LIBRARY OF PRINCETON JUN -4 2002 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BV 3797 .S56 1907 Smith, Gipsy, 1860-1947. Gipsy Smith's best sermons GIPSY SMITH'S BEST SERMONS AS DELIVERED IN BROOKLYN, AND PUBLISHED IN BOOK FORM BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE. COPTEIGHT. 1907, BY , J. S. Ogilvie Publibhinq Company. f" -■■W?i^/^--: '' ' ^-n^.S'^^ 1 NEW YORK : J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 57 Rose Street. S. Arthur. T. DeWitt by Kev. T. RELIGIOUS BOOKS. We call your special atU'iitioii to the following' list of popu- lar lleliKious and Temperaiioe Books, bound in paper coyer, any of which will be sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. JOHN I'LOUGHMAM'S TALKS AND TICTUBES. By Rev. C. H. St>urppon. Price, 25 cents. SI'UJtOEON'S TWELVE BEST SEJi3IONS. By Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. Price, 25 cents TEN NJOHTS IN A BAB ROOM. By T. Price, 25 cents. THE WEDDING KING. Sermons by Rev. Talmage. Price. 25 cents. THE BATTLE FOB BREAD. 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Any of the above Iwoks will be sent by mail postpaid, to anytddress on receipt of price. Address all orders to J S OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, p. 0. Box767 37 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK, ■ East lOODY. By Anna »■ PRICE, 25 CENTS. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦»♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦^ ' 0!P5y SniTH'S BE5T 5ERriON5 AS DELIVERED IN BROOKLYN Not Since the Plemorable Days of riood and Sankey has any Evangelist 5tirre and Impressed the Hearts and Lives c the People as has Gipsy Smith in hi Sermons in Brooklyn. ►♦♦ New York : J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 57 Rose Street. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦«♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦*** CONTENTS. PAGE Publisher's Preface 5 Gipsy Smith's Best Serinons 7 Gipsy Smith and His Missions 16 An A ppeal to Fathers 27 Have You Lost Christ? 42 The Doctrine of Repentance 58 The Moving of the Waters 72 A Talk to Young; Men 86 Have You Touched Jesus? 97 Whosoever Will Let Him Come 107 Whatsoever a Man Soweth That Shall He Also Reap 119 Follow Me 129 The Great Things the Lord Has Done 147 Ye Must Be Born Again 159 Great Audiences Hear Evangelist Gipsy Smith. . 172 What Good Thing Shall I Do? 188 What Must I Do to be Saved? 202 Following Christ All the Way - 218 Not Saved 235 Gipsy Smith Tells of His Life and People 247 Church Life in America, as Seen by Gipsy Smith, , 251 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. In issuing Gipsj Smith's Sermous in a handy form for general circulation, we believe we are doing a good work, as never since the memorable days of Moody and Sankey have the hearts and lives of the people been stirred as they have by these sermons, as deliv- ered in Brooklyn. We are under special obligations to "The Brooklyn Daily Eagle" for permission to print them in book form. The Publishers. ("By permission of 'The Brooklyn Daily Eagle,' and reprinted from 'Gipsy Smith in Brooklyn,' No. 126 of the Eagle Library.") Gipsy Smith's Best Sermons. THE STORY OF GIPSY SMITH. From a gjpsj wagon to a preacher's pulpit is a long cry. Few realize the expense, measured physically or psychologically. To those who have heard Gipsy Smith, the soul-grasping evangelist, the transition seems a natural one. For those few who know his true story there are written between the words of his appeals for light a history, a romance, a trag- edy of life. A STHONG, well-developed man, with black, wavy hair, black mustache, large, dark eyes that flash with defiance or melt with tenderness; clearly defined, clean-cut, bold features; a face now gentle, now yield- ing; a face filled with that indescribable dash of the Orient; a voice now soft and mellow, now strident, almost fierce; a quick, warm grasp of the hand; an unspoken token of brotherhood; a mutual surrender — that is the sum total of a meeting with Gipsy Smith. In his room in the hotel the other day he came for- ward to his visitor with his arms extended. He had hastily arisen from a low chair by a table on which a Bible was spread wide open. His greeting was easy 7 8 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. aud natura]. It was full of welcome and cordiality. It was filled with a pointed personality that one seemed to feel was directed exclusively to him. Barely was the greeting over, when there was a sharp ring on the telephone. In an instant the receiver was at the evangelist's ear. "Yes, yes, beloved," said he. And then in a moment again: "Very well, beloved. Good-by, beloved." There was a softness in the voice that seemed like the gentleness of a woman. And yet that night, when he almost leaped before the silent audience that crowded Plymouth Church to its capacity, with his right hand thrust into his waistcoat, tugging, pulling, struggling with an imaginary foe at his heart, crying, "Drag out the sin, drag it out, drag it out by the" hair of the head!" the glowing enthusiasm in full control of him, the religious ecstasy in full possession of his soul made manifest the zeal within the man's breast that needed but a breath to blow it into a living flame. "You have had wide experience in the evangelical line," began his visitor, "tell me if the emotional con- - vert is a lasting convert— does the conversion sink deep into his heart?" He moved forward on the edge of his chair. He spread out his hands, palm downward, before him. "If you take bricks and sand," said he, with his eyes half closed, "and leave out the mortar you cannot build . a wall that will stand. Now, in this work of conver- sion you have to deal with a man's intelligence, his conscience and his emotions. His intelligence and his conscience are the bricks and sand. The mortar is his emotions— his heart. Without the mortar you cannot build your wall; without the emotion, without touch- / GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 9 ing and reaching into the heart of your man, you can- not build your Christian." He leaned back in his chair with his hands upon his knees. "Since I have been in Brooklyn this time," he con- tinued, "men and women have come to me and told me that I converted them eighteen years ago, and that during all these years they have been steadfast in the faith. All through my trip in the West I met many such men and women. They came to me eighteen years ago and professed Christ. Some of the men have become preachers. And so it is all over England — wherever I go I find these men and women, whom I converted, earnest, devoted, lasting Christians. They have builded with bricks and sand and mortar." He bent forward, with his arms upon the table, his hands on the open pages of the Bible. "When the Spirit of the Lord takes possession of one," he said, "it fills him— it fills his heart to over- flowing. His love comes out* It comes out for you and for me. It is a lasting love. It is an emotional love — an emotional love that endures " He straightened up. He closed his fist tightly and brought it down upon the Bible. "Endures for evermore!" Quickly he lowered his voice. Quickly he smiled. "That, beloved," said he, "is emotional religion." Here in this brief interval was outlined the entire method of the man's work. "In your meetings," asked the visitor, "do you your- self give away to your emotions?" "Yes," was the answer. "I become a part of the meeting; I become a part of the audience; I am merged into it; we are one." 10 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. ••And in the beglnning- .1" "Ah, beloved-iu the beginning? In the beginning of the meeting I looli over luy audience. I watch all the people. 1 get in touch with them. 1 study tlieiu. And then, in a general way, I block out what I am going to say to them. Now, it is not so much what you say as how you say it. I have known other speakers to express the same thoughts that I express, but in different language, and their remarks have made the people angry, while mine have not. But in the beginning of the meeting I form a plan of cam- paign as I sit there on the platform and watch the people. 1 can generally tell after the first song or two just what temper the audience is in. And then I regu- late myself accordingly. Sometimes I make my hear- ers angry— I know I am going to make them angry, and ofttimes I tell them so, but I go right ahead, nevertheless. I tell them the plain truth, and then I try to touch their hearts— I try to reach their emo- tions. I get their sympathies; there is a bond between us. Their hearts soften, and my heart, too, softens. I, too, am affected. 1 give out my whole soul to them. My energies, my life, my being, seem to ooze out at my very finger tips. 1 give the best that is in me. I feel the response from the people. Our hearts are talking. I reach the height of my discourse. Our hearts are close together-they are one. And then I am exhausted. Strong man that I am, I have become weak. I go to my room, I He on the bed, I sleep. "Sometimes," he continued, and his voice was low- ered, "sometimes I am so tired that I drop on the bed without first kneeling down and praying. And then my daughter comes to me— my daughter, Zillah, the GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 11 gypsy girl — and she puts her arms around my neck and says: " 'Why, Daddy, Daddy, you haven't said your pray- ers.' "And I say: " 'Daughter, I have been praying all day to the Lord.' "But there are times," resumed Gipsy Smith, "when I must rest. And when that season for rest comes I go into the forest and into the fields— I get close to nature — and the old spirit of the gypsy comes back to me." He closed his eyes. Perhaps the vision of the gypsy wagon, the gypsy tent, the oampflre, was before him. Perhaps he walked again under the arches of green leaves. Perhaps he plucked again the wild flowers. la those few seconds, perhaps, the romance of the cen- turies of gypsy life came before him. Perhaps he heard the love song of the gypsies, as his ancestors heard it these hundreds of years ago: Av' kushto pari o pani, Av' kushto mir' akai, Mi kameli chovihani, Avel ke tiro rye. Oh, love come o'er the water, Oh, love, where'er you be, My own sweetheart, my darling, Come over the river to me. In a moment the vision had passed. "My first sermon?" Gipsy Smith repeated the query. 12 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. *'Ah, my first sermon," said he, with a smile, "was delivered to the turnips in the field. I talked to tbe trees. I talked to the stones. I talked to the birds. I was between 16 and 17 years old when the desire came upon me to be a preacher. My father had become a Christian. The light came to him at my motlier's death. He was left alone with five small children, am] the parting words of my mother were: "Take caie of the little ones. Beloved, take care of our children." And there was my father— a big, strong man— who, without a Bible, without a teacher, without a guiding hand, without knowing how to read or write, came to God." This story of his father's conversion leads him back to England. There in Epping Forest Gipsy Smith, called by his parents Rodney Smith, was born in 1860, in a gypsy tent. The place is fifteen miles east of London. He was the fourth child. Two were born afterward, one of whom died soon after the death of (he mother. "It was Ihe death of our mother that changed the V. hole course of our lives," said Gipsy Smith. "My fj'ther was a tinker. He mended tinware, recaned cliairs, made willow baskets and clothes-pegs, and my mother, and afterward we children, sold his wares. This occupation of my father had been handed down to him through many generations. He also, like all gypsies, was a horse trader, and a gypsy horse trader, as you perhaps know, is thoroughly expert in that bus- iness. The women told fortunes. Thei'e are probably between 20,000 and 25,000 gypsies in the British Isles. About 80 per cent, of the gypsies have biblical names. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 13 My father's name was Cornelius and my brother's Ezekiel. The twelve children of my Uncle Bartholo- mew all had scriptural names, like Naomi, Samson, Deliah, Elijah, etc. Yet there were no Bibles among the gypsies. How did we get these names? Did they come to us from tradition? Are we one of the lost tribes? I believe we are akin to the Hebrew race, but no one knows our origin. Our tribes have been traced back to India, but it is believed we went to India from somewhere else, and were simply nomads there, as we have been nomads in all parts of the world. The gypsy language? Little of the ancient gypsy language is spoken to-day. Now and then a word prevails, but for the most part a corrupt English is spoken by the gypsies, in England, at least." Here it may be said that the dialects of the ancient gypsies were as varied as the jargon of the African natives, but the roots of each family branch, whether of American or European stock, show a common origin. While it is not indisputable, the best author- ities point to the Aryan as the earliest races, whence sprang this most remarkable language, but the origin of the Romany tongue is so old that it is lost in the Aryan record, and doubtless belongs to a prehistoric caste. All we know about the gypsy and his ancestry is that in the tenth to the twelfth centuries India threw out a vast midtitude of troublesome indwellers, and among them were the Jats, whom, many maintain, constitute the main stock of the gypsies. The very name — Romany — doubtless came from one of the low- est castes that still exist in India, and is knovvfu as Dom, the word probably having been corrupted into Rom. 14 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. "We lived as otber g;ypsies lived," continued Gipsy Smith. "We roamed from place to place. My father loved iii.y mother. She loved him. Tbej both loved their childieu. The ties of love bound iis all closely together. You must know the gypsy character is one of love and tenderness. The gypsies marry young. Their sweethearts are among their own people. There is a high regard for virtue among the gypsies. The courtship of a young gypsy couple is always conducted in the presence of the maiden's mother or an older person. Their walks are taken with tliis older person. Their romance grows in the strictest propiiety. Thus the wife and the husband continue to be lovers. Thus it was with my father and mother. There was my father— a gypsy without education or religion; no bet- ter, no worse than other gypsies. For his recreation he played the fiddle and sometimes he turned this pas- time to prolit— a profit that worked to his detriment, for in the public houses where he played— ofttimes taking me with him to collect the coins— he drank more beer than was good for him. But the climax came to our lives— (he climax that changed us all. "We were traveling in our wagon through Hertford- shire. England, wlieu my sister— the eldest of the family— was taken ill. We drove up to a doctor's house. He said, 'It is smallpox; you must go away from here.' We went to a by-place called Norton • Lane. There my father pitched our tent, where he left my mother and the four other children. The wagon he placed two hundred yards or more away, and there he went with the sick child, whom he nursed and cared for. In a few days my brother, Ezekiel, was taken down with the smallpox and he, too, was sent to the wagon. Mj mother carried the food she prepared for GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 15 the invalids half way between the wagon and the tent, when she would call for my father. Sometimes he was busily engaged with his little charges and the snow would get ou the food, and my mother, in her anxiety for her children, would get nearer and nearer to the wagon, and one day she, too had the smallpox." There in the forest was Gipsy Smith's father with his dying wife and little children. With no knowledge of the Bible, with little knowledge of God, he reached out to the dying woman. "Do you believe in God?" he asked. "Yes," answered the woman. "Do you try to pray, beloved?" he asked. "1 try to," answered the woman, "and sometimes there is a voice that says to me that there is no mercy for me." The woman put her arms around his neck and kissed him. He went outside and wept, and he heard her singing: I have a father in the promised land. My God calls me, I must go To meet him in the promised land. It was a song she had heard twenty years before. It was a song she heard sung by school children. It came to her as her life ebbed out. "J shall never forget," said Gipsy Smith, with his face in his hands, "that day my father came to me and said, 'Rodney, you have no mother.' " That is the tir.st chapter in Gipsy Smith's life story. Let us not dwell on the conversion of his father and 16 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 17 two uncle.s aud the life thej led traveling through the coiintr.y and holding gospel meetings in tents and wagons. Let us not dwell upon the struggles of Cor- nelius Smith; how he sold his fiddle that led him into (emptatioti in the public houses, and the light he had to remain in the narrow path. Let us not dwell on the (conversion of Gi[isv Smith in that little Mctiuidiat chiircii in Cambridge, England, and of his entrance into the Christian Mission of which the Rev. William Booth, now the head of the Salvation .\rm.v, was sup- erintendent, and let us not dwell on the work of Gips.v Smith in the Salvation Army. That first chapter in his life that records the death of his mother, was the I)roem and the climax. For thirty years Gipsy Smith has been an evange- list. This is his sixth visit to America. In 1889 he spoke in the Nostraud Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church In Brooklyn for the hrst time in this country. Since then he has preached in many towns and many churches in America. GIPSY SMITH AND HIS MISSION. Tub Rev. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillls, pastor of Ply- mouth Church, on the Sunday morning of the day of I lie beginning of the Gipsy Smith mission, preached on the meaning of the visit of the evangelist to Brook- lyn. His test was from Luke iv, the story of the mul- titude who heard John. He said: When any group of men enter upon a large enter- prise, it is important that their plan be siuead out like a map, before the mind, that they may fully under- stand its scope. For the first time in many years, all i of the churches through sympathy, and most of them through their representatives, are now entering upon a mission, whose theme is the love of God, the sin and need of man. For those who believe in a reasonable religion, the old evangelism is dead. Gone the crude aud drastic appeals to fear! Gone the former emotion- alism! Gone the emphasis of mediajval doctrines! The new appeal is to conscience, to reason, to fidelity to the great convictions. The atmosphere is truth and justice, sweetness and light, the motive is the sense of responsibility to God, and His dear Son. Not less significant is the man who is to lead us in this move- ment. Because the common people hear him gladly he is known in four continents not as Rodney but as Gipsy Smith. He comes to us as the accredited repre- sentative of the great Free Church Council in Eng- land. For the time has come when there are two un- ified religious forces in England. The Church of Eng- land is an established church, with bishops, appointed by whatsoever political party is in power. This state Church now includes some sixteen millions of English- men. But in the interest of unity and effectiveness, all the free churches have now come together in the Free Church Council. That includes some twenty millions more. ^ Their scholars, like George Adam Smith and Profes- sor Caird, are restating our philosophy. Their schools of learning include theologians like Fairbairu. Their writers include editors, like Robertson Nicoll; their preachers, named Alexander Maclaren, Jowett, Daw- son and Sylvester Home, and the grand old man, John Clifford, with Watkinson, Parker and Spurgeon, have a fame that has tilled all the world. But this Free Church Council also desired to have an accredited 18 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. evangelist, who should be their representative, and the man they have sent out into the world, wearing the mantle of their sanction and autiioriiy, is the man who will lead us in this mission. God hath called and .■(iniiiped him. Wherever he goes in Scotland or Eng- land, the multitudes throng and press to hear his mes- sage. From South Africa there comes a message telling us that for years the Dutchmen and the Eng- lishmen stood over against each other like castles and cannon shotted to the mouth and the correspondent adds that when the two enemies came together in Gipsy Smith's mission, they put up their hands of prayer toward God, and for the first time touched ' hands in human brotherhood. And what shall I say of the great mission in Boston and in Chicago, where more thousands stood in the streets before Tremout Temple and the Auditorium than succeeded in cross- ing the threshold? Tlie thought that God hath lent power to one man, makes one tremble. It is for this man to dwell apart from his fellows, to pass by the non-essentials, the trifling episodes in church history, that have divided us, the symbols upon which we do not agree, and to exalt the great simplicities of Chris- tianity, the permanent and universal note, and to lift us all into the higher realm, where unity and love have their dwelling place. This is the work of our leader, a man who doth not stand among mean men, but to whom God hath given a place among the kings. