For the last eleven
years I have not let a day pass without saying something to somebody of Christ.
Make it a rule that never a day pass without speaking for Christ. People won't
like it. If you are a living witness for Christ it makes people mad against
you. You will suffer persecution, and be spoken against, and yet they will send
for such a man first when they are in trouble or on their death-bed.
The man that is popular
with the world is not a friend of Jesus. You cannot serve two masters. The world
hates Christ, and if you are a friend of the world you cannot be a friend of
His. You may be sure that something is wrong with you when everybody is your
friend. Every man here can win souls for Christ.
The public-houses in
America, are called "saloons." There is a hall with a bar, and behind, a dining-room,
and above, sleeping-apartments, and in these saloons the young men congregate
at night, and drink and gamble. There was a terribly wicked man who kept a saloon,
whose children I was very anxious to draw to my Sabbath-school. So one day I
called on this man and said, "Mr. Bell, I want you to let your children, come
to the Sabbath-school." He was terribly angry, said he did not believe in the
Bible, school or anything else, and ordered me to leave the house.
Soon after I went down
again and called on this man, and asked him to go to church, and again he was
very angry. He said that he had not been at church for nineteen years, and would
never go again, and he would rather see his boy a drunkard and his daughter
a harlot than that they should attend the Sabbath-school. A second time I was
forced to leave the house.
Two or three days after
I called again, and he said, "Well, I guess you are a pretty good-natured sort
of man, and different from the rest of Christians, or you would not come back;"
so seeing him in a good humor, I asked him what he had to say against Christ,
and if he had read His life: and he asked me what I had to say against Paine's
"Age of Reason," and if I had read it. I said I had not read it: whereupon he
said he would read the New Testament, if I would read the "Age of Reason," to
which I at once agreed, though he had the best bargain: and I did so. I did
not like it much, and would not advise any person to read it.
I asked Mr. Bell to
come to church, but he said they were all hypocrites that went to church. This
he would do, however: I might come to his house if I liked, and preach. "Here,
in this saloon!" "Yes! but look here, you are not to do all the talking;" he
said that he and his friends would have their say as well as I. I agreed that
they might have the first forty-five minutes, and I the last fifteen of the
hour, which he thought fair, and that was settled.
The day came, and I
went to keep my appointment, but I never in all my life met such a crowd as
when on the day appointed I went to that saloon - such a collection of infidels,
deists, and reprobates of all kinds I never saw before. Their oaths and language
were horrible. Some of them seemed as if they had come on leave of absence from
the pit. I never was so near hell before. They began to talk in the most blasphemous
way; some thought one thing, some another; some believed there was a God - others
not; some thought there was such a man as Jesus Christ - others that there never
was; some didn't believe anything. They couldn't agree, contradicted each other,
and very nearly came to fighting with one another before their time had expired.
I had brought down a
little boy, an orphan with me, and when I saw and heard such blasphemy I thought
I had done wrong to bring him there. When their time was up, I said that we
Christians always began service with prayer to God. "Hold," said they; "two
must be agreed first." "Well, here are two of us." And so I prayed, and then
the little boy did so, and I never heard a prayer like that in all my life.
It seemed as if God was speaking through that little boy. With tears running
down his cheeks he besought God, for Christ's sake, to take pity on all these
poor men; and that went to their very hearts. I heard sobs throughout the hall,
and one infidel went out at this door and another at that; and Mr. Bell came
up to me and said, "You can have my children, Mr. Moody." And the best friend
that I have in Chicago to-day is that same Joshua Bell, and his son has come
out for Christ and as a worker for Him.
There was a family which
for fourteen years I had tried to draw to Christ, but they would not come, and
I had almost given them up as hopeless. We have a custom on New Year's Day in
America of calling on our friends and acquaintances, and wishing them the compliments
of the season. Last New Year's Day I thought I should call on the old doctor,
which I did, and I offered up just a short prayer. That week he and his wife
came to Christ, and next week his son, and a few days after his daughter, and
now the whole family are converted.
"This one thing
I do," said Paul. He had received thirty-nine stripes, and if he had other
thirty-nine stripes to receive, "This one thing I do" forgetting the
things that "are behind, I press towards the mark." A terrible man he was -
this man of one thing and one aim, and determined to go on doing it.
"To every man his
work" (Mark 13:34). If blessing don't come this week, it will come the next,
only persevere. Be of good courage, Christ will strengthen your heart."
Dwight Moody
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