"Seasonably Out of Season"

Northfield and its conferences— Dr. Gordon's spiritual experiences—

Work at Seabright— Summer ministries in New Hampshire and on the Atlantic

THERE are few lovelier spots than Northfield. The

broad Connecticut flowing with many a sweeping bend between green hills and rich intervales, the " sweet aisles of the wilderness" stretching beyond the town, and the long street lined with elms, which, like the clustered pillars of a church, meet overhead in green vaulting with a fan-tracery of foliage, unite to give to it a peculiar attractiveness. The conferences here, which have come to fill so important a place in the current life of American Christianity, were first organized by Mr. Moody in 1880. The old camp-meeting of the stormy and emotional type was a thing of the past; the system of summer schools, so widely developed nowadays, was as yet in its infancy. Into the Northfield plan both ideas enter. The demonstrative zeal of the earlier institution is tempered and corrected by sober Scripture study, while to the quiet, meditative, scholastic tone of a summer school of theology an element of enthusiasm and of practicality is added by the presence of evangelists, missionaries, and working pastors. Here gather summer after summer the evangelists Whittle, Needham, Munhall, Mills, Chapman, and the rest who go from town to town and from city to city, preaching, as did the Franciscans of old, to men of all sorts and conditions. Able, faithful, self-denying workers in city slums are here too, and of those from heathen fields not a few: Hudson Taylor, the organizer and forger of that great instrument for the evangelization of China, the Inland Mission; Bishop Thobum, the statesman missionary, who has wrought in India a work second only to that of Duff and of Martyn; Ashmore, with his unshaken faith in China as a great figure in the enlarged Christendom to be; Chamberlain of the Arcot Mission, Post of Syria, and scores of others. For speakers and teachers the great globe itself is ransacked, the best men in the world-church being brought into service. Hither have come the courtly, piquant Drummond from Edinburgh, Pierson, mighty in the Scriptures, Andrew Murray, the saintly mystic of South Africa, Andrew Bonar, John McNeill, F. B. Meyer, Webb-Peploe, and more of equal note. Their message is intensified and multiplied in that they preach to the preachers and lead the leaders of the people. Yet hundreds of laymen as well gather about them, the most devout and earnest in the churches. These are brought into relation with missionaries and Christian workers. A medium of contact is thus established fruitful in its influence. Finally, the wholesome interdenominationahsm of the place establishes the best bonds of Christian unity.

Dr. Gordon's connection with these conferences runs back almost to the beginning. Summer after summer he resigned his much-needed rest that he might give to eager hearers his view of the truth. To Mr. Moody he was as a right hand. Often did the great evangelist dwell upon his readiness to do any service, to take any place, to stand in any gap. " I cannot thank you enough," he wrote one summer, when his absence had thrown the whole charge of the conference upon Dr. Gordon, "for your great help at Northfield. All the letters I have got from there speak in the highest terms of your generalship. I know of no one who could have taken

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your place, // will now answer the question what is going to become of the work when I am gone. May the Lord reward you a thousandfold."

Of the addresses which he delivered here one writes :* " His preaching was as far as possible from any mere oratorical performance. He had the graces of the finished speaker, but they were all invested with the higher grace of

God's ambassador. He taught with authority, but it was

with a derived and deputed authority. Among all the renowned speakers at the Northfield Conference, he vfa.s facile princeps; and the address he gave there last summer on the Holy Spirit has been pronounced by competent judges the most complete ever given, even from that platform of great teachers. There was this supreme charm in his utterances, that, while those who are less taught of the Spirit seek to defend the inspiration and inerrancy of the Word of God, he so exhibited its wonders, so led the way into its mysteries, so unfolded its hidden riches, and showed such articulated and organic unity in all its parts and members, that doubt was disarmed, and scholarly ' criticism ' hesitated to use the scientific scalpel upon a body of truth instinct with the living Spirit of God!"

The Student Volunteer Movement, which, wonderful as it is, bids fair to be but the spray of the incoming tide of missionary activity, dates back to the conference of '86. The gathering of representatives from the colleges of the nation a constituency of more than two hundred and fifty thousand young men and women— is an important feature of Northfield summers. The healthy, sunbrowned, muscular Christianity of the afternoon athletic fields, and the missionary enthusiasm of the conference hours, delighted Dr. Gordon's heart. For the amusing competition in national bombast 'twixt English and American at the Fourth of July fete, with

* Dr. Arthur T. Pierson.

all the contending and ridiculous claims to national precedence, he had a keen relish. But his chief gi^atification, of course, was that of the teacher with apt and willing pupils. Upon these perfervid and eager hearts his influence was great and beneficent.

