When I first began to work for God in Chicago, a Boston businessman was converted there and stayed three months. When leaving, he told me that there was a man living on such a street in whom he was very much interested, and whose boy was in the high school. He said that he had two brothers and a little sister who didn’t go anywhere to Sunday School, because their parents would not let them. “I wish you would go round and see them,” he said.
I went, and I found that the parents lived in a saloon, and the father kept the bar. I told him what I wanted, and he said he would rather have his sons become drunkards and his daughter a harlot than have them go to our school. It looked pretty dark, and he was very bitter to me, but I went a second time, thinking that I might catch him in a better humor. He ordered me out again. I went a third time and found him in better humor. He said: “You’re talking too much about the Bible. I’ll tell you what I will do; if you teach them something reasonable, like Paine’s Age of Reason, they may go.”
I talked further to him, and finally he said: “If you will read Paine’s book, I’ll read the New Testament.”
Well, to get hold of him I promised, and he got the best of the bargain. We exchanged books, and that gave me a chance to call again and talk with the family.
One day he said: “Young man, you have talked so much about church, you can have a church down here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll invite some friends, and you can come down here and preach to them; not that I believe a word you say.”
“Very well,” I said; “but it must be understood that we are to have a definite time.”
He told me to come at 11 o’clock, then surprised me by adding, “You aren’t to do all the preaching.”
“How is that?”
“I’ll want to talk some, and also my friends.”
I said, “Suppose we have it understood that you are to have forty-five minutes and I fifteen; is that fair?”
He thought that was fair. He was to have the first forty-five, and I the last fifteen minutes.
When I arrived at the appointed time, the saloonkeeper wasn’t there. I thought perhaps he had backed out, but I soon found the reason. His saloon was not large enough to hold all his friends, and he had gone to a neighbor’s, where I went and found two rooms filled. The place was filled with atheists, infidels and scoffers.
I had taken a little boy with me, thinking he might aid me. The moment I got in, they plied me with all sorts of questions, but I said I hadn’t come to hold any discussion; that they had been discussing for years and had reached no conclusion. They took up their forty-five minutes talking. No two of them could agree.
Then came my turn. I said: “We always open our meetings with prayer; let us pray.”
I prayed, and after I finished, to all our surprise, the little boy prayed. I wish you could have heard him. He prayed to God to have mercy on those men who were talking so against His beloved Son. His voice sounded more like an angel’s than a human voice.
When he and I got up from our knees, I was going to speak, but there was not a dry eye in the assembly. One after another went out, and the old man I had been after for months—and sometimes it looked pretty dark—came and, putting his hands on my shoulder with tears streaming down his face, said: “Mr. Moody, you can have my children go to your Sunday School.”
The next Sunday they came, and after a few months the oldest boy, the promising young man in the high school, came up on the platform; and with his chin quivering and tears in his eyes, said: “I wish to ask these people to pray for me; I want to become a Christian.”
God answered our prayers. In all my acquaintances I don’t know of a family it seemed more hopeless to reach. Yet I believe if we lay ourselves out for the work, there is not a person but can be reached and saved. I don’t care who he is, if we go in the name of our Master, and persevere, it will not be long before Christ will bless us, no matter how hard their heart is. “We shall reap if we faint not.”
BE A GOOD SAMARITAN
I remember the first good Samaritan I ever saw. I had been in this world only three or four years when my father died a bankrupt, and the creditors came and swept away about everything we had. My widow mother had a cow and a few things, but it was a hard struggle to keep the wolf from the door.
My brother went to Greenfield, and secured work in a store for his board, and went to school. It was so lonely there that he wanted me to get a place so as to be with him, but I didn’t want to leave home.
One cold day in November my brother came home and said he had a place for me. I said that I wouldn’t go, but after it was talked over they decided I should go. I didn’t want my brothers to know that I hadn’t the courage to go, but that night was a long one.
The next morning we started. We went up on the hill, and had a last sight of the old house. I sat down and cried. I thought that would be the last time I should ever see that old home. I cried all the way down to Greenfield. There my brother introduced me to a man who was so old he couldn’t do the chores, so I was to do his errands, milk his cows, and then go to school. I looked at the old man and saw he was cross. I took a look at the wife and thought she was crosser than he. I stayed an hour; it seemed like a week.
I went around to tell my brother I was going home.
“What are you going home for?”
“I’m homesick.”
“Oh well, you will get over it in a few days.”
“I never will,” I said. “I don’t want to.”
“You’ll get lost if you start now,” he warned. “It’s getting dark.” His comments frightened me—as he intended them to do. I was only about ten years old at the time.
“Then I’ll go at daybreak tomorrow morning.”
He took me to a shop window, where they had some jackknives and other things, and tried to divert my mind. What did I care for those old jackknives? I wanted to get back home to my mother. My heart was breaking.
All at once my brother said, “Dwight, there comes a man that will give you a cent.”
“How do you know he will?” I asked.
“Oh! he gives every new boy that comes to town a cent.”
I brushed away the tears, for I wouldn’t have him see me crying, and I got right in the middle of the sidewalk, where he couldn’t help but see me. I remember how that old man looked as he came tottering down the sidewalk. Oh, such a bright, cheerful, sunny face he had!
When he came opposite to where I was, he stopped, took my hat off, put his hand on my head, and said to my brother: “This is a new boy in town, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, he is—just came today.”
I watched to see if he would put his hand into his pocket. I was only thinking of that cent. But he began to talk to me so kindly that I forgot all about it. He told me that God had an only Son, and He had sent Him down here. But wicked men had killed Him, and yet God’s Word said that Christ died for me.
He only talked five minutes, but he took me captive. When he finished, he put his hand into his pocket and took out a brand new cent, a copper that looked just like gold. He gave it to me; I never felt so rich before or since.
I don’t know what became of that cent; I regretted that I didn’t keep it; but I can feel the pressure of the old man’s hand on my head today. Fifty years have rolled by, but I hear those kind words yet. I never shall forget that act.
He put the money at usury; that cent has cost me a great many dollars. I’ve never walked up the streets of this country but down into my pocket goes my hand, and I take out some money and give it to every forlorn, miserable child I see. I think how the old man lifted a load from me, and I want to lift a load from someone else.
Do you want to be like Christ? Go and find someone who has fallen, and get your arm under him, and lift him up toward heaven. May God help us to do like the good Samaritan! He will bless you in the very act.