One day while he was selling his wares at the railroad station, a train of cars approached unnoticed and passed over both his legs. A physician was summoned, and the first thing after he arrived, the little sufferer looked up into his face and said, "Doctor, will I live to get home?" "No," said the doctor, "you are dying." "Will you tell my mother and father that I died a Christian?" They bore home the boy's corpse and with it the last message that he died a Christian. Oh, what a noble work was that young lady's in saving that little wanderer! How precious the remembrance to her! When she goes to heaven she will not be a stranger there. He will take her by the hand and lead her to the throne of Christ. She did the work cheerfully. Oh, may God teach us what our work is that we may do it for His glory.
Love.
In our city a few years ago there was a little boy who went to one of the mission Sunday-schools. His father moved to another part of the city about five miles away, and every Sunday that boy came past thirty or forty Sunday-schools to the one he attended. And one Sunday a lady who was out collecting scholars for a Sunday-school met him and asked why he went so far, past so many schools. "There are plenty of others," said she, "just as good." He said, "They may be as good but they are not so good for me." "Why not?" she asked "Because they love a fellow over there," he answered. Ah! love won him. "Because they love a fellow over there!" How easy it is to reach people through love! Sunday-school teachers should win the affections of their scholars if they wish to lead them to Christ.
A Little Boy Converts his Mother.
I remember when on the North Side I tried to reach a family time and again and failed. One night in the meeting, I noticed one of the little boys of that family. He hadn't come for any good, however; he was sticking pins in the backs of the other boys. I thought if I could get hold of him it would do good. I used always to go to the door and shake hands with the boys, and when I got to the door and saw this little boy coming out, I shook hands with him, and patted him on the head, and said I was glad to see him, and hoped he would come again. He hung his head and went away. The next night, however, he came back, and he behaved better than he did the previous night. He came two or three times after, and then asked us to pray for him that he might become a Christian. That was a happy night for me. He became a Christian and a good one. One night I saw him weeping. I wondered if his old temper had got hold or him again, and when he got up I wondered what he was going to say. "I wish you would pray for my mother," he said. When the meeting was over I went to him and asked, "Have you ever spoken to your mother or tried to pray with her?" "Well, you know, Mr. Moody," he replied, "I never had an opportunity; she don't believe, and won't hear me." "Now," I said, "I want you to talk to your mother to-night." For years I had been trying to reach her and couldn't do it.
So I urged him to talk to her that night, and I said "I will pray for you both." When he got to the sitting-room he found some people there, and he sat waiting for an opportunity, when his mother said it was time for him to go to bed. He went to the door undecided. He took a step, stopped, and turned around, and hesitated for a minute, then ran to his mother and threw his arms around her neck, and buried his face in her bosom. "What is the matter?" she asked--she thought he was sick. Between his sobs he told his mother how for five weeks he had wanted to be a Christian; how he had stopped swearing; how he was trying to be obedient to her, and how happy he would be if she would be a Christian, and then went off to bed. She sat for a few minutes, but couldn't stand it, and went up to his room. When she got to the door she heard him weeping and praying, "Oh, God, convert my dear mother." She came down again, but couldn't sleep that night. Next day she told the boy to go and ask Mr. Moody to come over and see her. He called at my place of business--I was in business then--and I went over as quick as I could. I found her sitting in a rocking chair weeping. "Mr. Moody," she said, "I want to become a Christian." "What has brought that change over you. I thought you didn't believe in it?" Then she told me how her boy had come to her, and how she hadn't slept any all night, and how her sin rose up before her like a dark mountain. The next Sunday that boy came and led that mother into the Sabbath-school, and she became a Christian worker.
Oh, little children, if you find Christ tell it to your fathers and mothers. Throw your arms around their necks and lead them to Jesus.
A Father's Mistake.
There is a little story that 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, he 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 of his own voice. 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 heard that, what a picture of the church of God!
How many fathers and mothers, how many Christian men, are sleeping now while their children wander over the terrible precipice right into the bottomless pit. Father, where is your boy to-night?