" I was announced this afternoon," he ^\Tites, " with quite a flourish of trumpets, but fear, from my excessive weariness, that I responded but with a jews'-harp. ... I would not have missed the summer school. It is an event great in results. The missionary enthusiasm has been a feature which has astonished us all. It came to be the ruling idea when I left, and over sixty names were down as pledged to that work. Almost the entire delegation from Princeton was included. I could but rejoice at the demonstration given that the children of godly and self-denying parents do follow in the way of the fathers and mothers; for there were nearly ten missionary sons there, all of them on fire with missionary zeal; and all but one, who is a confirmed invalid, are bent on returning to the foreign field. Indeed, this one says that it is his greatest regret that he is deprived of this privilege. And so I have given him a long talk to-day on divine healing. I hope he may yet lay hold of this."

And at another time he writes to his wife " It is really so that a great opportunity has been open before me. Doctrines which are so obvious and plain to me seem so strange to many to whom I minister. I think we planted seeds on Mount Hermon which, by the grace of God, will yield a good harvest. The day I came away they were to have a consecration meeting. Mr. Moody said, ' All who want such a meeting, and are ready to yield themselves wholly to God, come.' I expected a remarkable time. The questions which they asked about the work of the Holy Spirit are the hardest I have to answer. Questions of experience are so much more difficult than questions of doctrine. For

''SEASONABLY OUT OF SEASON'' \11

while ' the testimony of the Lord is sure," the testimony of consciousness is very variable, like the impression on the sea beach, which the next wave may change. So after Mr. Moody had given his experience of the baptism of the Spirit because the students called for it, I confessed to much shrinking and reluctance when they made the same demand of me. The boys would have all that could be known both of doctrine and experience. A hungrier crowd one rarely finds; may the Lord give us more and more to tell.... Mr. Moody inquired tenderly for you. He seems set on seeing you at Northfield this year. So have the axles of baby's chariot greased, and have the canopy swung for the journey. That princely carriage, with its sweet-faced occupant, often comes before me in my waking visions, and or ever I am aware my soul makes me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib, and I am impatient to go near and join myself to that chariot. Love to all, and blessings on the little one especially."

And again, after describing the Northfield convocation of '85 as a great meeting of men of many tongues and of diverse denominational connections, he says, " Notwithstanding this variety of denominational standing, there was absolute harmony in doctrinal deliverances. We doubt if a convention made up of any one of the above-named bodies could be held fourteen days and preserve such entire unanimity of sentiment. Indeed, we are persuaded that those who have mastered and who correctly maintain the three A's of Christianity ^the Atonement, the Advocacy, and the Advent— will find themselves in close accord on all other points. One entire day was given to the doctrine of the Lord's second coming. All the speakers held strongly to the premillennial advent, and found in it the key-note which brought their whole system into accord."

One of the interesting features of Gordon's later ministry at Northfield was the evening baptism in the lake which has, since his death, been called after his name. These services were of great solemnity. The assembled people, the soft singing in the eventide air, the majestic baptismal formula, " Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? " the face as it had been the face of an angel, the broken waters, and the resurrection chant at the end— these things can never be forgotten by those who stood by the water's edge.

The letters which follow touch closely upon Northfield, and illustrate from Dr. Gordon's personal experience the doctrine of " enduement for service," which he preached with so much power at the conferences.

" Dr. Gordon," writes Mr. George C. Needham, " unlike some Christians, believed there was something always beyond. This he ever sought to attain. Fifteen years ago, during the first Northfield convention, he was desirous to secure what he yet needed as a saint and servant of Christ. Toward the close of those memorable ten days, spent more in prayer than in preaching, my beloved friend joined me in a midnight hour of great heart-searching and infilling of the Spirit. He read with peculiar tenderness our Lord's intercessory prayer of John xvii. The union of the believer with Christ and the Father, as taught by our Lord in that chapter, called out fervent exclamations, while with deep pathos he continued reading. During united prayer which followed the holy man poured out his soul with a freedom and unction indescribable. I never heard him boast of any spiritual attainment reached during that midnight hour. Soul experiences were to him very sacred, and not to be rehearsed on every ordinary occasion. But I have no doubt that he received then a divine touch which further ennobled his personal life and made his ministry of ever-increasing spirituality and of ever-widening breadth of sympathy."

