Amoy

“ Young, all the Missionaries of the English Presbyterian Church, for several years, were unmarried men. Therefore, they resolved to devote themselves more especially to work in the country, leaving to our especial care the church in the city of Amoy, and the one out-station at Chioh-be. Amoy was still necessarily their place of residence. All their work at Amoy was in connection with the church under our care. ”

“ The harbour is not wanting in beauty; and a view from one of the hill-tops, from which hundreds of villages are visible, is highly picturesque. Of the town of Amoy with its 200,000 people there is not much to be said except that several missions, British and American, which opened stations there soon after the first war with Great Britain, have met with encouraging success. At Swatow, a district in Canton Province beyond the boundary, the American Baptists have a flourishing mission. ”

“ Ere long, however, the results were much more encouraging. In 1854, at Pechuia, near Amoy, began a remarkable harvest, which in various places he continued to reap. A marvellous spiritual power accompanied his words, and numberless hearts were touched. ”

“ Morning waved his arm, signifying solitary and peaceful enjoyment of the night air and contemplation of the dark city. These night journeys had become the cooling features of his day. Amoya was a living marvel, the rickshaw runner incomparable—tireless, eager, very proud of his work; too old to be spoiled. He was old; indeed, enough to be Morning’s father, but his limbs were young, and his great trunk full of power unabated. ”

“ The next time he drew the net there were forty, and when he came to see me later, he said to me joyfully,
“Moody, I have had eight hundred conversions this last year! It is a great mistake I did not begin earlier to pull in the net.”
So, my friends, if you want to catch men, just pull in the net. If you only catch one, it will be something. It may be a little child, but I have known a little child to convert a whole family. You don’t know what is in that little dull-headed boy in the inquiry-room; he may become a Martin Luther, a reformer that shall make the world tremble—you cannot tell. ”

“ I don't think I have ever told it but what somebody got light and life. I will tell it again, for I would go up and down the world telling it if I could get a convert. One night I was preaching, and happening to cast my eyes down during the sermon, I saw two eyes just riveted upon me. Every word that fell from my lips she just seemed to catch with her own lips, and I was very anxious to go down where she was. After the Sermon I went to the pew and said, "My friend, are you a Christian?" "Oh, no," said she, "I wish I was. I have been seeking Christ three years and I cannot find Him." ”

“ Oh, confess that, my lord! confess it ere it be too late!”
“I will confess all about the Indians, and the gold, and Tita too, Fray; peccavi, peccavi—only five minutes, senors, five little minutes' grace, while I confess to the good Fray!”—and he grovelled on the deck.
“I will have no such mummery where I command,” said Amyas, sternly. “I will be no accomplice in cheating Satan of his due.”
“If you will confess,” said Brimblecombe, whose heart was melting fast, “confess to the Lord, and He will forgive you. Even at the last moment mercy is open. Is it not, Fray Gerundio?” ”

“ Christianity held out as many glorious hopes for her as for him. Her past might be past as well as his. Why should he not shut the door upon it forever, and live only in the present and future? And then his mind fell to picturing what that future, with Amy by his side, might be. They were equals now, before God and their own consciences. What should he care for the world?
And so the fight went on in the battle-ground of his inner life, until the whistle blew a long blast for the station, and looking from the window of the car, he saw the smelter smoke and dust of Boyd City. ”

“ Master Ewring, you do. Tell me!”
“Mistress Amy, what think you religion to be?”
“Nay, I always thought it were being good. If it’s not that, I know not what it is.”
“But being good must spring out of something. That is the flower. What is the seed—that which is to make you ‘be good,’ and find it easy and pleasant?”
“Tell me!” said Amy’s eyes more than her words.
“My dear maid, religion is fellowship; living fellowship with the living Lord. It is neither being good nor doing good, though both will spring out of it. ”