A Boy's Mistake--A Sad Reconciliation.
There was an Englishman who had an only son; and only sons are often petted, and humored, and ruined. This boy became very headstrong, and very often he and his father had trouble. One day they had a quarrel and the father was very angry, and so was the son; and the father said he wished the boy would leave home and never come back. The boy said he would go, and would not come into his father's house again till he sent for him. The father said he would never send for him. Well, away went the boy. But when a father gives up a boy, a mother does not. You mothers will understand that, but the fathers may not. You know there is no love on earth so strong as a mother's love. A great many things may separate a man and his wife; a great many things may separate a father from his son; but there is nothing in the wide world that can ever separate a true mother from her child. To be sure, there are some mothers that have drank so much liquor that they have drunk up all their affection. But I am talking about a true mother; and she would never cast off her boy.
Well, the mother began to write and plead with the boy to write to his father first, and he would forgive him; but the boy said, "I will never go home till father asks me." Then she pled with the father, but the father said, "No, I will never ask him." At last the mother came down to her sick-bed, broken-hearted, and when she was given up by the physicians to die, the husband, anxious to gratify her last wish, wanted to know if there was nothing he could do for her before she died. The mother gave him a look; he well knew what it meant. Then she said, "Yes, there is one thing you can do. You can send for my boy. That is the only wish on earth you can gratify. If you do not pity him and love him when I am dead and gone, who will?" "Well," said the father, "I will send word to him that you want to see him." "No," she says, "you know he will not come for me. If ever I see him you must send for him."
At last the father went to his office and wrote a dispatch in his own name, asking the boy to come home. As soon as he got the invitation from his father he started off to see his dying mother. When he opened the door to go in he found his mother dying, and his father by the bedside. The father heard the door open, and saw the boy, but instead of going to meet him, he went to another part of the room, and refused to speak to him. His mother seized his hand--how she had longed to press it! She kissed him, and then said, "Now, my son, just speak to your father. You speak first, and it will all be over." But the boy said, "No, mother, I will not speak to him until he speaks to me." She took her husband's hand in one hand and the boy's in the other, and spent her dying moments in trying to bring about a reconciliation. Then just as she was expiring--she could not speak--so she put the hand of the wayward boy into the hand of the father, and passed away! The boy looked at the mother, and the father at the wife, and at last the father's heart broke, and he opened his arms, and took that boy to his bosom, and by that body they were reconciled. Sinner, that is only a faint type, a poor illustration, because God is not angry with you.
I bring you to-night to the dead body of Christ. I ask you to look at the wounds in his hands and feet, and the wound in his side. And I ask you, "Will you not be reconciled?"
Moody and his Little Willie.
I said to my little family, one morning, a few weeks before the Chicago fire, "I am coming home this afternoon to give you a ride." My little boy clapped his hands. "Oh, papa, will you take me to see the bears in Lincoln Park?" "Yes." You know boys are very fond of seeing bears. I had not been gone long when my little boy said, "Mamma, I wish you would get me ready." "Oh," she said, "it will be a long time before papa comes." "But I want to get ready, mamma." At last he was ready to have the ride, face washed, and clothes all nice and clean. "Now, you must take good care and not get yourself dirty again," said mamma. Oh, of course he was going to take care; he wasn't going to get dirty. So off he ran to watch for me. However, it was a long time yet until the afternoon, and after a little he began to play. When I got home, I found him outside, with his face all covered with dirt. "I can't take you to the Park that way, Willie." "Why, papa? you said you would take me." "Ah, but I can't; you're all over mud. I couldn't be seen with such a dirty little boy." "Why, I'se clean, papa; mamma washed me." "Well, you've got dirty since." But he began to cry, and I could not convince him that he was dirty. "I'se clean; mamma washed me!" he cried. Do you think I argued with him? No. I just took him up in my arms, and carried him into the house, and showed him his face in the looking-glass. He had not a word to say. He could not take my word for it; but one look at the glass was enough; he saw it for himself. He didn't say he wasn't dirty after that!
