Moiety

“ 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 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 plead with you as a fellow-traveller; don’t go out of this hall without saying, “Heaven is my home, and God is my Father.” Don’t let the scoffers laugh you into hell; they cannot laugh you out of it. The Blood is upon the mercy-seat, and while it is upon the mercy-seat you can enter into the kingdom. God says, “There is the Blood; it is all I have to give. As long as it is there, there is hope for you. ”

“ He said his wife had gone out to a meeting one night and he was home alone, and while he was sitting there by the fire he thought: "Supposing my wife is right, and my children are right; suppose there is a heaven and a hell, and I shall be separated from them." His first thought was, "I don't believe a word of it." The second thought came, "You believe in the God that created you, and that the God that created you is able to teach you. You believe that God can give you life." "Yes, the God that created me can give me life. ”

“ But day after day the grace of God has been granted to him; and I declare to you it seemed to me as if I were in the presence of one of God’s most highly-favored children. It seemed that when I was in that man’s chamber, I was about as near heaven as I could get on this earth. Talk about a man’s face shining with the glory of the upper world! I very seldom see a face that shines as did his. I can imagine that the very angels when they are passing over the city on some mission of mercy, come down into that man’s chamber to get refreshed. ”

“ In the morning led out a poor condemned man, cursing and reviling the Son of God Himself; in the evening singing the new song of redemption. That evening I see him hard by the throne, singing the sweet song of Moses and the Lamb. In the morning cursing, in the evening singing, “Glory to God in the highest.” Was it not a change? What a contrast! Think of it, O sinner. Condemned in the morning by man, cast out as too vile for earth; in the evening good enough for heaven; in the evening washed in the blood of the Lamb, and Christ ready to receive him into the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every breeze that stirred the rice blossoms, or whispered through the shivering aspen-trees. The far-off roar of the rapids, softened by distance, and the long, mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the silence of the night. Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer to God, and is filled to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His presence.
It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house. ”

“ There was to be placed on the forefront of the miter of the high priest, when he stood before God, a plate of pure gold, and graven upon it as with a signet, the words: “Holiness to the Lord.” My faith sees it on the forefront of the miter on the brow of my High Priest in heaven. “And it shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord.” That was for Israel of old! That on the brow of Jesus Christ is for me. ”

“ I turn over the pages of my prayer-book, one after the other, and—I am not to blame for it—again I turn up the "Song of Songs," at the fifth chapter.
"I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse."
And again:
"I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk."
But what am I talking about? What am I saying? The garden is not mine. I shall not gather any myrrh, nor smell any spices. I shall eat no honey, and drink no wine. The garden is not my garden. Busie is not my betrothed. ”

“ However the world had frowned upon me, Nature, arrayed in her green loveliness, had ever smiled upon me like an indulgent mother, holding out her loving arms to enfold to her bosom her erring but devoted child. ”

“ That this girl face, expectant, virginal,
Which gazes out at me
Boon as a sweetheart, as if nothing loth
(Save for the eyes, with other presage stored)
To pledge me troth,
And in the kingdom where the heart is lord
Take sail on the terrible gladness of the deep
Whose winds the gray Norns keep,—
That this should be indeed
The flesh which caught my soul, a flying seed,
Out of the to and fro
Of scattering hands where the seedsman Mage,
Stooping from star to star and age to age
Sings as he sows! ”

“ I have already dwelt on some of the superstitions which have gathered round certain animals, and it only remains to say that there is hardly a creature which is not the subject of a legend, a fable, or, at least, a popular saying. From a comparison of the relative importance of these legends or fables, it is plain that the Moï believe in a regular hierarchy in which each species has its place. ”

“ Water rises to its own level; and as this water has come down from the throne of God, it will carry us back to the presence of God. Come, O ye thirsty ones, stoop down and drink, and live! You are all invited: come along! When Moses took his rod and struck the flinty rock in the wilderness, out of it there came a pure crystal stream of water, which flowed or through that dry and barren land. All that the poor thirsty Israelites had to do was to stoop and drink. It was free to all. So the grace of God is free to all. ”

“ Morning breaks. What a morning it must have been for that father! He doesn’t eat; he tries to pray, but his voice falters. After breakfast they start on their journey again. He has not gone a great way before he lifts up his eyes, and yonder is Mount Moriah. His heart begins to beat quickly. He says to the two young men:
“You stay here, and I will go yonder with my son.”
Then, as father and son went up Mount Moriah, with the wood, and the fire, and the knife, the boy turns suddenly to the father, and says:
“Father, where is the lamb? We haven’t any offering, father.” ”

