A Star In The Midnight Darkness
A STAR IN THE MIDNIGHT DARKNESS
One incident connected with my own Christian experience can never be effaced from my memory. I was seated in my country home reading the accounts of the Northfield conferences, before I had ever thought of attending the same, when one sentence in an Address delivered by Mr. Meyer arrested my attention. It was concerning the life of surrender, and the sentence was as follows: "If you are not willing to give up everything to God, then can you say, I am willing to be made willing?" It was like a star in the midnight darkness of my life and led to a definite surrender of myself in October 1892. But after that there were still some discouragements and times of depression, and one morning very early in front of Mr. Moody's house with the Rev. F. B. Meyer, I said to him, " Mr Meyer, what is my difficulty?" I told him of my definite surrender and pointed out to him my times of weakness and discouragement, and in a way which is peculiar to himself he made answer, ' My brother, your difficulty is doubtless the same as the one I met. Have you ever tried to breathe out six times without breathing in once?" Thoughtlessly I tried to do it and then learned that one never breathes out until he breathes in, that his breathing out is in proportion to his breathing in; that he makes his effort to breathe in and none to breathe out. Taking my hand in his, my distinguished friend said, "it is just so in one's Christian life, we must be constantly breathing in of God, or we shall fail," and he turned to make his way to Mr. Moody's house for breakfast while I hastened up to my room in Weston Hall thanking God that I had had a message better to me than any sermon I had ever heard.
Such incidents as these in the lives of thousands of ministers make Northfield a place delightful to visit and Northfield meetings a benediction.
A very wealthy family, the father and mother of which had been frequent visitors at Northfield, could never induce the young ladies of their home to go with them, their idea of a Bible conference being such that they considered it a poor way to spend a vacation; but one summer, because of the description of the beauty of the scenery, they consented to go. They were seated one morning on the piazza of the Northfield Hotel with Mr. Meyer, when something in his conversation led them to say that they would hear him preach that morning. The power of God came upon one of the young ladies and she returned to her room only to fall upon her knees and definitely yield herself to God. She returned to her home to engage most actively in Christian service. Shortly after her return she was taken ill and died, and before her death she called her mother to her room to say to her that she wanted her to call to her room, before the funeral, every girl whom she had ever known intimately and socially and to tell them that in the little time she had known Christ fully she had had more joy than in all her social life put together.
This is but one incident among thousands that could be related concerning the influence of Northfield. Is it strange, therefore, that many who love it can say as the Psalmist said of Zion, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Northfield."
Chapter 14
The Northfield Schools
A favorite aphorism with Mr. Moody was, that "it is better to set ten men to work than to do the work of ten men", and his institutions were every one of them founded with this idea in mind. He ever had a great desire more thoroughly to equip young men and women that they might more properly do the work to which God had called them. In one sense Mr. Moody was not an educated man, for, so far as the schools were concerned, he had the scantiest equipment for his life work. This was always a source of sincere sorrow to him, and he determined that others should not meet this difficulty if he could prevent it, yet in the very widest sense he was most thoroughly educated, and it was entirety fitting that Professor Henry Drummond should speak of him as "one of the greatest educators of his day."