CIPAr TR ocx.v IIT. I pray thee have me excused. Luke xvi. 19. These three men that we read about to-night were not invited to hear some dry stupid sermon or lec- -ture, but they were invited toa feast. The gospel in this parable is represented as a feast, and there was an invitation extended to these three men to come to the feast. ‘‘And they all with one consent began to make excuse.’’ It does not say that they had an excuse, but they made excuse—manufactured one for the occasion. Now excuses are as oldas man. The first excuse that we hear of wasin Eden. The first thing we hear after the fall of man, was man making excuse. Instead of Adam confessing his guilt like a man, he began to excuse himself—justify himself. That is what every man is trying to do—justify himself in his sins. Adam said, ‘‘It is this woman that thou gavest me.’’ He hid behind her—mean, cowardly act. And it really was charging it back on God. “Tt is the woman that thou gavest me.’’ Blaming God for his sin. From the time that Adam fell from the summit of Eden to the present time, man has been guilty of that sin, charging it back on God, as if God was responsible for his sin and God was guilty.
Now, I venture to say that if I should go down among the congregation here to-night, every man that has not accepted this invitation would be ready You have all got excuses. You would have one right on the end of your tongue. You would be ready to meet me the moment I got to you. If I met that excuse, then you would get another and you would hide behind that. Then, if I drove you out from behind that, you would get another. And so you would go on, hiding behind some excuse—making some and if you should be cornered up and could not think of one, Satan would be there to help you make one. That has been his business for the past six thousand years. He is very good to help man make excuses, and undoubtedly he helped these three men we read of here to-night. No sooner do we begin to preach the gospel of the Son of God than men begin to manufacture excuses. They begin to hunt around to see if they cannot find some reason to give for not accepting the invitation. Excuses are the cradle, in other words, that Satan rocks men off to sleep in. He gets them into that cradle of excuses that they may ease their consciences. But let me say to you, my friends, there is no man or woman in this assembly to-night that can give an excuse that will stand the light of eternity. All these excuses that men are making are nothing but refuges of lies after all. We read in the prophecy of Isaiah that God shall sweep away these refuges of lies. When a man stands before God he will not be making excuses. His excuses will all be gone then, and he will be speechless. We read of that man that got into the feast with-
out a wedding garment, and when the Lord of the feast came in he saw the man there. That man perhaps thought he could get in with the crowd. Some people say, ‘‘O, I will go with the crowd.”’ He thought he could get in with the crowd, and he would not be noticed. But that eye was keen to detect one that had not on the wedding garment. Do not think for a moment that God’s eye is not upon you? He knows how all these excuses are made. Youcannot hide anything from Him. You may make excuses and put on a sort of garment, and think you are justifying yourself in living away from God and not accepting this invitation; but really it is nothing that will stand the light of eternity. Things look altogether different when you stand before Him. Did you ever stop to think what would take place in a city like Cleveland if God should take every man and woman that wants to be excused at their word, and should say, ‘‘I will excuse you.’’ God took those three men that we read of at their word. He said, ‘‘Not one of them that were bidden shall taste of my supper.’’ ‘They spurned the invitation; they turned their backs upon it; and then God withdrew the invitation. ‘‘Not one of them that were bidden shall taste of my supper.’’ Suppose that that should take place in Cleveland, and then by a stroke of Providence he should sweep every man and woman in Cleveland that wants to be excused from this feast into eternity. Suppose that every man and woman that wanted to be excused from this feast should die inside of twenty-four hours. I think there would be plenty of room in this bernacie to-morrow night for all that want to
come. There would be a good many of your stores closed to-morrow. There would be no one to open them. Merchants, employes, clerks would all be gone. Every saloon in Cleveland would be closed up. Every rum-seller wants to be excused from this feast. Hecan’t get into the kingdom of God with a rum bottle in his hand. ‘‘Woe be to the man that putteth the bottle to his neighbor’s lips." He knows very well that if he accepts this invitation he has got to give up his hellish traffic. Every blasphemer in Cleveland wants to be excused from this feast, because if he accepts this invitation he has got to give up his blasphemy. Every drunkard in Cleveland, every harlot, every thief, every dishonest man, every dishonest merchant would be gone. They want to be excused from this feast. Why? Because they have got to turn away from their sins if they accept of this invitation. The longer I live the more I am convinced that the reason men do not come to Christ is because they do not want to givc up sin. That is the trouble. It is not their intellectual difficulties. It is quite popular for people to say that they have got intellectual difficulties; but if they would tell the honest truth it is some darling sin that they are holding on to. They are not willing to give up the harlot; they are not willing to give up gambling; they are not willing to give up drinking, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. That is the trouble. It is not their intellectual difficulties as much as it is their darlingsin. The grass would soon be growing in your streets in Cleveland if God should take every man at his word and excuse him from this feast and take him away. Things would look alto-
