, when he asked the privilege of praying with him. After which the train stopped and Moody was gone. 278 DWIGHT L. MOODY Years after this person related the incident as the means of his conversion. He certainly sowed beside all waters, and God gave the increase. There came into existence in due time the Illinois Street Church, made up from. converts of the North Market Hall Mission Sunday school, organized by ministers of all the denominations connected with the Y. M. C. A. The Chicago Avenue Church is its lineal descendent. Mr. Moody procured theological students to preach for this church, until on one providential day in the calendar of his services the selected student did not appear, and Moody was compelled to preach the sermon, as his first. After that he was the regular pastor. One evening "Charley" Morton, just out of the army, minus one arm, and fresh from a saloon, walked by this church with open doors and saw over the pulpit from the street, printed in gas jets, "God is love." This magnet drew him in, and before leaving, a handshake from Mr. Moody and an invitation to share the bed of the then secretary of the Y. M. C. A. until he could get work opened the flood gates of Charley's eminent usefulness as a gospel minister, and later as state secretary of the Y. M. C. A. for evangelistic work as one of Mr. Moody's faithful lieutenants. Major Cole is another graduate of the Y. M. C. A. as an evangelist, who was with Mr. Moody in London, and has incessantly kept up his work ever since in this country. He gradually rose from being a preacher to poor children in a saloon, rented by himself for that purpose in connection with the Sunday school, to be a preacher in the largest hall in London, holding 25,oo000 people from the commonest to the highest classes, and at his last meeting there, there were many more outside who could not get in. Let me recount some incidents connected with both places. A very small boy for his age-a child of a mother who had once kept a riotous sailors' boarding-house-was converted THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 279 in that saloon. The mayor of Brooklyn was in a prayer meeting held there, when this little boy rose to pray-a child, whose head did not reach the level of those in the seats, and the mayor was so touched by the prayer that he sought the lad out at the close of the meeting to speak with him. This same boy went with Mr. Moody to the saloon of an infidel for a discussion of Christianity-arranged for the day before when he went there to get the infidel's boy to come to the Sunday school-between Mr. Moody and the infidel's friends. They were all there on time, and the infidel and his friends used up all their time in discussing the order of exercises, as to their side of the case. At this point Mr. Moody called time, and asked this little boy to pray for these infidels. When the prayer was concluded all had gone out one by one, and left Mr. Moody and the boy alone with the infidel saloonkeeper, who then allowed his boy to go with them to Mr. Moody's Sunday school. All arguments were useless in the presence of this diminutive living fact pleading with God for these infidels. In one of the monster London meetings the son of a rich Bombay merchant rose for prayer at the close, and became a Christian. He was an Eton student, and immediately set about having Mr. Moody preach to the Eton students. The effort was foiled by the teachers. Nothing daunted, this young man engaged a lawn, surrounded by a high brick wall, for the meetings, and the students heard Moody preach. This the papers. incident was heralded all over Great Britain A non-conformist, unordained man preaching to the scions of wealth and royalty of Eton college, in nature's grand cathedral, frescoed with stars and carpeted with one of Eton's beautiful lawns, was a great event for even Great Britain. The great revival of 1857-8 gave birth to union noonday prayer meetings, and the Y. M. C. A., or, rather, the association's second birth. For many years an association of that by 280 DWIGHT L. MOODY name, managed by old men, had had an existence, but this revival put the, young, converts into, the harness for themselves, and the old men stepped down and out-all things being new. Here was a channel through which laymen could make themselves felt as a unit. Metropolitan Hall, larger than the present association hall, was daily crowded from platform to gallery. The leaders seemed there only to look on and keep order, while from one to six were on their feet at once as witnesses for Christ. The result was that there was not a church, in time, that did not number its converts by scores or hundreds. In such an atmosphere, the Y. M. C. A., and mission Sunday schools, with such men as Mr. Moody to say "come" instead of "go," became a power in city and country, from which all union efforts since then have gathered their spirit and growing strength. In one of these noon prayer meetings, held in Farwell Hall during the Tabernacle meetings of 1876, a young man approached me with the question, "Do you know me?" After a careful scrutiny I replied, "I think you are the boy that Moody whipped for disturbing your Sunday school class, and was afterward converted. Did it last ?" "Yes," said he, "you are right, and I am still holding on." Another evidence that it did pay to use all means to save some-even to a sound drubbing: While it is freely admitted that the Young Men's Christian Association was the child of the great revival of 1857-8, it is true that as such it was the fitting educator of Mr. Moody for his life work in uniting Christians of all denominations at home and abroad, with Chicago as its center. The bells of the great fire of I871 were ringing while he was preaching in Farwell Hall from this text, "This one thing I do," etc. The next morning his own home, the Illinois Street Church, and the Young Men's Christian Association building, all of them the pride of his life, were nothing but ashes, and then it was that he heard the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 281 us," from two faithful ministers who had previously invited him to England to do evangelistic work under their guidance and with their help. I remember a striking incident in the opera-house, where a meeting of young men under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. was held. A drunken man, whenever Mr. Moody referred to John, Mark, or Luke, repeated in a loud voice, "Say St. John, sir." This was done several times, when Mr. Moody ordered the man removed. Lord Quinard and Quintin Hogg of his committee did the work, while Mr. Moody called on the audience to rise and sing a spirited hymn, and then remarked, "I had this done for the good of the man as well as the audience," and then went on with his sermon as though nothing had happened. At the close of the meeting the inquiry room was filled. Nothing seemed to disturb his equanimity, and, being an on-looker from the gallery, I never admired his wonderful tact as I did at that time. The question has often been asked where did Moody get the means to do so much? He only knows fully who said "the silver and the gold are mine." When he went to London a friend gave him a check the day he left, and learned afterwards he could not have gone without it. In London one of his admirers said to me, "How can I get one thousand dollars into Moody's hand without offending him ?" He never would allow any one to canvass for money for his personal use. As the tabernacle in the wilderness was built with free-will offerings, so Mr. Moody's personal expenses have always been made up of free-will offerings, until the publication of his books gave him a large income, and I learn from others that this has nearly all gone into his Northfield schools. The inspiration of his example should endow them for all time. His humility was only discounted by his intense earnestness and distinguished ability-usually called common sense-but not near so common as one could wish. Here is a notable inci- 282 DWIGHT L. MOODY When the first association hall was dedicated, he dent: learned or surmised that George H. Stuart, the chairman, was to propose that the hall be named Moody Hall. To prevent this, Mr. Moody took the floor, and to my utter surprise proposed after a short and impressive appeal, that the hall be named Farwell Hall. Perhaps the present hall has providentially been without a fame until Mr. Moody was translated, the trustees knowing that he would not, while alive, consent to have his name anywhere except in the hearts of mankind, whom he served. Now that he has gone and the world is practically girdled with Y. M. C. A. halls, would it not be an extremely wise and appropriate act to name the first of such buildings after the man whose consecrated life enabled him to command the influence among Christian men necessary to its erection? A mighty man has finished his work on earth. The oldest book in existence records, "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Moody's spirit-or mental ability-was naturally of a superior order. Had he taken up politics he would have made an exceptional statesman. Having taken up with Christ as Lord for his life work, the inspiration of the Almighty gave him a one in the apostolic power in Christian work second to, succession from Saints Peter and Paul until December 22, A. D., 1899, measured by the results of his ministry, practically surrounding the globe in its influence, and nearly so in his travels. The key to the understanding of all this is that Moody's body, soul and spirit by his own deliberate choice was consecrated to that ministry. He once heard a prominent man say "The world has yet to- see how much one man wholly consecrated to God can accomplish in this world for Him." Then, said Moody, "I will be that man, for I can consecrate my all to Him." -no THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 283 He began his work as a mission Sunday school drummer, and from that graduated in regular succession into superintendent of one of the largest mission Sunday schools in the city, president of the Young Men's Christian Association, and the world's evangelist, the highest office in Christ's ministry. When he left a successful business for this calling, he had accumulated about twelve thousand dollars, all of which was invested in mission enterprises at the time he was most busy with the work of the Y. M. C. A: A little prayer meeting of three asked for wisdom to procure a building for that association, and in answer Mr. Moody began and finished the first building ever erected for the use of a Y. M. C. A. on earth, representing Christian union, and in his work in Chicago, after returning from his London mission, he raised the money to free it from debt, after having been twice burned to the ground, and but for this timely effort of his, the present magnificent temple of the Y. M. C. A. would not be as one of the world's best material monuments of Christian unity (for which he stood) that was ever erected. The lineal descendants of his first enterprise-the North Market Hall Mission Sunday School-are the Bible Institute and the Chicago Avenue Church and Sunday School, now filled to its utmost capacity twice every Sunday to hear the plain testimony of Jesus, which the Angel said to John was "the spirit of prophecy,"-or preaching;-and conversions follow every service, as a rule, and sometimes scores and hundreds attend the second meeting which follows the evening service. Being dead, he yet speaks through these institutions as clearly as did the angels when they sang "Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace and Good Will to Men," at the birth of Christ; through whose life more abundant now given to men, that song is to be perpetuated through the agency of such men to the end of time. 284 DWIGHT L. MOODY The meaning of the removal of such workmen from the harvest field at such a time as thlis is beyond our ken, when, instead of one removal, a regiment of them seems to be needed for fields white for the harvest, and the world one as it never was before by the power of steam and electricity, as well as the power of Christian civilization in the strongest nations on earth. Yea, and when there were calls on Moody's desk from Europe and America that would require months, if not years. to fill if he were here to do it. Why? God only knows. JOHN Chicago. V. FARWELL. x. MOODY, THE .EARNEST MAN OF THE PEOPLE BY BISHOP SAMUEL FALLOWS [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] ISTORY, it has been said, is but the biography of great men. The definition needs correction. History is but the biography of great men and of good men. There are some men who are simply great without being good. There are good men who are not great men. There are men who are both great and good; those of the latter class are not simply forces of attraction but of gravitation. From them spring epochs, eras, revolutions and reformations. Among these suns in the world's religious firmament, excluding the inspired writers, are Calvin, Luther, Knox and Wesley. Belonging to the class who are good but not great is Dwight L. Moody. But he was great in his goodness, perhaps the greatest man of his time in the goodness which is expressed in spiritual service to his fellow men. His life was an evolution of divine grace. There was first a burning enthusiasm without knowledge, to do something for Christ and for Christ's little ones,-the poor and needy and helpless. Then the onrush of his sturdy, vigorous, impetuous nature took him into many experimental fields of labor. But his eyes and ears were ever open. He had an almost intuitive faculty to perceive what was the practical thing to be done. And in the doing of it, he continually gained in the knowing of God's will. His tremendous earnestness, which became an irresistible religious fervor, converted opponents into warm supporters of his measures. Business men not only believed in his sin285 286 DWIGHT L. MOODY cerity but in his sagacity. His constituency among them continually grew both in numbers and constancy. He made the Bible his chief study, and wore out copy after copy of its most strongly bound editions in expounding its eternal truths. He thoroughly believed in the literalness of its statements. He said: "If the Bible had declared that Jonah swallowed the whale, he would have believed it." He proclaimed the oldfashioned gospel with directness and simplicity and yet with pathos and dramatic power. He grew more and more histrionic in his manner during his later years. The last time I heard him speak before a great audience in the South, he got down on his hands and knees, trying to put his head under a chair, to imitate the actions of a little child in its attempts to explore space, and also to illustrate the humility of the Christian in his efforts to know the truth. He employed the strong, sinewy Saxon in his sermons and addresses. I think, next to the Bible and Shakespeare, he will rank in this us!, of his mother tongue. He was not a theologian, originating any philosophy of the divine teaching. He was a moon reflecting the light of many clerical orbs. When he gathered about him the chief spirits in the theological ranks of the country and the world, he noted down the best things they said and the illustrations they used, and thenceforth they were his own! I have heard him say at such times: "I am a sponge, and I am going to absorb from you all I can get." Uncompromisingly conservative in his views of the Bible, he yet won the friendship and secured the co-operation of many eminent religious thinkers who were decidedly advanced in their opinions. His was the charity that never failed for the errant ones, whether in thought or conduct. To lift up the fallen, cheer the despondent, comfort the mourning and point penitent souls to a Saviour that was able THE MAN AND HIS flSSION 287 and willing to save to the uttermost was his passionate delight. He possessed a rare organizing faculty, which increased with the experience of years. He marshaled like a veteran general the religious forces of a community for his coming, and never began an extensive revival movement without giving abundant notice to, the people. He was one of the most judicious advertisers in this direction the church has ever known. And in thus advertising, he showed an uncommon sanctified common sense. He was as fond of work as a greyhound of the chase. He said to his sons: "I have always been an ambitious man, ambitious to, leave work for you to do." He died, as he wished to die, at work. The transition was a brief one from labor to rest and reward. The specific work for these sons to do is to see that the splendid institutions which he has organized, and on which the permanency of his fame may after all rest, shall be carried on with undiminished success. He has passed away, the most renowned reyivalist the century has known. He has been an inspiration to hundreds of ministers of Christ in every branch of the One Holy Catholic Church. Tens of thousands will rise up to call him blessed for having unlocked their faculty of spiritual vision and given them the impulse to a Christian life. SAMUEL FALLOWS. XI. MOODY AS A STUDY IN EFFECTIVENESS BY DR. HERRICK JOHNSON [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] L highway, let us first name the EST we get off the King's to spiritual effectiveness. The two things indispensable absolutely indispensable agent is the Spirit of God. The absolutely indispensable instrument is the Word of God. But this does not entirely explain, and account for, the man and his work. If it did; we could all be Moodys; and we can't be. Having these alone,'"one" may indeed "chase a thousand," and "two put ten thousand to flight." With God in the camp, the camp may be invincible, Jericho's walls will go down by the blowing of old rams' horns, if God lead the encompassing host, and order the rams' horns. God has sometim.es "chosen the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong." But he is not always at war with the nature of things. In the kingdom of God, ordinarily there is an-adaptation of means to ends. It is on the basis of the natural, God builds the supernatural. Paul, Peter and John were marked each by his own individuality: and that individuality entered into and determined, under God, their varied and contrasting successes. Neither Peter nor John could have done Paul's work without a miracle of transformation in their natural and acquired powers. Now, what were the natural qualities that helped to make Moody one of the tremendous moral forces of this generation? Take his physical characteristics as indices of the man. The lower part of his head was broad, strong, set as in adamant, denoting endurance and will. His eye was no eagle eye, but 288 MR. JOHN V. FAiR WELL Th~e Wel-Known Chicago Alerchant Prince, REV. HERRICK JOHNSTON Professor of Homiletics in McCormick Theological Seminary. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 29I gentle, playful, full of tenderness and sympathy, marked now by humor and now by tears, as these chased each other out of his heart. Thus two physical characteristics marked the man; a law jaw and a gospel eye; will power and heart power. He was Bunyan's "Mr. Great Heart' plus a prodigious amount of Pauline energy. These two make the supreme leadership the world over. A man may rule even by sheer force of will. Generalship is possible with the iron heel. But if it win and keep loyal hosts, swift to service and glad in obedience, it must betray itself not only in power but in tenderness and tears. It was this combination that helped this man of God to organize so many forces for such mtltiplied victories. His .heart taught his lips, and gave them a gentleness even in their unalterableness. He knew deeply, not widely. He had far more wisdom than knowledge. But what he knew,.he knew well. He knew men. He made a study of the actual human nature that came into anything like close relation with him. His early personal work with street arabs gave him quivers of arrows with -which he afterward smote kings of shams between the joints of the harness. How he grew to know all the subterfuges and subtleties and lying refuges of the unbelieving heart. How skilled he came to be in spiritual diagnosis. How wise to say the right thing in emergent moments. How, like Lincoln, he shot a troublesome question through with an anecdote. What an art he acquired of answering questions through his long and patient study of questioners. He would send a talker to silence with such adroit and gentle phrase that it seemed like a prelude to prayer and consecration. I remember one of his swift replies in a vast congregation in New York, when asked how he would heal a cold church: "Build a big fire in the pulpit." He discovered Drummond. He put his grappling irons on Sankey. He commanded newsboys and university stu- 292 DWIGHT L. MOODY dents. He picked leaders for his various enterprises. Never before did free lance in the open field so have the church of God at his beck. He knew men. He knew one book: the Book. Of course, we all know his faults,'as an exegete. He had no technical scholarship. He was a literalist. But who kept this great soul from the extremes and fanatical vagaries and wild licenses of those who make a fetish of "the letter of the law," so that he was ever balanced and true as to all fundamentals? Who, but the Holy Spirit, leading this docile, eager, earnest, unlettered student, full of heart-hunger for knowledge of Jesus, up, mounts of vision, where he could see the true proportion and balance of things? One of-the pictures I like best is of Moody crossing seas and continents, and flinging himself against the worst classes and forces in our great crime centers, the very incarnation of aggressiveness-and the secret of it all, that well-worn Bible under his arm, which he had studied and pondered and prayed over until its truths were inwrought in every fiber of his soul, and his courageous manliness was of the sort that the roughest criminal of the street would recognize. Yes, Moody knew the Book: And the lesson for the living is that the man who is to do any effective battling must not only know the age in which he lives by a study of the actual men of the age, but he must know the eternal verities of all the ages by a study of the Word of God. And this man of so-called limited knowledge, knew God. He talked with Him and walked with Him. Like Moses, he "endured as seeing him who is invisible." Fellowship! Divine fellowship! He literally entered into that secret. He saw God. And from out the presence he came to tell his vision. Hence the realism of the unseen world to him. Hence the definiteness and intensity of his convictions. Hence his sacred converse with the profound and eternal THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 293 realities. They were luminously clear to him. Some of us rail at definite creeds. But the creed is the man. If the creed is a namby-pamby affair, with no definiteness and no fixedness, a piece of putty-the man will be a piece of putty. Now a word as to Moody's preaching. First, it was to the spiritual nature of man. It involved always man's personal relations to God, and God's personal relations to him. It struck down to the roots of life. "Quit your meanness," said Sam Jones. "Be born again," said Moody. And between these two methods of preaching is a great gulf. Again: Moody's preaching was vivid and intense with eternity. What he thought, he thought passionately. What he believed, he believed passionately. He saw things with his whole soul. He had the faith faculty to an intense degree-the religious imagination. "The assurance of things hoped for: the test of things not seen." How easy to believe Christ said often by his Spirit to this believing soul, what he said once in words to the Syrophonecian mother: "Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Hence the hold this man had of the deepest feelings of the heart. He never lost rein of curb or bit in the most mighty movement of feeling in the audience. "He was able to kindle the soul to a flame without flaming it into a conflagration." And hence, emotions kindled by him were never "born blind." They were light as well as heat, for they were the offspring of truth. Still again: His preaching always had a distinct and definite object. He was after something always, and with his whole heart. His purpose was unmistakable. Whether his audience was laughing or crying, he never allowed a diversion from his object. He never let go the grip by which he would bring a soul to do, or be something, or die! XII. TEN SOURCES OF MOODY'S POWERS BY JOSEPH COOK [Copyright 1900 by George T. B. Davis.] I. A man of prayer-the chief secret of his wisdom, usefulness and success. It has commonly been taught that prayer consists of four parts-adoration, confession, thanksgiving, petition. But, according to Mr. Moody's definition, it always included a fifth part, namely, total self-surrender of the soul to God as both Savior and Lord. To this severe, strategic and thoroughly scriptural view of prayer he was strenuously faithful, both in the pulpit and in the inquiry-room. This one fact goes far toward explaining his astonishing spiritual efficiency. "I had rather know how to pray like Daniel," he often said, "than to preach like Gabriel. If we know how to pray, we shall know how to preach, and there will be no difficulty in reaching the masses." 