"Little Moody."
I remember when I was a boy I went several miles from home with an older
brother. That seemed to me the longest visit of my life. It seemed that
I was then further away from home than I had ever been before, or have
ever been since. While we were walking down the street we saw an old man
coming toward us, and my brother said, "There is a man that will give
you a cent. He gives every new boy that comes into this town a cent."
That was my first visit to the town, and when the old man got opposite
to us he looked around, and my brother not wishing me to lose the cent,
and to remind the old man that I had not received it, told him that I
was a new boy in the town. The old man, taking off my hat, placed his
trembling hand on my head, and told me I had a Father in heaven. It was
a kind, simple act, but I feel the pressure of the old man's hand upon
my head to-day. You don't know how much you may do by just speaking
kindly.
"Won by a Smile."
In London, in 1872, one Sunday morning a minister said to me, "I want
you to notice that family there in one of the front seats, and when we
go home I want to tell you their story." When we got home I asked him
for the story, and he said, "All that family were won by a smile."
"Why," said I, "how's that?" "Well," said he, "as I was walking down a
street one day I saw a child at a window; it smiled, and I smiled, and
we bowed. So it was the second time; I bowed, she bowed. It was not long
before there was another child, and I had got in a habit of looking and
bowing, and pretty soon the group grew, and at last, as I went by, a
lady was with them. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to bow to
her, but I knew the children expected it, and so I bowed to them all.
And the mother saw I was a minister, because I carried a Bible every
Sunday morning. So the children followed me the next Sunday and found I
was a minister. And they thought I was the greatest preacher, and their
parents must hear me. A minister who is kind to a child and gives him a
pat on the head, why the children will think he is the greatest preacher
in the world. Kindness goes a great way. And to make a long story short,
the father and mother and five children were converted, and they are
going to join our church next Sunday."
Won to Christ by a smile! We must get the wrinkles out of our brows, and
we must have smiling faces.
A Little Boy's Experience.
One day as a young lady was walking up the street, she saw a little boy
running out of a shoemaker's shop, and behind him was the old shoemaker
chasing him with a wooden last in his hand. He had not run far until the
last was thrown at him, and he was struck in the back. The boy stopped
and began to cry. The Spirit of the Lord touched that young lady's
heart, and she went to where he was. She stepped up to him, and asked
him if he was hurt. He told her it was none of her business. She went to
work then to win that boy's confidence. She asked him if he went to
school. He said, "No." "Well, why don't you go to school?" "Don't want
to." She asked him if he would not like to go to Sunday school. "If you
will come," she said, "I will tell you beautiful stories and read nice
books." She coaxed and pleaded with him, and at last said that if he
would consent to go, she would meet him on the corner of a street which
they should agree upon. He at last consented, and the next Sunday, true
to his promise, he waited for her at the place designated. She took him
by the hand and led him into the Sabbath-school "Can you give me a place
to teach this little boy?" she asked of the superintendent.
He looked at the boy, but they didn't have any such looking little ones
in the school. A place was found, however, and she sat down in the
corner and tried to win that soul for Christ. Many would look upon that
with contempt, but she had got something to do for the Master. The
little boy had never heard anybody sing so sweetly before. When he went
home he was asked where he had been. "Been among the angels," he told
his mother. He said he had been to the Protestant Sabbath-school, but
his father and mother told him he must not go there any more or he would
get a flogging. The next Sunday he went, and when he came home he got
the promised flogging. He went the second time and got a flogging, and
also a third time with the same result. At last he said to his father,
"I wish you would flog me before I go, and then I won't have to think of
it when I am there." The father said, "If you go to that Sabbath-school
again I will kill you." It was the father's custom to send his son out
on the street to sell articles to the passers-by, and he told the boy
that he might have the profits of what he sold on Saturday. The little
fellow hastened to the young lady's house and said to her, "Father said
that he would give me every Saturday to myself, and if you will just
teach me, then I will come to your house every Saturday afternoon." I
wonder how many young ladies there are that would give up their Saturday
afternoons just to lead one boy into the kingdom of God. Every Saturday
afternoon that little boy was there at her house, and she tried to tell
him the way to Christ. She labored with him, and at last the light of
God's spirit broke upon his heart.
One day while he was selling his wares at the railroad station, a train
of cars approached unnoticed and passed over both his legs. A physician
was summoned, and the first thing after he arrived, the little sufferer
looked up into his face and said, "Doctor, will I live to get home?"
