His Great Love Of Nature
HIS GREAT LOVE OF NATURE
His love of nature was manifest in every turn of the road. "Look at that," he would say, and before us was a beautiful picture of a running stream and bending boughs of trees, through which the morning sun was breaking. " Listen," he would exclaim again, and the whole of the forest on either side of the road seemed vocal with the song of birds. "Isn't it beautiful," he would say over and over. To take a morning ride with D. L. Moody was to see God in all nature, but most of all was to feel His presence in the remarkable personality of the man who sat beside you, impressing you by his every word and gesture with the fact that he was absolutely surrendered to God.
It always seemed to me that his favorite meal for guests was breakfast. Happy that man who had an invitation to this feast of the day, for he could then see D. L. Moody at his best in his home life, and bow with him about his family altar, forth from which streams of blessing had gone to the very ends of the earth.
Northfield is associated with certain other people whom Mr. Moody was wise enough to call to his assistance and help. First and foremost would be Major D. W. Whittle; for next to Mr. Moody, as a preaching evangelist, stands Major Whittle, a man of plain speech and solid piety, whose words have been already owned of God to the awakening of thousands of souls.
Major Whittle is a native of Vermont, is about sixty-three years of age, and when Mr. Moody first met him was a resident of Chicago, where he was converted, and united with the First Congregational Church, under the pastorate of Rev. W. W. Patton, D.D. Major Whittle was employed in the office of Fargo & Co.'s Express until the breaking out of the war, when he enlisted a company in Chicago and joined the army as a captain of infantry.
During his army life he maintained his Christian profession, and for a long time kept up a company prayer meeting. At the close of the war he returned with the brevet rank of major, and soon after was offered a situation as business manager of the Elgin Watch Company, with a salary of five thousand dollars a year, which he accepted.
His work as superintendent of the West Side Tabernacle Sunday School, a mission opened by the first Congregational Church, was greatly blessed, and for some time before his entrance upon the work of an evangelist his services were in considerable demand as a Bible reader and helper in revivals of religion.
At length feeling called of God to a wider field of Christian labor, he resigned his position, with its ample salary, and gave himself wholly up to Christ, trusting in Him for direction and support.
Major Whittle is laid aside at Northfield now, his very presence in the old town meaning a blessing to many. His ministry too has been a benediction to all with whom he has come in contact. I question if a more godly man lives to-day than this honored servant.
DR. A. J. GORDON
Next in importance, possibly, would be Dr. A. J. Gordon, the honored pastor for so many years of the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston. Mr. Moody relied much upon him, 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 your place.
"It will now answer the question, 'What is going to become of the work when I am gone?'"
The presence of such men as these made Northfield a heavenly place in its atmosphere. Mr. Moody never displayed greater wisdom than in his selection of men to aid him in his Conferences.
"One of the interesting features of Dr. 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."
REV. F. B. MEYER OF LONDON
Certainly no one has ever visited Northfield who has made a deeper impression by his ministry, than the Rev. F. B. Meyer. He is now the minister of Christ Church, London, having succeeded in that historic pulpit Rev. Newman Hall, D. D., but he is known in this country, because of the fact that he has led, by the direction of the Spirit, thousands of people into the joys of the surrendered life, and Mr. Moody will doubtless hear in Heaven words of appreciation of the fact that he ever secured Mr. Meyer for his Northfield work.
Time does not permit in this connection to mention the names M MacGregor and Morgan, Andrew Murray, Dr. Webb-Peploe and hundreds of others of the real leaders in the Christian world to-day. They have counted it an honor to visit Northfield and give the very best of their thought to help carry on a movement which was manifestly of God.
There are many special incidents which have made Northfield blessed in its memory. One is related by Mr. George C. Neech ham, of the sainted A. J. Gordon of Clarendon Street Church.
"Dr. Gordon, unlike some Christians, believed there was something always beyond. This he ever sought to attain. Some years ago, during the first Northheld 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 in-filling 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 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 everwidening breadth of sympathy."