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A MISSION MOVEMENT. All men who have traveled through this land and met large audiences in great cities realize that there is a great moral, ethical and religious movement sweep- GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 1ft ing over the land. Hitherto it has been largely con- hned to the college and university students and the educated classes. Lord Bacon once said that if any one would tell him what the young men in Oxford and Cambridge were thinking about, he would tell them how events would go during the coming century. To- day, no matter what the people in the remote sections may think, one thing is certain-the college men are thinking in straight lines about Christianity, and their farst enthusiasm is their enthusiasm for .Jesus Christ, as the leader and teacher who hath the secret of peace growth, manhood and influence. Last Sunday after' noon, in one of the largest universities of this land I am told that three hundred students stood up to make a profession of their new allegiance to Christ. And this movement is becoming a contagion. ^ow, what is the philosophy of the movement' We have long studied the psychology of the individual, ^hat does "the psychology of the crowd" tell us about the universal religious awakening? Well, we know that men can always do together what one man cannot do alone. The bees build their mathematical cells by working ,n swarms. The birds go in flocks toward the warm southern tropic land. The cattle move in herds. When man wants to work out a great thing, uncon- sciously a movement is developed. He unites his books and makes a library. Bringing many singers together, he has a chorus. Assembling many pictures he has a gallery. Uniting hundreds of wills, he has a constitu- tion and a government. Coming together in a multi- tude, men pray, sing, worship, and in the genial atmos- phere the latent faculties unfold, like roots and flow- ers, in the warm conservatory. Light a match, and alone, it goes out. Light a match, and put it beside a 20 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. hundred other matches — it does not go out, but spreads its flame to all the rest. Musing alone, the youth forms a high resolve, but remaining alone, the sacred flame burns low, and still lower, and is in dan- ger of d^'ing out. Let the youth carry the story of his resolve to his fellow student, to the multitude iu the church, and lo! the noble purpose waxes stronger and yet stronger. For the necessity of the movement is a universal necessity. Mention any faculty of man, or any form of social progress, and you have the story of the movement. PLACE OF THE MISSION. Here is the educational realm. Festalozzi is the prophet who discerns the laws of mental growth, Thomas Arnold is the teacher who puts the v/ay in form. Horace Mann is the evangelist who spreads the movement and makes it a contagion. Here is the tem- perance reform. Lyman Keecher was the philosopher, who in his six sermons on the "Economic Disadvan- tages of Intemperance," stated the truth. President Nott was the scholar who published the truth; but John B. Gough was the evangelist who trumpeted the story. Here is the movement against slavery. In ifeo Channing and Parker saw the essential iniquity of slavery, as prophets. Emerson was the philo.sopher who put the facts in credal form and Wendell Phillips was the evangelist for the abolitionist. Here is the literary movement. In the fifteenth century, within a month after Constantinople was burned, a Greek scholar wearing an old brown cloak, stained with voy- age, landed in Florence, on the Arno. Being hungry the stranger offered to read a story to a baker in return for a loaf. The Greek wore sandals, beneath r ^" GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 21]' his robe he concealed a few precious rolls, he had no silver or copper, but he began to read the story of the fidelity of Penelope and the wanderings of Ulysses. As he read the fire burned, the very boys dropped on their hands, and became all eyes and ears. Every by- stander turned toward the approaching stranger to lay fingers upon the lips, while every minute the audience grew. Before noon the handful came to fill the street. Then came the prince out of the palace to listen to this wondrous tale. When the shadows fell the excited people lifted the stranger to their shoulders, and with shouts bore him home. Next morning they rose with the sun to finish the tale. In their eagerness, the merchants formed an association and hired scribes to make copies of this wonderful story. Then the stranger read to them the story of Helen's beauty, of King Edipiis' sin, of Anti- gone's uudyiug pity and love for her blind father. The merchant forgot his shop, the carpenter dropped his saw and plane, the woodsman left his axe in the forest, the farmer forsook his plow. Florence had but one heart and mind— the love of the newly discovered Greek learning. Florence had but one teacher— this evangelist of literature, who was a voice for Homer and Socrates. Scholars call this movement "the liter- ary revival." Certainly, the renaissance was "a revival" of the intellect! But this religious movement of Gipsy Smith is a renaissance of the conscience. The renaissance was the reformation of the reason and the reformation was the renaissance of the moral senti- ment. Even in politics no gain is made without a sim- ilar movement. The men who know best how to con- duct a religious movement, to attract the multitudes are the men at the head of the Republican and Demo- oo GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. (•ratio ceutral couimiltees. Once in four .years they hold a political revival meeting. Tbey tlu'ow dignitj (o tlie winds. Judges and editors, and bankers, and merchants, all join in the revival movement. They carry torch lights, hire bands, and the Republican Na- tional Committee and the Democratic National Com- mittee go through the streets at night like a Salvation Army band. The theologians are the senators and leaders who make up the political platform— that is their creed. The evangelist is Mr. Bryan for the Dem- ocrats, and Mr. Roosevelt for the Republicans. Lifting up his voice, the political evangelist publishes the story. The political revival lasts from four to six weeks. In the warm atmosphere a million young men, native born, and a million foreigners who have never voted, begin to ask. What is social truth, what is eco- nomic truth, what is civic truth? In that heated hour their thoughts and convictions crystalize, and they form a political allegiance for life. The revival ends when the president is elected? No. The outer signs end, but all the rest of their lives long two million men are different because of the four weeks' series of meet- ings. And when a month has passed by, this mission will end? No. The regularity of the meetings will cease, but in some quiet, subtle, secret way, men will be different. Homes will be happier, business will be I a little better and higher in its plane, the country will ' be a little safer, for this is a patriotic movement, a social movement, an educational movement, a literary movement, a political movement, because it is a re- ligious movement, lifting men toward God. In the religious world, therefore, this psychology of the movement is manifest. The Episcopalians are the only people who have organized an evangelistic i, i] GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 23 movement and made it permanent. They not only hold missions like the Gipsy Smith mission, but they hold one every year, without knowing it. Its name Is Lent. And each preacher is his own Gipsy Smith. A gener- ation ago there was a great movement on in the world. The prophet was Mr. Beecher, discovering the love of God; the theologian who put it in perfect form was Horace Bushnell; the evangelist who published it was Moody. Now the newer religious thinking is here. God, the All-Father, and His dear Son, are abroad upon their mission of recovery. And the voice, the evangelist, that publishes the evangel of love and pity, is our leader, bringing his overture to boys who have played the part of gay and foolish prodigals, to men who have made shipwreck of their career, to the anx- ious, the burdened, the heartsick, the sin-wounded everywhere. THE SOCIAL Ax\D ETHICAL RESULTS. The results of the new evangelism are perhaps almost entirely what they should be, ethical and per- sonal. Gipsy Smith is not here to count numbers, not here to exalt the externals, forms and ceremonies, or professionalism. These churches and ministers are united in this movement as Presbyterians -and Meth- odists and Baptists and Episcopalians, and Quakers and Congregationalists and many other forms of wor- ship and faith, to bring men nearer to God. We are here to forget for a little time the fret and the fury and fever of the street. During these few days we will turn from the din and thunder of mammon and listen only to the still small voice of God. We seek to cleanse the grime from onr garments and to sharpen our dull faculties. When the mission closes, we do not propose r 24 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. VAe ouy hope tbat quietlj and secretly men's and wo,„en's hves will be different and that the current of charac er will flow sweeter and deeper toward the la of God's love. We trust thnt ti.. ■ ^ will sDPih mn... . f *" '^"'''^ ^^ conscience d tv will , " V ' ^- ^''' '^P*^ ^'^'-^^ <"« ""te of app.er and we seek a higher standard for the ou.rket- s^Lrintelt t" /''"'''■^' '''''''' *^^° f°'- their stlhsh interests. Incidentallj the new faith the new happiness and conviction, will, without doub;, be n^^," but wh f ""' '"""■ P"''"^'^'^ "^ ^^^ ^-*th with a, but wh.t we earnestly and sincerely seek is the life of God m the soul of man. This new religious feel ng and conviction is the great achievement we al aim at And therefore the ethical results of this order o^evan-' gehsm IS the striking fact. PROOFS OP HIS WORK, For months I have been in the closest touch by Cy Smith-'""" ^"' ^"■^^"^' correspondencfwi h Gipsy Smith s missions in the great cities of this coun- try. The days and the nights would not avail for tell u>g jou the incidents that would unfold into oh wh t dramas and tragedies and romances under the LtToke of a master hand. Witness that employer who fter hearing Gipsy Smith went to the court housl o ^ th- an Info" V ^"* ^^ ^•^'^'^ «^ ^ corporat «; of an employe injured, and suing the company for its arelessness. As president of an iron corpor!ation he old h s company that from that hour his business and h.s religion should march hand in hand. T^a he"e GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 25 would be no defense, and that the company must pay the employe for the injury to life and health, for you see economic standards have changed. Witness that strange event in the Children's Aid Society, with the man coming to say that there was a child sent there, because a girl had died, and its father would not own , it. Then came a journey to a farm, the finding of a boy, adopted by an old couple, a boy with a big broad forehead, and wide wondering eyes, a boy who was taken the nest day to rich bachelor apartments, who was lifted to a man's knees and told, "These rooms are for your home, and my name is your name." The poor girl's grave is still unmarked and perhaps it is better so. But the boy has found a father and a home — you see things are different after a religious movement that brings God into the soul of man. Witness that youtli in yonder city who entered one of these noon meetings, but who went back to his ofiSce to brood. Who returned to the night meeting, and went back to his store to weep. Who went at daybreak to a min- ister, my friend, and told a story of a father, whose business once was successful, whose income had dropped and dropped, and still fallen; whose father had grown strangely economical, brushing a shining coat, and turning frail cufts, and opening forgotten drawers, to bring forth old style collars, life's pathetic revelation of a failure. It was a brief tale of a son who was a junior partner, a son who had betrayed confidence and robbed his father. Together the two men worked the problem through. When he arose the young man said, "My confession will kill my mother and break my father's heart. Hours afterward, the long, shameful, humiliating tale was disclosed. Did the story slay the mother :u tlie preaence of her son's I 26 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. pastor aud friend? No, she put ber arms arouud the boy's neck, aud said, "It is the hajipiest hour I have kuowu since these troubles began." Did the humiliat- ing storj break the father's heart? No, the father said to his pastor, turuiug to go, "This, uiy son, was dead, and is alive again; was lost and is found. Staj. Let us eat and drink." And so they made merry together. You see things are different, after a mission, that deals with the great simplicities of man's sin and God's love. I K == ^l S,; •GlPSt: SMKTfi'S SEKMONS. 2? AN APPEAL TO FATHERS. At the Majestic Theatre and at Plymouth Church Uipsy Smith opened his two weeks of revival cam- paign m Brooklyn. In the afternoon he addressed an audience of between 2,000 and 3,000 men, and more than 2,000 more were unable to crowd into the theatre In the evening he addressed fully 3,000 people, and every one of them was in the church full twenty min- utes before the hour set for the service, and between 2,000 and 3,000 more were unable to get inside the doors. To the men in the afternoon he made an appeal that was startling in its directness and in its strength, and he moved his immense audience as it has been the lot of few men in Brooklyn or elsewhere to move audi- ences. To his evening audience, which consisted to a considerable extent of women and to a very large extent of church-goers and professed Christians, he gave a talk that came straight from the shoulder as well as straight from the heart. He told them that many of them had lost Christ, and nearer one hundred than fifty of those present admitted they had and waited until the after-meeting to try and set them- selves right with their Saviour. That is the spirit. More than one hundred of Brook- lyn's churches are back of this movement, and all of them have been impressed with the fact that those 28 GJPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. whom Gipsy Smith is after are the unsaved — those who need Christ and who haven't found Him. THE AFTERNOON MEETING. If the meeting held at the Majestic Theater is a fair criterion, Gipsj Smith will sweep Pirooklyn with a revival of such power and of such depth as the bor- ough has never known before. For forty minutes the two thousand-odd men who had crowded themselves into the theater were as any other audience. They were attentive interest"^, eager— and nothing more. Then Gipsy Smith began speak, and within ten minutes more men were surrc[>- titiously clearing their throats, tears glistened on scores, even hundreds, of eye-lids, and there could hardly have been a heart in all of that great audience that was not thrilled. "Listen!" cried the speaker. "Months ago I was con- ducting a great mission in Aberdeen, in the north of Scotland. Within the largest building in the city three thousand were gathered, while without were twice as many more. To get into the hall 1 had to ask the assistance of the police. One night as I worked my way through the crowd 1 felt a hand tugging at my coat. I thought it the plea of one who wanted to get in with me, and for a few seconds 1 paid no heed. But the tug became insistent. 1 stopped, and there beside me stood a little Scotch lassie, clad in rags, and in her uplifted hands was something wrapped in tissue paper, moist and grimy from the clutch of her hand. " 'What is it, my dear?' I asked. And she said, 'I want you to have my candy.' "'Why?' I asked. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 29 "'Oh, sir,' she cried, 'we've got a new daddy! He's never been sober 'till Saturday. We've never known him to be sober. He was in your meeting on Saturday and it's so wonderful now.' "And didn't I take her candy, and didn't 1 take her in my arms? Men, it was worth living a lifetime for that minute!" MANY MEN MOVED BY THE EVANGELIST'S WORDS. Coming as this did quick upon the heels of an appeal to his great audience of men to be "Christ's men," to be true to their better selves, to be true to themselves as husbands and as fathers, or as sons, and coming as it did in the thrilling, insistent, dynamic tones of a man who has drunk deep from the wells of spiritual inspiration, there was no resisting the plea, and when he followed it with a call for those who wished in that hour and in that house to place their lives in God's hands for His ordering, man after man rose to his feet, from orchestra, from balcony and from gallery chairs alike. And as they rose every head was directed bowed in silent prayer and every eye was directed closed, and then, when fully two score had risen, they were asked to come from their seats in all parts of the great build- ing to the front two rows of orchestra chairs that had been ordered left unoccupied during the earlier meet- ing- And they came. Not slowly, not sheepishly, but proudly, with heads held high and eyes bright and jaws stern-set, yet penitently and humbly, awaiting and inviting the further words of God that the evan- gelist bad for them. 30- GlPBt SMITH'S BERMOKB. In two minutes the viicaut seats were filled, and tWO more rows were requested vacated, and a minute later still two more, for men who had been uplifted above their old selves bj the appeal that came from the Gipsj's heart continued (o come down the aisles, and their number exceeded three score. "Though jou are eaten up by disease," the speaker said earlier in his plea, "and there is not an inch of soundness in vou; and though from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet you are filled with filth and sin, still you are Christ's men and still there is hope for you. You are Christ's man, whether you have the manhood or not to admit it, because He has re- deemed you. "Think of this because of those about you. Your home has a claim on you— your wife and your children. Some of your children may have heard you swear and may have seen you drunk, and your children may be able to say, 'I've seen my father drunk and I've heard my father swear,' but they can't say they ever heard you pray. That's a fearful thing. AN APPEAL TO FATHERS. "I said that a few weeks ago in Clinton, Iowa, and a man who sat close to the front said I looked directly in his eyes when I said it. I did not do it consciously — 1 had no thought of it. That man came to me a few days later and said to me: " 'In your talk a few nights ago you said there was a man sitting near you whose children had heard him swear and had seen him drunk, but had never heard him pray.' " 'I did/ I answered. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 31 " 'I'm that man, but God helping me, my little boy will never see me drunk again and will never hear me swear again, and he has heard me pray since that night.' "That man had thought I meant him. The shoe ; fitted him. He went to his home that night pondering I those things and when he got there he told his wife he was going to be Christ's man. He took down the' old Bible which he had not seen for so long and he managed to read some verses from it. Then he got down on his knees to pray. For a minute he could utter no word — his throat was choked with emotion. Then he blurted out tbe words of the Lord's Prayer, and there was joy in Heaven over one sinner which re- pented. "I say to you men, you fathers, that you ought to be right with God for the sake of your children. Go home and stay there this evening and call them around you. It will be better than going to church — to stay home and learn to pray. "And for the sake of your wife. You married a girl who was a Christian when you married her. Where is her religion to-day? She was pure and beautiful when you led her to the altar and promised, in that love, which, next to the love of Jesus Christ— that divine love for a pure woman, is the best thing God 1 has given man, to protect and guard and love her. Have you kept that vow? Does she hold you as she did? Is she as attractive to you as on that day, or have you forgotten your love — have you forgotten your vow? God is on His throne, and if you have forgotten He'll make you remember some day ! "Get right with God, my brother, for the sake of that woman in your home! Wouldn't it bring happi- 32 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. iiess to her if you sliould go home today, and, taking her iu your arms, tell her that you have given your heart to Christ? And that thing will happen if you are a man !" Then the Gipsy told the story of that little Scotch lassie, ragged and cliilled with cold, yet with her heart warmed and her face illumined by the wonderful joy that had come into her home, and Gypsy Smith grip- ped close to his the hearts of his hearers and made of his first big meeting in Brooklyn one that will be re- membered while those who were in that theater live, and an influence that will go out for all time. THE SERMON AT THE MAJESTIC THEATER. Gipsy Smith said: It seems to me that in the lesson which was read to us just now you have what will be, I trust, the keynote of every service, and just as a starting point— not that I am going to preach a sermon— I am not, I do not think I shall ever be a preacher. An old man, a long time ago, told me I never should be a preacher, and I asked him why (and he knew something about preaching, or thought he did). I said, "Tell me why I shall never be a preacher?" He scratched his head and said, "You are too quick at the application." (Laugliter.) That is what I said to the ministers who were around me last night, and what I would like to say to you, and what I would like to be to you, and that I hope to be, during the next three weeks— I want to be the application to every sermon that has been preached in Brooklyn in the last fifty years in which Christ has been exalted as the Saviour of men. And if I can be the application I shall be something; if I «- f GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS, BS can get you to be what this keynote longs you should be: reconciled to God. Tliat is the keynote of my min- istry. I am, just as Dr. Hillis said, the voice— the voice of one crying and beseeching, wooing, coaxing, enticing all men with whom it is my privilege to come in contact, to be reconciled to God. That is to be the keynote of these services; the keynote of these days; and 1 trust nothing that will be said and nothing done that will break iu upon the harmony of that keynote from the first syllable to this service to the great "Amen" of the benediction of the last of our services, wherever held and under whatever leadership, and that the dominating, overwhelming, prophetic influ- ence — in the very air, the atmosphere, in the prayers offered, in the songs sung, in the words read and in the words spoken there will be running into it all, vibrating into it all, these words: "We are ambassa- dors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." Or, in other words, it means: think God's thoughts and walk in God's ways. Or, in other words: dethrone sin in your life and enthrone Christ. Or, in other words: give up your way and take His way. Or, in other words: Old things must pass away— old things must pass away, and there must be a new crea- tion. And men, would it not be a wonderful thing for this city and for this State and for America if it could go out within an hour and a half from this service to the length and breadth of the land that every man in this audience had stood up and said, "Christ for me?" Would it not be a wonderful thing if every man, old and young, in this house were to say before he left the building, "Prom this day, O Christ, I will talce Thee as my Lord, my life, my lover, my master, my Si GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. king. From tliis day Thou sbalt come iuto m,y heart aud make Tb.y home. From this daj Thou shalt be the guide of my life. From this daj 1 will thiuk Thy thoughts and I will walk in Thj ways. From thi.s day 1 will reuouuce wrong. I will put ray foot upon it low and forever, secret and public wrong, aud from his day 1 will stand for Christ and for righteousness? Would it not be a wonderful thing for your city? HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE THINGS OF GOD. And you know, men, you are not at your best until you come to (hat decision. You cannot be your best until you come to that decision. 