"No," said the doctor, "you are dying." "Will you tell my mother and
father that I died a Christian?" They bore home the boy's corpse and
with it the last message that he died a Christian. Oh, what a noble work
was that young lady's in saving that little wanderer! How precious the
remembrance to her! When she goes to heaven she will not be a stranger
there. He will take her by the hand and lead her to the throne of
Christ. She did the work cheerfully. Oh, may God teach us what our work
is that we may do it for His glory.
Love.
In our city a few years ago there was a little boy who went to one of
the mission Sunday-schools. His father moved to another part of the city
about five miles away, and every Sunday that boy came past thirty or
forty Sunday-schools to the one he attended. And one Sunday a lady who
was out collecting scholars for a Sunday-school met him and asked why he
went so far, past so many schools. "There are plenty of others," said
she, "just as good." He said, "They may be as good but they are not so
good for me." "Why not?" she asked "Because they love a fellow over
there," he answered. Ah! love won him. "Because they love a fellow over
there!" How easy it is to reach people through love! Sunday-school
teachers should win the affections of their scholars if they wish to
lead them to Christ.
A Little Boy Converts his Mother.
I remember when on the North Side I tried to reach a family time and
again and failed. One night in the meeting, I noticed one of the little
boys of that family. He hadn't come for any good, however; he was
sticking pins in the backs of the other boys. I thought if I could get
hold of him it would do good. I used always to go to the door and shake
hands with the boys, and when I got to the door and saw this little boy
coming out, I shook hands with him, and patted him on the head, and said
I was glad to see him, and hoped he would come again. He hung his head
and went away. The next night, however, he came back, and he behaved
better than he did the previous night. He came two or three times after,
and then asked us to pray for him that he might become a Christian. That
was a happy night for me. He became a Christian and a good one. One
night I saw him weeping. I wondered if his old temper had got hold or
him again, and when he got up I wondered what he was going to say. "I
wish you would pray for my mother," he said. When the meeting was over I
went to him and asked, "Have you ever spoken to your mother or tried to
pray with her?" "Well, you know, Mr. Moody," he replied, "I never had an
opportunity; she don't believe, and won't hear me." "Now," I said, "I
want you to talk to your mother to-night." For years I had been trying
to reach her and couldn't do it.
So I urged him to talk to her that night, and I said "I will pray for
you both." When he got to the sitting-room he found some people there,
and he sat waiting for an opportunity, when his mother said it was time
for him to go to bed. He went to the door undecided. He took a step,
stopped, and turned around, and hesitated for a minute, then ran to his
mother and threw his arms around her neck, and buried his face in her
bosom. "What is the matter?" she asked--she thought he was sick. Between
his sobs he told his mother how for five weeks he had wanted to be a
Christian; how he had stopped swearing; how he was trying to be obedient
to her, and how happy he would be if she would be a Christian, and then
went off to bed. She sat for a few minutes, but couldn't stand it, and
went up to his room. When she got to the door she heard him weeping and
praying, "Oh, God, convert my dear mother." She came down again, but
couldn't sleep that night. Next day she told the boy to go and ask Mr.
Moody to come over and see her. He called at my place of business--I was
in business then--and I went over as quick as I could. I found her
sitting in a rocking chair weeping. "Mr. Moody," she said, "I want to
become a Christian." "What has brought that change over you. I thought
you didn't believe in it?" Then she told me how her boy had come to her,
and how she hadn't slept any all night, and how her sin rose up before
her like a dark mountain. The next Sunday that boy came and led that
mother into the Sabbath-school, and she became a Christian worker.
Oh, little children, if you find Christ tell it to your fathers and
mothers. Throw your arms around their necks and lead them to Jesus.
A Father's Mistake.
There is a little story that has gone the round of the American press
that made a great impression upon me as a father. A father took his
little child out into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, he
lay down under a beautiful shady tree. The little child ran about
gathering wild flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its
father and saying, "Pretty! pretty!" At last the father fell asleep, and
while he was sleeping the little child wandered away. When he awoke, his
first thought was, "Where is my child?" He looked all around, but he
could not see him. He shouted at the top of his voice, but all he heard
was the echo of his own voice. Running to a little hill, he looked
around and shouted again. No response! Then going to a precipice at some
distance, he looked down, and there, upon the rocks and briars, he saw
the mangled form of his loved child. He rushed to the spot, took up the
lifeless corpse, and hugged it to his bosom, and accused himself of
being the murderer of his child. While he was sleeping his child had
wandered over the precipice. I thought as I heard that, what a picture
of the church of God!