Now the looking-glass showed him that his face was dirty--but I did not take the looking-glass to wash it; of course not. Yet that is just what thousands of people do. The law is the looking-glass to see ourselves in, to show us how vile and worthless we are in the sight of God; but they take the law and try to wash themselves with it.
Jesus "Wants them All to Come."
I heard of a Sunday-school concert at which a little child of eight was going to recite. Her mother had taught her, and when the night came the little thing was trembling so she could scarcely speak. She commenced, "Jesus said," and completely broke down. Again she tried it: "Jesus said suffer," but she stopped once more. A third attempt was made by her, "Suffer little children--and don't anybody stop them, for He wants them all to come," and that is the truth. There is not a child who has a parent in the Tabernacle but He wants, and if you but bring them in the arms of your faith and ask the Son of God to bless them and train them in the knowledge of God, and teach them as you walk your way, as you lie down at night, as you rise up in the morning, they will be blessed.
Never to See its Mother.
I was in an infirmary not long since, and a mother brought a little child in. She said, "Doctor, my little child's eyes have not been opened for several days, and I would just like you to do something for them." The doctor got some ointment and put it first on one and then on the other, and just pulled them open. "Your child is blind," said the doctor; "perfectly blind; it will never see again." At first the mother couldn't take it in, but after a little she cast an appealing look upon that physician, and in a voice full of emotion, said, "Doctor, you don't mean to say that my child will never see again?" "Yes," replied the doctor, "your child has lost its sight, and will never see again." And that mother just gave a scream, and drew that child to her bosom. "O my darling child," sobbed the woman, "are you never to see the mother that gave you birth? never to see the world again?" I could not keep back the tears when I saw the terrible agony of that woman when she realized the misfortune that had come upon her child. That was a terrible calamity, to grope in total darkness through this world; never to look upon the bright sky, the green fields; never to see the faces of loved ones; but what was it in comparison to the loss of a soul? I would rather have my eyes plucked out of my head and go down to my grave in total blindness than lose my soul.
A Little Child Converts an Infidel.
I remember hearing of a Sabbath-school teacher who had led every one of her children to Christ. She was a faithful teacher. Then she tried to get her children to go out and bring other children into the school. One day one of them came and said she had been trying to get the children of a family to come to the school, but the father was an infidel, and he wouldn't allow it. "What is an infidel?" asked the child. She had never heard of an infidel before. The teacher went on to tell her what an infidel man was, and she was perfectly shocked. A few mornings after the girl happened to be going past the post-office on her way to school, and she saw the infidel father coming out. She went up to him and said, "Why don't you love Jesus?" If it had been a man who had said that to him probably he would have knocked him down. He looked at her and walked on. A second time she put the question, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He put out his hand to put her gently away from him, when, on looking down, he saw her tears. "Please, sir, tell me why you don't love Jesus?" He pushed her aside and away he went. When he got to his office he couldn't get this question out of his mind. All the letters seemed to read, "Why don't you love Jesus?" All men in his place of business seemed to say, "Why don't you love Jesus?" When he tried to write his pen seemed to shape the words, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't rest, and on the street he went to mingle with the business men, but he seemed to hear a voice continually asking him, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He thought when night came and he got home with his family, he would forget it; but he couldn't. He complained that he wasn't well, and went to bed. But when he laid his head on the pillow that voice kept whispering, "Why don't you love Jesus?" He couldn't sleep. By and by, about midnight, he got up and said, "I will get a Bible and find where Christ contradicts himself, and then I'll have a reason," and he turned to the book of John. My friends, if you want a reason for not loving Christ, don't turn to John. He knew Him too long. I don't believe a man can read the gospel of John without being turned to Christ. Well, he read through, and found no reason why he shouldn't love Him, but he found many reasons why he should. He read this book, and before morning he was on his knees, and that question put by that little child led to his conversion.
The Dying Child.
