Mr. Moody's First Impulse in Converting Souls.
I want to tell you how I got the first impulse to work solely for the
conversion of men. For a long time after my conversion I didn't
accomplish anything. I hadn't got into my right place; that was it. I
hadn't thought enough of this personal work. I'd get up in prayer
meeting, and I'd pray with the others, but just to go up to a man and
take hold of his coat and get him down on his knees, I hadn't yet got
round to that. It was in 1860 the change came. In the Sunday school I
had a pale, delicate young man as one of the teachers. I knew his
burning piety, and assigned him to the worst class in the school. They
were all girls, and it was an awful class. They kept gadding around in
the school-room, and were laughing and carrying on all the while. And
this young man had better success than anyone else. One Sunday he was
absent, and I tried myself to teach the class, but couldn't do anything
with them; they seemed farther off than ever from any concern about
their souls. Well, the day after his absence, early Monday morning, the
young man came into the store where I worked, and, tottering and
bloodless, threw himself down on some boxes. "What's the matter?" I
asked, "I have been bleeding at the lungs, and they have given me up to
die," he said. "But you are not afraid to die?" I questioned, "No," said
he, "I am not afraid to die, but I have got to stand before God and give
an account of my stewardship, and not one of my Sabbath-school scholars
has been brought to Jesus. I have failed to bring one, and haven't any
strength to do it now."
He was so weighed down that I got a carriage and took that dying man in
it, and we called at the homes of everyone of his scholars, and to each
one he said, as best his faint voice would let him, "I have come to just
ask you to come to the Saviour," and then he prayed as I never heard
before. And for ten days he labored in that way, sometimes walking to
the nearest houses. And at the end of that ten days everyone of that
large class had yielded to the Saviour. Full well I remember the night
before he went away (for the doctors said he must hurry to the South),
how we held a true love-feast. It was the very gate of heaven, that
meeting. He prayed, and they prayed; he didn't ask them, he didn't think
they could pray; and then we sung, "Blest be the tie that binds." It was
a beautiful night in June that he left on the Michigan Southern, and I
was down to the train to help him off. And those girls everyone gathered
there again, all unknown to each other; and the depot seemed a second
gate to heaven, in the joyful, yet tearful, communion and farewells
between these newly redeemed souls and him whose crown of rejoicing it
will be that he led them to Jesus. At last the gong sounded, and,
supported on the platform, the dying man shook hands with each one, and
whispered, "I will meet you yonder."
Very Hard, yet Very Easy.
The hardest thing, I will admit, ever a man had to do is to become a
Christian, and yet it is the easiest. This seems to many to be a
paradox, but I will repeat it, it is the most difficult thing to become
a Christian, and yet it is the easiest. I have a little nephew in this
city. When he was about three or four years of age, he threw that Bible
on the floor. I think a good deal of that Bible, and I don't like to see
this. His mother said to him, "Go pick up uncle's Bible from the floor."
"I won't," he replied. "Go and pick up that Bible directly." "I won't."
"What did you say?" asked his mother. She thought he didn't understand.
But he understood well enough, and had made up his mind that he
wouldn't. She told the boy she would have to punish him if he didn't,
and then he said he couldn't, and by and by he said he didn't want to.
And that is the way with the people in coming to Christ. At first they
say they won't, then they can't, and then they don't want to. The mother
insisted upon the boy picking up the Bible, and he got down and put his
arms around it and pretended he couldn't lift it. He was a great,
healthy boy, and he could have picked it up easily enough. I was very
anxious to see the fight carried on because she was a young mother, and
if she didn't break that boy's will he was going to break her heart by
and by. So she told him again if he didn't pick it up she would punish
him, and the child just picked it up. It was very easy to do it when he
made up his mind. So it is perfectly easy for men to accept the gospel.
The trouble is they don't want to give up their will. If you want to be
saved you must just accept that gospel--that Christ is your Saviour,
that he is your Redeemer, and that he has rescued you from the curse of
the law. Just say "Lord Jesus Christ, I trust you from this hour to save
me," and the moment you take that stand he will put his loving arms
around you and wrap about you the robe of righteousness.
The Arrows of Conviction.
I remember while preaching in Glasgow, an incident occurred which I will
relate. I had been preaching there several weeks, and the night was my
last one, and I pleaded with them as I had never pleaded there before. I
urged the people to meet me in that land. It is a very solemn thing to
stand before a vast audience for the last time and think you may never
have another chance of asking them to come to Christ. I told them I
would not have another opportunity, and urged them to accept, and just
asked them to meet me at that marriage supper. At the conclusion I soon
saw a tall young lady coming into the inquiry room. She had scarcely
come in when another tall young lady came in, and she went up to the
first and put her arms around her and wept. Pretty soon another young
lady came and went up to the first two and just put her arms around both
of them. They were three sisters and I found that although they had been
sitting in different parts of the building, the sure arrow of conviction
went down to their souls, and brought them to the inquiry room. Another
young lady came down from the gallery and said: "Mr. Moody, I want to
become a Christian." I asked a young Christian to talk to her, and when
she went home that night about 10 o'clock--her mother was sitting up
for her--she said: "Mother, I have accepted the invitation to be present
at the marriage supper of the Lamb." Her mother and father laid awake
that night talking about the salvation of their child. That was Friday
night, and next day (Saturday) she was unwell, and before long her
sickness developed into scarlet fever, and a few days after I got this
letter:
"Mr. Moody--Dear Sir: It is now my painful duty to intimate to you that
the dear girl concerning whom I wrote to you on Monday, has been taken
away from us by death. Her departure, however, has been signally
softened to us, for she told us yesterday she was "going home to be with
Jesus," and after giving messages to many, told us to let Mr. Moody and
Mr. Sankey know that she died a happy Christian."
