A Child Visits Abraham Lincoln, and Saves the Life of a Condemned Soldier.
During the war I remember a young man, not twenty, who was
court-martialed down in the front and sentenced to be shot; The story
was this: The young fellow had enlisted. He was not obliged to, but he
went off with another young man. They were what we would, call "chums."
One night this companion was ordered out on picket duty, and he asked
the young man to go for him. The next night he was ordered out himself;
and having been awake two nights, and not being used to it, fell asleep
at his post, and for the offense he was tried and sentenced to death. It
was right after the order issued by the President that no interference
would be allowed in cases of this kind. This sort of thing had become
too frequent, and it must be stopped. When the news reached the father
and mother in Vermont it nearly broke their hearts. The thought that
their son should be shot was too great for them. They had no hope that
he would be saved by anything they could do. But they had a little
daughter who had read the life of Abraham Lincoln, and knew how he had
loved his own children, and she said: "If Abraham Lincoln knew how my
father and mother loved my brother he wouldn't let mm he shot." That
little girl thought this matter over and made up her mind to see the
President. She went to the White House, and the sentinel, when he saw
her imploring looks, passed her in, and when she came to the door and
told the private secretary that she wanted to see the President, he
could not refuse her. She came into the chamber and found Abraham
Lincoln surrounded by his generals and counselors, and when he saw the
little country girl he asked her what she wanted. The little maid told
her plain, simple story--how her brother, whom her father and mother
loved very dearly, had been sentenced to be shot; how they were mourning
for him, and if he was to die in that way it would break their hearts.
The President's heart was touched with compassion, and he immediately
sent a dispatch canceling the sentence and giving the boy a parole so
that he could come home and see that father and mother. I just tell you
this to show you how Abraham Lincoln's heart was moved by compassion for
the sorrow of that father and mother, and if he showed so much do you
think the Son of God will not have compassion upon you, sinner, if you
only take that crushed, bruised heart to him?
Broken Hearts.
There is no class of people exempt from broken hearts. The rich and the
poor suffer alike. There was a time when I used to visit the poor that I
thought all the broken hearts were to be found among them, but within
the last few years I have found there are as many broken hearts among
the learned as the unlearned, the cultured as the uncultured, the rich
as the poor. If you could but go up one of our avenues and down another
and reach the hearts of the people; and get them to tell their whole
story, you would be astonished at the wonderful history of every family.
I remember a few years ago I had been out of the city for some weeks.
When I returned I started out to make some calls. The first place I went
to I found a mother; her eyes were red with weeping. I tried to find out
what was troubling her, and she reluctantly opened her heart and told me
all. She said: "Last night my only boy came home about midnight, drunk.
I didn't know that he was addicted to drunkenness, but this morning I
found out that he had been drinking for weeks, and," she continued, "I
would rather have seen him laid in the grave than have have had him
brought home in the condition I saw him in last night." I tried to
comfort her as best I could when she told me her sad story. When I went
away from that house I didn't want to go into any other house where
there was family trouble. The very next house I went to, however, where
some of the children who attended my Sunday school resided, I found that
death had been there and laid his hand on one of them. The mother spoke
to me of her afflictions, and brought to me the playthings and the
little shoes of the child, and the tears trickled down that mother's
cheeks as she related to me her sorrow. I got out as soon as possible,
and hoped I would see no more family trouble that day.
The next visit I made was to a home where I found a wife with a bitter
story. Her husband had been neglecting her for a long time; "and now,"
she said, "he has left me, and I don't know where he has gone. Winter is
coming on, and I don't know what is going to become of my family." I
tried to comfort her, and prayed with her, and endeavored to get her to
lay all her sorrows on Christ. The next home I entered I found a woman
crushed and broken-hearted. She told me her boy had forsaken her, and
she had no idea where he had gone. That afternoon I made five calls, and
in every home I found a broken heart. Everyone had a sad tale to tell,
and if you visited every house in Chicago you would find the truth in
the saying that "there is a skeleton in every house." I suppose while I
am talking you are thinking of the great sorrow in your own bosom. I do
not know anything about you, but if I were to come around to everyone of
you, and you were to tell me the truth I would hear a tale of sorrow.
