While I was attending a meeting in a certain city some time ago, a lady came to me and said, "I want you to go home with me; I have something to say to you." When we reached her home, there were some friends there. After they had retired, she put her arms on the table, and tears began to come into her eyes, but with an effort she repressed her emotion. After a struggle she went on to say that she was going to tell me something that she had never told any other living person. I should not tell it now, but she has gone to another world. She said she had a son in Chicago, and she was very anxious about him. When he was young he got interested in religion at the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association. He used to go out in the street and circulate tracts. He was her only son, and she was very ambitious that he should make a name in the world, and wanted him to get into the very highest circles. O, what a mistake people make about these highest circles. Society is false; it is a sham. She was deceived like a good many more votaries of fashion and hunters after wealth at the present time. She thought it was beneath her son to go down and associate with those young men who hadn't much money. She tried to get him away from them, but they had more influence than she had; and, finally, to break his whole association, she packed him off to a boarding-school. He went soon to Yale College, and she supposed he got into one of those miserable secret societies there that have ruined so many young men, and the next thing she heard was that the boy had gone astray.
She began to write letters urging him to come into the kingdom of God; but she heard that he tore the letters up without reading them. She went to him to try and regain whatever influence she possessed over him, but her efforts were useless, and she came home with a broken heart. He left New Haven, and for two years they heard nothing of him. At last they heard he was in Chicago, and his father found him and gave him $30,000 to start in business. They thought it would change him, but it didn't. They asked me, when I went back to Chicago, to try and use my influence with him. I got a friend to invite him to his house one night, where I intended to meet him, but he heard I was to be there, and did not come near, like a good many other young men who seem to be afraid of me. I tried many times to reach him, but could not. While I was traveling one day on the New Haven railroad, I bought a New York paper, and in it I saw a dispatch saying he had been drowned in Lake Michigan. His father came on to find his body, and after considerable searching, they discovered it. All his clothes and his body were covered with sand. The body was taken home to that broken-hearted mother. She said, "If I thought he was in heaven I would have peace." Her disobedience of God's law came back upon her. So, my friends, if you have a boy impressed with the gospel, help him to come to Christ. Bring him in the arms of your faith, and He will unite you closer to Him.
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D.L. Moody (1837 - 1899)
Was an American evangelist and publisher who founded the Moody Church in downtown Chicago. Preached to thousands in evangelistic meetings and had touches of revival in scotland and other countries. Ira Sankey was his worship leader who was used of the Lord in the meetings. Moody wrote many books including "Prevailing Prayer" and "The Way To God."Moody once said: "If this world is going to be reached, I am convinced that it must be done by men and women of average talent." And thus was born his ministry of book publishing, bible college and many other outreaches to equip the average layperson to be a soul winner and do great exploits for the Lord.
D. L. Moody was an American evangelist who founded the Northfield Schools in Massachusetts, Moody Church and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and the Colportage Association.
As a young man, he spent his evenings in missionary work among the lowly and destitute of the city. This work grew to such proportions that he was induced to give up his profitable business engagements and to devote all his time to religious work in connection with the local Young Men's Christian Association of which he became president. He soon became known as one of the most acceptable public speakers of the country, and was in constant demand at Christian conventions throughout the West and South.
Mr. Moody is supposed to have spoken to more people, and addressed larger audiences than any man of his generation. D. L. Moody was undoubtedly one of the greatest evangelists of all time. The meetings held by Moody and Sankey were among the greatest the world has ever known. They were the means under God of arousing the church to new life and activity, and were the means of sweeping tens of thousands of persons into the kingdom of God.
D. L. Moody may well have been the greatest evangelist of all time. In a 40-year period he won a million souls, founded three Christian schools, launched a great Christian publishing business, established a world-renowned Christian conference center, and inspired literally thousands of preachers to win souls and conduct revivals.
A shoe clerk at 17, his ambition was to make $100,000. Converted at 18, he uncovered hidden gospel gold in the hearts of millions for the next half-century. He preached to 20,000 a day in Brooklyn and admitted only non-church members by ticket!
He met a young songleader in Indianapolis, said bluntly, "You're the man I've been looking for for eight years. Throw up your job and come with me." Ira D. Sankey did just that; thereafter it was "Moody will preach; Sankey will sing."
He traveled across the American continent and through Great Britain in some of the greatest and most successful evangelistic meetings communities have ever known. His tour of the world with Sankey was considered the greatest evangelistic enterprise of the century.
It was Henry Varley who said, "It remains to be seen what God will do with a man who gives himself up wholly to Him." And Moody endeavored to be, under God, that man; and the world did marvel to see how wonderfully God used him.
Two great monuments stand in the indefatigable work and ministry of this gospel warrior - Moody Bible Institute and the famous Moody Church in Chicago.
Moody went to be with the Lord in 1899.