Year: 1875

|

 Large Attendance, Etc.

 The meetings of Moody and SankeJ

 in Brooklyn are attended by immense

 throngs. The Rink, where these meet

 ings are held, is fitted for about 6,00(

 to 1000 people, but at some of the meet

 ings fully 10000 to 10000 have stood

 about the buildings during the services

 unable to obtain admittance. A report

 describes the scene at meeting as fol

 lows: It was half hour before the

 time appoionted for the services, but

 MT. Sankey seated himself at his organ,

 and led his choir through half dozen

 of his triumphant, exultant chants, and

 the crowd outside, hearing the music,

 grew wilder and wilder for admission.

 In vain the ushers told them that the

 Rink was filled; they replied that they

 would not go away until they had seen

 the Evangelists. They shouted for

 them by name; they endeavored" to

 chamber in at the windows, and @ score

 of men remained through the service

 perched on the sharp edges of the low

 cred window sashes, and then they

 waited outside, blocking the streets, so

 that at the close it was as difficult for the

 congregation to go out as it had been for them an hour earlier to get in.

 MT. Moody's sermon was upon the Gospel as being of glad tidings and good cheer. It is essential, said he, that & person who is to preach the Gospel should understand what the Gospel is, and my definition is that which is given in the Bible of its being 8 message of glad tidings and good news. It is @ simple theory, based upon the life, the crucifxion, and the death of Christ. A clergyman in Western city once said to me: "Brother Moody, our modes of preaching are radically different, and either you must be right and I wrong, or right and you wrong." had not heard him preach, and so had to ask him wherein we differed. "Inever," replied he, "preach of the death of Christ I preach of his life, and you preach of his death. " "What then do you do when you come to such text as, By his stripes we are healed ? Do you leave them out? 2" Hereplied that he preached essays, moral essays, but left out atone ment. Now, tell you, for my part, don't want any Bible without atonement. If you take out the death of Christ and the scarlet thread of blood running through the book, the Bible is no good to me. If it must be taken out, may as well go to farming or something else, for all the good I con do preaching is gone. Why, what did Paul preach at Antioch and at Corintha He preached Christ and Christ crucified; the life, death, crucifxion, burial, and resurrec- tion.

 And now want to tell you why the Gospel is good news and glad tidings. First, because it takes out of our paths all sin. God, through his Gospel, has taken all our sins and put them behind his back where the devil cannot get them.

 When God has hidden them they are buried so deep that they cannot be found but if we hide them ourselves, they keep coming up against us. An other reason why call the Gospel good news, is because through it death has lost his sting. That is the last thing that we gain as we become Christians fearlessness in looking at death. We can indeed cry, "Oh, death, where is thy sting 2" and a voice, grand in strong and powerful, comes rolling down from Calvary cit is hid den in the bosom of the Lord" And if the sting is removed what other terror remains2 None. If we pull out the sting of bee or wasp the insect be- comes as harmless as fly, and so death, robbed of his sting, is pleasing to look ur on. Yes, yes, let death come upon this platform and plant his cold icy fin gers upon me. Then-what2 will be with the king, my Father. Should I not then welcome him, repulsive in form though he may be, for his sting is gone.

 Years ago, in Northfeld, where was brought up, they had the custom of toll tolled used to listen. Sometimes there l and then would slap myself in glee as there would be but few strokes-only | fifteen or sixteen-and they would ring in my ears for days, and especially for nights, reminding me that I must die. l was tortured and wretched ; for then death Lad not lost his sting. I can stand now byan open grave, and looking in it, say Grave, where is thy vic tory ?" Yet the time has been when the | fall of the clod upon the coffin made me start with dread. Have you ever thought of the picture of death gloating over the grave of the Lord2 There he sat, grin ming and ghastly at the entrance to the tomb. "Oh, where," cried the specter, gloatingly, ''is the resurrectionist and the life nowi I have him. I have him. I have got him locked up in a grave" But as he sat there, before the women came in the morning, the angels came unseen by him, and rolled away the stone, and stole the body from his care and in three days the body was clothed with life. It is good, say, that the Lord, when he went into the little grave yard in Bethany, called Lazarus by name, for had he not, all the dead there buried would have boon raised and clothed with life.