A Voice from the Tomb.
The other day I read of a mother who died, leaving her child alone and
very poor. She used to pray earnestly for her boy, and left an
impression upon his mind that she cared more for his soul than she cared
for anything else in the world. He grew up to be a successful man in
business, and became very well off. One day not long ago, after his
mother had been dead for twenty years, he thought he would remove her
remains and put her into his own lot in the cemetery, and put up a
little monument to her memory. As he came to remove them and to lay her
away the thought came to him, that while his mother was alive she had
prayed for him, and he wondered why her prayers were not answered. That
very night that man was saved. After his mother had been buried so long
a time, the act of removing her body to another resting place, brought
up all the recollections of his childhood, and he became a Christian. O,
you mothers!
Prayer Answered.
Only a few years ago in the City of Philadelphia there was a mother that
had two sons. They were just going as fast as they could to ruin. They
were breaking her heart, and she went into a little prayer-meeting and
got up and presented them for prayer. They had been on a drunken spree
or had just got started in that way, and she knew that their end would
be a drunkard's grave, and she went among these Christians and said,
"Won't you just cry to God for my two boys?" The next morning those two
boys had made an appointment to meet each other on the corner of Market
and Thirteenth streets--though not that they knew anything about our
meeting--and while one of them was there at the corner, waiting for his
brother to come, he followed the people who were flooding into the depot
building, and the spirit of the Lord met him, and he was wounded and
found his way to Christ. After his brother came he found the place too
crowded to enter, so he too went curiously into another meeting and
found Christ, and went home happy; and when he got home he told his
mother what the Lord had done for him, and the second son came with the
same tidings. I heard one of them get up afterwards to tell his
experience in the young converts' meeting, and he had no sooner told the
story than the other got up and said: "I am that brother, and there is
not a happier home in Philadelphia than we have got."
The Praying Mother.
I remember being in the camp and a man came to me and said, "Mr. Moody,
when the Mexican war began I wanted to enlist. My mother, seeing I was
resolved, said if I became a Christian I might go. She pleaded and
prayed that I might become a Christian, but I wouldn't. I said when the
war was over I would become a Christian, but not till then. All her
pleading was in vain, and at last, when I was going away, she took out a
watch and said: 'My son, your father left this to me when he died. Take
it, and I want you to remember that every day at 12 o'clock your mother
will be praying for you.' Then she gave me her Bible, and marked out
passages, and put a few different references in the fly-leaf. I took the
watch and the Bible just because my mother gave them. I never intended
to read the Bible. I went off to Mexico, and one day while on a long,
weary march, I took out my watch, and it was 12 o'clock. I had been gone
four months, but I remembered that my mother at that hour was praying
for me. Something prompted me to ask the officer to relieve me for a
little while, and I stepped behind a tree away out on those plains of
Mexico, and cried to the God of my mother to save me." My friends, God
saved him, and he went through the Mexican war, "and now," he said, "I
have enlisted again to see if I can do any good for my Master's cause."
The Sinner's Prayer Heard.
There was a man at one of our meetings in New York City who was moved by
the Spirit of God. He said, "I am going home, and I am not going to
sleep to-night till Christ takes away my sins, if I have to stay up all
night and pray. I'll do it." He had a good distance to walk, and as he
went along he thought, "Why can't I pray now as I go along, instead of
waiting to go home?" But he did not know a prayer. His mother had taught
him to pray, but it was so long since he had uttered a prayer that he
had forgotten. However, the publican's prayer came to his mind.
Everybody can say this prayer. That man in the gallery yonder, that
young lady over there: "God be merciful to me a sinner." May God write
it on your hearts to-night. If you forget the sermon, don't forget that
prayer. It is a very short prayer, and it has brought joy--salvation--to
many a soul. Well, this prayer came to the man, and he began, "God be
merciful to me a--," but before he got to "sinner" God blessed him.
Black-balled by Man, Saved by Christ.
At the Fulton street prayer-meeting a man came in, and this was his
story. He said he had a mother who prayed for him; he was a wild,
reckless prodigal. Some time after his mother's death he began to be
troubled. He thought he ought to get into new company, and leave his old
companions. So he said he would go and join a secret society; he thought
he would join the Odd Fellows. They went and made inquiry about him, and
they found he was a drunken sailor, so they black-balled him. They would
not have him. He then went to the Freemasons; he had nobody to recommend
him, so they inquired and found there was no good in his character, and
they, too, black-balled him. They didn't want him. One day, some one
handed him a little notice in the street about the prayer-meeting, and
he went in. He heard that Christ had come to save sinners. He believed
Him; he took Him at his word; and, in reporting the matter, he said he
"came to Christ without a character, and Christ hadn't black-balled him."
My friends, that is Christ's way.
The Praying Cripple.
I once knew a little cripple who lay upon her death-bed. She had given
herself to God, and was distressed only because she could not labor for
Him actively among the lost. Her clergyman visited her, and hearing her
complaint, told her that there from her sick-bed she could offer prayers
for those whom she wished to see turning to God. He advised her to write
the names down, and then to pray earnestly; and then he went away and
thought of the subject no more. Soon a feeling of great religious
interest sprang up in the village, and the churches were crowded
nightly. The little cripple heard of the progress of the revival, and
inquired anxiously for the names of the saved. A few weeks later she
died, and among a roll of papers that was found under her little pillow,
was one bearing the names of fifty-six persons, every one of whom had in
the revival been converted. By each name was a little cross, by which
the poor crippled saint had checked off the names of the converts as
they had been reported to her.
A Child's Prayer Answered.
I remember a child that lived with her parents in a small village. One
day the news came that her father had joined the army (it was at the
beginning of our war), and a few days after the landlord came to demand
the rent. The mother told him she hadn't got it, and that her husband
had gone into the army. He was a hard hearted wretch, and he stormed and
said that they must leave the home; he wasn't going to have people who
couldn't pay the rent. After he was gone, the mother threw herself into
the arm-chair, and began to weep bitterly. Her little girl whom she had
taught to pray in faith (but it is more difficult to practice than to
preach), came up to her, and said, "What makes you cry, mamma? I will
pray to God to give us a little house, and won't He?" What could the
mother say? So the little child went into the next room and began to
pray. The door was open, and the mother could hear every word. "O God,
you have come and taken away father, and mamma has got no money, and the
landlord will turn us out because we can't pay, and we will have to sit
on the doorstep, and mamma will catch cold. Give us a little home." Then
she waited, as if for an answer, and then added, "Won't you, please,
God?" She came out of that room quite happy, expecting a house to be
given them. The mother felt reproved. I can tell you, however, she has
never paid any rent since, for God heard the prayer of that little one,
and touched the heart of the cruel landlord. God give us the faith of
that little child, that we may likewise expect an answer, "nothing
wavering."
The Orphan's Prayer.
A little child whose father and mother had died, was taken into another
family. The first night she asked if she could pray, as she used to do.
They said "Oh yes." So she knelt down, and prayed as her mother taught
her; and when that was ended she added a little prayer of her own: "Oh
God, make these people as kind to me as father and mother were." Then
she paused and looked up, as if expecting the answer, and added: "Of
course He will." How sweetly simple was that little one's faith; she
expected God to "do," and, of course, she got her request.