MR MOODY’S SEROMON AND STYLE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4433, 4 June 1875, Page 3

MR MOODY’S SEROMON AND STYLE.

(Daily News, March 10.) Mr. Moody’s style of preaching, as demonstrated in this address, does not lack impressiveness of a kind. It is true that he is extremely diffuse, that he is unconnected, rambling, and given to repetition ; that he “ squanders himself,” if the expression is allowable, so that he dilutes his climax often into an anti-climax. But he is full of pith, and manifests great earnestness ; he is continually saying quaint racy things, such as we are quite unaccustomed to hoar from a pulpit, such as are often intensely grotesque, and not imfrequcntly raise an audible laugh. His manner of treatment is not by argument, far less by rhetoric, but by dint of moro or less apposite illustrations. He works by the citation of instances, which he narrates in his own phraseology, and tho ever-recurring Americanisms have a naivetC which to an English audience has a fresh and novel effect. The truth which ho laid out to enforce and illustrate was that “God’s ways were not as man’s ways,” and that He chose His instruments on a principle which to men appeared passing strange, and sometimes indeed absurd, from their human point of view. He said that what he feared most in coming to this work in London was lest many should be leaning on the arm of the flesh, and on the influence of “great meeting,” and so would be getting their eyes away from God. “There is no new Gospel,” he exclaimed ; “ it’s the old story. The world of to-day is always running after something new ; but if you come here expecting novelty, I tell you you’ll bo disappointed.” Their message was tho same as that of “ these ministers—and with us it is in weakness too ; for there’s hundreds of men in London can

preach better nor we can. What we want is to look right straight away from man, right straight up to God. If God s going to work in London, He must work in His own way, and all we’re going to do is to mark out channels for the Holy Ghost. God will take His choice of instruments and means. There s a mountain. God wants to thrash that mountain Well, He don’t take up an iron bar ; He ketches hold of a little worn to thrash that mountain. When God was going to destroy the world, He did not warn a nation or the world, but a single man, whom the nations held in contempt and jeered at Why, God's way of delivering the Children of Israel was different altogether from what ours would have been. We’d have sent an army, or if we’d been going to send a single man, we’d not have chosen one who’d been forty years at the backside of the desert. But he sent a quiet humble kind of man, one whom we’d call, I suppose, a stuttering man, and He said ‘ tell them I AM.’ That was a blank cheque which he was to fill in by and by with water from the rock and manna in the desert. The man whom God works with most is always considered by the world the greatest fool. Enoch wasn’t a bright man to the world, but God said ‘ Come up here, Enoch !’ Noah was the laughing-stock of his day. Look at Joshua, going tramping round the walls of Jericho blowing in horns—the most absurd thing in the eyes of the world—downright ridiculous. Why, what would the English Press have to say of such a crazy-like proceeding ? Fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury trapesing round London blowing horns ! He’d have had golden horns any how. Look at Samson —how ho worked with the jawbone of an ass ; he slew a thousand men. We don't like to go to work with the jawbone of au ass ; we'd prefer polished weapons. But if we are to bo in earnest, we must grab up the_ first jawbone of an ass wo chance on, and use it for God. . . . Look at the seeming absurdity of a raven sent to feed the Prophet, aud then the Prophet sent for food, not to a palace with well-furnished tables, but to a poor widow, and she with a child.” Mr. Moody then drew for an illustration on modern and secular history. “The devil,” said he, “got his match when he got hold of John Bunyan, the Bedford tinker. I hope there may be a Bedford tinker here to-night, whom God will use for his service. A hundred such men as John Wesley would make the world tremble inside of a twelvemonth.”. Then he went back to Holy Writ. “ I'd give more for such a man as Saul of Tarsus now in London, than for ten thousand such men as are not wholly for God, being mixed up with the world. . . . London never saw the day it had so many great preachers as now ; but its not the eloquence of man, but the power of God, breaking men’s hearts, that does the business. In all ages God has used seemingly weak human instruments. I wonder he don’t take the job out of our hands and give the work to angels. Its ,the heart for the work that is wanted. It does not matter about the talents—God will find the talents.” Mr. Moody then said that there were three classes in especial who ought to be in sympathy wdtli this movement. Clergymen, because they (Messrs. Moody and Sankey) had come to strengthen their hands, not to thwart their efforts ; Sabbath school teachers, missionaries, and colporteurs ; and the fathers and mothers, because they (Messrs. Moody and Sankey) came in the name of their Master to snatch their children from the haunts of vice to a pure life. He concluded his address by enforcing the virtue of unity. “With pulpit and pew together, Christianity should be like a red-hot ball rolling over the world, against which nothing can stand.” Mr. Sankey led the congregation in the hymn, “Hold the Fort ! ” and the proceedings were terminated by the benediction, pronounced by the Kev. Dr. Allon.