Quiet Talks on PrayerGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks on Prayer
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Prayer -- Christianity
He had not been speaking anywhere, he said, but listening to others. One
day, Saturday, at noon, he had gone into the meeting in Exeter Hall on the
Strand; felt impelled to speak a little when the meeting was thrown open,
and did so. At the close among others who greeted him, one man, a
minister, asked him to come and preach for him the next day morning and
night, and he said he would. Mr. Moody said, "I went to the morning
service and found a large church full of people. And when the time came I
began to speak to them. But it seemed the hardest talking ever I did.
There was no response in their faces. They seemed as though carved out of
stone or ice. And I was having a hard time: and wished I wasn't there; and
wished I hadn't promised to speak again at night. But I had promised, and
so I went.
"At night it was the same thing: house full, people outwardly respectful,
but no interest, no response. And I was having a hard time again. When
about half-way through my talk there came a change. It seemed as though
the windows of heaven had opened and a bit of breath blew down. The
atmosphere of the building seemed to change. The people's faces changed.
It impressed me so that when I finished speaking I gave the invitation for
those who wanted to be Christians to rise. I thought there might be a few.
And to my immense surprise the people got up in groups, pew-fulls. I
turned to the minister and said, 'What does this mean?' He said, 'I don't
know, I'm sure.' Well," Mr. Moody said, "they misunderstood me. I'll
explain what I meant." So he announced an after-meeting in the room below,
explaining who were invited: only those who wanted to be Christians; and
putting pretty clearly what he understood that to mean, and dismissed the
service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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