How a Citizen Became a Soldier.
One day I was walking through the streets of York, in England. I saw a
little way ahead a soldier coming toward me. He had the red uniform on
of the infantry--the dress of the army. I knew at once when I saw him
that he was a soldier. When he came near me I stopped him. I said, "My
good man, if you have no objection I would like to ask you a few
questions." "Certainly, sir," said he. "Well, then, I would like to
know how you first became a soldier." "Yes, sir, I will tell you. You
see, sir, I wanted to become a soldier, and the recruiting officer was
in our town, and I went up to him and told him I wanted to enlist.
"Well, sir, he said, 'All right,' and the first thing he did, sir, he
took an English shilling out of his pocket, sir, and put it into my
hand. The very moment, sir, a recruiting-sergeant puts a shilling into
your hand, sir, you are a soldier." I said to myself, "That is the very
illustration I want."
That man was a free man at one time--he could go here and there; do just
what he liked; but the moment the shilling was put into his hand he was
subject to the rules of war, and Queen Victoria could send him anywhere
and make him obey the rules and regulations of the army. He is a soldier
the very minute he takes the shilling. He has not got to wait to put on
the uniform. And when you ask me how a man may be converted at once, I
answer, just the same as that man became a soldier. The citizen becomes
a soldier in a minute, and from being a free man becomes subject to the
command of others. The moment you take Christ into your heart, that
moment your name is written in the roll of Heaven.
Moody a Young Convert.
I remember soon after I got converted a pantheist got hold of me, and
just tried to draw me back to the world. Those men who try to get hold
of a young convert are the worst set of men. I don't know a worse man
than he who tries to pull young Christians down. He is nearer the
borders of hell than any man I know. When this man knew I had found
Jesus he just tried to pull me down. He tried to argue with me, and I
did not know the Bible very well then, and he got the best of me. The
only way to get the best of those atheists, pantheists, or infidels, is
to have a good knowledge of the Bible. Well, this pantheist told me God
was everywhere--in the air, in the sun, in the moon, in the earth, in
the stars, but really he meant nowhere. And the next time I went to
pray, it seemed as if I was not praying anywhere or to anyone. We have
ample evidence in the Bible that there is such a place as heaven, and we
have abundant manifestations that His influence from heaven is felt
among us.
"Free."
You will remember when we had slavery we used to have men come up from
Kentucky, Tennessee, and other slave states in order to escape from
slavery. I hope if there are any Southern people here they will not
think in this allusion I am trying to wound their feelings. We all
remember when these colored men came here how they used to be afraid
lest some one should come and take them back. Why, I remember in the
store we had a poor fugitive, and he used to be quaking all the time.
Sometimes a customer would come in, and he would be uneasy all the time.
He was afraid it was some one to take him back to slavery. But somebody
tells him if he was in Canada he would be perfectly safe, and he says:
"If I could only get into Canada; if I could only get under the Union
Jack I would be free." There are no slaves under the Union Jack he has
been told--that is the flag of freedom; the moment he gets under it he
is a free man. So he starts. We'll say there are no railways, and the
poor fellow has got ten miles ahead when his master comes up, and he
hears that his slave has fled for Canada and sets off in pursuit. Some
one tells the poor fugitive that his master is after him. What does the
poor fugitive do? What does he do? He redoubles his exertions and
presses on, on, on, on. He is a slave born, and he knows a slave belongs
to his master. Faster he goes! He knows his master is after him and he
will be taken if he comes up with him before he reaches the lines. He
says, "If I can only hold out and get under the English flag, the
English government will protect me." The whole English army will come to
protect me if need be. On he presses. He is now nearing the boundary
line. One minute he is a slave, and in an instant he is a free man. My
friends, don't mistake. These men can be saved tonight if they cross the
line.
An Irishman Leaps Into the Life-Boat.
While I was in New York, an Irishman stood up in a young converts'
meeting and told how he had been saved. He said in his broken Irish
brogue that I used an illustration, and that illustration saved him. And
I declare that that is the only man I ever knew who was converted
without being spoken to. He said I used an illustration of a wrecked
vessel, and said that all would perish unless some assistance came.
Presently a life-boat came alongside and the captain shouted, "Leap into
the life-boat--leap for your lives, or you will perish," and when I came
to the point I said, "Leap into the life-boat; Christ is your life-boat
of salvation," and he leaped and was saved.
[Illustration: The Expulsion from the Garden. GUSTAVE DORE. Genesis,
iii, 24]
[Illustration: The Trial Of The Faith Of Abraham. GUSTAVE DORE. Genesis,
xxii.]
Safe in the Ark.
When the voice came down from heaven to Noah, "Come thou and all thy
house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this
generation," now; there was a minute when Noah was outside the ark, and
another when he was inside, and by being inside he was saved. As long as
he was outside of the ark he was exposed to the wrath of God just like
the rest of those antediluvians. If he stayed out, and remained with
those antediluvians, he would have been swept away, as they were. It was
not his righteousness; it was not his faith nor his works that saved
him; it was the ark. And, my friends, we have not, like Noah, to be one
hundred and twenty years making an ark for our safety. God has provided
an ark for us, and the question is: Are you inside or outside this ark?
If you are inside you are safe; if you are outside you are not safe.