“ See now, God made all these things; and never a man, perhaps, set eyes on them till fifty years agone; and yet they were as pretty as they are now, ever since the making of the world. And why do you think God could have put them here, then, but to please Himself”—and Amyas took off his hat—“with the sight of them? Now, I say, brother Frank, what's good enough to please God, is good enough to please you and me.” ”

“ But when the feeling of envy arises in your heart, will you, my darling Amy, pray to God to help you, and teach you to remember that at your baptism you received the promise of infinitely greater happiness and glory than any which this world can give? ”

“ Amaury was a drawing-room poet, one of those fanatics in dress coat and grey kid gloves, who between ten o'clock and midnight, go and recite to the world their ecstasies of love, their raptures, their despair, leaning mournfully against the mantel-piece, in the blaze of the lights, while seated around him women, in full evening dress, listen entranced behind their fans. ”

“ I gave you all I could, remembrance, faith till death.”
“Then you are my own!” said Paul, his face transformed. “God was our witness. Life of my life—for life and death!” Solemnly he took a bridegroom's kiss from her lips.
“How do you know that it is life that parts?”
“Speak so I can understand you!” Moya cried. “Ah, if I might! A man must not have secrets from his wife. Secrets are destruction, don't you think?”
Moya waited in silence. ”

“ I looked up, and there I saw her old, pale face and glassy eyes looking in, and she rocking herself to and fro, and clapping her little, withered hands, and crying as if her very heart would break.”
“Well, Moya, it’s all imagination; go, now, and prepare my breakfast, as I want to go to Maryborough to-day, and I must be home early.”
Moya trembled; she looked at him imploringly and said: “For Heaven’s sake, John, don’t go to-day; stay till some other day, and God bless you; for if you go to-day I would give my oath there will something cross you that’s bad.” ”

“ Amy stood a minute, turning the leaves in her hand, reading on each some sweet rebuke for all heartburnings and uncharitableness of spirit. Many wise and true sermons are preached us every day by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home. Even a fair table may become a pulpit, if it can offer the good and helpful words which are never out of season. Amy’s conscience preached her a little sermon from that text, then and there, and she did what many of us do not always do, took the sermon to heart, and straightway put it in practice. ”

“ And Amis said to the pilgrim, had he seen or heard tidings in any land of Amile, son of the Count of Alverne. And the pilgrim answered him all marvelling: “Who art thou, Knight, who thus mockest a pilgrim? Thou seemest to me that Amile who this day asked of me if I had seen Amis his fellow. I wot not for why thou hast changed thy garments, thy folk, thine horses, and thine arms. Thou askest me now what thou didst ask me to-day about tierce; and thou gavest me this coat.”
“Trouble not thine heart,” said Amis, “I am not he whom thou deemest; but I am Amis who seeketh Amile.” ”

“ Perhaps in Aimée's indulged and petted childhood, with a fond pasha extolling her small triumphs, her dances, her score at tennis at the legation, madame found a bitter contrast to the lot of that lonely child in France. Certainly there was nothing in Aimée's life then to invite compassion, and later, during those hard, mutinous months of the girl's first veiling and seclusion, she had not tried to soften the inevitable for her with a useless compassion. ”

“ The chips were flying bravely from the stone under my chisel at last, and all my thoughts now were in my carving, when I heard my name, “Walter,” called, and when I looked down I saw one standing below me, whom I had seen in my dreams just before—Amyot. I had no hopes of seeing him for a long time, perhaps I might never see him again, I thought, for he was away (as I thought) fighting in the holy wars, and it made me almost beside myself to see him standing close by me in the flesh. ”

“ Aimée drew near him, and, notwithstanding his death-like appearance, she rendered him all the assistance she could. She always carried about her certain herbs, the odour of which was so powerful, it recovered any one from the longest fainting-fit. She pressed them in her hands, and rubbed his lips and temples with some of them. He opened his eyes, and was so astonished at the beauty and the dress of the Princess, that he could hardly determine if it were a dream or reality. ”

