p. 12 | WORKING FOR CHILDREN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 12.

WORKING FOR CHILDREN.

[The following is sent us by the well-known evangelist, Edward Payson Hammond. It is a part of an address by Mr. Dwight L. Moody at a Sunday-school Union, in London, England, in the spring of 1867. Mr. Moody was then holding his first series of meetings in London, and Mr. Hammond was conducting meetings in Mr. Spurgeon's tabernacle and other parts of London, in the beginning of the Children's Special Service Mission. Mr. Moody's words will be of interest to our readers.]

I BELIEVE there is a great deal of infidelity in the Sunday-school as well as in our churches on this point, and that even many parents think their children can not come to Jesus early in life. I fear many teachers go to the Sunday-school and never think of urging upon their scholars the importance of immediately surrendering their hearts to Christ. I believe myself that if children are old enough to come to the Sunday-school they are old enough to come to Calvary.

I have been urging this for many years upon the teachers of America, and God has blessed the effort put forth. In a great many places in America there are in our churches 25, 50, and in some churches 75 and 100 children gathered in as members, and I believe at heart connected with God. A little girl came some time ago before the elders of one of the churches to be examined. After talking with her, they came to the conclusion that, tho she might be a Christian, she was too young, being only seven years old, to join the church, and that she had better wait. The little child, as she turned to go away, while the tears fell fast from her eyes, said, “Please tell me how old I must be before I love Jesus.”

That is the question for us to settle, friends. I believe if the Sunday-school teachers of England were only faithful in urging upon the children the duty of immediate consecration to Christ, you would have a very different report next year; and instead of having to tell of 7,000 added to the church, you would be able to rejoice over 100,000 gathered in.

I was urging this a little while ago in Michigan, when an old missionary who was present endorsed all that I said. His locks were gray; his pilgrimage was nearly ended. “Years ago,” he said, “my wife died in this county, and I was left with several motherless children. The next Sunday my little girl, seven years old, came to me and said, ‘Shall I not take the children into the bedroom, as mother used to do?’ I let her go, and she took her little brother and her sister, three years and a half old, by the hand, and retired to the chamber to pray beside the bed where they had been accustomed to kneel. When she came back, I noticed that she had been weeping, and I said, ‘Nellie, what are you weeping about?’ ‘O father,’ she said, ‘I could not help weeping! After I had prayed, just as mother taught us to do, little Susan got up to pray.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘what did she say?’ ‘She closed her eyes, and lifted up her face to heaven, and said, “O God, how could You take my dear mother, and leave me no mother to pray for me? I want You to make me good, for Jesus Christ’s sake.”’ Said the old missionary, “God heard that prayer, and that little girl gave evidence of a change of heart before she was four years old.”

Do you believe that children can come thus early to Christ? If so, carry them to Him; and if you have not believed it hitherto, let me urge you as a friend and a brother to go to your class next Sunday with your heart burdened with the care of their immediate salvation.

There is a father on the banks of the Mississippi River who would give all the wealth he possesses if he could call up his son from his last resting-place, and make one prayer for him. Some time ago the boy lay dying. “Father,” he said, “I wish you would pray for me. You have never prayed for me.” The father cried, and said he could not pray. For seventeen years that son had been given to him, and yet he had never breathed his name in prayer. O prayerless fathers and mothers, you who never pray with and for your children, do not suppose that is the way the world is going to be converted! And, O teachers, do not be satisfied with talking in a general way to your scholars, but take them by the hand and lead them to the Saviour!

A friend of mine was urging this some time ago upon a mixed audience of teachers, parents, and children, and he pressed upon the two former that they must not be satisfied with just telling the children about the Saviour, but must take them by the hand and lead them to Him. As he spoke, a little girl got down from her seat in the center aisle, and, stepping up to the speaker, the tears streaming down her cheeks, said, “Please, sir, will you lead me to Jesus?”

How many children in the dark lanes and alleys of this great city are now reaching out their hands to you Christian people—Sunday-school teachers—and crying, “Lead us to Jesus”!

Amongst the children in a Sunday-school class in Illinois, was one girl, seven years of age, the daughter of a very ungodly man. The father was a young man, but he was one of the worst in the country, a drunkard, a blasphemer. The little girl was converted, and on the next Sunday she urged her father to go with her to the class. He went with her to the door, but he would not go in. He had never been in a place of worship or a school in his life. However, the superintendent came out, and persuaded him to attend the class. This resulted in his conversion, and since then he has established 1,180 Sunday-schools, and has gathered over 100,000 children into these schools. All this is the fruit of that teacher's leading the drunkard's little daughter to the Saviour, and then urging her to do something for Christ.

You do not know but that there may be a Whitfield, a Wesley, a John Knox, in some of the dark lanes and alleys of London, and if you should be the means of leading them to the Saviour, they, in their turns, may be the instruments of the conversion of thousands. O, remember time is short, and what we do for Christ we ought to do quickly! I heard, at the Bible Society meeting, an expression made use of by the sainted Martyn when in this country. “I am willing,” he said, “to be torn limb

from limb, if I could only hear one Hindu inquiring for Jesus.” O, that we all had that passion for souls which the sainted Martyn had, and that we all had our hearts burdened for their salvation!

One of the most faithful teachers I ever met was one who did not wake up to a sense of his responsibility till he was given up to die. He was a teacher in my school, and one morning as he came into our store I noticed that he was very pale. “Ah,” he said, “the doctors have given me up to-day! I have had bleeding of the lungs, and I am now going to settle up my business, and go back to die in New York State. I feel that all is right except one thing.” “What is that?” I inquired. “It is my Sunday-school class,” he said, “if they were converted, and I thought I should meet them with joy at the judgment day, what would I not give!” “Let us go and see them,” I said. “I have lost so much blood,” he replied, “that I can hardly walk.” “I will take you in a carriage,” I said. We went together from house to house, for he was a faithful teacher, and knew where all his scholars lived. He was so weak that when he left the carriage he could hardly cross the sidewalk. He spoke to all the children, and pleaded with them to give themselves to the Saviour. After thus urging them affectionately, he got down upon his knees, and asked Christ to change their hearts. For ten days he so labored, and at the end of that time every one of his scholars had been brought to the Saviour. “My work,” said he, “is now done, and I shall go home to die.” We all met him on the last night he remained in the city; it was a very sad and yet a very joyful meeting. We sang beautiful hymns together, and then prayed together, and then we bade him farewell. In the evening we thought we would go and see him off by the train. We met him on the platform, just as the sun was sinking into the West. One after another of his class pressed around him, once more bade him farewell, and then we joined in singing,—

“Here we meet to part again, But when we meet on Canaan's shore There'll be no parting there.”

As the car rolled away from the platform, he held up his thin hand, and, pointing to heaven, said, “I shall meet you all there.” He has gone from us, but his influence in Chicago is felt still, and will last as long as Chicago stands. Some of my best teachers were converted thru his last dying efforts. Be ye also faithful, and God will give you souls for your hire.