Ihonor Her For The Punishment Igot
I HONOR HER FOR THE PUNISHMENT I GOT
"The seven boys were like Hannibal, whose mother took him to the altar and made him swear vengeance on Rome. She took us to the altar and made us swear vengeance on whiskey, and everything that was an enemy to the human family; and we have been fighting it ever since and will to the end of our days.
"My mother used to punish me. I honour her for that. I do not object to punishment. She used to send me out to get a stick. It would take a long time to get it, and then I used to get a dead stick if I could. She would try it and, if it would break easily, then I had to go and get another. She was not in a hurry and did not tell me to hurry, because she knew all the time that I was being punished. I would go out and be gone a long time. When I came in, she would tell me to take off my coat, and then she would put the birch on; and I remember once I said, 'That doesn't hurt.' She put it on all the harder, and I never said that the second time. And once in awhile she would take me and she would say, 'You know I would rather put this on myself than to put it on you.' I would look up and see tears in her eyes. That was enough for me.
"What more can I say? You have lived with her and you know her. I want to give you one verse, her creed. Her creed was very short. Do you know what it was? I will tell you what it was. When everything went against her, this was her stay, 'My trust is in God. My trust is in God.' And when the neighbours would come in and I tell her to bind out her children, she would say, Not as long as I have these two hands.' ' Well,' they would say, 'you know one woman cannot bring up seven boys; they will turn up in jail, or with a rope around their necks.' She toiled on, and none of us went to jail, and none of us has had a rope around his neck. And if every one had a mother like that mother, if the world was mothered by that kind of mothers, there would be no use for jails.
Here is a book (a little book of devotions); this and the Bible were about all the books she had in those days; and every morning she would stand us up and read out of this book. All through the book I find things marked.
"Every Saturday night - we used to begin to observe the Sabbath at sundown Saturday night, and at sundown Sunday night we would run out and throw up our caps and let off our jubilant spirits - this is what she would give us Saturday night, and it has gone with me through life. Not all of it, I could not remember it all:
'How pleasant it is on Saturday night
When I've tried all the week to be good.'
"And on Sunday she always started us off to Sunday school. It was not a debatable question whether we should go or not. All the family attended.
"I do not know, of course, we do not know, whether the departed ones are conscious of what is going on earth. If I knew that she was I would send a message that we are coming after her. If I could, I believe I would send a message after her, not only for the family, and the town, but for the Seminary. She was always so much interested in the young ladies of the Seminary. She seemed to be as young as any of them, and entered into the joys of the young people just as much as any one. I want to say to the young ladies of the Seminary, who acted as maids of honour to escort my mother down to the church this morning, that I want you to trust my mother's Saviour.
"I want to say to the young men of Mt. Hermon, you are going to have a great honour to escort mother to her last resting-place. Her prayers for you ascended daily to the throne of grace. Now, I am going to give you the best I have; I am going to do the best I can; I am going to lay her away with her face toward Hermon
"SHE WAS TRUE AS SUNLIGHT
I think she is one of the noblest characters this world has ever seen. She was true as sunlight; I never knew that woman to deceive me.
I want to thank Dr. Scofield for the comforting words he has brought us to-day. It is a day of rejoicing, not of regret. She went without pain, without struggle, just like a person going to sleep. And now we are to lay her body away to await His coming in resurrection power. When I see her in the morning she is to have a glorious body. The body Moses had on the Mount of Transfiguration was a better body than God buried on Pisgah. When we see Elijah he will have a glorious body. 'That dear mother, when I see her again, is going to have a glorified body. (looking at her face) God bless you, mother; we love you still. Death has only increased our love for you. Good-bye for a little while. Mother. Let us pray."
Chapter 5
His Conversion
DWIGHT L. MOODY was not the boy to forget his compact with his uncle. He went to church every Sunday--because he had promised to go. - attending the Mount Vernon Congregational Church, of which the Rev. Dr. E. N. Kirk was pastor. He always considered this to be a great church.
Dr. Kirk was an excellent preacher, but young Moody was at a stage where all sermons sounded alike to him. Frequently he would fall asleep during service, at least until an occasion when he was suddenly awakened from his complete repose by a stern-faced deacon, who, as he roused the lad from his slumbers, pointed to Dr. Kirk, who was preaching - as much as to say, " Keep your eyes on him! " Thereafter Dwight remained awake. Moreover, for lack of something else to do, he began to listen to the sermons. For the first time in my life," he said in later days, "I felt as if the preacher were preaching altogether at me."
HIS FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR E. D. KIMBALL
One Sunday the young man appeared in the Sunday school of Mount Vernon Church. The superintendent, Mr. Palmer, to whom he gave his name, took him to the class taught by Mr. Edward D. Kimball, and he took his seat among the other boys. Says Mr. Kimball, " I handed him a closed Bible and told him the lesson was in John. The boy took the book and began running over the leaves with his finger away at the first of the volume looking for John. Out of the corners of their eyes the boys saw what he was doing and, detecting his ignorance glanced slyly and knowingly at one another, but not rudely. I gave the boys just one hasty glance of reproof. That was enough - their equanimity was restored immediately. I quietly handed Moody my own book, open at the right place, and took his. I did not suppose the boy could possibly have noticed the glances exchanged between the other boys over his ignorance, but it seems from remarks in later years that he did, and he said in reference to my little act in exchanging books that he would stick by the fellow who had stood by him and had done him a turn like that."
This Sunday school teacher was not one of the ordinary type. Mere literal instruction on Sunday did not satisfy his ideal of the teachers duty. He knew his boys, and, if he knew them, it was because be studied them, because he became acquainted with their occupations and aims, visiting them during the week. It was his custom, moreover, to find opportunity to give to his boys an opportunity to use his experience in seeking the better things of the Spirit. The day came when he resolved to speak to young Moody about Christ, and about his soul.