Moody's Stories Part 8

One dark night, a train was thrown off the track, and several were killed. This man was suspected, was tried and found guilty, and was sent to the penitentiary for life. The farm was soon cut up into city lots, and the man became a millionaire, but he got no benefit from it.

It may not have taken him more than an hour to lay the obstruction on the railroad, but he was over thirty years reaping the result of that one act!

"As a Little Child"

A little child is the most dependent thing on earth. All its resources are in its parents' love; all it can do is to cry; and its necessities explain the meaning to the mother's heart. If we interpret its language, it means: "Mother, wash me; I cannot wash myself. Mother, clothe me; I am naked, and cannot clothe myself. Mother, feed me; I cannot feed myself. Mother, carry me; I cannot walk." It is written, "A mother may forget her sucking child; yet will not I forget thee."

This it is to receive the Kingdom of G.o.d as a little child--to come to Jesus in our helplessness, and say: "Lord Jesus, wash me!" "Clothe me!" "Feed me!" "Carry me!" "Save me, Lord, or I perish."--Rainsford.

Following the Lamb

A friend who lost all his children told me about being in an eastern country some time ago, and he saw a shepherd going down to a stream, and he wanted to get his flock across. He went into the water and called them by name, but they came to the bank and bleated, and were too afraid to follow. At last he went back, tightened his girdle about his loins, took up two little lambs, and put one inside his frock, and another inside his bosom. Then he started into the water, and the old sheep looked up to the shepherd instead of down into the water. They wanted to see their little ones. So he got them over the water, and led them into the green pastures on the other side.

How many times the Good Shepherd has come down here and taken a little lamb to the hill-tops of glory, and then the father and mother begin to look up and follow.

Two Pictures

A friend told me of a poor man who had sent his son to school in the city. One day the father was hauling some wood into the city, perhaps to pay his boy's bills. The young man was walking down the street with two of his school friends, all dressed in the very height of fashion.

His father saw him, and was so glad that he left his wood, and went to the sidewalk to speak to him. But the boy was ashamed of his father, who had on his old working clothes, and spurned him, and said:

"I don't know you."

Will such a young man ever amount to anything? Never!

There was a very promising young man in my Sunday-school in Chicago.

His father was a confirmed drunkard, and his mother took in washing to educate her four children. This was her eldest son, and I thought that he was going to redeem the whole family. But one day a thing happened that made him go down in my estimation.

The boy was in the high school, and was a very bright scholar. One day he stood with his mother at the cottage door--it was a poor house, but she could not pay for their schooling and feed and clothe her children and hire a very good house too out of her earnings. When they were talking a young man from the high school came up the street, and this boy walked away from his mother. Next day the young man said:

"Who was that I saw you talking to yesterday?"

"Oh, that was my washerwoman."

I said: "Poor fellow! He will never amount to anything."

That was a good many years ago. I have kept my eye on him. He has gone down, down, down, and now he is just a miserable wreck. Of course, he would go down! Ashamed of his mother that loved him and toiled for him, and bore so much hardship for him! I cannot tell you the contempt I had for that one act.

Let us look at--

A Brighter Picture

Some years ago I heard of a poor woman who sent her boy to school and college. When he was to graduate, he wrote his mother to come, but she sent back word that she could not because her best skirt had already been turned once. She was so shabby that she was afraid he would be ashamed of her. He wrote back that he didn't care how she was dressed, and urged so strongly that she went. He met her at the station, and took her to a nice place to stay. The day came for his graduation, and he walked down the broad aisle with that poor mother dressed very shabbily, and put her into one of the best seats in the house. To her great surprise he was the valedictorian of the cla.s.s, and he carried everything before him. He won a prize, and when it was given to him, he stepped down before the whole audience and kissed his mother, and said:

"Here, mother, here is the prize! It's yours. I would not have won it if it had not been for you."

Thank G.o.d for such a man!

The Folly of Covetousness

The folly of covetousness is well shown in the following extract:

"If you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in continual thirst, nor suffering himself to drink half a draught for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you should see him grow gray in these anxious labors, and at last end a thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the covetous man."

I have read of a millionaire in France, who was a miser. In order to make sure of his wealth, he dug a cave in his wine cellar so large and deep that he could go down into it with a ladder. The entrance had a door with a spring lock. After a time, he was missing. Search was made, but they could find no trace of him. At last his house was sold, and the purchaser discovered this door in the cellar. He opened it, went down, and found the miser lying dead on the ground, in the midst of his riches. The door must have shut accidentally after him, and he perished miserably.

What is Needed

Nine-tenths, at least, of our church members never think of speaking for Christ. If they see a man, perhaps a near relative, going right down to ruin, going rapidly, they never think of speaking to him about his sinful course and of seeking to win him to Christ. Now certainly there must be something wrong. And yet when you talk with them you find they have faith, and you cannot say they are not children of G.o.d; but they have not the power, the liberty, the love that real disciples of Christ should have.

A great many think that we need new measures, new churches, new organs, new choirs, and all these new things. That is not what the Church of G.o.d needs to-day. It is the old power that the apostles had.

If we have that in our churches, there will be new life.

I remember when in Chicago many were toiling in the work, and it seemed as though the car of salvation didn't move on, when a minister began to cry out from the very depths of his heart:

"Oh, G.o.d, put new ministers in every pulpit."

Next Monday I heard two or three men stand up and say, "We had a new minister last Sunday--the same old minister, but he had got new power," and I firmly believe that is what we want to-day all over America--new ministers in the pulpit and new people in the pews. We want people quickened by the Spirit of G.o.d.

Neglecting Church

A minister rebuked a farmer for not attending church, and said:

"You know, John, you are never absent from market."

"Oh," was the reply, "we _must_ go to market."

Oratorical Preaching

My friends, we have too many orators in the pulpit, I am tired and sick of your "silver-tongued orators." I used to mourn because I couldn't be an orator. I thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of speech like some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of language take the audience captive; but they came and they went. Their voice was like the air--there wasn't any _power_ back of it; they trusted in their eloquence and their fine speeches. That is what Paul was thinking of when he wrote to the Corinthians: "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of G.o.d."

Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the witness-box, and see how quickly the judge will rule him out. It is the man who tells the plain, simple truth that has the most influence with the jury.

Suppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pharaoh, and had got his hair all smoothly brushed, and had stood before the looking-gla.s.s, or had gone to an elocutionist to be taught how to make an oratorical speech and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had b.u.t.toned his coat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an att.i.tude, and begun:

"The G.o.d of our fathers, the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has commanded me to come into the presence of the n.o.ble King of Egypt."

I think they would have taken his head right off! They had Egyptians who could be as eloquent as Moses. It was not eloquence they wanted.

To Which Cla.s.s Do You Belong?