1 don't care how suc- cessful you have been as a business man; how clever you may be; how brilliant in mind. I do not caie how men may look at you, though they Ihiulc your life has been a triumphant march, you have not reached the place where (Jod and the angels expected you to reach, aud you will never reach it until -Jesus Christ has become the Lord and Master of your life. You never can get there until then. Y'ou do not begin to measure up your possibilities until .Jesus has become enthroned in your life. Y'ou cannot see or feel or un- derstand oi' comprehend, and you never will until Jesus has become enthroned in your life. Y^ou cannot, you cannot. The natural cannot understand the things of God; they are foolishness to him. It is only when you stand beneath the cross; it is only when you look through the microscope of Calvary; only when your heart is fired by the flame of Pentecost, only when He has come into your soul and made you clean that you begin to measure up to your opportunities and possi- bilities, with all your success. Listen! With all your GIPSV SMITH'S SEKMONS. success you are nnt i7af *i, and .ou'never will b'e\ ,7;V,r ™''^^^ ^^^ '^^^^' <'0d. You, yourself 'v ,' ' •''°" '"''' '''S^^ ^^^^ 'nenfal outlook tie ^i^l"'' '""' character; y„„P ='" tl^-e is witln-u io ;"1 r^°* f ^ ^"ture; '^"''1J«1. cabined and iZZ ^''"'^''^PP^^^ dwarfed, -deyoufreeandtl; rtint'.:^^'" ?''^' '^^ And what w^ r^ / ^^ f''ee indeed." I-paredtobe,n'e , ^Tot I l" "'^^'^^ '^^ ^^ another statement becau e ' b'r '""''^'"' *° "^^^ Christ's men alreadv If ^^'^"^'^ it. You are He has redeemed vo^- y 'Z '""^ ^"^^^'"'^ ''^ ^ou are. ^ave not recog^L^I'tha Z^^Z^!:^''' '^' '' ^- mischief, of all the blunder^ t '""'" °^ ^^^ sorrow; at the bottom of .tt. "T' '' "" '''' fo'-ging in every JinI in ^^^^i^^gedj; that is the ^ou head and oo th "t Ttf ''"" '''' ''' ^^^^ tl>e life and soul out of ! I ^'"""" '^''' '« '^^''^S -n.edthecro:r:.2c"r^L^^^'^°^-' HKAI. PDfiPosE OF THE REVIVAL -t^:r-o:dT;,-:t^- - --i. that fact and write'i i-^ gold Tef ""'?' '''' -"'°™- «««J i think you win f ' r' ""^ '^' '^^'^« «^^«"'- am Christ's Z^Zil^Zu ,T '^^"'^ ■^°"- "^ everything and ..Tu , '""'P *« ""^ke lovely we itnt yr o s: ■;/? *''"'^'^- ''''' - -hat tl^at He loves you iat k H '" '" ^'"'^^'^ --' jou, tiiat He claims you; that He longs 36 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 37 for you; that He wants you to be at your best; that He wants to give you a chance, though you have blun- dered and wandered and have muddled up and tan- gled things; that you have twisted and tliat you have made such a hash of the part and though looking at it from every standpoint it looks almost impossible for it ever to be straightened out; and though you are ashamed of yourself as you sit there and are glad within that the man next you does not know that you are as bad as you are, for if he did know you are as bad as you are he might get up and walk over to the other side of the building and refuse to sit beside you because you have got so low, and though you are done up with disease and though there be not aji inch of soundness in you and though from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot you are done up with uncleanness and tilth, you are still God's man; and love waits to forgive and forget and if you were the worst — the worst kind of a man in this city, the Christ I am preaching can make you a new creature before you go out. That is the Gospel. That is our message. That is our hope for you, my brothers — for you. "And I think you should think of this, too, because of those about you. Your home has some claim on you; your wife and your children. Some of you are fathers and you have boys and girls growing up .round you. Some of your children may have heard you swear, and they may have seen you drunk and your children may be able to say: 'I have seen my father drunk and I have heard my father swear,' but 'hey cannot say, 'I have heard my father pray.' And that is' a terrible, thing for a child to experience. I made that statement, or something like it, a fortnight ago in Clinton, Iowa. There was a man in the front i- k i r seat and he said, when I uttered it that I looked straight at him. I was not conscious of it, but in one or two days he came to me and said: 'You said last Sunday evening that there was a man somewhere close to you whose boy may have heard him swear and seen liim drunk, but never heard him pray.' I said 'Yes, I said that.' He went on: 'I am that man, but, God helping me, my little boy shall never see me drunk again and he has heard me pray since last Sunday, for I went home and got down the old Bible that I have not looked at for a long while, and I said to the wife, 'I do not know how to do this thing, but that gypsy said I ought to do it, and even if I break down, I am going to try.' He read two or three verses and said: 'I will pray.' Hut when he got on Lis knees he could not utter a word and finally faltered 'Our Father which art in Heaven,' and it was all over, and the angels rejoiced over one sinner that repented. Yes, your children may have seen you drunk, but have they never heard you pray? Man, but it is a terrible thing for a boy to have a father who drinks and swears. A boy never gets over that disaster. A PRAYING FATHER IS THE BEST. On four English-speaking continents I have been for a quarter of a century trying to deal with men and women and children — struggling blunderingly, I know, but God knows I have done ray best — and, ob, how many boys and girls have come to me and said, when life had become ruined for them, "Ah, Mr. Smith! my life would have been different if my father had prayed, but I have not a praying father and that makes a difference. My father didn't pray. He drank 38 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. and swore and took me into the world, and I was taught to do things. Oh, I was taught to do things just to see how a child looked when it did them ! Ana I have heard bovs say they were made drunk before they could walk; and your doctors will tell you some children are drunk before they are born. (Some ot \ the audience began to laugh, and Gipsy Smith con- tinued): Can you laugh at it? 1 cannot. It is enough to make angels shudder to the tip of their wings. Children drunk before they can walk, and drunk before they are born! God Almighty, have mercy on such parents! What hope is there for such boys and girls— what hope? And I say to you men, you fathers, you ought to be right with God for the sake of your children. Go home to-night and gather them around you and begin to pray. Spend tlie evening with them. It will be worth spending the evening instead of going to church in learning how to pray with your children. You have never spent an evening so practically in your life. You men ought to get right with God for the sake of your boys and girls. Aye, and for the sake of your wife! Some of you married a girl that was a Christian when you married her. Where is her religion to-day' She belonged to a church when you married Ler, and you dragged her away from it. She was pure and beautiful when you led her to the altar, and one of the most lovely things that God ever gives to a man in this world, next to the Cross, is the pure love of a pure woman. And some of you men promised to take care of that beautiful gift; that you would be faithful to that gift. "Have you kept that tow? Is she as beautiful to- day as she was then? Does she hold you as she did? Is she as attractive to day as that morning when GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 39 decked with orange blossoms? Or have you forgotten your vows? Have you broken those ple^Iges" Have 01 lo elf?"' "^" ""'' disappointed, and hungry foi e that never comes? Is she stanMug to death amids splendor? Is there a storm beneath L smile ::"t : T'\'. '''''' ^-^^ ^^ - ^^« throne, and ; YoT«? ^M ?' "^'^ """^^ -^"^ remember some day. sake o?^h . ""'* "''' ""''' '"^ b-t^-' f- th'e ak that woman in your home; she has some claim on ..ou. It would be a beautiful thing if you went home to-day and s'l id- '\v,-f« 11 fe '^ .>"" went Gnrl' w I, .A ^^'^^'^l^'"'e given my heart to God ^vould not there be music in the home? Would not here be old memories revived? And wou d no bo things that have been hushed and chilled for so long have a resurrection. And would not spring-aye umnier time from the hills of God break ove'r Zt ad to,? rZ •': '"' P"* ^""' ^""^ -«-^ ^- neck and told her that you had given your heart to God and meant to live for Christ? And that thing m. y happen if you are man enough-it may happen You sake, for your children's sake. You must get right with God or your own sake, and you must Jet S of yo u b other men, and you ought to get right with s^ou. I believe God has golden columns in glory where He writes the names of men and women .ho het o save His world, and I want my name in that column and you can begin now, if you have never begun, to belp Jesus to capture this whole planet for Himself .^0 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. and have your name written in that column. God help you to begin! (J, the joy of leading a soul to Christ! The joy of being a coworker with Emanuel, and the exquisite joy of entering into the joy of the Lord when a sinner comes home! I have lived iu that work so long that I think I should die if I got out of it. Let me give you a little picture: 'AN INCIDENT IN SCOTLAND RELATED BY THE EVANGELIST. A year ago from the beginning of last month I was conducting a great mission in Aberdeen, in Scotland, in the largest building in that city. It was crowded with people every night, and there was a great crowd outside, too. I should not have got in myself but for the police, who helped me through the surging crowds in the street. There were 3,000 inside and just as many outside. It was a cold, snowy night and two policemen in front of me and one at the back were steering me through the gangway, when I felt some- body tugging at my coat. I thought it must be some one trying to get in with me, for it is a good thing to hang on the preacher if you want to get in, and it has often been done with me. I took no notice for a few steps, but it became so emphatic that as we passed beneath a lamp post I looked to see who it was. There stood a little Scotch lassie in rags in the cold, snowy, sleety street, under that lamppost. I stopped, and said: 'What do you want, my dear?' She pushed toward me a piece of tissue paper, all damp, where she had had it in her hand and squeezed it a good deal and she said: "Please, sir, I have brought you some candy," and I took my hat off and said: "My darling, yfhj have you brought me some candy?" "Oh," she l h- GIPRY SMITH'S SERMONS. 41' said, "we have got a new daddy. He has never been soher till Saturday. I have never seen him sober but we have got a new daddy. He is a Christian now ' He wa,s in your meeting on Saturday. We have a new daddy and I have brought you part of my candy." And didn't I put my arms around that wee little thing in rags, and didn't I thank God as I stood there that I had brought hope and joy into the life of a little child. Men, it was worth living a lifetime for the joy of that one moment. Can you take home a new daddy. Will you take home a new husband? Will you take home a new son? Will you take home a new heart? Blessed be God, this may happen today! It may happen to-day, If you will only surrender your heart and life to Jesus Christ, open your heart to Him and say: 'Lord Jesus, make my heart Thine home; take my life, take my bitter past; take my wrong and all I am and straighten things out and forgive and help me to be a new man, and help me to live for Thee." God will hear that prayer and it shall be answered— and it may be an- swered now. Let us pray. 42 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. HAVE YOU LOST CHRIST? At Plymouth Church in the evening he talked to his hearers, many of whom were members of the church straight from the shoulder. He took his text fiom the second chapter of St. Luke, wherein is related the losing of the boy Christ by his father and mother and their finding of Him, after search of three days, m the Temple, arguing with the doctors and the teachers "Christ was lost by the one person in all the worm most unlikely to lose Him, and He was lost in the one place in the world where it would seem He could least be lost. He was lost by His mother, and in the Temple." . ,, Then, switching quickly to the application, the gypsy cried: "riaye you lost Christ? Is He as real, is He as dear to you to-day as when you first set out for the kingdom? Call a halt! Turn your eyes inwardly for a moment, that you may see the needs, the awful needs of your own soul! Do not be angry, that won't help matters! Don't be annoyed, don't be irritable when God the Holy Ghost, sends a messenger to make you look at matters as they are, and not as they ought to be! _ '•Mary lost Christ because she 'supposed He was in the company; and many of you have been living as Mary was living part of those three days-supposing, supposing, supposing. You have been on the everlast- ting tramp; you have been afraid to get alone, you haven-t been honest enough to face facts, and you have GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 43 lost Him and you know what that awful loss .s, aye, this minute. "It will not do to live in this state. There's danger! "The most unlikely person was the one todose Him, and she lost Him in the most unlikely place, the Tem- ple. And— Hear it! She found Him where she lost Him. So will you. "Calvary is very exacting. Listen! Listen! David found His Lord in confessing the sin in which he lost Him. Mary and Joseph had to tramp back to the Temple, where they had lost Him. The prodigal son found his father in the old homestead, and when you seek the Father in His home you will find Him. "But it is the conspicuous tramp backward that you don't like. Some of you sing: 'Where is the blessedness I knew When first I met the Lord.' "Where is it? It is where you left it— where you left it and nowhere else. The thing must be dealt with that came in between you and your God. And if you try to conceal that thing, to avoid it, to shirk it, you'll never succeed in finding Him. You've got to confess it, for that's the thing you've got to talk over with Him. Mary would never have lost Him is she hadn't 'left Him.' It's the first step that causes all the trouble.' IF JESUS CHRIST CAME TO SOME CHURCHES TO-DAT. "I wonder," said the evangelist at another point, "if Jesus Christ came to some of our churches to-day if He would be a welcome guest? I wonder if He came if we should recognize Him? I wonder if He ^STTry^wv^-.tta^ U GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 45 came to some cburch where tbere wasn't a pastor and preached, if He would be invited to fill the pulpit? I wonder if we should know Him? "My brother, where do you stand? Have you been satistied with the grand procession, the beautiful sing- ing, the magnificent oratory, the social status and the financial success and forgotten Jesus? Your magnii5- ceut building isn't much if Jesus be out of it. The temple is poor that Christ be not honored in. St. Paul's is but a pile of masonry if Christ be out of it, and my poor gypsy tent is a cathedral if Christ be in it." That Gipsy Smith's talk struck home just as straight and just as strong as his more impassioned appeal of the afternoon was attested by the fact that fully as many as arose and asked for prayer in the daylight service stood on their feet that night, and by so doing admitted that they bad lost Christ and sought to find Him again. Between three and four score left their seats jnst before the close of the meet- ing and made their way to the vestry room, where they were met by Mr. Smith, Dr. llillis and two or three score of active Christian workers. The evening service was fully as great a success in its way as was that of the afternoon. Mr. Smith spoke to men, to fathers and husbands and sons in the afternoon. At night he spoke principally to professing Christians. For each he had a peculiar message, and to the hearts of each audience he drove that particular message home. THE evangelist's SERMON AT PLYMOUTH CHURCH. Gipsy Smith said: You will find the words which I will take as my text h in the Gospel by St. Luke, chapter 2, reading from the forty-third verse. "And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought hira amongst their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not they turned back again to Jerusa- lem seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him they were amazed; and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house and about my Father's business?" I want to speak to you about a subject which may alnrni you when I anounce it. It may sound a little silMniing. It is the subject of "A Lost Christ." Wr •,f;id nf the Saviour of lost things, but here you re;;"' -^« in t^e cob: pan,. But what zs the use of supposing? It wou't nrulTr ^"PP°^'^'«"« spiritually. Your soul de- n .u ds facts, lour soul demands more than a bless- ^»g, It demands the blesser. Your soul cannot live .nVct;st"'.r "" ^^"*--"t-- " "-d« Jesus, the liv- ' t.i , ; ^ '°°'^''^^* ''""S P'-e^ence of a living as a supposttmn. And the danger of all people who go to church and profess love to Jesus is that we sup- po^e 00 much. We allow spiritual things to drift s the certainty of religion. They "supposed he was u. he company." However Jesus was absent, an^ Zhaln ' "°^'"^- '' °"S^^ ^^^^^ been a tri- ^ad been at the head of it? What is the use of the Of o" nr^r '' '""^ '' «"* «* ^t^ What is the go d Of our paraphernalia about religion if Christ is absent. Many supposed He was in the company, and He was away back in Jerusalem. "WODLD CHRIST BE WELCOME IF HE CAME TO-DAY?" Samson wist not that the Lord had departed from Inm, and here is a whole church full of people, a whole church membership, all the official board, mi^st r n the New Testament in Revelation), a whole church hat had ost Christ, and nobody seemed to knot It. And they had a church meeting and came to the conclusmn that they were so rich, l learned, so c'l GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 49 tilled that they actually needed nothing, and God said : "Poor, blind, wretched, ignorant one, behold I stand at the door and knock." Christ knocking at the door of a Christless church! They lost Him and did not laiow it. I wonder if Jesus Christ came to some of our churches to-day He would be a welcome guest. 1 wonder if He came whether we should recognize Him. I wonder if He came to some churches if He would be invited to fill the vacant pulpit. I wonder if we should relish His ministry. I wonder if we should recognize the Lord we profess to worship. I wonder if we should know Him. We have been living so out of touch with Him for such a long time that we should not know Him if He came. My brother, where do you stand in relation to these great things? Have you been "supposing?" Have you been satisfied with the grand procession, and the beautiful service, and the lovely singing, and the mag- nificent oratory, and the social status, and the finan- cial success and forgotten Jesus? Listen! It is all poor if Jesus be absent. Your magnificent building is not too much if Jesus be out of it. The temple is poor if Jesus is not in it. St. Paul's cathedral is noth- ing but a glorified quarry if Christ be out of it, and my old gypsy tent is a cathedral when Christ is in it. Christ makes the temple. Christ makes the procession. Christ 'makes the service. Christ makes the song. Christ makes the sermon. Christ makes the prayer. Christ honored means heaven below, but if Christ be lost then it is mockery and blasphemy. And so I feel like saying, "Lord, it is better that I should go through the world with one eye if Thy light and guide be but nigh; it is better, oh Saviour Divine, to lose this right 50 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. Imiul of mino if Tl.ou put tl.o other in Tliino. Tbou only makest me complete aud to limp, to lunp; to be lame forever by Tliy side were more sweet than walk ing alone on both feet. POSSIBLE TO LOSE CHRIST IN MANY WAYS. Christ completes, glorifies, transforms, makes heaven below; and to lose Him is hell. And the first person to lose Him was His mother; the most unlikely person to lose Him was His mother. Now, will you notice, please, that she lost Him in the most unlikely place. She lost Him where people generally go to find Him. She did not lose Him at the theater. She did not go there. She did not lose Him getting drunk. She did not drink. She did not lose Him in the divorce court. She did not lose Him while committing any extravagant vice. She did not lose Him away off with the giddy multitude, that dishonors God, that rejects God that defies Him openly in rebellion. She was not with the crowd. Listen! She lost Christ in the temple. Why have I said these things? To show you that you need not be an extravagant sinner to lose Him;" you need not be a sinner after the vulgar type; you need not paint the city red; you need not break vour mother's heart; you need not turn your fathers "hair grav; vou need not break any particular law of the stat'e— vou can sit in these pews every Sunday morning and hear this godly man preach, as I have heard him preach this morning; you may sing these lovelv hymns and apparently join the worship of God; you can come and go to the holy place; you can go "to the temple on the feast and fast days; you may be very rigid in vour conformity to the ordinances of the GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 51 church and jou may be in good standing with the rules of your particular denomination; you may be regularly at the week night prayer meeting; you may be very lovely and beautiful and admirable and at tractive and sought after and popular with good peo- ple; but if you are not careful, even in the midst of religious things, and in a religious atmosphere, vou Hm while I am speaking of Him, and that is the a.t thing ,n the world we want to do. But I know «ie possibility, for I know something about this ^^Kked heart of mine. I know its subtlety; I know tJTK'Z' """"^ ^' ^'"^ "" '«°g^^- "^^Pt than we are l^ept by God. You may lose Him in the temple; you luay lose Him in Plymouth Church. In the temple tlie las p ace in the world! In the verv presence of Jesus Christ. You may be so taken up with the ser v.ces; with the man with the voice, with music; vou may be taken off from the main thing and tur"ned aside after something else not essential,'and you may e tbe face of the Lord Christ. Be careful.'be care^ ful. It IS not the man: it is not the message; it is not he method; t is not the church; it is no? the build ug, It IS not the purpose-it is Christ, and Christ "Thou, Christ, Art all I want, 1 More than all in Thee I find." QUESTIONS WHICH EVERY ONE SHODLD ASK OF HIMSELF Have you lost Him? Have you? Come, now look into your heart and forgive me if I command yo^' For give me, if as a messenger, I try to make ^ou think for a moment or two. Have you lost Him?" Is Zt =a ?