The very last man I spoke to last night was a young mercantile man who
told me his load of sorrow had been so great that many times during the
last few weeks he had gone down to the lake and had been tempted to
plunge in and end his existence. His burden seemed too much for him.
Think of the broken hearts in Chicago tonight! They could be numbered by
hundreds--yea, thousands. All over this city are broken hearts.
If all the sorrow represented in this great city were written in a book,
this building couldn't hold that book, and you couldn't read it in a
long lifetime. This earth is not a stranger to tears, neither is the
present the only time when they could be found in abundance. From Adam's
days to ours tears have been shed, and a wail has been going up to
heaven from the broken-hearted. And I say it again, it is a mystery to
me how all those broken hearts can keep away from Him who has come to
heal them.
"That is Your Fault."
I remember a mother coming to me and saying, "It is easy enough for you
to speak in that way; if you had the burden that I've got, you couldn't
cast it on the Lord." "Why, is your burden so great that Christ can't
carry it?" I asked. "No; it isn't too great for Him to carry; but I
can't put it on Him." "That is your fault," I replied; and I find a
great many people with burdens who, rather than just come to Him with
them, strap them tighter on their backs and go away struggling under
their load. I asked her the nature of her trouble, and she told me. "I
have an only boy who is a wanderer on the face of the earth. I don't
know where he is. If I only knew where he was I would go around the
world to find him. You don't know how I love that boy. This sorrow is
killing me." "Why can't you take him to Christ? You can reach Him at the
throne, even though he be at the uttermost part of the world. Go tell
God all about your trouble, and he will take away his sin, and not only
that, but if you never see him on earth, God can give you faith that you
will see your boy in heaven." And then I told her of a mother who lived
down in the southern part of Indiana. Some years ago her boy came up to
this city. He was a moralist. My friends, a man has to have more than
morality to lean upon in this great city. He hadn't been here long
before he was led astray. A neighbor happened to come up here and found
him one night in the streets drunk.
When that neighbor went home, at first he thought he wouldn't say
anything about it to the boy's father, but afterward he thought it was
his duty to tell him. So in a crowd in the street of their little town
he just took the father aside, and told him what he had seen in Chicago.
It was a terrible blow. When the children had been put to bed that night
he said to his wife, "Wife, I have bad news. I have heard from Chicago
today." The mother dropped her work in an instant and said: "Tell me
what it is." "Well, our son has been seen on the streets of Chicago,
drunk." Neither of them slept that night, but they took their burden to
Christ, and about daylight the mother said: "I don't know how, I don't
know when or where, but God has given me faith to believe that our son
will be saved and will never come to a drunkard's grave."
One week after, that boy left Chicago. He couldn't tell why--an unseen
power seemed to lead him to his mother's home, and the first thing he
said on coming over the threshold was, "Mother, I have come home to ask
you to pray for me;" and soon after he came back to Chicago a bright and
shining light. If you have a burden like this, fathers, mothers, bring
it to Him and cast it on Him, and He, the Great Physician, will heal
your broken hearts.
"It will Kill Her."
I was thinking to-day of the difference between those who knew Christ
when trouble comes upon them and those who knew Him not. I know several
members of families who are just stumbling into their graves over
trouble. I know two widows in Chicago who are weeping and mourning over
the death of their husbands, and their grief is just taking them to
their graves. Instead of bringing their burdens to Christ, they mourn
day and night, and the result will be that in a few weeks or years at
most their sorrow will take them to their graves when they ought to take
it all to the Great Physician. Three years ago a father took his wife
and family on board that ill-fated French steamer. They were going to
Europe, and when out on the ocean another vessel ran into her and she
went down. That mother when I was preaching in Chicago used to bring her
two children to the meetings every night. It was one of the most
beautiful sights I ever looked on, to see how those little children used
to sit and listen, and to see the tears trickling down their cheeks when
the Saviour was preached. It seemed as if nobody else in that meeting
drank in the truth as eagerly as those little ones.