2. A man of the Book-unwearied in Biblical study, he wore out several Bibles; absorbed the very atmosphere as well as the spiritual texts of Scripture. Miss Willard, who was, his coadjutor in his early work in Boston, tused to say: "If we ever differed in opinions as to our methods, I could not stand before him, for he was a torrent of proof texts." The sound of that torrent was in all Mr. Moody's best efforts ih both pulpit and inquiry-room. It is heard now and ought to be heard yet for centuries in the schools he founded in Northfield and Chicago. That torrent made him not only a great evangelist by the Divine 294 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 295 blessing, but also through his schools a great Biblical educator. 3. A man of soundest evangelical faith, with a mighty grasp of essentials in the answer to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" His advice to the unconverted was always to accept God in Christ immediately as both Savior and Lord. He believed with his whole strength.in the necessity of the deliverance of the soul from the love and the guilt of sin through the New Birth and the Atonement. It is, indeed, self-evident that in the very nature of things, the soul, without this double deliverance, can have no peace in life or death, or beyond death. Mr. Moody took this colossal fact seriously, and it dominated his whole crowded and strenuous career. He believed that the Scriptures.teach that all men are to be judged by the deeds done in the body, and that probation is limited to this life. His central object in both pulpit and inquiry-room was to secure immediate acceptance of God in Christ and in the Holy Spirit as both Savior and Lord. His methods were all in harmony with this Biblical key-note. He did not preach to the imagination, or intellect chiefly, but to the Conscience and the Will. 4. A man of extraordinary practical sagacity, organizing power and aptness for leadership. He used to say it was better to set ten men at work than to do yourself the work of ten men. But he was accustomed to do both. 5- A man of combined courage and tenderness bold as any lion, tender as any drop of dew. 6. A man endowed by his unusually powerful but balanced emotions with greatness of character, and by his caution and trenchant common sense with strategic strength of mind. 7. A man of commanding spiritual manliness, everywhere inspiring confidence. 296 DWIGHT L. MOODY 8. A man of remarkable business and executive talent, he was trusted by men of affairs. 9. A man working easily with associates whose endowments filled out his own, like Professor Drummond and Mr. Sankey, the three together making a globe of capacities and aptitudes for the work they undertook. io. A man whose career has been a spiritual link between England and America and all English-speaking lands. Mr. Moody has had no equal as an evangelist since President Finney was laid in his grave; and, as he had no real predecessor like himself, so he is not likely to have a successor. The Chicago and the Northfield schools ought to continue through his sons his unmatched work. "I wonder," said a young minister to Professor Park, "that Providence can accomplish so much through a man of only moderate endowments." "I wish to speak respectfully of Providence," said Professor Park in reply, "but I call Mr. Moody a great man." "I wish I had your shoulders," said Mr. Gladstone. "I wish I had your head," said Mr. Moody in answer. XIII. MOODY AND NORTHFIELD BY REV. G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, OF LONDON, ENGLAND THE names of Moody and Northfield must always stand connected. There he first saw the light of day. There the schools that are now world-famous have their home. There also since I880 have been held the conferences that have becosme so great a force in the spiritual life of the world. They began in a very simple way, and have grown in numbers and interest up to that of last year, when the greatest of all, in point of numbers, was held. Over all these gatherings Mr. Moody has personally presided, save during his absence in this country on evangelistic campaigns. He has also organized them, and carried them on his heart as one of the most delightful burdens he has borne. It has been my lot to be present and take some part in the last four of these, and the privilege of doing so I shall always count as one of the greatest of my life. The last was in very many ways a most remarkable and memorable one, and it is of that, in the light of the ascension of our beloved friend, that I want to write. Over the whole of the sessions there rested the shadow of the illness of little Irene, the beautiful child of his son, Will R. Moody. Yet that shadow was the background which served to throw into brighter relief many of the glorious lights of the Light in which we were gathered together. Paul Moody met us at Northfield station and drove us to our home. Mr. Moody at once came to see us. That con297 298 DWIGHT L. MOODY versation I shall not easily forget. He first told us of his sorrow about Irene, and we had some glimpse into that great heart. It was a three-fold grief-his own, the little one's pain (which he seemed to feel), and the anguish of his son's heart, which was very real to him. Then he spoke of the Conference, full of hope and confidence. Never had he felt greater joy or expectation. Past years' gatherings were sending their sheaves to this, and people were crowding in, and everywhere his keen ear caught the sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry trees. Then he spoke of our comfort. The rooms were to be arranged so as to make us feel at home. No detail escaped him; and, while his heart was full to overflowing of his own trouble, every little thing that concerned us was considered and attended to. The days moved on. Once he said to me that he had dreaded the burden of the meetings under the existing circumstances of sorrow, and God had just come in and taken all the burden off his shoulders, and he felt the work was going right on independently of him. Whenever he spoke the tenderness of his words told how full his heart was, and surely through that baptism of suffering the Father sent some of his choicest blessings to us. The Conference closed on Sunday, August 20, and, on the following Tuesday, in the early hours of the morning, to use Mr. Moody's own beautiful words, "the chariot of God came down to the Connecticut valley and took our little Irene home." On the following day we committed the fair form of her earthly tabernacle to rest. What a funeral that was! Flowers were everywhere. Songs of triumph over death were sung. Every address had victory as its key-note, and most beautiful of all was that of Mr. Moody himself, closing with the words: "I- thank God this morning for the hope of Immortality. I know I shall see her in the morning, more beautiful in her resurrection glory than she was here." That THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 299 morning has dawned for him also, and surely he and Irene are together. During the days following he gave himself up with loving devotion to his son Will and his beloved wife. He sal with them, he drove with them, he mastered his own grief, and flung across their pathway the joyousness of his bright spirit. Then, as September came in, and his great family of boys and girls, the Mount Hermon and Northfield students, gathered back, he opened his heart and took them all in, driving backwards and forwards between the two schools, with always a cheery word and some strong, practical, happy sentence of counsel for each of them. At last, my work being done, and my extended tour beginning, I had to leave him, but I saw him again at Chicago, Boston, Brooklyn, and New York. How little I imagined these were the last occasions! How good God is to veil the future. After visiting several places, I reached Chicago, and there I found him, at the head of the forces, eager for the campaign. It was his old and earliest battleground, and he knew it and loved it well. And what a time it was, and how we all had to "move around!" Three centers, and three meetings a day. He was not a general directing others merely. He was himself busy from morn to night. Some days he took part in as many as six meetings. At last his voice gave way. He was announced to address the students at Chicago University, but could not speak. Nevertheless, he came to the meeting, and I had to speak. It was no easy task. A thousand students and the faculty were there to hear him. When I rose I told them they had only to look at Mr. Moody and then at me to know how impossible it was for me to fill his place. His ready humor helped me immediately, for he rose and stood by my side to emphasize the truth I had uttered. The effect was electric, and from that moment I had the attention 30o DWIGHT L. MOODY and sympathy of the audience. That night he left for home. I saw him next in Boston. Three days' meetings in the Tremont Temple he presided over. There I found his mind very much exercised about our war with the Boers. He could not understand it. Mr. Samuel Smith, M. P., of Liverpool, was staying at the same hotel with us, and one evening, after the meeting, Mr. Moody got him .to tell him the story of the Transvaal and of the causes leading to the war. He was intensely interested and deeply grieved at the conflict. My last days of work came at Brooklyn and New York. In the former place the meetings were very large, and Mr. Moody came on from his home to help. He had another building, which, of course, was imniediately filled to overflowing, and, when I went to New York for the last three days, he continued the work in Brooklyn. During those days we stayed together at the Murray Hill Hotel. We had not very much time in each other's company, but the hours we had were full. I cannot write of them. We look back when loved ones have been gathered home, and see the signs to which we were quite blind till their departure. And so I feel to-day as-I look back. Surely he was "like as a shock of corn-in its season." The fuller life, the new light, how manifest these were; yet we saw them not, or saw them only as those that do not apprehend quickly the significance of the Kihg's portents. My last vision of him, is as he stands at the door of the hotel and waves us his farewell, having attended to the minutest matter that made for our c6mfort-God's gentleman in every fiber of his being. I shall see him next "at Home." Many men have loved him longer, none have loved him more than I. XIV. MOODY'S GREATEST WORK BY MR. HENRY M. MOORE [An Address Delivered at the Moody Memorial Temple, Boston.] Meeting, Tremont Saint L. MOODY D WIGHTcenitury. If I were the sum up in one word the to teenth was Paul of the nine- whole entire life of Dwight L. Moody, that word would be simply this-Victory. He never knew a defeat. His life was a success. Converted, as many of you know, in the shoe store on Court street at the age of 17, going at the age of 19, two years later, to Chicago, we might well say that he there commenced his life work. In 1872, twenty-seven years ago, I became intimately acquainted with him. It was my privilege, as some of you know, to work with Mr. Moody; I worked with him in the great tabernacle work here in Boston, and for forty-four days I led the young men's meeting.. Twenty years ago, in 1879, he came into my store and sat down to talk with me and to tell me that God had placed it upon his heart to organize a school for education of girls at Northfield. He asked me if I would become one of the trustees. I felt at first I could not, but finally consented to serve in that capacity. During these 20 years perhaps I might say with truthfulness that I have been somewhat intimate with him. I knew something of his plans for the future in the organization of those schools, and I believe that history in a few years will regard that the greatest work of D. L. Moody's life was not his evangelical work, but his work in the schools. When we realize that there were 9goo students, when we think 3o01 302 DWGHT L. MOODY that 17 different denominations were represented in those schools, that 16 different nationalities were being educated there for a great work, and oh, how it pained his heart when he had to turn.away any of those students. You know something of the work of those schools, and you know how he would only charge $0oo a year, where you found some of the finest characters that could be gathered together in the country, while the cost was $2oo. An attempt was made once to have him increase the cost of tuition. He said, "I founded those schools for the common, earnest people, and I will raise the money to make up the deficit of $8o,ooo a year by God's help, that these young men and young women may be trained for God to go out into the world to carry the cross of Christ and to be a benefit and a blessing to the world whom Christ died to redeem." I said he never-knew a defeat, that his life was a success. May I tell you what I believe, having watched his life carefully for many years, was the cause of it? He dwelt in that beautiful Psalm, the 91st Psalm: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." He dwelt there continually. The secret of his life and success was that he had submitted his will entirely to the word of God, and he was a mighty man of prayer. I have heard him say, "If I could have my own way, and God should say to me, 'You may have your own way,' I would, settle it in less than one minute. I would take God's way every time. It is better than my own way." That was the secret of his life-that he knew the mind of God, and consequently as a man of prayer, his prayers were answered. There is not a building on the campus of the twenty-six buildings that has not been prayed up, so to speak. Before he decided to go to a place, he did not go until he had prayed it through and got the mind of God. He went, furthermore, because it was God's pleasure and God's way. I THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 303 remember so distinctly this passage of Scripture: "If ye abide in me, I will abide in thee." This was D. L. Moody's life, and consequently his prayers were answered. I remember on one occasion, when Garfield's life hung in the scale between life and death, a friend said to him, "Mr. Moody, can't you gather with us for a season of prayer for Garfield's life ?" His answer was, "If you feel like praying for Garfield's life, God bless you, I can't go." "Why ?" "Because," he said, "I am not sure that God wants Garfield to live." I was once walking from a church where we had had a meeting a few summers ago with one of the prominent evangelists next to Mr. Moody. He said to me-Mr. Moody was a few steps in advance of us :, "Friend Moore, what a wonderful man that is." I said "Yes." "Do you know, God gives him everything he asks for ?" "Yes, that is true," I said. To show you how God answered his prayers, at the time Crosby Hall at Mt. Hermon was built, we had a meeting of the trustees. He said, "I cannot bear to turn away so many. applicants, so many young men." One of our trustees, a very practical man, said, "Mr. Moody, that is all right enough, but it takes money to build buildings." "Yes, I know it, but I have got $io,ooo. Won't you go on and build ?" "Yes, if you can raise the money." The money came along until the walls were up and the roof was on, and then he got out of money. One or two parties came there from time to time. Mr. Moody asked them: "Can't you tell me of some one to help me ?" One said, "I know a man who can give you $5,000 just as well as not." "Who is it ?" So he gave him his name. One day, about ten days or two weeks after that, Mr. Moody said to me: "This is what God does for his people; how God answers prayer." Then he told me how he went to his study. He said he could not leave at that time, and so he sat down and took his pen and wrote to that man, and, said he, "I told him how I was trying to do a work for God in educating those 304 DWIGHT L. MOODY boys and girls that they might be sent out to heal and help the sick and sinful, and I need help. I want you to give me $5,o00." After I had written it, I laid the letter down on my desk and said, "Oh God, if that is Thy will, incline the hands and heart of this man to give me the money." In less than one week the answer came: "Dear Mr. Moody: I received your letter this morning, as I was eating breakfast. The first thought that came into my mind was that I could not give you this money under any circumstances. However, as I continued to eat, and then went into the library, I could not get your request out of my mind. Finally, an irresistible impulse seized me to write a check, giving you the $5,000 asked for. At the same time I felt that I must write the check quickly or my resolution to do so would fail me; so I at once sat down to my table and wrote it out, put it into a letter, and mailed it." This was a fair example of the man's faith in prayer. XV. MOODY'S MANLINESS AND MODESTY BY WILLIAM E. DODGE [An Address delivered at the Moody Memorial Meeting held in Tremont Temple, Boston.] Church of Christ, very few THE whole history of the have touched so many hearts and influenced so many lives as Dwight L. Moody. I am sure it is not exaggeration to say that if all those whom he has led to a better life were to be gathered together, a half dozen of the largest halls of the world would not hold them. Moody is not dead; he is gone to the better life above, and he lives with us to-day and will live on by his example and by the inspiration to the end of time. When Mr. Moody became a' Christian, it was like the conversion of St. Paul, clear and decided and for all life. When the message came to him that God had offered pardon and peace, life here and eternal life, he accepted it in all its fullness, and he wondered with a great astonishment that any one could turn away from such a message and from such an offer, and he longed to bring men to understand it and to believe in it and to accept it. From the very beginning, his theology was very simple. His creed was "God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should have eternal life." And this message he repeated with all his courage and manliness and strength through all his life, and so earnestly that it told wherever he carried it. Mr. Moody's early work was a very simple one. He had had very few opportunities of education. At that time he had no gift IN 305 306 DWIGHT L. MOODY of utterance, but he found fellowship and help in the Young Men's Christian Association, and he commenced his work among a few poor children in Chicago when he was merely a clerk there. I remember, more than forty years ago, going with him one Sunday morning to that poor little school across the river, and I got sight then of the peculiar character of the man, his directness, his simplicity, his kindliness, his humor, and the manliness of his character that won those children and There were two early influences that won their parents. directly influenced his life more than any others. One was the companionship and help that came to him from the brotherhood of the Young Men's Christian Associations. All his life he acknowledged that as. the forming part of his character, and all through his life he was the warm friend of those associations, helping them and aiding them in every possible way. But a stronger and greater influence was his beginning to study the English Bible. He had the idea that many good men have, that if God wanted him to do work and to speak for Him that God would put words into his mouth, and he failed for a long time. His talks were repetitions of each other and without much effect. A kind, earnest, simple, Christian man who influenced him very much, talked with him and urged him and told him that if he wanted to devote his life to God's work, he must fit himself in the best way to prepare himself for that work, and urged him to study the Bible. He shut himself up for a long time; he devoted himself to an intense study of the Bible, and from it got two things: In the first place, he got that clear-cut, plain, simple, Anglo-Saxon of the King James' version which gave him such immense power over people everywhere. In the second place, he got from the Bible an arsenal, an armament, of promise and warning which, turning in one way and another, he used through all his life with such magnificent power. There was something wonderful about his simple directness. DR. JOSEPH COOK, LL.D. 0 w b.t (0 _ t z 1 . z 0 S z0 4 C THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 309 Moody's influence over men was marvelous. I could give you by the hour instances of the clean way in which he went directly to a point . I remember when I first met him in Chicago, when he was a simple man and very little known, he ivent to call on the leading merchant and most influential man in that city, and as he went out he turned to him and said "Oh, if you were only a Christian man, what an influence you would have in this growing city." That man had been a communicant of a church for years, and it had never been known, and it was the turning point in that man's life, and he was Moody's best friend and helper for many, many years. There was a manliness about him, an earnestness, a hatred of cant and mere religious form. He had the most intense and superb enthusiasm of any man I ever knew, but it was tempered by a strong, clean common sense. And then he had, in addition to that, a wonderful intuitive knowledge of men. We know very much of his wonderful success as a preacher; but those who knew him best and were nearest to him knew that the great power of his life was in personal conversation with men. The greatest sermon that I ever heard from Mr. Moody, far away the strongest, was one, night on Madison avenue at half past twelve, coming up from one of those great meetings at Madison Square, three or four of us together. We had been kept there by those who insisted upon talking and getting advice and help from Mr. Moody, and he was tired by a long, long day's work, and a gentleman came up from behind, and said, "Mr. Moody, how shall I accept Christ and change my life ?" And he turned, in-the moonlight there, and stood on the corner of the street and, in a few sharp, cleanly-cut, kindly, earnest words, he put the truth so cleanly to that man that there was no getting away from it, and he became a changed man from that day. I was privileged to be with him at that wonderful series of services in the Haymarket Theater in London, the most won- 310 DWIGHT 1. MOODY derful meetings that I have ever known, and what struck me and surprised me was the number of cultivated and educated people who came there. There was a large number of literary men who really believed not at all in religion, who came for the very reason of hearing his simple, clean-cut English phraseology .which is so little used nowadays. His work at Oxford and in the Universities was simply wonderful. When he went to Oxford and to Cambridge, they determined to run him out of the town. They did not want that kind of talk there, but his manliness and straightforwardness and courage conquered them, and the number of young men whose lives were changed and who are now powers for good all over the world wherever England has a place, would astonish us, and we shall never know it until we get into a better world. His schools that he established after all this great work, are models of organization and ability of design and thoughtfulness. I hope with all my heart they will be carried on as a memorial of him. What touched me more than anything else in Mr. Moody was his extreme modesty about himself. He was the most masterful man I ever knew. He would direct 'and control and suggest to others like a general. We all know how that was at his great gatherings. But when it came to himself, he was the most modest of men. I was privileged to be in the house with him during all the time of those great meetings at Madison Square. I never heard him speak of himself. You would not know that he had anything to do with those meetings, and it was only occasionally, when he wanted to speak of what somebody said to him, that he ever said a word. Time after time he said to his friends, "My only wonder is that God can use so feeble an instrument as I am to do such work." And he grew mellow as he grew older. His prejudices