The work at Northfield finished, he had hurried down to the New Jersey coast to preach on Sunday at Seabright,

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" It's a great way," he writes, " people have of coming to the beach, living in wooden cottages of three or four little rooms— the sand knee-deep, no cooling shade, but 'sacred high, eternal noon,' and the glare of the sun intensifying the noonday. Moody cannot endure the sea-shore. His green fields and ever-shadowing hills and deep-rolling Connecticut are his paradise. So my native hills and quiet shades at New Hampton are to me. I long to be back thereto.... Mrs.

A has instituted beach meetings for the fishermen and sea-

side rabble, and not only they came out yesterday, but a great company of the gay and fashionable. It was a fine sight, but not an easy service to manage, since the breakers are very noisy, and the sound of many waters is a very unequal rival when brought into competition with my voice. However, I think I made them hear. May the Lord bless the Word."

Of the humble, self-denying work of the afternoon previous — a ministry which we believe should be connected with the midnight hour at Northfield—he does not speak. It came out after his death in the following note

" I want to add my name to the long list of those to whom dear Dr. Gordon brought almost the greatest spiritual blessing that I ever had. No one knew how much he was to me; he never knew. At Seabright, years ago, he kindly, and without our having any especial claim upon him, came to us to preach in the chapel and the little reading-room where the fishermen met. Many a time have I seen him on his knees beside those common, rough men, praying and leading them into the kingdom of God. I remember how new to me his way was of leading sinners to Christ, I learned a little about it from him. I remember his once coming from Northfield after the August conference. He seemed filled with the Spirit; he could not talk commonplaces. He said he had had a great blessing. He went to his room, and came out shortly after and said he was going down to the fisher village, and asked

i8o ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDON

the way. He did not come back until we were at dinner that hot afternoon. He had visited the beer and liquor saloons and prayed with the men there, and had been among the shanties. I know more than one family saved that day. His dear kind sympathy and instruction and his family prayers oh, how much they were in our home! His book, ' The Twofold Life,' is one of the few religious books I keep on my

table and near my heart. He gave it me on my birthday

some years ago. AVhenever he came to New York he made us a real pastoral visit."

His ministry in his native town was continuous through all the summers of his life. As regularly as the day of rest settled down on the quiet hills, could he be seen, with Bible under his arm, walking the long, maple-shaded village street to the little white meeting-house with its importunately resonant bell. In later years it was his special joy to preach in the afternoons also, in a church building dismantled and long disused. Situated near the line of an adjacent township, the " Dana Meeting-house " was central to several communities, and on occasion could draw on a widely scattered constituency of back farms as well. On many occasions Dr. Gordon held here all-day services, preaching twice or thrice, and conducting inquiry meetings. What a delight these informal gatherings were to him! How he would revel in illustration drawn from the every-day life of the farm! The oxen bearing the yoke, the sheep straying on the mountain-side, the seed thrown into the fresh furrow—how admirably were the parables of the gospels translated into the homely correspondences of New England country life! His great gifts of illustration and of story-telling were used with charming appositeness and simplicity. And very eagerly did the matter-of-fact people drink in these practical and pictorial expositions of the words of Christ. We shall never forget those still August afternoons, the long grass waving lazily in the occasional breezes, the

"SEASONABLY OUT OF SEASON'' i8i

woolly masses of clouds heaped on the steel-blue sky-fields, the motley teams tied to the dilapidated fences and to the low branches of trees, and that mellifluous voice sending its full diapason out of the open windows and doors. Inside, the people sat in old-fashioned box pews, facing in all directions, and in the high pulpit— so high that his head could not have been much more than two feet from the ceiling— stood the preacher. On the shelf-like desk lay the familiar worn Greek Testament, open to some chapter in Colossians or Luke which was to serve as the subject-matter of the discourse. Scripture was compared with Scripture, words were traced from gospel to epistle, and from epistle back to prophecy, and then placed in such collocation as to bring out in full force the profound verities. How our hearts burned within us as we sat in those quaint boxes and listened anew to the recital of the blessed truths and hopes! Here were no metaphysics to confound and weary untaught souls, no prideful rhetoric, no worldly display of learning, but rather " simple Christ to simple men " — just such homely teaching as Latimer employed in the villages of sixteenth-century England, and as Whitefield used hard by the coal-pits of Lancashire.

