PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Bible Characters
Moody, Dwight Lyman, 1837-1899 · 127,927 words · 195 reading sections
SIMEON.
The Lord was one day at Jerusalem, and a banquet was given him by Simeon. There was a banquet table in the house, arranged according to the fashion of that day. Instead of chairs for the guests, the guests sat reclining on lounges. Well, it was just one of these repasts that our Lord sat down to, along with the wealt…
802 wordsSECTION 62THE GOOD SAMARITAN.
We are told that as Jesus stood with His disciples a man, a lawyer, stood up and tempted Him. The lawyer asked Jesus this question: “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He asked what he could do to inherit eternal life--what he could do to buy salvation. Jesus answered his question by asking another q…
951 wordsSECTION 63Part 63
The good Samaritan looks him over, and sees all the wounds that need to be bound up. But he has nothing to do this with. I can see him now, tearing the lining out of his coat, and with it binding up his wounds. Then he takes him up and lays him on his bosom until he is revived, and, when the poor fellow gets strength e…
686 wordsSECTION 64THE LEPER.
See that poor leper! Do you know what an awful thing leprosy is? A disease so terrible that it separates its victim from all the world, and makes him an outcast, even from his home. Every one is afraid of him. His disease is so contagious that to touch him or even to breathe the air near him is dangerous; and so these …
621 wordsSECTION 65THE PENITENT THIEF.
I am going to take for my text, this morning, “A Man”--the last one that Jesus saved before He returned to Heaven. The fact that Jesus saved such a man at all ought to give every one of us much hope and comfort. This man was a thief--a highwayman and murderer, perhaps--and yet Christ takes him with Him when He ascends…
947 wordsSECTION 66Part 66
I remember to have heard a story, somewhere, of a bad boy that had run away from home. He had given his father no end of trouble. He had refused all the invitations that his father had sent him to come home and be forgiven, and help to comfort his old heart. He had even gone so far as to scoff at his father and mother.…
983 wordsSECTION 67Part 67
I think that was what was heaviest upon the Savior’s heart, away there in the Garden, when He prayed: “If it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me.” He could bear the unfaithfulness of His friends, the spite of His enemies, the pain of His crucifixion and the shadow of death. He could bear all these. But when it…
912 wordsSECTION 68Part 68
Just so the angels shouted when this poor bondman of Satan’s, almost in the jaws of the pit, was taken in hand by the Savior Himself; delivered from the bondage of darkness into the liberty of His dear Son! Free--free from sin--free from the curse of the law--free, too, in a short time, from the bonds of the flesh. Wh…
616 wordsSECTION 69THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.
In this first parable we are told that men ought to pray always and everywhere; that prayer should not be left to a few in the churches, but all men ought to pray. Jesus gives us a picture, so that we may understand in what spirit we ought to pray. Two men went up to the Temple--one to pray to himself and the other t…
935 wordsSECTION 70Part 70
The first thing we have to do when we come to God is to confess. If there is any sin clustering around the heart, bear in mind we can have no communion with God. It is because we have sin about our hearts that our prayers do not go any higher than our head. We can not get God’s favor if we have any iniquity in our hear…
960 wordsSECTION 71Part 71
I hope the day will come when formal prayer will be a thing of the past. I think the reason why we can not get more people out to the meetings is because we have too many formal prayers in the churches. These formal Christians get up, like this Pharisee, and thank God that they are better than other men; but when a man…
315 wordsSECTION 72THE WIDOW’S SON.
Think of that poor widow at Nain. She is an old woman now; and her only son, who is the staff of her life, is sick. How she watches him; sits up all night to see that he has his medicine at the right time; sits by his bedside all day, fanning him, keeping away the flies, moistening his parched lips with water! Every…
589 wordsSECTION 73ROCK OF AGES.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee! Let the water and the blood From Thy riven side which flowed Be of sin the double cure-- Cleanse from guilt and make me pure. In my hand no price I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling. Naked--come to Thee for dress; Helpless--look to Thee for grace; Foul--I to Thy…
142 wordsSECTION 74WHERE HE LEADS I’LL FOLLOW.
Sweet are the promises, kind is the word-- Dearer far than any message man ever heard! Pure was the mind of Christ--sinless I see; He the great example is, and pattern for me. Where He leads I’ll follow-- Follow all the way! Where He leads I’ll follow-- Follow Jesus every day! Sweet is the tender love Jesus has shown…
152 wordsSECTION 75ATHALIAH
Grandmothers are more lenient with their children’s children than they were with their own. At forty years of age, if discipline be necessary, chastisement is used; but at seventy, the grandmother, looking upon the misbehavior of the grandchild, is apologetic and disposed to substitute confectionery for whip. There i…
862 wordsSECTION 76Part 76
In the swaddling clothes of that church apartment are wrapped the cause of God and the cause of good government. That is the scion of the house of David; it is Joash, the Christian reformer; it is Joash, the friend of God; it is Joash, the demolisher of Baalitish idolatry. Rock him tenderly; nurse him gently. Athalia…
130 wordsSECTION 77DAVID.