A lady had a little child that was dying. She thought it was resting sweetly in the arms of Jesus. She went into the room and the child asked her: "What are those clouds and mountains that I see so dark?" "Why, Eddy," said his mother, "there are no clouds or mountains, you must be mistaken." "Why, yes, I see great mountains and dark clouds, and I want you to take me in your arms and carry me over the mountains." "Ah," said the mother, "you must pray to Jesus, He will carry you safely," and, my friends, the sainted mother, the praying wife, may come to your bedside and wipe the damp sweat from your brow, but they cannot carry you over the Jordan when the hour comes. This mother said to her little boy, "I am afraid that it is unbelief that is coming upon you, my child, and you must pray that the Lord will be with you in your dying moments." And the two prayed, but the boy turned to her and said: "Don't you hear the angels, mother, over the mountains, and calling for me, and I cannot go?" "My dear boy, pray to Jesus, and He will come; He only can take you." And the boy closed his eyes and prayed, and when he opened them a heavenly smile overspread his face as he said, "Jesus has come to carry me over the mountains."
Dear sinner, Jesus is ready and willing to carry you over the mountains of sin, and over your mountains of unbelief. Give yourself to Him.
The Finest Looking Little Boy Mr. Moody ever Saw.
A few years ago I was in a town down in our state, the guest of a family that had a little boy about thirteen years, who did not bear the family name, yet was treated like the rest. Every night when he retired, the lady of the home kissed him and treated him in every respect like all the other children. I said to the lady of the house, "I don't understand it." I think he was the finest looking boy I have ever seen. I said to her, "I don't understand it." She says, "I want to tell you about that boy. That boy is the son of a missionary. His father and mother were missionaries in India, but they found they had got to bring their children back to this country to educate them. So they gave up their mission field and came back to educate their children and to find some missionary work to do in this country. But they were not prospered here as they had been in India, and the father said, "I will go back to India;" and the mother said, "If God has called you to go I am sure it will be my duty to go and my privilege to go, and I will go with you." The father said, "you have never been separated from the children, and it will be hard for you to be separated from them; perhaps you had better stay and take care of them."
But after prayer they decided to leave their children to be educated, and they left for India. This lady heard of it and sent a letter to the parents, in which she stated if they left one child at her house she would treat it like one of her own children. She said the mother came and spent a few days at her house, and being satisfied that her boy would receive proper care, consented to leave him, and the night before she was to leave him, the missionary said to the Western lady: "I want to leave my boy tomorrow morning without a tear;" said she, "I may never see him again." But she didn't want him to think she was weeping for anything she was doing for the Master. The lady said to herself, "She won't leave that boy without a tear." But the next day when the carriage drove up to the door, the lady went up stairs and she heard the mother in prayer, crying, "Oh God, give me strength for this hour. Help me to go away from my boy without a tear." When she came down there was a smile upon her face. She hugged him and she kissed him, but she smiled as she did it. She gave up all her five or six children without shedding a tear, went back to India and in about a year there came a voice, "Come up hither." Do you think she would be a stranger in the Lord's world? Don't you think she will be known there as a mother that loved her child?
"Emma, this is Papa's Friend."
A gentleman one day came to my office for the purpose of getting me interested in a young man who had just got out of the penitentiary. "He says," said the gentleman, "he don't want to go to the office, but I want your permission to bring him in and introduce him." I said, "Bring him in." The gentleman brought him in and introduced him, and I took him by the hand and told him I was glad to see him. I invited him up to my house, and when I took him into my family I introduced him as a friend. When my little daughter came into the room, I said, "Emma, this is papa's friend." And she went up and kissed him, and the man sobbed aloud. After the child left the room, I said, "What is the matter?" "O sir," he said, "I have not had a kiss for years. The last kiss I had was from my mother, and she was dying. I thought I would never have another one again." His heart was broken.
Moody's Little Emma.
