By the Wayside – Dwight Lyman Moody

I went down past the corner of Clark and Lake streets one day, and, fulfilling my vow, on seeing a man leaning up against a lamp-post, I went up to him and said: “Are you a Christian?” He damned me and cursed me, and told me to mind my own business. He knew me, but I didn’t know him. He said to a friend of his that afternoon that he had never been so insulted in his life, and told him to say to me that I was damning the cause I pretended to represent. Well, the friend came and delivered his message. May be I am doing more hurt than good,” I said; “may be I’m mistaken, and God hasn’t shown me the right way.” That was the time I was sleeping and living in the Young Men’s Christian Association rooms, where I was then President, Secretary, janitor, and everything else. Well one night, after midnight I heard a knock at the door. And there on the step leading into the street stood this stranger I had made so mad at the lamp-post, and said he wanted to talk to me about his soul’s salvation. He said: “Do you remember the man you met about three months ago at the lamp-post, and how he cursed you? I have had no peace since that night; I couldn’t sleep. Oh, tell me what to do to be saved.” And we just fell down on our knees, and prayed, and that day he went to the noon prayer meeting and openly confessed the Saviour, and soon after went to the war a Christian man. I do not know but he died on some Southern battle-field or in a hospital, but I expect to see him in the kingdom of God.

Sowing the Tares.

I was at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, and I noticed there a little oil painting, only about a foot square, and the face was the most hideous I have ever seen. On the paper attached to the painting were the words “Sowing the tares,” and the face looked more like a demon’s than a man’s. As he sowed these tares, up came serpents and reptiles, and they were crawling up his body, and all around were woods with wolves and animals prowling in them. I have seen that picture many times since. Ah! the reaping time is coming. If you sow to the flesh you must reap the flesh.