>' 52 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. as dear to you as vv'ben you first joined the cliurch? Is He as' precious as wheu you first saw Him? Do these things mean as much to you? Is there the same passion, the thrill, the esctasy? Are you enthused about these things, as you were? You ought to be a little more. Are you as much? You should have grown; you should be walking on the heights, with measured step, with God. You should be sitting in the "heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Have you lost Him? Have you drifted? Are you in an uncertain state? Don't you know what you are? Have you got cold? Is there doubt and fear and gloom and sorrow? There ought to be; and there will be if you have lost Christ — there will be. Where are you? I pause that you may think; for you do know, you do know. Have you had an interview with your Lord lately? Have you had any real, unbroken fellowship with Him lately? Have you gone aside with Him? Have you communed with Him face to face, heart to heart, as friend with friend? Is He as real as when you first set out for the kingdom? You know. You know. And God sent this message to call a halt; to make you turn your eyes inwardly and let you see for a few min- utes the great needs, the awful needs of your own soul. Don't get angry with the message. That won't help matters; that will only aggravate. Don't be annoyed because God tries to arrest your attention and make you face facts. I beseech you, I beseech you, not to be irritable when God the Holy Ghost sends the messenger to make you look on matters as they are, and not as they ought to be, for a moment; but as they are; as they really stand at this moment. Some of you have been living just where Mary was living part of the time during the three days — sup- ^ GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 53 posing, supposing. You have supposed Jesus was here, and He was there. And you have supposed He was somewhere else, and you have been too much in the crowd. You have not taken time to think, to locate, to understand the situation. You have been afraid to be alone. You have been on the tramp, the universal tramp, and you have not been honest enougli to face facts, and you have lost Him. It will not do to live in this state. There is danger. The most un- likely person was the first to lose Him. Listen! And she lost Him in the most likely place, in the temple. And hear it! She found him where she lost Him. Bo will you. Calvary is very exacting. Listen! David found his Lord while confessing the sin through which he lost Him; Mary and Joseph had to tramp back three days' journey, and they found Him where they left Him — in the temple. The prodigal son found his father in the old homestead. He had not left it, and, believe me. He is still there, and when you go back to where you left Him you will find Him. But it is the going back; the weary tramp home, that some of us don't like. It is this conspicuous march that some of us kick against, and yet that is the only way. And just as sure as you are a man and are listening to me at this moment you will lind Christ just where you left Him. Some of j'ou sing sometimes: Where is the blessedness I knew When first 1 knew the Lord? NO SUCH THING AS DODGING THE QUESTION. Where is it? It is where you left it. And you need not think you can dodge God. You cannot. You need u GirBY SMITH'S SERMONS. not tbiuk you cau bribe God. You cauuot. You ueed uot think jou eau shut God's eyes. You cannot, you cannot. But everything must be dealt with that came between you and your Lord, and if you cover that thing up and say nothing about it, and try to act on the sly, you will never succeed— you will never find Him; you have got to talk about that very thing and confess it, and forsake it and put it right as far as lies in your power. Mary's blunder was that she left the temple without Him. She would have been saved her three days of misery if she had not done that. The first step caused the mischief. When first I began to preach I was only a boy, and a man who bears a very honored name in the Christian world to-day took me aside soon after. 1 had left my gypsy tent and he said, "I suppose you take a few minutes each night before you sleep to pray and to square off things for the day,'' and I was rather surprised, and said to him, "What do you mean?" "Why," said he, "I suppose you take a few minutes before you go to bed eacli night to get on your knees and square up for the day." 1 said, "No, I don't; I dare not." "What do you mean?" said he. I replied, "I have to square up as I go along. If I waited till night my burden would crush me. I dare not wait a day. Three days would kill me. 1 have to go to God every moment, moment by moment. Three days without Him! How long have you been without Him? Three days? Three weeks? Three months? Three years? O, my God, without Thee! A soul without God, without Christ and without hope! Why that must be a foretaste of hell, for I can perceive of no worse hell than the loss of Jesus Christ. Have vou lost Him? Listen! You must come back GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 55 to the spot, to the hour, to the thing, and talk to God about that very thing. Mary had to go back to the temple. She was his mother. And if you are to find Him you must go back to where you left Him. When I was in South Africa a flue, handsome Dutchman, over six feet high, came into my service and God laid His hand on him and convicted him of sin, and the next morning he went to the beautiful home of another Dutchman and said to him: "Do you know that gold watch?" "Why, yes," said the other, "those are my initials; that is my watch. I lost it eight years ago. How did you get it and how long have you had it?" "I stole it," was the reply. "But you were my friend?" "I stole it and have worn it." "What made you bring it back now?" "I was converted last night," said the other, "and I have brought it back the first thing this morning. If you had been up I should have brought it last night. TO WANT CHRIST ONE MUST WALK HIS WAT. You will have to go back. Are jou willing to take back that unkind word, that slanderous, libelous word? Are you willing to tear up that letter in your pocket that you know you have no right to. Are you willing to break off that unlawful friendship? You will have to do it if you want to find Him. If you want Christ you must walk in Christ's way; you must do as Christ wants you to do. You must do what He can smile upon. Are you willing to do it? You will have to go back. I know it is not easy. It means aching feet and an aching heart. It may mean a bleed- ing heart, but you will have to do it if you want peace. There can be no peace until God is put in His right 5G GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. place, until Jesus is honored. Will you seek Him and put Him there to-night? Will you close your eyes to the multitude and give your soul a chance? Your soul is prompting you; your soul is demanding; and conscience with its finger points, points, points back to the living wall, called memory, where the pictures hang, the pictures of the past. And conscience is say- ing to you, "Look, look, look!" And that conscience is God demanding that you listen and that you obey. God help you to obedience this night! That is the way to find Him. While preaching in Aberdeen a year ago and con- ducting meetings, I took lunch one day with a mer- chant, a Christian man, and he said: "There is a lady here who wants to see you before you leave the house." I saw her alone and she said: "Last Sunday I sat on the platform three chairs away from you, and it seemed as though every word you preached was meant for me, and when you gave an invitation for those who wanted Christ to rise I stood up. I believe I was the first. You asked those who had risen for prayer to leave their seats and go into the vestry. I stood there and said to myself, 'I cannot go there. Everybody knows me. I am one of the best known women in the city and they all suppose I am all right'—the suppos- ing comes in again— my pride would not let me go and I did not go." I offered to pray with her then, but she said: "That won't settle it. I am coming to the meeting to-night early enough to sit in the same chair, right where the devil defeated me, and when the invitation is given I am going to stand up before the 3,000 people, and when you ask us to come to the inquiry room I am going there, and I am going to con- fess Christ and get the victory." You should have GirSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 57 seen her. She did not wait to be asked. When she came out of that inquiry room she had found her Lord right where she lost Him. She glorified Him. She confessed Him openly and went away with joy in her soul. And you may do the same when you do as she did — when you go back to the place where she lost Him. Will you do it to-night? W^ill you do it now? In the next few moments hundreds of people in this house may find Jesus. O, Holy Spirit forbid that any- body should go away supposing, when they may be sure. Let us pray." 58 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. I THE DOCTRINE OF REPENTANCE. OirsY Smith preached tbo Doctriue of Repentance ill I'lyiuoutli Church, and he preached in no uncertain manner, and in no gentle manner. (iipsy Srnilh has not yet pointed any easy way to saivatiou. He has declared that he knows of none. He points a way that is difficult, perhaps, but he points it clearly and he points out even luore clearly the absolute necessity of following that way, straight though it be and narrow. The evangelist who has already stirred the spiritual depths of Brooklyn is unique in many things. He doesn't rant. His language is that of an educated, of a cultivated, of a refined mind. His voice is delightful to the ear and he does not work on the theory that noise brings salvation. He is earnest and he is force- ful — no man engaged in evangelical work to-day is more so, but the force is in his words and does not rely for its structure on volume of sound. His sermon was of the type that Spurgeon was famous for. It bad nothing to deal with flowery beds of ease, with salvation made easy, but it dealt, fearlessly and vigorously, with the need of repentance uuder salvation, and it stirred those who heard it mightily. And it brought men and women to Christ. Many rose to signify their desire for better lives and scores remained for prayer and talk with the evange- GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 59 list and his assitants. In the gallery, while the heads of the big audience were bowed in prayer, there rose to his feet a well dressed business man who had come to the church with his wife. "I thought I was a Christian," he said, "but to- night I'm going to start all over again." That was the efifect Gipsy Smith left upon bis auditors, and it was the same efifect he has reached in each one of his meet- ings, each time in a diflferent way. Gipsy Smith doesn't handle his subject with kid gloves or with any other kind of g!ovant being willing to be a fool for Christ's sake, to be misrepresented, slandered and abused; it meant walking alone, to be ostracised, to be bated for His dear sake; it meant resisting unto blood, striking against sin ; il meant tears and loneliness; there was a place on the map called Gethsemane; there was a day in the calendar called Good Friday, and there was another day called Easter, and there was no getting to Easter if we tried to dodge Good Friday. Coming to Jesus, being a Christian a quarter of a century ago meant business, it meant a life, a life lived in har- mony with the Eternal. What is it now? It is a pic- nic. It is a social. It is an endeavor. To join a church taking communion is a mockery, a caricature. May God open our eyes! Remember, remember, this gospel of repentance holds the field till Jesus recalls it. He has not recalled it, and therefore I am going to preach it. And one of the reasons why you have got such a sickly, sentimental crop of so-called be- lievers in the churches who can get up enthusiasm for a fancy fair or a lecture, but are not there when there is a prayer meeting and they are conspicuous by their absence when Christianizing evangelism is on hand, is because they were not born right. They skipped the main business. WHAT A SPURIOUS REPENTANCE MEANS. "A spurious repentance means a spurious Christian life, and the man who dodges this dodges everything. John came preaching repentance and they put him in GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. cr? jail for it. They did not like it, and if some of yw get up and go out mad while I am speaking I shall know which one I have hit. They got mad af John for preaching repentance. They did not like it, and they put him in jail. "Listen! As soon as John was put in prison Jesus took up John's doctrine because it was Christ's before It was John's. Jesus took up the same theme when John was silent, and He was in Galilee and His first public sermon in that part of the world was on re- pentance, and He knew where to begin. He knew. The first public utterance of the Son of God in that part of the world was, 'Repent ye,' Oh, for some John, the man m camel's hair coat and iron girdle, with tlie iiery tongue and the flashing eye and the thundering voice to stand somewhere in Brooklyn and New York and in the cities of the world— with" a voice that com- mands, shouting with his might, 'Repent!' for that is what is needed. I wish I knew how to do it. And if you care to look at the last words Jesus spoke to the world before He left it, when He got the mark of the nails in His hands and feet up yonder on the moun- tain and was about to leave His disciples and go back to Glory, yon will find He gave the commission to preach repentance; so that in His first and last ut- terances we have got 'repentance.' And when He got back to the throne, as though He had not said the last word about it, and as though He looked down through the ages and saw that some of us would shrink to preach it— it is far easier to congratulate than to expostulate— as though He knew that some of us would shrink from proclaiming the whole counsel of God, 64 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. A SOP TO SOOTHE THE CONSCIENCE, "He looked out of the clouds and said to a man called Saul, 'Saul, jou go to the Gentiles and make them do works meet for repentance—make them.' Jesus never made it easy. He did not say 'only be- lieve,' and the Bible does not say it. And the man who says it preaches a mongrel gospel. It is a sop from the pit to soothe the conscience, only say- ing '{)eace when there is no peace.' Peace, while the world is in anarchy! Peace, while the heart is in rebellion! Peace, while God is defied! Peace, when I have dethroned the Infinite! No, sir, there never can be, peace until there is a cessation of hositilies toward God; until occasion for war is put away. You need not bother your head about peace; the Kingdom of God begins with righteousness, and then peace. Right first, and when a man gets right with God his peace will flow like a river. (Cries of 'Amen! Amen!') My friends, we have been more anxious to count heads than hearts, and there are thousands of people in America called backsliders, who never were front- sliders. Don't you label yourself when you are dealing with these things, but allow God to put His own labels on, and don't you go ahead of Him! No, let me say it again: If the repentance is not genuine, everything is false. And so at the beginning of these davs, I want, if I can, to clear the ground, for there is a good deal of vague misunderstanding about this mightv doctrine, and I think it is enforced over sixty times in the New Testament and all the epistles were written to show men how to repent. We ought to know, but alas! many of us are ignorant as to what the word means and what Christ means when He says: 'Repent.' GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. (i5 I said, just now, that Jesus never made it easy. Let me prove it. Here is a man who came to Him saying: •What shall I do to inherit eternal life?' and Jesus said: 'Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor, and follow nie.' He went away. It was not easy. Here is another man who came to Him and said: 'We know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do the things thou doest except God be with him,' and He said, 'You must be born again,' and He could not make it easy even for a master in Israel. Here is another man. He said: 'Lord, are there few that be saved,' and Jesus said: 'You save yourself; you strive to enter in, you agonize and struggle to enter in at the strait gate.' Here ia another: He was one of the popular sort that is moved by anything and carried away by emotion, and he says: 'Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goesl,' and Jesus knew he had not counted the cost and He said : 'The foxes have holes and the birds have uests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.' As much as to say: 'If you are going to follow me, it won't be easy.' One day, when it seemed as if the multiude would be dis- ciples. He stopped and held up a cross (for that was ever the test), and He said: 'If any man will be my dis- ciple, let him deny himself and follow me.' THE STRUGGLE TO LEAD AN HONEST LIFE. "Jesus never made it easy, and let any man in the house who has tried honestly for twenty-four hours in his life to do right tell me if it is easy. For me it is a struggle, it is a conflict, it is a fight, inch by inch, and the best days, in ray own estimation, are poor, for I spoil them with some rudeness; I stumble 66 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. a thousaud times where 1 ouf^bt uol ; but God knows wheu I stunible, I stumble with my face toward what 1 would liUo to do. But it is uot easy, it is not easy. Eut, blessed be (iod, there is victory in the struggle. You say, "Repent, what is it for?" 1 must repent, and yon must repent, and the man who does uot will never know what God is and what Christ is and what the Holy Spirit is, and what salvation, joy and peace are. You will never know unless you come this way. This is God's unalterable plan for saving men. What is it? you say. First, it is uot conviction; you can be convicted without repentance. It is one thing to be called at 5 o'clock in the morning and another thing to get up. It is one thing to be awake and another thing to arise. It is one thing to see your duty and another thing to face it and do it like a man. It is one thing to have light and another thing to have life. It is one thing to say, "I know the right," and another thing to say, "1 am honestly seeking to do it." And God took the trouble a while ago to awaken some of you in your moral light. It was dark, very dark, and He awoke you— you were awake. And to make sure. He struck a light for you when He illum- inated your judgment and He said, "This is the path I want you to walk." You were awakened; you were convicted; you were alarmed; you were concerned; your conscience was aroused; you knew you were wrong; you were made to smart; you could not sleep; you shed tears; you could not rest; you were mightily moved on account of your own sin and your own state and your own condition. God, the Infinite God, took the trouble to awaken you, to convince you, and had you submitted, had you paid attention, you would "have been a Christian. But, listen! You killed, you GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 67 «(ifled, you resisted, you fought against it; you said, ^No ; you rolled over and went to sleep again. But you were once convicted, and you remember it to this day, although you are gray-headed; you have not for- gotten that conviction. WHY DO MEN PUT CHRIST AWAY? "There are others of you who have been living in that state for years. You never hear your own old pastor but you say, 'He is right, and I might to be a Christian, and I should renounce my sin and give up this thmg that is holding me and enslaving me, bind- ing me, stealing away my manhood and killed the best in me. I should give it up if I were manly enough.' ixit you go on in that state. Yes, you have conviction, but that IS not enough, conviction is not repentance ^Vhat is it, then? It is not sorrow for sin. You may be sorry in a way without repentance. The young lawyer was; but he was only sorry enough to go away without Jesus. And, remember, he wept. But be went away without Christ; and do not think your tears count if your heart is in rebellion. Some people can weep over a sermon as they weep at a funeral, weep at a play, at a sentimental story, and because their tears are handy they think they are half in the King- dom. ^ Their tears are an insult to the Deity until thev submit to His command. Something more than tears IS needed. And do not whisper sweet little messages to yourself because your heart is soft and you can cry and your emotions are easily set going; that you " cannot be in a very bad state, because you are in a very bad state until you go and sav, 'Lord, Thy will be done in me.' Until you get there God says, 'Why 08 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. bring your vain oblation; whj bring your tears; I am weary of them, weary of them. Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.' No, sorrow is not sufficient. What is it, then? Listen! It is not promises to be better. It is no emotion. It is not excitement. It is not sensationalism. It is not hanging after evangelists and evangelization. It is not tramping from church to church to hear a man speak or sing or pray. There is something infinitely better than all these things. It is not church fellow- ship or communions. It is not self-elected work. It is not getting busy about religious things. It goes deeper than all these things and it should precede all these things. It is tht one great, deliberate act of the soul. It is the command of God to be willing and obedient and it is the response of the awakened intelligent, redeemed soul to the call of its God. WHAT REPENTANCK IS. "Listen! In Bible language it is turaing, turning from sin to God, from sin to God. That is repentance —•from," -to.' It is putting your hand on your heart and getting hold of the thing that has been your curse, the enslaving passion, the captivity, the pre- dominating force in your existence, the blackening thing, the hellish thing, the damning thing of your soul and dragging it out— by the hair of the head and saying, -There, Lord Jesus that is it, and I will die before I will commit it again. I turn from it now, and forever.' That is repentance; that is Bible re- pentance. Listen! Have you repented after that fashion? Don't talk about being a church member until you have done this, for it is an insult to God to GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 69 talk about church membership until you have. Which is the first thing? The first thing is to repent. O, Holy Spirit, help us to be honest. Listen! Repentance is such a beautiful thing that when a man does it, Jesus says, 'There is joy in heaven.' Have you re- pented after this fashion? I dare not make it easier; the Bible does not. We must put God in His right place. We must play at religion no longer; we must begin to live it. A REVIVAL AMONG THE WEALTHY. "On one of my trips to your great city I spent, aa some of you will remember, nearly six months in New York. Hundreds of people were converted. One morn- ing I sat at the breakfast table of a very wealthy family. The wife, a splendid Christian woman, who bears an honored name and does great work in this country for God, said, 'Brother Smith, I wish we could do something for the rich women of our city. Some have been to your meetings, but the majority are afraid to go. I have an idea: If you give a few meet- ings especially for them, privately, in some drawing room, I think if they were invited by letter they would come.' And we arranged half a dozen meetings in one of the mansions in New York City. I went to the first meeting with a good deal of fear and trembling, but my fear soon vanished when I saw waiting for me 175 women, mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of the wealthiest men of America (and I know no difference between millionaires and paupers when I am preach- ing my Master's message.). "I took for my text 'Repent ye,' and at the close of the service a bright voung mother came to me and 70 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. asked to speak with me. We withdrew into one of the baj windows. Her tears, fell like rain, and she said: If what you have been preaching is the gospel, if that is religion, then I am a heathen. It is true 1 iun a church member, but I have no knowledge of righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. (I had been emphasizing that.) '1 have no Holy Ghost within. I live as these women live. 1 am one of the 'swim,' and we are living for the gi-atification we can get out of our money— the theater, the race course, the ballroom, the swell dinner, the euchre party. What have you to say?' I said: 'God has spoken to you; obey Him,' and ^e parted. She attended every meet- ing, and when the last one came, after the benedic- tion a lady got up and said: 'Mr. Smith, our men folk want to meet you. Will you give us an afternoon They have heard us talk about you and have expressed a desire to meet you.' 1 replied, 'You can have my rest day— Saturday,' and I arranged to have a raeetmg with the men and women. They came as if to some brilliant social function, decked out in their jewelry to see this gypsy boy, and I took them where they never expected to be taken— to a gypsy tent— and I showed them a father and five little, motherless chil- dren, without hope, without God or a Bible, with no- body to love or care for them. Only an old gypsy tent, a gypsy father and five children. And then I tried to "show them how Jesus came down into that smoky tent and cast it into loveliness until it shone like an old cathedral, and how out from that tent has gone all round the globe a stream of blessing that has enriched the world and made it a little more like what it ought to be. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 71 ': THE CONVERSION OF A SOCIETY MATRON. "For these children are trying to preach the gospel, and I saw there men move like a field of corn, and just as I was about to close the gentle lady of the house rose and said, 'May I speak?' I said: 'You are in your own house, speak,' and she said: 'You know me. I am no stranger. I was born with you and grew up with you. I became a mother with you and you know that I have lived. I have been with you to the theater and the race course, but you will never see me there any more, for Jesus has come to me and He satisfies me. You may keep my company, but if you don't I know it will be hard to bear. My choice is made. Christ for me, Christ for me.' What made the difference. She turned from sin to God. Listen! She enthroned Christ; she put Jesus where He ought to be in her heart. And that is repentance. God help everybody here to do it this night. Let us pray." 72 GIPSI' SMITH'S SERMONS. THE MOVING OF THE WATERS. The lesson ou which Gips.v Smith based his talk to the audience that crowded Plymouth Ch 21 pool of Bethesda, crippled and without friends-th. man who, when the waters became troubled was nee h.t tharthere r "'^'^ '' "^°^^ «^^^^« ^^' P--d"d uiui mat there was no room left Unto the man Jesus came on the Sabbath day and hat he arise, take up his bed and walk. And the man whr^adrertr"?^'^"^ ^^^^^^^ '^« *^^ -' - tho^: wno had seen the happening remonstrated wi h the nan, telhng him that it was unlawful that hi should take up his b<'d ou the Sabbath o^i.. 7 ^^.^ to go and sm no more, lest worse things befall TUe reason, .aid the gjp,y, was just the .ame reason GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 73 as explained why so many of his hearers hadn't been to a prayer meeting lately. There are pools, he said, in Brooklyn, pools of sin, of sorrow and of suffering in sight on every hand. One reason for this, he said, was that many of his hearers, didn't know how to pray. "How often," he cried, "do you take your child aside and pray with him. You pray for him, but why don't you pray with him? He asked how many of his women hearers ever prayed with their maids, and reminded them that their maids are not cattle, but possessed of souls. He told, affeetingly, of how he learned to pray, long before he knew how to read; of how he would take his Bible, the first book he ever had, but which he was then unable to read, to some secluded spot in the open, and there and then, his Bible before him, sometimes, perhaps, held upside down, and pour out his soul to God in prayer for guidance and help. Then, for a moment, he was the gypsy again, and held his auditors enthralled with a word picture of the beauties of a rustic-England April. But he brought it to something of an anticlimax by asking his audit- ors what they would think of him if he should stand ia the midst of such glories with a paint brush and say: "This is spring." His application of it all was that when once his hearers were truly born again it would be unnecessary for them to declare the fact or to label worth of a soul; if we understood themselves, as if would be apparent to all the world. The Plymouth Church talk by Gipsy Smith was, with the possible exception of his magnificent appeal to men the Sunday before, the most powerful he had made so far in the campaign. Yet at each service he seemed more powerful than before, and so manifest 74 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. was this fact that he brought back audiences night after night, and those who heard him one night were among the earliest arrivals on the succeeding night. Dr. Hillis spoke of the great annual Free Church Council, representing 20,0U(),00() i^ople, which con- venes in Leeds, England, and he suggested that the audience approve of a cablegram which it was proposed to send to the Council, which is the great body under the direction of which Gipsy Smith works. The cablegram, which was approved by a unanimous raising of hands, was as follows: "Rendle Harris, Leeds, England, Free Church Coun- cil: Union Mission in riymouth, representing one hun- dred churches, send fraternal greetings to Free Church Council. Missions under leadership of Gipsy Smith in Boston, (Jhicago, Brooklyn, indicate a pro- found religious awakening in America, and we joyfully recognize the increasing influence of Free Church prin- ciples in America and England." GIPSY smith's sermon AT PLYMOUTH. Gipsy Smith said: "Let me read to you a verse or two, on which I desire to speak, in the gospel by St. John, chapter v: 'After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, there is in Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, a pool which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having live porches. In this lay a great multitude of sick folk, blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the waters.' This is a won- derful story. And I want you to remember that Jesus had been up to Jerusalem before. This was not His first visit. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 'Now, there GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 75 is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool.' kWhy con- nect that pool with Jesus? Jesus had been heard and seen. His words were causing a great deal of stir and movement. His words were attracting attention. It was not His first visit. And when I know that, and think about this storj-, this question arises in my mind. Why did not the people of the city interest themselves a little in this pool and the people around it? Surely they knew something of the suffering, something of the pain, something of the agony. Surely they knew some- thing of the agony. Surely they knew something of the tragedies of broken lives and withered bodies. Surely the people who lived in the city, the people who went to the temple and worshipped, believers in the city, the people who held responsible positions in the city — surely they knew. They tvere not ignorant of that pool. They had seen it; it was in a public place; they knew all about it. It was there. Why did not they concern themselves in this mass of misery — this conglomeration of suffering? These broken bodies and weary limbs and weeping eyes? Surely the people of the city did know. And if they didn't they ought to have known; and not to know was cruelty, and not to care was worse. And to take no step to- ward alleviating that huge mass of suffering and dry- ing its tears was diabolical. Surely these people knew what was going on there. Listen! And when I read that story in the light of that fact, another question arises: Why did not these people in high places, these religious people, these monopolists of the religion of the day — why did not they go to Jesus and say, 'Here, Nazarene, we have no use for you, but go down to the pool. We can show you something that will keep you busy. Come to the pool.' M V •.■ ■;■»/>■■ 70 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. " 'Here are blind people, lame people, witUered peo- ple, waiting for a chance, waiting for the healer, wait- ing for somebody to give them hope. Come down here and see what you can do?' That seems a reasonable question. Why didn't they do it? Listen! Why didn't the people in Jerusalem care enough to do it; feel enough to do it? For the same reason that you Chris- tian people have not been to a prayer meeting lately. For the same reason that you church members have not got on your knees and prayed for the pools in Brooklyn — for the blind and the lame and the with- ered in your own city, for there are just such places all around you. And if you do not know where they are it is because you do not want to know. And if you have not takep the trouble to find out it is because you are so preoccupied about other things tliat you do not care about the King's business. And if you have not heard sighs and sobs that have rent your heart, and ,f you have not seen sights today that made your eyes shed tears; and if you do not see .Ztl daily that rob you of sleep aud rack your b.'iin and -ake your heart ache when you think of a , t ad to think or pray or understand or to learn the genius of the cross and the heart of the gospel. PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO PRAY ho7So' tt"' 7 'r '™*''"' *^^* ^^ ^' «°t know "ow to piay. We do not understand what praver is We say a few prayers, but God calls it 'much sneak >ng.' We touch the door of mercy with the t p end of o- fingers, and then in kid glove fashion ' If we realized what sin is and the great throbbing GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 77 pulsating power of the gospel of Jesus Christ we should pelt heaven with our prayers and get on our knees and refuse to get up until heaven opens and the city is taken and captured for Jesus. We do not know how to pray yet. If I came to your house could you show me the place where you kneel for family prayer?- Family prayer is beginning to be a lost art. If I came to your house and said 'Bring the Bible you use at family prayer' could you do it? Could you show me the place on the carpet where you kneel once a day to pray? Could you show me the spot? How often do you take your child aside and pray with him? You say, 'Oh, I pray for him.' Do you pray with him? Because nothing breaks the heart of ungodly souls like praying with them. Do you pray with j-our maid? Your maid has got a soul; she is not a chattel. Do you pray with your maid? Have you religion enough to do it? Do you expect to see your friends and neighbors and husbands and wives and children converted if you do not pray? Do you talk to them about these things? Are you con- cerned, interested, infatuated with the business of getting hold of the hearts of one and the other and bringing them together, of being the medium between the lost soul and the seeking Christ? Are you so grieved when you see the people godless and prayer- less that you have to speak to them about the things of God; death, judgment and eternal life? « LACKING IN THE SPIRIT TO PRAY. "Listen! That is the spirit of the New Testament; and that is the spirit of Calvary, and that is the spirit of Pentecost, and that is the spirit of the epistles. That is the spirit that you and 1 have to get if we are 78 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. in do anything for Ghrisit in I'.rooki.vn or Now Yorii or anywhere else. We mnst bave the spirit which will pray. I could pray long before 1 could read my ISible, for I was not (aught to read it as you were. "But I could pray, aud I did. The lirst book that was given to me was a Bible, and in those far ofif gypsy diiys, as a little noiuad, a little stranger, when I could not tell A from li, I used to open the book under a hedge or a tree, or in the corner of a field — and very often it was the wrong way up. But that did not mat- ter; it was all there, aud I used to kneel down beside it and pray this prayer: 'Oh, God, I cannot read Thy l>ook, but would you fill ray heart with its spirit.' Aud the Lord heard that prayer long before I could read a letter; and I should not have been where I am to-day if I had not kept up that sort of attitude, and I have tried to cultivate the art of living in an atmosphere of talking to God. And, men and women, you will have to get there if you are going to be of any service to God and humanity. You will have to pray. The weak spot in our religious life today is the power to pray. Y'ou can fill a church parlor or a lecture hall for a semi-dramatic entertainment or leotiires or concerts. Y'ou can till any place about a religious buildiug for world-things, but, oh, how slow to come together to pray. Is it not so? The weak spot ought to be the strong one in the church of God. She was born in an atmosphere of prayer, aud when she loses power to pra}' she has no right to call herself a church. Do you love the peace of prayer? Why did not these people go to Jesus and say, 'Come, Blessed Jesus, down to the pool?' Why did not some of their friends come to Him? Surely those people had relatives in the city. Why were they not concerned? Simply because they GIPSY wSMlTH'S SERMONS. 79 were indifferent. The same spirit takes possession of us and just as soon as professing Christians fall on their knees, just as soon as that will the revival come in overwhelming force. That is how it came to Wales. 'Oh, Lord, teach us how to pray.' CHURCH MEMBERS NOT ALL CHRISTIANS. "In the midst of a series of meetings in Lincoln City a woman was converted, tremendously converted. "She had been a nominal Christian, a nominal church member. Not a Christian, because there is a difference between a church member and a Christian. You are not a ChriA^tian because you are a church member. Y^ou are a church member, if you are one, because you are a Christian, if you are a Chris- tian, and if you are only a church member you are not a Christian. But j'ou are not a Christian until you are Christ's man, till you are born again, till sin is given up, and you have no right to that holy title until you are Christ's man, Christ's woman. And you need not label yourselves. When you are born again everybody will know it. If you and I went to England, I could take you to some of those lovely vales, and in the early springtime the birds, the skylark, the linnet, the thrush aud the chaffinch will be singing the songs of angels wrapped in feathers, the flowers will bloom and burst forth; everywhere there will be color, perfume and blossom as if God had broken up a rainbow into atoms and scattered them at your feet for your pleasure and enjoyment. What would yon think of me if I stood in the midst of all this with a paint brush saying, 'This is spring?' When God's spring comes in the soul you do not want a paint brush. Everybody knows it. Y'ou need a paint brush / i 80 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. when the spring is not there, and that is why some are so particular in saying, 'I am a Christian.' If you were one you need not talk about it, we should see it in every word and thought and deed. It shines like the light that breaks over the cliff tops of eternity. O Ood, let the light shine! And this woman was a nom- inal church member. CONVERSION OF A NOMINAL CHDBCH MEMBER. "I have heard that word 'nominal' so much that I got down a good dictionary to see v^hat it meant, for 1 have beard pastors say, 'I have so many nominal mem- bers.' "The word 'nominal,' in the dictionary, means 'un- real.' And she was a nominal churcb member. I have not said that to make you smile. I said it to make you think. That woman was converted on a Sunday night. She was the mother of six boys, and on Mon- day she brought one of them, on Tuesday another, on Wednesday another; on Thursday, I think, she brought two; and on Friday she brought a motherless youth of 17 who lived with her. On Saturday night there was a testimony meeting, and I heard her get up and speak. Her face was a study; it showed something of the blessing she had got within, and she sairj:' 'God has dune great things for me this week. He saved me last Sunday, and I started to pray for my boys and hus- band. He has saved five of my boys and this mother- less youth. To-morrow my husband will be saved. He is a blasphemer. He does not know I have been pray- ing for him. He and my first born will be converted tomorrow; God is going to give me both. If He does not (holding up her Bible), this Book is not true. But I know, I know God will save them both to-morrow.' GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. Rl I cannot tell you the thrill that went over the bouse when that woman's faith, so triumphant, made that statement. I said, 'Let us pray,' and the meeting was dismissed. The next morning the husband left his sig- nal box on the railroad at (i o'clock (he bad been on duty all night), and when be got home to the cottage in which be lived he said to his wife: 'Let me have some breakfast as soon as you can. I want what little sleep I can get this morning, for I am going to hear that man, Gipsy Smith, both afternoon and night.' His wife said: 'That is right; we have been praying for you.' 'For me?' 'Yes, all this week. God saved me last Sunday, and 1 have brought five of the children into the Kingdom, and we have been praying for you,' 'For me?' 'Yes; Gipsy Smith prayed for you last night, and all the church said "Amen." 'What time was it?' 'It was half-past eight when we were praying for you.' The husband replied: 'At half-past eight the line was clear. I had nothing to do for a little while but to tbiuli, and I thought of my children and of the wicked life I have lived, and something spoke to me in that hour in the signal box and said: 'You ought to be a Christian, for your wife's sake and your children's sake and for your own sake,' and he said: 'About half- past eight I threw myself on the cabin tloor and I l)rayed the God of my mother for mercy.' That woman's faith gripped her husband and gripped God, and brought them together; and that husband is a Methodist local ])reacher today. THOUSANDS IN BROOKLYN WHO NEED HELP. "Why did not these people come to Jesus? They were blind and could not see; they were deaf and could 82 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. not hear. Aud so Jesus said to oue man, 'Friend, wouldst thou be made whole?' and the man put the wliole case into a nutshell and he said, 'I have not any- body to help me." And in Brooklyn, the City of Churches, there are thousands of men saying the same thing. You are churchgoers. Are yon spiritual? You are religious; are you soul-winners? You bear the name of Christ; have you Christ's spirit? Y'ou call yourselves by the holy name; are you walking the holy path? You take the cup of communion; are you bear- ing the cross? Y'ou would be insulted if I called you a heathen; are you beneath the weight of a withered world helping to lift it a little nearer to God? That is the Christ spirit. Have you got it? The Chiist spirit concerns itself with the suffering, the sorrowing, the dying, the blind, the sick, the lame, the lost, and it seeks to bring it all back to the Father heart of God. Are you doing that? Y'ou know, you know, and God knows. "Now, turn the picture around. Is not every church in Brooklyn a Bethesda? Are there not the same three classes in this church and in every church in Brook- Ivu— the blind, the halt, the withered. I find them everywhere, and especially in churches. People who do not see, and, what is more, they do not want to see; they do not want to be disturbed, they do not want anything to interrupt them. They would rather you cried 'peace.' Blinded by the god of this world. Ave you one of them? Are you conscious of your need? 1)0 you feel your desperate condition? Do you see your sin? Do you see it in the light of the cross, because that is how God sees it. He sees sin from Bethlehem to Golgotha. That is the measure of your sin. Do you see it as God sees it, in all its blackness, hideous- GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 83 ne.ss, damning, iiaralyzing power? Do you see it? Do you feel it? Because we shall never understand Gal- vary until we sound the depths of our own sin, and wheu we have got a vision of our own sin we shall cry out for a Saviour. Are you blind? Do you understand your own state? I think if we did, men and women, there would be such a cry run round this building that the people in the street would hear us. I think if we felt our sin as God sees our need, I think we should get on our knees and forget everybody in the building and cry out 'O God! save me or I die,' and nobody needs to pray that prayer more than I do. 