were thrown off. I was very much touched by his coming to me one day and saying, "I am ashamed of myself. You know I have always talked about the extravagance and the worldliness THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 311 of women in New York. It has been a sort of theme of talk with me in a good many places. I have been spending a few days here now. I have been down to the East and West side where the schools are that those ladies are conducting. I have never known anywhere so much self-sacrifice and devotion, and I am ashamed of what I have said." He came again a year or two afterwards and said, "You know I have always had a great prejudice against the Catholic Church. I am ashamed of it. I have had some opportunity of knowing lately, and there are no churches in New York and none in the country where Christ is preached so simply, and where the cross is held up as it is in many of the Catholic Churches." XVI. THE GREATEST WORKER IN GOD'S VINEYARD BY DR. J. MONROE GIBSON, oF LONDON, ENGLAND IT is nearly eight years since the church catholic has suffered such a bereavement as this. Spurgeon on this side of the sea, Moody on that, have stood out from their fellows as field-marshals of the army of the Lord. And now the younger of the two has followed his senior to higher service in another sphere. "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away," and if we do not forget to lay due emphasis on the giving we shall be able to add, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." For indeed this gift which has just been withdrawn was a very noble and a very needful one. It is difficult in all the complexity of forces in modern Christendom to measure individual contributions, especially in the case of men of farreaching and varied influence; but there seems to be a general agreement among those in sympathy with evangelical truth that there is, probably, no man left whose life and work have been such a large factor in the history of the Kingdom of God as his whom now we mourn. That he sprang from the ranks of the people; that his nature was so rude and unpromising in the eyes of all who knew him in boyhood and youth; that he was without advantage of education or of culture; that in fact the vessel was so unmistakably earthen, and yet held such incomparable treasure-all this has only served to-demonstrate that the excellency of the power has been of God and not at all of man. "He was a strong character," you say. Certainly; 312 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 313 but explain how that strength was so completely redeemed from all selfish uses and consecrated wholly to God and his fellowmen. "He had great self-assertion." Yes; for the Kingdom, never for himself. Even on his natural self-assertiveness he had "Corban" written as plainly as on any other part of his many-sided nature. His self-assertion was part of his self-denial; his masterfulness was always in the Spirit, and for the ends of ministry; for, though he was a king of men, a born ruler of his fellows, he was as humble as a child. He could not bear to hear himself commended. I remember on one occasion, when an injudicious brother fell into that vein, Moody sprang to his feet, stopped him, and intimated that the time was too precious to be wasted in that way. He must speak of the Master, not of the servant. And those of us who knew him intimately can testify that he was just as careful in private to avoid the subject. Never, perhaps, was a man, judging by natural disposition, more likely to be spoiled by public recognition; never was man exposed to greater risk of spoiling; yet who can point to anything he ever said or did which showed a sign of it? One thing I must not leave out even in a brief notice-the great value of the example he has left of charity towards those who differed from him. Though a man not only of great heart and lofty and courageous spirit, but also of marvelous strength of mind and soundness of judgment, we cannot speak of him as holding the same high position in the matter of intellectual discrimination; but then he was great enough in all other respects to know and acknowledge his limitations here. He did not, as so many small men do, condemn those whom he could not understand. He had strong convictions, and held to them with great tenacity, and often used very strong language on subjects under controversy. But when he found good Christian men differing from 314 DWIGHT L. MOODY him, even in matters on which he had thus strongly expressed himself, he did not conceitedly assume that he must of necessity be altogether right and they wholly wrong; still less did he condemn and denounce them. He not only recognized the presenceand grace of the Spirit in men with whose intellectual position he could not sympathize, but he was noble and modest enough to keep an open mind for any new light there might be for him. He was not among those who supposed that the Spirit had said his last word to the churches. So we find him not only a teacher and a preacher, but a learner and a listener, t9 the end. Oh, for the diffusion of that same spirit of humility, modesty, and charity in all who bear the name of Christ, and especially in those who stand forth as champions of His Word of truth! I have not written of his work, so vast and varied and penetrating; blessed be God for it all-for-all the streams of gracious influence which have flowed from the ever-springing fountain of that consecrated life. But, above all, we thank and bless our God for the witness of the life itself; lived in as fierce a light as beats on any throne, and without the corresponding shelter from criticism and cavil, yet kept unspotted from the world; a great heliograph for these times of ours of the mind.of Christ. Blessed, ever blessed, be his name, by whose grace he was what he was in the face of the world, and is what he is before the face of God. May He who kindled that fire in the heart of our Elijah now gone from us, and kept it burning so many years, touch all our hearts with the same fire now; and call many a young Elisha to take up the prophet's mantle with a double portion of the Spirit; to be for light and leading and Spirit-power in the years to come. XVII. aD L MOODY-A MIRACLE BY REV. A. C. DIXON [Address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting held in Carnegie Hall, New York City.] HERE was no need that D. L. Moody should ever perform a miracle. He was a miracle. A miracle is God at work, and God Almighty worked through D. L. Moody. He showed to, the world, as it seems to me no man ever did in this generation, the difference between influence and power. He began without influence. He became influential through power. He did not minify the influences of money and of education and of organization and of position, but his trust was in God, and the power of Moody's life was God Himself at work. Jesus was not a Man of influefice. He made Himself of no reputation, but a power. Paul and Silas did not have enough influence to, keep out of jail, but they had power after they got in jail to shake the doors open and walk out. And Moody was linked with the power that could shake the doors open. I always felt when I left Moody not like praising Moody, but praising God. It seemed to me that I could see and feel the throbbings of God,-God's love; God's sympathy; God's great-heartedness, as I come in contact with this wonderful man. He incarnated those words, "God is able." Of course God is powerful, all-powerful, but the all-powerful God could do no mighty works "because of their unbelief." Omnipotence stood there unable! God did mighty works through Moody because of his belief. He enabled God, I speak it reverently. 315 316 DWIGHT L. MOODY I saw, some time ago, a great steam engine just throbbing with power. But it could do nothing, for a bolt was broken. Just one bolt broken, and the power was cut off. Moody gave the bolt. He linked himself with Almighty God, and God worked through him because he trusted in His Word and in His Spirit and in His Son. - The life work of our friend was soul-saving. "By all means save some." Save through the great crowd, and he believed in, the great assembly, making not only a sphere but an atmosphere for Jesus. He had a heart that took in the great cities and the great country and the great world. We speak of the modesty and the humility of Moody, and the philosophy of his humility, I am impressed, was this: He always stood in the presence of some great undertaking, some wonderful unfinished business for God, and the work before him was so big that you could hardly see Moody, you could simply see the work to be done and the God that could do it. My brethren, we get puffed up with vanity and pride because we are so well satisfied with the little bit we have done. We have not undertaken enough for God. If God will just lift us into, His thought of the evangelization of the cities of the world, and just let us see Him as Moody saw Him, we will be at His-feet humiliated and trustful, expecting a blessing from Him. I believe in the educational work established by Mr. Moody. God prosper the schools. God lead some of you millionaires to lay your millions upon that altar, and do it quick. The quicker the better for the glory of God. But education with Mr. Moody was the result of evangelization, and not evangelization the result of education. Education was an incident in his life, a very great incident, to be sure, but it was simply an incidental matter, and education was established through his evangelization. And my prayer is that Moody may be projected into the future, and that those THE MAN AND HIS MISSION3 317 schools may be supported by evangelization, not only wealthy men giving their millions, but the evangelists and the churches and the pastors praying for them, giving to them, and thus the two-fold work of Moody shall continue until we shall meet him in glory. Within the next twelve months,-if Moody were standing on this platform I believe he would say,-within the next twelve months we should preach the Gospel to every creature in Greater New York. Let that be the watchword of this year of 1900oo. The politicians can, reach all voters within three months, and all the Christian churches might reach all sinners within twelve months. Not convert them. We cannot bring them to Christ any more than Moody could, but we can bring Christ to them, and the work of the church, may God wake them up to-day,-is to bring the Gospel to the people in the home, in the theater, on the street, face to face. If we would perpetuate Moody's work, it must be by taking Jesus Christ with power to save into the homes and hearts of our people. XVIII. A MODERN SAINT WE REV. JOHN McNEILL'S TRIBUTE are met to-night under the shadow of a great loss. God has taken home to Himself our beloved brother, Mr. Moody. The great evangelist's death has created a profound imspression on all our hearts, and I received the news with the shock that comes of a personal loss. The moment I read it in the newspaper the words leapt to my mouth, "My father! my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." We feel, I feel, as if the Wellington of the Evangelistic Army had been taken from our head. When one begins to speak about Mr. Moody, one hardly knows where to strike in, and once he has broken in he does not knowv where to stop. On all sides of him he was a great man; he was a great man in all his measurements. He was great as a preacher. I have sometimes heard people say that they could not account for his success, because they did not see wherein he differed from other men as a preacher. I could not subscribe to that opinion. To me D. L. Moody was an immensely interesting preacher. He was no end of a preacher in resourcefulness, in what you might call tactics; that is, he always kept his audience at his finger-ends, and yet was ever pressing with all his force for the one great mark to capture them for a waiting present Saviour. I think he was not merely a preacher; he was an eloquent preacher. I did not hear him during his first visit to this country, when he and Mr. Sankey burst upon Scotland and 318 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 319 carried it captive; and they have held it in their grip ever since. It was at Mr. Moody's second visit that I heard him, and yet sorme folks observed to me, "You should have heard him during his first visit. Then you would have heard him at his best." Well, I do not know what his best must have been. I remember hearing him when I was a student, a city missionary. It was in this very hall on a weekday afternoon that I sat to the left there. That plain, simple American rose up, there being nothing about him that suggested oratory in the academic sense; ah, but I shall ne'er forget that first address of his. It was about Paul. Paul's motto was-"One thing I do." How he made Paul live before us! With what consummate skill he ran through Paul's history! He brought in Paul's persecutions, pointed to the time when they stoned him, and left him for dead; and after they thought that they had wreaked their worst upon him, Paul recovered and pulled himself together. His friends came around him and said: "Now, Paul, you'll have some sense; you'll give up preaching whilst these fierce Jews are abroad." And then he brought in with tremendous effect his great text-"This one thing I do! Show me the road to the next town; I must preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified." The thrilling effect on one hearer of that sermon can never be forgotten. Oh! Moody was a great preacher. Although he was untrained, uneducated in our professional, theological, academic sense, in another sense he was educated. He was well described in that picture of the Apostles Peter and John. We are told that when the people saw they were unlearned and ignorant in the academical sense, they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. But if the mark of great preaching be great success and gathering of great crowds, and bringing men to an intelligent decision for Christ, then Moody was one of the greatest preachers who ever lived. He was a great organizer. If he had never become a 320 DWIGHT L. MOODY preacher, he would have been at the head of some of those tremendous businesses in the United States, the facts and figures of which we read over here with wonder and almost incredulity. You remember that he was a clerk in a boot and shoe store when he was converted. He started to preach, and by and by he gave up his worldly employment and took to preaching. If Moody had stuck to selling boots and shoes, he would, at length, have been at the head of some gigantic boot and shoe combine that would have dominated the trade on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a tremendous organizer, a man of restless activity, a man of tremendous brain power, and of great insight and foresight. Mr. Moody was a great man every way you took him, and if Jesus Christ had not captured him, and claimed him, and used him for His service, he would have been great in the world's work. And then as a man, how unique, how true, how thorough! I admired his genius and power in organizing. He also honored me with his friendship. I mourn his loss. It was impossible to know him and not to love him. He was a holy man, a godly man, a saintly man. And when you think of Moody's saintliness, it does not suggest a recluse or a man who lives far from the madding crowds' ignoble strife. Oh! how human he was! When his life is written, I hope those who undertake the task will give us the man Moody as he was. I hope they will give a faithful delineation of him in the human sense, how he lived a hearty life. I have seen him roll on his couch with laughter in the fair happiness and gleefulness of body and soul when a good story would be told during that memorable campaign at the World's Fair in Chicago. SI said that no man was more saintly, more devoted, no man had a greater passion for doing his work well than he. How human he was in the human side! Even through my THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 321 tears I smile as I recollect him as a man, as playful to his latest day as a boy. Get Moody amongst children, and he was the biggest romp in the crowd. An hour later that man was a flaming herald of the Cross, lifted up for Jesus Christ in the midst of Io,ooo people. He is gone! One thinks of him entering heaven. One thinks of the multitudes who would be there to meet him, and of the multitudes who are to follow after him. I feel weaker; all of us on the evangelistic field feel weaker. Scotland today feels somewhat emptier. He bulked so large, he was so mighty for Christ. Alas! he is gone! May the Lord bring a great blessing to us out of this removal of His servant! May we creep closer to the Lord Himself; may we cry more mightily unto Him. We thank God that we were privileged to know and work with D. L. Moody. His labors are over. What can one say? His end, I should think, was just as he would have wished it. He had gone to Kansas City, where he had spoken in a hall to 12,ooo people. Suddenly his strength gave way; his call had come, but God in His mercy gave him time to go home and to have all his family gathered quietly about him; and then his sun set for this world to rise in the next. He sets as sets the morning star That goes not down behind the darkened west, Nor hides obscured amidst the tempest of the sky, But melts away into the light of heaven. Servant of God, well done; Praise be thy new employ, And while eternal ages run, Rest in thy Master's joy, XIX. MOODY WAS GOD'S MOUTH PIECE BY REV. GEORGE C. LORIMER [An address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting held in Tremont Temple, Boston.] not has spoken to the world, AM perfectly sure that God merely through the message, but through the life of I Dwight L. Moody, even as he spoke to the world through the prophets Isaiah and Elijah, or John the Baptist, or any of the great religious leaders of the past, and I think that the Divine Being would have us renew our faith in His perpetual and marvelous oversight of His church. The opening of this century was marked by many revivals of religion. The decade preceding had been one of great religious coldness. And then began a series of revivals at the opening of the century, and then God raised up some of the most notable men ever given to the Christian church to be the leaders of the people. And among them in 1837 was born Dwight L. Moody. To me Mr. Moody was as much a gift to the church of Jesus Christ as Spurgeon or Wesley or Whitefield, and the coming years will demonstrate the fact that it was an emergency in the history of American, and perhaps world-wide, Christianity, that required a special instrument from the hands of God, and God found it in the untaught boy, and consecrated him to his calling, and I am perfectly confident that as the years roll around and the church of Jesus Christ with her earnest prayer shall plead with God to give the leader necessary, the man will be un.covered, for Jesus Christ will never be without his great wit322 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 323 nesses among the children of men. God spoke through Mr. Moody to us of this generation, and I interpret the message, and I think I interpret it correctly when I say that the first part of it was a reiteration of what God has taught the world from the beginning-that it is not by authorities, nor by officials, nor by men especially consecrated by holy oil or the imposition of hands, that His work is to be carried forward to the ends of the earth. Not for one moment do I reflect on the value and power of Christian organization, with its officers, its directors and its pastors. Without them the Christian world would disintegrate and we would find ourselves in a deplorable condition, but the tendency continually is to lean too much on the wheels within the wheels and to forget the need of the reviving spirit in everything, and consequently God has chosen more than one. Men of the type of Mr. Moody, though to, me he was prominent for his type, do a great thing to move the human heart,-cause mighty upheavals throughout the Christian world, that men may come to believe in the simple power of God's spirit working through laymen as well as through clergymen for the pulling down of the strongholds and the upbuilding of the church of Jesus Christ, and not until you laymen learn this lesson, and every one of you learn it so deeply as to make your lives felt in the community where you dwell, will this world be brought to a knowledge of Jesus Christ, our Savior. And there is another part of the message--a great thing to hear God speak. It was indeed a great thing in Mr. Moody's life to hear the reconfirmation from the very throne of God through him of the essential verities of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have lived with Mr. Moody. I worked with him in the tabernacle, and worked with him through several series of meetings in Chicago. I knew his methods of thought, and I knew that he laid the emphasis where every DWIGHT L. MOODY 324 minister that desires to see results will always lay the emphasis-on the atoning power of Jesus Christ to save from sin, and the cleansing .influence of the Holy Ghost on mind and conscience. Now, we may formulate these things differently. The sinner may perhaps prefer to shape his conception of salvation in language other than the language of Mr.Moody, any conception that eliminates the essential sacrificial power of Jesus Christ's death is a wrong conception and the evidence that it is wrong lies here-it is unfeeling. No man's conscience is troubled by any other conception. No faint-hearted people are gathered together to listen to any other conception. And take out of Christianity the divinity of Christ, His atonement and the work of the Holy Word, and we are back once more at the foot of Mount Sinai, without a God-given hope and without means to lift you out of sin on to the peace and piety of Christian love. I have heard God speak in Mr. Moody's life. I have heard God speak in Mr. Moody's message. I have heard God speak in Mr. Moody's enthusiasm. Every now and then in the days gone by people have spoken to me of Mr. Moody's intense earnestness. As though earnestness were something that could be estimated! As though earnestness were a mere superficial thing! There is no real enthusiasmwithout conviction. The men that move others are men who move themselves. Ruskin says that no one is able to sway a congregation until they find that somewhere the cords in the throat begin to swell up and the man's whole soul is surging into his brain. Mr. Moody had that feeling, but it was more than a feeling-it was a feeling developed naturally by conviction, and we who are gathered here to-day may learn that God works through laymen as well as through ministers, but never, never, never apart from Christ's beloved as the center of human hope, and always in kindling the fire that sweeps from heart to heart, until the whole community is ablaze. but REV. A. C. DIXON Pastor Hanson Street Baptist Church, Brooklyn. iZii JK TWO 1p;-3 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 327 You never yet heard of a revival of religion where there was no excitement, no enthusiasm. Enthusiasm it was that kindled the spirit that led to the Crusades. Enthusiasm it was that broke the chains from the slaves in the South. Enthusiasm it was that opened the prison doors to, Howard in Europe. Enthusiasm it was that led to the preservation of the Union. Enthusiasm it was that caused hope to spring up in the hearts of the despairing and the sending away of iniquity in the olden times. Enthusiasm! Enthusiasm! The meaning of the word itself brings God with it. It is God in the heart showing out in the frame and breathing in the speech. I tell you, Moody was. much more than Spinoza. and in a higher and truer sense a God-intoxicated man. So that to-day this is simply my interpretation, and it is an interpretation of God speaking to us that hope may find expression in our human nature. I want you to roll away from your minds the miserable and the altogether unwarranted prejudice against enthusiasm. Let the enthusiasm of that man reprove you. Get rid of your carping criticism. There is never a church but there will be found here and there enough members that cannot justify the work that has been done for them. There has never beeh an army of any kind but there will be always camp followers, that somewhere follow without respect for the great purpose of the work, never an army without its camp followers, never a movement without its deserters. So in Mr. Moody's work here and there you will see all that kind of thing. But, evangelists, what is your gospel if it is not the evangel? How are we to evangelize? By sitting still, going through the Bible service on Sunday? No, stretch out your hands to the uttermost ends of the earth. Oh, were I free from obligations to Tremont Temple and Boston, I would start around this globe to the men and the women yet in sin and darkness to evangelize, to tell them of Christ! 