How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men, are sleeping now
while their children wander over the terrible precipice right into the
bottomless pit. Father, where is your boy to-night?
A Boy's Mistake--A Sad Reconciliation.
There was an Englishman who had an only son; and only sons are often
petted, and humored, and ruined. This boy became very headstrong, and
very often he and his father had trouble. One day they had a quarrel and
the father was very angry, and so was the son; and the father said he
wished the boy would leave home and never come back. The boy said he
would go, and would not come into his father's house again till he sent
for him. The father said he would never send for him. Well, away went
the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother does not. You
mothers will understand that, but the fathers may not. You know there is
no love on earth so strong as a mother's love. A great many things may
separate a man and his wife; a great many things may separate a father
from his son; but there is nothing in the wide world that can ever
separate a true mother from her child. To be sure, there are some
mothers that have drank so much liquor that they have drunk up all their
affection. But I am talking about a true mother; and she would never
cast off her boy.
Well, the mother began to write and plead with the boy to write to his
father first, and he would forgive him; but the boy said, "I will never
go home till father asks me." Then she pled with the father, but the
father said, "No, I will never ask him." At last the mother came down to
her sick-bed, broken-hearted, and when she was given up by the
physicians to die, the husband, anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted
to know if there was nothing he could do for her before she died. The
mother gave him a look; he well knew what it meant. Then she said, "Yes,
there is one thing you can do. You can send for my boy. That is the only
wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not pity him and love him when
I am dead and gone, who will?" "Well," said the father, "I will send
word to him that you want to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will
not come for me. If ever I see him you must send for him."
At last the father went to his office and wrote a dispatch in his own
name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he got the invitation from
his father he started off to see his dying mother. When he opened the
door to go in he found his mother dying, and his father by the bedside.
The father heard the door open, and saw the boy, but instead of going to
meet him, he went to another part of the room, and refused to speak to
him. His mother seized his hand--how she had longed to press it! She
kissed him, and then said, "Now, my son, just speak to your father. You
speak first, and it will all be over." But the boy said, "No, mother, I
will not speak to him until he speaks to me." She took her husband's
hand in one hand and the boy's in the other, and spent her dying moments
in trying to bring about a reconciliation. Then just as she was
expiring--she could not speak--so she put the hand of the wayward boy
into the hand of the father, and passed away! The boy looked at the
mother, and the father at the wife, and at last the father's heart
broke, and he opened his arms, and took that boy to his bosom, and by
that body they were reconciled. Sinner, that is only a faint type, a
poor illustration, because God is not angry with you.
I bring you to-night to the dead body of Christ. I ask you to look at
the wounds in his hands and feet, and the wound in his side. And I ask
you, "Will you not be reconciled?"
Moody and his Little Willie.
I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the Chicago
fire, "I am coming home this afternoon to give you a ride." My little
boy clapped his hands. "Oh, papa, will you take me to see the bears in
Lincoln Park?" "Yes." You know boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had
not been gone long when my little boy said, "Mamma, I wish you would get
me ready." "Oh," she said, "it will be a long time before papa comes."
"But I want to get ready, mamma." At last he was ready to have the ride,
face washed, and clothes all nice and clean. "Now, you must take good
care and not get yourself dirty again," said mamma. Oh, of course he was
going to take care; he wasn't going to get dirty. So off he ran to watch
for me. However, it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and after a
little he began to play. When I got home, I found him outside, with his
face all covered with dirt. "I can't take you to the Park that way,
Willie." "Why, papa? you said you would take me." "Ah, but I can't;
you're all over mud. I couldn't be seen with such a dirty little boy."
"Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me." "Well, you've got dirty
since." But he began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was
dirty. "I'se clean; mamma washed me!" he cried. Do you think I argued
with him? No. I just took him up in my arms, and carried him into the
house, and showed him his face in the looking-glass. He had not a word
to say. He could not take my word for it; but one look at the glass was
enough; he saw it for himself. He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that!
Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty--but I did not
take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. Yet that is just what
thousands of people do. The law is the looking-glass to see ourselves
in, to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of God; but
they take the law and try to wash themselves with it.