gether different in your city inside of a week if God should excuse you that want to be excused. And yet the moment that God sends out His invitation excuses just run right in. ‘“‘I pray thee have me That is the cry to-day. Man prepares his feast, and there isa great rush to get the best seats. God prepares his feast—and what a feast it is! Thinkofit! Itis not often that common people like you and me get an invitation to a royal feast. There is many a man that has lived in Windsor Castle for fifty years, and has never got sight of Queen Victoria. There are men in London that stand high, men of wealth, men of position who never were invited into her palace. Men think it is a great honor to be invited into a king’s palace or the palace of a queen. But here we are invited to the marriage of the Lamb. We are invited by the Lord of glory to come to the marriage of His only begotten son, and men begin to make excuses.
pray thee, have me excused.”’ Now let us look for a moment at the excuses that these three men gave. The first man might have been very polite. Some menare very polite. Some are very gruff, and treat you witha great deal of scorn andcontempt. The moment you begin to talk to them they say, ‘‘ You attend to your business and I will attend to mine.’’ But I can imagine this man was a very polite man and he said, ‘‘I wish you would take back this message to your Lord, that I would like to be at that feast. Tell him there is nota man in the kingdom that would rather be there than myself, but I am so situated that I can’t come. Just tell him I have bought me a piece of ground, and that I must needs go and see it.’’ Queer time
to go and see to land, wasn’t it? Just at that supper time. They were invited to supper, you see. But he must needs go and see it. He had not made a partial bargain and wanted to go and close the bargain. He did not have that good excuse. He had bought the land, and he must needs go and see it. Could he not go and see this land the next morning? Could he not have accepted this invitation and then gone and seen his land? If he had been a good business man, some one has said, he would have gone and looked at the land before he boughtit. But the land was already bought, and the trade made. He did not say, “I want to get the deed on record, because I am afraid some one else will get a deed of it, and get it on record first, and I will lose it.”” He had not got that good an he had gvas, “I have bought me a piece of ground and I must needs go and see it.’”’ You will see it was a lie right on the face of it. It was just manufactured to ease that man’s conscience. He did not want to go to the feast, and he had not the common honesty to come out with it and say, ‘‘I don’t want to go to the feast, but just take back word that I have bought mea piece of ground and I must needs go and see it,”’ and away he went. How many men are giving their business as an excuse for not accepting this invitation! You talk to them about things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and they tell you they have got to attend to business; that business is very pressing. It does not say that this was a bad man. He might have been as moral as any man in Cleveland. He might have held as high a position as any man in Cleveland. He might have ridden in his chariot. He might have been a very liberal man to
the poor. He might have been a very benevolent man. He might have given his substance, but he neglected to accept this invitation, and Christ teaches us plainly that if we neglect this salvation how shall we escape the damnation of hell. People say, “‘What have I done? I have not got drunk; Ihave not murdered; I have not lied; I have not stolen. What havelIdone?’’ I will take youon the ground that you have not done anything—I will not admit that for a moment, but suppose I take you on that ground. Ifaman neglects salvation he will be lost. You see a man in yonder river, his oars lying*in the bottom of his boat, and he is out there in the current, his arms are folded, and the current is quietly drawing him toward the rapids. Some one warns him: ‘‘Say, friend, you are hastening toward the rapids.’’ ‘‘No, I am doing nothing, sir. My arms are folded. What have I done?’ ‘‘But you are drawing toward the rapids.’’ ‘‘I tell you, sir, I am not; I am doing nothing.’’ You may try to convince him but he will be blind. So indeed he is not doing anything, but that current is quietly drawing him toward the cataract, and in a few moments he will go over. Many aman is flattering himself that he is not doing anything, but let him neglect salvation and he is lost. The next man’s excuse was one manufactured for the occasion. It was not one whit better than the excuse of the first man: ‘‘Take back word to thy Lord that I cannot come. I have got pressing business. I have bought five yoke of oxen and I must needs go to prove them.’’ As if he had to prove his oxen that night at supper time He had plenty of.time to prove his oxen. He had bought them.