328 DWIGHT L. MOODY The burden of it is on us. The cry comes to us from every valley and from every hill throughout our land. Let us be up, brother,-in all our churches this winter let us evangelize. And let the cry now circle around the globe that we are not ashamed to believe in evangelism, and to honor and glorify the memory of the greatest evangelist that God has yet given to His church. XX. MOODY AND LINCOLN-A LIKENESS BY DR THEODORE L, CUYLER [Address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting held in Carnegie Hall, New York City.] T HE marvelous voice that so often resounded in this hall has passed into, the harmonies of heaven. The most unique and extraordinary Gospel preacher that America has produced in this century has gone up to his resplendent reward. Nay, more. The privilege was accorded to our brother, Moody, of having poured the Gospel of redeeming love into more human ears and more human hearts than any man in modern times. Spurgeon, in his peerless way, preached one day in a week; Moody seven days, and he sometimes reached in one week forty or fifty thousand souls. And then our dear brother was more endeared to us because he was such a thorough, typical American. He tasted of the soil, and on his garments was the.smell of the New England fields that the Lord had blessed. If I were called upon to name the two most thoroughly typical Americans of the nineteenth century, the men who have battled their way from obscurity to a world-wide renown, the men whom all our American boys should be taught to study as the model patriot and the model preacher of righteousness, I would not hesitate to name Abraham Lincoln and Dwight L. Moody. Ah, when a nation's life is to be preserved and its liberties secured, Almighty God called a poor boy from the log cabin in Kentucky, cradled him on the rocks of hardship, gave him the great West for his only university, then anointed him to be 329 330 DWIGHT L. MOODY our Moses and to lead us through a sea of blood to a Canaan of freedom. In like manner, Almighty God called a humble farmer boy on the banks of the Connecticut, gave him for his education only one book, the Book, schooled him with the spirit of Christ Jesus, then sent him out as a herald of salvation till Great Britain hung on his lips, and the Lord Chanccllor of England said, "He, gives me a new conception of preaching." Lincoln and Moody are alike in the gift of an infallible common sense. Neither of them ever committed a serious mistake. They were alike in being masters of the simple, strong Saxon speech, the language of the Bible and of Bunyan, the language of the plain people, the language that is equal to the loftiest forensic eloquence, and Lincoln's huge loving heart, his heart gushed out in sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, and made him the best loved man in American history. And Moody's big loving heart, fired with the love of Jesus, made him a pure master of pathos that touched the fount of tears in thousands of hearts, and often brought weeping multitudes before his pulpit. Those two lives! Lincoln, the Liberator, wearing a martyr crown, carrying four million of shattered manacles in his hand. Moody, the Liberator, the liberator of immortal souls from the fetters of sin, fell the other day as a martyr to overwhelming work, and went up to be greeted at the gates of glory by thousands whom he had led from the cross to the crown. Now, for a moment ere I take my seat, let me say, it may not be known to all of you.that on the Sabbath before our brother started for Kansas City he delivered his last sermon in New York in yonder Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church. In that discourse, as if already the premonitory shadow was falling, he uttered this wonder sentence: Said he, "You may read in the papers that Moody is dead. It will not be so. God has given me the gift of the life everlasting." Aye, aye, thanks be to God, Moody is alive! Moody lives! His spirit THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 331 is in this hall to-day where he lifted up Jesus. Methinks I hear that trumpet voice calling on the pastors and the churches of New York to seek through this week of prayer a baptism of fire that shall kindle this city, and set, perhaps, the nation aflame. One other message, and. I am done, as true as I speak to you. He said, "Five and twenty years ago in my native village of Northfield I planted two Christian schools for the training of boys and maidens in Christian living and consecration as teachers and missionaries of Jesus Christ. I bequeath as my legacy those training schools for Jesus to the churches of America, and I only ask that visitors to the beautiful native village where my ashes slumber on consecrated Round Top when they go there shall not be pained with the sight of melancholy ruins wrought by cruel neglect, but rather shall be greeted by the spectacle of two great, glorious lighthouses of the Lord, beaming out over the land, over the continent, over the world." My beloved brother, the answer of the churches of God in America will be, "We will! We will! We will! We will perpetuate those training schools for Jesus as the splendid, beneficent and permanent monuments of our beloved Dwight Lyman Moody. XX'I. NEVER SPOKE AN UNKIND WORD M BY MR. WM. FRY, DUBLIN, IRELAND Y acquaintance with our beloved departed friend dates from the year 1868, long before his name had become famous, as it afterwards did, throughout the English-speaking world. He was preaching in the Merrion Hall, and stayed with the late Mr. Henry Bewley at Willow Park, Dublin. It was the time of the "Believers' Meetings," and one of the delightful days at Willow Park was drawing to a close, when D. L. Moody, Henry Varley, Grattan Guinness, and a number of other brethren engaged in the Lord's work, withdrew to a large hay-loft for a season of special prayer, confession, andI renewed consecration to the Master's service. It was a wonderful time of the Holy Spirit's presence and power, and Mr. Moody often spoke of the blessing received on that occasion. The friendship which then commenced deepened and increased as the years passed, and I had opportunity of becoming more thoroughly acquainted with his loving, child-like spirit, the transparent honesty of his aims, and his wholehearted devotion to his Master's service. I have been with him in many of his missions in England, Ireland, and Scotland, at times when no buildings could be found large enough to contain the crowds that thronged to hear him, when the secular and religious press were eager to report his meetings, and thousands were converted under his preaching. Yet he thought nothing of himself, gladly giving all the glory to God alone. In fact, anything approaching to flattery was very distasteful to him. On a certain occasion, when some 332 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 333 remarks of a complimentary nature were made to him by a well-known dignitary of the church, Moody's reply was, "Well, sir, I believe I am the most over-rated man in Great Britain to-day!" One never heard him speak of "my converts," or of numbers of conversions, for his object was the glory of God in the salvation of the perishing; and so he truly rejoiced when souls were brought to Christ, no matter who was the instrument used. In his preaching he did not allow any mere worldly considerations to influence him. I have heard him speak to some of the highest in the land, as well as to the poor; but even in the presence of royalty his message was the same as before any other audience, for he could say with truth, "I seek not yours, but you." And this singleness of purpose with his intense earnestness, compelled the attention of his hearers to the great truths of the Gospel. With his whole heart and soul, both by word and example, he sought to promote the spiritual prosperity of God's people. In the company of those like-minded with himself he was very happy and sociable; but I never knew him to, speak an unkind word of a fellow-Christian, or even allow anything of the kind in his presence. Wherever he traveled through the land he made many friends, but I never knew him to make a single enemy. Where differences or estrangements had come between Christians, I have known on several occasions how gladly he sought to be the peacemaker. When last in London he had the highest medical advice, and was warned by the doctors to be careful on account of his heart, but he still continued his great work with unabated vigor. Personally, he was a strict teetotaler and never lost an opportunity of advocating the temperance cause. In money matters he was most unselfish, and in his living very moderate, preferring the simple and plain food. He suffered 334 DWIGHT L. MOODY much from seasickness, and probably this (considering its effect on the heart) was one, of the reasons which kept him from visiting this country in recent years, though his interest in the work of God, and his affection for friends on this side of the Atlantic, never abated. In his home life he was a devoted and loving husband and father, as well as a dutiful son to the dear old mother who finished her earthly pilgrimage but a short time before her son. XXII. PERSONALITY OF MR. MOODY BY DR. JAMES BUCKLEY [Address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting held in Carnegie Hall, New York City.] to Bible WEwho understand the great Book passages, for strange go to, it GO the for sublime and those passages. The strangest memorial note in all literature is to be found in the Bible concerning a certain king who reigned in Israel eight years, and the epitaph composed for him is this: "And he departed without being desired." What a contrast between such a career and that which has called us here! Our friend died when he was most desired. Desired to maintain those wonderful Bible conferences. Desired as a nucleus of undenominational religious activity. Desired to sustain those educational institutions which he had founded. Desired to raise up more workers imbued with his spirit. Desired to dart to and fro through the country to awaken communities to snap the chains of conventionalism, to elicit and evoke the tremendous latent forces of the church, and to unite Christians in the only way in which they can ever be united, by a firm and unswerving belief in the fundamental principles of the Gospel he developed in active soul-saving consecrated labor. At this hour, a young man, he was called away. To attend a meeting of this sort sometimes produces singular effects. Persons are heated by the Scriptures and by their own rhetoric until at last you would think it a jubila335 336 DWIGHT L. MOODY tion, and from one great memorial meeting in this city a gentleman retired saying, "I was sad when I went there, but I do not know now that it makes any very great difference according to those speeches. God is going to take care of His own work." Now the fact is, the New Testament never teaches that we should not be sad. On the contrary, when Epaphroditus was sick St. Paul wrote to the Philippians and told them that Epaphroditus longed after them, because they had heard that he had been sick, and the Apostle said, "He was sick even unto death, but the Lord had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow." The real feeling is midway between jubilation and the sorrow of the world that worketh death. It is a great loss. To human eyes, it is a dreadful and in a certain aspect of the case, an irreparable loss. How are we going to prove that any man has the Spirit of God, any brother? Will oratorical preaching? Will pathetic preaching? Will persuasive preaching produce a demonstration that he has the Spirit? Is the power of discerning spirits left in the church? Have not some of the most famous evangelists the world ever saw fallen into the very depths of iniquity and sin? Did not the author of that wondrous hymn, "Come ye sinners, poor and needy," spend twelve years in a most dreadful depth of depravity, and go mourning all his days after he emerged from it? Have we not in our day absolutely known them to renounce the doctrines they held when they were most prosperous as. evangelists, and with brazen faces confess that in the midst of their greatest efforts for sinners they did not believe what they were supposed to believe? How shall a man prove that he has the Spirit of God? He must prove it by a long career, by a spotless reputation, by meeting men face to face as well as upon the rostrum, and the men that have slept with him and traveled with him and prayed with him and suffered in evil report THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 337 as well as in good report, these men must stand up and be able to declare in the face of Gold and in the presence of man that this man, all through this period,;lived as he professed, prayed as he professed, preached as he professed, denied himself as he professed, and then, if.God gives such a wondrous death to a man as this, we have all the evidence probable and conclusive that he was a man of God. But now, my dear brethren, you cannot undertake to show that D. L. Moody did just what any other man could do if he only had enolugh of the Spirit. Could God do as much by Peter in the same way that he could with Paul. What kind of a speech would Peter have made at Mars Hill to, the Epicureans and the Stoics? What kind of a speech would he have made there unless a miracle had been wrought? He would, perhaps unconsciously, unless a special miracle had been wrought, got himself into, very great difficulty. He did it as it was on other occasions, and he had not learned better until the very crucifixion, when he smote off an ear in his excess of ill-regulated zeal. The fact in the case is that God by nature endowed Mr. Moody in an astonishing manner. Now in regard to his mere body. There was a man in Connecticut and he loved and adored Mr. Moody and he invariably amused himself in this way. Sitting in the cars when Mr. Moody came in he would say to some one beside him, "Do you know him?" "No." "Well, that's Collis B. Huntington, the greatest railroad man in this country." And never did he hear one word of question from a man who never had seen Huntington. At other times he would suggest that it was a western judge, and in every case every man seemed to think it exactly right. They saw there a tremendous head, an immense chest; they saw a man obviously born to command. All this humility of Mr. Moody was before God. He never was humble in his dealings with Mr. Sankey, or with any man that he undertook to direct. If 338 DWIGHT L. MOODY ever there was a man self-confident under God it was D. L. Moody. Now this same man invariably told people afterward before they left him, for he was a Christian, "No, it isn't Mr. Huntington; it's Mooidy," and then curiosity was greatly - excited. D. L. Moody never reminded any other man of another man in the ordinary sense of the term. But, physically, a great many men reminded other men of Mr. Moody. That indefinable personality that won't show in a photograph, and can't be painted in oil, was in Mr. Moody, came up to me one and it went out of his eyes and head. He, day in a parlor car and struck me on the shoulder. Said he, "You look about as you did"-he mentioned so long a time it would not do,for me to repeat it. A man came up afterward and said, "Who was that?" "That's D. L. Moody," I replied. "I thought it was Henry Wilson," was his response, and there was a,great physical resemblance between the Vice-President and Mr. Moody. Then he had what you will seldom find in men inclined to corpulence, immense activity. Now he could improve, and that was one of his glories. Two hundred years from now the extreme higher critics will be trying to prove that there were two Moodys, and they will do it by getting up the language together, word after word and sentence after sentence, that Mr. Moody used when he began in Chicago. They will make a comparison of that with the highly improved style of later years. Some persons say that Mr. Moody was not a cultivated orator. Give that passage quoted by Drummond. Observe that when he described the ascension of Elijah, several distinguished parliamentarians rose up and looked into the air. Take -that sublime eulogy of Joseph of Arimathea. Not far from me in yonder box sat a bishop noted for sound judgment and scholarship. "That is a piece of work," said he, "as mere oratory that any man might be proud of." Take two scenes in Moody's life. When he was a young THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 339 man in Illinois the Irish Catholic boys broke his windows. He called on Bishop Dugan to induce him to stop the destruction. The Bishop said, "I am glad to see you. Your zeal is admirable, your motive is pure. I wish," said he, "you were only in Holy Church." 'I may be wrong,' said Moody, "but if I am, I want you to: pray for me that I may see light." "Well," said the Bishop, "I will." Moody fell on his knees on the spot. "Pray now," said he. "Life is short and I have a great deal to do." He fell on his knees, and the Bishop solemnly knelt and prayed for Mr. Moody. As soon as the Bishop said "Amen" Mr. Moody began and prayed for the Bishop, and besought God to open his eyes so that he, could see Christ without any intervening and eclipsing idols. The Bishop always spoke respectfully of him, and no more windows were broken. That was Moody then. Now take something a little later. Twenty years ago the gentleman who presides to-day sat on the platform in the Hippodrome. A very strange scene was taking place in the city of New York. We have read the Arabian Nights entertainments. We know that a certain Caliph used to go about in disguise, and marvelous are the extraordinary tales told of him, but at that time in New York behold an Emperor, an Emperor of a great territory which is to be in the future one of the greatest empires of the world, unless it becomes permanently republican. That Emperor was in New York going about as he had been in the Old World. I refer to Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil. He went upon the platform. He took the seat vacated by Mr. Dodge. He sat there. About two-thirds of the audience knew who he was. Mr. Moody was preaching then and there, and what did he do? Did he exhibit that peculiar and obsequious bow of many persons when a President appears, or even a Secretary of State? By no means. Mr. Moody never referred to Dom Pedro, but 340 DWIGHT L. MOODY he introduced into the midst of his. discourse these words: "What will you do with Jesus? An Emperor cannot buy heaven." And as he said that he paused, and Dom Pedro bowed his assent, and afterwards said to the gentleman who wrote the account which I have in my possession, "That is a man to be heard and believed." But Mr. Moody was a personality. That personality is now invisible. It will disappear. You and I will remember him, and those who,have seen him will remember him. But we belong to a vanishing generation. Who can go through Westminster Abbey without a guide book and know much about a great many there? Very few. The personality of Moody will be totally forgotten as the personality, to a large extent, of Jacob Knapp and of Charles Finney and a great many others. To the present generation they are but names. There is but one way to prevent the personality of Moody from entirely disappearing. It is by the perpetuation of God forthose schools and the maintenance of their spirit. bid that those schools should ever follow in the way of Harvard Divinity School. Harvard Divinity School was made to exalt the deity of Christ. Mr. Moody had his prejudices, but I heard him declare that he would fellowship with everybody that believed himself a sinner and trusted- in Christ, "but," said he, "God being my helper, I never will fellowship a man that denies the deity of my God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, or sneers at His atonement." And so this must be done. Now I close by thanking God for two things. There was a man who spent his life in traducing the Bible, in caricaturing the ministry, in making audiences as large as this laugh at our holy faith. That man boasted that he would have his stenographer with him when he died that none could misrepresent his last words. He had a painless death. He never had to meet the King of Terrors. No man whis- G. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 341 pered in his ear, "You are about to die. Now does your faith sustain you." He died and left the most deplorable scene of unconsolable grief that ,the world ever saw. Our Moody was told that he must die. He knew he was a young man. He was told he must die. What then? He would have been as good a man if he had died in delirium. He died a blessing to the church. God showed, I believe, in a peculiar way for the church and for him that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." But there is something worse in this world than agnosticism, something worse than blank infidelity; it is the practical effects of a faith that we cannot be sure of the future. Here are the words that I heard sung by sweeter voices than are often heard in the sanctuary, at a private entertainment, and at the close a young lady was heard to say, "Well, perhaps that's all there is of it." "We are no other than a moving iow "Of magic shadowy shades that come and go Round with the sun-illumined lantern held In midnight by the Master, so. But helpless pieces of the game He plays Upon this checkerboard of nights and days, Hither and thither, moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays. Yesterday this day's madness but prepare, To-morrow silence, triumph or despair. Drink, for you know not whence you came nor why! Drink, for you know not why you go nor where !" They were alive in Paul's day. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Ah, if that were so, I, too, would drink anything for oblivion, then, anything. But now, listen! Listen! Listen! "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; 342 DWIGHT L. MOODY yea, saith another voice, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them." Farewell, beloved brother. Farewell, stalwart friend. Farewell, all men's friend. We shall see thee at last, not in the flesh, for didst thou not thyself say, "My body to the dust, my soul to the God that gave it?" _r4 PROFESSOR D. B. TOWNER Professor of Hymnology in :Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, vi- z 0 glLA- ?;. V4 ./-af LT1 U) III 0 4 4- z 0 U 0 W XXIII. MOODY WAS A MODERN PROPHET BY BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU [Address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting held in Tremont Temple, Boston.] D WIGHT L. MOODY was a prophet of God. When one of the flaming chariots of the heavens sprang low on Friday noon, December 22, he stepped in and ascended to eternal glory. This century has produced very few men who could be considered his equals. He was familiarly known wherever the English language is spoken. The world owes Dwight L. Moody a debt of gratitude which it can never repay. The debt will continue to increase as the years multiply. Pre-eminently he was a benefactor of the men, especially the young men, of his generation. He possessed in a very unusual degree the qualities and characteristics that command the confidence and good will of all men, whether young or old. Some of them I will venture to mention, suggesting that in proportion as they are possessed by us will we have the best measures of influence and usefulness in our association with men. First of all, there was something about his nature as attractive and beautiful as the blue Connecticut winding through the level meadows of Northfield Valley, while at the same time there was something about him as rugged as the forest-clad hills where he was reared. He was a man who knew men and next he knew truth and God. Like Stephen of old, he was full of faith and the Holy Ghost. He utterly despised and hated shams of any and every kind and quality. 