“ His experience of far less comfortable sleeping-quarters had persuaded him that in this imperfect world a man is entitled to exactly what he can get.
His eyes, nevertheless, did not seek Amory’s. Instead, roving round the room to see if nothing less would serve (leaving him still with the fathomless look in reserve for emergencies) , they fell on the Benares tray and the casts. And as they remained there he suddenly frowned. Amory’s own eyes followed his; [391] and suddenly she felt again that little creeping thrill. A faint colour and warmth, new and pleasurable, came into her cheeks. ”

“ Amyas gave a start.
“Ah, you shrink from me! Of course a man is too righteous to forgive those who repent, though God is not.”
“God knows, sir—”
“Yes, sir, God does know—all; and you shall know a little—as much as I can tell—or you understand. Come upstairs with me, sir, as you'll drink no more; I have a liking for you. I have watched you from your boyhood, and I can trust you, and I'll show you what I never showed to mortal man but one.” ”

“ Because some are not susceptible to these influences but go sighing through life for a "witness," despair has erected her throne on the hopes of thousands whom the religion of universal love might have sent on their way rejoicing in the sunlight of God's smile. Only in the crisis of a great emotion, as the conflicting elements of certain peculiar organizations are contending for the mastery come these marked phases of the human soul. To this order of minds Amelia belonged, but not Milly, who was more evenly balanced in her mental constitution. ”

“ Amyas stood silent for awhile, partly from noble shame at seeing two Christian men thus fallen of their own self-will; partly because—and he could not but confess that—a solemn calm brooded above that glorious place, to break through which seemed sacrilege even while he felt it a duty. Such, he thought, was Paradise of old; such our first parents' bridal bower! Ah! if man had not fallen, he too might have dwelt forever in such a home—with whom? He started, and shaking off the spell, advanced sword in hand. ”

“ I have, however, since my arrival in England, been convinced of my error: For excepting his complexion (which is undoubtedly of a deeper hue than that of the Earees, or gentry, who, as in other countries, live a more luxurious life, and are less exposed to the heat of the sun) , I much doubt whether any other of the natives would have given more general satisfaction by his behaviour among us. Omai has most certainly a very good understanding, quick parts, and honest principles; he has a natural good behaviour, which rendered him acceptable to the best company ”

“ I remember how in the evenings we used to sit beside her in that New England home, and we would talk about our father; but the moment the name of that boy was mentioned she would hush us into silence. Some nights when the wind was very high, and the house, which was upon a hill, would tremble at every gust, the voice of my mother was raised in prayer for that wanderer who had treated her so unkindly. I used to think she loved him more than all the rest of us put together, and I believe she did. ”

“ Moody, on his return from England, while conducting a prayer-meeting in Northfield, Mass., gave this illustration of the power of prayer to subdue the most unlikely cases of sin and unbelief:
"There is not a heart so hard that God cannot touch it. While in Edinburgh, a man was pointed out to me by a friend who said, 'Moody, that man is chairman of the Edinburgh infidel club.' So I went and sat down beside him, and said, 'Well, my friend, I am glad to see you at this meeting. ”

“ But, Nelly, it is Amy Darling you would love best—a bright, pleasant girl, all sunshine, except when she cries, and she cries immediately any one is hurt. We all run to Amy directly we are in trouble. She is like a young mother to us, and treats us with such tenderness that it is almost a pleasure to be in trouble to be comforted by Amy. ”

“ When we get a glimpse of the worth of a soul, and then of the death of a soul, and begin to realize that we stand between lost men and heaven or hell, then we shall have real concern, and the Lord will hear our prayer of intercession.
When Mr. Moody first went to London he preached in a Congregational Church, Sunday morning. There was no particular stir. That evening he spoke to a large audience of men in the same place, and scores expressed a desire to become Christians. He went to Dublin next day, but was recalled by a telegram saying that a great revival had broken out. ”