A Beautiful Place
A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
Independent of its spiritual attractions, there are few more beautiful places; the Connecticut River, bending here and there between hill and vale, is more than interesting. The poet speaks of "rivers singing their way to the sea;" one can quite understand how this expression could be used in this connection, for we quite believe that it would be true of the Connecticut. And if the river itself could speak it would tell many a story of lives that from Northfield have sung their way on up to Heaven, and have started the melody of song in many other lives as well. It is said that Mr. Moody loved the view from his own house better than from almost any other point of observation, and well he might. Dr. Gordon once wrote of him, "Moody cannot endure the seashore; his green fields and ever shadowy hills and deep-rolling Connecticut are his paradise."
Northfield is a typical New England town. It consists practically of one long stretch, on either side of which stand stately elms, their branches meeting overhead and forming an arch, which has ever increasing beauty for the lovers of the quaint old town. It has ever been a very winsome place both because of the fact that it is so far removed from the busy hum of cities as to make it restful, and also because here within the boundaries of the town so many people have seen themselves to be out of touch with God and have come to know Him in all His fulness, and thus have entered the life of blessing.
NORTHFIELD DEAR TO MR. MOODY
But Northfield was dear to Mr. Moody for more reasons than one, and I am quite sure that he never thought of it, that there were not more than a hundred reasons why it should be much to him. He used to say that when the train left Greenfield, which was not far away from his own home, he found himself so impatient to be with his loved ones that it was impossible to sit still, and so he would frequently walk up and down the aisle of the car until he was safely home.
The center of Northfield, to the pilgrim journeying thither from all parts of the world, was the home of Mr. Moody himself, and the visit to that home, and a vision of it, both within and without, furnished one of the best comments on his life. Here dwelt a man through whose hands millions of dollars had passed, and practically none of it, though he had the best of right to a portion of it, both legally and morally was turned aside to give him what the world would count luxuries. Tens of thousands of homes are more beautifully and expensively furnished, but there was an air about this heart of Northfield which one detected the moment he crossed the threshold of the home - an air not of necessity associated with tapestries or pictures or paintings or furnishings ordinarily found in the homes of the rich, but which ever comes, when Christ is the unseen guest and the head of the house.
IS IT ANY WONDER THAT HE LOVED NORTHFIELD?
The old home was much to the Great Evangelist because it was his home. It was associated with his early struggles with poverty, with his father and mother, so dear to him, with his own immediate household, bound to him, it would seem, with ties stronger than those that ordinarily unite the members of the family; with the students whom he loved and whom it was his delight to help to gain an education. It was the scene of the beginning and the growth of the Bible Conferences, which have yearly increased in influence and power until the whole Christian world acknowledges its indebtedness to God for this fountain of blessing. There, at Mt. Hermon, the site of the boys' school, was started the Student Volunteer movement, which has been used of God to send hundreds of young men and women to foreign fields, and influenced hundreds more who now stand waiting for an opportunity to go. Is it any wonder that Mr. Moody loved Northfield? We love it too because it is associated with his triumphs. "Triumphs over the obstacles which stood in the way of his buying back his old home which had been lost by his father's failure in business. Triumphs over the discouragements that stood in the way of his giving an education to boys and girls who were poor, as he once had been; discouragements that would have defeated any other man, and at last the scene of the triumphant and victorious ending of his life and his glorious entrance into Heaven when he said, "Earth is receding, Heaven is opening, God is calling, and I must go."
Northfield is known throughout the world also because of the celebrated people whose names and words are interwoven in its latter day history. But whoever has visited Northfield in the past, or whoever may turn his face thither in the future, no name, however great it may be, can ever outshine his of whom we write. He was the gentlest, the kindest, the noblest Christian man it has ever been our good fortune to meet. One of the most familiar Northfield pictures was D. L. Moody sitting on the little porch in front of his house early in the morning hailing passers-by in whom he might have some special interest, directing this one, giving an order to another one, until he would have transacted half a day's business when others were just rising from their beds. I can hear his voice now as I write, as it sounded out one morning not later than 5.30 o'clock, when I heard him calling, "Chapman, Chapman," and, looking out of my window of Weston Hall, saw him sitting in his buggy ready for a drive, and then for an hour and a half we rode up through his favorite glen past Dr. Pierson's summer home, and the site where later Drs. Mabie and Torrey were to build.