David, the shepherd boy, is watching his father’s sheep. They are pasturing on the very hills where afterward a Lamb was born of which you have heard much--“the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” David, the shepherd boy, was beautiful, brave, musical and poetic. I think he often forgot the sheep in…
934 wordsSECTION 78Part 78
There came a time when David fled from his pursuers. The world runs very fast when it is chasing a good man. The country is trying to catch David, and to slay him. David goes into the house of a priest, and asks him for a sword or spear with which to defend himself. The priest, not being accustomed to use deadly weapo…
621 wordsSECTION 79DEBORAH.
A text of five words, and four of them one and the same, is found in the fifth chapter and twelfth verse of Judges: “Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake!” It seems that the men of Israel had lost their courage. Trampled into the dust by their oppressors, the cowards had not spirit to rise. Their vineyards destroyed, …
271 wordsSECTION 80DORCAS.
Impressed as I am with the mosque at Joppa, the first I ever saw, and stirred as I am with the fact that this harbor once floated the great rafts of Lebanon cedar from which the Temple at Jerusalem was builded, Solomon’s oxen drawing the logs through this very town on the way to Jerusalem, nothing can make me forget th…
859 wordsSECTION 81Part 81
I wish that the wives and mothers and daughters and sisters of this congregation would imitate Dorcas in her discipleship. Before you sit with the Sabbath class, before you cross the threshold of the hospital, before you carry a pack of tracts down the street, before you enter upon the temptations and trials of tomorro…
899 wordsSECTION 82Part 82
I am glad that there is not a page of the world’s history which is not a record of feminine benevolence. God says to all lands and peoples: “Come, now, and hear the widow’s mite rattle down into the poor-box.” The Princess of Conti sold all her jewels, that she might help the famine-stricken. Queen Blanche, wife of Lo…
890 wordsSECTION 83Part 83
Has that Christian woman, who went away fifteen years ago, nothing to do with these things? I see the flowering out of her noble heart. I hear the echo of her footsteps in all these songs over sins forgiven--in all the prosperity of the church. The good that seemed to be buried has come up again. Dorcas is resurrected.…
186 wordsSECTION 84EHUD.
Ehud was a ruler in Israel. He was left-handed, and, what was peculiar about the tribe of Benjamin, to which he belonged, there were in it seven hundred left-handed men; and yet, so dextrous had they all become in the use of the left hand, the Bible says they could sling stones at a hair’s breadth and not miss. Well, …
461 wordsSECTION 85ESAU.
Esau had the birthright given him. In the olden times this meant not only temporal but spiritual blessing. One day Esau took this birthright and traded it off for something to eat. Oh, the folly! But let us not be too severe upon him, for some of us have committed the same folly. After Esau had thus parted with his …
196 wordsSECTION 86FELIX AND DRUSILLA.
A city of marble was Cesarea--wharves of marble, houses of marble, temples of marble. This being the ordinary architecture of the place, you may well imagine something of the splendor of Governor Felix’s residence. In a room of that palace--floor tesselated, windows curtained, ceiling fretted, the whole scene affluent…
852 wordsSECTION 87GALLERY OF CHARACTERS.
I see the Gallery of the Prophets and Apostles. Who are those mighty ones up yonder? Hosea, Jeremiah, Daniel, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John and James. There sits Noah, waiting for all the world to come into the ark. Moses is waiting till the last Red Sea shall divide. Jeremiah is waiting for the Jews to return. John o…
416 wordsSECTION 88GIDEON.
The seventh chapter of the Book of Judges contains a detailed report of the strangest battle ever fought. God had told Gideon to go down and thrash the Midianites, but his army is too large; for the glory must be given to God, and not to man. And so proclamation is made that all those of the troops who are cowardly, a…
451 wordsSECTION 89HEZEKIAH.
Luxurious living is not healthy. The second generation of kings and queens and of lords and princes is apt to be brainless and invalid. The second crop of grass is almost always short. Royal blood is generally scrofulous. You will not be surprised, then, to hear that King Hezekiah had disorders which broke out in a c…
335 wordsSECTION 90JEHOIAKIM.