They were in his stall. But the fact was, he was like the first man; he did not want to go and had not
the common honesty to say so, and so he says, ‘‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must needs go and prove them.’’ He must go right off that night to prove them. That is his excuse. There is not a child five years old that cannot see that that excuse is just manufactured. These men began to make excuse. They did not have one—they manufactured excuses to ease their consciences. It was nothing but a downright lie; that is what it was. Let us call things by their right names. People think if they can make a sort of plausible excuse they are justified. But these excuses are nothing but refuges of lies. The third man’s excuse is more absurd than the others; ‘‘I have married me a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’’ Who likes to go to a feast better than a young bride? He might have taken his wife with him. He had no excuse. That was the excuse he was hiding behind. ‘‘I have married mea wife, and therefore I cannot come.’’ If his wife would not go with him, he could let her stay at home, and he could go. This has got to be a personal matter. We are not going to heaven in families, as I said last night. It is a thing between you ‘and your God. The invitation was extended to that man as the head of his own house. He was priest over his own household, and he had no excuse; but he just made up that excuse. Now, there is nothing on record, you might say, against those three men. You might say there were a good many things noble about those men. It does not say that they were licentious; it does
not say that they were drunkards; it does not say that they were dishonest; it does not say that they were thieves, but they only made excuses so as not to be at that feast. They did not want to accept of the feast. I notice some of you smile as I take up those three excuses; but I would like to ask this congregation this question: Have you a better one? Come!
see a young man laughing down there. Have you a better excuse yourself? Come! Eighteen hundred years have rolled away, and they tell us we are living in a very wise age, that we are living ina very intellectual age, that men are growing much wiser, and that we know a good deal more than our fathers did; but with all men’s boasted knowledge, can you find a man to-day who has a better excuse than those three men had? During the last three years I have spent most of my time talking to people about their salvation—their individual difficulties, and I have yet to find the first man or the first woman that can give me a better excuse than those three men had. I tell you that man or that woman cannot be found to-day. I will defy any man to come forward to-night and give me a better excuse than those three men had. The excuses men are hiding behind to-day are fearful. There is not an excuse that you would dare to give to God. Things look altogether different when you come to stand before Him. Take a piece of paper, if you have it in your pocket, and a pencil and write down, ‘‘Why should I serve the God of this world? Second, Why should I serve the God of the Bible???’ Then put down your reasons why you should serve the God of this
world, and your reasons why you should serve the God of the Bible, and see how it looks; because it is clearly taught that we either serve the God of this world or the God of heaven. We cannot be neutral. There is no neutrality about this matter. We are either for God or against him. We cannot serve God and mammon. We are either serving the God of this world—that is, Satan—or we are serving the God of heaven. The line is drawn. You may not be able to see it, but God sees it. God knows the heart of every man and woman in this assembly. He knows all about us, and He sees right through the excuses we make. He looks at the heart. He does not look at the excuses you make. Those are only from the tongue. They are only manufactured in the head. He knows that the difficulty lies down in the heart. It is because you will not come unto Him It is not because men cannot come; it is because men set their wills up against God’s will, and are not willing to yield. One of the popular excuses of the present day is this good old book, the Bible. It is amazing to hear some men talk. I have touched upon this a number of times since I have come to Cleveland, but I find as I come out West a good deal of infidelity; men profess to be infidels. It is astonishing to hear them talk about the Bible—something they do not know anything about. I can find scarcely one of them that has ever looked into it and read it, and who knows anything about it. They have heard some infidel lecture—some scoffing, sneering man come along caviling at the Bible, and they have heard some few things that man has said, and they bring them out on all occasions. They will not look
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into that Book and ask God to help them to understand it. If a man will be honest with God, God will be honest with him. There is no trouble about this Book; the trouble is with the life. Wilmot, the great infidel, as he lay dying, putting his hand upon that Book, said, ‘‘The only thing against that Book is a bad life.’’ When a man has got a bad record against him, he wants to get that Book out of the way, because it condemns him; that is the trouble. The trouble is not with the Book; it is with your record and mine. Because that Book condemns sin we want to get it out of the way. Men do not like to be condemned; that is the trouble. Then men say they cannot understand it. Well, you and the Bible agree exactly. A man was telling me some time ago that he could not understand the Bible. I said, ‘‘You and the Bible agree exactly.’’ He said, ‘‘I don’t agree with the Bible at all.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘‘you agree exactly,”’ and I referred him to a passage in the prophecy of Daniel —‘‘Many shall be purified and made white and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand.’’ That is what Scripture says. If a man is living in sin, God is not going to reveal to that man his secrets. I would like to ask those men who are giving this Bible as an excuse for not becoming Christians, who wrote that book? Did bad men write it? Itisa very singular thing that they should write their own condemnation, isn’t it? How that book condemns bad men! Bad men would not write their own condemnation, would they? They do not do it nowadays, dothey? They are the last ones to write their
