How He Appeared In His Native Town
HOW HE APPEARED IN HIS NATIVE TOWN
"In 1896 I visited the States for the first time. Among other work, I had promised Mr. Moody to speak at the Chicago Institute to his students. The Northfield Conference was in session, and I managed to get a few hours there. Arriving late at night, I found my quarters and retired. The next day was a field day for me, and a revelation. I attended meetings from morning till night. Everywhere Mr. Moody was the moving spirit. Bright, cheery, and yet in dead earnest, he seemed to make everything go before him. In the intervals of the meetings he gave me a drive round the campus in his buggy. Every point of interest was pointed out, and in a few brief words the story of how the different buildings were erected was told. Passing one house, he said, 'People sometimes ask me how I found Northfield? I tell them it found me. I was born there.' Suddenly he pulled up his horse to speak to a group of children. 'Have you had any apples to-day?' said he. 'No, Mr. Moody,' they replied. 'Then go down to my house, and tell them to give you all you want.' Away they went, and so did he, both happier. Down a narrow lane he drove next, and through a gate to where a man was at work in a field. 'Biglow,' said Mr. Moody, 'it's too hot for you to work much. Half a day's work for a days pay, you know, while this heat lasts.' I sat by his side and watched, and began to understand the greatness of the man whose life was so broad that it touched sympathetically all other phases of life.
MR. MOODY AS HOST
After the evening meeting, at his invitation, I gathered with the speakers at his house. Then, for the first time, I saw him in a new role, that of the host. He sat in his chair at the head of the table and helped the ice-cream, directed the conversation, and listened with the patience and simplicity of a child to every word that others spoke. That night the talk turned on the most serious subjects, the inner life of the people of God and its bearing on the work of the churches among the people. As we broke up I went to bid him good-bye, as I was to depart by an early train on the morrow. 'O!' said he, 'I shall see you in the morning; you are to preach at ten o'clock.' That was my first notice. What did I do? I preached, as he told me, as others and better men have ever been glad to do. That was his way. He printed no programme of the Northfield Conferences. He gathered around him a band of teachers and speakers, and then as the days moved on he manipulated them according to the necessities of the case. After speaking next morning I hurried away, but in that brief stay Moody had become much to me. Strong, tender, considerate, from that day I more than reverenced him, I loved him."
In the summer of 1897 I was asked to go to Kinsman, Ohio, to fill an engagement which properly belonged to Mr. Moody, but he was so busily engaged with his own Northfield work, and was so fearful of taking a long journey in the heat of summer, that Professor James MeGranahan insisted that I should come to Kinsman to speak to thousands of people who gathered every summer on the Fair grounds. Mr. Moody had started this meeting two or three years before, and he insisted that it should not be given up.