Nor was the summer work in New Hampshire confined to his own town. He was for some years a sort of bishop without the lawn and title of ecclesiasticism— to the dismantled churches of the abandoned farms. What more characteristic of the real, the primitive bishop than this work of strengthening and stablishing the perishing churches of a half-deserted

country? How characteristic, too, of Gordon's humility of

spirit! Why should he, with his great, prosperous city church, care to trouble himself with these poor, decadent, cross-roads meeting-houses, with their bare handful of unspiritual, unlettered folk! Surely no man needed more the "total rest" of his few weeks. To none would the summer days have passed more delightfully with the last volume of history or of current

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theological discussion; but his meat and drink was to do the will of Him that sent him. His labor and his recreation, his toilsome life and his brief vacations, had but one aim and interest. The extension of God's kingdom in New Hampshire was to him as important as its advancement in the crowded cities of India and China, or along the watercourses of central Africa. And so "out of season" he preached and worked, as well as in those months which are assigned for the formal duties of the pulpit.

The extent of this rural work is surprising when we recall it in detail. He bore many little constituencies on his heart and mind. Now he would arrange for furnishing this country church with hymn-books, now for the systematic visitation of some neglected region, now for the supply of some unoccupied pulpit by the students of his training-school. Several years since he aided in the reorganization of a church in the little town of Salisbury, Webster's birthplace, and had the great joy of placing over it one of the stanch " redeemed men " of Clarendon Street— one who had been saved from the horrible pit and the miry clay of drunkenness. The summer before his death he went up to Jefferson, in the far north of the State, after a laborious week's convention in Maine, and with the usual ten days of Northfield before him. The church there, after having been closed many years, had been resuscitated by the labor of one of his students— a woman. At her earnest solicitation, foregoing his own wish to join his family, and at the expense of all the vexations which insufficient and untimely railroad connections imply, he spent a Sunday there, preaching, baptizing, administering the communion, and exhorting the infant church to unity, godliness, and patient labor.

It was his often expressed belief that "the deadness and dearth everywhere here " could be arrested only by the preaching of common men who knew the Scriptures and eschewed

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philosophizing. He longed for a renaissance of the class of " farmer preachers " with which his boyhood had been familiar. " Three of the four churches which stood in the town where I am staying this summer," he once said in a Northfield address, " were manned by farmers. When higher education came they felt themselves crowded out, and the class is lost to us. I believe in the farmer preachers. They knew the Bible from cover to cover. I wish we had that class in the country to-day to preach to the people, and I hope God will send down a vision of his Spirit that will inspire these men to go forward and preach just as they used to. When the fashion came on of being educated, they made the mistake of trying to appear as the educated, and began to read their sermons. With these men we could renew the religious life of New England."

Nor was this summer ministry suspended even in mid-ocean. In crossing the Adantic, Gordon invariably sought out the unprivileged and taught them. He describes in a letter written in '88 the meetings which he held one Sunday in the crowded, fetid steerage of a Cunarder

" Sunday afternoon we got permission to hold service among the steerage passengers. They were of all nationalities and all creeds, and were not ready at once to gather for a religious and Protestant service. So I went down into the hold, and preached to the men and women in their bunks, or as they sat lounging and smoking on the floor. Though disinclined at first to hear, they soon became attentive, and listened with deep interest as I preached to them of the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep. Meanwhile Mrs. Gordon had started singing on the deck among the same class, and, with the help of a few Christian friends, had held their attention till I came up and preached to them also. This service was quietly listened to, though with some interruptions. When I announced to the people that ' there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,' a Catholic Irishman, with just enough of his national beverage aboard to make him mellow and religious, stepped out and crossed himself very- devoutly, exclaiming, 'That's so, your riverance! Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and St. Peter is head of the church— St. Peter whom he commanded to walk on the water. Think of that, my friends '—pointing out over the waves— 'think of St. Peter walking on the sea.' And so he went on in a very noisy but friendly way to vindicate the primacy of St. Peter, the head of the apostolate, till the crowd insisted that he be quiet that the preacher might finish his sermon. Then I proceeded, luging the people that they were sinners in need of pardon, till a socialist, sitting on the bulkhead with his pipe in his mouth, cried out, ' Preach to Jay

Gould, He is the sinner that needs praying for.' And so he

gave us something of a talk on the tyranny of capital and the oppression of labor. Thus we closed, but not without finding warm-hearted Christians, Swede and Scotch especially, and a Welsh Methodist, who led the singing and became thereafter

my faithful helper and co-laborer among his shipmates. A

good opportunity is afforded on shipboard for giving the gospel if we are mindful of the Lord's words, 'As ye go, preach.' This public introduction has given us some opportunities for personal talks on board, which we trust may not be without fruit."