A Mother's Mistake.
While I was attending a meeting in a certain city sometime ago a lady
came to me and said: "I want you to go home with me; I have something to
say to you." When we reached her home, there were some friends there;
After they had retired, she put her arms on the table, and tears began
to come into her eyes, but with an effort she repressed her emotion.
After a struggle she went on to say that she was going to tell me
something which she had never told any other living person. I should not
tell it now; but she has gone to another world. She said she had a son
in Chicago, and she was very anxious about him. When he was young he got
interested in religion at the rooms of the young Men's Christian
Association. He used to go out in the street and circulate tracts. He
was her only son, and she was very ambitious that he should make a name
in the world, and wanted him to get into the very highest circles. Oh,
what a mistake people make about these highest circles. Society is
false; it is a sham. She was deceived like a good many more votaries of
fashion and hunters after wealth at the present time. She thought it was
beneath her son to go down and associate with those young men who hadn't
much money. She tried to get him away from them, but they had more
influence than she had, and, finally, to break his whole association,
she packed him off to a boarding-school. He went soon to Yale College,
and she supposed he got into one of those miserable secret societies
there that have ruined so many young men; and the next thing she heard
was that the boy had gone astray.
She began to write letters urging him to come into the Kingdom of God,
but she heard that he tore the letters up without reading them. She went
to him to try and regain whatever influence she possessed over him, but
her efforts were useless, and she came home with a broken heart. He left
New Haven, and for two years they heard nothing of him. At last they
heard he was in Chicago, and his father found him and gave him $30,000
to start in business. They thought it would change him, but it didn't.
They asked me when I went back to Chicago to try and use my influence
with him. I got a friend to invite him to his house one night, where I
intended to meet him, but he heard I was to be there, and did not come
near, like a good many other young men, who seem to be afraid of me. I
tried many times to reach him, but could not. While I was traveling one
day on the New Haven Railroad, I bought a New York paper, and in it I
saw a dispatch saying he had been drowned in Lake Michigan. His father
came on to find his body, and, after considerable searching, they
discovered it. All his clothes and his body were covered with sand. The
body was taken home to that broken-hearted mother. She said "If I
thought he was in heaven I would have peace." Her disobedience of God's
law came back upon her.
So, my friends, if you have a boy impressed with the gospel, help him to
come to Christ. Bring him in the arms of your faith, and He will unite
you closer to him.
"Pull for the Shore."
Look at that man in a boat on Niagara River. He is only about a mile
from the rapids. A man on the bank shouts to him, "Young man, young man,
the rapids are not far away; you'd better pull for the shore." "You
attend to your own business; I will take care of myself," he replies.
Like a great many people here, and ministers, too, they don't want any
evangelist here--don't want any help, however great the danger ahead. On
he goes; sitting coolly in his boat. Now he has got a little nearer, and
a man from the bank of the river sees his danger, and shouts: "Stranger,
you'd better pull for the shore; if you go further, you'll be lost. You
can be saved now if you pull in." "Mind your business, and you'll have
enough to do; I'll take care of myself." Like a good many men, they are
asleep to the danger that's hanging over them while they are in the
current. And I say, drinking young man, don't you think you are standing
still. You are in the current, and if you don't pull for a rock of
safety you will go over the precipice. On he goes. I can see him in the
boat laughing at the danger. A man on the bank is looking at him, and he
lifts up his voice and cries, "Stranger, stranger, pull for the shore;
if you don't you'll lose your life;" and the young man laughs at
him--mocks him. That is the way with hundreds in Chicago. If you go to
them and point out their danger, they will jest and joke at you. By and
by he says: "I think I hear the rapids--yes, I hear them roar;" and he
seizes his oars and pulls with all his strength, but the current is too
great, and nearer and nearer he is drawn on to that abyss, until he
gives one unearthly scream, and over he goes. Ah, my friends, this is
the case with hundreds in this city. They are in the current of riches
of pleasure, of drink, that will take them to the whirlpool.
A Blind Man Preaches to 3,000,000 People.
I was at a meeting in London, when I was there, and I heard a man
speaking with wonderful power and earnestness. "Who is that man?" I
asked, my curiosity being excited. "Why, that is Dr. ----. He is blind."
I felt some interest in this man and at the close of the meeting, I
sought an interview, and he told me that he had been stricken blind when
very young. His mother took him to a doctor, and asked him about his
sight. "You must give up all hope," the doctor said. "Your boy is blind,
and will be forever." "What, do you think my boy will never see?" asked
his mother. "Never again." The mother took her boy to her bosom and
cried, "Oh, my boy, ''Who will take care of you when I am gone? Who will
look to you?"--forgetting the faithfulness of that God she had taught
him to love. He became a servant of the Lord and was permitted to print
the Bible in twelve different languages, printed in the raised letters,
so that all the blind people could read the Scriptures themselves. He
had a congregation, my friends, of three millions of people, and I
think that blind man was one of the happiest beings in all London. He
was naturally blind, but he had eyes to his soul, and could see a bright
eternity in the future. He had built his foundation upon the living God.
We pity those who have not their natural sight; but how you should pity
yourself if you are spiritually blind.
Money Blind.
I heard of a man who had accumulated great wealth, and death came upon
him suddenly, and he realized, as the saying is, that "there was no bank
in the shroud," that he couldn't take anything away with him; we may
have all the money on earth, but we must leave it behind us. He called a
lawyer in and commenced to will away his property before he went away.
His little girl couldn't understand exactly where he was going, and she
said: "Father, have you got a home in that land you are going to?" The
arrow went down to his soul. "Got a home there?" The rich man had hurled
away God and neglected to secure a home there for the sake of his money,
and he found it was now too late. He was money mad, he was money blind.