We look in upon a room in Jerusalem. Two men are there. At the table sits Baruch, the scribe, with a roll of parchment and an iron pen in his hand. The other man is walking the floor, as if strangely agitated. There is an unearthly appearance about his countenance, and his whole frame quakes as if pressed upon by som…
684 wordsSECTION 91JEHU.
Joram, wounded in battle, lies in a hospital at Jezreel. The watchman, standing in the tower, looks off and sees against the sky horsemen and chariots. A messenger is sent out to find who is coming, but he does not return. Another messenger is sent, but with the same result. The watchman, standing in the tower, looks…
696 wordsSECTION 92JESUS AT EMMAUS.
Two villagers, having concluded their errand in Jerusalem, have started out at the city gate, and are on their way to Emmaus, the place of their residence. They go with a sad heart. Jesus, who had been their admiration and their joy, had been basely massacred and entombed. As with sad face and broken heart they pass …
313 wordsSECTION 93JOB.
Job had it hard. What with boils and bereavements and bankruptcy, and a fool of a wife, he wished he was dead; and I do not blame him. His flesh was gone, and his bones were dry. His teeth wasted away until nothing but the enamel seemed left. He cried out: “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” There has been some…
410 wordsSECTION 94JONAH.
God told Jonah to go to Nineveh on an unpleasant errand. He would not go. He thought to get away from his duty by putting to sea. With pack under his arm, I find him on his way to Joppa, a seaport. He goes down among the shipping, and says to the men lying around on the docks: “Which of these vessels sails today?” A …
784 wordsSECTION 95JOSEPH.
The Egyptian capital was the focus of the world’s wealth. In ships and barges, there had been brought to it: From India, frankincense, cinnamon, ivory and diamonds; from the North, marble and iron; from Syria, purple and silk; from Greece, some of the finest horses of the world and some of the most brilliant chariots; …
855 wordsSECTION 96Part 96
You know, it is not a very easy thing to transplant an old tree; and Jacob has hard work to get away from the place where he has lived so long. He finally bids good-by to the old place, and leaves his blessing with the neighbors; and then his sons steady him, while he, still determined to help himself, gets into the wa…
266 wordsSECTION 97LAZARUS.
We stand in one of the finest private houses of the olden time. Every room is luxurious. The floor--made of stones, gypsum, coal and chalk, pounded together--is hard and beautiful. From the roof, surrounded by a balustrade, you take in all the beauty of the landscape. The porch is cool and refreshing, where sit the pe…
890 wordsSECTION 98Part 98
The long procession moves on, amid the accustomed weeping and howling of Oriental obsequies. The sepulcher is reached. Six persons, carrying the body, go carefully down the steps leading to the door of the dead. The weight of the body on those ahead is heavy, and they hold back. The relics are left in the sepulcher, an…
918 wordsSECTION 99NOAH.
Noah did the best and the worst thing for the world. He built an ark against the deluge of water, but he also introduced a deluge against which the human race has ever since been trying to build an ark--the deluge of drunkenness. In the opening chapters of the Bible we can hear his staggering steps. Shem and Japhet t…
216 wordsSECTION 100OTHNIEL.
The city of Debir was the Boston of antiquity--a great place for brains and books. Caleb wanted it, and he offered his daughter Achsah as a prize to any one who would besiege or storm and capture that city. It was a strange thing for Caleb to do; and yet the man who could take the city would have, at any rate, two el…
592 wordsSECTION 101PAUL.
The Damascus of Bible times still stands, with a population of 135,000 people. It was a gay city of white and glistering architecture, its minarets and crescents and domes playing with the light of the morning sun; embowered in groves of olive, citron, orange and pomegranate; a famous river plunging its brightness into…
871 wordsSECTION 102Part 102
Again, I learn from the subject that the religion of Christ is not a pusillanimous thing. People of this day try to make us believe that Christianity is something for men of small caliber, for women with no capacity to reason, for children in the infant class, under six years of age, but not for stalwart men. Look at …
863 wordsSECTION 103Part 103
Truly, Paul was the chief of sinners. No outbreak of modesty when he said that. He was a murderer. He stood by when Stephen died, and helped in the execution of that good man. When the rabble wanted to be unimpeded in their work of destroying Stephen, and wanted to take off their coats but did not dare to lay them down…
891 wordsSECTION 104Part 104
The vessel strikes! The planks spring! The timbers crack! The vessel parts in the thundering surge! Oh, what struggling for life! Here they leap from plank to plank. There they go under as if they would never rise, but, catching hold of a timber, they come floating and panting on it to the beach. Here strong swimmers …
808 wordsSECTION 105PHARAOH.