345 346 DWIGHT L. MOODY Life was a tremendous reality to him, and he was tremendously real. There was not the slightest trace of modern optimism about his thought, speech or methods. He was a broad-gauged, noble, natural, whole-souled man. He never affected to know more than he really knew, but what he did know he knew most positively and without a shadow of doubt. He never affected to be more than he really was. He was perfectly sincere. He lived in the very light of noonday with all the windows of his soul wide open to the universe. He was glad to learn. He would sit at the feet of any teacher who had superior knowledge, but he had his own views and convictions in regard to all questions of doctrine and experience, and these were based upon conclusions reached by the most comprehensive and careful study of the Holy Bible. He never sought for worldly gain or emolument, never sought. for the good will or praise of his fellow men by surrendering his inborn convictions of truth and duty. If he had lived in the time of Cromwell, he would have marched beside that grandest of all Englishmen, the unconquerable Ironsides. He was completely fearless. It is doubtful if he really knew the meaning of the word fear as applied to men and things. If he had been in Luther's place he would have thrown the inkstand with a more steady and vigorous hand than did Luther, and most likely he would have grappled with Satan and thrown him out of the narrow window. Truthful to the last degree, no man ever doubted his word. His conscience quick and tender, well trained and properly balanced, and thoroughly informed and inspired by his extraordinary knowledge of the enjoyable and unquestionable word of God, he was constant and steadfast in all the work and duties of public and private life. Not humorous, he possessed a fine, genuine humor, but he was never light and trifling, never frivolous. He lived too near to God and his THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 347 fellowship with Jesus was too intimate to admit of frivolity. In him we realize the answer to the prayer: Lord, give us men, strong and stalwart men, Men who trample self beneath them, Men who make their country love them. Men who never shame their mothers, Men who never fail their brothers. Men who tread where saints have trod, Men for country, home and God, Lord, give us men. Then, to crown all, his close touch with the poor and lowly, whose lives and struggles he knew so well. His personal comprehension of infinite compassoin and the love of God for humanity wrought upon his entire being. Sympathy for all men apparently obliterated all traces of selfishness and unworthy ambition, so that he lived and died for others. Thus constituted, it is not strange that he had a wonderful influence over men, and especially over young men. In view of his deep faith in God he succeeded in opposing the obstacles and discouragements thrown in his way by shortsighted but well-meaning friends. How ashamed and humbled before God we preachers ought to be that we have been and are so unlike our departed brother. How manifest it is that our unlikeness to him explains the fact that men, young or old, do not throng the sanctuaries where we minister. During his public career it is estimated that his congregations would aggregate Ioo millions of people. Of this vast multitude at least twenty-five millions were young men. Unnumbered thousands were made better, while scores of thousands were turned from sin to righteousness and brought into the fold of the Good Shepherd. Incidentally it may be said emphatically and truthfully that no man living or dead has done as much as he to establish far and near on firm foundations and to promote the life and development of 348 DWIGHT L. MOODY the Young Men's Christian Associations. Magnificent man! Faithful Christian! Peerless evangelist of the nineteenth century! He has left us. His feet will never again press the platform. Earthly walls will never again resound with his lhrilling, pleading voice. His prayers will never again bring us near the mercy seat except as we remember them. His work is done, though his influence will abide through all time. Our upward loving gaze follows him, as earth recedes and heaven opens until we see him. pass the gate of pearl. He walks the streets of gold, he wears his crown in Paradise. If we may not equal him in his high achievements, may God grant that at least the shadow of his mantle falling may rest upon us and our souls be moved to clearer consecration, holier ambitions and more faithful, heroic and unselfish service and sacrifice than we have ever known in all the past! XXIV. THE STORY OF THE SCOTTISH CAMPAIGN ONE BY LORD'OVERTOUN, OF GLASGOW, SCOTLAND day in 1873 I met Rev. Dr. Andrew Bonar in the street. We talked together of the daily prayer meeting then being held in Glasgow, and Dr. Bonar said: "I do not suppose it will get fresh life until Mr. Moody comes." This was the first time I had heard the name of our honored friend, and I then learned of the beginning of his work in England; but I little thought that God was sending us a man who was to be the means of untold blessing to our country. To know Mr. Moody was to love him, and to have known him intimately and worked with him, is a treasured memory and inspiration to everyone who had this privilege. I had the happiness of being in his inner circle, and working with him on each of his three visits to Scotland. During his first visit I was a member of his committee, and in his later visits, chairman. While I had the pleasure of working with him in London and Liverpool and many parts of Scotland, I, of course, had most to do with his Glasgow campaign, and the hallowed associations of those times of blessing can never be forgotten. The Scottish campaign of Messrs. Moody and Sankey began in Edinburgh, where, in the winter of 1873-74, their meetings were very widely blessed; a deep and genuine work of grace resulted, and the churches received much blessing. The notable movement in Edinburgh awoke the country, and, in many instances, a work of grace had begun before the evangelists reached the district. The Evangelical 'ministers throughout the country threw themselves into the 349 350 DWIGHT L. MOODY work, and the churches all over the land received fresh impulse and life. Mr. Moody's work, especially in Scotland, has made preaching and praying much more direct, and has led thousands to, love and study the Bible as they never did before. It has led the churches to fresh and successful effort in aggressive work, and has thus done much to bring them together by united service in the great harvest-field, where earnest laborers lose sight. of their minor differences in view of the mighty link which makes all one in Christ Jesus. Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey arrived in Glasgow in the spring of 1874, and very soon the expected blessing came. The Evangelistic Committee then formed from all denominations of the Christian Church, arranged the campaign, and for twenty-five years has continued it; so that now, as the Glasgow United Evangelistic Association, we are celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Mr. Moody's visit by a Gospel campaign on a larger scale than ever before attempted. Mr. Moody, in response to our invitation, greatly desired to come over and help us, but -family bereavements and impaired strength-the result of his manifold labors-rendered his coming impossible; and now, while we are in the middle of the campaign here, the sad tidings reach us that the loved friend to whom we all owe so much has been called to his rest and reward. Few have ever laid more golden sheaves at the Master's feet, and few ever received such a welcome in the "heavenly land" of which he so often spoke. Space will not allow me to give in detail what I could tell of our honored friend's character and work, nor the many instances that come to mind of what I saw and heard during these times of blessing. Mr. Moody was a born leader of men, and had the talent of discerning character in a wonderful way; as when, for instance, he selected James Scott, a young divinity student, to be secretary of the committee when he THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 351 left, and everyone knows how splendidly James Scott justified his choice. Mr. Moody's wonderful power of preaching and organizing were consecrated to the service of Christ and the winning of souls. Brought up among Unitarians, he early gave up their doctrines, and during all his life most eloquently pleaded the essential truths that circle round the Divine Savior and his great atonement for the sins of men. Of course, such preaching and work as Mr. Moody's, which made great inroads on the kingdom of darkness, could not fail to rouse strong opposition in many quarters, and many, both in the churches and outside of them, objected to the singing and the preaching of the Gospel. But God set his seal unmistakably on Mr. Sankey's singing and Mr. Moody's preaching, and to-day thousands, both in heaven and on earth, bless God for sending his honored servants to our islands. As of old, people said that it could not really do good to men to tell them that they would be saved by simply believing in Jesus, and that the doctrine of immediate salvation by faith in Christ was a dangerous one; but the quarrel of these objectors lay, not with Mr. Moody, but with all who preach the Gospel, for this doctrine of justification by faith inspired Luther to shake Europe, and is the theme of every evangelistic preacher, and the teaching of the inspired Word of God. XXV. "ONE OF THE SEVENTY" BY DR. WILTON MERLE SMITH [An address delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting in Carnegie Hall, New York City.] Nearly I CALL him Master the seventy.words thatfifty years ago he heard the one of say those were said when He sent out the seventy lay workers: "The harvest is great and the laborers are few," and there found lodgment that day in his heart that sweet thought of his whole life which broke into such beautiful expression at his death: "God is calling me." And his whole life was an anthem, "God is calling me. Here am I, O Lord, send me." He lifted the work of the Seventy up on an Apostolic plane, and he made the consecrated platfrom which he occupied to have more force and po'wer for Jesus Christ than-the pulpit of any land, and, best of all, he held up before you laymen in the churches the grand possibility of an heroically consecrated life. More than that, he was a hard driven man, hard driven of God. Our little inspirations seem to fade away before the giant movings that were hurling forward this servant of God. We read that Stephen was filled with the Holy Ghost, and we know, as the Scripture tells us, that he was irresistible, for none could gainsay him as he argued in those synagogues of Jerusalem, and we learn the lesson when we study the Book of the Acts that the man who is filled with the Holy Ghost is ever driven hard of God. Martin Luther was irresistible at the Diet of Worms. He came against all the ramparts and bulwarks of a corrupt church, and the ramparts and bulwarks 352 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 353 and defences of the church went crashing down before the might of the man filled and driven hard of God. But this man, our friend, I believe was as mightily driven as any man that this world has seen, and we have reason to thank,God for the illustration of the possibility of a God driven life which D. L. Moody held ever before the church. XXVI. STORY OF MR. MOODY'S BURIAL BY IRA D. SANKEY [An Address Delivered at a Moody Memorial Meeting, Held in Carnegie Hall, New York City.] W E WENT to Northfield to bury our beloved friend and brother. We arrived in the evening before the day appointed and as we went into the hotel, the Northfield, that he had built for the accommodation of his friends during the convention, it was opened for us and was filled with his friends, but that evening was one of the saddest evenings that I ever spent in yonder village. , We gathered in little groups about the hotel, in the parlors and the dining room, and we talked of him who had been our joy in days gone by, and every now and then we would look toward the door of the hotel almost expecting to see him rushing through the door and giving some command for us to do something, for he always used to be up and doing, and then as the silent night fell.and we waited for the morning, we were anxious for that day, wondering if the storm would break. But the sky even smiled upon us and upon the day-no fairer day ever broke upon those beautiful hills than the day that we buried our loved one. We went down early in the morning to the home, and as I went into the house I sought his beloved partner. And let me say right here, amid all that has been said about what has made Mr. Moody so great a man, I want to bear testimony to-day that one of the greatest powers in Moody's life was the beloved partner that God gave him yonder in the work 354 THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 355 in Chicago long years ago. She has been at his side as it were a brake upon this impetuous man, and held him back and guarded him all the way through these years, and honor is due to Mrs. Moody more than to any living person to-day for the success of the man, D. L. Moody. I walked into the chamber of death and looked upon his splendid form as he lay there, as it were, just sleeping. I could hardly believe that my friend was gone, he looked so natural. There was some color yet in his cheek. His eyes were closed, but I said, "He looks as if he were only sleeping." It was the long sleep of death. I said, "Why, I have seen him a thousand times like that after a long weary day of labor come into the hotel where we were stopping and throw himself down upon a lounge and fall asleep in a moment." It was wonderful how he could go to sleep. It was wonderful how he could recuperate by going to sleep for that few minutes, and then be up and away again with all the life and animation that he had in the morning. And so we stood beside him and I said in parting, "Good-bye, dear Moody, we will meet you in the morning." We carried his body through the streets of the village. We followed him to the little church, and there he lay in state for a few hours so that the neighbors and friends might see him. And they came in, the farmer, the farmer's wife, and the children, and they came and looked at the noble man as he lay yonder, and I was very much touched as one poor old man, bowed down on his staff, and came and stood beside this man of God, and he said, as he turned away with a tear, "Oh, he was my friend, but he was a friend of everybody." True. he was. He was a friend of everybody in Northfield. The Catholics as well as the Protestants believed in D. L. Moody and loved him, and they helped bear his mother away to the tomb. You could tell whether the people of the village loved him, and the members of the Catholic church 356 DWIGHT L. MOODY asked the honor and privilege of being the bearers of that precious body, but it was the students, the boys whom he was trying to educate to make good men, that carried him to the church and laid him there; and then in the afternoon, after all the addresses had been made, we started again through the cold, frozen street, and up past the very door where his mother had lived, and where he was born. Passing within a few feet of that door, we bore him on to beautiful Round Top, and just as the shadows were lengthening across the valley of the Connecticut, we bore him to the grave, and while we lowered his body down, some one struck up that beautiful old hymn he loved so well, "Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly." And with one single verse he was laid away until we shall meet him in the resurrection. PART III. MOODY'S EULOGY OF THE BIBLE. $ki's rook wit keep ®r sin will keep you you from fron thtis ere searcth, anb great st~aIItbe yin, Book, gour store; fhere brink, anb you sl~alltthirst no more. PART III. MOODY'S DRAMATIC VERSION OF FAMOUS BIBLE STORIES [These stories were originally delivered in London, England, to audiences of tens of thousands that were swayed like moving grain by their dramatic power. readers.] We have revised and edited them for American THE STORY OF BARABBAS I HAVE often thought what a night Barabbas must have spent just before the day when Christ was crucified. As the sun goes down, he says to himself: "To-morrow! -only to-morrow! And I must die on the cross. They will hang me up before a crowd of people; they will drive nails through my hands and feet; they will break my legs with bars of iron; and in that awful torture I shall die before this time to-morrow, and go up to the judgment with all my crimes upon me." Maybe, they let his mother come to see him once more before dark. Perhaps he had a wife and children, and they came to see him for the last time. He couldn't sleep at all that night. He could hear somebody hammering in the prison-yard, and knew they must be making the cross. He would start up every now and then, thinking he heard the footsteps of the officers coming for him. At last the light of the morning looks in through the bars of his prison. "To-day-this very day-they will open that door and lead me away to be crucified !" 359 360 DWIGHT L. MOODY, Pretty soon he hears them coming. No mistake this time. They are unbarring the iron door. He hears them turning the key in the rusty lock. The door swings open; there are the soldiers. Good-bye to life and hope! Death, horrible death now-and, after death, what will there be then ? The officer of the guard speaks to him :-"Barabbas, you are free!" He hears the strange words, but they make very little impression on him. He is so near dead with fear and horror, that the good news doesn't reach him. He hears it; but thinks it is a foolish fancy. He is asleep and dreaming. He stands gazing a moment at the soldiers, and then he comes to himself. "Don't laugh at me! don't make sport of me! Take me away and crucify me; but don't tear my soul to pieces !" Again the officer speaks: "You are free! Here-the door is open: go out; go home." Now he begins to take in the truth; but it is so wonderful a thing to get out of the clutches of the Roman law, that he is afraid to believe the good news. And so he begins to, doubt, and to ask how it can be. They tell him that Pilate has promised the Jews the release of one prisoner that day; and that the Jews have chosen him instead of one Jesus of Nazareth, who was condemned to be crucified. Now the poor man begins to weep. This breaks his heart. He knows this Jesus. He has seen Him do some of His miracles. He was in the crowd picking pockets when Jesus fed the five thousand hungry people. "What! that just man to die-and I, a thief, a highwayman, a murderer, to go free!" And in the midst of his joy at his own release, his heart breaks at the thought that his life is saved at such a cost. ,Z4.Y^' 4r f 11 CS U U 4, 2 Wi H k yj 0 H H Ni w- s. R THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 363 Sinner, that is the Gospel. Christ died for you, "the just for the unjust." "He was bruised for our iniquities, and by His stripes we are healed." Come out of your prison; throw off the chains of sin. You were justly condemned, but Jesus died for you. Let your heart break in penitence; weep tears of love and joy. THE STORY OF ELIJAH AND THE PRIESTS OF BAAL L for a few minutes. us go to had forsaken the God of Israel, and all the ET King AhabCarmel court people and "upper ten" had followed his example. But there was an old prophet out in the mountains, to whom God said: "Go to Ahab, and tell him the heavens shall be shut up and there shall be no rain." Away he goes to the wicked king. He bursts in upon him like a clap of thunder, gives his message, and hurries away. I suppose Ahab laughed at the old prophet. "What! no more rain? Why, the fellow must be crazy !" Pretty soon the weather gets very dry. The earth is parched, and begins to crack open. The rivers have but little water in them, and the brooks dry up altogether. The trees die; all the grass perishes, and the cattle die, too. Famine; starvation; death! If rain doesn't come pretty soon, there won't be a live man or woman left in all the kingdom. One day the king was talking with the prophet Obadiah. You see he did have one good man near him, along wvith all the prophets of the false god. Almost anybody likes to have one good man within reach, even if he is ever so bad. He may be wanted in a hurry some time. 364 DWIGHT L. MOODY "See here, Obadiah," says King Ahab; "you go one way, and I'll go another, and we'll see if we can't find some water somewhere." Obadiah hadn't got a great way before Elijah bursts out upon him. "Oh, Elijah! is that you? Ahab has been hunting for you everywhere, and couldn't find you. He has sent off into all the kingdoms about, to have them fetch you if you were there." "Yes; I'm here," says Elijah. "You go and tell Ahab I want to see him." "I dare not do that," says Obadiah; "for just as soon as I tell him you are here, the Spirit will catch you away and take you off somewhere else; and then the king will be very angry, and maybe he'll kill me." "No," says Elijah. "As the Lord liveth, I will meet Ahab face to face this day." So Obadiah hurries off to find Ahab, and tells hin he has seen the prophet. "What! Elijah ?" "Yes." "Why didn't you bring him along ?" "He wouldn't come. He says he wants you to come to him." Ahab wasn't used to have people talk that way to him; but he was anxious to see the prophet, so he went. And when he sees him he is very angry, and cries, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel ?" "Not at all," says Elijah. "You are the man that is troubling Israel-going off after Baal, and leading ever so many of the people with you. Now, we have had enough of this sort of thing. Some people are praying to God, and some are praying to Baal, and we must have this question settled. You just bring all your prophets and all the priests of Baal THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 365 up to Mount Carmel, and I also will come. We will make us each an altar, and offer sacrifice on it; and the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God." "Agreed," says Ahab; and off he goes to tell his priests and get ready for the trial. I fancy that was a great day when that question was decided. All the places of business were closed, and everybody was going up to Mount Carmel. There must have been more people on Mount Carmel than there are to-day at the races.* A better class of people, too! There were eight hundred and fifty of the prophets and priests of Baal altogether. I fancy I can see them going up in a grand procession, with the king in his chariot at their head. "Fine-looking men, ain't they ?" says one man to another as they go by. "They'll be able to do great things up there on the mountain." But there Elijah marched, all alone: a rough man, clad in the skins of beasts, with a staff in his hand. No banners, no procession, no great men-in his train! But the man who could hold the keys cf heaven for three years and six months was not afraid to be alone. Now says Elijah to the people, "How long halt ye between two opinions? Let the priests of Baal build them an altar and offer sacrifice, but put no fire under; and I will do the same: and the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God." So the. priests of Baal built their altar. I am sure if God hadn't held him back, Satan would have brought up a little spark out of hell to set that sacrifice on fire. But God wouldn't let him. Then they begin to pray: Oh Baal, hear us! Oh Baal, hear us!" * This was given on Derby Day, at the Opera House, Haymarket, London. 366 DWIGHT L. MOODY Elijah might have said, "Why haven't you prayed to Baal for water this dry weather? You might just as well have asked him for water as for fire." After a long time they begin to get hoarse. "You must pray louder than that, if you expect Baal to hear you," says the old prophet. "Maybe he is asleep: pray louder, so as to wake him up." Poor fellows! they haven't any voice left; so they begin to pray in blood. They cut themselves with knives, and lift their streaming hands and arms to Baal. But no fire comes down. It is getting towards sundown. The prophet of the Lord builds an altar. Mind; he doesn't have anything to do with the altar of Baal, but builds an entirely different one, on the ruins of the altar of the Lord which had been broken down. "We won't have anybody saying there is any trick about this thing," says the prophet. So they, bring twelve barrels of water and pour over the altar. I don't know how they managed to get so much water, but they did it. Then Elijah prays: "Oh God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel." He didn't have to pray very loud. God heard him at once, and-down came the fire!! It burnt up the sacrifice, burnt up the wood, burnt up the water, and burnt up the very stones of the altar. Jehovah is God: nobody can halt any longer. Ah! but some of you say, "I too would have decided for God if I had been on Mount Carmel that day." My friends, Calvary is a great deal more wonderful than Carmel. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is more wonderful than the sacrifice which was burned on that altar. Decide for Christ now, with Calvary in sight. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 367 THE STORY OF THE ADVENTURES OF DANIEL WHEN we come to the life of such a man as Daniel, the first thing we ask is: What was the secret of his success? Well, my friends, I'll tell you what I think was the secret of this man's success;-He knew his God. A great many professing Christians never get on intimate terms with their God, and so they never amount to much. But Daniel, from his boyhood, knew and trusted in the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and that was what put such courage into him. There is another very important thing about Daniel: he was able to say no! at the right time. I tell you, my friends, it would be a great thing for our young men to be able to say No! when the devil comes up to them and begins to coax them away from the God of their father and mother. We don't know just how old he was when we hear of him first: probably about seventeen. The king Nebuchadnezzar had given orders to take some of the best and brightest boys among the Hebrew captives and bring them UP among his wise men. They were to be taught the language and the learning of the Chaldeans, and to be fed with meat and wine from the king's table. "But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank." There was something in the law of his God forbidding him to eat meat or drink wine which had been offered to idols; and Daniel knew that the king's meat and the king's wine had been offered to idols, so he determined not to touch it. If he had been like a good many of our modern Christians, he would have said something like this: "Well, it can't be helped. I don't like to defile myself this way; the law of God 368 DWIGHT L. MOODY forbids it; and if I were only home in Jerusalem I never would do it in the world. But I really don't see how we are going to help it. We are slaves. Besides, it is the king's special order; and if he should hear of our disobedience, our heads would come off in no time. Really, we can't be expected to run such a risk as that." That's it: the devil told him to do in Babylon as the people of Babylon do. But Daniel had the courage to stand up to the law of his God, and say no! There Consequences? Never mind the consequences. wasn't any such word in his dictionary when it came to obeying the law of his God. He was bound to do it, let the consequences be what they might. So when the servant who had charge of them came to bring them their dinner, Daniel and his three young friends told him they couldn't eat that meat and drink that wine, because it was against the law of their God. Look at that! Daniel doesn't try to dodge the question at all; he gives the true reason right out at once. "But," says he, "it won't do at all. If you don't eat it, the king will find it out. He'll see you some time looking lean and thin, and he'll ask what the matter is, and then I shall lose my head as well as you." "Just try us for ten days," says Daniel. "Give us pulse to eat and water to drink, and see how we get along on it." So the servant tried them on the pulse and water, and at the end of ten days they were the fattest and best looking of the whole crowd. Some people think wine makes them look better, and that they can't get along without it. Look at their red noses and bloated faces! The next we hear of him is about two years after. I seem to see the officer coming in and laying his hand on Daniel's shoulder, and arresting him in the king's name, THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 369 "What's the matter ?" says Daniel. "Why, haven't you heard ?" says the officer. "The king had a dream last night, and when he woke up he couldn't remettiber it; so he called all his wise men together, and asked them to tell him his dream, and then interpret it for him. Nobody could tell it. The king was so angry that he commanded that all the wise men should be put to death. You belong to that school; so you will have to die." "It seems to me the king is rather hasty," says Danielcool and calm as a summer morning. "Just let him give us a little time, and I'll show him his dream and the interpretation also." He knew his God and trusted in Him. All secrets belong to God. That night Daniel and his three friends had a little prayermeeting together. I have no doubt they read the story of Joseph; how the dreams of old Pharaoh were revealed to him; and how he came to be a great man in Egypt afterwards. And then they went to sleep. I don't think many of you would have gone to sleep with such danger as that hanging over your heads. But Daniel slept; and in his sleep the king's dream was revealed to him. The next morning there was a great stir all about the palace. It had got out that a young Hebrew captive was going to tell the king his dream, and save the lives of all the wise men of Babylon; and everybody was anxious to, know all about it. I can see the young man brought into the presence of the mighty monarch. He stands there without the slightest fear. His God, in whom he trusted, has made him master of the situation. The king looks at him, and says, "Young man, can you tell me my dream and the interpretation of it ?" "My God can!" answers Daniel; and he begins. "In your dream, O king, you saw an image " 370 DWIGHT L. MOODY "That's it!" says Nebuchadnezzar, his face lighting up all at once; "you've got it! I remember it all now." "Yes," says Daniel; "my God revealed it to me last night in a dream." You see he doesn't take any credit to himself for it, but gives the glory to his God. "The head of this great image was gold, his breast and his arms were silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, and his feet part of iron and part of clay. And then, O king, you saw a stone cut out without hands, which struck the image upon its feet, and crushed it to pieces till it became like the dust of the summer threshing-floor." "That's all right," says the king. "Now can you tell me the interpretation of it ?" Now I imagine some of you would have tried to soften down the interpretation a little. It was a pretty hard thing for Daniel to, stand up there before that great monarch, and tell him his kingdom was to be like the dust of a summer threshing-floor, but he did it. "Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to, thee; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. Afterwards it shall be divided, and become part strong and part weak. And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; it shall break in pieces and destroy all those kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." The king was greatly pleased with Daniel, and made a great man of him; and, for his sake, put his three friends into office. You see Daniel didn't forget his friends when he got into a good place himself. Well: not long after that-maybe it was the dream that put it into his head-Nebuchadnezzar made a great image, and set it up in the plains of Dura. It was about ninety feet high and about nine feet wide. Some people say it was made THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 371 of solid gold. I rather think the king intended that image to represent himself. He was goling to, have a universal religion, and he was going to be the head of it, there are some such people now-a-days,-and so he gave orders to have all the nobility and great officers of his kingdom brought together to worship the golden image which he had set up. I don't know where Daniel was at this time. Perhaps he was away in some other part of the kingdom on business; but his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, were there to represent him. Their enemies were there too. A faithful servant of God is sure to have enemies, watching for a chance to get him out of the way. It was a great day when the image was unveiled. I seem to see it flashing in the sunlight; the vast throng of worshippers standing around it; and the king, at the head of a splendid procession of his lords and ladies, coming across the plain with banners flying and music playing: really, it must have been a trying time for those three men, who were so much out of fashion as not to, bow down to the great idol when everybody else was doing it. But the law of their God and the law of the king were in conflict. The king said, Bow down! God said, No!--and it didn't take them a minute to decide what to do. Some people would have said, "There's no great harm in bowing with all the rest; but then you needn't worship, you know: just bend your knees a little, but don't say any prayers to the idol." Not a bit of it. These men were not going to compromise their consciences; and their enemies knew it very well. The hour has arrived; everything is ready; the king makes a sign with his hand, and the cornets and sackbuts, and all the other instruments, give a great blast, and the whole multitude fall down on their faces before the great image which Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. No; not all! There are three 372 DWIGHT L. MOODY pairs of stiff knees in that kingdom-three men who will not bow to the false god. Their enemies have taken care to put them in the front rank, near to themselves, where they can watch them, and so find occasion to accuse them to the king. I seem to see these fellows looking out of the corners of their eyes, when, by the king's command, they ought to have been worshipping the idol; and I hear them saying to themselves, "Aha! we have got you now !" and so they go to tell the king. "0 king! live for ever. Do you know that there are three men in your kingdom who will not obey you ?" "No: who are they?" "Three of those Hdbrew captives: they don't bow down along with the rest of us; and we thought you would like to know it." "Bring them to me," says the king, in a great rage; "I will see whether these fellows are going to disobey my orders like this." It is quite likely he would have ordered their heads to be taken off at once, if he had not remembered that they were particular friends of Daniel. Now they stand face to face with the great king. "What is this I hear of you ?" says Nebuchadnezzar. "They say you disobey my orders, and do not bow down and worship my golden image. Now, I will try you once more; and then, if you don't bow down; into the furnace you go." We do not know who the speaker was on that occasion; perhaps it was Shadrach. He stands there with his two friends, looking calmly at the king, and thinking of the fiery furnace without trembling in the least, or feeling the slightest fear. And this is what he says,"We are not careful to, answer thee in this matter, O king. The God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 373 fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But whether He deliver us or not, we will not bow down." "Who is this God of yours, that is able to deliver you out of my hands ?" says the king, in a towering rage. "Go and heat that furnace seven times hotter than ever, and take these fellows up, and thrust them into it. Be quick about it. I will not have such rebels in my kingdom." So,some of the king's servants hurry away to the furnace to stir up the fire, and others seize Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and take them, away; and when the furnace doors are opened, they come near to cast them into the fire,-which is so hot that it burns the servants to death, but does not harm the men who are cast down headlong into it. Then the king goes and looks into the furnace; and what is his astonishment at seeing four men, instead of three, walking in the midst of the fire, as safely as if they were in the king's garden! "Did I not tell you to cast in three men?-and lo! I see four walking about in the fire; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." The Lord Himself was with His three faithful servants. The great Palestine Shepherd looked down from heaven, and saw those three sheep of His flock about to be cast into the fire: and He made haste, and came down Himself, to see that they suffered no harm. Ah! Jesus is always with His people. Though they pass through water, they shall not be drowned; though they pass through the fire, they shall not be burned. The fire burned off only the devil's bands: it did not singe a hair of their heads. Does not Christ say that the hairs of our heads are all numbered? There is wonderful care and love in that. Did you ever know a mother who loved her little child so well that she would count the hairs on its curly head? But the Lord loves His children so well that He counts their hairs -every one; and not one of them comes to any harm, so long 374 DWIGHT L. MOODY.- as His child is faithful to, Him. There was not even the smell of fire upon their garments; and the king's counsellors, and princes, and governors, and captains, and all together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power. My friends, let us remember that it is always safe to do what God wants us to do. If our way to heaven leads through fire and water, it is all the same: it is all right. That is the proper way for us to go. And now King Nebuchadnezzar orders these men to come out; and he restored them to their places again. He has found out who was the God that was able to deliver His servants out of the hands of the king; and I am quite sure that, from this time, neither the king nor anybody else in Babylon ventured to say anything against those men, or against the God whom they worshipped, and who had delivered them out of the fiery furnace. 'The king himself makes a decree, "that every people, nation, and language, which shall speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort." So the king promoted these men; and, instead of being burned to death in the furnace,theycame to be morehonorablethan ever. The next thing that we hear of the king is, that he has had another dream. He seems to have been a great man for dreams. This time he saw -a great tree which "reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth; . . . and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven, and cried aloud: 'Hew downthis tree, and cut down his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from its branches. Nevertheless, leave the stump of his roots in the earth . .. Let his heart be changed from man's and let a beast's heart be given unto him, and let seven times pass over him: to the THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 375 intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will.' " The king seems to,have been as much puzzled by this dream as by the other; and nobody could tell him what it meant, until he sent for Daniel. Even he was troubled about it at first; but presently the Lord showed it to him; and then he preached such a sermon to the king about his pride, and the necessity of repentance, that the king's face turned pale, and his knees began to shake, and it was not long before he lost his reason, and wandered away from his palace, out into the woods and the deserts, and became more like a beast than a man. But at last the Lord had mercy on him. His counsellors and princes gathered about him again, and brought him back to his palace. But the king's heart was softened. I think he became truly converted to God; and from this time we don't hear him saying any more: "Is not this great Babylon that I have builded ?" But we hear him blessing the Most High, and praising and honoring Him, whose dominion is everlasting, and whose kingdom is from generation to generation. And now the king makes one more proclamation, different from all the others. Up to this time he has been telling other people what to do; now he begins to speak of his own duty, and he says, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, will do this-I will do that." "I will praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, all of whose works are truth." He has found out his own duty. His heart is softened; and although we do not hear anything more of him, I have no doubt that Daniel and he used to, walk the streets of Babylon, arm-in-arm, and talk over their experiences together; and when the king died, I feel quite sure that he went safely to heaven, to be welcomed by the God of Daniel; and through the long eternity King Nebuchadnezzar will rejoice that that young man, Daniel, took his stand for God when he came down to Babylon, and did not follow the fashion of that wicked capital, though it might have cost him his life. 376 DWIGHT L. MOODY, The next thing we hear of Babylon is, that the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, a wild young prince, called Belshazzar, has come to the throne. On a certain occasion he makes a great feast to a thousand of his lords. They come together in a great banquet-chamber, and they drink and carouse all night long. They do not care for the armies of Cyrus, which are besieging the city. They trust in its high walls and its gates of brass, and feel themselves perfectly safe. At last, when the head of the young king has been quite turned with wine, he orders the golden vessels, which his grandfather captured from God's temple at Jerusalem, to be brought into the banquet-hall, that they may drink wine out of them in honor of the gods of Babylon. But while they are doing this impious thing, behold; a hand appears, writing with its fingers upon the wallthe doom of the kingdom of Babylon. Drunk as he is, the miserable king is frightened. "Bring in the wise men," says he. And the wise men come in haste, and stare at the writing, but not one of them is able to read or understand it. No uncircumcised eye can read God's handwriting. Somehow or other, the news of this strange affair reaches the ears of the king's mother; and she sends a servant to him, telling him that, in the days of his grandfather, there was a man in Babylon who could interpret dreams, and reveal secrets, and do all manner of strange things, and maybe he would be able to read the writing. It seems that Daniel had been lost sight of for the last fifteen years; but now there is special work for him to do; and so they find him out, and bring him in and ask him to read the writing. "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin": and the meaning of it was clear as daylight to him. Now I have no doubt that a good many courtiers, if they had seen such writing as that upon the wall of the king's palace, would have softened the meaning of it a little, and not THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 377 have given it in its full strength, for fear of offending the king. But that was not Daniel's fashion at all. He reads it justas God writes it. "Mene: God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Tekel: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. Peres: Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and the Persians." Ah! poor miserable Belshazzar! Even now the soldiers of Cyrus have turned away the waters of the Euphrates, and are coming into the city along the empty banks. The soldiers are battering away at the doors of your palace, and before morning your blood shall be spilled upon the stones, along with the wine which you have been drinking, out of the vessels from God's holy temple at Jerusalem. You. are weighed in God's balance, and found wanting. After a while, Darius, the Mede, comes to the throne of Babylon. He must have met Daniel somewhere in his travels, for no sooner does he set up the kingdom than he puts him into, a place of great power. He chooses a hundred and twenty princes, whom he places over the kingdom; and over these princes he appoints three presidents, and he makes Daniel the president of the presidents: so that he really is the first man in the kingdom, after the king. His business was to "see that the king suffered no damage"; that is, he was to keep watch of the accounts, to see that nobody cheated the king. This must have been a very difficult place, and Daniel must have had his hands full. He had to watch those hundred and twenty rascals, who were all the while trying to steal something off the revenue; and to go over their accounts again and again, so as to be certain that they were correct to a penny. It was not long before Daniel became very unpopular with the princes. I seem to hear them talking amongst themselves in this way:"There is that miserable old Jew, Daniel: if we only had him out of the way, we could make no end of money. We would 378 DWIGHT L. MOODY very speedily be rich; we would have our country houses and our city houses, and our fine horses and chariots, and we would live in the very highest style, off the revenues of this kingdom; but that old fellow watches us as narrowly as a cat watches a mouse. We can't cheat him-even to a shilling." "Why," says one, "I never saw such a man in all my life. I gave in an account the other day that was only a few pounds short; and did not he send it back to me, and make me pay the difference ? I wish he were back in Jerusalem, where be came from." However, the king trusted Daniel; and he was such a thoroughly good and honest man that they really could find no way- to revenge themselves upon him. They talked it over together again and again, and all agreed that there was no, chance of getting him out of the.way, unless they could find something in his religion by which they could bring him into trouble. "We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God." What an honor ! Nothing wrong with him-even in the eyes of these bad men-except that he was too faithful to his God! How many of you are likely to be complained of on that account? Finally, they hit upon a plan which they thought might possibly succeed. One night they are closeted together in secret; and one of the princes says to the rest: "I think I have got a plan that will work. You know King Darius is very popular, and he is very proud of it. The people praise him a great deal, and he likes it. Now suppose we ask him to establish a royal decree, 'that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of the king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.' That will be putting the king in the place of the gods, and he is most likely to be flattered by that of anything I can think of: then, if once we can get that old Hebrew into the lions' den, we shall make a good deal more ___ILl__i_____________ f I e:t ~i ,r THE CRUCIFIXION Showing the penitent thief on the left. I F11 A- i;;-*--; r t I ' uai iU) BARABBAS PASSING OUT FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 381 money than we have been abl'e to do with him watching us all the time." This notion seemed to please the princes very well. They drew up the document immediately. It would not do to let Daniel hear of it, before the king should sign it; and so they appointed a committee to take the decree down to the palace the very first thing in the morning. There were some lawyers among these hundred and twenty princes; and I seem to see them drawing out the law with great care, making it firm and binding-laughing to themselves, and saying: "The laws of the Medes and Persians change not. If once we can get Darius to stamp this document with his signet-ring, Daniel is done for, sure enough." So the committee go down to the palace next morning to obtain his signature. They begin by flattering him. If a man wants another to do, a mean thing, he always begins by appealing to his vanity. "O king, we have been thinking how popular you are in your kingdom, and what you might do, to make yourself even more famous than you are; and we have come to the conclusion that, if you would publish a decree that nobody in the kingdom, for thirty days, should pray to any other god except yourself, it would turn the hearts of all the people towards you even more than now. We should then have a universal religion, and the king would be at the head of it." Darius-felt flattered by this proposition. He turned it over in his mind, and presently said,"That seems sensible." "All right," said the princes. "We thought you would like it; and in order that there might not be any delay, we have the document here already drawn up. Now if you will please to stamp this with your signet-ring, we shall have it published right away." The king takes the document, reads it over, stamps his seal 382 DWIGHT L. MOODY upon it; and the committee go away laughing, and saying, "Ha, ha! old Hebrew, we will have you in the den of lions before night." The princes lost no time in publishing the new decree of the king. I can imagine some one of Daniel's friends, who had seen the document, going up to his office in great haste, to give him warning that there was some trouble brewing. "Have you heard the news, Daniel? Those hundred and twenty princes have gone and got Darius to publish a decree that nobody shall pray to any other god, except him, for thirty days. That is a conspiracy against you. Now I want to give you a little advice; and that is, to get out of this town in a hurry." But Daniel says he can't leave his business. He is afraid these hundred and twenty princes will cheat the revenues while he is away. His duty is right there, and he is determined to stay there and attend to it. "Well, then, had you not better pray more secretly? You have a habit, that is all well enough in ordinary times, of going up to your chamber, where the windows open towards Jerusalem, and saying your prayers there three times a day. And sometimes you pray pretty loud, and people out of doors can hear you. Now just shut your windows while you pray, for the next thirty days; for these princes are sure to have some spies watching you at your prayers. You had better stop up the keyhole of your door also, for these mean fellows are not above peeping in to watch you. It would be still better, Daniel, if you would not kneel down at all, but say your prayers after you get into bed." Ah! how many young men have gone to Yale or Harvard, and lost their peace of mind and their hope in Christ, because they were afraid to pray before their room-mates! And what does Daniel say to such advice as this? He scouts it. He tramples it under his feet. No man shall hinder him THE MAN AND HIS- MISSION 383 from praying. No king shall frighten him out of his duty. He attends to his morning's work; looks over the accounts as usual; and when twelve o'clock comes, he goes to his chamber, puts the windows wide open, kneels down and prays, not to Darius, but to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His windows are opened towards Jerusalem, and his face is turned that way; for Jerusalem is dearer to him than his life, and the God of his fathers is his sure defence. I can seem to see him kneeling there-that old man, with his white locks and beard, praying at the probable cost of his life; but he does not seem to be troubled by the danger; neither is he angry at the command of the king or the manifest wickedness of those hundred and twenty princes. He prays for the king, his friend,-who, he is sure, has done this wickedness in some thoughtless moment. 