A Blessing To Have Known Him
A BLESSING TO HAVE KNOWN HIM
To have known him at all was a blessing, but to have known him with any degree of intimacy was one of the rarest privileges of a minister's life. I would not say that I knew him better than other men, for hundreds knew him far more intimately and for a far longer time than I; but if love, since I have known him, can make up for the years in which I was not acquainted with him, then these recent years with their increasing admiration and love will give me the right to speak and write. Dr. Pierson says concerning George Muller, "A human life filled with the presence and power of God, is one of God's choicest gifts to His church and to the world."
"Things which are unseen and eternal seem, to the carnal man, distant and indistinct, while what is seen and temporal is vivid and real. Practically, any object in nature that can be seen or felt is thus more real and actual to most men than the living God. Every man who walks with God, and finds Him a present help in every time of need; who puts His promises to the practical proof and verifies them in actual experience; every believer who with the key of faith unlocks God's mysteries, and with the key of prayer unlocks God's treasuries, thus furnishes to the race a demonstration and an illustration of the fact that 'He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.'
"DEATH HAS NO TERROR TO ME"
"George Muller was such an argument and example incarnated in human flesh. FIesh was a man of like passions as we are, and tempted in all points like as we are, but who believed God and was established by believing; who prayed earnestly that he might live a life and do a work which should be a convincing proof that God hears prayer and that it is safe to trust Him at all times; and who has furnished just such a witness as he desired Like Enoch, he truly walked with God, and had abundant testimony borne to him that he pleased God. And when, on the tenth day of March, 1898, it was told us of George Muller that 'he was not,' we knew God had taken him;' it seemed more like a translation than death," the same thing can be said of Mr. Moody. He used to say, "Sometime you will pick up a paper and will read of D.L. Moody's death; don't believe a word of it; I may be asleep, but I shall not be dead; death has no terror to me, and his words were a prophecy of his triumphant passing into the presence of God. The telegram written by Mr. A. P. Fitt, his son-in-law, to Mr. Louis Klopsch, of the Christian Herald, is a confirmation of this:
"EAST NORTHFIELD, MASS., Dec. 22.
"Mr. Moody had a triumphant entry into Heaven at noon.
"As early as 8 o'clock, A.M. he said: 'Earth is receding and Heaven is opening. God is calling me.'
"He was perfectly conscious to the last, and showed the same courage and faith, unselfishness and thought for his wife and children and his schools as always.
"His doctor says it was 'a pure case of heart failure, due to absolute loss of bodily strength.'
"In leaving us he gave unflinching testimony to the truths he taught.
A. P. Fitt"