I remember one time my little girl was teasing her mother to get her a muff, and so one day her mother brought a muff home, and, although it was storming, she very naturally wanted to go out in order to try her new muff. So she tried to get me to go out with her. I went out with her, and I said, "Emma, better let me take your hand." She wanted to keep her hands in her muff, and so she refused to take my hand. Well, by and by she came to an icy place, her little feet slipped, and down she went. When I helped her up she said, "Papa, you may give me your little finger." "No, my daughter, just take my hand." "No, no, papa, give me your little finger." Well, I gave my finger to her, and for a little way she got along nicely, but pretty soon we came to another icy place, and again she fell. This time she hurt herself a little, and she said, "Papa, give me your hand," and I gave her my hand, and closed my fingers about her wrist, and held her up so that she could not fall. Just so God is our keeper. He is wiser than we.
Little Jimmy.
A friend of mine in Chicago took his Sabbath-school out on the cars once. A little boy was allowed to sit on the platform of the car, when by some mischance he fell, and the whole train passed over him. They had to go on a half a mile before they could stop. They went back to him and found that the poor little fellow had been cut and mangled all to pieces. Two of the teachers went back with the remains to Chicago. Then came the terrible task of telling the parents about it. When they got to the house they dared not go in. They were waiting there for five minutes before anyone had the courage to tell the story. But at last they ventured in. They found the family at dinner. The father was called out--they thought they would tell the father first. He came out with the napkin in his hand. My friend said to him: "I have got very bad news to tell you. Your little Jimmy has got run over by the cars." The poor man turned deathly pale and rushed into the room crying out, "Dead, dead." The mother sprang to her feet and came out of the sitting-room where the teachers were. When she heard the sad story she fainted dead away at their feet. "Moody," said my friend, "I wouldn't be the messenger of such tidings again if you would give me the whole of Chicago. I never suffered so much." I have got a son dearer to me than my life, and yet I would rather have a train a mile long run over him than that he should die without God and without hope. What is the loss of a child to the loss of a soul?
Stubborn Little Sammy.
At one time my sister had trouble with her little boy, and the father said, "'Why, Sammy, you must go now and ask your mothers forgiveness." The little fellow said he wouldn't. The father says, "You must. If you don't go and ask your mothers forgiveness I shall have to undress you and put you to bed." He was a bright, nervous little fellow, never still a moment, and the father thought he would have such a dread of being undressed and put to bed. But the little fellow wouldn't, so they undressed him and put him to bed. The father went to his business, and when he came home at noon he said to his wife: "Has Sammy asked your forgiveness?" "No," she said, "he hasn't." So the father went to him and said, "Why, Sammy, why don't you ask your mother's forgiveness?" The little fellow shook his head, "Won't do it." "But, Sammy, you have got to." "Couldn't." The father went down to his office, and stayed all the afternoon, and when he came home he asked his wife, "Has Sammy asked your forgiveness?" "No, I took something up to him and tried to have him eat, but he wouldn't." So the father went up to see him, and said, "Now, Sammy, just ask your mother's forgiveness, and you may be dressed and come down to supper with us." "Couldn't do it," The father coaxed, but the little fellow "couldn't do it." That was all they could get out of him. You know very well he could, but he didn't want to. Now, the hardest thing a man has to do is to become a Christian, and it is the easiest. That may seem a contradiction, but it isn't. The hard point is because he don't want to.
The hardest thing for a man to do is to give up his will. That night they retired, and they thought surely early in the morning, he will be ready to ask his mothers forgiveness. The father went to him--that was Friday morning--to see if he was ready to ask his mother's forgiveness, but he "couldn't." The father and mother felt so bad about it they couldn't eat; they thought it was to darken their whole life. Perhaps that boy thought that father and mother didn't love him. Just what many sinners think because God won't let them have their own way. The father went to his business, and when he came home he said to his wife, "Has Sammy asked your forgiveness?" "No." So he went to the little fellow and said, "'Now, Sammy, are you not going to ask your mother's forgiveness?" "Can't," and that was all they could get out of him. The father couldn't eat any dinner; it was like death in the house. It seemed as if the boy was going to conquer his father and mother. Instead of his little will being broken, it looked very much as if he was going to break theirs. Late Friday afternoon, "Mother, mother, forgive," says Sammy--"me." And the little fellow said "me," and he sprang to his feet and said: "I have said it, I have said it. Now dress me, and take me down to see father. He will be so glad to know I have said it." And she took him down, and when the little fellow came in he said, "I've said it, I've said it."
