Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by

NELSON & PHILLIPS,

the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

INTRODUCTION.

ALL the Gospel needs is to be told. Once out, it achieves its own victories. All the advance it has made in the centuries has been made by its inherent power, and the work of the Christians of to-day is by all agencies to tell the Good News, to scatter the Glad Tidings.

A forward movement has been made in the labors, experiences, and successes of Mr. Moody. The sum of his influence is not confined to the audiences that gather within the sound of his voice. A fire on the summit of a promontory does more than consume the fagots with which it is fed; it illumines the valley, and casts its guiding ray far out over the breakers. Mr. Moody, seizing upon the great cities of the English-speaking peoples, has cast his light from these promontories down into the neighboring valleys, and out over the perilous coasts and on to the stormy sea. The people who read, as well as those who hear, are recipients of his reflected light. The workers who rally around him, and the stronger workers who spring up in his path to imitate his example and disseminate his influence, are parts of his work. The newspapers are one section of his platform. Presses are a sort of speaking-tube to project his accents in the hearts of other thousands.

Publishers shun volumes of sermons which it is difficult to push out they seem possessed of the instinct of inactivity. To this rule the volumes of Mr. Moody's sermons are exceptions; not because he omits the Rev. from his name, nor that his sayings are not called sermons; it is rather that he makes his discourses sparkle and shine from end to end with the truths that the Church wants, and the world needs to hear. His machine bees bespeak genius. They were so made

and so wound up that one could not distinguish them from the natural bees when all crowded and hopped about together in front of the hive. A stranger, required to distinguish between them, dropped a little honey down among them: the real bees dashed after it; the machine bees buzzed and crawled about as before. So the Gospel is made to distinguish the true from the machine Christians.

Discourses full of such hits cannot fail to have readers.

It is the peculiarity of the great military leader of our time that he has what his great companion in arms calls the instinct of victory," by which "he divines the precise moment for the decisive blow." He seems "inattentive to minor points on the field, knowing that if the main points are held the others can be easily retaken." This is a crude outside type of Mr. Moody's style of usefulness. He has "the instinct of victory." He knows when to strike the decisive blow. With him it is inspiration, the reception of that wisdom which is promised to them that ask. He seems “inattentive to minor points on the field;" with him it is a comprehension of the essential points for the world's salvation, and a simple conviction that the others will easily and speedily drop into their proper places and receive all necessary attention.

The signs of Mr. Moody's power are too numerous to be doubted. His name is familiar to every English-hearing ear; he discourses and exhorts in many modern languages; more space in the dispatches and reports of the secular press is given to him than is given to any other living teacher; vast auditoriums are built by the great cities to make for him a temporary abode; he rallies a great army of co-workers: all these things demonstrate his alliance with the real forces of the world.

Luther bequeathed to us the Reformation, Wesley bequeathed Methodism, Mr. Moody is destined to leave to mankind the Young Men's Christian Association, in which he has been chiefly trained, and whose leader and patron he has now come to be.

This Association means a baptism of responsibility and of abor upon the laymen of the Churches.

The grand results of Mr. Moody's work are:

1. The salvation of many thousands of precious souls. 2. The re-enthronement of the supernatural power of the Gospel as a practical answer to the impious prayer-test challenge of science.

3. The awakening of believers to new achievements. 4. The unification of Protestantism.

5. The exaltation of the vital doctrines of the Calvinistic Churches to the practical retirement of the old Five Points. 6. The rendering ubiquitous the vital truths and practices of Arminianism, without the embarrassment of their dogmatic projection.

7. The transforming of the old uniform of the saint into the business dress of the believer, so that Christianity is at home every-where.

8. The promulgation of the priesthood of believers so far as to require them to tell the story of the cross.

In projecting a great character and a great life-work at least two things are necessary: first, the character and work itself, both genuine and vast; second, some just, able, and equally inspired historian to arrange, crystallize, and transfigure the man and his doings.

This publication is carefully edited by Rev. W. H. Daniels, who is so widely and favorably known through his former book entitled "D. L. MOODY AND HIS WORK." The present volume has received the utmost care to perfect it and make it available for permanent usefulness. The editor has carefully compared, arranged, and classified Mr. Moody's theology, so as to give it shape and consistency. It almost deserves the name of a system. If it were as new as it is powerful it would revolutionize the world; as it is, it only reinforces the old teaching, as well as the old methods, of apostolic evangelism.

Mr. Moody's work and character are in competent hands. Mr. Daniels seems called of God to complete, extend, and perpetuate this work of the great evangelist, not less than is

Mr. Moody called to his part of the ultimate result: his book, and especially this one, must live and repeat the good news to several generations and to many millions.

A portion of the book is devoted to some of the noble Workers that have grown out of this great movement. Of course there is but one Moody; but it is heroic to stand in one's lot and do one's best. This service God is honoring. A sorrowful interest will be added to the work by the sad fate of Mr. P. P. Bliss, and the melody of his music will linger among the devout long after his memory has faded away.

A few pages are given to another work of absorbing interest, that is destined to increase until it fills the whole earth-that work is the Christian Temperance movement, started and being carried forward principally by women, who have the sympathy to feel for these lost multitudes, and the courage to undertake their recovery. In the foreground of this picture is Miss Frances E. Willard. Her great gifts as a speaker, her abilities on the platform, her zeal in this work among drunken men and abandoned women, her maturing experience, and her association with Mr. Moody in directing this especial branch of the Revival, all combine to give this work increased promise of permanency, and add to this volume an interest and attractiveness not otherwise secured.

This book, put forth as an incarnation of the Gospel of Mercy in every-day life, goes to the millions who need it, and we bespeak for it the attention of the whole people.

OFFICE OF THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE,

NEW YORK, April 10, 1877.

C. H. FOWLER.