When I was in St. Louis some years ago, there was an old man who had been away off on the mountains of an ungodly life, but in his early manhood he had known Christ. He came into the inquiry-room, literally broken down. About midnight that old man came trembling before God and was saved. He wiped away his tears, and started home.
Next night I saw him in the audience with a terrible look in his face. As soon as I finished preaching, I went to him and said:
"My good friend, you haven't gone back into darkness again?"
Said he: "Oh, Mr. Moody, it has been the most wretched day in my life."
"Why so?"
"Well, this morning as soon as I got my breakfast, I started out. I have a number of children, married, and in this city, and they have families; and I have spent the day going around and telling them what God has done for me. I told them how I had tasted salvation, with the tears trickling down my face; and, Mr. Moody, I hadn't a child that didn't mock me!"
That made me think of Lot down in Sodom. It is an awful thing for a man who has been a backslider to have his children mock him. But it is written: "Thy back-slidings shall reprove thee; know, therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God."
No Need to Read Them
A great many people say, you must hear both sides; but if a man should write me a most slanderous letter about my wife, I don't think I would have to read it; I should tear it up and throw it to the winds. Have I to read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides? Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who has redeemed me with His blood? Ten thousand times no! I will not touch it.
Tolling the Bell
I well remember how in my native village in New England it used to be customary, as a funeral procession left the church, for the bell to toll as many times as the deceased was years old. How anxiously I would count those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon on living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I would give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live. But at other times there would be only a few years tolled, and then a horror would seize me as I thought that I, too, might soon be claimed as a victim by that dread monster, Death. Death and judgment were a constant source of fear to me till I realized the fact that neither shall ever have any hold on a child of God. In his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul has showed, in most direct language, that there is no condemnation for a child of God, but that he is passed from under the power of law, and in the Epistle to the Corinthians he tells us that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body," "and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."
A Father's Neglect
A story 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, lie 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. 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 read that, what a picture of the church of God! How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men and women, are sleeping now while their children wander over the terrible precipice right into the bottomless pit! Father, mother, where is your boy to-night?
Worth Ten Thousand Men
Let us not give heed to gloomy and discouraging remarks. In the name of our great Commander let us march on to battle and to victory. There are some generals whose name alone is worth more than a whole army of ten thousand men. In our army in the Civil War there were some whose presence sent a cheer all along the line. As they passed on, cheer upon cheer went up. The men knew who was going to lead them, and they were sure of having success. "The boys" liked to fight under such generals as that. Let us encourage ourselves in the Lord, and encourage each other; then we shall have good success.
"With or Without Power"