'He prays for his enemies, the princes, who are wickedly seeking to destroy him. Those men have taken care that two witnesses shall be underneath Daniel's windows at the time when he usually goes to pray. "Hark !" says one to the other. "Did you hear that? The old man is up there praying, sure enough! Listen he is not praying to King Darius." "No," says the other; "he is praying to the God of the Hebrews." 'So they listen till the prayer is finished, and then they hurry away to the princes, to give their evidence against Daniel; and the princes lose no time in laying the matter before the king. "O King Darius! live for ever. Is it not written that the laws of the Medes and the Persians change not ?" "It is," said Darius; "anything that is stamped with the king's seal cannot be changed." "That is what we thought," said the princes. "Did you not make a decree that no man should pray to any other god than to the king?" 384 DWIGHT L. MOODY "Yes, I did," said Darius. Then they tell him that the chief of the presidents-this Daniel, the Hebrew-has refused to obey the king's command. Poor Darius! "What a mistake I have made !" says he. "I might have known that Daniel would not obey such a command as that. I had quite forgotten about him when I made it." There is not a man in all Babylon who is so troubled as the king. The account says that "he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver Daniel." But the command had gone forth, the law had been made, and it could not be changed, even for the sake of Daniel himself. If Darius had loved his friend only as much as Christ loves us, he would have gone down into the den of lions for him. Our Darius, our King, counted not His life dear unto Himself, but freely delivered it up for us. At sundown the king's officers go for the old man, to take him away to the lions. They bind his hands behind his back, and lead him along'the streets of Babylon towards the den. The whole city goes out to see the sad procession. The princes look out of their windows, and rub their hands, and laugh over the success of their wicked plot; and the people look on in wonder, to see such a sweet-faced old man led away to die like a criminal; and poor Darius walks the chamber of his palace, wringing his hands in agony, saying, "Ah, me! I have destroyed my friend." But Daniel walks with a firm step. His old knees don't shake a bit. "The wind of the evening plays with his white locks, and with a smile upon his face he goes to meet the lions. He has served his God now for seventy long years, and he feels sure that God will not desert him in this great hour of trial. I can imagine him saying, "My God can bring me out of the jaws of the lions just as easily as He saved my three friends from the furnace of fire. But even if they eat me, I shall only THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 385 die for my God." And when they put him into the den, God sent one of His angels to shut the mouths of the lions. At the hour of the evening prayer, Daniel kneels in the den; and if he can get the points of the compass down there, he prays with his face towards Jerusalem; and then, taking one of the lions for his pillow, he lies down and sleeps, as sweetly as any man in Babylon. The king sits up all night, thinking what his folly has cost him-even the life of his most faithful servant. But he remembers that the God of Daniel has done strange things for them who trusted Him. He has heard of Shadrach and his friends coming out of the fiery furnace; and he knows that Daniel went into the den feeling that his God would go with him and save him. At the first dawn of day he orders out his chariot, and you can hear the wheels rattling over the pavements of Babylon before the people are up. Away he goes, with his horses on the run, to the door of the lions' den; springs out of the chariot; looks down into it, and with a voice trembling with anxiety, cries out, "0 Daniel, servant of the living God; is that God whom thou servest continually able to deliver thee from the lions ?" Hark! There comes up a voice out of the den. It is the voice of Daniel; to whom this morning is like the morning of the resurrection. He has been down to the gates of death, and yet he is alive. "O king! live for ever. My God hath sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me." Oh how glad King Darius was to hear the voice of his friend once more!, He has him brought up out of the den, takes him up in his arms, into his chariot; and away they go, home to the palace, to breakfast together and talk over this wonderful deliverance. Then King Darius published another decree. The experience of Daniel had thoroughly converted him; and now he declares "that, in every dominion of his kingdom, man shall DWIGHT L. MOODY 386 tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, who worketh signs and wonders in heaven and earth, and hath delivered His servant from the power of the lions." May the God of Daniel be with us-the courage of Daniel be in us! May we have grace to confess the Lord, to go through the fire and amongst the lions, if need be, for the sake of His truth;- and at last, after all the trials of this life are over, may we be so happy as to sit down with Daniel and all the ancient worthies, in the kingdom of our God! THE STORY OF CHRIST AND BARTIMEUS. CHRIST was going into Jericho; and as he drew near the gates of the city therewas a poor blind man who sat by the wayside, begging people to give him a farthing, and crying out, "Have mercy on a poor blind man !" This blind beggar met a man who said to him, "Bartimeus, I have good news to tell you." "What is it?" said the beggar. "There is a man of Israel who can give you sight." "Oh, no !" said the blind beggar; "there is no chance of my ever receiving my sight. I never shall see. In fact, I never saw the mother who gave me birth; I never saw the wife of my bosom; I never saw my own children. I never saw in this world; but I expect to see in the world to come." "Let me tell you, I have just come down from Jerusalem, and I saw that village carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth; and I saw a man who was born blind, who had received, his sight; and I never saw a man with better sight. He doesn't even have to use glasses." Then hope rises for the first time in this poor man's heart, and he says, "Tell me how the man got his sight." "Oh,"' says the other, "Jesus first spat on the ground and made clay, and put it on his eyes"-why, that is enough to THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 387 put a man's sight out, to fill his eyes with clay !-"and then He told him to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam, and he would receive his sight. More than that, Bartimeus, He doesn't charge you anything: you have no fee to pay; ,you just tell Him what you want, and .you get it, without money and without price. It does not need dukes, or lords, or influence; you just call upon Him yourself; and if He ever comes this way, don't let Him go back without your going to see Jesus." And Bartimeus said, "I will try it; there's no harm in trying it." I can imagine him being led by a child to his seat as usual, and that he is crying out, "Please give a blind beggar a farthing." He hears the footsteps of the coming multitude and inquires, "Who is it passing? What does the multitude mean?" They tell him it is Jesus of Nazareth passing by. The moment he hears that he says, "Why, that is the Man that gave sight to the blind !" The moment it reached his ear that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out at the top of his voice, "Jesus; thou Son of David, have mercy upon me !" Some of those who went before-perhaps Peter was one of them-rebuked him, thinking the Master was going up to Jerusalem to be crowned King, and did not want to be distracted. They never knew the Son of God when He was here. He would hush every harp in heaven to hear a sinner pray; no music would delight Him so much. But the blind man still lifted up his voice, and cried louder, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" and the prayer reached the ears of the Son of God, as prayer always will; and they led the poor blind man to Him. Well, when Jesus heard the blind beggar, He commanded him to be brought. So they ran to him, and said, "Be of good cheer: the Master calls you; He has a blessing for you." When Jesus saw him He said, "What can I do for you?" "Lord, that I may receive my sight." "You shall have it": and the Lord gave it to him. And now the beggar follows with the crowd, glorifying God, 388 DWIGHT L. MOODY I can imagine he sang as sweetly as Mr. Sankey; no one sang sweeter than he when he shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!"-no one sang louder than this one who had received his sight. Then he follows on with the crowd, which we see pressing into the gates of the city. I can imagine when he gets into the city he says to himself, "I will go down and see Mrs. Bartimeus,"-having, of course, after all those years of blindness, a curiosity to see what his wife looked like. As he is passing do'wn the street, a man meets him, and turns round and says, "Bartimeus, is that you?" "Yes ; it's me." "Well, I thought it was, and yet I thought my eyes must deceive me. How did you get your sight?" "I just met Jesus of Nazareth outside the walls of the city, and I asked Him to have mercy on me; and He gave me my sight." "Jesus of Nazareth! Is He in this part of the country ?" "Yes; He is on His way to Jerusalem. He is now going down to the eastern gate." "I should like to see Him," says the man, and away he runs down the street; but he cannot get a glimpse of Him, being little of stature, on account of the great throng round Him. He runs to a sycamore tree, and says to, himself, "If I get up there and hide, without any one seeing me, He cannot get by without my having a good look at Him." A great many rich men do not like to be seen coming to Jesus. Well, there he is in the sycamore tree, on a branch hanging right over the highway; and he says to himself, "He cannot get by without my having a good look at Him." All at once the crowd comes in sight. He looks at John-"That's not Him"; he looks at Peter-"That's not Him." Then he sees One who is fairer than the sons of men. "That's Him !" And Zacchaeus, just peeping out from amongst the branches, looks down upon that wonderful-yes, that mighty God-Man, in amazement. At THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 389 last the crowd comes to the tree, and it looks as if Christ is going by; but He stops right under the tree. All at once He'loQks up and sees Zacchaeus, and says to him, "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down." I can imagine Zacchaeus says to himself,-"I wonder who told Him my name. I was never introduced to Him." But Christ knew all about him. Sinner! Christ knows all about you; He knows your name and your house. Do not think God does not know you. If you would try to hide from Him, bear in mind that you cannot do so. He knows where each one of you is; He knows all about your sins. Well, He said to Zacchaeus, "Make haste and come down." He may have added, "This is the last time I shall pass this way, Zacchaeus." That is the way He speaks to sinners, -"This may be the last time I shall pass this way; this may be your last chance of eternity." Oh sinner! make haste and come down and receive Him. There are some people in this nineteenth century who do not believe in sudden conversions. I should like them to tell me where Zacchaeus was converted. He certainly was not converted when he went up into the tree; he certainly was converted when he came down. He must have been converted somewhere between the branches and the ground. The Lord converted him just right there. People say they do not believe in sudden conversions; and that if a man is converted suddenly he won't hold out--he won't be genuine. I wish we had a few men converted like Zacchaeus in London; it would make no small stir. When a man begins to make restitution, it is a pretty good sign of conversion. Let men give back money dishonestly obtained in London, and see how quick people will believe in conversion. Zacchaeus gave half his goods to the poor. What would be said if some of the rich men of London did that? Zacchaeus gave half his goods all at once; and he says, "If I have taken anything from any man falsely, I restore him fourfold." I think that is the other half. But to get Christ is worth more than all his 390 DWIGHT L. MOODY wealth. I imagine the next morning one of the servants of Zacchaeus going with -a cheque for $5oo, and saying, "My master a few years ago took from you wrongfully about IIoo, and this is restitution money" That would give confidence in Zacchaeus's conversion. I wish a few cases like that would happen in London, and then people would not go on talking against sudden conversions. THE STORY OF MEPHIBOSHETH. T in the books of Samuel HERE is a story, my friends, of the kings of Israelaway back as far as the time which will help us to understand the Gospel. It is about a man of the name of Mephibosheth. You remember what a hard time David had when Saul was hunting him to kill him, just as men hunt game. "Well: one day David and his good friend Jonathan were taking a walk together in the fields. Saul was very angry, and was bent on killing David; but his son Jonathan was looking out for a chance to save him. It had been revealed to him that David was to be king after his father, instead of himself; but this did not hinder his love for David. It must have been real, true friendship, that could stand that sort of thing! After they had agreed upon a sign by which David was to know whether it was safe for him to stay around the court of the king, where he could see his friend once in a while; or whether he must leave, and go off into the cave of Adullam, Jonathan says to him,"David, it has been revealed to me that you are to be king after my father. Now, I want you to promise me one thing: when you come to the throne, if any of the house of Saul are alive, I want you to be good to them, for my sake." THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 391 "I'll do that, of course," said David. So he made a solemn covenant to that effect, and then he went off to the cave of Adullam, to get out of the way of Saul, who was bound to kill him if he could. But God took care of David. You never can kill or harm a man if God is taking care of him. About four years after that, David heard that there had been a great battle over by Mount Gilboa, and that the Philistines had beaten the Israelites with great slaughter, and that Saul and Jonathan were both dead. So he got his men together, and went out after the enemies of the Lord and of Israel; and it was not a great while before he had turned the tables on them, and set up his kingdom at Hebron. It must have been pretty near fourteen years after that before David remembered his promise to his old friend Jonathan. It is a great deal easier to make promises than to keep them. How many broken vows has God written down against you to-night ? But one day the king was walking in his palace at Jerusalem, where he had removed his capital; and all at once he happened to think of that promise. It is a good thing God does not forget His promises that way. "That's too bad !" said David. "I forgot all about that promise. I have been so busy fighting these Philistines, and fixing things up, that I have not had time to think of anything else." So he called his servants in great haste, and said, "Do any of you know whether there is any of Saul's family living?" One of them said there was an old servant of Saul's by the name of Ziba, and maybe he could tell. "Go and tell him I want him, right away." Pretty soon Ziba came; and David said, "Ziba, do you know whether there is anybody of the house of Saul in my kingdom ?" Ziba said there was one he knew of-a son of Jonathan, by the name of Mephibosheth. Oh how that name, Jonathan, must have smitten the heart DWIGHT L. MOODY 392 of David! One of the sons of his old friend living in his kingdom for as much as fourteen years, and he had never known it! What would Jonathan think of him for forgetting his promise that way! "Go, fetch him !" says David; "go quick. Tell him I want him. I want to show him the kindness of God." Now, my friends, where do you suppose Mephibosheth was all this time? Why, he was down at Lo-debar. Did you ever hear of that place? There may be some sailors here: did you ever come across that port? When you have travelled on the railway, did any of you ever stop at that station? Ah! yes: that is.where the whole human race are until they come to Christ for salvation; away down at Lo-debar,-which means, a place of no pasture. The king is in haste to keep his promise now. I seem to see them hurrying off; maybe they take the king's own chariot, and rattle away to find this son of Jonathan. When they reached the little out-of-the-way place, I fancy there was a great commotion. "Where's Mephibosheth? The king wants him." Poor fellow! when he heard that, he hung down his head. He was afraid the king wanted to kill him, because he was of the house of Saul, his old enemy. Ah! my friends; that's just the way sinners receive Christ's offers of salvation. They think God hates them, and wants to cut their heads off. But that is a great mistake. God loves them for Christ's sake, a great deal more than. David loved SMephibosheth for Jonathan's sake. I never knew a sinner to take the Gospel right. They always think, at first, that it is too good to be true. "Don't be afraid," said the servants. "The king says he wants to show you the kindness of God. He is in a great hurry to see you; so get ready, and jump right into the - THE MAN AND HIS MISSION chariot. 393 Don't you see the king has sent his own chariot to fetch you ?" It did begin to look as if the king meant no harm to him. But poor Mephibosheth had another difficulty. He was lame in both feet. He was a little fellow when David came to the throne; and an old servant, who was afraid that all the house of Saul were going to be killed, took him up and ran away to hide him. Somehow he managed to drop the lad, and lamed him in both feet. And now I can see poor Mephibosheth looking down at his feet. Maybe the toes turned in,-or he was club-footed. And he says to himself, "I am not fit to go to the king. I am a poor cripple. I am not fit to be seen among the tall, handsome servants of the palace in Jerusalem." That's just the way with a convicted sinner. He is all the time thinking of his own unworthiness, and saying to himself that he isn't fit to be saved. "Never mind your lame feet, Mephibosheth; so long as the king sends for you, it's all right." So they take him up, and ,put him into the chariot, and start for Jerusalem on a run. As soon as the king sees him, he takes him in his arms, and cries out,"Oh Mephibosheth, the son of my dear old friend Jonathan! you shall have all that belonged to the house of Saul; and you shall live with me here in my palace !" What a happy man he must have been to hear that! Sinner, that is just what God says to the soul that comes to him in Jesus Christ. He takes us in His arms; He gives us a great fortune of love and grace; and He promises that we shall live with Him in His heavenly palace for ever. Some people think that Mephibosheth, like certain lowspirited Christians, after he went to live with the king, must have been all the time worrying over his lame feet. But I don't think so. He couldn't help it; and if David didn't mind 394 DWIGHT L. MOODY it, it was all right. So I think that when he dined with him in state, with the great lords and ladies all around him, he just stuck his club-feet under the table, and looked the king right in the face. That is the Gospel, my friends. We are God's enemies, and the children of His enemies. We are lame, and blind, and wretched, and ragged, and hateful by reason of our sins. But the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ has been made; and now God sends for you, poor sinner, to come in Christ's name and eat bread at His table, and be in His house, and in His heart for ever. Will you come? Will you come now? THE STORY OF THE LEPER. SEE know what an awful thing Do you thethat pooris? A disease so terrible that it separates its leprosy leper! victim from. all the world, and makes him an outcast, even from his home. Every one is afraid of him. His disease is so contagious, that to touch him, or even to breathe the air near him, is dangerous; and so these poor afflicted wretches have to, go away and live in caves and deserts by themselves. They sit by the wayside afar off, calling to the passers-by for charity,-who sometimes throw them a piece of money, and hurry away lest they also come into that terrible plight. Here is a poor man who finds the marks of what he thinks is this terrible disease upon his body. According to the law, he must go to the priest and be examined. Alas! the priest says it is the leprosy-nothing else. Now the poor man, with broken heart, turns away from the Temple, and goes to his house to say good-bye to his wife, and to take his children to his arms once more, before he goes away to spend the long years in the wilderness alone, or with other lepers like himself, until death shall come to deliver him THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 395 from his sufferings. What a sorry house is that! Surely this is worse than death itself. He goes out of his door with no hope of ever entering it again. He walks the street by himself, and if any one comes near, he lifts up his voice in that mournful cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" Out of the gates of the city he goes, away from all his friends and acquaintances, carrying with him the sorrow of separation and the seeds of death. One day he sees a crowd passing along the road, but he dares not go near enough to inquire what it is. All at once he happens to think it may be that Prophet of Nazareth whom he has heard of-that same Man that, people said, could open the eyes of blind men, make lame men to walk, and who had even raised the son of the widow from death, over there at Nain. If only it were He! At any rate he will take the chances, and cry out after Him; and so he shouts, at the top of his voice, "Have mercy upon me!" All the rest of the crowd are afraid of him; but Jesus, who is in the midst, hears some one calling; and, just as He always did when anybody wanted anything of Him, He stopped to find out what it was. He is not afraid of the leper; and so, while the rest of the crowd stand away by themselves, He calls the poor fellow up to Him and asks him what he wants; and the leper, with his heart full of anxious hope, replies, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." "I will," says Jesus: "be thou clean !" A strange sense of health and strength suddenly comes over the man. He looks at his hands, and finds the leprosy is all gone. He begins to pour out his heart in thanks to Jesus, who sends him away to the priests, saying, "Go, show thyself. to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded." Now I seem to see that cleansed leper hurrying away to show himself to the priest, to be pronounced cured, according to the law; and then hastening to his little home, to see his wife and children once more. He bursts into the house, weeping for joy. He stretches out his arms to his wife and little 396 DWIGHT L. MOODY ones, saying, "I am clean! I am clean! Jesus did it-Jesus of Nazareth." Sinner, how glad you would be if Jesus had made you clean from the leprosy of sin !