'Save me, or I die.' Are we blind? Remember, that you may see. BACKSLIDERS IN THE CHURCH. "And then there are the people who are lame in the church, the people who are up and down, you are never sure of them. Sometimes they are up and all right and then down. You never know. Sometimes they are within sight of victory and then they are down again below the fog, living in doubt, gloom and fear and shame and misery. They are lame. They always want a spiritual hospital. Is that your case? Spiritually maimed? And then there are the withered. Withered! What does that mean? A withered arm is bad enough, la withered limb, but a withered soul! A backslider. Useless, lifeless, dropping, hanging, a burden, a weari- ness. Withered, dead, twice dead — a backslider. There are two backsliders: The public backslider and the heart backslider. The heart backslider keeps his position in the church, but he is the more dangerous and a greater hindrance to the church than the public backslider. Y^ou know how to treat him. It is the M GIPSY SMITH'S SEKMONS. ttian in the pew that is the menace to the church of God. Gome out of your hiding and get right with (jod. "The blind, the halt, the withered. Here they are all about us, and if you get them to face the truth they say: 'I expect it will be right, some day. I am waiting I am waiting.' 'What are you waiting for?' 'I am waiting for a revival.' Well, get on your knees and the revival will begin. These waters are moved. They have been moved since Jesus died. The waters of life and the rivers of grace and life eternal are at your feet, withm your reach, and you may step in and God's tide. If you will let it, will lift you out of sin to God. The Lord help you to step in! Some of you have been hanging on the edge of the pool so long that some of ns would give you a push and have you iu, but we cannot we cannot. When the waters were troubled It was the one that stepped in that was made whole and when Jesus came to this sight of misery He said to that man: 'Arise!' and he had to get up. And your salvation depends upon your obedience to the divine command, and while you wait you will never be saved Inactive you will never know victory. Sit still and never take the step toward Ood, and you will never get there You may wait until Doomsday and get no better, lou get better by movement-obedience re- penting, surrendering, confessing. God help us to' get a httle nearer the cleansing fountain, the moving stream the healing waters, the life-giving Christ this night, this night. "Brothe^ where are you? Sister, do you know this Saviour.^ He ,s here. He is nearer than the seat on which you sit; nearer than the friend beside you- nearer than the handkerchief in your hand; neare; GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 85 than the tear that fell from your eye on to your cheek just now. Close your eyes and speak to Him. Say to Him: 'Lord, Jesus, make me whole. I want to be whole. My poor withered, lame life; my poor, broken heart; my checkered career, my poor misspent past, my sin. Lord, thou knowest all about me. Thou art the Saviour of men and my Saviour. Save me now.' The good Lord will answer that prayer if it comes ifrom the heart quicker than it takes me to tell you about it. The Lord helps you to put Him to the test this moment. In this place— now. If thou wilt seek Him with all thine heart, He will say to you, as He did to this man, 'Sin no more, lest worse things befall thee.' " 86 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS, A TALK TO YOUNG MEN. Tmo aiidiencp Unit crowded every inch of old Ply- month Ohurch was distinctly an audience of young men. There were several hundred of them there and they were much in evidence in the congregation, par- ticularly in the galleries. TEXT OF THE PLYMOOTH SERMON. Gipsy Smith said: " 'And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho, and behold, a man called by name Zaccheus, a chief publican, and he was rich, sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not, for the crowd because he was lit- tle of stature. And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that ■way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said unto him, Zaccheus, make haste, and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down and received him joy- \ fully.' The first verse of the nineteenth chapter of St. Luke. "I want to speak to you about this wonderful meet- ing between a big sinner and a great Saviour; and if you want to see Jesus at His best you want to see Him face to face with a great sinner. Jesus never looked so wonderful as when He was dealing with a case that in the eyes and thought of other people was absolutely GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 87 hopeless. And I want you to just notice two or three things about His visit to Jericho. It was a wonderful moment in that city, when Jesus passed through its gates. More wonderful than the people in it realized. If their eyes had only been opened; if they had only known the psychological moment Jericho would have given a different reading for its history. But He came to the city, passed through the city, and the people did not understand it. And this moment is as momen- tous in the history of your city as that moment was to Jericho, for Jesus is passing through Brooklyn. Mind how you act. Mind what you do. Be careful how you treat the Divine visitation, for you too may be writing a story that will pulsate with a gladness indescribable, with a joy that may vibrate until heaven shall feel i«t and the very angels of God shall rejoice over the story. "Listen! God has brought us together. These men of God feel that some of us have had very little to do with these arrangements, that have been made for us, and God has arranged that you should come and listen to these words from my lips, because He has a Divine purpose. He means your betterment, your ennoble- ment. He wants to save you from your sin, and make a man of you. He wills to deliver you from the things that are destroying the purity and nobility of your nature and character — things which are eating out your manhood, and speedily but surely robbing you of life itself, and separating you from the God of the whole earth. God has a purpose in bringing us to- gether. Don't play the fool. Don't you frustrate the Divine purpose, for Jesus comes to cities today as much as He went to them then, for He has not turned humanity loose in the wilderness to die. He comes as much today as when He was on the earth. 88 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 89 ■ine great heart of Gnrf in the return of those who ,',' "^'"^^'■'«' ^^^™« fo^ f '-es. And becau'eHe e,rt w ^''"^^^^ray and God do not see God in this 11 ! ^"^ ^'''- ^'"^ '^' 7°" «^ this world hith birde?: ''"''^^^"^^'*'^'^«°<^ vision yon wonld see G^d fn ' ' "'"'■' '' ^^^ ^ad the light of the cross and I "f ''"'^ ^'"^ ^* '^'^'^eath -" it. Ton wonld not oaH th^. ^^" '^^ ^''^ ^^'^ «'«^k ?^ ^- had a vision tOavar7"v" ' ""'^ '^P^^™- '" the wing of the snarrow -^^ "" """""'^ «ee God ^-- there is no spanCX •?'" '"^ '" ^'^^^ ^'^^^l'^- funeral. Yon wonldT^e Go^ ?!" '''^ ^''' *» *he of the sunshine as wel as ^n '" ''' '''^^"'"'■'^ «^i°g '-tion if you had you e ' rT'""' '' '''' '^«"«t'^' would see God in the dai J!' " f^! f'^^* P'^^e. You without He stoops to S'hl .'^ '^^''^ ^«^« "^t grow f"i as nu,oh as in'theb olon'o ''' '"^ '"''" '* ^'^-'"■ ^ou would see God in ev .".f^nr^^-'^ - «P-.. heavenward in the sun.hin ^™'' "^^t poiuts -^' "f the rainbow "rtir T"'' '^ '" ^^^ ^P--*^- God has made all these thin^' '^ . ^'"^ '* '^ because and all these things 'oil? ..'' '"'" ^«" «"d for me, has got son^ethinle'ter fn ' ^'"'''' ''''' ^hat He n^ore important. ''*' "' ^"^^ ^^^ "obler and far "My brother liaf«r,r t theSavionrof ien -sL ' •"''"'' *^^ ««« ^^ God hour, we spendlg"; ,"r"-'*^'- -'^ *his night, thfs a« that moment wal ti S' f '° "^P*^^^ "'-"-'"S- hour -ttle business, that .^n^S^' '^ ^ 't you may eternity. Por in this moment *''* "' ^'°^^ and -'" ^'orify God andtrt riidTtt "''"^^"'^^ - ^""" a throne. Mind what you do. Jesus is coming your way, coming youv way, coming for you, for you. I wonder what you w.Il do when yon have the opportunity. I wonder if you will be as wise as this man, this Zaccheus, this publi- can this rich sinner, this best hated sinner in the city this most despised sinner in the city-I wonder Av , the same time the smaller sinner and the biggest sin- ner of the city. I wonder if you will be as wise as he was All the sermons I have ever heard preached about Zaccheus made Zaccheus to be the embodiment of curiosity. He was more than that, and it is not fair if that is all you can see in this man. Ion don t do him justice. Jesns never treated a curious man as He treated this man, or an idle, curious spectator as He treated this man. ZACOSEUS AN EARNEST SEEKER AFTER CHRIST. "I believe Zaccheus was an intelligent, honest, earn- est seeker after Jesus Christ. I am not so sure that he did not bear John the Baptist say 'Behold the Lamb of God ' I am not so sure that he was not waiting tor this opportunity. I do know this: that he acted like a man who had counted the cost, who had thought the whole question out, like a man who knew what he was going to do when the opportunity came without hesi- tation or reservation, and instantly, and forever after he made the acknowledgement that makes a man Christ's man forever. He sought, and every man who finds will have to seek, and no man finds without seek- ing and what is not worth seeking will never be found A man too lazy to seek will never find, and a man who wants to know God will have to put all there is into the business or he vvHl never find or know no GirSY SMITH'S SERMONS. Him. To liud Uml nu'iius heiul luul heart and heels. If a inau wauls God lie innsl use them all. It is uo good to sit aud slug about the 'Sweet by aud by.' You will never see it, never come within seeing distance, and I am afraid we say all sorts of sanctimonious thiugs to ourselves where there is uo such thiug as seeking and enrreudering and conformity to the will of God. Zacclieus says, 'I want to see this man, this wonderful Saviour, this Jesus of Nazareth,' aud he came out with the crowd, and when he got where the crowd was he could not see Him at all. He was handi- capped in his birth; he was a small man. If he had been as tall as some he might have stood a chance with the crowd, but he was small. Lots of people can- not see Jesus because of their meanness. They are circumscribed. They are dwarfed, very much so; circumscribed. And some never had a cliance. They were born wrong; they were handicapped at the start with a love of drink, and gambling lust in their blood. A TERRIBLE THING TO BE STARTED WRONG. "Hundreds of little children in your city are born of half-damned parents. God pity the children who are brought into the world by drinking parents. It is a terrible thiug to be started wrong. And this man could not see Jesus because be was little of stature. Fancy the richest man in the city doing what he did to get a look at Jesus. Hut it is the man who is prepared to make himself conspicuous, who is prepared to be laughed at for Christ's sake, who is prepared to shut his eyes and ears, to be deaf and dumb and put bis fingers to his ears, like Bunyan's Christian — that is the man who gets the^-e. And this man, away back in GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 91 the crowd wanted to see Jesus enough to run. We have not been able to get some of you to crawl to Jesus. You want to be carried every time, you want a carnage. I do not know what you will want to bring you to church. You will want the church brought to you. If you come once a day you think you have done wonders. You are 'oncers'— half timers. One meal a week satisfies you and then you think you have honored the preacher and that he ought to feel highly flattered that you suffer his presence for an hour on Sunday morning. You do not know God and jou do not know His Gospel. Y'ou do not know or you would never allow yourselves to feel that way. May God open your eyes. But this man ran— ran. He outstripped the crowd. He wanted to see Jesus enough to climb a tree. Think of a rich man doing that— up in the top of the tree and shouting to the first man that comes along, 'Tell me where I can find Jesus.' If you could see a man doing that now you would think there was something doing in Brooklyn. I am not saying that it is essential to climb a tree, but I admire the spirit that makes a man so far forget himself, bis position and reputation, in his longing enthusiasm and infinite hankering after God and eternal life, to do anything in order that he might see. THE SPIRIT THAT COUNTS FOR SOMETHING. "That is the spirit that lands us near the blessing. I want you to notice a very striking thing: Zaccheus got in the tree, saying, 'This is the place. I am sure I shall see Him now, right on this bough. I cannot be hindered by anybody. I shall see Him.' And Jesus, who saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, came along the GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. to tne p dce. What place? The place where there ~.LZTn T' '"' '''^' ^^'-^« — tt L-^>. I' ? °°'^'' ^'^^''^ t« seek you who come in w th a burdened heart, you who corue ia v^th the ear une luan can do a lot when he is in earnest This " otTeT T"^""'^ "'^ "■"^'^- ^^^ ^« - ter ot the situation. He becomes the center of force and attraction and Jesus s-,id fo. LT .u best aidf. nf Vnr 1 , '"^""^ baid— tor He knew the mlT^lTr 1 ''"'''''' ^'' ^^'^ ^^ liked a good you andfrf "''/ ^"^ '°"""^ '^^"^^ t« dinner ;ith you and that won him, that won him. 'I am goin. o ab.de with you this day. Come down. Make haste for ^loo^rdir'^r"^"^""^^-' «"PPo-^- iiau Jooked down on Jesus and said, 'Master I live at tare Jd 7,. , ''''°'? ."' '""'■ ■'''"■" ■•"<"' "»"I<1 ments towa.d the redemption of the world I nm ™,a.clp«e., .„/„ee, and"? 1.' « r^T..?!" J nnishtd. Come down, make haste, for GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. f;l today I must abide in thy house.' .\nd Zacclieur- made haste. He showed his sense. He made haatc-. He did not stop to 'confer with flesh and blood' or fo/ any excuses or hide in any subterfuge of lies; he matio haste and came down and he received Him joyfully. THE REDEMPTION OF FAMOUS MEN. "Zaccheua did two things; He sought and he sur- rendered, and the man who does that will be saved. And the people around said, "Oh, he is a sinner. Don't you know he is the worst in the city?' 'Yes,' said Jesus, 'but he is a son of Abraham.' It is the different way love looks at things. The Scribes and the Phari- sees saw the sinner; Jesus saw the sinner when Christ had had a chance. They saw an object for hate. Jesus saw a man, and loved him and said, 'He is a son of Abraham.' And Jesus sees more in you than anybody else, my brother. Your friends see the worst. The city sees the worst, and that is all. God sees the worst but He sees also the possibilities, the capacity, the spark of divinity in you that will live on and on and on, when planets go out like sparks from the black- smith's anvil. God sees in you something worth sav- ing. A little while ago the world looked upon an old drunken sailor, and that is all the world saw. A drunken sailor, and God looked at him and saw some- thing else, and saved him, and his name was John- Newton, the theologian and poet. A little while ago the world looked upon a swearing tinker, and he said of himself that when he began to swear his compan- ions sliuddered. A swearing tinker, and God looked at him and saved him, and his name was John Run- yan, the immortal dreamer. It takes love to see that. 94 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. TWO CONTINENTS ROCKED TOWAKD GOD BY DWIGHT L. MOODY. •'A little while ago there was a young niau in Chicago helping in a shoe store selling shoes and boots. A man who never was able to read much more than a Bible and never could write a letter with any ordinary school boy of IG, and when the Lord took the trouble to save him, and the church he offered him- self to saw so little in him that they made him stand aside for a year before they would accept bim, and his name was D. ]j. Moody, and- Moody put one hand on America and the other on Great Britain and two continents rocked toward God. It takes love to see these things. A little while ago a young man in the City of Gloucester, England, was helping his brother to sell wine and beer and spirits, and God looked at him and saved him. and his name was George Whit- field, the mighty preacher. It takes God to see an angel in the marble before the mallet and the chisel have touched it; it takes affinity of the eternities to see a picture on the canvas before the brush has touched it; it takes God to see the best in the world and He does — He does. CHRIST S VISIT TO THE GYPSY TENT. "A little while ago He looked upon an old gypsy tent where there was no Bible, but there was a father and five little motherless children, without hope and without God. Nobody cared. Who cared for a gypsy man and his motherless children? Yet they were all hungry for love and sympathy which did not come to GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 95 ; them. Church ministers and church people passed by that old tent and saw nobody but nomads, despised and misrepresented and hated. But Jesus looked into that smoky tent, and sometimes I have thought I heard him say: 'There are six brothers in there; the world does not know it. the churches are ignorant of it, but I will make them preachers and the world shall hear,' and He put His arms round them, and this is cue of them. It takes love to see. Oh, Zaccheus, Jesus saw more in you than anybody else. Poor lost soul! Because He loves you Jesus sees more in you than anybody else, and He would give that spark a chance. Don't you thwart Him to-night. He comes, He comes with heaven's benediction. He comes with an open door for you. He comes with all the power of the God head for you. Don't thwart Him. Let Him save you. Let Him do His best. God help you! A STRONG PLEA TO FATHERS AND MOTHERS. "Listen! Zaccheus took Jesus home with him. That meant something for everybody in the home — wife, child. Aye, my brother, that is how it works. Salva- tion came to this house. It means everybody when you get right — everybody in the home. Listen! Do you live in a house where they never pray? Where you never pray? What chance will your children have? ' God save any child from the blight of a home where they never pray. Let salvation come to the house. Brother! Father! Take Jesus home with you to- night. Mother! Take Jesus home. Zaccheus did. You may. You will give God and the angels a chance with your child and your wife, your husband, when you take Jesus home. I stand where I do to-night 9C GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 9T because my father gave me a chanoe when he brought Christ home to that gjpsj tent "ii'u^uc J "ff^r; Z-"""'"' '"'''''''' «P*^° ■^«"'' my father died drunk and I was made drunk before I could walk just to see what a drunken baby was like.' I tell you what I ^ ,, do if I had my way: I would set flre to every distillery in the universe. (Cries of 'Amen,' fYes Yes.') He went on: 'I was born with it in my blood; I was born with the devil in me,' I said: 'You can be born again, and this time with the devil out ' lou must not tell me you can't be a Christian. You are not held responsible, because you are a sinner you are not held responsible-that is not the word, th,s IS the word I want: You won't be damned because you are a sinner. You won't be shut out of heaven bec'ause you are a sinner. If you are shut out it will be because you are fool enough to refuse God's remedy -that s the point of controversy; 'Light has come into ^nJfii' r"" '"""'^ ^"'■'^"^^^ '■'^«^^'' than light.' true to "t' ''""'' " '' ""'' ^'"^^ ^° ^"d, it is not true to say, 'I want to be a Christian and cannot ' That IS as much as saying 'God is making demands on me possibility ;_ and if He were doing that, He would be a monster instead of a Father. And I will not hear my Lord hbeled. No, that is not the reason; it is no a question of 'cannot.' "And then somebody else said in a letter I got 'I should be all right if I had a little more light' No Brooklyn, and all New York, and all America and the whole round world, enough to save a planet if you ouly obey ,t. You are not tied for want of light; you GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 113 are tied for want of honesty. It is not honest to throw the difficulty back to God by saying: If you lo^d only give me a little more light I would be a Christian.'' You hnow it is trne._ If you were hone with yourself you would say : 'It is because I have go Tomet^hing in my heart that I am not -^^nT^o'e render' It is only a pretext to say, '1 want_ more lioht ' There is something which you are hanging on t; which God hates, and which is your course, and you know it. And somebody else said, this morning: Oh t yo" only knew my doubts. 1 have not faith enoug^i Now listen! it is God who commands you to believe tsu's is surprised at your want of faitli and wonde^ how it is that you cannot believe, and the Holy Ghost t gi en to inspire your faith, and all the victories o he Church of God down through the centunes ought to help you believe, and yon have got the capacity for faith u t as much as I have and I can prove it You have faith in that seat. If you have not get up and let one of these friends standing up here have it. lUey will 1 ave faith in it. It is not true to say yon have To fS No, thrust down into your heart and get hold of your doubts and drag them up by the roots nd you' will find that the roots are sins that you we been hanging on to and are willing to give up That fs"e basis of the whole mischief aiid not wan faith it is want of obedience. Now, listen! While at te^t is written and flung out with ^H the Pat o^^ and beauty of Calvary and all the S'-'y ° ^'^^^^^^^^ vation, and God is behind it, you must no tell me that t is n<^t your fault that you are not a Christian: 'Who^ It IS not yo ^ .^ ^j^^ ^j^^^g^ of soever will, let mm. n j ^ a a t^^ ctnv there despond it is because you are contended to « ^^ ^hem If you are a bad man it is because you are contented 114 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. to stay a bad man. If yonv breath is not as lovely as the air of a spring morning or the perfume of the roses in June, or as fresh as primroses in April, or as the dewdroj), it is because you are content to let the devil crush yon and a sin to spoil you and a world to damn you. You are contented. If you had the soul to assert your manhood and stiffened your back, there is no power in earth or hell that could keep you from Jesus Christ. 