I want to tell you a lesson taught me in Chicago a few years ago. In the months of July and August, a great many deaths occurred among children, you all know. I remember I attended a great many funerals; sometimes I would go to two or three funerals a day. I got so used to it that it did not trouble me to see a mother take the last kiss and the last look at her child, and see the coffin-lid closed. I got accustomed to it, as in the war we got accustomed to the great battles, and to see the wounded and the dead never troubled us. When I got home one night, I heard that one of my Sunday-school pupils was dead, and her mother wanted me to come to the house. I went to the poor home, and saw the father drunk. Adelaide had been brought from the river. The mother told me she washed for a living, the father earned no money, and poor Adelaide's work was to get wood for the fire. She had gone to the river that day and seen a piece floating on the water, had stretched out for it, had lost her balance, and fallen in. The poor woman was very much distressed. "I would like you to help me, Mr. Moody," she said, "to bury my child. I have no lot, I have no money." Well, I took the measure for the coffin, and came away. I had my little girl with me, and she said, "Papa, suppose we were very, very poor, and mamma had to work for a living, and I had to get sticks for the fire, and was to fall into the river, would you be very sorry?" This question reached my heart. "Why, my child, it would break my heart to lose you," I said, and I drew her to my bosom. "Papa, do you feel bad for that mother?" she said. This word woke my sympathy for the woman, and I started and went back to the house, and prayed that the Lord might bind up that wounded heart. When the day came for the funeral I went to Graceland. I had always thought my time too precious to go out there, but I went. The drunken father was there and the poor mother. I bought a lot, the grave was dug, and the child laid among strangers. There was another funeral coming up, and the corpse was laid near the grave of little Adelaide. And I thought how I would feel if it had been my little girl that I had been laying there among strangers. I went to my Sabbath-school thinking this, and suggested that the children should contribute and buy a lot, in which we might bury a hundred poor little children. We soon got it, and the papers had scarcely been made out, when a lady came and said, "Mr. Moody, my little girl died this morning; let me bury her in the lot you have got for the Sunday-school children." The request was granted, and she asked me to go to the lot and say prayers over her child. I went to the grave; it was a beautiful day in June, and I remember asking her what the name of her child was. She said Emma. That was the name of my little girl, and I thought what if it had been my own child. We should put ourselves in the places of others. I could not help shedding a tear. Another woman came shortly after and wanted to put another one into the grave. I asked his name. It was Willie, and it happened to be the name of my little boy; the first two laid there were called by the same names as my two children, and I felt sympathy and compassion for those two women.
If you want to get into sympathy, put yourself into a man's place. We need Christians whose hearts are full of compassion and sympathy. If we haven't got it, pray that we may have it, so that we may be able to reach those men and women that need kindly words and kindly actions far more than sermons. The mistake is, that we have been preaching too much, and sympathizing too little. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of deeds and not of words.
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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.