“ She asked: ‘Well, then, didst thou hide thyself?’ ‘Yes, I hid myself.’ But the maiden told him where he had been, and how he got there, and added: ‘This time I forgive thee, for the cleverness thou hast shown.’
The youth set out again, and sat down in a field. Then something fell upon him, and took him up into the air, lifted him up into the sky, and covered him with its wing. When the maiden arose next morning, she looked in her mirror, she gazed at the mountain, she gazed at the earth, but she found nothing, she looked at the sky, and there she saw how the eagle was covering the youth. ”

“ Paul was walking about his room, half an hour later, when Moya stopped outside his door. She placed the tray on a table in the hall. The door was opened from within. Paul had heard his mother go up before, heard her pause at the stairs, and, after a silence, enter her own room.
“She knows that I know,” he said to himself. “That knowledge will be always between us; we can never look each other in the face again.” To Moya he endeavored to speak lightly. ”

“ He hears their cry, though a hoarse and unpleasant one; and feeds them just as amply as He does the nightingale, or any bird with a softer and sweeter voice. In this wonderful sermon, Our Lord teaches us to consider the whole range of nature: — the flowers, the birds, the animals, our own body, our soul, our imperceptible growth: — so that we may use it all to raise our thoughts to God. ”

“ Never let my cheek grow pale! While the moon is waning nightly, May the maiden bloom more brightly, May her freshness never fail!’
Then she dried her face with her long hair, and was about to go away, when her eye suddenly fell upon the spot where the young man was sitting, and she turned towards the tree. The youth rose and stood waiting. Then the maiden said, ‘You ought to have a heavy punishment because you have presumed to watch my secret doings in the moonlight. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ CHAPTER XXXIX Oats and Methodism—The Little Girl—Ty Gwyn—Bird of the Roof—Purest English—Railroads—Inconsistency—The Boots.
It might be about four in the afternoon when I left L--- bound for Pen Caer Gybi, or Holyhead, seventeen miles distant. I reached the top of the hill on the west of the little town, and then walked briskly forward. The country looked poor and mean—on my right was a field of oats, on my left a Methodist chapel—oats and Methodism! what better symbols of poverty and meanness? ”

“ He is now leader of a young men's meeting in New York. I asked him to come last Saturday night to Northfield, my native town, where there are a good many drunkards, thinking he might encourage them to seek salvation. He came and brought a young man with him. They held a meeting, and it seemed as if the power of God rested upon that meeting when these two men went on telling what God had done for them--how He had destroyed the works of the devil in their hearts, and brought peace and unalloyed happiness to their souls. ”

“ In India, the popular idea about Momiâî is that a boy, the fatter and blacker the better, is caught, a small hole is bored in the top of his head, and he is hung up by the heels over a slow fire. The juice or essence of his body is in this way distilled into seven drops of the potent medicine known as Momiâî. ”

“ Although I felt rather afraid of my fierce-looking visitor, I could scarcely keep my gravity; there was such an air of pompous self-approbation about the Indian, such a sublime look of conceit in his grave vanity.
“Moodie's squaw cannot do everything; she cannot paint young men,” said I, rising, and putting away my drawing-materials, upon which he kept his eye intently fixed, with a hungry, avaricious expression. ”

“ We look, perhaps, with a sort of amused curiosity, some of us, from what we regard as our superior point of view, at a man like Mr. Moody; and yet Mr. Moody is one man out of a million for his consistency and consecration to the thought which underlies all the Protestant churches of the modern world, with the exception of a few here and there. Mr. Moody believes that this life is a probation ended by death. ”

“ It was a beautiful night in June that he left on the Michigan Southern, and I was down to the train to help him off. And those girls everyone gathered there again, all unknown to each other; and the depot seemed a second gate to heaven, in the joyful, yet tearful, communion and farewells between these newly redeemed souls and him whose crown of rejoicing it will be that he led them to Jesus. At last the gong sounded, and, supported on the platform, the dying man shook hands with each one, and whispered, "I will meet you yonder." ”

“ One afternoon, late in the month of May, a man, pale, dejected, moving with the heavy step of one who had undergone great bodily fatigue, led a maiden, upon whose white face lay the shadow of a weariness against which youth could not prevail, toward the King’s Column. ”

“ I send your Maiesty so honorable and sweet a salutation of peace, that al the flocke of Nightingales with their melody cannot attaine to the like, much lesse this simple letter of mine. The singular loue which we haue conceiued one toward the other is like to a garden of pleasant birds: and the Lord God vouchsafe to saue and keepe you, and send your Maiesty an happy end both in this world and in the world to come. ”