CHAPTER XX.

MR. MOODY'S QUESTION-DRAWER.

Various Queries Answered by the Evangelist and Others—Importance of the Work of the Young Men's Christian Association-How to Brighten Prayer-Meetings and Evangelistic Services-Abolishing Cant-Plain Dealing with Unworthy Men-Power for Service-The Foreign Field-Light Elicited on Numerous Practical Points.

Q. You say the Church needs to be raised into a higher plane, and that it is better to do this than to make converts. Isn't the way to lift the Church up, to get converts into the Church? A. Well; I don't see that the Church is lifted into a higher plane, I am sorry to say. That is the trouble—the standard is too low; \ and if we could have a sifting in our churches I think those who were left would be more powerful than the whole of them. A man said once he had had a great revival in his church. He was asked: "How many have you taken in?" Said he: "We haven't taken in any. We have put 150 out."

Q. Ought a Christian to take any part in politics, such as voting, etc.? A. I think it would be hypocrisy for me to pray if I didn't do what I could to purify the politics of a town like this. We had an election here last spring, and if I had been at home I think I would have had something to do in it. The question came up: whiskey or not? The State gave us permission to vote on that issue. If I am too sanctimonious and too religious to go out and help to vote whiskey out of the town, I am the last man to pray God to keep men from temptation, ain't I? [Applause.]

Q. Do you think the secretaryship of the Young Men's Christian Association has claims upon college men? A. What we want, it seems to me, is a class of young men that have been trained in our colleges to go into our associations and reach a different class of men from what we have been reaching. There is no place where a young man can accomplish more in a city to-day than to go among young men. In some of these large cities they have got a hundred thousand-five hundred thousand— young men ; and it seems to me there is no field where a young man can be more useful than in these associations, because he can work 365 days in the year. If a man takes a church he can only get an audience once or twice a week; but a live secretary in one of these associations can get an audience as often as he wants it. And if he has got the gifts he will soon gather around him a nucleus of young men, and with that body of young men he can carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ into any part of the city. I think it is a good training for the ministry. Some are afraid there will be a time when they won't be wanted in the association-they will grow away from the young men. But if a man can keep young, there is no trouble about getting hold of young men. I've seen young men at seventy.

Q. How would you advise a young Christian who is in difficulty as to what church he ought to join? A. Well; I want to say right here, if you take my advice you will get into the church where you will get the most good and do the most good. The sectarian walls are getting very thin. I couldn't have twenty years ago such a meeting as this. The different denominations would be afraid their young men would be carried away from them. But I haven't seen a Baptist or a Methodist or a Congregationalist or an Episcopalian since I have been in these meetings. I don't know what you are.

They used to have hardly condescension enough to get into a union meeting. A man used to say, "I am a Methodist," or, "I want you to understand that I have condescension enough to come on this platform although I am a Baptist." Thank God we have got beyond that. We used to have to climb a ladder, and stretch and peek over the walls to see how the Methodists were getting on over there in their little corner. We have got over that. I don't know where they have gone. When I get home I won't see any Baptists or Methodists. All swallowed up in Christ! That is what we want.

Q. What preparation would you advise a young man to have who expects to become a Y. M. C. A. secretary? A. Mr. Bowne, you have a school to prepare these men. What kind of training do they get down there? [Mr. Bowne explained the operations of the School for Christian Workers at Springfield.] Mr. Moody-I want to say that I think a young man going into that office ought to get posted up in about twelve of the great doctrines of the Bible, at least-such as Justification, Atonement, Redemption, Assurance, Faith, etc.-and give some time to it. Then, of course, he wants a practical training, and a very good way to get it is to go into an association where they have got a live secretary, and learn from him.

Q. How does the work of the secretaryship differ from the ministry? A. You keep at it all the time. No church I know of would stand as much preaching as I would want to give them. When I am in the harness I would like to speak two or three times a day. A secretary can have all the work he wants from morning to nightpersonal work, and deeply spiritual work.

Q. Can a young man expect a life-work in the secretaryship? A. Well, my friend, Mr. McBurney, and my friend here, Mr. Morse, are more useful than ever. The

work has taken on an institutional character during the last ten years, and we need mature talent and age, as well as youth, in the administration of all that belongs to the best interests of the Association. Mr. McBurney, what do you say? Mr. McBurney—If a man has a young heart, the older he grows, the younger his heart will become, and the more sympathetic and wise will he be in dealing with young men. I know of no profession or line of business in which men of youthful temperament who are fitted as young men for secretaries of associations, and also fitted as they grow older for wider usefulness, can be of such service in the cause of Christ. Mr. Moody Is it a delightful work? Mr. McBurneyYes; there is no work on the earth equal to it. Mr. Moody-You like it? Mr. McBurney-I like it more and more as I grow older and see its increased usefulness and breadth-how it touches every line of Christian activity in any city where it exists. It is a grand opportunity-an open field; not circumscribed by denominational boundaries, but reaching as far as the Spirit of God will lead us.

Q. Whenever the Church has been mentioned in this convention it has always been in the way of criticism. What is the reason? A. I haven't noticed it. If I know my own heart I love the Church more than anything else on this earth. I believe it is the dearest thing on this earth to the heart of my Master. And if there has been any criticism here it has been from its friends, and out of love. We are here as Christians, to see how we can improve the Church of God, and the way to make it stronger and better in our day. We are inside the Church, and trying to lift it up. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." At the same time, why do we want an uplift in the Church of God? You know very well it doesn't mean very much to be a Christian. Suppose

a man comes to me and has got letters that he belongs to a certain church-he has been a member of that church for five years—and he wants me to lend him money. Suppose I am a capitalist-I have money to lend and he wants me to start him in business. Would it have much weight with me that he was a church member? How far would it go? It ought to go a great way. Suppose a man starts off down here to Boston to buy some goods, and he takes down his church-letter; he says to the merchants of Boston he is a member of the Congregational church, or the Methodist church, or the Baptist church; how far would it go? Ah, my friends, it makes me hide my head sometimes when I think how little it means for a man to take these vows upon him. I think it means a great deal to take the name of Christ, and it ought to mean to the world a thousand times more than it does.

Q. Does Scripture teach that it is possible for a man to live without sin? A. I think Scripture teaches that we are to aim for perfection. That is our aim. But if a man thinks he has got there, he has got nothing to aim for, has he? I heard a man saying that for twenty years he hadn't heard a whisper from the devil. I am afraid the devil had whispered to him a good many times and he didn't know it. I think the devil whispered that into his mind.

Q. Is it Scriptural to teach that the flesh is dead, and that there is no temptation from within-it is all from without? A. Paul says you are to reckon yourself dead. If you were dead you wouldn't reckon yourself dead— you would drop out of the reckoning entirely. If you claim to be dead you don't know the depth of your own heart. The heart is deceitful above all things. It is carnally-minded. When a man thinks he is dead, the chances are some temptation will come, and he will