'Whosoever will.' SALVATION DEPENDS UPON THE WILL. "My brother, I am afraid we have emphasized the word 'whosoever' without emphasizing the word 'will' because salvation depends on the will. Repentance, as I tried to show on Monday night, is an act of the will and not of the emotions. It is not sentiment; it Is not sanctimoniousness; it is not a kind of humbug; it is the moral awakening — a turning round from wrong and facing right and saying, 'I will do it. God helping nie,' or 'I will die in the struggle. Whosoever will, let him come.' No, if sin beats you, you are a party to it. If driuk enslaves you, it is because you are con- tented for it to be so. If passion holds yon in its grip, and unmans and robs you of purity and strength; if you are crippled and paralyzed by sin, you consent every time. No man sins until he consents. Do you know what the devil said to Jesus, and he had to make the same appeal to Jesus as to you? 'Cast thyself down.' Why did he say that? Because he knew he could not cast Him down, and the devil has to say that to every man, and every man who sins casts him- self down. And if you are not a happy, useful Chris- tian man at this moment, walking with measured step GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 11.'- iu the light with God, your life made beautiful as the rising moon or the sun-kissed heights of the Alps, then it is because you love darkness and sin. You love the impure and the worldly and the sinful. "I want you to see that it rests with yourself, and Jesus is asking the same of you, and He has been asking it for a long time, and if your ears had been open and your eyes a little clear and you only went near enough to the river that makes glad the city of God, and washed the meanness and dust out of your eyes, you would have seen Him ere this and you would heave heard His sweet voice saying, 'How oft would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, but — Imt ye would not. Ye will not come unto me — ye will not — that ye might have life' and when a man wills he gets there. David got there, the prodigal got there, the poor blun- dering Peter got there and I believe — listen, I believe if Judas — if Judas had come back, he might have got there, too. Remember this, there was not much differ- ence between Judas and Peter up to a point. During the same night the same hand and the same towel and the same water were used for both of them, Jesus, who washed the feet of Judas, if he had come back, would, I believe, have washed his heart. But he did not come back, he would not. And if a man is not washed it is because he prefers to be dirty. Whoso- ever will may be clean. Don't you blame my Lord; don't you blame my Master; don't you blame the bles- sed Holy Spirit; don't you blame God's ministers; don't you blame the church; don't you blame the Father, who loves you; if you are not a good man or a good woman, it is because you are content to be a bad man. I think I am putting the case properly. 116 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. because God Las made such ample provision that the worst, the vilest, the furthest off, the lowest, down may come to Him; and there is no reason yvIij every man and woman in this city should not go awaj from this place under the smile of God, and there is every reason why you should. Don't try to say anything to the contrary; don't whisper an excusing sentence, or any opiate, if my words have got your heart for a moment or aroused your conscience. Let me say a^ain that the conscience may lose its guilt and stain 'and love of sin and the awful memory of the past, at the toot of the cross this night, if you will surrender if you will submit, if you will meet the conditions-if you will you may. If you won't, God Almighty cannot help the catastrophe. He cannot save you against your will. Oh, I pray you, I beseech you, let this be the night when angels-listen! from the battlements ot the skies hear the breaking of your chains, the snappmg of your fetters, and let the angels shout for joy as they see you marching out of the prison house of your sin into the liberty of the people of God Let it be now. SALVATION FOK THE VILEST WHO WILL. "Did you say you are a long way off? You can come home if you will. Do you say your friends have given you up? You can go home if you will; God ia not against you. I do not care how aggravating your case may be; I do not care how vile your life has become. Love only waits to forgive and forget Oh that every heart in (his house would say, like the prodigal, 'I will'-and mark how prominently Jesus will put the word in that lovely romance of grace 'I i GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. lit, will arise and go to my lather.' '1 will.' Your heaven depends upon that 'will,' and when a man will m> power can stop him. THE GREAT REVIVALS IN ENGLAND. "I think at this moment of a poor fellow I got hold of at midnight in England. I started the church, under God, to do mission work under exceptional cir- cumstances, and it is something to be original in Chris- tian work. I set them working at midnight. When my friend, Dr. Dawson, was here in Brooklyn, he told you something about that work. I got hold of all sorts of sinners, swell sinners and ragged sinners, and I have seen as many as 2,000, more or less, people standing drunk in one service and any one of them would sing me a solo or make a speech, sometimes a dozen at once being on their feet, but they were just the sort I wanted to deal with. If you want to prove your gospel you must bring it down to the cases which seem absolutely hopeless to the human mind. One night a swell came in fresh from a dinner with an eyeglass— a window thing— in his eye (laughter), in evening dress and silk hat in his hand. 'Why,' said he, 'these are not sinners, Mr. Smith, they are so well dressed.' I said, 'My dear sir, some of the biggest sinners we have ever known were dressed as well as you ' 'Oh,' he replied, 'thank you.' On another occa- sion I was attracted to a poor fellow, down whose face the tears were falling. I saw him wipe his tears away with the ragged end of his coat tail, for sin had not left him a pocket handkerchief. The devil had strip- ped him of all that is worth having. By and by I got hold of him and put my arm around him. He said, \ 118 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 'Dou't speak to me, I am not fit to speak to. Pass on and speak to soniebodj else.' I told him that Jesus loved him and so did I. I prajed with him for two hours. I said all I could think of, then began to sing: There for me my Saviour stands. Shows His wounds and spreads His hands God is love — I know — I feel — "He was singing with me. He knew the hymn and we said the last line together. Jesus lives and loves me still. "I then learned that he was the son of a missionary I had known, but he had deserted his wife and little baby and broken his mother's heart. They had not heard from him for years. Well, I took hira home to my house and put him to bed. He told me his mother's address and I wrote her that I had found her lost boy. She sent me a telegram at once and then a let- ter full of gratitude. Alco found his mother and father and wife and little baby and afterward a mag- nificent position, because he found Christ." I J ^:4 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 119 WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP. Refreshed, strengthened, himself revived by the Saturday devoted in its entirety to physical rest, Gipsy Smith opened the second and final week of his evange- listic campaign in Brooklyn. Long before the hour set for the meeting in the Majestic Theater the side- walk in front of the playhouse was thronged, and when the Gipsy stepped on the platform he faced the greatest audience of his mission. More people crowded into the theater than it accom- modated that Sunday, and nearly as many were turned away. And that despite the driving storm that was out "of doors. Such leaven as Gipsy Smith planted the week before was not nullified in its effect by a mere outbreak of the elements. The Sunday before Gipsy Smith found his text in the words "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God," and the picture that he drew was one that touched and thrilled the hearis of his hearers; one that brought them, melted by Jesus' love to the penitent seat. That Sunday he found his text in the words, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life 120 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. everlasting," and the picture tha^ }, ^ tLat shivered and chilld " "e he tts o^T 7"' °" one that brought them in tZTi I ^'''''''' oning, to the feet of thl' n I I ^^^ meyitable reck- Justfce. '*'' ^°^ °^ ^''^'^-y a«d Love, yet of ''Whatsoever you sow" i,,> +1, you reap. You canno ^.de the" "'' "''''^* ^'^" avoid it! What von LTT '''""S' •^°" •^■^Mot 3'our life tololw wha "f'',".'" '''"' ''' ^^^^ - its eifeet on .ournk to da'?" ''" "^^^"''^^ ^^ ^^-^ po^^a^roMnTvUaKrr ^' ^^^"'^^^ ^^'^"'^ "'"-^ forms, and he f igttened""'"" •'' "' ^^"'« ^-•-- Hn..-ug, thrilling:tS,;--^-; -ivatio.. I„ ™ruTi '^'^"-^^- -^ >^en ti^eor '^' '-^ were in^ir^r^tt TndWr^^ ^"^"'^ ^^^^^^ - ^- claimed, his extended n! ''"'' ^'^""g^^^.r he ex- pointing steadnrafthr.haT'''^'-'"*' '"^ ^"^- whose inmost thou^ts he was LT' '"'''''"«' ^°"' rather be dumb, men thanT "^- "^''''^- ^'^ -ear and tell '^ir^^Z'Z''":^ !' T ^'' lifted, as there came ^,.J ^^ ^'^ '^a'^d up- not after .ourVa^ds I' r^JX''^ ^"f °^^' "^'^ God help me to win' them fL ChS?" ''^''^' ^°^ TH. S.HMO. .. ,H. KA..STIC XH^K. Gipsy Smith said • GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 121 flesh reap eorruption; but be that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.' 'Be not de- ceived ' It is time that every man shall prepare to face facts and to kuow-at any rate, whether it be unpleasant knowledge or not, he ought to be prepared to know this one fact: That God sees and knows him through and through; the worst and the best about ua; and that there is nothing hid from the Judge and Father of the earth. Do not be deluded. Do not live in a fool's paradise. As to your character, as to your private life and public life, as to your motives and desires, as to what you have been, and what you are to-day, and what you propose to be, do not be deceived 'God is not mocked.' God is no fool. You may foo one another, you may fool your neighbor, you may fool certain members of your family, you may tool your master, you may fool your employees, but you can not fool God. There is an old-fashioned saying, but where these things are concerned, that old saying is not true: 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.' There is danger in not knowing where life and death are con- cerned, where time and eternity are concerned; where heaven and hell are concerned, there is no danger There is the utmost folly iu not knowing and in not facing things as they are. Your own great Lincoln once said, 'You can fool all the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time ' and my brother, you cannot deceive God for a moment. God refuses to be bribed, God's eye can not be closed He • knows, it may not be pleasant to think and to feel, and to awaken to the fact that God knows me at my worst, but it is true. That kind of truth may not be pleasant to hear, but you must hear it while I am God's ser- 122 GirST SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 123 vaut and have power of speech. 'Be not deceived.' God is not fooled, for, 'Whatsoever a man sowetb' — listen! 'Whatsoever a man soweth,' whatsoever, that, and the word 'that' is as big as the 'wliatsoever,' and a little bigger, if you have imagination, for harvests are generally more abundant than the seed — 'Whatso- ever a man soweth, that shall he reap.' I may not reap it, he must reap it, for every man must bear his own burden and responsibility of his own sin — what lie sows, that he must reap. You do not gather grapes of thorns; you do not gather tigs of thistles; you do not come forth and scatter barley and expect wheat; you do not go forth and scatter turnip seed and expect a crop of rye. You look for liind; the same kind of any crop that you scatter in your hand from the seed box. You talk to your boys, you tell them that if they are studious, for that is the only way to get on, to be industrious and honest and work, and the father gives that kind of advice to the boys. You know that is true in the natural world — you see it in ten thousand ways, and the Apostle appeals to this fundamental and migliiy truth and says, 'What happens in the nat- ural happens in the spiritual,' and what you do to-day and what I do to-day will affect us tomorrow. What you did yesterday is affecting- you to-day, and what I (lid yesterday is affecting me to-day is one of the laws of life, and though I slept last night that law is not ch;inged, and if you will sleep to-night, it will not change the great, mighty unalterable law. WHAT SHALL THE HARVEST BE? "What you do to-day will affect you to-morrow, and if God ceased to be that law would go on. You will , : reap as you sowed. We sing sometimes 'What shall the harvest be?' Do you want to know what the re- ward will be when the judgment comes? Then look at what you are, settle what you are and know what you are doing. Pause and think: 'What am I? What am I doing? For what am 1 living? How do I stand in relation to this great Book, this revealed will of God? What am 1 doing with God and the precious life He has given me?' My dear brother, you have yet to settle the question what your harvest will be. Don't be deceived. This affects you and those about you; for every man lives, not unto himself, but he is living and affecting all those he touches. We are liv- ing not to ourselves; we are scattering seed that will bring forward the harvest that will be God-honoring, heaven-building, Christ-crowning, or it will be a harv- est of tangled thickets and poisoning weeds that we shall have to gather with bleeding hands and torn feet, for many a man in this house will have an acre- age of tangled thickets because of his own stupid, wicked, blundering folly. And it will be no use to look over the field and say, when it is too late, '0 God, I never meant all this.' No, probably you didn't, but that is your work and you will have to go and gather it. You will reap what you have sowed. "Take your speech; how can you expect to think purely and to talk pure language, pure words, music pulsating in your speech? How can yon expect to think noble thoughts, good thoughts, lofty thoughts. Godly thoughts, and work them out into words that will work in the hearts of our people when you read nothing but divorce news and you glory in telling smutty tales and are never so happy as when you are listening to a lewd story? How can you expect to ■ '^'^f^i?r%j;-';';-*5:V;;;««^^ 124 «"•«' m,rn; sermons. '"-k P"r.„ „,,„ , ■■■"^^"^a When tf """ "^P^^-t ^^^t'e ehidrl T"' ^^'^««"«aster? tZ Tr' '"^ "«t forget it /rrj^s- -'^ «-d, 4 u itii v]Je stories /* "l^^^^^cii to curse anri a„ ^«"ds, n.en, J a^'of '''''"'"■^ JamnotaJtp, ' I'^^i^youv hearth r •^*'"'' ^^«''t«- God ' •^^'"' ^^«rts. God ho p ;„e r"* •>'«"'' eo.scien;, ,td^^ '"'^ «« niy «onJ 1^ , *° '^'" both Th.,f !; ■''°"'" «f --id oa ■ ;;^ _^" -- 3'ou bae."^ ;:„rt - ^-^-^ «"e Wish and I ' ,;^^""««'-te™a, 1^ ^^T'"'' ™ Sunda!. V ' ""-^ ^»" «« for ;„,V ,'■»'' ""Stl '- "^"""""-pwtatj:/::;""'"""-. ^ CHILD WITH i>rrT ""«™-' 0„ rte 1 '" ™ ""'•■ GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 125 years old with the scissors, and she said to the child, 'What are you doiog?' and he said, 'I want to kill him. ■ It frightened the mother and she talked to the father about it, and the father took him to a doctor, and he took him to a specialist, and that specialist was my friend. He examined the child thoroughly and said to him, 'Why do you want to kill the baby; it does not hurt you?' And "the boy replied, 'I want to kill some- body" all the time.' And the doctor turned to the father and said, 'Are you a drinking man?' The father said 'Well, I do drink, it is true, but I don't often drink to excess.' The doctor replied, 'Well you drink. That boy will kill somebody some day. It is in his blood and your drinking habit is the cause of it.' You reap what you sow. Don't forget it. You are passing on what you are to the next generation, and God Al- mighty will hold some of you men responsible for bringing into the world assassins, murderers and cut- throats. Don't forget it. What we sow we shall reap. How do you expect to be pure when you keep the com- pany you keep? 1 would defy an angel from the sky to come down here and keep the company you do regu- larly and remain pure. How do you expect to keep pure if you live in the gutter and sewer of iniquity? I beseech you listen to the Spirit's voice to-day. Stop your fooling. Stop committing suicide, moral suicide; stop it. You know where you have gone wrong, and from the day vou took your first step downward, and you would give your right arm to-day to call back "that moment. Some of you know what it has cost you. You never slept for a night or two, and now you "can do the same thina; with impunity; you have be- come hard, careless, indifferent. That is one of the effects. That is how the law works. Some of you re- 126 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. member when God called 3'ou to a life of service and dutj' and consecration. God wanted jou for Himself. You remember wbat a struggle it was to say no. Tliat was tbe first step, wasn't it? Yes, but jou did say no. You did the same thing tuore easily the next time, aud now you are reaping some of the paralysis of the see oud death. The way of the transgressor is hard. TO-DAT THE TIME TO COME TO CHRIST. "When are you going to stop and give God a chance? If I had time I could tell you many stories; let me give you one case. In the city of Manchester, England, 1 had a dear friend who lived much for young men of the city. He gave up much of his spare time to work- ing among young men. He was a well-to-do merchant. There are hundreds of young men in that city and all over the world who owe all they are, morally and spir- itually to Richard Johnson. He told me this story: He said: 'I sat in my office one morning when the door opened and my son came in and said, "Father there is a policeman here who wants to see you." I said, "Bring him in.'' The officer came in aud said, "Mr. •lohnson, there is a young man dying in the prison and he calls for you; can you come?" I went witli him to the city jail and there 1 found all that was left of a young fellow who was the only son of his widowed mother. He had started life with all sorts of resolu- tion to keep straight. He had gone to the city with his mother's prayers behind him, his mother's Bible tucked away in his grip, and for a few weeks or' months managed to keep straight. But he was in one of the leading firms of that city and there were a lot of young fellows in the same place who made a wager GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 127 that they would get him drunk. I warn you young men, don't you rob a man of his religion or you will have a terrible reckoning. If you want a text on that pomt here is one: 'It were better for him that a mill- stone were about bis neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea than that he should offend one of the least of these. My little ones.' At last the young man fell to his temptation. He said to Mr. Johnson, 'Tbey called me a milksop and all the rest, and said that I was tied to my mother's apron strings.' Blessed string that keeps a man to his God! Holy string that tethers a man to the Cross, though it be but a mother's apron string. Tbe young man went on and said, 'For a while I struggled and I never ought to have yielded but one day I went to luncheon with them and took a glass of wine. Tbe rest was easy. I soon got to drinking heavily. I gambled and got into trouble and into debt. I must have been insane, but one day- God knows why when I had been taught so differently —1 signed my master's name, and here I am, dying, and I want to die. But one thing troubles me, and that is my mother. When she knows that I am in jail, that I am dying in jail, and that ''. deserve to he in jail, my mother will go mad.' Mr. Johnson said. 