-and He is just as willing to cleanse you as He was to cleanse this poor leper. Come to Him just now. Ask Him to cleanse you, and hear Him say, "I will: be thou clean !" THE STORY OF THE WIDOW'S SON. HINK of that poor widow at Nain! She is an old woman now; and her only son, who isthe staff of her life, is sick. How she watches him; sits up all night to see that he has his medicine at the right time; sits by his bedside all day, fanning him, keeping away the flies, moistening his parched lips with water! Everything he asks for, she brings. The very best doctor in Nain is sent for; and when he comes and feels the pulse of the young man, and looks at his tongue, he shakes his head; and then the poor woman knows there is no hope for her boy. What an awful thought! My son, my only son must die: what will become of me then? Sure enough, the doctor is right; and in a little while the fever comes to its crisis, and the poor boy dies, with his head upon his mother's bosom. The people come in to try to comfort the poor woman; but it is of no use. Her heart is broken. She wishes she were dead, too.$ Some of you know what it is to look your last upon the faces of those you love. Some of you mothers have wept hot tears upon the cold faces of your sons. Well: they make him ready for burial; and when the time comes, they celebrate the funeral service, and put him on the bier to carry him away to the grave. What a sad procession! Just as they come out of the city gates, they see a little company of thirteen dusty-looking travellers, coming up the road. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 397 There is One among them, tall and far fairer than the sons of men. Who can He be? He is moved with compassion when He sees this little funeral procession; and it does not take Him long to find out that that woman who walks next the bier is a poor widow, whose only son she is following to his grave. He tells the bearers to put down the bier; and while the mother wonders what is to be done, He bends tenderly over the dead man, and speaks to him in a low, sweet voice, "Arise!" And the dead man hears Him. His body begins to move: the man who was dead is struggling with his graveclothes; they unbind them, and now he sits up. He leaps off the bier, catches a sight of his mother, remembers that he was dead and is now alive again; takes her in his arms, kisses her again and again, and then turns to look at the Stranger who has wrought this miracle upon him. He is ready to do, anything for that Man-ready to follow Him to the death. But Jesus does not ask that of him. He knows his mother needs him; and so He does not take him away to be one of His disciples, but gives him back to his old mother. I would have liked to see that young man re-entering the city of Nain, arm-in-arm with his mother. What do you suppose he said to the people, who looked at him with wonder? Would he not confess that Jesus of Nazareth had raised him from the dead? Would he not go everywhere, declaring what the Lord had done for his dead body? Oh how I love to preach Christ, who can stand over all the graves, and say to all the dead bodies, "Arise!" How I pity the poor infidel, who has no Christ; .who goes down to his death without any hope of resurrection! Is there a poor widow here to-night? Christ will have compassion on you. Your son is dead, inaybe. Well, He will raise him up also at the last day, and you along with him; and give him back to you, and you to him, if you both have believed in Jesus, and given Him your hearts. 398 DWIGHT L. MOODY THE STORY OF NAAMAN. WANT to tell you about a person who was a great man in his own country-a very honorable man, one whom the king delighted to honor. He stood high in position, he was captain of the hosts of the king of Syria; but he was a leper; and that threw a blight over his whole life. There was no physician to help him in all Syria. None of the eminent doctors in Damascus could do him any good. Neither could any in Jerusalem. But I will tell you what they had in Syria: they had one of God's children there-and she was a little girl. Naaman knew nothing about her, though she was one of his household. I can imagine this little Israelite, one day, as she said to Mrs. Naaman, her mistress, that there was a prophet in her country that could cure her master of his leprosy. "Why !" says the mistress, "what are you talking about? Did you ever hear of anybody being cured of leprosy ?" "Ah!" said the little girl, "it's true, I can assure you: we have got physicians down there that can cure anything." So at last some one told the king what the little maid of Israel had said. Now Naaman stood high in the king's favor, for he had just won a great victory. He was called a lord; perhaps he was a prince--a sort or Syrian Prince Bismarck, who stood near the throne. So the king said, "You had better go down to Samaria, and see if there is anything in it, and I will give you letters of introduction to the king of Israel." Yes, he would give Naaman letters of introduction to the king. That's just man's idea. Of course, if anybody could help him it was a king. Of course the king had power both with God and man. Oh, my friends, it's a good deal better to know a man that knows God! A man acquainted with God has more power than any earthly king. Away goes Naaman down to Samaria with his letter of introduction, and he takes with him a bag of gold and silver. THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 399 That's man's idea again: he is going to pay the great doctor. And he took about $500,000 sterling, as far as I can make it out, to pay this doctor's bill. There are a good many men who would willingly pay that sum, if with it they could buy the favor of God, and get rid of the curse of sin. Yes, if money could do it, how many would buy salvation! But, thank God, it is not in the market for sale! You must buy it on God's terms, and that is "without money and without price." Naaman found that out. My dear friends, did you ever ask yourselves which is the worse-the leprosy of the body or the leprosy of sin ? Why, for my own part I would a thousand times sooner have the leprosy eating my eyes out, and eating off feet and arms; I would rather be loathsome in the sight of my fellow-men than die with the leprosy of sin in my soul, and be banished from God for ever. The leprosy of the body is bad, but the leprosy of sin is a thousand times worse. It has thrown the angels out of heaven; it has ruined the best and strongest men that ever lived in the world. There. is one thing about Naaman that I like-and that is, his earnestness of purpose. He was thoroughly in earnest. A good many people say, "Oh, I don't like such and such a minister; I should like to know where he comes from, and what he has done, and whether any bishop has ever laid his hands on his head." My dear friends, never mind the minister; it's the message you want. Why, if some one were to send me a message, and the news were important, I shouldn't stop to ask about the messenger who brought it; I should want to read the news; I should look at the letter and its contents, and not at the boy who brought it. And so it is with God's message. The good news is everything, the minister nothing. The Syrians looked down with contempt on the Israelites; and yet this great man was willing to take the good news from the lips of this poor little slave. Why, if I got lost in London, I should be willing to ask anybody 400 DWIGHT L. MOODY which way to go -- even if it were only a poor shoeblack. It is the way I want, not the person who directs me. But there was one drawback in Naaman's case: though he was willing to,take the advice of the little girl, he was not willing to take the remedy. The stumbling-block of pride stood in his way. The remedy the prophet offered him was a terrible blow to his pride. I have no doubt he expected a grand reception from the king of Israel, to whom he brought letters of introduction. He had been victorious on many a field of battle, and held high rank in the army-perhaps we may call him Major-General Naaman of Syria; or he might have been higher in rank even than that. He had a letter of introduction from the king himself, and of course he would be received with high honors. But instead of the king rushing out to meet him, when he heard of Naaman's arrival and his object, he rent his mantle in a rage, and said: "Am I a God, that I can kill and make alive ?" But at last the king bethinks himself of Elisha the prophet; and he says, "There is a man in my kingdom who may be able to help, you and cure your leprosy." Now I can imagine Naaman's pride reasoning thus: "Surely the prophet will feel very much exalted and flattered that I, the great Syrian General, should come and call upon him." He drives up in grand style to the prophet's house; and, after awhile, as nobody seems to be coming out to meet him, he sends in his message: "Tell the prophet Major-General Naaman of Syria has arrived, and wishes to see him." Elisha takes it very coolly. He does not come out to see him; but, as soon as he learns his errand, he sends his servant to say: "Dip seven times in the river Jordan, and you shall be clean." What a terrible blow to his pride! I can imagine him saying to his servant-"What did you say? Did I understand you aright? Dip seven times in Jordan! Why, we call the river Jordan a,ditch in our country !" THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 401 But the only answer he got was, "My lord says, Go and dip seven times in Jordan." I can fancy his indignation as he asks-"Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean ?" So he turned and went away in a rage. The fact was, Jordan never had any great reputation as a river; it flowed into, the Dead Sea; and that sea never had a harbor to it. And its banks were not half so beautiful as those of the rivers of Damascus. Yes, it was a dreadful blow to his pride! The truth was, that Damascus was one of the most beautiful cities in the world; and it is said that when Mahomet first saw it, he turned his head away, for fear it should lead his thoughts away from heaven. Naaman went off in a rage; he got very angry. But I don't think much of that; for, if you notice, when a man turns away in anger, he generally cools down and comes back again. He thought the prophet would have come out to him very humble and very solemn, and bid him do some great thing. Instead of that, Elisha, who was very likely busy writing, didn't even come to the door or the window: he merely sent out the message-"Tell him to dip seven times in the Jordan." And away he went - saying "I thought; I thought; I thought." I have heard that tale so often, that I am tired of it. I will tell you just what I think about it, and what I advise you to do-Give it up. Take God's words, God's thoughts, God's ways. A man to be converted has to give up his will, his ways, and his thoughts. I have often noticed that when a man says: "If ever I am converted, it will be this way or that," God leads him in quite a contrary direction. Whilst Naaman was turning the matter over in his mind, and thinking what was best to be done, one of his servants came and said-and a very sensible remark it was: "My lord, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather, then, when he saith to 402 DWIGHT L. MOODY thee, Wash and be clean !" Yes, and there's a deal of truth in that. Why, if Elisha had said to him, "Go back to Syria on your hands and knees," he would most likely have done it. If he had said, "Go back all the way on one foot," he would have tried to do it. Or if he had said, "Give me a hundred thousand pounds for the medicine I prescribe, and thou shalt be cleansed," no doubt he would have done it. But to tell him merely to dip in the river Jordan seven times why, it was absurd on the face of it! "Why, if there is such cleansing power in the waters of Jordan, does not every leper in Israel go down and dip in them, and be healed ?" "Well," says the servant, "you have come a hundred and fifty miles; and now don't you think you had better do what he tells you ?" His anger is cooling down; and he says, "Well, I think I might as well try it." That's the starting-point of his faith; but still he thought it a foolish thing, and could not bring himself to believe that the result would be what the prophet had said. Naaman's will was conquered at last. He got to that point where he was willing to obey; and the Scripture tells us "to obey is better than to sacrifice." So he goes down to the river and takes the first dip; and as he comes up, I can imagine him looking at himself, and saying -to his servant, "There! there I am, no better than I was when I went in. If oneseventh of the leprosy was gone, I should be content." Down he goes a second time, and he comes up puffing and blowing, as much a leper as ever; and so he goes down again and again, the third and fourth and fifth time, with the same result-as much a leper as ever. When he comes up the sixth time, he looks at himself, and says, "Ah! no better. What a fool I have made of myself! How they must all laugh at me! I wouldn't have the generals and aristocracy of Damascus know that I have been dipping in this way in Jordan for all the world. However, as I have gone so far, I'll make the seventh THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 403 plunge." He has not altogether lost faith; and down he goes the seventh time, and up he comes again. He looks at himself, and shouts aloud for joy. "Lo, I am well! My leprosy is all gone--all gone! My flesh has come again as that of a little child. I never knew such a thing. I never felt so happy in all my life. I thought I was a great and a happy man when I accomplished that victory; but, thank God! praise God! I am the happiest man alive." So he comes up out of Jordan and puts on his clothes, and goes back to the prophet, and wants to pay him. 'That's just the old story: Naaman wants to give money for his cure. How many people want to do the same now-a-days! Why, it would have spoiled the story of grace, if the prophet had taken anything! You may give a thank-offering to God's cause, not because you can be saved, but because you are saved. But the prophet refused to take anything; and I can imagine no one felt more rejoiced than Elisha did. So Naaman starts back to, Damascus, a very different man than he was when he left it. The dark cloud has gone from his mind; he is no longer a leper, in fear of dying from a loathsome disease. He lost the leprosy in Jordan when he did what the man of God told him; and if you obey the voice of God, even while I am speaking to you, the burden of your sins will fall from off you, and you shall be cleansed. It is all done by the power of faith. THE STORY OF THE PENITENT THIEF. man; the talk SAM going tosaved this morning about ato heaven; last one whom Jesus before He went back and the fact that He saved such a man at all ought to give every one of us a great deal of hope and comfort. This man was a thief, a highwayman, a murderer, perhaps; and yet Christ takes 404 DWIGHT L. MOODY him with Him when He ascends to glory: and if He is not ashamed of such a man, surely no class of sinners need to feel that they are left out. The first thing that we know of our man is, that he is a reviler of Christ. You would think that he ought to be doing something else at such a time as this; but hanging there in the midst of his tortures, and certain to be dead in a few hours, instead of conrfessing his sins and preparing to meet the God whose law he had broken all his life-instead of that, he is abusing God's only Son. Surely this man cannot sink any lower, until he sinks into hell! The next thing we hear of him, he appears.to be under conviction. Now, what do you suppose it was that made this great change in this man's feelings, in these few hours? Christ had not preached him a sermon-had given him no exhortation. The darkness had not yet come on; the earth had not opened its mouth; the business of death was going on as usual; the crowd were still there, mocking, and hissing, and wagging their heads: and yet this man, who in the morning was railing at Christ, is now confessing his sins. "We indeed justly." No miracle had been wrought before his eyes. The Son of God had not come down from the cross. No angel from heaven had come to place a glittering crown upon His head in place of the bloody crown of thorns. What was it, then? I will tell you what I think it was. I think it was the Saviour's prayer,-"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I seem to hear this thief talking with himself in this way: "What a strange kind of a man this must be! He says He is King of the Jews; and the superscription on His cross says the same thing. But what sort of a throne is this! He says He is the Son of God. Why does not God send down His angels, and destroy all this great crowd of people who are torturing His Son? If He has all power now, as He used to EK 4 $~M Z" s. At 4b, BLIND BARTIMVEUS RECEIVING HIS SIGHT i' i0 0. 0. o- IO 0y '' 4' 0 -- 4-..''H V rfy7 , , 0 a 0 4' ~n~ -- i I~ ""i?. ;,.itm i:~" ~Z;; ;". ~-"3 ~ t~-ni THE MAID TELLING HER MISTRESS ABOUT THE WONDERFUL PROPHET ELISHA f T q:T } yl^J ^ }FI1YR' ty-J THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 409 have when He worked those miracles they talk about, why does He not bring out His vengeance, and sweep all these wretches into destruction? I would do it in a minute, if I had the power. Oh! if I could, I would open the earth and swallow up these tormentors! But this man prays to God to "forgive them." Strange! strange! He must be so different from the rest of us. I am sorry I said one word against Him when they first .hung us up here. What a difference there is between Him and me! Here we are hanging on two crosses, side by side; but all the rest of our lives we have been far enough apart. I have been robbing and murdering, and He has been visiting the hungry, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Now these people are railing at us both. What a strange world is this! I will not rail at Him any more. Indeed, I begin to, believe He must be the Son of God; for surely no son of man could forgive his enemies this way." That is what did it, my friends. This poor man had been scourged, and beaten, and nailed to the cross, and hung up there for the world to gaze upon; and he was not sorry for his sins one single bit-did not feel the least conviction on account of all that misery. But when he heard the Saviour praying for His murderers, that broke his heart. Hear him: "We are suffering justly," he says. I never knew any man to be converted till he confessed. He confesses his sins to Christ, and Christ has mercy on him at once. We have heard a great" deal about the faith of Abraham, and the faith of Moses; but this man seems to me to have had more faith than any of them. He stands at the head of the class. God was twenty-five years toning up the faith of Abraham; Moses was forty years getting ready for his work; but this thief, right here in the midst of men who rejected Him -nailed to the cross, and racked with pain in every nerve, overwhelmed with horror, and his soul in a perfect tempest -still manages to lay hold upon Christ, and trust in Him for 410 DWIGHT L. MOODY a swift salvation. His heart goes out to the Saviour. How glad he would be to fall on his knees at the foot of that cross, and pour out his prayer to Him who was hanging on it! But this he cannot do. His hands and feet are nailed fast to the wood; but they cannot nail his eyes, nor his heart. He can, at least, turn his head, and look upon the Son of God; and his breaking heart can go out in love to the One who is dying beside him-dying for him, and dying for you and me. And what does Jesus say in answer to his prayer? That prayer was a confession of Christ. He calls Jesus Lord, and begs to be remembered in His kingdom: that must be a kingdom in heaven, for surely there was no chance of a kingdom on earth, as things looked at that time. Christ fulfilled His promise to the thief-"Whoso confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father and the holy angels." He looks kindly upon him, and says, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." And now the darkness falls upon the earth; the sun hides itself. In the midst of all His agony, how sweet it must have been to Christ to hear that poor thief confessing Him! He likes to have men confessing Him. Do you not remember His asking Peter, "Whom do men say that I am?" and when Peter answered, "Some people say you are Moses, some people say you are Elias, and some people say you are one of the old prophets," He asks again, "But, Peter, who do you say I am?" and when Peter says, "Thou art the Son of God," Jesus blesses him for that confession. And now this thief confessed Him-confesses Him in the darkness. Perhaps it is so dark he cannot see Him any longer; but he feels that He is there beside him. This poor thief did as much for Christ in that one act as if he had lived and worked for Him fifty years. That is what Christ wants of us-to confess Him; in the dark as well as in the light, when it is hard as well THE MAN AND HIS MISSION 411 as when it is easy; for He was not ashamed of us, and carried our sins even unto death. Just look a minute at the prayer of this penitent thief. He calls Jesus Lord. That sounds like a young convert. "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom." Not a very long prayer, you see, but a prevailing prayer. Some people think they must have a form of prayer,-a prayerbook, perhaps-if they are going to address the Throne of Grace properly. But what would that poor fellow do with a prayer-book up there, hanging on the cross, his hands nailed fast to the wood? Suppose it were necessary that some minister, or priest, should pray for him, what is he going to do? There is nobody there to pray for him, and he is going to die in a few hours. He is out of reach of help from men; but God has laid help upon One who is mighty, and that One is close at hand. Then look at the answer to his prayer. He got more than he asked. He only asked to be remembered when Christ came into His kingdom. But Christ says to him, "I will take you right up with me into my kingdom to-day." The Saviour wants us all to remember Him in His old kingdom, -- to remember Him in the breaking of bread and in the drinking of wine,-and then He will remember us in the new kingdom. Now think of this, my friends. The last the world ever saw of Christ, He was on the cross. The last business of His life was the saving of a poor penitent thief. That was a part of His triumph. That was one of the glories attending His death. No doubt Satan said to himself, "I will have ILhe soul of that thief, pretty soon, down here in the caverns of the lost. He belongs to me. He has belonged to me all those years." But Christ snapped the fetters of his soul, and set him at liberty: Satan lost his prey. "The Lion of the tribe of Judah" conquered the lion of hell. 412 DWIGHT L. MOODY What a contrast! In the morning he is led out a condemned criminal; in the evening he is saved from his sins. In the morning he is cursing; in the evening he is singing hallelujahs with a choir of angels. In the morning he is condemned by men as not fit to live on earth; in the evening he is reckoned good enough for heaven. Christ was not ashamed to walk arm-in-arm with him down the golden pavements of the eternal city. He had heard the Saviour's cry, "It is finished." He had seen the spear thrust into His side. Jesus had died before his very eyes, and hastened before him to get a place ready for this first soul brought from the world after He had died. You have heard of the child who did not like to die and go to heaven, because he did not know anybody there. But the thief had one acquaintance: even the Master of the place Himself. He calls to Gabriel, and says, "Prepare a chariot; make haste: there is a friend of mine hanging upon that cross. They are breaking his legs. He soon will be ready to come. Make haste and bring him to me." And the angel in the chariot sweeps down the sky, takes up the soul of the poor penitent thief, and hastens back again to glory; while the gates of the city swing wide open, and the angels shout their welcome to this poor sinner "washed in the blood of the Lamb." This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2010