Great Evangelists and Temperance

White Ribbon, Volume 19, Issue 7, 1 August 1947, Page 5

Great Evangelists and Temperance

By Victoria Grigg VIII.—DWIGHT L. MOODY

Xo evangelist of the nineteenth century is better known by name than 1). L. Moody. Two great international

organisations owed much to him—the Y.M.C.A. and the Student Christian Movement. Like the other great evangelists of whom I have already written, in addition to being a powerful pleader for souls, he was a great Temperance reformer, full of sympathy for drink’s victims, and full of ardour for their reclamation.

He was born in 18d7 at Northfield, Massachusetts, the sixth of nine children,, of whom twins were born a month after their father’s death. As his mother was left penniless, his earlv life was spent in conditions of very real poverty, but he was fortunate in that* his mother was one who put her trust in Him Who promised to be a Father to the fatherless.

It was the earnest solicitude of his Sunday School teacher which led him

to accept Christ as His Saviour, and from that time, he sought to witness for God, and to serve Him faithfully. \t the age of nineteen he left Boston for Chicago, and lost no time in attaching himself to a Congregational Church. He set out at once to bring hoys and girls from the streets.to Sunday School, and the very first Sunday he brought 18 young people, dirty ami unkempt, some even barefoot, to form his first class. In visiting these children he was led into some of the worst >treets of the city, where public houses abounded hut nevertheless he recruited large numbers. On the north side of the city where crime and vice were rampant, he >tarted work in a disused public house. He literally followed out Christ’s command to “go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.’’

His work among the poor and wretched made him a thorough-going abstainer. fie realised the immense obstacle drink was to the acceptance and progress of Christianity. He became a stern, uncompromising opponent of drinking habits and the liquor trade, and he begged Christians to fight their utmost against this curse. “It is a hellish traffic,” he said, “taking many thousands to an untimely grave.” The converts at his missions vvere urged to become teetotallers.

In his early twenties he was faced with making a great decision. His early mission work was all done in his spare time, and before him were great possibilities for becoming a rich and successful business man. On the other hand, he felt he could devote his while life to evangelistic work. With the example of George Muller before him, he chose to become a full-time evangelist, relying solely on God for his support. It is interesting to us as “White Ribboners” that our own Frances

Willard had one of her earliest experiences of public Christian service under I). L. Moody. He influenced such men as Dr. F. 11. Meyer, Professor Henry Drummond, and Sir Wilfred Grenfell, in their zeal for the Temperance Cause.

When Moody \ 'sited Britain, wonderful scenes were witnessed in the great cities. Dr. Bonner, of Glasgow, wrote, “It is such a time as we have never had before in Scotland. The old Gospel is preached : Christ the Substitute, Christ’s blood, Christ’s righteousness, and Christ crucified, and the Holy Spirit breathing over the land.’’

During his second mission at Glasgow, an organised campaign was entered ujkdii for the rescue of drunkards, when it was shown very clearly that the Gospel had lost none of itspporerw r er to meet the most desperate cases. A choir of 400 men's voices was formed from those who had been rescued from the gutter. \t some of his missions, Moodv used the Friday evenings specially for Temperance purposes, and said that few of his meetings touched his heart more than these. Remarkable testimonies were given on these occasions by former drunkards and previous moderate drinkers who were led by Christian motives to become abstainers.

Moody deemed no effort too great to reclaim the drunkards. He prayed for them, sought them, and appealed to them personally and publicly. He truly loved his fellow-men, no matter how brutalised or degraded. He said that the drink-sellers’ prosperity spelled fatherless children, took the bread out of the mouths of widows and orphans, caused drunkards to reel along the paths, and degraded sisterhood to walk the streets. In addressing an English iu4>nce, he said, “There was another liw passed here in the days of Wilberforce, and that was that no slave could breathe under the Union Jack—that slavery was to be swept away. But vou have something worse than thL in England—the accursed liquor traffic. When will you sweep IT away? Moody died in 1899, hut his question still awaits a reply. Despite enforced rationing of bread. Britain has allocated 50,000 tons of the 1946 barley crop, and 75,000 tons of the 1947 barley crop to be used in the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. Last year in New’ Zealand we turned more than a million tons of barley into beer. Meantime, our poultry' farmers and pig breeders cannot obtain sufficient grain for their purposes. Worse still, the results of using the grain for such purposes are seen in our police courts and broken homes. Oh God! Give us courage to work still harder to drive this evil from our midst.