own condemnation. Well, if good men wrote a bad book, they could not be good, could they? Now, it seems to me, that if a man will stop to think a moment he will see that the trouble is not with the book. The trouble is with himself. And when a man bows to the will of God, that book becomes food to his soul. Hecan feed on it, then; there is something to feed on. He gets life from it; he gets power, and he gets something that tells him how he can get victory over himself. I consider that the greatest triumph a man can have in this world. A man that knows how to rule himself is greater than he that taketh acity. Look at the misery and woe that has come into the world through that one door—men and women that cannot control themselves, that cannot control their tempers, their lusts, their passions, and their appetites. That book tells me how I can get victory over myself; and it is the only book in the wide world that can tell a man how to get victory over himself.
haven't time to dwell upon that excuse any longer. There is another very common excuse, and I have heard it in Cleveland as much as any: ‘‘Why,’’ they say, ‘‘Mr. Moody, you know it is a very hard thing to be a Christian—a very hard thing.’? When they tell me that I like to ask them, ‘‘Which is the hardest master, the devil’’—for we will call him by his right name, because every man that serves not the Lord Jesus Christ, and will have nothing to do with the God of the Bible, is serving the god of this world. ‘‘Now, which is the easiest master?’’ Christ says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Now, you go right along and say, ‘‘That is alie.’’ You don’t say it right out in plain Eng-
lish, but we may as well talk plainly to-night. When you say it is hard to be a Christian you say that God is a liar; that it is an easier thing to serve the god of this world than it is the God of the Bible. Now, I want to say that I consider that one of the greatest lies that ever came out of the pit of hell; and how Satan can stand up in this nineteenth century and make men believe he is an easier master than the God of heaven, is one of the greatest mysteries of the present day. ““The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ Blot it out if you can. Close up that book, and you will see the evidence of that fact all around you. There is not a day passes but you can read upon the pages of the daily papers, ‘‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ I wish I could drive that lie back into hell where it came from. You go over to the Tombs in New York city and you will find a little iron bridge running from the police court where the men are tried right in the cell. I think the New York officials have not been noted for their piety in your time and mine; but they had put up there in iron letters on that bridge, ‘“The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ They know that is true. Blot it out if you can. God Almighty
saidit. Itis true. ‘‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’’ On the other side of that bridge they put these words, ‘‘A bridge of sighs.’’ I said to one of the officers, ‘‘What did you put that up there for?’’ He said that most of the young men (for most of the criminals are young men. ‘‘The wicked don’t live out their days’’—Put that in with it)—he said most of the young men as they passed over that iron bridge went over it weeping. So they called it the
Bridge of Sighs. ‘‘What made you put that other there—‘The way of the transgressor is hard?’ ”’ ‘‘Well,’’ he said, “it is hard. I think if you had anything to do with this prison you would believe that text, ‘The way of the transgressor is hard.’ ”’ If a man will just look around him and keep in mind this one truth, ‘‘The way of the transgressor is hard,’’ he will be thoroughly convinced inside of twenty-four hours that that passage of Scripture is true. It is not that God’s service is hard. The trouble with men is they are trying to serve God with the old Adam nature. They are trying to serve God before they are born of God. Now, to tell a man in the flesh to serve God in the spirit, who is a Spirit, I would just as soon tell a man to try to jump over the moon and expect him to do it. He cannot do it. The natural man is not subject to the law of God and neither indeed can be. You are not to try to serve God until you are born of God, until you are born again, born from above, until you are born of the Spirit; and when a man is born of the Spirit the yoke is easy and the burden is light. I have beenin the service upwards of twenty years, and I want to testify to-night that my Master is not a hard Master. What say you ministers here to-night? Do you find him a hard Master? Speak out. I thought you would say so. Ah, my friends, He is not a hard Master. I want to have you remember that. No, He is not a hard Master. That is one of the lies coming from the pit. ‘“‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’’ When a man submits his heart and will to God— takes Christ into his heart and lives a life of faith, it is delightful.