Oh, my friends, it is so easy to say, "I will arise and go to my God." It is the most reasonable thing you can do. Isn't an unreasonable thing to hold out? Come right to God just this very hour. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
Spurgeon and the Little Orphan.
While we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day took Mr. Sankey and myself to his orphan asylum, and he was telling about them--that some of them had aunts and some cousins, and that every boy had some friend that took an interest in him, and came to see him and gave him a little pocket money, and one day he said while he stood there, a little boy came up to him and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you," and the boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder, who was with the clergyman, and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were dead, and you didn't have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles, or friends to come and give you pocket money, and give you presents, don't you think you would feel bad--because that's me?" Said Mr. Spurgeon, "the minute he asked that, I put my right hand down into my pocket and took out the money." Because that's me! And so with the Gospel; we must say to those who have sinned, the Gospel is offered to them.
A Child Looking for its Lost Mother.
A little child, whose mother was dying, was taken away to live with some friends because it was thought she did not understand what death is. All the while the child wanted to go home and see her mother. At last, when the funeral was over, and she was taken home, she ran all over the house, searching the sitting room, the parlor, the library, and the bedrooms. She went from one end of the house to the other, and when she could not find her mother, she wished to be taken back to where they brought her from. Home had lost its attractions for the child when her mother was not there. My friends, the great attraction in heaven will not be its pearly gates, its golden streets, nor its choir of angels, but it will be Christ. Heaven would be no heaven if Christ were not there. But we know that He is at the right hand of the Father, and these eyes shall gaze on Him by-and-by; and we shall be satisfied when we awake with his likeness.
CHRIST SAVES.
Moody in Prison.
I have good news to tell you--Christ is come after you. I was at the Fulton-street prayer-meeting, a good many years ago, one Saturday night, and when the meeting was over, a man came to me and said, "I would like to have you go down to the city prison to-morrow, and preach to the prisoners. I said I would be very glad to go. There was no chapel in connection with that prison, and I was to preach to them in their cells. I had to stand at a little iron railing and talk down a great, long narrow passageway, to some three or four hundred of them, I suppose, all out of sight. It was pretty difficult work; I never preached to the bare walls before. When it was over I thought I would like to see to whom I had been preaching, and how they had received the gospel. I went to the first door, where the inmates could have heard me best, and looked in at a little window, and there were some men playing cards. I suppose they had been playing all the while. "How is it with you here?" I said. "Well, stranger, we don't want you to get a bad idea of us. False witnesses swore a lie, and that is how we are here." "Oh," I said, "Christ cannot save anybody here; there is nobody lost." I went to the next cell. "Well, friend, how is it with you?" "Oh," said the prisoner, "the man that did the deed looked very much like me, so they caught me and I am here." He was innocent, too! I passed along to the next cell. "How is it with you?'" "Well, we got into bad company, and the man that did it got clear, and we got taken up, but we never did anything." I went along to the next cell "How is it with you?" "Our trial comes on next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get free." I went round to nearly every cell but the answer was always the same--they had never done anything. Why, I never saw so many innocent men together in my life. There was nobody to blame but the magistrates, according to their way of it. These men were wrapping their filthy rags of self-righteousness about them. And that has been the story for six thousand years. I got discouraged as I went through the prison, on, and on, and on, cell after cell, and every man had an excuse. If he hadn't one, the devil helped him to make one. I had got almost through the prison, when I came to a cell and found a man with his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. Two little streams of tears were running down his cheeks; they did not come by drops that time.