One of the most intensely interesting things I saw in Egypt was Pharaoh of olden times--the very Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites. The inscription on his sarcophagus and the writing on his mummy bandages prove beyond controversy that he was the Pharaoh of Bible times. All the Egyptologists and the explorations agre…
160 wordsSECTION 106PONTIUS PILATE.
At about seven o’clock in the morning, up the marble stairs of a palace and across the floors of richest mosaic and under ceilings dyed with all the splendors of color and between snowbanks of white and glistening sculpture, passes a poor, pale and sick young man of thirty-three years, already condemned to death, on hi…
835 wordsSECTION 107Part 107
Ceremonies, however beautiful and appropriate, may be no more than this hypocritical ablution. In infancy we may be sprinkled from the baptismal font, and in manhood we may wade into deep immersion, and yet never come to moral purification. We may kneel without prayer and bow without reverence, and sing without any acc…
469 wordsSECTION 108QUEEN OF SHEBA.
What is that long procession approaching Jerusalem? I think, from the pomp of it, there must be royalty in the train. I smell the breath of the spices which are brought as presents, and I hear the shout of the drivers, and I see the dust-covered caravan, showing that they come from far away. Cry the news up to the pala…
647 wordsSECTION 109SALOME.
This is the anniversary of Herod’s birthday. The palace is lighted. The highways leading thereto are all ablaze with the pomp of invited guests. Lords, captains, merchant princes, and all the mighty men of the land are coming to mingle in the festivities. The table is spread with all the luxuries that royal purveyors …
627 wordsSECTION 110SAUL.
The Amalekites thought they had conquered God, and that He would not carry into execution His threats against them. They had murdered the Israelites in battle and out of battle, and had left no outrage untried. For four hundred years this had been going on, and they said: “God either dare not punish us, or He has forg…
704 wordsSECTION 111SOLOMON.
What is that building out yonder, glittering in the sunshine? Have you not heard? It is the House of the Forest of Lebanon. King Solomon has just taken to it his bride, the princess of Egypt. You see the pillars of the portico and a great tower, adorned with a thousand shields of gold, hung on the outside of the tower…
903 wordsSECTION 112Part 112
Yonder it comes--the cavalcade--horses and dromedaries, chariots and charioteers, jingling harness and clattering hoofs, and blazing shields, and flying ensigns, and clapping cymbals. The place is saturated with perfumes. She brings cinnamon, saffron, calamus, frankincense and all manner of sweet spices. As the retinu…
201 wordsSECTION 113THE GENTILE MOTHER.
It was a Sabbath afternoon in the Belleville parsonage. I had been trying for two years to preach, but to me the Christian life had been nothing but a struggle. I sat down at the table, took up my Bible, and asked for divine illumination; and it poured like sunlight upon my soul through the story of the Syro-Phenician …
726 wordsSECTION 114ZACCHÆUS.
Zacchæus was a politician and a tax gatherer. He had an honest calling, but the opportunity for “stealings” was so large that the temptation was too much for him. The Bible says that Zacchæus was “a sinner”--that is, in the public sense. How many fine men have been ruined by official position! It is an awful thing for…
390 wordsSECTION 115NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE.
Nearer, my God, to Thee-- Nearer to Thee! E’en though a cross it be That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be: Nearer, my God, to Thee-- Nearer to Thee! Though, like a wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone, Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to Thee Nearer to Thee! There let the way…
150 wordsSECTION 116ABIJAH.
We forget Abijah’s character in his eloquence. He carries a spell with him. Judging from his speech, one would suppose him faultless--entirely noble in every aspiration and impulse and sublimely religious and unselfish. The whole Abijah is not here. This is but the ideal Abijah. Who ever shows himself wholly upon any …
917 wordsSECTION 117Part 117
Yet our rebellions have made our history. We should have been in slavery but for rebellion. The rebels are the heretics that have created orthodoxy. We owe nothing to the indifferent, the languid, the selfish, the calculating, the let-alone people who simply want to eat and drink and sleep and die. That they were ever…
725 wordsSECTION 118Part 118
The man reasons well. He insists upon having corner stones in any edifice or argument he puts up. When he accuses, he goes back to the covenant of salt; when he claims a right position, he claims that it is a theological one. He holds the right God. Losing the right theology, we lose all the detail with it. When the co…
841 wordsSECTION 119Part 119
“Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; but ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the ci…
894 wordsSECTION 120Part 120
The great thing, however, is to begin. If we are afraid of hell, let us ask great questions. If we are in hope of Heaven, let us begin to do great services. Hell and Heaven have nothing to do with it in reality, but they have to do a great deal with it initially, instrumentally and educationally. What was the upshot o…
358 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.