Now, I will tell you a good way to get at this. Put you people into a jury box. Just imagine you are on a jury to-night. I willtake the most faithful follower the Lord Jesus has got in Cleveland.
don’t know who the person is, it may be a man or woman that the papers, perhaps, have no record of. God knows where His loved ones are. It may be some poor person off in some dark street, but it is one who has great faith and walks with God, whose life isas pure and spotless and blameless as any person that you can find; one that has been living with Jesus Christ, say fifty years. Let that person come up on this platform to-night and speak out and testify. You willsee in his face that he has not had a hard Master. There will be no wrinkles in that brow. There will be light in the eye, there will be peace stamped upon that brow, joy beaming from that countenance. Heneed not speak; let that person stand here and by his face he will show he has had a good Master and an easy Master. Now, find the most faithful follower that the devil has gotin Cleveland. Let him or her come up here. Ah! you need not speak. I think you would say ‘that is enough.’’ You can tell by the looks, for the devil puts his mark upon his own. He stamps the mark deep. Men may try to get rid of it, but they carry the mark. And the Lord Jesus puts his stamp upon hisown. You take the two and draw the contrast and see if that lie that has come from Satan is not as great a lie as ever was told—that our Lord is a hard Master. When people say they would like to become a Christian, but it is a hard thing to be a Christian, they virtually say God is a hard Master and Satan is an easy one.
Now do you think it easy to go against your own convictions? Because that is what men do. They have to stifle conscience to serve the god of this world and turn the back on the God of the Bible. Do you think it is an easy thing to go against your own judgment? Forif aman will just stop and consult his judgment, his judgment will tell him that the safest, and wisest, and best thing he can do is to believe on the God of the Bible. Is it an easy thing to go against the advice and wishes of the best friends you have got? There is not a person in this congregation to-night that has got a true friend that would not advise him to serve the God of heaven. A man or woman that would advise you to serve the god of this world would be the worst enemy you could have. They would make the world dark and bitter. Is it an easy thing to trample a mother’s prayers under your feet? to break a mother’s heart and send her down to an untimely grave? That is easy, is it? Ah! many amanhasdoneit. Youcall that easy. Is it easy to go against the very best counsel and advice you have from the best and most loved friends you have got? Hear what the Master said to Saul: “‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee’’—he did not talk about its being hard for the disciples that Saul was going to put in prison, and, perhaps, have them stoned to death like Stephen. It was not as hard for Stephen to be stoned to death as it was for Saul to persecute him. ‘“‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”’ It is hard for aman to contend with his Maker. It is hard fora man to fight against the God of the Bible. It is an unequal controversy. It is an unequal battle, and
God is going to have the victory. It is folly for a man to attempt to fight against the God of that Bible. Mr. Spurgeon uses this parable of a tyrant ordering a subject into his presence and saying to him: ‘“What is your occupation?’ ‘‘I ama blacksmith.” ““Well,’’ says he, *‘I want you to go and make a chain a certain length,’’ and he gave him nothing to make it with, ‘‘and on a certain day I want you to bring it into my presence.’’ That day came. The blacksmith appeared with his chain. The tyrant says: ‘‘Take that chain and make it twice that length.’’ He took it, worked a long time and made it twice the length, and brought it back. The tyrant says: ‘‘Take that chain and make it twice the length.’’ He made it twice the length and he had to get friends to help him get in the presence of the tyrant, and when he brought it back the tyrant says to his men standing around, ‘‘Take that man and bind him hand and foot and cast him into a dungeon;’' and, says Mr. Spurgeon, ‘*That is what every man that is serving the god of this world is doing —forging the chain that is going to bind him.”’