"What's the trouble?" I said. He looked up, the picture of remorse and despair. "Oh, my sins are more than I can bear." "Thank God for that," I replied. "What," said he, "you are the man that has been preaching to us, ain't you?" "Yes." "I think you said you were a friend?" "I am." "And yet you are glad that my sins are more than I can bear!" "I will explain," I said "If your sins are more than you can bear, won't you cast them on One who will bear them for you?" "Who's that?" "The Lord Jesus." "He won't bear my sins." "Why not?" "I have sinned against Him all my life." "I don't care if you have; the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin." Then I told him how Christ had come to seek and save that which was lost; to open the prison doors and set the captives free. It was like a cup of refreshment to find a man who believed he was lost, so I stood there, and held up a crucified Saviour to him. "Christ was delivered for our offenses, died for our sins, rose again for our justification." For a long time the man could not believe that such a miserable wretch could be saved. He went on to enumerate his sins, and I told him that the blood of Christ could cover them all. After I had talked with him I said, "Now let us pray." He got down on his knees inside the cell, and I got down outside, and I said, "You pray." "Why," he said, "it would be blasphemy for me to call on God." "You call on God," I said. He knelt down, and, like the poor publican, he lifted up his voice and said, "God be merciful to me, a vile wretch!" I put my hand through the window, and as I shook hands with him a tear fell on my hand that burned down into my soul. It was a tear of repentance. He believed he was lost. Then I tried to get him to believe that Christ had come to save him. I left him still in darkness. "I will be at the hotel," I said, "between nine and ten o'clock, and I will pray for you." Next morning, I felt so much interested, that I thought I must see him before I went back to Chicago. No sooner had my eye lighted on his face, than I saw that remorse and despair had fled away, and his countenance was beaming with celestial light; the tears of joy had come into his eyes, and the tears of despair were gone. The sun of Righteousness had broken out across his path; his soul was leaping within him for joy; he had received Christ as Zaccheus did--joyfully. "Tell me about it," I said. "Well, I do not know what time it was; I think it was about midnight. I had been in distress a long time, when all at once my great burden fell off, and now, I believe I am the happiest man in New York." I think he was the happiest man I saw from the time I left Chicago till I got back again. His face was lighted up with the light that comes from the celestial hills. I bade him good-by, and I expect to meet him in another world.
Can you tell me why the Son of God came down to that prison that night, and, passing cell after cell, went to that one, and set the captive free? It was because the man believed he was lost.
A Father's Love for his Boy.
A number of years ago, before any railway came into Chicago, they used to bring in the grain from the Western prairies in wagons for hundreds of miles, so as to have it shipped off by the lakes. There was a father who had a large farm out there, and who used to preach the gospel as well as to attend to his farm. One day, when church business engaged him, he sent his son to Chicago with grain. He waited and waited for his boy to return, but he did not come home. At last he could wait no longer, so he saddled his horse and rode to the place where his son had sold the grain. He found that he had been there and got the money for his grain; then he began to fear that his boy had been murdered and robbed. At last, with the aid of a detective, they tracked him to a gambling den, where they found that he had gambled away the whole of his money. In hopes of winning it back again, he then had sold his team, and lost that money too. He had fallen among thieves, and like the man who was going to Jericho, they stripped him, and then they cared no more about him. What could he do? He was ashamed to go home to meet his father, and he fled. The father knew what it all meant. He knew the boy thought he would be very angry with him. He was grieved to think that his boy should have such feelings toward him. That is just exactly like the sinner. He thinks because he has sinned, God will have nothing to do with him. But what did that father do? Did he say, "Let the boy go"? No; he went after him. He arranged his business, and started after the boy. That man went from town to town, from city to city. He would get the ministers to let him preach, and at the close he would tell his story. "I have got a boy who is a wanderer on the face of the earth somewhere." He would describe his boy, and say, "If you ever hear of him or see him, will you not write to me?" At last he found that he had gone to California, thousands of miles away. Did that father say, "Let him go"? No; off he went to the Pacific coast, seeking the boy. He went to San Francisco, and advertised in the newspapers that he would preach at such a church on such a day. When he had preached he told his story, in hopes that the boy might have seen the advertisement and come to the church. When he had done, away under the gallery, there was a young man who waited until the audience had gone out; then he came toward the pulpit. The father looked and saw it was that boy, and he ran to him, and pressed him to his bosom. The boy wanted to confess what he had done, but not a word would the father hear. He forgave him freely, and took him to his home once more.