'Your mother must know where you are/ but it was some time before the young man would give his ad dress, but when he did Mr. Johnson sent her a tele gram and met her at the station. He put her in a cab and when she got out of tbe cab she looked up at the jail and said, 'O God, why have I been spared to see this? What have I done that I should come to this? Why did I live when he was born? Why didn't 1 bury him as soon as he was born?' And she would have fallen had she not been supported by Mr. John- 6h- j':i;';v:''t3'^ -^^'^Mf^'' 128 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. son. He ,aid to her, 'You must be qulok if you want ate She reached the phxoe where he was Ijing, but p.nt was gone, and she threw her arms atund W ie r' M^f"' ""''''^ '* '^^'^ '^'^' 'O Willie, my -^ilhei would to God I had died for thee.' B t it was too late. Willie was only reaping his own har s Mothers cannot stop It; fathers cannot stop it God cannot stop it It is one of the unalterable la'ws ' 5 are the men that can solve that bj beginning to-day to stand beneath the Cross, where there'is hope for a, " GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 129 FOLLOW ME. A GREAT storm was at its height when the service began in Plymouth Church, but the edifice was well filled. Gipsy Smith said: "You will find the text in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel, and in the 43d verse : 'Fol- low Me.' These words are among the first utterances of the Son of God as recorded. They are also found in the last words recorded of the Son of God, and you will find them in the last chapter of this wonderful Gospel, where He says, in reply to Peter's question, 'and what shall this man do?' Jesus said, 'If I will that he tarry until 1 come, what is that to thee? Fol- low thou Me.' In the first and the last utterances of Jesus Christ you have these words, and all along through His ministry He was constantly sayiug to men, 'Follow Me.' It is the one great, clear, personal, pungent command of the Son of God to man. You re- member, many of you, when you heard these words for the first time in the secret chamber of your souls; when God spoke to you and said, 'Follow Me.' I do not think there is a soul in this house this morning, but what remembers the moment when those words were heard, and I presume that the majority of us here to-day would call ourselves Christians, nominal Christians; that is to say, we are members of churches we are connected with the visiljle church of the living God, And if anybody, if I came, for instance, and 130 GIPSY BMITUH SERMONS. looked jou iu the face, no matter what your life is, but if 1 knew tbat life not to be in the strictest sense in harmony with the will of God, and if 1 were to pnt the question to you, 'Are you a Obiistian?' you would possibly look at me and say, 'What do you think 1 am?' And you miplit jjet aupry with me for daring to put such a question. And yet there are thousands of people in your city who call themselves by Christ s name and have no right to that title. I want to bring into these words another text, or along side of it, and want to test that, as we go, with another text; and 1 pray God the Holy Spirit to apply the words as I speak them. Listen: This is the test I waut you to test yourselves by, as I do; " goers-what I 7^ ' "'^'' ""' ^^"'^'^'^ «« "on-church- ay^ Is there not something to be said on theii s de' =;v^f :::;::,r/;r;-:S=; luey would; twice over I think thev wnnl^ t P-d to hold a brief for the peo'^lTo^s t f rTre li7t; " ""■ f '^'^ '' ^"•^*^''"^- - «- '- t and i'^^'nd of the man who does not go to church, aud very. 132 GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. oflcii one of (he rcaHous Uiat he does not go lo chiirrb i.s IIkiI he feels that if he goes he is not living np lo those ideals; and so, out of deep reverence and re- H[)ect for the things which he deems to be so holy and great he keeps away. You will find no level with iLe peoi)le who do not go to church. You will find (Lat if he is asked what a Christian ought to be that be will give you a lofty conception of a Christian. The lov/ ideals exist in the pews, in the hearts and minds of those who are not living right, and their ideals are low to excuse themselves and to cover themselves up. The Lord have mercy on us and help us to be really out and out for Christ! " 'Follow me,' says Jesus. Now let us see if we are doing it, and first of all, let me take this text as a test: Jesus says, very early in life, to those closest and dearest to Him, 'Did not you know that I must be about my father's business?' In the earliest moment of His life, first and foremost, God, His Father, was placed first. His will, His interests are honored; His glory comes first. Mother, father, home, earthly ties— every- thing— stood aside that God might have the preemin- ence—first, God. And when He got up to begin to preach He said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God.' Put God first. Your first business in life is God. Now, bow do we stand with that text? You want to know whether you are following Jesus. How do you stand with that great thought? Is God first in your thoughts? Is God first in your life? Is God in your iHirae? Is God first in your business? Is God first in your pleasures? Is God first in your money? Is God first in your affection? Is God first in your words? Are you saying this morning, as soon as you opened yritir eyes, did you say, 'Oh God, what wouldst Thou GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 13'i have me to do?' Because that is the duty of (he soul that is following Jesus. 'I came not to do My own will,' said Jesus, 'but the will of Him who sent Me. I am not here to seek My own'— for remember even Christ jjleased not Himself— 'I am here to do Thy will, O my God.' That is the first, predominating passion of the man who is following Jesus. 'If any man bath not the spirit of Christ— in this— he is none of His.' How do you measure up along with the test? Don't dodge it, because if you do you reveal where you are. Do not shirk it. Don't hide in a corner. There is something that needs to come out. He that loveth the truth cometh to the light, is the man of evil that seeks and lives in the darkness; the man who loves Christ comes to the light. Come to the light, it is shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see, The light of the world is Jesus. "Are you following Him along this road, the high road, the royal road of obedience to His will? For that settles everything. God first and all the time. HOW TO FIND ODT IF YOO ARE FOLLOWING OHBIST. "Take another test if you want to know if you are following Christ, and this is no simple test, from the life of Jesus, and I say that is the way to find out whether you are following Jesus. Listen! Jesus, and you find these words, or similar words so often in con- nection with His life and work on earth, 'Jesus with- drew Himself into the wilderness and prayed.' He 134 GIPSY SMltS'g SETIMONS. withdrew Iliinself apart from the people and the city, iipart from the multitude, away from the Disciples, and He shut himself off from everything on earth and communed with His Father. He loved to pray. Do you? Did you pray this morning? Have you said your prayers to-day? If you did not say them this morning the day will not be what it would have been. You have missed something. Jesus could not get on -without prayer. Do you expect to? The life of God in the soul is only sustained as we pray. It can only live in the atmosphere of prayer. If you want rivers you must keep in touch with the bill countries where the springs are; if you want the reservoir of the sky in your soul you must keep the channel open. Are you a praying man? Are you a praying woman? Let me hear you pray once, and after a dozen sentences I will put my finger on the spiritual pulse of your power and I will tell you whether you are accustomed to it. There is an indefinable something about a person who is intimate with God. You may not be able to put it into exact words but you know when it is there and when it is absent; and you can not work it up; you can only get it as you pray it down. Do you love the place of prayer? Jesus did. How often do you come to the week night prayer-meeting? You let me see the week night prayer-meeting of your church and I will tell you what you stand for. Let me see it when you don't expect me. Why, there was a day in the history of the churches of America, when half, or two-thirds of tbe members would go to week night prayer-meeting. Is not that true? (A voice, "Yes, yes!") And now it is hard work to get a hundred out of a thousand, but it is not difBcult to get them to a concert or a social. If it is a prayer-meeting they have got a ,; GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 135 cold, they suffer with asthma. If the Mayor invited you to dinner we should hear nothing about the asthma. You would go out that night, and you know that's true. Listen! Do you want to capture the world and crown Emanuel king and deck His brow with pre- cious jewels — lost men and women transformed by the power of God? Then listen: This kind can go forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting. .Jesus, the Son of God, could not get on without prayer. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, in this he is none of His. "Take another test. (Some of you say these two are quite enough. Oh, I have got ever so many more.) Hear me: 'As was His custom, Christ went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day,' and He went twice. But how do you stand with the text? If you are fol- lowing Him, I have a perfect right to ask this. I am not here to say the things you may like to hear, but the things my Lord has given me in this Book. Listen! How do you stand with this text? 'As was his custom He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath Day.' The Sou of God could not afford to keep away from the church when it was open. If some recording angel were going to write your history about the Sabbath, would it not something like this: 'As was her custom, she invited a party on the Sabbath Day and called herself a church member,' or 'As was his custom he went out for an automobile ride on the Sabbath Day and called himself a saint;' or, 'They went to church on Sunday morning and the rest of the day they played cards.' But it is done. And I know whereof I speak; for I have too much at stake to make any statement which I can not verify, and I say that the love, and respect and reverence for God's day does Qot stand where it stood in our father's day, and the i;U) GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. sooner we get back, the better. Do you think your child doesn't know these things? It is hard work to get children to the Sabbath school now. They be^nu to argue, 'My father used to go, my mother used'to go; they used to love the place of God, but now they slop at home because it rains, or might rain. Thoy have something else on hand, and do not love the place of prayer as they used to.' You can not violate God's ' law without sutrering. How do you stand with this text? Do you love the place of God on the Sabbath? Are yon found in your place whether it is the -istor or the stranger that is going to preach? ¥ matter who is the messenger or what the message may be do you go to look into the Master's face, or see your Mas- ter and have fellowship with heaven? 'If any man have not the spirit of Christ in this he is none of His'-that is the word WHAT OOD MEANS THE CHDBCH TO BE. "Take another test. Listen! P^rom cradle to cross, from manger to grave; the foot-sore and weary way the sleepless nights and the aching head; the broken heart and the infinite patho.s. He whose words were jewels, eternities; and His eye was the Light of the World. The Saviour! the Son of Mary, the Son of Man, the Son of God. There was one overmastering passion in His life and that passion was to save the lost; to lift up the fallen; to help the helpless: to come to the people whom nobody wanted. The lost the last, the least, the unit. Jesus wanted the people that nobody seemed to care for, aud He gave His pre- cious life. His passion, His blood, His death, in order to save. Are you doing this, my brother? Are you GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. la? doing this, my sister? Did you ever give one day to the saving of a soul? Did yon ever give np an hour's luxury in order to seek a lost one, and bring that lost one back to the fold? Do you know what it Is to carry the weight of some doomed soul in your heart, night and day? Do you know what it is to go to bed and not to be able to sleep, for thinking for those who are Christless, and without God aud without hope? Do you know anything at all about travailing In births for souls? Have you ever stepped out of the ordinary beaten tracks and gone aside just a little to get hold of some poor, sin-broken, sin-cursed life and talked to it about the hope aud possibility there is in Jesus Christ? Do you? Don't call yourself a Christian, for it is only mockery; it is only blasphemy, if you know nothing about that spirit. If your idea of religion is simply to have a good time, and save yourself, and sing sweet, little songs and fondle yourself, remember God Almighty never meant His church to be a mutual congratulation society, but a place where they seek the Lord. Do you know anything about that? I have known people in the church who have been ready to condemn anybody and everything anybody did, no matter who it was, or what the thing might be that was honestly attempted to save a soul — I have known people in the church who called themselves Christians condemn and pooh-pooh aud ridicule, and criticise and offer sarcasm, and try to stop any attempt to save humanity when they never lifted a little finger to save a soul. That cuts. It hurts to be wounded in the house of your friends. It hurt the Son of God. He came to His own and His own did not understand Him; they did not grasp the genius of His coming, or his mission, or his word. Do you know anything 138 UlI'SY SMITH'S SERMONS. GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 139 about hclpiug Jesus (o save Ills own? You business men, jou have been making dollars, do jou ever stop for a daj to trj to save a soul? Do jou ever say to the people at home, 'I am not going to the office to-day, for I am going to seek out that drunkard, and am going to point him to Christ. There is a boy that has gone wrong and 1 am going to see if I cannot point him to the Cross. I know somebody who is beginning to drift, and before he goes any fur- ther I will make it my business to-day to see if I cannot stop the drift.' Do you know anything about it? You make a million or two and you will have to leave that behind you. You build a beautiful palace, and it may be your tomb, but you save a soul and you will deck the brow of Emanuel, and make heaven resound with 'The dead is alive and the lost is found.' Do you know anything about that? Listen! you sisters, you ladies with plenty of time on your hands, hardly knowing what to do with your time. It goes so wearily, some of you nurse animals, I wish you would adopt a baby and nurse it for Jesus. I would rather take that woman's place on the Judg- ment Day who takes some little motherless child and mothers it, makes a little dress for it and teaches its little feet to walk in the path that leads to heaven — I would rather take that woman's place who does that for Jesus, than I would take the woman's place who does nothing but nurse a dog. I think I know which is most like following Jesus. Sisters, sweet, beautiful, capable women, with time and money and possibilities all at your command, Lave you ever given an hour to saving a lost sister, have you? I know it is one thing in your pew to sing 'Rescue the Perishing,' but that it is another thing to go and do it. It is one thing tQ i h sing when you are twenty miles away from the perish- ing, to sing that song and another thing to do it. Do you sisters ever leave your comforts and home, and easy chair — for it takes a lot of grace to lift a person out of an easy chair — more than to rescue a man from drunkenness. There is as much sin in a life of ease as there is in a life of drunkenness. I am old-fashioned enough (believing as 1 do in my Lord and my Bible, and the Gospel, and in my blessed, memorable Cal- vary) I cannot help believing that deep down in human hearts, crushed with feelings that lie buried, that grace can restore, touched by a loving hand and awak- ened by kindness, cords that were broken, will vibrate once more, and with your feet you shall touch keys that may make the earth shake with invisible music. Y'ou are fingering possibilities that would startle earth and heaven. UNWILLINGNESS TO FOLLOW CHRIST. "Don't allow the days to go by without achieving something for God. Are you following Christ in this? 'If any man have not the spirit of Christ, in this, he is none of His.' Who have you talked to about Jesus tl H week? Come now, who have you talked to about Je IS this week? I know you have discussed politics, ana the Thaw case. You can steep your tongue in slander and filth. Have you talked to anybody about Jesus this week? You have discussed the latest fad in society, the latest thing, the latest method; you are prepared for any of these things, fashions and all the rest, and do you think if you loved Christ as much as you ought to love Him and cared for His honor and glory, and don't you think if you loved Jesus that you would be compelled to whisper, 'Jesus'? I know you m^gm^W: ^^^^^ Y^f^J:J^^^^'^ SERM0NS7 bit tn7/"" T""r* ^^'P ^^"'•^^'^' f«'''^ten it is there ought to be movement towards God, and these r" tH lZIV^ ^'°" "^^^^ ^^ --ethi^g'thVS ter The Lord help j^ou to find out. Take one other test L.sten! listen! Jesu. went to Calvar, are ^o ,-.lhng to go? He carried his cross; are /u casing yours? Are you following Him there? Le youC ro^dw-r/" '''' '''''''''' '^''^'' -uel despfs d road with Jesus, carrjing jour cross, to be cursed at ITTZT'I''^''-'' ^"^^°"^ Forthistthe ^vaj The servant is not greater than his Lord,' There at all when it is taken out. You take the cross out of the Gospel and the world is a carca.s, and Zloot - «ot worth the paper it is printed ou. You m2 carrj your cross if jou follow Jesus. There musTbe no s.n,.mg. Whatever else ,ou shirk ,on m,:::?o: Not for ease or worldlj glory, Nor for fame mj plea shall be- Gladlj let me walk and suffer- ' Close to Thee. ' ''All else is poor if Jesus be absent. iowtg?^i:!::r;„n''"rr" '^°^*^^ '^^ ^^^^ - ^^i. count in the public p,.ess or do ill h- '"^^ ^^""^ reoogni.es or sees' Tut laJn ^'"^"'^ '''^'' «"l'o''"«r^d '" the dron Z r ''^^ raindrop-God fathers the rain- drop fathers it as well as tbe great ocean. Your ra-eit Z^t r;-:"^'"'^"' *^ -^ ^^ ^^^ ocean "'l^C ciosscd It and it ,s as awful to me as the ocean this ^u,^^, continent and ,et it is on,, a bit of tL^wo And God made the tiny pebble. He has a great place tne iitlle bur; that great eagle, the American eaele and He made the little sparrow. He loves the mie h.ngs- and there are possibilities within you tha you ave never dreamed of. Other people may not have discovered any in you, but He Lnlws, He knows! AT THE KIMBERLET DIAMOND MINES. "I sat some time ago in the open workings of the Kimberly diamond mines and I looked forTe dia monds. I could not see one. And then they took me on tlie Ooors, thousands, ten of thousands of c es o he floors where they place the blue stone, as they caU i'r?nd th:""'" ^"^^'— '^ to be pulv;rized b'y t h a .and the rain and the frost and the sun. They lie out there for months. I could not see any diamo^ids Then they took me 2,520 feet below into the Tound nnnes and I took a pick they use and f^e 1 to'mH . Td vet M .'"'' ^"r^unded by wealth untold at d yet I could not see one of the precious gems But When I went up to the pulsator where the pulv" J.lg :^mm>:m'm:M, GIPSY SMITH'S SEKMONS. 145 and sifting and washing is done by that wouderful machinery and when I sav.' the lilll(.' grease plate over which the little opals and emeralds and all sorts of nails and bits of solid things tumble, aud whenever a diamond comes over this grease plate it sticks to it, everything else falls off, but the grease has an affinity for the diamond, or the diamond for the grease. And then I saw diamonds. It was easy then, but whether I saw diamonds or not before they were there. "That is what I want you to understand. Nobody knows what is hidden away in boys and girls. Listen: Your decision for Christ will bring out the best; your indecision will bring out the worst. The moment a boy or girl takes Jesus the best comes out, aud when a boy or girl says 'No' to Christ the best is bidden and the worst comes out. So that your duty toward Christ is a tremendous thing. It settles goodness or wickedness. Mind how you treat Jesus, boys and girls. Your future depends on it— your future, your character and everything that is good and beautiful and godly depends upon it. THE DAY THE GYPSY CAME TO CHRIST. "Had you seen me the day I came to Christ and anybody had told yon I was going to preach in the 'Central Church, Brooklyn— 'Oh, my!' .you would have said — 'never.' And if they bad said that boy was going to preach around the world for Christ you would have said, 'Never.' When I sat on the trunk of that old tree, that dark, starry night, not a soul near me, I thought of my father's great love and of my mother in heaven, and I said to myself, calling myself by name, 'Rodney, what are yon going to do? Are you 14« GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. goiug to be a wanderiug — just ii wandering gypsy boy all your life, or are you going to be a Christian aud Lave something to live for?' Aud, oh, I tell yon, I thought for a moment and tben I stood in the grass, and clenching my hand till my nails nearly pene- trated my skin, I said: 'O God, I will be a good boy. I will serve Thee.' And that was the beginning of this, and what your pastor and your superintendent and your teachers and your parents who know bow to pray — what they are all anxious about this day is that you should come to Christ, too. It is easy enough to read about Him aud believe in Him up to a point, but you have to love Him, to serve Him, to recognize Him as Lord and as Saviour. God grant that you, may do it today." "If I had a little longer to stay I should want to press you to the decision at once, but I hope those who stay with you when I go to the theater to talk to men will urge you to do that to-day. Give yourself, intelli- gently and honestly, to Jesus. God bless you, dear young people. You have a very warm place in my heart, for I have imagination enough to know some- thing of the tremendous possibilities within, and I covet all here for my Master. God bless and save you!" GIPSY SMITH'S SERMONS. 147 THE GREAT THINGS THE LORD HAS DONE. In the evening the scene of the gypsy's work was changed from old Plymouth to the Central Congrega- tional Church, Dr. Cadman's charge, at Hancock street and Franklin avenue. The night was as bad as the day, snowy and blustering, but it could not keep the people away, and the great auditorium was filled by an immense throng several minutes before the hour set for the service. There were probably more people crowded into the pews of the Central Congregational that night than they ever held before, and that was because of Gipsy Smith's words to those who came early. "There's too much wood in sight," he cried. "You'll have to get used to crowding this week, and you may as well begin to-night. Crowd in close toward the cen- ters of the pews and make room for more people in the end seats. I was born in the woods and I have a good eye for wood, but I don't like to see too much of it un- covered in churches." So he made the pews hold close to 2,-300 people, and there were two or three hundred 'more standing, all that could get in. The evening's lesson was based on the Bible story in the fifth chapter of St. Mark, of the man possessed of many evil spirits, which Jesus commanded to come out of the man and then permitted to enter into the herd of swine. He read it all, of the great crowds that came to see what it was had come to pass, and of His 148 GirSY SMITH'S SEKMONS. command, when on departing the man rid of the evil spirits would have accompanied Him, "Go to thy home, unto thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee!" HOW TO PROVE THERE IS A DEVIL. "A dead fish can swim with the stream; it takes a live one to swim against the stream," was the way in which Gipsy Smith gave the test for determining whether there is a devil. "If you don't believe there IS a devil," he said, "try living one day for Christ and you'll find one that you'll have to fight with all your might. "And you may trace the way he takes by the blood pools and the wrecks and the broken hearts. He would poison every love-pool and drive out every mn- beam, and if yon have not been caught and held by him it is because God loves you and has saved you by His grace." It was of the Lord over devils, the Lord over disease, the Lord over death that Gipsy Smith talked that night, of the allcon(|uering Christ. "Jesus is still that to-day," he said, "and that's the Christ we need in Brooklyn, You've got it all in that chapter— the man's Christ, the woman's Christ, the child's Christ, and the best thing man, woman or child can do to-day is to say, 'Christ for me.' " THE HYPOCRITE IN THE CHnRCH. Then came a terrible excoriali