man goes into a saloon and takes a social glass. You step up and tell that man of his danger; that he is binding himself, and that by and by he will be bound hand and foot, and he will laugh you to scorn and mock you; but he goes on adding link after link to that chain. By and by the tyrant has got him bound, and he says: ‘‘Now, let us see you assert your freedom.’’ Men say they don’t want to give up their freedom. There is no freedom until a man knows the Lord Jesus Christ. A man is a
slave to sin, to his passions and lusts until Christ snaps the fetters and sets him free. There was a man I used to know in Chicago that I talked to a great many times about drinking. He was a business man. He used to say: “‘I can stop when I please.’’ One night I went out, and my family heard a strange noise. We lived on the corner. They heard him coming down the side street and he made an unearthly noise, and my wife said to the servants, ‘‘Are the doors locked?’’ He came around to the front door and tried to burst the door open. My wife says, ‘‘What doyou want?’ ‘‘Oh,”’’ he says, ‘‘I want to-see your husband.” ‘‘Well, he has gone down to the meeting.’’ Away he started. I was walking down to the church and he went by me. He was running so fast he could not stop. He went on arod or two and came back. The poor fellow was nearly frightened out of his life. He says, ‘‘I have got to die to-night.’’ ‘‘Oh, no, you are not going to die.’’ ‘‘I have got to die to-night.’’ ‘“Why,’’ says I, ‘‘what isthe trouble?’’ and I found the man had drank so much that he was under the power of the enemy. I saw what his trouble was. ‘“Why,’’ he says, ‘“‘Satan is coming to my house to-night to take me to hell,’’ andsays he, ‘‘I have got to go.’’ I begged of him to let me stay till one o’clock. He told me at one o’clock he will be back after me. I said, ‘‘He willnot come after you.’’ ‘‘He will; there is no chance of my getting away from him. He iscoming!’’ Well, I couldn’t convince that man. Poorman! He had been serving the god of this world, and now he was reaping what he had been sowing. On that night I had six men come to that man’s house and at one o’clock those
six men could not hold him. ‘‘Look there! see him! There they are! They are after me! He is taking me! He is going to take me to hell! He is after me!’’ I thought that man would really die. Poor man! He is one of those men that thought God a hard master and the devil was one that was easy. Thatis the way the devil serves his subjects, Reaping time is coming. Poor man, he suffered untold agonies that night. Yet men, with all these Witnesses around them, will go on drinking.
young man will go from this Tabernacle to-night, and go down toasaloon and order a glass and drink, and go on drinking, until by and by delirium seizes him and the snakes crawl around his body, and would seem as if death would lay right hold of him. I can’t describe it. It would take some of these men that have been there to tell you about it. Oh, tell me that the devil is an easy master and that God isa hard one! Away with that lie; away with that My friends, never give it as long as you live. It is false. When I was in Paris I saw a little oil painting, only about a foot square; it was at the Paris Exposition in 1867. I was going through the Art Gallery, and on that painting there was a little piece of white paper that attracted my attention. I went and looked at that white paper, and it said, ‘‘Sowing Tares,’’ and there was the most hideous countenance I think Ieversaw. A man was taking out a handful of seed, sowing tares all around him, and wherever a tare dropped there grew up some vile reptile, and they were crawling up his body and all around him. Off in the distance was a dark thicket, and prowling around the borders of that forest were
wild beasts, and that hellish and fiendish look! What a fearful thing it is for a man to sow tares when he is going to reap them. And yet man goes on sowing with a liberal hand, and laughs and scoffs when we warn him and tell him what he is coming to by and by. The papers are full of it.