One-night when an invitation had been extended to all to go into the
inquiry room, one of these little children said: "Mamma, why can't I go
in too?" The mother allowed them to come into the room, and some friend
spoke to them, and to all appearances they seemed to understand the plan
of salvation as well as their elders. When that memorable night came
that mother went down and came up without her two children. Upon reading
the news I said: "It will kill her," and I quitted my post in
Edinburgh--the only time I left my post on the other side--and went down
to Liverpool to try and comfort her. But when I got there I found that
the Son of God had been there before me, and instead of me comforting
her, she comforted me. She told me she could not think of those children
as being in the sea; it seemed as if Christ had permitted her to take
those children on that vessel only that they might be wafted to Him, and
had saved her life only that she might come back and work a little
longer for Him. When she got up the other day at a mothers' meeting in
Farwell Hall, and told her story, I thought I would tell the mothers of
it the first chance I got.
So if any of you have had some great affliction, if any of you have lost
a loving father, mother, brother, husband, or wife, come to Christ,
because God has sent Him to heal the broken-hearted.
"Father, Father, Come This Way."
I remember a number of years ago I went out of Chicago to try to preach.
I went down to a little town where was being held a Sunday-school
convention. I was a perfect stranger in the place, and when I arrived a
man stepped up to me and asked me if my name was Moody. I told him it
was, and he invited me to his house. When I got there he said he had to
go to the convention, and asked me to excuse his wife, as she, not
having a servant, had to attend to her household duties. He put me into
the parlor, and told me to amuse myself as best I could till he came
back. I sat there, but the room was dark and I could not read, and I got
tired. So I thought I would try and get the children and play with them.
I listened for some sound of childhood in the house, but could not hear
a single evidence of the presence of little ones. When my friend came
back I said: "Haven't you any children?" "Yes," he replied, "'I have
one, but she's in Heaven, and I am glad she is there, Moody." "Are you
glad that your child's dead?" I inquired.
He went on to tell me how he had worshiped that child; how his whole
life had been bound up in her to the neglect of his Saviour. One day he
had come home and found her dying. Upon her death he accused God of
being unjust. He saw some of his neighbors with their children around
them. Why hadn't He taken some of them away? He was rebellious. After he
came home from her funeral he said: "All at once I thought I heard, her
little voice calling me, but the truth came to my heart that she was
gone. Then I thought I heard her feet upon the stairs; but I knew she
was lying in the grave. The thought of her loss almost made me mad. I
threw myself on my bed and wept bitterly. I fell asleep, and while I
slept I had a dream, but it almost seemed to me like a vision.
"I thought I was going over a barren field, and I came to a river so
dark and chill-looking that, I was going to turn away, when all at once
I saw on the opposite bank the most beautiful sight I ever looked at. I
thought death and sorrow could never enter into that lovely region. Then
I began to see beings all so happy looking, and among them I saw my
little child. She waved her little angel hand to me and cried, 'Father,
Father, come this way.' I thought, her voice sounded much sweeter than
it did on earth. In my dream I thought I went to the water and tried to
cross it, but found it deep and the current so rapid that I thought if I
entered it would carry me away from her forever. I tried to find a
boatman to take me over, but couldn't, and I walked up and down the
river trying to find a crossing, and still she cried: 'Come this way.'
All at once I heard a voice come rolling down, 'I am the way, the truth,
and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.' The voice awoke
me from my sleep,' and I knew it was my Saviour calling me, and pointing
the way for me to reach my darling child.
"I am now superintendent of a Sunday-school; I have made many converts;
my wife has been converted, and we will, through Jesus as the way, see
one day our child."
The Place of Safety.
My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear or Death, of Sin,
and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth
where the sinner can stand--Calvary. Out in our western country, in the
autumn, when men go hunting, and there has not been rain for many
months, sometimes the prairie grass catches fire. Sometimes, when the
wind is strong, the flames maybe seen rolling along, twenty feet high,
destroying man and beast in their onward rush. When the frontiersmen see
what is coming, what do they do to escape? They know they cannot run as
fast as that fire can run. Not the fleetest horse can escape it. They
just take a match and light the grass around them. The flames sweep
onwards; they take their stand in the burnt district and are safe. They
hear the flames roar as they come along; they see death bearing down
upon them with resistless fury, but they do not fear. They do not even
tremble as the ocean of flame surges around them, for over the place
where they stand the fire has already past and there is no danger. There
is nothing for fire to burn. And there is one spot all earth that God
has swept over. Eighteen hundred years ago the storm burst on Calvary;
the Son of God took it into his own bosom, and now, if we take our stand
by the Cross, we are safe for time and eternity.