She had a family of children. One of her neighbors had died, and her husband had brought home a little child. She said, "I don't want the child," but her husband said, "You must take it and look after it." She said she had enough to do with her own, and she told her husband to take that child away. But he would not. She confessed that she tried to starve the child; but it lingered on. One night it cried all night; I suppose it wanted food. At last she took the clothes and threw them over the child and smothered it. No one saw her; no one knew anything about it. The child was buried. Years had passed away, and she said:
"I hear the voice of that child day and night. It has driven me nearly mad."
No one saw the act; but God saw it, and this retribution followed it. History is full of these things. You need not go to the Bible to find it out.
Don't Swear!
I was greatly amazed not long ago, in talking to a man who thought he was a Christian, to find that once in a while, when he got angry, he would swear. I said: "My friend, I don't see how you can tear down with one hand what you are trying to build up with the other. I don't see how you can profess to be a child of God and let those words come out of your lips."
He replied: "Mr. Moody, if you knew me, you would understand. I have a very quick temper. I inherited it from my father and mother, and it is uncontrollable but my swearing comes only from the lips."
When God said, "I will not hold him guiltless that takes My name in vain," He meant what He said, and I don't believe any one can be a true child of God who takes the name of God in vain.
The True Sheep Knows
I tell you the true sheep know a true shepherd. I got up in Scotland once and quoted a passage of Scripture a little different from what it was in the Bible, and an old woman crept up and said:
"Mr. Moody, you said----."
I might make forty misquotations in an ordinary audience, and no one would tell me about them. Like two lawyers: one said in court that the other didn't know the Lord's Prayer. The other said he did:
"Now I lay me down to sleep."
"Well," the first said, "I give it up. I did not think you knew it."
Didn't either one of them know it, you see.
The Father Knew Best
Dr. Arnot, one of the greatest Scotch divines, was in this country before he died. His mother died when he was a little boy only three weeks old, and there was a large family of Arnots. I suppose they missed the tenderness and love of the mother. They got the impression that their father was very stern and rigid, and that he had a great many laws and rules.
One rule was, that the children should never climb trees. When the neighbors found out that the Arnot children could not climb trees, they began to tell them about the wonderful things they could see from the tops of the trees. Well, tell a boy of twelve years that he mustn't climb a tree, and he will get up that tree some way. And so the Arnot children were all the time teasing their father to let them climb the tree; but the old sire said:
"No."
One day he was busy reading his paper, and the boys said:
"Father is reading his paper. Let's slip down into the lot and climb a tree."
One of the little fellows stood on the top of the fence to see that father did not catch them. When his brother got up on the first branch, he said:
"What do you see?"
"Why! I don't see anything."
"Then go higher; you haven't got high enough."
So up he went higher, and again the little boy asked:
"Well, what do you see now?"
"I don't see anything."
"You aren't high enough; go higher."
And the little fellow went up as high as he could go, but he slipped, and down he came, and broke his leg. Willie said he tried to get him into the house, but he couldn't do it. He had to tell his father all about it. He said he was scared nearly out of his wits. He thought his father would be very angry. But his father just threw aside the paper, and started for the lot. When he got there, he picked the boy up in his arms, and brought him up to the house. Then he sent for the doctor. And Willie said he got a new view of that father. He found out the reason why that father was so stern. He said the moment that boy got hurt, no mother could have been more loving and gentle.
My dear friends, there is not one commandment that has been given us which has not been for our highest and best interest. There isn't a commandment that hasn't come from the loving heart of God, and what He wants is to have us give up that which is going to mar our happiness in this life, and in the life to come.
"Help Yourself!"
When I was out on the Pacific coast, in California, some years ago, I was the guest of a man that had a large vineyard and a large orchard. One day he said to me:
"Moody, while you are my guest I want you to make yourself perfectly at home, and if there is anything in the orchard or in the vineyard you would like, help yourself."