sometimes think these papers ought to preach the Gospel to the people—ought to warn them to flee from the wrath to come. Look at that case we have just had in a court in New Jersey. Look at that poor man. For four long days the jury has been out. I don’t know when my heart has been more touched than when I read that scene in court, when those little children climbed up on their father’s knee and said, ‘* Papa, papa, come home. Mamma cries so much now you are away.’’ The law had him. Poorman! He reaped what he sowed. He had an uncontrollable temper. He took his weapon and shot down a coachman because he got mad with him. He never will get over it. He never can step back into the place where he was. The jury may acquit him. Poor man; he has got to reap a bitter, bitter reaping; what an awful thing sin is; and yet men will stand up with all these facts around them and tell you God is a hard master and the devil an easy one. Let us look at the scene in the court. <A young man just coming into manhood, twenty-one, promising, talented, gifted, beautiful young man, an only son; but he has been out drinking, and in a drunken spree helped kill a man, and now he is on trial for his life. In that court sit his father and mother and three lovely sisters. That is the only brother they have got. That is the only son they have got.
The jury bring in the verdict, guilty; the man is sentenced to the penitentiary for life. And with all these facts people stand up and say God is a hard master and the devil is an easy one. O, that the God of heaven may open our eyes to-night to show us how wicked it is to give these excuses, and that we will have to answer for them at the bar of God—for a person with an open Bible to say that God is a hard master and that Satan is an easy one. I remember of closing a young men’s meeting in Chicago a few years ago, when a young man got up and said, ‘‘Mr., Moody, would you allow me to say a few words?’ And I said, ‘‘Say on.’’ ‘‘Well,’’ said he, “‘I want to say to these young men, that if they have friends that care for them, and friends that love them, and that are praying for them—I want to say you had better treat them kindly, for you will not always have them. I want to tell you something in my own experience. I was an only son,
and I had a very godly father and mother. No young man in Chicago had a better father and mother than I had; and because I was an only child, I suppose, they were very anxious for my salvation, and they used to plead with me to come to Christ. My father many atime at the family altar used to break down in his attempt to pray for his only boy. At last my father died, and after my father died, my mother became more anxious than ever that I. should become a Christian. Sometimes she would come and put her loving arms around my neck and say, ‘My boy, if you were only a Christian, I would »be so happy. If you would take your father’s place at the family worship, and help me worship God, it
would cheer your mother.’ I used to push her away and say, ‘Mother, don’t talk to me that way; I don’t want to become a Christian yet, I want to see something of the world.’ Sometimes I would wake up in the night and hear my mother praying, ‘O, God, save my boy!’ and it used to trouble me, and at last I ran away to get away from my mother’s influence, and away from her prayers. I became a wanderer. I did not let her know where I went. When I did hear from home indirectly, I heard that that mother was sick. I knew what it meant. I knew it was my conduct that was crushing that mother and breaking her heart, and I thought I would go home and ask her forgiveness. Then the thought came that if I did I would have to become a Christian, and my proud heart would not yield. I would not go. Months went on, and I heard again indirectly. I believe that if my mother had known where I was she would have come tome. I believe she would have gone around the world to find her boy. And when I heard that she was worse, the thought came over me that she might not recover, and I thought that I would go home and cheer her lonely heart. There was no railway in the town, and I had to take the stage. IJ got into town about dark. The moon had just begun to shine. My mother lived back about a mile and a half from the hotel, and I started back on foot, and on my way I had to go by the village grave-yard. When I got to it I thought I would go and see if there was a new-made grave. I can’t tell why, but my heart began to droop, and as ] drew near that spot I trembled. By the light of the moon I saw a new-made grave. For the first. time in my life this question came stealing over me,
Who is going to pray for my lost soul now? Father has gone and mother is dead. They are the only two that ever cared for me, the only two that ever prayed for me. I took up the earth and saw that the grave was a new-made grave; I saw that my mother had just been laid away; and, young men, I spent that night by my mother’s grave. I did not leave it until daybreak; but as the morning sun came up, right there by my mother’s grave, I gave myself away to my mother’s God, and then and there settled the great question of eternity, and I became a child of God. I never will forgive myself. I murdered that sainted mother.” Poor man! He was reaping what he sowed. Tell me that the way of the transgressor is easy! Tell me that God isa hard Master, and that the devil is an easy one! Young men, take the God of your mother; take the God of the Bible to be your God. Set your faces like a flint towards heaven to-night, and it will be the best night of your life. I wish I could say something to induce you to come to Christ. I wish I could see souls pressing into the kingdom of God. May the God of all grace touch every heart here to-night.